Group read: The Duke's Children (Complete Edition) by Anthony Trollope

The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope (1880 / 2015)

Welcome!

This group read will be a little different from the usual ones: in it we will be tackling the restored version of Anthony Trollope's The Duke's Children.

When Trollope first wrote this novel, the last in his 'Palliser' series, his publishers forced him to edit it from a four-volume to a three-volume novel, a cutting of approximately 65,000 words. The three-volume version, serialised in All The Year Round between October 1879 and July 1880, and published in book form shortly afterwards, has been the standard text ever since.

However, in 2002, Steven Amarnick, with the assistance of Robert F. Wiseman and Susan Lowell Humphreys, undertook the mind-boggling task of restored Anthony Trollope's original text, working from the author's preserved manuscripts. The restored version was published as a limited edition in 2015, by the Folio Society; subsequently, Penguin and The Everyman's Library have released paperback editions.

The first group read of The Duke's Children, which took place in March of this year, focused upon the readily available, standard edition of the novel. This time, we will be tackling the restored version of the text---with the predominant aim of examining the differences between the two, and what impact the forced cuts had upon the characters and the narrative.

Of course this means we can't go about the group read as we usually do; and that we need (possibly through trial and error) to find the best way of proceeding. This is particularly the case since, while the Penguin and Everyman's editions provide the restored text, they do not highlight the restorations. The Folio Society edition, however, does; and my plan at the moment is to work through the book a few chapters at a time, and to list the changes here. Hopefully this will facilitate discussion of their impact upon the novel.

Since we haven't tried this before, this may or may not turn out to be the most helpful way of going about this; and if a better way presents itself as we go forward, we can certainly make changes. Please don't hesitate to offer suggestions!

Please note: while this group read is intended predominantly for those people who took part in the earlier one, everyone is welcome to join in---including those reading The Duke's Children for the first time, and who may therefore wish to approach this as a "standard" group read. If the latter is the case for you, please identify yourself: we will be happy to respond to your questions and comments.

At the outset of this project, I just want to say a big THANK YOU once again to those involved in my gift of the Folio Society edition of The Duke's Children.

To anyone who may not know the story, you can learn about my amazing and generous friends here.

So---

Who will be joining us?

In the separate Commentary attached to the Folio Edition, Robert Wiseman describes the restoration of the manuscript, and how he and his colleagues went about deciding what to put in: noting that some of the manuscript deletions were actually what Trollope wanted (and where therefore not restored), whereas for others, an editorial decision had to be made. He stresses that not *everything* was restored---rather, that he and the others concentrated upon those deletions which fitted what they recognised as the pattern of Trollope's editing.

Steven Amarnick, meanwhile, notes that the most significant omissions were with respect to the book's political content (which was sacrificed to preserve a focus upon the romantic relationships, a rather sad choice in my opinion!), which effectively deletes Plantagenet Palliser's regaining of his political ambition, and finally his career. It also undermines the subplots dealing with the tensions between the Duke and his eldest son, and with the dual threat posed by Frank Tregear.

However, it is the editors' opinion that the novel suffered most significantly on the psychological level---that much of the subtle detail of its characterisations was removed. Steven Amernick considers that, while most of the characters are simplified to their cost, Lord Silverbridge was done the greatest injustice, with the restored text making evident his gradual intellectual, emotional and political maturation, which occurs in fits and starts (and often without proper explanation) in the standard edition. (It is noted that Trollope originally considered "Lord Silverbridge" as a title for the novel, which would hardly have suited the cut edition.)

Likewise, the cuts take away from Trollope's extraordinary understanding of the sometimes tortured psychology of Plantagenet Palliser, who undergoes several separate and equally difficult emotional journies over the course of the narrative.

But (as the editors point out) even characters like Major Tifto were made less complex by the cuts; while the restoration makes Frank Tregear, if anything, more worryingly ambiguous.

As noted, what I'm planning to do is write out the additions to the restored text, chapter by chapter, as per the Folio Society Commentary.

The potential difficulty I see is that while the Commentary provides guidance about where the insertions have been made, they do so via line numbers that (naturally) suit the Folio Edition. Obviously this won't work for those people who have the paperback editions.

What I will try, I think, is preceding each excerpt with the first three words of the paragraph containing it. So the first insertion, in the first chapter, would be presented thus:

Chapter 1

P: No one, probably

When this sad event happened he had ceased to be Prime Minister just two years. Those who are conversant with the political changes which have taken place of late in the government of the country will remember that when the coalition Ministry of which he had been head was broken up, the old Liberal party came back to power under the leading of Mr Gresham. That arrangement did not remain in force very long;---but at the present moment we need not allude to ministerial changes, except to say that the Duke of Omnium had not as yet returned to office. During the first nine months...

****

Does this work for people?

Works wonderfully for me but seems damned tedious for you, Liz.

Hi, Gail - thanks for joining us!

Oh, well. It was my idea, so I can't really bitch about it! :D

(Though I probably will anyway...)

I wasn't going to re-read but just read this thread, but you've got me interested and my Everyman's edition will be arriving in the post tomorrow!

Hmm, not sure whether I owe you an apology, Kerry?? :D

Just noting that tomorrow is my long work day, and I will be MIA until Wednesday morning my time.

Feel free to check in and/or make comments in my absence.

I am definitely joining in. I read The Duke's Children a few months before the group read. It was not my favorite of the Palliser series, and I'm so interested to see if the uncut version changes that at all.

I have the Everyman's Edition. I like your plan, Liz, but it does seem like a ton of work for you. If it gets to be too much, I'm fine with whatever abbreviated version you come up with. I will keep both version handy and flip back and forth when necessary.

It is sort of daunting, though. A difference of 65,000 words and cut from throughout the book, not simply large sections! Ahh!

I'm in although still waiting for my copy of the Everyman's edition (expected delivery date 27th October - bah!)

ETA: Echoing what >12 japaul22: said - this does seem like a lot of work for you Liz so please let us know if work commitments mean we need to rethink how this works.

I think we can only try it and find out. I'm certainly willing to do that. Although this is why I suggested "a chapter or two at a time". :D

Seriously, this is by definition a close-reading project; we're here to examine the impact of the changes, and we can't do that properly unless we're all clear what those changes were.

And it that spirit---

Chapter 1:

P: No one, probably

When this sad event happened he had ceased to be Prime Minister just two years. Those who are conversant with the political changes which have taken place of late in the government of the country will remember that when the coalition Ministry of which he had been head was broken up, the old Liberal party came back to power under the leading of Mr Gresham. That arrangement did not remain in force very long;---but at the present moment we need not allude to ministerial changes, except to say that the Duke of Omnium had not as yet returned to office. During the first nine months...

P: No one, probably

I do not know that the Duchess or the Duke had enjoyed it much; but the young people had seen something of foreign courts and much of foreign scenery, and had perhaps perfected their French and added something to their German.

P: No one, probably

The Duchess had made no such resolution,---had hardly, perhaps, made any attempt; and her impatience had mitigated against his efforts. But, in truth, they had both sighed to be back...

P: No one, probably

...she had often felt that there was no happiness except in that dominion which circumstances had enabled her to achieve once, and might enable her to achieve again---in the realms of London society. And so they had both sighed to be again among the trumpets, without any free communication of their thoughts one to the other.

P: Had the heavens

But now it was as though all outside appliances were taken away from him. He was alone in the world, and there was no one of whom he could ask a question.

P: For it may

But she, who had been essentially human, had been a link between him and the world. Now there was no longer a link, and he felt himself to be dissevered from the world.

P: There were his

At the first moment of his bereavement they were felt to be hardly more than burdens. The loss was so great that nothing remaining seemed to him to be of value.

P: There were his

The father disliked the spirit almost worse than the results; and was therefore often irritated and unhappy. How should he now control them, when she was gone?

P: And the difficulties

But she was beautiful, young, and as full of life and energy as her mother had been.

P: It was the

And then her nearest relatives were not sympathetic with the Duke. There was an old Lady Midlothian and a young Lord Nidderdale with whom he and she had maintained but a very cold acquaintance.

P: {Entire paragraph deleted, beginning after there was nobody.}

The friend whom he most trusted was a certain Mrs Grey. She had been a distant cousin of his wife, and with her he had always maintained something like real friendship. He and his wife, who on such matters were often at variance, had agreed in valuing the society of this lady, and in the early days of the Duke's married life she had been much with them; but any close social intercourse with persons so far above him in rank had hardly suited Mr Grey's views, and he had somewhat discouraged the near intimacy which the Duchess certainly would have liked. But the poor widower, when he looked about thinking where he might find assistance, turned his mind more frequently to Mrs Grey than to any other female friend.

P: There had been

And as she had sunk, and then despaired, and then died, it was this woman who had always been at her side, who had ministered to her, and had listened to the fears and the wishes and hopes she had expressed respecting the children in almost the last words she had spoken. Then death had come, and Mrs Finn was still there with the bereaved family.

P: On the afternoon

That, indeed, was usual with him, but now the tailor by his funereal art had added some deeper dye of blackness to his appearance, some other outer sign of utter desolation which struck her eye at once.

P: After that there

After that there was another pause, and then the conference was ended by a request from the Duke that Mrs. Finn would stay at Matching for yet two days longer. When she left the room he was almost harsh to her in his manner, saying little or nothing to thank her for her compliance, but showing plainly that he wished to be alone again. At dinner they all met...

P: After that there

On the next day, early in the morning, the younger lad returned to his college, and Lord Silverbridge went up to London, where he was supposed to have his home. From a word or two that was said by Lady Mary, Mrs Finn learned that the father and his eldest son had not parted altogether on pleasant terms with each other.

P: "Perhaps you would

But he knew,---at this moment he painfully remembered,---that he was not as are other men. Lady Cantrip when she wrote the letter had no doubt felt that he was by nature too gloomy, too little addicted to the softness and tenderness of life, to be left as the only companion of a young girl. He acknowledged...

P: Then there was

"I do not think that I am fit to have any human being here with me in my sorrow. I would not be very loquacious, you know." This he said with a faint attempt at a most sorry smile.

P: {Entire paragraph deleted, after ...in my sorrow."}

At last it was decided that Mrs Finn should discuss the matter with Lady Mary herself, and that she should go to this discussion prepared to recommend a short visit to Lady Cantrip. She was very eager in counselling the Duke to talk the matter over himself with his daughter; but in his morbid self-debasement he declared that were he to do so he would simply seem to dictate to his child. He thought it much better that she should hear what there was to be said from Mrs Finn, and that she should make her decision to that lady.

The devil is in the details.

As we can see, most of the deletions concerns points of emphasis---emphasising the Duke's loss, his loneliness and isolation, his almost panic about having to deal with his children himself.

Note, too, that the entire end of the chapter was deleted: this is apparently a recurrent event. Trollope tended to end his paragraphs with particular psychological details - here, that allusion to Planty's "morbid self-debasement" - and these were lost all the way through.

I was particularly struck by this:

And so they had both sighed to be again among the trumpets, without any free communication of their thoughts one to the other.

...showing not only that Planty and Glencora were unable to communicate naturally right up to the very end, even after so many years of marriage, but that they couldn't even do it when they agreed with one another! How then would they communicate when there was likely to be disagreement?

Meanwhile, the first paragraph shows that Trollope did intend to keep the political thread much more prominent in the novel - introducing that background, even in the middle of a crisis - but that it was sacrificed in the cutting.

Series-wise, the business about the Greys is rather chilling. When we read Can You Forgive Her? we spent quite some time discussing whether Alice's doubts about life with John Grey were justified. That he has broken up the friendship between Alice and Glencora because "it hardly suited his views" indicates that they were.

Interestingly, this section makes it very clear that Planty has never interfered between Marie and Glencora, despite what he must know is said about the situation, which is (in implication) far worse than mere disparity of rank.

Okayyyy...I'm going to assume from the silence that you're all deeply absorbed in the details of Chapter 1, and move onto Chapter 2... :)

Chapter 2

P: It may as

"And I am told," said Mrs Finn, "that he is quite likely to spend his money before it comes to him." In answer to this the Duchess had said something of enormous wealth being no more than an enormous burden. There had been...

P: Then there had

"Not but that it has been all for the best," she had said;---"not but that Plantagenet has been to me all that a husband should be the best husband which Providence could have given me. Only if she can be spared..."

P: {Insertion at beginning of paragraph, before Mrs Finn made}

On the afternoon of the day on which the young men had left Matching, Mrs Finn made...

P: On the afternoon of the day on which the young men had left Matching, Mrs Finn made...

...the girl had already learned that she might gain more than she would lose by controlling her words. Those who knew the Duchess well and wjo would declare that the daughter was the image of the mother would generally add something to signify that both in manner and appearance the copy excelled the original.

P: "Then let him..."

Then she added, in a lower voice: "Why doesn't papa speak to me about it? If he wants me to go away, why does he not tell me so himself? I don't think he ought to want me to go away because the boys have gone."

P: Of course it

The Duke declared that he would be glad to see Mr Finn, and spoke of our old friend Phineas as one of his established friends; but she knew that...

P: Very quickly there

She always remembered that the girl was the daughter of a great duke, of one who had been Prime Minister, and who was perhaps the richest nobleman in England; and that her position in the house had sprung from circumstances which would not, perhaps, in the eyes of the world at large, have recommended her for such friendship. No one was more fully aware than Mrs Finn herself that there were rumours still afloat as to the manner in which she had made good her footing in the house of the Pallisers. She knew;---the reader may possibly know...

P: Mrs Finn could

Mrs Finn could not but remember that the friend she had lost was not, among women, the one best able to give a girl good counsel in such a crisis, but of that she could of course say nothing to the daughter.

P: "I know all..."

"I don't quite know what the word means, but I intend at any rate to do nothing to be ashamed of. I am not a bit ashamed..."

P: Gradually the whole

...had been afraid to propose to her husband that their daughter should marry a commoner without an any immediate income of his own, and almost without prospects. But in thinking of all that...

P: Gradually the whole

...those which her mother had entertained. It did not seem to have occurred to her that Mrs Finn would commit the unwomanly crime of telling her secret to her father.

P: But Mrs Finn

There could be no doubt that the peril of her present position was very great. Who was Mr Tregear that so great a trust should be put in him? Mrs Finn only knew of him that he was a young man of fashion without means, and Lord Silverbridge's particular friend. In this there was certainly nothing to justify Lady Mary's engagement and subsequent silence. It must be presumed that the Duke would object to the marriage, and if such objection were to be made and sustained it would certainly be better for the young lady that her father's purpose should be known at once. If, on the other hand, the Duke should show himself disposed to indulge his daughter's wishes and to give the young pair a start in life together, then certainly the sooner the engagement was made known to him, the greater would be his good-will. At any rate as father he was entitled to know. Mrs Finn, as she thought of all this, already repented her prolonged sojourn at Matching.

P: {Insertion at beginning of paragraph, before "I am bound..."}

"I do not know what I ought to do. I wish you had never spoken to me about it. I am bound..."

P: This Mrs Finn

    ...asking the gentleman to call upon her in Park Lane, on a day and at an hour fixed. And this letter was directed to the Beargarden Club, that being the only the only address for her lover which the young lady knew. "Of course he has a residence," she said, with some touch of disdain in her voice. "When he is at home he lives at Polwenning where the Tregears have lived from before the Conquest. But a young man isn't always under his mother's apron string. No;---I don't know where he sleeps when he is in London. The Tregears have no town house. They don't come to town. I suppose they are not rich enough. I don't think they are a bit inferior because of that."
    "Certainly not; only I did not know whether you might not have a better address than the gentleman's club."
    "I have no address, and had no intention of writing to him. But the name of the club is on the note which I got from him immediately after poor mamma's death."

Details again, but important details, emphasising:

1. Mary's physical and temperamental resemblance to her mother. We need to keep that in mind going forward, with respect to the Glencora / Burgo - Mary / Frank parallel, and Plantagenet's reaction.

2. The impossible situation in which Marie has been placed, and her consciousness of society's lingering doubts about her.

3. Mary's defensiveness notwithstanding, the immediate sense of Frank's untrustworthiness, in her lack of detail about his life.

>17 lyzard: I'll be starting in a day or two. I don't want to get too far behind, but I got back last night after a month-long work trip and I need a little time to get my brain in the right place. Really looking forward to delving into this, though!

>16 lyzard: I love this first chapter, and I can remember reading this chapter over several times on my first reading. I agree that the restored sections add even more poignancy and melancholy, especially about the Duke.

No wonder I didn't remember that remark about Mr & Mrs Grey--it wasn't there! I don't remember Mr Grey being so particular about social standing, but it is an interesting side piece.

I have gone through and underlined the sections in my Everyman's edition that are not in the original published version. Tonight I will go back and read the first two chapters and will be able to easily see the sections that were cut. Thus, I'm sort of creating a folio edition out of my everyman's edition.

Thank you, Liz!

I'll be back with observations.

>21 kac522:

When Alice was single, it was for Glencora to say whether the friendship was appropriate or not. Now, however, Alice is subject to her husband's wishes. Though John Grey and Plantagenet are political allies, clearly the former feels the social gap between them, and so has withdrawn Alice from more than mere social contact with Glencora. Alice's own wishes don't seem to enter into it.

This is the source of Plantagenet's isolation. He doesn't have any real friends, even beyond his own anti-social tendencies, because his rank and his wealth make a significant barrier between him and the ordinary contacts of life. Glencora was able to make a bridge across that gulf because she was careless of the kind of scruples that seem to be actuating John Grey, but Plantagenet cannot. He clings to Marie as the one person who crossed the barrier, but she, now that Glencora is gone, is pulling away from him---for good reason, but it still hurts him.

>22 japaul22:

It's odd that these editions offer no guidance at all, even in the form of endnotes.

Looking forward to your comments, Jen!

>23 lyzard: it is upsetting that there are no endnotes.

I am struck immediately that almost all of these deletions add something and I think help the flow. I think it's the pacing I'm used to in a Trollope novel, so it feels more familiar.

In Chapter One:

I also noticed how the edited version doesn't emphasize Planty's loneliness and isolation now that Glencora is dead, and even when she was living. She really was his tie to "normal" human relations and I think that's important to emphasize in setting up the further action of this book. The other sentence that I couldn't believe was struck was "How could he control them now that she was gone?", speaking of their adult children. To me, that's the thesis of the entire novel!

In Chapter Two:

I appreciated the emphasis put on the similarities but also the differences between Glencora and Mary. I'm really hoping that the children will all prove to be better developed in this uncut version. I felt when reading the cut version that I didn't get to know the children enough - that the new generation was not explored enough to justify the premise of exploring Plantagenet's relationship with them.

Chapter 3

P: He had been

...had generally thought he had chosen his friend well. Tregear had been at the top of the school, and had achieved a character for scholarship. And at Oxford, though he had done nothing very great, still as a young man of fashion he was supposed to have done well. He had gone out in honours, having and had been a second-class man, whereas his tutor and his college had expected a lower rank for him. His friend...

P: {Entire paragraph inserted, after ...the heart of the daughter also?}

When he had taken his degree his friends were urgent with him to enter some profession. At the time there was but one profession open to him. Were he to submit to work at all he must work as a barrister. The church was out of the question. The whole tone of his mind and his mode of life made medicine and surgery impossible to him. It was already too late for diplomacy,---which he told his friends he would have liked; or at any rate for that regular entrance into the lower ranks by which alone, we are given to understand though not always made to believe, can the good things of the Civil Service be reached. For the army and the navy he was also too old, and, as he himself thought, by far too well educated. But to the bar he made many objections. He did not, he said, like the duplicity. He did not, in truth, like the labour. He liked to be a gentleman at large, having certain vague ideas as to a future career in Parliament; and he tried, very much in vain, to satisfy himself by thinking that he could be content to live among gentlemen as a poor man.

P: Such was the

...marrying a daughter of the Duke of Omnium. At the moment therefore he was somewhat elated, and was certainly very much in love. But with all this audacity he dreaded the Duke.

P: When the Duchess

...to bell the cat. Then the Duchess had been ill, and then, alas, the Duchess had died. Tregear had during this period twice written to the lady of his love,---as she had confessed to Mrs Finn. No doubt the subject matter of these letters had been;---of the first hope as to the mother's health, and of the second grief; but in each there had been a word indicating that in the present circumstances this new affair should not be mentioned to the Duke.

P: This had been

...a terrible blow to the Duke. The Pallisers had always been Whigs. He himself was doubly a Whig,---or rather doubly a Liberal. It was his family party, and therefore he was bound by that bond which generally constrains our aristocrats to follow this or that side in politics. But he also had opinions of his own, very strong opinions, and had thought the matter out. He could give his reasons for being a Liberal, believing that by fighting on that side he could do something, though it might be ever so little, to help his country and his countrymen. It was very grievous to him that a Palliser, the future head of the Pallisers, should desert the political creed of the family; but it was a matter to him of most profound sorrow that his own eldest son should be so misguided. And he believed...

P: "I think I..."

"...she loved her dearly," said Tregear, not as yet answering the last question.

P: "Nor even bite..."

    "...never saw equalled. When that row came up at Oxford all he said to me did not take two minutes, but it took the very life out of me for the time."
    "I don't propose to do anything quite so absurd as that."
    "But something quite as much opposed to his wishes."
    "At any rate..."

Less cutting here, but still in the deeper detail.

Given what we know of Trollope's own attitude to hard work, and how he makes the capacity for hard and often thankless work one of Planty's virtues, he could hardly have condemned Frank more than by saying simply, In truth, he did not like the labour.

We spoke earlier about the shift in societal attitudes towards "gentlemen" working over the 19th century, and that deleted paragraph spells the issue out. Fifty years earlier, Frank's reluctance to take up a profession would have defined him as a gentleman; now it's indicative that there's something lacking in his character.

(The character of Gerard Maule, in Phineas Redux, seems to be a minor dry run for the character of Frank: he and Adelaide Palliser must rely on a gift lump-sum to get married, because he cannot / will not work for a living.)

The other interesting point here is that, by this time, the few traditionally "gentlemanly" professions - the church, the law, the army - have expanded to include the navy (the beginning of that shift is seen in Persuasion) and, more interestingly, not just medicine but surgery, which was for a long time was considered very ungentlemanly indeed. (It was a mark of a "gentleman doctor" that he did not touch his patients.)

Language note: usage of the original meaning of "misguided": not "wrong", but "led astray"---"mis-guided".

Chapter 4

P: From the beginning

...the Duke might eat him. He had no doubt been counselled by the Duchess to hold his peace at present,---but he had been so counselled because she was afraid of the Duke. In such an affair he should have been careful from the first to keep his own hands thoroughly clean. Had it not been his duty as a gentleman to communicate with the father, if not before he gained the girl's heart, at any rate as soon as he knew he had done so? And now it would be impossible even to feign that he did so. He had left Italy...

P: He did not

...her mother's dearest friend, and very much might depend on her assistance as on her opposition. It was therefore...

P: He told himself

...Frank Tregear felt at once interested in her that she was a power in whom he was bound to be interested.

P: "Yes;---in the

"Silverbridge and I have been very intimate. I can't afford lodgings for myself and so he puts me up. Of course..."

P: "No doubt he..."

...the subject of their conversation. The man had reason on his side in waiting, as the meeting had not originated with him. But the lady, who found that the task before her was difficult, hoped that her companion might feel himself bound to begin it if she abstained awhile from doing so. But Tregear would not begin.

P: "We have never..."

"We have never been enemies," said the young man, laughing.

P: "That is it..."

"...quite as a matter of course. There had been that between us which made it a matter of course."

P: He was very

...his own judgement. But he gave her a promise the conference was at last ended by an assertion on his part that he was not afraid of the Duke, and by an assurance that he would take steps to see the Duke before a week was over.

P: He was very

...seemed to have so little beyond his personal appearance to recommend him.

P: He, when he

...and prescribe days and hours? He was one who prided himself on being the master of others in the great affairs of life and on submitting himself to no masterdom. With the Duchess he had found that he could generally have his own way. Over Lady Mary his dominion had of course been supreme. And in his intercourse with Lord Silverbridge his influence had always been the more powerful of the two. And now, because this strange woman had spoken to him, he was compelled to make a journey down to the Duke's country house, and to seek an interview in which he would surely be snubbed! And yet he told himself over and over again that he was not afraid of the Duke,---that the Duke could not "eat him."

P: This occurred on

...the next Monday. He would not allow himself to postpone his journey till the last day which his compact with Mrs Finn would have allowed, because by doing so he would seem to himself to be in truth afraid. He said nothing...

P: "There is a..."

...ought to be propitiated, and thought that if it could be done by Silverbridge obeying his behests in this matter of politics the sacrifice made would not be very great.

P: "I had intended..."

    "...to beard him here. "I suppose I shall have to look out for other lodgings."
    "If you are going to speak to him about my sister, I think you must," said Silverbridge.

P: Then Tregear wrote

...the allotted time. He began the note by presenting his compliments, and did his best to make it stiff and almost uncivil. "Silly boy!" she said to herself as she read the effusion. "Even if he had money he would not be fit to marry her."

The added details of Frank Tregear's thought processes give us less and less reason to think well of him.

We see a lot of posturing here, but not much substance; in addition to the implication that he is perfectly willing to "feign" things if it suits his purposes.

It is also outrageous that someone who can't afford London lodgings is contemplating marriage, not just with Mary, but with anyone! Even Phineas Finn, the last "poor man amongst the great" we examined, managed that (granted, on his father's penny). Presumably Frank finds better things to spend his money on, as long as he has a rich friend to leech off.

Speaking of which, we see here that there is a measure of contempt in his attitude to Silverbridge.

More surprising is that we also see the first glimmerings of a backbone in Silverbridge (if that isn't too much of a mixed metaphor!).

Best of all, though, is how easily Marie routs this "domineering" young man. Again the restored text gives us a sting in the tail at the end of the chapter, with her dismissal of Frank as a "silly boy".

Chapter 5

P: Down at Matching

...the first blow had fallen upon him;---not at once, nor till time and consideration should have restored to him the habitual tenderness of his manner.

P: {Restored text begins a new paragraph here, beginning She was quite sure}

...the absolute integrity of his mind, which would not allow him to swerve a tittle either to the left or right, even where by doing so he would serve his own dearest interest. She already possessed sufficient power of insight to see all this. And yet...

P: She was quite sure

...of God's creatures. She was sick of lords and countesses;---so at least she told herself, instigated no doubt by her love for one who was no lord and the son of no countess.

P: Of one thing

    ...beyond her power. She loved the man,---and as he also loved her, there was an end of all consideration in the matter.
    She felt herself, moreover, bound to obey him. She knew, as well as Mrs Finn did, that her father ought to be told of her purpose without delay. She could make excuses for the delay, feeling that it had been caused by her mother's illness and sudden death. She wished, indeed, that there might be an end to this state of suspense. But it never occurred to her that she ought to disobey her lover's injunctions, or even to feel angry with him because he insisted on them. There was nothing in which she would not obey him,---nothing that would not touch her own honour. But she was glad when she heard that he intended at once to see her father, and again relieved when she heard that the interview would not take place at Matching.

P: "It is not..."

...in the sporting world. But, as he had said to his daughter, it was not that special extravagance which was irritating him now and forcing upon him a journey up to London.

P: She was going

"...Silverbridge deserts his colours. Of course if it came from conviction I could put up with it,---though I should be sorry to see him convinced by error. But when I know that as yet he himself has had no deep thoughts on the subject, that unfortunately he does not give himself much to thinking, and that in this matter he is being talked over by a young man whose position in life has hardly justified the great intimacy which has existed, I own that I am most annoyed."

P: This was very

...might not be so silent. The Duke went on, discussing the subject with its political bearings, and declaring how grievous it would be to him if he should find himself once and forever dissevered from his son in public life.

P: {Insertion after "I do not wish to drive you into society."}

"Do not drive me away at all, papa."

P: "But I think..."

    ...of her heart or mind! "I wish you would be persuaded to go to Lady Cantrip."
    "Oh, papa!"

P: "The hand of..."

...rising from his chair. Surely the young man was mad!

P: "I do not..."

    "...some mistake in this. What is it that you do mean?"
    "I mean that I am complying..."

P: "Of course it..."

"...came to me. Perhaps I had better hear from her what is really the truth of this."

P: The Duke was

And the man had rebuked him with firmness and dignity. "At any rate it is impossible," he repeated. "When I have said that, I do not think there is anything more to be said."

P: {Restored text joins the paragraphs beginning The Duke, when and "It is quite..."}

...whether he would make any reply, whether on the whole he had not better submit now, before he might be tempted to speak a word which might have been better left unspoken, the Duke asked...

P: {Insertion after the paragraph ending ...stung by an adder.}

Tregear saw the emotion but did not understand the cause of it. He had known how intimate the Duchess had been with that lady, and was now led to imagine that that intimacy had been disagreeable to the Duke. But the feeling now at work in the Duke's mind was very different from that. This was the woman whom he had prayed to remain awhile with his daughter after his wife had been laid in her grave, in order that there might be someone near whom he could trust! And this very woman...

P: "That will do..."

"That will do, sir. I do not think there can be any necessity that you should remain here longer. I do not deny that I have been greatly pained..."

P: That will do..."

"...you shall not do so. That the whole thing is impossible I imagine that you yourself must be aware. Good-morning, sir."

Several important things about this chapter. We are let inside of Mary's head, where we can see that what she says does not necessarily reflect what she thinks: Mary is one of those ill-served by the cuts, which leave her very superficial. In this respect, of note is the remark that, She already possessed sufficient power of insight to see all this.

We are given our first reason to think better of Frank here, in that he does not chicken out of the interview when given an excuse, and keeps his temper when Plantagenet calls him a liar and an upstart to his face---even having the nerve to "rebuke" him for it.

But the most important thing is the detail added to Plantagenet's discovery that Glencora has done this thing behind his back---and his immediate consciousness of the significance of it, and of the physical similarities between Frank and Burgo Fitzgerald. He is so upset by this that he does exactly what Mary has just told us he would never do for any reason, he behaves unjustly---as he is aware himself, though he can hardly see it through his hurt and anger. And then Frank gives him an excuse to transfer that hurt and anger away from Glencora and onto Marie...

Chapter 4

>28 lyzard: Presumably Frank finds better things to spend his money on, as long as he has a rich friend to leech off. Yes, I thought that too!

I was particularly disturbed by this added passage - so revealing of Tregear's character:

He was one who prided himself on being the master of others in the great affairs of life and on submitting himself to no masterdom. With the Duchess he had found that he could generally have his own way. Over Lady Mary his dominion had of course been supreme. And in his intercourse with Lord Silverbridge his influence had always been the more powerful of the two.

And this is in both versions but I LOVE Mrs. Finn's response in her conversation with Tregear here:

"I do not like to have a constraint put upon me." (Tregear)
"That, Mr. Tregear, is what gentlemen, I fancy, very often feel in regard to ladies." (Marie)

Ha!

Yes, we're certainly not given much reason to like Frank. That adds an extra tension to the situation, of course, as you can't help feeling Mary might be very sorry for all this in the long run.

Marie rocks. :)

Chapter 6

P: {First paragraph of chapter re-inserted}

The engagement which prevented Lord Silverbridge from waiting upon his father immediately upon the Duke's arrival, and which thus enabled Tregear to undertake his task at once, was one which perhaps might have been postponed had the son been very anxious for the meeting. He was to dine with his friend Major Tifto at the Beargarden, of which club the Major, under his noble young friend's auspices, had lately become a member.

P: It was believed

...in the North of Spain, and that he had there held some command equal in rank to that of a major in the British army. When, therefore...

P: He was a

...you could see the hand of time. But even then it was impossible not to admire his state of preservation. Even if...

P: So much in

    ...the present chronicler to say. And it must be added also to the above good things that he had a way of making himself decidedly pleasant with young men. He could be authoritative about horses, as is required from a man who is a Master of Foxhounds and a pundit on racecourses, and at the same time could be short of speech, flattering in manner, and not dictaorial. He could yield when he knew himself to be right. At the same time, even when wrong, he could be very positive if he had the flower of the company with him. But whether yielding or insisting, he could do it with an easy air and with a certain amount of pleasant raillery.
    But there were...

P: {New paragraph, beginning But there were}

...boasting about women. It was the special pride of his life to be held to be a favourite with the sex. With a certain portion of the sex it was believed that he did prevail. But his desire...

P: But there were

...he had owned to someone whom at that moment he could regard as a friend...

P: But there were

...and, no doubt, being in many things a thoughtful man as must be he who has to live entirely on his wits, had often reflected...

P: But there were

...look any one in the face,---and they feared him accordingly.

P: "Horses, yes. They've..."

...with a hesitating twang, which even the young nobleman, though not as yet experienced in such matters, appreciated.

P: There was something

    ...to be good-natured. There were two other men there who were very young, and did not seem to be frightful. So as he sipped his whisky, he became confidential and comfortable.
    "I never thought..."

Evidently Major Tifto is another of the books cutting casualties; and while we may not feel this to as damaging as with with regard to Silverbridge and Mary, it is still a loss: Trollope is often at his most interesting when characterising someone he self-evidently disapproves of, in that he strives to be fair and understanding even so. (We might compare this with his presentation of Nathaniel Sowerby in Framley Parsonage, who is presented through most of the novel as an unmitigated scoundrel---only for Trollope then suddenly to turn around and dissect him psychologically and show us how he got to be that way.)

Chapter 7

P: {Entire paragraph re-inserted after ...intend to be controlled.

    He was not afraid of his father,---who had in truth always been indulgent to him; but he had taught himself to think that fixed conversations with his father were disagreeable and should if possible be avoided. He had never been intimate with the Duke,---as are some sons and some fathers,---and would usually set himself to work to get through the business of a parental interview as quickly as possible. It was with some such determination that he entered the room this morning. There would be their breakfast to eat, but the Duke would probably not begin his political lecture,---for Silverbridge was sure that that would be the shape which the conversation would take,---till after breakfast. Of course he had no idea of the revelation that had been made to the Duke on the previous evening. He had declared to himself whenever that matter of his sister's love had been brought to his mind, and had declared also to Tregear whenever the question had been discussed between them, that the Duke would be found to be utterly impregnable on that question. But it was no affair of his. He had not encouraged Tregear. He had not been in confidence with his sister. In the one or two words which he had spoken to his mother on the subject he had opposed the idea of such a marriage. But at the present moment of meeting his father there was no special weight on his mind in reference to his sister's engagement.
    The Duke had...

P: "You can hardly..."

    "You can hardly as yet have any very confirmed political opinion. You have never spoken to me on the subject in your life before."
    "Nor you to me, sir."
    This was true, or very nearly so, and the Duke felt that the reproach was just. "You are still..."

P: "Well, sir, I..."

"...the Radicals and the Communists, who no doubt would take away our property if they could get it."

P: "His own and..."

"...we shall have quite enough to do. Besides if all your property was taken away, were would be the people who depend on you?"

P: "I do not..."

"...anxious to oblige you. If a man is of one way of thinking, he can't make himself of another."

P: Hereupon the father

...to restrain his anger, which he himself knew to be in a certain degree unreasonable. In what way, however, should he proceed? The matter in dispute...

P: Hereupon the father

...and so foolish! If only he would go properly and quietly into political harness, everything would be granted to him. And the political harness need not entail heavy political work,---as it had done on himself. He would never...

P: Hereupon the father {Paragraphs closed}

...a father to his son. But yet he was sorely tried! "You mean to stand for Silverbridge?" he said at last.

P: {Insertion after "...at any rate."}

    "What is to become of Mr Fletcher?" said the Duke, asking after the sitting, or rather, as it was now, the late member.
    "There's to be some arrangement about him. If I stand he won't. I think, you know, the people there would rather like me to be their member." No doubt they would, many of them! No doubt the Conservative party would like it, and in order to seduce from his allegiances the heir of the house of Omnium would take care that arrangements would be made so that this family borough of Silverbridge should help him in his apostasy. The Duke could understand all that very well and could remember with increased bitterness of spirit that but for his own patriotic self-abnegation he might now send whatever Liberal he pleased to name to Parliament for the borough. "Of course if you say that you do not want me to stand for Silverbridge, I will look elsewhere," said the young man.
    "It is not that the place that I care about," said the Duke sadly.

P: "You wouldn't have..."

    "You wouldn't have me tell a lie about my opinions?"
    "No!"

P: "I believe it..."

"...who has done this evil." Now his mind was reverting to that other and greater trouble.

P: "He's a Conservative..."

"...much together. But I think it would have been the same if I had never known him. Was he with..."

P: {Insertion after ...produced the interview.}

If Silverbridge had been a sinner in this matter, then would justice not require the father to refrain from anger. But it was necessary that the fact should be ascertained before the anger was shown. "He has been..."

P: "And why did..."

"...you not tell me? In a matter of so much moment to the family why did you not come to me?"

P: "He told me..."

...had never uttered. Then there was another pause after which he spoke again, very solemnly. "There must be..."

P: "Oh, certainly," said...

...said Silverbridge,---who after that was allowed to take his departure.

We lose a lot with these cuts, I think.

We are given numerous insights into Plantagenet's view of the parent-child relationship, and awareness that it is nothing like what he wishes it was, but here we see it from Silverbridge's point of view---his gloomy acceptance that a conversation with his father must inevitably be "a lecture"---and, most devastatingly of all, the revelation that Plantagenet, a lifelong, professional politician and a former Prime Minister, has never bothered to discuss his political views with his son.

That's very important, because it shows us just how estranged Plantagenet is from his children, and that this time it is not Glencora's or the children's own fault---if he does not even talk to them about what is closest to his own heart.

He's also being punished for his assumption that Silverbridge will simply follow in his own footsteps. All things considered, why should he?

Yet note that Plantagenet views the situation with Mary as "the greater trouble". (And again, the cut text leaves in Plantagenet's heart-burning over Mary but loses much of his political heart-burning.)

We see, too, that Plantagenet almost wants Silverbridge to have encouraged Mary and Frank, so that he has something he can feel legitimately angry about; he won't admit to himself how angry he is at Silverbridge over his politics.

Mr 1%:

"We've got to protect our position as well as we can against the Radicals and Communists, who would no doubt take our property away if they could... The people will look after themselves and we must look after ourselves. We are so few and they are so many..."

>35 lyzard: I think you missed closing out one of your underlines?

Thanks again so much for doing this - it's so interesting! I'm keeping up pretty well and will read through chapter 7 tonight.

This is so helpful, Liz; I can really see how much was lost, especially about the father-son relationship. It almost feels like a different book.

You're welcome, ladies!

>38 japaul22:

I do it once every post. Usually I catch it. :)

>39 kac522:

Agreed!

Noting also in Chapter 7 that "Mr Fletcher" is of course Arthur Fletcher from The Prime Minister. It's odd how often references to the other novels were edited out.

Chapter 8

P: The Duke on

The Duke on that very day returned to Matching.

P: But though he

...in these parliamentary matters, though he wrote to Mr Moreton,---and indeed also to his son telling him that his expenses would be paid,---though he tried...

P: But though he

...to place her affections so low, that her rank and position demanded from her a constraint to which another girl need not, perhaps, subject herself, and so to obtain...

P: The latter course

...a cubit added to his stature,---but which seemed to be almost as impossible to him as the faintest of those other wishes would seem to them.

P: He reached Matching

...his own study. Another man would have sent word home and would have dined with his daughter. He was so very much in the habit of living alone that this did not occur to him. When Lady Mary...

P: Very shortly a

...in his hand, or a book lying open near him;---from all which she was sure that there was some special matter for conversation on his mind. If it were so...

P: "I am afraid..."

"...very young man, and a son." He was almost inclined to add,---"and though he be as ignorant as your brother,"---but he stopped himself.

P: "Do you mean..."

"...without my approval and without my knowledge?"

P: "I should not..."

"...unless I loved him---very much."

P: "Yes. I am..."

"...your life happy." It was in this way that he endeavoured to practice the lessons which he had been teaching himself. It was thus...

P: {Insertion after ...conquer her love.}

She could not see his blushes, nor could she learn from his voice and manner so much of the workings of his heart and mind as an older woman might have done. That she should...

P: She could not

...a more exalted marriage;---one in which there would be more of wealth and rank. she had known...

P: She could not

...but she was so far abashed and beaten down that she could not at first find words...

P: It is not

...the treasure of her heart,---though he must have known that it was so from the moment in which Tregear had spoken to him,---he shrank...

P: "Say that you..."

"...will obey me. Say that you will never see him again." Then she sat...

P: "So is my..."

    "...private secretary. So I suppose is the young man who acts as his assistant---"
    "I do not know whom you mean."
    "Well; not now, because he has gone. There is not..."

P: "There shall be..."

"...go to your room." Then she went to her room, and left him alone in his unhappiness.

Mostly a pruning away of details here. Again there is an emphasis upon how difficult it is for Plantagenet's children to understand him, let alone love him.

The most devastating detail is the bit about him eating alone when he returns to Matching. He doesn't do it because he's angry at Mary. It never occurs to him to make a companion out of her (or relieve her loneliness).

Chapter 9

P: Perhaps the method

...in a garret together. Unless indeed the demon's story be a lie altogether, and the lady had never been in the garret and never thrown out of the window! In which case the lie and the reader's belief in the lie will add much mystery and consequently to the interest of the story. But there is this...

P: "If there were..."

...said Lord Silverbridge, who was as yet too young, being of the male sex, to lie decently. "Nor, indeed, should I probably know about it."

P: "And never will..."

...Lord Grex's house, in which the two young persons were sitting alone at about five o'clock on Sunday afternoon. They were cousins, second cousins, and therefore perhaps did not require to be looked after specially. There was no...

P: Earl Grex was

...House of Commons. He had been honoured too by his Sovereign, having the Garter. "Silverbridge is..."

P: {Insertion after "My father doesn't take it..."}

    "Your father is a man in a hundred," said Frank, who in spite of his own little difficulties felt disposed to take the Duke's part.
    "Perhaps he's ratting..."

P: "I do not think..."

"...were to be paid,---just as though I were standing in obedience to him."

P: Upstairs in the

...with Frank Tregear;—but now, though the two young persons were very intimate, Miss Cassewary knew...

P: "Not plunging..."

"Not plunging. I never do that sort of thing. But I have..."

P: {Insertion after ...she wished him good-night.}

    "What an old brute he is!" said Frank as they were walking home together along Piccadilly.
    "Yes;---he doesn't make himself pleasant when he's cross. I was afraid you were going to cut up rough."
    "I'm too fond of Mabel for that. We have known each other so long that she is almost like a sister to me. I sometimes fancy that the Earl wants to quarrel with me, so that I should not go there any more;---but I don't mean to let him. I can, perhaps, be of some service to her. Don't you call her very handsome?"
    "Certainly I do."
    "I look at her just as I would at a picture, and in that way she is the most beautiful thing to be seen in London. And then how clever she is!"
    "I wonder she is not married."
    "She never seems to think that she has found anybody good enough. Good-night, old fellow. No, I won't go down to the club now. I am a little out of sorts about my own affairs;---as you may understand."

These cuts seem superficial at first glance, but actually I think they're very damaging.

That bit about Silverbridge being a bad liar, "being of the male sex", seems like an unnecessary sneer, but in fact I think it's a way of saying that Mabel's sex and circumstances have forced her to learn very young how to be "a decent liar".

All throughout there is a sense of duplicity - of conspiracy - on her part and Frank's, something they both clearly consider a poor person's survival tactic.

And look what Frank does in that last, deleted section: "I can, perhaps, be of some service to her." Indeed. He starts out assuring Silverbridge that Mabel is nothing to him despite their intimacy, a "sister", a "picture", then stresses how beautiful and clever she she, then how she has never found anyone "good enough" - leaving "until now" unspoken - before circling back and reminding Silverbridge that he, Frank, is involved with another woman and therefore quite disinterested...

All throughout there is a sense of a trap being set for Silverbridge, with everyone else in on the game. (In this respect we may feel that Lord Grex should turn down the hostility, as it gives away his suspicions about Frank.)

Another late starter here but just read chapter 1 with Liz's excellent notes (>15 lyzard: & >16 lyzard:)

>16 lyzard: 'we spent quite some time discussing whether Alice's doubts about life with John Grey were justified' - this didn't occur to me when I read the chapter through but you're right.

>22 japaul22: Good idea. I've just done the same and am going to read the next few chapters this evening.

Welcome!

So what was your delivery date, after all that? :)

Chapter 10

P: "Or that if..."

"...I am too. At any rate we are two paupers, and though we are the best friends in the world, we can't afford to be anything else."

P: "If you know..."

    "...to see him,---alone. I shan't ask him to stay to lunch because papa might get up and come in."
    "That is because you are afraid of my Lord."
    "No, I'm not;---not in the least. But I don't want to have Frank snubbed." Then she left...

P: "Not especially..."

"Not especially,---unless you like to take it so."

P: "He swore that..."

"...it was impossible. Of course I knew all that before. It was a form which it was necessary to go through."

P: "No;---because..."

"...to direct himself. He stuck to his own opinions fast enough when his father wanted him to stand for the county."

P: Then she remained

...a few seconds, during which he stood with his back to the fire while she was seated in a low chair. They were both thinking of the same thing, and both wishing to speak of it. But the words came to her first, though the subject must have been more difficult for her even than for him. "I wonder..."

P: "Yes, I do."

"Yes, I do. You know that I do. It would suit me to be Duchess of Omnium and I believe that I should be to him a good and loving wife. Oh, yes..."

P: "Of course they..."

"...I wish to be married as well as possible. And, having a conscience in the matter, I mean to do my duty by my husband whoever he be."

P: "Yes, I think..."

"...Silverbridge would do. And I think that I would do for Silverbridge. You, no doubt..."

P: "And he, perhaps..."

"...have been wrong. Perhaps you will put him on his guard against me."

P: "Going to be..."

"...fortunate woman?" If he had said unfortunate, his meaning would have been the same, and his expression not a whit more clear.

P: There had been

...two years since. The father had then been, if not satisfied, at least pacified. He had been assured over and over again by Miss Cassewary that he need not be afraid of Frank Tregear, and had in a sort of way assented to the young man's visits. But, still, he did not like his presence. "I think..."

P: {Insertion following ...of her early love!}

    The reader may not approve of Lady Mabel. My female readers certainly will not do so. But I hope she will understand that with all her faults my heroine was a woman anxious to do her duty according to her lights.
    And so I hope that I have brought my cart in to its appointed place in the front, without showing too much of the horse.

The trimming here is mostly around details that emphasise the intimate understanding between Mabel and Frank.

Trollope's handling of Mabel is fascinating. She is trying to do exactly what girls were told to do all through the 19th century, that is, marry for duty and then "learn" to love her husband; yet when it is dissected out like this so baldly, it's all so uncomfortable, and Trollope's own disapproval is patent. Likewise, that deleted remark about "my female readers" implies, I think, not so much that other girls will disapprove of her marrying without love, but tacitly that they will disapprove of her not pretending, and so giving away the ugly reality of the situation. Girls weren't supposed to undertake such behaviour on their own behest (though of course, like Mabel, many of them had to).

Chapter 11

P: For two or

...on his part. She belonged to him and could not in any way be made to belong to another. But, as to marriage...

P: {Insertion following ...obey her father.}

It was, at any rate, after that fashion that she made up her mind in her present emergency. But she had, I think, a strong idea...

P: It was, at any rate

...term of years. She owed him much, but she was fully aware that he also owed something to her. If he were inhuman, so perhaps might she be,---but yet obedient.

P: The first word

...sad and lonely. At present there was no lady there, nor was there any lady whom at the present moment he would wish to have as her intimate. But Lord Cantrip was with him for a day or two, having come to him chiefly in reference to certain political movements with which the reader's mind shall not be burdened quite immediately; and to Lord Cantrip he hasd told,---not his sorrow in regard to his daighter's misplaced affection, which was a disgrace which he could not bring his tongue to utter, at any rate to another man,---but his fears lest the life at Matching should be oppressive to the girl's spirit. Then there had been some discussion between them as to how relief had best be afforded. Lady Cantrip would be delighted...

P: The first word

...be her guest. Richmond was so nearly a part of London that the Earl, if sojourning there, might be at the same time sufficiently domestic, and sufficiently parliamentary. So it was...

P: "I hope he..."

...said the Duke. "I have told her that there is to be no intercourse;---no possibility of intercourse."

P: {Insertion following ...be thought of?"}

    "...be thought of?"
    As this proposition was made in such a form and with such a tone as to demand an answer, Lady Cantrip had to pause till she should have resolved what answer she would give. "Was I not right?" demanded the Duke persistently.
    "I suppose you were right."
    What else could I have said?"
    "But it is..."

P: The Duke as

...said she loved. That of course did not for a moment recommend itself to him. That was, as he had said from the first, quite impossible. Could he have...

P: The Duke as

    ...had been subjected by her contact with this man.
    It filled his mind so completely that he had hardly heart enough to be made additionally miserable by his son's apostasy. Of course he saw Lord Silverbridge when he was in town, and asked sundry questions about the coming election. It was quite arranged that the young man should stand for the borough. Mr Fletcher, who had sat for it, was required down in Herefordshire, his own county,---so that nothing could possibly be more convenient. There was some talk of an opposition. Mr Du Boung, the brewer, thought of coming forward again, and had declared himself to be a supporter of the Duke. But the general opinion in the borough was that on the day of nomination there would be no second candidate, and that any second candidate, should there be one, would find himself nowhere. "You see," said Lord Silverbridge, apparently thinking he would receive all his father's sympathy, "I have your influence and my politics to support me."
    "My influence ought to be worth nothing," said the angry Duke, "and your politics worth less."
    "Less than nothing!" exclaimed the son.
    "As belonging to you. The facts that you are my son and that being so you call yourself a Conservative ought, together, to debar you from receiving a single vote. But of course I shall not interfere."
    "I thought it so good of you, sir, to tell Moreton to pay the bills."
    "That is another matter entirely. It is right that you should go into Parliament and not right that your income should be crippled by doing so." After that nothing further was said between them on the matter.
    When he was back...

P: "I can never..."

    "...be my duty. How would it be if---if---if the man were even something lower?"
    "He is a gentleman."
    "But if he were not, then should I be cruel? The cruelty would be the same."
    "That would be impossible, papa," she said proudly.
    "So is this,---quite impossible. You will see..."

P: "Never. I will..."

    ...wished to marry. "When do you want me to go, papa?"
    "Lady Cantrip will write to you."
    "But about when? This is May Day. Shall I stay here a week longer?"
    "She will hardly be ready at The Horns so soon as that."
    "Then I may expect to remain here ten days. I am not the least in a hurry to go." When he was leaving...

P: Cruel! She had

...his own daughter! And on what ground was the charge based? There was certainly some position,---a position possible at any rate to be thought of,---in which it would be absolutely, clearly, his duty to debar his daughter from marrying, let her pain in the matter be what it might. If the man were a murderer, or an idiot! There were cases, possible cases, in which he would have to do so, though she should die from the sufferings produced. And, if a duty, then it could not be cruel. No conduct can, at the same time, be good and bad. Yes;---though it would kill her, he would have to do it. If so, then it was clear that he could not justly be called cruel, simply because he debarred her from this marriage. The cruelty, if there were cruelty, must depend on the fitness of the man. He must make a line in his own mind, and declare that any man below that line should be regarded unfit, and that he would reject the charge of cruelty,---this most oppressive, wounding charge,---with reference to any such man. But sych a line could not be made palpable to any eyes but his own. It must be a vague meandering line as to which, though he should see it and know it thoroughly, he would be unable to lay down any rules why it ascended here or descended there. But he was quite sure that Mr Tregear was below the line, infinitely below it, and that he must be firm with his girl, allowing himself to be moved by no accusation of cruelty. If he were right he could not also be cruel,---and he was sure that in doing this he would be right.

Some significant cutting here.

Again, all the political content was removed---both the immediate details of Silverbridge's candidacy, and the more oblique references to the situation which prompts Lord Cantrip's visit.

Again also, the back end of the chapter is lopped off, so we lost an analysis that illustrates - "clearly", as Plantagenet himself would say - how specious are Plantagenet's reasons for objecting to Mary's relationship with Frank. That "ascending" and "descending" line, which conveniently positions himself wherever he wants, his worst-case scenario of a "murderer" or an "idiot".

Above all we see his desperate need to believe himself in the right. It is this behind his savage reaction to Marie's (apparent) involvement, and we see it again in his attempt to get Lady Cantrip to say outright she agrees with him.

But behind all this is the circumstances of his own marriage to Glencora. When he says, If the man were a murderer, or an idiot!, what he really means is, What if the man were Burgo Fitzgerald. He needs to believe that the right thing was done, when Glencora was forced to give up Burgo and marry him. In a warped way, he is trying to justify those events by forcing Mary to make "the right choice".

Umm...

>24 japaul22: 'I think it's the pacing I'm used to in a Trollope novel, so it feels more familiar.'

Yes, I agree. I couldn't figure out what it was on reading through the originally published text but it didn't quite feel right.

>47 lyzard: It arrived on the 1st November in the end but one thing and another kept delaying me from starting.

>52 lyzard: What?!

>24 japaul22:, >53 souloftherose:

Trollope always does do back over the same ground after making a statement, filling in the detail and adding insights and irony - and of course depth - and the evidence so far is that it is this layering which has been pruned away. It's not surprising if the result is a feeling of superficiality.

Annoying for you but not a problem here: obviously we are going to be here a while yet (or at least, I am!).

Ain't it cute? I'm tempted to buy it to see how far the idiocy extends...

Chapter 12

P: The pity of

...had given him. She therefore gave herself the task of making some inquiry on the subject.

P: Lady Cantrip, who

...to be very brilliant, as the greater part of the income necessary for the newly married couple had for the present to be supplied by the lady's father. But the husband...

P: Oh dear no..."

"...who know nothing. The odd thing is that he and Silverbridge should suit each other."

P: Then Miss Cassewary

"...come to much harm. He is a very clever young man, and I know nothing evil of him.

P: {Insertion after "...had a profession."

    "What does he do then?"
    "Nothing, as far as I know. But why are..."

P: Early in the

...even than Matching. It was his intention to resume his duties in the House of Lords. If he could be of any service to his country he ought not, he thought, to allow himself to be hindered by his personal sorrow from performing that service. On that same day he was even in his usual opposition bench in the House of Lords,---in the place which had been usual to him when he himself was not in office.

P: The life they

...happiness enough for life. Alas, it is a happiness which soon wears itself out. The joys of scenery will last a man his life, so that there be ever and again some novelty in it, or some trouble be taken to reach it. But Alps and lakes, or rivers and plains, just before the window, will make no man or woman happy long. Lady Mary had that in her young heart which did suffice,---either for happiness or for sorrow. And as yet she had not so far recognised the difficulties of her position or the power of her father's opposition as to feel her love to be a cause for sorrow rather than joy. She could yet take pride to herself in the assurance of her constancy to the man she loved, and in her full conviction of his truth. To have a lover was all the world to her! To have had a dozen, even though one or two may still be left, is nothing. In this way Lady Mary's life was full enough; but before a week was over Lady Cantrip began to find that hers would be dull.

P: At the end

...Lady Cantrip chiefly lived. There was a certain amount of mystery attached to the very close alliance between Mrs Finn and the late Duchess, and also between Mrs Finn and the old Duke. Lady Cantrip did not like mystery, and she had never opened her arms to Mrs Finn. When therefore...

P: At the end

...there was considerable embarrassment, which was not lessened by a consciousness on the part of the older lady that Mrs Finn's husband had been, and still was, highly esteemed by her own husband. She looked round...

P: "Let him understand..."

...farewell of the girl, kissing her, and expressing strongly her wish for Lady Mary's future happiness.

P: "I want to..."

...Mrs Finn having accepted, as it were, from the father's hands the confidential charge of the daughter could not with any honesty, without gross fraud and betrayal of trust...

P: "And mamma knew..."

...all accusation by death. What a pity it was, Lady Cantrip thought, that the whole matter should not be settled and put an end to by a marriage. The Duke could give them ample money. Persons who are less rich always fancy that they who are more rich have super-abundant means for everything. Three or four hundred thousand pounds would be nothing to the Duke of Omnium;---and then Tregear might go into Parliament and probably become a speaker, and possibly a member of government. One of her own daughters was married to a commoner,---but then he fortunately was a man of large possessions.

I'm getting annoyed by the constant pruning away of the political allusions; this one is important in context of something that happens later, and adds weight to it.

But the big thing here is the way that Lady Cantrip is positioned as the voice of reason, against Plantagenet's blind unreason. She is of Plantagenet's world, and shares most of his values; so where the two differ, we are able to better judge his behaviour and Mary's.

Note that Lady Cantrip "gave herself the task of making some inquiry on the subject", which is more than Plantagenet has done, in his stubborn reiteration of "impossible". Perhaps the most significant detail, however, is the revelation that the Cantrips are paying for their daughter's marriage. We know no good of Lord Nidderdale, but he has a handle to his name. Apparently that's enough.

The bottom line, however, is that to Lady Cantrip, the marriage might be unfortunate and disappointing, but certainly not "impossible".

At the same time--- We see via Lady Cantrip how the world still views Marie, that despite her marriage and her position with the Pallisers, she is still regarded with suspicion and doubt. This is why Marie is so determined to be set right by Plantagenet. To be shunned by him, rightly or wrongly, would damn her utterly in the eyes of the world (and hurt Phineas as well as herself).

Chapter 13

P: No advantage whatever

    ...feeling of indignation. The fact at any rate remained that she had been aware of this iniquity while she was holding intercourse with him about his daughter, and that she had concealed it.
    No doubt there returned at this time to the Duke's mind something of the feeling towards this woman which had been strong with him when first his wife had proposed her to him as a friend. He too had thought,---he as well as Lady Cantrip and others,---that she had been in some degree mysterious and, in the same degree, objectionable. She had then been a widow, and even up to this day he had heard nothing of her first husband except that he had died leaving her a rich woman. She had no doubt behaved well in very peculiar circumstances. She might herself have been at this moment a Duchess of Omnium, the old Duke having asked her to marry him. She had refused,---no doubt very wisely in reference to her own happiness;---but there had seemed to be something noble in her refusal. The late Duchess had so regarded it, and had consequently opened her heart to this woman. He had gradually been carried along with his wife, and had submitted himself to an intimacy which had been contrary to his taste. Other matters had also acted much in her favour,---first and chiefly, no doubt, his own appreciation of a certain modesty on her part. Intimate as she had been in the house, she had never been familiar in her manner with himself. She had borne herself in those days as though there must always be something of a gulf between the Duke of Omnium and Madame Max Goesler, as she was then called. He was the last man in the world to tell himself that this was a recommendation; but he had felt it as such. Then it had chanced that she had married a man with whom he had close political relations. And then too there had been the matter of a legacy, a very large legacy, left her by the old Duke, as to which, though he had strenuously opposed her, still he had admired her conduct. Of what the old man had left her she would take nothing,---and even at this very day there was lying packed up in the vaults beneath the premises of the Duke's bankers near Charing Cross a collection of diamonds, said to be worth a very great sum of money, which was in truth the property of this woman but which she had hitherto positively refused to accept. These things had, after a fashion, reconciled even his stubborn nature to his wife's friend. He had become, if not absolutely intimate with her, at least so much more intimate than with any other woman, that he had asked her to remain with his daughter at Matching. Even when doing so he remembered that she had been the mysterious widow of an unheard-of old husband; but still he had asked her. And she had betrayed his trust! So he declared to himself; and he asked himself at the same time what else he had a right to expect from the mysterious widow of an unheard-of old husband.
    To his thinking...

P: To his thinking

...ought to have forgiven it! Each of them in this interview tried to avoid any reference to Mr Tregear;---but it was difficult. When he spoke...

P: To his thinking

"...that as I regard her conduct as inexcusable, I cannot apologise for what she thinks is the severity of my letter to her."

P: Mrs Finn, when

...quarrel with the Duke,---and now that did seem absolutely necessary,--- she was most anxious...

P: Mrs Finn, when

...further connection between them, even of a political nature. She was, therefore, obliged to bear her trouble alone.

P: And it troubled

...indifferent about him but that, having watched him closely and thought much of his character, she had perceived...

P: And it troubled

...sincere admiration for the man,---and especially by admiration for his justice. In all their...

P: And it troubled

...from a distance and seldom having an opportunity of hearing much from himself, she had understood the man's character as it had come to her both from his wife and from her own husband. The man's honesty had especially endeared itself to her,---his honesty and strong sense of justice. And now she was being treated with the greatest of injustice by this most just of men!

P: That he was

...made known to him without delay and had been successful in carrying out that determination. She felt that...

P: {Insertion after ...done to her.}

On the day after that on which she received Lady Mary's note she wrote...

Again we get the cutting away of references to the other books in the series---which I guess may have seemed "unnecessary" in the last book. But this is not mere repetition or callback. This slashing and burning removes Trollope's careful dissection of, in particular, the evolution of Plantagenet's thinking about Marie---and its persistent bedrock of doubt. Marie's shock and hurt at being attacked by Plantagenet in just that way is also justified. Moreover, we are clearly intended to take Marie's reading of his character as the right one in the long run: she understands him a great deal better than Glencora ever did!

>48 lyzard: The reader may not approve of Lady Mabel. My female readers certainly will not do so. But I hope she will understand that with all her faults my heroine was a woman anxious to do her duty according to her lights.

I wasn't quite sure how to take this little aside. But I do have a question....what does "according to her lights" mean/imply?

Yes, it's certainly open to interpretation.

It means something like "according to her personal or individual code". Meaning that Mabel doesn't necessarily adhere to society's views on how she should behave, but does have her own ideas about right and wrong, what is acceptable and unacceptable. She is trying to do her duty as she sees it, not as society sees it.

>57 lyzard:, >58 lyzard:

Wow, that's a huge chunk to be cut, and so important to understand how he rationalized his position concerning Marie to himself. I have to say I probably assumed a lot of this point of view, but it's quite a different feeling to have it laid out. I always felt this book was more about the Duke (and even in her absence, Glencora) than anyone else, but now even more so.

It certainly is predominantly about him; yet even there we see that Trollope made damaging cuts. And naturally what he writes about Plantagenet is stronger for being contrasted by a range of outside perspectives, so the restorations serve to balance the narrative.

Chapter 14

P: Lord Silverbridge was

...the Pallisers were Liberal. It had never occurred to the voters in the borough to look into their own minds and find out what were their own opinions. It was to them not at all a grievance that they were called on to return a Liberal. But when...

P: Lord Silverbridge was

...its freedom;---then the borough had scratched its head, and bethought itself, and had began begun to feel Conservative predilections.

P: {Insertion after ...the wings of the Pallisers.

    Mr Du Boung, who was a brewer, a native, rich and popular, and a Liberal, vainly endeavoured at certain meetings to make the borough understand that the Duke was honest enough in his politics to prefer a Liberal even to his own son, when he insinuated that the father was much offended by his son's apostasy, and would be offended with the borough, should the borough aid the apostate. The borough altogether refused to believe him. A landlord,---such a landlord at any rate as the Duke,---could not be offended with his tenants for sending his own son to Parliament. So they argued it among themselves, and Mr Du Boung found that he would not have a chance. He retired therefore, putting forth a very graceful document in which he declared his opinion that no differences in politics could justify an opposition to a scion to the house of Palliser in the borough of Silverbridge. This he took care to send to the Duke,---who was fortified in his opinion by it as to the worthlessness of Mr Du Boung as a politician.
    So the matter stood...

P: "He's a very..."

...said Silverbridge, arguing as men are apt to do on such occasions against his own original proposition. "I don't say..."

P: "Nothing on earth."

"...to Silverbridge. The matter is important, and therefore I have no hesitation in saying that it would be a very foolish thing to do."

P: "That must be..."

...very red in the face. He had said so much about this political movement that many of his second-class friends had almost been made to believe that he was going to become a member of Parliament himself. "What do..."

P: "Well;---I'd made..."

    "...to be put off. I know whose doing it is."
    Whose doing is it?"
    "Never mind. I shall mention no names."
    "The truth is..."

P: "Yes I do..."

"...above other fellows. I think a deal more of a fellow being clever than of his having rank or money. But when..."

P: "Well, yes;---in..."

    "...jolliest girl I know;---but I should hardly think of talking to her about things of that sort."
    "That is because you don't know her well enough. Take her all..."

P: "We knew each..."

"...and a woman too. I don't think I'm at all mercenary. Such a girl as Mabel Grex is to me like the throne of the Sultan. Whatever place I may be able to get to, I know that at any rate I cannot get there."

P: "And it was..."

"...to give way. There are those in the borough who, thinking that they would have secured my return on Liberal principles, do not hesitate to to tell me that I have been wrong. But it has been a matter of feeling, my Lord;---and I have obeyed my feelings."

P: {New paragraph beginning Whereupon Lord Silverbridge}

    ...Lord Silverbridge bowed, perhaps not quite understanding the position even yet, and at the same time being unwilling, in so far as he did understand it, to express any gratitude to Mr Du Boung for retiring from a position which would have been untenable. Whereupon Mr Du Boung held his head a little higher than before, and put his hands into his trowser pockets. Mr Sprugeon, very cautiously, just with a corner of his eye, winked at Mr Sprout, and a gentleman who was in the corner of the room, a staunch Conservative and no less a person than the landlord of the George and Vulture himself, whispered to his neighbour, Mr Choral the chemist, that his Lordship seemed to have cut his eye-teeth.
    "And now what..."

P: "Though there are..."

...said Mr Du Boung, who found himself able to say an honest word as to his own opinion now that so poor a response had been made to his just claim for gratitude.

P: "Then we'll go..."

    ...as a Conservative. There had been a great deal of conversation in the borough as to priority between the parties,---both of which were to be represented by this new member; and now, when Mr Sprout suggested and Mr Sprugeon afterwards agreed that this first visit should be made to Mr Walker, those around, with the exception of the two strangers from London, were aware that a sop was being offered to Mr Du Boung. After what had passed he would not have accompanied them to Dr Tempest's house, had Dr Tempest been taken before Mr Walker. But, as it was, with an ill grace, walking not behind but a little on one side so as to be very visible almost in the centre of the street, he did go with them.
    "I am glad..."

P: {Insertion after ...caustic old gentleman.}

    Then Mr Du Boung took one further opportunity,---the last which probably would be allowed him,---of setting himself right with the borough. "I am sure, Dr Tempest," said he, "will agree with me in thinking that our chief duty at present is to maintain the kindly relations which have ever existed between his Grace and the borough." He paused for the rector's assent, but the rector only smiled. "That, at least, has been my feeling in the matter. That is the sentiment by which my conduct here has been governed. I am a Liberal. I don't care who knows it. I am proud of my political creed. But the circumstances of this borough are very peculiar, and I think it is to the advantage of the borough generally that it should be represented in Parliament by the son of the Duke of Omnium."
    "I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you," said Lord Silverbridge. Then there was another pause, but as Dr Tempest would not say a word in answer to Mr Du Boung,---as he only smiled,---Mr Du Boung led the way out of the room; and with a great shaking of hands that little conference was brought to an end.
    There was nothing...

P: There was nothing

...life and prosperity. Mr Du Boung was of course invited to join them, but excused himself. For the advantage of the borough he had come forward, but of gala doings in such company he would know nothing. There was no one...

P: There was nothing

    ...to be elected. He was not even asked to make a speech, which was a relief to him,---though in a certain way a disappointment also, as he had spent an hour or two in the composition of a few words in which he had intended to explain his politics. He thought he had done this rather well;---but at the same time he doubted his memory, and told himself that upon the whole it was as well that he should have been spared.
    "I can't conceive why you should have been so uncivil to that fellow Du Boung," Tregear said to him in the train.
    "Because he told lies. Only I didn't think I was uncivil to him."
    "Oh yes, you were. What lies did he tell?"
    "He wanted to make out that if he had stood against me he would have been elected. Everybody knows that he did give up because he hadn't a chance."
    "But when a man does give up, of course he expects to be thanked. He probably saved you six or seven hundred pounds."
    "And himself too. I'm not going to thank a fellow when I'm not a bit obliged to him. I hate a fellow who talks trash to me about feeling. If he's a Liberal he ought to stick to his party and keep me out if he can. The only person I'm obliged to in the whole matter is my governor,---and to you, old chap, for coming down with me."
    And on the day...

P: And on the

...Dean's house scarlet. At no time of his life could the father have done such a thing as that. The speech was...

P: And on the

...than was expected by those who remembered that affair of the house-painting.

P: "My Dear Father,

    ...very little said.
    "I do not care very much for that Mr Du Boung.
    "Your affectionate son..."

It could be said that the manoeuvring in the borough isn't important in the overall scheme of things, but it does offer a fascinating glimpse of the political reality of the day. (I'm sure Trollope thought it was important.)

We see very quickly that Frank is a more likely politician than Silverbridge---both alert and pragmatic. We might admire Silverbridge's innate honesty more, but if he can't tolerate even a mild political lie, he's not going to last long in the House of Commons!

The exchange about Mabel is rather chilling. We see that Frank is still doing his best for her with Silverbridge---but even at this point, when he fully intends to go through with his pursuit of Mabel, Silverbridge seems aware of something lacking---lacking in her---when he says, "I should hardly think of talking to her about things of that sort." This is Mabel's tragedy, of course: there is something lacking in her, or has been lost in the grind of her life.

Meanwhile--- We might remember Dr Tempest from The Last Chronicle Of Barset, where he was appointed head of the ecclesiastical committee meant to deal with Mr Crawley. He was hand-in-glove with Mrs Proudie then---so it is not exactly surprising (in Trollope's world) to find him up to his ears in Conservative politics.

(On a lighter note, we see that the expression "trash talking" was more or less in existence in 1880, though not quite with the modern meaning.)

Damn.

I wish *I* could write a letter like Anthony Trollope...

Chapter 15

P: The Duke, when

...deceived him! That secret should not have been in her keeping for a moment before she brought it to him! He wrote...

P: Mrs Finn when

...let the matter rest. The more she thought about it the more certain she was that he was treating her badly. Mr Finn was still away in the North of England, and she hardly went into society at all. She remained at home during these days, quite alone, thinking of all this. The matter was so present to her mind, with all its different hues and shades, that she had come to know exactly what words she would use to him if she should succeed in getting him inti her presence. The accusation was...

P: "My Dear Duke

    ...come home to me. From all this you will know how important to me is a matter which no doubt is trivial to you; and you will understand why it is that I find it so necessary to defend myself and to demand from you a reversal of the verdict you have given against me.
    "Now I will..."

P: "Now I will..."

"...by Mr Tregear. That I think is generally the desire of a girl in such a position. She tells her own secret to her mother and expects that the man who has won her heart should ask her father's leave to take her hand. It was not..."

P: He did read

...admitted the argument. The letter was a good letter, though the cause which it supported might be bad. He understood...

P: He did read

"...I have received!" Words such as these he found interwritten between the lines. And then she...

P: He did read

...that he should do,---unless he begged her pardon and confessed that he had done wrong,---she would revoke...

P: He did read

    ...was worth having. Had it not been so she could not have written that letter.
    There were various other matters which disturbed his mind and for a time warded off from him the necessity of going into the very argument itself. Not a word...

P: "It was not..."

...that he was altogether unfit? Heavens and earth, to what was the world coming! Unfit!...

P: "It was not..."

...of his own to offer in exchange for all this. Fit indeed! Within his own heart he almost thought Mrs Finn should have been so shocked by the proposition as to have sunk beneath the weight of it. And now she seemed to say that there might be a question on the subject!

P: But it was

...as of theirs. And the services rendered had been from her to him and his, and not from him and his to her. It grieved him...

P: {Insertion after ...she had betrayed him.}

But had she leagued herself against him with that man? He did find himself compelled at last to ask himself that question. There might still...

P: {Insertion after ...not a moment!"}

    Then he turned over that plea of hers as to the conventional position of a lover. The girl tells her mother, and then the lover applies to the father. He did not know much about such things, but he thought that he had heard that such was generally the fashion of their management. No doubt had this young man sought a bride for himself among his equals, all that would have been fit and proper,---though any prudent father, even of those who were his equals, would have rejected him. But was it possible that Mrs Finn should have thought that this case should have been governed after that fashion? By parity of reasoning,---though no doubt with greater absurdity,---it might be argued that a beggar aspiring to the daughter of royalty should simply make known his wishes to the royal father. It was not for her, she had said, to raise a question of fitness! Her great fault had consisted in this,---that she had not seen that no such question was possible. "There should not have been a moment;---not a moment!"
    In this way...

P: In this way

...on law reform. Two or three ex-Lord Chancellors there present were very sure, each that the others were wrong, but all were unified in thinking that the Lord Chancellor who was not ex and who was not present was the most in error of them all. The Duke endeavoured...

P: In this way

...he had been right,---as of course he had done and would continue to do, for should she not have told it to him without the delay of a moment?,--- then would...

P: In this way

...in many things? Then as he sat there listening to a very strong argument in which Lord Weazeling was destroying Lord Ramsden and all the other law-lords, his mind reverted...

P: In this way

...in his custody. He had always wished that she would take them, but still had admired her for refusing them. Now they were...

P: What if he

...as he had done. She no doubt would feel and would exclaim that there should not have been a minute lost. And then he...

P: "And I would...

...soak into you gradually. Even this is a study which many members have not diligence enough to pursue, thereby neglecting, as I think, their very first duty. And then you...

P: "And I would...

    ...good of his country when he has sufficiently educated himself to have an opinion respecting them.
    "Gradually, if you...

This chapter contains two of the most extraordinary of Trollope's many extraordinary letters, and thankfully neither one was much touched.

At the same time, again Trollope's minute dissection of the working of Plantagenet's mind in this crisis was slashed and burned.

It could be said that he was removing repetition, but the result of the restorations is to show Plantagenet's mind going around and around the same point like a mouse in a maze with no exit. He is genuine in all this, but also completely overreacting---as we see from his evident opinion that all reasonable fathers would reject Frank Tregear.

The very exaggeration in his response suggests that his better nature - to which Marie is appealing - is trying to make itself heard through his aristocratic indignation.

What's fascinating here is the way both Marie and Plantagenet dance around a critical underlying point: who is Marie (socially speaking) that she has the right to judge anyone, including Frank? She doesn't phrase it like that to herself, but her sore consciousness of her own lack of inherent standing must be playing its part here. Plantagenet is willing enough in this crisis to condemn her on those grounds---but never sees that they offer one explanation of her conduct. He only sees her behaviour from his own point of view.

By the way--- We can see in Marie's reaction here the explanation of John Grey's withdrawal of Alice from the Palliser enclave. I don't think it really excuses him, though: Alice is related to Glencora and her social standing is much more secure than Marie's, so it was hardly a parallel situation.

Reading this again...I can't help wondering what Planty would make of commoners marrying into the royal family?

It probably would never occur to him that otherwise, the royals couldn't get ANYONE to marry them! :D

>49 lyzard: I feel like Lady Mabel comes across more sympathetically in this version (from reading chapter 10). The little details removed give an extra emphasis to her intent to be the best wife to Silverbridge even if she doesn't love him like she love's Frank.

Still behind but going to try to catch up this weekend.

I don't have many specific examples to point out at the moment, but I've been thinking a lot about what Trollope chose to leave in the book. I wonder if it sort of heightens the importance of certain characters or themes. Was he able to cut the parts he did because they meant slightly less to him than the parts he didn't cut? And should that influence how we read the book?

I did notice he left an extended passage at the beginning of the chapter called "In Medias Res" where he inserts his authorial voice. I always love these moments, but I thought it was interesting that he left it in. But then takes out a reference to that passage at the end of chapter 10 that tied in very nicely.

I do find it upsetting that at this late point in his career, Trollope was made to do so much cutting. You'd think the publishers would have trusted him by this point . . .

>69 souloftherose:

Mabel is an upsetting character in both versions, but here I think we see better that she is a victim of circumstances, not merely her own poor choices.

I've complained in the context of certain others novels about Trollope's habit of conjuring up an appropriate husband for his badly-placed women - I think it's the one really dishonest thing in his writing, for all that I get exasperated with his refusal to recognise anything besides marriage for his women - but he almost makes up for that with Mabel, where we see how the prevailing 19th century view of what constituted a "nice girl" could become an impossible paradox.

I've commented before about Trollope's ability to offer sympathetic portraits of unsympathetic or dishonest characters (like Major Tifto here), but this something unique: an in-depth portrait of a girl doing exactly what, in novel after novel, he tells us solemnly is a "grave sin". All girls are supposed to marry, but they're not supposed to marry without love; so what happens if a girl can't have the man she wants? Trollope finally admits here that his theories may simply be impossible in practice. The novel's references to Mabel as "old" and "tarnished", bumped and scratched like an item left out for sale too long (reminding us of the origin of the expression "on the shelf") is a uniquely ugly reality.

Mabel's effort to convince herself that she would "learn" to love Silverbridge is, likewise, that period's excuse for forcing girls into marriage turned on its head: it was a line used to cut the ground from under reluctant brides, but here Mabel's self-lectures have a painful air of desperation about them that show up the speciousness of the argument.

Whatever we make of Silverbridge's behaviour towards Mabel, we can't fault the instinct that tells him there is something missing between them. But does that justify the outcome of the situation? Whether Mabel would have been able to carry out her good resolutions, or whether Frank would always have haunted them (as Burgo always haunted Plantagenet and Glencora...and without ever going away in reality, as Burgo did) we can't know, of course; but whatever the emotional shortcomings of such a marriage, it's hard not to feel that Silverbridge's "rescue" comes at too high a price, in the face of Mabel's desolation.

>70 japaul22:

It was details he pruned away rather than plots, so it's hard to put your finger on any specific example of something "missing".

The result isn't truncated, as such, but there's a constant feeling of something lacking---namely, Trollope's close analysis of his characters' emotional and psychological states, and the constant misunderstanding and cross-purposes that arise even between people living in close contact and who care deeply for one another's welfare and happiness.

The removal of the political allusions all the way through is exasperating in the context of this politically-oriented series, and also because the revival of Plantagenet's political aspirations is an important aspect of this new phase of his life. Him finally accepting where his public duty lies is another vital aspect of his journey, and that is undermined in the cut version---politics being handed to him as a sop at the end, rather than calling him back into public service. The sense of the bigger world outside the family is lost.

>67 lyzard: 'It could be said that he was removing repetition, but the result of the restorations is to show Plantagenet's mind going around and around the same point like a mouse in a maze with no exit.'

Agreed. So far I fee that about most of the removed sections weren't adding anything crucial to the plot but they were adding depth and detail the way I'm used to with Trollope's novels and without them you're left with a story you can follow but not the character analysis I expect and enjoy from Trollope. So sad they made him remove it all.

>70 japaul22: 'I've been thinking a lot about what Trollope chose to leave in the book. I wonder if it sort of heightens the importance of certain characters or themes.'

Ooh, that's a good question and what I hadn't thought about til now. Will bear it in mind as I'm reading.

ETA: crossposted - agree with what you said in >71 lyzard: and >72 lyzard:

In the Folio Edition Commentary, co-editor Robert F. Wiseman discusses the cuts and their impact on the novel, and puts his finger dead on the problem. After giving various examples of how the removal of seemingly unnecessary or random bits and pieces lessens the text, he comments:

"But if, even while drastically amputating his text, Trollope often managed to treat his dialogue with the respect it deserved, he was much less considerate of his narration. The effect of the large cuts is fairly self-evident: the restored material on British politics enlarges the fictional space beyond the narrow focus on love and family relationships; the recapitulations and other passages not strictly required to advance the narrative contribute to the characteristically leisurely Trollopian pace, conveying the sense of a steady, unhurried forward movement. Let us now turn our attention to what I believe is the even greater damage inflicted on the novel's texture by the shorter deletions of words, phrases and sentences. As an example of what Trollope could achieve---and, subsequently, sacrifice---in very few words..." (He quotes the deletion noted in >42 lyzard:, when it does not occur to Plantagenet to dine with Mary) "...It would not be easy to find more striking evidence of Trollope's powers of characterisation than these two laconic sentences, cut because they have no narrative content---but is it possible to imagine a more incisive and revelatory comment on this character, or one that would more powerfully convey an impression of his solidity and reality? Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium, is revealed to us in the full light of the restored novel as perhaps the author's most extraordinary creation."

Wiseman goes on to give other examples of how the trimming undermined various characters, Silverbridge in particular, where the cuts tend to leave us seeing what he does, but not why he does it: his thoughts and motivations were pruned away, so that it seems even at the end that he is acting on impulse rather than reflection; which significantly lessens the intended sense of his maturation over the course of the story.

Chapter 16

P: The new member

    ...the right and left by two staunch old Tories Sir Timothy Beeswax and Sir Orlando Drought,---the two men against whom his father would have been most prone to warn him, had any such warning in existing circumstances been possible. The Duke was too noble to say a word against men to whom his son must now be an ally, but who, as he thought, had been treacherously false to him; and they were too ignoble to be aware that they should have abstained from the triumph which they displayed in thus attaching themselves openly to the apostate child of the Pallisers. It did not much matter, as nothing of it could be known to the Duke. It was, after all, only the way in which the atoms of a crowd had formed themselves. But still there were those who saw it and knew that it was not accidental.
    Mr Monk had...

P: "I am sure..."

...to the table between two staunch Tories the baronet and the law-knight who had been members of the Duke's government, but had been the Duke's most bitter opponents.

P: "A persistent member..."

...the patriotic old lady, whose sentiments as to the duties of a legislator were almost as high as those conveyed in the letter which our young member at this moment had in his pocket.

P: "I do so..."

...back to the parliamentary duties. "I shall watch to see,---you may be sure of that."

P: "That makes no..."

"...a very fine fellow, though he is so hard and severe."

P: "Well;---I suppose..."

...the same as others. I don't suppose I shall ever go in for hard work."

P: {Insertion after ...than a man does."}

    "Are you steady?"
    "Yes;---when things really affect me."
    "I always think..."

P: But how would

...become her husband? In sober earnest and with anxious thought she turned all this in her mind. Did she not...

P: But could she

...must be exceptions. Should she succeed in bringing him to her feet she would certainly love him. She would do...

P: But could she

...he lacked anything. It would, she acknowledged, be better for him that he should remain unmarried for a while; but as he was destined to be caught at once she thought that for his sake as well as for her own it would be best that he should be caught by her. Poor boy!

Well! - that chapter is an excellent example of all the things we've just been discussing.

We see how Mabel is done a disservice by the cuts: her painful conscious of all aspects of what she's doing, and how seriously she views the step she plans to take. This is no mere selfish grab on her part. She is fully aware that she will be robbing Silverbridge of something precious that he is entitled to, and all her good resolutions can't disguise the fact. She makes up her mind to marry him---and that makes him "Poor boy!"

We also see (something the editors stress) how Trollope treats even minor and potentially comic characters such as Miss Cassewary with respect. He finds nothing funny or incongruous about a middle-aged poor relation having political ideals as high as Plantagenet's.

And in addition, we have the removal of the analysis of Sir Timothy and Sir Orlando's nasty motives---to the point where we are not even told who the "staunch old Tories" are who accompany Silverbridge. The behaviour of Sir Timothy is an important part of Silverbridge's own increasing political consciousness, and again he suffers as a character from the deletion of this subplot.

Chapter 17

P: {Insertion after ...his share of the loss?}

In giving Major Tifto his due, we must acknowledge...

P: In giving Major Tifto

...stand any man's airs;---nor would he have said even in the presence of Dolly Longstaffe that the young Lord's comb would want cutting before long. But these extravagances...

P: "But that it..."

"...ill-conditioned little reptile, and the sooner you can get quit of him the better for you."

P: Another guest had

...for the Derby. What chance was there that Silverbridge should ever again possess a favourite for the great race of the year? That he should see the race seemed to him to be a thing so natural that he almost felt that his going would be a thing of course to the college authorities. But, unfortunately...

P: Lord Gerald, when

...the college gates were shut. The day would be no doubt stolen from the University as far as any purposes of hall, chapel or lecture-room were concerned;---but if a man even has a headache he cannot go to hall, chapel, or lecture-room. In fact it was considered that if he only slept each night within his college no great harm would come, although he would have done exactly what it was intended he should not do in going to the Derby.

P: This gave rise

...over four thousand on an event which at the present moment he considered to be almost impossible. The champagne...

P: This gave rise

...even money on his horse. He had told his father that he didn't bet much. He had assured her whom he regarded as the dearest of his friends, Lady Mab, that he did not and would not "plunge." Not a week since, he had informed Mr Moreton in his good-humoured way that that gentleman need not be a bit afraid of his losing money on the turf. Now, in the midst...

P: This gave rise

...risk a little money. In this way he consoled himself,---though as he got into bed he knew that he had been doing that of which he ought to be ashamed.

P: "Ah,---if I..."

"...could be like you. We can't all be statesmen when we are young."

P: But Tifto probably

...listen to him. I do not know that, if explained here, they would be interesting to the general reader. He had, however...

P: But of all

He did not arrive till nearly eight. The others were not there till half-past seven and it was very nearly eight before any of them sat down. At half-past eight Silverbridge began to be very anxious about his brother, and told him more than once that he ought to start...

P: But of all

...and at last he did absolutely get up and almost push the young fellow out.

P: But of all

...train had started, and he was impeded in the frantic effort he made to jump onto the guard's brake as the carriages were passing away.

P: "They wouldn't give..."

...at the races. He had taken a good deal of wine, but he was silenced. There was nothing to be done. It was impossible to waft the young lad down to Trinity during the night watches.

Having just discussed how Silverbridge is done an injustice by the cutting, this chapter is, on the contrary, almost entirely about his weakness and emotional immaturity. :)

Chapter 18

P: {Insertion after "...the bridge at King's."}

    "What an ass you must have been. What sort of a fellow is he?"
    "He used to be good-natured. At least they all say so. Now he has..."

P: "He used to..."

"...owning Prime Minister, and all that, he got savage..."

P: Yes! As Lord

...sent away from Cambridge! Had ever a father had more reason to be displeased with a son? And, through it all...

P: Yes! As Lord

...he felt all this. His father, who seemed to expect that he should all at once become a first-class member of Parliament,---which he knew to be impossible,---seemed to him to give him no credit whatever for the good qualities which he did possess.

P: He could not

    ...the Duke very calmly.
    "I suppose I know all about it."
    "What is it?"
    "Gerald ran up..."

P: "He has profited..."

"...your example at Oxford?" This he put as a question, but his son did not feel himself bound to answer it. Then another question was asked , the answering of which could not be avoided. "Did you..."

P: "I thought there..."

"...in all my life. I didn't think very much about it. Of course Gerald wanted to be there, and I was anxious to please him. Now, as it has all gone in this way, I feel..."

P: "That is absurd..."

...his severity wounded, but no father could be less willing to add to any sorrow that his son might feel. "It is a..."

P: {Insertion after "...Sir Timothy Beeswax."

The stroke would have been a good stroke if Silverbridge had contented himself with quoting Lord Cantrip, who, as the reader knows, was a man very much respected by the Duke. But the second venture was not so good. There was perhaps no man in England at the present moment whom the Duke both disliked and despised more thoroughly than he did Sir Timothy Beeswax. "If the presence..."

P: {Insertion after ...asked Popplecourt.

    Not going!" said Tifto.
    "Not today, Major."
    "That's rather sudden..."

P: The poor Duke

    ...as to Gerald. He was disappointed at finding that his elder son gave his mind to all mean things rather than to the House of Commons and to public matters. It was not that he had expected much immediate work from the young member, but that he had thought,---at any rate had hoped,---that the possession of the privileges of Parliament would have had an immediate if not a permanent effect on the young man's mind. As far as he could see, getting into Parliament had been no more to his heir than getting into some Beargarden Club might have been.
    But though these...

P: But though these

...explained to her,---with perfect justice and truth,---and she had told...

P: But though these

    "...in similar circumstances. I could not have made myself the informer, but I should have taken care that the gentleman should tell his own tale without delay. That, I take it, is the usual and the proper course."
    This was altogether terrible to the Duke. In the first place it conveyed to him the opinion of this lady, whom he had been willing to trust in the matter, that Tregear was to be regarded as a suitor who had been entitled at any rate to make his suit. He himself had felt that the young man should have been regarded as having travelled as it were out of his own hemisphere in what he had done;---as an Ixion who had tried to fly into the heavens, as a Phaethon who had thought that he could drive the horses of the sun, as a Marsyas who had piped in emulation of the god,---and that the punishment of an Ixion, a Phaethon, or a Marsyas should befall the arrogant intruder. He was especially desirous that his daughter should be imbued with this idea;---but how could that be if Lady Cantrip, who had the charge of his daughter, would not allow herself to be so imbued?
    And then how was he to answer that letter of Mrs Finn's? If Lady Cantrip...

Mostly what was removed here was more fine detail showing how Plantagenet and Silverbridge misunderstand one another---and how Plantagenet's manner serves to distance his children, even though that he is that last thing he intends or desires.

(Though not a cut, I'm always struck by Gerald's, "I wasn't going to be made a child of." Yeah, we're all real impressed by your maturity, kiddo.)

At the end of the chapter the subject swings back to Marie's position. This fine dissection of Lady Cantrip's mindset is important as putting the matter into a proper perspective, as both other participants are (if not overreacting) acutely sensitive at all points.

The main loss here I think is Lady Cantrip's use of the word "informer". Exactly. Plantagenet cannot seriously imagine that Marie would have - or should have - betrayed Mary's confidence, let alone unhesitatingly - "Not a moment!" In any other set of circumstances, or if any other people were involved, he would not only be the last man to expect such an act, he'd be the first to condemn it. This serves to show how warped his perspective has become.

Chapter 19

P: Between two and

...at his club. He had not enjoyed his breakfast, and was hungry. The place was...

P: Between two and

...would be longer than he had ever known them to be elsewhere. An irresistible desire of sauntering out, at least as far as the smoking-room, would come upon him. There were men the very sound of whose voices had already become odious to him. Already there had come upon him a feeling in regard to certain habitual orators, that once they had begun to speak there was no reason why they should ever stop. Words of some sort were always forthcoming like spiders' webs, and as for matter it could be spread out so thin that the smallest fragment of an idea might be made to last for an hour. He did not think...

P: But before he

...a better life,---a life which might be better for his father's sake rather than his own,---he had considered...

P: But before he

...inclined to believe. His father, he knew well, had no great respect for Lord Grex, who was a gambler and a roué, and had never attended much to his parliamentary duties in the House of Lords. But there was...

P: He was aware

...more powerful also. She might perhaps require of him more than he was willing to give. And he was...

P: He was aware

...an inferior creature. He could not bring the phrases to his mind by which he could explain all this to himself,---but he did not like to think that she should patronise him and be kind to him, and perhaps at last become his wife, partly because he was the eldest son of a duke and partly because she liked him as a boy. He was already...

P: "Of course my..."

"...not like it. In fact he looks upon it as qite out of the question. I suppose Mary will not give it up."

P: "Certainly I like..."

    "...two real friends in the world,---two that I care for."
    "Who are they?" she asked, sinking her voice very low,---feeling herself to be almost sure what his answer would be, but yet anxious to hear it.

P: {Insertion after "...I am fickle."}

    "...I am fickle."
    "I think you would be."
    "Then you don't know me. If I were..."

P: "That isn't a..."

"Frank and I are almost beggars, and therefore, though we may be dear cousins,---the same as brother and sister almost,---we never could have been anything else."

P: "I don't agree..."

"...you at all. I think it is a very blessed thing. I am sure it is a..."

P: "I should so..."

"...know her. Good-bye." Then, as he was shaking hands with her, he stood for a moment as though he would yet say another word. But he went at last without saying it.

P: As he hurried

...for anyone but her. But her coolness and self-command and badinage cowed him.

P: In truth he

...that it was so. She knew so much more of the world than he did,---was so much more confident than himself,---in fact so much older! But yet...

P: In truth he

...he had ever seen! If he could seize her in his arms and kiss her, what an Elysium of happiness would it not be for him! And perhaps it might be fortunate for him that he should have a wife in some deree superior to him. He sat on...

This is one of the chapters where the cuts do do Silverbridge an injustice. We see here that he's smarter and more aware than we could judge from his usual behaviour or speech. We see that he has been attending the House, and listening to the speeches, with sufficient regularity to become prejudiced against certain speakers. More significantly, we see that he is fully aware of what is wrong and lacking between himself and Mabel.

Conversely, we see how Mabel subtly undermines herself at every turn, even while she is, overtly, fully determined to marry Silverbridge.

All of which leads up to that ironic little exchange about Silverbridge's fickleness, or lack thereof. Mabel is trying to lure him into committing himself, but all she does is provoke him to speak more truly than either of them realises at the time.

The other interesting touch here is that extra detail about Plantagenet's dislike of Lord Grex. Side by side, who is the better man, Lord Grex or Frank? - yet the former's many, many shortcomings are overlooked because of his "blood".

Chapter 20

P: Lady Mabel, when

...constrained to assent. Lord Percival put it in this way. I owe A. B. a thousand pounds. A. B. owes the same sum. to C. D. C. D. owes it again to the Earl. The Earl owes that, and ever so much more, to me. To the extent of the thousand pounds, let us cry quits. There was some rounding off needed, but such was the nature of the suggestion generally. It was very...

P: Lady Mabel, when

...for her welfare, and then he would say very nasty words about Miss Cassewary. "I don't see..."

P: They dined out

...she was a burden too heavy to be borne! And yet something very like that had occurred.

P: {Insertion after ...a good public servant."}

    "...good public servant."
    "Is that all?"
    "What more am I to say? He certainly is not a friendly man. He never could keep a Cabinet together. He is as cold as ice, you know;---and then he thinks so much of his own dignity."
    "All our lot..."

P: "Indeed he is..."

"...and a cousin. I did not think he ever betted."

P: "But that is..."

"...way of living at all. I can understand..."

P: "But don't you...

...Mr Adolphus Longstaffe, who was a gentleman quite able to appreciate such signs of disfavour. "Now tell..."

P: When all this

...as to her friend,---that he should have been betting and losing money. She knew that...

P: When all this

...fools of themselves. She would not have said that they were born to do so,---but she almost felt it. It had seemed...

P: When all this

...made to think that he had a the most loving wife in England. But were Frank...

P: When all this

...in the assertion;---that when Silverbridge had suggested to his poorer friend that he could "put a very good thing in his way," the poorer friend had absolutely refused to have anything to do with good things of that sort. Somebody had said at the club that Tregear had been carried away by the energy of the owner of the unfortunate horse, and hence had come Dolly Longstaffe's report. But at the present moment Lady Mabel did believe it, and it added much to her unhappiness.

P: After the dinner

...but Miss Cassewary, in spite of the trouble she had thus taken, was quite satisfied...

P: After the dinner

...gone to her bedroom and had begun to strip herself of her finery when Lady Mabel...

P: "He says that..."

"...back from the club. No doubt he wins sometimes, and then he says nothing about it."

P: "Psha! You know..."

"I haven't; things have gone against me. But I never..."

P: "If he was..."

...the main point,---than which nothing could be more important,---"if he was..."

Mostly extra details delineating the difficulties of Mabel---and Miss Cassewary, too: Trollope is always careful to treat her with care.

The ironies pile up, after the previous exchange about Silverbridge's 'fickleness': Miss Cass's "If he is in earnest.." and Mabel's theoretical "girl with dimples". She doesn't find it so easy to do the right thing when the dimples do show up...

Chapter 21

P: {Insertion at the beginning of the chapter}

At the time with which we are at present concerned the country was not, I think, very proud of its Ministry. Lord Drummond, the Prime Minister, sat in the House of Lords,---a man who in inferior offices had been much respected, but was now known to be a fainéant Premier, placed in that position because the man who had succeeded in making himself the most powerful politician of the day had not as yet quite succeeded so far as to grasp the name and dignity of the first place.

P: There had been

...hardly do amiss. To rest and be thankful is easy, so that a man's disposition be that way inclined. But whoever did a great work,---or even a little one,---without finding that there were blunders for him to fall into on the right side and on the left? The Roman Catholics are apt to point with pride to their own unanimity, and with scorn to the dissevered sects of Protestantism. But the Roman Catholic who has to think of nothing in his religion may well be of the same mind with others who have no need of thinking. Whereas the Protestant has no such rampart of security. He must think. And men who think will differ. The wonder is...

P: It cannot be

...something different. When by means of the law he had brought himself sufficiently forward for his purpose, he would take to politics as apart from law, and would bid high for the highest place in politics. This plan he had all but gained,—and it must be acknowledged that he had been moved by a grand and manly ambition. When there is no such ambition in the heart of any citizen, the State must be at a low ebb indeed! But there were...

P: It cannot be

...was an inconvenience. That there must be a certain amount of legislation was of course a necessity; but, to his thinking, the less the better. He was not at all in accord with those who declare that a Parliament is a collection of windbags which puff, and blow, and crack only to the annoyance of honest men. He fully believed in Parliaments, and talked quite as frequently as anybody in the British House of Commons of the glory of the four walls which contained him and his fellow members. But to him...

P: Then there is

...and so he falls and---becomes almost nobody.

P: All these dangers

...how they were performed. For the executive or legislative business of the country he cared little.;---but these tricks should have nothing to do with either the executive or legislative business of the country. The one should be left in the hands of men who liked work;---of the other there should be little, or, if possible, none. But Parliament must be managed,---and his party. It was in this that the conjuring was so necessary. Of patriotism he did not...

P: There can be

...knew nothing of finance, which should now have been his own peculiar business, though he had...

P: There can be

    ...into a good faction fight. And so he had been successful.
    His parliamentary career had been versatile. For, though it might be true, that he had once boasted, that he had never changed his political principles, he had more than once changed his political friends. Not having had political principles, he could not but be consistent. He had been Solicitor-General to a Conservative minister, and had thence, with many other Conservatives, joined the coalition which had been made under the auspices of the Duke of Omnium. When that was broken up he remained for a while with the Liberals. But the Liberal government which was then formed by Mr Monk had in it from the first so much of weakness that Sir Timothy did not see his way to remain. It would weary the reader were he to be called on here to read the remarkably clever explanation which he then gave for his conduct. It was, however, so clever that it enabled him without a blush to commence his attack upon his late colleagues from the very day on which he left them, and this he had done in a manner that had greatly assisted in producing their defeat. Now he was reaping his reward,---not so great a reward as he hoped might come in time, for he looked forward to the glory of making a duke or two out of his own bosom, and this could be done only when he should have succeeded in getting rid of the Lord who was the Prime Minister of England,---but still a great reward. He had so mastered...

P: {Insertion after ...leader of the country party.}

    In some of the counties the reaction had been as palpable as in the large towns. In West Barset, where, as the reader may perhaps remember, the Duke of Omnium had been anxious that his son should stand in the Liberal interest, a Liberal had been returned for the first time since the First Reform Bill. The fight had been very severe, and the Conservative party had declared that the Duke's money had flown like water. In fact the Duke had spent nothing. Mr Moreton, the Duke's agent, was a hot politician and had doubtless done all that he could; but he had scrupulously abstained from mentioning the Duke's name. At Silverbridge, as we know, a Conservative had been returned without a contest, and as this Conservative had been the Duke's son a great deal was made of it;---but that could go but a very little way towards consoling Sir Timothy and his friends for the great blow which they had received.
    Then it was alleged that there was some little disagreement in the Cabinet. Lord Drummond had been heard to express himself strongly, and his very words had been repeated. "I certainly shall not attempt to carry on her Majesty's government without a good working majority,"---and it had been added that peculiar emphasis was given to the word "I,"---that emphasis which men are apt to use when they attempt to give strength to weakness by the tone of the voice. But the dictum of Sir Timothy in answer to this had also been repeated. "Drummond doesn't know what he's talking about. He seldom does." It was not at all probable that Sir Timothy had in truth committed himself by language so foolish as this. "The men who as ministers have the strongest party at their back must carry on the government. As far as I can see that is our position. If we are beaten on some particular point it may be necessary that we should go out. But everybody would know that we must come back again." That was said to be Sir Timothy's view of the present state of affairs; but we all know how easy it is to put words into the mouths of great men.

Phew!

Again we see how the poltical content of the novel was slashed and burned---and in particular that content which links The Duke's Children to the other books in the Palliser series, which is very strange. This surely must have been forced upon Trollope by his publishers; I can't imagine him doing it voluntarily.

BTW, if there really was "a very severe contest" in West Barset, I think it's for the best that Silverbridge was *not* standing in the Liberal interest!

>81 lyzard:

"Frank and I are almost beggars, and therefore, though we may be dear cousins,---the same as brother and sister almost,---we never could have been anything else."

I found this omission quite surprising - with it left in the text it makes much more explicit what Mabel is saying about her and Frank and explains Silverbridge's response a few sentences later:

"You tell me to my face that you and Treagear would have been lovers, only that you are both poor."

A much clearer instance of the fact that in spite of her declared intention of marrying Silverbridge, Mabel deliberately undermines herself with him at every opportunity.

This is also important in terms of Silverbridge's own behaviour in this matter, which is in various ways both stupid and selfish---but understandable.

Chapter 22

P: There had been

...for two or three years without difficulty, and without inconvenience to anyone,---except, perhaps, to the poor ministers themselves. The Duke of Omnium...

P: But they who

...his late colleagues, and wrapping himself up either in silence or in solitude. And since that, great troubles had come to him which, as these men understood, had aggravated the soreness of his heart. His wife had died. All the world knew that, and seemed to know also how hard to bear the loss had been. And he had...

P: But they who

...about Lady Mary and her lover,--- something which should have been kept secret as the grave. It is the misfortune of greatness that even its littleness should be made public. It had therefore come to pass that so much had been said of the Duke's sorrows past and present, political and private, that it was difficult even to address him.

P: There was one

...put into motion. It is not here necessary to explain with accuracy how the idea went from Phineas Finn to Mr Monk, and from Mr Monk to Lord Cantrip, and so on to the man himself. But the result was that the old Duke...

P: "There are, I..."

"...for your cooperation. There is not a leading man in it who if he were asked to construct a Liberal Cabinet would not put your name down among the three first. If this be so..."

P: "As to that..."

"...carrying you with me because I know well that in all your public life duty has been the mainspring of your actions. Though this...

P: The Duke,---our

...his own court! And then though he would accuse himself of pride, he would plead that in very truth the vice of which he was anxious was not pride. Was it his fault that he was so thin-skinned that all things hurt him, and that he shrank from being hurt? When some coarse man said to him that which ought not to have been said,---as coarse men had done from day to day during that wretched time in which he had been Prime Minister,---was it his fault...

P: The Duke,---our

...of haughtiness also. And yet, though he thus argued his own cause, he would not give himself a verdict of not guilty.

P: And the Duke

...trust in oneself. He knew that nothing could be more easy than his own manner when he was quite sure of himself;---but then it so often happened that he was not sure. He was a shy man...

P: And the Duke

...by nature unfitted? Was it consistent that he should be told in one and the same letter that he was proud and diffident, and he told also that it was his duty to devote himself to a work for the performance of which pride and diffidence were peculiar disqualifications?

P: And yet there

...to be knocked down! There are politicians, so-called statesmen, for whom such occupation seems to be proper,---and who like it too. A little office, a little power, a little rank, a little pay, a little niche in the ephemeral history of the year will reward many men adequately for being knocked down. There had been a time when he himself had not cared about such knocks. But that time had gone.

P: {Insertion after ...should give way.

Half an hour after receiving the Duke's letter He received the Duke's letter as he was sitting in his library in Carlton House Terrace; and then, when he had been turning it over in his mind for half an hour, he suddenly jumped up and sat himself down at his writing-desk.

P: He had pressed

...should be final. He still thought that Mrs Finn's conduct had been,---he would not say wrong, but the opposite of that which ought to have been esteemed right. There are in all such matters unwritten laws, and if she had obeyed those laws he could not justly demand more from her. The laws ought to have been different, but that was not her fault. What,---that anyone concerned with his interest should know that such a man as Francis Tregear was thinking of marrying his daughter, that any simply honest person, whether immediately concerned with his interest or not, should know this and not tell him at once! If a man's house...

P: That letter also

...of an adventurer! That the wealth of the aristocracy should be recruited from time to time by the wealth of trade was well enough,---nay, was in the utmost degree desirable, as without such provision the grandeur of the aristocracy could hardly be preserved; but they among them who were alive to their duty would take care that nothing should be robbed from them by those who were without.

P: Such were the

...to their consequences,---and had acknowledged that those consequences were desirable. As by the...

P: He would not

...to Mrs Finn. And it must be done at once. He had already put it off for some days, simply from unwillingness to do a thing that was disagreeable. But he was not a man who could do this with any internal comfort. Each moment...

P: He would not

...he had punished her most severely with the whole weight of his severe displeasure. Feeling this, he could not protect himself by pleading to himself that he had neither done or said anything. She had written as though the matter was almost one of life and death to her. He could understand that too. His uncle's conduct to this woman, and his wife's, had created the intimacy which had existed. It had not come from any seeking on her part. Through their efforts she had become almost as one of the family. And now to be dismissed, like a servant who had misbehaved herself, must be grievous indeed to her! That she had been dismissed would become known to so many, who might only too probably have envied her her intimacy with a duchess! And then her...

P: It was very

...he had no such wish. Her presence could not be pleasant to him, because he had been proved to have done her a wrong! There had been...

P: It was very

...to him and his. Now, at this moment, those gems, certainly worth a prince's ransom and which certainly belonged to her, were lying at his bankers'. He must at any rate take steps to free himself from the feeling that he had her property in his hands.

Still more pruning away of Planty's thought processes, to the novel's detriment. Also some unfortunate cutting of the Duke of St Bungay's thoughts about him--these outsider perspectives really are necessary and valuable.

A nice double-standard we have here---

That the wealth of the aristocracy should be recruited from time to time by the wealth of trade was well enough...

---and some fabulous hair-splitting, too: the man's a politician, all right!

He still thought that Mrs Finn's conduct had been,---he would not say wrong, but the opposite of that which ought to have been esteemed right...

Chapter 23

P: In these days

...should find husbands. There still exists some half relic of the barbarous idea that a lover is improper. The father and mother are aware that the girl will not become a wife,---at any rate can hardly become a wife happily,---unless she be in love first. But the brother is apt to look upon the thing as being an impertinence on both sides. Tregear's want...

P: Tregear, however, was

...to the Duke. Since the death of his friend the Duchess there had been no moment so hopeful to him as that in which she had assured him that the affair should not be kept as a secret from the lady's father. She had been almost severe with him, but she had not made him understand that she thought the marriage to be impossible. He had during the interview been angry with her, thinking that she was interfering with him;---but after the interview was over, and from that time to the present, he had felt that continued to assure himself that she had...

P: "A little warm..."

"...such a matter. Upon the whole I thought that you bore it very well."

P: "Not at all!..."

...into her face. She did not intend to express her indignation to this young man, but the glow of it was then betraying, as she feared, her feelings. "I was her..."

P: "I shall never..."

...in silent expectation! Again came the colour, and again she was sure that he saw it. She could not...

P: "I shall never..."

"...ask your pardon!" That was all she had wanted,---that he should feel that her conduct to him had been at least honest, and that he should be honest enough to acknowledge his mistake in misjudging her. This he had now down completely. "I believe I did you a wrong, and I write to ask your pardon." It was so like...

P; "It would be..."

"...in guarding her." Of course as she said this she smiled, and this woman when she smiled was always charming.

P: When she said

...perhaps not invincible! If you have a book to publish and know that the chances against your success are a thousand to one, still there will be comfort if one dear one will tell you that the book ought to be successful! He had no one...

P: {Insertion after ...to Lady Mary.}

Among his friends, who were not very numerous, this young man was considered to be more than ordinarily self-confident and self-sufficient. And there was ground for this opinion as to his character, both in his manners and in his ways of life. But such manners and such ways of life come as frequently from outward effort as from inward disposition. He had taught himself to assert himself, thinking that men would rate him at his own value. And he was right. He who can assume dignity will be treated with respect whether he deserve it or not. But in spite of...

P: Among his friends

...for her money, and in so resolving had almost concluded that he had better not marry at all. But whilst he was coming to this conclusion he had encountered...

P: Among his friends

...as in all things,---in real truth, absolutely delighted with the imprudence,--- had assented...

P: It was in

...was to be done. A man, he thought, should always have before him something difficult to be achieved, and this should be his destined achievement. Then his friend...

P: It was in

...had repudiated him, and he could now see that such repudiation was a matter of course.

P: He went straight

"...keep us apart,---and no one can have the power to do so permanently.Pray be sure..."

P: He went straight

"...heavens to fall." This letter he addressed to her without any attempted secrecy, and entrusted to the post.

Frank's turn for some closer dissection, not always to his benefit; though we must not overlook in all this that Trollope does allow that Frank feels "downright love" for Mary.

We should also note that, like Silverbridge, Frank does some emotional growing up over the course of the novel---really beginning with, This letter he addressed to her without any attempted secrecy, which contrasts strongly with his earlier efforts to evade the Duke or gain partisans.

I wonder how Trollope felt cutting this?---

If you have a book to publish and know that the chances against your success are a thousand to one, still there will be comfort if one dear one will tell you that the book ought to be successful!

I'm up through chapter 19 and, again, loving the restored version and your commentary, Liz. I'm so relieved that Mabel and Silverbridge are more rounded out characters - I was really disappointed by them in the originally published version. Mabel, especially, comes across as a much more complex character with more complex motives to me this time. Though, to be fair some of that may be because I know how it ends for her so I can watch the development with that in mind.

Thanks, Jen.

Both Silverbridge and Mabel are very ill-served by the cuts, as their vacillating thoughts and feelings and the hair's-breadth way they "miss" each other is extremely important.

Re: Chapter 23, I meant to point this out but forgot, something which certainly should not have been cut---the aside about Glencora:

...imprudent in this as in all things,---in real truth, absolutely delighted with the imprudence,--- had assented...

Twenty-five years on from her own romantic disappointment, this is where we find her. Obviously Mary won't react / rebel in the same way, but it is very clear that these women have emotional staying-power...

Chapter 24

P: Lady Mary Palliser

...into Lady Mary's hands without any delay, and was read...

P: Lady Mary Palliser

...to Lady Cantrip, handing to her Tregear's letter. Of course Lady Cantrip read it. "What answer ought I to make?" the girl asked before the elder lady had time to speak.

P: "Certainly I do..."

"...give up Mr Tregear. I should despise myself if I should think it possible. And if he does not yield I shall think him very cruel."

P: "But he will..."

"...will do it. Mr Tregear is a gentleman and that ought to be enough."

P: "Ah; I don't..."

"...thought so once. But the more I see her the more I feel how determined she is."

P: Then he endeavoured

...always obedient to him on the few occasions in which he had exercised authority over her,---the most charming...

P: Then he endeavoured

...over any of them. That question from his friend made him very unhappy. "She must..."

P: There was something

"...let us give way. As far as my own opinion goes, I feel sure that we shall have to give way. And therefore..."

P: "What can you..."

"...you see her become thin, and ill, and miserable,---absolutely pining away..."

P: There was nothing

...to a debate in which it was intended to cover the ministers with heavy disgrace on some subject connected with the law reform of the day on which it was considered expedient to oppose Sir Timothy Beeswax, under whose direction some mistake had been made as to the legal proceedings. Parliament during the year last past had carried some provision which would not work, and now it was thought that the government must be beaten or own itself to have been wrong. As a government can never be brought to do the latter, a victory was anticipated; and the Duke, though his politics generally were almost as tiresome as his domestic affairs, was eager in the matter. When things have so come round that the vanquished may hope again to be the victors, the struggle always becomes interesting, let the subject matter be what it may. But now, though Lord Weazeling really was very funny as he recapitulated the legal absurdities and forensic deadlock which recent legislation had produced, the Duke could not...

P: He had been

...out into the world. Now, in a month or two, when the mourning for her mother should have been mitigated, of course some gaiety must be provided for her. In this...

P: An idea had

...of another lover. When he came to pick this idea to pieces, and to look at it in and out and all around, he did not altogether like it;---but it was an idea when had led to safety in a previous case. He knew enough of the history of his own wife to be aware of that. Before he had...

P: How was it

...and to ducal revenues. But it seemed odd to him that anybody should in such a matter be able to come to an absolute decision. Yet in his case...

P: But who should

...happy man? Then, though he thoroughly despised himself for what he was doing, he began to...

P: But who should

...of good character, and temper, and such as...

P: But who should

Tregear's character was good,---and temper also, very probably,---and certainly...

P: Who should be

...the happy man? Though some woman probably must take the management of the matter, though it would be left to him simply to signify his approval, still he might form an opinion on the matter. There were so...

More political cutting, sigh.

Here I think the added details add to the dark irony of Plantagenet considering for Mary exactly what was done to her mother, at a time when it has been borne upon him that Glencora never got over what was done to her.

There is black humour in the fact that while the awful, uncaring old Duke and Lady Midlothian could pull this off, Planty and Lady Cantrip are much too nice (though Planty is trying hard not to be).

Not that it will come to that: we see, as Lady Cantrip does, that Mary will never be driven as her mother was. In fact one of the deleted bits gives as an excellent example of Mary's tactics - the girl asked before the elder lady had time to speak - she draws a line in the sand quickly and forces her opponents to fight on her own ground.

That brief glimpse into Mary's childhood is so sad and touching: we know that Planty was never a "fun" companion for Glencora (to say the least!), and that he never unbent with the boys, but that he did, very occasionally, bring himself to play with Mary---because she was the youngest, because she was a girl: landmark occasions in his own thinking, but probably just passing anomalies in hers. Undoubtedly, though, this contributes to the sense of betrayal and loneliness that is exacerbating the fatherly reluctance / jealousy.

Chapter 25

P: Lord Silverbridge had

...paid all his Derby losses, and indeed most of those incurred also by Major Tifto, without any...

P: Lord Silverbridge had

...something of an unwrittenarrangement in words was made,---which, however, even in words was not very accurately arranged. Prime Minister was...

P: Lord Silverbridge had

...said the Major, to whose comfort it was essentially necessary that Lord Silverbridge should be of the opinion he had so expressed.

P: At this time

"I've made an ass of myself. I can see that already."

P: At this time

...got his tutor. A gentleman had been found, after much inquiry,---the Rev. Somerset Lennox, an Oxford man of course, who was to have a hundred pounds and all his expenses paid for four months' attendance.

P: It was not

...laugh at his wit, he knew very well that it would...

P: It was not

...the life which they lived as young men was distasteful to him...

P: It was not

...than any other matter, and was light and almost jocose when he spoke of the blunderings of Sir Timothy Beeswax.

P: "I do not..."

"...as Lucullus does. All that wealth and luxury can add to the pleasure of eating seems to me to be very little, whereas appetite when it is genuine can add so much! I have envied..."

P: "As when a..."

...headlong among his kidneys, while Silverbridge sat back in his chair prepared to listen with filial patience. "I say that..."

P: "Does anybody wish..."

    "...said Gerald pertinaciously.
    "No one," replied the father almost angrily. "I did not say that anyone wished it. It all began about that breakfast which your brother had ordered. Though you add luxury to luxury you will not really gratify your taste."
    "I did enjoy..."

Oh, Gerald and the kidneys!

This chapter - and the next, even more - should never have been touched: they are SO critical!

Chapter 26

P: {Insertion at beginning of chapter}

It was some three or four days after the breakfast scene described in the last chapter that a little communication on family political matters took place between the Duke and his eldest son in the galleries of the House of Commons. The Duke was...

P: It was some

...the Treasury bench. At the present moment, Sir Timothy Beeswax was advocating the second reading of a bill which had come down from the House of Lords and was intended to remedy certain defects in legal reform, to which allusion has already been made. Sir Timothy, being a distinguished lawyer as well as Leader of the House of Commons, of course had the matter in his own hands,---not altogether to the grief of the Attorney-General, who was well aware that a mess had been made of this matter in the previous session.

P: {Insertion after ...the previous session.}

In these days the Duke was...

P: The Duke paused

"...perhaps I wronged him,---or rather gave you a wrong impression of my feelings towards him. I have been..."

P: The Duke paused

...should be noted. It was quite true that Mr Finn had once done him a kindness, and true also that he had esteemed the man as a gentleman. But at the present moment...

P: Sir Timothy was

...against the latter. In a debate, even in the ordinary conversation of everyday society. And as the ordinary conversation of everyday society is the arena in which men are most generally seen, then the man of moderate parts...

P: Upon the whole

...sound political opinions. He seemed to know something of the nature of the fight which was always going on, and to take an interest in it.

P: Then Sir Timothy

"...against any odds." No one quite understood why the security of the Queen's realms, as against foreign aggression, was dragged into such a debate as this; but there came, as a result, great anger on the part of one side of the House against Sir Timothy, and on the other great anger against Phineas Finn.

P: Then the House

...dine at home, hinting with a muttered word or two that his dinner was not to him a matter of very much consequence. His dinner was of no consequence to him, but his evenings after dinner were at this period of his life very sad. In former days, when his wife was alive, he had been accustomed to spend many hours after dinner alone,---but then he had always had the power of seeking her, or her friends, though it were but for a moment. Now there was no one to whom he could betake himself. If you have a book with you on a journey it is very possible that you may not look at it;---but how terrible a thing it is to come on a journey unprovided with any book! So it was with him. In those former days many a long evening he had passed all alone in his library, satisfied with blue-books, newspapers, and speculations on political economy, and had never crossed the threshold of his wife's drawing-room; but now, when there was no longer a threshold that he could cross, he felt himself to be deserted. "You never were..."

P: "Certainly. I never..."

Silverbridge wasperhaps, a little afraid...

P: "Certainly. I never..."

...un-Beargardenish of men. But, nevertheless, he was a little proud of himself, and was especially anxious...

P: Then they went

...much about Tifto. There was nothing in the club which he feared to present to his father except Tifto. As he entered...

P: Then they went

...he had become silent and,reserved and stationary. Before the father...

P: "There has been..."

...it occurred to him that he would he owed it to his friend to go upstairs and...

P: In the meantime

...one small chamber, absurdly enough called the library...

P: But Silverbridge had

...offer to Lady Mabel, and was, he fancied, ready to do so completely. She certainly...

P: "Well;---yes; in..."

...offer his hand, his coronet, and his fortune,---nor probably did he so think. But when...

P: "Then I will..."

"...is not altogether a worthy man."

More political cutting, but wisely Trollope mostly left alone these crucial passages in which we see, step by step, how Silverbridge gets drawn into saying so much more about Mabel than he should have.

Even so, there is one short cut I think is very important in context:

He was quite aware that he had almost made an offer to Lady Mabel, and was, he fancied, ready to do so completely.

These constant, low-key indications that Silverbridge is fooling himself about Mabel balance out Mabel's own constant mixed messages to him.

The other thing I think we really lose here are those two oblique but terribly sad touches about Planty: first the way he speaks of Phineas---

"...perhaps I wronged him,---or rather gave you a wrong impression of my feelings towards him..."

---as if he is reluctant to claim Phineas as an ordinary friend, rather than merely a political one. This is then paired, in that sad passage, with this---

...then he had always had the power of seeking her, or her friends, though it were but for a moment.

The terrible loneliness of the man is set against this vital reaching out of father and son.

And of course, there's this:

If you have a book with you on a journey it is very possible that you may not look at it;---but how terrible a thing it is to come on a journey unprovided with any book!

:D

Chapter 27

P: "Your father, I...

...his soul to achieve. There would be fits and starts,---starts of impudence and fits of putting his tail between his legs. But a second glass...

P: Silverbridge was a

...defended his partner, and, whenever he met the man there, would always devote a few moments to him. Though he not...

P: "Quite so, my...

"...is looking well. This he said as though he were in a manner responsible for his friend's state of health as well as for his stables.

P: "Tifto, you are..."

...said Silverbridge, unable any longer to restrain himself.

P: "Very good indeed..."

...the Duke's joke. To have had a joke made for his express behoof by the Duke of Omnium,---a fact of which he could talk in all societies without lying for the next two years,---was more than consolation to him for his friend's ill nature. Nevertheless...

P: "Very good indeed..."

...snubbed for doing it! Squareness in such matters is a virtue for which Major Tifto thought that his partner should be willing to pay highly,---even to the amount of being gracious to him in his father's presence. Silverbridge had not regarded the matter in this light;---and it was possible that Silverbridge might be made to pay for his mistake! Such were the feelings with which Major Tifto left the room.

P: "If you associate..."

...with no slightest tone of anger in his voice;---so gently that Silverbridge hardly understood the force of the words. But gradually...

P: "I dare say..."

...said the Duke, almost chuckling.

P: "However we can..."

"...manage all that. She shall not want for a house. Carlton House..."

P: "However we can..."

"...when in London. She would find room there for her bonnets also. When it is..."

P: Lord Silverbridge sat

...to be his wife. He had told the Duke that he had quite made up his mind, and the thing must be done. He was glad that it was so because he was sure that he loved her. Nothing ever was so pretty, so nice, so sweet, as Mabel Grex,---or nobody ever so clever! And then he himself felt that he was a young man who ought to marry. The scene...

P: Lord Silverbridge sat

...observation as marriage. And he felt that without some such strongly operating cause very likely he might not really get rid of Tifto. He was conscious of his own weakness. If he were...

P: Lord Silverbridge sat

...matter of course;---but, under any other circumstances, there might be a difficulty. He would...

P: Lord Silverbridge sat

...to be his wife. It would be a great thing for him to be able to plead his father's good-will.

More damaging end-of-chapter cutting, in which we lose - certainly not Silverbridge's weakness! - but his consciousness of it.

Note that no matter how much Silverbridge declares his intention to marry Mabel, the strongest motivation given here is that he'll have an excuse to get rid of Major Tifto!

And the second strongest is his father's reaction. I think there's a devastating detail cut here---said the Duke, almost chuckling---Planty chuckling! We see how quickly the idea of Mabel has become deeply rooted---and that he takes Silverbridge's back-pedalling as mere modesty.

Along with the prevailing embarrassment of the scene between Major Tifto and Plantagenet, the seeds are better laid for Tifto's eventual lashing out at Silverbridge, by which he will hurt his partner as he intends, but destroy himself in the process.

I'm really enjoying this, and I'm keeping up! I read the abridged edition in audio and, lovely as Timothy West is, I wasn't enthralled. It was my bedtime book and I probably wasn't able to give it the concentration it needed then.

Thanks for checking in, Kerry. I'm glad this is working for you. :)

Chapter 28

P: He was well

...he had to ask her? No place would be better if only she would allow herself to be separated from others and taken apart among some of the walks, as may be so easily done on such occasions. But if she did not intend to accept him, if that half-jocose rejection of a half-jocose offer had been made with a serious purpose, then of course she would not allow herself to be separated and carried off. He was by...

P: He was well

...undue self-confidence,---or as he probably would become after living a year or two longer in London.

P: Entering through the

...receiving her guests, with all the vigour and courage of a British fashionable matron. "How very..."

P: "There you are..."

"...the way she said it. Of course you have to remember that she is a republican and an American,---and to remember also that she has ever so much about you. There they are..."

P: Mr Boncassen was

...the British Museum. Much had been said about his coming, and all in his praise. He was...

P: Mr Boncassen was

...to do with trade, both of which circumstances were in his favour. He was also a man of wealth and a man of letters, which two other circumstances added so much to his credit, that he was regarded quite as an American phoenix. And then he had...

P: Mr Boncassen was

...the present time. So much had been said about her beauty that Silverbridge had already heard it mentioned with enthusiasm.

P: Isabel Boncassen, who

Isabel Boncassen, who was standing close by her father's elbow when the introduction took place, was certainly...

P: Isabel Boncassen, who

...my simple assurance that imagination could conceive no greater perfection of feminine loveliness. But no such...

P: Isabel Boncassen, who

I must make thesome attempt, even though I may know that I shall fail. General opinion...

P: Isabel Boncassen, who

...would be wearisome and ineffective. Her hair was dark brown in hue and sufficiently plentiful; but it added but little to her charms, which depended altogether on other matters.

P: Isabel Boncassen, who

...no fixed colours can ever produce.

P: Isabel Boncassen, who

...not so spread? And who that has watched noses will deny that a nose may be most eloquent and expressive? It was...

P: "Long enough to..."

...without the slightest twang,---which delighted him.

P: "There will be..."

...before the Leger. And as Tifto would assuredly go to almost all that were run, he could only keep his resolve by staying away. the Leger...

P: "The lady endeavours..."

...were prepared,---or in other words one of those magnificent morning banquets which people never can eat because of their breakfasts, but which serve altogether to destroy their subsequent dinners. As he was...

P: "Lady Mabel Grex."

"...they are cousins. Now I've told you all about them."

P: "Supposing I was..."

"...in love with her,---which of course I am not;---he need hardly have said this,---"do you suppose..."

P: "Certainly. Father will..."

"...at the Langham. You know that great American caravansary. Thank you..."

P: Lord Silverbridge when

...do so at once, not only,---though of course chiefly,---for his own happiness, but also because the matter...

P: Lord Silverbridge when

...he said, not quite in a whisper, but yet so as to make her understand that the invitation was given specially to her.

P: "There isn't anywhere..."

"...any longer." He looked up at her as though he were really annoyed by her speech. "Doesn't it..."

P: "I quite admit..."

"...on one side for her? I am not going to stand it, Lord Silverbridge. Good-morning!"

P: Of course he

...of serious intention. Who has not been persecuted by a joke, which can defend itself if attacked by its jocosity, but which nevertheless has carried the gravest censure? He did feel...

P: {Insertion after ...nothing of the kind.}

    "...nothing of the kind."
    "I hope you two are not going to quarrel," said Miss Cassewary.
    "I should have..."

P: "Now we've been..."

"...gained much by it. I quite feel that I haven't made myself pleasant, and you have been as cross as ever you can be. These forced marches never do any good. I dare say I shall meet you somewhere tonight, and then I hope I shall be pleasanter and you better-humoured. Ta, ta." And so...

P: {Insertion after ...make his acquaintance."}

    "...make his acquaintance."
    "We are dining today with Sir Oliver Crumblewit, the president of the Phrenological Society. I suppose you don't go there."
    Well; no; I don't think I know Sir Oliver."
    "And to-morrow with General Vansinoff, the great Dutch traveller."
    "I don't think I know the General either."
    "I dare say not. We always go to learned places;---never anywhere else. On the next evening there is a grand meeting of vivisectors. You won't be there I dare say."
    "My Lord, you musn't believe all the nonsense that my girl talks," said the father.
    "Oh yes, I do," said Lord Silverbridge cheerfully, as he made his way through the crowd. "At any rate I shall be sure to come and call. Then Miss Boncassen smiled and nodded to him familiarly. At that moment he saw that Lady Mabel was just at his other elbow. She also smiled and nodded, but it seemed to him that there was more of sarcasm than of good humour in her smile.
    He got into...

P: He got into

...passed his morning. Of course he was still fully prepared to ask Lady Mabel to be his wife. He assured himself that he was not the man to be put off his intention by the absurd nonsense of a few minutes. But Mabel had...

P: Of course it

...ill-natured and unpleasant. Thinking of all this he found himself suddenly at The Horns.

Oh, Mabel, Mabel, Mabel...

Was there ever anyone with worse timing?

The trimming of the description of Isabel is interesting: there was certainly a note of burlesque in it to start with, probably to suggest the exaggerated manner in which she is being talked about in society; and in a way that cutting is bookended by the cutting of her teasing of Silverbridge---which, though, isn't all teasing, any more than Mabel's joking is a joke: it is indicative of Isabel's consciousness, even right at the outset, of the distance between herself and Silverbridge.

Again, we note what we lose in the cutting of seeming throwaway remarks---like the summation of the previous interaction between Silverbridge and Mabel:

...if she did not intend to accept him, if that half-jocose rejection of a half-jocose offer had been made with a serious purpose, then of course...

Chapter 29

P: Nevertheless she was

"I was very fond of her;---very fond of her, very fond of her," he had said...

P: "Just so. That..."

...anything in particular, and that he, though he admired her beauty and intellect, did not care very much about her. All this he thought it necessary to explain, but as he was not very good at explanation he blundered over it a little.

P: "Girls do make..."

"...to know her." Nevertheless, in spite of all this, Lady Mary thought it very probable that Lady Mabel Grex might become her sister-in-law.

P: On that same

...use to one another. He would take his sister to see her because he had promised. In other respects he would be as cold to her as possible till she had shown a willingness to come round. But he received the next day, at home, a much more kindly written note from her,---in which it appeared that she was willing to come round."

P: {Insertion after "M. G."}

"I saw your American beauty last night, and got myself introduced to her. I found her charming. I hope you were not angry because I chaffed you about her."

P: "Not like you."

"...she shall live herself. She has always got to do what some man tells her."

P: "Not so much..."

"...for his sake. But I get so sick of it that I am always running out. I shall never make a real politician. And he has been..."

P: I am beginning..."

"...I was quite wrong. If a fellow means to stick to politics it's all very well that he should have an opinion of his own; but I shall never do that. What did it..."

P: "Of course it..."

...could be no question. There should at any rate be no question within her own bosom. On that matter she could be as hard as a rock to anything that either father or brother might say to her. As they were...

P: "Of course it..."

...against opposition,---putting her back up as a cat does when a dog invades her territory. "I am sure..."

P: "Of course there..."

    "...to the strait gate. Is it not so, Lord Silverbridge?"
    "I don't quite know what you're talking about."
    "I am afraid..."

P: Then they went

...made her feel almost at home at once. And it seemed to her as though her brother was were quite at home.

P: Then they went

...the old woman, whose name Mary had never heard before, he called...

P: Then they went

...were engaged to each other. But if that were so, why should he not have told her?

P: {Insertion after ...she is a foreigner."}

    "...she is a foreigner."
    "Americans are not foreigners," suggested Silverbridge. Then there arose a question on that subject which was strongly debated, Miss Cassewary expressing an opinion that Americans are by no means as foreign as Frenchman and Italians, but, still, are to a certain extent foreign; and Lady Mary holding with her brother that nobody could be a foreigner who did not speak a foreign language. In the middle of this argument, over which the four persons pretended to excite themselves considerably, the door was...

P: Everybody there present

And each knew, or was nearly certain, that the other...

P: Everybody there present

...arrange the meeting,---nobody at least except Tregear, who was well aware that his coming at that moment was quite accidental. Mary might...

>94 japaul22: I'm feeling as you are, Jen...I'm thinking that maybe it seems a better book because I'm reading more critically this second time. On the other hand, all these little cuts do make a difference, as they reinforce the characters. It really IS a better book when "whole."

Liz, can't thank you ENOUGH for doing this...every bit that I look at makes me think and re-evaluate the text.

>103 lyzard: Love it! It's SO true...When I read this the other day, I couldn't figure out why I didn't remember such a great line...now I know why...seems like some of the best observations hit the cutting-room floor, as they say.

You're welcome, Kathy!

I think the cuts made it a much more superficial novel: while we are all reading more critically, there is a lot more to notice and absorb in this version.

Chapter 30

P: "No,---nor should..."

"...been there? It was because you were there to see!" Then again...

P: On that night

"...my arms around him. Of course I did. Is he not..."

P: Lady Cantrip began

...open to reproaches such as those which had fallen to the lot of poor Mrs Finn. She had refused to act the part of a duenna;---but, nevertheless, as this objectionable...

P: Lady Cantrip began

...said Lady Mary. "I should be sure to write something that he would not like. But pray..."

P: {Insertion after ...all about it."}

Then Lady Cantrip wrote her letter,---not without great difficulty. Till Lady Cantrip she seated herself at her writing-table and searched for words she did not know...

P: Then Lady Cantrip

...that embrace! How was it to be described? She knew that...

P: Then Lady Cantrip

"...on her part." Had she dared, she would have advised the Duke to give way at once. It was becoming quite evident to her that the young people would prevail.

P: It was impossible

...and of Lady Mabel. It seemed to him at first glance that everybody concerned must have behaved treacherously to him. "No doubt..."

P: "Yes;---to live..."

"...I stay here. What is there to give me any pleasure here? What good..."

P: "Yes;---to live..."

...so well pleased,---when he had appeared to be so happily intent on his son's marriage.

P: But Silverbridge, though

...his father himself omitted. When therefore he had escaped from the Duke's presence,---which he did in a half-apologetic manner, as though he was aware that he ought to stay a little longer,---he had his morning before him. He let himself down into the park by a small iron gate which opened into the Mall from the back of the house, and, strolling into the enclosure, began to roam about slowly under the trees. There were...

P: But Silverbridge, though

...after dinner, at which he had been somewhat liberal with his champagne,--- he had allowed himself to back the Prime Minister for the Leger to a very serious amount. He had both taken the odds against his horse in a good many thousands, and had also laid the odds against another horse to quite as great an extent. In fact...

P: But Silverbridge, though

...these bets under the direct influence of Major Tifto. It was the remembrance of this, after the promise made to his father, after the assurance given to himself by himself, that annoyed him the most. He was imbued with a feeling that it behoved him as a man who had commenced upon life, as one who was called upon by circumstances to fill a great part, to "pull himself together," as he would have said himself, and to live in accordance with certain rules of the wisdom of which he should himself be the judge. He could make...

P: But Silverbridge, though

...of the turf generally,---certainly from betting. This resolution was not yet a week old. It was only on the last Tuesday that the Major had intruded himself upon them when he was talking to his father at the Beargarden, and had so thoroughly disgusted him. It was on that evening that he had resolved that Tifto should no longer be his companion; and now he had to confess to himself that because he had drunk three or four glasses of champagne he had been induced by Tifto to make those wretched bets to wager a great deal more money than he could possibly have of his own to pay!

P: And he had

...for a few weeks. As he thought of this he almost felt that it was a pity he should be in a hurry. No doubt there were objections to marriage. It clipped a fellow's wings, and all that kind of thing. But then...

P: And he had

...in money matters,---independence so complete that he would never again be driven to write in half-apologetic strains to Mr Moreton!

P: Then his mind

...to other things. In turning all this over in his mind it did not occur to him that this getting Tregear out of the way might be altogether prejudicial to his sister's happiness. Brothers but seldom feel respect for the love affairs in which their sisters are interested. He did feel...

P: He had wandered

...would look up Tregear in order that he might express his opinion as to the necessity of "putting an end to all that stuff between him and Mary," when Tregear himself...

P: "And so will..."

"...will your father. Whatever the unhappiness may be, people generally do get over it after some fashion. But would his unhappiness be worse than hers?"

P: "And so have..."

"...in his hands. I shall not attempt to run away with her. As far as I..."

P: "In that way..."

"...you support each other, though it must be manifest to anybody that the whole thing is as wrong as it can be. If it were..."

P: "In that way..."

"...hard language to you, whom I always liked better than any other fellow I've known; but in such..."

P: "I have to..."

"...for her money. I am certain of myself that no man was ever more firmly devoted to a girl, to with a surer singleness of heart and purpose. I did not..."

P: "I have to..."

...saying another word. Silverbridge remained on the bench yet for another half-hour, hard though it was,---thinking it all out.

We see from all this how terribly weak and immature Silverbridge still is. To "I'll be free of Major Tifto", we can add "I'll be free of Mr Moreton" to our list of terrible reasons to get married. Was there ever anyone less fit to be financially independent?

There's even a childishness in his willingness to sacrifice Mary, inasmuch as it comes in the context of his awareness of how much unhappiness *he* is preparing for their father. He figures that if he can throw her under a bus, he might escape more lightly himself.

At the same time, I would take his callousness about Mary as another sign that he is not really in love with Mabel. He wouldn't do this if he really understood Mary's feelings.

It is interesting that for all Planty's posturing about Mary's rank, Frank puts his objections flatly down to the money question.

The other intriguing touch here comes in Lady Cantrip's agonising over how to report Mary's behaviour to Plantagenet---that she doesn't want to be treated as Marie was!

Though I think she finally does a very good job in picking euphemisms to describe "that embrace"...

Chapter 31

P: {Insertion at beginning of chapter}

Thrice within the next three weeks did Lord Silverbridge go forth to ask Mabel to be his wife, but thrice in vain. On one occasion she would talk on other things. On the second Miss Cassewary would not leave her. On the third

    Twice before the expiration of that June month, and once early in July, did Lord Silverbridge sally forth from his own house, or from the club, or from the House of Commons with the full intention of asking Mabel Grex to be his wife; but on none of the occasions were either Venus or Hymen kind to him. On the first attempt he did not find the lady; on the second he could not at first secure her solitary ear for a moment, and, when he did so, had got into so strong an argument about his sister that it had become impossible to adapt himself to the other matter. "Of course I was very sorry at first that he should have come in," Lady Mabel had said. "But I was glad of it afterwards, because I could see what sort of a girl she was. Of course she will marry him. Cart-ropes won't keep them apart." Then Silverbridge had become angry and had expressed an opinion that they would have to be kept apart, whether by cart-ropes or other means. He had altogether taken his father's part and had become rather violent. "It was monstrous," he had said, "that a girl like that should think that she was going to have her own way!" When there had been this difference between them he had found himself compelled to leave the house without pleading his own cause.
    Then he tried again, but on the third attempt Miss Cassewary was with her, and did not leave the room,---as she had done on the former occasion, discreetly though to no purpose. And the conversation turned...

P: {Insertion after ...taking away their characters."

    "...away their characters."
    "Because you can't understand that they should differ from ourselves without being bad."
    "I don't say..."

P: "I think he..."

    "...without misbehaving! Don't you think it would be very bad if he were to marry this American?"
    "Very bad indeed!"
    "But it must come to that unless somebody stops him."
    "I thought..."

P: "I think it..."

"...than so many others. But still I should not be very good. But I shouldn't love him for instance."

P: "He is such..."

"...to and end. There can be no girl in all England more in want of a magnificent husband than I am."

P: "Not exactly;---because..."

"...he never asked me. Had I chosen to set my wits to work I could have made him ask me. He almost did it;---but for the moment..."

P: Lord Silverbridge went

...with Isabel Boncassen;---but he was quite sure that he had never made love to her, and almost equally sure that he never would.

P: Mrs Boncassen seemed

...with her daughter. It seemed that she completely understood that it was her duty in life to be a sort of upper servant to Isabel. Mr Boncassen...

P: Mrs Boncassen seemed

...did as she liked. She had a hired carriage at her own disposal and had more than once altogether shocked the Miss Cassewarys of the world by going home from parties alone. Some of the...

P: There is however

...may be dropped. And in consequence of this danger some young gentleman are becoming cautious. And that caution on the side of the gentleman begets the necessity for a correspondingly strong action on the side of the ladies. "My dear..."

P: "Yes;---yes. I..."

"...devoted to me,---having all along the intention of letting me know that it is pretence."

P: There are moments

...people say ill-natured things. This young Lord of ours was not stupid or obtuse, and he certainly had not intended to be clever or sharp. He was thoroughly good-natured, and manifestly did not wish to wound his present companion. But the rebuke seemed to her sharp. "Lord Silverbridge..."

P: "I'll be shot..."

...parting with her. "But I will go back to my first assertion and declare again that I am devoted to you." Then he took off his hat, made a bow, and went away in another direction.

That expansion at the beginning of the chapter is crucial. It is true enough that Silverbridge treats Mabel badly in the long run, but this point-by-point shows us that anything else was all but impossible.

It is also significant that Mabel sees instantly that Silverbridge's interaction with Isabel has everything in it that their own relationship is lacking.

We might be inclined to feel, at the end of that chapter, that Isabel is rather overrating Silverbridge's intelligence...but, you know, love is blind... :)

Chapter 32

P: Lord Silverbridge soon

...was her inferior. He dearly loved Mabel Grex, but with her he felt himself to be hardly more than a boy. She took no...

P: Lord Silverbridge soon

...afraid of him. There had been in some sort a tacit understanding between them, that she refused to dance with him because she thought too much of him.

P: It all came

...through her nose. Every syllable of it! And she looked so common. What a woman to have for a mother-in-law! What would the Duke say to her, or Mary, or even Gerald? But then she would probably have been sent back to America before that;---or it might perhaps be better that he should go to New York and be married there. The father was...

P: It all came

...wore black clothes and seemed to keep himself ready to dine out by simply changing his black tie for a white one. He had...

P: In the meantime

"...look after you, and put you somewhere where you will be safe."

P: They were now

...were many loungers. Every now and again Dolly looked behind him to see if there were others close upon their heels;---and there always was another couple close upon their heels.

P: "Five minutes will..."

...a flight of rural steps which it was necessary that they should ascend alone. "Lovely spot..."

P: "That's Maidenhead Bridge."

"...that's---somebody's place; I don't know who. And now..."

P: "Haven't the least..."

...said Miss Boncassen, looking as though she were, in truth, very much in the dark on the subject.

P: "Not in this case..."

    "...because, really, in honest sober truth, I entertain no such feeling."
    "But you can if you please."
    "I rather think not."
    Yes you can. Just let me..."

P: "I will attribute..."

"...say anything further. Now I think I will go down to my friends."

P: When she said

...did not know the fact, or if she had heard it, she probably was too little acquainted with the intricacies of English rank to bear it in her mind. But the allusion...

P: "Mr Longstaffe,---you..."

...some injustice to Dolly, who was generally sharp enough, though he had failed to understand exactly what she had meant when she told him it would be nothing to her to marry a duke or a prince. He was...

P: "Oh, yes. Let..."

"...shall it not?" Then she paused. In his dilemma he put his hand up under his hat and scratched his head. "It must be..."

P: That and no..."

"...come with me? Yes; I know you will. It will be better." Then she put her hand upon his arm, knowing that she would have to leave it at the steps, but feeling that in this way she would best re-create a feeling of companionship. "Don't you think..."

P: It was not

...to the summer-house, having felt herself unable to encounter the unhappiness of her guests. Mr Boncassen...

P: "There's somebody smoking..."

...or the party generally were the nastiest thing she had ever known. Nothing special, however, was done to lessen the nastiness, for the men went on smoking.

P: Damp gauzes, splashed

...jockeying for the vehicles, and all the inevitable consequences,---insolence on the part of servants, almost quarrels among the men, and a want of civility among the ladies. In the midst...

P: "Not at all..."

"...no gallantry. The wretched should always be left in their misery. They like that best. But come..."

No more than the interactions of Silverbridge with his father - or Gerald's with the kidneys - should the scene between Isabel and Dolly have been cut. :D

I wonder whether the bad behaviour of these high-bred English people at the end of the chapter was meant to balance Silverbridge's horrified (and exceedingly premature) contemplation of American in-laws?

Well, yes:

Ezekiel Boncassen was the very man,---from his appearance,---for a President of the United States; and there were men who talked of him for that high office. That he had never attended to politics was supposed to be in his favour.

Chapter 33

P: {Insertion at beginning of chapter}

The Boncassens were still living at the Langham Hotel, and had now resolved to remain there till they should return to town after some short autumn excursion to be made either to Devonshire, or to the Lakes, or to Scotland. His search after knowledge would then keep him in London all through the next winter and probably to the end of the next season. They had large and expensive rooms and, living after their fashion, were probably more comfortable than they would have been in a hired house. When all their guests had left them after their garden-party, they themselves had returned to town by a later train,---thus being the last to leave the ship, as Miss Boncassen had told Lord Silverbridge would be the case. "What an abominable..."

P: Miss Boncassen, though

...that came near her. Of course at her age, let her say what she might, the admiration of which she thought the most was the admiration of young men. How can it be otherwise with a girl when she knows that it is to be her lot to marry some young man? How can it be otherwise when it is by the eyes of young men that she is most admired? How can it be otherwise when all nature has son ordained it? Miss Boncassen was...

P: Miss Boncassen, though

Though she had complained of the insufficient intelligence of young men told her father that young men do not understand the use of words,---thinking at the moment of some flaws of intelligence displayed by poor Dolly,---she was alive to the delight...

P: There is not

...quite aware of that. By degrees, by very quick degrees, she had dropped...

P: But Dolly Longstaffe

    ...should have done so. It was a trifle not at all worth talking about. She certainly would not mention it either to her father or mother. But it annoyed her.
    She had asked Lord Silverbridge to see her on the following morning, and perhaps it was this which induced her to decline going with her mother to Westminster Abbey in the afternoon. She pleaded that the heat and general mugginess of the weather kept her in. The weather was generally muggy, but perhaps no injury will be done her by the suggestion that when she thought of the weather she thought also of Lord Silverbridge. But it must not be supposed that she intended to deceive her mother in regard to the visit of a young man. She would have had no hesitation in saying that he was coming to see her, had she been sure of the fact. Her mind and conscience in the matter were just as they might have been had she been a young man instead of a young woman. Upon the whole she did not want to go to the Abbey, and she made the first excuse that came to mind.
    The waiter...

P: "Just so;---emotions..."

    "...the very phrase. I begin to recognise the fact that emotions of the heart may be stronger than---than anything else."
    She was determined if possible to prevent a repetition of the scene which had taken place up at Mrs de Bever's temple, but almost doubted her power. There was a force of obstinacy about the man which seemed to her to be hardly compatible with the weakness of his absurdity. "All my emotions are about my dress," she said as she thought the matter over.

P: "Well; yes; all."

...contrived to produce something of a that national nasal twang, to be free from which had been one of the great labours of her life.

P: "You have expressed..."

    "...I will ring the bell and go upstairs."
    "In that case I would only send the waiter after you."
    "Then I should desire him to get you a cab and see you off the premises. What can a man gain by going on when a girl has spoken as I have done,---unless it be his object to give annoyance?" They were both...

P: {Insertion after "...dance with me."

    "...would not dance with me."
    "And if I had the rain would not have come?"
    "I think not."
    "Then I wish I had danced with you certainly."
    "Any news to-day..."

P: "I am not..."

"...a good judge;---but I suppose she sings very well."

P: "I did," said

    ...Mr Longstaffe should go, taking the other man with him if the two were so disposed;---but that he at least should go. Dolly felt was of the opinion that his manhood required him to remain till Silverbridge should have departed. After what had taken place he was not going to leave the field vacant for another. It might be that on reconsideration he should see the wisdom of retiring from his suit,---and the more especially as the lady certainly was ferocious. Or again it might seem to be more in accordance with his own virile persistency to continue his courtship,---mindful that he had heard that ladies will often say "yes" after half-a-dozen "noes". To go and leave the other man there was not in accordance with his principles;---and therefore he made no effort to move.
    "That seems rather hard upon me," said Silverbridge.
    "It is hard upon you," said the lady.
    "You told me..."

P: "We ain't very..."

    ...upon which Dolly also moved.
    "Good-morning," said Silverbridge.
    "Good-morning," said Dolly. And then they both left the room together.
    "What the mischief..."

More Isabel / Dolly cutting---boo!!

The Isabel / Silverbridge scenes are treated with more respect.

Chapter 34

P: {Insertion after ...Lady Mary Palliser.}

    There are certain circumstances and occurrences in life,---so common that but few of us escape all contact with them,---in which a certain thing seems very desirable to be done, and when done may seem almost equally desirable, but which, in the doing, is not altogether nice. What can seem to be more proper than that a father, anxious for the happiness and prosperity of his daughter, should look about for a fitting husband for her. Or what more friendly act can be performed than assisting a father in such a search? The first was the Duke's position, and the second that of Lady Cantrip. The Duke was strengthened in his conviction of the propriety of his conduct by his vivid remembrances of his wife's history;---and Lady Cantrip also in some degree by her knowledge of the same. Everybody who had heard anything of the tale was aware from how great an evil Lady Glencora had been saved, when she was separated from that poor wretch Burgo Fitzgerald who had at last destroyed himself with brandy-and-water. They who had interfered had interfered successfully; and unalloyed good,---good apparently unalloyed,---had been the result. Nobody knew whether on that anybody had felt soiled by his or her share in the performance. But now that the matter was in the doing, the soil was felt both by Lady Cantrip and by the Duke.
    The mutual assent...

P: The mutual assent

...perhaps splendid marriage, such as had joined him to Lady Glencora M'Cluskie.

P: Lord Popplecourt was

...to be a fool. No one thought him to be bright. A great many who knew him spoke of him as though he were not a bright young man. But in the eyes of the Duke,---and of Lady Cantrip,---he had his good qualities. Looking around them they could find no one more worthy of the great honour.

P: "He looks to..."

...the subject was dropped. Lady Cantrip was woman enough to have liked to say, "Oh yes,---you care for nobody but that odious Mr Tregear!" That, however, in the present circumstances would have been indiscreet.

P: It was a

...end of July, the period at which all legislation seems always to have got itself into such a state of inextricable confusion that outsiders feel that Parliament should not be dissolved at all that year, and when ministers are beginning to see their way through it to rest and rural delights, that the Duke...

P: It was a

...party made up, an explanation made to Popplecourt that it was not at all a dinner-party,---as neither the Duke nor Mary was going into society,---but that he was asked as a particular friend. Lord Nidderdale...

P: It was a

...ten of them,---a number which would, it was thought, prevent perturbation in the mind of Lord Popplecourt.

P: Lady Mabel was

...to be his wife. He remembered also well enough how determined he himself had been on the matter. No doubt he had faltered...

P: Lady Mabel was

...to meet him half-way,---had indeed almost ceased to be kind to him. And then...

P: Lady Mabel was

...a most unusual manner, and apparently on purpose that he might meet Mabel Grex. Of course he was much moved.

P: Of all the

...Lady Mary Palliser. He was made very proud by the Duke's notice, and began to think that it might be within the scope of his abilities to make a political figure in the country. He was induced by it to look a little down upon such fellows as Nidderdale, Silverbridge, and others who spent their time and their money in going to races. And Lady Cantrip's friendship increased this effect. She evidently regarded him as one of the rising young men of the day. He of course had advantages which those other young men did not possess. He was his own master, was burdened with no father, and was the head of his own family. He, when...

P: Of all the

...the Duke's daughter. He was very keen against Sir Timothy Beeswax, and quite prepared to give reasons why the Duke should accept office.

P: "I suppose so."

...up from Richmond. We remember a noble duke who boasted in the House of Lords that he had once travelled in the same post-chaise with Sir Robert Peel. Lord Popplecourt's feelings were now of the same kind,---humble and exalted also.

P: "If not why..."

"...take you up?" This was not flattering, and Lord Popplecourt held his tongue. "You won't mind my smoking, I dare say." After this there was no conversation between them; but Silverbridge turned it all over very much in his mind. Why on earth should his father or Lady Cantrip want to have Lord Popplecourt down at Richmond?

This chapter highlights one of the injustices of the cut version: Trollope always takes the time to let us inside the mind of even minor characters, even when that means the shallows that is the mind of Lord Popplecourt.

Mind you:

When the reader was told that Lord Popplecourt had found Lady Cantrip very agreeable it is to be hoped that the reader was disgusted.

:D

It's interesting that Silverbridge, who no-one could consider particularly thoughtful, let alone a good judge of character, immediately tags him as "a fool".

The other thing that struck me on this read through was this:

Looking around them they could find no one more worthy of the great honour.

Honestly, if Lord Popplecourt is the best that the aristocracy can serve up by way of a potential husband, how can you really go on objecting to Frank?

But the serious point of this chapter is the early material about Glencora and Burgo---and a wonderful example of retconning it is, too: Burgo didn't "destroy himself" until after he and Glencora were permanently separated; you don't get to use that as a reason why they *should* have been separated.

Chapter 35

P: It was pretty

...meant to love her,---just as he might have looked at the girl whom he was making welcome to his house and his heart as a future daughter. Lady Mabel saw that it was so, who in such matters was very clever, could not but acknowledge this to herself. Could it be...

P: "Very hot," he

    ...to Lady Mary. The weather had been hot.
    " We found it very warm in church to-day."
    "I dare say." He would not confess that he himself had "skipped" church, not knowing whether the Duke had any strong opinions on the subject. "I came..."

P: "Suppose he had..."

    ...philosopher's argument. The hypothesis was one which Lady Mary had not considered and from the too speedy consideration of which she was now preserved by the announcing of dinner.
    Questions of rank had to be preserved, and Popplecourt, as in duty bound, took Miss Cass out to dinner, but questions of rank enabled Lady Cantrip so to manage matters that Silverbridge should sit next to Lady Mabel, and Popplecourt to Lady Mary. It is a convenience that at dinner-parties ladies and gentlemen should all of them have two sides. "The real cabman might have upset her worse," said Lady Mary as she took her seat,---having had time to consider the matter.

P: "You don't think..."

...been an accident, that allusion to Oxford where, as everyone knew, his career had been unfortunate. She could not...

P: The Duke, who

...make himself agreeable, and by the end of dinner had worked himself into a good humour, as he had done when he had dined with his son at the club. The conversation...

P: {Insertion after ...said the Duke.}

    "...very well," said the Duke.
    "To keep his position till next February with a majority of a dozen, is to manage it well," said Lord Cantrip.
    "Phineas Finn..."

P: "Yes," said Nidderdale

"...like Phineas Finn, whom everybody thinks is a fine fellow because he didn't murder a man in the streets; but the most..."

P: "I hear men..."

"...used to be. There will always be changes."

P: "That's just it..."

    "...about anything. Our party come and go just as Beeswax wants us. If any man has life enough in him to have a little job of his own to get done, he is let to have his own way. The comfort is so very few ever have.
    "We are better on our side than that," said Lord Cantrip.
    "I think you are..."

P: "I think you..."

    "...nobody else cares for. Go ask anybody whether there isn't a feeling that Home Rule hasn't been the most important matter discussed this session."
    "Nobody believes in Home Rule," said Silverbridge.
    "Nobody does believe in it; but so many gentlemen agree to pretend to believe in it that it assumes a look of reality. Nobody will take the trouble even to pretend to believe about most things that are brought up. I'm going to move that arms be put up on the benches, as the chief use of the House is to go to sleep in." This was received with almost solemn disapprobation by the Duke, but was cheered by the younger legislators present. Lord Cantrip only shrugged his shoulders as they went through into the drawing-room.
    It soon came to pass that Lord Popplecourt was again sitting next to...

P: "A great deal..."

"...a place together. He has booked our party to kill more grouse and shoot more deer than any other six guns this year. I shall..."

P: "A great deal..."

    "...for partridges."
    "What a slayer of animals you must be."
    "Yes, I am rather."
    "What do you..."

P; "The birds are..."

Lady Mary, who did not respond to the compliment, again told him...

P: But at the

...should be absent? What personal aid could he lend to the arrangement? Lady Cantrip too would know his own mind on the subject,---did, indeed, know it already. Lady Cantrip pleaded that there might be arrangements to be made as to money. Then he frowned, but added that his lawyer would be prepared with an answer as to that. The arrangements prepared would be such that Lord Popplecourt could not possibly object to them. "The young man, I think, is not indifferent to money," said Lady Cantrip. The Duke asked no question as to Lord Popplecourt's present condition of mind on the subject, not venturing to inquire whether any, and what, communication had been made. Now that the...

P: "I dare say."

"I don't. But then it is so natural that Lady Cantrip and I should have different ideas about a young man."

P: "I never knew..."

    "...should object. We all know that Tregear has got nothing."
    "Yes, we all know that," said the girl sadly, who something over twelve months since had been at such infinite trouble to explain to the very man of whom they were talking that she could not marry him on that same ground.
    "What would..."

P: "And break her heart."

    "And break her heart."
    "Very likely;---as hearts are broken."
    "Could you do that?"
    Certainly not. But then I'm soft. I'm not persistent. I can't refuse when I'm asked."
    "Can't you?"
    "Not if the person who asks me is in my good books. You try me."
    "I'm not in your good books."
    "Nobody stands so well in them. You ask me for anything, and see."
    "What shall I ask for?"
    "Anything."
    "The Prime Minister."
    "I would not introduce you to a partnership with such a man as my friend the Major, else you should have my half of the beast."
    "Give me that ring..."

P: "Of course it..."

...moment had come from bashfulness on his part, from a certain timidity which...

P: In another part

...of the room,---or rather in another room, for there were two or three opening into each other,--- Lady Cantrip was busy on the same matter with Lord Popplecourt.

P: Lord Popplecourt went

...a word about politics,---or to listen or even to appear to listen. His mind was...

P: Lord Popplecourt went

...to be avoided, that he must be on his guard against all those matrimonial hooks which would encounter him at every turn in his stream of life, he would not give himself up, freely and at once, even to the allurements of a proposition so delightful as that which had been made to him. But when...

P: Lord Popplecourt went

...his own large property! Though it were a hook, would it not be worth his while to swallow it?

Long dialogue chapters are THE WORST!! :D

Just dropping in to say I paused on Ch 20 sometime last week and then life got away with me and I'm still there. About to sit down and highlight all the sections from the missing chapters and then start reading again....

>126 souloftherose:

Not a problem, Heather (I understand all too well about 'life'!). We're obviously going to be here for a while yet, so take your time and work through however it suits you. :)

>124 lyzard:

Almost everyone takes a hit with these cuts.

The most important passage here, I think, is the conversation between Silverbridge and Mabel, where again we see him being led on, step by step, to say and do more than he intends.

There's another hurtful irony in Silverbridge telling Mabel, "I can't refuse when I'm asked." Of course she does 'ask him' later, and he does refuse.

I think it does the Frank / Mary plot a disservice to have some of these conversations trimmed. Plantagenet, who is still thinking of Frank as a fortune-hunter, is not at all happy to be told that Lord Popplecourt is "not indifferent" to Mary's money---his "noble" choice behaving like any other man. This comes in conjunction with the presence of Lord Nidderdale who, we might remember, is having his marriage paid for by his in-laws.

Chapter 36

P: We all know

"...there it is." It was thus that Tifto had spoken of his friend to Lord Silverbridge.

P: Major Tifto had

...middle of August. Everybody had left London, and he had failed in a little attempt he had made to be taken down to a Scotch shooting-lodge. He therefore had come to...

P: It must be

It must be explained, before the matter then under discussion between these gentlemen be touched upon by us, that ever since...

P: It must be

    This feeling was greatly strengthened by the admirable condition of Prime Minister and the place which the horse held in the betting for the Leger. Surely more consideration had been due to a man who had produced such a state of things! Tifto had previously talked magnificently to his friend of his position at the Beargarden and of his intimacy with all the young lords, members of Parliament, and opulent "swells" by whom that aristocratic institution was supported, and the Captain, with a partial belief in these boastings, had once, in a thoughtful moment, suggested that he also would like to be a member of the Beargarden. Tifto knew well how impossible this would be; and indeed looked upon the request as monstrous impertinence. "He hasn't got toggery fit to go to such a place," Tifto said to himself. Nevertheless it was necessary that he should excuse himself after some civil fashion. Though the Captain's clothes were not bright,---with the exception of his red coat, breeches, and boots, which were always decent,---still the Major owed him a little money, and in many ways could hardly get on without him. "The truth is," he said, "that Silverbridge and I are going to have a tiff."
    "I wouldn't quarrel..."

P: "I wouldn't quarrel..."

...said the prudent Captain, who saw at a moment that his aspirations in regard to the club were vain.

P: "The fact is..."

    "...out of it. You'll excuse me if I speak my mind."
    "Oh, yes."
    "When a small..."

P: "You come back..."

    "...out of the yard. It all comes of them school-books and suffrage and unions. When a fellow knew that if he didn't do what he was told he'd get a month at the treadmill and a month of starvation when he came out, things were much better attended to. I explained all that to Silverbridge when he first thought about Parliament." These were Tifto's ideas on political economy.
    They then returned This brought them back to the state...

P: I'd have it..."

"...are you for it?" Then the Captain paused, emptied his glass, refilled it, and lit his pipe, which had been allowed to extinguish itself in the heat of the argument with the groom. Tifto sat...

P: "Very little I.."

"...I should think." Then there was another pause. "Don't he put..."

P: The gentleman did

...of his friend's money. He filled another pipe and another glass of gin-and-water as he thought of this in silence. He didn't think...

P: The gentleman did

...over the Major,---not quite in a vertical position, for the gin-and-water had had considerable effect upon his legs though none apparently as to intellect,---spoke his last...

P: The Major thought

"...been taken amiss." This was hard upon Tifto, who had taken nothing amiss. "But what he would like," said the Captain, "was to get that sixty pounds that was due to him. He had to pay other people, and he couldn't carry on unless other people paid him." This was again hard, because there had been an understanding that this money was not to be asked for until after the Leger had been won.

P: "Square be d---!"

...of his members. He had enticed young men to play cards with him when they were far gone with wine. But those were things which everybody did in his line. But old Green had meant something beyond this. What was it that old Green had meant?

Here we see that Trollope's sense of justice makes him depict the seduction of Major Tifto to the dark side as a slow, reluctant, confused sort of thing, not a leap. He does have a code, even if it isn't one with the bar set very high.

And this, of course:

These were Tifto's ideas on political economy.

Trollope is joking, of course - BUT - that was pretty much the stance of the hard-line Conservatives of the day, and he shows what he thinks of it by putting it in Tifto's mouth.

Chapter 37

P: This is the

...in his absence is not surprising should not be wondered at. Who does not know how one want begets another, till ruin follows upon ruin? An old house always requires and is always expensive;---but if the work be done continuously the cost may be brought within bounds. But when once the evil has been allowed to grow, then the affair becomes almost hopeless. An owner...

P: This is the

...restore Grex. But the Earl had neither the money nor the taste. But it would be a cheaper work to build a new house, if not as large, yet more commodious. The present owner of Grex had no idea of doing either one or the other. As the place was entailed he could not sell it; but the entail could not force him to keep the house in repair.

P: Lord Grex had

...amidst its desolation before she went to enjoy the hospitable luxury of some rich friend's country mansion. She was now going on to a seat in Scotland belonging to Mrs Montacute Jones called Killancodlem; but she was in the meanwhile passing having what she thought to be the greatest luxury of the year in spending what must have been a desolate fortnight...

P: Lord Grex had

...for Lady Mabel. She had her own maid, for an earl's daughter, even in poverty, must have her own maid. But in truth the ruin of the family was not as yet absolute ruin. There was a handsome house still maintained in Belgrave Square. During the season there was a carriage and horses, and there were servants with white plastered heads. Lady Mabel dressed handsomely. Lord Percival lived luxuriously,---though of his living little was seen either by the father or sister. The old sinner himself always had monet for gambling and had now taken himself off to some German baths,---so he said,---with his own valet and a courier. Lady Mabel presumed that he had gone to Monaco. Money could still be made to be forthcoming for such absolute needs as these. But still anyone who saw Grex would say that the family was ruined.

P: "Why not?"

    "Why not?"
    Why not! For you to ask why not! For you to pretend to be thick-headed!"
    "I do not know that my head is thicker than other people's; but still I say, why not? Whom does it..."

P: "I do think..."

"...you were here with me,---as he probably will know?"

P: "Then it would..."

    "...have gone before."
    "I have told her nothing that was not true."
    "I do not care what you have told her. You have sworn..."

P: "No! You understand..."

"...because you want it. But I hate her! Were she married to you I would never see her."

P: "So I would..."

"...anything you might want, though you ought not to want it. You can hardly..."

P: "Certainly I have..."

    "Certainly I have so sworn."
    "And have so sworn it that---that---! Have you ever..."

P: "Not that;---but..."

"...to cling to something. Of course I put out my feelers. I have to cling to something. You should not..."

P: "Good! What is..."

    "...between us. I am beginning to think that we had better make up our minds to live apart." These last words she spoke with a smile on her lips.
    "I hope not, Mabel."
    "But remember..."

P: "Friends! Frank Tregear..."

    "...withdraw my request. But I may as well show you this." Then she drew a purse from her pocket, and taking a ring out of it handed it to Tregear.
    "Whence does that come?" he asked.
    "Don't you remember the diamond? It is that which Silverbridge always wore and which the old Duke gave him."
    "I thought he would never have parted with that."
    "He has had the setting altered and has sent it to me. Poor dear fellow! I wish he had kept it. I think we will..."

P: "Yes; you would."

"...dearest spot in the world. It would lose half its charms if it were well kept and in good repair." So she went...

P: That same night

...chances in life, such as they were, and to make her at any rate equal to himself. When she had refused that, many obstacles had occurred to her, any one of which seemed then to be sufficient to induce her to reject this proposal as insane. She must have...

P: That same night

...not be thought of. "They had been foolish," she said; "but let them not add to their folly." She had at last been quite stern in her decision, and he had left her for a while almost in anger.

P: Now she was

...second time at Richmond. Nothing but a little encouragement from her would be wanting. But all that...

Again we see the extent that Trollope originally went to, to lay out Mabel's awful personal circumstances and her deeply confused emotional state---and why she cannot bring herself to take the final step with Silverbridge.

And while this chapter hardly makes us think well of Frank (to say the least), what it does do is make it clear how very comprehensive Mabel's dismissal of him was: not just gentle regret, but hard words - "foolish", "insane" - when he offered to do everything he could to build a life for the two of them. It sheds a different light on his turning away from Mabel, and then towards Mary.

Chapter 38

P: {Insertion at beginning of chapter}

    As soon as the session was over the Duke with his daughter started for the Continent. The arrangement was at last made simply because there seemed for the moment nothing else to be done. The Duke in truth did not know how to occupy himself, so much astray was he still in consequence of the death of his wife. When he first entertained the idea of taking Lady Mary to the Continent, it had been with the notion that he would remain there probably for the next twelvemonth,---that being thought at the time to be the medicine most apt to cure her of her love. But other counsels had prevailed, and a different treatment was to be adopted. She was to be taken to Custins in October that she might be induced to marry Lord Popplecourt. There was not much danger that she should see Tregear in the intervening two months. But as something had to be done, they went abroad, first to the Tyrol, with a plan of going on from there to the salt-mines and to Vienna. The Duke had asked Lord Gerald to accompany them with his tutor, but Lord Gerald begged that he might join his brother at a Scotch shooting, and as Scotch shooting in August is supposed to be a proper amusement for young lords, and as Lord Gerald was supposed to have passed a few weeks down in Devonshire in a rather exemplary manner, his request was granted, and the tutor was to have leave of absence for a week or two. He was to be taken in as a gentleman-commoner at Lazarus, of which college, as all the world knows, old Dr Gwynne is still the warden. At Lazarus they think a good deal of birth, and when that story of the races was told it was considered at that exemplary college to have been rather hard that Lord Gerald should not have been allowed to see his brother's horse run for the Derby.
    Almost at the last...

P: Almost at the

...much of his happiness, and perturbed his mind with a fear of which he hardly liked to speak to his most intimate friends. He had seen...

P: Almost at the

...contented with himself, thinking that he had lived better than others around him. He had a...

P: Crummie-Toddie was

...none at Richmond. How is a man to say what he really means at a dinner-party,---or afterwards in the drawing-room, when everyone is looking at him? He had said as much as he could, but she had not taken it rightly. Since he had...

P: Crummie-Toddie was

...to marry Mabel Grex, the marriage having been assented to, as being in all respects fit and proper, by his father. And he could...

P: Crummie-Toddie was

...same house was unfortunate. There were moments as he travelled down in which he almost made up his mind that he would not go over to Killancodlem at all.

P: "Not what you..."

...truth in the remark. Even he had once been a beginner. He felt as one does with a cabdriver who is too evidently only just learning his business. It is a misfortune for the horse, but the horseman has to learn. Thinking of this Reginald Dobbes went to bed.Upon that he

...but he would stay whole days in the house by himself, reading or writing, and when...

P: "Who says I..."

"...I am tired? It's like the insanity of a man who keeps china cups and saucers and thinks every moment of his life is lost in which he is not looking after cups and saucers. I came here..."

P: {Insertion after ...said Dobbes.}

    "Some girl!" said Dobbes.
    "Two or three I should think," said Nidderdale.
    But worse happened...

Rather less serious than usual, but still I don't think we want to lose this---certainly not that last crack from Lord Nidderdale. Is he just trying to make things worse, or has he seen what's going on?

As a throwaway sketch, this portrait of Reginald Dobbes is surprisingly complex. That bit of business with Gerald always makes me laugh.

And I may say that for once, I am completely in sympathy with Frank: there's nothing worse than being forced to "enjoy yourself".

Another bit of cross-series cutting: we may remember Dr Gwynne from Barchester Towers, where he arranged for the deanship to be offered to Mr Harding (though he ceded it to Mr Arabin).

Chapter 39

P: Mr Dobbes was

...letters and newspapers,---which was done but twice a week when Mr Dobbes was allowed to have his own way. At Killancodlem...

P: "Good shooting, you..."

...said Silverbridge, putting forward his best plea.

P: The whole of

...side always won. During such occupation there is not in truth much opportunity for conversation.If there be any reality in the game,---as there was on this occasion,---the energies of the players are too fully employed to allow of attention to other things. Hours spent thus give rise to intimacies which lead to moments of more ecstatic bliss;---but the moments are not then. Very little was...

P: The whole of

...and as graceful in every motion,---and apparently as young? Or could anything...

P: "When youth and..."

...over and over again, trying to take a pleasure from the prettiness of what she saw.

P: But why had

...young men around her who had been suggested to her. There might be disappointment. Iif he escaped her. She now felt almost sure that there would be disappointment,---bitter disappointment. But seeing how it was with him, had she further ground for hope? She certainly had no ground for anger!

P: It was thus

...Mabel his wife. And Isabel was certainly free from any purpose to make him her husband.

P: When the game

"...to exert myself." And yet he thought, as she went away, that he exercise had only added to her charms.

P: "Pretty well," he...

"Pretty well," he said. I am half sick of the grouse;---but we should have been stalking to-morrow."

P: "And you,---what..."

    "...an eye for? I say you play better than she does."
    "No."
    "Yes,---at the game you were playing at. Will you..."

P: "Poor Frank! There..."

    "...tumble-down old place. He looks at it as a kind of pilgrimage, and pilgrimages are sacred, you know;---not to be talked about by anyone."
    "I don't care, you know," said he, not knowing very well what he meant.
    "I don't suppose you do. But I have..."

P: But before that

"...of that diamond." She would not any longer speak of it as a ring. "You may be..."

P: "No, sir; it..."

"...you have offended me." Then she persisted in refusing to dance with him.

P: "He'd take books..."

"...I should say; but I would not advise you, because he'd want to draw you into a learned conversation about it."

P: And then Isabel

...as to this girl which taught him to think unconsciously that to possess her would be to possess the best thing that was to be had. Then came the dancing...

P: "I cannot," she...

"I cannot," she said slowly. "Certainly not to-night. I have never..."

P: When he went

...on his dressing-table, and as he put it away all regrets as to its return to him seemed to have vanished.

I can't believe he cut that last sentence.

The final bit of cross-purpose between Silverbridge and Mabel: from hereon in they will be brutally straightforward with one another.

I love that first conversation between them, though: she's trying to play word-games with him and he defeats her utterly by being completely literal.

Chapter 40

P: On the next

...appear at breakfast,---a meal which at Killancodlem made its appearance between ten and eleven o'clock. Word came...

P: Soon afterwards Mwbel

...well knew he valued beyond anything else? Had he not come over from the shooting on purpose to see her? For she was aware that he had known of Miss Boncassen's presence. Ah...

P: Soon afterwards Mwbel

Would it not be sweet? Thoughts such as these forced themselves upon her again and again.

P: But she had

...this girl's feelings. In all of which, though she did not herself know it, there was a germ of spite against the girl.

P: During the morning

...care much for that. There was a game better than lawn-tennis, at which she might perhaps be willing to play. After what...

P: At first the

...or the ring, or their own standing in reference to each other. "You got..."

P: "But if I..."

    "...right with myself? Do you understand me?"
    "I think I do."
    I am sure you do. Of course..."

P: "Mean to marry!"

    "...the idea of hating them,---almost of murdering them."
    "Dear me! How disagreeable for them!"
    "You can mean..."

P: "Upon my honour..."

    "...that is unfair. A fellow shouldn't be cross-questioned."
    "Are we not..."

P: "If you are..."

    "...of all your friends---"
    "Why should anyone be displeased?"
    But you mean it?"
    "I do not..."

P: "I am not..."

"...for the matter of that,"---added he, remembering himself,---"am I going..."

P: "How can I..."

    "...I saw yesterday."
    You forget that she is an American, and not like one of us."
    "Indeed, indeed, I do not, Lord Silverbridge."
    "At any rate..."

P: "I hope you..."

    "...none the worse."
    "I'm just like a schoolboy who overeats himself. The boy is so strong that he probably is not much the worse. But the third helping and the pudding and the jelly and the cakes ought to have killed him. At six o'clock..."

P: Then on a

"...a turn with me," she said. The motion was so unexpected that he felt his own awkwardness, his own inability to speak at ease, as he did as he was desired. "Lord Silverbridge..."

P: "I know a..."

"...foremost in the world. Nothing can excel your rank and your wealth. And you have..."

P: "What may happen..."

"Till then, good-bye. And, remember this;---if you change your mind, as I think you ought to do, no one will impute blame to you." She gave him her hand and left it in his for a few seconds. He tried to draw her to him; but she resisted him, still smiling. Then she left him, and when on the following morning he went back to Crummie-Toddie there had not been another word between them.

We're halfway there! At least, I am! Whoo!! :D

Chapter 41

P: {Insertion at beginning of chapter}

    It may be remembered that the Duke of Omnium did at last find himself compelled by a sense of honour to write a letter of apology to Mrs Finn in reference to his erroneous and too plainly expressed opinion of her conduct. The apology had not been very ample, but nevertheless the writing of it had been terribly bitter to him. There had been that between them which made the writing of such a letter more painful than it would have been to almost anyone else. There had been obligations between them, but they had all flowed from her to him and his. He had had many doubts respecting her,---regretting, when he so doubted, the intimacy which circumstances had created. Then his doubts would recede, and at such times he had endeavoured to open his heart to her. Now, on this occasion, he had not only doubted but had felt certain,---and had allowed this certainty to work within him to the expression of a most heavy accusation. To whom in such circumstances would not the necessity for an apology be most bitter? But to no one could it be more bitter than to him! He had, however, written it,---not with a free hand or a free heart, but with such thoroughness as his feelings in the moment made possible to him.
    She, when she received it, had been contented, acknowledging to herself gow great the effort to him must have been. Had she, indeed, so sinned against a friend, she would have knelt at that friend's feet and implored forgiveness in sackcloth and ashes; but she could not expect that from such a nature as his. Nor did she wish it. At the first moment she told herself that the Duke's letter sufficed. Anything like intimate friendship must of course be over. She had said as much as that in her letter to him. Such thoughts as he had entertained respecting her, and such a feeling of injury as had been hot in her bosom, were not compatible with renewed friendship. And the Duchess, whom she had really loved and who had really loved her, was gone. The Duke had apologised, and there might well be an end of everything between them. But when, as the season rolled on and she knew that he was living in town,---when she was aware that he had resumed his duties in the House of Lords, and was again spoken of as likely to take a part in some new Liberal Ministry,---when he had as it were thus come back to the world, and yet had never paid her the compliment of leaving a card at her door, then she again became sore and told herself that the man's nature had been altered by those three years of ministerial power.
    When the apology had reached her, so that there was no longer any ground for absolute quarrel, then she had told the whole story to her husband. He at first was very indignant. What right had the Duke to expect that any ordinary friend should act duenna over his daughter in accordance with his caprices? This was said and much more of the kind. But any humour towards quarrelling which Phineas Finn might have felt for a day or two was quieted by his wife's prudence. "A man" she said, "can do no more than apologise. After that there is no room even for reproach." Former relations need not be re-established. This she said alluding to those former relations which had been so close between herself and the Duchess. But the affair must not be allowed to have any bearing on political matters,---as to which it would be monstrous, she declared, if the public service were made to suffer by reason of private bickerings. She spoke so well that there was no possibility of an answer. But, through the entire session, he was averse to meeting the Duke;---and she too was indignant though her indignation was hidden.
    After a while there came to be a tacit agreement between them that nothing should be said about the Duke, and for many weeks neither the Duke's name nor that of Lady Mary was mentioned between them. It was her custom...

P: There is no

....and then with apparent cordiality took that of his late colleague...

P: "And are coming..."

...almost an impossibility. Phineas would have avoided it if he could, for anger still rankled in his heart. She would not willingly have put herself in the way of them; but accident had now done all that. There was no...

P: At dinner the

    ...live another session. "In the first place," said he, "Beeswax himself is determined to break up everything unless he be put at the head of affairs."
    "How is he to do that? They can't dismiss Drummond like a drunken butler."
    "Not like a drunken butler,---but after another fashion."
    "What fashion?" asked the Duke.
    "If they were all to resign now, and then we were to fail,---as we might fail---"
    "I think we should."
    "Then we should be recalled in a different form. In such an event Sir Timothy might make his demands. He could hardly do so without a crisis of some sort."
    "And he would bring about the crisis with such an object?" asked Mrs Finn.
    "He is clever enough for anything."
    "Do you call that cleverness, Mr Finn?" said the Duke.
    "I call it something else also,---of course. But really, Duke, we are getting so used to that something else that it need hardly surprise us. It is a game of chess in which though three or four may play on the same side one will want to have all the honour of winning the game."
    "If it be so, then it has become a work no longer fit for gentlemen."
    "If the gentlemen desert it, what will become of the country? No, Duke; you, I think, will be the last man in England to agree to an idea that the honest men ought to run away from the rogues. If the honest men will only be sufficiently alive to their duty then the rogues will not have a chance."
    "But then you tell me that in this Sir Timothy will prevail."
    "I have not even said that. I think he will fail. But if he does prevail it will be because the second-class men of his party, who are in fact the aristocracy of the country---"
    "A part of the aristocracy, Mr Finn."
    "Because they have been too idle to restrain the ambition of a partisan whose diligence has saved them so much trouble. To a fainéant politician,---to one who, though he has all his heart in it, has too many delights in the world or too large a stake of his own to be able to devote himself to party purposes,---such a man as Sir Timothy is a great godsend. It is like having a steward who can manage everything for you. Though you see him growing rich, too rich, you do not begrudge him his plunder because he is such a comfort! I can imagine that there are some to whom Sir Timothy is very comfortable, though I hardly think that Lord Drummond be one of them."
    Later in the evening...

P: "She did to-day..."

"...a little. And she is good about it that she will hardly speak till she is driven to show that she is suffering."

P: "Had I better..."

...said the Duke dubiously,---almost meaning to imply that though "one" might not tell absolutely, "one" might be able to make a very shrewd guess.

P: "Neither can I."

Then he paused, but she, though she taxed herself hard for words to say, could find...

P: "Disapprove of it!"

    "...should be performed. Is it not so, Mrs Finn?"
    "Certainly."
    "Certainly;---certainly; certainly," he said, re-echoing her word as though he found some comfort in doing so.

P: "There are," said...

"...insurmountable as those which kept Lazarus apart from the rich man." It was an odd illustration for him to use, for it is certain that he did not intend to signify himself or his daughter by the rich man.

P: "You would not..."

...turning over the proposition in all its hardness which now...

P: "You would not..."

...and trembled with agony. he had to tell himself that duty could not carry him as far as that. If he knew...

P: "You would not..."

...forced upon her. But why should the girl's heart be broken? Did girls...

P: "You would not..."

...attacks of this nature. How weak would he think another man who should yield in such a case because a girl had a headache!

P: "I shall never..."

"...affection for this man, if she be of a nature so little prone to change as not to be driven off from it either by absence or by submission to you, then, at last..."

P: "I shall never..."

"...the man himself is good and trustworthy..."

P: As their plans

...the Popplecourt scheme. He almost felt that he should despise his girl if she fell into the Popplecourt trap. But the same...

P: "How can I..."

...she was unhappy, till in some outburst of womanly pity he would himself feel to send for the objectionable lover. "Of course..."

P: {Insertion after ...at Matching."}

    "...that story at Matching."
    "I did what was best." There was a self-assurance about this which startled him, but he soon recovered himself. "The object being," continued she, "to place the whole matter as it really stood within your knowledge as quickly as possible. But why should..."

P: {Insertion after ...quite agreed with her.}

    ...quite agreed with her.
    The Duke was so pleasantly excited by the political views expressed by Phineas that he proposed that they should all travel back home together and offered to wait a day or two;---but of this project both Mr and Mrs Finn entertained some fears; and it was not carried out.

Good grief!

Chapter 42

P: Silverbridge stayed a

Silverbridge remained at Crummie-Toddie stayed a couple of days at Killancodlem and then, as we know, went back to Crummie-Toddie. There he remained under...

P: Silverbridge stayed a

...to Mr Dobbes,---which however were seldom spoken before his face. He would entertain...

P: Silverbridge stayed a

He could not be made to understand that...

P: She had in

...might be possible. Or rather she had buoyed herself with hopes in that direction in opposition to her thoughts. Of course the...

P: She had in

...she had stopped him,---she hardly knew why; had "spared him"...

P: She had in

...she received the ring, though she was half ashamed of the mock request which she had herself made, her heart had...

P: When he was

...would be impossible to her. Not for any reward, not for any prize, would she treat him after that fashion. She was sure...

P: {Insertion after ...Mrs Montacute Jones herself.

    ...Mrs Montacute Jones herself.
    Soon afterwards the man in knickerbockers who had made one of the party at lawn-tennis accosted him. "I am afraid we shan't make up such a game as we had when you were here before."
    "I've had enough of that for this year," said Silverbridge.
    "Yes;---certainly. That's just what I feel. Only if Miss Boncassen were here---" Then Silverbridge turned on his heel and would not speak to the man in knickerbockers again.
    There was also...

P: "It's quite true..."

...age and flavour. There are affairs in life which ripen a man's wits abnormally, as a journey to Calcutta will ripen a hogshead of sherry. He certainly did not like having Miss Boncassen thrown at his head by everybody that spoke to him.

P: "Too much, if..."

    "Gerald likes it. But Dobbes seeing his way to a follower, has flattered Gerald into strict obedience."
    "Poor boy!"
    "It has given him a bent for life. He'll do nothing but shoot now."
    "And you?"
    "I shall be a jack of all trades."
    "Did you think..."

P: "Now that you..."

...the ring back again. He certainly would not tell her now that she might take it in that capacity.

P: "I will at..."

...the running water, and picking a lily to pieces which she had brought there in her hand.

P: "No, sir, no..."

"...than to anybody else. Of---course---not. But it will..."

Chapter 43

P: Gradually, but very

Gradually, but very gradually, had he and...

P: "I stand to..."

...frightened by the amount as he thought of what his plight would be if he had to call on Mr Moreton for such a sum of money.

P: "I wish I..."

...suit the Major's views. Captain Green thought it expedient that his Lordship should yet risk some further sum of money on his favourite horse.

P: In the course

...between the two. Major Tifto was quite surprised when he found that his friend Silverbridge did not know this gentleman. He had thought that Gilbert Villiers had been known to every racing man in England. All this ended in the bet being accepted and duly booked by Lord Silverbridge. "He's done it for a 'hedge, my Lord," said Mr Pook. "Other wise he'd not be so free. He's been putting a lot on our 'orse, and in this way he gets a turn in his favour. I don't know nothing, you know, my Lord; but that's the way I look at it." So spoke Mr Pook, who was quite as confident in his horse as he pretended to be. And in this way...

P: But there was

...this race had been run. He was quite determined to be open with the Major after that event. "Whether I race or not," he would say to the Major, "I mean to separate myself from you. I know that you have worked hard for our joint interests, and in our arrangements that shall be considered. But---you must go one way and I another." As he sat...

P: It was on

...he would never plunge, who had been fully determined in his own mind that he would never commit to any folly of that kind, stood to lose...

P: While this was

...slunk away to bed. He had obeyed Captain Green's behest at any rate in this,---that he was completely sober.

P: "Where is Pook?"

...still in bed. Mr Pook, too, whose habit it had been of late to be with the horse almost at every moment, had enjoyed himself on the previous evening a little too freely.

P: A nail in

...he now enjoyed through his father's liberality. But to lose such a sum of money;---oh, how terrible was the misfortune! How much there had been to lose, and how nearly nothing to gain! He had not calculated before how bad it might be with him! With all his advantages...

Chapter 44

P: "Mr Pook may..."

"...to do with it. I won't go near the horse. If I can help it I will never see him again."

P: Then Tifto came

...akin to love for Silverbridge the young gentleman from whom he would now, too probably, be estranged forever, found himself...

P: "If so, this..."

"...be very well. But you, I think, are too excitable for the turf."

P: Nevertheless he went

...alone to London. To Major Tifto he had not spoken a word since the little scene which has been narrated;---but he would have spoken with kindness had Tifto come in his way.

P: When in London

Early in November, when if not the entire three months at least ten weeks would have run by,---and he had thought that ten weeks might be allowed to stand for three months,---she with her father would be in London, and then he would again...

P: When in London

    ...to all his friends. Probably his father, in Germany, had by this time heard it.
    And now what was he to do? He ate his supper It was about ten o'clock when he reached his house, and having telegraphed his coming, he found his supper ready for him. As in his misery he had eaten no dinner, this was not thrown away on him. He ate heartily, but as he jumped up from the table he felt almost ashamed of himself for doing so, and manfully resolved that he would not allow himself a single cigar. Then, without...

P: "You may be..."

"...hear from you,---or perhaps see you. I am very sorry to give you so much trouble.

P: "Lord Silverbridge may..."

"...absolute secrecy, and may rest assured that such a loan as Messrs. C & C propose may be effected without the slightest trouble to his Lordship.

Chapter 45

P: Early in October

...associated with swindlers. In these narrations, perforce, pity was expressed for Silverbridge. Now he did not wish that his son should be subject to pity. If it were...

P: At the meeting

    ...had been good bets. But when he read what was written he found that it would not do,---nor, as it seemed, could he write what would do. At last he resigned the attempt in despair to Mr Moreton.
    Mr Moreton was in truth much better able to accomplish the task. He knew the Duke's mind, on the matter better than the son did, and was able to say more in the young man's favour than the young man could say himself. A very large...

P; When the Duke

...left an address. There was a little note too. If his father wished to see him, he would come at once,---either to Matching or elsewhere. Then his sister...

P: {Insertion after ...the Duke's arrival.}

He had suffered much since the fatal day. In the first place he had been urged by members of the Jockey Club to take steps to unravel the fraud, whereas, whether there had been fraud or not, he was very anxious to have nothing more to do with the matter. The money had been paid, and his father had been told. He had no more care about the money, though he was very anxious as to his father. Then it was pressed upon him that he should take a leading step in punishing Tifto. Tifto should be expelled from the Beargarden. A representation must be made to the members of the Runnymede hunt, so that he might be deposed from his mastership. He should be expelled from all race meetings,---and as far as possible from all race-courses. He was not very solicitous as to what they might do to Tifto, but he was most unwilling to do anything himself. Even yet he did not feel sure that Tifto and the groom had driven the nail into the horse's foot. But he dreaded his great trouble was the meeting with...

P: "As for backing..."

...mean to be severe. He would not have said a word on the subject had he not felt that propriety demanded it of him. But when he did speak of that which displeased him his voice naturally assumed that tone of indignation with which in days of yore he had been wont to denounce the public extravagance of his opponents in the House of Commons. Si;verbridge, who had been standing, immediately seated himself, his knees almost giving way beneath him.

P: "I knew it..."

"I knew it would. I knew it would."

P: {Insertion after "...perhaps, see him."}

    "...might, perhaps, see him."
    Lord Silverbridge was more moved to outward signs of contrition and sorrow by his father's generosity than he could have been by any severity. That his father...

P: "I'll stay here..."

"...coverts to shoot." Mr Warburton had been the Duke's private secretary when the Duke was Prime Minister and was now at Matching.

P: {Insertion after ...from the room.}

    The next two or three days passed quietly and pleasantly enough,---with a good deal of light political skirmishing in which the Duke took but little part, as Phineas Finn demolished one after another of the juvenile arguments of the young deserter. "He'll come back to us, Duke, before long," said Phineas one morning.
    "I hope it will not be when we are in power," said the Duke. "Nobody should ever go over to a winning side."
    "But I am not a candidate for office," said Silverbridge.
    "You don't know what you are. If a young man is asked to take office he cannot always very well refuse. I don't think Sir Timothy will make you an offer."
    "I must have him for my under-secretary some day," said Phineas.
    "You must be secretary before you can have a secetary under you. Sir Timothy means to do wonderful things next session. He'll have quite a new set round him. Perhaps you may be one of them, Silverbridge. You wait till you get to Gatherum and hear what Lupton has to say about it all." This went on until the second week in October, and then the party was broken up. The Duke and Lady Mary started for Custins. Lord Silverbridge went to Gatherum to prepare for his guests,---and Mr and Mrs Finn returned to London, whence she was to proceed in one direction, while he went in another to the Barsetshire shooting.

>98 lyzard: I thought the second and third cuts of Chapter 24 were interesting - without these sections it sounds like Lady Mary didn't give Lady Cantrip the chance to read the letter before asking for her advice but the passages cut make it clearer that Lady Mary gave her all the information but yes, as you point out, doesn't give her time to comment on it.

>101 lyzard:, >103 lyzard: 'how terrible a thing it is to come on a journey unprovided with any book!'

So true!

>101 lyzard:, >102 lyzard: 'had never crossed the threshold of his wife's drawing-room; but now, when there was no longer a threshold that he could cross, he felt himself to be deserted'

This almost made me tear up.

So many of his problems are, in a sense, self-inflicted; yet he's right too that if you have a certain type of personality or nature, you can't just "change" because you want to, or other people want you to.

Chapter 46

P: When the Duke

    ...large party assembled there. Lady Cantrip was accustomed to have full in October, and after talking the matter over carefully with her husband had resolved that the time had come in which the Duke and his daughter ought to be able to mingle again in the world. The Duchess had now been dead more than six months; and though a widow may be supposed to find it necessary to seclude herself for a longer time than that, a widower is generally thought to be made of stronger fibre. As for Lady Mary, seeing that she was expected not only to fall in love but get rid of a former lover in order that she might do so, Lady Cantrip felt that further allusions to the girl's mourning would be unnecessary. And there was something of an idea present to the minds of both Lord and Lady Cantrip that they were doing for this restive young woman almost more than friendship required. They both of them felt the greatest regard for the Duke, and Lady Cantrip was really attached to the girl;---but there are limits. The Duke's feelings on the subject of his daughter's unfortunate love had been so strong that he had almost thought the whole world ought to be moved by it. Some shadow of an idea of this kind made its way into the minds of the Cantrips;---not altogether justly, as the Popplecourt idea had been almost entirely her own. "I'll bring them together, and then they must just settle it among themselves," she said to the Earl. Now she was as good as her word, for Popplecourt was at Custins when the Duke and his daughter arrived.
    The Duke was a little surprised and Lady Mary very much surprised to find such a crowd. Lord and Lady Nidderdale...

P: The Duke was

...and Mr Lupton, who had not yet gone to assist Silverbridge in performing his duty among the Barsetshire coverts. The Duke also found a very old friend of his, Lady Rosina de Courcy; and Mr and Mrs Grey, who were also old and valued friends; and Lady Chiltern...

P: The Duke was

...than their elders. The St Bungay girls, as they were generally called, were gay young women, though they were not clever, and understood the indescribable art of keeping up a chatter about nothing. Mr Lupton and Lady Chiltern were both very lively people, and Dolly Longstaffe, though he had not often as much to say for himself as on those last two occasions when we saw him in company with Miss Boncassen, nevertheless had a way of his own of adding something to the cheeriness of the party.

P: It so happened

...immediate hard work. This might, for aught he knew, be customary; but he had not...

P: It so happened

...with his ease. He was not sure but that he would have escaped from it if he could. He was already...

P: The Duke himself

...but he would infinitely have preferred, had his conscience permitted it, to leave the whole...

P: The Duke himself

...he wished to catch,---or had caught,--- for his daughter...

P: The Duke himself

...to his daughter,---and much harder words spoken. Of that he had no doubt. He did not think that his girl in her present condition of mind would signify to Lord Popplecourt that "she supposed it was to be so." He knew,---in his heart he knew,---that she would signify quite something else. Now that the...

P: "I hope you..."

...as well as pleasant. The Duke hardly realised the feeling. The young man was to him one who, perhaps, might be a son-in-law, but probably would not, and with whom he was already almost prepared to be angry as being a matter of annoyance,---a thorn to him. "I often thought..."

P: "I have seen.."

...said the Duke, preparing to escape from this irrational and untoward conversation.

P: Lady Chiltern had

...of the same kind to Mrs Grey and both of them had expressed a hope that the lover would be worthy of the girl. "He is hardly the sort of man," said Mrs Grey, "that I should have thought her mother's daughter would have chosen." In answer to this Lady Chiltern had explained that Lord Popplecourt had a very large estate entirely at his own command,---that he was reputed to be a careful young man, and that girls situated as was Lady Mary could not quite be allowed to choose for themselves in such matters.

P: And our old

"...to have a father. Upon the whole fathers are mistakes. I don't want to get rid of mine, but I never could see that he was any good to me. If I hadn't a father perhaps some feminine swell would have jumped down my throat." Popplecourt tried...

P: It was therefore

...across her mind. Had she been told that she was to be locked up in a dungeon all her life it would have seemed to her a more probable exercise of parental authority than an attempt to make her marry Lord Popplecourt.

P: "I have seen..."

    "...more about him! I don't like having such ill-natured things said."
    What did I say?"
    "You were very ill-natured."
    "You seem..."

P: Lord Popplecourt was

...amount of ingenuity. It was his custom to think over things as they passed, and to make deductions. The process was slow with him and did not always produce correct results. But it required a considerable amount of mental application, and produced a certain sharpness in his character for which among his friends he had credit. It was said...

P: Lord Popplecourt was

...thoroughly well mannered. All might come right in spite of the dream,---only that the dream must be made to pass away. But what if...

P: Lord Popplecourt was

...these things together, by eleven o'clock on the following morning he came had come, not quite to a conviction, but to an uncomfortable belief that Tregear was the dream, and that the dream had not as yet been made to vanish.

I don't think it's ever made explicit, but getting up close and personal with Lord Popplecourt must have gone a long way to reconciling Plantagenet to the thought of Frank. I love how these passages tie back to that cut phrase in Chapter 41, when Plantagenet finds himself thinking that he would despise Mary if she actually fell for all this! :)

And that reference to eleven o'clock should never have been cut! Having explained Lord Popplecourt's thought processes to us, Trollope then tells us exactly how long it takes him to come to his "not quite a conviction"!

On a serious note, that cut conversation between Violet Chiltern and Alice Grey is fascinating: Violet at this time is, if you like, half a generation older than Mary; so in the same chapter we have allusions to Glencora having no say at all in who she married, to Violet thinking girls like Mary should "not quite" choose for themselves, to Mary being absolutely determined to have her own way---all in the space of a generation.

There's another touch in this chapter that, while not cut, I think is important and worth highlighting. Mary is almost a one-dimensional character all the way through because we hardly ever see her except in the context of her situation with Frank; as if there's nothing more to her than that. But then we get this throwaway remark:

On the other side of her sat Mr. Boncassen, to whom she had been introduced in the drawing-room,---and who had said a few words to her about some Norwegian poet. She turned round to him, and asked him some questions about the Skald, and so, getting into conversation with him, managed to turn her shoulder to her suitor.

The fact that she can carry on a conversation with someone like Mr Boncassen - and about Scandavian poetry of the Middle Ages! - shows us that she is both intelligent and well-educated, and that there's a lot more to her than we're usually allowed to see.

Chapter 47

P: "You can make..."

"...realise what I feel. I am in such a condition that if I give it up, I shall give up,---oh, curses, everything. As to settlements..."

P: "It's that d--- fellow..."

...almost crying,---"a young swell who doesn't mean what he's about, any more than I mean to marry the cookmaid!" On hearing this...

P: "It's that d--- fellow..."

"...when my governor goes!" He blamed himself that he had not made all that sufficiently clear. But then she was so...

P: "Don't I tell..."

"...wants to see me. If I'd said that I was going to hang myself it would have been just the same to her. You'll stop..."

P: Lord Popplecourt, though

...to his friend, explaining to him that in a matter of honest love nothing was so efficient as to "stick like wax,"---which really is the best advice which can be given in such circumstances, though it was not likely to be of service in the present instance,---though he could tell his friend that if ten times had been of no use, yet twenty times might succeed, he had been able...

P: After a few

...and his own voice, his own personal entreaties, his own youth. My reader, I fear, will not have by any means so exalted an idea of the young man who had coloured the Dean's house at Oxford and had been cheated out of his money at Doncaster as that entertained by Miss Boncassen;---but then no reader can have had the same opportunity of falling in love with him. In asking for her love he had put forward no claim but his own love. He had not even looked at her as though he had felt himself to be the son and heir to a duke. She was glad...

P: After a few

...confer upon her. Had he been that bank clerk of whom she had once talked to him he could not have spoken of his love with less of self-assurance. Yes, she would...

P: She had told

...watched with pleasure, venturing to entertain some hope that the Duke's natural objections to such a marriage might be made to disappear. She was still...

P: She had told

...with a happy heart. But they should all know the story of her grandfather, the porter.

P: "A nice ladylike..."

"...well educated." After this there was nothing further to be said. Lady Cantrip, though she feared something, hardly knew what she feared. But day by day her faith in the Popplecourt cure was becoming weaker and more weak.

P: It was now

...the coming winter. Gentlemen are looking to their top-boots and breeches, and old ladies are already beginning to air their furs.

P: "I think not..."

"...Lady Mary. I am sure that when he spoke to me he was in earnest. I did not doubt him, and I do not doubt him;---not in the least. Is he not..."

P: "Does it not..."

"...in my place and say you would not be lifted off your legs? Why should I..."

P: "I was thinking..."

"For myself, I like you very much."

P: "I will do..."

"...as I have said. I will tell his father everything. My father's father was a labouring man,---a porter on the quays. I suppose in this country a young man can marry without his father's leave. But though I love..."

Funny as they are, the scenes between Folly and Isabel so serve the highlight the basically commercial nature of marriage at this time---however much people danced around the point. Only Popplecourt's title and estates make him a viable marriage prospect; strip those away and he's an inferior specimen indeed.

Likewise Dolly's remark about the cookmaid, crass as it is, probably does serve to inform Isabel how people may look upon a marriage between herself and Silverbridge.

Chapter 48

P: The message was

...she herself would wish. This American girl seemed to her to be a very grand creature. That she was preeminently beautiful everyone allowed. That she was very clever no one could doubt. Every word that she had spoken in telling her own story and in speaking of her love had been, to Mary's thinking, noble and attractive. But then all this would be another trouble to the family,---another sorrow to that heavily burdened head of the family! Mary was by no means sure but that her elder brother, as being her elder brother, owed a peculiar duty to the Pallisers generally in this matter of his marriage. With his great privileges he ought, perhaps, to be alive to his great duties. Would it be well that the mother of the future Duke should be the granddaughter of an American porter? Mary, who was firm as a rock as to her own rights and who was quite resolved that no parental authority, no ducal pride, no family pretensions should separate her from her own lover, was almost disposed to think that her elder brother should in this matter obey her father. Had it been Gerald who was in love with the American it might have been different. But when she...

P: "Can you not..."

...clenched her two hands, and prepared herself for fighting. "Can you not imagine what such a gentleman may have to say?" But the time for fighting did not seem to her to have come quite yet, and, though there was a pause...

P: "When he knows..."

"...die this minute. Of course you can say that it is all vanity, but I shall never marry anybody unless they let me marry Mr Tregear."

P: "What can I..."

...Lord Popplecourt endeavoured, and apparently with success, to make himself...

P: "I will never..."

...her husband that night. "Of course she'll marry this man,"---meaning Tregear,---"and the sooner the Duke gives way the quicker he'll get over the annoyance."

P: Lady Mary was

...Miss Boncassen in return, and she was hardly prepared to do this at present. She would require to hear something on this matter at any rate from her brother before she would do that. What if...

P: "I mean that..."

"I mean that if,---which is perhaps impossible,---if all the grandeurs..."

P: "I mean that..."

"...I would call him--- But I need not think about all that, need I?"

P: "Yes," said Mary

...of her own grievances, of which, however, she was not prepared to speak openly. "It is an abominable bondage, and I do not see that it does any good at all. Yet it has to be kept up," she said, thinking of her brother and of future possible difficulties.

P: "I think it..."

"...is liberty. An aristocrat should be a real aristocrat,---like your father."

P: "No, dear---but..."

"...of an aristocracy. A thing may be very good, but not perfect. To tell the...

P: "So I do."

    "So I do. Do you doubt it?"
    "Oh, no!"
    "If you do, you wrong me foully,---and do not in the least understand how it is. I love him entirely. I have said not a word of that to him;—but I do, i If I know at all what love is, I love him as a girl ought to love the man she means to marry. But if you..."

P: And yet Mary

...have to make. It certainly was true that a future duke ought not to marry the granddaughter of a street porter. It would be as bad as some of those unnatural love affairs which take place in the Arabian Nights.

P: On the day

...the woods together. It is not impossible that this may have been arranged by the latter young lady with some view to creating an intimacy, or at any rate producing good humour, between herself and her possible future father-in-law. And it so happened when they were at a little distance from the house, each of the girls was walking with the other girl's father. Mr Boncassen was no doubt eloquent, and satisfied Lady Mary's wishes in regard to conversation. But the Duke was much struck, first with the grace and wit of his companion,---and then with her good sense. Isabel had...

P: He in all

...of his birthright, not communicated by words from others but yet perfectly understood. And he conceived...

P: He in all

    ...did not at all understand.
    As he and his daughter came together at the end of the walk, Isabel having for the moment gone off with her father, the Duke expressed great admiration for the American girl's manners and intellect.

With the trimming here we lose both some of that fine dissection of Plantagenet's completely contradictory views, his theory and his practice, and also the irony of Mary disapproving of Silverbridge's love affair quite as much as disapproves of hers ("Oh, that's different!").

We did traveling over Thanksgiving here so I'm a little behind (chapter 38) but hoping to catch up over the next few nights.

As a side note, it makes me sad to see all the little words trimmed out (very, already, of course). I can just see Trollope sitting there sadly, hacking away at his wonderfully crafted first draft, trying to conserve as much of the content as he could.

Chapter 49

P: {Insertion after ...nothing was proved!}

    And it was notorious that the groom had gone off to Australia,---as people said, with five thousand pounds. Considerable blame was thrown upon the gentlemen who were managing the inquiry because they had not detained the groom. He no doubt could have told everything, and if sufficiently bribed would probably have done so. Some said that he might have been detained by a warrant. But the matter was not brought before the magistrates, and the man went before any sufficient bribe was offered to him. He had left the country, indeed, within a week of the day on which the race was run.
    But the Major remained. Which of the culprits had with his own hand hammered the nail no one could take upon himself to decide; but that the Major...

P: But though the

...run horses "square." Even when Silverbridge had been most offensive to him he had been careful of his partner's interests. He had taken a pride in this, as though it had been a great virtue, often telling himself that he did for Silverbridge much more than Silverbridge deserved, and regarding himself as almost a miracle of virtue. It was not...

P: His reward was

...would not have looked, and who had never been regarded as gentlemen,--- had absolutely...

P: His reward was

...that swindler Green. But still there were a few who believed that he had been made a victim, and among those few Lord Silverbridge for a long time was one.

P: {Insertion after ...of an opinion.}

In these two matters the Major, wretched as he was, exhibited more pluck than his friends or enemies had expected. There was a...

P: Then the meeting

...burst into tears;---and perhaps no course which he could have pursued would have told more in his favour. The whole story was repeated,---the nail, and the hammer, and the lameness, unreal when first declared, and afterwards so dreadfully real; and the moments...

P: Upon this there

...to say something. But Mr Lupton, understanding the difficulty, came to his assistance. "The position of Lord Silverbridge in the matter is peculiarly painful," he said. "I do not see why he should be called upon either to defend or to accuse you."

P: "I will have..."

    ...instant resignation. The meeting, however, would not dissolve itself until the resignation was written. The letter, as it came from the hand of the unfortunate man, was not a credit to his scholarship.
    After this the Major's name sank for a time almost into forgetfulness. That quarrel in the Runnymede hunt was carried on no doubt with great vehemence, much to the injury of sport in that neighbourhood; but the world generally did not for a time hear very much about it. It came to be acknowledged in the sporting world that the terrible crime with which the Major was charged could not be absolutely proved against him; and though he was debarred from certain race-courses and certain precincts, still he continued to show his face. "If ever there was a fellow infernally treated, I am the man," he would say, till he almost believed the story he told so often on his own behalf. And he wrote sundry letters to his late partner,---as to which, however, Silverbridge was wise enough to take advice from Mr Lupton. But through it all there were still some who declared that poor Tifto had been more sinned against than sinning.

Some people get impatient with the Tifto subplot, but it's a fine example of Trollope's interest in the psychology of people under pressure---including people without a strong code to guide them.

It is also important in that this constant abrasion is another of the ongoing difficulties that help Silverbridge finally to grow up: he shows a surprising amount of grace when dealing with this business, which simply will not go away and let him put the mess behind him.

It's also interesting that the moral here seems to be not so much "Be honest", but "If you're going to be dishonest, do it thoroughly!" :D

>153 japaul22:

Oh, agreed! (Of course.)

And the emphases do make a difference to the intent of the text.

Chapter 50

P: The Duke before

    "I don't think she cares very much about Lord Popplecourt," Lady Cantrip said.
    "I am sure I don't know why she should," said the Duke, who in his own ill-humour was often could be very aggravating even to his friends.

P: "She ought to..."

...Glencora had been when she had been separated from her lover. "Has he..."

P: "I have found..."

"...it difficult;---extremely difficult."

P: He betrayed nothing

...was said to him. He smiled as he heard it, so that Lady Cantrip almost thought that she had prevailed. But as he...

P: He betrayed nothing

...a misery. A man, when he has a firm opinion, is of course sure that he is right. In this...

P: But would it

...necessary firmness. A man has to act, not only on his own behalf, but as an example to others. If every...

P: And then, mixed

...Duke of Omnium. All this, however,---which would mingle itself with his thoughts and which served to instigate him to firmness,---was most illogical. Seeing that he was prepared to justify himself in comdemning his daughter to misery, and if necessary to death, because it was his duty to support his order, surely he could not add any rational strength to that justification by a desire to punish Tregear for arrogance and covetousness!

P: But together with

...not as a fault; that he could sacrifice all his remaining life to hers, if only he could teach her to believe that what he did, he did from duty. If he could...

P: "He is none..."

"...for that, Mary. When a man has taken up politics as the occupation of his life, the subject should always be present in his mind. I wonder..."

P: Lady Mary thought

...her father did. But why was her father so anxious that Silverbridge and Lady Mabel should be brought together, if all that Miss Boncassen had said was true? "Is he..."

P: As she was

There a pile of letters reached him, among which he found Mr Warburton had not yet gone to work so as to separate the the private wheat from the official chaff. Here, when he had opened two or three which had first attracted him,---one from Mr Monk, written after that gentleman had left Custins, in which he very anxiously suggested certain political combinations, a second from Mr Moreton giving in detail the expenditures of Lord Silverbridge in the last twelvemonth, and a third from Lord Chiltern full of trouble about foxes in the brake country,---a country hunted by his Lordship in which the Duke possessed much property,---he pitched upon a fourth one marked "Private"...

P: As she was

..."Francis Tregear." The Mr Monk's combinations, his son's follies, and the Brake foxes,---which he despised from the bottom of his heart,---had failed to ruffle the serenity which he had determined to assume on his daughter's behalf; but that man's name...

P: "But I venture..."

"...write to you; pleading my own cause,---and as I believe hers."

P: He read the

...his daughter miserable. Though he might he might be sure of the truth of his own argument, still there was something to be said on the other side; and the young man said it well. He was not...

P: He continued to

...hour of dinner, so that he might revert to his original tenderness, and when...

P: He continued to

...ten days' time. Mr Boncassen would then be at work in the British Museum; but he had half promised that he would come for a week if he might be allowed to bring a trunk full of books with him. As to...

P: "She promised she..."

"...write to Silverbridge." Mary of course intended to write to Silverbridge; but she was determined to tell her brother that both Lady Mabel and Miss Boncassen had been invited. He must then do as he pleased about coming to meet them.

Chapter 51

P: But the post

...such limitations, and thinking that the welfare of the country depended much upon the preservation of the aristocracy, was he not...

P: But the post

...no visible end. Though he half wrote his letter, and felt that all that he had said and all that he was about to say was as true as gospel, still he did not dare to say it. It behoved him, above all things, to be secure. Words when once...

P: "It is for..."

"...to be here. You ought to have friends of your own age. I think that..."

P: "I have no..."

"...they have met." This the father said with an easy heart, not at all anxious on that head, remembering his son's confidential communication about Mabel, which had been made to him, as it seemed, but the other day. "But why..."

P: "I fancy that..."

...expected from her. The Duke had been innocent of any such intention; but Mary was completely silenced. She had no further argument to use against the congregation of the persons whom the Duke had selected.

P: But the letter

"...and the Boncassens. I don't know whether Lady Mabel and Miss Boncassen will get on well together, but they must take their chance. Now you will know whether the set will suit you. Papa has particularly begged that you will come,---apparently because of Lady Mabel. I don't at all know what that means. Perhaps you do. As I like Lady Mabel very much, I hope she will come." Mary as she read this over thought that it must be effective. Surely Silverbridge...

P: But the letter

...another young lady! It was thus that Lady Mary argued with herself when she sent her letter off to the post.

P: {Insertion after ...sent to them}

And, to Mary's great horror...

P: And, to Mary's

"...I wonder!" Lady Mary well knew the cause of her wondering. Did the Duke when inviting her know anything of his son's inclinations? Would he be made to know them now, during this visit? And what would he say when he did know them? There was quite enough in the proposed visit to excite her feelings; and to induce her, as she said, to "wonder."

P: But it was

...about the matter,---adding very little about the two young ladies. "Of course..."

P: Though Silverbridge had

...were over,---the three months at the expiration of which he was to receive his answer from Miss Boncassen. He had...

P: That Lady Mabel

...ought to do so. He had told her what were his intentions. If she was disappointed, that was not his fault. Why had she sent him away when he had shown himself willing to kneel at her feet? It might be that his father would have ground of complaint, but surely she would have none. He thought that she would not show herself at Matching. That was his...

Chapter 52

P: "I am not..."

    "...papers to-morrow; but you won't hear a word from me,---unless Mr Monk has something very good to offer me."
    "i think we can combat Sir Timothy and all his wiles without treachery," said Mr Monk laughing.
    Then Silverbridge...

P: "Why misery?"

"...you to ask! As yu are an old friend, I tell you everything. Though I..."

P: "I know nothing..."

"...it at all. It can never come to any good, I am sure of that."

P: "Yes, you do..."

"Yes, you do;---although we knew each other as children. And what..."

P: "Do, do..."

"...to Mr Erle." Mr Erle was sitting on the other side of her, and her endeavours soon seemed crowned with perfect success.

P: Miss Boncassen was

...his own master. If he never said another word, neither would she. But what...

P: {Insertion after ...for her sake.}

    "If it is considered desirable, sir," said Silverbridge when the ladies were gone, "I'll take my glass and a bottle of wine, and go and sit alone in the billiard-room. I don't want to hear any secrets."
    The Duke shook his head. "Is it not a pity that there should be secrets between you and me?"
    "What are the secrets?" asked Phineas. "I am sure it is nor secret that we all want to get rid of Sir Timothy Beeswax. But we have nothing to do with it. We have only got to wait till our time comes. That there are secrets between him and Lord Drummond, and between him and Lord Ramsden, and him and Sir Orlando, no one can doubt. Very disagreeable secrets I should think they must be. But I don't suppose that we have any secrets."
    "I have none," said Mr Monk.
    "Perhaps I rather meant counsels," said the Duke sadly. But after that the conversation turned rather on shooting than politics. There was very little spoken which even the ingenuity of the editor of The People's Banner could have made the subject of sterling political denunciation. Afterward, during the evening, music prevailed. It was discovered...

P: He had quite

...to be her husband. That look could have meant nothing else. It referred back to that proffer of love which he had once made to her,---just as though she had not rejected the proffer. Of course...

Chapter 53

P: During the next

...much interruption either from politics or from love-making. In politics there was not in truth very much to be done. The general conclusions among the politicians assembled seemed to be that if sufficient rope were allowed to that chief enemy, Sir Timothy Beeswax, he would probably hang himself, and therefore it was desirable to give him as much rope as possible. Nothing could be done till the next spring. There was no chance that either Sir Timothy or Lord Drummond would resign till they had encountered the accidents of another session. Should the accidents of the session drive Sir Timothy from his position, then, it was thought, Mr Monk must be selected as the only person in the House capable of forming a government. Im that event the Duke would, if at the moment he found it possible, lend his co-operation to any arrangements that might be made. The meaning of this was that in the event of the party coming into power he would consent to be President of the Council and to fill the office which his old friend the Duke of St Bungay positively refused to occupy again. In achieving this Mr Monk, Phineas Finn, and Barrington Erle thought that they had achieved very much. The nucleus of a Liberal Cabinet was again made. There was no doubt that Lord Cantrip would join such a party. Barrington Erle and Phineas Finn, as they walked about the grounds on the second Sunday, previous to their departure on the Monday following, were able to fill up nearly all the important offices. Mr Monk and the Duke were, perhaps, more intent upon the measures which they thought ought to be proposed to the Parliament.
    Such were the political achievements of the Duke's guests, but the love-making was not quite so prosperous all round. Poor Lady Mary...

P: Such were the

...still very great. In regard to any matter that is of importance to us, though we may not doubt that the facts are as we desire them to be, still to be assured that they are so is always a comfort. Mary told herself...

P: Such were the

...five months since. During all those five months she had not heard his name mentioned. How could her love serve her,---how could her very life serve her, if things were to go on like that? It might be for years,---or it might be for ever! How was she...

P: Her brother, though

The Duke, who was not crafty in managing either his family or his political adherents, and who certainly...

P: Her brother, though

...that other consent, which she feared would be the more difficult to attain. "If you..."

P: Through it all

...saw them together,---and they often were together,--- he concluded...

P: During the three

She was an apt scholar, intent no doubt on proving to him that however different she might be as to birth, she was in intellect equal to any position that might be offered to her. In this she altogether succeeded. Had there been a question of any other young man marrying her, he would probably have thought that no other young man could have done better. But, during these days, Isabel never deluded herself into feeling that she was overcoming the one difficulty which stood in her way.

P: On that second

...impossible to him. He might do it when he found himself alone with his father. He might do it when Mabel was gone. At the present moment it was impossible,---and yet it was indispensably necessary that something should be done. He could allow her to leave Matching without taking some steps towards the declaration of his purpose. Now at this...

P: "I am very..."

...nothing of it. When the young Lord told him that this opportunity for private conversation was very fortunate, his mind was quite a blank as to what might be the subject of conversation. "I don't know..."

P: "Really, Lord Silverbridge..."

    "...by surprise. You want to marry my daughter!"
    "Certainly I do."
    "I am afraid..."

P: "He wouldn't be..."

...said Silverbridge, using the argument with which his sister had always supported her cause.

P: "Well;---yes..."

"Well;---yes. I don't mean to boast about it; but if it..."

P: "Then think of..."

"...she cannot with due regard to her own dignity become your wife..."

P: "Would it be..."

"...her new world. From what you have seen of her, do you think she would bear that easily?"

P: That evening the

...Queen of England? Mr Boncassen listened to his daughter without rebuke. It was her affair and not his. When asked his advice he would give it, but that was all.

P; Her hand was

"...take me back. There were eyes looking at us when you brought me through the gate, and I do not care if they be there to look at us again."

These chapters sum up the scheme of cutting very well: the romantic subplots are basically left alone, while the politics are strip-mined.

I'm always struck by how well Mr and Mrs Boncassen understand Isabel---far better, I think, than any other parents in Trollope understand their child---and likewise how sensible they are (allowing for Mrs Boncassen's extravagant championing of her daughter) in their interactions with her.

As opposed to this---possibly the understatement of the 19th century:

The Duke, who was not crafty in managing either his family or his political adherents...

Chapter 54

NB: In this instance, there is a change in chapter title, from "I Don't Think She Is A Snake" to "He Must Be Made To Please Something Else".

P: But she knew

...become his wife, if she could compass it. And Then he had rejected her! And since that, though they had been frequently together here at Matching, he had not said a word from which she could get encouragement. It had all...

P: But she knew

    ...come back to her. But this American had crossed his path, and hers, and now all the world was a blank to her.
    It was indeed a sad blank. She had begun...

P: It was indeed

...too complete a readiness,---with a sincerity which was hardly gratifying to her. She had dreamed of a second love, which should not, however, obliterate the first,---of something which might satisfy her aspirations for a home and a position, but which might...

P: Over and over

...was no chance. She must put up with things now which she had once thought she could never have endured. Though he lad...

P: Over and over

...changed so easily, straying from her to this American girl as a bee strays from one flower to another. She hoped now that his affections might not be strong, that he might be prone to change, so that in his vacillations he might come back to her.

P: She did not

...must be made. Then all the family, all the friends, all the world must combine to teach him how impossible it was that he should marry an American,---and an American so meanly born.

P: Lady Mabel had

...against that rival. But she did not quite dare to do it. Sshe could not...

P: Lady Mabel had

...the other guests, and seemed to signify that her time would then come, she decided that it would be best to bide her time. Of course she would remain. The Duke, as she assented, kissed her hand, and she knew that this sign of grace was given to his intended daughter-in-law. Surely among them they might be too strong for that boy!

P: "Don't be moral..."

"...in my sense. I have not a word to say against her character. She has got..."

P: "I hope you..."

...spoken plainer. Lady Mabel looked up into his face blushing,---with a purposed blush, and, without speaking a word, had thus told him that she also wished that it might be so.

P: {Insertion after ...in the struggle.}

    ...in the struggle.
    "I did not know that he could afford that kind of thing," said the Duke with a frown on his brow.
    "Of course his father will have seen to that. Years ago..."

P: "I wish," said

"...much upon it. I had her here because of what you said to me, and you ought to be..."

P: All that had

...in last June. It had occurred under an altogether different set of human circumstances,---before Mrs Montacute Jones's garden-party, before that day in the rain at Maidenhead, before the brightness of Killancodlem had shone upon him, before the glories of Miss Boncassen had been revealed to him his eyes. But how could he now, at this moment, make all that intelligible to his father? "There is no..."

P: "I must dress..."

So he escaped, leaving the Duke altogether in doubt as to what there might be to be explained.

P: It was clear

...appeal to himself, that she would throw herself upon his mercy, that she would...

P: It came out

...hardly be mentioned before the Duke and Lady Mary together. But everybody...

P: "The greatest good..."

    "...be in Parliament. He will do well there, and that will force your father to respect him."
    "I hope he'll succeed. We'll make a good fight for it at any rate."
    Then there was a pause. "And when..."

There is some very damaging cutting here.

Look particularly at the changes made in the paragraph starting It was indeed: the whole meaning is changed, from the softer interpretation of Mabel forgetting Frank in her love for Silverbridge, to the much more confronting original meaning where it is clear she has no intention of forgetting Frank whatever she does.

And even at this point, Mabel's underlying lack of respect for Silverbridge is clear: Surely among them they might be too strong for that boy! She doesn't seem to realise that it is this which has raised the barrier between them; she simply thinks that he has, being "weak", changed his mind.

(I think we can excuse Silverbridge's own evasion of the issue with his father, even if that too is designated "weak". This truly isn't the moment for explanations!)

And we get a harder irony, too, in that after the whole chapter being devoted to Mabel's ideas of Silverbridge, right at the end it is still clear that Frank dominates her thinking. "He'll do well there." She never said that to Silverbridge!

The other critical passage here is this:

"I did not know that he could afford that kind of thing," said the Duke with a frown on his brow.

He's not the least bit pleased to discover that Frank comes from a respectable family that can afford to have a younger son in Parliament; that Frank has a father prepared to pay for that, exactly as he pays for Silverbridge... :)

Chapter 55

    Polpenno was a borough on the northern coast of Cornwall as to which most politicians were agreed that it ought to have been abolished by some Reform Bill. It had been spared, so the Tories said, at the first great Reform Bill, because at that time it was under the influence of that mighty Whig nobleman the Earl of Camborne. As certain small boroughs certainly were spared, apparently in the interests of magnates both on one side and on the other, the allegation in this respect may not improbably have been true. At the Second Reform Bill it was still spared because when that moderate measure became law, no existing borough was sent out actually into the cold. Polpenno at that time returned but one member, and that one it retained.
    But there had been changes since the days in which the old Earl of Camborne had been so powerful. He had always sent up to Parliament some Liberal selected by himself,---choosing his member just as though there had never been a whisper of reform in the county of Cornwall. But there had come other earls less efficient, and there had been sales of property, and gradually the Camborne interest had dwindled. But still there had been something of a Camborne interest, and the Liberals had at any rate retained their hold on the borough down to the present date. There had been a rapid succession of members, and various contests. it was thought by many that a good deal of money had been spent at Polpenno, and that certainly Sir Simon Carstairs, the late member, who had once been Lord Mayor of London and certainly had no special connection with Cornwall, had paid very dear for his whistle. Poor Sir Simon had now died suddenly, and it was immediately decided that there should be another struggle. Mr Carbottle, coming whence nobody knew, or recommended by whom very few understood, was on his way down from London very soon after the death of Sir Simon. But it was known that Mr Carbottle was a man of means. It was soon whispered about that he had made a large fortune in the indigo trade, and that he did not very much care what he spent so that he could get into Parliament.
    Polwenning...

P: Polwenning, the seat

...into the town. Many years ago the Tregears had owned many houses in the little borough, and had professed almost as strong an interest as the Camborne family had afterwards consolidated. As Silverbridge had told his father, many of the Tregear family had sat for the borough. Then there had come changes, and the Camborne interest had been consolidated. Since those days strange Conservatives had been brought down,---as Sir Simon and Mr Carbottle were brought,---but they had never succeeded. When the vacancy...

P: "If his purse..."

...a godless dissenter, in favour of women's rights and republican institutions. Mrs Tregear...

P: "If his purse..."

"...to such subjects! A Turk or Mohammedan if he had made made money enough to be called an enlightened man would be just the member for Polpenno." From which...

P: When the old

    When the old people were gone to bed the two young men discussed the matter the new member of Parliament and the expectant member betook themselves to the servants' hall in order that Silverbridge might smoke his pipe. "I hope you'll get in," said Silverbridge.
    "Well---yes; I suppose I may trust to you fir as much as that."
    "And if..."

P: "But he wants..."

"...anything else. These are my ideas," said Tregear, getting up, "and I regard myself as a philanthropic patriot."

P: {Insertion after ...in the argument.}

    ...in the argument.
    But in spite of the repentance which the future head of the Pallisers felt as to the first step which he had taken in political life, he was prepared to do the best he could to assist his friend's canvass. It would be a grand thing that Tregear should be in Parliament. He too thought that, were it to be so, the Duke's opposition might be in some degree softened by the fact, and he was essentially loyal in his nature and fond of action. He was ready to do anything,---except, as he said at Polwenning, to make a speech. And even then he declared himself ready to do it if it could be assured to him that there should be such a row that nobody could hear him. The whole of the...

P: But in spite

...than anybody else? A great man he certainly was, but surely not great enough for Polpenno. This very bad joke, referring to the candidate's personal dimensions, seemed to be very popular. Did not...

P: Then Mr Williams

...word he spoke. But in such positions a man has to endure the blows, not only of his enemies,---which are generally endurable without much suffering,---but of his friends also; and such blows are sometimes excruciating. It was...

P: Mr Williams was

...for the occasion, and there are generally so many anxious for the honour that to escape is not difficult. But in such...

P: It was in

...former Prime Minister, who had ideas of his own, was a tower...

P: {Insertion after "...it isn't reassuring."}

    "...it isn't reassuring."
    Mr Williams, who came back with them all to supper, was not quite so well contented. There had been but faint applause after his speech. "I hope, my Lord," he said severely, "that you agreed with the few remarks I ventured to make regarding the religion of this country."
    "I'm not sure that all the dissenters are so very bad," said Silverbridge. "There is Lord Drummond, the Prime Minister. He's a Presbyterian." This happened to be a fact,---which would have been explained away at great length by Mr Williams, who was beginning to show that a Presbyterian in Scotland was not a dissenter, when Mrs Tregear took them all into supper.
    "I hope I..."

P: On the next

...to be raining heavily, and to be raining after such a fashion that they who knew the weather in that part of the world declared that it would rain all day. Canvassing was...

P: Canvassing under heavy

...can be conceived. And if at all times, so especially is it abominable and degrading in such weather as December. The same words...