"Barchester Towers"

[fiefoe]

I'm a bit surprised that I should find Anthony Trollope so entertaining. Maybe the key (for me at least) to enjoy Victorian novels is to read them in dribbles in snatches of downtime.

• If we look to our clergymen to be more than men, we shall probably teach ourselves to think that they are less, and can hardly hope to raise the character of the pastor by denying to him the right to entertain the aspirations of a man.
• He was ambitious—who among us is ashamed to own that "last infirmity of noble minds!"
• Mr. Towers of "The Jupiter" and his brethren occupied themselves with other names, and the undying fame promised to our friend was clearly intended to be posthumous.
• But God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.
• He bore with the idolatry of Rome, tolerated even the infidelity of Socinianism, and was hand and glove with the Presbyterian Synods of Scotland and Ulster.
• still I cannot think that with all her virtues she adds much to her husband's happiness.
• equally coveted by another great mind—Mrs. Proudie would also choose to be Bishop of Barchester.
• His gall rises at a new church with a high-pitched roof; a full-breasted black silk waistcoat is with him a symbol of Satan;
• horrid chintz affair, most unprelatical and almost irreligious; such a sofa as never yet stood in the study of any decent High Church clergyman of the Church of England.
• There were four persons there, each of whom considered himself the most important personage in the diocese—himself, indeed, or herself, as Mrs. Proudie was one of them.
• The old bells of the tower, in chiming the hour, echoed the words, and the swallows flying out from their nests mutely expressed a similar opinion. Like Mr. Slope! Why no, it was not very probable that any Barchester-bred living thing should like Mr. Slope!
• a man, or even an ape, when once a bishop, would be a respectable adversary,
• offered to send him all kinds of condiments supposed to be good for a sore throat. After that there had been no more intoning at Plumstead Episcopi.
• Mr. Slope had predetermined to hate the man because he foresaw the necessity of fighting him.
• There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilized and free countries than the necessity of listening to sermons.
• It is so pleasant to receive a fillip of excitement when suffering from the dull routine of everyday life!
• the milk of whose nature runs so softly that he would not have the heart to refuse the Pope the loan of his pulpit, if the Pope would come and ask it.
• It is astonishing how much each of the family was able to do, and how much each did, to prevent the well-being of the other four.
• She well knew the great architectural secret of decorating her constructions, and never descended to construct a decoration. But when we have said that Mrs. Stanhope knew how to dress and used her knowledge daily, we have said all.
• Large rooms when full of people and full of light look well, because they are large, and are full, and are light. Small rooms are those which require costly fittings and rich furniture.
• There is a useful gradation in such things, and Marsala at 20s. a dozen did very well for the exterior supplementary tables.
• and tooth-drawer, who was first taught to consider himself as belonging to the higher orders by the receipt of the bishop's card.
• Mrs. Proudie moved about with well-regulated grace, measuring out the quantity of her favours to the quality of her guests, just as Mr. Slope had been.
• "Is it?" said Bertie, opening wide his wonderful blue eyes. "Well, I never was afraid of responsibility. I once had thoughts of being a bishop, myself."
• offended, when unfortunately the castor of the sofa caught itself in her lace train, and carried away there is no saying how much of her garniture... Gathers were heard to go, stitches to crack, plaits to fly open, flounces were seen to fall, and breadths to expose themselves; a long ruin of rent lace disfigured the carpet, and still clung to the vile wheel on which the sofa moved.
• "I'll fly to the looms of the fairies to repair the damage, if you'll only forgive me," said Ethelbert, still on his knees. "Unhand it, sir!" said Mrs. Proudie.
• The bishop had heard of the last of the Visigoths, and had floating in his brain some indistinct idea of the last of the Mohicans, but to have the last of the Neros thus brought before him for a blessing was very staggering.
• Well, Mr. Archdeacon, after all, we have not been so hard upon you at Oxford." "No," said the archdeacon, "you've only drawn our teeth and cut out our tongues; you've allowed us still to breathe and swallow."
• His strongest worldly passion was for ferns—and before she could answer him he left her wedged between the door and the sideboard.
• "What," said he to himself, "can a man's religion be worth if it does not support him against the natural melancholy of declining years?"
• Work is now required from every man who receives wages, and they who have to superintend the doing of work, and the paying of wages, are bound to see that this rule is carried out... New men, Mr. Harding, are now needed and are now forthcoming in the church, as well as in other professions."
• "New men are carrying out new measures and are carting away the useless rubbish of past centuries!" What cruel words these had been; and.. the new era, an era in which it would seem that neither honesty nor truth is very desirable, but in which success is the only touchstone of merit.
• "If honest men did not squabble for money, in this wicked world of ours, the dishonest men would get it all, and I do not see that the cause of virtue would be much improved.
• If it were the fact that Mrs. Bold had twelve hundred a year of her own, what a fool would he be to oppose her father's return to his old place.
• Others can't put two shillings together, but they have a great talent for all sorts of outlay. I begin to think that my genius is wholly in the latter line."
• Marriage means tyranny on one side and deceit on the other. I say that a man is a fool to sacrifice his interests for such a bargain. A woman, too generally, has no other way of living."
• He ventures to reprobate that system which goes so far to violate all proper confidence between the author and his readers by maintaining nearly to the end of the third volume a mystery as to the fate of their favourite personage... Our doctrine is that the author and the reader should move along together in full confidence with each other. Let the personages of the drama undergo ever so complete a comedy of errors among themselves, but let the spectator never mistake the Syracusan for the Ephesian; otherwise he is one of the dupes, and the part of a dupe is never dignified.