Framley Parsonage Read Online Free Page B
Author: Anthony Trollope
the proverb seems trite, but the exemplification is rich and satisfying.
In his
Autobiography
Trollope calls
Framley Parsonage
‘a morsel of the biography of an Englishclergyman who should not be a bad man, but one led into temptation by his own youth and by the unclerical accidents of the life of those around him’. The other main storyline about the love of Lucy Robarts and Lord Lufton is dismissed as ‘an adjunct necessary, because there must be love in a novel’. Nevertheless, Trollope claims in retrospect,
… it was downright honest love, – in which therewas no pretence on the part of the lady that she was too ethereal to be fond of a man, no half-and-half inclination on the part of the man to pay a certain price and no more for a pretty toy. Each of them longed for the other, and they were not ashamed to say so. 24
Yet in Chapter 31 the narrator goes so far as to apologize for the fact that Lord Lufton feels a twinge of regret at Griselda Grantly’sengagement to Lord Dumbello:
‘Your hero, then,’ I hear some well-balanced critic say, ‘is not worth very much.’
In the first place Lord Lufton is not my hero; and in the next place, a man may be very imperfect and yet worth a great deal… It is my belief that few young men settle themselves down to the work of the world, to the begetting of children, and carving and paying and struggling andfretting for the same, without having first been in love with four or five possible mothers for them, and probably with two or three at the same time… In this way Lord Lufton had, to a certain extent, been in love with Griselda. 25
Once Lufton has fully decided on Lucy Robarts, however, he goes about overcoming the obstacles in his path with a no nonsense vigour. It is somewhat of a shock thento learn of his feelings at his actual marriage, and to hear the narrator’s opinions about a bridegroom’s expected sentiments:
I will not say that the happiness of marriage is like the Dead Sea fruit, – an apple which, when eaten turns to bitter ashes in the mouth… Nevertheless, is it not the fact that the sweetest morsel of love’s feast has been eaten, that the freshest, fairest blush of theflower has been snatched and has passed away, when the ceremony at the altar has been performed, and legal possession given? 26
There is an unmistakable feeling that Trollope only really enjoys courtship when it leads to power struggles, like that between Lucy and Lady Lufton, but that the smooth-running of the course of love and, even worse, weddings, do not interest him. After all, the lastchapter is dismissively entitled ‘How they were all Married, had Two Children, and lived Happy ever after’. What does interest Trollope, on the other hand, is a working marriage, like that of Mark and Fanny, and many of the most moving moments in the novel concern Fanny’s loyalty to Mark, and, in the chapter ‘Consolation’, her sharing of the burden of his worry and relieving his guilt. This is thekind of subject which appeals to Trollope, as do the dynamics of unhappy marriages too. The Thorne marriage promises to be a rewarding relationship in Trollopian terms because of the lack of moonshine about the partners. It would not be pure speculation to suggest that Trollope was drawing on his own marriage, and it is inescapable to suppose that he had felt and valued the loyalty and support ofRose Trollope as he developed from an unprepossessing minor Post Office functionary into a major novelist. His remarks on marriage in
Framley Parsonage
brought a protest from George Henry Lewes, and in defending himself Trollope gives us a rare glimpse of his own experience:
You take me too closely au pied de la lettre as touching husbands & lovers. As to myself personally, I have daily to wonderat the continued run of domestic & worldly happiness which has been granted me… [N]o pain or misery has as yet come to me since the day I married; & if any man should speak well of the married state, I
In his
Autobiography
Trollope calls
Framley Parsonage
‘a morsel of the biography of an Englishclergyman who should not be a bad man, but one led into temptation by his own youth and by the unclerical accidents of the life of those around him’. The other main storyline about the love of Lucy Robarts and Lord Lufton is dismissed as ‘an adjunct necessary, because there must be love in a novel’. Nevertheless, Trollope claims in retrospect,
… it was downright honest love, – in which therewas no pretence on the part of the lady that she was too ethereal to be fond of a man, no half-and-half inclination on the part of the man to pay a certain price and no more for a pretty toy. Each of them longed for the other, and they were not ashamed to say so. 24
Yet in Chapter 31 the narrator goes so far as to apologize for the fact that Lord Lufton feels a twinge of regret at Griselda Grantly’sengagement to Lord Dumbello:
‘Your hero, then,’ I hear some well-balanced critic say, ‘is not worth very much.’
In the first place Lord Lufton is not my hero; and in the next place, a man may be very imperfect and yet worth a great deal… It is my belief that few young men settle themselves down to the work of the world, to the begetting of children, and carving and paying and struggling andfretting for the same, without having first been in love with four or five possible mothers for them, and probably with two or three at the same time… In this way Lord Lufton had, to a certain extent, been in love with Griselda. 25
Once Lufton has fully decided on Lucy Robarts, however, he goes about overcoming the obstacles in his path with a no nonsense vigour. It is somewhat of a shock thento learn of his feelings at his actual marriage, and to hear the narrator’s opinions about a bridegroom’s expected sentiments:
I will not say that the happiness of marriage is like the Dead Sea fruit, – an apple which, when eaten turns to bitter ashes in the mouth… Nevertheless, is it not the fact that the sweetest morsel of love’s feast has been eaten, that the freshest, fairest blush of theflower has been snatched and has passed away, when the ceremony at the altar has been performed, and legal possession given? 26
There is an unmistakable feeling that Trollope only really enjoys courtship when it leads to power struggles, like that between Lucy and Lady Lufton, but that the smooth-running of the course of love and, even worse, weddings, do not interest him. After all, the lastchapter is dismissively entitled ‘How they were all Married, had Two Children, and lived Happy ever after’. What does interest Trollope, on the other hand, is a working marriage, like that of Mark and Fanny, and many of the most moving moments in the novel concern Fanny’s loyalty to Mark, and, in the chapter ‘Consolation’, her sharing of the burden of his worry and relieving his guilt. This is thekind of subject which appeals to Trollope, as do the dynamics of unhappy marriages too. The Thorne marriage promises to be a rewarding relationship in Trollopian terms because of the lack of moonshine about the partners. It would not be pure speculation to suggest that Trollope was drawing on his own marriage, and it is inescapable to suppose that he had felt and valued the loyalty and support ofRose Trollope as he developed from an unprepossessing minor Post Office functionary into a major novelist. His remarks on marriage in
Framley Parsonage
brought a protest from George Henry Lewes, and in defending himself Trollope gives us a rare glimpse of his own experience:
You take me too closely au pied de la lettre as touching husbands & lovers. As to myself personally, I have daily to wonderat the continued run of domestic & worldly happiness which has been granted me… [N]o pain or misery has as yet come to me since the day I married; & if any man should speak well of the married state, I
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