The world has long ago passed its judgment on his stories, but it is
interesting, all the same, to note his own opinion of them; and though
never arrogant, he is generally tolerant, if not genial. "A novel should
be a picture of common life, enlivened by humor and sweetened by pathos. I
have never fancied myself to be a man of genius," he says; but again, with
strange imperviousness, "A small daily task, if it be daily, will beat the
labors of a spasmodic Hercules." Beat them, how? Why, in quantity. But how
about quality? Is the travail of a work of art the same thing as the
making of a pair of shoes? Emerson tells us that--
"Ever the words of the gods resound,
But the porches of man's ear
Seldom, in this low life's round,
Are unsealed, that he may hear."
No one disputes, however, that you may hear the tapping of the cobbler's
hammer at any time.
To the view of the present writer, how much good soever Mr. Trollope may
have done as a preacher and moralist, he has done great harm to English
fictitious literature by his novels; and it need only be added, in this
connection, that his methods and results in novel-writing seem best to be
explained by that peculiar mixture of separateness and commonplaceness
which we began by remarking in him.
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