BOOKS. ____,___
HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.*
Me. TROLLOPE has chosen here a more than usually painful subject, and worked it out with a less than usually even hand. There are strokes of great power in the book ; the history of the unhinging of Mr. Trevelyan's mind under the influence of vanity, jealousy, and suspense, and the sense of degradation involved in 1 using low means to guard himself against deception, is really one • Hs Knew Ho Was Right. By Anthony Trollop.. With 64 Iliasitatione by Marcum Stone. London : Straiten and Co.
of great power, furnished with a common-place but a very striking moral. There has been little in our recent literature so good or so painful as the account of the ex-policeman, Bozzle, whom Mr. Trevelyan uses as a spy
upon his wife's movements, and of the influence gained by the man's coarse assumptions over his employer's mind. In this part of the story, too, Mr. Trollope shows his usual strenuous moderation, if we may be allowed the paradox. He takes great care to show that though Bozzle is an object of disgust to us, he is so almost wholly through the degrading circumstances of his profession; that Bozzle himself is no worse, and possibly even a little better, than we have a right to expect from a man under such circumstances, and that it is, on the whole, possible for an ex-policeman and spy, with the vulgarest of natures and the meanest of trades, to be at least as little unworthy of individual respect as many of the less degraded characters through whose faults he gains his bread. It is characteristic of Mr. Trollope that he should write a tale about a truly tragic jealousy which has never even a reasonably adequate cause, the object of which jealousy is a man near sixty, old enough to be the heroine's father, too hollow as well as too old to do the sort of mischief attributed to him, and yet in a faint and unreal way hankering after mischief of that sort, and effectually doing a vast deal more mischief than he had ever contemplated, though after another sort. There is real genius in the conception of breaking a husband's heart and ruining his mind on so meagre a basis of fact as this, —using as the materials a proud, hard, wilful woman, with no trace of even the superficial flirt in her, and an elderly man of no real power of fascination, but a certain vanity which makes him feel pleasure in the reputation of wickedness. It is not only life, as Mr. Trollope so well knows it, but it is true tragedy to ground such a " wreck," as poor Mr. Trevelyan in the sullen moods which precede his death himself calls it, on the absurd foundation of an old gentleman's foppish vanity, a young lady's bitter wilfulness, and a self-occupied husband's angry, suspicious, and brooding sense of indignity. Mr. Trollope's power is exhibited at its highest, —his power as a shrewd observer, and his power as a satirist of that kind which springs from shrewd observation mingled with a little contempt for human nature,—in the scene where Colonel Osborne, the selfish old gentleman of sixty to whom we have referred, comes down after the separation between Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan to Nuncombe Putney, where the wife is living with the mother of one of her husband's friends, simply to increase his reputation as a dangerous man by pretending a little sentiment for the injured wife. Ile has an interview with her in her sister's presence which is the cause of incalculable mischief in future, but which makes him feel like a fool : "The plan of the campaign had all been arranged. Mrs. Trevelyan and Nora together received Colonel Osborne in tho drawing-room. It was understood that Nora was to remain there during the whole visit. 'It is horrible to think that such a precaution should be necessary,' Mrs. Trovelyan had said, 'but perhaps it may be best. There is no knowing what the malice of people may not invent.'—' My dear girls,' said the Colonel, 'I am delighted to see you,' and he gave a hand to each. 'We are not very cheerful here,' said Mrs. Trevelyan, 'as you may imagine.'—' But the scenery is beautiful,' said Nora, 'and the people we are living with are kind and nice.'—' I am very glad of that,' said the Colonel. Then there was a pause, and it seemed, for a moment or two, that nono of them know bow to begin a general conversation. Colonel Osborne was quite sure, by this time, that he had come down to Devonshire with the express object of seeing the door of the church at Cockchaffington, and Mrs. Trevelyan was beginning to think that ho certainly had not come to see her. 'Have you heard from your father since you have been hero ?' asked the Colonel. Then there was an explanation about Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley. Mr. Trevelyan's name was not mentioned; but Mrs. Trovelyan stated that she bad explained to her mother all the painful circumstances of her present life. Sir Marmaduko, as Colonel Osborne was aware, was expected to be in England in the spring, and Lady Rowley would, of course, come with him. Nora thought that they might probably now come before that time ; but Mrs. Trevelyan declared that it was out of the question that they should do so. Sho was sure that her father could not leave the islands except when he did so in obedience to official orders. Tho expense of doing so would be ruinous to him. And what good would he do? In this way there was a great deal of family conversation, in which Colonel Osborne was able to take a part ; but not a word was said about Mr. Trevolyan. Nor did ' the Colonel' find an opportunity of expressing a spark of that sentiment for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above-board ; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady's sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne's to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trovelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The woodentlegged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible I necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. 'Tho Colonel,' when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave ; and, as ho walked back to Mrs. Crocket's, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable fooling that ho had made an ass of himself. Tho whole affair had been a failure; and though ID! might bo able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware that lie had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. lie became aware, as he returned to Lessboro', that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trovelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And be should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley."
That is life, and that is the sort of thing on which real tragedy is founded amongst us poor human creatures. Not less severely real, and not less terribly tragic, is the picture of the influence gained over Mr. Trevelyan's mind by hie spy, the ex-policeman, Bozzle, partly because Bozzle alone justifies his own jealousy by the black view which he takes of Colonel Osborne's relations to his wife, and because Trevelyan thirsts almost above everything for the assurance that he is only acting with the proper pride and authority of an injured husband, — partly because the familiarity with evil which 13ozzle shows, and his unwavering assumption that everybody is much worse than they seem, so powerfully infects his own imagination, that his own secret estimate of his wife's innocence yields before Bozzle's assumption of her guilt. There is something horribly real, and a moral of terrible force, in the following passage :— " Then ho had put himself into the hands of Mr. Bozzlo, and Mr. Bozzlo had taught him that women very often do go astray. Mr. Bozzlo's idea of female virtue was not high, and lie had opportunities of implanting his idea on his client's mind. Trovelyan hated the man. lie was filled with disgust by Bozzle's words, and was made miserable by Bozzle's presence. Yet ho came gradually to believe in Bozzlo. Bozzlo alone believed in him. There wore none but Bozzlo who did not bid him to submit himself to his disobedient wife. And then, as ho came to believe in Bozzle, he grow to ho more and more assured that no one but Bozzle could tell him facts. His chivalry, and love, and sense of woman's honour, with something of manly pride on his own part,—so he told himself,—bad taught him to believe it to bo impossible that his wife should have sinned. Bozzlo, who know the world, thought otherwise. Bozzlo, who had no interest in the matter, one way or the other, would find out facts. What if his chivalry, and love, and manly pride had deceived him ? There were women who sinned. Then ho prayed that his wife might not he such a woman ; and got up from his prayers almost convinced that she was a sinner. His mind was at work upon it always. Could it bo that she was so base as this—so vile a thing, so abject, such dirt, pollution, filth ? But there were such cases. Nay, were they not almost numberless? Ho found himself reading in the papers records of such things from day to day, and thought that in doing so he was simply acquiring experience necessary for himself. if it were so, he had indeed done well to separate himself from a thing so infamous. And if it were not so, how could it be that that man had gone to her in Devonshire ? Ho had received from his wife's hands a short note addressed to the man, iu which the man was desired by her not to go to her, or to write to her again, because of her husband's commands. He had shown this to Bozzlo, and Bozzlo had smiled. 'It's just the sort of thing they does,' Bozzlo had said. Thou they writes another by post.' He had consulted Bozzlo as to the sending-on of that letter, and Bozzlo had been strongly of opinion that it should be forwarded, a copy having been duly taken and attested by himself. It might be very pretty evidence by and by. if the letter were not forwarded, Bozzlo thought that the omission to do so might be given in evidence against his employer. Bozzlo was very careful, and full of evidence.' The letter therefore was sent on to Colonel Osborne. ' If there's billy-dour going between 'em we shall nobble 'em,' said Bozzlo. Trevelyan tore his hair in despair, but believed that there would be billy-dous.'" So far we have found no fault either with the art or the morality of Mr. Trollope's story. Indeed, throughout the first volume (except perhaps in relation to Nora Rowley, who is uniformly vulgar and uninteresting), Mr. Trollope impresses us with a power of conception he has rarely equalled in any of his novels, and gives us quite his highest style of execution. In the second volume, however, as it seems to us, the truth and power of the drawing, no less than the realistic morality of the tale, fail very rapidly. The picture of Mr. Trevelyan's breaking mind and overweening vanity, so powerfully commenced in the first volume, is spun out to wearisome length, and quite without any fresh artistic touches until the end is close at hand. The comedy touching Camay French, with which Mr. Trollope seeks to lighten the story, becomes exaggerated and coarse. And worst of all, the conception with which, as we believe, Mr. 'Trollope clearly set out, of Mrs. Trevelyan,—the conception of a self-willed, haughty, steely woman, whose little feeling for her husband and easily wounded self-love were even snore the cause of the whole tragedy than her husband's conceit and weakness, melts away into something which it is almost impossible to define,—for nothing can exceed her real hardness and self-occupation on her husband's death-bed, and yet it seems the novelist's main effort to make you regard her as a deeply injured woman, who has been infinitely more sinned against than sinning. We entirely decline to take
this view, and even assert that Mr. Trollope in commencing his tale did not take it himself. We are both astonished and displeased at the sympathy which the novelist asks for on behalf of Mrs. Trevelyan as the tale draws to its close, since he has drawn throughout a cold, self-willed, high-tempered woman, who, though doubtless entirely free from any imputation of the kind for which she suffers, never shows, till the end of the tale, a particle of sympathy for her husband's sufferings, does do a vast deal wilfully to provoke him, and is portrayed, even during his last illness, as without a shadow of self-reproach for the obstinate heartlessness of her own conduct in the beginning of the troubles, and solely occupied with the absorbing desire to extract her own complete exculpation from her husband's dying lips. Mrs. Trevelyan is naturally enough drawn, if we were never called upon to pity her, and were permitted to condemn her as she
deserves. But when Mr. Trollop° tries to lead us into wasting compassion upon her, and yet makes her so unlovely as he does,— so utterly without remorse for conduct which seems to us far worse than her husband's, though not in the way imputed to her,—so concentred in self even in the most solemn moments, —we not only rebel against the attempt, but have a right to say that the art of the story is thereby spoiled. Let us see
what account Mr. Trollope himself gives of her proceedings. After her first natural indignation against her husband for feeling any disposition to " warn " her about Colonel Osborne's attentions, she finds out for herself that there is some necessity for caution ; she finds Colonel Osborne anxious to commit her to having a secret with him which she is not to impart to her husband,—a secret which she is silly and disloyal enough to admit,—and she observes that his hand-pressure is too warm, and his manner of calling her by her Christian name too affectionate, on parting with her. All this makes her see that there is at least some colour for her husband's warning,—and we must remember that Mr. Trevelyan had at this time never even suggested anything against his wife, only against Colonel Osborne and any close intimacy with him. She feels that her husband is partially justified in his warning, and Mr. Trollope tells us that if he had now gone to her and said a gentle word, all might have been right. But he, in his annoyance at her private interview with Colonel Osborne, does not make the advance, and she will not. "If he chooses to be cross and sulky, he may be cross and sulky," says Mrs. Trevelyan to herself, as she goes up to her baby. Then there comes a half-reconciliation, in which we are compelled to say that Mrs. Trevelyan makes herself as disagreeable as possible. Instead of admitting that there had been anything in Colonel Osborne's manners to justify her husband's dislike, as she had herself felt, she is haughty, resentful, and irritating, and Mr. Trevelyan shows the better temper of the two in admitting a reconciliation at all. After this reconciliation a note comes to her from Colonel Osborne at dinner-time. She does not open it, but bands it to her sister, with the irritating remark, " Will you give that to Louis ? It comes from the man whom he supposes to be my lover." It comes from the man whom her husband thought to be trying to make mischief, and whom she had reason to know was not strictly loyal, and yet she does nothing but taunt her husband with his uneasiness. Mr. Trevelyan, feeling himself in a false position, now begs his wife to receive Colonel Osborne as usual, and let the whole thing be as if it had never been. " lie," as Mr. Trollope himself remarks, " was softerhearted than she, and knowing this, was afraid to say anything which would again bring forth from her expressions of scorn."
We are carefully told, moreover, that Mrs. Trevelyan "was still hard and cold, and still assumed a tone which seemed to imply that she was the injured person." And we find Mr. Trollope giving the following account of the situation at this stage: "In the matter of the quarrel, as it had hitherto progressed, the husband had perhaps been more in the wrong than his wife ; but the wife, in spite of all her promises of perfect obedience, had proved herself to be a woman very hard to manage. Had she been earnest in her desire to please her lord and master in this matter of Colonel Osborne's visits,—to please him oven after ho had so vacillated in his own behests, —she might probably have so received the man as to have quelled all feeling of jealousy in her husband's bosom. But instead of doing so, she had told herself that as she was innocent, and as her innocence bad been acknowledged, and as she had been specially instructed to receive this man whom she had before been specially instructed not to receive, she would now fall back exactly into her old manner with him. She had told Colonel Osborne never to allude to that meeting in the park, and to ask no creature as to what had occasioned her conduct on that Sunday ; thus having a mystery with him, which of course he understood as well as she did. Aud then she had again taken to writing notes to him and receiving notes from him,—none of which she showed to her husband. She was more intimate with him than ever, and yet she hardly ever mentioned his name to her husband. Trevelyan, acknowledging to himself that ho had done no good by his former interference, feeling that he had put himself in the wrong on that occasion, and that his wife had got the better of him, had borno with all this, with soreness and a moody savageness of general conduct, but still without further words of anger with reference to the man himself."
In which we entirely demur to the first sentence, and entirely subscribe to the rest, but maintain also that this conduct is so bad, at the point which affairs have now reached, that it really does render the wife responsible for the separation and all its miserable consequences. After this Mrs. Trevelyan receives and destroys a note front Colonel Osborne (which contained nothing in particular), quarrels fiercely with her husband for being angry when he sees her note in reply to Colonel Osborne, which had not been shown to him, and herself proposes the separation. After the separation, she receives Colonel Osborne, as we have seen, without the slightest occasion to do so, and when the mere fact of doing so was, as she well knew, a deliberate insult to her husband, and then, for the rest of the book, becomes the injured wife and heroic sufferer,—at least, so Mr. Trollope wishes us to think her, though his delineation of her at the last is of one utterly self-seeking. We must say that though there is plenty of fault on both sides, the wife seems to us to have far more responsibility for her husband's alienation of mind and ultimate death than he has,—from her first admission of a secret with Colonel Osborne, to her obstinate pride in insisting upon receiving him when she is living apart from her husband. To our minds, Mrs. Trevelyan was meant at first by Mr. Trollope to be an unlovely character, and gradually became invested wills a very false and hollow atmosphere of sentiment as the story grew towards its end. But we dislike her even more when she is wringing her exculpation from her dying husband, than when she is taunting him with his disapproval of the man in whose manners she had learned by her own experience to detect something unpleasantly familiar and tender.
We have no space left to remark on the wonderfully true and striking picture of the stiff, prejudiced, warm-hearted provincial character given iu the sketch of old Miss Stanbury of Exeter and her various relations. That part of the book is absolutely perfect, and Dorothy Stanbury is the most delicate and fascinating of all Mr. Trollope's women. No doubt ho has a little overdone the farcical element in the account of Mr. Gibson, the minor canon, and his wooing of Arabella and Camilla French. The history of the changes produced in Arabella's chignon by her desire to win Mr. Gibson is one of the most humorous of Mr. Trollope's petty strokes of humour ; but the fierce war waged by " Catnmy " for her clerical prize is not comedy, it is farce. On the whole, we should say that while He Knew He 1Vas Right contains some of Mr. Trollope's most powerful writing,—passing beyond the sphere in which he usually excels, —the latter part of the story drags on quite beneath the level of his ordinary execution, while the moral of it is distorted as we have rarely known any moral of Mr. Trollope's distorted before.
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