BOOKS.
RALPH THE HEIR.*
PERHAPS there is scarcely any intellectual luxury to which the British public is now accustomed, that it would miss so much, as the serials produced by Mr. Trollope's unwearied and unweariable genius. How much knowledge of life, ap- preciation of its humour, experience of its paradoxes, and mastery of its lessons, is gained at second-hand through Mr. Trollope by men and women who would hardly gain it at all, and certainly not gain anything like the same amount of it, in any other way, it would not be easy to conjecture ; and assuredly any conjecture would be much more likely to fall short of the truth than to exceed it. Which of us can say that we 'know even our own circle of friends, political and social, half as well as we have learned within the last twelvemonth to know Sir Thomas Underwood and his daughters and niece, his ward Ralph, and his ward's cousins; the old squire, Gregory Newton; the Eard- ham girls, and their scheming mamma ; Mr. Griffenbottom, the
* Ralph the Heir. By Anthony Trollope. 3 vols. London : Hurst and Blackett•
corrupt M.P. for corrupt Percycross; Mr. Trigger, the Conservative agent for that corrupt borough; and Messrs. Pile, Spicer, Pabsey, and Co., the various leading Conservative constituents of the same corrupt place ;—or that we know the heart of any person at all re- sembling the breeches-maker of Conduit Street, nearly as completely as we know that of Mr. Neefit, with the pertinacious and half- pathetic workings of whose vulgar but tough little ambition we have been becoming more and more intimate every month for the last year ? To the mass of men, such a novel as Ralph the Heir brings not only a very large increase in their experience of men, but a very much larger increase than their own personal contact with the prototypes, if prototypes there be, of these personages, would ever have afforded them. Nor is the art of the book by any means deficient. We are not sure that we could name more than one or two of Mr. Trollope's tales in which the unity of the story is- nearly as well kept up from the beginning to the close ; and we donbt whether we could name any in which the studies of widely different types of character are so well adapted reciprocally to bring out, by similarity or by contrast, the force and significance of the other sketches. Take the contrast between the picture of the obstinate old squire, Gregory Newton, planning to put his natural son in possession of the estate which was entailed on his nephew by buying out the embarrassed heir, and throwing his whole heart so passionately into his plan that when he comes close upon fruition he is intoxicated and half-fay with his own success, and the picture of the breeches-maker, not more obstinate than old Squire Newton, for that would be impossible, but less capable of weighing what may be done and what cannot be done by pertinacity to achieve the object of an ambition, scheming in the same tenacious way for his daughter's advancement in the world, and thrown by his ultimate disappointment into a state of moral bitterness bordering on fury and despair, yet never for a moment passing the strict limits of that vulgar, narrow-minded vindictiveness which expresses resentment by trying to lower the object of it in the eyes of the world. Both ambitions ultimately fail ; the squire's by his premature death, and Mr. Neefit's partly as a result of that premature death which sets Ralph the Heir at liberty to marry without any view to a fortune ; but Mr. Neefit's parental ambition, indelicate and vulgar as it is, is dignified by its strong likeness to an ambition of a very similar sort, though of a higher and more noble form ; while the squire's remorseful and passionate longing to put his son in the position which, but for the squire's own fault, ought to have belonged to him, gains instead of losing in dignity by its contrast with the ignorant and vulgar parental ambition that seeks to thrust a daughter up into a sphere above her parents, in which she would necessarily be ashamed of them and their manners and speech. Again, nothing can be happier than the contrast between the charac- ter of the shy, reserved, intellectual, fastidious lawyer, Sir Thomas Underwood, who can never manage to become intimate even with his own daughters, much less with any male friends, and who has lost by the want of bonhomie all he has gained for a moment by his intellectual gifts, and the other characters with which he is brought into relation in this story,—his easy-going, pleasant, sociable ward, unstable of purpose, yet slipping through ill success and good success with equal facility by virtue of his agreeable manners, or Sir Thomas's vulgar-minded, unscrupulous, pushing colleague in the representation of Percycross, Mr. Griffenbottom, who sticks at nothing, and wins twice as much of the satisfactions of life by his purse and his coarse sagacity, as Sir Thomas Underwood can win by all his intellectual efforts and fastidious tastes. The picture of Sir Thomas Underwood,—a four-months' Solicitor-General, who when he went out with the Conservatives never gained another chance of office,—is one of Mr. Trollope's finest and best. As far as his social character goes, it is impossible to conceive a more carefully-finished picture. His sense of his own shortcomings in deserting his daughters (who are motherless) so much, and living to himself in chambers,—his slight peevish- ness with them in consequence,—the fruitless reproaches of his conscience, which make him miserable but do not make him mend, —his ineffectual attempts to enter into relations with the world, —the torture he undergoes in canvassing Percycross and winning his very temporary seat for that place,—his loathing for his colleague, Mr. Griffenbottom, who will call him familiarly " Underwood," and who despises him none the less for his incom- petence as a man of the world,—his fretfulness when brought to the practical sense of a duty for which he feels himself incom- petent, and his need of external stimulus even for purely intel- lectual work, are all drawn with consummate skill. All that Mr. Trollope fails in, is some picture or sketch at least of Sir Thomas Underwood's intellectual interests. We are told of his scheme of writing a life of Bacon, and of his various and hopeless attempts to immerse himself in it whenever the worry of the world became more than usually insupportable ; but we are not told, and receive hardly any hint, of the real drift of Sir Thomas Underwood's intellectual life, of the direction in which his mind floated as he wandered about the Inns of Court after midnight, in the few hours when his thoughts were loosened ;—in short, we have a man of high intel- lect sketched almost solely on his social, or rather unsocial aide, whereas we seem to want for the completion of the picture some glimpse of the nature of the speculative life within him. Was he an imaginative man in the higher sense, or was his mastery of law due only to great powers of deductive reasoning ? Was he a student of philosophy and science and history, or only of juris- prudence ? These are questions to which we have no answer, or trace of an answer ; and yet they are very naturally asked by the reader, as he studies this otherwise very fine and even noble pic- ture of a fastidious intellect and conscience which have never really come to an understanding with themselves, but have half surrendered Sir Thomas captive to a subtle and negative kind of refined selfishness, whose disguise is the less easily pene- trated because it yields him so few of the fruits of selfishness in any tangible happiness or pleasure. Sir Thomas's character is not one of which we can give any fair conception by an extract. But we may perhaps give some conception of its loneliness by extracting the very picturesque sketch of his only male friend, the grotesque old clerk who delighted to serve and scold him in his chamber at Southampton Buildings:— "It was now eleven, and Sir Thomas knew very well that Stemm would be in his closet. Ho opened the door and called, and Stemm, aroused from his slumbers, slowly crept into the room. 'Joseph,' said his master, 'I want Mr. Ralph's papers.'—To-night, Sir Thomas?'- `
Well ;—yes, to-night. I ought to have told you when he went away, but I was thinking of things.'—' So I was thinking of things,' said Stamm, as he very slowly made his way into the other room, and, climbing up a set of steps which stood there, pulled down from an upper shelf a tin box,—and with it a world of dust. 'If you'd have said before that they'd be wanted, Sir Thomas, there wouldn't be such a deal of dry muck,' said Stemm, as he put down the box on a chair opposite Sir Thomas's knees.—' And now where is the key ? ' said Sir Thomas. Stemm shook his head very slowly. 'You know, Stemm ;—where is it? '= How am I to know, Sir Thomas? I don't know, Sir Thomas. It's like enough in one of those drawers.' Then Stemm pointed to a certain table, and after a while slowly followed his own finger. The drawer was unlocked, and under various loose papers there lay four or five loose keys. 'Like enough it's one of these,' said Stamm.—' Of course you knew where it was,' said Sir Thomas.—' I didn't know nothing at all about it,' said Stamm, bobbing his head at his master, and making at the same time a gesture with his lips, whereby he in- tended to signify that his master was making a fool of himself. Stamm was hardly more than five feet high, and was a wizened, dry old man, with a very old yellow wig. He delighted in scolding all tho world, and his special delight was in scolding his master. But against all the world he would take his master's part, and had no care in the world except his master's comfort. When Sir Thomas passed an evening at Fulham, Stemm could do as he pleased with himself ; but they were blank evenings with Stamm when Sir Thomas was away. While Sir Thomas was in the next room, he always felt that he was in company ; but when Sir Thomas was away, all London, which was open to him, offered him no occupation.—' That's the key,' said Stomm, picking out one ; ' but it wasn't I as put it there ; and you didn't tell me as it was there, and I didn't know it was there. I guessed—just because you do chuck things in there, Sir Thomas.'—'What does it matter, Joseph ? ' said Sir Thomas.—' It does matter when you say I knowed. I didn't know,—nor I couldn't know. There's the key anyhow.'—' You can go now, Joseph,' said Sir Thomas.—' Good night, Sir Thomas,' said Stemm, retiring slowly, but I didn't know, Sir Thomas,—nor I couldn't know."
The picture of Mr. Neefit, the hunting-breeches maker, is absolutely perfect. How Mr. Trollope managed to know so much of him, so much of the out-of-the-way details of his life, as well as of his character, is one of the great mysteries of literature. It is natural enough that he should know that Mr. Neefit's manners to his custo- mers contained a good working mixture of dictatorial assurance and subservience,—subservience to the opinions of his customers on all points except those involved in his own trade, and dictatorial assur- ance on that,—so much he has, no doubt, somewhere observed. He has doubtless known tradesmen who would " take back any- thing that was not approved without a murmur," but who " after that must decline farther transactions." This interesting trait again has probably come within his observation :-
"It was, moreover, quite understood that to complain of his materials was so to insult him that he would condescend to make no civil reply. An elderly gentleman from Essex once told him that his buttons were given to breaking. "If you have your breeches,—washed,—by an old woman,—in the country,"—said Mr. Neefit, very slowly, looking into the elderly gentleman's face, "and then ran through the mangle,—the buttons will break." The elderly gentleman never dared even to enter the shop again."
But how did he come to observe a point so minute, yet so charac- teristic of the type of man, as the distinction between the answers given as to Mr. Neefit's whereabouts, to inquiries made between half-past twelve and one, and inquiries made between one and half-past one?—
" From 9.30 to 5.15 were Mr. Neefit's hours ; but it had come to be understood by those who knew the establishment well, that from half- past twelve to half-past one the master was always absent. The young man who sat at the high desk, and seemed to spend all his time in con- templating the bad debts in the ledger, would tell gentlemen who called up to one that Mr. Neefit was in the City. After one it was al ways said that Mr. Neefit was lunching at the Restanrong. The truth was that Mr. Neefit always dined in the middle of the day at a public-house, round the corner, having a chop and a' follow chop,' a pint of beer, a penny newspaper and a pipe."
Mr. Neefit's life, both at the shop at Conduit Street and at that unhappy Hendon villa which his wife in her ignorant ambition had induced him to take,—oblivious of the fact that, as Mr. Trollope puts it, to Mr. Neefit " the legs of his customers were at blessed resource," while she, when once they had left the shop in Conduit Street, had no resource,—is a marvellous bit of at once' strong and minute painting,—for no one can deny that Mr. Neefit's character, profoundly vulgar as it is, has a certain passion of tenacity in it which redeems it from insignificance. As a con- trast to the facile, gentlemanly, purposelessness of the man whom he has resolved and endeavoured to force into a marriage with hia daughter, Mr. Neefit is really respectable.
Ralph himself is an admirable picture of shallow, agreeable, drifting sociability, without a grain of either high purpose or strong purpose. His easy loves and easy disappointments are beautifully drawn, nor can anything be more perfect as a bit of poetic justice than his ultimate fate in falling a prey to one of " the Eardham girls," and the manoeuvring skill of their mamma. As an illustra- tion of Mr. Trollope's best vein of humour, take the description of the manner in which Lady Eardham uses Mr. Neefit's letter in- forming her that "hearing Mr. Newton is sweet upon one of her- ladyship's daughters," he thinks it his duty to tell her ladyship. Mr. Newton is engaged to marry his daughter, Mary Anne Neefit, as a means of making Ralph feel the necessity of engaging himself to one of her ladyship's daughters :-
"Lady Eardham when he arrived was mysterious, eulogistic, and beneficent. She was clearly of opinion that something should be done. You know it is so horrid having these kind of things said.' And yet she was almost equally strong in opinion that nothing could be done. Yon know I wouldn't have my girl's name brought up for all the world ;—though why the horrid wretch should have named her I cannot• even guess.' The horrid wretch had not, in truth, named any special, `her', though it suited Lady Eardham to presume that allusion had been made to that hope of the flock, that crowning glory of the Eardham family, that most graceful of the Graces, that Venus certain to be chosen. by any Paris, her second daughter, Gus. She went on to explain. that were she to tell the story to her son Marmaduke, her eon Mamma- duke would probably kill the breeches-maker. As Marmaduke Bard- ham was, of all young men about town, perhaps the most careless, the indifferent, and the least ferocious, his mother was probably mis- taken in her estimate of his resentful feelings. ' As for Sir George, he. would be for taking the law of the wretch for libel, and then we should. be—! I don't know where we should be then ; but my dear girl would die.' Of course there was nothing done. During the whole in- terview Lady Eardham continued to prose Neefit's letter under her hand upon the table, as though it was of all documents the most precious. She handled it as though to tear it would be as bad as to tear an origi- nal document bearing the King's signature. Before the interview was. over she had locked it up in her desk, as though there was something in it by which the whole Eardham race might be blessed or banned. And, though she spoke no such word, she certainly gave Ralph to- understand that by this letter he, Ralph Newton, was in some mysteri- ous manner so connected with the secrets, and the interests, and the sanctity of the Eardham family, that, whether such connection might be for weal or woe, the Newtons and the Eardhams could never alto- gether free themselves from the link. Perhaps yun had better come and dine with us in a family way to-morrow,' said Lady Eardham, giving her invitation as though it must necessarily be tendered, and almost necessarily accepted. Ralph, not thanking her, but taking it in the same spirit, said that he would be there at half-past seven. 'Just our- selves!' said Lady Eardham, in a melancholy tone, as though they two. were doomed to eat family dinners together for ever after."
That emphasis with which Lady Eardham presses Neefit's letter under her hand upon the table, " as though it was of all documents. the most precious," and afterwards locks it up in her desk, " as though there were something in it by which the whole Eardham race might be blessed or banned," is a most humorous bit of know- ledge of life ; and that Ralph should see the snare, tell himself of it, slip into it, and then come to believe that it had never existed, and that the whole thing was- his own doing and a matter of deliberate choice, is an almost equally subtle stroke of portraiture.
We might write on for another page or two, without exhausting the criticisms (almost all of appreciation) which a novel so full of life as this naturally suggests. But we must conclude, only re- marking that, as usual with Mr. Trollope, his women are not equal to his men,—indeed, the only sketch of a woman in the novel which is really up to the studies of the masculine characters, is the picture of Polly Neefit. We should add, that no episode of Mr. Trollope's ever surpassed in ability the episode of the Percycross election and the election petition. ‘Vithout it, the fine picture of Sir Thomas Underwood could not have been what it is, and there- tore, though on the whole an episode, it is not without a very important bearing on the art of the tale.
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