The central purpose of a work of fiction is assuredly the portrayal
of human passions. To this principle Mr. Trollope steadfastly
adheres,--how consciously, how wilfully, we know not,--but with a
constancy which is almost a proof of conviction, and a degree of success
which lends great force to his example. The interest of the work before
us is emphatically a _moral_ interest: it is a story of feeling, the
narrative of certain feelings.
Mr. Troliope's tales give us a very sound sense of their reality. It may
seem paradoxical to attribute this to the narrowness of the author's
imagination; but we cannot help doing so. On reflection, we shall see
that it is not so much persons as events that Mr. Trollope aims at
depicting, not so much characters as scenes. His pictures are real, _on
the whole_. Their reality, we take it, is owing to the happy balance of
the writer's judgment and his invention. Had his invention been a little
more tinged with fancy, it is probable that he would have known certain
temptations of which he appears to be ignorant. Even should he have
successfully resisted them, the struggle, the contest, the necessity of
choice would have robbed his manner of that easy self-sufficiency which
is one of its greatest charms.
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