Trollope set out in the most systematic way to produce a series of novels illustrating certain sections of England, certain types of English society; steadily, for a life-time, with the artisan’s skilful hand, he labored at the craft.  He is the very antithesis of the erraticisms and irregularities of genius.  He went to his daily stint of work, by night and day, on sea or land, exactly as the merchant goes to his office, the mechanic to his shop.  He wrote with a watch before him, two hundred and fifty words to fifteen minutes.  But he had the most unusual faculty of direct, unprejudiced, clear observation; he trained himself to set down what he saw and to remember it.  And he also had the constructive ability to shape and carry on his story so as to create the effect of growth, along with an equally valuable power of sympathetic characterization, so that you know and understand his folk.  Add to this a style perfectly accordant with the unobtrusive harmony of the picture, and the main elements of Trollope’s appeal have been enumerated.  Yet has he not been entirely explained.  His art—­meaning the skilled handling of his material—­can hardly be praised too much; it is so easy to underestimate because it is so unshowy.  Few had a nicer sense of scale and tone; he gets his effects often because of this harmony of adjustment.  For one example, “The Warden” is a relatively short piece of fiction which opens the famous Chronicles of Barset series.  Its interest culminates in the going of the Reverend Septimus Harding to London from his quiet country home, in order to prevent a young couple from marrying.  The whole situation is tiny, a mere corner flurry.  But so admirably has the climax been prepared, so organic is it to all that went before in the way of preparation, that the result is positively thrilling:  a wonderful example of the principle of key and relation.

Or again, in that scene which is a favorite with all Trollope’s readers, where the arrogant Mrs. Proudie is rebuked by the gaunt Mr. Crawley, the effect of his famous “Peace, woman!” is tremendous only because it is a dash of vivid red in a composition where the general color scheme is low and subdued.

In view of this faculty, it will not do to regard Trollope as a kind of mechanic who began one novel the day he finished another and often carried on two or three at the same time, like a juggler with his balls, with no conception of them as artistic wholes.  He says himself that he began a piece of fiction with no full plan.  But, with his very obvious skill prodigally proved from his work, we may beg leave to take all such statements in a qualified sense:  for the kind of fiction he aimed at he surely developed a technique not only adequate but of very unusual excellence.