Mowbray Morris's Elegy for Anthony Trollope in The Graphic (1882)
HE was not wont, as many others use,
The noble life of Letters to abuse;
Its darker ways and works he did not choose.
Nor his the idle tortures of unrest,
Blind doubts and fears that haunt th' unhealthy breast;
Riddles that ne'er have been, nor shall be guessed.
Not on such themes his fancy loved to brood;
He looked on life, and saw that it was good
Or bad, according to the gazer's mood.
And his was good. By the clear light of sense
He drew men as they are, without pretence
To re-gild virtue, or to lash offence.
He drew the life of which his life was part;
Drew it with faithful hand and loving heart,
Making a friend, not tyrant, of his art.
He writ the homely annals of his day,
What English men and women do and say,
The fireside story of their work and play.
He sought not Fashion'smood, nor Fancy's grace:
Within his mirror all who would might trace
The literal likeness of a human face.
And thousands did on thousands; maid and wife,
Father and son; for pure his page as life,
And both with honest thought and purpose rife.
What though the man were rugged to the view,
And blunt of speech; no one who knew him knew
A soul more gentle, generous, and true.
The world can show us many an ampler page,
Records of deeper grief and nobler rage,
Of loftier thoughts from poet and from sage.
But eyes now bright shall wax with searching blind,
Ere they may hope another friend to find,
In hand more steadfast, and in heart more kind.
MOWBRAY MORRIS.
This contemporary response to the death of the great novelist was offered by the dramatic critic of The Times and later editor of Macmillan's Magazine. In his latter capacity during the serialisation of Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders (May 1886 through April 1887), in correspondence Morris cautioned the novelist about the necessity of avoiding being too candid about sexual relationships in the serial for fear of offending Victorian standards of "family reading." — Text transcription and comment by by Philip V. Allingham.
Links to Related Material
Bibliography
Morris, Mowbray. "Anthony Trollope." The Graphic, Vol. XXVI, No. 686 (30 December 1882): 717.
Created 20 June 2025