Frederic Harrison on Anthony Trollope

“His hard riding as an overgrown heavy-weight, his systematic whist playing, his loud talk, his burly ubiquity and irrepressible energy in everything,—formed one of the marvels of the last generation. And that such a colossus of blood and bone should spend his mornings, before we were out of bed, in analysing the hypersensitive conscience of an archdeacon, the secret confidences whispered between a prudent mamma and a love-lorn young lady, or the subtle meanderings of Marie Goesler's heart,—this was a real psychologic problem.”

“In any case, his books will hereafter bear a certain historical interest, as the best record of actual manners in the higher English society between 1855 and 1875. That value nothing can take away, however dull, connu, and out of date the books may now seem to our new youth... If our new youth ever could bring itself to take up a book having 1865 on its title-page, it might find in the best of Anthony Trollope much subtle observation, many manly and womanly natures, unfailing purity of tone, and wholesome enjoyment.”