The Warden
“In former times great objects were attained by great work. When evils were to be reformed, reformers set about their heavy task with grave decorum and laborious argument. An age was occupied in proving a grievance, and philosophical researches were printed in folio pages, which it took a life to write, and an eternity to read. We get on now with a lighter step, and quicker: ridicule is found to be more convincing than argument, imaginary agonies touch more than true sorrows,” ― Anthony Trollope, The Warden
This is a good novel with which to start your exploration of the world of Anthony Trollope who would go on to write dozens of books over his literary career. The story of The Warden is based very loosely on several ecclesiastical inquiries of Trollope’s era in which the Anglican Church was accused of diverting monies from ancient endowments to the pockets of idle clergymen, thereby stinting the charitable purposes for which the endowments had been intended. Trollope’s novel raises just such an ethical question, then complicates the issue by making the benefiting clergyman, Mr. Harding, the most honest and decent of men. Trollope states his own view of the matter through his narrator when he says, “In this world no good is unalloyed, and . . . there is but little evil that has not in it some seed of what is goodly.”
The themes of church and society in the town of Barchester on display here are complemented by a portrayal of the media and the legal profession that is unflattering, but realistic. Trollope's satire is biting and the story is one that pits the local Warden's (Septimus Harding) sense of justice against that of the church and society. In doing so Trollope demonstrates the way the unintended consequences of our actions have a way of overtaking us and those around us.
This is particularly evident in the actions of the young firebrand John Bold who finds his feelings for Harding's daughter, Eleanor, ultimately win out over his call for social justice. The depiction of the role of the press via the newspaper The Jupiter had resonance with the role that major newspapers and other outlets play in controversies in contemporary America. But it is the institution of the Anglican Church that comes in for the most criticism as its lack of concern for those most in need is on display in spite of the general goodness of Septimus and the Bishop. Overall this is a good introduction to one of the greatest of the Victorian novelists.
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