Can You Forgive Her? (120 page)

1
. (p. 246)
Mrs Grundy
: an Imaginary figure embodying strict ideas of sodal propriety.

2
. (p. 247)
a branch
: a branch-line for which private capital would have to be found, since all railways at this time were run by commercial companies.

3
. (p. 255)
that woman’s travels
: probably
Recollections of Tartar Steppes and their Inhabitants
(1863), by Mrs Lucy Atkinson, who describes encounters
with tigers and wolves when camping on the steppes.

1
. (p. 258)
the ballot
: Radicals were generally in favour of electoral reform, and supported the introduction of the ballot (i.e. secret voting for many years before it became law in 1872. Trollope opposed
the ballot in his Beverley campaign on the grounds that he preferred to see the voter ‘discharging his noblest duty openly and
independently’.

2
. (p. 259)
Rowland Hill
: Sir Rowland Hill (1795-1871) was the originator of cheap postage. He resigned as Secretary of the Post Office in 1864. Although Trollope disliked him personally, a letter to Hill on his resignation expresses ‘thorough admiration’ for his work, and considers him as an ‘essential benefactor’ of the civilized world.

3
. (p. 259)
crosses
: ‘crossing’ a letter
meant turning it sideways and writing between the lines already written.

4
. (p. 260)
I am wicked, as Topsy used to say
in Chapter 20 of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
(1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

5
. (p. 261)
Mudie’s:
the circulating library.

6
. (p. 262)
as long as he could get any cotton:
as a result of the American civil war, supplies of cotton virtually ceased, and in 1862 the Lancashire cotton industry
was in severe difficulties.

7
. (p. 263)
mace:
a billiard cue with a flat, square head.

1
. (p. 269)
Idoneus puellis
: this tag and the previous sentence refer to a passage from Horace’s Odes (III, xxvi), which has been translated as follows: ‘Though that life is past, I was but now still meet for ladies’ love, and fought my battles not without glory. Now my armour and the lute, whose
campaigns are over, will hang here on yonder wall.’

2
. (p. 274)
Manchester school
: the phrase was coined by Disraeli in 1846. The ‘school’ was a loose association which was supported by the new industrial middle classes, and stood for free trade, wide extension of the franchise and cheap government.
St
Helens,
near Manchester, was not a real constituency at this time, but became one in 1868.

1
. (p. 311)
female emigration
: a fashionable social question from the 1840s on. A fund for promoting female emigration was set up in 1850 with Sidney Herbert as chairman. It was thought to be a desirable way of coping with a surplus of women in the population, and was also expected to provide a second chance for fallen women
like Dickens’s Little Em’ly (
David Copperfield).
Lady Baldock’s
‘hobby’ in
Phineas Finn
(Chapter 41) is the ‘Female Protestant Unmarried Woman’s Emigration Society’.

1
. (p. 321)
Juan and Haidée
: see Byron’s poem Don Juan, Canto III. Lambro is Haidee’s rather.

2
. (p. 328)
rufflcr
: someone who behaves arrogantly and swaggeringly.

1
. (p. 335)
Do tell him to be punctual
: as a young man Trollope got into the hands of a money-lender, who
visited him daily at his office urging him to be ‘punctual’ in repayment. Among other money-lenders keen on punctuality is Mr CLarkson in
Phineos Finn
(see Chapter 21).

1
. (p. 343)
Vavaseurs as Chaucer calls them
: ‘Was nowhere swich a worthy vavasour’: General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, line 360 (part of Chaucer’s description of the Franklin). ‘Vavasour’ means a substantial
landholder below the rank of baron.

2
. (p. 343)
Helvellyn
…
Scow Fell
; the two highest mountains in the Lake District.
Kidsty Pike
(2,560 feet) is to the west of the south end of Hawes Water, Swindale being to the east of it.

3
. (p. 344)
the form of the lake
: doubtless somewhat changed since it was dammed to supply Manchester with water.

4
. (p. 346)
Crichton
: the learned Scot James Crichton
(1560–85?), known as ‘admirable’ since Sir Thomas Urquhart’s account of his career (1652).

1
. (p. 348)
Shap
: on the road between Kendal and Penrith.

1
. (p. 358) which…
Mr Hawthorne has described as beefy
: ‘they were her countrywomen [i.e. English] and the beef and ale of their native
land… entered largely into their composition’:
The Scarlet Letter
, Chapter 2. Perhaps Trollope
was reminded of the description by an article in
Punch
, 17 October 1863, which jocularly objects to Hawthorne’s remark.

1
. (p. 378)
as old as Enoch
: ‘And the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years’ Genesis v, 23.

1
. (p. 386) ‘
Loof here, upon this picture – and on this’ Hamlet
, III, ii.

2
. (p. 386) a
Quarterly
: the
Quarterly Review
was founded in 1809.

3
. (p. 389)
termination to that college tutorship
: college tutorships at Oxford and Cambridge had, at this time, to be relinquished on marriage.

1
. (p. 398)
The story… to my mind
: for the relationship between
Can You Forgive Her?
and
The Noble Jilt
, see the Introduction.

2
. (p. 399)
Doctors’ Commons
: premises of the College of Doctors of Civil Law near St Paul’s Cathedral, pulled down
in 1867. See Dickens’s description of it in
David Copperfield
, Chapters 22 and 26.

1
. (p. 426)
weepers
: the long black crape veils of a widow. Full mourning, with a dress entirely covered with crape, with widow’s cap, veil, etc., was worn for a year, after which a black silk dress heavily trimmed with crape was permissible for six months. Many widows never wore colour again.

2
. (p.
432)
sun’s portraiture
: contemporary term for photography.

1
. (p. 447) the ‘Globe’: an evening newspaper.

CHAPTER 42

1
. (p. 447)
what were left of the direct taxes
: as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gladstone, in his budgets between 1861 and 1866, reduced income tax from ten pence in the pound to fourpence; he looked forward to removing the tax altogether.

2
. (p. 448)
when Oxford
embraces Manchester
: Gladstone sat for Oxford University, but was defeated in 1865. His policies worked towards free trade and so were acceptable to some of the Manchester school.

3
. (p. 450)
pulled his hat
: hats were commonly worn in the House.

1
. (p. 461)
just a step
: Norfolk Street, being off the east end of the Strand and by Somerset House, is rather more than ‘just a step’ from
Park Lane.

2
. (p. 461)
Argus
: mythological figure with a hundred eyes, sent by Hera to watch her rivals.

3
. (p. 463)
Cerberus
: the watch-dog who guarded the entrance to Hades.

4
. (p. 464) Doctor
Fell
:

I do not love you, Dr Fell,

But why I cannot tell;

But this I know full well,

I do not love you, Dr Fell.

(Translation by Thomas Brown (1663–1704) of an epigram by Martial.)

1
. (p. 472)
serfs
: the serfs in Russia were emancipated in 1861.

2
. (p. 473)
embanking the river… Pimlico
: Pimlico is the district between Westminster and Chelsea. There was no question at this time of this part of the Thames being embanked. However, the idea of an embankment in the opposite direction, from Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge, had been raised in 1860, and work started on the project
in 1864.

3
. (p. 474)
the Reach
: the length of the Thames known as Chelsea Reach.

4
. (p. 475)
Metropolitan Board
: the Metropolitan Board of Works was responsible for large-scale public improvements such as em-banknlents and new thoroughfares.

5
. (p. 475)
the new Cheapside
: the busiest street in the City of London.

6
. (p. 478)
expense of a petition
: after Trollope’s unsuccessful attempt to get
elected at Beverley, a petition alleging bribery and corruption led to the disfranchisement of the borough. Trollope did not himself meet the costs in that case.

1
. (p. 479)
Somerset House
contained various government and public offices.

2
. (p. 479) shall
one day possess
: after the fire of 1834, the Houses of Parliament were rebuilt, designed by Sir Charles Barry assisted by Pugin.
The new House of Lords began to be used in 1847, the House of Commons in 1852.

3
. (p. 480)
highest… pride of an Englishman
: see Trollope’s sentiments in the Autobiography, Chapter 16, written in 1876: ‘I have always thought that to sit in the British Parliament should be the highest object of ambition to every educated Englishman’. Compare Alice Vavasor’s feelings, Chapter 32, p. 355.

4
. (p.
481) a
party
was forming itself: party discipline was loose at this period, and the personal allegiances of M.P.’s were an important factor in an often unpredictable Parliamentary situation.

5
. (p. 485)
a ‘count-out’
: the House could be counted out when the Speaker’s attention was drawn to the fact that there were fewer than forty members present.

6
. (p. 485)
the privilege of that House
: M.P.S
were, by virtue of their office, immune to certain kinds of prosecution.

1
. (p. 493)
Chatham
: William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–78), was celebrated for his powers of oratory.

1
. (p. 499)
returned tichet-of-leave man
: i.e. a convict, sometimes under sentence of transportation, released on licence before the end of his
term. Ticket-of-leave men were widely feared. The
prejudice against them is illustrated by Tom Taylor’s play
The Ticket-of-leave Man
, which ran for 407 performances in 1863–4.

1
. (p. 514)
fifty thousand a year
: the sum of £50,000 per annum was in the news in 1863 because Parliament had voted that amount as the income of the Prince of Wales on his marriage. A Punch cartoon on the subject appeared in its issue of 28 February 1863.

2
. (p. 517)
like the proud young porter
: the phrase occurs in the following stanza of ‘The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman’:

O when she arrived at Lord Bateman’s castle,

How boldly then she rang the bell!

‘Who’s there? who’s there?’ cries the proud young porter,

‘O come unto me pray quickly tell.’

3
. (p. 517)
tenor of my life’s way
:

Along the cool sequester’d vale of life

They kept the noiseless
tenor of their way.

Thomas Grey,
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

1
. (p. 526)
Marchioness of Hartletop
: formerly Griselda Grantly, daughter of Archdeacon Grantly (who figures prominently in the Barsetshire novels). Her marriage to Lord Dumbello, later Marquis of Hartletop, is briefly disturbed by the attentions of Mr Palliser in
The Small House at Allington
(see Chapters 23,43
and 55).
The Small House at Allington
appeared in the
Cornhill
between September 1862 and April 1864, being published in book form in March 1864, two months after
Can You Forgive Her?
had begun to appear in parts.

1
. (p. 541)
Rush and Palmer
: celebrated Victorian murderers. James Rush, a tenant farmer, killed his landlord because he sympathized with claimants to his estate; he was
hanged in 1849. William Palmer, a medical man, became known as ‘the Rugeley poisoner’
after poisoning his wife, brother and a friend, to obtain the money insured on their lives. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence and hanged in 1856.

1
. (p. 549)
the Picture Galleries
: the National Gallery on the north side of Trafalgar Square.

1
. (p. 577)
grass of the field
: ‘Wherefore,
if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?: Matthew vi, 30.

1
. (p. 603)
letting
‘I
dare not wait upon I would’: Macbeth
, I, vii.

2
. (p. 604) I
have sat me down
: Trollope’s sister Cecilia married John Tilley, a post-office colleague, in 1839, and went to live at Penrith, a few
miles from ‘Vavasor Hall’. Trollope’s mother built a house near by, and lived there for a short period in the early 1840s. It was presumably at this time that Trollope got to know the area of the Lake District used as a setting in this novel and described by him with more than usual feeling.
Nearly penniless
: Trollope’s salary during his first seven years in the post office rose from £90 a year
to £140, and he was constantly in debt.