and officials, and the women whom they courted, entirely unconscious of any approaching convulsions; imagining that their little social arrangements were to endure for ever; that their social conventions were the only ones conceivable; and, on the whole, mainly occupied in carrying on business in a humdrum way and sweetening life by flirtation with healthy and pretty young women without two ideas in their heads. Then they will look back to the early days of Queen Victoria as a delightful time, when it was possible to take things quietly, and a good, sound, sensible optimism was the prevalent state of mind. How far the estimate would be true is another question; but Trollope, as representing such an epoch, will supply a soothing if rather mild stimulant for the imagination, and it will be admitted that if he was not among the highest intellects of his benighted time, he was as sturdy, wholesome, and kindly a human being as could be desired.
