628
PARTISAN REVIEW
sophically and morally repelled by those who impose on others .
If
one thinks of the villains in Austen, the Brontes, Thackeray,
Eliot, James, and, of course, Trollope, the virtue and its opposite
vice assume familiar shapes.
At least two thirds of Ms. Letwin's book is devoted to an ex–
amination of characters in Trollope's fiction against the back–
ground of her discussion of the gentleman and moral conduct.
Like the earlier section of the book, these discussions are intelli–
gent, pointed and always illuminating. By starting out with a
brill iant analysis of the character of Madame Max Goesler,
daughter of a German Jewish attorney, Ms. Letwin makes un–
forgettably clear that the "English gentleman," as she defined the
term, need not be English, gentle, gentile, or male. The measure,
as she has been arguing all along, is of an attitude revealed in a
process. The author's concern, like that of Trollope and most of
the greatest of English novelists, is how people behave and what
motivates them.
What defines a gentleman is a way of being in any circum–
stances. Even alone on his island, Robinson Crusoe is a gen–
tleman .. . in his unfailing respect for the humanity of him–
self and all men; his ability to appreciate the treasures of
civilization; his efforts to refashion them for new circum–
stances; his readiness to bui ld n ew skills on old; his learning
to recognize and repent for his sins; his determination to give
his days an orderly shape, to reconcile himself to his mis–
fortune and
to
endow his life with what grace and content–
ment he can manage.
If
there is anything to be regretted about this neatly con–
structed, beautifully written and stimulating book, it is that, in
its provocative opening chapters, it raises questions of broad
concern and then proceeds to tie them, albeit persuasively, to
only one author. Lodged in this very good book on Trollope is a
brilliant essay on the gentleman that could well stand alone or
within a literary context of much wider range.
ROBERT KIELY
