"Ignorance Is Not Innocence"                      13

ried Glencora, to the mutual delight of her relatives and his, if not
that of the parties most closely concerned.

In Can You Forgive Her? an unreformcd Burgo appears, pos¬
ing a considerable threat to Lady Glencora's life as the bored and
rebellious wife of the now wholly-conscientious, near-priggish
Plantagenet. It is this open treatment of contemplated adultery
which offended TroUope's correspondent. Trollope leaves the
reader in considerable suspense about the outcome of the flirtation
until their flight is ultimately prevented by the judicious interfer¬
ence of well-meaning friends. While readers who know of Lady
Glencora's future as the Duchess of Omnium do not suffer any
anxiety, contemporary readers may well have indulged in dire
predictions.

TroUope's response to the opinion that adultery was not a suit¬
able subject for a novel is thoughtful and earnest, maintaining that
the novelist has not only a right but an obligation to confront such
evils. Assuring his correspondent that "I do not write without
thinking very much of what may be the effects of what I write,"
Trollope admits that: "The subject of adultery is one very diffi¬
cult of discussion" because it often involves "immodest & in some
degrees indecent" incidents. But "the Bible does not scruple to
speak to us of adultery as of other sins," and the novelist too can¬
not shrink from it.

TroUope's reference to the Bible, and the implied analogy be¬
tween the novel and the pulpit, is basic to his conviction that the
novelist can and must be a positive force for moral good. William
A-takepeace Thackeray explains in Vanity Fair that "while the
moralist, who is holding forth on the cover (an accurate portrait
of your humble servant), professes to wear neither gown nor
bands, but only the very same dog-eared livery in which his con¬
gregation is arrayed; yet, look you, one is bound to speak the
truth as far as one knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells
or a shovel-hat." Trollope articulates a similar view in An Auto¬
biography, and the role he assumes is a less self-effacing, more