Though the reviews of _The Fixed Period_ showed little appreciation for Trollope's whimsy, he was spared the violent reaction that Osler suffered. The serial magazine publication was anonymous, and the subsequent book publication was after Trollope's death. Even John Neverbend, the fictitious narrator of the tale, endured none of the ridicule heaped upon Osler. So popular and respected was Mr. Neverbend, President of Brittannula, that he was courteously and quietly, though firmly, whisked on board a steamship and deported to England. Neverbend finally acknowledges that mankind was not yet prepared, even in 1980, for the obvious advantages of the "Fixed Period." Public works could be funded without debt if the cost of caring for the aged were eliminated. As an inducement to accepting the proposal, the "College" would be an approximation of some conceptions of Heaven on Earth. "There are twenty acres of pleasure ground for you to wander over." Interestingly, the honoree did not see his family. Neverbend, true to his name, never forsook his conviction; on board the English ship transporting him back to England, however, he did realize "how potent was that love of life which had been evinced in the city when the hour for deposition had become nigh." Events on the island give Neverbend every opportunity to change his mind. His closest friend and colleague, Gabriel Crassweller, is several years older and is scheduled to be the first to be deposited. Even though Neverbend himself offers to do all the honors for his dear friend, Crassweller finds himself reluctant as the time approaches. Neverbend's son is in love with Crassweller's beautiful daughter Eva, and she seems more nearly able than anyone else to dissuade the old President from his fixed purpose. But she can't. The power of the English navy, with its 250-ton steam-swiveller gun, is required. Would this terrible weapon have really been used to level the city? "I don't know, Sir. There are some things so terrible that if you will only create a belief in them, that will suffice without anything else." Reading the story more than a century after its appearance, the reader is brought up short by mention of the chimneys of the College and how they disturbed the neighbors--perhaps more than did those that later actually appeared at Auschhwitz. Eugenics, ethnic cleansing, and the Holocaust were far in the future in 1880. And current outcries about rationing of care and "death panels" indicate how sensitive the public can be about issues of "life and death" that may not be well understood.