I should think that this paragraph alone should justify my contention that the Barchester novels, but particularly _Barchester Towers_, should be required study in all seminaries. Mr. Slope goes on to use his position as chaplain to the bishop in a power struggle with Mrs. Proudie. He loses. He learns that Mr. Harding's daughter Eleanor Bold, recently widowed in a death between novels, has an income of a thousand pounds a year. (The mortality risk of the period between novels was significant in the Barsetshire and Palliser series, leading to the deaths of John Bold, Eleanor's suitor and husband in _The Warden_, and Lady Glencora Palliser, who did not survive the period between _The Prime Minister_ and _The Duke's Children_.) Having promised Mr. Harding's former position as Warden of Hiram's Hospital to Mr. Quiverful, whose twelve children in addition to his wife and himself provided "fourteen arguments in favour of Mr. Quiverful's claims," he then reverses his field and indicates to Mrs. Bold that through his efforts and kind services her father may yet be restored to his former position. But when Eleanor shows his subsequent letter on the subject to her father, Mr. Harding finds a reference to his daughter's "silken tresses," and Mr. Slope's scheme dies aborning. Although Mrs. Proudie reigns triumphant throughout _Barchester Towers_ and goes on undeterred in subsequent Barsetshire novels, the reader derives some consolation from Mr. Slope's downfall. Indeed, he is refused by three women: one of the Bishop's daughters; Eleanor Bold (with a slap on the ear); and the infamous Signora Neroni. Ah, Signora Neroni! Somehow she and her family come across with more charm in the video presentation than in my reading of the book and listening to it on tape a few years ago. As feckless foils to the saintly Mr. Harding, and as legitimate targets for reform of the church, the reader may have limited patience with them. But brought to the screen by buoyant actors, they display the charm that enabled them to get by with so much in Barchester society. Trollope tells us that their heartlessness was accompanied by such good nature as to make itself "but little noticeable to the world." This introductory comment was, of course, absent from the video presentation, leaving the viewer to draw his own conclusions. But the mind of this puritanical reader, I'm afraid, was poisoned by the author's observation.