The Way They Lived Then: Serious Interviews, Strong Women, and Lessons for Life in the Novels of Anthony TrollopePrewitt, Taylor
General
The Way They Lived Then: Serious Interviews, Strong Women, and Lessons for Life in the Novels of Anthony Trollope
Prewitt, Taylor
Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882 -- Criticism and interpretation
Lizzie stars in one of Trollope's memorable scenes, "The Diamonds are
Seen in Public." Her fiancé Lord Fawn, troubled about the diamonds,
has written a letter forbidding her to keep the diamonds, saying
they belong rightfully to her late husband's family. They arrive
separately at a party given by Lady Glencora, not having communicated
in the three weeks since Lord Fawn's letter. She wears the diamonds,
which "seemed to outshine all the jewellery in the room. . . . The
only doubt might be whether paste diamonds might not better suit her
character." Lord Fawn confronts her as soon as he sees her, but no
ears hear the inconsequential words they speak to each other. Lady
Eustace joins Lord Fawn in a quadrille, dances with no one else,
and very soon asks him to get her carriage for her. Taking her
seat, she tells him, "You had better come to me soon." And thus does
Lady Eustace savor her triumph of displaying the diamonds at Lady
Glencora's house.
This may have been the high point for Lizzie. Her one goal in life
was to keep the diamonds, and all else was sacrificed to this
goal. It is not so much that she has an overall strategy; rather,
she constantly improvises from one point to the next, keeping
(supposedly) the diamonds locked up in an iron box.
Of course the diamonds are at risk--not only from Mr. Camperdown, the
Eustace family lawyer who is as determined to recover the diamonds
for the family as Lizzie is to keep them, but also from thieves in
the night. When Lizzie goes to her late husband's ancestral castle
in Scotland, she surrounds herself with unscrupulous friends, runs
through her potential suitors, and loses her diamonds. On the first
attempt at the diamonds, the thieves get an empty iron box, while
Lady Eustace retains the jewels "in her own keeping." Not being one
to blurt out the truth at the first opportunity, however, Lizzie does
not tell the police that she still has the diamonds, and she digs
herself deeper and deeper into her deception until it carries the
name of perjury.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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