Mrs. Trollope has been described by her friends as a refined woman of charming personality. But as soon as she began to write, she donned her armour and proclaimed her hostility either to her hero or to the larger part of the characters of the book. This method is dangerous to art. Even the genius of Thackeray is lessened by his lack of sympathy. In 1833 Mrs. Trollope published her first novel, _The Refugee in America_. It is the story of an English lord who has fled to America to escape English justice. He and his friends have settled in Rochester, New York. It was written for the sole purpose of describing the manners of the people of our Eastern cities. The author's attitude toward them is well illustrated by a conversation between Caroline, the young English girl, and her American _protégée_, Emily. After a dinner in Washington, Caroline exclaims to her friend: "'Oh, my own Emily, you must not live and die where such things be.' "Emily sighed as she answered, 'I am born to it, Miss Gordon.' "'But hardly bred to it. We have caught you young, and we have spoiled you for ever as an American lady.'" Three years later Mrs. Trollope published her strongest novel, _The Life and Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw_. This is a powerful picture of early life on the Mississippi; it was the first novel since Mrs. Behn's _Oroonoko_ which called attention to the evils of African slavery. It is marred, however, by want of sympathy with the community she is describing. Mr. Jonathan Whitlaw Senior has "squat in the bush," an expression to which Mrs. Trollope objects, but which brings to mind at once the log cabin in the forest clearing, and the muscular, uncouth pioneer. Jonathan furnishes firewood to the Mississippi steamers, and by this means gains sufficient wealth to carry out his life's ambition: to set up a store in Natchez, and to own "niggers." But the life of a pioneer has made Jonathan as cunning as a fox. This cunning his son Jonathan, the hero of the story, has inherited to the full. As a slave-owner he is as grasping and cruel as Legree, whom Mrs. Stowe immortalised some years later. His character, though drawn with strength and vigour, is inconsistent. He is a miser, yet he is a gambler and a spendthrift, qualities not often found together. He is not a true representative of the son of a pioneer. Clio Whitlaw, the aunt of the hero, belongs more truly to her environment. One suspects the English family at Cincinnati had received neighbourly kindnesses from women like her. With her physical strength and great courage she is kind and neighbourly to all who need her help. The sad story of Edward Bligh, the young Kentuckian who preached the gospel to the slaves, the victim of lynch law, a word dreaded even then, is as thrilling as parts of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_.