Mr. Trollope's Testimony, within Athenaeum, issue 1849

Mr. Trollope's Testimony, within Athenaeum, issue 1849

Trollope, Thomas Anthony

London: New Statesman Ltd., 1863. Athenaeum, issue 1849, 1863-04-04. p. 460

Internet Archive

1863

George Eliot to Charles Bray, 16 April [1863]. “I had seen Mr. Trollope's letter in the Athenaeum. Any statement of his on that question is interesting and valuable, since it is the statement of a man whose nature is of quite remarkable simplicity and integrity. But one of the most striking facts about his evidence to us has been, that in our repeated conversations with him on the subject he -- being too sober-minded to "see double" and to[o] honest to wish to astonish his hearers by what is not true -- never tells anything of which no ordinary explanation is conceivable. The "higher phenomena" have been seen, as he hears, by his acquaintances, but for his part, he has only seen etc. etc. His deep interest in the subject arises from the confirmation it appears to him to bring to his yearning belief in a future life, and therefore in his theory of the manifestations, he keeps constantly before him the idea that the hidden cause is the action of departed spirits. He is not in the least a credulous man, but his mind is strongly swayed by moral beliefs. He is a Free-thinker with an ardent spirit of reform. His brother Mr. Anthony Trollope, on the other hand, is a Church of England man, clinging to whatever is, on the whole, and without fine distinctions, honest, lovely and of good report. I mention these points, although you may know them, lest, not knowing them, you should fall into some confusion of personalities and opinions.” GEL 4: 81-2 “Thomas Adolphus Trollope wrote the Athenaeum (4 April 1863, p. 460) about the "sittings" conducted by D. D. Home, the spiritualist, which he had attended both in England and Florence. He accepts the physical manifestations as inexplicable by legerdemain, but on the metaphysical manifestations his attitude is "one of perplexed doubt."” GEL 4: 150f

Trollope, Thomas Anthony, Mr. Trollope's Testimony, within Athenaeum, issue 1849, George Eliot's Reading, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/57602

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