Lily Dale resolves to keep her resolve

Posted Monday morning, December 28, 2020.

Detail from “Five O'Clock Tea”, by Julius LeBlanc Stewart, 1884. Private Collection, via Victorian Society in America-Eloise Hunter Chapter.

Even strong-willed romantic heroines like Lily Dale have the same problem we all have, knowing our own minds and keeping our opinions separate from the general opinions of the world around us...

I must not, if I can help it, let the reader suppose that she was softening her heart to John Eames because John Eames was spoken well of in the world. But with all of us, in the opinion which we form of those around us, we take unconsciously the opinion of others. A woman is handsome because the world says so. Music is charming to us because it charms others. We drink our wines with other men's palates, and look at our pictures with other men's eyes. When Lily heard John Eames praised by all around her, it could not be but that she should praise him too,—not out loud, as others did, but in the silence of her heart.

---from “The Last Chronicle of Barset” by Anthony Trollope.

Comments

[Charles Sperling]

"O.M." for Lily Dale does not mean what it means for Anthony Powell or E.M. Forster.

Hobbledehoyhood is a hard thing to outgrow.

Check out Dave's True Story's "I'll Never Read Trollope Again" if you haven't already.

I'll Never Read Trollope Again - YouTube