Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Maturity

The more I think about Ayala and young Tom Tringle, the more I wonder why both of them don't grow up a little. Ayala must be 19 by the time of the current assignment. Let's say Tom Tringle is a bit older. Ayala's ideal is obviously out of reach. Her Prince Charming doesn't exist. Tom's ideal is Ayala, and to her he is a lout, which he is. Trollope, fortunately, does not portray all people in their late teens in this manner. Both Ayala and Tom are young romantics, and Trollope, with the possible exception of Austen, is the least romantic of the 19th-century writers. But with these two Trollope backs away from his usual realism to give us two very un-Trollope like characters. Consequently neither Ayala nor Tom is really believeable, where Lucy is. I wouldn't complain in this manner, except Ayala is the heroine of this novel. Furthermore, toward the end Trollope, perhaps with tongue in cheek, refers to Tom as the hero. For a realistic author to portray two major characters with a romanticism worthy of Dickens, is to me, shall we say gently, surprising.

Sig

To Trollope-l

January 21, 2001

Re: Ayala's Angel, Chs 7-12: The "L" word

As those of us who are reading the novel know by this time, Ayala has the extraordinary gall to call Tom a 'lout' not only to his face, but before his mother, her aunt, who she knows will repeat the word to his father, her uncle. She repeats the word several times: to Lucy, to her other aunt, to him once again. Sig has suggested to us that the characterization of Tom and Ayala is based on some improbabilities; if I'm not mistaken so too did Todd in talking of the way Lucy behaved in contrast to Ayala. I would add to this that Trollope dwells on Lucy's inner life, not Ayala's: we see Ayala mostly in dramatic scenes; we hear her; we don't go much into her mind. I know people can be dense and insensitive, or thick-skinned, and say 'sticks and stones will hurt my bones but words will never harm me' but I did wonder about Ayala's use of the word 'lout' so openly, frankly, and repeatedly.

Perhaps in the 1870s among the upper classes and gentry in England the word did not carry the brutal insult it does in the US among the much more middling classes today. Trollope does use the word 'brutal' of the word; Ayala admits that she was 'perfectly brutal' to Tom (Folio Society Ayala, ed AEThomas, Ch 12, p. 94). She is desperate to make him go away. She is tried beyond patience by her aunt's accusation that she encouraged Tom. It is upon the speaking of this word that the aunt begins to say Ayala 'doesn't suit' This phrasing is a brilliant echo of the kind of hypocritical deflecting language people use. Emmeline Lady Tringle's letter to her brother-in-law, Reginald Dosett is a gem of unconscious revelation. It drips with pretended concern, affection, as it at the same time turns around to dismiss the girl with a the lightest of reasons:

Now you must understand that I do not mean to say a word againt dear Ayala -- only she does not suit. It will occur sometimes that people who are most attached to each other do not suit. So it is with dear Ayala.

She talks of the 'poor dear girls', and how 'I now think that Lucy would do better with her cousins, and that Ayala would be more attractive without the young people around her'. I'll bet: more humble, is what she means. She wanted an ornament.

And then there is the hilariously hard disjunction of 'And indeed I have loved Ayala almost as though she were my own, only we have not been quite able to hit it off' (p. 66).

I can almost imagine this woman running someone over and saying, ever so lightly, oh dear, what a shame, but then we never did hit it off.

John Letts suggested the dialogue between the young man's mother and the niece over the niece's distaste for the physically unattractive gauche young man is one of Trollope's finer passsages of acute psychological interplay. So too this letter:

Perhaps I had better tell you the truth. Tom has admired her. She has behaved very well; but she could not bear to be spoken to, and so there have been unpleasantnesses (p. 66).

I remember the US devastation by bombing of Iraq referrred to by the Washington Post (ironically of course) as 'the recent unpleasantness in Mesopotamia' (Dorothy Sayers also made use of this irony in her The Recent Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club -- murder, as I recall.) The unpleasantnesses between Ayala and the Tringles includes that "L" word.

Tom ignores it, and Uncle Tom dismisses it. But they are presented as solid males who don't pay much attention to the intangible -- if so, though, why Tom loves Ayala so is odd. She is not presented as breath-takingly lovely -- for which I thank Mr Trollope. She is fetching, adorable, dark hair, dark eyes, the 'brown' skin which means not white-and-pink. There's something in the inner spirit of the girl that allures him.

I went to look up 'lout' as in the 1950s in the US had I used such a word to either of my two aunts (both middling class) of their sons they would never have forgotten, much less forgiven it. My OED finds its first usages in old English (825), Middle English (1205, 1250, 1305, 1390). These seem to refer to someone very low who skulks and sneaks about, as far from the chivalric figure as one can imagine. The first modern English gives some senses of the word which suggest that from the Renaissance on it had the really low, mean unforgivable connotations I remember it having: it is the equivalent of sot, of 'villaine' (in context not a bad man, but a very very low class one, extremely dull ,not far from animal level); again a 'knave' (not indicating evil so much as egregriously ill-mannered). Coming up the 18th century the word when used signifies by the usage 'extreme contumely', meaning scorn, derision, condescension. To someone in the US today it would signify more than uncouthness, but someone likely to be wearing dirty clothes, to be without any muscle tone at all, beyond the pale of acceptability, in a word, a 'clown' (in the old fashioned sense; the OED has this for a 16th through 18th century sense). Other words the OED adds as synonyms for the 19th century include: clumsy, a loafer (Ayala also calls Tom an oaf). Then there are the verbs: someone who 'bellows', who 'loafs' about.

We all know how intensely alive people are to the slightest insult and ridicule with respect to their status vis-a-vis one another. The OED gives us some license to imagine as analogous someone today saying aloud in company to someone else, hey you lout, or worse, referring to that lout in front of everyone to his mother.

Is it probable that Ayala would have used the "l" word? Or did it signify less to these luxuriously superrich upper class people? The OED suggests not. Why does Lucy not say to Ayala, You called him a WHAT? There is an apparent lack of immediate startled horror to the word by the Tringles too. Is this part of their unconcern for things of the imagination? When I say that it was part of the reason Emmeline Lady Tringle began to act to make a 'new arrangement' (lovely word, that, going to a workhouse would be rearrangement; we are undergoing very many social rearrangements in our time).

Another curious sense of the word I have which is supported by the OED: it's used for men, not women. A woman is not a lout, a man is. The equivalent word for women is something like the old-fashioned (say 1920s) sense of 'slut', but 'slattern' does not quite carry the insult of lout. We are told Tom Trinble is a hobbledyhoy, but then no one ever called Johnny Eames a lout.

Ellen Moody

Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel, Chs 7-12: The "L" word

I do not have a problem with the word 'lout' used by Ayala about Tom. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines the word as :-

"Awkward fellow, bumpkin, rough-mannered or unpleasantly aggressive man"

This is the feeling that I have about the use of the word, and, apart from the aggressiveness, seems to match exactly the way that Tom behaves. He clearly lacks the polish that Ayala became accustomed to in her father's house among the artistic crowd who gathered there, and his flashy use of jewellery - on himself! - no doubt made her shudder. We are not, I think, told about Tom's education, but no doubt this was at an expensive public school (in the British sense). Rather as with Louis Scatcherd, in Doctor Thorne, Tom probably mixed with the moneyed boys, rather than with the ones who had manners, and thus did not gain the full benefit of a gentleman's education that these establishments were supposed to give. Nevertheless, as Trollope leaves us in no doubt, Tom was on the whole a reasonable man,. He worked hard in his father's business, and does not seem to have indulged in any of the unsavoury vices that Louis Scatcherd or the Marquis of Brotherton got up to. The reader will leave this novel with a soft spot for Tom, as clearly does Trollope.

The fact that no-one in the novel, even Aunt Emmeline, takes exception to Ayala's use of the word makes me think that Trollope's view was much the same as mine, rather than Ellen's twentieth century American approach. Words acquire a usage dependent on place and time, and this is one that may have changed in significance over the years and the Atlantic.

We nowadays also have lager-louts and litter-louts, which are pejorative phrases about people who drink too much, or leave rubbish about. These phrases are distinctly negative, but I imagine that they came into use many years after Trollope's death, and I cannot see that Tom is likely to have been guilty of either of these misdeeds.

Regards, Howard

To Trollope-l

January 21, 2001

Re: Ayala's Angel, Ch 7-12: The "L" Word

A quick response in the middle of my day from Ellen to Howard: actually I don't have a problem with Ayala's use of the word (as I didn't have a 'use' for any of the stories we told about our fathers reading or our libraries). In the present case I sympathise with Ayala, very strongly: she doesn't suit so she is to be thrown out. I'm rather glad she used the word insofar as it irritated Emmeline Lady Tringle which there is ample evidence it did after a while -- in the same way as her reluctance to fetch and carry for others unless they would do so for her irritated.

The reality of this week's chapters shows us that it is Ayala who is the outcast not Tom. Her use of the word does seem at first to help her escape the persistence of this unwanted suitor. But not for long. She supposed to be grateful for this man's persistence, and to allow him to visit her in the Dosett house. Poor girl. Now she has both to sew old towels and to endure Tom.

We often think of Trollope's outcasts, his pariahs as the male characters; in this case it's a female or potentially a pair of females and they are outcast because they have no money.

If my usage is not that of Trollope's Tringle and Dosett family (which was to me clear as I read), and may not be that of upper class people in the later 19th or, as Howard suggests, similar twentieth century Englishmen, my full history of the word from the OED shows it has in many times and by many authors been used to convey a set of connotations which stamp the named person as peculiarly low, from the middle ages where the man is a low subhuman kind of serf, to Elizabethans where such a word signified clown (which doesn't mean someone in a circus), through to the 20th century. I am interested to read Howard's response to the text and this word, and that he feels about it as nothing very much; it suggests a faultline which is class-rooted.

There is also a gender faultline here. It is significant that the word is not used of women -- which I pointed out. It is a way of insulting a man. Since one of the book's themes or presuppositions is the importance and power of men -- patriarchy -- it becomes an attack outside this field of money and power. Ayala aims her arrow at something men cannot command by their buying power. Tom cannot buy, he cannot even (apparently) train himself to exhibit what might preclude the use of such an epithet.

More tonight,
Cheers to all,
Ellen Moody

Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel, Chs 7-12: In Italy (again)

My first thoughts whilst reading the early part of Ayala's Angel were that Trollope seems to need little excuse to pack his characters off to Italy.

It is interesting how often Trollope includes a reference to Italy in his novels. The last four that I have had read (Is He Popenjoy, He Knew He Was Right, Last Chronicle of Barset and Barsetshire Towers) have all had either an Italian scene or connection. We know that Trollope liked visiting Italy and that his mother and brother lived there for a while: this might explain the frequency which Italian scenes occur in is novels.

I am beginning to wonder if they outnumber the hunting scenes, which he is famous for inserting whenever possible. Did Trollope publish any travel writing about Italy?

I think this is going to be a good read. I hope I can keep to the timetable and not read ahead.

My favourite Trollope characters are Dr Theophilus Grantly and Lady Glen. I have always been fond of characters that appear in more than one novel (so its not surprising that Balzac runs a close second to Trollope in my affections). Trollope has given both Archdeacon Grantly and Lady Glencora sufficient flaws to make them interesting, without detracting from their humanity. I think they would be fun to meet.

Ian

Reply-to: trollope-l@onelist.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel

From: "Joan F. Wall"

The first puzzle comes from wondering whether Trollope meant his original readers to react negatively to the separation of the sisters.

I think so or perhaps I should say that I certainly do react very badly to the separation but I think that children in that time were much more of a commodity than they are today. The whole idea of not allowing Ayala to visit Lucy except once really struck me with the power of the aunt and later when Ayala is not allowed to visit her friends because she might be exposed again to uncomfortable ideas brought home the power that parents or those willing to take care of nieces (or nephews) had and probably still have.

I don't think the aunts felt any need to nurture these girls. They were just feeding and clothing them in the way they were fed and clothed and it was made quite clear to them that they were inferior members of the family.

Then there's all this business about the perfect man. I think young dreaming girls still think of the "perfect man." I also think it has a great deal to do with an unwillingness to face life and sex or the immaturity that says Let me wait a while while I really decide what I want. Not all young women want to marry at a young age. Perhaps they use the excuse of a perfect man.

I definite think that the "lout" is a stalker, should be stopped, but who in the story is there to do it? His mother and sisters, never. So poor Ayala is on her own. He is an unbelievable character to me because of his persistance but perhaps that's because I've (luckily) never been stalked.

I'm nowhere finished with the book but I do find it very thought provoking.

she wants to be separated. Also how any male who has had a sexual relationship with a woman might develop intense possessiveness and be so hurt at rejection as unable to accept it.

Yes, but his pride is also hurt.

Joan

To Trollope-l

January 22, 2001 Re: Ayala's Angel, Chs 7-12: 'Tame Birds Moved from Cage to Cage as the Owner Pleases'

This week's chapters are full and rich in the manner of the Barsetshire books (and the large novel we read before these) An American Senator. There is just too much to meditate. The most continual enjoyment is in the style -- the verve and energy of the language. The energy, suggestiveness and perpetual play of irony, both the largeness of the resonances in each of the scenes (which makes them move out to symbols of opposing views) and the naturalness or, in context, believability of the blurted out words impress the reader's mind with a vivid life inside the book.

Ian mentioned the resort to Italy so common in Trollope's books: the frequency of the allusions probably come partly from the visits and his mother and brother's lives there, but they also bring a wider world into the novels, one much freer and going further back in literary time (as Trollope would understand it) than an English middle class terrain. It's interesting how Henry James's contrasts between Italy and Anglo-Saxon culture often turn Italy into the decadent, rich but corrupt, super- sophisticated. Trollope's many suggestive references to all sorts of places in Rome are alluring, situate the characters into historical sites they themselves barely appreciate. Their author did, as did his brother -- as can be seen in Thomas's books and journalism. To Victorians Italy was a place of enlightened revolution -- that's how many of them saw the Risorgimento.

This week's story line brings before us the startling swap, and Tom's persistent determination to make Ayala his prize. The two lines of the story intersect. Most of the space is devoted to the ejection of Ayala and her re-settlement in the Dosett house. In my earlier posting on the "L" word I also talked of the brilliance of the correspondence in this part fo the book, Trollope's perceptive dramatization of the conflict between Lady Tringle and Ayala. Ayala speaks roundly to this aunt and Tom. Her stiff-necked pride is well done. I can identify with that. She cuts off her nose to spite her face and at the same time feels relief from the operation. This is true to life.

The scenes with Tom resemble many others in Trollope's novels (& in other 18th and 19th century novels) where a man thinks he has a presumptive right to marry a girl if he is willing to and can support her. Her sexual desires and individual needs apart from family life or financial support are nothing in comparison with his willingness to take her on as a 'burden'. The difference between a scene here and those in, say, The Vicar of Bullhampton, is the outlines or wording is broad, lacks nuances to suggest individual anguish, leave much up to the reader to catch: 'if you were anything that is good you wouldn't go on after I have told you so often. It is not manly of you' (Folio Society ed. Ayala, ed AEThomas, Ch 9, p. 61). Trollope alludes to a set of ideas he assumes we have down pat.

Still Ayala's strongest words occur in conversations in which Lucy participates. In all Lucy's conversations with Ayala, with Aunt Dosett, and in her she provides a downright humane analysis of the way the girls are really regarded and treated. Money and those who control it trump all. We see that Aunt Dosett simply accepts that the world shall treat Tom's desires as paramount and punish Ayala for getting in the way, for threatening, however apparently trivially, the Tringle women: 'he is Fortune's favorite and she is not. It is not good kicking against the pricks, my dear. He is his father's son and heir, and everything must give way to him (Ch 9, p. 71). Aunt Dosett is the woman who has accepted the punishment meted out to her. She has long ago been harnessed, and now works to harness other women. Kick against the pricks is an interesting bit of slang still with us: it matches something the narrator says to the effect that Sir Thomas has gotten to the point where money is no longer the point. Against this coopted woman Lucy speaks some of the most cogent lines in the book about the girls' central situation thus far: 'Even though Ayala and I are only girls, we ought not to be changed about as though we were horses' (Ch 9, p 71). Ayala's lines are equally rooted in everyday speech and old-fashioned mocking metaphors which prettify a reality: 'As you say, we are like two tame birds who have to be moved from one cage into another just as the owner pleases' (Ch 10, p. 74).

It's hard to feel for Aunt Dosett, now become Aunt Margaret as she has hugged her chains to the point of seeing nothing beyond them. There are many reasons for missing some substantial dramatization of the wonderful charm of art in that bijou in Kensington, of the values only passingly alluded to in both Ayala's and Lucy's response to their aunt's imaginatively impoverished life: 'If there were only some intellectual charm in her life, some touch of art, some devotion to things beautiful, then she could do without gold and silver and costly raiment' (Ch 9, p. 77). Pehaps the most important is that such discussions would include far more than immediate talk about painting, but also what painting means, what parts of the heart it comes out of. Not that Aunt Margaret's is all dried up: she responds to Lucy's unexpected reluctance to leave her house (though Aunt Margaret misunderstands the reasons; it's not because Lucy will miss her); she and her husband really mean to be more companionable to Ayala, to pay attention to her as an individual human being with wants and needs of her own which they didn't do for Lucy. The book has a curious emptiness in it which similar oppositions in books by Henry James (much influenced by Trollope) don't. The perspective here is one inscribed fully by James and makes his books' excursions into Italy and art and the relationship of the beautiful things of the imagination to making big money and egoism (as in The Golden Bowl) more satisfying.

I am attracted to Lucy most: she will acknowledge to herself 'that she had hated the comparative poverty of her Uncle Dosett's life', hate herself for this, but in justifying her impulse realise that there was something 'worse than poverty here' and in words which echo Ayala's think about the complete absence of any charm (intellectual, art, books, pictures). After all Isadore Hamel will not bring her big money (p. 68). A substantial discussion of what art means in life would bring home to us the analogous parallel between the pettiness of the Tringle home and why their children are going wrong and the quiet desperation of the Dosetts. It would given more substance to Lucy's meditations. Probably I like her best for the same reasons I like Austen's Elinor Dashwood: she understands herself.

I wonder if Tom elicits a distaste similar to that of Lord George Germaine in readers. There are similarities. Both are inadequate males: portraits of the hidden Anthony, the private one: the difference is Tom is an outright conscious caricature. Again I feel sympathy for the man oppressed by false values, whether they be the insistence he be a macho male, great in bed, or a polished Prince Charming, challenging, teasing (but in these Victorian novels emasculated) rake of the kind dramatised in Jack de Baron. What is one to say of a young, a young man who pictures

'to himself a happiness of a wholesome cleanly kind. To have the girl as his own, to caress her and foster her, and expend himself in making her happy; to exalt her, so as to have it acknowledged that she was, at any rate, as important as Augusta; to learn something from her, so that he, too, might become romantic, and in sokme degree poetical --- all this had come home to him in a not ignoble manner' (Ch 11, pp. 85-86).

That last phrase prevents me from voicing condescension. A not ignoble manner. Yet the dream is as naive as Ayala's about angels of light. I disputed the assertion that Lord George was a virgin; what else could Tom be? I wonder if the character as presented here can be thought to have experienced puberty? It's in moments like these I see Sig's feeling there is something unreal going on here. Yet is it? Or do we have here an isolated deeply shy young man, someone who keeps apart and reads too many romances, in other words a portrait of Anthony Trollope as a fourteen year old.

This book is another which contains many remarkable portraits of males. They are more fortunate than the females: they get to buy the horses, and are not kept in cages beyond those they make for themselves in reaction to others. I felt sorry for Tom in his absurd jewelry, his form of carapace. It's almost enough to make me reconsider my distaste for Anthony Powell's Widmerpool who as a young boy in public school wore a jacket that was somehow & indescribably wrong.

Cheers to all,
Ellen Moody

Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel, Ch 7-12: The "L" Word

I agree with Ellen that “lout” is a strong word, to American ears, anyway. For me it indicates an ignorant, uncouth, uncivilized male with perhaps a potential for violent behavior. Perhaps in the society about which Trollope was writing its meaning was not so strong. “Oaf” is less offensive. However, if Trollope intended the word to be taken as I took it, then we are right to ask why its use is not met with greater shock. When I read the scene, it nearly made me laugh out loud at the boldness of Ayala’s language.

Regarding this lout, though, I did note that nearly the first words Trollope gives us about him are that “he was a young man with so much manly truth about him as to be very much in love.” Now clearly this description doesn’t go very well with “lout.” Reading these words, I thought that Trollope must surely be on his side. Tom may be ridiculous in some ways but beneath the jewelry and the funny outfits he’s a decent person. So perhaps “lout” tells us more about Ayala than it does about Tom. She may be wrong about Tom (or she may be right -- it’s early) but I admire her spunk in speaking out boldly. Especially in light of her precarious economic position it takes a lot of nerve to speak the way she does to her aunt.

At the same time, though, I have to admit that she moves past nervy into foolish and extravagant. (No doubt her behavior is attributable to that bohemian, artistic household that she grew up in.). She also tells her aunt, “You are worse than Augusta!” At this point one begins to wonder if there are any Tringles left that she hasn’t insulted.

Ayala has a flair for the dramatic. Perhaps this is why she attracts men the way she does. She attracts Tom, that’s clear. She attracts Tom’s father -- he was on her side from the beginning. She attracts Mr. Traffick, even though he represents everything she doesn’t care for in a man. She even attracted her aunt initially. That was how Ayala was chosen in the first place.

Todd

Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel, Chs 1-6: What Is Impoverishment?

Hello, list!

I have just caught up in my AA reading. An unfortunate bout with strep throat has set me back yet AGAIN, but I am reading and enjoying this book.

I enjoyed the comments on chapters 1-6, the comments about the two girls and their differences, etc. To some extent the two sisters put me in mind of the sisters in Middlemarch, and I beg pardon if this has already been noted. Though Lucy is not nearly as austere as Dorothea, Ayala seems every bit as pretty and flighty as her little sister Celia (I believe I have the right name! Am rather tired at the moment).

Ellen Moody wrote:

The Dosetts do not take out on Lucy what her parents were; they do not jeer at her, they do not try to crush her spirit through references to what her parents had -- and the Dosetts have given up, though it does seem to be true that Mrs Dosett has nothing in her but daily occupations.

I agree the Dosetts are well-meaning people. I suppose they are just overly-stringent sorts who don't see life as much more than a duty. I felt Lucy's rage when it was suggested reading is an improper pastime for all but the wealthy, who have time to fritter away. Aunt Dosett is downright puritannical in her views, and even sets gentle Lucy on edge! I suppose some of that is the fact she's still dealing with the grief, from the loss of her father, but it also suggests she has a spirit to her.

(Aunt Dosset) seems never to have been developed to have any interests at all

That's very true. She's buried all of her own interests for the sake of her husband, it seems. Everything, down to the amount of lamb dedicated to the servants, has been calculated, and it's understood only her husband can take all he wants of anything. She is dutiful to a fault.

Most of the time, the Tringles are not petty; they are not small; they are not mean except when Ayala tries to step on them -- and pettily, smally.

They did very much resent Ayala's popularity in Rome, I noted. They were put out by the fact their own daughters were always in Ayala's shadow, and Ayala nothing more than a ward! And then, having their own son fall in love with her..

And I do realise I'm ahead of the Chapters 1-6 being cited here, by the way.

Ayala is cruel to Augusta -- with a child's cruelty, as she doesn't begin to understand what we see motivating Augusta here.

I can definitely understand why Ayala would be an irritating house guest, this I will say for sure! She seems quite high and mighty, considering the circumstances, and the word "gratitude" seems the furthest thing from her mind. Though I think it's entertaining to see the things she does, as a character, I am quite glad I'm not her aunt..

The two heroines are teenagers, and it is through their eyes we are seeing the adults as yet.

That is an important point. They are only teenagers, so the fact they seem to think the world revolves around them makes sense.

Tom is not stupid; however, he does not carry any of the false outer accoutrements of glamour (which the Kensington bijou) had. The life of the imagination is not to be limited to the arts or who looks good in a luxurious suit.

I think it's interesting to "hear" what's going on inside Ayala's head, as to her idea of romantic love. She uses the same term over and over, and of course I can't recall it now, but she has an ideal in mind and is sticking to that. It's no wonder Tom cannot live up to an imaginary ideal of perfection.

In the next set of chapters, even Lucy seems allied against Ayala in regards to Tom. She tells Ayala, at one point, that perhaps she should consider what she's thrusting away.. Of course, it's the money, the title, the land, etc.. Lucy, though not overtly materialistic, can easily see the benefits of marrying such a man as Tom, flaws or no.

Lisa Guidarini

Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel, Chs 7-12: The "L" word

Ellen Moody wrote:

As those of us who are reading the novel know by this time, Ayala has the extraordinary gall to call Tom a 'lout' not only to his face, but before his mother, her aunt, who she knows will repeat the word to his father, her uncle.

She is rather a cheeky little number, no? ;-)

I was surprised how freely she expressed her feelings about Tom to her aunt. I realise she's been brought up in a looser environment than her cousins, which I guess accounts for the difference in her behaviour, but I was still a bit galled on her aunt's behalf to hear her speak so frankly. Had she the benefit of better "breeding," perhaps she'd have found a better way of expressing herself. But as it was I suppose she's the product of her environment, which would only confirm her aunt's low opinion of her.

I know people can be dense and insensitive, or thick-skinned, and say 'sticks and stones will hurt my bones but words will never harm me' but I did wonder about Ayala's use of the word 'lout' so openly, frankly, and repeatedly.

She does aim to wound, I agree. As to why, I'm not positive about that. She's pretty and admired, grew up in what seems a loving home, though I do take into account the fact she's lost both parents. Perhaps it is just her temperament, that she hasn't much patience to speak of and acts quite rashly.

She is desperate to make (Tom) go away.

It has crossed my mind that Ayala feels her ideal of romantic love is threatened by Tom. Perhaps she does, deep down, believe she could fall for the man, thus she's so very desperate to make her behaviour as harsh as possible to compensate.

... why Tom loves Ayala so is odd. She is not presented as breath-takingly lovely -- for which I thank Mr Trollope. She is fetching, adorable, dark hair, dark eyes, the 'brown' skin which means not white-and-pink. There's something in the inner spirit of the girl that allures him.

I tend to agree it is her spirit, and the fact her face is not at all unpleasant to look at. The fact she is so fiery could be a huge attraction to the right sort of man.

There is an apparent lack of immediate startled horror to the word by the Tringles too. Is this part of their unconcern for things of the imagination?

I did note how dispassionately the family took that comment, come to think of it. They didn't seem bent out of shape at all, though you'd think they would be. Here's their son, being talked down to by this uppity baggage! But it hardly fazes them at all. It is a bit strange. It could be Ayala counts for so little they don't much mind what she says, or because they're so wrapped up in other things. I'm not sure.

Lisa Guidarini

Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel, Chs 7-12: The "L" word

At 19:39 01\01\23, Lisa Guidarini wrote:

It has crossed my mind that Ayala feels her ideal of romantic love is threatened by Tom. Perhaps she does, deep down, believe she could fall for the man, thus she's so very desperate to make her behaviour as harsh as possible to compensate.

I find it strange that throughout Trollope and indeed throughout English writings of the last century a considerable number of marriages are between close cousins (usually first cousins). Were the church rules on consanguinity not applied? In the case of Ayala and Tom, they are first cousins.

Rory O'Farrell

Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel, Chs 7-12: 'Tame Birds Moved from Cage to Cage as the Owner Pleases'

The comments from readers on the character of young Tom are very interesting. Responding to Ellen's question ("I wonder if Tom elicits a distaste similar to that of Lord George Germaine in readers....) I would say no, not for me, although I can see the reason for the question. Even though there may be elements of caricature in his portrayal, he is believable. I'm not at all sure that, had I grown up as a child of privilege -- and especially coming from new money rather than aristocracy -- I wouldn't have been a similar sort of young man. Money or lack of it can make a great deal of difference in how a personality is expressed. His youthful swagger and bravado in his attack on Fortress Ayala stem largely from his family wealth -- he's used to getting what he wants -- and without that I think he would be a rather diffident, insecure fellow. He would be just as naive or even more so, but I doubt he'd be so forward in his naivete. His fashion sense would be just as bad, but he wouldn't have the resources to express his fashion sense with all those rings. Yes, maybe this is another aspect of the young Anthony Trolllope.

Also, his persistence with Ayala in the face of repeated refusals brings to mind another hobbledehoy, Johnny Eames.

Wayne Gisslen

Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel

I am enjoying Ayala's Angel thus far. Indeed I have enjoyed all the Trollope novels I have read except for The Fixed Period.

I was a bit surprised when Lucy urged Ayala to at least consider marrying Tom. Perhaps she did it because, having lived with the Dossets she realized what a convenience money is. And being the elder she might also have understood better than Ayala the position in which they both were, orphans with no means. Meanwhile I'm waiting for her suitor to show up again.

I think it is unfortunate that Sir Thomas didn't realize the financial straits of the Dossets. I just hate to see the sisters separated. I think they could have been quite happy, both at the Dossets with Sir Thomas giving them an allowance.

Dagny

Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel

Dagny wrote:

I was a bit surprised when Lucy urged Ayala to at least consider marrying Tom. Perhaps she did it because, having lived with the Dossets she realized what a convenience money is. And being the elder she might also have understood better than Ayala the position in which they both were, orphans with no means.

Yes, I believe Lucy was being quite level-headed when she encouraged Ayala to consider Tom's proposal. At the same time, the first cousin thing is a bit strange to my modern mind. I believe someone else mentioned that, apologies as I've forgotten who it was who posted that, and I do wonder that wasn't more frowned-upon. Is that not considered too genetically close?

I think it is unfortunate that Sir Thomas didn't realize the financial straits of the Dossets. I just hate to see the sisters separated. I think they could have been quite happy, both at the Dossets with Sir Thomas giving them an allowance.

You'd think they would have tried to keep the sisters together. Why did Sir Thomas not take both? He could well afford it. Or, as you suggested, putting them both with the Dossets and giving them an allowance. But I suppose the plot has a need for them being separated..

Lisa

Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel

I don't know why the cousin thing didn't seem to bother people; perhaps it was a result of the somewhat limited social interaction people had, and all the class restrictions as well as geographical limitations. It was presumably done enough in real life that it drew no comment in literary settings. Fanny Price married her cousin Edmund at Mansfield Park with everyone's blessing. (Well, almost everyone's, but certainly Jane Austen's). Actually, one of the reasons Aunt Norris proposed Sir Thomas' adopting Fanny was so that the Bertram boys would see Fanny as a sister and therefore not as a marriage partner, but her grounds for objection to such a marriage was along social and economic lines. And this was done in the states too; I believe Melanie and Ashley Wilkes were cousins. As to our current Sir Thomas and his support or non-support of the girls, it seems that is the way it was done. If the girl lived in his house she was in a sense then his daughter and so he made provisions for her; if she lived in someone else's house she was not his and it was up to the other family to provide for her. Also I think Sir Thomas is getting a little sick of everybody (esp. sons in law and prospective sons in law) expecting to live on his money.

Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Ayala's Angel, Chs 7-12: 'Tame Birds Moved from Cage to Cage as

I, too, find myself feeling sympathy for the well meaning Tom Tringle. He reminds me of a modern day young man who, fond of displaying evidence of his prosperity by driving an expensive sporty car, sporting an expensive Rolex watch, and dripping with Armani from head to foot. He has an idea that this will attract the babes, and so it will. But what kind of babes?

In fact, just this kind of plot is to be found time and again in the novels of P.G. Wodehouse. Loaded young man chasing after soulful young woman longing for a slender poet who (horrors!) writes free verse. Loaded young man generally ugly as a stump who trips over his own feet, poet impossibly handsome and thus not to be trusted.

However, Wodehouse did not write the end to this one.

Jill Spriggs