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Cousin Henry
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Cousin Henry: Week 4: Chapters X-XII
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It seems to me that Trollope has finally come around to his readers’ opinion of Isabel! At the beginning, all we knew from him was that she was well-loved by her uncle and tenants and was very good to the tenants. Now, all of a sudden, he enumerates her bad qualities! Which were apparent to the readers all along.I love Trollope, but this isn’t a very satisfying read. There’s both the sense that he’s figuring it out as he goes along and that the whole novel is an insufficiently fleshed-out outline. As I feared, one he cranked out for the paycheck. And you really can’t blame someone who has to earn his living, but his muse isn’t being served by this one.
The dream is quite a powerful scene. Anyone remember something like this in any other Trollope novel? Poor Henry is really suffering. And then, in real life, along comes "young Cantor who had been so determined in his assertion that another will was made." Francis Mosley has chosen to illustrate the dream. When I was flipping through my edition before reading this chapter, I was very surprised at this. Note: the boat appears to be above the water.
While reading chapter xii, I began to think that I had been taking this way too seriously and that this book was meant to be comedy. Isabel's reasoning is absolutely ridiculous and I could not take this entire thing serious anymore. Also Henry's paranoid behaviour made me smile a little.This helped me to enjoy this section more than the weeks before. I felt that Henry was gradually becoming more likeable due his continued suffering (whatever the reason), but also by calling Isabel out for her rudeness.
Isabel on the other hand is proud and entitled and contributing nothing to anybody's life! Least of all her reason for disliking Henry. I noted that the reason she does give in ch. xii is her suspicion that Henry has destroyed the last will. But she disliked him before that has (or has not) happened, which contributed to Henry's behaviour. I am not sure if we will ever get an explanation for this initial dislike.
She certainly does not seem to be as disinterested as she has claimed. In fact, she is very angry and willing to make everybody unhappy. If she won't have William Owen, may I have him? He is a gem and deserves better than her!
Mod
Ha! This is delightful! I have yet to read this section and I’m going to give this a try.
Lindenblatt wrote: "While reading chapter xii, I began to think that I had been taking this way too seriously and that this book was meant to be comedy. Isabel's reasoning is absolutely ridiculous and I could not take..."Ah, yes! Now that you mention it, this does make a lot of sense. Isabel's pride and stubbornness in Chapter XII especially is so exaggerated that I could see how Trollope wanted us, as readers, to shake our heads, chuckle to ourselves and think, "O, foolish youth!"
These lines were particularly humorous to me:
"Then [Owen] must be told that on no consideration can his offer be accepted."
"That is nonsense. You are both dying for each other."
"Then we must die. But as for that, I think that neither young men nor young women die for love now-a-days. If we love each other, we must do without each other, as people have to learn to do without most of the things they desire."
(That's....certainly a form of logic?)
Then at the end of chapter XII we have these lines of rapturous praise:
"Oh, how she loved him! How sweet would it be to submit...to such a man as that! How worthy was he of all worship, of all confidence, of all service! How infinitely better was he than any other being that had ever crossed her path!"
Directly followed by the flat and monotone:
"But yet she was quite sure she would not marry him."
And it turns out that William Owen lives up to the hype of his goodness! Regarding Henry's supposed guilt, he tells Isabel, "One should not judge by such indications. One cannot but see and notice them; but one should not judge."
(Has a Henry apologist entered the chat, ladies and gents?)
Nancy wrote: "It seems to me that Trollope has finally come around to his readers’ opinion of Isabel! At the beginning, all we knew from him was that she was well-loved by her uncle and tenants and was very good..."What an illustration! Dark and eerie and mystical. Henry's forlorn and childlike expression really says it all.
Henry is a weak and foolish person, but that doesn't make him a villain. His cowardice is holding him back from telling the truth and all the mud-slinging doesn't help.Isabel is ridiculous!
I’ve enjoyed the examination of Henry’s psychological state, I think Trollope did that well, even though it’s frustrating. He is a coward and a ditherer, but he can’t take that extra step of wickedness to destroy the will. He’s actually very like Indefer - Indefer wanted there to be an entail so he wouldn’t have to take the responsibility of deciding who inherits, and Henry wants someone else to find the will so that he doesn’t have to speak up.I had had some sympathy for Isabel up to this point, based on her genuine affection for her uncle and her attempts (however stubborn and misguided) to do the right thing, but her refusal to take the money that Henry was willing to give her seemed just too wrongheaded. Her uncle wanted her to have the money, and her father (with his young family) could genuinely have benefited from her making a contribution to her upkeep, so her arguments against it seemed selfish and unreasonable to me.
Some great comments from everyone this week which I have really enjoyed reading. I have to agree with them all. This week’s chapters only strengthened my feelings about each character rather than changing anything.
The two clowns Isabel and Henry continued to confuse themselves as well as everyone else.
I thought that my hero William was an IMP -Impressive, Imperial, Imperative and Imposing.
I was a little shocked at Isabel’s admission to William about her love/passion for him.
’ "There has never been a man whose touch has been pleasant to me;—but I could revel in yours. Kiss you? I could kiss your feet at this moment, and embrace your knees. Everything belonging to you is dear to me. The things you have touched have been made sacred to me. The Prayer-Book tells the young wife that she should love her husband till death shall part them. I think my love will go further than that."’
I have read a lot of novels but I can’t remember many Victorian women talking like that alone with her lover in her father’s drawing room. Even in a French novel it might have been considered risqué.
But afterwards there was not a drop of sweat on William’s brow. He took everything Isabel could throw at him with the magnanimity of a monk.
Isabel might be stubborn but I think that William has her measure…..but time will tell.
As for Henry and his dream/nightmare. There were plenty of beads of sweat on his brow and the torment can only get worse.
Yes, Isabel is idiotic to the extreme! All that banter about love is making me nauseous, and the grovelling of the cleric is even worse. I hope those two don’t get together as it would bore the pants off me.I am still resisting finishing off the novel to find out what happened, I’m still confident that the novel will not continue plodding along like this and I suspect there may be redemption for Henry in the end.
What’s an Epilogue it would be if Isabel marries Henry and Mr. Owen is master of ceremonies!
Starting to remind me of a Twilight Zone episode. Imagine if you will, a short novel that has very few characters and repeats the circumstances over and over again. But, since it was written by a famous author, you continue to plod on through hoping beyond hope that something new comes to light. The definition of insanity.
I've read a lot of books by Trollope. This is a real disappointment.
I'm trying to decide if this book reminds me of The Eustace Diamonds. It was the first book I read by Trollope and I haven't reread it since. But it seems similar in that there is an impossible and vexing situation that goes on and on and on due to the pigheadedness of the character(s).
I remember writing a comment last Sunday, but I don’t see it here so I guess I will try again. At this point, the only character I like in this book is Owen. And I fully agree with the member above who told him to run. Run like the WIND, dude. Who needs this horrible woman?
If I was not reading this book with a group of fellow sufferers, I’d be tempted DNF it. What this book needs more than anything is a Jane Eyre-like insane wife in the attic who will burn the place to the ground. Then neither of them would get this miserable property. Which would be Justice, if nothing else.
Mod
Isabel is ridiculous!"
Agreed; Isabel gets on my nerves more and more as the chapters move on.
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At this point, the only character I like in this book is Owen. And I fully agree with the member abo..."
They do deserve the property being destroyed in some way, don't they. May be Mrs Griffth will transform into Mrs Danvers :) I wonder how Trollope is going to stretch this chain of things over a further 12 chapters--nothing 'new' really seems to happen.
Lady Clementina wrote: "nothing 'new' really seems to happen."And with essentially a cast of three (now that Indefer's dead), there is no one for it to happen with.
Mod
And with essentially a cast of three (now that Indefer's dead), there is no one for it to happen with."
So true; Trollope did an excellent job with another relatively limited issue in Dr Wortle's School though--of course there were many more characters to play around with
Henry we see, is pethaps acting not so much out of a conscience as was the idea one got in the previous chapters, but more out of self-preservation which rules out any overt acts or even any action as such, which might get him in specific trouble and attach to him the label of felon (‘… taking of the will … would be in itself a felony’; ‘his safety lay in abstaining from any deed’). Yet, it isn’t just that. He is at the core a cowardly person, too scared to be a villain, proper and perhaps also, too scared to be a hero and come clean—the latter not helped by Isabel’s and the others’ treatment of him. As comes up in the later chapter with Owen, they don’t really know that he’s done anything. (Yet, ‘It was only too manifest that everyone suspected him of something’.) Still, he continues to try, signing on the papers to charge the estate for Isabel’s inheritance (wrongly suspected by Mr Apjohn), even offering her the house, and for a change, speaking up about her mistreatment of himself. He tries too, to step into his duties, but sadly is not much good at it. But at least he seems to come away with one friend, in Farmer Griffith (a relation of Mrs Griffith?)
Isbel meanwhile is back at her father’s home in Hereford where it is clear she is not wanted; by her stepmother, siblings, or father. One would think it would give her an idea of what Henry is going through but her domineering and self-righteous nature seems to make her blind to this. She is determined to make herself a martyr, to live in poverty, and yet, I doubt she really understands what this might entail. She is thoroughly selfish once again, only considering things from her perspective and what she sees as right, and not for a moment considering what the other person might want. She thinks she will be a burden to Mr Owen and so she must refuse him, never mind that he doesn’t think so; She is convinced Henry has destroyed the will just because he looked uncomfortable (no matter that she, Uncle Indefer and all others had Llanfeare had done their level best to make him so) and so no matter what is true, he has to be guilty. What a thoroughly exasperating woman!
Owen is away when Isabel returns to Hereford, but her father and stepmother are rightly convinced he’ll be back with his proposal when he returns, and so he is. Yet, the obstinate Isabel, not only ignores his advice on not making judgements on what little she has, but is determined to refuse him even when he makes clear he doesn’t care about the money—once again because she believes that’s the right thing to do; She makes much about loving him, but I’m beginning to wonder … does she really love him as much as she claims? And does she really love the property as little as she claims?
The only couple of things in her favour this week were her acknowledgement that she was too harsh to Henry and her acknowledgement that she was not well qualified to be the wife of a poor gentleman. And yet, she claims she wants to live not just in poverty but abject poverty.