Barchester Towers

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The Arabins after their marriage went abroad for a couple of months,
according to the custom in such matters now duly established, and
then commenced their deanery life under good auspices. And nothing
can be more pleasant than the present arrangement of ecclesiastical
affairs in Barchester. The titular bishop never interfered, and Mrs.
Proudie not often. Her sphere is more extended, more noble, and more
suited to her ambition than that of a cathedral city. As long as she
can do what she pleases with the diocese, she is willing to leave
the dean and chapter to themselves. Mr. Slope tried his hand at
subverting the old-established customs of the close, and from his
failure she had learnt experience. The burly chancellor and the
meagre little prebendary are not teased by any application respecting
Sabbath-day schools, the dean is left to his own dominions, and the
intercourse between Mrs. Proudie and Mrs. Arabin is confined to
a yearly dinner given by each to the other. At these dinners Dr.
Grantly will not take a part, but he never fails to ask for and
receive a full account of all that Mrs. Proudie either does or says.

His ecclesiastical authority has been greatly shorn since the palmy
days in which he reigned supreme as mayor of the palace to his
father, but nevertheless such authority as is now left to him he
can enjoy without interference. He can walk down the High Street of
Barchester without feeling that those who see him are comparing his
claims with those of Mr. Slope. The intercourse between Plumstead
and the deanery is of the most constant and familiar description.
Since Eleanor has been married to a clergyman, and especially to a
dignitary of the church, Mrs. Grantly has found many more points of
sympathy with her sister; and on a coming occasion, which is much
looked forward to by all parties, she intends to spend a month or two
at the deanery. She never thought of spending a month in Barchester
when little Johnny Bold was born!

The two sisters do not quite agree on matters of church doctrine,
though their differences are of the most amicable description. Mrs.
Arabin's church is two degrees higher than that of Mrs. Grantly.
This may seem strange to those who will remember that Eleanor was
once accused of partiality to Mr. Slope, but it is no less the fact.
She likes her husband's silken vest, she likes his adherence to the
rubric, she specially likes the eloquent philosophy of his sermons,
and she likes the red letters in her own prayer-book. It must not
be presumed that she has a taste for candles, or that she is at
all astray about the real presence, but she has an inkling that
way. She sent a handsome subscription towards certain very heavy
ecclesiastical legal expenses which have lately been incurred in
Bath, her name of course not appearing; she assumes a smile of gentle
ridicule when the Archbishop of Canterbury is named; and she has put
up a memorial window in the cathedral.

Mrs. Grantly, who belongs to the high and dry church, the High Church
as it was some fifty years since, before tracts were written and
young clergymen took upon themselves the highly meritorious duty
of cleaning churches, rather laughs at her sister. She shrugs her
shoulders and tells Miss Thorne that she supposes Eleanor will have
an oratory in the deanery before she has done. But she is not on
that account a whit displeased. A few High Church vagaries do not,
she thinks, sit amiss on the shoulders of a young dean's wife. It
shows at any rate that her heart is in the subject, and it shows
moreover that she is removed, wide as the poles asunder, from that
cesspool of abomination in which it was once suspected that she would
wallow and grovel. Anathema maranatha! Let anything else be held as
blessed, so that that be well cursed. Welcome kneelings and bowings,
welcome matins and complines, welcome bell, book, and candle, so that
Mr. Slope's dirty surplices and ceremonial Sabbaths be held in due
execration!

If it be essentially and absolutely necessary to choose between
the two, we are inclined to agree with Mrs. Grantly that the bell,
book, and candle are the lesser evil of the two. Let it however be
understood that no such necessity is admitted in these pages.

Dr. Arabin (we suppose he must have become a doctor when he became a
dean) is more moderate and less outspoken on doctrinal points than
his wife, as indeed in his station it behoves him to be. He is a
studious, thoughtful, hard-working man. He lives constantly at the
deanery and preaches nearly every Sunday. His time is spent in
sifting and editing old ecclesiastical literature and in producing
the same articles new. At Oxford he is generally regarded as the
most promising clerical ornament of the age. He and his wife live
together in perfect mutual confidence. There is but one secret in
her bosom which he has not shared. He has never yet learned how Mr.
Slope had his ears boxed.

The Stanhopes soon found that Mr. Slope's power need no longer
operate to keep them from the delight of their Italian villa. Before
Eleanor's marriage they had all migrated back to the shores of Como.
They had not been resettled long before the signora received from
Mrs. Arabin a very pretty though very short epistle, in which she
was informed of the fate of the writer. This letter was answered by
another--bright, charming, and witty, as the signora's letters always
were--and so ended the friendship between Eleanor and the Stanhopes.

One word of Mr. Harding, and we have done. He is still precentor of
Barchester and still pastor of the little church of St. Cuthbert's.
In spite of what he has so often said himself, he is not even
yet an old man. He does such duties as fall to his lot well and
conscientiously, and is thankful that he has never been tempted to
assume others for which he might be less fitted.

The author now leaves him in the hands of his readers: not as a hero,
not as a man to be admired and talked of, not as a man who should be
toasted at public dinners and spoken of with conventional absurdity
as a perfect divine, but as a good man, without guile, believing
humbly in the religion which he has striven to teach, and guided by
the precepts which he has striven to learn.