Another MULSA book sale remainder...
In the grand Buddhist tradition, I needed to balance my previous read (Shakespeare Undead) with something a little more... upscale. Hence Trollope. Rev. Septimus Harding is a clergyman in mid-19th century England, precentor (choir director) at the local cathedral, and warden (director) of a small charity home for elderly working-class men. The residents of the home receive a small monthly stipend, but Warden Harding receives a salary of 800 pounds a year (at the time, a pretty hefty sum). A local progressive convinces the residents that they should be receiving the profits of the charity, and they hire a lawyer to sue the warden and the church. The meat of the story is how Warden Harding comes to realize that he doesn't deserve all the money he's been receiving; at issue is the difference between what is legally allowed and what is morally right.
Considering the novel was written in 1855, I found it to be a fairly easy read, especially as compared to someone like Charles Dickens. The author of the critical afterword in my edition says that, unlike many of Trollope's other novels, The Warden is "one of those small novels [...] in which every word has weight." Trollope uses a minimum of words to express his ideas, so we don't get a bunch of extraneous extra descriptions of blue skies and meaningful glances. Trollope definitely has a message he is trying to convey, but he doesn't take the usual "preachy" approach that so many of his contemporaries seemed to.
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