In the latter days of July in the year 185‒, a most important question was for ten days hourly asked in the cathedral city of Barchester, and answered every hour in various ways⁠—Who was to be the new...

It is hardly necessary that I should here give to the public any lengthened biography of Mr. Harding up to the period of the commencement of this tale. The public cannot have forgotten how ill that se...

This narrative is supposed to commence immediately after the installation of Dr. Proudie. I will not describe the ceremony, as I do not precisely understand its nature. I am ignorant whether a bishop ...

Of the Rev. Mr. Slope’s parentage I am not able to say much. I have heard it asserted that he is lineally descended from that eminent physician who assisted at the birth of Mr. T. Shandy, and that in ...

It was known that Dr. Proudie would immediately have to reappoint to the wardenship of the hospital under the act of Parliament to which allusion has been made; no one imagined that any choice was lef...

“Good heavens!” exclaimed the archdeacon, as he placed his foot on the gravel walk of the close, and raising his hat with one hand, passed the other somewhat violently over his now grizzled locks; smo...

All Barchester was in a tumult. Dr. Grantly could hardly get himself out of the cathedral porch before he exploded in his wrath. The old dean betook himself silently to his deanery, afraid to speak, a...

Among the ladies in Barchester who have hitherto acknowledged Mr. Slope as their spiritual director must not be reckoned either the Widow Bold or her sister-in-law. On the first outbreak of the wrath ...

It is now three months since Dr. Proudie began his reign, and changes have already been effected in the diocese which show at least the energy of an active mind. Among other things absentee clergymen ...

The bishop and his wife had spent only three or four days in Barchester on the occasion of their first visit. His lordship had, as we have seen, taken his seat on his throne, but his demeanour there, ...

“Bishop of Barchester, I presume?” said Bertie Stanhope, putting out his hand frankly; “I am delighted to make your acquaintance. We are in rather close quarters here, a’nt we?” In truth they were. Th...

Two or three days after the party, Mr. Harding received a note begging him to call on Mr. Slope, at the palace, at an early hour on the following morning. There was nothing uncivil in the communicatio...

Mr. Harding was not a happy man as he walked down the palace pathway and stepped out into the close. His preferment and pleasant house were a second time gone from him, but that he could endure. He ha...

The archdeacon did not return to the parsonage till close upon the hour of dinner, and there was therefore no time to discuss matters before that important ceremony. He seemed to be in an especial goo...

Mr. Slope lost no time in availing himself of the bishop’s permission to see Mr. Quiverful, and it was in his interview with this worthy pastor that he first learned that Mrs. Bold was worth the wooin...

“Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, dum, dum, dum,” said or sung Eleanor Bold. “Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, dum, dum, dum,” continued Mary Bold, taking up the second part in this concerted piece. The...

All this time things were going somewhat uneasily at the palace. The hint or two which Mr. Slope had given was by no means thrown away upon the bishop. He had a feeling that if he ever meant to oppose...

Early on the following morning Mr. Slope was summoned to the bishop’s dressing-room, and went there fully expecting that he should find his lordship very indignant and spirited up by his wife to repea...

There was much cause for grief and occasional perturbation of spirits in the Stanhope family, but yet they rarely seemed to be grieved or to be disturbed. It was the peculiar gift of each of them that...

The Rev. Francis Arabin, fellow of Lazarus, late professor of poetry at Oxford, and present vicar of St. Ewold, in the diocese of Barchester, must now be introduced personally to the reader. He is wor...

When Mr. Harding and Mrs. Bold reached the rectory on the following morning, the archdeacon and his friend were at St. Ewold’s. They had gone over that the new vicar might inspect his church and be in...

On the following Sunday Mr. Arabin was to read himself in at his new church. It was agreed at the rectory that the archdeacon should go over with him and assist at the reading desk, and that Mr. Hardi...

On the Sunday morning the archdeacon with his sister-in-law and Mr. Arabin drove over to Ullathorne, as had been arranged. On their way thither the new vicar declared himself to be considerably distur...

The next two weeks passed pleasantly enough at Plumstead. The whole party there assembled seemed to get on well together. Eleanor made the house agreeable, and the archdeacon and Mr. Grantly seemed to...

We have most of us heard of the terrible anger of a lioness when, surrounded by her cubs, she guards her prey. Few of us wish to disturb the mother of a litter of puppies when mouthing a bone in the m...

It was hardly an hour since Mrs. Proudie had left her husband’s apartment victorious, and yet so indomitable was her courage that she now returned thither panting for another combat. She was greatly a...

Mr. Slope, as we have said, left the palace with a feeling of considerable triumph. Not that he thought that his difficulties were all over⁠—he did not so deceive himself⁠—but he felt that he had play...

It will be remembered that Mr. Slope, when leaving his billet-doux at the house of Mrs. Bold, had been informed that it would be sent out to her at Plumstead that afternoon. The archdeacon and Mr. Har...

There are people who delight in serious interviews, especially when to them appertains the part of offering advice or administering rebuke, and perhaps the archdeacon was one of these. Yet on this occ...

But there was another visitor at the rectory whose feelings in this unfortunate matter must be somewhat strictly analysed. Mr. Arabin had heard from his friend of the probability of Eleanor’s marriage...

And thus the pleasant party at Plumstead was broken up. It had been a very pleasant party as long as they had all remained in good humour with one another. Mrs. Grantly had felt her house to be gayer ...

The dean’s illness occasioned much mental turmoil in other places besides the deanery and adjoining library, and the idea which occurred to the meagre little prebendary about Mr. Slope did not occur t...

The next week passed over at Barchester with much apparent tranquillity. The hearts, however, of some of the inhabitants were not so tranquil as the streets of the city. The poor old dean still contin...

Mr. Arabin, as we have said, had but a sad walk of it under the trees of Plumstead churchyard. He did not appear to any of the family till dinnertime, and then he seemed, as far as their judgement wen...

The day of the Ullathorne party arrived, and all the world were there⁠—or at least so much of the world as had been included in Miss Thorne’s invitation. As we have said, the bishop returned home on t...

The trouble in civilized life of entertaining company, as it is called too generally without much regard to strict veracity, is so great that it cannot but be matter of wonder that people are so fond ...

And now there were new arrivals. Just as Eleanor reached the drawing-room the signora was being wheeled into it. She had been brought out of the carriage into the dining-room and there placed on a sof...

The Bishop of Barchester said grace over the well-spread board in the Ullathorne dining-room; while he did so, the last breath was flying from the Dean of Barchester as he lay in his sick room in the ...

On the whole, Miss Thorne’s provision for the amusement and feeding of the outer classes in the exoteric paddock was not unsuccessful. Two little drawbacks to the general happiness did take place, but...

“That which has made them drunk has made me bold.” ’Twas thus that Mr. Slope encouraged himself, as he left the dining-room in pursuit of Eleanor. He had not indeed seen in that room any person really...

When Mrs. Bold came to the end of the walk and faced the lawn, she began to bethink herself what she should do. Was she to wait there till Mr. Slope caught her, or was she to go in among the crowd wit...

And now Miss Thorne’s guests were beginning to take their departure, and the amusement of those who remained was becoming slack. It was getting dark, and ladies in morning costumes were thinking that,...

Before she started for Ullathorne, Mrs. Proudie, careful soul, caused two letters to be written, one by herself and one by her lord, to the inhabitants of Puddingdale vicarage, which made happy the he...

Poor Mrs. Bold, when she got home from Ullathorne on the evening of Miss Thorne’s party, was very unhappy and, moreover, very tired. Nothing fatigues the body so much as weariness of spirit, and Elean...

We must now return to the Stanhopes and see how they behaved themselves on their return from Ullathorne. Charlotte, who came back in the first homeward journey with her sister, waited in palpitating e...

On the following day the signora was in her pride. She was dressed in her brightest of morning dresses, and had quite a levée round her couch. It was a beautifully bright October afternoon; all the ge...

During the entire next week Barchester was ignorant who was to be its new dean. On Sunday morning Mr. Slope was decidedly the favourite, but he did not show himself in the cathedral, and then he sank ...

On Mr. Harding’s return to Barchester from Plumstead, which was effected by him in due course in company with the archdeacon, more tidings of a surprising nature met him. He was, during the journey, s...

When Miss Thorne left the dining-room, Eleanor had formed no intention of revealing to her what had occurred, but when she was seated beside her hostess on the sofa, the secret dropped from her almost...

The archdeacon, in his journey into Barchester, had been assured by Mr. Harding that all their prognostications about Mr. Slope and Eleanor were groundless. Mr. Harding, however, had found it very dif...

We must now take leave of Mr. Slope, and of the bishop also, and of Mrs. Proudie. These leave-takings in novels are as disagreeable as they are in real life; not so sad, indeed, for they want the real...

Mr. Harding and the archdeacon together made their way to Oxford, and there, by dint of cunning argument, they induced the Master of Lazarus also to ask himself this momentous question: “Why should no...

The end of a novel, like the end of a children’s dinner party, must be made up of sweetmeats and sugarplums. There is now nothing else to be told but the gala doings of Mr. Arabin’s marriage, nothing ...