Nursing Home Director (3)

Author: (American) Trollope
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: "If it could be proved that my income is honest, I would be just as happy to enjoy it as anyone else. Otherwise, I would resign. I can't stand this torment anymore." Mr. Septimus Harding has been the head of Bathurst Orphanage for ten years. The job is quite leisurely but offers excellent benefits. The elderly in the orphanage are well-fed, well-housed, and have a little money left, living a happy and comfortable life. However, the church and its ways are suddenly attacked. Young John Bold begins to pay close attention to the orphanage. He believes that Mr. Harding's high salary is an exploitation of the elderly's rightful benefits. An authoritative national newspaper also joins the attack on the church. Mr. Harding submits his resignation, but the bishop refuses it. How can this exhausting debate be resolved?
Trollope was born on April 24, 1815, in London and died there on December 6, 1882. Due to poverty in his childhood, he attended a boarding school as a day student and once moved with his family to Belgium. From 19 to 52, he worked at the post office, rising from a clerk to a senior staff member and participating in parliamentary elections. He persistently pursued amateur writing throughout his life, publishing 47 novels, a large number of short stories, travelogues, biographies, and an autobiography. His early works, a set of six novels collectively titled Bathurst, established his reputation. Among them, The Orphanage and The Barley-Side are particularly well-known. His later works include a set of six novels titled The Barley-Side Novels, which are political novels or parliamentary novels, with The Prime Minister being the most outstanding, depicting the struggles among the upper-class British politicians of the time. In his later years, he also wrote two excellent works, The Way We Live Now and The Small House at Allington. His realistic style exposes and satirizes the middle and upper classes of the Victorian era in Britain, consciously imbuing his works with moral education. His novels feature natural and smooth plots, sharp and humorous writing, vivid characters, and realistic and profound psychological portrayals. He was not fully appreciated during his lifetime, but his fame has been restored in the nearly half-century since his death, making him one of the classic British writers of the 19th century.