So when Ferdinand Lopez borrows 750 pounds from Sextus Parker, I get a pleasurable tingle of anticipation. The race has begun. And I know that this is a magical race, in which the runner who chooses to enter it will lose his skin. There are races like that in Greek myths � the suitors who raced for Atalanta�s hand, for instance. I think it was Atalanta � I must look this up. These suitors had to confront a great pyramid of skulls when they came to ask for her hand � all the suitors who had lost.

Trollope, as I said before, is a great favorite of mine. I keep urging him on my friend, Sarah Raff, who is doing a dissertation on Jane Austen. I always connect those two writers � they are both, it seems to me, supremely insular. But so far, Sarah has resisted Trollope, and I have wondered why. Am I wrong about their similarity? More in my next post. Write me at Editor.