Where he sets forth with intent to be humorous he sometimes attains almost to the tragic; there are few things so sad as a joke that misses fire or a jester without sense of humour.
Of the genius of a writer of fiction there is scarce any other test so sure as this of the reality of his characters.

Few are the authors that have created for us figures of fiction that are more alive to us than the historic shadows of the past, whose dead bones historians do not seem to be able to clothe with flesh and blood.

Trollope hovers on the border line between genius and great talent, or rather it would be more fair to say that with regard to him opinions may justly differ.

For our own part we hold that his was not talent streaked with genius, but rather a jog-trot genius alloyed with mediocrity.

He lacked the supreme unconsciousness of supreme genius, for of genius as of talent there are degrees.