If you were here right now (and in a moment you'll give thanks that you aren't) I'd read to you a couple of chapters from Trollope's Last Chronicle of Barset. This is the last of the six Barsetshire novels--I will have read all but the first--and the author has brought back all of my favorite characters. The greatest of these, in my mind, is the Rev Josiah Crawley, perpetual curate of Hogglestock, a parish as unprepossesing as its name would suggest. The rev. has been accused of a crime (stealing a check and pssing it off as his own money), and though all the circumstantial evidence points toward his guilt, the reader is led to believe that such a thing would not be within his character. Rev Crawley is very poor, but would certainly rather starve to death than to even ask to borrow monry, let alone steal it. Indeed, the one major flaw in his character is that he takes great pride in his lowly position, refusing to accept any charity other than that his wife procures without his knowledge.

Rev Crawley his been summoned by Bishop and Mrs Proudie, mostly the latter, to account for the fact that he refused to accept the minister sent by the bish. to replace him pending his trial for theft. Walking the 15 miles to Barchester (refusing the offer of a horse along the way), Crawley meets with his bishop and lets him know in no uncertain terms that the bishop has no authoriy to remove him from his parish unless authorized to do so by an ecclesiastical court. He also more or less tell Mrs Proudie to stuff it, if I may use a modern idiom. You have no idea how inspired the writing here was. Just left me grinning like an idiot.

Don't get to senility without reading Trollope.