This was only one instance of the kindly and unselfish actions unostentatiously performed by one among the broadest-minded, kindest-hearted of men. Not unreservedly a man of peace himself, he more than once acted as peacemaker, in reconciling to each other friends of his long at variance. Thus a difference originating in the newspaper office (_The Daily News_) with which they both had to do, kept apart for nearly a generation two of his intimates, Edward Pigott and Edward Dicey. Neither would probably have spoken again to the other but for Trollope’s genial and tactful intervention. This happened during the last eighteen months of his life. His manner in doing it reminded both men of a sixth-form boy who, separating two juniors engaged in fisticuffs, bids them, with a gentle kick, go about their business.
When, in 1873, Trollope had taken the Montagu Square house, it was for the purpose of ending both his days and his work there and there only. The fates, however, had decided against that. In the late autumn of 1882 Trollope reappeared in London, but took up his abode at Garland’s Hotel, Suffolk Street, Pall Mall. On the 3rd of November, while dining at the house of his brother-in-law, Sir John Tilley, he had a paralytic seizure. He was removed to a nursing home at 34 Welbeck Street, and attended by Dr. Murrell with Sir William Jenner in consultation. For a fortnight his condition improved; then came a relapse. Death followed after an illness which had lasted about a month. On the following Saturday, December 9th, he was laid to rest, not far from Thackeray’s grave, in Kensal Green. Among those present at his funeral were: the most famous survivor of his literary generation, Robert Browning; J. E. Millais, his artistic colleague in so many novels; Mr. Alfred Austin; Frederick Chapman, the head of the publishing firm Chapman and Hall, with which during many years previously he chiefly had to do, his own small interest in which he bequeathed to his family; and an Australian friend, Mr. Rusden, as the representative of those colonies where he had long found some of his most loyal readers.
On the same day that Trollope died there died also, at Cannes, the French socialistic writer Louis Blanc, known to Trollope during the years of his London exile, and, it might have been thought, long forgotten by his English acquaintances. Nevertheless the London papers of December 7th, 1882, devoted a larger space to their comments on the French Radical’s career than to the English novelist’s works. The newspaper verdict was generally represented by _The Times_, which, after a passing reference to his miscellaneous literary activities, correctly enough reflected the public estimate by emphasising Trollope’s sustained hold on his readers and the uniform level of merit during thirty-five years of unceasing work.