Rarely has the life of provincial figures been dissected so delightfully as in Anthony Trollope's novel about nobility and clergy in the fictional English county of Barsetshire. The keen observer of human behavior winks as he reveals the mechanisms of power and its cogs, which are named envy, ambition, and intrigue. Bishop Proudie is in search of a new head for the Hiram Hospital. Appointing the former director, Septimus Harding, to this position seems obvious—if it weren't for much more fundamental issues at stake: namely, the question of who gets to make the decision and thus set the tone in the bishop's house. Will it be the domineering wife of the ecclesiastical leader, the scheming chaplain Slope, or the incumbent himself? Caught in the crossfire of these emerging factions is not only the gentle Harding, whose quirks, combined with an almost childlike innocence, place him in a difficult position.