# The Panjandrum explained — Short Fiction > Chapter companion for Short Fiction by Anthony Trollope. ## What happens The narrator recounts the founding of the Panjandrum Magazine thirty years prior, detailing the debates over its name, the composition of the small group of contributors, and the early editorial ambitions. After a week of failed writing, he takes a walk in the rain through London, observing a poor apple-seller and contemplating social inequality as potential material for the magazine. ## Themes in this chapter ### Ambition and Failure The narrator's high hopes for the Panjandrum are undermined by his inability to write, leading to a crisis of confidence and the fear that the magazine will perish before its birth. ### Social Class and Status The narrator contrasts the lives of a poor apple-seller and a duchess, pondering the injustice of social inequality as potential material for the magazine. ## Character check-ins ### Churchill Smith A member of the Panjandrum circle who snubs the narrator during a discussion about printers. ### Mrs. St. Quinten The lady who hosts the meetings, mediates disputes, and proposes changing the meeting day to Sunday. ### Patrick Regan A member of the group who makes jokes and is hard on Mrs. St. Quinten. ### Jack Hollycombe Referred to as Jack Hallam in the text; he borrows ninepence and eats muffins with notable enthusiasm. ## Key lines > We were to struggle after excellence with an energy that should know no relaxing—and the excellence was not to be that which might produce for us the greatest number of half-crowns, but of the sort which would increase truth in the world, and would teach men to labour hard and bear their burdens nobly, and become gods upon earth. The group aimed for moral and intellectual excellence, not commercial success, hoping to inspire readers to work hard and bear their burdens with nobility. _High-minded editorial mission statement._ > I had long since perceived that mankind are divided into two classes—those who shall speak, and those who shall listen to the speech of others. In seeing clearly the existence of such a division I had hitherto always assumed myself to belong to the first class. Might it not be probable that I had made a mistake, and that it would become me modestly to take my allotted place in the second? The narrator realizes he may be a listener rather than a speaker, questioning his own suitability as an editor. _Self-doubt about his role in the literary world._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_4_se/chapters/the-panjandrum - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_4_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_4_se/chapters