Autobiography of Anthony Trollope By Anthony Trollope PREFACE It may be well that I should put a short preface to this book. Inthe summer of 1878 my father told me that he had written a memoirof his own life. He did not speak about it at length, but saidthat he had written me a letter, not to be opened until after hisdeath, containing instructions for publication. This letter was dated 30th April, 1876. I will give here as muchof it as concerns the public: "I wish you to accept as a gift fromme, given you now, the accompanying pages which contain a memoirof my life. My intention is that they shall be published aftermy death, and be edited by you. But I leave it altogether to yourdiscretion whether to publish or to suppress the work;--and alsoto your discretion whether any part or what part shall be omitted. But I would not wish that anything should be added to the memoir. If you wish to say any word as from yourself, let it be done inthe shape of a preface or introductory chapter. " At the end thereis a postscript: "The publication, if made at all, should be effectedas soon as possible after my death. " My father died on the 6th ofDecember, 1882. It will be seen, therefore, that my duty has been merely to passthe book through the press conformably to the above instructions. I have placed headings to the right-hand pages throughout the book, and I do not conceive that I was precluded from so doing. Additionsof any other sort there have been none; the few footnotes are myfather's own additions or corrections. And I have made no alterations. I have suppressed some few passages, but not more than would amountto two printed pages has been omitted. My father has not given anyof his own letters, nor was it his wish that any should be published. So much I would say by way of preface. And I think I may also givein a few words the main incidents in my father's life after hecompleted his autobiography. He has said that he had given up hunting; but he still kept twohorses for such riding as may be had in or about the immediateneighborhood of London. He continued to ride to the end of hislife: he liked the exercise, and I think it would have distressedhim not to have had a horse in his stable. But he never spokewillingly on hunting matters. He had at last resolved to give uphis favourite amusement, and that as far as he was concerned thereshould be an end of it. In the spring of 1877 he went to SouthAfrica, and returned early in the following year with a book onthe colony already written. In the summer of 1878, he was one ofa party of ladies and gentlemen who made an expedition to Icelandin the "Mastiff, " one of Mr. John Burns' steam-ships. The journeylasted altogether sixteen days, and during that time Mr. And Mrs. Burns were the hospitable entertainers. When my father returned, he wrote a short account of How the "Mastiffs" went to Iceland. The book was printed, but was intended only for private circulation. Every day, until his last illness, my father continued his work. He would not otherwise have been happy. He demanded from himselfless than he had done ten years previously, but his daily task wasalways done. I will mention now the titles of his books that werepublished after the last included in the list which he himself hasgiven at the end of the second volume:-- An Eye for an Eye, . . . . 1879Cousin Henry, . . . . . . 1879Thackeray, . . . . . . . 1879The Duke's Children, . . . . 1880Life of Cicero, . . . . . 1880Ayala's Angel, . . . . . 1881Doctor Wortle's School, . . . 1881Frau Frohmann and other Stories, . 1882Lord Palmerston, . . . . . 1882The Fixed Period, . . . . . 1882Kept in the Dark, . . . . . 1882Marion Fay, . . . . . . 1882Mr. Scarborough's Family, . . . 1883 At the time of his death he had written four-fifths of an Irishstory, called The Landleaguers, shortly about to be published; andhe left in manuscript a completed novel, called An Old Man's Love, which will be published by Messrs. Blackwood & Sons in 1884. In the summer of 1880 my father left London, and went to live atHarting, a village in Sussex, but on the confines of Hampshire. Ithink he chose that spot because he found there a house that suitedhim, and because of the prettiness of the neighborhood. His lastlong journey was a trip to Italy in the late winter and spring of1881; but he went to Ireland twice in 1882. He went there in Mayof that year, and was then absent nearly a month. This journey didhim much good, for he found that the softer atmosphere relievedhis asthma, from which he had been suffering for nearly eighteenmonths. In August following he made another trip to Ireland, butfrom this journey he derived less benefit. He was much interestedin, and was very much distressed by, the unhappy condition of thecountry. Few men know Ireland better than he did. He had livedthere for sixteen years, and his Post Office word had taken himinto every part of the island. In the summer of 1882 he began hislast novel, The Landleaguers, which, as stated above, was unfinishedwhen he died. This book was a cause of anxiety to him. He could notrid his mind of the fact that he had a story already in the courseof publication, but which he had not yet completed. In no othercase, except Framley Parsonage, did my father publish even thefirst number of any novel before he had fully completed the wholetale. On the evening of the 3rd of November, 1882, he was seized withparalysis on the right side, accompanied by loss of speech. Hismind had also failed, though at intervals his thoughts would returnto him. After the first three weeks these lucid intervals becamerarer, but it was always very difficult to tell how far his mindwas sound or how far astray. He died on the evening of the 6th ofDecember following, nearly five weeks from the night of his attack. I have been led to say these few words, not at all from a desireto supplement my father's biography of himself, but to mention themain incidents in his life after he had finished his own record. Inwhat I have here said I do not think I have exceeded his instructions. Henry M. Trollope. September, 1883. Autobiography of Anthony Trollope CHAPTER I MY EDUCATION 1815-1834 In writing these pages, which, for the want of a better name, I shallbe fain to call the autobiography of so insignificant a person asmyself, it will not be so much my intention to speak of the littledetails of my private life, as of what I, and perhaps others roundme, have done in literature; of my failures and successes such asthey have been, and their causes; and of the opening which a literarycareer offers to men and women for the earning of their bread. Andyet the garrulity of old age, and the aptitude of a man's mind torecur to the passages of his own life, will, I know, tempt me to saysomething of myself;--nor, without doing so, should I know how tothrow my matter into any recognised and intelligible form. That I, or any man, should tell everything of himself, I hold to be impossible. Who could endure to own the doing of a mean thing? Who is therethat has done none? But this I protest:--that nothing that I sayshall be untrue. I will set down naught in malice; nor will I giveto myself, or others, honour which I do not believe to have beenfairly won. My boyhood was, I think, as unhappy as that of a younggentleman could well be, my misfortunes arising from a mixture ofpoverty and gentle standing on the part of my father, and from anutter want on my part of the juvenile manhood which enables someboys to hold up their heads even among the distresses which sucha position is sure to produce. I was born in 1815, in Keppel Street, Russell Square; and while ababy, was carried down to Harrow, where my father had built a houseon a large farm which, in an evil hour he took on a long lease fromLord Northwick. That farm was the grave of all my father's hopes, ambition, and prosperity, the cause of my mother's sufferings, andof those of her children, and perhaps the director of her destinyand of ours. My father had been a Wykamist and a fellow of NewCollege, and Winchester was the destination of my brothers andmyself; but as he had friends among the masters at Harrow, and asthe school offered an education almost gratuitous to children livingin the parish, he, with a certain aptitude to do things differentlyfrom others, which accompanied him throughout his life, determinedto use that august seminary as "t'other school" for Winchester, andsent three of us there, one after the other, at the age of seven. My father at this time was a Chancery barrister practising inLondon, occupying dingy, almost suicidal chambers, at No. 23 OldSquare, Lincoln's Inn, --chambers which on one melancholy occasiondid become absolutely suicidal. [Footnote: A pupil of his destroyedhimself in the rooms. ] He was, as I have been informed by thosequite competent to know, an excellent and most conscientious lawyer, but plagued with so bad a temper, that he drove the attorneys fromhim. In his early days he was a man of some small fortune and ofhigher hopes. These stood so high at the time of my birth, thathe was felt to be entitled to a country house, as well as to thatin Keppel Street; and in order that he might build such a residence, he took the farm. This place he called Julians, and the land runsup to the foot of the hill on which the school and the churchstand, --on the side towards London. Things there went much againsthim; the farm was ruinous, and I remember that we all regarded theLord Northwick of those days as a cormorant who was eating us up. My father's clients deserted him. He purchased various dark gloomychambers in and about Chancery Lane, and his purchases always wentwrong. Then, as a final crushing blow, and old uncle, whose heir hewas to have been, married and had a family! The house in London waslet; and also the house he built at Harrow, from which he descendedto a farmhouse on the land, which I have endeavoured to make knownto some readers under the name of Orley Farm. This place, just as itwas when we lived there, is to be seen in the frontispiece to thefirst edition of that novel, having the good fortune to be delineatedby no less a pencil than that of John Millais. My two elder brothers had been sent as day-boarders to HarrowSchool from the bigger house, and may probably have been receivedamong the aristocratic crowd, --not on equal terms, because aday-boarder at Harrow in those days was never so received, --but atany rate as other day-boarders. I do not suppose that they were welltreated, but I doubt whether they were subjected to the ignominywhich I endured. I was only seven, and I think that boys at sevenare now spared among their more considerate seniors. I was neverspared; and was not even allowed to run to and fro between our houseand the school without a daily purgatory. No doubt my appearancewas against me. I remember well, when I was still the junior boyin the school, Dr. Butler, the head-master, stopping me in thestreet, and asking me, with all the clouds of Jove upon his browand the thunder in his voice, whether it was possible that HarrowSchool was disgraced by so disreputably dirty a boy as I! Oh, whatI felt at that moment! But I could not look my feelings. I do notdoubt that I was dirty;--but I think that he was cruel. He musthave known me had he seen me as he was wont to see me, for he wasin the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps he did not recogniseme by my face. At this time I was three years at Harrow; and, as far as I canremember, I was the junior boy in the school when I left it. Then I was sent to a private school at Sunbury, kept by ArthurDrury. This, I think, must have been done in accordance with theadvice of Henry Drury, who was my tutor at Harrow School, and myfather's friend, and who may probably have expressed an opinion thatmy juvenile career was not proceeding in a satisfactory manner atHarrow. To Sunbury I went, and during the two years I was there, though I never had any pocket-money, and seldom had much in theway of clothes, I lived more nearly on terms of equality with otherboys than at any other period during my very prolonged school-days. Even here, I was always in disgrace. I remember well how, on oneoccasion, four boys were selected as having been the perpetratorsof some nameless horror. What it was, to this day I cannot evenguess; but I was one of the four, innocent as a babe, but adjudgedto have been the guiltiest of the guilty. We each had to write outa sermon, and my sermon was the longest of the four. During thewhole of one term-time we were helped last at every meal. We werenot allowed to visit the playground till the sermon was finished. Mine was only done a day or two before the holidays. Mrs. Drury, when she saw us, shook her head with pitying horror. There wereever so many other punishments accumulated on our heads. It brokemy heart, knowing myself to be innocent, and suffering also underthe almost equally painful feeling that the other three--no doubtwicked boys--were the curled darlings of the school, who would neverhave selected me to share their wickedness with them. I contrivedto learn, from words that fell from Mr. Drury, that he condemnedme because I, having come from a public school, might be supposedto be the leader of wickedness! On the first day of the next termhe whispered to me half a word that perhaps he had been wrong. With all a stupid boy's slowness, I said nothing; and he had notthe courage to carry reparation further. All that was fifty yearsago, and it burns me now as though it were yesterday. What lily-liveredcurs those boys must have been not to have told the truth!--at anyrate as far as I was concerned. I remember their names well, andalmost wish to write them here. When I was twelve there came the vacancy at Winchester College whichI was destined to fill. My two elder brothers had gone there, andthe younger had been taken away, being already supposed to have losthis chance of New College. It had been one of the great ambitionsof my father's life that his three sons, who lived to go to Winchester, should all become fellows of New College. But that suffering manwas never destined to have an ambition gratified. We all lost theprize which he struggled with infinite labour to put within ourreach. My eldest brother all but achieved it, and afterwards wentto Oxford, taking three exhibitions from the school, though helost the great glory of a Wykamist. He has since made himself wellknown to the public as a writer in connection with all Italiansubjects. He is still living as I now write. But my other brotherdied early. While I was at Winchester my father's affairs went from bad to worse. He gave up his practice at the bar, and, unfortunate that he was, took another farm. It is odd that a man should conceive, --and inthis case a highly educated and a very clever man, --that farmingshould be a business in which he might make money without anyspecial education or apprenticeship. Perhaps of all trades it isthe one in which an accurate knowledge of what things should bedone, and the best manner of doing them, is most necessary. And it isone also for success in which a sufficient capital is indispensable. He had no knowledge, and, when he took this second farm, no capital. This was the last step preparatory to his final ruin. Soon after I had been sent to Winchester my mother went to America, taking with her my brother Henry and my two sisters, who were thenno more than children. This was, I think, in 1827. I have no clearknowledge of her object, or of my father's; but I believe thathe had an idea that money might be made by sending goods, --littlegoods, such as pin-cushions, pepper-boxes, and pocket-knives, --outto the still unfurnished States; and that she conceived that anopening might be made for my brother Henry by erecting some bazaaror extended shop in one of the Western cities. Whence the moneycame I do not know, but the pocket-knives and the pepper-boxes werebought and the bazaar built. I have seen it since in the town ofCincinnati, --a sorry building! But I have been told that in thosedays it was an imposing edifice. My mother went first, with mysisters and second brother. Then my father followed them, taking myelder brother before he went to Oxford. But there was an intervalof some year and a half during which he and I were in Winchestertogether. Over a period of forty years, since I began my manhood at a deskin the Post Office, I and my brother, Thomas Adolphus, have beenfast friends. There have been hot words between us, for perfectfriendship bears and allows hot words. Few brothers have had moreof brotherhood. But in those schooldays he was, of all my foes, the worst. In accordance with the practice of the college, whichsubmits, or did then submit, much of the tuition of the youngerboys from the elder, he was my tutor; and in his capacity of teacherand ruler, he had studied the theories of Draco. I remember wellhow he used to exact obedience after the manner of that lawgiver. Hang a little boy for stealing apples, he used to say, and otherlittle boys will not steal apples. The doctrine was already explodedelsewhere, but he stuck to it with conservative energy. The resultwas that, as a part of his daily exercise, he thrashed me with a bigstick. That such thrashings should have been possible at a schoolas a continual part of one's daily life, seems to me to argue avery ill condition of school discipline. At this period I remember to have passed one set of holidays--themidsummer holidays--in my father's chambers in Lincoln's Inn. Therewas often a difficulty about the holidays, --as to what should bedone with me. On this occasion my amusement consisted in wanderingabout among those old deserted buildings, and in reading Shakespeareout of a bi-columned edition, which is still among my books. Itwas not that I had chosen Shakespeare, but that there was nothingelse to read. After a while my brother left Winchester and accompanied my fatherto America. Then another and a different horror fell to my fate. My college bills had not been paid, and the school tradesmen whoadministered to the wants of the boys were told not to extend theircredit to me. Boots, waistcoats, and pocket-handkerchiefs, which, with some slight superveillance, were at the command of otherscholars, were closed luxuries to me. My schoolfellows of courseknew that it was so, and I became a Pariah. It is the nature ofboys to be cruel. I have sometimes doubted whether among each otherthey do usually suffer much, one from the other's cruelty; but Isuffered horribly! I could make no stand against it. I had no friendto whom I could pour out my sorrows. I was big, and awkward, andugly, and, I have no doubt, sulked about in a most unattractivemanner. Of course I was ill-dressed and dirty. But ah! how wellI remember all the agonies of my young heart; how I consideredwhether I should always be alone; whether I could not find my wayup to the top of that college tower, and from thence put an end toeverything? And a worse thing came than the stoppage of the suppliesfrom the shopkeepers. Every boy had a shilling a week pocket-money, which we called battels, and which was advanced to us out of thepocket of the second master. On one awful day the second masterannounced to me that my battels would be stopped. He told me thereason, --the battels for the last half-year had not been repaid; andhe urged his own unwillingness to advance the money. The loss of ashilling a week would not have been much, --even though pocket-moneyfrom other sources never reached me, --but that the other boys allknew it! Every now and again, perhaps three or four times in ahalf-year, these weekly shillings were given to certain servantsof the college, in payment, it may be presumed, for some extraservices. And now, when it came to the turn of any servant, hereceived sixty-nine shillings instead of seventy, and the causeof the defalcation was explained to him. I never saw one of thoseservants without feeling I had picked his pocket. When I had been at Winchester something over three years, my fatherreturned to England and took me away. Whether this was done becauseof the expense, or because my chance of New College was supposedto have passed away, I do not know. As a fact, I should, I believe, have gained the prize, as there occurred in my year an exceptionalnumber of vacancies. But it would have served me nothing, as therewould have been no funds for my maintenance at the Universitytill I should have entered in upon the fruition of the founder'sendowment, and my career at Oxford must have been unfortunate. When I left Winchester, I had three more years of school before me, having as yet endured nine. My father at this time having left mymother and sisters with my younger brother in America, took himselfto live at a wretched tumble-down farmhouse on the second farmhe had hired! And I was taken there with him. It was nearly threemiles from Harrow, at Harrow Weald, but in the parish; and fromthis house I was again sent to that school as a day-boarder. Letthose who know what is the usual appearance and what the usualappurtenances of a boy at such a school, consider what must havebeen my condition among them, with a daily walk of twelve milesthrough the lanes, added to the other little troubles and laboursof a school life! Perhaps the eighteen months which I passed in this condition, walking to and fro on those miserably dirty lanes, was the worstperiod of my life. I was now over fifteen, and had come to an ageat which I could appreciate at its full the misery of expulsionfrom all social intercourse. I had not only no friends, but wasdespised by all my companions. The farmhouse was not only no morethan a farmhouse, but was one of those farmhouses which seem alwaysto be in danger of falling into the neighbouring horse-pond. As itcrept downwards from house to stables, from stables to barns, frombarns to cowsheds, and from cowsheds to dungheaps, one could hardlytell where one began and the other ended! There was a parlour inwhich my father lived, shut up among big books; but I passed my mostjocund hours in the kitchen, making innocent love to the bailiff'sdaughter. The farm kitchen might be very well through the evening, when the horrors of the school were over; but it all added to thecruelty of the days. A sizar at a Cambridge college, or a Bible-clerkat Oxford, has not pleasant days, or used not to have them half acentury ago; but his position was recognised, and the misery wasmeasured. I was a sizar at a fashionable school, a condition neverpremeditated. What right had a wretched farmer's boy, reeking froma dunghill, to sit next to the sons of peers, --or much worse still, next to the sons of big tradesmen who made their ten thousand ayear? The indignities I endured are not to be described. As I lookback it seems to me that all hands were turned against me, --thoseof masters as well as boys. I was allowed to join in no plays. Nordid I learn anything, --for I was taught nothing. The only expense, except that of books, to which a house-boarder was then subject, was the fee to a tutor, amounting, I think, to ten guineas. Mytutor took me without the fee; but when I heard him declare the factin the pupil-room before the boys, I hardly felt grateful for thecharity. I was never a coward, and cared for a thrashing as littleas any boy, but one cannot make a stand against the acerbities ofthree hundred tyrants without a moral courage of which at that timeI possessed none. I know that I skulked, and was odious to the eyesof those I admired and envied. At last I was driven to rebellion, and there came a great fight, --at the end of which my opponenthad to be taken home for a while. If these words be ever printed, I trust that some schoolfellow of those days may still be left alivewho will be able to say that, in claiming this solitary glory ofmy school-days, I am not making a false boast. I wish I could give some adequate picture of the gloom of thatfarmhouse. My elder brother--Tom as I must call him in my narrative, though the world, I think, knows him best as Adolphus--was at Oxford. My father and I lived together, he having no means of living exceptwhat came from the farm. My memory tells me that he was alwaysin debt to his landlord and to the tradesmen he employed. Ofself-indulgence no one could accuse him. Our table was poorer, Ithink, than that of the bailiff who still hung on to our shatteredfortunes. The furniture was mean and scanty. There was a largerambling kitchen-garden, but no gardener; and many times verbalincentives were made to me, --generally, I fear, in vain, --toget me to lend a hand at digging and planting. Into the hayfieldson holidays I was often compelled to go, --not, I fear, with muchprofit. My father's health was very bad. During the last ten yearsof his life, he spent nearly the half of his time in bed, sufferingagony from sick headaches. But he was never idle unless whensuffering. He had at this time commenced a work, --an EncyclopediaEcclesiastica, as he called it, --on which he laboured to the momentof his death. It was his ambition to describe all ecclesiasticalterms, including the denominations of every fraternity of monksand every convent of nuns, with all their orders and subdivisions. Under crushing disadvantages, with few or no books of reference, with immediate access to no library, he worked at his most ungratefultask with unflagging industry. When he died, three numbers outof eight had been published by subscription; and are now, I fear, unknown, and buried in the midst of that huge pile of futileliterature, the building up of which has broken so many hearts. And my father, though he would try, as it were by a side wind, toget a useful spurt of work out of me, either in the garden or inthe hay-field, had constantly an eye to my scholastic improvement. From my very babyhood, before those first days at Harrow, I had totake my place alongside of him as he shaved at six o'clock in themorning, and say my early rules from the Latin Grammar, or repeatthe Greek alphabet; and was obliged at these early lessons to holdmy head inclined towards him, so that in the event of guilty fault, he might be able to pull my hair without stopping his razor ordropping his shaving-brush. No father was ever more anxious forthe education of his children, though I think none ever knew lesshow to go about the work. Of amusement, as far as I can remember, he never recognised the need. He allowed himself no distraction, and did not seem to think it was necessary to a child. I cannotbethink me of aught that he ever did for my gratification; but formy welfare, --for the welfare of us all, --he was willing to makeany sacrifice. At this time, in the farmhouse at Harrow Weald, he could not give his time to teach me, for every hour that he wasnot in the fields was devoted to his monks and nuns; but he wouldrequire me to sit at a table with Lexicon and Gradus before me. As I look back on my resolute idleness and fixed determination tomake no use whatever of the books thus thrust upon me, or of thehours, and as I bear in mind the consciousness of great energy inafter-life, I am in doubt whether my nature is wholly altered, orwhether his plan was wholly bad. In those days he never punishedme, though I think I grieved him much by my idleness; but in passionhe knew not what he did, and he has knocked me down with the greatfolio Bible which he always used. In the old house were the two firstvolumes of Cooper's novel, called The Prairie, a relic--probably adishonest relic--of some subscription to Hookham's library. Otherbooks of the kind there was none. I wonder how many dozen times Iread those two first volumes. It was the horror of those dreadful walks backwards and forwardswhich made my life so bad. What so pleasant, what so sweet, as awalk along an English lane, when the air is sweet and the weatherfine, and when there is a charm in walking? But here were the samelanes four times a day, in wet and dry, in heat and summer, withall the accompanying mud and dust, and with disordered clothes. Imight have been known among all the boys at a hundred yards' distanceby my boots and trousers, --and was conscious at all times that Iwas so known. I remembered constantly that address from Dr. Butlerwhen I was a little boy. Dr. Longley might with equal justice havesaid the same thing any day, --only that Dr. Longley never in hislife was able to say an ill-natured word. Dr. Butler only becameDean of Peterborough, but his successor lived to be Archbishop ofCanterbury. I think it was in the autumn of 1831 that my mother, with the restof the family, returned from America. She lived at first at thefarmhouse, but it was only for a short time. She came back with abook written about the United States, and the immediate pecuniarysuccess which that work obtained enabled her to take us all back tothe house at Harrow, --not to the first house, which would still havebeen beyond her means, but to that which has since been calledOrley Farm, and which was an Eden as compared to our abode atHarrow Weald. Here my schooling went on under somewhat improvedcircumstances. The three miles became half a mile, and probablysome salutary changes were made in my wardrobe. My mother andmy sisters, too, were there. And a great element of happiness wasadded to us all in the affectionate and life-enduring friendshipof the family of our close neighbour Colonel Grant. But I was neverable to overcome--or even to attempt to overcome--the absoluteisolation of my school position. Of the cricket-ground or racket-courtI was allowed to know nothing. And yet I longed for these thingswith an exceeding longing. I coveted popularity with a covetousnessthat was almost mean. It seemed to me that there would be anElysium in the intimacy of those very boys whom I was bound to hatebecause they hated me. Something of the disgrace of my school-dayshas clung to me all through life. Not that I have ever shunned tospeak of them as openly as I am writing now, but that when I havebeen claimed as schoolfellow by some of those many hundreds whowere with me either at Harrow or at Winchester, I have felt thatI had no right to talk of things from most of which I was kept inestrangement. Through all my father's troubles he still desired to send me eitherto Oxford or Cambridge. My elder brother went to Oxford, and Henryto Cambridge. It all depended on my ability to get some scholarshipthat would help me to live at the University. I had many chances. There were exhibitions from Harrow--which I never got. Twice I triedfor a sizarship at Clare Hall, --but in vain. Once I made a futileattempt for a scholarship at Trinity, Oxford, --but failed again. Thenthe idea of a university career was abandoned. And very fortunateit was that I did not succeed, for my career with such assistanceonly as a scholarship would have given me, would have ended in debtand ignominy. When I left Harrow I was all but nineteen, and I had at first gonethere at seven. During the whole of those twelve years no attempthad been made to teach me anything but Latin and Greek, and verylittle attempt to teach me those languages. I do not rememberany lessons either in writing or arithmetic. French and German Icertainly was not taught. The assertion will scarcely be credited, but I do assert that I have no recollection of other tuitionexcept that in the dead languages. At the school at Sunbury therewas certainly a writing master and a French master. The latter wasan extra, and I never had extras. I suppose I must have been inthe writing master's class, but though I can call to mind the man, I cannot call to mind his ferule. It was by their ferules that Ialways knew them, and they me. I feel convinced in my mind that Ihave been flogged oftener than any human being alive. It was justpossible to obtain five scourgings in one day at Winchester, andI have often boasted that I obtained them all. Looking back overhalf a century, I am not quite sure whether the boast is true; butif I did not, nobody ever did. And yet when I think how little I knew of Latin or Greek on leavingHarrow at nineteen, I am astonished at the possibility of suchwaste of time. I am now a fair Latin scholar, --that is to say, Iread and enjoy the Latin classics, and could probably make myselfunderstood in Latin prose. But the knowledge which I have, I haveacquired since I left school, --no doubt aided much by that groundworkof the language which will in the process of years make its wayslowly, even through the skin. There were twelve years of tuitionin which I do not remember that I ever knew a lesson! When I leftHarrow I was nearly at the top of the school, being a monitor, and, I think, the seventh boy. This position I achieved by gravitationupwards. I bear in mind well with how prodigal a hand prizes usedto be showered about; but I never got a prize. From the first tothe last there was nothing satisfactory in my school career, --exceptthe way in which I licked the boy who had to be taken home to becured. CHAPTER II MY MOTHER Though I do not wish in these pages to go back to the origin ofall the Trollopes, I must say a few words of my mother, --partlybecause filial duty will not allow me to be silent as to a parentwho made for herself a considerable name in the literature of herday, and partly because there were circumstances in her careerwell worthy of notice. She was the daughter of the Rev. WilliamMilton, vicar of Heckfield, who, as well as my father, had beena fellow of New College. She was nearly thirty when, in 1809, shemarried my father. Six or seven years ago a bundle of love-lettersfrom her to him fell into my hand in a very singular way, havingbeen found in the house of a stranger, who, with much courtesy, sent them to me. They were then about sixty years old, and had beenwritten some before and some after her marriage, over the space ofperhaps a year. In no novel of Richardson's or Miss Burney's haveI seen a correspondence at the same time so sweet, so graceful, and so well expressed. But the marvel of these letters was in thestrange difference they bore to the love-letters of the presentday. They are, all of them, on square paper, folded and sealed, and addressed to my father on circuit; but the language in each, though it almost borders on the romantic, is beautifully chosen, and fit, without change of a syllable, for the most critical eye. What girl now studies the words with which she shall address herlover, or seeks to charm him with grace of diction? She dearly likesa little slang, and revels in the luxury of entire familiarity witha new and strange being. There is something in that, too, pleasantto our thoughts, but I fear that this phase of life does not conduceto a taste for poetry among our girls. Though my mother was a writerof prose, and revelled in satire, the poetic feeling clung to herto the last. In the first ten years of her married life she became the mother ofsix children, four of whom died of consumption at different ages. My elder sister married, and had children, of whom one still lives;but she was one of the four who followed each other at intervalsduring my mother's lifetime. Then my brother Tom and I were left toher, --with the destiny before us three of writing more books thanwere probably ever before produced by a single family. [Footnote:The family of Estienne, the great French printers of the fifteenthand sixteenth centuries, of whom there were at least nine or ten, did more perhaps for the production of literature than any otherfamily. But they, though they edited, and not unfrequently translatedthe works which they published, were not authors in the ordinarysense. ] My married sister added to the number by one little anonymoushigh church story, called Chollerton. From the date of their marriage up to 1827, when my mother wentto America, my father's affairs had always been going down in theworld. She had loved society, affecting a somewhat liberal roleand professing an emotional dislike to tyrants, which sprung fromthe wrongs of would-be regicides and the poverty of patriot exiles. An Italian marquis who had escaped with only a second shirt fromthe clutches of some archduke whom he had wished to exterminate, or a French proletaire with distant ideas of sacrificing himself tothe cause of liberty, were always welcome to the modest hospitalityof her house. In after years, when marquises of another caste hadbeen gracious to her, she became a strong Tory, and thought thatarchduchesses were sweet. But with her politics were always an affairof the heart, --as, indeed, were all her convictions. Of reasoningfrom causes, I think that she knew nothing. Her heart was inevery way so perfect, her desire to do good to all around her sothorough, and her power of self-sacrifice so complete, that shegenerally got herself right in spite of her want of logic; but itmust be acknowledged that she was emotional. I can remember now herbooks, and can see her at her pursuits. The poets she loved bestwere Dante and Spenser. But she raved also of him of whom all suchladies were raving then, and rejoiced in the popularity and weptover the persecution of Lord Byron. She was among those who seizedwith avidity on the novels, as they came out, of the then unknownScott, and who could still talk of the triumphs of Miss Edgeworth. With the literature of the day she was familiar, and with the poetsof the past. Of other reading I do not think she had mastered much. Her life, I take it, though latterly clouded by many troubles, waseasy, luxurious, and idle, till my father's affairs and her ownaspirations sent her to America. She had dear friends among literarypeople, of whom I remember Mathias, Henry Milman, and Miss Landon;but till long after middle life she never herself wrote a line forpublication. In 1827 she went to America, having been partly instigated by thesocial and communistic ideas of a lady whom I well remember, --acertain Miss Wright, --who was, I think, the first of the Americanfemale lecturers. Her chief desire, however, was to establishmy brother Henry; and perhaps joined with that was the additionalobject of breaking up her English home without pleading brokenfortunes to all the world. At Cincinnati, in the State of Ohio, she built a bazaar, and I fancy lost all the money which may havebeen embarked in that speculation. It could not have been much, andI think that others also must have suffered. But she looked abouther, at her American cousins, and resolved to write a book aboutthem. This book she brought back with her in 1831, and publishedit early in 1832. When she did this she was already fifty. Whendoing this she was aware that unless she could so succeed in makingmoney, there was no money for any of the family. She had never beforeearned a shilling. She almost immediately received a considerablesum from the publishers, --if I remember rightly, amounting to twosums of œ400 each within a few months; and from that moment tillnearly the time of her death, at any rate for more than twentyyears, she was in the receipt of a considerable income from herwritings. It was a late age at which to begin such a career. The Domestic Manners of the Americans was the first of a seriesof books of travels, of which it was probably the best, and wascertainly the best known. It will not be too much to say of it thatit had a material effect upon the manners of the Americans of theday, and that that effect has been fully appreciated by them. Noobserver was certainly ever less qualified to judge of the prospectsor even of the happiness of a young people. No one could have beenworse adapted by nature for the task of learning whether a nationwas in a way to thrive. Whatever she saw she judged, as most womendo, from her own standing-point. If a thing were ugly to her eyes, it ought to be ugly to all eyes, --and if ugly, it must be bad. What though people had plenty to eat and clothes to wear, if theyput their feet upon the tables and did not reverence their betters?The Americans were to her rough, uncouth, and vulgar, --and shetold them so. Those communistic and social ideas, which had been sopretty in a drawing-room, were scattered to the winds. Her volumeswere very bitter; but they were very clever, and they saved thefamily from ruin. Book followed book immediately, --first two novels, and then a bookon Belgium and Western Germany. She refurnished the house whichI have called Orley Farm, and surrounded us again with moderatecomforts. Of the mixture of joviality and industry which formedher character, it is almost impossible to speak with exaggeration. The industry was a thing apart, kept to herself. It was not necessarythat any one who lived with her should see it. She was at her tableat four in the morning, and had finished her work before the worldhad begun to be aroused. But the joviality was all for others. She could dance with other people's legs, eat and drink with otherpeople's palates, be proud with the lustre of other people's finery. Every mother can do that for her own daughters; but she could do itfor any girl whose look, and voice, and manners pleased her. Evenwhen she was at work, the laughter of those she loved was a pleasureto her. She had much, very much, to suffer. Work sometimes camehard to her, so much being required, --for she was extravagant, andliked to have money to spend; but of all people I have known shewas the most joyous, or, at any rate, the most capable of joy. We continued this renewed life at Harrow for nearly two years, during which I was still at the school, and at the end of whichI was nearly nineteen. Then there came a great catastrophe. Myfather, who, when he was well, lived a sad life among his monks andnuns, still kept a horse and gig. One day in March, 1834, just asit had been decided that I should leave the school then, insteadof remaining, as had been intended, till midsummer, I was summonedvery early in the morning, to drive him up to London. He had beenill, and must still have been very ill indeed when he submitted tobe driven by any one. It was not till we had started that he toldme that I was to put him on board the Ostend boat. This I did, driving him through the city down to the docks. It was not withinhis nature to be communicative, and to the last he never told mewhy he was going to Ostend. Something of a general flitting abroadI had heard before, but why he should have flown first, and flownso suddenly, I did not in the least know till I returned. When I gotback with the gig, the house and furniture were all in the chargeof the sheriff's officers. The gardener who had been with us in former days stopped me as Idrove up the road, and with gestures, signs, and whispered words, gave me to understand that the whole affair--horse, gig, andbarness--would be made prize of if I went but a few yards farther. Why they should not have been made prize of I do not know. Thelittle piece of dishonest business which I at once took in handand carried through successfully was of no special service to anyof us. I drove the gig into the village, and sold the entire equipageto the ironmonger for œ17, the exact sum which he claimed as beingdue to himself. I was much complimented by the gardener, who seemedto think that so much had been rescued out of the fire. I fancythat the ironmonger was the only gainer by my smartness. When I got back to the house a scene of devastation was in progress, which still was not without its amusement. My mother, throughher various troubles, had contrived to keep a certain number ofpretty-pretties which were dear to her heart. They were not much, for in those days the ornamentation of houses was not lavish as itis now; but there was some china, and a little glass, a few books, and a very moderate supply of household silver. These things, andthings like them, were being carried down surreptitiously, througha gap between the two gardens, on to the premises of our friendColonel Grant. My two sisters, then sixteen and seventeen, and theGrant girls, who were just younger, were the chief marauders. Tosuch forces I was happy to add myself for any enterprise, andbetween us we cheated the creditors to the extent of our powers, amidst the anathemas, but good-humoured abstinence from personalviolence, of the men in charge of the property. I still own a fewbooks that were thus purloined. For a few days the whole family bivouacked under the Colonel'shospitable roof, cared for and comforted by that dearest of all women, his wife. Then we followed my father to Belgium, and establishedourselves in a large house just outside the walls of Bruges. Atthis time, and till my father's death, everything was done withmoney earned by my mother. She now again furnished the house, --thisbeing the third that she had put in order since she came back fromAmerica two years and a half ago. There were six of us went into this new banishment. My brotherHenry had left Cambridge and was ill. My younger sister was ill. And though as yet we hardly told each other that it was so, we beganto feel that that desolating fiend, consumption, was among us. Myfather was broken-hearted as well as ill, but whenever he couldsit at his table he still worked at his ecclesiastical records. Myelder sister and I were in good health, but I was an idle, desolatehanger-on, that most hopeless of human beings, a hobbledehoyof nineteen, without any idea of a career, or a profession, ora trade. As well as I can remember I was fairly happy, for therewere pretty girls at Bruges with whom I could fancy that I was inlove; and I had been removed from the real misery of school. Butas to my future life I had not even an aspiration. Now and againthere would arise a feeling that it was hard upon my mother thatshe should have to do so much for us, that we should be idle whileshe was forced to work so constantly; but we should probably havethought more of that had she not taken to work as though it werethe recognised condition of life for an old lady of fifty-five. Then, by degrees, an established sorrow was at home among us. Mybrother was an invalid, and the horrid word, which of all words werefor some years after the most dreadful to us, had been pronounced. It was no longer a delicate chest, and some temporary necessityfor peculiar care, --but consumption! The Bruges doctor had saidso, and we knew that he was right. From that time forth my mother'smost visible occupation was that of nursing. There were two sickmen in the house, and hers were the hands that tended them. Thenovels went on, of course. We had already learned to know that theywould be forthcoming at stated intervals, --and they always wereforthcoming. The doctor's vials and the ink-bottle held equalplaces in my mother's rooms. I have written many novels under manycircumstances; but I doubt much whether I could write one when mywhole heart was by the bedside of a dying son. Her power of dividingherself into two parts, and keeping her intellect by itself clearfrom the troubles of the world, and fit for the duty it had to do, I never saw equalled. I do not think that the writing of a novelis the most difficult task which a man may be called upon to do;but it is a task that may be supposed to demand a spirit fairlyat ease. The work of doing it with a troubled spirit killed SirWalter Scott. My mother went through it unscathed in strength, though she performed all the work of day-nurse and night-nurse toa sick household;--for there were soon three of them dying. At this time there came from some quarter an offer to me of acommission in an Austrian cavalry regiment; and so it was apparentlymy destiny to be a soldier. But I must first learn German andFrench, of which languages I knew almost nothing. For this a yearwas allowed me, and in order that it might be accomplished withoutexpense, I undertook the duties of a classical usher to a schoolthen kept by William Drury at Brussels. Mr. Drury had been one ofthe masters at Harrow when I went there at seven years old, and isnow, after an interval of fifty-three years, even yet officiatingas clergyman at that place. [Footnote: He died two years afterthese words were written. ] To Brussels I went, and my heart stillsinks within me as I reflect that any one should have intrusted tome the tuition of thirty boys. I can only hope that those boys wentthere to learn French, and that their parents were not particularas to their classical acquirements. I remember that on two occasionsI was sent to take the school out for a walk; but that after thesecond attempt Mrs. Drury declared that the boys' clothes would notstand any further experiments of that kind. I cannot call to mindany learning by me of other languages; but as I only remained inthat position for six weeks, perhaps the return lessons had notbeen as yet commenced. At the end of the six weeks a letter reachedme, offering me a clerkship in the General Post Office, and Iaccepted it. Among my mother's dearest friends she reckoned Mrs. Freeling, the wife of Clayton Freeling, whose father, Sir FrancisFreeling, then ruled the Post Office. She had heard of my desolateposition, and had begged from her father-in-law the offer of aberth in his own office. I hurried back from Brussels to Bruges on my way to London, andfound that the number of invalids had been increased. My youngersister, Emily, who, when I had left the house, was trembling onthe balance, --who had been pronounced to be delicate, but with thatfalse-tongued hope which knows the truth, but will lie lest theheart should faint, had been called delicate, but only delicate, --wasnow ill. Of course she was doomed. I knew it of both of them, though I had never heard the word spoken, or had spoken it to anyone. And my father was very ill, --ill to dying, though I did notknow it. And my mother had decreed to send my elder sister away toEngland, thinking that the vicinity of so much sickness might beinjurious to her. All this happened late in the autumn of 1834, inthe spring of which year we had come to Bruges; and then my motherwas left alone in a big house outside the town, with two Belgianwomen-servants, to nurse these dying patients--the patients beingher husband and children--and to write novels for the sustenanceof the family! It was about this period of her career that her bestnovels were written. To my own initiation at the Post Office I will return in the nextchapter. Just before Christmas my brother died, and was buried atBruges. In the following February my father died, and was buriedalongside of him, --and with him died that tedious task of his, which I can only hope may have solaced many of his latter hours. Isometimes look back, meditating for hours together, on his adversefate. He was a man, finely educated, of great parts, with immensecapacity for work, physically strong very much beyond the averageof men, addicted to no vices, carried off by no pleasures, affectionateby nature, most anxious for the welfare of his children, born tofair fortunes, --who, when he started in the world, may be said tohave had everything at his feet. But everything went wrong withhim. The touch of his hand seemed to create failure. He embarkedin one hopeless enterprise after another, spending on each all themoney he could at the time command. But the worse curse to him ofall was a temper so irritable that even those whom he loved thebest could not endure it. We were all estranged from him, and yetI believe that he would have given his heart's blood for any ofus. His life as I knew it was one long tragedy. After his death my mother moved to England, and took and furnisheda small house at Hadley, near Barnet. I was then a clerk in theLondon Post Office, and I remember well how gay she made the placewith little dinners, little dances, and little picnics, whileshe herself was at work every morning long before others had lefttheir beds. But she did not stay at Hadley much above a year. Shewent up to London, where she again took and furnished a house, from which my remaining sister was married and carried away intoCumberland. My mother soon followed her, and on this occasion didmore than take a house. She bought a bit of land, --a field of threeacres near the town, --and built a residence for herself. This, Ithink, was in 1841, and she had thus established and re-establishedherself six times in ten years. But in Cumberland she found theclimate too severe, and in 1844 she moved herself to Florence, where she remained till her death in 1863. She continued writingup to 1856, when she was seventy-six years old, --and had at thattime produced 114 volumes, of which the first was not written tillshe was fifty. Her career offers great encouragement to those whohave not begun early in life, but are still ambitious to do somethingbefore they depart hence. She was an unselfish, affectionate, and most industrious woman, with great capacity for enjoyment and high physical gifts. She wasendowed too, with much creative power, with considerable humour, and a genuine feeling for romance. But she was neither clear-sightednor accurate; and in her attempts to describe morals, manners, andeven facts, was unable to avoid the pitfalls of exaggeration. CHAPTER III THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 1834-1841 While I was still learning my duty as an usher at Mr. Drury'sschool at Brussels, I was summoned to my clerkship in the LondonPost Office, and on my way passed through Bruges. I then saw myfather and my brother Henry for the last time. A sadder householdnever was held together. They were all dying; except my mother, whowould sit up night after night nursing the dying ones and writingnovels the while, --so that there might be a decent roof for themto die under. Had she failed to write the novels, I do not knowwhere the roof would have been found. It is now more that fortyyears ago, and looking back over so long a lapse of time I can tellthe story, though it be the story of my own father and mother, ofmy own brother and sister, almost as coldly as I have often donesome scene of intended pathos in fiction; but that scene was indeedfull of pathos. I was then becoming alive to the blighted ambitionof my father's life, and becoming alive also to the violence of thestrain which my mother was enduring. But I could do nothing but goand leave them. There was something that comforted me in the ideathat I need no longer be a burden, --a fallacious idea, as it soonproved. My salary was to be œ90 a year, and on that I was to livein œondon, keep up my character as a gentleman, and be happy. That I should have thought this possible at the age of nineteen, and should have been delighted at being able to make the attempt, does not surprise me now; but that others should have thought itpossible, friends who knew something of the world, does astonishme. A lad might have done so, no doubt, or might do so even inthese days, who was properly looked after and kept under control, --onwhose behalf some law of life had been laid down. Let him pay somuch a week for his board and lodging, so much for his clothes, somuch for his washing, and then let him understand that he has--shallwe say?--sixpence a day left for pocket-money and omnibuses. Anyone making the calculation will find the sixpence far too much. Nosuch calculation was made for me or by me. It was supposed that asufficient income had been secured to me, and that I should liveupon it as other clerks lived. But as yet the œ90 a year was not secured to me. On reaching LondonI went to my friend Clayton Freeling, who was then secretary atthe Stamp Office, and was taken by him to the scene of my futurelabours in St. Martin's le Grand. Sir Francis Freeling was thesecretary, but he was greatly too high an official to be seen atfirst by a new junior clerk. I was taken, therefore, to his eldestson Henry Freeling, who was the assistant secretary, and by himI was examined as to my fitness. The story of that examination isgiven accurately in one of the opening chapters of a novel writtenby me, called The Three Clerks. If any reader of this memoir wouldrefer to that chapter and see how Charley Tudor was supposed to havebeen admitted into the Internal Navigation Office, that readerwill learn how Anthony Trollope was actually admitted into theSecretary's office of the General Post Office in 1834. I was askedto copy some lines from the Times newspaper with an old quill pen, and at once made a series of blots and false spellings. "Thatwon't do, you know, " said Henry Freeling to his brother Clayton. Clayton, who was my friend, urged that I was nervous, and askedthat I might be allowed to do a bit of writing at home and bringit as a sample on the next day. I was then asked whether I wasa proficient in arithmetic. What could I say? I had never learnedthe multiplication table, and had no more idea of the rule of threethan of conic sections. "I know a little of it, " I said humbly, whereupon I was sternly assured that on the morrow, should I succeedin showing that my handwriting was all that it ought to be, I shouldbe examined as to that little of arithmetic. If that little shouldnot be found to comprise a thorough knowledge of all the ordinaryrules, together with practised and quick skill, my career in lifecould not be made at the Post Office. Going down the main stairsof the building, --stairs which have I believe been now pulled downto make room for sorters and stampers, --Clayton Freeling told menot to be too down-hearted. I was myself inclined to think that Ihad better go back to the school in Brussels. But nevertheless Iwent to work, and under the surveillance of my elder brother madea beautiful transcript of four or five pages of Gibbon. With afaltering heart I took these on the next day to the office. Withmy caligraphy I was contented, but was certain that I should cometo the ground among the figures. But when I got to "The Grand, "as we used to call our office in those days, from its site inSt. Martin's le Grand, I was seated at a desk without any furtherreference to my competency. No one condescended even to look at mybeautiful penmanship. That was the way in which candidates for the Civil Service wereexamined in my young days. It was at any rate the way in which Iwas examined. Since that time there has been a very great changeindeed;--and in some respects a great improvement. But in regardto the absolute fitness of the young men selected for the publicservice, I doubt whether more harm has not been done than good. AndI think that good might have been done without the harm. The ruleof the present day is, that every place shall be open to publiccompetition, and that it shall be given to the best among thecomers. I object to this, that at present there exists no knownmode of learning who is best, and that the method employed has notendency to elicit the best. That method pretends only to decidewho among a certain number of lads will best answer a string ofquestions, for the answering of which they are prepared by tutors, who have sprung up for the purpose since this fashion of electionhas been adopted. When it is decided in a family that a boy shall"try the Civil Service, " he is made to undergo a certain amount ofcramming. But such treatment has, I maintain, no connection whateverwith education. The lad is no better fitted after it than he wasbefore for the future work of his life. But his very success fillshim with false ideas of his own educational standing, and so farunfits him. And, by the plan now in vogue, it has come to pass thatno one is in truth responsible either for the conduct, the manners, or even for the character of the youth. The responsibility wasperhaps slight before; but existed, and was on the increase. There might have been, --in some future time of still increasedwisdom, there yet may be, --a department established to test thefitness of acolytes without recourse to the dangerous optimism ofcompetitive choice. I will not say but that there should have beensome one to reject me, --though I will have the hardihood to saythat, had I been so rejected, the Civil Service would have losta valuable public servant. This is a statement that will not, Ithink, be denied by those who, after I am gone, may remember anythingof my work. Lads, no doubt, should not be admitted who have none ofthe small acquirements that are wanted. Our offices should not beschools in which writing and early lessons in geography, arithmetic, or French should be learned. But all that could be ascertainedwithout the perils of competitive examination. The desire to insure the efficiency of the young men selected, hasnot been the only object--perhaps not the chief object--of thosewho have yielded in this matter to the arguments of the reformers. There had arisen in England a system of patronage, under which ithad become gradually necessary for politicians to use their influencefor the purchase of political support. A member of the House ofCommons, holding office, who might chance to have five clerkshipsto give away in a year, found himself compelled to distribute themamong those who sent him to the House. In this there was nothingpleasant to the distributer of patronage. Do away with the systemaltogether, and he would have as much chance of support as another. He bartered his patronage only because another did so also. Thebeggings, the refusings, the jealousies, the correspondence, weresimply troublesome. Gentlemen in office were not therefore indisposedto rid themselves of the care of patronage. I have no doubt theirhands are the cleaner and their hearts are the lighter; but I dodoubt whether the offices are on the whole better manned. As what I now write will certainly never be read till I am dead, Imay dare to say what no one now does dare to say in print, --thoughsome of us whisper it occasionally into our friends' ears. Thereare places in life which can hardly be well filled except by"Gentlemen. " The word is one the use of which almost subjects oneto ignominy. If I say that a judge should be a gentleman, or abishop, I am met with a scornful allusion to "Nature's Gentlemen. "Were I to make such an assertion with reference to the House ofCommons, nothing that I ever said again would receive the slightestattention. A man in public life could not do himself a greaterinjury than by saying in public that the commissions in the army ornavy, or berths in the Civil Service, should be given exclusivelyto gentlemen. He would be defied to define the term, --and wouldfail should he attempt to do so. But he would know what he meant, and so very probably would they who defied him. It may be that theson of a butcher of the village shall become as well fitted foremployments requiring gentle culture as the son of the parson. Such is often the case. When such is the case, no one has been moreprone to give the butcher's son all the welcome he has merited thanI myself; but the chances are greatly in favour of the parson's son. The gates of the one class should be open to the other; but neitherto the one class nor to the other can good be done by declaringthat there are no gates, no barrier, no difference. The system ofcompetitive examination is, I think, based on a supposition thatthere is no difference. I got into my place without any examining. Looking back now, I thinkI can see with accuracy what was then the condition of my own mindand intelligence. Of things to be learned by lessons I knew almostless than could be supposed possible after the amount of schoolingI had received. I could read neither French, Latin, nor Greek. I could speak no foreign language, --and I may as well say here aselsewhere that I never acquired the power of really talking French. I have been able to order my dinner and take a railway ticket, butnever got much beyond that. Of the merest rudiments of the sciencesI was completely ignorant. My handwriting was in truth wretched. Myspelling was imperfect. There was no subject as to which examinationwould have been possible on which I could have gone through anexamination otherwise than disgracefully. And yet I think I knewmore than the average young men of the same rank who began life atnineteen. I could have given a fuller list of the names of the poetsof all countries, with their subjects and periods, --and probablyof historians, --than many others; and had, perhaps, a more accurateidea of the manner in which my own country was governed. I knew thenames of all the Bishops, all the Judges, all the Heads of Colleges, and all the Cabinet Ministers, --not a very useful knowledge indeed, but one that had not been acquired without other matter which wasmore useful. I had read Shakespeare and Byron and Scott, and couldtalk about them. The music of the Miltonic line was familiar tome. I had already made up my mind that Pride and Prejudice was thebest novel in the English language, --a palm which I only partiallywithdrew after a second reading of Ivanhoe, and did not completelybestow elsewhere till Esmond was written. And though I wouldoccasionally break down in my spelling, I could write a letter. IfI had a thing to say, I could so say it in written words that thereaders should know what I meant, --a power which is by no meansat the command of all those who come out from these competitiveexaminations with triumph. Early in life, at the age of fifteen, I had commenced the dangerous habit of keeping a journal, and thisI maintained for ten years. The volumes remained in my possessionunregarded--never looked at--till 1870, when I examined them, and, with many blushes, destroyed them. They convicted me of folly, ignorance, indiscretion, idleness, extravagance, and conceit. Butthey had habituated me to the rapid use of pen and ink, and taughtme how to express myself with faculty. I will mention here another habit which had grown upon me fromstill earlier years, --which I myself often regarded with dismaywhen I thought of the hours devoted to it, but which, I suppose, must have tended to make me what I have been. As a boy, even as achild, I was thrown much upon myself. I have explained, when speakingof my school-days, how it came to pass that other boys would notplay with me. I was therefore alone, and had to form my playswithin myself. Play of some kind was necessary to me then, as italways has been. Study was not my bent, and I could not pleasemyself by being all idle. Thus it came to pass that I was alwaysgoing about with some castle in the air firmly build within mymind. Nor were these efforts in architecture spasmodic, or subjectto constant change from day to day. For weeks, for months, ifI remember rightly, from year to year, I would carry on the sametale, binding myself down to certain laws, to certain proportions, and proprieties, and unities. Nothing impossible was everintroduced, --nor even anything which, from outward circumstances, would seem to be violently improbable. I myself was of course my ownhero. Such is a necessity of castle-building. But I never became aking, or a duke, --much less when my height and personal appearancewere fixed could I be an Antinous, or six feet high. I never wasa learned man, nor even a philosopher. But I was a very cleverperson, and beautiful young women used to be fond of me. And Istrove to be kind of heart, and open of hand, and noble in thought, despising mean things; and altogether I was a very much betterfellow than I have ever succeeded in being since. This had beenthe occupation of my life for six or seven years before I went tothe Post Office, and was by no means abandoned when I commencedmy work. There can, I imagine, hardly be a more dangerous mentalpractice; but I have often doubted whether, had it not been mypractice, I should ever have written a novel. I learned in this wayto maintain an interest in a fictitious story, to dwell on a workcreated by my own imagination, and to live in a world altogetheroutside the world of my own material life. In after years I havedone the same, --with this difference, that I have discarded thehero of my early dreams, and have been able to lay my own identityaside. I must certainly acknowledge that the first seven years of myofficial life were neither creditable to myself nor useful to thepublic service. These seven years were passed in London, and duringthis period of my life it was my duty to be present every morningat the office punctually at 10 A. M. I think I commenced my quarrelswith the authorities there by having in my possession a watchwhich was always ten minutes late. I know that I very soon achieveda character for irregularity, and came to be regarded as a blacksheep by men around me who were not themselves, I think, verygood public servants. From time to time rumours reached me that ifI did not take care I should be dismissed; especially one rumourin my early days, through my dearly beloved friend Mrs. ClaytonFreeling, --who, as I write this, is still living, and who, withtears in her eyes, besought me to think of my mother. That was duringthe life of Sir Francis Freeling, who died, --still in harness, --alittle more than twelve months after I joined the office. And yetthe old man showed me signs of almost affectionate kindness, writingto me with his own hand more than once from his death-bed. Sir Francis Freeling was followed at the Post Office by ColonelMaberly, who certainly was not my friend. I do not know that Ideserved to find a friend in my new master, but I think that a manwith better judgment would not have formed so low an opinion ofme as he did. Years have gone by, and I can write now, and almostfeel, without anger; but I can remember well the keenness of myanguish when I was treated as though I were unfit for any usefulwork. I did struggle--not to do the work, for there was nothingwhich was not easy without any struggling--but to show that Iwas willing to do it. My bad character nevertheless stuck to me, and was not to be got rid of by any efforts within my power. I doadmit that I was irregular. It was not considered to be much inmy favour that I could write letters--which was mainly the work ofour office--rapidly, correctly, and to the purpose. The man whocame at ten, and who was always still at his desk at half-past four, was preferred before me, though when at his desk he might be lessefficient. Such preference was no doubt proper; but, with a littleencouragement, I also would have been punctual. I got credit fornothing and was reckless. As it was, the conduct of some of us was very bad. There was acomfortable sitting-room up-stairs, devoted to the use of some oneof our number who in turn was required to remain in the place allnight. Hither one or two of us would adjourn after lunch, andplay ecarte for an hour or two. I do not know whether such waysare possible now in our public offices. And here we used to havesuppers and card-parties at night--great symposiums, with muchsmoking of tobacco; for in our part of the building there lived awhole bevy of clerks. These were gentlemen whose duty it then wasto make up and receive the foreign mails. I do not remember thatthey worked later or earlier than the other sorting-clerks; butthere was supposed to be something special in foreign letters, which required that the men who handled them should have mindsundistracted by the outer world. Their salaries, too, were higherthan those of their more homely brethren; and they paid nothingfor their lodgings. Consequently there was a somewhat fast set inthose apartments, given to cards and to tobacco, who drank spiritsand water in preference to tea. I was not one of them, but was agood deal with them. I do not know that I should interest my readers by saying much ofmy Post Office experiences in those days. I was always on the eveof being dismissed, and yet was always striving to show how good apublic servant I could become, if only a chance were given me. Butthe chance went the wrong way. On one occasion, in the performanceof my duty, I had to put a private letter containing bank-notes onthe secretary's table, --which letter I had duly opened, as it wasnot marked private. The letter was seen by the Colonel, but hadnot been moved by him when he left the room. On his return it wasgone. In the meantime I had returned to the room, again in theperformance of some duty. When the letter was missed I was sentfor, and there I found the Colonel much moved about his letter, anda certain chief clerk, who, with a long face, was making suggestionsas to the probable fate of the money. "The letter has been taken, "said the Colonel, turning to me angrily, "and, by G----! there hasbeen nobody in the room but you and I. " As he spoke, he thunderedhis fist down upon the table. "Then, " said I, "by G----! you havetaken it. " And I also thundered my fist down;--but, accidentally, not upon the table. There was there a standing movable desk, atwhich, I presume, it was the Colonel's habit to write, and on thismovable desk was a large bottle full of ink. My fist unfortunatelycame on the desk, and the ink at once flew up, covering the Colonel'sface and shirt-front. Then it was a sight to see that senior clerk, as he seized a quite of blotting-paper, and rushed to the aid of hissuperior officer, striving to mop up the ink; and a sight also tosee the Colonel, in his agony, hit right out through the blotting-paperat that senior clerk's unoffending stomach. At that moment therecame in the Colonel's private secretary, with the letter and themoney, and I was desired to go back to my own room. This was anincident not much in my favour, though I do not know that it didme special harm. I was always in trouble. A young woman down in the country hadtaken it into her head that she would like to marry me, --and a veryfoolish young woman she must have been to entertain such a wish. I need not tell that part of the story more at length, otherwisethan by protesting that no young man in such a position was evermuch less to blame than I had been in this. The invitation hadcome from her, and I had lacked the pluck to give it a decidednegative; but I had left the house within half an hour, going awaywithout my dinner, and had never returned to it. Then there was acorrespondence, --if that can be called a correspondence in whichall the letters came from one side. At last the mother appeared atthe Post Office. My hair almost stands on my head now as I rememberthe figure of the woman walking into the big room in which I satwith six or seven other clerks, having a large basket on her arm andan immense bonnet on her head. The messenger had vainly endeavouredto persuade her to remain in the ante-room. She followed the manin, and walking up the centre of the room, addressed me in a loudvoice: "Anthony Trollope, when are you going to marry my daughter?"We have all had our worst moments, and that was one of my worst. Ilived through it, however, and did not marry the young lady. Theselittle incidents were all against me in the office. And then a certain other phase of my private life crept into officialview, and did me a damage. As I shall explain just now, I rarelyat this time had any money wherewith to pay my bills. In this stateof things a certain tailor had taken from me an acceptance for, Ithink, œ12, which found its way into the hands of a money-lender. With that man, who lived in a little street near Mecklenburgh Square, I formed a most heart-rending but a most intimate acquaintance. In cash I once received from him œ4. For that and for the originalamount of the tailor's bill, which grew monstrously under repeatedrenewals, I paid ultimately something over œ200. That is so commona story as to be hardly worth the telling; but the peculiarity ofthis man was that he became so attached to me as to visit me everyday at my office. For a long period he found it to be worth hiswhile to walk up those stone steps daily, and come and stand behindmy chair, whispering to me always the same words: "Now I wish youwould be punctual. If you only would be punctual, I should likeyou to have anything you want. " He was a little, clean, old man, who always wore a high starched white cravat inside of which hehad a habit of twisting his chin as he uttered his caution. When Iremember the constant persistency of his visits, I cannot but feelthat he was paid very badly for his time and trouble. Those visitswere very terrible, and can have hardly been of service to me inthe office. Of one other misfortune which happened to me in those days I musttell the tale. A junior clerk in the secretary's office was alwaystold off to sleep upon the premises, and he was supposed to be thepresiding genius of the establishment when the other members ofthe Secretary's department had left the building. On an occasionwhen I was still little more than a lad, --perhaps one-and-twentyyears old, --I was filling this responsible position. At about sevenin the evening word was brought to me that the Queen of, --I thinkSaxony, but I am sure it was a Queen, --wanted to see the nightmails sent out. At this time, when there were many mail-coaches, this was a show, and august visitors would sometimes come to seeit. But preparation was generally made beforehand, and some punditof the office would be at hand to do the honours. On this occasionwe were taken by surprise, and there was no pundit. I thereforegave the orders, and accompanied her Majesty around the building, walking backwards, as I conceived to be proper, and often in greatperil as I did so, up and down the stairs. I was, however, quitesatisfied with my own manner of performing an unaccustomed and mostimportant duty. There were two old gentlemen with her Majesty, who, no doubt, were German barons, and an ancient baroness also. Theyhad come and, when they had seen the sights, took their departurein two glass coaches. As they were preparing to go, I saw the twobarons consulting together in deep whispers, and then as the resultof that conversation one of them handed me a half-a-crown! Thatalso was a bad moment. I came up to town, as I said before, purporting to live a jollylife upon œ90 per annum. I remained seven years in the General PostOffice, and when I left it my income was œ140. During the wholeof this time I was hopelessly in debt. There were two intervals, amounting together to nearly two years, in which I lived withmy mother, and therefore lived in comfort, --but even then I wasoverwhelmed with debt. She paid much for me, --paid all that Iasked her to pay, and all that she could find out that I owed. Butwho in such a condition ever tells all and makes a clean breast ofit? The debts, of course, were not large, but I cannot think nowhow I could have lived, and sometimes have enjoyed life, with sucha burden of duns as I endured. Sheriff's officers with uncannydocuments, of which I never understood anything, were commonattendants on me. And yet I do not remember that I was ever lockedup, though I think I was twice a prisoner. In such emergencies someone paid for me. And now, looking back at it, I have to ask myselfwhether my youth was very wicked. I did no good in it; but was therefair ground for expecting good from me? When I reached London nomode of life was prepared for me, --no advice even given to me. Iwent into lodgings, and then had to dispose of my time. I belongedto no club, and knew very few friends who would receive me intotheir houses. In such a condition of life a young man should nodoubt go home after his work, and spend the long hours of the eveningin reading good books and drinking tea. A lad brought up by strictparents, and without having had even a view of gayer things, mightperhaps do so. I had passed all my life at public schools, where Ihad seen gay things, but had never enjoyed them. Towards the goodbooks and tea no training had been given me. There was no house inwhich I could habitually see a lady's face and hear a lady's voice. No allurement to decent respectability came in my way. It seems tome that in such circumstances the temptations of loose life willalmost certainly prevail with a young man. Of course if the mind bestrong enough, and the general stuff knitted together of sufficientlystern material, the temptations will not prevail. But such mindsand such material are, I think, uncommon. The temptation at anyrate prevailed with me. I wonder how many young men fall utterly to pieces from being turnedloose into London after the same fashion. Mine was, I think, ofall phases of such life the most dangerous. The lad who is sentto mechanical work has longer hours, during which he is kept fromdanger, and has not generally been taught in his boyhood to anticipatepleasure. He looks for hard work and grinding circumstances. I certainly had enjoyed but little pleasure, but I had been amongthose who did enjoy it and were taught to expect it. And I hadfilled my mind with the ideas of such joys. And now, except during official hours, I was entirely withoutcontrol, --without the influences of any decent household around me. I have said something of the comedy of such life, but it certainlyhad its tragic aspect. Turning it all over in my own mind, as Ihave constantly done in after years, the tragedy has always beenuppermost. And so it was as the time was passing. Could there beany escape from such dirt? I would ask myself; and I always answeredthat there was no escape. The mode of life was itself wretched. Ihated the office. I hated my work. More than all I hated my idleness. I had often told myself since I left school that the only career inlife within my reach was that of an author, and the only mode ofauthorship open to me that of a writer of novels. In the journal whichI read and destroyed a few years since, I found the matter arguedout before I had been in the Post Office two years. Parliament wasout of the question. I had not means to go to the Bar. In Officiallife, such as that to which I had been introduced, there did notseem to be any opening for real success. Pens and paper I couldcommand. Poetry I did not believe to be within my grasp. The drama, too, which I would fain have chosen, I believed to be above me. Forhistory, biography, or essay writing I had not sufficient erudition. But I thought it possible that I might write a novel. I had resolvedvery early that in that shape must the attempt be made. But themonths and years ran on, and no attempt was made. And yet no day waspassed without thoughts of attempting, and a mental acknowledgmentof the disgrace of postponing it. What reader will not understandthe agony of remorse produced by such a condition of mind?The gentleman from Mecklenburgh Square was always with me in themorning, --always angering me by his hateful presence, --but when theevening came I could make no struggle towards getting rid of him. In those days I read a little, and did learn to read French andLatin. I made myself familiar with Horace, and became acquainted withthe works of our own greatest poets. I had my strong enthusiasms, and remember throwing out of the window in Northumberland Street, where I lived, a volume of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, becausehe spoke sneeringly of Lycidas. That was Northumberland Street bythe Marylebone Workhouse, on to the back-door of which establishmentmy room looked out--a most dreary abode, at which I fancy I musthave almost ruined the good-natured lodging-house keeper by myconstant inability to pay her what I owed. How I got my daily bread I can hardly remember. But I do rememberthat I was often unable to get myself a dinner. Young men generallynow have their meals provided for them. I kept house, as it were. Every day I had to find myself with the day's food. For my breakfastI could get some credit at the lodgings, though that credit wouldfrequently come to an end. But for all that I had often breakfastto pay day by day; and at your eating-house credit is not given. Ihad no friends on whom I could sponge regularly. Out on the FulhamRoad I had an uncle, but his house was four miles from the PostOffice, and almost as far from my own lodgings. Then came borrowingsof money, sometimes absolute want, and almost constant misery. Before I tell how it came about that I left this wretched life, I must say a word or two of the friendships which lessened itsmisfortunes. My earliest friend in life was John Merivale, with whomI had been at school at Sunbury and Harrow, and who was a nephewof my tutor, Harry Drury. Herman Merivale, who afterwards became myfriend, was his brother, as is also Charles Merivale, the historianand Dean of Ely. I knew John when I was ten years old, and am happyto be able to say that he is going to dine with me one day thisweek. I hope I may not injure his character by stating that in thosedays I lived very much with him. He, too, was impecunious, but hehad a home in London, and knew but little of the sort of penurywhich I endured. For more than fifty years he and I have been closefriends. And then there was one W---- A----, whose misfortunes inlife will not permit me to give his full name, but whom I dearlyloved. He had been at Winchester and at Oxford, and at both placeshad fallen into trouble. He then became a schoolmaster, --or perhapsI had better say usher, --and finally he took orders. But he wasunfortunate in all things, and died some years ago in poverty. Hewas most perverse; bashful to very fear of a lady's dress; unableto restrain himself in anything, but yet with a conscience thatwas always stinging him; a loving friend, though very quarrelsome;and, perhaps, of all men I have known, the most humorous. And hewas entirely unconscious of his own humour. He did not know thathe could so handle all matters as to create infinite amusement outof them. Poor W---- A----! To him there came no happy turning-pointat which life loomed seriously on him, and then became prosperous. W---- A----, Merivale, and I formed a little club, which we calledthe Tramp Society, and subjected to certain rules, in obedience towhich we wandered on foot about the counties adjacent to London. Southampton was the furthest point we ever reached; but Buckinghamshireand Hertfordshire were more dear to us. These were the happiesthours of my then life--and perhaps not the least innocent, althoughwe were frequently in peril from the village authorities whom weoutraged. Not to pay for any conveyance, never to spend above fiveshillings a day, to obey all orders from the elected ruler of thehour (this enforced under heavy fines), were among our statutes. I would fain tell here some of our adventures:--how A---- enactedan escaped madman and we his pursuing keepers, and so got ourselvesa lift in a cart, from which we ran away as we approached thelunatic asylum; how we were turned out of a little town at night, the townsfolk frightened by the loudness of our mirth; and how weonce crept into a hayloft and were wakened in the dark morning bya pitchfork, --and how the juvenile owner of that pitchfork fledthrough the window when he heard the complaints of the wounded man!But the fun was the fun of W---- A----, and would cease to be funas told by me. It was during these years that John Tilley, who has now been formany years the permanent senior officer of the Post Office, marriedmy sister, whom he took with him into Cumberland, where he wasstationed as one of our surveyors. He has been my friend for morethan forty years; as has also Peregrine Birch, a clerk in the Houseof Lords, who married one of those daughters of Colonel Grant whoassisted us in the raid we made on the goods which had been seizedby the Sheriff's officer at Harrow. These have been the oldest anddearest friends of my life, and I can thank God that three of themare still alive. When I had been nearly seven years in the Secretary's office ofthe Post Office, always hating my position there, and yet alwaysfearing that I should be dismissed from it, there came a way ofescape. There had latterly been created in the service a new bodyof officers called surveyors' clerks. There were at that timeseven surveyors in England, two in Scotland and three in Ireland. To each of these officers a clerk had been lately attached, whoseduty it was to travel about the country under the surveyor's orders. There had been much doubt among the young men in the office whetherthey should or should not apply for these places. The emolumentswere good and the work alluring; but there was at first supposedto be something derogatory in the position. There was a rumour thatthe first surveyor who got a clerk sent the clerk out to fetch hisbeer, and that another had called upon his clerk to send the linento the wash. There was, however, a conviction that nothing could beworse than the berth of a surveyor's clerk in Ireland. The clerkswere all appointed, however. To me it had not occurred to ask foranything, nor would anything have been given me. But after a whilethere came a report from the far west of Ireland that the man sentthere was absurdly incapable. It was probably thought then thatnone but a man absurdly incapable would go on such a mission to thewest of Ireland. When the report reached the London office I wasthe first to read it. I was at that time in dire trouble, havingdebts on my head and quarrels with our Secretary-Colonel, and afull conviction that my life was taking me downwards to the lowestpits. So I went to the Colonel boldly, and volunteered for Irelandif he would send me. He was glad to be so rid of me, and I went. This happened in August, 1841, when I was twenty-six years old. Mysalary in Ireland was to be but œ100 a year; but I was to receivefifteen shillings a day for every day that I was away from home, and sixpence for every mile that I travelled. The same allowanceswere made in England; but at that time travelling in Ireland wasdone at half the English prices. My income in Ireland, after payingmy expenses, became at once œ400. This was the first good fortuneof my life. CHAPTER IV IRELAND--MY FIRST TWO NOVELS 1841-1848 In the preceding pages I have given a short record of the firsttwenty-six years of my life, --years of suffering, disgrace, andinward remorse. I fear that my mode of telling will have left an ideasimply of their absurdities; but, in truth, I was wretched, --sometimesalmost unto death, and have often cursed the hour in which I wasborn. There had clung to me a feeling that I had been looked uponalways as an evil, an encumbrance, a useless thing, --as a creatureof whom those connected with him had to be ashamed. And I feelcertain now that in my young days I was so regarded. Even my fewfriends who had found with me a certain capacity for enjoyment werehalf afraid of me. I acknowledge the weakness of a great desire tobe loved, --of a strong wish to be popular with my associates. Nochild, no boy, no lad, no young man, had ever been less so. And Ihad been so poor, and so little able to bear poverty. But from theday on which I set my foot in Ireland all these evils went awayfrom me. Since that time who has had a happier life than mine?Looking round upon all those I know, I cannot put my hand uponone. But all is not over yet. And, mindful of that, rememberinghow great is the agony of adversity, how crushing the despondencyof degradation, how susceptible I am myself to the misery comingfrom contempt, --remembering also how quickly good things may goand evil things come, --I am often again tempted to hope, almost topray, that the end may be near. Things may be going well now-- "Sin aliquem infandum casum, Fortuna, minaris; Nunc, o nunc liceat crudelem abrumpere vitam. " There is unhappiness so great that the very fear of it is an alloyto happiness. I had then lost my father, and sister, and brother, --havesince lost another sister and my mother;--but I have never as yetlost a wife or a child. When I told my friends that I was going on this mission to Irelandthey shook their heads, but said nothing to dissuade me. I thinkit must have been evident to all who were my friends that my lifein London was not a success. My mother and elder brother wereat this time abroad, and were not consulted;--did not even knowmy intention in time to protest against it. Indeed, I consultedno one, except a dear old cousin, our family lawyer, from whom Iborrowed œ200 to help me out of England. He lent me the money, andlooked upon me with pitying eyes--shaking his head. "After all, you were right to go, " he said to me when I paid him the money afew years afterwards. But nobody then thought I was right to go. To become clerk toan Irish surveyor, in Connaught, with a salary of œ100 a year, attwenty-six years of age! I did not think it right even myself, --exceptthat anything was right which would take me away from the GeneralPost Office and from London. My ideas of the duties I was to perform were very vague, as werealso my ideas of Ireland generally. Hitherto I had passed my time, seated at a desk, either writing letters myself, or copying intobooks those which others had written. I had never been called uponto do anything I was unable or unfitted to do. I now understood thatin Ireland I was to be a deputy-inspector of country post offices, and that among other things to be inspected would be the postmasters'accounts! But as no other person asked a question as to my fitnessfor this work, it seemed unnecessary for me to do so. On the 15th of September, 1841, I landed in Dublin, without anacquaintance in the country, and with only two or three letters ofintroduction from a brother clerk in the Post Office. I had learnedto think that Ireland was a land flowing with fun and whisky, inwhich irregularity was the rule of life, and where broken heads werelooked upon as honourable badges. I was to live at a place calledBanagher, on the Shannon, which I had heard of because of its havingonce been conquered, though it had heretofore conquered everything, including the devil. And from Banagher my inspecting tours were tobe made, chiefly into Connaught, but also over a strip of countryeastwards, which would enable me occasionally to run up to Dublin. I went to a hotel which was very dirty, and after dinner I orderedsome whisky punch. There was an excitement in this, but when thepunch was gone I was very dull. It seemed so strange to be in acountry in which there was not a single individual whom I had everspoken to or ever seen. And it was to be my destiny to go down intoConnaught and adjust accounts, --the destiny of me who had neverlearned the multiplication table, or done a sum in long division! On the next morning I called on the Secretary of the Irish PostOffice, and learned from him that Colonel Maberly had sent a verybad character with me. He could not have sent a very good one; butI felt a little hurt when I was informed by this new master that hehad been informed that I was worthless, and must, in all probability, be dismissed. "But, " said the new master, "I shall judge you by yourown merits. " From that time to the day on which I left the service, I never heard a word of censure, nor had many months passed beforeI found that my services were valued. Before a year was over, Ihad acquired the character of a thoroughly good public servant. The time went very pleasantly. Some adventures I had;--two ofwhich I told in the Tales of All Countries, under the names of TheO'Conors of Castle Conor, and Father Giles of Ballymoy. I will notswear to every detail in these stories, but the main purport ofeach is true. I could tell many others of the same nature, werethis the place for them. I found that the surveyor to whom I hadbeen sent kept a pack of hounds, and therefore I bought a hunter. I do not think he liked it, but he could not well complain. He neverrode to hounds himself, but I did; and then and thus began one ofthe great joys of my life. I have ever since been constant to thesport, having learned to love it with an affection which I cannotmyself fathom or understand. Surely no man has laboured at it as Ihave done, or hunted under such drawbacks as to distances, money, andnatural disadvantages. I am very heavy, very blind, have been--inreference to hunting--a poor man, and am now an old man. I haveoften had to travel all night outside a mail-coach, in order thatI might hunt the next day. Nor have I ever been in truth a goodhorseman. And I have passed the greater part of my hunting lifeunder the discipline of the Civil Service. But it has been formore than thirty years a duty to me to ride to hounds; and I haveperformed that duty with a persistent energy. Nothing has everbeen allowed to stand in the way of hunting, --neither the writingof books, nor the work of the Post Office, nor other pleasures. As regarded the Post Office, it soon seemed to be understood thatI was to hunt; and when my services were re-transferred to England, no word of difficulty ever reached me about it. I have written onvery many subjects, and on most of them with pleasure, but on nosubject with such delight as that on hunting. I have dragged itinto many novels, --into too many, no doubt, --but I have always feltmyself deprived of a legitimate joy when the nature of the tale hasnot allowed me a hunting chapter. Perhaps that which gave me thegreatest delight was the description of a run on a horse accidentallytaken from another sportsman--a circumstance which occurred to mydear friend Charles Buxton, who will be remembered as one of themembers for Surrey. It was altogether a very jolly life that I led in Ireland. Iwas always moving about, and soon found myself to be in pecuniarycircumstances which were opulent in comparison with those of mypast life. The Irish people did not murder me, nor did they evenbreak my head. I soon found them to be good-humoured, clever--theworking classes very much more intelligent than those ofEngland--economical, and hospitable. We hear much of their spendthriftnature; but extravagance is not the nature of an Irishman. Hewill count the shillings in a pound much more accurately than anEnglishman, and will with much more certainty get twelve pennyworthfrom each. But they are perverse, irrational, and but little boundby the love of truth. I lived for many years among them--not finallyleaving the country until 1859, and I had the means of studyingtheir character. I had not been a fortnight in Ireland before I was sent down to alittle town in the far west of county Galway, to balance a defaultingpostmaster's accounts, find out how much he owed, and report uponhis capacity to pay. In these days such accounts are very simple. They adjust themselves from day to day, and a Post Office surveyorhas nothing to do with them. At that time, though the sums dealtwith were small, the forms of dealing with them were very intricate. I went to work, however, and made that defaulting postmaster teachme the use of those forms. I then succeeded in balancing the account, and had no difficulty whatever in reporting that he was altogetherunable to pay his debt. Of course, he was dismissed; but he hadbeen a very useful man to me. I never had any further difficultyin the matter. But my chief work was the investigating of complaints made by thepublic as to postal matters. The practice of the office was andis to send one of its servants to the spot to see the complainantand to inquire into the facts, when the complainant is sufficientlyenergetic or sufficiently big to make himself well heard. A greatexpense is often incurred for a very small object; but the systemworks well on the whole, as confidence is engendered, and a feelingis produced in the country that the department has eyes of its ownand does keep them open. This employment was very pleasant, andto me always easy, as it required at its close no more than thewriting of a report. There were no accounts in this business, nokeeping of books, no necessary manipulation of multitudinous forms. I must tell of one such complaint and inquiry, because in its resultI think it was emblematic of many. A gentleman in county Cavan had complained most bitterly of theinjury done to him by some arrangement of the Post Office. Thenature of his grievance has no present significance; but it wasso unendurable that he had written many letters, couched in thestrongest language. He was most irate, and indulged himself inthat scorn which is easy to an angry mind. The place was not in mydistrict, but I was borrowed, being young and strong, that I mightremember the edge of his personal wrath. It was mid-winter, and Idrove up to his house, a squire's country seat, in the middle of asnowstorm, just as it was becoming dark. I was on an open jauntingcar, and was on my way from one little town to another, the causeof his complaint having reference to some mail conveyance betweenthe two. I was certainly very cold, and very wet, and veryuncomfortable when I entered his house. I was admitted by a butler, but the gentleman himself hurried into the hall. I at once began toexplain my business. "God bless me!" he said, "you are wet through. John, get Mr. Trollope some brandy and water--very hot. " I wasbeginning my story about the post again when he himself took off mygreatcoat, and suggested that I should go up to my bedroom beforeI troubled myself with business. "Bedroom!" I exclaimed. Thenhe assured me that he would not turn a dog out on such a night asthat, and into a bedroom I was shown, having first drank the brandyand water standing at the drawing-room fire. When I came down I wasintroduced to his daughter, and the three of us went in to dinner. I shall never forget his righteous indignation when I again broughtup the postal question on the departure of the young lady. Was Isuch a Goth as to contaminate wine with business? So I drank mywine, and then heard the young lady sing while her father sleptin his armchair. I spent a very pleasant evening, but my host wastoo sleepy to hear anything about the Post Office that night. Itwas absolutely necessary that I should go away the next morningafter breakfast, and I explained that the matter must be discussedthen. He shook his head and wrung his hands in unmistakabledisgust, --almost in despair. "But what am I to say in my report?"I asked. "Anything you please, " he said. "Don't spare me, if youwant an excuse for yourself. Here I sit all the day--with nothingto do; and I like writing letters. " I did report that Mr. ---- wasnow quite satisfied with the postal arrangement of his district;and I felt a soft regret that I should have robbed my friend of hisoccupation. Perhaps he was able to take up the Poor Law Board, orto attack the Excise. At the Post Office nothing more was heardfrom him. I went on with the hunting surveyor at Banagher for three years, during which, at Kingstown, the watering place near Dublin, I metRose Heseltine, the lady who has since become my wife. The engagementtook place when I had been just one year in Ireland; but there wasstill a delay of two years before we could be married. She had nofortune, nor had I any income beyond that which came from the PostOffice; and there were still a few debts, which would have beenpaid off no doubt sooner, but for that purchase of the horse. WhenI had been nearly three years in Ireland we were married on the11th of June, 1844;--and, perhaps, I ought to name that happy dayas the commencement of my better life, rather than the day on whichI first landed in Ireland. For though during these three years I had been jolly enough, Ihad not been altogether happy. The hunting, the whisky punch, therattling Irish life, --of which I could write a volume of storieswere this the place to tell them, --were continually driving frommy mind the still cherished determination to become a writer ofnovels. When I reached Ireland I had never put pen to paper; norhad I done so when I became engaged. And when I was married, beingthen twenty-nine, I had only written the first volume of my firstwork. This constant putting off of the day of work was a greatsorrow to me. I certainly had not been idle in my new berth. I hadlearned my work, so that every one concerned knew that it was safein my hands; and I held a position altogether the reverse of thatin which I was always trembling while I remained in London. Butthat did not suffice, --did not nearly suffice. I still felt thatthere might be a career before me, if I could only bring myself tobegin the work. I do not think I much doubted my own intellectualsufficiency for the writing of a readable novel. What I did doubtwas my own industry, and the chances of the market. The vigour necessary to prosecute two professions at the same timeis not given to every one, and it was only lately that I had foundthe vigour necessary for one. There must be early hours, and Ihad not as yet learned to love early hours. I was still, indeed, ayoung man; but hardly young enough to trust myself to find the powerto alter the habits of my life. And I had heard of the difficultiesof publishing, --a subject of which I shall have to say much shouldI ever bring this memoir to a close. I had dealt already withpublishers on my mother's behalf, and knew that many a tyro whocould fill a manuscript lacked the power to put his matter beforethe public;--and I knew, too, that when the matter was printed, how little had then been done towards the winning of the battle!I had already learned that many a book--many a good book-- "is born to blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air. " But still the purpose was strong within me, and the first effortwas made after the following fashion. I was located at a littletown called Drumsna, or rather village, in the county Leitrim, where the postmaster had come to some sorrow about his money; andmy friend John Merivale was staying with me for a day or two. Aswe were taking a walk in that most uninteresting country, we turnedup through a deserted gateway, along a weedy, grass-grown avenue, till we came to the modern ruins of a country house. It was one ofthe most melancholy spots I ever visited. I will not describe ithere, because I have done so in the first chapter of my first novel. We wandered about the place, suggesting to each other causes forthe misery we saw there, and, while I was still among the ruinedwalls and decayed beams, I fabricated the plot of The Macdermotsof Ballycloran. As to the plot itself, I do not know that I evermade one so good, --or, at any rate, one so susceptible of pathos. I am aware that I broke down in the telling, not having yet studiedthe art. Nevertheless, The Macdermots is a good novel, and worthreading by any one who wishes to understand what Irish life wasbefore the potato disease, the famine, and the Encumbered EstatesBill. When my friend left me, I set to work and wrote the first chapteror two. Up to this time I had continued that practice of castle-buildingof which I have spoken; but now the castle I built was among theruins of that old house. The book, however, hung with me. It wasonly now and then that I found either time or energy for a fewpages. I commenced the book in September, 1843, and had only writtena volume when I was married in June, 1844. My marriage was like the marriage of other people, and of nospecial interest to any one except my wife and me. It took placeat Rotherham, in Yorkshire, where her father was the manager of abank. We were not very rich, having about œ400 a year on which tolive. Many people would say that we were two fools to encounter suchpoverty together. I can only reply that since that day I have neverbeen without money in my pocket, and that I soon acquired the meansof paying what I owed. Nevertheless, more than twelve years had topass over our heads before I received any payment for any literarywork which afforded an appreciable increase to our income. Immediately after our marriage, I left the west of Ireland and thehunting surveyor, and joined another in the south. It was a betterdistrict, and I was enabled to live at Clonmel, a town of someimportance, instead of at Banagher, which is little more than avillage. I had not felt myself to be comfortable in my old residenceas a married man. On my arrival there as a bachelor I had beenreceived most kindly, but when I brought my English wife I fanciedthat there was a feeling that I had behaved badly to Irelandgenerally. When a young man has been received hospitably in anIrish circle, I will not say that it is expected of him that heshould marry some young lady in that society;--but it certainly isexpected of him that he shall not marry any young lady out of it. I had given offence, and I was made to feel it. There has taken place a great change in Ireland since the days inwhich I lived at Banagher, and a change so much for the better, that I have sometimes wondered at the obduracy with which peoplehave spoken of the permanent ill condition of the country. Wagesare now nearly double what they were then. The Post Office, at anyrate, is paying almost double for its rural labour, --9s. A weekwhen it used to pay 5s. , and 12s. A week when it used to pay 7s. Banks have sprung up in almost every village. Rents are paid withmore than English punctuality. And the religious enmity betweenthe classes, though it is not yet dead, is dying out. Soon after Ireached Banagher in 1841, I dined one evening with a Roman Catholic. I was informed next day by a Protestant gentleman who had beenvery hospitable to me that I must choose my party. I could not sitboth at Protestant and Catholic tables. Such a caution would nowbe impossible in any part of Ireland. Home-rule, no doubt, is anuisance, --and especially a nuisance because the professors of thedoctrine do not at all believe it themselves. There are probablyno other twenty men in England or Ireland who would be so utterlydumfounded and prostrated were Home-rule to have its way as thetwenty Irish members who profess to support it in the House ofCommons. But it is not to be expected that nuisances such as theseshould be abolished at a blow. Home-rule is, at any rate, betterand more easily managed than the rebellion at the close of thelast century; it is better than the treachery of the Union; lesstroublesome than O'Connell's monster meetings; less dangerous thanSmith O'Brien and the battle of the cabbage-garden at Ballingary, and very much less bloody than Fenianism. The descent from O'Connellto Mr. Butt has been the natural declension of a political disease, which we had no right to hope would be cured by any one remedy. When I had been married a year my first novel was finished. InJuly, 1845, I took it with me to the north of England, and intrustedthe MS. To my mother to do with it the best she could among thepublishers in London. No one had read it but my wife; nor, as faras I am aware, has any other friend of mine ever read a word ofmy writing before it was printed. She, I think, has so read almosteverything, to my very great advantage in matters of taste. I am sureI have never asked a friend to read a line; nor have I ever read aword of my own writing aloud, --even to her. With one exception, --whichshall be mentioned as I come to it, --I have never consulted a friendas to a plot, or spoken to any one of the work I have been doing. My first manuscript I gave up to my mother, agreeing with her thatit would be as well that she should not look at it before she gaveit to a publisher. I knew that she did not give me credit for thesort of cleverness necessary for such work. I could see in thefaces and hear in the voices of those of my friends who were aroundme at the house in Cumberland, --my mother, my sister, my brother-in-law, and, I think, my brother, --that they had not expected me to comeout as one of the family authors. There were three or four in thefield before me, and it seemed to be almost absurd that anothershould wish to add himself to the number. My father had writtenmuch, --those long ecclesiastical descriptions, --quite unsuccessfully. My mother had become one of the popular authors of the day. Mybrother had commenced, and had been fairly well paid for his work. My sister, Mrs. Tilley, had also written a novel, which was at thetime in manuscript--which was published afterwards without her name, and was called Chollerton. I could perceive that this attempt ofmine was felt to be an unfortunate aggravation of the disease. My mother, however, did the best she could for me, and soon reportedthat Mr. Newby, of Mortimer Street, was to publish the book. Itwas to be printed at his expense, and he was to give me half theprofits. Half the profits! Many a young author expects much from suchan undertaking. I can, with truth, declare that I expected nothing. And I got nothing. Nor did I expect fame, or even acknowledgment. I was sure that the book would fail, and it did fail most absolutely. I never heard of a person reading it in those days. If there wasany notice taken of it by any critic of the day, I did not see it. I never asked any questions about it, or wrote a single letter onthe subject to the publisher. I have Mr. Newby's agreement with me, in duplicate, and one or two preliminary notes; but beyond that Idid not have a word from Mr. Newby. I am sure that he did not wrongme in that he paid me nothing. It is probable that he did not sellfifty copies of the work;--but of what he did sell he gave me noaccount. I do not remember that I felt in any way disappointed or hurt. Iam quite sure that no word of complaint passed my lips. I think Imay say that after the publication I never said a word about thebook, even to my wife. The fact that I had written and publishedit, and that I was writing another, did not in the least interferewith my life, or with my determination to make the best I could ofthe Post Office. In Ireland, I think that no one knew that I hadwritten a novel. But I went on writing. The Macdermots was publishedin 1847, and The Kellys and the O'Kellys followed in 1848. Ichanged my publisher, but did not change my fortune. This secondIrish story was sent into the world by Mr. Colburn, who hadlong been my mother's publisher, who reigned in Great MarlboroughStreet, and I believe created the business which is now carried onby Messrs. Hurst & Blackett. He had previously been in partnershipwith Mr. Bentley in New Burlington Street. I made the same agreementas before as to half profits, and with precisely the same results. The book was not only not read, but was never heard of, --at anyrate, in Ireland. And yet it is a good Irish story, much inferiorto The Macdermots as to plot, but superior in the mode of telling. Again I held my tongue, and not only said nothing but felt nothing. Any success would, I think, have carried me off my legs, but I wasaltogether prepared for failure. Though I thoroughly enjoyed thewriting of these books, I did not imagine, when the time came forpublishing them, that any one would condescend to read them. But in reference to The O'Kellys there arose a circumstance whichset my mind to work on a subject which has exercised it much eversince. I made my first acquaintance with criticism. A dear friendof mine to whom the book had been sent, --as have all my books, --wroteme word to Ireland that he had been dining at some club with a manhigh in authority among the gods of the Times newspaper, and thatthis special god had almost promised that The O'Kellys should benoticed in that most influential of "organs. " The information movedme very much; but it set me thinking whether the notice, should itever appear, would not have been more valuable, at any rate, morehonest, if it had been produced by other means;--if, for instance, the writer of the notice had been instigated by the merits or demeritsof the book instead of by the friendship of a friend. And I madeup my mind then that, should I continue this trade of authorship, I would have no dealings with any critic on my own behalf. I wouldneither ask for nor deplore criticism, nor would I ever thank acritic for praise, or quarrel with him, even in my own heart, forcensure. To this rule I have adhered with absolute strictness, andthis rule I would recommend to all young authors. What can be gotby touting among the critics is never worth the ignominy. The samemay, of course, be said of all things acquired by ignominious means. But in this matter it is so easy to fall into the dirt. Facilisdescensus Averni. There seems to be but little fault in suggestingto a friend that a few words in this or that journal would be ofservice. But any praise so obtained must be an injustice to thepublic, for whose instruction, and not for the sustentation of theauthor, such notices are intended. And from such mild suggestionthe descent to crawling at the critic's feet, to the sending ofpresents, and at last to a mutual understanding between criticsand criticised, is only too easy. Other evils follow, for thedenouncing of which this is hardly the place;--though I trust Imay find such place before my work is finished. I took no noticeof my friend's letter, but I was not the less careful in watchingThe Times. At last the review came, --a real review in The Times. Ilearned it by heart, and can now give, if not the words, the exactpurport. "Of The Kellys and the O'Kellys we may say what the mastersaid to his footman, when the man complained of the constant supplyof legs of mutton on the kitchen table. Well, John, legs of muttonare good, substantial food;' and we may say also what John replied:'Substantial, sir, --yes, they are substantial, but a little coarse. '"That was the review, and even that did not sell the book! From Mr. Colburn I did receive an account, showing that 375 copiesof the book had been printed, that 140 had been sold, --to those, I presume, who liked substantial food though it was coarse, --andthat he had incurred a loss of œ63 19S. 1 1/2d. The truth of theaccount I never for a moment doubted; nor did I doubt the wisdomof the advice given to me in the following letter, though I neverthought of obeying it-- "GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET, November 11, 1848. "MY DEAR SIR, --I am sorry to say that absence from town and othercircumstances have prevented me from earlier inquiring into theresults of the sale of The Kellys and the O'Kellys, with which thegreatest efforts have been used, but in vain. The sale has been, I regret to say, so small that the loss upon the publication isvery considerable; and it appears clear to me that, although inconsequence of the great number of novels that are published, thesale of each, with some few exceptions, must be small, yet it isevident that readers do not like novels on Irish subjects as wellas on others. Thus, you will perceive, it is impossible for me togive any encouragement to you to proceed in novel-writing. "As, however, I understand you have nearly finished the novel La Vendee, perhaps you will favour me with a sight of it when convenient. --Iremain, etc. , etc. , "H. COLBURN. " This, though not strictly logical, was a rational letter, tellinga plain truth plainly. I did not like the assurance that "thegreatest efforts had been used, " thinking that any efforts whichmight be made for the popularity of a book ought to have come fromthe author;--but I took in good part Mr. Colburn's assurance thathe could not encourage me in the career I had commenced. I wouldhave bet twenty to one against my own success. But by continuingI could lose only pen and paper; and if the one chance in twentydid turn up in my favour, then how much might I win! CHAPTER V MY FIRST SUCCESS 1849-1855 I had at once gone to work on a third novel, and had nearlycompleted it, when I was informed of the absolute failure of theformer. I find, however, that the agreement for its publication wasnot made till 1850, by which time I imagine that Mr. Colburn musthave forgotten the disastrous result of The O'Kellys, as he therebyagrees to give me œ20 down for my "new historical novel, to becalled La Vendee. " He agreed also to pay me œ30 more when he hadsold 350 copies, and œ50 more should he sell 450 within six months. Igot my œ20, and then heard no more of œa Vendee, not even receivingany account. Perhaps the historical title had appeared more alluringto him than an Irish subject; though it was not long afterwards thatI received a warning from the very same house of business againsthistorical novels, --as I will tell at length when the proper timecomes. I have no doubt that the result of the sale of this story wasno better than that of the two that had gone before. I asked noquestions, however, and to this day have received no information. The story is certainly inferior to those which had gone before;--chieflybecause I knew accurately the life of the people in Ireland, andknew, in truth, nothing of life in the La Vendee country, and alsobecause the facts of the present time came more within the limitsof my powers of story-telling than those of past years. But I readthe book the other day, and am not ashamed of it. The conceptionas to the feeling of the people is, I think, true; the charactersare distinct, and the tale is not dull. As far as I can remember, this morsel of criticism is the only one that was ever written onthe book. I had, however, received œ20. Alas! alas! years were to roll bybefore I should earn by my pen another shilling. And, indeed, Iwas well aware that I had not earned that; but that the money hadbeen "talked out of" the worthy publisher by the earnestness ofmy brother, who made the bargain for me. I have known very muchof publishers and have been surprised by much in their mode ofbusiness, --by the apparent lavishness and by the apparent hardnessto authors in the same men, --but by nothing so much as by the easewith which they can occasionally be persuaded to throw away smallsums of money. If you will only make the payment future instead ofpresent, you may generally twist a few pounds in your own or yourclient's favour. "You might as well promise her œ20. This day sixmonths will do very well. " The publisher, though he knows that themoney will never come back to him, thinks it worth his while torid himself of your importunity at so cheap a price. But while I was writing La Vendee I made a literary attempt inanother direction. In 1847 and 1848 there had come upon Irelandthe desolation and destruction, first of the famine, and then ofthe pestilence which succeeded the famine. It was my duty at thattime to be travelling constantly in those parts of Ireland in whichthe misery and troubles thence arising were, perhaps, at theirworst. The western parts of Cork, Kerry, and Clare were pre-eminentlyunfortunate. The efforts, --I may say, the successful efforts, --madeby the Government to stay the hands of death will still be in theremembrance of many:--how Sir Robert Peel was instigated to repeal theCorn Laws; and how, subsequently, Lord John Russell took measuresfor employing the people, and supplying the country with Indiancorn. The expediency of these latter measures was questioned bymany. The people themselves wished, of course, to be fed withoutworking; and the gentry, who were mainly responsible for the rates, were disposed to think that the management of affairs was takentoo much out of their own hands. My mind at the time was busy withthe matter, and, thinking that the Government was right, I wasinclined to defend them as far as my small powers went. S. G. O. (Lord Sydney Godolphin Osborne) was at that time denouncing theIrish scheme of the Administration in the Times, using very stronglanguage, --as those who remember his style will know. I fanciedthen, --as I still think, --that I understood the country much betterthan he did; and I was anxious to show that the steps taken formitigating the terrible evil of the times were the best which theMinister of the day could have adopted. In 1848 I was in London, and, full of my purpose, I presented myself to Mr. John Forster, --whohas since been an intimate and valued friend, --but who was at thattime the editor of the Examiner. I think that that portion of theliterary world which understands the fabrication of newspaperswill admit that neither before his time, nor since, has there beena more capable editor of a weekly newspaper. As a literary man, hewas not without his faults. That which the cabman is reported tohave said of him before the magistrate is quite true. He was always"an arbitrary cove. " As a critic, he belonged to the school ofBentley and Gifford, --who would always bray in a literary mortarall critics who disagreed from them, as though such disagreementwere a personal offence requiring personal castigation. But thatvery eagerness made him a good editor. Into whatever he did he puthis very heart and soul. During his time the Examiner was almostall that a Liberal weekly paper should be. So to John Forster Iwent, and was shown into that room in Lincoln's Inn Fields in which, some three or four years earlier, Dickens had given that reading ofwhich there is an illustration with portraits in the second volumeof his life. At this time I knew no literary men. A few I had met when livingwith my mother, but that had been now so long ago that all suchacquaintance had died out. I knew who they were as far as a mancould get such knowledge from the papers of the day, and felt myselfas in part belonging to the guild, through my mother, and in somedegree by my own unsuccessful efforts. But it was not probable thatany one would admit my claim;--nor on this occasion did I make anyclaim. I stated my name and official position, and the fact thatopportunities had been given me of seeing the poorhouses in Ireland, and of making myself acquainted with the circumstances of thetime. Would a series of letters on the subject be accepted by theExaminer? The great man, who loomed very large to me, was pleasedto say that if the letters should recommend themselves by theirstyle and matter, if they were not too long, and if, --every readerwill know how on such occasions an editor will guard himself, --ifthis and if that, they should be favourably entertained. They werefavourably entertained, --if printing and publication be favourableentertainment. But I heard no more of them. The world in Irelanddid not declare that the Government had at last been adequatelydefended, nor did the treasurer of the Examiner send me a chequein return. Whether there ought to have been a cheque I do not even yet know. A man who writes a single letter to a newspaper, of course, is notpaid for it, --nor for any number of letters on some point personalto himself. I have since written sets of letters to newspapers, andhave been paid for them; but then I have bargained for a price. Onthis occasion I had hopes; but they never ran high, and I was notmuch disappointed. I have no copy now of those letters, and couldnot refer to them without much trouble; nor do I remember what Isaid. But I know that I did my best in writing them. When my historical novel failed, as completely as had its predecessors, the two Irish novels, I began to ask myself whether, after all, that was my proper line. I had never thought of questioning thejustice of the verdict expressed against me. The idea that I wasthe unfortunate owner of unappreciated genius never troubled me. Idid not look at the books after they were published, feeling surethat they had been, as it were, damned with good reason. But stillI was clear in my mind that I would not lay down my pen. Then andtherefore I determined to change my hand, and to attempt a play. I did attempt the play, and in 1850 I wrote a comedy, partly inblank verse, and partly in prose, called The Noble Jilt. The plotI afterwards used in a novel called Can You Forgive Her? I believethat I did give the best of my intellect to the play, and I mustown that when it was completed it pleased me much. I copied it, and re-copied it, touching it here and touching it there, and thensent it to my very old friend, George Bartley, the actor, who hadwhen I was in London been stage-manager of one of the great theatres, and who would, I thought, for my own sake and for my mother's, giveme the full benefit of his professional experience. I have now before me the letter which he wrote to me, --a letterwhich I have read a score of times. It was altogether condemnatory. "When I commenced, " he said, "I had great hopes of your production. I did not think it opened dramatically, but that might have beenremedied. " I knew then that it was all over. But, as my old friendwarmed to the subject, the criticism became stronger and stronger, till my ears tingled. At last came the fatal blow. "As to thecharacter of your heroine, I felt at a loss how to describe it, but you have done it for me in the last speech of Madame Brudo. "Madame Brudo was the heroine's aunt. "'Margaret, my child, neverplay the jilt again; 'tis a most unbecoming character. Play itwith what skill you will, it meets but little sympathy. ' And this, be assured, would be its effect upon an audience. So that I mustreluctantly add that, had I been still a manager, The Noble Jiltis not a play I could have recommended for production. " This was ablow that I did feel. The neglect of a book is a disagreeable factwhich grows upon an author by degrees. There is no special momentof agony, --no stunning violence of condemnation. But a piece ofcriticism such as this, from a friend, and from a man undoubtedlycapable of forming an opinion, was a blow in the face! But Iaccepted the judgment loyally, and said not a word on the subjectto any one. I merely showed the letter to my wife, declaring myconviction, that it must be taken as gospel. And as critical gospelit has since been accepted. In later days I have more than onceread the play, and I know that he was right. The dialogue, however, I think to be good, and I doubt whether some of the scenes be notthe brightest and best work I ever did. Just at this time another literary project loomed before my eyes, and for six or eight months had considerable size. I was introducedto Mr. John Murray, and proposed to him to write a handbook forIreland. I explained to him that I knew the country better thanmost other people, perhaps better than any other person, and coulddo it well. He asked me to make a trial of my skill, and to sendhim a certain number of pages, undertaking to give me an answerwithin a fortnight after he should have received my work. I cameback to Ireland, and for some weeks I laboured very hard. I "did"the city of Dublin, and the county of Kerry, in which lies thelake scenery of Killarney, and I "did" the route from Dublin toKillarney, altogether completing nearly a quarter of the proposedvolume. The roll of MS. Was sent to Albemarle Street, --but was neveropened. At the expiration of nine months from the date on which itreached that time-honoured spot it was returned without a word, inanswer to a very angry letter from myself. I insisted on havingback my property, --and got it. I need hardly say that my propertyhas never been of the slightest use to me. In all honesty I thinkthat had he been less dilatory, John Murray would have got a verygood Irish Guide at a cheap rate. Early in 1851 I was sent upon a job of special official work, whichfor two years so completely absorbed my time that I was able towrite nothing. A plan was formed for extending the rural deliveryof letters, and for adjusting the work, which up to that time hadbeen done in a very irregular manner. A country letter-carrierwould be sent in one direction in which there were but few lettersto be delivered, the arrangement having originated probably atthe request of some influential person, while in another directionthere was no letter-carrier because no influential person had exertedhimself. It was intended to set this right throughout England, Ireland, and Scotland; and I quickly did the work in the Irishdistrict to which I was attached. I was then invited to do the samein a portion of England, and I spent two of the happiest years ofmy life at the task. I began in Devonshire; and visited, I thinkI may say, every nook in that county, in Cornwall, Somersetshire, the greater part of Dorsetshire, the Channel Islands, part ofOxfordshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, and the six southern Welsh counties. In this way Ihad an opportunity of seeing a considerable portion of Great Britain, with a minuteness which few have enjoyed. And I did my businessafter a fashion in which no other official man has worked atleast for many years. I went almost everywhere on horseback. I hadtwo hunters of my own, and here and there, where I could, I hireda third horse. I had an Irish groom with me, --an old man, who hasnow been in my service for thirty-five years; and in this manner Isaw almost every house--I think I may say every house of importance--inthis large district. The object was to create a postal networkwhich should catch all recipients of letters. In France it was, andI suppose still is, the practice to deliver every letter. Whereverthe man may live to whom a letter is addressed, it is the duty ofsome letter-carrier to take that letter to his house, sooner orlater. But this, of course, must be done slowly. With us a deliverymuch delayed was thought to be worse than none at all. In some placeswe did establish posts three times a week, and perhaps occasionallytwice a week; but such halting arrangements were considered tobe objectionable, and we were bound down by a salutary law as toexpense, which came from our masters at the Treasury. We were notallowed to establish any messenger's walk on which a sufficientnumber of letters would not be delivered to pay the man's wages, counted at a halfpenny a letter. But then the counting was in ourown hands, and an enterprising official might be sanguine in hisfigures. I think I was sanguine. I did not prepare false accounts;but I fear that the postmasters and clerks who absolutely had thecountry to do became aware that I was anxious for good results. It is amusing to watch how a passion will grow upon a man. Duringthose two years it was the ambition of my life to cover the countrywith rural letter-carriers. I do not remember that in any case arural post proposed by me was negatived by the authorities; but Ifear that some of them broke down afterwards as being too poor, orbecause, in my anxiety to include this house and that, I had sentthe men too far afield. Our law was that a man should not be requiredto walk more than sixteen miles a day. Had the work to be done beenall on a measured road, there would have been no need for doubt asto the distances. But my letter-carriers went here and there acrossthe fields. It was my special delight to take them by all shortcuts; and as I measured on horseback the short cuts which they wouldhave to make on foot, perhaps I was sometimes a little unjust tothem. All this I did on horseback, riding on an average forty miles aday. I was paid sixpence a mile for the distance travelled, and itwas necessary that I should at any rate travel enough to pay formy equipage. This I did, and got my hunting out of it also. I haveoften surprised some small country postmaster, who had never seenor heard of me before, by coming down upon him at nine in themorning, with a red coat and boots and breeches, and interrogatinghim as to the disposal of every letter which came into his office. And in the same guise I would ride up to farmhouses, or parsonages, or other lone residences about the country, and ask the people howthey got their letters, at what hour, and especially whether theywere delivered free or at a certain charge. For a habit had creptinto use, which came to be, in my eyes, at that time, the one sinfor which there was no pardon, in accordance with which these ruralletter-carriers used to charge a penny a letter, alleging that thehouse was out of their beat, and that they must be paid for theirextra work. I think that I did stamp out that evil. In all thesevisits I was, in truth, a beneficent angel to the public, bringingeverywhere with me an earlier, cheaper, and much more regular deliveryof letters. But not unfrequently the angelic nature of my missionwas imperfectly understood. I was perhaps a little in a hurry toget on, and did not allow as much time as was necessary to explainto the wondering mistress of the house, or to an open-mouthed farmer, why it was that a man arrayed for hunting asked so many questionswhich might be considered impertinent, as applying to his or herprivate affairs. "Good-morning, sir. I have just called to ask afew questions. I am a surveyor of the Post Office. How do you getyour letters? As I am a little in a hurry, perhaps you can explainat once. " Then I would take out my pencil and notebook, and waitfor information. And in fact there was no other way in which thetruth could be ascertained. Unless I came down suddenly as a summer'sstorm upon them, the very people who were robbed by our messengerswould not confess the robbery, fearing the ill-will of the men. Itwas necessary to startle them into the revelations which I requiredthem to make for their own good. And I did startle them. I becamethoroughly used to it, and soon lost my native bashfulness;--butsometimes my visits astonished the retiring inhabitants of countryhouses. I did, however, do my work, and can look back upon what Idid with thorough satisfaction. I was altogether in earnest; andI believe that many a farmer now has his letters brought daily tohis house free of charge, who but for me would still have had tosend to the post-town for them twice a week, or to have paid a manfor bringing them irregularly to his door. This work took up my time so completely, and entailed upon me sogreat an amount of writing, that I was in fact unable to do anyliterary work. From day to day I thought of it, still purportingto make another effort, and often turning over in my head somefragment of a plot which had occurred to me. But the day did notcome in which I could sit down with my pen and paper and beginanother novel. For, after all, what could it be but a novel? Theplay had failed more absolutely than the novels, for the novelshad attained the honour of print. The cause of this pressure ofofficial work lay, not in the demands of the General Post Office, which more than once expressed itself as astonished by my celerity, but in the necessity which was incumbent on me to travel milesenough to pay for my horses, and upon the amount of correspondence, returns, figures, and reports which such an amount of daily travellingbrought with it. I may boast that the work was done very quicklyand very thoroughly, --with no fault but an over-eagerness to extendpostal arrangements far and wide. In the course of the job I visited Salisbury, and whilst wanderingthere one mid-summer evening round the purlieus of the cathedral Iconceived the story of The Warden, --from whence came that series ofnovels of which Barchester, with its bishops, deans, and archdeacon, was the central site. I may as well declare at once that no oneat their commencement could have had less reason than myself topresume himself to be able to write about clergymen. I have beenoften asked in what period of my early life I had lived so longin a cathedral city as to have become intimate with the ways of aClose. I never lived in any cathedral city, --except London, neverknew anything of any Close, and at that time had enjoyed no peculiarintimacy with any clergyman. My archdeacon, who has been said to belife-like, and for whom I confess that I have all a parent's fondaffection, was, I think, the simple result of an effort of my moralconsciousness. It was such as that, in my opinion, that an archdeaconshould be, --or, at any rate, would be with such advantages asan archdeacon might have; and lo! an archdeacon was produced, whohas been declared by competent authorities to be a real archdeacondown to the very ground. And yet, as far as I can remember, I hadnot then even spoken to an archdeacon. I have felt the complimentto be very great. The archdeacon came whole from my brain afterthis fashion;--but in writing about clergymen generally, I had topick up as I went whatever I might know or pretend to know aboutthem. But my first idea had no reference to clergymen in general. I had been struck by two opposite evils, --or what seemed to me tobe evils, --and with an absence of all art-judgment in such matters, Ithought that I might be able to expose them, or rather to describethem, both in one and the same tale. The first evil was thepossession by the Church of certain funds and endowments which hadbeen intended for charitable purposes, but which had been allowedto become incomes for idle Church dignitaries. There had been morethan one such case brought to public notice at the time, in whichthere seemed to have been an egregious malversation of charitablepurposes. The second evil was its very opposite. Though I had beenmuch struck by the injustice above described, I had also oftenbeen angered by the undeserved severity of the newspapers towardsthe recipients of such incomes, who could hardly be consideredto be the chief sinners in the matter. When a man is appointed toa place, it is natural that he should accept the income allottedto that place without much inquiry. It is seldom that he will bethe first to find out that his services are overpaid. Though he becalled upon only to look beautiful and to be dignified upon Stateoccasions, he will think œ2000 a year little enough for such beautyand dignity as he brings to the task. I felt that there had beensome tearing to pieces which might have been spared. But I wasaltogether wrong in supposing that the two things could be combined. Any writer in advocating a cause must do so after the fashion ofan advocate, --or his writing will be ineffective. He should take upone side and cling to that, and then he may be powerful. There shouldbe no scruples of conscience. Such scruples make a man impotent forsuch work. It was open to me to have described a bloated parson, with a red nose and all other iniquities, openly neglecting everyduty required from him, and living riotously on funds purloinedfrom the poor, --defying as he did do so the moderate remonstrancesof a virtuous press. Or I might have painted a man as good, as sweet, and as mild as my warden, who should also have been a hard-working, ill-paid minister of God's word, and might have subjected him to therancorous venom of some daily Jupiter, who, without a leg to standon, without any true case, might have been induced, by personalspite, to tear to rags the poor clergyman with poisonous, anonymous, and ferocious leading articles. But neither of these programmesrecommended itself to my honesty. Satire, though it may exaggeratethe vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order thatit may be lashed. Caricature may too easily become a slander, andsatire a libel. I believed in the existence neither of the red-nosedclerical cormorant, nor in that of the venomous assassin of thejournals. I did believe that through want of care and the naturaltendency of every class to take care of itself, money had slippedinto the pockets of certain clergymen which should have goneelsewhere; and I believed also that through the equally naturalpropensity of men to be as strong as they know how to be, certainwriters of the press had allowed themselves to use language whichwas cruel, though it was in a good cause. But the two objectsshould not have been combined--and I now know myself well enoughto be aware that I was not the man to have carried out either ofthem. Nevertheless I thought much about it, and on the 29th of July, 1853, --having been then two years without having made any literaryeffort, --I began The Warden, at Tenbury in Worcestershire. It wasthen more than twelve months since I had stood for an hour on thelittle bridge in Salisbury, and had made out to my own satisfactionthe spot on which Hiram's hospital should stand. Certainly no workthat I ever did took up so much of my thoughts. On this occasionI did no more than write the first chapter, even if so much. I haddetermined that my official work should be moderated, so as to allowme some time for writing; but then, just at this time, I was sentto take the postal charge of the northern counties in Ireland, --ofUlster, and the counties Meath and Louth. Hitherto in officiallanguage I had been a surveyor's clerk, --now I was to be a surveyor. The difference consisted mainly in an increase of income from aboutœ450 to about œ800;--for at that time the sum netted still dependedon the number of miles travelled. Of course that English workto which I had become so warmly wedded had to be abandoned. Otherparts of England were being done by other men, and I had nearlyfinished the area which had been entrusted to me. I should haveliked to ride over the whole country, and to have sent a ruralpost letter-carrier to every parish, every village, every hamlet, and every grange in England. We were at this time very much unsettled as regards any residence. While we were living at Clonmel two sons had been born, who certainlywere important enough to have been mentioned sooner. At Clonmel wehad lived in lodgings, and from there had moved to Mallow, a townin the county Cork, where we had taken a house. Mallow was in thecentre of a hunting country, and had been very pleasant to me. Butour house there had been given up when it was known that I shouldbe detained in England; and then we had wandered about in the westerncounties, moving our headquarters from one town to another. Duringthis time we had lived at Exeter, at Bristol, at Caermarthen, at Cheltenham, and at Worcester. Now we again moved, and settledourselves for eighteen months at Belfast. After that we took ahouse at Donnybrook, the well-known suburb of Dublin. The work of taking up a new district, which requires not only thatthe man doing it should know the nature of the postal arrangements, but also the characters and the peculiarities of the postmastersand their clerks, was too heavy to allow of my going on with mybook at once. It was not till the end of 1852 that I recommenced it, and it was in the autumn of 1853 that I finished the work. It wasonly one small volume, and in later days would have been completedin six weeks, --or in two months at the longest, if other work hadpressed. On looking at the title-page, I find it was not publishedtill 1855. I had made acquaintance, through my friend John Merivale, with William Longman the publisher, and had received from him anassurance that the manuscript should be "looked at. " It was "lookedat, " and Messrs. Longman made me an offer to publish it at halfprofits. I had no reason to love "half profits, " but I was veryanxious to have my book published, and I acceded. It was now morethan ten years since I had commenced writing The Macdermots, andI thought that if any success was to be achieved, the time surelyhad come. I had not been impatient; but, if there was to be a time, surely it had come. The novel-reading world did not go mad about The Warden; but I soonfelt that it had not failed as the others had failed. There werenotices of it in the press, and I could discover that people aroundme knew that I had written a book. Mr. Longman was complimentary, and after a while informed me that there would be profits to divide. At the end of 1855 I received a cheque for œ9 8s. 8d. , which wasthe first money I had ever earned by literary work;--that œ20 whichpoor Mr. Colburn had been made to pay certainly never having beenearned at all. At the end of 1856 I received another sum of œ1015s. 1d. The pecuniary success was not great. Indeed, as regardedremuneration for the time, stone-breaking would have done better. A thousand copies were printed, of which, after a lapse of five orsix years, about 300 had to be converted into another form, and soldas belonging to a cheap edition. In its original form The Wardennever reached the essential honour of a second edition. I have already said of the work that it failed altogether inthe purport for which it was intended. But it has a merit of itsown, --a merit by my own perception of which I was enabled to seewherein lay whatever strength I did possess. The characters of thebishop, of the archdeacon, of the archdeacon's wife, and especiallyof the warden, are all well and clearly drawn. I had realised tomyself a series of portraits, and had been able so to put them onthe canvas that my readers should see that which I meant them tosee. There is no gift which an author can have more useful to himthan this. And the style of the English was good, though from mostunpardonable carelessness the grammar was not unfrequently faulty. With such results I had no doubt but that I would at once beginanother novel. I will here say one word as a long-deferred answer to an item ofcriticism which appeared in the Times newspaper as to The Warden. In an article-if I remember rightly--on The Warden and BarchesterTowers combined--which I would call good-natured, but that I takeit for granted that the critics of the Times are actuated by highermotives than good-nature, that little book and its sequel are spokenof in terms which were very pleasant to the author. But there wasadded to this a gentle word of rebuke at the morbid condition of theauthor's mind which had prompted him to indulge in personalities, --thepersonalities in question having reference to some editor or managerof the Times newspaper. For I had introduced one Tom Towers as beingpotent among the contributors to the Jupiter, under which name Icertainly did allude to the Times. But at that time, living away inIreland, I had not even heard the name of any gentleman connectedwith the Times newspaper, and could not have intended to representany individual by Tom Towers. As I had created an archdeacon, so hadI created a journalist, and the one creation was no more personalor indicative of morbid tendencies than the other. If Tom Towerswas at all like any gentleman connected with the Times, my moralconsciousness must again have been very powerful. CHAPTER VI "BARCHESTER TOWERS" AND THE "THREE CLERKS" 1855-1858 It was, I think, before I started on my English tours among therural posts that I made my first attempt at writing for a magazine. I had read, soon after they came out, the two first volumes ofCharles Menvale's History of the Romans under the Empire, and hadgot into some correspondence with the author's brother as to theauthor's views about Caesar. Hence arose in my mind a tendency toinvestigate the character of probably the greatest man who everlived, which tendency in after years produced a little book ofwhich I shall have to speak when its time comes, --and also a tastegenerally for Latin literature, which has been one of the chiefdelights of my later life. And I may say that I became at this timeas anxious about Caesar, and as desirous of reaching the truth asto his character, as we have all been in regard to Bismarck in theselatter days. I lived in Caesar, and debated with myself constantlywhether he crossed the Rubicon as a tyrant or as a patriot. Inorder that I might review Mr. Merivale's book without feeling thatI was dealing unwarrantably with a subject beyond me, I studied theCommentaries thoroughly, and went through a mass of other readingwhich the object of a magazine article hardly justified, --but whichhas thoroughly justified itself in the subsequent pursuits of mylife. I did write two articles, the first mainly on Julius Caesar, and the second on Augustus, which appeared in the Dublin UniversityMagazine. They were the result of very much labour, but there camefrom them no pecuniary product. I had been very modest when I sentthem to the editor, as I had been when I called on John Forster, not venturing to suggest the subject of money. After a while I didcall upon the proprietor of the magazine in Dublin, and was toldby him that such articles were generally written to oblige friends, and that articles written to oblige friends were not usually paidfor. The Dean of Ely, as the author of the work in question nowis, was my friend; but I think I was wronged, as I certainly hadno intention of obliging him by my criticism. Afterwards, when Ireturned to Ireland, I wrote other articles for the same magazine, one of which, intended to be very savage in its denunciation, wason an official blue-book just then brought out, preparatory to theintroduction of competitive examinations for the Civil Service. Forthat and some other article, I now forget what, I was paid. Up tothe end of 1857 I had received œ55 for the hard work of ten years. It was while I was engaged on Barchester Towers that I adopted asystem of writing which, for some years afterwards, I found to bevery serviceable to me. My time was greatly occupied in travelling, and the nature of my travelling was now changed. I could notany longer do it on horseback. Railroads afforded me my means ofconveyance, and I found that I passed in railway-carriages verymany hours of my existence. Like others, I used to read, --thoughCarlyle has since told me that a man when travelling should notread, but "sit still and label his thoughts. " But if I intendedto make a profitable business out of my writing, and, at the sametime, to do my best for the Post Office, I must turn these hoursto more account than I could do even by reading. I made for myselftherefore a little tablet, and found after a few days' exercisethat I could write as quickly in a railway-carriage as I could atmy desk. I worked with a pencil, and what I wrote my wife copiedafterwards. In this way was composed the greater part of BarchesterTowers and of the novel which succeeded it, and much also of otherssubsequent to them. My only objection to the practice came fromthe appearance of literary ostentation, to which I felt myself tobe subject when going to work before four or five fellow-passengers. But I got used to it, as I had done to the amazement of the westcountry farmers' wives when asking them after their letters. In the writing of Barchester Towers I took great delight. The bishopand Mrs. Proudie were very real to me, as were also the troublesof the archdeacon and the loves of Mr. Slope. When it was done, Mr. W. Longman required that it should be subjected to his reader;and he returned the MS. To me, with a most laborious and voluminouscriticism, --coming from whom I never knew. This was accompaniedby an offer to print the novel on the half-profit system, with apayment of œ100 in advance out of my half-profits, --on conditionthat I would comply with the suggestions made by his critic. Oneof these suggestions required that I should cut the novel down totwo volumes. In my reply, I went through the criticisms, rejectingone and accepting another, almost alternately, but declaring atlast that no consideration should induce me to cut out a third ofmy work. I am at a loss to know how such a task could have beenperformed. I could burn the MS. , no doubt, and write another bookon the same story; but how two words out of six are to be withdrawnfrom a written novel, I cannot conceive. I believe such tasks havebeen attempted--perhaps performed; but I refused to make even theattempt. Mr. Longman was too gracious to insist on his critic'sterms; and the book was published, certainly none the worse, andI do not think much the better, for the care that had been takenwith it. The work succeeded just as The Warden had succeeded. It achievedno great reputation, but it was one of the novels which novelreaders were called upon to read. Perhaps I may be assuming uponmyself more than I have a right to do in saying now that BarchesterTowers has become one of those novels which do not die quite at once, which live and are read for perhaps a quarter of a century; but ifthat be so, its life has been so far prolonged by the vitality ofsome of its younger brothers. Barchester Towers would hardly beso well known as it is had there been no Framley Parsonage and noLast Chronicle of Barset. I received my œ100, in advance, with profound delight. It was apositive and most welcome increase to my income, and might probablybe regarded as a first real step on the road to substantial success. I am well aware that there are many who think that an author in hisauthorship should not regard money, --nor a painter, or sculptor, orcomposer in his art. I do not know that this unnatural sacrificeis supposed to extend itself further. A barrister, a clergyman, adoctor, an engineer, and even actors and architects, may withoutdisgrace follow the bent of human nature, and endeavour to filltheir bellies and clothe their backs, and also those of their wivesand children, as comfortably as they can by the exercise of theirabilities and their crafts. They may be as rationally realistic, as may the butchers and the bakers; but the artist and the authorforget the high glories of their calling if they condescend to makea money return a first object. They who preach this doctrine willbe much offended by my theory, and by this book of mine, if my theoryand my book come beneath their notice. They require the practiceof a so-called virtue which is contrary to nature, and which, inmy eyes, would be no virtue if it were practised. They are likeclergymen who preach sermons against the love of money, but whoknow that the love of money is so distinctive a characteristicof humanity that such sermons are mere platitudes called for bycustomary but unintelligent piety. All material progress has comefrom man's desire to do the best he can for himself and thoseabout him, and civilisation and Christianity itself have been madepossible by such progress. Though we do not all of us argue thismatter out within our breasts, we do all feel it; and we know thatthe more a man earns the more useful he is to his fellow-men. Themost useful lawyers, as a rule, have been those who have made thegreatest incomes, --and it is the same with the doctors. It wouldbe the same in the Church if they who have the choosing of bishopsalways chose the best man. And it has in truth been so too in artand authorship. Did Titian or Rubens disregard their pecuniaryrewards? As far as we know, Shakespeare worked always for money, giving the best of his intellect to support his trade as an actor. In our own century what literary names stand higher than those ofByron, Tennyson, Scott, Dickens, Macaulay, and Carlyle? And I thinkI may say that none of those great men neglected the pecuniary resultof their labours. Now and then a man may arise among us who in anycalling, whether it be in law, in physic, in religious teaching, in art, or literature, may in his professional enthusiasm utterlydisregard money. All will honour his enthusiasm, and if he bewifeless and childless, his disregard of the great object of men'swork will be blameless. But it is a mistake to suppose that a manis a better man because he despises money. Few do so, and those fewin doing so suffer a defeat. Who does not desire to be hospitableto his friends, generous to the poor, liberal to all, munificentto his children, and to be himself free from the casking fear whichpoverty creates? The subject will not stand an argument;--and yetauthors are told that they should disregard payment for their work, and be content to devote their unbought brains to the welfare ofthe public. Brains that are unbought will never serve the publicmuch. Take away from English authors their copyrights, and youwould very soon take away from England her authors. I say this here, because it is my purpose as I go on to state whatto me has been the result of my profession in the ordinary way inwhich professions are regarded, so that by my example may be seenwhat prospect there is that a man devoting himself to literaturewith industry, perseverance, certain necessary aptitudes, and fairaverage talents, may succeed in gaining a livelihood, as another mandoes in another profession. The result with me has been comfortablebut not splendid, as I think was to have been expected from thecombination of such gifts. I have certainly always had also before my eyes the charms ofreputation. Over and above the money view of the question, I wishedfrom the beginning to be something more than a clerk in the PostOffice. To be known as somebody, --to be Anthony Trollope if it beno more, --is to me much. The feeling is a very general one, andI think beneficent. It is that which has been called the "lastinfirmity of noble mind. " The infirmity is so human that the man wholacks it is either above or below humanity. I own to the infirmity. But I confess that my first object in taking to literature as aprofession was that which is common to the barrister when he goesto the Bar, and to the baker when he sets up his oven. I wished tomake an income on which I and those belonging to me might live incomfort. If indeed a man writes his books badly, or paints his picturesbadly, because he can make his money faster in that fashion thanby doing them well, and at the same time proclaims them to be thebest he can do, --if in fact he sells shoddy for broadcloth, --heis dishonest, as is any other fraudulent dealer. So may be thebarrister who takes money that he does not earn, or the clergymanwho is content to live on a sinecure. No doubt the artist or theauthor may have a difficulty which will not occur to the seller ofcloth, in settling within himself what is good work and what isbad, --when labour enough has been given, and when the task has beenscamped. It is a danger as to which he is bound to be severe withhimself--in which he should feel that his conscience should be setfairly in the balance against the natural bias of his interest. Ifhe do not do so, sooner or later his dishonesty will be discovered, and will be estimated accordingly. But in this he is to be governedonly by the plain rules of honesty which should govern us all. Having said so much, I shall not scruple as I go on to attributeto the pecuniary result of my labours all the importance which Ifelt them to have at the time. Barchester Towers, for which I had received œ100 in advance, soldwell enough to bring me further payments--moderate payments--fromthe publishers. From that day up to this very time in which I amwriting, that book and The Warden together have given me almostevery year some small income. I get the accounts very regularly, and I find that I have received œ727 11S. 3d. For the two. It ismore than I got for the three or four works that came afterwards, but the payments have been spread over twenty years. When I went to Mr. Longman with my next novel, The Three Clerks, in my hand, I could not induce him to understand that a lump sumdown was more pleasant than a deferred annuity. I wished him tobuy it from me at a price which he might think to be a fair value, and I argued with him that as soon as an author has put himself intoa position which insures a sufficient sale of his works to give aprofit, the publisher is not entitled to expect the half of suchproceeds. While there is a pecuniary risk, the whole of which mustbe borne by the publisher, such division is fair enough; but sucha demand on the part of the publisher is monstrous as soon as thearticle produced is known to be a marketable commodity. I thoughtthat I had now reached that point, but Mr. Longman did not agree withme. And he endeavoured to convince me that I might lose more thanI gained, even though I should get more money by going elsewhere. "It is for you, " said he, "to think whether our names on yourtitle-page are not worth more to you than the increased payment. "This seemed to me to savour of that high-flown doctrine of thecontempt of money which I have never admired. I did think muchof Messrs. Longman's name, but I liked it best at the bottom of acheque. I was also scared from the august columns of Paternoster Row bya remark made to myself by one of the firm, which seemed to implythat they did not much care for works of fiction. Speaking of afertile writer of tales who was not then dead, he declared that ----(naming the author in question) had spawned upon them (the publishers)three novels a year! Such language is perhaps justifiable in regardto a man who shows so much of the fecundity of the herring; but Idid not know how fruitful might be my own muse, and I thought thatI had better go elsewhere. I had then written The Three Clerks, which, when I could not sellit to Messrs. Longman, I took in the first instance to Messrs. Hurst & Blackett, who had become successors to Mr. Colburn. I hadmade an appointment with one of the firm, which, however, thatgentleman was unable to keep. I was on my way from Ireland to Italy, and had but one day in London in which to dispose of my manuscript. I sat for an hour in Great Marlborough Street, expecting the returnof the peccant publisher who had broken his tryst, and I was aboutto depart with my bundle under my arm when the foreman of thehouse came to me. He seemed to think it a pity that I should go, and wished me to leave my work with him. This, however, I would notdo, unless he would undertake to buy it then and there. Perhaps helacked authority. Perhaps his judgment was against such purchase. But while we debated the matter, he gave me some advice. "I hopeit's not historical, Mr. Trollope?" he said. "Whatever you do, don't be historical; your historical novel is not worth a damn. "Thence I took The Three Clerks to Mr. Bentley; and on the sameafternoon succeeded in selling it to him for œ250. His son stillpossesses it, and the firm has, I believe, done very well with thepurchase. It was certainly the best novel I had as yet written. The plot is not so good as that of the Macdermots; nor are thereany characters in the book equal to those of Mrs. Proudie and theWarden; but the work has a more continued interest, and containsthe first well-described love-scene that I ever wrote. The passagein which Kate Woodward, thinking that she will die, tries to takeleave of the lad she loves, still brings tears to my eyes when Iread it. I had not the heart to kill her. I never could do that. And I do not doubt but that they are living happily together tothis day. The lawyer Chaffanbrass made his first appearance in this novel, and I do not think that I have cause to be ashamed of him. But thisnovel now is chiefly noticeable to me from the fact that in it Iintroduced a character under the name of Sir Gregory Hardlines, bywhich I intended to lean very heavily on that much loathed schemeof competitive examination, of which at that time Sir CharlesTrevelyan was the great apostle. Sir Gregory Hardlines was intendedfor Sir Charles Trevelyan, --as any one at the time would know whohad taken an interest in the Civil Service. "We always call himSir Gregory, " Lady Trevelyan said to me afterwards, when I cameto know her and her husband. I never learned to love competitiveexamination; but I became, and am, very fond of Sir Charles Trevelyan. Sir Stafford Northcote, who is now Chancellor of the Exchequer, was then leagued with his friend Sir Charles, and he too appearsin The Three Clerks under the feebly facetious name of Sir WarwickWest End. But for all that The Three Clerks was a good novel. When that sale was made I was on my way to Italy with my wife, paying a third visit there to my mother and brother. This was in1857, and she had then given up her pen. It was the first year inwhich she had not written, and she expressed to me her delight thather labours should be at an end, and that mine should be beginningin the same field. In truth they had already been continued fora dozen years, but a man's career will generally be held to dateitself from the commencement of his success. On those foreigntours I always encountered adventures, which, as I look back uponthem now, tempt me almost to write a little book of my long pastContinental travels. On this occasion, as we made our way slowlythrough Switzerland and over the Alps, we encountered again andagain a poor forlorn Englishman, who had no friend and no aptitudefor travelling. He was always losing his way, and finding himselfwith no seat in the coaches and no bed at the inns. On one occasionI found him at Coire seated at 5 A. M. In the coupe of a diligencewhich was intended to start at noon for the Engadine, while it washis purpose to go over the Alps in another which was to leave at5. 30, and which was already crowded with passengers. "Ah!" he said, "I am in time now, and nobody shall turn me out of this seat, "alluding to former little misfortunes of which I had been a witness. When I explained to him his position, he was as one to whom lifewas too bitter to be borne. But he made his way into Italy, andencountered me again at the Pitti Palace in Florence. "Can youtell me something?" he said to me in a whisper, having touched myshoulder. "The people are so ill-natured I don't like to ask them. Where is it they keep the Medical Venus?" I sent him to the Uffizzi, but I fear he was disappointed. We ourselves, however, on entering Milan had been in quite as muchdistress as any that he suffered. We had not written for beds, and on driving up to a hotel at ten in the evening found it full. Thence we went from one hotel to another, finding them all full. The misery is one well known to travellers, but I never heard ofanother case in which a man and his wife were told at midnight toget out of the conveyance into the middle of the street because thehorse could not be made to go any further. Such was our condition. I induced the driver, however, to go again to the hotel which wasnearest to him, and which was kept by a German. Then I bribed theporter to get the master to come down to me; and, though my Frenchis ordinarily very defective, I spoke with such eloquence tothat German innkeeper that he, throwing his arms round my neck ina transport of compassion, swore that he would never leave me normy wife till he had put us to bed. And he did so; but, ah! therewere so many in those beds! It is such an experience as this whichteaches a travelling foreigner how different on the Continent isthe accommodation provided for him, from that which is suppliedfor the inhabitants of the country. It was on a previous visit to Milan, when the telegraph-wires wereonly just opened to the public by the Austrian authorities, thatwe had decided one day at dinner that we would go to Verona thatnight. There was a train at six, reaching Verona at midnight, andwe asked some servant of the hotel to telegraph for us, orderingsupper and beds. The demand seemed to create some surprise; butwe persisted, and were only mildly grieved when we found ourselvescharged twenty zwanzigers for the message. Telegraphy was new atMilan, and the prices were intended to be almost prohibitory. Wepaid our twenty zwanzigers and went on, consoling ourselves with thethought of our ready supper and our assured beds. When we reachedVerona, there arose a great cry along the platform for SignorTrollope. I put out my head and declared my identity, when Iwas waited upon by a glorious personage dressed like a beau for aball, with half-a-dozen others almost as glorious behind him, whoinformed me, with his hat in his hand, that he was the landlord ofthe "Due Torre. " It was a heating moment, but it became more hotwhen he asked after my people, --"mes gens. " I could only turn round, and point to my wife and brother-in-law. I had no other "people. "There were three carriages provided for us, each with a pair ofgrey horses. When we reached the house it was all lit up. We werenot allowed to move without an attendant with a lighted candle. Itwas only gradually that the mistake came to be understood. On usthere was still the horror of the bill, the extent of which couldnot be known till the hour of departure had come. The landlord, however, had acknowledged to himself that his inductions had beenill-founded, and he treated us with clemency. He had never beforereceived a telegram. I apologise for these tales, which are certainly outside my purpose, and will endeavour to tell no more that shall not have a closerrelation to my story. I had finished The Three Clerks just beforeI left England, and when in Florence was cudgelling my brain fora new plot. Being then with my brother, I asked him to sketch me aplot, and he drew out that of my next novel, called Doctor Thorne. I mention this particularly, because it was the only occasion inwhich I have had recourse to some other source than my own brainsfor the thread of a story. How far I may unconsciously have adoptedincidents from what I have read, --either from history or from worksof imagination, --I do not know. It is beyond question that a manemployed as I have been must do so. But when doing it I have notbeen aware that I have done it. I have never taken another man'swork, and deliberately framed my work upon it. I am far fromcensuring this practice in others. Our greatest masters in worksof imagination have obtained such aid for themselves. Shakespearedug out of such quarries whenever he could find them. Ben Jonson, with heavier hand, built up his structures on his studies ofthe classics, not thinking it beneath him to give, without directacknowledgment, whole pieces translated both from poets andhistorians. But in those days no such acknowledgment was usual. Plagiary existed, and was very common, but was not known as a sin. It is different now; and I think that an author, when he uses eitherthe words or the plot of another, should own as much, demanding tobe credited with no more of the work than he has himself produced. I may say also that I have never printed as my own a word that hasbeen written by others. [Footnote: I must make one exception tothis declaration. The legal opinion as to heirlooms in The EustaceDiamonds was written for me by Charles Merewether, the presentMember for Northampton. I am told that it has become the rulingauthority on the subject. ] It might probably have been better formy readers had I done so, as I am informed that Doctor Thorne, thenovel of which I am now speaking, has a larger sale than any otherbook of mine. Early in 1858, while I was writing Doctor Thorne, I was asked bythe great men at the General Post Office to go to Egypt to make atreaty with the Pasha for the conveyance of our mails through thatcountry by railway. There was a treaty in existence, but that hadreference to the carriage of bags and boxes by camels from Alexandriato Suez. Since its date the railway had grown, and was now nearlycompleted, and a new treaty was wanted. So I came over from Dublinto London, on my road, and again went to work among the publishers. The other novel was not finished; but I thought I had now progressedfar enough to arrange a sale while the work was still on the stocks. I went to Mr. Bentley and demanded œ400, --for the copyright. Heacceded, but came to me the next morning at the General Post Officeto say that it could not be. He had gone to work at his figuresafter I had left him, and had found that œ300 would be the outsidevalue of the novel. I was intent upon the larger sum; and in furioushaste, --for I had but an hour at my disposal, --I rushed to Chapman& Hall in Piccadilly, and said what I had to say to Mr. EdwardChapman in a quick torrent of words. They were the first of a greatmany words which have since been spoken by me in that back-shop. Looking at me as he might have done at a highway robber who hadstopped him on Hounslow Heath, he said that he supposed he mightas well do as I desired. I considered this to be a sale, and itwas a sale. I remember that he held the poker in his hand all thetime that I was with him;--but in truth, even though he had declinedto buy the book, there would have been no danger. CHAPTER VII "DOCTOR THORNE"--"THE BERTRAMS"--"THE WEST INDIES" AND "THE SPANISHMAIN" As I journeyed across France to Marseilles, and made thence aterribly rough voyage to Alexandria, I wrote my allotted number ofpages every day. On this occasion more than once I left my paperon the cabin table, rushing away to be sick in the privacy of mystate room. It was February, and the weather was miserable; butstill I did my work. Labor omnia vincit improbus. I do not say thatto all men has been given physical strength sufficient for suchexertion as this, but I do believe that real exertion will enablemost men to work at almost any season. I had previously to thisarranged a system of task-work for myself, which I would stronglyrecommend to those who feel as I have felt, that labour, when notmade absolutely obligatory by the circumstances of the hour, shouldnever be allowed to become spasmodic. There was no day on whichit was my positive duty to write for the publishers, as it was myduty to write reports for the Post Office. I was free to be idle ifI pleased. But as I had made up my mind to undertake this secondprofession, I found it to be expedient to bind myself by certainself-imposed laws. When I have commenced a new book, I have alwaysprepared a diary, divided into weeks, and carried it on for theperiod which I have allowed myself for the completion of the work. In this I have entered, day by day, the number of pages I havewritten, so that if at any time I have slipped into idleness fora day or two, the record of that idleness has been there, staringme in the face, and demanding of me increased labour, so that thedeficiency might be supplied. According to the circumstances of thetime, --whether my other business might be then heavy or light, orwhether the book which I was writing was or was not wanted withspeed, --I have allotted myself so many pages a week. The averagenumber has been about 40. It has been placed as low as 20, and hasrisen to 112. And as a page is an ambiguous term, my page has beenmade to contain 250 words; and as words, if not watched, will havea tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I went. Inthe bargains I have made with publishers I have, --not, of course, with their knowledge, but in my own mind, --undertaken always tosupply them with so many words, and I have never put a book outof hand short of the number by a single word. I may also say thatthe excess has been very small. I have prided myself on completingmy work exactly within the proposed dimensions. But I have pridedmyself especially in completing it within the proposed time, --andI have always done so. There has ever been the record before me, and a week passed with an insufficient number of pages has been ablister to my eye, and a month so disgraced would have been a sorrowto my heart. I have been told that such appliances are beneath the notice of aman of genius. I have never fancied myself to be a man of genius, but had I been so I think I might well have subjected myself tothese trammels. Nothing surely is so potent as a law that may notbe disobeyed. It has the force of the water drop that hollows thestone. A small daily task, If it be really daily, will beat thelabours of a spasmodic Hercules. It is the tortoise which alwayscatches the hare. The hare has no chance. He loses more time inglorifying himself for a quick spurt than suffices for the tortoiseto make half his journey. I have known authors whose lives have always been troublesome andpainful because their tasks have never been done in time. Theyhave ever been as boys struggling to learn their lessons as theyentered the school gates. Publishers have distrusted them, and theyhave failed to write their best because they have seldom written atease. I have done double their work--though burdened with anotherprofession, --and have done it almost without an effort. I have notonce, through all my literary career, felt myself even in dangerof being late with my task. I have known no anxiety as to "copy. "The needed pages far ahead--very far ahead--have almost alwaysbeen in the drawer beside me. And that little diary, with its datesand ruled spaces, its record that must be seen, its daily, weeklydemand upon my industry, has done all that for me. There are those who would be ashamed to subject themselves tosuch a taskmaster, and who think that the man who works with hisimagination should allow himself to wait till--inspiration moveshim. When I have heard such doctrine preached, I have hardly beenable to repress my scorn. To me it would not be more absurd if theshoemaker were to wait for inspiration, or the tallow-chandler forthe divine moment of melting. If the man whose business it is towrite has eaten too many good things, or has drunk too much, orsmoked too many cigars, --as men who write sometimes will do, --thenhis condition may be unfavourable for work; but so will be thecondition of a shoemaker who has been similarly imprudent. I havesometimes thought that the inspiration wanted has been the remedywhich time will give to the evil results of such imprudence. --Menssana in corpore sano. The author wants that as does every otherworkman, --that and a habit of industry. I was once told that thesurest aid to the writing of a book was a piece of cobbler's wax onmy chair. I certainly believe in the cobbler's wax much more thanthe inspiration. It will be said, perhaps, that a man whose work has risen to nohigher pitch than mine has attained, has no right to speak of thestrains and impulses to which real genius is exposed. I am readyto admit the great variations in brain power which are exhibited bythe products of different men, and am not disposed to rank my ownvery high; but my own experience tells me that a man can always dothe work for which his brain is fitted if he will give himself thehabit of regarding his work as a normal condition of his life. Itherefore venture to advise young men who look forward to authorshipas the business of their lives, even when they propose that thatauthorship be of the highest class known, to avoid enthusiasticrushes with their pens, and to seat themselves at their desks dayby day as though they were lawyers' clerks;--and so let them situntil the allotted task shall be accomplished. While I was in Egypt, I finished Doctor Thorne, and on the followingday began The Bertrams. I was moved now by a determination to excel, if not in quality, at any rate in quantity. An ignoble ambitionfor an author, my readers will no doubt say. But not, I think, altogether ignoble, if an author can bring himself to look at hiswork as does any other workman. This had become my task, thiswas the furrow in which my plough was set, this was the thing thedoing of which had fallen into my hands, and I was minded to workat it with a will. It is not on my conscience that I have everscamped my work. My novels, whether good or bad, have been as goodas I could make them. Had I taken three months of idleness betweeneach they would have been no better. Feeling convinced of that, Ifinished Doctor Thorne on one day, and began The Bertrams on thenext. I had then been nearly two months in Egypt, and had at lastsucceeded in settling the terms of a postal treaty. Nearly twentyyears have passed since that time, and other years may yet run onbefore these pages are printed. I trust I may commit no officialsin by describing here the nature of the difficulty which met me. I found, on my arrival, that I was to communicate with an officerof the Pasha, who was then called Nubar Bey. I presume him to havebeen the gentleman who has lately dealt with our Government as tothe Suez Canal shares, and who is now well known to the politicalworld as Nubar Pasha. I found him a most courteous gentlemen, anArmenian. I never went to his office, nor do I know that he had anoffice. Every other day he would come to me at my hotel, and bringwith him servants, and pipes, and coffee. I enjoyed his cominggreatly; but there was one point on which we could not agree. Asto money and other details, it seemed as though he could hardlyaccede fast enough to the wishes of the Postmaster-General; buton one point he was firmly opposed to me. I was desirous that themails should be carried through Egypt in twenty-four hours, and hethought that forty-eight hours should be allowed. I was obstinate, and he was obstinate; and for a long time we could come tono agreement. At last his oriental tranquillity seemed to deserthim, and he took upon himself to assure me, with almost more thanBritish energy, that, if I insisted on the quick transit, a terribleresponsibility would rest on my head. I made this mistake, hesaid, --that I supposed that a rate of travelling which would beeasy and secure in England could be attained with safety in Egypt. "The Pasha, his master, would, " he said, "no doubt accede toany terms demanded by the British Post Office, so great was hisreverence for everything British. In that case he, Nubar, would atonce resign his position, and retire into obscurity. He would beruined; but the loss of life and bloodshed which would certainlyfollow so rash an attempt should not be on his head. " I smoked mypipe, or rather his, and drank his coffee, with oriental quiescencebut British firmness. Every now and again, through three or fourvisits, I renewed the expression of my opinion that the transitcould easily be made in twenty-four hours. At last he gave way, --andastonished me by the cordiality of his greeting. There was nolonger any question of bloodshed or of resignation of office, andhe assured me, with energetic complaisance, that it should be hiscare to see that the time was punctually kept. It was punctuallykept, and, I believe, is so still. I must confess, however, that mypersistency was not the result of any courage specially personal tomyself. While the matter was being debated, it had been whisperedto me that the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company hadconceived that forty-eight hours would suit the purposes of theirtraffic better than twenty-four, and that, as they were the greatpaymasters on the railway, the Minister of the Egyptian State, who managed the railway, might probably wish to accommodate them. I often wondered who originated that frightful picture of bloodand desolation. That it came from an English heart and an Englishhand I was always sure. From Egypt I visited the Holy Land, and on my way inspected thePost Offices at Malta and Gibraltar. I could fill a volume withtrue tales of my adventures. The Tales of All Countries have, mostof them, some foundation in such occurrences. There is one calledJohn Bull on the Guadalquivir, the chief incident in which occurredto me and a friend of mine on our way up that river to Seville. Weboth of us handled the gold ornaments of a man whom we believed tobe a bull-fighter, but who turned out to be a duke, --and a duke, too, who could speak English! How gracious he was to us, and yethow thoroughly he covered us with ridicule! On my return home I received œ400 from Messrs. Chapman & Hall forDoctor Thorne, and agreed to sell them The Bertrams for the same sum. This latter novel was written under very vagrant circumstances, --atAlexandria, Malta, Gibraltar, Glasgow, then at sea, and at lastfinished in Jamaica. Of my journey to the West Indies I will saya few words presently, but I may as well speak of these two novelshere. Doctor Thorne has, I believe, been the most popular book thatI have written, --if I may take the sale as a proof of comparativepopularity. The Bertrams has had quite an opposite fortune. I do notknow that I have ever heard it well spoken of even by my friends, and I cannot remember that there is any character in it that hasdwelt in the minds of novel-readers. I myself think that they areof about equal merit, but that neither of them is good. They fallaway very much from The Three Clerks, both in pathos and humour. There is no personage in either of them comparable to Chaffanbrass thelawyer. The plot of Doctor Thorne is good, and I am led thereforeto suppose that a good plot, --which, to my own feeling, is themost insignificant part of a tale, --is that which will most raiseit or most condemn it in the public judgment. The plots of Tom Jonesand of Ivanhoe are almost perfect, and they are probably the mostpopular novels of the schools of the last and of this century; butto me the delicacy of Amelia, and the rugged strength of Burleyand Meg Merrilies, say more for the power of those great noveliststhan the gift of construction shown in the two works I have named. A novel should give a picture of common life enlivened by humourand sweetened by pathos. To make that picture worthy of attention, the canvas should be crowded with real portraits, not of individualsknown to the world or to the author, but of created personagesimpregnated with traits of character which are known. To my thinking, the plot is but the vehicle for all this; and when you have thevehicle without the passengers, a story of mystery in which theagents never spring to life, you have but a wooden show. There must, however, be a story. You must provide a vehicle of some sort. Thatof The Bertrams was more than ordinarily bad; and as the book wasrelieved by no special character, it failed. Its failure neversurprised me; but I have been surprised by the success of DoctorThorne. At this time there was nothing in the success of the one or thefailure of the other to affect me very greatly. The immediate sale, and the notices elicited from the critics, and the feeling whichhad now come to me of a confident standing with the publishers, allmade me know that I had achieved my object. If I wrote a novel, I could certainly sell it. And if I could publish three in twoyears, --confining myself to half the fecundity of that terribleauthor of whom the publisher in Paternoster Row had complained tome, --I might add œ600 a year to my official income. I was stillliving in Ireland, and could keep a good house over my head, insuremy life, educate my two boys, and hunt perhaps twice a week, on œ1400a year. If more should come, it would be well;--but œ600 a year Iwas prepared to reckon as success. It had been slow in coming, butwas very pleasant when it came. On my return from Egypt I was sent down to Scotland to revise theGlasgow Post Office. I almost forget now what it was that I hadto do there, but I know that I walked all over the city with theletter-carriers, going up to the top flats of the houses, as themen would have declared me incompetent to judge the extent of theirlabours had I not trudged every step with them. It was midsummer, and wearier work I never performed. The men would grumble, andthen I would think how it would be with them if they had to go homeafterwards and write a love-scene. But the love-scenes written inGlasgow, all belonging to The Bertrams, are not good. Then in the autumn of that year, 1858, I was asked to go to the WestIndies, and cleanse the Augean stables of our Post Office systemthere. Up to that time, and at that time, our Colonial Post Officesgenerally were managed from home, and were subject to the BritishPostmaster-General. Gentlemen were sent out from England to bepostmasters, surveyors, and what not; and as our West Indian islandshave never been regarded as being of themselves happily situatedfor residence, the gentlemen so sent were sometimes more conspicuousfor want of income than for official zeal and ability. Hence thestables had become Augean. I was also instructed to carry out insome of the islands a plan for giving up this postal authority tothe island Governor, and in others to propose some such plan. Iwas then to go on to Cuba, to make a postal treaty with the Spanishauthorities, and to Panama for the same purpose with the Governmentof New Grenada. All this work I performed to my satisfaction, andI hope to that of my masters in St. Martin's le Grand. But the trip is at the present moment of importance to my subject, as having enabled me to write that which, on the whole, I regardas the best book that has come from my pen. It is short, and, Ithink I may venture to say, amusing, useful, and true. As soon asI had learned from the secretary at the General Post Office thatthis journey would be required, I proposed the book to Messrs. Chapman & Hall, demanding œ250 for a single volume. The contractwas made without any difficulty, and when I returned home the workwas complete in my desk. I began it on board the ship in which Ileft Kingston, Jamaica, for Cuba, --and from week to week I carriedit on as I went. From Cuba I made my way to St. Thomas, and throughthe island down to Demerara, then back to St. Thomas, --which isthe starting-point for all places in that part of the globe, --toSanta Martha, Carthagena, Aspinwall, over the Isthmus to Panama, upthe Pacific to a little harbour on the coast of Costa Rica, thenceacross Central America, through Costa Rica, and down the Nicaraguariver to the Mosquito coast, and after that home by Bermuda and NewYork. Should any one want further details of the voyage, are theynot written in my book? The fact memorable to me now is that Inever made a single note while writing or preparing it. Preparation, indeed, there was none. The descriptions and opinions came hoton to the paper from their causes. I will not say that this is thebest way of writing a book intended to give accurate information. But it is the best way of producing to the eye of the reader, andto his ear, that which the eye of the writer has seen and his earheard. There are two kinds of confidence which a reader may havein his author, --which two kinds the reader who wishes to use hisreading well should carefully discriminate. There is a confidencein facts and a confidence in vision. The one man tells you accuratelywhat has been. The other suggests to you what may, or perhaps whatmust have been, or what ought to have been. The former require simplefaith. The latter calls upon you to judge for yourself, and formyour own conclusions. The former does not intend to be prescient, nor the latter accurate. Research is the weapon used by the former;observation by the latter. Either may be false, --wilfully false; asalso may either be steadfastly true. As to that, the reader mustjudge for himself. But the man who writes currente calamo, whoworks with a rapidity which will not admit of accuracy, may be astrue, and in one sense as trustworthy, as he who bases every wordupon a rock of facts. I have written very much as I have, travelledabout; and though I have been very inaccurate, I have alwayswritten the exact truth as I saw it ;--and I have, I think, drawnmy pictures correctly. The view I took of the relative position in the West Indiesof black men and white men was the view of the Times newspaper atthat period; and there appeared three articles in that journal, oneclosely after another, which made the fortune of the book. Had itbeen very bad, I suppose its fortune could not have been made forit even by the Times newspaper. I afterwards became acquainted withthe writer of those articles, the contributor himself informing methat he had written them. I told him that he had done me a greaterservice than can often be done by one man to another, but that I wasunder no obligation to him. I do not think that he saw the matterquite in the same light. I am aware that by that criticism I was much raised in my positionas an author. Whether such lifting up by such means is good or badfor literature is a question which I hope to discuss in a futurechapter. But the result was immediate to me, for I at once went toChapman & Hall and successfully demanded œ600 for my next novel. CHAPTER VIII THE "CORNHILL MAGAZINE" AND "FRAMLEY PARSONAGE" Soon after my return from the West Indies I was enabled to changemy district in Ireland for one in England. For some time past myofficial work had been of a special nature, taking me out of myown district; but through all that, Dublin had been my home, andthere my wife and children had lived. I had often sighed to returnto England, --with a silly longing. My life in England for twenty-sixyears from the time of my birth to the day on which I left it, hadbeen wretched. I had been poor, friendless, and joyless. In Irelandit had constantly been happy. I had achieved the respect of allwith whom I was concerned, I had made for myself a comfortablehome, and I had enjoyed many pleasures. Hunting itself was a greatdelight to me; and now, as I contemplated a move to England, and ahouse in the neighbourhood of London, I felt that hunting must beabandoned. [Footnote: It was not abandoned till sixteen more yearshad passed away. ] Nevertheless I thought that a man who couldwrite books ought not to live in Ireland, --ought to live withinthe reach of the publishers, the clubs, and the dinner-parties ofthe metropolis. So I made my request at headquarters, and with somelittle difficulty got myself appointed to the Eastern District ofEngland, --which comprised Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and the greater part of Hertfordshire. At this time I did not stand very well with the dominant interestat the General Post Office. My old friend Colonel Maberly hadbeen, some time since, squeezed into, and his place was filled byMr. Rowland Hill, the originator of the penny post. With him I neverhad any sympathy, nor he with me. In figures and facts he was mostaccurate, but I never came across any one who so little understoodthe ways of men, --unless it was his brother Frederic. To the twobrothers the servants of the Post Office, --men numerous enough tohave formed a large army in old days, --were so many machines whocould be counted on for their exact work without deviation, aswheels may be counted on, which are kept going always at the samepace and always by the same power. Rowland Hill was an industriouspublic servant, anxious for the good of his country; but he wasa hard taskmaster, and one who would, I think, have put the greatdepartment with which he was concerned altogether out of gear byhis hardness, had he not been at last controlled. He was the ChiefSecretary, my brother-in-law--who afterwards succeeded him--camenext to him, and Mr. Hill's brother was the Junior Secretary. Inthe natural course of things, I had not, from my position, anythingto do with the management of affairs;--but from time to time I foundmyself more or less mixed up in it. I was known to be a thoroughlyefficient public servant; I am sure I may say so much of myselfwithout fear of contradiction from any one who has known the PostOffice;--I was very fond of the department, and when matters cameto be considered, I generally had an opinion of my own. I haveno doubt that I often made myself very disagreeable. I know that Isometimes tried to do so. But I could hold my own because I knewmy business and was useful. I had given official offence by thepublication of The Three Clerks. I afterwards gave greater offenceby a lecture on The Civil Service which I delivered in one of thelarge rooms at the General Post Office to the clerks there. On thisoccasion, the Postmaster-General, with whom personally I enjoyedfriendly terms, sent for me and told me that Mr. Hill had told himthat I ought to be dismissed. When I asked his lordship whetherhe was prepared to dismiss me, he only laughed. The threat wasno threat to me, as I knew myself to be too good to be treated inthat fashion. The lecture had been permitted, and I had disobeyedno order. In the lecture which I delivered, there was nothingto bring me to shame, --but it advocated the doctrine that a civilservant is only a servant as far as his contract goes, and that heis beyond that entitled to be as free a man in politics, as free inhis general pursuits, and as free in opinion, as those who are inopen professions and open trades. All this is very nearly admittednow, but it certainly was not admitted then. At that time no onein the Post Office could even vote for a Member of Parliament. Through my whole official life I did my best to improve the styleof official writing. I have written, I should think, some thousandsof reports, --many of them necessarily very long; some of themdealing with subjects so absurd as to allow a touch of burlesque;some few in which a spark of indignation or a slight glow of pathosmight find an entrance. I have taken infinite pains with thesereports, habituating myself always to write them in the form inwhich they should be sent, --without a copy. It is by writing thusthat a man can throw on to his paper the exact feeling with whichhis mind is impressed at the moment. A rough copy, or that whichis called a draft, is written in order that it may be touched andaltered and put upon stilts. The waste of time, moreover, in suchan operation, is terrible. If a man knows his craft with his pen, he will have learned to write without the necessity of changinghis words or the form of his sentences. I had learned so to writemy reports that they who read them should know what it was that Imeant them to understand. But I do not think that they were regardedwith favour. I have heard horror expressed because the old formswere disregarded and language used which had no savour of red-tape. During the whole of this work in the Post Office it was my principlealways to obey authority in everything instantly, but never to allowmy mouth to be closed as to the expression of my opinion. They whohad the ordering of me very often did not know the work as I knewit, --could not tell as I could what would be the effect of thisor that change. When carrying out instructions which I knew shouldnot have been given, I never scrupled to point out the fatuity ofthe improper order in the strongest language that I could decentlyemploy. I have revelled in these official correspondences, and lookback to some of them as the greatest delights of my life. But I amnot sure that they were so delightful to others. I succeeded, however, in getting the English district, --whichcould hardly have been refused to me, --and prepared to change ourresidence towards the end of 1859. At the time I was writing CastleRichmond, the novel which I had sold to Messrs. Chapman & Hallfor œ600. But there arose at this time a certain literary projectwhich probably had a great effect upon my career. Whilst travellingon postal service abroad or riding over the rural districtsin England, or arranging the mails in Ireland, --and such for thelast eighteen years had now been my life, --I had no opportunityof becoming acquainted with the literary life in London. It wasprobably some feeling of this which had made me anxious to movemy penates back to England. But even in Ireland, where I was stillliving in October, 1859, I had heard of the Cornhill Magazine, whichwas to come out on the 1st of January, 1860, under the editorshipof Thackeray. I had at this time written from time to time certain short stories, which had been published in different periodicals, and which in duetime were republished under the name of Tales of All Countries. Onthe 23d of October, 1859, I wrote to Thackeray, whom I had, I think, never then seen, offering to send him for the magazine certain ofthese stories. In reply to this I received two letters, --one fromMessrs. Smith & Elder, the proprietors of the Cornhill, dated 26thof October, and the other from the editor, written two days later. That from Mr. Thackeray was as follows:-- "36 ONSLOW SQUARE, S. W. October 28th. "MY DEAR MR. TROLLOPE, --Smith & Elder have sent you their proposals;and the business part done, let me come to the pleasure, and sayhow very glad indeed I shall be to have you as a co-operator inour new magazine. And looking over the annexed programme, you willsee whether you can't help us in many other ways besides tale-telling. Whatever a man knows about life and its doings, that let us hearabout. You must have tossed a good deal about the world, and havecountless sketches in your memory and your portfolio. Pleaseto think if you can furbish up any of these besides a novel. Whenevents occur, and you have a good lively tale, bear us in mind. Oneof our chief objects in this magazine is the getting out of novelspinning, and back into the world. Don't understand me to disparageour craft, especially YOUR wares. I often say I am like thepastrycook, and don't care for tarts, but prefer bread and cheese;but the public love the tarts (luckily for us), and we must bake andsell them. There was quite an excitement in my family one eveningwhen Paterfamilias (who goes to sleep on a novel almost alwayswhen he tries it after dinner) came up-stairs into the drawing-roomwide awake and calling for the second volume of The Three Clerks. I hope the Cornhill Magazine will have as pleasant a story. Andthe Chapmans, if they are the honest men I take them to be, I've nodoubt have told you with what sincere liking your works have beenread by yours very faithfully, "W. M. THACKERAY. " This was very pleasant, and so was the letter from Smith & Elderoffering me œ1000 for the copyright of a three-volume novel, tocome out in the new magazine, --on condition that the first portionof it should be in their hands by December 12th. There was much inall this that astonished me;--in the first place the price, whichwas more than double what I had yet received, and nearly doublethat which I was about to receive from Messrs. Chapman & Hall. Then there was the suddenness of the call. It was already the endof October, and a portion of the work was required to be in theprinter's hands within six weeks. Castle Richmond was indeed halfwritten, but that was sold to Chapman. And it had already beena principle with me in my art, that no part of a novel shouldbe published till the entire story was completed. I knew, fromwhat I read from month to month, that this hurried publication ofincompleted work was frequently, I might perhaps say always, adoptedby the leading novelists of the day. That such has been the case, is proved by the fact that Dickens, Thackeray, and Mrs. Gaskelldied with unfinished novels, of which portions had been alreadypublished. I had not yet entered upon the system of publishingnovels in parts, and therefore had never been tempted. But I wasaware that an artist should keep in his hand the power of fittingthe beginning of his work to the end. No doubt it is his firstduty to fit the end to the beginning, and he will endeavour to doso. But he should still keep in his hands the power of remedyingany defect in this respect. "Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit, " should be kept in view as to every character and every string ofaction. Your Achilles should all through, from beginning to end, be "impatient, fiery, ruthless, keen. " Your Achilles, such as heis, will probably keep up his character. But your Davus also shouldbe always Davus, and that is more difficult. The rustic driving hispigs to market cannot always make them travel by the exact pathwhich he has intended for them. When some young lady at the endof a story cannot be made quite perfect in her conduct, that vividdescription of angelic purity with which you laid the first linesof her portrait should be slightly toned down. I had felt that therushing mode of publication to which the system of serial storieshad given rise, and by which small parts as they were written weresent hot to the press, was injurious to the work done. If I nowcomplied with the proposition made to me, I must act against myown principle. But such a principle becomes a tyrant if it cannotbe superseded on a just occasion. If the reason be "tanti, " theprinciple should for the occasion be put in abeyance. I sat asjudge, and decreed that the present reason was "tanti. " On this myfirst attempt at a serial story, I thought it fit to break my ownrule. I can say, however, that I have never broken it since. But what astonished me most was the fact that at so late a daythis new Cornhill Magazine should be in want of a novel. Perhapssome of my future readers will he able to remember the greatexpectations which were raised as to this periodical. Thackeray'swas a good name with which to conjure. The proprietors, Messrs. Smith & Elder, were most liberal in their manner of initiating thework, and were able to make an expectant world of readers believethat something was to be given them for a shilling very much inexcess of anything they had ever received for that or double themoney. Whether these hopes were or were not fulfilled it is not forme to say, as, for the first few years of the magazine's existence, I wrote for it more than any other one person. But such was certainlythe prospect;--and how had it come to pass that, with such promisesmade, the editor and the proprietors were, at the end of October, without anything fixed as to what must be regarded as the chiefdish in the banquet to be provided? I fear that the answer to this question must be found in the habitsof procrastination which had at that time grown upon the editor. He had, I imagine, undertaken the work himself, and had postponedits commencement till there was left to him no time for commencing. There was still, it may be said, as much time for him as for me. I think there was, --for though he had his magazine to look after, I had the Post Office. But he thought, when unable to trust hisown energy, that he might rely upon that of a new recruit. He wasbut four years my senior in life but he was at the top of the tree, while I was still at the bottom. Having made up my mind to break my principle, I started at once fromDublin to London. I arrived there on the morning of Thursday, 3dof November, and left it on the evening of Friday. In the meantimeI had made my agreement with Messrs. Smith & Elder, and had arrangedmy plot. But when in London, I first went to Edward Chapman, at 193Piccadilly. If the novel I was then writing for him would suitthe Cornhill, might I consider my arrangement with him to be at anend? Yes; I might. But if that story would not suit the Cornhill, was I to consider my arrangement with him as still standing, --thatagreement requiring that my MS. Should be in his hands in thefollowing March? As to that, I might do as I pleased. In our dealingstogether Mr. Edward Chapman always acceded to every suggestion madeto him. He never refused a book, and never haggled at a price. ThenI hurried into the City, and had my first interview with Mr. GeorgeSmith. When he heard that Castle Richmond was an Irish story, hebegged that I would endeavour to frame some other for his magazine. He was sure that an Irish story would not do for a commencement;--andhe suggested the Church, as though it were my peculiar subject. Itold him that Castle Richmond would have to "come out" while anyother novel that I might write for him would be running through themagazine;--but to that he expressed himself altogether indifferent. He wanted an English tale, on English life, with a clerical flavour. On these orders I went to work, and framed what I suppose I mustcall the plot of Framley Parsonage. On my journey back to Ireland, in the railway carriage, I wrote thefirst few pages of that story. I had got into my head an idea ofwhat I meant to write, --a morsel of the biography of an Englishclergyman who should not be a bad man, but one led into temptationby his own youth and by the unclerical accidents of the life ofthose around him. The love of his sister for the young lord wasan adjunct necessary, because there must be love in a novel. Andthen by placing Framley Parsonage near Barchester, I was able tofall back upon my old friends Mrs. Proudie and the archdeacon. Outof these slight elements I fabricated a hodge-podge in which thereal plot consisted at last simply of a girl refusing to marry theman she loved till the man's friends agreed to accept her lovingly. Nothing could be less efficient or artistic. But the characterswere so well handled, that the work from the first to the lastwas popular, --and was received as it went on with still increasingfavour by both editor and proprietor of the magazine. The story wasthoroughly English. There was a little fox-hunting and a littletuft-hunting, some Christian virtue and some Christian cant. Therewas no heroism and no villainy. There was much Church, but morelove-making. And it was downright honest love, --in which there wasno pretence on the part of the lady that she was too ethereal tobe fond of a man, no half-and-half inclination on the part of theman to pay a certain price and no more for a pretty toy. Each ofthem longed for the other, and they were not ashamed to say so. Consequently they in England who were living, or had lived, thesame sort of life, liked Framley Parsonage. I think myself thatLucy Robarts is perhaps the most natural English girl that I everdrew, --the most natural, at any rate, of those who have been goodgirls. She was not as dear to me as Kate Woodward in The ThreeClerks, but I think she is more like real human life. IndeedI doubt whether such a character could be made more lifelike thanLucy Robarts. And I will say also that in this novel there is no very weak part, --nolong succession of dull pages. The production of novels in serialform forces upon the author the conviction that he should not allowhimself to be tedious in any single part. I hope no reader willmisunderstand me. In spite of that conviction, the writer of storiesin parts will often be tedious. That I have been so myself is afault that will lie heavy on my tombstone. But the writer when heembarks in such a business should feel that he cannot afford to havemany pages skipped out of the few which are to meet the reader'seye at the same time. Who can imagine the first half of the firstvolume of Waverley coming out in shilling numbers? I had realisedthis when I was writing Framley Parsonage; and working on theconviction which had thus come home to me, I fell into no bathosof dulness. I subsequently came across a piece of criticism which was writtenon me as a novelist by a brother novelist very much greater thanmyself, and whose brilliant intellect and warm imagination led himto a kind of work the very opposite of mine. This was NathanielHawthorne, the American, whom I did not then know, but whose worksI knew. Though it praises myself highly, I will insert it here, because it certainly is true in its nature: "It is odd enough, " hesays, "that my own individual taste is for quite another class ofworks than those which I myself am able to write. If I were to meetwith such books as mine by another writer, I don't believe I shouldbe able to get through them. Have you ever read the novels of AnthonyTrollope? They precisely suit my taste, --solid and substantial, written on the strength of beef and through the inspiration ofale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out ofthe earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitantsgoing about their daily business, and not suspecting that theywere being made a show of. And these books are just as English asa beef-steak. Have they ever been tried in America? It needs anEnglish residence to make them thoroughly comprehensible; but stillI should think that human nature would give them success anywhere. " This was dated early in 1860, and could have had no reference toFramley Parsonage; but it was as true of that work as of any thatI have written. And the criticism, whether just or unjust, describeswith wonderful accuracy the purport that I have ever had in viewin my writing. I have always desired to "hew out some lump of theearth, " and to make men and women walk upon it just as they do walkhere among us, --with not more of excellence, nor with exaggeratedbaseness, --so that my readers might recognise human beings like tothemselves, and not feel themselves to be carried away among godsor demons. If I could do this, then I thought I might succeedin impregnating the mind of the novel-reader with a feeling thathonesty is the best policy; that truth prevails while falsehoodfails; that a girl will be loved as she is pure; and sweet, andunselfish; that a man will be honoured as he is true, and honest, and brave of heart; that things meanly done are ugly and odious, and things nobly done beautiful and gracious. I do not say thatlessons such as these may not be more grandly taught by higherflights than mine. Such lessons come to us from our greatest poets. But there are so many who will read novels and understand them, whoeither do not read the works of our great poets, or reading themmiss the lesson! And even in prose fiction the character whomthe fervid imagination of the writer has lifted somewhat into theclouds, will hardly give so plain an example to the hasty normalreader as the humbler personage whom that reader unconsciously feelsto resemble himself or herself. I do think that a girl would moreprobably dress her own mind after Lucy Robarts than after FloraMacdonald. There are many who would laugh at the idea of a novelist teachingeither virtue or nobility, --those, for instance, who regardthe reading of novels as a sin, and those also who think it to besimply an idle pastime. They look upon the tellers of stories asamong the tribe of those who pander to the wicked pleasures of awicked world. I have regarded my art from so different a point ofview that I have ever thought of myself as a preacher of sermons, and my pulpit as one which I could make both salutary and agreeableto my audience. I do believe that no girl has risen from the readingof my pages less modest than she was before, and that some may havelearned from them that modesty is a charm well worth preserving. Ithink that no youth has been taught that in falseness and flashnessis to be found the road to manliness; but some may perhaps havelearned from me that it is to be found in truth and a high butgentle spirit. Such are the lessons I have striven to teach; andI have thought it might best be done by representing to my readerscharacters like themselves, --or to which they might liken themselves. Framley Parsonage--or, rather, my connection with the Cornhill--wasthe means of introducing me very quickly to that literary worldfrom which I had hitherto been severed by the fact of my residencein Ireland. In December, 1859, while I was still very hard at workon my novel, I came over to take charge of the Eastern District, and settled myself at a residence about twelve miles from London, in Hertfordshire, but on the borders both of Essex and Middlesex, --whichwas somewhat too grandly called Waltham House. This I took onlease, and subsequently bought after I had spent about œ1000 onimprovements. From hence I was able to make myself frequent bothin Cornhill and Piccadilly, and to live, when the opportunity came, among men of my own pursuit. It was in January, 1860, that Mr. George Smith--to whose enterprisewe owe not only the Cornhill Magazine but the Pall Mall Gazette--gavea sumptuous dinner to his contributors. It was a memorable banquetin many ways, but chiefly so to me because on that occasion I firstmet many men who afterwards became my most intimate associates. It can rarely happen that one such occasion can be the firststarting-point of so many friendships. It was at that table, andon that day, that I first saw Thackeray, Charles Taylor (Sir)--thanwhom in latter life I have loved no man better, --Robert Bell, G. H. Lewes, and John Everett Millais. With all these men I afterwardslived on affectionate terms;--but I will here speak specially ofthe last, because from that time he was joined with me in so muchof the work that I did. Mr. Millais was engaged to illustrate Framley Parsonage, but thiswas not the first work he did for the magazine. In the second numberthere is a picture of his accompanying Monckton Milne's UnspokenDialogue. The first drawing he did for Framley Parsonage did notappear till after the dinner of which I have spoken, and I do notthink that I knew at the time that he was engaged on my novel. WhenI did know it, it made me very proud. He afterwards illustratedOrley Farm, The Small House of Allington, Rachel Ray, and PhineasFinn. Altogether he drew from my tales eighty-seven drawings, andI do not think that more conscientious work was ever done by man. Writers of novels know well--and so ought readers of novels tohave learned--that there are two modes of illustrating, either ofwhich may be adopted equally by a bad and by a good artist. Towhich class Mr. Millais belongs I need not say; but, as a goodartist, it was open to him simply to make a pretty picture, or tostudy the work of the author from whose writing he was bound to takehis subject. I have too often found that the former alternativehas been thought to be the better, as it certainly is the easiermethod. An artist will frequently dislike to subordinate his ideasto those of an author, and will sometimes be too idle to find outwhat those ideas are. But this artist was neither proud nor idle. In every figure that he drew it was his object to promote theviews of the writer whose work he had undertaken to illustrate, andhe never spared himself any pains in studying that work, so as toenable him to do so. I have carried on some of those characters frombook to book, and have had my own early ideas impressed indeliblyon my memory by the excellence of his delineations. Those illustrationswere commenced fifteen years ago, and from that time up to thisday my affection for the man of whom I am speaking has increased. To see him has always been a pleasure. His voice has been a sweetsound in my ears. Behind his back I have never heard him praisedwithout joining the eulogist; I have never heard a word spokenagainst him without opposing the censurer. These words, should heever see them, will come to him from the grave, and will tell himof my regard, --as one living man never tells another. Sir Charles Taylor, who carried me home in his brougham thatevening, and thus commenced an intimacy which has since been veryclose, was born to wealth, and was therefore not compelled by thenecessities of a profession to enter the lists as an author. Buthe lived much with those who did so, --and could have done it himselfhad want or ambition stirred him. He was our king at the GarrickClub, to which, however, I did not yet belong. He gave the bestdinners of my time, and was, --happily I may say is, [Footnote:Alas! within a year of the writing of this he went from us. ]--thebest giver of dinners. A man rough of tongue, brusque in his manners, odious to those who dislike him, somewhat inclined to tyranny, heis the prince of friends, honest as the sun, and as openhanded asCharity itself. Robert Bell has now been dead nearly ten years. As I look backover the interval and remember how intimate we were, it seems oddto me that we should have known each other for no more than sixyears. He was a man who had lived by his pen from his very youth;and was so far successful that I do not think that want ever camenear him. But he never made that mark which his industry and talentswould have seemed to ensure. He was a man well known to literarymen, but not known to readers. As a journalist he was usefuland conscientious, but his plays and novels never made themselvespopular. He wrote a life of Canning, and he brought out an annotatededition of the British poets; but he achieved no great success. I have known no man better read in English literature. Hence hisconversation had a peculiar charm, but he was not equally happywith his pen. He will long be remembered at the Literary FundCommittees, of which he was a staunch and most trusted supporter. I think it was he who first introduced me to that board. It hasoften been said that literary men are peculiarly apt to think thatthey are slighted and unappreciated. Robert Bell certainly neverachieved the position in literature which he once aspired to fill, and which he was justified in thinking that he could earn forhimself. I have frequently discussed these subjects with him, butI never heard from his mouth a word of complaint as to his ownliterary fate. He liked to hear the chimes go at midnight, and heloved to have ginger hot in his mouth. On such occasions no soundever came out of a man's lips sweeter than his wit and gentlerevelry. George Lewes, --with his wife, whom all the world knows as GeorgeEliot, --has also been and still is one of my dearest friends. He is, I think, the acutest critic I know, --and the severest. Hisseverity, however, is a fault. His intention to be honest, even whenhonesty may give pain, has caused him to give pain when honesty hasnot required it. He is essentially a doubter, and has encouragedhimself to doubt till the faculty of trusting has almost left him. I am not speaking of the personal trust which one man feels inanother, but of that confidence in literary excellence, which is, I think, necessary for the full enjoyment of literature. In onemodern writer he did believe thoroughly. Nothing can be more charmingthan the unstinted admiration which he has accorded to everythingthat comes from the pen of the wonderful woman to whom his lot hasbeen united. To her name I shall recur again when speaking of thenovelists of the present day. Of "Billy Russell, " as we always used to call him, I may saythat I never knew but one man equal to him in the quickness andcontinuance of witty speech. That one man was Charles Lever--alsoan Irishman--whom I had known from an earlier date, and also withclose intimacy. Of the two, I think that Lever was perhaps themore astounding producer of good things. His manner was perhaps alittle the happier, and his turns more sharp and unexpected. But"Billy" also was marvellous. Whether abroad as special correspondent, or at home amidst the flurry of his newspaper work, he was a charmingcompanion; his ready wit always gave him the last word. Of Thackeray I will speak again when I record his death. There were many others whom I met for the first time at GeorgeSmith's table. Albert Smith, for the first, and indeed for the lasttime, as he died soon after; Higgins, whom all the world knew asJacob Omnium, a man I greatly regarded; Dallas, who for a time wasliterary critic to the Times, and who certainly in that capacitydid better work than has appeared since in the same department;George Augustus Sala, who, had he given himself fair play, wouldhave risen to higher eminence than that of being the best writerin his day of sensational leading articles; and Fitz-James Stephen, a man of very different calibre, who had not yet culminated, butwho, no doubt, will culminate among our judges. There were manyothers;--but I cannot now recall their various names as identifiedwith those banquets. Of Framley Parsonage I need only further say, that as I wrote it Ibecame more closely than ever acquainted with the new shire whichI had added to the English counties. I had it all in my mind, --itsroads and railroads, its towns and parishes, its members of Parliament, and the different hunts which rode over it. I knew all the greatlords and their castles, the squires and their parks, the rectorsand their churches. This was the fourth novel of which I had placedthe scene in Barsetshire, and as I wrote it I made a map of thedear county. Throughout these stories there has been no name givento a fictitious site which does not represent to me a spot of which Iknow all the accessories, as though I had lived and wandered there. CHAPTER IX "CASTLE RICHMOND;" "BROWN, JONES, AND ROBINSON;" "NORTH AMERICA;""ORLEY FARM" When I had half-finished Framley Parsonage, I went back to my otherstory, Castle Richmond, which I was writing for Messrs. Chapman &Hall, and completed that. I think that this was the only occasionon which I have had two different novels in my mind at the sametime. This, however, did not create either difficulty or confusion. Many of us live in different circles; and when we go from our friendsin the town to our friends in the country, we do not usually failto remember the little details of the one life or the other. Theparson at Rusticum, with his wife and his wife's mother, and allhis belongings; and our old friend, the Squire, with his familyhistory; and Farmer Mudge, who has been cross with us, because werode so unnecessarily over his barley; and that rascally poacher, once a gamekeeper, who now traps all the foxes; and pretty MaryCann, whose marriage with the wheelwright we did something toexpedite;--though we are alive to them all, do not drive out of ourbrain the club gossip, or the memories of last season's dinners, orany incident of our London intimacies. In our lives we are alwaysweaving novels, and we manage to keep the different tales distinct. A man does, in truth, remember that which it interests him toremember; and when we hear that memory has gone as age has come on, we should understand that the capacity for interest in the matterconcerned has perished. A man will be generally very old and feeblebefore he forgets how much money he has in the funds. There isa good deal to be learned by any one who wishes to write a novelwell; but when the art has been acquired, I do not see why two orthree should not be well written at the same time. I have neverfound myself thinking much about the work that I had to do tillI was doing it. I have indeed for many years almost abandoned theeffort to think, trusting myself, with the narrowest thread ofa plot, to work the matter out when the pen is in my hand. But mymind is constantly employing itself on the work I have done. HadI left either Framley Parsonage or Castle Richmond half-finishedfifteen years ago, I think I could complete the tales now with verylittle trouble. I have not looked at Castle Richmond since it waspublished; and poor as the work is, I remember all the incidents. Castle Richmond certainly was not a success, --though the plot is afairly good plot, and is much more of a plot than I have generallybeen able to find. The scene is laid in Ireland, during the famine;and I am well aware now that English readers no longer like Irishstories. I cannot understand why it should be so, as the Irishcharacter is peculiarly well fitted for romance. But Irish subjectsgenerally have become distasteful. This novel, however, is ofitself a weak production. The characters do not excite sympathy. The heroine has two lovers, one of whom is a scamp and the othera prig. As regards the scamp, the girl's mother is her own rival. Rivalry of the same nature has been admirably depicted by Thackerayin his Esmond; but there the mother's love seems to be justifiedby the girl's indifference. In Castle Richmond the mother strivesto rob her daughter of the man's love. The girl herself has nocharacter; and the mother, who is strong enough, is almost revolting. The dialogue is often lively, and some of the incidents are welltold; but the story as a whole was a failure. I cannot remember, however, that it was roughly handled by the critics when it cameout; and I much doubt whether anything so hard was said of it thenas that which I have said here. I was now settled at Waltham Cross, in a house in which I couldentertain a few friends modestly, where we grew our cabbagesand strawberries, made our own butter, and killed our own pigs. Ioccupied it for twelve years, and they were years to me of greatprosperity. In 1861 I became a member of the Garrick Club, withwhich institution I have since been much identified. I had belongedto it about two years, when, on Thackeray's death, I was invitedto fill his place on the Committee, and I have been one of thataugust body ever since. Having up to that time lived very littleamong men, having known hitherto nothing of clubs, having even asa boy been banished from social gatherings, I enjoyed infinitely atfirst the gaiety of the Garrick. It was a festival to me to dinethere--which I did indeed but seldom; and a great delight to playa rubber in the little room up-stairs of an afternoon. I am speakingnow of the old club in King Street. This playing of whist beforedinner has since that become a habit with me, so that unless therebe something else special to do--unless there be hunting, or I amwanted to ride in the park by the young tyrant of my household--itis "my custom always in the afternoon. " I have sometimes felt sorewith myself for this persistency, feeling that I was making myselfa slave to an amusement which has not after all very much torecommend it. I have often thought that I would break myself awayfrom it, and "swear off, " as Rip Van Winkle says. But my swearingoff has been like that of Rip Van Winkle. And now, as I think ofit coolly, I do not know but that I have been right to cling to it. As a man grows old he wants amusement, more even than when he isyoung; and then it becomes so difficult to find amusement. Readingshould, no doubt, be the delight of men's leisure hours. Had I tochoose between books and cards, I should no doubt take the books. But I find that I can seldom read with pleasure for above an hourand a half at a time, or more than three hours a day. As I writethis I am aware that hunting must soon be abandoned. After sixtyit is given but to few men to ride straight across country, and Icannot bring myself to adopt any other mode of riding. I think thatwithout cards I should now be much at a loss. When I began to playat the Garrick, I did so simply because I liked the society of themen who played. I think that I became popular among those with whom I associated. I have long been aware of a certain weakness in my own character, which I may call a craving for love. I have ever had a wish to beliked by those around me, --a wish that during the first half ofmy life was never gratified. In my school-days no small part of mymisery came from the envy with which I regarded the popularity ofpopular boys. They seemed to me to live in a social paradise, whilethe desolation of my pandemonium was complete. And afterwards, when I was in London as a young man, I had but few friends. Amongthe clerks in the Post Office I held my own fairly for the firsttwo or three years; but even then I regarded myself as something ofa pariah. My Irish life had been much better. I had had my wife andchildren, and had been sustained by a feeling of general respect. But even in Ireland I had in truth lived but little in society. Our means had been sufficient for our wants, but insufficient forentertaining others. It was not till we had settled ourselves atWaltham that I really began to live much with others. The GarrickClub was the first assemblage of men at which I felt myself to bepopular. I soon became a member of other clubs. There was the Arts Club inHanover Square, of which I saw the opening, but from which, afterthree or four years, I withdrew my name, having found that duringthese three or four years I had not once entered the building. Then I was one of the originators of the Civil Service Club--notfrom judgment, but instigated to do so by others. That also I leftfor the same reason. In 1864 I received the honour of being electedby the Committee at the Athenaeum. For this I was indebted to thekindness of Lord Stanhope; and I never was more surprised than whenI was informed of the fact. About the same time I became a memberof the Cosmopolitan, a little club that meets twice a week inCharles Street, Berkeley Square, and supplies to all its members, and its members' friends, tea and brandy and water without charge!The gatherings there I used to think very delightful. One metJacob Omnium, Monckton Mimes, Tom Hughes, William Stirling, HenryReeve, Arthur Russell, Tom Taylor, and such like; and generallya strong political element, thoroughly well mixed, gave a certainspirit to the place. Lord Ripon, Lord Stanley, William Forster, Lord Enfield, Lord Kimberley, George Bentinck, Vernon Harcourt, Bromley Davenport, Knatchbull Huguessen, with many others, used towhisper the secrets of Parliament with free tongues. Afterwards Ibecame a member of the Turf, which I found to be serviceable--orthe reverse--only for the playing of whist at high points. In August, 1861, I wrote another novel for the Cornhill Magazine. It was a short story, about one volume in length, and was calledThe Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson. In this I attempted astyle for which I certainly was not qualified, and to which I neverhad again recourse. It was meant to be funny, was full of slang, and was intended as a satire on the ways of trade. Still I thinkthat there is some good fun it it, but I have heard no one elseexpress such an opinion. I do not know that I ever heard any opinionexpressed on it, except by the publisher, who kindly remarkedthat he did not think it was equal to my usual work. Though he hadpurchased the copyright, he did not republish the story in a bookform till 1870, and then it passed into the world of letters subsilentio. I do not know that it was ever criticised or ever read. I received œ600 for it. From that time to this I have been paid atabout that rate for my work--œ600 for the quantity contained inan ordinary novel volume, or œ3000 for a long tale published intwenty parts, which is equal in length to five such volumes. I haveoccasionally, I think, received something more than this, neverI think less for any tale, except when I have published my workanonymously. [Footnote: Since the date at which this was writtenI have encountered a diminution in price. ] Having said so much, Ineed not further specify the prices as I mention the books as theywere written. I will, however, when I am completing this memoir, give a list of all the sums I have received for my literary labours. I think that Brown, Jones and Robinson was the hardest bargain Iever sold to a publisher. In 1861 the War of Secession had broken out in America, and fromthe first I interested myself much in the question. My motherhad thirty years previously written a very popular, but, as I hadthought, a somewhat unjust book about our cousins over the water. She had seen what was distasteful in the manners of a young people, but had hardly recognised their energy. I had entertained formany years an ambition to follow her footsteps there, and to writeanother book. I had already paid a short visit to New York City andState on my way home from the West Indies, but had not seen enoughthen to justify me in the expression of any opinion. The breakingout of the war did not make me think that the time was peculiarlyfit for such inquiry as I wished to make, but it did represent itselfas an occasion on which a book might be popular. I consequentlyconsulted the two great powers with whom I was concerned. Messrs. Chapman & Hall, the publishers, were one power, and I had no difficultyin arranging my affairs with them. They agreed to publish the bookon my terms, and bade me God-speed on my journey. The other powerwas the Postmaster-General and Mr. Rowland Hill, the Secretary ofthe Post Office. I wanted leave of absence for the unusual periodof nine months, and fearing that I should not get it by the ordinaryprocess of asking the Secretary, I went direct to his lordship. "Is it on the plea of ill-health?" he asked, looking into my face, which was then that of a very robust man. His lordship knew theCivil Service as well as any one living, and must have seen muchof falseness and fraudulent pretence, or he could not have askedthat question. I told him that I was very well, but that I wantedto write a book. "Had I any special ground to go upon in asking forsuch indulgence?" I had, I said, done my duty well by the service. There was a good deal of demurring, but I got my leave for ninemonths, --and I knew that I had earned it. Mr. Hill attached tothe minute granting me the leave an intimation that it was to beconsidered as a full equivalent for the special services renderedby me to the department. I declined, however, to accept the gracewith such a stipulation, and it was withdrawn by the directions ofthe Postmaster-General. [Footnote: During the period of my servicein the Post Office I did very much special work for which I neverasked any remuneration, --and never received any, though paymentsfor special services were common in the department at that time. But if there was to be a question of such remuneration, I did notchoose that my work should be valued at the price put upon it byMr. Hill. ] I started for the States in August and returned in the followingMay. The war was raging during the time that I was there, and thecountry was full of soldiers. A part of the time I spent in Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, among the troops, along the line of attack. I visited all the States (excepting California) which had not thenseceded, --failing to make my way into the seceding States unless Iwas prepared to visit them with an amount of discomfort I did notchoose to endure. I worked very hard at the task I had assigned tomyself, and did, I think, see much of the manners and institutionsof the people. Nothing struck me more than their persistence inthe ordinary pursuits of life in spite of the war which was aroundthem. Neither industry nor amusement seemed to meet with any check. Schools, hospitals, and institutes were by no means neglectedbecause new regiments were daily required. The truth, I take it, is that we, all of us, soon adapt ourselves to the circumstancesaround us. Though three parts of London were in flames I shouldno doubt expect to have my dinner served to me if I lived in thequarter which was free from fire. The book I wrote was very much longer than that on the West Indies, but was also written almost without a note. It contained muchinformation, and, with many inaccuracies, was a true book. But itwas not well done. It is tedious and confused, and will hardly, I think, be of future value to those who wish to make themselvesacquainted with the United States. It was published about themiddle of the war, --just at the time in which the hopes of thosewho loved the South were I most buoyant, and the fears of those whostood by the North were the strongest. But it expressed an assuredconfidence--which never quavered in a page or in a line--that theNorth would win. This assurance was based on the merits of theNorthern cause, on the superior strength of the Northern party, and on a conviction that England would never recognise the South, and that France would be guided in her policy by England. I wasright in my prophecies, and right, I think, on the grounds on whichthey were made. The Southern cause was bad. The South had provokedthe quarrel because its political supremacy was checked by the electionof Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency. It had to fight as a little managainst a big man, and fought gallantly. That gallantry, --and afeeling based on a misconception as to American character that theSoutherners are better gentlemen than their Northern brethren, --didcreate great sympathy here; but I believe that the country was toojust to be led into political action by a spirit of romance, andI was warranted in that belief. There was a moment in which theNorthern cause was in danger, and the danger lay certainly in theprospect of British interference. Messrs. Slidell and Mason, --twomen insignificant in themselves, --had been sent to Europe by theSouthern party, and had managed to get on board the British mailsteamer called "The Trent, " at the Havannah. A most undue importancewas attached to this mission by Mr. Lincoln's government, andefforts were made to stop them. A certain Commodore Wilkes, doingduty as policeman on the seas, did stop the "Trent, " and took themen out. They were carried, one to Boston and one to New York, and were incarcerated, amidst the triumph of the nation. CommodoreWilkes, who had done nothing in which a brave man could take glory, was made a hero and received a prize sword. England of coursedemanded her passengers back, and the States for a while refusedto surrender them. But Mr. Seward was at that time the Secretaryof State, and Mr. Seward, with many political faults, was a wiseman. I was at Washington at the time, and it was known there thatthe contest among the leading Northerners was very sharp on thematter. Mr. Sumner and Mr. Seward were, under Mr. Lincoln, the twochiefs of the party. It was understood that Mr. Sumner was opposedto the rendition of the men, and Mr. Seward in favour of it. Mr. Seward's counsels at last prevailed with the President, and England'sdeclaration of war was prevented. I dined with Mr. Seward on theday of the decision, meeting Mr. Sumner at his house, and was toldas I left the dining-room what the decision had been. During theafternoon I and others had received intimation through the embassythat we might probably have to leave Washington at an hour'snotice. This, I think, was the severest danger that the Northerncause encountered during the war. But my book, though it was right in its views on this subject, --andwrong in none other as far as I know, --was not a good book. I canrecommend no one to read it now in order that he may be eitherinstructed or amused, --as I can do that on the West Indies. Itserved its purpose at the time, and was well received by the publicand by the critics. Before starting to America I had completed Orley Farm, a novel whichappeared in shilling numbers, --after the manner in which Pickwick, Nicholas Nickleby, and many others had been published. Most ofthose among my friends who talk to me now about my novels, and arecompetent to form an opinion on the subject, say that this is thebest I have written. In this opinion I do not coincide. I thinkthat the highest merit which a novel can have consists in perfectdelineation of character, rather than in plot, or humour, or pathos, and I shall before long mention a subsequent work in which I thinkthe main character of the story is so well developed as to justifyme in asserting its claim above the others. The plot of Orley Farmis probably the best I have ever made; but it has the fault ofdeclaring itself, and thus coming to an end too early in the book. When Lady Mason tells her ancient lover that she did forge thewill, the plot of Orley Farm has unravelled itself;--and this shedoes in the middle of the tale. Independently, however, of this thenovel is good. Sir Peregrine Orme, his grandson, Madeline Stavely, Mr. Furnival, Mr. Chaffanbrass, and the commercial gentlemen, are all good. The hunting is good. The lawyer's talk is good. Mr. Moulder carves his turkey admirably, and Mr. Kantwise sells histables and chairs with spirit. I do not know that there is a dullpage in the book. I am fond of Orley Farm;--and am especially fondof its illustrations by Millais, which are the best I have seen inany novel in any language. I now felt that I had gained my object. In 1862 I had achieved thatwhich I contemplated when I went to London in 1834, and towards whichI made my first attempt when I began the Macdermots in 1843. I hadcreated for myself a position among literary men, and had securedto myself an income on which I might live in ease and comfort, --whichease and comfort have been made to include many luxuries. From thistime for a period of twelve years my income averaged œ4500 a year. Of this I spent about two-thirds, and put by one. I ought perhapsto have done better, --to have spent one-third, and put by two; butI have ever been too well inclined to spend freely that which hascome easily. This, however, has been so exactly the life which my thoughts andaspirations had marked out, --thoughts and aspirations which usedto cause me to blush with shame because I was so slow in forcingmyself to the work which they demanded, --that I have felt some pridein having attained it. I have before said how entirely I fail toreach the altitude of those who think that a man devoted to lettersshould be indifferent to the pecuniary results for which work isgenerally done. An easy income has always been regarded by me asa great blessing. Not to have to think of sixpences, or very muchof shillings; not to be unhappy because the coals have been burnedtoo quickly, and the house linen wants renewing; not to be debarredby the rigour of necessity from opening one's hands, perhapsfoolishly, to one's friends;--all this to me has been essential tothe comfort of life. I have enjoyed the comfort for I may almostsay the last twenty years, though no man in his youth had lessprospect of doing so, or would have been less likely at twenty-fiveto have had such luxuries foretold to him by his friends. But though the money has been sweet, the respect, the friendships, andthe mode of life which has been achieved, have been much sweeter. In my boyhood, when I would be crawling up to school with dirtyboots and trousers through the muddy lanes, I was always tellingmyself that the misery of the hour was not the worst of it, butthat the mud and solitude and poverty of the time would insure memud and solitude and poverty through my life. Those lads about mewould go into Parliament, or become rectors and deans, or squiresof parishes, or advocates thundering at the Bar. They would notlive with me now, --but neither should I be able to live with themin after years. Nevertheless I have lived with them. When, at theage in which others go to the universities, I became a clerk inthe Post Office, I felt that my old visions were being realised. Idid not think it a high calling. I did not know then how very muchgood work may be done by a member of the Civil Service who will showhimself capable of doing it. The Post Office at last grew upon meand forced itself into my affections. I became intensely anxiousthat people should have their letters delivered to them punctually. But my hope to rise had always been built on the writing of novels, and at last by the writing of novels I had risen. I do not think that I ever toadied any one, or that I have acquiredthe character of a tuft-hunter. But here I do not scruple to saythat I prefer the society of distinguished people, and that even thedistinction of wealth confers many advantages. The best educationis to be had at a price as well as the best broadcloth. The sonof a peer is more likely to rub his shoulders against well-informedmen than the son of a tradesman. The graces come easier to thewife of him who has had great-grandfathers than they do to herwhose husband has been less, --or more fortunate, as he may thinkit. The discerning man will recognise the information and the graceswhen they are achieved without such assistance, and will honourthe owners of them the more because of the difficulties they haveovercome;--but the fact remains that the society of the well-bornand of the wealthy will as a rule be worth seeking. I say thisnow, because these are the rules by which I have lived, and theseare the causes which have instigated me to work. I have heard the question argued--On what terms should a man ofinferior rank live with those who are manifestly superior to him?If a marquis or an earl honour me, who have no rank, with hisintimacy, am I in my intercourse with him to remember our closeacquaintance or his high rank? I have always said that where thedifference in position is quite marked, the overtures to intimacyshould always come from the higher rank; but if the intimacy beever fixed, then that rank should be held of no account. It seemsto me that intimate friendship admits of no standing but thatof equality. I cannot be the Sovereign's friend, nor probably thefriend of many very much beneath the Sovereign, because such equalityis impossible. When I first came to Waltham Cross in the winter of 1859-1860, I hadalmost made up my mind that my hunting was over. I could not thencount upon an income which would enable me to carry on an amusementwhich I should doubtless find much more expensive in England thanin Ireland. I brought with me out of Ireland one mare, but she wastoo light for me to ride in the hunting-field. As, however, themoney came in, I very quickly fell back into my old habits. Firstone horse was bought, then another, and then a third, till it becameestablished as a fixed rule that I should not have less than fourhunters in the stable. Sometimes when my boys have been at homeI have had as many as six. Essex was the chief scene of my sport, and gradually I became known there almost as well as though I hadbeen an Essex squire, to the manner born. Few have investigated moreclosely than I have done the depth, and breadth, and water-holdingcapacities of an Essex ditch. It will, I think, be accorded to meby Essex men generally that I have ridden hard. The cause of mydelight in the amusement I have never been able to analyse to myown satisfaction. In the first place, even now, I know very littleabout hunting, --though I know very much of the accessories of thefield. I am too blind to see hounds turning, and cannot thereforetell whether the fox has gone this way or that. Indeed all thenotice I take of hounds is not to ride over them. My eyes are soconstituted that I can never see the nature of a fence. I eitherfollow some one, or ride at it with the full conviction that Imay be going into a horse-pond or a gravel-pit. I have jumped intoboth one and the other. I am very heavy, and have never riddenexpensive horses. I am also now old for such work, being so stiffthat I cannot get on to my horse without the aid of a block or abank. But I ride still after the same fashion, with a boy's energy, determined to get ahead if it may possibly be done, hating theroads, despising young men who ride them, and with a feeling thatlife can not, with all her riches, have given me anything betterthan when I have gone through a long run to the finish, keeping aplace, not of glory, but of credit, among my juniors. CHAPTER X "THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON, " "CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?" "RACHELRAY, " AND THE "FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW" During the early months of 1862 Orley Farm was still being broughtout in numbers, and at the same time Brown, Jones and Robinson wasappearing in the Cornhill Magazine. In September, 1862, the SmallHouse at Allington began its career in the same periodical. Thework on North America had also come out in 1862. In August, 1863, the first number of Can You Forgive Her? was published as a separateserial, and was continued through 1864. In 1863 a short novel wasproduced in the ordinary volume form, called Rachel Ray. In additionto these I published during the time two volumes of stories calledThe Tales of all Countries. In the early spring of 1865 Miss Mackenziewas issued in the same form as Rachel Ray; and in May of the sameyear The Belton Estate was commenced with the commencement of theFortnightly Review, of which periodical I will say a few words inthis chapter. I quite admit that I crowded my wares into the market tooquickly, --because the reading world could not want such a quantityof matter from the hands of one author in so short a space oftime. I had not been quite so fertile as the unfortunate gentlemanwho disgusted the publisher in Paternoster Row, --in the story ofwhose productiveness I have always thought there was a touch ofromance, --but I had probably done enough to make both publishersand readers think that I was coming too often beneath their notice. Of publishers, however, I must speak collectively, as my sinswere, I think, chiefly due to the encouragement which I receivedfrom them individually. What I wrote for the Cornhill Magazine, Ialways wrote at the instigation of Mr. Smith. My other works werepublished by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, in compliance with contractsmade by me with them, and always made with their good-will. CouldI have been two separate persons at one and the same time, of whomone might have been devoted to Cornhill and the other to the interestsof the firm in Piccadilly, it might have been very well;--but asI preserved my identity in both places, I myself became aware thatmy name was too frequent on titlepages. Critics, if they ever trouble themselves with these pages, will, ofcourse, say that in what I have now said I have ignored altogetherthe one great evil of rapid production, --namely, that of inferiorwork. And of course if the work was inferior because of the toogreat rapidity of production, the critics would be right. Givingto the subject the best of my critical abilities, and judging ofmy own work as nearly as possible as I would that of another, Ibelieve that the work which has been done quickest has been donethe best. I have composed better stories--that is, have createdbetter plots--than those of The Small House at Allington and CanYou Forgive Her? and I have portrayed two or three better charactersthan are to be found in the pages of either of them; but takingthese books all through, I do not think that I have ever done betterwork. Nor would these have been improved by any effort in the artof story telling, had each of these been the isolated labour of acouple of years. How short is the time devoted to the manipulationof a plot can be known only to those who have written plays andnovels; I may say also, how very little time the brain is ableto devote to such wearing work. There are usually some hours ofagonising doubt, almost of despair, --so at least it has been withme, --or perhaps some days. And then, with nothing settled in mybrain as to the final development of events, with no capabilityof settling anything, but with a most distinct conception of somecharacter or characters, I have rushed at the work as a rider rushesat a fence which he does not see. Sometimes I have encounteredwhat, in hunting language, we call a cropper. I had such a fall intwo novels of mine, of which I have already spoken--The Bertramsand Castle Richmond. I shall have to speak of other such troubles. But these failures have not arisen from over-hurried work. When mywork has been quicker done, --and it has sometimes been done veryquickly--the rapidity has been achieved by hot pressure, not inthe conception, but in the telling of the story. Instead of writingeight pages a day, I have written sixteen; instead of working fivedays a week, I have worked seven. I have trebled my usual average, and have done so in circumstances which have enabled me to giveup all my thoughts for the time to the book I have been writing. This has generally been done at some quiet spot among themountains, --where there has been no society, no hunting, no whist, no ordinary household duties. And I am sure that the work so donehas had in it the best truth and the highest spirit that I havebeen able to produce. At such times I have been able to imbue myselfthoroughly with the characters I have had in hand. I have wanderedalone among the rocks and woods, crying at their grief, laughing attheir absurdities, and thoroughly enjoying their joy. I have beenimpregnated with my own creations till it has been my only excitementto sit with the pen in my hand, and drive my team before me at asquick a pace as I could make them travel. The critics will again say that all this may be very well as tothe rough work of the author's own brain, but it will be very farfrom well in reference to the style in which that work has beengiven to the public. After all, the vehicle which a writer uses forconveying his thoughts to the public should not be less importantto him than the thoughts themselves. An author can hardly hope tobe popular unless he can use popular language. That is quite true;but then comes the question of achieving a popular--in other words, I may say, a good and lucid style. How may an author best acquirea mode of writing which shall be agreeable and easily intelligibleto the reader? He must be correct, because without correctness hecan be neither agreeable nor intelligible. Readers will expect himto obey those rules which they, consciously or unconsciously, havebeen taught to regard as binding on language; and unless he doesobey them, he will disgust. Without much labour, no writer willachieve such a style. He has very much to learn; and, when he haslearned that much, he has to acquire the habit of using what he haslearned with ease. But all this must be learned and acquired, --notwhile he is writing that which shall please, but long before. Hislanguage must come from him as music comes from the rapid touch ofthe great performer's fingers; as words come from the mouth of theindignant orator; as letters fly from the fingers of the trainedcompositor; as the syllables tinkled out by little bells formthemselves to the ear of the telegraphist. A man who thinks much ofhis words as he writes them will generally leave behind him workthat smells of oil. I speak here, of course, of prose; for in poetrywe know what care is necessary, and we form our taste accordingly. Rapid writing will no doubt give rise to inaccuracy, --chiefly becausethe ear, quick and true as may be its operation, will occasionallybreak down under pressure, and, before a sentence be closed, willforget the nature of the composition with which it was commenced. A singular nominative will be disgraced by a plural verb, becauseother pluralities have intervened and have tempted the ear intoplural tendencies. Tautologies will occur, because the ear, indemanding fresh emphasis, has forgotten that the desired force hasbeen already expressed. I need not multiply these causes of error, which must have been stumbling-blocks indeed when men wrote in thelong sentences of Gibbon, but which Macaulay, with his multiplicityof divisions, has done so much to enable us to avoid. A rapid writerwill hardly avoid these errors altogether. Speaking of myself, Iam ready to declare that, with much training, I have been unable toavoid them. But the writer for the press is rarely called upon--awriter of books should never be called upon--to send his manuscripthot from his hand to the printer. It has been my practice to readeverything four times at least--thrice in manuscript and once inprint. Very much of my work I have read twice in print. In spiteof this I know that inaccuracies have crept through, --not singlespies, but in battalions. From this I gather that the supervisionhas been insufficient, not that the work itself has been done toofast. I am quite sure that those passages which have been writtenwith the greatest stress of labour, and consequently with thegreatest haste, have been the most effective and by no means themost inaccurate. The Small House at Allington redeemed my reputation with the spiritedproprietor of the Cornhill, which must, I should think, have beendamaged by Brown, Jones, and Robinson. In it appeared Lily Dale, one of the characters which readers of my novels have liked thebest. In the love with which she has been greeted I have hardlyjoined with much enthusiasm, feeling that she is somewhat of aFrench prig. She became first engaged to a snob, who jilted her;and then, though in truth she loved another man who was hardlygood enough, she could not extricate herself sufficiently from thecollapse of her first great misfortune to be able to make up hermind to be the wife of one whom, though she loved him, she did notaltogether reverence. Prig as she was, she made her way into thehearts of many readers, both young and old; so that, from that timeto this, I have been continually honoured with letters, the purportof which has always been to beg me to marry Lily Dale to JohnnyEames. Had I done so, however, Lily would never have so endearedherself to these people as to induce them to write letters to theauthor concerning her fate. It was because she could not get overher troubles that they loved her. Outside Lily Dale and the chiefinterest of the novel, The Small House at Allington is, I think, good. The De Courcy family are alive, as is also Sir Raffle Buffle, who is a hero of the Civil Service. Sir Raffle was intended torepresent a type, not a man; but the man for the picture was soonchosen, and I was often assured that the portrait was very like. I have never seen the gentleman with whom I am supposed to havetaken the liberty. There is also an old squire down at Allington, whose life as a country gentleman with rather straitened means is, I think, well described. Of Can you Forgive Her? I cannot speak with too great affection, though I do not know that of itself it did very much to increasemy reputation. As regards the story, it was formed chiefly on thatof the play which my friend Mr. Bartley had rejected long since, the circumstances of which the reader may perhaps remember. Theplay had been called The Noble Jilt; but I was afraid of the namefor a novel, lest the critics might throw a doubt on the nobility. There was more of tentative humility in that which I at last adopted. The character of the girl is carried through with considerablestrength, but is not attractive. The humorous characters, which arealso taken from the play, --a buxom widow who with her eyes openchooses the most scampish of two selfish suitors because he isthe better looking, --are well done. Mrs. Greenow, between CaptainBellfield and Mr. Cheeseacre, is very good fun--as far as the funof novels is. But that which endears the book to me is the firstpresentation which I made in it of Plantagenet Palliser, with hiswife, Lady Glencora. By no amount of description or asseveration could I succeed inmaking any reader understand how much these characters with theirbelongings have been to me in my latter life; or how frequentlyI have used them for the expression of my political or socialconvictions. They have been as real to me as free trade was to Mr. Cobden, or the dominion of a party to Mr. Disraeli; and as I havenot been able to speak from the benches of the House of Commons, or to thunder from platforms, or to be efficacious as a lecturer, they have served me as safety-valves by which to deliver my soul. Mr. Plantagenet Palliser had appeared in The Small House at Allington, but his birth had not been accompanied by many hopes. In the lastpages of that novel he is made to seek a remedy for a foolishfalse step in life by marrying the grand heiress of the day;--butthe personage of the great heiress does not appear till she comeson the scene as a married woman in Can You Forgive Her? He isthe nephew and heir to a duke--the Duke of Omnium--who was firstintroduced in Doctor Thorne, and afterwards in Framley Parsonage, and who is one of the belongings of whom I have spoken. In thesepersonages and their friends, political and social, I have endeavouredto depict the faults and frailties and vices, --as also the virtues, the graces, and the strength of our highest classes; and if I havenot made the strength and virtues predominant over the faults andvices, I have not painted the picture as I intended. PlantagenetPalliser I think to be a very noble gentleman, --such a one as justifiesto the nation the seeming anomaly of an hereditary peerage and ofprimogeniture. His wife is in all respects very inferior to him;but she, too, has, or has been intended to have, beneath the thinstratum of her follies a basis of good principle, which enabled herto live down the conviction of the original wrong which was doneto her, and taught her to endeavour to do her duty in the positionto which she was called. She had received a great wrong, --havingbeen made, when little more than a child, to marry a man for whomshe cared nothing;--when, however, though she was little more thana child, her love had been given elsewhere. She had very heavytroubles, but they did not overcome her. As to the heaviest of these troubles, I will say a word in vindicationof myself and of the way I handled it in my work. In the pages ofCan You Forgive Her? the girl's first love is introduced, --beautiful, well-born, and utterly worthless. To save a girl from wastingherself, and an heiress from wasting her property on such a scamp, was certainly the duty of the girl's friends. But it must everbe wrong to force a girl into a marriage with a man she does notlove, --and certainly the more so when there is another whom she doeslove. In my endeavour to teach this lesson I subjected the youngwife to the terrible danger of overtures from the man to whom herheart had been given. I was walking no doubt on ticklish ground, leaving for a while a doubt on the question whether the lovermight or might not succeed. Then there came to me a letter from adistinguished dignitary of our Church, a man whom all men honoured, treating me with severity for what I was doing. It had been oneof the innocent joys of his life, said the clergyman, to have mynovels read to him by his daughters. But now I was writing a bookwhich caused him to bid them close it! Must I also turn away tovicious sensation such as this? Did I think that a wife contemplatingadultery was a character fit for my pages? I asked him in return, whether from his pulpit, or at any rate from his communion-table, he did not denounce adultery to his audience; and if so, why shouldit not be open to me to preach the same doctrine to mine. I madeknown nothing which the purest girl could not but have learned, and ought not to have learned, elsewhere, and I certainly lent noattraction to the sin which I indicated. His rejoinder was fullof grace, and enabled him to avoid the annoyance of argumentationwithout abandoning his cause. He said that the subject was so muchtoo long for letters; that he hoped I would go and stay a week withhim in the country, --so that we might have it out. That opportunity, however, has never yet arrived. Lady Glencora overcomes that trouble, and is brought, partly by herown sense of right and wrong, and partly by the genuine nobilityof her husband's conduct, to attach herself to him after a certainfashion. The romance of her life is gone, but there remains arich reality of which she is fully able to taste the flavour. Sheloves her rank and becomes ambitious, first of social, and then ofpolitical ascendancy. He is thoroughly true to her, after his thoroughnature, and she, after her less perfect nature, is imperfectly trueto him. In conducting these characters from one story to another I realisedthe necessity, not only of consistency, --which, had it been maintainedby a hard exactitude, would have been untrue to nature, --but alsoof those changes which time always produces. There, are, perhaps, but few of us who, after the lapse of ten years, will be found tohave changed our chief characteristics. The selfish man will stillbe selfish, and the false man false. But our manner of showing orof hiding these characteristics will be changed, --as also our powerof adding to or diminishing their intensity. It was my study thatthese people, as they grew in years, should encounter the changeswhich come upon us all; and I think that I have succeeded. TheDuchess of Omnium, when she is playing the part of Prime Minister'swife, is the same woman as that Lady Glencora who almost longs togo off with Burgo Fitzgerald, but yet knows that she will never doso; and the Prime Minister Duke, with his wounded pride and sorespirit, is he who, for his wife's sake, left power and place whenthey were first offered to him;--but they have undergone the changeswhich a life so stirring as theirs would naturally produce. To doall this thoroughly was in my heart from first to last; but I donot know that the game has been worth the candle. To carry out my scheme I have had to spread my picture over so widea canvas that I cannot expect that any lover of such art shouldtrouble himself to look at it as a whole. Who will read Can YouForgive Her? Phineas Finn, Phineas Redux, and The Prime Ministerconsecutively, in order that they may understand the characters ofthe Duke of Omnium, of Plantagenet Palliser, and of Lady Glencora?Who will ever know that they should be so read? But in the performanceof the work I had much gratification, and was enabled from time totime to have in this way that fling at the political doings of theday which every man likes to take, if not in one fashion then inanother. I look upon this string of characters, --carried sometimesinto other novels than those just named, --as the best work ofmy life. Taking him altogether, I think that Plantagenet Palliserstands more firmly on the ground than any other personage I havecreated. On Christmas day, 1863, we were startled by the news of Thackeray'sdeath. He had then for many months given up the editorship of theCornhill Magazine, --a position for which he was hardly fitted eitherby his habits or temperament, --but was still employed in writingfor its pages. I had known him only for four years, but had growninto much intimacy with him and his family. I regard him as oneof the most tender-hearted human beings I ever knew, who, with anexaggerated contempt for the foibles of the world at large, wouldentertain an almost equally exaggerated sympathy with the joysand troubles of individuals around him. He had been unfortunate inearly life--unfortunate in regard to money--unfortunate with anafflicted wife--unfortunate in having his home broken up beforehis children were fit to be his companions. This threw him too muchupon clubs, and taught him to dislike general society. But it neveraffected his heart, or clouded his imagination. He could still revelin the pangs and joys of fictitious life, and could still feel--ashe did to the very last--the duty of showing to his readers theevil consequences of evil conduct. It was perhaps his chief faultas a writer that he could never abstain from that dash of satirewhich he felt to be demanded by the weaknesses which he saw aroundhim. The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write butlittle, --or it will seem that his satire springs rather from hisown caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which helives. I myself regard Esmond as the greatest novel in the Englishlanguage, basing that judgment upon the excellence of its language, on the clear individuality of the characters, on the truth ofits delineations in regard to the tine selected, and on its greatpathos. There are also in it a few scenes so told that even Scotthas never equalled the telling. Let any one who doubts this readthe passage in which Lady Castlewood induces the Duke of Hamilton tothink that his nuptials with Beatrice will be honoured if ColonelEsmond will give away the bride. When he went from us he left behindliving novelists with great names; but I think that they who bestunderstood the matter felt that the greatest master of fiction ofthis age had gone. Rachel Ray underwent a fate which no other novel of mine hasencountered. Some years before this a periodical called Good Wordshad been established under the editorship of my friend Dr. NormanMacleod, a well-known Presbyterian pastor in Glasgow. In 1863 heasked me to write a novel for his magazine, explaining to me thathis principles did not teach him to confine his matter to religioussubjects, and paying me the compliment of saying that he would feelhimself quite safe in my hands. In reply I told him I thought hewas wrong in his choice; that though he might wish to give a novelto the readers of Good Words, a novel from me would hardly be whathe wanted, and that I could not undertake to write either withany specially religious tendency, or in any fashion different fromthat which was usual to me. As worldly and--if any one thought mewicked--as wicked as I had heretofore been, I must still be, shouldI write for Good Words. He persisted in his request, and I cameto terms as to a story for the periodical. I wrote it and sent itto him, and shortly afterwards received it back--a considerableportion having been printed--with an intimation that it would notdo. A letter more full of wailing and repentance no man ever wrote. It was, he said, all his own fault. He should have taken my advice. He should have known better. But the story, such as it was, hecould not give to his readers in the pages of Good Words. Would Iforgive him? Any pecuniary loss to which his decision might subjectme the owner of the publication would willingly make good. Therewas some loss--or rather would have been--and that money I exacted, feeling that the fault had in truth been with the editor. There isthe tale now to speak for itself. It is not brilliant nor in anyway very excellent; but it certainly is not very wicked. There issome dancing in one of the early chapters, described, no doubt, with that approval of the amusement which I have always entertained;and it was this to which my friend demurred. It is more true ofnovels than perhaps of anything else, that one man's food is anotherman's poison. Miss Mackenzie was written with a desire to prove that a novel maybe produced without any love; but even in this attempt it breaksdown before the conclusion. In order that I might be strong in mypurpose, I took for my heroine a very unattractive old maid, whowas overwhelmed with money troubles; but even she was in love beforethe end of the book, and made a romantic marriage with an old man. There is in this story an attack upon charitable bazaars, madewith a violence which will, I think, convince any reader that suchattempts at raising money were at the time very odious to me. I begto say that since that I have had no occasion to alter my opinion. Miss Mackenzie was published in the early spring of 1865. At the same time I was engaged with others in establishing aperiodical Review, in which some of us trusted much, and from whichwe expected great things. There was, however, in truth so littlecombination of idea among us, that we were not justified in ourtrust or in our expectations. And yet we were honest in our purpose, and have, I think, done some good by our honesty. The matter on whichwe were all agreed was freedom of speech, combined with personalresponsibility. We would be neither conservative nor liberal, neitherreligious nor free-thinking, neither popular nor exclusive;--butwe would let any man who had a thing to say, and knew how to sayit, speak freely. But he should always speak with the responsibilityof his name attached. In the very beginning I militated against thisimpossible negation of principles, --and did so most irrationally, seeing that I had agreed to the negation of principles, --by declaringthat nothing should appear denying or questioning the divinity ofChrist. It was a most preposterous claim to make for such a publicationas we proposed, and it at once drove from us one or two who hadproposed to join us. But we went on, and our company--limited--wasformed. We subscribed, I think, œ1250 each. I at least subscribedthat amount, and--having agreed to bring out our publication everyfortnight, after the manner of the well-known French publication, --wecalled it The Fortnightly. We secured the services of G. H. Lewesas our editor. We agreed to manage our finances by a Board, whichwas to meet once a fortnight, and of which I was the Chairman. And we determined that the payments for our literature should bemade on a liberal and strictly ready-money system. We carried outour principles till our money was all gone, and then we sold thecopyright to Messrs. Chapman & Hall for a trifle. But before weparted with our property we found that a fortnightly issue was notpopular with the trade through whose hands the work must reach thepublic; and, as our periodical had not become sufficiently popularitself to bear down such opposition, we succumbed, and broughtit out once a month. Still it was The Fortnightly, and still itis The Fortnightly. Of all the serial publications of the day, itprobably is the most serious, the most earnest, the least devotedto amusement, the least flippant, the least jocose, --and yet ithas the face to show itself month after month to the world, withso absurd a misnomer! It is, as all who know the laws of modernliterature are aware, a very serious thing to change the name ofa periodical. By doing so you begin an altogether new enterprise. Therefore should the name be well chosen;--whereas this was veryill chosen, a fault for which I alone was responsible. That theory of eclecticism was altogether impracticable. It was asthough a gentleman should go into the House of Commons determinedto support no party, but to serve his country by individual utterances. Such gentlemen have gone into the House of Commons, but they havenot served their country much. Of course the project broke down. Liberalism, freethinking, and open inquiry will never object to appearin company with their opposites, because they have the conceit tothink that they can quell those opposites; but the opposites willnot appear in conjunction with liberalism, free-thinking, and openinquiry. As a natural consequence, our new publication became anorgan of liberalism, free-thinking, and open inquiry. The resulthas been good; and though there is much in the now establishedprinciples of The Fortnightly with which I do not myself agree, Imay safely say that the publication has assured an individuality, and asserted for itself a position in our periodical literature, which is well understood and highly respected. As to myself and my own hopes in the matter, --I was craving aftersome increase in literary honesty, which I think is still desirable butwhich is hardly to be attained by the means which then recommendedthemselves to me. In one of the early numbers I wrote a paperadvocating the signature of the authors to periodical writing, admitting that the system should not be extended to journalisticarticles on political subjects. I think that I made the best ofmy case; but further consideration has caused me to doubt whetherthe reasons which induced me to make an exception in favour ofpolitical writing do not extend themselves also to writing on othersubjects. Much of the literary criticism which we now have is verybad indeed;--. So bad as to be open to the charge both of dishonestyand incapacity. Books are criticised without being read, --arecriticised by favour, --and are trusted by editors to the criticismof the incompetent. If the names of the critics were demanded, editors would be more careful. But I fear the effect would be thatwe should get but little criticism, and that the public would putbut little trust in that little. An ordinary reader would not careto have his books recommended to him by Jones; but the recommendationof the great unknown comes to him with all the weight of the Times, the Spectator, or the Saturday. Though I admit so much, I am not a recreant from the doctrine I thenpreached. I think that the name of the author does tend to honesty, and that the knowledge that it will be inserted adds much to theauthor's industry and care. It debars him also from illegitimatelicense and dishonest assertions. A man should never be ashamedto acknowledge that which he is not ashamed to publish. In TheFortnightly everything has been signed, and in this way good has, I think, been done. Signatures to articles in other periodicalshave become much more common since The Fortnightly was commenced. After a time Mr. Lewes retired from the editorship, feeling thatthe work pressed too severely on his moderate strength. Our lossin him was very great, and there was considerable difficulty infinding a successor. I must say that the present proprietor hasbeen fortunate in the choice he did make. Mr. John Morley has donethe work with admirable patience, zeal, and capacity. Of coursehe has got around him a set of contributors whose modes of thoughtare what we may call much advanced; he being "much advanced" himself, would not work with other aids. The periodical has a peculiar toneof its own; but it holds its own with ability, and though thereare many who perhaps hate it, there are none who despise it. Whenthe company sold it, having spent about œ9000 on it, it was worthlittle or nothing. Now I believe it to be a good property. My own last personal concern with it was on a matter, of fox-hunting. [Footnote: I have written various articles for it since, especiallytwo on Cicero, to which I devoted great labour. ] There came out init an article from the pen of Mr. Freeman the historian, condemningthe amusement, which I love, on the grounds of cruelty and generalbrutality. Was it possible, asked Mr. Freeman, quoting from Cicero, that any educated man should find delight in so coarse a pursuit?Always bearing in mind my own connection with The Fortnightly, Iregarded this almost as a rising of a child against the father. Ifelt at any rate bound to answer Mr. Freeman in the same columns, and I obtained Mr. Morley's permission to do so. I wrote my defenceof fox-hunting, and there it is. In regard to the charge of cruelty, Mr. Freeman seems to assert that nothing unpleasant should bedone to any of God's creatures except f or a useful purpose. Theprotection of a lady's shoulders from the cold is a useful purpose;and therefore a dozen fur-bearing animals may be snared in thesnow and left to starve to death in the wires, in order that thelady may have the tippet, --though a tippet of wool would servethe purpose as well as a tippet of fur. But the congregation andhealthful amusement of one or two hundred persons, on whose behalfa single fox may or may not be killed, is not a useful purpose. Ithink that Mr. Freeman has failed to perceive that amusement is asneedful and almost as necessary as food and raiment. The absurdityof the further charge as to the general brutality of the pursuit, and its consequent unfitness for an educated man, is to be attributedto Mr. Freeman's ignorance of what is really done and said in thehunting-field, --perhaps to his misunderstanding of Cicero's words. There was a rejoinder to my answer, and I asked for space forfurther remarks. I could have it, the editor said, if I much wishedit; but he preferred that the subject should be closed. Of courseI was silent. His sympathies were all with Mr. Freeman, --andagainst the foxes, who, but for fox-hunting, would cease to existin England. And I felt that The Fortnighty was hardly the place forthe defence of the sport. Afterwards Mr. Freeman kindly suggestedto me that he would be glad to publish my article in a little bookto be put out by him condemnatory of fox-hunting generally. He wasto have the last word and the first word, and that power of pickingto pieces which he is known to use in so masterly a manner, withoutany reply from me! This I was obliged to decline. If he would giveme the last word, as be would have the first, then, I told him, Ishould be proud to join him in the book. This offer did not howevermeet his views. It had been decided by the Board of Management, somewhat in oppositionto my own ideas on the subject, that the Fortnightly Review shouldalways contain a novel. It was of course natural that I should writethe first novel, and I wrote The Belton Estate. It is similar inits attributes to Rachel Ray and to Miss Mackenzie. It is readable, and contains scenes which are true to life; but it has no peculiarmerits, and will add nothing to my reputation as a novelist. I havenot looked at it since it was published; and now turning back toit in my memory, I seem to remember almost less of it than of anybook that I have written. CHAPTER XI "THE CLAVERINGS, " THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE, " "NINA BALATKA, " AND"LINDA TRESSEL" The Claverings, which came out in 1866 and 1867, was the last novelwhich I wrote for the Cornhill; and it was for this that I receivedthe highest rate of pay that was ever accorded to me. It was thesame length as Framley Parsonage, and the price was œ2800. Whethermuch or little, it was offered by the proprietor of the magazine, and was paid in a single cheque. In The Claverings I did not follow the habit which had now becomevery common to me, of introducing personages whose names are alreadyknown to the readers of novels, and whose characters were familiarto myself. If I remember rightly, no one appears here who hadappeared before or who has been allowed to appear since. I considerthe story as a whole to be good, though I am not aware that thepublic has ever corroborated that verdict. The chief characteris that of a young woman who has married manifestly for money andrank, --so manifestly that she does not herself pretend, even whileshe is making the marriage, that she has any other reason. Theman is old, disreputable, and a wornout debauchee. Then comes thepunishment natural to the offence. When she is free, the man whomshe had loved, and who had loved her, is engaged to another woman. He vacillates and is weak, --in which weakness is the fault of thebook, as he plays the part of hero. But she is strong--strong inher purpose, strong in her desires, and strong in her consciousnessthat the punishment which comes upon her has been deserved. But the chief merit of The Clarverings is in the genuine fun ofsome of the scenes. Humour has not been my forte, but I am inclinedto think that the characters of Captain Boodle, Archie Clavering, and Sophie Gordeloup are humorous. Count Pateroff, the brother ofSophie, is also good, and disposes of the young hero's interferencein a somewhat masterly manner. In The Claverings, too, there is awife whose husband is a brute to her, who loses an only child--hisheir--and who is rebuked by her lord because the boy dies. Hersorrow is, I think, pathetic. From beginning to end the story iswell told. But I doubt now whether any one reads The Claverings. When I remember how many novels I have written, I have no rightto expect that above a few of them shall endure even to the secondyear beyond publication. This story closed my connection with theCornhill Magazine;--but not with its owner, Mr. George Smith, whosubsequently brought out a further novel of mine in a separateform, and who about this time established the Pall Mall Gazette, to which paper I was for some years a contributor. It was in 1865 that the Pall Mall Gazette was commenced, thename having been taken from a fictitious periodical, which was theoffspring of Thackeray's brain. It was set on foot by the unassistedenergy and resources of George Smith, who had succeeded by meansof his magazine and his publishing connection in getting around hima society of literary men who sufficed, as far as literary abilitywent, to float the paper at one under favourable auspices. His twostrongest staffs probably were "Jacob Omnium, " whom I regard as themost forcible newspaper writer of my days, and Fitz-James Stephen, the most conscientious and industrious. To them the Pall MallGazette owed very much of its early success, --and to the untiringenergy and general ability of its proprietor. Among its othercontributors were George Lewes, Hannay, --who, I think, came upfrom Edinburgh for employment on its columns, --Lord Houghton, LordStrangford, Charles Merivale, Greenwood the present editor, Greg, myself, and very many others;--so many others, that I have metat a Pall Mall dinner a crowd of guests who would have filled theHouse of Commons more respectably than I have seen it filled evenon important occasions. There are many who now remember--and nodoubt when this is published there will be left some to remember--thegreat stroke of business which was done by the revelations of avisitor to one of the casual wards in London. A person had to beselected who would undergo the misery of a night among the usualoccupants of a casual ward in a London poorhouse, and who should atthe same time be able to record what he felt and saw. The choicefell upon Mr. Greenwood's brother, who certainly possessed thecourage and the powers of endurance. The description, which wasvery well given, was, I think, chiefly written by the brother ofthe Casual himself. It had a great effect, which was increased bysecrecy as to the person who encountered all the horrors of thatnight. I was more than once assured that Lard Houghton was the man. I heard it asserted also that I myself had been the hero. At lastthe unknown one could no longer endure that his honours should behidden, and revealed the truth, --in opposition, I fear, to promisesto the contrary, and instigated by a conviction that if known hecould turn his honours to account. In the meantime, however, thatrecord of a night passed in a workhouse had done more to establishthe sale of the journal than all the legal lore of Stephen, or thepolemical power of Higgins, or the critical acumen of Lewes. My work was various. I wrote much on the subject of the AmericanWar, on which my feelings were at the time very keen, --subscribing, if I remember right, my name to all that I wrote. I contributedalso some sets of sketches, of which those concerning hunting foundfavour with the public. They were republished afterwards, and hada considerable sale, and may, I think, still be recommended to thosewho are fond of hunting, as being accurate in their description ofthe different classes of people who are to be met in the hunting-field. There was also a set of clerical sketches, which was considered tobe of sufficient importance to bring down upon my head the criticalwrath of a great dean of that period. The most ill-natured reviewthat was ever written upon any work of mine appeared in theContemporary Review with reference to these Clerical Sketches. Thecritic told me that I did not understand Greek. That charge hasbeen made not unfrequently by those who have felt themselves strongin that pride-producing language. It is much to read Greek withease, but it is not disgraceful to be unable to do so. To pretendto read it without being able, --that is disgraceful. The critic, however, had been driven to wrath by my saying that Deans of theChurch of England loved to revisit the glimpses of the metropolitanmoon. I also did some critical work for the Pall Mall, --as I did also forThe Fortnightly. It was not to my taste, but was done in conformitywith strict conscientious scruples. I read what I took in hand, andsaid what I believed to be true, --always giving to the matter timealtogether incommensurate with the pecuniary result to myself. Indoing this for the Pall Mall, I fell into great sorrow. A gentleman, whose wife was dear to me as if she were my own sister; was insome trouble as to his conduct in the public service. He had beenblamed, as he thought unjustly, and vindicated himself in a pamphlet. This he handed to me one day, asking me to read it, and express myopinion about it if I found that I had an opinion. I thought therequest injudicious, and I did not read the pamphlet. He met meagain, and, handing me a second pamphlet, pressed me very hard. Ipromised him that I would read it, and that if I found myself ableI would express myself;--but that I must say not what I wishedto think, but what I did think. To this of course he assented. Ithen went very much out of my way to study the subject, --which wasone requiring study. I found, or thought that I found, that theconduct of the gentleman in his office had been indiscreet; but thatcharges made against himself affecting his honour were baseless. This I said, emphasising much more strongly than was necessary theopinion which I had formed of his indiscretion, --as will so oftenbe the case when a man has a pen in his hand. It is like a clubor sledge-hammer, --in using which, either for defence or attack, a man can hardly measure the strength of the blows he gives. Ofcourse there was offence, --and a breaking off of intercourse betweenloving friends, --and a sense of wrong received, and I must own, too, of wrong done. It certainly was not open to me to whitewashwith honesty him whom I did not find to be white; but there was noduty incumbent on me to declare what was his colour in my eyes, --noduty even to ascertain. But I had been ruffled by the persistencyof the gentleman's request, --which should not have been made, --andI punished him for his wrong-doing by doing a wrong myself. I mustadd, that before he died his wife succeeded in bringing us together. In the early days of the paper, the proprietor, who at that timeacted also as chief editor, asked me to undertake a duty, --of whichthe agony would indeed at no one moment have been so sharp as thatendured in the casual ward, but might have been prolonged untilhuman nature sank under it. He suggested to me that I should duringan entire season attend the May meetings in Exeter Hall, and givea graphic and, if possible, amusing description of the proceedings. I did attend one, --which lasted three hours, --and wrote a paper whichI think was called A Zulu in Search of a Religion. But when themeeting was over I went to that spirited proprietor, and begged himto impose upon me some task more equal to my strength. Not even onbehalf of the Pall Mall Gazette, which was very dear to me, couldI go through a second May meeting, --much less endure a season ofsuch martyrdom. I have to acknowledge that I found myself unfit for work ona newspaper. I had not taken to it early enough in life to learnits ways and bear its trammels. I was fidgety when any work wasaltered in accordance with the judgment of the editor, who, ofcourse, was responsible for what appeared. I wanted to select myown subjects, --not to have them selected for me; to write when Ipleased, --and not when it suited others. As a permanent member ofthe staff I was of no use, and after two or three years I droppedout of the work. From the commencement of my success as a writer, which I datefrom the beginning of the Cornhill Magazine, I had always felt aninjustice in literary affairs which had never afflicted me or evensuggested itself to me while I was unsuccessful. It seemed to methat a name once earned carried with it too much favour. I indeedhad never reached a height to which praise was awarded as a matterof course; but there were others who sat on higher seats to whomthe critics brought unmeasured incense and adulation, even whenthey wrote, as they sometimes did write, trash which from a beginnerwould not have been thought worthy of the slightest notice. I hopeno one will think that in saying this I am actuated by jealousyof others. Though I never reached that height, still I had sofar progressed that that which I wrote was received with too muchfavour. The injustice which struck me did not consist in that whichwas withheld from me, but in that which was given to me. I feltthat aspirants coming up below me might do work as good as mine, and probably much better work, and yet fail to have it appreciated. In order to test this, I determined to be such an aspirant myself, and to begin a course of novels anonymously, in order that I mightsee whether I could obtain a second identity, --whether as I had madeone mark by such literary ability as I possessed, I might succeedin doing so again. In 1865 I began a short tale called Nina Balatka, which in 1866 was published anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine. In 1867 this was followed by another of the same length, calledLinda Tressel. I will speak of them together, as they are of thesame nature and of nearly equal merit. Mr. Blackwood, who himselfread the MS. Of Nina Balatka, expressed an opinion that it wouldnot from its style be discovered to have been written by me;--butit was discovered by Mr. Hutton of the Spectator, who found therepeated use of some special phrase which had rested upon his eartoo frequently when reading for the purpose of criticism otherworks of mine. He declared in his paper that Nina Balatka was byme, showing I think more sagacity than good nature. I ought not, however, to complain of him, as of all the critics of my work hehas been the most observant, and generally the most eulogistic. Nina Balatka never rose sufficiently high in reputation to makeits detection a matter of any importance. Once or twice I heard thestory mentioned by readers who did not know me to be the author, and always with praise; but it had no real success. The same maybe said of Linda Tressel. Blackwood, who of course knew the author, was willing to publish them, trusting that works by an experiencedwriter would make their way, even without the writer's name, and hewas willing to pay me for them, perhaps half what they would havefetched with my name. But he did not find the speculation answer, and declined a third attempt, though a third such tale was writtenfor him. Nevertheless I am sure that the two stories are good. Perhaps thefirst is somewhat the better, as being the less lachrymose. Theywere both written very quickly, but with a considerable amount oflabour; and both were written immediately after visits to the townsin which the scenes are laid, --Prague, mainly, and Nuremberg. Ofcourse I had endeavoured to change not only my manner of language, but my manner of story-telling also; and in this, pace Mr. Hutton, I think that I was successful. English life in them there was none. There was more of romance proper than had been usual with me. AndI made an attempt at local colouring, at descriptions of scenesand places, which has not been usual with me. In all this I amconfident that I was in a measure successful. In the loves, andfears, and hatreds, both of Nina and of Linda, there is much thatis pathetic. Prague is Prague, and Nuremberg is Nuremberg. I knowthat the stories are good, but they missed the object with whichthey had been written. Of course there is not in this any evidencethat I might not have succeeded a second time as I succeeded before, had I gone on with the same dogged perseverance. Mr. Blackwood, had I still further reduced my price, would probably have continuedthe experiment. Another ten years of unpaid unflagging labour mighthave built up a second reputation. But this at any rate did seemclear to me, that with all the increased advantages which practicein my art must have given me, I could not induce English readersto read what I gave to them, unless I gave it with my name. I do not wish to have it supposed from this that I quarrel with publicjudgment in affairs of literature. It is a matter of course thatin all things the public should trust to established reputation. Itis as natural that a novel reader wanting novels should send to alibrary for those by George Eliot or Wilkie Collins, as that a ladywhen she wants a pie for a picnic should go to Fortnum & Mason. Fortnum & Mason can only make themselves Fortnum & Mason by dint oftime and good pies combined. If Titian were to send us a portraitfrom the other world, as certain dead poets send their poetry bymeans of a medium, it would be some time before the art critic ofthe Times would discover its value. We may sneer at the want ofjudgment thus displayed, but such slowness of judgment is human andhas always existed. I say all this here because my thoughts on thematter have forced upon me the conviction that very much considerationis due to the bitter feelings of disappointed authors. We who have succeeded are so apt to tell new aspirants not toaspire, because the thing to be done may probably be beyond theirreach. "My dear young lady, had you not better stay at home and darnyour stockings?" "As, sir, you have asked for my candid opinion, I can only counsel you to try some other work of life which may bebetter suited to your abilities. " What old-established successfulauthor has not said such words as these to humble aspirants forcritical advice, till they have become almost formulas? No doubtthere is cruelty in such answers; but the man who makes them hasconsidered the matter within himself, and has resolved that suchcruelty is the best mercy. No doubt the chances against literaryaspirants are very great. It is so easy to aspire, --and to begin!A man cannot make a watch or a shoe without a variety of tools andmany materials. He must also have learned much. But any young ladycan write a book who has a sufficiency of pens and paper. It canbe done anywhere; in any clothes--which is a great thing; at anyhours--to which happy accident in literature I owe my success. And the success, when achieved, is so pleasant! The aspirants, ofcourse, are very many; and the experienced councillor, when askedfor his candid judgment as to this or that effort, knows that amongevery hundred efforts there will be ninety-nine failures. Then theanswer is so ready: "My dear young lady, do darn your stockings;it will be for the best. " Or perhaps, less tenderly, to the maleaspirant: "You must earn some money, you say. Don't you thinkthat a stool in a counting-house might be better?" The advice willprobably be good advice, --probably, no doubt, as may be proved bythe terrible majority of failures. But who is to be sure that heis not expelling an angel from the heaven to which, if less roughlytreated, he would soar, --that he is not dooming some Milton to bemute and inglorious, who, but for such cruel ill-judgment, wouldbecome vocal to all ages? The answer to all this seems to be ready enough. The judgment, whether cruel or tender, should not be ill-judgment. He whoconsents to sit as judge should have capacity for judging. But inthis matter no accuracy of judgment is possible. It may be that thematter subjected to the critic is so bad or so good as to make anassured answer possible. "You, at any rate, cannot make this yourvocation;" or "You, at any rate, can succeed, if you will try. " Butcases as to which such certainty can be expressed are rare. Thecritic who wrote the article on the early verses of Lord Byron, whichproduced the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, was justified inhis criticism by the merits of the Hours of Idleness. The lines hadnevertheless been written by that Lord Byron who became our Byron. In a little satire called The Biliad, which, I think, nobody knows, are the following well-expressed lines:-- "When Payne Knight's Taste was issued to the town, A few Greek verses in the text set down Were torn to pieces, mangled into hash, Doomed to the flames as execrable trash, -- In short, were butchered rather than dissected, And several false quantities detected, -- Till, when the smoke had vanished from the cinders, 'Twas just discovered that--THE LINES WERE PINDAR'S!" There can be no assurance against cases such as these; and yet weare so free with our advice, always bidding the young aspirant todesist. There is perhaps no career or life so charming as that of a successfulman of letters. Those little unthought of advantages which I justnow named are in themselves attractive. If you like the town, live inthe town, and do your work there; if you like the country, choosethe country. It may be done on the top of a mountain or in thebottom of a pit. It is compatible with the rolling of the sea andthe motion of a railway. The clergyman, the lawyer, the doctor, themember of Parliament, the clerk in a public office, the tradesman, and even his assistant in the shop, must dress in accordance withcertain fixed laws; but the author need sacrifice to no grace, hardly even to Propriety. He is subject to no bonds such as thosewhich bind other men. Who else is free from all shackle as to hours?The judge must sit at ten, and the attorney-general, who is makinghis œ20, 000 a year, must be there with his bag. The Prime Ministermust be in his place on that weary front bench shortly afterprayers, and must sit there, either asleep or awake, even though---- or ---- should be addressing the House. During all that Sundaywhich he maintains should be a day of rest, the active clergymantoils like a galley-slave. The actor, when eight o'clock comes, is bound to his footlights. The Civil Service clerk must sit therefrom ten till four, --unless his office be fashionable, when twelveto six is just as heavy on him. The author may do his work at fivein the morning when he is fresh from his bed, or at three in themorning before he goes there. And the author wants no capital, andencounters no risks. When once he is afloat, the publisher findsall that;--and indeed, unless he be rash, finds it whether he beafloat or not. But it is in the consideration which he enjoys thatthe successful author finds his richest reward. He is, if not ofequal rank, yet of equal standing with the highest; and if he beopen to the amenities of society, may choose his own circles. Hewithout money can enter doors which are closed against almost allbut him and the wealthy. I have often heard it said that in thiscountry the man of letters is not recognised. I believe the meaningof this to be that men of letters are not often invited to beknights and baronets. I do not think that they wish it;--and ifthey had it they would, as a body, lose much more than they wouldgain. I do not at all desire to have letters put after my name, orto be called Sir Anthony, but if my friends Tom Hughes and CharlesReade became Sir Thomas and Sir Charles, I do not know how I mightfeel, --or how my wife might feel, if we were left unbedecked. Asit is, the man of letters who would be selected for titular honour, if such bestowal of honours were customary, receives from the generalrespect of those around him a much more pleasant recognition ofhis worth. If this be so, --if it be true that the career of the successfulliterary man be thus pleasant--it is not wonderful that many shouldattempt to win the prize. But how is a man to know whether or nothe has within him the qualities necessary for such a career? Hemakes an attempt, and fails; repeats his attempt, and fails again!So many have succeeded at last who have failed more than once ortwice! Who will tell him the truth as to himself? Who has power tofind out that truth? The hard man sends him off without a scrupleto that office-stool; the soft man assures him that there is muchmerit in his MS. Oh, my young aspirant, --if ever such a one should read thesepages, --be sure that no one can tell you! To do so it would benecessary not only to know what there is now within you, but alsoto foresee what time will produce there. This, however, I think maybe said to you, without any doubt as to the wisdom of the counselgiven, that if it be necessary for you to live by your work, do notbegin by trusting to literature. Take the stool in the office asrecommended to you by the hard man; and then, in such leisure hoursas may belong to you, let the praise which has come from the lipsof that soft man induce you to persevere in your literary attempts. Should you fail, then your failure will not be fatal, --and whatbetter could you have done with the leisure hours had you not sofailed? Such double toil, you will say, is severe. Yes, but ifyou want this thing, you must submit to severe toil. Sometime before this I had become one of the Committee appointedfor the distribution of the moneys of the Royal Literary Fund, andin that capacity I heard and saw much of the sufferings of authors. I may in a future chapter speak further of this Institution, whichI regard with great affection, and in reference to which I shouldbe glad to record certain convictions of my own; but I allude to itnow, because the experience I have acquired in being active in itscause forbids me to advise any young man or woman to enter boldlyon a literary career in search of bread. I know how utterly Ishould have failed myself had my bread not been earned elsewherewhile I was making my efforts. During ten years of work, which Icommenced with some aid from the fact that others of my family werein the same profession, I did not earn enough to buy me the pens, ink, and paper which I was using; and then when, with all myexperience in my art, I began again as from a new springing point, I should have failed again unless again I could have given yearsto the task. Of course there have been many who have done betterthan I, --many whose powers have been infinitely greater. But then, too, I have seen the failure of many who were greater. The career, when success has been achieved, is certainly verypleasant; but the agonies which are endured in the search for thatsuccess are often terrible. And the author's poverty is, I think, harder to be borne than any other poverty. The man, whether rightlyor wrongly, feels that the world is using him with extreme injustice. The more absolutely he fails, the higher, it is probable, he willreckon his own merits; and the keener will be the sense of injuryin that he whose work is of so high a nature cannot get bread, while they whose tasks are mean are lapped in luxury. "I, withmy well-filled mind, with my clear intellect, with all my gifts, cannot earn a poor crown a day, while that fool, who simpers ina little room behind a shop, makes his thousands every year. " Thevery charity, to which he too often is driven, is bitterer to himthan to others. While he takes it he almost spurns the hand thatgives it to him, and every fibre of his heart within him is bleedingwith a sense of injury. The career, when successful, is pleasant enough certainly; but whenunsuccessful, it is of all careers the most agonising. CHAPTER XII ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM It is nearly twenty years since I proposed to myself to writea history of English prose fiction. I shall never do it now, butthe subject is so good a one that I recommend it heartily to someman of letters, who shall at the same time be indefatigable andlight-handed. I acknowledge that I broke down in the task, becauseI could not endure the labour in addition to the other labours ofmy life. Though the book might be charming, the work was very muchthe reverse. It came to have a terrible aspect to me, as did thatproposition that I should sit out all the May meetings of a season. According to my plan of such a history it would be necessaryto read an infinity of novels, and not only to read them, but soto read them as to point out the excellences of those which aremost excellent, and to explain the defects of those which, thoughdefective, had still reached sufficient reputation to make themworthy of notice. I did read many after this fashion, --and hereand there I have the criticisms which I wrote. In regard to many, they were written on some blank page within the book; I have not, however, even a list of the books so criticised. I think that theArcadia was the first, and Ivanhoe the last. My plan, as I settledit at last, had been to begin with Robinson Crusoe, which is theearliest really popular novel which we have in our language, andto continue the review so as to include the works of all Englishnovelists of reputation, except those who might still be livingwhen my task should be completed. But when Dickens and Bulwer died, my spirit flagged, and that which I had already found to be verydifficult had become almost impossible to me at my then period oflife. I began my own studies on the subject with works much earlier thanRobinson Crusoe, and made my way through a variety of novels whichwere necessary for my purpose, but which in the reading gave me nopleasure whatever. I never worked harder than at the Arcadia, orread more detestable trash than the stories written by Mrs. AphraBehn; but these two were necessary to my purpose, which was not onlyto give an estimate of the novels as I found them, but to describehow it had come to pass that the English novels of the presentday have become what they are, to point out the effects which theyhave produced, and to inquire whether their great popularity has onthe whole done good or evil to the people who read them. I stillthink that the book is one well worthy to be written. I intended to write that book to vindicate my own profession asa novelist, and also to vindicate that public taste in literaturewhich has created and nourished the profession which I follow. And I was stirred up to make such an attempt by a conviction thatthere still exists among us Englishmen a prejudice in respectto novels which might, perhaps, be lessened by such a work. Thisprejudice is not against the reading of novels, as is proved by theirgeneral acceptance among us. But it exists strongly in referenceto the appreciation in which they are professed to be held; and itrobs them of much of that high character which they may claim tohave earned by their grace, their honesty, and good teaching. No man can work long at any trade without being brought to considermuch, whether that which he is daily doing tends to evil or togood. I have written many novels, and have known many writers ofnovels, and I can assert that such thoughts have been strong withthem and with myself. But in acknowledging that these writers havereceived from the public a full measure of credit for such genius, ingenuity, or perseverance as each may have displayed, I feel thatthere is still wanting to them a just appreciation of the excellenceof their calling, and a general understanding of the high natureof the work which they perform. By the common consent of all mankind who have read, poetry takesthe highest place in literature. That nobility of expression, andall but divine grace of words, which she is bound to attain beforeshe can make her footing good, is not compatible with prose. Indeedit is that which turns prose into poetry. When that has been intruth achieved, the reader knows that the writer has soared abovethe earth, and can teach his lessons somewhat as a god might teach. He who sits down to write his tale in prose makes no such attempt, nor does he dream that the poet's honour is within his reach;--buthis teaching is of the same nature, and his lessons all tend tothe same end. By either, false sentiments may be fostered; falsenotions of humanity may be engendered; false honour, false love, false worship may be created; by either, vice instead of virtuemay be taught. But by each, equally, may true honour, true love;true worship, and true humanity be inculcated; and that will bethe greatest teacher who will spread such truth the widest. Butat present, much as novels, as novels, are bought and read, thereexists still an idea, a feeling which is very prevalent, that novelsat their best are but innocent. Young men and women, --and old menand women too, --read more of them than of poetry, because such readingis easier than the reading of poetry; but they read them, --as meneat pastry after dinner, --not without some inward conviction thatthe taste is vain if not vicious. I take upon myself to say thatit is neither vicious nor vain. But all writers of fiction who have desired to think well of theirown work, will probably have had doubts on their minds before theyhave arrived at this conclusion. Thinking much of my own dailylabour and of its nature, I felt myself at first to be much afflictedand then to be deeply grieved by the opinion expressed by wise andthinking men as to the work done by novelists. But when, by degrees, I dared to examine and sift the sayings of such men, I found themto be sometimes silly and often arrogant. I began to inquire whathad been the nature of English novels since they first became commonin our own language, and to be desirous of ascertaining whether theyhad done harm or good. I could well remember that, in my own youngdays, they had not taken that undisputed possession of drawing-roomswhich they now hold. Fifty years ago, when George IV. Was king, theywere not indeed treated as Lydia had been forced to treat them inthe preceding reign, when, on the approach of elders, PeregrinePickle was hidden beneath the bolster, and Lord Ainsworth put awayunder the sofa. But the families in which an unrestricted permissionwas given for the reading of novels were very few, and from manythey were altogether banished. The high poetic genius and correctmorality of Walter Scott had not altogether succeeded in making menand women understand that lessons which were good in poetry couldnot be bad in prose. I remember that in those days an embargo waslaid upon novel-reading as a pursuit, which was to the novelista much heavier tax than that want of full appreciation of which Inow complain. There is, we all know, no such embargo now. May we not say thatpeople of an age to read have got too much power into their ownhands to endure any very complete embargo? Novels are read rightand left, above stairs and below, in town houses and in countryparsonages, by young countesses and by farmers' daughters, by oldlawyers and by young students. It has not only come to pass thata special provision of them has to be made for the godly, but thatthe provision so made must now include books which a few years sincethe godly would have thought to be profane. It was this necessitywhich, a few years since, induced the editor of Good Words to applyto me for a novel, --which, indeed, when supplied was rejected, butwhich now, probably, owing to further change in the same direction, would have been accepted. If such be the case--if the extension of novel-reading be so wideas I have described it--then very much good or harm must be doneby novels. The amusement of the time can hardly be the only resultof any book that is read, and certainly not so with a novel, whichappeals especially to the imagination, and solicits the sympathy ofthe young. A vast proportion of the teaching of the day, --greaterprobably than many of us have acknowledged to ourselves, --comesfrom these books, which are in the hands of all readers. It is fromthem that girls learn what is expected from them, and what theyare to expect when lovers come; and also from them that young menunconsciously learn what are, or should be, or may be, the charmsof love, --though I fancy that few young men will think so littleof their natural instincts and powers as to believe that I am rightin saying so. Many other lessons also are taught. In these times, when the desire to be honest is pressed so hard, is so violentlyassaulted by the ambition to be great; in which riches are theeasiest road to greatness; when the temptations to which men aresubjected dull their eyes to the perfected iniquities of others;when it is so hard for a man to decide vigorously that the pitch, which so many are handling, will defile him if it be touched;--men'sconduct will be actuated much by that which is from day to daydepicted to them as leading to glorious or inglorious results. Thewoman who is described as having obtained all that the world holdsto be precious, by lavishing her charms and her caresses unworthilyand heartlessly, will induce other women to do the same withtheirs, --as will she who is made interesting by exhibitions ofbold passion teach others to be spuriously passionate. The youngman who in a novel becomes a hero, perhaps a Member of Parliament, and almost a Prime Minister, by trickery, falsehood, and flashcleverness, will have many followers, whose attempts to rise inthe world ought to lie heavily on the conscience of the novelistswho create fictitious Cagliostros. There are Jack Sheppards otherthan those who break into houses and out of prisons, --Macheaths, who deserve the gallows more than Gay's hero. Thinking of all this, as a novelist surely must do, --as I certainlyhave done through my whole career, --it becomes to him a matter ofdeep conscience how he shall handle those characters by whose wordsand doings he hopes to interest his readers. It will very frequentlybe the case that he will be tempted to sacrifice something foreffect, to say a word or two here, or to draw a picture there, for which he feels that he has the power, and which when spoken ordrawn would be alluring. The regions of absolute vice are foul andodious. The savour of them, till custom has hardened the palate andthe nose, is disgusting. In these he will hardly tread. But thereare outskirts on these regions, on which sweet-smelling flowersseem to grow; and grass to be green. It is in these border-landsthat the danger lies. The novelist may not be dull. If he committhat fault he can do neither harm nor good. He must please, and theflowers and the grass in these neutral territories sometimes seemto give him so easy an opportunity of pleasing! The writer of stories must please, or he will be nothing. Andhe must teach whether he wish to teach or no. How shall he teachlessons of virtue and at the same time make himself a delight tohis readers? That sermons are not in themselves often thought tobe agreeable we all know. Nor are disquisitions on moral philosophysupposed to be pleasant reading for our idle hours. But the novelist, if he have a conscience, must preach his sermons with the samepurpose as the clergyman, and must have his own system of ethics. If he can do this efficiently, if he can make virtue alluring andvice ugly, while he charms his readers instead of wearying them, then I think Mr. Carlyle need not call him distressed, nor talkof that long ear of fiction, nor question whether he be or not themost foolish of existing mortals. I think that many have done so; so many that we English novelistsmay boast as a class that has been the general result of our ownwork. Looking back to the past generation, I may say with certaintythat such was the operation of the novels of Miss Edgeworth, MissAusten, and Walter Scott. Coming down to my own times, I find suchto have been the teaching of Thackeray, of Dickens, and of GeorgeEliot. Speaking, as I shall speak to any who may read these words, with that absence of self-personality which the dead may claim, Iwill boast that such has been the result of my own writing. Can anyone by search through the works of the six great English novelistsI have named, find a scene, a passage, or a word that would teacha girl to be immodest, or a man to be dishonest? When men in theirpages have been described as dishonest and women as immodest, havethey not ever been punished? It is not for the novelist to say, baldly and simply: "Because you lied here, or were heartless there, because you Lydia Bennet forgot the lessons of your honest home, or you Earl Leicester were false through your ambition, or youBeatrix loved too well the glitter of the world, therefore you shallbe scourged with scourges either in this world or in the next;" butit is for him to show, as he carries on his tale, that his Lydia, or his Leicester, or his Beatrix, will be dishonoured in the estimationof all readers by his or her vices. Let a woman be drawn clever, beautiful, attractive, --so as to make men love her, and womenalmost envy her, --and let her be made also heartless, unfeminine, and ambitious of evil grandeur, as was Beatrix, what a danger isthere not in such a character! To the novelist who shall handle it, what peril of doing harm! But if at last it have been so handledthat every girl who reads of Beatrix shall say: "Oh! not likethat;--let me not be like that!" and that every youth shall say:"Let me not have such a one as that to press my bosom, anythingrather than that!"--then will not the novelist have preached hissermon as perhaps no clergyman can preach it? Very much of a novelist's work must appertain to the intercoursebetween young men and young women. It is admitted that a novelcan hardly be made interesting or successful without love. Some fewmight be named, but even in those the attempt breaks down, and thesoftness of love is found to be necessary to complete the story. Pickwick has been named as an exception to the rule, but evenin Pickwick there are three or four sets of lovers, whose littleamatory longings give a softness to the work. I tried it once withMiss Mackenzie, but I had to make her fall in love at last. In thisfrequent allusion to the passion which most stirs the imaginationof the young, there must be danger. Of that the writer of fictionis probably well aware. Then the question has to be asked, whetherthe danger may not be so averted that good may be the result, --andto be answered. respect the necessity of dealing with love is advantageous, --advantageousfrom the very circumstance which has made love necessary toall novelists. It is necessary because the passion is one whichinterests or has interested all. Every one feels it, has felt it, or expects to feel it, --or else rejects it with an eagerness whichstill perpetuates the interest. If the novelist, therefore, canso handle the subject as to do good by his handling, as to teachwholesome lessons in regard to love, the good which he does willbe very wide. If I can teach politicians that they can do theirbusiness better by truth than by falsehood, I do a great service;but it is done to a limited number of persons. But if I can makeyoung men and women believe that truth in love will make themhappy, then, if my writings be popular, I shall have a very largeclass of pupils. No doubt the cause for that fear which did existas to novels arose from an idea that the matter of love would betreated in an inflammatory and generally unwholesome manner. "Madam, "says Sir Anthony in the play, "a circulating library in a town isan evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge. It blossoms through theyear; and depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who are so fond ofhandling the leaves will long for the fruit at last. " Sir Anthonywas no doubt right. But he takes it for granted that the longingfor the fruit is an evil. The novelist who writes of love thinksdifferently, and thinks that the honest love of an honest man isa treasure which a good girl may fairly hope to win, --and that ifshe can be taught to wish only for that, she will have been taughtto entertain only wholesome wishes. I can easily believe that a girl should be taught to wish to loveby reading how Laura Bell loved Pendennis. Pendennis was not intruth a very worthy man, nor did he make a very good husband; butthe girl's love was so beautiful, and the wife's love when she becamea wife so womanlike, and at the same time so sweet, so unselfish, so wifely, so worshipful, --in the sense in which wives are toldthat they ought to worship their husband, --that I cannot believethat any girl can be injured, or even not benefited, by reading ofLaura's love. There once used to be many who thought, and probably there stillare some, even here in England, who think that a girl should hearnothing of love till the time come in which she is to be married. That, no doubt, was the opinion of Sir Anthony Absolute and of Mrs. Malaprop. But I am hardly disposed to believe that the old systemwas more favourable than ours to the purity of manners. LydiaLanguish, though she was constrained by fear of her aunt to hidethe book, yet had Peregrine Pickle in her collection. While humannature talks of love so forcibly it can hardly serve our turnto be silent on the subject. "Naturam expellas furca, tamen usquerecurret. " There are countries in which it has been in accordancewith the manners of the upper classes that the girl should be broughtto marry the man almost out of the nursery--or rather perhaps outof the convent--without having enjoyed that freedom of thoughtwhich the reading of novels and of poetry will certainly produce;but I do not know that the marriages so made have been thought tobe happier than our own. Among English novels of the present day, and among Englishnovelists, a great division is made. There are sensational novelsand anti-sensational, sensational novelists and anti-sensational, sensational readers and anti-sensational. The novelists who areconsidered to be anti-sensational are generally called realistic. I am realistic. My friend Wilkie Collins is generally supposedto be sensational. The readers who prefer the one are supposed totake delight in the elucidation of character. Those who hold bythe other are charmed by the continuation and gradual developmentof a plot. All this is, I think, a mistake, --which mistake arisesfrom the inability of the imperfect artist to be at the same timerealistic and sensational. A good novel should be both, and both inthe highest degree. If a novel fail in either, there is a failurein art. Let those readers who believe that they do not likesensational scenes in novels think of some of those passages fromour great novelists which have charmed them most:--of Rebecca inthe castle with Ivanhoe; of Burley in the cave with Morton; of themad lady tearing the veil of the expectant bride, in Jane Eyre; ofLady Castlewood as, in her indignation, she explains to the Dukeof Hamilton Henry Esmond's right to be present at the marriage ofhis Grace with Beatrix;--may I add of Lady Mason, as she makes herconfession at the feet of Sir Peregrine Orme? Will any one say thatthe authors of these passages have sinned in being over-sensational? Nodoubt, a string of horrible incidents, bound together without truthin detail, and told as affecting personages without character, --woodenblocks, who cannot make themselves known to the reader as menand women, does not instruct or amuse, or even fill the mind withawe. Horrors heaped upon horrors, and which are horrors only inthemselves, and not as touching any recognised and known person, are not tragic, and soon cease even to horrify. And such would-betragic elements of a story may be increased without end, andwithout difficulty. I may tell you of a woman murdered, --murderedin the same street with you, in the next house, --that she was awife murdered by her husband, --a bride not yet a week a wife. I mayadd to it for ever. I may say that the murderer roasted her alive. There is no end to it. I may declare that a former wife was treatedwith equal barbarity; and may assert that, as the murderer was ledaway to execution, he declared his only sorrow, his only regretto be, that he could not live to treat a third wife after the samefashion. There is nothing so easy as the creation and the cumulationof fearful incidents after this fashion. If such creation and cumulationbe the beginning and the end of the novelist's work, --and novels havebeen written which seem to be without other attractions, --nothingcan be more dull or more useless. But not on that account are weaverse to tragedy in prose fiction. As in poetry, so in prose, hewho can deal adequately with tragic elements is a greater artistand reaches a higher aim than the writer whose efforts never carryhim above the mild walks of everyday life. The Bride of Lammermooris a tragedy throughout, in spite of its comic elements. The lifeof Lady Castlewood, of whom I have spoken, is a tragedy. Rochester'swretched thraldom to his mad wife, in Jane Eyre, is a tragedy. But these stories charm us not simply because they are tragic, butbecause we feel that men and women with flesh and blood, creatureswith whom we can sympathise, are struggling amidst their woes. Itall lies in that. No novel is anything, for the purposes eitherof comedy or tragedy, unless the reader can sympathise with thecharacters whose names he finds upon the pages. Let an author sotell his tale as to touch his reader's heart and draw his tears, and he has, so far, done his work well. Truth let there be, --truthof description, truth of character, human truth as to men andwomen. If there be such truth, I do not know that a novel can betoo sensational. I did intend when I meditated that history of English fiction toinclude within its pages some rules for the writing of novels;--orI might perhaps say, with more modesty, to offer some advice onthe art to such tyros in it as might be willing to take advantageof the experience of an old hand. But the matter would, I fear, be too long for this episode, and I am not sure that I have as yetgot the rules quite settled in my own mind. I will, however, saya few words on one or two points which my own practice has pointedout to me. I have from the first felt sure that the writer, when he sits downto commence his novel, should do so, not because he has to tella story, but because he has a story to tell. The novelist's firstnovel will generally have sprung from the right cause. Some seriesof events, or some development of character, will have presenteditself to his imagination, --and this he feels so strongly that hethinks he can present his picture in strong and agreeable languageto others. He sits down and tells his story because he has a storyto tell; as you, my friend, when you have heard something whichhas at once tickled your fancy or moved your pathos, will hurryto tell it to the first person you meet. But when that first novelhas been received graciously by the public and has made for itselfa success, then the writer naturally feeling that the writing ofnovels is within his grasp, looks about for something to tell inanother. He cudgels his brains, not always successfully, and sitsdown to write, not because he has something which he burns totell, but because be feels it to be incumbent on him to be tellingsomething. As you, my friend, if you are very successful inthe telling of that first story, will become ambitious of furtherstorytelling, and will look out for anecdotes, --in the narrationof which you will not improbably sometimes distress your audience. So it has been with many novelists, who, after some good work, perhaps after very much good work, have distressed their audiencebecause they have gone on with their work till their work has becomesimply a trade with them. Need I make a list of such, seeing thatit would contain the names of those who have been greatest in theart of British novel-writing? They have at last become weary ofthat portion of a novelist's work which is of all the most essentialto success. That a man as he grows old should feel the labour ofwriting to be a fatigue is natural enough. But a man to whom writinghas become a habit may write well though he be fatigued. But theweary novelist refuses any longer to give his mind to that work ofobservation and reception from which has come his power, withoutwhich work his power cannot be continued, --which work shouldbe going on not only when he is at his desk, but in all his walksabroad, in all his movements through the world, in all his intercoursewith his fellow-creatures. He has become a novelist, as another hasbecome a poet, because he has in those walks abroad, unconsciouslyfor the most part, been drawing in matter from all that he has seenand heard. But this has not been done without labour, even whenthe labour has been unconscious. Then there comes a time when heshuts his eyes and shuts his ears. When we talk of memory fadingas age comes on, it is such shutting of eyes and ears that we mean. The things around cease to interest us, and we cannot exerciseour minds upon them. To the novelist thus wearied there comes thedemand for further novels. He does not know his own defect, andeven if he did he does not wish to abandon his own profession. Hestill writes; but he writes because he has to tell a story, notbecause he has a story to tell. What reader of novels has not feltthe "woodenness" of this mode of telling? The characters do notlive and move, but are cut out of blocks and are propped against thewall. The incidents are arranged in certain lines--the arrangementbeing as palpable to the reader as it has been to the writer--butdo not follow each other as results naturally demanded by previousaction. The reader can never feel--as he ought to feel--that onlyfor that flame of the eye, only for that angry word, only for thatmoment of weakness, all might have been different. The course ofthe tale is one piece of stiff mechanism, in which there is no roomfor a doubt. These, it may be said, are reflections which I, being an oldnovelist, might make useful to myself for discontinuing my work, but can hardly be needed by those tyros of whom I have spoken. Thatthey are applicable to myself I readily admit, but I also find thatthey apply to many beginners. Some of us who are old fail at lastbecause we are old. It would be well that each of us should say tohimself, "Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne Peccet ad extremum ridendus. " But many young fail also, because they endeavour to tell storieswhen they have none to tell. And this comes from idleness ratherthan from innate incapacity. The mind has not been sufficiently atwork when the tale has been commenced, nor is it kept sufficientlyat work as the tale is continued. I have never troubled myself muchabout the construction of plots, and am not now insisting speciallyon thoroughness in a branch of work in which I myself have not beenvery thorough. I am not sure that the construction of a perfectedplot has been at any period within my power. But the novelist hasother aims than the elucidation of his plot. He desires to makehis readers so intimately acquainted with his characters that thecreatures of his brain should be to them speaking, moving, living, human creatures. This he can never do unless he know those fictitiouspersonages himself, and he can never know them unless he can livewith them in the full reality of established intimacy. They mustbe with him as he lies down to sleep, and as he wakes from hisdreams. He must learn to hate them and to love them. He must arguewith them, quarrel with them, forgive them, and even submit to them. He must know of them whether they be cold-blooded or passionate, whether true or false, and how far true, and how far false. Thedepth and the breadth, and the narrowness and the shallowness ofeach should be clear to him. And, as here, in our outer world, weknow that men and women change, --become worse or better as temptationor conscience may guide them, --so should these creations of hischange, and every change should be noted by him. On the last dayof each month recorded, every person in his novel should be a montholder than on the first. If the would-be novelist have aptitudesthat way, all this will come to him without much struggling;--butif it do not come, I think he can only make novels of wood. It is so that I have lived with my characters, and thence has comewhatever success I have obtained. There is a gallery of them, andof all in that gallery I may say that I know the tone of the voice, and the colour of the hair, every flame of the eye, and the veryclothes they wear. Of each man I could assert whether he would havesaid these or the other words; of every woman, whether she wouldthen have smiled or so have frowned. When I shall feel that thisintimacy ceases, then I shall know that the old horse should beturned out to grass. That I shall feel it when I ought to feel it, I will by no means say. I do not know that I am at all wiser thanGil Blas' canon; but I do know that the power indicated is one withoutwhich the teller of tales cannot tell them to any good effect. The language in which the novelist is to put forth his story, thecolours with which he is to paint his picture, must of course be tohim matter of much consideration. Let him have all other possiblegifts, --imagination, observation, erudition, and industry, --theywill avail him nothing for his purpose, unless he can put forthhis work in pleasant words. If he be confused, tedious, harsh, orunharmonious, readers will certainly reject him. The reading ofa volume of history or on science may represent itself as a duty;and though the duty may by a bad style be made very disagreeable, the conscientious reader will perhaps perform it. But the novelistwill be assisted by no such feeling. Any reader may reject hiswork without the burden of a sin. It is the first necessity of hisposition that he make himself pleasant. To do this, much more isnecessary than to write correctly. He may indeed be pleasant withoutbeing correct, --as I think can be proved by the works of more thanone distinguished novelist. But he must be intelligible, --intelligiblewithout trouble; and he must be harmonious. Any writer who has read even a little will know what is meant bythe word intelligible. It is not sufficient that there be a meaningthat may be hammered out of the sentence, but that the languageshould be so pellucid that the meaning should be rendered withoutan effort of the reader;--and not only some proposition of meaning, but the very sense, no more and no less, which the writer has intendedto put into his words. What Macaulay says should be remembered byall writers: "How little the all-important art of making meaningpellucid is studied now! Hardly any popular author except myselfthinks of it. " The language used should be as ready and as efficienta conductor of the mind of the writer to the mind of the readeras is the electric spark which passes from one battery to anotherbattery. In all written matter the spark should carry everything;but in matters recondite the recipient will search to see thathe misses nothing, and that he takes nothing away too much. Thenovelist cannot expect that any such search will be made. A youngwriter, who will acknowledge the truth of what I am saying, willoften feel himself tempted by the difficulties of language totell himself that some one little doubtful passage, some singlecollocation of words, which is not quite what it ought to be, willnot matter. I know well what a stumbling-block such a passage maybe. But he should leave none such behind him as he goes on. Thehabit of writing clearly soon comes to the writer who is a severecritic to himself. As to that harmonious expression which I think is required, I shallfind it more difficult to express my meaning. It will be granted, Ithink, by readers that a style may be rough, and yet both forcibleand intelligible; but it will seldom come to pass that a novel writtenin a rough style will be popular, --and less often that a novelistwho habitually uses such a style will become so. The harmony whichis required must come from the practice of the ear. There are fewears naturally so dull that they cannot, if time be allowed to them, decide whether a sentence, when read, be or be not harmonious. Andthe sense of such harmony grows on the ear, when the intelligencehas once informed itself as to what is, and what is not harmonious. The boy, for instance, who learns with accuracy the prosody of aSapphic stanza, and has received through his intelligence a knowledgeof its parts, will soon tell by his ear whether a Sapphic stanzabe or be not correct. Take a girl, endowed with gifts of music, well instructed in her art, with perfect ear, and read to her sucha stanza with two words transposed, as, for instance-- Mercuri, nam te docilis magistro Movit Amphion CANENDO LAPIDES, Tuque testudo resonare septem Callida nervis-- and she will find no halt in the rhythm. But a schoolboy withnone of her musical acquirements or capacities, who has, however, become familiar with the metres of the poet, will at once discoverthe fault. And so will the writer become familiar with what isharmonious in prose. But in order that familiarity may serve himin his business, he must so train his ear that he shall be ableto weigh the rhythm of every word as it falls from his pen. This, when it has been done for a time, even for a short time, will becomeso habitual to him that he will have appreciated the metrical durationof every syllable before it shall have dared to show itself uponpaper. The art of the orator is the same. He knows beforehand howeach sound which he is about to utter will affect the force of hisclimax. If a writer will do so he will charm his readers, thoughhis readers will probably not know how they have been charmed. In writing a novel the author soon becomes aware that a burdenof many pages is before him. Circumstances require that he shouldcover a certain and generally not a very confined space. Short novelsare not popular with readers generally. Critics often complain ofthe ordinary length of novels, --of the three volumes to which theyare subjected; but few novels which have attained great success inEngland have been told in fewer pages. The novel-writer who sticksto novel-writing as his profession will certainly find that thisburden of length is incumbent on him. How shall he carry his burdento the end? How shall he cover his space? Many great artists haveby their practice opposed the doctrine which I now propose topreach;--but they have succeeded I think in spite of their faultand by dint of their greatness. There should be no episodes in anovel. Every sentence, every word, through all those pages, shouldtend to the telling of the story. Such episodes distract theattention of the reader, and always do so disagreeably. Who has notfelt this to be the case even with The Curious Impertinent and withthe History of the Man of the Hill. And if it be so with Cervantesand Fielding, who can hope to succeed? Though the novel which youhave to write must be long, let it be all one. And this exclusionof episodes should be carried down into the smallest details. Every sentence and every word used should tend to the telling ofthe story. "But, " the young novelist will say, "with so many pagesbefore me to be filled, how shall I succeed if I thus confinemyself;--how am I to know beforehand what space this story of minewill require? There must be the three volumes, or the certain numberof magazine pages which I have contracted to supply. If I may notbe discursive should occasion require, how shall I complete my task?The painter suits the size of his canvas to his subject, and mustI in my art stretch my subject to my canas?" This undoubtedly mustbe done by the novelist; and if he will learn his business, maybe done without injury to his effect. He may not paint differentpictures on the same canvas, which he will do if he allow himselfto wander away to matters outside his own story; but by studyingproportion in his work, he may teach himself so to tell his storythat it shall naturally fall into the required length. Though hisstory should be all one, yet it may have many parts. Though theplot itself may require but few characters, it may be so enlargedas to find its full development in many. There may be subsidiaryplots, which shall all tend to the elucidation of the main story, and which will take their places as part of one and the samework, --as there may be many figures on a canvas which shall not tothe spectator seem to form themselves into separate pictures. There is no portion of a novelist's work in which this fault ofepisodes is so common as in the dialogue. It is so easy to makeany two persons talk on any casual subject with which the writerpresumes himself to be conversant! Literature, philosophy, politics, or sport, may thus be handled in a loosely discursive style; andthe writer, while indulging himself and filling his pages, is aptto think that he is pleasing his reader. I think he can make nogreater mistake. The dialogue is generally the most agreeable partof a novel; but it is only so as long as it tends in some way tothe telling of the main story. It need not seem to be confined tothat, but it should always have a tendency in that direction. Theunconscious critical acumen of a reader is both just and severe. When a long dialogue on extraneous matter reaches his mind, he atonce feels that he is being cheated into taking something which hedid not bargain to accept when he took up that novel. He does notat that moment require politics or philosophy, but he wants hisstory. He will not perhaps be able to say in so many words that atsome certain point the dialogue has deviated from the story; butwhen it does so he will feel it, and the feeling will be unpleasant. Let the intending novel-writer, if he doubt this, read one ofBulwer's novels, --in which there is very much to charm, --and thenask himself whether he has not been offended by devious conversations. And the dialogue, on which the modern novelist in consulting thetaste of his probable readers must depend most, has to be constrainedalso by other rules. The writer may tell much of his story inconversations, but he may only do so by putting such words intothe mouths of his personages as persons so situated would probablyuse. He is not allowed for the sake of his tale to make his charactersgive utterance to long speeches, such as are not customarily heardfrom men and women. The ordinary talk of ordinary people is carriedon in short, sharp, expressive sentences, which very frequently arenever completed, --the language of which even among educated peopleis often incorrect. The novel-writer in constructing his dialoguemust so steer between absolute accuracy of language--which wouldgive to his conversation an air of pedantry, and the slovenlyinaccuracy of ordinary talkers, which if closely followed wouldoffend by an appearance of grimace--as to produce upon the ear ofhis readers a sense of reality. If he be quite real he will seemto attempt to be funny. If he be quite correct he will seem tobe unreal. And above all, let the speeches be short. No charactershould utter much above a dozen words at a breath, --unless the writercan justify to himself a longer flood of speech by the specialtyof the occasion. In all this human nature must be the novel-writer's guide. No doubteffective novels have been written in which human nature has beenset at defiance. I might name Caleb Williams as one and Adam Blairas another. But the exceptions are not more than enough to provethe rule. But in following human nature he must remember that he doesso with a pen in his hand, and that the reader who will appreciatehuman nature will also demand artistic ability and literary aptitude. The young novelist will probably ask, or more probably bethinkhimself how he is to acquire that knowledge of human nature whichwill tell him with accuracy what men and women would say in thisor that position. He must acquire it as the compositor, who is toprint his words, has learned the art of distributing his type--byconstant and intelligent practice. Unless it be given to him tolisten and to observe, --so to carry away, as it were, the mannersof people in his memory as to be able to say to himself with assurancethat these words might have been said in a given position, and thatthose other words could not have been said, --I do not think thatin these days he can succeed as a novelist. And then let him beware of creating tedium! Who has not felt thecharm of a spoken story up to a certain point, and then suddenlybecome aware that it has become too long and is the reverse ofcharming. It is not only that the entire book may have this fault, but that this fault may occur in chapters, in passages, in pages, in paragraphs. I know no guard against this so likely to be effectiveas the feeling of the writer himself. When once the sense that thething is becoming long has grown upon him, he may be sure that itwill grow upon his readers. I see the smile of some who will declareto themselves that the words of a writer will never be tedious tohimself. Of the writer of whom this may be truly said, it may besaid with equal truth that he will always be tedious to his reader. CHAPTER XIII ON ENGLISH NOVELISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY In this chapter I will venture to name a few successful novelistsof my own time, with whose works I am acquainted; and will endeavourto point whence their success has come, and why they have failedwhen there has been failure. I do not hesitate to name Thackeray the first. His knowledge ofhuman nature was supreme, and his characters stand out as humanbeings, with a force and a truth which has not, I think, beenwithin the reach of any other English novelist in any period. I knowno character in fiction, unless it be Don Quixote, with whom thereader becomes so intimately acquainted as with Colonel Newcombe. How great a thing it is to be a gentleman at all parts! How weadmire the man of whom so much may be said with truth! Is thereany one of whom we feel more sure in this respect than of ColonelNewcombe? It is not because Colonel Newcombe is a perfect gentlemanthat we think Thackeray's work to have been so excellent, butbecause he has had the power to describe him as such, and to forceus to love him, a weak and silly old man, on account of this graceof character. It is evident from all Thackeray's best work that helived with the characters he was creating. He had always a storyto tell until quite late in life; and he shows us that this wasso, not by the interest which be had in his own plots, --for I doubtwhether his plots did occupy much of his mind, --but by convincingus that his characters were alive to himself. With Becky Sharpe, with Lady Castlewood and her daughter, and with Esmond, withWarrington, Pendennis, and the Major, with Colonel Newcombe, andwith Barry Lynon, he must have lived in perpetual intercourse. Therefore he has made these personages real to us. Among all our novelists his style is the purest, as to my ear it isalso the most harmonious. Sometimes it is disfigured by a slighttouch of affectation, by little conceits which smell of the oil;--butthe language is always lucid. The reader, without labour, knows whathe means, and knows all that he means. As well as I can remember, he deals with no episodes. I think that any critic, examininghis work minutely, would find that every scene, and every part ofevery scene, adds something to the clearness with which the storyis told. Among all his stories there is not one which does notleave on the mind a feeling of distress that women should everbe immodest or men dishonest, --and of joy that women should be sodevoted and men so honest. How we hate the idle selfishness ofPendennis, the worldliness of Beatrix, the craft of Becky Sharpe!--howwe love the honesty of Colonel Newcombe, the nobility of Esmond, and the devoted affection of Mrs. Pendennis! The hatred of eviland love of good can hardly have come upon so many readers withoutdoing much good. Late in Thackeray's life, --he never was an old man, but towards theend of his career, --he failed in his power of charming, because heallowed his mind to become idle. In the plots which he conceived, and in the language which he used; I do not know that there is anyperceptible change; but in The Virginians and in Philip the readeris introduced to no character with which he makes a close and undyingacquaintance. And this, I have no doubt, is so because Thackerayhimself had no such intimacy. His mind had come to be weary ofthat fictitious life which is always demanding the labour of newcreation, and he troubled himself with his two Virginians and hisPhilip only when he was seated at his desk. At the present moment George Eliot is the first of English novelists, and I am disposed to place her second of those of my time. Sheis best known to the literary world as a writer of prose fiction, and not improbably whatever of permanent fame she may acquire willcome from her novels. But the nature of her intellect is very farremoved indeed from that which is common to the tellers of stories. Her imagination is no doubt strong, but it acts in analysing ratherthan in creating. Everything that comes before her is pulledto pieces so that the inside of it shall be seen, and be seen ifpossible by her readers as clearly as by herself. This searchinganalysis is carried so far that, in studying her latter writings, one feels oneself to be in company with some philosopher ratherthan with a novelist. I doubt whether any young person can readwith pleasure either Felix Holt, Middlemarch, or Daniel Deronda. I know that they are very difficult to many that are not young. Her personifications of character have been singularly terse andgraphic, and from them has come her great hold on the public, --thoughby no means the greatest effect which she has produced. The lessonswhich she teaches remain, though it is not for the sake of thelessons that her pages are read. Seth Bede, Adam Bede, Maggie andTom Tulliver, old Silas Marner, and, much above all, Tito, in Romola, are characters which, when once known, can never be forgotten. Icannot say quite so much for any of those in her later works, becausein them the philosopher so greatly overtops the portrait-painter, that, in the dissection of the mind, the outward signs seem tohave been forgotten. In her, as yet, there is no symptom whateverof that weariness of mind which, when felt by the reader, induceshim to declare that the author has written himself out. It is notfrom decadence that we do not have another Mrs. Poyser, but becausethe author soars to things which seem to her to be higher than Mrs. Poyser. It is, I think, the defect of George Eliot that she struggles toohard to do work that shall be excellent. She lacks ease. Latterlythe signs of this have been conspicuous in her style, which has alwaysbeen and is singularly correct, but which has become occasionallyobscure from her too great desire to be pungent. It is impossiblenot to feel the struggle, and that feeling begets a flavourof affectation. In Daniel Deronda, of which at this moment only aportion has been published, there are sentences which I have foundmyself compelled to read three times before I have been able totake home to myself all that the writer has intended. Perhaps Imay be permitted here to say, that this gifted woman was among mydearest and most intimate friends. As I am speaking here of novelists, I will not attempt to speak of George Eliot's merit as a poet. There can be no doubt that the most popular novelist of mytime--probably the most popular English novelist of any time--hasbeen Charles Dickens. He has now been dead nearly six years, and thesale of his books goes on as it did during his life. The certaintywith which his novels are found in every house--the familiarity ofhis name in all English-speaking countries--the popularity of suchcharacters as Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, and Pecksniff, and many otherswhose names have entered into the English language and becomewell-known words--the grief of the country at his death, and thehonours paid to him at his funeral, --all testify to his popularity. Since the last book he wrote himself, I doubt whether any bookhas been so popular as his biography by John Forster. There isno withstanding such testimony as this. Such evidence of popularappreciation should go for very much, almost for everything, in criticism on the work of a novelist. The primary object of anovelist is to please; and this man's novels have been found morepleasant than those of any other writer. It might of course beobjected to this, that though the books have pleased they have beeninjurious, that their tendency has been immoral and their teachingvicious; but it is almost needless to say that no such charge hasever been made against Dickens. His teaching has ever been good. From all which, there arises to the critic a question whether, withsuch evidence against him as to the excellence of this writer, heshould not subordinate his own opinion to the collected opinion ofthe world of readers. To me it almost seems that I must be wrongto place Dickens after Thackeray and George Eliot, knowing as I dothat so great a majority put him above those authors. My own peculiar idiosyncrasy in the matter forbids me to do so. Ido acknowledge that Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, Pecksniff, and others havebecome household words in every house, as though they were humanbeings; but to my judgment they are not human beings, nor are anyof the characters human which Dickens has portrayed. It has beenthe peculiarity and the marvel of this man's power, that he hasinvested, his puppets with a charm that has enabled him to dispensewith human nature. There is a drollery about them, in my estimation, very much below the humour of Thackeray, but which has reached theintellect of all; while Thackeray's humour has escaped the intellectof many. Nor is the pathos of Dickens human. It is stagey andmelodramatic. But it is so expressed that it touches every hearta little. There is no real life in Smike. His misery, his idiotcy, his devotion for Nicholas, his love for Kate, are all overdone andincompatible with each other. But still the reader sheds a tear. Every reader can find a tear for Smike. Dickens's novels are likeBoucicault's plays. He has known how to draw his lines broadly, sothat all should see the colour. He, too, in his best days, always lived with his characters;--andhe, too, as he gradually ceased to have the power of doing so, ceased to charm. Though they are not human beings, we all rememberMrs. Gamp and Pickwick. The Boffins and Veneerings do not, I think, dwell in the minds of so many. Of Dickens's style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky, ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules--almostas completely as that created by Carlyle. To readers who have taughtthemselves to regard language, it must therefore be unpleasant. Butthe critic is driven to feel the weakness of his criticism, whenhe acknowledges to himself--as he is compelled in all honesty todo--that with the language, such as it is, the writer has satisfiedthe great mass of the readers of his country. Both these greatwriters have satisfied the readers of their own pages; but bothhave done infinite harm by creating a school of imitators. No youngnovelist should ever dare to imitate the style of Dickens. If sucha one wants a model for his language, let him take Thackeray. Bulwer, or Lord Lytton, --but I think that he is still better knownby his earlier name, --was a man of very great parts. Better educatedthan either of those I have named before him, he was always able touse his erudition, and he thus produced novels from which very muchnot only may be but must be learned by his readers. He thoroughlyunderstood the political status of his own country, a subjecton which, I think, Dickens was marvellously ignorant, and whichThackeray had never studied. He had read extensively, and was alwaysapt to give his readers the benefit of what he knew. The resulthas been that very much more than amusement may be obtained fromBulwer's novels. There is also a brightness about them--the resultrather of thought than of imagination, of study and of care, thanof mere intellect--which has made many of them excellent in theirway. It is perhaps improper to class all his novels together, ashe wrote in varied manners, making in his earlier works, such asPelham and Ernest Maltravers, pictures of a fictitious life, andafterwards pictures of life as he believed it to be, as in My Noveland The Caxtons. But from all of them there comes the same flavourof an effort to produce effect. The effects are produced, but itwould have been better if the flavour had not been there. I cannot say of Bulwer as I have of the other novelists whom I havenamed that he lived with his characters. He lived with his work, with the doctrines which at the time he wished to preach, thinkingalways of the effects which he wished to produce; but I do notthink he ever knew his own personages, --and therefore neither dowe know them. Even Pelham and Eugene Aram are not human beings tous, as are Pickwick, and Colonel Newcombe, and Mrs. Poyser. In his plots Bulwer has generally been simple, facile, and successful. The reader never feels with him, as he does with Wilkie Collins, that it is all plot, or, as with George Eliot, that there is no plot. The story comes naturally without calling for too much attention, and is thus proof of the completeness of the man's intellect. Hislanguage is clear, good, intelligible English, but it is defacedby mannerism. In all that he did, affectation was his fault. How shall I speak of my dear old friend Charles Lever, andhis rattling, jolly, joyous, swearing Irishmen. Surely never dida sense of vitality come so constantly from a man's pen, nor fromman's voice, as from his! I knew him well for many years, andwhether in sickness or in health, I have never come across himwithout finding him to be running over with wit and fun. Of all themen I have encountered, he was the surest fund of drollery. I haveknown many witty men, many who could say good things, many whowould sometimes be ready to say them when wanted, though they wouldsometimes fail;--but he never failed. Rouse him in the middle ofthe night, and wit would come from him before he was half awake. And yet he never monopolised the talk, was never a bore. He wouldtake no more than his own share of the words spoken, and would yetseem to brighten all that was said during the night. His earliernovels--the later I have not read--are just like his conversation. The fun never flags, and to me, when I read them, they were nevertedious. As to character he can hardly be said to have producedit. Corney Delaney, the old manservant, may perhaps be named as anexception. Lever's novels will not live long, --even if they may be said tobe alive now, --because it is so. What was his manner of working Ido not know, but I should think it must have been very quick, andthat he never troubled himself on the subject, except when he wasseated with a pen in his hand. Charlotte Bronte was surely a marvellous woman. If it could beright to judge the work of a novelist from one small portion ofone novel, and to say of an author that he is to be accounted asstrong as he shows himself to be in his strongest morsel of work, I should be inclined to put Miss Bronte very high indeed. I knowno interest more thrilling than that which she has been able tothrow into the characters of Rochester and the governess, in thesecond volume of Jane Eyre. She lived with those characters, andfelt every fibre of the heart, the longings of the one and thesufferings of the other. And therefore, though the end of the bookis weak, and the beginning not very good, I venture to predict thatJane Eyre will be read among English novels when many whose namesare now better known shall have been forgotten. Jane Eyre, andEsmond, and Adam Bede will be in the hands of our grandchildren, when Pickwick, and Pelham, and Harry Lorrequer are forgotten;because the men and women depicted are human in their aspirations, human in their sympathies, and human in their actions. In Vilette, too, and in Shirley, there is to be found human life asnatural and as real, though in circumstances not so full of interestas those told in Jane Eyre. The character of Paul in the former ofthe two is a wonderful study. She must herself have been in lovewith some Paul when she wrote the book, and have been determined toprove to herself that she was capable of loving one whose exteriorcircumstances were mean and in every way unprepossessing. There is no writer of the present day who has so much puzzledme by his eccentricities, impracticabilities, and capabilities asCharles Reade. I look upon him as endowed almost with genius, butas one who has not been gifted by nature with ordinary powers ofreasoning. He can see what is grandly noble and admire it withall his heart. He can see, too, what is foully vicious and hateit with equal ardour. But in the common affairs of life he cannotsee what is right or wrong; and as he is altogether unwilling to beguided by the opinion of others, he is constantly making mistakesin his literary career, and subjecting himself to reproach which hehardly deserves. He means to be honest. He means to be especiallyhonest, --more honest than other people. He has written a bookcalled The Eighth Commandment on behalf of honesty in literarytransactions, --a wonderful work, which has I believe been read bya very few. I never saw a copy except that in my own library, orheard of any one who knew the book. Nevertheless it is a volumethat must have taken very great labour, and have been written, --asindeed he declares that it was written, --without the hope ofpecuniary reward. He makes an appeal to the British Parliament andBritish people on behalf of literary honesty, declaring that shouldhe fail--"I shall have to go on blushing for the people I was bornamong. " And yet of all the writers of my day he has seemed to meto understand literary honesty the least. On one occasion, as hetells us in this book, he bought for a certain sum from a Frenchauthor the right of using a plot taken from a play, --which heprobably might have used without such purchase, and also withoutinfringing any international copyright act. The French author notunnaturally praises him for the transaction, telling him that heis "un vrai gentleman. " The plot was used by Reade in a novel; anda critic discovering the adaptation, made known his discovery tothe public. Whereupon the novelist became angry, called his critica pseudonymuncle, and defended himself by stating the fact of hisown purchase. In all this he seems to me to ignore what we all meanwhen we talk of literary plagiarism and literary honesty. The sinof which the author is accused is not that of taking another man'sproperty, but of passing off as his own creation that which hedoes not himself create. When an author puts his name to a book heclaims to have written all that there is therein, unless he makesdirect signification to the contrary. Some years subsequently therearose another similar question, in which Mr. Reade's opinion wasdeclared even more plainly, and certainly very much more publicly. In a tale which he wrote he inserted a dialogue which he took fromSwift, and took without any acknowledgment. As might have beenexpected, one of the critics of the day fell foul of him for thisbarefaced plagiarism. The author, however, defended himself, withmuch abuse of the critic, by asserting, that whereas Swift hadfound the jewel he had supplied the setting;--an argument in whichthere was some little wit, and would have been much excellent truth, had he given the words as belonging to Swift and not to himself. The novels of a man possessed of so singular a mind must themselvesbe very strange, --and they are strange. It has generally been hisobject to write down some abuse with which he has been particularlystruck, --the harshness, for instance, with which paupers or lunaticsare treated, or the wickedness of certain classes, --and he always, I think, leaves upon his readers an idea of great earnestnessof purpose. But he has always left at the same time on my mind sostrong a conviction that he has not really understood his subject, that I have ever found myself taking the part of those whom he hasaccused. So good a heart, and so wrong a head, surely no novelistever before had combined! In storytelling he has occasionally beenalmost great. Among his novels I would especially recommend TheCloister and the Hearth. I do not know that in this work, or in any, that he has left a character that will remain; but he has writtensome of his scenes so brightly that to read them would always bea pleasure. Of Wilkie Collins it is impossible for a true critic not to speakwith admiration, because he has excelled all his contemporaries ina certain most difficult branch of his art; but as it is a branchwhich I have not myself at all cultivated, it is not unnaturalthat his work should be very much lost upon me individually. WhenI sit down to write a novel I do not at all know, and I do not verymuch care, how it is to end. Wilkie Collins seems so to constructhis that he not only, before writing, plans everything on, down tothe minutest detail, from the beginning to the end; but then plotsit all back again, to see that there is no piece of necessarydove-tailing which does not dove-tail with absolute accuracy. Theconstruction is most minute and most wonderful. But I can neverlose the taste of the construction. The author seems always to bewarning me to remember that something happened at exactly half-pasttwo o'clock on Tuesday morning; or that a woman disappeared fromthe road just fifteen yards beyond the fourth mile-stone. One isconstrained by mysteries and hemmed in by difficulties, knowing, however, that the mysteries will be made clear, and the difficultiesovercome at the end of the third volume. Such work gives me nopleasure. I am, however, quite prepared to acknowledge that thewant of pleasure comes from fault of my intellect. There are two ladies of whom I would fain say a word, though I feelthat I am making my list too long, in order that I may declare howmuch I have admired their work. They are Annie Thackeray and RhodaBroughton. I have known them both, and have loved the former almostas though she belonged to me. No two writers were ever moredissimilar, --except in this that they are both feminine. MissThackeray's characters are sweet, charming, and quite true to humannature. In her writings she is always endeavouring to prove thatgood produces good, and evil evil. There is not a line of whichshe need be ashamed, --not a sentiment of which she should not beproud. But she writes like a lazy writer who dislikes her work, and who allows her own want of energy to show itself in her pages. Miss Broughton, on the other hand, is full of energy, --thoughshe too, I think, can become tired over her work. She, however, does take the trouble to make her personages stand upright on theground. And she has the gift of making them speak as men and womendo speak. "You beast!" said Nancy, sitting on the wall, to the manwho was to be her husband, --thinking that she was speaking to herbrother. Now Nancy, whether right or wrong, was just the girl whowould, as circumstances then were, have called her brother a beast. There is nothing wooden about any of Miss Broughton's novels; andin these days so many novels are wooden! But they are not sweet-savouredas are those by Miss Thackeray, and are, therefore, less true tonature. In Miss Broughton's determination not to be mawkish andmissish, she has made her ladies do and say things which ladieswould not do and say. They throw themselves at men's heads, andwhen they are not accepted only think how they may throw themselvesagain. Miss Broughton is still so young that I hope she may liveto overcome her fault in this direction. There is one other name, without which the list of the best knownEnglish novelists of my own time would certainly be incomplete, and that is the name of the present Prime Minister of England. Mr. Disraeli has written so many novels, and has been so popular as anovelist that, whether for good or for ill, I feel myself compelledto speak of him. He began his career as an author early in life, publishing Vivian Grey when he was twenty-three years old. He wasvery young for such work, though hardly young enough to justify theexcuse that he makes in his own preface, that it is a book writtenby a boy. Dickens was, I think, younger when he wrote his Sketchesby Boz, and as young when he was writing the Pickwick Papers. Itwas hardly longer ago than the other day when Mr. Disraeli broughtout Lothair, and between the two there were eight or ten others. To me they have all had the same flavour of paint and unreality. In whatever he has written he has affected something which has beenintended to strike his readers as uncommon and therefore grand. Because he has been bright and a man of genius, he has carried hisobject as regards the young. He has struck them with astonishmentand aroused in their imagination ideas of a world more glorious, more rich, more witty, more enterprising, than their own. But theglory has been the glory of pasteboard, and the wealth has beena wealth of tinsel. The wit has been the wit of hairdressers, andthe enterprise has been the enterprise of mountebanks. An audaciousconjurer has generally been his hero, --some youth who, by wonderfulcleverness, can obtain success by every intrigue that comes tohis hand. Through it all there is a feeling of stage properties, a smell of hair-oil, an aspect of buhl, a remembrance of tailors, and that pricking of the conscience which must be the generalaccompaniment of paste diamonds. I can understand that Mr. Disraelishould by his novels have instigated many a young man and many ayoung woman on their way in life, but I cannot understand that heshould have instigated any one to good. Vivian Grey has had probablyas many followers as Jack Sheppard, and has led his followers inthe same direction. Lothair, which is as yet Mr. Disraeli's last work, and, I think, undoubtedly his worst, has been defended on a plea somewhat similarto that by which he has defended Vivian Grey. As that was writtenwhen he was too young, so was the other when he was too old, --tooold for work of that nature, though not too old to be Prime Minister. If his mind were so occupied with greater things as to allow him towrite such a work, yet his judgment should have sufficed to inducehim to destroy it when written. Here that flavour of hair-oil, that flavour of false jewels, that remembrance of tailors, comesout stronger than in all the others. Lothair is falser even thanVivian Grey, and Lady Corisande, the daughter of the Duchess, moreinane and unwomanlike than Venetia or Henrietta Temple. It is thevery bathos of story-telling. I have often lamented, and have asoften excused to myself, that lack of public judgment which enablesreaders to put up with bad work because it comes from good or fromlofty hands. I never felt the feeling so strongly, or was so littleable to excuse it, as when a portion of the reading public receivedLothair with satisfaction. CHAPTER XIV ON CRITICISM Literary criticism in the present day has become a profession, --butit has ceased to be an art. Its object is no longer that of provingthat certain literary work is good and other literary work isbad, in accordance with rules which the critic is able to define. English criticism at present rarely even pretends to go so far asthis. It attempts, in the first place, to tell the public whethera book be or be not worth public attention; and, in the secondplace, so to describe the purport of the work as to enable thosewho have not time or inclination for reading it to feel that by ashort cut they can become acquainted with its contents. Both theseobjects, if fairly well carried out, are salutary. Though thecritic may not be a profound judge himself; though not unfrequentlyhe be a young man making his first literary attempts, with tastesand judgment still unfixed, yet he probably has a conscience in thematter, and would not have been selected for that work had he notshown some aptitude for it. Though he may be not the best possibleguide to the undiscerning, he will be better than no guide at all. Real substantial criticism must, from its nature, be costly, andthat which the public wants should at any rate be cheap. Advice isgiven to many thousands, which, though it may not be the best advicepossible, is better than no advice at all. Then that descriptionof the work criticised, that compressing of the much into verylittle, --which is the work of many modern critics or reviewers, --doesenable many to know something of what is being said, who withoutit would know nothing. I do not think it is incumbent on me at present to name periodicalsin which this work is well done, and to make complaints of othersby which it is scamped. I should give offence, and might probablybe unjust. But I think I may certainly say that as some of theseperiodicals are certainly entitled to great praise for the mannerin which the work is done generally, so are others open to verysevere censure, --and that the praise and that the censure arechiefly due on behalf of one virtue and its opposite vice. It isnot critical ability that we have a right to demand, or its absencethat we are bound to deplore. Critical ability for the price wepay is not attainable. It is a faculty not peculiar to Englishmen, and when displayed is very frequently not appreciated. But thatcritics should be honest we have a right to demand, and criticaldishonesty we are bound to expose. If the writer will tell us whathe thinks, though his thoughts be absolutely vague and useless, we can forgive him; but when he tells us what he does not think, actuated either by friendship or by animosity, then there shouldbe no pardon for him. This is the sin in modern English criticismof which there is most reason to complain. It is a lamentable fact that men and women lend themselves to thispractice who are neither vindictive nor ordinarily dishonest. Ithas become "the custom of the trade, " under the veil of which excuseso many tradesmen justify their malpractices! When a strugglingauthor learns that so much has been done for A by the BarsetshireGazette, so much for B by the Dillsborough Herald, and, again, somuch for C by that powerful metropolitan organ the Evening Pulpit, and is told also that A and B and C have been favoured through personalinterest, he also goes to work among the editors, or the editors'wives, --or perhaps, if he cannot reach their wives, with theirwives' first or second cousins. When once the feeling has come uponan editor or a critic that he may allow himself to be influencedby other considerations than the duty h owes to the public, allsense of critical or of editorial honesty falls from him at once. Facilis descensus Averni. In a very short time that editorialhonesty becomes ridiculous to himself. It is for other purpose thathe wields the power; and when he is told what is his duty, and whatshould be his conduct, the preacher of such doctrine seems to himto be quixotic. "Where have you lived, my friend, for the lasttwenty years, " he says in spirit, if not in word, "that you come outnow with such stuff as old-fashioned as this?" And thus dishonestybegets dishonesty, till dishonesty seems to be beautiful. How niceto be good-natured! How glorious to assist struggling young authors, especially if the young author be also a pretty woman! How graciousto oblige a friend! Then the motive, though still pleasing, departsfurther from the border of what is good. In what way can the criticbetter repay the hospitality of his wealthy literary friend thanby good-natured criticism, --or more certainly ensure for himselfa continuation of hospitable favours? Some years since a critic of the day, a gentleman well known thenin literary circles, showed me the manuscript of a book recentlypublished, --the work of a popular author. It was handsomely bound, and was a valuable and desirable possession. It had just been givento him by the author as an acknowledgment for a laudatory review inone of the leading journals of the day. As I was expressly askedwhether I did not regard such a token as a sign of grace bothin the giver and in the receiver, I said that I thought it shouldneither have been given nor have been taken. My theory was repudiatedwith scorn, and I was told that I was strait-laced, visionary, andimpracticable! In all that the damage did not lie in the fact ofthat one present, but in the feeling on the part of the critic thathis office was not debased by the acceptance of presents from thosewhom he criticised. This man was a professional critic, bound byhis contract with certain employers to review such books as weresent to him. How could he, when he had received a valuable presentfor praising one book, censure another by the same author? While I write this I well know that what I say, if it be evernoticed at all, will be taken as a straining at gnats, as a pretenceof honesty, or at any rate as an exaggeration of scruples. I havesaid the same thing before, and have been ridiculed for saying it. But none the less am I sure that English literature generally issuffering much under this evil. All those who are struggling forsuccess have forced upon them the idea that their strongest effortsshould be made in touting for praise. Those who are not familiarwith the lives of authors will hardly believe how low will be theforms which their struggles will take:--how little presents willbe sent to men who write little articles; how much flattery maybe expended even on the keeper of a circulating library; with whatprofuse and distant genuflexions approaches are made to the outsiderailing of the temple which contains within it the great thundererof some metropolitan periodical publication! The evil here is notonly that done to the public when interested counsel is given tothem, but extends to the debasement of those who have at any rateconsidered themselves fit to provide literature for the public. I am satisfied that the remedy for this evil must lie in the conscienceand deportment of authors themselves. If once the feeling could beproduced that it is disgraceful for an author to ask for praise, --anddemands for praise are, I think, disgraceful in every walk oflife, --the practice would gradually fall into the hands only ofthe lowest, and that which is done only by the lowest soon becomesdespicable even to them. The sin, when perpetuated with unflagginglabour, brings with it at best very poor reward. That work of runningafter critics, editors, publishers, the keepers of circulatinglibraries, and their clerks, is very hard, and must be very disagreeable. He who does it must feel himself to be dishonoured, --or she. Itmay perhaps help to sell an edition, but can never make an authorsuccessful. I think it may be laid down as a golden rule in literature thatthere should be no intercourse at all between an author and hiscritic. The critic, as critic, should not know his author, nor theauthor, as author, his critic. As censure should beget no anger, so should praise beget no gratitude. The young author should feelthat criticisms fall upon him as dew or hail from heaven, --which, as coming from heaven, man accepts as fate. Praise let the authortry to obtain by wholesome effort; censure let him avoid, ifpossible, by care and industry. But when they come, let him takethem as coming from some source which he cannot influence, and withwhich be should not meddle. I know no more disagreeable trouble into which an author may plungehimself than of a quarrel with his critics, or any more uselesslabour than that of answering them. It is wise to presume, at anyrate, that the reviewer has simply done his duty, and has spokenof the book according to the dictates of his conscience. Nothingcan be gained by combating the reviewer's opinion. If the bookwhich he has disparaged be good, his judgment will be condemned bythe praise of others; if bad, his judgment will he confirmed byothers. Or if, unfortunately, the criticism of the day be in so evila condition generally that such ultimate truth cannot be expected, the author may be sure that his efforts made on behalf of his ownbook will not set matters right. If injustice be done him, let himbear it. To do so is consonant with the dignity of the positionwhich he ought to assume. To shriek, and scream, and sputter, to threaten actions, and to swear about the town that he has beenbelied and defamed in that he has been accused of bad grammar or afalse metaphor, of a dull chapter, or even of a borrowed heroine, will leave on the minds of the public nothing but a sense ofirritated impotence. If, indeed, there should spring from an author's work any assertionby a critic injurious to the author's honour, if the author beaccused of falsehood or of personal motives which are discreditableto him, then, indeed, he may be bound to answer the charge. It ishoped, however, that he may be able to do so with clean hands, orhe will so stir the mud in the pool as to come forth dirtier thanhe went into it. I have lived much among men by whom the English criticism of the dayhas been vehemently abused. I have heard it said that to the publicit is a false guide, and that to authors it is never a trustworthyMentor. I do not concur in this wholesale censure. There is, ofcourse, criticism and criticism. There are at this moment one ortwo periodicals to which both public and authors may safely lookfor guidance, though there are many others from which no spark ofliterary advantage may be obtained. But it is well that both publicand authors should know what is the advantage which they have aright to expect. There have been critics, --and there probably willbe again, though the circumstances of English literature do nottend to produce them, --with power sufficient to entitle them tospeak with authority. These great men have declared, tanquam excathedra, that such a book has been so far good and so far bad, orthat it has been altogether good or altogether bad;--and the worldhas believed them. When making such assertions they have giventheir reasons, explained their causes, and have carried conviction. Very great reputations have been achieved by such critics, but notwithout infinite study and the labour of many years. Such are not the critics of the day, of whom we are now speaking. In the literary world as it lives at present some writer is selectedfor the place of critic to a newspaper, generally some youngwriter, who for so many shillings a column shall review whateverbook is sent to him and express an opinion, --reading the book throughfor the purpose, if the amount of honorarium as measured with theamount of labour will enable him to do so. A labourer must measurehis work by his pay or he cannot live. From criticism such as thismust far the most part be, the general reader has no right to expectphilosophical analysis, or literary judgment on which confidencemay be placed. But he probably may believe that the books praisedwill be better than the books censured, and that those which arepraised by periodicals which never censure are better worth hisattention than those which are not noticed. And readers will alsofind that by devoting an hour or two on Saturday to the criticismsof the week, they will enable themselves to have an opinion aboutthe books of the day. The knowledge so acquired will not be great, nor will that little be lasting; but it adds something to thepleasure of life to be able to talk on subjects of which others arespeaking; and the man who has sedulously gone through the literarynotices in the Spectator and the Saturday may perhaps be justifiedin thinking himself as well able to talk about the new book ashis friend who has bought that new book on the tapis, and who, notimprobably, obtained his information from the same source. As an author, I have paid careful attention to the reviews whichhave been written on my own work; and I think that now I well knowwhere I may look for a little instruction, where I may expect onlygreasy adulation, where I shall be cut up into mince-meat for thedelight of those who love sharp invective, and where I shall findan equal mixture of praise and censure so adjusted, without muchjudgment, as to exhibit the impartiality of the newspaper and itsstaff. Among it all there is much chaff, which I have learned bowto throw to the winds, with equal disregard whether it praises orblames;--but I have also found some corn, on which I have fed andnourished myself, and for which I have been thankful. CHAPTER XV "THE LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET"--"LEAVING THE POST OFFICE"--"ST. PAUL'S MAGAZINE" I will now go back to the year 1867, in which I was still living atWaltham Cross. I had some time since bought the house there whichI had at first hired, and added rooms to it, and made it for ourpurposes very comfortable. It was, however, a rickety old place, requiring much repair, and occasionally not as weathertight as itshould be. We had a domain there sufficient for the cows, and forthe making of our butter and hay. For strawberries, asparagus, greenpeas, out-of-door peaches, for roses especially, and such everydayluxuries, no place was ever more excellent. It was only twelvemiles from London, and admitted therefore of frequent intercoursewith the metropolis. It was also near enough to the Roothing countryfor hunting purposes. No doubt the Shoreditch Station, by which ithad to be reached, had its drawbacks. My average distance also tothe Essex meets was twenty miles. But the place combined as muchor more than I had a right to expect. It was within my own postaldistrict, and had, upon the whole, been well chosen. The work that I did during the twelve years that I remained there, from 1859 to 1871, was certainly very great. I feel confident thatin amount no other writer contributed so much during that time toEnglish literature. Over and above my novels, I wrote politicalarticles, critical, social, and sporting articles, for periodicals, without number. I did the work of a surveyor of the General PostOffice, and so did it as to give the authorities of the departmentno slightest pretext for fault-finding. I hunted always at leasttwice a week. I was frequent in the whist-room at the Garrick. Ilived much in society in London, and was made happy by the presenceof many friends at Waltham Cross. In addition to this we alwaysspent six weeks at least out of England. Few men, I think, ever liveda fuller life. And I attribute the power of doing this altogetherto the virtue of early hours. It was my practice to be at my tableevery morning at 5. 30 A. M. ; and it was also my practice to allowmyself no mercy. An old groom, whose business it was to call me, and to whom I paid œ5 a year extra for the duty, allowed himself nomercy. During all those years at Waltham Cross he was never oncelate with the coffee which it was his duty to bring me. I do notknow that I ought not to feel that I owe more to him than to anyone else for the success I have had. By beginning at that hour Icould complete my literary work before I dressed for breakfast. All those I think who have lived as literary men, --working dailyas literary labourers, --will agree with me that three hours a daywill produce as much as a man ought to write. But then he shouldso have trained himself that he shall be able to work continuouslyduring those three hours, --so have tutored his mind that it shallnot be necessary for him to sit nibbling his pen, and gazing at thewall before him, till he shall have found the words with which hewants to express his ideas. It had at this time become my custom, --andit still is my custom, though of late I have become a little lenientto myself, --to write with my watch before me, and to require frommyself 250 words every quarter of an hour. I have found that the 250words have been forthcoming as regularly as my watch went. But mythree hours were not devoted entirely to writing. I always beganmy task by reading the work of the day before, an operation whichwould take me half an hour, and which consisted chiefly in weighingwith my ear the sound of the words and phrases. I would stronglyrecommend this practice to all tyros in writing. That their workshould be read after it has been written is a matter of course, --thatit should be read twice at least before it goes to the printers, I take to be a matter of course. But by reading what he has lastwritten, just before he recommences his task, the writer will catchthe tone and spirit of what he is then saying, and will avoid thefault of seeming to be unlike himself. This division of time allowedme to produce over ten pages of an ordinary novel volume a day, and if kept up through ten months, would have given as its resultsthree novels of three volumes each in the year;--the precise amountwhich so greatly acerbated the publisher in Paternoster Row, and whichmust at any rate be felt to be quite as much as the novel-readersof the world can want from the hands of one man. I have never written three novels in a year, but by following theplan above described I have written more than as much as threevolumes; and by adhering to it over a course of years, I have beenenabled to have always on hand, --for some time back now, --one ortwo or even three unpublished novels in my desk beside me. Were Ito die now there are three such besides The Prime Minister, halfof which has only yet been issued. One of these has been six yearsfinished, and has never seen the light since it was first tied upin the wrapper which now contains it. I look forward with some grimpleasantry to its publication after another period of six years, and to the declaration of the critics that it has been the work ofa period of life at which the power of writing novels had passedfrom me. Not improbably, however, these pages may be printed first. In 1866 and 1867 The Last Chronicle of Barset was brought out byGeorge Smith in sixpenny monthly numbers. I do not know that thismode of publication had been tried before, or that it answered verywell on this occasion. Indeed the shilling magazines had interferedgreatly with the success of novels published in numbers withoutother accompanying matter. The public finding that so much mightbe had for a shilling, in which a portion of one or more novels wasalways included, were unwilling to spend their money on the novelalone. Feeling that this certainly had become the case in referenceto novels published in shilling numbers, Mr. Smith and I determinedto make the experiment with sixpenny parts. As he paid me œ3000for the use of my MS. , the loss, if any, did not fall upon me. IfI remember right the enterprise was not altogether successful. Taking it as a whole, I regard this as the best novel I havewritten. I was never quite satisfied with the development of theplot, which consisted in the loss of a cheque, of a charge madeagainst a clergyman for stealing it, and of absolute uncertaintyon the part of the clergyman himself as to the manner in which thecheque had found its way into his hands. I cannot quite make myselfbelieve that even such a man as Mr. Crawley could have forgottenhow he got it, nor would the generous friend who was anxious tosupply his wants have supplied them by tendering the cheque of athird person. Such fault I acknowledge, --acknowledging at the sametime that I have never been capable of constructing with completesuccess the intricacies of a plot that required to be unravelled. But while confessing so much, I claim to have portrayed the mindof the unfortunate man with great accuracy and great delicacy. Thepride, the humility, the manliness, the weakness, the conscientiousrectitude and bitter prejudices of Mr. Crawley were, I feel, trueto nature and well described. The surroundings too are good. Mrs. Proudie at the palace is a real woman; and the poor old dean dyingat the deanery is also real. The archdeacon in his victory is veryreal. There is a true savour of English country life all throughthe book. It was with many misgivings that I killed my old friendMrs. Proudie. I could not, I think, have done it, but for a resolutiontaken and declared under circumstances of great momentary pressure. It was thus that it came about. I was sitting one morning at workupon the novel at the end of the long drawing-room of the AthenaeumClub, --as was then my wont when I had slept the previous night inLondon. As I was there, two clergymen, each with a magazine in hishand, seated themselves, one on one side of the fire and one onthe other, close to me. They soon began to abuse what they werereading, and each was reading some part of some novel of mine. Thegravamen of their complaint lay in the fact that I reintroducedthe same characters so often! "Here, " said one, "is that archdeaconwhom we have had in every novel he has ever written. " "And here, "said the other, "is the old duke whom he has talked about tilleverybody is tired of him. If I could not invent new characters, Iwould not write novels at all. " Then one of them fell foul of Mrs. Proudie. It was impossible for me not to hear their words, andalmost impossible to hear them and be quiet. I got up, and standingbetween them, I acknowledged myself to be the culprit. "As to Mrs. Proudie, " I said, "I will go home and kill her before the week isover. " And so I did. The two gentlemen were utterly confounded, and one of them begged me to forget his frivolous observations. I have sometimes regretted the deed, so great was my delight inwriting about Mrs. Proudie, so thorough was my knowledge of all theshades of her character. It was not only that she was a tyrant, a bully, a would-be priestess, a very vulgar woman, and one whowould send headlong to the nethermost pit all who disagreed withher; but that at the same time she was conscientious, by no meansa hypocrite, really believing in the brimstone which she threatened, and anxious to save the souls around her from its horrors. And asher tyranny increased so did the bitterness of the moments of herrepentance increase, in that she knew herself to be a tyrant, --tillthat bitterness killed her. Since her time others have grown upequally dear to me, --Lady Glencora and her husband, for instance;but I have never dissevered myself from Mrs. Proudie, and stilllive much in company with her ghost. I have in a previous chapter said how I wrote Can You Forgive Her?after the plot of a play which had been rejected, --which play hadbeen called The Noble Jilt. Some year or two after the completionof The Last Chronicle, I was asked by the manager of a theatre toprepare a piece for his stage, and I did so, taking the plot ofthis novel. I called the comedy Did He Steal It? But my friend themanager did not approve of my attempt. My mind at this time wasless attentive to such a matter than when dear old George Bartleynearly crushed me by his criticism, --so that I forget the reasongiven. I have little doubt but that the manager was right. Thathe intended to express a true opinion, and would have been glad tohave taken the piece had he thought it suitable, I am quite sure. I have sometimes wished to see during my lifetime a combinedrepublication of those tales which are occupied with the fictitiouscounty of Barsetshire. These would be The Warden, BarchesterTowers, Doctor Thorne, Framley Parsonage, and The Last Chronicleof Barset. But I have hitherto failed. The copyrights are in thehands of four different persons, including myself, and with one ofthe four I have not been able to prevail to act in concert with theothers. [Footnote: Since this was written I have made arrangementsfor doing as I have wished, and the first volume of the series willnow very shortly be published. ] In 1867 I made up my mind to take a step in life which was notunattended with peril, which many would call rash, and which, whentaken, I should be sure at some period to regret. This step wasthe resignation of my place in the Post Office. I have describedhow it was that I contrived to combine the performance of its dutieswith my other avocations in life. I got up always very early; buteven this did not suffice. I worked always on Sundays, --as to whichno scruple of religion made me unhappy, --and not unfrequently Iwas driven to work at night. In the winter when hunting was goingon, I had to keep myself very much on the alert. And during theLondon season, when I was generally two or three days of the weekin town, I found the official work to be a burden. I had determinedsome years previously, after due consideration with my wife, toabandon the Post Office when I had put by an income equal to thepension to which I should be entitled if I remained in the departmenttill I was sixty. That I had now done, and I sighed for liberty. The exact time chosen, the autumn of 1867, was selected because Iwas then about to undertake other literary work in editing a newmagazine, --of which I shall speak very shortly. But in addition tothese reasons there was another, which was, I think, at last theactuating cause. When Sir Rowland Hill left the Post Office, andmy brother-in-law, Mr. Tilley, became Secretary in his place, Iapplied for the vacant office of Under-Secretary. Had I obtainedthis I should have given up my hunting, have given up much of myliterary work, --at any rate would have edited no magazine, --andwould have returned to the habit of my youth in going daily to theGeneral Post Office. There was very much against such a change inlife. The increase of salary would not have amounted to above œ400a year, and I should have lost much more than that in literaryremuneration. I should have felt bitterly the slavery of attendanceat an office, from which I had then been exempt for five-and-twentyyears. I should, too, have greatly missed the sport which I loved. But I was attached to the department, had imbued myself with athorough love of letters, --I mean the letters which are carried bythe post, --and was anxious for their welfare as though they wereall my own. In short, I wished to continue the connection. I didnot wish, moreover, that any younger officer should again pass overmy head. I believed that I bad been a valuable public servant, and I will own to a feeling existing at that time that I had notaltogether been well treated. I was probably wrong in this. I hadbeen allowed to hunt, --and to do as I pleased, and to say whatI liked, and had in that way received my reward. I applied forthe office, but Mr. Scudamore was appointed to it. He no doubtwas possessed of gifts which I did not possess. He understoodthe manipulation of money and the use of figures, and was a greataccountant. I think that I might have been more useful in regardto the labours and wages of the immense body of men employed bythe Post Office. However, Mr. Scudamore was appointed; and I madeup my mind that I would fall back upon my old intention, and leavethe department. I think I allowed two years to pass before I tookthe step; and the day on which I sent the letter was to me mostmelancholy. The rule of the service in regard to pensions is very just. A manshall serve till he is sixty before he is entitled to a pension, --unlesshis health fail him. At that age he is entitled to one-sixtieth ofhis salary for every year he has served up to forty years. If hishealth do fail him so that he is unfit for further work before theage named, then he may go with a pension amounting to one-sixtiethfor every year he has served. I could not say that my health hadfailed me, and therefore I went without any pension. I have sincefelt occasionally that it has been supposed that I left the PostOffice under pressure, --because I attended to hunting and to myliterary work rather than to postal matters. As it had for manyyears been my ambition to be a thoroughly good servant to the public, and to give to the public much more than I took in the shape ofsalary, this feeling has sometimes annoyed me. And as I am stilla little sore on the subject, and as I would not have it imaginedafter my death that I had slighted the public service to which Ibelonged, I will venture here to give the reply which was sent tothe letter containing my resignation. "GENERAL POST OFFICE, October 9th, 1867. "Sir, --I have received your letter of the 3d inst. , in which youtender your resignation as Surveyor in the Post Office service, andstate as your reason for this step that you have adopted anotherprofession, the exigencies of which are so great as to make youfeel you cannot give to the duties of the Post Office that amountof attention which you consider the Postmaster-General has a rightto expect. "You have for many years ranked among the most conspicuous membersof the Post Office, which, on several occasions when you have beenemployed on large and difficult matters, has reaped much benefitfrom the great abilities which you have been able to place at itsdisposal; and in mentioning this, I have been especially glad torecord that, notwithstanding the many calls upon your time, youhave never permitted your other avocations to interfere with yourPost Office work, which has been faithfully and indeed energeticallyperformed. " (There was a touch of irony in this word "energetically, "but still it did not displease me. ) "In accepting your resignation, which he does with much regret, the Duke of Montrose desires me to convey to you his own sense ofthe value of your services, and to state how alive he is to theloss which will be sustained by the department in which you havelong been an ornament, and where your place will with difficultybe replaced. (Signed) "J. TILLEY. " Readers will no doubt think that this is official flummery; andso in fact it is. I do not at all imagine that I was an ornamentto the Post Office, and have no doubt that the secretaries andassistant-secretaries very often would have been glad to be rid ofme; but the letter may be taken as evidence that I did not allowmy literary enterprises to interfere with my official work. A manwho takes public money without earning it is to me so odious thatI can find no pardon for him in my heart. I have known many such, and some who have craved the power to do so. Nothing would annoyme more than to think that I should even be supposed to have beenamong the number. And so my connection was dissolved with the department to whichI had applied the thirty-three best years of my life;--I must notsay devoted, for devotion implies an entire surrender, and I certainlyhad found time for other occupations. It is however absolutely truethat during all those years I had thought very much more about thePost Office than I had of my literary work, and had given to it amore unflagging attention. Up to this time I had never been angry, never felt myself injured or unappreciated in that my literaryefforts were slighted. But I had suffered very much bitterness onthat score in reference to the Post Office; and I had suffered notonly on my own personal behalf, but also and more bitterly when Icould not promise to be done the things which I thought ought to bedone for the benefit of others. That the public in little villagesshould be enabled to buy postage stamps; that they should havetheir letters delivered free and at an early hour; that pillarletter-boxes should be put up for them (of which accommodationin the streets and ways of England I was the originator, having, however, got the authority for the erection of the first at St. Heliers in Jersey); that the letter-carriers and sorters should notbe overworked; that they should be adequately paid, and have somehours to themselves, especially on Sundays; above all, that theyshould be made to earn their wages and latterly that they shouldnot be crushed by what I thought to be the damnable system ofso-called merit;--these were the matters by which I was stirred towhat the secretary was pleased to call energetic performance of myduties. How I loved, when I was contradicted, --as I was very oftenand, no doubt, very properly, --to do instantly as I was bid, and thento prove that what I was doing was fatuous, dishonest, expensive, and impracticable! And then there were feuds--such delicious feuds!I was always an anti-Hillite, acknowledging, indeed, the great thingwhich Sir Rowland Hill had done for the country, but believing himto be entirely unfit to manage men or to arrange labour. It was apleasure to me to differ from him on all occasions;--and, lookingback now, I think that in all such differences I was right. Having so steeped myself, as it were, in postal waters, I could notgo out from them without a regret. I wonder whether I did anythingto improve the style of writing in official reports! I strove todo so gallantly, never being contented with the language of my ownreports unless it seemed to have been so written as to be pleasantto be read. I took extreme delight in writing them, not allowingmyself to re-copy them, never having them re-copied by others, butsending them up with their original blots and erasures, --if blotsand erasures there were. It is hardly manly, I think, that aman should search after a fine neatness at the expense of so muchwaste labour; or that he should not be able to exact from himselfthe necessity of writing words in the form in which they should beread. If a copy be required, let it be taken afterwards, --by handor by machine, as may be. But the writer of a letter, if he wish hiswords to prevail with the reader, should send them out as writtenby himself, by his own hand, with his own marks, his own punctuation, correct or incorrect, with the evidence upon them that they havecome out from his own mind. And so the cord was cut, and I was a free man to run about theworld where I would. A little before the date of my resignation, Mr. James Virtue, theprinter and publisher, had asked me to edit a new magazine forhim, and had offered me a salary of œ1000 a year for the work overand above what might be due to me for my own contributions. I hadknown something of magazines, and did not believe that they weregenerally very lucrative. They were, I thought, useful to somepublishers as bringing grist to the mill; but as Mr. Virtue's businesswas chiefly that of a printer, in which he was very successful, this consideration could hardly have had much weight with him. Ivery strongly advised him to abandon the project, pointing out tohim that a large expenditure would be necessary to carry on the magazineIn accordance with my views, --that I could not be concerned in iton any other understanding, and that the chances of an adequatereturn to him of his money were very small. He came down to Waltham, listened to my arguments with great patience, and the told me thatif I would not do the work he would find some other editor. Upon this I consented to undertake the duty. My terms as to salarywere those which he had himself proposed. The special stipulationswhich I demanded were: firstly, that I should put whatever I pleasedinto the magazine, or keep whatever I pleased out of it, withoutinterference; secondly, that I should, from month to month, givein to him a list of payments to be made to contributors, and thathe should pay them, allowing me to fix the amounts; and, thirdly, that the arrangement should remain in force, at any rate, for twoyears. To all this he made no objection; and during the time thathe and I were thus bound together he not only complied with thesestipulations, but also with every suggestion respecting the magazinethat I made to him. If the use of large capital, combined with wideliberality and absolute confidence on the part of the proprietor, and perpetual good humour, would have produced success, our magazinecertainly would have succeeded. In all such enterprises the name is the first difficulty. Thereis the name which has a meaning and the name which has none--ofwhich two the name that has none is certainly the better, as itnever belies itself. The Liberal may cease to be liberal, or TheFortnightly, alas! to come out once a fortnight. But The Cornhilland The Argosy are under any set of circumstances as well adaptedto these names as under any other. Then there is the proprietaryname, or, possibly, the editorial name, which is only amiss becausethe publication may change hands. Blackwood's has, indeed, alwaysremained Blackwood's, and Fraser's, though it has been bought andsold, still does not sound amiss. Mr. Virtue, fearing the tooattractive qualities of his own name, wished the magazine to becalled Anthony Trollope's. But to this I objected eagerly. Therewere then about the town, --still are about the town, --two or threeliterary gentlemen, by whom to have had myself editored wouldhave driven me an exile from my country. After much discussion, wesettled on St. Paul's as the name for our bantling--not as beingin any way new, but as enabling it to fall easily into the rankswith many others. If we were to make ourselves in any way peculiar, it was not by our name that we were desirous of doing so. I do not think that we did make ourselves in any way peculiar, --andyet there was a great struggle made. On the part of the proprietor, I may say that money was spent very freely. On my own part, Imay declare that I omitted nothing which I thought might tend tosuccess. I read all manuscripts sent to me, and endeavoured to judgeimpartially. I succeeded in obtaining the services of an excellentliterary corps. During the three years and a half of my editorshipI was assisted by Mr. Goschen, Captain Brackenbury, Edward Dicey, Percy Fitzgerald, H. A. Layard, Allingham, Leslie Stephen, Mrs. Lynn Linton, my brother, T. A. Trollope, and his wife, CharlesLever, E. Arnold, Austin Dobson, R. A. Proctor, Lady Pollock, G. H. Lewes, C. Mackay, Hardman (of the Times), George Macdonald, W. R. Greg, Mrs. Oliphant, Sir Charles Trevelyan, Leoni Levi, DuttonCook--and others, whose names would make the list too long. Itmight have been thought that with such aid the St. Paul's would havesucceeded. I do not think that the failure, --for it did fail, --arosefrom bad editing. Perhaps too much editing might have been thefault. I was too anxious to be good, and did not enough think ofwhat might be lucrative. It did fail, for it never paid its way. It reached, if I rememberright, a circulation of nearly 10, 000--perhaps on one or two occasionsmay have gone beyond that. But the enterprise had been set on footon a system too expensive to be made lucrative by anything short ofa very large circulation. Literary merit will hardly set a magazineafloat, though, when afloat, it will sustain it. Time is wanted--orthe hubbub, and flurry, and excitement created by ubiquitoussesquipedalian advertisement. Merit and time together may beeffective, but they must be backed by economy and patience. I think, upon the whole, that publishers themselves have been thebest editors of magazines, when they have been able to give timeand intelligence to the work. Nothing certainly has ever been donebetter than Blackwood's. The Cornhill, too, after Thackeray hadleft it and before Leslie Stephen had taken it, seemed to be inquite efficient hands--those hands being the hands of proprietorand publisher. The proprietor, at any rate, knows what he wants andwhat he can afford, and is not so frequently tempted to fall intothat worst of literary quicksands, the publishing of matter not forthe sake of the readers, but for that of the writer. I did not sosin very often, but often enough to feel that I was a coward. "Mydear friend, my dear friend, this is trash!" It is so hard to speakthus--but so necessary for an editor! We all remember the thornin his pillow of which Thackeray complained. Occasionally I knowthat I did give way on behalf of some literary aspirant whose workdid not represent itself to me as being good; and as often as I didso, I broke my trust to those who employed me. Now, I think thatsuch editors as Thackeray and myself, --if I may, for the moment, beallowed to couple men so unequal, --will always be liable to commitsuch faults, but that the natures of publishers and proprietorswill be less soft. Nor do I know why the pages of a magazine should be considered tobe open to any aspirant who thinks that he can write an article, or why the manager of a magazine should be doomed to read all thatmay be sent to him. The object of the proprietor is to producea periodical that shall satisfy the public, which he may probablybest do by securing the services of writers of acknowledged ability. CHAPTER XVI BEVERLEY Very early in life, very soon after I had become a clerk in St. Martin's le Grand, when I was utterly impecunious and beginningto fall grievously into debt, I was asked by an uncle of mine, whowas himself a clerk in the War Office, what destination I shouldlike best for my future life. He probably meant to inquire whetherI wished to live married or single, whether to remain in the PostOffice or to leave it, whether I should prefer the town or thecountry. I replied that I should like to be a Member of Parliament. My uncle, who was given to sarcasm, rejoined that, as far a he knew, few clerks in the Post Office did become Members of Parliament. Ithink it was the remembrance of this jeer which stirred me up tolook for a seat as soon as I had made myself capable of holding oneby leaving the public service. My uncle was dead, but if I couldget a seat, the knowledge that I had done so might travel to thatbourne from whence he was not likely to return, and he might therefeel that he had done me wrong. Independently of this, I have always thought that to sit in theBritish Parliament should be the highest object of ambition toevery educated Englishman. I do not by this mean to suggest thatevery educated Englishman should set before himself a seat inParliament as a probable or even a possible career; but that the manin Parliament has reached a higher position than the man out, --thatto serve one's country without pay is the grandest work that a mancan do, --that of all studies the study of politics is the one inwhich a man may make himself most useful to his fellow-creatures, --andthat of all lives, public political lives are capable of the highestefforts. So thinking, --though I was aware that fifty-three was toolate an age at which to commence a new career, --I resolved withmuch hesitation that I would make the attempt. Writing now at anage beyond sixty, I can say that my political feelings and convictionshave never undergone any change. They are now what they became whenI first began to have political feelings and convictions. Nor do Ifind in myself any tendency to modify them as I have found generallyin men as they grow old. I consider myself to be an advanced, butstill a Conservative-Liberal, which I regard not only as a possible, but as a rational and consistent phase of political existence. I can, I believe, in a very few words, make known my politicaltheory; and, as I am anxious that any who know aught of me shouldknow that, I will endeavour to do so. It must, I think, be painful to all men to feel inferiority. It should, I think, be a matter of some pain to all men to feel superiority, unless when it has been won by their own efforts. We do notunderstand the operations of Almighty wisdom, and are, therefore, unable to tell the causes of the terrible inequalities thatwe see--why some, why so many, should have so little to make lifeenjoyable, so much to make it painful, while a few others, notthrough their own merit, have had gifts poured out to them froma full hand. We acknowledge the hand of God and His wisdom, butstill we are struck with awe and horror at the misery of many ofour brethren. We who have been born to the superior condition, --for, in this matter, I consider myself to be standing on a platform withdukes and princes, and all others to whom plenty and education andliberty have been given, --cannot, I think, look upon the inane, unintellectual, and tossed-bound life of those who cannot evenfeed themselves sufficiently by their sweat, without some feelingof injustice, some feeling of pain. This consciousness of wrong has induced in many enthusiastic butunbalanced minds a desire to set all things right by a proclaimedequality. In their efforts such men have shown how powerless theyare in opposing the ordinances of the Creator. For the mind of thethinker and the student is driven to admit, though it be awestruckby apparent injustice, that this inequality is the work of God. Make all men equal to-day, and God has so created them that theyshall be all unequal to-morrow. The so-called Conservative, theconscientious, philanthropic Conservative, seeing this, and beingsurely convinced that such inequalities are of divine origin, tellshimself that it is his duty to preserve them. He thinks that thepreservation of the welfare of the world depends on the maintenanceof those distances between the prince and the peasant by which hefinds himself to be surrounded; and, perhaps, I may add, that theduty is not unpleasant, as he feels himself to be one of the princes. But this man, though he sees something, and sees that very clearly, sees only a little. The divine inequality is apparent to him, butnot the equally divine diminution of that inequality. That suchdiminution is taking place on all sides is apparent enough; but itis apparent to him as an evil, the consummation of which it is hisduty to retard. He cannot prevent it; and, therefore, the societyto which he belongs is, in his eyes, retrograding. He will even, at times, assist it; and will do so conscientiously, feeling that, under the gentle pressure supplied by him, and with the drags andholdfasts which he may add, the movement would be slower than itwould become if subjected to his proclaimed and absolute opponents. Such, I think, are Conservatives; and I speak of men who, with thefear of God before their eyes and the love of their neighbours warmin their hearts, endeavour to do their duty to the best of theirability. Using the term which is now common, and which will be best understood, I will endeavour to explain how the equally conscientious Liberalis opposed to the Conservative. He is equally aware that thesedistances are of divine origin, equally averse to any suddendisruption of society in quest of some Utopian blessedness; but heis alive to the fact that these distances are day by day becomingless, and he regards this continual diminution as a series ofsteps towards that human millennium of which he dreams. He is evenwilling to help the many to ascend the ladder a little, though heknows, as they come up towards him, he must go down to meet them. What is really in his mind is, --I will not say equality, for theword is offensive, and presents to the imagination of men ideas ofcommunism, of ruin, and insane democracy, --but a tendency towardsequality. In following that, however, he knows that he must behemmed in by safeguards, lest he be tempted to travel too quickly;and, therefore, he is glad to be accompanied on his way by therepressive action of a Conservative opponent. Holding such views, I think I am guilty of no absurdity in calling myself an advancedConservative-Liberal. A man who entertains in his mind anypolitical doctrine, except as a means of improving the conditionof his fellows, I regard as a political intriguer, a charlatan, and a conjurer--as one who thinks that, by a certain amount of warywire-pulling, he may raise himself in the estimation of the world. I am aware that this theory of politics will seem to many to be stilted, overstrained, and, as the Americans would say, high-faluten. Manywill declare that the majority even of those who call themselvespoliticians, --perhaps even of those who take an activepart in politics, --are stirred by no such feelings as these, andacknowledge no such motives. Men become Tories or Whigs, Liberalsor Conservatives, partly by education, --following their fathers, --partlyby chance, partly as openings come, partly in accordance with thebent of their minds, but still without any far-fetched reasoningsas to distances and the diminution of distances. No doubt it isso; and in the battle of politics, as it goes, men are led furtherand further away from first causes, till at last a measure is opposedby one simply because it is advocated by another, and Members ofParliament swarm into lobbies, following the dictation of theirleaders, and not their own individual judgments. But the principleis at work throughout. To many, though hardly acknowledged, it isstill apparent. On almost all it has its effect; though there arethe intriguers, the clever conjurers, to whom politics is simplysuch a game as is billiards or rackets, only played with greaterresults. To the minds that create and lead and sway politicalopinion, some such theory is, I think, ever present. The truth of all this I had long since taken home to myself. I hadnow been thinking of it for thirty years, and had never doubted. But I had always been aware of a certain visionary weakness aboutmyself in regard to politics. A man, to be useful in Parliament, must be able to confine himself and conform himself, to be satisfiedwith doing a little bit of a little thing at a time. He mustpatiently get up everything connected with the duty on mushrooms, and then be satisfied with himself when at last he has induceda Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that he will consider theimpost at the first opportunity. He must be content to be beatensix times in order that, on a seventh, his work may be found tobe of assistance to some one else. He must remember that he is oneout of 650, and be content with 1-650th part of the attention ofthe nation. If he have grand ideas, he must keep them to himself, unless by chance, he can work his way up to the top of the tree. In short, he must be a practical man. Now I knew that in politicsI could never become a practical man. I should never be satisfiedwith a soft word from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but wouldalways be flinging my overtaxed ketchup in his face. Nor did it seem to me to be possible that I should ever become agood speaker. I had no special gifts that way, and had not studiedthe art early enough in life to overcome natural difficulties. Ihad found that, with infinite labour, I could learn a few sentencesby heart, and deliver them, monotonously indeed, but clearly. Or, again, if there were something special to be said, I could say itin a commonplace fashion--but always as though I were in a hurry, and with the fear before me of being thought to be prolix. But Ihad no power of combining, as a public speaker should always do, that which I had studied with that which occurred to me at themoment. It must be all lesson, --which I found to be best; or elseall impromptu, --which was very bad, indeed, unless I had somethingspecial on my mind. I was thus aware that I could do no good bygoing into Parliament--that the time for it, if there could havebeen a time, had gone by. But still I had an almost insane desireto sit there, and be able to assure myself that my uncle's scornhad not been deserved. In 1867 it had been suggested to me that, in the event of a dissolution, I should stand for one division of the County of Essex; and I hadpromised that I would do so, though the promise at that time wasas rash a one as a man could make. I was instigated to this by thelate Charles Buxton, a man whom I greatly loved, and who was veryanxious that the county for which his brother had sat, and withwhich the family were connected, should be relieved from what heregarded as the thraldom of Toryism. But there was no dissolutionthen. Mr. Disraeli passed his Reform Bill, by the help of theLiberal member for Newark, and the summoning of a new Parliamentwas postponed till the next year. By this new Reform Bill Essexwas portioned out into three instead of two electoral divisions, one of which, --that adjacent to London, --would, it was thought, be altogether Liberal. After the promise which I had given, the performance of which would have cost me a large sum of moneyabsolutely in vain, it was felt by some that I should be selectedas one of the candidates for the new division--and as such I wasproposed by Mr. Charles Buxton. But another gentleman, who wouldhave been bound by previous pledges to support me, was put forwardby what I believe to have been the defeating interest, and I hadto give way. At the election this gentleman, with another Liberal, who had often stood for the county, was returned without a contest. Alas! alas! They were both unseated at the next election, when thegreat Conservative reaction took place. In the spring of 1868 I was sent to the United States on a postalmission, of which I will speak presently. While I was absent thedissolution took place. On my return I was somewhat too late tolook out for a seat, but I had friends who knew the weakness of myambition; and it was not likely, therefore, that I should escapethe peril of being put forward for some impossible borough as towhich the Liberal party would not choose that it should go to theConservatives without a struggle. At last, after one or two others, Beverley was proposed to me, and to Beverley I went. I must, however, exculpate the gentleman who acted as my agent, fromundue persuasion exercised towards me. He was a man who thoroughlyunderstood Parliament, having sat there himself--and he sits therenow at this moment. He understood Yorkshire, --or, at least, theEast Riding of Yorkshire, in which Beverley is situated, --certainlybetter than any one alive. He understood all the mysteries ofcanvassing, and he knew well the traditions, the condition, and theprospect of the Liberal party. I will not give his name, but theywho knew Yorkshire in 1868 will not be at a loss to find it. "So, "said he, "you are going to stand for Beverley?" I replied gravelythat I was thinking of doing so. "You don't expect to get in?" hesaid. Again I was grave. I would not, I said, be sanguine, but, nevertheless, I was disposed to hope for the best. "Oh, no!"continued he, with good-humoured raillery, "you won't get in. Idon't suppose you really expect it. But there is a fine career opento you. You will spend œ1000, and lose the election. Then you willpetition, and spend another œ1000. You will throw out the electedmembers. There will be a commission, and the borough will bedisfranchised. For a beginner such as you are, that will be a greatsuccess. " And yet, in the teeth of this, from a man who knew allabout it, I persisted in going to Beverley! The borough, which returned two members, had long been representedby Sir Henry Edwards, of whom, I think, I am justified in sayingthat he had contracted a close intimacy with it for the sake ofthe seat. There had been many contests, many petitions, many voidelections, many members, but, through it all, Sir Henry had kepthis seat, if not with permanence, yet with a fixity of tenure nextdoor to permanence. I fancy that with a little management betweenthe parties the borough might at this time have returned a memberof each colour quietly; but there were spirits there who did notlove political quietude, and it was at last decided that thereshould be two Liberal and two Conservative candidates. Sir Henrywas joined by a young man of fortune in quest of a seat, and I wasgrouped with Mr. Maxwell, the eldest son of Lord Herries, a ScotchRoman Catholic peer, who lives in the neighbourhood. When the time came I went down to canvass, and spent, I think, themost wretched fortnight of my manhood. In the first place, I wassubject to a bitter tyranny from grinding vulgar tyrants. They weredoing what they could, or said that they were doing so, to secureme a seat in Parliament, and I was to be in their hands, at anyrate, the period of my candidature. On one day both of us, Mr. Maxwell and I, wanted to go out hunting. We proposed to ourselvesbut the one holiday during this period of intense labour; but Iwas assured, as was he also, by a publican who was working for us, that if we committed such a crime he and all Beverley would desertus. From morning to evening every day I was taken round the lanesand by-ways of that uninteresting town, canvassing every voter, exposed to the rain, up to my knees in slush, and utterly unableto assume that air of triumphant joy with which a jolly, successfulcandidate should he invested. At night, every night I had tospeak somewhere, --which was bad; and to listen to the speaking ofothers, --which was much worse. When, on one Sunday, I proposed togo to the Minster Church, I was told that was quite useless, asthe Church party were all certain to support Sir Henry! "Indeed, "said the publican, my tyrant, "he goes there in a kind of officialprofession, and you had better not allow yourself to be seen in thesame place. " So I stayed away and omitted my prayers. No Church ofEngland church in Beverley would on such an occasion have welcomeda Liberal candidate. I felt myself to be a kind of pariah in theborough, to whom was opposed all that was pretty, and all that wasnice, and all that was--ostensibly--good. But perhaps my strongest sense of discomfort arose from the convictionthat my political ideas were all leather and prunella to the menwhose votes I was soliciting. They cared nothing for my doctrines, and could not be made to understand that I should have any. I hadbeen brought to Beverley either to beat Sir Henry Edwards, --which, however, no one probably thought to be feasible, --or to cause himthe greatest possible amount of trouble, inconvenience, and expense. There were, indeed, two points on which a portion of my wished-forsupporters seemed to have opinions, and on both these two pointsI was driven by my opinions to oppose them. Some were anxious forthe Ballot, --which had not then become law, --and some desired thePermissive Bill. I hated, and do hate, both these measures, thinkingit to be unworthy of a great people to free itself from the evilresults of vicious conduct by unmanly restraints. Undue influenceon voters is a great evil from which this country had already donemuch to emancipate itself by extending electoral divisions and byan increase of independent feeling. These, I thought, and not secretvoting, were the weapons by which electoral intimidation should beovercome. And as for drink, I believe in no Parlimentary restraint;but I do believe in the gradual effect of moral teaching andeducation. But a Liberal, to do any good at Beverley, should havebeen able to swallow such gnats as those. I would swallow nothing, and was altogether the wrong man. I knew, from the commencement of my candidature, how it would be. Of course that well-trained gentleman who condescended to act asmy agent, had understood the case, and I ought to have taken histhoroughly kind advice. He had seen it all, and had told himselfthat it was wrong that one so innocent in such ways as I, soutterly unable to fight such a battle, should be carried down intoYorkshire merely to spend money and to be annoyed. He could nothave said more than he did say, and I suffered for my obstinacy. Ofcourse I was not elected. Sir Henry Edwards and his comrade becamemembers for Beverley, and I was at the bottom of the poll. I paidœ400 for my expenses, and then returned to London. My friendly agent in his raillery had of course exaggerated thecost. He had, when I arrived at Beverley, asked me for a chequefor œ400, and told me that that sum would suffice. It did suffice. How it came to pass that exactly that sum should be required I neverknew, but such was the case. Then there came a petition, --not fromme, but from the town. The inquiry was made, the two gentlemenwere unseated, the borough was disfranchised, Sir Henry Edwardswas put on his trial for some kind of Parliamentary offence andwas acquitted. In this way Beverley's privilege as a borough andmy Parliamentary ambition were brought to an end at the same time. When I knew the result I did not altogether regret it. It may bethat Beverley might have been brought to political confusion andSir Henry Edwards relegated to private life without the expenditureof my hard-earned money, and without that fortnight of misery; butconnecting the things together, as it was natural that I shoulddo, I did flatter myself that I had done some good. It had seemedto me that nothing could be worse, nothing more unpatriotic, nothingmore absolutely opposed to the system of representative government, than the time-honoured practices of the borough of Beverley. It hadcome to pass that political cleanliness was odious to the citizens. There was something grand in the scorn with which a leading Liberalthere turned up his nose at me when I told him that there shouldbe no bribery, no treating, not even a pot of beer on one side. It was a matter for study to see how at Beverley politics wereappreciated because they might subserve electoral purposes, andhow little it was understood that electoral purposes, which are inthemselves a nuisance, should be endured in order that they maysubserve politics. And then the time, the money, the mental energy, which had been expended in making the borough a secure seat fora gentleman who had realised the idea that it would become him tobe a member of Parliament! This use of the borough seemed to berealised and approved in the borough generally. The inhabitantshad taught themselves to think that it was for such purposes thatboroughs were intended! To have assisted in putting an end to this, even in one town, was to a certain extent a satisfaction. CHAPTER XVII THE AMERICAN POSTAL TREATY--THE QUESTION 0F COPYRIGHT WITHAMERICA--FOUR MORE NOVELS In the spring of 1868, --before the affair of Beverley, which, as being the first direct result of my resignation of office, hasbeen brought in a little out of its turn, --I was requested to goover to the United States and make a postal treaty at Washington. This, as I had left the service, I regarded as a compliment, andof course I went. It was my third visit to America, and I have madetwo since. As far as the Post Office work was concerned, it wasvery far from being agreeable. I found myself located at Washington, a place I do not love, and was harassed by delays, annoyed byincompetence, and opposed by what I felt to be personal and notnational views. I had to deal with two men, --with one who was aworking officer of the American Post Office, than whom I have nevermet a more zealous, or, as far as I could judge, a more honestpublic servant. He had his views and I had mine, each of us havingat heart the welfare of the service in regard to his own country, --eachof us also having certain orders which we were bound to obey. Butthe other gentleman, who was in rank the superior, --whose executiveposition was dependent on his official status, as is the case withour own Ministers, --did not recommend himself to me equally. Hewould make appointments with me and then not keep them, which atlast offended me so grievously, that I declared at the WashingtonPost Office that if this treatment were continued, I would writehome to say that any further action on my part was impossible. Ithink I should have done so had it not occurred to me that I mightin this way serve his purpose rather than my own, or the purposesof those who had sent me. The treaty, however, was at last made, --thepurport of which was, that everything possible should be done, ata heavy expenditure on the part of England, to expedite the mailsfrom England to America, and that nothing should be done by Americato expedite the mails from thence to us. The expedition I believeto be now equal both ways; but it could not be maintained as it iswithout the payment of a heavy subsidy from Great Britain, whereasno subsidy is paid by the States. [Footnote: This was a state ofthings which may probably have appeared to American politiciansto be exactly that which they should try to obtain. The wholearrangement has again been altered since the time of which I havespoken. ] I had also a commission from the Foreign Office, for which I hadasked, to make an effort on behalf of an international copyrightbetween the United States and Great Britain, --the want of which isthe one great impediment to pecuniary success which still standsin the way of successful English authors. I cannot say that I havenever had a shilling of American money on behalf of reprints of mywork; but I have been conscious of no such payment. Having foundmany years ago--in 1861, when I made a struggle on the subject, being then in the States, the details of which are sufficientlyamusing [Footnote: In answer to a question from myself, a certainAmerican publisher--he who usually reprinted my works--promised methat IF ANY OTHER AMERICAN PUBLISHER REPUBLISHED MY WORK ON AMERICABEFORE HE HAD DONE SO, he would not bring out a competing edition, though there would be no law to hinder him. I then entered into anagreement with another American publisher, stipulating to supplyhim with early sheets; and he stipulating to supply me a certainroyalty on his sales, and to supply me with accounts half-yearly. I sent the sheets with energetic punctuality, and the work wasbrought out with equal energy and precision--by my old Americanpublishers. The gentleman who made the promise had not broken hisword. No other American edition had come out before his. I nevergot any account, and, of course, never received a dollar. ]--thatI could not myself succeed in dealing with American booksellers, Ihave sold all foreign right to the English publishers; and thoughI do not know that I have raised my price against them on thatscore, I may in this way have had some indirect advantage fromthe American market. But I do know that what the publishers havereceived here is very trifling. I doubt whether Messrs. Chapman &Hall, my present publishers, get for early sheets sent to the Statesas much as 5 per cent. On the price they pay me for my manuscript. But the American readers are more numerous than the English, andtaking them all through, are probably more wealthy. If I can getœ1000 for a book here (exclusive of their market), I ought to beable to get as much there. If a man supply 600 customers with shoesin place of 300, there is no question as to such result. Why not, then, if I can supply 60, 000 readers instead of 30, 000? I fancied that I knew that the opposition to an internationalcopyright was by no means an American feeling, but was confined tothe bosoms of a few interested Americans. All that I did and heardin reference to the subject on this further visit, --and havinga certain authority from the British Secretary of State with me Icould hear and do something, --altogether confirmed me in this view. I have no doubt that if I could poll American readers, or Americansenators, --or even American representatives, if the polling couldbe unbiassed, --or American booksellers, [Footnote: I might also sayAmerican publishers, if I might count them by the number of heads, and not by the amount of work done by the firms. ] that an assentto an international copyright would be the result. The state ofthings as it is is crushing to American authors, as the publisherswill not pay them a liberal scale, knowing that they can supplytheir customers with modern English literature without paying forit. The English amount of production so much exceeds the American, that the rate at which the former can be published rules themarket. It is equally injurious to American booksellers, --exceptto two or three of the greatest houses. No small man can now acquirethe exclusive right of printing and selling an English book. Ifsuch a one attempt it, the work is printed instantly by one of theleviathans, --who alone are the gainers. The argument of course is, that the American readers are the gainers, --that as they can getfor nothing the use of certain property, they would be cutting theirown throats were they to pass a law debarring themselves from thepower of such appropriation. In this argument all idea of honestyis thrown to the winds. It is not that they do not approve ofa system of copyright, --as many great men have disapproved, --fortheir own law of copyright is as stringent as is ours. A boldassertion is made that they like to appropriate the goods of otherpeople; and that, as in this case, they can do so with impunity, they will continue to do so. But the argument, as far as I have beenable to judge, comes not from the people, but from the booksellingleviathans, and from those politicians whom the leviathans are ableto attach to their interests. The ordinary American purchaser isnot much affected by slight variations in price. He is at any ratetoo high-hearted to be affected by the prospect of such variation. It is the man who wants to make money, not he who fears that he maybe called upon to spend it, who controls such matters as this inthe United States. It is the large speculator who becomes powerfulin the lobbies of the House, and understands how wise it maybe to incur a great expenditure either in the creation of a greatbusiness, or in protecting that which he has created from competition. Nothing was done in 1868, --and nothing has been done since (up to1876). A Royal Commission on the law of copyright is now about tosit in this country, of which I have consented to be a member; andthe question must then be handled, though nothing done by a RoyalCommission here can effect American legislators. But I do believethat if the measure be consistently and judiciously urged, theenemies to it in the States will gradually be overcome. Some yearssince we had some quasi private meetings, under the presidency ofLord Stanhope, in Mr. John Murray's dining-room, on the subject ofinternational copyright. At one of these I discussed this matter ofAmerican international copyright with Charles Dickens, who stronglydeclared his conviction that nothing would induce an American togive up the power he possesses of pirating British literature. Buthe was a man who, seeing clearly what was before him, would notrealise the possibility of shifting views. Because in this matterthe American decision had been, according to his thinking, dishonest, therefore no other than dishonest decision was to be expected fromAmericans. Against that idea I protested, and now protest. Americandishonesty is rampant; but it is rampant only among a few. Itis the great misfortune of the community that those few have beenable to dominate so large a portion of the population among whichall men can vote, but so few can understand for what they arevoting. Since this was written the Commission on the law of copyright hassat and made its report. With the great body of it I agree, andcould serve no reader by alluding here at length to matters whichare discussed there. But in regard to this question of internationalcopyright with the United States, I think that we were incorrectin the expression of an opinion that fair justice, --or justiceapproaching to fairness, --is now done by American publishers toEnglish authors by payments made by them for early sheets. I havejust found that œ20 was paid to my publisher in England for theuse of the early sheets of a novel for which I received œ1600 inEngland. When asked why he accepted so little, he assured me thatthe firm with whom he dealt would not give more. "Why not go toanother firm?" I asked. No other firm would give a dollar, becauseno other firm would care to run counter to that great firm whichhad assumed to itself the right of publishing my books. I soon afterreceived a copy of my own novel in the American form, and foundthat it was published for 7 1/2d. That a great sale was expectedcan be argued from the fact that without a great sale the paper andprinting necessary for the republication of a three-volume novelcould not be supplied. Many thousand copies must have been sold. But from these the author received not one shilling. I need hardlypoint out that the sum of œ20 would not do more than compensatethe publisher for his trouble in making the bargain. The publisherhere no doubt might have refused to supply the early sheets, buthe had no means of exacting a higher price than that offered. Imention the circumstance here because it has been boasted, on behalfof the American publishers, that though there is no internationalcopyright, they deal so liberally with English authors as to makeit unnecessary that the English author should be so protected. With the fact of the œ20 just brought to my knowledge, and with thecopy of my book published at 7 1/2d. Now in my hands, I feel thatan international copyright is very necessary for my protection. They among Englishmen who best love and most admire the UnitedStates, have felt themselves tempted to use the strongest languagein denouncing the sins of Americans. Who can but love their personalgenerosity, their active and far-seeking philanthropy, their loveof education, their hatred of ignorance, the general convictionsin the minds of all of them that a man should be enabled to walkupright, fearing no one and conscious that he is responsible forhis own actions? In what country have grander efforts been made byprivate munificence to relieve the sufferings of humanity? Wherecan the English traveller find any more anxious to assist him thanthe normal American, when once the American shall have found theEnglishman to be neither sullen nor fastidious? Who, lastly, isso much an object of heart-felt admiration of the American man andthe American woman as the well-mannered and well-educated Englishwomanor Englishman? These are the ideas which I say spring uppermostin the minds of the unprejudiced English traveller as he makesacquaintance with these near relatives. Then he becomes cognisantof their official doings, of their politics, of their municipalscandals, of their great ring-robberies, of their lobbyings andbriberies, and the infinite baseness of their public life. Thereat the top of everything he finds the very men who are the leastfit to occupy high places. American public dishonesty is so glaringthat the very friends he has made in the country are not slowto acknowledge it, --speaking of public life as a thing apart fromtheir own existence, as a state of dirt in which it would be aninsult to suppose that they are concerned! In the midst of it allthe stranger, who sees so much that he hates and so much that heloves, hardly knows how to express himself. "It is not enough that you are personally clean, " he says, withwhat energy and courage he can command, --"not enough though theclean outnumber the foul as greatly as those gifted with eyesightoutnumber the blind, if you that can see allow the blind to leadyou. It is not by the private lives of the millions that the outsideworld will judge you, but by the public career of those units whosevenality is allowed to debase the name of your country. There neverwas plainer proof given than is given here, that it is the duty ofevery honest citizen to look after the honour of his State. " Personally, I have to own that I have met Americans, --men, but morefrequently women, --who have in all respects come up to my ideas ofwhat men and women should be: energetic, having opinions of theirown, quick in speech, with some dash of sarcasm at their command, always intelligent, sweet to look at (I speak of the women), fondof pleasure, and each with a personality of his or her own whichmakes no effort necessary on my own part in remembering the differencebetween Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Green, or between Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnson. They have faults. They are self-conscious, and are tooprone to prove by ill-concealed struggles that they are as good asyou, --whereas you perhaps have been long acknowledging to yourselfthat they are much better. And there is sometimes a pretence atpersonal dignity among those who think themselves to have risenhigh in the world which is deliciously ludicrous. I remember twoold gentlemen, --the owners of names which stand deservedly highin public estimation, --whose deportment at a public funeral turnedthe occasion into one for irresistible comedy. They are suspiciousat first, and fearful of themselves. They lack that simplicity ofmanners which with us has become a habit from our childhood. Butthey are never fools, and I think that they are seldom ill-natured. There is a woman, of whom not to speak in a work purporting to bea memoir of my own life would be to omit all allusion to one ofthe chief pleasures which has graced my later years. In the lastfifteen years she has been, out of my family, my most chosen friend. She is a ray of light to me, from which I can always strike a sparkby thinking of her. I do not know that I should please her or doany good by naming her. But not to allude to her in these pageswould amount almost to a falsehood. I could not write truly ofmyself without saying that such a friend had been vouchsafed to me. I trust she may live to read the words I have now written, and towipe away a tear as she thinks of my feeling while I write them. I was absent on this occasion something over three months, andon my return I went back with energy to my work at the St. Paul'sMagazine. The first novel in it from my own pen was called PhineasFinn, in which I commenced a series of semi-political tales. As Iwas debarred from expressing my opinions in the House of Commons, I took this method of declaring myself. And as I could not take myseat on those benches where I might possibly have been shone uponby the Speaker's eye, I had humbly to crave his permission for aseat in the gallery, so that I might thus become conversant withthe ways and doings of the House in which some of my scenes wereto be placed. The Speaker was very gracious, and gave me a runningorder for, I think, a couple of months. It was enough, at any rate, to enable me often to be very tired, --and, as I have been assuredby members, to talk of the proceedings almost as well as thoughFortune had enabled me to fall asleep within the House itself. In writing Phineas Finn, and also some other novels which followedit, I was conscious that I could not make a tale pleasing chiefly, or perhaps in any part, by politics. If I write politics for myown sake, I must put in love and intrigue, social incidents, withperhaps a dash of sport, for the benefit of my readers. In thisway I think I made my political hero interesting. It was certainlya blunder to take him from Ireland--into which I was led by thecircumstance that I created the scheme of the book during a visitto Ireland. There was nothing to be gained by the peculiarity, andthere was an added difficulty in obtaining sympathy and affectionfor a politician belonging to a nationality whose politics are notrespected in England. But in spite of this Phineas succeeded. Itwas not a brilliant success, --because men and women not conversantwith political matters could not care much for a hero who spentso much of his time either in the House of Commons or in a publicoffice. But the men who would have lived with Phineas Finn read thebook, and the women who would have lived with Lady Laura Standishread it also. As this was what I had intended, I was contented. Itis all fairly good except the ending, --as to which till I got toit I made no provision. As I fully intended to bring my hero againinto the world, I was wrong to marry him to a simple pretty Irishgirl, who could only be felt as an encumbrance on such return. Whenhe did return I had no alternative but to kill the simple prettyIrish girl, which was an unpleasant and awkward necessity. In writing Phineas Finn I had constantly before me the necessityof progression in character, --of marking the changes in men andwomen which would naturally be produced by the lapse of years. Inmost novels the writer can have no such duty, as the period occupiedis not long enough to allow of the change of which I speak. InIvanhoe, all the incidents of which are included in less than amonth, the characters should be, as they are, consistent throughout. Novelists who have undertaken to write the life of a hero or heroinehave generally considered their work completed at the interestingperiod of marriage, and have contented themselves with the advancein taste and manners which are common to all boys and girls asthey become men and women. Fielding, no doubt, did more than thisin Tom Jones, which is one of the greatest novels in the Englishlanguage, for there he has shown how a noble and sanguine naturemay fall away under temptation and be again strengthened and madeto stand upright. But I do not think that novelists have oftenset before themselves the state of progressive change, --nor shouldI have done it, had I not found myself so frequently allured backto my old friends. So much of my inner life was passed in theircompany, that I was continually asking myself how this woman wouldact when this or that event had passed over her head, or how thatman would carry himself when his youth had become manhood, orhis manhood declined to old age. It was in regard to the old Dukeof Omnium, of his nephew and heir, and of his heir's wife, LadyGlencora, that I was anxious to carry out this idea; but others addedthemselves to my mind as I went on, and I got round me a circle ofpersons as to whom I knew not only their present characters, buthow those characters were to be affected by years and circumstances. The happy motherly life of Violet Effingham, which was due to thegirl's honest but long-restrained love; the tragic misery of LadyLaura, which was equally due to the sale she made of herself in herwretched marriage; and the long suffering but final success of thehero, of which he had deserved the first by his vanity, and thelast by his constant honesty, had been foreshadowed to me fromthe first. As to the incidents of the story, the circumstances bywhich these personages were to be affected, I knew nothing. Theywere created for the most part as they were described. I nevercould arrange a set of events before me. But the evil and the goodof my puppets, and how the evil would always lead to evil, and thegood produce good, --that was clear to me as the stars on a summernight. Lady Laura Standish is the best character in Phineas Finn and itssequel Phineas Redux, --of which I will speak here together. Theyare, in fact, but one novel though they were brought out at aconsiderable interval of time and in different form. The first wascommenced in the St. Paul's Magazine in 1867, and the other wasbrought out in the Graphic in 1873. In this there was much badarrangement, as I had no right to expect that novel readers wouldremember the characters of a story after an interval of six years, or that any little interest which might have been taken in thecareer of my hero could then have been renewed. I do not know thatsuch interest was renewed. But I found that the sequel enjoyed thesame popularity as the former part, and among the same class ofreaders. Phineas, and Lady Laura, and Lady Chiltern--as Violethad become--and the old duke, --whom I killed gracefully, and thenew duke, and the young duchess, either kept their old friends ormade new friends for themselves. Phineas Finn, I certainly think, was successful from first to last. I am aware, however, that therewas nothing in it to touch the heart like the abasement of LadyMason when confessing her guilt to her old lover, or any approachin delicacy of delineation to the character of Mr. Crawley. Phineas Finn, the first part of the story, was completed inMay, 1867. In June and July I wrote Linda Tressel for Blackwood'sMagazine, of which I have already spoken. In September and OctoberI wrote a short novel, called The Golden Lion of Granpere, whichwas intended also for Blackwood, --with a view of being publishedanonymously; but Mr. Blackwood did not find the arrangement to beprofitable, and the story remained on my hands, unread and unthoughtof, for a few years. It appeared subsequently in Good Words. Itwas written on the model of Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel, butis very inferior to either of them. In November of the same year, 1867, I began a very long novel, which I called He Knew He WasRight, and which was brought out by Mr. Virtue, the proprietor ofthe St. Paul's Magazine, in sixpenny numbers, every week. I do notknow that in any literary effort I ever fell more completely shortof my own intention than in this story. It was my purpose to createsympathy for the unfortunate man who, while endeavouring to dohis duty to all around him, should be led constantly astray by hisunwillingness to submit his own judgment to the opinion of others. The man is made to be unfortunate enough, and the evil which hedoes is apparent. So far I did not fail, but the sympathy has notbeen created yet. I look upon the story as being nearly altogetherbad. It is in part redeemed by certain scenes in the house andvicinity of an old maid in Exeter. But a novel which in its mainparts is bad cannot, in truth, be redeemed by the vitality ofsubordinate characters. This work was finished while I was at Washington in the spring of1868, and on the day after I finished it, I commenced The Vicar ofBullhampton, a novel which I wrote for Messrs. Bradbury & Evans. This I completed in November, 1868, and at once began Sir HarryHotspur of Humblethwaite, a story which I was still writing at theclose of the year. I look upon these two years, 1867 and 1868, ofwhich I have given a somewhat confused account in this and the twopreceding chapters, as the busiest in my life. I had indeed leftthe Post Office, but though I had left it I had been employed byit during a considerable portion of the time. I had established theSt. Paul's Magazine, in reference to which I had read an enormousamount of manuscript, and for which, independently of my novels, Ihad written articles almost monthly. I had stood for Beverley andhad made many speeches. I had also written five novels, and hadhunted three times a week during each of the winters. And how happyI was with it all! I had suffered at Beverley, but I had sufferedas a part of the work which I was desirous of doing, and I had gainedmy experience. I had suffered at Washington with that wretchedAmerican Postmaster, and with the mosquitoes, not having been ableto escape from that capital till July; but all that had added tothe activity of my life. I had often groaned over those manuscripts;but I had read them, considering it--perhaps foolishly--to be apart of my duty as editor. And though in the quick production of mynovels I had always ringing in my ears that terrible condemnationand scorn produced by the great man in Paternoster Row, Iwas nevertheless proud of having done so much. I always had a penin my hand. Whether crossing the seas, or fighting with Americanofficials, or tramping about the streets of Beverley, I could do alittle, and generally more than a little. I had long since convincedmyself that in such work as mine the great secret consistedin acknowledging myself to be bound to rules of labour similar tothose which an artisan or a mechanic is forced to obey. A shoemakerwhen he has finished one pair of shoes does not sit down andcontemplate his work in idle satisfaction. "There is my pair ofshoes finished at last! What a pair of shoes it is!" The shoemakerwho so indulged himself would be without wages half his time. Itis the same with a professional writer of books. An author may ofcourse want time to study a new subject. He will at any rate assurehimself that there is some such good reason why he should pause. He does pause, and will be idle for a month or two while he tellshimself how beautiful is that last pair of shoes which he hasfinished! Having thought much of all this, and having made up mymind that I could be really happy only when I was at work, I hadnow quite accustomed myself to begin a second pair as soon as thefirst was out of my hands. CHAPTER XVIII "THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON"--"SIR HARRY HOTSPUR"--"AN EDITOR'STALES"--"CAESAR" In 1869 I was called on to decide, in council with my two boys andtheir mother, what should be their destination in life. In June ofthat year the elder, who was then twenty-three, was called to theBar; and as he had gone through the regular courses of lecturingtuition and study, it might be supposed that his course was alreadydecided. But, just as he was called, there seemed to be an openingfor him in another direction; and this, joined to the terribleuncertainty of the Bar, the terror of which was not in his caselessened by any peculiar forensic aptitudes, induced us to sacrificedignity in quest of success. Mr. Frederic Chapman, who was thenthe sole representative of the publishing house known as Messrs. Chapman & Hall, wanted a partner, and my son Henry went into thefirm. He remained there three years and a half; but he did not likeit, nor do I think he made a very good publisher. At any rate heleft the business with perhaps more pecuniary success than mighthave been expected from the short period of his labours, and hassince taken himself to literature as a profession. Whether he willwork at it so hard as his father, and write as many books, may bedoubted. My second son, Frederic, had very early in life gone to Australia, having resolved on a colonial career when he found that boys who didnot grow so fast as he did got above him at school. This departurewas a great pang to his mother and me; but it was permitted on theunderstanding that he was to come back when he was twenty-one, andthen decide whether he would remain in England or return to theColonies. In the winter of 1868 he did come to England, and had aseason's hunting in the old country; but there was no doubt in hisown mind as to his settling in Australia. His purpose was fixed, and in the spring of 1869 he made his second journey out. As Ihave since that date made two journeys to see him, --of one of whichat any rate I shall have to speak, as I wrote a long book on theAustralasian Colonies, --I will have an opportunity of saying a wordor two further on of him and his doings. The Vicar of Bullhampton was written in 1868 for publication in Oncea Week, a periodical then belonging to Messrs. Bradbury & Evans. It was not to come out till 1869, and I, as was my wont had mademy terms long previously to the proposed date. I had made my termsand written my story and sent it to the publisher long before itwas wanted; and so far my mind was at rest. The date fixed was thefirst of July, which date had been named in accordance with theexigencies of the editor of the periodical. An author who writesfor these publications is bound to suit himself to these exigencies, and can generally do so without personal loss or inconvenience, ifhe will only take time by the forelock. With all the pages that Ihave written for magazines I have never been a day late, nor haveI ever caused inconvenience by sending less or more matter than Ihad stipulated to supply. But I have sometimes found myself compelledto suffer by the irregularity of others. I have endeavoured toconsole myself by reflecting that such must ever be the fate ofvirtue. The industrious must feed the idle. The honest and simplewill always be the prey of the cunning and fraudulent. The punctual, who keep none waiting for them, are doomed to wait perpetually forthe unpunctual. But these earthly sufferers know that they are makingtheir way heavenwards, --and their oppressors their way elsewards. If the former reflection does not suffice for consolation, thedeficiency is made up by the second. I was terribly aggrieved onthe matter of the publication of my new Vicar, and had to thinkvery much of the ultimate rewards of punctuality and its opposite. About the end of March, 1869, I got a dolorous letter from theeditor. All the Once a Week people were in a terrible trouble. Theyhad bought the right of translating one of Victor Hugo's modernnovels, L'Homme Qui Rit; they bad fixed a date, relying on positivepledges from the French publishers; and now the great French authorhad postponed his work from week to week and from month to month, and it had so come to pass that the Frenchman's grinning hero wouldhave to appear exactly at the same time as my clergyman. Was itnot quite apparent to me, the editor asked, that Once a Week couldnot hold the two? Would I allow my clergyman to make his appearancein the Gentleman's Magazine instead? My disgust at this proposition was, I think, chiefly due to VictorHugo's latter novels, which I regard as pretentious and untrue tonature. To this perhaps was added some feeling of indignation thatI should be asked to give way to a Frenchman. The Frenchman hadbroken his engagement. He had failed to have his work finished bythe stipulated time. From week to week and from month to month hehad put off the fulfilment of his duty. And because of these lacheson his part, --on the part of this sententious French Radical, --I wasto be thrown over! Virtue sometimes finds it difficult to consoleherself even with the double comfort. I would not come out in theGentleman's Magazine, and as the Grinning Man could not be got outof the way, by novel was published in separate numbers. The same thing has occurred to me more than once since. "You nodoubt are regular, " a publisher has said to me, "but Mr. ---- isirregular. He has thrown me out, and I cannot be ready for you tillthree months after the time named. " In these emergencies I havegiven perhaps half what was wanted, and have refused to give theother half. I have endeavoured to fight my own battle fairly, andat the same time not to make myself unnecessarily obstinate. Butthe circumstances have impressed on my mind the great need there isthat men engaged in literature should feel themselves to be boundto their industry as men know that they are bound in other callings. There does exist, I fear, a feeling that authors, because they areauthors, are relieved from the necessity of paying attention toeveryday rules. A writer, if he be making œ800 a year, does not thinkhimself bound to live modestly on œ600, and put by the remainderfor his wife and children. He does not understand that he shouldsit down at his desk at a certain hour. He imagines that publishersand booksellers should keep all their engagements with him tothe letter;--but that he, as a brain-worker, and conscious of thesubtle nature of the brain, should be able to exempt himself frombonds when it suits him. He has his own theory about inspirationwhich will not always come, --especially will not come if wine-cupsovernight have been too deep. All this has ever been odious tome, as being unmanly. A man may be frail in health, and thereforeunable to do as he has contracted in whatever grade of life. He whohas been blessed with physical strength to work day by day, yearby year--as has been my case--should pardon deficiencies causedby sickness or infirmity. I may in this respect have been a littlehard on others, --and, if so, I here record my repentance. ButI think that no allowance should be given to claims for exemptionfrom punctuality, made if not absolutely on the score still withthe conviction of intellectual superiority. The Vicar of Bullhampton was written chiefly with the object ofexciting not only pity but sympathy for fallen woman, and of raisinga feeling of forgiveness for such in the minds of other women. Icould not venture to make this female the heroine of my story. Tohave made her a heroine at all would have been directly opposedto my purpose. It was necessary therefore that she should bea second-rate personage in the tale;--but it was with reference toher life that the tale was written, and the hero and the heroine withtheir belongings are all subordinate. To this novel I affixed apreface, --in doing which I was acting in defiance of my old-establishedprinciple. I do not know that any one read it; but as I wish tohave it read, I will insert it here again:-- "I have introduced in the Vicar of Bullhampton the character of agirl whom I will call, --for want of a truer word that shall not inits truth be offensive, --a castaway. I have endeavoured to endowher with qualities that may create sympathy, and I have broughther back at last from degradation, at least to decency. I have notmarried her to a wealthy lover, and I have endeavoured to explainthat though there was possible to her a way out of perdition, stillthings could not be with her as they would have been had she notfallen. "There arises, of course, the question whether a novelist, whoprofesses to write for the amusement of the young of both sexes, should allow himself to bring upon his stage a character such asthat of Carry Brattle. It is not long since, --it is well within thememory of the author, --that the very existence of such a conditionof life as was hers, was supposed to be unknown to our sisters anddaughters, and was, in truth, unknown to many of them. Whether thatignorance was good may be questioned; but that it exists no longeris beyond question. Then arises the further question, --how far theconditions of such unfortunates should be made a matter of concernto the sweet young hearts of those whose delicacy and cleanlinessof thought is a matter of pride to so many of us. Cannot women, who are good, pity the sufferings of the vicious, and do somethingperhaps to mitigate and shorten them without contamination from thevice? It will be admitted probably by most men who have thoughtupon the subject that no fault among us is punished so heavilyas that fault, often so light in itself but so terrible in itsconsequences to the less faulty of the two offenders, by which awoman falls. All of her own sex is against her, and all those ofthe other sex in whose veins runs the blood which she is thoughtto have contaminated, and who, of nature, would befriend her, wereher trouble any other than it is. "She is what she is, and she remains in her abject, pitiless, unutterable misery, because this sentence of the world has placedher beyond the helping hand of Love and Friendship. It may be said, no doubt, that the severity of this judgment acts as a protectionto female virtue, --deterring, as all known punishments do deter, fromvice. But this punishment, which is horrible beyond the conceptionof those who have not regarded it closely, is not known beforehand. Instead of the punishment, there is seen a false glitter of gaudylife, --a glitter which is damnably false, --and which, alas I hasbeen more often portrayed in glowing colours, for the injury ofyoung girls, than have those horrors which ought to deter, withthe dark shadowings which belong to them. "To write in fiction of one so fallen as the noblest of her sex, as one to be rewarded because of her weakness, as one whose lifeis, happy, bright, and glorious, is certainly to allure to viceand misery. But it may perhaps be possible that if the matter behandled with truth to life, some girl, who would have been thoughtless, may be made thoughtful, or some parent's heart may be softened. " Those were my ideas when I conceived the story, and with thatfeeling I described the characters of Carry Brattle and of herfamily. I have not introduced her lover on the scene, nor have Ipresented her to the reader in the temporary enjoyment of any ofthose fallacious luxuries, the longing for which is sometimes moreseductive to evil than love itself. She is introduced as a poorabased creature, who hardly knows how false were her dreams, withvery little of the Magdalene about her--because though there maybe Magdalenes they are not often found--but with an intense horrorof the sufferings of her position. Such being her condition, willthey who naturally are her friends protect her? The vicar who hastaken her by the hand endeavours to excite them to charity; butfather, and brother, and sister are alike hard-hearted. It hadbeen my purpose at first that the hand of every Brattle should beagainst her; but my own heart was too soft to enable me to makethe mother cruel, --or the unmarried sister who had been the earlycompanion of the forlorn one. As regards all the Brattles, the story is, I think, well told. The characters are true, and the scenes at the mill are in keepingwith human nature. For the rest of the book I have little to say. It is not very bad, and it certainly is not very good. As I havemyself forgotten what the heroine does and says--except that shetumbles into a ditch--I cannot expect that any one else shouldremember her. But I have forgotten nothing that was done or saidby any of the Brattles. The question brought in argument is one of fearful importance. Asto the view to be taken first, there can, I think, be no doubt. Inregard to a sin common to the two sexes, almost all the punishmentand all the disgrace is heaped upon the one who in nine cases outof ten has been the least sinful. And the punishment inflicted isof such a nature that it hardly allows room for repentance. How isthe woman to return to decency to whom no decent door is opened?Then comes the answer: It is to the severity of the punishment alonethat we can trust to keep women from falling. Such is the argumentused in favour of the existing practice, and such the excusegiven for their severity by women who will relax nothing of theirharshness. But in truth the severity of the punishment is not knownbeforehand; it is not in the least understood by women in general, except by those who suffer it. The gaudy dirt, the squalid plenty, the contumely of familiarity, the absence of all good words and allgood things, the banishment from honest labour, the being compassedround with lies, the flaunting glare of fictitious revelry, theweary pavement, the horrid slavery to some horrid tyrant, --and thenthe quick depreciation of that one ware of beauty, the substitutedpaint, garments bright without but foul within like painted sepulchres, hunger, thirst, and strong drink, life without a hope, without thecertainty even of a morrow's breakfast, utterly friendless, disease, starvation, and a quivering fear of that coming hell which stillcan hardly be worse than all that is suffered here! This is thelife to which we doom our erring daughters, when because of theirerror we close our door upon them! But for our erring sons we findpardon easily enough. Of course there are houses of refuge, from which it has beenthought expedient to banish everything pleasant, as though the onlyrepentance to which we can afford to give a place must necessarilybe one of sackcloth and ashes. It is hardly thus that we can hopeto recall those to decency who, if they are to be recalled atall, must be induced to obey the summons before they have reachedthe last stage of that misery which I have attempted to describe. To me the mistake which we too often make seems to be this, --thatthe girl who has gone astray is put out of sight, out of mind ifpossible, at any rate out of speech, as though she had never existed, and that this ferocity comes not only from hatred of the sin, putin part also from a dread of the taint which the sin brings withit. Very low as is the degradation to which a girl is brought whenshe falls through love or vanity, or perhaps from a longing forluxurious ease, still much lower is that to which she must descendperforce when, through the hardness of the world around her, she converts that sin into a trade. Mothers and sisters, when themisfortune comes upon them of a fallen female from among theirnumber, should remember this, and not fear contamination so stronglyas did Carry Brattle's married sister and sister-in-law. In 1870 I brought out three books, --or rather of the latter ofthe three I must say that it was brought out by others, for I hadnothing to do with it except to write it. These were Sir HarryHotspur of Humblethwaite, An Editor's Tales, and a little volumeon Julius Caesar. Sir Harry Hotspur was written on the same plan asNina Balatka and Linda Tressel, and had for its object the tellingof some pathetic incident in life rather than the portraiture of anumber of human beings. Nina and Linda Tressel and The Golden Lionhad been placed in foreign countries, and this was an English story. In other respects it is of the same nature, and was not, I think, by any means a failure. There is much of pathos in the love ofthe girl, and of paternal dignity and affection in the father. It was published first in Macmillan's Magazine, by the intelligentproprietor of which I have since been told that it did not makeeither his fortune or that of his magazine. I am sorry that itshould have been so; but I fear that the same thing may be said ofa good many of my novels. When it had passed through the magazine, the subsequent use of it was sold to other publishers by Mr. Macmillan, and then I learned that it was to be brought out by themas a novel in two volumes. Now it had been sold by me as a novelin one volume, and hence there arose a correspondence. I found it very hard to make the purchasers understand that I hadreasonable ground for objection to the process. What was it to me?How could it injure me if they stretched my pages by means of leadand margin into double the number I had intended. I have heard thesame argument on other occasions. When I have pointed out that inthis way the public would have to suffer, seeing that they wouldhave to pay Mudie for the use of two volumes in reading that whichought to have been given to them in one, I have been assured thatthe public are pleased with literary short measure, that it isthe object of novel-readers to get through novels as fast as theycan, and that the shorter each volume is the better! Even this, however, did not overcome me, and I stood to my guns. Sir Harrywas published in one volume, containing something over the normal300 pages, with an average of 220 words to a page, --which Ihad settled with my conscience to be the proper length of a novelvolume. I may here mention that on one occasion, and one occasiononly, a publisher got the better of me in a matter of volumes. Hehad a two-volume novel of mine running through a certain magazine, and had it printed complete in three volumes before I knew where Iwas, --before I had seen a sheet of the letterpress. I stormed fora while, but I had not the heart to make him break up the type. The Editor's Tales was a volume republished from the St. Paul'sMagazine, and professed to give an editor's experience of hisdealings with contributors. I do not think that there is a singleincident in the book which could bring back to any one concernedthe memory of a past event. And yet there is not an incident in itthe outline of which was not presented to my mind by the remembranceof some fact:--how an ingenious gentleman got into conversationwith me, I not knowing that he knew me to be an editor, and pressedhis little article on my notice; how I was addressed by a lady witha becoming pseudonym and with much equally becoming audacity; howI was appealed to by the dearest of little women whom here I havecalled Mary Gresley; how in my own early days there was a struggleover an abortive periodical which was intended to be the bestthing ever done; how terrible was the tragedy of a poor drunkard, who with infinite learning at his command made one sad final effortto reclaim himself, and perished while he was making it; and lastlyhow a poor weak editor was driven nearly to madness by threatenedlitigation from a rejected contributor. Of these stories, The SpottedDog, with the struggles of the drunkard scholar, is the best. Iknow now, however, that when the things were good they came outtoo quick one upon another to gain much attention;--and so also, luckily, when they were bad. The Caesar was a thing of itself. My friend John Blackwood had seton foot a series of small volumes called Ancient Classics for EnglishReaders, and had placed the editing of them, and the compiling ofmany of them, in the hands of William Lucas Collins, a clergymanwho, from my connection with the series, became a most intimatefriend. The Iliad and the Odyssey had already come out when I wasat Edinburgh with John Blackwood, and, on my expressing my very strongadmiration for those two little volumes, --which I here recommendto all young ladies as the most charming tales they can read, --heasked me whether I would not undertake one myself. Herodotus wasin the press, but, if I could get it ready, mine should be next. Whereupon I offered to say what might be said to the readers ofEnglish on The Commentaries of Julius Caesar. I at once went to work, and in three months from that day the littlebook had been written. I began by reading through the Commentariestwice, which I did without any assistance either by translationor English notes. Latin was not so familiar to me then as it hassince become, --for from that date I have almost daily spent anhour with some Latin author, and on many days many hours. Afterthe reading what my author had left behind him, I fell into thereading of what others had written about him, in Latin, in English, and even in French, --for I went through much of that most futilebook by the late Emperor of the French. I do not know that for ashort period I ever worked harder. The amount I had to write wasnothing. Three weeks would have done it easily. But I was mostanxious, in this soaring out of my own peculiar line, not to disgracemyself. I do not think that I did disgrace myself. Perhaps I wasanxious for something more. If so, I was disappointed. The book I think to be a good little book. It is readable by all, oldand young, and it gives, I believe accurately, both an account ofCaesar's Commentaries, --which of course was the primary intention, --andthe chief circumstances of the great Roman's life. A well-educatedgirl who had read it and remembered it would perhaps know as muchabout Caesar and his writings as she need know. Beyond the consolationof thinking as I do about it, I got very little gratification fromthe work. Nobody praised it. One very old and very learned friendto whom I sent it thanked me for my "comic Caesar, " but said nomore. I do not suppose that he intended to run a dagger into me. Of any suffering from such wounds, I think, while living, I nevershowed a sign; but still I have suffered occasionally. Therewas, however, probably present to my friend's mind, and to thatof others, a feeling that a man who had spent his life in writingEnglish novels could not be fit to write about Caesar. It was aswhen an amateur gets a picture hung on the walls of the Academy. What business had I there? Ne sutor ultra crepidam. In the press itwas most faintly damned by most faint praise. Nevertheless, havingread the book again within the last month or two, I make bold to saythat it is a good book. The series, I believe, has done very well. I am sure that it ought to do well in years to come, for, puttingaside Caesar, the work has been done with infinite scholarship, andvery generally with a light hand. With the leave of my sententiousand sonorous friend, who had not endured that subjects which hadbeen grave to him should be treated irreverently, I will say thatsuch a work, unless it be light, cannot answer the purpose for whichit is intended. It was not exactly a schoolbook that was wanted, but something that would carry the purposes of the schoolroom eveninto the leisure hours of adult pupils. Nothing was ever bettersuited for such a purpose than the Iliad and the Odyssey, as doneby Mr. Collins. The Virgil, also done by him, is very good; and sois the Aristophanes by the same hand. CHAPTER XIX "RALPH THE HEIR"--"THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS"--"LADY ANNA"--"AUSTRALIA" In the spring of 1871 we, --I and my wife, --had decided that wewould go to Australia to visit our shepherd son. Of course beforedoing so I made a contract with a publisher for a book about theColonies. For such a work as this I had always been aware thatI could not fairly demand more than half the price that would begiven for the same amount of fiction; and as such books have anindomitable tendency to stretch themselves, so that more is giventhan what is sold, and as the cost of travelling is heavy, thewriting of them is not remunerative. This tendency to stretch comesnot, I think, generally from the ambition of the writer, but fromhis inability to comprise the different parts in their allottedspaces. If you have to deal with a country, a colony, a city, atrade, or a political opinion, it is so much easier to deal withit in twenty than in twelve pages! I also made an engagement withthe editor of a London daily paper to supply him with a series ofarticles, --which were duly written, duly published, and duly paidfor. But with all this, travelling with the object of writing isnot a good trade. If the travelling author can pay his bills, hemust be a good manager on the road. Before starting there came upon us the terrible necessity of comingto some resolution about our house at Waltham. It had been firsthired, and then bought, primarily because it suited my Post Officeavocations. To this reason had been added other attractions, --in theshape of hunting, gardening, and suburban hospitalities. Altogetherthe house had been a success, and the scene of much happiness. Butthere arose questions as to expense. Would not a house in Londonbe cheaper? There could be no doubt that my income would decrease, and was decreasing. I had thrown the Post Office, as it were, away, and the writing of novels could not go on for ever. Some ofmy friends told me already that at fifty-five I ought to give upthe fabrication of love-stories. The hunting, I thought, must soongo, and I would not therefore allow that to keep me in the country. And then, why should I live at Waltham Cross now, seeing thatI had fixed on that place in reference to the Post Office? It wastherefore determined that we would flit, and as we were to be awayfor eighteen months, we determined also to sell our furniture. Sothere was a packing up, with many tears, and consultations as towhat should be saved out of the things we loved. As must take place on such an occasion, there was some heart-feltgrief. But the thing was done, and orders were given for the lettingor sale of the house. I may as well say here that it never was letand that it remained unoccupied for two years before it was sold. I lost by the transaction about œ800. As I continually hear thatother men make money by buying and selling houses, I presume I amnot well adapted for transactions of that sort. I have never mademoney by selling anything except a manuscript. In matters ofhorseflesh I am so inefficient that I have generally given awayhorses that I have not wanted. When we started from Liverpool, in May, 1871, Ralph the Heir wasrunning through the St. Paul's. This was the novel of which CharlesReade afterwards took the plot and made on it a play. I have alwaysthought it to be one of the worst novels I have written, and almostto have justified that dictum that a novelist after fifty shouldnot write love-stories. It was in part a political novel; andthat part which appertains to politics, and which recounts theelectioneering experiences of the candidates at Percycross, is wellenough. Percycross and Beverley were, of course, one and the sameplace. Neefit, the breeches-maker, and his daughter, are also goodin their way, --and Moggs, the daughter's lover, who was not onlylover, but also one of the candidates at Percycross as well. Butthe main thread of the story, --that which tells of the doings of theyoung gentlemen and young ladies, --the heroes and the heroines, --isnot good. Ralph the heir has not much life about him; while Ralphwho is not the heir, but is intended to be the real hero, hasnone. The same may be said of the young ladies, --of whom one, shewho was meant to be the chief, has passed utterly out of my mind, without leaving a trace of remembrance behind. I also left in the hands of the editor of The Fortnightly, ready forproduction on the 1st of July following, a story called The EustaceDiamonds. In that I think that my friend's dictum was disproved. There is not much love in it; but what there is, is good. Thecharacter of Lucy Morris is pretty; and her love is as genuine andas well told as that of Lucy Robarts of Lily Dale. But The Eustace Diamonds achieved the success which it certainlydid attain, not as a love-story, but as a record of a cunning littlewoman of pseudo-fashion, to whom, in her cunning, there came aseries of adventures, unpleasant enough in themselves, but pleasantto the reader. As I wrote the book, the idea constantly presenteditself to me that Lizzie Eustace was but a second Becky Sharpe; butin planning the character I had not thought of this, and I believethat Lizzie would have been just as she is though Becky Sharpe hadnever been described. The plot of the diamond necklace is, I think, well arranged, though it produced itself without any forethought. I had no idea of setting thieves after the bauble till I had gotmy heroine to bed in the inn at Carlisle; nor of the disappointmentof the thieves, till Lizzie had been wakened in the morning withthe news that her door had been broken open. All these things, andmany more, Wilkie Collins would have arranged before with infinitelabour, preparing things present so that they should fit in withthings to come. I have gone on the very much easier plan of makingeverything as it comes fit in with what has gone before. At anyrate, the book was a success, and did much to repair the injurywhich I felt had come to my reputation in the novel-market by theworks of the last few years. I doubt whether I had written anythingso successful as The Eustace Diamonds. Since The Small House atAllington. I had written what was much better, --as, for instance, Phineas Finn and Nina Balatka; but that is by no means the samething. I also left behind, in a strong box, the manuscript of Phineas Redux, a novel of which I have already spoken, and which I subsequentlysold to the proprietors of the Graphic newspaper. The editor ofthat paper greatly disliked the title, assuring me that the publicwould take Redux for the gentleman's surname, --and was dissatisfiedwith me when I replied that I had no objection to them doingso. The introduction of a Latin word, or of a word from any otherlanguage, into the title of an English novel is undoubtedly inbad taste; but after turning the matter much over in my own mind, I could find no other suitable name. I also left behind me, in the same strong box, another novel, calledAn Eye for an Eye, which then had been some time written, and ofwhich, as it has not even yet been published, I will not furtherspeak. It will probably be published some day, though, lookingforward, I can see no room for it, at any rate, for the next twoyears. If therefore the Great Britain, in which we sailed for Melbourne, had gone to the bottom, I had so provided that there would be newnovels ready to come out under my name for some years to come. Thisconsideration, however, did not keep me idle while I was at sea. When making long journeys, I have always succeeded in gettinga desk put up in my cabin, and this was done ready for me in theGreat Britain, so that I could go to work the day after we leftLiverpool. This I did; and before I reached Melbourne I had finisheda story called Lady Anna. Every word of this was written at sea, during the two months required for our voyage, and was done day byday--with the intermission of one day's illness--for eight weeks, at the rate of 66 pages of manuscript in each week, every page ofmanuscript containing 250 words. Every word was counted. I haveseen work come back to an author from the press with terribledeficiencies as to the amount supplied. Thirty-two pages haveperhaps been wanted for a number, and the printers with all theirart could not stretch the matter to more than twenty-eight or -nine!The work of filling up must be very dreadful. I have sometimes beenridiculed for the methodical details of my business. But by thesecontrivances I have been preserved from many troubles; and I havesaved others with whom I have worked--editors, publishers, andprinters--from much trouble also. A month or two after my return home, Lady Anna appeared in TheFortnightly, following The Eustace Diamonds. In it a young girl, who is really a lady of high rank and great wealth, though in heryouth she enjoyed none of the privileges of wealth or rank, marriesa tailor who had been good to her, and whom she had loved when shewas poor and neglected. A fine young noble lover is provided forher, and all the charms of sweet living with nice people are thrownin her way, in order that she may be made to give up the tailor. And the charms are very powerful with her. But the feeling thatshe is bound by her troth to the man who had always been true toher overcomes everything, --and she marries the tailor. It was mywish of course to justify her in doing so, and to carry my readersalong with me in my sympathy with her. But everybody found faultwith me for marrying her to the tailor. What would they have saidif I had allowed her to jilt the tailor and marry the good-lookingyoung lord? How much louder, then, would have been the censure!The book was read, and I was satisfied. If I had not told my storywell, there would have been no feeling in favour of the young lord. The horror which was expressed to me at the evil thing I had done, in giving the girl to the tailor, was the strongest testimony Icould receive of the merits of the story. I went to Australia chiefly in order that I might see my son amonghis sheep. I did see him among his sheep, and remained with him forfour or five very happy weeks. He was not making money, nor has hemade money since. I grieve to say that several thousands of poundswhich I had squeezed out of the pockets of perhaps too liberalpublishers have been lost on the venture. But I rejoice to saythat this has been in no way due to any fault of his. I never knewa man work with more persistent honesty at his trade than he hasdone. I had, however, the further intentions of writing a book about theentire group of Australasian Colonies; and in order that I mightbe enabled to do that with sufficient information, I visited themall. Making my headquarters at Melbourne, I went to Queensland, NewSouth Wales, Tasmania, then to the very little known territory ofWestern Australia, and then, last of all, to New Zealand. I wasabsent in all eighteen months, and think that I did succeed inlearning much of the political, social, and material condition ofthese countries. I wrote my book as I was travelling and broughtit back with me to England all but completed in December, 1872. It was a better book than that which I had written eleven yearsbefore on the American States, but not so good as that on the WestIndies in 1859. As regards the information given, there was muchmore to be said about Australia than the West Indies. Very muchmore is said, --and very much more may be learned from the latterthan from the former book. I am sure that any one who will takethe trouble to read the book on Australia, will learn much fromit. But the West Indian volume was readable. I am not sure thateither of the other works are, in the proper sense of that word. When I go back to them I find that the pages drag with me;--and ifso with me, how must it be with others who have none of that lovewhich a father feels even for his ill-favoured offspring. Of allthe needs a book has the chief need is that it be readable. Feeling that these volumes on Australia were dull and long, I wassurprised to find that they had an extensive sale. There were, Ithink, 2000 copies circulated of the first expensive edition; andthen the book was divided into four little volumes, which werepublished separately, and which again had a considerable circulation. That some facts were stated inaccurately, I do not doubt; that manyopinions were crude, I am quite sure; that I had failed to understandmuch which I attempted to explain, is possible. But with all thesefaults the book was a thoroughly honest book, and was the result ofunflagging labour for a period of fifteen months. I spared myselfno trouble in inquiry, no trouble in seeing, and no trouble inlistening. I thoroughly imbued my mind with the subject, and wrotewith the simple intention of giving trustworthy information onthe state of the Colonies. Though there be inaccuracies, --thoseinaccuracies to which work quickly done must always be subject, --Ithink I did give much valuable information. I came home across America from San Francisco to New York, visitingUtah and Brigham Young on the way. I did not achieve great intimacywith the great polygamist of the Salt Lake City. I called uponhim, sending to him my card, apologising for doing so without anintroduction, and excusing myself by saying that I did not liketo pass through the territory without seeing a man of whom I hadheard so much. He received me in his doorway, not asking me toenter, and inquired whether I were not a miner. When I told himthat I was not a miner, he asked me whether I earned my bread. Itold him I did. "I guess you're a miner, " said he. I again assuredhim that I was not. "Then how do you earn your bread?" I told himI did so by writing books. "I'm sure you're a miner, " said he. Thenhe turned upon his heel, went back into the house, and closed thedoor. I was properly punished, as I was vain enough to conceivethat he would have heard my name. I got home in December, 1872, and in spite of any resolution madeto the contrary, my mind was full of hunting as I came back. Noreal resolutions had in truth been made, for out of a stud of fourhorses I kept three, two of which were absolutely idle through thetwo summers and winter of my absence. Immediately on my arrivalI bought another, and settled myself down to hunting from Londonthree days a week. At first I went back to Essex, my old country, but finding that to be inconvenient, I took my horses to LeightonBuzzard, and became one of that numerous herd of sportsmen who rodewith the "Baron" and Mr. Selby Lowndes. In those days Baron Meyerwas alive, and the riding with his hounds was very good. I did notcare so much for Mr. Lowndes. During the winters of 1873, 1874, and1875, I had my horses back in Essex, and went on with my hunting, always trying to resolve that I would give it up. But still Ibought fresh horses, and, as I did not give it up, I hunted morethan ever. Three times a week the cab has been at my door in Londonvery punctually, and not unfrequently before seven in the morning. In order to secure this attendance, the man has always been invitedto have his breakfast in the hall. I have gone to the Great EasternRailway, --ah! so often with the fear that frost would make all myexertions useless, and so often too with that result! And then, from one station or another station, have travelled on wheels atleast a dozen miles. After the day's sport, the same toil has beennecessary to bring me home to dinner at eight. This has been workfor a young man and a rich man, but I have done it as an old manand comparatively a poor man. Now at last, in April, 1876, I dothink that my resolution has been taken. I am giving away my oldhorses, and anybody is welcome to my saddles and horse-furniture. "Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes; Eripuere jocos, venerem, convivia, ladum; Tendunt extorquere poemata. " "Our years keep taking toll as they move on; My feasts, my frolics, are already gone, And now, it seems, my verses must go too. " This Is Conington's translation, but it seems to me to be a littleflat. "Years as they roll cut all our pleasures short; Our pleasant mirth, our loves, our wine, our sport, And then they stretch their power, and crush at last Even the power of singing of the past. " I think that I may say with truth that I rode hard to my end. "Vixi puellis nuper idoneus, Et militavi non sine gloria; Nunc arma defunctumque bello Barbiton hic paries habebit. " "I've lived about the covert side, I've ridden straight, and ridden fast; Now breeches, boots, and scarlet pride Are but mementoes of the past. " CHAPTER XX "THE WAY WE LIVE NOW" AND "THE PRIME MINISTER"--CONCLUSION In what I have said at the end of the last chapter about my hunting, I have been carried a little in advance of the date at which Ihad arrived. We returned from Australia in the winter of 1872, andearly in 1873 I took a house in Montagu Square, --in which I hopeto live and hope to die. Our first work in settling there was toplace upon new shelves the books which I had collected round myselfat Waltham. And this work, which was in itself great, entailedalso the labour of a new catalogue. As all who use libraries know, a catalogue is nothing unless it show the spot on which everybook is to be found, --information which every volume also ought togive as to itself. Only those who have done it know how great isthe labour of moving and arranging a few thousand volumes. At thepresent moment I own about 5000 volumes, and they are dearer tome even than the horses which are going, or than the wine in thecellar, which is very apt to go, and upon which I also pride myself. When this was done, and the new furniture had got into its place, and my little book-room was settled sufficiently for work, Ibegan a novel, to the writing of which I was instigated by what Iconceived to be the commercial profligacy of the age. Whether theworld does or does not become more wicked as years go on, is aquestion which probably has disturbed the minds of thinkers sincethe world began to think. That men have become less cruel, lessviolent, less selfish, less brutal, there can be no doubt;--buthave they become less honest? If so, can a world, retrograding fromday to day in honesty, be considered to be in a state of progress?We know the opinion on this subject of our philosopher Mr. Carlyle. If he be right, we are all going straight away to darkness and thedogs. But then we do not put very much faith in Mr. Carlyle, --norin Mr. Ruskin and his other followers. The loudness and extravaganceof their lamentations, the wailing and gnashing of teeth which comesfrom them, over a world which is supposed to have gone altogethershoddy-wards, are so contrary to the convictions of men who cannotbut see how comfort has been increased, how health has been improved, and education extended, --that the general effect of their teachingis the opposite of what they have intended. It is regarded simplyas Carlylism to say that the English-speaking world is growingworse from day to day. And it is Carlylism to opine that the generalgrand result of increased intelligence is a tendency to deterioration. Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificentin its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become atthe same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to bereason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel thatdishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on allits walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivoryin all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get intoParliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel. Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat downin my new house to write The Way We Live Now. And as I had venturedto take the whip of the satirist into my hand, I went beyond theiniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made anonslaught also on other vices;--on the intrigues of girls who wantto get married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remainsingle, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire tocheat the public into buying their volumes. The book has the fault which is to be attributed to almost allsatires, whether in prose or verse. The accusations are exaggerated. The vices are coloured, so as to make effect rather than to representtruth. Who, when the lash of objurgation is in his hands, canso moderate his arm as never to strike harder than justice wouldrequire? The spirit which produces the satire is honest enough, butthe very desire which moves the satirist to do his work energeticallymakes him dishonest. In other respects The Way We Live Nowwas, as a satire, powerful and good. The character of Melmotte iswell maintained. The Beargarden is amusing, --and not untrue. TheLongestaffe girls and their friend, Lady Monogram, are amusing, --butexaggerated. Dolly Longestaffe, is, I think, very good. And LadyCarbury's literary efforts are, I am sorry to say, such as are toofrequently made. But here again the young lady with her two loversis weak and vapid. I almost doubt whether it be not impossible tohave two absolutely distinct parts in a novel, and to imbue themboth with interest. If they be distinct, the one will seem to beno more than padding to the other. And so it was in The Way We LiveNow. The interest of the story lies among the wicked and foolishpeople, --with Melmotte and his daughter, with Dolly and his family, with the American woman, Mrs. Hurtle, and with John Crumb and thegirl of his heart. But Roger Carbury, Paul Montague, and HenriettaCarbury are uninteresting. Upon the whole, I by no means look uponthe book as one of my failures; nor was it taken as a failure bythe public or the press. While I was writing The Way We Live Now, I was called upon by theproprietors of the Graphic for a Christmas story. I feel, with regardto literature, somewhat as I suppose an upholsterer and undertakerfeels when he is called upon to supply a funeral. He has to supplyit, however distasteful it may be. It is his business, and he willstarve if he neglects it. So have I felt that, when anything in theshape of a novel was required, I was bound to produce it. Nothingcan be more distasteful to me than to have to give a relish ofChristmas to what I write. I feel the humbug implied by the natureof the order. A Christmas story, in the proper sense, should bethe ebullition of some mind anxious to instil others with a desirefor Christmas religious thought, or Christmas festivities, --or, better still, with Christmas charity. Such was the case with Dickenswhen he wrote his two first Christmas stories. But since that thethings written annually--all of which have been fixed to Christmaslike children's toys to a Christmas tree--have had no real savourof Christmas about them. I had done two or three before. Alas!at this very moment I have one to write, which I have promised tosupply within three weeks of this time, --the picture-makers alwaysrequire a long interval, --as to which I have in vain been cudgellingmy brain for the last month. I can't send away the order to anothershop, but I do not know how I shall ever get the coffin made. For the Graphic, in 1873, I wrote a little story about Australia. Christmas at the antipodes is of course midsummer, and I was notloth to describe the troubles to which my own son had been subjected, by the mingled accidents of heat and bad neighbours, on his stationin the bush. So I wrote Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, and was wellthrough my labour on that occasion. I only wish I may have noworse success in that which now hangs over my head. When Harry Heathcote was over, I returned with a full heart toLady Glencora and her husband. I had never yet drawn the completedpicture of such a statesman as my imagination had conceived. Thepersonages with whose names my pages had been familiar, and perhapseven the minds of some of my readers--the Brocks, De Terriers, Monks, Greshams, and Daubeneys--had been more or less portraits, not ofliving men, but of living political characters. The strong-minded, thick-skinned, useful, ordinary member, either of the Government orof the Opposition, had been very easy to describe, and had requiredno imagination to conceive. The character reproduces itself fromgeneration to generation; and as it does so, becomes shorn ina wonderful way of those little touches of humanity which wouldbe destructive of its purposes. Now and again there comes a burstof human nature, as in the quarrel between Burke and Fox; but, asa rule, the men submit themselves to be shaped and fashioned, andto be formed into tools, which are used either for building up orpulling down, and can generally bear to be changed from this boxinto the other, without, at any rate, the appearance of much personalsuffering. Four-and-twenty gentlemen will amalgamate themselvesinto one whole, and work for one purpose, having each of them toset aside his own idiosyncrasy, and to endure the close personalcontact of men who must often be personally disagreeable, havingbeen thoroughly taught that in no other way can they serve eithertheir country or their own ambition. These are the men who arepublicly useful, and whom the necessities of the age supply, --asto whom I have never ceased to wonder that stones of such strongcalibre should be so quickly worn down to the shape and smoothnessof rounded pebbles. Such have been to me the Brocks and the Mildmays, about whom I havewritten with great pleasure, having had my mind much exercised inwatching them. But had I also conceived the character of a statesmanof a different nature--of a man who should be in something perhapssuperior, but in very much inferior, to these men--of one who couldnot become a pebble, having too strong an identity of his own. Torid one's self of fine scruples--to fall into the traditions ofa party--to feel the need of subservience, not only in acting butalso even in thinking--to be able to be a bit, and at first only avery little bit, --these are the necessities of the growing statesman. The time may come, the glorious time when some great self actionshall be possible, and shall be even demanded, as when Peel gaveup the Corn Laws; but the rising man, as he puts on his harness, should not allow himself to dream of this. To become a good, round, smooth, hard, useful pebble is his duty, and to achieve this hemust harden his skin and swallow his scruples. But every now andagain we see the attempt, made by men who cannot get their skins tobe hard--who after a little while generally fall out of the ranks. The statesman of whom I was thinking--of whom I had long thought--wasone who did not fall out of the ranks, even though his skin wouldnot become hard. He should have rank, and intellect, and parliamentaryhabits, by which to bind him to the service of his country; and heshould also have unblemished, unextinguishable, inexhaustible loveof country. That virtue I attribute to our statesmen generally. They who are without it are, I think, mean indeed. This man shouldhave it as the ruling principle of his life; and it should so rulehim that all other things should be made to give way to it. But heshould be scrupulous, and, being scrupulous, weak. When called tothe highest place in the council of his Sovereign, he should feelwith true modesty his own insufficiency; but not the less shouldthe greed of power grow upon him when he had once allowed himselfto taste and enjoy it. Such was the character I endeavoured todepict in describing the triumph, the troubles, and the failureof my Prime Minister. And I think that I have succeeded. What thepublic may think, or what the press may say, I do not yet know, the work having as yet run but half its course. [Footnote: Writingthis note in 1878, after a lapse of nearly three years, I am obligedto say that, as regards the public, The Prime Minister was a failure. It was worse spoken of by the press than any novel I had written. I was specially hurt by a criticism on it in the Spectator. Thecritic who wrote the article I know to be a good critic, inclinedto be more than fair to me; but in this case I could not agree withhim, so much do I love the man whose character I had endeavouredto portray. ] That the man's character should be understood as I understandit--or that of his wife's, the delineation of which has also beena matter of much happy care to me--I have no right to expect, seeingthat the operation of describing has not been confined to one novel, which might perhaps be read through by the majority of those whocommenced it. It has been carried on through three or four, eachof which will be forgotten even by the most zealous reader almostas soon as read. In The Prime Minister, my Prime Minister will notallow his wife to take office among, or even over, those ladies whoare attached by office to the Queen's court. "I should not choose, "he says to her, "that my wife should have any duties unconnectedwith our joint family and home. " Who will remember in readingthose words that, in a former story, published some years before, he tells his wife, when she has twitted him with his willingnessto clean the Premier's shoes, that he would even allow her to cleanthem if it were for the good of the country? And yet it is by suchdetails as these that I have, for many years past, been manufacturingwithin my own mind the characters of the man and his wife. I think that Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, is a perfectgentleman. If he be not, then am I unable to describe a gentleman. She is by no means a perfect lady; but if she be not all overa woman, then am I not able to describe a woman. I do not thinkit probable that my name will remain among those who in the nextcentury will be known as the writers of English prose fiction;--butif it does, that permanence of success will probably rest on thecharacter of Plantagenet Palliser, Lady Glencora, and the Rev. Mr. Crawley. I have now come to the end of that long series of books written bymyself with which the public is already acquainted. Of those whichI may hereafter be able to add to them I cannot speak; though Ihave an idea that I shall even yet once more have recourse to mypolitical hero as the mainstay of another story. When The PrimeMinister was finished, I at once began another novel, which is nowcompleted in three volumes, and which is called Is He Popenjoy?There are two Popenjoys in the book, one succeeding to the titleheld by the other; but as they are both babies, and do not in thecourse of the story progress beyond babyhood, the future readers, should the tale ever be published, will not be much interested inthem. Nevertheless the story, as a story, is not, I think, amiss. Since that I have written still another three-volume novel, towhich, very much in opposition to my publisher, I have given thename of The American Senator. [Footnote: The American Senator andPopenjoy have appeared, each with fair success. Neither of them hasencountered that reproach which, in regard to The Prime Minister, seemed to tell me that my work as a novelist should be brought toa close. And yet I feel assured that they are very inferior to ThePrime Minister. ] It is to appear in Temple Bar, and is to commenceits appearance on the first of next month. Such being itscircumstances, I do not know that I can say anything else about ithere. And so I end the record of my literary performances, --which Ithink are more in amount than the works of any other living Englishauthor. If any English authors not living have written more--asmay probably have been the case--I do not know who they are. I findthat, taking the books which have appeared under our names, I havepublished much more than twice as much as Carlyle. I have alsopublished considerably more than Voltaire, even including hisletters. We are told that Varro, at the age of eighty, had written480 volumes, and that he went on writing for eight years longer. I wish I knew what was the length of Varro's volumes; I comfortmyself by reflecting that the amount of manuscript described as abook in Varro's time was not much. Varro, too, is dead, and Voltaire;whereas I am still living, and may add to the pile. The following is a list of the books I have written, with the datesof publication and the sums I have received for them. The datesgiven are the years in which the works were published as a whole, most of them having appeared before in some serial form. Names of Works. Date of Publication. Total Sums Received. The Macdermots of Ballycloran, 1847 œ48 6 9The Kellys and the O'Kellys, 1848 123 19 5La Vendee, 1850 20 0 0The Warden, 1855 \ 727 11 3Barchester Towers, 1857 /The Three Clerks, 1858 250 0 0Doctor Thorne, 1858 400 0 0The West Indies and theSpanish Main, 1859 250 0 0The Bertrams, 1859 400 0 0 Carried forward, œ2219 16 17 Names of Works. Date of Publication. Total Sums Received. Brought Forward, œ2219 16 17Castle Richmond, 1860 600 0 0Framley Parsonage, 1861 1000 0 0Tales of AllCountries--1st Series, 1861 \ " " 2d 1863 > 1830 0 0 " " 3d 1870 /Orley Farm, 1862 3135 0 0North America, 1862 1250 0 0Rachel Ray, 1863 1645 0 0The Small House at Allington, 1864 3000 0 0Can You Forgive Her? 1864 3525 0 0Miss Mackenzie, 1865 1300 0 0The Belton Estate, 1866 1757 0 0The Claverings, 1867 2800 0 0The Last Chronicle of Barset, 1867 3000 0 0Nina Balatka, 1867 450 0 0Linda Tressel, 1868 450 0 0Phineas Finn, 1869 3200 0 0He Knew He Was Right, 1869 3200 0 0Brown, Jones, and Robinson, 1870 600 0 0The Vicar of Bullhampton, 1870 2500 0 0An Editor's Tales, 1870 378 0 0Caesar (Ancient Classics), 1870 0 0 0[Footnote: This was given by me as a present tomy friend John Blackwood] Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, 1871 750 0 0Ralph the Heir, 1871 2500 0 0The Golden Lion of Granpere, 1872 550 0 0The Eustace Diamonds, 1873 2500 0 0Australia and New Zealand, 1873 1300 0 0Phineas Redux, 1874 2500 0 0Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, 1874 450 0 0 Carry forward, œ48, 389 17 5 Names of Works. Date of Publication. Total Sums Received. Brought forward, œ48, 389 17 5Lady Anna, 1874 1200 0 0The Way We Live Now, 1875 3000 0 0The Prime Minister, 1876 2500 0 0The American Senator, 1877 1800 0 0Is He Popenjoy? 1878 1600 0 0South Africa, 1878 850 0 0John Caldigate, 1879 1800 0 0Sundries, 7800 0 0 ____________ œ68, 939 17 5 ------------ It will not, I am sure, be thought that, in making my boast asto the quantity, I have endeavoured to lay claim to any literaryexcellence. That, in the writing of books, quantity without quality isa vice and a misfortune, has been too manifestly settled to leavea doubt on such a matter. But I do lay claim to whatever meritshould be accorded to me for persevering diligence in my profession. And I make the claim, not with a view to my own glory, but forthe benefit of those who may read these pages, and when young mayintend to follow the same career. Nulla dies sine linea. Let thatbe their motto. And let their work be to them as is his common workto the common labourer. No gigantic efforts will then be necessary. He need tie no wet towels round his brow, nor sit for thirty hoursat his desk without moving, --as men have sat, or said that theyhave sat. More than nine-tenths of my literary work has been donein the last twenty years, and during twelve of those years I followedanother profession. I have never been a slave to this work, givingdue time, if not more than due time, to the amusements I have loved. But I have been constant, --and constancy in labour will conquerall difficulties. Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed saepe cadendo. It may interest some if I state that during the last twenty yearsI have made by literature something near œ70, 000. As I have saidbefore in these pages, I look upon the result as comfortable, butnot splendid. It will not, I trust, be supposed by any reader that I have intendedin this so-called autobiography to give a record of my inner life. No man ever did so truly, --and no man ever will. Rousseau probablyattempted it, but who doubts but that Rousseau has confessedin much the thoughts and convictions rather than the facts of hislife? If the rustle of a woman's petticoat has ever stirred myblood; if a cup of wine has been a joy to me; if I have thoughttobacco at midnight in pleasant company to be one of the elementsof an earthly paradise; if now and again I have somewhat recklesslyfluttered a œ5 note over a card-table;--of what matter is that toany reader? I have betrayed no woman. Wine has brought me to nosorrow. It has been the companionship of smoking that I have loved, rather than the habit. I have never desired to win money, and Ihave lost none. To enjoy the excitement of pleasure, but to be freefrom its vices and ill effects, --to have the sweet, and leave thebitter untasted, --that has been my study. The preachers tell us thatthis is impossible. It seems to me that hitherto I have succeededfairly well. I will not say that I have never scorched a finger, --butI carry no ugly wounds. For what remains to me of life I trust for my happiness stillchiefly to my work--hoping that when the power of work be over withme, God may be pleased to take me from a world in which, accordingto my view, there can be no joy; secondly, to the love of those wholove me; and then to my books. That I can read and be happy whileI am reading, is a great blessing. Could I remember, as some mendo, what I read, I should have been able to call myself an educatedman. But that power I have never possessed. Something is alwaysleft, --something dim and inaccurate, --but still something sufficientto preserve the taste for more. I am inclined to think that it isso with most readers. Of late years, putting aside the Latin classics, I have foundmy greatest pleasure in our old English dramatists, --not from anyexcessive love of their work, which often irritates me by its wantof truth to nature, even while it shames me by its language, --butfrom curiosity in searching their plots and examining their character. If I live a few years longer, I shall, I think, leave in my copiesof these dramatists, down to the close of James I. , written criticismson every play. No one who has not looked closely into it knows howmany there are. Now I stretch out my hand, and from the further shore I bid adieuto all who have cared to read any among the many words that I havewritten.