Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

by Anthony Trollope

  last by his constant honesty, had been foreshadowed to me from

  the first. As to the incidents of the story, the circumstances by

  which these personages were to be affected, I knew nothing. They

  were created for the most part as they were described. I never

  could arrange a set of events before me. But the evil and the good

  of my puppets, and how the evil would always lead to evil, and the

  good produce good,--that was clear to me as the stars on a summer

  night.

  Lady Laura Standish is the best character in Phineas Finn and its

  sequel Phineas Redux,--of which I will speak here together. They

  are, in fact, but one novel though they were brought out at a

  considerable interval of time and in different form. The first was

  commenced in the St. Paul's Magazine in 1867, and the other was

  brought out in the Graphic in 1873. In this there was much bad

  arrangement, as I had no right to expect that novel readers would

  remember the characters of a story after an interval of six years,

  or that any little interest which might have been taken in the

  career of my hero could then have been renewed. I do not know that

  such interest was renewed. But I found that the sequel enjoyed the

  same popularity as the former part, and among the same class of

  readers. Phineas, and Lady Laura, and Lady Chiltern--as Violet

  had become--and the old duke,--whom I killed gracefully, and the

  new duke, and the young duchess, either kept their old friends or

  made new friends for themselves. Phineas Finn, I certainly think,

  was successful from first to last. I am aware, however, that there

  was nothing in it to touch the heart like the abasement of Lady

  Mason when confessing her guilt to her old lover, or any approach

  in delicacy of delineation to the character of Mr. Crawley.

  Phineas Finn, the first part of the story, was completed in

  May, 1867. In June and July I wrote Linda Tressel for Blackwood's

  Magazine, of which I have already spoken. In September and October

  I wrote a short novel, called The Golden Lion of Granpere, which

  was intended also for Blackwood,--with a view of being published

  anonymously; but Mr. Blackwood did not find the arrangement to be

  profitable, and the story remained on my hands, unread and unthought

  of, for a few years. It appeared subsequently in Good Words. It

  was written on the model of Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel, but

  is 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 Was

  Right, and which was brought out by Mr. Virtue, the proprietor of

  the St. Paul's Magazine, in sixpenny numbers, every week. I do not

  know that in any literary effort I ever fell more completely short

  of my own intention than in this story. It was my purpose to create

  sympathy for the unfortunate man who, while endeavouring to do

  his duty to all around him, should be led constantly astray by his

  unwillingness to submit his own judgment to the opinion of others.

  The man is made to be unfortunate enough, and the evil which he

  does is apparent. So far I did not fail, but the sympathy has not

  been created yet. I look upon the story as being nearly altogether

  bad. It is in part redeemed by certain scenes in the house and

  vicinity of an old maid in Exeter. But a novel which in its main

  parts is bad cannot, in truth, be redeemed by the vitality of

  subordinate characters.

  This work was finished while I was at Washington in the spring of

  1868, and on the day after I finished it, I commenced The Vicar of

  Bullhampton, a novel which I wrote for Messrs. Bradbury & Evans.

  This I completed in November, 1868, and at once began Sir Harry

  Hotspur of Humblethwaite, a story which I was still writing at the

  close of the year. I look upon these two years, 1867 and 1868, of

  which I have given a somewhat confused account in this and the two

  preceding chapters, as the busiest in my life. I had indeed left

  the Post Office, but though I had left it I had been employed by

  it during a considerable portion of the time. I had established the

  St. Paul's Magazine, in reference to which I had read an enormous

  amount of manuscript, and for which, independently of my novels, I

  had written articles almost monthly. I had stood for Beverley and

  had made many speeches. I had also written five novels, and had

  hunted three times a week during each of the winters. And how happy

  I was with it all! I had suffered at Beverley, but I had suffered

  as a part of the work which I was desirous of doing, and I had gained

  my experience. I had suffered at Washington with that wretched

  American Postmaster, and with the mosquitoes, not having been able

  to escape from that capital till July; but all that had added to

  the activity of my life. I had often groaned over those manuscripts;

  but I had read them, considering it--perhaps foolishly--to be a

  part of my duty as editor. And though in the quick production of my

  novels I had always ringing in my ears that terrible condemnation

  and scorn produced by the great man in Paternoster Row, I

  was nevertheless proud of having done so much. I always had a pen

  in my hand. Whether crossing the seas, or fighting with American

  officials, or tramping about the streets of Beverley, I could do a

  little, and generally more than a little. I had long since convinced

  myself that in such work as mine the great secret consisted

  in acknowledging myself to be bound to rules of labour similar to

  those which an artisan or a mechanic is forced to obey. A shoemaker

  when he has finished one pair of shoes does not sit down and

  contemplate his work in idle satisfaction. "There is my pair of

  shoes finished at last! What a pair of shoes it is!" The shoemaker

  who so indulged himself would be without wages half his time. It

  is the same with a professional writer of books. An author may of

  course want time to study a new subject. He will at any rate assure

  himself 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 tells

  himself how beautiful is that last pair of shoes which he has

  finished! Having thought much of all this, and having made up my

  mind that I could be really happy only when I was at work, I had

  now quite accustomed myself to begin a second pair as soon as the

  first was out of my hands.

  CHAPTER XVIII "THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON"--"SIR HARRY HOTSPUR"--"AN EDITOR'S TALES"--"CAESAR"

  In 1869 I was called on to decide, in council with my two boys and

  their mother, what should be their destination in life. In June of

  that year the elder, who was then twenty-three, was called to the

  Bar; and as he had gone through the regular courses of lecturing

  tuition and study, it might be supposed that his course was already

  decided. But, just as he was called, there seemed to be an opening

  for him in another direction; and this, joined to the terrible

  uncertainty of the Bar, the terror of which was not in his case

  lessened by any peculiar forensic aptitudes, induced us to
sacrifice

  dignity in quest of success. Mr. Frederic Chapman, who was then

  the sole representative of the publishing house known as Messrs.

  Chapman & Hall, wanted a partner, and my son Henry went into the

  firm. He remained there three years and a half; but he did not like

  it, nor do I think he made a very good publisher. At any rate he

  left the business with perhaps more pecuniary success than might

  have been expected from the short period of his labours, and has

  since taken himself to literature as a profession. Whether he will

  work at it so hard as his father, and write as many books, may be

  doubted.

  My second son, Frederic, had very early in life gone to Australia,

  having resolved on a colonial career when he found that boys who did

  not grow so fast as he did got above him at school. This departure

  was a great pang to his mother and me; but it was permitted on the

  understanding that he was to come back when he was twenty-one, and

  then decide whether he would remain in England or return to the

  Colonies. In the winter of 1868 he did come to England, and had a

  season's hunting in the old country; but there was no doubt in his

  own mind as to his settling in Australia. His purpose was fixed,

  and in the spring of 1869 he made his second journey out. As I

  have since that date made two journeys to see him,--of one of which

  at any rate I shall have to speak, as I wrote a long book on the

  Australasian Colonies,--I will have an opportunity of saying a word

  or two further on of him and his doings.

  The Vicar of Bullhampton was written in 1868 for publication in Once

  a Week, a periodical then belonging to Messrs. Bradbury & Evans.

  It was not to come out till 1869, and I, as was my wont had made

  my terms long previously to the proposed date. I had made my terms

  and written my story and sent it to the publisher long before it

  was wanted; and so far my mind was at rest. The date fixed was the

  first of July, which date had been named in accordance with the

  exigencies of the editor of the periodical. An author who writes

  for these publications is bound to suit himself to these exigencies,

  and can generally do so without personal loss or inconvenience, if

  he will only take time by the forelock. With all the pages that I

  have written for magazines I have never been a day late, nor have

  I ever caused inconvenience by sending less or more matter than I

  had stipulated to supply. But I have sometimes found myself compelled

  to suffer by the irregularity of others. I have endeavoured to

  console myself by reflecting that such must ever be the fate of

  virtue. The industrious must feed the idle. The honest and simple

  will always be the prey of the cunning and fraudulent. The punctual,

  who keep none waiting for them, are doomed to wait perpetually for

  the unpunctual. But these earthly sufferers know that they are making

  their way heavenwards,--and their oppressors their way elsewards.

  If the former reflection does not suffice for consolation, the

  deficiency is made up by the second. I was terribly aggrieved on

  the matter of the publication of my new Vicar, and had to think

  very much of the ultimate rewards of punctuality and its opposite.

  About the end of March, 1869, I got a dolorous letter from the

  editor. All the Once a Week people were in a terrible trouble. They

  had bought the right of translating one of Victor Hugo's modern

  novels, L'Homme Qui Rit; they bad fixed a date, relying on positive

  pledges from the French publishers; and now the great French author

  had 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 would

  have to appear exactly at the same time as my clergyman. Was it

  not quite apparent to me, the editor asked, that Once a Week could

  not hold the two? Would I allow my clergyman to make his appearance

  in the Gentleman's Magazine instead?

  My disgust at this proposition was, I think, chiefly due to Victor

  Hugo's latter novels, which I regard as pretentious and untrue to

  nature. To this perhaps was added some feeling of indignation that

  I should be asked to give way to a Frenchman. The Frenchman had

  broken his engagement. He had failed to have his work finished by

  the stipulated time. From week to week and from month to month he

  had put off the fulfilment of his duty. And because of these laches

  on his part,--on the part of this sententious French Radical,--I was

  to be thrown over! Virtue sometimes finds it difficult to console

  herself even with the double comfort. I would not come out in the

  Gentleman's Magazine, and as the Grinning Man could not be got out

  of the way, by novel was published in separate numbers.

  The same thing has occurred to me more than once since. "You no

  doubt are regular," a publisher has said to me, "but Mr. ---- is

  irregular. He has thrown me out, and I cannot be ready for you till

  three months after the time named." In these emergencies I have

  given perhaps half what was wanted, and have refused to give the

  other half. I have endeavoured to fight my own battle fairly, and

  at the same time not to make myself unnecessarily obstinate. But

  the circumstances have impressed on my mind the great need there is

  that men engaged in literature should feel themselves to be bound

  to their industry as men know that they are bound in other callings.

  There does exist, I fear, a feeling that authors, because they are

  authors, are relieved from the necessity of paying attention to

  everyday rules. A writer, if he be making (pounds)800 a year, does not think

  himself bound to live modestly on (pounds)600, and put by the remainder

  for his wife and children. He does not understand that he should

  sit down at his desk at a certain hour. He imagines that publishers

  and booksellers should keep all their engagements with him to

  the letter;--but that he, as a brain-worker, and conscious of the

  subtle nature of the brain, should be able to exempt himself from

  bonds when it suits him. He has his own theory about inspiration

  which will not always come,--especially will not come if wine-cups

  overnight have been too deep. All this has ever been odious to

  me, as being unmanly. A man may be frail in health, and therefore

  unable to do as he has contracted in whatever grade of life. He who

  has been blessed with physical strength to work day by day, year

  by year--as has been my case--should pardon deficiencies caused

  by sickness or infirmity. I may in this respect have been a little

  hard on others,--and, if so, I here record my repentance. But

  I think that no allowance should be given to claims for exemption

  from punctuality, made if not absolutely on the score still with

  the conviction of intellectual superiority.

  The Vicar of Bullhampton was written chiefly with the object of

  exciting not only pity but sympathy for fallen woman, and of raising

  a feeling of forgiveness for such in the minds of other women. I

  could not venture to make this female the heroine of my story. To

 
; have made her a heroine at all would have been directly opposed

  to my purpose. It was necessary therefore that she should be

  a second-rate personage in the tale;--but it was with reference to

  her life that the tale was written, and the hero and the heroine with

  their belongings are all subordinate. To this novel I affixed a

  preface,--in doing which I was acting in defiance of my old-established

  principle. I do not know that any one read it; but as I wish to

  have it read, I will insert it here again:--

  "I have introduced in the Vicar of Bullhampton the character of a

  girl whom I will call,--for want of a truer word that shall not in

  its truth be offensive,--a castaway. I have endeavoured to endow

  her with qualities that may create sympathy, and I have brought

  her back at last from degradation, at least to decency. I have not

  married her to a wealthy lover, and I have endeavoured to explain

  that though there was possible to her a way out of perdition, still

  things could not be with her as they would have been had she not

  fallen.

  "There arises, of course, the question whether a novelist, who

  professes to write for the amusement of the young of both sexes,

  should allow himself to bring upon his stage a character such as

  that of Carry Brattle. It is not long since,--it is well within the

  memory of the author,--that the very existence of such a condition

  of life as was hers, was supposed to be unknown to our sisters and

  daughters, and was, in truth, unknown to many of them. Whether that

  ignorance was good may be questioned; but that it exists no longer

  is beyond question. Then arises the further question,--how far the

  conditions of such unfortunates should be made a matter of concern

  to the sweet young hearts of those whose delicacy and cleanliness

  of thought is a matter of pride to so many of us. Cannot women,

  who are good, pity the sufferings of the vicious, and do something

  perhaps to mitigate and shorten them without contamination from the

  vice? It will be admitted probably by most men who have thought

  upon the subject that no fault among us is punished so heavily

  as that fault, often so light in itself but so terrible in its

  consequences to the less faulty of the two offenders, by which a

  woman falls. All of her own sex is against her, and all those of