Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

past life. The Irish people did not murder me, nor did they even

break my head. I soon found them to be good-humoured, clever--the

working classes very much more intelligent than those of

England--economical, and hospitable. We hear much of their spendthrift

nature; but extravagance is not the nature of an Irishman. He

will count the shillings in a pound much more accurately than an

Englishman, and will with much more certainty get twelve pennyworth

from each. But they are perverse, irrational, and but little bound

by the love of truth. I lived for many years among them--not finally

leaving the country until 1859, and I had the means of studying

their character.

I had not been a fortnight in Ireland before I was sent down to a

little town in the far west of county Galway, to balance a defaulting

postmaster's accounts, find out how much he owed, and report upon

his capacity to pay. In these days such accounts are very simple.

They adjust themselves from day to day, and a Post Office surveyor

has nothing to do with them. At that time, though the sums dealt

with were small, the forms of dealing with them were very intricate.

I went to work, however, and made that defaulting postmaster teach

me the use of those forms. I then succeeded in balancing the account,

and had no difficulty whatever in reporting that he was altogether

unable to pay his debt. Of course, he was dismissed; but he had

been a very useful man to me. I never had any further difficulty

in the matter.

But my chief work was the investigating of complaints made by the

public as to postal matters. The practice of the office was and

is to send one of its servants to the spot to see the complainant

and to inquire into the facts, when the complainant is sufficiently

energetic or sufficiently big to make himself well heard. A great

expense is often incurred for a very small object; but the system

works well on the whole, as confidence is engendered, and a feeling

is produced in the country that the department has eyes of its own

and does keep them open. This employment was very pleasant, and

to me always easy, as it required at its close no more than the

writing of a report. There were no accounts in this business, no

keeping of books, no necessary manipulation of multitudinous forms.

I must tell of one such complaint and inquiry, because in its result

I think it was emblematic of many.

A gentleman in county Cavan had complained most bitterly of the

injury done to him by some arrangement of the Post Office. The

nature of his grievance has no present significance; but it was

so unendurable that he had written many letters, couched in the

strongest language. He was most irate, and indulged himself in

that scorn which is easy to an angry mind. The place was not in my

district, but I was borrowed, being young and strong, that I might

remember the edge of his personal wrath. It was mid-winter, and I

drove up to his house, a squire's country seat, in the middle of a

snowstorm, just as it was becoming dark. I was on an open jaunting

car, and was on my way from one little town to another, the cause

of his complaint having reference to some mail conveyance between

the two. I was certainly very cold, and very wet, and very

uncomfortable when I entered his house. I was admitted by a butler,

but the gentleman himself hurried into the hall. I at once began to

explain my business. "God bless me!" he said, "you are wet through.

John, get Mr. Trollope some brandy and water--very hot." I was

beginning my story about the post again when he himself took off my

greatcoat, and suggested that I should go up to my bedroom before

I troubled myself with business. "Bedroom!" I exclaimed. Then

he assured me that he would not turn a dog out on such a night as

that, and into a bedroom I was shown, having first drank the brandy

and water standing at the drawing-room fire. When I came down I was

introduced to his daughter, and the three of us went in to dinner.

I shall never forget his righteous indignation when I again brought

up the postal question on the departure of the young lady. Was I

such a Goth as to contaminate wine with business? So I drank my

wine, and then heard the young lady sing while her father slept

in his armchair. I spent a very pleasant evening, but my host was

too sleepy to hear anything about the Post Office that night. It

was absolutely necessary that I should go away the next morning

after breakfast, and I explained that the matter must be discussed

then. He shook his head and wrung his hands in unmistakable

disgust,--almost in despair. "But what am I to say in my report?"

I asked. "Anything you please," he said. "Don't spare me, if you

want an excuse for yourself. Here I sit all the day--with nothing

to do; and I like writing letters." I did report that Mr.---- was

now quite satisfied with the postal arrangement of his district;

and I felt a soft regret that I should have robbed my friend of his

occupation. Perhaps he was able to take up the Poor Law Board, or

to attack the Excise. At the Post Office nothing more was heard

from him.

I went on with the hunting surveyor at Banagher for three years,

during which, at Kingstown, the watering place near Dublin, I met

Rose Heseltine, the lady who has since become my wife. The engagement

took place when I had been just one year in Ireland; but there was

still a delay of two years before we could be married. She had no

fortune, nor had I any income beyond that which came from the Post

Office; and there were still a few debts, which would have been

paid off no doubt sooner, but for that purchase of the horse. When

I had been nearly three years in Ireland we were married on the

11th of June, 1844;--and, perhaps, I ought to name that happy day

as the commencement of my better life, rather than the day on which

I first landed in Ireland.

For though during these three years I had been jolly enough, I

had not been altogether happy. The hunting, the whisky punch, the

rattling Irish life,--of which I could write a volume of stories

were this the place to tell them,--were continually driving from

my mind the still cherished determination to become a writer of

novels. When I reached Ireland I had never put pen to paper; nor

had I done so when I became engaged. And when I was married, being

then twenty-nine, I had only written the first volume of my first

work. This constant putting off of the day of work was a great

sorrow to me. I certainly had not been idle in my new berth. I had

learned my work, so that every one concerned knew that it was safe

in my hands; and I held a position altogether the reverse of that

in which I was always trembling while I remained in London. But

that did not suffice,--did not nearly suffice. I still felt that

there might be a career before me, if I could only bring myself to

begin the work. I do not think I much doubted my own intellectual

sufficiency for the writing of a readable novel. What I did doubt

was my own industry, and the chances of the market.

The vigour necessary to prosecute two professions at the same time

is not given to every one, and it was only lately that I had found

the vigour necessary for one. There must be early hours, and I

had not as yet learned to love early hours. I was still, indeed, a

young man; but hardly young enough to trust myself to find the power

to alter the habits of my life. And I had heard of the difficulties

of publishing,--a subject of which I shall have to say much should

I ever bring this memoir to a close. I had dealt already with

publishers on my mother's behalf, and knew that many a tyro who

could fill a manuscript lacked the power to put his matter before

the 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 effort

was made after the following fashion. I was located at a little

town called Drumsna, or rather village, in the county Leitrim,

where the postmaster had come to some sorrow about his money; and

my friend John Merivale was staying with me for a day or two. As

we were taking a walk in that most uninteresting country, we turned

up through a deserted gateway, along a weedy, grass-grown avenue,

till we came to the modern ruins of a country house. It was one of

the most melancholy spots I ever visited. I will not describe it

here, because I have done so in the first chapter of my first novel.

We wandered about the place, suggesting to each other causes for

the misery we saw there, and, while I was still among the ruined

walls and decayed beams, I fabricated the plot of The Macdermots

of Ballycloran. As to the plot itself, I do not know that I ever

made 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 studied

the art. Nevertheless, The Macdermots is a good novel, and worth

reading by any one who wishes to understand what Irish life was

before the potato disease, the famine, and the Encumbered Estates

Bill.

When my friend left me, I set to work and wrote the first chapter

or two. Up to this time I had continued that practice of castle-building

of which I have spoken; but now the castle I built was among the

ruins of that old house. The book, however, hung with me. It was

only now and then that I found either time or energy for a few

pages. I commenced the book in September, 1843, and had only written

a volume when I was married in June, 1844.

My marriage was like the marriage of other people, and of no

special interest to any one except my wife and me. It took place

at Rotherham, in Yorkshire, where her father was the manager of a

bank. We were not very rich, having about (pounds)400 a year on which to

live.

Many people would say that we were two fools to encounter such

poverty together. I can only reply that since that day I have never

been without money in my pocket, and that I soon acquired the means

of paying what I owed. Nevertheless, more than twelve years had to

pass over our heads before I received any payment for any literary

work which afforded an appreciable increase to our income.

Immediately after our marriage, I left the west of Ireland and the

hunting surveyor, and joined another in the south. It was a better

district, and I was enabled to live at Clonmel, a town of some

importance, instead of at Banagher, which is little more than a

village. I had not felt myself to be comfortable in my old residence

as a married man. On my arrival there as a bachelor I had been

received most kindly, but when I brought my English wife I fancied

that there was a feeling that I had behaved badly to Ireland

generally. When a young man has been received hospitably in an

Irish circle, I will not say that it is expected of him that he

should marry some young lady in that society;--but it certainly is