Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

to remember the little details of the one life or the other. The

parson at Rusticum, with his wife and his wife's mother, and all

his belongings; and our old friend, the Squire, with his family

history; and Farmer Mudge, who has been cross with us, because we

rode so unnecessarily over his barley; and that rascally poacher,

once a gamekeeper, who now traps all the foxes; and pretty Mary

Cann, whose marriage with the wheelwright we did something to

expedite;--though we are alive to them all, do not drive out of our

brain the club gossip, or the memories of last season's dinners, or

any incident of our London intimacies. In our lives we are always

weaving novels, and we manage to keep the different tales distinct.

A man does, in truth, remember that which it interests him to

remember; and when we hear that memory has gone as age has come on,

we should understand that the capacity for interest in the matter

concerned has perished. A man will be generally very old and feeble

before he forgets how much money he has in the funds. There is

a good deal to be learned by any one who wishes to write a novel

well; but when the art has been acquired, I do not see why two or

three should not be well written at the same time. I have never

found myself thinking much about the work that I had to do till

I was doing it. I have indeed for many years almost abandoned the

effort to think, trusting myself, with the narrowest thread of

a plot, to work the matter out when the pen is in my hand. But my

mind is constantly employing itself on the work I have done. Had

I left either Framley Parsonage or Castle Richmond half-finished

fifteen years ago, I think I could complete the tales now with very

little trouble. I have not looked at Castle Richmond since it was

published; and poor as the work is, I remember all the incidents.

Castle Richmond certainly was not a success,--though the plot is a

fairly good plot, and is much more of a plot than I have generally

been able to find. The scene is laid in Ireland, during the famine;

and I am well aware now that English readers no longer like Irish

stories. I cannot understand why it should be so, as the Irish

character is peculiarly well fitted for romance. But Irish subjects

generally have become distasteful. This novel, however, is of

itself a weak production. The characters do not excite sympathy.

The heroine has two lovers, one of whom is a scamp and the other

a prig. As regards the scamp, the girl's mother is her own rival.

Rivalry of the same nature has been admirably depicted by Thackeray

in his Esmond; but there the mother's love seems to be justified

by the girl's indifference. In Castle Richmond the mother strives

to rob her daughter of the man's love. The girl herself has no

character; and the mother, who is strong enough, is almost revolting.

The dialogue is often lively, and some of the incidents are well

told; but the story as a whole was a failure. I cannot remember,

however, that it was roughly handled by the critics when it came

out; and I much doubt whether anything so hard was said of it then

as that which I have said here.

I was now settled at Waltham Cross, in a house in which I could

entertain a few friends modestly, where we grew our cabbages

and strawberries, made our own butter, and killed our own pigs. I

occupied it for twelve years, and they were years to me of great

prosperity. In 1861 I became a member of the Garrick Club, with

which institution I have since been much identified. I had belonged

to it about two years, when, on Thackeray's death, I was invited

to fill his place on the Committee, and I have been one of that

august body ever since. Having up to that time lived very little

among men, having known hitherto nothing of clubs, having even as

a boy been banished from social gatherings, I enjoyed infinitely at

first the gaiety of the Garrick. It was a festival to me to dine

there--which I did indeed but seldom; and a great delight to play

a rubber in the little room up-stairs of an afternoon. I am speaking

now of the old club in King Street. This playing of whist before

dinner has since that become a habit with me, so that unless there

be something else special to do--unless there be hunting, or I am

wanted to ride in the park by the young tyrant of my household--it

is "my custom always in the afternoon." I have sometimes felt sore

with myself for this persistency, feeling that I was making myself

a slave to an amusement which has not after all very much to

recommend it. I have often thought that I would break myself away

from it, and "swear off," as Rip Van Winkle says. But my swearing

off has been like that of Rip Van Winkle. And now, as I think of

it 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 is

young; and then it becomes so difficult to find amusement. Reading

should, no doubt, be the delight of men's leisure hours. Had I to

choose between books and cards, I should no doubt take the books.

But I find that I can seldom read with pleasure for above an hour

and a half at a time, or more than three hours a day. As I write

this I am aware that hunting must soon be abandoned. After sixty

it is given but to few men to ride straight across country, and I

cannot bring myself to adopt any other mode of riding. I think that

without cards I should now be much at a loss. When I began to play

at the Garrick, I did so simply because I liked the society of the

men 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 be

liked by those around me,--a wish that during the first half of

my life was never gratified. In my school-days no small part of my

misery came from the envy with which I regarded the popularity of

popular boys. They seemed to me to live in a social paradise, while

the desolation of my pandemonium was complete. And afterwards,

when I was in London as a young man, I had but few friends. Among

the clerks in the Post Office I held my own fairly for the first

two or three years; but even then I regarded myself as something of

a pariah. My Irish life had been much better. I had had my wife and

children, 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 for

entertaining others. It was not till we had settled ourselves at

Waltham that I really began to live much with others. The Garrick

Club was the first assemblage of men at which I felt myself to be

popular.

I soon became a member of other clubs. There was the Arts Club in

Hanover Square, of which I saw the opening, but from which, after

three or four years, I withdrew my name, having found that during

these three or four years I had not once entered the building.

Then I was one of the originators of the Civil Service Club--not

from judgment, but instigated to do so by others. That also I left

for the same reason. In 1864 I received the honour of being elected

by the Committee at the Athenaeum. For this I was indebted to the

kindness of Lord Stanhope; and I never was more surprised than when

I was informed of the fact. About the same time I became a member

of the Cosmopolitan, a little club that meets twice a week in

Charles 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 met

Jacob Omnium, Monckton Mimes, Tom Hughes, William Stirling, Henry

Reeve, Arthur Russell, Tom Taylor, and such like; and generally

a strong political element, thoroughly well mixed, gave a certain

spirit 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 to

whisper the secrets of Parliament with free tongues. Afterwards I

became a member of the Turf, which I found to be serviceable--or

the 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 called

The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson. In this I attempted a

style for which I certainly was not qualified, and to which I never

had 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 think

that there is some good fun it it, but I have heard no one else

express such an opinion. I do not know that I ever heard any opinion

expressed on it, except by the publisher, who kindly remarked

that he did not think it was equal to my usual work. Though he had

purchased the copyright, he did not republish the story in a book

form till 1870, and then it passed into the world of letters sub

silentio. I do not know that it was ever criticised or ever read.

I received (pounds)600 for it. From that time to this I have been paid at

about that rate for my work--(pounds)600 for the quantity contained in

an ordinary novel volume, or (pounds)3000 for a long tale published in

twenty parts, which is equal in length to five such volumes. I have

occasionally, I think, received something more than this, never

I think less for any tale, except when I have published my work

anonymously. [Footnote: Since the date at which this was written

I have encountered a diminution in price.] Having said so much, I

need not further specify the prices as I mention the books as they

were 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 I

ever sold to a publisher.

In 1861 the War of Secession had broken out in America, and from

the first I interested myself much in the question. My mother

had thirty years previously written a very popular, but, as I had

thought, 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 for

many years an ambition to follow her footsteps there, and to write

another book. I had already paid a short visit to New York City and

State on my way home from the West Indies, but had not seen enough

then to justify me in the expression of any opinion. The breaking

out of the war did not make me think that the time was peculiarly

fit for such inquiry as I wished to make, but it did represent itself

as an occasion on which a book might be popular. I consequently

consulted the two great powers with whom I was concerned. Messrs.

Chapman & Hall, the publishers, were one power, and I had no difficulty

in arranging my affairs with them. They agreed to publish the book

on my terms, and bade me God-speed on my journey. The other power