Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

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 acquired

the character of a tuft-hunter. But here I do not scruple to say

that I prefer the society of distinguished people, and that even the

distinction of wealth confers many advantages. The best education

is to be had at a price as well as the best broadcloth. The son

of a peer is more likely to rub his shoulders against well-informed

men than the son of a tradesman. The graces come easier to the

wife of him who has had great-grandfathers than they do to her

whose husband has been less,--or more fortunate, as he may think

it. The discerning man will recognise the information and the graces

when they are achieved without such assistance, and will honour

the owners of them the more because of the difficulties they have

overcome;--but the fact remains that the society of the well-born

and of the wealthy will as a rule be worth seeking. I say this

now, because these are the rules by which I have lived, and these

are the causes which have instigated me to work.

I have heard the question argued--On what terms should a man of

inferior rank live with those who are manifestly superior to him?

If a marquis or an earl honour me, who have no rank, with his

intimacy, am I in my intercourse with him to remember our close

acquaintance or his high rank? I have always said that where the

difference in position is quite marked, the overtures to intimacy

should always come from the higher rank; but if the intimacy be

ever fixed, then that rank should be held of no account. It seems

to me that intimate friendship admits of no standing but that

of equality. I cannot be the Sovereign's friend, nor probably the

friend of many very much beneath the Sovereign, because such equality

is impossible.

When I first came to Waltham Cross in the winter of 1859-1860, I had

almost made up my mind that my hunting was over. I could not then

count upon an income which would enable me to carry on an amusement

which I should doubtless find much more expensive in England than

in Ireland. I brought with me out of Ireland one mare, but she was

too light for me to ride in the hunting-field. As, however, the

money came in, I very quickly fell back into my old habits. First

one horse was bought, then another, and then a third, till it became

established as a fixed rule that I should not have less than four

hunters in the stable. Sometimes when my boys have been at home

I 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 had

been an Essex squire, to the manner born. Few have investigated more

closely than I have done the depth, and breadth, and water-holding

capacities of an Essex ditch. It will, I think, be accorded to me

by Essex men generally that I have ridden hard. The cause of my

delight in the amusement I have never been able to analyse to my

own satisfaction. In the first place, even now, I know very little

about hunting,--though I know very much of the accessories of the

field. I am too blind to see hounds turning, and cannot therefore

tell whether the fox has gone this way or that. Indeed all the

notice I take of hounds is not to ride over them. My eyes are so

constituted that I can never see the nature of a fence. I either

follow some one, or ride at it with the full conviction that I

may be going into a horse-pond or a gravel-pit. I have jumped into

both one and the other. I am very heavy, and have never ridden

expensive horses. I am also now old for such work, being so stiff

that I cannot get on to my horse without the aid of a block or a

bank. But I ride still after the same fashion, with a boy's energy,

determined to get ahead if it may possibly be done, hating the

roads, despising young men who ride them, and with a feeling that

life can not, with all her riches, have given me anything better

than when I have gone through a long run to the finish, keeping a

place, not of glory, but of credit, among my juniors.

During the early months of 1862 Orley Farm was still being brought

out in numbers, and at the same time Brown, Jones and Robinson was

appearing in the Cornhill Magazine. In September, 1862, the Small

House at Allington began its career in the same periodical. The

work on North America had also come out in 1862. In August, 1863,

the first number of Can You Forgive Her? was published as a separate

serial, and was continued through 1864. In 1863 a short novel was

produced in the ordinary volume form, called Rachel Ray. In addition

to these I published during the time two volumes of stories called

The Tales of all Countries. In the early spring of 1865 Miss Mackenzie

was issued in the same form as Rachel Ray; and in May of the same

year The Belton Estate was commenced with the commencement of the

Fortnightly Review, of which periodical I will say a few words in

this chapter.

I quite admit that I crowded my wares into the market too

quickly,--because the reading world could not want such a quantity

of matter from the hands of one author in so short a space of

time. I had not been quite so fertile as the unfortunate gentleman

who disgusted the publisher in Paternoster Row,--in the story of

whose productiveness I have always thought there was a touch of

romance,--but I had probably done enough to make both publishers

and readers think that I was coming too often beneath their notice.

Of publishers, however, I must speak collectively, as my sins

were, I think, chiefly due to the encouragement which I received

from them individually. What I wrote for the Cornhill Magazine, I

always wrote at the instigation of Mr. Smith. My other works were

published by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, in compliance with contracts

made by me with them, and always made with their good-will. Could

I have been two separate persons at one and the same time, of whom

one might have been devoted to Cornhill and the other to the interests

of the firm in Piccadilly, it might have been very well;--but as

I preserved my identity in both places, I myself became aware that

my name was too frequent on titlepages.

Critics, if they ever trouble themselves with these pages, will, of

course, say that in what I have now said I have ignored altogether

the one great evil of rapid production,--namely, that of inferior

work. And of course if the work was inferior because of the too

great rapidity of production, the critics would be right. Giving

to the subject the best of my critical abilities, and judging of

my own work as nearly as possible as I would that of another, I

believe that the work which has been done quickest has been done

the best. I have composed better stories--that is, have created

better plots--than those of The Small House at Allington and Can

You Forgive Her? and I have portrayed two or three better characters

than are to be found in the pages of either of them; but taking

these books all through, I do not think that I have ever done better

work. Nor would these have been improved by any effort in the art

of story telling, had each of these been the isolated labour of a

couple of years. How short is the time devoted to the manipulation

of a plot can be known only to those who have written plays and

novels; I may say also, how very little time the brain is able

to devote to such wearing work. There are usually some hours of

agonising doubt, almost of despair,--so at least it has been with

me,--or perhaps some days. And then, with nothing settled in my

brain as to the final development of events, with no capability

of settling anything, but with a most distinct conception of some

character or characters, I have rushed at the work as a rider rushes

at a fence which he does not see. Sometimes I have encountered

what, in hunting language, we call a cropper. I had such a fall in

two novels of mine, of which I have already spoken--The Bertrams

and Castle Richmond. I shall have to speak of other such troubles.

But these failures have not arisen from over-hurried work. When my

work has been quicker done,--and it has sometimes been done very

quickly--the rapidity has been achieved by hot pressure, not in

the conception, but in the telling of the story. Instead of writing

eight pages a day, I have written sixteen; instead of working five

days a week, I have worked seven. I have trebled my usual average,

and have done so in circumstances which have enabled me to give

up all my thoughts for the time to the book I have been writing.

This has generally been done at some quiet spot among the

mountains,--where there has been no society, no hunting, no whist,

no ordinary household duties. And I am sure that the work so done

has had in it the best truth and the highest spirit that I have

been able to produce. At such times I have been able to imbue myself

thoroughly with the characters I have had in hand. I have wandered

alone among the rocks and woods, crying at their grief, laughing at

their absurdities, and thoroughly enjoying their joy. I have been

impregnated with my own creations till it has been my only excitement

to sit with the pen in my hand, and drive my team before me at as

quick a pace as I could make them travel.

The critics will again say that all this may be very well as to

the rough work of the author's own brain, but it will be very far

from well in reference to the style in which that work has been

given to the public. After all, the vehicle which a writer uses for

conveying his thoughts to the public should not be less important

to him than the thoughts themselves. An author can hardly hope to

be 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 acquire

a mode of writing which shall be agreeable and easily intelligible

to the reader? He must be correct, because without correctness he

can be neither agreeable nor intelligible. Readers will expect him

to obey those rules which they, consciously or unconsciously, have

been taught to regard as binding on language; and unless he does

obey them, he will disgust. Without much labour, no writer will

achieve such a style. He has very much to learn; and, when he has

learned that much, he has to acquire the habit of using what he has

learned with ease. But all this must be learned and acquired,--not

while he is writing that which shall please, but long before. His

language must come from him as music comes from the rapid touch of

the great performer's fingers; as words come from the mouth of the

indignant orator; as letters fly from the fingers of the trained

compositor; as the syllables tinkled out by little bells form

themselves to the ear of the telegraphist. A man who thinks much of

his words as he writes them will generally leave behind him work