Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

to the end? How shall he cover his space? Many great artists have

by their practice opposed the doctrine which I now propose to

preach;--but they have succeeded I think in spite of their fault

and by dint of their greatness. There should be no episodes in a

novel. Every sentence, every word, through all those pages, should

tend to the telling of the story. Such episodes distract the

attention of the reader, and always do so disagreeably. Who has not

felt this to be the case even with The Curious Impertinent and with

the History of the Man of the Hill. And if it be so with Cervantes

and Fielding, who can hope to succeed? Though the novel which you

have to write must be long, let it be all one. And this exclusion

of episodes should be carried down into the smallest details.

Every sentence and every word used should tend to the telling of

the story. "But," the young novelist will say, "with so many pages

before me to be filled, how shall I succeed if I thus confine

myself;--how am I to know beforehand what space this story of mine

will require? There must be the three volumes, or the certain number

of magazine pages which I have contracted to supply. If I may not

be discursive should occasion require, how shall I complete my task?

The painter suits the size of his canvas to his subject, and must

I in my art stretch my subject to my canas?" This undoubtedly must

be done by the novelist; and if he will learn his business, may

be done without injury to his effect. He may not paint different

pictures on the same canvas, which he will do if he allow himself

to wander away to matters outside his own story; but by studying

proportion in his work, he may teach himself so to tell his story

that it shall naturally fall into the required length. Though his

story should be all one, yet it may have many parts. Though the

plot itself may require but few characters, it may be so enlarged

as to find its full development in many. There may be subsidiary

plots, which shall all tend to the elucidation of the main story,

and which will take their places as part of one and the same

work,--as there may be many figures on a canvas which shall not to

the spectator seem to form themselves into separate pictures.

There is no portion of a novelist's work in which this fault of

episodes is so common as in the dialogue. It is so easy to make

any two persons talk on any casual subject with which the writer

presumes himself to be conversant! Literature, philosophy, politics,

or sport, may thus be handled in a loosely discursive style; and

the writer, while indulging himself and filling his pages, is apt

to think that he is pleasing his reader. I think he can make no

greater mistake. The dialogue is generally the most agreeable part

of a novel; but it is only so as long as it tends in some way to

the telling of the main story. It need not seem to be confined to

that, but it should always have a tendency in that direction. The

unconscious critical acumen of a reader is both just and severe.

When a long dialogue on extraneous matter reaches his mind, he at

once feels that he is being cheated into taking something which he

did not bargain to accept when he took up that novel. He does not

at that moment require politics or philosophy, but he wants his

story. He will not perhaps be able to say in so many words that at

some certain point the dialogue has deviated from the story; but

when it does so he will feel it, and the feeling will be unpleasant.

Let the intending novel-writer, if he doubt this, read one of

Bulwer's novels,--in which there is very much to charm,--and then

ask himself whether he has not been offended by devious conversations.

And the dialogue, on which the modern novelist in consulting the

taste of his probable readers must depend most, has to be constrained

also by other rules. The writer may tell much of his story in

conversations, but he may only do so by putting such words into

the mouths of his personages as persons so situated would probably

use. He is not allowed for the sake of his tale to make his characters

give utterance to long speeches, such as are not customarily heard

from men and women. The ordinary talk of ordinary people is carried

on in short, sharp, expressive sentences, which very frequently are

never completed,--the language of which even among educated people

is often incorrect. The novel-writer in constructing his dialogue

must so steer between absolute accuracy of language--which would

give to his conversation an air of pedantry, and the slovenly

inaccuracy of ordinary talkers, which if closely followed would

offend by an appearance of grimace--as to produce upon the ear of

his readers a sense of reality. If he be quite real he will seem

to attempt to be funny. If he be quite correct he will seem to

be unreal. And above all, let the speeches be short. No character

should utter much above a dozen words at a breath,--unless the writer

can justify to himself a longer flood of speech by the specialty

of the occasion.

In all this human nature must be the novel-writer's guide. No doubt

effective novels have been written in which human nature has been

set at defiance. I might name Caleb Williams as one and Adam Blair

as another. But the exceptions are not more than enough to prove

the rule. But in following human nature he must remember that he does

so with a pen in his hand, and that the reader who will appreciate

human nature will also demand artistic ability and literary aptitude.

The young novelist will probably ask, or more probably bethink

himself how he is to acquire that knowledge of human nature which

will tell him with accuracy what men and women would say in this

or that position. He must acquire it as the compositor, who is to

print his words, has learned the art of distributing his type--by

constant and intelligent practice. Unless it be given to him to

listen and to observe,--so to carry away, as it were, the manners

of people in his memory as to be able to say to himself with assurance

that these words might have been said in a given position, and that

those other words could not have been said,--I do not think that

in these days he can succeed as a novelist.

And then let him beware of creating tedium! Who has not felt the

charm of a spoken story up to a certain point, and then suddenly

become aware that it has become too long and is the reverse of

charming. 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 effective

as the feeling of the writer himself. When once the sense that the

thing is becoming long has grown upon him, he may be sure that it

will grow upon his readers. I see the smile of some who will declare

to themselves that the words of a writer will never be tedious to

himself. Of the writer of whom this may be truly said, it may be

said with equal truth that he will always be tedious to his reader.

In this chapter I will venture to name a few successful novelists

of my own time, with whose works I am acquainted; and will endeavour

to point whence their success has come, and why they have failed

when there has been failure.

I do not hesitate to name Thackeray the first. His knowledge of

human nature was supreme, and his characters stand out as human

beings, with a force and a truth which has not, I think, been

within the reach of any other English novelist in any period. I know

no character in fiction, unless it be Don Quixote, with whom the

reader becomes so intimately acquainted as with Colonel Newcombe.

How great a thing it is to be a gentleman at all parts! How we

admire the man of whom so much may be said with truth! Is there

any one of whom we feel more sure in this respect than of Colonel

Newcombe? It is not because Colonel Newcombe is a perfect gentleman

that we think Thackeray's work to have been so excellent, but

because he has had the power to describe him as such, and to force

us to love him, a weak and silly old man, on account of this grace

of character. It is evident from all Thackeray's best work that he

lived with the characters he was creating. He had always a story

to tell until quite late in life; and he shows us that this was

so, not by the interest which be had in his own plots,--for I doubt

whether his plots did occupy much of his mind,--but by convincing

us that his characters were alive to himself. With Becky Sharpe,

with Lady Castlewood and her daughter, and with Esmond, with

Warrington, Pendennis, and the Major, with Colonel Newcombe, and

with 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 is

also the most harmonious. Sometimes it is disfigured by a slight

touch of affectation, by little conceits which smell of the oil;--but

the language is always lucid. The reader, without labour, knows what

he means, and knows all that he means. As well as I can remember,

he deals with no episodes. I think that any critic, examining

his work minutely, would find that every scene, and every part of

every scene, adds something to the clearness with which the story

is told. Among all his stories there is not one which does not

leave on the mind a feeling of distress that women should ever

be immodest or men dishonest,--and of joy that women should be so

devoted and men so honest. How we hate the idle selfishness of

Pendennis, the worldliness of Beatrix, the craft of Becky Sharpe!--how

we love the honesty of Colonel Newcombe, the nobility of Esmond,

and the devoted affection of Mrs. Pendennis! The hatred of evil

and love of good can hardly have come upon so many readers without

doing much good.

Late in Thackeray's life,--he never was an old man, but towards the

end of his career,--he failed in his power of charming, because he

allowed 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 any

perceptible change; but in The Virginians and in Philip the reader

is introduced to no character with which he makes a close and undying

acquaintance. And this, I have no doubt, is so because Thackeray

himself had no such intimacy. His mind had come to be weary of

that fictitious life which is always demanding the labour of new

creation, and he troubled himself with his two Virginians and his

Philip 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. She

is best known to the literary world as a writer of prose fiction,

and not improbably whatever of permanent fame she may acquire will

come from her novels. But the nature of her intellect is very far

removed indeed from that which is common to the tellers of stories.

Her imagination is no doubt strong, but it acts in analysing rather