Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

inane and unwomanlike than Venetia or Henrietta Temple. It is the

very bathos of story-telling. I have often lamented, and have as

often excused to myself, that lack of public judgment which enables

readers to put up with bad work because it comes from good or from

lofty hands. I never felt the feeling so strongly, or was so little

able to excuse it, as when a portion of the reading public received

Lothair with satisfaction.

Literary criticism in the present day has become a profession,--but

it has ceased to be an art. Its object is no longer that of proving

that certain literary work is good and other literary work is

bad, in accordance with rules which the critic is able to define.

English criticism at present rarely even pretends to go so far as

this. It attempts, in the first place, to tell the public whether

a book be or be not worth public attention; and, in the second

place, so to describe the purport of the work as to enable those

who have not time or inclination for reading it to feel that by a

short cut they can become acquainted with its contents. Both these

objects, if fairly well carried out, are salutary. Though the

critic may not be a profound judge himself; though not unfrequently

he be a young man making his first literary attempts, with tastes

and judgment still unfixed, yet he probably has a conscience in the

matter, and would not have been selected for that work had he not

shown some aptitude for it. Though he may be not the best possible

guide to the undiscerning, he will be better than no guide at all.

Real substantial criticism must, from its nature, be costly, and

that which the public wants should at any rate be cheap. Advice is

given to many thousands, which, though it may not be the best advice

possible, is better than no advice at all. Then that description

of the work criticised, that compressing of the much into very

little,--which is the work of many modern critics or reviewers,--does

enable many to know something of what is being said, who without

it would know nothing.

I do not think it is incumbent on me at present to name periodicals

in which this work is well done, and to make complaints of others

by which it is scamped. I should give offence, and might probably

be unjust. But I think I may certainly say that as some of these

periodicals are certainly entitled to great praise for the manner

in which the work is done generally, so are others open to very

severe censure,--and that the praise and that the censure are

chiefly due on behalf of one virtue and its opposite vice. It is

not critical ability that we have a right to demand, or its absence

that we are bound to deplore. Critical ability for the price we

pay is not attainable. It is a faculty not peculiar to Englishmen,

and when displayed is very frequently not appreciated. But that

critics should be honest we have a right to demand, and critical

dishonesty we are bound to expose. If the writer will tell us what

he thinks, though his thoughts be absolutely vague and useless,

we can forgive him; but when he tells us what he does not think,

actuated either by friendship or by animosity, then there should

be no pardon for him. This is the sin in modern English criticism

of which there is most reason to complain.

It is a lamentable fact that men and women lend themselves to this

practice who are neither vindictive nor ordinarily dishonest. It

has become "the custom of the trade," under the veil of which excuse

so many tradesmen justify their malpractices! When a struggling

author learns that so much has been done for A by the Barsetshire

Gazette, so much for B by the Dillsborough Herald, and, again, so

much for C by that powerful metropolitan organ the Evening Pulpit,

and is told also that A and B and C have been favoured through personal

interest, he also goes to work among the editors, or the editors'

wives,--or perhaps, if he cannot reach their wives, with their

wives' first or second cousins. When once the feeling has come upon

an editor or a critic that he may allow himself to be influenced

by other considerations than the duty h owes to the public, all

sense of critical or of editorial honesty falls from him at once.

Facilis descensus Averni. In a very short time that editorial

honesty becomes ridiculous to himself. It is for other purpose that

he wields the power; and when he is told what is his duty, and what

should be his conduct, the preacher of such doctrine seems to him

to be quixotic. "Where have you lived, my friend, for the last

twenty years," he says in spirit, if not in word, "that you come out

now with such stuff as old-fashioned as this?" And thus dishonesty

begets dishonesty, till dishonesty seems to be beautiful. How nice

to be good-natured! How glorious to assist struggling young authors,

especially if the young author be also a pretty woman! How gracious

to oblige a friend! Then the motive, though still pleasing, departs

further from the border of what is good. In what way can the critic

better repay the hospitality of his wealthy literary friend than

by good-natured criticism,--or more certainly ensure for himself

a continuation of hospitable favours?

Some years since a critic of the day, a gentleman well known then

in literary circles, showed me the manuscript of a book recently

published,--the work of a popular author. It was handsomely bound,

and was a valuable and desirable possession. It had just been given

to him by the author as an acknowledgment for a laudatory review in

one of the leading journals of the day. As I was expressly asked

whether I did not regard such a token as a sign of grace both

in the giver and in the receiver, I said that I thought it should

neither have been given nor have been taken. My theory was repudiated

with scorn, and I was told that I was strait-laced, visionary, and

impracticable! In all that the damage did not lie in the fact of

that one present, but in the feeling on the part of the critic that

his office was not debased by the acceptance of presents from those

whom he criticised. This man was a professional critic, bound by

his contract with certain employers to review such books as were

sent to him. How could he, when he had received a valuable present

for praising one book, censure another by the same author?

While I write this I well know that what I say, if it be ever

noticed at all, will be taken as a straining at gnats, as a pretence

of honesty, or at any rate as an exaggeration of scruples. I have

said the same thing before, and have been ridiculed for saying it.

But none the less am I sure that English literature generally is

suffering much under this evil. All those who are struggling for

success have forced upon them the idea that their strongest efforts

should be made in touting for praise. Those who are not familiar

with the lives of authors will hardly believe how low will be the

forms which their struggles will take:--how little presents will

be sent to men who write little articles; how much flattery may

be expended even on the keeper of a circulating library; with what

profuse and distant genuflexions approaches are made to the outside

railing of the temple which contains within it the great thunderer

of some metropolitan periodical publication! The evil here is not

only that done to the public when interested counsel is given to

them, but extends to the debasement of those who have at any rate

considered themselves fit to provide literature for the public.

I am satisfied that the remedy for this evil must lie in the conscience

and deportment of authors themselves. If once the feeling could be

produced that it is disgraceful for an author to ask for praise,--and

demands for praise are, I think, disgraceful in every walk of

life,--the practice would gradually fall into the hands only of

the lowest, and that which is done only by the lowest soon becomes

despicable even to them. The sin, when perpetuated with unflagging

labour, brings with it at best very poor reward. That work of running

after critics, editors, publishers, the keepers of circulating

libraries, and their clerks, is very hard, and must be very disagreeable.

He who does it must feel himself to be dishonoured,--or she. It

may perhaps help to sell an edition, but can never make an author

successful.

I think it may be laid down as a golden rule in literature that

there should be no intercourse at all between an author and his

critic. The critic, as critic, should not know his author, nor the

author, as author, his critic. As censure should beget no anger,

so should praise beget no gratitude. The young author should feel

that criticisms fall upon him as dew or hail from heaven,--which,

as coming from heaven, man accepts as fate. Praise let the author

try to obtain by wholesome effort; censure let him avoid, if

possible, by care and industry. But when they come, let him take

them as coming from some source which he cannot influence, and with

which be should not meddle.

I know no more disagreeable trouble into which an author may plunge

himself than of a quarrel with his critics, or any more useless

labour than that of answering them. It is wise to presume, at any

rate, that the reviewer has simply done his duty, and has spoken

of the book according to the dictates of his conscience. Nothing

can be gained by combating the reviewer's opinion. If the book

which he has disparaged be good, his judgment will be condemned by

the praise of others; if bad, his judgment will he confirmed by

others. Or if, unfortunately, the criticism of the day be in so evil

a condition generally that such ultimate truth cannot be expected,

the author may be sure that his efforts made on behalf of his own

book will not set matters right. If injustice be done him, let him

bear it. To do so is consonant with the dignity of the position

which he ought to assume. To shriek, and scream, and sputter,

to threaten actions, and to swear about the town that he has been

belied and defamed in that he has been accused of bad grammar or a

false metaphor, of a dull chapter, or even of a borrowed heroine,

will leave on the minds of the public nothing but a sense of

irritated impotence.

If, indeed, there should spring from an author's work any assertion

by a critic injurious to the author's honour, if the author be

accused of falsehood or of personal motives which are discreditable

to him, then, indeed, he may be bound to answer the charge. It is

hoped, however, that he may be able to do so with clean hands, or

he will so stir the mud in the pool as to come forth dirtier than

he went into it.

I have lived much among men by whom the English criticism of the day

has been vehemently abused. I have heard it said that to the public

it is a false guide, and that to authors it is never a trustworthy

Mentor. I do not concur in this wholesale censure. There is, of

course, criticism and criticism. There are at this moment one or

two periodicals to which both public and authors may safely look