Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

preceding chapters, as the busiest in my life. I had indeed left

the Post Office, but though I had left it I had been employed by

it during a considerable portion of the time. I had established the

St. Paul's Magazine, in reference to which I had read an enormous

amount of manuscript, and for which, independently of my novels, I

had written articles almost monthly. I had stood for Beverley and

had made many speeches. I had also written five novels, and had

hunted three times a week during each of the winters. And how happy

I was with it all! I had suffered at Beverley, but I had suffered

as a part of the work which I was desirous of doing, and I had gained

my experience. I had suffered at Washington with that wretched

American Postmaster, and with the mosquitoes, not having been able

to escape from that capital till July; but all that had added to

the activity of my life. I had often groaned over those manuscripts;

but I had read them, considering it--perhaps foolishly--to be a

part of my duty as editor. And though in the quick production of my

novels I had always ringing in my ears that terrible condemnation

and scorn produced by the great man in Paternoster Row, I

was nevertheless proud of having done so much. I always had a pen

in my hand. Whether crossing the seas, or fighting with American

officials, or tramping about the streets of Beverley, I could do a

little, and generally more than a little. I had long since convinced

myself that in such work as mine the great secret consisted

in acknowledging myself to be bound to rules of labour similar to

those which an artisan or a mechanic is forced to obey. A shoemaker

when he has finished one pair of shoes does not sit down and

contemplate his work in idle satisfaction. "There is my pair of

shoes finished at last! What a pair of shoes it is!" The shoemaker

who so indulged himself would be without wages half his time. It

is the same with a professional writer of books. An author may of

course want time to study a new subject. He will at any rate assure

himself that there is some such good reason why he should pause.

He does pause, and will be idle for a month or two while he tells

himself how beautiful is that last pair of shoes which he has

finished! Having thought much of all this, and having made up my

mind that I could be really happy only when I was at work, I had

now quite accustomed myself to begin a second pair as soon as the

first was out of my hands.

In 1869 I was called on to decide, in council with my two boys and

their mother, what should be their destination in life. In June of

that year the elder, who was then twenty-three, was called to the

Bar; and as he had gone through the regular courses of lecturing

tuition and study, it might be supposed that his course was already

decided. But, just as he was called, there seemed to be an opening

for him in another direction; and this, joined to the terrible

uncertainty of the Bar, the terror of which was not in his case

lessened by any peculiar forensic aptitudes, induced us to sacrifice

dignity in quest of success. Mr. Frederic Chapman, who was then

the sole representative of the publishing house known as Messrs.

Chapman & Hall, wanted a partner, and my son Henry went into the

firm. He remained there three years and a half; but he did not like

it, nor do I think he made a very good publisher. At any rate he

left the business with perhaps more pecuniary success than might

have been expected from the short period of his labours, and has

since taken himself to literature as a profession. Whether he will

work at it so hard as his father, and write as many books, may be

doubted.

My second son, Frederic, had very early in life gone to Australia,

having resolved on a colonial career when he found that boys who did

not grow so fast as he did got above him at school. This departure

was a great pang to his mother and me; but it was permitted on the

understanding that he was to come back when he was twenty-one, and

then decide whether he would remain in England or return to the

Colonies. In the winter of 1868 he did come to England, and had a

season's hunting in the old country; but there was no doubt in his

own mind as to his settling in Australia. His purpose was fixed,

and in the spring of 1869 he made his second journey out. As I

have since that date made two journeys to see him,--of one of which

at any rate I shall have to speak, as I wrote a long book on the

Australasian Colonies,--I will have an opportunity of saying a word

or two further on of him and his doings.

The Vicar of Bullhampton was written in 1868 for publication in Once

a Week, a periodical then belonging to Messrs. Bradbury & Evans.

It was not to come out till 1869, and I, as was my wont had made

my terms long previously to the proposed date. I had made my terms

and written my story and sent it to the publisher long before it

was wanted; and so far my mind was at rest. The date fixed was the

first of July, which date had been named in accordance with the

exigencies of the editor of the periodical. An author who writes

for these publications is bound to suit himself to these exigencies,

and can generally do so without personal loss or inconvenience, if

he will only take time by the forelock. With all the pages that I

have written for magazines I have never been a day late, nor have

I ever caused inconvenience by sending less or more matter than I

had stipulated to supply. But I have sometimes found myself compelled

to suffer by the irregularity of others. I have endeavoured to

console myself by reflecting that such must ever be the fate of

virtue. The industrious must feed the idle. The honest and simple

will always be the prey of the cunning and fraudulent. The punctual,

who keep none waiting for them, are doomed to wait perpetually for

the unpunctual. But these earthly sufferers know that they are making

their way heavenwards,--and their oppressors their way elsewards.

If the former reflection does not suffice for consolation, the

deficiency is made up by the second. I was terribly aggrieved on

the matter of the publication of my new Vicar, and had to think

very much of the ultimate rewards of punctuality and its opposite.

About the end of March, 1869, I got a dolorous letter from the

editor. All the Once a Week people were in a terrible trouble. They

had bought the right of translating one of Victor Hugo's modern

novels, L'Homme Qui Rit; they bad fixed a date, relying on positive

pledges from the French publishers; and now the great French author

had postponed his work from week to week and from month to month,

and it had so come to pass that the Frenchman's grinning hero would

have to appear exactly at the same time as my clergyman. Was it

not quite apparent to me, the editor asked, that Once a Week could

not hold the two? Would I allow my clergyman to make his appearance

in the Gentleman's Magazine instead?

My disgust at this proposition was, I think, chiefly due to Victor

Hugo's latter novels, which I regard as pretentious and untrue to

nature. To this perhaps was added some feeling of indignation that

I should be asked to give way to a Frenchman. The Frenchman had

broken his engagement. He had failed to have his work finished by

the stipulated time. From week to week and from month to month he

had put off the fulfilment of his duty. And because of these laches

on his part,--on the part of this sententious French Radical,--I was

to be thrown over! Virtue sometimes finds it difficult to console

herself even with the double comfort. I would not come out in the

Gentleman's Magazine, and as the Grinning Man could not be got out

of the way, by novel was published in separate numbers.

The same thing has occurred to me more than once since. "You no

doubt are regular," a publisher has said to me, "but Mr. ---- is

irregular. He has thrown me out, and I cannot be ready for you till

three months after the time named." In these emergencies I have

given perhaps half what was wanted, and have refused to give the

other half. I have endeavoured to fight my own battle fairly, and

at the same time not to make myself unnecessarily obstinate. But

the circumstances have impressed on my mind the great need there is

that men engaged in literature should feel themselves to be bound

to their industry as men know that they are bound in other callings.

There does exist, I fear, a feeling that authors, because they are

authors, are relieved from the necessity of paying attention to

everyday rules. A writer, if he be making (pounds)800 a year, does not think

himself bound to live modestly on (pounds)600, and put by the remainder

for his wife and children. He does not understand that he should

sit down at his desk at a certain hour. He imagines that publishers

and booksellers should keep all their engagements with him to

the letter;--but that he, as a brain-worker, and conscious of the

subtle nature of the brain, should be able to exempt himself from

bonds when it suits him. He has his own theory about inspiration

which will not always come,--especially will not come if wine-cups

overnight have been too deep. All this has ever been odious to

me, as being unmanly. A man may be frail in health, and therefore

unable to do as he has contracted in whatever grade of life. He who

has been blessed with physical strength to work day by day, year

by year--as has been my case--should pardon deficiencies caused

by sickness or infirmity. I may in this respect have been a little

hard on others,--and, if so, I here record my repentance. But

I think that no allowance should be given to claims for exemption

from punctuality, made if not absolutely on the score still with

the conviction of intellectual superiority.

The Vicar of Bullhampton was written chiefly with the object of

exciting not only pity but sympathy for fallen woman, and of raising

a feeling of forgiveness for such in the minds of other women. I

could not venture to make this female the heroine of my story. To

have made her a heroine at all would have been directly opposed

to my purpose. It was necessary therefore that she should be

a second-rate personage in the tale;--but it was with reference to

her life that the tale was written, and the hero and the heroine with

their belongings are all subordinate. To this novel I affixed a

preface,--in doing which I was acting in defiance of my old-established

principle. I do not know that any one read it; but as I wish to

have it read, I will insert it here again:--

"I have introduced in the Vicar of Bullhampton the character of a

girl whom I will call,--for want of a truer word that shall not in

its truth be offensive,--a castaway. I have endeavoured to endow

her with qualities that may create sympathy, and I have brought

her back at last from degradation, at least to decency. I have not

married her to a wealthy lover, and I have endeavoured to explain