Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

who with infinite learning at his command made one sad final effort

to reclaim himself, and perished while he was making it; and lastly

how a poor weak editor was driven nearly to madness by threatened

litigation from a rejected contributor. Of these stories, The Spotted

Dog, with the struggles of the drunkard scholar, is the best. I

know now, however, that when the things were good they came out

too quick one upon another to gain much attention;--and so also,

luckily, when they were bad.

The Caesar was a thing of itself. My friend John Blackwood had set

on foot a series of small volumes called Ancient Classics for English

Readers, and had placed the editing of them, and the compiling of

many of them, in the hands of William Lucas Collins, a clergyman

who, from my connection with the series, became a most intimate

friend. The Iliad and the Odyssey had already come out when I was

at Edinburgh with John Blackwood, and, on my expressing my very strong

admiration for those two little volumes,--which I here recommend

to all young ladies as the most charming tales they can read,--he

asked me whether I would not undertake one myself. Herodotus was

in the press, but, if I could get it ready, mine should be next.

Whereupon I offered to say what might be said to the readers of

English on The Commentaries of Julius Caesar.

I at once went to work, and in three months from that day the little

book had been written. I began by reading through the Commentaries

twice, which I did without any assistance either by translation

or English notes. Latin was not so familiar to me then as it has

since become,--for from that date I have almost daily spent an

hour with some Latin author, and on many days many hours. After

the reading what my author had left behind him, I fell into the

reading of what others had written about him, in Latin, in English,

and even in French,--for I went through much of that most futile

book by the late Emperor of the French. I do not know that for a

short period I ever worked harder. The amount I had to write was

nothing. Three weeks would have done it easily. But I was most

anxious, in this soaring out of my own peculiar line, not to disgrace

myself. I do not think that I did disgrace myself. Perhaps I was

anxious for something more. If so, I was disappointed.

The book I think to be a good little book. It is readable by all, old

and young, and it gives, I believe accurately, both an account of

Caesar's Commentaries,--which of course was the primary intention,--and

the chief circumstances of the great Roman's life. A well-educated

girl who had read it and remembered it would perhaps know as much

about Caesar and his writings as she need know. Beyond the consolation

of thinking as I do about it, I got very little gratification from

the work. Nobody praised it. One very old and very learned friend

to whom I sent it thanked me for my "comic Caesar," but said no

more. I do not suppose that he intended to run a dagger into me.

Of any suffering from such wounds, I think, while living, I never

showed a sign; but still I have suffered occasionally. There

was, however, probably present to my friend's mind, and to that

of others, a feeling that a man who had spent his life in writing

English novels could not be fit to write about Caesar. It was as

when an amateur gets a picture hung on the walls of the Academy.

What business had I there? Ne sutor ultra crepidam. In the press it

was most faintly damned by most faint praise. Nevertheless, having

read the book again within the last month or two, I make bold to say

that it is a good book. The series, I believe, has done very well.

I am sure that it ought to do well in years to come, for, putting

aside Caesar, the work has been done with infinite scholarship, and

very generally with a light hand. With the leave of my sententious

and sonorous friend, who had not endured that subjects which had

been grave to him should be treated irreverently, I will say that

such a work, unless it be light, cannot answer the purpose for which

it is intended. It was not exactly a schoolbook that was wanted,

but something that would carry the purposes of the schoolroom even

into the leisure hours of adult pupils. Nothing was ever better

suited for such a purpose than the Iliad and the Odyssey, as done

by Mr. Collins. The Virgil, also done by him, is very good; and so

is the Aristophanes by the same hand.

In the spring of 1871 we,--I and my wife,--had decided that we

would go to Australia to visit our shepherd son. Of course before

doing so I made a contract with a publisher for a book about the

Colonies. For such a work as this I had always been aware that

I could not fairly demand more than half the price that would be

given for the same amount of fiction; and as such books have an

indomitable tendency to stretch themselves, so that more is given

than what is sold, and as the cost of travelling is heavy, the

writing of them is not remunerative. This tendency to stretch comes

not, I think, generally from the ambition of the writer, but from

his inability to comprise the different parts in their allotted

spaces. If you have to deal with a country, a colony, a city, a

trade, or a political opinion, it is so much easier to deal with

it in twenty than in twelve pages! I also made an engagement with

the editor of a London daily paper to supply him with a series of

articles,--which were duly written, duly published, and duly paid

for. But with all this, travelling with the object of writing is

not a good trade. If the travelling author can pay his bills, he

must be a good manager on the road.

Before starting there came upon us the terrible necessity of coming

to some resolution about our house at Waltham. It had been first

hired, and then bought, primarily because it suited my Post Office

avocations. To this reason had been added other attractions,--in the

shape of hunting, gardening, and suburban hospitalities. Altogether

the house had been a success, and the scene of much happiness. But

there arose questions as to expense. Would not a house in London

be cheaper? There could be no doubt that my income would decrease,

and was decreasing. I had thrown the Post Office, as it were,

away, and the writing of novels could not go on for ever. Some of

my friends told me already that at fifty-five I ought to give up

the fabrication of love-stories. The hunting, I thought, must soon

go, and I would not therefore allow that to keep me in the country.

And then, why should I live at Waltham Cross now, seeing that

I had fixed on that place in reference to the Post Office? It was

therefore determined that we would flit, and as we were to be away

for eighteen months, we determined also to sell our furniture. So

there was a packing up, with many tears, and consultations as to

what should be saved out of the things we loved.

As must take place on such an occasion, there was some heart-felt

grief. But the thing was done, and orders were given for the letting

or sale of the house. I may as well say here that it never was let

and that it remained unoccupied for two years before it was sold.

I lost by the transaction about (pounds)800. As I continually hear that

other men make money by buying and selling houses, I presume I am

not well adapted for transactions of that sort. I have never made

money by selling anything except a manuscript. In matters of

horseflesh I am so inefficient that I have generally given away

horses that I have not wanted.

When we started from Liverpool, in May, 1871, Ralph the Heir was

running through the St. Paul's. This was the novel of which Charles

Reade afterwards took the plot and made on it a play. I have always

thought it to be one of the worst novels I have written, and almost

to have justified that dictum that a novelist after fifty should

not write love-stories. It was in part a political novel; and

that part which appertains to politics, and which recounts the

electioneering experiences of the candidates at Percycross, is well

enough. Percycross and Beverley were, of course, one and the same

place. Neefit, the breeches-maker, and his daughter, are also good

in their way,--and Moggs, the daughter's lover, who was not only

lover, but also one of the candidates at Percycross as well. But

the main thread of the story,--that which tells of the doings of the

young gentlemen and young ladies,--the heroes and the heroines,--is

not good. Ralph the heir has not much life about him; while Ralph

who is not the heir, but is intended to be the real hero, has

none. The same may be said of the young ladies,--of whom one, she

who was meant to be the chief, has passed utterly out of my mind,

without leaving a trace of remembrance behind.

I also left in the hands of the editor of The Fortnightly, ready for

production on the 1st of July following, a story called The Eustace

Diamonds. In that I think that my friend's dictum was disproved.

There is not much love in it; but what there is, is good. The

character of Lucy Morris is pretty; and her love is as genuine and

as well told as that of Lucy Robarts of Lily Dale.

But The Eustace Diamonds achieved the success which it certainly

did attain, not as a love-story, but as a record of a cunning little

woman of pseudo-fashion, to whom, in her cunning, there came a

series of adventures, unpleasant enough in themselves, but pleasant

to the reader. As I wrote the book, the idea constantly presented

itself to me that Lizzie Eustace was but a second Becky Sharpe; but

in planning the character I had not thought of this, and I believe

that Lizzie would have been just as she is though Becky Sharpe had

never been described. The plot of the diamond necklace is, I think,

well arranged, though it produced itself without any forethought.

I had no idea of setting thieves after the bauble till I had got

my heroine to bed in the inn at Carlisle; nor of the disappointment

of the thieves, till Lizzie had been wakened in the morning with

the news that her door had been broken open. All these things, and

many more, Wilkie Collins would have arranged before with infinite

labour, preparing things present so that they should fit in with

things to come. I have gone on the very much easier plan of making

everything as it comes fit in with what has gone before. At any

rate, the book was a success, and did much to repair the injury

which I felt had come to my reputation in the novel-market by the

works of the last few years. I doubt whether I had written anything

so successful as The Eustace Diamonds. since The Small House at

Allington. I had written what was much better,--as, for instance,

Phineas Finn and Nina Balatka; but that is by no means the same

thing.

I also left behind, in a strong box, the manuscript of Phineas Redux,

a novel of which I have already spoken, and which I subsequently

sold to the proprietors of the Graphic newspaper. The editor of