Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

give as to itself. Only those who have done it know how great is

the labour of moving and arranging a few thousand volumes. At the

present moment I own about 5000 volumes, and they are dearer to

me even than the horses which are going, or than the wine in the

cellar, which is very apt to go, and upon which I also pride myself.

When this was done, and the new furniture had got into its place,

and my little book-room was settled sufficiently for work, I

began a novel, to the writing of which I was instigated by what I

conceived to be the commercial profligacy of the age. Whether the

world does or does not become more wicked as years go on, is a

question which probably has disturbed the minds of thinkers since

the world began to think. That men have become less cruel, less

violent, less selfish, less brutal, there can be no doubt;--but

have they become less honest? If so, can a world, retrograding from

day to day in honesty, be considered to be in a state of progress?

We know the opinion on this subject of our philosopher Mr. Carlyle.

If he be right, we are all going straight away to darkness and the

dogs. But then we do not put very much faith in Mr. Carlyle,--nor

in Mr. Ruskin and his other followers. The loudness and extravagance

of their lamentations, the wailing and gnashing of teeth which comes

from them, over a world which is supposed to have gone altogether

shoddy-wards, are so contrary to the convictions of men who cannot

but see how comfort has been increased, how health has been improved,

and education extended,--that the general effect of their teaching

is the opposite of what they have intended. It is regarded simply

as Carlylism to say that the English-speaking world is growing

worse from day to day. And it is Carlylism to opine that the general

grand result of increased intelligence is a tendency to deterioration.

Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent

in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at

the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be

reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that

dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable.

If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all

its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory

in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into

Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful,

and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel.

Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat down

in my new house to write The Way We Live Now. And as I had ventured

to take the whip of the satirist into my hand, I went beyond the

iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made an

onslaught also on other vices;--on the intrigues of girls who want

to get married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remain

single, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire to

cheat the public into buying their volumes.

The book has the fault which is to be attributed to almost all

satires, whether in prose or verse. The accusations are exaggerated.

The vices are coloured, so as to make effect rather than to represent

truth. Who, when the lash of objurgation is in his hands, can

so moderate his arm as never to strike harder than justice would

require? The spirit which produces the satire is honest enough, but

the very desire which moves the satirist to do his work energetically

makes him dishonest. In other respects The Way We Live Now

was, as a satire, powerful and good. The character of Melmotte is

well maintained. The Beargarden is amusing,--and not untrue. The

Longestaffe girls and their friend, Lady Monogram, are amusing,--but

exaggerated. Dolly Longestaffe, is, I think, very good. And Lady

Carbury's literary efforts are, I am sorry to say, such as are too

frequently made. But here again the young lady with her two lovers

is weak and vapid. I almost doubt whether it be not impossible to

have two absolutely distinct parts in a novel, and to imbue them

both with interest. If they be distinct, the one will seem to be

no more than padding to the other. And so it was in The Way We Live

Now. The interest of the story lies among the wicked and foolish

people,--with Melmotte and his daughter, with Dolly and his family,

with the American woman, Mrs. Hurtle, and with John Crumb and the

girl of his heart. But Roger Carbury, Paul Montague, and Henrietta

Carbury are uninteresting. Upon the whole, I by no means look upon

the book as one of my failures; nor was it taken as a failure by

the public or the press.

While I was writing The Way We Live Now, I was called upon by the

proprietors of the Graphic for a Christmas story. I feel, with regard

to literature, somewhat as I suppose an upholsterer and undertaker

feels when he is called upon to supply a funeral. He has to supply

it, however distasteful it may be. It is his business, and he will

starve if he neglects it. So have I felt that, when anything in the

shape of a novel was required, I was bound to produce it. Nothing

can be more distasteful to me than to have to give a relish of

Christmas to what I write. I feel the humbug implied by the nature

of the order. A Christmas story, in the proper sense, should be

the ebullition of some mind anxious to instil others with a desire

for Christmas religious thought, or Christmas festivities,--or,

better still, with Christmas charity. Such was the case with Dickens

when he wrote his two first Christmas stories. But since that the

things written annually--all of which have been fixed to Christmas

like children's toys to a Christmas tree--have had no real savour

of Christmas about them. I had done two or three before. Alas!

at this very moment I have one to write, which I have promised to

supply within three weeks of this time,--the picture-makers always

require a long interval,--as to which I have in vain been cudgelling

my brain for the last month. I can't send away the order to another

shop, but I do not know how I shall ever get the coffin made.

For the Graphic, in 1873, I wrote a little story about Australia.

Christmas at the antipodes is of course midsummer, and I was not

loth to describe the troubles to which my own son had been subjected,

by the mingled accidents of heat and bad neighbours, on his station

in the bush. So I wrote Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, and was well

through my labour on that occasion. I only wish I may have no

worse success in that which now hangs over my head.

When Harry Heathcote was over, I returned with a full heart to

Lady Glencora and her husband. I had never yet drawn the completed

picture of such a statesman as my imagination had conceived. The

personages with whose names my pages had been familiar, and perhaps

even the minds of some of my readers--the Brocks, De Terriers, Monks,

Greshams, and Daubeneys--had been more or less portraits, not of

living men, but of living political characters. The strong-minded,

thick-skinned, useful, ordinary member, either of the Government or

of the Opposition, had been very easy to describe, and had required

no imagination to conceive. The character reproduces itself from

generation to generation; and as it does so, becomes shorn in

a wonderful way of those little touches of humanity which would

be destructive of its purposes. Now and again there comes a burst

of human nature, as in the quarrel between Burke and Fox; but, as

a rule, the men submit themselves to be shaped and fashioned, and

to be formed into tools, which are used either for building up or

pulling down, and can generally bear to be changed from this box

into the other, without, at any rate, the appearance of much personal

suffering. Four-and-twenty gentlemen will amalgamate themselves

into one whole, and work for one purpose, having each of them to

set aside his own idiosyncrasy, and to endure the close personal

contact of men who must often be personally disagreeable, having

been thoroughly taught that in no other way can they serve either

their country or their own ambition. These are the men who are

publicly useful, and whom the necessities of the age supply,--as

to whom I have never ceased to wonder that stones of such strong

calibre should be so quickly worn down to the shape and smoothness

of rounded pebbles.

Such have been to me the Brocks and the Mildmays, about whom I have

written with great pleasure, having had my mind much exercised in

watching them. But had I also conceived the character of a statesman

of a different nature--of a man who should be in something perhaps

superior, but in very much inferior, to these men--of one who could

not become a pebble, having too strong an identity of his own. To

rid one's self of fine scruples--to fall into the traditions of

a party--to feel the need of subservience, not only in acting but

also even in thinking--to be able to be a bit, and at first only a

very little bit,--these are the necessities of the growing statesman.

The time may come, the glorious time when some great self action

shall be possible, and shall be even demanded, as when Peel gave

up the Corn Laws; but the rising man, as he puts on his harness,

should not allow himself to dream of this. To become a good, round,

smooth, hard, useful pebble is his duty, and to achieve this he

must harden his skin and swallow his scruples. But every now and

again we see the attempt, made by men who cannot get their skins to

be hard--who after a little while generally fall out of the ranks.

The statesman of whom I was thinking--of whom I had long thought--was

one who did not fall out of the ranks, even though his skin would

not become hard. He should have rank, and intellect, and parliamentary

habits, by which to bind him to the service of his country; and he

should also have unblemished, unextinguishable, inexhaustible love

of country. That virtue I attribute to our statesmen generally.

They who are without it are, I think, mean indeed. This man should

have it as the ruling principle of his life; and it should so rule

him that all other things should be made to give way to it. But he

should be scrupulous, and, being scrupulous, weak. When called to

the highest place in the council of his Sovereign, he should feel

with true modesty his own insufficiency; but not the less should

the greed of power grow upon him when he had once allowed himself

to taste and enjoy it. Such was the character I endeavoured to

depict in describing the triumph, the troubles, and the failure

of my Prime Minister. And I think that I have succeeded. What the

public may think, or what the press may say, I do not yet know,

the work having as yet run but half its course. [Footnote: Writing

this note in 1878, after a lapse of nearly three years, I am obliged

to say that, as regards the public, The Prime Minister was a failure.

It was worse spoken of by the press than any novel I had written.

I was specially hurt by a criticism on it in the Spectator. The