Autobiography of Anthony Trollope - Anthony Trollope

scamped. It is a danger as to which he is bound to be severe with

himself--in which he should feel that his conscience should be set

fairly in the balance against the natural bias of his interest. If

he do not do so, sooner or later his dishonesty will be discovered,

and will be estimated accordingly. But in this he is to be governed

only by the plain rules of honesty which should govern us all.

Having said so much, I shall not scruple as I go on to attribute

to the pecuniary result of my labours all the importance which I

felt them to have at the time.

Barchester Towers, for which I had received (pounds)100 in advance, sold

well enough to bring me further payments--moderate payments--from

the publishers. From that day up to this very time in which I am

writing, that book and The Warden together have given me almost

every year some small income. I get the accounts very regularly,

and I find that I have received (pounds)727 11S. 3d. for the two. It is

more than I got for the three or four works that came afterwards,

but the payments have been spread over twenty years.

When I went to Mr. Longman with my next novel, The Three Clerks,

in my hand, I could not induce him to understand that a lump sum

down was more pleasant than a deferred annuity. I wished him to

buy it from me at a price which he might think to be a fair value,

and I argued with him that as soon as an author has put himself into

a position which insures a sufficient sale of his works to give a

profit, the publisher is not entitled to expect the half of such

proceeds. While there is a pecuniary risk, the whole of which must

be borne by the publisher, such division is fair enough; but such

a demand on the part of the publisher is monstrous as soon as the

article produced is known to be a marketable commodity. I thought

that I had now reached that point, but Mr. Longman did not agree with

me. And he endeavoured to convince me that I might lose more than

I gained, even though I should get more money by going elsewhere.

"It is for you," said he, "to think whether our names on your

title-page are not worth more to you than the increased payment."

This seemed to me to savour of that high-flown doctrine of the

contempt of money which I have never admired. I did think much

of Messrs. Longman's name, but I liked it best at the bottom of a

cheque.

I was also scared from the august columns of Paternoster Row by

a remark made to myself by one of the firm, which seemed to imply

that they did not much care for works of fiction. Speaking of a

fertile writer of tales who was not then dead, he declared that ----

(naming the author in question) had spawned upon them (the publishers)

three novels a year! Such language is perhaps justifiable in regard

to a man who shows so much of the fecundity of the herring; but I

did not know how fruitful might be my own muse, and I thought that

I had better go elsewhere.

I had then written The Three Clerks, which, when I could not sell

it to Messrs. Longman, I took in the first instance to Messrs.

Hurst & Blackett, who had become successors to Mr. Colburn. I had

made an appointment with one of the firm, which, however, that

gentleman was unable to keep. I was on my way from Ireland to Italy,

and had but one day in London in which to dispose of my manuscript.

I sat for an hour in Great Marlborough Street, expecting the return

of the peccant publisher who had broken his tryst, and I was about

to depart with my bundle under my arm when the foreman of the

house came to me. He seemed to think it a pity that I should go,

and wished me to leave my work with him. This, however, I would not

do, unless he would undertake to buy it then and there. Perhaps he

lacked authority. Perhaps his judgment was against such purchase.

But while we debated the matter, he gave me some advice. "I hope

it's not historical, Mr. Trollope?" he said. "Whatever you do,

don't be historical; your historical novel is not worth a damn."

Thence I took The Three Clerks to Mr. Bentley; and on the same

afternoon succeeded in selling it to him for (pounds)250. His son still

possesses it, and the firm has, I believe, done very well with the

purchase. It was certainly the best novel I had as yet written.

The plot is not so good as that of the Macdermots; nor are there

any characters in the book equal to those of Mrs. Proudie and the

Warden; but the work has a more continued interest, and contains

the first well-described love-scene that I ever wrote. The passage

in which Kate Woodward, thinking that she will die, tries to take

leave of the lad she loves, still brings tears to my eyes when I

read it. I had not the heart to kill her. I never could do that.

And I do not doubt but that they are living happily together to

this day.

The lawyer Chaffanbrass made his first appearance in this novel,

and I do not think that I have cause to be ashamed of him. But this

novel now is chiefly noticeable to me from the fact that in it I

introduced a character under the name of Sir Gregory Hardlines, by

which I intended to lean very heavily on that much loathed scheme

of competitive examination, of which at that time Sir Charles

Trevelyan was the great apostle. Sir Gregory Hardlines was intended

for Sir Charles Trevelyan,--as any one at the time would know who

had taken an interest in the Civil Service. "We always call him

Sir Gregory," Lady Trevelyan said to me afterwards, when I came

to know her and her husband. I never learned to love competitive

examination; but I became, and am, very fond of Sir Charles Trevelyan.

Sir Stafford Northcote, who is now Chancellor of the Exchequer,

was then leagued with his friend Sir Charles, and he too appears

in The Three Clerks under the feebly facetious name of Sir Warwick

West End.

But for all that The Three Clerks was a good novel.

When that sale was made I was on my way to Italy with my wife,

paying a third visit there to my mother and brother. This was in

1857, and she had then given up her pen. It was the first year in

which she had not written, and she expressed to me her delight that

her labours should be at an end, and that mine should be beginning

in the same field. In truth they had already been continued for

a dozen years, but a man's career will generally be held to date

itself from the commencement of his success. On those foreign

tours I always encountered adventures, which, as I look back upon

them now, tempt me almost to write a little book of my long past

Continental travels. On this occasion, as we made our way slowly

through Switzerland and over the Alps, we encountered again and

again a poor forlorn Englishman, who had no friend and no aptitude

for travelling. He was always losing his way, and finding himself

with no seat in the coaches and no bed at the inns. On one occasion

I found him at Coire seated at 5 A. M. in the coupe of a diligence

which was intended to start at noon for the Engadine, while it was

his purpose to go over the Alps in another which was to leave at

5.30, and which was already crowded with passengers. "Ah!" he said,

"I am in time now, and nobody shall turn me out of this seat,"

alluding to former little misfortunes of which I had been a witness.

When I explained to him his position, he was as one to whom life

was too bitter to be borne. But he made his way into Italy, and

encountered me again at the Pitti Palace in Florence. "Can you

tell me something?" he said to me in a whisper, having touched my

shoulder. "The people are so ill-natured I don't like to ask them.

Where is it they keep the Medical Venus?" I sent him to the Uffizzi,

but I fear he was disappointed.

We ourselves, however, on entering Milan had been in quite as much

distress as any that he suffered. We had not written for beds,

and on driving up to a hotel at ten in the evening found it full.

Thence we went from one hotel to another, finding them all full.

The misery is one well known to travellers, but I never heard of

another case in which a man and his wife were told at midnight to

get out of the conveyance into the middle of the street because the

horse could not be made to go any further. Such was our condition.

I induced the driver, however, to go again to the hotel which was

nearest to him, and which was kept by a German. Then I bribed the

porter to get the master to come down to me; and, though my French

is ordinarily very defective, I spoke with such eloquence to

that German innkeeper that he, throwing his arms round my neck in

a transport of compassion, swore that he would never leave me nor

my wife till he had put us to bed. And he did so; but, ah! there

were so many in those beds! It is such an experience as this which

teaches a travelling foreigner how different on the Continent is

the accommodation provided for him, from that which is supplied

for the inhabitants of the country.

It was on a previous visit to Milan, when the telegraph-wires were

only just opened to the public by the Austrian authorities, that

we had decided one day at dinner that we would go to Verona that

night. There was a train at six, reaching Verona at midnight, and

we asked some servant of the hotel to telegraph for us, ordering

supper and beds. The demand seemed to create some surprise; but

we persisted, and were only mildly grieved when we found ourselves

charged twenty zwanzigers for the message. Telegraphy was new at

Milan, and the prices were intended to be almost prohibitory. We

paid our twenty zwanzigers and went on, consoling ourselves with the

thought of our ready supper and our assured beds. When we reached

Verona, there arose a great cry along the platform for Signor

Trollope. I put out my head and declared my identity, when I

was waited upon by a glorious personage dressed like a beau for a

ball, with half-a-dozen others almost as glorious behind him, who

informed me, with his hat in his hand, that he was the landlord of

the "Due Torre." It was a heating moment, but it became more hot

when he asked after my people,--"mes gens." I could only turn round,

and point to my wife and brother-in-law. I had no other "people."

There were three carriages provided for us, each with a pair of

grey horses. When we reached the house it was all lit up. We were

not allowed to move without an attendant with a lighted candle. It

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});