Autobiography of Anthony Trollope - Anthony Trollope

pleasure. He looks for hard work and grinding circumstances.

I certainly had enjoyed but little pleasure, but I had been among

those who did enjoy it and were taught to expect it. And I had

filled my mind with the ideas of such joys.

And now, except during official hours, I was entirely without

control,--without the influences of any decent household around me.

I have said something of the comedy of such life, but it certainly

had its tragic aspect. Turning it all over in my own mind, as I

have constantly done in after years, the tragedy has always been

uppermost. And so it was as the time was passing. Could there be

any escape from such dirt? I would ask myself; and I always answered

that there was no escape. The mode of life was itself wretched. I

hated the office. I hated my work. More than all I hated my idleness.

I had often told myself since I left school that the only career in

life within my reach was that of an author, and the only mode of

authorship open to me that of a writer of novels. In the journal which

I read and destroyed a few years since, I found the matter argued

out before I had been in the Post Office two years. Parliament was

out of the question. I had not means to go to the Bar. In Official

life, such as that to which I had been introduced, there did not

seem to be any opening for real success. Pens and paper I could

command. Poetry I did not believe to be within my grasp. The drama,

too, which I would fain have chosen, I believed to be above me. For

history, biography, or essay writing I had not sufficient erudition.

But I thought it possible that I might write a novel. I had resolved

very early that in that shape must the attempt be made. But the

months and years ran on, and no attempt was made. And yet no day was

passed without thoughts of attempting, and a mental acknowledgment

of the disgrace of postponing it. What reader will not understand

the agony of remorse produced by such a condition of mind?

The gentleman from Mecklenburgh Square was always with me in the

morning,--always angering me by his hateful presence,--but when the

evening came I could make no struggle towards getting rid of him.

In those days I read a little, and did learn to read French and

Latin. I made myself familiar with Horace, and became acquainted with

the works of our own greatest poets. I had my strong enthusiasms,

and remember throwing out of the window in Northumberland Street,

where I lived, a volume of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, because

he spoke sneeringly of Lycidas. That was Northumberland Street by

the Marylebone Workhouse, on to the back-door of which establishment

my room looked out--a most dreary abode, at which I fancy I must

have almost ruined the good-natured lodging-house keeper by my

constant inability to pay her what I owed.

How I got my daily bread I can hardly remember. But I do remember

that I was often unable to get myself a dinner. Young men generally

now have their meals provided for them. I kept house, as it were.

Every day I had to find myself with the day's food. For my breakfast

I could get some credit at the lodgings, though that credit would

frequently come to an end. But for all that I had often breakfast

to pay day by day; and at your eating-house credit is not given. I

had no friends on whom I could sponge regularly. Out on the Fulham

Road I had an uncle, but his house was four miles from the Post

Office, and almost as far from my own lodgings. Then came borrowings

of money, sometimes absolute want, and almost constant misery.

Before I tell how it came about that I left this wretched life,

I must say a word or two of the friendships which lessened its

misfortunes. My earliest friend in life was John Merivale, with whom

I had been at school at Sunbury and Harrow, and who was a nephew

of my tutor, Harry Drury. Herman Merivale, who afterwards became my

friend, was his brother, as is also Charles Merivale, the historian

and Dean of Ely. I knew John when I was ten years old, and am happy

to be able to say that he is going to dine with me one day this

week. I hope I may not injure his character by stating that in those

days I lived very much with him. He, too, was impecunious, but he

had a home in London, and knew but little of the sort of penury

which I endured. For more than fifty years he and I have been close

friends. And then there was one W---- A----, whose misfortunes in

life will not permit me to give his full name, but whom I dearly

loved. He had been at Winchester and at Oxford, and at both places

had fallen into trouble. He then became a schoolmaster,--or perhaps

I had better say usher,--and finally he took orders. But he was

unfortunate in all things, and died some years ago in poverty. He

was most perverse; bashful to very fear of a lady's dress; unable

to restrain himself in anything, but yet with a conscience that

was always stinging him; a loving friend, though very quarrelsome;

and, perhaps, of all men I have known, the most humorous. And he

was entirely unconscious of his own humour. He did not know that

he could so handle all matters as to create infinite amusement out

of them. Poor W---- A----! To him there came no happy turning-point

at which life loomed seriously on him, and then became prosperous.

W---- A----, Merivale, and I formed a little club, which we called

the Tramp Society, and subjected to certain rules, in obedience to

which we wandered on foot about the counties adjacent to London.

Southampton was the furthest point we ever reached; but Buckinghamshire

and Hertfordshire were more dear to us. These were the happiest

hours of my then life--and perhaps not the least innocent, although

we were frequently in peril from the village authorities whom we

outraged. Not to pay for any conveyance, never to spend above five

shillings a day, to obey all orders from the elected ruler of the

hour (this enforced under heavy fines), were among our statutes.

I would fain tell here some of our adventures:--how A---- enacted

an escaped madman and we his pursuing keepers, and so got ourselves

a lift in a cart, from which we ran away as we approached the

lunatic asylum; how we were turned out of a little town at night,

the townsfolk frightened by the loudness of our mirth; and how we

once crept into a hayloft and were wakened in the dark morning by

a pitchfork,--and how the juvenile owner of that pitchfork fled

through the window when he heard the complaints of the wounded man!

But the fun was the fun of W---- A----, and would cease to be fun

as told by me.

It was during these years that John Tilley, who has now been for

many years the permanent senior officer of the Post Office, married

my sister, whom he took with him into Cumberland, where he was

stationed as one of our surveyors. He has been my friend for more

than forty years; as has also Peregrine Birch, a clerk in the House

of Lords, who married one of those daughters of Colonel Grant who

assisted us in the raid we made on the goods which had been seized

by the Sheriff's officer at Harrow. These have been the oldest and

dearest friends of my life, and I can thank God that three of them

are still alive.

When I had been nearly seven years in the Secretary's office of

the Post Office, always hating my position there, and yet always

fearing that I should be dismissed from it, there came a way of

escape. There had latterly been created in the service a new body

of officers called surveyors' clerks. There were at that time

seven surveyors in England, two in Scotland and three in Ireland.

To each of these officers a clerk had been lately attached, whose

duty it was to travel about the country under the surveyor's orders.

There had been much doubt among the young men in the office whether

they should or should not apply for these places. The emoluments

were good and the work alluring; but there was at first supposed

to be something derogatory in the position. There was a rumour that

the first surveyor who got a clerk sent the clerk out to fetch his

beer, and that another had called upon his clerk to send the linen

to the wash. There was, however, a conviction that nothing could be

worse than the berth of a surveyor's clerk in Ireland. The clerks

were all appointed, however. To me it had not occurred to ask for

anything, nor would anything have been given me. But after a while

there came a report from the far west of Ireland that the man sent

there was absurdly incapable. It was probably thought then that

none but a man absurdly incapable would go on such a mission to the

west of Ireland. When the report reached the London office I was

the first to read it. I was at that time in dire trouble, having

debts on my head and quarrels with our Secretary-Colonel, and a

full conviction that my life was taking me downwards to the lowest

pits. So I went to the Colonel boldly, and volunteered for Ireland

if he would send me. He was glad to be so rid of me, and I went.

This happened in August, 1841, when I was twenty-six years old. My

salary in Ireland was to be but (pounds)100 a year; but I was to receive

fifteen shillings a day for every day that I was away from home,

and sixpence for every mile that I travelled. The same allowances

were made in England; but at that time travelling in Ireland was

done at half the English prices. My income in Ireland, after paying

my expenses, became at once (pounds)400. This was the first good fortune

of my life.

CHAPTER IV Ireland--my first two novels 1841-1848

In the preceding pages I have given a short record of the first

twenty-six years of my life,--years of suffering, disgrace, and

inward remorse. I fear that my mode of telling will have left an idea

simply of their absurdities; but, in truth, I was wretched,--sometimes

almost unto death, and have often cursed the hour in which I was

born. There had clung to me a feeling that I had been looked upon

always as an evil, an encumbrance, a useless thing,--as a creature

of whom those connected with him had to be ashamed. And I feel

certain now that in my young days I was so regarded. Even my few

friends who had found with me a certain capacity for enjoyment were

half afraid of me. I acknowledge the weakness of a great desire to

be loved,--of a strong wish to be popular with my associates. No

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