Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

thoroughly English. There was a little fox-hunting and a little

tuft-hunting, some Christian virtue and some Christian cant. There

was no heroism and no villainy. There was much Church, but more

love-making. And it was downright honest love,--in which there was

no pretence on the part of the lady that she was too ethereal to

be fond of a man, no half-and-half inclination on the part of the

man to pay a certain price and no more for a pretty toy. Each of

them longed for the other, and they were not ashamed to say so.

Consequently they in England who were living, or had lived, the

same sort of life, liked Framley Parsonage. I think myself that

Lucy Robarts is perhaps the most natural English girl that I ever

drew,--the most natural, at any rate, of those who have been good

girls. She was not as dear to me as Kate Woodward in The Three

Clerks, but I think she is more like real human life. Indeed

I doubt whether such a character could be made more lifelike than

Lucy Robarts.

And I will say also that in this novel there is no very weak part,--no

long succession of dull pages. The production of novels in serial

form forces upon the author the conviction that he should not allow

himself to be tedious in any single part. I hope no reader will

misunderstand me. In spite of that conviction, the writer of stories

in parts will often be tedious. That I have been so myself is a

fault that will lie heavy on my tombstone. But the writer when he

embarks in such a business should feel that he cannot afford to have

many pages skipped out of the few which are to meet the reader's

eye at the same time. Who can imagine the first half of the first

volume of Waverley coming out in shilling numbers? I had realised

this when I was writing Framley Parsonage; and working on the

conviction which had thus come home to me, I fell into no bathos

of dulness.

I subsequently came across a piece of criticism which was written

on me as a novelist by a brother novelist very much greater than

myself, and whose brilliant intellect and warm imagination led him

to a kind of work the very opposite of mine. This was Nathaniel

Hawthorne, the American, whom I did not then know, but whose works

I knew. Though it praises myself highly, I will insert it here,

because it certainly is true in its nature: "It is odd enough," he

says, "that my own individual taste is for quite another class of

works than those which I myself am able to write. If I were to meet

with such books as mine by another writer, I don't believe I should

be able to get through them. Have you ever read the novels of Anthony

Trollope? They precisely suit my taste,--solid and substantial,

written on the strength of beef and through the inspiration of

ale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of

the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants

going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they

were being made a show of. And these books are just as English as

a beef-steak. Have they ever been tried in America? It needs an

English residence to make them thoroughly comprehensible; but still

I should think that human nature would give them success anywhere."

This was dated early in 1860, and could have had no reference to

Framley Parsonage; but it was as true of that work as of any that

I have written. And the criticism, whether just or unjust, describes

with wonderful accuracy the purport that I have ever had in view

in my writing. I have always desired to "hew out some lump of the

earth," and to make men and women walk upon it just as they do walk

here among us,--with not more of excellence, nor with exaggerated

baseness,--so that my readers might recognise human beings like to

themselves, and not feel themselves to be carried away among gods

or demons. If I could do this, then I thought I might succeed

in impregnating the mind of the novel-reader with a feeling that

honesty is the best policy; that truth prevails while falsehood

fails; that a girl will be loved as she is pure; and sweet, and

unselfish; that a man will be honoured as he is true, and honest,

and brave of heart; that things meanly done are ugly and odious,

and things nobly done beautiful and gracious. I do not say that

lessons such as these may not be more grandly taught by higher

flights than mine. Such lessons come to us from our greatest poets.

But there are so many who will read novels and understand them, who

either do not read the works of our great poets, or reading them

miss the lesson! And even in prose fiction the character whom

the fervid imagination of the writer has lifted somewhat into the

clouds, will hardly give so plain an example to the hasty normal

reader as the humbler personage whom that reader unconsciously feels

to resemble himself or herself. I do think that a girl would more

probably dress her own mind after Lucy Robarts than after Flora

Macdonald.

There are many who would laugh at the idea of a novelist teaching

either virtue or nobility,--those, for instance, who regard

the reading of novels as a sin, and those also who think it to be

simply an idle pastime. They look upon the tellers of stories as

among the tribe of those who pander to the wicked pleasures of a

wicked world. I have regarded my art from so different a point of

view that I have ever thought of myself as a preacher of sermons,

and my pulpit as one which I could make both salutary and agreeable

to my audience. I do believe that no girl has risen from the reading

of my pages less modest than she was before, and that some may have

learned from them that modesty is a charm well worth preserving. I

think that no youth has been taught that in falseness and flashness

is to be found the road to manliness; but some may perhaps have

learned from me that it is to be found in truth and a high but

gentle spirit. Such are the lessons I have striven to teach; and

I have thought it might best be done by representing to my readers

characters like themselves,--or to which they might liken themselves.

Framley Parsonage--or, rather, my connection with the Cornhill--was

the means of introducing me very quickly to that literary world

from which I had hitherto been severed by the fact of my residence

in Ireland. In December, 1859, while I was still very hard at work

on my novel, I came over to take charge of the Eastern District,

and settled myself at a residence about twelve miles from London,

in Hertfordshire, but on the borders both of Essex and Middlesex,--which

was somewhat too grandly called Waltham House. This I took on

lease, and subsequently bought after I had spent about (pounds)1000 on

improvements. From hence I was able to make myself frequent both

in Cornhill and Piccadilly, and to live, when the opportunity came,

among men of my own pursuit.

It was in January, 1860, that Mr. George Smith--to whose enterprise

we owe not only the Cornhill Magazine but the Pall Mall Gazette--gave

a sumptuous dinner to his contributors. It was a memorable banquet

in many ways, but chiefly so to me because on that occasion I first

met many men who afterwards became my most intimate associates.

It can rarely happen that one such occasion can be the first

starting-point of so many friendships. It was at that table, and

on that day, that I first saw Thackeray, Charles Taylor (Sir)--than

whom in latter life I have loved no man better,--Robert Bell, G. H.

Lewes, and John Everett Millais. With all these men I afterwards

lived on affectionate terms;--but I will here speak specially of

the last, because from that time he was joined with me in so much

of the work that I did.

Mr. Millais was engaged to illustrate Framley Parsonage, but this

was not the first work he did for the magazine. In the second number

there is a picture of his accompanying Monckton Milne's Unspoken

Dialogue. The first drawing he did for Framley Parsonage did not

appear till after the dinner of which I have spoken, and I do not

think that I knew at the time that he was engaged on my novel. When

I did know it, it made me very proud. He afterwards illustrated

Orley Farm, The Small House of Allington, Rachel Ray, and Phineas

Finn. Altogether he drew from my tales eighty-seven drawings, and

I do not think that more conscientious work was ever done by man.

Writers of novels know well--and so ought readers of novels to

have learned--that there are two modes of illustrating, either of

which may be adopted equally by a bad and by a good artist. To

which class Mr. Millais belongs I need not say; but, as a good

artist, it was open to him simply to make a pretty picture, or to

study the work of the author from whose writing he was bound to take

his subject. I have too often found that the former alternative

has been thought to be the better, as it certainly is the easier

method. An artist will frequently dislike to subordinate his ideas

to those of an author, and will sometimes be too idle to find out

what those ideas are. But this artist was neither proud nor idle.

In every figure that he drew it was his object to promote the

views of the writer whose work he had undertaken to illustrate, and

he never spared himself any pains in studying that work, so as to

enable him to do so. I have carried on some of those characters from

book to book, and have had my own early ideas impressed indelibly

on my memory by the excellence of his delineations. Those illustrations

were commenced fifteen years ago, and from that time up to this

day my affection for the man of whom I am speaking has increased.

To see him has always been a pleasure. His voice has been a sweet

sound in my ears. Behind his back I have never heard him praised

without joining the eulogist; I have never heard a word spoken

against him without opposing the censurer. These words, should he

ever see them, will come to him from the grave, and will tell him

of my regard,--as one living man never tells another.

Sir Charles Taylor, who carried me home in his brougham that

evening, and thus commenced an intimacy which has since been very

close, was born to wealth, and was therefore not compelled by the

necessities of a profession to enter the lists as an author. But

he lived much with those who did so,--and could have done it himself

had want or ambition stirred him. He was our king at the Garrick