Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

author has not said such words as these to humble aspirants for

critical advice, till they have become almost formulas? No doubt

there is cruelty in such answers; but the man who makes them has

considered the matter within himself, and has resolved that such

cruelty is the best mercy. No doubt the chances against literary

aspirants are very great. It is so easy to aspire,--and to begin!

A man cannot make a watch or a shoe without a variety of tools and

many materials. He must also have learned much. But any young lady

can write a book who has a sufficiency of pens and paper. It can

be done anywhere; in any clothes--which is a great thing; at any

hours--to which happy accident in literature I owe my success.

And the success, when achieved, is so pleasant! The aspirants, of

course, are very many; and the experienced councillor, when asked

for his candid judgment as to this or that effort, knows that among

every hundred efforts there will be ninety-nine failures. Then the

answer is so ready: "My dear young lady, do darn your stockings;

it will be for the best." Or perhaps, less tenderly, to the male

aspirant: "You must earn some money, you say. Don't you think

that a stool in a counting-house might be better?" The advice will

probably be good advice,--probably, no doubt, as may be proved by

the terrible majority of failures. But who is to be sure that he

is not expelling an angel from the heaven to which, if less roughly

treated, he would soar,--that he is not dooming some Milton to be

mute and inglorious, who, but for such cruel ill-judgment, would

become vocal to all ages?

The answer to all this seems to be ready enough. The judgment,

whether cruel or tender, should not be ill-judgment. He who

consents to sit as judge should have capacity for judging. But in

this matter no accuracy of judgment is possible. It may be that the

matter subjected to the critic is so bad or so good as to make an

assured answer possible. "You, at any rate, cannot make this your

vocation;" or "You, at any rate, can succeed, if you will try." But

cases as to which such certainty can be expressed are rare. The

critic who wrote the article on the early verses of Lord Byron, which

produced the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, was justified in

his criticism by the merits of the Hours of Idleness. The lines had

nevertheless been written by that Lord Byron who became our Byron.

In a little satire called The Biliad, which, I think, nobody knows,

are the following well-expressed lines:--

"When Payne Knight's Taste was issued to the town,

A few Greek verses in the text set down

Were torn to pieces, mangled into hash,

Doomed to the flames as execrable trash,--

In short, were butchered rather than dissected,

And several false quantities detected,--

Till, when the smoke had vanished from the cinders,

'Twas just discovered that--THE LINES WERE PINDAR'S!"

There can be no assurance against cases such as these; and yet we

are so free with our advice, always bidding the young aspirant to

desist.

There is perhaps no career or life so charming as that of a successful

man of letters. Those little unthought of advantages which I just

now named are in themselves attractive. If you like the town, live in

the town, and do your work there; if you like the country, choose

the country. It may be done on the top of a mountain or in the

bottom of a pit. It is compatible with the rolling of the sea and

the motion of a railway. The clergyman, the lawyer, the doctor, the

member of Parliament, the clerk in a public office, the tradesman,

and even his assistant in the shop, must dress in accordance with

certain fixed laws; but the author need sacrifice to no grace,

hardly even to Propriety. He is subject to no bonds such as those

which bind other men. Who else is free from all shackle as to hours?

The judge must sit at ten, and the attorney-general, who is making

his (pounds)20,000 a year, must be there with his bag. The Prime Minister

must be in his place on that weary front bench shortly after

prayers, and must sit there, either asleep or awake, even though

---- or ---- should be addressing the House. During all that Sunday

which he maintains should be a day of rest, the active clergyman

toils like a galley-slave. The actor, when eight o'clock comes,

is bound to his footlights. The Civil Service clerk must sit there

from ten till four,--unless his office be fashionable, when twelve

to six is just as heavy on him. The author may do his work at five

in the morning when he is fresh from his bed, or at three in the

morning before he goes there. And the author wants no capital, and

encounters no risks. When once he is afloat, the publisher finds

all that;--and indeed, unless he be rash, finds it whether he be

afloat or not. But it is in the consideration which he enjoys that

the successful author finds his richest reward. He is, if not of

equal rank, yet of equal standing with the highest; and if he be

open to the amenities of society, may choose his own circles. He

without money can enter doors which are closed against almost all

but him and the wealthy. I have often heard it said that in this

country the man of letters is not recognised. I believe the meaning

of this to be that men of letters are not often invited to be

knights and baronets. I do not think that they wish it;--and if

they had it they would, as a body, lose much more than they would

gain. I do not at all desire to have letters put after my name, or

to be called Sir Anthony, but if my friends Tom Hughes and Charles

Reade became Sir Thomas and Sir Charles, I do not know how I might

feel,--or how my wife might feel, if we were left unbedecked. As

it is, the man of letters who would be selected for titular honour,

if such bestowal of honours were customary, receives from the general

respect of those around him a much more pleasant recognition of

his worth.

If this be so,--if it be true that the career of the successful

literary man be thus pleasant--it is not wonderful that many should

attempt to win the prize. But how is a man to know whether or not

he has within him the qualities necessary for such a career? He

makes an attempt, and fails; repeats his attempt, and fails again!

So many have succeeded at last who have failed more than once or

twice! Who will tell him the truth as to himself? Who has power to

find out that truth? The hard man sends him off without a scruple

to that office-stool; the soft man assures him that there is much

merit in his MS.

Oh, my young aspirant,--if ever such a one should read these

pages,--be sure that no one can tell you! To do so it would be

necessary not only to know what there is now within you, but also

to foresee what time will produce there. This, however, I think may

be said to you, without any doubt as to the wisdom of the counsel

given, that if it be necessary for you to live by your work, do not

begin by trusting to literature. Take the stool in the office as

recommended to you by the hard man; and then, in such leisure hours

as may belong to you, let the praise which has come from the lips

of that soft man induce you to persevere in your literary attempts.

Should you fail, then your failure will not be fatal,--and what

better could you have done with the leisure hours had you not so

failed? Such double toil, you will say, is severe. Yes, but if

you want this thing, you must submit to severe toil.

Sometime before this I had become one of the Committee appointed

for the distribution of the moneys of the Royal Literary Fund, and

in that capacity I heard and saw much of the sufferings of authors.

I may in a future chapter speak further of this Institution, which

I regard with great affection, and in reference to which I should

be glad to record certain convictions of my own; but I allude to it

now, because the experience I have acquired in being active in its

cause forbids me to advise any young man or woman to enter boldly

on a literary career in search of bread. I know how utterly I

should have failed myself had my bread not been earned elsewhere

while I was making my efforts. During ten years of work, which I

commenced with some aid from the fact that others of my family were

in the same profession, I did not earn enough to buy me the pens,

ink, and paper which I was using; and then when, with all my

experience in my art, I began again as from a new springing point,

I should have failed again unless again I could have given years

to the task. Of course there have been many who have done better

than I,--many whose powers have been infinitely greater. But then,

too, I have seen the failure of many who were greater.

The career, when success has been achieved, is certainly very

pleasant; but the agonies which are endured in the search for that

success are often terrible. And the author's poverty is, I think,

harder to be borne than any other poverty. The man, whether rightly

or wrongly, feels that the world is using him with extreme injustice.

The more absolutely he fails, the higher, it is probable, he will

reckon his own merits; and the keener will be the sense of injury

in that he whose work is of so high a nature cannot get bread,

while they whose tasks are mean are lapped in luxury. "I, with

my well-filled mind, with my clear intellect, with all my gifts,

cannot earn a poor crown a day, while that fool, who simpers in

a little room behind a shop, makes his thousands every year." The

very charity, to which he too often is driven, is bitterer to him

than to others. While he takes it he almost spurns the hand that

gives it to him, and every fibre of his heart within him is bleeding

with a sense of injury.

The career, when successful, is pleasant enough certainly; but when

unsuccessful, it is of all careers the most agonising.

CHAPTER XII ON NOVELS AND THE ART OF WRITING THEM

It is nearly twenty years since I proposed to myself to write

a history of English prose fiction. I shall never do it now, but

the subject is so good a one that I recommend it heartily to some

man of letters, who shall at the same time be indefatigable and

light-handed. I acknowledge that I broke down in the task, because

I could not endure the labour in addition to the other labours of