Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

be the beginning and the end of the novelist's work,--and novels have

been written which seem to be without other attractions,--nothing

can be more dull or more useless. But not on that account are we

averse to tragedy in prose fiction. As in poetry, so in prose, he

who can deal adequately with tragic elements is a greater artist

and reaches a higher aim than the writer whose efforts never carry

him above the mild walks of everyday life. The Bride of Lammermoor

is a tragedy throughout, in spite of its comic elements. The life

of Lady Castlewood, of whom I have spoken, is a tragedy. Rochester's

wretched thraldom to his mad wife, in Jane Eyre, is a tragedy.

But these stories charm us not simply because they are tragic, but

because we feel that men and women with flesh and blood, creatures

with whom we can sympathise, are struggling amidst their woes. It

all lies in that. No novel is anything, for the purposes either

of comedy or tragedy, unless the reader can sympathise with the

characters whose names he finds upon the pages. Let an author so

tell his tale as to touch his reader's heart and draw his tears,

and he has, so far, done his work well. Truth let there be,--truth

of description, truth of character, human truth as to men and

women. If there be such truth, I do not know that a novel can be

too sensational.

I did intend when I meditated that history of English fiction to

include within its pages some rules for the writing of novels;--or

I might perhaps say, with more modesty, to offer some advice on

the art to such tyros in it as might be willing to take advantage

of the experience of an old hand. But the matter would, I fear,

be too long for this episode, and I am not sure that I have as yet

got the rules quite settled in my own mind. I will, however, say

a few words on one or two points which my own practice has pointed

out to me.

I have from the first felt sure that the writer, when he sits down

to commence his novel, should do so, not because he has to tell

a story, but because he has a story to tell. The novelist's first

novel will generally have sprung from the right cause. Some series

of events, or some development of character, will have presented

itself to his imagination,--and this he feels so strongly that he

thinks he can present his picture in strong and agreeable language

to others. He sits down and tells his story because he has a story

to tell; as you, my friend, when you have heard something which

has at once tickled your fancy or moved your pathos, will hurry

to tell it to the first person you meet. But when that first novel

has been received graciously by the public and has made for itself

a success, then the writer naturally feeling that the writing of

novels is within his grasp, looks about for something to tell in

another. He cudgels his brains, not always successfully, and sits

down to write, not because he has something which he burns to

tell, but because be feels it to be incumbent on him to be telling

something. As you, my friend, if you are very successful in

the telling of that first story, will become ambitious of further

storytelling, and will look out for anecdotes,--in the narration

of which you will not improbably sometimes distress your audience.

So it has been with many novelists, who, after some good work,

perhaps after very much good work, have distressed their audience

because they have gone on with their work till their work has become

simply a trade with them. Need I make a list of such, seeing that

it would contain the names of those who have been greatest in the

art of British novel-writing? They have at last become weary of

that portion of a novelist's work which is of all the most essential

to success. That a man as he grows old should feel the labour of

writing to be a fatigue is natural enough. But a man to whom writing

has become a habit may write well though he be fatigued. But the

weary novelist refuses any longer to give his mind to that work of

observation and reception from which has come his power, without

which work his power cannot be continued,--which work should

be going on not only when he is at his desk, but in all his walks

abroad, in all his movements through the world, in all his intercourse

with his fellow-creatures. He has become a novelist, as another has

become a poet, because he has in those walks abroad, unconsciously

for the most part, been drawing in matter from all that he has seen

and heard. But this has not been done without labour, even when

the labour has been unconscious. Then there comes a time when he

shuts his eyes and shuts his ears. When we talk of memory fading

as age comes on, it is such shutting of eyes and ears that we mean.

The things around cease to interest us, and we cannot exercise

our minds upon them. To the novelist thus wearied there comes the

demand for further novels. He does not know his own defect, and

even if he did he does not wish to abandon his own profession. He

still writes; but he writes because he has to tell a story, not

because he has a story to tell. What reader of novels has not felt

the "woodenness" of this mode of telling? The characters do not

live and move, but are cut out of blocks and are propped against the

wall. The incidents are arranged in certain lines--the arrangement

being as palpable to the reader as it has been to the writer--but

do not follow each other as results naturally demanded by previous

action. The reader can never feel--as he ought to feel--that only

for that flame of the eye, only for that angry word, only for that

moment of weakness, all might have been different. The course of

the tale is one piece of stiff mechanism, in which there is no room

for a doubt.

These, it may be said, are reflections which I, being an old

novelist, might make useful to myself for discontinuing my work,

but can hardly be needed by those tyros of whom I have spoken. That

they are applicable to myself I readily admit, but I also find that

they apply to many beginners. Some of us who are old fail at last

because we are old. It would be well that each of us should say to

himself,

"Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne

Peccet ad extremum ridendus."

But many young fail also, because they endeavour to tell stories

when they have none to tell. And this comes from idleness rather

than from innate incapacity. The mind has not been sufficiently at

work when the tale has been commenced, nor is it kept sufficiently

at work as the tale is continued. I have never troubled myself much

about the construction of plots, and am not now insisting specially

on thoroughness in a branch of work in which I myself have not been

very thorough. I am not sure that the construction of a perfected

plot has been at any period within my power. But the novelist has

other aims than the elucidation of his plot. He desires to make

his readers so intimately acquainted with his characters that the

creatures of his brain should be to them speaking, moving, living,

human creatures. This he can never do unless he know those fictitious

personages himself, and he can never know them unless he can live

with them in the full reality of established intimacy. They must

be with him as he lies down to sleep, and as he wakes from his

dreams. He must learn to hate them and to love them. He must argue

with them, quarrel with them, forgive them, and even submit to them.

He must know of them whether they be cold-blooded or passionate,

whether true or false, and how far true, and how far false. The

depth and the breadth, and the narrowness and the shallowness of

each should be clear to him. And, as here, in our outer world, we

know that men and women change,--become worse or better as temptation

or conscience may guide them,--so should these creations of his

change, and every change should be noted by him. On the last day

of each month recorded, every person in his novel should be a month

older than on the first. If the would-be novelist have aptitudes

that way, all this will come to him without much struggling;--but

if it do not come, I think he can only make novels of wood.

It is so that I have lived with my characters, and thence has come

whatever success I have obtained. There is a gallery of them, and

of all in that gallery I may say that I know the tone of the voice,

and the colour of the hair, every flame of the eye, and the very

clothes they wear. Of each man I could assert whether he would have

said these or the other words; of every woman, whether she would

then have smiled or so have frowned. When I shall feel that this

intimacy ceases, then I shall know that the old horse should be

turned out to grass. That I shall feel it when I ought to feel it,

I will by no means say. I do not know that I am at all wiser than

Gil Blas' canon; but I do know that the power indicated is one without

which the teller of tales cannot tell them to any good effect.

The language in which the novelist is to put forth his story, the

colours with which he is to paint his picture, must of course be to

him matter of much consideration. Let him have all other possible

gifts,--imagination, observation, erudition, and industry,--they

will avail him nothing for his purpose, unless he can put forth

his work in pleasant words. If he be confused, tedious, harsh, or

unharmonious, readers will certainly reject him. The reading of

a volume of history or on science may represent itself as a duty;

and though the duty may by a bad style be made very disagreeable,

the conscientious reader will perhaps perform it. But the novelist

will be assisted by no such feeling. Any reader may reject his

work without the burden of a sin. It is the first necessity of his

position that he make himself pleasant. To do this, much more is

necessary than to write correctly. He may indeed be pleasant without

being correct,--as I think can be proved by the works of more than

one distinguished novelist. But he must be intelligible,--intelligible

without trouble; and he must be harmonious.

Any writer who has read even a little will know what is meant by

the word intelligible. It is not sufficient that there be a meaning

that may be hammered out of the sentence, but that the language

should be so pellucid that the meaning should be rendered without