Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

but as a rational and consistent phase of political existence.

I can, I believe, in a very few words, make known my political

theory; and, as I am anxious that any who know aught of me should

know that, I will endeavour to do so.

It must, I think, be painful to all men to feel inferiority. It should,

I think, be a matter of some pain to all men to feel superiority,

unless when it has been won by their own efforts. We do not

understand the operations of Almighty wisdom, and are, therefore,

unable to tell the causes of the terrible inequalities that

we see--why some, why so many, should have so little to make life

enjoyable, so much to make it painful, while a few others, not

through their own merit, have had gifts poured out to them from

a full hand. We acknowledge the hand of God and His wisdom, but

still we are struck with awe and horror at the misery of many of

our brethren. We who have been born to the superior condition,--for,

in this matter, I consider myself to be standing on a platform with

dukes and princes, and all others to whom plenty and education and

liberty have been given,--cannot, I think, look upon the inane,

unintellectual, and tossed-bound life of those who cannot even

feed themselves sufficiently by their sweat, without some feeling

of injustice, some feeling of pain.

This consciousness of wrong has induced in many enthusiastic but

unbalanced minds a desire to set all things right by a proclaimed

equality. In their efforts such men have shown how powerless they

are in opposing the ordinances of the Creator. For the mind of the

thinker and the student is driven to admit, though it be awestruck

by apparent injustice, that this inequality is the work of God.

Make all men equal to-day, and God has so created them that they

shall be all unequal to-morrow. The so-called Conservative, the

conscientious, philanthropic Conservative, seeing this, and being

surely convinced that such inequalities are of divine origin, tells

himself that it is his duty to preserve them. He thinks that the

preservation of the welfare of the world depends on the maintenance

of those distances between the prince and the peasant by which he

finds himself to be surrounded; and, perhaps, I may add, that the

duty is not unpleasant, as he feels himself to be one of the princes.

But this man, though he sees something, and sees that very clearly,

sees only a little. The divine inequality is apparent to him, but

not the equally divine diminution of that inequality. That such

diminution is taking place on all sides is apparent enough; but it

is apparent to him as an evil, the consummation of which it is his

duty to retard. He cannot prevent it; and, therefore, the society

to which he belongs is, in his eyes, retrograding. He will even,

at times, assist it; and will do so conscientiously, feeling that,

under the gentle pressure supplied by him, and with the drags and

holdfasts which he may add, the movement would be slower than it

would become if subjected to his proclaimed and absolute opponents.

Such, I think, are Conservatives; and I speak of men who, with the

fear of God before their eyes and the love of their neighbours warm

in their hearts, endeavour to do their duty to the best of their

ability.

Using the term which is now common, and which will be best understood,

I will endeavour to explain how the equally conscientious Liberal

is opposed to the Conservative. He is equally aware that these

distances are of divine origin, equally averse to any sudden

disruption of society in quest of some Utopian blessedness; but he

is alive to the fact that these distances are day by day becoming

less, and he regards this continual diminution as a series of

steps towards that human millennium of which he dreams. He is even

willing to help the many to ascend the ladder a little, though he

knows, as they come up towards him, he must go down to meet them.

What is really in his mind is,--I will not say equality, for the

word is offensive, and presents to the imagination of men ideas of

communism, of ruin, and insane democracy,--but a tendency towards

equality. In following that, however, he knows that he must be

hemmed in by safeguards, lest he be tempted to travel too quickly;

and, therefore, he is glad to be accompanied on his way by the

repressive action of a Conservative opponent. Holding such views,

I think I am guilty of no absurdity in calling myself an advanced

Conservative-Liberal. A man who entertains in his mind any

political doctrine, except as a means of improving the condition

of his fellows, I regard as a political intriguer, a charlatan,

and a conjurer--as one who thinks that, by a certain amount of wary

wire-pulling, he may raise himself in the estimation of the world.

I am aware that this theory of politics will seem to many to be stilted,

overstrained, and, as the Americans would say, high-faluten. Many

will declare that the majority even of those who call themselves

politicians,--perhaps even of those who take an active

part in politics,--are stirred by no such feelings as these, and

acknowledge no such motives. Men become Tories or Whigs, Liberals

or Conservatives, partly by education,--following their fathers,--partly

by chance, partly as openings come, partly in accordance with the

bent of their minds, but still without any far-fetched reasonings

as to distances and the diminution of distances. No doubt it is

so; and in the battle of politics, as it goes, men are led further

and further away from first causes, till at last a measure is opposed

by one simply because it is advocated by another, and Members of

Parliament swarm into lobbies, following the dictation of their

leaders, and not their own individual judgments. But the principle

is at work throughout. To many, though hardly acknowledged, it is

still apparent. On almost all it has its effect; though there are

the intriguers, the clever conjurers, to whom politics is simply

such a game as is billiards or rackets, only played with greater

results. To the minds that create and lead and sway political

opinion, some such theory is, I think, ever present.

The truth of all this I had long since taken home to myself. I had

now been thinking of it for thirty years, and had never doubted.

But I had always been aware of a certain visionary weakness about

myself in regard to politics. A man, to be useful in Parliament,

must be able to confine himself and conform himself, to be satisfied

with doing a little bit of a little thing at a time. He must

patiently get up everything connected with the duty on mushrooms,

and then be satisfied with himself when at last he has induced

a Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that he will consider the

impost at the first opportunity. He must be content to be beaten

six times in order that, on a seventh, his work may be found to

be of assistance to some one else. He must remember that he is one

out of 650, and be content with 1-650th part of the attention of

the nation. If he have grand ideas, he must keep them to himself,

unless by chance, he can work his way up to the top of the tree.

In short, he must be a practical man. Now I knew that in politics

I could never become a practical man. I should never be satisfied

with a soft word from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but would

always be flinging my overtaxed ketchup in his face.

Nor did it seem to me to be possible that I should ever become a

good speaker. I had no special gifts that way, and had not studied

the art early enough in life to overcome natural difficulties. I

had found that, with infinite labour, I could learn a few sentences

by heart, and deliver them, monotonously indeed, but clearly. Or,

again, if there were something special to be said, I could say it

in a commonplace fashion--but always as though I were in a hurry,

and with the fear before me of being thought to be prolix. But I

had no power of combining, as a public speaker should always do,

that which I had studied with that which occurred to me at the

moment. It must be all lesson,--which I found to be best; or else

all impromptu,--which was very bad, indeed, unless I had something

special on my mind. I was thus aware that I could do no good by

going into Parliament--that the time for it, if there could have

been a time, had gone by. But still I had an almost insane desire

to sit there, and be able to assure myself that my uncle's scorn

had not been deserved.

In 1867 it had been suggested to me that, in the event of a dissolution,

I should stand for one division of the County of Essex; and I had

promised that I would do so, though the promise at that time was

as rash a one as a man could make. I was instigated to this by the

late Charles Buxton, a man whom I greatly loved, and who was very

anxious that the county for which his brother had sat, and with

which the family were connected, should be relieved from what he

regarded as the thraldom of Toryism. But there was no dissolution

then. Mr. Disraeli passed his Reform Bill, by the help of the

Liberal member for Newark, and the summoning of a new Parliament

was postponed till the next year. By this new Reform Bill Essex

was portioned out into three instead of two electoral divisions,

one of which,--that adjacent to London,--would, it was thought,

be altogether Liberal. After the promise which I had given,

the performance of which would have cost me a large sum of money

absolutely in vain, it was felt by some that I should be selected

as one of the candidates for the new division--and as such I was

proposed by Mr. Charles Buxton. But another gentleman, who would

have been bound by previous pledges to support me, was put forward

by what I believe to have been the defeating interest, and I had

to give way. At the election this gentleman, with another Liberal,

who had often stood for the county, was returned without a contest.

Alas! alas! They were both unseated at the next election, when the

great Conservative reaction took place.

In the spring of 1868 I was sent to the United States on a postal

mission, of which I will speak presently. While I was absent the

dissolution took place. On my return I was somewhat too late to

look out for a seat, but I had friends who knew the weakness of my

ambition; and it was not likely, therefore, that I should escape