Anthony Trollope: Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

to myself, or others, honour which I do not believe to have been

fairly won. My boyhood was, I think, as unhappy as that of a young

gentleman could well be, my misfortunes arising from a mixture of

poverty and gentle standing on the part of my father, and from an

utter want on my part of the juvenile manhood which enables some

boys to hold up their heads even among the distresses which such

a position is sure to produce.

I was born in 1815, in Keppel Street, Russell Square; and while a

baby, was carried down to Harrow, where my father had built a house

on a large farm which, in an evil hour he took on a long lease from

Lord Northwick. That farm was the grave of all my father's hopes,

ambition, and prosperity, the cause of my mother's sufferings, and

of those of her children, and perhaps the director of her destiny

and of ours. My father had been a Wykamist and a fellow of New

College, and Winchester was the destination of my brothers and

myself; but as he had friends among the masters at Harrow, and as

the school offered an education almost gratuitous to children living

in the parish, he, with a certain aptitude to do things differently

from others, which accompanied him throughout his life, determined

to use that august seminary as "t'other school" for Winchester, and

sent three of us there, one after the other, at the age of seven.

My father at this time was a Chancery barrister practising in

London, occupying dingy, almost suicidal chambers, at No. 23 Old

Square, Lincoln's Inn,--chambers which on one melancholy occasion

did become absolutely suicidal. [Footnote: A pupil of his destroyed

himself in the rooms.] He was, as I have been informed by those

quite competent to know, an excellent and most conscientious lawyer,

but plagued with so bad a temper, that he drove the attorneys from

him. In his early days he was a man of some small fortune and of

higher hopes. These stood so high at the time of my birth, that

he was felt to be entitled to a country house, as well as to that

in Keppel Street; and in order that he might build such a residence,

he took the farm. This place he called Julians, and the land runs

up to the foot of the hill on which the school and the church

stand,--on the side towards London. Things there went much against

him; the farm was ruinous, and I remember that we all regarded the

Lord Northwick of those days as a cormorant who was eating us up.

My father's clients deserted him. He purchased various dark gloomy

chambers in and about Chancery Lane, and his purchases always went

wrong. Then, as a final crushing blow, and old uncle, whose heir he

was to have been, married and had a family! The house in London was

let; and also the house he built at Harrow, from which he descended

to a farmhouse on the land, which I have endeavoured to make known

to some readers under the name of Orley Farm. This place, just as it

was when we lived there, is to be seen in the frontispiece to the

first edition of that novel, having the good fortune to be delineated

by no less a pencil than that of John Millais.

My two elder brothers had been sent as day-boarders to Harrow

School from the bigger house, and may probably have been received

among the aristocratic crowd,--not on equal terms, because a

day-boarder at Harrow in those days was never so received,--but at

any rate as other day-boarders. I do not suppose that they were well

treated, but I doubt whether they were subjected to the ignominy

which I endured. I was only seven, and I think that boys at seven

are now spared among their more considerate seniors. I was never

spared; and was not even allowed to run to and fro between our house

and the school without a daily purgatory. No doubt my appearance

was against me. I remember well, when I was still the junior boy

in the school, Dr. Butler, the head-master, stopping me in the

street, and asking me, with all the clouds of Jove upon his brow

and the thunder in his voice, whether it was possible that Harrow

School was disgraced by so disreputably dirty a boy as I! Oh, what

I felt at that moment! But I could not look my feelings. I do not

doubt that I was dirty;--but I think that he was cruel. He must

have known me had he seen me as he was wont to see me, for he was

in the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps he did not recognise

me by my face.

At this time I was three years at Harrow; and, as far as I can

remember, I was the junior boy in the school when I left it.

Then I was sent to a private school at Sunbury, kept by Arthur

Drury. This, I think, must have been done in accordance with the

advice of Henry Drury, who was my tutor at Harrow School, and my

father's friend, and who may probably have expressed an opinion that

my juvenile career was not proceeding in a satisfactory manner at

Harrow. To Sunbury I went, and during the two years I was there,

though I never had any pocket-money, and seldom had much in the

way of clothes, I lived more nearly on terms of equality with other

boys than at any other period during my very prolonged school-days.

Even here, I was always in disgrace. I remember well how, on one

occasion, four boys were selected as having been the perpetrators

of some nameless horror. What it was, to this day I cannot even

guess; but I was one of the four, innocent as a babe, but adjudged

to have been the guiltiest of the guilty. We each had to write out

a sermon, and my sermon was the longest of the four. During the

whole of one term-time we were helped last at every meal. We were

not allowed to visit the playground till the sermon was finished.

Mine was only done a day or two before the holidays. Mrs. Drury,

when she saw us, shook her head with pitying horror. There were

ever so many other punishments accumulated on our heads. It broke

my heart, knowing myself to be innocent, and suffering also under

the almost equally painful feeling that the other three--no doubt

wicked boys--were the curled darlings of the school, who would never

have selected me to share their wickedness with them. I contrived

to learn, from words that fell from Mr. Drury, that he condemned

me because I, having come from a public school, might be supposed

to be the leader of wickedness! On the first day of the next term

he whispered to me half a word that perhaps he had been wrong.

With all a stupid boy's slowness, I said nothing; and he had not

the courage to carry reparation further. All that was fifty years

ago, and it burns me now as though it were yesterday. What lily-livered

curs those boys must have been not to have told the truth!--at any

rate as far as I was concerned. I remember their names well, and

almost wish to write them here.

When I was twelve there came the vacancy at Winchester College which

I was destined to fill. My two elder brothers had gone there, and

the younger had been taken away, being already supposed to have lost

his chance of New College. It had been one of the great ambitions

of my father's life that his three sons, who lived to go to Winchester,

should all become fellows of New College. But that suffering man

was never destined to have an ambition gratified. We all lost the

prize which he struggled with infinite labour to put within our

reach. My eldest brother all but achieved it, and afterwards went

to Oxford, taking three exhibitions from the school, though he

lost the great glory of a Wykamist. He has since made himself well