Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

for Sir Charles Trevelyan,--as any one at the time would know who

had taken an interest in the Civil Service. "We always call him

Sir Gregory," Lady Trevelyan said to me afterwards, when I came

to know her and her husband. I never learned to love competitive

examination; but I became, and am, very fond of Sir Charles Trevelyan.

Sir Stafford Northcote, who is now Chancellor of the Exchequer,

was then leagued with his friend Sir Charles, and he too appears

in The Three Clerks under the feebly facetious name of Sir Warwick

West End.

But for all that The Three Clerks was a good novel.

When that sale was made I was on my way to Italy with my wife,

paying a third visit there to my mother and brother. This was in

1857, and she had then given up her pen. It was the first year in

which she had not written, and she expressed to me her delight that

her labours should be at an end, and that mine should be beginning

in the same field. In truth they had already been continued for

a dozen years, but a man's career will generally be held to date

itself from the commencement of his success. On those foreign

tours I always encountered adventures, which, as I look back upon

them now, tempt me almost to write a little book of my long past

Continental travels. On this occasion, as we made our way slowly

through Switzerland and over the Alps, we encountered again and

again a poor forlorn Englishman, who had no friend and no aptitude

for travelling. He was always losing his way, and finding himself

with no seat in the coaches and no bed at the inns. On one occasion

I found him at Coire seated at 5 A. M. in the coupe of a diligence

which was intended to start at noon for the Engadine, while it was

his purpose to go over the Alps in another which was to leave at

5.30, and which was already crowded with passengers. "Ah!" he said,

"I am in time now, and nobody shall turn me out of this seat,"

alluding to former little misfortunes of which I had been a witness.

When I explained to him his position, he was as one to whom life

was too bitter to be borne. But he made his way into Italy, and

encountered me again at the Pitti Palace in Florence. "Can you

tell me something?" he said to me in a whisper, having touched my

shoulder. "The people are so ill-natured I don't like to ask them.

Where is it they keep the Medical Venus?" I sent him to the Uffizzi,

but I fear he was disappointed.

We ourselves, however, on entering Milan had been in quite as much

distress as any that he suffered. We had not written for beds,

and on driving up to a hotel at ten in the evening found it full.

Thence we went from one hotel to another, finding them all full.

The misery is one well known to travellers, but I never heard of

another case in which a man and his wife were told at midnight to

get out of the conveyance into the middle of the street because the

horse could not be made to go any further. Such was our condition.

I induced the driver, however, to go again to the hotel which was

nearest to him, and which was kept by a German. Then I bribed the

porter to get the master to come down to me; and, though my French

is ordinarily very defective, I spoke with such eloquence to

that German innkeeper that he, throwing his arms round my neck in

a transport of compassion, swore that he would never leave me nor

my wife till he had put us to bed. And he did so; but, ah! there

were so many in those beds! It is such an experience as this which

teaches a travelling foreigner how different on the Continent is

the accommodation provided for him, from that which is supplied

for the inhabitants of the country.

It was on a previous visit to Milan, when the telegraph-wires were

only just opened to the public by the Austrian authorities, that

we had decided one day at dinner that we would go to Verona that

night. There was a train at six, reaching Verona at midnight, and

we asked some servant of the hotel to telegraph for us, ordering

supper and beds. The demand seemed to create some surprise; but

we persisted, and were only mildly grieved when we found ourselves

charged twenty zwanzigers for the message. Telegraphy was new at

Milan, and the prices were intended to be almost prohibitory. We

paid our twenty zwanzigers and went on, consoling ourselves with the

thought of our ready supper and our assured beds. When we reached

Verona, there arose a great cry along the platform for Signor

Trollope. I put out my head and declared my identity, when I

was waited upon by a glorious personage dressed like a beau for a

ball, with half-a-dozen others almost as glorious behind him, who

informed me, with his hat in his hand, that he was the landlord of

the "Due Torre." It was a heating moment, but it became more hot

when he asked after my people,--"mes gens." I could only turn round,

and point to my wife and brother-in-law. I had no other "people."

There were three carriages provided for us, each with a pair of

grey horses. When we reached the house it was all lit up. We were

not allowed to move without an attendant with a lighted candle. It

was only gradually that the mistake came to be understood. On us

there was still the horror of the bill, the extent of which could

not be known till the hour of departure had come. The landlord,

however, had acknowledged to himself that his inductions had been

ill-founded, and he treated us with clemency. He had never before

received a telegram.

I apologise for these tales, which are certainly outside my purpose,

and will endeavour to tell no more that shall not have a closer

relation to my story. I had finished The Three Clerks just before

I left England, and when in Florence was cudgelling my brain for

a new plot. Being then with my brother, I asked him to sketch me a

plot, and he drew out that of my next novel, called Doctor Thorne.

I mention this particularly, because it was the only occasion in

which I have had recourse to some other source than my own brains

for the thread of a story. How far I may unconsciously have adopted

incidents from what I have read,--either from history or from works

of imagination,--I do not know. It is beyond question that a man

employed as I have been must do so. But when doing it I have not

been aware that I have done it. I have never taken another man's

work, and deliberately framed my work upon it. I am far from

censuring this practice in others. Our greatest masters in works

of imagination have obtained such aid for themselves. Shakespeare

dug out of such quarries whenever he could find them. Ben Jonson,

with heavier hand, built up his structures on his studies of

the classics, not thinking it beneath him to give, without direct

acknowledgment, whole pieces translated both from poets and

historians. But in those days no such acknowledgment was usual.

Plagiary existed, and was very common, but was not known as a sin.

It is different now; and I think that an author, when he uses either

the words or the plot of another, should own as much, demanding to

be credited with no more of the work than he has himself produced.

I may say also that I have never printed as my own a word that has

been written by others. [Footnote: I must make one exception to

this declaration. The legal opinion as to heirlooms in The Eustace

Diamonds was written for me by Charles Merewether, the present

Member for Northampton. I am told that it has become the ruling