Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

any novel in any language.

I now felt that I had gained my object. In 1862 I had achieved that

which I contemplated when I went to London in 1834, and towards which

I made my first attempt when I began the Macdermots in 1843. I had

created for myself a position among literary men, and had secured

to myself an income on which I might live in ease and comfort,--which

ease and comfort have been made to include many luxuries. From this

time for a period of twelve years my income averaged (pounds)4500 a year.

Of this I spent about two-thirds, and put by one. I ought perhaps

to have done better,--to have spent one-third, and put by two; but

I have ever been too well inclined to spend freely that which has

come easily.

This, however, has been so exactly the life which my thoughts and

aspirations had marked out,--thoughts and aspirations which used

to cause me to blush with shame because I was so slow in forcing

myself to the work which they demanded,--that I have felt some pride

in having attained it. I have before said how entirely I fail to

reach the altitude of those who think that a man devoted to letters

should be indifferent to the pecuniary results for which work is

generally done. An easy income has always been regarded by me as

a great blessing. Not to have to think of sixpences, or very much

of shillings; not to be unhappy because the coals have been burned

too quickly, and the house linen wants renewing; not to be debarred

by the rigour of necessity from opening one's hands, perhaps

foolishly, to one's friends;--all this to me has been essential to

the comfort of life. I have enjoyed the comfort for I may almost

say the last twenty years, though no man in his youth had less

prospect of doing so, or would have been less likely at twenty-five

to have had such luxuries foretold to him by his friends.

But though the money has been sweet, the respect, the friendships, and

the mode of life which has been achieved, have been much sweeter.

In my boyhood, when I would be crawling up to school with dirty

boots and trousers through the muddy lanes, I was always telling

myself that the misery of the hour was not the worst of it, but

that the mud and solitude and poverty of the time would insure me

mud and solitude and poverty through my life. Those lads about me

would go into Parliament, or become rectors and deans, or squires

of parishes, or advocates thundering at the Bar. They would not

live with me now,--but neither should I be able to live with them

in after years. Nevertheless I have lived with them. When, at the

age in which others go to the universities, I became a clerk in

the Post Office, I felt that my old visions were being realised. I

did not think it a high calling. I did not know then how very much

good work may be done by a member of the Civil Service who will show

himself capable of doing it. The Post Office at last grew upon me

and forced itself into my affections. I became intensely anxious

that people should have their letters delivered to them punctually.

But my hope to rise had always been built on the writing of novels,

and at last by the writing of novels I had risen.

I do not think that I ever toadied any one, or that I have acquired

the character of a tuft-hunter. But here I do not scruple to say

that I prefer the society of distinguished people, and that even the

distinction of wealth confers many advantages. The best education

is to be had at a price as well as the best broadcloth. The son

of a peer is more likely to rub his shoulders against well-informed

men than the son of a tradesman. The graces come easier to the

wife of him who has had great-grandfathers than they do to her

whose husband has been less,--or more fortunate, as he may think

it. The discerning man will recognise the information and the graces

when they are achieved without such assistance, and will honour

the owners of them the more because of the difficulties they have

overcome;--but the fact remains that the society of the well-born

and of the wealthy will as a rule be worth seeking. I say this

now, because these are the rules by which I have lived, and these

are the causes which have instigated me to work.

I have heard the question argued--On what terms should a man of

inferior rank live with those who are manifestly superior to him?

If a marquis or an earl honour me, who have no rank, with his

intimacy, am I in my intercourse with him to remember our close

acquaintance or his high rank? I have always said that where the

difference in position is quite marked, the overtures to intimacy

should always come from the higher rank; but if the intimacy be

ever fixed, then that rank should be held of no account. It seems

to me that intimate friendship admits of no standing but that

of equality. I cannot be the Sovereign's friend, nor probably the

friend of many very much beneath the Sovereign, because such equality

is impossible.

When I first came to Waltham Cross in the winter of 1859-1860, I had

almost made up my mind that my hunting was over. I could not then

count upon an income which would enable me to carry on an amusement

which I should doubtless find much more expensive in England than

in Ireland. I brought with me out of Ireland one mare, but she was

too light for me to ride in the hunting-field. As, however, the

money came in, I very quickly fell back into my old habits. First

one horse was bought, then another, and then a third, till it became

established as a fixed rule that I should not have less than four

hunters in the stable. Sometimes when my boys have been at home

I have had as many as six. Essex was the chief scene of my sport,

and gradually I became known there almost as well as though I had

been an Essex squire, to the manner born. Few have investigated more

closely than I have done the depth, and breadth, and water-holding

capacities of an Essex ditch. It will, I think, be accorded to me

by Essex men generally that I have ridden hard. The cause of my

delight in the amusement I have never been able to analyse to my

own satisfaction. In the first place, even now, I know very little

about hunting,--though I know very much of the accessories of the

field. I am too blind to see hounds turning, and cannot therefore

tell whether the fox has gone this way or that. Indeed all the

notice I take of hounds is not to ride over them. My eyes are so

constituted that I can never see the nature of a fence. I either

follow some one, or ride at it with the full conviction that I

may be going into a horse-pond or a gravel-pit. I have jumped into

both one and the other. I am very heavy, and have never ridden

expensive horses. I am also now old for such work, being so stiff

that I cannot get on to my horse without the aid of a block or a

bank. But I ride still after the same fashion, with a boy's energy,

determined to get ahead if it may possibly be done, hating the

roads, despising young men who ride them, and with a feeling that

life can not, with all her riches, have given me anything better

than when I have gone through a long run to the finish, keeping a

place, not of glory, but of credit, among my juniors.

During the early months of 1862 Orley Farm was still being brought