Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

After a time Mr. Lewes retired from the editorship, feeling that

the work pressed too severely on his moderate strength. Our loss

in him was very great, and there was considerable difficulty in

finding a successor. I must say that the present proprietor has

been fortunate in the choice he did make. Mr. John Morley has done

the work with admirable patience, zeal, and capacity. Of course

he has got around him a set of contributors whose modes of thought

are what we may call much advanced; he being "much advanced" himself,

would not work with other aids. The periodical has a peculiar tone

of its own; but it holds its own with ability, and though there

are many who perhaps hate it, there are none who despise it. When

the company sold it, having spent about (pounds)9000 on it, it was worth

little or nothing. Now I believe it to be a good property.

My own last personal concern with it was on a matter, of fox-hunting.

[Footnote: I have written various articles for it since, especially

two on Cicero, to which I devoted great labour.] There came out in

it an article from the pen of Mr. Freeman the historian, condemning

the amusement, which I love, on the grounds of cruelty and general

brutality. Was it possible, asked Mr. Freeman, quoting from Cicero,

that any educated man should find delight in so coarse a pursuit?

Always bearing in mind my own connection with The Fortnightly, I

regarded this almost as a rising of a child against the father. I

felt at any rate bound to answer Mr. Freeman in the same columns,

and I obtained Mr. Morley's permission to do so. I wrote my defence

of fox-hunting, and there it is. In regard to the charge of cruelty,

Mr. Freeman seems to assert that nothing unpleasant should be

done to any of God's creatures except f or a useful purpose. The

protection of a lady's shoulders from the cold is a useful purpose;

and therefore a dozen fur-bearing animals may be snared in the

snow and left to starve to death in the wires, in order that the

lady may have the tippet,--though a tippet of wool would serve

the purpose as well as a tippet of fur. But the congregation and

healthful amusement of one or two hundred persons, on whose behalf

a single fox may or may not be killed, is not a useful purpose. I

think that Mr. Freeman has failed to perceive that amusement is as

needful and almost as necessary as food and raiment. The absurdity

of the further charge as to the general brutality of the pursuit,

and its consequent unfitness for an educated man, is to be attributed

to Mr. Freeman's ignorance of what is really done and said in the

hunting-field,--perhaps to his misunderstanding of Cicero's words.

There was a rejoinder to my answer, and I asked for space for

further remarks. I could have it, the editor said, if I much wished

it; but he preferred that the subject should be closed. Of course

I was silent. His sympathies were all with Mr. Freeman,--and

against the foxes, who, but for fox-hunting, would cease to exist

in England. And I felt that The Fortnighty was hardly the place for

the defence of the sport. Afterwards Mr. Freeman kindly suggested

to me that he would be glad to publish my article in a little book

to be put out by him condemnatory of fox-hunting generally. He was

to have the last word and the first word, and that power of picking

to pieces which he is known to use in so masterly a manner, without

any reply from me! This I was obliged to decline. If he would give

me the last word, as be would have the first, then, I told him, I

should be proud to join him in the book. This offer did not however

meet his views.

It had been decided by the Board of Management, somewhat in opposition

to my own ideas on the subject, that the Fortnightly Review should

always contain a novel. It was of course natural that I should write

the first novel, and I wrote The Belton Estate. It is similar in

its attributes to Rachel Ray and to Miss Mackenzie. It is readable,

and contains scenes which are true to life; but it has no peculiar

merits, and will add nothing to my reputation as a novelist. I have

not looked at it since it was published; and now turning back to

it in my memory, I seem to remember almost less of it than of any

book that I have written.

The Claverings, which came out in 1866 and 1867, was the last novel

which I wrote for the Cornhill; and it was for this that I received

the highest rate of pay that was ever accorded to me. It was the

same length as Framley Parsonage, and the price was (pounds)2800. Whether

much or little, it was offered by the proprietor of the magazine,

and was paid in a single cheque.

In The Claverings I did not follow the habit which had now become

very common to me, of introducing personages whose names are already

known to the readers of novels, and whose characters were familiar

to myself. If I remember rightly, no one appears here who had

appeared before or who has been allowed to appear since. I consider

the story as a whole to be good, though I am not aware that the

public has ever corroborated that verdict. The chief character

is that of a young woman who has married manifestly for money and

rank,--so manifestly that she does not herself pretend, even while

she is making the marriage, that she has any other reason. The

man is old, disreputable, and a wornout debauchee. Then comes the

punishment natural to the offence. When she is free, the man whom

she had loved, and who had loved her, is engaged to another woman.

He vacillates and is weak,--in which weakness is the fault of the

book, as he plays the part of hero. But she is strong--strong in

her purpose, strong in her desires, and strong in her consciousness

that the punishment which comes upon her has been deserved.

But the chief merit of The Clarverings is in the genuine fun of

some of the scenes. Humour has not been my forte, but I am inclined

to think that the characters of Captain Boodle, Archie Clavering,

and Sophie Gordeloup are humorous. Count Pateroff, the brother of

Sophie, is also good, and disposes of the young hero's interference

in a somewhat masterly manner. In The Claverings, too, there is a

wife whose husband is a brute to her, who loses an only child--his

heir--and who is rebuked by her lord because the boy dies. Her

sorrow is, I think, pathetic. From beginning to end the story is

well told. But I doubt now whether any one reads The Claverings.

When I remember how many novels I have written, I have no right

to expect that above a few of them shall endure even to the second

year beyond publication. This story closed my connection with the

Cornhill Magazine;--but not with its owner, Mr. George Smith, who

subsequently brought out a further novel of mine in a separate

form, and who about this time established the Pall Mall Gazette,

to which paper I was for some years a contributor.

It was in 1865 that the Pall Mall Gazette was commenced, the

name having been taken from a fictitious periodical, which was the

offspring of Thackeray's brain. It was set on foot by the unassisted

energy and resources of George Smith, who had succeeded by means

of his magazine and his publishing connection in getting around him

a society of literary men who sufficed, as far as literary ability

went, to float the paper at one under favourable auspices. His two