Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

reckon his own merits; and the keener will be the sense of injury

in that he whose work is of so high a nature cannot get bread,

while they whose tasks are mean are lapped in luxury. "I, with

my well-filled mind, with my clear intellect, with all my gifts,

cannot earn a poor crown a day, while that fool, who simpers in

a little room behind a shop, makes his thousands every year." The

very charity, to which he too often is driven, is bitterer to him

than to others. While he takes it he almost spurns the hand that

gives it to him, and every fibre of his heart within him is bleeding

with a sense of injury.

The career, when successful, is pleasant enough certainly; but when

unsuccessful, it is of all careers the most agonising.

It is nearly twenty years since I proposed to myself to write

a history of English prose fiction. I shall never do it now, but

the subject is so good a one that I recommend it heartily to some

man of letters, who shall at the same time be indefatigable and

light-handed. I acknowledge that I broke down in the task, because

I could not endure the labour in addition to the other labours of

my life. Though the book might be charming, the work was very much

the reverse. It came to have a terrible aspect to me, as did that

proposition that I should sit out all the May meetings of a season.

According to my plan of such a history it would be necessary

to read an infinity of novels, and not only to read them, but so

to read them as to point out the excellences of those which are

most excellent, and to explain the defects of those which, though

defective, had still reached sufficient reputation to make them

worthy of notice. I did read many after this fashion,--and here

and there I have the criticisms which I wrote. In regard to many,

they were written on some blank page within the book; I have not,

however, even a list of the books so criticised. I think that the

Arcadia was the first, and Ivanhoe the last. My plan, as I settled

it at last, had been to begin with Robinson Crusoe, which is the

earliest really popular novel which we have in our language, and

to continue the review so as to include the works of all English

novelists of reputation, except those who might still be living

when my task should be completed. But when Dickens and Bulwer died,

my spirit flagged, and that which I had already found to be very

difficult had become almost impossible to me at my then period of

life.

I began my own studies on the subject with works much earlier than

Robinson Crusoe, and made my way through a variety of novels which

were necessary for my purpose, but which in the reading gave me no

pleasure whatever. I never worked harder than at the Arcadia, or

read more detestable trash than the stories written by Mrs. Aphra

Behn; but these two were necessary to my purpose, which was not only

to give an estimate of the novels as I found them, but to describe

how it had come to pass that the English novels of the present

day have become what they are, to point out the effects which they

have produced, and to inquire whether their great popularity has on

the whole done good or evil to the people who read them. I still

think that the book is one well worthy to be written.

I intended to write that book to vindicate my own profession as

a novelist, and also to vindicate that public taste in literature

which has created and nourished the profession which I follow.

And I was stirred up to make such an attempt by a conviction that

there still exists among us Englishmen a prejudice in respect

to novels which might, perhaps, be lessened by such a work. This

prejudice is not against the reading of novels, as is proved by their

general acceptance among us. But it exists strongly in reference

to the appreciation in which they are professed to be held; and it

robs them of much of that high character which they may claim to

have earned by their grace, their honesty, and good teaching.

No man can work long at any trade without being brought to consider

much, whether that which he is daily doing tends to evil or to

good. I have written many novels, and have known many writers of

novels, and I can assert that such thoughts have been strong with

them and with myself. But in acknowledging that these writers have

received from the public a full measure of credit for such genius,

ingenuity, or perseverance as each may have displayed, I feel that

there is still wanting to them a just appreciation of the excellence

of their calling, and a general understanding of the high nature

of the work which they perform.

By the common consent of all mankind who have read, poetry takes

the highest place in literature. That nobility of expression, and

all but divine grace of words, which she is bound to attain before

she can make her footing good, is not compatible with prose. Indeed

it is that which turns prose into poetry. When that has been in

truth achieved, the reader knows that the writer has soared above

the earth, and can teach his lessons somewhat as a god might teach.

He who sits down to write his tale in prose makes no such attempt,

nor does he dream that the poet's honour is within his reach;--but

his teaching is of the same nature, and his lessons all tend to

the same end. By either, false sentiments may be fostered; false

notions of humanity may be engendered; false honour, false love,

false worship may be created; by either, vice instead of virtue

may be taught. But by each, equally, may true honour, true love;

true worship, and true humanity be inculcated; and that will be

the greatest teacher who will spread such truth the widest. But

at present, much as novels, as novels, are bought and read, there

exists still an idea, a feeling which is very prevalent, that novels

at their best are but innocent. Young men and women,--and old men

and women too,--read more of them than of poetry, because such reading

is easier than the reading of poetry; but they read them,--as men

eat pastry after dinner,--not without some inward conviction that

the taste is vain if not vicious. I take upon myself to say that

it is neither vicious nor vain.

But all writers of fiction who have desired to think well of their

own work, will probably have had doubts on their minds before they

have arrived at this conclusion. Thinking much of my own daily

labour and of its nature, I felt myself at first to be much afflicted

and then to be deeply grieved by the opinion expressed by wise and

thinking men as to the work done by novelists. But when, by degrees,

I dared to examine and sift the sayings of such men, I found them

to be sometimes silly and often arrogant. I began to inquire what

had been the nature of English novels since they first became common

in our own language, and to be desirous of ascertaining whether they

had done harm or good. I could well remember that, in my own young

days, they had not taken that undisputed possession of drawing-rooms

which they now hold. Fifty years ago, when George IV. was king, they

were not indeed treated as Lydia had been forced to treat them in

the preceding reign, when, on the approach of elders, Peregrine

Pickle was hidden beneath the bolster, and Lord Ainsworth put away

under the sofa. But the families in which an unrestricted permission