by Hugh Walpole
In a collection so thronged with vibrant chords all resonant of the ages-old themes of love and life and death, it is not possible in this limited space to convey to the reader the subtlety of Mr. Cabell’s art. He has sensed the power of the minnesingers as if to the period born, as, perhaps, he was in some previous incarnation. Possibly, Passerat or Moreau, or even Alessandro de Medici, was his former habitat. At any rate, they live again in him, which is more to the point. Whether it is Villon musing in prison, with the rope awaiting him at dawn for his sins, or the Dark Venus is invoked, or Ronsard returns with one of his half-forgotten rhymes, the touch is sure, the craft is ever present — SAMUEL TRAVERS CLOVER, in the Richmond Journal.
THE RIVET IN GRANDFATHER’S NECK
(A Comedy of Limitations)
If you see on the bookstands a volume entitled The Rivet in Grandfather’s Neck, buy it and read it; for it’s good stuff. James Branch Cabell wrote it It is done in ironic “highfalutinese” and the impassioned “Southron” will writhe as he reads, even though he laugh at the same time, for here the chivalries aristocratic superstition of the South is ridiculed with a gay contempt, the worse for its being shot through with tenderness for the victims of the tradition.
How utterly unrelated to and unfit for this workaday world the old cult of “blood” has become, was never so grindingly yet so gracefully shown as in the middle-aged hero of this tale who marries the daughter of a rich contractor and practically loses her because he does nothing for her but vaporize sentimentally while living on her money, and remains unconsciously, ridiculously selfish in his idealism. The “blood” tradition is the rivet in the toy grandfather’s neck that prevents his resilience.
The girl in the story isn’t quite loveable, but she’s human in the same way as her husband, and between them they make a sad boggle of life. There’s another murderously dextrous portraiture in the book — that of the autolatrous successful novelist who thinks his genius demands disregard of moral inhibitions; a viler Sentimental Tommy.
James Branch Cabell in this book has done something Cervantesque — there’s no other word for it — in smiling a false chivalry away. And it’s deadlier for that the writer does it with mockery of the courtier grace of which his victims have ever been enamored in life and in literature, and with the hurtfullest thing of all in a wound-inflicter — pity. A romanticist exposing romanticism’s hollowness and sham; such is Mr. James Branch Cabell in this cavalier comedy of acid satire. — WILLIAM MARION REEDY, in Reedy’s Mirror.
Speaking of names of novels, how about The Rivet in Grandfather’s Neck? This is the title of James Branch Cabell’s gallant yet biting comedy of satirical realism, in which, under the guise of telling the story of a marriage contracted back in the 90’s between a middle-aged Southern aristocrat and the spoiled daughter of a rich contractor, he strips the “old South after the war” of its last rag of chivalrous tradition and exposes it, a likable but ludicrous figure, to the cold light of literalness.
The thing is done not only with amazing cleverness, but with fine feeling. For to unmask so hallowed and huge a hypocrisy with such absolute ruthlessness, yet to avoid in the doing even the appearance of malice, is a triumph of the spirit as well as of technique. — J. B. KERFOOT, in Life.
Certainly The Rivet in Grandfather’s Neck is a most unusual book; and one that does not yield up its significance upon a single reading. That Mr. Cabell has elected to show love as a flame only, and never as a star is to be regretted, but he has written a brilliant and powerful novel, and he has written it with a sure touch, a keen insight, and a wealth of suggestion, — N. Y. Times.
THE EAGLE’S SHADOW
(A Comedy of Purse-Strings)
It is quite true that Margaret Hugonin descended into slang — after having duly received permission — and told one of her suitors to “cut it out.” She went farther, she called another suitor “a tipsy old beast.” More dreadful yet, she swore, yes, swore both loud and deep. Swore with a d — , a very big d — ; she said, “Damn you! damn you! God in heaven damn you!”
A fine fierce mouthful of an oath, for a beauty, a belle, of the chivalrous South! Yes, already I can hear the sniffs. Up rises the noble army of the poor in humor, the rich in pomp and prejudice, the barnacled with conventions, and announces that Margaret is no lady. This is no prophecy I am going in for; it is an accomplished fact.
Purposely have I waited, so that the chorus of the shocked might rise the mightier, that the uplifted hands and eyebrows might swell the more in volume, and that, in fine, there might go up a more and more astounding revelation of the sadly humorous side there is to this supposedly so laughter-loving people of ours. I have heard more about “true womanliness,” about what “women of breeding” do and do not do, and what is considered fit for “decent society” than would fill a volume on moral philosophy. And all because Margaret swore!...
A pest upon these conscientious objectors! They lead one into almost taking them seriously, and that were to commit their own folly. The key to their folly is always to take seriously what was never meant so.
Margaret is not to be taken seriously. She is far too delightful. In that delicious comedy is she not the most delicious figure? It is a long time since we have had so lovable a heroine as Margaret. She is compound, by her author, so deftly of all the fascinations and the futilities that go to the making of the real feminine. To her author, James Branch Cabell, one feels a debt of real gratitude. He has given us a real girl.
And how the serious Sunday school folks succeeded in finding this charming young creature of flesh and blood “no lady” — well, other flesh-and-blood people must give up the dream of trying to guess that riddle.
.. The objector, and the schoolmaster, and the referee as to what is “ladylike” and what is not, are still abroad in the land, and we must all of us, even be we so clever and merry as Mr. James Branch Cabell, grin our best, and buck up, and bear it.
Clever and merry: yes, the man who wrote The Eagle’s Shadow is that, and much more. He tells us quite frankly that he means only a comedy, but there is fine irony in his comics, and there is true real understanding of human nature. His picture of the house-party in the South, with a young heiress surrounded by a blood-sucking company of persons all after her money — philanthropists, lecturers, poets — is quite delightful fooling....
To detail the story of The Eagle’s Shadow would be unfair to all concerned. Hardly possible, moreover, since it were but re-sketching what is already the most delicate, airiest of pencilings. But one cannot sufficiently emphasize the charm of Margaret, or warmly enough welcome her amid the ranks of those made to be loved and remembered, or too heartily congratulate her author upon having told her story.
Margaret swore? She certainly did. Read the story and if after that you do not say “Well, what of it?” you are fit for treasons, stratagems and letters to the newspapers. — PERCIVAL POLLARD, in the St. Louis Mirror.
THE CREAM OF THE JEST
(A Comedy of Evasions)
I say with profound conviction that you will obtain such joy out of The Cream of the Jest as you have obtained out of the writings of no modern author unless it be Anatole France or James Stephens. It is, without question, the one book of the period in English most certain to enjoy permanent favor with those to whom delicate whimsey, irony, an intelligent point of view, nuance and subtleties of expression are the highest desiderata in an author.
While the book makes some jesting pretence to the novel form, it is not a novel at all. Ostensibly Mr. Cabell tells the story of a novelist who finds life such a drab and aimless business that he takes refuge from it and in fancy ranges the empyrean. Actually, it is a series of essays containing the impressions of a sensitive, kindly and disillusioned artist, ever intrigued by the eternal human tragi-comedy.
Mr. Cabell’s literary creed is “to write perfectly of beautiful happenings.” Says he, “I quite fail to see why, in books or elsewhere, any one should wish to be reminded of what hu
man life is actually like. For living is the one art in which mankind has never attained distinction.” Yet with this profession of romanticism, he writes with finer reality than did Zola or does Dreiser with all their realism. He is selective rather than photographic. He omits the obvious details of factual reporting to treat realistically of human motives.
The productions of the modern realists, says he, have this in common with the best-sellers of the fiction counter: they make no demand upon the reader’s imagination, and they assume that the reader possesses no particular information on any subject whatever. When, as a matter of fact, the average man is woefully aware of the handicaps under which he lives, has, at least secretly, a fair knowledge of his own shortcomings, and is decently conscious that all is not entirely right with the world.
Furthermore, the average man like myself has some faint yearning for an apperception and realization of beauty. He is, moreover, able to laugh at his own foibles as well as at the foibles of others if they are not too arrogantly pointed out. And to anyone who can suggest a way that he may forget his petty troubles, short of alcohol and opiates, he is extremely grateful.
This Mr. Cabell does. He is a satirist whose chief object for satirical thrusts is himself, the only satirist who really counts. He escapes every illusion that he may the more easily embrace them all, kindly, knowingly, resignedly. A chuckle now and then is the supreme anodyne, especially if it is over one’s own stupidity, littleness, and distressing humanness. The apostle of revolt is the most thoroughly chained of slaves, a prisoner indeed of his dreams: a moujik become a Bolshevik, abandoning a complacent poverty to be a penniless rattle-brain. But, essentially, dreams count The idea is not to take them too seriously.
All these are platitudes, of course, but they are cullings from what I take to be the point of view of a man who ambi-diverts upon that point of view in the most exquisite language. Even Mr. Cabell’s dialogue is not the average speech of average persons, but it has the advantage of being the speech he would infinitely prefer them to use. But if you suppose from what I have said Mr. Cabell’s characters are, like Mr. Shaw’s, mere mouth-pieces for the author’s views you could not well be more mistaken.
There is some seductive method, which minute analysis might yet explain, by which Mr. Cabell gives you a definite, four-dimensional portrait of his characters. I suspect it is because he, better than most men who write books, understands people and himself. — BURTON RASCOE, in the Chicago Tribune.
THE TOY-MAKER
From the dawn of the day to the dusk he toiled,
Shaping fanciful playthings with tireless hands, —
Useless trumpery toys; and, with vaulting heart,
Gave them unto all peoples — who mocked at him,
Trampled on them, and soiled them, and went their way.
Then he toiled from the morn to the dusk again,
Gave his gimcracks to people who mocked at him,
Trampled on them, deriding, and went their way.
Thus he labors, and loudly they jeer at him; —
That is, when they remember he still exists.
Who, you ask, is this fellow? — What matter names?
He is only a scribbler who is content.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
CHAPTER I. BIOGRAPHICAL
CHAPTER II. THE FIRST THREE NOVELS
CHAPTER III. BARSETSHIRE
CHAPTER IV. MIDDLE YEARS — THE POLITICAL NOVELS
CHAPTER V. LANDSCAPE AND FIGURES
CHAPTER VI. THE LATER YEARS AND THE LATER BOOKS
CHAPTER VII. THE ARTIST
Trollope, c. 1879
TO
SIR FREDERICK MACMILLAN, C.V.O.
MY FRIEND
AND
PUBLISHER
FOREWORD
ANY student of the life and works of Anthony Trollope must depend very largely on two books, Trollope’s own Autobiography and Trollope, A Commentary, by Michael Sadleir.
My debt to these two books, as any reader of this study will perceive, is immense, and must of necessity be so. I have also found much valuable information in Mr. Escott’s Life of Anthony Trollope, and I am deeply indebted to essays and studies by Leslie Stephen, Henry James, Frederic Harrison, and George Saintsbury.
I wish also to render thanks to Mr. Michael Sadleir and Major A. D. Chanter for their kindness in reading my proofs.
CHAPTER I. BIOGRAPHICAL
IN writing these pages which, for want of a better name, I shall be fain to call the autobiography of so insignificant a person as myself, it will not be so much my intention to speak of the little details of my private life, as of what I, and perhaps others round me, have done in literature, of my failures and successes such as they have been and their causes; and of the opening which a literary career offers to men and women for the earning of their bread.
And yet the garrulity of old age, and the aptitude of a man’s mind to recur to the passages of his own life, will, I know, tempt me to say something of myself; nor, without doing so, should I know how to throw my matter into any recognised and intelligible form. That I, or any man, should tell everything of himself, I hold to be impossible. Who could endure to own the doing of a mean thing? Who is there that has done none? But this I protest: that nothing that I say shall be untrue. I will set down naught in malice, nor will I give to myself or others honour which I do not believe to have been fairly won!
These are the opening words of one of the most honest, sincere, and noble-minded books in the English language, the Autobiography of Anthony Trollope.
It is quite impossible, I think, that any study of Trollope should be written and the Autobiography not be the corner-stone of the building. In any case 3E — I B the present study is, in any presentation of the man that it may include, built upon it. It is impossible to escape this Autobiography; at every turn some opinion, some anecdote, some strangely touching example of modesty or disinterestedness demands its record.
“Modesty! disinterestedness!” one can hear the ghosts of the generation of 1880 exclaim. “If ever there was a revelation of mercenary ambition and love of material success, it is here.”
So Eighteen-Eighty to Ninety felt about the book. It may be that no literary self-confession has ever before so immediately damaged a poor author’s reputation. We are told that after the publication of the Autobiography the sales of Trollope’s novels fell with a crash, and it is undoubtedly true that much of the supercilious patronage extended to Trollope’s lingering ghost in the criticism of the “elegant” nineties sprang from this honest and unsentimental confession.
We have changed all that. To-day, when realistic honesty is paid overwhelming lip service, Trollope is coming stoutly into his own both as man and artist, and the happy reappearance of the Autobiography in new and popular editions is greatly responsible for this change.
Trollope himself in the first chapter of his book wisely avoids the heavy records of trees and ancestors that cumber so drearily the ground of many biographies. He simply says:
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.
It shows the novelist’s art in Trollope that he should at once present us with that farm — a building as tragic and foreboding as any curse in Greek Tragedy; but those amazing Trollope parents for whom the farm was so ironical a setting demand for their real understanding a brief family record Among the vast company of ancestors crossing the Channel with William the Conqueror was one Tallybosier (how appropriate a name for a Trollopian forebear!), and this gentleman when out hunting with his king killed three wolves; for his deed he was named “Troisloup”.
Then history is dim until an agricultural Sir John Trollope helped Lord George Bentinck in the Tory revolt against Sir Robert Peel in 1846, and in 1868 was made Lord Kesteven. Anthony Trollope’s father, Th
omas Anthony Trollope, was a cousin of this gentleman.
Thomas Anthony was a Wykehamist, a Fellow of New College, and a young Chancery barrister. Another Fellow of New College was the Reverend William Milton, a mathematician and an inventor. Although he was an inventor he was not poor, and his daughter Frances must have known from a very early age the pleasant fun of doing most of the things she wanted to do, and because she was bright-spirited, pretty, and had a clever tongue in her head, she made then, as she most certainly made in later and more difficult times, a jolly and interesting business out of life.
Among her many admirers was the young barrister Thomas Anthony, and she soon showed clearly enough that she preferred him to all the others. She kept house for her brother in Keppel Street, and Thomas Trollope’s Lincoln Inn Chambers were not far away. Thomas Trollope’s prospects were good — it seemed that he would be able to count on nine hundred a year — and Frances Milton would have a dowry of thirteen hundred pounds and fifty pounds a year from her father, so that an early marriage for the two young lovers did not seem a very rash adventure.
On the 23rd of May they were married at the bride’s home, Heckfield. They settled at first in 16 Keppel Street, and here five children were born; afterwards they moved to Harrow, and there had two more children, daughters.
The matter with Thomas Anthony Trollope was that he did not know how to keep his temper. Anthony says of his father that he had “a certain aptitude to do things differently from others”, and that “he was plagued with so bad a temper that he drove the attorneys from him”.
Anthony’s father, in fact, stands out before us with extraordinary vividness: scornful of most of his fellow human beings for fools, without courtesy, but with a fine and generous heart, brilliant in classical knowledge, hopeless in finance, feeling himself foredoomed by a ruthless Fate and yet with a perfect trust that “soon something will turn up”; as ruin piles up around him burying himself for ever deeper in his Encyclopedia Ecclesiastica, of which only three parts were to be published during his lifetime; kind and affectionate at one instant, angry and intolerant at another; rejoicing that the departure to the farm would allow him more time to teach his boys Latin, nevertheless permitting them a schooling of the most rag-and-tattery sort — here is a figure more vital and vivid than many of his son’s later creations!