poverty creates? The subject will not stand an argument;--and yet
authors are told that they should disregard payment for their work,
and be content to devote their unbought brains to the welfare of
the public. Brains that are unbought will never serve the public
much. Take away from English authors their copyrights, and you
would very soon take away from England her authors.
I say this here, because it is my purpose as I go on to state what
to me has been the result of my profession in the ordinary way in
which professions are regarded, so that by my example may be seen
what prospect there is that a man devoting himself to literature
with industry, perseverance, certain necessary aptitudes, and fair
average talents, may succeed in gaining a livelihood, as another man
does in another profession. The result with me has been comfortable
but not splendid, as I think was to have been expected from the
combination of such gifts.
I have certainly always had also before my eyes the charms of
reputation. Over and above the money view of the question, I wished
from the beginning to be something more than a clerk in the Post
Office. To be known as somebody,--to be Anthony Trollope if it be
no more,--is to me much. The feeling is a very general one, and
I think beneficent. It is that which has been called the "last
infirmity of noble mind." The infirmity is so human that the man who
lacks it is either above or below humanity. I own to the infirmity.
But I confess that my first object in taking to literature as a
profession was that which is common to the barrister when he goes
to the Bar, and to the baker when he sets up his oven. I wished to
make an income on which I and those belonging to me might live in
comfort.
If indeed a man writes his books badly, or paints his pictures
badly, because he can make his money faster in that fashion than
by doing them well, and at the same time proclaims them to be the
best he can do,--if in fact he sells shoddy for broadcloth,--he
is dishonest, as is any other fraudulent dealer. So may be the
barrister who takes money that he does not earn, or the clergyman
who is content to live on a sinecure. No doubt the artist or the
author may have a difficulty which will not occur to the seller of
cloth, in settling within himself what is good work and what is
bad,--when labour enough has been given, and when the task has been
scamped. It is a danger as to which he is bound to be severe with
himself--in which he should feel that his conscience should be set
fairly in the balance against the natural bias of his interest. If
he do not do so, sooner or later his dishonesty will be discovered,
and will be estimated accordingly. But in this he is to be governed
only by the plain rules of honesty which should govern us all.
Having said so much, I shall not scruple as I go on to attribute
to the pecuniary result of my labours all the importance which I
felt them to have at the time.
Barchester Towers, for which I had received (pounds)100 in advance, sold
well enough to bring me further payments--moderate payments--from
the publishers. From that day up to this very time in which I am
writing, that book and The Warden together have given me almost
every year some small income. I get the accounts very regularly,
and I find that I have received (pounds)727 11S. 3d. for the two. It is
more than I got for the three or four works that came afterwards,
but the payments have been spread over twenty years.
When I went to Mr. Longman with my next novel, The Three Clerks,
in my hand, I could not induce him to understand that a lump sum
down was more pleasant than a deferred annuity. I wished him to
buy it from me at a price which he might think to be a fair value,
and I argued with him that as soon as an author has put himself into
a position which insures a sufficient sale of his works to give a
profit, the publisher is not entitled to expect the half of such
proceeds. While there is a pecuniary risk, the whole of which must
be borne by the publisher, such division is fair enough; but such
a demand on the part of the publisher is monstrous as soon as the
article produced is known to be a marketable commodity. I thought
that I had now reached that point, but Mr. Longman did not agree with
me. And he endeavoured to convince me that I might lose more than
I gained, even though I should get more money by going elsewhere.
"It is for you," said he, "to think whether our names on your
title-page are not worth more to you than the increased payment."
This seemed to me to savour of that high-flown doctrine of the
contempt of money which I have never admired. I did think much
of Messrs. Longman's name, but I liked it best at the bottom of a
cheque.
I was also scared from the august columns of Paternoster Row by
a remark made to myself by one of the firm, which seemed to imply
that they did not much care for works of fiction. Speaking of a
fertile writer of tales who was not then dead, he declared that ----
(naming the author in question) had spawned upon them (the publishers)
three novels a year! Such language is perhaps justifiable in regard
to a man who shows so much of the fecundity of the herring; but I
did not know how fruitful might be my own muse, and I thought that
I had better go elsewhere.
I had then written The Three Clerks, which, when I could not sell
it to Messrs. Longman, I took in the first instance to Messrs.
Hurst & Blackett, who had become successors to Mr. Colburn. I had
made an appointment with one of the firm, which, however, that
gentleman was unable to keep. I was on my way from Ireland to Italy,
and had but one day in London in which to dispose of my manuscript.
I sat for an hour in Great Marlborough Street, expecting the return
of the peccant publisher who had broken his tryst, and I was about
to depart with my bundle under my arm when the foreman of the
house came to me. He seemed to think it a pity that I should go,
and wished me to leave my work with him. This, however, I would not
do, unless he would undertake to buy it then and there. Perhaps he
lacked authority. Perhaps his judgment was against such purchase.
But while we debated the matter, he gave me some advice. "I hope
it's not historical, Mr. Trollope?" he said. "Whatever you do,
don't be historical; your historical novel is not worth a damn."
Thence I took The Three Clerks to Mr. Bentley; and on the same
afternoon succeeded in selling it to him for (pounds)250. His son still
possesses it, and the firm has, I believe, done very well with the
purchase. It was certainly the best novel I had as yet written.
The plot is not so good as that of the Macdermots; nor are there
any characters in the book equal to those of Mrs. Proudie and the
Warden; but the work has a more continued interest, and contains
the first well-described love-scene that I ever wrote. The passage
in which Kate Woodward, thinking that she will die, tries to
take
leave of the lad she loves, still brings tears to my eyes when I
read it. I had not the heart to kill her. I never could do that.
And I do not doubt but that they are living happily together to
this day.
The lawyer Chaffanbrass made his first appearance in this novel,
and I do not think that I have cause to be ashamed of him. But this
novel now is chiefly noticeable to me from the fact that in it I
introduced a character under the name of Sir Gregory Hardlines, by
which I intended to lean very heavily on that much loathed scheme
of competitive examination, of which at that time Sir Charles
Trevelyan was the great apostle. Sir Gregory Hardlines was intended
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
authority on the subject.] It might probably have been better for
my readers had I done so, as I am informed that Doctor Thorne, the
novel of which I am now speaking, has a larger sale than any other
book of mine.
Early in 1858, while I was writing Doctor Thorne, I was asked by
the great men at the General Post Office to go to Egypt to make a
treaty with the Pasha for the conveyance of our mails through that
country by railway. There was a treaty in existence, but that had
reference to the carriage of bags and boxes by camels from Alexandria
to Suez. Since its date the railway had grown, and was now nearly
completed, and a new treaty was wanted. So I came over from Dublin
to London, on my road, and again went to work among the publishers.
The other novel was not finished; but I thought I had now progressed
far enough to arrange a sale while the work was still on the stocks.
I went to Mr. Bentley and demanded (pounds)400,--for the copyright. He
acceded, but came to me the next morning at the General Post Office
to say that it could not be. He had gone to work at his figures
after I had left him, and had found that (pounds)300 would be the outside
value of the novel. I was intent upon the larger sum; and in furious
Autobiography of Anthony Trollope Page 11