Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

by Anthony Trollope

also by other rules. The writer may tell much of his story in

  conversations, but he may only do so by putting such words into

  the mouths of his personages as persons so situated would probably

  use. He is not allowed for the sake of his tale to make his characters

  give utterance to long speeches, such as are not customarily heard

  from men and women. The ordinary talk of ordinary people is carried

  on in short, sharp, expressive sentences, which very frequently are

  never completed,--the language of which even among educated people

  is often incorrect. The novel-writer in constructing his dialogue

  must so steer between absolute accuracy of language--which would

  give to his conversation an air of pedantry, and the slovenly

  inaccuracy of ordinary talkers, which if closely followed would

  offend by an appearance of grimace--as to produce upon the ear of

  his readers a sense of reality. If he be quite real he will seem

  to attempt to be funny. If he be quite correct he will seem to

  be unreal. And above all, let the speeches be short. No character

  should utter much above a dozen words at a breath,--unless the writer

  can justify to himself a longer flood of speech by the specialty

  of the occasion.

  In all this human nature must be the novel-writer's guide. No doubt

  effective novels have been written in which human nature has been

  set at defiance. I might name Caleb Williams as one and Adam Blair

  as another. But the exceptions are not more than enough to prove

  the rule. But in following human nature he must remember that he does

  so with a pen in his hand, and that the reader who will appreciate

  human nature will also demand artistic ability and literary aptitude.

  The young novelist will probably ask, or more probably bethink

  himself how he is to acquire that knowledge of human nature which

  will tell him with accuracy what men and women would say in this

  or that position. He must acquire it as the compositor, who is to

  print his words, has learned the art of distributing his type--by

  constant and intelligent practice. Unless it be given to him to

  listen and to observe,--so to carry away, as it were, the manners

  of people in his memory as to be able to say to himself with assurance

  that these words might have been said in a given position, and that

  those other words could not have been said,--I do not think that

  in these days he can succeed as a novelist.

  And then let him beware of creating tedium! Who has not felt the

  charm of a spoken story up to a certain point, and then suddenly

  become aware that it has become too long and is the reverse of

  charming. It is not only that the entire book may have this fault,

  but that this fault may occur in chapters, in passages, in pages,

  in paragraphs. I know no guard against this so likely to be effective

  as the feeling of the writer himself. When once the sense that the

  thing is becoming long has grown upon him, he may be sure that it

  will grow upon his readers. I see the smile of some who will declare

  to themselves that the words of a writer will never be tedious to

  himself. Of the writer of whom this may be truly said, it may be

  said with equal truth that he will always be tedious to his reader.

  CHAPTER XIII ON ENGLISH NOVELISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY

  In this chapter I will venture to name a few successful novelists

  of my own time, with whose works I am acquainted; and will endeavour

  to point whence their success has come, and why they have failed

  when there has been failure.

  I do not hesitate to name Thackeray the first. His knowledge of

  human nature was supreme, and his characters stand out as human

  beings, with a force and a truth which has not, I think, been

  within the reach of any other English novelist in any period. I know

  no character in fiction, unless it be Don Quixote, with whom the

  reader becomes so intimately acquainted as with Colonel Newcombe.

  How great a thing it is to be a gentleman at all parts! How we

  admire the man of whom so much may be said with truth! Is there

  any one of whom we feel more sure in this respect than of Colonel

  Newcombe? It is not because Colonel Newcombe is a perfect gentleman

  that we think Thackeray's work to have been so excellent, but

  because he has had the power to describe him as such, and to force

  us to love him, a weak and silly old man, on account of this grace

  of character. It is evident from all Thackeray's best work that he

  lived with the characters he was creating. He had always a story

  to tell until quite late in life; and he shows us that this was

  so, not by the interest which be had in his own plots,--for I doubt

  whether his plots did occupy much of his mind,--but by convincing

  us that his characters were alive to himself. With Becky Sharpe,

  with Lady Castlewood and her daughter, and with Esmond, with

  Warrington, Pendennis, and the Major, with Colonel Newcombe, and

  with Barry Lynon, he must have lived in perpetual intercourse.

  Therefore he has made these personages real to us.

  Among all our novelists his style is the purest, as to my ear it is

  also the most harmonious. Sometimes it is disfigured by a slight

  touch of affectation, by little conceits which smell of the oil;--but

  the language is always lucid. The reader, without labour, knows what

  he means, and knows all that he means. As well as I can remember,

  he deals with no episodes. I think that any critic, examining

  his work minutely, would find that every scene, and every part of

  every scene, adds something to the clearness with which the story

  is told. Among all his stories there is not one which does not

  leave on the mind a feeling of distress that women should ever

  be immodest or men dishonest,--and of joy that women should be so

  devoted and men so honest. How we hate the idle selfishness of

  Pendennis, the worldliness of Beatrix, the craft of Becky Sharpe!--how

  we love the honesty of Colonel Newcombe, the nobility of Esmond,

  and the devoted affection of Mrs. Pendennis! The hatred of evil

  and love of good can hardly have come upon so many readers without

  doing much good.

  Late in Thackeray's life,--he never was an old man, but towards the

  end of his career,--he failed in his power of charming, because he

  allowed his mind to become idle. In the plots which he conceived,

  and in the language which he used; I do not know that there is any

  perceptible change; but in The Virginians and in Philip the reader

  is introduced to no character with which he makes a close and undying

  acquaintance. And this, I have no doubt, is so because Thackeray

  himself had no such intimacy. His mind had come to be weary of

  that fictitious life which is always demanding the labour of new

  creation, and he troubled himself with his two Virginians and his

  Philip only when he was seated at his desk.

  At the present moment George Eliot is the first of English novelists,

  and I am disposed to place her second of those of my time. She

  is best known to the literary world as a writer of prose fiction,

  and not improbably whatever o
f permanent fame she may acquire will

  come from her novels. But the nature of her intellect is very far

  removed indeed from that which is common to the tellers of stories.

  Her imagination is no doubt strong, but it acts in analysing rather

  than in creating. Everything that comes before her is pulled

  to pieces so that the inside of it shall be seen, and be seen if

  possible by her readers as clearly as by herself. This searching

  analysis is carried so far that, in studying her latter writings,

  one feels oneself to be in company with some philosopher rather

  than with a novelist. I doubt whether any young person can read

  with pleasure either Felix Holt, Middlemarch, or Daniel Deronda.

  I know that they are very difficult to many that are not young.

  Her personifications of character have been singularly terse and

  graphic, and from them has come her great hold on the public,--though

  by no means the greatest effect which she has produced. The lessons

  which she teaches remain, though it is not for the sake of the

  lessons that her pages are read. Seth Bede, Adam Bede, Maggie and

  Tom Tulliver, old Silas Marner, and, much above all, Tito, in Romola,

  are characters which, when once known, can never be forgotten. I

  cannot say quite so much for any of those in her later works, because

  in them the philosopher so greatly overtops the portrait-painter,

  that, in the dissection of the mind, the outward signs seem to

  have been forgotten. In her, as yet, there is no symptom whatever

  of that weariness of mind which, when felt by the reader, induces

  him to declare that the author has written himself out. It is not

  from decadence that we do not have another Mrs. Poyser, but because

  the author soars to things which seem to her to be higher than Mrs.

  Poyser.

  It is, I think, the defect of George Eliot that she struggles too

  hard to do work that shall be excellent. She lacks ease. Latterly

  the signs of this have been conspicuous in her style, which has always

  been and is singularly correct, but which has become occasionally

  obscure from her too great desire to be pungent. It is impossible

  not to feel the struggle, and that feeling begets a flavour

  of affectation. In Daniel Deronda, of which at this moment only a

  portion has been published, there are sentences which I have found

  myself compelled to read three times before I have been able to

  take home to myself all that the writer has intended. Perhaps I

  may be permitted here to say, that this gifted woman was among my

  dearest and most intimate friends. As I am speaking here of novelists,

  I will not attempt to speak of George Eliot's merit as a poet.

  There can be no doubt that the most popular novelist of my

  time--probably the most popular English novelist of any time--has

  been Charles Dickens. He has now been dead nearly six years, and the

  sale of his books goes on as it did during his life. The certainty

  with which his novels are found in every house--the familiarity of

  his name in all English-speaking countries--the popularity of such

  characters as Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, and Pecksniff, and many others

  whose names have entered into the English language and become

  well-known words--the grief of the country at his death, and the

  honours paid to him at his funeral,--all testify to his popularity.

  Since the last book he wrote himself, I doubt whether any book

  has been so popular as his biography by John Forster. There is

  no withstanding such testimony as this. Such evidence of popular

  appreciation should go for very much, almost for everything,

  in criticism on the work of a novelist. The primary object of a

  novelist is to please; and this man's novels have been found more

  pleasant than those of any other writer. It might of course be

  objected to this, that though the books have pleased they have been

  injurious, that their tendency has been immoral and their teaching

  vicious; but it is almost needless to say that no such charge has

  ever been made against Dickens. His teaching has ever been good.

  From all which, there arises to the critic a question whether, with

  such evidence against him as to the excellence of this writer, he

  should not subordinate his own opinion to the collected opinion of

  the world of readers. To me it almost seems that I must be wrong

  to place Dickens after Thackeray and George Eliot, knowing as I do

  that so great a majority put him above those authors.

  My own peculiar idiosyncrasy in the matter forbids me to do so. I

  do acknowledge that Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, Pecksniff, and others have

  become household words in every house, as though they were human

  beings; but to my judgment they are not human beings, nor are any

  of the characters human which Dickens has portrayed. It has been

  the peculiarity and the marvel of this man's power, that he has

  invested, his puppets with a charm that has enabled him to dispense

  with human nature. There is a drollery about them, in my estimation,

  very much below the humour of Thackeray, but which has reached the

  intellect of all; while Thackeray's humour has escaped the intellect

  of many. Nor is the pathos of Dickens human. It is stagey and

  melodramatic. But it is so expressed that it touches every heart

  a little. There is no real life in Smike. His misery, his idiotcy,

  his devotion for Nicholas, his love for Kate, are all overdone and

  incompatible with each other. But still the reader sheds a tear.

  Every reader can find a tear for Smike. Dickens's novels are like

  Boucicault's plays. He has known how to draw his lines broadly, so

  that all should see the colour.

  He, too, in his best days, always lived with his characters;--and

  he, too, as he gradually ceased to have the power of doing so,

  ceased to charm. Though they are not human beings, we all remember

  Mrs. Gamp and Pickwick. The Boffins and Veneerings do not, I think,

  dwell in the minds of so many.

  Of Dickens's style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky,

  ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules--almost

  as completely as that created by Carlyle. To readers who have taught

  themselves to regard language, it must therefore be unpleasant. But

  the critic is driven to feel the weakness of his criticism, when

  he acknowledges to himself--as he is compelled in all honesty to

  do--that with the language, such as it is, the writer has satisfied

  the great mass of the readers of his country. Both these great

  writers have satisfied the readers of their own pages; but both

  have done infinite harm by creating a school of imitators. No young

  novelist should ever dare to imitate the style of Dickens. If such

  a one wants a model for his language, let him take Thackeray.

  Bulwer, or Lord Lytton,--but I think that he is still better known

  by his earlier name,--was a man of very great parts. Better educated

  than either of those I have named before him, he was always able to

  use his erudition, and he thus produced novels from which very much

  not only may be but must be learned by his readers. He thoroughly

/>   understood the political status of his own country, a subject

  on which, I think, Dickens was marvellously ignorant, and which

  Thackeray had never studied. He had read extensively, and was always

  apt to give his readers the benefit of what he knew. The result

  has been that very much more than amusement may be obtained from

  Bulwer's novels. There is also a brightness about them--the result

  rather of thought than of imagination, of study and of care, than

  of mere intellect--which has made many of them excellent in their

  way. It is perhaps improper to class all his novels together, as

  he wrote in varied manners, making in his earlier works, such as

  Pelham and Ernest Maltravers, pictures of a fictitious life, and

  afterwards pictures of life as he believed it to be, as in My Novel

  and The Caxtons. But from all of them there comes the same flavour

  of an effort to produce effect. The effects are produced, but it

  would have been better if the flavour had not been there.

  I cannot say of Bulwer as I have of the other novelists whom I have

  named that he lived with his characters. He lived with his work,

  with the doctrines which at the time he wished to preach, thinking

  always of the effects which he wished to produce; but I do not

  think he ever knew his own personages,--and therefore neither do

  we know them. Even Pelham and Eugene Aram are not human beings to

  us, as are Pickwick, and Colonel Newcombe, and Mrs. Poyser.

  In his plots Bulwer has generally been simple, facile, and successful.

  The reader never feels with him, as he does with Wilkie Collins,

  that it is all plot, or, as with George Eliot, that there is no plot.

  The story comes naturally without calling for too much attention,

  and is thus proof of the completeness of the man's intellect. His

  language is clear, good, intelligible English, but it is defaced

  by mannerism. In all that he did, affectation was his fault.

  How shall I speak of my dear old friend Charles Lever, and

  his rattling, jolly, joyous, swearing Irishmen. Surely never did

  a sense of vitality come so constantly from a man's pen, nor from

  man's voice, as from his! I knew him well for many years, and

  whether in sickness or in health, I have never come across him

  without finding him to be running over with wit and fun. Of all the