In the preceding pages I have given a short record of the first
twenty-six years of my life,--years of suffering, disgrace, and
inward remorse. I fear that my mode of telling will have left an idea
simply of their absurdities; but, in truth, I was wretched,--sometimes
almost unto death, and have often cursed the hour in which I was
born. There had clung to me a feeling that I had been looked upon
always as an evil, an encumbrance, a useless thing,--as a creature
of whom those connected with him had to be ashamed. And I feel
certain now that in my young days I was so regarded. Even my few
friends who had found with me a certain capacity for enjoyment were
half afraid of me. I acknowledge the weakness of a great desire to
be loved,--of a strong wish to be popular with my associates. No
child, no boy, no lad, no young man, had ever been less so. And I
had been so poor, and so little able to bear poverty. But from the
day on which I set my foot in Ireland all these evils went away
from me. Since that time who has had a happier life than mine?
Looking round upon all those I know, I cannot put my hand upon
one. But all is not over yet. And, mindful of that, remembering
how great is the agony of adversity, how crushing the despondency
of degradation, how susceptible I am myself to the misery coming
from contempt,--remembering also how quickly good things may go
and evil things come,--I am often again tempted to hope, almost to
pray, that the end may be near. Things may be going well now--
"Sin aliquem infandum casum, Fortuna, minaris;
Nunc, o nunc liceat crudelem abrumpere vitam."
There is unhappiness so great that the very fear of it is an alloy
to happiness. I had then lost my father, and sister, and brother,--have
since lost another sister and my mother;--but I have never as yet
lost a wife or a child.
When I told my friends that I was going on this mission to Ireland
they shook their heads, but said nothing to dissuade me. I think
it must have been evident to all who were my friends that my life
in London was not a success. My mother and elder brother were
at this time abroad, and were not consulted;--did not even know
my intention in time to protest against it. Indeed, I consulted
no one, except a dear old cousin, our family lawyer, from whom I
borrowed (pounds)200 to help me out of England. He lent me the money, and
looked upon me with pitying eyes--shaking his head. "After all,
you were right to go," he said to me when I paid him the money a
few years afterwards.
But nobody then thought I was right to go. To become clerk to
an Irish surveyor, in Connaught, with a salary of (pounds)100 a year, at
twenty-six years of age! I did not think it right even myself,--except
that anything was right which would take me away from the General
Post Office and from London.
My ideas of the duties I was to perform were very vague, as were
also my ideas of Ireland generally. Hitherto I had passed my time,
seated at a desk, either writing letters myself, or copying into
books those which others had written. I had never been called upon
to do anything I was unable or unfitted to do. I now understood that
in Ireland I was to be a deputy-inspector of country post offices,
and that among other things to be inspected would be the postmasters'
accounts! But as no other person asked a question as to my fitness
for this work, it seemed unnecessary for me to do so.
On the 15th of September, 1841, I landed in Dublin, without an
acquaintance in the country, and with only two or three letters of
introduction from a brother clerk in the Post Office. I had learned
to think that Ireland was a land flowing with fun and whisky, in
which irregularity was the rule of life, and where broken heads were
looked upon as honourable badges. I was to live at a place called
Banagher, on the Shannon, which I had heard of because of its having
once been conquered, though it had heretofore conquered everything,
including the devil. And from Banagher my inspecting tours were to
be made, chiefly into Connaught, but also over a strip of country
eastwards, which would enable me occasionally to run up to Dublin.
I went to a hotel which was very dirty, and after dinner I ordered
some whisky punch. There was an excitement in this, but when the
punch was gone I was very dull. It seemed so strange to be in a
country in which there was not a single individual whom I had ever
spoken to or ever seen. And it was to be my destiny to go down into
Connaught and adjust accounts,--the destiny of me who had never
learned the multiplication table, or done a sum in long division!
On the next morning I called on the Secretary of the Irish Post
Office, and learned from him that Colonel Maberly had sent a very
bad character with me. He could not have sent a very good one; but
I felt a little hurt when I was informed by this new master that he
had been informed that I was worthless, and must, in all probability,
be dismissed. "But," said the new master, "I shall judge you by your
own merits." From that time to the day on which I left the service,
I never heard a word of censure, nor had many months passed before
I found that my services were valued. Before a year was over, I
had acquired the character of a thoroughly good public servant.
The time went very pleasantly. Some adventures I had;--two of
which I told in the Tales of All Countries, under the names of The
O'Conors of Castle Conor, and Father Giles of Ballymoy. I will not
swear to every detail in these stories, but the main purport of
each is true. I could tell many others of the same nature, were
this the place for them. I found that the surveyor to whom I had
been sent kept a pack of hounds, and therefore I bought a hunter.
I do not think he liked it, but he could not well complain. He never
rode to hounds himself, but I did; and then and thus began one of
the great joys of my life. I have ever since been constant to the
sport, having learned to love it with an affection which I cannot
myself fathom or understand. Surely no man has laboured at it as I
have done, or hunted under such drawbacks as to distances, money, and
natural disadvantages. I am very heavy, very blind, have been--in
reference to hunting--a poor man, and am now an old man. I have
often had to travel all night outside a mail-coach, in order that
I might hunt the next day. Nor have I ever been in truth a good
horseman. And I have passed the greater part of my hunting life
under the discipline of the Civil Service. But it has been for
more than thirty years a duty to me to ride to hounds; and I have
performed that duty with a persistent energy. Nothing has ever
been allowed to stand in the way of hunting,--neither the writing
of books, nor the work of the Post Office, nor other pleasures.
As regarded the Post Office, it soon seemed to be understood that
I was to hunt; and when my services were re-transferred to England,
no word of difficulty ever reached me about it. I have written on
very many subjects, and on most of them with pleasure, but on no
subject with such delight as that on hunting. I have dragged it
into many novels,--into too many, no doubt,--but I have always felt
myself deprived of a legitimate joy when the nature of the tale has
not allowed me a hunting chapter. Perhaps that which gave me the
greatest delight was the description of a run on a horse accidentally
taken from another sportsman--a circumstance which occurred to my
dear friend Charles Buxton, who will be remembered as one of the
members for Surrey.
It was altogether a very jolly life that I led in Ireland. I
was always moving about, and soon found myself to be in pecuniary
circumstances which were opulent in comparison with those of my
past life. The Irish people did not murder me, nor did they even
break my head. I soon found them to be good-humoured, clever--the
working classes very much more intelligent than those of
England--economical, and hospitable. We hear much of their spendthrift
nature; but extravagance is not the nature of an Irishman. He
will count the shillings in a pound much more accurately than an
Englishman, and will with much more certainty get twelve pennyworth
from each. But they are perverse, irrational, and but little bound
by the love of truth. I lived for many years among them--not finally
leaving the country until 1859, and I had the means of studying
their character.
I had not been a fortnight in Ireland before I was sent down to a
little town in the far west of county Galway, to balance a defaulting
postmaster's accounts, find out how much he owed, and report upon
his capacity to pay. In these days such accounts are very simple.
They adjust themselves from day to day, and a Post Office surveyor
has nothing to do with them. At that time, though the sums dealt
with were small, the forms of dealing with them were very intricate.
I went to work, however, and made that defaulting postmaster teach
me the use of those forms. I then succeeded in balancing the account,
and had no difficulty whatever in reporting that he was altogether
unable to pay his debt. Of course, he was dismissed; but he had
been a very useful man to me. I never had any further difficulty
in the matter.
But my chief work was the investigating of complaints made by the
public as to postal matters. The practice of the office was and
is to send one of its servants to the spot to see the complainant
and to inquire into the facts, when the complainant is sufficiently
energetic or sufficiently big to make himself well heard. A great
expense is often incurred for a very small object; but the system
works well on the whole, as confidence is engendered, and a feeling
is produced in the country that the department has eyes of its own
and does keep them open. This employment was very pleasant, and
to me always easy, as it required at its close no more than the
writing of a report. There were no accounts in this business, no
keeping of books, no necessary manipulation of multitudinous forms.
I must tell of one such complaint and inquiry, because in its result
I think it was emblematic of many.
A gentleman in county Cavan had complained most bitterly of the
injury done to him by some arrangement of the Post Office. The
nature of his grievance has no present significance; but it was
so unendurable that he had written many letters, couched in the
strongest language. He was most irate, and indulged himself in
that scorn which is easy to an angry mind. The place was not in my
district, but I was borrowed, being young and strong, that I might
remember the edge of his personal wrath. It was mid-winter, and I
drove up to his house, a squire's country seat, in the middle of a
snowstorm, just as it was becoming dark. I was on an open jaunting
car, and was on my way from one little town to another, the cause
of his complaint having reference to some mail conveyance between
the two. I was certainly very cold, and very wet, and very
uncomfortable when I entered his house. I was admitted by a butler,
but the gentleman himself hurried into the hall. I at once began to
explain my business. "God bless me!" he said, "you are wet through.
John, get Mr. Trollope some brandy and water--very hot." I was
beginning my story about the post again when he himself took off my
greatcoat, and suggested that I should go up to my bedroom before
I troubled myself with business. "Bedroom!" I exclaimed. Then
he assured me that he would not turn a dog out on such a night as
that, and into a bedroom I was shown, having first drank the brandy
and water standing at the drawing-room fire. When I came down I was
introduced to his daughter, and the three of us went in to dinner.
I shall never forget his righteous indignation when I again brought
up the postal question on the departure of the young lady. Was I
such a Goth as to contaminate wine with business? So I drank my
wine, and then heard the young lady sing while her father slept
in his armchair. I spent a very pleasant evening, but my host was
too sleepy to hear anything about the Post Office that night. It
was absolutely necessary that I should go away the next morning
after breakfast, and I explained that the matter must be discussed
then. He shook his head and wrung his hands in unmistakable
disgust,--almost in despair. "But what am I to say in my report?"
I asked. "Anything you please," he said. "Don't spare me, if you
want an excuse for yourself. Here I sit all the day--with nothing
to do; and I like writing letters." I did report that Mr.---- was
now quite satisfied with the postal arrangement of his district;
and I felt a soft regret that I should have robbed my friend of his
occupation. Perhaps he was able to take up the Poor Law Board, or
to attack the Excise. At the Post Office nothing more was heard
from him.
I went on with the hunting surveyor at Banagher for three years,
during which, at Kingstown, the watering place near Dublin, I met
Rose Heseltine, the lady who has since become my wife. The engagement
took place when I had been just one year in Ireland; but there was
still a delay of two years before we could be married. She had no
fortune, nor had I any income beyond that which came from the Post
Office; and there were still a few debts, which would have been
paid off no doubt sooner, but for that purchase of the horse. When
I had been nearly three years in Ireland we were married on the
11th of June, 1844;--and, perhaps, I ought to name that happy day
as the commencement of my better life, rather than the day on which
I first landed in Ireland.
For though during these three years I had been jolly enough, I
had not been altogether happy. The hunting, the whisky punch, the
rattling Irish life,--of which I could write a volume of stories
were this the place to tell them,--were continually driving from
my mind the still cherished determination to become a writer of
novels. When I reached Ireland I had never put pen to paper; nor
had I done so when I became engaged. And when I was married, being
then twenty-nine, I had only written the first volume of my first
work. This constant putting off of the day of work was a great
sorrow to me. I certainly had not been idle in my new berth. I had
learned my work, so that every one concerned knew that it was safe
in my hands; and I held a position altogether the reverse of that
in which I was always trembling while I remained in London. But
that did not suffice,--did not nearly suffice. I still felt that
there might be a career before me, if I could only bring myself to
begin the work. I do not think I much doubted my own intellectual
sufficiency for the writing of a readable novel. What I did doubt
was my own industry, and the chances of the market.
The vigour necessary to prosecute two professions at the same time
is not given to every one, and it was only lately that I had found
the vigour necessary for one. There must be early hours, and I
had not as yet learned to love early hours. I was still, indeed, a
young man; but hardly young enough to trust myself to find the power
to alter the habits of my life. And I had heard of the difficulties
of publishing,--a subject of which I shall have to say much should
I ever bring this memoir to a close. I had dealt already with
publishers on my mother's behalf, and knew that many a tyro who
could fill a manuscript lacked the power to put his matter before
the public;--and I knew, too, that when the matter was printed,
how little had then been done towards the winning of the battle!
I had already learned that many a book--many a good book--
"is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
But still the purpose was strong within me, and the first effort
was made after the following fashion. I was located at a little
town called Drumsna, or rather village, in the county Leitrim,
where the postmaster had come to some sorrow about his money; and
my friend John Merivale was staying with me for a day or two. As
we were taking a walk in that most uninteresting country, we turned
up through a deserted gateway, along a weedy, grass-grown avenue,
till we came to the modern ruins of a country house. It was one of
the most melancholy spots I ever visited. I will not describe it
here, because I have done so in the first chapter of my first novel.
We wandered about the place, suggesting to each other causes for
the misery we saw there, and, while I was still among the ruined
walls and decayed beams, I fabricated the plot of The Macdermots
of Ballycloran. As to the plot itself, I do not know that I ever
made one so good,--or, at any rate, one so susceptible of pathos.
I am aware that I broke down in the telling, not having yet studied
the art. Nevertheless, The Macdermots is a good novel, and worth
reading by any one who wishes to understand what Irish life was
before the potato disease, the famine, and the Encumbered Estates
Bill.
When my friend left me, I set to work and wrote the first chapter
or two. Up to this time I had continued that practice of castle-building
of which I have spoken; but now the castle I built was among the
ruins of that old house. The book, however, hung with me. It was
only now and then that I found either time or energy for a few
pages. I commenced the book in September, 1843, and had only written
a volume when I was married in June, 1844.
My marriage was like the marriage of other people, and of no
special interest to any one except my wife and me. It took place
at Rotherham, in Yorkshire, where her father was the manager of a
bank. We were not very rich, having about (pounds)400 a year on which to
live.
Many people would say that we were two fools to encounter such
poverty together. I can only reply that since that day I have never
been without money in my pocket, and that I soon acquired the means
of paying what I owed. Nevertheless, more than twelve years had to
pass over our heads before I received any payment for any literary
work which afforded an appreciable increase to our income.
Immediately after our marriage, I left the west of Ireland and the
hunting surveyor, and joined another in the south. It was a better
district, and I was enabled to live at Clonmel, a town of some
importance, instead of at Banagher, which is little more than a
village. I had not felt myself to be comfortable in my old residence
as a married man. On my arrival there as a bachelor I had been
received most kindly, but when I brought my English wife I fancied
that there was a feeling that I had behaved badly to Ireland
generally. When a young man has been received hospitably in an
Irish circle, I will not say that it is expected of him that he
should marry some young lady in that society;--but it certainly is
expected of him that he shall not marry any young lady out of it.
I had given offence, and I was made to feel it.
There has taken place a great change in Ireland since the days in
which I lived at Banagher, and a change so much for the better,
that I have sometimes wondered at the obduracy with which people
have spoken of the permanent ill condition of the country. Wages
are now nearly double what they were then. The Post Office, at any
rate, is paying almost double for its rural labour,--9s. a week
when it used to pay 5s., and 12s. a week when it used to pay 7s.
Banks have sprung up in almost every village. Rents are paid with
more than English punctuality. And the religious enmity between
the classes, though it is not yet dead, is dying out. Soon after I
reached Banagher in 1841, I dined one evening with a Roman Catholic.
I was informed next day by a Protestant gentleman who had been
very hospitable to me that I must choose my party. I could not sit
both at Protestant and Catholic tables. Such a caution would now
be impossible in any part of Ireland. Home-rule, no doubt, is a
nuisance,--and especially a nuisance because the professors of the
doctrine do not at all believe it themselves. There are probably
no other twenty men in England or Ireland who would be so utterly
dumfounded and prostrated were Home-rule to have its way as the
twenty Irish members who profess to support it in the House of
Commons. But it is not to be expected that nuisances such as these
should be abolished at a blow. Home-rule is, at any rate, better
and more easily managed than the rebellion at the close of the
last century; it is better than the treachery of the Union; less
troublesome than O'Connell's monster meetings; less dangerous than
Smith O'Brien and the battle of the cabbage-garden at Ballingary,
and very much less bloody than Fenianism. The descent from O'Connell
to Mr. Butt has been the natural declension of a political disease,
which we had no right to hope would be cured by any one remedy.
When I had been married a year my first novel was finished. In
July, 1845, I took it with me to the north of England, and intrusted
the MS. to my mother to do with it the best she could among the
publishers in London. No one had read it but my wife; nor, as far
as I am aware, has any other friend of mine ever read a word of
my writing before it was printed. She, I think, has so read almost
everything, to my very great advantage in matters of taste. I am sure
I have never asked a friend to read a line; nor have I ever read a
word of my own writing aloud,--even to her. With one exception,--which
shall be mentioned as I come to it,--I have never consulted a friend
as to a plot, or spoken to any one of the work I have been doing.
My first manuscript I gave up to my mother, agreeing with her that
it would be as well that she should not look at it before she gave
it to a publisher. I knew that she did not give me credit for the
sort of cleverness necessary for such work. I could see in the
faces and hear in the voices of those of my friends who were around
me at the house in Cumberland,--my mother, my sister, my brother-in-law,
and, I think, my brother,--that they had not expected me to come
out as one of the family authors. There were three or four in the
field before me, and it seemed to be almost absurd that another
should wish to add himself to the number. My father had written
much,--those long ecclesiastical descriptions,--quite unsuccessfully.
My mother had become one of the popular authors of the day. My
brother had commenced, and had been fairly well paid for his work.
My sister, Mrs. Tilley, had also written a novel, which was at the
time in manuscript--which was published afterwards without her name,
and was called Chollerton. I could perceive that this attempt of
mine was felt to be an unfortunate aggravation of the disease.
My mother, however, did the best she could for me, and soon reported
that Mr. Newby, of Mortimer Street, was to publish the book. It
was to be printed at his expense, and he was to give me half the
profits. Half the profits! Many a young author expects much from such
an undertaking. I can, with truth, declare that I expected nothing.
And I got nothing. Nor did I expect fame, or even acknowledgment.
I was sure that the book would fail, and it did fail most absolutely.
I never heard of a person reading it in those days. If there was
any notice taken of it by any critic of the day, I did not see it.
I never asked any questions about it, or wrote a single letter on
the subject to the publisher. I have Mr. Newby's agreement with me,
in duplicate, and one or two preliminary notes; but beyond that I
did not have a word from Mr. Newby. I am sure that he did not wrong
me in that he paid me nothing. It is probable that he did not sell
fifty copies of the work;--but of what he did sell he gave me no
account.
I do not remember that I felt in any way disappointed or hurt. I
am quite sure that no word of complaint passed my lips. I think I
may say that after the publication I never said a word about the
book, even to my wife. The fact that I had written and published
it, and that I was writing another, did not in the least interfere
with my life, or with my determination to make the best I could of
the Post Office. In Ireland, I think that no one knew that I had
written a novel. But I went on writing. The Macdermots was published
in 1847, and The Kellys and the O'Kellys followed in 1848. I
changed my publisher, but did not change my fortune. This second
Irish story was sent into the world by Mr. Colburn, who had
long been my mother's publisher, who reigned in Great Marlborough
Street, and I believe created the business which is now carried on
by Messrs. Hurst & Blackett. He had previously been in partnership
with Mr. Bentley in New Burlington Street. I made the same agreement
as before as to half profits, and with precisely the same results.
The book was not only not read, but was never heard of,--at any
rate, in Ireland. And yet it is a good Irish story, much inferior
to The Macdermots as to plot, but superior in the mode of telling.
Again I held my tongue, and not only said nothing but felt nothing.
Any success would, I think, have carried me off my legs, but I was
altogether prepared for failure. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the
writing of these books, I did not imagine, when the time came for
publishing them, that any one would condescend to read them.
But in reference to The O'Kellys there arose a circumstance which
set my mind to work on a subject which has exercised it much ever
since. I made my first acquaintance with criticism. A dear friend
of mine to whom the book had been sent,--as have all my books,--wrote
me word to Ireland that he had been dining at some club with a man
high in authority among the gods of the Times newspaper, and that
this special god had almost promised that The O'Kellys should be
noticed in that most influential of "organs." The information moved
me very much; but it set me thinking whether the notice, should it
ever appear, would not have been more valuable, at any rate, more
honest, if it had been produced by other means;--if, for instance,
the writer of the notice had been instigated by the merits or demerits
of the book instead of by the friendship of a friend. And I made
up my mind then that, should I continue this trade of authorship,
I would have no dealings with any critic on my own behalf. I would
neither ask for nor deplore criticism, nor would I ever thank a
critic for praise, or quarrel with him, even in my own heart, for
censure. To this rule I have adhered with absolute strictness, and
this rule I would recommend to all young authors. What can be got
by touting among the critics is never worth the ignominy. The same
may, of course, be said of all things acquired by ignominious means.
But in this matter it is so easy to fall into the dirt. Facilis
descensus Averni. There seems to be but little fault in suggesting
to a friend that a few words in this or that journal would be of
service. But any praise so obtained must be an injustice to the
public, for whose instruction, and not for the sustentation of the
author, such notices are intended. And from such mild suggestion
the descent to crawling at the critic's feet, to the sending of
presents, and at last to a mutual understanding between critics
and criticised, is only too easy. Other evils follow, for the
denouncing of which this is hardly the place;--though I trust I
may find such place before my work is finished. I took no notice
of my friend's letter, but I was not the less careful in watching
The Times. At last the review came,--a real review in The Times. I
learned it by heart, and can now give, if not the words, the exact
purport. "Of The Kellys and the O'Kellys we may say what the master
said to his footman, when the man complained of the constant supply
of legs of mutton on the kitchen table. Well, John, legs of mutton
are good, substantial food;' and we may say also what John replied:
'Substantial, sir,--yes, they are substantial, but a little coarse.'"
That was the review, and even that did not sell the book!
From Mr. Colburn I did receive an account, showing that 375 copies
of the book had been printed, that 140 had been sold,--to those,
I presume, who liked substantial food though it was coarse,--and
that he had incurred a loss of (pounds)63 19S. 1 1/2d. The truth of the
account I never for a moment doubted; nor did I doubt the wisdom
of the advice given to me in the following letter, though I never
thought of obeying it--
"GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET,
November 11, 1848.
"MY DEAR SIR,--I am sorry to say that absence from town and other
circumstances have prevented me from earlier inquiring into the
results of the sale of The Kellys and the O'Kellys, with which the
greatest efforts have been used, but in vain. The sale has been,
I regret to say, so small that the loss upon the publication is
very considerable; and it appears clear to me that, although in
consequence of the great number of novels that are published, the
sale of each, with some few exceptions, must be small, yet it is
evident that readers do not like novels on Irish subjects as well
as on others. Thus, you will perceive, it is impossible for me to
give any encouragement to you to proceed in novel-writing.
"As, however, I understand you have nearly finished the novel La Vendee,
perhaps you will favour me with a sight of it when convenient.--I
remain, etc., etc.,
"H. COLBURN."
This, though not strictly logical, was a rational letter, telling
a plain truth plainly. I did not like the assurance that "the
greatest efforts had been used," thinking that any efforts which
might be made for the popularity of a book ought to have come from
the author;--but I took in good part Mr. Colburn's assurance that
he could not encourage me in the career I had commenced. I would
have bet twenty to one against my own success. But by continuing
I could lose only pen and paper; and if the one chance in twenty
did turn up in my favour, then how much might I win!
CHAPTER V My first success 1849-1855
I had at once gone to work on a third novel, and had nearly
completed it, when I was informed of the absolute failure of the
former. I find, however, that the agreement for its publication was
not made till 1850, by which time I imagine that Mr. Colburn must
have forgotten the disastrous result of The O'Kellys, as he thereby
agrees to give me (pounds)20 down for my "new historical novel, to be
called La Vendee." He agreed also to pay me (pounds)30 more when he had
sold 350 copies, and (pounds)50 more should he sell 450 within six months. I
got my (pounds)20, and then heard no more of (pounds)a Vendee, not even receiving
any account. Perhaps the historical title had appeared more alluring
to him than an Irish subject; though it was not long afterwards that
I received a warning from the very same house of business against
historical novels,--as I will tell at length when the proper time
comes.
I have no doubt that the result of the sale of this story was
no better than that of the two that had gone before. I asked no
questions, however, and to this day have received no information.
The story is certainly inferior to those which had gone before;--chiefly
because I knew accurately the life of the people in Ireland, and
knew, in truth, nothing of life in the La Vendee country, and also
because the facts of the present time came more within the limits
of my powers of story-telling than those of past years. But I read
the book the other day, and am not ashamed of it. The conception
as to the feeling of the people is, I think, true; the characters
are distinct, and the tale is not dull. As far as I can remember,
this morsel of criticism is the only one that was ever written on
the book.
I had, however, received (pounds)20. Alas! alas! years were to roll by
before I should earn by my pen another shilling. And, indeed, I
was well aware that I had not earned that; but that the money had
been "talked out of" the worthy publisher by the earnestness of
my brother, who made the bargain for me. I have known very much
of publishers and have been surprised by much in their mode of
business,--by the apparent lavishness and by the apparent hardness
to authors in the same men,--but by nothing so much as by the ease
with which they can occasionally be persuaded to throw away small
sums of money. If you will only make the payment future instead of
present, you may generally twist a few pounds in your own or your
client's favour. "You might as well promise her (pounds)20. This day six
months will do very well." The publisher, though he knows that the
money will never come back to him, thinks it worth his while to
rid himself of your importunity at so cheap a price.
But while I was writing La Vendee I made a literary attempt in
another direction. In 1847 and 1848 there had come upon Ireland
the desolation and destruction, first of the famine, and then of
the pestilence which succeeded the famine. It was my duty at that
time to be travelling constantly in those parts of Ireland in which
the misery and troubles thence arising were, perhaps, at their
worst. The western parts of Cork, Kerry, and Clare were pre-eminently
unfortunate. The efforts,--I may say, the successful efforts,--made
by the Government to stay the hands of death will still be in the
remembrance of many:--how Sir Robert Peel was instigated to repeal the
Corn Laws; and how, subsequently, Lord John Russell took measures
for employing the people, and supplying the country with Indian
corn. The expediency of these latter measures was questioned by
many. The people themselves wished, of course, to be fed without
working; and the gentry, who were mainly responsible for the rates,
were disposed to think that the management of affairs was taken
too much out of their own hands. My mind at the time was busy with
the matter, and, thinking that the Government was right, I was
inclined to defend them as far as my small powers went. S. G. O.
(Lord Sydney Godolphin Osborne) was at that time denouncing the
Irish scheme of the Administration in the Times, using very strong
language,--as those who remember his style will know. I fancied
then,--as I still think,--that I understood the country much better
than he did; and I was anxious to show that the steps taken for
mitigating the terrible evil of the times were the best which the
Minister of the day could have adopted. In 1848 I was in London,
and, full of my purpose, I presented myself to Mr. John Forster,--who
has since been an intimate and valued friend,--but who was at that
time the editor of the Examiner. I think that that portion of the
literary world which understands the fabrication of newspapers
will admit that neither before his time, nor since, has there been
a more capable editor of a weekly newspaper. As a literary man, he
was not without his faults. That which the cabman is reported to
have said of him before the magistrate is quite true. He was always
"an arbitrary cove." As a critic, he belonged to the school of
Bentley and Gifford,--who would always bray in a literary mortar
all critics who disagreed from them, as though such disagreement
were a personal offence requiring personal castigation. But that
very eagerness made him a good editor. Into whatever he did he put
his very heart and soul. During his time the Examiner was almost
all that a Liberal weekly paper should be. So to John Forster I
went, and was shown into that room in Lincoln's Inn Fields in which,
some three or four years earlier, Dickens had given that reading of
which there is an illustration with portraits in the second volume
of his life.
At this time I knew no literary men. A few I had met when living
with my mother, but that had been now so long ago that all such
acquaintance had died out. I knew who they were as far as a man
could get such knowledge from the papers of the day, and felt myself
as in part belonging to the guild, through my mother, and in some
degree by my own unsuccessful efforts. But it was not probable that
any one would admit my claim;--nor on this occasion did I make any
claim. I stated my name and official position, and the fact that
opportunities had been given me of seeing the poorhouses in Ireland,
and of making myself acquainted with the circumstances of the
time. Would a series of letters on the subject be accepted by the
Examiner? The great man, who loomed very large to me, was pleased
to say that if the letters should recommend themselves by their
style and matter, if they were not too long, and if,--every reader
will know how on such occasions an editor will guard himself,--if
this and if that, they should be favourably entertained. They were
favourably entertained,--if printing and publication be favourable
entertainment. But I heard no more of them. The world in Ireland
did not declare that the Government had at last been adequately
defended, nor did the treasurer of the Examiner send me a cheque
in return.
Whether there ought to have been a cheque I do not even yet know.
A man who writes a single letter to a newspaper, of course, is not
paid for it,--nor for any number of letters on some point personal
to himself. I have since written sets of letters to newspapers, and
have been paid for them; but then I have bargained for a price. On
this occasion I had hopes; but they never ran high, and I was not
much disappointed. I have no copy now of those letters, and could
not refer to them without much trouble; nor do I remember what I
said. But I know that I did my best in writing them.
When my historical novel failed, as completely as had its predecessors,
the two Irish novels, I began to ask myself whether, after all,
that was my proper line. I had never thought of questioning the
justice of the verdict expressed against me. The idea that I was
the unfortunate owner of unappreciated genius never troubled me. I
did not look at the books after they were published, feeling sure
that they had been, as it were, damned with good reason. But still
I was clear in my mind that I would not lay down my pen. Then and
therefore I determined to change my hand, and to attempt a play.
I did attempt the play, and in 1850 I wrote a comedy, partly in
blank verse, and partly in prose, called The Noble Jilt. The plot
I afterwards used in a novel called Can You Forgive Her? I believe
that I did give the best of my intellect to the play, and I must
own that when it was completed it pleased me much. I copied it,
and re-copied it, touching it here and touching it there, and then
sent it to my very old friend, George Bartley, the actor, who had
when I was in London been stage-manager of one of the great theatres,
and who would, I thought, for my own sake and for my mother's, give
me the full benefit of his professional experience.
I have now before me the letter which he wrote to me,--a letter
which I have read a score of times. It was altogether condemnatory.
"When I commenced," he said, "I had great hopes of your production.
I did not think it opened dramatically, but that might have been
remedied." I knew then that it was all over. But, as my old friend
warmed to the subject, the criticism became stronger and stronger,
till my ears tingled. At last came the fatal blow. "As to the
character of your heroine, I felt at a loss how to describe it,
but you have done it for me in the last speech of Madame Brudo."
Madame Brudo was the heroine's aunt. "'Margaret, my child, never
play the jilt again; 'tis a most unbecoming character. Play it
with what skill you will, it meets but little sympathy.' And this,
be assured, would be its effect upon an audience. So that I must
reluctantly add that, had I been still a manager, The Noble Jilt
is not a play I could have recommended for production." This was a
blow that I did feel. The neglect of a book is a disagreeable fact
which grows upon an author by degrees. There is no special moment
of agony,--no stunning violence of condemnation. But a piece of
criticism such as this, from a friend, and from a man undoubtedly
capable of forming an opinion, was a blow in the face! But I
accepted the judgment loyally, and said not a word on the subject
to any one. I merely showed the letter to my wife, declaring my
conviction, that it must be taken as gospel. And as critical gospel
it has since been accepted. In later days I have more than once
read the play, and I know that he was right. The dialogue, however,
I think to be good, and I doubt whether some of the scenes be not
the brightest and best work I ever did.
Just at this time another literary project loomed before my eyes,
and for six or eight months had considerable size. I was introduced
to Mr. John Murray, and proposed to him to write a handbook for
Ireland. I explained to him that I knew the country better than
most other people, perhaps better than any other person, and could
do it well. He asked me to make a trial of my skill, and to send
him a certain number of pages, undertaking to give me an answer
within a fortnight after he should have received my work. I came
back to Ireland, and for some weeks I laboured very hard. I "did"
the city of Dublin, and the county of Kerry, in which lies the
lake scenery of Killarney, and I "did" the route from Dublin to
Killarney, altogether completing nearly a quarter of the proposed
volume. The roll of MS. was sent to Albemarle Street,--but was never
opened. At the expiration of nine months from the date on which it
reached that time-honoured spot it was returned without a word, in
answer to a very angry letter from myself. I insisted on having
back my property,--and got it. I need hardly say that my property
has never been of the slightest use to me. In all honesty I think
that had he been less dilatory, John Murray would have got a very
good Irish Guide at a cheap rate.
Early in 1851 I was sent upon a job of special official work, which
for two years so completely absorbed my time that I was able to
write nothing. A plan was formed for extending the rural delivery
of letters, and for adjusting the work, which up to that time had
been done in a very irregular manner. A country letter-carrier
would be sent in one direction in which there were but few letters
to be delivered, the arrangement having originated probably at
the request of some influential person, while in another direction
there was no letter-carrier because no influential person had exerted
himself. It was intended to set this right throughout England,
Ireland, and Scotland; and I quickly did the work in the Irish
district to which I was attached. I was then invited to do the same
in a portion of England, and I spent two of the happiest years of
my life at the task. I began in Devonshire; and visited, I think
I may say, every nook in that county, in Cornwall, Somersetshire,
the greater part of Dorsetshire, the Channel Islands, part of
Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire,
Monmouthshire, and the six southern Welsh counties. In this way I
had an opportunity of seeing a considerable portion of Great Britain,
with a minuteness which few have enjoyed. And I did my business
after a fashion in which no other official man has worked at
least for many years. I went almost everywhere on horseback. I had
two hunters of my own, and here and there, where I could, I hired
a third horse. I had an Irish groom with me,--an old man, who has
now been in my service for thirty-five years; and in this manner I
saw almost every house--I think I may say every house of importance--in
this large district. The object was to create a postal network
which should catch all recipients of letters. In France it was, and
I suppose still is, the practice to deliver every letter. Wherever
the man may live to whom a letter is addressed, it is the duty of
some letter-carrier to take that letter to his house, sooner or
later. But this, of course, must be done slowly. With us a delivery
much delayed was thought to be worse than none at all. In some places
we did establish posts three times a week, and perhaps occasionally
twice a week; but such halting arrangements were considered to
be objectionable, and we were bound down by a salutary law as to
expense, which came from our masters at the Treasury. We were not
allowed to establish any messenger's walk on which a sufficient
number of letters would not be delivered to pay the man's wages,
counted at a halfpenny a letter. But then the counting was in our
own hands, and an enterprising official might be sanguine in his
figures. I think I was sanguine. I did not prepare false accounts;
but I fear that the postmasters and clerks who absolutely had the
country to do became aware that I was anxious for good results.
It is amusing to watch how a passion will grow upon a man. During
those two years it was the ambition of my life to cover the country
with rural letter-carriers. I do not remember that in any case a
rural post proposed by me was negatived by the authorities; but I
fear that some of them broke down afterwards as being too poor, or
because, in my anxiety to include this house and that, I had sent
the men too far afield. Our law was that a man should not be required
to walk more than sixteen miles a day. Had the work to be done been
all on a measured road, there would have been no need for doubt as
to the distances. But my letter-carriers went here and there across
the fields. It was my special delight to take them by all short
cuts; and as I measured on horseback the short cuts which they would
have to make on foot, perhaps I was sometimes a little unjust to
them.
All this I did on horseback, riding on an average forty miles a
day. I was paid sixpence a mile for the distance travelled, and it
was necessary that I should at any rate travel enough to pay for
my equipage. This I did, and got my hunting out of it also. I have
often surprised some small country postmaster, who had never seen
or heard of me before, by coming down upon him at nine in the
morning, with a red coat and boots and breeches, and interrogating
him as to the disposal of every letter which came into his office.
And in the same guise I would ride up to farmhouses, or parsonages,
or other lone residences about the country, and ask the people how
they got their letters, at what hour, and especially whether they
were delivered free or at a certain charge. For a habit had crept
into use, which came to be, in my eyes, at that time, the one sin
for which there was no pardon, in accordance with which these rural
letter-carriers used to charge a penny a letter, alleging that the
house was out of their beat, and that they must be paid for their
extra work. I think that I did stamp out that evil. In all these
visits I was, in truth, a beneficent angel to the public, bringing
everywhere with me an earlier, cheaper, and much more regular delivery
of letters. But not unfrequently the angelic nature of my mission
was imperfectly understood. I was perhaps a little in a hurry to
get on, and did not allow as much time as was necessary to explain
to the wondering mistress of the house, or to an open-mouthed farmer,
why it was that a man arrayed for hunting asked so many questions
which might be considered impertinent, as applying to his or her
private affairs. "Good-morning, sir. I have just called to ask a
few questions. I am a surveyor of the Post Office. How do you get
your letters? As I am a little in a hurry, perhaps you can explain
at once." Then I would take out my pencil and notebook, and wait
for information. And in fact there was no other way in which the
truth could be ascertained. Unless I came down suddenly as a summer's
storm upon them, the very people who were robbed by our messengers
would not confess the robbery, fearing the ill-will of the men. It
was necessary to startle them into the revelations which I required
them to make for their own good. And I did startle them. I became
thoroughly used to it, and soon lost my native bashfulness;--but
sometimes my visits astonished the retiring inhabitants of country
houses. I did, however, do my work, and can look back upon what I
did with thorough satisfaction. I was altogether in earnest; and
I believe that many a farmer now has his letters brought daily to
his house free of charge, who but for me would still have had to
send to the post-town for them twice a week, or to have paid a man
for bringing them irregularly to his door.
This work took up my time so completely, and entailed upon me so
great an amount of writing, that I was in fact unable to do any
literary work. From day to day I thought of it, still purporting
to make another effort, and often turning over in my head some
fragment of a plot which had occurred to me. But the day did not
come in which I could sit down with my pen and paper and begin
another novel. For, after all, what could it be but a novel? The
play had failed more absolutely than the novels, for the novels
had attained the honour of print. The cause of this pressure of
official work lay, not in the demands of the General Post Office,
which more than once expressed itself as astonished by my celerity,
but in the necessity which was incumbent on me to travel miles
enough to pay for my horses, and upon the amount of correspondence,
returns, figures, and reports which such an amount of daily travelling
brought with it. I may boast that the work was done very quickly
and very thoroughly,--with no fault but an over-eagerness to extend
postal arrangements far and wide.
In the course of the job I visited Salisbury, and whilst wandering
there one mid-summer evening round the purlieus of the cathedral I
conceived the story of The Warden,--from whence came that series of
novels of which Barchester, with its bishops, deans, and archdeacon,
was the central site. I may as well declare at once that no one
at their commencement could have had less reason than myself to
presume himself to be able to write about clergymen. I have been
often asked in what period of my early life I had lived so long
in a cathedral city as to have become intimate with the ways of a
Close. I never lived in any cathedral city,--except London, never
knew anything of any Close, and at that time had enjoyed no peculiar
intimacy with any clergyman. My archdeacon, who has been said to be
life-like, and for whom I confess that I have all a parent's fond
affection, was, I think, the simple result of an effort of my moral
consciousness. It was such as that, in my opinion, that an archdeacon
should be,--or, at any rate, would be with such advantages as
an archdeacon might have; and lo! an archdeacon was produced, who
has been declared by competent authorities to be a real archdeacon
down to the very ground. And yet, as far as I can remember, I had
not then even spoken to an archdeacon. I have felt the compliment
to be very great. The archdeacon came whole from my brain after
this fashion;--but in writing about clergymen generally, I had to
pick up as I went whatever I might know or pretend to know about
them. But my first idea had no reference to clergymen in general.
I had been struck by two opposite evils,--or what seemed to me to
be evils,--and with an absence of all art-judgment in such matters, I
thought that I might be able to expose them, or rather to describe
them, both in one and the same tale. The first evil was the
possession by the Church of certain funds and endowments which had
been intended for charitable purposes, but which had been allowed
to become incomes for idle Church dignitaries. There had been more
than one such case brought to public notice at the time, in which
there seemed to have been an egregious malversation of charitable
purposes. The second evil was its very opposite. Though I had been
much struck by the injustice above described, I had also often
been angered by the undeserved severity of the newspapers towards
the recipients of such incomes, who could hardly be considered
to be the chief sinners in the matter. When a man is appointed to
a place, it is natural that he should accept the income allotted
to that place without much inquiry. It is seldom that he will be
the first to find out that his services are overpaid. Though he be
called upon only to look beautiful and to be dignified upon State
occasions, he will think (pounds)2000 a year little enough for such beauty
and dignity as he brings to the task. I felt that there had been
some tearing to pieces which might have been spared. But I was
altogether wrong in supposing that the two things could be combined.
Any writer in advocating a cause must do so after the fashion of
an advocate,--or his writing will be ineffective. He should take up
one side and cling to that, and then he may be powerful. There should
be no scruples of conscience. Such scruples make a man impotent for
such work. It was open to me to have described a bloated parson,
with a red nose and all other iniquities, openly neglecting every
duty required from him, and living riotously on funds purloined
from the poor,--defying as he did do so the moderate remonstrances
of a virtuous press. Or I might have painted a man as good, as sweet,
and as mild as my warden, who should also have been a hard-working,
ill-paid minister of God's word, and might have subjected him to the
rancorous venom of some daily Jupiter, who, without a leg to stand
on, without any true case, might have been induced, by personal
spite, to tear to rags the poor clergyman with poisonous, anonymous,
and ferocious leading articles. But neither of these programmes
recommended itself to my honesty. Satire, though it may exaggerate
the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order that
it may be lashed. Caricature may too easily become a slander, and
satire a libel. I believed in the existence neither of the red-nosed
clerical cormorant, nor in that of the venomous assassin of the
journals. I did believe that through want of care and the natural
tendency of every class to take care of itself, money had slipped
into the pockets of certain clergymen which should have gone
elsewhere; and I believed also that through the equally natural
propensity of men to be as strong as they know how to be, certain
writers of the press had allowed themselves to use language which
was cruel, though it was in a good cause. But the two objects
should not have been combined--and I now know myself well enough
to be aware that I was not the man to have carried out either of
them.
Nevertheless I thought much about it, and on the 29th of July,
1853,--having been then two years without having made any literary
effort,--I began The Warden, at Tenbury in Worcestershire. It was
then more than twelve months since I had stood for an hour on the
little bridge in Salisbury, and had made out to my own satisfaction
the spot on which Hiram's hospital should stand. Certainly no work
that I ever did took up so much of my thoughts. On this occasion
I did no more than write the first chapter, even if so much. I had
determined that my official work should be moderated, so as to allow
me some time for writing; but then, just at this time, I was sent
to take the postal charge of the northern counties in Ireland,--of
Ulster, and the counties Meath and Louth. Hitherto in official
language I had been a surveyor's clerk,--now I was to be a surveyor.
The difference consisted mainly in an increase of income from about
(pounds)450 to about (pounds)800;--for at that time the sum netted still depended
on the number of miles travelled. Of course that English work
to which I had become so warmly wedded had to be abandoned. Other
parts of England were being done by other men, and I had nearly
finished the area which had been entrusted to me. I should have
liked to ride over the whole country, and to have sent a rural
post letter-carrier to every parish, every village, every hamlet,
and every grange in England.
We were at this time very much unsettled as regards any residence.
While we were living at Clonmel two sons had been born, who certainly
were important enough to have been mentioned sooner. At Clonmel we
had lived in lodgings, and from there had moved to Mallow, a town
in the county Cork, where we had taken a house. Mallow was in the
centre of a hunting country, and had been very pleasant to me. But
our house there had been given up when it was known that I should
be detained in England; and then we had wandered about in the western
counties, moving our headquarters from one town to another. During
this time we had lived at Exeter, at Bristol, at Caermarthen,
at Cheltenham, and at Worcester. Now we again moved, and settled
ourselves for eighteen months at Belfast. After that we took a
house at Donnybrook, the well-known suburb of Dublin.
The work of taking up a new district, which requires not only that
the man doing it should know the nature of the postal arrangements,
but also the characters and the peculiarities of the postmasters
and their clerks, was too heavy to allow of my going on with my
book at once. It was not till the end of 1852 that I recommenced it,
and it was in the autumn of 1853 that I finished the work. It was
only one small volume, and in later days would have been completed
in six weeks,--or in two months at the longest, if other work had
pressed. On looking at the title-page, I find it was not published
till 1855. I had made acquaintance, through my friend John Merivale,
with William Longman the publisher, and had received from him an
assurance that the manuscript should be "looked at." It was "looked
at," and Messrs. Longman made me an offer to publish it at half
profits. I had no reason to love "half profits," but I was very
anxious to have my book published, and I acceded. It was now more
than ten years since I had commenced writing The Macdermots, and
I thought that if any success was to be achieved, the time surely
had come. I had not been impatient; but, if there was to be a time,
surely it had come.
The novel-reading world did not go mad about The Warden; but I soon
felt that it had not failed as the others had failed. There were
notices of it in the press, and I could discover that people around
me knew that I had written a book. Mr. Longman was complimentary,
and after a while informed me that there would be profits to divide.
At the end of 1855 I received a cheque for (pounds)9 8s. 8d., which was
the first money I had ever earned by literary work;--that (pounds)20 which
poor Mr. Colburn had been made to pay certainly never having been
earned at all. At the end of 1856 I received another sum of (pounds)10
15s. 1d. The pecuniary success was not great. Indeed, as regarded
remuneration for the time, stone-breaking would have done better.
A thousand copies were printed, of which, after a lapse of five or
six years, about 300 had to be converted into another form, and sold
as belonging to a cheap edition. In its original form The Warden
never reached the essential honour of a second edition.
I have already said of the work that it failed altogether in
the purport for which it was intended. But it has a merit of its
own,--a merit by my own perception of which I was enabled to see
wherein lay whatever strength I did possess. The characters of the
bishop, of the archdeacon, of the archdeacon's wife, and especially
of the warden, are all well and clearly drawn. I had realised to
myself a series of portraits, and had been able so to put them on
the canvas that my readers should see that which I meant them to
see. There is no gift which an author can have more useful to him
than this. And the style of the English was good, though from most
unpardonable carelessness the grammar was not unfrequently faulty.
With such results I had no doubt but that I would at once begin
another novel.
I will here say one word as a long-deferred answer to an item of
criticism which appeared in the Times newspaper as to The Warden.
In an article-if I remember rightly--on The Warden and Barchester
Towers combined--which I would call good-natured, but that I take
it for granted that the critics of the Times are actuated by higher
motives than good-nature, that little book and its sequel are spoken
of in terms which were very pleasant to the author. But there was
added to this a gentle word of rebuke at the morbid condition of the
author's mind which had prompted him to indulge in personalities,--the
personalities in question having reference to some editor or manager
of the Times newspaper. For I had introduced one Tom Towers as being
potent among the contributors to the Jupiter, under which name I
certainly did allude to the Times. But at that time, living away in
Ireland, I had not even heard the name of any gentleman connected
with the Times newspaper, and could not have intended to represent
any individual by Tom Towers. As I had created an archdeacon, so had
I created a journalist, and the one creation was no more personal
or indicative of morbid tendencies than the other. If Tom Towers
was at all like any gentleman connected with the Times, my moral
consciousness must again have been very powerful.