Autobiography of Anthony Trollope by Anthony Trollope

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Lothair, which is as yet Mr. Disraeli's last work, and, I think,
undoubtedly his worst, has been defended on a plea somewhat similar
to that by which he has defended Vivian Grey. As that was written
when he was too young, so was the other when he was too old,--too
old for work of that nature, though not too old to be Prime Minister.
If his mind were so occupied with greater things as to allow him to
write such a work, yet his judgment should have sufficed to induce
him to destroy it when written. Here that flavour of hair-oil,
that flavour of false jewels, that remembrance of tailors, comes
out stronger than in all the others. Lothair is falser even than
Vivian Grey, and Lady Corisande, the daughter of the Duchess, more
inane and unwomanlike than Venetia or Henrietta Temple. It is the
very bathos of story-telling. I have often lamented, and have as
often excused to myself, that lack of public judgment which enables
readers to put up with bad work because it comes from good or from
lofty hands. I never felt the feeling so strongly, or was so little
able to excuse it, as when a portion of the reading public received
Lothair with satisfaction.

CHAPTER XIV

ON CRITICISM

Literary criticism in the present day has become a profession,--but
it has ceased to be an art. Its object is no longer that of proving
that certain literary work is good and other literary work is
bad, in accordance with rules which the critic is able to define.
English criticism at present rarely even pretends to go so far as
this. It attempts, in the first place, to tell the public whether
a book be or be not worth public attention; and, in the second
place, so to describe the purport of the work as to enable those
who have not time or inclination for reading it to feel that by a
short cut they can become acquainted with its contents. Both these
objects, if fairly well carried out, are salutary. Though the
critic may not be a profound judge himself; though not unfrequently
he be a young man making his first literary attempts, with tastes
and judgment still unfixed, yet he probably has a conscience in the
matter, and would not have been selected for that work had he not
shown some aptitude for it. Though he may be not the best possible
guide to the undiscerning, he will be better than no guide at all.
Real substantial criticism must, from its nature, be costly, and
that which the public wants should at any rate be cheap. Advice is
given to many thousands, which, though it may not be the best advice
possible, is better than no advice at all. Then that description
of the work criticised, that compressing of the much into very
little,--which is the work of many modern critics or reviewers,--does
enable many to know something of what is being said, who without
it would know nothing.

I do not think it is incumbent on me at present to name periodicals
in which this work is well done, and to make complaints of others
by which it is scamped. I should give offence, and might probably
be unjust. But I think I may certainly say that as some of these
periodicals are certainly entitled to great praise for the manner
in which the work is done generally, so are others open to very
severe censure,--and that the praise and that the censure are
chiefly due on behalf of one virtue and its opposite vice. It is
not critical ability that we have a right to demand, or its absence
that we are bound to deplore. Critical ability for the price we
pay is not attainable. It is a faculty not peculiar to Englishmen,
and when displayed is very frequently not appreciated. But that
critics should be honest we have a right to demand, and critical
dishonesty we are bound to expose. If the writer will tell us what
he thinks, though his thoughts be absolutely vague and useless,
we can forgive him; but when he tells us what he does not think,
actuated either by friendship or by animosity, then there should
be no pardon for him. This is the sin in modern English criticism
of which there is most reason to complain.

It is a lamentable fact that men and women lend themselves to this
practice who are neither vindictive nor ordinarily dishonest. It
has become "the custom of the trade," under the veil of which excuse
so many tradesmen justify their malpractices! When a struggling
author learns that so much has been done for A by the Barsetshire
Gazette, so much for B by the Dillsborough Herald, and, again, so
much for C by that powerful metropolitan organ the Evening Pulpit,
and is told also that A and B and C have been favoured through personal
interest, he also goes to work among the editors, or the editors'
wives,--or perhaps, if he cannot reach their wives, with their
wives' first or second cousins. When once the feeling has come upon
an editor or a critic that he may allow himself to be influenced
by other considerations than the duty h owes to the public, all
sense of critical or of editorial honesty falls from him at once.
Facilis descensus Averni. In a very short time that editorial
honesty becomes ridiculous to himself. It is for other purpose that
he wields the power; and when he is told what is his duty, and what
should be his conduct, the preacher of such doctrine seems to him
to be quixotic. "Where have you lived, my friend, for the last
twenty years," he says in spirit, if not in word, "that you come out
now with such stuff as old-fashioned as this?" And thus dishonesty
begets dishonesty, till dishonesty seems to be beautiful. How nice
to be good-natured! How glorious to assist struggling young authors,
especially if the young author be also a pretty woman! How gracious
to oblige a friend! Then the motive, though still pleasing, departs
further from the border of what is good. In what way can the critic
better repay the hospitality of his wealthy literary friend than
by good-natured criticism,--or more certainly ensure for himself
a continuation of hospitable favours?

Some years since a critic of the day, a gentleman well known then
in literary circles, showed me the manuscript of a book recently
published,--the work of a popular author. It was handsomely bound,
and was a valuable and desirable possession. It had just been given
to him by the author as an acknowledgment for a laudatory review in
one of the leading journals of the day. As I was expressly asked
whether I did not regard such a token as a sign of grace both
in the giver and in the receiver, I said that I thought it should
neither have been given nor have been taken. My theory was repudiated
with scorn, and I was told that I was strait-laced, visionary, and
impracticable! In all that the damage did not lie in the fact of
that one present, but in the feeling on the part of the critic that
his office was not debased by the acceptance of presents from those
whom he criticised. This man was a professional critic, bound by
his contract with certain employers to review such books as were
sent to him. How could he, when he had received a valuable present
for praising one book, censure another by the same author?

While I write this I well know that what I say, if it be ever
noticed at all, will be taken as a straining at gnats, as a pretence
of honesty, or at any rate as an exaggeration of scruples. I have
said the same thing before, and have been ridiculed for saying it.
But none the less am I sure that English literature generally is
suffering much under this evil. All those who are struggling for
success have forced upon them the idea that their strongest efforts
should be made in touting for praise. Those who are not familiar
with the lives of authors will hardly believe how low will be the
forms which their struggles will take:--how little presents will
be sent to men who write little articles; how much flattery may
be expended even on the keeper of a circulating library; with what
profuse and distant genuflexions approaches are made to the outside
railing of the temple which contains within it the great thunderer
of some metropolitan periodical publication! The evil here is not
only that done to the public when interested counsel is given to
them, but extends to the debasement of those who have at any rate
considered themselves fit to provide literature for the public.

I am satisfied that the remedy for this evil must lie in the conscience
and deportment of authors themselves. If once the feeling could be
produced that it is disgraceful for an author to ask for praise,--and
demands for praise are, I think, disgraceful in every walk of
life,--the practice would gradually fall into the hands only of
the lowest, and that which is done only by the lowest soon becomes
despicable even to them. The sin, when perpetuated with unflagging
labour, brings with it at best very poor reward. That work of running
after critics, editors, publishers, the keepers of circulating
libraries, and their clerks, is very hard, and must be very disagreeable.
He who does it must feel himself to be dishonoured,--or she. It
may perhaps help to sell an edition, but can never make an author
successful.

I think it may be laid down as a golden rule in literature that
there should be no intercourse at all between an author and his
critic. The critic, as critic, should not know his author, nor the
author, as author, his critic. As censure should beget no anger,
so should praise beget no gratitude. The young author should feel
that criticisms fall upon him as dew or hail from heaven,--which,
as coming from heaven, man accepts as fate. Praise let the author
try to obtain by wholesome effort; censure let him avoid, if
possible, by care and industry. But when they come, let him take
them as coming from some source which he cannot influence, and with
which be should not meddle.

I know no more disagreeable trouble into which an author may plunge
himself than of a quarrel with his critics, or any more useless
labour than that of answering them. It is wise to presume, at any
rate, that the reviewer has simply done his duty, and has spoken
of the book according to the dictates of his conscience. Nothing
can be gained by combating the reviewer's opinion. If the book
which he has disparaged be good, his judgment will be condemned by
the praise of others; if bad, his judgment will he confirmed by
others. Or if, unfortunately, the criticism of the day be in so evil
a condition generally that such ultimate truth cannot be expected,
the author may be sure that his efforts made on behalf of his own
book will not set matters right. If injustice be done him, let him
bear it. To do so is consonant with the dignity of the position
which he ought to assume. To shriek, and scream, and sputter,
to threaten actions, and to swear about the town that he has been
belied and defamed in that he has been accused of bad grammar or a
false metaphor, of a dull chapter, or even of a borrowed heroine,
will leave on the minds of the public nothing but a sense of
irritated impotence.

If, indeed, there should spring from an author's work any assertion
by a critic injurious to the author's honour, if the author be
accused of falsehood or of personal motives which are discreditable
to him, then, indeed, he may be bound to answer the charge. It is
hoped, however, that he may be able to do so with clean hands, or
he will so stir the mud in the pool as to come forth dirtier than
he went into it.

I have lived much among men by whom the English criticism of the day
has been vehemently abused. I have heard it said that to the public
it is a false guide, and that to authors it is never a trustworthy
Mentor. I do not concur in this wholesale censure. There is, of
course, criticism and criticism. There are at this moment one or
two periodicals to which both public and authors may safely look
for guidance, though there are many others from which no spark of
literary advantage may be obtained. But it is well that both public
and authors should know what is the advantage which they have a
right to expect. There have been critics,--and there probably will
be again, though the circumstances of English literature do not
tend to produce them,--with power sufficient to entitle them to
speak with authority. These great men have declared, tanquam ex
cathedra, that such a book has been so far good and so far bad, or
that it has been altogether good or altogether bad;--and the world
has believed them. When making such assertions they have given
their reasons, explained their causes, and have carried conviction.
Very great reputations have been achieved by such critics, but not
without infinite study and the labour of many years.

Such are not the critics of the day, of whom we are now speaking.
In the literary world as it lives at present some writer is selected
for the place of critic to a newspaper, generally some young
writer, who for so many shillings a column shall review whatever
book is sent to him and express an opinion,--reading the book through
for the purpose, if the amount of honorarium as measured with the
amount of labour will enable him to do so. A labourer must measure
his work by his pay or he cannot live. From criticism such as this
must far the most part be, the general reader has no right to expect
philosophical analysis, or literary judgment on which confidence
may be placed. But he probably may believe that the books praised
will be better than the books censured, and that those which are
praised by periodicals which never censure are better worth his
attention than those which are not noticed. And readers will also
find that by devoting an hour or two on Saturday to the criticisms
of the week, they will enable themselves to have an opinion about
the books of the day. The knowledge so acquired will not be great,
nor will that little be lasting; but it adds something to the
pleasure of life to be able to talk on subjects of which others are
speaking; and the man who has sedulously gone through the literary
notices in the Spectator and the Saturday may perhaps be justified
in thinking himself as well able to talk about the new book as
his friend who has bought that new book on the tapis, and who, not
improbably, obtained his information from the same source.

As an author, I have paid careful attention to the reviews which
have been written on my own work; and I think that now I well know
where I may look for a little instruction, where I may expect only
greasy adulation, where I shall be cut up into mince-meat for the
delight of those who love sharp invective, and where I shall find
an equal mixture of praise and censure so adjusted, without much
judgment, as to exhibit the impartiality of the newspaper and its
staff. Among it all there is much chaff, which I have learned bow
to throw to the winds, with equal disregard whether it praises or
blames;--but I have also found some corn, on which I have fed and
nourished myself, and for which I have been thankful.

CHAPTER XV

"THE LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET"--"LEAVING THE POST OFFICE"--"ST.
PAUL'S MAGAZINE"

I will now go back to the year 1867, in which I was still living at
Waltham Cross. I had some time since bought the house there which
I had at first hired, and added rooms to it, and made it for our
purposes very comfortable. It was, however, a rickety old place,
requiring much repair, and occasionally not as weathertight as it
should be. We had a domain there sufficient for the cows, and for
the making of our butter and hay. For strawberries, asparagus, green
peas, out-of-door peaches, for roses especially, and such everyday
luxuries, no place was ever more excellent. It was only twelve
miles from London, and admitted therefore of frequent intercourse
with the metropolis. It was also near enough to the Roothing country
for hunting purposes. No doubt the Shoreditch Station, by which it
had to be reached, had its drawbacks. My average distance also to
the Essex meets was twenty miles. But the place combined as much
or more than I had a right to expect. It was within my own postal
district, and had, upon the whole, been well chosen.

The work that I did during the twelve years that I remained there,
from 1859 to 1871, was certainly very great. I feel confident that
in amount no other writer contributed so much during that time to
English literature. Over and above my novels, I wrote political
articles, critical, social, and sporting articles, for periodicals,
without number. I did the work of a surveyor of the General Post
Office, and so did it as to give the authorities of the department
no slightest pretext for fault-finding. I hunted always at least
twice a week. I was frequent in the whist-room at the Garrick. I
lived much in society in London, and was made happy by the presence
of many friends at Waltham Cross. In addition to this we always
spent six weeks at least out of England. Few men, I think, ever lived
a fuller life. And I attribute the power of doing this altogether
to the virtue of early hours. It was my practice to be at my table
every morning at 5.30 A. M.; and it was also my practice to allow
myself no mercy. An old groom, whose business it was to call me,
and to whom I paid œ5 a year extra for the duty, allowed himself no
mercy. During all those years at Waltham Cross he was never once
late with the coffee which it was his duty to bring me. I do not
know that I ought not to feel that I owe more to him than to any
one else for the success I have had. By beginning at that hour I
could complete my literary work before I dressed for breakfast.

All those I think who have lived as literary men,--working daily
as literary labourers,--will agree with me that three hours a day
will produce as much as a man ought to write. But then he should
so have trained himself that he shall be able to work continuously
during those three hours,--so have tutored his mind that it shall
not be necessary for him to sit nibbling his pen, and gazing at the
wall before him, till he shall have found the words with which he
wants to express his ideas. It had at this time become my custom,--and
it still is my custom, though of late I have become a little lenient
to myself,--to write with my watch before me, and to require from
myself 250 words every quarter of an hour. I have found that the 250
words have been forthcoming as regularly as my watch went. But my
three hours were not devoted entirely to writing. I always began
my task by reading the work of the day before, an operation which
would take me half an hour, and which consisted chiefly in weighing
with my ear the sound of the words and phrases. I would strongly
recommend this practice to all tyros in writing. That their work
should be read after it has been written is a matter of course,--that
it should be read twice at least before it goes to the printers,
I take to be a matter of course. But by reading what he has last
written, just before he recommences his task, the writer will catch
the tone and spirit of what he is then saying, and will avoid the
fault of seeming to be unlike himself. This division of time allowed
me to produce over ten pages of an ordinary novel volume a day,
and if kept up through ten months, would have given as its results
three novels of three volumes each in the year;--the precise amount
which so greatly acerbated the publisher in Paternoster Row, and which
must at any rate be felt to be quite as much as the novel-readers
of the world can want from the hands of one man.

I have never written three novels in a year, but by following the
plan above described I have written more than as much as three
volumes; and by adhering to it over a course of years, I have been
enabled to have always on hand,--for some time back now,--one or
two or even three unpublished novels in my desk beside me. Were I
to die now there are three such besides The Prime Minister, half
of which has only yet been issued. One of these has been six years
finished, and has never seen the light since it was first tied up
in the wrapper which now contains it. I look forward with some grim
pleasantry to its publication after another period of six years,
and to the declaration of the critics that it has been the work of
a period of life at which the power of writing novels had passed
from me. Not improbably, however, these pages may be printed first.

In 1866 and 1867 The Last Chronicle of Barset was brought out by
George Smith in sixpenny monthly numbers. I do not know that this
mode of publication had been tried before, or that it answered very
well on this occasion. Indeed the shilling magazines had interfered
greatly with the success of novels published in numbers without
other accompanying matter. The public finding that so much might
be had for a shilling, in which a portion of one or more novels was
always included, were unwilling to spend their money on the novel
alone. Feeling that this certainly had become the case in reference
to novels published in shilling numbers, Mr. Smith and I determined
to make the experiment with sixpenny parts. As he paid me œ3000
for the use of my MS., the loss, if any, did not fall upon me. If
I remember right the enterprise was not altogether successful.

Taking it as a whole, I regard this as the best novel I have
written. I was never quite satisfied with the development of the
plot, which consisted in the loss of a cheque, of a charge made
against a clergyman for stealing it, and of absolute uncertainty
on the part of the clergyman himself as to the manner in which the
cheque had found its way into his hands. I cannot quite make myself
believe that even such a man as Mr. Crawley could have forgotten
how he got it, nor would the generous friend who was anxious to
supply his wants have supplied them by tendering the cheque of a
third person. Such fault I acknowledge,--acknowledging at the same
time that I have never been capable of constructing with complete
success the intricacies of a plot that required to be unravelled.
But while confessing so much, I claim to have portrayed the mind
of the unfortunate man with great accuracy and great delicacy. The
pride, the humility, the manliness, the weakness, the conscientious
rectitude and bitter prejudices of Mr. Crawley were, I feel, true
to nature and well described. The surroundings too are good. Mrs.
Proudie at the palace is a real woman; and the poor old dean dying
at the deanery is also real. The archdeacon in his victory is very
real. There is a true savour of English country life all through
the book. It was with many misgivings that I killed my old friend
Mrs. Proudie. I could not, I think, have done it, but for a resolution
taken and declared under circumstances of great momentary pressure.

It was thus that it came about. I was sitting one morning at work
upon the novel at the end of the long drawing-room of the Athenaeum
Club,--as was then my wont when I had slept the previous night in
London. As I was there, two clergymen, each with a magazine in his
hand, seated themselves, one on one side of the fire and one on
the other, close to me. They soon began to abuse what they were
reading, and each was reading some part of some novel of mine. The
gravamen of their complaint lay in the fact that I reintroduced
the same characters so often! "Here," said one, "is that archdeacon
whom we have had in every novel he has ever written." "And here,"
said the other, "is the old duke whom he has talked about till
everybody is tired of him. If I could not invent new characters, I
would not write novels at all." Then one of them fell foul of Mrs.
Proudie. It was impossible for me not to hear their words, and
almost impossible to hear them and be quiet. I got up, and standing
between them, I acknowledged myself to be the culprit. "As to Mrs.
Proudie," I said, "I will go home and kill her before the week is
over." And so I did. The two gentlemen were utterly confounded,
and one of them begged me to forget his frivolous observations.

I have sometimes regretted the deed, so great was my delight in
writing about Mrs. Proudie, so thorough was my knowledge of all the
shades of her character. It was not only that she was a tyrant,
a bully, a would-be priestess, a very vulgar woman, and one who
would send headlong to the nethermost pit all who disagreed with
her; but that at the same time she was conscientious, by no means
a hypocrite, really believing in the brimstone which she threatened,
and anxious to save the souls around her from its horrors. And as
her tyranny increased so did the bitterness of the moments of her
repentance increase, in that she knew herself to be a tyrant,--till
that bitterness killed her. Since her time others have grown up
equally dear to me,--Lady Glencora and her husband, for instance;
but I have never dissevered myself from Mrs. Proudie, and still
live much in company with her ghost.

I have in a previous chapter said how I wrote Can You Forgive Her?
after the plot of a play which had been rejected,--which play had
been called The Noble Jilt. Some year or two after the completion
of The Last Chronicle, I was asked by the manager of a theatre to
prepare a piece for his stage, and I did so, taking the plot of
this novel. I called the comedy Did He Steal It? But my friend the
manager did not approve of my attempt. My mind at this time was
less attentive to such a matter than when dear old George Bartley
nearly crushed me by his criticism,--so that I forget the reason
given. I have little doubt but that the manager was right. That
he intended to express a true opinion, and would have been glad to
have taken the piece had he thought it suitable, I am quite sure.

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