Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope
have become much more common since The Fortnightly was commenced.
After a time Mr. Lewes retired from the editorship, feeling that
the work pressed too severely on his moderate strength. Our loss
in him was very great, and there was considerable difficulty in
finding a successor. I must say that the present proprietor has
been fortunate in the choice he did make. Mr. John Morley has done
the work with admirable patience, zeal, and capacity. Of course
he has got around him a set of contributors whose modes of thought
are what we may call much advanced; he being "much advanced" himself,
would not work with other aids. The periodical has a peculiar tone
of its own; but it holds its own with ability, and though there
are many who perhaps hate it, there are none who despise it. When
the company sold it, having spent about (pounds)9000 on it, it was worth
little or nothing. Now I believe it to be a good property.
My own last personal concern with it was on a matter, of fox-hunting.
[Footnote: I have written various articles for it since, especially
two on Cicero, to which I devoted great labour.] There came out in
it an article from the pen of Mr. Freeman the historian, condemning
the amusement, which I love, on the grounds of cruelty and general
brutality. Was it possible, asked Mr. Freeman, quoting from Cicero,
that any educated man should find delight in so coarse a pursuit?
Always bearing in mind my own connection with The Fortnightly, I
regarded this almost as a rising of a child against the father. I
felt at any rate bound to answer Mr. Freeman in the same columns,
and I obtained Mr. Morley's permission to do so. I wrote my defence
of fox-hunting, and there it is. In regard to the charge of cruelty,
Mr. Freeman seems to assert that nothing unpleasant should be
done to any of God's creatures except f or a useful purpose. The
protection of a lady's shoulders from the cold is a useful purpose;
and therefore a dozen fur-bearing animals may be snared in the
snow and left to starve to death in the wires, in order that the
lady may have the tippet,--though a tippet of wool would serve
the purpose as well as a tippet of fur. But the congregation and
healthful amusement of one or two hundred persons, on whose behalf
a single fox may or may not be killed, is not a useful purpose. I
think that Mr. Freeman has failed to perceive that amusement is as
needful and almost as necessary as food and raiment. The absurdity
of the further charge as to the general brutality of the pursuit,
and its consequent unfitness for an educated man, is to be attributed
to Mr. Freeman's ignorance of what is really done and said in the
hunting-field,--perhaps to his misunderstanding of Cicero's words.
There was a rejoinder to my answer, and I asked for space for
further remarks. I could have it, the editor said, if I much wished
it; but he preferred that the subject should be closed. Of course
I was silent. His sympathies were all with Mr. Freeman,--and
against the foxes, who, but for fox-hunting, would cease to exist
in England. And I felt that The Fortnighty was hardly the place for
the defence of the sport. Afterwards Mr. Freeman kindly suggested
to me that he would be glad to publish my article in a little book
to be put out by him condemnatory of fox-hunting generally. He was
to have the last word and the first word, and that power of picking
to pieces which he is known to use in so masterly a manner, without
any reply from me! This I was obliged to decline. If he would give
me the last word, as be would have the first, then, I told him, I
should be proud to join him in the book. This offer did not however
meet his views.
It had been decided by the Board of Management, somewhat in opposition
to my own ideas on the subject, that the Fortnightly Review should
always contain a novel. It was of course natural that I should write
the first novel, and I wrote The Belton Estate. It is similar in
its attributes to Rachel Ray and to Miss Mackenzie. It is readable,
and contains scenes which are true to life; but it has no peculiar
merits, and will add nothing to my reputation as a novelist. I have
not looked at it since it was published; and now turning back to
it in my memory, I seem to remember almost less of it than of any
book that I have written.
CHAPTER XI "THE CLAVERINGS," THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE," "NINA BALATKA," AND "LINDA TRESSEL"
The Claverings, which came out in 1866 and 1867, was the last novel
which I wrote for the Cornhill; and it was for this that I received
the highest rate of pay that was ever accorded to me. It was the
same length as Framley Parsonage, and the price was (pounds)2800. Whether
much or little, it was offered by the proprietor of the magazine,
and was paid in a single cheque.
In The Claverings I did not follow the habit which had now become
very common to me, of introducing personages whose names are already
known to the readers of novels, and whose characters were familiar
to myself. If I remember rightly, no one appears here who had
appeared before or who has been allowed to appear since. I consider
the story as a whole to be good, though I am not aware that the
public has ever corroborated that verdict. The chief character
is that of a young woman who has married manifestly for money and
rank,--so manifestly that she does not herself pretend, even while
she is making the marriage, that she has any other reason. The
man is old, disreputable, and a wornout debauchee. Then comes the
punishment natural to the offence. When she is free, the man whom
she had loved, and who had loved her, is engaged to another woman.
He vacillates and is weak,--in which weakness is the fault of the
book, as he plays the part of hero. But she is strong--strong in
her purpose, strong in her desires, and strong in her consciousness
that the punishment which comes upon her has been deserved.
But the chief merit of The Clarverings is in the genuine fun of
some of the scenes. Humour has not been my forte, but I am inclined
to think that the characters of Captain Boodle, Archie Clavering,
and Sophie Gordeloup are humorous. Count Pateroff, the brother of
Sophie, is also good, and disposes of the young hero's interference
in a somewhat masterly manner. In The Claverings, too, there is a
wife whose husband is a brute to her, who loses an only child--his
heir--and who is rebuked by her lord because the boy dies. Her
sorrow is, I think, pathetic. From beginning to end the story is
well told. But I doubt now whether any one reads The Claverings.
When I remember how many novels I have written, I have no right
to expect that above a few of them shall endure even to the second
year beyond publication. This story closed my connection with the
Cornhill Magazine;--but not with its owner, Mr. George Smith, who
subsequently brought out a further novel of mine in a separate
form, and who about this time established the Pall Mall Gazette,
to which paper I was for some years a contributor.
It was in 1865 that the Pall Mall Gazette was commenced, the
name having been taken from a fictitious periodical, which was the
offspring of Thackeray's brain. It was set on foot by the unassisted
energy and resources of George Smith, who had succeeded by means
of his magazine and his publishing connection in getting around him
a society of literary men who sufficed, as far as literary ability
went, to float the paper at one under favourable auspices. His two
strongest staffs probably were "Jacob Omnium," whom I regard as the
most forcible newspaper writer of my days, and Fitz-James Stephen,
the most conscientious and industrious. To them the Pall Mall
Gazette owed very much of its early success,--and to the untiring
energy and general ability of its proprietor. Among its other
contributors were George Lewes, Hannay,--who, I think, came up
from Edinburgh for employment on its columns,--Lord Houghton, Lord
Strangford, Charles Merivale, Greenwood the present editor, Greg,
myself, and very many others;--so many others, that I have met
at a Pall Mall dinner a crowd of guests who would have filled the
House of Commons more respectably than I have seen it filled even
on important occasions. There are many who now remember--and no
doubt when this is published there will be left some to remember--the
great stroke of business which was done by the revelations of a
visitor to one of the casual wards in London. A person had to be
selected who would undergo the misery of a night among the usual
occupants of a casual ward in a London poorhouse, and who should at
the same time be able to record what he felt and saw. The choice
fell upon Mr. Greenwood's brother, who certainly possessed the
courage and the powers of endurance. The description, which was
very well given, was, I think, chiefly written by the brother of
the Casual himself. It had a great effect, which was increased by
secrecy as to the person who encountered all the horrors of that
night. I was more than once assured that Lard Houghton was the man.
I heard it asserted also that I myself had been the hero. At last
the unknown one could no longer endure that his honours should be
hidden, and revealed the truth,--in opposition, I fear, to promises
to the contrary, and instigated by a conviction that if known he
could turn his honours to account. In the meantime, however, that
record of a night passed in a workhouse had done more to establish
the sale of the journal than all the legal lore of Stephen, or the
polemical power of Higgins, or the critical acumen of Lewes.
My work was various. I wrote much on the subject of the American
War, on which my feelings were at the time very keen,--subscribing,
if I remember right, my name to all that I wrote. I contributed
also some sets of sketches, of which those concerning hunting found
favour with the public. They were republished afterwards, and had
a considerable sale, and may, I think, still be recommended to those
who are fond of hunting, as being accurate in their description of
the different classes of people who are to be met in the hunting-field.
There was also a set of clerical sketches, which was considered to
be of sufficient importance to bring down upon my head the critical
wrath of a great dean of that period. The most ill-natured review
