Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope
novels were written.
To my own initiation at the Post Office I will return in the next
chapter. Just before Christmas my brother died, and was buried at
Bruges. In the following February my father died, and was buried
alongside of him,--and with him died that tedious task of his,
which I can only hope may have solaced many of his latter hours. I
sometimes look back, meditating for hours together, on his adverse
fate. He was a man, finely educated, of great parts, with immense
capacity for work, physically strong very much beyond the average
of men, addicted to no vices, carried off by no pleasures, affectionate
by nature, most anxious for the welfare of his children, born to
fair fortunes,--who, when he started in the world, may be said to
have had everything at his feet. But everything went wrong with
him. The touch of his hand seemed to create failure. He embarked
in one hopeless enterprise after another, spending on each all the
money he could at the time command. But the worse curse to him of
all was a temper so irritable that even those whom he loved the
best could not endure it. We were all estranged from him, and yet
I believe that he would have given his heart's blood for any of
us. His life as I knew it was one long tragedy.
After his death my mother moved to England, and took and furnished
a small house at Hadley, near Barnet. I was then a clerk in the
London Post Office, and I remember well how gay she made the place
with little dinners, little dances, and little picnics, while
she herself was at work every morning long before others had left
their beds. But she did not stay at Hadley much above a year. She
went up to London, where she again took and furnished a house,
from which my remaining sister was married and carried away into
Cumberland. My mother soon followed her, and on this occasion did
more than take a house. She bought a bit of land,--a field of three
acres near the town,--and built a residence for herself. This, I
think, was in 1841, and she had thus established and re-established
herself six times in ten years. But in Cumberland she found the
climate too severe, and in 1844 she moved herself to Florence,
where she remained till her death in 1863. She continued writing
up to 1856, when she was seventy-six years old,--and had at that
time produced 114 volumes, of which the first was not written till
she was fifty. Her career offers great encouragement to those who
have not begun early in life, but are still ambitious to do something
before they depart hence.
She was an unselfish, affectionate, and most industrious woman,
with great capacity for enjoyment and high physical gifts. She was
endowed too, with much creative power, with considerable humour,
and a genuine feeling for romance. But she was neither clear-sighted
nor accurate; and in her attempts to describe morals, manners, and
even facts, was unable to avoid the pitfalls of exaggeration.
CHAPTER III The general post office 1834-1841
While I was still learning my duty as an usher at Mr. Drury's
school at Brussels, I was summoned to my clerkship in the London
Post Office, and on my way passed through Bruges. I then saw my
father and my brother Henry for the last time. A sadder household
never was held together. They were all dying; except my mother, who
would sit up night after night nursing the dying ones and writing
novels the while,--so that there might be a decent roof for them
to die under. Had she failed to write the novels, I do not know
where the roof would have been found. It is now more that forty
years ago, and looking back over so long a lapse of time I can tell
the story, though it be the story of my own father and mother, of
my own brother and sister, almost as coldly as I have often done
some scene of intended pathos in fiction; but that scene was indeed
full of pathos. I was then becoming alive to the blighted ambition
of my father's life, and becoming alive also to the violence of the
strain which my mother was enduring. But I could do nothing but go
and leave them. There was something that comforted me in the idea
that I need no longer be a burden,--a fallacious idea, as it soon
proved. My salary was to be (pounds)90 a year, and on that I was to live
in (pounds)ondon, keep up my character as a gentleman, and be happy.
That I should have thought this possible at the age of nineteen,
and should have been delighted at being able to make the attempt,
does not surprise me now; but that others should have thought it
possible, friends who knew something of the world, does astonish
me. A lad might have done so, no doubt, or might do so even in
these days, who was properly looked after and kept under control,--on
whose behalf some law of life had been laid down. Let him pay so
much a week for his board and lodging, so much for his clothes, so
much for his washing, and then let him understand that he has--shall
we say?--sixpence a day left for pocket-money and omnibuses. Any
one making the calculation will find the sixpence far too much. No
such calculation was made for me or by me. It was supposed that a
sufficient income had been secured to me, and that I should live
upon it as other clerks lived.
But as yet the (pounds)90 a year was not secured to me. On reaching London
I went to my friend Clayton Freeling, who was then secretary at
the Stamp Office, and was taken by him to the scene of my future
labours in St. Martin's le Grand. Sir Francis Freeling was the
secretary, but he was greatly too high an official to be seen at
first by a new junior clerk. I was taken, therefore, to his eldest
son Henry Freeling, who was the assistant secretary, and by him
I was examined as to my fitness. The story of that examination is
given accurately in one of the opening chapters of a novel written
by me, called The Three Clerks. If any reader of this memoir would
refer to that chapter and see how Charley Tudor was supposed to have
been admitted into the Internal Navigation Office, that reader
will learn how Anthony Trollope was actually admitted into the
Secretary's office of the General Post Office in 1834. I was asked
to copy some lines from the Times newspaper with an old quill pen,
and at once made a series of blots and false spellings. "That
won't do, you know," said Henry Freeling to his brother Clayton.
Clayton, who was my friend, urged that I was nervous, and asked
that I might be allowed to do a bit of writing at home and bring
it as a sample on the next day. I was then asked whether I was
a proficient in arithmetic. What could I say? I had never learned
the multiplication table, and had no more idea of the rule of three
than of conic sections. "I know a little of it," I said humbly,
whereupon I was sternly assured that on the morrow, should I succeed
in showing that my handwriting was all that it ought to be, I should
be examined as to that little of arithmetic. If that little should
not be found to comprise a thorough knowledge of all the ordinary
rules, together with practised and quick skill, my career in life
could not be made at the Post Office. Going down the main stairs
of the building,--stairs which have I believe been now pulled down
to make room for sorters and stampers,--Clayton Freeling told me
not to be too down-hearted. I was myself inclined to think that I
had better go back to the school in Brussels. But nevertheless I
went to work, and under the surveillance of my elder brother made
a beautiful transcript of four or five pages of Gibbon. With a
faltering heart I took these on the next day to the office. With
my caligraphy I was contented, but was certain that I should come
to the ground among the figures. But when I got to "The Grand,"
as we used to call our office in those days, from its site in
St. Martin's le Grand, I was seated at a desk without any further
reference to my competency. No one condescended even to look at my
beautiful penmanship.
That was the way in which candidates for the Civil Service were
examined in my young days. It was at any rate the way in which I
was examined. Since that time there has been a very great change
indeed;--and in some respects a great improvement. But in regard
to the absolute fitness of the young men selected for the public
service, I doubt whether more harm has not been done than good. And
I think that good might have been done without the harm. The rule
of the present day is, that every place shall be open to public
competition, and that it shall be given to the best among the
comers. I object to this, that at present there exists no known
mode of learning who is best, and that the method employed has no
tendency to elicit the best. That method pretends only to decide
who among a certain number of lads will best answer a string of
questions, for the answering of which they are prepared by tutors,
who have sprung up for the purpose since this fashion of election
has been adopted. When it is decided in a family that a boy shall
"try the Civil Service," he is made to undergo a certain amount of
cramming. But such treatment has, I maintain, no connection whatever
with education. The lad is no better fitted after it than he was
before for the future work of his life. But his very success fills
him with false ideas of his own educational standing, and so far
unfits him. And, by the plan now in vogue, it has come to pass that
no one is in truth responsible either for the conduct, the manners,
or even for the character of the youth. The responsibility was
perhaps slight before; but existed, and was on the increase.
There might have been,--in some future time of still increased
wisdom, there yet may be,--a department established to test the
fitness of acolytes without recourse to the dangerous optimism of
competitive choice. I will not say but that there should have been
some one to reject me,--though I will have the hardihood to say
that, had I been so rejected, the Civil Service would have lost
a valuable public servant. This is a statement that will not, I
think, be denied by those who, after I am gone, may remember anything
of my work. Lads, no doubt, should not be admitted who have none of
the small acquirements that are wanted. Our offices should not be
schools in which writing and early lessons in geography, arithmetic,
