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 OI^E HUNDRED YEARS OF ANTHONY TROLLOPE 
 
 1815—1915 
 
 LI 
 
 1915] One Hundred Years of Anthonij Trollope 927 
 
 T^47 
 
 In" this instance the novelist is more interesting than his ""^ 
 
 novels, superior though they confessedly are. His is the story of 
 affluence wrested from penury, high mental efficiency in spite of 
 inadequate schooling, the breaking of the solitary into society, a 
 bright end from a dark beginning. And for this fascinating nar- 
 rative with its subtle exhilaration we are debtors to the subject 
 himself. Other men may have analyzed their careers as thoroughly 
 as Mr. Trollope did his, but none of them ever gave their findings 
 with such stark frankness. Augustine's Confessions, on the one 
 hand, are a personal disclosure, it is true, but they relate mainly 
 to religious experience, while the Confessions of Rousseau are so 
 patently inflated and gilded by his imaginative genius as not to be 
 reliable for evidence. Then, too, Trollope distinctly deprecates 
 anything of that nature, so that his autobiography, as might be 
 anticipated, is entirely different. Hawthorne said that Trollope 
 cut out a piece of the earth and put it under a glass so you could 
 see people going about their tasks and living their lives all un- 
 conscious of observation. What he did with the imaginary beings 
 of his novels he did with his own real self. He detached himself 
 from the human conglomerate. You see him at work and at play, 
 the real Anthony Trollope, in every period of life, in every occu- 
 pation, the motives that actuated him, his ideals, the circumstances 
 tending to the formation of the same and the methods adopted for 
 their attainment. If he is severe with contemporary writers their 
 admirers have the satisfaction that he was not a whit less severe 
 with himself. In the most impersonal way he reviews and criti- 
 cises his work as a whole and item by item. 
 
 Little soiled hands stretch appealingly out of the chapter en- 
 titled "My Education." Does luckless boyhood make more piti- 
 ful plea anywhere in literature ? One fairly sees him thread- 
 ing his way up the muddy lanes between the tumble-down farm- 
 house that was his home and the school where to all intents he was 
 
 M543441 
 
928 Methodist Review [ISTovember 
 
 a cbaritv-pupil. It was a place in which the theories of Draco 
 held sway, namely, "Hang a little boy for stealing apples and other 
 little boys will not steal apples." Five scourgings a day was the 
 maximum, and he got them all. His teachers knew him by his 
 boots and trousers and he knew them by their ferules. One 
 shares with Trollope the resentment which he cherished for half 
 a century against the headmaster who stopped him on the street 
 to ask, with the thunder of Jove in his voice, whether it was pos- 
 sible that Harrow School was disgraced by so disreputably dirty 
 a little boy. One finds himself gratified, as Trollope was, in the 
 compensating reflection that, while a kindlier master actually 
 reached an archbishopric, the Jovistic one never got beyond a 
 deanship. He might not have been able to define the paradox of 
 mixing poverty and gentle standing, but he felt it, and it was 
 something intolerable. He coveted that juvenile manhood which 
 enables some boys to hold up their heads. Pity the isolation of 
 those days in which an intimacy with the very boys Avho spurned 
 him would have been his Elysium. The worst horror of it all was 
 the fixed belief that the solitude and poverty of his boyhood in- 
 sured poverty and solitude for life. On the adverse fate of his 
 father the mature man declares he often meditated for hours. It 
 was one long tragedy. Finely educated, of great parts, physically 
 strong, addicted to no vices, affectionate by nature, born to fair for- 
 tune, yet everything went wrong. His ill temper drove clients 
 from him. His literary work, though prodigious, was fatuous, 
 and his ruinous delusion was that money might be made from 
 farming without any previous training. The choice at length was 
 between exile and the debtor's prison. The mournful sequel was 
 a grave in a foreign land. Yet it is an open question whether 
 Trollope is not, after all, a considerable debtor to his unfortunate 
 father. It may have been the denial of amusement and gratifica- 
 tion in his youth which led him to the wholesome indulgences of 
 his manhood. Sight of his father's reams of unmarketable manu- 
 script may have spurred him to produce something that people 
 would wish to have and to set as high a price upon it as the market 
 would pay. He took the wooden monks and nuns of his father's 
 illusory ecclesiastical encyclopaedia, converted them into bishops. 
 
1015] One Hundred Years of Aiithony Trollope 929 
 
 deans, rectors, wardens, and gave them wives, motlici's, aunts, and 
 sweethearts, throwing in a multitude of other folk for good 
 measure. 
 
 That is a facinating portrait which Trollope frames in the 
 chapter which bears the title ''My Mother." Her countenance was 
 the one illuminating ray of his eerie boyhood. As if to give us 
 pledge of fidelity in the sketch, he does not hesitate to criticize 
 her. She affected a Liberal role. She w^elconied patriot exiles 
 who had distant ideas of sacrificing themselves upon the altar of 
 liberty. In after years, however, when marquesses had been 
 gracious to her, she became a Tory and thought archduchesses 
 were sweet. With her, politics was, at best, a thing of the heart. 
 She was neither clear-sighted nor accurate. In her attempts to 
 describe morals, manners, and even facts, she was unable to avoid 
 the pitfalls of exaggeration. This apparently undutiful criticism 
 is more than offset by the high lights upon the picture. This emo- 
 tional, unlogical woman slipped into the breach and retrieved the 
 ruined fortunes of the family and, strange to say, by the very 
 instrument which had wrought the havoc — the pen! Kunning 
 parallel with her visible occupation, that of nurse and household 
 manager, was her invisible calling of novelist, which she plied 
 hours before the family began to stir for the day. Doctors' vials 
 and ink-bottles were the symbols of her double craft. Her whole 
 heart was by the bedside of the dying members of her family, yet 
 she continued the work which was the sole means of providing 
 comforts, and even necessities. She divided herself into two 
 parts, keeping her intellect clear from the trouble of the world 
 and fit for duty. She was unselfish, afi'ectionate, industrious, with 
 great capacity for enjoyment and high physical gifts, had creative 
 power, considerable humor and genuine feeling of romance. "She 
 could dance with other people's legs, eat and drink with other 
 people's palates, be proud with the luster of other people's finery. 
 Any mother can do that for her own daughter, but she could do it 
 for any girl. Laughter of those she loved was an exquisite pleasure 
 to her. Of all people she was the most joyous, at least the most 
 capable of joy." Trollope's sketch of his mother is a revelation 
 of himself. It was from her he got that intimate knowledge of 
 
930 Methodist Review [I^ovember 
 
 female character, that discernment of the trifles which influence 
 women, in short, that characteristic which has been called the 
 feminine element of his mind. His very methods of composition 
 and his adroitness in marketing his wares can be easily traced to 
 his mother's example. 
 
 Trollope's facetious saying that he became anxious for the 
 "welfare of letters" put his long career in the postal service in a 
 nutshell. He was genuinely attached to the department and 
 ''steeped himself in postal waters." He puts his postal creed in 
 the following phrases : That the public in little villages should be 
 enabled to buy postage stamps ; should have their letters delivered 
 free and at an early hour; that pillar-boxes should be put up for 
 them (he originated the device in England) ; letter carriers and 
 sorters should not be overw^orked and should be adequately paid; 
 should have some hours to themselves, especially on Sunday ; 
 should be made to earn their wages ; should not be crushed by the 
 damnable system of so-called merit. That he ran the two pro- 
 fessions parallel to each other for almost a life-time illustrates at 
 once his versatility and his industry. He never used time which 
 belonged to the state for his own emolument. He says, "A man 
 who takes public money without earning it is to me so odious that 
 I can find no pardon for him in my heart." The government 
 proved its satisfaction with him by repeatedly making him com- 
 missioner to make postal treaties with foreign nations. What he 
 said of his work as a novelist he might have said of his public 
 service: "It was not on my conscience that I ever scamped my 
 work." When still a young man a relative inclined to patronize 
 asked him what his ambition was. "A seat in the House," was his 
 laconic reply. The sarcastic retort was that, as far as the depo- 
 nent's knowledge went, few post-office clerks became members of 
 Parliament. That long-remembered taunt no doubt spurred 
 Trollope on to his own political venture. The outcome of it was 
 a sizable bill for expenses and a place at bottom of the poll, as his 
 doctrines were all "leather and prunella" to the men whose votes 
 he solicited. As he could not have a seat on the "benches" he had 
 to crave one in the gallery. Erom that coign of vantage he could 
 tell of the proceedings almost as well as though his fortune had 
 
1015] One Hundred Years of AulJiojuj Trollope 931 
 
 allowed him to fall asleep in the House itself. His so-called Par- 
 liamentary Series gives such insight in the machinery of English 
 government as no formal history could ever afford. Two aphor- 
 isms are evidently suggested by his experience: ''To serve one's 
 country without pay is the grandest work a man can do," and, "Of 
 all studies the study of politics is one in which a man can make 
 himself most useful to his fellow-creatures." 
 
 No man of his times and craft was in the way of being better 
 misunderstood than Anthony Trollope. On the face of the returns 
 he was sordid, extortionate with his publishers, thrusting his wares 
 on the market in quantities out of proportion to any normal gauge, 
 a public servant, yet using the government's time for private 
 emolument, and with it all a gluttonous, vociferous, hound-riding, 
 egotistical pleasure-seeker. Yet the story of his life as written by 
 himself is in no sense an apologia. Need of vindication, explana- 
 tion, or even extenuation seems not so much as to have crossed his 
 mind. Some other reason for the autobiography must be sought. 
 Nor is it hard to find. This meat-eating, ale-drinking fox-hunter 
 has the audacity to count himself actually a preacher and to affirm 
 his novel a pulpit ! He proposed to make his sacred desk salutary 
 and agreeable to his audience, naively suggesting that ordinary 
 sermons are not often thought to be so. Trollope is thought to 
 have given the finishing stroke to the prejudice against novel- 
 reading as an immoral practice — a prejudice against which Walter 
 Scott had made the first thrust with Waverly. But he was not 
 willing that fiction should be just tolerated. He said, "At present 
 there exists a feeling that novels at their best are but innocent. 
 They are read as men eat pastry after dinner, not without some 
 inward conviction that the taste is vain, if not vicious. It is 
 neither vain nor vicious." Again: ''Prejudice against the reading 
 of novels is overcome, but prejudice still exists in reference to the 
 appreciation in which they are professed to be held, and robs them 
 of that high character which they may claim to have earned by 
 their grace, honesty and good teaching." So far from being 
 merely innocent he looked upon the novel as a school for manners 
 and morals. He realized the all but universal hearing that might 
 be obtained. He said, "If I can teach politicians that they can 
 
 
932 Methodist Review [ITovember 
 
 do their business better by truth than by falsehood I do a great 
 service, but it is done to a limited number of persons. But if I 
 can make young men and women believe that truth in love will 
 make them happy, then, if my writings be popular, I shall have a 
 very large class of pupils." He freely gave the palm to poetry 
 as the highest style of literature, but at the same time realized the 
 comparative smallness of its clientage compared with fiction, and 
 believed the latter to be the greater teacher because it could spread 
 the truth much wider. The masses do not read the great poets, 
 or, reading them, often miss their message at least in part. Con- 
 scious of the power the novelist wields by reason of his wider 
 hearing, he proposed to impregnate the mind of the novel-reader 
 with the feeling that ''truth prevails where falsehood fails; that 
 a girl will be loved as she is pure and sweet and unselfish ; that a 
 man will be honored in proportion as he is true, honest, and brave ; 
 that things meanly done are odious, and things nobly done beau- 
 tiful and gracious." 
 
 It is one of the paradoxes of literature that this burly, bluster- 
 ing, aggressive man should treat the feminine character with so 
 deft and gentle a hand and portray the tender passion in both sexes 
 with a perfect fidelity. He treats of love with absolute frankness. 
 He intends that girls shall know from him what to expect when 
 lovers come, and young men what may be the charms of love. His 
 lovers long for each other and are not ashamed to say so. He 
 thinks that the honest love of an honest man is a treasure which 
 a good girl may fairly hope to win. Yet it would have been his 
 horror if word of his had polluted the "sweet young hearts whose 
 delicacy and cleanliness of thought is matter of pride with us." 
 He was very zealous not to lend attraction to the sin which he 
 indicated. It gave him greatest satisfaction to believe that no girl 
 could rise from the reading of his pages less modest than she was 
 before, and that some had been even taught and strengthend in 
 modesty. He said, "If I have not made the strength and virtue 
 predominate over the faults and vice I have not painted the picture 
 as I intended." His aim was to portray sin so that the girl who 
 reads shall say, "O ! Not like that ; let me not be like that !" and 
 that every youth shall say, "Let me not have such a one as that to 
 
1015] One Hundred Years of Antho7iij TroUope 933 
 
 press to my bosom! Anything but that!" But Trollope did not 
 merely hold a brief to virtue, he was a zealous and ettective pleader 
 for all moral qualities. He says admirably, ''In these times, when 
 the desire to be honest is pressed so hard by the ambition to be 
 great ; in which riches are the easiest road to greatness ; when the 
 temptations to which men are subjected dull their eyes to the per- 
 fected iniquities of others, it is so hard for a man to decide vigor- 
 ously that the pitch so many are handling will defile him if touched, 
 men's conduct will be actuated much by that which is depicted to 
 them as leading to glorious or inglorious results." As one reads 
 sentiments like these the scarlet coat of hound-rider dissolves and 
 the somber frock of preacher replaces it. Trollope has achieved 
 in the reader the chief aim of his biography; namely, the justifi- 
 cation of his profession as a novelist. 
 
 As a preacher prizes opportunities to preach, and omits none, 
 Trollope allowed no abatement in the volume of his homilies of 
 fancy. But, realizing also that no one feels it a duty to read a 
 novel as one does a volume of history or science, he deliberately 
 proposed to win readers by giving them pleasure. He never risked 
 being dull in order to be profound. He said sententiously, "Of 
 all needs a book has the chief is that it be readable," and, "A 
 novelist must write because he has a story to tell and not because 
 he has to tell a story." By habitually ruling out the extraneous 
 he avoided the pitfall of the pulpit. He admitted no sentence, not 
 even any word, that did not directly tend to the main object in 
 view. Another winning quality is his lucidity. His pages are 
 pellucid. This was not by chance, or just the fortunate trait of 
 his mind. Like ]\lacaulay, he made it his study and aim. Again, 
 he was a finished observer of human life. He took daily and minute 
 toll of his fellows, not that he might make literal transcripts of 
 them; he flatly denies that in any instance he ever did this; but 
 that he might know how under given conditions certain characters 
 would inveterately act. He proposed to give a picture of common 
 life enlivened with humor and sweetened with pathos. Thus he 
 was beforehand with color-photography by half a century. He 
 caught the moral tints as well as lights and shades, on the one hand, 
 of the English cathedral close and its unique population, which 
 
 \ 
 
934: Methodist Revieiu [November 
 
 has ever since and steadily been fading from current life; and, 
 on the other hand, of the English Parliament, which also is suffer- 
 ing its mutations. 
 
 Well may William Dean Howells pronounce Anthony 
 Trollope a profound moralist ; and Leslie Stephen call him sturdy, 
 wholesome, kindly; and Walter Savage Landor admire him for 
 his unaffected openness ; and Hawthorne declare his novels to be 
 solid; and Mrs. Oliphant say that the best of him will be in- 
 scribed in the social annals of England; and Escott predict that 
 among the leading literary features of the twentieth century will 
 be a permanent revival of popular interest in the novels and in the 
 man who wrote them. 
 
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Syracuse, N. Y. 
 Stcclilon, CM- 
 
 IV1543441 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 13Mar'5?WB 
 
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 , 26Apr'b7BP 
 
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