Part 5 (2/2)

I had learned so to write my reports that they who read them should knohat it was that I meant thearded with favour I have heard horror expressed because the old fore used which had no savour of red-tape During the whole of this work in the Post Office it wasinstantly, but never to allow my mouth to be closed as to the expression ofof me very often did not know the work as I knew it,--could not tell as I could ould be the effect of this or that change When carrying out instructions which I knew should not have been given, I never scrupled to point out the fatuity of the ie that I could decently employ I have revelled in these official correspondences, and look back to sohts of htful to others

I succeeded, however, in getting the English district,--which could hardly have been refused to e our residence towards the end of 1859 At the ti _Castle Richmond_, the novel which I had sold to Messrs Chapman & Hall for 600 But there arose at this tireat effect uponon postal service abroad, or riding over the rural districts in England, or arranging the hteen years had now beenacquainted with literary life in London It was probably so of this which had land But even in Ireland, where I was still living in October, 1859, I had heard of the _Cornhill Magazine_, which was to come out on the 1st of January, 1860, under the editorshi+p of Thackeray

I had at this time written from time to time certain short stories, which had been published in different periodicals, and which in due time were republished under the name of _Tales of All Countries_ On the 23d of October, 1859, I wrote to Thackeray, who to send hiazine certain of these stories In reply to this I received two letters,--one from Messrs Smith & Elder, the proprietors of the _Cornhill_, dated 26th of October, and the other from the editor, written two days later

That from Mr Thackeray was as follows:--

36 Onslow Square, SW, October 28th

MY DEAR MR TROLLOPE,--Smith & Elder have sent you their proposals; and the business part done, let lad indeed I shall be to have you as a co-operator in our new ramme, you will see whether you can't help us inWhatever a s, that let us hear about

You ood deal about the world, and have countless sketches in your memory and your portfolio

Please to think if you can furbish up any of these besides a novel When events occur, and you have a good lively tale, bear us inout of novel spinning, and back into the world Don't understand e our craft, especially _your_ wares I often say I am like the pastrycook, and don't care for tarts, but prefer bread and cheese; but the public love the tarts (luckily for us), and we must bake and sell the when Paterfaoes to sleep on a novel almost alhen he tries it after dinner) ca for the second voluazine_ will have as pleasant a story And the Chapmans, if they are the honest men I take the your works have been read by yours very faithfully,

W M THACKERAY

This was very pleasant, and so was the letter froht of a three-voluazine,--on condition that the first portion of it should be in their hands by December 12th There was much in all this that astonished me;--in the first place the price, which was more than double what I had yet received, and nearly double that which I was about to receive from Messrs Chapman & Hall Then there was the suddenness of the call It was already the end of October, and a portion of the as required to be in the printer's hands within six weeks _Castle Richmond_ was indeed half written, but that was sold to Chapman And it had already been a principle with me in my art, that no part of a novel should be published till the entire story was completed I knew, from what I read from month to month, that this hurried publication of incoht perhaps say always, adopted by the leading novelists of the day That such has been the case, is proved by the fact that dickens, Thackeray, and Mrs Gaskell died with unfinished novels, of which portions had been already published I had not yet entered upon the syste novels in parts, and therefore had never been tempted But I are that an artist should keep in his hand the power of fitting the beginning of his work to the end No doubt it is his first duty to fit the end to the beginning, and he will endeavour to do so But he should still keep in his hands the power of re any defect in this respect

”Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit,”

should be kept in view as to every character and every string of action Your Achilles should all through, fro to end, be ”impatient, fiery, ruthless, keen” Your Achilles, such as he is, will probably keep up his character But your Davus also should be always Davus, and that is s to market cannot always make them travel by the exact path which he has intended for the lady at the end of a story cannot be made quite perfect in her conduct, that vivid description of angelic purity hich you laid the first lines of her portrait should be slightly toned down I had felt that the rushi+ng mode of publication to which the systeiven rise, and by which small parts as they ritten were sent hot to the press, was injurious to the work done If I now coainst my own principle But such a principle becomes a tyrant if it cannot be superseded on a just occasion If the reason be ”tanti,” the principle should for the occasion be put in abeyance I sat as judge, and decreed that the present reason was ”tanti” On this ht it fit to break my own rule I can say, however, that I have never broken it since

But what astonished me azine_ should be in want of a novel! Perhaps soreat expectations which were raised as to this periodical Thackeray's was a good name hich to conjure The proprietors, Messrs S the work, and were able towas to be given the they had ever received for that or double the money Whether these hopes were or were not fulfilled it is not for azine's existence, I wrote for it more than any other one person But such was certainly the prospect;--and how had it come to pass that, with such promises made, the editor and the proprietors were, at the end of October, without anything fixed as to what arded as the chief dish in the banquet to be provided?

I fear that the answer to this question must be found in the habits of procrastination which had at that tiine, undertaken the work himself, and had postponed its co There was still, it may be said, as h he had his ht, when unable to trust his own energy, that he ht rely upon that of a new recruit He was but four years my senior in life, but he was at the top of the tree, while I was still at the botto made up my mind to break my principle, I started at once fro of Thursday, 3d of Nove of Friday In the reeed my plot But when in London, I first went to Edward Chap for hieht But if that story would not suit the _Cornhill_, was I to consider ree thatMarch? As to that, I ether Mr Edward Chapestion led at a price Then I hurried into the City, and had e Smith When he heard that _Castle Riched that I would endeavour to fraazine

He was sure that an Irish story would not do for a coh it were my peculiar subject I told him that _Castle Richmond_ would have to ”coht write for hiazine;--but to that he expressed hilish tale, on English life, with a clerical flavour

On these orders I went to work, and frae_

On e, I wrote the first few pages of that story I had got into my head an idea of what I yman who should not be a bad man, but one led into temptation by his own youth and by the unclerical accidents of the life of those around hi lord was an adjunct necessary, because there e near Barchester, I was able to fall back upon my old friends Mrs Proudie and the archdeacon Out of these slight elee in which the real plot consisted at last si to reed to accept her lovingly Nothing could be less efficient or artistic But the characters were so well handled, that the work from the first to the last was popular,--and was received as it went on with still increasing favour by both editor and proprietor of the lish There was a little fox-hunting and a little tuft-hunting, some Christian virtue and some Christian cant There was no herois And it was downright honest love,--in which there was no pretence on the part of the lady that she was too ethereal to be fond of a man, no half-and-half inclination on the part of the man to pay a certain price and no ed for the other, and they were not asha, or had lived, the sae_ I think irl that I ever drew,--the irls She was not as dear to me as Kate Woodward in _The Three Clerks_, but I think she is more like real human life Indeed I doubt whether such a character could be made more lifelike than Lucy Robarts

And I will say also that in this novel there is no very weak part,--no long succession of dull pages The production of novels in serial form forces upon the author the conviction that he should not allow hile part I hope no reader will misunderstand me In spite of that conviction, the writer of stories in parts will often be tedious That I have been so myself is a fault that will lie heavy on my tombstone But the writer when he embarks in such a business should feel that he cannot afford to have es skipped out of the fehich are to ine the first half of the first volu nu _Fra on the conviction which had thus come home to me, I fell into no bathos of dulness

I subsequently came across a piece of criticism which ritten on reater than ination led him to a kind of work the very opposite of mine This was Nathaniel Hawthorne, the American, whoh it praises hly, I will insert it here, because it certainly is true in its nature: ”It is odd enough,” he says, ”that my own individual taste is for quite another class of works than those which I myself am able to write If I were to meet with such books as et through them Have you ever read the novels of Anthony Trollope?

They precisely suit th of beef and through the inspiration of ale, and just as real as if soreat lulass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were being lish as a beef-steak Have they ever been tried in Ahly comprehensible; but still I should think that huive them success anywhere”

This was dated early in 1860, and could have had no reference to _Frae_; but it was as true of that work as of any that I have written And the criticism, whether just or unjust, describes onderful accuracy the purport that I have ever had in view inI have always desired to ”hew out some lump of the earth,” and to makeus,--with not erated baseness,--so that s like to the Gods or deht succeed in i that honesty is the best policy; that truth prevails while falsehood fails; that a girl will be loved as she is pure, and sweet, and unselfish; that a man will be honoured as he is true, and honest, and brave of heart; that things s nobly done beautiful and gracious I do not say that lessons such as these hts than reatest poets But there are so many ill read novels and understand thereat poets, or reading them miss the lesson! And even in prose fiction the character whoination of the writer has lifted soive so plain an exae whom that reader unconsciously feels to reseirl would more probably dress her own mind after Lucy Robarts than after Flora Macdonald

There areeither virtue or nobility,--those, for instance, who regard the reading of novels as a sin, and those also who think it to be simply an idle pasti the tribe of those who pander to the wicked pleasures of a wicked world

I have regarded my art froht of myself as a preacher of sermons, and reeable to irl has risen froes less modest than she was before, and that some may have learned fro I think that no youth has been taught that in falseness and flashness is to be found the road to manliness; but some may perhaps have learned froentle spirit Such are the lessons I have striven to teach; and I have thought itto ht liken thee_--or, rather, my connection with the _Cornhill_--was theme very quickly to that literary world from which I had hitherto been severed by the fact of my residence in Ireland In December, 1859, while I was still very hard at work on e of the Eastern District, and settled myself at a residence about twelve miles from London, in Hertfordshi+re, but on the borders both of Essex and Middlesex,--which was sorandly called Walthaht after I had spent about 1000 on improvements From hence I was able to make myself frequent both in Cornhill and Piccadilly, and to live, when the opportunity ca men of my own pursuit