Autobiography of Anthony Trollope - Anthony Trollope

had want or ambition stirred him. He was our king at the Garrick

Club, to which, however, I did not yet belong. He gave the best

dinners of my time, and was,--happily I may say is, [Footnote:

Alas! within a year of the writing of this he went from us.]--the

best giver of dinners. A man rough of tongue, brusque in his manners,

odious to those who dislike him, somewhat inclined to tyranny, he

is the prince of friends, honest as the sun, and as openhanded as

Charity itself.

Robert Bell has now been dead nearly ten years. As I look back

over the interval and remember how intimate we were, it seems odd

to me that we should have known each other for no more than six

years. He was a man who had lived by his pen from his very youth;

and was so far successful that I do not think that want ever came

near him. But he never made that mark which his industry and talents

would have seemed to ensure. He was a man well known to literary

men, but not known to readers. As a journalist he was useful

and conscientious, but his plays and novels never made themselves

popular. He wrote a life of Canning, and he brought out an annotated

edition of the British poets; but he achieved no great success.

I have known no man better read in English literature. Hence his

conversation had a peculiar charm, but he was not equally happy

with his pen. He will long be remembered at the Literary Fund

Committees, of which he was a staunch and most trusted supporter.

I think it was he who first introduced me to that board. It has

often been said that literary men are peculiarly apt to think that

they are slighted and unappreciated. Robert Bell certainly never

achieved the position in literature which he once aspired to fill,

and which he was justified in thinking that he could earn for

himself. I have frequently discussed these subjects with him, but

I never heard from his mouth a word of complaint as to his own

literary fate. He liked to hear the chimes go at midnight, and he

loved to have ginger hot in his mouth. On such occasions no sound

ever came out of a man's lips sweeter than his wit and gentle

revelry.

George Lewes,--with his wife, whom all the world knows as George

Eliot,--has also been and still is one of my dearest friends.

He is, I think, the acutest critic I know,--and the severest. His

severity, however, is a fault. His intention to be honest, even when

honesty may give pain, has caused him to give pain when honesty has

not required it. He is essentially a doubter, and has encouraged

himself to doubt till the faculty of trusting has almost left him.

I am not speaking of the personal trust which one man feels in

another, but of that confidence in literary excellence, which is,

I think, necessary for the full enjoyment of literature. In one

modern writer he did believe thoroughly. Nothing can be more charming

than the unstinted admiration which he has accorded to everything

that comes from the pen of the wonderful woman to whom his lot has

been united. To her name I shall recur again when speaking of the

novelists of the present day.

Of "Billy Russell," as we always used to call him, I may say

that I never knew but one man equal to him in the quickness and

continuance of witty speech. That one man was Charles Lever--also

an Irishman--whom I had known from an earlier date, and also with

close intimacy. Of the two, I think that Lever was perhaps the

more astounding producer of good things. His manner was perhaps a

little the happier, and his turns more sharp and unexpected. But

"Billy" also was marvellous. Whether abroad as special correspondent,

or at home amidst the flurry of his newspaper work, he was a charming

companion; his ready wit always gave him the last word.

Of Thackeray I will speak again when I record his death.

There were many others whom I met for the first time at George

Smith's table. Albert Smith, for the first, and indeed for the last

time, as he died soon after; Higgins, whom all the world knew as

Jacob Omnium, a man I greatly regarded; Dallas, who for a time was

literary critic to the Times, and who certainly in that capacity

did better work than has appeared since in the same department;

George Augustus Sala, who, had he given himself fair play, would

have risen to higher eminence than that of being the best writer

in his day of sensational leading articles; and Fitz-James Stephen,

a man of very different calibre, who had not yet culminated, but

who, no doubt, will culminate among our judges. There were many

others;--but I cannot now recall their various names as identified

with those banquets.

Of Framley Parsonage I need only further say, that as I wrote it I

became more closely than ever acquainted with the new shire which

I had added to the English counties. I had it all in my mind,--its

roads and railroads, its towns and parishes, its members of Parliament,

and the different hunts which rode over it. I knew all the great

lords and their castles, the squires and their parks, the rectors

and their churches. This was the fourth novel of which I had placed

the scene in Barsetshire, and as I wrote it I made a map of the

dear county. Throughout these stories there has been no name given

to a fictitious site which does not represent to me a spot of which I

know all the accessories, as though I had lived and wandered there.

CHAPTER IX "CASTLE RICHMOND;" "BROWN, JONES, AND ROBINSON;" "NORTH AMERICA;" "ORLEY FARM"

When I had half-finished Framley Parsonage, I went back to my other

story, Castle Richmond, which I was writing for Messrs. Chapman &

Hall, and completed that. I think that this was the only occasion

on which I have had two different novels in my mind at the same

time. This, however, did not create either difficulty or confusion.

Many of us live in different circles; and when we go from our friends

in the town to our friends in the country, we do not usually fail

to remember the little details of the one life or the other. The

parson at Rusticum, with his wife and his wife's mother, and all

his belongings; and our old friend, the Squire, with his family

history; and Farmer Mudge, who has been cross with us, because we

rode so unnecessarily over his barley; and that rascally poacher,

once a gamekeeper, who now traps all the foxes; and pretty Mary

Cann, whose marriage with the wheelwright we did something to

expedite;--though we are alive to them all, do not drive out of our

brain the club gossip, or the memories of last season's dinners, or

any incident of our London intimacies. In our lives we are always

weaving novels, and we manage to keep the different tales distinct.

A man does, in truth, remember that which it interests him to

remember; and when we hear that memory has gone as age has come on,

we should understand that the capacity for interest in the matter

concerned has perished. A man will be generally very old and feeble

before he forgets how much money he has in the funds. There is

a good deal to be learned by any one who wishes to write a novel

well; but when the art has been acquired, I do not see why two or

three should not be well written at the same time. I have never

found myself thinking much about the work that I had to do till

I was doing it. I have indeed for many years almost abandoned the

effort to think, trusting myself, with the narrowest thread of

a plot, to work the matter out when the pen is in my hand. But my

mind is constantly employing itself on the work I have done. Had

I left either Framley Parsonage or Castle Richmond half-finished

fifteen years ago, I think I could complete the tales now with very

little trouble. I have not looked at Castle Richmond since it was

published; and poor as the work is, I remember all the incidents.

Castle Richmond certainly was not a success,--though the plot is a

fairly good plot, and is much more of a plot than I have generally

been able to find. The scene is laid in Ireland, during the famine;

and I am well aware now that English readers no longer like Irish

stories. I cannot understand why it should be so, as the Irish

character is peculiarly well fitted for romance. But Irish subjects

generally have become distasteful. This novel, however, is of

itself a weak production. The characters do not excite sympathy.

The heroine has two lovers, one of whom is a scamp and the other

a prig. As regards the scamp, the girl's mother is her own rival.

Rivalry of the same nature has been admirably depicted by Thackeray

in his Esmond; but there the mother's love seems to be justified

by the girl's indifference. In Castle Richmond the mother strives

to rob her daughter of the man's love. The girl herself has no

character; and the mother, who is strong enough, is almost revolting.

The dialogue is often lively, and some of the incidents are well

told; but the story as a whole was a failure. I cannot remember,

however, that it was roughly handled by the critics when it came

out; and I much doubt whether anything so hard was said of it then

as that which I have said here.

I was now settled at Waltham Cross, in a house in which I could

entertain a few friends modestly, where we grew our cabbages

and strawberries, made our own butter, and killed our own pigs. I

occupied it for twelve years, and they were years to me of great

prosperity. In 1861 I became a member of the Garrick Club, with

which institution I have since been much identified. I had belonged

to it about two years, when, on Thackeray's death, I was invited

to fill his place on the Committee, and I have been one of that

august body ever since. Having up to that time lived very little

among men, having known hitherto nothing of clubs, having even as

a boy been banished from social gatherings, I enjoyed infinitely at

first the gaiety of the Garrick. It was a festival to me to dine

there--which I did indeed but seldom; and a great delight to play

a rubber in the little room up-stairs of an afternoon. I am speaking

now of the old club in King Street. This playing of whist before

dinner has since that become a habit with me, so that unless there

be something else special to do--unless there be hunting, or I am

wanted to ride in the park by the young tyrant of my household--it

is "my custom always in the afternoon." I have sometimes felt sore