Autobiography of Anthony Trollope - Anthony Trollope

this novel. I called the comedy Did He Steal It? But my friend the

manager did not approve of my attempt. My mind at this time was

less attentive to such a matter than when dear old George Bartley

nearly crushed me by his criticism,--so that I forget the reason

given. I have little doubt but that the manager was right. That

he intended to express a true opinion, and would have been glad to

have taken the piece had he thought it suitable, I am quite sure.

I have sometimes wished to see during my lifetime a combined

republication of those tales which are occupied with the fictitious

county of Barsetshire. These would be The Warden, Barchester

Towers, Doctor Thorne, Framley Parsonage, and The Last Chronicle

of Barset. But I have hitherto failed. The copyrights are in the

hands of four different persons, including myself, and with one of

the four I have not been able to prevail to act in concert with the

others. [Footnote: Since this was written I have made arrangements

for doing as I have wished, and the first volume of the series will

now very shortly be published.]

In 1867 I made up my mind to take a step in life which was not

unattended with peril, which many would call rash, and which, when

taken, I should be sure at some period to regret. This step was

the resignation of my place in the Post Office. I have described

how it was that I contrived to combine the performance of its duties

with my other avocations in life. I got up always very early; but

even this did not suffice. I worked always on Sundays,--as to which

no scruple of religion made me unhappy,--and not unfrequently I

was driven to work at night. In the winter when hunting was going

on, I had to keep myself very much on the alert. And during the

London season, when I was generally two or three days of the week

in town, I found the official work to be a burden. I had determined

some years previously, after due consideration with my wife, to

abandon the Post Office when I had put by an income equal to the

pension to which I should be entitled if I remained in the department

till I was sixty. That I had now done, and I sighed for liberty.

The exact time chosen, the autumn of 1867, was selected because I

was then about to undertake other literary work in editing a new

magazine,--of which I shall speak very shortly. But in addition to

these reasons there was another, which was, I think, at last the

actuating cause. When Sir Rowland Hill left the Post Office, and

my brother-in-law, Mr. Tilley, became Secretary in his place, I

applied for the vacant office of Under-Secretary. Had I obtained

this I should have given up my hunting, have given up much of my

literary work,--at any rate would have edited no magazine,--and

would have returned to the habit of my youth in going daily to the

General Post Office. There was very much against such a change in

life. The increase of salary would not have amounted to above (pounds)400

a year, and I should have lost much more than that in literary

remuneration. I should have felt bitterly the slavery of attendance

at an office, from which I had then been exempt for five-and-twenty

years. I should, too, have greatly missed the sport which I loved.

But I was attached to the department, had imbued myself with a

thorough love of letters,--I mean the letters which are carried by

the post,--and was anxious for their welfare as though they were

all my own. In short, I wished to continue the connection. I did

not wish, moreover, that any younger officer should again pass over

my head. I believed that I bad been a valuable public servant,

and I will own to a feeling existing at that time that I had not

altogether been well treated. I was probably wrong in this. I had

been allowed to hunt,--and to do as I pleased, and to say what

I liked, and had in that way received my reward. I applied for

the office, but Mr. Scudamore was appointed to it. He no doubt

was possessed of gifts which I did not possess. He understood

the manipulation of money and the use of figures, and was a great

accountant. I think that I might have been more useful in regard

to the labours and wages of the immense body of men employed by

the Post Office. However, Mr. Scudamore was appointed; and I made

up my mind that I would fall back upon my old intention, and leave

the department. I think I allowed two years to pass before I took

the step; and the day on which I sent the letter was to me most

melancholy.

The rule of the service in regard to pensions is very just. A man

shall serve till he is sixty before he is entitled to a pension,--unless

his health fail him. At that age he is entitled to one-sixtieth of

his salary for every year he has served up to forty years. If his

health do fail him so that he is unfit for further work before the

age named, then he may go with a pension amounting to one-sixtieth

for every year he has served. I could not say that my health had

failed me, and therefore I went without any pension. I have since

felt occasionally that it has been supposed that I left the Post

Office under pressure,--because I attended to hunting and to my

literary work rather than to postal matters. As it had for many

years been my ambition to be a thoroughly good servant to the public,

and to give to the public much more than I took in the shape of

salary, this feeling has sometimes annoyed me. And as I am still

a little sore on the subject, and as I would not have it imagined

after my death that I had slighted the public service to which I

belonged, I will venture here to give the reply which was sent to

the letter containing my resignation.

"GENERAL POST OFFICE,

October 9th, 1867.

"Sir,--I have received your letter of the 3d inst., in which you

tender your resignation as Surveyor in the Post Office service, and

state as your reason for this step that you have adopted another

profession, the exigencies of which are so great as to make you

feel you cannot give to the duties of the Post Office that amount

of attention which you consider the Postmaster-General has a right

to expect.

"You have for many years ranked among the most conspicuous members

of the Post Office, which, on several occasions when you have been

employed on large and difficult matters, has reaped much benefit

from the great abilities which you have been able to place at its

disposal; and in mentioning this, I have been especially glad to

record that, notwithstanding the many calls upon your time, you

have never permitted your other avocations to interfere with your

Post Office work, which has been faithfully and indeed energetically

performed." (There was a touch of irony in this word "energetically,"

but still it did not displease me.)

"In accepting your resignation, which he does with much regret,

the Duke of Montrose desires me to convey to you his own sense of

the value of your services, and to state how alive he is to the

loss which will be sustained by the department in which you have

long been an ornament, and where your place will with difficulty

be replaced.

(Signed) "J. TILLEY."

Readers will no doubt think that this is official flummery; and

so in fact it is. I do not at all imagine that I was an ornament

to the Post Office, and have no doubt that the secretaries and

assistant-secretaries very often would have been glad to be rid of

me; but the letter may be taken as evidence that I did not allow

my literary enterprises to interfere with my official work. 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. I have known many such,

and some who have craved the power to do so. Nothing would annoy

me more than to think that I should even be supposed to have been

among the number.

And so my connection was dissolved with the department to which

I had applied the thirty-three best years of my life;--I must not

say devoted, for devotion implies an entire surrender, and I certainly

had found time for other occupations. It is however absolutely true

that during all those years I had thought very much more about the

Post Office than I had of my literary work, and had given to it a

more unflagging attention. Up to this time I had never been angry,

never felt myself injured or unappreciated in that my literary

efforts were slighted. But I had suffered very much bitterness on

that score in reference to the Post Office; and I had suffered not

only on my own personal behalf, but also and more bitterly when I

could not promise to be done the things which I thought ought to be

done for the benefit of others. That the public in little villages

should be enabled to buy postage stamps; that they should have

their letters delivered free and at an early hour; that pillar

letter-boxes should be put up for them (of which accommodation

in the streets and ways of England I was the originator, having,

however, got the authority for the erection of the first at St.

Heliers in Jersey); that the letter-carriers and sorters should not

be overworked; that they should be adequately paid, and have some

hours to themselves, especially on Sundays; above all, that they

should be made to earn their wages and latterly that they should

not be crushed by what I thought to be the damnable system of

so-called merit;--these were the matters by which I was stirred to

what the secretary was pleased to call energetic performance of my

duties. How I loved, when I was contradicted,--as I was very often

and, no doubt, very properly,--to do instantly as I was bid, and then

to prove that what I was doing was fatuous, dishonest, expensive,

and impracticable! And then there were feuds--such delicious feuds!

I was always an anti-Hillite, acknowledging, indeed, the great thing

which Sir Rowland Hill had done for the country, but believing him

to be entirely unfit to manage men or to arrange labour. It was a

pleasure to me to differ from him on all occasions;--and, looking

back now, I think that in all such differences I was right.

Having so steeped myself, as it were, in postal waters, I could not

go out from them without a regret. I wonder whether I did anything

to improve the style of writing in official reports! I strove to

do so gallantly, never being contented with the language of my own

reports unless it seemed to have been so written as to be pleasant