propensity of men to be as strong as they know how to be, certain
writers of the press had allowed themselves to use language which
was cruel, though it was in a good cause. But the two objects
should not have been combined--and I now know myself well enough
to be aware that I was not the man to have carried out either of
them.
Nevertheless I thought much about it, and on the 29th of July,
1853,--having been then two years without having made any literary
effort,--I began The Warden, at Tenbury in Worcestershire. It was
then more than twelve months since I had stood for an hour on the
little bridge in Salisbury, and had made out to my own satisfaction
the spot on which Hiram's hospital should stand. Certainly no work
that I ever did took up so much of my thoughts. On this occasion
I did no more than write the first chapter, even if so much. I had
determined that my official work should be moderated, so as to allow
me some time for writing; but then, just at this time, I was sent
to take the postal charge of the northern counties in Ireland,--of
Ulster, and the counties Meath and Louth. Hitherto in official
language I had been a surveyor's clerk,--now I was to be a surveyor.
The difference consisted mainly in an increase of income from about
(pounds)450 to about (pounds)800;--for at that time the sum netted still depended
on the number of miles travelled. Of course that English work
to which I had become so warmly wedded had to be abandoned. Other
parts of England were being done by other men, and I had nearly
finished the area which had been entrusted to me. I should have
liked to ride over the whole country, and to have sent a rural
post letter-carrier to every parish, every village, every hamlet,
and every grange in England.
We were at this time very much unsettled as regards any residence.
While we were living at Clonmel two sons had been born, who certainly
were important enough to have been mentioned sooner. At Clonmel we
had lived in lodgings, and from there had moved to Mallow, a town
in the county Cork, where we had taken a house. Mallow was in the
centre of a hunting country, and had been very pleasant to me. But
our house there had been given up when it was known that I should
be detained in England; and then we had wandered about in the western
counties, moving our headquarters from one town to another. During
this time we had lived at Exeter, at Bristol, at Caermarthen,
at Cheltenham, and at Worcester. Now we again moved, and settled
ourselves for eighteen months at Belfast. After that we took a
house at Donnybrook, the well-known suburb of Dublin.
The work of taking up a new district, which requires not only that
the man doing it should know the nature of the postal arrangements,
but also the characters and the peculiarities of the postmasters
and their clerks, was too heavy to allow of my going on with my
book at once. It was not till the end of 1852 that I recommenced it,
and it was in the autumn of 1853 that I finished the work. It was
only one small volume, and in later days would have been completed
in six weeks,--or in two months at the longest, if other work had
pressed. On looking at the title-page, I find it was not published
till 1855. I had made acquaintance, through my friend John Merivale,
with William Longman the publisher, and had received from him an
assurance that the manuscript should be "looked at." It was "looked
at," and Messrs. Longman made me an offer to publish it at half
profits. I had no reason to love "half profits," but I was very
anxious to have my book published, and I acceded. It was now more
than ten years since I had commenced writing The Macdermots, and
I thought that if any success was to be achieved, the time surely
had come. I had not been impatient; but, if there was to be a time,
surely it had come.
The novel-reading world did not go mad about The Warden; but I soon
felt that it had not failed as the others had failed. There were
notices of it in the press, and I could discover that people around
and after a while informed me that there would be profits to divide.
At the end of 1855 I received a cheque for (pounds)9 8s. 8d., which was
the first money I had ever earned by literary work;--that (pounds)20 which
poor Mr. Colburn had been made to pay certainly never having been
earned at all. At the end of 1856 I received another sum of (pounds)10
15s. 1d. The pecuniary success was not great. Indeed, as regarded
remuneration for the time, stone-breaking would have done better.
A thousand copies were printed, of which, after a lapse of five or
six years, about 300 had to be converted into another form, and sold
as belonging to a cheap edition. In its original form The Warden
never reached the essential honour of a second edition.
I have already said of the work that it failed altogether in
the purport for which it was intended. But it has a merit of its
own,--a merit by my own perception of which I was enabled to see
wherein lay whatever strength I did possess. The characters of the
bishop, of the archdeacon, of the archdeacon's wife, and especially
of the warden, are all well and clearly drawn. I had realised to
myself a series of portraits, and had been able so to put them on
the canvas that my readers should see that which I meant them to
see. There is no gift which an author can have more useful to him
than this. And the style of the English was good, though from most
unpardonable carelessness the grammar was not unfrequently faulty.
With such results I had no doubt but that I would at once begin
another novel.
I will here say one word as a long-deferred answer to an item of
criticism which appeared in the Times newspaper as to The Warden.
In an article-if I remember rightly--on The Warden and Barchester
Towers combined--which I would call good-natured, but that I take
it for granted that the critics of the Times are actuated by higher
motives than good-nature, that little book and its sequel are spoken
of in terms which were very pleasant to the author. But there was
added to this a gentle word of rebuke at the morbid condition of the
author's mind which had prompted him to indulge in personalities,--the
personalities in question having reference to some editor or manager
of the Times newspaper. For I had introduced one Tom Towers as being
potent among the contributors to the Jupiter, under which name I
certainly did allude to the Times. But at that time, living away in
Ireland, I had not even heard the name of any gentleman connected
with the Times newspaper, and could not have intended to represent
any individual by Tom Towers. As I had created an archdeacon, so had
I created a journalist, and the one creation was no more personal
or indicative of morbid tendencies than the other. If Tom Towers
was at all like any gentleman connected with the Times, my moral
consciousness must again have been very p
owerful.
CHAPTER VI "Barchester towers" and the "Three clerks" 1855-1858
It was, I think, before I started on my English tours among the
rural posts that I made my first attempt at writing for a magazine.
I had read, soon after they came out, the two first volumes of
Charles Menvale's History of the Romans under the Empire, and had
got into some correspondence with the author's brother as to the
author's views about Caesar. Hence arose in my mind a tendency to
investigate the character of probably the greatest man who ever
lived, which tendency in after years produced a little book of
which I shall have to speak when its time comes,--and also a taste
generally for Latin literature, which has been one of the chief
delights of my later life. And I may say that I became at this time
as anxious about Caesar, and as desirous of reaching the truth as
to his character, as we have all been in regard to Bismarck in these
latter days. I lived in Caesar, and debated with myself constantly
whether he crossed the Rubicon as a tyrant or as a patriot. In
order that I might review Mr. Merivale's book without feeling that
I was dealing unwarrantably with a subject beyond me, I studied the
Commentaries thoroughly, and went through a mass of other reading
which the object of a magazine article hardly justified,--but which
has thoroughly justified itself in the subsequent pursuits of my
life. I did write two articles, the first mainly on Julius Caesar,
and the second on Augustus, which appeared in the Dublin University
Magazine. They were the result of very much labour, but there came
from them no pecuniary product. I had been very modest when I sent
them to the editor, as I had been when I called on John Forster,
not venturing to suggest the subject of money. After a while I did
call upon the proprietor of the magazine in Dublin, and was told
by him that such articles were generally written to oblige friends,
and that articles written to oblige friends were not usually paid
for. The Dean of Ely, as the author of the work in question now
is, was my friend; but I think I was wronged, as I certainly had
no intention of obliging him by my criticism. Afterwards, when I
returned to Ireland, I wrote other articles for the same magazine,
one of which, intended to be very savage in its denunciation, was
on an official blue-book just then brought out, preparatory to the
introduction of competitive examinations for the Civil Service. For
that and some other article, I now forget what, I was paid. Up to
the end of 1857 I had received (pounds)55 for the hard work of ten years.
It was while I was engaged on Barchester Towers that I adopted a
system of writing which, for some years afterwards, I found to be
very serviceable to me. My time was greatly occupied in travelling,
and the nature of my travelling was now changed. I could not
any longer do it on horseback. Railroads afforded me my means of
conveyance, and I found that I passed in railway-carriages very
many hours of my existence. Like others, I used to read,--though
Carlyle has since told me that a man when travelling should not
read, but "sit still and label his thoughts." But if I intended
to make a profitable business out of my writing, and, at the same
time, to do my best for the Post Office, I must turn these hours
to more account than I could do even by reading. I made for myself
therefore a little tablet, and found after a few days' exercise
that I could write as quickly in a railway-carriage as I could at
my desk. I worked with a pencil, and what I wrote my wife copied
afterwards. In this way was composed the greater part of Barchester
Towers and of the novel which succeeded it, and much also of others
subsequent to them. My only objection to the practice came from
the appearance of literary ostentation, to which I felt myself to
be subject when going to work before four or five fellow-passengers.
But I got used to it, as I had done to the amazement of the west
country farmers' wives when asking them after their letters.
In the writing of Barchester Towers I took great delight. The bishop
and Mrs. Proudie were very real to me, as were also the troubles
of the archdeacon and the loves of Mr. Slope. When it was done,
Mr. W. Longman required that it should be subjected to his reader;
and he returned the MS. to me, with a most laborious and voluminous
criticism,--coming from whom I never knew. This was accompanied
by an offer to print the novel on the half-profit system, with a
payment of (pounds)100 in advance out of my half-profits,--on condition
that I would comply with the suggestions made by his critic. One
of these suggestions required that I should cut the novel down to
two volumes. In my reply, I went through the criticisms, rejecting
one and accepting another, almost alternately, but declaring at
last that no consideration should induce me to cut out a third of
my work. I am at a loss to know how such a task could have been
performed. I could burn the MS., no doubt, and write another book
on the same story; but how two words out of six are to be withdrawn
from a written novel, I cannot conceive. I believe such tasks have
been attempted--perhaps performed; but I refused to make even the
attempt. Mr. Longman was too gracious to insist on his critic's
terms; and the book was published, certainly none the worse, and
I do not think much the better, for the care that had been taken
with it.
The work succeeded just as The Warden had succeeded. It achieved
no great reputation, but it was one of the novels which novel
readers were called upon to read. Perhaps I may be assuming upon
myself more than I have a right to do in saying now that Barchester
Towers has become one of those novels which do not die quite at once,
which live and are read for perhaps a quarter of a century; but if
that be so, its life has been so far prolonged by the vitality of
some of its younger brothers. Barchester Towers would hardly be
so well known as it is had there been no Framley Parsonage and no
Last Chronicle of Barset.
I received my (pounds)100, in advance, with profound delight. It was a
positive and most welcome increase to my income, and might probably
be regarded as a first real step on the road to substantial success.
I am well aware that there are many who think that an author in his
authorship should not regard money,--nor a painter, or sculptor, or
composer in his art. I do not know that this unnatural sacrifice
is supposed to extend itself further. A barrister, a clergyman, a
doctor, an engineer, and even actors and architects, may without
disgrace follow the bent of human nature, and endeavour to fill
their bellies and clothe their backs, and also those of their wives
and children, as comfortably as they can by the exercise of their
abilities and their crafts. They may be as rationally realistic,
as may the butchers and the bakers; but the artist and the author
forget the high glories of their calling if they condes
cend to make
a money return a first object. They who preach this doctrine will
be much offended by my theory, and by this book of mine, if my theory
and my book come beneath their notice. They require the practice
of a so-called virtue which is contrary to nature, and which, in
my eyes, would be no virtue if it were practised. They are like
clergymen who preach sermons against the love of money, but who
know that the love of money is so distinctive a characteristic
of humanity that such sermons are mere platitudes called for by
customary but unintelligent piety. All material progress has come
from man's desire to do the best he can for himself and those
about him, and civilisation and Christianity itself have been made
possible by such progress. Though we do not all of us argue this
matter out within our breasts, we do all feel it; and we know that
the more a man earns the more useful he is to his fellow-men. The
most useful lawyers, as a rule, have been those who have made the
greatest incomes,--and it is the same with the doctors. It would
be the same in the Church if they who have the choosing of bishops
always chose the best man. And it has in truth been so too in art
and authorship. Did Titian or Rubens disregard their pecuniary
rewards? As far as we know, Shakespeare worked always for money,
giving the best of his intellect to support his trade as an actor.
In our own century what literary names stand higher than those of
Byron, Tennyson, Scott, Dickens, Macaulay, and Carlyle? And I think
I may say that none of those great men neglected the pecuniary result
of their labours. Now and then a man may arise among us who in any
calling, whether it be in law, in physic, in religious teaching,
in art, or literature, may in his professional enthusiasm utterly
disregard money. All will honour his enthusiasm, and if he be
wifeless and childless, his disregard of the great object of men's
work will be blameless. But it is a mistake to suppose that a man
is a better man because he despises money. Few do so, and those few
in doing so suffer a defeat. Who does not desire to be hospitable
to his friends, generous to the poor, liberal to all, munificent
to his children, and to be himself free from the casking fear which