I wonder whether it be really true, as I have more than once seen
suggested, that the publication of Anthony Trollope's autobiography in
some degree accounts for the neglect into which he and his works fell so
soon after his death. I should like to believe it, for such a fact would
be, from one point of view, a credit to "the great big stupid public."
Only, of course, from one point of view; the notable merits of Trollope's
work are unaffected by one's knowledge of how that work was produced; at
his best he is an admirable writer of the pedestrian school, and this
disappearance of his name does not mean final oblivion. Like every other
novelist of note, he had two classes of admirers--those who read him for
the sake of that excellence which here and there he achieved, and the
undistinguishing crowd which found in him a level entertainment. But it
would be a satisfaction to think that "the great big stupid" was really,
somewhere in its secret economy, offended by that revelation of
mechanical methods which made the autobiography either a disgusting or an
amusing book to those who read it more intelligently. A man with a watch
before his eyes, penning exactly so many words every quarter of an
hour--one imagines that this picture might haunt disagreeably the
thoughts even of Mudie's steadiest subscriber, that it might come between
him or her and any Trollopean work that lay upon the counter.
The surprise was so cynically sprung upon a yet innocent public. At that
happy time (already it seems so long ago) the literary news set before
ordinary readers mostly had reference to literary work, in a reputable
sense of the term, and not, as now, to the processes of "literary"
manufacture and the ups and downs of the "literary" market. Trollope
himself tells how he surprised the editor of a periodical, who wanted a
serial from him, by asking how many thousand words it should run to; an
anecdote savouring indeed of good old days. Since then, readers have
grown accustomed to revelations of "literary" method, and nothing in that
kind can shock them. There has come into existence a school of
journalism which would seem to have deliberately set itself the task of
degrading authorship and everything connected with it; and these
pernicious scribblers (or typists, to be more accurate) have found the
authors of a fretful age only too receptive of their mercantile
suggestions. Yes, yes; I know as well as any man that reforms were
needed in the relations between author and publisher. Who knows better
than I that your representative author face to face with your
representative publisher was, is, and ever will be, at a ludicrous
disadvantage? And there is no reason in the nature and the decency of
things why this wrong should not by some contrivance be remedied. A big,
blusterous, genial brute of a Trollope could very fairly hold his own,
and exact at all events an acceptable share in the profits of his work. A
shrewd and vigorous man of business such as Dickens, aided by a lawyer
who was his devoted friend, could do even better, and, in reaping
sometimes more than his publisher, redress the ancient injustice. But
pray, what of Charlotte Bronte? Think of that grey, pinched life, the
latter years of which would have been so brightened had Charlotte Bronte
received but, let us say, one third of what, in the same space of time,
the publisher gained by her books. I know all about this; alas! no man
better. None the less do I loathe and sicken at the manifold baseness,
the vulgarity unutterable, which, as a result of the new order, is
blighting our literary life. It is not easy to see how, in such an
atmosphere, great and noble books can ever again come into being. May
it, perhaps, be hoped that once again the multitude will be somehow
touched with disgust?--that the market for "literary" news of this
costermonger sort will some day fail?
Dickens. Why, there too was a disclosure of literary methods. Did not
Forster make known to all and sundry exactly how Dickens' work was done,
and how the bargains for its production were made? The multitudinous
public saw him at his desk, learnt how long he sat there, were told that
he could not get on without having certain little ornaments before his
eyes, and that blue ink and a quill pen were indispensable to his
writing; and did all this information ever chill the loyalty of a single
reader? There was a difference, in truth, between the picture of Charles
Dickens sitting down to a chapter of his current novel, and that of the
broad-based Trollope doing his so many words to the fifteen minutes.
Trollope, we know, wronged himself by the tone and manner of his
reminiscences; but that tone and manner indicated an inferiority of mind,
of nature. Dickens--though he died in the endeavour to increase (not for
himself) an already ample fortune, disastrous influence of his time and
class--wrought with an artistic ingenuousness and fervour such as
Trollope could not even conceive. Methodical, of course, he was; no long
work of prose fiction was ever brought into existence save by methodical
labour; but we know that there was no measuring of so many words to the
hour. The picture of him at work which is seen in his own letters is one
of the most bracing and inspiring in the history of literature. It has
had, and will always have, a great part in maintaining Dickens' place in
the love and reverence of those who understand.