Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

novels were written.

To my own initiation at the Post Office I will return in the next

chapter. Just before Christmas my brother died, and was buried at

Bruges. In the following February my father died, and was buried

alongside of him,--and with him died that tedious task of his,

which I can only hope may have solaced many of his latter hours. I

sometimes look back, meditating for hours together, on his adverse

fate. He was a man, finely educated, of great parts, with immense

capacity for work, physically strong very much beyond the average

of men, addicted to no vices, carried off by no pleasures, affectionate

by nature, most anxious for the welfare of his children, born to

fair fortunes,--who, when he started in the world, may be said to

have had everything at his feet. But everything went wrong with

him. The touch of his hand seemed to create failure. He embarked

in one hopeless enterprise after another, spending on each all the

money he could at the time command. But the worse curse to him of

all was a temper so irritable that even those whom he loved the

best could not endure it. We were all estranged from him, and yet

I believe that he would have given his heart's blood for any of

us. His life as I knew it was one long tragedy.

After his death my mother moved to England, and took and furnished

a small house at Hadley, near Barnet. I was then a clerk in the

London Post Office, and I remember well how gay she made the place

with little dinners, little dances, and little picnics, while

she herself was at work every morning long before others had left

their beds. But she did not stay at Hadley much above a year. She

went up to London, where she again took and furnished a house,

from which my remaining sister was married and carried away into

Cumberland. My mother soon followed her, and on this occasion did

more than take a house. She bought a bit of land,--a field of three

acres near the town,--and built a residence for herself. This, I

think, was in 1841, and she had thus established and re-established

herself six times in ten years. But in Cumberland she found the

climate too severe, and in 1844 she moved herself to Florence,

where she remained till her death in 1863. She continued writing

up to 1856, when she was seventy-six years old,--and had at that

time produced 114 volumes, of which the first was not written till

she was fifty. Her career offers great encouragement to those who

have not begun early in life, but are still ambitious to do something

before they depart hence.

She was an unselfish, affectionate, and most industrious woman,

with great capacity for enjoyment and high physical gifts. She was

endowed too, with much creative power, with considerable humour,

and a genuine feeling for romance. But she was neither clear-sighted

nor accurate; and in her attempts to describe morals, manners, and

even facts, was unable to avoid the pitfalls of exaggeration.

While I was still learning my duty as an usher at Mr. Drury's

school at Brussels, I was summoned to my clerkship in the London

Post Office, and on my way passed through Bruges. I then saw my

father and my brother Henry for the last time. A sadder household

never was held together. They were all dying; except my mother, who

would sit up night after night nursing the dying ones and writing

novels the while,--so that there might be a decent roof for them

to die under. Had she failed to write the novels, I do not know

where the roof would have been found. It is now more that forty

years ago, and looking back over so long a lapse of time I can tell

the story, though it be the story of my own father and mother, of

my own brother and sister, almost as coldly as I have often done

some scene of intended pathos in fiction; but that scene was indeed

full of pathos. I was then becoming alive to the blighted ambition

of my father's life, and becoming alive also to the violence of the

strain which my mother was enduring. But I could do nothing but go

and leave them. There was something that comforted me in the idea

that I need no longer be a burden,--a fallacious idea, as it soon

proved. My salary was to be (pounds)90 a year, and on that I was to live

in (pounds)ondon, keep up my character as a gentleman, and be happy.

That I should have thought this possible at the age of nineteen,

and should have been delighted at being able to make the attempt,

does not surprise me now; but that others should have thought it

possible, friends who knew something of the world, does astonish

me. A lad might have done so, no doubt, or might do so even in

these days, who was properly looked after and kept under control,--on

whose behalf some law of life had been laid down. Let him pay so

much a week for his board and lodging, so much for his clothes, so

much for his washing, and then let him understand that he has--shall

we say?--sixpence a day left for pocket-money and omnibuses. Any

one making the calculation will find the sixpence far too much. No

such calculation was made for me or by me. It was supposed that a

sufficient income had been secured to me, and that I should live

upon it as other clerks lived.

But as yet the (pounds)90 a year was not secured to me. On reaching London

I went to my friend Clayton Freeling, who was then secretary at

the Stamp Office, and was taken by him to the scene of my future

labours in St. Martin's le Grand. Sir Francis Freeling was the

secretary, but he was greatly too high an official to be seen at

first by a new junior clerk. I was taken, therefore, to his eldest

son Henry Freeling, who was the assistant secretary, and by him

I was examined as to my fitness. The story of that examination is

given accurately in one of the opening chapters of a novel written

by me, called The Three Clerks. If any reader of this memoir would

refer to that chapter and see how Charley Tudor was supposed to have

been admitted into the Internal Navigation Office, that reader

will learn how Anthony Trollope was actually admitted into the

Secretary's office of the General Post Office in 1834. I was asked

to copy some lines from the Times newspaper with an old quill pen,

and at once made a series of blots and false spellings. "That

won't do, you know," said Henry Freeling to his brother Clayton.

Clayton, who was my friend, urged that I was nervous, and asked

that I might be allowed to do a bit of writing at home and bring

it as a sample on the next day. I was then asked whether I was

a proficient in arithmetic. What could I say? I had never learned

the multiplication table, and had no more idea of the rule of three

than of conic sections. "I know a little of it," I said humbly,

whereupon I was sternly assured that on the morrow, should I succeed

in showing that my handwriting was all that it ought to be, I should

be examined as to that little of arithmetic. If that little should

not be found to comprise a thorough knowledge of all the ordinary

rules, together with practised and quick skill, my career in life

could not be made at the Post Office. Going down the main stairs

of the building,--stairs which have I believe been now pulled down

to make room for sorters and stampers,--Clayton Freeling told me

not to be too down-hearted. I was myself inclined to think that I

had better go back to the school in Brussels. But nevertheless I

went to work, and under the surveillance of my elder brother made

a beautiful transcript of four or five pages of Gibbon. With a

faltering heart I took these on the next day to the office. With

my caligraphy I was contented, but was certain that I should come

to the ground among the figures. But when I got to "The Grand,"

as we used to call our office in those days, from its site in

St. Martin's le Grand, I was seated at a desk without any further

reference to my competency. No one condescended even to look at my

beautiful penmanship.

That was the way in which candidates for the Civil Service were

examined in my young days. It was at any rate the way in which I

was examined. Since that time there has been a very great change

indeed;--and in some respects a great improvement. But in regard

to the absolute fitness of the young men selected for the public

service, I doubt whether more harm has not been done than good. And

I think that good might have been done without the harm. The rule

of the present day is, that every place shall be open to public

competition, and that it shall be given to the best among the

comers. I object to this, that at present there exists no known

mode of learning who is best, and that the method employed has no

tendency to elicit the best. That method pretends only to decide

who among a certain number of lads will best answer a string of

questions, for the answering of which they are prepared by tutors,

who have sprung up for the purpose since this fashion of election

has been adopted. When it is decided in a family that a boy shall

"try the Civil Service," he is made to undergo a certain amount of

cramming. But such treatment has, I maintain, no connection whatever

with education. The lad is no better fitted after it than he was

before for the future work of his life. But his very success fills

him with false ideas of his own educational standing, and so far

unfits him. And, by the plan now in vogue, it has come to pass that

no one is in truth responsible either for the conduct, the manners,

or even for the character of the youth. The responsibility was

perhaps slight before; but existed, and was on the increase.

There might have been,--in some future time of still increased

wisdom, there yet may be,--a department established to test the

fitness of acolytes without recourse to the dangerous optimism of

competitive choice. I will not say but that there should have been

some one to reject me,--though I will have the hardihood to say

that, had I been so rejected, the Civil Service would have lost

a valuable public servant. This is a statement that will not, I

think, be denied by those who, after I am gone, may remember anything

of my work. Lads, no doubt, should not be admitted who have none of

the small acquirements that are wanted. Our offices should not be

schools in which writing and early lessons in geography, arithmetic,