The Way We Live Now

- By Anthony Trollope
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English novelist of the Victorian period (1815-1882) Anthony TrollopePortrait of Anthony Trollope, by Napoleon SaronyBorn(1815-04-24)24 April 1815London, EnglandDied6 December 1882(1882-12-06) (aged 67)Marylebone, London, EnglandEducationHarrow School Winchester CollegeOccupation(s)Novelist; civil servant (Post Office)Political partyLiberalSpouse Rose Heseltine ​(m. 1844)​Children2ParentsThomas Anthony Trollope (father)Frances Milton Trollope (mother)RelativesThomas Adolphus Trollope (brother)Frances Eleanor Trollope (sister-in-law)Joanna Trollope[1]Signature Anthony Trollope (/ˈtrɒləp/ TROL-əp; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882)[2] was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, which revolves around the imaginary county of Barsetshire. He also wrote novels on political, social, and gender issues, and other topical matters.[3] Trollope's literary reputation dipped during the last years of his life,[4] but he regained somewhat of a following by the mid-20th century. Biography[edit] Anthony Trollope was the son of barrister Thomas Anthony Trollope and the novelist and travel writer Frances Milton Trollope. Though a clever and well-educated man and a Fellow of New College, Oxford, Thomas Trollope failed at the Bar due to his bad temper. Ventures into farming proved unprofitable, and his expectations of inheritance were dashed when an elderly, childless uncle[a] remarried and fathered children. Thomas Trollope was the son of Rev. (Thomas) Anthony Trollope, rector of Cottered, Hertfordshire, himself the sixth son of Sir Thomas Trollope, 4th Baronet. The baronetcy later came to descendants of Anthony Trollope's second son, Frederic.[5] As a son of landed gentry,[6] Thomas Trollope wanted his sons raised as gentlemen who would attend Oxford or Cambridge. Anthony Trollope suffered much misery in his boyhood, owing to the disparity between the privileged background of his parents and their comparatively meagre means. Millais, John Everett (1861), "Julians on Harrow Hill, Trollope's boyhood home", Orley Farm (drawing) (1st ed.), frontispiece Grandon, Monken Hadley. Home to Anthony and his mother 1836–38. Born in London, Anthony attended the Harrow School as a day pupil for three years, beginning at age seven, without paying fees because his father's farm,[b] acquired for that purpose, lay in the neighbourhood. After a spell at a private school at Sunbury, he followed his father and two older brothers to Winchester College, where he remained for three years. He then returned to Harrow as a day-boy to reduce his education costs. With no money or friends at these two high-ranked elite public schools, Trollope was bullied a great deal, enduring miserable experiences. At the age of 12, he fantasised about suicide. He also sought refuge in daydreams, constructing elaborate imaginary worlds. In 1827, his mother, Frances Trollope, moved to America, to the Nashoba Commune, along with Trollope's three younger siblings. After that failed, she opened a bazaar in Cincinnati, which proved unsuccessful. Thomas Trollope joined them for a short time before returning to the farm at Harrow, but Anthony stayed in England throughout. His mother returned in 1831 and rapidly made a name for herself as a writer, soon earning a good income. His father's affairs, however, went from bad to worse. He gave up his legal practice entirely and failed to make enough income from farming to pay rent to his landlord, Lord Northwick. In 1834, he fled to Belgium to avoid arrest for debt. The whole family moved to a house near Bruges, where they lived entirely on Frances's earnings. In Belgium, Anthony was offered a commission in an Austrian cavalry regiment. To accept it, he needed to learn French and German; he had a year in which to do so. To acquire these languages without expense to himself and his family, he became an usher (assistant master) in a school in Brussels, making him the tutor of 30 boys. After six weeks there, however, he was offered a clerkship in the General Post Office, obtained through a family friend. Accepting this post, he returned to London in the autumn of 1834.[7] Thomas Trollope died the following year.[8] According to Trollope, "the first seven years of my official life were neither creditable to myself nor useful to the public service."[9] At the Post Office, he acquired a reputation for unpunctuality and insubordination. A debt of £12 to a tailor fell into the hands of a moneylender and grew to more than £200; the lender regularly visited Trollope at his workplace to demand payments. Trollope hated his job, but saw no alternative and lived in constant fear of dismissal.[9] Move to Ireland[edit] Rose Heseltine Trollope In 1841, an opportunity to escape arose.[10] A postal surveyor clerk in central Ireland, reported as incompetent, needed replacement. The position was not regarded as desirable, but Trollope, in debt and in trouble at work, volunteered for it; and his supervisor, William Maberly, eager to be rid of him, appointed him to the position.[9] Trollope's new work consisted largely of inspection tours in Connaught, and he based himself in Banagher, King's County. Although he had arrived with a bad reference from London, his new supervisor resolved to judge him on his merits, and within a year, by Trollope's account, he earned a reputation as a valuable public servant.[11] His salary and travel allowance went much further in Ireland than they had in London, and he found himself enjoying a measure of prosperity.[9] He took up fox hunting, which he would pursue enthusiastically for the next three decades. As a post-office surveyor, he interacted with local Irish people, whose company he found pleasant: "The Irish people did not murder me, nor did they even break my head. I soon found them to be good-humoured, clever—the working classes very much more intelligent than those of England—economical and hospitable."[11] At the watering place of Dún Laoghaire, Trollope met Rose Heseltine (1821–1917),[11] the daughter of a Rotherham bank manager.[8] They became engaged when he had been in Ireland for just a year, but Trollope's debts and her lack of a fortune prevented them from marrying until 1844. Soon after they wed, Trollope was transferred to another postal district in the south of Ireland, and the family moved to Clonmel.[12] Their first son, Henry Merivale, was born in 1846, and their second, Frederick James Anthony, in 1847.[13] Early works[edit] Though Trollope had decided to become a novelist, he had accomplished very little writing during his first three years in Ireland. At the time of his marriage, he had only written the first of three volumes of his first novel, The Macdermots of Ballycloran. Within a year of his marriage, he finished that work.[14] Trollope began writing on the numerous long train trips around Ireland he had to take to carry out his postal duties.[15] Setting firm goals about how much he would write each day, he eventually became one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote his earliest novels while working as a Post Office inspector, occasionally dipping into the "lost-letter" box for ideas.[16] Plaque on Custom House in Belfast, where Trollope maintained his office as Postal Surveyor for the northern half of Ireland[17] Significantly, many of his earliest novels have Ireland as their setting—natural enough given that he wrote them or thought them up while he was living and working in Ireland, but unlikely to enjoy warm critical reception, given the contemporary English attitude towards Ireland.[18] Critics have pointed out that Trollope's view of Ireland separates him from many of the other Victorian novelists. Other critics claimed that Ireland did not influence Trollope as much as his experience in England, and that the society in Ireland harmed him as a writer, especially since Ireland was experiencing the Great Famine during his time there.[19] However, these critics (who have been accused of bigoted opinions against Ireland) failed or refused to acknowledge both Trollope's true attachment to the country and the country's capacity as a rich literary field.[18][20] Trollope published four novels about Ireland. Two were written during the Great Famine, while the third deals with the famine as a theme (The Macdermots of Ballycloran, The Kellys and the O'Kellys, and Castle Richmond, respectively).[21] The Macdermots of Ballycloran was written while he was staying in the village of Drumsna, County Leitrim.[22] The Kellys and the O'Kellys (1848) is a humorous comparison of the romantic pursuits of the landed gentry (Francis O'Kelly, Lord Ballindine) and his Catholic tenant (Martin Kelly). Two short stories deal with Ireland ("The O'Conors of Castle Conor, County Mayo"[23] and "Father Giles of Ballymoy"[24]).[25] Some critics argue that these works seek to unify an Irish and British identity, instead of viewing the two as distinct.[26] Even as an Englishman in Ireland, Trollope was still able to attain what he saw as essential to being an "Irish writer": possessed, obsessed, and "mauled" by Ireland.[26][27] The reception of the Irish works left much to be desired. Henry Colburn wrote to Trollope, "It is evident that readers do not like novels on Irish subjects as well as on others."[11] In particular, magazines such as The New Monthly Magazine, which included reviews that attacked the Irish for their actions during the famine, were representative of the dismissal by English readers of any work written about the Irish.[28][29] Success as an author[edit] In 1851, Trollope was sent to England, charged with investigating and reorganising rural mail delivery in south-western England and south Wales. The two-year mission took him over much of Great Britain, often on horseback. Trollope describes this time as "two of the happiest years of my life".[30] In the course of it, he visited Salisbury Cathedral; and there, according to his autobiography, he conceived the plot of The Warden, which became the first of the six Barsetshire novels. His postal work delayed the beginning of writing for a year;[31] the novel was published in 1855, in an edition of 1,000 copies, with Trollope receiving half of the profits: £9 8s. 8d. in 1855, and £10 15s. 1d. in 1856. Although the profits were not large, the book received notices in the press, and brought Trollope to the attention of the novel-reading public.[30] Anthony Trollope, [ca. 1859–1870]. Carte de Visite Collection, Boston Public Library. He immediately began work on Barchester Towers, the second Barsetshire novel;[32] upon its publication in 1857,[33] he received an advance payment of £100 (about £10,100 in 2023 consumer pounds) against his share of the profits. Like The Warden, Barchester Towers did not obtain large sales, but it helped to establish Trollope's reputation. In his autobiography, Trollope writes, "It achieved no great reputation, but it was one of the novels which novel readers were called upon to read."[32] For the following novel, The Three Clerks, he was able to sell the copyright for a lump sum of £250; he preferred this to waiting for a share of future profits.[32] Portrait of Anthony Trollope by Samuel Laurence, circa 1864 Return to England[edit] Although Trollope had been happy and comfortable in Ireland, he felt that as an author, he should live within easy reach of London. In 1859, he sought and obtained a position in the Post Office as Surveyor to the Eastern District, comprising Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and most of Hertfordshire.[34] Later in that year he moved to Waltham Cross, about 12 miles (19 km) from London in Hertfordshire, where he lived until 1871.[35] In late 1859, Trollope learned of preparations for the release of the Cornhill Magazine, to be published by George Murray Smith and edited by William Makepeace Thackeray.[36] He wrote to the latter, offering to provide short stories for the new magazine. Thackeray and Smith both responded: the former urging Trollope to contribute, the latter offering £1,000 for a novel, provided that a substantial part of it could be available to the printer within six weeks. Trollope offered Smith Castle Richmond, which he was then writing; but Smith declined to accept an Irish story, and suggested a novel dealing with English clerical life as had Barchester Towers. Trollope then devised the plot of Framley Parsonage, setting it near Barchester so that he could make use of characters from the Barsetshire novels.[34][37][38]: 207–08  Framley Parsonage proved enormously popular, establishing Trollope's reputation with the novel-reading public and amply justifying the high price that Smith had paid for it.[39] The early connection to Cornhill also brought Trollope into the London circle of artists, writers, and intellectuals, not least among whom were Smith and Thackeray.[38]: 209 [40] By the mid-1860s, Trollope had reached a fairly senior position within the Post Office hierarchy, despite ongoing differences with Rowland Hill, who was at that time Chief Secretary to the Postmaster General.[34] Postal history credits Trollope with introducing the pillar box (the ubiquitous mail-box) in the United Kingdom. He was earning a substantial income from his novels. He had overcome the awkwardness of his youth, made good friends in literary circles, and hunted enthusiastically. In 1865, Trollope was among the founders of the liberal Fortnightly Review.[41] When Hill left the Post Office in 1864, Trollope's brother-in-law, John Tilley, who was then Under-Secretary to the Postmaster General, was appointed to the vacant position. Trollope applied for Tilley's old post, but was passed over in favour of a subordinate, Frank Ives Scudamore. In the autumn of 1867, Trollope resigned his position at the Post Office, having by that time saved enough to generate an income equal to the pension he would lose by leaving before the age of 60.[42] Trollope by Spy in Vanity Fair, 1873 Beverley campaign[edit] Trollope had long dreamt of taking a seat in the House of Commons.[43] As a civil servant, however, he was ineligible for such a position. His resignation from the Post Office removed this disability, and he almost immediately began seeking a seat for which he might stand.[44] In 1868, he agreed to stand as a Liberal candidate in the borough of Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.[45] Party leaders apparently took advantage of Trollope's eagerness to stand, and of his willingness to spend money on a campaign.[43] Beverley had a long history of vote-buying and of intimidation by employers and others. Every election since 1857 had been followed by an election petition alleging corruption, and it was estimated that 300 of the 1,100 voters in 1868 would sell their votes.[46] The task of a Liberal candidate was not to win the election, but to give the Conservative candidates an opportunity to display overt corruption, which could then be used to disqualify them.[44] Trollope described his period of campaigning in Beverley as "the most wretched fortnight of my manhood".[43] He spent a total of £400 on his campaign.[43] The election was held on 17 November 1868; the novelist finished last of four candidates, with the victory going to the two Conservatives.[44] A petition was filed,[47][48] and a Royal Commission investigated the circumstances of the election; its findings of extensive and widespread corruption drew nationwide attention, and led to the disfranchisement of the borough in 1870.[46] The fictional Percycross election in Ralph the Heir and Tankerville election in Phineas Redux is closely based on the Beverley campaign.[43] Later years[edit] After the defeat at Beverley, Trollope concentrated entirely on his literary career. While continuing to produce novels rapidly, he also edited the St Paul's Magazine, which published several of his novels in serial form. "Between 1859 and 1875, Trollope visited the United States five times. Among American literary men he developed a wide acquaintance, which included Lowell, Holmes, Emerson, Agassiz, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bret Harte, Artemus Ward, Joaquin Miller, Mark Twain, Henry James, William Dean Howells, James T. Fields, Charles Norton, John Lothrop Motley, and Richard Henry Dana Jr."[49] Trollope wrote a travel book focusing on his experiences in the US during the American Civil War titled North America (1862). Aware that his mother had published a harshly anti-American travel book about the U.S. (titled the Domestic Manners of the Americans) and feeling markedly more sympathetic to the United States, Trollope resolved to write a work which would "add to the good feeling which should exist between two nations which ought to love each other." During his time in America, Trollope remained a steadfast supporter of the Union, being a committed abolitionist who was opposed to the system of slavery as it existed in the South.[50] In 1871, Trollope made his first trip to Australia, arriving in Melbourne on 28 July 1871 on the SS Great Britain,[51] with his wife and their cook.[52] The trip was made to visit their younger son, Frederick, who was a sheep farmer near Grenfell, New South Wales.[53] He wrote his novel Lady Anna during the voyage.[53] In Australia, he spent a year and two days "descending mines, mixing with shearers and rouseabouts, riding his horse into the loneliness of the bush, touring lunatic asylums, and exploring coast and plain by steamer and stagecoach".[54] He visited the penal colony of Port Arthur and its cemetery, Isle of the Dead.[55] Despite this, the Australian press was uneasy, fearing he would misrepresent Australia in his writings. This fear was based on rather negative writings about America by his mother, Fanny, and by Charles Dickens. On his return, Trollope published a book, Australia and New Zealand (1873). It contained both positive and negative comments. On the positive side, it found a comparative absence of class consciousness, and praised aspects of Perth, Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney.[54] However, he was negative about Adelaide's river, the towns of Bendigo and Ballarat, and the Aboriginal population. What most angered the Australian papers, though, were his comments "accusing Australians of being braggarts".[54][50] Grave in Kensal Green Cemetery, London Trollope returned to Australia in 1875 to help his son close down his failed farming business. He found that the resentment created by his accusations of bragging remained. Even when he died in 1882, Australian papers still "smouldered", referring yet again to these accusations, and refusing to fully praise or recognize his achievements.[56] In the late 1870s, Trollope furthered his travel writing career by visiting southern Africa, including the Cape Colony and the Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. Admitting that he initially assumed that the Afrikaners had "retrograded from civilization, and had become savage, barbarous, and unkindly", Trollope wrote at length on Boer cultural habits, claiming that the "roughness... Spartan simplicity and the dirtiness of the Boer’s way of life [merely] resulted from his preference for living in rural isolation, far from any town." In the completed work, which Trollope simply titled South Africa (1877), he described the mining town of Kimberly as being "one of the most interesting places on the face of the earth."[50] In 1880, Trollope moved to the village of South Harting in West Sussex. He spent some time in Ireland in the early 1880s researching his last, unfinished, novel, The Landleaguers. It is said that he was extremely distressed by the violence of the Land War.[57] Death[edit] Trollope died in Marylebone, London, in 1882[58] and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, near the grave of his contemporary, Wilkie Collins. Works and reputation[edit] Main article: Anthony Trollope bibliography Trollope's first major success came with The Warden (1855)—the first of six novels set in the fictional county of "Barsetshire" (often collectively referred to as the Chronicles of Barsetshire), dealing primarily with the clergy and landed gentry. Barchester Towers (1857) has probably become the best-known of these. Trollope's other major series, the Palliser novels, which overlap with the Barsetshire novels, concerned itself with politics, with the wealthy, industrious Plantagenet Palliser (later Duke of Omnium) and his delightfully spontaneous, even richer wife Lady Glencora featured prominently. However, as with the Barsetshire series, many other well-developed characters populated each novel and in one, The Eustace Diamonds, the Pallisers play only a small role. A VR pillar box originally installed in Guernsey in 1852/3 on Trollope's recommendation and one of the oldest still in use Trollope's popularity and critical success diminished in his later years, but he continued to write prolifically, and some of his later novels have acquired a good reputation. In particular, critics who concur that the book was not popular when published, generally acknowledge the sweeping satire The Way We Live Now (1875) as his masterpiece.[59] In all, Trollope wrote 47 novels, 42 short stories, and five travel books, as well as nonfiction books titled Thackeray (1879) and Lord Palmerston (1882). After his death, Trollope's An Autobiography appeared and was a bestseller in London.[60] Trollope's downfall in the eyes of the critics stemmed largely from this volume.[61][62] Even during his writing career, reviewers tended increasingly to shake their heads over his prodigious output, but when Trollope revealed that he strictly adhered to a daily writing quota, and admitted that he wrote for money, he confirmed his critics' worst fears.[63] Writers were expected to wait for inspiration, not to follow a schedule.[64] Julian Hawthorne, an American writer, critic and friend of Trollope, while praising him as a man, calling him "a credit to England and to human nature, and ... [deserving] to be numbered among the darlings of mankind", also said that "he has done great harm to English fictitious literature by his novels".[65][66] Henry James also expressed mixed opinions of Trollope.[67] The young James wrote some scathing reviews of Trollope's novels (The Belton Estate, for instance, he called "a stupid book, without a single thought or idea in it ... a sort of mental pabulum"). He also made it clear that he disliked Trollope's narrative method; Trollope's cheerful interpolations into his novels about how his storylines could take any twist their author wanted did not appeal to James's sense of artistic integrity. However, James thoroughly appreciated Trollope's attention to realistic detail, as he wrote in an essay shortly after the novelist's death: His [Trollope's] great, his inestimable merit was a complete appreciation of the usual. ... [H]e felt all daily and immediate things as well as saw them; felt them in a simple, direct, salubrious way, with their sadness, their gladness, their charm, their comicality, all their obvious and measurable meanings. ... Trollope will remain one of the most trustworthy, though not one of the most eloquent, of the writers who have helped the heart of man to know itself. ... A race is fortunate when it has a good deal of the sort of imagination—of imaginative feeling—that had fallen to the share of Anthony Trollope; and in this possession our English race is not poor.[68] Writers such as William Thackeray, George Eliot and Wilkie Collins admired and befriended Trollope, and Eliot noted that she could not have embarked on so ambitious a project as Middlemarch without the precedent set by Trollope in his own novels of the fictional—yet thoroughly alive—county of Barsetshire.[69] Other contemporaries of Trollope praised his understanding of the quotidian world of institutions, official life, and daily business; he is one of the few novelists who find the office a creative environment.[70] W. H. Auden wrote of Trollope: "Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him, even Balzac is too romantic."[71] As trends in the world of the novel moved increasingly towards subjectivity and artistic experimentation, Trollope's standing with critics suffered. But Lord David Cecil noted in 1934 that "Trollope is still very much alive ... and among fastidious readers." He noted that Trollope was "conspicuously free from the most characteristic Victorian faults".[72] In the 1940s, Trollopians made further attempts to resurrect his reputation; he enjoyed a critical renaissance in the 1960s, and again in the 1990s. Some critics today have a particular interest in Trollope's portrayal of women—he caused remark even in his own day for his deep insight and sensitivity to the inner conflicts caused by the position of women in Victorian society.[73][74][75][76][77] In the early 1990s, interest in Trollope increased. A Trollope Society flourishes in the United Kingdom, as does its sister society in the United States.[78] In 2011, the University of Kansas's Department of English, in collaboration with the Hall Center for the Humanities and in partnership with The Fortnightly Review, began awarding an annual Trollope Prize. The Prize was established to focus attention on Trollope's work and career. Notable fans have included Alec Guinness, who never travelled without a Trollope novel; the former British prime ministers Harold Macmillan[79] and Sir John Major; the first Canadian prime minister, John A. Macdonald; the economist John Kenneth Galbraith; the merchant banker Siegmund Warburg, who said that "reading Anthony Trollope surpassed a university education.";[80] the English judge Lord Denning; the American novelists Sue Grafton, Dominick Dunne, and Timothy Hallinan; the poet Edward Fitzgerald;[81] the artist Edward Gorey, who kept a complete set of his books; the American author Robert Caro;[82] the playwright David Mamet;[83] the soap opera writer Harding Lemay; the screenwriter and novelist Julian Fellowes; liberal political philosopher Anthony de Jasay; and theologian Stanley Hauerwas. Bibliography[edit] Anthony Trollope bibliography Notes[edit] ^ Barbara, the childless wife of Anthony Trollope's great-uncle, Adolphus Meetkerke of Julians Hertfordshire, died in 1817. Adolphus (then aged 64) remarried in 1818 and had five children. ^ The (leasehold) farm was named by the Trollopes 'Julians' after the grand estate they ultimately failed to inherit. Trollope used this Julians at Harrow as the location for the school in his novel Orley Farm. Coincidentally, Julians later became used as a school and Trollope consented to that school being named Orley Farm School. References[edit] ^ "Joanna Trollope - Literature". ^ Garnett, Richard (1899). "Trollope, Anthony" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 57. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 238–242. ^ Nardin, Jane (1990). "The Social Critic in Anthony Trollope's Novels," SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900, Vol. XXX, No. 4, pp. 679–696. ^ "What about Anthony Trollope? Was not Anthony Trollope popular, even during the days of Dickens and Thackeray? And who ever preached a reactionary crusade against him? Yet is he not fast disappearing from the attention of our novel readers? Trollope, unlike most successful novelists, was himself made sensible during his later years of a steady decline of his popularity. I heard a well-known London publisher once say that the novelist who had once obtained by any process a complete popular success never could lose it during his lifetime; that, let him write as carelessly and as badly as he might, his lifetime could not last long enough to enable him to shake off his public. But the facts of Trollope's literary career show that the declaration of my publisher friend was too sweeping in its terms. For several years before his death, Trollope's prices were steadily falling off. Now, one seldom hears him talked of; one hardly ever hears a citation from him in a newspaper or a magazine." – M'Carthy, Justin (1900). "Disappearing Authors," The North American Review, Vol. 170, No. 520, p. 397. ^ Anthony Trollope: The Artist in Hiding, R. C. Terry, Macmillan, 1977, p. 22 ^ Casewick, Lincolnshire, the Trollope family seat purchased in 1621 (photogram), UK: Geograph ^ Trollope, Anthony (1883). An Autobiography. Chapter 2. Retrieved 2 July 2010. ^ a b Anthony Trollope: Biography. Archived 30 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine The Trollope Society. Archived 26 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2 July 2010. ^ a b c d Trollope (1883). Chapter 3. Retrieved 2 July 2010. ^ Moore, W. S. (1928). "Trollope and Ireland", The Irish Monthly, Vol. 56, No. 656, pp. 74–79. ^ a b c d Trollope (1883). Chapter 4. Retrieved 2 July 2010. ^ Byrne, P. F. (1992). "Anthony Trollope in Ireland," Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 126–128. ^ Anthony Trollope: The Artist in Hiding, R. C. Terry, Macmillan, 1977, p. 249, Appendix I ^ Tingay, Lance O. (1951). "The Reception of Trollope's First Novel", Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 195–200. ^ "Some authors appear to be able to write at any time and in any place. Anthony Trollope did much writing in a railway train." – Andrews, William (1898). Literary Byways, Williams Andrews & Co., pp. 22–23. ^ Super, R. H. (1981). Trollope in the Post Office. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press. pp. 16–45. ^ "Anthony Trollope". Ulster History Circle. Archived from the original Archived 16 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine on 16 July 2011. ^ a b Edwards, Owen Dudley. "Anthony Trollope, the Irish Writer. Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 38, No. 1 (June 1983), p. 1 ^ Trollope: A Commentary London: Constable 1927 p. 136 ^ "Trollope and the Matter of Ireland," Anthony Trollope, ed. Tony Bareham, London: Vision Press 1980, pp. 24–25 ^ Terry, R.C. Anthony Trollope: The Artist in Hiding London: Macmillan 1977 pp. 175–200 ^ "Welcome to Drumsna". GoIreland. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 25 June 2008. ^ Published in Harper's, May 1860. ^ Published in Argosy, May 1866. ^ Trollope, The Spotted Dog, and Other Stories, ed. Herbert Van Thal. London: Pan Books 1950 ^ a b Edwards p.3 ^ "Irishness" in Writers and Politics. London: Chatto and Windus 1965, pp. 97–100 ^ New Monthly Magazine, August 1848. ^ Trollope: The Critical Heritage ed. Donald Smalley London: Routledge 1969, p. 555 ^ a b Trollope (1883). Chapter 5. Retrieved 2 July 2010. ^ The dates in Trollope's An Autobiography, chapter 5 , are inconsistent: he states that he began writing The Warden in July 1853, that he "recommenced it" at the end of 1852, and that he finished it in the autumn of 1853. ^ a b c Trollope (1883). Chapter 6. Retrieved 2 July 2010. ^ Trollope (1883). Chapter 20. Retrieved 2 July 2010. ^ a b c Trollope (1883). Chapter 8. Retrieved 2 July 2010. ^ "Anthony Trollope". Lowewood Museum. Retrieved 2 July 2010. ^ Payne, Jr.L. W. (1900). "Thackeray," The Sewanee Review, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 447–448. ^ Lee, Sidney (1901). "Memoir of George Smith" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co. ^ a b Sadleir, Michael (1927). Trollope: A Commentary. Farrar, Straus and Company. ^ Moody, Ellen. Framley Parsonage introduction. Ellen Moody's Website: Mostly on English and Continental and Women's Literature. Retrieved 7 April 2011. ^ Cook, E. T. (1910). "The Jubilee of the 'Cornhill'," The Cornhill Magazine, Vol. XXVIII, New Series. ^ Durey, J. (2002). Trollope and the Church of England. Springer. p. 135. ^ Trollope (1883). Chapter 15. Retrieved 2 July 2010. ^ a b c d e Trollope (1883), chapter 16. Retrieved 21 May 2010. ^ a b c Super, R. H. (1988). The Chronicler of Barsetshire. University of Michigan Press. pp. 251–5. Retrieved 19 May 2010. ^ Tingay, Lance O. (1950). "Trollope and the Beverley Election," Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 23–37. ^ a b Modern Beverley: Political and Social History, 1835–1918. British History Online. Archived 7 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 20 May 2010. ^ O'Malley, Edwin L.; Hardcastle, Henry. Reports of the Decisions of the Judges for the trial of Election Petitions in England and Ireland as pursuant to The Parliamentary Elections Act 1868. 7 vols, 1870–1929. London: Stevens & Haynes. 1870: Volume I (Petitions 1869), pp. 143-150. ^ Journals of the House of Commons, 10 December 1868 to 11 August 1869 (PDF). Vol. 124. London: Printed by Order of the House of Commons. pp. 91–93, 124–5, 269. ^ William Coyle, "The Friendship of Anthony Trollope and Richard Henry Dana, Jr.," The New England Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 2 (June 1952), pp. 255-262 (quotation on p. 255). ^ a b c Buzard, James (March 2010). "Portable Boundaries: Trollope, Race, and Travel". Nineteenth-Century Contexts. 32 (1): 5–18. doi:10.1080/08905491003703998. ISSN 0890-5495. S2CID 191619030. ^ "SS Great Britain : Brunel's ss Great Britain". globalstories.ssgreatbritain.org. Retrieved 21 July 2021. ^ Muir, Marcie (1949). Anthony Trollope in Australia, Wakefield Press, p. 36. ^ a b Starck, Nigel (2008) "Anthony Trollope's travels and travails in 1871 Australia", National Library of Australia News, XIX (1), p. 19 ^ a b c Starck, p. 20 ^ Trollope, Anthony (1876). Australia and New Zealand. London: Chapman and Hall. pp. 145–153. hdl:2027/mdp.39015010728460. ^ Starck, p. 21 ^ Stanford, Jane, 'That Irishman: The Life and Times of John O'Connor Power', Part Three, 'The Fenian is the Artist', pp. 123–124, The History Press Ireland, May 2011, ISBN 978-1-84588-698-1 ^ "Search Results for England & Wales Deaths 1837-2007". www.findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 21 July 2021. ^ Craig, Amanda (30 April 2009). "Book of a Lifetime, The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope". independent.co.uk. ^ "Literary Gossip". The Week: A Canadian Journal of Politics, Literature, Science and Arts. 1. 1: 13. 6 December 1883. ^ Saintsbury, George (1895). "Three Mid-Century Novelists." In Corrected Impressions, London: William Heinemann, 172–173. ^ Shumaker, Wayne (1954). "The Mixed Mode: Trollope's Autobiography." In English Autobiography, Berkeley: University of California Press. ^ "He told me that he began to write at five o'clock every morning, and wrote a certain number of hours till it was time to dress, never touching his literary work after breakfast. I remember telling him that I always worked at night, and his saying, 'Well, I give the freshest hours of the day to my work; you give the fag end of the day to yours.' I have often thought over this, but my experience has always been that the early morning is the best time for study and taking in ideas, night the best time for giving out thoughts. I said that I envied him the gift of imagination, which enabled him to create characters. He said, 'Imagination! my dear fellow, not a bit of it; it is cobbler's wax.' Seeing that I was rather puzzled, he said that the secret of success was to put a lump of cobbler's wax on your chair, sit on it and stick to it till you had succeeded. He told me he had written for years before he got paid." — Brackenbury, Sir Henry (1909). Some Memories of My Spare Time, William Blackwood & Sons, pp. 51–52. ^ "It happened that Anthony Trollope was a writer. But that circumstance was unimportant. He was pre-eminently a man. Trollope devoted himself to the business of authorship exactly as he might have devoted himself to any other business. He worked at writing for three hours each day, not a very hard daily stint. But, as it happened, he had another occupation, a position in the English postal service. He made up his mind to do his stint of writing no matter what happened. Often he would write on trains. What writers call 'waiting for an inspiration' he considered nonsense. The result of his system was that he accomplished a vast amount of work. But, by telling the truth about his system, he injured his reputation. When his 'Autobiography' was published after his death, lovers of literature were shocked, instead of being impressed by his courage and industry. They had the old-fashioned notion about writing, which still persists, by the way. They liked to think of writers as 'inspired,' as doing their work by means of a divine agency. As if we did not all do our work by a divine agency no matter what the work may be. But the divine agency insists on being backed up with character, which means courage and persistence, the qualities that make for system. In the 'Autobiography,' Anthony Trollope unquestionably showed that he was not an inspirational writer, and that he was a man inspired by tremendous moral force." – Barry, John D. (1918). "Using Time." In Reactions and Other Essays, J.J. Newbegin, pp. 39–40. ^ Hawthorne, Julian (1887). "The Maker of Many Books." In Confessions and Criticisms, Ticknor and Company, pp. 160–62. ^ His father, eminent novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, saw it differently: "Have you ever read the novels of Anthony Trollope?" He asked his publisher, James T. Fields, in February 1860; "They precisely suit my taste; solid, substantial, written on strength of beef and through inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were made a show of." — Heddendorf, David (2013). "Anthony Trollope's Scarlet Letter," Sewanee Review, Vol. 121, No. 3, p. 368. ^ Jones, Vivien (1982). "James and Trollope," The Review of English Studies, Vol. 33, No. 131, pp. 278–294. ^ James, Henry (1888). "Anthony Trollope." In Partial Portraits, Macmillan and Co., pp. 100–01, 133. ^ Super, R. H. (1988), p. 412. ^ Sullivan, Ceri (2013). Literature in the Public Service: Sublime Bureaucracy, Palgrave Macmillan, Ch. 3, pp. 65–99. ^ Quoted in Wintle, Justin & Kenin, Richard, eds. (1978). The Dictionary of Biographical Quotation, p. 742. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. ^ Lord David Cecil, Early Victorian Novelists – Essays in Revaluation, p. 245 ^ "Anthony Trollope reveals an amazing insight into the love and the motive of woman. In this detail he has no equal in the whole catalogue of British male novelists until we go as far back as Richardson. Trollope has an amazing comprehension of the young lady. Meredith cannot approach the ground held by Trollope here." – Harvey, Alexander (1917). "A Glance at Marcia." In William Dean Howells: A Study of the Achievement of a Literary Artist, B.W. Huebsch, p. 69. ^ Koets, Christiaan Coenraad (1933). Female Characters in the Works of Anthony Trollope, Gouda, T. van Tilburg. ^ Hewitt, Margaret (1963). "Anthony Trollope: Historian and Sociologist," The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 226–239. ^ Aitken, David (1974). "Anthony Trollope on 'the Genus Girl'," Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 417–434. ^ Kennedy, John Dorrance (1975). Trollope's Widows, Beyond the Stereotypes of Maiden and Wife, (PhD Dissertation), University of Florida. ^ Allen, Brooke (1993). "New York's Trollope Society," Archived 28 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine City Journal, Autumn. ^ Peter Catterall, "The Prime Minister and His Trollope: Reading Harold Macmillan's Reading", Cercles: Occasional Papers Series (2004). ^ Chernow, Ron. The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family. New York: Random House, 2003, p. 546. ^ Lewis, Monica C. (2010). "Anthony Trollope and the Voicing of Victorian Fiction," Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 65, No. 2, p. 141. ^ The New York Society Library: "About Us" ^ Mamet, David (21 July 2017). "Charles Dickens Makes Me Want to Throw Up". Wall Street Journal. Further reading[edit] Booth, Bradford Allen (1958). Anthony Trollope: Aspects of his Life and Art. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313202032. OCLC 499213856. Briggs, Asa, "Trollope, Bagehot, and the English Constitution," in Briggs, Victorian People (1955) pp. 87–115. online Brown, Beatrice Curtis (1950). Anthony Trollope, London: Arthur Barker. Cockshut, O. J. (1955). Anthony Trollope: A Critical Study, London: Collins. Escott, T. H. S. (1913). Anthony Trollope, his Work, Associates and Literary Originals, John Lane: The Bodley Head. Gerould, Winifred and James (1948). A Guide to Trollope, Princeton University Press. Glendinning, Victoria (1992). Anthony Trollope, London: Hutchinson. Gopnik, Adam (4 May 2015). "Trollope Trending: Why he's still the novelist of the way we live now". A Critic at Large. The New Yorker. Vol. 91, no. 11. pp. 28–32. Retrieved 3 September 2021. Hall, N. John (1991). Trollope: A Biography, Clarendon Press. Hardwick, Michael (1974). The Osprey Guide to Anthony Trollope, London: Osprey Publishing. Kincaid, James R. (1977). The Novels of Anthony Trollope, Oxford: Clarendon Press. MacDonald, Susan (1987). Anthony Trollope, Twayne Publishers. Moody, Ellen (1999). Trollope on the Net, Trollope Society/Hambledon Press. Mullen, Richard (1990). Anthony Trollope: A Victorian in his World, Savannah: Frederic C. Beil. Olmsted, Charles and Jeffrey Welch (1978). The Reputation of Trollope: An Annotated Bibliography, Garland Publishing. Polhemus, Robert M. (1966). The Changing World of Anthony Trollope, University of California Press. Pollard, Arthur (1978). Anthony Trollope, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Limited. Pope-Hennessy, James (1971). Anthony Trollope, Jonathan Cape. Roberts, Ruth (1971). Trollope: Artist and Moralist. London, U.K.: Chatto and Windus. ISBN 9780701117726. OCLC 906100774. Terry, R.C., ed. (1999). Oxford Reader's Companion to Trollope, Oxford University Press. Sadleir, Michael (1928). Trollope: A Bibliography, Wm. Dawson & Sons. Smalley, Donald (1969). Anthony Trollope: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge. Snow, C. P. (1975). Trollope, London: Macmillan & Co. Walpole, Hugh (1928). Anthony Trollope, New York: The Macmillan Company. Literary allusions in Trollope's novels have been identified and traced by Professor James A. Means, in two articles that appeared in The Victorian Newsletter (vols. 78 and 82) in 1990 and 1992 respectively. External links[edit] Library resources about Anthony Trollope Resources in your library Resources in other libraries Biography portal Wikisource has original works by or about:Anthony Trollope Wikiquote has quotations related to Anthony Trollope. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anthony Trollope. Digital collections Works by Anthony Trollope in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by Anthony Trollope at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Anthony Trollope at Internet Archive Works by Anthony Trollope at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Saintsbury, George (1881). "Trollope, Anthony" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. XIII (9th ed.). pp. 585–586. Anthony Trollope — Google Books Physical collections Anthony Trollope at the British Library Anthony Trollope Collection. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Collection of portraits of Trollope at the National Portrait Gallery, London Other links Trollope Society website Classical references Archived 2 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine in the Barsetshire series of novels, researched by students from Hendrix College. Vanity Fair – Mrs. Trollope's America The Trollope Prize at the University of Kansas. The Fortnightly Review Prospectus by Anthony Trollope vteWorks by Anthony TrollopeNovels The Macdermots of Ballycloran (1847) The Kellys and the O'Kellys (1848) La Vendée: An Historical Romance (1850) The Three Clerks (1858) The Bertrams (1859) Castle Richmond (1860) Orley Farm (1862) The Struggles of Brown, Jones & Robinson (1862) Rachel Ray (1863) Miss Mackenzie (1865) The Belton Estate (1866) The Claverings (1867) Nina Balatka (1867) Linda Tressel (1868) He Knew He Was Right (1869) The Vicar of Bullhampton (1870) Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite (1871) Ralph the Heir (1871) The Golden Lion of Granpère (1872) Harry Heathcote of Gangoil (1874) Lady Anna (1874) The Way We Live Now (1875) The American Senator (1877) Is He Popenjoy? (1878) John Caldigate (1879) An Eye for an Eye (1879) Cousin Henry (1879) Ayala's Angel (1881) Doctor Wortle's School (1881) The Fixed Period (1882) Kept in the Dark (1882) Marion Fay (1882) Mr. Scarborough's Family (1883) The Landleaguers (1883) An Old Man's Love (1884) Novel seriesChronicles of Barsetshire The Warden (1855) Barchester Towers (1857) Doctor Thorne (1858) Framley Parsonage (1861) The Small House at Allington (1864) The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867) Palliser novels Can You Forgive Her? (1865) Phineas Finn (1869) The Eustace Diamonds (1873) Phineas Redux (1874) The Prime Minister (1876) The Duke's Children (1880) Magazines Co-founder, The Fortnightly Review Authority control databases International FAST ISNI VIAF National Norway Spain France BnF data Catalonia Germany Italy Israel Belgium United States Sweden Latvia Japan Czech Republic Australia Greece Korea Croatia Netherlands Poland Portugal Vatican Academics CiNii Artists MusicBrainz People Australia Ireland Trove Other SNAC IdRef
CHAPTER II. THE CARBURY FAMILY.
Something of herself and condition Lady Carbury has told the reader in the letters given in the former chapter, but more must be added. She has declared she had been cruelly slandered; but she has also shown that she was not a woman whose words about herself could be taken with much confidence. If the reader does not understand so much from her letters to the three editors they have been written in vain. She has been made to say that her object in work was to provide for the need of her children, and that with that noble purpose before her she was struggling to make for herself a career in literature. Detestably false as had been her letters to the editors, absolutely and abominably foul as was the entire system by which she was endeavouring to achieve success, far away from honour and honesty as she had been carried by her ready subserviency to the dirty things among which she had lately fallen, nevertheless her statements about herself were substantially true. She had been ill-treated. She had been slandered. She was true to her children,-especially devoted to one of them,-and was ready to work her nails off if by doing so she could advance their interests.
She was the widow of one Sir Patrick Carbury, who many years since had done great things as a soldier in India, and had been thereupon created a baronet. He had married a young wife late in life and, having found out when too late that he had made a mistake, had occasionally spoilt his darling and occasionally ill used her. In doing each he had done it abundantly. Among Lady Carbury's faults had never been that of even incipient,-not even of sentimental infidelity to her husband. When as a very lovely and penniless girl of eighteen she had consented to marry a man of forty-four who had the spending of a large income, she had made up her mind to abandon all hope of that sort of love which poets describe and which young people generally desire to experience. Sir Patrick at the time of his marriage was red-faced, stout, bald, very choleric, generous in money, suspicious in temper, and intelligent. He knew how to govern men. He could read and understand a book. There was nothing mean about him. He had his attractive qualities. He was a man who might be loved;-but he was hardly a man for love. The young Lady Carbury had understood her position and had determined to do her duty. She had resolved before she went to the altar that she would never allow herself to flirt and she had never flirted. For fifteen years things had gone tolerably well with her,-by which it is intended that the reader should understand that they had so gone that she had been able to tolerate them. They had been home in England for three or four years, and then Sir Patrick had returned with some new and higher appointment. For fifteen years, though he had been passionate, imperious, and often cruel, he had never been jealous. A boy and a girl had been born to them, to whom both father and mother had been over indulgent;-but the mother, according to her lights, had endeavoured to do her duty by them. But from the commencement of her life she had been educated in deceit, and her married life had seemed to make the practice of deceit necessary to her. Her mother had run away from her father, and she had been tossed to and fro between this and that protector, sometimes being in danger of wanting any one to care for her, till she had been made sharp, incredulous, and untrustworthy by the difficulties of her position. But she was clever, and had picked up an education and good manners amidst the difficulties of her childhood,-and had been beautiful to look at. To marry and have the command of money, to do her duty correctly, to live in a big house and be respected, had been her ambition,-and during the first fifteen years of her married life she was successful amidst great difficulties. She would smile within five minutes of violent ill-usage. Her husband would even strike her,-and the first effort of her mind would be given to conceal the fact from all the world. In latter years he drank too much, and she struggled hard first to prevent the evil, and then to prevent and to hide the ill effects of the evil. But in doing all this she schemed, and lied, and lived a life of manœuvres. Then, at last, when she felt that she was no longer quite a young woman, she allowed herself to attempt to form friendships for herself, and among her friends was one of the other sex. If fidelity in a wife be compatible with such friendship, if the married state does not exact from a woman the necessity of debarring herself from all friendly intercourse with any man except her lord, Lady Carbury was not faithless. But Sir Carbury became jealous, spoke words which even she could not endure, did things which drove even her beyond the calculations of her prudence,-and she left him. But even this she did in so guarded a way that, as to every step she took, she could prove her innocence. Her life at that period is of little moment to our story, except that it is essential that the reader should know in what she had been slandered. For a month or two all hard words had been said against her by her husband's friends, and even by Sir Patrick himself. But gradually the truth was known, and after a year's separation they came again together and she remained the mistress of his house till he died. She brought him home to England, but during the short period left to him of life in his old country he had been a worn-out, dying invalid. But the scandal of her great misfortune had followed her, and some people were never tired of reminding others that in the course of her married life Lady Carbury had run away from her husband, and had been taken back again by the kind-hearted old gentleman.
Sir Patrick had left behind him a moderate fortune, though by no means great wealth. To his son, who was now Sir Felix Carbury, he had left £1,000 a year; and to his widow as much, with a provision that after her death the latter sum should be divided between his son and daughter. It therefore came to pass that the young man, who had already entered the army when his father died, and upon whom devolved no necessity of keeping a house, and who in fact not unfrequently lived in his mother's house, had an income equal to that with which his mother and his sister were obliged to maintain a roof over their head. Now Lady Carbury, when she was released from her thraldom at the age of forty, had no idea at all of passing her future life amidst the ordinary penances of widowhood. She had hitherto endeavoured to do her duty, knowing that in accepting her position she was bound to take the good and the bad together. She had certainly encountered hitherto much that was bad. To be scolded, watched, beaten, and sworn at by a choleric old man till she was at last driven out of her house by the violence of his ill-usage; to be taken back as a favour with the assurance that her name would for the remainder of her life be unjustly tarnished; to have her flight constantly thrown in her face; and then at last to become for a year or two the nurse of a dying debauchee, was a high price to pay for such good things as she had hitherto enjoyed. Now at length had come to her a period of relaxation-her reward, her freedom, her chance of happiness. She thought much about herself, and resolved on one or two things. The time for love had gone by, and she would have nothing to do with it. Nor would she marry again for convenience. But she would have friends,-real friends; friends who could help her,-and whom possibly she might help. She would, too, make some career for herself, so that life might not be without an interest to her. She would live in London, and would become somebody at any rate in some circle. Accident at first rather than choice had thrown her among literary people, but that accident had, during the last two years, been supported and corroborated by the desire which had fallen upon her of earning money. She had known from the first that economy would be necessary to her,-not chiefly or perhaps not at all from a feeling that she and her daughter could not live comfortably together on a thousand a year,-but on behalf of her son. She wanted no luxury but a house so placed that people might conceive of her that she lived in a proper part of the town. Of her daughter's prudence she was as well convinced as of her own. She could trust Henrietta in everything. But her son, Sir Felix, was not very trustworthy. And yet Sir Felix was the darling of her heart.
At the time of the writing of the three letters, at which our story is supposed to begin, she was driven very hard for money. Sir Felix was then twenty-five, had been in a fashionable regiment for four years, had already sold out, and, to own the truth at once, had altogether wasted the property which his father had left him. So much the mother knew,-and knew, therefore, that with her limited income she must maintain not only herself and daughter, but also the baronet. She did not know, however, the amount of the baronet's obligations;-nor, indeed, did he, or any one else. A baronet, holding a commission in the Guards, and known to have had a fortune left him by his father, may go very far in getting into debt; and Sir Felix had made full use of all his privileges. His life had been in every way bad. He had become a burden on his mother so heavy,-and on his sister also,-that their life had become one of unavoidable embarrassments. But not for a moment had either of them ever quarrelled with him. Henrietta had been taught by the conduct of both father and mother that every vice might be forgiven in a man and in a son, though every virtue was expected from a woman, and especially from a daughter. The lesson had come to her so early in life that she had learned it without the feeling of any grievance. She lamented her brother's evil conduct as it affected him, but she pardoned it altogether as it affected herself. That all her interests in life should be made subservient to him was natural to her; and when she found that her little comforts were discontinued, and her moderate expenses curtailed because he, having eaten up all that was his own, was now eating up also all that was his mother's, she never complained. Henrietta had been taught to think that men in that rank of life in which she had been born always did eat up everything.
The mother's feeling was less noble,-or perhaps, it might better be said, more open to censure. The boy, who had been beautiful as a star, had ever been the cynosure of her eyes, the one thing on which her heart had rivetted itself. Even during the career of his folly she had hardly ventured to say a word to him with the purport of stopping him on his road to ruin. In everything she had spoilt him as a boy, and in everything she still spoilt him as a man. She was almost proud of his vices, and had taken delight in hearing of doings which if not vicious of themselves had been ruinous from their extravagance. She had so indulged him that even in her own presence he was never ashamed of his own selfishness or apparently conscious of the injustice which he did to others.
From all this it had come to pass that that dabbling in literature which had been commenced partly perhaps from a sense of pleasure in the work, partly as a passport into society, had been converted into hard work by which money if possible might be earned. So that Lady Carbury when she wrote to her friends, the editors, of her struggles was speaking the truth. Tidings had reached her of this and the other man's success, and,-coming near to her still,-of this and that other woman's earnings in literature. And it had seemed to her that, within moderate limits, she might give a wide field to her hopes. Why should she not add a thousand a year to her income, so that Felix might again live like a gentleman and marry that heiress who, in Lady Carbury's look-out into the future, was destined to make all things straight! Who was so handsome as her son? Who could make himself more agreeable? Who had more of that audacity which is the chief thing necessary to the winning of heiresses? And then he could make his wife Lady Carbury. If only enough money might be earned to tide over the present evil day, all might be well.
The one most essential obstacle to the chance of success in all this was probably Lady Carbury's conviction that her end was to be obtained not by producing good books, but by inducing certain people to say that her books were good. She did work hard at what she wrote,-hard enough at any rate to cover her pages quickly; and was, by nature, a clever woman. She could write after a glib, common-place, sprightly fashion, and had already acquired the knack of spreading all she knew very thin, so that it might cover a vast surface. She had no ambition to write a good book, but was painfully anxious to write a book that the critics should say was good. Had Mr. Broune, in his closet, told her that her book was absolutely trash, but had undertaken at the same time to have it violently praised in the "Breakfast Table," it may be doubted whether the critic's own opinion would have even wounded her vanity. The woman was false from head to foot, but there was much of good in her, false though she was.
Whether Sir Felix, her son, had become what he was solely by bad training, or whether he had been born bad, who shall say? It is hardly possible that he should not have been better had he been taken away as an infant and subjected to moral training by moral teachers. And yet again it is hardly possible that any training or want of training should have produced a heart so utterly incapable of feeling for others as was his. He could not even feel his own misfortunes unless they touched the outward comforts of the moment. It seemed that he lacked sufficient imagination to realise future misery though the futurity to be considered was divided from the present but by a single month, a single week,-but by a single night. He liked to be kindly treated, to be praised and petted, to be well fed and caressed; and they who so treated him were his chosen friends. He had in this the instincts of a horse, not approaching the higher sympathies of a dog. But it cannot be said of him that he had ever loved any one to the extent of denying himself a moment's gratification on that loved one's behalf. His heart was a stone. But he was beautiful to look at, ready-witted, and intelligent. He was very dark, with that soft olive complexion which so generally gives to young men an appearance of aristocratic breeding. His hair, which was never allowed to become long, was nearly black, and was soft and silky without that taint of grease which is so common with silken-headed darlings. His eyes were long, brown in colour, and were made beautiful by the perfect arch of the perfect eyebrow. But perhaps the glory of the face was due more to the finished moulding and fine symmetry of the nose and mouth than to his other features. On his short upper lip he had a moustache as well formed as his eyebrows, but he wore no other beard. The form of his chin too was perfect, but it lacked that sweetness and softness of expression, indicative of softness of heart, which a dimple conveys. He was about five feet nine in height, and was as excellent in figure as in face. It was admitted by men and clamorously asserted by women that no man had ever been more handsome than Felix Carbury, and it was admitted also that he never showed consciousness of his beauty. He had given himself airs on many scores;-on the score of his money, poor fool, while it lasted; on the score of his title; on the score of his army standing till he lost it; and especially on the score of superiority in fashionable intellect. But he had been clever enough to dress himself always with simplicity and to avoid the appearance of thought about his outward man. As yet the little world of his associates had hardly found out how callous were his affections,-or rather how devoid he was of affection. His airs and his appearance, joined with some cleverness, had carried him through even the viciousness of his life. In one matter he had marred his name, and by a moment's weakness had injured his character among his friends more than he had done by the folly of three years. There had been a quarrel between him and a brother officer, in which he had been the aggressor; and, when the moment came in which a man's heart should have produced manly conduct, he had first threatened and had then shown the white feather. That was now a year since, and he had partly outlived the evil;-but some men still remembered that Felix Carbury had been cowed, and had cowered.
It was now his business to marry an heiress. He was well aware that it was so, and was quite prepared to face his destiny. But he lacked something in the art of making love. He was beautiful, had the manners of a gentleman, could talk well, lacked nothing of audacity, and had no feeling of repugnance at declaring a passion which he did not feel. But he knew so little of the passion, that he could hardly make even a young girl believe that he felt it. When he talked of love, he not only thought that he was talking nonsense, but showed that he thought so. From this fault he had already failed with one young lady reputed to have £40,000, who had refused him because, as she naively said, she knew "he did not really care." "How can I show that I care more than by wishing to make you my wife?" he had asked. "I don't know that you can, but all the same you don't care," she said. And so that young lady escaped the pit-fall. Now there was another young lady, to whom the reader shall be introduced in time, whom Sir Felix was instigated to pursue with unremitting diligence. Her wealth was not defined, as had been the £40,000 of her predecessor, but was known to be very much greater than that. It was, indeed, generally supposed to be fathomless, bottomless, endless. It was said that in regard to money for ordinary expenditure, money for houses, servants, horses, jewels, and the like, one sum was the same as another to the father of this young lady. He had great concerns;-concerns so great that the payment of ten or twenty thousand pounds upon any trifle was the same thing to him,-as to men who are comfortable in their circumstances it matters little whether they pay sixpence or ninepence for their mutton chops. Such a man may be ruined at any time; but there was no doubt that to any one marrying his daughter during the present season of his outrageous prosperity he could give a very large fortune indeed. Lady Carbury, who had known the rock on which her son had been once wrecked, was very anxious that Sir Felix should at once make a proper use of the intimacy which he had effected in the house of this topping Crœsus of the day.
And now there must be a few words said about Henrietta Carbury. Of course she was of infinitely less importance than her brother, who was a baronet, the head of that branch of the Carburys, and her mother's darling; and, therefore, a few words should suffice. She also was very lovely, being like her brother; but somewhat less dark and with features less absolutely regular. But she had in her countenance a full measure of that sweetness of expression which seems to imply that consideration of self is subordinated to consideration for others. This sweetness was altogether lacking to her brother. And her face was a true index of her character. Again, who shall say why the brother and sister had become so opposite to each other; whether they would have been thus different had both been taken away as infants from their father's and mother's training, or whether the girl's virtues were owing altogether to the lower place which she had held in her parent's heart? She, at any rate, had not been spoilt by a title, by the command of money, and by the temptations of too early acquaintance with the world. At the present time she was barely twenty-one years old, and had not seen much of London society. Her mother did not frequent balls, and during the last two years there had grown upon them a necessity for economy which was inimical to many gloves and costly dresses. Sir Felix went out of course, but Hetta Carbury spent most of her time at home with her mother in Welbeck Street. Occasionally the world saw her, and when the world did see her the world declared that she was a charming girl. The world was so far right.
But for Henrietta Carbury the romance of life had already commenced in real earnest. There was another branch of the Carburys, the head branch, which was now represented by one Roger Carbury, of Carbury Hall. Roger Carbury was a gentleman of whom much will have to be said, but here, at this moment, it need only be told that he was passionately in love with his cousin Henrietta. He was, however, nearly forty years old, and there was one Paul Montague whom Henrietta had seen.

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Word Lists:

Choleric : bad-tempered or irritable

Cynosure : a person or thing that is the center of attention or admiration

Darling : used as an affectionate form of address to a beloved person

Slander : the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation

Inimical : tending to obstruct or harm

Unremitting : never relaxing or slackening; incessant

Trustworthy : able to be relied on as honest or truthful

Incipient : in an initial stage; beginning to happen or develop

Subservient : prepared to obey others unquestioningly

Clamorous : making a loud and confused noise

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Additional Information:

Rating: C Words in the Passage: 3895 Unique Words: 993 Sentences: 161
Noun: 834 Conjunction: 429 Adverb: 249 Interjection: 1
Adjective: 268 Pronoun: 453 Verb: 778 Preposition: 484
Letter Count: 16,702 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Neutral (Slightly Conversational) Difficult Words: 623
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