Folly, ignorance, idleness

‘Early in life, at the age of fifteen, I had commenced the dangerous habit of keeping a journal and this I maintained for ten years. The volumes remained in my possession unregarded - never looked at - till 1870, when I examined them, and, with many blushes, destroyed them.’ Alas, the great British novelist Anthony Trollope - born 210 years ago today - did not leave behind any diaries, only an autobiography with tantalising snippets about the journals he used to keep.

Trollope was born on 24 April 1815, in London, England, into a family of declining fortunes. His father, Thomas Anthony Trollope, was a barrister who struggled with financial management, while his mother, Frances Trollope, later became a successful writer. The family’s unstable income and eventual move to Belgium after financial ruin affected Anthony’s early years. He attended several schools, including Harrow and Winchester, but his time there was marked by unhappiness and bullying.

In 1834, Trollope began working as a junior clerk at the General Post Office, enduring several years of poverty before being transferred to Ireland in 1841, which improved his circumstances. During his postal career, he helped introduce the pillar box system, first in the Channel Islands, later spreading to Britain and Ireland. He wrote in the early morning hours before work, maintaining a disciplined schedule that allowed him to produce a vast body of literature. His first novel, The Macdermots of Ballycloran (1847), gained little attention, but he achieved fame with The Warden (1855), the first of what became known as the Barsetshire series.

Trollope married Rose Heseltine in 1844, and the couple had two sons, Henry and Frederick. He enjoyed a stable family life and often drew on domestic and clerical settings in his fiction. His works are known for their realism, detailed characterisations, and exploration of Victorian society’s moral and political issues. He remained prolific throughout his life, producing over 45 novels, numerous short stories, travel books, and essays. His political ambitions, including a failed run for Parliament in 1868, were less successful.

Trollope retired from the Post Office in 1867 to focus on writing full-time. He continued to publish steadily until his death in 1882. Though his popularity waned in the decades after his death, the 20th century saw a revival of interest in his work. Today, Trollope is considered one of the great chroniclers of Victorian England, admired for his insight into human behaviour and the intricacies of social life. His Barsetshire and Palliser novels remain widely read and studied. More information is readily available online at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Trollope Society.

An Autobiography by Trollope was first published in 1883 by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. Trollope completed the manuscript in 1879 and, after his death in 1882, his son Henry M. Trollope edited and arranged for its publication in 1883. This is freely available to read at Internet Archive.

On page 38, Trollope confesses: ‘Early in life, at the age of fifteen, I had commenced the dangerous habit of keeping a journal and this I maintained for ten years. The volumes remained in my possession unregarded - never looked at - till 1870, when I examined them, and, with many blushes, destroyed them. They convicted mo of folly, ignorance, indiscretion, idleness, extravagance, and conceit. But they had habituated me to the rapid use of pen and ink, and taught me how to express myself with facility.’

There is one other references to these journals later in the autobiography, and a further passage about ‘a little diary, with its dates and ruled spaces’ in which he seems to have set himself deadlines and recorded progress in writing the novels.

p48

‘I had often told myself since I left school that the only career in life within my reach was that of an author, and the only mode of authorship open to me that of a writer of novels. In the journal which I read and destroyed a few years since, I found the matter argued out before I had been in the Post Office two years. Parliament was out of the question. I had not means to go to the Bar. In official life, such as that to which I had been introduced, there did not seem to be any opening for real success. Pens and paper I could command. Poetry I did not believe to be within my grasp. The drama, too, which I would fain have chosen, I believed to be above me. For history, biography, or essay writing I had not sufficient erudition. But I thought it possible that I might write a novel. I had resolved very early that in that shape must the attempt be made. But the months and years ran on, and no attempt was made. And yet no day was passed without thoughts of attempting, and a mental acknowledgement of the disgrace of postponing it.’

p110

‘I have known authors whose lives have always been troublesome and painful because their tasks have never been done in time. They have ever been as boys struggling to learn their lesson as they entered the school gates. Publishers have distrusted them, and they have failed to write their best because they have seldom written at ease. I have done double their work, - though burdened with another profession, - and have done it almost without an effort. I have not once, through all my literary career, felt myself even in danger of being late with my task. I have known no anxiety as to ‘copy’. The needed pages far ahead - very far ahead - have almost always been in the drawer beside me. And that little diary, with its dates and ruled spaces, its record that must be seen, its daily, weekly demand upon my industry, has done all that for me.

There are those who would be ashamed to subject themselves to such a taskmaster, and who think that the man who works with his imagination should allow himself to wait till inspiration moves him. When I have heard such doctrine preached, I have hardly been able to repress my scorn. To me it would not be more absurd if the shoemaker were to wait for inspiration, or the tallow-chandler for the divine moment of melting, if the man whose business it is to write has eaten too many good things, or has drunk too much, or smoked too many cigars, as men who write sometimes will do,- then his condition may be unfavourable for work; but so will be the condition of a shoemaker who has been similarly imprudent. I have sometimes thought that the inspiration wanted has been the remedy which time will give to the evil results of such imprudence. - Mens sana in corpora sano. The author wants that as does every other workman, - that and a habit of industry. I was once told that the surest aid to the writing of a book was a piece of cobbler’s wax on my chair. I certainly believe in the cobbler’s wax much more than the inspiration.’