who ride them; and I feel that life cannot give me anything better than
when I have gone through a long run to the finish, keeping a place, not of
glory, but of credit, among my juniors." Riding, working, having a jolly
time, and gradually increasing his income, he lived until 1842, when he
became engaged; and he was married on June 11, 1844. "I ought to name that
happy day," he declares, "as the commencement of my better life." It was
at about this date, also, that he began and finished, not without delay
and procrastination, his first novel. Curiously enough, he affirms that he
did not doubt his own intellectual sufficiency to write a readable novel:
"What I did doubt was my own industry, and the chances of a market."
Never, surely, was self-distrust more unfounded. As for the first novel,
he sent it to his mother, to dispose of as best she could; and it never
brought him anything, except a perception that it was considered by his
friends to be "an unfortunate aggravation of the family disease." During
the ensuing ten years, this view seemed to be not unreasonable, for, in
all that time, though he worked hard, he earned by literature no more than
L55. But, between 1857 and 1860, he received for various novels, from L100
to L1000 each; and thereafter, L3000 or more was his regular price for a
story in three volumes. As he maintained his connection with the post-
office until 1867, he was in receipt of an income of L4500, "of which I
spent two-thirds and put by one." We should be doing an injustice to Mr.
Trollope to omit these details, which he gives so frankly; for, as he
early informs us, "my first object in taking to literature was to make an
income on which I and those belonging to me might live in comfort." Nor
will he let us forget that novel-writing, to him, was not so much an art,
or even a profession, as a trade, in which all that can be asked of a man
is that he shall be honest and punctual, turning out good average work,
and the more the better. "The great secret consists in"--in what?--why,
"in acknowledging myself to be bound to rules of labor similar to those
which an artisan or mechanic is forced to obey." There may be, however,