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

Poe's description of the manner in which he wrote _The
Raven_ is incredible, being probably one of his solemn and
sombre jokes; equally incredible is Trollope's confession of his
humdrum, mechanical methods of work. Doubtless he believed he was
telling the whole truth, but only here and there in his
_Autobiography_ does he permit to peep out touches of light,
which complete the portrait of himself. It is impossible that for
the reader any character in fiction should live which has not
been alive to its creator; so is it with Trollope, who, speaking
of his characters, says,

'I have wandered alone among the rooks and woods, crying at their
grief, laughing at their absurdities, and thoroughly enjoying
their joy. I have been impregnated with my own creations till it
has been my only excitement to sit with the pen in my hand, and
drive my team before me at as quick a pace as I could make them
travel.'

There is a plain matter-of-factness about Trollope's narratives
which is convincing, making it difficult for the reader to call
himself back to fact and to remember that he has been wandering
in a world of fiction. In _The Three Clerks_, the young men
who give the tale its title are all well drawn. To accomplish
this in the cases of Alaric and Charley Tudor was easy enough for
a skilled writer, but to breathe life into Harry Norman was
difficult. At first he appears to be a lay-figure, a priggish
dummy of an immaculate hero, a failure in portraiture; but toward
the end of the book it is borne in on us that our dislike had