July 17, 2025 • 23 mins
Delve into the captivating life and mind of Anthony Trollope, an iconic figure in literature, through his own words. His autobiography is a rollercoaster of emotions, from side-splitting humor to poignant honesty. Discover the fascinating insights he provides on his unique approach to writing, viewing it more as a labor than a form of art. Trollopes die-hard fans will be thrilled by his candid evaluation of his own work and his recognition of his novels flaws and accomplishments. This autobiography extends beyond just his literary life, providing an intimate look at his years juggling his passion for writing with a full-time job at the post office.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter sixteen of the Autobiography of Anthony Trollop. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Autobiography of Anthony Trollop Beverly.
Very early in life, very soon after I had become
a clerk in Saint Martin's Le Grande, when I was
(00:21):
utterly impecunious and beginning to fall grievously into debt, I
was asked by an uncle of mine, who was himself
a clerk in the War Office, what destination I should
like best for my future life. He probably meant to
inquire whether I wished to live married or single, whether
to remain in the post office or to leave it,
(00:42):
whether I should prefer the town or the country. I
replied that I should like to be member of parliament.
My uncle, who was given to sarcasm, rejoined that as
far he knew, few clerks in the Post Office did
become members of Parliament. I think it was the remembrance
of this jeer which stirred me up to look for
(01:05):
a seat as soon as I had made myself capable
of holding one by leaving the public service. My uncle
was dead, but if I could get a seat, the
knowledge that I had done so might travel to that
born from whence he was not likely to return, and
he might there feel that he had done me wrong.
Independently of this, I have always thought that to sit
(01:28):
in the British Parliament should be the highest object of
my ambition to every educated Englishman. I do not, by
this mean to suggest that every educated Englishman should set
before himself a seat in Parliament as a probable or
even a possible career, but that the man in Parliament
has reached a higher position than the man out, that
(01:49):
to serve one's country without pay is the grandest work
that a man can do. That of all studies, the
study of politics is the one in which a man
may make himself most you useful to his fellow creatures.
And that of all lives, public political lives are capable
of the highest efforts. So, thinking though I was aware
(02:10):
that fifty three was too late an age at which
to commence a new career, I resolved with much hesitation,
that I would make the attempt. Writing now, at an
age beyond sixty, I can say that my political feelings
and convictions have never undergone any change. They are now
what they became when I first began to have political
(02:31):
feelings and convictions, nor do I find in myself any
tendency to modify them, as I have found generally in
men as they grow old. I consider myself to be
an advanced but still a conservative liberal, which I regard
not only as a possible but as a rational and
consistent phase of political existence. I can, I believe, in
(02:54):
a very few words, make known my political theory, and
as I am anser just that any who know aught
of me should know that I will endeavor to do so.
It must, I think, be painful to all men to
feel inferiority. It should, I think, be a matter of
some pain to all men to feel superiority, unless when
(03:17):
it has been won by their own efforts. We do
not understand the operations of almighty wisdom, and are therefore
unable to tell the causes of the terrible inequalities that
we see why some, why so many, should have so
little to make life enjoyable, so much to make it painful,
while a few others, not through their own merit, have
(03:39):
had gifts poured out to them from a full hand.
We acknowledge the hand of God and his wisdom, but
still we are struck with awe and horror at the
misery of many of our brethren, we who have been
born to the superior condition. For in this matter I
consider myself to be standing on a platform with dukes
(03:59):
and princes and all others to whom plenty and education
and liberty have been given. Cannot I think look upon
the inane, unintellectual, and tossed bound life of those who
cannot even feed themselves sufficiently by their sweat without some
feeling of injustice, some feeling of pain. This consciousness of
(04:21):
wrong has induced in many enthusiastic but unbalanced minds a
desire to set all things right by a proclaimed equality.
In their efforts, such men have shown how powerless they
are in opposing the ordinances of the Creator. For the
mind of the thinker and the student is driven to admit,
though it be awe struck by apparent injustice, that this
(04:44):
inequality is the work of God. Make all men equal today,
and God has so created them that they shall be
unequal tomorrow. The so called conservative, the conscientious philanthropic conservative,
seeing this, and being surely convinced that such inequalities are
of divine origin, tells himself that it is his duty
(05:06):
to preserve them. He thinks that the preservation of the
welfare of the world depends on the maintenance of those
distances between the prince and the peasant by which he
finds himself to be surrounded. And perhaps I might add
that the duty is not unpleasant, as he feels himself
to be one of the princes. But this man, though
(05:28):
he sees something, and sees that very clearly, sees only
a little. The divine inequality is apparent to him, but
not the equally divine diminution of that inequality. That such
diminution is taking place on all sides is apparent enough,
but it is apparent to him as an evil, the
consummation of which it is his duty to retard. He
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cannot prevent it, and therefore the society to which he
belongs is, in his eyes retrograding. He will even at
times assist it, and will do so conscientiously, feeling that
under the gentle pressure supplied by him, and with the
drags and hold fasts which he may add, the movement
would be slower than it would become if subjected to
(06:12):
his proclaimed and absolute opponents. Such I think are conservatives,
and I speak of men who, with the fear of
God before their eyes, and their love of their neighbors
warm in their hearts, endeavor to do their duty to
the best of their ability. Using the term which is
now common in which will be best understood, I will
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endeavor to explain how the equally conscientious liberal is opposed
to the conservative. He is equally aware that these distances
are of divine origin, equally averse to any sudden disruption
of society in quest of some utopian blessedness. But he
is alive to the fact that these distances are day
(06:54):
by day becoming less, and he regards this continual diminution
as a series of steps towards that human millennium of
which he dreams. He is even willing to help the
many to ascend the latter a little, though he knows
as they come up towards him he must go down
to meet them. What is really in his mind is
(07:16):
I will not say equality, for the word is offensive
and presents to the imagination of men ideas of communism,
of ruin and insane democracy, but a tendency towards equality,
and following that, however, he knows that he must be
hemmed in by safeguards lest he be tempted to travel
too quickly, and therefore he is glad to be accompanied
(07:38):
on his way by the repressive action of a conservative
opponent holding such views. I think I am guilty of
no absurdity in calling myself an advanced conservative liberal, a
man who entertains in his mind any political doctrine except
as a means of improving the condition of his fellows.
I regard as a political intriguer, a charlatan, and a conjri,
(08:00):
as one who thinks that by a certain amount of
wary wire pulling, he may raise himself in the estimation
of the world. I am aware that this theory of
politics will seem to many to be stilted, overstrained, and,
as the Americans would say, high falutin, many will declare
that the majority, even of those who call themselves politicians,
(08:23):
perhaps even of those who take an active part in politics,
are stirred by no such feelings as these, and acknowledge
no such motives. Men become Tories or Whigs, liberals or conservatives,
partly by education, following their fathers, partly by chance, partly
as openings come partly in accordance with the bent of
their minds, but still without any far fetched reasonings as
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to distances. In the diminution of distances, no doubt it
is so. And in the battle of politics, as it goes,
men are led further and further away from first causes,
till at last a measure is opposed by one so
simply because it is advocated by another, And members of
Parliament swarm into lobbies following the dictation of their leaders
(09:07):
and not their own individual judgments. But the principle is
at work throughout to many. Though hardly acknowledged, it is
still apparent on almost all it has its effect. Though
there are the intriguers, the clever conjurors, to whom politics
is simply such a game as is billiards or rackets,
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only played with greater results to the minds that create
and lead and sway political opinion. Some such theory is,
I think, ever present. The truth of all this I
had long since taken home to myself. I had now
been thinking of it for thirty years, and had never doubted.
(09:48):
But I had always been aware of a certain visionary
weakness about myself in regard to politics. A man to
be useful in parliament must be able to confine himself
and inform himself to be satisfied with doing a little
bit of a little thing at a time. He must
patiently get up everything connected with the duty on mushrooms,
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and then be satisfied with himself when at last he
has induced a Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that
he will consider the impost at the first opportunity. He
must be content to be beaten six times and order
that on a seventh his work may be found to
be of assistance to someone else. He must remember that
he is one out of six hundred fifty and be
(10:32):
content with one six hundred fiftieth part of the attention
of the nation. If he have grand ideas, he must
keep them to himself, unless by chance he can work
his way up to the top of the tree. In short,
he must be a practical man. Now I knew that
in politics I could never become a practical man. I
(10:52):
should never be satisfied with a soft word from the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, but would always be flinging my
overtext to catch up in his face. Nor did it
seem to me to be possible that I should ever
become a good speaker. I had no special gifts that way,
and had not studied the art early enough in life
to overcome natural difficulties. I had found that with infinite
(11:15):
labor I could learn a few sentences by heart and
deliver them monotonously, indeed, but clearly, or again, if there
were something special to be said, I could say it
in a commonplace fashion, but always as though I were
in a hurry, and with the fear before me of
being thought to be a prolix. But I had no
power of combining as a public speaker. Should always do
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that which I had studied with that which occurred to
me at the moment. It must be all lesson which
I found to be best, or else all impromptu, which
was very bad. Indeed, unless I had something special on
my mind. I was thus aware that I could do
no good by going into Parliament. That the time for it,
if there could have been a time, had gone by.
(11:59):
But still I had an almost insane desire to sit
there and be able to assure myself that my uncle's
scorn had not been deserved. In eighteen sixty seven, it
had been suggested to me that in the event of
a dissolution, I should stand for one division of the
County of Essex, and I had promised that I would
(12:19):
do so, though the promise at that time was as
rash a one as a man could make. I was
instigated to this by the late Charles Buxton, a man
whom I greatly loved, and who was very anxious that
the county for which his brother had sat and with
which the family were connected, should be relieved from what
he regarded as the thraldom of Toryism. But there was
(12:42):
no dissolution. Then mister Disraeli passed his reform Bill by
the help of the Liberal member for Newark, and the
summoning of a new Parliament was postponed till the next year.
By this new reform bill, Essex was portioned out into
three instead of two electoral divisions, one of which that
adjacent to London, would, it was thought, be altogether liberal.
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After the promise which I had given, the performance of
which would have cost me a large sum of money,
absolutely in vain, it was felt by some that I
should be selected as one of the candidates for the
new division, and as such I was proposed by mister
Charles Buxton, but another gentleman who would have been bound
by previous pledges to support me was put forward by
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what I believed to have been the defeating interest, and
I had to give way. At the election, this gentleman,
with another Liberal who had often stood for the county,
was returned without a contest. Alas alas, they were both
unseated at the next election. When the great Conservative reaction
took place in the spring of eighteen sixty eight, I
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was sent to the United States on a postal mission,
of which I will speak presently. While I was absent,
that disolution took place. On my return. I was somewhat
too late to look out for a seat. But I
had friends who knew the weakness of my ambition, and
it was not likely, therefore, that I should escape the
peril of being put forward for some impossible burrow as
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to which the Liberal party would not choose, that it
should go to the Conservatives without a struggle. At last,
after one or two others, Beverly was proposed to me,
and to Beverly I went. I must, however, exculpate the
gentleman who acted as my agent from undue persuasion exercise
towards me. He was a man who thoroughly understood Parliament,
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having sat there himself, and he sits there now at
this moment. He understood Yorkshire, or at least the east
riding of Yorkshire in which Beverly is situated, certainly better
than any one alive. He understood all the mysteries of canvassing,
and he knew well the traditions, the condition, and the
prospect of the Liberal Party. I will not give his name,
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but they who knew Yorkshire in eighteen sixty eight will
not be at a loss to find it, so said he,
You are going to se and for Beverly. I replied
gravely that I was thinking of doing so. You don't
expect to get in, he said again. I was grave
I would not, I said, be sanguine, But nevertheless I
(15:12):
was disposed to hope for the best. Oh no, continued he,
with good humored raillery. You will get in. I don't
suppose you really expect it, But there is a fine
career open to you. You will spend a thousand and
lose the election. Then you will petition and spend another thousand.
You will throw out the elected members. There will be
a commission, and the borough will be disfranchised. For a
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beginner such as you are. That will be a great success.
And yet in the teeth of this from a man
who knew all about it, I persisted in going to Beverly.
The borough, which returned two members, had long been represented
by Sir Henry Edwards, of whom I think I'm justified
in saying that he had contracted a close intimacy with
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it for the sake of the seat. There had been
many contests, many petitions, many void elections, many members, but
through it all Sir Henry had kept his seat, if
not with permanence, yet with a fixity of tenure next
door to permanence. I fancied that with a little management
between the parties, the borough might at this time have
(16:16):
returned a member of each color quietly. But there were
spirits there who did not love political quietude, and it
was at last decided that there should be two liberal
and two conservative candidates. Sir Henry was joined by a
young man of fortune in quest of a seat, and
I was grouped with mister Maxwell, the eldest son of
Lord Harry's, a Scotch Roman Catholic peer who lives in
(16:39):
the neighborhood. When the time came, I went down to
Canvas and spent I think the most wretched fortnight of
my manhood. In the first place, I was subject to
a bitter tyranny from grinding vulgar tyrants. They were doing
what they could, or said that they were doing so,
to secure me a seat in Parliament, and I was
to be in their hands at any rate to the
(17:00):
period of my candidature. On one day both of us,
mister Maxwell and I wanted to go out hunting. We
proposed to ourselves but the one holiday during this period
of intense labor. But I was assured, as was he
also by a publican who was working for us, that
if we committed such a crime, he and all Beverly
would desert us. From morning to evening every day I
(17:23):
was taken round the lanes and byways of that uninteresting town,
canvassing every voter, exposed to the rain up to my
knees and slush, and utterly unable to assume that air
of triumphant joy with which a jolly successful candidate should
be invested. At night, every night I had to speak somewhere,
which was bad, and to listen to the speaking of others,
(17:45):
which was much worse. When on one Sunday I proposed
to go to the Minster Church. I was told that
was quite useless, as the Church party were all certain
to support Sir Henry. Indeed, said the publican, my tyrant,
he goes, they're in a kind of official profession, and
you'd better not allow yourself to be seen in the
same place. So I stayed away and omitted my prayers.
(18:08):
No Church of England church in Beverly would on such
an occasion have welcomed a liberal candidate. I felt myself
to be a kind of pariah in the borough to
whom was opposed. All that was pretty, and all that
was nice, and all that was ostensibly good, But perhaps
my strongest sense of discomfort arose from the conviction that
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my political ideas were all leather and prunella to the
men whose votes I was soliciting. They cared nothing for
my doctrines and could not be made to understand that
I should have any I had been brought to Beverly
either to beat Sir Henry Edwards, which however, no one
probably thought to be feasible, or to cause him the
greatest possible amount of trouble inconvenience and expense. There were
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indeed two points on which a portion of my wished
for supporters seemed to have opinions, and on both these
points I was driven by my opinions to oppose them.
Some were anxious for the ballot, which had not then
become law, and some desired the permissive bill. I hated,
and do hate both these measures, thinking it to be
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unworthy of a great people to free itself from the
evil results of vicious conduct by unmanly restraints. Undue influence
on voters is a great evil from which this country
had already done much to emancipate itself by extending electoral
divisions and by an increase of independent feeling. These I thought,
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and not secret voting, were the weapons by which electoral
intimidation should be overcome. And as for drink, I believe
in no parliamentary restraint, but I do believe in the
gradual effect of moral teaching and education. But a liberal,
to do any good at Beverly, should have been able
to swallow such gnats as those. I would swallow nothing,
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and was altogether the wrong man. I knew from the
commencement of my candidature. How it was be of course,
that well trained gentleman who condescended to act as my
agent had understood the case, and I ought to have
taken his thoroughly kind advice. He had seen it all
and had told himself that it was wrong that one
so innocent in such ways as I, so utterly unable
(20:17):
to fight such a battle, should be carried down into
Yorkshire merely to spend money and to be annoyed. He
could not have said more than he did say, and
I suffered for my obstinacy. Of course, I was not elected.
Sir Henry Edwards and his comrade become members for Beverly,
and I was at the bottom of the pole. I
paid four hundred for my expenses, and then returned to London.
(20:41):
My friendly agent, in his raillery, had, of course exaggerated
the cost he had when I arrived at Beverly, asked
me for a check for four hundred and told me
that the sum would suffice. It did suffice. How it
came to pass that exactly that some should be required
I never knew, but such was the case. Then there
came a petition, not from me, but from the town.
(21:04):
The inquiry was made, and two gentlemen were unseated. The
borough was disfranchised. Sir Henry Edwards was put on his
trial for some kind of parliamentary offense, and was acquitted.
In this way, Beverly's privileges a borough and my parliamentary
ambition were brought to an end. At the same time,
when I knew the result, I did not altogether regret it.
(21:27):
It may be that Beverly might have been brought to
political confusion, and Sir Henry Edwards relegated to private life,
without the expenditure of my hard earned money, and without
that fortnight of misery. But connecting the things together, as
it was natural that I should do, I did flatter
myself that I had done some good. It had seemed
to me that nothing could be worse, nothing more unpatriotic,
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nothing more absolutely opposed to the system of representative government,
than the time honored practices of the Borough of Beverly.
It had come to pass that political cleanliness was odious
to the citizens. There was something grand in the scorn
with which a leading liberal there turned up his nose
at me when I told him that there should be
no bribery, no treating, not even a pot of beer.
(22:12):
On one side. It was a matter for study to
see how at Beverly politics were appreciated because they might
subserve electoral purposes. And how little it was understood that
electoral purposes, which are in themselves a nuisance, should be
endured in order that they may subserve politics. And then
the time, the money, the mental energy which had been
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expended in making the borough a secure seat for a
gentleman who had realized the idea that it would become
him to be a member of Parliament, this use of
the borough seemed to be realized and approved in the borough. Generally.
The inhabitants had taught themselves to think that it was
for such purposes that boroughs were intended to have assisted.
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In putting an end to this, even in one town,
was to a certain extent a satisfaction. End of Chapter sixteen.
Recording by Jessica Louise, Minneapolis, Minnesota,
Chapter sixteen of the Autobiography of Anthony Trollop. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Autobiography of Anthony Trollop Beverly.
Very early in life, very soon after I had become
a clerk in Saint Martin's Le Grande, when I was
(00:21):
utterly impecunious and beginning to fall grievously into debt, I
was asked by an uncle of mine, who was himself
a clerk in the War Office, what destination I should
like best for my future life. He probably meant to
inquire whether I wished to live married or single, whether
to remain in the post office or to leave it,
(00:42):
whether I should prefer the town or the country. I
replied that I should like to be member of parliament.
My uncle, who was given to sarcasm, rejoined that as
far he knew, few clerks in the Post Office did
become members of Parliament. I think it was the remembrance
of this jeer which stirred me up to look for
(01:05):
a seat as soon as I had made myself capable
of holding one by leaving the public service. My uncle
was dead, but if I could get a seat, the
knowledge that I had done so might travel to that
born from whence he was not likely to return, and
he might there feel that he had done me wrong.
Independently of this, I have always thought that to sit
(01:28):
in the British Parliament should be the highest object of
my ambition to every educated Englishman. I do not, by
this mean to suggest that every educated Englishman should set
before himself a seat in Parliament as a probable or
even a possible career, but that the man in Parliament
has reached a higher position than the man out, that
(01:49):
to serve one's country without pay is the grandest work
that a man can do. That of all studies, the
study of politics is the one in which a man
may make himself most you useful to his fellow creatures.
And that of all lives, public political lives are capable
of the highest efforts. So, thinking though I was aware
(02:10):
that fifty three was too late an age at which
to commence a new career, I resolved with much hesitation,
that I would make the attempt. Writing now, at an
age beyond sixty, I can say that my political feelings
and convictions have never undergone any change. They are now
what they became when I first began to have political
(02:31):
feelings and convictions, nor do I find in myself any
tendency to modify them, as I have found generally in
men as they grow old. I consider myself to be
an advanced but still a conservative liberal, which I regard
not only as a possible but as a rational and
consistent phase of political existence. I can, I believe, in
(02:54):
a very few words, make known my political theory, and
as I am anser just that any who know aught
of me should know that I will endeavor to do so.
It must, I think, be painful to all men to
feel inferiority. It should, I think, be a matter of
some pain to all men to feel superiority, unless when
(03:17):
it has been won by their own efforts. We do
not understand the operations of almighty wisdom, and are therefore
unable to tell the causes of the terrible inequalities that
we see why some, why so many, should have so
little to make life enjoyable, so much to make it painful,
while a few others, not through their own merit, have
(03:39):
had gifts poured out to them from a full hand.
We acknowledge the hand of God and his wisdom, but
still we are struck with awe and horror at the
misery of many of our brethren, we who have been
born to the superior condition. For in this matter I
consider myself to be standing on a platform with dukes
(03:59):
and princes and all others to whom plenty and education
and liberty have been given. Cannot I think look upon
the inane, unintellectual, and tossed bound life of those who
cannot even feed themselves sufficiently by their sweat without some
feeling of injustice, some feeling of pain. This consciousness of
(04:21):
wrong has induced in many enthusiastic but unbalanced minds a
desire to set all things right by a proclaimed equality.
In their efforts, such men have shown how powerless they
are in opposing the ordinances of the Creator. For the
mind of the thinker and the student is driven to admit,
though it be awe struck by apparent injustice, that this
(04:44):
inequality is the work of God. Make all men equal today,
and God has so created them that they shall be
unequal tomorrow. The so called conservative, the conscientious philanthropic conservative,
seeing this, and being surely convinced that such inequalities are
of divine origin, tells himself that it is his duty
(05:06):
to preserve them. He thinks that the preservation of the
welfare of the world depends on the maintenance of those
distances between the prince and the peasant by which he
finds himself to be surrounded. And perhaps I might add
that the duty is not unpleasant, as he feels himself
to be one of the princes. But this man, though
(05:28):
he sees something, and sees that very clearly, sees only
a little. The divine inequality is apparent to him, but
not the equally divine diminution of that inequality. That such
diminution is taking place on all sides is apparent enough,
but it is apparent to him as an evil, the
consummation of which it is his duty to retard. He
(05:51):
cannot prevent it, and therefore the society to which he
belongs is, in his eyes retrograding. He will even at
times assist it, and will do so conscientiously, feeling that
under the gentle pressure supplied by him, and with the
drags and hold fasts which he may add, the movement
would be slower than it would become if subjected to
(06:12):
his proclaimed and absolute opponents. Such I think are conservatives,
and I speak of men who, with the fear of
God before their eyes, and their love of their neighbors
warm in their hearts, endeavor to do their duty to
the best of their ability. Using the term which is
now common in which will be best understood, I will
(06:33):
endeavor to explain how the equally conscientious liberal is opposed
to the conservative. He is equally aware that these distances
are of divine origin, equally averse to any sudden disruption
of society in quest of some utopian blessedness. But he
is alive to the fact that these distances are day
(06:54):
by day becoming less, and he regards this continual diminution
as a series of steps towards that human millennium of
which he dreams. He is even willing to help the
many to ascend the latter a little, though he knows
as they come up towards him he must go down
to meet them. What is really in his mind is
(07:16):
I will not say equality, for the word is offensive
and presents to the imagination of men ideas of communism,
of ruin and insane democracy, but a tendency towards equality,
and following that, however, he knows that he must be
hemmed in by safeguards lest he be tempted to travel
too quickly, and therefore he is glad to be accompanied
(07:38):
on his way by the repressive action of a conservative
opponent holding such views. I think I am guilty of
no absurdity in calling myself an advanced conservative liberal, a
man who entertains in his mind any political doctrine except
as a means of improving the condition of his fellows.
I regard as a political intriguer, a charlatan, and a conjri,
(08:00):
as one who thinks that by a certain amount of
wary wire pulling, he may raise himself in the estimation
of the world. I am aware that this theory of
politics will seem to many to be stilted, overstrained, and,
as the Americans would say, high falutin, many will declare
that the majority, even of those who call themselves politicians,
(08:23):
perhaps even of those who take an active part in politics,
are stirred by no such feelings as these, and acknowledge
no such motives. Men become Tories or Whigs, liberals or conservatives,
partly by education, following their fathers, partly by chance, partly
as openings come partly in accordance with the bent of
their minds, but still without any far fetched reasonings as
(08:46):
to distances. In the diminution of distances, no doubt it
is so. And in the battle of politics, as it goes,
men are led further and further away from first causes,
till at last a measure is opposed by one so
simply because it is advocated by another, And members of
Parliament swarm into lobbies following the dictation of their leaders
(09:07):
and not their own individual judgments. But the principle is
at work throughout to many. Though hardly acknowledged, it is
still apparent on almost all it has its effect. Though
there are the intriguers, the clever conjurors, to whom politics
is simply such a game as is billiards or rackets,
(09:27):
only played with greater results to the minds that create
and lead and sway political opinion. Some such theory is,
I think, ever present. The truth of all this I
had long since taken home to myself. I had now
been thinking of it for thirty years, and had never doubted.
(09:48):
But I had always been aware of a certain visionary
weakness about myself in regard to politics. A man to
be useful in parliament must be able to confine himself
and inform himself to be satisfied with doing a little
bit of a little thing at a time. He must
patiently get up everything connected with the duty on mushrooms,
(10:10):
and then be satisfied with himself when at last he
has induced a Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that
he will consider the impost at the first opportunity. He
must be content to be beaten six times and order
that on a seventh his work may be found to
be of assistance to someone else. He must remember that
he is one out of six hundred fifty and be
(10:32):
content with one six hundred fiftieth part of the attention
of the nation. If he have grand ideas, he must
keep them to himself, unless by chance he can work
his way up to the top of the tree. In short,
he must be a practical man. Now I knew that
in politics I could never become a practical man. I
(10:52):
should never be satisfied with a soft word from the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, but would always be flinging my
overtext to catch up in his face. Nor did it
seem to me to be possible that I should ever
become a good speaker. I had no special gifts that way,
and had not studied the art early enough in life
to overcome natural difficulties. I had found that with infinite
(11:15):
labor I could learn a few sentences by heart and
deliver them monotonously, indeed, but clearly, or again, if there
were something special to be said, I could say it
in a commonplace fashion, but always as though I were
in a hurry, and with the fear before me of
being thought to be a prolix. But I had no
power of combining as a public speaker. Should always do
(11:36):
that which I had studied with that which occurred to
me at the moment. It must be all lesson which
I found to be best, or else all impromptu, which
was very bad. Indeed, unless I had something special on
my mind. I was thus aware that I could do
no good by going into Parliament. That the time for it,
if there could have been a time, had gone by.
(11:59):
But still I had an almost insane desire to sit
there and be able to assure myself that my uncle's
scorn had not been deserved. In eighteen sixty seven, it
had been suggested to me that in the event of
a dissolution, I should stand for one division of the
County of Essex, and I had promised that I would
(12:19):
do so, though the promise at that time was as
rash a one as a man could make. I was
instigated to this by the late Charles Buxton, a man
whom I greatly loved, and who was very anxious that
the county for which his brother had sat and with
which the family were connected, should be relieved from what
he regarded as the thraldom of Toryism. But there was
(12:42):
no dissolution. Then mister Disraeli passed his reform Bill by
the help of the Liberal member for Newark, and the
summoning of a new Parliament was postponed till the next year.
By this new reform bill, Essex was portioned out into
three instead of two electoral divisions, one of which that
adjacent to London, would, it was thought, be altogether liberal.
(13:04):
After the promise which I had given, the performance of
which would have cost me a large sum of money,
absolutely in vain, it was felt by some that I
should be selected as one of the candidates for the
new division, and as such I was proposed by mister
Charles Buxton, but another gentleman who would have been bound
by previous pledges to support me was put forward by
(13:25):
what I believed to have been the defeating interest, and
I had to give way. At the election, this gentleman,
with another Liberal who had often stood for the county,
was returned without a contest. Alas alas, they were both
unseated at the next election. When the great Conservative reaction
took place in the spring of eighteen sixty eight, I
(13:48):
was sent to the United States on a postal mission,
of which I will speak presently. While I was absent,
that disolution took place. On my return. I was somewhat
too late to look out for a seat. But I
had friends who knew the weakness of my ambition, and
it was not likely, therefore, that I should escape the
peril of being put forward for some impossible burrow as
(14:09):
to which the Liberal party would not choose, that it
should go to the Conservatives without a struggle. At last,
after one or two others, Beverly was proposed to me,
and to Beverly I went. I must, however, exculpate the
gentleman who acted as my agent from undue persuasion exercise
towards me. He was a man who thoroughly understood Parliament,
(14:31):
having sat there himself, and he sits there now at
this moment. He understood Yorkshire, or at least the east
riding of Yorkshire in which Beverly is situated, certainly better
than any one alive. He understood all the mysteries of canvassing,
and he knew well the traditions, the condition, and the
prospect of the Liberal Party. I will not give his name,
(14:52):
but they who knew Yorkshire in eighteen sixty eight will
not be at a loss to find it, so said he,
You are going to se and for Beverly. I replied
gravely that I was thinking of doing so. You don't
expect to get in, he said again. I was grave
I would not, I said, be sanguine, But nevertheless I
(15:12):
was disposed to hope for the best. Oh no, continued he,
with good humored raillery. You will get in. I don't
suppose you really expect it, But there is a fine
career open to you. You will spend a thousand and
lose the election. Then you will petition and spend another thousand.
You will throw out the elected members. There will be
a commission, and the borough will be disfranchised. For a
(15:34):
beginner such as you are. That will be a great success.
And yet in the teeth of this from a man
who knew all about it, I persisted in going to Beverly.
The borough, which returned two members, had long been represented
by Sir Henry Edwards, of whom I think I'm justified
in saying that he had contracted a close intimacy with
(15:56):
it for the sake of the seat. There had been
many contests, many petitions, many void elections, many members, but
through it all Sir Henry had kept his seat, if
not with permanence, yet with a fixity of tenure next
door to permanence. I fancied that with a little management
between the parties, the borough might at this time have
(16:16):
returned a member of each color quietly. But there were
spirits there who did not love political quietude, and it
was at last decided that there should be two liberal
and two conservative candidates. Sir Henry was joined by a
young man of fortune in quest of a seat, and
I was grouped with mister Maxwell, the eldest son of
Lord Harry's, a Scotch Roman Catholic peer who lives in
(16:39):
the neighborhood. When the time came, I went down to
Canvas and spent I think the most wretched fortnight of
my manhood. In the first place, I was subject to
a bitter tyranny from grinding vulgar tyrants. They were doing
what they could, or said that they were doing so,
to secure me a seat in Parliament, and I was
to be in their hands at any rate to the
(17:00):
period of my candidature. On one day both of us,
mister Maxwell and I wanted to go out hunting. We
proposed to ourselves but the one holiday during this period
of intense labor. But I was assured, as was he
also by a publican who was working for us, that
if we committed such a crime, he and all Beverly
would desert us. From morning to evening every day I
(17:23):
was taken round the lanes and byways of that uninteresting town,
canvassing every voter, exposed to the rain up to my
knees and slush, and utterly unable to assume that air
of triumphant joy with which a jolly successful candidate should
be invested. At night, every night I had to speak somewhere,
which was bad, and to listen to the speaking of others,
(17:45):
which was much worse. When on one Sunday I proposed
to go to the Minster Church. I was told that
was quite useless, as the Church party were all certain
to support Sir Henry. Indeed, said the publican, my tyrant,
he goes, they're in a kind of official profession, and
you'd better not allow yourself to be seen in the
same place. So I stayed away and omitted my prayers.
(18:08):
No Church of England church in Beverly would on such
an occasion have welcomed a liberal candidate. I felt myself
to be a kind of pariah in the borough to
whom was opposed. All that was pretty, and all that
was nice, and all that was ostensibly good, But perhaps
my strongest sense of discomfort arose from the conviction that
(18:29):
my political ideas were all leather and prunella to the
men whose votes I was soliciting. They cared nothing for
my doctrines and could not be made to understand that
I should have any I had been brought to Beverly
either to beat Sir Henry Edwards, which however, no one
probably thought to be feasible, or to cause him the
greatest possible amount of trouble inconvenience and expense. There were
(18:51):
indeed two points on which a portion of my wished
for supporters seemed to have opinions, and on both these
points I was driven by my opinions to oppose them.
Some were anxious for the ballot, which had not then
become law, and some desired the permissive bill. I hated,
and do hate both these measures, thinking it to be
(19:12):
unworthy of a great people to free itself from the
evil results of vicious conduct by unmanly restraints. Undue influence
on voters is a great evil from which this country
had already done much to emancipate itself by extending electoral
divisions and by an increase of independent feeling. These I thought,
(19:32):
and not secret voting, were the weapons by which electoral
intimidation should be overcome. And as for drink, I believe
in no parliamentary restraint, but I do believe in the
gradual effect of moral teaching and education. But a liberal,
to do any good at Beverly, should have been able
to swallow such gnats as those. I would swallow nothing,
(19:53):
and was altogether the wrong man. I knew from the
commencement of my candidature. How it was be of course,
that well trained gentleman who condescended to act as my
agent had understood the case, and I ought to have
taken his thoroughly kind advice. He had seen it all
and had told himself that it was wrong that one
so innocent in such ways as I, so utterly unable
(20:17):
to fight such a battle, should be carried down into
Yorkshire merely to spend money and to be annoyed. He
could not have said more than he did say, and
I suffered for my obstinacy. Of course, I was not elected.
Sir Henry Edwards and his comrade become members for Beverly,
and I was at the bottom of the pole. I
paid four hundred for my expenses, and then returned to London.
(20:41):
My friendly agent, in his raillery, had, of course exaggerated
the cost he had when I arrived at Beverly, asked
me for a check for four hundred and told me
that the sum would suffice. It did suffice. How it
came to pass that exactly that some should be required
I never knew, but such was the case. Then there
came a petition, not from me, but from the town.
(21:04):
The inquiry was made, and two gentlemen were unseated. The
borough was disfranchised. Sir Henry Edwards was put on his
trial for some kind of parliamentary offense, and was acquitted.
In this way, Beverly's privileges a borough and my parliamentary
ambition were brought to an end. At the same time,
when I knew the result, I did not altogether regret it.
(21:27):
It may be that Beverly might have been brought to
political confusion, and Sir Henry Edwards relegated to private life,
without the expenditure of my hard earned money, and without
that fortnight of misery. But connecting the things together, as
it was natural that I should do, I did flatter
myself that I had done some good. It had seemed
to me that nothing could be worse, nothing more unpatriotic,
(21:50):
nothing more absolutely opposed to the system of representative government,
than the time honored practices of the Borough of Beverly.
It had come to pass that political cleanliness was odious
to the citizens. There was something grand in the scorn
with which a leading liberal there turned up his nose
at me when I told him that there should be
no bribery, no treating, not even a pot of beer.
(22:12):
On one side. It was a matter for study to
see how at Beverly politics were appreciated because they might
subserve electoral purposes. And how little it was understood that
electoral purposes, which are in themselves a nuisance, should be
endured in order that they may subserve politics. And then
the time, the money, the mental energy which had been
(22:33):
expended in making the borough a secure seat for a
gentleman who had realized the idea that it would become
him to be a member of Parliament, this use of
the borough seemed to be realized and approved in the borough. Generally.
The inhabitants had taught themselves to think that it was
for such purposes that boroughs were intended to have assisted.
(22:54):
In putting an end to this, even in one town,
was to a certain extent a satisfaction. End of Chapter sixteen.
Recording by Jessica Louise, Minneapolis, Minnesota,
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