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The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft-Part20_George Gissing(1857-1903)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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I wonder whether it be really true, as I have more than once seen

suggested, that the publication of Anthony Trollope's autobiography



in some degree accounts for the neglect into which he and his works

fell so soon after his death. I should like to believe it, for such



a fact would be, from one point of view, a credit to "the great big

stupid public." Only, of course, from one point of view; the



notable merits of Trollope's work are unaffected by one's knowledge

of how that work was produced; at his best he is an admirable writer



of the pedestrian school, and this disappearance of his name does

not mean final oblivion. Like every other novelist of note, he had



two classes of admirers--those who read him for the sake of that

excellence which here and there he achieved, and the



undistinguishing crowd which found in him a level entertainment.

But it would be a satisfaction to think that "the great big stupid"



was really, somewhere in its secret economy, offended by that

revelation of mechanical methods which made the autobiography either



a disgusting or an amusing book to those who read it more

intelligently. A man with a watch before his eyes, penning exactly



so many words every quarter of an hour--one imagines that this

picture might haunt disagreeably the thoughts even of Mudie's



steadiest subscriber, that it might come between him or her and any

Trollopean work that lay upon the counter.



The surprise was so cynically sprung upon a yet innocent public. At

that happy time (already it seems so long ago) the literary news set



before ordinary readers mostly had reference to literary work, in a

reputable sense of the term, and not, as now, to the processes of



"literary" manufacture and the ups and downs of the "literary"

market. Trollope himself tells how he surprised the editor of a



periodical, who wanted a serial from him, by asking how many

thousand words it should run to; an anecdote savouring indeed of



good old days. Since then, readers have grown accustomed to

revelations of "literary" method, and nothing in that kind can shock



them. There has come into existence a school of journalism which

would seem to have deliberately set itself the task of degrading



authorship and everything connected with it; and these pernicious

scribblers (or typists, to be more accurate) have found the authors



of a fretful age only too receptive of their mercantile suggestions.

Yes, yes; I know as well as any man that reforms were needed in the



relations between author and publisher. Who knows better than I

that your representative author face to face with your



representative publisher was, is, and ever will be, at a ludicrous

disadvantage? And there is no reason in the nature and the decency



of things why this wrong should not by some contrivance be remedied.

A big, blusterous, genial brute of a Trollope could very fairly hold



his own, and exact at all events an acceptable share in the profits

of his work. A shrewd and vigorous man of business such as Dickens,



aided by a lawyer who was his devoted friend, could do even better,

and, in reaping sometimes more than his publisher, redress the



ancient injustice. But pray, what of Charlotte Bronte? Think of

that grey, pinched life, the latter years of which would have been



so brightened had Charlotte Bronte received but, let us say, one

third of what, in the same space of time, the publisher gained by



her books. I know all about this; alas! no man better. None the

less do I loathe and sicken at the manifold baseness, the vulgarity



unutterable, which, as a result of the new order, is blighting our

literary life. It is not easy to see how, in such an atmosphere,



great and noble books can ever again come into being. May it,

perhaps, be hoped that once again the multitude will be somehow



touched with disgust?--that the market for "literary" news of this

costermonger sort will some day fail?



Dickens. Why, there too was a disclosure of literary methods. Did




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