The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

all they who have heard of the matter should know that it is not painful. I think that throughout I behaved like a gentleman.” Mr. Longestaffe, in an agony, first shook his head twice, and then bowed it three times, leaving the Jew to take what answer he could from so dubious an oracle. “I am sure,” continued Brehgert, “that I behaved like an honest man; and I didn’t quite like that the matter should be passed over as if I was in any way ashamed of myself.”

“Perhaps on so delicate a subject the less said the soonest mended.”

“I’ve nothing more to say, and I’ve nothing at all to mend.” Finishing the conversation with this little speech Brehgert arose to take his leave, making some promise at the time that he would use all the expedition in his power to complete the arrangement of the Melmotte affairs.

As soon as he was gone Mr. Longestaffe opened the door and walked about the room and blew out long puffs of breath, as though to cleanse himself from the impurities of his late contact. He told himself that he could not touch pitch and not be defiled! How vulgar had the man been, how indelicate, how regardless of all feeling, how little grateful for the honour which Mr. Longestaffe had conferred upon him by asking him to dinner! Yes;⁠—yes! A horrid Jew! Were not all Jews necessarily an abomination? Yet Mr. Longestaffe was aware that in the present crisis of his fortunes he could not afford to quarrel with Mr. Brehgert.

LXXXIX “The Wheel of Fortune.”

It was a long time now since Lady Carbury’s great historical work on the Criminal Queens of the World had been completed and given to the world. Any reader careful as to dates will remember that it was as far back as in February that she had solicited the assistance of certain of her literary friends who were connected with the daily and weekly press. These gentlemen had responded to her call with more or less zealous aid, so that the Criminal Queens had been regarded in the trade as one of the successful books of the season. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter had published a second, and then, very quickly, a fourth and fifth edition; and had been able in their advertisements to give testimony from various criticisms showing that Lady Carbury’s book was about the greatest historical work which had emanated from the press in the present century. With this object a passage was extracted even from the columns of the Evening Pulpit⁠—which showed very great ingenuity on the part of some young man connected with the establishment of Messrs. Leadham and Loiter. Lady Carbury had suffered something in the struggle. What efforts can mortals make as to which there will not be some disappointment? Paper and print cannot be had for nothing, and advertisements are very costly. An edition may be sold with startling rapidity, but it may have been but a scanty edition. When Lady Carbury received from Messrs. Leadham and Loiter their second very moderate cheque, with the expression of a fear on their part that there would not probably be a third⁠—unless some unforeseen demand should arise⁠—she repeated to herself those well-known lines from the satirist⁠—

Oh, Amos Cottle, for a moment think
What meagre profits spread from pen and ink.

But not on that account did she for a moment hesitate as to further attempts. Indeed she had hardly completed the last chapter of her Criminal Queens before she was busy on another work; and although the last six months had been to her a period of incessant trouble, and sometimes of torture, though the conduct of her son had more than once forced her to declare to herself that her mind would fail her, still she had persevered. From day to day, with all her cares heavy upon her, she had sat at her work, with a firm resolve that so many lines should be always forthcoming, let the difficulty of making them be what it might. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter had thought that they might be justified in offering her certain terms for a novel⁠—terms not very high indeed, and those contingent on the approval of the manuscript by their reader. The smallness of the sum offered, and the want of certainty, and the pain of the work in her present circumstances, had all been felt by her to be very hard. But she had persevered, and the novel was now complete.

It cannot with truth be said of her that she had had any special tale to tell. She had taken to the writing of a novel because Mr. Loiter had told her that upon the whole novels did better than anything else. She would have written a volume of sermons on the same encouragement, and have gone about the work exactly after the same fashion. The length of her novel had been her first question. It must be in three volumes, and each volume must have three hundred pages. But what fewest number of words might be supposed sufficient to fill a page? The money offered was too trifling to allow of very liberal measure on her part. She had to live, and if possible to write another novel⁠—and, as she hoped, upon better terms⁠—when this should be finished. Then what should be the name of her novel; what the name of her hero; and above all what the name of her heroine? It must be a love story of course; but she thought that she would leave the complications of the plot to come by chance⁠—and they did come. “Don’t let it end unhappily, Lady Carbury,” Mr. Loiter had said, “because though people like it in a play, they hate it in a book. And whatever you do, Lady Carbury, don’t be historical. Your historical novel, Lady Carbury, isn’t worth a⁠—” Mr. Loiter stopping himself suddenly, and remembering that he was addressing himself to a lady, satisfied his energy