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

at last by the use of the word “straw.” Lady Carbury had followed these instructions with accuracy.

The name for the story had been the great thing. It did not occur to the authoress that, as the plot was to be allowed to develop itself and was, at this moment when she was perplexed as to the title, altogether uncreated, she might as well wait to see what appellation might best suit her work when its purpose should have declared itself. A novel, she knew well, was most unlike a rose, which by any other name will smell as sweet. “The Faultless Father,” “The Mysterious Mother,” “The Lame Lover,”⁠—such names as that she was aware would be useless now. “Mary Jane Walker,” if she could be very simple, would do, or “Blanche De Veau,” if she were able to maintain throughout a somewhat high-stilted style of feminine rapture. But as she considered that she could best deal with rapid action and strange coincidences, she thought that something more startling and descriptive would better suit her purpose. After an hour’s thought a name did occur to her, and she wrote it down, and with considerable energy of purpose framed her work in accordance with her chosen title, The Wheel of Fortune! She had no particular fortune in her mind when she chose it, and no particular wheel;⁠—but the very idea conveyed by the words gave her the plot which she wanted. A young lady was blessed with great wealth, and lost it all by an uncle, and got it all back by an honest lawyer, and gave it all up to a distressed lover, and found it all again in the third volume. And the lady’s name was Cordinga, selected by Lady Carbury as never having been heard before either in the world of fact or in that of fiction.

And now with all her troubles thick about her⁠—while her son was still hanging about the house in a condition that would break any mother’s heart, while her daughter was so wretched and sore that she regarded all those around her as her enemies, Lady Carbury finished her work, and having just written the last words in which the final glow of enduring happiness was given to the young married heroine whose wheel had now come full round, sat with the sheets piled at her right hand. She had allowed herself a certain number of weeks for the task, and had completed it exactly in the time fixed. As she sat with her hand near the pile, she did give herself credit for her diligence. Whether the work might have been better done she never asked herself. I do not think that she prided herself much on the literary merit of the tale. But if she could bring the papers to praise it, if she could induce Mudie to circulate it, if she could manage that the air for a month should be so loaded with The Wheel of Fortune, as to make it necessary for the reading world to have read or to have said that it had read the book⁠—then she would pride herself very much upon her work.

As she was so sitting on a Sunday afternoon, in her own room, Mr. Alf was announced. According to her habit, she expressed warm delight at seeing him. Nothing could be kinder than such a visit just at such a time⁠—when there was so very much to occupy such a one as Mr. Alf! Mr. Alf, in his usual mildly satirical way, declared that he was not peculiarly occupied just at present. “The Emperor has left Europe at last,” he said. “Poor Melmotte poisoned himself on Friday, and the inquest sat yesterday. I don’t know that there is anything of interest today.” Of course Lady Carbury was intent upon her book, rather even than on the exciting death of a man whom she had herself known. Oh, if she could only get Mr. Alf! She had tried it before, and had failed lamentably. She was well aware of that; and she had a deep-seated conviction that it would be almost impossible to get Mr. Alf. But then she had another deep-seated conviction, that that which is almost impossible may possibly be done. How great would be the glory, how infinite the service! And did it not seem as though Providence had blessed her with this special opportunity, sending Mr. Alf to her just at the one moment at which she might introduce the subject of her novel without seeming premeditation?

“I am so tired,” she said, affecting to throw herself back as though stretching her arms out for ease.

“I hope I am not adding to your fatigue,” said Mr. Alf.

“Oh dear no. It is not the fatigue of the moment, but of the last six months. Just as you knocked at the door, I had finished the novel at which I have been working, oh, with such diligence!”

“Oh⁠—a novel! When is it to appear, Lady Carbury?”

“You must ask Leadham and Loiter that question. I have done my part of the work. I suppose you never wrote a novel, Mr. Alf?”

“I? Oh dear no; I never write anything.”

“I have sometimes wondered whether I have hated or loved it the most. One becomes so absorbed in one’s plot and one’s characters! One loves the loveable so intensely, and hates with such fixed aversion those who are intended to be hated. When the mind is attuned to it, one is tempted to think that it is all so good. One cries at one’s own pathos, laughs at one’s own humour, and is lost in admiration at one’s own sagacity and knowledge.”

“How very nice!”

“But then there comes the reversed picture, the other side of the coin. On a sudden everything becomes flat, tedious, and unnatural. The heroine who was yesterday alive with the celestial spark is found today to be a lump of motionless clay. The dialogue that was so cheery on the first perusal is utterly uninteresting at a second reading. Yesterday I