Anthony Trollope: Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

9. CHAPTER IX - "CASTLE RICHMOND;" "BROWN, JONES, AND ROBINSON;" "NORTH AMERICA;" "ORLEY FARM" (continued)

I now felt that I had gained my object. In 1862 I had achieved that which I contemplated when I went to London in 1834, and towards which I made my first attempt when I began the Macdermots in 1843. I had created for myself a position among literary men, and had secured to myself an income on which I might live in ease and comfort,--which ease and comfort have been made to include many luxuries. From this time for a period of twelve years my income averaged œ4500 a year. Of this I spent about two-thirds, and put by one. I ought perhaps to have done better,--to have spent one-third, and put by two; but I have ever been too well inclined to spend freely that which has come easily.

This, however, has been so exactly the life which my thoughts and aspirations had marked out,--thoughts and aspirations which used to cause me to blush with shame because I was so slow in forcing myself to the work which they demanded,--that I have felt some pride in having attained it. I have before said how entirely I fail to reach the altitude of those who think that a man devoted to letters should be indifferent to the pecuniary results for which work is generally done. An easy income has always been regarded by me as a great blessing. Not to have to think of sixpences, or very much of shillings; not to be unhappy because the coals have been burned too quickly, and the house linen wants renewing; not to be debarred by the rigour of necessity from opening one's hands, perhaps foolishly, to one's friends;--all this to me has been essential to the comfort of life. I have enjoyed the comfort for I may almost say the last twenty years, though no man in his youth had less prospect of doing so, or would have been less likely at twenty-five to have had such luxuries foretold to him by his friends.