The votaries of inspiration and the victims of their own moods flouted the notion, of course, and maintained that work of the highest order never had been done in that mechanical fashion, and never would be. A great deal was said at that time, by professional and by amateur critics, both for and against the theory that the process of novel-making, like more material branches of manufacture, may be lightened and accelerated, without being too much vulgarized, by the invention of a species of labor-saving intellectual machinery.
Trollope’s easy and happy faculty for realistic story-telling that end seemed wofully premature, albeit he lacked but a few years, when suddenly summoned from labor, of his allotted threescore and ten. We all know now what a discouraging youth he had, how late his first success was won, and how lightly touched, either by the weakness or the dullness of age, his writing was, when the end came insomuch that to those who specially relished Mr. WHEN the Autobiography of Anthony Trollope was published, a little more than a year ago, there was no part of that candid, good-humored, and engaging narrative which attracted more attention than the account given of the strict system of artificial industry which had enabled the lamented novelist to do such a mass of excellent work in the brief season of his manly prime.
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