Читать онлайн «Autobiography of Anthony Trollope»

This was the last step preparatory to his final ruin.

Soon after I had been sent to Winchester my mother went to America,

taking with her my brother Henry and my two sisters, who were then

no more than children. This was, I think, in 1827. I have no clear

knowledge of her object, or of my father's; but I believe that

he had an idea that money might be made by sending goods,--little

goods, such as pin-cushions, pepper-boxes, and pocket-knives,--out

to the still unfurnished States; and that she conceived that an

opening might be made for my brother Henry by erecting some bazaar

or extended shop in one of the Western cities. Whence the money

came I do not know, but the pocket-knives and the pepper-boxes were

bought and the bazaar built. I have seen it since in the town of

Cincinnati,--a sorry building! But I have been told that in those

days it was an imposing edifice. My mother went first, with my

sisters and second brother. Then my father followed them, taking my

elder brother before he went to Oxford. But there was an interval

of some year and a half during which he and I were in Winchester

together.

Over a period of forty years, since I began my manhood at a desk

in the Post Office, I and my brother, Thomas Adolphus, have been

fast friends. There have been hot words between us, for perfect

friendship bears and allows hot words. Few brothers have had more

of brotherhood. But in those schooldays he was, of all my foes,

the worst. In accordance with the practice of the college, which

submits, or did then submit, much of the tuition of the younger

boys from the elder, he was my tutor; and in his capacity of teacher

and ruler, he had studied the theories of Draco.

how he used to exact obedience after the manner of that lawgiver.

Hang a little boy for stealing apples, he used to say, and other

little boys will not steal apples. The doctrine was already exploded

elsewhere, but he stuck to it with conservative energy. The result

was that, as a part of his daily exercise, he thrashed me with a big

stick. That such thrashings should have been possible at a school

as a continual part of one's daily life, seems to me to argue a

very ill condition of school discipline.

At this period I remember to have passed one set of holidays--the

midsummer holidays--in my father's chambers in Lincoln's Inn. There

was often a difficulty about the holidays,--as to what should be

done with me. On this occasion my amusement consisted in wandering

about among those old deserted buildings, and in reading Shakespeare

out of a bi-columned edition, which is still among my books. It

was not that I had chosen Shakespeare, but that there was nothing

else to read.

After a while my brother left Winchester and accompanied my father

to America. Then another and a different horror fell to my fate.

My college bills had not been paid, and the school tradesmen who

administered to the wants of the boys were told not to extend their

credit to me. Boots, waistcoats, and pocket-handkerchiefs, which,

with some slight superveillance, were at the command of other