What Anthony Trollope Taught Us About Constructive Living
"A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules."
Four more Saturday sessions of Constructive Living are to come. Later this summer, we will begin our most unique program yet: Classical Wisdom for Living a Good Life. As we read selected works by Epictetus, David Hume, Adam Smith, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leonard Read, and F. A. Hayek, we will consider perspectives that can increase our emotional and spiritual freedom in today's troubled world. Liberty depends on our individual choices.
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Arguably, Anthony Trollope holds the title of the most prolific Victorian novelist with lasting acclaim. Writing two or three novels annually, he produced forty-seven books in total. His readability, psychological and philosophical insights, and social commentary have led to timeless reader appeal. The story of how he worked, revealed in his autobiography, has extraordinary relevance for our Constructive Living studies.
At the mid-point of our Constructive Living studies, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that despite his output, Trollope didn’t live in a perpetual state of inspired, artistic bliss.
Given his output, it’s reasonable to think Trollope's finances enabled a full-time writing career. Nineteen-year-old Trollope had to take a postal clerk job to support his family. It wasn't until Trollope's postal career spanned thirty-three years that his novels generated enough income to support him as a full-time writer for his last fifteen years.
While some would mentally battle the circumstances of having to work a full-time job, Trollope understood, as Shakespeare wrote, that “sweet are the uses of adversity.”