Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-22
A WOMAN'S HARD FIGHT.

Leaves From the Life Of Mrs. Trollope
Mother OF Anthony Trollope-With Her
Pen She Supported q Family Dying
With Consumption-Good Accomplished
by Her Book on America.
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPArcH.l
No one family, it is said. has ever written
more books than that of the Trollopes. Mrs
Trollope made her name famous over sixty
years ago by her first book entitled, ''The
Domestic Manners of the Americans, +"
founded mainly upon her experiences and
observations in the city of Cincinnati. This
book was written when she was 80 years
old, and by the time she had reached rs,
she had produced ia volumes.
Her son, Anthony Trollope, made the
claim that his literary performances were
| more in amount than the works of any
other English author. To swell the number
Of books written by the family the eldest
son, T. Adolphus Trollope, wrote con-
siderable number, and sister had shown
symptoms Of taking to her pen by one story
shortly before an early death.
Perhaps no English writer upon Ameri-
can manners has ever received more abuse
than Mrs. Trollope. In her time the peo-
pie Of this country were much more sensi-
tive to criticism than at present. Mrs.
Trollope had strong powers of satire, and
was somewhat given to exaggeration, but
her criticisms had facts for q basis, and
they struck home.
The Cause Of Her Bitterness.
The i'll success of her American enter
prise in behalf of her son, and the family
misfortunes generally, had doubtless en-
bittered her and given sharpness to her pen
in her description of American social and
domestic life as she saw it in her two or
three years stay in this country. In
England she had lived among cultivated
were Miss Milford, the distinguished
author; Miss Landon and Dean Milman, the
author of the tragedy of Fazio the notes OIL
Gibbons decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire" and other notable works. She was
the daughter of a clergyman and married
chancery barrister who had great expecta-
tions that were never realized. BY those
who knew him he was esteemed an able and
conscientious lawyer, but possessed of such
bad temper and disagreeable manners as
to drive business away from him. He had
a fortune of his own, and was to have been
the heir of a rich old uncle. Upon these
try house, but as his son Anthony the nov
elist, says, everything he did went
wrong. He was not born under lucky
stars, and the family affairs went
continually from bad to worse until
as final crusher to all his high hopes the
rich old uncle married and had family of
his own. Poverty stared him in the face,
and the shadows Of the ba1liff and sheriff
grew more tangible every day. The well
educated lawyer was finally compelled to
give up practice, since clients had deserted
him. The family gave up London to live
on farm-the farm described in the novel
of "Orley Farm" written by Anthony
years afterward. With little capital and
no knowledge of the business, this farming
enterprise ended in financial ruin.
High Hopes for America.
With the hope of bettering their circum-
stances Mrs. Trollope, with three of her
children, started for America, partly, as
her son relates, because she had been i'm
bued with the democratic views of the
famous Fanny Wright, the first woman
lecturer that ever appeared in America,
and partly to conceal from the world the
ruin of the family fortunes. To establish
business for her son Henry in the rich and
fourishing Queen city of the West was her
most ardent DESIRE Here she built bazar
command After struggling along for four
years with some little success and much of
hope the verge of bankruptcy was reached.
Disheartened, they returned to England to
get fresh start-Mrs. Trollope having |
reached the conclusion that America was |
glorious country for Americans, but very
$3.50 one for the English. While in Gin
cinnati the health of her son was miserable. |
She, herself, had a narrow escape from |
death by the fever then prevalent, and these |
added to the failure and disappointment that |
attended their venture in business and the |
of what was then back |
woods life, all tended to make her dislike |
In letter to Miss Milford, |
however, she says that "there is much to |
like and admire on this side of the Allie |
gheny mountains, many very estimable |
and well informed people, and an almost |
endless variety of objects and circum-
stances in the highest degree interesting, |
yet would not pass the remnant of my
days here, even if could have all my fam
ily around me. Nothing shall keep Me
here after my eldest girl is 16, as think |
owe it to her to let her see young ladies'
daylight in a civilized country"
Ohio was Frontier Land.
In reading Mrs Trollope's letters to Miss
Milford, it is to be remembered that Ohio
81 tue LlLue VI utT FISlJ WAS cOuSlueEeU al |
most the frontier of civilization. The canal
rom the Hudson river to Lake Erie, or
Dewitt Clinton's "big ditch,'' as it was
,alled, had just been completed. George
Stephenson was studying the steam engine
which led him to the invention of the loco
motive, and Morse was juggling his brains
N the telegraph.
At the time of Mrs. Trollope's visit the
'reat struggle between the Jacksonian
Democrats and the old Republicans under
Adams was going on, and it was as bitter a
ght as has ever occurred in the country.
he ingalls, sentiment, that "the worst Re-
ublican that ever lived is better than the
est Democrat" was put in other words bv
supporter of jackson named johnson.
I don't care, said he, "for, by the eter
al, if the Adams administration act as
ure as the angels that stand
t the right hand of the throne
f God, we'l put them down."
he debates in Congress were violent and
indictive. Clay was denounced as gam
ler and charged with bargain and corrup- !
ion. When jackson was inaugurated and
eld his first leyee the White House be- 6
anne the scene of q social event without, {
erhaps, precedent. The halls and rooms
ere jammed with people struggling for
ne refreshments. China and glass were
roken without regard to cost. Tubs and
arrels of punch were set in the garden to
raw off the crowd from the house. but in
,e wild rush and confusion they were up
It. Men with muddy boots stood on the
i