Ernest Maltravers Part 1

Ernest Maltravers, Complete.

by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840.

HOWEVER numerous the works of fiction with which, my dear Reader, I have trespa.s.sed on your attention, I leave published but three, of any account, in which the plot has been cast amidst the events, and coloured by the manner, of our own times. The first of these, _Pelham_, composed when I was little more than a boy, has the faults, and perhaps the merits, natural to a very early age,--when the novelty itself of life quickens the observation,--when we see distinctly, and represent vividly, what lies upon the surface of the world,--and when, half sympathising with the follies we satirise, there is a gusto in our paintings which atones for their exaggeration. As we grow older we observe less, we reflect more; and, like Frankenstein, we dissect in order to create.

The second novel of the present day,* which, after an interval of some years, I submitted to the world, was one I now, for the first time, acknowledge, and which (revised and corrected) will be included in this series, viz., _G.o.dolphin_;--a work devoted to a particular portion of society, and the development of a peculiar cla.s.s of character. The third, which I now reprint, is _Ernest Maltravers_,** the most mature, and, on the whole, the most comprehensive of all that I have hitherto written.

* For _The Disowned_ is cast in the time of our grandfathers, and _The Pilgrims of the Rhine_ had nothing to do with actual life, and is not, therefore, to be called a novel.

** At the date of this preface _Night and Morning_ had not appeared.

For the original idea, which, with humility, I will venture to call the philosophical design of a moral education or apprenticeship, I have left it easy to be seen that I am indebted to Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_.

But, in _Wilhelm Meister_, the apprenticeship is rather that of theoretical art. In the more homely plan that I set before myself, the apprenticeship is rather that of practical life. And, with this view, it has been especially my study to avoid all those attractions lawful in romance, or tales of pure humour or unbridled fancy, attractions that, in the language of reviewers, are styled under the head of "most striking descriptions," "scenes of extraordinary power," etc.; and are derived from violent contrasts and exaggerations pushed into caricature.

It has been my aim to subdue and tone down the persons introduced, and the general agencies of the narrative, into the lights and shadows of life as it is. I do not mean by "life as it is," the vulgar and the outward life alone, but life in its spiritual and mystic as well as its more visible and fleshly characteristics. The idea of not only describing, but developing character under the ripening influences of time and circ.u.mstance, is not confined to the apprenticeship of Maltravers alone, but pervades the progress of Cesarini, Ferrers, and Alice Darvil.

The original conception of Alice is taken from real life--from a person I never saw but twice, and then she was no longer young--but whose history made on me a deep impression. Her early ignorance and home--her first love--the strange and affecting fidelity that she maintained, in spite of new ties--her final re-meeting, almost in middle-age, with one lost and adored almost in childhood--all this, as shown in the novel, is but the imperfect transcript of the true adventures of a living woman.

In regard to Maltravers himself, I must own that I have but inadequately struggled against the great and obvious difficulty of representing an author living in our own times, with whose supposed works or alleged genius and those of any one actually existing, the reader can establish no identification, and he is therefore either compelled constantly to humour the delusion by keeping his imagination on the stretch, or lazily driven to confound the Author _in_ the Book with the Author _of_ the Book.* But I own, also, I fancied, while aware of this objection, and in spite of it, that so much not hitherto said might be conveyed with advantage through the lips or in the life of an imaginary writer of our own time, that I was contented, on the whole, either to task the imagination, or submit to the suspicions of the reader. All that my own egotism appropriates in the book are some occasional remarks, the natural result of practical experience. With the life or the character, the adventures or the humours, the errors or the good qualities, of Maltravers himself, I have nothing to do, except as the narrator and inventor.

* In some foreign journal I have been much amused by a credulity of this latter description, and seen the various adventures of Mr. Maltravers gravely appropriated to the embellishment of my own life, including the attachment to the original of poor Alice Darvil; who now, by the way, must be at least seventy years of age, with a grandchild nearly as old as myself.

E. B. L.

A WORD TO THE READER PREFIXED TO THE FIRST EDITION OF 1837.

THOU must not, my old and partial friend, look into this work for that species of interest which is drawn from stirring adventures and a perpetual variety of incident. To a Novel of the present day are necessarily forbidden the animation, the excitement, the bustle, the pomp, and the stage effect which History affords to Romance. Whatever merits, in thy gentle eyes, _Rienzi_, or _The Last Days of Pompeii_, may have possessed, this Tale, if it please thee at all, must owe that happy fortune to qualities widely different from those which won thy favour to pictures of the Past. Thou must sober down thine imagination, and prepare thyself for a story not dedicated to the narrative of extraordinary events--nor the elucidation of the characters of great men. Though there is scarcely a page in this work episodical to the main design, there may be much that may seem to thee wearisome and prolix, if thou wilt not lend thyself, in a kindly spirit, and with a generous trust, to the guidance of the Author. In the hero of this tale thou wilt find neither a majestic demiG.o.d, nor a fascinating demon. He is a man with the weaknesses derived from humanity, with the strength that we inherit from the soul; not often obstinate in error, more often irresolute in virtue; sometimes too aspiring, sometimes too despondent; influenced by the circ.u.mstances to which he yet struggles to be superior, and changing in character with the changes of time and fate; but never wantonly rejecting those great principles by which alone we can work the Science of Life--a desire for the Good, a pa.s.sion for the Honest, a yearning after the True. From such principles, Experience, that severe Mentor, teaches us at length the safe and practical philosophy which consists of Fort.i.tude to bear, Serenity to enjoy, and Faith to look beyond!

It would have led, perhaps, to more striking incidents, and have furnished an interest more intense, if I had cast Maltravers, the Man of Genius, amidst those fierce but enn.o.bling struggles with poverty and want to which genius is so often condemned. But wealth and la.s.situde have their temptations as well as penury and toil. And for the rest--I have taken much of my tale and many of my characters from real life, and would not unnecessarily seek other fountains when the Well of Truth was in my reach.

The Author has said his say, he retreats once more into silence and into shade; he leaves you alone with the creations he has called to life--the representatives of his emotions and his thoughts--the intermediators between the individual and the crowd. Children not of the clay, but of the spirit, may they be faithful to their origin!--so should they be monitors, not loud but deep, of the world into which they are cast, struggling against the obstacles that will beset them, for the heritage of their parent--the right to survive the grave!

LONDON, August 12th, 1837.

ERNEST MALTRAVERS.

BOOK I.

"Youth pastures in a valley of its own: The glare of noon--the rains and winds of heaven Mar not the calm yet virgin of all care.

But ever with sweet joys it buildeth up The airy halls of life."

SOPH. _Trachim_. 144-147.

CHAPTER I.

"My meaning in't, I protest, was very honest in the behalf of the maid * * * * yet, who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken?"

_All's Well that Ends Well_, Act iv. Sc. 3.

SOME four miles distant from one of our northern manufacturing towns, in the year 18--, was a wide and desolate common; a more dreary spot it is impossible to conceive--the herbage grew up in sickly patches from the midst of a black and stony soil. Not a tree was to be seen in the whole of the comfortless expanse. Nature herself had seemed to desert the solitude, as if scared by the ceaseless din of the neighbouring forges; and even Art, which presses all things into service, had disdained to cull use or beauty from these unpromising demesnes. There was something weird and primeval in the aspect of the place; especially when in the long nights of winter you beheld the distant fires and lights which give to the vicinity of certain manufactories so preternatural an appearance, streaming red and wild over the waste. So abandoned by man appeared the spot, that you found it difficult to imagine that it was only from human fires that its bleak and barren desolation was illumined. For miles along the moor you detected no vestige of any habitation; but as you approached the verge nearest to the town, you could just perceive at a little distance from the main road, by which the common was intersected, a small, solitary, and miserable hovel.

Within this lonely abode, at the time in which my story opens, were seated two persons. The one was a man of about fifty years of age, and in a squalid and wretched garb, which was yet relieved by an affectation of ill-a.s.sorted finery. A silk handkerchief, which boasted the ornament of a large brooch of false stones, was twisted jauntily round a muscular but meagre throat; his tattered breeches were also decorated by buckles, one of pinchbeck, and one of steel. His frame was lean, but broad and sinewy, indicative of considerable strength. His countenance was prematurely marked by deep furrows, and his grizzled hair waved over a low, rugged, and forbidding brow, on which there hung an everlasting frown that no smile from the lips (and the man smiled often) could chase away. It was a face that spoke of long-continued and hardened vice--it was one in which the Past had written indelible characters. The brand of the hangman could not have stamped it more plainly, nor have more unequivocally warned the suspicion of honest or timid men.

He was employed in counting some few and paltry coins, which, though an easy matter to ascertain their value, he told and retold, as if the act could increase the amount. "There must be some mistake here, Alice," he said in a low and muttered tone: "we can't be so low--you know I had two pounds in the drawer but Monday, and now--Alice, you must have stolen some of the money--curse you."

The person thus addressed sat at the opposite side of the smouldering and sullen fire; she now looked quietly up, and her face singularly contrasted that of the man.

She seemed about fifteen years of age, and her complexion was remarkably pure and delicate, even despite the sunburnt tinge which her habits of toil had brought it. Her auburn hair hung in loose and natural curls over her forehead, and its luxuriance was remarkable even in one so young. Her countenance was beautiful, nay, even faultless, in its small and child-like features, but the expression pained you--it was so vacant. In repose it was almost the expression of an idiot--but when she spoke or smiled, or even moved a muscle, the eyes, colour, lips, kindled into a life, which proved that the intellect was still there, though but imperfectly awakened.

"I did not steal any, father," she said in a quiet voice; "but I should like to have taken some, only I knew you would beat me if I did."

"And what do you want money for?"

"To get food when I'm hungered."

"Nothing else?"

"I don't know."

The girl paused.--"Why don't you let me," she said, after a while, "why don't you let me go and work with the other girls at the factory? I should make money there for you and me both."

The man smiled--such a smile--it seemed to bring into sudden play all the revolting characteristics of his countenance. "Child," he said, "you are just fifteen, and a sad fool you are: perhaps if you went to the factory, you would get away from me; and what should I do without you?

No, I think, as you are so pretty, you might get more money another way."

The girl did not seem to understand this allusion: but repeated, vacantly, "I should like to go to the factory."

"Stuff!" said the man, angrily; "I have three minds to--"

Here he was interrupted by a loud knock at the door of the hovel.

The man grew pale. "What can that be?" he muttered. "The hour is late--near eleven. Again--again! Ask who knocks, Alice."

The girl stood for a moment or so at the door; and as she stood, her form, rounded yet slight, her earnest look, her varying colour, her tender youth, and a singular grace of att.i.tude and gesture, would have inspired an artist with the very ideal of rustic beauty.

After a pause, she placed her lips to a c.h.i.n.k in the door, and repeated her father's question.

"Pray pardon me," said a clear, loud, yet courteous voice, "but seeing a light at your window, I have ventured to ask if any one within will conduct me to ------; I will pay the service handsomely."