ERNEST MALTRAVERS
BY EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
(Lord Lytton)
DEDICATION:
TO
THE GREAT GERMAN PEOPLE,
A race of thinkers and of critics;
A foreign but familiar audience,
Profound in judgment, candid in reproof, generous in appreciation,
This work is dedicated
By an English Author.
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1840.
HOWEVER numerous the works of fiction with which, my dear Reader, I have
trespassed 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., /Godolphin/;--a work devoted to a particular portion of
society, and the development of a peculiar class 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 circumstance, 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 demigod, 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 circumstances 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 passion 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 Fortitude 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 ennobling struggles with poverty and
want to which genius is so often condemned. But wealth and lassitude
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.
