Novels of Sir E. Bulwer Lytton [pp. 159-172]

NOVELS OF SIR E. BULWER LYTTON.
have never seen the sunlight of good precepts, or eaten the bread of
honesty; and no kindly heart can read understandingly Paul Clifford
without being touched, to dollars, if not to tears, in behalf of these
poor, abandoned wretches whose only heritage is sin and sorrow. If
there be any mind so shallow as to be muddied-by this novel, its
sources of good sense, and good morals must be already hopelessly
dried up. There is no danger of any youth becoming a highwayman
because he likes Paul Clifford. Nobody but a critic would think so,
and it is as useless to argue with them as it was for Desdemona to
argue with Othello.
"Jealous souls will not be answered so.
They are not, ever, jealous for the cause,
Bult jealous, for they are jealous:'Tis a monster
Begot upon itself, born of itself."
Ernest Maltravers stands at the culprit's bar with Pelham and
Clifford: now, what of him.
The lessons of this man's life, so far from being reprehensible, as
they have been called, approach nearer to the sublime. We can only
say of them as of all good things " Qui?ti scit, ei bona; illi qzli
non utitur recte, mala." He was not guiltless, but his early sun
tinged his mind with a life-long sadness, and aroused his noble nature
to the grandest efforts of self-control, and high ambition. What is
more admirable than the sense of honor that guides his conduct with
the fair countess in Italy, that sinks the passion of the lover in the
firm affection of a friend? What more replete with lofty sentiment
than the story of the beautiful, and ill-fated Frances Lascelles?
What more inspirir g than the faithful love of Alice, and her final reunion with Maltravers? Some detached pages or sentences may
seem to be exceptionable, but when we have read them altogether,
the integral impression is soothing to the passions, but like the sound
of a trumpet to struggling virtue-clear, musical, inspiring. The
taking to pieces "system which would destroy Maltravers, would
also turn the snowy plumage of the sweet swan of Avon into the
blackness of the raven."
It is not by printing a piece of perfection, and telling us coolly to
be also likewise perfect, that high and holy precepts are to be instilled.
Sinless, and immaculate heroes, individual Utopias, without p,tssions or short comings, are of no use to us wvho are but a bundle of
appetites and prejudices, with not enough of leaven to permeate the
whole. Our sympathies are never kindled up by such ordeals, but
chilled and discouraged when we behold how wvide a gulf there is between us and them. Man, that strange compound of "dust and
deity," is in no way bettered by those angelic creations of authors,
who merely wear disguises of human flesh. The characters that
really arouse our better natures are those who perpetually struggle
with their imperfections, not those who have no imperfections to
struggle with. Virtue struggling with vice, now tripped up, but
again arising and returning to the contest, is a picture upon which
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