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GODOLPHIN, Volume 1.
By Edward Bulwer Lytton
(Lord Lytton)
When the parentage of Godolphin was still unconfessed and unknown, youwere pleased to encourage his first struggles with the world: Now, willyou permit the father he has just discovered to re-introduce him to yournotice? I am sorry to say, however, that my unfilial offspring, havingbeen so long disowned, is not sufficiently grateful for being acknowledgedat last: he says that he belongs to a very numerous family, and, wishingto be distinguished from his brothers, desires not only to reclaim youracquaintance, but to borrow your name. Nothing less will content hisambition than the most public opportunity in his power of parading hisobligations to the most accomplished gentleman of our time. Will you,then, allow him to make his new appearance in the world under your wing,and thus suffer the son as well as the father to attest the kindness ofyour heart and to boast the honour of your friendship?
Believe me,
My dear Count d'Orsay,
With the sincerest regard,
Yours, very faithfully and truly,
E. B. L.
In the Prefaces to this edition of my works, I have occasionally so faravailed myself of that privilege of self-criticism which the French comicwriter, Mons. Picord, maintains or exemplifies in the collection of hisplays,—as, if not actually to sit in judgment on my own performances,still to insinuate some excuse for their faults by extenuatory depositionsas to their character and intentions. Indeed, a writer looking back tothe past is unconsciously inclined to think that he may separate himselffrom those children of his brain which have long gone forth to the world;and though he may not expatiate on the merits his paternal affection wouldascribe to them, that he may speak at least of the mode in which they weretrained and reared—of the hopes he cherished, or the objects heentertained, when he finally dismissed them to the opinions of others andthe ordeal of Fate or Time.
For my part, I own that even when I have thought but little of the valueof a work, I have always felt an interest in the author's account of itsorigin and formation, and, willing to suppose that what thus affords agratification to my own curiosity, may not be wholly unattractive toothers, I shall thus continue from time to time to play the Showman to myown machinery, and explain the principle of the mainspring and themovement of the wheels.
This novel was begun somewhere in the third year of my authorship, andcompleted in the fourth. It was, therefore, composed almostsimultaneously with Eugene Aram, and afforded to me at least some relieffrom the gloom of that village tragedy. It is needless to observe howdissimilar in point of scene, character, and fable, the one is from theother; yet they are alike in this—that both attempt to deal with one ofthe most striking problems in the spiritual history of man, viz., thefrustration or abuse of power in a superior intellect originally inclinedto good. Perhaps there is no problem that more fascinates the attentionof a man of some earnestness at that period of his life, when his eyefirst disengages itself from the external phenomena around him, and hiscuriosity leads him to examine the cause and account for theeffect;—when, to cite