Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7644] [Yes,
we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This
file was first posted on March 11, 2004]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** Start of the project gutenberg
EBOOK Ernest Maltravers, Lytton, V5
***
Parody.
My hero, turned author, lies mute
in this section,
You may pass by the place if you’re
bored by reflection:
But if honest enough to be fond
of the Muse,
Stay, and read where you’re
able, and sleep where you choose.
THEOC. Epig. in Hippon.
“My
genius spreads her wing,
And flies where Britain courts the
western spring.
* * * * *
Pride in their port, defiance in
their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass
by,
Intent on high designs."-Goldsmith.
I have no respect for the Englishman who re-enters
London after long residence abroad without a pulse
that beats quick and a heart that heaves high.
The public buildings are few, and, for the most part,
mean; the monuments of antiquity not comparable to
those which the pettiest town in Italy can boast of;
the palaces are sad rubbish; the houses of our peers
and princes are shabby and shapeless heaps of brick.
But what of all this? the spirit of London is in her
thoroughfares—her population! What
wealth—what cleanliness—what
order—what animation! How majestic,
and yet how vivid, is the life that runs through her
myriad veins! How, as the lamps blaze upon you
at night, and street after street glides by your wheels,
each so regular in its symmetry, so equal in its civilization—how
all speak of the City of freemen.
Yes, Maltravers felt his heart swell within him as
the post-horses whirled on his dingy carriage—over
Westminster Bridge—along Whitehall—through
Regent Street—towards one of the quiet and
private-house-like hotels that are scattered round
the neighbourhood of Grosvenor Square.
Ernest’s arrival had been expected. He
had written from Paris to Cleveland to announce it;
and Cleveland had, in reply, informed him that he
had engaged apartments for him at Mivart’s.
The smiling waiters ushered him into a spacious and
well-aired room—the armchair was already
wheeled by the fire—a score or so of letters
strewed the table, together with two of the evening
papers. And how eloquently of busy England do
those evening papers speak! A stranger might
have felt that he wanted no friend to welcome him—the
whole room smiled on him a welcome.
