The bacillus of "fluency" interpenetrates the Autobiography, the letters, the documents of every kind, and at any moment this disease will darken Bulwer-Lytton's brightest hours. But curtailed by his grandson, and with its floral and heraldic ornaments well pared away, the Autobiography is a document of considerable value. It is written with deliberate candour, and recalls the manner of Cobbett, a writer with whom we should not expect to find Bulwer-Lytton in sympathy. It is probable that the author of it never saw himself nor those who surrounded him in precisely their true relation. There was something radically twisted in his image of life, which always seems to have passed through a refracting surface on its way to his vision. No doubt this is more or less true of all experience; no power has given us the gift "to see ourselves as others see us." But in the case of Bulwer-Lytton this refractive habit of his imagination produced a greater swerving aside from positive truth than is usual. The result is that an air of the fabulous, of the incredible, is given to his narratives, and often most unfairly.
A close examination, in fact, of the Autobiography results in confirming the historic truth of it. What is surprising is not, when we come to consider them, the incidents themselves, but Bulwer-Lytton's odd way of narrating them. Lord Lytton, without any comment, provides us with curious material for the verification of his grandfather's narrative. He prints, here and there, letters from entirely prosaic persons which tally, often to a surprising degree, with the extravagant statements of Bulwer-Lytton. To quote a single instance, of a very remarkable character, Bulwer-Lytton describes the effect his scholarship produced, at the age of seventeen, upon sober, elderly people, who were dazzled with his accomplishments and regarded him as a youthful prodigy. It is the sort of confession, rather full-blooded and lyrical, which we might easily set down to that phenomenon of refraction. But Lord Lytton prints a letter from Dr. Samuel Parr (whom, by the way, he calls "a man of sixty-four," but Parr, born in 1747, was seventy-four in 1821), which confirms the autobiographer's account in every particular. The aged Whig churchman, who boasted a wider knowledge of Greek literature than any other scholar of his day, and whose peremptory temper was matter of legend, could write to this Tory boy a long letter of enthusiastic criticism, and while assuring Bulwer-Lytton that he kept "all the letters with which you have honoured me," could add: "I am proud of such a correspondent; and, if we lived nearer to each other, I should expect to be very happy indeed in such a friend." Letters of this kind, judiciously printed by Lord Lytton in his notes, serve to call us back from the nebulous witchcraft in which Bulwer-Lytton was so fond of wrapping up the truth, and to remind us that, in spite of the necromancer, the truth is there.
From the point where the fragment of autobiography closes, although for some time much the same material is used and some of the same letters are quoted, as were quoted and used by Robert Lytton, the presentation of these is so different that the whole effect is practically one of novelty. But with the year 1826, when Edward Bulwer-Lytton, at the age of three-and-twenty, became engaged to Rosina Doyle Wheeler, all is positively new. The story of the marriage, separation, and subsequent relations has never before been presented to the world with any approach to accuracy or fulness. No biographical notices of Bulwer-Lytton even touch on this subject, which has been hitherto abandoned to the gossip of irresponsible contemporaries. It is true that a Miss Devey composed a "Life of Rosina, Lady Lytton," in which the tale was told. This work was immediately suppressed, and is inaccessible to the public; but the only person who is known to be familiar with its contents reports that it "contains fragments of the narrative, obviously biassed, wholly inaccurate, and evidently misleading." So far as the general public is concerned, Lord Lytton's impartial history of the relations between his grandfather and his grandmother is doubtless that portion of his book which will be regarded as the most important. I may, therefore, dwell briefly upon his treatment of it.
The biographer, in dealing with a subject of this incalculable difficulty, could but lay himself open to the censure of those who dislike the revelation of the truth on any disagreeable subject. This lion, however, stood in the middle of his path, and he had either to wrestle with it or to turn back. Lord Lytton says in his preface that it was necessary to tell all or nothing of the matrimonial adventures of his grandparents, but, in reality, this was not quite the alternative, which was to tell the truth or to withdraw from the task of writing a Life of Bulwer-Lytton. The marriage and its results were so predominant in the career of the man, and poisoned it so deeply to the latest hour of his consciousness, that to attempt a biography of him without clear reference to them would have been like telling the story of Nessus the Centaur without mentioning the poisoned arrow of Heracles. But Lord Lytton shall give his own apology:—
"As it was impossible to give a true picture of my grandfather without referring to events which overshadowed his whole life, and which were already partially known to the public, I decided to tell the whole story as fully and as accurately as possible, in the firm belief that the truth can damage neither the dead nor the living. The steps which led to the final separation between my grandparents, and the forces which brought about so disastrous a conclusion of a marriage of love, apart from their biographical interest, afford a study of human nature of the utmost value; and so great are the moral lessons which this story contains, that I venture to hope that the public may find in much that is tragic and pitiful much also that is redeeming, and that the ultimate verdict of posterity may be that these two unfortunate people did not suffer entirely in vain."
His story, therefore, is not written with any partiality, and it seems to be as full and as truthful as the ample materials at the author's disposal permitted. The reader will conjecture that Lord Lytton could have given many more details, but apart from the fact that they would often have been wholly unfit for publication, it is difficult to see that they would in any degree have altered the balance of the story, or modified our judgment, which is quite sufficiently enlightened by the copious letters on both sides which are now for the first time printed.
Voltaire has remarked of love that it is "de toutes les passions la plus forte, parce qu'elle attaque, à la fois, la tête, le cœur, le corps." It is a commonplace to say that Edward Bulwer's whole career might have been altered if he had never met Rosina Wheeler, because this is true in measure of every strong juvenile attachment: but it is rarely indeed so copiously or so fatally true as it was in his case. His existence was overwhelmed by this event; it was turned topsy-turvey, and it never regained its equilibrium. In this adventure all was exaggerated; there was excess of desire, excess of gratification, an intense weariness, a consuming hatred.
On the first evening when the lovers met, in April 1826, an observer, watching them as they talked, reflected that Bulwer's "bearing had that aristocratic something bordering on hauteur" which reminded the onlooker "of the passage, 'Stand back; I am holier than thou!'" The same observer, dazzled, like the rest of the world, by the loveliness of Miss Wheeler, judged that it would be best "to regard her as we do some beautiful caged wild creature of the woods—at a safe and secure distance." It would have preserved a chance of happiness for Bulwer-Lytton to possess something of this stranger's clairvoyance. It was not strange perhaps, but unfortunate, that he did not notice—or rather that he was not repelled by, for he did notice—the absence of moral delicacy in the beautiful creature, the radiant and seductive Lamia, who responded so instantly to his emotion. He, the most fastidious of men, was not offended by the vivacity of a young lady who called attention to the vulgarity of her father's worsted stockings and had none but words of abuse for her mother. These things, indeed, disconcerted the young aristocrat, but he put them down to a lack of training; he persuaded himself that these were superficial blemishes and could be remedied; and he resigned his senses to the intoxication of Rosina's beauty.
At first—and indeed to the last—she stimulated his energy and his intellect. His love and his hatred alike spurred him to action. In August 1826, in spite of the violent opposition of his mother, he and Rosina were betrothed. By October Mrs. Bulwer had so far prevailed that the engagement was broken off, and Edward tossed in a whirlpool of anger, love, and despair. It took the form of such an attack of "fluency" as was never seen before or after. Up to that time he had been an elegant although feverish idler. Now he plunged into a strenuous life of public and private engagements. He prepared to enter the House of Commons; he finished Falkland, his first novel; he started the composition of Pelham and of another "light prose work," which may have disappeared; he achieved a long narrative in verse, O'Neill, or the Rebel; and he involved himself in literary projects without bound and without end. The aim of all this energy was money. It is true that he had broken off his betrothal; but it was at first only a pretence at estrangement, to hoodwink his mother. He was convinced that he could not live without possessing Rosina, and as his mother held the strings of the common purse, he would earn his own income and support a wife.
Mrs. Bulwer-Lytton, who had a Roman firmness, was absolutely determined that her son should not marry "a penniless girl whose education had been so flagrantly neglected, who was vain and flighty, with a mocking humour and a conspicuous lack of principle." At this point the story becomes exceedingly interesting. A Balzac would strip it of its romantic trappings, and would penetrate into its physiology. Out of Rosina's sight, and diverted by the excess of his literary labours, Edward's infatuation began to decline. His mother, whose power of character would have been really formidable if it had been enforced by sympathy or even by tact, relaxed her opposition; and instantly her son, himself, no longer attacked, became calmer and more clear-sighted. Rosina's faults were patent to his memory; the magic of her beauty less invincible. Within a month all was changed again. Rosina fretted herself into what she contrived to have reported to Bulwer-Lytton as an illness. She begged for an interview, and he went with reluctance to bid her farewell for ever. It was Bulwer-Lytton's habit to take with him a masterpiece of literature upon every journey. It seems unfortunate that on this occasion The Tempest was not his companion, for it might have warned him, as Prospero warned Ferdinand, against the fever in the blood:—