Godolphin, CompleteLytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
Godolphin, Complete
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
(1) After all, an astrologer,--nay, a cabalist--is not so monstrous
a prodigy in the nineteenth century! In the year 1801, Lackingtou
published a quarto, entitled _Magus: a Complete System of Occult
Philosophy; treating of Alchemy, the Cabalistic Art, Natural and
Celestial Magic,_ &c.--and a very impudent publication it is too. That
Raphael should put forth astrological manuals is not a proof of his
belief in the science he professes; but that it should _answer_ to
Raphael to put them forth, shows a tendency to belief in his purchasers.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
AMBITION VINDICATED.--THE HOME OF GODOLPHIN AND LUCILLA.--LUCILLA’S
MIND.--THE EFFECT OF HAPPY LOVE ON FEMALE TALENT.--THE EVE OF FAREWELL.
LUCILLA ALONE.--TEST OF A WOMAN’S AFFECTION.
0 much-abused and highly-slandered passion!--passion rather of the
soul than the heart: hateful to the pseudo-moralist, but viewed with
favouring, though not undiscriminating eyes by the true philosopher:
bright-winged and august ambition! It is well for fools to revile
thee, because thou art liable, like other utilities, to abuse! The wind
uproots the oak--but for every oak it uproots it scatters a thousand
acorns. Ixion embraced the cloud, but from the embrace sprang a hero.
Thou, too, hast thy fits of violence and storm; but without thee, life
would stagnate:---thou, too, embracest thy clouds; but even thy clouds
have the demigods for their offspring!
It was the great and prevailing misfortune of Godolphin’s life, that
he had early taught himself to be superior to exertion. His talents,
therefore, only preyed on himself; and instead of the vigorous and
daring actor of the world, he was alternately the indolent sensualist or
the solitary dreamer. He did not view the stir of the great Babel as a
man with a wholesome mind should do; and thus from his infirmities we
draw a moral. The moral is not the worse, in that it opposes the trite
moralities of those who would take from action its motive: the men of
genius, who are not also men of ambition, are either humourists, or
visionaries, or hypochondriacs.
By the side of one of the Italian lakes, Godolphin and Lucilla fixed
their abode; and here the young idealist for some time imagined himself
happy. Never until now so fond of nature as of cities, he gave himself
up to the enchantment of the Eden around him. He spent the long sunny
hours of noon on the smooth lake, or among the sheltering trees by which
it was encircled. The scenes he had witnessed in the world became to
him the food of quiet meditation, and for the first time in his life,
thought did not weary him with its sameness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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