What Will He Do with It? — Volume 08Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
What Will He Do with It? — Volume 08
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
with those lenses, and glasses, and algebraical scrawls which had once
whiled lonely hours in the attic-room hard by; but not frivolous even to
the judgment of the austerest sage, if that sage had not reasoned away
his heart. For here it was not Darrell's taste that was delighted; it
was Darrell's heart that, ever hungry, had found food. His heart was
connecting those long-neglected memorials of an ambition baffled and
relinquished--here with a nation, there with his father's grave! How his
eyes sparkled! how his lip smiled! Nobody would have guessed it--none of
us know each other; least of all do we know the interior being of those
whom we estimate by public repute;--but what a world of simple, fond
affection lay coiled and wasted in that proud man's solitary breast!
CHAPTER II.
THE LEARNED COMPUTE THAT SEVEN HUNDRED AND SEVEN MILLIONS OF
MILLIONS OF VIBRATIONS HAVE PENETRATED THE EYE BEFORE THE EYE CAN
DISTINGUISH THE TINTS OF A VIOLET. WHAT PHILOSOPHY CAN CALCULATE
THE VIBRATIONS OF THE HEART BEFORE IT CAN DISTINGUISH THE COLOURS OF
LOVE?
While Guy Darrell thus passed his hours within the unfinished fragments
of a dwelling builded for posterity, and amongst the still relics of
remote generations, Love and Youth were weaving their warm eternal idyll
on the sunny lawns by the gliding river.
There they are, Love and Youth, Lionel and Sophy, in the arbour round
which her slight hands have twined the honeysuckle, fond imitation of
that bower endeared by the memory of her earliest holiday--she seated
coyly, he on the ground at her feet, as when Titania had watched his
sleep. He has been reading to her, the book has fallen from his hand.
What book? That volume of poems so unintelligibly obscure to all but the
dreaming young, who are so unintelligibly obscure to themselves. But to
the merit of those poems, I doubt if even George did justice. It is not
true, I believe, that they are not durable. Some day or other, when all
the jargon so feelingly denounced by Colonel Morley about "esthetics,"
and "objective," and "subjective," has gone to its long home, some critic
who can write English will probably bring that poor little volume fairly
before the public; and, with all its manifold faults, it will take a
place in the affections, not of one single generation of the young, but
--everlasting, ever-dreaming, ever-growing youth. But you and I, reader,
have no other interest in these poems, except this--that they were
written by the brother-in-law of that whimsical, miserly Frank Vance, who
perhaps, but for such a brother-in-law, would never have gone through the
labour by which he has cultivated the genius that achieved his fame; and
if he had not cultivated that genius, he might never have known Lionel;
and if he had never known Lionel, Lionel might never perhaps have gone to
the Surrey village, in which he saw the Phenomenon: And, to push farther
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account