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My Novel Novel Chapters
List of most recent chapters published for the My Novel novel. A total of 180 chapters have been translated and the release date of the last chapter is Apr 02, 2024
Latest Release: Chapter 1 : My Novel, Complete.by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.BOOK FIRST.INITIAL CHAPTER --SHOWING HOW MY N
My Novel, Complete.by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.BOOK FIRST.INITIAL CHAPTER --SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE WRITTEN.Scene, the hall in UNCLE ROLAND'S tower; time, night; season, winter.MR. CAXTON is seated before a great geographical globe, which he is turni
- 1 My Novel, Complete.by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.BOOK FIRST.INITIAL CHAPTER --SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE WRITTEN.Scene, the hall in UNCLE ROLAND'S tower; time, night; season, winter.MR. CAXTON is seated before a great geographical globe, which he is turni
- 2 CHAPTER III.Parson Dale and Squire Hazeldean parted company; the latter to inspect his sheep, the former to visit some of his paris.h.i.+oners, including Lenny Fairfield, whom the donkey had defrauded of his apple.Lenny Fairfield was sure to be in the way
- 3 "Very good. Suppose, my lad, that you had a fine apple, and that you met a friend who wanted it more than you, what would you do with it?""Please you, sir, I would give him half of it."The parson's face fell. "Not the whole, Lenny?"Lenny considered
- 4 "I am sure you did not mean to hurt him, Sprott," said the parson, more politely I fear than honestly,--for he had seen enough of that cross-grained thing called the human heart, even in the little world of a country parish, to know that it requires man
- 5 Now, few so carefully cultivate the connubial garden, as to feel much surprise at the occasional sting of a homely nettle or two; but who ever expected, before entering that garden, to find himself p.r.i.c.ked and lacerated by an insidious exotical "dear
- 6 "Cosa stupenda!" exclaimed Jackeymo, opening his eyes, and letting fall the watering-pot."It is true, my friend.""Take him, Padrone, in Heaven's name, and the fields will grow gold.""I will think of it, for it must require management to catch such
- 7 The question was fairly fought out by their respective dependants, and followed by various actions for a.s.sault and trespa.s.s. As the legal question of right was extremely obscure, it never had been properly decided; and, indeed, neither party wished it
- 8 This last question seemed a settler, and the wisdom of Gaffer Solomons went down fifty per cent in the public opinion of Hazeldean."Maw be," said the gaffer--this time with a thrilling effect, which restored his reputation,--"maw be some o' ye ha' be
- 9 MISS JEMIMA.--"Very true: what is it indeed? Yes, as you say, I think there is something interesting about him; he looks melancholy, but that may be because he is poor."MRS. DALE.--"It is astonis.h.i.+ng how little one feels poverty when one loves. Cha
- 10 The squire returns to the table, and in a few minutes the game is decided by a dexterous finesse of the captain against the Hazeldeans.The clock strikes ten; the servants enter with a tray; the squire counts up his own and his wife's losings; and the cap
- 11 MRS. DALE.--"And she must have saved! I dare say it is nearly L6000 by this time; eh! Charles dear, you really are so--good gracious, what's that!"As Mrs. Dale made this exclamation, they had just emerged from the shrubbery into the village green.PARSO
- 12 MRS. CANTON.--"Dear me, that only means skipping; I don't see any great advantage in writing a chapter, merely for people to skip it."PISISTRATUS.--"Neither do I!"MR. CANTON (dogmatically).--"It is the repose in the picture,--Fielding calls it 'con
- 13 "Signoriuo Hazeldean, you are giving me what you refused yourself.""Eh?" said Frank, inquiringly."Compliments!""Oh--I--no; but they are well done: are n't they, sir?"-- "Not particularly: you speak to the artist.""What! you painted them?""Ye
- 14 Randal slightly started."Frank Hazeldean's voice," said he; "I should like to see him, Mother.""See him," repeated Mrs. Leslie, in amaze; "see him! and the room in this state!"Randal might have replied that the room was in no worse state than usu
- 15 Still, though all intercourse between the two branches of the family had ceased, the younger had always felt a respect for the elder, as the head of the House. And it was supposed that, on her death-bed, Mrs. Egerton had recommended her impoverished names
- 16 MR. MAYOR.--"Well, I guess you speak handsome, sir. But you'd be glad to have two members to support ministers after the next election."MR. EGERTON (smiling).--"Unquestionably, Mr. Mayor."MR. MAYOR.--"And I can do it, Mr. Egerton. I may say I have t
- 17 "Giacomo," said Riccabocca, bowing his head to the storm, "the signorina to-morrow; to-day the honour of the House. Thy small-clothes, Giacomo,--miserable man, thy small-clothes!""It is just," said Jackeymo, recovering himself, and with humility; "
- 18 "The barbarians!" faltered Jackeymo."My nightcap! and never to have any comfort in this," said Riccabocca, drawing on the cotton head-gear; "and never to have any sound sleep in that," pointing to the four-posted bed; "and to be a bondsman and a sl
- 19 Immediately after church, the Leslie family dined; and as soon as dinner was over, Randal set out on his foot journey to Hazeldean Hall.Delicate and even feeble though his frame, he had the energy and quickness of movement which belongs to nervous tempera
- 20 It so happened that the squire, whose active genius was always at some repair or improvement, had been but a few days before widening and sloping off the ditch just in that part, so that the earth was fresh and damp, and not yet either turfed or flattened
- 21 CAPTAIN ROLAND (solemnly).--"There is a great deal in a good t.i.tle. As a novel reader, I know that by experience."MR. SQUILLS.--"Certainly; there is not a catchpenny in the world but what goes down, if the t.i.tle be apt and seductive. Witness 'Old
- 22 He had begun his rounds, therefore, from the early morning; and just as the afternoon bell was sounding its final peal, he emerged upon the village green from a hedgerow, behind which he had been at watch to observe who had the most suspiciously gathered
- 23 "Looking at the landscape; out of my light, man!"This tone instantly inspired Mr. Stirn with misgivings: it was a tone so disrespectful to him that he was seized with involuntary respect; who but a gentleman could speak so to Mr. Stirn?"And may I ask w
- 24 With that sententious maxim, which, indeed, he uttered in his native Italian, Riccabocca turned round and renewed his soothing invitations to confidence. A friend in need is a friend indeed, even if he come in the guise of a Papist and wizard. All Lenny'
- 25 "But how on earth did you get into my new stocks?" asked the squire, scratching his head."My dear sir, Pliny the elder got into the crater of Mount Etna.""Did he, and what for?""To try what it was like, I suppose," answered Riccabocca. The squire
- 26 Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her son. Had the honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs. Hazeldean, it could not have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended.But Mrs. Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, w
- 27 "Friend," repeated Riccabocca, and this time with a tremulous emphasis, and in the softest tone of a voice never wholly without the music of the sweet South, "I would talk to thee of my child."CHAPTER XIX."The letter, then, relates to the signorina.
- 28 "Yes; a kind, English domestic family. Did you see much of Miss Hazeldean?""Not so much as of the Lady.""Is she liked in the village, think you?""Miss Jemima? Yes. She never did harm. Her little dog bit me once,--she did not ask me to beg its pardo
- 29 This a.s.surance, coinciding with Mr. Dale's convictions as to Riccabocca's scruples on the point of honour, tended much to compose the good man; and if he did not, as my reader of the gentler s.e.x would expect from him, feel alarm lest Miss Jemima's
- 30 "Lord! Hazeldean, where on earth did you pick up that idea?" said Harry, laughing."Pick it up!--why, I saw a fellow myself at the cattle fair last year--when I was buying short-horns--with a red waistcoat and a c.o.c.ked hat, a little like the parson'
- 31 Now, for the fourth time, the squire rose, and thus he spoke,--at his right hand, Harry; at his left, Frank; at the bottom of the table, as vice-president, Parson Dale, his little wife behind him, only obscurely seen. She cried readily, and her handkerchi
- 32 But I should have been better pleased if Pisistratus had not made Dr.Riccabocca so reluctant a wooer.""Very true," said the captain; "the Italian does not s.h.i.+ne as a lover.Throw a little more fire into him, Pisistratus,--something gallant and chiv
- 33 Lenny rather reluctantly, and somewhat superciliously, accepted this invitation."I hears," said the tinker, in a voice made rather indistinct by a couple of nails, which he had inserted between his teeth,--"I hears as how you be unkimmon fond of readin
- 34 A penny tract is the shoeing-horn of literature! it draws on a great many books, and some too tight to be very useful in walking. The penny tract quotes a celebrated writer--you long to read him; it props a startling a.s.sertion by a grave authority--you
- 35 CHAPTER X.It is difficult to exaggerate the effect that this discovery produced on Leonard's train of thought. Some one belonging to his own humble race had, then, preceded him in his struggling flight towards the loftier regions of Intelligence and Desi
- 36 "I think every freeborn man has a right to sit as he pleases in his own house," resumed the traveller, with warmth; "and an inn is his own house, I guess, so long as he pays his score. Betty, my dear."For the chambermaid had now replied to the bell.
- 37 "There's a nice tart coming, sir.""Thank you, I've dined."The parson put on his hat and sallied forth into the streets. He eyed the houses on either hand with that melancholy and wistful interest with which, in middle life, men revisit scenes famili
- 38 "He does not know all, then?""He? No! And you see he did not overhear more than what he says. I'm sure you're a gentleman, and won't go against your word.""My word was conditional; but I will promise you never to break the silence without more rea
- 39 "You see I am so stupid, Mr. Dale; I never knew I was so stupid till I married. But I am very glad you are come. You can get on some learned subject together, and then he will not miss so much his--""His what?" asked Riccabocca, inquisitively."His co
- 40 "BUT I too might say that 'she and I have not much in common,' if I were only to compare mind to mind, and when my poor Carry says something less profound than Madame de Stael might have said, smile on her in contempt from the elevation of logic and La
- 41 RICCABOCCA.--"Yes; but your knowledge-mongers at present call upon us to discard military discipline, and the qualities that produce it, from the list of the useful arts. And in your own Essay, you insist upon knowledge as the great disbander of armies,
- 42 CHAPTER XXI.Whatever ridicule may be thrown upon Mr. Dale's dissertations by the wit of the enlightened, they had a considerable, and I think a beneficial, effect upon Leonard Fairfield,--an effect which may perhaps create less surprise, when the reader
- 43 At length Riccabocca appeared on the road, attended by a labourer, who carried something indistinct under his arm. The Italian beckoned to Leonard to follow him into the parlour, and after conversing with him kindly, and at some length, and packing up, as
- 44 "No, thank you, sir.""They have a son, I believe; but he's in America, is he not?""I believe he is, sir.""I see the parson has kept faith with me muttered Richard.""If you can tell me anything about HIM," said Leonard, "I should be very glad.
- 45 When Leonard opened his eyes the next morning, they rested on the face of Mrs. Avenel, which was bending over his pillow. But it was long before he could recognize that countenance, so changed was its expression,--so tender, so mother-like. Nay, the face
- 46 "Hang those brats! they are actually playing," growled d.i.c.k. "As I live, the jade has been was.h.i.+ng again! Stop, boy!" During this soliloquy, a good-looking young woman had rushed from the door, slapped the children as, catching sight of the cha
- 47 "Pray rest here, Papa," said the child, softly; and she pointed to the bench, without taking heed of its pre-occupant, who now, indeed, confined to one corner of the seat, was almost hidden by the shadow of the tree.The man sat down, with a feeble sigh,
- 48 "According to that symbolical view of the case," said Audley, "you should lodge in an attic.""So I would, but that I abhor new slippers. As for hairbrushes, I am indifferent.""What have slippers and hair-brushes to do with attics?""Try! Make your
- 49 "On the contrary, I am so fresh. Look out of the window--what do you see?""Nothing!""Nothing?""Nothing but houses and dusty lilacs, my coachman dozing on his box, and two women in pattens crossing the kennel.""I see not those where I lie on the s
- 50 Looking round her with a gla.s.s, which Mrs. Pompley was in the habit of declaring that "Mrs. M'Catchley used like an angel," this lady suddenly perceived Leonard Fairfield; and his quiet, simple, thoughtful air and look so contrasted with the stiff be
- 51 "Let him come in," said the colonel, "and when I ring--sandwiches and sherry.""Beef, sir?""Ham."The colonel put aside his house-book, and wiped his pen. In another minute the door opened and the servant announced-- "MR. DIGBY."The colonel's fac
- 52 The window next Mr. Digby did not fit well into its frame. "There is a sad draught," said the invalid.Helen instantly occupied herself in stopping up the c.h.i.n.ks of the window with her handkerchief. Mr. Digby glanced ruefully at the other window.The
- 53 He stole back to the child, who was still kneeling, took her in his arms and kissed her. "Tamn it," said he, angrily, and putting her down, "go to bed now,--you are not wanted any more.""Please, sir," said Helen, "I cannot leave him so. If he wakes
- 54 DR. DOSEWELL (provoked to the utmost).--"Humbug!"DR. MORGAN.--"Humbug! Cott in heaven! You old--"DR. DOSEWELL.--"Old what, sir?"DR. MORGAN (at home in a series of alliteral vowels, which none but a Cymbrian could have uttered without gasping).--"Ol
- 55 "Well, Leonard," said he, after a pause, "it is time that I should give you some idea of my plans with regard to you. You have seen my manner of living--some difference from what you ever saw before, I calculate! Now I have given you, what no one gave
- 56 There is a vast deal of character in the way that a man performs that operation of shaving! You should have seen Richard Avenel shave! You could have judged at once how he would shave his neighbours, when you saw the celerity, the completeness with which
- 57 The uncle's arm mechanically fell to his side. "You cannot strike me, Mr. Avenel," said Leonard, "for you are aware that I could not strike again my mother's brother. As her son, I once more say to you,--ask her pardon.""Ten thousand devils! Are yo
- 58 And she burst into tears.The guests were gone; and Richard had now leisure to consider what course to pursue with regard to his sister and her son.His victory over his guests had in much softened his heart towards his relations; but he still felt bitterly
- 59 The boy threw back his head proudly; there was something sublime in his young trust in the future."Well. But you will write to Mr. Dale or to me? I will get Mr. Dale or the good mounseer (now I know they were not agin me) to read your letters.""I will,
- 60 "Poor man," said Leonard, wiping his eyes. "But his little girl surely remembers the name that he did not finish?""No. She says he must have meant a gentleman whom they had met in the Park not long ago, who was very kind to her father, and was Lord s
- 61 "Very ugly indeed," said Helen, with some fervour; "at least all I have seen of it.""But there must be parts that are prettier than others? You say there are parks: why should not we lodge near them and look upon the green trees?""That would be nic
- 62 "Perhaps so--if I work for it. Knowledge is power." Leonard started."And you!" resumed Randal, looking with some curious attention at his old schoolfellow. "You never came to Oxford. I did hear you were going into the army.""I am in the Guards," s
- 63 He did not continue, but said with a soft voice, "Do you think, Lord L'Estrange, that the contemplation of the mode of life pursued by others can reconcile a man to his own, if he had before thought it needed a reconciler?" Harley looked pleased, for t
- 64 "I shall introduce you to the princ.i.p.al leaders of society; know them and study them: I do not advise you to attempt to do more,--that is, to attempt to become the fas.h.i.+on. It is a very expensive ambition: some men it helps, most men it ruins. On
- 65 "Intrigue! I think you wrong Lord L'Estrange; he but represented what he believed to be the truth, in defence of a ruined exile.""And you will not tell me where that exile is, or if his daughter still lives?""My dear marchesa, I have called you frie
- 66 CHAPTER XIV.Leonard went out the next day with his precious ma.n.u.scripts. He had read sufficient of modern literature to know the names of the princ.i.p.al London publishers; and to these he took his way with a bold step, though a beating heart.That day
- 67 Leonard listened and made no opposition,--now that his day-dream was dispelled, he had no right to pretend to be Helen's protector. He could have prayed her to share his wealth and his fame; his penury and his drudgery--no.It was a very sorrowful evening
- 68 A name! Was this but an idle boast, or was it one of those flashes of conviction which are never belied, lighting up our future for one lurid instant, and then fading into darkness?"I do not doubt it, my prave poy," said Dr. Morgan, growing exceedingly
- 69 At first Leonard had always returned home through the crowded thoroughfares,--the contact of numbers had animated his spirits. But the last two days, since the discovery of his birth, he had taken his way down the comparatively unpeopled path of the New R
- 70 Leonard's brow softened, he looked again like his former self. Up from the dark sea at his heart smiled the meek face of a child, and the waves lay still as at the charm of a spirit.CHAPTER XXIII."And what is Mr. Burley, and what has he written?" asked
- 71 "Write to me, brother,--write to me; and do not, do not be friends with this man, who took you to that wicked, wicked place.""Oh, Helen, I go from you strong enough to brave worse dangers than that," said Leonard, almost gayly.They kissed each other a
- 72 "Your late uncle! Heavens, sir, do I understand aright, can Mr. p.r.i.c.kett be dead since I left London?""Died, sir, suddenly, last night. It was an affection of the heart. The doctor thinks the rheumatism attacked that organ. He had small time to pro
- 73 Mr. Burley disappeared within a dingy office near Fleet Street, on which was inscribed, "Office of the 'Beehive,'" and soon came forth with a golden sovereign in his hand, Leonard's first-fruits. Leonard thought Peru lay before him. He accompanied Mr
- 74 Leonard at first did look cheerful, and even happy; but then he thought of Burley, and then of his own means of supporting Helen, and was embarra.s.sed, and began questioning her as to the possibility of reconciliation with Miss Starke. And Helen said gra
- 75 "Ah, now you may stay, sir; I don't fear you any more.""No, no; you would fear me again ere night-time, and I might not be always in the right mood to listen to a voice like yours, child. Your Leonard has a n.o.ble heart and rare gifts. He should rise
- 76 Helen in vain and with tears entreated her to take no step in reply to the advertis.e.m.e.nt. Mrs. Smedley felt that it was an affair of duty, and was obdurate, and shortly afterwards put on her bonnet and left the house. Helen conjectured that she was on
- 77 Suddenly his attention was diverted to those around by the sound of a name, displeasingly known to him. "How are you, Randal Leslie? coming to hear the debate?" said a member, who was pa.s.sing through the street."Yes; Mr. Egerton promised to get me un
- 78 P. S.--For Heaven's sake, caution and recaution your friend the minister not to drop a word to this woman that may betray my hiding-place."Is he really happy?" murmured Harley, as he closed the letter; and he sank for a few moments into a revery."This
- 79 Harley slightly shrugged his shoulders, kissed his mother's hand; whistled to Nero, who started up from a doze by the window, and went his way."Does he really go abroad next week?" said the earl. "So he says.""I am afraid there is no chance for Lady
- 80 A very few moments and a very few words sufficed to explain to Harley the state of his old fellow-soldier's orphan. And Harley himself soon stood in the young sufferer's room, supporting her burning temples on his breast, and whispering into ears that h
- 81 "Pooh! I have none,--I have only a heart and a fancy. Listen. You remember the boy we saw reading at the book stall. I have caught him for you, and you shall train him into a man. I have the warmest interest in his future, for I know some of his fami
- 82 "No, she is of gentle blood,--a soldier's daughter; the daughter of that Captain Digby on whose behalf I was a pet.i.tioner to your patronage. He is dead, and in dying, my name was on his lips. He meant me, doubtless, to be the guardian to his o
- 83 "If you threaten, for instance, to take him out of the army, and settle him in the country, it would have a very good effect.""What! would he think it so great a punishment to come home and live with his parents?""I don't say
- 84 "Calculate!" cried Frank. "Oh, sir, can you think it?""I am so delighted that I had some slight hand in your complete reconciliation with Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, as the young men walked from the hotel. "I saw that y
- 85 THE ABUSE OF INTELLECT.There is at present so vehement a flourish of trumpets, and so prodigious a roll of the drum, whenever we are called upon to throw up our hats, and cry "Huzza" to the "March of Enlightenment," that, out of that v
- 86 "Now you upbraid me," said the count, unruffled by her sudden pa.s.sion, "because I gave you in marriage to a man young and n.o.ble?""Old in vices, and mean of soul! The marriage I forgave you. You had the right, according to the
- 87 The advocate saw that he had made an impression, and with the marvellous skill which his knowledge of those natures that engaged his study bestowed on his intelligence, he continued to improve his cause by such representations as were likely to be most ef
- 88 "Oh, no quarrel. I forgot Mr. Dale; I saw him pretty often. He admires and praises you very much, sir.""Me--and why? What did he say of me?""That your heart was as sound as your head; that he had once seen you about some old paris
- 89 "I love her the more," said young Hazeldean, raising his front with a n.o.ble pride, that seemed to speak of his descent from a race of cavaliers and gentlemen,--"I love her the more because the world has slandered her name,--because I beli
- 90 "I did not expect you, dear Randal; you always come so suddenly, and catch us en dish-a-bill.""Dish-a-bill!" echoed Randal, with a groan. "Dishabille! you ought never to be so caught!""No one else does so catch us,--n.o.
- 91 "Dr. Riccabocca--nothing. But--" here Randal put his lip close to the Italian's ear, and whispered a brief sentence. Then retreating a step, but laying his hand on the exile's shoulder, he added, "Need I say that your secret is sa
- 92 "Nay, I don't know that he means to marry at all; I am only surmising; but if he did fall in love with a foreigner--""A foreigner! Ah, then Harry was--" The squire stopped short."Who might, perhaps," observed Randal--not
- 93 "I have heard that he is still very handsome." Jackeymo groaned.Randal resumed, "Enough; persuade the padrone to come to town.""But if the count is in town?""That makes no difference; the safest place is always the large
- 94 PARSON (overjoyed).--"Power!--the vulgarest application of it, or the loftiest? But you mean the loftiest?"RANDAL (in his turn interested and interrogative).--"What do you call the loftiest, and what the vulgarest?"PARSON.--"The v
- 95 "A sort of power, certainly, sir," said Randal, candidly; and that night, when Randal retired to his own room, he suspended his schemes and projects, and read, as he rarely did, without an object to gain by the reading.The work surprised him by
- 96 "Ah, dear father, that, then, was your thought? But what can be your reason? Do not turn away; you know how care fully I have obeyed your command and kept your secret. Ah, you will confide in me.""I do, indeed," returned Riccabocca, wi
- 97 Vulgar some might call Mr. Levy from his a.s.surance, but it was not the vulgarity of a man accustomed to low and coa.r.s.e society,--rather the mauvais ton of a person not sure of his own position, but who has resolved to swagger into the best one he can
- 98 Repeating those words, he mechanically locked up his papers, and pressed his hand to his heart for an instant, as if a spasm had shot through it."So--I must shun all emotion!" said he, shaking his head gently.In five minutes more Audley Egerton
- 99 RICCABOCCA could not confine himself to the precincts within the walls to which he condemned Violante. Resuming his spectacles, and wrapped in his cloak, he occasionally sallied forth upon a kind of out.w.a.tch or reconnoitring expedition,--restricting hi
- 100 "Ah, that would indeed be, next to my own marriage with her, the most fortunate thing that could happen to myself.""How? I don't understand!""Why, if my cousin has so abjured his birthright, and forsworn his rank; if this her