BOOKS & AUTHORS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2265, 26 September 1914, Page 5

BOOKS & AUTHORS.

[By Liber.]

books of the day. "AN EPICURE IN. MISERY"—AND SPITE." Few people, I am afraid, read Bulwer Lyttou nowadays, although oertafti of l)is stories, notably "Tho Caxtons" and "Night and Morning," are'worth a good bushel of some of our latter-day novels. In his. .own day, however, Biilwer'Lytton ivas : a novelist • whose popularity at one time bade fair to challenge that of Thackeray and Dickens. A popular author, a Cabinet Minister, a reooguis-, ed leader in the fashionable world, Xytton's life ought to have been fairly happy. _.The fly in his ointment was his domestic urihappiness. Cqiuftaing this much has already l)oon pubS-Vad, somuch, indeed, that interest in this somewhat sordid subject might well have beon considered exhausted. This, however, is not tho opinion of Mr. Ellis, the editor of "The Unpublished Letters of Lady Bulwor Lyttou to A. B. Chalon, R.A." (London Eveleigh Nash). Chalon was a fashionable portrait painter, and was a life-long friend of tho unhappy lady, whoso" correspondence with him is now published. Bulwer Lytton, a younger eon, and dependent mainly upon his journalistic work and novel-writing, was married to Rosina Doyle Wheeler, a very beautiful Irish girl, in August, 1827. The husband was but twenty-two; his wife two years liis senior. For tho first few. yeara they were tolerably happy, but both were extravagant, and when Bulwer'e mother stopped his allowance, and the young couplo began to realise the impossibility of living at the rate of £3000 a year on a cash income of £500, they spon startod to quarrel. Tho husband needed quiet'and solitude for his in-cessant-imaginative work. His wife resented his preoccupation and absences. Irritability, on both sides, develo]>ed into an irreconcilable enmity. The .wifo accused her husband of shocking physical violence, aud a separation was agreed upon in April 1836. Henceforth, cays' the- editor of these letters, "it was implacable hatred and a combat a outrance, and both vied in abuse and persecution of each other." The wife soon, began a wandering life which lasted for some yearc* until she finally settled down at Taunton. She was undoubtedly as witty w she was pTetty.. and it is pitiable to read of a life or Buch promise being wrecked. By these letters to her friend, the portrait painter, it would almost 6eem that the lady became slightly- insane, on the subject of her husband's real or alleged cruelty and persecution. In one letter Lady Lytton avows herself "an epicure in misery," but after a perusal of this book one cannot help coming to tho conclusion that she far more truthfully merited being called "an epicure in spite." She was assuredly a past mistress of the art of "slangwhnnging," and r her morbid j dislike and distrust of anyone,, man or woman., who was a friend of her husband, became in time a positive monomania. In eome of the letters there is much witty and shrewd oriticism of English society, and the "lions" thereof, but the dominant tone is one of snitefulness. , .

"Our Selfish Littla Queen." ,_The fact that her husband was received at Court, 'despite all his wife's protests, seems to have been the first cause of the letter-writer's frequent abuse of Queen Victoria. In February, 1855, she writes: "To-day is the anniversary of our little selfish Queen's wedding. How I wish Prince Albert would'celebrate it by biting "her very untempting cheek till,tie blood stream-ed-'down'her (as that "ornament to' the English Cabinet, Sir Liar, usod to do mino), giving ' her, a vigorous kicking into the bargain'; .sending her children off to Germany or elsewhere away from her . . .' and, above all, stealing every penny of her money which eho so gloats upon; and fh'on, perhaps, she might have a little, human feeling for other women, which, now she has' not, as lately, for appearance sake, to her vicious hypocritical Court, she insisted upon the poor Duchess of Wellington continuing to livo with her disgusting brute of a legal tyrant." Elsewhere the amiable Rosina dubs the- 'Queen "Prince Albert's 'dumpy idiotic-looking frau,' " and says: "How disgusting are the daily puffs about tho Queen inspecting the poor wounded soldiers from-the , Crimea; but yon do not hear of her-saying one- kind word to them or of her giving them anything." The Gore House Circle, Lady Lytton ne\er tired of abusing the Goro House, circle, ' the D'Orsays and their literary and artistic friends. For Lady Blessington sho reserved her choicest Billingsgate. "Messalina Blcssington, sho cafls her, her chief crime apparently .being -that she was closely associated with Lytton's literary friends, "the chief or' the clique, Sir Liar, that. l>ruto John Forster, Fonblanque, Dickens, , etc." - Concerning poor Lady Blessington she tells a peculiarly spiteful story, far too scandalous in its details to sot down here. It is difficult to bslieve such a story is true of a lady who went to Court, and at whose house Thackeray, Dickens, Landsocr, Maclise, and so many other men of <kwent family ltfp, wore , frequent visitors. But once- a woman was scon with her husband that-was enough for Lady Lytton. The unhappy "L.E.L." (Letitia Landon) is villified in tho correspondence quite as badly as poor Lady Blessington and Mrs. S. C. Hall is called "That Prize Ox of Periodicals." . . ' ■

"Pecksniff" Hall. : It lias, long ago been' understood by Dickensians that Samuel Carter Hall, tho first editor of. "Ths Art Journal," was' the original of "Pecksniff," at least so far as his unctuous style of speech was concerned. Bnt the fact that Hall knew' Dickens, who was a staunch friend of Bulwcr's, was qnite enough to secure* his condemnation by Lndy Lyfton. "That, noodle, H-all,"_she calls him, and adds, on ono occasion: "Tliat man Hall, wore he not so disgusting nn CBCTOc (swindler), would be too ridiculous." At the time I knew them,. Mrs.Pecksniff ("Maria, my love!") used to produce a hook and a baby every nine months,' both of which wore invariably buried the following week—the former'in oblivion, the latter in a parden that Pecksniff then possessed fill«l with'littlo homeopathic tombstones." It is in accordance with Lady Lyttnn's fixed idea that she lived only to villify her .husband mid her husband's friends that she should tell her correspondent to "remember that whatever I writn to yon or to anybody else about that Infernal Oliane ami its Triton of the HnmbuOT, Sir Liar, is not nrivate and confidential, bnt public amhcliffusive." The last two adjectives are, I may add, underlined.

An Election Episode and Its sequel. In 1858..-Bnlwcr Lytton was appointed Colonial Secretary hi Lord Derby's Admin istrntion. and hnd, consequently, to sock re-election .it Hertford. Here was nn opportunity which the redoubtable ttosina could not allow to pass unused. She at once made up her mind to publicly denounce "Sir Liar" and "Sir Coward" to the electors. She walked to the hustings, "putting the pontile aside with her fan," and saying, "My c;ood people, nuke w.ny for your member's wife." She addressed the crowd, abusing her husband, and the Press drew a lurid picture of her husband's misdemeanours, , real or imaginary,. " n 'd made special (illusion to her wretched financial situation. According to her own account "Thp Coward" "boltod from thn town and loft them all in the lurch."

Perhaps, ■under all the circumstances it was the wisest thing ho could do. The sequel to this extraordinary affair was Bulwor Lytton's foolish, attempt to havo his wifo placed in a lunatic asylum. Sho was indeed, for a few days, an inmate of a "private establishment for the- mentally deficient at Brentford," but public opinion, backed up by the Press, the very Press the- lady was always so fond of abusing, soon effected a. release, and she left with her son for France. Unhappily the same "incompatibility of temper" that cursed husband and wife seems soon to havo sundered mother and son, for whatever the cause Mr. Lytton suddenly left his mother at Luclion and returned to Lonr don. The pair never mot again, although the mother lived for twenty-four ■solitary years longer. The last years of the miserable women's life wero passed in sordid conflicts on financial matters. She passed away in March, 1882, having survived her famous husband by nine years. A -:ording to tlie editor of these letters "she 1 was the victim of malign circumstances, her nature was warped by afflictions, and she never had a fair chance of happiness." To some extent this may bo true, but to me it is impossible to read the letters and come to any other conclusion than that there was a oertain kink, of oantankerousness in Lady Lytton'e (nature, and that the husband was juat as much to be pitied as to be blamed. The book, which is well printed and handsomely produced, contains several interesting portraits of Victorian celebrities mentioned in the text. (Price, 12s. 6d.) A COOD CARDENING BOOK. A new book which should make successful appeal to New Zealand amatour gardeners is "Spadecraft and How to be a Gardener,". by Harry A. Day, F.R.H.S. (Methuen and Co.). The author's object has been to portray the practical powers of the to make his book a truo gardener's guide, to go to_ the root' of matters, to point out mistakes and their remedies, to elucidate in general the "whys" and "wherefores" of our gardens, and the heautifill and interesting inhabitants thereof. Every possible phase of gardening, ,manuring, seed growing, potting, flower cultivation, the rockery, the-cultivation of vegetables, etc., receives attention. Although intended for Old Country gardeners, the advice given, due allowance being made, be done quite easily, for differences in climate and other conditions, 6hould be found of almost equal value by garden lovers in the England of the Pacific. The book is not a ; reprint, but is dated this year, arid is astonishingly cheap at its New Zealand price of "nfteenpence.