Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Of late years it has been common enough for authors to comment on the political and social tendencies of their own day by drawing fancy pictures of the state of the world many generations hence, when these tendencies have been worked out to their full development.

From Lord Lytton's Coming Race, published in 1871, down to mr bellamy's looking backward and mr wells's when the sleeper wakes at least a dozen books have been written on these lines but till last year i was not aware how far back the catena of this prophetical literature could be followed working through the wrecks of an eighteenth-century library in the old-world town of burford i came upon the reign of george the sixth a little book of one hundred ninety two pages issued anonymously as long ago as seventeen sixty three as it deals with the years nineteen hundred to nineteen twenty five there seems to be a special appropriateness in republishing it just as the period of which it treats is coming upon us the reader will i think allow that the interest of its contents is sufficient to justify its reissue for his benefit there is a good deal of amusement as well of instruction to be got from studying this forecast of the history of our own time, drawn four generations ago by an acute political thinker of the early years of George III.

Like all books of its kind, the reign of George VI has two sides.

The author was not merely exercising the faculty of prophecy according to his lights, but was intending to influence the men of his own day by pointing out, in the actions of his puppets, George VI, the dukes of bedford and suffolk and the rest what ought to be done and what avoided in the year of grace seventeen sixty three in domestic politics he was a tory his nightmare was the perpetuation of that battle of the kites and crows the objectless strife of the whig factions which had endured for the last two generations his panacea was the more active interference of the king with his ministers and the recent doings of george the third had much encouraged him like the monarch whom he would fain advise he must have been reading bolingbroke's patriot king and dreaming of the realization of its ideals unfortunately the young sovereign from whom he hopes so much is not the farmer george of reality but a sort of more amiable frederick the great a heaven-sent general who is also an enthusiastic patron of arts and letters did our author we wonder survive to learn the modesty of king george's military aspirations or to hear of his interesting literary criticism as to Shakespeare's works being sad stuff, only one must not say so.

It can thus be guessed that Haskins was in love, genuinely in love, and for the first time in his life.

As Bulwer-Lytton says, "There are many counterfeits, but only one Eros." This was Haskins' experience.

He had loved in an earthly way many times in his life and several times had mistaken the false for the true.

A fastidious mind had saved him from the commercial passion of the ordinary man, and he had usually approached women in the belief that they were goddesses.

He, um, went through some, some ritual.

Something, something happened, but he found himself at a very young age, um, as a disciple of, of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who for those who have listened to my, uh, Tesla class series, they would be, they would've been introduced to, uh, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton as the father of the Rosicrucian revival of the 19th century, a leading Satanist, and this guy became his, uh, adept, his, uh, his hierophant.

[lip smacks] And so he was intro- in- initiated into that society, uh, in 1861.

He worked as a surgeon in Giuseppe Garibaldi's army, uh, for, in Italy for two years.

Um, and this was part of a, a ritual murder.

Robert Dawson wrote of his experiences saying that, "My interest in the effects of mind upon matter once more awoke, and my physiological studies and researches were accompanied by psychological experiments.

I read Bulwer-Lytton's Zanoni at this time with great zest, and longed excessively to know its author, little dreaming that I should one day be the pupil of the great magest Bulwer-Lytton, the one man in modern times for whom all systems of ancient and modern magic and ma- magism and magic, white or black, held no secrets." And there's a, uh, picture featuring the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's cross, uh, symbol under the, the, a more recent production of Zanoni.

Um, this inspired-- This was on the manda- mandatory reading list of Madame Blavatsky's Esoteric Section.

But, Brithy, do not you forget He's not at all an ass.

because the books that he doth buy that on his shelf do stand hold not one page his eagle eye hath not completely scanned and while this man's orthopy may not be what it should he knows what books contain and he can quote em pretty good End of poem This recording is in the public domain i feel that i am quite as smart as edward bulwer leighton bart i'm also every bit as bright as walter scott the scottish knight and in my own peculiar way i'm just as good as thackeray but woe is me that it should be they got here years ahead of me and all the tales i would unfold By them already have been told.

A pleasing thought by John Kendrick Banks Read for LibriVox.org by B. L. Newman

they speak most truly who do say we have no writing folk to-day like those whose names in days gone by upon the scroll of fame stood high and when i think of smollett's tales of waspish pope's ill-natured rails of fielding dull of stern too free of swift's uncurbed indecency of dr johnson's bludgeon wit i must confess i'm glad of it End of poem.