Night and Morning | Page 3

which we live has since placed their prototype in
vigorous colours upon imperishable canvas.--[Need I say that I allude
to the Pecksniff of Mr. Dickens?]
There is yet another object with which I have identified my tale. I trust
that I am not insensible to such advantages as arise from the diffusion
of education really sound, and knowledge really available;--for these,
as the right of my countrymen, I have contended always. But of late
years there has been danger that what ought to be an important truth
may be perverted into a pestilent fallacy. Whether for rich or for poor,
disappointment must ever await the endeavour to give knowledge
without labour, and experience without trial. Cheap literature and
popular treatises do not in themselves suffice to fit the nerves of man
for the strife below, and lift his aspirations, in healthful confidence
above. He who seeks to divorce toil from knowledge deprives
knowledge of its most valuable property.--the strengthening of the
mind by exercise. We learn what really braces and elevates us only in

proportion to the effort it costs us. Nor is it in Books alone, nor in
Books chiefly, that we are made conscious of our strength as Men; Life
is the great Schoolmaster, Experience the mighty Volume. He who has
made one stern sacrifice of self has acquired more than he will ever
glean from the odds and ends of popular philosophy. And the man the
least scholastic may be more robust in the power that is knowledge, and
approach nearer to the Arch-Seraphim, than Bacon himself, if he cling
fast to two simple maxims--"Be honest in temptation, and in Adversity
believe in God." Such moral, attempted before in Eugene Aram, I have
enforced more directly here; and out of such convictions I have created
hero and heroine, placing them in their primitive and natural characters,
with aid more from life than books,-- from courage the one, from
affection the other--amidst the feeble Hermaphrodites of our sickly
civilisation;--examples of resolute Manhood and tender Womanhood.
The opinions I have here put forth are not in fashion at this day. But I
have never consulted the popular any more than the sectarian, Prejudice.
Alone and unaided I have hewn out my way, from first to last, by the
force of my own convictions. The corn springs up in the field centuries
after the first sower is forgotten. Works may perish with the workman;
but, if truthful, their results are in the works of others, imitating,
borrowing, enlarging, and improving, in the everlasting Cycle of
Industry and Thought.
Knebworth, 1845.

NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION, 1851.
I have nothing to add to the preceding pages, written six years ago, as
to the objects and aims of this work; except to say, and by no means as
a boast, that the work lays claims to one kind of interest which I
certainly never desired to effect for it--viz., in exemplifying the
glorious uncertainty of the Law. For, humbly aware of the blunders
which Novelists not belonging to the legal profession are apt to commit,
when they summon to the denouement of a plot the aid of a deity so
mysterious as Themis, I submitted to an eminent lawyer the whole case
of "Beaufort versus Beaufort," as it stands in this Novel. And the pages
which refer to that suit were not only written from the opinion annexed
to the brief I sent in, but submitted to the eye of my counsel, and
revised by his pen.--(N.B. He was feed.) Judge then my dismay when I

heard long afterwards that the late Mr. O'Connell disputed the
soundness of the law I had thus bought and paid for! "Who shall decide
when doctors disagree?" All I can say is, that I took the best opinion
that love or money could get me; and I should add, that my lawyer,
unawed by the alleged ipse dixit of the great Agitator (to be sure, he is
dead), still stoutly maintains his own views of the question.
[I have, however, thought it prudent so far to meet the objection
suggested by Mr. O'Connell, as to make a slight alteration in this
edition, which will probably prevent the objection, if correct, being of
any material practical effect on the disposition of that visionary El
Dorado--the Beaufort Property.]
Let me hope that the right heir will live long enough to come under the
Statute of Limitations. Possession is nine points of the law, and Time
may give the tenth.
Knebworth.

NIGHT AND MORNING.
BOOK I.
"Noch in meines Lebens Lenze War ich and ich wandert' aus, Und der
Jugend frohe Tanze Liess ich in des Vaters Haus."
SCHILLER, Der Pilgrim.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
"Now rests our vicar. They who knew him best, Proclaim his life to
have been entirely