Project Gutenberg's The Pilgrims Of The Rhine, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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Title: The Pilgrims Of The Rhine

Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Release Date: March 17, 2009 [EBook #8206]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE ***

Produced by David Widger and Dagny

THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED THE IDEAL WORLD

By Edward Bulwer Lytton (Lord Lytton)

THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE

TO HENRY LYTTON BULWER.

ALLOW me, my dear Brother, to dedicate this Work to you. The greater
part of it (namely, the tales which vary and relieve the voyages of
Gertrude and Trevylyan) was written in the pleasant excursion we made
together some years ago. Among the associations--some sad and some
pleasing--connected with the general design, none are so agreeable to
me as those that remind me of the friendship subsisting between us, and
which, unlike that of near relations in general, has grown stronger
and more intimate as our footsteps have receded farther from the fields
where we played together in our childhood. I dedicate this Work to you
with the more pleasure, not only when I remember that it has always
been a favourite with yourself, but when I think that it is one of my
writings most liked in foreign countries; and I may possibly, therefore,
have found a record destined to endure the affectionate esteem which
this Dedication is intended to convey.

Yours, etc.

E. L. B. LONDON, April 23, 1840.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.

COULD I prescribe to the critic and to the public, I would wish that
this work might be tried by the rules rather of poetry than prose,
for according to those rules have been both its conception and its
execution; and I feel that something of sympathy with the author's
design is requisite to win indulgence for the superstitions he has
incorporated with his tale, for the floridity of his style, and the
redundance of his descriptions. Perhaps, indeed, it would be impossible,
in attempting to paint the scenery and embody some of the Legends of
the Rhine, not to give (it may be, too loosely) the reins to the
imagination