Explore "Ernest Maltravers Book I" by Edward Bulwer-lytton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Thought would destroy their Paradise. " -- GRAY.
MALTRAVERS found Alice as docile a pupil as any reasonable preceptor might have desired. But still, reading and writing -- they are very uninteresting elements! Had the groundwork been laid, it might have been delightful to raise the fairy palace of knowledge; but the digging the foundations and the constructing the cellars is weary labour. Perhaps he felt it so; for in a few days Alice was handed over to the very oldest and ugliest writing-master that the neighbouring town could afford. The poor girl at first wept much at the exchange; but the grave remonstrances and solemn exhortations of Maltravers reconciled her at last, and she promised to work hard and pay every attention to her lessons. I am not sure, however, that it was the tedium of the work that deterred the idealist -- perhaps he felt its danger -- and at the bottom of his sparkling dreams and brilliant follies lay a sound, generous, and noble heart.