measure of every strong juvenile attachment: but it is rarely indeed so
copiously or so fatally true as it was in his case. His existence was
overwhelmed by this event; it was turned topsy-turvey, and it never
regained its equilibrium. In this adventure all was exaggerated; there
was excess of desire, excess of gratification, an intense weariness, a
consuming hatred.

On the first evening when the lovers met, in April 1826, an observer,
watching them as they talked, reflected that Bulwer's "bearing had that
aristocratic something bordering on _hauteur_" which reminded the
onlooker "of the passage, 'Stand back; I am holier than thou!'" The same
observer, dazzled, like the rest of the world, by the loveliness of Miss
Wheeler, judged that it would be best "to regard her as we do some
beautiful caged wild creature of the woods--at a safe and secure
distance." It would have preserved a chance of happiness for
Bulwer-Lytton to possess something of this stranger's clairvoyance. It
was not strange perhaps, but unfortunate, that he did not notice--or
rather that he was not repelled by, for he did notice--the absence of
moral delicacy in the beautiful creature, the radiant and seductive
Lamia, who responded so instantly to his emotion. He, the most
fastidious of men, was not offended by the vivacity of a young lady who
called attention to the vulgarity of her father's worsted stockings and
had none but words of abuse for her mother. These things, indeed,
disconcerted the young aristocrat, but he put them down to a lack of
training; he persuaded himself that these were superficial blemishes and
could be remedied; and he resigned his senses to the intoxication of
Rosina's beauty.

At first--and indeed to the last--she stimulated his energy and his
intellect. His love and his hatred alike spurred him to action. In