August 1826, in spite of the violent opposition of his mother, he and
Rosina were betrothed. By October Mrs. Bulwer had so far prevailed that
the engagement was broken off, and Edward tossed in a whirlpool of
anger, love, and despair. It took the form of such an attack of
"fluency" as was never seen before or after. Up to that time he had been
an elegant although feverish idler. Now he plunged into a strenuous life
of public and private engagements. He prepared to enter the House of
Commons; he finished _Falkland_, his first novel; he started the
composition of _Pelham_ and of another "light prose work," which may
have disappeared; he achieved a long narrative in verse, _O'Neill, or
the Rebel_; and he involved himself in literary projects without bound
and without end. The aim of all this energy was money. It is true that
he had broken off his betrothal; but it was at first only a pretence at
estrangement, to hoodwink his mother. He was convinced that he could not
live without possessing Rosina, and as his mother held the strings of
the common purse, he would earn his own income and support a wife.

Mrs. Bulwer-Lytton, who had a Roman firmness, was absolutely determined
that her son should not marry "a penniless girl whose education had been
so flagrantly neglected, who was vain and flighty, with a mocking humour
and a conspicuous lack of principle." At this point the story becomes
exceedingly interesting. A Balzac would strip it of its romantic
trappings, and would penetrate into its physiology. Out of Rosina's
sight, and diverted by the excess of his literary labours, Edward's
infatuation began to decline. His mother, whose power of character would
have been really formidable if it had been enforced by sympathy or even
by tact, relaxed her opposition; and instantly her son, himself, no
longer attacked, became calmer and more clear-sighted. Rosina's faults
were patent to his memory; the magic of her beauty less invincible.
Within a month all was changed again. Rosina fretted herself into what