In short, yet almost a boy (for, in years at least, I was little more,
when "Pelham" and "The Disowned" were conceived and composed), and full
of the sanguine arrogance of hope, I pictured to myself far greater
triumphs than it will ever be mine to achieve: and never did architect
of dreams build his pyramid upon (alas!) a narrower base, or a more
crumbling soil! . . . Time cures us effectually of these self-conceits,
and brings us, somewhat harshly, from the gay extravagance of
confounding the much that we design with the little that we can
accomplish.

"The Disowned" and "Devereux" were both completed in retirement, and in
the midst of metaphysical studies and investigations, varied and
miscellaneous enough, if not very deeply conned. At that time I was
indeed engaged in preparing for the press a Philosophical Work which I
had afterwards the good sense to postpone to a riper age and a more
sobered mind. But the effect of these studies is somewhat prejudicially
visible in both the romances I have referred to; and the external and
dramatic colourings which belong to fiction are too often forsaken for
the inward and subtile analysis of motives, characters, and actions.
The workman was not sufficiently master of his art to forbear the vanity
of parading the wheels of the mechanism, and was too fond of calling
attention to the minute and tedious operations by which the movements
were to be performed and the result obtained. I believe that an author
is generally pleased with his work less in proportion as it is good,
than in proportion as it fulfils the idea with which he commenced it.
He is rarely perhaps an accurate judge how far the execution is in
itself faulty or meritorious; but he judges with tolerable success how
far it accomplishes the end and objects of the conception. He is
pleased with his work, in short, according as he can say, "This has
expressed what I meant it to convey." But the reader, who is not in the