The Project Gutenberg EBook of Zanoni, by Edward Bulwer Lytton

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Title: Zanoni

Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton

Release Date: February 18, 2006 [EBook #2664]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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ZANONI

BY

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON

(PLATE: "Thou art good and fair," said Viola. Drawn by P. Kauffmann,
etched by Deblois.)

DEDICATORY EPISTLE First prefixed to the Edition of 1845

TO

JOHN GIBSON, R.A., SCULPTOR.

In looking round the wide and luminous circle of our great living
Englishmen, to select one to whom I might fitly dedicate this work,--one
who, in his life as in his genius, might illustrate the principle I have
sought to convey; elevated by the ideal which he exalts, and
serenely dwelling in a glorious existence with the images born of his
imagination,--in looking round for some such man, my thoughts rested
upon you. Afar from our turbulent cabals; from the ignoble jealousy and
the sordid strife which degrade and acerbate the ambition of Genius,--in
your Roman Home, you have lived amidst all that is loveliest and least
perishable in the past, and contributed with the noblest aims, and in
the purest spirit, to the mighty heirlooms of the future. Your youth has
been devoted to toil, that your manhood may be consecrated to fame: a
fame unsullied by one desire of gold. You have escaped the two worst
perils that beset the artist in our time and land,--the debasing
tendencies of commerce, and the angry rivalries of competition. You have
not wrought your marble for the market,--you have not been tempted, by
the praises which our vicious criticism has showered upon exaggeration
and distortion, to lower your taste to the level of the hour; you
have lived, and you have laboured, as if you had no rivals but in the
dead,--no purchasers, save in judges of what is best. In the divine
priesthood of the beautiful, you have sought only to increase her
worshippers and enrich her temples. The pupil of Canova, you have
inherited his excellences, while you have shunned his errors,--yours his
delicacy, not his affectation. Your he