"You are young: would you live on, you must live as the old" — Fourth steel engraving by F. O. Freeman and J. N. Hyde for Bulwer-Lytton's "A Strange Story" (Boston: Gardner A. Fuller)

"You are young: would you live on, you must live as the old."

steels by engraver F. O. Freeman based on the drawings of J. N. Hyde

1862

Steel engraving

10 cm by 8.4 cm (4 inches by 3 ¼ inches) vignetted, facing p. 341.

Bulwer-Lytton's A Strange Story

Boston: Gardner A. Fuller.

Scanned image and text by P. V. Allingham.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Using the magic wand, Allen bests Margrave in a fight

He submitted himself to Faber’s questioning with a quiet indifference, and evidently cared nothing for any opinion which the great physician might found on his replies.

When Faber had learned all he could, he said, with a grave smile: “I see that my advice will have little weight with you; such as it is, at least reflect on it. The conclusions to which your host arrived in his view of your case, and which he confided to me, are, in my humble judgment, correct. I have no doubt that the great organ of the heart is involved in the cause of your sufferings; but the heart is a noble and much-enduring organ. I have known men in whom it has been more severely and unequivocally affected with disease than it is in you, live on for many years, and ultimately die of some other disorder. But then life was held, as yours must be held, upon one condition, — repose. I enjoin you to abstain from all violent action, to shun all excitements that cause moral disturbance. You are young: would you live on, you must live as the old. More than this, — it is my duty to warn you that your tenure on earth is very precarious; you may attain to many years; you may be suddenly called hence tomorrow. The best mode to regard this uncertainty with the calm in which is your only chance of long life, is so to arrange all your worldly affairs, and so to discipline all your human anxieties, as to feel always prepared for the summons that may come without warning. For the rest, quit this climate as soon as you can, — it is the climate in which the blood courses too quickly for one who should shun all excitement. Seek the most equable atmosphere, choose the most tranquil pursuits; and Fenwick himself, in his magnificent pride of stature and strength, may be nearer the grave than you are.”

“Your opinion coincides with that I have just heard?” asked Margrave, turning to me.

“In much — yes.” [Chapter LXXV, pp. 340-341]

Commentary: Faber's advice — "quit this climate as soon as you can" and leave Australia

McLenan did not cover the fifty-fifth chapter in his serial program for Harper's Weekly — and, in fact, he deals with none of the chapters from LXX through LXXXIX, all set in the continent of Australia. This exotic setting is adventure-laden, and these nineteen chapters conclude with the restoration of Lilian's mental health and the termination of the long life of the souless, charismatic antagonist, Grayle-Margrave, after his elixir of life is destroyed by a cattle stampede.

Freeman includes in this scene two by-now familiar characters, the hedonistic Margrave (left) and his foil, the materialistic but altruistic Dr. Allen Fenwick, and introduces a fresh character, the physician Julius Faber, the voice of balanced reason and experience. What is disappointing abut this engraving is the artist's failure to select a scene for realisation that would include the Outback and distinctively Australian features such as vegetation and even specific settings such as Sydney harbour. We are, apparently, in the Spartan hut of Allen Fenwick, who has mentioned to Dr. Faber the case of the rapidly deteriorating Margrave: "a traveller in my hut smitten by a disease that seemed so grave that I would ask his opinion" (336). Freeman has indeed made Margrave look melancholy, but not particularly ill and certainly not "dying" and dreading death from heart failure. His fashionable Victorian clothing, like the suits of Fenwick and Faber, seems out-of-place in a mere hut in the Outback, suggested by the unadorned boards of the floor and the sawn logs of the wall. What does accord with the text is Margrave's "young wan face" (342), on which, however, there is not a trace of an ironic smile.

Bibliography

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G. D. A Strange Story. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly V, 10 August — 8 March 1862.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G. D. A Strange Story. Illustrated by F. O. Freeman and J. N. Hyde. Boston: Gardner A. Fuller, 1862.

Bulwer Lytton, Edward (Lord Lytton). A Strange Story. The Works of Edward Bulwer Lytton, Vol. VII. New York: P. F. Collier, n. d. Pp. 7-242.

Created 27 July 2026