Excerpt: "Ou peut-on etre mieux qu’au sein de sa famille?—French Song. [Where can one be better than in the bosom of one’s family?] I am an only child. My father was the younger son of one of our oldest earls; my mother the dowerless daughter of a Scotch peer. Mr. Pelham was a moderate whig, and gave sumptuous dinners; Lady Frances was a woman of taste, and particularly fond of diamonds and old china."
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, PC (25 May 1803 – 18 January 1873) was an English novelist, poet, playwright and politician. He served as a Whig MP from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative MP from 1851 to 1866. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies from June 1858 to June 1859, during which time he selected Richard Clement Moody to be the founder of British Columbia. Bulwer-Lytton's literary works were highly popular and his bestselling novels earned him a large fortune. He invented the phrases "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword", and "dweller on the threshold". (Excerpt from Wikipedia)