My Recollections of Lord Byron
calls the worship rendered to pride by a feelingless soul;--because she
could not understand the possibility of tastes and habits different to
those of ordinary routine, or of her own starched life! Not to be hungry
when she was--not to sleep at night, but to write while she was
sleeping, and to sleep when she was up--in short, to gratify the
requirements of material and intellectual life at hours different to
hers:--all that was not merely annoying for her, but it must be
_madness!_ or if not, it betokened depravity that she could neither
submit to nor tolerate without perilling her own morality!
Such was the grand secret of the cruel silence which exposed Lord Byron
to the most malignant interpretations--to all the calumny and revenge of
his enemies.
She was perhaps the only woman in the world so strangely organized--the
only one, perhaps, capable of not feeling happy and proud at belonging
to a man superior to the rest of humanity! and fatally was it decreed
that this woman _alone_ of her species should be Lord Byron's wife!
Before closing this chapter it remains for us to examine if it be true,
as several of his biographers have pretended, that he wished to be
reunited to his wife. We must here declare that Lord Byron's intention,
in the last years of his life, was, on the contrary, not to see Lady
Byron again. This is what he wrote from Ravenna, to Moore, in June,
1820:--
"I have received a Parisian letter from W. W----, which I prefer
answering through you, as that worthy says he is an occasional visitor
of yours. In November last he wrote to me a well-meaning letter, stating
for some reasons of his own, his belief that a _reunion_ might be
effected between Lady Byron and myself.
"To this I answered as usual; and he sent me a second letter, repeating
his notions, which letter I have never answered, having had a thousand
other things to think of. He now writes as if he believed that he had
offended me by touching on the topic; and I wish you to assure him that
I am not at all so, but on the contrary, obliged by his good-nature. At
the same time _acquaint him the thing is impossible. You know this as
well as I, and there let it end._"
A year later, at Pisa, he again said to M----"_that he never would have
been reunited_ to Lady Byron; that the time for such a possibility was
passed, and he had made _quite sufficient advances_."
Let us add likewise that during the last period of his stay at Genoa, a
person whose acquaintance he had just made, thought fitting, for several
reasons and even by way of winning golden opinions among a certain set
in England, to insist on this matter with Lord Byron.
In order to succeed, this person represented Lady Byron as a victim,
telling him she was very ill physically and morally, and declaring the
secret cause to be, no doubt, grief at her separation from him and dread
of his asserting his rights over Ada.
Lord Byron, kind and impressionable as he was, may have been moved at
this; but assuredly his resolution of not being reunited to Lady Byron
was not shaken. His only reply was to show me a letter he had written
some little time before:--
"The letter I inclose," said he, "may help to explain my sentiments....
I was perfectly sincere when I wrote it, and am so still. But it is
difficult for me to withstand the thousand provocations on that subject,
which both friends and foes have for seven years been throwing in the
way of a man whose feelings were once quick, and whose temper was never
patient. But 'returning were as tedious as go o'er.' I feel this as much
as ever Macbeth did; and it is a dreary sensation, which at least
avenges the real or imaginary wrongs of one of the two unfortunate
persons whom it concerns."
Here is the letter he wrote from Pisa to Lady Byron:--
"I have to acknowledge the receipt of Ada's hair, which is very soft and
pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was at twelve years old, if I
may judge from what I recollect of some in Augusta's possession, taken
at that age. But it don't curl, perhaps from its being let grow.
"I also thank you for the inscription of the date and name, and I will
tell you why: I believe that they are the only two or three words of
your handwriting in my possession. For your letters I returned, and
except the two words, or rather the one word, 'household,' written twice
in an old account-book, I have no other. I burnt your last note for two
reasons:--firstly, it was written in a style not very agreeable; and,
secondly, I wished to take your word without documents, which are the
worldly resources of suspicious people.
"I suppose that this note will reach you somewhere about Ada's
birthday--the 10th of December, I believe. She will then be six, so that
in about twelve more I shall have some chance of meeting her; perhaps
sooner, if I am obliged to go to England by business or otherwise.
Recollect, however, one thing, either in distance or nearness: every day
which keeps us asunder should, after so long a period, rather soften our
mutual feelings, which must always have one rallying-point as long as
our child exists, which I presume we both hope will be long after either
of her parents.
"The time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably
more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer
one of our prior acquaintance. We both made a bitter mistake; but now it
is over, and irrevocably so. For at thirty-three on my part, and a few
years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life, still
it is one when the habits and thoughts are generally so formed as to
admit of no modification; and as we could not agree when younger, we
should with difficulty do so now.
"I say all this, because I own to you that, notwithstanding every thing,
I considered our reunion as not impossible for more than a year after
the separation; but then I gave up the hope entirely and forever. But
this very impossibility of reunion seems to me, at least, a reason why,
on all the few points of discussion which can arise between us, we
should preserve the courtesies of life, and as much of its kindness as
people who are never to meet may preserve, perhaps more easily than
nearer connections. For my own part, I am violent, but not malignant;
for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentment. To you, who are
colder and more concentrated, I would just hint that you may sometimes
mistake the depth of a cold anger for dignity, and a worse feeling for
duty. I assure you that I bear you now (whatever I may have done) no
resentment whatever. Remember that if you have injured me in aught, this
forgiveness is something; and that if I have injured you, it is
something more still, if it be true, as moralists say, that the most
offending are the least forgiving.
"Whether the offense has been solely on my side or reciprocal, or on
yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any but two things, viz.,
that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again.
I think if you also consider the two corresponding points with reference
to myself, it will be better for all three. Yours ever,
"NOEL BYRON."
This letter, though never sent, requires no further proofs. It can now
be understood, although the contrary has been said, that Lord Byron's
resolution never again to unite with Lady Byron was irrevocable; but
that, however, a reconciliation would have pleased him, on account of
his daughter, and because no feeling of hatred could find room in his
great _soul_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 138: "In none of the persons he admired," says Moore, "did I
meet with a union of qualities so well fitted to succeed in the
difficult task of winning him into fidelity and happiness as in the lady
in question. Combining beauty of the highest order with a mind
intelligent and ingenuous, having just learning enough to give
refinement to her taste, and far too much taste to make pretensions to
learning; with a patrician spirit proud as Lord Byron's, but showing it
only in a delicate generosity of spirit, a feminine high-mindedness,
which would have led her to tolerate the defects of her husband in
consideration of his noble qualities and his glory, and even to
sacrifice silently her own happiness rather than violate the
responsibility in which she stood pledged to the world for his."]
[Footnote 139: This circumstance was his proposal for Miss Milbank; we
shall see presently how it had taken place.]
[Footnote 140: "Lady Byron," said Lord Byron at Pisa, "and Mr. Medwin
were continually making portraits of me; each one more unlike than the
other."]
[Footnote 141: Moore, Letter 233.]
[Footnote 142: At this time of embarrassment he borrowed a large sum to
give to Coleridge.]
[Footnote 143: Moore, p. 389.]
[Footnote 144: Moore's Life, vol. iii. p. 209.]
[Footnote 145: It is true that once Lord Byron discharged a pistol, by
accident, in Lady Byron's room, when she was _enciente_. This action,
coupled with the preoccupations and sadness overwhelming Lord Byron's
mind at this time, and further aided by the insinuation of Mrs.
Claremont, made Lady Byron begin and continue to suspect that he was
mad, and so fully did she believe it, that from that hour, she could
never see him come near her without trembling. It was under the
influence of this absurd idea that she left him. Lady Byron was not
guilty of the reports then current against him. They were spread abroad
by her parents: she, on the contrary, as long as she thought him mad,
felt great sorrow at it. It was only when she had to persuade herself
that he was not mad, that she vowed hatred against him, convinced as she
was that he had only married her out of revenge, and not from love. But
if an imaginary fear, and even an unreasonable jealousy may be her
excuse (just as one excuses a monomania), can one equally forgive her
silence? Such a silence is morally what are physically the poisons which
kill at once, and defy all remedies, thus insuring the culprit's safety.
This silence it is which will ever be her crime, for by it she poisoned
the life of her husband.]
[Footnote 146: All this is either _false_ or _exaggerated_. Religious
criticisms were not so mild, though he had not in any way _attacked
religion_, and the Tories _never forgave_ his attack on the prince
regent, which they made a great noise about.]
[Footnote 147: See the description of her life made by him to Medwin
during his stay at Pisa.]
[Footnote 148: Lord Byron, in lines wrung from him by anguish and anger,
says _the moral Clytemnestra of thy lord_.]
CHAPTER XXIII.
LORD BYRON'S GAYETY AND MELANCHOLY.
HIS GAYETY.
A great deal has been said about Byron's melancholy. His gayety has also
been spoken of. As usual, all the judgments pronounced have been more or
less false. His temperament is just as little known as his disposition,
when people affect to judge him in an exclusive way.
Let me, then, be permitted in this instance also to re-establish truth
on its only sure basis, namely, facts.
Lord Byron was so often gay that several of his biographers had thought
themselves justified in asserting that _gayety_ and not _melancholy_
predominated in his nature. Even Mr. Galt, who only knew him at that
period of his life when melancholy certainly predominated, nevertheless
uses these expressions:--"Singular as it may seem, the poem itself
('Beppo,' his first essay of facetious poetry) has a stronger tone of
gayety than his graver works have of melancholy, commonly believed to
have been (I think unjustly) the predominant trait in his
character."[149]
Many others have said the same thing. The truth is, that if by giving
way to reflection--which was a necessity of his genius--and through