My Recollections of Lord Byron
lightened his spirits, and prevented him from dwelling on disagreeable
thoughts."
Perhaps this disposition of character was the result of his French
origin, for it is scarcely known or even appreciated in England.
"Yet," exclaims the greatest-minded woman of our day (Madame G. Sand),
"it is that disposition which forms the charm of every delicate
intimacy, and which often prevents our committing many follies and
stupidities.
"To look for the ridiculous side of things is to discover their
weakness. To laugh at the dangers in the midst of which we find
ourselves is to get accustomed to brave them; like the French, who go
into action with a laugh and a song. To quiz a friend is often to save
him from a weakness in which our pity might perhaps have allowed him to
linger. To laugh at one's self is to preserve one's self from the
effects of an exaggerated self-love. I have noticed that the people who
never joke are gifted with a childish and insupportable vanity."
Nevertheless, there are high and noble natures that never laugh, and are
incapable of understanding the pleasures of gayety. But minds like these
have some vacuum; they certainly lack what is called wit.
Lord Byron's gayety, full of dazzling wit and varied tints, like his
other faculties, never went beyond the limits befitting its exercise in
a beautiful soul. As much as the truly ridiculous, that which a great
writer has defined, "_the strength, small or great, of a free being, out
of proportion with its end_,"--as much, I say, as the truly ridiculous
attracted and amused him, just as much did grave, moral, and physical
disorders, produced by corruption of body or soul, sadden and repel his
nature, so full of harmony. He could never laugh at these latter. The
grave disorders of soul that exist in free beings, and that are
therefore voluntary, raised sadness, anger, or indignation in him,
according to the degree of vice or disorder. We need seek no other
origin for his bitterest satires in verse and prose. Great ugliness and
physical defects certainly inspired him with great disgust, consequent
upon his passion for the beautiful; but, at the same time, involuntary
misfortunes excited his liveliest compassion, often testified by the
most generous deeds.
We know, for instance, that Lord Byron had a defect in one of his feet,
but a defect so slight--although it has been greatly exaggerated--that
people have never been able to say in which of the two feet it did
exist. Nor did it in any way diminish the grace and activity all his
movements displayed. If its existence were painful for him, that must
have been because his sense of harmony looked upon this defect as
detrimental to the perfection of his physical beauty. But whatever may
have been the cause of this sensibility, it sufficed in any case to make
him feel a generous compassion for all those afflicted with any defect
analogous to his own. Lord Harrington, then Colonel Stanhope, says:--
"Contrary to what we observe in most people, Lord Byron, who was always
very sensitive to the sufferings of others, showed greatest sympathy for
those who had any imperfection akin to his own." At Ravenna, his
favorite beggar limped. And on him Lord Byron bestowed the privilege of
picking up all the largest coins struck down by his dexterous
pistol-shots in the forest of pines. We have said he never laughed at
any involuntary defect, not even at a person falling (as is so often the
case), for fear it might have been caused by bodily weakness, neither
did he ridicule any of the weaknesses or shortcomings of intelligence.
He did not laugh at a bad poet on account of his bad verses. When he was
at Pisa, an Irishman there was engaged in translating the "Divine
Comedy." The translation was very heavy and faulty; but the translator
was most enthusiastic about the great poet, and absolutely lived on the
hope of getting his work published. All the English at Pisa, including
the kind Shelley, were turning him into ridicule. Lord Byron alone would
not join in the laugh. T----'s sincerity won for him grace and
compassion. Indeed Lord Byron did still more; for he wrote and entreated
Murray to publish the work, so as to give the poor poet this
consolation. Not content with that step, he wrote to Moore to beg
Jeffrey not to criticise him, undertaking himself to ask Gifford the
same thing, through Murray. "Perhaps they might speak of the
commentaries without touching on the text," said he; and then he added
with his usual pleasantry, "However, we must not trust to it. _Those
dogs! the text is too tempting._"[152]
Nor did he laugh at exaggerated devotion, even if it were extravagant or
superstitious, provided he thought it sincere. Countess G----, paternal
aunt of Countess G----, the greatest beauty of Romagna in 1800, had
fallen into such extreme mystical devotion, through the brutal jealousy
of her husband, that she died in the odor of sanctity. This lady wrote
to her brother, Count G----, at Genoa, saying how happy she was, and
giving no end of praise to "the good Jesuit Fathers," and speaking of
her devotion to St. Teresa. Madame G----, having sent one of these
letters to Lord Byron, he answered: "I consider all that as _very
respectable_, and, moreover, _enviable_. The aunt is right; I wish I
could love the good fathers and St. Teresa. After all, what does this
devotee of St. Teresa, this friend of the good Jesuit Fathers, want?
Happiness; and she has found it! What else are we seeking for?"
We have already seen elsewhere[153] that Lord Byron never, at any period
of his life, laughed at religion or its _sincere_ votaries, whatever
might be their creed of belief. Provided their errors came from the
heart, they commanded his respect. Dallas himself, in reference to the
skeptical stanzas of his twenty-second year, can not help rendering him
justice.
"I have not noticed," says he, "a spirit of mockery in you; and you have
the little-known art of not wishing that others should be of your
opinion in matters of religious belief. I am less disinterested; I have
the greatest desire, nay, even a great hope, to see you some day believe
as I do." We have seen, also, what Kennedy said of him in Greece[154].
Dr. Millingen bears the same testimony:--
"During the whole of the time that I visited him, I never heard him
utter a single word of contempt for the Christian religion. On the
contrary, he used often to say, that nothing could be more reprehensible
than to turn into ridicule those who believed in it, since in this
strange world it is equally difficult to arrive at knowing what one is
or is not to believe; and since many freethinkers teach doctrines which
are as much beyond the reach of human comprehension as the mysteries of
the revelation itself."
When, by habit of looking at serious things from their absurd and
ridiculous side, he feared he had done the same with regard to some
religious ceremony, he at once hastened to explain himself. Thus he
writes to Moore from Pisa:--
"I am afraid that this sounds flippant, but I don't mean it to be so;
only my turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of
view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then. Still, I do
assure you that I am a very good Christian. Whether you believe me in
this, I do not know."
But much as he respected sincere religious feelings, equally did he
detest that hypocrisy which despises in secret the idol it adores in
public. Even at the transition period of what has been called his
skepticism, it was extremely distasteful to him to speak against
religion, to despise and mock even the hollow worship practiced
outwardly from human motives and personal interest. In Livadia at this
time he met with a Greek bishop, whose actions were quite at variance
with his language. How great the antipathy Lord Byron conceived for him,
may be seen by the notes appended to the first and second cantos of
"Childe Harold." For the Pharisees of our days he felt all the anger due
to whited sepulchres. No, certainly, it was not true virtue in general,
nor any one virtue in particular, that he laughed at sometimes; nor was
it friendship, or love, or religion, or any truly respectable sentiment
that ever excited his mirth. He only ridiculed semblances, vain
appearances, when those who paraded them did so from _personal
interest_. Lord Byron knew too well, by experience, that many virtues
admired and set forth as such do but wear a mask in reality; and he
thought it useful for society to divest them of it, and show the hidden
visage. Why should he have shown any consideration for the virtue that
patronizes charity-balls, in order to acquire the right of violating,
with impunity, the duties of a Christian wife? or that other female
virtue which weighs itself in the balance with the privilege of
directing Almacks? or that, wishing to unite the advantages of modesty
with the gratification of passion? In short, why should he have shown
consideration for persons whose merit consists in never _allowing
themselves to be seen as they are_? He was very disrespectful, likewise,
toward certain friendships that he knew by experience to be full of
wordy counsel, but finding nothing to say in the way of consolation or
defense. This peculiar variety of friendship had made him suffer
greatly. In his serious poems he calls it "_the loss of his illusions_;"
and expresses himself with misanthropical indignation, or with a
bleeding heart. But, returning to a milder philosophy, he ended by
smiling and jesting at it, in words like these:--
"Look'd grave and pale to see her friend's fragility,
For which most friends reserve their sensibility."
Seriously; was he bound to any great tenderness toward such friendship
as that? And does it not suffice to set Lord Byron right with _true
friendship_ to hear him say, after having laughed about false friends:--
"But this is not my maxim: had it been,
Some heart-aches had been spared me: yet I care not--
I would not be a tortoise in his screen
Of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not.
'Tis better, on the whole, to have felt and seen
That which humanity may bear, or bear not:
Twill teach discernment to the sensitive,
And not to pour their ocean in a sieve."[155]
Friendship was so necessary to him that he wrote to Moore, on the eve of
his marriage, 15th of October, 1814:
"An' there were any thing in marriage that would make a difference
between my friends and me, particularly in your case, I would none
on't."
People should read all he said of Lord Clare and Moore, and see with
what almost jealous susceptibility he guarded the title of friend,[156]
before they can understand the value he attached to true friendship. But
among many of the _privileges_ he conceded to friendship, _duties_ also
held their place.
And if we pass from friendship to love, could he really bestow such
respect on the loves of a Lady Adeline, or of those who, he said,
"embrace you to-day, thinking of the novel they will write to-morrow."
His ideal of true love has been noticed; and he became impatient when he
saw it confounded with any thing else. At twenty-two years of age he
wrote to his young friend, the Rev. Mr. Harness:--
"I told you the fate of B---- and H---- in my last. So much for these
sentimentalists, who console themselves in their stews for the loss--the
never-to-be-recovered loss--the despair of the refined attachment of a
couple of drabs! You censure my life, Harness: when I compare myself
with these men, my elders and my betters, I really begin to conceive
myself a monument of prudence--a walking statue--without feeling or
failing; and yet the world in general hath given me a proud pre-eminence
over them in profligacy. Yet I like the men, and, God knows, ought not