My Recollections of Lord Byron
to reveal to the world his misanthropy, disgust, and insensibility. Lord
Byron went from Lisbon to Seville, going seventy miles a day on
horseback in the heat of a Spanish July, always delighted, complaining
of nothing (in a country where all was wanting), and he arrived in
perfect health. There, in that beautiful city of serenades and
love-making courtships, his handsome face and person immediately
attracted the attention of the fair sex. He was not insensible to the
lively demonstrations of two sisters, and especially of the beauteous
Dona Josefa, who declared, with naive Spanish frankness, how much she
liked him. This young girl and her sister, who was equally charming,
made him all kinds of offers, saying, when he left:--'Adieu, handsome
creature, I like thee much; and Josefa asked to have at least a lock of
his beautiful hair. On arriving at Cadiz, the lovely daughter of an
admiral of high birth, with whom he was thrown in contact, could not
hide from her parents or himself her partiality for him. She wished to
teach him Spanish, never thought he could be near enough to her at the
theatre, called him to her side in crowds, made him accompany her home,
invited him to return to Cadiz, and, in short," Moore says:--
"Knowing the beauties of Cadiz, his imagination, dazzled by the
attraction of several, was on the point of being held captive by one."
He escaped this danger from being obliged to set out for Gibraltar,
where he also met with many attentions from persons of rank among his
countrymen; but he encountered another peril at the island of Calypso
(Malta). For he met there a real Calypso,--a young woman of
extraordinary beauty (the daughter and the wife of an ambassador), and
no less remarkable for her qualities of mind than for her singular
position. All his time at Malta was passed between studying a language
and the society of this goddess. And the true account of the attraction
with which he inspired this beautiful heroine, and which he amply
returned, is not certainly to be found in the stanzas of "Childe
Harold," but in the verses addressed from the monastery of Zitza to the
beautiful Florence, who had carried off at the same time (says he) both
the ring he had refused to the Seville beauty and likewise his heart. On
arriving in Albania (ancient Epirus), he went to visit Ali Pasha at
Tepeleni, his country-seat; and the sight of this beautiful, amiable
young man so softened the heart of the ferocious old Moslem, that he
wished to be considered as Lord Byron's father, treated him like a son,
caused his palaces to be opened to him, surrounding him with the most
delicate attentions, sending him fresh drinks and all the delicacies of
an Oriental table; he also ordered the Albanian selected to accompany
Lord Byron to defend him if requisite at the peril of his life. This
Albanian, named Basilius, would not leave Lord Byron afterward. Wherever
any English residents, consuls, or ambassadors could be found, Lord
Byron was the object of a thousand attentions and kindnesses. At
Constantinople, the English ambassador, Adair, wished him to lodge at
his palace; Mr. S---- proposed the same thing at Patras. When he fell
ill, he was taken care of, most affectionately even, by the Albanese.
All the sympathies enlisted during his travels (and those who knew him
thought them most natural) must certainly have acted on his loving,
grateful heart, banishing misanthropy if he had experienced it. But did
it really exist? Must not even his peace of conscience have
counterbalanced bitter remembrances?
His conscience was unburdened, for the griefs he had had were not
merited by him. If a young girl had deceived him, he on his side had
deceived no one; if a guardian had neglected and failed in duties toward
him, he had always behaved respectfully toward this bad guardian. If
hard-hearted critics had insulted, and tried to stifle his budding
genius, modest and timid withal, he had already taken his revenge, sure
to repent some day of the harshness and injustice which passion had,
perhaps, led him into; if his affairs were embarrassed, they had come to
him thus by inheritance. If he had taken a share in some youthful
dissipation, disgust had quickly followed; not a tear or a seduction had
he wherewith to reproach himself. All these testimonies furnished by his
conscience, and so consoling in every case, must have been doubly so to
a heart like his, which, by his own avowal, could not _go to rest_ with
the weight of _any remorse_ upon it. And, truly, all his correspondence
certifies this.
Already at Gibraltar, Lord Byron began writing letters full of clever
pleasantry, either to his mother or his friends, and his correspondence
always continued in the same tone, with nothing that betrayed
melancholy, far less misanthropy like Childe Harold's, although he was
composing that poem at this time.
At Malta, it was impossible to find shelter.[171] His companions grew
impatient, but Lord Byron retained his good-humor, laughing and joking.
On the mountains of Epirus, which were infested by brigands, the
Albanian escort, given him by Ali Pasha, lost their way in the middle of
the night, and were surprised by a terrific storm. For nine hours he
advanced on horseback under torrents of rain; and when at last he
reached his companions his gayety was still the same. Assailed by a
frightful tempest while going by sea from Constantinople to Athens,
shipwreck seemed impending. Every one was crying out in despair; Lord
Byron alone consoled and encouraged the rest, then he wrapped himself up
in his Albanian capote, and went to sleep quietly, until his fate should
be decided. On visiting a cavern with his friend Hobhouse, they lost
their way, their torch went out, and they had no prospect but to remain
there, and perish with hunger. Hobhouse was in despair; but Lord Byron
kept up his courage with jests, and presence of mind fit to save them,
and which did so in effect. Privations, rigor of seasons, sufferings
that drew complaints from the least delicate, and from his own servants,
had no effect on his good-humor.[172]
All this does not simply show his courage and good natural dispositions,
it likewise proves that there was not the making of a misanthrope in
him. And besides, his fellow-traveller Hobhouse says so positively, in
his account of their journey, when relating why Lord Byron could not
accompany him in an excursion to Negropont; for he energetically
expresses his regret at being obliged to separate, even for so short a
time, from a companion, who, according to him, _united to perspicacity
of wit and originality of observation, that gay and lively temper which
keeps attention awake under the pressure of fatigue, softening every
difficulty and every danger_.
Truly it might be said that Lord Byron was superior to the weaknesses of
humanity. He was evidently patient and amiable in the highest degree.
Greece appeared to him delightful,--an enchanting country with a
cloudless sky. He liked Athens so much that, on quitting it for the
first time, he was obliged to set off at a gallop to have courage enough
to go. And when he returned there, though from the cloister of the
Franciscan monastery, where he had fixed his abode, he could no longer
even perceive the pretty heads of the three Graces _entre les plantes
embaumees de la cour_; he felt himself just as happy, because he devoted
his time to study, and mixed with persons of note--such as the
celebrated Lady Hester Stanhope, Lord Sligo, and Bruce: souvenirs which
he has consecrated in his memoirs, saying Lady Hester's (?) was the most
delightful acquaintance he had made in Greece.[173]
He saw Greeks, Turks, Italians, French, and Germans, and was delighted.
Now could he observe the character of persons of all nations, and he
became more than ever persuaded that travelling is necessary to complete
a man's education; he was happy at being able to verify the superiority
of his own country, and to increase his knowledge by finding the
contrary. He was never either disappointed or disgusted. He lived with
both great and small; passing days in the palaces of pashas, and nights
in cow-stables with shepherds; always temperate, he never enjoyed better
health. "Truly," said he, "I have no cause to complain of my destiny."
At Constantinople he found the inhabitants good and peaceable; the Turks
appeared superior to the Greeks, the Greeks to the Spaniards, and the
Spaniards to the Portuguese. It was the man wearied of all, the
misanthrope, who wrote all this to his mother, concluding thus:--"I have
gone through a great deal of fatigue, but have _not felt wearied for one
instant_!"
All the letters addressed to his friends Drury and Hodgson, from Greece
or Turkey, were equally devoid of misanthropy, and, indeed, generally
full of jokes. It was only when too long a silence on their part
awakened painful remembrances, causing a sort of nostalgia of
friendship, that a cry of pain once escaped him in these words:--"Truly,
I have no friends in the world!" But one feels that he did not believe
it, and only spoke as coquettish women do, knowing they are beloved, and
willing to hear the old tale repeated.
Again, it was this same man of worn-out feeling, who, despite the
embarrassed state of his affairs, showed such unexampled generosity to
his mother, and to friends requiring aid both in England and Greece; who
likewise displayed touching solicitude toward servants left behind him
at home, or even sent away so as not to over-fatigue their youth or
their old age: and, finally, who, on learning that one of his dependents
was about to commit a bad action, abandoning a young girl whom he had
seduced, wrote to his mother:--
"My opinion is that B---- ought to marry Miss N----; our first duty is
not to do evil, our second to repair it. I will have no seducers on my
estates, and will not grant my dependents a privilege I would not take
myself: namely, of leading astray our neighbors' daughters.
"I hope this Lothario will follow my example, and begin by restoring the
girl to society, or by my father's beard he shall hear of me."
And then he also recommends a young servant to her:--
"I pray you to show kindness to Robert, who must miss his master; poor
boy! he would scarcely go back."
This letter alone shows a freshness of feeling quite consolatory;
certainly "Childe Harold" was not capable of it.
But despite all these proofs of his good-humor, gayety, and
antimisanthropical dispositions, we could cite persons who, even at this
period, thought him melancholy. Mr. Galt, for instance, whom chance had
brought in contact with him, having met on the same vessel going from
Gibraltar to Greece; and then the British ambassador at Constantinople,
Mr. Adair, and even Mr. Bruce, at Athens. How then shall we reconcile
these opposite testimonies? It may be done by analyzing his fits of
melancholy, observing the time and places of their manifestation.
I have said that Lord Byron's melancholy had always real or probable
causes (only capable of aggravation from his extremely sensitive
temperament), and it has been seen that superabundant causes existed
when he left England. That during the whole period of his absence, they
may, from time to time, have cast some shade over him, notwithstanding
his natural gayety and his strength of mind, is at least very probable.
But did Mr. Galt, Mr. Adair, and Mr. Bruce, really witness the return
of these impressions? or would it not be more natural to believe, since
that better agrees with the observations made by those living constantly
with him, that, through some resemblance of symptoms, they may have
taken for melancholy another psychological phenomenon generally
remarked--namely, _the necessity of solitude_, experienced by a high