My Recollections of Lord Byron

At Ravenna, a young woman attached to the service of his little Allegra, being unwilling to avow, for fear of dismissal, that Allegra had had a fall, though the child bore the mark of it, told an untruth instead. No intercession could prevail on Lord Byron to pardon her, and she was sent away.[196] Though eager for glory--especially at an age when not having yet arrived at it, he ignored the bite of the serpent that often lurks within a garland of roses--he yet repelled all undue praise, and was much more indignant at receiving it, than when unmerited blame was heaped upon him. Once, having been compared to a man of high standing in French literature, he, anxious to prove that there could be no resemblance between him and this great man, replied:--"If the thing were true, it might flatter me; but it is impossible to accept fictions with pleasure." When Dallas--who only knew him then by his family name--read his early productions, he was enchanted with poetry that often rose to the sublime, and was always chivalrous in feeling, "which denoted," he said, "a heart full of honorable sentiments, and formed for virtue." This is a precious verdict, coming as it does, from a man so bigoted in all respects as the elder Dallas. He adds afterward that the perusal of these verses, and the sentiments contained in them, made him discover great affinity of mind between the young author and another literary man, who was equally remarkable as a poet, an orator, and a historian--"_the great and good Lord Lyttelton of immortal fame_." "And I doubt not," added Dallas, "that one day, like him, he will confer more honor on the peerage than it can ever reflect on him." Such a compliment from a man so rigid and respectable might certainly have tempted the most ordinary self-love, but Lord Byron, applying his magnifying-glass to his conscience, and comparing what he saw there with his ideal, did not conceive he merited such praise. Accordingly he answered with candor that enchanted Dallas himself:-- "Though our periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, I confess a tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering. But I am afraid I should forfeit all claim to candor, if I did not decline such praise as I do not deserve, and this is, I am sorry to say, the case in the present instance. My pretensions to virtue are, unluckily, so few, that, though I should be happy to deserve your praise, I can not accept your applause in that respect." Thus, from fear of being wanting in truth, he exaggerated his youthful imperfections, nor could find any excuse for them. And in the same way throughout life his dread of making himself out better than he was, led him into the opposite defect of representing himself as far inferior to his real worth. If from considering of the man, we turn to look at the author, we shall still always find the same passion for truth. By degrees, as he observed society around him, this passion increased, for he found the dominant vice was precisely that one most repugnant to his nature. If Lord Byron ever admitted, with La Rochefoucault, _that hypocrisy is a homage vice renders to virtue_, he did not the less consider this homage as degrading to him who offered it, insulting to those to whom it is addressed, and most corrupting in its effect upon the soul. Thus, then, he from an early period considered hypocrisy and cant as monsters, in the moral world, to be combated energetically whenever an opportunity should present itself, and he resolved on doing so with all the intrepidity and independence of which his nature was capable. His natural gentleness disappeared in presence of the _whited sepulchres_, the _Pharisees_ of our day. His whole literary life was one struggle against this vice, "the crying sin of the times,"[197] as he called it. His conscience was quite as strict with regard to intellectual things as it was in the domain of morals. We might even call it marvellously strict for our epoch, for the decay of truth forms a sadly striking characteristic of the present time. I know not what modern critic it is who says that a general enervation of intelligence and languor of soul now prevail in this respect; that the majesty of truth has been profaned, and the ancient regard in which she was held has been destroyed by religious sects, philosophical systems, the insolent attacks of the press, and by the revolution that has taken place in ideas as well as in deeds. Thence the general tendency to place truth and error on the same footing, in theory and in practice. Thence the equality of rights established between both, and which has become like the normal state of mind general in society. Certainly, in our day, the love and practice of truth have grown obsolete; dramatic pieces and works of fiction, indeed all kinds of literature, especially biography, and even history, combine to outrage truth with impunity; no compunction is felt in transforming great characters into monsters, and monsters into heroes. People are no longer astonished that travellers' narratives should be like poems, good or bad, works of imagination full of anachronisms, exaggerations, impossibilities, making the sea take the place of mountains, and putting mountains where the sea should be. Truth is hidden as dangerous, not always to humanity, but to private interests to which it might bring smaller gains. Now if, at an epoch like this, we meet with geniuses, or even conscientious talents, sacrificing, both in their works and their actions, every interest or consideration to truth, ought we not to look upon them as real marvels? Undoubtedly we ought, and there can be no question that Lord Byron belonged to the small number of such marvels. Friends and enemies are agreed thereupon. Galt, who was brought into contact with the poet by chance, at the time of his first journey into Greece, and who travelled with him for several days, when remarking the beauty of Lord Byron's poems on Greece, says, "they possess the great and rare quality of being _as true with regard to nature and facts as they are sublime for poetic expression_." He quotes those beautiful lines with which the third canto of the "Corsair" opens, wherein Lord Byron describes the lovely scenery that met his eye on ascending the Piraeus;[198] and to the Cape Colonna, and to the so-called Tomb of Themistocles in the "Giaour;" and Galt fancies he can remember by what circumstance and aspect of nature they were inspired. Lord Byron did not admit the possibility of describing a site that had not been seen, a sentiment that had not been experienced, or at least well known on certain and direct testimony. Never could people say of him, what M. Sainte-Beuve asserted of Chateaubriand, namely, _that he had not visited the places he described, that he lent to some what of right belonged only to others, and that he had not even seen Niagara_. On the contrary, when Lord Byron was writing, the objects described were really present, so to say, as facts rather than in imagination. Mr. Galt was so persuaded of this that he almost denied him the possession of imagination, and he says that the stamp of personal experience is so strongly marked in many of Lord Byron's productions, usually considered fancies or inventions, that he deems it impossible not to assign for their basis real facts or events wherein he had been either actor or spectator. To refuse Lord Byron imagination would be absurd; but it is true that his imagination could only have discovered the elements and materials so wonderfully put together, through a scrupulous and profound observation of reality. And it was only afterward, that superadding sentiment and thought, he wrought out such splendid truths, which, if not precisely combined in the living reality, were so far superior that any absence in the original model appeared like a forgetfulness of nature. Without, then, admitting Mr. Galt's ideas, in their extreme consequences, it is at least certain that Lord Byron's genius required so much to lean on truth in all things, that it may be said he owed far more to facts than to the power of imagination. Apart from the faculty of combining, which he possessed in a splendid manner, if any one should take the trouble to observe, one by one, the characters he has painted, we should be still more confirmed in the above opinion. For instance, Conrad, that magnificent type of the corsair, that energetic compound of an Albanese warrior and a naval officer, far from being an imaginary character, was entirely drawn from nature and real history. All who have travelled in the Levant, and especially at that period, must have met with personages whose appearance distinctly recalled Conrad. That peaceful men, leading a regular monotonous life in the midst of civilized Europe, or persons who have only travelled over their maps or their books, quietly seated in their library--that they should find characters like Conrad's eccentric, and the incidents of such a career improbable, may easily be conceived; but it is not the less true that both are in perfect keeping with each other and with truth. I might say the same thing of "Childe Harold." But having spoken of this character sufficiently elsewhere, in order to repel the unjust identification of the Pilgrim with the author,--for "Childe Harold" appears to me the personification of a moral idea, of the accidental transitory state of a soul placed under certain circumstances, rather than type,--I will only add here, that this unjust identification was also caused by that craving which Lord Byron experienced of leaning, in all things, on reality, on facts acquired through his own experience. For although it is incorrect to imagine that he made use of his looking-glass for drawing the portraits of his heroes, since the glass could not even for a passing moment--such as suffices only for a daguerreotype--have converted his gentle, beautiful expression of face into the dark countenance of a Harold, a Giaour, a Conrad, or a Lara; still it is true that he lent them some of his own noble, fine lineaments, some faint shadow of his beauty, and that more than once he committed the fault of placing them in situations exactly similar to his own, even going so far as to install his heroes within the ancient abbey of Newstead,--a hospitality that cost him dear. Characters that had produced a strong impression on him easily became models for the personages portrayed in his poems. It was the terrible Ali Pasha of Yanina who furnished the most striking features depicted in the heroes of his Eastern poems. The reports current about Ali Pasha's uncle served to lend their share of truth; and we may say, in general, that those acquainted with Lord Byron and his history possessed the clew to his imaginary personages; they could even recognize his Adelinas, Dudus, Gulbeyazs, Angelinas, Myrrhas, Adahs; and having first taken his stand on earth, it cost his fancy very little to soar and idealize what might else have been too commonplace. As to the historical characters, we are certain of finding them in the most authentic histories; for it would be impossible to carry scrupulous research further than he did. Some observations on "Marino Faliero," his first historical drama, will suffice for an example. The impression made on Lord Byron, when he arrived in Venice, by the character of this old man, and the terrible catastrophe that overtook him, first gave rise to his idea of the tragedy. But four years intervened between the project and its execution. During this time he consulted all the histories of Venice, every document and chronicle he could lay his hands on. He passed long hours in the hall of the great