My Recollections of Lord Byron
Lord Byron shone at a period when a school called Romantic was in
progress of formation. That school wanted a type by which to mould its
heroes, as a planet requires a sun to give it light. It took Byron as
that type, and adorned him with all the qualities which pleased its
fancy, but the time has more than arrived when it is necessary that
truth should reveal him in his true light. My book is not likely to
dispel every cloud, but a few shades only add to the lustre and
brilliancy of a landscape.
LORD BYRON.
"Others form the man: I tell of him."--MONTAIGNE.
At all times the world has been very unjust; and (who does not know it?)
in the history of nations many an Aristides has paid with exile the
price of his virtues and his popularity. Great men, great countries,
whole nations, whole centuries, have had to bear up against injustice;
and the truth is, that vice has so often taken the place of virtue, evil
of good, and error of truth, some have been judged so severely and
others so leniently, that, could the book of redress be written, not
only would it be too voluminous, but it would also be too painful to
peruse. Honest people would feel shame to see the judgments before which
many a great mind has had to bend; and how often party spirit, either
religious or political, moved by the basest passions--such as hatred,
envy, rivalry, vengeance, fanaticism, intolerance, self-love--has been a
pretext for disfiguring in the eyes of the public the greatest and
noblest characters. It would then be seen how some censor (profiting by
the breach which circumstances, or even a slight fault on the part of
these great minds, may have made, and joining issue with other inferior
judges of character) has often succeeded in throwing a shade on their
glorious actions and in casting a slur upon their reputation, like those
little insects which from their number actually succeed, notwithstanding
their smallness, in darkening the rays of the sun. What is worse,
however, is, that when history has once been erroneously written, and a
hero has been put forward in colors which are not real, the public
actually becomes accessory to the deception practiced upon it: for it
becomes so enamored of the false type which has been held out to its
admiration that it will not loosen its hold on it. Public opinion, once
fixed, becomes a perfect despotism.
Never, perhaps, has this phenomenon shown itself more visibly and more
remarkably than in the case of Lord Byron. Not only was he a victim of
these obstinate prejudices, but in his case the annihilation of truth
and the creation of an imaginary type have been possible only at the
cost of common sense, and notwithstanding the most palpable
contradictions. So that he has really proved to be one of the most
curious instances of the levity with which human judgments are formed.
We have elsewhere described the various phases of this phenomenon, one
of the principal causes of which has been the resolution to identify the
poet with the first heroes of his poems. Such a mode of proceeding was
as disloyal as it was contrary to all the received rules of literature.
It was inspired by hatred and vengeance, adopted by an idle and
frivolous public, and the result has proved to be something entirely
opposed to the truth.
As long as such a whimsical creation was harmless, it amused Byron
himself and his friends; but the day came when it ceased to be harmless
without ceasing to be eccentric, and became to Byron a true robe of
Nessus.
At his death the truth was demanded of his biographers; but the puppet
which had been erected stood there, and amazed the good, while it served
the malice of the wicked. His genius was analyzed, but no conscientious
study of his character was made, and Byron, as man, remained an unknown
personage.
Yet among his biographers there were men of upright and enlightened
minds: they did not all seek to raise themselves at the cost of
depreciating him, nor to gain popularity by sparing individuals at the
expense of Lord Byron.
If among them many proved to be black sheep, there were several, on the
other hand, who were sincere, and even kindly disposed. Yet not one did
full justice to Byron, not one defended him as he deserved, not one
explained his true character with the conscientious energy which in
itself constitutes authority. We shall speak elsewhere of the causes
which gave rise to this phenomenon. We shall mention the part which
public opinion played in England when suddenly displeased with a poet
who dared sound the deepest recesses of the human heart; and who as an
artist and a psychologist was interested in watching the growth of every
passion, and especially that of love, regardless of the conjugal
felicity which that public wished him to respect. It began to fear that
its enthusiasm for Lord Byron was a national crime, and by degrees
became accessory to the calumnies which were heaped upon his noble
character, on account of his supposed want of patriotism, and his
refusal to be blind to the defects of the mother-country. We shall see
how his biographers, preferring invention to strict adherence to the
truth, compounded a Lord Byron such as not to be any longer
recognizable, and to become even--especially in France--a caricature. Of
all this we shall speak hereafter. We shall now rather point to the
curious than to the unjust character of this fact, and notice the
contradictions to which Byron's biographers have lent themselves.
All, or nearly all, have granted to him an infinity of virtues, and
naturally fine qualities--such as sensitiveness, generosity, frankness,
humility, charity, soberness, greatness of soul, force of wit, manly
pride, and nobility of sentiment; but, at the same time, they do not
sufficiently clear him of the faults which directly exclude the
above-mentioned qualities. The moral man does not sufficiently appear in
their writings: they do not sufficiently proclaim his character--one of
the finest that was ever allied to a great intellect. Why? Are these
virtues such that, like excellent and salutary substances, they become
poisoned when placed in contact within the same crucible?
In this refusal to do justice there is contradiction; and as error
exists where contradiction lies, it is precisely in that contradiction
that we must seek the means of refuting error and assert the power of
truth.
Nature always proceeds logically, and the effect is always in direct
analogy with its cause. Even in the moral world the precise character of
exact sciences must be found. If in a problem we meet with a
contradiction, are we not certain that its solution has been badly
worked out, and that we must begin it over again to find a true result?
The same reasoning holds good for the moral spheres. When a judgment has
been wrongly formed, that is, when there appears to be contradiction
between various opinions, that judgment must be remodelled, the cause of
the error must be looked for, truth must be separated from falsehood,
and regard must be had to the law which obliges us to weigh impartially
every assertion, and to discuss equally the ayes and noes. Let this be
done for Lord Byron. Let us analyze facts, question the eye-witnesses of
his life, and peruse his admirable and simply-written letters, wherein
his soul has, so to say, photographed itself. Acts are unquestionably
more significative than words; yet if we wish to inquire into his
poetry, not by way of appreciating his genius (with which at present we
have nothing to do), but the nature of the man, let us do so loyally.
Let us not attribute to him the character which he lends to his heroes,
nor the customs which he attributes to them, simply because here and
there he has given to the one something of his manner, to the other some
of his sentiments; or because he has harbored them, in the belief that
hospitality can be extended to the wicked without the good suffering
from it.
Let us first examine "Childe Harold,"--the poem which principally
contributed to mystify the public, and commenced that despotic type of
which we have already spoken.
Childe Harold does not tell his own story. His life is told by a poet.
There are, therefore, two well-marked personages on the scene, perfectly
distinct and different from one another. The first is the young nobleman
in whom Byron intended to personify the precocious perversion of mind
and soul of the age, and in general the blased existence of the young
men of the day, of whom he had met many types at Cambridge, and on his
first launch into society. The second is the minstrel who tells his
story.
The heart of the former is closed to all joy and to all the finest
impulses of the soul; whereas that of the other beats with delight at
the prospect of all that is noble, great, good, and just in the world.
Why identify the author rather with the one than with the other--with
the former rather than with the latter? Why take from him his own
sentiments, to give him those of his hero? That hero can not be called
mysterious, since in his preface Byron tells us himself the moral object
for which he has selected him. If Childe Harold personifies Lord Byron,
who will personify the poet? That poet (and he is no other than Lord
Byron) plays a far greater part than the hero. He is much oftener on the
scene. In the greater part of the poem the minstrel alone speaks. In the
ninety-three stanzas of which the first canto is composed, Harold is on
the scene during nineteen stanzas only, while the poet speaks in his own
name during the seventy-four other stanzas, displaying a beautiful soul
under various aspects, and exhibiting no melancholy other than that
inherent to all elevated poetry.
As for the second canto, it opens with a monologue of the minstrel, and
Harold is forgotten until the sixteenth stanza. Then only does the
melancholy hero appear, to disappear and reappear again for a few
moments. But he rather seems to annoy the minstrel, who finishes at the
seventy-third stanza by dismissing him altogether; and from that moment
to the end of the canto the wretched and unamiable personage does not
reappear. To whom, then, belong all the admirable sentiments and all the
virtuous aspirations which we read of toward the end of the canto?--to
whom, if not to the minstrel himself? that is, to Lord Byron. What poet
has paid so noble a tribute to every virtue? Could that vigor and
freshness of mind which breathe upon the lips of the poet, and which
well belonged to him, suit the corrupted nature of Harold? If Byron
dismisses his hero so often, it is because he experiences toward him the
feelings of a logical moralist.
Why then identify Lord Byron with a personage he himself disowns as his
prototype, both in his notes, in his preface, in his conversations; and
who is proved by facts, by the poem itself, and by the poet's logical
and moral reasoning, to be entirely different from his creation? It is
true that Byron conceived the unfortunate idea of surrounding his hero
by several incidents in his own existence, to place him in the social
circle to which he himself belonged, and to give him a mother and a
sister, a disappointed love, a Newstead Abbey like his own, and to make
him travel where he had travelled and experience the same adventures.
That is true, and such an act of imprudence can only be explained, by
the confidence on which he relied that the identification could never
have been thought of. At twenty-one conscience speaks louder than
experience. But if we can justify the accusation of his having been
imprudent, can we justify his having been calumniated?
Eight years after the publication of the second canto, Byron wrote the
third; and here the pilgrim occasionally appears, but so changed that he