My Recollections of Lord Byron
When he published his drama, "Cain, a Mystery," he was attacked by
enemies in the most violent manner. They selected the arguments put into
the mouth of Lucifer, and their influence upon Cain, to prove that this
biblical poem was a blasphemous composition, and that its author was
consequently deserving of being outlawed, as having attempted to
question the supreme wisdom of God. But most certainly Lucifer speaks in
the poem as Lucifer should speak, unless, indeed, the Evil Spirit ought
to speak as a theologian, and the first assassin as a meek orthodox
Christian? Byron gave them each the language logically most suited to
their respective characters, as Milton did, without, however, incurring
the accusation of impiety. It was argued that Byron ought, at least, to
have introduced some one charged with the defense of the right
doctrines. But was not the drama entitled a Mystery, and was not the
title to be justified, as it were? Could he have done otherwise, even if
he had wished it ever so much? What could Adam, or even God's angel, do
better than remain silent in presence of the mental agony of Cain, and
only advise his bowing to the incomprehensibility of the mystery? Again,
if discussion was fruitful of results with Abel, must it be the same
with Cain? Was Lord Byron to turn both these personages into
theologians, ready to discuss any and every metaphysical question, and
to explain the origin and effects of evil? Had they done so, it is not
very likely they would have succeeded in persuading Cain of the solidity
of their argument, or in dispelling the clouds which obscured his mind,
and both calm his despair and satisfy so inquisitive a nature,
influenced and mastered, as it was, by evil passions. If Lord Byron
thought he could explain the existence of evil, he would not have
entitled his poem "a Mystery." But, above all, Lord Byron did not wish
to outstep the limits of reason to prove still more how powerless is
reason, alone and unaided, in its endeavors to conciliate contradictory
attributes. The drama was called a Mystery, and Byron wished it to
remain such.
Were some of his biographers right in asserting that he had adopted
Cuvier's system? But Cuvier never denied the existence of the Creator,
as Moore seems to believe. On the contrary, he endeavored to show, even
more forcibly, the admirable work of the Creation, in order to bring out
still more in relief the perfection of its Creator.
In the end, however, Byron ceased to think the existence of evil to be
so great an injustice to the infinite goodness of God, and expressed in
his memorandum the opinion "that history and experience show that good
and evil are counterbalanced on earth."
"Were I to begin life again," he said, in the same memorandum, "I don't
think I would change any thing in mine." A proof that, without
understanding why or wherefore, he felt our life on earth to be but the
beginning of one which is to be continued in another sphere, under the
rule of Him whose gentle hand can be traced in all things created. For
the same reason he was reconciled to the injustice of mankind, believing
this life to be a trial, and bearing it with noble courage and
fortitude. This mental resignation, however, did not prevent his
suffering bitterly in a moral sense. All pleasure became a pain to him
at the sight of the sufferings of others. He declared on one occasion,
at Cephalonia, that if every body was to be damned, and he alone to be
saved, he would prefer being damned with the rest. This excess of
generosity may have appeared eccentric, but can scarcely seem too
exaggerated to those who knew him. Certain it is, that to witness the
sufferings of others with resignation, appeared to him to be egotism,
and to evince a coldheartedness, which would have been unpardonable in
his eyes. Sometimes even the energy of his writings, dictated, as they
were, by his great generosity of heart, appeared as the revolt of a
noble nature against the miseries of humanity.
In such a frame of mind was he when he wrote "Cain," at Ravenna, in the
midst of people who were for the most part unjustly proscribed, and in
the midst of sufferings which he always tried to alleviate.
Did he deserve the appellation of skeptic, because he despised that vain
philosophy which believes it can explain all things, even God's nature
itself, by the sole force of reason? or because, while respecting the
dogmas proclaimed by our reason and our conscience, he preferred to
follow the principles of a philosophy that argues with diffidence, and
humbly owns its inability to explain all things, and which caused him to
exclaim in "Don Juan"--
"For me, I know naught; nothing I deny,
Admit, reject, contemn: and what know you,
Except, perhaps, that you were born to die?"
But to whom were these lines addressed? To those metaphysicians, of
course, whom he would also have denominated "men who know nothing, but
who, among the truths which they ignore, ignore their own ignorance
most,"--to those arrogant minds who wish to fathom even the ways which
God has kept back from us, and who, in seeking to know the wherefore of
all things in creation, are forced to give the name of explanation to
mere comparisons.
Byron says, in "Don Juan,"--
"Explain me your explanation."
He addressed himself finally, to all hypocrites and intolerant men;
Byron has been called a skeptic, notwithstanding.
That a sincere and orthodox Catholic, who holds that the negation of a
dogma constitutes skepticism, should have called Byron a skeptic because
he questioned the doctrine of eternal punishment, is not to be wondered
at; but what is matter of astonishment is, that the reproach was
addressed to him by the writer of "Faust," and by the writer of
"Elvire," and the "Meditations." Yet it is so; and if this psychological
problem is not yet solved, let others do it,--we can not.
To sum up, we may declare, from what we have said, that as regards Lord
Byron there has been a confusion of words, and that his skepticism has
merely been a natural and inevitable situation in which certain minds
who, as it were, are the victims of their own contradictory thoughts,
are placed, notwithstanding their wish to believe. Faith, being a part
of poetical feeling, could not but form a part likewise of Byron's
nature, but there existed also in him a great tendency to weigh the
merits of the opinions of others, and consequently the desire not to
arrive too hastily at conclusions.
This combination of instinctive faith and a philosophical mind could not
produce in him the belief in those things which did not appear to him to
have been first submitted to the test of argument, and proved to be just
by the convictions resulting from the test of reasoning to which they
had been subjected. It produced, on the contrary, a species of expectant
doubt, a state of mind awaiting some decisive explanation, to reject
error and embrace the truth. His skepticism, therefore, may be said to
have been the result of thought, not of passion.
In religion, however, it must be allowed that his skepticism never went
so far as to cause him to deny its fundamental doctrines. These he
proclaimed from heartfelt convictions, and his modest, humble, and manly
skepticism may be said to have been that of great minds, and his
failings, also, theirs. Is a day said to be stormy because a few clouds
have obscured the rays of the sun?
Is it necessary to say any thing about what he doubted? In showing what
he believed, the exception will be found unnecessary. He believed in a
Creator, in a spiritual and consequently immortal soul, but which God
can reduce to nothing, as He created it out of nothing. He believed in
liberty of thought, in our responsibility, our privileges, our duties,
and especially in the obligation of practicing the great precept which
constitutes Christianity; namely, that of charity and devotion toward
our neighbor, even to the sacrifice of our existence for his sake. He
believed in every virtue, but his experience forbade his according faith
to appearances, and trusting in fine phrases. He often found it wise and
prudent to scrutinize the idol he was called upon to worship, but when
once that idol had borne the test of scrutiny no worship was so sincere.
"Was he orthodox?" will again be asked. To such a question it may be
justly answered, that if he did not entertain for all the doctrines
revealed by the Scriptures that faith which he was called upon to
possess, it was not for want of desiring so powerful an auxiliary to his
reason. He felt that, however strong reason might be, it always retains
a little wavering and anxious character; and, though essentially
religious at heart, he could not master that blind faith required in
matters which baffle the efforts of reason to prove their truth
logically and definitively. This is to be accounted for by the conflict
of his conscience and his philosophical turn of mind. Conviction, for
him, was a difficult thing to attain. Hence for him the difficulty of
saying "I believe," and hence the accusation of skepticism to which he
became liable. He wanted proofs of a decisive character, and his doubts
belonged to that school which made Bacon confess that a philosopher who
can doubt, knows more than all the wise men together. Byron would never
have contested absolutely the truth of any mystery, but have merely
stated that, as long as the testimonies of its truth were hidden in
obscurity, such a mystery must be liable to be questioned. He was wont
to add, however, that the mysteries of religion did not appear to him
less comprehensible than those of science and of reason.
As for miracles, how could he think them absurd and impossible, since he
admitted the omnipotence of God? His mind was far too just not to
understand that miracles surround us, even from the first origin of our
race. He often asked himself, whether the first man could ever have been
created a child? "Reason," says a great Christian philosopher, "does not
require the aid of the Book of Genesis to believe in that miracle."
One evening at Pisa, in the drawing-room of the Countess G----, where
Byron was wont to spend all his evenings, a great discussion arose
respecting a certain miracle which was said to have taken place at
Lucca.
The miracle had been accompanied by several rather ludicrous
circumstances, and of course laughter was not spared. Shelley, who never
lost sight of his philosopher, treated miracles as deplorable
superstitions. Lord Byron laughed at the absurdity of the history told,
without any malice however. Madame G---- alone did not laugh. "Do you,
then, believe in that miracle?" asked Byron. "I do not say I exactly
believe in that miracle," she replied; "but I believe in miracles, since
I believe in God and in His omnipotence; nor could I believe that God
can be deprived of His liberty, when I feel that I have mine. Were I no
longer to believe in miracles, it seems to me I should no longer believe
in God, and that I should lose my faith."
Lord Byron stopped joking, and said--
"Well, after all, the philosophy of common sense is the truest and the
best."
The conversation continued, in the jesting tone in which it had begun,
and M. M----, an _esprit fort_, went so far as to condemn the
supernatural in the name of the general and permanent laws which govern
nature, and to look upon miracles as the legends of a by-gone age, and
as errors which affect the ignorant. From what had gone before, he
probably fancied that Byron was going to join issue with him. But there
was often a wide gulf between the intimate thoughts of Byron and his
expressions of them.
"We allow ourselves too often," he said, "to give way to a jocular mood,
and to laugh at everything, probably because God has granted us this