My Recollections of Lord Byron
sitting up till two and three in the morning. Thus his life at Newstead
was quite one of seclusion, entirely devoted to poetry."
After having passed a year in this way at Newstead, following on his
college and university life, he left England in order to mature his mind
under other skies, to forget the injustice of man and the hardships of
fortune that had already somewhat tinged his nature with gloom.
Instead of going in quest of emotions, his desire was, on the contrary,
to avoid both those of the heart and of the senses. The admiration felt
by the young traveller for charming Spanish women and beautiful Greeks
did not outstep the limits of the purest poetry. Nevertheless the
stoicism of twenty, with a heart, sensibility and imagination like his,
could not be very firm, nor always secure from danger. He did actually
meet with a formidable enemy at Malta; for he there made acquaintance
with Mrs. Spencer Smith, the daughter of one ambassador and the wife of
another, a woman most fascinating from her youth, beauty, mind, and
character, as well as by her singular position and strange adventures.
Did he avoid her so much as the stanzas addressed to the lovely
Florence, in the first canto of "Childe Harold," would fain imply? This
may be doubted, on account of the ring which they exchanged, and also
from several charming pieces of verse that testify to another sentiment.
In any case, he showed strength of mind, and that his senses were under
the dominion of reason; for, unable to secure her happiness or his own,
he sought a remedy in flight.
When writing "Childe Harold," however, about this period, an evil genius
suggested expressions, that if taken seriously and in their literal
sense, might some day furnish the weapons of accusation to his enemies.
For, while acting thus toward Florence, he introduced the episode into
"Childe Harold" in a way that looks calumnious against himself:----
"Little knew she that seeming marble heart,
Now mask'd in silence or withheld by pride,
Was not unskillful in the spoiler's art,
And spreads its snares licentious far and wide;
Nor from the base pursuit had turn'd aside,
As long as aught was worthy to pursue."
"We have here," says Moore, "another instance of his propensity to
self-misrepresentation. However great might have been the irregularities
of his college life, such phrases as the 'art of the spoiler' and
'spreading snares' were in no-wise applicable to them."[44]
Galt expresses the same certainty on this head. "Notwithstanding," says
he, "the unnecessary exposure he makes of his dissipation on his first
entrance into society (in the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold'), it
is proved beyond _all dispute_, that at no period of his existence did
Lord Byron _lead an irregular life_. That on one or two occasions he
fell into some excesses, may be true; _but his habits were never those
of a libertine_."[45]
And after saying that the declaration by which Byron himself
acknowledges his antipathy to vice carries more weight than all the
rest, and that what he says of it is vague and metaphysical, he
adds:--"But that only further corroborates my impression concerning
him,--that is to say, that he took a sort of vanity in setting forth his
experience in dissipation, but _that this dissipation never became a
habit with him_."
His true sentiments at this time are well portrayed in his letters, and
especially in those addressed to his mother from Athens, when she
consulted him on the conduct to be observed toward one of his tenants, a
young farmer, who had behaved ill to a girl. "My opinion is," answered
he, "that Mr. B---- ought to marry Miss K----. _Our first duty is not to
do evil_ (but, alas! that is not possible); our second duty _is to
remedy it, if that be in our power_. The girl is his equal. If she were
inferior to him, a sum of money and an allowance for the child might be
something,--although, after all, a miserable compensation; but, under
the circumstances, he ought to marry her. I will not have _gay seducers_
on my estate, nor grant my farmers a privilege _I would not take myself
of seducing other people's daughters_. I expect, then, this Lothario to
follow my example, and begin by restoring the girl to society, or, by my
father's beard, he shall hear of me."
To this letter Moore justly adds:--"The reader must not pass lightly
over this letter, for there is a _vigor of moral sentiment_ in it,
expressed in such a plain, sincere manner, that it shows how full of
health his heart was at bottom, even though it might have been scorched
by passion."
Lord Byron returned to his own country, after having spent two years
travelling in Spain, Portugal, and the East, in the study and
contemplation requisite for maturing his genius.
His distaste for all material objects of love or passion, and, in
general, for sensual pleasures, was then remarked by all those who knew
him intimately.
"An anchorite," says Moore, "who knew Lord Byron about this time, could
not have desired for himself greater _indifference toward all the
attractions of the senses_, than Lord Byron showed at the age of
twenty-three."
And as on arriving in London he met with a complication of sorrows, he
could, without any great effort, remain on his guard against all
seductions. He did so in reality; and Dallas assures us that, even when
"Childe Harold" appeared, he still professed positive distaste for the
society of women. Whether this disposition arose from regret at the
death of one he had loved, or was caused by the light conduct of other
women, it is certain that he did not seek their society then; nay, even
avoided them.
"I have a favor to ask you," he wrote, during this sad time, to one of
his young friends: "never speak to me in your letters of a woman; make
no allusion to the sex. I do not even wish to read a word about the
feminine gender."
And to this same friend he wrote in verse:----
"If thou would'st hold
Place in a heart that ne'er was cold,
By all the powers that men revere,
By all unto thy bosom dear,
Thy joys below, thy hopes above,
Speak--speak of any thing but love."
_Newstead Abbey, October 11, 1811._
But if he did not seek after women, they came in quest of him. When he
had achieved celebrity--when fame lit up his noble brow--the sex was
dazzled. They did not wait to be sought, but themselves made the first
advances. His table was literally strewn with expressions of feminine
admiration.
Dallas relates that one day he found Lord Byron so absorbed in answering
a letter that he seemed almost to have lost the consciousness of what
was passing around him.
"I went to see him again next day," says he, "and Lord Byron named the
person to whom he had written.
"While we were together, the page of the lady in question brought him a
fresh letter. Apparently it was a young boy of thirteen or fourteen
years of age, with a fresh, delicate face, that might have belonged to
the _lady herself_. He was dressed in a hussar jacket, and trowsers of
scarlet, with silver buttons and embroidery; curls of fair hair
clustered over part of the forehead and cheeks, and he held in his hand
a little cap with feathers, which completed the theatrical appearance of
this childish Pandarus. I could not help suspecting it was a disguise."
The suspicions were well founded, and they caused Dallas's hair to stand
on end, for, added to his Puritanism, was the hope of becoming the young
nobleman's Mentor, and he fancied he saw him already on the road to
perdition. But was it likely that Lord Byron, with all his imagination,
sensibility, and warm heart, should remain unmoved--neither touched nor
flattered by the advances of persons uniting beauty and wit to the
highest rank? The world talked, commented, exaggerated. Whether actuated
by jealousy, rancor, noble or despicable sentiments, all took advantage
of the occasion afforded for censure.
Feminine overtures still continued to be made to Lord Byron, but the
fumes of incense never hid from him the sight of his ideal. And as the
comparison was not favorable to realities, disenchantment took place on
his side, without a corresponding result on the other. THENCE many
heart-breakings. Nevertheless there was no ill-nature, no indelicacy,
none of those proceedings that the world readily forgives, but which his
feelings as a man of honor would have condemned. Calantha, in despair at
being no longer loved, resolved on vengeance. She invented a tale, but
what does she say when the truth escapes her?
"If in his manners he (Glenarvon) had shown any of that freedom or
wounding familiarity so frequent with men, she might, perhaps, have been
alarmed, affrighted. But what was it she would have fled from?
Certainly not gross adulation, nor those light, easy protestations to
which all women, sooner or later, are accustomed; but, on the contrary,
respect at once delicate and flattering; attention that sought to
gratify her smallest desires; grace and gentleness that, not descending
to be humble, were most fascinating, and such as are rarely to be met
with," etc.
Let us now reverse the picture, and pass from shade to light: the
difference is striking.
Passing in review his former life, Lord Byron said one day to Mr.
Medwin:--"You may not compare me to Scipio, but I can assure you that _I
never seduced any woman_."
No, certainly he did not pretend to rival Scipio; his fault was, on the
contrary, that he took pleasure in appearing the reverse. And yet Lord
Byron often performed actions during his short life that Scipio himself
might have envied. And who knows whether in any case Scipio could have
had the same merit?--for, in order to attain that, he would have
required to overcome such sensibility, imagination, and heart, as were
possessed by Lord Byron.
The single fact of being able to say, "I never seduced any woman," is a
very great thing, and we may well doubt whether many of his detractors
could say as much. But let us relate facts.
In London the mother of a beautiful girl, hard pressed for money, had
recourse to Lord Byron for a large sum, making him an unnatural offer at
the same time. The mother's depravity filled him with horror. Many men
in his place would have been satisfied with expressing this sentiment
either in words or by silence. But that was not enough for his noble
heart, and he subtracted from his pleasures or his necessities a sum
sufficient to save the honor of the unfortunate girl. At another time,
shortly before his marriage, a charming young person, full of talent,
requiring help, through some adverse family circumstances, and attracted
to Lord Byron by some presentiment of his generosity, became
passionately _in love_ with him. She could not live without his image
before her. The history of her passion is quite a romance. Utterly
absorbed by it, she was forever seeking pretexts for seeing him. A word,
a sign, was all she required to become any thing he wished. But Lord
Byron, aware he could not make her happy and respectable, never allowed
that word to pass his lips, and his language breathed only counsels of
wisdom and virtue.[46]
Even at Venice, when his heart had no preference, we find him saving a
young girl of noble birth from the danger caused by his involuntary
fascinations.[47] In Romagna, at Pisa, in Greece, he also gave similar
proofs of virtue and of his delicate sense of honor.
Let us now examine his words. In 1813, with regard to "The
Monk," by Lewis, which he had just read, Lord Byron wrote in his
memoranda:--"These descriptions might be written by Tiberius, at
Caprera. They are overdrawn; the essence of vicious voluptuousness. As
to me, I can not conceive how they could come from the pen of a man of