My Recollections of Lord Byron
[Footnote 45: See Galt, "Life of Lord Byron."]
[Footnote 46: See chapter on "Generosity."]
[Footnote 47: See "Life in Italy."]
[Footnote 48: The heroism of the young Zuleika, says Mr. G. Ellis in his
criticism, is full of purity and loveliness. Never was a more perfect
character traced with greater delicacy and truth; her piety,
intelligence, her exquisite sentiment of duty and her unalterable love
of truth seem born in her soul rather than acquired by education. She is
ever natural, seductive, affectionate, and we must confess that her
affection for Selim is well placed.]
[Footnote 49: "Childe Harold," canto iv. stanza 177.]
[Footnote 50: See "Don Juan," canto xvi.]
[Footnote 51: See chapter on Marriage.]
[Footnote 52: Medwin, p. 13.]
[Footnote 53: See "Life in Italy."]
[Footnote 54: Ibid.]
[Footnote 55: Moore, vol. ii, p. 182.]
[Footnote 56: See "Life in Italy," at Venice.]
[Footnote 57: See "Life in Italy."]
[Footnote 58: Dallas, 171.]
[Footnote 59: Moore, 315.]
[Footnote 60: Moore, first vol.]
[Footnote 61: Moore, 315.]
[Footnote 62: See "Life in Italy."]
[Footnote 63: "He was more a mental being, if I may use this phrase,"
said Captain Parry, who knew him at Missolonghi, "than any one I ever
saw; he lived on thoughts more than on food."]
CHAPTER XI.
THE CONSTANCY OF LORD BYRON.
Among Lord Byron's moral virtues, may we count that of constancy? Men in
general, not finding this virtue in their own lives, refuse to believe
in its existence among those who, in exception to the common rule, do
possess it. They must be forced to this act of justice as to many
others. This is comprehensible; constancy is so rare!
"I less easily believe constancy in men than any thing else," says
Montaigne, "and nothing more easily than inconstancy."
Besides the difficulties common to every one, Lord Byron had also to
fight against those difficulties peculiar to his sensitive nature and
his vast intelligence.
"The largest minds," says Bacon, "are the least constant, because they
find reasons for deliberating, where others only see occasion for
acting."
But if these difficulties overcame Lord Bacon's constancy, could they
have the same power over Lord Byron, who was indeed his equal in mind,
but his opposite in conduct and strength of soul? There are three sorts
of constancy: that of affection, which has its source in goodness of
heart; that of taste, flowing from beauty of soul; that of idea, derived
from rectitude of intelligence.
Did Lord Byron possess the whole of these, or only a part? As this may
be chiefly proved, not from writings or words, but by conduct, let us
ask the question of those who knew him personally and at all periods of
his life.
Was he constant in his ideas? Moore, speaking of Lord Byron's
intellectual faculties, of his variableness, of which he makes too much,
for the reasons I have mentioned,[64] and of the danger to which it
exposed his consistency and oneness of character, says:--
"The consciousness, indeed, of his own natural tendency to yield thus to
every chance impression, and change with every passing impulse, was not
only forever present to his mind, but, aware as he was of the suspicion
of weakness attached by the world to any retractation or abandonment of
long-professed opinions, had the effect of keeping him in that general
line of consistency, on certain great subjects, which, notwithstanding
occasional fluctuations and contradictions as to the details of these
very subjects, he continued to preserve throughout life. A passage from
one of his manuscripts will show how sagaciously he saw the necessity of
guarding himself against his own instability in this respect:--'The
world,' he says, 'visits change of politics or change of religion with a
more severe censure than a mere difference of opinion would appear to me
to deserve. But there must be some reason for this feeling, and I think
it is that this departure from the earliest instilled ideas of our
childhood, and from the line of conduct chosen by us when we first enter
into public life, have been seen to have more mischievous results for
society, and to prove more weakness of mind than other actions, in
themselves more immoral.'"
"To superficial observers," says the Hon. Col. Stanhope, "his conduct
might appear uncertain; and that was the case sometimes, but only _up to
a certain point_. His genius was limitless and versatile, and in
conversation he passed boldly from grave to gay, from light to serious
topics; but nevertheless, _upon the whole and in reality_, no man was
more constant, I might almost say _more obstinate_, than Lord Byron _in
the pursuit of great objects_. For instance, in religion and in
politics, he seemed as firm as a rock, though, like a rock, he was
sometimes subject to great shocks, to the convulsions of nature in
commotion. What I affirm is, that Lord Byron had very fixed opinions on
important matters. It is not from the opinion he wished to give of
himself, nor from what he allowed to escape his lips, that I could have
drawn this conclusion; for, in conversing with me on politics or
religion, and passing capriciously over this latter subject, sometimes
laughing and making strings of jests, he would say, for instance, '_the
more I think the more I doubt--I am a thorough skeptic_;' but I find
these words contradicted in _all his actions, and in all his sentiments
seriously expressed from childhood to death_. And I opine that although
occasionally he may have appeared changeable, still he always came back
to certain fixed ideas in his mind; that he always entertained a
constant attachment to liberty according to his notions of liberty; and
that, although not orthodox in religion, he _firmly believed_ in the
existence of a God. It is then equally false to represent him as an
atheist or as an orthodox Christian. Lord Byron was, as he often told
me, _a thorough deist_."[65]
It would be easy to prove in a thousand ways that, despite the danger of
inconstancy resulting from his great sensibility, imagination, and
intellect, no one, more than Lord Byron, steadily and firmly adhered
_through life_ in his actions to the principles which _constitute the
man of honor_. Chances, caprices, inequalities of temper, which are to
sensitive natures what bubbles are on a lake, all disappeared when these
great principles required to be acted upon; and the effects even of his
well-nigh inexhaustible benevolence were checked, if he had to struggle
against his principles. We find in his memoranda, 1813:--"I like George
Byron" (his cousin, the present lord); "I like him much more than one
generally does one's heirs. He is a fine fellow. I would do any thing to
see him advance in his career as a sailor; _any thing except
apostatize_!" (Lord Byron was a _Whig_, and his cousin a _Tory_.)
As it is impossible to quote every thing, I will only say that his
passion for firmness and constancy in the principles of honor, went so
far as to inspire him with repugnance for those characters lacking the
firmness and oneness of action which he considered it a sacred duty to
practice. It is even to this sentiment that must be attributed certain
antipathies which he expressed, sometimes by words and sometimes by
silence, and which have been laid to totally different, and quite
impossible motives. For instance, his silence concerning Chateaubriand,
expressive of his little sympathy for the individual (a silence so much
resented by this proud vindictive poet, and for which he revenged
himself in different ways), was not caused solely by the radical
antagonism existing between their two natures. Assuredly, the literary
affectation, the want of sincerity, the theatrical and declamatory
nature of Chateaubriand's soul, who was positively ill with insatiable
pride, innate and incurable ennui, all this could little assimilate with
the simplicity, sincerity, passionate tenderness and devotion of Lord
Byron. But his repugnance was especially directed against the skeptic,
who made himself the champion of Catholicism, and the liberal who upheld
the divine right of kings.[66]
A few days before Lord Byron set out for his last journey to Greece, a
young man (M. Coullmann) arrived at Genoa, bringing him the admiring
homage of many celebrated men in France, who sent him their respective
works. Among the number were Delavigne and Lamartine. Chateaubriand, of
course, was conspicuous by his absence: but an anecdote Coullmann
related, of what had just occurred at Turin, greatly amused Lord Byron.
Chateaubriand had lately been presented in his capacity of ambassador,
whereupon the queen said to him: "Are you any relation to that
Chateaubriand who has written _something_?"
Lord Byron, laughing heartily at the anecdote, hastened to go and repeat
it to the Countess G----.
The same sentiment had disenchanted him with Monti, whom he had so much
admired at Milan, and with several other rival poets.
When Lord Byron heard it said of any one, "he has changed sides, he has
abandoned his party, he has forfeited his word," one might feel sure
that all his natural indulgence, generally so great, was gone: he looked
upon such a fault as forming only a despicable variety of the vice he
never forgave, viz., untruth. At most, he could only make an exception
in favor of women.
"I have received a very pretty note from Madame de Stael," we read in
his memoranda of 1813; "her works are my delight, and she also (for half
an hour). But I do not like her politics, or, at least, _her changes_ in
politics. If she had been, _aequalis ab incepto_, that would be nothing.
But, she is a woman, ... and, intellectually, she has done more than all
the rest of her sex put together."
Nevertheless, constancy in idea being subservient to the consent of the
mind, must undoubtedly have undergone oscillations with Lord Byron. That
was, however, only the case with regard to ideas which could be
discussed, and which required to pass through the ordeal of long
reflection and practice, before being fully adopted by him. But
religious ideas were not of this number; on the contrary, they held the
first place in the order of those to be accepted and raised into
principles by every man of honor and good sense. For, whatever may have
been his fluctuations with regard to certain points of religious
doctrine, sects and modes of worship, it is certain that in great
fundamental matters his mind never seriously doubted, and thus escaped
the influence of friends less sensible,--of Matthews in his early youth,
and of Shelley at a later period.[67] That touching Prayer to the
Divinity, written in boyhood, and which is so full of hope and faith in
the soul's immortality, and in the existence of a personal God, he might
have signed again when he came to act instead of writing, as also on his
death-bed.[68]
Between the commencement of his career at eighteen and its close at the
age of thirty-six, it is easy to see, by his language, correspondence,
and works, that his mind had passed successively through different
phases before arriving at the last result. The religious idea is more or
less clear. Nevertheless, one perceives a golden ray ever present,
connecting the different periods of his life, keeping up heat and light
in his soul, and giving unity to his whole career. Hope, desire, and I
may almost say, a sort of latent faith, always influenced him until they
merged into the conviction whose light never more abandoned him.
At fifteen years of age, while at Harrow, he fought with Lord Calthorpe
for calling him an _atheist_; at eighteen, he wrote his beautiful
profession of faith in the Prayer to the Divinity, and in the touching
"Adieu," which he wrote when he thought he would soon die. At nineteen,