My Recollections of Lord Byron
giving the list in his memoranda of books already read (a list hardly
credible), he says: "With regard to books on religion, I have read
Blair, Porteous, Tillotson, Hooker,--all very tiresome. I detest books
about religion, but I adore and love my God, apart from the blasphemous
notions of sectarians, and without believing in their absurd and
damnable heresies, mysteries, etc." At twenty-one, when he had passed
through the double influence exercised by Pagan classical literature and
German philosophies, and was in a transition state, he wrote "Childe
Harold;" but the skeptical tendencies to be found in one stanza appear
like a bravado, the result of spleen, a feeling that made him suffer,
and which he speedily threw aside. For he wrote, at the same time, the
stanza upon the death of a friend, whom he _hopes to see again in the
land of souls_, and afterward, the elegies to Thyrza, which are full of
_faith in immortality_. At thirty, writing some philosophical
reflections in his memorandum-book, he says: "One can not doubt the
immortality of the soul."
And, elsewhere, he also says that Christianity appears to him
essentially founded on the immateriality of the soul, and that, for this
reason, the Christian materialism of Priestley had always struck him as
being a deadly sort of doctrine. "Believe, if you please," added he, "in
the material resurrection of the body, but not without a soul: it would
be cruel indeed, if, after having had a soul in this world (and our
mind, by whatever name you call it, is really a soul), we were to be
separated from it in the other, even for material immortality! I confess
my partiality for mind."
Alluding to the systems of philosophy that do not admit creation
according to Genesis, he says, that "even if we could get rid of Adam
and Eve, of the apple and the serpent, we should not know what to put in
their place; that the difficulty would not be overcome; that things must
have had a beginning, it matters not when and how; that creation must
have had an origin and a Creator. For creation is much more natural and
easy to imagine than a concurrence of atoms; that all things may be
traced to their sources even though they end by emptying themselves into
an ocean."
We have seen what he said to Parry upon religion[69] and its ministers,
upon God Almighty and the hope of enjoying eternal life, only a few
weeks before his glorious death.
And when the hand of death was already upon him, a few moments before
his agony, did he not say that eternity and space were already before
his eyes, but that on this point, thanks to God, _he was happy and
tranquil?_ that the thought of living _eternally_, of living another
life, was a great consolation to him? that Christianity was the purest
and most liberal of all religions (although a little spoiled by the
ministers of Christ, often the worst enemies of its liberal and
charitable doctrines); but that, as to the questions depending on these
doctrines, and which God alone, all powerful, can determine, in Him
alone did he wish to rest?
But if Lord Byron was constant to a certain order of ideas, was he
equally constant in his affections? Moore again shall answer:--
"The same distrust in his own steadiness, thus keeping alive in him a
conscientious self-watchfulness, concurred not a little, I have no
doubt, with the innate, kindness of his nature, to preserve so constant
and unbroken the greater number of his attachments through life--some of
them, as in the instance of his mother, owing evidently more to a sense
of duty than of real affection, the consistency with which, so
creditably to the strength of his character, they were maintained."
But, putting aside family affections, where constancy may appear a duty
and a necessity, let us see what Lord Byron was in affections of his own
choice,--such as friendship and love, where inconstancy is a sin that
the world easily forgives.
We have seen what the friendship of Lord Byron meant. Death destroyed
several of the young existences with which his heart was bound up, and
his first sorrows sprang from these misfortunes. But _never_ by his
will, caprice, or fault, did he lose a single friend! Even the wrongs
they inflicted, while they weighed upon his mind, altered his opinions
sometimes, dispelled some sweet illusions and grieved his heart, yet
could not succeed in changing it. He contented himself with judging the
individual in such cases, sometimes with philosophical indulgence which
he was only too much accustomed to hide under the veil of pleasantry,
and sometimes in showing openly how much his heart was wounded.[70]
This constancy of heart that he showed in friendship, was it equally his
in matters of love? By his energy of soul, unable ever to forget any
thing, Lord Byron possessed the first condition toward constancy in
love. Contrary to those unstable persons who say that they cease to
love, for the simple reason that they have already loved too much, it
might rather be said of Lord Byron that he still loved on only because
he had loved. In all his poems, he has idealized fidelity and constancy
in love. All the heroes of his poems are faithful and constant, from
Conrad, Lara, Selim, all those of the Oriental poems of his youth, up to
those of his latter life, to his Biblical mysteries. Even the angels,
the seraphim, in that beautiful poem, written shortly before his death,
"Heaven and Earth," prefer suffering to inconstancy,--to forfeit heaven
rather than return there without their beloved. In vain the archangel
Raphael presses the two amorous seraphim to come back to the celestial
sphere, to abandon the two sisters, and menaces them. Samiasa replies:--
"It may not be:
We have chosen, and will endure."
The poet gives it to be understood that they will be punished; which
forms the moral of the piece. Don Juan himself refuses the love of a
beautiful sultana, from fidelity to the remembrance of his Haidee; and
when, afterward, he does yield, he seems to bear with, rather than to
have sought success. One feels that this idealization of fidelity and
constancy really has its source in Lord Byron's heart, and not in his
imagination. Still, however, the chief and undeniable proof must be
drawn from his own life.
The first condition for judging any one impartially with regard to
inconstancy in love, is not only to know the facts and real
circumstances connected with an intimacy, but especially to know the
nature of the sentiment to which the name of love has been applied. We
are aware that, at fifteen years of age, Lord Byron's heart was already
under the influence of a young girl of eighteen.[71] The mere
disproportion of age prevents such an affection from offering any
grounds on which to examine his capability of being constant. It is well
known how much suffering this early passion caused him. The object of
it, after denying him no token of reciprocal love that was innocent,
giving him her picture, agreeing to meetings, receiving all the
spontaneous, innocent, confiding tenderness of his young and ardent
heart, left him in the lurch one fine day, on account of his youth, in
order to marry a fashionable, vulgar man. And thus did she destroy the
charm which governed his heart. Precocious reflection, with its
accompaniment of knowledge, agitating, confusing, throwing young souls
on the road to error, succeeded to his enchantment. He then began (at
sixteen) to talk of vanished illusions; and, for want of something
better, allowed himself to be carried away, and to lead the ordinary
university life. He evidently only did what others did; but he was made
of different materials; and while they thought this dissipation very
natural, and, tranquil in their inferiority, believed themselves
innocent, he alone disapproved of his own conduct and blamed it. The
better to escape all this, he went in search of forgetfulness amid the
fresh breezes of ocean, across the Pyrenees, among the ruins of ancient
civilization. Yet, after two years' travelling, on his return to
England, his soul all love, his heart burning with an infinite ardor,
through that intoxication of success which weakens, through that
eagerness for emotion caused by his vivacity of mind, and even by a sort
of psychological curiosity, Lord Byron did fall into new attachments.
And these attachments, not being of a nature that could stand the trial
of reflection, caused him to give up known for unknown objects. But his
soul was ever agitated, in commotion, and, even when he changed, it was
through necessity rather than caprice. In order to escape once more from
himself, from the allurements of the senses, from the effects of the
enthusiasm which his personal beauty and his genius excited among women,
he resolved to take refuge in an indissoluble tie, in a tie formed by
duty, not love. Perhaps he might have found strength for perseverance in
the beauty of the sacrifice. His soul was quite capable of it. But
destiny pursued him in his choice, and rendered it impossible. To his
misfortune, he married Miss Milbank.[72] Again he drifted away from the
right path, but, this time, with the resolution of keeping his heart
independent, his soul free and unfettered by any indissoluble tie.[73]
But in coming to this determination at the age of twenty-eight, he
had not consulted his heart, ever athirst for infinitude. Vainly
he sought to lull it, to keep it earthward, to laugh at his own
aspirations--useless labor! One day it broke loose. Nature is like
water; sooner or later it must find its equilibrium. From that day
forth Psyche's lamp had no more light; reflection had no more power; and
the love which had taken possession of his soul left him not again, but
accompanied him to his last hour, through the modifications inevitable
in earthly affections. This constancy maintained thenceforth without a
struggle, he understood at once; and felt that the unchanging sentiment
belonged equally to his will and to his destiny. "_Coelum, non animam
mutant qui trans mare currunt_," wrote he one day at Ravenna, on the
opening page of "Jacopo Ortis," Foscolo's work, that had just fallen
into his hands; for he knew that no one could read this avowal of his
heart where he had traced it. After having remarked the strange
coincidence by which this volume was brought a second time before him,
just when he was, as once before, in extreme agitation, he continued
thus:--
"Most men bewail not having attained the object of their desires. I had
oftener to deplore the obtaining mine, for I can not love moderately,
nor quiet my heart with mere fruition. The letters of this Italian
Werther are very interesting; at least I think so, but my present
feelings hardly render me a competent judge."
Another time, a volume of "Corinne," translated into Italian, fell under
his notice at Ravenna. In the same language, which no one then about him
could read, he confided to this book the secret of his heart, and, after
having poured out its fullness in words of noble melting tenderness,
concluded thus:--"Think of me when Alps and sea shall separate us; _but
that will never come to pass, unless you so will it_."
It was not willed, and therefore the separation did not take place. But,
alas! the day arrived when he was so entangled in a multiplicity of
complications, and honor spoke so loudly, that both sides were forced to
will it.
Whoever should consider this departure the result of inconstancy, is
incapable to form an estimate of his great soul. His affection, that had
lasted for years, admitted no longer of any uneasiness, for it was
brought into complete harmony with that of her he loved. Naturally his
heart underwent the transformation produced by time. His affection was
gradually acquiring the sweetness of unchanging friendship, without