My Recollections of Lord Byron

punish, and never forgive any thing that does not enter into the category of their virtues, or rather of the single virtue they practice, and under shadow of which they consider themselves able to dispense with all others? Did he not fear that the profound mathematical knowledge of that learned person might have slightly deadened her heart and given a dogmatic tone to her mind, of which he doubtless with his usual penetration suspected the narrowness, likely to render its science pernicious to the heart? All this is easily to be believed, when we see how preoccupied he was before marriage. "At the beginning of the month of December, being called up to town by business, I had opportunities, from being a good deal in my noble friend's society, of observing the state of his mind and feelings under the prospect of the important change he was now about to undergo; and it was with pain I found that those sanguine hopes with which I had sometimes looked forward to the happy influence of marriage, in winning him over to the brighter and better side of life, were, by a view of all the circumstances of his present destiny considerably diminished. While, at the same time, not a few doubts and misgivings, which had never before so strongly occurred to me, with regard to his own fitness, under any circumstances, for the matrimonial tie, filled me altogether with a degree of foreboding anxiety as to his fate, which the unfortunate events that followed but too fully justified." Lord Byron might still have avoided this misfortune by giving up marriage; but the die was cast. His evil genius presented him with no other alternative than to rush on to the catastrophe. We must add that if, unfortunately, the halo of perfection supposed to encircle the heiress was calculated to make him tremble, it was also of a nature to flatter his self-love. This reputation was, in the eyes of Moore, the principal cause of his preference for Miss Milbank. However that may be, in the last days of December, accompanied by his friend Mr. Hobhouse, he set out for Seaham, the residence of Sir Ralph, Miss Milbank's father. And on the morning of the 2d of January, surrounded by visions of the past, by gloomy forebodings, having in his hand the fatal ring that had been dug up in his garden at the moment when Miss Milbank's consent arrived; with a beating heart, and eyes all dizzy, that would have made him draw back, if his honor had not been too far engaged, Lord Byron advanced toward the altar. From that fatal day, if his star of glory did not cease to shine, or even if it shone more brightly seen through the atmosphere of misfortune, nevertheless repose and lasting happiness were gone for him. An heiress for a wife, but who had no actual fortune, naturally forced him into great expenses, that soon went beyond his resources. His creditors, lured by the riches said to belong to Miss Milbank, came down upon him, as if the wife's fortune could be used to pay the husband's debts. His marriage had taken place in January, and already, in October, he was obliged to sell his library. Shortly afterward his furniture was seized, and he had to undergo humiliations, all the more keenly felt, that they were quite unmerited, since his debts were inherited with the property. Lord Byron--who had a real horror of debt--with his spirit of justice, moderate desires, simple tastes, detached as he was from material enjoyments, and even, perhaps, through pride, would never have fallen into such embarrassments if he had remained _unmarried_. Indeed, his creditors were patiently awaiting the sale of some property. Besides, he was rich enough while unmarried; he could exercise hospitality, travel in good style, not even keep for himself the produce of his works, and, above all, never refuse to perform works of charity and benevolence. He wrote to one of his friends before marriage that his affairs were about to be settled, that he could live comfortably in England, and buy a principality, if he wished, in Turkey. Thus, then, marriage alone drew upon him this new disaster, which he must have felt severely, and which, doubtless, led him to make reflections little favorable to the tie so fatally contracted. Then it was that he would have required to meet with kindness, indulgence, and peace at home; thus supported, his heart would have endured every thing. Instead of that, what did he find? A woman whose jealousy was extreme, and who had her own settled way of living, and was unflinching in her ideas; who united a conviction of her own wisdom to perfect ignorance of the human heart,[140] all the while fancying that she knew it so well; who, far from consenting to modify her habits, would fain have imposed them on others. In short, a woman who had nothing in common with him, who was unable to understand him, or to find the road to his heart or mind; finally, one to whom forgiveness seemed a weakness, instead of a virtue. Is it, then, astonishing that he should have suffered in such a depressing atmosphere; that he should sometimes have been irritable, and have even allowed to escape him a few words likely to wound the susceptible self-love of his wife? Lady Byron possessed one of those minds clever at reasoning, but weak in judgment; that can _reason_ much without being _reasonable_, to use the words of a great philosophical moralist of our day; one of those minds that act as if life were a problem in jurisprudence or geometry; who argue, distinguish, and, by dint of syllogisms, _deceive themselves learnedly_. She always deceived herself in this way about Lord Byron. When she was in the family way, and her confinement drawing near, the storm continued to gather above her husband's head. He was in correspondence with Moore, then absent from London. Moore's apprehensions with regard to the happiness likely to result from a union that had never appeared suitable in his eyes, had, nevertheless, calmed down on receiving letters from Lord Byron that expressed satisfaction. Yet during the first days of what is vulgarly termed the "honey-moon," Lord Byron sent Moore some very melancholy verses, to be set to music, said he, and which begin thus:-- "There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away." Moore had already felt some vague disquietude, and he asked why he allowed his mind to dwell on such sorrowful ideas? Lord Byron replied that he had written these verses on learning the death of a friend of his childhood, the Duke of Dorset, and, as his subsequent letters were full of jests, Moore became reassured. Lord Byron said he was happy, and so he really was; for Lady Byron, not being jealous then, continued to be gentle and amiable. "But these indications of a contented heart soon ceased. His mention of the partner of his home became more rare and formal, and there was observable, I thought, through some of his letters, a feeling of unquiet and weariness that brought back all those gloomy anticipations which I had, from the first, felt regarding his fate." Above all, there were expressions in his letters that seemed of sad augury. For instance, in announcing the birth of his little girl, Lord Byron said that he was absorbed in five hundred contradictory contemplations, although he had only one single object in view, which would probably come to nothing, as it mostly happens with all we desire:-- "But never mind," he said, "as somebody says, '_for the blue sky bends over all_.' I only could be glad if it bent over me where it is a little bluer, like _skyish top of blue Olympus_." On reading this letter, dated the 5th of January, full of aspirations after a blue sky, Moore was struck with the tone of melancholy pervading it; and, knowing that it was Lord Byron's habit when under the pressure of sorrow and uneasiness, to seek relief in expressing his yearnings after freedom and after other climes, he wrote to him in these terms:-- "Do you know, my dear Byron, there was something in your last letter--a sort of mystery, as well as a want of your usual elasticity of spirits--which has hung upon my mind unpleasantly ever since. I long to be near you, that I might know how you really look and feel, for these letters tell nothing, and one word _a quattr' occhi_, is worth whole reams of correspondence. But only do tell me you are happier than that letter has led me to fear, and I shall be satisfied." "It was," says Moore, "only a few weeks after the exchange of these letters, that Lady Byron took the resolution of separating from him. She had left London at the end of January, on a visit to her parents, in Leicestershire, and Lord Byron was to come and join her there soon after. They had parted with mutual demonstrations of attachment and of good understanding. On the journey Lady Byron wrote a letter to her husband, couched in playful, affectionate language. What, then, must have been his astonishment when, directly after her arrival at Kirby Mallory, her father, Sir Ralph, wrote to tell Lord Byron that his daughter was going to remain with them, and would return to him no more." This unexpected stroke fell heavily upon him. The pecuniary embarrassments growing up since his marriage (for he had already undergone eight or nine executions in his own house), had then reached their climax. He was then, to use his own energetic expression, _alone at his hearth, his penates transfixed around_; and then was he also condemned to receive the unaccountable intelligence that the wife who had just parted from him in the most affectionate manner, had abandoned him forever. His state of mind can not be told, nor, perhaps, be imagined. Still he describes it in some passages of his letters, showing at the same time the firmness, dignity, and strength of mind that always distinguished him. For example, he wrote to Rogers, two weeks after this thunderbolt had fallen upon him:-- "I shall be very glad to see you if you like to call, though I am at present contending with the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,' some of which have struck me from a quarter whence I did not, indeed, expect them; but, no matter, there is a 'world elsewhere,' and I will cut my way through this as I can. If you write to Moore, will you tell him that I shall answer his letter the moment I can muster time and spirits. Ever yours, BYRON." This strength of mind he only found a month afterward, and then he wrote to him:-- "I have not answered your letter for a time, and at present the reply to it might extend to such a length that I shall delay it till it can be made in person, and then I will shorten it as much as I can. I am at war _with all the world and my wife_, or, rather, all the world and my wife are at war with me, and have not yet crushed me, and shall not crush me, whatever they may do. I don't know that in the course of a hair-breadth existence I was ever, at home or abroad, in a situation so completely uprooted of present pleasure, or rational hope for the future, as this time. I say this because I think so, and feel it. But I shall not sink under it the more for that mode of considering the question. I have made up my mind. "By the way, however, you must not believe all you hear on the subject; but don't attempt to defend me. If you succeeded in that it would be a mortal, or an immortal, offense. Who can bear refutation?"[141] And, after having spoken of his wife's family, he concludes in these terms:-- "Those who know what is going on say that the mysterious cause of our domestic misunderstandings is a Mrs. C----, now a kind of house-keeper and spy of Lady N----, who was a washer-woman in former days." Swayed by this idea, he went so far then in his generosity as to exonerate his wife, and accuse himself; whereupon Moore answered that,