LORD BYRON'S MISANTHROPY AND SOCIABILITY.
Lord Byron has also been accused of misanthropy. But what is a
misanthrope? Since Lucian, this name has been bestowed on the man who
owns no friend but himself; who looks upon all others as so many rogues,
for whom relatives, friends, country, are but empty names; who despises
fame, and aims at no distinction except that conferred by his strange
manners, savage anger, and inhumanity.
When those who have known Lord Byron, and studied his life, compare him
to this type, it may well be asked whether such persons be in their
right understanding. The famous tower of Babel, and all the confusion
ensuing, rise up to view.
The excess of absurdity may give way, however, to some little moderation
in judgment. It will be said, for instance, that there are different
kinds of misanthropy. Lucian's "Timon" does not at all resemble
Moliere's "Alceste:" Lord Byron's misanthropy was not like either of
theirs; his was only of the kind that mars sociability, good temper, and
other amiable qualities. In short, we shall be given to understand that
Lord Byron is only accused of _having liked solitude too much, of having
shunned his fellow-creatures too much, and thought too ill of humanity_.
But these modifications can not satisfy our conscience. Still too many
reasons of astonishment may be offered to allow us to resist the desire
of adding other facts and indisputable proofs to those already adduced
in the chapter where we examined the nature and limits of his melancholy
at all periods of life, and throughout all its phases.[119] This chapter
might even suffice as a response to the above strange accusation.
A better answer still would be found in all the proofs we have given of
his goodness, generosity, and humanity. Nevertheless, we think it right
rather to appeal to the patience of our readers; so that they may
consider with us, more especially, one of the peculiar aspects of Lord
Byron's character; namely, his sociability.
That Lord Byron loved solitude, and that it was a want of his nature who
can doubt? As a child, we know, his delight was to wander alone on the
sea-shore, on the Scottish strand. At school, he was wont to withdraw
from his beloved companions, and the games he liked so well, in order to
pass whole hours seated on the solitary stone in the church-yard at
Harrow, which has been fitly called _Byron's Tomb_. He himself describes
these inclinations of his childhood in the "Lament of Tasso:"--
"Of objects all inanimate I made
Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers,
And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise,
Where I did lay me down within the shade
Of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours,
Though I was chid for wandering; and the wise
Shook their white aged heads o'er me, and said,
Of such materials wretched men were made."
Arrived at adolescence, he showed so little inclination to mix in
society that his friends reproached him with his over-weening love for
solitude. Amid the gay dissipation of university life, he was often a
prey to vague disquietude. Like the majority of great spirits that had
preceded him at Cambridge,--Milton, Gray, Locke, etc.,--he did not enjoy
his stay there. He even made a satire upon it in his early poems. At a
later period, when he had acquired fame, at the very height of his
triumphs, when he was _the observed of all observers_, he often caught
himself dreaming on the happiness of escaping from fashionable society,
and getting home; for, like Pope, he greatly preferred quiet reading to
the most agreeable conversation.
All his life there were hours and days wherein his mind absolutely
required this repose.
It may, then, truly be said that he loved solitude, and felt a real
attraction for it. But would it be equally just to attribute this taste
to melancholy, and then to call his melancholy _misanthropy_? Those who
have deeply studied the nature of a certain order of genius, and the
phases of its development, will discover something very different in the
impulse that attracted the child Byron to the sea-shore in Scotland, and
to the sepulchral stone shaded over by the tall trees of Harrow? They
will see therein, not the melancholy apparent to vulgar eyes, but the
forecast of genius, to be revealed sooner or later, and with a further
promise, in the antipathy shown for the routine of schools, and
especially of the University of Cambridge,--a suffocating atmosphere for
genius, equally uncongenial to Milton, Dryden, Gray, and Locke, who all,
like Lord Byron, and more bitterly than he, exercised their satiric vein
on it. As for the slight attraction he sometimes showed for the world in
his youth--in his seventeenth year--and which the excellent Mr. Beecher
reproached him with, his feelings are too well defined by the noble boy
himself for us to dare to substitute any words of ours in lieu of those
used by him, in justification to his friend.
Dear Beecher, you tell me to mix with mankind;
I can not deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind;
I will not descend to a world I despise.
Did the senate or camp my exertions require,
Ambition might prompt me at once to go forth;
And, when infancy's years of probation expire,
Perchance, I may strive to distinguish my birth.
The fire in the cavern of Etna concealed
Still mantles unseen in its secret recess:
At length in a volume terrific revealed,
No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.
Oh! thus the desire in my bosom for fame
Bids me live but to hope for posterity's praise.
Could I soar with the phoenix on pinions of flame,
With him I would wish to expire in the blaze.
For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death,
What censure, what danger, what woe would I brave!
Their lives did not end when they yielded their breath;
Their glory illumines the gloom of their grave.
Yet why should I mingle in Fashion's full herd?
Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules?
Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd,
Why search for delight in the friendship of fools?
I have tasted the sweets and the bitters of love;
In friendship I early was taught to believe;
My passion the matrons of prudence reprove;
I have found that a friend may profess, yet deceive.
To me what is wealth?--it may pass in an hour,
If tyrant's prevail, or if Fortune should frown:
To me what is title? the phantom of power;
To me what is fashion?--I seek but renown.
Deceit is a stranger as yet to my soul:
I still am unpracticed to varnish the truth:
Then why should I live in a hateful control?
Why waste upon folly the days of my youth? 1806.
Thus it was the desire of fame that then engrossed his whole soul; the
wish of adding some great action to illustrate a name already ennobled
by his ancestors.
Subsequently, this ardent desire may have become weakened. Alas! he had
been made to pay so dearly for satisfying it. But at the outset of his
career this aspiration after glory, that belongs to the noblest souls,
was the strongest impulse he had,--the one that often made him prefer
the solitary exercise of intelligence to even the usual dissipation of
youth, and when he did yield, like others, he punished himself by
self-inflicted blame and contempt, often expressed in an imprudent,
exaggerated manner.
Nevertheless, the paths that lead to glory are various, and trod by
many; which should he choose? Then did he feel the further torment of
uncertainty. His faculties were various, and he was to learn this to his
cost. He was to feel, though vaguely, that he might just as well aspire
to the civic as to the military crown; be an orator in the senate, or a
hero on the field of battle.
Among all the careers presenting themselves before him, the one that
flattered him least was to be an author or a literary man. But he was
living in the midst of young men well versed in letters. Most of them
amused themselves with making verses. To tranquillize his heart, and
exercise his activity of mind, he also made some, but without attaching
any great importance to them. These verses were charming; the first
flower and perfume of a young, pure soul, devoted to friendship and
other generous emotions. Nevertheless, a criticism that was at once
malignant, unjust, and cruel, fell foul of these delightful, clever
inspirations. The injustice committed was great. The modest, gentle, but
no less sensitive mind of the youth was both indignant and overwhelmed
at it. Other sorrows, other illusions dispelled, further increased his
agitation, making a wound that might really have become misanthropy, had
his heart been less excellent by nature. But it could not rankle thus in
him, and his sufferings only resulted in making him quit England with
less regret, and throw into his verses and letters misanthropical
expressions, no sooner written than disavowed by the general tone of
cordiality and good-humor that reigned throughout them; and, lastly, by
suggesting the imprudent idea of choosing a misanthrope as the hero of
the poem in which he was to sing his own pilgrimage.
This necessity of essaying and giving expression to his genius also made
him desire solitude yet more. He found poetic loneliness beneath the
bright skies of the East, where he pitched his tent, slowly to seek the
road to that fame for which his soul thirsted. But when he arrived at
it,--when he became transformed, so to say, into an idol,--did this
necessity for solitude abandon him? By no means.
"_April 10th._--I do not know that I am happiest when alone," he writes
in his memoranda; "but this I am sure of, I never am long in the society
even of her I love--and God knows how I love her--without a yearning for
the company of my lamp and my library. Even in the day, I send away my
carriage oftener than I use or abuse it."
This desire, this craving for his lamp and his library,--this absence of
taste for certain realities of life,--show affinities between Lord Byron
and another great spirit, Montaigne. One might fancy one hears Lord
Byron saying, with the other:--
"The continual intercourse I hold with ancient thought, and the ideas
caught from those wondrous spirits of by-gone times, disgust me with
others and with myself."
He also felt _ennui_ at living in an age that _only produced very
ordinary things_.
But whether he felt happy or sad, it was always in silence, in
retirement, and contemplation of the great visible nature, carrying his
thought away to what does not the less exist though veiled from our
feeble sight and intellect; it was there, I say, that his mind and heart
sought strength, peace, and consolation.
His soul was bursting with mighty griefs when he arrived in
Switzerland, on the borders of Lake Leman. He loved this beautiful spot,
but did not deem himself sufficiently alone to enjoy it fully.
"There is too much of man here, to look through
With a fit mind the might which I behold,"
said he; and he promised himself soon to arrive at that beloved
solitude, so necessary to him for enjoying well the grand spectacle
presented by Helvetian nature; but, he added:--
"To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind:
* * * * * * *
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
Deep in its fountain, lest it over boil
In the hot throng."
And then he continues:--
"I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling."
Thus, even in the midst of the beloved solitude so necessary to him,
there was no misanthropy in his thoughts or feelings, but simply the
desire of not being disturbed in his studies and reveries. Lord Byron
often said, that solitude made him better. He thought, on that head,
like La Bruyere:--"_All the evil in us_," says that great moralist,
"_springs from the impossibility of our being alone. Thence we fall into
gambling, luxury, dissipation, wine, women, ignorance, slandering, envy,
forgetfulness of self, and of God._" If the satisfaction of this noble
want were to be called _misanthropy_, few of our great spirits, whether
philosophers, poets, or orators, could escape the accusation. For, with
almost all of them, the taste for retirement and solitude has been
likewise a necessity: a condition without which we should have lost
their greatest _chefs-d'oeuvre_. The biography of the noblest minds
leaves no doubt on this head. But if Lord Byron did not use solitude
like a misanthrope, if he loved it solely as a means, and not as an end,
so that we may even say it was with him an antidote to misanthropy, can
we equally give proof of his sociability? To clear up this point, we
have only to glance at his whole life. For the sake of avoiding
repetition, let us pass over his childhood, so full of tenderness, and
ardor for youthful pastimes; his boyhood, all devoted to feelings
affectionate and passionate; his university life, where sociability
seemed to predominate over regular study; the vacations, when it was
such pleasure to act plays, and he was the life of amateur theatres,--a
time that has left behind it such an enthusiastic memory of him, that
when Moore, some years after Lord Byron's death, went to obtain
information about it from the amiable Pigott family, not one member
could be found to admit that Lord Byron _had the smallest defect_. Let
us also pass over his sojourn at Newstead, when his sociability and
gayety appear even to have been too noisy; and let us arrive at that
period of his life when he began to be called a misanthrope, because he
gave himself that appellation, because real sorrows had cast a shade
over his life, and because, wishing to devote himself to graver things,
his object was to withdraw from the society of gay, noisy companions,
and then to mature his mind in distant travel. He left his native land,
but in company with his friend Hobhouse, a man distinguished for his
intelligence, and who, instead of testifying to his fellow-traveller's
misanthropy, bears witness, on the contrary, to his amiable, sociable
disposition.
When this friend was obliged to take leave of him in Greece, and return
to England, Lord Byron frequented the society of pleasant persons like
Lord Sligo, Mr. Bruce, and Lady Hester Stanhope, whom he met at Athens,
alleviating his studious solitude by intercourse with them.
When he also returned to England, after two years of absence, great
misfortunes overwhelmed him. He lost successively his mother, dear
friends, and other loved ones. Not to sink beneath these accumulated
blows, and mistrusting his own strength, he called in to aid him the
society of his friends.
"My dear Scroope," wrote he, "if you have an instant, come and join me,
I entreat you. I want a friend; I am in utter desolation. Come and see
me; let me enjoy as long as I can the company of those friends that yet
remain."
Some time after, having attained the highest popularity, and his mind
being soothed by friendship even more than by fame, he entered into the
fashionable society in which his rank entitled him to move.
He frequented the world very much at this period, cultivating it
assiduously. A moment even came when he seemed to be completely absorbed
by gayety. Sometimes going to as many as fourteen assemblies, balls,
etc., in one evening. "He acknowledged to me," says Dallas, "that it
amused him." Did not his genius suffer then from the new infatuation? So
courted, flattered, and surrounded by temptations, did not this worldly
life prove too seductive, hurtful to his mind, heart, and independence
of character? Did he draw from the world's votaries his rules of
judgment, his ways of thought? Did he yield when brought in contact with
that terrible _English law of opinion_? No; Lord Byron was safe from all
such dangers. Amid the vortex in which he allowed himself to be whirled
along, his mind was never idle. In the drawing-rooms he frequented, his
intellectual curiosity found field for exercise. Though so young, he had
already reflected much on human nature in general; but he still required
to study individuals. It was in society that his extraordinary
penetration could find out true character, discover the reality lurking
under a borrowed mask. The great world formed an excellent school to
discipline his mind. There he found subjects for observation that he
afterward put in order, and brought to maturity in retirement.
"Wherever he went," says Moore, "Lord Byron found field for observation
and study. To a mind with a glance so deep, lively, and varied, every
place, and every occupation, presented some view of interest; and,
whether he were at a ball, in the boxing-school, or the senate, a genius
like his turned every thing to advantage."
And if _salons_ in general were powerless to exercise any bad influence
over him, this impossibility was still greater with regard to London
_salons_. Without adopting as exact the picture drawn of them by a
learned academician,[120] in a book more witty than true, wherein we
read:--"that under pain of passing for eccentric, of giving scandal or
exciting alarm, English people are forbidden to speak of others or
themselves, of politics, religion, or intellectual things or matters of
taste; but only of the environs, the roundabouts, a picnic, a visit to
some ruin, a fashionable preacher, a fox-hunt, and the rain,--that
never-ending theme kindly furnished by the inconstant climate;" without,
I say, adopting this picture as true, for in England it must be
considered a clever caricature, it is nevertheless certain, that the
discipline of fashionable London _salons_ requires independence of mind
to be in a measure sacrificed. The tone reigning in these _salons_,
which are only opened during the season, is quite different from that
produced by the open-hearted hospitality which renders English country
residences so very agreeable. Could Lord Byron long take pleasure in the
salons of the metropolis, where every thing is on the surface and noisy,
where one may say that people are content with simply showing
themselves, intending concealment all the while; or where they show
themselves _what they are not_; where set forms, or a vocabulary of
their own, so far limits allowable subjects of conversation, that fools
may easily have the advantage over clever men (for intellect is looked
upon as suspicious, dangerous, bold, and called an eccentricity). Lord
Byron, so frank, and open-hearted, loving fame, and having a sort of
presentiment that Heaven would not accord him sufficient time to reap
his full harvest of genius, consequently regretting the moments he was
forced to lose; must he not, after seeking amusement in these
assemblies, soon have found that they lasted too long, and were too
fatiguing? Must he not often have well-nigh revolted against himself,
felt something cold and heavy restraining his outburst of soul,
something like a sort of slavery; must he not have understood that it
was requisite for him to escape from such useless pastimes in order to
re-invigorate himself by study, in the society of his own thoughts, and
those of the master-spirits of ages? Yes, Lord Byron did experience all
that. _Ennui_ of the world called him back to solitude. We can not doubt
it, he said so himself:--
"Last night, _party_ at Lansdowne House; to-night, party at Lady
Charlotte Greville's--_deplorable waste of time_, and loss of _temper,
nothing imparted, nothing acquired_--_talking without ideas_--if any
thing like thought were in my mind, it was not on the subjects on which
we were gabbling. Heigho! and in this way half London pass what is
called life. To-morrow, there is Lady Heathcote's--shall I go? Yes; to
punish myself for not having a pursuit."
And, elsewhere:--
"Shall I go to Lansdowne's? to the Berry's? They are all pleasant; but I
don't know, I don't think that _soirees_ improve one."
He will not go into the world:--
"I don't believe this worldly life does any good; how could such a world
ever be made? Of what use are dandies, for instance, and kings, and
fellows at college, and women of a certain age, and many men of my age,
myself foremost?"
Having changed his apartments, he had not yet got all his books; was
reading without order, composing nothing; and he suffered in
consequence. "I must set myself to do something directly; my heart
already begins to feed on itself." He accuses himself of not profiting
enough by time. "Twenty-six years of age! I might and ought to be a
Pasha at that age. '_I 'gin to be weary of the sun._'" But let him be
with a clever friend, like Moore, for instance, and, oh! then the
_ennui_ of salons becomes metamorphosed into pleasure for him, without
taking away his clearsightedness as to the world's worth.
"Are you going this evening," writes he to Moore, "to Lady Cahir's? I
will, if you do; and wherever we can unite in follies, let us embark on
the _same ship of fools_. I went to bed at five, and got up at nine."
And elsewhere, after having expressed his disappointment at seeing Moore
so little during the season, he calls London "a populous desert, where
one should be able to keep one's thirst like the camel. _The streams are
so few, and for the most part so muddy._"
And ten years later, in the fourteenth canto of "Don Juan," he said,
speaking of fashionable London society:--
"Although it seems both prominent and pleasant,
There is a sameness in its gems and ermine,
A dull and family likeness through all ages,
Of no great promise for poetic pages.
XVI.
"With much to excite, there's little to exalt;
Nothing that speaks to all men and all times;
A sort of varnish over every fault;
A kind of commonplace, even in their crimes;
Factitious passions, wit without much salt,
A want of that true nature which sublimes
Whate'er it shows with truth; a smooth monotony
Of character, in those at least who have got any.
XVII.
"Sometimes, indeed, like soldiers off parade,
They break their ranks and gladly leave the drill;
But then the roll-call draws them back afraid,
And they must be or seem what they were: still
Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade;
But when of the first sight you have had your fill,
It palls--at least it did so upon me,
This paradise of _pleasure and ennui_."
It was thus that he judged what is called the great world, the
fashionable crowd. Yet never having ceased to frequent it, he also might
have said, with Plutarch:--"My taste leads me to fly the world; but the
gentleness of my nature brings me back to it again."
The best proof, however, of his sociable disposition does not lie in
this fact of his going much to great assemblies, since he submitted to,
rather than sought after that: it consists in the pleasure he always
took in the society of friends, and those whom he loved; in the want of
_intimacy_ which he ever experienced. In such quiet little circles he
was truly himself, quite different to what he appeared in salons. Then
only could he be really known. His wit, gayety, and simplicity were
unveiled solely for friends and intimates. He, so light-hearted, became
serious amid the forced laughter of drawing-rooms; he, so witty, waxed
silent and gloomy amid unmeaning conventional talkativeness. Those who
only saw him in salons, or on fashionable staircases, during the four
years he passed in England, did not really know him; is it surprising
that he should have been wrongly judged? Moore alone has tolerably well
described the agreeable, sociable, gay, kind being Lord Byron was.
When he quitted England, his sociable disposition did not abandon him,
though his soul was filled with bitterness. He had scarcely arrived at
Geneva, when he became intimate with Shelley. He made him the companion
of his walks, passed whole days and evenings in his society, and that of
his amiable wife. Several London friends came to join him in
Switzerland. In his excursions over the Alps, Lord Broughton (then Mr.
Hobhouse) was always his faithful companion. He frequented and
appreciated then, more than he had ever done before in England, the
society of Madame de Stael at Coppet, because it was there and not in
drawing-rooms that this noble-hearted woman showed herself what she was.
Always attracted by high intellect, he became intimate with Count Rossi,
entertaining so great a sympathy for him, that often when the count was
about to leave him and return to Geneva, Lord Byron retained him by his
entreaties. As to the natives of Geneva, as he detested Calvinism, and
knew that they believed the calumnies wickedly spread abroad against him
by some of his country-people, he did not see them often, for he did not
like them. "What are you going to do in that den of honest men," said he
one day to Count Rossi, who was preparing to leave. On arriving at
Milan, he immediately adopted the style of life usual there. Every
evening he went to the theatre, occupying M. de Breme's box, together
with a group of young and clever men; among them I may name Silvio
Pellico, Abbe de Breme, Monti, Porro, and Stendhal (Beyle), who have all
unanimously testified to his amiability, social temper, and fascinating
conversation. At Venice, he allowed himself to be presented in the most
hospitable mansions of the nobility; particularly distinguishing those
where Countess Albruzzi and Countess Benzoni presided, for he always
went to one or other of these ladies after leaving the theatre. Nor did
he disdain, during the early part of his stay at Venice, even the
official salon of the Comtesse de Goetz. But his aversion for Austrian
oppression and the perfidy of the official press soon obliged him to
withdraw; for the oppressors of Venice, knowing him to be a formidable
enemy, sought to discredit him by spreading all sorts of calumnious
reports against him and his private character.[121]
It has been seen in his "Life in Italy" how he divided his time at
Venice, and the impression he made wherever there had not been a
preconceived purpose of judging him unfavorably. In the morning, his
first walk was always directed toward the convent of the Armenian
Fathers, in the island of San Lazzaro. He went there to study their
language; and these good monks conceived an extreme affection for him.
Afterward he would cross the Laguna going to the Lido, where his stables
were. He was accustomed to ride on horseback with the different friends
who chanced to arrive from England: such as Hobhouse, Monk Lewis, Rose,
Kinnaird, Shelley, and more particularly still with Mr. Hoppner,
Consul-general for England at Venice, a man of the noblest stamp, much
beloved by Lord Byron, and who, in the account he has left of this
intercourse, can not find words adequate for expressing all he wished to
say of the charming social qualities Lord Byron displayed at Venice.
"_People have no idea_," says he, "_of Lord Byron's gayety, vivacity,
and_ amiability." He followed Italian customs, went every evening to the
theatre, where his box was always filled with friends and acquaintances;
and after that, generally spent the remainder of the evening or night,
according to the then custom of Venice, in the most distinguished
circles of the town, principally at the houses of Countess Albruzzi and
Countess Benzoni, where he was not only welcome, but so much liked, that
these salons were voted dull when he did not appear. Lastly, his social
qualities and amiability gave so much pleasure at Venice, and the
inhabitants were so desirous of keeping him among them, that his
departure for Ravenna actually stirred up malice, quite foreign to the
usual simplicity characterizing Venetian society.[122]
The friends who came to see him there,--Hobhouse, Lewis, Kinnaird,
Shelley, Rose, etc.,--succeeded each other at short intervals, and their
arrivals were so many fetes for him. But while he was leading this
sociable life, vulgar tourists, who had not been able to succeed in
getting presented to him, took their revenge, by repeating in every
direction fables they had gleaned from the gondoliers for a few
pence--viz., that Lord Byron was a misanthrope and hated his countrymen.
Mr. Hoppner, who was an ocular witness of the life which Lord Byron led
at Venice, and whose testimony is so worthy of respect, told Moore how
much annoyance Lord Byron endured from English travellers, bent on
following him everywhere, eyeglass in hand, staring at him with
impertinence or affectation during his walks, getting into his palace
under some pretext, and even penetrating into his bedroom.
"Thence," says he, "his bitterness toward them. The sentiments he has
expressed in a note termed cynical, as well as the misanthropical
expressions to be found in his first poems, _are not at all his natural
sentiments_."
And then he adds that he is very certain "_never to have met with in his
lifetime more real goodness than in Lord Byron_."
Moore, also, is indignant at all these perfidious inventions:--
"Among those minor misrepresentations," says he, "of which it was Lord
Byron's fate to be the victim, advantage was at this time taken of his
professed distaste to the English, to accuse him of acts of
inhospitality, and even rudeness, toward some of his fellow-countrymen.
How far different was his treatment of all who ever visited him, many
grateful testimonies might be collected to prove; but I shall here
content myself with selecting a few extracts from an account given to me
by Mr. Joy, of a visit which, in company with another English gentleman,
he paid to the noble poet, during the summer of 1817, at his villa on
the banks of the Brenta. After mentioning the various civilities they
had experienced from Lord Byron; and, among others, his having requested
them to name their own day for dining with him:--'We availed ourselves,'
says Mr. Joy, 'of this considerate _courtesy_ by naming the day fixed
for our return to Padua, when our route would lead us to his door; and
we were welcomed with all the cordiality which was to be expected from
so friendly an invitation. Such traits of kindness in such a man deserve
to be recorded on account of the numerous slanders heaped upon him by
some of the tribes of tourists, who resented, as a personal affront, his
resolution to avoid their impertinent inroads upon his retirement.
"'So far from any appearance of indiscriminate aversion to his
countrymen, his inquiries about his friends in England were most anxious
and particular.
"'After regaling us with an excellent dinner (in which, by-the-by, a
very English joint of roast-beef showed that he did not extend his
antipathies to all John Bullisms), he took us in his carriage some miles
on our route toward Padua, after apologizing to my fellow-traveller for
the separation, on the score of _his anxiety to hear all he could of
his friends in England_: and I quitted him with a confirmed impression
of the strong ardor and sincerity of his attachment to those by whom he
did not fancy himself slighted or ill-treated!'"
It has been seen elsewhere[123] that Mr. Rose, speaking of Lord Byron's
sociable temper at Venice, said _his presence sufficed to diffuse joy
and gayety in the salons he frequented_."
When any worthy persons among his countrymen arrived, his _house_, his
_time_, his _purse_ were at _their service_.
For further proof, let people only read the details Captain Basil Hall
gave Murray of his intercourse with Byron.
"_His witty, clever conversation_," says Shelley, who visited him at
Venice in 1817, "_enlivened our winter nights and taught me to know my
own soul. Day dawned upon us, ere we perceived with surprise that we
were still listening to him._"
When he went from Venice to Romagna, he passed by Ferrara. But though
eager to arrive where his heart summoned him, he did not fail delivering
the letters of introduction given him by friends. At Ferrara he made the
acquaintance of a noble family, and went into society there, speaking of
it afterward in the most flattering manner.[124]
At Ravenna, he frequented all the salons where he was introduced; and at
the request of Count G----, became the _cavaliere servente_ of the young
countess. According to the custom of the country, he accompanied her to
assemblies or theatres, or spent his evenings in her family circle. At
Pisa, he held aloof from the world, because his friends, the Gambas, who
had taken refuge there in consequence of the troubles and political
enmities existing in Romagna, did not wish to mix in society. But he
passed all his evenings regularly with them, either at their house, or
sometimes dispensing hospitality at home with the greatest affability
and kindness.
"I believe I can not give a better proof of the sociability of Lord
Byron's disposition," says Medwin, "than by speaking of the gayety that
prevailed at his Wednesday dinner-parties at Pisa. His table, when
alone, was more than frugal; but on these occasions, every sort of wine,
and all the delicacies of the season, were served up in grand display,
worthy of the best houses. I never knew any one who did the honors of
his house with greater affability and hospitality than Lord Byron.
"The vivacity of his wit, the warmth of his eloquence, are things not to
be expressed. Could we forget the tone of his voice, or his gesture,
adding charm to all he said?"[125]
At Pisa he generally received in the morning all those who wished to see
him, and among others several of his countrymen, mostly acquaintances or
friends of Shelley, who also went to see him every day. In the afternoon
he rode out on horseback, still followed by his countrymen, and by the
young Count Gamba; amusing himself with them till evening came, in
shooting exercises or in long excursions. We have already said how he
employed his evenings. In fact, he was so seldom alone that people could
not understand how he found time for writing. He did find it, however,
and without subtracting from social intercourse. Nor was it solely
because he composed so rapidly, but likewise because he gave to
occupation the hours that young men are wont to pass in idle, not to say
vicious, amusements. When he went from Pisa to a villa situated on the
hills that overlook Leghorn and the Mediterranean, in order to pass the
great heats of summer there, an American painter, Mr. West, who had been
commissioned by an American society, requested him to sit for his
picture. Lord Byron could not give him much time, and the portrait was
not successful. But Mr. West, who, if not a good artist, possessed a
just and cultivated mind, drew a picture of his moral character as true
as it was flattering,--his pen doing him better service than his
brush:--
"I returned to Leghorn," says he, "hardly able to persuade myself that
this was the proud misanthrope whose character had ever appeared
shrouded in gloom and mystery. For I never remember having met with
_gentler, more attractive manners_ in my life. When I told him the idea
I had previously formed, what I had thought about him, he was extremely
amused, laughed a great deal, and said, 'Don't you find that I am like
every body else?'"
But Mr. Rogers thought him better than every body else, for he says:--
"From all I had observed, I left him under the impression that he
possessed an excellent heart, which had been _completely misunderstood_,
perhaps on account of his mobility and apparent likeness of manner.
Indeed he took a capricious pleasure in bringing out this contrast
between himself and others."
On quitting Pisa he went to Genoa, and there produced the same
impression on all who saw him until he left for Greece.
At this last stage of his life, the testimonies as to his amiable,
genial nature are so unanimous, from the time of his arrival to the day
of his death, that we can not refrain from quoting the language used by
some of those who saw him then.
"When I was presented to him," writes Mr. D---- to Colonel Stanhope, "I
was particularly struck with his _extremely graceful and affable
manners_, so opposite to what I had expected from the reputation given
him, and which painted him as _morose, gloomy_, almost _cynical_."[126]
"I took leave of him," writes Mr. Finlay, who was presented to Lord
Byron at Cephalonia, "quite enchanted, charmed to find a great man so
agreeable."[127]
Colonel Stanhope, afterward Lord Harrington, who had been sent to Greece
by the committee, and who only knew Lord Byron a few months before his
death, notwithstanding great discrepancies of idea and character, says
frankly, _that with regard to social relations, no one could ever have
been so agreeable_; that there was no pedantry or affectation about him,
but, on the contrary, that he was like a child for simplicity and
joyousness.
"In the evening all the English, who had not, like Colonel Stanhope,
turned Odyssean, assembled at his house, and till late at night enjoyed
the charm of his conversation. His character _so much differed from what
I had been induced to imagine from the relations of travellers_, that
either their reports must have been inaccurate, or his character must
have totally changed after his departure from Genoa. It would be
difficult, indeed impossible, to convey an idea of the pleasure his
conversation afforded. Among his works that which may perhaps be more
particularly regarded as exhibiting the mirror of his conversation, and
the spirit which animated it, is 'Don Juan.' The following lines from
Shakspeare seem as if prophetically written for him:--
"'Biron they call him; but a merrier man,
Within the limits of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal:
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest;
While his fair tongue (conceit's expositor)
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger, hearing, are quite ravished;
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.'"
Millingen says:--
"His wonderful mnemonic faculties, the rich and varied store with which
he had furnished his mind, his lively, brilliant, and ever-busy
imagination, his deep acquaintance with the world, owing to his
sagacious penetration, and the advantageous position in which, through
his birth and other circumstances, he had been placed, conjoined to the
highly mercurial powers of his wit, rendered his conversation peculiarly
interesting; enhanced, too, as it was by the charm of his fascinating
manners. Far from being the surly, taciturn misanthrope generally
imagined, I always found him dwelling on the lightest and merriest
subjects; carefully shunning discussions and whatever might give rise to
unpleasing reflections. Almost every word with him was a jest; and he
possessed the talent of passing from subject to subject with a
lightness, an ease, and a grace, that could with difficulty be matched.
Communicative to a degree that astonished us, and might not unfrequently
be termed indiscretion, he related anecdotes of himself and his friends
which he might as well have kept secret."
Several persons, influenced by the stories circulated against Lord
Byron, asked Dr. Kennedy whether his manners and exterior did not give
the idea of a demon incarnate. "Quite the contrary," replied Kennedy,
"_his appearance and manners give the idea of a man with an excellent
heart, both benevolent and feeling, and he has an amiable, sympathetic
physiognomy_. The impression he made on me was that of a man of refined
politeness and great affability, united to much gayety, vivacity, and
benevolence. His cordial affability even went so far that one was often
obliged to recall his rank and fame, in order not to be involuntarily
led away by his manner into too great familiarity with him."[128]
A short time after Lord Byron's death, one of the first English reviews
published an article on him entitled "Personal Character of Lord Byron."
It was written by a personage who had had several occasions, during Lord
Byron's last sojourn in Greece, of observing his habits, feelings and
opinions. Though often jealous of Lord Byron's influence in the country,
nevertheless when he could get rid of these bad feelings, he expressed
himself with tolerable justice:--
"Lord Byron's demeanor," says he, "was perhaps the most affable and
courteous I ever met with."
When he was in a good humor, and desirous to be on fair terms with any
one, there was a great charm, an irresistible fascination in his manner.
Though very gentle, it was always gay, with an air of great frankness
and generosity, qualities most real in him. "Lord Byron," he adds, "was
known for a sort of poetic misanthrope; but that existed much more in
public imagination than in reality. He liked society, and was extremely
kind and amiable, when calm. Instead of being gloomy, he was, on the
contrary, of a very gay disposition, and was fond of jesting; it even
amused him to witness comic scenes, such as quarrels between vulgar
buffoons, to make them drink, or lead them on in any other way to show
their drolleries. In his writings, certainly, he loved to paint a
character more or less the work of his imagination, and which therefore
was assigned to himself by public opinion: that is, a proud, haughty
being, despising all men, and disgusted with the human species. His
liking for bandits and pirates may have sprung from some tendencies of
his nature, some circumstances in his life; _but there was not the
smallest resemblance between the poet and the corsair_. Lord Byron's
heart was full of kindness and generosity, he took pride in splendid
acts of beneficence: to change the position of some among his
fellow-men, and make them exchange misery for unexpected good fortune,
was for him the dearest exercise of his faculties. No one ever
sympathized more deeply with the joys he could create."
The same biographer remarks that one great error of Lord Byron's youth
was to count upon gratitude and devotedness proportionate to his own,
and that most of his accusations against human nature originated with
this mistake. And then he adds:--
"But his sentiments, in accordance with his nature, far from obeying the
false direction his prejudices and erroneous opinions would have given,
always made him, on the contrary, love his fellow-men with a warmth that
quite excluded misanthropy. Still this natural ardor rendered him
extremely sensitive to neglect from those he loved, especially in early
youth, when he was led by the fault of an individual to generalize blame
against mankind. He relates somewhere, with merited contempt, that one
of his friends would accompany a female relative to her milliner,
instead of coming to take leave of him when he was about to leave
England for a long time. The truth is that _no one ever loved his
neighbor as much as Lord Byron_. Sympathy, respect, affection,
attention, were perpetual wants with him. He was really disgusted and
sad when they failed him. But then he did not reason much, he only felt
like a poet. It was his business to feed all these discontents, for the
public likes nothing so much in poetry as disdain, contempt, derision,
indignation, and particularly a kind of proud mockery, which forms the
line of transition from or distinguishes a disordered state of
imagination from madness. Consequently, seeing that this sort of tone
pleased the public, when he began to write again he encouraged that
style, his first care being to collect, like Jupiter, the darkest
clouds."
The same biographer also tries to insinuate that the romantic interest
excited by a handsome young man, full of melancholy and mystery, may
have influenced Lord Byron's choice of heroes in his early poems; for,
says he, it is not every one who can be weary of the most exquisite
enjoyments of society, and to be thus sated a man must have been greatly
prized by beauty and wealth. These reflections and explanations are
arbitrary, and not impartial. But even if Lord Byron, at twenty-one
years of age, did borrow ideas and sentiments not really his, by way of
producing poetic effect, we must nevertheless acknowledge that, even in
this order of sentiments, part still were genuine and real. Like all
young men, Lord Byron had entered the world armed with the notions
preceptors deem it necessary to inculcate on their disciples regarding
generosity, disinterestedness, liberty, honor, patriotism, etc. When he
saw that almost all he had thus been taught was mere illusion, a theme
for declamation, and that people in the world very rarely act on such
principles; then, no doubt, with his exquisite sensibility, and elevated
standard of ideal, he must have felt himself more disgusted than any one
else, and must have believed he had a right to despise the human race.
Especially would this have been the case after he had personally
suffered from cruel satire, from the conduct of his relative and
guardian, Lord Carlisle, from the lightness of a few women, and the
lukewarmness of some few friends. But, while owing to this fault in
education, many young men subjected to like trials become sensualists,
and others, convinced of the falsities that have been inculcated on
them, conclude there is no better system of morality than to seek after
place, power, and profit, and become voluntary instruments in the hands
of the world's oppressors, Lord Byron's soul revolted at it. Too noble
by nature to stoop, and confiding also in his genius, he became a poet
with a slight tinge of misanthropy in his mind, but that could never
reach unto his heart, that never modified his amiability in society, and
which at a later period, when experience of life made him reflect more
on the nature of his own sentiments and the weakness of humanity, became
transformed into a sweet philosophy, full of indulgence for every human
defect. This generous disposition is to be found at the base of all his
poems written in Italy.
Another reproach brought against Lord Byron is that he did not paint the
good side of human nature. People showed as much indignation at this as
if he had betrayed some secret, or calumniated some innocent person. A
wondrous susceptibility, assuredly, with regard to the imperfections of
our common nature, as tardy as strange. One would think, in reading the
reproaches addressed to Lord Byron, that those who made them had quite
forgotten how, from all time and in all languages, since man commented
on man, our poor human nature has not generally been treated with much
respect. Putting to one side moralists, and still more pessimists, have
not the Holy Scriptures and all the Fathers of the Church, used the most
mortifying language concerning the perversity and corruption of our
species? As regards complaints and avowals humiliating for our nature,
could there be any more eloquent than those of St. Augustine? Did not
Pascal almost wish man to understand that _he is an incomprehensible
monster_? Lord Byron would not have called man a _monster_; but shocked
at his pride he would willingly have said with Pascal, "If he raises
himself, I will lower him; if he abuses himself, I will raise him up."
In his drama of "Cain," where Lucifer is conducting Cain through space
and worlds, "Where is earth?" asks Cain. "'Tis now beyond thee, less in
the universe than thou in it," answers Lucifer. Byron always wished to
make man feel his littleness. It is true that, while saying the same
thing, a notable difference exists between Lord Byron's thought and that
of great Christian souls, who humble man in order to make him see that
his sole hope is in supernatural power. Lord Byron follows the same
road, but his starting-point and his goal are not the same. When Lord
Byron humbles man, it proceeds from a soul-felt want of truth and
justice. He sought truth by a natural law of his mind, expressed it
unflinchingly, and thus yielded a pleasure to his heart and
understanding. But if the impulse that sometimes provoked his severe or
contemptuous words was not the sublime one of Christian orthodoxy, that
sees no remedy for human depravity save in God alone, it was still
farther off from belonging to the school of the pessimists, of La
Rochefoucault in particular, who, content with asserting evil, neither
saw nor sought for a remedy anywhere. Lord Byron never despaired of
mankind. In early youth, especially, he thought,--not like a Utopist, or
even a poet, but like a sensible, humane, generous man, who deems that
many of the evils that afflict his species, morally and physically,
might be alleviated by better laws, under whose influence more goodness,
sincerity, and real virtue might be substituted for the hypocrisy and
other vices that now deprave our nature. Lord Byron saw in many vices
and littlenesses the work of man rather than of nature. It was man
corrupted by society, rather than by nature, that he condemned.
If religious hopes did not furnish him with an escape from the cruel
sentence, philosophical hopes saved him from being overwhelmed by it.
Was that an error?--an illusion? In any case, it was a noble one;
sufficient to raise up an insurmountable barrier between him and La
Rochefoucault. For a time, it is true, in his first youth, he also
seemed to be under the prestige La Rochefoucault exercised over so many
minds, through his "Maxims." The elegant manner in which they were
written, the clever tone of observation they displayed, boldly laying
down the result in the shape of axioms, was well calculated to lead a
youthful mind astray, and make a relative appear an absolute truth. For
a while, Lord Byron also seemed to confound the self-love that merges
into real hateful egotism, with that which constitutes the principle of
life, and which, under the influence of heart and intelligence, claims
the high name of virtue. He seemed to doubt of many things, and to be
uneasy at the best impulses of his heart. We may remember that he
accused himself of selfishness, because he took pleasure in the exercise
of amiable virtues. But then that was only the passing error of a
youthful mind, filled with an ideal of excellence too high for reality;
and therefore coming into rude contact with deceptions and sorrows. In
those days, recalling the fine pictures of life and mankind that had
been presented to him as realities, especially at his first onset, and
perceiving how different things actually were, seeing men pursue their
fellow-men, and ascribe vices to the good and virtues to the bad, not
even finding in his friends the qualities that distinguished his own
heart, indignant at seeing so many persons sought after for their
attractions, despite the vices that defaced them, his soul revolted at
the sight--saddened too--and he exclaimed, sorrowfully, in his
memoranda:--"_Yes, La Rochefoucault is right._"
An illusion might find place in Lord Byron's mind, but it could not
last; and if people will read with attention what he has written, they
will soon understand the great difference existing between him and the
author of the "Maxims." Without even speaking of that which separates
prose from poetry, an axiom from a hasty expression, grave from gay,
maxims from satire, the difference is still enormous. Lord Byron had not
received from nature, any more than the author of the "Maxims," the gift
of seeing things in a roseate hue. On the contrary, from his habit of
profound observation, he too often saw them enveloped in sombre colors.
But, on the other hand, he had received such a great gift of
perspicacity and exactness that things false and fictitious could no
more resist his glance than fog can resist the rays of the sun. La
Rochefoucault is certainly an admirable painter, but he never takes a
likeness otherwise than by profile. Just as our satellite turns round
our planet, only showing us its volcanoes and calcined summits, and
leaving us in ignorance of the other side; just so did La Rochefoucault
turn around human nature. It only showed him one side,--the most barren
and most unhealthy, and that alone did he describe. Still, his
description is made with such art and nicety, and has so much charm
about it, that it appears correct at first sight, and, indeed, so it is
relatively; but, nevertheless, by dint of omission and generalization,
it is false, since it would fain impose a part upon us for the whole. In
his voyage of exploration through the windings of the human heart the
author of the "Maxims" stops midway, and comes back over the same
ground. It would appear as if his mind lacked strength to go through
more than half the circle of truth. But Lord Byron, through the vigor
and elasticity of his faculties, after having penetrated into the dark
regions where only evil is perceived, and gone through the whole circle,
raised himself up into that pure, serene atmosphere where goodness and
virtue inhabit, and he also could say, with Dante, coming out of the
last infernal circle,--
"Alfin tornammo a riveder le stelle."
La Rochefoucault always rails against mankind, without ever finding out
any good. Lord Byron, on the contrary, sees both good and evil. He
points out the latter, often sadly, and sometimes with light jests; but
he is always happy to acknowledge seriously the existence of good, and
to proclaim that, despite all hinderances, beautiful souls do exist,
practicing all kinds of virtue; thus proving that, however rare, virtue
to him is still a reality, and no illusion. If, in his burlesque,
satirical poems, wishing especially to stigmatize vice in high quarters,
he has painted wicked women and queens (Catherine and Elizabeth), did he
not likewise refresh our souls with the enchanting portraits of
Angiolina (the wife of Faliero), and of Josephine (the wife of Werner).
If he made merry at the expense of coquettish, weak, hypocritical women
(like Adeline, for instance), has he not consoled us by painting, in far
greater number, angels of loving devotedness, like Myrrha, Adah, Medora,
Haidee, and in general all his delightful female creations? Are not all
his heroes even, more or less, constant, devoted, ready to sacrifice
every thing to the sincerity of their feelings--devoted love, continued
even in the heart of Cain toward his Adah? In "Heaven and Earth" the
angels gave up celestial happiness, and exposed themselves to every
evil, in order not to abandon those who loved them. Don Juan himself
loved unselfishly. Bitter remembrances, reflections arising from the
conduct of friends, made him, _it is true_, doubt the existence of
friendship, generalize, blame sometimes, and write those fine stanzas in
the fourteenth canto of "Don Juan:"--
"Without a friend, what were humanity,
To hunt our errors up with a good grace?
Consoling us with--'Would you had thought twice!
Ah! if you had but follow'd my advice!'
XLVIII.
"O Job! you had two friends: one's quite enough,
Especially when we are ill at ease;
They're but bad pilots when the weather's rough,
Doctors less famous for their cures than fees.
Let no man grumble when his friends fall off.
As they will do like leaves at the first breeze:
When your affairs come round, one way or 'tother,
Go to the coffee-house, and take another.
XLIX.
"But this is not my maxim; had it been,
Some heart-aches had been spared me: yet I care not--
I would not be a tortoise in his screen
Of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not;
'Tis better on the whole to have felt and seen
That which humanity may bear, or bear not;
'Twill teach discernment to the sensitive,
And not to pour their ocean in a sieve.
L.
"Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, 'I told you so,'
Utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past,
Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do,
Own they foresaw that you would fall at last,
And solace your slight lapse 'gainst '_bonos mores_,'
With a long memorandum of old stories."
On looking into his own heart, Lord Byron no longer doubted the
existence of sincere friendships, devoid of all ironical selfishness,
since he wrote that forty-ninth stanza, where he says that such is not
his maxim, or his heart would have had less to suffer.
Did he not make love of country incarnate in that admirable type (_the
young Venetian Foscari_); too fine a type, perhaps, though historical,
to be understood by every one. And did he not, through other types,
equally prove his belief in all the noblest, most virtuous sentiments of
our soul? In fine, if he recognized littleness in man, he recognized
greatness likewise. All his writings, as well as his conduct through
life, belied continuously and broadly a few poetical expressions and
mystifications which drew down upon him, in common with other calumnies,
that of having unjustly accused humanity. As to the misanthropy of his
early youth, it was of so slight a nature that it only passed through
his mind, and occasionally rested on his pen; but it always evaporated
in words, and especially in his verses. For his life and actions ever
showed that such a sentiment was foreign to his nature.
And since its attacks[129] always took place under the pressure of some
great injustice, some excess of suffering imposed by the strong on the
weak and inoffensive, we must also add that there was in this pretended
misanthropy more real goodness and humanity than in all the elegies,
songs, meditations, Messenian odes, etc., of all those who blamed him.
Having studied Lord Byron at all periods of his life, in his relations
with society, and in his love of solitude, we have seen him alternately
placed in contact with others, and then more directly with himself; now
correcting the inconveniences that flow from solitude, by seeking the
amusements of youth and society, and then making solitary meditation
follow on the useful field of observation sought in the world, and thus
he drew profit from both, without ever suffering himself to be
exclusively engrossed by one or the other. The enervating atmosphere of
drawing-rooms remained innocuous for him; he came out from them with a
mind as virile and independent as if he had never breathed it, keeping
all his ideas strong and bold, just and humane, as they were before. But
the consequences of this rare equilibrium, which he was enabled to
maintain between a worldly and a solitary life, were very great, as
regarded his fame, if not his happiness; for he gained thereby an
experience and a knowledge of the human heart quite wonderful, at an age
when the first pages of the Book of Life have in general scarcely been
read, so that, in perusing his writings, one might imagine that he had
already gone through a long career. Lastly, as afterward not the least
trace of this pretended misanthropy remained, he might have repeated
what Bernardin de Saint Pierre said of a certain melancholy that we are
scarcely ever free from in youth, and which was compared, in his
presence, to the small-pox:--"I also have had that malady, but it left
no traces behind it."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 119: See chapter on "Melancholy and Gayety."]
[Footnote 120: M. Nisard.]
[Footnote 121: See his "Life in Italy."]
[Footnote 122: See his "Life in Italy."]
[Footnote 123: See chapter on "Gayety and Melancholy."]
[Footnote 124: See his "Life in Italy."]
[Footnote 125: Medwin, vol. ii. p. 138.]
[Footnote 126: Appendix to Parry's work.]
[Footnote 127: Ibid. p. 210.]
[Footnote 128: See Kennedy.]
[Footnote 129: See chapter on "Melancholy."]