LORD BYRON'S GAYETY AND MELANCHOLY.
HIS GAYETY.
A great deal has been said about Byron's melancholy. His gayety has also
been spoken of. As usual, all the judgments pronounced have been more or
less false. His temperament is just as little known as his disposition,
when people affect to judge him in an exclusive way.
Let me, then, be permitted in this instance also to re-establish truth
on its only sure basis, namely, facts.
Lord Byron was so often gay that several of his biographers had thought
themselves justified in asserting that _gayety_ and not _melancholy_
predominated in his nature. Even Mr. Galt, who only knew him at that
period of his life when melancholy certainly predominated, nevertheless
uses these expressions:--"Singular as it may seem, the poem itself
('Beppo,' his first essay of facetious poetry) has a stronger tone of
gayety than his graver works have of melancholy, commonly believed to
have been (I think unjustly) the predominant trait in his
character."[149]
Many others have said the same thing. The truth is, that if by giving
way to reflection--which was a necessity of his genius--and through
circumstances--which were a fatality of his destiny--he has shown
himself melancholy in his writings and very often in his dispositions,
it is no less certain that by temperament and taste, by the activity,
penetration, and complex character of his mind, he very often showed
himself to be extremely gay. No one better than he seized upon the
absurd and ridiculous side of things or more easily found cause for
laughter. His gayety--the result of a frank, open, volatile nature, full
of varying moods--was easily excited by any absurdities, ridiculous
pretensions, or witty sallies; and then he became so expansive and
charming, body and soul with him both seemed to laugh in such unison,
that it was impossible not to catch the contagion; but his laughter was
ever devoid of malice. Slight defects of harmony in things, or
proportion, or mutual relation, easily gave rise to mirthful sensations
in him. Being full of admiration for the beautiful, and having,
moreover, a great sense of mutual fitness, and much activity of mind, it
was with extraordinary and instinctive promptitude that he seized upon
the contradictory relations existing between objects, and indeed on all
showing a voluntary absence of order and beauty in the conduct of free
reasonable beings. His laughter was then quite as aesthetical as it was
innocent. And even if it were not admitted, as it is by all
philosophical moralists, that no sort of personal calculation enters
into this entirely spontaneous emotion, no sentiment of superiority over
the being we are laughing at--for _selfishness and laughter never
coexist_--if it were possible, I say, to doubt all this, even then to
see Lord Byron laugh would have sufficed to give the right conviction.
For truly his mirth was a charming thing; the very air surrounding him
appeared to laugh.
Then would his soul, that often required to emerge from its deep
reflections, unbend itself, and alternately disport or repose in utter
self-abandonment. It dismissed thought, as it were, in order to become a
child again; to deliver itself over to all the caprices of those myriad
changeful fugitive impressions that course through the brain at moments
of excitement.
Moore often recurs to Byron's liveliness. "Nothing, indeed, could be
more amusing and delightful.... It was like the bursting gayety of a boy
let loose from school, and seemed as if there was no extent of fun or
tricks of which he was not capable." When Moore visited him at Mira, in
the autumn of 1812, and accompanied him to Venice, the former expressed
himself as follows in his memorandum of that occasion:--
"As we proceeded across the lagoon in his gondola the sun was just
setting, and it was an evening such as Romance would have chosen for a
first sight of Venice, rising 'with her tiara of bright towers' above
the wave; while to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest
of the scene, I behold it in company with him who had lately given a new
life to its glories, and sung of that fair City of the Sea thus
grandly:--
'I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles!'
"But whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under
other circumstances, have inspired me with, the mood of mind in which I
now viewed it was altogether the reverse of what might have been
expected. The exuberant gayety of my companion, and the
recollections--any thing but romantic--into which our conversation
wandered, put at once completely to flight all poetical and historical
associations; and our course was, I am almost ashamed to say, one of
uninterrupted merriment and laughter till we found ourselves at the
steps of my friend's palazzo on the Grand Canal. All that ever happened,
of gay or ridiculous, during our London life together; his scrapes and
my lecturings; our joint adventures with the Bores and Blues, the two
great enemies, as he always called them, of London happiness; our joyous
nights together at Walter's, Kinnaird's, etc.; and that 'd--d supper of
Rancliffe's, which ought to have been a dinner;' all was passed rapidly
in review between us, and with a flow of humor and hilarity on his side
of which it would have been difficult for persons even far graver than
even I can pretend to be, not to have caught the contagion."
Lord Byron was especially prone to mirth and fun in the society of those
he liked; to jest and laugh with any one was a great proof of his
sympathy for them. When he wrote to absent dear ones, he would
constantly say, "I have many things to tell you for us to laugh over
together." In several letters addressed from Greece to Madame G----, he
informs her of these treasures of mirth, held in reserve for the day of
meeting, that they might laugh together. Lord Byron rarely used
flattering language to those he loved. It was rather by looks than by
words that he expressed his feelings and his approbation. His delight
with intimates was to bring out strongly their defects, as well as their
qualities and merits, by dint of jests, clever innuendo, and charming
sallies of humor. The promptitude with which he discovered the slightest
weakness, the faintest symptom of exaggeration or affectation, can
hardly be credited. It might almost be said that the persons on whom he
bestowed affection became _transparent_ for him, that he dived into
their thoughts and feelings.
It was this state of mind especially that gave rise to those sallies of
wit which formed such a striking feature of his intelligence. Then his
conversation really became quite dazzling. In his glowing language all
objects assumed unforeseen and picturesque aspects. New and striking
thoughts followed from him in rapid succession, and the flame of his
genius lighted up as if winged with wildfire. Those who have not known
him at these moments can form no idea of what it was from his works.
For, in the silence of his study, when, pen in hand, he was working out
his grand conceptions, the lightning strokes lost much of their
brilliant intensity; and although we find, especially in "Don Juan" and
"Beppo," delightful pages of rich comic humor, only those who knew him
can judge how superior still his conversation was. But in this gay
exercise of his faculties, which was to him a real enjoyment in all his
sallies or even in his railleries, not one iota of malice could be
traced--unless we call by that name the amusement springing from mirth
and wit indulged. Even if his shafts were finely pointed, they were at
the same time so inoffensive that the most susceptible could not be
wounded.
The great pleasure he took in jesting appears to have belonged to his
organization, for it accompanied him throughout life. We have already
seen what his nurses, his preceptors, and the friends of his childhood
said on this subject. We have observed his sympathy for the old
cup-bearer of his family mansion; the pleasantries expended on the quack
Lavander, who was always promising to cure his foot, and never did; the
jesting tone of his boyish correspondence; afterward the masqueradings
that took place at Newstead Abbey; then again his gay doings with Moore
and Rogers in London; the jests pervading the correspondence of his
maturer years; then their concentration in "Beppo" and "Don Juan;" and
finally, how often, even in Greece, when he was already unwell at
Missolonghi, he could not help giving way to pleasantry and childish
play to such a degree that good Dr. Kennedy, when he wished to convert
him to his somewhat intolerant orthodoxy at Cephalonia, found one of the
obstacles to consist in the difficulty of keeping Lord Byron serious.
"He was fond," says the doctor, "of saying smart and witty things, and
never allowed an opportunity of punning to escape him.... He generally
showed high spirits and hilarity.... I have heard him say several witty
things; but as I was always anxious to keep him grave and present
important subjects for his consideration, after allowing the laugh to
pass I again endeavored to resume the seriousness of the conversation,
while his lordship constantly did the same."
And then Kennedy adds:--"My impression from them was, that they were
unworthy a man of his accomplishments: I mean the desire of
jesting."[150]
These words well characterize the honest Methodist, who, like many other
good and noble minds, yet could not understand fun. This incapability is
also sometimes the case with persons of a sour, ill-natured, or
susceptible disposition, whose excessive vanity is shocked at all
simple, innocent explosions of gayety and pleasantry.[151] Colonel
Stanhope, who knew Lord Byron at the same period, and who was not a
Methodist, but who from other causes could not appreciate the poet's
vivacious wit, said:--
"The mind of Lord Byron was like a volcano, full of fire and wrath,
sometimes calm, often dazzling and playful.... As a companion," he adds,
"no one could be more amusing than Lord Byron; he had neither pedantry
nor affectation about him, but was natural and playful as a boy. His
conversation resembled a stream; sometimes smooth, sometimes rapid, and
sometimes rushing down in cataracts. It was a mixture of philosophy and
slang, of every thing,--like his 'Don Juan.' He was a patient, and in
general a very attentive, listener. When, however, he did engage with
earnestness in conversation, his ideas succeeded each other with such
uncommon rapidity that he could not control them. They burst from him
impetuously; and although he both attended to and noticed the remarks of
others, yet he did not allow these to check his discourse for an
instant."
"There was usually," writes Count Gamba, his friend and companion in
Greece, in his interesting work, entitled "Last Travels of Lord Byron in
Greece," "a liveliness of spirit and a tendency to joke, even at times
of great danger, when other men would have become serious and
pre-occupied. This disposition of mind gave him a kind of air of
frankness and sincerity which was quite irresistible with those persons
even who were most prejudiced against him."
This allusion of Count Gamba refers to the letter which Byron wrote in
the midst of the Suliotes, among whom he had taken refuge during the
storm and to escape the Turks.
"If any thing," writes Lord Byron, on the point of embarking for
Missolonghi, and in his last letter to Moore, "if any thing in the way
of fever, fatigue, famine, or otherwise, should cut short the middle age
of a brother warbler, like Garcilasso de la Vega, I pray you remember me
in 'your smiles and wine.'
"I have hopes that the cause will triumph; but, whether it does or no,
still 'honor must be minded as strictly as a milk diet.' I trust to
observe both.
BYRON."
"It is matter of history," continues Count Gamba, "that Lord Byron, in
consequence of vexations to which he was ever a victim, added to the
rigorous diet which he followed (he only fed upon vegetables and green
tea, to show that he could live as frugally as a Greek soldier), and
from the impossibility which he found to take any exercise at
Missolonghi, had a nervous fit, which deprived him of the power of
speech and alarmed all his friends and acquaintances. When the crisis
had worn off, he merely laughed over it."
"Even at Missolonghi," says Parry, who knew him there only in the midst
of troubles and vexations of every description and quite at the close of
his life, "he loved to jest in words and actions. These pleasantries
lightened his spirits, and prevented him from dwelling on disagreeable
thoughts."
Perhaps this disposition of character was the result of his French
origin, for it is scarcely known or even appreciated in England.
"Yet," exclaims the greatest-minded woman of our day (Madame G. Sand),
"it is that disposition which forms the charm of every delicate
intimacy, and which often prevents our committing many follies and
stupidities.
"To look for the ridiculous side of things is to discover their
weakness. To laugh at the dangers in the midst of which we find
ourselves is to get accustomed to brave them; like the French, who go
into action with a laugh and a song. To quiz a friend is often to save
him from a weakness in which our pity might perhaps have allowed him to
linger. To laugh at one's self is to preserve one's self from the
effects of an exaggerated self-love. I have noticed that the people who
never joke are gifted with a childish and insupportable vanity."
Nevertheless, there are high and noble natures that never laugh, and are
incapable of understanding the pleasures of gayety. But minds like these
have some vacuum; they certainly lack what is called wit.
Lord Byron's gayety, full of dazzling wit and varied tints, like his
other faculties, never went beyond the limits befitting its exercise in
a beautiful soul. As much as the truly ridiculous, that which a great
writer has defined, "_the strength, small or great, of a free being, out
of proportion with its end_,"--as much, I say, as the truly ridiculous
attracted and amused him, just as much did grave, moral, and physical
disorders, produced by corruption of body or soul, sadden and repel his
nature, so full of harmony. He could never laugh at these latter. The
grave disorders of soul that exist in free beings, and that are
therefore voluntary, raised sadness, anger, or indignation in him,
according to the degree of vice or disorder. We need seek no other
origin for his bitterest satires in verse and prose. Great ugliness and
physical defects certainly inspired him with great disgust, consequent
upon his passion for the beautiful; but, at the same time, involuntary
misfortunes excited his liveliest compassion, often testified by the
most generous deeds.
We know, for instance, that Lord Byron had a defect in one of his feet,
but a defect so slight--although it has been greatly exaggerated--that
people have never been able to say in which of the two feet it did
exist. Nor did it in any way diminish the grace and activity all his
movements displayed. If its existence were painful for him, that must
have been because his sense of harmony looked upon this defect as
detrimental to the perfection of his physical beauty. But whatever may
have been the cause of this sensibility, it sufficed in any case to make
him feel a generous compassion for all those afflicted with any defect
analogous to his own. Lord Harrington, then Colonel Stanhope, says:--
"Contrary to what we observe in most people, Lord Byron, who was always
very sensitive to the sufferings of others, showed greatest sympathy for
those who had any imperfection akin to his own." At Ravenna, his
favorite beggar limped. And on him Lord Byron bestowed the privilege of
picking up all the largest coins struck down by his dexterous
pistol-shots in the forest of pines. We have said he never laughed at
any involuntary defect, not even at a person falling (as is so often the
case), for fear it might have been caused by bodily weakness, neither
did he ridicule any of the weaknesses or shortcomings of intelligence.
He did not laugh at a bad poet on account of his bad verses. When he was
at Pisa, an Irishman there was engaged in translating the "Divine
Comedy." The translation was very heavy and faulty; but the translator
was most enthusiastic about the great poet, and absolutely lived on the
hope of getting his work published. All the English at Pisa, including
the kind Shelley, were turning him into ridicule. Lord Byron alone would
not join in the laugh. T----'s sincerity won for him grace and
compassion. Indeed Lord Byron did still more; for he wrote and entreated
Murray to publish the work, so as to give the poor poet this
consolation. Not content with that step, he wrote to Moore to beg
Jeffrey not to criticise him, undertaking himself to ask Gifford the
same thing, through Murray. "Perhaps they might speak of the
commentaries without touching on the text," said he; and then he added
with his usual pleasantry, "However, we must not trust to it. _Those
dogs! the text is too tempting._"[152]
Nor did he laugh at exaggerated devotion, even if it were extravagant or
superstitious, provided he thought it sincere. Countess G----, paternal
aunt of Countess G----, the greatest beauty of Romagna in 1800, had
fallen into such extreme mystical devotion, through the brutal jealousy
of her husband, that she died in the odor of sanctity. This lady wrote
to her brother, Count G----, at Genoa, saying how happy she was, and
giving no end of praise to "the good Jesuit Fathers," and speaking of
her devotion to St. Teresa. Madame G----, having sent one of these
letters to Lord Byron, he answered: "I consider all that as _very
respectable_, and, moreover, _enviable_. The aunt is right; I wish I
could love the good fathers and St. Teresa. After all, what does this
devotee of St. Teresa, this friend of the good Jesuit Fathers, want?
Happiness; and she has found it! What else are we seeking for?"
We have already seen elsewhere[153] that Lord Byron never, at any period
of his life, laughed at religion or its _sincere_ votaries, whatever
might be their creed of belief. Provided their errors came from the
heart, they commanded his respect. Dallas himself, in reference to the
skeptical stanzas of his twenty-second year, can not help rendering him
justice.
"I have not noticed," says he, "a spirit of mockery in you; and you have
the little-known art of not wishing that others should be of your
opinion in matters of religious belief. I am less disinterested; I have
the greatest desire, nay, even a great hope, to see you some day believe
as I do." We have seen, also, what Kennedy said of him in Greece[154].
Dr. Millingen bears the same testimony:--
"During the whole of the time that I visited him, I never heard him
utter a single word of contempt for the Christian religion. On the
contrary, he used often to say, that nothing could be more reprehensible
than to turn into ridicule those who believed in it, since in this
strange world it is equally difficult to arrive at knowing what one is
or is not to believe; and since many freethinkers teach doctrines which
are as much beyond the reach of human comprehension as the mysteries of
the revelation itself."
When, by habit of looking at serious things from their absurd and
ridiculous side, he feared he had done the same with regard to some
religious ceremony, he at once hastened to explain himself. Thus he
writes to Moore from Pisa:--
"I am afraid that this sounds flippant, but I don't mean it to be so;
only my turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of
view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then. Still, I do
assure you that I am a very good Christian. Whether you believe me in
this, I do not know."
But much as he respected sincere religious feelings, equally did he
detest that hypocrisy which despises in secret the idol it adores in
public. Even at the transition period of what has been called his
skepticism, it was extremely distasteful to him to speak against
religion, to despise and mock even the hollow worship practiced
outwardly from human motives and personal interest. In Livadia at this
time he met with a Greek bishop, whose actions were quite at variance
with his language. How great the antipathy Lord Byron conceived for him,
may be seen by the notes appended to the first and second cantos of
"Childe Harold." For the Pharisees of our days he felt all the anger due
to whited sepulchres. No, certainly, it was not true virtue in general,
nor any one virtue in particular, that he laughed at sometimes; nor was
it friendship, or love, or religion, or any truly respectable sentiment
that ever excited his mirth. He only ridiculed semblances, vain
appearances, when those who paraded them did so from _personal
interest_. Lord Byron knew too well, by experience, that many virtues
admired and set forth as such do but wear a mask in reality; and he
thought it useful for society to divest them of it, and show the hidden
visage. Why should he have shown any consideration for the virtue that
patronizes charity-balls, in order to acquire the right of violating,
with impunity, the duties of a Christian wife? or that other female
virtue which weighs itself in the balance with the privilege of
directing Almacks? or that, wishing to unite the advantages of modesty
with the gratification of passion? In short, why should he have shown
consideration for persons whose merit consists in never _allowing
themselves to be seen as they are_? He was very disrespectful, likewise,
toward certain friendships that he knew by experience to be full of
wordy counsel, but finding nothing to say in the way of consolation or
defense. This peculiar variety of friendship had made him suffer
greatly. In his serious poems he calls it "_the loss of his illusions_;"
and expresses himself with misanthropical indignation, or with a
bleeding heart. But, returning to a milder philosophy, he ended by
smiling and jesting at it, in words like these:--
"Look'd grave and pale to see her friend's fragility,
For which most friends reserve their sensibility."
Seriously; was he bound to any great tenderness toward such friendship
as that? And does it not suffice to set Lord Byron right with _true
friendship_ to hear him say, after having laughed about false friends:--
"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."[155]
Friendship was so necessary to him that he wrote to Moore, on the eve of
his marriage, 15th of October, 1814:
"An' there were any thing in marriage that would make a difference
between my friends and me, particularly in your case, I would none
on't."
People should read all he said of Lord Clare and Moore, and see with
what almost jealous susceptibility he guarded the title of friend,[156]
before they can understand the value he attached to true friendship. But
among many of the _privileges_ he conceded to friendship, _duties_ also
held their place.
And if we pass from friendship to love, could he really bestow such
respect on the loves of a Lady Adeline, or of those who, he said,
"embrace you to-day, thinking of the novel they will write to-morrow."
His ideal of true love has been noticed; and he became impatient when he
saw it confounded with any thing else. At twenty-two years of age he
wrote to his young friend, the Rev. Mr. Harness:--
"I told you the fate of B---- and H---- in my last. So much for these
sentimentalists, who console themselves in their stews for the loss--the
never-to-be-recovered loss--the despair of the refined attachment of a
couple of drabs! You censure my life, Harness: when I compare myself
with these men, my elders and my betters, I really begin to conceive
myself a monument of prudence--a walking statue--without feeling or
failing; and yet the world in general hath given me a proud pre-eminence
over them in profligacy. Yet I like the men, and, God knows, ought not
to condemn their aberrations. But I own I feel provoked when they
dignify all this by the name of love--romantic attachments for things
marketable for a dollar!"
Yes, Lord Byron never did respect the love that can be bartered for
dollars. And afterward, when irritation had given way to a milder and
more tolerant philosophy, he took the liberty of laughing at it, both in
prose and verse. It may however, be urged against him, that he sometimes
turned into ridicule even his deepest sentiments; and Moore remarks this
as a defeat, apropos of the jesting tone he assumed once at Bologna,
when writing to Hoppner. But Moore forgets to say, that while his heart
called him to Ravenna, he was speaking against the counsels given by
Hoppner, who, in order to deter him from this visit, for reasons
previously cited,[157] had made the darkest prognostications regarding
its consequence; and though he could not shake Lord Byron's
determination, it is very probable that he may have upset his
imagination. Thus he was trying to show himself ready for every thing.
Such pleasantries are like the song of one who is alarmed in the dark.
Moreover, from his manner of judging human nature, and his lively sense
of the ridiculous, Lord Byron was well aware that a light tone is alone
admissible for speaking to others of a love they do not share, and more
especially when they disapprove of it. He felt that the gayety of Ovid
and the gallantry of Horace are better suited to indifferent people than
Petrarch's high-flown phrases and sentimentalities, or Werther's
despair. It was through this same nice perception of the sentiments
entertained by indifferent individuals that he sometimes adopted a
light, playful tone in conversation, or in his correspondence, when
speaking of friendship, devoted feelings of any kind, and a host of
sentiments very serious and deep within his own heart, but which he
believed less calculated to interest others. And if sometimes his
singular penetration of the human heart called forth mockery, it sprang
more frequently from seeing fine sentiments put forth in flagrant
contradiction with conduct, or morality looked upon as a mere thing of
outward decorum, speedily to be set aside, if once the actors were
removed from the eyes of the world. He would not grant his esteem to
fine sentiments expressed by writers who could be bribed; to the
promises of heroes who noisily enroll combatants, while themselves
remaining safe by their fireside; or to the generosity that displays
itself from a balcony. And, assuredly, he had a right to be particular
in his estimate of this latter virtue, which he himself always practiced
secretly, and in the shade. He would not consent to its being bartered,
nor that people should have the honor of it without any sacrifice on
their part. Thus he replied to Moore, who was in an ecstasy about the
generosity of Lord some one:--"I shall believe all that when you prove
to me that there is no advantage in openly helping a man like you." With
wonderful, and, I might almost say, supernatural perspicacity, Lord
Byron penetrated into the arcana of souls, and did not come out thence
with a very good opinion of what he had seen. But, kind as he was, he
did not like to probe too deeply the motives of others, especially as a
rule of action for himself. As he says in his admirable satire of "Don
Juan,"--
"'Tis sad to burrow deep to roots of things,
So much are they besmeared with earth."
Lastly, his mockeries were all directed against the vice he most
abhorred--_hypocrisy_; for he looked upon that as a gangrene to the
soul, the cause of most of the evils that afflict society, and certainly
of all his own misfortunes. As long as he was obliged to bear it, under
the depressing influence of England's misty atmosphere, he felt by turns
saddened and indignant. But when he reached Italy, his soul caught the
bright rays that emanate from a southern sky, and he preferred to combat
hypocrisy with the lighter weapons of pleasantry. But whichsoever arm he
wielded, he always pursued the enemy remorselessly, following into
every fastness, of which none knew better than himself each winding and
each resource. For hypocrisy had been the bane of his life; it had
rendered useless for happiness that combination he possessed of Heaven's
choicest gifts; the plenitude of affections, numberless qualities most
charming in domestic life, for he had been exiled from the family
circle. Hypocrisy had _forced_ him to despise a country also that could
act toward him like an unnatural parent, rather than a true mother,
wounding him with calumnies, and obstinately depreciating him, solely
because she allowed hypocrisy to reign on her soil. Such, then, were the
virtues which he permitted himself to mock at.
"_We must not make out a ridicule where none exists_," says La Bruyere;
but it is well to see that which has a being, and to draw it forth
gracefully, in a manner that may both please and instruct.
As to true, holy, pure, undeniable virtues, no one more than he admired
and respected them. "Any trait of virtue or courage," says one of his
biographers, "caused him deep emotion, and would draw tears from his
eyes, provided always he were convinced that it had not been actuated by
a desire of shining or producing effect."
"A generous action," says another, "the remembrance of patriotism,
personal sacrifice, disinterestedness, would cause in him the most
sublime emotions, the most brilliant thoughts." The more his opinion as
to the rarity of virtue appeared to him well-founded, the more did he
render homage when he met with it. The more he felt the difficulty of
overcoming passions, the more did a victory gained over them excite his
admiration.
"Pray make my respects to Mrs. Hoppner, and assure her of my unalterable
reverence for the singular goodness of her disposition, which is not
without its reward even in this world. For those who are no great
believers in human virtues would discover enough in her to give them a
better opinion of their fellow-creatures, and--what is still more
difficult--of themselves, as being of the same species, however inferior
in approaching its nobler models."
At Coppet he was more touched by the conjugal affection of the young
Duchesse de Broglie for her husband, than he was attracted by the
genius even of her mother, Madame de Stael. "Nothing," says he in his
memoranda, "was more agreeable than to see the manifestation of domestic
tenderness in this young woman." When he received at Pisa the posthumous
message sent by a beautiful, angelic young creature, who had caught a
glimpse of him but once, and who, nevertheless, in the solemn hours of
her agony, thought of him, and prayed to God for him, it made a deep
impression on his mind.
"In the evening," says Madame G----, "he spoke to me at great length of
this piety and touching virtue."
Mr. Stendhall, who knew him during his stay at Milan in 1816, says:--"I
passed almost all my evenings with Lord B. Whenever this singular man
was excited and spoke with enthusiasm, his sentiments were noble, great,
and generous; in short, worthy of his genius."
And then when Mr. Stendhall speaks of walking alone with him in the
large green-room at La Scala, he adds:--
"Lord Byron made his appearance for half an hour every evening, holding
the most delightful conversation it was ever my good-fortune to hear. A
volume of new ideas and generous sentiments came pouring out in such
novel form, that one fancied one's self enjoying them for the first
time. The rest of the evening the great man lapsed into the English
noble."
Even biographers most hostile to Lord Byron render justice to his
sensibility and respect for real virtue, for all that is true and
estimable. And if we seek proofs of the same in his poems and
correspondence, we shall find it at every page, not excepting "Don
Juan,"--the satire that most exposed him to the anger and calumny of
_cant_. This is why I shall confine myself to borrowing quotations from
this poem. For instance, in speaking of military glory, he says:--
"The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
"And why?--because it brings self-approbation;
Whereas the other, after all its glare,
Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation,
* * * * * * *
Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles."[158]
And then again:--
"_One_ life saved ...
... is a thing to recollect
Far sweeter than the greenest laurels sprung
From the manure of human clay, though deck'd
With all the praises ever said or sung;
Though hymn'd by every harp, unless within
Your heart join chorus, Fame is but a din."[159]
When he speaks of Souvaroff, who, with a hand still reeking from the
massacre of 40,000 combatants, began his dispatch to the Autocrat in
these words:--
"Glory to _God_ and to the Empress [Catharine]! Ismail's ours!"
Lord Byron exclaims:--
"Powers
Eternal! such names mingled!
"Methinks these are the most tremendous words
Since 'Mene, Mene, Tekel,' and 'Upharsin,'
Which hands or pens have ever traced of swords.
Heaven help me! I'm but little of a parson:
What Daniel read was short-hand of the Lord's,
Severe, sublime; the prophet wrote no farce on
The fate of nations;--but this Russ so witty
Could rhyme, like Nero, o'er a burning city.
"He wrote this Polar melody, and set it,
Duly accompanied by shrieks and groans,
Which few will sing, I trust, but none forget it--
For I will teach, if possible, the stones
To rise against earth's tyrant's."[160]
And then when he speaks of truly virtuous men--the Washingtons and
Franklins--those who preferred a quiet, retired life; so as better to
walk in the paths of justice and goodness, like the ancient heroes of
Sparta, one feels that his words come really from the heart. But if I
wished to make extracts of all the proofs contained in his works, of
respect and enthusiasm for true virtue, a volume of quotations would be
requisite. Thus I have only chosen some at hazard, selecting them
principally from that admirable satire of "Don Juan," which combines
more deep philosophy and true morality than is to be found in the works
of many moralists; and I may likewise say more wit, and knowledge of the
human heart, more kindness and indulgence, than ever before were united
in a volume of verse or prose, and more, perhaps, than ever will be.
Yet, despite of all this, the independence, boldness, and above all, the
true state of things revealed in "Don Juan," excited great anger
throughout the political, religious, and moral world of England; indeed,
passion went so far in distorting, that the tendency and moral bearing
of the poem were quite misunderstood. With regard to France, where this
satire is only known through a prose translation, which mars half its
cleverness, "Don Juan" serves, however, the purpose of an inexhaustible
reservoir, whence writers unwittingly draw much they deem their own.
Besides, from analogy of race, he is, perhaps, better appreciated in
France than in his own country; for few English do understand what true
justice he rendered himself when he said,--that, in point of fact, his
character was far too lenient, the greatest proof of his muse's
discontent being a smile.
But if, despite all this evidence, people should still persist, as is
very possible, in asserting that Lord Byron ridiculed, satirized, and
denied the existence of real virtues, at least we would ask to have
these virtues named, so as to be able to answer. What are the virtues so
insulted? Is it truth, piety, generosity, firmness, abnegation,
devotedness, independence, patriotism, humanity, heroism? But if he
denied not one of these, if he only ridiculed and satirized their
semblances, their hypocritical shadows, then let critics and envious
minds--the ignorant, or the would-be ignorant--let them cease, in the
name of justice, thus to offer lying insult to a great spirit no longer
able to defend himself.
Perhaps he did not render sufficient homage to that great and
respectable virtue of his country--conjugal fidelity; but he has told us
why. It appeared to him that this virtue, supposed to stamp society,
was, in truth, more a pretense than a reality among the higher classes
in England; and, if he examined his own heart, this virtue wore a name
for him that had been the martyrdom of his whole life.
I may say, farther, that when he saw a truth shining at the expense of
some hypocrisy, he did not _shut it up in his casket of precious
things_, to carry them with him to the grave, nor did he only name them
in a low voice to his secretaries, because by _speaking aloud he might
have done some harm to himself_ (as, however, the great Goethe did and
_acknowledged_). Lord Byron, without thinking of the consequences that
might ensue to himself, deemed, on the contrary, that truth ought to be
courageously unveiled: and to the heroism of deeds he added the heroism
of words.
It must not be forgotten, either, that there existed a certain kind of
timidity among the other elements of his character, and that jesting
often helps to season a tiresome conversation, rendering it less
difficult, besides enabling us to hide our real sentiments.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 149: Galt, p. 218.]
[Footnote 150: Kennedy, p. 301.]
[Footnote 151: See Galt, with regard to Hunt.]
[Footnote 152: Moore, Letter 468.]
[Footnote 153: See chapter on "Religion."]
[Footnote 154: Ibid.]
[Footnote 155: "Don Juan," canto xiv.]
[Footnote 156: See Lord Byron's letter to Mrs. Shelley.]
[Footnote 157: See his "Life in Italy."]
[Footnote 158: "Don Juan," canto viii.]
[Footnote 159: "Don Juan," canto ix.]
[Footnote 160: Ibid. canto viii.]