object of universal attention which he has become, have already produced
upon his soul that softening influence which I had expected and
foreseen; and I trust, that all his former grief will now have passed
forever."
Galt himself, despite the effort he seems to make in praising him, can
not help owning that at this period, when every body was kind to Lord
Byron, he, on his side, displayed the utmost gentleness, kindness,
amiability, and desire of obliging, combined with habitual gayety and
pleasantry. The general tone of his memoranda at this time, particularly
in 1813, shows him _pleased with every body and every thing_.
After having praised Moore, he speaks highly of Lord Ward, afterward
Lord Dudley:--
"I like Ward," he says, and adds, "by Mohammed! I begin to fear getting
to like every body; a disposition not to be encouraged. It is a sort of
social gluttony, that makes one swallow all one comes in contact with.
But I do like Ward."
Nevertheless, this serenity, by lasting over the interval that elapsed
between his twenty-third and twenty-sixth year, at which period his
marriage took place, was traversed by many clouds, more or less
evanescent, and he still had hours and days of melancholy. Assuredly,
Lord Byron could not avoid those oscillations of heart and mind that
belong to the very essence of the human heart. But, at least, it is easy
to assign a palpable cause for all the fits of ennui or melancholy
experienced at this time. All his tendencies then show indifference, if
not dislike, to female society. His ideal of perfection had spoilt him
for women, in the first instance, and the unfortunate experience he had
of them still further lowered his opinion of them. But if he did not
care about them, it was presumptuous to think he could put aside the sex
altogether.
By adopting an anchorite's regimen, he strengthened, it is true, the
spiritual part of his nature; and certainly seemed to believe his heart
would be satisfied with friendship. His acquaintance with Moore,
especially, gave to his daily existence the intellectual and spiritual
aliment so necessary to him. But he reckoned on setting woman aside, and
his presumptuous heart numbered only twenty-three summers! Among the
letters and tokens of homage that piled his table in those days figured
many rose-colored notes, written on gilt-edged perfumed paper. Such
incense easily ascends, and it was not surprising that his head should
also suffer. "Childe Harold," of course, acted most on the imagination
of women of powerful intellect and ardent nature, and thus his own peril
grew afresh, involuntarily evoked by himself. For, if the prestige of
position and circumstance adding lustre to genius, could act strongly
even upon men, what must have been their combined influence when added
to his personal beauty, upon women?--
" ... These personal influences acted with increased force, from the
assistance derived from others, which, to female imaginations
especially, would have presented a sufficiency of attraction, even
without the great qualities joined with them. His youth, the noble
beauty of his countenance, and its constant play of light and
shadow--the gentleness of his voice and manner to women, and his
occasional haughtiness to men,--the alleged singularities of his mode of
life, which kept curiosity constantly alive; all these minor traits
concurred toward the quick spread of his fame; nor can it be denied
that, among many purer sources of interest in his poem, the allusions
which he makes to instances of '_successful_ passion' in his career,
were not without their influence on the fancies of that sex whose
weakness it is to be most easily won by those who come recommended by
the greatest number of triumphs over others.... Altogether, taking into
consideration the various points I have here enumerated, _it may be
asserted, that there never before existed, and, it is most probable,
there never will exist again, a combination of such vast mental powers
and such genius, with so many other of those advantages and attractions
by which the world is in general dazzled and captivated_."
This rare combination of advantages were so many means of seduction on
his side, involuntarily exercised, and the sole ones he would have
condescended to employ; meanwhile all advances were spared him on the
other. There were fine ladies whom nothing daunted, if only they could
find favor in his sight; who forgot for him their rank, their duties,
their families, braving the whole world, donning strange costumes to get
at him, carrying jealousy to the verge of madness, to attempted suicide,
or to the conception, at least, of crime. One distinguished herself by
excessive daring; another, who had not been happy in married life, but
who had tried to make up for want of affection by securing her husband's
friendship and esteem, was now willing to sacrifice all to her wild
passion for the youthful peer.
Whatever the sentiment which in his breast responded to all the feelings
he excited, it is certain that they possessed, at least, the power of
disturbing his tranquillity. They were like so many beautiful plants,
all showy and perfumed, yet distilling poison. The woman whose passion
he bore with, rather than shared, could not fail to compromise him; they
had exchanged parts, so to say, and he had to suffer from that jealousy,
which more frequently falls to the lot of woman. The ennui he thus
experienced was tinctured with irritation, while the emotions to which
the other lady gave rise, were softer, truer, and more ardent. If we
examine well his memoranda and confidential letters of this time, and
confront his expressions with facts, we shall always find therein the
cause and palpable explanation of those mysterious though short-lived
sadnesses then experienced. We shall find the expression of peace
sacrificed, or sadness produced, sometimes couched in language
indicative of affection or regret; then, again, in words that betray
fear or irritation. For instance, we read in a passage of his
memoranda:--
"I wish I could settle to reading again,--my life is monotonous, and yet
desultory. I take up books, and fling them down again. I began a comedy,
and burnt it, because the scene ran into reality; a novel, for the same
reason. In rhyme, I can keep more away from facts; but the thought
always runs through, through.... Yes, yes; through."
And we have in these two words the precise explanation of this feeling
of _ennui_.
He was at this time contemplating a voyage:--
"Ward talks of going to Holland, and we have partly discussed an
expedition together.... And why not?... is far away.... No one
else, except Augusta (his sister), cares for me--no ties--no
trammels--_andiamo dunque_--se torniamo bene--se no che importa?"[178]
He was evidently sad that day; but, is not the nature of his sadness
revealed in those words:--"She is far away--?"
According to his memoranda, he again fell into this vein of sadness some
months later, in February, 1814; but then, also, its causes are very
evident. An accumulation of painful things, united to overwhelm him. He
had sought to satisfy the longings of his heart by extraordinary
intellectual activity, writing the "Bride of Abydos" in four nights, and
the "Corsair" in a few days; he had also fought against them, by
endeavoring to make a six months' journey into Holland; but this project
failed, from obstacles created by a friend who was to accompany him;
and, besides, the plague was then prevalent in the East; he was,
moreover, embarrassed with the difficulty of selling Newstead, and the
necessity of such a painful measure; all which circumstances united to
keep him in England. And a host of other irritating annoyances, the
work of irreconcilable enemies, who were jealous of his success and his
superiority, then fell upon him, as they could not fail to do; for his
sun had risen too brightly not to call forth noxious vapors.
After having passed a month away from London, he wrote in his
memoranda:--
"I see all the papers are in a sad commotion with those eight lines....
You have no conception of the ludicrous solemnity with which these two
stanzas have been treated, ... of the uproar the lines on the little
'Royalty's Weeping,' in 1812 (now republished) have occasioned. The
'Morning Post' gave notice of an intended motion in the House of my
brethren on the subject, and God knows what proceedings besides.... This
last piece of intelligence is, I presume, too laughable to be true,
etc., etc."[179]
The first blow to his popularity was now given; and soon the whole
nation rose up in arms against him. All jealousies, and all resentments
now ranged themselves under one hostile banner, distorting Lord Byron's
every word, calumniating his motives, making his most generous and noble
actions serve as pretexts for attack; reproaching him with having given
up enmities from base reasons (while he had done so in reality from
feelings of justice and gratitude), pretending[180] that he had pocketed
large sums for his poems, and rendering him responsible for the follies
women chose to commit about him. This war, breaking out against him like
an unexpected hurricane amid radiant sunshine, must naturally have
caused irritation. And if we add to it the embarrassment of his affairs,
the deplorable events in his opinion then going on in the world, the
fall of the great Napoleon, whom he admired, the invasion of France by
the Allied Powers, which he disapproved of, the policy pursued by his
country, and the evils endured by humanity--spectacles that always made
his heart bleed,--we may well understand how all these causes may have
given rise to some moments of misanthropy, such as are betrayed by a few
expressions in his journal; but it was a misanthropy that existed only
in words, a plant without roots, of ephemeral growth, and most natural
to a fine nature. We feel, notwithstanding all these real palpable
causes of ennui, that his principal sufferings still came from the
heart.
"Lady Melbourne," writes Lord Byron in his memoranda, in 1814, "tells me
that it is said that I am 'much out of spirits.' I wonder if I am really
or not? I have certainly enough of _'that perilous stuff which weighs
upon the heart' and it is better they should believe it to be the result
of these attacks than that they should guess the real cause_."
And this real cause was a grief he wished to keep secret. Separation
from friends, their departure, even when he was to meet them again,
likewise caused him sadness. Especially was this the case with regard to
Moore, whom he loved so much, and whose society had an unspeakable charm
for him:--"I can only repeat," he said, "that I wish you would either
remain a long time with us, or not come at all, for these snatches of
society make the subsequent separations bitterer than ever."[181]
And in the next letter he says:--"I could be very sentimental now, but I
won't. The truth is, that I have been all my life trying to harden my
heart, and have not yet quite succeeded--though there are great
hopes--and you do not know how it sunk with your departure."
This influence is ever visible. The English climate was always
distasteful to him, and its fogs displeased him more since he had
revelled in the splendor of Eastern suns; moreover, mists grew darker
and colder when his imagination was still more influenced by his heart.
At those moments his first thought ever was--"_Let me depart, let me
seek a bright sun, a blue sky._" When to his great regret, the East was
closed against him by the plague of 1813, in his disdain for northern
countries, he exclaimed:--
"Give me a _sun_, I care not how hot, and sherbet, I care not how cool,
and my heaven is as easily made as your Persian's." Making allusions to
this verse--
"_A Persian's heaven is_ easily made,--
_'Tis but black eyes and lemonade_."
But we know that he was thinking of this voyage, in order to divert his
mind from the regret of having been obliged, from motives of honor and
prudence, to give up accompanying into Sicily a family he liked very
much. However, the sight of a camel sufficed to carry him back to Asia
and the Euxine Sea, and to make him cry out: "_Quando te aspiciam!_"
It was also at this time that he wrote to Moore, "All convulsions with
me end in rhyme." To overcome certain agitations of heart, he wrote the
"Bride of Abydos," and directly afterward the "Corsair."
But if the melancholy, more or less deep, that cast its shadows over
this brilliant period of his triumphs, wore specially the above
character, it changed somewhat after his marriage. Thenceforward his
melancholy sprang less from the heart, than from bitter disenchantment;
from the suffering of a proud nature, cruelly wounded in its sentiment
of justice by indignities, calumnies, persecutions, unexampled under
such circumstances. Having already spoken of this marriage, I shall
leave to regular biographers the detailed account of this painful
period, so as only to consider it here under the sole aspect of the
griefs it caused. I will not even stop to mention the unaccountable
melancholy occasioned by a presentiment before marriage, nor the
mysterious sort of agony that seized upon him just as he was about to
kneel for the nuptial ceremony in church, nor even the sadness brought
about by his first experience of the disposition of the person with whom
he had so imprudently linked his fate. I will say, rather, that the
melancholy caused and produced by this marriage was really grief; and of
the kind that most harshly tries, not only firmness of soul, but
likewise true virtue. For all the baseness, cowardice and spirit of
revenge that had lain hidden a moment while his triumphal car passed on,
united at this moment to overwhelm and cast him down. And the means
employed were, instinct with such perversity, that his great moral
courage, always so powerful in helping him to bear contradictions,
disappointments, and personal misfortunes, were no longer of any
assistance, threatened as he was with the greatest calamity that can
possibly befall a man of honor--namely, to be misjudged, calumniated,
accused, thought capable of deeds quite contrary to his high nature.
Neither his courage, firmness, nor even the testimony of conscience
could shield him from great unhappiness. And he suffered all the more
that the blame incurred proceeded from worthy persons who had been
mischievously led into error; nor could he conceal from himself that he
had voluntarily contributed to produce this unhappy state of things, by
not sufficiently avoiding certain appearances, by not attaching
sufficient importance to the opinion of his fellow-men, and having lent
himself, too easily, to misinterpretation.
"The thorns which I have reaped," said he later (but he thought it much
earlier), "are of the tree I planted,--they have torn me,--and I bled; I
should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed."[182]
In addition to all this, Lord Byron had to experience the effects of a
phenomenon of a terrible character, a phenomenon almost peculiar to
England, the tyrannical power of its public opinion. This power, that
gives form and movement to what is called the great world in England,
weighed so heavily on the weak minds of several persons calling
themselves friends, that, with few exceptions, and though all the while
persuaded of the injustice of such opinion, after a few feeble efforts
at changing it, and showing the wrong done to Lord Byron, they lost
courage to declare their belief. Not only did they no longer protest,
but they even pretended to believe part of the stupid calumnies spread
abroad. To a heart firm and devoted as his, which, under similar
circumstances, would have fought to the death in defense of outraged
justice and a persecuted friend, this was one of the most cruel trials
imposed on him by adverse destiny. What he must have suffered at this
period has been already spoken of in another chapter. I will only say
here, that, despite time, and the philosophy, which, subsequently,
restored partial serenity, this wound never quite closed, since, even in
the fourteenth canto of "Don Juan," written shortly before his last
journey into Greece, he still made allusion to it, saying ironically:--
"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 followed my advice!'
O Job! you had but two friends: one's quite enough,
Especially when we are ill at ease."
Moore adds:--"Lord Byron could not have said, at this time, whether it
was the attacks of his enemies, or the condolences of his friends that
most lacerated his heart."
It was in this state of mind that he quitted England. He visited
Belgium, and its battle-plains, still coming across fields of blood;
went up the Rhine, and spent some months in Switzerland, where the
glaciers, precipices, and the Alps, presented him with a splendid
framework for new poems. All the melancholy to be found in "Childe
Harold" (third canto), in "Manfred," and in his memoranda at that time,
is evidently caused by grief, either of fresh occurrence or renewed by
memory. A smile still sometimes wreathed his lip; but, when the gayety
natural to his age and disposition would fain have taken possession of
his heart, the remembrance of all the indignities he had undergone, rose
up before him as the words _Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin_, did to
_Belshazzar_. And often his fit of gayety ended in a sigh, which even
became habitual after it had ceased to express sorrow. All those who
knew Lord Byron have remarked _this singular and touching sigh_,
attributing it to a melancholy temperament. But it was especially
produced by a crowd of painful indistinct remembrances, intruding upon
him at some moment when he would and could have been happy. So he has
told us in those exquisite lines of his fourth canto of "Childe Harold;"
and he often repeated the same in prose. Thus, for instance, at the time
of his excursions to Mont Blanc and the Glaciers, which, had his heart
been lighter, would have made him so happy, he finished his memoranda
with these melancholy words:--
"In the weather for this tour (of thirteen days) I have been very
fortunate--fortunate in a companion (Hobhouse), fortunate in our
prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays
which often render journeys in a less wild country disappointing. I was
disposed to be pleased. I am a lover of nature, and an admirer of
beauty. I can bear fatigue, and welcome privation, and have seen some of
the noblest views in the world. But, in all this, the recollection of
bitterness, and more especially of recent and, more, home
desolation--which must accompany me through life--have preyed upon me
here; and neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the
avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor
the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor
enabled me to lose my own wretched identity in the majesty and the power
and the glory around, above, and beneath me."
After having passed eleven months in Switzerland, in about the same
frame of mind, he crossed the Alps, and entered Italy. Who can breathe
the soft air of that beautiful land, without feeling a healing balm
descend on wounds within? The clear atmosphere, and the serene sky, were
to him like the indulgent caresses of a sister, bringing a hope--a
promise--that peace, and even happiness were about to visit his stricken
soul. His first halt was at Milan. There he met with sympathetic, noble
minds, instead of the envious, hypocritical, intolerant spirits that had
caused him so much suffering; sweet and pleasant was it for him to live
with such. Every evening he took his place in a box at the Scala, where
the flower of the young intellects of Milan assembled, and where he met
with other persons of note, such as Abbe de Breme and Silvio Pellico:
gentle, beautiful souls, burning with love of country, and sighing after
its independence. From them he learnt more than ever to detest the
humiliating yoke of foreign despotism that weighed on Italy; with the
independence and frankness of character that belonged to him, he did not
scruple to deplore it openly; and his imprudent generosity became a
source of annoyance, persecution and calumny for himself. There he heard
that passionate music which appeals so strongly to imagination and
heart, because it harmonizes so naturally with all its surroundings in
Italy. It was listening to this music, at times so pathetic and sweet,
that emotion would often lend almost supernatural beauty to his
countenance, so that even Mr. Stendhall, the least enthusiastic of men,
was wont to say with enthusiasm, _that never, in his whole life, had he
seen any thing so beautiful and expressive as Lord Byron's look, or so
sublime as his style of beauty_. There he gave himself freely up to all
the fine emotions that art can raise. Stendhall accompanied him to the
Brera Museum, "_and I admired_," says he, "_the depth of sentiment with
which Lord Byron understood painters of most opposite schools, Raphael,
Guercino, Luini, Titian. Guercino's picture of Hagar dismissed by
Abraham quite electrified him, and, from that moment the admiration he
inspired rendered every body mute around him_."
"He improvised for at least an hour, and even better than Madame de
Stael," says Stendhall again. "One day Monti was invited to recite
before Lord Byron one of his (Monti's) poems which had met in Italy with
most favor,--the first canto of the 'Mascheroniana.'" The reading of
these lines gave such intense pleasure to the author of "Childe Harold"
that Stendhall adds, he shall never forget the divine expression of his
countenance on that occasion. "It was," says he, "the placid air of
genius and power."
Thus taking interest and pleasure in all around him, if he did
experience hours of melancholy (which is very probable, his wounds being
so recent and so deep), he had, at the same time, strength to hide it
from the public eye, and to express it only with his pen.
The single symptom that might be considered to betray, at this time, a
continual malady of soul, was the indifference he showed toward the fair
ladies of Milan, who, on their side, were full of enthusiasm about him,
and with whom he refused to become acquainted, despite all their
advances. But this reserve (though probably more marked and commented on
at this particular moment of which we speak) belonged, nevertheless to
his nature. After having visited Lake Garda with that pleasure he always
experienced from the beauties of nature, and then the tomb of Juliet at
Verona, with the interest excited by a true story even more than by
Shakspeare's poetry (since he could only take real interest in what was
true), he went from Milan to Venice. I have mentioned in another chapter
the impression made on him by Venice in particular, and Italy in
general; how, aided by exterior circumstances, by the sympathies growing
up around him, the severe studies he underwent, so as to keep his heart
calm, and bridle an imagination too liable to be influenced by bitter
memories; in a few months he began a new existence there, with a more
vigorous and healthy impulse for his genius.
When first victimized by the most senseless persecution, he was so
surprised and confounded by the noise and violence of calumny, that his
keen sentiment of injustice underwent a sort of numbness. On seeing
himself thus brutally attacked on the one hand, and so feebly defended
on the other, by lukewarm, pusillanimous friends, he may have questioned
if he were not really in fault, and hesitated, perhaps, how to reply;
for he almost spoke of himself as guilty in the farewell addressed to
his cold-hearted wife, and also in the lines composed for his more
deserving sister. This situation of mind shows itself without disguise,
sadly depicted in the third canto of "Childe Harold." Manfred himself,
that wondrous conception of genius, whose lot was cast amid all the
sublimities of nature, despite his pride and his strength of will, yet
was made to wear the sackcloth of penance. But, on arriving at Venice
when months had rolled on, and the Alps were between him and the
injustice undergone,--after Lady Byron's new, incredible, and strange
refusal to return,--he felt his conscience disencumbered of all morbid
influences. The testimony given, the absolution awarded by this
impartial, incorruptible judge, whom he had never ceased to consult,
became sufficient for him. And by degrees, as he succeeded in
forgetting, so as to have power to forgive, peace and tranquillity
revisited his mind. Venice was the city of his dream; he had known her,
he said, ere he visited her, and after the East she it was that haunted
his imagination. Reality spoiled nothing of his dream; he loved every
thing about her,--the solemn gayety of her gondolas, the silence of her
canals, the late hours of her theatres and soirees, the movement and
animation reigning on St. Mark's, where the gay world nightly assembled.
Even the decay of the town (which saddened him later), harmonizing then
with the whole scene, was not displeasing. He regretted the old costumes
given up; but the Carnival, though waning, still recalled ancient
Venice, and rejoiced his heart. Familiar with the Italian language, he
took pleasure in studying, also, the Venetian dialect, the naivete and
softness of which charmed him, especially on woman's lips. Stretched in
his gondola, he loved to court the breezes of the Adriatic, especially
at twilight and moonlit hours, unrivalled for their splendor in Venice.
In summer and autumn he delighted to give the rein to his horse along
the solitary banks of the Lido, or beside the flower-enamelled borders
of the Brenta. He loved the simplicity of the women, the freedom from
hypocrisy of the men. Feeling himself liked by those among whom chance
or choice had thrown him, frequenting theatres and society that could
both amuse and instruct, though powerless to fill his thoughts, for
these latter required more substantial food, and some hard difficult
study to occupy them, being free from all disquieting passions, and
wishing to remain thus, sociable as he was by temperament, though loving
solitude for the sake of his genius; under all these circumstances, he
could satisfy, in due proportion, the double exigency of his nature; for
he lived, as we have seen, amid a small circle of sympathetic
acquaintances, and of friends arriving from England, who clustered round
him without interfering with the independence he had regained, and which
formed the natural necessary element for his mind; though he had been
deprived of it in England by the cant and pusillanimity of his friends.
If, then, he was not exactly happy at this time, at least he was on the
road leading to happiness. For he was beginning to make progress in the
path of philosophy,--a gentle, indulgent, generous philosophy, as deep
as it was clever and pleasing, and which afterward ruled his life, and
inspired his genius. All those who saw him at this period are unanimous
in saying that melancholy then held aloof from him. In all his letters
we find proof of the same. "Venice and I go on well together," wrote he
to Murray.
And elsewhere,--"I go out a great deal, and am very well pleased."
Mr. Rose, who visited him at Venice, in the spring of 1818, began a poem
which he addressed to him from Albano, where he was taking baths for his
health, by alluding to the gayety which Byron spread around him at the
reunions which he liked.
But while those living near him, and at Venice, where his poetry was not
known, would never have imagined him to be melancholy, in England and
other places where people read the sorrow-breathing creations of his
genius, he continued to be considered the very personification of
melancholy or misanthropy. He knew, and laughed about it sometimes.
"I suppose now I shall never be able to shake off my sable, in public
imagination, more particularly since my moral wife demolished my
reputation. However, not that, nor more than that, has yet extinguished
my spirit, which always rises with the rebound."
And as he did not wish to be considered a misanthrope, he added to
Moore, in the same letter:--
"I wish you would also tell Jeffrey what you know,--that I was not, and
indeed, am not, even _now_, the misanthropical and gloomy gentleman for
which he takes me, but a facetious companion, getting on well with those
with whom I am intimate, and as loquacious and laughing as if I were a
much cleverer fellow."
And at the same time, to disabuse the public also, and show that he
could write gayly, he set himself to study a kind of poetry thoroughly
Italian in its spirit, and of which Berni is the father; poetry replete
with wit, and somewhat free, but devoid of malice, even when it merges
from gayety into satire; a style unknown to England in its varied
shades, and which it was easier for him to introduce than to make
popular. "Beppo" was his first essay in this line, and it contains too
much genuine fun not to have been a natural product of his humor ere
flowing from his pen.
On sending it to Murray as a mere sample of the style he thought it
possible to introduce into the literature of his country, he said:--
"At least, this poem will show that I can write gayly, and will repel
the accusation of monotony and affectation."[183]
But the gayety visible at this period in his writings and his conduct
was not, however, uninterrupted. For such cheerfulness to be constant,
neither a continuation of the causes producing it, nor yet the absence
of English papers and reviews could quite suffice. It was necessary that
no letters should come, awakening painful remembrances that had
slumbered awhile, that there should be no necessity for selling his
property in England,--a matter always complicated, and difficult of
execution at a distance, and which forced upon him cares and occupations
most opposed to his character, while affording sad proof of the
negligence, ingratitude, and other faults of those intrusted with the
management of his affairs. It would have required that friends who had
neglected to prevent his departure, should not, when weary of seeing him
no more, have conspired to bring about his return, devising a good means
of so doing by obstacles thrown in the way of a successful issue to his
affairs, which happy conclusion was absolutely necessary for his peace
and independence. We see by his letters, written during the summer of
1818, that he was tormented in a thousand ways; sometimes not receiving
any accounts, sometimes being advised to come nearer London, then,
again, having no tidings of how several thousands had been disposed of.
Besides that, he had constantly before his eyes a spectacle most painful
for a generous heart to witness. That was Venice choked and expiring in
the grip of her foreign rulers. The humiliation thus inflicted on the
city of his dreams, and its noble race of inhabitants, and which was
every instant repeated and proclaimed by the brutal voice of drums and
cannons, with a thousand added vexations (necessary, perhaps, for
keeping up an abhorred sway), caused infinite suffering to his just and
liberal nature, raising emotions of anger and pitying regret, that
flowed from his pen in sublimely indignant language. Thereupon, the
despots, unable to impose silence upon him, revenged themselves in
various ways, echoing reports spread in London, and inventing new
fables, which the idle people of Venice, more idle than elsewhere, and
even the gondoliers repeated in their turn to strangers, to amuse and
gain a few pence. We pass over any details of the persecution inflicted
on him by English tourists, who, not actuated by sympathy, but out of
sheer curiosity and eagerness to pick up all the gossip and idle tales
in circulation, were wont to run after Lord Byron, intruding on his
private walks, and even pressing into his very palace. Such conduct, of
course, displeased him, and accordingly in the summer of 1818 we find
traces of ill-humor visible in his correspondence, and even in the first
two cantos of "Don Juan." Afterward, when he had been laid hold of and
absorbed by a great passion, his irritation merged into sadness,
melancholy, disquietude, and irresolution.[184]
But if all this proves that sadness wearing the garb of melancholy
sometimes approached him, even at Venice; we see too clearly its real
and accidental causes to be able to ascribe it to a permanent and fatal
disposition of temperament.
Many signs of suffering escaped his pen at this time. For instance,
writing to Moore from Venice in 1818, and wishing to give him a
picturesque description of a creature full of savage energy, who forced
herself upon him in a thousand extravagant ways, refusing to leave his
house, he said:--
"I like this kind of animal, and am sure that I should have preferred
Medea to any woman that ever breathed. You may, perhaps, wonder at my
speaking thus (making allusion to Lady Byron).... I could have forgiven
the dagger or the bowl, any thing but the _deliberate desolation_ piled
upon me when I stood _alone upon my hearth_ with my household gods
shivered around me.... Do you suppose I have forgotten or forgiven it?
It has comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and I shall
remain only a spectator upon this earth until some great occasion
presents itself, which may come yet. There are others more to be blamed
than----, and it is on these that my eyes are fixed unceasingly."
Meanwhile, until Providence should present him with this opportunity,
another feeling took involuntary possession of his whole soul. But would
not the sentiment which was about to swallow up or transform all others,
and which was at last to bring him some happiness, also destroy the
peace so carefully preserved in his heart by indifference since he left
London? He seemed at first to have dreaded such a result himself; for,
in one of the earliest letters addressed to the person beloved (letters
which fully unveil his beautiful soul, and where one would vainly seek
an indelicate or sensual expression), he tells her "that he had
resolved, on system, to avoid a great passion," but that she had put to
flight all his resolutions, that he is wholly hers, and will become all
she wishes, happy perhaps in her love, but never more at peace,--"_ma
tranquillo mai piu_."
And he ends the letter with a verse quoted from Guarini's "Pastor
Fido."[185]
His heart assuredly was satisfied, but precisely because he truly loved,
and felt himself beloved; therefore did he also suffer from the
impossibility of reconciling the exigencies of his heart with
circumstances. In one of these beautiful letters, so full of simplicity
and refinement, he tells her:--
"What we shall have to suffer is of common occurrence, and we must bear
it like many others, for true love is never happy; but we two shall
suffer still more because we are placed in no ordinary circumstances."
His real sentiments of soul are likewise displayed in that beautiful
satirical poem, "Don Juan," in the third canto of which he exclaims:--
"Oh, Love! what is it in this world of ours
Which makes it fatal to be loved? Ah, why
With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers,
And made thy best interpreter a sigh?"
Nevertheless, when he had left Venice, which became altogether
distasteful to him, and gone to live at Ravenna, his heart grew calmer.
To Murray he writes:--
"You inquire after my health and _spirits_ in large letters; my health
can't be very bad, for I cured myself of a sharp tertian ague in three
weeks, with cold water, which had held my stoutest gondolier for months,
notwithstanding all the bark of the apothecary,--a circumstance which
surprised D'Aglietti, who said it was a proof of great stamina,
particularly in so epidemic a season. I did it out of dislike to the
taste of bark (which I can't bear), and succeeded, contrary to the
prophecies of every body, by simply taking nothing at all. As to
spirits, they are unequal, now high, now low,--like other people's, I
suppose, and depending upon circumstances."
Having grown intimate with the Count and Countess G----, he was
requested by the former to accompany his young wife into society, to the
play, everywhere, in short; soon Lord Byron took up his abode in their
palace, and the repose of heart and mind he thus attained was so great,
that no sadness seemed able to come near him, as long as this tranquil,
regular, pleasing sort of existence lasted, and it seemed destined to
endure forever.
But nothing is permanent here below, and especially happiness, be its
source regular or irregular; such is the mysterious eternal law of this
earthly life, doubtless one of probation. To this period of tranquillity
succeeded one of uneasiness and grief, which ended by awakening a little
melancholy. Let us examine the causes of it in his position at that
time.
The object of Lord Byron's love had obtained from His Holiness Pope Pius
VII., at the solicitation of her parents, permission to leave her
husband's house, and return home to her family. Consequently she had
left in the month of July, and was leading a retired life in a
country-house belonging to her parents. Thus Lord Byron, who had been
accustomed to feel happy in her society, was now reduced to solitude in
the same place her presence had gladdened. In order not to compromise
her in her delicate position, he was obliged even to deny himself the
gratification of calling upon her in the country. Ravenna, which is
always a sad kind of abode, becomes in autumn quite a desert, liable to
fever. Everybody had gone into the country. Even if taste had not
inclined Lord Byron to be alone, necessity would have compelled it; for
there was no longer a single being with whom he could exchange a word or
a thought. Equinoctial gales again swept the sea; and thus the wholesome
exercise of swimming, so useful in restoring equilibrium to the
faculties and calming the mind, was forbidden. If at least he could have
roamed on horseback through the forest of pines! But no; the autumn
rains, even in this lovely climate, last for weeks. In the absolute
solitude of a town like Ravenna, imprisoned, so to say, within his own
apartment, how could he avoid some emotions of sadness? He was thus
assailed; and, as it always happened where he himself was concerned, he
mistook its causes. Engrossed by an affection that was amply returned,
feeling strong against the injustice of man and the hardships of fate,
having become well-nigh inaccessible to _ennui_, he was astonished at
the sadness that always seemed to return in autumn, and imagined that it
might be from some hereditary malady inherent to his temperament.
"This season kills me with sadness," he wrote to Madame G----, on the
28th of September; "when I have my mental malady, it is well for others
that I keep away. I thank thee, from my heart, for the roses. Love me!
My soul is like the leaves that fall in autumn, all yellow."
And then, as if he almost reproached himself with being sad without some
cause existing in the heart, and, above all, not wishing to pain Madame
G----, he wound up with a joke, saying:--"Here is a cantator;" a
conventional word recalling some buffooneries in a play, and which
signified:--"Here is a fine sentence!"
Certainly, the autumnal season, sad and rainy as it is, must have had
great influence over him. Could it be otherwise with an organization
like his? From this point of view, his melancholy, like his temperament,
might be considered as hereditary. But would it have been developed
without the aid of other causes?
Let us observe the date of the letter, wherein he blames the season, and
the dates of those received from London, or those he addressed thither.
The coincidence between them will show clearly that when he called
himself melancholy, and accused the season, it occurred precisely on the
day when he was most wearied and overwhelmed by a host of other
disagreeable things. For instance, Murray, whose answers on several
points he had been impatiently expecting, was seized with a new fit of
silence. "There you are at your tricks."[186]
And then, when the silence was broken, the letters almost always brought
him disagreeable accounts. Wishing to disgust him with Italy, they sent
him volumes full of unjust, stupid attacks on Italy and the Italians
whom he liked.
"These fools," exclaimed he, "will force me to write a book myself on
Italy, to tell them broadly _they have lied_."
Nothing was more disagreeable, and even hurtful to him, at this time,
than the report of his return to England; and they wrote him word that
his presence in London was asserted on all sides, that many persons
declared that they had seen him, and that Lady C. L---- had been to call
at his house fully persuaded that he was there.[187]
"Pray do not let the papers paragraph me back to England. They may say
what they please, any loathsome abuse but that. Contradict it."
In consequence of this invention, even his newspapers were no longer
sent to him; and when he spoke of the harm and annoyance thus
occasioned, annoyance increased by Murray's silence, his displeasure
certainly amounted to anger. At this time also he was informed by letter
that some English tourists, on returning home, had boasted that they
_could_ have been presented to him at Venice, but _would not_.
The trial of the unfortunate queen was just coming on at this time, and
the whole proceeding, accompanied as it was with so many cruel, indecent
circumstances, revolted him in the highest degree.
"No one here," said he, "believes a word of all the infamous depositions
made."
The article in "Blackwood's Magazine," which was so abominably libellous
as to force him out of the silence _he had adopted for his rule_, was
often present to his thought; for he dreaded lest his editor should for
the sake of lucre publish "Don Juan" with his name, and lest the Noels
and other enemies, out of revenge, should profit thereby to contest his
right of guardianship over his child, as had been the case with Shelley.
"Recollect, that if you put my name to 'Don Juan' in these canting days,
any lawyer might oppose my guardian-right of my daughter in chancery, on
the plea of its containing the parody. Such are the perils of a foolish
jest. I was not aware of this at the time, but you will find it correct,
I believe; and you may be sure that the Noels would not let it slip.
Now, I prefer my child to a poem at any time."
Moreover, amid all these pre-occupations, Hobhouse wrote him word that
he should be obliged to go to England for the queen's trial; and we know
how repugnant this necessity was to Lord Byron. His little Allegra had
just fallen rather dangerously ill; Countess G----, notwithstanding the
sentence pronounced by His Holiness, continued to be tormented by her
husband, who refused to accept the decision of Rome, because he did not
wish for a separation. The Papal Government, pushed on by the Austrian
police, had recourse to a thousand small vexatious measures, to make
Lord Byron quit Ravenna, where he had given offense by becoming too
popular with the liberal party.
Lastly, we may further add that, even in those days, he was suffering
from some jealous susceptibility, though knowing well how he was
beloved. For in the letter, dated 28th of September, where he says "his
soul is sick," he also complains of Madame G----'s having passed some
hours at Ravenna _without letting him know, and of her having thought
fit to hide from him certain steps taken_.
This autumn was followed by a winter still more disagreeably exceptional
than the preceding one. The most inclement weather prevailed during the
month of January, and generally throughout the winter.
"Bad weather, this 4th of January," he writes in his memoranda, "as bad
as in London itself."
The sirocco, a wind that depresses even people without nerves, was
blowing and melting the ice. The streets and roads were transformed into
pools of half-congealed mud. He was somewhat "_out of spirits_." But
still he hoped:--
"If the roads and weather allow, I shall go out on horseback to-morrow.
It is high time; already we have had a week of this work: snow and
sirocco one day, ice and snow the other. A sad climate for Italy; but
these two winters have been extraordinary."
The next day, he got up "_dull and drooping_." The weather had not
changed. Lord Byron absolutely required to breathe a little fresh air
every day, to take exercise on horseback. His health was excellent, but
on these two conditions; otherwise, it failed. His temper clouded over,
without air and exercise. During the wretched days he was obliged to
remain at home, he had not even the diversion letters and newspapers
might have afforded, since no post came in. His sole amusement consisted
in stirring the fire, and playing with Lion, his mastiff, or with his
little menagerie. So much did he suffer from it all, that his kind heart
bestowed pity even on his horses:--
" ... Horses must have exercise--get a ride as soon as weather serves;
deuced muggy still. An Italian winter is a sad thing, but all the other
seasons are charming."
On the 7th of January, he adds:--
"Still rain, mist, snow, drizzle, and all the incalculable combinations
of a climate where heat and cold struggle for mastery."
If the weather cleared up one day, it was only to become more inclement
the next.
On the 12th he wrote in his journal:--
"The weather still so humid and impracticable, that London, in its most
oppressive fogs, were a summer bower to this mist and sirocco, which has
now lasted (but with one day's interval), checkered with snow or heavy
rain only, since the 30th of December, 1820. It is so far lucky that I
have a literary turn; but it is very tiresome not to be able to stir
out, in comfort, on any horse but Pegasus, for so many days. The roads
are even worse than the weather, by the long splashing, and the heavy
soil, and the inundations."
And on the 19th:--
"Winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself, though
Shakspeare says otherwise.... Rather low in spirits--certainly
hippish--liver touched--will take a dose of salts."
There was, however, too much elasticity of spirits in him, and his
melancholy was not sufficiently deep for it to last. His evening visit
to Countess G---- at eight o'clock (the day's event consoling for all
else), a few simple airs played by her on the piano, some slight
diversion, such as a ray of sunshine between two showers, or a star in
the heavens raising hopes of a brighter morrow, sufficed to clear up his
horizon. What always raised his spirits was the prospect of some good or
great and generous action to perform, such, in those days, as
contributing to the deliverance of a nation. Then, not only did the
sirocco and falling rain cease to act on his nerves, as he himself
acknowledged, but his genius would start into fresh life, making him
snatch a pen, and write off in a few days admirable poems,[188] worthy
to be the fruit of long years of meditation.
We may, then, believe that if his melancholy had been left solely to the
physical and moral influences surrounding him at this time, it would
never have become much developed, or at least would have soon passed
away, like morning mists that rise in the east to be quickly dissipated
by the rays of the sun.
But just as these slight vapors may form into a cloud, if winds arise in
another part of the sky, bringing fresh moisture to them, so a slight
and fugitive sadness in him might be deepened and prolonged through
circumstances. And this was exactly what happened in the year of which
we speak, for it was full of disappointments and grief for him. To
arrive at this persuasion, it is sufficient to remark the coincidence of
dates. For example, we find in his memoranda, under the date of 18th of
January, 1821:--
"At eight proposed to go out. Lega came in with a letter about a bill
_unpaid_ at Venice, which I thought paid months ago. I flew into a
paroxysm of rage, which almost made me faint. I have not been well ever
since. I deserve it for being such a fool--but it _was_ provoking--a set
of scoundrels! It is, however, but five-and-twenty pounds."
Then, again, on the 19th we find:--
"Rode. Winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself,
though Shakspeare says otherwise. At least I am so much more accustomed
to meet with ingratitude than the north wind, that I thought the latter
the sharper of the two. I had met with both in the course of twenty-four
hours, so could judge."
And on the same day he wrote to Murray a letter, in which, after
mentioning a host of vexations and worries, he ends by saying:--
"I am in bad humor--some obstructions in business with those plaguing
trustees, who object to an advantageous loan, which I was to furnish to
a nobleman (Lord B----) on mortgage, because his property is in Ireland,
have shown me how a man is treated in his absence."
Between the 19th and the 22d, his physical and moral indisposition
seemed to last; for he makes reflections in his memoranda, upon
melancholy bilious people, and says that he has not even sufficient
energy to go on with his tragedy of "Sardanapalus," and that he has
ceased composing for the last few days. Now, it was precisely the 20th
that he was more than ever annoyed by the obstinacy of the London
Theatre managers, for, despite his determination and his clear right,
his protestations and entreaties, they were resolved, said the
newspapers that came to hand, on having "Marino Faliero" acted. He had
already written to Murray:--
"I must really and seriously request that you will beg of Messrs. Harris
or Elliston to let the Doge alone: it is not an acting play; it will not
serve their purpose; it will destroy yours (the sale); and it will
distress me. It is not courteous, it is hardly even gentlemanly, to
persist in this appropriation of a man's writings to their
mountebanks."
He wrote thus, on the 19th; but on the 20th his fears had increased to
such a pitch that he also addressed the lord-chamberlain, requesting him
to forbid this representation. Indeed, so great was his annoyance, that
he wrote to Murray twice in the same day:--
"I wish you would speak to Lord Holland, and to all my friends and
yours, to interest themselves in preventing this cursed attempt at
representation.
"God help me! at this distance, I am treated like a corpse or a fool by
the few people that I thought I could rely upon; and I _was_ a fool to
think any better of them than of the rest of mankind."
On the 21st his melancholy does not appear to have worn off. This is to
be attributed to the additions to all the causes of the previous day;
and to the news of the illness of Moore, whom he loved so much, there
came, in addition, the following event, which we give in his own
words:--
"To-morrow is my birthday--that is to say, at twelve o' the clock,
midnight--_i.e._, in twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty-three
years of age!!! and I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having
lived so long, and to so little purpose."
Let me be allowed here to make some comment on the beauty of the
sentiment causing this sadness; for certainly he was not actuated by a
common sensual, selfish regret at youth departing. Beauty, youth, love,
fortune, and celebrity, all smiled on him then; he possessed every one
of them to a degree capable of satisfying any vanity, or any pride, but
they were inadequate, for a modesty so rare and so admirable as his! His
regrets certainly did not apply to youth; he was only thirty-three years
of age! Nor yet to beauty, for he possessed it in the highest degree;
nor to fame, that had only too much been his; nor to love, for he was
the object of real idolatry;[189] nor to any actions that called for
repentance. To what, then, did they apply? To his _aspirations_ after
greater things, after _ideal perfections_, that neither he nor any one
else can arrive at here below. It was a soaring after the infinite!
The cause, noble in itself, of this sadness consisted then in a sort of
nostalgia for the great, the beautiful, the good. The simple words in
which he expressed it enable us to well understand its nature. "I do not
regret this year," said he, "_for what I have done, but for what I have
not done_!"
I will not further multiply proofs; suffice it to say, that this year
having been one of incessant annoyances to him, not only can not we be
surprised that he should have experienced moments of sadness, but we
might rather be astonished at their being so few, if we did not know
that living above all for heart, and his heart being then satisfied, he
found therein compensation for all the rest. "Thanks for your
compliments of the year. I hope that it will be pleasanter than the
last. I speak with reference to England only, as far as regards myself,
where I had every kind of disappointment--lost an important lawsuit--and
the trustees of Lady Byron refusing to allow of an advantageous loan to
be made from my property to Lord Blessington, etc., by way of closing
the four seasons. These, and a hundred other such things, made a year of
bitter business for me in England. Luckily things were a little
pleasanter for me here, else I should have taken the liberty of
Hannibal's ring."
The political and revolutionary events then taking place in Romagna and
throughout Italy, caused emotions and sentiments of too strong a nature
in Lord Byron to be confounded with sadness; but they may well have
contributed to develop largely certain melancholy inclinations
discoverable toward autumn. By degrees, as the first strength of grief
passes away, it leaves behind a sort of melancholy current in the soul,
which, without being the sentiment itself, serves as a conductor for it,
making it gush forth on occurrence of the smallest cause. Causes with
him were not so slight at this period, although he considered them
such[190] out of the superabundance of his philosophical spirit; and the
year that began with so many contradictions, ended in the same manner.
The hope of seeing the Counts Gamba back again at Ravenna was daily
lessening. All the letters Madame G---- wrote to him from Florence and
Pisa, penned as they were amid the anguish of fear lest Lord Byron
should be assassinated at Ravenna, were necessarily pregnant with alarm
and affliction.
Meanwhile his interests were being neglected in London. Murray irritated
him by his inexplicable negligence or worried him with sending foolish
publications and provoking reviews. Gifford, a critic he loved and
revered, from whom no praise, he said, could compensate for any
blame,--Gifford, whose ideas on the drama were quite opposite to his
own, had just been censuring his beautiful dramatic compositions.[191]
Moreover, Italy having failed in her attempts at independence, was
insulted in her misfortune by that world which smiles only on success,
and thus, indirectly, the persons loved and esteemed by Lord Byron came
in for their share of outrage. And all these contradictions, _where_ and
_when_ did he experience them? At Ravenna, in a solitude and isolation
that would have made the bravest stoic shudder, and that was prejudicial
to him without his being aware of it. For there were two distinct
temperaments in Lord Byron, that of his genius and that of his humanity,
and the wants of one were not always those of the other. The first, from
its nature and manifestations, required solitude. The second, eminently
sociable, while yielding to the tyranny of the first, or bearing it from
force of circumstance, suffered nevertheless when solitude became too
complete. It was not the society of the great world, nor what are called
its pleasures, that Lord Byron required; but a society of friends and
clever persons capable of affording a little diversion to his monotonous
life. When this twofold want did not meet with reasonable satisfaction,
a certain degree of melancholy necessarily developed itself. "_When he
was not thrown into some unbearable sort of solitude, like that in which
he found himself at Ravenna_," says Madame G----," _his good-humor and
gayety only varied when letters from England came to move and agitate
him, or when he suffered morally_.
"_I must, however, add that all sensitive agents, all atmospherical
impressions, acted on him more than on others, and it might almost be
said that his sky was mirrored in his soul, the latter often taking its
color from the former; and if by that is understood the hereditary
malady spoken of by others and himself, then they are right, for he had
truly inherited a most impressionable temperament._"
Moreover, the absolute, inexorable solitude caused by the absence of all
his friends from Ravenna, was still further augmented by the occurrence
of intermittent marshy fevers, which every body endeavors to avoid by
flying from Ravenna at the close of summer, and to which he fell a prey.
This fever, that seized hold of him, and even prevented his departure,
might alone have sufficed to render him melancholy, for nothing more
inclines to sadness. But so intimate was his persuasion that when
sadness does not proceed from the heart it has no cause for existence,
and so little was he occupied with self, that he would not allow there
could be sufficient cause for melancholy in all the sufferings weighing
upon him.
"I ride, I am not intemperate in eating or drinking, and my general
health is as usual, except a slight ague, which rather does good than
not. It must be constitutional; for I know nothing more than usual to
depress me to that degree."[192]
But so little was it the necessary product of his temperament alone, so
much, on the contrary, did it result from a host of causes accidentally
united, that he had scarcely arrived at Pisa, where most of the causes
either ceased or were neutralized, than his mind recovered its serenity,
and he could write to Moore:--
"At present, owing to the climate (I can walk down into my garden and
pluck my own oranges, indulging in this meridian luxury of
proprietorship), my spirits are much better."
Whenever, then, his heart was happy in the happiness of those he loved,
wherever he found an intellectual society to animate the mind, diverting
and amusing him without imposing the chains of etiquette, we vainly seek
the faintest trace of melancholy. But two great griefs soon befell him
at Pisa, for sorrow never made long truces with Byron. Truly might we
say that fate ceased not from making him pay for the privilege of his
great superiority, by all the sufferings he endured. Soon after his
arrival at Pisa, his little daughter Allegra, whom he was having
educated at a convent in Romagna, died of fever, and shortly afterward
Shelley was drowned! About the same time the publication of "Cain," then
going on, raised a perfect storm, furnishing his enemies with pretexts
for attacking and slandering him more than ever. They did it in a
manner so violent and unjust, bringing in likewise his publisher Murray,
that Lord Byron thought it incumbent on him to send a challenge to the
poet laureate, the most perfidious among them all. At this same period,
Hunt, who had lost all means of existence by the death of Shelley,
forced himself on Lord Byron in such a disagreeable way as to become the
plague of his life. Lastly, in consequence of a quarrel that arose
between Sergeant Masi and Lord Byron's riding companions, an arbitrary
measure was taken, which again compelled his friends--the Counts
Gamba--to leave Pisa for Genoa; and he, though free to remain, resolved
on sharing their fate and quitting Pisa likewise. For the Government,
though subservient to Austrian rule, did not dare to apply the same
unjust decree to an English subject of such high rank. Nevertheless, if
we except the death of his little girl, which caused him profound
sorrow--although he bore it with all the fortitude belonging to his
great soul--and the death of Shelley, which also afflicted him greatly,
none of the other annoyances had power to grieve him or to create
melancholy.
"It seems to me," he wrote to Murray, "that what with my own country and
other lands, there has been _hot water enough_ for some time." This
manner of announcing so many disagreeables, shows what self-possession
he had arrived at, and how he viewed all things calmly and sagely, as
Disraeli portrays him with truth in "Venetia," when he makes him
say:--"'_As long as the world leaves us quiet, and does not burn us
alive, we ought to be pleased. I have grown callous to all they say_,'
observed Herbert. '_And I also_,' replied Lord Cadurcis." Cadurcis and
Herbert both represent Lord Byron; for Disraeli, like Moore, having felt
that Lord Byron had enough in him to furnish several individualities,
all equally powerful, thought it necessary to call in the aid of this
double personification, in order to paint his nature in all its
richness, with the changes to be wrought by time and events.
If the war waged against Lord Byron by envy, bigotry, and wickedness,
had had power to create emotion during youth, and even later, the
gentle, wise philosophy he afterward acquired in the school of
adversity, so elevated his mind, that he could no longer suffer, except
from wounds of heart, provided his conscience were at rest. When the
stupid persecution raised against him on the appearance of "Cain" took
place, he wrote to Murray from Pisa, on the 8th of February:--
"All the _row_ about _me_ has no otherwise affected me than by the
attack upon yourself, which is ungenerous in Church and State.... I can
only say, 'Me, me; en adeum qui feci;'--that any proceedings directed
against you, I beg may be transferred to me, who am willing, and
_ought_, to endure them all."
And then he ends his letter, saying, "I write to you about all this row
of bad passions and absurdities, with the _summer_ moon (for here our
winter is clearer than your dog-days), lighting the winding Arno, with
all her buildings and bridges,--so quiet and still!--_What nothings are
we before the least of these stars!_"
Soon after, and while still suffering under the same persecution from
his enemies and weak fools, he wrote to Moore from Montenero, recalling
in his usual vein of pleasantry, their mutual adventures in fashionable
London life, and saying, that he should have done better while listening
to Moore as he tuned his harp and sang, _to have thrown himself out of
the window, ere marrying a Miss Milbank_.
"I speak merely of my marriage, and its consequences, distresses, and
calumnies; for I have been much more happy, on the whole, _since_, than
I ever could have been with her."
And some time after, conversing with Madame G----, examining and
analyzing all he might have done as an orator and a politician, if he
had remained in England, he added:--
"That then he would not have known her, and that no other advantages
could have given him the happiness which he found in real affection."
This conversation, interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Mr.
Hobhouse, and which, but for the inexplicable sadness arising from
presentiments, would have made earth a paradise for the person to whom
it was addressed, took place at Pisa, in Lord Byron's garden, a few days
before his departure for Genoa. At Genoa he continued to lead the same
retired, studious, simple kind of life; and, although the winter was
this year again extremely rigorous, and although his health had been
slightly affected since the day of Shelley's funeral, and his stay at
Genoa made unpleasant by the ennui proceeding from Mr. Hunt's presence
there,[193] still he had no fit of what can be called melancholy until
he decided on leaving for Greece. Then the sadness that he would fain
have concealed, but could not, which he betrayed in the parting hour,
acknowledged while climbing the hill of Albano, and which often brought
tears to his eyes on board the vessel--this sadness had its source in
the deepest sentiments of his heart. In Greece, we know, by the
unanimous and constant testimony of all who saw him there, that the rare
fits of melancholy he experienced, all arose from the same cause. During
his sojourn in the Ionian Islands, as soon as letters from Italy had
calmed his uneasiness, finding himself surrounded by general esteem,
affection, and admiration, seeing justice dawn for him, and confusion
for his enemies, being consoled also with the prospect of a future, and
that, with heart at ease, he might at last shed happiness around him;
then he was ever to be found full of serenity and even gayety, _only
intent on noble virtuous actions_. One day, however, a great melancholy
seized upon him, and all the good around suddenly appeared to vanish.
Whence did this arise? His letters tell us:--
"Poor Byron!" wrote Count Gamba, to his sister, on the 14th of October,
"he has been much concerned by the news which reached him some fortnight
ago about the headache of his dear Ada. You may imagine how _triste_
were the workings of his fancy, to which he added the fear of having to
spend several months without hearing any further tidings of her; besides
the suspicion that the truth was either kept back from him or disguised.
Happily, another bulletin has reached him, to say that she is all right
again,--and one more, to announce that the child is in good health, with
the exception of a slight pain in the eyes. His melancholy is,
therefore, a little mitigated, though it has not completely
disappeared."
The pre-occupation, disquietude, and anxiety, which he experienced more
or less continuously in Greece, and above all, at Missolonghi, and which
I have mentioned elsewhere, certainly did agitate, trouble, and even
irritate him sometimes; but then it was in such a passing way, on
account of the great empire he had acquired over himself, that every one
during his sojourn in the islands, and often even at Missolonghi,
unanimously pronounced gayety to be his predominant disposition. And,
truly, it was only to griefs proceeding from the heart that he granted
power to cloud his brow with any kind of melancholy.
After this long analysis, and before summing up, it still remains for us
to examine a species of melancholy that seems not to come within our
limits, but which occasionally seized upon him on his first waking in
the morning:--
"I have been considering what can be the reason why I always wake at a
certain hour in the morning, and always in very bad spirits--I may say,
in actual despair and despondency, in all respects--even of that which
pleased me over-night. In about an hour or two, this goes off, and I
compose myself either to sleep again, or at least, to quiet.... What is
it?--liver?... I suppose that it is all hypochondriasis."
What name shall we give to this physiological phenomenon? Was it
hypochondriasis, as he imagined? That Lord Byron's temperament, so
sensitive to all moral causes, so vulnerable to all atmospherical
influences, should likewise have contained a vein of hypochondriasis, is
not only possible, but likely. And were we as partial as we wish to be
just, there would certainly be no reason for denying it. Hypochondriasis
is an infirmity, not a fault. Lord Byron himself, when informed that
such a one complained of being called hypochondriacal, replied somewhat
to the following effect: "I can not conceive how a man in perfect good
health can feel wounded by being told that he is hypochondriacal, since
his face and his conduct refute the accusation. Were this accusation
ever to prove correct, to what does it amount, except to say that he has
a liver complaint?
"'I shall publish it before the whole world,' said the clever
Smelfungus. 'I should prefer telling my doctor,' said I. There is
nothing dishonorable in such an illness, which is more especially that
of people who are studious. It has been the illness of those who are
good, wise, clever, and even light-hearted. Regnard, Moliere, Johnson,
Gray, Burns, were all more or less given to it. Mendelssohn and Bayle
were often so afflicted with it, that they were obliged to have recourse
to toys, and to count the slates on the roof of the houses opposite, in
order to distract their attention. Johnson says, that oftentimes he
would have given a limb to raise his spirits."
But, nevertheless, when we seek truth for itself, and not for its
results, nor to make it help out a system, we must go to the bottom of
things, and reveal all we discover. Thus, after having spoken of this
physiological phenomenon, which he suspects to be hypochondriasis, Byron
adds, that he came upon him, accompanied with great thirst, that the
London chemist, Mann, had cured him of it in three days, that it always
yielded to a few doses of salts, and that the phenomenon always recurred
and ended at the same hours. It appears, then, to me, that all these
symptoms are far from indicating a serious and incurable hereditary
malady, which would not be likely to have yielded to doses of salts, and
which his general good health would seem to exclude. I consider them
rather to point, for their cause, to his diet, which was _quite
insufficient for him, and even hurtful, likely to affect the most robust
health, and much more that of a man whose organization was so sensitive
and delicate_. And, as this system of denying his body what was
necessary for it increased the demands of his mind, which in its turn
revenged itself on the body, the result was that Lord Byron voluntarily
failed in the duties which every man owes to himself. Therefore, I think
it more just to rank the melancholy arising from such causes, among his
_faults_, and not among the accidents of life, or his natural
disposition.[194]
Now, having examined his melancholy under all its phases, having proved
more what it was not than what it was, we shall sum up with saying, that
Lord Byron really experienced, during his short life, every kind of
sadness. First, in early youth, he had to encounter disappointments,
mortifications, disenchantments, deep moral suffering; then the constant
warfare of envy, resulting in cruel, unceasing slanders: then, all the
philosophical sadness arising in great minds, the best endowed and the
noblest, from the emptiness of earthly things; then that unslakable
thirst for the true, the just, the perfect; that sort of nostalgia which
the noblest souls experience, because their home is not here, because
reality disgusts them, from the striking contrast it presents with the
ideal type, in their mind, especially at our epoch, and in our present
social condition, when men can with difficulty preserve interior calm
by dint of compulsory occupations requiring much energy. And, lastly,
there was the sadness inherent to a physical temperament of such
exquisite sensibility. Yet, notwithstanding all the above, and though
Lord Byron was condemned to drain the cup of bitterness to its dregs, we
think he ought not to be classed among geniuses exclusively swayed by
the melancholy in their nature, since almost all his sadness sprang from
accident, and from a sort of fictitious temperament produced by
circumstances. Thus his melancholy, being fictitious, remained generally
subject in real life to his fine natural temperament, only gaining the
mastery when he was under the influence of inspiration, and with pen in
hand.
"All is strange," says La Bruyere, "in the humor, morals, and manners of
most men.... The wants of this life, the situation in which we are,
necessity's law, force _nature, and cause great changes in it_. Thus
such men can not be defined, thoroughly and in themselves; too many
external things affect, change, and overwhelm them; they are not
precisely what they are, or rather, what they appear to be."
Thus, then, having a natural disposition for gayety received from God,
and which I shall call _interior_, which always had the upper hand in
all important actions of his life, but which was only truly known by
those who approached him closely, I conclude that gayety often
predominated, and ought to have predominated much more, in Lord Byron's
life.
But through the fictitious character, which I will call _exterior_,
derived from _education, from circumstances of family, country, and
association_, which (apparently) modified the first, and gave the world
sometimes a reason, and sometimes a pretext for inventing that dark myth
called by his name, _and which really only influenced his writings_,
melancholy often predominated in his life. However, its sway was less in
reality than in the imagination of those who wished to identify the man
with the poet, and to find the real Lord Byron in the heroes of his
early poems.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 161: See the Introduction.]
[Footnote 162: See chapter on "Generosity."]
[Footnote 163: See chapter on "Friendships."]
[Footnote 164: Ibid.]
[Footnote 165: See chapter on "Love of Fame."]
[Footnote 166: Dallas, vol. ii.]
[Footnote 167: Moore, vol. i.]
[Footnote 168: See Moore, 35th and 36th letters.]
[Footnote 169: See "Childe Harold."]
[Footnote 170: See Introduction.]
[Footnote 171: "His lordship was in better spirits when I had met with
some adventure, and he chuckled with an inward sense of enjoyment, not
altogether without spleen, a kind of malicious satisfaction, as his
companions recounted, with all becoming gravity, their woes and
sufferings as an apology for begging a bed and a morsel for the night.
God forgive! but I partook of Byron's levity at the idea of personages
so consequential wandering destitute in the streets, seeking for
lodgings from door to door, and rejected at all. Next day, however, they
were accommodated by the governor with an agreeable house," etc.--GALT,
p. 66.]
[Footnote 172: See chapter on "Courage, Coolness, and Self-control."]
[Footnote 173: Moore, vol. i.]
[Footnote 174: Galt says that what he relates of his visit to Ali Pasha
has all the _freshness and life of a scene going on under one's own
eye_.]
[Footnote 175: See Moore, Letters 52 and 54, to Mrs. Byron.]
[Footnote 176: Galt, p. 105.]
[Footnote 177: Moore, Letter 81.]
[Footnote 178: "Jacopo Ortis," Ugo Foscolo.]
[Footnote 179: Moore, Letter 166.]
[Footnote 180: Ibid.]
[Footnote 181: Moore, Letters 183 and 184.]
[Footnote 182: "Childe Harold," canto iv.]
[Footnote 183: Letter 312.]
[Footnote 184: See his "Life in Italy."]
[Footnote 185:
"Che giova a te, cor mio, l'esser amato?
Che giova a me l'aver si cara Amante?
Se tu, crudo Destine, ne dividi
Cio che amor ne stringe!"]
[Footnote 186: Letter 386.]
[Footnote 187: Letter 389.]
[Footnote 188: It was then that "Sardanapalus" came to light.]
[Footnote 189: See chapter on "Life in Ravenna."]
[Footnote 190:
"Many small articles make up a sum,
And hey ho for Caleb Quotem, oh!"]
[Footnote 191: See Letter 435.]
[Footnote 192: Moore, Letter 471.]
[Footnote 193: See his "Life at Genoa."]
[Footnote 194: See chapter on "Faults."]