On the road to Bologna he had met with his early and dearest friend, Lord
Clare, and the following description of their short interview is given in
his "Detached Thoughts."
"Pisa, November 5th, 1821.
"'There is a strange coincidence sometimes in the little things of this
world, Sancho,' says Sterne in a letter (if I mistake not,) and so I have
often found it.
"Page 128, article 91, of this collection, I had alluded to my friend Lord
Clare in terms such as my feelings suggested. About a week or two
afterwards, I met him on the road between Imola and Bologna, after not
having met for seven or eight years. He was abroad in 1814, and came home
just as I set out in 1816.
"This meeting annihilated for a moment all the years between the present
time and the days of _Harrow_. It was a new and inexplicable feeling, like
rising from the grave, to me. Clare too was much agitated--more in
_appearance_ than myself; for I could feel his heart beat to his fingers'
ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of my own which made me think so.
He told me that I should find a note from him left at Bologna. I did. We
were obliged to part for our different journeys, he for Rome, I for Pisa,
but with the promise to meet again in spring. We were but five minutes
together, and on the public road; but I hardly recollect an hour of my
existence which could be weighed against them. He had heard that I was
coming on, and had left his letter for me at Bologna, because the people
with whom he was travelling could not wait longer.
"Of all I have ever known, he has always been the least altered in every
thing from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me
to him so strongly at school. I should hardly have thought it possible for
society (or the world, as it is called) to leave a being with so little of
the leaven of bad passions.
"I do not speak from personal experience only, but from all I have ever
heard of him from others, during absence and distance."
On the subject of intimacies formed by Lord Byron, not only at the period
of which we are speaking, but throughout his whole life, it would be
difficult to advance any thing more judicious, or more demonstrative of a
true knowledge of his character, than is to be found in the following
remarks of one who had studied him with her whole heart, who had learned
to regard him with the eyes of good sense, as well as of affection, and
whose strong love, in short, was founded upon a basis the most creditable
both to him and herself,--the being able to understand him.[1]
[1] "My poor Zimmerman, who now will understand thee?"--such was
the touching speech addressed to Zimmerman by his wife, on her
deathbed, and there is implied in these few words all that a
man of morbid sensibility must be dependent for upon the
tender and self-forgetting tolerance of the woman with whom he
is united.
"We continued in Pisa even more rigorously to absent ourselves from
society. However, as there were a good many English in Pisa, he could not
avoid becoming acquainted with various friends of Shelley, among which
number was Mr. Medwin. They followed him in his rides, dined with him, and
felt themselves happy, of course, in the apparent intimacy in which they
lived with so renowned a man; but not one of them was admitted to any part
of his friendship, which, indeed, he did not easily accord. He had a great
affection for Shelley, and a great esteem for his character and talents;
but he was not his friend in the most extensive sense of that word.
Sometimes, when speaking of his friends and of friendship, as also of love,
and of every other noble emotion of the soul, his expressions might
inspire doubts concerning his sentiments and the goodness of his heart.
The feeling of the moment regulated his speech, and besides, he liked to
play the part of singularity,--and sometimes worse, more especially with
those whom he suspected of endeavouring to make discoveries as to his real
character; but it was only mean minds and superficial observers that could
be deceived in him. It was necessary to consider his actions to perceive
the contradiction they bore to his words: it was necessary to be witness
of certain moments, during which unforeseen and involuntary emotion forced
him to give himself entirely up to his feelings; and whoever beheld him
then, became aware of the stores of sensibility and goodness of which his
noble heart was full.
"Among the many occasions I had of seeing him thus overpowered, I shall
mention one relative to his feelings of friendship. A few days before
leaving Pisa, we were one evening seated in the garden of the Palazzo
Lanfranchi. A soft melancholy was spread over his countenance;--he
recalled to mind the events of his life; compared them with his present
situation and with that which it might have been if his affection for me
had not caused him to remain in Italy, saying things which would have made
earth a paradise for me, but that even then a presentiment that I should
lose all this happiness tormented me. At this moment a servant announced
Mr. Hobhouse. The slight shade of melancholy diffused over Lord Byron's
face gave instant place to the liveliest joy; but it was so great, that it
almost deprived him of strength. A fearful paleness came over his cheeks,
and his eyes were filled with tears as he embraced his friend. His emotion
was so great that he was forced to sit down.
"Lord Clare's visit also occasioned him extreme delight. He had a great
affection for Lord Clare, and was very happy during the short visit that
he paid him at Leghorn. The day on which they separated was a melancholy
one for Lord Byron. 'I have a presentiment that I shall never see him
more,' he said, and his eyes filled with tears. The same melancholy came
over him during the first weeks that succeeded to Lord Clare's departure,
whenever his conversation happened to fall upon this friend."
Of his feelings on the death of his daughter Allegra, this lady gives the
following account:--"On the occasion also of the death of his natural
daughter, I saw in his grief the excess of paternal tenderness. His
conduct towards this child was always that of a fond father; but no one
would have guessed from his expressions that he felt this affection for
her. He was dreadfully agitated by the first intelligence of her illness;
and when afterwards that of her death arrived, I was obliged to fulfil the
melancholy task of communicating it to him. The memory of that frightful
moment is stamped indelibly on my mind. For several evenings he had not
left his house, I therefore went to him. His first question was relative
to the courier he had despatched for tidings of his daughter, and whose
delay disquieted him. After a short interval of suspense, with every
caution which my own sorrow suggested, I deprived him of all hope of the
child's recovery. 'I understand,' said he,--'it is enough, say no more.' A
mortal paleness spread itself over his face, his strength failed him, and
he sunk into a seat. His look was fixed, and the expression such that I
began to fear for his reason; he did not shed a tear, and his countenance
manifested so hopeless, so profound, so sublime a sorrow, that at the
moment he appeared a being of a nature superior to humanity. He remained
immovable in the same attitude for an hour, and no consolation which I
endeavoured to afford him seemed to reach his ears, far less his heart.
But enough of this sad episode, on which I cannot linger, even after the
lapse of so many years, without renewing in my own heart the awful
wretchedness of that day. He desired to be left alone, and I was obliged
to leave him. I found him on the following morning tranquillized, and with
an expression of religious resignation on his features. 'She is more
fortunate than we are,' he said; 'besides her position in the world would
scarcely have allowed her to be happy. It is God's will--let us mention it
no more.' And from that day he would never pronounce her name; but became
more anxious when he spoke of Ada,--so much so as to disquiet himself when
the usual accounts sent him were for a post or two delayed."
The melancholy death of poor Shelley, which happened, as we have seen,
also during this period, seems to have affected Lord Byron's mind less
with grief for the actual loss of his friend than with bitter indignation
against those who had, through life, so grossly misrepresented him; and
never certainly was there an instance where the supposed absence of all
religion in an individual was assumed so eagerly as an excuse for the
entire absence of truth and charity in judging him. Though never
personally acquainted with Mr. Shelley, I can join freely with those who
most loved him in admiring the various excellencies of his heart and
genius, and lamenting the too early doom that robbed us of the mature
fruits of both. His short life had been, like his poetry, a sort of bright,
erroneous dream,--false in the general principles on which it proceeded,
though beautiful and attaching in most of the details. Had full time been
allowed for the "over-light" of his imagination to have been tempered down
by the judgment which, in him, was still in reserve, the world at large
would have been taught to pay that high homage to his genius which those
only who saw what he was capable of can now be expected to accord to it.
It was about this time that Mr. Cowell, paying a visit to Lord Byron at
Genoa, was told by him that some friends of Mr. Shelley, sitting together
one evening, had seen that gentleman, distinctly, as they thought, walk,
into a little wood at Lerici, when at the same moment, as they afterwards
discovered, he was far away, in quite a different direction. "This," added
Lord Byron, in a low, awe-struck tone of voice, "was but ten days before
poor Shelley died."