Life of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 2

"Eleven o'clock.

"P.S. I wrote the above at three this morning. I regret to say that the whole of the skin of about an _inch_ square above my upper lip has come off, so that I cannot even shave or masticate, and I am equally unfit to appear at your table, and to partake of its hospitality. Will you therefore pardon me, and not mistake this rueful excuse for a '_make-believe_,' as you will soon recognise whenever I have the pleasure of meeting you again, and I will call the moment I am, in the nursery phrase, 'fit to be seen.' Tell Lady B. with my compliments, that I am rummaging my papers for a MS.

worthy of her acceptation. I have just seen the younger Count Gamba, and as I cannot prevail on his infinite modesty to take the field without me, I must take this piece of diffidence on myself also, and beg your indulgence for both."

LETTER 515. TO THE COUNT ----.

"April 22. 1823.

"My dear Count ---- (if you will permit me to address you so familiarly), you should be content with writing in your own language, like Grammont, and succeeding in London as n.o.body has succeeded since the days of Charles the Second and the records of Antonio Hamilton, without deviating into our barbarous language,--which you understand and write, however, much better than it deserves.

"My 'approbation,' as you are pleased to term it, was very sincere, but perhaps not very impartial; for, though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen--at least, such as they now are. And, besides the seduction of talent and wit in your work, I fear that to me there was the attraction of vengeance. I have _seen_ and _felt_ much of what you have described so well. I have known the persons, and the re-unions so described,--(many of them, that is to say,) and the portraits are so like that I cannot but admire the painter no less than his performance.

"But I am sorry for you; for if you are so well acquainted with life at your age, what will become of you when the illusion is still more dissipated? But never mind--_en avant!_--live while you can; and that you may have the full enjoyment of the many advantages of youth, talent, and figure, which you possess, is the wish of an--Englishman,--I suppose, but it is no treason; for my mother was Scotch, and my name and my family are both Norman; and as for myself, I am of no country. As for my 'Works,' which you are pleased to mention, let them go to the Devil, from whence (if you believe many persons) they came.

"I have the honour to be your obliged," &c. &c.

During this period a circ.u.mstance occurred which shows, most favourably for the better tendencies of his nature, how much allayed and softened down his once angry feeling, upon the subject of his matrimonial differences, had now grown. It has been seen that his daughter Ada,--more especially since his late loss of the only tie of blood which he could have a hope of attaching to himself,--had become the fond and constant object of his thoughts; and it was but natural, in a heart kindly as his was, that, dwelling thus with tenderness upon the child, he should find himself insensibly subdued into a gentler tone of feeling towards the mother. A gentleman, whose sister was known to be the confidential friend of Lady Byron, happening at this time to be at Genoa, and in the habit of visiting at the house of the poet's new intimates, Lord Byron took one day an opportunity, in conversing with Lady ----, to say, that she would render him an essential kindness if, through the mediation of this gentleman and his sister, she could procure for him from Lady Byron, what he had long been most anxious to possess, a copy of her picture. It having been represented to him, in the course of the same, or a similar conversation, that Lady Byron was said by her friends to be in a state of constant alarm lest he should come to England to claim his daughter, or, in some other way, interfere with her, he professed his readiness to give every a.s.surance that might have the effect of calming such apprehensions; and the following letter, in reference to both these subjects, was soon after sent by him.

LETTER 516. TO THE COUNTESS OF B----.

"May 3. 1823.

"Dear Lady ----,

"My request would be for a copy of the miniature of Lady B. which I have seen in possession of the late Lady Noel, as I have no picture, or indeed memorial of any kind of Lady B., as all her letters were in her own possession before I left England, and we have had no correspondence since--at least on her part.

My message, with regard to the infant, is simply to this effect--that in the event of any accident occurring to the mother, and my remaining the survivor, it would be my wish to have her plans carried into effect, both with regard to the education of the child, and the person or persons under whose care Lady B. might be desirous that she should be placed. It is not my intention to interfere with her in any way on the subject during her life; and I presume that it would be some consolation to her to know,(if she is in ill health, as I am given to understand,) that in _no_ case would any thing be done, as far as I am concerned, but in strict conformity with Lady B.'s own wishes and intentions--left in what manner she thought proper.

"Believe me, dear Lady B., your obliged," &c.

This negotiation, of which I know not the results, nor whether, indeed, it ever ended in any, led naturally and frequently to conversations on the subject of his marriage,--a topic he was himself always the first to turn to,--and the account which he then gave, as well of the circ.u.mstances of the separation, as of his own entire unconsciousness of the immediate causes that provoked it, was, I find, exactly such as, upon every occasion when the subject presented itself, he, with an air of sincerity in which it was impossible not to confide, promulgated. "Of what really led to the separation (said he, in the course of one of these conversations,) I declare to you that, even at this moment, I am wholly ignorant; as Lady Byron would never a.s.sign her motives, and has refused to answer my letters. I have written to her repeatedly, and am still in the habit of doing so. Some of these letters I have sent, and others I did not, simply because I despaired of their doing any good. You may, however, see some of them if you like;--they may serve to throw some light upon my feelings."

In a day or two after, accordingly, one of these withheld letters was sent by him, enclosed in the following, to Lady ----.

LETTER 517. TO THE COUNTESS OF ----.

"Albaro, May 6.1828.

My dear Lady ----,

I send you the letter which I had forgotten, and the book[1], which I ought to have remembered. It contains (the book, I mean,) some melancholy truths; though I believe that it is too triste a work ever to have been popular. The first time I ever read it (not the edition I send you,--for I got it since,) was at the desire of Madame de Stael, who was supposed by the good-natured world to be the heroine;--which she was not, however, and was furious at the supposition. This occurred in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816, and the last season in which I ever saw that celebrated person.

[Footnote 1: Adolphe, by M. Benjamin Constant.]

"I have a request to make to my friend Alfred (since he has not disdained the t.i.tle), viz. that he would condescend to add a _cap_ to the gentleman in the jacket,--it would complete his costume,--and smooth his brow, which is somewhat too inveterate a likeness of the original, G.o.d help me!"

"I did well to avoid the water-party,--_why_, is a mystery, which is not less to be wondered at than all my other mysteries. Tell Milor that I am deep in his MS., and will do him justice by a diligent perusal."

"The letter which I enclose I was prevented from sending by my despair of its doing any good. I was perfectly sincere when I wrote it, and am so still. But it is difficult for me to withstand the thousand provocations on that subject, which both friends and foes have for seven years been throwing in the way of a man whose feelings were once quick, and whose temper was never patient. But 'returning were as tedious as go o'er.' I feel this as much as ever Macbeth did; and it is a dreary sensation, which at least avenges the real or imaginary wrongs of one of the two unfortunate persons whom it concerns."

"But I am going to be gloomy;--so 'to bed, to bed.' Good night,--or rather morning. One of the reasons why I wish to avoid society is, that I can never sleep after it, and the pleasanter it has been the less I rest."

"Ever most truly," &c. &c.

I shall now produce the enclosure contained in the above; and there are few, I should think, of my readers who will not agree with me in p.r.o.nouncing, that if the author of the following letter had not _right_ on his side, he had at least most of those good feelings which are found in general to accompany it.

LETTER 518. TO LADY BYRON.

(TO THE CARE OF THE HON. MRS. LEIGH, LONDON.)

Pisa, November 17. 1821.

I have to acknowledge the receipt of 'Ada's hair,'which is very soft and pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was at twelve years old, if I may judge from what I recollect of some in Augusta's possession, taken at that age. But it don't curl,--perhaps from its being let grow.

"I also thank you for the inscription of the date and name, and I will tell you why;--I believe that they are the only two or three words of your handwriting in my possession. For your letters I returned, and except the two words, or rather the one word, 'Household,' written twice in an old account book, I have no other. I burnt your last note, for two reasons:--firstly, it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, I wished to take your word without doc.u.ments, which are the worldly resources of suspicious people.

I suppose that this note will reach you somewhere about Ada's birthday--the 10th of December, I believe. She will then be six, so that in about twelve more I shall have some chance of meeting her;--perhaps sooner, if I am obliged to go to England by business or otherwise. Recollect, however, one thing, either in distance or nearness;--every day which keeps us asunder should, after so long a period, rather soften our mutual feelings, which must always have one rallying-point as long as our child exists, which I presume we both hope will be long after either of her parents.

The time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer one of our prior acquaintance. We both made a bitter mistake; but now it is over, and irrevocably so. For, at thirty-three on my part, and a few years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life, still it is one when the habits and thought are generally so formed as to admit of no modification; and as we could not agree when younger, we should with difficulty do so now.

I say all this, because I own to you, that, notwithstanding every thing, I considered our re-union as not impossible for more than a year after the separation;--but then I gave up the hope entirely and for ever. But this very impossibility of re-union seems to me at least a reason why, on all the few points of discussion which can arise between us, we should preserve the courtesies of life, and as much of its kindness as people who are never to meet may preserve perhaps more easily than nearer connections. For my own part, I am violent, but not malignant; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentments. To you, who are colder and more concentrated, I would just hint, that you may sometimes mistake the depth of a cold anger for dignity, and a worse feeling for duty. I a.s.sure you that I bear you _now_ (whatever I may have done) no resentment whatever.

Remember, that _if you have injured me_ in aught, this forgiveness is something; and that, if I have _injured you_, it is something more still, if it be true, as the moralists say, that the most offending are the least forgiving.

"Whether the offence has been solely on my side, or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any but two things,--viz. that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again. I think if you also consider the two corresponding points with reference to myself, it will be better for all three.

"Yours ever,

"NOEL BYRON."

It has been my plan, as must have been observed, wherever my materials have furnished me with the means, to leave the subject of my Memoir to relate his own story; and this object, during the two or three years of his life just elapsed, I have been enabled by the rich resources in my hands, with but few interruptions, to attain. Having now, however, reached that point of his career from which a new start was about to be taken by his excursive spirit, and a course, glorious as it was brief and fatal, entered upon,--a moment of pause may be permitted while we look back through the last few years, and for a while dwell upon the spectacle, at once grand and painful, which his life during that most unbridled period of his powers exhibited.

In a state of unceasing excitement, both of heart and brain,--for ever warring with the world's will, yet living but in the world's breath,--with a genius taking upon itself all shapes, from Jove down to Scapin, and a disposition veering with equal facility to all points of the moral compa.s.s,--not even the ancient fancy of the existence of two souls within one bosom would seem at all adequately to account for the varieties, both of power and character, which the course of his conduct and writings during these few feverish years displayed. Without going back so far as the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, which one of his bitterest and ablest a.s.sailants has p.r.o.nounced to be, "in point of execution, the sublimest poetical achievement of mortal pen," we have, in a similar strain of strength and splendour, the Prophecy of Dante, Cain, the Mystery of Heaven and Earth, Sardanapalus,--all produced during this wonderful period of his genius. To these also are to be added four other dramatic pieces, which, though the least successful of his compositions, have yet, as Poems, few equals in our literature; while, in a more especial degree, they ill.u.s.trate the versatility of taste and power so remarkable in him, as being founded, and to this very circ.u.mstance, perhaps, owing their failure, on a severe cla.s.sic model, the most uncongenial to his own habits and temperament, and the most remote from that bold, unshackled license which it had been the great mission of his genius, throughout the whole realms of Mind, to a.s.sert.

In contrast to all these high-toned strains, and struck off during the same fertile period, we find his Don Juan--in itself an epitome of all the marvellous contrarieties of his character--the Vision of Judgment, the Translation from Pulci, the Pamphlets on Pope, on the British Review, on Blackwood,--together with a swarm of other light, humorous trifles, all flashing forth carelessly from the same mind that was, almost at the same moment, personating, with a port worthy of such a presence, the mighty spirit of Dante, or following the dark footsteps of Scepticism over the ruins of past worlds, with Cain.

All this time, too, while occupied with these ideal creations, the demands upon his active sympathies, in real life, were such as almost any mind but his own would have found sufficient to engross its every thought and feeling. An amour, not of that light, transient kind which "goes without a burden," but, on the contrary, deep-rooted enough to endure to the close of his days, employed as restlessly with its first hopes and fears a portion of this period as with the entanglements to which it led, political and domestic, it embarra.s.sed the remainder. Scarcely, indeed, had this disturbing pa.s.sion begun to calm, when a new source of excitement presented itself in that conspiracy into which he flung himself so fearlessly, and which ended, as we have seen, but in multiplying the objects of his sympathy and protection, and driving him to a new change of home and scene.

When we consider all these distractions that beset him, taking into account also the frequent derangement of his health, and the time and temper he must have thrown away on the minute drudgery of watching over every item of his household expenditure, the mind is lost in almost incredulous astonishment at the wonders he was able to achieve under such circ.u.mstances--at the variety and prodigality of power with which, in the midst of such interruptions and hinderances, his "bright soul broke out on every side," and not only held on its course, unclogged, through all these difficulties, but even extracted out of the very struggles and annoyances it encountered new nerve for its strength, and new fuel for its fire.

While thus at this period, more remarkably than at any other during his life, the unparalleled versatility of his genius was unfolding itself, those quick, cameleon-like changes of which his character, too, was capable were, during the same time, most vividly, and in strongest contrast, drawn out. To the world, and more especially to England,--the scene at once of his glories and his wrongs,--he presented himself in no other aspect than that of a stern, haughty misanthrope, self-banished from the fellowship of men, and, most of all, from that of Englishmen. The more genial and beautiful inspirations of his muse were, in this point of view, looked upon but as lucid intervals between the paroxysms of an inherent malignancy of nature; and even the laughing effusions of his wit and humour got credit for no other aim than that which Swift boasted of, as the end of all his own labours, "to vex the world rather than divert it."

How totally all this differed from the Byron of the social hour, they who lived in familiar intercourse with him may be safely left to tell. The sort of ferine reputation which he had acquired for himself abroad prevented numbers, of course, of his countrymen, whom he would have most cordially welcomed, from seeking his acquaintance. But, as it was, no English gentleman ever approached him, with the common forms of introduction, that did not come away at once surprised and charmed by the kind courtesy and facility of his manners, the unpretending play of his conversation, and, on a nearer intercourse, the frank, youthful spirits, to the flow of which he gave way with such a zest, as even to deceive some of those who best knew him into the impression, that gaiety was after all the true bent of his disposition.