My Recollections of Lord Byron Part 37

'Condemn'd to uses vile!

Where Superst.i.tion once had made her den Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile.'"

These exaggerated, if not imaginary descriptions, were, nevertheless, taken for serious, and literally believed by the greater part of his readers.

Moore continues: "Mr. Dallas, giving way to the same exaggerated tone, says, in speaking of the preparations for departure made by the young lord, 'He was already satiated with pleasure, and disgusted with those comrades who possessed no other resource, so he resolved to overcome his senses, and accordingly dismissed his harem.' The truth is, that Lord Byron did not then even possess sufficient fortune to allow himself this Oriental luxury; his manner of living at Newstead was plain and simple.

His companions, without being insensible to the pleasures afforded by liberal hospitality, were all too intellectual in their tastes and habits to give themselves up to vulgar debauchery. As to the allusions regarding his _harem_, it appears certain that one or two women were suspected _subintroductae_--to use the style of the old monks of the Abbey--but that even these belonged to the servants of the house. This is the utmost that scandal could allege as the groundwork for suspicion and accusation."

These a.s.sertions of Moore have been corroborated by many other testimonies. I will only relate that mentioned by Washington Irving, in the account of his visit to Newstead Abbey in 1830. Urged by philosophical curiosity, Washington Irving managed to get into conversation with a certain Nanny Smith, who had pa.s.sed all her life at Newstead as house-keeper. This old woman, after having chattered a great deal about Lord Byron and the ghosts that haunted the Abbey, a.s.serting that though she had not seen them, she had heard them quite well, was particularly questioned by Mr. Irving as to the mode of life her young master led. She certified to his sobriety, and positively denied that he had led a licentious life at Newstead with his friends, or brought mistresses with him from London.

"Once, it is true," said the old lady, "he had a pretty _youth_ for a _page_ with him. The maids declared it was a young woman. But as for me, I never could verify the fact, and all these servant-girls were jealous, especially one of them called Lucy. For Lord Byron being kind to her, and a fortune-teller having predicted a high destiny for her, the poor little thing dreamed of nothing else but becoming a great lady, and perhaps of rising to be mistress of the Abbey. Ah, well! but her dreams came to nothing."[42]

"Lord Byron," added the old lady, "pa.s.sed the greater part of his time seated on his sofa reading. Sometimes he had young n.o.blemen of his acquaintance with him. Then, it is true, they amused themselves in playing all sorts of tricks--youthful frolics, that was all; they did nothing improper for young gentlemen, nothing that could harm any body."[43]

"Lord Byron's only amus.e.m.e.nts at Newstead," says Mr. Irving, "were boating, boxing, fencing, and his dogs."

"His constant occupation was to write, and for that he had the habit of sitting up till two and three in the morning. Thus his life at Newstead was quite one of seclusion, entirely devoted to poetry."

After having pa.s.sed a year in this way at Newstead, following on his college and university life, he left England in order to mature his mind under other skies, to forget the injustice of man and the hardships of fortune that had already somewhat tinged his nature with gloom.

Instead of going in quest of emotions, his desire was, on the contrary, to avoid both those of the heart and of the senses. The admiration felt by the young traveller for charming Spanish women and beautiful Greeks did not outstep the limits of the purest poetry. Nevertheless the stoicism of twenty, with a heart, sensibility and imagination like his, could not be very firm, nor always secure from danger. He did actually meet with a formidable enemy at Malta; for he there made acquaintance with Mrs. Spencer Smith, the daughter of one amba.s.sador and the wife of another, a woman most fascinating from her youth, beauty, mind, and character, as well as by her singular position and strange adventures.

Did he avoid her so much as the stanzas addressed to the lovely Florence, in the first canto of "Childe Harold," would fain imply? This may be doubted, on account of the ring which they exchanged, and also from several charming pieces of verse that testify to another sentiment.

In any case, he showed strength of mind, and that his senses were under the dominion of reason; for, unable to secure her happiness or his own, he sought a remedy in flight.

When writing "Childe Harold," however, about this period, an evil genius suggested expressions, that if taken seriously and in their literal sense, might some day furnish the weapons of accusation to his enemies.

For, while acting thus toward Florence, he introduced the episode into "Childe Harold" in a way that looks calumnious against himself:----

"Little knew she that seeming marble heart, Now mask'd in silence or withheld by pride, Was not unskillful in the spoiler's art, And spreads its snares licentious far and wide; Nor from the base pursuit had turn'd aside, As long as aught was worthy to pursue."

"We have here," says Moore, "another instance of his propensity to self-misrepresentation. However great might have been the irregularities of his college life, such phrases as the 'art of the spoiler' and 'spreading snares' were in no-wise applicable to them."[44]

Galt expresses the same certainty on this head. "Notwithstanding," says he, "the unnecessary exposure he makes of his dissipation on his first entrance into society (in the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold'), it is proved beyond _all dispute_, that at no period of his existence did Lord Byron _lead an irregular life_. That on one or two occasions he fell into some excesses, may be true; _but his habits were never those of a libertine_."[45]

And after saying that the declaration by which Byron himself acknowledges his antipathy to vice carries more weight than all the rest, and that what he says of it is vague and metaphysical, he adds:--"But that only further corroborates my impression concerning him,--that is to say, that he took a sort of vanity in setting forth his experience in dissipation, but _that this dissipation never became a habit with him_."

His true sentiments at this time are well portrayed in his letters, and especially in those addressed to his mother from Athens, when she consulted him on the conduct to be observed toward one of his tenants, a young farmer, who had behaved ill to a girl. "My opinion is," answered he, "that Mr. B---- ought to marry Miss K----. _Our first duty is not to do evil_ (but, alas! that is not possible); our second duty _is to remedy it, if that be in our power_. The girl is his equal. If she were inferior to him, a sum of money and an allowance for the child might be something,--although, after all, a miserable compensation; but, under the circ.u.mstances, he ought to marry her. I will not have _gay seducers_ on my estate, nor grant my farmers a privilege _I would not take myself of seducing other people's daughters_. I expect, then, this Lothario to follow my example, and begin by restoring the girl to society, or, by my father's beard, he shall hear of me."

To this letter Moore justly adds:--"The reader must not pa.s.s lightly over this letter, for there is a _vigor of moral sentiment_ in it, expressed in such a plain, sincere manner, that it shows how full of health his heart was at bottom, even though it might have been scorched by pa.s.sion."

Lord Byron returned to his own country, after having spent two years travelling in Spain, Portugal, and the East, in the study and contemplation requisite for maturing his genius.

His distaste for all material objects of love or pa.s.sion, and, in general, for sensual pleasures, was then remarked by all those who knew him intimately.

"An anchorite," says Moore, "who knew Lord Byron about this time, could not have desired for himself greater _indifference toward all the attractions of the senses_, than Lord Byron showed at the age of twenty-three."

And as on arriving in London he met with a complication of sorrows, he could, without any great effort, remain on his guard against all seductions. He did so in reality; and Dallas a.s.sures us that, even when "Childe Harold" appeared, he still professed positive distaste for the society of women. Whether this disposition arose from regret at the death of one he had loved, or was caused by the light conduct of other women, it is certain that he did not seek their society then; nay, even avoided them.

"I have a favor to ask you," he wrote, during this sad time, to one of his young friends: "never speak to me in your letters of a woman; make no allusion to the s.e.x. I do not even wish to read a word about the feminine gender."

And to this same friend he wrote in verse:----

"If thou would'st hold Place in a heart that ne'er was cold, By all the powers that men revere, By all unto thy bosom dear, Thy joys below, thy hopes above, Speak--speak of any thing but love."

_Newstead Abbey, October 11, 1811._

But if he did not seek after women, they came in quest of him. When he had achieved celebrity--when fame lit up his n.o.ble brow--the s.e.x was dazzled. They did not wait to be sought, but themselves made the first advances. His table was literally strewn with expressions of feminine admiration.

Dallas relates that one day he found Lord Byron so absorbed in answering a letter that he seemed almost to have lost the consciousness of what was pa.s.sing around him.

"I went to see him again next day," says he, "and Lord Byron named the person to whom he had written.

"While we were together, the page of the lady in question brought him a fresh letter. Apparently it was a young boy of thirteen or fourteen years of age, with a fresh, delicate face, that might have belonged to the _lady herself_. He was dressed in a hussar jacket, and trowsers of scarlet, with silver b.u.t.tons and embroidery; curls of fair hair cl.u.s.tered over part of the forehead and cheeks, and he held in his hand a little cap with feathers, which completed the theatrical appearance of this childish Pandarus. I could not help suspecting it was a disguise."

The suspicions were well founded, and they caused Dallas's hair to stand on end, for, added to his Puritanism, was the hope of becoming the young n.o.bleman's Mentor, and he fancied he saw him already on the road to perdition. But was it likely that Lord Byron, with all his imagination, sensibility, and warm heart, should remain unmoved--neither touched nor flattered by the advances of persons uniting beauty and wit to the highest rank? The world talked, commented, exaggerated. Whether actuated by jealousy, rancor, n.o.ble or despicable sentiments, all took advantage of the occasion afforded for censure.

Feminine overtures still continued to be made to Lord Byron, but the fumes of incense never hid from him the sight of his ideal. And as the comparison was not favorable to realities, disenchantment took place on his side, without a corresponding result on the other. THENCE many heart-breakings. Nevertheless there was no ill-nature, no indelicacy, none of those proceedings that the world readily forgives, but which his feelings as a man of honor would have condemned. Calantha, in despair at being no longer loved, resolved on vengeance. She invented a tale, but what does she say when the truth escapes her?

"If in his manners he (Glenarvon) had shown any of that freedom or wounding familiarity so frequent with men, she might, perhaps, have been alarmed, affrighted. But what was it she would have fled from?

Certainly not gross adulation, nor those light, easy protestations to which all women, sooner or later, are accustomed; but, on the contrary, respect at once delicate and flattering; attention that sought to gratify her smallest desires; grace and gentleness that, not descending to be humble, were most fascinating, and such as are rarely to be met with," etc.

Let us now reverse the picture, and pa.s.s from shade to light: the difference is striking.

Pa.s.sing in review his former life, Lord Byron said one day to Mr.

Medwin:--"You may not compare me to Scipio, but I can a.s.sure you that _I never seduced any woman_."

No, certainly he did not pretend to rival Scipio; his fault was, on the contrary, that he took pleasure in appearing the reverse. And yet Lord Byron often performed actions during his short life that Scipio himself might have envied. And who knows whether in any case Scipio could have had the same merit?--for, in order to attain that, he would have required to overcome such sensibility, imagination, and heart, as were possessed by Lord Byron.

The single fact of being able to say, "I never seduced any woman," is a very great thing, and we may well doubt whether many of his detractors could say as much. But let us relate facts.

In London the mother of a beautiful girl, hard pressed for money, had recourse to Lord Byron for a large sum, making him an unnatural offer at the same time. The mother's depravity filled him with horror. Many men in his place would have been satisfied with expressing this sentiment either in words or by silence. But that was not enough for his n.o.ble heart, and he subtracted from his pleasures or his necessities a sum sufficient to save the honor of the unfortunate girl. At another time, shortly before his marriage, a charming young person, full of talent, requiring help, through some adverse family circ.u.mstances, and attracted to Lord Byron by some presentiment of his generosity, became pa.s.sionately _in love_ with him. She could not live without his image before her. The history of her pa.s.sion is quite a romance. Utterly absorbed by it, she was forever seeking pretexts for seeing him. A word, a sign, was all she required to become any thing he wished. But Lord Byron, aware he could not make her happy and respectable, never allowed that word to pa.s.s his lips, and his language breathed only counsels of wisdom and virtue.[46]

Even at Venice, when his heart had no preference, we find him saving a young girl of n.o.ble birth from the danger caused by his involuntary fascinations.[47] In Romagna, at Pisa, in Greece, he also gave similar proofs of virtue and of his delicate sense of honor.

Let us now examine his words. In 1813, with regard to "The Monk," by Lewis, which he had just read, Lord Byron wrote in his memoranda:--"These descriptions might be written by Tiberius, at Caprera. They are overdrawn; the essence of vicious voluptuousness. As to me, I can not conceive how they could come from the pen of a man of twenty, for Lewis was only that age when he wrote 'The Monk.' These pages are not natural; they distill cantharides.

"I had never read this work, and have just been looking over it out of sheer curiosity, from a remembrance of the noise the book made, and the name it gave Lewis. But really such things can not even be dangerous."

About the same period Mr. Allen, a friend of Lord Holland, very learned--a perfect Magliabecchi--a devourer of books, and an observer of mankind, lent Lord Byron a quant.i.ty of unpublished letters by the poet Burns--letters that were very unfit to see the light of day, being full of oaths and obscene songs. After reading them, Lord Byron wrote in his memoranda:----

"What an ant.i.thetical intelligence! Tenderness and harshness, refinement and vulgarity, sentiment and sensuality; now soaring up into ether, and then dragging along in mud. Mire and sublimity; all that is strangely blended in this admixture of inspired dust. It may seem strange, but to me it appears that a true voluptuary should never abandon his thought to the coa.r.s.eness of reality. It is only by exalting whatever terrestrial, material, physical element there is in our pleasures, by veiling these ideas, or forgetting them quite, or, at least, by never boldly naming them to ourselves, only thus can we avoid disgust."

This is how Lord Byron understood voluptuousness. We might multiply such quotations without end, taking them from every period of his life; all would prove the same thing.

As to his poetry written at this time, especially the lyrical pieces where he expresses his own sentiments, what can there be more chaste, more ethereal? When a boy, he begins by consigning to the flames a whole edition of his first poems, on account of a single one, which the Rev.

Dr. Beecher considered as expressing sentiments too warm for a young man. In his famous satire, written at twenty, he blames Moore's poetry for its effeminate and Epicurean tendencies, and he stigmatized as evil the whole poem of "The Ausonian Nun," and all the sensualities contained in it. In his "Childe Harold," his Eastern tales, his lyric poems above all, where he displays the sentiments of his own heart, every thing is chaste and ethereal. The way in which the public appreciated these poems may be summed up in the words used by the Rev. Mr. Dallas--the living type of Puritanism in its most exaggerated form--at a date when, through many causes, Lord Byron no longer even enjoyed his good graces.

"After 1816," says he (the time at which Lord Byron left England), "I had no more personal intercourse with him, but I continued to read his new poems with the greatest pleasure until he brought out 'Don Juan.'

That I perused with a real sorrow that no admiration could overcome.

Until then his truly English muse had despised the licentious tone belonging to poets of low degree. But, in writing 'Don Juan,' he allied his _chaste and n.o.ble genius_ with minds of that stamp."