My Recollections of Lord Byron Part 45

After having given his mother a simple description of this tempest, he adds:--"I have learned to philosophize during my travels, and, if I had not, what use is there in complaining?"

And Moore says:--

"I have heard the poet's fellow-traveller describe this remarkable instance of his coolness and courage even still more strikingly than it is here stated by himself. Finding that he was unable to be of any service in the exertions which their very serious danger called for, after a laugh or two at the panic of his valet, he not only wrapped himself up and lay down, in the manner here mentioned, but, when their difficulties were surmounted, was found fast asleep."

These adventures happened to him when he was only twenty-one years of age, and within the course of a few weeks. But all his life he gave the same proofs of courage when circ.u.mstances called for them.

And since we have chosen these examples from his first journey into Greece, at the beginning of his career, let us select some others from the last, which took place near its close.

Mr. H. Brown having been asked by Lord Harrington what his impressions were of Lord Byron, replied, "Lord Byron was extremely calm in presence of danger. Here are two instances that I witnessed myself:--A Greek, named Costantino Zalichi, to whom his lordship had given his pa.s.sage, once took up one of Manton's pistols, belonging to Lord Byron. It went off by accident, and the ball pa.s.sed quite close to Lord Byron's temple.

Without the least emotion Lord Byron began explaining to the Greek how such accidents could be avoided.

"On another occasion, near the Roman coast, we observed a suspicious-looking little vessel, armed, and apparently full of people.

It was toward the end of the last war with Spain, during which many acts of piracy had been committed in the Mediterranean. And our captain was much alarmed. We were followed all day by this vessel, and toward evening, it seemed so ready for action that we no longer doubted being attacked. However a breeze arose, and darkness came on soon after, whereupon we lost sight of it. Lord Byron, while the danger lasted, remained perfectly calm, giving his orders with the greatest tranquility and reflection."[77]

And Lord Harrington, then Colonel Stanhope, says himself, in his Essay on Lord Byron:--

"Lord Byron was the _beau ideal_ of chivalry. It might have lowered him in the esteem of wise men, if he had not given such extraordinary proofs of the n.o.blest courage.

"Even at moments of the greatest danger, Lord Byron _contemplated death with philosophical calm_. For instance, at the moment of returning from the alarming attack which had surprised him in my room (at Missolonghi), he immediately asked, with the most perfect self-possession, whether his life were in danger, as, in that case, he required the doctor to tell him so, _for he was not afraid of death_.

"Shortly after that frightful convulsion, when, weakened by loss of blood, he was lying on his bed of suffering, with his nervous system completely shaken, a band of mutinous Suliotes, in their splendid dirty costumes, burst suddenly into his room, brandishing their weapons, and loudly demanding their savage rights. Lord Byron, as if electrified by the unexpected act, appeared to have recovered his health, and, the more the Suliotes cried out and threatened, the more _his cool courage triumphed_. _The scene was really sublime._"[78]

And Count Gamba, in his interesting narrative of "Lord Byron's Last Journey into Greece," adds:--

"It is impossible to do justice to the coolness and magnanimity Lord Byron showed on all great occasions. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances he was irritable, but the sight of danger calmed him instantly, restoring the free exercise of all the faculties of his n.o.ble nature. A man _more indomitable, or firmer in the hour of danger than Lord Byron was, never existed_."[79]

But enough of these proofs, which, perhaps, say nothing new to the reader. Nevertheless, as they may call up again the pleasure ever afforded by the spectacle of great moral beauty, let us further add--the better to set forth the nature of Lord Byron's wonderful intrepidity in face of danger--that his energetic soul loved to contemplate those sublime things in Nature that are usually endured with terror. Tempests, the thunder's roll, the lightning's flash--any mysterious display of Nature's forces, so that its violence occasioned neither misfortune nor suffering to sensitive beings--aroused in him the keenest sense of enjoyment, which in turn ministered to his genius, incapable of finding complete satisfaction in the beautiful, and ever yearning pa.s.sionately after the sublime.

As to his fort.i.tude, that self-control which makes one bear affliction with external serenity, Lord Byron possessed it in as high a degree as he did firmness with regard to material obstacles and dangers.

Endowed with exquisite sensibility, the great poet a.s.suredly went through cruel trials during his stormy career; but instead of ostentatiously exhibiting his sorrows, Lord Byron on many occasions rather exaggerated the delicacy that led him to veil them under an appearance of stoicism. Only very rarely did his poetry echo back the sufferings endured within.

Once, nevertheless, he wished, and rightly, to perpetuate in his verses the memory of the indignities heaped upon him by a guilty world. He wished that the great struggle he had been obliged to sustain against his destiny should not be forgotten; he wished to show how much his heart had been torn, his hopes sapped, his name blighted by the deepest injuries, the meanest perfidy. He had seen, he said, of what beings with a human semblance were capable, from the frightful roar of foaming calumny to the low whisper of vile reptiles, adroitly distilling poison; double-visaged Ja.n.u.ses, who supply the place of words by the language of the eyes, who lie without saying a syllable, and, by dint of a shrug or an affected sigh, impose on fools their unspoken calumnies. Yes, he had to undergo all that, and for once he wished it to be known.

He owed it to himself to make this complaint; his total silence would have been wrong; it was necessary once for all to defend his _character_ and reputation, and when he ran the risk of losing the esteem of the world his sensibility could not show itself in too lively a manner.

But if he thus raised his voice to immortalize these indignities, it was not because he recoiled from suffering.

"Let him come forward," exclaimed he, "whoever has seen me bow the head, or has remarked my courage wane with suffering."

Already, at the time of the unexampled persecution raised against him in London, when the separation from his wife took place, he wrote to Murray:--

"February 20th, 1816.

"You need not be in any apprehension or grief on my account. Were I to be beaten down by the world and its inheritors, I should have succ.u.mbed to many things years ago. You must not mistake my not bullying for dejection; nor imagine that because I feel, I am to faint."[80]

In all he wrote at this fatal period of his life, one perceives the wide gaping wound, which is however endured with the strength of a t.i.tan, who at twenty-nine is to become quite a philosopher, good, gentle, almost resigned.

"The camel labors with the heaviest load, And the wolf dies in silence,--not bestow'd In vain should such example be; if they, Things of ign.o.ble or of savage mood, Endure and shrink not, we of n.o.bler clay May temper it to bear,--it is but for a day."[81]

Like all those who feel deeply the joys and griefs of their fellow-men, Lord Byron had received from nature all that could render him capable of moderating the external expression of his sensibility, when injustice was personal to himself. Moreover, circ.u.mstances, alas! had only too much favored the development of this n.o.ble faculty in him. For, very early, he had received severe lessons from those terrible masters who nurture great souls to self-control; from reverses, vanished illusions, perils, wrongs. The storms however it was his destiny to encounter, though violent, not only did not cause him to be shipwrecked, but even helped to encircle his brow with the martyr's halo.

But, we may be asked, whether this great control which Lord Byron exercised over himself, with regard to obstacles, dangers, and human injustice, existed equally with regard to his own pa.s.sions. To those who should doubt it, and who, forgetting that Lord Byron only lived the age of pa.s.sions, without taking into consideration all the circ.u.mstances that rendered difficult to him what is easier for others, should pretend that Lord Byron gave way to his pa.s.sions oftener than he warred against them, to such we would say: "What was he doing, then, when, at barely twenty-two years of age, he adopted an anchorite's _regime_, so as to render his soul more _independent_ of _matter_? When he shut himself up at home, with the self-imposed task of writing whole poems before he came out, in order to _overcome his thoughts, and maintain them in a line contrary to that which his pa.s.sions demanded_? When, grieved, calumniated, outraged, he _preferred exile rather than yield to just resentment_, and in order to avoid the danger of finding himself in situations where he _might not have preserved his self-control_?"

Have they forgotten that at Venice he subjected himself to the ungrateful task of learning languages _more than difficult_, and of working at other _dry studies_, in order to _fix his thoughts on them, and divert them from resentment and anger_?

He writes to Murray: "I find the Armenian language, which is double (_the literary and the vulgar tongue_), difficult, but not insuperably so (at least I hope not). I shall continue. I have found it necessary to chain my mind down to very severe studies, and as this is the most difficult I can find here, it will be a _net for the serpent_."

And have we not seen him overcome himself, just as he was setting out to go where his heart called him (for, notwithstanding all his efforts, it had ceased to be independent), and thus defer a journey he sighed for, only to _exercise acts of generosity, and liberate one of his gondoliers from the Austrian conscription_?

If a true biography could be written of Lord Byron we should see a constant struggle going on in this young man against his pa.s.sions. And can more be asked of men than to fight against them? Victory is the proof and the reward of combat. If sometimes, as with every man, victory failed him, oftener still he did achieve it; and it is certain that his great desire always was to free himself from the tyranny of his pa.s.sions.

His last triumphs were not only great--they were sublime.

The sadness that overwhelmed him during the latter part of his stay at Genoa is known. The struggles he had to maintain against his own heart may be conceived.

It is also known how, being driven back into port by a storm, he resolved on visiting the palace of Albaro; and it may well be imagined that the hours pa.s.sed in this dwelling, then silent and deserted, must have seemed like those that count as years of anguish in the life of great and feeling souls, among whom visions of the future float before the over-excited mind. It can not be doubted that he would then willingly have given up his fatal idea of leaving Italy; indeed he declared so to Mr. Barry, who was with him; but the sentiment of his own dignity and of his promise given triumphed over his feelings.

The night which followed this gloomy day again saw Lord Byron struggling against stormy waves, and not only determined on pursuing his voyage, but also on appearing calm and serene to his fellow-travellers.

Could peace, however, have dwelt within his soul? To show it outwardly must he not have struggled?

"I often saw Lord Byron during his last voyage from Genoa to Greece,"

says Mr. H. Browne, in a letter written to Colonel Stanhope; "I often saw him in the midst of the greatest gayety suddenly become pensive, _and his eyes fill with tears_, doubtless from some painful remembrance.

On these occasions he generally got up and retired to the solitude of his cabin."

And Colonel Stanhope, afterward Lord Harrington, who only knew Lord Byron later at Missolonghi, also says: "I have often observed Lord Byron in the middle of some gay animated conversation, stop, meditate, and his eyes to fill with tears."

And all that he did in that fatal Greece, was it not a perpetual triumph over himself, his tastes, his desires, the wants of his nature and his heart?

He saw nothing in Greece, he wrote to Mme. G----, that did not make him wish to return to Italy, and yet he remained in Greece. He would have preferred waiting in the Ionian Islands, and yet he set out for that fatal Missolonghi! Liberal by principle, and aristocratic by birth, taste, and habits, he was condemned to continual intercourse with vulgar, turbulent, barbarous men, to come into contact with things repugnant to his nature and his tastes, and to struggle against a thousand difficulties--a thousand torments, moral and physical; he felt, and knew, that even life would fail him if he did not leave Missolonghi, yet he remained. Every thing, in short, throughout this last stage of the n.o.ble pilgrim, proclaims his empire over self. His triumph was always beautiful, and often sublime, but, alas! he paid for it with his life.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 77: Parry, 206.]

[Footnote 78: Essay by Colonel Stanhope.]

[Footnote 79: "Last Journey to Greece," p. 174.]

[Footnote 80: Moore, "Letters," p. 241.]

[Footnote 81: "Childe Harold."]

CHAPTER XIII.