My Recollections of Lord Byron Part 72

"G.o.d 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, n.o.ble 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 pa.s.ses 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 a.s.sa.s.sinated 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 circ.u.mstance, 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 const.i.tutional; 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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 inc.u.mbent 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 Sh.e.l.ley, 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 fort.i.tude belonging to his great soul--and the death of Sh.e.l.ley, 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 pa.s.sions 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 a.n.a.lyzing 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 Sh.e.l.ley'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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sing 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 a.n.a.lysis, 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 n.o.blest, from the emptiness of earthly things; then that unslakable thirst for the true, the just, the perfect; that sort of nostalgia which the n.o.blest 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 cla.s.sed among geniuses exclusively swayed by the melancholy in their nature, since almost all his sadness sprang from accident, and from a sort of fict.i.tious temperament produced by circ.u.mstances. Thus his melancholy, being fict.i.tious, 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 G.o.d, 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 fict.i.tious character, which I will call _exterior_, derived from _education, from circ.u.mstances of family, country, and a.s.sociation_, 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.

G.o.d forgive! but I partook of Byron's levity at the idea of personages so consequential wandering dest.i.tute 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.]