"The infant of an infant world, as pureFrom nature—lovely, warm, and premature;Dusky like night, but night with all her stars,Or cavern sparkling with its native spars;With eyes that were a language and a spell,A form like Aphrodite's in her shell,With all her loves around her on the deep,Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep;Yet full of life—for through her tropic cheekThe blush would make its way, and all but speak:The sun-born blood suffused her neck, and threwO'er her clear nut-brown skin a lucid hue,Like coral reddening through the darken'd wave,Which draws the diver to the crimson cave.Such was this daughter of the southern seas,Herself a billow in her energies,To bear the bark of others' happiness.Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less:Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knewNo joy like what it gave; her hopes ne'er drewAught from experience, that chill touchstone, whoseSad proof reduces all things from their hues:She fear'd no ill, because she knew it not."
When, after the combat, she arrives in her bark to save Torquil, the poet exclaims:
"And who the first that springing on the strand,Leap'd like a nereid from her shell to land,With dark but brilliant skin, and dewy eyeShining with love, and hope, and constancy?Neuha—the fond, the faithful, the adored—Her heart on Torquil's like a torrent pour'd;And smiled, and wept, and near, and nearer clasp'dAs if to be assured 'twashimshe grasp'd;Shuddered to see his yet warm wound, and then,To find it trivial, smiled and wept again.She was a warrior's daughter, and could bearSuch sights, and feel, and mourn, but not despair.Her lover lived,—nor foes nor fears could blight,That full-blown moment in its all delight:Joy trickled in her tears, joy filled the sobThat rock'd her heart till almost heard to throb;And paradise was breathing in the sighOf nature's child in nature's ecstasy."
"All these sweet creations realize the idea, formed from all time, of surpassing loveliness, of gentleness with passion," justly observes Monsieur Nisard—he who, in his very cleversketch of the illustrious poet, so often forms erroneous judgments of Lord Byron. For he also accepted him as he was presented—namely, as the victim of calumny and prejudice; or else he considered him after a system, examining only somepassages and one single periodof the man's and thepoet'slife, instead of taking the whole career and the general spirit of his writings,—a method also perceivable in his appreciation of Lord Byron's female characters.
Indeed Monsieur Nisard evidently only speaks of the Medoras, Zuleikas, Leilas, and in general of all the types in his Eastern poems, and appertaining to his first period: most fascinating beings undoubtedly, true emanations of the purest and most passionate love, but yet as morally inferior to the Angiolinas, Myrrhas, Josephines, Auroras, as his poems of the first period are intellectually inferior to those of the second, beginning with the third canto of "Childe Harold," and as civilized Christian woman is superior to a woman in the harem. But Monsieur Nisard, who has a very systematic way of judging things—wishing to prove that Lord Byron's loves were quite lawless in their ungovernable strength, filling the whole soul to the absorption of every other sentiment and interest (which might, indeed, perhaps be said of the personages in his Eastern poems), and not able, without contradicting himself, to assert the same as regards the love and devotion shown by the heroic Myrrhas and virtuous Angiolinas, and other dramatic types, all so different one from the other—has been obliged to omit all mention of them, thus sharing an error common to vain, ignorant critics. Yet these delightful creatures all resemble each other in the one faculty ofloving passionately and chastely, for that is a quality which constitutes the very essence of woman, and Lord Byron's own qualities must always have drawn it out in her. But there is something far beyond beauty and passion in these noble and heroic creations of his second manner.
"Where shall we find," says Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, "a purer, higher character than that of Angiolina, in the 'Doge of Venice?' Among all Shakspeare's female characters there is certainly not one more true, and not only true and natural, which would be slight merit, but true as a type of the highest, rarest order in human nature. Let us stop herefor a moment, we are on no common ground; the character of Angiolina has not yet been understood."
Bulwer then quotes the scene between Marian and Angiolina, and after having pointed out its moral beauty, exclaims:—
"What a deep sentiment of the dignity of virtue! Angiolina does not even conceive that she can be suspected, or that the insult offered her required any other justification than the indignation of public opinion."
And Bulwer goes on to quote the verses where Marian asks Angiolina if, when she gave her hand to a man of age so disproportioned, and of a character so opposite to her own, she loved this spouse, this friend of her family; and whether, before marriage, her heart had not beat for some noble youth more worthy to be the husband of beauty like hers; or whether since, she had met with some one who might have aspired to her lovely self. And after Angiolina's admirable reply, Bulwer says:—
"Is not this conception equal at least to that of Desdemona? Is not her heart equally pure, serene, tender, and at the same time passionate, yet with love, not material butactual, which, according to Plato, gives a visible form to virtue, and then admits of no other rival. Yet this sublime noble woman had no cold stiffness in her nature; she forgives Steno, but not from the cold height, of her chastity.
"'If,' said she to the indignant page, 'oh! if this false and light calumniator were to shed his blood on account of this absurd calumny, never from that moment would my heart experience an hour's happiness, nor enjoy a tranquil slumber.'"
"Here," says Bulwer, "the reader should remark with what delicate artifice the tenderness of sex and charity heighten and warm the snowy coldness of her ethereal superiority. What a union of all woman's finest qualities! Pride that disdains calumny; gentleness that forgives it! Nothing can be more simply grand than the whole of this character, and the story which enhances it. An old man of eighty is the husband of a young woman, whose heart preserves the calmness of purity; no love episode comes to disturb her serene course, no impure, dishonorable jealousy casts a shadeon her bright name. She treads her path through a life of difficulties, like some angelic nature, though quite human by the form she wears."
Wishing only to call attention to the beauty of the female characters he created, without reference to the other beauties contained in the work, we shall continue to quote Bulwer for the second of these admirable creations of womankind in his dramas, namely, Myrrha. After having praised that magnificent tragedy "Sardanapalus," he adds:—
"But the principal beauty of this drama is the conception of Myrrha. This young Greek slave, so tender and courageous, in love with her lord and master, yet sighing after her liberty; adoring equally her natal land and the gentle barbarian: what a new and dramatic combination of sentiments! It is in this conflict of emotions that the master's hand shows itself with happiest triumph.
"The heroism of this beautiful Ionian never goes beyond nature, yet stops only at sublimest limits. The proud melancholy that blends with her character, when she thinks of her fatherland; her ardent, generous,unselfishlove, her passionate desire of elevating the soul of Sardanapalus, so as to justify her devotion to him, the earnest yet sweet severity that reigned over her gentlest qualities, showing her faithful and fearless, capable of sustaining with, a firm hand the torch that was to consume on the sacred pile (according to her religion) both Assyrian and Greek; all these combinations are the result of the purest sentiments, the noblest art. The last words of Myrrha on the funereal pyre are in good keeping with the grand conception of her character. With the natural aspirations of a Greek, her thoughts turn at this moment to her distant clime; but still they come back at the same time to her lord, who is beside her, and blending almost in one sigh the two contrary affections of her soul, Myrrha cries:—
"Then farewell, thou earth!And loveliest spot of earth! farewell, Ionia!Be thou still free and beautiful, and farAloof from desolation! My last prayerWas for thee, my last thoughts, saveone, were of thee!Sar. And that?Myr. Is yours."
"The principal charm," says Moore, "and the life-givingangel of this tragedy, is Myrrha, a beautiful, heroic, devoted, ethereal creature, enamored of the generous, infatuated monarch, yet ashamed of loving a barbarian, and using all her influence over him to elevate as well as gild his life, and to arm him against the terror of his end. Her voluptuousness is that of the heart, her heroism that of the affections."
Another admirable character, full of Christian beauty, is that of Josephine in "Werner."
"Josephine," said the "Review," when "Werner" appeared, "is a model of real spotless virtue. A true woman in her perfection, not only does she preserve the character of her sex by her general integrity, but she also possesses a wife's tender, sweet, and constant affection. She cherishes and consoles her afflicted husband through all the adversities of his destiny and the consequences of his faults.
"Italian by birth, the contrast between the beauties and circumstances of her native country compared with the frontiers of Silesia, where a pretty feudal tyranny exists, displays still more the fine sentiments that characterize her."
We shall close this long list of admirable conceptions (which one quits with regret, so great is their charm) by giving some extracts from the portrait he was engaged on, when death, alas! caused the pencil to drop from his fingers: we mean Aurora Raby in "Don Juan:"—
"Aurora Raby, a young star who shoneO'er life, too sweet an image for such glass;A lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded,A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded;* * * * *"Early in years, and yet more infantineIn figure, she had something of sublimeIn eyes which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine.All youth—but with an aspect beyond time;Radiant and grave as pitying man's decline;Mournful—but mournful of another's crime,She look'd as if she sat by Eden's door,And grieved for those who could return no more."
And then:—
"She was a Catholic, too, sincere, austere,As far as her own gentle heart allow'd."
And again:—
"She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew,As seeking not to know it; silent, lone,As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew,And kept her heart serene within its zone.There was awe in the homage which she drew:Her spirit seem'd as seated on a throneApart from the surrounding world, and strongIn its own strength—most strange in one so young!"* * * * *"High, yet resembling not his lost Haidée;Yet each was radiant in her proper sphere."* * * * *"The difference in themWas such as lies between a flower and gem.""Don Juan," canto xv.
Now that we have seen Lord Byron's ideal of womankind, let us mark with what sentiments they inspired him, and in what way love always presented itself to his heart or his imagination. Ever dealing out toward him the same measure of justice and truth, people have gone on complacently repeating that his love sometimes became a very frenzy, or anon degenerated into a sensation rather than a sentiment. And his poetry has been asserted to contain proof of this in the actions, characters, and words of the persons there portrayed. I think, then, that the best way of ascertaining the degree of truth belonging to these asseverations, is to let him speak himself, on this sentiment, at all the different periods of his life:—
"Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven;A spark of that immortal fireWith angels shared, by Allah givenTo lift from earth our low desire.Devotion wafts the mind above,But Heaven itself descends in love;A feeling from the Godhead caught,To wean from self each sordid thought;A Ray of Him who form'd the whole;A Glory circling round the soul!I grantmylove imperfect, allThat mortals by the name miscall;Then deem it evil, what thou wilt;But say, oh say,herswas not guilt!She was my life's unerring light:That quench'd, what beam shall break my night?""The Giaour."
In 1817, at Venice, when his heart, at twenty-nine years of age, was devoid of any real love, and had even arrived atnever loving, although suffering deeply from the void thus created, Lord Byron giving vent to his feelings wrote thus:—
"Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,With one fair Spirit for my minister,That I might all forget the human race,And, hating no one, love but only her!Ye elements!—in whose ennobling stirI feel myself exalted—Can ye notAccord me such a being? Do I errIn deeming such inhabit many a spot?Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot."[49]
At the same period, he also unveils his soul, in guessing that of Tasso:—
"And with my years my soul began to pantWith feelings of strange tumult and soft pain;And the whole heart exhaled into One Want,But undefined and wandering, till the dayI found the thing I sought—and that was thee;And then I lost my being, all to beAbsorb'd in thine; the world was pass'd away;Thoudidst annihilate the earth to me!""The Lament of Tasso."
A short time after, having described the charm of the pine forest at Ravenna, seen by twilight, he begins to paint the happiness of two loving hearts—of Juan and Haidée, and says:—
VIII."Young Juan and his lady-love were leftTo their own hearts' most sweet society;Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleftWith his rude scythe such gentle bosoms.* * * * *They could not beMeant to grow old, but die in happy spring,Before one charm or hope had taken wing.IX."Their faces were not made for wrinkles, theirPure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to fail!The blank gray was not made to blast their hair,But like the climes that know nor snow nor hail,They were all summer; lightning might assailAnd shiver them to ashes, but to trailA long and snake-like life of dull decayWas not for them—they had too little clay.X."They were alone once more; for them to beThus was another Eden; they were neverWeary, unless when separate: the treeCut from its forest root of years—the riverDamn'd from its fountain—the child from the kneeAnd breast maternal wean'd at once forever,—Would wither less than these two torn apart;Alas! there is no instinct like the heart.XII."'Whom the gods love die young,' was said of yore,And many deaths do they escape by this:The death of friends, and that which slays even more—The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is,Except mere breath;* * * * *Perhaps the early graveWhich men weep over, may be meant to save.XIII."Haidée and Juan thought not of the dead.The heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made for them:They found no fault with Time, save that he fled;They saw not in themselves aught to condemn;Each was the other's mirror.* * * * *XVI."Moons changing had roll'd on, and changeless foundThose their bright rise had lighted to such joysAs rarely they beheld throughout their round;And these were not of the vain kind which cloys,For theirs were buoyant spirits, never boundBy the mere senses; and that which destroysMost love, possession, unto them appear'dA thing which each endearment more endear'd.XVII."Oh beautiful! and rare as beautiful!But theirs was love in which the mind delightsTo lose itself, when the old world grows dull.And we are sick of its hack sounds and sights,Intrigues, adventures of the common school,Its petty passions, marriages, and flights,Where Hymen's torch but brands one strumpet more,Whose husband only knows her not a wh—re.XVIII."Hard words; harsh truth; a truth which many know.Enough.—The faithful and the fairy pair,Who never found a single hour too slow,What was it made them thus exempt from care?Young innate feelings all have felt below,Which perish in the rest, but in them wereInherent; what we mortals call romantic,And always envy, though we deem it frantic.XIX."This is in others a factitious state,* * * * *But was in them their nature or their fate.* * * * *XX."They gazed upon the sunset: 'tis an hourDear unto all, but dearest totheireyes,For it had made them what they were: the powerOf love had first o'erwhelm'd them from such skies,When happiness had been their only dower,And twilight saw them link'd in passion's ties;Charm'd with each other, all things charm'd that broughtThe past still welcome as the present thought.* * * * *XXVI."Juan and Haidée gazed upon each otherWith swimming looks of speechless tenderness,Which mix'd all feelings, friend, child, lover, brother;All that the best can mingle and expressWhen two pure hearts are pour'd in one another,And love too much, and yet can not love less;But almost sanctify the sweet excessBy the immortal wish and power to bless.XXVII."Mix'd in each other's arms, and heart in heart,Why did they not then die?—they had lived too longShould an hour come to bid them breathe apart;Years could but bring them cruel things or wrong.""Don Juan,"canto iv.
It was this love which caused Campbell the poet to say:
"If the love of Juan and Haidée is not pure and innocent, and expressed with delicacy and propriety, then may we at once condemn and blot out this tender passion of the soul from the list of a poet's themes. Then must we shut our eyes and harden our hearts against that passion which sways our whole existence, and quite become mere creatures of hypocrisy and formality, and accuse Milton himself of madness."
At Ravenna, where Lord Byron composed so many sublime works, he also wrote "Sardanapalus" and "Heaven and Earth." He was then thirty-two years of age. The love predominating in these two dramas is that which swayedhis own soul, the same sentiment which, a year later, also inspired the beautiful poem composed on his way from Ravenna to Pisa.
No quotation could convey an idea of the noble energetic feeling animating these two dramas, for adequate language is wanting; impervious to words, the sentiment they contain is like a spirit pervading, or a ray of light warming and illuminating them.
They require to be read throughout. I prefer to quote his words on love, in the 16th canto of "Don Juan," and in "The Island," because they are the last traced by his pen. Written a few days previous to his fatal departure for Greece, it can not be doubted that the sentiment which dictated them was the same that accompanied him to his last hour.
CVII.* * * * *"And certainly Aurora had renew'dIn him some feelings he had lately lost,Or harden'd; feelings which, perhaps ideal,Are so divine, that I must deem them real:—CVIII."The love of higher things and better days;The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignoranceOf what is call'd the world, and the world's ways;The moments when we gather from a glanceMore joy than from all future pride or praise,Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entranceThe heart in an existence of its own,Of which another's bosom is the zone."[50]
And then, in describing the happiness of two lovers, in his poem of "The Island," a few days before setting out for Greece, he says again:—
"Like martyrs revel in their funeral pyre,With such devotion to their ecstasy,That life knows no such rapture as to die;And die they do; for earthly life has naughtMatch'd with that burst of nature, even in thought;And all our dreams of better life aboveBut close in one eternal gush of love."
After speaking of the religious enthusiast, and saying that his soul preceded his dust to heaven, he adds:—
"Is love less potent? No—his path is trod,Alike uplifted gloriously to God;Or link'd to all we know of heaven below,The other better self, whose joy or woeIs more than ours."
But enough of quotations; and now what poet has ever written or spoken of love with words and images more chaste, more truly welling from his own heart? We feel that he has given us the key to that. And if, after all these demonstrations, there still remain any readers who continue to accept as true the pleasantries, satires, and mystifications contained in some of his verses, I do not pretend to write for them. They are to be pitied, but there is no hope of convincing them. That depends on their quality of mind. The only thing possible, then, is to recall some of those anecdotes which, while justifying them in a measure, yet at the same time illustrate Lord Byron's way of acting. I will select one. When Lord Byron was at Pisa a friend of Shelley's, whom he sometimes saw, had formed a close intimacy with Lady B——, a woman of middle-age but of high birth. The tie between them was evidently the result of vanity on Mr. M——'s side, and, as she was the mother of a large family, it was doubly imperative on her to be respectable. But that did not prevent Mr. M—— from boasting of his success, and even (that he might be believed) from going into disgusting details in his eagerness for praise.
One day that Mr. M—— was in the samesalon(at Mrs. Sh——'s house) with Lord Byron and the Countess G——, the conversation turned upon women and love in general, whereupon Mr. M—— lauded to the skies the devotedness, constancy, and truth of the sex. When he had finished his sentimental "tirade," Lord Byron took up the opposite side, going on as Don Juan or Childe Harold might. It was easy to see he was playing a part, and that his words, partly in jest, partly ironical, did not express his thoughts. Nevertheless they gave pain to Mme. G——, and, as soon as they were alone, Lord Byron having asked her why she was sad, she told him the cause.
"I am very sorry to have grieved you," said he, "but how could you think that I was talking seriously?"
"I did not think it," she said, "but those who do notknow you will believe all; M—— will not fail to repeat your words as if they were your real opinions; and the world, knowing neither him nor you, will remain convinced that he is a man full of noble sentiments, and you a real Don Juan, not indeed your own charming youth, but Molière's Don Juan!"
"Very probably," said Lord Byron; "and that will be another true page to add to M——'s note-book. I can't help it. I couldn't resist the temptation of punishing M—— for his vanity. All those eulogiums and sentimentalities about women were to make us believe how charming they had always been toward him, how they had always appreciated his merits, and how passionately in love with him Lady B—— is now. My words were meant to throw water on his imaginary fire."
Alas! it was on such false appearances that they made up, then and since, the Lord Byron still believed in by the generality of persons.
Lord Byron by his marriage gave another pledge of having renounced the foibles of the heart and the allurements of the senses; and it is very certain that he redeemed his word. If, through susceptibility or any other defect, Lady Byron, going back to the past or trusting to vile, revengeful, and interested spies, did not know how to understand him, all Lord Byron's friends did, whether or not they dared to say so. And he himself, who never could tell a lie, has assured us of his married fidelity.[51]His life in Switzerland was devoted to study, retreat, and even austerity. How little this stood him in stead with his enemies is well known. "I never lived in a more edifying manner than at Geneva," he said to Mr. Medwin. "My reputation has not gained by it. Nevertheless, when there is mortification, there ought to be a reward."[52]
When he arrived at Milan many ladies belonging to the great world were most anxious to know him; these presentations were proposed to him, and he refused. As to his life at Venice, a wicked sort of romance has been made of it, by exaggerating most ordinary things, and heaping invention upon invention; but this has been explained with sufficientdetail in another chapter, where all the different causes of these exaggerations have been shown in their just measure of truth.[53]
Here, then, I will only say, that if, on arriving at Venice, he relaxed his austerity to lead the life common to young men without legitimate ties: if, under the influence of that lovely sky, he did not remain insensible to the songs of the beautiful Adriatic siren, nor trample under foot the few flowers fate scattered on his path, to make amends perhaps for the thorns that had so long beset it; if he sometimes accepted distractions in the form of light pleasures, as well as in the form of study,[54]did he not likewise always impose hard laborious occupation upon his mind, thus chaining it to beautiful immaterial things? Did his intellectual activity slacken? Was his soul less energetic, less sublime? The works of genius that issued from his pen at Venice are a sufficient reply. "Manfred," conceived on the summit of the Alps, was written at Venice; the fourth canto of "Childe Harold" was conceived and written at Venice. The "Lament of Tasso," "Mazeppa," the "Ode to Venice," "Beppo" (from his studies of Berni), the first two cantos of "Don Juan," were all written at Venice.
Moreover, it was there he collected materials for his dramas; there he studied the Armenian language, making sufficient progress to translate St. Paul's Epistles into English. And all that, in less than twenty-six months, including his journeys to Rome and to Florence. Let moralists say whether a man steeped in sensual pleasures could have done all that.
"The truth is," says Moore, "that, so far from the strength of his intellect being impaired or dissipated by these irregularities, it never was perhaps at any period of his life more than at Venice in full possession of all its energies."[55]
All the concessions Moore was obliged to make, from a sort of weakness, not to compromise his position, to certain extreme opinions in politics or religion, cloaking in reality personal hatred; are they not all destroyed by this single avowal?
Shelley, who came to Venice to see Lord Byron, said thatall he observed of Lord Byron's state during his visit gave him a much higher idea of his intellectual grandeur than what he had noticed before. Then it was, and under this impression, that Shelley sketched almost the whole poem of "Julian and Maddalo." "It is in this latter character," says Moore, "that he has so picturesquely personated his noble friend; his allusions to the 'Swan of Albion,' in the verses written on the Engancennes hills, are also the result of this fit of enthusiastic admiration." At Venice Lord Byron saw few English; but those he did see, and who have spoken of him, have expressed themselves in the same way as Shelley; which caused Galt to say, that even at Venice, with regard to his pleasures, his conduct had been that of most young men! but that the whole difference must have consisted in the extravagant delight he took in exaggerating, through his conversation, not what was conducive to honor, but, on the contrary, what was likely to do him harm. The whole difference, however, does not lie here, but rather in the indiscretion shown by some friends.[56]Among the best testimonies borne to his way of living at Venice we must not forget that of Hoppner, who bore so high a character, and who was the constant companion of his daily afternoon walks; nor that of the excellent Father Pascal, who shared his morning studies at the Armenian convent.[57]
But in this united homage to truth I can not pass over in silence nor refrain from quoting the words of a very great mind, who, under the veil of fiction, has written almost a biography of Lord Byron, and who too independent,though a Tory, towishto conceal his thought, has declared in the preface to his charming work of "Venetia" that Lord Byron was really his hero.
This writer, after speaking of all the silly calumnies with which Lord Byron was overwhelmed at one time, says of the two more especially calculated to stir up opinion against him, those which accused him oflibertinismandatheism:—
"A calm inquirer might, perhaps, have suspected that abandoned profligacy is not very compatible with severe study, and that an author is seldom loose in his life, even ifhe be licentious in his writings. A calm inquirer might, perhaps, have been of opinion that a solitary sage may be the antagonist of a priesthood without absolutely denying the existence of a God; but there never are calm inquirers. The world, on every subject, however unequally, is divided into parties; and even in the case of Herbert (Lord Byron) and his writings, those who admired his genius and the generosity of his soul were not content with advocating, principally out of pique to his adversaries, his extreme opinions on every subject—moral, political, and religious. Besides, it must be confessed, there was another circumstance almost as fatal to Herbert's character in England as his loose and heretical opinions. The travelling English, during their visits to Geneva, found out that their countryman solaced or enlivened his solitude by unhallowed ties. It is a habit to which very young men, who are separated from or deserted by their wives, occasionally have recourse. Wrong, no doubt, as most things are, but, it is to be hoped, venial; at least in the case of any man who is not also an atheist. This unfortunate mistress of Herbert was magnified into aseraglio; extraordinary tales of the voluptuous life of one who generallyat his studies outwatched the stars, were rife in English society; and
'Hoary marquises and stripling dukes,'
who were eitherprotecting opera-dancers, or, still worse,making love to their neighbors' wives, either looked grave when the name of Herbert (Lord Byron) was mentioned in female society, or affectedly confused, as if they could a tale unfold, if they were not convinced, that the sense of propriety among all present was infinitely superior to their sense of curiosity."
In addition to all the proofs given by the varied uses Lord Byron made of his intellect we must not omit those furnished by the state of his heart. If, too readily yielding at Venice to momentary and fleeting attractions, Lord Byron had been led to squander the powers of youth, to wish to extinguish his senses in order to open out a more vast horizon to his intelligence; if, thus mistaking the means, he had, nevertheless, weakened, enervated, degraded himself, would not his heart have been the first victim sacrificed on the altar of light pleasures?
But, on the contrary, this heart which he had never succeeded in lulling into more than a slumber, when the hour of awakening came, held dominion by its own natural energy over the proud aspirations of his intelligence, and found both his youth and faculty of loving unweakened, and that he had a love capable of every sacrifice, a love as fresh as in his very spring-tide.
Are such metamorphoses possible to withered souls? Moralists have never met with a like phenomenon. On the contrary, they certify that in hearts withered by the enjoyments of sense all generous feelings, all noble aspirations become extinct.
If Lord Byron's anti-sensuality were not sufficiently proved by his actions, words, writings, and by the undeniable testimony of those who knew him, it might still be abundantly proved by his habits of life, and all his tastes; to begin with his sobriety, which really was wonderful. So much so, that if the proverb,Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are, be true, and founded on psychological observation, one must admit that Lord Byron was almost an immaterial being.
His fine health, his strong and vigorous constitution, lead to the presumption that, at least in childhood and during his boyish days, his rule of life could not have differed from that of the class to which he belonged. Nevertheless, his sobriety was remarkable even in early youth; at eighteen he went with a friend, Mr. Pigott, to Tunbridge Wells, and this gentleman says, "We retired to our own rooms directly after dinner, for Byron did not care for drinking any more than myself."
But this natural sobriety became soon after the sobriety of an anchorite, which lasted more or less all his life, and was a perfect phenomenon. Not that he was insensible to the pleasures of good living, and still less did he act from any vanity (as has been said by some incapable of sacrificing the bodily appetites to the soul); his conduct proceeded from the desire and resolution of makingmattersubservient to thespirit.
His rule of life was already in full force when he left England for the first time. Mr. Galt, whom chance associatedwith Lord Byron on board the same vessel bound from Gibraltar to Malta, affirms that Lord Byron, during the whole voyage, seldom tasted wine; and that, when he did occasionally take some, it was never more than half a glass mixed with water. He ate but little; and never any meat; only bread and vegetables. He made me think of the ghoul taking rice with a needle."
On board "La Salsette," returning from Constantinople, he himself wrote to his friend and preceptor Drury, that the gnats which devoured thedelicate bodyof Hobhouse had not much effect on him, because he lived in amore sober manner.
As to his mode of living during his two years' absence from England we can say nothing, except that he lived in climates where sobriety is the rule, and that his letters expressed profound disgust at the complaints, exacting tone, and effeminate tastes of his servants, and his own preference for a monastic mode of life, and very probably also for monastic diet. The testimony to his extraordinary sobriety becomes unanimous as soon as he returns home.
Dallas, who saw him immediately on his landing in 1811, writes:—
"Lord Byron has adopted a mode of diet that any one else would have called dying of hunger, and to which several persons even attributed his lowness of spirits. He lived simply on small sea-biscuits, very thin; only eating two of these, and often but one, a day, with one cup ofgreen tea, which he generally drank at one in the afternoon. He assured me that was all the nourishment he took during the twenty-four hours, and that, so far from this régime affecting his spirits, it made him feel lighter and more lively; and, in short, gave himgreater command over himself in all respects. This great abstinence is almost incredible.... He thought great eaters were generally prone to anger, and stupid."[58]
It was about this time that he made the personal acquaintance of Moore at a dinner given by Rogers for the purpose of bringing them together and of reconciling them.
"As none of us," says Moore, "knew about his singular régime, our host was not a little embarrassed on discovering,that there was nothing on the table which his noble guest could eat or drink. Lord Byron did not touch meat, fish, or wine; and as to the biscuits and soda-water he asked for, there were, unfortunately, none in the house. He declared he was equally pleased with potatoes and vinegar, and on this meagre pittance he succeeded in making an agreeable dinner."[59]
About the same time, being questioned by one of his friends, who liked good living, as to what sort of table they had at the Alfred Club, to which he belonged, "It is not worth much," answered Lord Byron. "I speak from hearsay; for what does cookery signify to a vegetable-eater? But there are books and quiet; so, for what I care, they may serve up their dishes as they like."
"Frequently," says Moore again, "during the first part of our acquaintance we dined together alone, either at St. Alban's, or at his old asylum, Stevens's. Although occasionally he consented to take a little Bordeaux, healways held to his system of abstaining from meat. He seemed truly persuaded that animal food must have some particular influence on character. And I remember one day being seated opposite to him, engaged in eating a beefsteak with good appetite, that, after having looked at me attentively for several seconds, he said, gravely, 'Moore, does not this eating beefsteaks make you ferocious?'
"Among the numerous hours we passed together this spring, I remember particularly his extreme gayety one evening on returning from a soirée, when, after having accompanied Rogers home, Lord Byron—who, according to his frequent custom, had not dined the last two days—feeling his appetite no longer governable, asked for something to eat. Our repast, at his choice, consisted only of bread and cheese; but I have rarely made a gayer meal in my life."
In 1814 he relaxed his diet a little, so far as to eat fish now and then; but he considered this an excessive indulgence. "I have made a regular dinner for the first time since Sunday," he writes in his journal. "Every other daytea and six dry biscuits. This dinner makes me heavy, stupid, gives me horrible dreams (nevertheless, it only consisted of a pint of Bucellas and fish; I do not touch meat, and take but little vegetable). I wish I were in the country for exercise, instead of refreshing myself with abstinence.I am not afraid of a slight addition of flesh; my bones can well support that! but the worst of it is, that the devil arrives with plumpness, and I must drive him away through hunger!i do not wish to be the slave of my appetite. If I fall, my heart at least shall herald the race."[60]
Except the last phrase, which is more worldly or more human, might not one fancy one's self listening to the confession or soliloquy of some Christian philosopher of the fourth century: one of those who sought the Theban deserts to measure their strength of soul and body in desperate struggles with Nature; the confession of a Hilarion or a Jerome, rather than that of a young man of twenty-three, brought up amid the conveniences and luxuries surrounding the aristocracy of the most aristocratic country in the world, where material comfort is best appreciated?
Thus it was, nevertheless, that Lord Byron practiced epicureanism with regard to his food, making very rare exceptions when he consented to dine out.
If time, change of circumstances, and climate, caused some slight modifications in his manner of living, his mode of life did not vary. At Venice, Ravenna, and Genoa, this epicurean would never suffer meat on his table; and he only made some rare exceptions, to avoid too much singularity, at Pisa, where he invited some friends to dinner. Count Gamba, after having spoken of the sobriety of his regimen on board the vessel that took him to Greece, the Ionian Islands, and finally to Missolonghi, says, "He ate nothing but vegetables and fish, and drank only water. Our fear was," says he, "lest this excessive abstinence should be injurious to his health!"
Alas! we know that it was. It is certain that this debilitating régime, joined to such strong moral impressions, too strongly felt, undermined Lord Byron's fine constitution, which had only resisted so long through its extreme vigor and the rare purity of his blood.
The bodily exercise he took had the same object, and further added to the injurious effect of his obstinate fasts. "I have not left my room these four days past," he writes in his memorandum, April, 1814, at a moment when his heart was agitated by a passion; "but I have been fencing with Jackson an hour a day by way of exercise,so as to get matter under, and give sway to the ethereal part of my nature. The more I fatigue myself, the better my mind is for the rest of the day; and then my evenings acquire that calm, that prostration and languor, that are such a happiness to me. To-day I fenced for an hour, wrote an ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, copied it out, ate six biscuits, drank four bottles of soda-water, read the rest of the time, and then gave a load of advice to poor H—— about his mistress, who torments him intolerably, enough to make him consumptive. Ah! to be sure, it suits me well to be giving lessons to——; it is true they are thrown to the winds."[61]
This desire of giving mind dominion over matter is shown equally in all his tastes, all his preferences. Beauty in art consisted wholly for him in the expression of heart and soul. He had a horror of realism in art; the Flemish school inspired him with a sort of nausea. Certain material points of beauty in women, that are generally admired, had no beauty for him. The music he liked, and of which he never grew tired, was not brilliant or difficult, but simple; that which awakens the most delicate sentiments of the soul, which brings tears to the eye.
"I have known few persons," says Moore, "more alive than he to the charms of simple music; and I have often seen tears in his eyes when listening to the Irish Melodies. Among those that caused him these emotions was the one beginning—
"When first I met thee, warm and young."
The words of this melody, besides the moral sentiment they express, also admit a political meaning. Lord Byron rejected this meaning, and delivered his soul over, with the liveliest motion, to the more natural sentiment conveyed in that song."
"Only the fear of seeming to affect sensibility could haverestrained my tears," he said once, on hearing Mrs. D—— sing
"Could'st thou look."
"Very often," said Mme. G——, "I have seen him with tears in his eyes when I was playing favorite airs to him on the piano, of which he never got tired."[62]
Stendhall also speaks of Lord Byron's emotion while listening to a piece of music by Mayer at Milan, and says that if he lived a hundred years he could never forget the divine expression of his physiognomy while thus engaged.
At most, Lord Byron could only admire for a moment material beauty without expression in women; it might give rise to sensations, but could never inspire him with the slightest sentiment.
We have said enough of the female characters he created: sweet incarnations of the most amiable qualities of heart and soul. Let us add here, that although greatly alive to beauty of form, he could not believe in a fine woman's delicate feeling, unless her beauty were accompanied by expression denoting her qualities of heart and mind. Beauty of form, of feature, and of color were nothing to him, if a woman had not also beauty of expression; if he could not see, he said, beauty of soul in her eyes. "Beauty and goodness have always been associated in my idea," said he, at Genoa, to the Countess B——, "for in my experience I have generally seen them go together. What constitutes true beauty for me," added he, "is the soul looking through the eyes. Sometimes women that were called beautiful have been pointed out to me that could never in the least have excited my feelings, because they wanted physiognomy, or expression, which is the same thing; while others, scarcely noticed, quite struck and attracted me by their expression of face."
He admired Lady C—— very much, because, he said, her beauty expressed purity, peace, dreaminess, giving the idea that she had never inspired or experienced aught but holy emotions. He once thought of marrying another young lady, because she excited the same feelings. All the women who more or less interested him in England were remarkable fortheir intellect or their education, including her whom he selected for his companion through life. Only, with regard to her, he trusted too much to reputation and appearance; he saw what she had, not what was wanting. She was in great part the cause of his deadly antipathy to regular "blue stockings;" but that did not change the necessity of intellect for exciting his interest. It only required, he said, for thedress to hide the color of the stockings. The name he gave to his natural daughter belonged to a Venetian lady, whose cleverness he admired, and with whom his acquaintance consisted in a mere exchange of thought. Often he has been heard to say that he could never have loved a silly woman, however beautiful; nor yet a vulgar woman, whether the defect were the result of birth, or education, or tastes. He felt no attraction for that style of woman since called "fast." Even among the light characters whose acquaintance he permitted to himself at Venice, he avoided those who were too bold. There lived then at Venice Mme. V——, a perfect siren. All Venice was at her feet; Lord Byron would not know her, and at Bologna he refused to make acquaintance with a person of still higher rank, Countess M——, who was both charming and estimable, but who had the fault in his eyes of attracting too much general admiration. Her air of modesty and reserve was what principally drew him toward Miss Milbank. At Ferrara, where he met Countess Mosti and thought her most delightful, he did not feel the same sympathy for her sister, who was, however, much more brilliant, and whose singing excited the admiration of every one.
In order to be truly loved by Lord Byron, it was requisite for a woman to live in a sort of illusive atmosphere for him, to appear somewhat like an immaterial being, not subject to vulgar corporeal necessities. Thence arose his antipathy (considered so singular) to see the woman he loved eat. In short, spiritual and manly in his habits, he was equally so with his person.
It sufficed to see his face, upon which there reigned such gentleness allied to so much dignity; and his look, never to be forgotten; and the unrivalled mouth, which seemed incapable of lending itself to any material use; a simple glance enabled one to understand that this privileged being was endowedwith all noble passions, joined to an instinctive horror of all that is low and vulgar in human nature. "His beauty was quite independent of his dress," said Lady Blessington.
If, then, his nails were roseate as the shells of the ocean (according to her expression); if his complexion was transparent; his teeth like pearls; his hair glossy and curling; he had only to thank Providence for having lavished on him and preserved to him so many free gifts. But it is not easy to persuade others of such remarkable exceptions to the general rule. Those who do not possess the same advantages are incredulous; and, indeed, there were not wanting persons to deny, at least in part, that he had them.
Soon after his death an account of him was published in the "London Magazine," containing some truths mixed up with a heap of calumnies. Among other things, it was said "that Lord Byron constantly wore gloves." To which Count Pietro Gamba replied, "That is not true; Lord Byron wore them less than any other man of his standing."
Another declared that his fingers were loaded with rings; he only wore one, which was a token of affection. In his rooms hardly ordinary comforts could be found. He was not one to carry about with him the habits of his own country. Indeed, his habits consisted in having none. During his travels, the most difficult to please were his valet and other servants. "On his last journey," says Count Gamba, "he passed six days without undressing."
His sole self-indulgence consisted in frequent bathing; for his only craving was for extreme cleanliness. But, just as the disciples of Epicurus would never have adopted his regimen, so would they equally have refused to imitate this last enjoyment; which was a little too manly for them, for his baths were mostly taken on Ocean's back; struggling against the stormy wave, and that in all seasons, up to mid-December. Such was the fastidious delicacy of this epicurean![63]
But to acknowledge all these things, or even any thing extraordinarily good in the author of "Don Juan," the "Ageof Bronze," the "Vision;" in a son sowanting in respectfor the weaknesses of his mother-country; in a poet that had dared to chastise powerful enemies, and the limit of whose audacity was not even yet known, for his death had just condemned, through revelations and imprudent biographies, many persons and things to a sorry kind of immortality; to praise him, declare him guiltless, do him justice,—truly that would have been asking too much from England at that time. England has since made great strides in the path of generous toleration and even toward justice to Lord Byron. For vain is calumny after a time: truth destroys calumny by evoking facts. These form a clear atmosphere, wherein truth becomes luminous, as the sun in its atmosphere: for facts give birth to truth, and are mortal to calumny.