"A Persian's heaven iseasily made,—'Tis but black eyes and lemonade."
But we know that he was thinking of this voyage, in order to divert his mind from the regret of having been obliged,from motives of honor and prudence, to give up accompanying into Sicily a family he liked very much. However, the sight of a camel sufficed to carry him back to Asia and the Euxine Sea, and to make him cry out: "Quando te aspiciam!"
It was also at this time that he wrote to Moore, "All convulsions with me end in rhyme." To overcome certain agitations of heart, he wrote the "Bride of Abydos," and directly afterward the "Corsair."
But if the melancholy, more or less deep, that cast its shadows over this brilliant period of his triumphs, wore specially the above character, it changed somewhat after his marriage. Thenceforward his melancholy sprang less from the heart, than from bitter disenchantment; from the suffering of a proud nature, cruelly wounded in its sentiment of justice by indignities, calumnies, persecutions, unexampled under such circumstances. Having already spoken of this marriage, I shall leave to regular biographers the detailed account of this painful period, so as only to consider it here under the sole aspect of the griefs it caused. I will not even stop to mention the unaccountable melancholy occasioned by a presentiment before marriage, nor the mysterious sort of agony that seized upon him just as he was about to kneel for the nuptial ceremony in church, nor even the sadness brought about by his first experience of the disposition of the person with whom he had so imprudently linked his fate. I will say, rather, that the melancholy caused and produced by this marriage was really grief; and of the kind that most harshly tries, not only firmness of soul, but likewise true virtue. For all the baseness, cowardice and spirit of revenge that had lain hidden a moment while his triumphal car passed on, united at this moment to overwhelm and cast him down. And the means employed were, instinct with such perversity, that his great moral courage, always so powerful in helping him to bear contradictions, disappointments, and personal misfortunes, were no longer of any assistance, threatened as he was with the greatest calamity that can possibly befall a man of honor—namely, to be misjudged, calumniated, accused, thought capable of deeds quite contrary to his high nature. Neither his courage, firmness, nor even the testimony of conscience could shield him from great unhappiness. And he suffered all the morethat the blame incurred proceeded from worthy persons who had been mischievously led into error; nor could he conceal from himself that he had voluntarily contributed to produce this unhappy state of things, by not sufficiently avoiding certain appearances, by not attaching sufficient importance to the opinion of his fellow-men, and having lent himself, too easily, to misinterpretation.
"The thorns which I have reaped," said he later (but he thought it much earlier), "are of the tree I planted,—they have torn me,—and I bled; I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed."[182]
In addition to all this, Lord Byron had to experience the effects of a phenomenon of a terrible character, a phenomenon almost peculiar to England, the tyrannical power of its public opinion. This power, that gives form and movement to what is called the great world in England, weighed so heavily on the weak minds of several persons calling themselves friends, that, with few exceptions, and though all the while persuaded of the injustice of such opinion, after a few feeble efforts at changing it, and showing the wrong done to Lord Byron, they lost courage to declare their belief. Not only did they no longer protest, but they even pretended to believe part of the stupid calumnies spread abroad. To a heart firm and devoted as his, which, under similar circumstances, would have fought to the death in defense of outraged justice and a persecuted friend, this was one of the most cruel trials imposed on him by adverse destiny. What he must have suffered at this period has been already spoken of in another chapter. I will only say here, that, despite time, and the philosophy, which, subsequently, restored partial serenity, this wound never quite closed, since, even in the fourteenth canto of "Don Juan," written shortly before his last journey into Greece, he still made allusion to it, saying ironically:—
"Without a friend, what were humanity,To hunt our errors up with a good grace?Consoling us with—'Would you had thought twice!Ah! if you had but followed my advice!'O Job! you had but two friends: one's quite enough,Especially when we are ill at ease."
Moore adds:—"Lord Byron could not have said, at this time, whether it was the attacks of his enemies, or the condolences of his friends that most lacerated his heart."
It was in this state of mind that he quitted England. He visited Belgium, and its battle-plains, still coming across fields of blood; went up the Rhine, and spent some months in Switzerland, where the glaciers, precipices, and the Alps, presented him with a splendid framework for new poems. All the melancholy to be found in "Childe Harold" (third canto), in "Manfred," and in his memoranda at that time, is evidently caused by grief, either of fresh occurrence or renewed by memory. A smile still sometimes wreathed his lip; but, when the gayety natural to his age and disposition would fain have taken possession of his heart, the remembrance of all the indignities he had undergone, rose up before him as the wordsMené, Mené, Tekel, Upharsin, did toBelshazzar. And often his fit of gayety ended in a sigh, which even became habitual after it had ceased to express sorrow. All those who knew Lord Byron have remarkedthis singular and touching sigh, attributing it to a melancholy temperament. But it was especially produced by a crowd of painful indistinct remembrances, intruding upon him at some moment when he would and could have been happy. So he has told us in those exquisite lines of his fourth canto of "Childe Harold;" and he often repeated the same in prose. Thus, for instance, at the time of his excursions to Mont Blanc and the Glaciers, which, had his heart been lighter, would have made him so happy, he finished his memoranda with these melancholy words:—
"In the weather for this tour (of thirteen days) I have been very fortunate—fortunate in a companion (Hobhouse), fortunate in our prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays which often render journeys in a less wild country disappointing. I was disposed to be pleased. I am a lover of nature, and an admirer of beauty. I can bear fatigue, and welcome privation, and have seen some of the noblest views in the world. But, in all this, the recollection of bitterness, and more especially of recent and, more, home desolation—which must accompany me through life—have preyed upon me here; and neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, theglacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched identity in the majesty and the power and the glory around, above, and beneath me."
After having passed eleven months in Switzerland, in about the same frame of mind, he crossed the Alps, and entered Italy. Who can breathe the soft air of that beautiful land, without feeling a healing balm descend on wounds within? The clear atmosphere, and the serene sky, were to him like the indulgent caresses of a sister, bringing a hope—a promise—that peace, and even happiness were about to visit his stricken soul. His first halt was at Milan. There he met with sympathetic, noble minds, instead of the envious, hypocritical, intolerant spirits that had caused him so much suffering; sweet and pleasant was it for him to live with such. Every evening he took his place in a box at the Scala, where the flower of the young intellects of Milan assembled, and where he met with other persons of note, such as Abbé de Brême and Silvio Pellico: gentle, beautiful souls, burning with love of country, and sighing after its independence. From them he learnt more than ever to detest the humiliating yoke of foreign despotism that weighed on Italy; with the independence and frankness of character that belonged to him, he did not scruple to deplore it openly; and his imprudent generosity became a source of annoyance, persecution and calumny for himself. There he heard that passionate music which appeals so strongly to imagination and heart, because it harmonizes so naturally with all its surroundings in Italy. It was listening to this music, at times so pathetic and sweet, that emotion would often lend almost supernatural beauty to his countenance, so that even Mr. Stendhall, the least enthusiastic of men, was wont to say with enthusiasm,that never, in his whole life, had he seen any thing so beautiful and expressive as Lord Byron's look, or so sublime as his style of beauty. There he gave himself freely up to all the fine emotions that art can raise. Stendhall accompanied him to the Brêra Museum, "and I admired," sayshe, "the depth of sentiment with which Lord Byron understood painters of most opposite schools, Raphael, Guercino, Luini, Titian. Guercino's picture of Hagar dismissed by Abraham quite electrified him, and, from that moment the admiration he inspired rendered every body mute around him."
"He improvised for at least an hour, and even better than Madame de Staël," says Stendhall again. "One day Monti was invited to recite before Lord Byron one of his (Monti's) poems which had met in Italy with most favor,—the first canto of the 'Mascheroniana.'" The reading of these lines gave such intense pleasure to the author of "Childe Harold" that Stendhall adds, he shall never forget the divine expression of his countenance on that occasion. "It was," says he, "the placid air of genius and power."
Thus taking interest and pleasure in all around him, if he did experience hours of melancholy (which is very probable, his wounds being so recent and so deep), he had, at the same time, strength to hide it from the public eye, and to express it only with his pen.
The single symptom that might be considered to betray, at this time, a continual malady of soul, was the indifference he showed toward the fair ladies of Milan, who, on their side, were full of enthusiasm about him, and with whom he refused to become acquainted, despite all their advances. But this reserve (though probably more marked and commented on at this particular moment of which we speak) belonged, nevertheless to his nature. After having visited Lake Garda with that pleasure he always experienced from the beauties of nature, and then the tomb of Juliet at Verona, with the interest excited by a true story even more than by Shakspeare's poetry (since he could only take real interest in what was true), he went from Milan to Venice. I have mentioned in another chapter the impression made on him by Venice in particular, and Italy in general; how, aided by exterior circumstances, by the sympathies growing up around him, the severe studies he underwent, so as to keep his heart calm, and bridle an imagination too liable to be influenced by bitter memories; in a few months he began a new existence there, with a more vigorous and healthy impulse for his genius.
When first victimized by the most senseless persecution, he was so surprised and confounded by the noise and violence of calumny, that his keen sentiment of injustice underwent a sort of numbness. On seeing himself thus brutally attackedon the one hand, and so feebly defended on the other, by lukewarm, pusillanimous friends, he may have questioned if he were not really in fault, and hesitated, perhaps, how to reply; for he almost spoke of himself as guilty in the farewell addressed to his cold-hearted wife, and also in the lines composed for his more deserving sister. This situation of mind shows itself without disguise, sadly depicted in the third canto of "Childe Harold." Manfred himself, that wondrous conception of genius, whose lot was cast amid all the sublimities of nature, despite his pride and his strength of will, yet was made to wear the sackcloth of penance. But, on arriving at Venice when months had rolled on, and the Alps were between him and the injustice undergone,—after Lady Byron's new, incredible, and strange refusal to return,—he felt his conscience disencumbered of all morbid influences. The testimony given, the absolution awarded by this impartial, incorruptible judge, whom he had never ceased to consult, became sufficient for him. And by degrees, as he succeeded in forgetting, so as to have power to forgive, peace and tranquillity revisited his mind. Venice was the city of his dream; he had known her, he said, ere he visited her, and after the East she it was that haunted his imagination. Reality spoiled nothing of his dream; he loved every thing about her,—the solemn gayety of her gondolas, the silence of her canals, the late hours of her theatres and soirées, the movement and animation reigning on St. Mark's, where the gay world nightly assembled. Even the decay of the town (which saddened him later), harmonizing then with the whole scene, was not displeasing. He regretted the old costumes given up; but the Carnival, though waning, still recalled ancient Venice, and rejoiced his heart. Familiar with the Italian language, he took pleasure in studying, also, the Venetian dialect, the naïveté and softness of which charmed him, especially on woman's lips. Stretched in his gondola, he loved to court the breezes of the Adriatic, especially at twilight and moonlit hours, unrivalled for their splendor in Venice. In summer and autumn he delighted to give the rein to his horse along the solitary banks of the Lido, or beside the flower-enamelled borders of the Brenta. He loved the simplicity of the women, the freedom from hypocrisy of the men. Feeling himself liked by those amongwhom chance or choice had thrown him, frequenting theatres and society that could both amuse and instruct, though powerless to fill his thoughts, for these latter required more substantial food, and some hard difficult study to occupy them, being free from all disquieting passions, and wishing to remain thus, sociable as he was by temperament, though loving solitude for the sake of his genius; under all these circumstances, he could satisfy, in due proportion, the double exigency of his nature; for he lived, as we have seen, amid a small circle of sympathetic acquaintances, and of friends arriving from England, who clustered round him without interfering with the independence he had regained, and which formed the natural necessary element for his mind; though he had been deprived of it in England by the cant and pusillanimity of his friends. If, then, he was not exactly happy at this time, at least he was on the road leading to happiness. For he was beginning to make progress in the path of philosophy,—a gentle, indulgent, generous philosophy, as deep as it was clever and pleasing, and which afterward ruled his life, and inspired his genius. All those who saw him at this period are unanimous in saying that melancholy then held aloof from him. In all his letters we find proof of the same. "Venice and I go on well together," wrote he to Murray.
And elsewhere,—"I go out a great deal, and am very well pleased."
Mr. Rose, who visited him at Venice, in the spring of 1818, began a poem which he addressed to him from Albano, where he was taking baths for his health, by alluding to the gayety which Byron spread around him at the reunions which he liked.
But while those living near him, and at Venice, where his poetry was not known, would never have imagined him to be melancholy, in England and other places where people read the sorrow-breathing creations of his genius, he continued to be considered the very personification of melancholy or misanthropy. He knew, and laughed about it sometimes.
"I suppose now I shall never be able to shake off my sable, in public imagination, more particularly since my moral wife demolished my reputation. However, not that, nor more than that, has yet extinguished my spirit, which always rises with the rebound."
And as he did not wish to be considered a misanthrope, he added to Moore, in the same letter:—
"I wish you would also tell Jeffrey what you know,—that I was not, and indeed, am not, evennow, the misanthropical and gloomy gentleman for which he takes me, but a facetious companion, getting on well with those with whom I am intimate, and as loquacious and laughing as if I were a much cleverer fellow."
And at the same time, to disabuse the public also, and show that he could write gayly, he set himself to study a kind of poetry thoroughly Italian in its spirit, and of which Berni is the father; poetry replete with wit, and somewhat free, but devoid of malice, even when it merges from gayety into satire; a style unknown to England in its varied shades, and which it was easier for him to introduce than to make popular. "Beppo" was his first essay in this line, and it contains too much genuine fun not to have been a natural product of his humor ere flowing from his pen.
On sending it to Murray as a mere sample of the style he thought it possible to introduce into the literature of his country, he said:—
"At least, this poem will show that I can write gayly, and will repel the accusation of monotony and affectation."[183]
But the gayety visible at this period in his writings and his conduct was not, however, uninterrupted. For such cheerfulness to be constant, neither a continuation of the causes producing it, nor yet the absence of English papers and reviews could quite suffice. It was necessary that no letters should come, awakening painful remembrances that had slumbered awhile, that there should be no necessity for selling his property in England,—a matter always complicated, and difficult of execution at a distance, and which forced upon him cares and occupations most opposed to his character, while affording sad proof of the negligence, ingratitude, and other faults of those intrusted with the management of his affairs. It would have required that friends who had neglected to prevent his departure, should not, when weary of seeing him no more, have conspired to bring about his return, devising a good means of so doing by obstacles thrown in the way of asuccessful issue to his affairs, which happy conclusion was absolutely necessary for his peace and independence. We see by his letters, written during the summer of 1818, that he was tormented in a thousand ways; sometimes not receiving any accounts, sometimes being advised to come nearer London, then, again, having no tidings of how several thousands had been disposed of. Besides that, he had constantly before his eyes a spectacle most painful for a generous heart to witness. That was Venice choked and expiring in the grip of her foreign rulers. The humiliation thus inflicted on the city of his dreams, and its noble race of inhabitants, and which was every instant repeated and proclaimed by the brutal voice of drums and cannons, with a thousand added vexations (necessary, perhaps, for keeping up an abhorred sway), caused infinite suffering to his just and liberal nature, raising emotions of anger and pitying regret, that flowed from his pen in sublimely indignant language. Thereupon, the despots, unable to impose silence upon him, revenged themselves in various ways, echoing reports spread in London, and inventing new fables, which the idle people of Venice, more idle than elsewhere, and even the gondoliers repeated in their turn to strangers, to amuse and gain a few pence. We pass over any details of the persecution inflicted on him by English tourists, who, not actuated by sympathy, but out of sheer curiosity and eagerness to pick up all the gossip and idle tales in circulation, were wont to run after Lord Byron, intruding on his private walks, and even pressing into his very palace. Such conduct, of course, displeased him, and accordingly in the summer of 1818 we find traces of ill-humor visible in his correspondence, and even in the first two cantos of "Don Juan." Afterward, when he had been laid hold of and absorbed by a great passion, his irritation merged into sadness, melancholy, disquietude, and irresolution.[184]
But if all this proves that sadness wearing the garb of melancholy sometimes approached him, even at Venice; we see too clearly its real and accidental causes to be able to ascribe it to a permanent and fatal disposition of temperament.
Many signs of suffering escaped his pen at this time. For instance, writing to Moore from Venice in 1818, and wishingto give him a picturesque description of a creature full of savage energy, who forced herself upon him in a thousand extravagant ways, refusing to leave his house, he said:—
"I like this kind of animal, and am sure that I should have preferred Medea to any woman that ever breathed. You may, perhaps, wonder at my speaking thus (making allusion to Lady Byron).... I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl, any thing but thedeliberate desolationpiled upon me when I stoodalone upon my hearthwith my household gods shivered around me.... Do you suppose I have forgotten or forgiven it? It has comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and I shall remain only a spectator upon this earth until some great occasion presents itself, which may come yet. There are others more to be blamed than——, and it is on these that my eyes are fixed unceasingly."
Meanwhile, until Providence should present him with this opportunity, another feeling took involuntary possession of his whole soul. But would not the sentiment which was about to swallow up or transform all others, and which was at last to bring him some happiness, also destroy the peace so carefully preserved in his heart by indifference since he left London? He seemed at first to have dreaded such a result himself; for, in one of the earliest letters addressed to the person beloved (letters which fully unveil his beautiful soul, and where one would vainly seek an indelicate or sensual expression), he tells her "that he had resolved, on system, to avoid a great passion," but that she had put to flight all his resolutions, that he is wholly hers, and will become all she wishes, happy perhaps in her love, but never more at peace,—"ma tranquillo mai più."
And he ends the letter with a verse quoted from Guarini's "Pastor Fido."[185]
His heart assuredly was satisfied, but precisely because he truly loved, and felt himself beloved; therefore did he also suffer from the impossibility of reconciling the exigencies of his heart with circumstances. In one of these beautiful letters, so full of simplicity and refinement, he tells her:—
"What we shall have to suffer is of common occurrence, and we must bear it like many others, for true love is never happy; but we two shall suffer still more because we are placed in no ordinary circumstances."
His real sentiments of soul are likewise displayed in that beautiful satirical poem, "Don Juan," in the third canto of which he exclaims:—
"Oh, Love! what is it in this world of oursWhich makes it fatal to be loved? Ah, whyWith cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers,And made thy best interpreter a sigh?"
Nevertheless, when he had left Venice, which became altogether distasteful to him, and gone to live at Ravenna, his heart grew calmer. To Murray he writes:—
"You inquire after my health andspiritsin large letters; my health can't be very bad, for I cured myself of a sharp tertian ague in three weeks, with cold water, which had held my stoutest gondolier for months, notwithstanding all the bark of the apothecary,—a circumstance which surprised D'Aglietti, who said it was a proof of great stamina, particularly in so epidemic a season. I did it out of dislike to the taste of bark (which I can't bear), and succeeded, contrary to the prophecies of every body, by simply taking nothing at all. As to spirits, they are unequal, now high, now low,—like other people's, I suppose, and depending upon circumstances."
Having grown intimate with the Count and Countess G——, he was requested by the former to accompany his young wife into society, to the play, everywhere, in short; soon Lord Byron took up his abode in their palace, and the repose of heart and mind he thus attained was so great, that no sadness seemed able to come near him, as long as this tranquil, regular, pleasing sort of existence lasted, and it seemed destined to endure forever.
But nothing is permanent here below, and especially happiness, be its source regular or irregular; such is the mysterious eternal law of this earthly life, doubtless one of probation. To this period of tranquillity succeeded one of uneasiness and grief, which ended by awakening a little melancholy. Let us examine the causes of it in his position at that time.
The object of Lord Byron's love had obtained from His Holiness Pope Pius VII., at the solicitation of her parents, permission to leave her husband's house, and return home to her family. Consequently she had left in the month of July, and was leading a retired life in a country-house belonging to her parents. Thus Lord Byron, who had been accustomed to feel happy in her society, was now reduced to solitude in the same place her presence had gladdened. In order not to compromise her in her delicate position, he was obliged even to deny himself the gratification of calling upon her in the country. Ravenna, which is always a sad kind of abode, becomes in autumn quite a desert, liable to fever. Everybody had gone into the country. Even if taste had not inclined Lord Byron to be alone, necessity would have compelled it; for there was no longer a single being with whom he could exchange a word or a thought. Equinoctial gales again swept the sea; and thus the wholesome exercise of swimming, so useful in restoring equilibrium to the faculties and calming the mind, was forbidden. If at least he could have roamed on horseback through the forest of pines! But no; the autumn rains, even in this lovely climate, last for weeks. In the absolute solitude of a town like Ravenna, imprisoned, so to say, within his own apartment, how could he avoid some emotions of sadness? He was thus assailed; and, as it always happened where he himself was concerned, he mistook its causes. Engrossed by an affection that was amply returned, feeling strong against the injustice of man and the hardships of fate, having become well-nigh inaccessible toennui, he was astonished at the sadness that always seemed to return in autumn, and imagined that it might be from some hereditary malady inherent to his temperament.
"This season kills me with sadness," he wrote to Madame G——, on the 28th of September; "when I have my mental malady, it is well for others that I keep away. I thank thee, from my heart, for the roses. Love me! My soul is like the leaves that fall in autumn, all yellow."
And then, as if he almost reproached himself with being sad without some cause existing in the heart, and, above all, not wishing to pain Madame G——, he wound up with a joke, saying:—"Here is a cantator;" a conventional word recallingsome buffooneries in a play, and which signified:—"Here is a fine sentence!"
Certainly, the autumnal season, sad and rainy as it is, must have had great influence over him. Could it be otherwise with an organization like his? From this point of view, his melancholy, like his temperament, might be considered as hereditary. But would it have been developed without the aid of other causes?
Let us observe the date of the letter, wherein he blames the season, and the dates of those received from London, or those he addressed thither. The coincidence between them will show clearly that when he called himself melancholy, and accused the season, it occurred precisely on the day when he was most wearied and overwhelmed by a host of other disagreeable things. For instance, Murray, whose answers on several points he had been impatiently expecting, was seized with a new fit of silence. "There you are at your tricks."[186]
And then, when the silence was broken, the letters almost always brought him disagreeable accounts. Wishing to disgust him with Italy, they sent him volumes full of unjust, stupid attacks on Italy and the Italians whom he liked.
"These fools," exclaimed he, "will force me to write a book myself on Italy, to tell them broadlythey have lied."
Nothing was more disagreeable, and even hurtful to him, at this time, than the report of his return to England; and they wrote him word that his presence in London was asserted on all sides, that many persons declared that they had seen him, and that Lady C. L—— had been to call at his house fully persuaded that he was there.[187]
"Pray do not let the papers paragraph me back to England. They may say what they please, any loathsome abuse but that. Contradict it."
In consequence of this invention, even his newspapers were no longer sent to him; and when he spoke of the harm and annoyance thus occasioned, annoyance increased by Murray's silence, his displeasure certainly amounted to anger. At this time also he was informed by letter that some English tourists, on returning home, had boasted that theycouldhave been presented to him at Venice, butwould not.
The trial of the unfortunate queen was just coming on at this time, and the whole proceeding, accompanied as it was with so many cruel, indecent circumstances, revolted him in the highest degree.
"No one here," said he, "believes a word of all the infamous depositions made."
The article in "Blackwood's Magazine," which was so abominably libellous as to force him out of the silencehe had adopted for his rule, was often present to his thought; for he dreaded lest his editor should for the sake of lucre publish "Don Juan" with his name, and lest the Noels and other enemies, out of revenge, should profit thereby to contest his right of guardianship over his child, as had been the case with Shelley.
"Recollect, that if you put my name to 'Don Juan' in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian-right of my daughter in chancery, on the plea of its containing the parody. Such are the perils of a foolish jest. I was not aware of this at the time, but you will find it correct, I believe; and you may be sure that the Noels would not let it slip. Now, I prefer my child to a poem at any time."
Moreover, amid all these pre-occupations, Hobhouse wrote him word that he should be obliged to go to England for the queen's trial; and we know how repugnant this necessity was to Lord Byron. His little Allegra had just fallen rather dangerously ill; Countess G——, notwithstanding the sentence pronounced by His Holiness, continued to be tormented by her husband, who refused to accept the decision of Rome, because he did not wish for a separation. The Papal Government, pushed on by the Austrian police, had recourse to a thousand small vexatious measures, to make Lord Byron quit Ravenna, where he had given offense by becoming too popular with the liberal party.
Lastly, we may further add that, even in those days, he was suffering from some jealous susceptibility, though knowing well how he was beloved. For in the letter, dated 28th of September, where he says "his soul is sick," he also complains of Madame G——'s having passed some hours at Ravennawithout letting him know, and of her having thought fit to hide from him certain steps taken.
This autumn was followed by a winter still more disagreeably exceptional than the preceding one. The most inclement weather prevailed during the month of January, and generally throughout the winter.
"Bad weather, this 4th of January," he writes in his memoranda, "as bad as in London itself."
The sirocco, a wind that depresses even people without nerves, was blowing and melting the ice. The streets and roads were transformed into pools of half-congealed mud. He was somewhat "out of spirits." But still he hoped:—
"If the roads and weather allow, I shall go out on horseback to-morrow. It is high time; already we have had a week of this work: snow and sirocco one day, ice and snow the other. A sad climate for Italy; but these two winters have been extraordinary."
The next day, he got up "dull and drooping." The weather had not changed. Lord Byron absolutely required to breathe a little fresh air every day, to take exercise on horseback. His health was excellent, but on these two conditions; otherwise, it failed. His temper clouded over, without air and exercise. During the wretched days he was obliged to remain at home, he had not even the diversion letters and newspapers might have afforded, since no post came in. His sole amusement consisted in stirring the fire, and playing with Lion, his mastiff, or with his little menagerie. So much did he suffer from it all, that his kind heart bestowed pity even on his horses:—
" ... Horses must have exercise—get a ride as soon as weather serves; deuced muggy still. An Italian winter is a sad thing, but all the other seasons are charming."
On the 7th of January, he adds:—
"Still rain, mist, snow, drizzle, and all the incalculable combinations of a climate where heat and cold struggle for mastery."
If the weather cleared up one day, it was only to become more inclement the next.
On the 12th he wrote in his journal:—
"The weather still so humid and impracticable, that London, in its most oppressive fogs, were a summer bower to this mist and sirocco, which has now lasted (but with one day'sinterval), checkered with snow or heavy rain only, since the 30th of December, 1820. It is so far lucky that I have a literary turn; but it is very tiresome not to be able to stir out, in comfort, on any horse but Pegasus, for so many days. The roads are even worse than the weather, by the long splashing, and the heavy soil, and the inundations."
And on the 19th:—
"Winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself, though Shakspeare says otherwise.... Rather low in spirits—certainly hippish—liver touched—will take a dose of salts."
There was, however, too much elasticity of spirits in him, and his melancholy was not sufficiently deep for it to last. His evening visit to Countess G—— at eight o'clock (the day's event consoling for all else), a few simple airs played by her on the piano, some slight diversion, such as a ray of sunshine between two showers, or a star in the heavens raising hopes of a brighter morrow, sufficed to clear up his horizon. What always raised his spirits was the prospect of some good or great and generous action to perform, such, in those days, as contributing to the deliverance of a nation. Then, not only did the sirocco and falling rain cease to act on his nerves, as he himself acknowledged, but his genius would start into fresh life, making him snatch a pen, and write off in a few days admirable poems,[188]worthy to be the fruit of long years of meditation.
We may, then, believe that if his melancholy had been left solely to the physical and moral influences surrounding him at this time, it would never have become much developed, or at least would have soon passed away, like morning mists that rise in the east to be quickly dissipated by the rays of the sun.
But just as these slight vapors may form into a cloud, if winds arise in another part of the sky, bringing fresh moisture to them, so a slight and fugitive sadness in him might be deepened and prolonged through circumstances. And this was exactly what happened in the year of which we speak, for it was full of disappointments and grief for him.To arrive at this persuasion, it is sufficient to remark the coincidence of dates. For example, we find in his memoranda, under the date of 18th of January, 1821:—
"At eight proposed to go out. Lega came in with a letter about a billunpaidat Venice, which I thought paid months ago. I flew into a paroxysm of rage, which almost made me faint. I have not been well ever since. I deserve it for being such a fool—but itwasprovoking—a set of scoundrels! It is, however, but five-and-twenty pounds."
Then, again, on the 19th we find:—
"Rode. Winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself, though Shakspeare says otherwise. At least I am so much more accustomed to meet with ingratitude than the north wind, that I thought the latter the sharper of the two. I had met with both in the course of twenty-four hours, so could judge."
And on the same day he wrote to Murray a letter, in which, after mentioning a host of vexations and worries, he ends by saying:—
"I am in bad humor—some obstructions in business with those plaguing trustees, who object to an advantageous loan, which I was to furnish to a nobleman (Lord B——) on mortgage, because his property is in Ireland, have shown me how a man is treated in his absence."
Between the 19th and the 22d, his physical and moral indisposition seemed to last; for he makes reflections in his memoranda, upon melancholy bilious people, and says that he has not even sufficient energy to go on with his tragedy of "Sardanapalus," and that he has ceased composing for the last few days. Now, it was precisely the 20th that he was more than ever annoyed by the obstinacy of the London Theatre managers, for, despite his determination and his clear right, his protestations and entreaties, they were resolved, said the newspapers that came to hand, on having "Marino Faliero" acted. He had already written to Murray:—
"I must really and seriously request that you will beg of Messrs. Harris or Elliston to let the Doge alone: it is not an acting play; it will not serve their purpose; it will destroy yours (the sale); and it will distress me. It is not courteous, it is hardly even gentlemanly, to persist in this appropriation of a man's writings to their mountebanks."
He wrote thus, on the 19th; but on the 20th his fears had increased to such a pitch that he also addressed the lord-chamberlain, requesting him to forbid this representation. Indeed, so great was his annoyance, that he wrote to Murray twice in the same day:—
"I wish you would speak to Lord Holland, and to all my friends and yours, to interest themselves in preventing this cursed attempt at representation.
"God 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 Iwasa 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 hisaspirationsafter greater things, afterideal perfections, that neither he nor any one else can arrive at here below. It was a soaring after the infinite!
The cause, noble in itself, of this sadness consisted then in a sort of nostalgia for the great, the beautiful, the good. Thesimple 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 passes 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 assassinated 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,whereandwhendid 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 circumstance, 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 constitutional; 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 Shelley 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. Theydid it in a manner so violent and unjust, bringing in likewise his publisher Murray, that Lord Byron thought it incumbent 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 Shelley, 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 fortitude belonging to his great soul—and the death of Shelley, 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 beenhot water enoughfor 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 stupidpersecution raised against him on the appearance of "Cain" took place, he wrote to Murray from Pisa, on the 8th of February:—
"All therowaboutmehas 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, andought, to endure them all."
And then he ends his letter, saying, "I write to you about all this row of bad passions and absurdities, with thesummermoon (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 analyzing 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 Shelley'sfuneral, 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 noble 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 howtristewere 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 passing way, on account of the great empire he had acquired over himself, that every one duringhis sojourn in the islands, and often even at Missolonghi, unanimously pronounced 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 analysis, 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, Molière, 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 todistract 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 wasquite 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 hisfaults, 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 noblest, from the emptiness of earthly things; then that unslakable thirst for the true, the just, the perfect; that sort of nostalgia which the noblest 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 classed among geniuses exclusively swayed by the melancholy in their nature, since almost all his sadness sprang from accident, and from a sort of fictitious temperament produced by circumstances. Thus his melancholy, being fictitious, 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 Bruyère, "in the humor, morals, and manners of most men.... The wants of this life, the situation in which we are, necessity's law, forcenature, 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 God, and which I shall callinterior, 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 fictitious character, which I will callexterior, derived fromeducation, from circumstances of family, country, and association, 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.