My Recollections of Lord Byron Part 50

Lord Byron returned from his travels, and by degrees, as he rose in the admiration of England, the melancholy observable in Mrs. Musters deepened.

One day she felt such a longing to see again the companion of her childhood, that she asked for an interview. Could he not desire the meeting? But ought he to grant it? He had had the courage to meet her again when he thought her happy, when sorrow for the past belonged to him alone, when she appeared neither to understand nor to share it. But would his heart be equally strong--would it not yield on seeing her unhappy?[92] And yet, what could he then do for her happiness? With the same generosity that induced him always to sacrifice his pleasure to the happiness of others, he listened to his reason, his heart, and the prudent counsels of his sister; he refrained from an interview which could only augment the troubles of that devastated soul, soon to become the "_queen of a fantastic kingdom_" in reason's night. But he ever preserved a tender remembrance of Miss Chaworth, only forgetting the wrong she had done him.[93]

Lord Byron's conduct had been no less generous toward Mr. Musters, his triumphant rival in the affections of Miss Chaworth. Mr. Musters, though several years older than Lord Byron, was, nevertheless, among his early companions. The parents of this young man resided at their country-seat, called Colwich, a few miles distant from Newstead, and Lord Byron often accepted their hospitality. One day the two youths were bathing in the Trent (a river which runs through the grounds of Colwich), when Mr.

Musters perceived a ring among Lord Byron's clothes, left on the bank.

To see and take possession of it was the affair of a moment. He had recognized it as having belonged to Miss Chaworth. Lord Byron claimed it, but Musters would not restore the ring. High words were exchanged.

On returning to the house, Musters jumped on a horse and galloped off to ask an explanation from Miss Chaworth, who, being forced to confess that Lord Byron wore the ring with her consent, felt obliged to make amends to Musters by promising to declare immediately her engagement with him. Proud of his success, he returned home and acquainted Lord Byron with Miss Chaworth's determination. Dinner was announced. The family sat down, and soon perceived there was something amiss between the two friends, whose gloomy silence spoke more eloquently than words.

Before the end of dinner Lord Byron left the table, unable to endure the provocations of his rival.

The parents of Musters, though completely ignorant of what had caused the quarrel, were uneasy for the consequences. After dinner bitter words were again exchanged between the two young men, and Musters used such coa.r.s.e, insolent language that Lord Byron could ill restrain his indignation. Anger flas.h.i.+ng from his eyes expressed itself as warmly in words. In this frame of mind he retired to his room, and remained long shut up there, while Musters believed he was preparing to leave Colwich that very night. But the magnanimous youth, on reflection, understood that at fifteen he ought not to pretend to carry off the fair prize of seventeen from a man nine years his senior; and that it was not generous to grieve his hosts and hurt the reputation of the lady he loved.

Accordingly, he suppressed his sorrow, his pride, his anger. Instead of returning to Newstead, he made his appearance as usual in the drawing-room, and to the astonishment of his rival, excused himself for having shown anger, and thus failed in politeness to his hosts.

Candidly, and with regret, he acknowledged that the excess of his feelings had caused the outburst. From that day forth he gave up all pretensions to Miss Chaworth's love, and, forgiving them both with equal magnanimity, he even continued inviting his rival to Newstead. "But,"

said he, "now my heart would hate him if he loved her not."

On declaring to Moore, in a letter written from Pisa, that he would still forgive fresh wrongs, Lord Byron made this avowal:--"The truth is, I can not keep up resentment, however violent may be its explosion."

At all periods of his life, he remained the young man of 1814, saying that he could not go to rest with anger at his heart. In Greece, a few weeks before his glorious death, he gave another proof of it by his conduct toward Colonel Stanhope (afterward Lord Harrington). They had persuaded Lord Byron that the colonel was very jealous of his influence, and of the enthusiasm manifested for him. True or not, Lord Byron could not but believe it. The colonel arrived in Greece (sent by the London committee), for the purpose, it was said, of uniting with Lord Byron, and acting jointly in favor of Greek independence; but in reality, it would have seemed as if he came only to counteract what Byron wished.

Their ideas on matters of administration and on political economy, their principles with regard to inst.i.tutions and means of government, were totally opposed. Bentham was the colonel's idol and model, while Lord Byron particularly disliked the moral and social consequences flowing from Bentham's doctrines. Ever straightforward and practical, Lord Byron thought the Greeks ought to begin by gaining their independence, _and that they had better be taught to read before they were made to buy books, and the liberty of the press were given them_. Good and honorable, but fond of systems, the colonel always wished to begin by the end. Thence resulted long discussions between them, which produced hours of ennui for Lord Byron, and many annoyances, most prejudicial to his health, which was then very delicate. One evening, among others, the colonel grew so excited, that he told him he believed him to be a friend of the Turks. Lord Byron only answered: "Judge me by my actions." Both appeared angry; the colonel got up to leave. Lord Byron, who was the offended party, instead of bearing rancor, rose also, and, going straight to the colonel, said: "Give me your honest hand, and good-night." The night would not have pa.s.sed tranquilly for Lord Byron without this reconciliation.

Among numerous proofs of this generous spirit of forgiveness,--so numerous that choice is difficult--we shall select his behavior toward a certain Mr. Scott, who, at the time of his separation, had attacked him in a savage, cruel manner,--not only unjustly, but even without any provocation.

"I beg to call particular attention," says Moore, "to the extract about to follow.

"Those who at all remember the peculiar bitterness and violence, with which Mr. Scott had a.s.sailed Lord Byron, at a crisis when both his heart and fame were most vulnerable, will, if I am not mistaken, feel a thrill of pleasurable admiration, in reading these sentences, such as they were penned by Lord Byron, for his own expressions can alone convey any adequate notion of the proud, generous pleasure that must have been felt in writing them:--

"'Poor Scott is no more! In the exercise of his vocation, he contrived, at last, to make himself the subject of a coroner's inquest. But he died like a brave man, and he lived an able one. I knew him personally, though slightly; although several years my senior, we had been school-fellows together, at the grammar-school of Aberdeen. He did not behave to me quite handsomely, in his capacity of editor, a few years ago, but he was under no obligation to behave otherwise. _The moment was too tempting for many friends, and for all enemies._ At a time when all my relations (save one) fell from me, like leaves from the tree in autumn winds, and my few friends became still fewer,--when the whole periodical press (I mean the daily and weekly, not the _literary_, press) was let loose against me, in every shape of reproach, with the two strange exceptions (from their usual opposition) of, "The Courier"

and "The Examiner,"--the paper of which Scott had the direction was neither the last nor the least vituperative. Two years ago, I met him at Venice, when he was bowed in grief, by the loss of his son, and had known, by experience, the bitterness of domestic privation. He was then earnest with me to return to England, and on my telling him, with a smile, that he was once of a different opinion, he replied to me, "_that he, and others, had been greatly misled; and that some pains, and rather extraordinary means, had been taken to excite them_." Scott is no more, but there are more than one living who were present at this dialogue. He was a man of very considerable talents and of great acquirements. He had made his way, as a literary character, with high success, and in a few years. Poor fellow! I recollect his joy, at some appointment, which he had obtained, or was to obtain, through Sir James Mackintosh, and which prevented the further extension (unless by a rapid run to Rome) of his travels in Italy. I little thought to what it would conduct him. _Peace be with him! and may all such other faults as are inevitable to humanity be as readily forgiven him as the little injury which he had done to one who respected his talents and regrets his loss._

BYRON.'"

Nor did his magnanimity stop here. After Scott's death, a subscription for his widow was got up, and Lord Byron was requested to contribute ten pounds.

"You may make my subscription for Mr. Scott's widow thirty pounds, instead of the proposed ten," answered he; "but do not put down _my name_. As I mentioned him in the pamphlet, it would look indelicate."

But this refined generosity was only one of the forms which Lord Byron's kindliness took. To act thus, was a necessity for this privileged nature, that could not endure to hate, and loved to pardon. Still, his generosity had not yet entered on the road of great sacrifices. It had not yet reached the highest degree of power over self. It did attain to that, when it led him to comprise in one general pardon the so-called friends who had abandoned him in his hour of sacrifice, and those bitter enemies who knew no reconciliation, _when he forgave Lady Byron_. Then his generosity merited the name of virtue.

Pusillanimity, which binds with an invisible chain the hearts and tongues of vulgar souls, in unreal exacting society, had carried away some; jealousy of his superiority had rendered others ferocious; and an absolute moral monstrosity--an anomaly in the history of types of female hideousness--had succeeded in showing itself in the light of magnanimity. But false as was this high quality in Lady Byron, so did it s.h.i.+ne out in him true and admirable. The position in which Lady Byron had placed him, and where she continued to keep him by her harshness, silence, and strange refusals, was one of those which cause such suffering, that the highest degree of self-control seldom suffices to quiet the promptings of human weakness, and to cause persons of even slight sensibility to preserve moderation. Yet, with his sensibility and the knowledge of his worth, how did he act?--what did he say? I will not speak of his "Farewell," of the care he took to s.h.i.+eld her from blame by throwing it on others, by taking much too large a share to himself, when in reality his sole fault lay in having married her; because it might be objected that, when he acted thus, he had _not given up the wish of reunion_.

But at Venice, and more especially at Ravenna and Pisa, this project certainly had ceased to exist; the measure of insult was filled up to overflowing. And yet, in one of those days of exasperation which letters from London never failed to produce, and precisely when he was writing pages on Lady Byron that could scarcely be complimentary, he learned that she had been taken ill. His anger and his pen both fell simultaneously, and he hastened to throw into the fire what he had written. Another time he was told that Lady Byron lived in constant dread of having Ada forcibly taken from her.

"Yes," he replied, "I might claim her in Chancery, without having recourse to any other means; but I would rather be unhappy myself than make Lady Byron so."

And he said this, well knowing how his name was kept from his daughter, like a forbidden thing; and that his picture was hidden from her sight by a curtain.

One day at Rome, while he was walking amid the ruins of the Forum, treading upon those mighty relics that, to him, breathed language and well-nigh sentiments, that seemed like some magic temple of the past, Lord Byron traced back, in thought, his own career. The meannesses of which he had been, and still was, the victim rose up to view. He allowed his thoughts to wander amid the saddest memories. All the wounds of his still bleeding heart opened afresh. The serenity of the starry sky, the silence of that solemn hour, the ideas of order, peace, and justice, which such a scene ever awakens, contrasted strangely with the material devastation around worked by time. The natural effect of a grand spectacle like this, is to render sadder still those moral ruins acc.u.mulated within by the wickedness of man.

Then did his past, so recent still, rise up before him in all its bitterness. And, taking earth and heaven to witness, he exclaimed:--

"Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?

Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?

Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, Life's life lied away?

And only not to desperation driven, Because not altogether of such clay As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.

"From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy, Have I not seen what human things could do?

From the loud roar of foaming calumny To the small whisper of the as paltry few, And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Ja.n.u.s glance of whose significant eye, _Learning to lie with silence, would_ SEEM _true, And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy_."

His spirit stirred with excitement, he invoked the aid of the divinity whose shrine these Roman remains appeared to be:--

"O Time! the beautifier of the dead, Adorner of the ruin, comforter And only healer when the heart hath bled; Time! the corrector where our judgments err, The test of truth, love--sole philosopher, For all beside are sophists--from thy thrift, Which never loses though it doth defer-- Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift."

And what was this gift? Was it vengeance? No! It was the _repentance_ of those who had done and were still doing him wrong; that was the prayer he sent up to heaven, so as not to have worn in vain this iron in his soul, and so that, when his earthly life should cease, his spirit,--

"_Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move, In hearts all rocky now, the late remorse of love._"[94]

Arrived before the temple of Nemesis,--that dread divinity who has never left unpunished human injustice,--Lord Byron evokes her thus:--

"Dost thou not hear my heart?--Awake! thou shalt, and must."

He feels that the guilty will not escape the vengeance of the G.o.ddess, since it is _inevitable_; but, as to him, he will not wreak it. Nemesis shall watch; he will sleep. _He reserves to himself, however, one revenge. Which? Ever the same:--Forgiveness!_

"That curse shall be forgiveness."[95]

Now, we have seen that his generosity did not recoil from any sacrifice of fortune, repose, affection; we have seen it strong against all privations, all instincts, all interests; in short, we have looked at it under all the aspects that const.i.tute great beauty of soul. There remains only one degree more for him to attain--heroism. But the constant exercise of generosity of soul, in inferior degrees, will give him power to reach that sublime height, and, summing up all in one, arrive at _the crowning sacrifice of his life_.

Already more than once, in Italy, and especially in Romagna, when that peninsula was preparing a grand struggle for independence, Lord Byron had shown himself ready to make any sacrifice, to aid in throwing off Austrian chains. But, owing to subsequent events, his extreme devotedness could not then go beyond the offer made. Two years later it was accepted; an enslaved nation, eager for redemption, asked Lord Byron's a.s.sistance toward regaining its liberty. In this sacrifice on his part, no single feature of greatness is wanting. Lord Byron would have been great, had he sacrificed himself for his country; but how much greater was he in sacrificing himself for a foreign nation, for the general cause of humanity? He would still have remained great, had he been led into this n.o.ble sacrifice by his own enthusiasm, by his illusions, by personal hopes. But no illusion, no enthusiasm, impelled him toward Greece; naught save the satisfaction caused in a n.o.ble mind by the performance of a great action. He did not even hope to escape ingrat.i.tude or to silence calumny; for, although so young, he had already acquired the experience of mature years. He knew Greece, and was well aware what he should find there, in exchange for his repose and for all dear to him in this world. We know what sadness overwhelmed his soul during the last period of his sojourn at Genoa. The struggles he had with his own heart may be imagined, when we reflect, that despite his self-control, he was more than once surprised with tears in his eyes.

When hardly out of port from Genoa, a tempest cast him back. He landed, and resolved on visiting the abode he had left with such anguish the day before. While climbing the hill of Albano, the darkest presentiments took possession of his soul. "Where shall we be this day next year?"

said he to Count Gamba, who was walking by his side. Alas! we know that precisely that day next year, his mortal remains were carried through the streets of London, on their way to repose with his ancestors, near Newstead. His sorrow only increased on arriving at the palace. His friends were gone; all within that dwelling was silent, deserted, solitary. He asked to be left alone; and then shut himself up in his apartments, remaining there for several hours. What was his occupation?

What were his thoughts? Through what strange agony did he pa.s.s? Who shall tell us (since he concealed it), of that last struggle between the Man and the Hero?

The sadnesses of great souls are _unspeakable_, almost _superhuman_.

They are beyond the scales where we would weigh them. But we know that he understood and tasted the bitterness of this chalice,[96] without drawing back, without failing to drain it to the last.

Night came, and behold him once more on board the vessel. The tempest roared again, then ceased; but the storm within his soul did not cease.

Only when a tear sometimes threatened betrayal, did he hasten to the privacy of his cabin.

We will not give here the narrative of this voyage. These pages, we again repeat, are not a biography, but the picture of a soul.

On arriving at the Ionian Islands, he soon understood that his sacrifice, though not beyond what circ.u.mstances demanded, certainly far transcended any hope that could exist of regenerating this fallen race, and const.i.tuting a nation worthy to bear the glorious name of Greece.

But it mattered not: he had given his word, and he was resolved to remain in the country. He even quitted the asylum afforded by the Ionian Islands, and determined to encounter all dangers, the better to accomplish his mission.

Then he went to Missolonghi. The privations he underwent there, the moral and physical fatigue, the effluvia from the adjoining marshes, and the mode of life he was forced to lead, all combined to affect his naturally good health. He was entreated to leave this unhealthy place, and told that his life depended on it. He felt it and knew it. Already he perceived the spectre of the future, and, at the same time, the image of his beloved Italy floated before his eyes,--all that he had left, and would still find there; he represented to himself the existence he might lead there, quiet and happy, surrounded with love and respect. Still so young, handsome, rich, and almost adored, for whom could life have more value? But, if he left, what would become of Greece? His presence was worth an army to that unhappy country. So, then, he would not desert his post; _he resolved to remain, come what might_. "_No, t.i.ta; no, we will not return to Italy_," said he sadly to his faithful Venetian follower a few days before he fell ill. _He did remain, and he died._

By this action, in which he overcame himself, Lord Byron gave one of those rare examples of self-immolation, of virtue, and heroism, which, says a n.o.ble mind of our day,[97] "afford real consolation to the soul, and reflect the greatest honor on the human race."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 89: