My Recollections of Lord Byron. contessa di Teresa Guiccioli
of the people, their climate, their frequent craving for food, their way of cooking the food they eat, their drinks, and all the consequences of these necessities visible in the absence of all sense of delicacy, of all appreciation of the fine arts, and the comprehension of philosophy—he must evidently intend to depreciate them.
But as regards Lord Byron in particular, it is equally certain that he has no intention of depreciating him. For him alone he finds expressions of great admiration and real sympathy. He allows him to represent the whole nation, and to be the incarnation of the English character; but on one condition—that of ruling it as its sovereign. Thanks to this supremacy, the poet escapes more or less the exigencies of M. Taine's theories.
M. Taine, however, is not subject to the weakness of enthusiasm. Judging, as he does, in the light of a lover of nature, both of the merits of virtue and of the demerits of vice, which to him are but fatal results of the constitution, the climate, and the soil—"in a like manner will sugar and vitriol"—why care about Lord Byron doing this or the other rightly or wrongly rather than any one else? Nature follows its necessary track, seeks its equilibrium, and ends by finding it.
What pleases him in Lord Byron, is the facility which is offered to him of proving the truth of this fatalist philosophy which appears at every page of his book.
No one more than Byron could serve the purpose of M. Taine, and become, as it were, the basis of his philosophical operations.
His powerful genius, his short but eventful existence, which did not give time for the cooling down of the ardor of youth, to harmonize it with the tempered dictates of mature age—the universality of his mind, which can furnish arguments to every species of critics—all contributed wonderfully to the realization of M. Taine's object.
Thus, thanks to the deceptive but generally received portrait which is said to be that of Lord Byron, and to his identification with the heroes of his poems, and in particular with "Manfred" and "Childe Harold," aided by the impossibility which the human mind finds in estimating moral subjects as it would a proposition of "Euclid," M. Taine has been able to make use of a great name, and to make a fine demonstration of his system, to call Byron the interpreter of the British genius, and his poetry the expression of the man himself.
In many respects, however, he has not been able to act in this way without violating historical facts. This is what I hope to point out in these pages, the object of which is to describe Byron as he was, and to substitute, without any derogation to his sublimity of character, the reality for the fiction created by M. Taine. To refute so brilliant and so powerful a writer, my only means is to proceed in this work with the help of positive proofs of the statements which I make, and by invoking unimpeachable testimonies. These alone constitute weighty arguments, since they all contribute to produce the same impression. In order that truth may be restored to history, I shall adopt a system diametrically opposed to that of M. Taine, or rather I shall abstain from all systems, and from all pretensions to literary merit, and confine myself entirely to facts and to reason.
The reader will judge whether I shall be able to accomplish this object; he will see how really unimportant are the causes which cast a shade upon the memory of Byron, and how careful one should be not to give credit too implicitly to the sincerity of that hypocritical praise which several of his biographers have bestowed upon him. They have, as it were, generally, taken a kind of pleasure in dwelling upon his age, his rank, and other extenuating circumstances, as a cover to their censure, just as if Byron ever required their forgiveness. In thus searching into the secrets of his heart, and analyzing his life, the reader will soon be obliged to admit, that if Byron, in common with others, had a few of the faults of youth, he in return had a host of virtues which belonged only to him. In short, if Byron is received in the light in which he was esteemed by those who knew him personally, he will still constitute one of the finest, most amiable, and grandest characters of his century. As for ourselves, in summing up the merits of this very humble, but very conscientious work, we can only repeat with delight the beautiful words in which Moore sums up his own estimate of Lord Byron's worth: "Should the effect of my humble labors be to clear away some of those mists that hung round my friend, and show him, in most respects, as worthy of love as he was, in all, of admiration, then will the chief and sole aim of this work have been accomplished."[16]
FOOTNOTES:
[10] When political events obliged Count Gamba to quit Romagna, he thought at first of going with his family to take up his abode at Geneva.
Lord Byron, on learning this, through a letter from the Countess Guiccioli, who had rejoined her family at Florence, disapproved of their design, and begged Shelley—then on a visit to him at Ravenna—to express for him his disapprobation, and state the reasons of it. Shelley addressed the following letter in Italian to the countess, and the project was abandoned:—
"Madam—At the request of my friend, Lord Byron, I consider it my duty to offer you some considerations relative to the proposed journey to Geneva, so as to give you an idea of the undesirable results likely to follow. I flatter myself that you will accept this request of his, together with the motives leading me to acquiesce, as an excuse for the liberty taken by a total stranger. In acting thus, the sole object I have in view is my friend's peace of mind, and that of those in whom he is so deeply interested. I have no other motive, nor can entertain any other; and let it suffice, in proof of my perfect sincerity, to assure you that I also have suffered from an intolerant clergy at home, and from tyranny, and that I like your family, have met with persecution and calumny as my sole reward for love of country.
"Allow me, madam, to state the reasons for which it seems to me that Geneva would not be an appropriate residence for your family. Your circumstances offer some analogy with those existing between my family and Lord Byron in the summer of 1816. Our dwellings were close together; our mode of life was quiet and retired; it would be impossible to imagine an existence simpler than ours, less calculated to draw down the aspersions cast upon us.
"These calumnies were of the most unheard-of nature—really too infamous to permit us to treat them with disdain. Both Genevans and English established at Geneva affirmed that we were leading a life of the most unblushing profligacy. They said that we had made a compact together for outraging all held most sacred in human society. Pardon me, madam, if I spare you the details. I will only say that incest, atheism, and many other things equally ridiculous or horrible, were imputed to us. The English newspapers were not slow in propagating the scandal, and the nation lent entire faith.
"Hardly any mode of annoying us was neglected. Persons living on the borders of the lake opposite Lord Byron's house made use of telescopes to spy out all his movements. An English lady fainted, or pretended to faint, with horror on seeing him enter a saloon. The most outrageous caricatures of him and his friends were circulated; and all this took place in the short period of three months.
"The effect of this, on Lord Byron's mind, was most unhappy. His natural gayety abandoned him almost entirely. A man must be more or less than a stoic to bear such injuries with patience.
"Do not flatter yourself, madam, with the idea, that because Englishmen acknowledge Lord Byron as the greatest poet of the day, they would therefore abstain from annoying him, and, as far as it depended on them, from persecuting him. Their admiration for his works is unwillingly extorted, and the pleasure they experience in reading them does not allay prejudice nor stop calumny.
"As to the Genevans, they would not disturb him, if there were not a colony of English established in the town—persons who have carried with them a host of mean prejudices and hatred against all those who excel or avoid them; and as these causes would continue to exist, the same effects would doubtless follow.
"The English are about as numerous at Geneva as the natives, and their riches cause them to be sought after; for the Genevans,