Volume Xiii Part 5 (2/2)
Yet the reader feels the naturalness of this bitter cursing of her own son by the frenzied mother. How could a great artist like Byron put sentiments into the mouth of Cain such as would be harmless in the essays of a country parson? If he painted Lucifer, he must make him speak like Lucifer, not like a theological professor. Nothing could be more ungenerous and narrow than to abuse Byron for a dramatic poem in which some of his characters were fiends rather than men. We have no more right to say that he was an infidel because Cain or Lucifer blasphemed, than to say that Goethe was an atheist because Mephistopheles denied G.o.d.
If Byron had avowed atheistical opinions in letters or conversations, that would be another thing; but there is no evidence that he did, and much to the contrary. A few months before he died he was visited by a pious crank, who out of curiosity or Christian zeal sought to know his theological views. Byron treated him with the greatest courtesy, and freely communicated his opinions on religious subjects,--from which it would appear that he differed from church people generally only on the matter of eternal punishment, which he did not believe was consistent with infinite love or infinite justice. Perhaps it would have been wiser if he had not written ”Cain” at all, considering how many readers there are without brains, and how large was the cla.s.s predisposed to judge him harshly in everything. No doubt he was irreligious and sceptical, but it does not follow from this that he was atheistical or blasphemous.
There is doubtless a misanthropic vein in all Byron's later poetry which is not wholesome for many people to read,--especially in ”Manfred,” one of the bitterest of his productions by reason of sorrows and disappointments and misrepresentations. It was Byron's misfortune to appear worse than he really was, owing to his unconcealed contempt for the opinions of mankind. Yet he could not complain that he reaped what he had not sown. Some of his biographers thought him to be at this time even morbidly desirous of a bad reputation,--going so far as to write paragraphs against himself in foreign journals, and being filled with glee at the joke, when they were republished in English newspapers. He despised and defied all conventionalities, and conventional England dropped him from her list of favorites.
The life of Byron, strange to say, was less exposed to scandal after he made the acquaintance of the countess who enslaved him, and who was also enslaved in turn. His heart now opened to many n.o.ble sentiments. He returned, in a degree, to society, and gave dinners and suppers. He a.s.sociated with many distinguished patriots and men of genius. He had a strong sympathy with the Italians in their struggle for freedom. One quarter of his income he devoted to charities. He was regular in his athletic exercises, and could swim four hours at a time; he was always proud of swimming across the h.e.l.lespont. He was devoted to his natural daughter, and educated her in a Catholic school. He studied more severely all works of art, though his admiration for art was never so great as it was for Nature. The glories and wonders of Nature inspired him with perpetual joys. There is nothing finer in all his poetry than the following stanza:--
”Ye stars! which are the poetry of Heaven, If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Of men and empires,--'t is to be forgiven That in our aspirations to be great Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, And claim a kindred with you; for ye are A beauty and a mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.”
There never was a time when Byron did not seek out beautiful retreats in Nature as the source of his highest happiness. Hence, solitude was nothing to him when he could commune with the works of G.o.d. His biographer declares that in 1821 ”he was greatly improved in every respect,--in genius, in temper, in moral views, in health and happiness.
He has had mischievous pa.s.sions, but these he seems to have subdued.” He was always temperate in his diet, living chiefly on fish and vegetables; and if he drank more wine and spirits than was good for him, it was to rally his exhausted energies. His powers of production were never greater than at this period, but his literary labors were slowly wearing him out. He could not live without work, while pleasure palled upon him.
In a letter to a stranger who sought to convert him, he showed anything but anger or contempt. ”Do me,” says he, ”the justice to suppose, that _Video meliora proboque_, however the _deteriora sequor_ may have been applied to my conduct.” Writing to Murray in 1822, he says: ”It is not impossible that I may have three or four cantos of 'Don Juan' ready by autumn, as I obtained a permission from my dictatress [the Countess Guiccioli] to continue it,--provided always it was to be more guarded and decorous in the continuation than in the commencement.” Alas, he could not undo the mischief he had done!
About this time Byron received a visit from Lord Clare, his earliest friend at Cambridge, to whom through life he was devotedly attached,--a friends.h.i.+p which afforded exceeding delight. He never forgot his few friends, although he railed at his enemies. He was ungenerously treated by Leigh Hunt, to whom he rendered every kindness. He says,--
”I have done all I could for him since he came here [Genoa], but it is all most useless. His wife is ill, his six children far from tractable, and in worldly affairs he himself is a child. The death of Sh.e.l.ley left them totally aground; and I could not see them in such a state without using the common feelings of humanity, and what means were in my power, to set them afloat again.... As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion between him and me there is little or none; but I think him a good-principled man, and must do as I would be done by.”
Toward Sh.e.l.ley, Byron entertained the greatest respect and affection for his suavity, gentleness, and good breeding; and Sh.e.l.ley's accidental death was a great shock to him. Among his other intimate acquaintances in Italy were Lord and Lady Blessington, with whom he kept up a pleasant correspondence. The most plaintive, sad, and generous of all his letters was the one he wrote to Lady Byron from Pisa, in 1821, in acknowledgment of the receipt of a tress of his daughter Ada's hair:--
”The time which has elapsed since our separation has been considerably more than the whole brief period of our union and of our prior acquaintance. We both made a bitter mistake; but now it is over, and irrecoverably so.... But this very impossibility of reunion seems to me at least a reason why on all the few points of discussion which can arise between us, we should preserve the courtesies of life, and as much of its kindness as people who are never to meet may preserve more easily than nearer connections.... I a.s.sure you I bear you now no resentment whatever. Whether the offence has been solely on my side, or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any but two things,--that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again.”
At this period, about a year before Byron's death, Moore thus writes:--
”To the world, and more especially England, he presented himself in no other aspect than that of a stern, haughty misanthrope, self-banished from the society of men, and most of all from that of Englishmen. The more beautiful and genial inspirations of his muse were looked upon but as lucid intervals between the paroxysms of an inherent malignancy of nature. But how totally all this differed from the Byron of the social hour, they who lived in familiar intercourse with him may be safely left to tell. As it was, no English gentleman ever approached him with the common forms of introduction, that did not come away at once surprised and charmed by the kind courtesy of his manners, the unpretending play of his conversation, and on nearer intercourse the frank, youthful spirits, to the flow of which he gave way with such zest as to produce the impression that gaiety was after all the true bent of his disposition.”
Scott, writing of him after his death, says,--
”In talents he was unequalled; and his faults were those rather of a bizarre temper, arising from an eager and irritable nervous habit, than any depravity of disposition. He was devoid of selfishness, which I take to be the basest ingredient in the human composition. He was generous, humane, and n.o.ble-minded, when pa.s.sion did not blind him.”
About this time, 1823, the great struggle of the Greeks to shake off the Ottoman yoke was in progress. I have already in another volume[1]
attempted to give the facts in relation to that memorable movement.
Christendom sympathized with the gallant but apparently hopeless struggle of a weak nation to secure its independence, both from a sentiment of admiration for the freedom of ancient Greece in the period of its highest glories, and from the love of liberty which animated the liberal cla.s.ses amid the political convulsions of the day. But the governments of Europe were loath to complicate the difficulties which existed between nations in that stormy period, and dared not extend any open aid to struggling Greece, beyond giving their moral aid to the Greek cause, lest it should embroil Europe in war, of which she was weary. Less than ten years had elapsed since Europe had combined to dethrone Napoleon, and some of her leading powers, like Austria and Russia, had a detestation of popular insurrections.
In this complicated state of political affairs, when any indiscretion on the part of friendly governments might kindle anew the flames of war, Lord Byron was living in Genoa, taking such an interest in the Greek struggle that he abandoned poetry for politics. He had always sympathized with enslaved nations struggling for independence, and was driven from Ravenna on account of his alliance with the revolutionary Society of the Carbonari. A new pa.s.sion now seized him. He entered heart and soul into the struggles of the Greeks. Their cause absorbed him. He would aid them to the full extent of his means, with money and arms, as a private individual. He would be a political or military hero,--a man of action, not of literary leisure.
Every lover of liberty must respect Byron's n.o.ble aspirations to a.s.sist the Greeks. It was a new field for him, but one in which he might retrieve his reputation,--for it must be borne in mind that his ruling pa.s.sion was fame, and that he had gained all he could expect by his literary productions. Whether loved or hated, admired or censured, his poetry had placed him in the front rank of literary geniuses throughout the world. As a poet his immortality was secured. In literary efforts he had also probably exhausted himself; he could write nothing more which would add to his fame, unless he took a long rest and recreation. He was wearied of making poetry; but by plunging into a sea of fresh adventures, and by giving a new direction to his powers, he might be sufficiently renovated, in the course of time, to write something grander and n.o.bler than even ”Childe Harold” or ”Cain.”
Lord Byron at this time was only thirty-five years old, a period when most men begin their best work. His const.i.tution, it is true, was impaired, but he was still full of life and enterprise. He could ride or swim as well as he ever could. The call of a gallant people summoned him to arms, and of all nations he most loved the Greeks. He was an enthusiast in their cause; he believed that the day of their deliverance was at hand. So he made up his mind to consecrate his remaining energies to effect their independence. He opened a correspondence with the Greek committee in London. He selected a party, including a physician, to sail with him from Geneva. He raised a sum of about 10,000, and on the 13th of July, 1823, embarked with his small party and eight servants, on board the ”Hercules” for Greece.
After a short delay at Leghorn the poet reached Cephalonia on the 24th of July. He was enthusiastically received by the Greeks of Argostoli, the princ.i.p.al port, but deemed it prudent to remain there until he could get further intelligence from Corfu and Missolonghi,--visiting, in the interval, some of the neighboring islands consecrated by the muse of Homer.
The dissensions among the Greek leaders greatly embarra.s.sed Byron, but did not destroy his ardor. He saw that the people were degenerate, faithless, and stained with atrocities as disgraceful as those of the Turks themselves. He dared not commit himself to any one of the struggling, envious parties which rallied round their respective chieftains. He lingered for six weeks in Cephalonia without the ordinary comforts of life, yet, against all his habits, rising at an early hour and attending to business, negotiating bills, and corresponding with the government, so far as there was a recognized central power.
At last, after the fall of Corinth, taken from the Turks, and the arrival at Missolonghi of Prince Mavrocordato, the only leader of the Greeks worthy of the name of statesman, Byron sailed for that city, then invested by a Turkish fleet, and narrowly escaped capture. Here he did all he could to produce union among the chieftains, and took into his pay five hundred Suliotes, acting as their leader. He meditated an attack on Lepanto, which commanded the navigation of the Gulf of Corinth, and received from the government a commission for that enterprise; but dissensions among his men, and intrigues between rival generals, prevented the execution of his project.
It was in Missolonghi, Jan. 22, 1824, that, with the memorandum, ”On this day I completed my thirty-sixth year,” Byron wrote his latest verses, most pathetically regretting his youth and his unfortunate life, but arousing himself to find in a n.o.ble cause a glorious death:--
”The fire that in my bosom preys Is like to some volcanic isle; No torch is kindled at its blaze,-- A funeral pile.”
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