(Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron - Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6)
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(Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron >> Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6)
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"My original motives I already explained (in the letter which you
thought proper to show): they are the _true_ ones, and I abide by
them, as I tell you, and I told Leigh Hunt when he questioned me on
the subject of that letter. He was violently hurt, and never will
forgive me at bottom; but I can't help that. I never meant to make
a parade of it; but if he chose to question me, I could only answer
the plain truth: and I confess I did not see any thing in the
letter to hurt him, unless I said he was 'a bore,' which I don't
remember. Had their Journal gone on well, and I could have aided to
make it better for them, I should then have left them, after my
safe pilotage off a lee shore, to make a prosperous voyage by
themselves. As it is, I can't, and would not, if I could, leave
them among the breakers.
"As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion, between
Leigh Hunt and me, there is little or none. We meet rarely, hardly
ever; but I think him a good-principled and able man, and must do
as I would be done by. I do not know what world he has lived in,
but I have lived in three or four; but none of them like his Keats
and kangaroo terra incognita. Alas! poor Shelley! how we would have
laughed had he lived, and how we used to laugh now and then, at
various things which are grave in the suburbs!
"You are all mistaken about Shelley. You do not know how mild, how
tolerant, how good he was in society; and as perfect a gentleman as
ever crossed a drawing-room, when he liked, and where liked.
"I have some thoughts of taking a run down to Naples (_solus_, or,
at most, _cum sola_) this spring, and writing, when I have studied
the country, a Fifth and Sixth Canto of Childe Harold: but this is
merely an idea for the present, and I have other excursions and
voyages in my mind. The busts[92] are finished: are you worthy of
them?
"Yours, &c. N.B.
"P.S. Mrs. Shelley is residing with the Hunts at some distance from
me. I see them very seldom, and generally on account of their
business. Mrs. Shelley, I believe, will go to England in the
spring.
"Count Gamba's family, the father and mother and daughter, are
residing with me by Mr. Hill (the minister's) recommendation, as a
safer asylum from the political persecutions than they could have
in another residence; but they occupy one part of a large house,
and I the other, and our establishments are quite separate.
"Since I have read the Quarterly, I shall erase two or three
passages in the latter six or seven cantos, in which I had lightly
stroked over two or three of your authors; but I will not return
evil for good. I liked what I read of the article much.
"Mr. J. Hunt is most likely the publisher of the new Cantos; with
what prospects of success I know not, nor does it very much matter,
as far as I am concerned; but I hope that it may be of use to him;
he is a stiff, sturdy, conscientious man, and I like him; he is
such a one as Prynne or Pym might be. I bear you no ill-will for
declining the Don Juans.
"Have you aided Madame de Yossy, as I requested? I sent her three
hundred francs. Recommend her, will you, to the Literary Fund, or
to some benevolence within your circles."
[Footnote 92: Of the bust of himself by Bartollini he says, in one of
the omitted letters to Mr. Murray:--"The bust does not turn out a good
one,--though it may be like for aught I know, as it exactly resembles a
superannuated Jesuit." Again: "I assure you Bartollini's is dreadful,
though my mind misgives me that it is hideously like. If it is, I cannot
be long for this world, for it overlooks seventy."]
* * * * *
LETTER 507. TO LADY ----.
"Albaro, November 10. 1822.
"The Chevalier persisted in declaring himself an ill-used
gentleman, and describing you as a kind of cold Calypso, who lead
astray people of an amatory disposition without giving them any
sort of compensation, contenting yourself, it seems, with only
making _one_ fool instead of two, which is the more approved method
of proceeding on such occasions. For my part, I think you are quite
right; and be assured from me that a woman (as society is
constituted in England) who gives any advantage to a man may expect
a lover, but will sooner or later find a tyrant; and this is not
the man's fault either, perhaps, but is the necessary and natural
result of the circumstances of society, which, in fact, tyrannise
over the man equally with the woman; that is to say, if either of
them have any feeling or honour.
"You can write to me at your leisure and inclination. I have always
laid it down as a maxim, and found it justified by experience, that
a man and a woman make far better friendships than can exist
between two of the same sex; but _these_ with this condition, that
they never have made, or are to make, love with each other. Lovers
may, and, indeed, generally _are_ enemies, but they never can be
friends; because there must always be a spice of jealousy and a
something of self in all their speculations.
"Indeed, I rather look upon love altogether as a sort of hostile
transaction, very necessary to make or to break matches, and keep
the world going, but by no means a sinecure to the parties
concerned.
"Now, as my love perils are, I believe, pretty well over, and
yours, by all accounts, are never to begin, we shall be the best
friends imaginable, as far as both are concerned, and with this
advantage, that we may both fall to loving right and left through
all our acquaintance, without either sullenness or sorrow from that
amiable passion which are its inseparable attendants.
"Believe me," &c.
END OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.
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