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, the Glacier, 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. I am past reproaches; and there is a time for all things. I am past the wish of vengeance, and I know of none like for what I have suffered; but the hour will come, when what I feel must be felt, and the-but enough.

To you, dearest Augusta, I send, and for you I have kept this record of what I have seen and felt. Love me, as you are beloved by me.

(1816, September 29. "A Journal," kept for his Sister, Vol. III., p. 364.)

you

Your letter of the 1st is arrived, and have "a hope" for me, it seems: what "hope," child? my dearest Sis. I remember a Methodist preacher who, on perceiving a profane grin on the faces of part of his congregation, exclaimed "no hopes for them as laughs.' And thus it is with us: we laugh too much for hopes, and so even let them go. I am sick of sorrow, and must even content myself as well as I can so here goes-I won't be woeful again if I can help it.

My letter to my moral Clytemnestra [i.e. to Lady Byron] required no answer, and I would rather have none. I was wretched enough when I wrote it, and had been so for many a long day and month: at

NOT A MISANTHROPICAL GENTLEMAN

57

present I am less so, for reasons explained in my late letter (a few days ago); and as I never pretend to be what I am not, you may tell her if you please that I am recovering, and the reason also if you like it. [The "reason" was Marianna Segati, wife of a Venetian draper, and Byron's mistress at this time.]

(1816, December 19. Letter 619, to the

Hon. Augusta Leigh, Vol. IV., p. 23.)

I wish you would also add, what you know, that I was not, and, indeed, am not even now, the misanthropical and gloomy gentleman he [Jeffrey] takes me for, but a facetious companion, well to do with those with whom I am intimate, and as loquacious and laughing as if I were a much cleverer fellow.

*

I suppose now I shall never be able to shake off my sables in public imagination, more particularly since my moral ** [Clytemnestra?] clove down my fame. However, nor that, nor more than that, has yet extinguished my spirit, which always rises with the rebound.

(1817, March 10. Letter 635, to Thomas Moore, Vol. IV., p. 72.)

I wish that I had been in better spirits, but I am out of sorts, out of nerves; and now and then (I begin to fear) out of my senses. All this Italy has done for me, and not England: I defy all of you, and your climate to boot, to make me mad. But if ever I do really become a Bedlamite, and wear a strait waistcoat, let me be brought back among you; your people will then be proper company.

I assure you what I here say and feel has nothing to do with England, either in a literary or personal point of view. All my present pleasures or plagues are as Italian as the Opera. And after all, they are but trifles, for all this arises from my dama's [i.e. the Countess Guiccioli's] being in the country for three days (at Capofuime); but as I could never live for but one human being at a time, (and, I assure you, that one has never been myself, as you may know by the consequences, for the Selfish are successful in life,) I feel alone and unhappy.

(1819, August 24. Letter 748, to John Murray, Vol. IV., p. 348.)

These

Perhaps I may take a journey to you in the Spring; but I have been ill, and am indolent and indecisive, because few things interest me. fellows first abused me for being gloomy, and now they are wroth that I am, or attempted to be, facetious [in Don Juan]. I have got such a cold and headache that I can hardly see what I scrawl: the winters here are as sharp as needles.

(1819, December 10. Letter 765, to John Murray, Vol. IV., p. 386.)

You inquire after my health and SPIRITS in large letters: As to Spirits, they are un

equal, now high, now low, like other people's I suppose, and depending upon circumstances.

(1820, March 1. Letter 778, to John Murray, Vol. IV., p. 415.)

BYRON'S FAVOURITE STIMULANT

59

What is the reason that I have been, all my lifetime, more or less ennuyé? and that, if any thing, I am rather less so now than I was at twenty, as far as my recollection serves? I do not know how to answer this, but presume that it is constitutional,as well as the waking in low spirits, which I have invariably done for many years. Temperance and exercise, which I have practised at times, and for a long time together vigorously and violently, make little or no difference. Violent passions did;-when under their immediate influence-it is odd, but-I was in agitated, but not in depressed, spirits.

A dose of salts has the effect of a temporary inebriation, like light champagne, upon me. But wine and spirits make me sullen and savage to ferocity — silent, however, and retiring, and not quarrelsome, if not spoken to. Swimming also raises my spirits, but in general they are low, and get daily lower. That is hopeless; for I do not think I am so much ennuyé as I was at nineteen. The proof is, that then I must game, or drink, or be in motion of some kind, or I was miserable. At present, I can mope in quietness; and like being alone better than any company-except the lady's whom I serve. I feel a something, which makes me think that, if I ever reach near to old age, like Swift, "I shall die at top "first. Only I do not dread idiotism or madness so much as he did. On the contrary, I think some quieter stages of both must be preferable to much of what men think the possession of their senses.

But

(1821, January 6. "Extracts from a Diary," Vol. V., p. 155.)

Read Diodorus Siculus-turned over Seneca, and some other books. Wrote some more of the tragedy [of Sardanapalus]. Took a glass of grog. After having ridden hard in rainy weather, and scribbled, and scribbled again, the spirits (at least mine) need a little exhilaration, and I don't like laudanum now as I used to do. So I have mixed a glass of strong waters and single waters, which I shall now proceed to empty. Therefore and thereunto I conclude this day's diary.

The effect of all wines and spirits upon me is, however, strange. It settles, but it makes me gloomy -gloomy at the very moment of their effect, and not gay hardly ever. But it composes for a time, though sullenly.

(1821, January 14. "Extracts from a Diary," Vol. V., p. 173.)

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 overnight. In about an hour or two, this goes off, and I compose either to sleep again, or, at least, to quiet. In England, five years ago, I had the same kind of hypochondria, but accompanied with so violent a thirst that I have drank as many as fifteen bottles of soda-water in one night, after going to bed, and been still thirsty-calculating, however, some lost from the bursting out and effervescence and overflowing of the soda-water, in drawing the corks, or striking off the necks of the bottles from mere thirsty impatience. At present, I have not