I have yours of the 29th of Aug. written with an improved handwriting, and the article on Lady Byron. It is according to me, unwise and unjust: unwise, because to praise Lady Byron for her life's silence and to abuse the very man about whom she has chosen to be silent, is inconsistent: unjust, because it grounds a verdict on the wrongs of one party, without taking into account those of the other. Everybody seems to forget that Lady Byron did not only leave her husband for ever, going "à la promenade," but that she did set at him before, lawyers and doctors to try if she could make him be proved mad! I wish—no, I don't—that your wife should set at you Dr E— and Mr S— for such a purpose, only to see what you would do when discovering it, and I wish I had time to write, before dying, a book on Byron and abuse all England, a few women excepted, for the way she treats one of her greatest souls and minds: I shall never write the book nor—it begins to be clear—any other.
Well, I do not go into particulars about our condition here [at Naples]. As a party we are going through that sort of method which you called one day a suicide, preparing and attempting things which are calling on us calumnies, abuse and persecution, but which are taken up by the other Party as soon as we are put out of the field. After having been baffled and most shamefully so, in an attempt against the Pope's dominions,[51] they are now, at a few days' distance, taking up our plan. We shall have to do the same, soon or late, concerning Rome, and then Venice. And we shall, if life endures. Only, I am worn out, morally and physically.
Everything is now resting on Garibaldi: will he go on, without interruption, in his invading career, or will he not? That is the question. If he does, we shall have unity within five months: Austria, spite of the boasted position, will not hold up, if the proper means—a coup de main in the Tyrol, an insurrection in the Venetian mountainous districts, an attack by land, and a landing near Trieste—are adopted. If he does not, we shall have slumber, then anarchy—then—a little later—unity. That you may consider as settled, and so far so good. The rest is all wrong. And as for myself don't talk of either prosperity or consciousness of having done, etc. All that is chaff. The only real good thing would be to have unity atchieved [sic] quickly through Garibaldi, and one year, before dying, of Walham Green or Eastbourne, long silences, a few affectionate words to smooth the ways, plenty of sea-gulls, and sad dozing.
Ah! if you had, in England, condescended to see that the glorious declaration of non-interference ought to have begun by taking away the French interference in Rome! How many troubles and sacrifices you would have saved us!—ever your truly affectionate and grateful
Joseph.
[In another letter to Mr Taylor, dated June 5, 1860, he says:]
Yes, I heard of Lady Byron's death and her last gift. I wish something came out, now that she is dead, to explain the separation mystery. I shall ever regret the burning of the memoirs, which was a crime towards Byron; and I have ever indulged in the dream that a copy should be extant in somebody's hands to come out after the disappearing of the principal actors. I saw Lady Byron twice, and she looked to me a good sharp positive somewhat dry puritanical woman, sad from the past, conscious of not having been altogether right and doing good half for good-doing's sake, half for forgetfulness' sake. But I am so thoroughly Byronian, so deeply convinced that he has been wronged by everybody, that my impression cannot be trusted.
IX
Letter to Mrs Peter Taylor [February 9, 1865]
Dear Clementia,—