At Cambridge afterward, despite the dissipation he shared equally with his comrades, amid games and exercises in which he greatly excelled, we still find him courting meditation under shady trees. On returning to his home, the Abbey, when surrounded with the noise and frolic of boisterous companions, we see him devote himself to study and solitary reflection; finally, during his travels, and after his return, when all England was at his feet, we behold him still and ever experiencing that imperious want of scanning himself, of descending into the depths of his own heart, interrogating his conscience, and very often of writing down in his memorandum-books the severe sentences pronounced by that inflexible judge. And, as he could not put away from sight his divine model, he came out from these examinations humbled, dissatisfied, reproaching and punishing himself for having strayed from it. For he discovered too many terrestrial elements in all human virtues. For instance, in friendships, though so generous on his side, he found the satisfaction of a personal want, consequently, an egotistical element; the same, and much more strongly, with regard to love. He found something personal in the best instincts, in the passion for glory, in patriotism, even in the sentiment of veneration, since that is an echo of our tastes and personal sympathies. That the high standard of his ideal was the first cause of injustice toward himself, a thousand proofs might be offered. I will choose some only. We read in his memoranda:—
"It has lately been in my power to make two men happy. I am delighted at it, especially as regards the last, for he is excellent. But I wish there had been a little more sacrifice on my part, and less satisfaction for my self-love in doing that, because then there would have been more merit."
Such was this great culprit. He actually felt pleasure in doing good! Another time he was asked to present a petition to Parliament. "I am not in a humor for this business," writes he in the evening journal, where he examined his conscience. He was suffering then from grief, caused by the absence of a person he loved, and he apostrophizes himself in these terms:—"Had —— been here she would have made me do it. There is a woman who, amid all her fascination, always urged a man to usefulness or glory. Had she remained, she had been my tutelar genius.
"Baldwin is very unfortunate; but, poor fellow, 'I can't get out; I can't get out,' said the starling. Ah! I am as bad as that dog Sterne, who preferred whining over a dead ass to relieving a living mother. Villain! hypocrite! slave! sycophant! But I am no better. Here I can not stimulate myself to a speech for the sake of these unfortunates, and three words and half a smile of——, had she been here to urge it (and urge it she infallibly would; at least, she always pressed me on in senatorial duties, and particularly in the cause of weakness), would have made me an advocate, if not an orator. Curse on Rochefoucault for being always right!"
Another time he also accused himself of selfishness, because he wrote only for amusement! He was then but twenty-three years of age:—
"To withdraw myself from myself (oh, that cursed selfishness!) has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all; and publishing is also the continuance of the same object, by the action it affords to the mind, which else recoils upon itself."
This hard opinion of man's virtue, formed by many moralists, and especially by those who see virtue only in pure disinterested benevolence, was an impulse with Lord Byron rather than the result of reason; and I much doubt whether this craving for equity and truth were ever practically combined and harmonized with the faculty of benevolence in any one else as it was with Lord Byron, for this combination evidently formed the most striking part of his character. Montaigne himself,—who, if he did not possess as much innate benevolence, had nevertheless the faculty, and even felt the want of entering into his conscience, and examining it, so as to draw forth general notions,—says, "When I examine myself conscientiously, I find that my best sort of goodness has a vicious tint."
And he fears that even Plato, in his brightest virtue, had he analyzed it well, would have found some human admixture. And then he sums up by saying, "Man is made up of bits and oddities."[103]
But these sincere philosophers are few in number, and their maxims can never be popular. For men in general experience rather the want of magnifying than of depreciating themselves, and, instead of taking their best models from an ideal, they choose them from reality, judge characters, compare themselves to other men, and, living like other people, see no guilt in themselves; while Lord Byron, living as they did, discovered in himself weaknesses, reasons for modesty, regret, repentance. If he could have done as they did, he would have been satisfied, and he would either have escaped or vanquished calumny. But he could not and would not, though conscious of the harm thence resulting to himself.
"You censure my life, Harness. When I compare myself with these men, my elders and my betters, I really begin to conceive myself a monument of prudence,—a walking statue, without feeling or failing; and yet the world in general has given me a proud pre-eminence over them in profligacy. Yet I like the men, and, God knows, ought not to condemn their aberrations; but I own I feel provoked when they dignify all this by the name of love. Romantic attachments for things marketable for a dollar!"