CHAPTER XVIII.
LORD BYRON'S MOBILITY.
So much has been said of Lord Byron's mobility that it is necessary to analyze it well, and examine it under different aspects, so as to define and bring it within due limits. In the first place, we may ask on what grounds his biographers rested their opinion of this extraordinary mobility, which, according to them, went beyond the scope of intellectual qualities rather into the category of faults of temper? Evidently it was again through accepting a testimony the small value of which we have already shown; namely, Lord Byron's own words at twenty-three years of age—that period when passion is hardly ever a regular wind, simply swelling sails, but rather a gusty tempest, tearing them to pieces; and then again they grounded their opinion on verses in "Don Juan," where he explains the meaning of these expressions,—versatility and mobility. Moore, from motives we shall examine hereafter, found it expedient to take Lord Byron at his word, and to make a great fuss about this quality. In summing up his character, he reasons very cleverly on the unexampled extent, as he calls it, of this faculty, and the consequences to which it led in Lord Byron. Following in Moore's wake, other biographers have proclaimed Lord Byron versatile. Moore exaggerates so far as to pretend that this faculty made it almost impossible to find a dominant characteristic in Lord Byron. As if mobility were not, in reality, a universal quality or defect,—as if men could so govern themselves throughout life as to resemble the hero of a drama, where the action is confined within classical rules.
"A man possessing the highest order of mind is, nevertheless, unequal," says La Bruyère. "He suffers from increase and diminution; he gets into a good train of thought, and falls out of it likewise.
"It is different with an automaton. Such a man is like a machine,—a spring. Weight carries him away, making him move and turn forever in the same direction, and with equal motion. He is uniform, and never changes. Once seen, he appears the same at all times and periods of life. At best, he is but the ox lowing, or the blackbird whistling; he is fixed and stamped by nature, and I may say by species. What shows least in him is his soul; that never acts,—is never brought into play,—perpetually reposes. Such a man will be a gainer by death."
La Bruyère also says, "There is a certain mediocrity that helps to make a man appear wise."
And what says Montaigne, that great connoisseur of the human heart?—
"Our usual custom is to go right or left, over mountains or valleys, just as we are drifted by the wind of opportunity. We change like that animal which assumes the color of the spots where it is placed. All is vacillation and inconstancy. We do not walk of ourselves; we are carried away like unto things that float now gently and now impetuously, according to the uncertain mood of the waters. Every day some new fancy arises, and our tempers vary with the weather. This fluctuation and contradiction ever succeeding in us, has caused it to be imagined by some that we possess two souls; by others, that two faculties are perpetually at work within us, one inclining us toward good, and the other toward evil."
Montaigne also says:—"I give my soul sometimes one appearance, and sometimes another, according to the side on which I look at it; if I speak variously of myself, it is because I look at myself variously: all contrarieties, in one degree or other, are found in me, according to the number of turns given. Thus I am shamefaced, insolent, chaste, sensual, talkative, taciturn, laborious, delicate, ingenious, stupid, sad, good-natured, deceitful, true, learned, ignorant, liberal, avaricious, and prodigal, just according to the way in which I look at myself; and whoever studies himself attentively, will find this variety and discordancy even in his judgment.