"I have been thinking over our late correspondence, and wish to propose to you the following articles for our future:—
"1st. That you shall write to me of yourself, of the health, wealth, and welfare of all friends; but of me (quoad me) little or nothing.
"2dly....
"3dly....
"4thly. That you send me no periodical works whatsoever, no 'Edinburgh,' 'Quarterly,' 'Monthly,' or any review, magazine, or newspaper, English or foreign, of any description.
"5thly. That you send me no opinion whatsoever, either good, bad, or indifferent, of yourself, or your friends, or others, concerning any work of mine, past, present, or to come.
"6thly.... If any thing occurs so violently gross or personal as requires notice, Mr. Kinnaird will let me know; but of praise I desire to hear nothing.
"You will say, 'To what tends all this?' I will answer—to keep my mind free, and unbiased by all paltry and personal irritabilities of praise or censure; to let my genius take its natural direction. All these reviews, with their praise or their criticism, have bored me to death, and taken off my attention from greater objects."
Byron wished, he said, to place himself in the position of a dead man, knowing nothing and feeling nothing of what is done and said about him.[135] At the same time he gave the greatest proof of the reality of the sentiments expressed in this letter by continuing to stay at Ravenna, where people were ignorant of his language, his genius, and his reputation, and where consequently he could only be remarked and appreciated for his external gifts and his deeds of benevolence. When he went from Ravenna to Pisa, Murray, who had not been discouraged by the six conditions, and who was really attached to Lord Byron more as a friend even than as a publisher, became alarmed at the angry feeling stirred up by "Cain," the "Vision of Judgment," "Don Juan," etc., and feared seeing him lose his popularity. So he wrote begging him to compose something in his first style, which had excited such general enthusiasm. But Lord Byron answered:—
"As to 'a poem in the old way,' I shall attempt of that kind nothing further. I follow the bias of my own mind, without considering whether women or men are or are not to be pleased."