Moore had already felt some vague disquietude, and he asked why he allowed his mind to dwell on such sorrowful ideas? Lord Byron replied that he had written these verses on learning the death of a friend of his childhood, the Duke of Dorset, and, as his subsequent letters were full of jests, Moore became reassured. Lord Byron said he was happy, and so he really was; for Lady Byron, not being jealous then, continued to be gentle and amiable.
"But these indications of a contented heart soon ceased. His mention of the partner of his home became more rare and formal, and there was observable, I thought, through some of his letters, a feeling of unquiet and weariness that brought back all those gloomy anticipations which I had, from the first, felt regarding his fate."
Above all, there were expressions in his letters that seemed of sad augury. For instance, in announcing the birth of his little girl, Lord Byron said that he was absorbed in five hundred contradictory contemplations, although he had only one single object in view, which would probably come to nothing, as it mostly happens with all we desire:—
"But never mind," he said, "as somebody says, 'for the blue sky bends over all.' I only could be glad if it bent over me where it is a little bluer, like skyish top of blue Olympus."
On reading this letter, dated the 5th of January, full of aspirations after a blue sky, Moore was struck with the tone of melancholy pervading it; and, knowing that it was Lord Byron's habit when under the pressure of sorrow and uneasiness, to seek relief in expressing his yearnings after freedom and after other climes, he wrote to him in these terms:—
"Do you know, my dear Byron, there was something in your last letter—a sort of mystery, as well as a want of your usual elasticity of spirits—which has hung upon my mind unpleasantly ever since. I long to be near you, that I might know how you really look and feel, for these letters tell nothing, and one word a quattr' occhi, is worth whole reams of correspondence. But only do tell me you are happier than that letter has led me to fear, and I shall be satisfied."
"It was," says Moore, "only a few weeks after the exchange of these letters, that Lady Byron took the resolution of separating from him. She had left London at the end of January, on a visit to her parents, in Leicestershire, and Lord Byron was to come and join her there soon after. They had parted with mutual demonstrations of attachment and of good understanding. On the journey Lady Byron wrote a letter to her husband, couched in playful, affectionate language. What, then, must have been his astonishment when, directly after her arrival at Kirby Mallory, her father, Sir Ralph, wrote to tell Lord Byron that his daughter was going to remain with them, and would return to him no more."
This unexpected stroke fell heavily upon him. The pecuniary embarrassments growing up since his marriage (for he had already undergone eight or nine executions in his own house), had then reached their climax. He was then, to use his own energetic expression, alone at his hearth, his penates transfixed around; and then was he also condemned to receive the unaccountable intelligence that the wife who had just parted from him in the most affectionate manner, had abandoned him forever.
His state of mind can not be told, nor, perhaps, be imagined. Still he describes it in some passages of his letters, showing at the same time the firmness, dignity, and strength of mind that always distinguished him. For example, he wrote to Rogers, two weeks after this thunderbolt had fallen upon him:—
"I shall be very glad to see you if you like to call, though I am at present contending with the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,' some of which have struck me from a quarter whence I did not, indeed, expect them; but, no matter, there is a 'world elsewhere,' and I will cut my way through this as I can. If you write to Moore, will you tell him that I shall answer his letter the moment I can muster time and spirits. Ever yours,