"Whether the offense has been solely on my side or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any but two things, viz., that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again. I think if you also consider the two corresponding points with reference to myself, it will be better for all three. Yours ever,
"Noel Byron."
This letter, though never sent, requires no further proofs. It can now be understood, although the contrary has been said, that Lord Byron's resolution never again to unite with Lady Byron was irrevocable; but that, however, a reconciliation would have pleased him, on account of his daughter, and because no feeling of hatred could find room in his great soul.
FOOTNOTES:
[138] "In none of the persons he admired," says Moore, "did I meet with a union of qualities so well fitted to succeed in the difficult task of winning him into fidelity and happiness as in the lady in question. Combining beauty of the highest order with a mind intelligent and ingenuous, having just learning enough to give refinement to her taste, and far too much taste to make pretensions to learning; with a patrician spirit proud as Lord Byron's, but showing it only in a delicate generosity of spirit, a feminine high-mindedness, which would have led her to tolerate the defects of her husband in consideration of his noble qualities and his glory, and even to sacrifice silently her own happiness rather than violate the responsibility in which she stood pledged to the world for his."
[139] This circumstance was his proposal for Miss Milbank; we shall see presently how it had taken place.
[140] "Lady Byron," said Lord Byron at Pisa, "and Mr. Medwin were continually making portraits of me; each one more unlike than the other."
[141] Moore, Letter 233.
[142] At this time of embarrassment he borrowed a large sum to give to Coleridge.
[143] Moore, p. 389.