All this does not simply show his courage and good natural dispositions, it likewise proves that there was not the making of a misanthrope in him. And besides, his fellow-traveller Hobhouse says so positively, in his account of their journey, when relating why Lord Byron could not accompany him in an excursion to Negropont; for he energetically expresses his regret at being obliged to separate, even for so short a time, from a companion, who, according to him, united to perspicacity of wit and originality of observation, that gay and lively temper which keeps attention awake under the pressure of fatigue, softening every difficulty and every danger.
Truly it might be said that Lord Byron was superior to the weaknesses of humanity. He was evidently patient and amiable in the highest degree. Greece appeared to him delightful,—an enchanting country with a cloudless sky. He liked Athens so much that, on quitting it for the first time, he was obliged to set off at a gallop to have courage enough to go. And when he returned there, though from the cloister of the Franciscan monastery, where he had fixed his abode, he could no longer even perceive the pretty heads of the three Graces entre les plantes embaumées de la cour; he felt himself just as happy, because he devoted his time to study, and mixed with persons of note—such as the celebrated Lady Hester Stanhope, Lord Sligo, and Bruce: souvenirs which he has consecrated in his memoirs, saying Lady Hester's (?) was the most delightful acquaintance he had made in Greece.[173]
He saw Greeks, Turks, Italians, French, and Germans, and was delighted. Now could he observe the character of persons of all nations, and he became more than ever persuaded that travelling is necessary to complete a man's education; he was happy at being able to verify the superiority of his own country, and to increase his knowledge by finding the contrary. He was never either disappointed or disgusted. He lived with both great and small; passing days in the palaces of pashas, and nights in cow-stables with shepherds; always temperate, he never enjoyed better health. "Truly," said he, "I have no cause to complain of my destiny." At Constantinople he found the inhabitants good and peaceable; the Turks appeared superior to the Greeks, the Greeks to the Spaniards, and the Spaniards to the Portuguese. It was the man wearied of all, the misanthrope, who wrote all this to his mother, concluding thus:—"I have gone through a great deal of fatigue, but have not felt wearied for one instant!"
All the letters addressed to his friends Drury and Hodgson, from Greece or Turkey, were equally devoid of misanthropy, and, indeed, generally full of jokes. It was only when too long a silence on their part awakened painful remembrances, causing a sort of nostalgia of friendship, that a cry of pain once escaped him in these words:—"Truly, I have no friends in the world!" But one feels that he did not believe it, and only spoke as coquettish women do, knowing they are beloved, and willing to hear the old tale repeated.
Again, it was this same man of worn-out feeling, who, despite the embarrassed state of his affairs, showed such unexampled generosity to his mother, and to friends requiring aid both in England and Greece; who likewise displayed touching solicitude toward servants left behind him at home, or even sent away so as not to over-fatigue their youth or their old age: and, finally, who, on learning that one of his dependents was about to commit a bad action, abandoning a young girl whom he had seduced, wrote to his mother:—
"My opinion is that B—— ought to marry Miss N——; our first duty is not to do evil, our second to repair it. I will have no seducers on my estates, and will not grant my dependents a privilege I would not take myself: namely, of leading astray our neighbors' daughters.
"I hope this Lothario will follow my example, and begin by restoring the girl to society, or by my father's beard he shall hear of me."
And then he also recommends a young servant to her:—
"I pray you to show kindness to Robert, who must miss his master; poor boy! he would scarcely go back."
This letter alone shows a freshness of feeling quite consolatory; certainly "Childe Harold" was not capable of it.