"I wish I could settle to reading again,—my life is monotonous, and yet desultory. I take up books, and fling them down again. I began a comedy, and burnt it, because the scene ran into reality; a novel, for the same reason. In rhyme, I can keep more away from facts; but the thought always runs through, through.... Yes, yes; through."
And we have in these two words the precise explanation of this feeling of ennui.
He was at this time contemplating a voyage:—
"Ward talks of going to Holland, and we have partly discussed an expedition together.... And why not?... is far away.... No one else, except Augusta (his sister), cares for me—no ties—no trammels—andiamo dunque—se torniamo bene—se no che importa?"[178]
He was evidently sad that day; but, is not the nature of his sadness revealed in those words:—"She is far away—?"
According to his memoranda, he again fell into this vein of sadness some months later, in February, 1814; but then, also, its causes are very evident. An accumulation of painful things, united to overwhelm him. He had sought to satisfy the longings of his heart by extraordinary intellectual activity, writing the "Bride of Abydos" in four nights, and the "Corsair" in a few days; he had also fought against them, by endeavoring to make a six months' journey into Holland; but this project failed, from obstacles created by a friend who was to accompany him; and, besides, the plague was then prevalent in the East; he was, moreover, embarrassed with the difficulty of selling Newstead, and the necessity of such a painful measure; all which circumstances united to keep him in England. And a host of other irritating annoyances, the work of irreconcilable enemies, who were jealous of his success and his superiority, then fell upon him, as they could not fail to do; for his sun had risen too brightly not to call forth noxious vapors.
After having passed a month away from London, he wrote in his memoranda:—
"I see all the papers are in a sad commotion with those eight lines.... You have no conception of the ludicrous solemnity with which these two stanzas have been treated, ... of the uproar the lines on the little 'Royalty's Weeping,' in 1812 (now republished) have occasioned. The 'Morning Post' gave notice of an intended motion in the House of my brethren on the subject, and God knows what proceedings besides.... This last piece of intelligence is, I presume, too laughable to be true, etc., etc."[179]
The first blow to his popularity was now given; and soon the whole nation rose up in arms against him. All jealousies, and all resentments now ranged themselves under one hostile banner, distorting Lord Byron's every word, calumniating his motives, making his most generous and noble actions serve as pretexts for attack; reproaching him with having given up enmities from base reasons (while he had done so in reality from feelings of justice and gratitude), pretending[180] that he had pocketed large sums for his poems, and rendering him responsible for the follies women chose to commit about him. This war, breaking out against him like an unexpected hurricane amid radiant sunshine, must naturally have caused irritation. And if we add to it the embarrassment of his affairs, the deplorable events in his opinion then going on in the world, the fall of the great Napoleon, whom he admired, the invasion of France by the Allied Powers, which he disapproved of, the policy pursued by his country, and the evils endured by humanity—spectacles that always made his heart bleed,—we may well understand how all these causes may have given rise to some moments of misanthropy, such as are betrayed by a few expressions in his journal; but it was a misanthropy that existed only in words, a plant without roots, of ephemeral growth, and most natural to a fine nature. We feel, notwithstanding all these real palpable causes of ennui, that his principal sufferings still came from the heart.
"Lady Melbourne," writes Lord Byron in his memoranda, in 1814, "tells me that it is said that I am 'much out of spirits.' I wonder if I am really or not? I have certainly enough of 'that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart' and it is better they should believe it to be the result of these attacks than that they should guess the real cause."