There is no suggestion in them of deep sentiment. What they do suggest is—first, a young man desperately determined to go through with a desperate adventure, and very much afraid of being warned of the consequences of his folly—then a young man who, having a haunting doubt of his own sincerity, shouts to keep up his courage—finally a young man who is grateful to the circumstances, whatever they may have been, which have deflected him from a rash course, and saved him from himself. One turns a few pages, and finds Byron writing in a very different strain:
“I have said nothing of the brilliant sex; but the fact is, I am at this moment in a far more serious, and entirely new, scrape, than any of the last twelve months, and that is saying a good deal. It is unlucky we can neither live with nor without these women.”
“I would incorporate with any woman of decent demeanour to-morrow—that is, I would a month ago, but at present....”
“Some day or other, when we are veterans, I may tell you a tale of present and past times; and it is not from want of confidence that I do not tell you now.... All this would be very well if I had no heart; but, unluckily, I have found that there is such a thing still about me, though in no very good repair, and also that it has a habit of attaching itself to one, whether I will or no.”
These passages are from letters to Moore. A few days before writing the last of them Byron had written to Miss Milbanke, whom he was shortly to marry:
“I am at present a little feverish—I mean mentally—and, as usual, on the brink of something or other, which will probably crush me at last, and cut our correspondence short, with everything else.”
No names are mentioned here; but certain inferences not only can, but inevitably must, be drawn. At some time towards the end of the summer of 1813, there was a crisis of Byron’s life. It did not come to a head until after Lady Oxford’s departure, and Lady Oxford had nothing whatever to do with it. The latter point not only follows from the sudden disappearance of Lady Oxford from Byron’s sphere of interest, but is specifically made in a letter (dated November 8, 1813) from Byron to his sister:
“My dearest Augusta,
“I have only time to say that my long silence has been occasioned by a thousand things (with which you are not concerned). It is not Lady Caroline, nor Lady Oxford; but perhaps you may guess, and if you do, do not tell. You do not know what mischief your being with me might have prevented. You shall hear from me to-morrow: in the meantime don’t be alarmed. I am in no immediate peril.”
Those are the most significant of the letters, though there are others. Even if they stood alone, one would feel sure that there was a story behind them; but they do not stand alone. We have the poems to set beside them, and we have also the journal which Byron kept from November 14, 1813 till April 19, 1814. Letters, poems, and journal, read in conjunction, furnish a clue which it is impossible to mistrust. The distinction of having first so read them with sufficient care to find the clue belongs to Mr. Richard Edgcumbe.