Clearly, then, the Spirit, which appeared to Manfred in the form of a beautiful female figure, was Mary Chaworth; the crime for which he suffered was his conduct towards her; and the blood, which his fancy beheld on the cup’s brim, was the blood of William Chaworth, which his predecessor, Lord Byron, had shed. When asked by the chamois-hunter whether he had wreaked revenge upon his enemies, Manfred replies:
‘No, no, no!
My injuries came down on those who loved me—
On those whom I best loved: I never quelled
An enemy, save in my just defence—
But my embrace was fatal.’
In speaking of the ‘core of his heart’s grief,’ Manfred says:
‘Yet there was One—
She was like me in lineaments—her eyes—
Her hair—her features—all, to the very tone
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine;
But softened all, and tempered into beauty:
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,[52]
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the Universe: nor these
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,
Pity, and smiles, and tears—which I had not;
And tenderness—but that I had for her;
Humility—and that I never had.
Her faults were mine—her virtues were her own—
I loved her, and destroyed her!
Not with my hand, but heart, which broke her heart;
It gazed on mine, and withered.’
In order to appreciate the absurdity of connecting this description with Augusta, we will quote her noble accuser, Lord Lovelace:
‘The character of Augusta is seen in her letters and actions. She was a woman of that great family which is vague about facts, unconscious of duties, impulsive in conduct. The course of her life could not be otherwise explained, by those who had looked into it with close intimacy, than by a kind of moral idiotcy from birth. She was of a sanguine and buoyant disposition, childishly fond and playful, ready to laugh at anything, loving to talk nonsense.’
In fact,
‘She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the Universe.’
Lord Lovelace further tells us that Augusta Leigh ‘had a refined species of comic talent’; that she was ‘strangely insensible to the nature and magnitude of the offence in question [incest] even as an imputation;’ and that ‘there was apparently an absence of all deep feeling in her mind, of everything on which a strong impression could be made.’ We are also told that ‘Byron, after his marriage, generally spoke of Augusta as “a fool,” with equal contempt of her understanding and principles.’
In short, Byron’s description of the woman, whom he had ‘destroyed,’ resembles Augusta Leigh about as much as a mountain resembles a haystack. How closely Manfred’s description resembles Mary Chaworth will be seen presently. Augusta Leigh had told Byron that, in consequence of his conduct, Mary Chaworth was out of her mind.