This brings us to that period of suspense and fear, in 1814, which preceded the birth of Medora. In a letter which Byron at that time wrote to Miss Milbanke, we find these words:
‘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.’
Twelve days later (March 3, 1814), Byron tells Moore that he is ‘uncomfortable,’ and that he has ‘no lack of argument to ponder upon of the most gloomy description.’
‘Some day or other,’ he writes, ‘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 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. Divide et impera, I begin to think, will only do for politics.’
When Moore, who was puzzled, asked Byron to explain himself more clearly, he replied: ‘Guess darkly, and you will seldom err.’
Thirty-four days later Medora was born, April 15, 1814.
III.
‘I watched thee when the fever glazed thine eyes,
Yielding my couch, and stretched me on the ground,
When overworn with watching, ne’er to rise
From thence if thou an early grave had found.’
Here we see Byron’s agony of remorse. Like Herod, he lamented for Mariamne:
‘And mine’s the guilt, and mine the hell,
This bosom’s desolation dooming;
And I have earned those tortures well
Which unconsumed are still consuming!’
In ‘Manfred’ we find a note of remembrance in the deprecating words: