Life of Lord Byron Volume II Part 30

She told Lewis wisely, he being my friend, that I was affected, in the first place; and that, in the next place, I committed the heinous offence of sitting at dinner with my _eyes_ shut, or half shut. I wonder if I really have this trick. I must cure myself of it, if true. One insensibly acquires awkward habits, which should be broken in time. If this is one, I wish I had been told of it before. It would not so much signify if one was always to be checkmated by a plain woman, but one may as well see some of one's neighbours, as well as the plate upon the table.

"I should like, of all things, to have heard the Amabaean eclogue between her and Lewis--both obstinate, clever, odd, garrulous, and shrill. In fact, one could have heard nothing else. But they fell out, alas!--and now they will never quarrel again. Could not one reconcile them for the 'nonce?' Poor Corinne--she will find that some of her fine sayings won't suit our fine ladies and gentlemen.

"I am getting rather into admiration of * *, the youngest sister of * *.

A wife would be my salvation. I am sure the wives of my acquaintances have hitherto done me little good. * * is beautiful, but very young, and, I think, a fool. But I have not seen enough to judge; besides, I hate an _esprit_ in petticoats. That she won't love me is very probable, nor shall I love her. But, on my system, and the modern system in general, that don't signify. The business (if it came to business) would probably be arranged between papa and me. She would have her own way; I am good-humoured to women, and docile; and, if I did not fall in love with her, which I should try to prevent, we should be a very comfortable couple. As to conduct, _that_ she must look to. But _if_ I love, I shall be jealous;--and for that reason I will not be in love. Though, after all, I doubt my temper, and fear I should not be so patient as becomes the _bienseance_ of a married man in my station. Divorce ruins the poor _femme_, and damages are a paltry compensation. I do fear my temper would lead me into some of our oriental tricks of vengeance, or, at any rate, into a summary appeal to the court of twelve paces. So 'I'll none on 't,' but e'en remain single and solitary;--though I should like to have somebody now and then to yawn with one.

"W. and, after him, * *, has stolen one of my buffooneries about Mde. de Stael's Metaphysics and the Fog, and pa.s.sed it, by speech and letter, as their own. As Gibbet says, 'they are the most of a gentleman of any on the road.' W. is in sad enmity with the Whigs about this Review of Fox (if he _did_ review him);--all the epigrammatists and essayists are at him. I hate _odds_, and wish he may beat them. As for me, by the blessing of indifference, I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better nor worse for a _people_ than another. I shall adhere to my party, because it would not be honourable to act otherwise; but, as to _opinions_, I don't think politics _worth_ an _opinion_. _Conduct_ is another thing:--if you begin with a party, go on with them. I have no consistency, except in politics; and _that_ probably arises from my indifference on the subject altogether."

I must here be permitted to interrupt, for a while, the progress of this Journal,--which extends through some months of the succeeding year,--for the purpose of noticing, without infringement of chronological order, such parts of the poet's literary history and correspondence as belong properly to the date of the year 1813.

At the beginning, as we have seen, of the month of December, The Bride of Abydos was published,--having been struck off, like its predecessor, The Giaour, in one of those paroxysms of pa.s.sion and imagination, which adventures such as the poet was now engaged in were, in a temperament like his, calculated to excite. As the mathematician of old required but a spot to stand upon, to be able, as he boasted, to move the world, so a certain degree of foundation in _fact_ seemed necessary to Byron, before that lever which he knew how to apply to the world of the pa.s.sions could be wielded by him. So small, however, was, in many instances, the connection with reality which satisfied him, that to aim at tracing through his stories these links with his own fate and fortunes, which were, after all, perhaps, visible but to his own fancy, would be a task as uncertain as unsafe;--and this remark applies not only to The Bride of Abydos, but to The Corsair, Lara, and all the other beautiful fictions that followed, in which, though the emotions expressed by the poet may be, in general, regarded as vivid recollections of what had at different times agitated his own bosom, there are but little grounds,--however he might himself, occasionally, encourage such a supposition,--for connecting him personally with the groundwork or incidents of the stories.

While yet uncertain about the fate of his own new poem, the following observations on the work of an ingenious follower in the same track were written.

LETTER 143. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Dec. 4. 1813.

"I have redde through your Persian Tales[105], and have taken the liberty of making some remarks on the _blank_ pages. There are many beautiful pa.s.sages, and an interesting story; and I cannot give you a stronger proof that such is my opinion, than by the _date_ of the _hour_--_two o'clock_, till which it has kept me awake _without a yawn_. The conclusion is not quite correct in _costume_; there is no _Mussulman suicide_ on record--at least for _love_. But this matters not. The tale must have been written by some one who has been on the spot, and I wish him, and he deserves, success. Will you apologise to the author for the liberties I have taken with his MS.? Had I been less awake to, and interested in, his theme, I had been less obtrusive; but you know _I_ always take this in good part, and I hope he will. It is difficult to say what _will_ succeed, and still more to p.r.o.nounce what _will not_. _I_ am at this moment in _that uncertainty_ (on our _own_ score); and it is no small proof of the author's powers to be able to _charm_ and _fix_ a _mind_'s attention on similar subjects and climates in such a predicament. That he may have the same effect upon all his readers is very sincerely the wish, and hardly the _doubt_, of yours truly, B."

[Footnote 105: Poems by Mr. Gally Knight, of which Mr. Murray had transmitted the MS. to Lord Byron, without, however, communicating the name of the author.]

To The Bride of Abydos he made additions, in the course of printing, amounting, altogether, to near two hundred lines; and, as usual, among the pa.s.sages thus added, were some of the happiest and most brilliant in the whole poem. The opening lines,--"Know ye the land,' &c.--supposed to have been suggested to him by a song of Goethe's[106]--were among the number of these new insertions, as were also those fine verses,--"Who hath not proved how feebly words essay," &c. Of one of the most popular lines in this latter pa.s.sage, it is not only curious, but instructive, to trace the progress to its present state of finish. Having at first written--

"Mind on her lip and music in her face,"

he afterwards altered it to--

"The mind of music breathing in her face."

But, this not satisfying him, the next step of correction brought the line to what it is at present--

"The mind, the music breathing from her face."[107]

But the longest, as well as most splendid, of those pa.s.sages, with which the perusal of his own strains, during revision, inspired him, was that rich flow of eloquent feeling which follows the couplet,--"Thou, my Zuleika, share and bless my bark," &c.--a strain of poetry, which, for energy and tenderness of thought, for music of versification, and selectness of diction, has, throughout the greater portion of it, but few rivals in either ancient or modern song. All this pa.s.sage was sent, in successive sc.r.a.ps, to the printer,--correction following correction, and thought reinforced by thought. We have here, too, another example of that retouching process by which some of his most exquisite effects were attained. Every reader remembers the four beautiful lines--

"Or, since that hope denied in worlds of strife, Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!"

In the first copy of this pa.s.sage sent to the publisher, the last line was written thus--

{_an airy_} "And tints to-morrow with a { fancied } ray"--

the following note being annexed:--"Mr. Murray,--Choose which of the two epithets, 'fancied,' or 'airy,' may be the best; or, if neither will do, tell me, and I will dream another." The poet's dream was, it must be owned, lucky,--"prophetic" being the word, of all others, for his purpose.[108]

I shall select but one more example, from the additions to this poem, as a proof that his eagerness and facility in producing, was sometimes almost equalled by his anxious care in correcting. In the long pa.s.sage just referred to, the six lines beginning "Blest as the Muezzin's strain," &c., having been despatched to the printer too late for insertion, were, by his desire, added in an errata page; the first couplet, in its original form, being as follows:--

"Soft as the Mecca-Muezzin's strains invite Him who hath journey'd far to join the rite."

In a few hours after, another sc.r.a.p was sent off, containing the lines thus--

"Blest as the Muezzin's strain from Mecca's dome, Which welcomes Faith to view her Prophet's tomb"--

with the following note to Mr. Murray:--

"December 3. 1813.

"Look out in the Encyclopedia, article _Mecca_, whether it is there or at _Medina_ the Prophet is entombed. If at Medina, the first lines of my alterration must run--

"Blest as the call which from Medina's dome Invites Devotion to her Prophet's tomb," &c.

If at Mecca, the lines may stand as before. Page 45. canto 2d, Bride of Abydos. Yours, B.

"You will find this out either by article _Mecca_, _Medina_, or _Mohammed_. I have no book of reference by me."

[Footnote 106: "Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bluhn," &c.]

[Footnote 107: Among the imputed plagiarisms so industriously hunted out in his writings, this line has been, with somewhat more plausibility than is frequent in such charges, included,--the lyric poet Lovelace having, it seems, written,

"The melody and music of her face."

Sir Thomas Brown, too, in his Religio Medici, says--"There is music even in beauty," &c. The coincidence, no doubt, is worth observing, and the task of "tracking" thus a favourite writer "in the snow (as Dryden expresses it) of others" is sometimes not unamusing; but to those who found upon such resemblances a general charge of plagiarism, we may apply what Sir Walter Scott says, in that most agreeable work, his Lives of the Novelists:--"It is a favourite theme of laborious dulness to trace such coincidences, because they appear to reduce genius of the higher order to the usual standard of humanity, and of course to bring the author nearer to a level with his critics."]

[Footnote 108: It will be seen, however, from a subsequent letter to Mr.

Murray, that he himself was at first unaware of the peculiar felicity of this epithet; and it is therefore, probable, that, after all, the merit of the choice may have belonged to Mr. Gifford.]

Immediately after succeeded another note:--

"Did you look out? Is it _Medina_ or _Mecca_ that contains the _Holy_ Sepulchre? Don't make me blaspheme by your negligence. I have no book of reference, or I would save you the trouble. I _blush_, as a good Mussulman, to have confused the point.

"Yours, B."

Notwithstanding all these various changes, the couplet in question stands at present thus:--

"Blest as the Muezzin's strain from Mecca's wall To pilgrims pure and prostrate at his call."

In addition to his own watchfulness over the birth of his new poem, he also, as will be seen from the following letter, invoked the veteran taste of Mr. Gifford on the occasion:--

LETTER 144. TO MR. GIFFORD.

"November 12. 1813.