"What!" said I, "did that cause then exist?"
"Yes," she said, "it did." And she explained that she now attributed Lord Byron"s great agitation to fear, that, in some way, suspicion of the crime had been aroused in her mind, and that on this account she was seeking to break the engagement. She said, that, from that moment, her sympathies were aroused for him, to soothe the remorse and anguish which seemed preying on his mind, and which she then regarded as the sensibility of an unusually exacting moral nature, which judged itself by higher standards, and condemned itself unsparingly for what most young men of his times regarded as venial faults. She had every hope for his future, and all the enthusiasm of belief that so many men and women of those times and ours have had in his intrinsic n.o.bleness. She said the gloom, however, seemed to be even deeper when he came to the marriage; but she looked at it as the suffering of a peculiar being, to whom she was called to minister. I said to her, that, even in the days of my childhood, I had heard of something very painful that had pa.s.sed as they were in the carriage, immediately after marriage. She then said that it was so; that almost his first words, when they were alone, were, that she might once have saved him; that, if she had accepted him when he first offered, she might have made him anything she pleased; but that, as it was, she would find she had married a devil.
The conversation, as recorded in Lady Anne Barnard"s Diary, seems only a continuation of the foregoing, and just what might have followed upon it.
I then asked how she became certain of the true cause.
She said, that, from the outset of their married life, his conduct towards her was strange and unaccountable, even during the first weeks after the wedding, while they were visiting her friends, and outwardly on good terms. He seemed resolved to shake and combat both her religious principles and her views of the family state. He tried to undermine her faith in Christianity as a rule of life by argument and by ridicule. He set before her the Continental idea of the liberty of marriage; it being a simple partnership of friendship and property, the parties to which were allowed by one another to pursue their own separate individual tastes. He told her, that, as he could not be expected to confine himself to her, neither should he expect or wish that she should confine herself to him; that she was young and pretty, and could have her lovers, and he should never object; and that she must allow him the same freedom.
She said that she did not comprehend to what this was tending till after they came to London, and his sister came to stay with them.
At what precise time the idea of an improper connection between her husband and his sister was first forced upon her, she did not say; but she told me how it was done. She said that one night, in her presence, he treated his sister with a liberty which both shocked and astonished her. Seeing her amazement and alarm, he came up to her, and said, in a sneering tone, "I suppose you perceive you are not wanted here. Go to your own room, and leave us alone. We can amuse ourselves better without you."
She said, "I went to my room, trembling. I fell down on my knees, and prayed to my heavenly Father to have mercy on them. I thought, "What shall I do?""
I remember, after this, a pause in the conversation, during which she seemed struggling with thoughts and emotions; and, for my part, I was unable to utter a word, or ask a question.
She did not tell me what followed immediately upon this, nor how soon after she spoke on the subject with either of the parties. She first began to speak of conversations afterwards held with Lord Byron, in which he boldly avowed the connection as having existed in time past, and as one that was to continue in time to come; and implied that she must submit to it. She put it to his conscience as concerning his sister"s soul, and he said that it was no sin, that it was the way the world was first peopled: the Scriptures taught that all the world descended from one pair; and how could that be unless brothers married their sisters?
that, if not a sin then, it could not be a sin now.
I immediately said, "Why, Lady Byron, those are the very arguments given in the drama of "Cain.""
"The very same," was her reply. "He could reason very speciously on this subject." She went on to say, that, when she pressed him hard with the universal sentiment of mankind as to the horror and the crime, he took another turn, and said that the horror and crime were the very attraction; that he had worn out all ordinary forms of sin, and that he "longed for the stimulus of a new kind of vice." She set before him the dread of detection; and then he became furious. She should never be the means of his detection, he said. She should leave him; that he was resolved upon: but she should always bear all the blame of the separation. In the sneering tone which was common with him, he said, "The world will believe me, and it will not believe you. The world has made up its mind that "By" is a glorious boy; and the world will go for "By," right or wrong. Besides, I shall make it my life"s object to discredit you: I shall use all my powers. Read "Caleb Williams," {161} and you will see that I shall do by you just as Falkland did by Caleb."
I said that all this seemed to me like insanity. She said that she was for a time led to think that it was insanity, and excused and pitied him; that his treatment of her expressed such hatred and malignity, that she knew not what else to think of it; that he seemed resolved to drive her out of the house at all hazards, and threatened her, if she should remain, in a way to alarm the heart of any woman: yet, thinking him insane, she left him at last with the sorrow with which anyone might leave a dear friend whose reason was wholly overthrown, and to whom in this desolation she was no longer permitted to minister.
I inquired in one of the pauses of the conversation whether Mrs. Leigh was a peculiarly beautiful or attractive woman.
"No, my dear: she was plain."
"Was she, then, distinguished for genius or talent of any kind?"
"Oh, no! Poor woman! she was weak, relatively to him, and wholly under his control."
"And what became of her?" I said.
"She afterwards repented, and became a truly good woman." I think it was here she mentioned that she had frequently seen and conversed with Mrs.
Leigh in the latter part of her life; and she seemed to derive comfort from the recollection.
I asked, "Was there a child?" I had been told by Mrs. ---- that there was a daughter, who had lived some years.
She said there was one, a daughter, who made her friends much trouble, being of a very difficult nature to manage. I had understood that at one time this daughter escaped from her friends to the Continent, and that Lady Byron a.s.sisted in efforts to recover her. Of Lady Byron"s kindness both to Mrs. Leigh and the child, I had before heard from Mrs. ----, who gave me my first information.
It is also strongly impressed on my mind, that Lady Byron, in answer to some question of mine as to whether there was ever any meeting between Lord Byron and his sister after he left England, answered, that she had insisted upon it, or made it a condition, that Mrs. Leigh should not go abroad to him.
When the conversation as to events was over, as I stood musing, I said, "Have you no evidence that he repented?" and alluded to the mystery of his death, and the message be endeavoured to utter.
She answered quickly, and with great decision, that whatever might have been his meaning at that hour, she felt sure he had finally repented; and added with great earnestness, "I do not believe that any child of the heavenly Father is ever left to eternal sin."
I said that such a hope was most delightful to my feelings, but that I had always regarded the indulgence of it as a dangerous one.
Her look, voice, and manner, at that moment, are indelibly fixed in my mind. She looked at me so sadly, so firmly, and said,--
"Danger, Mrs. Stowe! What danger can come from indulging that hope, like the danger that comes from not having it?"
I said in my turn, "What danger comes from not having it?"
"The danger of losing all faith in G.o.d," she said, "all hope for others, all strength to try and save them. I once knew a lady," she added, "who was in a state of scepticism and despair from belief in that doctrine. I think I saved her by giving her my faith."
I was silent; and she continued: "Lord Byron believed in eternal punishment fully: for though he reasoned against Christianity as it is commonly received, he could not reason himself out of it; and I think it made him desperate. He used to say, "The worst of it is I do believe."
Had he seen G.o.d as I see him, I am sure his heart would have relented."
She went on to say, that his sins, great as they were, admitted of much palliation and excuse; that he was the child of singular and ill-matched parents; that he had an organisation originally fine, but one capable equally of great good or great evil; that in his childhood he had only the worst and most fatal influences; that he grew up into manhood with no guide; that there was everything in the cla.s.sical course of the schools to develop an unhealthy growth of pa.s.sion, and no moral influence of any kind to restrain it; that the manners of his day were corrupt; that what were now considered vices in society were then spoken of as matters of course among young n.o.blemen; that drinking, gaming, and licentiousness everywhere abounded and that, up to a certain time, he was no worse than mult.i.tudes of other young men of his day,--only that the vices of his day were worse for him. The excesses of pa.s.sion, the disregard of physical laws in eating, drinking, and living, wrought effects on him that they did not on less sensitively organised frames, and prepared him for the evil hour when he fell into the sin which shaded his whole life. All the rest was a struggle with its consequences,--sinning more and more to conceal the sin of the past. But she believed he never outlived remorse; that he always suffered; and that this showed that G.o.d had not utterly forsaken him. Remorse, she said, always showed moral sensibility, and, while that remained, there was always hope.
She now began to speak of her grounds for thinking it might be her duty fully to publish this story before she left the world.
First she said that, through the whole course of her life, she had felt the eternal value of truth, and seen how dreadful a thing was falsehood, and how fearful it was to be an accomplice in it, even by silence. Lord Byron had demoralised the moral sense of England, and he had done it in a great degree by the sympathy excited by falsehood. This had been pleaded in extenuation of all his crimes and vices, and led to a lowering of the standard of morals in the literary world. Now it was proposed to print cheap editions of his works, and sell them among the common people, and interest them in him by the circulation of this same story.
She then said in effect, that she believed in retribution and suffering in the future life, and that the consequences of sins here follow us there; and it was strongly impressed upon her mind that Lord Byron must suffer in looking on the evil consequences of what he had done in this life, and in seeing the further extension of that evil.
"It has sometimes strongly appeared to me," she said, "that he cannot be at peace until this injustice has been righted. Such is the strong feeling that I have when I think of going where he is."
These things, she said, had led her to inquire whether it might not be her duty to make a full and clear disclosure before she left the world.
Of course, I did not listen to this story as one who was investigating its worth. I received it as truth. And the purpose for which it was communicated was not to enable me to prove it to the world, but to ask my opinion whether she should show it to the world before leaving it. The whole consultation was upon the a.s.sumption that she had at her command such proofs as could not be questioned.
Concerning what they were I did not minutely inquire: only, in answer to a general question, she said that she had letters and doc.u.ments in proof of her story. Knowing Lady Byron"s strength of mind, her clear-headedness, her accurate habits, and her perfect knowledge of the matter, I considered her judgment on this point decisive.
I told her that I would take the subject into consideration, and give my opinion in a few days. That night, after my sister and myself had retired to our own apartment, I related to her the whole history, and we spent the night in talking of it. I was powerfully impressed with the justice and propriety of an immediate disclosure; while she, on the contrary, represented the painful consequences that would probably come upon Lady Byron from taking such a step.
Before we parted the next day, I requested Lady Byron to give me some memoranda of such dates and outlines of the general story as would enable me better to keep it in its connection; which she did.
On giving me the paper, Lady Byron requested me to return it to her when it had ceased to be of use to me for the purpose indicated.
Accordingly, a day or two after, I enclosed it to her in a hasty note, as I was then leaving London for Paris, and had not yet had time fully to consider the subject.
On reviewing my note, I can recall that then the whole history appeared to me like one of those singular cases where unnatural impulses to vice are the result of a taint of const.i.tutional insanity. This has always seemed to me the only way of accounting for instances of utterly motiveless and abnormal wickedness and cruelty. These my first impressions were expressed in the hasty note written at the time:--
"LONDON, Nov. 5, 1856.
"DEAREST FRIEND,--I return these. They have held mine eyes waking!
How strange! how unaccountable! Have you ever subjected the facts to the judgment of a medical man learned in nervous pathology?
"Is it not insanity?
"Great wits to madness nearly are allied, And thin part.i.tions do their bounds divide."
"But my purpose to-night is not to write you fully what I think of this matter. I am going to write to you from Paris more at leisure."