“Very little food sufficed him; and he preferred fish to flesh for this extraordinary reason, that the latter, he said, rendered him ferocious.  He disliked seeing women eat; and the cause of this extraordinary antipathy must be sought in the dread he always had, that the notion he loved to cherish of their perfection and almost divine nature might be disturbed.  Having always been governed by them, it would seem that his very self-love was pleased to take refuge in the idea of their excellence,—­a sentiment which he knew how (God knows how) to reconcile with the contempt in which, shortly afterwards, almost with the appearance of satisfaction, he seemed to hold them.  But contradictions ought not to surprise us in characters like Lord Byron’s; and then, who does not know that the slave holds in detestation his ruler?

“Lord Byron disliked his countrymen, but only because he knew that his morals were held in contempt by them.  The English, themselves rigid observers of family duties, could not pardon him the neglect of his, nor his trampling on principles; therefore neither did he like being presented to them, nor did they, especially when they had their wives with them, like to cultivate his acquaintance.  Still there was a strong desire in all of them to see him, and the women in particular, who did not dare to look at him but by stealth, said in an under voice, ’What a pity it is!’ If, however, any of his compatriots of exalted rank and of high reputation came forward to treat him with courtesy, he showed himself obviously flattered by it, and was greatly pleased with such association.  It seemed that to the wound which remained always open in his ulcerated heart such soothing attentions were as drops of healing balm, which comforted him.

“Speaking of his marriage,—­a delicate subject, but one still agreeable to him, if it was treated in a friendly voice,—­he was greatly moved, and said it had been the innocent cause of all his errors and all his griefs.  Of his wife he spoke with much respect and affection.  He said she was an illustrious lady, distinguished for the qualities of her heart and understanding, and that all the fault of their cruel separation lay with himself.  Now, was such language dictated by justice or by vanity?  Does it not bring to mind the saying of Julius, that the wife of Caesar must not even be suspected?  What vanity in that saying of Caesar!  In fact, if it had not been from vanity, Lord Byron would have admitted this to no one.  Of his young daughter, his dear Ada, he spoke with great tenderness, and seemed to be pleased at the great sacrifice he had made in leaving her to comfort her mother.  The intense hatred he bore his mother-in-law, and a sort of Euryclea of Lady Byron, two women to whose influence he, in a great measure, attributed her estrangement from him,—­demonstrated clearly how painful the separation was to him, notwithstanding some bitter pleasantries which occasionally occur in his writings against her also, dictated rather by rancour than by indifference.”