“Dec. 16th.—­I have just received your letter;—­I feel your kindness very deeply.  The foregoing part of my letter, written yesterday, will, I hope, account for the tone of the former, though it cannot excuse it.  I do _like_ to hear from you—­more than _like_.  Next to seeing you, I have no greater satisfaction.  But you have other duties, and greater pleasures, and I should regret to take a moment from either.  H * was to call to-day, but I have not seen him.  The circumstances you mention at the close of your letter is another proof in favour of my opinion of mankind.  Such you will always find them—­selfish and distrustful.  I except none.  The cause of this is the state of society.  In the world, every one is to stir for himself—­it is useless, perhaps selfish, to expect any thing from his neighbour.  But I do not think we are born of this disposition; for you find friendship as a schoolboy, and love enough before twenty.

“I went to see * *; he keeps me in town, where I don’t wish to be at present.  He is a good man, but totally without conduct.  And now, my dearest William, I must wish you good morrow, and remain ever, most sincerely and affectionately yours,” &c.

[Footnote 38:  On this occasion, another of the noble poet’s peculiarities was, somewhat startlingly, introduced to my notice.  When we were on the point of setting out from his lodgings in St. James’s Street, it being then about mid-day, he said to the servant, who was shutting the door of the vis-a-vis, “Have you put in the pistols?” and was answered in the affirmative.  It was difficult,—­more especially, taking into account the circumstances under which we had just become acquainted,—­to keep from smiling at this singular noon-day precaution.]

* * * * *

From the time of our first meeting, there seldom elapsed a day that Lord Byron and I did not see each other; and our acquaintance ripened into intimacy and friendship with a rapidity of which I have seldom known an example.  I was, indeed, lucky in all the circumstances that attended my first introduction to him.  In a generous nature like his, the pleasure of repairing an injustice would naturally give a zest to any partiality I might have inspired in his mind; while the manner in which I had sought this reparation, free as it was from resentment or defiance, left nothing painful to remember in the transaction between us,—­no compromise or concession that could wound self-love, or take away from the grace of that frank friendship to which he at once, so cordially and so unhesitatingly, admitted me.  I was also not a little fortunate in forming my acquaintance with him, before his success had yet reached its meridian burst,—­before the triumphs that were in store for him had brought the world all in homage at his feet, and, among the splendid