Byronic hero

“ The heart of the former is closed to all joy and to all the finest impulses of the soul; whereas that of the other beats with delight at the prospect of all that is noble, great, good, and just in the world. Why identify the author rather with the one than with the other—with the former rather than with the latter? Why take from him his own sentiments, to give him those of his hero? That hero can not be called mysterious, since in his preface Byron tells us himself the moral object for which he has selected him. ”

“ In these poems of Byron, and in his dramatic experiments, Manfred and Cain, there is a single figure—the figure of Byron under various masks—and one pervading mood, a restless and sardonic gloom, a weariness of life, a love of solitude, and a melancholy exaltation in the presence of the wilderness and the sea. Byron's hero is always represented as a man originally noble, whom some great wrong, by others, or some mysterious crime of his own, has blasted and embittered, and who carries about the world a seared heart and a somber brow. ”

“ If, in the war he waged against evil and its perpetrators, he did not outstep the limits of merited punishment, nevertheless he often did go beyond the limits of a quality (he possessed not) which is raised to the rank of a virtue, but which applied, despite conscience, to our personal interests, is but selfishness and cowardice. And therein was he truly sublime; for in attacking thus, not only the great men of the day, but likewise the prejudices, idolatries, and passions belonging to such a proud nation, he well knew the harm that would result to himself. But Lord Byron was a real hero. ”

“ This noble quality showed itself in him, we may say, from his birth, under the form of sincerity, frankness, a passion for justice, loyalty, delicacy, honor, and likewise in the shape of special hatred for all hypocrisy, and for that shade of it peculiar to England, called cant. [Pg 632]
Amid all the passions and events of life, whatsoever the consequences, Lord Byron always went straight at truth; as the hero marches up under fire, or the saint to martyrdom. ”

“ Byron, the hero of romance, whose pistols were his constant companions, and whose amorous adventures were as famous as his verse; Byron, the aristocrat, with the title which he valued so highly, but which makes little impression on a generation that recognises no aristocracy but that of the intellect. And our practical age has, moreover, a distinct contempt for what Byron sometimes imagined his honour required him to be, and sometimes really was—the dilettante. ”

“ It takes up into itself most fully the life of the time; exhibits most thoroughly the characteristic alternations of Byron's moods and the prodigal resources of wit, passion, and understanding, which—rather than imagination—were his prominent qualities as a poet. The hero, a graceless, amorous stripling, goes wandering from Spain to the Greek islands and Constantinople, thence to St. ”

“ In this sacrifice on his part, no single feature of greatness is wanting. Lord Byron would have been great, had he sacrificed himself for his country; but how much greater was he in sacrificing himself for a foreign nation, for the general cause of humanity? He would still have remained great, had he been led into this noble sacrifice by his own enthusiasm, by his illusions, by personal hopes. But no illusion, no enthusiasm, impelled him toward Greece; naught save the satisfaction caused in a noble mind by the performance of a great action. ”

“ Thus Lord Byron allowed his pen to jest, to mark the follies of men: sometimes attacking them boldly in front, sometimes aiming light arrows aslant, ridiculing, chastising, as humor or fancy prompted; and he gave himself the same liberty of language in private conversation, according to the character of those with whom he conversed. On all these occasions his genius undoubtedly gave itself up to versatility. But let us not forget that all that which changes and becomes effaced in hearts of inconstant mood, and which ought not to change in men of honor and worth, never did vary in him. ”

“ I subjoin a few of the stanzas: they are addressed to Lord Byron:
“Thou, while thou stand’st beneath this tree, While by thy foot this earth is press’d, Think, here the wanderer’s ashes be— And wilt thou say, sweet be thy rest! “‘Twould add even to a seraph’s bliss, Whose sacred charge thou then may be, To guide—to guard—yes, Byron! yes, That glory is reserved for me.” “If woes below may plead above A frail heart’s errors, mine forgiven, To that ‘high world’ I soar, where ‘love Surviving’ forms the bliss of Heaven. ”

“ But the world must at last learn how, with so good and generous a heart, Lord Byron, susceptible, it is true, of the most energetic passions, yet, at the same time, of the sublimest and most pure, and rendering homage in his acts to every virtue—how he, I say, could afford such scope to malice and to calumny. ”

“ How far the poetry of Byron has proved a blessing to the world must be left to an abler critic than I lay claim to be. In him the good and evil went hand in hand in the eternal warfare which ancient Persian sages saw between the powers of light and darkness in every human soul,--a consciousness of which warfare made Byron himself in his saddest hours wish he had never lived at all. ”

“ Let me call it wandering, astray, without principle or guide; without aim, or any motive but the fitful blasts of his own caprice and passion. Let me call it self-esteem and praise, scorn of the moral judgment of the world, scorn of true humanity, and glory in one’s own contempt and wickedness; and I have characterised Lord Byron’s poetry, and unraveled the mystery of its charm.
Concerning Byron’s character as a man, little need be said to prove its double littleness. From every man, no matter how low his capacity, something good, something useful is expected ”

“ She can still see his looks of tenderness; she can judge what the struggle was, the combat that was going on in him as soft and stern glances chased each other; at length she sees honor gain the victory, and remain triumphant.
It is this spectacle of such great moral beauty, still before her eyes, that can be so well appreciated after the lapse of long years, and which justifies the words that begin and close her recital by divesting it of all semblance of exaggeration:—"There has been but one Byron!"
When we have known such beings, admiration and love outlive all else. ”

“ One calls him the poet of evil; another the bard of sorrow. But no! Lord Byron was not exclusively either one or the other. He was the poet of the soul, just as Shakspeare was before him.
Lord Byron, in writing, never had in view virtue rather than vice. To take his stand as a teacher of humanity, at his age, would have seemed ridiculous to him. ”

“ Nevertheless, as they may call up again the pleasure ever afforded by the spectacle of great moral beauty, let us further add—the better to set forth the nature of Lord Byron's wonderful intrepidity in face of danger—that his energetic soul loved to contemplate those sublime things in Nature that are usually endured with terror. ”

“ If almost all great geniuses, ere carving out their path, have experienced this fever of the soul, falling into certain kinds of melancholy, that put on all sorts of forms,—sometimes noisy, sometimes capricious, sometimes misanthropical, was there not greater reason for Lord Byron to undergo such a crisis—at a period when energy of heart and mind was not yet balanced by confidence in his own genius? ”

“ His liking for bandits and pirates may have sprung from some tendencies of his nature, some circumstances in his life; but there was not the smallest resemblance between the poet and the corsair. Lord Byron's heart was full of kindness and generosity, he took pride in splendid acts of beneficence: to change the position of some among his fellow-men, and make them exchange misery for unexpected good fortune, was for him the dearest exercise of his faculties. No one ever sympathized more deeply with the joys he could create. ”

“ There are those who trace in the peculiar character of Lord Byron's genius strong features of relationship to the times in which he lived; who think that the great events which marked the close of the last century, by giving a new impulse to men's minds, by habituating them to the daring and the free, and allowing full vent to "the flash and outbreak of fiery spirits," had led naturally to the production of such a poet as Byron ”

“ A sensitive man, and yet heroic, strong in spirit, but without fixed ideals of life, a rebel by nature who yet finds no greater soul to lead him, no faithful band to follow him in any definite effort for mankind, Byron is a modern likeness of him that in the legend afterwards became St. Christopher. Only Byron seeks the strongest without finding him, learns to despise the devil, and never meets the devil’s master. Worn out with the search, the poet flings himself down in the woods of doubt and dreams “Don Juan.” ”

“ The character of that sympathetic chief of the outlaws, who was a nobleman by birth, and who was always followed by the lovely Marian, dressed up as a page; his generosity, his courage, his cleverness, his mixture of virtue and vice, his pride, his buoyant and chivalrous nature, his death even, which was so touching, must, to our mind, have produced a powerful impression upon one who, like Byron, was gifted with as much heart as imagination. At least the poet's fancy, if not the acts of the man himself, must have been influenced by these early impressions ”

“ In restoring, however, facts to their true light, we do not pretend to make Byron appear always superior to humanity in his conduct as a man and a poet. Could he, with so sensitive and passionate a nature as his was, and living only that period when passions are strongest, have always acted as those who from age no longer are affected by them? If it is easy not to give way to our passions at seventy, is it equally so at twenty or at thirty? ”

“ Even Byron with his passionate soul, his strangely mixed nature, his bitterness and sweetness, his loftiness of thought and expression combined, his marvellous power over words, has written dramas which as poems are splendid, but as dramas wretched. ”

“ Simply because, with all the life and beauty of his style, the vigour and truth of his descriptions, the boldness of his conceptions, and the reach of his vision in the dark abysses of passion, Lord Byron was but imperfectly acquainted with human nature. He looked but on the outside of man. No characteristic action distinguishes one of his heroes from another, nor is there much dissimilarity in their sentiments; they have no individuality ”

“ He was resolved to write an epic; for the idea of a thousand guineas had taken possession of all his faculties. He made a pen—he folded the paper—he rubbed his hands across his brow for a subject. He might have said with Byron—had Byron then said it—
"I want a hero!" ”

“ There remains only one degree more for him to attain—heroism. But the constant exercise of generosity of soul, in inferior degrees, will give him power to reach that sublime height, and, summing up all in one, arrive at the crowning sacrifice of his life.
Already more than once, in Italy, and especially in Romagna, when that peninsula was preparing a grand struggle for independence, Lord Byron had shown himself ready to make any sacrifice, to aid in throwing off Austrian chains. But, owing to subsequent events, his extreme devotedness could not then go beyond the offer made. ”

“ Byron indeed speaks of himself often, but his is like the voice of an angel heard crying in the storm or the whirlwind; and we listen with a kind of mysterious dread to the tones of a Being whom we scarcely believe to be kindred to ourselves, while he sounds the depths of our nature, and illuminates them with the lightnings of his genius. ”

“ Lord Byron had enough of systems, and was disgusted with their absurdity, their proud dogmatical views, and their intolerant spirit. Whenever the great questions of life and the dictates of the soul occupy his thoughts, either in the silence of the night or in the absence of passion, we shall see him set himself resolutely to the examination of his own conscience, for the purpose of arriving at truth and justice. ”

“ All more or less were, and could not fail to have been, susceptible of irritation and anger; for such susceptibility was indispensable in the peculiar constitution of their minds. But he who finds sufficient strength of will to control himself, when over-excitement is caused by some wounded feeling, does not that person approach to virtue? Did Lord Byron possess this power? Every thing, even to the testimony of his servants, his masters, his comrades, proves that he did. In childhood he showed that he knew how to conquer himself, and would use his power. ”

“ He sees nothing in such poor advantages good or solid enough to fill his heart, to deserve his cares and desires; and it even requires strong efforts for him not to disdain them too much. The only good capable of tempting him is that sort of fame which ought to be the meed of pure, simple virtue; but men are not wont to give it, and he is fain to go without it."
The only advantage Lord Byron wished to derive from his reputation was to render it subservient to his heart—the true focus of his noble existence. ”

“ Lord Byron's goodness, however, was so exceptional, and contrasted so strongly with the qualities attributed to him by those who only knew him by repute, that, in making an exception of him, astonishment, at the very least, might have been the result. If we look at him conscientiously in every act of his life, in his letters, and in his poetry, we must sympathize particularly with him. We find that his goodness shines as prominently as does his genius, and we feel that it can bear any test at any epoch of, alas! ”