that of having unjustly accused humanity. As to the misanthropy of his
early youth, it was of so slight a nature that it only passed through
his mind, and occasionally rested on his pen; but it always evaporated
in words, and especially in his verses. For his life and actions ever
showed that such a sentiment was foreign to his nature.

And since its attacks[129] always took place under the pressure of some
great injustice, some excess of suffering imposed by the strong on the
weak and inoffensive, we must also add that there was in this pretended
misanthropy more real goodness and humanity than in all the elegies,
songs, meditations, Messenian odes, etc., of all those who blamed him.

Having studied Lord Byron at all periods of his life, in his relations
with society, and in his love of solitude, we have seen him alternately
placed in contact with others, and then more directly with himself; now
correcting the inconveniences that flow from solitude, by seeking the
amusements of youth and society, and then making solitary meditation
follow on the useful field of observation sought in the world, and thus
he drew profit from both, without ever suffering himself to be
exclusively engrossed by one or the other. The enervating atmosphere of
drawing-rooms remained innocuous for him; he came out from them with a
mind as virile and independent as if he had never breathed it, keeping
all his ideas strong and bold, just and humane, as they were before. But
the consequences of this rare equilibrium, which he was enabled to
maintain between a worldly and a solitary life, were very great, as
regarded his fame, if not his happiness; for he gained thereby an
experience and a knowledge of the human heart quite wonderful, at an age
when the first pages of the Book of Life have in general scarcely been
read, so that, in perusing his writings, one might imagine that he had
already gone through a long career. Lastly, as afterward not the least
trace of this pretended misanthropy remained, he might have repeated
what Bernardin de Saint Pierre said of a certain melancholy that we are
scarcely ever free from in youth, and which was compared, in his
presence, to the small-pox:--"I also have had that malady, but it left
no traces behind it."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 119: See chapter on "Melancholy and Gayety."]

[Footnote 120: M. Nisard.]

[Footnote 121: See his "Life in Italy."]

[Footnote 122: See his "Life in Italy."]

[Footnote 123: