s ever, at home or abroad, in a situation so completely
uprooted of present pleasure, or rational hope for the future, as this
time. I say this because I think so, and feel it. But I shall not sink
under it the more for that mode of considering the question. I have made
up my mind.

"By the way, however, you must not believe all you hear on the subject;
but don't attempt to defend me. If you succeeded in that it would be a
mortal, or an immortal, offense. Who can bear refutation?"[141]

And, after having spoken of his wife's family, he concludes in these
terms:--

"Those who know what is going on say that the mysterious cause of our
domestic misunderstandings is a Mrs. C----, now a kind of house-keeper
and spy of Lady N----, who was a washer-woman in former days."

Swayed by this idea, he went so far then in his generosity as to
exonerate his wife, and accuse himself; whereupon Moore answered that,
"_after all, his misfortunes lay in the choice he had made of a wife,
which he_ (Moore) _had never approved_."

Lord Byron hastened to reply that he was wrong, and that Lady Byron's
conduct while with him had not deserved the smallest reproach, giving
her, at the same time, great praise. But this answer, which, according
to Moore, _forces admiration for the generous candor of him who wrote it
while adding to the sadness and strangeness of the whole affair_--this
answer, of such extraordinary generosity, will better find its place
elsewhere. It contains expressions that show his real state of soul
under the cruel circumstances:--

"I have to battle with all kinds of unpleasantness, including private
and pecuniary difficulties, etc.

" ...It is nothing to bear the _privations_ of adversity, or, more
properly, ill-fortune, but my pride recoils from its _indignities_.
However, I have no quarrel with that same pride, which will, I think, be
my buckler through every thing. If my heart could have been broken it
would have been so years ago, and by events more afflicting than
these.... Do you remember the lines I sent you early last year? I don't
wish to claim the character of 'Vates' the prophet, but were they not a
little prophetic? I mean those beginning: 'There's not a joy the world
can,' etc. They were the truest, though the most melancholy, I ever
wrote."

To this letter Moore answered immediately:--

"I had certainly no right to say any thing about the _unluckiness of
your choice_, though I rejoice now that I did, a