resentment whatever. Remember that if you have injured me in aught, this
forgiveness is something; and that if I have injured you, it is
something more still, if it be true, as moralists say, that the most
offending are the least forgiving.

"Whether the offense has been solely on my side or reciprocal, or on
yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any but two things, viz.,
that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again.
I think if you also consider the two corresponding points with reference
to myself, it will be better for all three. Yours ever,

"NOEL BYRON."

This letter, though never sent, requires no further proofs. It can now
be understood, although the contrary has been said, that Lord Byron's
resolution never again to unite with Lady Byron was irrevocable; but
that, however, a reconciliation would have pleased him, on account of
his daughter, and because no feeling of hatred could find room in his
great _soul_.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 138: "In none of the persons he admired," says Moore, "did I
meet with a union of qualities so well fitted to succeed in the
difficult task of winning him into fidelity and happiness as in the lady
in question. Combining beauty of the highest order with a mind
intelligent and ingenuous, having just learning enough to give
refinement to her taste, and far too much taste to make pretensions to
learning; with a patrician spirit proud as Lord Byron's, but showing it
only in a delicate generosity of spirit, a feminine high-mindedness,
which would have led her to tolerate the defects of her husband in
consideration of his noble qualities and his glory, and even to
sacrifice silently her own happiness rather than violate the
responsibility in which she stood pledged to the world for his."]

[Footnote 139: This circumstance was his proposal for Miss Milbank; we
shall see presently how it had taken place.]

[Footnote 140: "Lady Byron," said Lord Byron at Pisa, "and Mr. Medwin
were continually making portraits of me; each one more unlike than the
other."]

[Footnote 141: Moore, Letter 233.]

[Footnote 142: At this time of embarrassment he borrowed a large sum to
give to Coleridge.]

[Footnote 143: Moore, p. 389.]

[Footnote 144: Moore's Life, vol. iii. p. 209.]

[Footnote 145: It is true that once Lord Byron discharged a pistol, by
accident, in Lady Byron's room, when she was _enciente_. This action,
coupled with the preoccupations and sadness o