mother for
the evident purpose of calming the uneasiness she must have felt at
knowing him to be alone, and when he mentioned with indifference the
departure of his friend, he was exaggerating, except in what he said of
loving solitude. That he did not even sufficiently express, for he might
have boldly declared that it was positively requisite to him; and,
indeed, his resignation at loss of a friend so thoroughly appreciated is
the best proof we could have of it.

In the workings of Lord Byron's intellect, observation, reflection, and
solitary meditation were brought into play much more than
imagination.[174] Every thing with him took its source from facts; and
the vital flame that circulates in every phase of his writings is the
very essence of this reality, first elaborated in his brain and then
stamped on his verse. As long as this first kind of work of observation
was going on, as long as he was only occupied in imbibing truths of the
visible world that were sure to strike him, and storing them in his
memory, society, and especially intellectual society, suited him. But
when he began to shape his observations into form, by dint of reflection
and meditation, generalizing and making deductions, then constant
society forced upon him fatigued him, and solitude became indispensable.
Now it was more particularly at the period of which we are speaking that
his mind was in the situation described. He had just visited Albania,
whose inhabitants were a violent, turbulent race, animated with a
passionate love of independence, who were ever rising in rebellion
against authority, and whose every sentiment, passion, and principle,
formed a perfect contrast with all existing in his own country. He had
become familiar with their usages, and recognized in them the possession
of virtues which he loved, though mixed up with vices which he abhorred.
He had gone through strange emotions and adventures among them; his life
had often been in danger from the elements, from pirates and brigands;
on the throne sat a prince who united monstrous vices to a few virtues,
who, wearing gentleness on his countenance, was yet so ferocious in
soul, that Byron, despite the favors lavished on himself, felt
constrained to paint the tyrant in his real colors. He found in these
contrasts, in this moral phenomenon, that which made him shudder, and
precisely because it did cause shuddering, the source of soul-stirring,
most original poetry, the type of his