dead, and he scarcely saw his sister, who lived in quite
another circle; through his antecedents, his youth, and his travels
abroad, he was still a stranger among his fellow-peers; the only persons
he saw much of were five or six college friends, whom death had spared,
and to whom he was extremely attached; but they were his sole
affections. His ideal standard of perfection which, being brought in
contact with reality, had always a little spoilt women for him, had
ended by making them almost disagreeable.

"I have one request to make," wrote he at this time to H----, "never
again speak to me in your letters of a woman; do not even allude to the
existence of the sex. I will not so much as read a word about them; it
must be _propria que maribus_."

It was in this state of relative isolation that he came to London, about
the end of the year, and found Dallas preparing to have "Childe Harold"
published; a task in which Lord Byron half unwillingly joined.

"He seemed more inclined," says Dallas, "at that time to seek more solid
fame, by endeavoring to become an active, eloquent statesman."

But, notwithstanding this perspective, despite his genius and his youth,
Lord Byron often fell into a sort of mental prostration, which was, says
Dallas again, "rather the _result of his particular situation, feeling
himself out of his sphere, than that of a gloomy disposition_ received
from nature."

We have seen, in effect, that there were circumstances then existing
well calculated to darken his noble brow, and give him those nervous
movements that may have seemed like caprice to those who were ignorant
of their cause; and I wished to enter into these details so as to
characterize well the epoch when his melancholy was greatest, and to
show that it had its chief source in the anguish of his heart. It was to
this time he alluded, when, in other days of suffering (at the period of
his separation from Lady Byron), wherein his heart had smaller share, he
wrote to Moore:--"If my heart could have broken, it would have done so
years ago, through events more afflicting than this."

I also wished to enter into these details, because, desiring to prove
that Lord Byron's melancholy almost always arose from palpable causes,
it was necessary to make these causes known; and thus those who have
declared his griefs to be rather _imaginary_ than _real_, may find in
this chapter abundant reason for rectifying their ideas. Among the
number of such