of satisfying any vanity, or any pride, but
they were inadequate, for a modesty so rare and so admirable as his! His
regrets certainly did not apply to youth; he was only thirty-three years
of age! Nor yet to beauty, for he possessed it in the highest degree;
nor to fame, that had only too much been his; nor to love, for he was
the object of real idolatry;[189] nor to any actions that called for
repentance. To what, then, did they apply? To his _aspirations_ after
greater things, after _ideal perfections_, that neither he nor any one
else can arrive at here below. It was a soaring after the infinite!

The cause, noble in itself, of this sadness consisted then in a sort of
nostalgia for the great, the beautiful, the good. The simple words in
which he expressed it enable us to well understand its nature. "I do not
regret this year," said he, "_for what I have done, but for what I have
not done_!"

I will not further multiply proofs; suffice it to say, that this year
having been one of incessant annoyances to him, not only can not we be
surprised that he should have experienced moments of sadness, but we
might rather be astonished at their being so few, if we did not know
that living above all for heart, and his heart being then satisfied, he
found therein compensation for all the rest. "Thanks for your
compliments of the year. I hope that it will be pleasanter than the
last. I speak with reference to England only, as far as regards myself,
where I had every kind of disappointment--lost an important lawsuit--and
the trustees of Lady Byron refusing to allow of an advantageous loan to
be made from my property to Lord Blessington, etc., by way of closing
the four seasons. These, and a hundred other such things, made a year of
bitter business for me in England. Luckily things were a little
pleasanter for me here, else I should have taken the liberty of
Hannibal's ring."

The political and revolutionary events then taking place in Romagna and
throughout Italy, caused emotions and sentiments of too strong a nature
in Lord Byron to be confounded with sadness; but they may well have
contributed to develop largely certain melancholy inclinations
discoverable toward autumn. By degrees, as the first strength of grief
passes away, it leaves behind a sort of melancholy current in the soul,
which, without being the sentiment itself, serves as a conductor for it,
making it gush forth on occurrence of the smallest cause. Causes with
hi