ch I can't accuse myself of being insensible."

In the evening he talked to and laughed a good deal with the Countess
Guiccioli about this great _compatimento_,[17] treating it as a great
oddity. A few months later, Moore having written to him about this same
Mr. Mulock, and told him that that gentleman was giving lectures upon
religion, Lord Byron, while riding with the young Count G---- in the
forest of Ravenna, made his profession of faith, and finding his
youthful companion not quite orthodox, said to him: "The nature of
classical and philosophical studies generally paralyzes all logical
minds, and that is why many young heads leave college unbelievers: you
are even still more so, because you mix up your religious views with
your political antipathies. As for me, in my early youth, when I left
college, where I had to bow to very superior and stronger minds who
themselves were under various evil influences of college and of youth, I
was more than heterodox. Time and reflection have changed my mind upon
these subjects, and I consider Atheism as a folly. As for Catholicism,
so little is it objectionable to me, that I wish my daughter to be
brought up in that religion, and some day to marry a Catholic. If
Catholicism, after all, suggests difficulties of a nature which it is
difficult for reason to get over, are these less great than those which
Protestantism creates? Are not all the mysteries common to both creeds?
Catholicism at least offers the consolation of Purgatory, of the
Sacraments, of absolution and forgiveness; whereas Protestantism is
barren of consolation for the soul."

This open profession of faith, expressed by such a man as Lord Byron, in
a calm and dispassionate tone, produced a great impression upon the
young count. It had been so much the fashion to consider him as
irreligious, that one would say that even his friends were of the same
opinion. Some time had elapsed since Byron had sent a translation from
the Armenian of one of the Epistles of St. Paul, which Murray delayed in
publishing. Rather annoyed by this delay, Byron wrote to him on the 9th
of October, 1821, from Ravenna:--

"The Epistle of St. Paul, which I translated from the Armenian, for what
reason have you kept it back, though you published that stuff which gave
rise to the 'Vampire?' Is it because you are afraid to print any thing
in opposition to the cant of the 'Quarterly' about Manicheism? Let me
have a proof of that Epistle directly