ess of character; his greatness
and disinterestedness. "His very failings were those of a sincere, a
generous, and a noble mind," says a biographer who knew him well. His
contempt for base actions; his love of equity; his passion for truth,
which was carried almost to a hatred of cant and hypocrisy, were the
immediate causes of his want of fairness in his opinion of himself and
of his self-accusation of things most contrary to his nature.

So singular a trait in his character was by no means the result of
eccentricity, but the result of an exceptional assembly of rare
qualities which met for the first time in one man, and which, shining in
the midst of a most corrupt society, constituted almost more an anomaly
which became a real defect, hurtful, however, to himself only. His ideal
of the beautiful magnified weaknesses into crimes, and physical failings
into deformities. Thus it is that with the saints the slightest
transgression of the laws appears at once in the light of mortal sin.
St. Augustin calls the greediness of his youth a crime. The result of
all this was that his very virtues mystified the world and caused it to
believe that the faults which he attributed to himself were nothing in
comparison of those which he really had.

Byron, however, was indignant at being so unfairly treated. He treated
with contempt the men who calumniated him, and as if they were idiots.
He can safely, therefore, be blamed for not urging enough his own
defense. This, to my mind, constitutes his capital fault, unless one
considers defects of character those changes of humor which rapidly
passed from gayety to melancholy, or his pretended irritability, which
was merely a slight disposition to be impatient. These were all the
result of his poetical nature, added to the effects of early education
and to those of certain family circumstances. It would be too hard and
too unfair to attribute these slight weaknesses of character proper to
great genius to a bad nature or to misanthropy.

Had Lord Byron not been impatient he must have been satisfied with his
own condition and indifferent to that of others. In other words, he must
have been an egotist, which he was not. He was gay by nature, and
repeatedly showed it; but he had been sorely wounded by the injustice of
men, and his marriage with Miss Milbank had undermined his peace and
happiness. How, then, could he escape the occasional pangs of grief, and
not betray outwardly the pain which