might be thought he was born
solely for that.

I will acknowledge, then, the intellectual versatility and the mobility
of Lord Byron, but on condition of their being reduced to their real
proportions; of their being shown as they ever existed in him, that is
to say, under subjection to duty, honor, and feeling. Through his
extreme impressionability, and his power of combining, in the liveliest
manner, the greatest contrasts, through the pleasure he took in
exercising such extraordinary faculties, and in manifesting them to
others, Lord Byron sometimes assumed such an appearance of skeptical
indifference and caprice, that he might almost be said to show a certain
intermission of faculties, and even of ideas. But if his words and
writings are examined, it will be seen that this mobility was only
skin-deep. It might affect his nerves and muscles, but did not penetrate
into his system. It animated his writings occasionally, and oftener his
words, _but never his actions!_ for, if in some rare moments of life, he
abandoned his will to the sway of light breezes, that was only for very
evanescent fancies of youth, in which neither heart nor honor were at
stake. And even then it was rather by word than by deed, as occurred at
Newstead, when he was twenty years of age, and at Venice when he was
twenty-eight. His energetic soul did not, like feebler natures, require
inconstancy to awaken it. As to ideas, they were only changeable in
him, when they were by nature open to discussion or _accessory_; and
they remained floating, until having been elaborated by his great
reason, he could admit them into the small number of such as he
considered chosen and indisputable. Then they found a sort of sanctuary
in his mind, remaining there sacred and unmoved, just like his true
sentiments of heart.

His mobility, thus limited and circumscribed within due bounds by
unswerving principles and the dictates of an excellent heart, _was thus
shorn of all danger_, and had for its first result to contribute toward
producing that amiability and that wonderful fascination which he
exercised over all those who came near him. Moore quotes, on this head,
the words of Cooper, who, speaking of persons with a changeful
intellectual temperament, says, that their society "_ought to be
preferred in this world, for, all scenes in life having two sides, one
dark and the other brilliant, the mind possessing an equal admixture of
melancholy and vivacity, is the one