s pleased to find that the progress which I had made
in his likeness had given satisfaction, for, when we were alone, he
said that he had a particular favour to request of me--would I grant it?
I said I should be happy to oblige him; and he enjoined me to the
flattering task of painting the Countess Guiccioli's portrait for him.
On the following morning I began it, and, after, they sat alternately.
He gave me the whole history of his connection with her, and said that
he hoped it would last for ever; at any rate, it should not be his fault
if it did not. His other attachments had been broken off by no fault of
his.

"I was by this time sufficiently intimate with him to answer his
question as to what I thought of him before I had seen him. He laughed
much at the idea which I had formed of him, and said, 'Well, you find me
like other people, do you not?' He often afterwards repeated, 'And so
you thought me a finer fellow, did you?' I remember once telling him,
that notwithstanding his vivacity, I thought myself correct in at least
one estimate which I had made of him, for I still conceived that he was
not a happy man. He enquired earnestly what reason I had for thinking
so, and I asked him if he had never observed in little children, after a
paroxysm of grief, that they had at intervals a convulsive or tremulous
manner of drawing in a long breath. Wherever I had observed this, in
persons of whatever age, I had always found that it came from sorrow. He
said the thought was new to him, and that he would make use of it.

"Lord Byron, and all the party, left Villa Rossa (the name of their
house) in a few days, to pack up their things in their house at Pisa.
He told me that he should remain a few days there, and desired me, if I
could do any thing more to the pictures, to come and stay with him. He
seemed at a loss where to go, and was, I thought, on the point of
embarking for America. I was with him at Pisa for a few days; but he was
so annoyed by the police, and the weather was so hot, that I thought it
doubtful whether I could improve the pictures, and, taking my departure
one morning before he was up, I wrote him an excuse from Leghorn. Upon
the whole, I left him with an impression that he possessed an excellent
heart, which had been misconstrued on all hands from little else than a
reckless levity of manners, which he took a whimsical pride in opposing
to those of other people."

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