by Allan Massie
Morality, of course, is to be supported, for without it the condition of society must be even sadder than it is; yet there is to me something intensely disagreeable in the judgement that passes harsh sentence on others for offences which the man who judges has never felt a temptation to indulge in (I think again of poor wretched Heber, and of how even a man of the highest principles and the most apparently steady virtue may be led astray by carnal desire; and when I do so, I hope I have attained a degree of sympathetic understanding which makes me readier to pity than to censure.)
I have – I may say in parenthetical passing – a particular, personal, and to me shameful, reason to express this hope, for I have myself been guilty of an act of moral censure and self-righteousness, which seemed to me proper at the time, but for which I now bitterly reproach myself. I have never written of this before, and I can do so now only in the certainty that this memoir is unlikely to see the light of day till long after I am in the grave; for I shall leave instructions to Lockhart that, while he may draw on it freely for the Life which he purposes to write, he must then place it under lock and key with instructions that it is not to be published in its entirety till all those mentioned in it have also taken that long journey into the dark.
My youngest brother Daniel was possessed of a rare degree of charm which however, as is often the way with those who have received this blessing or curse, contrived to lead him into a dissipated way of life. He was intelligent but not steadfast, and lacked the resolution which alone can enable a man of merry and agreeable temperament to reject the immediately attractive course of action in favour of a duller but virtuous one. Accordingly, he soon fell into evil ways. Believing that a change of scene was desirable, I secured him a post in the West Indies. While he was there, a rebellion of the negroes broke out. My brother disgraced himself by a failure of nerve which may have been no more than momentary, but which exposed him to contempt in the colony; and so he was returned home, his name – and mine – blackened. Back in Edinburgh, he lodged with my mother, who continued to treat him with that Christian charity which was natural to her, and who reproached me – it was almost the only, and certainly the hardest, reproach she ever offered me – for my failure to do the same. But like the God of the Hebrews I hardened my heart against poor Dan, refused to receive him, refused to name him as more than ‘my relation’, so denying him even the sacred name of brother and, in short, presented to him a front that was cold as ice and unforgiving as – well, Lady Byron’s. Poor Dan in what I now understand to be the misery occasioned by broken hopes, shame, and the felt contempt of others, especially myself, sought refuge in the bottle and the unworthy companionship afforded by low taverns. He died, as a result of his dissipations, before he was thirty. While he was the prime agent of his own failure and decay, I cannot now acquit myself of the charge that my own adamantine rejection of him contributed to his unhappy end. To my present shame I refused to attend his funeral or to wear mourning for my brother. I have now learned to have more tolerance and compassion than I had then. Indeed – if I ever get through Woodstock and Napoleon – I have an idea for a character in a novel to be set in Perth at the close of the Middle Ages, who will display a like momentary cowardice, and, if I can bring it off, it may serve as some poor sort of expiation to the manes of poor Dan.
It is not only my memory of my brother which forbids me to join in the general censure directed at Byron both on account of his marital misfortunes, and of the nature of his life in Venice. That this was dissipated is beyond doubt; indeed in letters which were widely circulated Byron boasted of his amours, partly – I have no doubt – because it amused him to scandalize still further those who had already condemned him. It was as if he said, ‘If they want a rake, I shall provide one.’ But though I would never excuse a poet’s life on the grounds that his manner of living was necessary for his poetry – a piece of special pleading which I think offensive – yet I am loth to judge Byron harshly even in his Venetian years. I am sensible that he was sorely wounded in mind and spirit; and I believe also he ever retained a certain quality of detachment which enabled him to view his debauchery with a candid eye. Then, if one is to seek justification in the work that resulted, why Don Juan, for all its profanity, occasional grossness, and the unpleasant, even offensive, nature of the personal attacks it contains – some of them directed against men for whom I have a high regard – might be held to justify even a treaty with the De’il. Where in English literature will you find such a medley? Such exuberance mingled with tenderness, such wit and high spirits, such shades of melancholy, such scene-painting, such an ability to move in half a sentence from frivolity to wise philosophy, such generosity, such keen contempt for cant?
As to the last phase of his life, that must be held to redeem anything and everything that had gone before. The cause was good, the enterprise noble, the commitment absolute. A young lady said to me once: ‘I regret only that he died of fever rather than in battle, which would have been a more fitting and Romantic death for a poet.’ Her feeling was natural enough – for a young lady of her stamp. In my own youth I might indeed have thought likewise. Now, Byron’s acceptance of a role somewhere between that of a quartermaster and a diplomat appears to me evidence of his true greatness as a man. The odious Trelawny, who had modelled himself, it seems, on a Byronic hero, had no time, I am told, for the business that occupied Byron at Missolonghi. Indeed, he sneered at it, and took himself off to the mountains to join a band of fighters who were no better than brigands for all their professed patriotism. But Byron stayed in his quarters by that dismal lagoon while the rain fell, and scribbled letters about loans and supplies and accommodations. His acceptance of what he conceived as his duty – of the best way he could serve the cause in which he had engaged himself – a duty without glamour or excitement – his acceptance too of necessity and of the limitations of what was possible – all this establishes his true heroism to my complete satisfaction. In Greece Byron came to maturity, and, in doing so, realized, I believe, that the harder part of life consists in acceptance, leading to persistence, even if at times you seem to be dinging your head against a stone dyke. He got his teeth into the job and held fast as a terrier that has gotten a rat and will not surrender it. Affectation and Romanticism fell away from him, and he showed the rarest kind of courage – the dour cauld kind that hauds fast, and says ‘no’ .
When we were together, I ever thought myself, on account of the difference in our age, as being to some extent his mentor and even protector; and I have reason to believe from his conversation and writings that to some degree at least he himself saw me in that light too. Now, when I think of his labours in Greece, and then think on my present perplexities, on the temptation to despair which creeps upon me in the night watches, why then I feel that in some way our roles have been reversed; and that it is now Byron who speaks words of resolution and encouragement to me.
Had he survived the war in Greece, he would have surmounted a crisis in his life, and a new career of fame would have been opened to him, in which he would have obliterated the memory of such parts of his life as his friends would wish to see forgotten. But it was not to be; he leaves a memory, and a name, and, for me, a remembrance of warmth, and a sharp and indescribably painful sense of loss.
Light flickers on the reedy waste
Of Missolonghi’s sad lagoon,
And dark, and sullen, clouds obscure
The weary, as if mortal, moon.
Frater, ave atque vale!
The Roman poet’s echoing line
Speaks of the sword-keen grief that springs
In countless hearts, so sharp in mine.
Not only grief but also pride,
For Byron died in Freedom’s cause,
At one with bold Miltiades,
With Wallace and the Great Montrose.
Lift high yon cup of Samian wine!
He died that Greece might yet be free,
As the mountains look on Marathon
While Marathon looks on the sea.
Frater, ave atque vale!
The wailing pipes take up the strain;
The echo sounds o’er Thessaly,
Again, again, again, again.
The laurels by the lake are stripped
– while darkness cloaks the hills in night
To crown the hero-poet’s brow
– And Greeks themselves resume the fight.
Frater, ave atque vale!
Rest, troubled Childe, the journey’s done,
In honour rescued and restored,
This battle lost, yet victory won.
I have known almost all the distinguished men of my time; yet taking everything into account, Byron excelled them all. As a poet Wordsworth achieves a sublimity which Byron could not attain; yet though I have a true affection for Wordsworth, as a man I must judge him inferior to Byron. Take poetry away from Byron and he would still have been remarkable; take it from Wordsworth, and what is left? Moreover, the vanity that is disagreeable – though I understand its source – in Wordsworth, was innocent in Byron. It ran deep no doubt; yet to me it appeared to belong to that part of him that remained boyish. There was an underlying humour in it. It was a physical vanity, too, for his profile was that of an angel, but there was ever an element of mischief in it;* it was part of a game he played.
His Grace of Wellington is, of course, a man whose sagacity far surpassed Byron’s, and whose manners, bearing and dignity are all beyond reproach. I esteem him absolutely. Yet there is not in the Duke that divine fire which animated Byron. He is rooted in this earth.
Frater, ave atque vale!
How many tender memories mine,
Of laughter and companionship,
Of sense and nonsense, song and wine.
Light flickers on the reedy waste
Of Missolonghi’s sad lagoon,
Love parts the misty clouds to show
The candid and translucent moon.
__________
* N.B. The last time I talked with Byron, he was merry and playful as a kitten. Now – Sunt lacrimae rerum!
11
A Dream and an Argument, 1827
I have had the most horrid dream; I thought that I was dead.
It so happened that after a bite of supper of toasted cheese, which might account for it, and a dram of whisky, I sat in my easy-chair, meaning to rest for a half-hour or so before I resumed my task. I was weary after a day in the Court, where I still cannot escape the feeling that oppressed the man with the long nose, that everyone is looking at me, to estimate how I bear myself in my troubles. Fatigue then must have overcome me, for if I do not recall falling asleep, and could suppose that my vision was reality, that supposition is given a good dunt, by my certainty that I remember waking up.
Be that as it may, it seemed that there was a personage in my study with me, a most gentleman-like fellow, but not one that I could put a name to. He straightway excused his presence – and it did not seem that anyone had admitted him – by observing that I had set so many characters loose in the world from my study that I could scarce grumble at the occasional intruder.
Which was an odd thing to say, as it seemed to me, for an imaginary character can hardly be held to be equal to an uninvited guest. Nevertheless, I do not think I demurred.
It occurred to me that he was perhaps a lawyer sent by my creditors to conduct a new examination of my affairs; a thought that was disagreeable, since arrangements have been made and ought to be adhered to, as they certainly have been for my part.
‘Not precisely,’ he said. ‘Call me an angel. All angels are lawyers in a manner of speaking, since we are sent to make a case, though’ – he tittered in what even in my perplexity I thought an unangelic fashion – ‘though the converse can scarcely be maintained.’
‘What sort of angel?’ I asked.
‘Call me an examining or recording one. Or the devil’s advocate. Or what you please. We are concerned here with you, Sir Walter, not with me.’
Then he accused me of dishonourable conduct.
‘Dishonourable?’ I said. ‘In what way dishonourable?’
‘Come, Sir Walter,’ he said. ‘Your love of secrecy – your concealment of your involvement – your financial involvement – in the Ballantyne printing business – do you call that honourable?’
‘Why,’ I replied, taking courage, for it seemed to me that if this was all the charge he had to bring against me, I had little to fear, ‘I know of no principle that obliges a man to disclose his pecuniary affairs to the world. Moreover,’ I added, ‘James and John Ballantyne have been friends since my boyhood. If my engagement in their business was to my advantage, it also served them well, till this crash of bulls and bears on the London markets engulfed us all.’
He shook his head, but did not pursue the matter, as if it was no purpose of his to argue with me, but only to record my answers to his questions.
‘Did not your denial of the authorship of your novels reveal an innate dishonesty?’
‘Come, come,’ I said, genially enough, I think, for I felt myself on terra firma here, ‘it is a fundamental principle of Scots Law that no man is bound to incriminate himself. Besides the secrecy prevented me from taking myself too seriously, as authors are wont to do. We authors have the habit of rating authorship ower high, and are encouraged to do so by the praise of fellow-authors who offer it because they are anxious to elevate the profession, and hope for praise in their turn. Ca’ me, ca’ thee, as the saying goes.’
I felt that my answer displeased him, for he evinced signs of impatience.
‘Come, Sir Walter, this is trivial stuff. Let us advance to the gravamen of the charge. You have presented – I speak with the voice of posterity here – a false picture of your native land. You are a traitor to Scotland, shame and dishonour lurk by your grave, sham bard of a sham nation . . .’
That touched me deeply.
‘I have tried’, I said, ‘to make it possible for future generations to see Scotland whole, and I have tried to reconcile the divisions that still afflict us. Our history is one of conflict: between brother and brother’ – and as I said that, I shuddered at the memory of my conduct towards poor Daniel, which, to my relief, he did not raise against me – ‘clan against clan, Highland against Lowland. Covenanter against Cavalier, Presbyterian against Episcopalian, Jacobite against Whig, Whig against Tory. The opposed forces glower at each other across the wastes of history, and I would effect a reconciliation. I would have each see the virtue in the other’s cause. I would have the victor learn that his victory is never complete, and should never be so, for his cause is aye changed by the battle, so that the world that comes into being is the heir of both parties in the quarrel. Now,’ I said, warming to my theme, ‘of these conflicts none was more enduring and cruel than that between Lowland and Highland. The Highlanders, whose language was once the tongue of the greater part of the country, were driven to the very extremity of history, and the catastrophe of Culloden saw their way of life utterly broken. By summoning up memories, however savage, by invocation of what was, I have sought to bind the past to the present and so, I hope, help to form a more intelligent and more sympathetic future.’
‘Fine words,’ said my inquisitor, for such I now saw him to be, ‘fine words, Sir Walter, but the Highland chiefs you flatter are meanwhile clearing the glens of men and women to make way for sheep. Do you defend that, while you praise their ancestors?’
‘I defend no inhumanity,’ I said. ‘Yet I observe that in every age, the forces of political economy, which arise from a general or particular perception of necessity, drive men, who in their personal relations may be kindly and benevolent, to perform acts which reek of inhumanity, but which their perpetrators contrive to justify on grounds of morality, as well as necessity. So you will find Christian gentlemen, who would be sair affrontit if you challenged their religious devotion or the honesty of their faith in Christ who taught us to love our neighbours as ourselves, Christia
n gentlemen, I say, in the southern states of the American Union, who hold slaves and buy and sell them as we do cattle. Why, Mr Jefferson himself, author of the noble sentiments expressed in the Declaration of Independence, owned black men as we own beasts.’
And then I spoke up for the wretched of the earth, the perpetual victims, the broken men and women, and for all those who suffer grievously in war. I spoke up for the defeated:
Dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border,
The English, for ance, by guile wan the day:
The Flowers o the Forest, that foucht aye the foremost,
The prime o our land, are cauld in the clay.
We’ll hear nae mair lilting at the yowe-milking,
Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning;
The Flowers o the Forest are a’ wede away.
‘I defend no inhumanity,’ I said again. ‘Let the proud sad music of the “Liltin”’ sound to the valleys and the hills and in men’s hearts. If the day should come when we forget it, and abide only in the present and in hopes of the future, then, alas, my poor country, for all that makes Scotland Scotland will be no more. The brave days will be done, and we shall live in the ledger-books and no more in poetry and song. It is that awareness that I have worked to cultivate.’