The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1869-08-20
The Literary Sensation of the Year.

Lincoln n............. BENJAMIN Il. GIBBS.
YORK. ..............J .JoHN HAIL,
The Literary Sensation of the Year.
MRS. STOVES ACCOUNT OF THE sEPARA
TIoN OF LORD AND LADY BYRON.
The Boston Adrertiser publishes an alb
stract of the article in the September Attan-
tic, concerning which public expectation is
excited to the highest pitch. Mrs. Stowe is
understood to have derived the information
that furnishes the foundation of her article
from Lady Byron herself. After referring to
the idealized Lord Byron, who has been for
so many years enthroned in the hearts Of the
people, and describing this exalted beings
method OF proposing for wife, by sitting
down IN a reckless mood, aud writing TO two
ladies at the same time, one of whom, Miss
Milbanke, accepted his offer, Mrs. Stowe
says:
There is no reason to doub. that Byron was,
as he relates in his Dream, profoundly agon-
lied and agitated, when he stood before Gods
altar, with the trusting young creature whom
he was leading 10 a fate so awfully tragic;
yet it was rot the memory of Mary Chaworth,
but another guiltier and more damning men,
ory that overshadowed that hour.
The moment the carriage doors were shut
upon the Bridegroom and the bride, the par
oXysm of remorse and despair-unrepentan
remorse and angry despar-broke forth upon
her gentle head. You might have saved me
from this, madam! you had all in your own
power when L offered myself to you first.
Then you might have made me what you
pleased but now you will find that You have
married a deca y
80. There were lucid intervals in which
Lord Byron felt the charm of his wife's mind
and the strength of her powers. Bell, you
could be poet too, if you only thought so,'
| he would say. There were SUMMER hours in
| her stormy life, the memory of which never
| left her, when Byron was gentle and tender
| as he was beautiful; when he seemed TO be
possessed by good angel, and then for Ht-
| tie time all the ideal possibilities of his na-
ture stood revealed
The most dreadful men to live with are
those who thus alternate between angel and
devil. The buds of hope and love called out
by day or two of sunshine are frozen again
| till the tree is killed.
| But there came an hour of revelation-an
| hour when, in manner which left no kind
| of room for doubt, Lady Byron saw the full
| depth of the abyss of infamy which her mar
| riage was expected to cover, and understood
| that she was expected to be the cloak and
the accomplice of this infamy.
Many women would have been utterly
crushed by such disclosure; some would
have fled from him Immediately, and exposed
| and denounced the crime. Lady Byron did
neither. When all the hope of womanhood
| died out of her heart, there arose within her
| stronger, purer and brighter, that immortal
| kind of love such as God feels for the sinner
| the love of which Jesus spoke and which
| holds the one wanderer OF more account than
| the ninety that went not astray. She would
| neither leave her husband nor betray him, ,noI
| vet would she for one moment justify his sin
| and hence came two years of ofconvulsive strJlg-
| ole, in which sometimes, for a while, the good
| angel seemed to gain ground, and then the
| evil one returned with sevenfold vehemence.
| Lord Byron argued his case with himself
| and with her, with all the sophistries of his
Powerful mind. He repudiated Christianity
as authority, asserted Jrfe rryfrt- Il asoru hi
| man being to follow out what he called the
| impulses of nature" Subsequently he intro
| duced into one of his dramas the. reasoning
| by which he justified himself in incest
| Lady Byron, though slight and almost in
| fantine in her bodily presence, had the soul
| not only OF angelic woman, but of strong
| reasoning man. 1t was the writer's lot TO
know her at period when she formed the
| personal acquaintance OF many OF the very
first minds OF England; but among all with
| whom this experience brought her in connec-
tion, there was none who impressed her SC
strongly as Lady Byron. There was an al
| most supernatural power of moral dvnation
grasp of the sery highest and most compre-
hensive things, that made her lghtest opin-
ions singularly impressive. No doubt this re.
suit was wrought out in a great degree from
the anguish and conflict OF these two years
when, with no one TO help or counsel her but
Almighty God, she wrestled and struggled
with tiends of darkness for the redemption o.
her husbands soul. She followed hin
through all his sophistical reasonings with a
| keener reason. She besought and impOred
in the name of his better nature, and with all
the glorious things that he was capable oil
| enough to convulse and shake and agonize
but not power enough to subdue. =
1t was when the state of affairs between
| herself and her husband seemed darkest and
most hopeless, that the only child of this uri-
ion was born. Lord Byron's treatment OF
| his wife during the sensitive period that pre-
| ceded the birth OF this child, and during her
confinement, was marked by paroxysms of
| unmanly brutality, tor which the only posi-
BILE charity on her part was the supposition
| oil insanity. Moore sheds significant lieht
| on this period, by telling us that about this
| time Byron was often DRINK day after day
| with Sheridan. There had been insaity in
| the family, and this was the plea which Lady
Byron's love put in for him. She regarded
| him as, if not Insane, at least so nearly ap-
preaching the boundaries OF insanity as to a
| subject OF torbearance ami tender pity, and
she loved him with that love resembling q
mothers, which good wives often feel when
they have lost all faith in their husbands prin.
cples, and all hopes of their affections. Still
| she was in heart and soul his best friend
| true to him with truth which he himself