The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-19

trust to that, for my copylst would write out
anything desired in all the ignorance of in-
nocence" 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 as gentle and ten
der as he was beautiful; when he seemed to
be possessed by good angel, and then for
little time all the ideal possibilities OF his
nature 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 sun
shine are frozen again and again till the
tree is killed.
But there came an hour of reveation-an
hour when, in q 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 fed from him
Immediately, and exposed and denounced the
crime. Lady Byron did neither When all
the hope of womanhood died out of herheart
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 wan
dcrer Of more account than the ninety and
nine that went not astray.
She would neither leave her husband, nor
botray him, nor would she for one moment
justify his sin; and hence came two years of
convulsive struggle, in which sometimes, for
a WHILE the good angel seemed to gain
ground, and then the evil one returned with
seventold vehemence.
Lord Byron argued his case with himself
II, L.. 4 I.
powerful mind. He repudated Christianity
as authority, asserted the right of every hui
man being to follow out what he called "the
impulses Of nature" subsequently he intro
duced into one of his dramas the reason by
which he justified himself in incest.
In the drama of ''Cain, Adah, the sister
and the wife of Cain, thus addresses him.
Cain. walk not with this spirit
Bear with what we have borne, and love mel
Luc;fcr More than thy mother ana thy sire?
4doM / do. Is that sin, to0?
tone day will be in your children.
.IdOh. What
Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch?
LucJcE Not as thou lowest Cain
snail they not love and bring forth things that love
out of their love? Have they not drawn their milk
Out Of this bosom? Was not he, their father,
Born OF the same sole womb in the same hour
With me? did we not love each other? and
In multiplying our being multiply
Them?-And rs love thee, my Cain. go not
Forth with this spirit, he is not OF ours.
Luciter The sin speak Of Is not of my making,
And cannot be a sin in you-whatc'cr
IL seems in those who Will replace ye in
IGGL What is the sin which is not
Sin in itself? can circumstances make sin
or virtue? il it doth, we are the slaves
Of"
Lady Byron, though slight and almost in
fantine in her bodily presence, had the soul,
1t,,f ,t
reasoning man. 1t was the writer's lot to
know her when she formed the personal ac-
quaitance of many of the very first minds of
England but, among all with whom this eX-
perience brought her in connection, there
was none who impressed her so strongly as
Lady Byron. There was an almost super
natural power of moral divination, a grasp of
the very highest and most comprehensive
things, that made her lightest opinions singu-
larly impressive. No doubt that result 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 of
her husbands soul. She followed him through
all his sOphistical reasonings with a Beener
reason. She besought and implored, in the
name of his better nature, and by all the
| glorious things that he was capable of being
and doing; and she had just power enough to
convulse, and shake, and agonize, but not
power enough to subdue
These two years, in which Lady Byron was
with all her soul struggling to bring her hus-
band back to his better SELF were a series of
passionate commissions. During this time,
such was the disordered and desperate state
of his worldly affairs, that there were ten
executions for debt levied on their family
establishment, and it was Lady ByrOns for
| tune each time which settled the account.
! Towards the last she and her husband saw less
and less of each other, and he came more and
more decidedly under evil influences, and
! seemed to acquire sort OF hatred
of her. Lady Byron once said signi-
! ficanty to a friend who spoke of
! dear, l have known people to be hated for no
other reason than because they impersonated
conscience The biographers of Lord Byron
and all his apologists are careful to narrate
how sweet, and amiable, and obliging he was
| TO everybody who approached him; and the
| saving of Fletcher, his man-servant, that
ANYBODY could do anything with my Lord,
except my Lady, has often been quoted.
The reason of all this will now be evident.
.sIv Lady was the only one fully under
standing the deep and dreadful secrets Of his
life who had the courage resolutely, and per-
sistently, and inhexibly to plant herself i'll his
wav, and insist upon it that, if he went to
destruction, it should be in spite OF her best
efforts.
He had tried his strength with her fully.
The first attempt had been to make her an