The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-06


happy ''not in a way that can or ought to last"
hThe Giaour,r sThe Corsar," Lara" "Par-
sina," ''The Siege of Corinth," and Manfred"
all written or conceived about this period of his
life, give one picture of desperate, despairiug,
unrepentant soul, whom suffering maddens but
cannot reclaim
In all these he paints only the one woman, of
concentrated, unconsdering passion, ready to
sacrifice heaven and defy hell for guilty man,
beloved in spite of religion or reason. In this
unnatural literature, the stimulus OF crime Is
represented as intensifylng love. Medora, Gull
mare, the Page in Lara" Parisina, and the lost
sister of Manfred love the more intensely
because the object of the love is a criminal
outlawed by God and man. The next step
beyond this is--madness.
The work of DR.. Forbes Winslow on Obscure
Diseases of the Brain and Nerves" contains
passage so very descriptive of the case of Lord
Byron that IL might seem to have been written
for it. The sixth chapter of his work on "Auo.
malous and Masked Affections of the Mind
contains, in our view, the only clew that can
unravel the sad tragedy of Byrons life. He
says, p. ST.
i'These forms OF unrecognzed mental disorder are
Irbsncs hDt % the body health recurring medical at
tention any obvious departure from O normal
state OF thought and conduct such as TO justify legal
interference neither do these affections always In
capactate the party from engaging in the ordinary
business OF life; The change may have pro,
gressed insdiously and steal6hiy heving slowly and
almost imperceptibly induced important molecular
notifications In the delicate vescular neurne Of the
ultlnaUely Ill bOln6 VI bH6
ideas, alteration of the affections, or perVerson Of
the propenstles or instincts.
"Menta disorder OF dangerous character mas
been known for years to be steathily advancing
without exciting the slightest notion of its presence
until some sad and terrible catastrophe, homicide
or suicide has painfully awakened attention to its
existence Persons suffering from latent insanity
often affect singuarty Of dress, gait, conversation
and phraseology. The most trining circumstances
stimulate their exctability. They are martyrs to
ungovernable paroxysms OF passion, are iniamed to
OF causes and occasionally lose all sense OF deicacy
OF feeling, sentiment, refinement OF manners and
such m od ts t0te
lectual and moral qualities OF the highest order"
In another place DR.. Winslow again adverts to
this latter sympom, which was strikingy marked
In the case of Lord Byron:-
"All delicacy and decency OF thought are occa-
sionaly banshed from the mind etfectually does
the principle OF thought in these attacks succumb to
the animal instincts ana passions.
"Such cases will commonly be found associated
with organic predlspostion to insanity or cerebral
| disease. . Notifications OF the malady are seen
allied with genius. The biographies OF Cowper,
Burns, Byron Johnson, Pope, and Hayden, establish
tnat the most exalted intellectual conditions do not
ain early childhood this form OF men ta disturb
ance may, in many cases, be detected To Its exist
ence is often TO be traced the motiveless crimes OF
| the young"
| No one can compare this passage of DR..
| Forbes Winslow with the incidents we have
| already cited as occurring in that fatal period
| before the separation of Lord and Lady Byron,
| and not feel that the hapless young wife was in
| deed struggling with those infexibe natural
| laws, which, at some stages OF retribution, in
| volve in their awful sweep the guilty with the
| innocent. She longed to save; but he was gone
| past redemption. Alcoholic stimulants and
| licentious excesses, without doubt had pro.
| duced those unseen changes in the brain, OF
which DR.. Forbes Winslow Speaks and the re-
suits were terrible in proportion to the peculiar
| firmness and delicacy of the organism deranged
| Alas the history of Lady Byron is the history
of too many women in every rank of life who
are called in agonies of perplexity and fear tt
watch that gradual process by which physica
eXcesses change the organism of the brain, til
slow, creeping, moral insanity comes on. The
woman who is the helpless victim of cruetie
which only unnatural states of the brain coulC
| invent; who is heart-sick to-day and breads to
morrow-looks in hopeless horror on the fata
process by which lover and protecto
changes under her eyes, from day to day, to
| brute and fiend.
Lady Byron's married lfe--alas! 1t is live,
over in many a cottage and tenement-house
with no understanding on either side of tn
woful misery.
DR.. Winsiow truly says -'The science o
these brain affections is yet in its infancy i
England At that time 1t had not even begu
to be. Madness was fixed point; and the In
quiries into it had no nicely; 1t: treatment
Insanity simply locked man u
as dangerous being and the yer
suggestion of 1t, therefore, was resented as a
injury.
| most peculiar anu alIccllHH Ol Una
form of brain-disease which hurries its victim
as by an overpowering mania, into crime, Ii
that often the moral faculties and the affection
remain to degree unimpaired, andprotest wit
all their strength against the outrage Henc
come conflicts and agonies of remorse propo
toned to the strength of the moral nature
Byron more than any other one writer may b
called the poet of remorse. His passionate pi'
lures of this feeling seem to give new power
the English language:-
| NThara ia n cha0a n the mind
When all Its eements-cOn -cOnvulsed-combined,
Lie dark and jarring with perturbed force,
And gnashing with impenitent remorse
That Juggling fiend who never spake before,
But cries, Il warned thee when the deed is Der. p"
1t was this remorse that formed the only r.
deeming feature of the case. Its eloquence, /
agonies, won from all hearts the interest th
we give to powerful nature in a state OF da
ger and ruin, and it may be hoped that th
feeling, which tempers the stern justice
. human judgments, may prove only a fail
image of the wider charity of Him who
thoughts are as far above ours as the heaven
above the earth.