LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
Documents Biography Criticism
Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
White Benson to Sydney Owenson, [1798]
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Preface
Vol. I Contents.
Prefatory Address
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Vol. I Index
Vol. II Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter IV
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Vol. II Index
Creative Commons License

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Produced by CATH
 
York, May 16, (date torn off,
but the post-mark is 1798.)

To address you perhaps from the most selfish of all motives, as I once resigned the correspondence you honoured me with from one of all motives the least so, I begin enigmatically; but I shall unravel as I go on, and if you then doubt me I shall at least have the consolation of your pity. You will at least give me
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY.195
that when I tell you that our dear, our invaluable friend Earle, is no more. If this melancholy intelligence has not yet reached you, I see you, in my mind’s eye, again taking it up to convince yourself, and wipe away the tears that fell to his memory.

To say that I have been unhappy since these afflicting tidings were conveyed to me, would be to say nothing. I have incessantly mourned a loss no circumstance can efface, no time repair, and the only act of alleviation I can now have recourse to I have thought of often, and at the distance we now are it is, perhaps, no longer liable to the objection that once influenced me—at least, should it again become dangerous to my peace of mind,—it is impossible I should feel an added weight of sorrow to that I have so long endured. Yes, my dear Sydney, dangerous it is too true, I repeat the words, dangerous to my peace of mind. I anticipate your incredulity; it is, nevertheless, too true; I renounced your correspondence, I sacrificed the first wishes of my heart when I found wishes springing up in which I durst not indulge, and I determined to listen no more to the voice of the charmer. I was not true to that friendship I once pledged to you—I dared to violate the brotherly affection I fear I never truly felt for you; but it was not till the receipt of your last letter, when you defined so beautifully the nature of your sentiments towards me, when conscious those sentiments were not mine, it became me to declare what they were, or to be silent for ever. I will not now suppose what might have been the effect of such a decla-
196 LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR.  
ration; I will not now state to you whether I then sanguinely for a moment indulged in hopes, on the gratification of which future sorrow and a life of misery were evidently entailed, or whether I abandoned them from the consciousness of the fate of such a declaration. It is sufficient that I now again, perhaps, subject myself to the endurance of sensations I have hitherto, not without the exertion of fortitude, succeeded in some measure to repress. Yes, my dear Sydney, I then loved you! I fancied it was friendship; but I beheld you also, in fancy, the wife of another—the wife of my best friend—and I felt I could not calmly reflect on such a circumstance. Nay, instead of feeling sentiments of admiration and esteem for such a man, I was conscious that I could have no emotion save hatred for the man who had made you happy. This declaration, you will say, I ought, at that time to have stated to you. True, I might have done so. I ought heroically to have declared to you my intentions; yet had I met you during the month I staid in Dublin, I should have felt authorized by having once written to speak to you on the subject, and the resolution I had at a distance to contend with the wishes of my heart, would have vanished before you, and the lover only would have remained.

What absence and the distance we are now at may have done I will not describe to you; I will not be guilty of a falsehood in saying I have either forgotten you or that I remember nothing of the sensations I have felt for you; on this subject, indeed, I dare
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY.197
not dwell. I have too long selfishly indulged in this strain. I need not, surely, describe to you what I have already possibly described too much. I wait for the moment when you in return will speak only of yourself, for will you not at least afford your poor friend—I cannot yet say brother—consolation? [here much of the letter is effaced.] Selfish as the idea is, we still love to have sharers in our affliction, and I feel that if you mingle your tears with mine on this sad occasion, that my heart will be lightened by your sympathy. Farewell, my dear Sydney. You may have learned that I resigned and quitted the 6th. The sale of my commission, I am in great hopes, will bring me again to Dublin. Should I then see you—! At present both my father and mother are in a wretched state of health. Gloomy as my present thoughts are, it may perhaps not be wondered at when I fear I may lose them also. * *

[End missing—torn away.]