“As the chief reason for absolute silence has ceased with my daughter’s life, the question forces itself on my consideration whether there are not some facts engraven on my memory which ought to survive me.
“And now, after the lapse of forty years, I look back on the past as a calm spectator, and at last can speak of it. I see what was, what might have been, had there been one person less amongst the living when I married. Then I might have had duties, however steeped in sorrow, more congenial with my nature than those I was compelled to adopt. Then my life would not have been the concealment of a Truth, whilst my conduct was in harmony with it.
“Writing as I do towards the close of life, and after submitting to misconstruction for so many years, I trust that the spirit of self-vindication will neither be found in my pages nor imputed to me. I have no cause to complain of the world’s unkindness; on the contrary, I am grateful to it. In personal intercourse I have only to acknowledge the kindest and most generous treatment, and if I have sometimes been condemned by strangers without evidence, I have certainly been acquitted equally without proof by those on whom I had no claim, of the charges of listening to informers against Lord Byron, sanctioning treacherous practices, etc. Let me observe with reference to them, that there can be no media via as to such accusations, and the woman who could be guilty of any one of them could not be a trustworthy witness in matters relating to the husband she had injured and betrayed. Read then no further, you who hold this sheet in your hands, unless you can relin-
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| LADY BYRON’S POLICY OF SILENCE |
“Yet when I look at the accumulation of difficulties in my way, I feel that the truths I may bring forward will but partially dispel those illusions, so long accepted as realities, and that even if not a fruitless, it is yet an ungrateful task to translate fascinating verse into bare fact. Apart, however, from any view to benefit the unknown Reader, who may have little disposition to attend to me, I naturally desire to leave a few counter statements for the information of my grandchildren, for I own that on that point the opinion formed of me does touch me.”
