that he was not ashamed
to exhibit "the pageant of a bleeding heart." But it does not follow that
he was a hypocrite. His quarrel with mankind, his anger against fate, were
perfectly genuine. His outcry is, in fact, the anguish of a baffled will.
Byron was too self-conscious, too much interested in himself, to take any
pleasures in imaginary woes, or to credit himself with imaginary vices.

Whether he told the whole truth is another matter. He was naturally a
truthful man and his friends lived in dread of unguarded disclosures, but
his communications were not so free as they seemed. There was a string to
the end of the kite. Byron was kindly and generous by nature. He took
pleasure in helping necessitous authors, men and women, not at all _en
grand seigneur_, or without counting the cost, but because he knew what
poverty meant, and a fellow-feeling made him kind. Even in Venice he set
aside a fixed sum for charitable purposes. It was to his credit that
neither libertinism nor disgrace nor remorse withered at its root this herb
of grace. Cynical speeches with regard to friends and friendship, often
quoted to his disadvantage, need not be taken too literally. Byron talked
for effect, and in accordance with the whim of the moment. His acts do not
correspond with his words. Byron rejected and repudiated bath Protestant
and Catholic orthodoxy, but like the Athenians he was "exceedingly
religious." He could not, he did not wish to, detach himself from a belief
in an Invisible Power. "A fearful looking for of judgment" haunted him to
the last.

There is an increasing tendency on the part of modern critics to cast a
doubt on Byron's sanity. It is true that he inherited bad blood on both
sides of his family, that he was of a neurotic temperament, that at one
time he maddened himself with drink, but there is no evidence that his
brain was actually diseased. Speaking figuratively, he may have been "half
mad," but, if so, it was a derangement of the will, not of the mind. He was
responsible for his actions, and they rise up in judgment against him. He
put indulgence before duty. He made a byword of his marriage and brought
lifelong sorrow on his wife. If, as Goethe said, he was "the greatest
talent" of the 19th century, he associated that talent with scandal and
reproach. But he was born with certain noble qualities which did not fail
him at his worst. He was courageous, he was kind, and he loved truth rather
than lies. He was a wo