d, and
disposed him to yield to her suggestions. He must endeavour, she told
him, to bring about a reconciliation with his wife, and must submit to
contend no longer with the opinion of the world. In vain did he quote
her own motto to Delphine, "Un homme peut braver, une femme doit se
succomber aux opinions du monde;"--her reply was, that all this might be
very well to say, but that, in real life, the duty and necessity of
yielding belonged also to the man. Her eloquence, in short, so far
succeeded, that he was prevailed upon to write a letter to a friend in
England, declaring himself still willing to be reconciled to Lady
Byron,--a concession not a little startling to those who had so often,
lately, heard him declare that, "having done all in his power to
persuade Lady Byron to return, and with this view put off as long as he
could signing the deed of separation, that step being once taken, they
were now divided for ever."

Of the particulars of this brief negotiation that ensued upon Madame de
Stael's suggestion, I have no very accurate remembrance; but there can
be little doubt that its failure, after the violence he had done his own
pride in the overture, was what first infused any mixture of resentment
or bitterness into the feelings hitherto entertained by him throughout
these painful differences. He had, indeed, since his arrival in Geneva,
invariably spoken of his lady with kindness and regret, imputing the
course she had taken, in leaving him, not to herself but others, and
assigning whatever little share of blame he would allow her to bear in
the transaction to the simple and, doubtless, true cause--her not at all
understanding him. "I have no doubt," he would sometimes say, "that she
really did believe me to be mad."

Another resolution connected with his matrimonial affairs, in which he
often, at this time, professed his fixed intention to persevere, was
that of never allowing himself to touch any part of his wife's fortune.
Such a sacrifice, there is no doubt, would have been, in his situation,
delicate and manly; but though the natural bent of his disposition led
him to _make_ the resolution, he wanted,--what few, perhaps, could have
attained,--the fortitude to _keep_ it.

The effects of the late struggle on his mind, in stirring up all its
resources and energies, was visible in the great activity of his genius
during the whole of this period, and the rich variety, both in character
and colouring, of th