e made acquaintance with Lord Byron. She saw him
first mysteriously enveloped in the romantic semblance of a Corsair, of
a skeptical Harold, of a young lord who had despised and wounded his
mother-country, from which he had almost been obliged to exile himself,
in consequence of a series of eccentricities, faults, and--who
knows?--of crimes, perhaps. Thus caught in a perfidious net, Lord Byron
left England for Switzerland.

He found Shelley, whom he only knew by name, at Geneva, where he
stopped. Shelley was another victim of English fanatical and intolerant
opinions; but he, it may be allowed at least, had given cause for this
by some reprehensible writings, in which he had declared himself an
atheist. No allowance had been made for his youth, for he was only
seventeen when he wrote "Queen Mab," and he found himself expelled not
only from the university but also from his home, which was to him a real
cause of sorrow and misfortune.

Between these two great minds there existed a wide gulf--that which
exists between pantheism and spiritualism; but they had one great point
of resemblance, their mutual passionate love for justice and humanity,
their hatred of cant and hypocrisy, in fact, all the elevated sentiments
of the moral and social man. With Lord Byron these noble dispositions of
the heart and mind were naturally the consequence of his tastes and
opinions, which were essentially spiritualistic. With Shelley, though in
contradiction with his metaphysics, they were notwithstanding in harmony
with the beautiful sentiments of his soul, which, when he was only
twenty-three years of age, had already experienced the unkindness of
man. Their respective souls, wounded and hurt by the perfidiousness and
injustice of the world, felt themselves attracted to each other. A real
friendship sprang up between them. They saw one another often, and it
was in the conversations which they held together at this time that the
seed was sown which shortly was to produce the works of genius which
were to see the day at the foot of the Alps and under the blue sky of
Italy.

Although Lord Byron's heart was mortally wounded, still no feeling of
hatred could find its way into it. The sorrow which he felt, the painful
knowledge which he had of cruel and perfidious wrongs done to him, the
pain of finding out the timidity of character of his friends, and the
recollection of the many ungrateful people of whom he was the victim,
all and each of th