sleeping, and to sleep when she was up; in short, to gratify the
requirements of material and intellectual life at hours different to
hers,--all that was not merely annoying for her, but it must be
madness; or, if not, it betokened depravity that she could neither
submit to nor tolerate without perilling her own morality.

'Such was the grand secret of the cruel silence which exposed Lord
Byron to the most malignant interpretations, to all the calumny and
revenge of his enemies.

'She was, perhaps, the only woman in the world so strangely
organised,--the only one, perhaps, capable of not feeling happy and
proud at belonging to a man superior to the rest of humanity; and
fatally was it decreed that this woman alone of her species should be
Lord Byron's wife!'

In a note is added,--

'If an imaginary fear, and even an unreasonable jealousy, may be her
excuse (just as one excuses a monomania), can one equally forgive her
silence? Such a silence is morally what are physically the poisons
which kill at once, and defy all remedies; thus insuring the culprit's
safety. This silence it is which will ever be her crime; for by it
she poisoned the life of her husband.'

The book has several chapters devoted to Lord Byron's peculiar virtues;
and under the one devoted to magnanimity and heroism, his forgiving
disposition receives special attention. The climax of all is stated to
be that he forgave Lady Byron. All the world knew that, since he had
declared this fact in a very noisy and impassioned manner in the fourth