100 — To his Mother
Newstead Abbey, Notts, October 7, 1808.
Dear Madam, — I have no beds for the Hansons or any body else at present. The Hansons sleep at Mansfield.
I
do not know that I resemble Jean Jacques Rousseau
. I have no ambition to be like so illustrious a madman — but this I know, that I shall live in my own manner, and as much alone as possible. When my rooms are ready I shall be glad to see you: at present it would be improper, and uncomfortable to both parties. You can hardly object to my rendering my mansion habitable, notwithstanding my departure for Persia in March (or May at farthest), since
you
will be
tenant
till my return; and in case of any accident (for I have already arranged my will to be drawn up the moment I am twenty-one), I have taken care you shall have the house and manor for
life
, besides a sufficient income. So you see my improvements are not entirely selfish.
As
I have a friend here, we will go to the Infirmary Ball on the 12th; we will drink tea with Mrs. Byron
at eight o'clock, and expect to see you at the ball. If that lady will allow us a couple of rooms to dress in, we shall be highly obliged: — if we are at the ball by ten or eleven, it will be time enough, and we shall return to Newstead about three or four. Adieu.
Believe me, yours very truly,
Byron
.
Footnote 1:
In Byron's
Detached Thoughts
, quoted by Moore (
Life
, p. 72), he thus refers to the comparison with Rousseau:—
"My mother, before I was twenty, would have it that I was like Rousseau, and Madame de Stael used to say so too in 1813, and the Edinburgh Review has something of the sort in its critique on the fourth canto of Childe Harold. I can't see any point of resemblance:— he wrote prose, I verse: he was of the people; I of the aristocracy: he was a philosopher; I am none: he published his first work at forty; I mine at eighteen: his first essay brought him universal applause; mine the contrary: he married his housekeeper; I could not keep house with my wife: he thought all the world in a plot against him; my little world seems to think me in a plot against it, if I may judge by their abuse in print and coterie: he liked botany; I like flowers, herbs, and trees, but know nothing of their pedigrees: he wrote music; I limit my knowledge of it to what I catch by ear — I never could learn any thing by study, not even a language — it was all by rote and ear, and memory: he had a bad memory; I had, at least, an excellent one (ask Hodgson the poet — a good judge, for he has an astonishing one): he wrote with hesitation and care; I with rapidity, and rarely with pains: he could never ride, nor swim, nor 'was cunning of fence;' I am an excellent swimmer, a decent, though not at all a dashing, rider, (having staved in a rib at eighteen, in the course of scampering,) and was sufficient of fence, particularly of the Highland broadsword, — not a bad boxer, when I could keep my temper, which was difficult, but which I strove to do ever since I knocked down Mr. Purling, and put his knee-pan out (with the gloves on), in Angelo's and Jackson's rooms in 1806, during the sparring, — and I was, besides, a very fair cricketer, — one of the Harrow eleven, when we played against Eton in 1805. Besides, Rousseau's way of life, his country, his manners, his whole character, were so very different, that I am at a loss to conceive how such a comparison could have arisen, as it has done three several times, and all in rather a remarkable manner. I forgot to say that he was also short-sighted, and that hitherto my eyes have been the contrary, to such a degree that, in the largest theatre of Bologna, I distinguished and read some busts and inscriptions, painted near the stage, from a box so distant and so darkly lighted, that none of the company (composed of young and very bright-eyed people, some of them in the same box,) could make out a letter, and thought it was a trick, though I had never been in that theatre before.
"Altogether, I think myself justified in thinking the comparison not well founded. I don't say this out of pique, for Rousseau was a great man; and the thing, if true, were flattering enough; — but I have no idea of being pleased with the chimera."
Footnote 2:
The Hon. Mrs. George Byron,
née
Frances Levett, Byron's great-aunt, widow of the Hon. George Byron, fourth brother of William, fifth Lord Byron.
