And so, she thinks something more of marriage than as some highly reckoned conventionality--under whose cover bickerings may go on and spend their force, and the decent twin masks be always worn. And in him, we can imagine lingering traces of a love for the feminine features in her--for the grace, the dignity, the sweet face, the modesties--but all closed over and buckled up, and stanched by the everlasting and all encompassing buckram that laces her in, and that has so little of the compensating instinctive softness and yieldingness which might hold him in leash and win him back. The woman who cannot--on occasions--put a weakness into her forgiveness, can never put a vital strength into her persuasion. But they part, and part forever; the only wonder is they had not parted before; and still another wonder is, that there should have been zealous hunt for outside causes when so many are staringly apparent within the walls of home. I do not believe that Byron would have lived at peace with one woman in a thousand; I do not believe that Lady Byron would have lived at peace with one man in a hundred. The computation is largely in her favor; although it does not imply necessity for his condemnation as an utter brute. Even as he sails away from England--from which he is hunted with hue and cry, and to whose shores he is never again to return--he drops a farewell to her with such touches of feeling in it, that one wonders--and future readers always will wonder--with what emotions the mother and his child may have read it: “Fare thee well and if for ever,[66] Still for ever--fare thee well! Even tho’ unforgiving--never ’Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. … Love may sink by slow decay But, by sudden wrench, believe not Hearts can thus be torn away. And when thou would’st solace gather, When our child’s first accents flow, Wilt thou teach her to say ‘Father’ Though his care she must forego? When her little hands shall press thee, When her lip to thine is prest, Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee; Think of him thy love has blessed. Should her lineaments resemble Those thou never more may’st see, Then thy heart will softly tremble With a pulse yet true to me; All my faults perchance thou knowest, All my madness none can know, All my hopes where’er thou goest Wither--yet, with thee they go. Every feeling hath been shaken; Pride which not a world could bow, Bows to thee--by thee forsaken, Even my soul forsakes me now. But ’tis done, all words are idle; Words from _me_ are vainer still; But the thoughts we cannot bridle Force their way, without the will. Fare thee well! thus disunited, Torn from every nearer tie, Seared in heart and lone, and blighted-- More than this, I scarce can die.”