The Love Affairs of Lord ByronGribble, Francis Henry
General
The Love Affairs of Lord Byron
Gribble, Francis Henry
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824 -- Relations with women; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
That, no doubt, was how Theresa wore her hair when Byron flattered her
with his attentions. She also, it seems, wore "white stockings and
yellow slippers," and had "teeth of pearly whiteness" and "manners such as
would be fascinating in any country." It was the usual thing, according to
Williams, for their mother's lodgers to flirt with one or other of them.
It would have been "remarkable," he thinks, if they had not done so.
Presumably he did so himself. At all events he admired them very much as
they sat "in the Eastern style, a little reclined, with their limbs
gathered under them on the divan, and without shoes"; but he insists with
no less emphasis upon their propriety than upon their graces. "Modesty and
delicacy of conduct," he comments, "will always command respect"; and
further:
"Though so poor, their virtues shine as conspicuous as their
beauty.... Not all the wealth of the East, or the complimentary lays
even of the first of England's poets could render them so truly worthy
of love and admiration."
Moore tells us that Byron, in Oriental style, gashed himself across the
breast with a dagger as a symbolic demonstration of his conquest by
Theresa's charms, and that Theresa "looked on very coolly during the
operation, considering it a fit tribute to her beauty, but in no degree
moved to gratitude." And that, of course, is what one would expect. The
game was being played according to the rules, and Theresa was child enough
to enjoy the fun. One can imagine that it was a game which the girls
often played with the lodgers, teaching them the rules when they did not
already know them. One would be churlish indeed to begrudge them their
enjoyment, or to protest that they were "forward" or suspect that they
were "designing." The landlady's daughter can often do much to make life
in a lodging-house agreeable; and youth must have its hour though time
flies and love, like a bird, is on the wing.
Our next glimpse of Theresa, taken from Walsh's "Narrative of a Residence
in Constantinople," shows us that time is, indeed, an "ever-rolling
stream," carrying its daughters, as well as its sons away upon the flood.
"Lord Byron's poem," writes Walsh in 1817, "has rendered the poor lady no
temporal service though it has ensured her immortality"; and he continues:
"She was once very lovely, I was informed by those who knew her, and
realised all the descriptive part of the poem; but time and, I
suppose, disappointed hopes preyed upon her, and though still very
elegant in her person, and gentle and lady-like in her manners, she
has lost all pretensions to beauty, and has a countenance singularly
marked by hopeless sadness."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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