Dear Murray - You need not send "the Blues" which is a mere buffoonery never meant for publication. - The papers to which I allude in case of Survivorship, - are collections of letters &c. since I was 16 years old - contained in the trunks in the care of Mr. Hobhouse...
I am not sure that long life is desirable for one of temper & constitutional depression of Spirits - which of course I suppress in society - but which breaks out when alone - & in my writings in spite of myself. It has been deepened perhaps by some long past events (I do not allude to my marriage &c. on the contrary that raised them by the persecution giving a fillip to my Spirits) but I call it constitutional - as I have reason to think it. -
You know - or you do not know - that my maternal Grandfather (a very clever man & amiable I am told) was strongly suspected of Suicide - - (he was found drowned in the Avon at Bath) and that another near very near relative of the same branch - took poison - & was merely saved by antidotes...
For the first of these events - there was no apparent cause - as he was rich, respected - & of considerable intellectual resources - hardly forty years of age - & not at all addicted to any un-hinging vice. - It was however but a strong suspicion - owing to the manner of his death - & to his melancholy temper......
I had always been told that in temper I more resembled my maternal Grandfather than any of my father's family - - that is in the gloomier part of his temper - for he was what you call a good natured man, and I am not. -"
September 1821
'Melancholy Which Runs Through My Writings'
Lord Byron, 1812 and All That!
September 1821
'Melancholy Which Runs Through My Writings'
Lord Byron, 1812 and All That!
Sources Used:
Born for Opposition Byron's Letters and Journals Volume 8 Ed: Leslie A. Marchand (London: John Murray 1978)
The Place of Interest:
The Memorial to George Gordon the 12th Laird of Gight in Bath Abbey, photographed by the Polite Tourist in November 2010.