While thus prematurely broken into the pains of life, a no less
darkening effect was produced upon him by too early an initiation into
its pleasures. That charm with which the fancy of youth invests an
untried world was, in his case, soon dissipated. His passions had, at
the very onset of their career, forestalled the future; and the blank
void that followed was by himself considered as one of the causes of
that melancholy, which now settled so deeply into his character.
"My passions" (he says, in his 'Detached Thoughts') "were developed very
early--so early that few would believe me if I were to state the period
and the facts which accompanied it. Perhaps this was one of the reasons
which caused the anticipated melancholy of my thoughts,--having
anticipated life. My earlier poems are the thoughts of one at least ten
years older than the age at which they were written,--I don't mean for
their solidity, but their experience. The two first Cantos of Childe
Harold were completed at twenty-two; and they are written as if by a man
older than I shall probably ever be."
Though the allusions in the first sentence of this extract have
reference to a much earlier period, they afford an opportunity of
remarking, that however dissipated may have been the life which he led
during the two or three years previous to his departure on his
travels, yet the notion caught up by many, from his own allusions, in
Childe Harold, to irregularities and orgies of which Newstead had been
the scene, is, like most other imputations against him, founded on his
own testimony, greatly exaggerated.
Pages:
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251