He describes, it is well known,
the home of his poetical representative as a "monastic dome, condemned
to uses vile," and then adds,--
"Where Superstition once had made her den,
Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile."
Mr. Dallas, too, giving in to the same strain of exaggeration, says,
in speaking of the poet's preparations for his departure, "already
satiated with pleasure, and disgusted with those companions who have
no other resource, he had resolved on mastering his appetites;--he
broke up his harams." The truth, however, is, that the narrowness of
Lord Byron's means would alone have prevented such oriental luxuries.
The mode of his life at Newstead was simple and unexpensive. His
companions, though not averse to convivial indulgences, were of
habits and tastes too intellectual for mere vulgar debauchery; and,
with respect to the alleged "harams," it appears certain that one or
two suspected "_subintroductae_" (as the ancient monks of the abbey
would have styled them), and those, too, among the ordinary menials of
the establishment, were all that even scandal itself could ever fix
upon to warrant such an assumption.
That gaming was among his follies at this period he himself tells us
in the journal I have just cited:--
"I have a notion (he says) that gamblers are as happy as many people,
being always _excited_. Women, wine, fame, the table,--even ambition,
_sate_ now and then; but every turn of the card and cast of the dice
keeps the gamester alive: besides, one can game ten times longer than
one can do any thing else.
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