To your advice on Religious topics, I shall equally attend. Perhaps the
best way will be by avoiding them altogether. The already published
objectionable passages have been much commented upon, but certainly have
been rather _strongly_ interpreted. I am no Bigot to Infidelity, and did
not expect that, because I doubted the immortality of Man, I should be
charged with denying the existence of a God. It was the comparative
insignificance of ourselves and _our world_, when placed in competition
with the mighty whole, of which it is an atom, that first led me to
imagine that our pretensions to eternity might be over-rated.
This, and being early disgusted with a Calvinistic Scotch school, where
I was cudgelled to Church for the first ten years of my life, afflicted
me with this malady; for, after all, it is, I believe, a disease of the
mind as much as other kinds of hypochondria.
I regret to hear you talk of ill-health. May you long exist! not only to
enjoy your own fame, but outlive that of fifty such ephemeral
adventurers as myself.
As I do not sail quite so soon as Murray may have led you to expect (not
till July) I trust I have some chance of taking you by the hand before
my departure, and repeating in person how sincerely and affectionately I
am
Your obliged servant,
BYRON.
[Footnote 1: See 'Letters', vol. i. p. 198 [Footnote 4 of Letter 192.]]
* * * * *
304.--To John Murray.
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