--[Greek: Noairon] [1]
[Footnote 1: It is doubtful whether this is not a mistake for [Greek:
Npairon], a variant of [Greek: Mpairon], which is the correct
transliteration into modern Greek of 'Byron', but the MS. is
destroyed.]
* * * * *
Thursday, November 26.
Awoke a little feverish, but no headach--no dreams neither, thanks to
stupor! Two letters; one from----, the other from Lady Melbourne--both
excellent in their respective styles.----'s contained also a very
pretty lyric on "concealed griefs;" if not her own, yet very like her.
Why did she not say that the stanzas were, or were not, of her own
composition? I do not know whether to wish them _hers_ or not. I have no
great esteem for poetical persons, particularly women; they have so much
of the "ideal" in _practics_, as well as _ethics_.
I have been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff. How very odd that
I should have been so utterly, devotedly fond of that girl, at an age
when I could neither feel passion, nor know the meaning of the word. And
the effect! My mother used always to rally me about this childish amour;
and, at last, many years after, when I was sixteen, she told me one day,
"Oh, Byron, I have had a letter from Edinburgh, from Miss Abercromby,
and your old sweetheart Mary Duff is married to a Mr. Co'e." And what
was my answer? I really cannot explain or account for my feelings at
that moment; but they nearly threw me into convulsions, and alarmed my
mother so much, that after I grew better, she generally avoided the
subject--to _me_--and contented herself with telling it to all her
acquaintance.
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