“Thanks for the translation. I have sent you some books, which I do not know whether you have read or no—you need not return them, in any case. I enclose you also a letter from Pisa. I have neither spared trouble nor expense in the care of the child; and as she was now
* These lines,—perhaps from some difficulty in introducing them,—were never inserted in the Tragedy. |
| A. D. 1821. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 457 |
“It is also fit that I should add that I by no means intended, nor intend, to give a natural child an English education, because with the disadvantages of her birth, her after settlement would be doubly difficult. Abroad, with a fair foreign education and a portion of five or six thousand pounds, she might and may marry very respectably. In England such a dowry would be a pittance, while elsewhere it is a fortune. It is, besides, my wish that she should be a Roman Catholic, which I look upon as the best religion, as it is assuredly the oldest of the various branches of Christianity. I have now explained my notions as to the place where she now is—it is the best I could find for the present; but I have no prejudices in its favour.
“I do not speak of politics, because it seems a hopeless subject, as long as those scoundrels are to be permitted to bully states out of their independence. Believe me
“P.S. There is a report here of a change in France; but with what truth is not yet known.
“P.S. My respects to Mrs. H. I have the ‘best opinion’ of her countrywomen; and at my time of life (three and thirty, 22d January, 1821), that is to say, after the life I have led, a good opinion is the only rational one which a man should entertain of the whole sex:—up
* With such anxiety did he look to this essential part of his daughter’s education, that notwithstanding the many advantages she was sure to derive from the kind and feminine superintendence of Mrs. Shelley, his apprehensions lest her feeling upon religious subjects might be disturbed by the conversation of Shelley himself prevented him from allowing her to remain under his friend’s roof. |
| 458 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1821. |
“You see how sober I am become.”
