Page:Journal of Conversations with Lord Byron.pdf/105

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with Lord Byron.
93

accept a pecuniary obligation from him in all the difficulties entailed on them by their exile. He represented La Contessa Guiccioli as a most amiable and lady-like person, perfectly disinterested and noble-minded, devotedly attached to him, and possessing so many high and estimable qualities, as to offer an excuse for any man's attachment to her. He said that he had been passionately in love with her, and that she had sacrificed every thing for him; that the whole of her conduct towards him had been admirable, and that not only did he feel the strongest personal attachment to her, but the highest sentiments of esteem. He dwelt with evident complacency on her noble birth and distinguished connections - advantages to which he attaches great importance. I never met any one with so decided a taste for aristocracy as Lord Byron, and this is shown in a thousand different ways.

He says the Contessa is well educated, remarkably fond of, and well read in, the poetry of her own country, and a tolerable proficient in that of France and England. In his praises of Madame Guiccioli, it is quite evident that he is sincere, and I am persuaded this is his last attachment. He told me that she had used every effort to get him to discontinue "Don Juan," or at least to preserve the future cantos from all impure pass-