142 PRÆTERITA-I

hermitage discipline of Herne Hill. I was allowed to taste wine; taken to the theatre; and, on festive days, even dined with my father and mother at four: and it was then generally at dessert that my father would read any otherwise suspected delight: the Noctes Ambrosianæ regularly when they came out¹-without the least missing of the naughty words; and at last, the shipwreck in Don Juan,-of which, finding me rightly appreciative, my father went on with nearly all the rest. I recollect that he and my mother looked across the table at each other with something of alarm, when, on asking me, a few festas afterwards, what we should have for after-dinner reading, I instantly answered “Juan and Haidée.” My selection was not adopted, and feeling there was something wrong somewhere, I did not press it, attempting even some stutter of apology, which made matters worse. Perhaps I was given a bit of Childe Harold instead, which I liked at that time nearly as well; and, indeed, the story of Haidée soon became too sad for me. But very certainly, by the end of this year 1834, I knew my Byron pretty well all through, all but Cain, Werner, the Deformed Transformed, and Vision of Judgment, none of which I could understand, nor did papa and mamma think it would be well I should try to.

164. The ingenuous reader may perhaps be so much surprised that mamma fell in with all this, that it becomes here needful to mark for him some peculiarities in my mother’s prudery which he could not discover for himself, from anything hitherto told of her. He might indeed guess that, after taking me at least six times straight through the Bible, she was not afraid of plain words to, or for, me; but might not feel that in the energy and affectionateness of her character, she had as much sympathy with all that is noble and beautiful in Byron as my father himself; nor that her Puritanism was clear enough in common sense

¹ [Papers by “Christopher North” (John Wilson) which appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine; collected in a book, 1843.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]