It is
like educating an infant on a mountain top, and then taking him to the
sea, and throwing him into it, and desiring him to swim." Elsewhere he
says, "I by no means 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 5000_l_. or 6000_l_. (his will leaving her 5000_l_., on condition that
she should not marry an Englishman, is here explained and justified), 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." It
only remains to add that, when he heard that the child had fallen ill of
fever in 1822, Byron was almost speechless with agitation, and, on the
news of her death, which took place April 22nd, he seemed at first utterly
prostrated. Next day he said, "Allegra is dead; she is more fortunate than
we.
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