Ada's portrait is like him, and he is pleased at the likeness, but hoped
she would not turn out to be clever--at any events not poetical. He is
fond of gossip, and apt to speak slightingly of some of his friends, but
is loyal to others. His great defect is flippancy, and a total want of
self-possession." The narrator also dwells on his horror of interviewers,
by whom at this time he was even more than usually beset. One visitor of
the period ingenuously observes--"Certain persons will be chagrined to
hear that Byron's mode of life does not furnish the smallest food for
calumny." Another says, "I never saw a countenance more composed and
still--I might even add, more sweet and prepossessing. But his temper was
easily ruffled and for a whole day; he could not endure the ringing of
bells, bribed his neighbours to repress their noises, and failing,
retaliated by surpassing them; he never forgave Colonel Carr for breaking
one of his dog's ribs, though he generally forgave injuries without
forgetting them. He had a bad opinion of the inertness of the Genoese; for
whatever he himself did he did with a will--'toto se corpore miscuit,' and
was wont to assume a sort of dictatorial tone--as if 'I have said it, and
it must be so' were enough.
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