Why We Love the Dogs We Do! by Stanley Coren

Author:Stanley Coren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FREE PRESS
Published: 2000-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

BYRON AND BOATSWAIN

One of the ways that a person can demonstrate a very low score on the warmth dimension of personality is through an inability to form meaningful and lasting close relationships with other people. One classic example of this type of personality is found in the talented but cynical and uncaring poet George Gordon Byron. Byron was the son of a handsome but wayward sailor, Captain John “Mad Jack” Byron, who had squandered all of his wife’s family money. Since he died when his son was only three, his profligate ways were not passed on to the future Lord Byron by example. His only legacy was to leave his family in relative poverty. At the age of ten, Byron unexpectedly inherited, not only a title, but also the estates of his great-uncle William, the Fifth Baron Byron. The properties included Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, which had been presented to the Byrons by Henry VIII.

Byron had been born with a slightly clubbed foot, and he limped a bit as he walked. This had provoked some ridicule when he was a child, and was always a source of embarrassment to him. Some of his biographers have suggested that this was one reason why he was so low on the warmth dimension and tended to hold himself aloof once he had the status and wealth to do so. On the other hand, this physical deformity was offset by the fact that he was quite handsome and could be socially charming when he had a desire or need to be.

Although lacking in warmth, Byron was not lacking in passion. He had numerous affairs but showed very little sustained affection for any of the women involved. Most of the women that he had sexual liaisons with appear to have been targets of opportunity. For example, because of the popularity of his poetry and his aristocratic position, he came into contact with Lady Caroline Lamb, and this intimate relationship was followed by one with another conveniently available socialite whom he had met at various occasions named Lady Oxford. Next there was Lady Frances Webster, who happened to be attracted to his work, and so forth. Propriety or even conventional morality had little influence on him. During the summer of 1813, Byron took advantage of his frequent meetings with his half-sister Augusta to start an affair, despite the fact that she was now married to Colonel George Leigh.

With the number and identity of his lovers threatening to become a public scandal, Byron sought to escape by marriage. He proposed to Anne Isabella Milbanke, but there was no love in this relationship, only a convenient refuge that would give him a more conventional and stable image. The marriage lasted only two years, but it was long enough to produce a daughter, Augusta Ada. Becoming a father did not stir any warmth in Byron. After her first year of life he never even saw Augusta again.

With the breakup of his marriage Byron left England, never to return. In Geneva he settled near the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who had eloped with Mary Godwin.

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