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Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
223
Did
Byron,
mused
the
Duke,
know
what
was
to
be
at
Missolonghi?
Did
he
know
that
he
was
to
die
in
service
of
the
Greeks
whom
he
despised?
Byron
might
not
have
minded
that.
But
what
if
the
Greeks
had
told
him,
in
so
many
words,
that
they
despised
HIM?
How
would
he
have
felt
then?
Would
he
have
been
content
with
his
potations
of
barley-water?...
The
Duke
replenished
his
glass,
hoping
the
spell
might
work
yet....
Perhaps,
had
Byron
not
been
a
dandy--but
ah,
had
he
not
been
in
his
soul
a
dandy
there
would
have
been
no
Byron
worth
mentioning.
And
it
was
because
he
guarded
not
his
dandyism
against
this
and
that
irrelevant
passion,
sexual
or
political,
that
he
cut
so
annoyingly
incomplete
a
figure.
He
was
absurd
in
his
politics,
vulgar
in
his
loves.
Only
in
himself,
at
the
times
when
he
stood
haughtily
aloof,
was
he
impressive.
Nature,
fashioning
him,
had
fashioned
also
a
pedestal
for
him
to
stand
and
brood
on,
to
pose
and
sing
on.
Off
that
pedestal
he
was
lost....
“The
idol
has
come
sliding
down
from
its
pedestal”--the
Duke
remembered
these
words
spoken
yesterday
by
Zuleika.
Yes,
at
the
moment
when
he
slid
down,
he,
too,
was
lost.
For
him,
master-dandy,
the
common
arena
was
no
place.
What
had
he
to
do
with
love?
He
was
an
utter
fool
at
it.
Byron
had
at
least
had
some
fun
out
of
it.
What
fun
had
HE
had?
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