aunchly refused to be paid for his poetry believing as did his peers that to accept money for their publication would be unbefitting a gentleman (p. 435).
Strong passions ruled Bryon. Throughout his life, Bryon struggled to achieve mastery over what enticed him: politics, men, travel, money, women, liquor, and verse. He appears to have been an individual drawn toward extremes, never able to do anything by half. Drawn toward living a life of carpe diem, Bryon was often taken by surprise at the unforseen consequences of his often impetuous actions (p. 442). He was surprised that society was scandalized by his taking up residence with his half-sister Augusta, pleased that neighbors gossiped that his skull-drinking bouts with fellow Cantabridgians were actually week-long orgies, wearied by the scandal caused by his all-too-public affair with Lady Caroline Lamb (p. 343), and amazed that the scorning of immortality in his verse appalled the public to a near riotous conditions (p. 280).
Repeatedly, actual events in Bryon's life read as a haunting cross between comedic timing and tragic consequence. Marchand begins his biography of Bryon by recounting his forefathers' antics and penchants. Bryon's own father was a compulsive spendthrift who married his mother as if it was a whim or the quickest way to buy his way out of debt was by means of marrying a young and naive heiress. Bryon's father had virtually separated from his mother at the time of his birth, last visited him when he was just over a toddler's age of two, and was dead by the time Bryon was three and a half (p. 32). As the sixth Lord Bryon, George Gordon could claim a colorful heraldry tracing itself back to contemporaries of William the Conqueror on his father's side and to the illustrious Gordons of Gight on his mother's side who were linked to William Gordon, first of the House of Gight, who fell at Flodden Field in 1513 (p.3). Shortly after their marriage, Ca...