march of the poet, whom he depicts as a combination of Don Juan and Rob
Roy.

The probabilities are that the real facts, not illumined by fancy, would
be a tale with which to conjure sleep. Foreign travel is hard work. It
constitutes the final test of friendship, and to make the tour of Europe
with a man and not hate him marks one or both of the parties as seraphic
in quality. The best of travel is in looking back upon it from the dreamy
quiet and rest of home--laughing at the things that once rasped your
nerves, and enjoying, through recollection, the scenes you only glanced
at wearily.

Two instances of that trip--when Hobhouse threatened to desert the party
and was dared to do so, and Byron slapped Fletcher's face and got himself
well kicked in return--will suffice to show how Byron had the faculty of
seizing trivial incidents, and by lifting them up and separating them from
the mass, made them live as Art.

At Athens the trio made a sudden resolve to be respectable, and practise
economy. To this end they hired rooms of a worthy widow, who accommodated
travelers with a transient home for a moderate stipend. This widow had
three daughters: the eldest, Theresa by name, lives in letters as the Maid
of Athens, and the glory that came to her was achieved without any special
danger to either her heart or the poet's. The young woman, we know,
assisted in the household affairs; and probably often dusted the mantel in
the poet's room while he sat smoking with one foot on the table, making
irrelevant remarks to her about this or that.

Suddenly he wrote a poem, "Maid of Athens, ere we part, give, O give me
back my heart." * * *