first astonished and incredulous at what I heard of the course of the
American press, and was silent, not merely from the impossibility of
being heard, but from grief and shame. But reflection convinces me that
you were, in many cases, acting from a misunderstanding of facts and
through misguided honourable feeling; and I still feel courage,
therefore, to ask from you a fair hearing. Now, as I have done you this
justice, will you also do me the justice to hear me seriously and
candidly?

What interest have you or I, my brother and my sister, in this short life
of ours, to utter anything but the truth? Is not truth between man and
man and between man and woman the foundation on which all things rest?
Have you not, every individual of you, who must hereafter give an account
yourself alone to God, an interest to know the exact truth in this
matter, and a duty to perform as respects that truth? Hear me, then,
while I tell you the position in which I stood, and what was my course in
relation to it.

A shameless attack on my friend's memory had appeared in the 'Blackwood'
of July 1869, branding Lady Byron as the vilest of criminals, and
recommending the Guiccioli book to a Christian public as interesting from
the very fact that it was the avowed production of Lord Byron's mistress.
No efficient protest was made against this outrage in England, and
Littell's 'Living Age' reprinted the 'Blackwood' article, and the
Harpers, the largest publishing house in America, perhaps in the world,
re-published the book.

Its statements--with those of the 'Blackwood,' 'Pall Mall Gazette,' and
other English periodicals--were being propagated through all the young
reading and writing world of America. I was meeting them advertised in