Charles E. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe compiled from her letters and journals by her son Charles Edward Stowe

[456] of my most intellectual friends, reading all that came in my way, and watching the course of opinion. And first, it was to be expected that the Guiccioli fanciers would resent any attack on Lord Byron, and would highly relish the opportunity of abusing one who, like yourself, had been identified with all those moral enterprises which elevate the standard of humanity at large, and of womanhood in particular. After this scum had worked itself off, there must necessarily follow a controversy, none the less sharp and bitter, but not depending essentially on abuse. The first point the recusants got hold of was the error of the two years which contrived to run the gauntlet of so many pairs of eyes. Some of them were made happy by mouthing and shaking this between their teeth, as a poodle tears round with a glove. This did not last long. No sensible person could believe for a moment you were mistaken in the essential character of a statement every word of which would fall on the ear of a listening friend like a drop of melted lead, and burn its scar deep into the memory. That Lady Byron believed and told you the story will not be questioned by any but fools and malignants. Whether her belief was well founded there may be positive evidence in existence to show affirmatively. The fact that her statement is not peremptorily contradicted by those most likely to be acquainted with the facts of the case, is the one result so far which is forcing itself into unwilling recognition. I have seen nothing, in the various hypotheses brought forward, which did not to me involve a greater improbability than the presumption of guilt. Take that, for witness, that Byron accused himself, through a