"
_From Lady Blessington's Conversations._
Of love he had strange notions: he said that most people had _le
besoin d'aimer_, and that with this _besoin_ the first person who fell
in one's way contented one. He maintained that those who possessed the
most imagination, poets for example, were most likely to be constant
in their attachments, as with the _beau ideal_ in their heads, with
which they identified the object of their attachment, they had nothing
to desire, and viewed their mistresses through the brilliant medium of
fancy, instead of the common one of the eyes. "A poet, therefore (said
Byron), endows the person he loves with all the charms with which his
mind is stored, and has no need of actual beauty to fill up the
picture. Hence he should select a woman, who is rather good-looking
than beautiful, leaving the latter for those who, having no
imagination, require actual beauty to satisfy their tastes. And after
all (said he), where is the actual beauty that can come up to the
bright 'imaginings' of the poet? where can one see women that equal
the visions, half mortal, half angelic, that people his fancy? Love,
who is painted blind (an allegory that proves the uselessness of
beauty), can supply all deficiencies with his aid; we can invest her
whom we admire with all the attributes of loveliness, and though time
may steal the roses from her cheek, and the lustre from her eye, still
the original _beau ideal_ remains, filling the mind and intoxicating
the soul with the overpowering presence of loveliness.
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