Page:Journal of Conversations with Lord Byron.pdf/82

 ing importance to trifles, and, vice versa, turning serious events into ridicule; he is extremely superstitious, and seems offended with those who cannot, or will not, partake this weakness. He has frequently touched on this subject, and tauntingly observed to me, that I must believe myself wiser than him, because I was not superstitious. I answered, that the vividness of his imagination, which was proved by his works, furnished a sufficient excuse for his superstition, which was caused by an over-excitement of that faculty; but that I, not being blessed by the camera lucida of imagination, could have no excuse for the camera oscura, which I looked on superstition to be. This did not, however, content him, and I am sure he left me with a lower opinion of my faculties than before. To deprecate his anger, I observed that Nature was so wise and good that she gave compensations to all her offspring: that as to him she had given the brightest gift, genius; so to those whom she had not so distinguished, she gave the less brilliant, but perhaps as useful, gift of plain and unsophisticated reason. This did not satisfy his amour propre, and he left me, evidently displeased at my want of superstition. Byron is, I believe, sincere in his belief in supernatural appearances; he assumes a grave and mysterious air when he talks on the