I can reduce all feelings but this one,
And that I would not ; – for at lenght I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun,
The earliest – even the only paths for me :
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
I had been better than I now can be ;
The passions which have torn me would have slept ;
I had not suffer’d, and thou hadst not wept.
Epistle to Augusta, Lord Byron