If I could explain at length the real causes which have contributed to increase this perhaps
natural temperament of mine- this melancholy which hath made me a bye-word- nobody
would wonder- but this is impossible without doing too much mischief- I do not know
what other men's lives have been- but I cannot conceive of anything more strange than
some of the earlier parts of mine- I have written my memoirs- but omitted all the really
consequential and important parts- from deference to the dead- to the living-
and those who must be both.
-Lord Byron, Detached Thoughts