Reflections by Firelight – 224

Scene: A fire burns low in the villa’s hearth while rain beats softly against the windows; Byron leans at his desk, pen in hand, watching the night and thinking of Edinburgh.

My dear Mary,

So our bright Claire has taken to dining with philosophers. Safer than poets, perhaps, though not without danger. I can picture it: Smith, fifty-three and solemn, losing his composure while our seventeen-year-old prodigy melts his moral sentiments into pudding.

He lectures on the invisible hand; she steadies a candlestick and undoes a decade of reason. Such are the hazards of enlightenment.

Do not mistake me — I admire the man. To find poetry in coinage and kindness in commerce is no mean feat. But I have never trusted a thinker who cannot dance. The Scots hide their passion beneath prudence, and call it philosophy.

Tell Claire from me that the invisible hand is a poor substitute for the visible heart.

Byron