'

to Francis Hodgson
Newstead Abbey, Notts, Nov. 3, 1808
 

***We dined the other day with a neighboring Esquire.... I was seated near a woman, to whom, when a boy, I was as much attached as boys generally are, and more than a man should be.  I knew this before I went, and was determined to be valiant, and converse with sang froid; but instead I forgot my valour and my nonchalance, and never opened my lips even to laugh, far less to speak, and the lady was almost as absurd as myself, which made both the object of more observation than if we had conducted ourselves with easy indifference.  You will think all this great nonsense; if you had seen it, you would have thought it still more ridiculous.  What fools we are!
 
 

The woman Byron refers to was his neighbor, Mary Chaworth, whom Byron had loved as a teenager.  The attachment ended painfully for him; he overheard Mary mock him to her servant.  Later, when she was unhappily married and Byron a famous poet, Mary's attempts at rapprochement failed.
 
 

 

 

to Byron: Letters

portrait of Mary Chaworth, the woman to whom Byron was 'much attached as boys generally are'