He [Lord Byron] was a strange character; his generosity was for a motive, his avarice for a motive. One time he was mopish, and no one was to speak to him; another, he was for being jocular with everybody. At Athens I saw nothing in him but a well-bred man, like many others; for, as for his poetry, it is easy enough to write verses, and as to the thoughts, who knows where he got them? Many a one picks up some old book that nobody knows anything about, and gets his ideas out of it.
Lady Hester Stanhope
Athens, Greece, Unknown
Source: Lady Hester Stanhope, from Cleveland, Catherine Lucy Wilhelmina Stanhope Powell, Duchess of, The Life and Letters of Lady Hester Stanhope, 1914
Further links:
https://archive.org/details/lifelettersoflad00clevuoft
Joan Haslip, Lady Hester Stanhope: a biography, Heron Books, first publication 1934
http://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/stanhope-hester-1776-1839
