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FROM THE
BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY
COLLECTED BY
BENNO LOEWY
1854-1919
BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITYMARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
BY
HELEN MOORE.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1886.Copyright, 1886, by Helen Moore.TO
Iv C. MPREFATORY NOTE.
I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr.
Tiffany and to Mr. Cutter, Librarians of the Boston
Public and Athenaeum Libraries, for the kindness with
which they have aided in procuring books not other-
wise accessible to me.
I am beside indebted to Mr. C. Kegan Paul for
making clear to me some passages in the lives of the
Shelleys upon which otherwise I could not have
spoken with decision.
I wish also to express my thanks to Lady Shelley
for her courteous interest, and especially for confirm-
ing the impression I had formed of Mary Shelley’s
disposition, which, coming to me while weighing the
force of Trelawny’s attacks upon her memory, was
peculiarly grateful, and enabled me to place the two
estimates side by side.
H. M.
Philadelphia, 1886.
5CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introductory ....................................... 9
CHAPTER
I.—Parentage and Early Life......................17
II.	—Percy Bysshe Shelley.........................51
III.	—Union with Shelley..........................60
IV.	—Life in England—Marriage....................72
V.—Italy.........................................96
VI.—Shelley’s Death..............................144
VII.—“ Frankenstein,” and other Writings .	.	.	244
VIII.—Return to England—Death......................289
7INTRODUCTORY.
No life of Mrs. Shelley has hitherto been published,
a fact sufficiently surprising in an age that is nothing
if not poly-biographical. The period from 1851, the
date of her death, to the present time has been pecu-
liar, quite as much for the thoroughness with which
it has exhausted the immediate past for subjects for
biography, as for the minuteness with which it has
pursued those subjects when found. Moreover, within
this period there has been at least one distinct Shelley
revival. This critical habit of biography, as well as
the minute method of poetic criticism, requires of us
the knowledge of everything that went to form the
environment of the poet, demanding that we shall
search for the source of every influence that moulded
his life and thoughts. There has been no dearth of
biographies of Shelley, nor is there anywhere a denial
of the part that Mary Shelley bore toward the period
of his best poesy, in the spiritual uplifting of the
poet’s hands when disease and disaster rendered
physical aid vain. On the contrary, there is a generalIO
INTRODUCTORY.
recognition of this; yet next to nothing is given us
from which independently we can form any estimate
of her who was thus a force in his life. Nowhere is
there gathered into one volume the records of her
life. In biography she has hitherto had no separate
existence, no individuality.
But while this is certainly surprising, it is not with-
out an explanation,—an explanation lying strangely
enough in the fact that she was Mrs. Shelley; for the
true reason why we find no life of her separate from
Shelley, is because in a sense she had no separate life.
Before he came her life was empty; after his death it
was the tomb from which her lord had risen. Be-
tween these two periods she lived,—lived for him and
because of him. It must not be inferred from this
that she was one of those natures who, without mind
of their own, simply respond to the touch of a stronger
hand.
Her vigorous intellect, her individuality, her cour-
age, as marked as that of any of the world’s heroines,
should put that question at rest; but this intellect and
courage, this strong personality, were latent; nothing
in her life had called them into being. Too remark-
able to be ever commonplace, the people and events
of her life awakened in her no response. They came
and went and left her as they found her.
But just in proportion as she was thus indifferent
to common things about her, to that extent was sheINTRODUCTORY.
II
able to respond and to awaken response in the rare
nature of Shelley. The union of these two was like
the chemic union of a base, separately inert, but
which combined became a potent force. In that
union she realized her true life; into it her separate
being merged. The life of Mrs. Shelley thus pre-
sents the truly womanly life,—that complementary
one, to which a perfect union (what so rare!) gives
a vigor, an individuality, a beauty, denied to those
lives which spend themselves in unmated unions or in
single-hand combats with the world.
While it is true that Mrs. Shelley’s place among
eminent women does not rest upon the circumstance
that she was Shelley’s wife, it is in every sense due to
the fact that she was his companion. The nature and
quality of this companionship is at once an index
and a test of her character. It was not that an erratic
genius had made her the object of his wayward pas-
sion, or even that she was the recipient of his genuine
tenderness. It was very much more than this. Think
how different Mrs. Shelley’s place from that held by
any of the various loves of Goethe or Byron. It
may not be overstating it to say that one of the chief
interests we have in her, arises from a worthy cu-
riosity to know what manner of woman it was who
could be so completely the companion, who could
hold such close fellowship with so marked a genius
as Shelley. It is for this reason that his character12
INTRODUCTORY.
must ever be a prominent element in the life of Mrs.
Shelley. For the same reason, due prominence must
be given to the nature of that union which welded
these twain together in a spiritual oneness so instant,
an intellectual harmony so complete,—in fine, a union
so unlike those ordinarily made on earth, and so like
those which we are told are made in Heaven, that an
inconsequential world promptly decided that it had
been made in Hell.
Certainly, Mrs. Shelley does not owe her fame to
the extent of her literary labors. Of these we shall
do more than merely speak, finding in one of them—
“ Frankenstein”—a peculiar literary faculty. But she
must be ranked among those literary women whose
true province is to influence and stimulate others;
who are receptive, appreciative, and incentive, rather
than productive; for among the distinguished women
of the world there is a manifest division, based upon
this feature, and not so apparent among men.
Men may, it seems, be at once possessed of the
power and faculty of literary production, and at the
same time exert the maximum of influence upon
their personal surroundings, as Milton, Pope, Rous-
seau, Goethe, Byron, Carlyle, Emerson, and Shelley
himself. But women possessed of the intellectual
timbre, styled literary, fall naturally into two .classes,
one possessed of a power to produce beyond the
scope made apparent by their personal influence,INTRODUCTORY.
13
which may even give no promise of such power;
the other owning and wielding a far greater influ-
ence over men about them, which gives richer promise,
but which fails to transmute itself into a permanent
literary yield. Of the former class are George Eliot,
Charlotte Bronte, Mrs. Browning, Miss Austin, while
in the latter class are Margaret Fuller, Mary Woll-
stonecraft, Madame de Stael, Madame Recamier, and
a host of French women, of whom Madame Du Def-
fend may be taken as the type.
Without doubt it is to this latter class that Mrs.
Shelley must be assigned; so that in proportion as
her permanent contribution to the literary stock of
the world is small, must we the more earnestly seek
in her private life and its reflected lights, for those
qualities which have made her unquestionably emi-
nent among women.
The intimate blending of the influences which
awakened the mind and formed the character of Mrs.
Shelley make the study of her life peculiarly difficult,
and necessitate a broader treatment in accord with
the responsive nature of her growth. Thus our study
becomes largely an inquiry into the factors of her
life; Fortunately these factors are themselves in-
tensely interesting persons, so that the time spent
with them is a period spent with people quite as re-
markable and almost as admirable as Mary Shelley
herself; for it is from the characters of Mary Woll-H
INTRODUCTORY.
stonecraft, William Godwin, and Percy Bysshe Shelley
that we must learn the influences that shaped and re-
appeared in the life of the daughter of the first and
the wife of the last. What wonder if the being so
endowed possessed the beauty, the charm, the passion,
the courage, the mental vigor, the sincerity of her
mother,—the amiability, the reasonableness, the in-
dustry, and the subtle analytical powers of her father ?
If to these we add the companionship, the spiritual
rapport, the enthusiasm, the elevation of thought, the
pantheistical love of the beautiful, and those nameless
forces evolved only in the perfect union of mind and
soul which first drew and then held her and Shelley
together, we shall have but one regret, that at best
we can learn all too little of the life of Mary Woll-
stonecraft Shelley.“ They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth,
Of glorious parents, thou aspiring Child.
I wonder not, for one then left this earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild,
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
Of its departing glory; still her fame
Shines on thee thro’ the tempests dark and wild
Which shake these latter days; and thou canst claim
The shelter, from thy Sire, of an immortal name.”
Shelley.MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY.
CHAPTER I.
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the daughter of
Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, was born
on the 30th of August, 1797, in Polygon, Somers-
town, London. Her father was the son of a dissent-
ing minister in Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire, and had
had the education common to the sons of the country
clergy,—that is, in his extreme youth he went to a
good old village dame, who, with aged and trembling
voice, taught him his letters, and sought, by “ godly
and pious books for the young,” to impress upon his
youthful mind the importance of religion.
After a few months of this good woman’s instruc-
tion, he was sent to a day-school at some distance
from his home. Here, it is related, appalled by the
sinful irreligion of one of his comrades, he spent
much of his time in preaching to him about “ death
2	17i8
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE,
and damnationhaving appropriated all the austere
Calvinist doctrines of his father, he held them over
the head of the sinful boy. He stealthily procured
the key to his father’s church, and there, in the pulpit,
did he with serious ardor recount to his trembling
audience of one the fearful consequences of his guilt.
In the autumn of 1773, William Godwin went to
Hoxton College, where he remained five years. He
had intended to become a dissenting minister, like his
father, and during his summer vacations and after his
departure from college he had the care of a parish
and preached occasionally; but it does not appear
that he was ever more than a candidate.
In 1785, Godwin took permanent lodgings in Lon-
don and began that career of letters and that struggle
with poverty which ended only with his life. He
was first known as a valuable political writer on the
Liberal side, and by virtue of his political opinions
began to collect around him that circle of friends
which he carefully extended until it comprehended all
those best known in literature and politics. He was
the writer of several books, the principal one being
“ Political Justice.” This was published in 1793, and
immediately went through three editions. Of his
other works, his two novels, “ Caleb Williams” and
“ St. Leon,” the “ Answer to Malthus,” and the “ His-
tory of the Commonwealth of England,” are perhaps
all that are now remembered.PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
19
As the author of “ Political Justice,” he takes a high
place among elemental thinkers. Every original and
earnest writer has one work on which he has expended
the best of his faculties, the most careful and logical
conclusions of his mind. The names of Adam Smith,
Hume, Darwin, Milton, Goethe immediately suggest
to one the name of that work by which each is best
known, that work into which each threw the weight
of his vigor and genius.
“ Political Justice” made no little stir among
thoughtful persons. It is an inquiry into the society,
government, and morals of a community; it contains
broad and uncompromising theories, for Godwin was
not the man to shrink from any conclusion to which
his reason brought him. He was a logical and cour-
ageous thinker, a fearless advocate of equity, an en-
thusiast in the cause of just liberty of thought and
action. He cried out, if any of Godwin’s calm and
moderately expressed sentences can be called a cry,
against the constraints of law, government, and society.
He believed that in time, education and environment
would teach each man to rule himself; that self-
government is the only real government.
Many of Godwin’s theories were extreme and futile,
many bore the stamp of truth which time and custom
have now demonstrated. “ Political Justice” in a
measure prepared the social and moral atmosphere in
which we now live, as did “ Emilie” the educational,20
PA RENTA GE AND EARLY LIFE.
and Darwin’s “ Origin of Species” the scientific. The
present generation is prone to underrate the value of a
work whose once rare and startling precepts are now
familiar and accepted.
Godwin was a man who possessed many lovable
traits of mind and character. He was gentle and con-
siderate of the feelings of others, cheerful and even in
disposition, philosophic in temperament, and to a
moderation that amounted to coldness, he united an
enthusiasm for the good. As a natural complement
to these qualities, he had an inordinate vanity, arj over
keen and exaggerated sense of others’ opinions of him-
self, together with a disposition to magnify the uncon-
scious phrases of his friends into intended slights. In
many of the relations of life he exhibited higli-souled
and amiable benevolence, and whenever he saw an
occasion of aiding a friend or fellow, by counsel or ap-
preciation, by gifts, by well-timed and expressed sym-
pathy, he forthwith offered the same. He was, too, in
all political oppression, intrepid and morally cour-
ageous. Once, indeed, early in his career, he placed
himself in imminent danger of transportation, by throw-
ing himself athwart Parliament, and doing disinterest-
edly all within his power to frustrate a governmental
sentence which seemed to him unjust. This sense of
justice was an engrossing passion of Godwin’s life, than
which none was stronger, not even his sensitive vanity.
That moral courage which in youth was both noblePARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
21
and active, lost in old age its unconditioned fearless-
ness, and expressed itself only in theoretical and ab-
stract disquisitions and prudent and wordy counsel.
Thought in his late years lost the brooding concen-
tration which produces action, and mayhap that clear
and sunlike vision of nice questions grew dim and
obscured, more commonplace and conformable to the
opinions of those around him. Nor is it surprising
that such should have been the result in a nature like
Godwin’s. He no longer had the elasticity of en-
thusiasm, and his vanity and extreme sensitiveness to
disapprobation lacked the reassuring support of Mary
Wollstonecraft’s companionship.
The present generation owes much to Godwin’s clear
and discriminating intellect. It was at his suggestion
that the “ Tales from Shakespeare,” by Charles and
Mary Lamb, were written. He first directed the at-
tention of the English mind to the beauties of “ Don
Quixote,” and he insisted that Chapman’s “ Homer”
was one of the treasures of the English language.
Godwin’s reading was vast and discursive. The
methodical character of his mind is shown by his
minutes of the number of pages read in a day, of
letters and visitors received; and his vanity, by the
preservation of all papers pertaining to himself, and
careful copies of his own letters. Speaking of the
routine of her father’s life, Mrs. Shelley writes thus:
“ He rose between seven and eight, read some clas-22
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
sic author before breakfast. From nine till twelve or
one he occupied himself with his pen. He found that
he could not exceed this measure of labor with any
advantage to his own health or the work in hand.
The rest of the morning was spent in reading or seeing
his friends. When at home he dined at four, but dur-
ing his bachelor life he frequently dined out. His
dinner at home at this time was simple enough. He
had no regular servant; an old woman came in the
morning to clean and arrange his rooms, and, if neces-
sary, she prepared a mutton-chop, which was put in a
Dutch oven.”
His home and his scanty means were ever at the
service of his many needy relatives. One of his prin-
ciples of action was to acquire only the income neces-
sary for his daily wants, and as his relatives made his
house their rendezvous when in London, he was often-
times in debt.
Godwin was about forty at the time of his meeting
^ with Mary Wollstonecraft. He had long been con-
l ^ templating with gracious favor the marriage state, and
had asked his sister Hannah to select for him a wife,
which office she eagerly endeavored to fulfil. Mean-
while he had himself made some advances to a lady
of his own acquaintance; but his friendship for Mary
Wollstonecraft soon occupied his whole mind and
heart.
Mary Wollstonecraft was born in 1759. She alsoPARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
23
was one of the forces that helped to mould the nine-
teenth century. She also, like Godwin, strove to give
freedom to men and women, and to make purity of
motive the basis of morality. Through a varied and
mournful life she always acted upon those principles
which she believed highest. Her chief work is the
“ Vindication of the Rights of Women;” and as God-
win in his “ Political Justice," so did she throw into
this book all the strength of her soul. Honestly,
fearlessly, eloquently she treats of every subject she
touches, from the education of children to the position
of women. The book is crude, assertive, and inaccu-
rate, but it is written with the imperious earnestness
of a thoughtful and sincere mind. Mary Wollstone-
craft was perhaps the most gifted woman of the eigh-
teenth century,—of clear, penetrating insight, of re-
markable energy of purpose, quick to perceive, quick
to formulate, she struck out original lines of thought
on every subject which she touched.
Difficulties of all sorts beset her family and her
home. Her father, a spendthrift and an inebriate, was
violent and abusive in temper. Her mother was
weak and tyrannical, and withal an invalid. There
were small children to be provided for and the older
ones to educate. Mary Wollstonecraft added to the
income of the home by being teacher and governess,
both in Ireland and England. She sacrificed health
and time to do for her brothers and sisters. Many24
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
times the care of the whole wretched family rested
on her brave young shoulders.
In 1788 she came to London, and took lodgings in
a lonely part of the city, near Blackfriars Bridge, there
to support herself by magazine articles and transla-
tions, and indeed to send most of her hard-earned
means to her sisters and brothers, who ill repaid her
for her noble care. With wretched health, in the
midst of poverty and times of morbid despondency,
ill clothed, ill nourished, she worked away over her
translations and tales, bearing the still greater strain
and anxiety of the calamities of her delinquent and
disappointing family. Here it was, in these forsaken
and out-of-the-way lodgings, that this gifted and
struggling being wrote the “ Vindication of the Rights
of Women.” It earned for her a rather formidable
reputation. It was much too outspoken for the
times.
In December, 1792, Mary went to Paris. It was
there that she met Gilbert Imlay, an American. Be-
tween these two was soon formed a strong mutual
attachment. A marriage in the then political state of
France was next to impossible to a foreigner; besides,
to Mary Wollstonecraft, who had in her own family
and that of her friends seen so much anguish accrue
from the marriage-tie, the bond of love seemed more
sacred than civil contract.
In the autumn of 1793 a daughter, Fanny, wasPARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
25
born. Soon after, Imlay, engrossed in speculations
away from Paris, his attachment gone, deserted mother
and child. Heart-broken and bewildered, Mary Woll-
stonecraft returned to England, once more and under
darker griefs than before, to support herself and her
child by her old occupation of literature. It was after
this, after her return from a journey to Norway, after
her final separation from Imlay, that Godwin met her,
and that the acquaintance ripened into friendship.
Mrs. Shelley writes thus of her mother:
“Mary Wollstonecraft was one of those beings who
appear once, perhaps in a generation to gild humanity
with a ray which no difference of opinion nor chance
of circumstance can cloud. Her genius was undeni-
able. She had been bred in the hard school of adver-
sity, and, having experienced the sorrows entailed on
the poor and oppressed, an earnest desire was kindled
within her to diminish their sorrows. Her sound
understanding, her intrepidity, her sensibility, and
eager sympathy stamped all her writings with force
and truth, and endowed them with a tender charm
that enchants while it enlightens. She was one whom
all loved who had ever seen. Many years have passed
since that beating heart has been laid in the cold still
grave, but no one who has ever seen her, speaks of
her without enthusiastic veneration.
“Did she witness an act of injustice, she boldly
came forward to point it out and induce its repara-26
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
tion. Was there discord among friends or relatives,
she stood by the weaker party, and her earnest ap-
peals and kindliness awoke latent affection and healed
all wounds. ‘ Open as day to melting charity,’ with
a heart brimful of generous affection, yearning for
sympathy, she had fallen on evil days, and her life
had been one course of hardship, poverty, lonely
struggle, and bitter disappointment
“ Godwin met her at the moment when she was
deeply depressed by the ingratitude of one utterly
incapable of appreciating her excellence; who had
stolen her heart, and availed himself of her excessive
and thoughtless generosity and lofty independence of
character to plunge her in difficulties and then desert
her. Difficulties—worldly difficulties, indeed—she set
at naught, compared with her despair of good, her
confidence betrayed, and, when once she could con-
quer the misery that clung to her heart, she struggled
cheerfully to meet the poverty that was her inheri-
tance, and to do her duty by her darling child. It
was at this time that Godwin again met her at the
house of her friend, Mrs. Hayes, having done so occa-
sionally before she went to Norway.”
Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft did not marry
for some time. Mrs. Shelley writes, “ He was very
averse to marriage. Poverty was a strong argument
against it. When he concocted a code of morals in
‘ Political Justice,’ he warmly opposed a system whichPA RENTA GE AND EARLY LIFE.
27
exacted a promise to be kept to the end of life, in
spite of every alteration of circumstance and feeling.
Objections to marriage are usually expected to infer
an approval and even practice of illicit intercourse.
This was far from being the case with Godwin. He
was in a supreme degree a conscientious man, ut-
terly opposed to anything like vice or libertinism ;
nor did his sense of duty permit him to indulge in
any deviation from the laws of society, which, though
he might regard as unjust, could not, he felt, be in-
fringed without deception and injury to any woman
who should act in opposition to them. The loss of
usefulness to both parties, which the very stigma
brings, the natural ties of children, entailing duties
which necessitate the duration of any connection, and
which, if tampered with, must end in misery. All
these motives were imperative in preventing him from
acting upon theories which yet he did not like to act
against.”
They were, however, married the 29th day of
March, 1797, in St. Pancras Church, Godwin’s faithful
friend, Marshall, and the parish clerk being the only
witnesses. They still retained their separate lodgings,
and their manner of life was much the same as it had
been. Both had their own work, their own circle of
friends, their own interests, and both regulated their
time to their own wishes. Mary Wollstonecraft still
kept up her writing and translations, and Godwin28
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
went every morning to his study in the Evesham
Buildings.
On the 30th of August, Mary Godwin, afterward
Mary Shelley, was born, and a few days later Mary
Wollstonecraft lay dead. She was buried in St. Pan-
eras church-yard.
After a few months of complete companionship
with Mary Wollstonecraft, Godwin was left the
mournful task of writing a sketch of her life, and of
editing her unpublished writings. He at once brought
his papers from the Evesham Buildings, and took up
his abode with his two little children, Fanny, Imlay’s
daughter, and Mary, his own child, in his wife's home.
There he lived in a dreary, hap-hazard way, with the
children and their nurses. One can imagine the dis-
comfort that he suffered; his student-like, methodical
habits disturbed, his time interrupted, his mind called
away from his books to a thousand minor incidents,
the whole care of the house falling on his shoulders.
For, during Mary Wollstonecraft’s life, there had
been absolutely no alteration in Godwin’s carefully
regulated days; the care of affairs had devolved upon
her. In the life of a man who had spent forty single
and undisturbed years, whose habits had become crys-
tallized, these demands must have made no small
revolution. Certain it is that he either doubted his
ability to care for this household, or that he had found
a wife of inestimable value, for six months after MaryPARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE,
29
Wollstonecraft’s death, after he had declared that his
sorrow had no consolation, we find him sending im-
portunate love letters and proposal of marriage to a
lady whom he had seen just four times.
Whatever the material loss Mary Wollstonecraft’s
death was to her husband and children, of the spiritual
and moral loss the half cannot be told. She was to
Godwin a strong, broad, beautiful influence. She had
more character, more purpose, more intimate sym-
pathy with and knowledge of human nature than he,
—she would have softened his pedantry, would have
helped him to realize his dreams and theories of hu-
manity.
To her children she would have been friend and
guiding star. She would have been like the gracious
spirit that ever presided over the hearth-stones of the
old Greeks, and her sweet presence and warm heart
would have kept glowing and eternal that sacred fire.
But her death changed all this not more than did
Godwin’s second marriage in 1801.
He had a large circle of friends, and shortly after
his wife died he began to resume his visits to them.
He frequently took little Fanny, to whom he was
tenderly attached, with him when he dined out.
Good friends of Mary Wollstonecraft and of Godwin,
Mrs. Revely and Mrs. Fenwick, kept kindly over-
sight of the little Mary, while Godwin was living thus
alone in Polygon. And it was from Mrs. Revely,30
PA RENTA GE AND EARLY LIFE,
afterwards Mrs. Gisborne, that Mary Shelley in later
years learned all that she knew of her mother.
Mrs. Shelley has left an interesting note of Mrs.
Revely’s early life and her friendship with Godwin
before his union with Mary Wollstonecraft. “ Maria
Revely,” she writes, “ was the daughter of an English
merchant at Constantinople, named James. Her edu-
cation had been wild and singular, and had early de-
veloped the peculiar and deep-seated sensibility which
through life formed her character. Her father had left
her in infancy with her mother in England,—he might
be said to have deserted them, for they lived in great
penury. She remembered once asking her mother for
a farthing to buy a cake, which was given her with
such reluctance, on the score of poverty, that with a
passion of tears she returned it. Mrs. James at length
took a desperate resolution and sailed to Constanti-
nople with her daughter, then eight years old. Mr.
James had no inclination to renew his conjugal duties.
He had in his house the wife of one of his skippers
as house-keeper, and it was generally believed that she
stood to him in a more intimate relation. He was,
however, delighted with his little daughter, and had
her stolen from her mother and secreted in the house
of a Turk, till he had persuaded Mrs. James, by the
promise of an annuity, to return to England alone.
The little Maria was then taken home and brought
up with sedulous care. Many accomplishments werePARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
31
taught her, and on one of the first side-saddles which
appeared in the East she accompanied her father in
his rides in the environs of Constantinople. While
yet a mere child she looked womanly and formed,
and entered into the society of European merchants
and diplomatists. Having no proper chaperon, she
was apt to run wild as she might, and at a very early
age had gone through the romance of life. When
she was fifteen her father left Constantinople and went
to Rome. She had shown great talent for painting,
and it was her wish that she should cultivate this art
under the tuition of Angelica Kauffman. Her studies
were, however, interrupted by her early marriage.
Her beauty attracted the admiration of Mr. Revely,
a young English architect travelling for improve-
ment ; they married and came to England.
“ Mr. Revely’s means were small, his father being
still alive, and his marriage imprudent, for Mr. James,
who acted ill in all the relations of life, refused to con-
sent to the match, only, it would seem, as an excuse
for giving his daughter no fortune. From the genial
climate, the luxuries, the gay and refined society which
had at times surrounded her, Mrs. Revely found her-
self transported to a situation but little removed from
penury, demanding an economy and a self-denial in ex-
penditure of the most painful kind. She found herself
among the middling class of English people, ignorant,
narrow-minded and bigoted. She felt fallen on evil32
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
days ; the fairy lights had disappeared from life ; sedu-
lous occupation bestowed on the necessaries of life
was varied only by society which did not possess a
ray of intellect and had but little refinement.
“ She was very young and very beautiful, and pos-
sessed a peculiar charm of character in her deep sen-
sibility, and an ingenuous modesty that knew no guile;
this was added to ardor in the pursuit of knowledge,
a liberal and unquenchable curiosity. Parties ran high
in those days. Her husband joined the Liberal side,
and entered with enthusiasm into the hopes and ex-
pectations of political freedom, which then filled every
heart to bursting. The consequence of these princi-
ples was to lead to the acquaintance of many of their
popular advocates, and among them, with Godwin and
Holcroft. There was a gentleness and yet a fervor in
the minds of both Mrs. Revely and Godwin that led
to sympathy. He was ready to gratify her desire for
knowledge, and she drank eagerly of the philosophy
which he offered. It was pure but warm friendship,
which might have grown into another feeling had they
been differently situated. As it was, Godwin saw only
in her a favorite pupil, a charming friend, a woman
whose conversation and society were fascinating and
delightful; but his calm and philosophic heart was
undisturbed by any of those feelings which in natures
less happily tempered would too readily have stepped
in to disturb and injure.”PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
33
Nevertheless, shortly after the loss of Mary Woll-
stonecraft, after an unsuccessful attempt to marry Miss
Lee, a lady whom he had seen but four times, accident
disposing of Mr. Revely, Godwin within a month of
his death importuned Mrs. Revely to become his wife.
Though she had had little fondness for her husband,
Mrs. Revely felt his loss keenly. “ From the cham-
ber of death/' writes Mrs. Shelley, “ his widow rushed
to a remote and desolate room at the top of the house,
in a state bordering on frenzy: for a week she remained
in the same place, in the same state. She and her hus-
band had at times disagreed, and believed themselves
unsuited to each other. But he was the husband of her
early youth, the father of her adored son, the friend
and companion of nearly fifteen years. She was en-
dowed with the keenest sensibility, and her heart re-
ceived a shock from which she could with difficulty
recover.
“ Mr. Godwin heard of Mr. Revely’s death at the
house where he dined on the same day. He became
thoughtful and entirely silent; he already revolved the
future in his mind. Maria Revely had been a favorite
pupil, a dear friend, a woman whose beauty and man-
ners he ardently admired. After his wife’s death, his
visits and attentions had excited Mr. Revely’s jealousy,
and they became to a great degree discontinued. His
uprightness and candor of character made him dis-
dain the suspicions, but he withdrew, unwilling to be
334
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
the cause of domestic feud. It was, however, his plan
to yield but little to form and etiquette, and before Mr.
Revely had been dead a month he did not scruple to
ask to see his widowed friend, and to make her under-
stand the feelings and prospects with which his visits
would be paid. She at first refused to see him and
several letters passed between them.”
“ You are invited to form the sole happiness/' writes
the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, six months after
her death, to Mrs. Revely, “ of one of the most known
men of the age, of one whose principles, whose tem-
per, whose thoughts you have been long acquainted
with, and will, I believe, confess their universal con-
stancy. This connection I should think would restore
you to self-respect, would give security to your future
peace, and insure for you no mean degree of respecta-
bility. What you propose to choose in opposition to
this I hardly know how to describe to you. . . . How
singularly perverse and painful is my fate. When all
obstacles interposed between us, when I had a wife,
when you had a husband, you said you loved me, for
years loved me! Could you for years be deceived ?
Now that calamity on the one hand, and no unpro-
pitious fortune on the other have removed these ob-
stacles, it seems your thoughts are changed, you have
entered into new thoughts and reasonings.” And in
his last letter to her he writes, “ You always professed
the highest regard for Mrs. Godwin, naturally it wouldPARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
35
be expected you should feel some interest in her chil-
dren and mine: are these motives all at once become
nothing to you ?”
Godwin’s letters and entreaties could not prevail
upon Mrs. Revely, and it was with real disappoint-
ment that he learned of her marriage to Mr. Gisborne
in the next year. He was very glad, during that sum-
mer, 1800, to divert his mind by a visit to Ireland,
where he spent six weeks. His home letters are play-
ful and charming.
“ Tell Mary I will not give her away, and she shall
be nobody’s little girl but papa’s. Papa is gone away,
but papa will very soon come back again, and see the
Polygon across two fields from the trunks of the trees
at Camden Town. Will Mary and Fanny come to
meet me ?”
“ I depute to Fanny and Mr. Collins, the gardener,
the care of the garden. Tell her I wish to find it
spruce, cropped, weeded, and mowed at my return,
and if she can save me a few strawberries, and a few
beans without spoiling, I will give her six kisses for
them. But then Mary must have six kisses too,
because Fanny has six.”
“ And, now, what shall I say for my poor little girls ?
I hope they have not forgotten me; I think of them
every day, and should be glad if the wind was more
favorable to blow them a kiss apiece from Dublin to
Polygon. I have seen Mr. Grattan’s little girls, and36
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
Lady Mountcashers little girls, and they are very
nice children, but I have seen none that I love half so
well or think half so good as my own.”
And this last note, “ Ah! poor Fanny, here is an-
other letter from papa, and what do you think he
says about the little girls in it? Would pretty little
Mary have apprehension enough to be angry if I did
not put in her name? Look at the map. This is
Sunday that I am now writing. Before next Sunday
I shall have crossed that place there, what you see
marked as sea, between Ireland and England, and
shall hope, indeed, to be half-way home. That is not
a very long while, now, is it ? My visit to Ireland is
almost done. Perhaps I shall be on the sea in a ship
the very moment Marshall is reading this letter to
you. There is about going in a ship in Mrs. Bar-
bauld’s book. But I shall write another letter that
shall come two or three days after this, and then I
shall be in England. And in a day or two after that
I shall hope to see Fanny and Mary and Marshall
sitting on the trunks of the trees.”
Of the gentle Marshall Mrs. Shelley has written,
“ There was another man, a fellow-student, and an
aspirant to the honors of literature. The booksellers
of London in his day knew him well, and many a
contemporary author fallen on evil days, many a
widow and orphan had cause to remember the benev-
olent disposition, the strenuous exertions, the kindPARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
37
and intelligent countenance of James Marshall. His
talents not permitting a higher range, he became a
translator and index maker, a literary jobber. In a
thousand ways he was useful to Godwin, who, sensi-
tive, proud, and shy, whose powers of persuasion lay
in the force of his reasoning, often found the more
sociable and insinuating manners of his friend of use
in transacting matters of business with editors and
publishers. They often shared their last shilling
together, and the success of any of his friend’s plans
was hailed by Marshall as a glorious triumph. God-
win, whose temper was quick, and, from an earnest
sense of being in the right, somewhat despotic on
occasions, assumed a good deal of superiority and
some authority. Marshall sometimes submitted, some-
times rebelled, but they were always reconciled at last,
and the good-humored friend was always at hand to
assist to the utmost Godwin’s more intellectual ex-
ertions, in copying or in walking from one end of
the town to the other.”
In the spring of 1801, there arrived in the house
next to the one in which Godwin lived with his odd
family, which consisted of his instalments of country
relatives,—of this faithful Marshall, who was devoted
worshipper, enthusiastic friend, amanuensis, chief con-
fidant, and literary hack, and with whom Godwin
quarrelled as was his wont with every close friend,—
of his two little girls and their nurse, the latter a lady,3«
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
half house-keeper, half companion, who, sensitive and
exacting, was jealous of Godwin’s comings and goings,
who would not have been averse to being the next
Mrs. Godwin, and was yet holding a sort of engage-
ment with one of his young proteges,—there came
to live in the house next to this heterogeneous family
a lady, a widow, clever, energetic, and handsome.
And it came about, that as the sage sat in his little
balcony, where her fond eyes had doubtless seen him
many times, the enthusiastic lady spake to him in
these winged words: “ Is it possible that I behold
the immortal Godwin ?” This honeyed phrase, which
the immortal Godwin did not find cloying to his
taste, began an acquaintance which at the end of
the year resulted in marriage. The ceremony took
place in Shoreditch Church, the faithful Marshall and
the parish clerk, as at that earlier marriage, being the
only witnesses. And this Mrs. Clairmont became the
second Mrs. Godwin.
That Godwin loved Mary Wollstonecraft as a man
or a woman loves only once in a lifetime, I believe.
Nevertheless there Vere many reasons that urged him
to take unto himself another wife. In four years he
had ceased to be romantic; he was now a cautious,
thoughtful man of forty-four, who had an increasing
respect for the institutions of society, and who felt the
care of the two little girls to be beyond him. He
wanted a wise and prudent house-keeper who at thePARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
39
same time could bestow on his two children, daughters
of that illustrious being, the minute attention due' to
their material wants. Like a sensible man he married
Mrs. Clairmont, the provident house-keeper, the care-
taker whom he thought necessary for the welfare of
his home, who would have for his children the solici-
tude of a mother.
Godwin always remained a man of much natural
beauty of character, but he did succumb to all those
prescriptions of society, not only in action but in
honest thought, which as a younger person he had
considered only the mutable institutions of man.
He learned to consider of value that position and
social standing which can only be held under the
limitations of convention, on which he and Mary
Wollstonecraft had expended so much subtile reason-
ing and analysis. When in later years he writes to
his daughter, Mrs. Shelley, “ be useful, be respectable,
be happy,” one can see how vital had become to him
the estimation of society.
Mrs. Clairmont brought to Godwin’s home Charles
and Jane, two children of her former marriage. This
lady caused Mary Godwin real grief. She was to Mary,
in her childhood, harsh, quick-tempered, unsympa-
thetic ; in her girlhood she denied her every advan-
tage and possibility that her rarely-endowed nature
craved, estranging Godwin from his daughter’s true
interest by her jealous disposition, and in after-life40
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
making the growing affection and companionship
between father and daughter, by this same jealous
interference, a matter of difference between Godwin
and herself.
Though she ever had an admiration for her hus-
band, she was exacting and overbearing, ungenerous
in her estimates, complaining and fretful in disposition,
—pitifully unfit to take the charge of that household.
To occupy the position of companion and adviser to
three such sensitively organized beings as Godwin and
Mary and Fanny, was to hold their happiness in her
hands; for it virtually lies in the power of the woman
to make the hearthstone a place of joy or of bickering
unrest. That Mrs. Clairmont made this home very
unhappy, and by her jealous interference often caused
temporary estrangement between Godwin and his old
friends, Lamb, Holcroft, and others who suffered at
her hands give testimony. Lamb, in a fit of annoy-
ance, writes of her to Coleridge as “ that d—d Mrs.
Godwin.”
At the time of his second marriage, and for a few
years after, Godwin was involved in the most discour-
aging pecuniary difficulties. His only means of sup-
port was the income which he derived from his pen.
His wife—energetic, mentally active, “a managing
woman,” as she calls herself—therefore induced God-
win, in 1805, to enter into the publishing business. He
hired a small house in Hanway Street, Oxford Street,PA RENTA GE AND EARLY LIFE.
41
and under the name of his foreman, his own being in
such ill odor on account of his radical opinions that
it would have been disastrous to use it, began the busi-
ness which involved him in lawsuits and financial
calamities for years to come. He wrote and published,
under the name of “ Baldwin’s Fables,” stories and
histories for children,—charming little books they were,
too,—on which work he and his wife expended much
labor. Mrs. Godwin in the main had the supervision
of the shop, and Charles Lamb complains pathetically
of her wretched taste in publishing the “ Tales’^with
some grotesquely inferior copperplate illustrations.....
After awhile the publishing business increased, and
it was necessary to remove it to larger quarters. It
was established under the name of M. J. Godwin &
Co., in a building in Skinner Street, Holborn, adjoin-
ing which was a comfortable dwelling-house, to
which, in the autumn of 1807, the family removed
from the house in Somerstown, with its memories of
Mary Wollstonecraft, memories of the companionship
of the higher, wider life that Godwin had led under
her influence.
Were the associations of that place dear to Godwin ?
They must have been to the little Mary, who it is said
was so much like her dead mother. A child older in
thought and feeling than her ten years would make
her; loving, revering the character of her mother;
with eager, imperious ways, mystic, shining eyes, fer-42
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
vent spirits, unloved by her step-mother, unappre-
ciated by her father, she in the way peculiar to sensi-
tive children must have brooded over the memories of
that spot so endeared to her mother’s name, which
had once been filled by her mother’s presence. Little
Fanny Imlay, pliant and even in temperament, with
sweet, womanly ways, who was three years Mary’s
senior, must have remembered that mother, have been
able to give to her sister faint impressions of a tender
being who had moved about the rooms, who supplied
her childish wants, who had sat writing at a certain
table; perhaps there was one window at which the
dimly-recalled being always wrote. Perhaps Fanny
could even remember caresses and endearing words,
for children remember such things.
The shop in Skinner Street flourished, and one gets
a pretty picture now and then of the family life;
Godwin writing continuously; Mrs. Godwin taking
oversight of the work in the building next; the chil-
dren, Fanny, Mary, and the little William, who was
born to Mrs. Godwin in 1803, saying their lessons.
Charles Clairmont, a charming and intelligent boy,
was at Charter-House School, and Jane, the eldest of
the children, whose character was far from agreeable,
had masters or outside education.
Godwin’s life at this time was simple, his pleasures
few. Business and domestic affairs pressed heavily
upon him, though no nature was more cheerfully freePARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
43
from useless pecuniary worry. If he had money he
paid the bills when they fell due. If he had none
himself he begged or borrowed it from his friends with
perfect good feeling. It was only when such natural
avenues of resource were closed to him that affairs
demanded serious consideration. Thomas Noon Tal-
fourd has left a charming description of this charac-
teristic of Godwin’s.
“ He asked his friends for aid without scruple/’
writes Talfourd, “ considering that their means were
justly the due of one who toiled in thought for their
inward life, and had little time to provide for his own
outward existence; and took their excuses when
offered without doubt or offence. The very next day
after I had been honored and delighted by an intro-
duction to him at Lamb’s chambers, I was made still
more proud and happy by his appearance at my own
on such an errand, which my poverty, not my will,
rendered abortive. After some pleasant chat on in-
different matters, he carelessly observed that he had a
little bill for ^150 falling due on the morrow, which
he had forgotten till that morning, and desired the loan
of the necessary amount for a few weeks. At first, in
eager hopes of being thus able to oblige one whom
I regarded with admiration akin to awe, I began to
consider whether it was possible for me to raise such
a sum; but alas! a moment’s reflection sufficed to
convince me that hope was vain, and I was obliged44
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
with much confusion to assure my distinguished vis-
itor how glad I should have been to serve him, but
that I was only just starting as a special pleader, was
obliged to write for magazines to help me on, and had
not such a sum in the world. ‘ Oh dear/ said the
philosopher, ‘ I thought you were a young gentleman
of fortune,—don’t mention it, don’t mention it; I
shall do very well elsewhere;’ and then in the most
gracious manner reverted to our former topics, and
sat in my small room for half an hour as if to con-
vince me that my want of fortune made no difference
in his esteem.”
Godwin’s evenings were spent in playing whist at
home or in Lamb’s chambers at the Temple, receiving
or making visits, or at one of the theatres, where he
had free access. And every first night might find
Godwin sitting sleepily back in his box unless roused
to admiration by some unusual piece of acting, when
he would thrust hi$ huge head forward, rub his hands
delightedly, and exclaim “ Good, good!”
Many were the games of whist that the children
witnessed through the half-open door, or stole in noise-
lessly like mice into the Skinner Street parlor to watch.
Curiously and wonderingly did they regard the dis-
tinguished visitors, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, so omi-
nously silent over their handful of cards, till the little
intruders were marshalled off to bed by the ever-
watchful Mrs. Godwin, who returned to keep impa-PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
45
tient guard while game succeeded game into the roseate
hours of dawn. Silent, especially uncommunicative,
was Godwin’s after-dinner hour. It was his invariable
custom to refresh himself with a nap at that time, and
it is said that no amount of good company could keep
him awake. Often at Lamb’s chambers, strangers
were amazed to see the massive, protruding head of
the philosopher sink quietly to rest between his shoul-
ders, and the author of “ Political Justice” sleep as
stupidly and profoundly as a child. He conversed but
little among strangers, and his talk was of the simplest,
most commonplace things. Very disappointing, this,
to one who wished to hear the prophet in his inspired
moments.
As Mary was a delicate child, she was occasionally
sent into Scotland. Great must have been her delight
to escape from the close atmosphere of London and
the reproofs of her step-mother. To Fanny, with her
gentle disposition, the life at home meant accommodat-
ing her own not strong will to that of Mrs. Godwin;
to Mary it meant inward rebellion and repression of all
her inclinations. Very little care was spent on the edu-
cation of either of Godwin’s daughters, Mrs. Godwin
discouraging any but household acquirements for them.
It was her own daughter Jane, afterwards known by
the self-adopted name of Claire, who received all the
accomplishments which the slender means could
afford.46
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
What wonder, then, that Mary rejoiced in her
freedom from restraint, that she ran with outstretched
arms and flying hair along the Scottish shore, that
the rocks and waves at Broughty Ferry were her
friends and companions, that the startled sea-birds
and the old fishermen marvelled whether this swift-
footed, light-haired being was sprite or woman! This
child did not know that there, in her own little
English isle, wandering about in the same restless,
darting way, only among the haunts of men instead
of in the free, salty winds of the Scottish coast, was a
nature like her own, a mind which would understand
her wild fancies,—yes, which also needed recognition.
One can see her with her light, supple figure, stand-
ing on the sea-washed, jagged rocks, her wind-swept
hair, her beautiful gray eyes shaded by her hands,
looking out towards the sea, her clothes fretted and
tossed by the wind. What art thou looking for, thou
wondrous child ? Thy Shelley comes not from over
the sea.
As the years increase, she whom they said was
lovely from her birth grew more beautiful. At the
age of fifteen she was of medium height, but so slender
and willowy in figure as to appear tall. She had a
remarkably fair skin and delicate features, a wide, calm
brow, and light, waving hair. But her eyes gave ex-
pression and mobility and an ever-varying charm to
her face. When she was animated or excited thosePARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
47
calm gray eyes turned dark brown and were lit up by
an inward fire, her face was aglow, and her whole be-
ing partook of the awakening. An irresistible vivac-
ity inspired her manners. At about this time God-
win received a letter from an unknown person, who,
interested in the daughters of two such unusual people,
was anxious to know how Mary Wollstonecraft’s edu-
cational ideas had succeeded. One can see from the
reply how much Godwin had changed, whether it
was from the familiar contact of a mind less fine than
his own, or from a careless acknowledgment of his
duties, or from a growing acceptation of the prevailing
modes of thought and education. In later years, after
sorrow and separation had taught her to accommodate
herself to his nature, rather than he to learn hers, Mary
Godwin became tenderly attached to her father; but I
doubt whether he had much intimate knowledge of his
daughter when he wrote this letter:
“ . . . Your inquiries relate principally to the two
daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft. They are neither
of them brought up with an exclusive attention to the
system of their mother. I lost her in 1797, and in
1801 I married a second time. One among the mo-
tives which led me to chuse this was the feeling I had
in myself of an incompetence for the education of
daughters. The present Mrs. Godwin has great
strength and activity of mind, but is not exclusively
a follower of their mother; and indeed, having formed48
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
a family establishment, without having a previous
provision for the support of a family, neither Mrs.
Godwin nor I have leisure enough for reducing novel
theories of education to practice, while we both of us
honestly endeavor, as far as our opportunities will
permit, to improve the mind and characters of the
younger branches of the family.
“ Of the two persons to whom your inquiries relate,
my own daughter is considerably superior in capacity
to the one her mother had before. Fanny, the eldest,
is of a quiet, modest, unshowy disposition, somewhat
given to indolence, which is her greatest fault, but
sober, observing, peculiarly clear and distinct in the
faculty of memory, and disposed to exercise her own
thoughts and follow her own judgment. Mary, my
daughter, is the reverse of her in many particulars.
She is singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active
of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great and her
perseverance in everything she undertakes almost in-
vincible. My own daughter is, I believe, very pretty.
Fanny is by no means handsome, but in general pre-
possessing.”
That Godwin was a beneficent, mellow old man,
growing wise and learned in book lore, that he was
an easily satisfied member of the family, leaving the
education of his daughters to the wife whom he had
married for that purpose, is probably true; but that
he was the friend and the chosen companion of hisPARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
49
child, the close and affectionate observer of her char-
acter, and that he followed out the kind of care which
he and her mother would tacitly have approved, is to
be doubted.
Idealizing the memory of her mother, as she did
afterward the memory of her Shelley, the child Mary
was even less able to appreciate the virtues of the
present Mrs. Godwin. There was no companionship
between them, and the attitude of the two Mrs. God-
wins was so essentially different that it would have
taken a wiser head than the restless Mary’s to have
reconciled or found equal good in the two natures.
Godwin himself never tried to meet the question.
With Mary Wollstonecraft’s death ended that intel-
lectual life which they had had in common, and those
peculiar ideas which they had shared together, and
the child of that union, born under those influences,
did not serve to keep alive those sensibilities and
those ideas.
Living in a world of imagination, weaving her weird
fancies into stories, loving study and poetry, she spent
all her spare time in the long summer days with her
book, beside her mother’s grave, in St. Pancras church-
yard. All her literary delights disapproved of by her
step-mother, rebuked when seen with a book in her
hand, and told that in the store-room were fitter occu-
pation, how many, many times must the sensitive,
high-spirited girl have gone to her mother’s grave,
450
PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE.
and, with tears in her heart, have prayed to that beau-
tiful influence to understand and guide her. Mary
Godwin felt that she was like her mother. And the
rebukes about her reading, the reproach at her un-
housewifely ways,—might not also the same fault have
been found with Mary Wollstonecraft ?
How distant, then, how isolated from the present
Mrs. Godwin, how much nearer was she drawn to her
own mother. If it was necessary to choose between
the idea of good that Mrs. Godwin pointed out, and
the ideal of good that Mary Wollstonecraft embodied,
and she must choose, for the ideas were too opposite
to reconcile, could she do else than cling to the mem-
ory of her mother ?
Thus it was that she grew up and passed from
childhood into girlhood. And thus it was that Shel-
ley first saw her at the age of fifteen, a beautiful, rest-
less girl, singular and gifted, but hardly more than the
child which he considered her to be.CHAPTER II.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on the 4th of Au-
gust, 1792, at Field Place, Sussex. He was the eldest
son of Mr. Timothy Shelley. As this gentleman fig-
ures somewhat prominently in the latter part of Mary
Shelley’s life, it will be as well once for all to devote a
few words to his character and disposition. If it were
not for the extreme looseness of the expression, he
might be dismissed with the remark that he was the
conventional type of the commonplace English country
gentleman.
To be somewhat more explicit, Sir Timothy, as he
afterwards became, was a robust, self-assertive islander,
of. fair mind, well posted rather than cultured, not
without a slight literary perception, but without the
faintest literary faculty or appreciation, a practical
householder and agriculturist. With his equals his
conduct was a mixture of complaisance and unreason-
ableness; to his inferiors he was well-meaning but
overbearing; to his superiors, subservient. In all re-
lations of life he was limited, intolerant, and conserva-
tive.
5i52
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
With his son Percy he lacked all possible grounds
of sympathy or understanding,—a condition of things
of which Mary Shelley partook the fruits, and of which
she bitterly reaped the harvest.
Sir Timothy, being such as has been said, married
a lady of unusual beauty of face and person, of a mild
disposition, of narrow mind, and of no decided char-
acter. From this union came seven children, Percy
Bysshe being the eldest. Of the remaining, five were
girls.
It was evidently not from his immediate progenitors
that the poet derived his peculiar temperament and
organization. If we look one generation back, we
can discover at least the source of the family name
Bysshe, and with it obtain a possible clew to certain
family traits. Sir Timothy’s father, and the grand-
father of the poet, was Sir Bysshe Shelley. He was
a character in his way, very unlike his son Timothy,
being quite as eccentric as the latter was common-
place. He was still living when Mary Godwin ac-
cepted the hand and love of his namesake and grand-
son.
Sir Bysshe was a tall, handsome, clever old man, a
baronet, and the founder of a family which received a
further baronetcy and a peerage. A gentleman of the
old school, tolerant, himself liberal and independent.
He married in turn two English heiresses, with both
of whom he eloped, and rumor whispers of an Ameri-PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
53
can wife antedating both of the English ones. As
Shelley phrases it, his “ grandfather behaved badly to
three wives.” It is also to be mentioned that two of
the baronet's daughters eloped in marrying. For
years before his death the old gentleman was not on
good terms with his son Timothy, whom on occasions
he would curse to his face. Between the old baronet
and his grandson Percy there was neither sympathy
nor aversion, rather mutual non-interference. At his
death, in 1815, Sir Bysshe left his son Timothy one
of the wealthiest heirs in England, three hundred
thousand pounds sterling in the funds and rentals;
twenty thousand pounds per annum being the esti-
mate of his estates.
Such was the immediate ancestry of Percy Bysshe
Shelley.
The youthful Bysshe, as he was called, early went
through the schooling of an English upper-class lad,
passing to Eton in his fourteenth year, and there re-
maining until he went up to Oxford at the age of
eighteen. But no ordinary boyhood was thus spent.
Early a vigorous personality and a restless spirit, re-
bellious against the powers that be and institutions
that are, showed itself,—at home against restraints and
rules parental, at school against established usages,
pre-eminently the fagging system, to which not for
one moment would he submit. Early, too, the liter-
ary and poetic penchant developed, a strange faculty54
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
of the imaginative order, verbal fluency, and the itch
of writing. Numerous ridiculous romances, notably
“ Zastrossi” and “ St. Irvynne,” were produced, and
even saw the light through a credulous and never-to-
be-paid publisher. Also numberless poems, not now
to be heard of. Early, too, atheistical tendencies—a
certain innate inability to accept the Christian religion
as anything more than a string of commingled fables
and formulae—developed and attached to him, never
to be loosed, rather strengthening with his growth.
Many beautiful traits of heart and character devel-
oped in the growing boy,—great sincerity, earnestness,
and enthusiasm, capability for warm friendship, and
an intense, almost fierce, love of truth. He was a lad
of generous impulses and unselfish, at least in motive,
—a reservation necessary from the fact that a constitu-
tional recklessness of himself extended to and included
others, often entailing troubles to those nearest and
dearest.
At Oxford the boy grew into the man, and there
arose the Shelley that the world knows. Here, too,
it was that the incident of the expulsion for atheism
occurred. Not a thing to be wondered at on the one
hand, nor to be greatly censured on the other. The
arguments of Hume had to the young Shelley ap-
peared so unanswerable that he, with the aid of his
friend Hogg, had made an abstract of them, and had
caused it to be printed, with the heading, “ The Ne-PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
55
cessity for Atheism.” This pamphlet, or thesis, he
disseminated with a much too open hand. The
alarming brochure coming to the knowledge of the
board of college authorities, they summoned Shelley
before them and questioned him as to his part in its
authorship. Whatever he may have said, or refused
to say, the practical fact remains that he was expelled
because of his connection therewith, his father and
all other good Britons regarding him with feelings
which found vent in words both written and spoken.
“ Queen Mab” belongs to the beginning of his Ox-
ford life, the notes to which, in so far as they relate
to the anti-Christian idea, are said to be taken from
the famous “ Necessity for Atheism.” In one of these
notes marriage is strongly condemned as subversive of
all love and natural feeling, and a most vehement ap-
peal is made for an overturning of so “ degrading an
institution.” But “ Queen Mab,” though printed, was
not published; it was, however, privately distributed.
Nor did Shelley ever recant any of the views expressed
in the notes.
Thus hurried out into the world, ill equipped, imma-
ture, his almost immediate act is to elope with Harriet
Westbrook. This young girl was decidedly his in-
ferior in social rank, and lacked in all respects the
qualities of mind which characterized the young Shel-
ley. He made her acquaintance in this wise. After
his expulsion his father cut off his allowance, and hisPERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
56
sisters for a time supplied him from their own slender
portions with such sums as they were able. Harriet
Westbrook was the messenger who brought these
sisterly remittances to Shelley. She was a handsome
girl of a pink-and-white complexion and soft brown
hair. Her father was a retired hotel keeper, late of
the “ Mount Street Coffee-House.” Her mother was
a nonentity. But her sister, Eliza, who came after-
wards and lived with Shelley, was no nonentity; she
proved a stubborn fact. She was twice Harriet's age,
with dark eyes, stiff black hair, her form was angular
and her face pock-marked.
Much of Shelley’s boy love had been expended upon
his cousin, Harriet Grove. Now she was about to
marry,—a circumstance not without its influence,
probably an exaggerated one, upon Shelley’s conduct.
Harriet Westbrook was, as we know, attractive in
appearance; she was more; she was, for a girl of six-
teen, quite well instructed, one could scarcely say edu-
cated. She was a good deal of a reader; her tem-
perament was cheerful, and her disposition of that
negative, insensible sort which passes for amiable.
Her family were by no means loth to see her receive
the attentions of the grandson and heir prospective to
a wealthy baronet.
Thus circumstances threw Harriet and Shelley to-
gether, and for a time the young man found interest
in dazzling her with his speculations and advancedPERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
57
ideas, to which she soon became a passive convert.
Harriet’s family were rigid Methodists; she appears,
however, to have had no decided religious leanings.
Enthusiastic love for her Shelley did not have, but she
certainly possessed for him the attraction that a pretty
young girl of sixteen has for a young fellow of nine-
teen ; then pity and a certain heroic desire to protect
her added the needed climax. After a few visits paid
her at her father’s house the young girl went back to
school. A few letters from Harriet to Shelley telling
of illness and of family unkindness, coercion, and in-
compatibility; finally, one throwing herself upon his
protection, and offering to fly with him,—then the
elopement.
Harriet could scarcely at first have aspired to be
Shelley’s wife, knowing as she did his aversion to
marriage upon principle; so that the Scotch marriage
may fairly be attributed to his sense of the chivalrous.
That all of this was hasty, ill advised, and erratic, no
one has ever denied; that Shelley was the main or
responsible actor in the drama is in no sense true;
fidelity to fact must deny to Harriet the pose of an
injured and credulous innocent. Nor is there any
reason why we should hesitate to recognize the no-
bility of Shelley’s part. That it was prudent no one
claims.
Once married the young couple secured lodgings
in London, and entered upon an existence of poverty58
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
and perpetual embarrassment. It would serve no
purpose to enter into the details of Shelley’s life dur-
ing this period. It was simply miserable. Hard as
it is to quench the animal spirits and the inborn op-
timism of a young and ardent nature, things so ar-
ranged themselves, or failed to be arranged, that all
of Shelley’s real and better nature slept, rarely waking
to the light. Family feuds and bitterness, cramping
poverty, restless, ill-directed energies, the visit to Ire-
land, impossible sorties against the ills of the world,
pamphlets and dissertations for the most part of no
permanent or even temporary value fill up this inter-
val. The poetic sense lay dormant, imagination re-
fused to act among such plethora of unpleasant
realities.
Not least of these was Eliza Westbrook. Early she
came and settled down upon the Shelleys, assumed
control of the house, dominated the passive Harriet,
doled out the slender stock of funds, and rendered
Shelley’s life even darker than it otherwise was, as the
cuttlefish will ink even muddy water.
Slowly but surely there dawned upon Shelley’s mind
the certainty that his wife was not only a creature of
different mould from himself, uninspiring, uncompan-
ionable, but commonplace, almost unendurable to him.
Seeds such as these grow without watering. And
yet the year 1814, the third of Shelley’s married life,
opens with an incident that looks the very reverse ofPERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
59
the separation about to follow. Shelley, in August,
1813, had come of age, and thereupon, March 24, 1814,
he remarries Harriet, the ceremony being performed
at St. Georges, Hanover Square. But though this
second marriage established without doubt the legiti-
mate claim of her son to the family estates, it in no
way altered Harriet’s position toward Shelley. The
rift widened till they drifted apart altogether, Harriet
returning to her father’s house.CHAPTER III.
UNION WITH SHELLEY.
In i8i i, Shelley, like so many other earnest young
men, sought the friendship of Godwin, the writer of
“ Political Justice.” To him in times of doubt and
distrust men turned, as they did in days of old to the
Delphian Oracle. Both by letter and personal com-
munication Godwin was adviser and friend of many a
tumultuous, headstrong youth. His sympathy was
warm, his judgment good, his advice conscientious.
Shelley kept up an active correspondence with him
some months before they met in October, 1812. At
that time Shelley and his family spent six weeks in
London, and they were almost daily visitors in Skin-
ner Street.
During the summer of 1813, Shelley was again in
London for a short while, and at the time, or imme-
diately after, Mary, who was not strong, went again to
Scotland with her father’s old friends, Mr. Baxter and
his daughter. Dear indeed must have been those jour-
neys to Dundee, those months spent at Broughty
Ferry, with its familiar wild coast cliffs, so like the
rugged scenes of the Lerici of after-days. She spent
60LN10N WITH SHELLEY.
6l
the winter with her warm-hearted Scotch friends, who
loved the child for the sake of the mother, to whom
they had been tenderly attached.
It was after her return in the spring of 1814 that
Shelley saw her again, and found that the gifted girl,
who a few months before had impressed him as only a
child, had now become the woman who was for him
the all upon earth. How must she have grown in the
few months in which she knew Shelley!
Nature makes no leaps, unless it be when she
makes the child a woman. If love can make the bad
good, the foolish wise, the coward brave, the selfish
forgetful of self, the cruel humane, can it not make
out of a gifted girl a woman of genius ? From the
moment that Mary Godwin came under the in-
fluence of Shelley, from the moment that she awoke
to the sense of a living companionship, of a friendship
with this radiant spirit,—she was receiving impres-
sions, learning truths that outstripped all that she had
ever gained. A month—two—were to her years of
ordinary growth. And whether she loved him before
her journey into Scotland, or whether it was when she
returned to London in the spring and their acquaint-
ance began to grow into friendship, from the first mo-
ment that she saw him she had begun to develop in
mind and character with giant strides.
Long before either is conscious of it, there is some
subtile influence at work drawing two souls together,62
UNION WITH SHELLEY.
bringing to each heart the same needs, to each brain
giving the same thoughts, coloring the two minds
with the same impressions, teaching them the same
truths, isolating these two beings by their very af-
finity from the world around them. After the divine
laws, which work silently but surely, have been pre-
paring these two hearts and brains, then consciousness
awakes, and that union comes which is called love, and
that which is the result of all those subtile causes is
itself considered a cause. Is there not some prenatal
influence which shapes two souls the one for the
other ? Do they not wander stumblingly through
life till they meet ? And by the grace of those
inscrutable spiritual laws, at the first touch of the
hand, the first encounter of ideas, the first searching
look of the eyes, is not a divination of fellowship
flashed in upon them ?
Were not the years preparing Heloise and Abelard
for one another? Was not nature in her silent way
shaping Heloise to be the fit companion for the
mightiest mind of the age? If love depends upon
propinquity or chance, Leander had found some fair
maid on his own side the Hellespont. Or instead
of Dante burying his love for the beautiful Beatrice
deep in his heart, only to release it in immortal song,
could he not have contented himself with some other
Florentine lady?
Was there none save the gentle Colonna to inspireUNION WITH SHELLEY.
63
and subdue Michael Angelo ? Why did Antony
traverse so many miles of sea to find his fate in
Egypt’s queen ? Was Athens so sparse of women
that Pericles must bring his Aspasia from Miletus ?
When Mary Godwin, in April, 1814, came back to
her father’s house in Skinner Street, she found Shelley
established there as a constant visitor. In early spring
Shelley had come up to London with his wife, and
taken lodgings, the indefatigable Eliza still in at-
tendance. Harriet spent much of her time with her
Mount Street relatives; Shelley finding the little par-
lor in Skinner Street an oasis of delight after the
wretchedness of his own home. Trelawny has left a
picture of the meeting of Shelley and Mary Godwin
in the Skinner Street study, gathered from remarks
made to him in later years by Mary herself. In that
little parlor over the shop Godwin sat one evening
with the five children who composed his family. The
philosopher was reading in a didactic manner to his
daughter, who sat next him. All was hushed and
quiet, when the door suddenly opened, and a tall, thin
man, with radiant face and lustrous eyes, entered.
Godwin introduced him to his daughter. Shelley
flushed at seeing the daughter of Mary Wollstone-
craft, who was his ideal of womankind, and whose
picture hung in the room. He began talking to
Mary immediately, but Godwin soon interrupted with
some criticisms on poetry, saying that prose was64
UNION WITH SHELLEY.
Shelley’s forte. Hereupon the poet launched forth
upon the subject of poetry; but Mary, who knew that
her father had a contempt for all except dramatic
poetry, turned the conversation to topics of the day
in which they could all join, and then the talk became
general. But Mrs. Godwin, who had taken in the
whole scene with perceptive eyes, was not appeased.
She, her children, had been completely overlooked.
Not one word had been addressed to them, and her
self-love was sorely wounded.
In the middle of June, Shelley left Harriet, who re-
turned to her father’s house. Though there was no
form or word of separation, and though they both
probably expected to live together again, both were
aware of their entire unfitness for one another, and
the discord could only grow more marked.
He gave promise of a brilliant future, but Shelley
above all other men needed favorable influences under
which to work, and his union with Harriet was a
hindrance to all high intellectual achievement. He
was brought into intimate contact with people and
questions that produced nothing but irritation. His
recent journey to Ireland for the purpose of giving
moral and substantial aid to the unhappy people there
had been entirely unsuccessful. His failure to make
himself and his motives understood, where he had the
burning desire to accomplish a moral and material
good, the suspicious reception of his offers, and theUNION WITH SHELLEY.
65
smiles of ridicule at his enthusiasm, all had in them,
to the sensitive Shelley, elements of poignant grief.
To a mystic and poetic temperament, and singular
clearness of mind, he united a profound and impas-
sioned earnestness, integrity of purpose, a disinterested
love of his fellows, an engrossing, though often blind,
desire to better their condition. But he lacked pur-
pose and was often controlled by enthusiasm and im-
pulse.
He was regarded with animosity and harshness by
his family, cast out from society by what was termed
his atheism, having just escaped from the entangle-
ment of a designing family in Wales who had attached
themselves to his fortunes, fearing to trust new friends,
sick at heart with himself and the world, it was thus
that he now found Mary Godwin, at the time when
human companionship was most needed, when he
seemed farthest from finding it.
Mary Godwin had always heard him spoken of
in the family as a high-minded soul, who had vague
but beautiful ideals. Had not her own mother had
those same illusive dreams? Had not she, like Shelley,
had a burning desire to do good to her kind, and had
she not also been looked on with disfavor and suspi-
cion for her very adherence to truth ?
Mary Godwin could bring an offering to Shelley of
a mind full of understanding, a heart full of sympathy
and repressed love. By her very parentage, and from
566
UNION WITH SHELLEY.
her life and thoughts, had she been formed to under-
stand him. What wonder, as she poured out her im-
pressions to him, as she revealed her own wide sym-
pathy and intelligence, as she turned her appreciative
and glowing eyes upon him, that Shelley felt the rest-
ful influence of this being ? What was Mary Godwin's
joy, when she discovered that the man whom she con-
sidered noblest and greatest, found delight in her com-
panionship,—she yet a child! What queen had state
more elevated, homage more sweet?
Then the child leaped into the woman, and if it was
the child who loved Shelley, it was the woman who
gave herself to him.
Godwin became displeased at Shelley’s marked at-
tentions to his daughter, and requested his visits to
be less frequent. He did everything in his power to
restore harmony between Harriet, who was then in
London, and Shelley, and his journal records a talk
with Mary and a letter to Shelley on the same day.
Shelley, realizing the justice of the demand, and over-
whelmed by the sense of his own civil obligations to
Harriet, carried about with him the appearance of one
distraught.
One eventful day in July, whether by chance or
otherwise I know not, he found Mary Godwin, as was
so oft her wont in the long summer days, beside her
mother’s grave, in St. Pancras churchyard. There it
was, in that solemn and earnest place, in the presenceUNION WITH SHELLEY.
67
of all those ghostly dead, where all the idols and vani-
ties of the world are laid low and only the truth re-
mains, that Shelley poured out his soul to that woman :
the story of his early life, his disappointments at
school, his disagreements with his father, his unloved
marriage, his aspirations, his hopes for the future, his
love for her. And there it was, in that place the
dearest and most familiar to her eyes, in that place
where her restless heart had always come for sym-
pathy and understanding, there under the guiding
spirit of her mother, that Mary Godwin plighted her
troth to Shelley.
On July 28, 1814, one of the hottest days that had
been known in England for many years, the lovers
secretly left London for Dover, accompanied by Jane
Clairmont. They reached Dover too late for that
day’s packet, and after a cool bath in the sea, not
wishing to wait another day, they resolved to make
the sail across the channel in an open boat.
As the sun was setting on that hot July day, this
strange trio embarked on that strangest of wedding
journeys. The sailors promised them a fair run of
two hours, and as they put out a gentle wind played
lightly with the bright hair of the two lovers. The
stars came out and it grew darker, the breeze died
down, red and ominous over the horizon the moon
hung low, and they lay for some time becalmed.
Presently the sea became troubled, clouds obscured68
UNION WITH SHELLEY.
the face of the moon, a gust of wind struck the sail,
drove the bow of the boat into the water, and the
waves rushed over the side; they were in imminent
peril of being swamped, but the sailors succeeded in
reefing the sail and getting the craft before the wind.
Immediately the storm overtook them, the sea ran
high, and the little boat tossed from side to side, the
sky was lit up by flashes of light and the rain de-
scended. In this plight they remained for hours.
Mary was sea-sick and slept most of the time, waking
up now and then to ask how far they were, and to re-
ceive always the same dismal answer, “ Not quite half
way.”
Finally, finding that they could make no progress
toward Calais, it was determined to try for Boulogne;
but the wind changed, the boat was put about, and
just as the sun was climbing out of the sea, wet and
glowing from its bath, they descried through the mist
the sails that lay at anchor in the harbor of Calais.
Thence the travellers made for Paris, where they spent
a week of such extreme weather that they were lim-
ited to a few journeys in the latter part of the after-
noon, when the glare and the heat from the white
pavements was more endurable.
On discovering their departure from London, Mrs.
Godwin had followed them to Calais, principally to
dissuade her daughter from continuing the journey
with them. She was, however, unsuccessful, and re-UNION WITH SHELLEY,
69
turned home. Shelley’s journal gives an account of
the hasty entrance into their room of the landlord of
the hotel, “to say that a fat lady had arrived, who
said that I had run away with her daughter.”
After their stay at Paris, they set out to walk
through France. Never were the requirements of a
wedding journey more simple. With a donkey to
carry the luggage, and Mary when she became tired,
—with a few pieces of silver in Shelley’s pocket,—
this remnant of the romantic ages set out on its jour-
ney. But alas! the sun shone hot on their fair
English faces, their feet were blistered, and the donkey
groaned under the weight of the simple trousseau ;
the fair lady was obliged to walk, while her palfrey
turned his long ears to catch the slightest breeze, or
nibbled the sweet grass as he loitered by the way.
One can imagine this strange trio as at sundown
they entered some little, rude village. One can see
the villagers, their arms akimbo, all agog with curios-
ity, as the dusty travellers toiled up the long street to
the inn, urging on the stupid little beast. Romantic
enough must the trio have looked,—Shelley and
Mary, with their fair hair blowing in the wind, their
slight, willowy figures, their luminous, sparkling
eyes,—of graver and more substantial build Jane
Clairmont,—the poor, hopeless, sad-eyed little donkey,
the only unhappy one of the group, complaining un-
der his weight of clothing; eager and >bustling the70
UNION WITH SHELLEY.
hostess at the inn, as she saw them cross her friendly
threshold for the night.
When they found that the little donkey was not
sufficient for his burdens, Shelley parted with one of
his silver pieces for a mule. Mounted on this beast,
with the luggage behind her, Mary Godwin rode along
the highway, Jane and Shelley trudging by her side.
They travelled through the rudest little hamlets; some-
times they slept in an inn, as often in a barn. Shelley
sprained his ankle, and then it became his turn to
mount the mule. Astonishing as was the appearance
of the procession of the luggage-laden donkey, how
much more this arrangement,—Shelley mounted on
the beast and the two women walking humbly by his
side.
They soon sold the mule for a cart. Each time
Shelley parted with one of his silver pieces. This
time it was to hire a man with a mule, who agreed to
carry them into Switzerland. So they jogged, the
three of them, along with the luggage in this cart that
Shelley had bought. Here too there was chagrin and
disappointment, for one morning they awoke to find
that the charioteer with his steed had gone on to a
village in advance and left them their empty cart.
Finally, however, near the 1st of September, they
reached Switzerland, only to find that, by starting im-
mediately, Shelley had just money enough to carry
them back to England. With regret they left LucerneUNION WITH SHELLEY.
71
at once. On reaching the Rhine they, in company
with some other travellers, hired a boat and journeyed
down the famous river. In true Shelleyan fashion,
they chose the side where the rapids were swiftest,
and were many times in danger. By the 13th of
September they reached England.CHAPTER IV.
LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
This union with Shelley was the epoch in the life
of Mary Godwin. It was an epoch also in Shelley’s
life, beside which his ill-advised marriage was an epi-
sode. To both of them it was the event from which
all else dated. To Mary Godwin it was the beginning
of life; to the poet an awakening to a new and more
fervid existence. Upon the lives of two such beings,
so rarely adapted to each other, it is scarcely possible
to overestimate the beatific influences of a mutual
passion so instant, so intense as this; of a love so
spontaneous, so tender, so reasonable as theirs.
It is not possible to treat of Mrs. Shelley’s life with-
out giving due consideration to the step which she
thus took in forming this union with Shelley. Various
motives, chief of which is the difficulty of properly and
wisely speaking, urge one to pass over it in silence,
and after the approved custom of commentators to de-
vote much time to the details of this strangest of wed-
ding trips, and say nothing about the real union of the
wedded pair: to spend pages upon the description of
the child and woman, and to ignore that which made
72LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
73
the child a woman, and became the formative force of
all her active life.
But if we are in earnest in our desire to present the
character of Mrs. Shelley as it was, we must under-
stand what were the motives and what the mental
attitude which induced her to accept the love of Shel-
ley, and enter into this memorable union with him,—
she a maiden of sixteen, he a man already bound in
the civil obligation of marriage to Harriet West-
brook.
So true is it that extremes meet, that almost any
effect may be the result of causes diametrically oppo-
site. Intense cold will burn like fire; the pulse
quickens with joy and fear; Epicurus and the ascetics
alike taught moderation. So the conduct of Mary
Godwin, in thus disregarding the accepted conven-
tions of civil law and society, may be attributed to
motives the most opposite; to utter thoughtlessness,
and to excess of thought,—to a blind self-gratification,
and a nature broad in its altruistic humanity.
To the small mind each event in life has but one
possible aspect,—that, namely, which happens to be
visible through the narrow chink which is presented
to the outer world. To such, what need to speak?
Other minds there are that both see and think. Be-
tween these two types of mind there is ever total
variance: the one, blind to its own limitations, cries
out for the condemnation of all it cannot comprehend;74
LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
the other, the diviner mind, stooping, writes upon the
sand until the outcry has echoed its own answer,
then rising says, “ Woman, neither do I condemn
you.” It is not for us either to approve or to con-
demn Mary Godwin in this matter. Her union with
Shelley, in its personal and ethical aspect, concerns us
not. We need to consider this union in so far only as
it is a true index of her character. For that Mary
Godwin naturally and simply accepted Shelley with-
out shock or jar to her moral nature is one of the facts
of her life. The girl who at sixteen calmly and trust-
ingly joins her life with a man already bound under
the social obligations of marriage, indicates a past
ethical history as far out of the common as it is possi-
ble to imagine. It is in this retrospective aspect that
this Shelley union chiefly interests us.
Of all the influences of Mary Godwin’s pre-Shelleyan
life the strongest were hereditary, and of these the
most powerful came from her mother. Standing above
all the women of her day, in the courage with which
she had thrown off the limitations of authority in
social and ethical matters, and in the force with which
she contended for the right of individual judgment in
each and every case, Mary Wollstonecraft became in
her entire being, as she did in name, an expression of
the paramount duty of personal judgment de novo in
all those matters which society by its conventions
thought it had settled. That upon the institution ofLIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE,
75
marriage she brought to bear the same emancipated
reason, is as the essence of her history. In her fer-
vent nature these ideas burned in her through life and
became incorporated into the intellectual structure of
her being. Such special notions, when they have
taken possession of a parent life, are transmissible to
offspring to a degree in excess of unacquired tenden-
cies. Any faculty of mind or body, any special
aptitude or function which by cultivation or encour-
agement has been acquired or been absorbed into the
life of the parent will have this tendency to reappear
in the offspring. This is a rule of heredity not con-
fined to mankind. The trained pointer transmits to
its litter an acquired sense of smell, and in a genera-
tion the whole of any stock can be changed by the
transmission of acquired variations.
Had Mary Wollstonecraft been wedded to the most
commonplace and orthodox man in England (and who
so orthodox), there would have been strong grounds
for the expectation that her child would, in some de-
gree, reproduce those special mental tendencies of her
illustrious mother. But when Mary Wollstonecraft
united her life with William Godwin, an intellectual
horoscope was cast for the offspring of that union.
Such a doubling of special tendencies could have but
the result of assuring their reappearance in the chil-
dren of such a union. Never were two people better
agreed upon any point than were Mary Wollstonecraft76 LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
and William Godwin upon the supreme duty of not
permitting established social customs to bias individual
judgment. What she had believed and felt, he had
long since reasoned out and taught; her individual
unwillingness to have private judgment supplanted by
a public system of ethics, in him found a philosopher
who had long contended that all systems of public
morality but enervated private morals; that the only
way to produce good in the individual was to develop
it in him by familiar principles governing the laws of
growth. He had taught that nothing is eventually to
be found in our lives but what had grown within us.
The mind of Godwin had also been especially di-
rected to the marriage relation, that experimentum
crucis of all original thinkers. By his own road he
had reached the same goal that Mary Wollstonecraft
had by hers. He regarded the marriage tie as use-
less, if not positively injurious to the best interest of
society. In this respect Godwin was the more radical
of the two, for while she desired that marriage should
be freed from its galling bonds and its obligations out-
lasting love and respect, he contended that it was
wrong in principle, even when it did not gall; and
that its true perpetuity should rest solely upon the
continuance of mutual esteem. Indeed, regard for
the social welfare of their offspring was the motive
which induced these two people to so far abandon
their high principles as to enter into the Holy Bonds:LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
77
so strongly were they to each other’s knowledge
committed to the sovereignty of individual over social
judgment. So zealously had both in their own way
“ railed at the bond.”
When now a child is born to William Godwin and
Mary Wollstonecraft, what would expectant science
predicate of it, with greater certitude, than that the
trammels of convention would trouble it but little,
and that authority, to put it in subjection, would have
to forge its bonds anew ? The event fulfilled the pre-
diction, and in Mary Godwin reappeared, with the
peculiar strength which marks the doubling of special
parental traits, the distinguishing qualities of both
parents: chief of which was the inborn tendency to
exercise an untrammelled reason, unabashed by, nay,
even unconscious of, the presence of convention.
With these inherited influences Mary Godwin
started in the morning of life; nor during its course
was she ever placed in circumstances which would
strongly tend to neutralize these views thus inherited.
On the contrary, all that she could learn of her mother
led her to cherish this independence as an essential
attribute : all of her mother’s writings, as they came
in her way, imprinted upon her plastic brain the same
text. And as little by little the history and events of
her mother’s life came to her, she could not but re-
ceive it as a familiar principle, that to exercise one’s
reason in all things was the holiest heritage of hu-73
LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
manity. Nor would it escape her mind that mar-
riage was as proper a sphere as any other for the
free exercise of human reason, thus liberated. While
the vituperations freshly showered upon her mother's
name, and almost upon her grave, would as power-
fully as arguments cry out in her behalf, supplementing
reason with sympathy.
Similarly her father’s writings and his position in
the world of letters, and among thinkers, gave the
philosophy of that spirit of rationality which she had
received as her birth-right and assimilated with her
growth. His teachings and history, the atmosphere
of much of his association, would not materially
modify these potent influences.
To Mary Godwin, thus mothered, thus fathered,
thus nurtured, comes Shelley, himself an earnest, fer-
vid believer in the essential truths of the self-same
faith.
Once met, each in the other recognizes all his
needs, all that the fullest sense of fitness or the high-
est ideal of beauty could demand. She knows his
pure, elevated nature, knew of his ill-assorted mar-
riage, to which companionship had ever been wanting
and from which even toleration had about fled. To
her, looking at it with eye of reason, this marriage was
simply a grievous error; it had been worked out to a
demonstration before she came upon the scene. She
could do Harriet Westbrook no harm. She couldLIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
79
bring to Shelley infinite blessing. She knew that he
loved her, and that she alone could make him happy.
She felt her ability to share his labors, to accompany
even his spirit into its flights, to alternately stimulate
and sustain him; now to hold up his arms while the bat-
tle raged, and now rest him, when, with spirit returned
to earth, he longed for no companionship but hers.
Sympathy and judgment combined to press his suit.
Thus the stars in their courses warred for Shelley.
In his behalf reason argued and love pleaded, an
alliance all but invincible. Did she want a principle
of action, she had inherited it; did she need precept,
she had her father’s writings; if precedent were lack-
ing, her mother’s life, the only one of influence to her,
supplied it. As a present incentive to the decision,
she had the eager, pleading Shelley, already her
bosom’s lord, whom she knew to be noble, generous,
pure, and elevated, and whose fate and future were in
her hands.
The decision must be made, and she must make it.
On the one hand, Love, Reason, Happiness, and a
life with Shelley; on the other, a social custom, a
name, to her a mere form, whose bones were marrow-
less,—a convention for which she had inherited dis-
like and acquired distrust.
Is it a thing to be marvelled at that on that day in
July Mary Godwin unhesitatingly placed her hand in
Shelley’s and linked her fate with his ?So
LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
Godwin’s irritation and annoyance at the flight of
Shelley and his daughter were extreme, and for many
months there was no intercourse between the two
families. His views on the subject of marriage had
not only become modified since the death of Mary
Wollstonecraft, they were completely changed. He
knew that the world would have the erroneous idea
that his daughter’s act had been in conformity with
her education, and the mistake of such a belief made
the sting none the less severe to his vain, sensitive
nature.
It was now that Shelley’s poetic genius began to
ripen and take form. He found in Mary Godwin an
ardent appreciator of his work, a sharer and encour-
ager of his noblest aspirations, a wise and gifted com-
panion, a loving friend. Now his brain began to con-
ceive those imperishable poems. There might without
be ignominy and reproach for him, but at his fireside
the wrangles of the world were never heard; those
luminous eyes shed ever their gentle light upon him.
Mary and he worked, studied, or played together;
whatever the one did that also the other shared. They
read prodigiously, always the same book,—never two ;
walking, boating, in the house, they had a book by
them, either philosophy or poetry, logic or novel.
During the autumn of their return to England
their means were most limited. Shelley was often so
harassed by debts of his ov^n and of Harriet’s con-LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
81
traction that there were days together when he did
not dare stay at home, but passed the. time at the
house of a friend, and Mary, when she wished to be
with him, was obliged to go there and visit him.
They lived in lodgings in London, and were almost
alone in their solitude, for few of Shelley’s friends
came to visit him at this time. But the criticism of
the outer world weighed little upon them. Mary
gave but slight promise of the mental brilliancy that
afterwards developed. She was still but a child,
miniature in appearance, in thought, and expression,
apt to be petulant when displeased, and it was only
after her companionship with Shelley had awakened
her latent powers that she began to show the grace
and charm of conversation that so distinguished her
after-years. But Shelley had felt the heart and ten-
derness concealed in this tightly-closed little bud, and
knew that in the right sort of atmosphere it would
blossom into a beautiful soul. She was singularly
pale, and rather careless in her dress. But as she
grew older and lovely in form, contact with the world
taught her to make her raiment adorn her, simple
even as it always was.
In the beginning of the year 1815, his grandfather
dying, Shelley’s father allowed him ^1000 a year, as
being the direct heir to the estate. A portion of this
Shelley immediately reserved for Harriet, who was still
with her father. Her relations to him were friendly in
682
LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
the extreme, and he acted as her adviser and confidant
for some time. There never was any outward appear-
ance of discord between Mary or Harriet, nor does it
appear that the latter ever evinced serious objection to
Shelley’s conduct; it is also stated that Harriet knew
from Shelley of his intended elopement with Mary,
and that the haste of their departure from England
was lest the Godwins should prevent, not Harriet.
Shelley was even anxious that Mary’s and* his home
should be considered as Harriet’s, but his lawyers
convinced him of the inadvisability of this plan. In
the spring of that year he and Mary lived at Bishop-
gateheath, near Windsor Forest, and Shelley, whom
the doctors pronounced dying of consumption, spent
much of the summer in the open air, he and Mary
taking long excursions on the river. Miss Clair-
mont, who now found herself welcomed only as an
occasional visitor in Skinner Street, spent most of her
time with the Shelleys; and during the summer the
poet, his friend Peacock, and Charles Clairmont, who
also lived with them, journeyed in a wherry to the
source of the Thames. Mary and the poet still kept
up their reading—French, Greek, Latin, and Italian
works. He wrote a few scattered poems, and at the
end of the year produced “Alastor.”
A nation at peace has no history, and there is little
to tell of this first year, except that Shelley’s spirits
rose, that his health—which had long been fitful—LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
83
began to improve, and that under his broadening in-
fluence Mary Godwin’s mind was maturing and de-
veloping.
On the 24th of January, 1816, their second child
was born, the son William, who afterwards died in
Rome. Their first child, a daughter, had lived only
a few days.
The spring months were spent at Binfield, and in
March, Godwin, who went on a visit to Bracknell,
walked over from there to see his daughter. This
call renewed the intercourse between the two families,
and afterwards visits and letters followed.
In April the Shelleys, accompanied by Miss Clair-
mont, who attached herself to their fortunes, started
for Geneva, where Byron was also to be established.
On the 27th of May the poets first met, and they
spent two weeks together in the Hotel de Secheron,
after which Byron took the Villa Diodati, on the
borders of the lake, and Shelley occupied the Villa
Mont Alegre just below, separated only from the lake
by a small garden overgrown with trees. It had no
carriage access, and a pathway through the gardens of
the Diodati joined his villa to Lord Byron’s. Here
Shelley and Byron bought a boat and spent long days
on the water, or wandered inland together. Mary,
with her unerring insight, saw that Byuon’s influence
over Shelley was untoward; it made him discontented
and inactive, while, on the contrary, in Shelley’s pres-84
LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
ence, Byron absorbed his elevated and earnest tone,
and the latter’s poetry of that period is wider in its
sympathy, less intensely Byronic.
In the last of May, Mrs. Shelley writes of Geneva,—
“ We have not yet found out any very agreeable
walks, but you know our attachment for water excur-
sions. We have hired a boat, and every evening at
about six o’clock we sail on the lake, which is de-
lightful, whether we glide over a glassy surface or are
speeded along by a strong wind. The waves of this
lake never afflict me with that sickness that deprives
me of all enjoyment in a sea-voyage ; on the contrary,
the tossing of the boat inspires me with unusual
hilarity. Twilight here is of short duration, but we at
present enjoy the benefit of an increasing moon, and
seldom return until ten o’clock, when, as we approach
the shore, we are saluted by the delightful scent of
flowers and new-mown grass, and the chirp of the
grasshoppers, and the song of the evening birds.
“ We do not enter into society here, yet our time
passes swiftly and delightfully. We read Latin and
Italian during the heats of noon, and when the sun
declines we walk in the garden of the hotel, look-
ing at the rabbits, relieving fallen cockchafers, and
watching the motions of a myriad of lizards who in-
habit a southern wall of the garden. You know that
we have just escaped from the gloom of winter and
of London, and coming to this delightful spot duringLIFE IN ENGLAND—MARK /AGE.	85
this divine weather, I feel as happy as a new-fledged
bird, and hardly care what twig I fly to, so that I may
try my new-found wings. A more experienced bird
may be more difficult in its choice of a bower; but in
my present temper of mind, the budding flowers, the
fresh grass of spring, and the happy creatures about
me that live and enjoy these pleasures, are quite
enough to afford me exquisite delight, even though
clouds should shut out Mont Blanc from my sight.
Adieu.”
The famous “ Monk” Lewis, renowned for his ghost
stories, also joined them here. Kept in-doors much of
the time by an unusually rainy season, this brilliant
company entertained themselves by telling goblin
tales. One imagines them seated around a table
dimly lighted by the flickering, sputtering candles,
listening to the weird tales of Lewis,—the gibbering,
superstitious, half-insane Italian physician Polidori,
whom Byron kept as body-guard to earthly ills, sitting
in a chair drawn to some obscure corner of the room,
far distant from the ghostly circle of conjurors. One
can hear the swash of the waves not far off on the
shores of the lake,—can hear the wind beat the leaves
and vines against the latticed panes of the window, can
see the candles one by one as they sputter and go
out, see the eager eye, the quick breathing, the parted
lips of Mary Godwin, the satirical smile of Lord Byron,
the amused interest of Shelley, the cowed aspect of86
LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
the pompous little doctor away in the farthest end of
the room.
The breathless attention of the others and the wrapt
horror of the superstitious Italian but gives inspira-
tion to the ghoulish Lewis, till at the end of the tale
a peal of laughter relieves the strain, and the lights
are restored and the wind ceases its beatings and the
lake its frettings, and the little, disturbed, fussy doctor
can draw his chair into the genial light and receive
the comfort of his flesh-and-blood friends.
Impelled by their weird impressions, each of them
agreed to write a goblin tale. Mary Godwin’s “ Frank-
enstein” and Polidori’s “ Vampire Bat” are the only
ones that saw print, or indeed were ever finished.
It was while Shelley and Byron were off on a short
excursion that Mary Godwin wrote this masterpiece
of imagination. She was then only eighteen. Shel-
ley was greatly gratified on his return to receive this
proof of her literary ability, especially as it confirmed
the belief that he entertained in her creative faculty.
He first awakened this mind, and to him belongs the
honor of first recognizing its possibilities.
Jane Clairmont and Lord Byron were much together
at this time. Byron had met her in London some
time before, when he was connected with the Drury
Lane Theatre. She had gone to him to ask for some
stage position, and it is probable that her handsome
face had duly impressed his lordship. Although theLIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.	87
Shelleys did not know the intimacy of the friendship,
and were troubled and annoyed on discovering it,
when, after their return to England, the little Allegra
was born, they bestowed every care they could on
mother and child.
While they were still in Geneva, Shelley wrote to
his friend, Thomas Love Peacock, to get him a house
somewhere, whatever would be suitable, and lease it
for fourteen or twenty-one years. Could anything be
more purely Shelleyan ? Peacock was to select his
future home, move his furniture from Bishopgate, sell
what he thought superfluous,—curtains, draperies, etc.,
—make all the final arrangements. There was one con-
dition only, that the house should be prettily situated,
if possible, but Peacock was to make the tremendous
decision. Either from wisdom or inability, he did
not do it, but he aided his friend in the hunt after his
return.
September found the Shelleys in England, and
while the poet was looking for a house Mary sent him
this charming little note to aid his search:
“ In the choice of a residence, dear Shelley, pray do
not be too quick, or attach yourself too much to one
spot. A house with a lawn, near a river or lake,
noble trees, or divine mountains,—that should be our
little mouse-hole to retire to. But never mind this.
Give me a garden, and I will thank my love for many
favors. If you go to London you will perhaps try to88 life IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
procure me a good Livy, for I wish very much to read
it. I must be more industrious, especially in learning
Latin, which I neglected shamefully last summer at
intervals; and those periods of not reading at all put
me back very far. Adieu. Love me tenderly, and
think of me with affection whenever anything pleases
you greatly.”
A house was found at Great Marlow, a long, stuc-
coed building, pleasant and spacious, with a garden
and summer-house attached, and meadows and woods
just beyond. While the house was being prepared
for them they stayed at Bath. It was here that they
learned of the disaster of Fanny Imlay’s death.
The report, which was due to Jane Clairmont, that
she destroyed herself on account of her love for Shel-
ley, has no truth in it. There is no explanation what-
ever of her strange death, nor did there appear to be
any outward cause for it. Her life at home was not
unhappy; it had none of the elements of discord in it
that Mary Godwin’s had had. Her gentle and lovable
disposition made it easy for her to bear with Mrs.
Godwin, and she was growing to be a trusted com-
panion of her father. She was accustomed to write
cheerful letters to Mary and the poet of all that inter-
ested her, often making light of the little household
jarrings. In one of her letters she says that she “ got
on very well with mamma, whose merits she could see,
though she could not really like her.” She was, how-LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
89
ever, marked by that tinge of melancholy which was
inborn in the Wollstonecraft temperament, which even
Mary Godwin inherited.
Shortly after their establishment at Marlow, just
one month to a day after the death of Fanny Imlay,
the dreadful intelligence reached Shelley that his wife,
Harriet Westbrook, had drowned herself in the Ser-
pentine. All the world acknowledges now that her
distressing death was not attributable to Shelley, but
to misfortunes over which he had no immediate con-
trol. Shelley’s grief and horror at the catastrophe
were sincere and poignant. With rare love and ap-
preciation Mary Godwin recognized the effort which
Shelley made to conceal from others his regrets and
his pain, for Shelley always held himself* responsible,
not for Harriet’s death, but for her social uprooting,
her introduction into a circle of thought which she
could not understand. He justly felt that although
she it was who had taken the initiative in their fatal
marriage, had his life never interrupted, or crossed
hers, she would have passed tranquilly to old age,
moved only by the joys and sorrows of a common-
place existence, agitated only by its questions.
At the end of this year, December 30, 1816,
Shelley and Mary Godwin were married in St.
Mildred’s Church, Bread Street, only Mr. and Mrs.
Godwin being present. And here follows a letter
from Godwin to his brother, a simple countryman,9o
LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIA GE.
which makes the immortal Godwin responsible for
statements which sound very like equivocations:
“ Feb. 21,1817.
“ Dear Brother,—I have not written to you for
a great while, but now I have a piece of news to tell
you that will give you pleasure. I will not refuse
myself the satisfaction of being the vehicle of that
pleasure. I do not know whether you recollect
the miscellaneous way in which my family is com-
posed, but at least you perhaps remember that I
have but two children of my own: a daughter of
my late wife, and a son by my present. Were it
not that you have a family of your own, and can
see by them how little shrubs grow up into tall
trees, you would hardly imagine that my boy, born
the other day, is now fourteen, and that my daughter
is between nineteen and twenty. The piece of news
I have to tell you, however, is that I went to church
with this tall girl, some little time ago, to be married.
Her husband is the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley,
of Field Place, in the County of Sussex, Baronet, so
that, according to the vulgar ideas of the world, she is
well married, and I have great hopes the young man
will make her a good husband. You will wonder, I
dare say, how a girl without a penny of fortune
should meet with so good a match. But such are the
ups and downs of this world. For my part, I care butLIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
9T
little, comparatively, about wealth, so that it should
be her destiny in life to be respectable, virtuous, and
contented.”
The winter after the marriage was spent at Mar-
low, where Shelley kept open house, living with the
lavish hospitality of a country gentleman. The
house contained many rooms, which were always
filled with friends. Peacock, who had been one of
the inducements for settling in Marlow, lived near
him, and Hunt, Horace Smith, and his brother were
frequent visitors. Shelley’s generosity knew no limits,
and although his personal wants were very few, he
probably lived above his income. His household was
always large,—three or four servants, beside the Swiss
nurse for William.
In February, 1817, the little Allegra, the daughter
of Lord Byron and Jane Clairmont, was born. The
whole care of this child was willingly assumed by
Mrs. Shelley until the time of their departure to Italy
in 1818, when it was sent, at Byron’s request, to him
in Venice. Mrs. Shelley parted regretfully with the
child, to whom she was tenderly attached; but no one
knew better than she that Byron’s protection was to
be preferred to that of its mother. Much of the time
at Marlow, as also in Italy, Jane Clairmont made her
home with the Shelleys, but she was neither an agree-
able member of the family nor a desired companion.LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
92
Now, as afterward in Italy, her connection with the
Shelleys gave rise to malicious rumors, and by the
concealed paternity of her child, which she exacted
from them and which they generously helped her to
maintain, the gravest imputations were laid at Shelley’s
feet.
The most cordial intercourse existed between the
Hunts and themselves; it grew into an abiding friend-
ship,—a friendship, alas ! fatal to Shelley. Shelley had
sought Hunt’s acquaintance when the latter was con-
fined in Surrey Gaol, and since his liberation and his
residence in Lisson Grove, North, the communication
between the two families had daily increased. Visits
and badinage were equally exchanged. This little
letter to Hunt is especially interesting in the earnest
it gives of that brilliancy which Mrs. Shelley after-
wards attained in letter writing. It is dated 5th
March, 1817. Marlow, 1 o’clock.
“ My dear Hunt,—Although you mistook me in
thinking that I wished you to write about politics in
your letters to me,—as such a thought was, in fact, far
from me,—yet I cannot help mentioning your last
week’s Examiner, as its boldness gave me extreme
pleasure. I am very glad to find that you wrote the
leading article, which I had doubted, as there was no
significant hand. But though I speak of this, do not
fear that you will be teased by me on these subjectsLIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
93
when we enjoy your company at Marlow. When
there, you shall never be serious when you wish to be
merry, and have as many nuts to crack as there are
words in the petitions to Parliament for reform,—a
tremendous promise.
“ Have you never felt in your succession of nervous
feelings one single disagreeable truism gain a painful
possession of your mind and keep it for some months ?
A year ago, I remember, my private hours were all
made better by reflections on the certainty of death;
and now the flight of time has the same power over
me. Everything passes and one is hardly conscious
of enjoying the present before it becomes the past. I
was reading the other day the letters of Gibbon. He
entreats Lord Sheffield to come with all his family to
visit him at Lausanne, and dwells on the pleasure that
such a visit will occasion. There is a little gap in the
date of his letters, and then he complains that his
solitude is made more irksome by their having been
there and departed. So will it be with us in a few
months when you will all have left Marlow. But I
will not indulge this gloomy feeling. The sun shines
brightly, and we shall be very happy in our garden
this summer.
“ Affectionately yours,
“ Marina.”
During the summer Shelley and Mary made many94
LIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
little trips by water, either accompanied by friends or
alone. Godwin and his wife were sometimes of the
party, and in Godwin’s diary is a note that on one
occasion their talk was of “ novels and perfectibility.”
Their reading was extensive: Greek, Latin, French,
Italian. Shelley was writing the “ Revolt of Islam,”
which he published at the end of the year, under the
title of “ Laon and Cythna.” In the exquisite verses
of dedication to this poem Shelley has paid to Mary
the tenderest, the highest tribute that a man could
pay to the woman he loved.
On September 3d, Mrs. Shelley’s third child, Clara,
was born. The physician lived some fifteen miles
away, and his son remembers how Shelley used to
appear all out of breath, sometimes riding, as often
walking, never stopping to take more than a bowl of
milk before he darted off again in his rapid fashion.
After Harriet’s death, Shelley demanded the care of
the children whom he had by her; but Harriet’s father,
Mr. Westbrook, denied his right on the ground of his
radical and unsafe principles, and placed the matter in
the hands of the law. Eldon, the Lord Chancellor,
had decided against Shelley, and the children were
given to the care of a clergyman, and £200 a year
deducted from Shelley’s income to maintain them.
He was utterly overwhelmed by this blow, but neither
his outraged feelings nor the rigor of the decree
swayed the chancellor. Shelley’s indignation foundLIFE IN ENGLAND—MARRIAGE.
95
slight expression in the dignified but scathing attack
on Lord Eldon in the “ Mask of Anarchy.”
In the spring of 1818 the Shelleys decided to go to
Italy. Various reasons are assigned for this step,—
the delicacy of the poet’s health, impaired by his con-
stant visits to the poor, which Marlow had in great
numbers, and the desire to convey the little Allegra
to Byron. Mrs. Shelley says that it was from fear
that a threat, uttered by the Lord Chancellor, to de-
prive Shelley of their two children, would be carried
out. In March they started for Italy, going direct to
Milan.
Shelley left England sick at heart, smarting from
the recriminations and persecutions which ever
dogged his heels,—torn with anguish at the loss of his
children, tortured by physical pains. But close by
his side, sharing in all his grief, Mary Shelley kept
equal step with him in this leave-taking. And a true
leave-taking it was, for Shelley never saw English
land again. Six years after, with trembling steps,
Mary returned alone; husband and children slept
under Italian skies.CHAPTER V.
ITALY.
The Shelleys stayed a month at Milan and thence
went to the Lake of Como and Leghorn. They met
at Leghorn Mrs. Gisborne, the Mrs. Revely of former
days. She was still the same woman of charming
temperament, of cultivation, and wide sympathy.
Though she had not seen Mary since her infancy, she
had retained for her interest and affection. She was
with them occasionally during their life in Italy, and
a beautiful friendship existed between them.
From Leghorn the Shelleys went to the baths of
Lucca, where they spent the summer. These letters
to Mrs. Gisborne give an interesting picture of their
life there:
“June 15, 1818.
“ Casa Bertini, Bagni di Lucca.
“ My dear Madam,—It is strange, after having
been in the habit of visiting you daily, to have no
communication with you, and after having been accus-
tomed for a month to the tumult of the Via Grande,
to come to this quiet scene, where we have no sound
except the rushing of the river in the valley below.
96ITALY.
97
While at Leghorn I hardly heard the noise, but when
I came here I felt the silence as a return to something
very delightful from which I had been long absent.
We live here in the midst of a beautiful scene, and I
wish that I had the imagination and expression of a
poet to describe it as it deserves, and to fill you all
with an ardent desire to visit it. We are surrounded
by mountains covered with thick chestnut woods.
They are peaked and picturesque, and sometimes you
see peeping above them the bare summit of a distant
Apennine. Vines are cultivated at the foot of the
mountains. The walks in the woods are delightful,
for I like nothing so much as to be surrounded by
the foliage of trees, only peeping now and then
through the leafy screen on the scene about me. You
can either walk by the side of the river or on com-
modious paths cut in the mountains, and for rambles
the woods are intersected with narrow paths in every
direction.
“ Our house is small, but commodious and exceed-
ingly clean, for it has just been painted and the furni-
ture is new. We have a small garden, and at the end
of it an arbor of laurel trees so thick that the sun does
not penetrate it. Nor has my prediction followed us,
that we should everywhere find it cool. Although
not hot, the weather has been very pleasant. We see
the fire-flies in an evening somewhat dimmed by the
bright rays of the moon.
798
ITALY.
“And now I will say a few words of our domestic
economy, albeit I am afraid the subject has tired you
out of your wits more than once. Signor Chiappo we
found perfectly useless. He would talk of nothing
but himself, and recommended a person to cook our
dinner for us at three pauls a day. So as it is, Paolo
(whom we find exceedingly useful) cooks and man-
ages for us, and a woman comes at one paul a day to
do the dirty work. We live very comfortably, and if
Paolo did not cheat us he would be a servant worth a
treasure, for he does everything cleanlily and exactly,
without teasing us in any way. So we lead here a
very quiet, pleasant life, reading our canto of Ariosto
and walking in the evening among these delightful
woods. We have but one wish (you know what that
is), but you take no pity upon us, and exile us from
your presence so long that I quite long to see you
again. Now we see no one. The Signor Chiappo is
a stupid fellow, and the Casino is not open that I know
of,—at least it is not at all frequented. When it is,
every kind of amusement goes on there, particularly
dancing, which is divided into four parts,—English
and French country dances, quadrilles, waltzes, and
Italian dances. These take place twice a week, on
which evening the ladies dress, but on others they go
merely in a walking dress.
“ We have found among our books a volume of
poems of Lord Byron’s, which you may not haveITALY.
99
seen. Some of them I think you will like; but this
will be a novelty to recommend us on our return. I
begin to be very much delighted with Ariosto. The
beginning of the nineteenth canto is particularly beau-
tiful. It is the wounding of Medoro and his being
relieved by Angelica, who, for a wonder, shows her-
self in light of a sympathizing and amiable person.
“Affectionately yours,
“ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.”
Shelley himself, in a letter, makes a humorous
allusion to the dancing. “ They have a ball at the
Casino here every Saturday,” he writes, “ which we
attend; but neither Mary nor C-----dance. I do not
know whether they refrain from philosophy or Prot-
estantism.”
The C-----mentioned in the following letter is Jane,
or, as she preferred to be called, Claire Clairmont.
“ Bagni di Lucca, August 17, 1818.
“ My dear Madam,—It gave me great pleasure to
receive your letter, after so long a silence, when I had
begun to conjecture a thousand reasons for it, and
among others illness, in which I was half right. In-
deed I am much concerned to hear of Mr. Revely’s
attacks, and sincerely hope that nothing will retard
his speedy recovery. His illness gave me a slight
hope that you will now be induced to come to the100
ITALY.
baths, if it were even to try the effects of the hot
baths. You would find the weather cool, for we al-
ready feel in this part of the world that the year is
declining by the cold mornings and evenings. I have
Another selfish reason to wish that you would come,
which I have a great mind not to mention. Yet I
will not omit it, as it might induce you. Shelley and
C-----are gone: they went to-day to Venice on impor-
tant business; and I am left to take charge of the
house. Now if all of you, or any of you, would come
and cheer my solitude it would be exceedingly kind.
I dare say you would find many of your friends here.
Among the rest there is the Signora Felicho, whom I
believe you knew at Pisa.
u Shelley and I have ridden almost every evening:
C-----did the same at first; but she has been unlucky,
and once fell from her horse and hurt her knee, so as
to knock her up for some time. It is the fashion here
for all the English to ride; and it is very pleasant
on these fine evenings, when we set out at sunset
and are lighted home by Venus, Jupiter, and Diana,
who kindly give us their light after the sleepy Apollo
is gone to bed. The road which we frequent is raised
somewhat above and overlooks the river, affording
some very fine points of view among these woody
mountains.
“ Still, we know no one: we speak to one or two
people at the Casino, and that is all. We live in ourITAL Y.
IOI
studious way, going on with Tasso, whom I like; but
now I have read more than half his poems, I do not
know that I like so well as Ariosto. Shelley trans-
lated the ‘ Symposium’ in ten days. It is a most beau-
tiful piece of writing. I think you will be delighted
with it. It is true that in many particulars it shocks
our present manners; but no one can be a reader of
the works of antiquity unless they can transport
themselves from these to other times, and judge not
by our, but by their morality.
“ Shelley is tolerably well in health; the hot weather
has done him good. We have been in high debate,
nor have we come to any conclusion concerning the
land or sea journey to Naples. We have been think-
ing that when we want to go, that although the
equinox will be past, yet the equinoctial winds will
hardly have spent themselves; but I cannot express
to you how I fear a storm at sea, with two such young
children as William and Clara. Do you know the
periods when the Mediterranean is troubled, and
when the wintry halcyon days come ? However it
may be, we shall see you before we proceed south-
ward.
“We have been reading Eustace’s ‘Tour through
Italy.’ I do not wonder the Italians reprinted it.
Among other select specimens of his way of thinking,
he says that the Romans did not derive their arts and
learning from the Greeks; that Italian ladies are chaste,102
ITALY.
and the lazzaroni honest and industrious; and that as
to assassinations and highway robbery in Italy, it is
all a calumny,—no such things were ever heard of.
Italy was the Garden of Eden and all the Italians
Adams and Eves, until the blasts of hell (<i.e., the
French, for by that polite name he designates them)
came. By the way, an Italian servant stabbed an
English one here, it was thought dangerously at first,
but the man is doing better. I have scribbled a long
letter and I dare say you have long wished to be at
the end of it. Well now you are. So my dear Mrs.
Gisborne, with best remembrances,
“ Yours, obliged and affectionately,
“ Mary W. Shelley.”
During his absence from Mary at this time, Shelley
sent her the affectionate letters from which these ex-
tracts are taken: “ Well, my dearest Mary, are you
very lonely ? Tell me the truth, my sweetest, do you
ever cry ? I shall hear from you in Venice and once
on my return here. If you love me you will keep up
your spirits, and at all events tell me the truth about
them, for I assure you I am not of a disposition to be
flattered by your sorrow, though I should be by your
cheerfulness, and above all by seeing such fruits of my
absence as were produced when we were at Geneva.
How is Willmouse, and little Clara ? They must be
kissed for me; and you must particularly rememberITALY.
103
to speak my name to William, and see that he does
not quite forget me before my return. Adieu, my
dearest girl; I think we shall soon meet. I shall
write again from Venice. Adieu, dear Mary.”
But sweetest love letter of all is this fragment which
was written at this time:
“ 0 Mary dear, that you were here!
With your brown eyes bright and clear—
And your sweet voice like a bird
Singing love to its lone mate
In the ivy bower disconsolate,
Voice the sweetest ever heard,—
And your brow ....
Than the .... sky
Of this azure Italy.
Mary dear come to me soon !
I am not well whilst thou art far.
As sunset to the spheroid moon,
As twilight to the western star
Thou, beloved, art to me.
“ O Mary dear, that you were here !
The castle-echo whispers ‘ Here’!”
Later on, from Venice, he writes for her to join him,
planning out her trip for her. “ I have been obliged
to decide on all these things without you. I have
done for the best; and my own beloved Mary, you
must soon come and scold me if I have done wrong,
and kiss me if I have done right, for I am sure I do
not know which, and only the event can show. We104
ITALY.
shall at least be saved the trouble of introduction. I
have formed the acquaintance of a lady, who is so
good, so beautiful, so angelically mild, that were she
wise like you she would be quite a--------- Her eyes
are like a reflection of yours; her manners are like
yours when you know and like a person. Dearest
love, be well, be happy, come to me. Confide in your
own constant and affectionate	P. B. S.
“ Kiss the blue-eyed darlings for me, and do not let
William forget me: Clara cannot recollect me.”
Mary immediately joined Shelley in Venice. There
Lord Byron had fixed his abode, and during the Shel-
leys’ stay he placed at their disposal his villa at Este.
The house was cheerful, and there was a vine-trellised
walk to the little summer-house where the poet wrote.
Mrs. Shelley speaks thus of it: “ A slight ravine with
a road in its depth divided the garden from the hill,
on which stood the ruins of the ancient castle of Este,
whose dark, massive wall gave forth an echo, and from
whose ruined crevasses owls and bats flitted forth by
night, as the crescent moon sunk behind the black and
heavy battlements. We looked from the garden over
the wide plain of Lombardy, bounded to the west by
the far Apennines, while to the east the horizon was
lost in misty distance.
While they were at Este their infant child, Clara,
became ill from the heat. They hastened into Venice
for medical aid, but the little creature died in theirITALY.
105
arms as they entered the city. A few weeks longer
were spent at Este, and then they proceeded south-
ward, visiting Ferrara, Bologna, Rome, and in Decem-
ber they established themselves at Naples.
Mary and Shelley were quite alone, except for Miss
Clairmont, during the winter, and Shelley suffered
greatly in health. However, they took sunny trips'
on the bay, or wandered inland over the hills, once
going up Vesuvius, Mary and he mounted on mules
and Miss Clairmont on a chair carried by four natives;
but Mrs. Shelley felt that their life was too solitary.
She, even more than Shelley, needed the inspiring
society of gifted friends; more than he, she needed
their companionship and interest. Her solitary mo-
ments were too often tinged with melancholy, hers by
inheritance, and which was increased by the recent
loss of her child.
At the end of a letter to Mrs. Gisborne she tells
how they were placed: “ We are now settled in com-
fortable lodgings, which Shelley took for three louis
a week, opposite the Royal Gardens: you no doubt
remember the situation. We have a full view of the
bay from our windows; so I think we are well off.
As yet we have seen nothing, but we shall soon make
some excursions into the environs.”
In another place, she says of their life,—“ We lived
in utter solitude. And such is not the nurse of cheer-
fulness : for then, at least with those who have beenio6
ITALY.
exposed to adversity, the mind broods over its sorrows
too intensely; while the society of the enlightened,
the witty, and the wise enables us to forget ourselves
by making us the sharers of the thoughts of others,
which is a portion of the philosophy of happiness.,,
Early in the spring of 1819 they left Naples for
Rome, which soon, however, became unendurable as
the scene of their great sorrow. After a short illness,
during which Shelley watched nights and days with-
out rest, on the 7th day of June, their dearly-loved
son, William, their only remaining child, died. He
was buried in the English cemetery there, of which
place Shelley wrote,—“This spot is the repository of a
sacred loss of which the yearnings of a parent’s heart
are now prophetic ; he is rendered immortal by love as
his memory is by death. My beloved child lies buried
here.” Childless and grief stricken, they departed
from Rome for the Villa Valsovano, near Leghorn.
A letter from Godwin to Mrs. Shelley at this time
makes one shudder at the light in which a “ father
and philosopher” can regard one of the tenderest and
most bereaving of sorrows :
“ Skinner St., Sept. 9, 1819.
“ My dear Mary,—Your letter of August 19th is
very grievous to me, inasmuch as you represent
me as increasing the degree of your uneasiness and
depression.
“You must, however, allow me the privilege of aITALY,
107
father and a philosopher in expostulating with you on
this depression. I cannot but consider it as lowering
your character in a memorable degree, and putting
you quite among the commonality and mob of your
sex, when I had thought I saw in you symptoms en-
titling you to be ranked among those noble spirits
that do honor to our nature. What a falling off is
here! How bitterly is so inglorious a change to be
deplored! What is it you want that you have not ?
You have the husband of your choice, to whom you
seem to be unalterably attached, a man of intellectual
attainments, whatever I and some other persons may
think of his morality” [one recalls Godwin’s complai-
sant letter to his simple country brother] ; “ and the de-
fects under this last head, if they be not (as you seem
to think) imaginary, at least do not operate as towards
you. You have all the goods of fortune, all the means
of being useful to others and shining in your proper
sphere. But you have lost your child, and all the rest
of the world, all that is beautiful, and all that has a
claim upon your kindness, is nothing because a child
of two years old is dead.
“ The human species may be divided into two great
classes: those who lean on others for support, and
those who are qualified to support. Of these last,
some have one, some five, and some ten talents.
Some can support a husband, a child, a small but
respectable circle of friends and dependents, and someio8
ITAL K
can support a world; contributing by their energies
to advance the whole species one or more degrees in
the scale of perfectibility. The former class sit with
arms crossed, a prey to apathy and languor, of no use
to any earthly creature, and ready to fall from their
stools if some kind soul, who might compassionate,
but who cannot respect them, did not come from mo-
ment to moment and set them up again. You were
formed by nature to belong to the best of these classes,
but you seem to be shrinking away and voluntarily
enrolling yourself among the worst.
“ Above all things I entreat you, do not put the
miserable delusion on yourself to think there is some-
thing fine and beautiful and delicate in giving yourself
up and agreeing to be nothing.
“ Remember, too, that though at first your nearest
connections may pity you in this state, yet that, when
they see you fixed in selfishness and ill-humor, and
regardless of the happiness of every one else, they
will finally cease to love you and scarcely learn to en-
dure you. The other parts of your letter afford me
much satisfaction. Depend upon it there is no maxim
more true or more important than this. Frankness
of communication takes off bitterness,—true philoso-
phy invites all communication and withholds none.”
These were miserable days for the Shelleys. An
intense melancholy hung over Mary, which doubly in-ITALY.
IO9
creased Shelley’s grief. Two little fragments he wrote
during the summer speak of this time of sorrow:
“My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,
And left me in this dreary world alone ?
Thy form is here indeed,—a lovely one,—
But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road
That leads to Sorrow’s most obscure abode ;
Thou sittest on the hearth of pale Despair, where
For thine own sake I cannot follow thee.”
“ The world is dreary
And I am weary
Of wandering on without thee, Mary.
A joy was ere while
In thy voice and thy smile,
And ’tis gone, where I should be gone too, Mary.”
Of the Villa Valsovano, near Leghorn, Mrs. Shelley
writes,—“ Our villa was situate in the midst of a podere.
The peasants sang as they worked beneath our win-
dows during the heats of a very hot summer, and in
the evening the water-wheel creaked as the process of
irrigation went on and the fire-flies flashed from
among the myrtle hedges. Nature was bright, sun-
shiny, and cheerful, or diversified by storms of a
majestic terror, such as we had never before wit-
nessed.”
A little room at the top of the house (his tower, as
he called it) was used by Shelley as a study, and the
unabashed rays of the Italian sun beat down on his
unmindful head. While they were here Mary urgedno
ITAL K
Shelley to use the material which at Rome he had
collected about the “ Cenci,” for a drama. He had sug-
gested that she should write one, believing that she, if
either, possessed dramatic ability, and had already
collected for her material for a drama of Charles I.
Their villa was just outside of Leghorn, where the
Gisbornes had their home, and the companionship of
this warm-hearted family was a great boon, both to
Shelley and Mary, in their loneliness. It was to Mrs.
Gisborne that Mrs. Shelley ever turned in need of
sympathy. During the long summer days Shelley
worked on the “ Cenci” or took excursions by land or
sea with Mary and the Gisbornes.
Mrs. Shelley thus writes to Mrs. Hunt from Leg-
horn on the 28th August, 1819:
“ My dear Marianne,—We are very dull at Leg-
horn, and I can therefore write nothing to amuse you.
We live in a little country house at the end of a green
lane surrounded by a podere. These poderes are just
the things Hunt would like. They are like our
kitchen gardens, with the difference only that the
beautiful fertility of this country gives them. A large
bed of cabbages is very unpicturesque in England, but
here the furrows are alternated with rows of grapes
festooned on their supporters. It is filled with olive,
fig, and peach trees, and the hedges are of myrtle,
which have just ceased to flower. Their flower hasITALY,;
III
the sweetest, faint smell in the world, like some deli-
cious spice. Green, grassy walks lead you through
the vines. The people are always busy, and it is
pleasant to see three or four of them transform in one
day a bed of Indian corn to one of celery. They
work in this hot weather in their shirts, or smock
frocks (but their breasts are bare), their brown legs
nearly the color, only with a rich tinge of red in it, of
the earth they turn up. They sing, not very melodi-
ously, but very loud, Rossini’s music, Mi rivedrai ti
revedro, and they are accompanied by the cicala, a
kind of little beetle, that makes a noise with its tail
as loud as Johnny can sing. They live on trees, and
three or four together are enough to deafen you. It
is to the cicala that Anacreon has addressed an ode
which they call ‘To a Grasshopper’ in the English
translations.
“ Well, here we live. I never am in good spirits,—
often in very bad,—and Hunt’s portrait has already
seen me shed so many tears that if it had his heart as
well as his eyes he would weep too in pity. But no
more of this, or a tear will come now, and there is no
use for that. . . .
“ Shelley has written a good deal, and I have done
very little since I have been in Italy. I have had so
much to see and so many vexations independent of
those which God has kindly sent to wean me from the
world if I were too fond of it. S. has not had good112
ITALY.
health by any means, and when getting better, fate has
ever contrived something to pull him back. He never
was better than the last month of his stay in Rome,
except the last week; then he watched sixty miserable,
death-like hours without closing his eyes, and you
may think what good that did him. . . .
“ I am very much obliged to you for all your kind
offers and wishes. Hunt would do Shelley a great
deal of good, but that we may not think of; his spirits
are tolerably good. But you do not tell me how you
get on, how Bessy is, and where she is. Remember
me to her. Clare is learning thorough bass and sing-
ing. We pay four crowns a month for her master;
lessons three times a week. Cheap work this, is it
not ? At Rome we paid three shillings a lesson, and
the master stayed two hours. The one we have now
is the best in Leghorn. I write in the morning, read
Latin till two, when we dine. Then I read some Eng-
lish book and two cantos of Dante with Shelley. In
the evenings our friends, the Gisbornes, come, so we
are not perfectly alone. I like Mrs. Gisborne very
much indeed, but her husband is most dreadfully dull,
and as he is always with her we have not so much
pleasure in her company as we otherwise would.” . . .
Shelley also writes of their life to Peacock:	“ My
employments are these,—I awaken usually at seven,
read half an hour, then get up, breakfast, after break-ITAL Y.
1 f 3
fast ascend my tower and write or read until two.
Then we dine. After dinner I read Dante with Mary,
gossip a little, eat grapes and figs, sometimes walk,
though seldom, and at half-past five pay a visit to
Mrs. Gisborne, who reads Spanish with me until near
seven. We then come for Mary and then stroll about
till supper time.”
At the end of the summer they went to Florence,
where, on November 12, 1819, a son was born,
named Percy Florence. The next day Shelley wrote
to Leigh Hunt:	“ Yesterday morning Mary brought
me a little boy. She suffered but two hours’ pain, and
is now so well that it seems a wonder that she stays in
bed. The babe is also quite well and has begun to suck.
You may imagine that this is a great comfort to me
amongst all my misfortunes, past, present, and to come.
“ Poor Mary begins (for the first time) to look a
little consoled, for we have spent—as you may im-
agine—a most miserable five months.”
In a later letter to Leigh Hunt, Shelley says,—“ We
hear of a box arrived at Genoa, with books and
clothes; it must be yours. Meanwhile the babe is
wrapped in flannel petticoats, and we get on with him
as we can. He is small, healthy, and pretty. Mary
is recovering rapidly.”
Sometimes their packages and letters were a year
in reaching them, their migratory life being thus a
source of no small inconvenience to them.
8ITALY.
114
Mrs. Shelley, in a letter to Mrs. Gisborne, writes
December 1st: “The little boy is nearly three times
as big as when he was born; he thrives well and cries
little, and is now taking a right-down earnest sleep
with all his heart in his shut eyes.”
On December 28th she writes again to Mrs. Gis-
borne :
“ I think of beginning to read again; study I can-
not, for I have no books, and I may not call
simple reading study, for papa is continually saying
and writing that to read one book without others
beside you, to which you may refer, is mere child’s
play; but I still hope now to get on with Latin
and Spanish.
“ Do you know that if you could borrow for us
Rousseau’s * Emile’ and Voltaire’s ‘ Essai sur l’Esprit
des Nations’—either or both—you would oblige us
very much. Shelley has given up the idea of vis-
iting Leghorn before the finishing of the steamboat.
He is rather better the last two or three days, but he
has suffered dreadfully lately from his side. His nu-
merous weaknesses and ailments have left him, and
settled all in his side alone, for he never, any other
winter, suffered such constant pain there. It puts me
in mind of the mountain of ills in the Spectator,
where mankind exchange ills one with the other; then
they all take up their own evils again as the mostITALY.
nS
bearable. I do not know whether this is Shelley’s
case.
“ Affectionately Yours,
“M. W. Shelley.”
The climate of Florence did not agree with Shelley,
and in January, 1820, they went to Pisa. And now, as
the hour of Shelley’s death approaches, and the time
that Mary Shelley was yet to have the presence of her
adored friend beside her, may be counted by months,
their life together, the places of their abode, are re-
garded with interest almost akin to pain. The re-
mainder of their life together was mostly spent here
at Pisa or in its neighborhood. Shelley was better
than ever before, and they were away from the in-
tense heat which prevails in the south of Italy, and
which they wished to avoid for the sake of their child.
That consideration stayed their steps, else they who
were such devoted travellers would have continued the
nomadic life which they had led since their entrance
into Italy.
Their life at Pisa was less solitary than it had been
formerly; they had English and Italian friends about
them. Shelley’s health and spirits were steadily im-
proving ; his work became more satisfying; the power
of his genius—among scholars—was universally ac-
knowledged, and the bitter and unceasing anathemas
which had been hurled at him with all the force of then6
ITAL Y.
English temperament, and which had followed him
and Mary to Italy, were becoming less persistent.
Their days were spent in walking, riding, and study-
ing, or in seeing their friends. In the evening, as was
his wont, Shelley read aloud, Plato, the Italian poets,—
whatever interested them. Mrs. Shelley wrote to Mrs.
Gisborne on the 24th of March of their “ being very
busy translating Spinosa. I write from his dictation,
and we get on. By the by, I wish you would send
me a volume of the encyclopedia that gives a system
of short-hand, for I want to learn one without delay.”
One marvels, among the numberless other interests
and occupations of Mrs. Shelley’s life, to which she
always seemed capable of adding one more, how she
could find the time and the mind to master short-
hand. But then one remembers the almost invincible
perseverance in anything she undertook, of which
Godwin wrote even when she was a child. Per-
haps one motive for this desire to learn short-hand is
the playful criticism which her husband makes upon
her handwriting in a note to Mrs. Gisborne :	“ I won-
der what makes Mary think her letters worth the
trouble of opening, except, indeed, she conceives it a
delight to decipher a difficult scrawl. She might as
well have put as I will:
“ ‘ My dear Sir,—
“'???!!!
“ ‘ Yours, etc.’ ”ITALY.
II7
In the latter part of the spring, while the Gisbornes
were in England, the Shelleys spent a few weeks in
their villa in the environs of Leghorn. The country
was very lovely here, and one evening, during a walk
with Mary among lanes bordered by myrtle hedges
and lit by the fitful light of the fire-flies, the song of the
skylark rose above them, inspiring Shelley with that
exquisite ode, “ To a Skylark.” It was now a year
since the death of their little son, whom they had
loved so tenderly, and Mrs. Shelley wrote this letter
to her friend in Rome, Miss Curran, the daughter of
the celebrated Irish advocate:
“ Leghorn, June 20, 1820.
“ My dear Miss Curran,—It is a very long time
since I heard from you, so that, if I did not know your
dislike to writing, I should be afraid that something
had happened, and that you were very ill. My heart
during all this time was at Rome; but I cannot con-
jecture when I shall be really there. Still a letter
with the Roman postmark would be a pleasant thing;
how much more welcome if from you!
“ I am afraid you find great difficulty in executing
our unhappy commission. Shelley and I therefore
are induced to entreat you to have the kindness to
order a plain stone to be erected, to mark the spot,
with merely his name and dates (William Shelley, born
Jan. 24, 1816,—June 7, 1819). You would oblige usn8
ITALY,
more than I can express if you would take care that
this should be done.
“Our little Percy is a thriving, forward child; but
after what has happened, I own it appears to me a
failing cloud,—all those hopes that we so earnestly
dwell upon. How do you like the ‘ Cenci’ ? It sells,
you must know, of which I am very glad. If I could
hear of any one going to Rome I would send you
some other books to amuse you, for we had a parcel
from England the other day: but we are entirely out
of the world. It will give me great pleasure to hear
from you, to know when you leave Rome, and how
your pictures increase. Be sure I do not forget your
nice study and your kind hospitality. Your study,
how can I forget when we have so valuable a speci-
men of it, that is dearer to me than I can well say.
“ Shelley desires his kindest remembrances. I
would give a very great deal to look upon the divine
city from the Trinita di Monti. Is not my heart there ?
“ From papa I have not heard a very long time.
Affairs seem going on there badly, but slower than a
tortoise,—I hope not so surely towards their apparent
end.
“ Farewell! I entreat you to write.
“ Yours, with affection,
“ Mary W. Shelley.
“ P.S.—I have heard your brother’s life of your
father much praised.”ITALY.
H9
The little slab bearing the name of William Shelley
had been, it was thought, correctly placed. But when,
two years after, the grave was opened in order to place
Shelley's ashes beside those of his child, the tomb was
found to be that of an adult, and the position of the
little child could not be found.
Speaking of the trials that they still encountered
from malicious people, Mrs. Shelley in another letter
to Miss Curran says,—“ Do you know we lose many
letters ? having spies (not government ones) about us in
plenty. They made a desperate push to do us a des-
perate mischief lately, but succeeded no further than
to blacken us amongst the English; so if you receive
a fresh batch (or green bag) of scandal against us, I
assure you it will be a lie. Poor souls! we live inno-
cently, as you well know; if we did not, ten to one we
should not be so unfortunate."
Fearing the effect of the severe heat upon their
child, in August they left Leghorn for the baths of
San Giuliano, a place at the foot of the mountains about
four miles from Pisa. They were happily situated
here, but were driven away by the incident which Mrs.
Shelley records :	“ At the foot of our garden ran the
canal that communicated between the Serchio and the
Arno. The Serchio overflowed its banks and, break-
ing its bounds, the canal also overflowed. All this part
of the country is below the level of its rivers, and the
consequence was that it was speedily flooded. The120
ITALY.
rising waters filled the square of the baths, in the
lower part of which our house was situated. The
canal overflowed in the garden behind; the rising
waters on either side at last burst open the doors, and
meeting in the house, rose to the height of six feet
It was a picturesque sight at night to see the peasants
driving the cattle from the plains below to the hills
above the baths. A fire was kept up to guide them
across the ford, and the forms of the men and the
animals showed in dark relief against the red glare
of the flame, which was reflected again in the waters
that filled the square.”
They then took up their abode in Pisa, where they
remained till their departure for Lerici. They were
now surrounded by friends whom they loved,—the
Williams, Medwin, and, in the latter part of 1821,
Byron. Edward and Jane Williams were two delicate
and beautiful beings. Captain Edward Elleker Wil-
liams had spent some years in the navy, and also in
India, and was a man of charming disposition and
great purity of mind and soul. He possessed not a
little poetic appreciation, and was himself engaged in
writing a play at the time of his death. Mrs. Shelley
says of him “ that no man ever existed more gentle,
generous, and fearless.” Jane, his wife, was greatly
beloved for the grace and beauty of her whole char-
acter. As Shelley and Williams found pleasures in
common, so Mary and Jane Williams became closeITAL Y.
121
companions; and after the return of Mary Shelley to
England she counted it as one of her joys that Mrs.
Williams lived near her, and that they might see one
another frequently.
Williams shared Shelley’s passion for boating, and
the two spent many hours on the water together.
They constructed a little boat out of pitched canvas,
which the shallow water of the Arno would float.
Shelley used to take Jane Williams and the children
out in this little boat, and Mrs. Shelley writes,—“ Once
I went down with him to the mouth of the Arno,
where the stream, then high and swift, met the tide-
less sea and disturbed its sluggish waters. It was a
waste and dreary scene; the desert sand stretched
into a point, surrounded by waves that broke idly
though perpetually around.”
“ We have seen a few more people than usual this
winter,” writes Shelley, “ and have made a very inter-
esting acquaintance with a Greek prince, perfectly
acquainted with ancient literature, and full of enthu-
siasm for the liberties and improvement of his coun-
try. Mary has been a Greek student for several
months, and is reading Antigone with our turbaned
friend, who in return is taught English.”
This same year the Shelleys became acquainted with
the “ noble and unfortunate Lady Emilia Viviani,”
confined in a convent in Pisa by her father to await a
distasteful marriage. Shelley, inspired by the beauty,122
ITALY.
the refinement, and the misery of this lady, addressed
to her that mystic rhapsody, “ Epipsychidion.” He
visited her many times in her convent, and both Mary
and he tried in every way to lighten her confinement
by gifts of books and flowers.
This lady was subsequently married to the suitor, a
man seven years older than her father, and with whom
she had not one possible thought in common; and
after dragging out a wretched existence for six years
in the marshy atmosphere of the Maremma, with her
father’s permission she left her husband and returned
to Pisa to die.
About this time whispers of thoughts and feelings
felt by the one and not shared by the other come to
us from the life of Mary and Shelley. One can see
that the surface of that great and beautiful unity had
been disturbed, though one does not doubt that the
real fitness and the true love of their life remained the
same. That Shelley was often deeply unhappy at
this time, that there were days of moody unrest and
months of melancholy depression, is true; for Mary
Shelley, looking back to the time, writes that there
was some anxiety on Shelley’s mind which he con-
cealed from her lest it should give her pain; and
there are bitter and unhappy allusions in some of
Shelley’s letters and poems. It is not surprising that
a man with so keen a sensibility, a nervous system so
highly attuned, a nature so elevated, should haveITAL Y.
123
been constantly brought face to face with cruel dis-
appointments. It was inevitable that Shelley should
never see his standard of good realized; and though
his allusions point to more personal pain than unful-
filled ideals, yet one cannot say that his life with Mary
had discord in it, though that close and entire com-
panionship of thought and occupation which had so
distinguished their first years together was interrupted.
It was not surprising that Shelley’s movements
should be eccentric and untimed, nor that as Mary
developed in mind and character from the mere child
whom he had first known her ideas should differ from
his. She was always broad and reasonable and beau-
tiful, with never a narrow thought, and she loved
Shelley with true passion. What then? That does not
keep a woman from being impetuous, often exacting,
any more than a gentle and unselfish nature keeps a
man from causing pain and anxiety to those who love
him. And Shelley gave Mary many, many cruel mo-
ments, not only in his hazardous sails and prolonged
tramps, but in that mistaken tenderness which led him
to conceal from her what affected his happiness.
During the summer they went again to the baths of
San Guiliano, taking the little, pitched canvas boat
with them. “ Some friends lived at the village of Pug-
nano, four miles off,” writes Mrs. Shelley, “and we
went to and fro to see them in our boat by the canal;
which, fed by the Serchio, was, though artificial, a full124
ITALY.
and picturesque stream, making its way under verdant
banks, sheltered by trees that dipped their boughs
into the murmuring waters. By day multitudes of
ephemera darted to and fro on the surface, at night
the fire-flies came out among the shrubs on the banks;
the cicala at noon-day kept up their hum, the aziola
cooed in the quiet evening.”
This charming little poem on the aziola Shelley
wrote at that time :
“ £ Do you not hear the Aziola cry ?
Methinks she must be nigh,’
Said Mary, as we sate
In dusk, ere the stars were lit, or candles brought.
And I, who thought
This Aziola was some tedious woman,
Asked, 4 Who is Aziola ?’ How elate
I felt to know that it was nothing human,
No mockery of myself to fear and hate!
And Mary saw my soul,
And laughed and said, 4 Disquiet yourself not,
’Tis nothing but a little downy owl.’
Sad Aziola! many an eventide
Thy music I had heard
By wood and stream, meadow and mountain side,
And fields and marshes wide,—
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,
The soul ever stirred;
Unlike and far sweeter than they all.
Sad Aziola! from that moment I
Loved thee and thy sad cry.”
By the first of August they were back in Pisa again.ITALY,;
125
Life was becoming calmer for the Shelleys,—less no-
madic. They were forming for themselves a circle of
valued friends here in Italy, and they were attached to
the neighborhood of Pisa. Shelley’s health improved
every year, and his poetry showed the beneficent in-
fluence of the more rational life,—it was less mystic,
less metaphysical, more human. Now, as ever in their
life together, Mrs. Shelley was his amanuensis. Of
the fragmentary poem “ Orpheus” there is no record
except her transcript, at the end of the notes, to
which she has humorously written,—“ I await the
descent of the flood, and then I endeavor to embank
his words.”
But, as in the following extract from her journal, she
says,—“ All were well if it were permanent.” August
4th she writes,—“ Shelley has gone to see Lord Byron
at Ravenna. This is his (Shelley’s) birthday: seven
years are now gone. What changes ! We now appear
tranquil; yet who knows what wind-------- But I will
not prognosticate evil, we have had enough of it.
When we arrived in Italy, I said, all is well if it were
permanent. It was more passing than an Italian twi-
light. I now say the same: may it be a polar day—
yet that too has an end.”
Even while she was writing evil report was find-
ing them out, although the letters which follow tell
little else than intense feeling of injustice at some
calumny.126
ITALY.
“ Ravenna, Aug. 7.
“ My dearest Mary,—I arrived here last night at
ten o’clock, and sat up talking with Lord Byron till
five o’clock this morning. I then went to sleep and
now awake at eleven, and having despatched my
breakfast as quick as possible, mean to devote the in-
terval until twelve, when the post departs, to you.
“ Lord Byron has told me of a circumstance that
shocks me exceedingly, because it exhibits a degree
of desperate and wicked malice for which I am at a
loss to account. When I hear such things my pa-
tience and my philosophy are put to a severe proof,
whilst I refrain from seeking out some obscure hiding-
place where the countenance of man may never meet
me more. . . . Imagine my despair of good; im-
agine how it is possible that one of so weak and sen-
sitive a nature as mine can run further the gauntlet
through this hellish society of men. You should
write to the Hoppners * a letter refuting the charge, in
case you believe and know and can prove that it is
false, stating the grounds and proofs of your belief. I
need not dictate what you should say, nor I hope in-
spire you with warmth to rebut a charge which you
only effectually can rebut.”
To which letter Mrs. Shelley immediately replied.
The Elise was the Swiss maid whom the Shelleys had
* The English consul at Geneva.1TAL Y.
127
had during their first trip to Geneva, when William
was a baby, and who had been with them until her
marriage to their dishonest servant, Paolo.
“ My dear Shelley,—Shocked beyond all meas-
ure as I was, I instantly wrote the enclosed. If the
task be not too dreadful, pray copy it for me. I
cannot.
“ Read that part of your letter which contains the
accusation. I tried, but I could not write it. I think
I could as soon have died. I send also Elise's last
letter. Enclose it or not, as you think best.
“ I wrote to you with far different feelings last night,
beloved friend. Our bark is indeed ‘tempest tost;’
but love me as you have ever done, and God preserve
my child to me, and our enemies shall not be too
much for us. Consider well if Florence be a fit resi-
dence for us. I love, I own, to face danger, but I
would not be imprudent.
“ Pray get my letter to Mrs. H. copied, for a thou-
sand reasons. Adieu, dearest! Take care of yourself,
—all yet is well. The shock for me is over, and now
I despise the slander; but it must not pass uncontra-
dicted. I sincerely thank Lord Byron for his kind
unbelief.
“Affectionately yours,	M. W. S.”
“ Friday.
“ Do not think me imprudent in mentioning C.’s128
ITALY,;
illness at Naples. It is well to meet facts. They are
as cunning as wicked. I have read over my letter. It
is written in haste, but it were as well that the first
burst of feeling should be expressed. No letters.”
Another letter from Shelley shows how keen the
shaft had been:
“ Thursday, Ravenna.
“ I have received your letter, with that to Mrs.
Hoppner. I do not wonder, my dearest friend, that
you should have been moved. I was at first, but
speedily regained the indifference which the opinion
of anything or anybody except our own consciousness
amply merits, and day by day shall more receive from
me. I have not re-copied your letter,—such a meas-
ure would destroy its authenticity,—but have given it
to Lord Byron, who has engaged to send it with his
own comments to the Hoppners.
“ People do not hesitate, it seems, to make them-
selves panders and accomplices to slander; for the
Hoppners had exacted from Lord Byron that these
accusations should be concealed from me. Lord By-
ron is not a man to keep a secret, good or bad; but
in openly confessing that he has not done so, he must
observe a certain delicacy, and therefore wished to
send the letter himself, and indeed this adds weight to
your representations.
“ Have you seen the article in the Literary GazetteITALY.
129
on me ? They evidently allude to some story of this
kind. However cautious the Hoppners have been in
preventing the calumniated person from asserting his
justification, you know too much of the world not to
be certain that this was the utmost limit of their cau-
tion. So much for nothing. . . .
“ My greatest comfort would be utterly to desert all
human society. I would retire with you and our chil-
dren to a solitary island in the sea; would build a boat
and shut upon my retreat the floodgates of the world.
I would read no reviews, and talk with no authors. If
I dared trust my imagination, it would tell me that
there are one or two chosen companions beside your-
self whom I should desire. But to this I would not
listen. Where two or three are gathered together, the
devil is among them; and good far more than evil
impulses, love far more than hatred, has been to me
(except as you have been its object) the source of all
sorts of mischief. So on this plan I would be alone,
and would devote either to oblivion or to future gene-
rations the overflowings of a mind which, timely with-
drawn from contagion, should be kept fit for no baser
object. But this it does not appear that we shall do.
“The other side of the alternative (for a medium
ought not to be adopted) is to form for ourselves a
society of our own class, as much as possible, in intel-
lect or in feelings, and to connect ourselves with the
interests of that society. Our roots never struck so
Q130
ITAL Y.
deeply as at Pisa, and the transplanted tree flourishes
not. People who lead the lives which we led until
winter are like a family of Wahabee Arabs pitching
their tent in the middle of London. We must do one
thing or the other,—for yourself,—for our child,—for
our existence. The calumnies, the sources of which are
probably deeper than we perceive, have ultimately for
object the depriving us of means of security and sub-
sistence. You will easily perceive the gradations by
which calumny proceeds to pretext, pretext to perse-
cution, and persecution to the ban of fire and water.
It is for this—and not because this or that fool, or the
whole court of fools, curse and rail—that calumny is
worth refuting or chastising.”
While Shelley was thus absent at Ravenna, Mary
sent him her picture that her presence might be visibly
with him, which Shelley thus acknowledges:
“Ravenna, Aug. 15, 1821.
“ My dearest Love,—I accept your present of your
picture, and wish you would get it prettily framed for
me. I will wear for your sake upon my heart this
image which is ever present to my mind. I have only
two minutes to write. I am just setting off to see the
Allegrina.* The post is just setting off. I shall leave
this place Thursday or Friday. You would forgive
* Allegra.ITALY.
131
my longer stay if you knew the fight I had to make
it so short I need not say where my own feeling
impels me. It still remains fixed that Lord Byron
should come to Tuscany,—if possible to Pisa.
“ Your faithful and affectionate
“ Shelley.”
The Shelleys had intended to spend the winter in
Florence with their friends, Horace Smith and his
wife. Shelley made a journey to that city expressly
to select a house for himself, and to look up a suit-
able one for the Williams. But Mrs. Smith fell ill and
could not leave England, and so Mary and Shelley
continued in their old quarters in the top story of the
Tre Palazzi, where they had surrounded themselves
with their books and flowers.
Meanwhile Mrs. Shelley had completed a novel
which was afterward published under the name of
“ Valperga,” and of which Shelley writes to his own
publisher, Mr. Ollier, this letter:
“ Pisa, September 25, 1821.
“ Dear Sir,—It will give me great pleasure if I can
arrange the affair of Mrs. Shelley’s novel with you to
her and your satisfaction. She has a specific purpose
in the sum which she instructed me to require; and
although this purpose could not be answered without
ready money, yet I should find means to answer her132
ITAL K
wishes in the point if you could make it convenient
to pay one-third at Christmas, and give bills for the
other two-thirds at twelve and eighteen months. It
would give me peculiar satisfaction that you, rather
than any other person, should be the publisher of this
work : it is the product of no slight labor, and I flatter
myself of no common talent. I doubt not it will give
no less credit than it will receive from your names. I
trust you know me too well to believe that my judg-
ment deliberately given in testimony of the value of
any production is influenced by motives of interest or
partiality. . . . The novel consists, as I told you be-
fore, of three volumes, each at least equal to one of
the ‘ Tales of my Landlord,’ and they will very soon
be ready to be sent. In case you should accept the
present offer, I will make one observation which I
consider of essential importance. It ought to be
printed in half volumes at a time, and sent to the
author for her last corrections by the post. It may
be printed on thin paper like this letter, and the ex-
pense shall fall upon me. Lord Byron has his sent
in this manner, and no person who has either fame
to lose or money to win ought to publish in any
other manner. I ought to tell you that the novel has
not the smallest tincture of any peculiar theories in
politics or religion.”
Mrs. Shelley received ^400 for the copyright, whichITALY,;
133
she generously turned over to the relief of her father.
Affairs in Skinner Street were badly off,—never worse,
—and Godwin was begging aid, as he had done many
times before, by solicitations and direct appeals. In
a letter to Mrs. Gisborne she says of her novel, that
she first formed the conception at Marlow, that it took
a more definite shape at Naples, but the work was
delayed many times ; “ it was a child of mighty slow
growth.” She spent much labor to make herself
familiar with the manners and customs of the times,
reading and consulting many books.
In November, Byron, and Shelley’s cousin, Captain
Medwin, came to Pisa for the winter, and shortly after
John Edward Trelawny. One never thinks of Tre-
lawny without a feeling of gratitude for his infinite
kindness to Mrs. Shelley and the integrity and fine
appreciation with which he recorded his personal life
with the poet. He was a man of the world, a traveller
of experience, a student of human nature. In her
journal of January 19, 1822, Mrs. Shelley writes of
him:
“ Trelawny* is extravagant,—partly natural and
partly, perhaps, put on,—but it suits him well; and if
his abrupt but not unpolished manners be assumed,
they are nevertheless in unison with his Moorish face
(for he looks Oriental, though not Asiatic), his dark
* Trelawny was at this time about twenty-eight years of age.134
ITALY;
hair, his Herculean form. And then there is an air of
extreme good-nature which pervades his whole coun-
tenance, especially when he smiles, which assures me
his heart is good. He tells strange stories of him-
self,—horrific ones, so that they harrow one up; while,
with his emphatic but unmodulated voice, his simple
yet strong language, he portrays the most frightful
situations. All these adventures took place between
the age of thirteen and twenty. I believe them, now
I see the man; and tired with the every-day sleepiness
of human intercourse, I am glad to meet with one
who, among other valuable qualities, has the rare
merit of interesting my imagination.”
Later on, in a letter to Mrs. Gisborne, dated Febru-
ary 9th, she says of him,—“ Trelawny is a kind of half-
Arab Englishman, whose life has been as changeful
as Anastasius, and who recounts the adventures of
his youth as eloquently and as well as the imagined
Greek. He is clever: for his moral qualities I am yet
in the dark. He is a strange web, which I am en-
deavoring to unravel. I would fain learn if generosity
is united to impetuousness, nobility of spirit to his
assumption of singularity and independence. He is
six feet high; raven black hair, which curls thickly
and shortly like a Moor’s; dark gray, expressive eyes;
overhanging brows; upturned lips, and a smile which
expresses good-nature and kind-heartedness. His
voice is monotonous, yet emphatic; and his language,ITALY.
i3S
as he relates the events of his life, energetic and
simple. Whether the tale be one of blood and horror
or of irresistible comedy, his company is delightful,
for he excites me to think, and if any evil share the
intercourse that time will unveil.”
The solitary life that the Shelleys had led since their
arrival into Italy seemed to be ended; the circle of
friends gathered around them gave intellectual stim-
ulus and satisfied the need of sympathy and interest
which Mrs. Shelley always felt. Her sunny drawing-
room in the Tre Palazzi, whose windows were always
a-bloom with flowers, was the scene of many an ani-
mated conversation between the two poets. The room
was often filled with English and Italian friends.
Here Prince Mavrocordato played chess hour after
hour with Shelley; here Captain Medwin and Cap-
tain Trelawny matched yarns about their army life,
and Williams told tales of India and nautical adven-
tures. Mrs. Shelley took earnest part in the conver-
sation, and Shelley often translated the marvellous
parts of Calderon’s “ Magico Prodigioso,” or talked in
his wrapt, introspective way of life, death, poetry, art,
religion. Jane Williams played melodies on her guitar.
The Shelleys had sent to England for their books
and pictures, and their rooms at the top of the lofty
palace, overlooking the city and country, were home-
like and fragrant with flowers. Shelley, looking into
the future, prophesied that their life there would not136
ITALY.
be short. In this intimate circle Shelley went by the
name of Ariel, or the Snake. The latter name was
given to him by Byron, who one evening reading a
line from Faust, where Mephisto says, “ Mine aunt,
the renowned snake,” exclaimed to Shelley,—“Then,
you are her nephew.” Although Shelley wrote many
of his most beautiful poems at this time,—“Ariel to
Miranda, take” and others,—he felt, as ever in Byron’s
presence, dissatisfied and discouraged about writing.
Shelley’s days now were full of interest and industry.
He rose at six or seven, read some Greek author or
German philosopher before breakfast, and then joined
Williams in an all-day sail on the Arno in their little
flat-bottomed boat. At sunset he returned, and the
evening till midnight was spent in talk or reading.
He saw Byron part of each day.
Meantime they looked forward eagerly to the ar-
rival of the Hunts. Shelley felt that the addition of
Leigh Hunt would complete the circle of friends, and
most impatiently awaited him. In a letter to Mrs.
Gisborne, in the latter part of December, Mrs. Shelley
speaks of their expectation of the Hunts, who had
started on their journey, but had been driven back by
stress of weather.
“ Since writing my last letter we have heard of the
departure of Hunt, and now anxiously await his ar-
rival. He will be more comfortable than he dreams ofITALY.
137
now; for Lord Byron has furnished the pian terreno
of his own house for him, so that (more lucky than
the rest of the economical English who come here)
he will find clean and spacious apartments with every
comfort about him, and a climate,—such a climate!
We dine in a room without a fire, with all the windows
open; a tramontano reigns, which renders the sky
clear, and the warm sun pours into our apartments.
It is cold at night, but as yet not uncomfortably so;
and it now verges towards Christmas-day. I am busy
in arranging Hunt’s rooms, since that task devolves
upon me.
“ Lord Byron is now living very sociably, giving
dinners to his male acquaintance, and writing divinely.
Perhaps by this time you have seen 4 Cain,’ and will
agree with us in thinking it his finest production.
Of some works one says,—one has thought of
such things, though one could not have expressed
them so well. It is not thus with 4 Cain.’ One has
perhaps stood on the extreme verge of such ideas, and
from the midst of the darkness which had surrounded
us the voice of the poet now is heard telling a won-
drous tale.
44 Our friends in Greece are getting on famously. All
the Morea is subdued, and much treasure was acquired
with the capture of Tripoliza. Some cruelties have
ensued ; but the oppressor must in the end buy tyranny
with blood,—such is the law of necessity. The young138
ITALY,;
Greek prince you saw at our house is made the head
of the Provisional Government in Greece. He has
sacrificed his whole fortune to his country, and heart
and soul is bent upon her cause.
“ You will be glad to hear that Shelley’s health is
much improved this winter. He is not quite well,
but he is much better. The air of Pisa is so mild and
delightful, and the exercise on horseback agrees with
him particularly. Williams also is quite recovered.
We think that we may probably spend next summer at
La Spezzia ; at least I hope that we shall be near the sea.
“ The clock strikes twelve. I have taken to sit up
rather late this last month, and when all the world is
in bed or asleep find a little of that solitude one can-
not get in a town through the day. Yet daylight
brings with it all the delights of a town residence, and
all the delights of friendly and social intercourse,—
few of the pains; for my horizon is so contracted that
it shuts out most of those.
“ Most sincerely yours,
“ Mary W. S.”
Even though life seemed now so many hued to
Mary and Shelley and ill fortune to have spent itself,
Mary’s trembling sensibility, which was due partly to
temperament, partly to the sadness she had experi-
enced, could not see brilliance and gayety without
an undercurrent consciousness of its converse. Re-ITALY,;
139
turning from a ball the evening of February 7th, she
writes in her journal,—“ During a long, long even-
ing in mixed society, how often do one’s sensations
change; and swift as the west wind drives the shadows
of clouds across the sunny hills or the waving corn,
so swift do sentiments pass, painting, yet not disfigur-
ing, the serenity of the mind. It is then that life
seems to weigh itself, and hosts of imaginations and
memories thrown into one scale make the other kick
the beam. You remember what you have felt, what
you have dreamt: yet you dwell on the shadowy side,
and lost hopes and death (such as you have seen it)
seem to cover all things with a funeral pall. The time
that was, is, and will be, presses upon you, and, stand-
ing the centre of a moving circle, you ‘ slide giddily
as the world reels.’ You look to Heaven and would
demand of the everlasting stars that the thoughts and
passions which are your life may be as ever-living as
they. You would demand of the blue empyrean that
your mind might be as clear as it, and that the tears
which gather in your eyes might be the shower that
would drain from its profoundest depths the springs
of weakness and sorrow. But a thousand swift, con-
suming lights supply the place of the eternal ones of
Heaven. The enthusiast suppresses her tears, crushes
her opening thoughts, and—all is changed. Some word,
some look excites the lagging blood, laughter dances
in the eyes, and the spirits rise proportionably high.140
ITALY.
‘ The Queen is all for revels; her light heart,
Unladen from the heaviness of state
Bestows itself upon delightfulness.’
“ Sometimes I awaken from my visionary monotony,
and my thoughts flow, until, as it is exquisite pain to
stop the flowing of the blood, so it is painful to check
expression and make the overflowing mind return to
its usual channel. I feel a kind of tenderness to those,
whoever these may be (even though strangers), who
awaken this strain and touch a chord so full of har-
mony and thrilling music.”
Who could resist this glimpse of violets and soft
spring weather that Mrs. Shelley pictures so charm-
ingly in this letter of the 5th of March to Mrs. Hunt?
Dreadful indeed had been the storms which the Hunts
had encountered when they had been driven back into
port. Mrs. Hunt, who was in wretched health, had
been so ill on account of the terror and anxiety that,
when their vessel had finally sailed, she was unable to
be moved. “ My dearest Marianne,” writes Mrs. Shel-
ley, “ I hope this letter will find you quite well, re-
covering from your severe attack, and looking toward
your haven—Italy—with best hopes. I do indeed
believe that you will find a relief here from your many
English cares, and that the winds which waft you will
sing the requiem to all your ills. It was indeed un-
fortunate that you encountered such weather on the
very threshold of your journey, and as the windITAL Y.
HI
howled through the long night, how often did I think
of you ! At length it seemed as if we should never,
never meet; but I will not give way to such a pre-
sentiment. We enjoy here divine weather. The sun
hot, too hot, with a freshness and clearness in the
breeze that bears with it all the delights of spring.
The hedges are budding, and you should see me and
my friend, Mrs. Williams, poking about for violets by
the sides of dry ditches, she being herself
* A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye.’
“ Yesterday a countryman, seeing our dilemma,—
since the ditch was not quite dry,—insisted on gather-
ing them for us, and when we resisted, saying that we
had no ‘ quattrini’ (i.e. farthings, being the generic
name for all money), he indignantly exclaimed,—' Oh !
se lo faccio per interesse !’ How I wish you were with
us in our rambles ! Our good cavaliers flock together,
and as they do not like fetching a walk with the absurd
womankind, Jane (i.e. Mrs. Williams) and I are off
together, and talk morality and pluck violets by the
way. I look forward to many duets with this lady
and Hunt. She has a very pretty voice, and a taste
and ear for music which is almost miraculous. The
harp is her favorite instrument, but we have none, and
3 very bad piano; however, as it is, we pass very
pleasant evenings, though I can hardly bear to hear142
ITAL Y.
her sing ‘ Donne l’amore it transports me so entirely
back to your little parlor at Hampstead, and I see the
piano, the book-case, the prints, the casts, and hear
Mary’s far ha ha-a'A
In the autumn of the year Mary and Shelley had
chanced to take an excursion to Spezzia, and Shelley
was so enchanted with the place that he fixed on that
to be their next summer abode. His love was always
for the ocean. When Trelawny was added to the in-'
timate circle, his delight in out-door exercise gave re-
newed vigor to their nautical excursions, and the plan
of the fatal “ Don Juan” was soon decided upon. It
was on the 15th of January that the project was
spoken of, and Mrs. Shelley writes of it,— “ Thus on
that night—one of gayety and thoughtlessness—
Jane’s and my miserable destiny was decided. We
then said laughing to each other,— 4 Our husbands
decide without asking our consent, or having our con-
currence ; for, to tell you the truth, I hate this boat,
though I say nothing.’ Said Jane : ‘ So do I; but
speaking would be useless, and only spoil their pleas-
ure.’ How well I remember that night! How short-
sighted we are ! And now that its anniversary is
come and gone, methinks I cannot be the wretch I
too truly am.”
On March 7th Mrs. Shelley recounts to Mrs. Gis-
borne an amusing incident. “ So,” she writes, “ H.
is shocked that, for good neighborhood’s sake, IITALY.
143
visited the Piano di Sotto. Let him reassure himself:
instead of a weekly it was only a monthly visit. In
fact, after going three times I stayed away. He
preached against atheism, and—they said—against
Shelley. As he invited me himself to come, this ap-
peared to me very impertinent; so I wrote to him to
ask him whether he intended any personal allusion.
He denied the charge most entirely. This affair, as
you may guess, among the English at Pisa, made a
great noise. Gossip here is, of course, out of all
bounds. Some people have given them something to
talk about. I have seen little of it all; but that which I
have seen makes me long most eagerly for some sea-
girt isle where, with Shelley, my babe, my books, and
horses, we might give the rest to the winds. This we
shall not have. For the present Shelley is entangled
with Lord Byron, who is in a terrible fright lest he
should desert him. We shall have boats and go some-
where on the sea-coast, where, I dare say, we shall
spend our time agreeably enough.” What, perhaps,
was most alarming to the good gossips of Pisa was
that this preaching against atheism took place in
the lower floor of the same palace in which the Shel-
leys lived.CHAPTER VI.
shelley’s death.
A DIRGE *
“ This morn thy gallant bark
Sailed on a sunny sea,
’Tis noon, and tempests dark
Have wrecked it on the lee.
Ah wo ! Ah wo !
* We owe to Mr. Forman the preservation of the earlier form of
this little poem as it appeared in The Keepsake of 1831.
A DIRGE.
“ This morn thy gallant bark, love,
Sailed on a sunny sea,
’Tis noon, and tempests dark, love,
Have wrecked it on the lee.
Ah woe! Ah woe! Ah woe!
By spirits of the deep
He’s cradled on the billow,
To his unwaking sleep.
“ Thou liest upon the shore, love,
Beside the swelling surge
But sea-nymphs evermore, love,
Shall sadly chant thy dirge.
O come ! O come! O come!
Ye spirits of the deep,
While near his sea-weed pillow
My lonely watch I keep.
144SHELLEY'S DEATH.
145
By spirits of the deep
Thou ’rt cradled on the billow,
To thy eternal sleep.
“ Thou sleep’st upon the shore
Beside the knelling surge,
And sea-nymphs evermore
Shall sadly chant thy dirge.
They come ! They come,
The spirits of the deep,
While near thy sea-weed pillow
My lonely watch I keep.
“ From far across the sea
I hear a loud lament,
By echo’s voice for thee
From ocean’s caverns sent.
O list ! O list !
The spirits of the deep,
They raise a wail of sorrow
While I forever weep.”
—Mary W. Shelley.
The last of April the Shelleys and the Williams
hurriedly left Pisa for Spezzia, taking their Lares and
Penates with them. Shelley had learned of the death
“ From far across the sea, love,
I hear a loud lament,
By Echo’s voice for thee, love,
From ocean’s caverns sent.
O list! O list! O list!
The spirits of the deep,—
Loud sounds their wail of sorrow
While I forever weep.”
IO146
SHELLEY'S DEATH
of the little Allegra in the convent at Venice, and he
was in great trepidation lest before they could get
Miss Clairmont away from Pisa she should hear of the
death of her daughter. For since the removal of
Allegra to the convent, Miss Clairmont had felt so
furious a hatred toward Byron that she had declared
that if anything ever happened to the child she
would plunge a dagger into him. The Shelleys,
knowing well the violence of her temper, dared not
breathe the intelligence to her while still in Pisa. In-
deed, so uncontrollable was her disposition that there
had been times during the Shelleys’ life in England
when they were unable to live peaceably with her
in the house, and Shelley had seen that she was pro-
vided for elsewhere. It was for these reasons that
Shelley so hurriedly left for Spezzia, even before they
had arranged for a house.
Possibly but for this Shelley had not gone there,
and so escaped that awful end.
Williams’s diary tells with faithful accuracy the de-
tail of those days and the humorous consequences of
their hurry:
“ April 23. Left Pisa for Spezzia with C. and Jane.
“A—25. Return to Pisa. Meet S. his face be-
spoke his feelings. C’s child was dead, and he had
the office to break it to her, or rather not to do so;
but fearful of the news reaching her ears, to remove
her instantly from this place.SHELLEY'S DEATH
14 7
“ April 26th. Mary, C. and Trelawny, depart for
Spezzia. Poor C. quite unconscious of the burthen
on her friends minds.
“ April 27. Shelley, Jane and I, nurse and children
leave for Pietra Santa.
“ Sunday, April 28th. Fine. Arrive at Lerici at I
o’clock—the harbor-master called. Not a house to
be had. On our telling him we had brought our fur-
niture, his face lengthened considerably, for he in-
formed us that the dogana would amount to 300/.
English at least. Dined, and resolved on sending
our things back without unlading—in fact, found
ourselves in a devil of a mess. S wrote to Mary
whom we heard was at Spezzia.
“Wed. May 1st. Cloudy, with rain. Came to Casa
Magni after breakfast; the Shelleys have contrived to
give us rooms. Without them, heaven knows what
we should have done. Employed all day putting the
things away. All comfortably settled by four. Passed
the evening in talking over our folly and our troubles.”
The mention of the last place of Shelley’s stay here
upon earth brings with it quick and vivid associations
of his death. He was never more buoyant than dur-
ing the few weeks he spent on the shores of this wild
and romantic bay, but Mrs. Shelley says that a subtile
and mystic intimation of brooding evil hung over her
like a cloud.
The scenery of Lerici was grand but forbidding.148
SHELLEY'S DEATH
Their rude house, which contained only four small
living rooms and a large saloon with one chimney
for cooking, was placed on the very border of the sea,
and under the shadow of a rocky hill that rose steep
and menacing behind. The wind beat itself against
the sides of the rocks and moaned incessantly; the
tideless sea frothed at their feet and tossed the spray
even into the face of their house; and during the
storms and gales the land-locked bay was outlined
by a border of white foam. The sky was always of
the intensest blue.
The place was only accessible by a narrow, ribbon-
like path over the hills toward the village of Lerici,
where they had to go for all their provisions, and
down which the natives—wilder even than the coun-
try—proceeded to the sea-shore, howling their incan-
tations.
On the 12th of May the fatal boat, expected with
such eagerness, arrived, and was immediately tried by
Shelley and Williams. They pronounced her perfect.
But Trelawny warned them that the open sea would
be very different sailing from the calm waters of the
bay. To the two inexperienced and enthusiastic
sailors there seemed no flaw in the boat’s construc-
tion, although Captain Roberts, the builder, had pro-
tested against the model. Shelley and Williams now
spent most of their time on the water, making several
trips to Massa.SHELLEY'S DEATH.
149
Here, in this wild retreat of nature, one gets a last
glimpse of those five friends before that tragic sepa-
ration,—Shelley and Williams, about to explore the
mystery of death, which the former ever regarded
with eager interest; the two women, heart-stricken,
still to live on; Trelawny, to stop long enough to
perform tenderly and courageously every service that
the highest friendship could bestow, and then to re-
sume his nomadic life.
The Villa Magni, overhanging that bay which, with
all its wild beauty and glowing Italian sunshine, had
already a shadow of the coming calamity, was but a
cheerless resting-place.
Often, on nights when the moon shed its fitful light
through ragged clouds, the Williams, Trelawny, and
the Shelleys, seated on the balcony which overhung
the beating waves, and was the one luxury of that
rude and boat-like house, listened to the wild chants
and incantations of the natives as they wound down
that path and filed in weird procession and dance up
and down the shore, beating their breasts to the time
of the waves and tossing their hair free to the wind.
Often had the friends watched the uncanny troupe as
it wound over the rocks and into hiding underbrush,
impatient to see the last blue frock vanish and hear
the last yell die away, that Jane Williams might take
up her guitar and begin again the strain interrupted
by the barbaric mysteries.SHELLEY'S DEATH.
150
We are indebted to Trelawny for the most careful
and appreciative record of the Shelleys’ life at this
time. He has made us familiar with their aquatic
pleasures, their friendship with the Williams, their
Bohemian life at Lerici, their daily occupations. He
has given us, perhaps, the truest picture of Shelley
and Byron that exists. His unfailing kindness to
Mary Shelley in her time of need, his generous aid
when others plagued and distressed her, makes us
deplore the tone of criticism in which his latest record
is made, belying the letters and expressions of friend-
ship to her during those years of trial. Thankful are
we that it was only to her memory that he was un-
just and harsh, and that these later reminiscences
were not offered to the world until she was merci-
fully deaf to the voice whose accents of friendship
had grown crabbed and narrow with age. He says,
and perhaps with some truth, that she was jealous
and exacting; for much of the time that Trelawny
saw Mrs. Shelley she was ill, nervous, and irritable.
The whole stay at Lerici was one of misery to her;
and, exacting as she was, she was also a very un-
happy woman there. Unreasoning and emotional,
most of it, certainly, but none the less sad.
The only atmosphere in which Mary Shelley could
be happy and make the happiness of those about her
was in that perfect and instant communion of spirit
that had first drawn her and Shelley together. Some-SHELLEY'S DEATH
l5!
thing had interrupted that,—satiety, that awful Neme-
sis of love, perchance. The friendship, the affectionate
consideration, the unselfish thoughts, the gentle rea-
sonableness of Shelley’s love still were hers; but the
ardor, the esprit, the essence had died away. Adoring
him always, jealous for his enthusiasm and tender-
ness, it was thus that she often, irritable and unrea-
sonable, failed from her very longing to reawake that
tenderness which she so craved.
Richard Garnet, speaking of the same question,—
and it is a question that presents itself to each one
who would speak fairly of the Shelleys’ life at that
time,—says, referring to Shelley: “Unquestionably
however the real cause of the imperfection of sym-
pathy, consisted in the impossibility of assuaging the
cravings of an imagination perpetually outstripping all
human conditions.”
Thornton Hunt, knowing Mrs. Shelley, friend and
affectionate observer of her character, thus writes:
“ I have heard her accused of over-anxiety to be ad-
mired ; and something of the sort was discernible in
society; it was a weakness as venial as it was super-
ficial. Away from society she was as truthful and
simple a woman as I have ever met—was as faithful a
friend as the world has produced—using that unre-
served directness toward those whom she regarded
with affection, which is the very crowning glory of
friendly intercourse. I suspect that these qualities152
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
came out in their greatest force after her calamity;
for many things which she said in her regret, and pas-
sages in Shelley’s own poetry, make me doubt whether
little habits of temper, and possibly of a refined and
exacting coquettishness, had not prevented him from
acquiring so full a knowledge of her, as she had of
him. This was natural for many reasons and espe-
cially for two. Shelley had not the opportunity of
retrospectively studying her character, and his mind
was by nature more constructed than hers to be pre-
occupied. If the reader desires a portrait of Mary,
he has one in the well-known antique bust some-
times called ‘Isis/ and sometimes Clytie; a woman’s
head and shoulders, rising from a lotus-flower. It
is most probably the portrait of a Roman lady, it
is in some degree more elongated and ‘ classic’ than
Mary; but on the other hand it falls short of her,
for it gives no idea of her tall and intellectual fore-
head, nor has it any trace of the bright, animating,
and sweet expression that so often lighted up her
face.”
It seems now in place that I should quote a por-
tion of a letter received from Lady Shelley, the wife
of Sir Percy Florence Shelley, and surely no higher
tribute than this could be paid to Mrs. Shelley’s mem-
ory : “ I knew her myself better than any one, unless
it was her husband or her soa, for we never parted
from the day of my marriage till that of her death—SHELLEY'S DEATH.
153
nearly three years of daily and hourly intercourse,
where there was no reserve—
“ She was the most tender gentle and noble woman
who ever trod this earth—lovely in mind and person
—with wondrous intellect, yet retiring, shy and ex-
tremely quiet. Yet when a subject interested or
moved her she would speak with a flow of eloquence.
I believe that no thought of self ever occurred to her.
I have no words to say how dear and sacred her
memory is to me, nor how great a privilege it has
been, to know one so true and pure and good.”
Trelawny himself acknowledged that wondrous elo-
quence the first time he saw her: “ At the time I am
speaking of,” he writes, “ Mrs. Shelley was twenty-
four. Such a rare pedigree of genius was enough to
interest me in her irrespective of her own merits as
an authoress. The most striking feature in her face
was her calm gray eyes ; she was rather under the
English standard of woman’s height, very fair and
light haired, witty social, and animated in the society
of friends, though mournful in solitude; like Shelley
though in a minor degree she had the power of ex-
pressing her thoughts in varied and appropriate words
derived from familiarity with the works of our vigor-
ous old writers. Neither of them used obsolete or
foreign words. This command of our language struck
me the more, as contrasted with the scanty vocabulary
used by ladies of society, in which a score of poor154
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
hackneyed phrases suffice to express all that is felt or
considered proper to reveal.”
In June Leigh Hunt landed in Italy, and Shelley,
impatient to see him, on the first of July sailed with
Williams, in the yacht, to Leghorn. Mrs. Shelley
was to have gone with them, but was too ill to leave
her room. The presentiment of evil which had hung
over her during their stay at Lerici amounted to
terror at the hour of Shelley’s departure. Still she
let him go. The run of fifty miles to Leghorn was
made in about seven hours. From there, Shelley
took the Hunts up to Pisa, where he had furnished
some apartments for them in Lord Byron’s house.
Byron had conceived the idea of starting a maga-
zine by the aid of Hunt, to be called the “ Liberal,”
and for that purpose had invited him to Italy. How
shabbily he afterwards acted to him is well known.
After seeing the Hunts established in their new abode,
Shelley and Williams, in compliance with a most
foreboding letter from Mary, hastily started for home.
Trelawny has told vividly the story of their depart-
ure and of that fatal storm of twenty minutes. How
Shelley and Williams, with their one sailor lad, set out
gleefully from Leghorn,—Williams, who had been
waiting so impatiently for Shelley to complete his
arrangements so that he might hurry back to the wife
whom he tenderly loved; how the little boat had
got out some distance from land, when black,SHELLEY'S DEATH
lSS
jagged clouds were seen rising from the southwest,
the atmosphere grew intensely hot and oppressive,
the sea looked solid, the wind rose in short, fitful
gusts, and the vessels in the harbor were all in anxious
movement. The storm burst upon the sea in a fury of
rain and wind and lightning; it lasted about twenty
minutes. When it was passed, Captain Roberts, who
was watching Shelley’s boat with a glass from the
light-house at Leghorn, looked for the little vessel,
and behold it had vanished.
The worst was not known for some time, although
Trelawny, fearing the truth, immediately began mak-
ing inquiry of the vessels that came in.
Meanwhile the two women, apprehensive, waited on
the shore of that wild and inaccessible bay. Mrs.
Shelley thus writes of those days: “ A sort of spell
surrounded us, and each day, as the voyagers did not
return, we grew restless and disquieted, and yet,
strange to say, we were not fearful of the most appa-
rent danger. The spell snapped, it was all over; an
interval of agonizing doubt—of days passed in miser-
able journeys to gain tidings, of hopes that took
firmer root, even as they were more baseless—were
changed to the certainty of the death that eclipsed all
happiness for the survivors for evermore.”
Mrs. Shelley’s awful despair, her wanderings up and
down that sea, which she says by its restless moan-
ing seemed to desire to tell them what they would not156
SHELLEY'S DEATH
learn; her calling aloud to the disseminating winds
the name of her Shelley; her journey to Pisa, while
scarce able to walk; her passionate appeal to Lord
Byron to tell her where her husband was; her refusal
to be consoled, are only to be described in her own
words.
Trelawny did everything that wisdom and friend-
ship could suggest for the solace and aid of the two
women. He it was who scoured the coast for miles
up and down, searching for the bodies; and when,
after many days, the sea tossed them upon the beach,
it was he who buried them in the sands and then rode
over to tell the two women that the slender hope
which they cherished, that Shelley and Williams
might have been picked up by an out-bound vessel,
was ended. It was he who persuaded the authorities
to mitigate somewhat the severities of their quaran-
tine laws. He helped to erect the funeral pyres,
poured frankincense and myrrh over the bodies, saw
that the spirit of all that Shelley would have desired
was fulfilled, and when the body was half consumed,
with his own hand snatched the heart from the burn-
ing mass.
This letter to Mrs. Gisborne, which is given here
a little out of date, tells with tragic quietude, as of
one stunned and dumb with pain, the most faithful
account of their life at Lerici and of Shelley’s last
days:SHELLEY'S DEATH
15 7
“ I said in a letter to Peacock, my dear Mrs. Gis-
borne, that I would send you some accounts of the last
miserable months of my disastrous life. From day to
day I have put this off, but I will now endeavor to ful-
fill my design. The scene of my existance is closed
and though there be no pleasure in retracing the scenes
that have preceded the events which has crushed my
hopes, yet there seems to be a necessity in doing so,
and I obey the impulse that urges me. I wrote to you
either at the end of May, or at the beginning of June.
I described to you the place we were living in;—our
desolate house, the beauty yet strangeness of the scen-
ery, and the delight Shelley took in all this—he never
was in better health or spirits than during this time. I
was not well in body or mind. My nerves were wound
up to the utmost irritation, and the sense of misfor-
tune hung over my spirits. No words can tell you
how I hated our house and the country about it.
Shelley reproached me for this—his health was good
and the place was quite after his own heart—what
could I answer—that the people were wild and hate-
ful, that though the country was beautiful yet I liked
a more countryfied place, that there was great diffi-
culty in living—that all our Tuxans would leave us,
and that the very jargon of these Genovese was
disgusting. This was all I had to say, but no words
could describe my feelings—the beauty of the woods
made me weep and shudder—so vehement was myi5«
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
feeling of dislike that I used to rejoice when the winds
and waves permitted me to go out in the boat so that
I was not obliged to take my usual walk among tree-
shaded paths, alleys of vine-festooned trees—all that
before I doted on—and that now weighed on me.
My only moments of peace were on board that un-
happy boat when lying down with my head on his
knee I shut my eyes and felt the wind and our swift
motion alone. My ill health might account for much
of this—bathing in the sea somewhat relieved me—
but on the eighth of June (I think it was) I was threat-
ened with a miscarriage, and after a week of great ill
health, on Sunday the 16th this took place at eight in
the morning. I was so ill that for seven hours I lay
nearly lifeless—kept from fainting by brandy, vinegar,
eau-de-Cologne, &c.—at length ice was brought to our
solitude—it came before the doctor so Claire and Jane
were afraid of using it; but Shelley over ruled them
and by an unsparing application of it I was restored.
They all thought, and so did I at one time, that I was
about to die. I hardly wish that I had, my own Shelley
could never have lived without me, the sense of eternal
misfortune would have pressed too heavily upon him,
and what would have become of my poor babe? My
convalescence was slow, and during it a strange oc-
currence happened to retard it. But first I must de-
scribe our house to you. The floor on which we lived
was thus—SHELLEY'S DEATH.
159
“ I is a terrace that went the whole length of our
house and was precipitous to the sea; 2 the large
dining-hall; 3 a private staircase ; 4 my bedroom;
5 Mrs. W.’s bedroom; 6 Shelley’s; and 7 the en-
trance from the great staircase. Now to return.
As I said Shelley was at first in perfect health but
having over fatigued himself one day, and then the
fright my illness gave him caused a return of nervous
sensations and visions as bad as in his worst times. I
think it was the Saturday after my illness, while yet
unable to walk I was confined to my bed—in the
middle of the night I was awoke by hearing him
scream and come rushing into my room; I was sure
that he was asleep, and tried to waken him by calling
on him, but he continued to scream which inspired
me with such a panic that I jumped out of bed and
ran across the hall to Mrs. W.’s room where I fell
through weakness, though I was so frightened that I
got up again immediately—she let me in and Wil-
liams went to S. who had been wakened by my get-i6o
SHELLEY'S DEATH
ting out of bed—he said that he had not been asleep
and that it was a vision that he saw that had fright-
ened him—But as he declared that he had not
screamed it was certainly a dream and no waking
vision—what had frightened him was this—He
dreamt that, lying as he did in bed Edward and
Jane came in to him, they were in the most horrible
condition, their bodies lacerated—their bones starting
through their skin, their faces pale yet stained with
blood, they could hardly walk, but Edward was the
weakest, and Jane was supporting him—Edward said
—‘ Get up Shelley, the sea is flooding the house and it
is all coming down.’ S. got up, he thought, and went
to his window that looked on the terrace and the
sea and thought he saw the sea rushing in. Suddenly
his vision changed and he saw the figure of himself
strangling me, that had made him rush into my
room, yet fearful of frightening me he dare not ap-
proach to bed, when my jumping out awoke him, or
as he phrased it caused his vision to vanish. All this
was frightful enough, and talking it over the next
morning he told me that he had had many visions
lately—he had seen the figure of himself which met
him as he walked on the terrace and said to him—
'How long do you mean to be content?’—no very
terrific words and certainly not prophetic of what has
occurred. But Shelley had often seen these figures
when ill; but the strangest thing is that Mrs. W. sawSHELLEY'S DEATH
161
him. Now Jane though a woman of sensibility has
not much imagination and is not in the slightest degree
nervous—neither in dreams or other wise. She was
standing one day, the day before I was taken ill, at
a window that looked on the terrace with Trelawny
it was day—she saw as she thought Shelley pass
by the window, as he often was then, without a coat
or jacket—he passed again—now as he passed both
times the same way—and as from the side toward
which he went each time there was no way to get
back except past the window again (except over a
wall twenty feet from the ground), she was struck at
seeing him pass twice thus and looked out, and seeing
him no more she cried,—‘ Good God! can Shelley
have leaped from the wall ? Where can he be gone ?’
‘ Shelley ?’ said Trelawny—‘ no Shelley has passed—
What do you mean?’ Trelawny says that she trem-
bled exceedingly when she heard this, and it proved
indeed that Shelley had never been on the terrace
and was far off at the time she saw him. Well we
thought [no] more of these things and I slowly got
better. Having heard from Hunt that he had sailed
from Genoa, on Monday July ist , S., Edward, and
Capt. Roberts (the Gent, who built our boat) departed
in our boat for Leghorn to receive him—I was then
just better, had begun to crawl from my bedroom to
the terrace, but bad spirits succeeded to ill health, and
this departure of Shelley’s seemed to add insufferablySHELLEY'S DEATH.
162
to my misery. I could not endure that he should go.
I called him back two or three times, and told him
that if I did not see him soon I would go to Pisa
with the child—I cried bitterly when he went away.
They went, and Jane, Claire, and I remained alone with
the children—I could not walk out, and though I grad-
ually gathered strength it was slowly, and my ill spirits
increased; in my letters to him I entreated him to
return—4 The feeling that some misfortune would
happen/ I said, ‘ haunted meI feared for the child,
for the idea of danger connected with him never
struck me—when Jane and Claire took their evening
walk I used to patrole the terrace, oppressed with
wretchedness, yet gazing on the most beautiful scene in
the world. This Gulph of Spezzia is divided into many
small bays of which ours was far the most beautiful—
the two horns of the bay (so to express myself) were
wood-covered promontories crowned with castles—at
the foot of these on the furthest was Lerici, on the
nearest San* Arenzo—Lerici being above a mile by
land from us and San Arenzo about a hundred or two
yards—trees covered the hills that enclosed this bay,
and their beautiful groups were picturesquely con-
trasted with the rocks the castle and the town—the
sea lay far extended in front, while to the west we saw
the promontory and island which formed one of the
extreme boundarys of the Gulph—to see the sun set
upon this scene, the stars shine, and the moon rise was aSHELLEY'S DEATH.
163
sight of wondrous beauty, but to me it added only to
my wretchedness—I repeated to my self all that another
would have said to console me, and told myself the
tale of love, peace, and competence which I enjoyed—
but I answered myself by tears—did not my William
die ? and did I hold my Percy by a firmer tenure ?—
Yet I thought when he, when my Shelley returns I
shall be happy—he will comfort me, if my boy be ill
he will restore him and encourage me. I had a letter
or two from Shelley mentioning the difficulties he had
in establishing the Hunts and that he was unable to
fix the time of his return. Thus a week passed. On
Monday 8th, Jane had a letter from Edward, dated
Saturday; he said that he waited at Leghorn for S.
who was at Pisa,—that S.’s return was uncertain ; ‘ but,’
he continued, ‘ if he should not come by Monday I
will come in a felucca, and you may expect me Tues-
day evening at furthest.’ This was Monday, but with
us it was stormy all day and we did not at all sup-
pose that they could put to sea. At twelve at night
we had a thunder storm, Tuesday it rained all day and
was calm—the sky wept on their graves—on Wednes-
day—the wind was fair from Leghorn, and in the
evening several feluccas arrived thence—one brought
word that they had sailed Monday, but we did not
believe them—Thursday was another day of fair wind,
and when twelve at night came and we did not see the
tall sails of the little boat double the promontory be-164
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
fore us we began to fear, not the truth, but some ill-
ness—some disagreeable news for their detention.
Jane got so uneasy that she determined to proceed the
next day to Leghorn in a boat to see what was the
matter—Friday came and with it a heavy sea and bad
wind—Jane however resolved to be rowed to Leg-
horn (since no boat could sail) and busied herself in
preparations—I wished her to wait for letters, since
Friday was letter day—she would not—but the sea de-
tained her, the swell rose so that no boat would ven-
ture out.—At twelve at noon our letters came—there
was one from Hunt to Shelley, it said—* Pray write to
tell us how you got home, for they said that you had
bad weather after you sailed Monday, and we are anx-
ious’—the paper fell from me—I trembled all over—
Jane read it—‘Then it is all over!’ she said. 4 No,
my dear Jane/ I cried, ‘ it is not all over, but this
suspense is dreadful—come with me, we will go to
Leghorn, we will post to be swift and learn our fate.’
We crossed to Lerici, despair in our hearts; they raised
our spirits there by telling us that no accident had
been heard of and that it must have been known &c.—
but still our fear was great—and without resting we
posted to Pisa. It must have been fearful to see us—
two poor, wild, aghast creatures—driving like Matilda
towards the sea to learn if we were to be forever
doomed to misery. I knew that Hunt was at Pisa at
Lord Byron’s house but I thought that L. B. was atSHELLEY'S DEATH.
165
Leghorn. I settled that we should drive to Casa Lan-
franchi, that I should get out and ask the fearful ques-
tion of Hunt, ‘ Do you know anything of Shelley?’
On entering Pisa the idea of seeing Hunt for the first
time for four years under such circumstance, and ask-
ing him such a question, was so terrific to me that it
was with difficulty that I prevented myself from going
into convulsions—my struggles were dreadful—they
knocked at the door, and some one called out ‘ Chi e ?’
it was the Guiccioli’s maid—L. B. was in Pisa—Hunt
was in bed, so I was to see L. B. instead of him.
—This was a great relief to me ; I staggered up stairs—
the Guiccioli came to meet me smiling while I could
hardly say — ‘Where is he — Sapete alcuna cosa di
Shelley ?’—They knew nothing—he had left Pisa on
Sunday—on Monday he had sailed—there had been
bad weather Monday afternoon—more they knew not.
Both L. B. and the lady have told me since—that on
that terrific evening I looked more like a ghost than
a woman—light seemed to eminate from my features,
my face was very white—I looked like marble.—Alas
I had risen almost from a bed of sickness for this
journey—I had travelled all day—it was now twelve
at night and we refusing to rest proceeded to Leg-
horn—not in despair—no, for then we must have died,
but with sufficient hope to keep up the agitation of
the spirits which was all my life. It was past two in
the morning when we arrived—they took us to the166
SHELLEY'S DEATH
wrong inn—neither Trelawny or Capt. Roberts were
there, nor did we exactly know where they were so
we were obliged to wait until daylight. We threw
ourselves drest on our beds and slept a little, but
at 6 o’clock we went to one or two inns to ask for
one or the other of these gentlemen. We found Rob-
erts at the Globe. He came down to us with a face
which seemed to tell us that the worst was true, and
here we learned all that had occurred during the week
that they had been absent from us, and under what
circumstances they had departed on their return.
—Shelley had passed most of the time at Pisa—ar-
ranging the affairs of the Hunts—and screwing L. B.’s
mind to the sticking place about the journal. He
had found this a difficult task at first but at length he
had succeeded to his heart’s content with both points.
Mrs. Mason said that she saw him in better health
and spirits than she had ever known him when he
took leave of her Sunday July 7th, his face burnt by
the sun, and his heart light that he had succeeded in
rendering the Hunts tolerably comfortable. Edward
had remained at Leghorn. On Monday July 8th
during the morning they were employed in buying
many things—eatable &c. for our solitude. There
had been a thunder storm early but about noon the
weather was fine and the wind right fair for Lerici
—They were impatient to be gone. Roberts said, stay
until to-morrow to see if the weather is settled andSHELLEY'S DEATH.
167
S. might have stayed but Edward was in so great an
anxiety to reach home—saying they would get there
in seven hours in that wind—that they sailed! S.
being in one of those extravagant fits of good spirits
in which you have sometimes seen him. Roberts
went out to the end of the mole and watched them
out of sight—they sailed at one and went off at the
rate of about seven knots—about three—Roberts, who
was still on the mole—saw wind coming from the
Gulph—or rather what the Italians call a temporale.
Anxious to know how the boat would weather the
storm, he got leave to go up the tower, and with the
glass discovered them about ten miles out at sea, off
Via Reggio, they were taking in their top-sails—4 The
haze of the storm,’ he said, ‘ hid them from me and I
saw them no more.—When the storm cleared I looked
again fancying that I should see them on their return
to us—but there was no boat on the sea.’—This then
was all we knew, yet we did not despair—they might
have been driven over to Corsica, and not knowing
the coast and gone God knows where. Reports fav-
ored this belief—it was even said that they had been
seen in the Gulph—we resolved to return with all pos-
sible speed—we sent a courier to go from tower to
tower along the coast to know if any thing had been
seen or found, and at 9 a.m. we quitted Leghorn,
stopped but one moment at Pisa, and proceeded to-
wards Lerici—When at two miles from Via ReggioSHELLEY'S DEATH
168
we rode down to that town to know if they knew any
thing—here our calamity first began to break on us
—a little boat and a water cask had been found five
miles off—they had manufactured a piccolessemalancia
of thin planks stitched by a shoe maker, just to let
them run on shore without wetting themselves as our
boat drew four feet water.—The description of that
found tallied with this—but then this boat was very
cumbersome, and in bad weather they might have
been easily led to throw it overboard—the cask fright-
ened me most—but the same reason might in some
sort be given for that. I must tell you that Jane and
I were not now alone. Trelawny accompanied us back
to our home. We journeyed on and reached the Magra
about half past ten p.m. I cannot describe to you
what I felt in the first moment when fording this
river, I felt the water splash about our wheels—I was
suffocated—I gasped for breath—I thought I should
have gone into convulsions, and I struggled violently
that Jane might not perceive it—looking down the
river I saw the two great lights burning at the foce—a
voice from within me seemed to cry aloud, ‘ That is
his grave.’ After passing the river I gradually recov-
ered. Arriving at Lerici we were obliged to cross our
little bay in a boat—San Arenzo was illuminated for a
festa—what a scene—the waving sea—the scirroco—
the lights of the town towards which we rode—and our
own desolate hearts—that colored all with a shroudSHELLEY'S DEATH.
169
—we landed; nothing had been heard of them. This
was Saturday July 13, and thus we waited until
Thursday July 25th thrown about by hope and fear.
We send messengers along the coast towards Genoa
and to Via Reggio—nothing had been found more
than the lencetta ; reports were brought us—we hoped
—and yet to tell you all the agony we endured during
those twelve days would be to make you conceive a
universe of pain—each moment intolerable in giving
place to one still worse. The people of the country
too added to one’s discomfort—they are like wild sav-
ages—on festas the men and women and children in
different bands—the sexes always separate—pass the
whole night in dancing on the sands close to our door,
running into the sea, then back again, and screaming
all the time one perpetual air—the most detestable in
the world—then the scirroco perpetually blew and the
sea forever moaned their dirge. On Thursday 25th
Trelawny left us to go to Leghorn to see what was
doing or what could be done. On Friday I was very ill,
but as evening came on I said to Jane—4 If any thing
had been found on the coast Trelawny would have
returned to let us know. He is not returned, so I
hope.’ About seven o’clock p.m. he did return—all
was over—all was quiet now, they had been found
washed on shore. Well all this was to be endured.
44 Well what more have I to say ? The next day we
returned to Pisa and here we are still—days pass away170
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
—one after another—and we live thus. We are all to-
gether—we shall quit Italy together. Jane must pro-
ceed to London—ifletters do not alter my views I shall
remain in Paris.—Thus we live—seeing the Hunts now
and then. Poor Hunt has suffered terribly as you may
guess. Lord Byron is very kind to me and comes with
the Guiccioli to see me often. To-day—this day—
the sun shining in the sky—they are gone to the deso-
late sea coast to perform the last offices to their earthly
remains, Hunt, L. B. and Trelawny. The quaran-
tine laws would not permit us to remove them sooner
—and now only on condition that we burn them to
ashes. That I do not dislike.—His rest shall be at Rome
beside my child—where one day I also shall join them
Adonais is not Keats’s, it is his own elegy—he bids
you there go to Rome—I have seen the spot where
he now lies—the sticks that mark the spot where the
sands cover him—he shall not be there, it is too near
Via Reggio—they are now about this fearful office
—and I live ! One more circumstance I will mention.
As I said he took leave of Mrs. Mason in high spirits
on Sunday—* Never,’ said she, ‘ did I see him look
happier than the last glance I had of his counte-
nance.’ On Monday he was lost—on Monday night
she dreamt that she was some where—she knew not
where—and he came looking very pale and fearfully
melancholy—she said to him—‘ You look ill, you are
tired, sit down and eat.’ ‘ No,’ he replied, ‘ I shallSHELLEY'S DEATH.
171
never eat more, I have not a soldo in the world/
—‘ Nonsense/ said she, i this is no inn—you need not
pay/—1 Perhaps/ he answered, ‘ it is the worse for
that/ Then she awoke, and going to sleep again she
dreamt that my Percy was dead, and she awoke cry-
ing bitterly—so bitterly and felt so miserable—that she
said to herself—* Why if the little boy should die I
should not feel it in this manner/ She was so struck
with these dreams that she mentioned them to her
servants the next day—saying she hoped all was welt
with us.
“ Well here is my story—the last story that I shall
have to tell—all that might have been bright in my
life is now despoiled.—I shall live to improve myself,
to take care of my child, and render myself worthy to
join him. Soon my weary pilgrimage will begin—I
rest now—but soon I must leave Italy—and then there
is an end of all but dispair. Adieu. I hope you are
well and happy. I have an idea that while he was at
Pisa he received a letter from you that I have never
seen—so not knowing where to direct I shall send this
letter to Peacock—I shall send it open—he may be
glad to read it.
“ Yours ever truly
“ Mary W. S.
“Pisa, August 15th, 1822.
“ I shall probably write to you soon again. I have172
SHELLEY'S DEATH
left out a material circumstance—a fishing-boat saw
them go down.—It was about four in the afternoon—
they saw the boy at mast head, when baffling winds
struck the sails—they had looked away a moment,
and looking again the boat was gone—This is their
story but there is little doubt that these men might
have saved them, at least Edward who could swim.
They could not they said get near her—but three
quarters of an hour after passed over the spot where
they had seen her—they protested no wreck of her was
visible, but Roberts going on board their boat found
several spars belonging to her.—Perhaps they let them
perish to obtain these. Trelawny thinks he can get
her up, since another fisherman thinks he has found
the spot where she lies, having drifted near shore. T.
does this perhaps to know the cause of her wreck
—but I care little about it.”
When the dreadful tidings of Shelley’s certain death
reached Hunt he wrote to .Mrs. Shelley, whom he had
not yet seen, this letter of noblest friendship:
“ Dearest Mary,—I trust you will have set out on
your return from that dismal place, before you receive
this. You will also have seen Trelawny. God bless
you and enable us all to be a support to one another.
Let us do our best if it is only for that purpose. It is
easier for me to say that I will do it, than for you: butSHELLEY'S DEATH.
173
whatever happens, this I can safely say, that I belong
to those whom Shelley loves, and that all which it is
possible for me to do for them, now and ever is theirs.
I will grieve with them, endure with them, and if it
be necessary, work for them while I have life.—Your
most affectionate friend,
“ Leigh Hunt.
“ Marianne sends you a thousand loves, and longs,
with myself, to try whether we can say or do one
thing that can enable you and Mrs Williams to bear
up a little better. But we rely on your great strength
of mind.”
But this letter was not long afterward followed by
an act so thoughtless, so selfish, that it seemed to
belie the natural goodness of Hunt’s nature. His en-
thusiastic love for Shelley, his grief at the awful sacri-
fice, made him forget that Mrs. Shelley’s claim was
paramount over that of any friend, however dear. Of
his ungracious conduct in regard to the possession
of Shelley’s heart, Captain Roberts writes : “ After the
funeral rites of Shelley had been performed, Trelawny
gave the heart which had remained unconsumed to
Hunt. Mary wrote to Hunt, requesting that it might
be sent to her. Hunt refused to part with it unless
Mary would maintain her claim by strong and con-
clusive arguments. He added that he thought it174
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
probable that the relic of his friend would remain in
his possession. Mary was in despair. At length the
amiable Mrs. Williams undertook to obtain the ful-
filment of Mary’s wishes. She wrote to Hunt, and
represented how grievious and melancholy it was that
Shelley’s remains should become a source of dissen-
tion between his dearest friends. She obtained her
purpose. Hunt said that she had brought forward
the only argument that could have induced him to
yield.”
Could anything illustrate more clearly the gentle-
ness and forbearance of Mary Shelley’s character than
that she entirely forgave and forgot this indignity of
Leigh Hunt’s, and never had in her heart anything
but the most affectionate friendship for him ?
Shelley’s heart was deposited in Rome, in the Eng-
lish cemetery, and Trelawny planted around the
tomb eight cypresses. Beside the simple Latin in-
scription which Leigh Hunt wrote, Trelawny had
placed on the stone some lines from the “ Tempest,”
a favorite with Shelley:
“ Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.”
From Pisa Mrs. Shelley wrote the two following
letters to Miss Curran:SHELLEY'S DEATH
175
“ Pisa, July 26th, 1822
“ My dear Miss Curran,
“ You will have received my letter concerning the pic-
tures, and now I have another request to make. Your
kindness to us when we were both so unhappy—your
great kindness—makes me do this without the feeling
of unwillingness, which I have in asking favors of any
other person. Besides you are unhappy, and therefore
can better sympathize and console the miserable. You
would greatly oblige me, if you would get me from one
of those shops in the Piazza di Spagna two mosaic
stones, about as large as a half-crown piece. On one I
wish an heart’s-ease to be depicted: they call these
flowers in Italian Socera huoro, or Viola far falla, Viola
regolina, Viola renagola: on the other (I think I have
seen such a one) a view of the tomb of Cestius. I re-
member also that in one of your rooms, there was a
view of this place, and the people of the house might
part with it, or a modern artist at Rome might make
one for me which would give me great pleasure. The
difficulty is to pay you for these things: but as soon
(if you have the extreme kindness to fulfil my re-
quests) as I know what money you spend for me, I
will take care it shall be remitted to you without
delay.
“ Will you indeed my dear Miss Curran, do as I
ask you ? Alas ! these trifles (not the picture—that is
no trifle) serve as a kind of vent for those sentiments176
SHELLEY'S DEATH
of personal affections and attentions which are so
cruelly crushed forever. In a little poem of his are
these words; ‘ Pansies let my flowers be.’ Pansies
are heart’s ease; and in another he says, that pansies
mean memory. So I would make myself a locket to
wear in eternal memory, with the representation of his
flower, and with his hair; such things must now do
instead of words, of love, and the dear habit of seeing
him daily. Pity me then, and indulge me.
“ In my last letter I was so selfish that I did not ask
after your welfare. Pray write to me. I must ever be
grateful to you for your kindness to us in misfortune:
and how much more when, through your talents, and
your goodness, I shall possess the only likeness that
is of my husband’s earthly form.
“ My little Percy is well—not so beautiful as Wil-
liam, though there is some resemblance.
“ Yours ever truly,
“ Mary W. Shelley.”
“ Pisa, August 14th, 1822
“ My dear Miss Curran,
“ I have written two letters to you, requesting that
favor now nearer my heart than any other earthly
thing—the picture of my Shelley. Perhaps you have
been at Gensano, and that delays your reply: perhaps
you have altered your residence, and have not re-
ceived my letters.SHELLEY'S DEATH.
177
“ I am well: so is my boy. We leave Italy soon ;
so I am particularly anxious to obtain this treasure,
which I am sure you will give me as soon as possible.
I have no other likeness of him: and in so utter des-
olation, how invaluable to me is your picture. Will
you not send it? Will you not answer me without
delay? Your former kindness bids me hope every-
thing.
“ Very sincerely yours,
“ M. W. Shelley.”
The kind letter below came to her from her father
as soon as he heard of her sorrow. But it was to Mrs.
Gisborne that she turned in her outbursts of grief.
This dear friend had known and loved Shelley; she
had been with them during their life in Italy. Mrs.
Shelley turned to her as she would have turned to
her mother, and Mrs. Gisborne knew, with a woman’s
instinct, that she needed not philosophy but sym-
pathy.
“ 9th Aug 1822.
“ My poor girl ! What do you mean to do with
yourself? You surely do not mean to stay in Italy?
How glad I should be to be near you, and to endeavor
by new expedients each day, to make up for your
loss! But you are the best judge. If Italy is a
country to which in these few years, you are natural-
12i78
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
ized, and if England is become dull and odious to
you, then stay.
“ I should think however that now you have lost
your closest friend, your mind would naturally turn
homewards [to] your earliest friend. Is it not so?
Surely we might be a great support to each other,
under the trials to which we are reserved. What
signify a few outward adversities, if we find a friend
at home ?
“Above all let me entreat you to keep up your
courage. You have many duties to perform: you
must now be the father as well as the mother; and
I trust you have energy of character enough to enable
you to perform your duties honorably and well.
“ Ever and ever most affectionately yours
“ W. Godwin.”
Mrs. Shelley wrote this letter to Mrs. Gisborne
shortly before leaving the well-loved Pisa:
“ Pisa, September ioth, 1822
“ And so here I am! I continue to exist; to see one
day succeed the other; to dread night, but more to
dread morning, and hail another cheerless day. My
boy, too, is alas! no consolation. When I think how
he loved him—the plans he had for his education—
his sweet childish voice strikes me to the heart. Why
should he live in this world of pain and anguish?SHELLEY'S DEATH.
179
And if he went I should go too, and we should all
sleep in peace.
“ At times I feel an energy within me to combat with
my destiny—but again I sink. I have but one hope
for which I live—to render myself worthy to join him ;
and such a feeling sustains me during moments of
enthusiasm ; but darkness and misery soon overwhelm
the mind, when all near objects bring agony alone
with them. People used to call me lucky in my star;
you see now how true such a prophecy is.
“ I was fortunate in having fearlessly placed my
destiny in the hands of one who—a superior being
among men, a bright planetary spirit enshrined in
an earthly temple—raised me to the height of hap-
piness. So far am I now happy, that I would not
change my situation as his widow with that of the
most prosperous woman in the world; and surely
the time will at length come, when I shall be at peace,
and my brain and heart be no longer alive with un-
utterable anguish. I can conceive but of one circum-
stance that could afford me the semblance of content
—that is the being permitted to live where I am now,
in the same house, in the same state, occupied alone
with my child, in collecting his manuscripts, writing
his life and thus to go easily to my grave.
“But this must not be! Even if circumstances did
not compel me to return to England. I would not
stay another summer in Italy with my child. I willi8o
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
at least do my best to render him well and happy
and the idea that my circumstances may at all injure
him is the fiercest pang my mind endures.
“ I wrote you a long letter, containing a slight
sketch of my sufferings. I sent it directed to Pea-
cock, at the India House, because accident led me to
believe that you were no longer in London. I said in
that, that on that day (Aug. 15th) they had gone to per-
form the last offices for him ; however I erred in this
for on that day, those of Edward were alone fulfilled,
and they returned on the 16th to celebrate Shelley's.
I will say nothing of the ceremony, since Trelawny
has written an account of it, to be printed in the forth
coming journal: I will only say that all except his
heart, (which was inconsumable) was burnt, and that
two days ago I went to Leghorn and beheld the
small box that contained his earthly dress. Those
smiles—that form. Great God ! no—he is not there:
he is with me, about me—life of my life, and soul of
my soul! If his divine spirit did not penetrate mine
I could not survive to weep thus.
“ I will mention the friends that I have here that
you may form an idea of our situation. Mrs Williams
and I live together. We have one purse, and joined
in misery we are for the present joined in life.
“ The poor girl withers like a lily. She lives for
her children but it is a living death. Lord Byron
has been very kind. But the friend to whom we areSHELLEY'S DEATH.
181
eternally indebted is Trelawny. I have, of course
mentioned him to you as one who wishes to be con-
sidered eccentric, but who was noble and generous
at bottom. I always thought so, even when no fact
proved it: and Shelley agreed with me as he always
did, or rather, I with him. We heard people speak
against him on account of his vagaries; we said to
one another, 4 Still we like him ; we believe him to be
good/ Once even when a whim of his led him to
treat me with something like impertinence, I forgave
him, and I have now been well rewarded. In my
outline of events, you will see how unasked he re-
turned with Jane and me from Leghorn to Lerici;
how he stayed with us miserable creatures twelve
days there, endeavoring to keep up our spirits; how
he left us on Thursday, and finding our misfortune con-
firmed, then without rest returned on Friday to us, and
again without rest returned with us to Pisa on Satur-
day. These were no common services. Since that
he has gone through by himself, all the annoyances
of dancing attendance on consuls and governors for
permission to fulfil the last duties to those gone, and
attending the ceremony himself. All the disagree-
able part, and all the fatigue fell on him. As Hunt
said, ‘ He worked with the meanest, and felt with the
best/ He is generous to a distressing degree; but
after all these benefits to us, what I most thank him
for is this:—when on that night of agony—that Friday182
SHELLEY'S DEATH
night—he returned to announce that hope was dead
for us : when he had told me that, his earthly frame
being found, his spirit was no longer to be my guide,
protector and companion in this dark world,—he
did not attempt to console me: that would have been
too cruelly useless; but he launches forth, into as it
were, an overflowing and eloquent praise of my
divine Shelley, till I was almost happy that I was
thus unhappy, to be fed by the praises of him, and
to dwell on the eulogy that his loss thus drew from
his friend.
“ God knows what will be come of me. My life is
now very monotonous as to outward events; yet how
diversified by internal feeling. How often in the in-
tensity of grief, does one instant seem to fill and em-
brace the universe! As to the rest,—the mechanical
spending of my time—of course I have a great deal
to do, preparing for my journey. I make no visits,
except one, once in about ten days, to Mrs. Mason.
Trelawny resides chiefly at Leghorn, since he is cap-
tain of Lord Byron’s vessel, the 'Bolivar.’ He comes
to see us about once a week, and Lord Byron visits us
about twice a week, accompanied by the Guiccioli;
but seeing people is an annoyance which I am happy
to be spared. Solitude is my only help and resource.
Accustomed, even when he was with me to spend
much of my time alone, I can at those moments for-
get myself, until some idea, which I think I wouldSHELLEY'S DEATH
183
communicate to him occurs, and then the yawning
and dark gulf, again displays itself, unshaded by the
rainbows which the imagination had formed. De-
spair, energy, love, desponding and excessive afflic-
tion, are like clouds driven across my mind, one by
one, until trees blot the scene, and weariness of spirit
consigns me to temporary repose.
“ I shudder with horror when I look back upon what
I have suffered: and when I think of the wild and
miserable thoughts that have possessed me, I say to
myself: ‘ Is it true that I ever feel thus?’ And then
I weep in pity for myself: yet each day adds to the
stock of sorrow, and death is the only end. I would
study, and I hope I shall. I would write, and when
I am settled, I may. But were it not for the steady
hope I entertain of joining him, what a mockery would
be this world! Without that hope, I could not study
or write; for fame and usefulness (except as far as re-
gards my child) are nullities to me. Yet I shall be
happy if any thing I ever produce may exalt and soften
sorrow, as the writings of the divinities of our race
have mine. But how can I aspire to that.
“ The world will surely one day feel what it has lost,
when this bright child of song deserted her. Is not
Adonais his own elegy ? And there does he truly de-
pict the universal woe which should overspread all
good minds, since he has ceased to be their fellow- *
laborer in this worldly scene. How lovely does he184
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
paint death to be, and with what heart felt sorrow does
one repeat that line—
“ * But I am chained to time, and cannot thence depart!’
“ How long do you think I will live? As long as
my mother? Then eleven long years must intervene.
I am now on the eve of completing my five and twen-
tieth year. How drearily young for one so lost as I!
How young in years for one who lives ages each day
in sorrow! Think you that those moments are
counted in my life, as in other people’s ? Ah, no! The
day before the sea closed over mine own Shelley, he
said to Marianne, ‘ If I die to-morrow, I have lived
to be older than my father, I am ninety years of age.’
Thus also may I say. The eight years I passed with
him, were spun out beyond the usual length of a man’s
life: and what I have suffered since, will write years
on my brow, and entrench them in my heart. Surely
I am not long for this world. Most sure would I be
were it not for my boy; but God grant that I may live
to make his early years happy!
“ Well, adieu! I have no events to write about,
and can therefore only scrawl about my feelings.
This letter, indeed, is only the sequel of my last. In
that I closed the history of all that can interest me.
That letter I wish you to send my father: the present
one it is best not.
“ I suppose I shall see you in England some of theseSHELLEY'S DEATH.
I85
days: but I shall write to you again before I quit this
place. Be as happy as you can, and hope for better
things in the next world. By firm hope, you may at-
tain your wishes. Again adieu !
“ Affectionately yours,
“ M. W. Shelley.”
In September, Mrs. Shelley went to Genoa and
secured a house for Lord Byron and another for her-
self and the Hunts. She lived there and at Albara,
just outside the city, until she quitted Italy in the
summer of 1823. Mrs. Hunt, Marianne, of whom she
speaks, was the mother of many small children, and
was moreover in very precarious health, and Mrs.
Shelley, being familiar with the language and the
land, was of great use to her in selecting her house
and household. Mrs. Shelley’s letters to Mrs. Gis-
borne give one an idea of her life at that time. She
was, indeed, alone. But the winter with the Hunts,
cheerful sight of children’s faces, constant occupa-
tion, and contact with people promised better things,
which a letter later on shows were not entirely un-
fulfilled. But it was a constant struggle against de-
pression.
About the first letter that Mrs. Shelley wrote after
reaching Genoa was to Miss Clairmont, who was
about to start for Vienna, where her brother was a
tutor.SHELLEY'S DEATH
186
“ Sept 15, 1822.
“ My dear Claire,—I do not wonder that you were
and are melancholy—or that the excess of that feeling
should oppress you. Great God ! what we have gone
through—what variety of care and misery, all closed
now in blackest night. And I—am I not melan-
choly ? here in this busy hateful Genoa, where noth-
ing speaks to me of him, except the sea which is his
murderer—well I shall have his books and manu-
script, and in those I shall live, and from the study of
those I do expect some instants of content. In soli-
tude my imagination and ever moving thoughts may
afford me some seconds of exaltation, that may render
me both happier here and worthier of him hereafter.
Such as I felt walking up a mountain by myself, at
sunrise during my journey—when the rocks looked
black about me, and a white mist concealed all but
them—I thought then, that thinking of him and ex-
citing my mind, my days might pass in a kind of
peace—but these thoughts are so fleeting—and then
I expect unhappiness alone from all the worldly part
of my life—from my intercourse with human beings—
I know that will bring nothing but unhappiness to me.
If indeed I except Trelawny, who appears so truly
generous and kind.
“ But I will not talk of myself. You have enough
to annoy and make you miserable—and in nothing
can I assist you. But I do hope that you will findSHELLEY'S DEATH.
187
Germany better suited to you in every way than Italy
—and that you will make friends—and more than all,
become really attached to some one there.
“ I wish when I was in Pisa, that you had said
you thought you should be short of money, and I
would have left you more—but you seemed to think
150 francessoni plenty.—I would not go on with
Goethe [sic] except with a fixed price per sheet to
be regularly paid—and that price not less than five
guineas—Make this be understood fully through
Hunt before you go, and then I will take care that
you get the money—but if you not [sic] fix it, then I
cannot manage so well.
“You are going to Vienna, how anxiously do I
hope to find peace—I do not look to find it here
—Genoa has a bad atmosphere for me I fear, and noth-
ing but the horror of being a burden to my family
prevents my accompanying Jane—If I had any fixed
income I would go at least to Paris—and I shall go the
minute I have one.
“ Adieu my dear Claire, write to me often as I
shall to you,
“ Affectionately yours
“ Mary W. S.
“ I cannot get your German dictionary now, since I
must have put it in my great case of books—but I will
send it by the first opportunity.”SHELLEY'S DEATH
188
This next letter is to Mrs. Gisborne, and speaks of
Mrs. Williams’s departure from Italy.
“ Genoa, September 17th, 1822.
“ I am here alone in Genoa; quite, quite alone!
Jane has left me to proceed to England, and except
my sleeping child, I am alone. Since you do not
communicate with my father, you will perhaps be sur-
prised after my last letter, that I do not come to Eng-
land. I have written to him a long account of the
argument of all my friends to dissuade me from that
miserable journey: Jane will detail them to you; and
therefore I merely say now that, having no business
there, I am determined not to spend that money,
which will support me nearly a year here, in a jour-
ney, the sole end of which appears to me the necessity
I should be under when arrived in London, of be-
ing a burden to my father. When my crowns are
gone if Sir T. refuses, I hope to be able to support
myself by my writings and mine own Shelley’s MSS.
At least during many long months I shall have peace
as to money affairs: and one evil the less is much to
one, whose existence is suffering alone. Lord Byron
has a house here and will arrive soon: I have taken
a house for the Hunts and myself, outside one of the
gates. It is large and neat, with a podere attached.
We shall pay about eighty crowns between us; so I
hope that I shall find tranquillity from care this winterSHELLEY'S DEATH
189
—though that may be the last of my life so free. Yet
I do not hope it though I say so;—Hope is a word that
belongs not to my situation. He—my own beloved—
the exalted and divine Shelley, has left me alone in
this miserable world—this earth canopied by the eter-
nal starry heaven, where is he—where—Oh, my God !
Yes—where I shall one day be!
“ Jane quitted me this morning at four. After she
left me I again went to rest and thought of Herghano,
its halls, its cypresses, the perfume of its mountains,
and the gayety of our life beneath their shadow. Then
I dozed awhile and in my dream saw dear Edward
most clearly. He came he said, to pass a few hours
with us, but could not stay long. Then I woke, and
the day began. I went out, took Hunt’s house—but
as I walked, I felt that which is with me the sign of
unutterable grief. I am not given to tears; and though
my most miserable fate has often turned my eyes to
fountains, yet oftener I suffer agonies unassuaged by
tears. But during these last sufferings, I have felt an
oppression at my heart I never felt before. It is not
a palpitation, but a stringemento which is quite con-
vulsive, and did I not struggle greatly, would cause
violent hysterics. Looking on the sea, or hearing its
roar,—his dirge—it comes upon me: but these are
corporeal sufferings I can get over. That which is
insurmountable, is the constant feeling of despair that
shadows me; I seem to walk on a narrow path with190
SHELLEY'S DEATH
fathomless precipices all around me: yet where can I
fall ? I have already fallen, and all that comes of bad
or good is a mere mockery.
“ Those about me have no idea of what I suffer:
none are sufficiently interested in me to observe that,
though my lips smile, my eyes are blank, or to notice
the desolate look that I cast upwards towards the
sky. Pardon dear friend, this selfishness in writing
thus. There are moments when the heart must sfogare,
or be suffocated : and such a moment is this. When
quite alone, my babe sleeping, and dear Jane having
just left me, it is with difficulty that I prevent myself
from flying from mental misery by bodily exertion,
when to run into that vast grave (the sea), until I sink
to rest would be a pleasure to me: and instead of
this I write, and as I write, I say, ‘ Oh God ! have pity
on me!’ At least I will have pity on you. Good
night! I will finish this when people are about me
and I am in a more cheerful mood. Good night! I
will go look at the stars: they are eternal; so is he
—so am I.
“ You have not written to me since my misfortune.
I understand this: you first waited for a letter from
me, and that letter told you not to write. But answer
this as*soon as you receive it. Talk to me of your-
self and also of my English affairs. I am afraid that
they will not go on very well in my absence; but it
would cost more to set them right than they are worth.SHELLEY'S DEATH.
I9I
I will however let you know what I think my friends
ought to do, that when you talk to Peacock, he may
learn what I wish. A claim should be made on the
part of Shelley’s executors for a maintenance for my
child and myself from Sir Timothy. Lord Byron is
ready to do this or any other service for me that his
office of executor demands from him. But I do not
wish it to be done separately by him, and I wait to
hear from England before I ask him to write to Whit-
ton on the subject. Secondly Ollier must be asked
for all MSS., and some plan be reflected on for the
best manner of republishing Shelley’s works as well
as the writings he has left. Who will allow money to
Ianthe and Charles ?* As for you, my dear friends, I
do not see what you can do for me, except to send me
the originals or copies of Shelley’s most interesting
letters to you. I hope soon to get into my house,
where writing, copying Shelley’s MSS., walking and
being of some use in the education of Marianne’s chil-
dren, will be my occupations. Where is that letter in
verse Shelley once wrote to you. Let me have a
copy of it. Here is a long letter all about myself:
but though I cannot write I like to hear of others.
“ Adieu, dear friends ! Your sincerely attached,
“ Mary W. Shelley.”
Shelley’s children by his first marriage.192
SHELLEY'S DEATH
Only her own words can tell how bitterly lonely
her life now was, how desperate the struggle. It was
into her journal that she poured out the anguish of
her heart If we did not find in those pages, beside
the record of her sorrow, so much of the real woman,
it would seem almost like sacrilege to read them,
now that the drooping being who hung over them with
fainting spirit, has long since recorded her last words.
But Mrs. Shelley’s grief was so noble that one feels
as he reads that Shelley’s death was like the separat-
ing of twin stars whose light in travelling to this
world had so blended and commingled that it seemed
like the radiance from a single luminary.
On October 2, 1822, she resumes her journal:
“ On the 8th of July I finished my journal. This is
a curious coincidence. The date still remains—the
fatal 8th—a monument to show that all ended then.
And I begin again ? Oh! never. But several mo-
tives induce me when the day has gone down, and all is
silent around me, steeped in sleep, to pen,as occasion
wills, my reflections and feelings. First, I have no
friend. For eight years I communicated with unlim-
ited freedom, with one whose genius, far transcending
mine, awakened and guided my thoughts. I con-
versed with him ; rectified my errors of judgment; ob-
tained new lights from him ; and my mind was satis-
fied. Now I am alone—oh how alone. The stars
may hold my tears, and the winds drink my sighs; butSHELLEY'S DEATH.
193
my thoughts are a sealed treasure, which I can con-
fide to none. But can I express all I feel? Can I
give words to thoughts and feelings, that as a tempest
hurry me along? Is this the sand that the ever flow-
ing sea of thought would impress indelibly ? Alas !
I am alone. No eye answers mine; my voice can
with none assume its natural modulation: What a
change! Oh, my beloved Shelley! how often during
those happy days—happy, though checkered—I
thought how superiority gifted I had been in being
united to one to whom I could unveil myself, and who
could understand me ! Well, then, I am now reduced
to these white pages, which I am to blot with dark
imagery. As I write, let me think what he would
have said if, speaking thus to him he could have an-
swered me. Yes, my own heart I would fain know
what you think of my desolate state: what you think
I ought to do, what to think. I guess you would
answer thus :—‘ Seek to know your own heart, and
learning what it best loves, try to enjoy that/ Well,
I cast my eyes around, and looking forward to the
bounded prospect in view I ask myself what pleases
me there. My child;—so many feelings arise when
I think of him that I turn aside to think no more.
Those I most loved are gone forever;—those who
held the second rank are absent: and among those
near me as yet, I trust to the disinterested kindness of
one alone. Beneath all this my imagination ever
13194
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
flags. Literary labors, the improvement of my mind,
and the enlargement of my ideas, are the only occu-
pations that elevate me from my lethargy; all events
seem to lead me to that one point, and the courses of
destiny having dragged me to that single resting-place
have left me. Father, mother, friend husband, chil-
dren—all made as it were, the team that conducted
me here; and now all except you my poor boy (and
you are necessary to the continuance of my life) are
all gone, and I am left to fulfil my task. So be it.
“October 5th—Well they are come*; and it is all
as I said. I awoke as from sleep, and thought how I
had vegetated these last days; for feeling leaves little
trace on the memory, if it be like mine unvaried. I
had felt for and with myself alone, and I awake now
to take a part in life. As far as others are concerned,
my sensations have been most painful. I must work
hard amidst the vexations that I perceive are pre-
paring for me—to preserve my peace and tranquillity
of mind. I must preserve some if I am to live; for
since I bear at the bottom of my heart a fathomless
well of bitter waters, the workings of which my phi-
losophy is ever at work to repress, what will be my
fate if the petty vexations of life are added to this
sense of eternal and infinite misery ?
“Oh, my child! what is your fate to be? You
* Leigh Hunt and his family.SHELLEY'S DEATH
195
alone reach me; you are the only chain that links me to
time; but for you I should be free. And yet I cannot
be destined to live long! Well, I shall commence my
task, commemorate the virtues of the only creature
worth loving or living for, and then, may be, I may
join him. Moonshine may be united to her planet,
and wander no more a sad reflection of all she loved
on earth.
“October 7th. I have received my desk to-day, and
have been reading my letters to mine own Shelley
during his absences at Marlow. What a scene to
recur to ! My William, Clara, Allegra, are all talked
of. They lived then, they breathed this air, and their
voices struck on my sense; their feet trod the earth
beside me, and their hands were warm with blood
and life when clasped in mine. Where are they all ?
This is too great an agony to be written about. I
may express my despair but my thoughts can find no
words.
j|e	jfc	>fc
“ I would endeavor to consider myself a faint con-
tinuation of his being and as far as possible, the reve-
lation to the earth of what he was. Yet to become
this, I must change much, and above all I must ac-
quire that knowledge, and drink at those fountains of
wisdom and virtue, from which he quenched his thirst.
Hitherto I have done nothing: yet I have not been
discontented with myself. I speak of the period of196
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
my residence here. For although unoccupied by
those studies which I have marked out for myself,
my mind has been so active, that its activity and not
its indolence, has made me neglectful. But now the
society of others causes this perpetual working of my
ideas somewhat to pause; and I must take advantage
of this to turn my mind, toward its immediate duties,
and to determine with firmness to commence the life
I have planned. You will be with me in all my
studies, dearest love! Your voice will no longer ap-
plaud me but in spirit you will visit and encourage
me; I know you will. What were I if I did not be-
lieve that you still exist? It is not with you as with
another. I believe that we all live hereafter; but you
my only one, were like a spirit caged, an elemental
being enshrined in a frail image now shattered. Do
they not all with one voice assert the same? Tre-
lawny, Hunt, and many others; and so at last you
quitted this painful prison, and you are free, my Shel-
ley—while I, your poor chosen one, am left to live as
I may.
“ What a strange life mine has been ! Love, youth
fear, and fearlessness led me early from the regular
routine of life, and I united myself to this being, who
not one of us though like to us, was pursued by
numberless miseries and annoyances, in all which I
shared. And then I was the mother of beautiful
children; but these stayed not by me. Still he wasSHELLEY'S DEATH
197
there; and though, in truth, after my William’s death,
this world seemed only a quicksand sinking beneath my
feet, yet beside me there was this bank of refuge—so
tempest-worn and frail, that methought its very weak-
ness was strength—and since Nature had written de-
struction on its brow, so the Power that rules human
affairs had determined, in spite of Nature that it
should endure. But that is gone. His voice can no
longer be heard: the earth no longer receives the
shadow of his form : annihilation has come over the
earthly appearance of the most gentle creature that
ever yet breathed this air; and I am still here—still
thinking, existing, all but hoping. Well, I will close
my book: to-morrow I must begin this new life of
mine.
“ October 19th.—How painful all change becomes to
one who, entirely and despotically engrossed by their
own feelings, leads as it were an internal life, quite
different from the outward and apparent one. Whilst
my life continues its monotonous course, within sterile
banks, an undercurrent disturbs the smooth face of
the waters, distorts all objects reflected in it, and the
mind is no longer a mirror in which outward events
may reflect themselves, but becomes itself the painter
and creator. If this perpetual activity has power to
vary with endless change, the every- day occurrences
of a most monotonous life, it appears to be animated
with the spirit of tempest and hurricane when any real198
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
occurrence diversifies the scene. Thus, to-night, a
few bars of a known air, seemed to be as a wind to
rouse from its depths every deep-seated emotion of
my mind. I would have given worlds to have sat, my
eyes closed, and listened to them for years. The re-
straint I was under caused these feelings to vary with
rapidity, but the words of the conversation, uninterest-
ing as they might be, seemed all to convey two senses
to me, and, touching a chord within me, to form a
music of which the speaker was little aware. I do
not think that any person’s voice, has the same power
of awakening melancholy in me as Albe’s.* I have
been accustomed, when hearing it, to listen and to
speak little: another voice, not mine ever replied—a
voice whose strings are broken. When Albe ceases
to speak, I expect to hear that other voice, and when
I hear another instead, it jars strangely with every
association. I have seen so little of Albe since our
residence in Switzerland, and having seen him there
every day his voice—a peculiar one—is engraved on
my memory with other sounds and objects from which
it can never disunite itself. I have heard Hunt in
company and conversation with many, when my own
one was not there. Trelawny perhaps is associated
in my mind with Edward more than with Shelley.
Even our older friends, Peacock and Hogg might
* Lord Byron.SHELLEY'S DEATH
199
talk together, or with others, and their voices would
suggest no change to me. But since incapacity and
timidity always prevented my mingling in the nightly
conversations of Diodati, they were, as it were, en-
tirely tete-a-tete between my Shelley and Albe; and
thus as I have said, when Albe speaks and Shelley
does not answer, it is as thunder without rain—the
form of the sun without heat or light—as any fa-
miliar object might be shorn of its best attributes ;
and I listen with an unspeakable melancholy that yet
is not all pain.
“ The above explains that which would otherwise
be an enigma, why Albe by his mere presence and
voice, has the power of exciting such deep and shifting
emotions within me. For my feelings have no analogy
either with my opinion of him, or the subject of his
conversation. With another I might talk and not for
the moment think of Shelley—at least not think of
him with the same vividness as if I were alone: but
when in company with Albe, I can never cease for a
second to have Shelley in my heart and brain, with
a clearness that mocks reality—interfering even by its
force with the functions of life—until, if tears do not
relieve me, the hysterical feeling, analogous to that
which the murmur of the sea gives me, presses pain-
fully upon me.
“ Well, for the first time for about a month I have
been in company with Albe for two hours, and, com-200
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
ing home I write this, so necessary is it for me, to ex-
press in words the force of my feelings. Shelley, be-
loved ! I look at the stars and at all nature, and it
speaks to me of you in the clearest accents. Why
cannot you answer me, my own one ? Is the instru-
ment so utterly destroyed ? I would endure ages of
pain to hear one tone of your voice strike on my ear.
“ November io—I have made my first probation
in writing and it has done me much good; and I get
more calm: the stream begins to take to its new
channel, inasmuch as to make me fear change. But
people must know little of me who think that, ab-
stractedly I am content with my present mode of life.
Activity of spirit is my sphere. But we cannot be
active of mind without an object: and I have none. I
am allowed to have some talent—that is sufficient me-
thinks, to cause my irreparable misery: for if one has
genius, what a delight it is to associate with a superior.
Mine own Shelley! the sun knows of none to be
likened to you—brave wise, gentle, noble-hearted, full
of learning, tolerance and love. Love! what a
word for me to write ! Yet, my miserable heart, per-
mit me yet to love—to see him in beauty, to feel
him in beauty, to be interpenetrated by the sense of
his excellence: and thus to love singly, eternally, ar-
dently, and not fruitlessly: for I am still his—still the
chosen one of that blessed spirit—still vowed to him
forever and ever!SHELLEY'S DEATH.
201
“ November I ith—It is better to grieve than not to
grieve. Grief at least tells me that I was not always
what I am now. I was once selected for happiness:
let the memory of that abide by me. You pass by
an old ruined house in a desolate lane and heed it
not. But, if you hear that that house is haunted by a
wild and beautiful spirit, it acquires an interest and
beauty of its own.
“ I shall be glad to be more alone again: one ought
to see no one, or many; and, confined to one society
I shall lose all energy, except that which I possess
from my own resources ; and I must be alone for these
to be put in activity.
“A cold heart! Have I a cold heart ? God knows !
But none need envy the icy region this heart encircles;
and at least the tears are hot which the emotions of
this cold heart forces me to shed. A cold heart!
Yes it would be cold enough if it were as I wished
it—cold, or burning in that flame for whose sake I
forgive this, and would forgive every other imputa-
tion—that flame in which your heart, beloved, lay
unconsumed. My heart is very full to-night!
“ I shall write his life, and thus occupy myself in
the only manner from which I can derive consolation.
That will be a task that may convey some balm.
What though I weep ? All is better than inaction
and—not forgetfulness—that never is—but an inactiv-
ity of remembrance.202
SHELLEY'S DEATH
“ And you my own boy! I am about to begin a
task, which if you live, will be an invaluable treasure
to you in after times. I must collect my materials,
and then in the commemoration of the divine virtues
of your father, I shall fulfil the only act of pleasure
there remains for me, and be ready to follow you, if
you leave me, my task being fulfilled. I have lived:
rapture, exultation, content,—all the varied changes
of enjoyment—have been mine. It is all gone: but
still, but still the airy paintings of what it has gone
through float by, and distance shall not dim them. If
I were alone, I had already begun what I have deter-
mined to do: but I must have patience, and for those
events my memory is brass, my thoughts a never-tired
engraver. France—Poverty—A few days of solitude
and some uneasiness—A tranquil residence in a beau-
tiful spot—Switzerland—Bath—Marlow—Milan—The
Baths of Lucerne—Este—Venice—Rome—Naples—
Rome and misery—Leghorn—Florence—Pisa—Soli-
tude—The Williamses—The Baths—Pisa: these are
the heads of chapters, and each containing a tale ro-
mantic beyond romance.
“ I no longer enjoy, but I love! Death cannot de-
prive me of that living spark which feeds on all given
it, and which is now triumphant in sorrow. I love
and shall enjoy happiness again : I do not doubt that,
—but when ?”
With a resolute spirit Mrs. Shelley encountered allSHELLEY'S DEATH.
203
the annoyances that her life at that time contained,
and they were not a few. Nurtured as she had been
in the atmosphere of broad and elevated thoughts,
her mind craved the intellectual stimulus that even
their outside circle of friends had given. The un-
broken monotony of which she writes to Mrs. Gis-
borne was the bar to that healthful outward life for
which she earnestly strove, and in which she recog-
nized her true chance of cheerfulness.
“ Albeno, near Genoa, Nov 22c!, 1822.
“ My dear Friend, No one ever writes to me.
Each day, one like the other, passes on, and if I were
where I would that I were, methinks I could not be
more forgotten. I cannot write myself, only to cast
the shadow of my misery on others.
“ What I have endured is not to be alleviated by
time; for every new event and thought brings more
clearly before me the fearful change. My ideas, want-
ing their support, fall; wanting their mate, they pine ;
and nothing the earth contains can alleviate that. I
see no one who did not know him; and thus I try to
patch up the links of a broken chain. I see conse-
quently only the Hunts, Lord Byron, and Trelawny;
but although Hunt knew him, he did not know him
lately, so my freshest impressions are void for him.
Lord Byron reminds me most of Shelley in a certain
way, for I saw them always together; and when Lord204
SHELLEY'S DEATH,\
Byron speaks I wait for Shelley’s voice in answer, as
the natural result. But this feeling must wear off; and
there is so little resemblance in their minds, that Lord
Byron seldom speaks to me of him without unwit-
tingly wounding and torturing me. With Trelawny
I can talk, and do talk for hours unreservedly of him;
but he is about to leave us and then I shall be thrown
on my own mind, to seek in its frightful depths for
memories and eternal sorrow.
“ Pardon me that I still write in this unletterlike
and incoherent manner; but I strive in vain to do
better. My last letter is a proof of how I succeed;
for when I curb myself to the relation of facts alone,
or determine so to curb myself, I put off writing from
day to day, endeavoring to catch the moment when I
shall feel less. But the pen in my hand, the same
spirit guides it, and one only thought swells the tor-
rent of words that is poured out. Perhaps it would
be better not to write at all, but the weakness of
human nature is to seek for sympathy. I think but
of one thing—my past life. While living, (do I live
now ?) I loved to imagine futurity, and now I strive
to do the same; but I have nothing desirable to imag-
ine save death; and my fancy flags, or sleeps, or wan-
ders, when it endeavors to pursue other thoughts. I
imagine my child dead, and what I should do then.
I feel that my whole life will be one misery: it will be
so—mark me!SHELLEY'S DEATH.
205
“The Hunts are getting on well. Marianne is not
better but she is not worse. We often see Trelawny
of an evening. Hunt likes him very much; and for
me I feel so deep a gratitude to him that my heart is
full but to name him. He supported us in our mis-
eries—my poor Jane and me. But for him menials
would have performed the most sacred of offices; and
when I shake his hand, I feel to the depth of my soul
that those hands collected those ashes. Yes; fori
saw them burned and scorched from the office. No
fatigue—no sun, or nervous horrors—deterred him as
one or the other of these causes deterred others. He
stood on the burning sand for many hours beside the
pyre; if he had been permitted by the soldiers, he
would have placed him there in his arms. I never,
never, can forget this; and now he talks of little else
save my Shelley and Edward.
“ I wish all MSS. to be sent without any exception,
and as soon as possible. I have heard from Miss
Curran. She is in Paris, and my Shelley’s picture is
at Rome. Nothing therefore can be done with re-
gard to that: so pray let me have the MSS. without
any delay—and let me entreat you as you love me, to
wait for nothing, but the very moment the MSS. are
obtained from Peacock, to send them to me. This is
of more consequence to me than you think.
“ I wish you would enter into an unbreakable en-
gagement to me, to write to me once a month. Your206
SHELLEY'S DEATH
letter may be the work of several hours scattered over
the month; but put a long letter into the post for
me the first of every month. I want some object—
some motive, great or small. I should look forward
to your letter as a certain thing, and it would be some-
thing to expect. Never mind what you write about;
let it be about his friends—some facts; it would be a
great solace to me; indeed it would.
“ Well, good-night. As usual, all are in bed ex-
cept me—my restless thoughts homeless in this world,
if they do not steal to the bedside of my sleeping
babe; and there I tremble. But I think the new soul
tries to amalgamate itself with its stubborn shrine,
and if it be too finely tempered, it cannot succeed.
Something earthly though good seems to announce
the decision of nature. So it is with Percy. The
crisis was last summer—how I trembled for him then !
and now it is not reason but habit that makes me
shudder.
“ I hear that Peacock has given the Essay on Poetry
to be published for the Liberal, and added that he had
other MSS. Now I am convinced there is nothing
perfect and I wish all to be sent me without delay.
“ Adieu!
“ Affectionately yours,
“ Mary W. Shelley.”
Can anything be more annoying or depressing thanSHELLEY'S DEATH
207
a room insufficiently heated in winter ?—a winter made
more trying by the damp winds of a sea-coast town.
Mrs. Shelley, as she writes to Miss Clairmont in the
following letter, had that misery also to undergo.
“ Dec. 20,1822.
“ My dear Claire,—I have delayed writing to you
so long for two reasons. First I have every day ex-
pected to hear from you, and secondly, I wished to
hear something decisive from England to communi-
cate to you. But I have waited in vain for both these
things. You do not write and I begin to despair of
ever hearing from you again. A few words will tell
you all that has been done in England. When I wrote
to you last I think that I told you that L. B. had
written to Hanson, bidding him call upon Whitton.*
Hanson wrote to Whitton desiring an interview, which
W. declined requesting H. to make his application
by letter; which H. has done—and I know no more.
This does not look like an absolute refusal—but Sir
T. is so capricious that we cannot trust to appearances.
And now the chapter about myself is finished, for what
can I say of my present life. The weather is bitterly
cold with a sharp wind—and very unlike dear—Caris-
sima Pisa—but soft airs and balmy gales are not the
attributes of Genoa—which place I daily and duly
* Sir Timothy’s solicitor.208
SHELLEY'S DEATH
join Marianne in detesting. There is but one fire-
place in the house—and although people have been
for a month putting up a stove in my room, it smokes
too much to permit of its being lighted. So I am
obliged to pass the greater part of my time in Hunt’s
sitting-room, which is as you may guess the annihila-
tion of study—and even of pleasure to a great degree;
for after all Hunt does not like me; it is both our
faults and I do not blame him, but so it is. I rise at
nine, breakfast, work, read, and if I can at all endure
the cold, copy my Shelley’s MSS. in my own room,
and if possible walk before dinner—*After that I work,
read Greek &c till ten, when Hunt and Marianne
go to bed. Then I am alone. Then the stream of
thought which has struggled against its argine all
through the busy day, makes a prina, and sorrow and
memory, and imagination—despair—and hope in de-
spair are the winds and currents that impel it. I am
alone and myself—And then I begin to say—as I
ever feel—‘ How I hate life! What a mockery it is
to rise, to walk, to feed, and then go to rest, and in
all this a statue might do my part. One thing alone,
may or can awake me, and that is study, the rest is
all nothing.’—and so it is!—I am silent and serious.
Absorbed in my own thoughts—what am I then in
this world, if my spirit live not to learn and to be-
come better—that is the whole of my destiny, I look
to nothing else. For I dare not look to my littleSHELLEY'S DEATH
209
darling other than as—not the sword of Damocles—
that is a wrong simile—or to a wrecked seaman’s
plank—true he stands, and only he between me and
the sea of eternity, but I long for that plunge—no
I fear for him, pain disappointment—all—all fear.
“ You see how it is—It is near eleven and my good
friends repose—this is the hour when I can think
unobtruded upon, and these thoughts, malgre moi will
stain this paper. But then, my dear Claire, I have
nothing else except my nothingless self to talk about.
You have doubtless heard from Jane and I have heard
from no one else. I see no one. The Guiccioli and
L. B. once a month. Trelawny seldom, and he is on
the eve of his departure for Leghorn. All as yet
wears a tranquil appearance with regard to Gabrielle.
W. is still here—and they go out nowhere. This the
list of my out door acquaintances. I see no other
human face.
H Marianne suffers during this dreadfully cold
weather, but less than I should have supposed. The
children are all well. So also is my Percy—poor little
darling—they all scold him because he speaks loud
a l’ltalien—people love to, nay they seem to exist on
finding fault with others—but I have no right to com-
plain—and this unlucky stove is the sole source of all
my dispiacere; if I had that, I should not tease any
one, or any one me, or my only one—but after all
these are trifles; I have sent for another Eugeniere,
14210
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
and I hope before many days are elapsed, to retire as
before to my hole.
“ I am again delayed finishing this letter waiting for
letters to England—that I might not send you one so
barren of all intelligence, but I have none. And
nothing new has happened, except Trelawny’s depart-
ure for Leghorn, so that our days are more mon-
otonous than ever. The weather is drearily cold, and
an eternal northeast whistles through every crevice.
Percy however is far better in this cold than in sum-
mer—he is warmly clothed—and gets on.
“ Adieu. Pray write. My love to Charles. I am
ashamed that I do not write to him, but I have only
an old story to repeat—and this letter tells that.
“ Affectionately yours,
“ Mary Shelley.”
Although Mrs. Shelley was perhaps as comfortable
as possible with the Hunts, there were many draw-
backs to the arrangement. Mrs. Hunt was in wretched
health and, overcome by the care of her numerous
small children and by bodily suffering, seemed the
victim of fate in having to superintend a foreign house-
hold. Hunt was on a very precarious footing with
Lord Byron in regard to the Liberal, and was undecided
whether to return to England or to stay in Italy. He
was of a most uncomfortable disposition. A mind
whose very conscientiousness led to doubts and inde-SHELLEY'S DEATH
211
cisions made him ever changeful, often capricious. A
temperament which gave to his friendship the nature
of an enthusiasm, made it often uneven. He was be-
side, though eminently gentle, a vain man, and one
whose whole life was a struggle under misfortunes ;
elements sufficiently disturbing in themselves to make
life under the same roof one of constant vexation.
They saw too few people at Genoa; but Trelawny’s
staunch affection cheered Mrs. Shelley. In the be-
ginning of the new year he sent her this reassuring
note:
“ Dear Mary,—of all those that I know of, or you
have told me of as connected with you, there is not
one now living has so tender a friendship for you as
I have. I have the far greater claims on you, and I
shall consider it a breach of friendship, should you
employ any one else in services that I can execute.
“ * My purse, my person, my extremest means
Lie all unlocked to your occasions.’
“ I hope you know my heart so well, as to make all
profession needless. To serve you will ever be the
greatest pleasure I can experience, and nothing could
interrupt the almost unmingled pleasure I have re-
ceived from our first meeting but your concealing
your difficulties or wishes from me.”212
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
At the close of the year, December 31st, Mrs.
Shelley thus writes in her journal: “So this year
has come to an end! Shelley beloved! the year
has a new name from any thou knewest. When
spring arrives, leaves you never saw will shadow
the ground, and flowers you never, beheld, will star
it; the grass will be of another growth; and the
birds sing a new song; the aged earth dates with a
new number.
“ I trust in a hereafter—I have ever done so. 1
know that that shall be mine—even with thee, glorious
spirit! who surely lookest on, pitiest, and lovest thy
Mary.
“ I love thee, my only one; I love nature; and I trust
that I love all that is good in my fellow-creatures.
But how changed I am ! Last year, having you, I
sought for the affection of others, and loved them
even when unjust and cold: but now my heart is
truly iced : if they treat me well, I am grateful. Yes,
when that is, I call thee to witness in how warm a
gush my blood flows to my heart, and tears to my
eyes. But I am a lonely, unloved thing, serious and
absorbed. None care to read my sorrow.
“ Sometimes I thought that fortune had relented
towards us—that your health would have improved,
and that fame and joy would have been yours; for
when well, you extracted from nature alone an end-
less delight. The various threads of our existenceSHELLEY'S DEATH.
213
seemed to be drawing to one point, and then to
assume a cheerful hue.
“ Again I think that your gentle spirit was too
much wounded by the sharpness of this world; that
your disease was incurable; and that in a happy time
you became partaker of cloudless day, ceaseless hours,
and infinite love.
“ Thy name is added to the list which makes the
earth bold in her age, and proud of what has been.
Time, with unwearied but slow feet guides her to the
goal that thou hast reached; and I her unhappy
child, am advanced still nearer the hour, when my
earthly dress shall repose near thine, beneath the tomb
of Cestius.
“February 2nd, 1823—On the twenty-first of
January those rites were fulfilled. Shelley ! my own
beloved! you rest beneath the blue sky of Rome; in
that at least I am satisfied.
“ What matters it that they cannot find the grave of
my William ? That spot is sanctified by the spot of
his pure earthly vesture, and that is sufficient—at least
it must be. I am too truly miserable, to dwell on
what, at another time might have made me unhappy.
He is beneath the tomb of Cestius. I see the spot.
“ February 3rd—A storm has come across me—a
slight circumstance has disturbed the deceitful calm of
which I boasted. I thought I heard my Shelley call
me—not my Shelley in Heaven—but my Shelley, my214
SHELLEY'S DEATH
companion in my daily tasks. I was reading; I heard
a voice say, 4 Mary!’ 4 It is Shelley/ I thought; the
revulsion was of agony. Never more—
44 But I have better hopes and other feelings. Your
earthly shrine is shattered, but your spirit ever hovers
over me, or awaits me, when I shall be worthy to
join it. To that spirit, which when imprisoned here,
yet showed by its exalted nature its superior deriva-
tion—”
In the following letter of Godwin the allusion
made is to a proposal in which Sir Timothy offered to
maintain and educate Shelley’s child if its mother
would relinquish all claim to it.
“ Strand, Feb. 14, 1823.
44 My dear Mary,—I have this moment received a
copy of Sir Timothy Shelley’s letter to Lord Byron,
dated Feb. 6th, and which therefore, you will see long
before this reaches you. You will easily imagine how
anxious I am to hear from you, and to know the state
of your feelings, under this which seems like the last
blow of fate.
441 need not of course, attempt to assist your judg-
ment upon the vile proposition of taking the child
from you. I am sure your feeling would never allow
you to entertain such a proposition. But were it other-
wise, even worldly prudence would forbid your taking
such a step. While you retain the child, you are inSHELLEY'S HEATH
2I5
spite of all they can do a member of your husband’s
family. But the moment you give it up you appear to
surrender all relationship to them, or to him. Your
child is still, in case of Charles Shelley’s dying before
him without issue, heir to the whole estate.
“ Do not I entreat you be cast down about your
worldly circumstances. You certainly contain within
yourself the means of subsistence. Your talents
are truly extraordinary: Frankenstein is universally
known and though it can never be a book for vulgar
reading is everywhere respected. It is the most won-
derful book to have been written at twenty years* of
age, that I ever heard of. You are now five-and-
twenty. And most fortunately you have pursued a
course of reading, and cultivated your mind in the
manner most admirably adapted to make you a great
and successful author. If you cannot be independent,
who should be? Your talents as far as I can at
present discern, are turned for the writing of fictitious
adventures.
“ If it shall ever happen to you to be placed in sud-
den and urgent need of a small sum, I entreat you to
let me know immediately. We must see what I can
do. We must help one another.
“Your affectionate father,
“ William Godwin.”
* It was written at eighteen, though not published till two years after.2l6
SHELLEY'S DEATH
In her journal, of February 24th, Mrs. Shelley
speaks of Sir Timothy’s letter with burning indig-
nation and despair:	“Evils throng around me my
beloved, and I have indeed lost all in losing thee.
Were it not for my child this would rather be a sooth-
ing reflection, and if starvation were my fate, I should
fulfil that fate without a sigh. But our child demands
all my care, now that you have left us. I must be all
to him; the father, death has deprived him of; the
relations, the bad world permits him not to have.
What is yet in store for me? Am I to close the eyes
of our boy, and then join you ?
“ The last weeks have been spent in quiet. Study
could not give repose to, but somewhat regulated my
thoughts. I said: ‘ I lead an innocent life and it
may become a useful one. I have talent, I will im-
prove that talent; and if while meditating on the wis-
dom of ages, and storing my mind with all that has
been recorded of it, any new light bursts upon me, or
any discovery occurs that may be useful to my fellows,
then the balm of utility may be added to innocence/
“What is it that moves up and down in my soul
and makes me feel as if my intellect could master all
but my fate ? I fear it is only youthful ardor—the yet
untamed spirit which, wholly withdrawn from the
hopes, and almost from the affections of life, indulges
itself in the only walk free to it, and mental exertions
being all my thoughts except regret, would make meSHELLEY'S DEATH
217
place my hopes in that. I am indeed, become a
recluse in thought and act; and my mind turned
Heavenward would, but for my only tie, lose all com-
mune with what is around me. If I be proud, yet it
is with humility that I am so. I am not vain. My
heart shakes with its suppressed emotions, and I flag
beneath the thoughts that possess me.
“ Each day, as I have taken my solitary walk I have
felt myself exalted with the idea of occupation, im-
provement, knowledge and peace. Looking back to
my past life as a delicious dream, I steeled myself as
well as I could, against such severe regrets as should
overthrow my calmness. Once or twice pausing in
my walk, I have exclaimed in despair—‘ Is it even
so?’ Yet for the most part resigned, I was occupied
by reflection—on those ideas you my beloved planted
in my mind—and meditated on our nature, our source,
and our destination. To-day, melancholy would in-
vade me, and I thought the peace I enjoyed was tran-
sient. Then that letter came to place its seal on my
prognostications. Yet it was not the refusal, nor the
insult heaped upon me, that stung me to tears. It
was their bitter words about our boy. Why I live
only to keep him from their hands. How dared they
dream that I held him not far more precious than all,
save the hope of again seeing you my lost one. But
for his smiles where should I now be ?
“ Stars that shine unclouded, ye cannot tell me what218
SHELLEY'S DEATH
will be ! Yet can I tell you a part. I have misgivings,
weaknesses, and momentary relapses into unworthy
despondency; but,—save in devotion towards my boy
—fortune has emptied her quiver, and to all her future
shafts, I oppose, courage, hopelessness of aught on
this side, with a firm trust in what is beyond the grave.
“ Visit me in my dreams to-night my beloved Shel-
ley ! kind loving, excellent, as thou wert! and the
event of this day shall be forgotten.
“ March 19th—I have until now recurred to this
book, to discharge into it the overflowings of a mind
too full of the bitterest waters of life, so will I to-night
that I am calm put down some of my milder reveries;
that, when I turn it once, I may not only find a record
of the most painful thoughts, that ever filled a human
heart even to distraction.
“ I am beginning seriously to educate myself; and
in another place I have marked the scope of this
somewhat tardy education, intellectually considered.
In a moral point of view, this education is of some
years’ standing, and it only now takes the form of
seeking its food in books. I have long accustomed
myself to the study of my own heart, and have sought
and found in its recesses that which cannot embody
itself in words—hardly in feelings. I have found
strength in the conception of its faculties—much na-
tive force in the understanding of them—and what
appears to me not a contemptible penetration in theSHELLEY'S DEATH
219
subdivisions of good and evil. But I have found less
strength of self-support, of resistance to what is vul-
garly called temptation; yet I think also, that I have
found true humility, (for surely no one can be less
presumptuous than I) an ardent love for the immuta-
ble laws of right, much native goodness of emotion,
and purity of thought.
“ Enough, if every day I gain a profounder knowl-
edge of my defects, and a more certain method of
turning them to a good direction.
“ Study has become to me more necessary than the
air I breathe. In the questioning and searching turn,
it gives to my thoughts, I find some relief to wild
reverie; in the self-satisfaction I feel in commanding
myself, I find present solace; in the hope that thence
arises, that I may become more worthy of my Shelley,
I find a consolation that even makes me less wretched
in my most wretched moments.
“ March 30th—I have now finished part of the
Odyssey. I mark this. I cannot write. Day after
day I suffer the most tremendous agitation. I cannot
write, or read, or think. Whether it be the anxiety
for letters, that shakes a frame not so strong as hith-
erto—whether it be my annoyances here—whether it
be my regrets, my sorrow and despair, or all these—
I know not: but I am a wreck.”
During the year that immediately followed the poet’s
death, Mrs. Shelley wrote this remarkable production,220
SHELLEY'S DEATH
called “ The Choice.” It was never printed during
her life; indeed, it lay buried among Hunt’s papers,
and only a few years since was brought to light. That
the feeling was omnipresent with her, that she had
not always borne herself with unselfishness towards
Shelley, is shown in this cry of a subdued spirit:
“ Not having been able to be all I should have been,
I will at least bear my penance well; and not making
my Shelley as happy as he deserved to be, I will at
least make him happy where he is now—if he can be
conscious of my constancy and patience.”
“ My Choice !—My Choice, alas! was had and gone
With the red gleam of last autumnal sun;
Lost in that deep wherein he bathed his head,
My choice, my life, my hope together fled:—
A wanderer here, no more I seek a home,
The sky a vault and Italy a tomb.
Yet as some days a pilgrim I remain,
Linked to my orphan child by love’s strong chain;
And since I have a faith that I must earn,
By suffering and by patience, a return
Of that companionship and love, which first
Upon my young life’s cloud like sunlight burst,
And now has left me, dark as when its beams,
Quenched in the might of dreadful ocean streams,
Leave that one cloud, a gloomy speck on high,
Beside one star in the else darkened sky; —
Since I must live, how would I pass the day,
How meet with fewest tears the morning’s ray,
How sleep with calmest dreams, how find delights,
As fire-flies gleam through interlunar nights ?SHELLEY'S DEATH.
221
“ First let me call on thee ! Lost as thou art,
Thy name aye fills my sense, thy love my heart.
Oh, gentle Spirit! thou hast often sung,
How fallen on evil days thy heart was wrung;
Now fierce remorse and unreplying death
Waken a chord within my heart, whose breath,
Thrilling and keen, in accents audible
A tale of unrequited love doth tell.
It was not anger,—while thy earthly dress
Encompassed still thy soul’s rare loveliness,
All anger was atoned by many a kind
Caress or tear, that spoke the softened mind.—
It speaks of cold neglect, averted eyes,
That blindly crushed thy soul’s fond sacrifice :—
My heart was all thine own,—but yet a spell
Closed in it’s core, which seemed impenetrable,
Till sharp-toothed misery tore the husk in twain,
Which gaping lies, nor may unite again.*
Forgive me ! let thy love descend in dew
Of soft repentance and regret most true;—
In a strange guise thou dost descend, or how
Could love soothe fell remorse,—as it does now ?—
By this remorse and love,—and by the years
Through which we shared our common hopes and fears,
By all our best companionship, I dare
Call on thy sacred name without a fear;
And thus I pray to thee, my friend, my Heart!
That in thy new abode, thou’lt bear a part
* Mr. Buxton Forman has made this note in his priceless edition of Shel-
ley’s works: “ I cannot regard this passage as indicating anything more
than a natural feeling of remorse in the noble heart of a woman who has
suddenly lost an idolized husband, and fancies all kinds of deficiencies in
her conduct to him.”222
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
In soothing thy poor Mary’s lonely pain,
As link by link she weaves her heavy chain !—
And thou, strange star! ascendant at my birth,
Which rained, they said, kind influence on the earth,
So from great parents sprung, I dared to boast
Fortune my friend, till set, thy beams were lost!
And thou, Inscrutable, by whose decree
Has burst this hideous storm of misery !
Here let me cling, here to these solitudes,
These myrtle-shaded streams and chesnut woods ;
Tear me not hence—here let me live and die,
In my adopted land—my country—Italy.
A happy Mother first I saw this sun,
Beneath this sky my race of joy was run.
First my sweet girl, whose face resembled his,
Slept on bleak Lido, near Venetian seas.
Yet still my eldest-born, my loveliest, dearest,
Clung to my side, most joyful then when nearest.
An English home had given this angel birth,
Near those royal towers, where the grass-clad earth
Is shadowed o’er by England’s loftiest trees :—
Then our companion o’er the swift-passed seas,
He dwelt beside the Alps, or gently slept,
Rocked by the waves, o’er which our vessel swept,
Beside his father, nurst upon my breast,
While Leman’s waters shook with fierce unrest.
His fairest limbs had bathed in Serchio’s stream;
His eyes had watched Italian lightnings gleam;
His childish voice had, with its loudest call,
The echoes waked of Este’s castle wall;
Had paced Pompeii’s Roman Market-place;
Had gazed with infant wonder on the grace
Of stone-wrought deities, and pictured saints,
In Rome’s high palaces :—there were no taintsSHELLEY'S DEATH
223
Of ruin on his cheek—all shadowless
Grim death approached—the boy met his caress,
And while his glowing limbs with life’s warmth shone,
Around those limbs his icy arms were thrown.
His spoils were strewed beneath the soil of Rome,
Whose flowers now star the dark earth near his tomb:
Its airs and plants received the mortal part,
His spirit beats within his mother’s heart.
Infant immortal! chosen for the sky !
No grief upon thy brow’s young purity
Entrenched sad lines, or blotted with its might
The sunshine of thy smile’s celestial light;—
The image shattered, the bright spirit fled,
Thou shin’st the evening star among the dead.
“ And thou, his playmate,* whose deep lucid eyes,
Were a reflection of these bluest skies;
Child of our hearts, divided in ill hour,
We could not watch the bud’s expanding flower,
Now thou art gone, one guileless victim more,
To the black death that rules this sunny shore.
“ Companion of my griefs ! thy sinking frame
Had often drooped, and then erect again
With shews of health had mocked forebodings dark;—
Watching the changes of that quivering spark,
I feared and hoped, and dared to trust at length,
Thy very weakness was my tower of strength.
Methought thou wert a spirit from the sky,
Which struggled with it’s chains, but could not die,
And that destruction had no power to win
From out those limbs the soul that burnt within.—
Tell me, ye ancient walls, and weed-grown towers,
Ye Roman airs and brightly painted flowers,
* Allegra,224
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
Does not his spirit visit that recess
Which built of love enshrines his earthly dress ?—
-----No more ! no more !—what though that form be fled,
My trembling hand shall never write thee—dead—
Thou liv’st in Nature, Love, my Memory,
With deathless faith for aye adoring thee,
The wife of Time no more, I wed Eternity.
“ ’Tis thus the Past—on which my spirit leans,
Makes dearest to my soul Italian scenes.
In Tuscan fields the winds in odours steeped
From flowers and cypresses, when skies have wept,
Shall, like the notes of music once most dear,
Which brings the unstrung voice upon my ear
Of one beloved, to memory display
Past scenes, past hopes, past joys, in long array.
Pugnano’s trees, beneath whose shade he stood,
The pools reflecting Pisa’s old pine wood,
The fire-flies’ beams, the aziola’s cry
All breathe his spirit which can never die.
Such memories have linked these hills and caves,
These woodland paths, and streams, and knelling waves
Fast to each sad pulsation of my breast,
And made their melancholy arms the haven of my rest.
“ Here will I live, within a little dell,
Which but a month ago I saw full well:—
A dream then pictured forth the solitude
Deep in the shelter of a lonely wood;
A voice then whispered a strange prophecy,
My dearest, widowed friend,* that thou and I
Should there together pass the weary day,
As we before have done in Spezia’s bay,
% Mrs. Williams.SHELLEY'S HEATH
225
As through long hours we watched the sails that neared
O’er the far sea, their vessel ne’er appeared;
One pang of agony, one dying gleam
Of hope led us along, beside the ocean stream,
But keen-eyed fear, the while all hope departs,
Stabbed with a million stings our heart of hearts.
The sad revolving year has not allayed
The poison of those bleeding wounds, or made
The anguish less of that corroding thought
Which has with grief each single moment fraught.
Edward,* thy voice was hushed—thy noble heart
With aspiration heaves no more—a part
Of heaven-resumed past thou art become,
Thy spirit waits with his in our far home.”
Mrs. Shelley thus writes to Mrs. Gisborne of the
poet’s tomb in Rome :
“ Albaro, May 3d, 1823.
“My dear Mrs. Gisborne,—Your letter was very
pleasing to me, since it showed me that it was not want
of affection that caused your silence. Utter solitude
is delightful to me, but in the midst of the waste, I am
much comforted when I hear the quiet voice of friend-
ship telling me that I am still loved by some one, and
especially by those who knew my Shelley, and have
been his companions. You say well that it is al-
most an insurmountable difficulty in expressing your
thoughts, that causes you to be silent: for though oc-
cupation or indolence may often prevent your exerting
* Williams.226
SHELLEY'S DEATH\
yourself, yet when you do write, yours are the best
letters I receive, especially as far as clearness and
information goes.
“ I had a letter to-day from Trelawny at Rome,
concerning the disposition of the earthly dress of my
lost one. He is in the Protestant burying-ground at
that place, which is beside and not before the tomb of
Cestius. The old wall, with an ancient tower, bounds
it on one side, and beneath this tower (a weed-grown
and picturesque ruin) the excavation has been made.
Trelawny has sent me a drawing of it, and he thus
writes: ‘ Placed apart, yet in the centre, and the most
conspicuous spot in the burying-ground, I have just
planted six young cypresses, and four laurels, in the
front of the recess which you see in the drawing, and
which is caused by the projecting part of the old ruin.
My own stone (Trelawny you know, one of the best
and most generous of natures, is eccentric in his way),
a plain slab, till I can decide upon some fitting inscrip-
tion, is placed on the left hand. I have likewise dug
my grave, so that when I die, there is only to lift up
the coverlit and roll me into it. You may lie on the
other side if you like. It is a lovely spot. The only
inscription on Shelley’s stone, beside the Cor cordium
of Hunt, are three lines I have added from Shakes-
pere:
“ ‘ Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.’SHELLEY'S DEATH
227
“‘This quotation by its double meaning, alludes
both to the manner of his death and his genius : and
I think the element on which his soul took wing, and
the subtle essence of his being mingled, may still re-
tain him in some other shape. The water may keep
the dead as the earth may and fire and air. His pas-
sionate fondness may have arisen from some sweet
sympathy in his nature; thence the fascination which
so forcibly attracted him, without fear or caution to
trust an element which almost all others hold in super-
stitious dread, and venture as cautiously on, as they
would in a lair of lions.’
“ This quotation is pleasing to me also, because a
year ago, Trelawny came one afternoon in high spirits,
with news concerning the building of the boat, saying
‘ Oh, we must all embark, all live aboard; we will all
“ suffer a sea change.” ’ And dearest Shelley was de-
lighted with the quotation saying that he would have
it for the motto of his boat.
“ Captain Roberts, (Jane will tell you who he is) is
just come from Rome. He confirms all that is said
in this letter. Roberts has bought the hulk of that
miserable boat—new rigged her even with higher masts
than before. He has sailed with her at the rate of
eight knots an hour, and on such occasions tried vari-
ous experiments—hazardous ones—to discover how
the catastrophe that closed the scene for poor Jane and
myself, happened. It is plain to every eye. She was228
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
run down from behind. On bringing her up from fif-
teen fathom, all was in her—boots, telescope, ballast
—lying on each side of the boat without any ap-
pearance of shifting or confusion; the topsails furled,
topmast lowered; the false stern (J can explain)
broken to pieces and a great hole knocked in the
stern timbers. When she was brought to Leghorn
every one went to see her, and the same exclama-
tion was uttered by all: ‘She was run down’—by that
wretched fishing boat which owned that it had seen
them.
“ I have written myself into a state of agitation.
If I continued my letter it would only be to pour out
the bitterness of my heart. Oh, this spring is so
beautiful! The clear sky shines above the calm mur-
derer ; the trees are all in leaf, and a soft air is among
them ; the stars tell of other spheres where I pray to
be ; for all this beauty, while at times it elevates me,
yet in strange words tells me that he, the best and
most beautiful is gone.
“ * Oh, follow, follow !
**********
And on each herb, from which Heaven’s dew had fallen,
The like was stamped, as with a withering fire.
**** * * * **#
And then,
Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts,
Were heard : ‘ Oh follow, follow, follow me.’SHELLEY'S DEATH.
229
“ I will finish my letter Monday. God bless you !
Goodnight! I often see him—both he and Edward
—in dreams; perhaps I shall to-night. At least, I
shall not be in sleep, as I now. The clinging present
is so odious.
“ May 6th.
“I finish my letter. You will soon see me in Eng-
land. It is not for my own desire or for my own ad-
vantage that I go, but for my boy’s; so I am fixed,
and enjoy these blue skies and the sight of vines and
olive groves, for the last time. I hope indeed to re-
turn if only for repose. The fear of the advancing
season will make me begin my journey as quickly as
possible. I should in any case have feared an Italian
summer for my delicate child. The climate of Eng-
land will agree with him. Adieu my dear friend!
“ Affectionately yours,
“ Mary W. Shelley.”
At last it was decided that she must leave Italy.
Reluctantly she turned Englandward, hoping that she
might soon return ; but it was after long, long years of
constant work and recurring annoyances and precari-
ous health. Though her life grew calmer, she was
not far wrong when she wrote to Mrs. Gisborne, “ I
feel that my whole life will be one misery: it will be
so—mark me.” This letter from her father extends a
scanty welcome; but Mary Shelley ever translated her230
SHELLEY'S DEATH
father’s words with affection, and respected the great
man’s vanities and whims with the utmost attention.
“ No. 195 Strand, May 6th, 1823.
“ It is certainly, my dear Mary, with great pleasure
that I anticipate that we shall once again meet. It is
a long, long time now since you have spent one night
under my roof. You are grown a woman, have been
a wife, a mother, a widow. You have realized talents
which I but faintly and doubtfully anticipated. I am
grown an old man, and want a child of my own to
smile on and console me. When first you set your
foot in London, of course I expect that it will be in
this house; but the house is smaller, one floor less
than the house in Skinner-street; it will do well
enough for you to make shift with for a few days; but
it would not do for a permanent residence. But I hope
we shall at least have you near us—within a call
—how different from your being on the shores of the
Mediterranean.
“ Your novel has sold five hundred copies—half the
impression. I ought to have written to you sooner.
Your letter reached me on the 18th ult.; but I have
been unusually surrounded with perplexities.
“ Your affectionate father,
“ Wm. Godwin.”
She thus writes in her journal, May 31st: “TheSHELLEY'S DEATH.
231
lanes are filled with fire-flies; they dart between the
trunks of the trees and people the land with earth-
stars. I walked among them to-night, and descended
towards the sea. I passed by the ruined church, and
stood on the platform that overlooks the beach. The
black rocks were stretched out among the blue waters,
which dashed with no impetuous motion against them.
The dark boats with their white sails glided gently
over its surface, and the star-enlightened promontories
closed in the bay; below, amid the crags, I heard the
monotonous, but harmonious voices of the fishermen.
“ How beautiful these shores, and this sea! Such
is the scene—such the waves within which my beloved
vanished from mortality.
“ The time is drawing near when I must quit this
country. It is true that in the situation I now am,
Italy is but the corpse of the enchantress that she was.
Besides, if I had stayed here the state of things would
have been different. The idea of our child’s advan-
tage, alone enables me to keep fixed in my resolution
to return to England. It is best for him—and I go.
“ Four years ago we lost our darling William, four
years ago in excessive agony, I called for death to free
me from all I felt that I should suffer here. I continue
to live and thou art gone. I leave Italy, and the few
that still remain to me. That I regret less; for our
intercourse is [so] much checkered with all of dross
that this earth so delights to blend with kindness and232
SHELLEY'S DEATH
sympathy, that I long for solitude, with the exercise
of such affections as still remain to me. Away, I shall
be conscious that these friends love me, and none can
then gainsay the pure attachment which chiefly clings
to them, because they knew and loved you—because
I knew them when with you—and I cannot think of
them without feeling your spirit beside me.
“ I cannot grieve for you my beloved Shelley ! I
grieve for thy friends—for the world—for thy child—
most for myself enthroned in thy love, growing wiser
and better, beneath thy gentle influence, taught by
you the highest philosophy—your pupil, friend, lover,
wife, mother of your children ! The glory of the dream
is gone. I am a cloud, from which the light of sunset
has passed. Give me patience in the present struggle.
Meum cordimn corf Good night!
“ ‘ I would give
All that I am to be as thou now art;
But I am chain’d to time, and cannot thence depart.’ ”
Mrs. Shelley’s plans were, for the sake of her child,
to avoid the heat of the Italian summer and to start
for England before the excessive weather should begin.
“ The day after Marianne’s confinement,” she writes,
“the 9th of June, seeing all went prosperously, I told
Lord Byron that I was ready to go, and he promised
to provide means. When I talked of going first it
was because he said I should do so, at the same timeSHELLEY'S DEATH
233
declaring that he would regulate all himself. I waited
in vain for these arrangements. But not to make a
long story, he chose to transact our negotiations
through Hunt, and gave such an air of unwillingness
and sense of obligation he conferred, as at last pro-
voked Hunt, to say there was no obligation since he
owed me ^1000. ‘Glad of a quarrel straight I clap
the door.’ Still keeping up an appearance of amity
with Hunt, he has written notes and letters so full of
contempt against me and my lost Shelley, that I could
stand it no longer and have refused to receive his
still proffered aid for my journey. This of course de-
lays me. I could make about £^0 of my own. I do
not know whether this is barely sufficient, but as the
delicate constitution of my child, would oblige me to
rest several times on my journey, I cannot persuade
myself to commence it with what is barely necessary.
I have therefore written to Trelawny for the sum
required, and must wait till I hear from him.”
On July 23d she writes again from Albaro, the last
letter before her departure : “ I have at last fixed with
the vetturino. I depart on the 25th. I leave Italy.
I return to the dreariest reality after having dreamed
away a year in this blessed and beloved country.
“ Lord Byron, Trelawny, and Pierino Gamba sailed
for Greece on the 17th. I did not see the former, a
remnant of shame caused him to avoid me. If he
were mean, Trelawny more than balanced the moral234
SHELLEY'S DEATH
account. His whole conduct during his last stay here
has impressed us all with an affectionate regard, and
perfect faith in the unalterable goodness of his heart.”
Alas! the pity that it were not so. The following
letters were written at different stages during Mrs.
Shelley’s journey. The date of the 28th of July, of
which she speaks in this letter to Hunt, was the day
of Shelley’s and her departure for the continent in
1814.
“ Concluded at Suza July 28, 1823.
“ I was too late for the post yesterday at Turin, and
too early this morning; so as I determined to put this
letter in the post myself, I bring it with me to Suza,
and now open it to tell you how delighted I am with
my morning’s ride—the scenery is so divine. The
high dark Alps, just on this southern side tipt with
snow, close in a plain; the meadows are full of clover
and flowers, and the woods of ash, elm, and beech,
descend and spread, and lose themselves in the
fields; stately trees in clumps or singly arise on each
side, and wherever you look you see some spot, where
you dream of building a house and living forever.
The exquisite beauty of nature and the cloudless sky
of this summer day, soothe me and make this twenty
eighth so full of recollections as to be almost pleas-
urable. Wherever the spirit of beauty dwells, he
must be. The rustling of the trees is full of him—
the waving of the tall grass—the moving shadows ofSHELLEY'S DEATH.
235
the vast hills—the blue air that penetrates their ravines,
and rest upon their heights. I feel him near me when
I see that which he best loved; alas, nine years ago
he took me to a home in his heart, this weak being,
whom he has now left for more congenial spirits and
happier regions. She only lives in the hope that she
may become one day as one of them.
“ Absolutely, my dear Hunt, I will pass some three
months in this divine spot—you shall all be with me.
There are no gentlemen’s seats, or palazzi, so we will
take a cottage, which we will paint and refit just as
this country inn is in which I now write—clean and
plain. We will have no servants, only we will give out
all the needlework. Marianne shall make puddings and
pies, to make up for the vegetables and meat, which I
shall boil and spoil. Thorny shall sweep the rooms,
Mary make the beds, Johnny clean the kettles and pans,
and then we will pop him into one of the many streams
hereabouts and so clean him. Swiney, being so quick
shall be our Mercury, Percy our gardener, Sylvan and
Percy Florence our weeders, and Vincent our play-
thing ; and then to raise us above the vulgar, we will
do all our work keeping time to Hunt’s symphonies;
we will perform our sweepings and dustings to the
march in Alceste; we will [go to our m]eals, to the
tune of the laughing trio; and when we [are fatigued]
we will lie on our turf sofas, while all [who have]
voices shall [join in] chorus in ‘Nolle e giorno fati-236
SHELLEY'S DEATH
car.’ You see [that my pap]er is quite out, so I must
say for the last time, adieu. God bless you.
“ Mary W. S ”
This letter, bearing the date July 30th, from St. Jean
de la Maurienne, appears to have been written either
to Mrs. Gisborne or to Mrs. Williams : “ I told you
of the departure of Lord Byron and Trelawny for
Greece, the former escaping with all his crowns, and
the other disbursing till he had barely ^10 left. It
went to my heart to borrow the sum from him neces-
sary to make up my journey, but he behaved with so
much quiet generosity, that one was almost glad to
put him to the proof and witness the excellence of his
heart. In this and in another trial he acquitted him-
self so well, that he gained all our hearts—while the
other—but more when we meet.
“ I left Genoa Friday 25th. Hunt and Thornton
accompanied me the first twenty miles. This was
much you will say from Hunt. But thank Heaven!
we are now the best friends in the world. He set his
heart on my quitting Italy with as comfortable feelings
as possible; and he did so much that notwithstanding
all the wrenching and riving such an event, joined to
parting with so dear a friend, occasioned me, that I
have borne up with better spirits than I could in any
way have hoped. It is a delightful thing to be able to
expend our affection upon an old and tried friend likeSHELLEY'S DEATH
237
Hunt, and so passionately attached to my Shelley as
he was and is. It is pleasant also to find oneself loved
by one who loves him. You know somewhat of what
I suffered during the winter during his alienation
from me. He was displeased with me for many just
reasons, but he found me willing to expiate, as far as
I could, the evil I had done; his heart was again
warmed and if when I return, you find me more ami-
able, and more willing to suffer with patience than I
was, it is to him that I owe this benefit, and you may
judge if I ought not to be grateful to him. I am even
so to Lord Byron, who was the cause that I stayed at
Genoa, and thus secured me one, who I am sure, will
never change.”
“ Sunday, Lyons, August 3rd.
“ My dear Hunt,—I arrived at Lyons yesterday
evening, and remain here until Tuesday evening; this
repose will I trust, entirely restore Percy, and will give
me time I hope, to receive your letter which is not
yet arrived. I have taken my place in a public con-
veyance—not the diligence. I shall travel all Tues-
day night, and the day of Wednesday, and then re-
pose a night and a day at Dijon, then again a night
and a day of travelling, the same of repose, and Sun-
day afternoon I arrive at Paris. This I dare say will
appear to you a queer mode of proceeding, but it was
the best I could manage. I could not think of trav-
elling three successive days and nights. Vetturino238
SHELLEY'S DEATH.
travelling is detestable from the slowness of the mo-
tion, and posting would be too expensive: but in this
mode I unite swiftness, cheapness, and repose.
“I have sent you a ‘Juvenal* by my vetturino, who
brought me here and now returns to Italy. I sought
for English books, but could find none, so I only send
a 4 Paul and Virginia* for Thornton. I send you also
the music of the 4 Clemenza di Tito*; it cost only
seventeen francs, so I was tempted. I went to the
music shop to buy some for you, but my ignorance
both of what I ought to buy, and what you have, so
puzzled me that I was glad to settle on safe ground
in buying Mozart: remembering my Polly’s preference,
I tried to get some of Handel but there was none.
You have 4 Ah perdona* but I do not think that you
have ‘ Deh prendi un dolce amplesso.’ And, besides,
there must be many other things in an opera of Mo-
zart. By-the-bye, send me a list of what music you
would like to have, and what you have, that if I see
any cheap, I may know what I am about, and tell me
also the name of that air of Handel’s of which you
are so fond. I do not mean, 4 He was despised and
rejected of men,’ but the other of which you know
only a few notes.
44 Have you received my two letters, one impostata
at Suza, the other at Pont Bon-voisin ? They will
have shown you how I got on during the first days.
I look back with surprise to the tranquillity I was ableSHELLEY'S DEATH,
239
to preserve at that time; but this is to be attributed
to your kindness, my dear friend, for the idea of leav-
ing affectionate hearts behind me, still preserves in an
outward and visible form the bond which must ever
exist between me and Italy. And now I turn south-
wards and ask, What are you doing ? If you are not
a rebel against all your own diaphragmatic theories,
you are taking a long walk this fine evening. And
you, Marianne,—have you not been out?
“ From the quay here that overlooks the Rhone we
see Mont Blanc. This mountain is associated to me
with many delightful hours ; we lived under its eye at
Geneva; and when at Lyons we looked with joy at
its sublime dome. It is in itself so magnificent. The
utmost heights of Cenis and the [MS. illegible] were
only flecked with snow: Mont Blanc has still on its
huge mantle, and its aiguilles, purer than the whitest
marble pierce the heaven around it. The sight of this
might have given Michael Angelo a still finer idea of
a 4 dome in the air’ than the Pantheon itself.
“ I wonder my best friend if in other planets and
systems there are other sublimer objects, and more
lovely scenes to entrance Shelley with still greater de-
light than he felt at seeing these wondrous piles of
earth's primeval matter; or does he only feel and see
the beauties we contemplate with greater intensity ?
I fear that if he could send us any of his poetry from
where he now is, the world would find it more unin-SHELLEY'S DEATH.
240

telligible and elementary than that which we have.
He loved nature so enthusiastically that one is irre-
sistibly led to imagine his painless spirit among its
divinest combinations. In the society even of those
he loved, I do not feel his presence so vividly, as I do
when I hear the wind among the trees—when I see the
shadows on the mountains, the sunshine in the ravines,
or behold heaven and earth meet when she arises to-
wards it, or the clouds descend to her. During the
winter how horrible was the sound and look of the
sea ; but I began to love it and fancy him near it when
it sparkled beneath the sun: yet after all dear Hunt,
I was surprised to find that I felt his presence more
vividly during my journey during the ravines of the
Alps, near the roar of the water falls, and the * inland
murmur’ of the precipitous rivers. How I should
delight to make a tour with you among these scenes;
feeling him and all about him, as you do, still you
would know him better if you visited these spots
which he loved better than any others in the world.”
“ Tuesday, August 5th.
“ I have your letter and your excuses and all. I
thank you most sincerely for it. At the same time
I do entreat you to take care of yourself with regard
to writing, although your letters are worth infinite
pleasure to me; yet that pleasure cannot be worth
pain to you. And remember, if you must write, theSHELLEY'S DEATH
241
good hackneyed maxim of nniltum in parvo, and when
your temples throb, distil the essence of three pages
into three lines, and my ‘ fictitious adventure’ will en-
able me to open them out and fill up intervals; not
but what three pages are best—but ‘ you understand
me.’ And now let me tell you that I fear you do
not rise early, since you doubt my mattutine.’
Be it known to you then, that on the journey I always
rose before three o’clock, that I never once made the
vetturino wait; and moreover, that there was no dis-
content in our jogging on, on either side, so that I
half expect to be a santa with him. He indeed got
a little out of his element when he got into France;
his good-humor did not leave him, but his self-pos-
session. He could not speak French and he walked
about as if treading on eggs.
“ When at Paris I will tell you more what I think
of the French. They still seem miracles of quietness
in comparison with Marianne’s noisy friends; and the
women’s dresses afford the drollest contrast with those
in fashion when I first set foot in Paris in 1814. Then
their waists were between their shoulders, and as Hogg
observed they were rather curtains than gowns. Their
hair too dragged to the top of their head, and then
lifted to its height, appeared as if each female wished
to be a Tower of Babel in herself. Now their waists
are long (not so long, however as the Genoese), and
their hair flat at the top, with quantities of curls on
16242
SHELLEY'S DEATH
the temples. I remember in 1814, a Frenchman’s
pathetic horror at my appearance in the streets of
Paris, in Oldenburg (as they were called) hats: now
they all wear machines of that shape, and a high bon-
net would of course be as far out of the right road,
as if the earth were to take a flying leap to another
system.
“ After you receive this letter you must direct to
me, to my father’s (pray put 4 W. G., Esq.,’ since the
want of that etiquette annoys him. I remember Shel-
ley’s unspeakable astonishment, when the author of
‘Political Justice,’ asked him half reproachfully, why
he addressed him as ‘Mr. G.’) 195 Strand; and since
the 21st is the day I suppose I ought to write to
Florence. However when in Paris, I will calculate
the time and direct accordingly. Remember Via del
Fonda. I will send you the number of the house
from Paris: I think it was called Palazzo Morano, or
Morandi, but the number will settle that.
“Well my dear Hunt, I must not clack any more,
or Marianne will think me as bad as Manin, except
that you can silence me by not reading me. I hope
you have taken measures, that Mrs. Mason shall have
‘ Valperga,’ as you write a criticism of it. If ever I
write another novel, it will be better worth your criti-
cism and more pleasing to you than this. After all
‘Valperga’ .is merely a book of promise; another
landing-place in the staircase I am climbing. I oftenSHELLEY'S DEATH
243
think of Alfred of Triamond. You must send me
the list of books I must consult for it.
“ I hope Marianne thinks of me with kindness, and
that the children remember me. Percy was playing
at playing with Henry all day yesterday, and gen-
erously gave the shadow all his playthings. How
are Polly’s nerves, and the bell and the empty house,
and how goes on the jacket? The jacket with the
definite article. Has Henry yet profaned it with fruit
soiled hands ? God bless you all, and bless you dear
Hunt, for all the good you have done me, do me, and
are about to do.
“ Faithfully yours,
“Mary W. Shelley.”
This letter appears to have been written to Mrs.
Gisborne:
“ Paris, Aug. 13, 1823.
“ I have three good friends in the world, and ought
to be content. I have you—you, I trust love me. I
have Hunt, who with his characteristic enthusiasm,
has me now as much at heart, as I was away from it
a little while ago. And I have Trelawny, by whose
aid I made up the money sufficient to come to Eng-
land. And when I tell you all of him that I can, in
addition to what you know already, you will have
admiration for the rough outside with the gentle
heart.”CHAPTER VII.
“FRANKENSTEIN,” AND OTHER WRITINGS.
The published books of an author bear no neces-
sary relation to his literary work, still less are they a
gauge of his intellectual life. The faculty for literary
production is something apart, often possessed by
those who have little worth producing, denied to those
who die—as galleons sink—carrying their golden
wealth with them. Of no one is this more true than
of Mrs. Shelley. Her literary productions were few
and disproportionate to her intellectual force; dis-
appointing when viewed side by side with her pe-
culiar gift of evoking the most artistic literary work in
others. Her published writings comprise, “ Franken-
stein,” in 1818 ; “Valperga,” 1823; “ The Last Man,”
1824; “ Perkin Warbeck,” 1830; “ Lodore,” 1835;
and “ Falkner,” 1837; the Italian and Spanish lives
in “ Lardner’s Encyclopedia,” with the exception of
“ Tasso” and “ Galileo.” She published also Shelley’s
prose works, his poems, with valuable notes, two vol-
umes of travels, “Rambles in Germany and Italy,”
besides contributing to the magazines.
Of Mrs. Shelley’s writings, “ Frankenstein” is with-
244“FRANKENSTEIN" AND OTHER WRITINGS. 245
out question the most noteworthy. From the day of
its first appearance in print down to the present, it has
had accorded to it a position as a unique and remark-
able production. This reputation, gained equally from
two classes who rarely agree in reading the same
book, still less in praising it—thoughtful litterateurs
and mere readers of stories,—it has steadily maintained.
This fact of itself is doubtless due to, and in a meas-
ure significant of, the dual character of the romance.
It is one of the few books that can be called sui
generis. The advent of such books into the literary*
world is always a subject of interest. And the won-
der is not lessened when we are told that this book
was the production of a girl of eighteen, and her first
attempt at sustained literary work. Allusion has al-
ready been made to the period of Mrs. Shelley’s life
in which “ Frankenstein” was written, but in order to
gain a critical comprehension of the work, the details
of its production are of the highest interest.
During the summer of 1816, while the Shelleys
were neighbors of Lord Byron, on the borders of
Lake Geneva, the intercourse between the two poets
and their households was daily and intimate. Byron
was at that time composing the third canto of “ Childe
Harold,” and as each successive scene was finished
he brought his work to his poet neighbor, who thus
partook of the first fruits of a genius he was so well
adapted to recognize and value. Moreover, the pro-246 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
longed rains keeping them in-doors, they chanced to
find some volumes of fiction,—principally ghost stories
and fantastic fairy tales translated from the French
and German. The drift of much of their talk tended
into the atmosphere of the supernatural and horrible.
It is worthy of passing note that many of these
stories were of a strictly allegorical type. Thus one
was the history of the inconstant lover, who having
deserted his betrothed when most he should have
befriended her, chose a bride, and clasped her to his
arms only to find himself embracing the pale ghost of
his deserted. Another story was of a parent who by
crime bestowed life upon a race and was doomed to
give the kiss of death to all the sons of his ill-fated
house, just as they in turn reached the age of promise.
While under the influence of these fantastic tales
and the impromptu ones which they told each other,
the agreement was made that each should write a
ghost story. The proposition was Byron’s; it was
accorded to and entered upon by all. The poets
themselves failed, and it is more than probable that
the persistence of Mrs. Shelley was due rather to the
wishes and urgency of Shelley than to any innate en-
ergy or will of her own in the matter. He, from the
time of their first acquaintance, had been anxious that
she should attempt literary work of some kind, partly
because of his faith in the theory of heredity, and partly
from a confidence in his own estimate of her mentalFRANKENSTEIN" AND OTHER WRITINGS. 247
qualities. He believed that the daughter of William
Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, the woman whose
mental brightness and spirit had for himself a never-
failing endurance, could not but be remarkable in any
literary work to which she might turn her mind.
Mrs. Shelley herself, in the preface of the last Lon-
don edition of “Frankenstein,” published during her
life, has told how she tried day after day to think of
a plot; to invent something uncanny or horribly fan-
tastic, and how each morning, to the question, “ Have
you thought of a story ?” she was obliged to answer
“ No,” until a train of thought supplied by conver-
sation of a metaphysical tone which she had listened
to between Shelley and Byron, entered into her state
of reverie in semi-sleep, and suggested the essential
outlines of the plot of “ Frankenstein.”
What was thus suggested was probably nothing
more than the central figures of the weird conception.
Nothing could be simpler than the plot, nothing more
horrible than the situations and the details. Frank-
enstein is a student who, by the study of occult
sciences, acquires the power of imparting life to a
figure which he had made. Graves and charnel-house
had furnished the needed material from which he had
constructed this colossal human form. To the thing
thus prepared he is able to impart life. It lives and
possesses human attributes. The rest of the tale is
occupied in depicting the nameless horrors which vis-248 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
j ited Frankenstein as the result of his creation. The
thing becomes the bane of his life. He tries to fly
from it, but there is no final escape. One by one, the
monster that he had created slays the brother, friend,
sister, and bride of the luckless student, who himself
} finally falls a victim to his own wretched and unto-
ward creation. The monster, upon its part, strives to
adapt itself to life, but fails; finds no possibility of
companionship, no admission into any human fellow-
ship.
Such in brief outline is the plot, if it can be so
called, of the tale which, with eager hands, the youth-
ful romancer penned before the first horror of the
idea had faded from her brain. At Shelley's sugges-
tion the story was amplified. The introductory letters
were inserted and the pastoral episode and other in-
cidents were added to the later part of the narrative.
As originally written the story began with the words,
“ It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld
the accomplishment of my toils.” In the work as
published these words introduce Chapter IV.
Regarded as a mere tale, it is difficult to account
for the hold this story has always had upon the minds
of the reading world. As a story it does not justify
its own success. To say that it is remarkable as a
work of imagination does not meet the difficulty. By
a work of the imagination, as used in the current
criticism of “ Frankenstein,” is simply meant that it is"FRANKENSTEINAND OTHER WRITINGS. 249
a fantastic romance, such as we find in the “ Arabian
Nights,” or in the prose tales of Poe. But a position
utterly different from these is accorded to “ Frank-
enstein.”
We have intimated that there was a dual quality in
it, to which it owed its singular power and place in
literature. One element is doubtless the horror of the
tale and the weird fancy of the author's imagination
in the ordinary acceptation of the word. But it is to
an entirely different department of mental conception
that we must look for the secret of its peculiar influ-
ence. The faculty of imagination is something more
than the recalling and rearrangements of past im-
pressions. Profoundly considered, it is that function
of the mind which formulates, as though real, a state
of things which if present would so appear. It is the
power of projecting the mind into unhappened reali-
ties. It is the faculty of picturing unseen verities.|
There is thus in it a prophetic element, not at all
miraculous, but dependent upon subtile laws of asso-
ciation and suggestion. It is to this element that/
“ Frankenstein” owes its power over thoughtful minds./
It is by virtue of the allegorical element in it that it
holds its high position as a work of the imagination.
Yet so unobtrusively is the allegory woven through
the thread of the romance, that, while always felt, it
can scarcely be said to have been detected. Certain it
is that no one has directed attention‘to this phase, or250 “ FRANKENSTEIN” AND OTHER WRITINGS.
carefully attempted an analysis of the work, with the
view of deducing the meaning thus legible between
the lines.
That Mrs. Shelley herself was conscious of this
element is certain, by the double title she gave it,—
“ Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus/1 Fur-
thermore, -that she should thus embody, under the ap-
parent guise of a weird story, suggestions of moral
truths, deyelop^ment of mental traits,—normal and ab-
normal,—and hints at, and solutions of, social questions,
was in strict accord both with her own intellectual
state and with the circumstances under which “ Frank-
enstein” was produced. And yet nothing is more
improbable than that it was written with such design,
or that the youthful author was fully aware or even
conscious of the extent to which the allegorical over-
lies largely the narrative in her work. This very un-
consciousness of result, this obliviousness to hidden
truths, is a distinguishing mark of genius. To take
daily account of stock proclaims the small trader, not
the merchant prince. Placed in a congenial atmos-
phere, genius in breathing the breath of life will ex-
hale truths. The very gist of genius is embodied in
this hidden relation to truth. That mind has genius
which, detecting germs of truth under forms where
the common eye sees them not, affords in itself the
place and pabulum for their growth.
We know the circumstance under which the book“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 251
was written; the stories which suggested it were all
weird in form and allegorical in type; the minds of
those by whom Mrs. Shelley was at that time sur-
rounded were minds to whom the mystical was the
natural mode of thought and speech. Her own in-
herited and acquired mental traits were markedly of
this same character. Furthermore, at thisjtime .the
influence of Shelley was strongest upon her. Not
that of one nature mastering and overpowering a
weaker, but that yet stronger bond of one mind fitted
-by nature and oneness of motive to gain insight into,
and be in unison with, the other.
Such, in a remarkable degree, was her relation at
this time to Shelley; to her his nature was revealed.
They had spoken and dwelt upon his past until it was
an open book to her. His aims and his failures, his
aspirations and fears, his nature and philosophy were
familiar and ever present to her mind. Moreover,
from him she had learned much about the great world
of men and things, broadening her nature and con-
ceptions beyond the ordinary limit of feminine knowl-
edge; indeed, with the result of attaching her own
peculiar insight to the facts and ideas thus included
within her extending horizon. In both of their minds
the tendency to dwell on social and ethical problems
was strong, and to such natures union means cubic
strength. What wonder that, if, underlying her story
thus produced, should lie partly concealed or vaguely252 “FRANKENSTEIN" AND OTHER WRITINGS.
hinted, social and moral ideas, awaiting but recogni- .
tion, to become in turn the suggestors of their own
redevelopment in the minds of us who read.
That some, nay, many, of these have an almost
direct bearing upon Shelley himself, either as proceed-
ing from him or pointing to him, is to be expected;
to say that they all thus have would be perhaps strain-
ing a theory otherwise tenable. What we can safely
affirm is that he who, with this idea of the allegorical
substratum, will reread the story, will be richly repaid
in the suggestions the mind cannot fail to receive, and
which, according to the mind of each, will attach to
the nature of Shelley himself, or, more widely taken,
will stand as general truths, applicable alike to all.
Such a general truth is that pictured in the character
and pursuit of the student Frankenstein himself. He
exhibits to us the man of one idea, absorbed in but
one department of science, not only abandoning other
studies, but rejecting the ordinary avocations of life.
Family, friend^even the voice of her who loved him^i^
fails to recall him to action or to a sense of the proper
proportion of things. We see the result not only in
the loss of symmetry and balance in his character, but
find it having its legitimate effect in making him the
slave of his own too concentrated studies. So that
finally he becomes possessed by the ruling idea he had
so dearly cherished, and the reward of his infatuation
is the delusion that he can accomplish that which a“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 253
healthful mind would have avoided,—a delusion which \
had grown up in the very seclusion and isolation of
life that the unhappy student had adopted; to which
the fitting antidote would have been the diversion of
the commonplace interests which he had carefully
excluded. The power to produce the horrible crea-
ture, as the fruit of this delusion, is but the poetic
justice of his sentence. The terrible result of his J
creation furnishes the morale and teaching of the alle-/
~gory. Into this part of the story is interposed the!
train of tho.ught which is suggested by the construc-
tion of the human form by Frankenstein. In its prep-
aration the student selects the most beautiful models
for each limb and feature. He spares no pains, and
each separate anatomical part is, taken by itself, per-
fect in symmetry and adaptation. But when once the
breath of life is breathed into the creation, and life
quickens its being and gleams from its eyes, and func-
tion succeeds in the hitherto inanimate parts, all beauty
disappears; the separate excellence of each several
part is lost in the general incongruity and lack of har-
mony of the whole.
Can art see no suggestiveness in this ? Can society,
in its attempt to manufacture conglomerate masses
out of dissimilar elements, learn nothing from the
teaching here inculcated ?
Once become a living being, Frankenstein and this
monster that he had made bear to one another the254 “FRANKENSTEINAND OTHER WRITINGS.
sustained relation of creator and creature. Through-
l out the entire narrative this relationship is one long
1 allegory with phases as diverse as a prism. Most
j prominent is the total failure to create that which
I should find place in life only by growth. In the sad,
lone, utter incompatibility which environed the crea-
ture,—in the inability of others to accept or tolerate
it,—in its own desperate, heart-sickening attempts to
educate and train itself into harmony and commu-
nion with those who should have been its fellow-
beings, and in its final despair and terrible outlawry
and revenge, is shown the futility of the attempt to
regulate human beings or their concerns, except
under the laws of growth and development. And
“ Frankenstein” contains no deeper teaching than that
we cannot legislate happiness into this world; that
such attempt at last, after affording a maximum of
misery, returns to plague the inventor.
Another phase of this relationship between the
creator and his creature is so strongly suggestive of
a certain period of Shelley’s religious life that the
mind hesitates before denying the likeness. _Xhe
I ^creature of Frankenstein, finding itself in a world in
' which all happiness is denied it; to which its powers
l of strengthfulness, however exercised, bring it no good,
J but serve only to increase its misery and sense of lone-
( liness, turns to its creator and, with alternate courses
\ and prayers, beseeches him to either slay it or fit the“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 255
world for its companionship. In this dilemma the
creator does neither. He merely admits either his
unwillingness or his inability to do that which simple
justice to his creature, to say nothing of his love and
duty, would prompt. Thus the creator is made to
figure.as lacking either justice or omnipotence.
How Shelleyan this idea, the closest student of
him will best judge.
But the chief allegorical interest in the narrative con- J
cerns itself about that tendency in the human being to
discard the established order of things and to create
for itself a new and independent existence. In the
simple story, Frankenstein made a being responsible
to him alone for its creation,—a being not produced
by the ordinary course of life, not amenable or even
adaptable to the existing world of men. Right or
wrong, better or worse, the creature may be, but dif-
ferent certainly, and this irreconcilable disparity points
back ever to its origin, which had been anomalous
and strange.
The whole story is but the elaboration of the em- '
rrassment and dangers which flow from departure
f from the ordinary course of nature;) this forced at-
tempt to invade society from within. What strong
existence in real life of this same tendency Mary
Shelley had seen in those nearest and dearest to her!
She has not failed to learn the lesson of her mother’s
history; time analyzes rather than destroys. And the256 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
life of Mary Wollstonecraft was doubtless seen by the
clear-minded daughter in stronger contrast of light
and shade than it had been by its contemporaries.
Who knew so well the glories of that life ? Its suc-
cesses as well as its miseries had sprung from the
self-same causes as those of Frankenstein,—from the
breach of the conventional; from overstepping the
limits ; from creating an individuality and a sphere of
existence denied it by Nomos, and consequently sure
of the hostility of society.
To this same cause Shelley himself attributed justly
the events and moral struggle of his own life. From
earliest childhood revolt against convention, and re-
bellion against authority, had characterized him. His
perpetual tendency, like that of Mary Wollstonecraft,
like that typified in “ Frankenstein,” was ever to create
for himself an existence not conforming to the ways
of the world.
As we read the story of the modern Prometheus,
and page by page trace the evolution of this idea, the
ethical aspect is oppressive in its prophetic truth. Each
must do this for himself. One thing, however, we
may note. The visitation of judgment, the terrible
results of the exercise of the power of creation, do
not begin, do not recoil upon Frankenstein, until he
has actually launched his creature ijato^tliejivorld of
men^abOtiThTmr-SoTong as he kept the schemeTwithin
TmnselT^eTettg^as the influence of the thought and“FRANKENSTEIN” AND OTHER WRITINGS. 257
work was confined to him alone, no evil came; on the
contrary, after a certain point the struggle after this
ideal was a stimulation and an incentive of the high-
est order. It was only when the overt act of intro-
ducing his new existence into the world was accom-
plished, that misery began to flow from it to all
concerned, and even to those apparently not con-
cerned in it. This is the saving clause in the pro-
phetic allegory. Without this it would fail to square
with the truth.
See how far-reaching are the ideas which this alle-
gory evokes, how subtile its suggestions are. Mind
after mind has felt the power of this story, so simple
in its apparent construction, and has again and again
returned to it, not asking itself why; feeling a power
it did not recognize, much less analyze; hovering, in
fact, around it as birds do when charmed, because of
an attraction which was persistent and real, although
unknown, even unsuspected. All attraction implies
some sort of a magnet. Nothing attracts so power-
fully as the true.
The world, by its acknowledgment of the coercive
quality of “ Frankenstein,” has given silent accept-
ance of its genius. The other works, novels, critiques,
/ biographies, while they have had literary merit, feel-
' ing, even power, have not shown genius. “ Franken-
stein” alone was personal, it alone reflected Mrs.
Shelley's true self. Her other books contain simply /
17258 "FRANKENSTEINAND OTHER WRITINGS.
what she wrote in them: this alone contains what
was written in her. Being, as she was, stronger in
her personality than as a literary artist, the book that
alone partook of that personality would alone partake
of her peculiar genius. This, considered in its fullest
light, “ Frankenstein” does.
It is a thankless task to sit in judgment upon a
novel like “ Valperga,” and only the difficulty of ob-
taining the work and the curiosity to know Mrs.
Shelley’s most serious endeavor at romance, justify
the extended extracts which follow. Formed upon
the old-fashioned models, it, like them, essentially
lacks action, incident, and dramatic expression. It is
unrelieved by nicely-drawn character sketches. It so
abounds in long and learned speeches, dull descrip-
tions, lifeless records of events, that to our highly ex-
acting modern mind, as a novel, it is a complete failure.
But it is not as a novel that the book ought to be
judged. As an illustration of its author’s mental and
moral development it has a place and a purpose. For
although she has a certain sympathetic insight into
the imaginative, the emotional; although she delights
in the deeply tragical,—page follows page of unmiti-
gated melancholy,—it is totally without the light and
shade which would make us feel the pathos of the
story intensely. Indeed, one could not call it pathetic;
it is simply tragical.
Not an emotion of pity visits you while you read;"FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 259
not a spark of enthusiasm, not an impulse of sympa-
thy. Its people are as dead to you as they have been
these hundreds of years to the world. One reads the
three volumes stolidly, unmoved; interested only be-
cause of the insight which one gains of its author.
Castruccio, Prince of Lucca, the tyrant, the caustic
wit of history, the first soldier and satirist of his age,
moves laboriously through the book. His ambitions
do not penetrate, his villanies do not touch one.
He is a thing without life, without passion; the events
of his career are dull-recorded facts. Mrs. Shelley
has not done justice to his keen and crafty general-
ship, to his trenchant and powerful satire. You do
not get a glimpse of the man of history, who, when
he was dying in the zenith of his glory, said, “ Lay
me on my face in the coffin, for everything will be re-
versed ere long after my departure;” or who rebuked
a young man whom he met coming out of a house of
ill repute, and who blushed at seeing Castruccio,—“ It
was when you went in that you should have colored,
not when you come out.” Again, when in a storm
Castruccio was alarmed, a stupid fool derided, saying
he had no fear, as he did not value his own life at a
farthing. “ Everybody,” said Castruccio, “ makes the
best estimate of his own wares.” When a sage re-
buked Castruccio for some extravagances at an even-
ing revelry, he replied, “ He who is held as a wise man
by day, will not be taken to be a fool by night.”260 " FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
And again, on remarking the radiant countenance of
an envious man, he exclaimed, “ Is it that some good
hath befallen thee, or that some evil hath befallen an-
other ?”
What Mrs. Shelley tried to do—and this, I take it,
to be the motive of the book—was to show how from a
generous, deep-souled, guileless youth, Castruccio be-
came a cruel, ambitious tyrant, a being deaf to all the
appeals of mercy or justice. She has given us an
account of his exiled youth, its innocent occupations,
its gentle and ennobling influences, its dreams of power
and glory for his oppressed native city, Lucca. She
has told how, after an apprenticeship spent in the
English Court of Edward the Second, in the wars of
Elanders, and in the atmosphere of intriguing Euro-
pean countries, he appears as the liberator of his na-
tive city; how, after destroying the Guelphic rule by
banishing three hundred Guelph families, his idea of
liberty was to reinstate the Ghibellines, of which he, the
last heir of the noble Antiminelli family, was the head;
how, moderate in all his habits and wants, he was yet
insatiable in his ambition. Liberty for his country
being only the ruse to conceal his greed for power and
autocracy.
She has shown how the pure and elevated nature
of Euthanasia, his betrothed bride, whose ideal love
for him was only equalled by her desire for peace and
freedom for her distracted Italy, was as naught to“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 261
hinder the evil development of his own ,mind; how
the terrible misfortunes of the inspired and misled
Beatrice brought no serious regret to him, the care-
less cause of her misery. It is true that she has
shown us all this, but we stand as upon the outer
wall, viewing the conflict through the obscurations of
the dust and confusion. We fail to discern there the
great soldier, the real Castruccio.
The characters of the two women, Euthanasia,
Countess of Valperga, and Beatrice, Prophetess of
Ferrara, are drawn with more vigor. The intimate
workings of their souls are laid bare to us; the deep
melancholy of their lives is portrayed with all the de-
tail of one gifted in such analysis. We are reminded
of Romola in the story of Euthanasia’s life. Nearly
two hundred years earlier, in an old library in the
same city of Florence, Euthanasia, like Romola, spent
her young life reading dull, musty parchments to her
blind father, and her after life was not unlike Romola’s
in its moral conflicts.
In the young Euthanasia, as she sat at her father’s
feet and drank eagerly his eloquent rhapsodies on the
Latin poets, Mrs. Shelley unconsciously describes
herself. She says of her heroine, “ Her soul was
adapted for the reception of all good.” Her own
education under Shelley’s guidance was not unlike
that of the child Euthanasia, who from love mastered
with amazing skill the difficult Latin transcriptions on262 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
the old parchments, that she might read them to her
father, for Shelley writes of Mary’s progress in Latin
shortly after their marriage,—“ She has satisfied my
best expectations.” Many qualities of heart and mind
attributed to Euthanasia or Beatrice, one recognizes
as but the unconscious portrayal of her own nature.
Euthanasia grows up as a Guelph and a Florentine,
holding sacred the friendship of the noble-hearted
Castruccio, who had been her knight and playmate
before his exile. One by one, her father, mother,
brothers die, and she is left the last survivor of her
family. After Castruccio’s return to Italy they renew
their vows and are betrothed; but it is now that she
sees with despair the seeds of evil in her lover’s char-
acter which finally divide them. The conflict between
Euthanasia’s love for Castruccio and her hatred of
tyranny and bloodshed is perhaps the chief interest
of the romance.
But it is the character of Beatrice—a character
fraught with passion and madness—which displays the
peculiar power of Mrs. Shelley’s imagination; the
power of realizing and dealing with the terrible. Like
Frankenstein, Beatrice is the result of an abnormal
and one-sided development. Like him, she creates for
herself a strange and unnatural state of existence.
Like him, she suffers the fatal consequence of an in-
tense absorption to one idea,—the idea of her divine
inspiration. Here again does the dual tendency of“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 263
Mrs. Shelley’s mind show itself. Beatrice is the out-
growth of all the religious frenzies and persecutions of
the age; her prophetic dreams and enthusiasms are
the wild and morbid development of a highly over-
strung and unbalanced mind, encouraged by the
superstitious reverence of her countrymen and friends
and her own credulous belief in her divine inspira-
tions. Her final awakening, her realization of the
deception under which she has lived, her love for
Castruccio, her pilgrimage to Rome, her abhorrence of
the religion in which she had been nurtured, and
which had made her fanaticism possible, her despair
of truth or humanity, her final madness, are all highly
dramatic possibilities, had Mrs. Shelley but let the
simple truths speak for themselves; but she so dissi-
pates the strength of her situations by long and
tedious sentences and dull narrations that you feel
like one who, walking over endless stretch of plain,
longs for broken country.
The tone of the book is pure and high. There
is in it the intense earnestness that actuated Mary
Shelley throughout her life. There are careful and
laborious details of manners and customs; long and
erudite speeches, religious and political; a consci-
entious study of Italy and her internal strife. The
flowing eloquence and rhapsodies of the imaginative
Beatrice are well sustained; the unswerving truth and
nobility of Euthanasia’s character are drawn with ten-264 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
derness and appreciation. But the book will not stand
the test of a good novel; its characters do not remain
in your mind like the memories of real people. They
are passionless and lifeless.
It is only Beatrice, the adopted daughter of the
good Bishop of Ferrara, who now and then breaks the
austere monotony of the book. The description of her
love for Castruccio, who had come to her city and was
entertained by the bishop as the prince and libera-
tor of his country, is well worth quoting.
“ Thus many hours passed, and when at length the
prophetess retired, it was to feverish meditation and
thoughts burning with passion, rendered still more
dangerous from her belief in the divine nature of all
that suggested itself to her mind. She prayed to the
Virgin to inspire her; and, again giving herself up to
reverie, she wove a subtle web, whose materials she
believed heavenly, but which were indeed stolen from
the glowing wings of love. Kneeling, her eyes raised
to heaven, she felt the same commotion, in her soul,
which she had felt before, and had recognized as
divine inspiration; she felt the same uncontrollable
transport and burst of imaginative vision, which she
believed to flow immediately from the invisible ray of
heaven-derived prophecy. She felt her soul, as it
were, fade away, and incorporate itself with another
and a divine spirit, which whispered truth and knowl-
edge to her mind, and then slowly receding, left her“FRANKENSTEIN?' AND OTHER WRITINGS. 265
human nature, agitated, joyful, and exhausted;—these
were her dreams,—alas ! to her they were realities.”
Beatrice, believing in what she considered the com-
mands of a divine inspiration, invites Castruccio to her
apartments.
“ Castruccio came. If it were in human virtue to
resist the invitation of this angelic girl, his was not
the mind, strictly disciplined to right, self-examining
and jealous of its own integrity, that should thus
weigh its actions, and move only as approved by con-
science. He was frank and noble in his manner; his
nature was generous ; and, though there lurked in his
heart the germ of an evil-bearing tree, it was as yet
undeveloped and inanimated; and, in obeying the
summons of Beatrice, he passively gave himself up to
the strong excitements of curiosity and wonder.
“ He went again and again. When the silent night
was spread over everything, and the walls of the town
stood black and confused amidst the overshadowing
trees, whose waving foliage was diversified by no gleam
of light, but all was formless as the undistinguishable
air; or if a star were dimly seen it just glistened on
the waters of the marsh, and then swiftly the heavy
web of clouds hid both star and water; when the
watch-dogs were mute, unawakened by the moon, and
the wind that blew across the plain alone told the ear
the place of the trees; when the bats and the owls
were lulled by the exceeding darkness; it was on such266 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
nights as these, that Castruccio sought the secret en-
trance of the viscountess’s palace, and was received
by the beautiful Beatrice, enshrined in an atmosphere
of love and joy.
“ She was a strange riddle to him. Without vow,
without even that slight shew of distrust which is the
child of confidence itself; without seeking the respon-
sive professions of eternal love, she surrendered her-
self to his arms. And, when the first maiden bashful-
ness had passed away, all was deep tenderness and
ardent love. Yet there was a dignity and a trusting
affection in her most unguarded moments, that stag-
gered him; a broken expression would sometimes fall
from her lips, that seemed to say she believed him in-
dissolubly hers, which made him start, as if he feared
that he had acted with perfidy; yet he had never solic-
ited, never promised,—what could she mean ? What
was she ? He loved her as he would have loved any-
thing that was surpassingly beautiful; and, when these
expressions, that intimated somewhat of enduring
and unchanging intercourse, intruded themselves, they
pained and irritated him: he turned to the recollec-
tion of Euthanasia, his pure, his high-minded and
troth-plight bride;—she seemed as if wronged by such
an idea; and yet he hardly dared think her purer than
poor Beatrice, whose soul, though given up to love,
was imbued in its very grain and texture with delicate
affections and honourable feelings; all that makes the“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 267
soul and living spark of virture. If she had not re-
sisted the impulses of her soul, it was not that she
wanted the power; but that, deluded by the net of
conceit that had so long wound itself about her, she
believed them, not only lawful, but inspired by the
special interposition of heaven.
“ Poor Beatrice! she had inherited from her mother
the most ardent imagination that ever animated a
human soul. Its images were as vivid as reality, and
were so overpowering, that they appeared to her, when
she compared them to the calm sensations of others,
as something superhuman; and she followed that as a
guide, which she ought to have bound with fetters,
and to have curbed and crushed by every effort of
reason. Unhappy prophetess! the superstitions of
her times had obtained credit for, and indeed given
birth to her pretensions, and the compassion and hu-
manity of her fellow-creatures, had stamped them with
the truth-attesting seal of a miracle. There is so much
life in love! Beatrice was hardly seventeen, and she
loved for the first time; and all the exquisite pleasures
of that passion were consecrated to her, by a myste-
riousness and delusive sanctity that gave them tenfold
zest. It is said, that in love we idolize the object;
and, placing him apart and selecting him from his
fellows, look on him as superior in nature to all others.
We do so; but, even as we idolize the object of our
affections, do we idolize ourselves; if we separate him268 ‘ ‘ ERA NICE NS TEINt ’ ’ AND OTHER WRITINGS.
from his fellow-mortals, so do we separate ourselves,
and, glorying in belonging to him alone, feel lifted
above all other sensations, all other joys and griefs,
to one hallowed circle from which all but his ideal is
banished; we walk as if a mist or some more potent
charm divided us from all but him ; a sanctified victim
which none but the priest set apart for that office could
touch and not pollute, enshrined in a cloud of glory,
made glorious through beauties not our own. Thus
we all feel during the entrancing dream of love; and
Beatrice, the ardent, affectionate Beatrice, felt this with
multiplied power; and, believing that none had ever
felt so before, she thought that heaven itself had in-
terfered to produce so true a paradise. If her childish
dreams had been full of fire, how much more vivid
and overpowering was the awaking of her soul when
she first loved! It seemed as if some new and won-
drous spirit had descended, alive, breathing and pant-
ing, into her colder heart, and gave it a new impulse,
a new existence. Ever the dupe of her undisciplined
thoughts, she cherished her reveries, believing that
heavenly and intellectual, which was indebted for its
force to earthly mixtures; and she resigned herself
entirely to her visionary joys, until she finally awoke
to truth, fallen, and forever lost.
“ In the meantime peace was entirely restored to
Ferrara; and on the fifteenth of August Castel Tealdo
surrendered, and the Pope’s governor, with his foreign“FRANKENSTEIN,” AND OTHER WRITINGS. 269
guard, quitted the territories of the marquess of Este.
Gallazzo Visconti returned to Milan, but still Castruc-
cio lingered : he wished to go; he found himself out
of place as a dangling courtier in the train of Obizzo;
but how could he leave Beatrice ? What did she ex-
pect or wish ? The passionate tenderness that she
evinced, could not be an ephemeral spark of worthless
love; and how often did the We, she used in talking
of futurity, make him pause when he wished to speak
of their separation ! She seemed happy; her words
flowed in rich abundance, and were adorned with
various imagery and delicate thoughts, showing that
her soul, at rest from fear, wandered as it was wont
amidst the wilds of her imagination. He found her
untaught, undisciplined, but so sincere, so utterly for-
getful of self, so trusting, that he dared not speak
that, which each day showed more clearly would be
as a dagger to her heart. A thousand times he cursed
himself for having mistaken her, and imagining, in-
spired as she believed herself to be, that her actions and
feelings had not been dictated by the loftiest impulses.
But the time arrived, when he was obliged to unde-
ceive her; and the hand, that tore away the ties her
trusting heart had bound round itself, at the same
time tore away the vail which had for her invested all
nature, and showed her life as it was—naked and
appalling.
“ They sat in her apartment at the Malvezzi palace;2/o “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
she radiant, beautiful, and happy; and, twining her
lovely arms around Castruccio, she said; 4 The moon
will set late to-morrow night, and you must not ven-
ture here; and indeed for several nights it will spread
too glaring a beam. But tell me, are you become a
citizen of Ferrara ? They averred that you were the
head of a noble city; but I see they must have been
mistaken, or the poor city must totter strangely, so
headless as your absence must make it. How is this
my only friend? Are you not Antelminelli? Are
we not to go to Lucca ?*
“ Castruccio could not stand the questioning of her
soft yet earnest eyes; he withdrew himself from her
arms, and taking her hands in his, kissed them
silently.
“ ‘ How is my noble lord ?’ she repeated, ‘ have you
had ill news? Are you again banished? that can-
not be, or methinks my heart would have told me the
secret. Yet, if you are, be not unhappy:—your own
Beatrice, with prophetic words, and signs from heaven
that lead the multitude, will conduct you to greater
glory and greater power than you before possessed.
My gentle love, you have talked less about yourself,
and about your hopes and desires, than I should have
wished:—Do not think me a foolish woman, tied to
an embroidery frame, or that my heart would not beat
high at the news of your success, or that with my whole
soul I should not enter into your plans, and tell you“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 271
how the stars looked upon your interests. In truth,
my mind pants for fitting exertion, and, in being joined
to thee, dearest love, I thought that I had found the
goal for which heaven had destined me. Nay look
not away from me; I do not reproach thee, I know
that in finding thee, in being bound to thy fate, mine
is fulfilled; and I am happy. Now speak—tell me
what has disturbed thy thoughts.'
“ * Sweetest Beatrice, I have nothing to tell; yet I
have for many days wished to speak; for in truth I
must return to Lucca.'
The quick sensations of Beatrice could not be de-
ceived. The words of Castruccio were too plain ;
she looked at him, as if she would read the secret in
his soul,—she did read it:—his downcast eyes, confused
air, and the words he stammered out in explanation,
told her everything. The blood rushed to her face,
her neck, her hands; and then as suddenly receding,
left even her lips pale. She withdrew her arms from
the soft caress she had bestowed; playfully she had
bound his head with her own hair and the silken
strings entangled with his; she tore her tresses im-
patiently to disengage herself from him; then, trem-
bling, white, and chilled, she sat down, and said not
a word. Castruccio looked on with fear, he attempted
consolation.
“ ‘ I shall visit thee again, my own Beatrice; for a
time we must part;—the viscountess, the good bishop272 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
—you cannot leave them,—fear not but that we shall
meet again.'
“ ‘ We shall meet again!’ she exclaimed with a pas-
sionate voice; 4 Never!'
“ Her tone, full of agitation and grief, sunk into the
soul of Castruccio. He took her hand; it was life-
less ; he would have kissed her; but she drew back
coldly and sadly. His words had not been those of
the heart; he had hesitated and paused; but now com-
passion, and the memory of what she had been, awoke
his powers, and he said warmly, and with a voice
whose modulation seemed tuned by love: ‘You
mistake me, Beatrice; indeed you do. I love you;—
who could help loving one so true, so gentle, and so
trusting ?—We part for a while;—this is necessary.
Does not your character require it ? The part you act
in the world ? every consideration of honor and del-
icacy ?—Do you think that I can ever forget you ?
does not your own heart tell you, that your love, your
caresses, your sweet eyes, and gentle words have
woven a net which must keep me forever? You will
remain here, and I shall go; but a few suns, a few
moons, and we shall meet again, and the joy of that
moment will make you forget our transient •sep-
aration.'
“ How cold were these words to the burning heart
of the prophetess; she, who thought that Heaven had
singled out Castruccio to unite him to her, who“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 273
thought that the Holy Spirit had revealed himself to
bless their union, that, by the mingled strength of his
manly qualities, and her divine attributes, some great
work might be fulfilled on earth; who saw all as God’s
command, and done by his special interposition; to
find this heavenly tissue swept away, beaten down,
and destroyed! it was to his fortunes, good or bad,
that she had bound herself, to share his glory, or
soothe his griefs; and not to be the mistress of the
passing hour, the distaff of the spinning Hercules. It
was her heart, her whole soul she had given; her un-
derstanding, her prophetic powers, all the little uni-
verse that with her ardent spirit she grasped and pos-
sessed, she had surrendered, fully and without reserve;
but alas! the most worthless part alone had been ac-
cepted, and the rest cast as dust upon the winds.
How in this moment did she long to be a winged
soul, that her person heedlessly given, given only as a
part of that to the whole of which he had an inde-
feasible right, and which was now despised, might
melt away from the view of the despiser, and be seen
no more! The words of her lover brought de-
spair, not comfort; she shook her head in silence;
Castruccio spoke again and again; but many words
are dangerous where there is much to conceal, and
every syllable he uttered laid bare some new forgery
of her imagination, and showed her more and more
clearly the harsh reality. She was astounded, and
18274 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
drank in his words eagerly, though she answered not;
she was impatient when he was silent, for she longed
to know the worst; yet she dared not direct the course
of his explanations by a single enquiry: she was as a
mother, who reads the death-warrant of her child on
the physician’s brow, yet, blindly trusting that she de-
cyphers ill, will not destroy the last hope by a ques-
tion. Even so she listened to the assurances of Cas-
truccio, each word being a fresh assurance of her
misery, yet not stamping the last damning seal on her
despair.
“At length grey dawn appeared; she was silent,
motionless, and wan; she marked it not, but he did;
and rising hastily he cried, 41 must go, or you are
lost; farewell, Beatrice.’
“ Now she awoke, her eyes glared, her lovely features
became even distorted with the strength of her agony,
—she started up—4 Not yet, not yet—one word more!
Do you—love another ?’
44 Her tone was that of command;—her flashing eyes
demanded the truth, and seemed as if they would by
their excessive force strike the falsehood dead, if he
dared utter it: he was subdued, impelled to reply:—
44 4 1 do.’
44 4 Her name ?’
44 4 Euthanasia.’
44 4 Enough, I will remember that name in my
prayers. Now, go! seek not to come again; the en-“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 275
trance will be closed; do not endeavor to see me at the
house of the bishop; I shall fly you as a basilisk, and,
if I see you, your eyes will kill me. These are my
words; they are as true, as that I am all a lie. It will
kill me; but I swear by all my hopes never to see you
more! Oh, never, never!’
“ She again sank down pale and lifeless, pressing her
hands upon her eyes, as if the more speedily to fulfil
her vow. Castruccio dared stay no longer, he fled
as the daemon might have fled from the bitter sorrows
of despoiled Paradise; he left her aghast, overthrown,
annihilated.”
After this Beatrice disappears from Ferrara and is
lost sight of for years. She walks to Rome, beg-
ging alms at Euthanasia’s castle by the way. During
her pilgrimage she suffers terrible miseries. She re-
appears in an inquisitorial prison at Lucca, accused of
being a Paterin. She sends for Euthanasia, who, after
the razing of her castle, Valperga, by Castruccio, had
taken up her abode in that city. Beatrice begs her
to go to Castruccio and entreat him to release her
from her horrible suspense. Wasted and ill, half
mad with fear and suffering, she is but a wretched
shadow of the lovely Beatrice who had swayed Fer-
rara by her inspired prophecies. Euthanasia goes to
Castruccio, who hesitates to grant her entreaty only
that he may prolong her visit and renew his vows to
her, whom he still loved. But Euthanasia will not276 "FRANKENSTEIN,11 AND OTHER WRITINGS.
listen to him, although her heart is cold with grief,
and hastens back to release Beatrice. She takes her
to her own home, nurses her tenderly, endeavoring
by gentle influences to restore health and reason to
the distracted girl.
“ One day Beatrice went out. It was the first time
she had quitted the palace; and Euthanasia was vexed
and anxious. After an absence of some hours she re-
turned; she was clothed in a great coarse cloak that
entirely disguised her; she put it off; and, trembling,
blushing, panting, she threw herself into the arms of
her protectress.
“ ‘ I have seen him ! I have seen him !’
“ ‘ Calm yourself, poor fluttering bird; you have seen
him: well, well, he is changed, much altered; why
do you weep ?’
“4 Aye, he is changed; but he is far more beautiful
than he ever was. Oh, Euthanasia, how radiant, how
divine he is! His eyes, which, like the eagle’s, could
outgaze the sun, yet melt in the sweetest love, as a
cloud, shining yet soft; his brow, manly and expan-
sive, on which his raven curls rest; his upturned lips,
where pride, and joy, and love, and wisdom, and
triumph live, small spirits, ready to obey his smallest
wish; and his head cinctured by a slight diadem,
looks carved out by the intensest knowledge of
beauty! How graceful his slightest motion! and
his voice,—his voice is here,—’“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 277
“ Beatrice put her hand upon her heart; her eyes
were filled with tears; and the whole expression of
her face was softened and humanized. Suddenly she
stopped; she dried her eyes; and, fixing them on Eu-
thanasia, she took her two hands in hers, and looked
on her, as if she would read her soul. * Beautiful
creature,’ she said, ‘ once he told me that he loved
you. Did he not? does he not? Why are you sepa-
rated ? do you not love him ?’
“ 41 did; once I did truly; but he has cast off that
which was my love; and, like a flower plucked from
the stalk, it has withered—as you see it.’
“ * Aye, that is strange. What did he cast off?’
“ ‘ Why will you make me speak ? He cast off hu-
manity, honesty, honorable feeling, all that I prize.’
“ ‘ Forms, forms,—mere forms, my mistaken Eutha-
nasia. • He remained, and was not that everything?
Methinks, it would please me, that my lover should
cast off all humanity, and be a reprobate, and an out-
cast of his species. Oh! then how deeply and ten-
derly I should love him ; soiled with crimes, his hands
dripping with blood, I would shade him as the flower-
ing shrub invests the ruin; I would cover him with a
spotless veil; my intensity of love would annihilate
his wickedness ;—every one would hate him ;—but, if
all adored him, it would not come near the sum of my
single affection. I should be everything to him, life,
and hope; he would die in his remorse; but he would278 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
live again and again in the light of my love; I would
invest him as a silvery mist, so that none should see
how evil he was; I would pour out before him large
draughts of love, that he should become drunk with
it, until he grew good and kind. So you deserted
this glorious being, and he has felt the pangs of unre-
quited affection, the helpless throes of love cast as water
upon the sand of the desert ? Oh, indeed I pity him !’
“ ‘ Believe me/ cried Euthanasia, ‘ he has other af-
fections. Glory and conquest are his mistresses, and
he is a successful lover; already he has deluged our
valleys in blood, and turned our habitations into black
and formless ruins; he has torn down the banners of
the Florentines, and planted his own upon the towers
of noble cities. I believe him to be happy.’
“ ‘ Thank God for that; I would pour out my blood
drop by drop, to make him happy. But he is not
married and you have deserted him; I love him; he
has loved me; is it impossible— ? Oh ! foolish, hate-
ful wretch that I am, what do I say? No creature
was ever so utterly undone !’
“Beatrice covered her face with her hands; her
struggles were violent; she shrunk from Euthanasia’s
consoling embrace; and at length, quite overcome, she
sank in convulsions on the pavement of the hall.”
At length, after many fluctuations between reason
and insanity, Beatrice dies, and Euthanasia is left with
empty hands and a weary future before her. She" FRANKENSTEIN" AND OTHER WRITINGS. 279
returns to Florence with Castruccio’s permission.
Here a conspiracy is organized against him by her
friends and relatives. She is entreated to join it. After
repeated denials, she unites herself to the undertaking
on condition that they will spare her Castruccio’s
life; that he is only to be deprived of his power. One
of the conspirators betrays them, and they are all
thrown into prison, Euthanasia among them. That
night, at the hour of midnight, with his own hands
Castruccio opens her prison door and bids her depart
for a vessel bound for Sicily, where he had prepared
an abode for her. She refuses to abandon her friends
to die, but yielding to his entreaties leaves her prison
and is conducted in the darkness by him across the
country to the sea-coast. She bids Castruccio farewell
and embarks. That very night a storm arises and the
vessel is lost. Castruccio lives the terror of Italy, for
some years after this event, but the story really ends
with Euthanasia’s death.
In “ The Last Man” Mrs. Shelley writes with pro-
phetic pen. The scene opens in the year 2096. Eng-
land has become a republic, the royal family abdicating
in favor of republican principles. A protector is at
the head of the nation. Yet, alas! the great event
which is nearest her she fails to see. Although rail-
roads in a few years after the book is written are to
spread a net-work over all the world, travelling at the280 “FRANKENSTEIN,” AND OTHER WRITINGS.
end of the twenty-first century is still by posting or
private carriage, though once a balloon is alluded to
as a means of transit. “The Last Man” is a pro-
longed description of the depopulation of the earth
by a plague. France, Italy, all the world is stricken
with the dreadful disease. Month follows month of
ravaging death. Slowly but with agonizing certainty
the inhabitants of England lessen till of all that vast
country only a few hundred remain. The buildings
and houses still stand; the cities, the country remain
unaltered; but the utter annihilation of life proceeds
till the few hundred yet unattacked by the certain
death leave England and her horrible memories to
pass the second winter of the plague in a warmer
clime, where nature may be more generous to the
stricken people.
With the protector at the head of these fifteen hun-
dred survivors they take their via dolorosa toward
Italy. Notices have been sent to all parts of England
summoning the despairing remnant of the people to
London, to proceed thence by slow marches to Dover.
The last man writes the history of their direful jour-
ney. Before they reach Dover he has lost wife and
child. Here mysterious and dreadful convulsions of
the elements appal the terrified people,—unnatural
suns and meteors, earthquakes and frightful storms,
as if nature were enraged at their abandoning their
hearths and homes, albeit blackened and desolated byFRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 281
death. However, they embark and reach France; but
so many delays occur that the whole winter is con-
sumed before they leave Paris. And now the fierce
desire of the slow-moving tide of stricken people is
to reach Switzerland, plunge into the icy streams, and
cool their burning bodies.
With the approach of hot weather the plague again
lays relentless hold upon them. Their journey is de-
layed by the sick and dying. Slowly they progress.
All the villages they pass are deserted and empty; the
whole world is silent and dead. At the end of sum-
mer, on reaching Geneva, the little band numbers only
fifty souls. When the snows of winter set in the
hopeless handful moves on to Milan. That city of
palaces is forsaken and echoless. A few animals
roam the streets; the doors of the houses swing open;
the rain beats in at the windows; food stands mould-
ing on the tables; bats and owls nest in the mildewed
draperies. Here, one by one, of fever or plague, the
doomed people vanish from the earth till only three are
left,—the last man, his niece, and brother. These be-
loved companions he sees perish before his eyes by
the wreck of their vessel in a storm. He is alone,—a
hopeless, solitary, desolate being. He, sole survivor
of the plague, bears a charmed life.
He wanders from place to place to find if but one
living soul remains to bear him companionship in the
awful waste. Village and city are empty. He re-282 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS.
solves to write the fate of his race. On the leaves of
the trees, like the Cumean sibyl of old, he scrawls
their awful miseries and death, and then, himself quit-
ting life as the new century comes in, leaves the price-
less records concealed in a cave near Naples, trusting
that a single pair of lovers may yet have escaped to
repeople the world and read the history of the awful
annihilation.
“ The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck” is an historical
novel deserving attention. It is more cheerful in tone
than its precursors, the interest depending more on
the action of the narrative itself, the succession of
events, the place in history of its hero, than on any
fictitious creations of its author’s brain, although
Mrs. Shelley has presented us with a most unhistorical
picture of Perkin Warbeck’s character, making him
noble, generous, and courageous where history has
stamped him weak and a coward.
Barring the fact that Mrs. Shelley is always and en-
tirely undramatic, this work is not without interest.
For she has, with more or less skill, arranged in an
attractive form the records of a romantic existence,
which are else to be found in chronicles and his-
tories. The story of Perkin Warbeck is the story of
the younger of the two princes who were confined in
the tower, the unfortunate sons of Edward IV.
Though it is known that the elder died during his“FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS. 283
confinement, a mystery has always hung over the
fate of his brother. Whether he died there, or was
secretly destroyed by his uncle, Richard III., or clan-
destinely removed from the tower by friends, will
never be known. But Mrs. Shelley, differing from
Hume and modern historians, agrees with the chroni-
cles of Hall and Holinshed that the young duke was
removed from the tower, educated abroad under the
name of Perkin Warbeck, and that he afterward made
lawful claim to the English crown. She believed,
as did many of his contemporaries, that this Perkin
Warbeck, the pretender, was the young Richard,
Duke of York, heir to the throne of England when
his uncle was killed on Bosworth Field.
Believing that to be the fact, she describes the life
of a noble and lovable nature,—in his childhood, de-
frauded of country and kingdom; in his youth, the
sport of circumstances and perilous adventures ; in
his manhood, betrayed by the treacheries of his friends
and the cunning of his enemies. It is a record of
romantic and marvellous escapes; of a charmed life
until the final catastrophe. When Richard was killed
on Bosworth Field, and Henry VII. assumed the
throne, uniting by his marriage the houses of York
and Lancaster, the young heir, then nine or ten years
old, was secretly conveyed to Flanders, and there edu-
cated as the son of a peasant, till the proper time for
his acknowledgment should come.284 “FRANKENSTEINAND OTHER WRITINGS.
But the proper time had passed when Henry was
allowed to assume the throne. When, some eight
years after,—after Henry is firmly established in his
seat, and the heir of York has been living in silence
and obscurity as Perkin Warbeck,—this reputed son
of a peasant, supported by a few stanch Yorkists and
the countries then at war with Henry, appears and
claims the royal birthright, his countrymen care little
whether he is an impostor or their true king, having
become used to their new master. The golden hour
is passed. Henry sits firmly on the throne. Ever the
victim of misfortune and intrigue, the young prince
travels, or rather escapes from one country to another,
arousing always warm personal friendship and admira-
tion by his nobility of character and his courage.
Appearing now in Flanders and France, now in Por-
tugal, now in Ireland and England, he owed many of
his adherents to the wrapt enthusiasm and untiring
zeal of a young Spanish maiden Monina. As did
Jeanne Dare hold in her hands the fate of the young
Charles IX., so did she seem to bear the fortunes of
Perkin Warbeck. For often when his life was in
danger did some subtile influence draw Monina to him
in time to rescue him; often, when friends were faint
and hope dead, did her ardent enthusiasm kindle new
energy.
After Perkin Warbeck’s sojourn at the court of
James IV. of Scotland, and his marriage to the Lady“FRANKENSTEINAND OTHER WRITINGS. 285
Katherine Gordon, the king's kinswoman, who it had
been prophesied would be a queen, he descends upon
the border with a motley band of invaders. Finding
with horror that the Scots, under cover of fealty to
him, simply raided and plundered their lowland neigh-
bors, he and his loyal young wife crossed over to Ire-
land, hoping to find support there; failing which they
sailed to Cornwall, living there in secret,—now with
gypsies, now in a hut with Jane Shore and Monina.
But the iron was cold. England, whatever it might
believe of this royal youth, had been ruled too long
and too well to risk its peace in uncertain insurrection.
Not Monina’s enthusiasm nor sagacity, not Lady
Katherine’s courage, nor the loyalty of a few nobles
could guard the prince they loved from treachery and
his impending ruin. Warbeck, shortly after his arrival
on English soil, fell into the trap that Henry had set
for him, and, after a wretched imprisonment, was exe-
cuted in Westminster, which place he had ever fixed
as the goal of his dream of glory, the end of his wan-
dering career. Such the Perkin Warbeck of Mrs.
Shelley’s creation.
• History now leaves little doubt that this pretended
Richard, Prince of York, this real Perkin Warbeck,
was indeed what Henry declared him to be, the son
of a Flemish boatman; that he owed his fortunes and
his fate to a resemblance to the House of York, to the
intrigues and designs of Henry’s political enemies, to286 “FRANKENSTEIN," AND OTHER WRITINGS,
the necessity.of the Plantagenets for an heir, and to his
own ambition. But the character was so well sustained
through all his career, his claim was so well supported
by foreign courts, he was so real a cause of anxiety to
Henry, and the fate of the young Duke of York was
so clothed in mystery, that history may well have had
its doubts as to the personality of Perkin Warbeck.'
“ Lodore” is a novel of London life as it was in Mrs.
Shelley’s time. Her other works, aside from any per-
sonal worth, had a claim to attention from their his-
torical or allegorical themes. But this poor book has
no excuse for being. It is the old story, badly told, of
a lord and his lady whose little differences of temper,
taste, and pride create misunderstandings and disa-
greements. He (Lord Lodore) takes their infant
daughter and sails for America, hews a home for him-
self in the forest-bound Illinois, and lives there until
his daughter reaches the age of womanhood. He
resolves to return to England, but in New York fights
a duel and is killed. Thus vanishes the hero,—a man
of violent passions, but generous and noble impulses.
His daughter returns to England, to the care of his
sister.
Meanwhile the Lady Lodore has lived the fashion-
able life of London, satisfying her heart with the
triumphs of society. The motif of the book is the
development of this selfish, arrogant, worldly woman“FRANKENSTEIN,AND OTHER WRITINGS. 287
into a humble, lovable, self-sacrificing soul. A will
made by Lord Lodore on his departure from Eng-
land, and in the first heat of his anger towards his wife,
provides her with an ample income if she does not
attempt to see her child. During the first year of her
daughter’s return to England, Lady Lodore is well
satisfied with this arrangement, but before the book
closes she has sacrificed all her worldly goods, her
jointure, her social position, and retired to poverty
and obscurity to help this young daughter’s husband
out of a debtor’s prison. The pangs of unrequited
love are also to her a source of ennobling discipline.
But the end of the book brings with it the happy
termination of all her trials by her marriage to the
lover who had been separated from her by malicious
rumors.
There is a faint suggestion of Fanny Imlay in one
of the people, who appears for a few chapters, and
also incidents from the life of the “ noble Emilia Vivi-
ani” are used in describing an Italian woman. But
whatever the original characters are they are often dis-
torted by the most glaring inconsistencies to meet the
exigencies of the moment, and her poor, tortured
people are never allowed to develop according to the
bent of their nature. The bad, the good, the treach-
erous, the weak, are twisted into the shape that will
serve one end and one aim,—a vapid, conventional
morality.288 “FRANKENSTEIN" AND OTHER WRITINGS.
The Spanish and Italian lives in “ Lardner’s Encyclo-
paedia” are faithful and accurate historical studies.
Mrs. Shelley labored conscientiously and diligently to
present a truthful record of their lives. It was a work
that she was well fitted to do, both from the wide ex-
tent of her general knowledge and the student-like
and analytical tendency of her mind.
But it is to the nature and excellence of the notes
to her husband’s poems that the world is most in-
debted to Mrs. Shelley. They are perfectly truthful
accounts of the states of mind and conditions under
which the poems were written. Nothing is concealed,
nothing omitted, even when she would perhaps have
preferred to remain silent, that could explain the in-
fluences under which England’s greatest lyrical poet
wrote.CHAPTER VIII.
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
In August of 1824, after an absence of nearly six
years, Mrs. Shelley with her child returned to Eng-
land. England, with its dull fogs and heavy, dripping
days, which sent a chill to her heart after the luminous
blue skies of Italy. Whatever of joy there was left
her in her solitude was all named in that one word,
Italy. Her days of happiness, of tenderest memories,
—her sacred sorrow bound her to Italy. Under the
softening influence of that gentle atmosphere the
ruins of her life had ever about them a halo of sun-
shine and blue skies,—a restful peace brooded over
her,—but in England her sorrow looked garish and
bare.
How bitterly cruel that solitude to her, who so
craved encouragement! In losing Shelley, she lost
life itself, and it was only a profound heroism, and the
guiding desire to do for their son all that her Shelley
would have approved, that bound her to the earth.
With noblest spirit and energy, in spite of harassing
circumstances and disheartening barriers, in spite of
the obstacles which Sir Timothy threw in her way, in
19	289290
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH,
spite of the cruel anguish which consumed all that
was rarest of heart and brain and ate into those in-
tellectual powers which she so needed, this noble
woman—sad shadow of that happy being who in the
halcyon days of her love had written “ Frankenstein”—
for twenty years supported herself and her son by her
literary labors.
Wrapping herself in the gentle influence of her
Shelley, praying to his spirit to strengthen and sup-
port her, with feeble powers, she took up her pen;
but the fire of her genius had been quenched by the
same waters that swept Shelley from her arms. Writ-
ing in her journal at a later date, she says, “ Amidst
all the depressing circumstances that weigh upon me,
none sinks deeper than the failure of my intellectual
powers. Nothing I write pleases me. Whether I am
just in this or whether it is the want of Shelley’s en-
couragement, I can hardly tell; but it seems to me
that the lovely and sublime objects of Nature had been
my best inspirers, and wanting these, I am lost. Al-
though so utterly miserable at Genoa, yet what reve-
ries were mine as I looked on the aspect of the rav-
ine—the sunny deep and its boats—the promontories
clothed in purple light—the starry heavens—the fire-
flies—the uprising of spring! Then I could think;
and my imagination could invent and combine; and
self became absorbed in the grandeur of the universe
I created. Now, my mind is a blank—a gulf filled withRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH,
291
formless mist. 'The Last Man’! Yes, I may well
describe that solitary being’s feelings; I feel myself as
the last relic of a beloved race my companions ex-
tinct before me.
“ Mine own Shelley! what a horror you had of re-
turning to this miserable country! To be here with-
out you is to be doubly exiled; to be away from Italy,
is to lose you twice!”
During the last year of Shelley’s life, affairs had
been growing worse and worse in Skinner Street, and
Godwin had written to Mrs. Shelley an appeal for aid.
No one could have been more generous or unselfish
of her labor and her earnings than she. All the years
when she was struggling against depressed spirits and
ill health, to support herself and her son, and to pro-
vide for his education, she was at the same time con-
tributing largely to her father’s maintenance.
“ Skinner St., May 3, 1822.
“ Dear Mary,—” writes Godwin—“ I wrote to you
a fortnight ago and professed my intention of not writ-
ing again. I certainly will not write when the result
will be to give pain, unmitigated pain. It is the ques-
tionable shape of what I have to communicate that
still thrusts the pen into my hand. This day we are
compelled by summary process to leave the house we
live in, and to hide our heads in whatever alley will
receive us. If we can compound with our creditor292
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
and he seems not unwilling to receive ^400 (I have
talked with him on the subject) we may emerge again.
Our business if freed from this intolerable burthen is
more than ever worth keeping.
“ But all this would perhaps have failed in inducing
me to resume the pen but for an extraordinary acci-
dent. Wednesday, May I, was the day when the last
legal step was taken against me. On Wednesday
morning a few hours before this catastrophe, Willatts,
the man who three or four years before lent Shelley
^2000 at two for one, called to ask me whether Shel-
ley wanted any more money on the same terms.
What does this mean ? In the contemplation of such
a coincidence I could almost grow superstitious. But
alas, I fear, I fear, I am a drowning man catching at
straws.
“ Ever most affectionately your father,
“ William Godwin.”
Shelley himself answered the appeal in this letter to
Mrs. Godwin. It is dated Lerici, May 29, 1822, and
is the last letter that he wrote to England:
“ Dear Madam,—Mrs. Mason has sent me an ex-
tract from your last letter to show Mary, and I have
received that of Mr. Godwin in which he mentions
your having left Skinner St. In Mary’s present
state of health and spirits much caution is requisiteRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
293
with regard to communications, which must agitate
her in the highest degree, and the object of my pres-
ent letter is simply to inform you that I have thought
right to exercise this caution on the present occasion.
Mary is at present about three months advanced in
pregnancy and the irritability and languor which ac-
company this state are always distressing and some-
times alarming. I do not know how soon I can per-
mit her to receive such communications, or how soon
you and Mr. Godwin, would wish they should be con-
veyed to her if you could have any idea of the effect.
Do not however let me be misunderstood. It is not
my intention nor my wish that the circumstances in
which your family are involved should be concealed
from her, but that the details should be suspended
until they assume a more prosperous character, or at
least the letters addressed to her, or intended for her
perusal on that subject, should not convey a supposi-
tion that she could do more than she does, thus exas-
perating the sympathy which she already feels too
intensely for her father’s distress, which she would
sacrifice all she possesses, to remedy, but the remedy
of which is beyond her power. She imagined that
her novel might be turned to immediate advantage for
him. I am greatly interested in the fate of this pro-
duction, which appears to me to possess a high degree
of merit, and I regret that it is not Mr. Godwin’s
intention to publish it immediately. I am sure that294
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
Mary would be delighted to amend anything that her
father thought imperfect in it, though I confess if his
objection relate to the character of Beatrice, I shall
lament the deference which would be shown by the
sacrifice of any portion of it, to his feelings and ideas,
which are but for a day. I wish Mr. Godwin would
write to her on that subject, and he might advert to
the letter, for it is only the last one which I have sup-
pressed, or not as he thought proper.
“ I have written to Mr. Smith to solicit the loan of
^400 which if I can obtain it in that manner, is very
much at Mr. Godwin’s service. The views which I
now entertain of my affairs, forbid me to enter into any
further reversionary transactions, nor do I think Mr.
Godwin would be a gainer by the contrary determina-
tion, as it would be next to impossible to effect any
such bargain at this distance. Nor could I burthen
my income, which is barely sufficient to meet its
various claims and the system of life in which it
seems necessary that I should live.
“ We hear you have Jane’s news from Mrs. Mason.
Since the late melancholy event,* she has become far
more tranquil, nor should I have anything to desire
with regard to her, did not the uncertainty of my own
life, and prospects, render it prudent for her to attempt
to establish some sort of independence, as a security
* The death of Allegra, who died at the convent at Venice.RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
295
against an event, which would deprive her of that,
which she at present enjoys. She is well in health
and usually resides in Florence where she has formed
a little society for herself among the Italians, with
whom she is a great favorite. She was here for a
week or two and though she has now returned to
Florence, we expect her soon to visit us for the sum-
mer months. In the winter, unless some of her
various plans succeed, for she may be called, la fille
aux mille projets, she will return to Florence.
“ Mr. Godwin may depend on receiving immediate
notice of the result of my application to Mr. Smith.
I hope to hear soon an account of your situation and
prospects, and remain
“ Dear Madam, yours very sincerely,
“P. B. Shelley.”
It must be remarked that Godwin had already
received considerable aid from Shelley, as he had, in-
deed, from every friend and acquaintance he ever
made. Godwin was indeed a drowning man. He
was obliged to leave Skinner Street at two days’ no-
tice, under the pain of having his possessions tossed
into the street by his landlord; while the sheriff*
who had an execution on their goods, would not allow
them to be moved. However, the sheriff was tem-
porarily satisfied and the removal was made. The
family subsequently settled themselves in the Strand.296 RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEA TH.
It was to her father’s house that Mrs. Shelley went
on her return to England. But in nine years both
house and household were altered, perhaps she most
of all. Fanny, whose bright and amiable disposition
made her dear to them all, was dead; Charles Clair-
mont was married and living as a tutor in Vienna;
Jane spent most of her time on the Continent; Wil-
liam, a school-boy when Mary left home, was now
about to go out in the world of commerce; her father
was still cheerful and philosophical, but he was, how-
ever, growing feeble; Mrs. Godwin was much the
same as ever,—perhaps natures like hers rarely change
for the better as they increase in years,—certain it is,
that she was still querulous and exacting.
Leigh Hunt, who, before his departure for Italy, had
lived in that charming atmosphere of musical people,
among whom Vincent Novello and Mary, his wife,
were conspicuous for their great-heartedness, sent the
following letter, introducing Mrs. Shelley, to his friend
Novello. It was written with what Mary Shelley
would have called Hunt’s “ characteristic enthusi-
asm,” and evidently at the time when she was in his
approval.
“ To V. N. (By favor of Mrs. Shelley) :
“ Albaro, July 24th, 1823.
“ My dear Novello, — Mary Wollstonecraft’s
daughter brings you this letter. I know you wouldRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
297
receive her with all your kindness and respect for that
designation alone; but there are a hundred other
reasons why you will do so, including her own extra-
ordinary talents, (which at the same time no woman
can be less obtrusive with), the pleasure you will find
in her society, and last not least, her love of music and
regard for a certain professor of ditto—but I have
spoken of this introduction already. I do not send
you a long letter for reasons given in the same place,
but I trust it will be as good as a long letter in its re-
turn to me, because it sets you the example of writing
a short one when you cannot do more. How I envy
Mary Shelley the power of taking you all by the
hands and joining your kind-hearted circle! But I
am there very often myself, I assure you; invisible it
is true, and behind the curtain: but it is possible
you know to be behind a curtain and yet be very in-
tensely present besides. But do not let any one con-
sider Mary S. in the light of a Blue, of which she has
a great horror, but as an unaffected person with her
faults and good qualities like the rest of us ; the former
extremely corrected by all she has seen and endured,
the latter inclining her like a wise and kind being, to
receive all the consolation which the good and the
kind can give her. She will be grave with your gravi-
ties, and laugh as much as you please with your mer-
riments. For the rest she is as quiet as a mouse, and
will drink in as much Mozart and Paesiello as you298 RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEA TH.
choose to afford her, with an enjoyment you might
take for a Quaker’s, unless you could contrive some
day to put her into a state of pain, when she will im-
mediately grow as eloquent, and say as many fine
things as she can discourse in a novel.
“ God bless you dear Novello. From Florence I
shall send you some music, especially what you
wanted in Rome.
“ From this place I can send you nothing except a
ring of my hair, which you must wear for the sake of
your affectionate friend.
“ L. H ”
Many and charming were the musical gatherings
under the Novellos’ hospitable roof. Here the true
lovers of music were to be found, musicians in the
real sense of the word, professional or amateur.
Charles Cowden Clarke writes of the little circle as
he remembers it, while Mary Novello, his future wife,
was yet a child in pinafores. “ The Novellos after
leaving Oxford St., and residing for a few years at 8,
Percy Street, had taken a large old-fashioned house and
garden on Shacklewell Green: and it was here that
they made welcome Mrs. Shelley and Mrs. Williams
on their return from Italy, two young and beautiful
widows, wooing them by gentle degrees into peace-
fuller and hopefuller mood of mind after their storm
of bereavement abroad. By quiet meetings for homeRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
299
music: by calmly cheerful and gradually sprightlier
converse, by affectionate familiarity and reception
into their own family circle of children and friends,
Vincent and Mary Sabella Novello sought to draw
these two fair women into reconcilement with life and
its still surviving blessings. Very, very fair, both
ladies were. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley
with her well-shaped golden-haired head, almost
always a little bent and drooping, her marble-white
shoulders and arms statuesquely visible in the per-
fectly plain black velvet dress, which the customs of
that time allowed to be cut low, and which her own
taste adopted (for neither she nor her sister-in-sorrow
ever wore the conventional ‘ widow’s weeds’ and
‘ widow’s cap’); her thoughtful earnest eyes; her
short upper lip and intellectually curved mouth, with
a certain close compressed and decisive expression
while she listened, and a little relaxation into fuller
redness and mobility when speaking; her exquisitely
formed white dimpled small hands, with rosy palms
and plumply commencing fingers, that tapered into
tips as slender and delicate as those in a Vandyk pic-
ture—all remain palpably present to my memory.
Another peculiarity in Mrs. Shelley’s hand was its
singular flexibility, which permitted her bending the
fingers back so as almost to approach the portion of
her arm above her wrist. She once did this smilingly
and repeatedly to amuse the girl [M. C. C.] who was300
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
noting its whiteness and pliancy and who now as an
old woman records its remarkable beauty. Very
sweet and very encouraging was Mary Shelley to her
young namesake, Mary Victoria, making her proud
and happy by giving her a presentation copy of her
wonderful book ‘ Frankenstein’ (still in treasured
preservation, with its autograph gift-words,) and pleas-
ing her girlish fancy by the gift of a string of cut
coral, graduated beads from Italy. On such pleasant
terms of kindly intimacy was Mrs. Shelley at this
period, with the Novellos, that she and Mrs. Novello
interchanged with one another their sweet familiar
names of ‘Mary;’ and she gave the Italianized form
of his name to Mr. Novello, calling him ‘ Vincenzo’
in her most caressing tones, when she wished to win
him into indulging her with some of her especially
favorite strains of music. Even his brother Mr. Fran-
cis Novello, she would address as ‘ Francesco,’ as lov-
ing to speak the soft Italian syllables. Her mode of
uttering the word ‘ Lerici’ dwells upon our memory
with peculiarly subdued and lingering intonation, as-
sociated as it was with that picturesque spot where
she learned she had lost her beloved ‘ Shelley’ forever
from this fair earth. She was never tired of asking
‘ Francesco’ to sing in his rich, mellow, bass voice,
Mozart’s ‘ Qui Sdegno,’ ‘ Possenti Numi,’ ‘ Mentre
ti lascio,’ ‘Tuba mirum,’ ‘La Vendetta,’ ‘Non piu
andrai/ or ‘ Madamina’; so fond was she of his sing-RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
301
ing her favorite composer. Greatly she grew to enjoy
the concerted pieces from * Cose fair tutte/ that used
to be got up ‘ round the piano/ ”
And to this picture Mrs. Clarke adds her own rec-
ollection. “ Certainly Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
Shelley was the central figure of attraction then to my
young girl sight; and I looked upon her with cease-
less admiration—for her personal graces, as well as for
her literary distinction. The daughter of William
Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the wife of
Shelley, the authoress of ‘ Frankenstein/ had for me
a concentration of charm and interest that perpetu-
ally excited and engrossed me while she continued a
visitor at my father’s house. My father held her in
especial regard, and she evinced equally affectionate
esteem for him. A note of hers, dated a few years
after the Shacklewell days, sending him the priceless
treasure of a lock of her illustrious mother’s hair, and
written in the melodious tongue so dear to both writer
and receiver, shall be here transcribed for the reader
to share the pleasure of its perusal with her who has
both note and hair carefully enshrined beneath a
crystal covering.
“ * Tempo fa, mio caro Vincenzo, vi promisi questa
treccia dei capelli della mia Madre—non mi son scor-
data della mia promissa e voi non vi siete scordato di
me—sono securissima. II regalo presenti adunque vi
fara rammentare piacevolmente lei chi ama per sem-302
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
pre i suoi amici—fra di quali credera di sempre tro-
varoi quantumque le cerconstanze ci dividono.
State felice—e conservatemi almeno la vostra
stima, vi prega la vostra arnica vera.
“4 Mary Shelley.*
u ‘II March, I826., ”
Dear and faithful friends were the Novellos to Mary
Shelley in this dismal return to a gloomy land.
To the description which Charles Cowden Clarke
has given of Mrs. Shelley's personal appearance may
be added another: the name of the author does not
appear, but Lady Shelley writes, “ It must be some
one who knew her well.” “ I have never seen a por-
trait that at all did her justice,” writes the author. “ If
not a beauty she was a most interesting, lovable-look-
ing woman; with a skin exquisitely fair, and expres-
sive grey eyes; features delicate, yet of that style and
proportion which have won the term of ‘ aristocratic
hair of a light but bright brown, most silky in texture
* Some time ago, my dear Vincenzo, I promised you this tress of
my mother’s hair; I have not forgotten my promise, and you have not
forgotten me, I am very sure. The present which I send you will
therefore remind you pleasantly of her who ever loves her friends,
among whom she trusts always to find you whatever circumstances
may divide us.
Be happy, and preserve for me at least your esteem, this is the
prayer of your true friend.
Mary Shelley.RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
303
and luxuriant in profusion, which hung in long droop-
ing ringlets over her colourless cheek, and gathered
in a cluster behind, fell wavingly over her shoulders;
a large, open forehead; white and well-moulded arms
and hands: She was a degree under the middle height,
and rather inclining to embonpoint. . . . Mary Shel-
ley always seemed to me to bear a strong resemblance
to the pictures of Miss O’Neill the actress ; and then
her voice—well might her husband, writing of it,
say—
u * Like the music of a bird,
Voice the sweetest ever heard.’
“I never heard but one voice that equalled the
melody of its low, soft, murmuring tones. . . .
. . . “ Though then young,” continues this lady, “ she
had none of the buoyancy or elasticity of youth about
her. The trappings of grief and ‘ livery of woe’ had
been cast aside; still there was a settled sadness, a
grave, gentle melancholy, in her face, and voice, and
gait, which at once aroused your sympathy and elicited
your interest in her. ... To avoid note or observa-
tion—to adopt in dress, manner, and deportment, noth-
ing that could challenge either of these—appeared
her especial desire and aim. . . . She was especially
graceful in her demeanor and action. If she sat
down it was just in the attitude an artist would have
selected. This was not the result of study or effort.
It was natural: she did nothing for effect. ... I304
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEA TH.
never knew in my life, either man or woman whose
character was so entirely in harmony; no jarring dis-
cords—no incongruous, anomalous, antagonistic oppo-
sites—met to disturb the perfect unity, and counteract
one day the impressions of the former. Gentleness
was ever and always her distinguishing characteristic.
Many years’ friendship never showed me a deviation
from it. But with this softness there was neither ir-
resolution nor feebleness; but the sternest resolution,
the most steadfast purpose, would be carried out,
without the loud voice, the violent gesture, which, I
am sorry to say, so many of her sex, to their own
great detriment, too often delight to indulge in. . . .
“ It is too often the case that some authors talk
overmuch of their writings, and all thereunto belong-
ing. Mrs. Shelley was the extremest reverse of this.
In fact she was almost morbidly averse to the least
allusion to herself as an authoress. To call on her
and find her table covered with all the accessories and
unmistakable traces of book-making—such as copy?
proofs for correction, &c.,—made her nearly as nervous
as if she had been detected in the commission of some
offence against the conventionalities of society or code
of morality. . . . Except in what had reference to her
husband, she was anything but a vain woman, either
personally or mentally; and had not a taint of those
hateful deteriorating adjuncts, coquetry or afifectation.,,
Shortly after her arrival in England, Mrs. ShelleyRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
305
writes this bright, gossipy letter to Leigh Hunt, touch-
ing upon people and things with a light fancy that is
charming.
“ London, September 9th, 1823.
“ My dear Hunt,—Bessy* promised me to relieve
you from any inquietude, you might suffer from not
hearing from me, so I indulged myself with not writing
to you until I was quietly settled in lodgings of my
own. Want of time is not my excuse; I had plenty
but until I saw all quiet around me, I had not the
spirit to write a line. I thought of you all—how
much !—and often longed to write, yet would not till I
called myself free to turn southward;—to imagine you
all, to put myself in the midst of you, would have de-
stroyed all my philosophy. But now I do so. I am in
neat little lodgings, my boy in bed, I quiet, and I will
now talk to you, tell you what I have seen and heard,
and with as little repining as I can, try (by making
the best of what I have, the certainty of your friend-
ship and kindness) to rest half content that I am not
in the ‘ Paradise of Exiles.’ Well first I will tell you
journalwise, the history of my sixteen days in London.
I arrived Monday the 25th of August. My father
and William came for me to the wharf. I had an ex-
cellent passage, of n}4 hours, a glassy sea, and a
contrary wind—the smoke of our fire was wafted
* Elizabeth Kent, Mrs. Hunt’s sister.
203o6 RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
right aft and streamed out behind us; but the wind
was of little consequence, the tide was with us; and
though the engine gave a ‘ short uneasy motion/ to the
vessel, the water was so smooth that no one on board
was sick, and Persino played about the deck in high
glee. I had a very kind reception in the Strand and
all was done that could be done to make me comfort-
able. I exerted myself to keep up my spirits. The
house though rather dismal, is infinitely better than
the Skinner St. one. I resolved not to think of cer-
tain things, to take all as a matter of course, and
thus contrived to keep myself out of the gulf of mel-
ancholy, over the edge of which I was, and am con-
tinually peeping.
“ But lo and behold! I found myself famous.
* Frankenstein’ had had prodigious success as a
drama, and was about to be repeated for the 23rd
night at the English Opera House. The play-bill
amused me extremely, for in the list of dramatis
personce came------, by Mr. T. Cooke; this nameless
mode of naming the unnameable is rather good.
“ On Friday August 29th, Jane, my father, William
and I, went to the theatre to see it. Wallack looked
very well as F. He is at the beginning full of hope
and expectation. At the end of the first act, the stage
represents a room, with a staircase leading to F.’s
workshop: he goes to it and you see his light at a
small window through which a frightened servantRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
307
peeps, who runs off in terror, when F. exclaims, ‘ It
lives !’ Presently F. himself rushes in horror and
trepidation from the room, and while still expressing
his agony and terror,—throws down the door of the
laboratory, leaps the staircase, and presents his un-
earthly and monstrous person on the stage. The
story is not well managed but Cooke played ------’s
part extremely well: his seeking as it were for sup-
port—his trying to grasp at the sounds he heard—all,
indeed he does, was well imagined and executed. I
was much amused, and it appeared to excite a breath-
less eagerness in the audience. It was a third piece :
a scanty pit filled at half price, and all stayed till it
was over. They continue to play it even now.
“ On Saturday, August the 30th I went with Jane to
the Gisborne’s. I know not why, but seeing them
seemed more than anything else to remind me of Italy.
Evening came on drearily. The rain splashed on the
pavement, nor star, nor moon deigned to appear. I
looked upward, to seek an image of Italy, but a blotted
sky told me only of my change. I tried to collect my
thoughts and then again dared not think, for I am a
ruin where owls and bats live only, and I lost my last
singing bird, when I left Albaro. It was my birthday,
and it pleased me to tell the people so—to recollect
and feel that time flies; and what is to arrive is nearer,
and my home not so far off, as it was a year ago.
This same evening, on my return to the Strand, I saw3o8 RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
Lamb who was very entertaining and amiable, though
a little deaf. One of the first questions he asked me
was whether they made puns in Italy. I said, ‘ Yes,
now Hunt is there/ He said that Burney made a
pun in Otaheite, the first that was ever made in that
country: at first the natives could not make out
what he meant, but all at once they discovered the
pun, and danced round him in transports of joy. L.
said one thing which I am sure will give you pleasure.
He corrected for Hazlitt a new edition of ‘ Elegant
Extracts/ in which living poets are included. He
said he was much pleased with many of your things,
with a little of Montgomery and a little of Crabbe.
Scott he found tiresome. Byron had many fine things,
but was tiresome; but yours appeared to him the
freshest and best of all. These ‘ Extracts* have never
been published; they have been offered to Mr.
Hunter, and seeing the book at his house, I had the
curiosity to look at what the extracts were that pleased
L. There was the canto of the ‘ Fatal Passion/ from
‘Rimini/ several things from ‘Foliage/ and from
the ‘ Amyntas/ L. mentioned also your ‘ Conver-
sation with Coleridge/ and was much pleased with it.
He was very gracious to me, and invited me to see
him when Miss L. should be well. . . .
“ Having secured neat cheap lodgings, I removed
hither last night. Such dear Hunt, is the outline of
your poor Exile’s history. After two days of rain theRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
309
weather has been uncommonly fine, doe without rain,
and cloudless I believe; though I trust to other eyes
for that fact, since the whitewashed sky is anything
but blue to any but the perceptions of the natives
themselves. It is so cold however that the fire I am
now sitting by, is not the first that has been lighted
for my father had one two days ago.
“ The wind is east and piercing, but I comfort my-
self with the hope that softer gales are now fanning
your not throbbing temples—that the climate of Flor-
ence will prove kindly to you, and that your health
and spirits will return to you. Why am I not there ?
This is quite a foreign country to me: the names of
the places sound strangely; the voices of the people
are new and grating—the vulgar English they speak
particularly displeasing. But for my father I should
be with you next spring: but his heart and soul are
set on my stay: and in this world it always seems
one’s duty to sacrifice one’s own desires, and that
claim ever appears the strongest which claims such a
sacrifice.
“On Tuesday, Sept. 2nd, I dined with Mr. Hun-
ter* and Bessy, and she afterwards drank tea with me
at the Strand.
“One thing at Mr. Hunter’s amused me very much.
Your piping Faun and kneeling Venus are on the
* Mrs. Hunt’s stepfather.3io
RETURN TO ENGLAND-DEATH.
piano; but from a feeling of delicacy they are turned
with their backs to the company. I think of going
down to Richmond on Friday and taking a last peep
at green fields and leaves, before I return to my winter
cage.”
Godwin grew more and more to depend upon his
daughter for sympathy and companionship, but not
without arousing the jealousy of the ever-watchful
Mrs. Godwin; and in the letters which he writes to
his wife he speaks of his daughter, never as “ Mary,”
always as “ Mrs. Shelley.”
In one letter he writes, “ You are wrong in saying
I do not want your society, and still more in suppos-
ing Mrs. Shelley supplies the deficiency. I see her
perhaps twice a week, but I feel myself alone ten
times a day, and particularly at meals, and after meals,
which are the periods at which, from nature or habit,
I most feel the want of a human countenance to look
at, and of a human voice, with which to exchange the
accents of kindness and sympathy.”
Godwin was now an old man. His circle of friends,
once so extensive, was narrowed by death and separa-
tion. He made few visits. A rubber of whist, an
hour at the theatre of an evening, where he had al-
ways a pass, a visit from some old friend, or his daugh-
ter and the little grandson, of whom he was very fond,
was about all the society he saw.RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
311
After Mrs. Shelley’s long absence, the return to
English friends and English minds was a new interest
and diversion, but the dull climate was a constant pain
to her. Her circle of acquaintances and friends in-
cluded many of those semi-professional litterateurs
who gave promise of brilliant futures and of which
that age was so full, but whose names are now famil-
iar to the world, more by the constant allusions and
friendship of their illustrious contemporaries than by
any claim they have to fame.
She also numbered among her acquaintances those
illustrious contemporaries,—the Lambs, the Hares,
Tom Moore, Procter, Crabbe Robinson, Holcroft,
Coleridge, Landor, Hazlitt. That circle of literary
people who composed an age that will be renowned
for all time alike for its humor, its delicate fancy, and
the brilliance of its imagination,—an age so rich as
to have produced both Shelley and Keats, Byron,
Wordsworth and Coleridge.
On November 26th, Crabbe Robinson makes this en-
try in his journal: “ Took tea and supper at Godwin’s.
The Lambs there and some young men. We played
whist, &c. Mrs. Shelley there. She is unaltered, yet
I did not know her at first. She looks elegant and
sickly and young. One would not suppose she was
the author of ‘ Frankenstein.’ ”
In the following letter to Mrs. Hunt she alludes
humorously to Lamb:312
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEA TH.
“Nov 27th [1823] London.
“ My dearest Polly,—Are you not a naughty
girl? How could you copy a letter to that ‘agree-
able unaffected woman Mrs. Shelley/ without saying
a word from yourself to your loving grandmother?
My dear Polly, a line from you forms a better picture
for me of what you are all about than—alas! I was
going to say three pages, but I check myself—than
the rare one page of Hunt. Do not think that I
forget you, even Percy does not, and he often tells
me to bid the Signor Enrico and you to get in a car-
riage and then into a boat and to come to questo paese
with baby nuovo, Henry, Swinburne e tutti. But that
will not be: nor shall I see you at Mariano. This is
a dreary exile for me: during a long month of cloud
and fog how often have I sighed for my beloved
Italy! Yet, in truth as far as regards mere money
matters and worldly prospects, I keep up my philoso-
phy with excellent success: others wonder at this
but I do not; nor is there any philosophy in it. After
having witnessed the mortal agonies of my two dar-
ling children—after that journey from and to Lerici,
I feel all these as pictures and trifles, as long as I am
kept out of contact with the unholy. I was upset to-
day, by being obliged to see--, and the prospect of
seeing others of his tribe. I can earn a sufficiency, I
doubt not. In Italy I should be content. Here I
will not bemoan—indeed I never do: and Mrs.-----RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
313
makes large eyes at the quiet way in which I take it
all. It is England alone that annoys me: yet some-
times I get among friends and almost forget its fogs.
I go to Shacklewell rarely, and sometimes see the
Novellos elsewhere. He is my especial favorite, and
his music always transports me to the seventh heaven-
“ I see the Lambs rather often: she ever amiable,
and Lamb witty and delightful. I must tell you one
thing and make H. laugh. Lamb’s new house at
Islington is close to the New River, and George Dyer,
after having paid them a visit, on going away at twelve
at noonday, walked deliberately into the water, taking
it for the high road. But, as he said afterwards to
Procter, 41 soon found that I was in the water sir.’
So Miss L. and the servant had to fish him out. I
must tell Hunt also a good saying of Lamb’s: talking
of some one he said, ‘ Now some men who are very
veracious are called matter-of-fact men: but such an
one I should call a matter-of-lie man.’
“ I have seen also, Procter with his ‘ beautifully-
formed head,’ (it is beautifully formed) several times,
and I like him. He is an enthusiastic admirer of Shel-
ley, and most zealous in the bringing out the volume
of his poems; this alone would please me, and he is
moreover gentle and gentlemanly, and apparently en-
dued with a true poetic feeling. Besides he is an in-
valid ; and some time ago I told you in a letter that I
have always a sneaking, (for sneaking read open) kind-3*4
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEA TH.
ness for men of literary, and particularly poetic, habits,
who have delicate health. I cannot help revering the
mind delicately attuned, that shatters the material
frame, and whose thoughts are strong enough to throw
down and dilapidate the walls of sense and dikes of
flesh that the unimaginative contrive to keep in such
good repair. . . . Peacock says Hogg is grown thinner,
and I suppose he is since he is not as you described him
fat, but is the same in person and everything (una cosa
di meno), as far as I can see, and his colour which often
changes, shows I think that his sensibility remains.
. . . After all I spend a great deal of my time in soli-
tude. I have been hitherto fully occupied in preparing
Shelley’s MSS. It is now complete and the poetry
alone will make a large volume. Will you tell Hunt
that he need not send any of the MSS. that he has
(except the ‘ Essay on Devils/ and some lines ad-
dressed to himself on his arrival in Italy, if he should
choose them to be inserted), as I have recopied all the
rest. We should be very glad however of his notice
as quickly as possible, as we wish the book to be out
in a month at furthest, and that will not be possible
unless he sends it immediately; it would break my
heart if the book should appear without it. When he
does send a packet over, (let it be directed to his
brother) will he be so good as to send me a copy of
my 4 Choice/ beginning after the line, ‘ Entrenched
sad lines, or blotted with its might/ Perhaps dearRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEA TH,
315
Marianne, you would have the kindness to copy them
for me, and send them soon. I have another favor to
ask of you. Miss Curran has a portrait of Shelley
in many things very like, and she has so much talent
that I entertain great hopes that she will be able to
make a good one: for this purpose I wish her to
have all the aids possible, and among the rest a profile
from you. If you could not cut another perhaps you
would send her one already cut; and if you send it
with a note requesting her to return it, when she had
done with it, I will engage that it will be most faith
[fully returned]. At present I am not quite sure
where she is, but I [MS. illegible] should be there,
and you can find her and send her this, I need not tell
you how you would oblige me: you would oblige
Henry if he got a good portrait.
“ I have heard from Bessy that Hunt is writing some-
thing for the Examiner for me. I conjecture that this
may be concerning ‘ Valperga/ I shall be glad indeed
when that comes, or, in lieu of it anything else. John
Hunt begins to despair, since he says that without
Indicators the L[iterary E[xaminer must fail. That
the E. is so constituted now, on account of the admis-
sion of advertisements, that anything not immediately
of the day could not be printed in it, and that he de-
spairs of the possibility of setting up anything new.
“And now dear Polly I think I have done with
gossip and business—with words of affection and3i6 RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
kindness I should never have done. I am inexpressi-
bly anxious about you all. Percy has had a similar,
though shorter attack to that at Albaro but he is now
recovered. I have a cold in my head, occasioned, I
suppose by the weather. .Ah, Polly! if the beauties
of England were to have only the mirror that Richard
III. desires, a very short time would be spent at the
looking-glass. What of Florence and the gallery?
I saw the Elgin marbles to-day—to-morrow I am to
go to the Museum and look over the prints; that will
be a great treat. The Theseus is a divinity. But how
very few statues they have. Kiss the children. Ask
Thornton for his promised and forgotten P.S. Give
my love to Hunt, and believe me, my dear Marianne,
the exiled but ever most
“ Affectionately yours,
“ Mary W. S.”
She wished Leigh Hunt to write a short memoir
of his friend for the coming volume of Shelley’s poems,
but Hunt’s absence made it impossible for them to con-
fer together on the subject, and the volume appeared
without the memoir. Afterward, when she herself
was making the preparation and collecting the mate-
rials for a life of Shelley, which all his friends felt
could best be performed by her hands, Sir Timothy
put such obstacles in her path that she was obliged to
give it up, and after his death in 1844, solitude andRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
3*7
sorrow and illness had made such ravages in her
health that she had not the strength for the undertak-
ing. The notes to the poems are so valuable as criti-
cisms, and as narrating the influences and condition of
mind under which Shelley wrote, that it is a great loss
that she did not write her impressions of his life.
Meanwhile, beside preparing Shelley's MSS. for pub-
lication, she was finishing her novel, “The Last Man,”
which was printed the same year as the poems, 1824.
One of her greatest recreations was the occasional de-
light of seeing good acting and hearing good music.
After seeing Kean she conceived the idea of writing
for the stage, and submitted a play to her father, who
criticised it severely, and dissuaded her from making
another attempt. She reluctantly complied, but al-
ways felt convinced, as she wrote years after to Mrs.
Gisborne, that she could have written a good tragedy.
On May 15, 1824, the news of Lord Byron’s death,
which had just reached England, makes her write in
her journal, “ God grant I may die young. A new race
is springing up about me. At the age of twenty-six I
am in the condition of an aged person. All my old
friends are gone: I have no wish to form new: I
cling to the few remaining; but they slide away and
my heart fails when I think by how few ties I hold to
the earth.”
But a moment of intellectual activity returns to
her, for on June 8th she writes, “ What a divine night318	RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
it is! A calm twilight pervades the clear sky: the
lamp-like moon is hung out in heaven, and the bright
west retains the dye of sunset. If such weather would
continue I would again write; the lamp of thought is
again illuminated in my heart, and the fire descends
from heaven that kindles it. I feel my powers again ;
and this is of itself happiness. The eclipse of winter
is passing from my mind; I shall again feel the en-
thusiastic glow of composition—again as I pour forth
my soul upon paper, feel the winged ideas arise, and
enjoy the delight of expressing them. Study and oc-
cupation will be a pleasure, and not a task: and this I
shall owe to the sight, and companionship of trees
and meadows, flowers, and sunshine.”
In a letter to Leigh Hunt, after her removal to Kent-
ish Town, she speaks of Lord Byron’s death. Surely
no one who had seen those three friends at Pisa,—
Shelley, Byron, Williams,—in the prime of their intel-
lectual and physical vigor, could have believed that
before two years should pass each would be the vic-
tim of an untoward death.
“ 5, Bartholomew Place, Kentish Town, July 29th, [1824].
“ I hope my dear Hunt, that you will receive the
volume of Shelley’s poems, which I have sent you
through Mrs. Mason. It is I believe, selling tolerably
well. Since writing to Marianne, I have removed to
this part of the world; but this I may say is the onlyRETURN TO ENGLAND—TEA TH.
319
change that has taken place in my situation, except
indeed, that alteration in spirit which is occasioned by
a miraculous duration of fine weather. We (i.e. the
English—I used to say they, aiure! talking of the na-
tives) have not had such a summer, they say, for these
five years; manca a shower or two, we have not had a
mizzle this fortnight. They call it hot—it is not—but
it is pleasant weather; a little cloudy or so, but so
convenient in heat, that I echo an Italian image seller
who said to me ‘ Sarei contento se durasse.’
“ I had a letter the other day from Trelawny; it was
dated Missolonghi, to which place he had come hop-
ing to save or attend on the last moments of Lord
Byron, but he came too late. The funeral last week
passed my home. What should I have said to a Cas-
sandra, who three years ago should have prophesied
that Jane and I—Edward and Shelley gone—should
watch the funeral procession of Lord Byron up High-
gate Hill ? All changes of romance or drama lay far
behind this. Trelawny is sanguine about the cause
and his own personal advancement. He has formed
a friendship also for a young man (I suppose a Greek)
whom he compares to Shelley in enthusiasm and
talent.
“ I lead a very different life now from that which I
did during the winter—something that approaches to
my Italian one. Jane and I live near each other andRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEA TH.
see each other almost every day : we dwell on the past
and dream of future Italy. I make hardly any visits
except to my father, and endeavor to be as recluse as
I can, without giving up the friendship of the very
few who are dear to me. Operas and theatres are
over for me now in summer-time.
“ I long to hear from you. I fear that you are not
well or happy, and this long silence on your part
seems to arise from that. I wish we could change
places. I would not wish for better than the chesnut-
covered hills and olive groves of Marano: glowing
sunsets, fire-flies, the cry of the aziola, the language
of the [MS. illegible] Toscano—things associated to
me with my happiest days; you would be pleased with
a quiet abode in Kentish Town—a stroll through its
green meadows, and rambles up its gentle hills—very
pretty things no doubt; and I make the best of them,
delighted to have escaped dreary London, and resolved
to enjoy the summer.
“ Mr. Beddoes (a very great admirer of our Shelley)
is now in Italy. He is to get the portrait from Miss
Curran, who I fancy is in Rome. Could not Marianne
send one of the portraits already cut to Miss Curran
(who I know would return it with care) and who by
this means would make a better likeness, than any
that exists at present ? I own that my heart is set
upon Marianne’s doing this; for what would I not
give for a portrait which, while he was with me, I soRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEA Tff.
321
often resolved to obtain, and was obliged perpetually
to disappoint myself? Marianne wished for scissors
which I had no opportunity of sending, but she has
some cut. Give my love to her, and tell her I throw
myself at her feet, and implore her to comply with my
request. How is she, poor thing ? and how is Thorny
and dear Henry, whom Percy has not forgotten.
“ It would give me great pleasure if either you or
Marianne would write. I love you both tenderly. I
am ever,
“ Your affectionate,
“Mary W. Shelley.”
On August 22d she writes again:
“ My dear Hunt,—Although I know that you wish
yourself in England, yet it seems to me as if I wrote
to Paradise from Purgatory. Our summer is over and
rain and perpetual cloud veil this dreary land. I wish
yo.u were here, since you wish it; yet from all I hear
the period does not seem near. Poor dear Marianne,
she goes on suffering; and God knows what would
become of her in this incongenial climate. Jane and
I dream and talk only of our return; and I begin to
think that next autumn, this may be possible. I have
been obliged, however, as an indispensable prelimi-
nary, to suppress the posthumous poems. More than
300 copies had been sold, so this is the less provok-
21322
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
ing; and I have been obliged to promise not to bring
dear Shelley’s name before the public again during
Sir T.’s life. There is no great harm in this, since
from choice I should not think of writing memoirs
now, and the materials for a volume of more works
are so scant, that I doubted before whether I could
publish it. All this was pending when I last wrote,
but until I was certain, I did not think it worth while
to mention it. The affair is arranged by Peacock, who
though I seldom see him, seems anxious to do me all
these kind of services, in the best manner that he can.
“ Poor Pietro [Gamba] is now in London. ‘ Non
fosse male questo paese,’ he says, ‘se si vedesse mai
il sole.’ He is full of Greece, to which he is going to
return, and gave us an account of our good friend
Trelawny, which shows that he is not at all changed.
Trelawny has made a hero of the Greek chief Ulysses,
and declares that there is a great cavern in Attica
which he and Ulysses, have provisioned for seven
years, and to which if the cause fails, he and this
chieftain are to retire; but if the cause is triumphant,
he is to build a city in the Negropont, colonize it, and
Jane and I are to go out to be queens and chief-
tainesses of the Island. He has quarrelled very vio-
lently with Mavrocordato; but I easily divine how all
this is. Poor Mavrocordato, beset by covetous Su-
liotes, disliked by the chieftains of the Morea, caballed
against by the strangers, poor while every other chiefRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
323
is getting rich, is drinking deep of the bitter cup of
calumny and disappointment.
“ One of my principal reasons for writing just now
is that I have just heard Miss Curran’s address (64,
Via Sistina, Roma), and I am anxious that Marianne
should, if she will be so very good, send one of the
profiles already cut to her, of Shelley: since I think
that by the help of that, Miss Curran will be able to
correct her portrait of Shelley, and make for us what
we so much desire, a good likeness. I am convinced
that Miss Curran will return the profile immediately
that she has done with it—so that you will not Sacrifice
it, though you may be the means of our obtaining a
good likeness. I will write soon to Marianne. In
the meantime I wish she would write to me, since I
long to hear from her, and should be very glad when-
ever you will be kind enough to assure me of the con-
tinuance of your friendship, although I fear it is gone
to the 4 tomb of the Capulets.’ But I do not deserve
this catastrophe. Give my love to the children—
Occhi Turchini among the rest—and believe me ever,
my dear Hunt,
“ Your faithful friend,
“ Mary W. Shelley.”
Some weeks later she writes to Mrs. Hunt, in Flor-
ence, entreating her to send a profile that she had cut
of Shelley to Miss Curran. Mrs. Hunt was very sue-324
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
cessful in cutting outlines out of paper, as the frontis-
piece in “ Lord Byron and his Contemporaries” will
attest.
“ Kentish Town, Oct. ioth 1824.
“ My dearest Marianne,—My interest in you and
your dear circle, has been excited in the most lively
and painful way, by the news I have had of you
through Bessy. One’s first thought is, can one not in
any way aid these beloved exiles ?—and then I shrink
into myself in despair at my nothingness. If it were
not for your’s and Hunt’s health, I am convinced that
Novello’s active friendship, would dissipate other diffi-
culties and restore you to the England you love. In
the mean time, are there not resources by which you
might be rendered more comfortable where you are?
J. H. says that Colburn wishes Hunt to contribute to
the New Monthly. If this be true he would pay liber-
ally, and Hunt need not feel delicacy towards his
brother, since the latter has no violent wish that the
‘ W. C.’s’ should be continued. From what J. H.
said, perhaps there is a negotiation with Colburn
already on foot; if not I can through Horace Smith
(who is now in England, and expected daily in Lon-
don), or in my own person, contribute to such an ar-
rangement. I pray you employ me. I am anxious
beyond measure to hear from you—from you my
Polly in particular—since you send me the most vividRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
325
picture of what is passing near. Write, if you love
me.
“ I write to you on the most dismal of all days,—a
rainy Sunday; when dreary church-going faces look
still more drearily from under dripping umbrellas, and
the poor plebeian dame looks reproachfully at her
splashed white stockings—not her gown, that has
warily been held high up, and the to-be-concealed
petticoat has borne all the ill-usage of the mud—dis-
mal though it is, dismal though I am, I do not wish
to write a discontented letter, but in a few words to
describe things as they are with me. A weekly visit
to the Strand, a monthly visit to Shacklewell, (where
we are sure to be caught in the rain) forms my cata-
logue of visits. The eternal rain imprisons me in
one’s little room, and one’s spirits flag without one
exhilarating circumstance. I read, study, and write—
sometimes that takes me out of myself, but to live for
no one, to be necessary to none; to know that—* where
is .now my hope ? for my hope, who shall see it ? they
shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest
together is in the dust.’ But change of scene to the
sun of Italy will restore my energy. The very thought
of it smooths my brow. Perhaps, never content with
the climate, I shall seek the heats of Naples, if they
do not hurt my darling Percy.
“ We had a fright the other day, fearing that Miss
L[amb] was going to be taken ill, but she is now326 RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
quite well—so she will escape this year. I was to have
dined there to-day had it not been for the rain. She
always asks most affectionately after you. Procter is
married. The same paper that announced his mar-
riage, gave out the death of Lord C. Murray. I liked
his letter to Hunt; I liked the feeling and the conduct
of the man—and he is gone. Pietro Gamba is in
town; I have seen him often, I talk over old times.
Peacock transacts my business with Sir T. S.’s solici-
tor, else I never see him. Coulson went to France
last spring, and has not yet recovered from the enthu-
siasm inspired by the French women, and Notre Dame.
Hazlitt is abroad; he will be in Italy in the winter.
He wrote an article in the Edinburgh Review on the
volume of poems which I published—I do not know
whether he meant it to be favorable or not—I did not
like it at all; but when I saw him I could not be
angry; I never was so shocked in my life—he is so
changed and thin, his hair is scattered, his cheek-
bones projecting—but for his voice and smile I should
not have known him. His smile brought tears to my
eyes—it was like a sunbeam illuminating the most
melancholy of ruins—lightning that assured you in a
dark night of the identity of a friend’s ruined and
deserted abode. . . .
“ Have you, my Polly, sent a profile to Miss C., in
Rome? Now pray do, and pray write; do, my dear
girl. Percy is quite well. Tell his friend he goes toRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
1*7
school and learns to read and write, being very handy
with his hands—perhaps having a pure anticipated
cognition of the art of painting in his tiny fingers.
“ Have you heard of Medwin’s book—notes of con-
versations that he had at Pisa with Lord Byron?
Every one is to be in it; every one will be angry. He
wanted me to have a hand in it, but I declined. Years
ago, when a man died the worms ate him; now a set
of worms feed on the carcase of the scandal that he
leaves behind him, and grow fat upon the world’s love
of little talk—I will not be numbered among them.
Adieu.
“ Yours affectionately,
“Mary W. Shelley.”
October, the following year, finds the Hunts back in
England.
They took a cottage in Highgate to be near friends,
but financial calamity never pressed more heavily
than during the year following their return to Eng-
land. Mrs. Shelley, with characteristic thoughtfulness,
knowing herself the stress of poverty, sent this letter
to Hunt. The legacy to which she refers, Shelley
had only verbally mentioned to Lord Byron ; and Mrs.
Shelley’s acknowledgment of the debt is a touching
proof of her earnest endeavor to fulfil even the spirit
of Shelley’s wishes.328 RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
“ Bartholomew Place, Kentish Town.
“30th October, 1826.
“ My dear Hunt,—Am I guilty of any want of
tact in addressing these few lines to you at the present
moment? I trust not; or, if I am mistaken in my
hope, yet I entreat you to set down my undelay to the
account of over-zeal; and a wish, in part the birth of
circumstances, to relieve your mind from a part of that
care which I know is now oppressing it. I shall be
too happy if you permit any act of mine to have that
effect.
“ I told you long ago, that our beloved lost Shelley
intended, on rewriting his will, to have left you a
legacy; I think the sum he mentioned was £2000
I trust that hereafter you will not refuse to consider
me your debtor for that sum, merely because I shall
be bound to 'pay you by the laws of honour instead of
a legal obligation. You would of course, have been
better pleased to have received it immediately from
dear Shelley’s bequest; but, as it is well known that
he intended to make such an one, it is in fact, the
same thing, and so I hope by you to be considered.
Besides, your kind heart will receive pleasure from the
knowledge that you are bestowing on me the greatest
pleasure I am capable of receiving.
“ This is no resolution of to-day’s, but formed from
the moment that I knew my situation to be such as it
is. I did not mention it because it seemed almostRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
329
like an empty boast to talk and resolve on things so
far off. But futurity approaches, and a feeling haunts
me as if this futurity was not very distant. I have
spoke vaguely on the subject to you before; but now,
your having had a recent disappointment, I have
thought it as well to explain in exact terms the mean-
ing I attached to my expression.
“ I have as yet made no will, but if in the mean-
time I should chance to die, this paper may serve as a
legal document that I give and bequeath to you, dear
Leigh Hunt, the sum of two thousand pounds sterling.
But I hope we shall both live—I to accomplish our
Shelley’s intentions, you to honour me as far as to
permit me to be the executor.
“ I have mentioned this subject to none, and do not
intend; an act is not aided by words, especially an
act unfulfilled; nor do I see that this letter requires
an answer—at least not till after the death of Sir
Timothy Shelley—when, perhaps, this explanation
would have come with a better grace; but I trust
your kindness will put my writing now to a good
motive:—I am, my dear Hunt, yours affectionately,
and very obliged
“ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.
“To Leigh Hunt,* Esq.”
* After the execution of Shelley’s will, he had instructed Byron,
who was his executor, by mere oral direction, to pay Leigh Hunt aRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
But, as will be seen by her letter written in 1844,
fate denied her nearly twenty years the pleasure of
putting her generous intentions into effect.
During the year 1827, Charles Lamb addressed to
her one of his charmingly witty letters.
“ Enfield, July 26th, 1827.
“ Dear Mrs. Shelley,—At the risk of throwing
away some fine thoughts, I must write to say how
pleased we were, with your very kind remembering of
us (who have unkindly run away from all our friends)
before you go. Perhaps you are gone, and then my
tropes are wasted. If any piece of better fortune has
lighted up you than you expected, but less than we
wish you, we are rejoiced. We are here trying to
like solitude, but have scarce enough to justify the
experiment. We get some however. The six days
are our Sabbath: the seventh—why Cockneys will
come for a little fresh air; and so—
“ But by your month, or October at furthest, we
hope to see Islington: I, like a giant refreshed with
the leaving off of wine; and Mary pining for Mr.
Moxon’s books, and Mr. Moxon’s society. Then we
shall meet.
legacy of 20001.	After Shelley’s death, Lord Byron, thinking that
Shelley had been generous enough to Hunt during his life, refused to
take the steps requisite for establishing this direction as a noncupative
codicil.RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
331
“ I am busy with a farce in two acts, the incidents
tragic-comic. I can do the dialogue, comniey for;
but the damn'd plot, I believe I must omit it alto-
gether. The scenes come one after another like
geese, not marshalling like cranes, or a Hyde Park
review. The story is as simple as G [eorge] D [yer] :
and the language as plain as his spouse. The char-
acters are three women to one man: which is one
more than laid hold on him in the Evangely. I think
that prophecy squinted towards my drama.
“ I want some Howard Paine to sketch a skeleton
of artfully succeeding scenes through a whole play:
as the courses are arranged in a cookery-book. I to
find wit, passion, sentiment, character, and the like
trifles. To lay in the dead colors: I'd Titianesque
'em up. To mark the channel in a cheek (smooth or
furrowed, yours or mine): and where tears should
course, I'd draw the water down. To say where a joke
should come in, or a pun be left out. To bring my
personae on and off* like a Beau Nash: and I’d
Frankenstein them there. To bring three together
on the stage at once; they are so shy with me that I
can get no more than two, and there they stand till it
is the time, without being the season to withdraw
them.
“ I am teaching Emma Latin, to qualify her for a
superior governesship, which we see no prospect of
her getting. 'Tis like feeding a child with chopt hay332
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
from a spoon. Sisyphus, his labors were as nothing
to it.
“ Actives and passives jostle in her nonsense, till a
deponent enters, like Chaos, more to embroil the fray.
Her prepositions are suppositions; her conjunctions
copulative have no connection in them; her concords
disagree ; her interjections are purely English ‘ Ah !’
and ‘ Oh !’ with a yawn and a gape in the same tongue;
and she herself, is a lazy blockheadly supine. As I
say to her, ass in prcesenti rarely makes a wise man in
fntnro.
“ But I dare say it was so with you when you began
Latin—and a good while after.
“ Good-bye ! Mary’s love.
“ Yours truly,
“ C. Lamb.”
A letter from Godwin, in the same year, shows how
closely the lives of father and daughter were blended.
“ How differently are you and I organized. In my
seventy-second year, I am all cheerfulness, and never
anticipate the evil day with distressing feelings, till to
do so is absolutely unavoidable. Would to God you
were my daughter in all but my poverty. But I am
afraid you are a Wollstonecraft. We are so curiously
made that one atom put in the wrong place in our
original structure, will often make us unhappy for life.RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
333
" May blessings shower on you as fast as the per-
pendicular rain, at this moment falls by my window !
prays
“ Your affectionate father,
“W. G.”
The next year we find Godwin writing to his wife
from Hastings, where Mrs. Shelley was then staying.
“ I found the little trio of this family looking out for
me, and we speedily sat down to a comfortable dish
of tea at No. 6 Meadow Cottages, and afterwards
walked upon the Marine Parade, which immediately
overlooks the sea.
“ Mary yesterday received her first letter from Tre-
lawny,who desires her to come to town immediately:
but she has written an answer, telling him he must
come here. How the contest will end I know not.”
In 1833, Mrs. Shelley went to live at Harrow, to be
near her son, who was in school. She was lonely and
ill there, but she worked on bravely at her writing.
Her strength and spirits were often taxed to their
utmost, and she would have been glad to rest from
the incessant labor, but beside the expense of her
son’s education, she contributed largely to the support
of her father. She was deeply conscious that her lit-
erary work was now the effect of want and pressure
from without, rather than an impulse from within.
“You speak of woman’s intellect,” she writes at a334
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
later date to Mrs. Gisborne: “we can scarcely do
more than judge by ourselves. I know that however
clever I may be, there is in me a want of eagle-
winged resolution that appertains to my intellect as
well as to my moral character, and renders me what I
am—one of broken purposes, failing thoughts, and a
heart all wounds. My mother had more energy of
character; still, she had not sufficient fire of imagina-
tion. In short, my belief is—whether there be sex in
souls or not—that the sex of our material mechanism
makes us quite different creatures; better though
weaker, but wanting in the higher grades of intellect.
I am almost sorry to send you this letter—it is so
querulous and sad; yet, if I write with any effusion,
the truth will creep out, and my life since you went,
has been so strained by sorrows and disappointments,
I have no hope. In a few years, when I get over my
present feelings, and live wholly in Percy, I shall be
happier.”
While she was living at Harrow her father visited
her frequently; but he was getting old and enfeebled,
although his brain was still as active as ever. He
wrote to his wife: “ We should meet oftener but I
rather decline going to her evenings. The evenings
are now dark and the walk across the park at a late
hour is anything but pleasant.”
Two years later, in April, 1836, at the age of eighty,
that sage and learned old man,—who had outlived hisRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
335
own generation and the younger generation of disciples
by whom he had been regarded with a superstitious
veneration that seems incomprehensible to the present
reasoning and balancing mind,—passed quietly away,
and was buried by the side of Mary Wollstonecraft, in
old St. Pancras church-yard.
However greatly his ideas had changed from hers,
or from those which he himself had held, there were
no fitter resting-place than by her side. And to the
chance observer who strolled into St. Pancras church-
yard of an autumn afternoon, and stood over the two
willow-shaded stones, on which were written the
names of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin,
the dates of their deaths—so far apart—would not
suggest to him that their ideas grew also to be as
distant. For Mary Wollstonecraft would never have
written courageously about one set of ideas, and fol-
lowed out another; she would never have pointed
out liberal and advanced educational ideas, and de-
liberately have neglected to use them; never have
maintained that marriage laws were pernicious in
their influence, and then have ceased any intercourse
with her daughter because she had taken an uncon-
ventional step; nor have written so ably about
morals, political and social, and then repeatedly, in
the most promiscuous and barefaced manner, have'
begged for money to support her family.
Mary Shelley mourned her father’s death. She was336 RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
tenderly attached to him, and the ties of friendship
and affection that remained to her were few and
slender.
One can only surmise to what Mrs. Shelley alludes
in her journal of October 21, 1838. However, the ex-
treme womanliness of her character shows itself here,
the clear judgment, the reasonableness of her mind,
the loveliness of her nature; but the courage, the esprit,
the indomitable will and vigor are gone, wrung from
her not more by solitude than by the world’s har-
asses. “ I have so often,” she writes, “ been abused
by pretended friends, for my lukewarmness in the
4 good cause’ that, though I disdain to answer them,
I shall put down here a few thoughts on this subject.
I am much of a self-examiner. Vanity is not my fault
I think; if it is, it is uncomfortable vanity, for I have
none that teaches me to be satisfied with myself; far
otherwise,—and if I use the word disdain, it is that I
think my qualities (such as they are) not appreciated,
from unworthy causes.
“ In the first place, with regard to ‘ the good cause’—
the cause of the advancement of freedom and knowl-
edge, of the rights of women, &c.—I am not a person
of opinions. I have said elsewhere that human beings
differ greatly in this. Some have a passion for re-
forming the world; others do not cling to particular
opinions. That my parents and Shelley, were of the
former class, makes me respect it. I respect suchRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
33 7
when joined to real disinterestedness, toleration, and
a clear understanding. My accusers after such as
these, appear to me mere drivellers. For myself, I
earnestly desire the good and enlightenment of my
fellow-creatures, and see all, in the present course,
tending to the same, and rejoice; but I am not for
violent extremes, which only bring on an injurious re-
action. I have never written a word in disfavor of
liberalism; that I have not supported it openly in
writing, arises from the following causes, as far as I
know:—
“That I have not argumentative powers: I see things
pretty clearly, but cannot demonstrate them. Besides
I feel the counter arguments too strongly. I do not
feel that I could say aught to support the cause effi-
ciently ; besides that on some topics (especially with
regard to my own sex,) I am far from making up my
mind. I believe we are sent here to educate ourselves,
and that self-denial, and disappointment, and self-con-
trol, are a part of our education; that it is not by
taking away all restraining law that our improvement
is to be achieved; and, though many things need great
amendment, I can by no means go so far as my friends
would have me. When I feel that I can say what will
benefit my fellow-creatures, I will speak; not before.
“ Then I recoil from the vulgar abuse of the inimical
press; I do more than recoil—proud and sensitive, I
act on the defensive—an inglorious position.
22338 RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
“To hang back as I do brings a penalty. I was
nursed, and fed with a love of glory. To be some-
thing great and good, was the precept given me by
my father; Shelley reiterated it. Alone and poor, I
could only be something by joining a party; and
there was much in me—the woman's love of looking
up and being guided, and being willing to do anything
if any one supported, and brought me forward, which
would have made me a good partisan. But Shelley
died and I was alone. My father, from age and do-
mestic circumstances, could not ‘ me faire valoir! My
total friendlessness, my horror of pushing, and in-
ability to put myself forward unless led, cherished and
supported,—all this sunk me in a state of loneliness
no other human being ever before I believe, endured
—except Robinson Crusoe. How many tears and
spasms of anguish this solitude has cost me, lies buried
in my memory.
“ If I had raved and ranted, about what I did not un-
derstand ; had I adopted a set of opinions, and propa-
gated them with enthusiasm; had I been careless of
attack and eager for notoriety; then the party to
which I belonged had gathered round me, and I had
not been alone.
“ It has been the fashion with these same friends to
accuse me of worldliness. There, indeed, in my own
heart and conscience, I take a high ground. I may
distrust my own judgment too much—be too indo-RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH
339
lent and too timid; but in conduct I am above merited
blame.
“ I like society; I believe all persons who have any
talent (who are in good health) do. The soil that
gives forth nothing, may ever lie fallow; but that
which produces—however humble its product—needs
cultivation, change of harvest, refreshing dews, and
ripening sun. Books do much; but the living inter-
course is the vital heat. Debarred from that, how
have I pined and died.
“ My early friends chose the position of enemies.
When I first discovered that a trusted friend had acted
falsely by me I was nearly destroyed. My health was
shaken. I remember thinking with a burst of agoniz-
ing tears, that I should prefer a bed of torture, to the
unutterable anguish that a friend’s falsehood engen-
dered. There is no resentment; but the world can
never be to me what it was before. Trust and confi-
dence, and the heart’s sincere devotion, are gone.
I sought at that time to make acquaintances,—to
divert my mind from this anguish. I got entangled
in various ways through my ready sympathy and too
eager heart; but I never crouched to society—never
sought it unworthily. If I have never written to vin-
dicate the Rights of Women, I have ever befriended
women when oppressed. At every risk, I have be-
friended and supported victims to the social system ;
but I make no boast, for in truth it is simple justice340
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
that I perform; and so I am still reviled for being
worldly.
“ God grant a happier and a better day is near! Percy
—my all in all—will, I trust, by his excellent under-
standing, his clear, bright, sincere spirit and affection-
ate heart, repay me for sad long years of desolation.
His career may lead me into the thick of life or only
gild a quiet home. I am content with either and as I
grow older, I grow more fearless for myself—I be-
come firmer in my opinions. The experienced, the
suffering, the thoughtful, may at last speak unrebuked.
If it be the will of God that I live, I may ally my
name yet to 4 the good cause’—though I do not ex-
pect to please my accusers.
“ Thus have I put down my thoughts. I may have
deceived myself: I may be in the wrong; I try to ex-
amine myself; and such as I have written appears to
me the exact truth.
“ Enough of this! The great work of life goes on.
Death draws near. To be better after death than in
life, is one’s hope and endeavor—to be so through
self-schooling. If I write the above, it is that those
who love me may hereafter know that I am not all to
blame, nor merit the heavy accusations cast on me for
not putting myself forward. I cannot do that; it is
against my nature. As well cast me from a precipice,
and rail at me for not flying.”
In 1837, Mrs. Shelley’s son had entered Cambridge,RETURN TO ENGLAND—BE A TH.
341
and in the summer of 1840 she started with him and
two of his friends for the Continent. Their destina-
tion was the shores of Como, where the students
wished to prepare for the degree they expected to
take in the following year. They passed through
France and Germany into Italy. Mrs. Shelley’s let-
ters show with what eagerness she looked forward
into that country,—Italy,—crowded with the dearest
memories and from which she had been separated by
seventeen years of labor and sorrow. With what joy
she heard the Italian language again, whose simplest
chance phrase on her return to England years before
had brought tears to her eyes; and now, on speaking
it again, she realized how intimate and homely her
use of it had been. All its household terms, its peas-
ant vocabulary, were familiar to her, and it became
again more natural to speak to the country people in
their tongue than in her own.
Despite that tone of melancholy which pervades
all. of Mrs. Shelley’s later writings, her letters show
deep interest in nature, in the people, in places, and
an earnest desire to look at all things with the same
cheerful pleasure that her son took in them. They
travelled much by diligence, and although she suffered
keenly from a nervous illness, she was able by these
ways to divert her mind, thus relieving her body.
All things interest her,—the life in the open air does
her good; the companionship with her son and his342
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
friends brings younger thoughts; the recollection of
other days spent in this much-loved Italy gives a
tenderness to all she sees.
They settled themselves for two months at Caden-
abbia, on Lake Como, in a little inn. Their manner
of life was most simple. They had one large salon
and four or five small bedrooms adjoining it. Mrs.
Shelley selected one little corner of the salon, where
she established her desk, her embroidery frame, and
her books. She read Italian literature; as it had
always been Shelley’s and her habit to read the litera-
ture of the country in which they were staying. Her
son and his friends studied always until noon; at that
hour the steamer arrived with letters, then all was
eagerness and expectation. At two they dined, and
when the sun was beginning to decline, about five,
they usually went out on the water or into the
woods. The arrival of a boat, ordered by her son,
caused her many anxious hours, and when it was re-
turned to its owner, just before their departure for
England, she rejoiced that its going left her scathless,
although it heralded their departure from Italy.
They spent the next year and a half in England, and
in June, 1842, started again for the Continent, spend-
ing a month at Kissingen, then on to Dresden,
where, with pictures and music, another month
passed; thence to Prague and on to Italy.
In Venice, the memory of the time she and ShelleyRETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
343
had spent there with Byron was ever present to her,
and the shadows of those Euganean hills that the
poets had so loved ever surrounded her. A few weeks
in Florence, the birthplace of her son, and then they
went down to Rome by sea. Here were the graves
of her Shelley and her son William, beside the tomb
of Cestius, in the Protestant cemetery. She had not
been in Rome since she and Shelley left it, after the
death of that son, and now the cypresses that Tre-
lawny planted over the heart of Shelley had seen the
changing of the season twenty times.
Here also her son procured a boat, and many of
the days were spent on the water. Farther south, and
at Naples, the little boat was more and more in use.
The tone of Mrs. Shelley's letters grew more cheer-
ful and restful. The long struggle with poverty was
at an end, and brighter days seemed beginning for
her. She returned to England in 1843, and the next
year, at the death of Sir Timothy, her son succeeded
to the title; Charles Shelley having died years before.
In April, during the last days of Sir Timothy’s life,
Mary Shelley, remembering her promise to Hunt,
writes to him from her villa at Putney: “ Twenty years
ago in memory of what Shelley’s intentions were, I said
that you should be considered one of the legatees to
the amount of 2000/. I need scarcely mention that
when Shelley talked of leaving you this sum he
contemplated reducing other legacies, and that one344
RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
among them is (by a mistake of the solicitor) just
double what he intended it to be.*
“ Twenty years, have of course much changed my
position. Twenty years ago it was supposed that Sir
Timothy would not live five years. Meanwhile a large
debt has accumulated for I must pay back all on which
Percy and I have subsisted, as well as what I borrowed
for Percy’s going to college. In fact I scarcely know
how our affairs will be. Moreover, Percy shares now
my right; that promise was made without his concur-
rence, and he must concur to render it of avail—nor
do I like to ask him to do so till our affairs are so
settled that we know what we shall have—whether
Shelley’s uncle may not go to law—in short, till we
see our way before us.
“ It is both my and Percy’s great wish to feel that
you are no longer burdened by care and necessity; in
that he is as desirous as I can be; but the form and
the degree in which we can do this must at first be
uncertain.
“ From the time of Sir Timothy’s death I shall give
directions to my banker to honor your quarterly
cheques for 30/. a quarter; and I shall take steps to
secure this to you and to Marianne if she should sur-
vive you.
* Miss Clairmont’s. To whom, in the body of the will, was be-
queathed 6000/, a codicil also being added to the same effect.RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
345
“ Percy has read this letter, and approves. I know
your real delicacy about money matters, and that you
will at once be ready to enter into my views; and feel
assured that if any present debt should press, if we
have any command of money, we will take care to
free you from it.”
This grant of 120/. a year was regularly paid to
Hunt throughout the remainder of his life. A letter
from Thomas Noon Talfourd on the same subject is
well worth quoting. “ My dear Hunt,” he writes from
Sergeant’s Inn, in May, “ I cannot help writing one
line to tell you—no, I cannot tell you—how heartily
glad I am of your realizing the blessing intended by
the great and good spirit who was so prematurely
snatched from you. I feel, in some faint degree, how
much it must sweeten and endear the comforts secured
to Mrs. Hunt and yourself to know that they are the
accomplishment of one of the million generous de-
sires of Shelley’s heart—a practical embodiment of
that poetry which was lost to this world just as it
was becoming happily associated with its realities.”
Life added to the leisure and repose which wealth
bestowed on Mary Shelley, its crowning blessing in
the affectionate companionship and tender reverence
of the lady to whom her son a few years after united
himself, and from whom she was never separated dur-
ing the years that remained to her.
But Mrs. Shelley’s health grew feebler and more
23346 RETURN TO ENGLAND—DEATH.
uncertain. In 1839 she had written with great pain
and bodily suffering the notes to the last edition of
her husband’s poems, and now that by the death of
Sir Timothy, all obstacles to writing Shelley’s life had
been removed, she gathered together her material,
and bravely but with trembling powers set about her
work. But this labor was denied her; health and
strength were most unequal.
She died February 21, 1851, at her house in Chester
Square, London, having lived fifty-four years, out of
which only eight precious ones were spent in the com-
panionship of her adored Shelley. The first sixteen
years being a preparation for their earthly life together,
and the last solitary ones, as she earnestly believed,
but a means of perfecting her spirit for their renewed
life in the future.
She was tenderly laid to rest in Bournemouth
church-yard, near the home of her son. And when a
few years after it was found necessary to remove the
remains of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft
from St. Pancras church-yard, the quiet of which had
been desecrated by the inroads of London life, they
were placed by her side in the same simple church-
yard. And in the house of her son, not far distant,
lie Shelley’s ashes, enshrined in a silver urn.
THE END.