LIFE IN ITALY.
A third time, on March 11, 1818, Shelley, Mary, and Claire are on the
road to Dover, this time with three young lives to care for--Willie,
aged two years and two months; Clara, six months; and Allegra, one
year and two months. These small beings kept well during their
journey, and it is touching to note how Claire Clairmont, in her part
of the diary recording their progress, mentions bathing her darling at
Dover, and then cancels the passage from her diary, as many others
where her name is given--surely one of the saddest of things for a
mother to fear to mention her child's name! After another stormy
passage the party again reached Calais, which they found as delightful
as ever, and where they stayed at the Grand Cerf Hotel.
Mary continues to note the journey. They took a different route this
time--by Douai, La Fère, Rheims, Berri-le-bac, and St. Dizier, the
road winding by the Marne. They sleep at Langres, which ramparted town
surely ought to have left a pleasant reminiscence; but they had
hitherto found the route uninteresting and fatiguing. Mary finds more
interest in the country after Langres, and with the help of Schlegel,
from whom Shelley read out loud to her, the time passed pleasantly; no
long weary evenings in hotels; no complaints when a carriage broke
down and they were kept three hours at Macon for it to be repaired:
they had with them the friends of whom they never tired.
At Lyons they rested three days. Mary much admired the city, and
they visited the theatre, where they saw _L'homme gris et le
Physionomiste_; and on Wednesday, March 25, they set out towards
the mountains whose white tops were seen at a distance.
In crossing the frontier there was a difficulty in getting their books
allowed to enter Sardinian territory, until a Canon, who had met
Shelley's father at the Duke of Norfolk's, helped to get them through.
After leaving Chambéry, where Mary stayed to allow her nurse Elise to
see her child, they crossed Mont Cenis and dined on the top. The
beauty of the scenery greatly raised Shelley's spirits, causing him to
sing with exultation. They stayed one night at Turin, visiting the
opera; and after reaching Milan, Shelley and Mary went to Lake Como
for a few days, having some idea of spending the summer on its banks;
but not being able to suit themselves with a house they returned to
Milan on April 12 and rejoined Claire, who had remained with the
children. During the stay at Milan till the end of April there had
been frequent letters from Claire to Byron. These were evidently far
from satisfactory, as we find Shelley writing letters of caution to
Claire in 1822, with regard to Byron and Allegra: he mentions having
warned her against letting Byron get possession of Allegra in the
spring of 1818, but Claire thought it for the interest of the child,
whom she undoubtedly loved, to let her go to her father. Walks in the
public gardens with the "Chicks" are noted by Claire several times,
and the last entry in her diary, before April 28, when Allegra was
taken by the nurse Elise to Byron, mentions a walk with the "Chicks"
in the morning and drive in the evening with them, Mary and Shelley.
Mary had sent her own trusted nurse Elise with the little Allegra,
feeling that she would remain and in some degree replace the mother;
and Claire believed that the child would stay with its father, though
certainly this did not seem desirable or likely to last for long.
A change of scene being needed after these trying emotions, Mary, with
her husband and two children, and Claire, now left for Pisa and
Leghorn. They slept on the way at Piacenza, Parma, Modena, and then
passed a night at a little inn among the Apennines, the fifth at
Barberino, the sixth at La Scala, and on the seventh reached Pisa,
where they lodged at Le Tre Donzelle. On this journey Mary was able to
enjoy the Italian scenery under the unclouded Italian sky--the
vine-festooned trees amid the fields of corn, the hedges full of
flowers; all these seen from the carriage convey a lasting impression,
and poor Claire remarks that, driving in a long, straight road, she
always hopes it will take her to some place where she will be happier.
They pass through beautiful chestnut woods on the southern side of the
Apennines, and along the fertile banks of the Arno to Pisa. After a
few days' stay at Pisa, where the cathedral, "loaded with pictures and
ornaments," and the leaning tower are visited, and where, perhaps, the
quiet Campo Santo, with its chapel covered with the beautiful frescos
of Orcagna and Gozzoli, &c., was enjoyed, they proceed to Leghorn;
here, after a few days at L'Aquila Nera, they move into apartments.
They meet and see much of Mary's mother's friend, Mrs. Gisborne, who
grew much attached to both Shelley and Mary, and who, from her
acquaintance with literary people, must have been a pleasant companion
to them. They had letters of introduction to the Gisbornes from
Godwin. While here Mary made progress with Italian, reading Ariosto
with her husband. Leghorn was not a sufficiently interesting place to
detain the wandering Shelleys long, in spite of the attractions of the
Gisbornes. On June 11 Mary, with her two children and Claire, follows
Shelley to Bagni di Lucca, where he had taken a house. Here Mary much
enjoyed the quiet after noisy Leghorn, as she wrote to Mrs. Gisborne,
hoping to attract her to visit them. Mary was in her element in shady
woods within the sound of running waters; her only annoyance was the
number of English she came in contact with in her walks, where the
English nursery-maid flourished, "a kind of animal I by no means like"
she wrote; neither was she pleased by "the dashing, staring
Englishwomen, who surprise the Italians (who always are carried about
in sedan chairs) by riding on horseback."
Mary and Claire used to visit the Casino with Shelley, and look on at
the dancing in which they did not join. Mary, however, did not agree
with Shelley in admiring the Italian style of dancing; but those
things on which they were ever of the same mind they had in plenty,
for their beloved books arrived after being scrutinised by the Church
authority; and while Shelley revelled in the delights of Greek
literature, Mary shared those of English with him, for who can
estimate the advantage of hearing Shakespeare and other poets read by
Shelley! It was at the baths of Lucca also that Mary found her
husband's unfinished _Rosalind and Helen_, and prevailed on him
to complete it, for, as she says in her notes, "Shelley had no care
for any of his poems that did not emanate from the depths of his mind
and develop some high or abstruse truth." Without doubt, Mary was the
ideal wife for Shelley. At this stage in the career of the poet one
can but deplore that relentless destiny should only bring Mary to
Shelley when a victim had already been sacrificed on the altar of
fate; and the more one realises the sympathetic and intellectual
nature of Claire, the less possible is it to help wasting a regret
that Byron could not have met with the philosopher bookseller's
adopted daughter earlier, instead of ruining his nature and his life
by the fashionable follies he tampered with. But who would alter the
workings of destiny? Does not the finest Lacryma Christi grow on the
once devastated slopes of Vesuvius? Life, too, has its earthquakes,
and the eruptions of its hidden depths seen through the minds of its
poets, though causing at times agony to those who come in contact with
them, work surely for the good of the whole. Mary had the years of
pleasure, which are inestimable to those who can appreciate them, of
contact with a great mind; but few among poets' wives have had the
gifts which allow them fully to participate in such pleasures. Well
for Mary that she also inherited much of her father's philosophic
nature, which enabled her to endure some of the trials inherent in her
position. What Shelley wrote Mary would transcribe--no mere task for
her--for did she not, through Shelley, enjoy Plato's _Symposium_,
a translation of which he was employed upon at Lucca? How could the
fashionable idlers at the Baths find time to drink in inspiration from
the poet and his wife? The poet gives the depths of his nature, but it
is not he who writes with the fever or the tear of emotion who can
stoop to be his own interpreter to the uninitiated, which seems to be
a necessity of modern times, with few exceptions. Mary's education,
defective though it may have been in some details, made her a fitting
companion for some of the greatest of her day, and this quality in a
woman could scarcely exist without a refinement of manner and tastes
which, at times, might be misleading as to her disposition.
The spirit of wandering now came over Claire, and by the middle of
August her desire to see her child again could no longer be
suppressed. Accordingly she set out with Shelley on August 19, and
reached Florence the next day, when Shelley wrote to Mary the
impression the lovely city made on him, begging her, at the same time,
not to let little William forget him before his return--little Clara
could not remember. Claire thought at one time of remaining at Padua,
but on reaching that city could not endure being left alone, and they
reached Venice in the middle of the night, during a violent storm,
which Shelley did not fail to write an account of to his wife. He also
told her how the Hoppners, whom they called on (Mr. Hoppner being the
British Consul in Venice), advised them to act with regard to Byron.
By their advice Shelley called alone on him, and Byron proposed to
send Allegra to Padua for a week on a visit; he would not like her to
remain longer, as the Venetians would think he had grown tired of her.
He afterwards offered them his villa at Este, thinking they were all
at Padua. Shelley accepted this proposal, and wrote requesting Mary to
join him there with the children, not knowing whether he was acting
for good or harm, but looking forward to be scolded if he had done
wrong, or kissed if right--the event would prove. The event did prove;
but it was out of their power to rule it.
Mary had invited the Gisbornes to stay with her at the Baths. They
arrived on August 25, but the circumstances seemed imperative for Mary
to go to Este, and she left on the 31st with a servant, Paolo, as
attendant. They were detained a day at Florence, and did not reach
Este till poor little Clara was dangerously ill from dysentery, which
reduced her to a state of fever and weakness. Mary endured the misery
of an incompetent doctor at Este; neither had they confidence in the
Paduan physician. Shelley proceeded to Venice to obtain further
advice, and prepare for the arrival of his wife and child, writing
from there that he felt somewhat uneasy, but trusted there was no
cause for real anxiety. This arrangement made, Mary set out with her
baby and Claire to meet Shelley at Padua, and then proceeded to
Venice, Claire returning to mind William and Allegra at Este; and now
Mary had to endure that terrible tension of mind, with her dying child
in her arms, driving to Venice, the time remembered by her so well
when, on the same route, nearly a quarter of a century later, each
turn in the road and the very trees seemed as the most familiar
objects of her daily life; for had they not been impressed on her
mental vision by the strength of despair? The Austrian soldiers at the
frontier could not detain them, though without passports, for even
they would not prevent a dying child from being conveyed on a forlorn
hope. Such grief could scarcely be rendered more or less acute by
circumstances. They arrived at their inn in a gondola, but only for
Clara to die in her mother's arms within an hour.
In this trial the Hoppners proved most kind friends, taking Mary to
their house, and relieving the first hopelessness of grief by
kindness, which it seemed ingratitude not to respond to. Mary,
whatever she may have felt, knew that no expression of her feelings in
her diary would nerve her to endure. She went about her daily
occupations as usual. One idle day elapsed, after her little Clara had
been buried on the Lido; we find her as usual reading, shopping, and
seeing Byron, with whom she hoped to make better terms for Claire with
regard to Allegra. There is a curious passage in a letter from Godwin
to his daughter, illustrative of his own turn of mind, and not without
some general truth:--"We seldom indulge long in depression and
mourning except when we think secretly that there is something very
refined in it, and that it does us honour."
On September 29, Shelley and Mary return to Este. Claire had taken the
children to Padua, but returned the next day to the Villa I
Cappuccini. In the evening they went to the Opera. Their house was
most beautifully situated. Here Shelley wrote his "Lines among the
Euganean Hills," for no intense feeling could come to the poet without
the necessity of expressing himself in poetry; and it was during this
September month that Shelley wrote the first act of his _Prometheus
Unbound_. Mary revisited Venice with her husband, little William,
and the nurse Elise, on October 12. The impression then formed of
Byron and his surroundings was so painful as to render it a matter of
surprise that they could think of returning Allegra to him; but her
extreme youth was her safeguard in this respect, and Shelley returned
to Este on September 24, to take Allegra a second time from her mother
who, with all her love for her "darling," as she always wrote of her
in the effaced passages of her diary, could not get over the
insuperable difficulties of her birth. On January 22 of this same year
Claire had entered in her diary the fact of its being Byron's (Albé's)
birthday; a note carefully effaced soon after. Shelley and Mary having
decided to spend the winter further south, after a few days of
preparation they left Este on November 5, and spent the night at
Ferrara, where they visited the relics of Ariosto and Tasso, and the
dungeon where the latter was incarcerated. Thence to Bologna, where
they endured much fatigue in the picture galleries, poor Shelley being
obliged to confess he did not pretend to taste. From Bologna, by
Faenza and Cesena, they followed the coast from Rimmi to Fano, and
passed an uncomfortable night at an inn at Fossombrone among the
Apennines. Mary was greatly impressed by the beauty and grandeur of
Spoleto. The impressive falls at Terni are duly chronicled by her; and
November 19 and 20 are spent in winding through the Apennines, and
then crossing the solitude of the Roman Campagna, and then Rome is
reached.
In Italy, where wonder succeeds wonder, and where no place is a mere
repetition of another, Mary may well have been impressed by her first
visit to the Eternal City. Here, in November, she was able to sit and
sketch in the Coliseum with her child and her husband, who found the
wonderful ruin a source of inspiration. But Rome was now only a
resting-place on their road to still sunnier Naples; and on November
27 Shelley set out a day in advance of Mary and her child to secure
rooms in Naples, where Mary arrived on December 1. In the best part of
the city, facing the royal gardens in front of the marvellous bay,
with Shelley for her guide, who himself made use of Madame de
Staël's _Corinne_ as a handbook, Livy for the antiquities, and
Winckelmann for art, Mary could enjoy the sights of Naples as no
ordinary sightseer would. December was devoted to expeditions--Baiæ,
Vesuvius, and Pompeii. The day at Baiæ was perhaps the most
delightful, with the return by moonlight in the boat to Naples.
Vesuvius, with its stupendous spectacle as of heaven and hell made
visible, naturally produced a profound impression, but it was a very
tiring expedition, as apparently it was only Claire who had a
_chaise à porteurs_ for the ascent of the cone; Mary and Shelley
rode on mules as far as they could go, and Claire was carried all the
way in a chair--though this seems scarcely possible--from Resina.
How Mary could walk through the cinders up the cone seems
incomprehensible. She must have had great strength, as it is a trying
task for a man, and no wonder Shelley, in spite of his pedestrian
strength, was exhausted when they arrived at the hermitage of San
Salvador. The winter at Naples seems to have been a trying one to
Mary, in spite of sunshine and the beauties of Nature; for Shelley was
in a state of depression, as is exemplified in the "Stanzas written in
dejection near Naples." What the immediate cause of this was cannot be
said; it seems to be one of the mysteries, or perhaps rather the one
mystery, of Shelley's life. He asserted to Medwin that a lady, young,
married, and of noble connections, had become infatuated with him, and
declared her love of him on the eve of his departure for the Continent
in 1816; that he had gently but firmly repulsed her; that she arrived
in Naples on the day he did, and had soon afterwards died. It is
suggested that a little girl who was left under his guardianship in
Naples, and whom he spoke of as his poor Neapolitan, might possibly be
the child of this lady; others doubt the story altogether, which is
not to be wondered at, although nothing can be declared impossible in
a life where truth is frequently so much stranger than romance.
Mary was also troubled while at Naples by her servants, an unusual
subject with her; but Paolo, having gone far beyond the limits of
cheating, was detected by Mary, and also obliged by her to marry
Elise, whom he had betrayed. They left for Rome, but Paolo declared he
would be revenged on the Shelleys, and wrote threatening letters,
which a lawyer disposed of for a time. This is known to be the origin
of later calumnies, which Mr. Jeaffreson has now carefully and finally
refuted.
Mary, later, with the regret of love that would be all sufficient,
wished that at Naples she had entered more into the cause of the
grief, which Shelley had kept from her, in order not to add to the
melancholy she was then feeling with regard to her father.
Before leaving Naples they succeeded in visiting the Greek ruins at
Paestum, which give still a fresh impression in Italy; and then, on
February 28, 1819, Mary takes leave of Naples, never to revisit it
with any of her companions of that time.
In Rome they found rooms in the Villa Parigi, but removed from them to
the Palazzo Verospi on the Corso, and we soon find them busy exploring
the treasures of Rome the inexhaustible. Here they had not to take
fatiguing journeys as in Naples to visit the chief points of interest,
for they were to be found at every turn. Visits to St. Peter's and the
museum of the Vatican are mentioned; walks with Shelley to the Forum,
the Capitol, and the Coliseum, which is visited and re-visited.
Frequent visits are paid in the evening to the Signora Marianna
Dionigi, and with her they hear Mass in St. Peter's, where the poor
old Pope Pius VII was nearly dying. The Palazzo Doria and its picture
gallery are examined, where the landscapes of Claude Lorraine
particularly strike them. Then to the baths of Caracalla, where the
romantic beauty of the ruins forms one of their chief attractions in
Rome. They also take walks and drives in the Borghese Gardens. The
statue of Pompey, at the base of which Cæsar fell, is not passed
over--but it would be impossible to tell of all they saw and enjoyed
in Rome. Mary made more acquaintances in Rome, nor did the English
altogether neglect to call on Shelley. Mary also recommenced lessons
in drawing, while Claire had singing lessons, and they met some
celebrities at the Signora Dionigi's conversazioni. Altogether this
early part of their stay in Rome was happy, but Shelley's health
always fluctuating made them contemplate taking a house for the summer
at Castellamare, as a doctor recommended this for him. But the days
were hurrying towards a fresh calamity, for little William now fell
ill, and we find the visits of a physician, Dr. Bell, chronicled, and
on June 2nd three visits are noted. Claire helps to her utmost;
Shelley does not close his eyes for sixty hours, and Mary, the hopes
of whose life were bound up with the child, could only endure, watch
the wasting of fever, and see the last of three perish on "Monday,
June 7th, at noonday," as Claire enters in her diary. Mary and Shelley
were deprived of their gentle, blue-eyed darling, by a stronger hand
than that of the Court of Chancery, and little William was buried
where Shelley was soon to follow, in the cemetery which "might make
one in love with death."