AUGUST-NOVEMBER 1821
From Bologna Shelley wrote to Mary an amusing account of his journey, so
far. But this letter was speedily followed by another, written within a
few hours of his arrival at Ravenna; a letter, this second one, to make
Mary's blood run cold, although it is expressed with all the calmness and
temperance that Shelley could command.
RAVENNA, _7th August 1821_.
MY DEAREST MARY--I arrived last night at 10 o'clock, and sate up
talking with Lord Byron until 5 this morning. I then went to sleep,
and now awake at 11, and having despatched my breakfast as quick as
possible, mean to devote the interval until 12, when the post departs,
to you.
Lord Byron is very well, and was delighted to see me. He has, in fact,
completely recovered his health, and lives a life totally the reverse
of that which he led at Venice. He has a permanent sort of _liaison_
with Contessa Guiccioli, who is now at Florence, and seems from her
letters to be a very amiable woman. She is waiting there until
something shall be decided as to their emigration to Switzerland or
stay in Italy, which is yet undetermined on either side. She was
compelled to escape from the Papal territory in great haste, as
measures had already been taken to place her in a convent, where she
would have been unrelentingly confined for life. The oppression of the
marriage contract, as existing in the laws and opinions of Italy,
though less frequently exercised, is far severer than that of England.
I tremble to think of what poor Emilia is destined to.
Lord Byron had almost destroyed himself in Venice; his state of
debility was such that he was unable to digest any food; he was
consumed by hectic fever, and would speedily have perished, but for
this attachment, which has reclaimed him from the excesses into which
he threw himself, from carelessness rather than taste. Poor fellow! he
is now quite well, and immersed in politics and literature. He has
given me a number of the most interesting details on the former
subject, but we will not speak of them in a letter. Fletcher is here,
and as if, like a shadow, he waxed and waned with the substance of his
master, Fletcher also has recovered his good looks, and from amidst
the unseasonable gray hairs a fresh harvest of flaxen locks has put
forth.
We talked a great deal of poetry and such matters last night, and, as
usual, differed, and I think more than ever. He affects to patronise a
system of criticism fit for the production of mediocrity, and,
although all his fine poems and passages have been produced in
defiance of this system, yet I recognise the pernicious effects of it
in the _Doge of Venice_, and it will cramp and limit his future
efforts, however great they may be, unless he gets rid of it. I have
read only parts of it, or rather, he himself read them to me, and gave
me the plan of the whole.
Allegra, he says, is grown very beautiful, but he complains that her
temper is violent and imperious. He has no intention of leaving her in
Italy; indeed, the thing is too improper in itself not to carry
condemnation along with it. Contessa Guiccioli, he says, is very fond
of her; indeed, I cannot see why she should not take care of it, if
she is to live as his ostensible mistress. All this I shall know more
of soon.
Lord Byron has also 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 patience 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. It seems that _Elise_,
actuated either by some inconceivable malice for our dismissing her,
or bribed by my enemies, has persuaded the Hoppners of a story so
monstrous and incredible that they must have been prone to believe any
evil to have believed such assertions upon such evidence. Mr. Hoppner
wrote to Lord Byron to state this story as the reason why he declined
any further communications with us, and why he advised him to do the
same. Elise says that Claire was my mistress; that is very well, and
so far there is nothing new; all the world has heard so much, and
people may believe or not believe as they think good. She then
proceeds further to say that Claire was with child by me; that I gave
her the most violent medicine to procure abortion; that this not
succeeding she was brought to bed, and that I immediately tore the
child from her and sent it to the Foundling Hospital,--I quote Mr.
Hoppner's words,--and this is stated to have taken place in the winter
after we left Este. In addition, she says that both Claire and I
treated you in the most shameful manner; that I neglected and beat
you, and that Claire never let a day pass without offering you insults
of the most violent kind, in which she was abetted by me.
As to what Reviews and the world say, I do not care a jot, but when
persons who have known me are capable of conceiving of me--not that I
have fallen into a great error, as would have been the living with
Claire as my mistress--but that I have committed such unutterable
crimes as destroying or abandoning a child, and that my own! Imagine
my despair of good! Imagine how it is possible that one of so weak and
sensitive 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 proof of your belief. I need not
dictate what you should say, nor, I hope, inspire you with warmth to
rebut a charge which you only can effectually rebut. If you will send
the letter to me here, I will forward it to the Hoppners. Lord Byron
is not up. I do not know the Hoppners' address, and I am anxious not
to lose a post.
P. B. S.
Mary's feelings on the perusal of this letter may be faintly imagined by
those who read it now, and who know what manner of woman she actually was.
They are expressed, as far as they could be expressed, in the letter
which, in accordance with Shelley's desire, and while still smarting under
the first shock of grief and profound indignation, she wrote off to Mrs.
Hoppner, and enclosed in a note to Shelley himself.
MARY TO SHELLEY.
MY DEAR SHELLEY--Shocked beyond all measure 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 that 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 barque 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 residence for us.
I love, I own, to face danger, but I would not be imprudent.
Pray get my letter to Mrs. Hoppner copied for a thousand reasons.
Adieu, dearest! Take care of yourself--all yet is well. The shock for
me is over, and I now despise the slander; but it must not pass
uncontradicted. I sincerely thank Lord Byron for his kind
unbelief.--Affectionately yours,
M. W. S.
Do not think me imprudent in mentioning E.'s[44] 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.
PISA, _10th August 1821_.
MY DEAR MRS. HOPPNER--After a silence of nearly two years I address
you again, and most bitterly do I regret the occasion on which I now
write. Pardon me that I do not write in French; you understand English
well, and I am too much impressed to shackle myself in a foreign
language; even in my own my thoughts far outrun my pen, so that I can
hardly form the letters. I write to defend him to whom I have the
happiness to be united, whom I love and esteem beyond all living
creatures, from the foulest calumnies; and to you I write this, who
were so kind, and to Mr. Hoppner, to both of whom I indulged the
pleasing idea that I have every reason to feel gratitude. This is
indeed a painful task. Shelley is at present on a visit to Lord Byron
at Ravenna, and I received a letter from him to-day, containing
accounts that make my hand tremble so much that I can hardly hold the
pen. It tells me that Elise wrote to you, relating the most hideous
stories against him, and that you have believed them. Before I speak
of these falsehoods, permit me to say a few words concerning this
miserable girl. You well know that she formed an attachment with Paolo
when we proceeded to Rome, and at Naples their marriage was talked of.
We all tried to dissuade her; we knew Paolo to be a rascal, and we
thought so well of her. An accident led me to the knowledge that
without marrying they had formed a connection. She was ill; we sent
for a doctor, who said there was danger of a miscarriage, I would not
throw the girl on the world without in some degree binding her to this
man. We had them married at Sir R. A. Court's. She left us, turned
Catholic at Rome, married him, and then went to Florence. After the
disastrous death of my child we came to Tuscany. We have seen little
of them, but we have had knowledge that Paolo has formed a scheme of
extorting money from Shelley by false accusations. He has written him
threatening letters, saying that he would be the ruin of him, etc. We
placed them in the hands of a celebrated lawyer here, who has done
what he can to silence him. Elise has never interfered in this, and
indeed the other day I received a letter from her, entreating, with
great professions of love, that I would send her money. I took no
notice of this, but although I know her to be in evil hands, I would
not believe that she was wicked enough to join in his plans without
proof. And now I come to her accusations, and I must indeed summon all
my courage whilst I transcribe them, for tears will force their way,
and how can it be otherwise?
You know Shelley, you saw his face, and could you believe them?
Believe them only on the testimony of a girl whom you despised? I had
hoped that such a thing was impossible, and that although strangers
might believe the calumnies that this man propagated, none who had
ever seen my husband could for a moment credit them.
He says Claire was Shelley's mistress, that--upon my word I solemnly
assure you that I cannot write the words. I send you a part of
Shelley's letter that you may see what I am now about to refute, but I
had rather die than copy anything so vilely, so wickedly false, so
beyond all imagination fiendish.
But that you should believe it! That my beloved Shelley should stand
thus slandered in your minds--he, the gentlest and most humane of
creatures--is more painful to me, oh! far more painful than words can
express. Need I say that the union between my husband and myself has
ever been undisturbed? Love caused our first imprudence--love, which,
improved by esteem, a perfect trust one in the other, a confidence and
affection which, visited as we have been by severe calamities (have we
not lost two children?), has increased daily and knows no bounds. I
will add that Claire has been separated from us for about a year. She
lives with a respectable German family at Florence. The reasons for
this were obvious: her connection with us made her manifest as the
Miss Clairmont, the mother of Allegra; besides we live much alone, she
enters much into society there, and, solely occupied with the idea of
the welfare of her child, she wished to appear such that she may not
be thought in after times to be unworthy of fulfilling the maternal
duties. You ought to have paused before you tried to convince the
father of her child of such unheard-of atrocities on her part. If his
generosity and knowledge of the world had not made him reject the
slander with the ridicule it deserved, what irretrievable mischief you
would have occasioned her. Those who know me well believe my simple
word--it is not long ago that my father said in a letter to me that he
had never known me utter a falsehood,--but you, easy as you have been
to credit evil, who may be more deaf to truth--to you I swear by all
that I hold sacred upon heaven and earth, by a vow which I should die
to write if I affirmed a falsehood,--I swear by the life of my child,
by my blessed, beloved child, that I know the accusations to be false.
But I have said enough to convince you, and are you not convinced? Are
not my words the words of truth? Repair, I conjure you, the evil you
have done by retracting your confidence in one so vile as Elise, and
by writing to me that you now reject as false every circumstance of
her infamous tale.
You were kind to us, and I will never forget it; now I require
justice. You must believe me, and do me, I solemnly entreat you, the
justice to confess you do so.
MARY W. SHELLEY.
I send this letter to Shelley at Ravenna, that he may see it, for
although I ought, the subject is too odious to me to copy it. I wish
also that Lord Byron should see it; he gave no credit to the tale, but
it is as well that he should see how entirely fabulous it is.
Shelley, meanwhile, never far from her in thought, and knowing only too
well how acutely she would suffer from all this, was writing to her
again.
SHELLEY TO MARY.
MY DEAREST MARY--I wrote to you yesterday, and I begin another letter
to-day without knowing exactly when I can send it, as I am told the
post only goes once a week. I daresay the subject of the latter half
of my letter gave you pain, but it was necessary to look the affair in
the face, and the only satisfactory answer to the calumny must be
given by you, and could be given by you alone. This is evidently the
source of the violent denunciations of the _Literary Gazette_, in
themselves contemptible enough, and only to be regarded as effects
which show us their cause, which, until we put off our mortal nature,
we never despise--that is, the belief of persons who have known and
seen you that you are guilty of crimes. A certain degree and a certain
kind of infamy is to be borne, and, in fact, is the best compliment
which an exalted nature can receive from a filthy world, of which it
is its hell to be a part, but this sort of thing exceeds the measure,
and even if it were only for the sake of our dear Percy, I would take
some pains to suppress it. In fact it shall be suppressed, even if I
am driven to the disagreeable necessity of prosecuting him before the
Tuscan tribunals....
* * * * *
Write to me at Florence, where I shall remain a day at least, and send
me letters, or news of letters. How is my little darling? and how are
you, and how do you get on with your book? Be severe in your
corrections, and expect severity from me, your sincere admirer. I
flatter myself you have composed something unequalled in its kind, and
that, not content with the honours of your birth and your hereditary
aristocracy, you will add still higher renown to your name. Expect me
at the end of my appointed time. I do not think I shall be detained.
Is Claire with you? or is she coming? Have you heard anything of my
poor Emilia, from whom I got a letter the day of my departure, saying
that her marriage was deferred for a very short time, on account of
the illness of her Sposo? How are the Williams', and Williams
especially? Give my very kindest love to them.
Lord Byron has here splendid apartments in the house of his mistress's
husband, who is one of the richest men in Italy. _She_ is divorced,
with an allowance of 1200 crowns a year--a miserable pittance from a
man who has 120,000 a year. Here are two monkeys, five cats, eight
dogs, and ten horses, all of whom (except the horses) walk about the
house like the masters of it. Tita, the Venetian, is here, and
operates as my valet; a fine fellow, with a prodigious black beard,
and who has stabbed two or three people, and is one of the most
good-natured-looking fellows I ever saw.
We have good rumours of the Greeks here, and a Russian war. I hardly
wish the Russians to take any part in it. My maxim is with Aeschylus:
[Greek: to dyssebes--meta men pleiona tiktei, sphetera d'eikota
genna].
* * * * *
There is a Greek exercise for you. How should slaves produce anything
but tyranny, even as the seed produces the plant? Adieu, dear
Mary.--Yours affectionately,
S.
At Ravenna there was only a weekly post. Shelley had to wait a long time
for Mary's answer, and before it could reach him he was writing to her yet
a third time. His mind was now full of Allegra. She was not to be left
alone in Italy. Shelley, enlightened by Emilia Viviani, had been able to
give Byron, on the subject of convents, such information as to "shake his
faith in the purity of these receptacles." But no conclusions of any sort
had been arrived at as to her future; and Shelley entreated Mary to rack
her brains, to inquire of all her friends, to leave no stone unturned, if
by any possibility she could find some fitting asylum, some safe home for
the lovely child. He had been to see the little girl at her convent, and
all readers of his letters know the description of the fairy creature,
who, with her "contemplative seriousness, mixed with excessive vivacity,
seemed a thing of a higher and a finer order" than the children around
her; happy and well cared for, as far as he could judge; pale, but
lovelier and livelier than ever, and full of childish glee and fun.
At this point of his letter Mary's budget arrived, and Shelley continued
as follows--
RAVENNA, _Thursday_.
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 recopied your
letter, such a measure 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 themselves
panders and accomplices to slander, for the Hoppners had exacted from
Lord Byron that these accusations should be concealed from _me_: Lord
Byron 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 Gazette_ 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
caution. So much for nothing.
Lord Byron is immediately coming to Pisa. He will set off the moment I
can get him a house. Who would have imagined this?... What think you
of remaining at Pisa? The Williams' would probably be induced to stay
there if we did; Hunt would certainly stay, at least this winter, near
us, should he emigrate at all; Lord Byron and his Italian friends
would remain quietly there; and Lord Byron has certainly a very great
regard for us. The regard of such a man is worth some of the tribute
we must pay to the base passions of humanity in any intercourse with
those within their circle; he is better worth it than those on whom we
bestow it from mere custom.
The Masons are there, and, as far as solid affairs are concerned, are
my friends. I allow this is an argument for Florence. Mrs. Mason's
perversity is very annoying to me, especially as Mr. Tighe is
seriously my friend. This circumstance makes me averse from that
intimate continuation of intercourse which, once having begun, I can
no longer avoid.
At Pisa I need not distil my water, if I _can_ distil it anywhere.
Last winter I suffered less from my painful disorder than the winter I
spent in Florence. The arguments for Florence you know, and they are
very weighty; judge (_I know you like the job_) which scale is
overbalanced. My greatest content would be utterly to desert all human
society. I would retire with you and our child to a solitary island in
the sea, would build a boat, and shut upon my retreat the flood-gates
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 besides yourself 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 generations the
overflowings of a mind which, timely withdrawn from the 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 intellect or in feelings, and to
connect ourselves with the interests of that society. Our roots never
struck so deeply as at Pisa, and the transplanted tree flourishes not.
People who lead the lives which we led until last winter are like a
family of Wahabee Arabs pitching their tent in the midst 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 the
means of security and subsistence. You will easily perceive the
gradations by which calumny proceeds to pretext, pretext to
persecution, 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.
P. B. S.
"So much for nothing," indeed. When Byron made himself responsible for
Mary's letter, it was, probably, without any definite intention of
withholding it from those to whom it was addressed. He may well have
wished to add to this glowing denial of his own insinuations some
palliating personal explanation. When, in the previous March, Clare had
protested against an Italian convent education for Allegra, he had sent
her letter to the Hoppners with a sneer at the "excellent grace" with
which these representations came from a woman of the writer's character
and present way of life. And yet he knew Shelley,--knew him as the
Hoppners could not do; he knew what Shelley had done for him, for Clare,
and Allegra; and to how much slander and misrepresentation he had
voluntarily submitted that they might go scot-free. Byron was,--and he
knew it,--the last person who should have accepted or allowed others to
accept this fresh scandal without proof and without inquiry. He was
ashamed of the part he had played, and reluctant to confess to the
Hoppners that he had been wrong, and that his words, as often happened,
had been far in advance of his knowledge or his solid convictions; but his
intentions were to do the best he could. And, satisfying himself with good
intentions, he put off the unwelcome day until the occasion was past, and
till, finally, the friend whose honour had been entrusted to his keeping
was beyond his power to help or to harm. Shelley was dead; and how then
explain to the Hoppners why the letter had not been sent before? It was
"not worth while," probably, to revive the subject in order to vindicate a
mere memory, nor yet to remove an unjust and cruel stigma from the
character of those who survived. However it may have been, one thing is
undoubted. Mary Shelley never received any answer to her letter of
protest, which, after Byron's death, was found safe among his papers.
One more note Shelley sent to Mary from Ravenna on the subject of the
promised portrait. It would not seem that the miniature was actually
despatched now, but as his return was so long delayed, the birthday plot
had to be divulged.
RAVENNA, _Tuesday, 15th August 1821_.
MY DEAREST LOVE--I accept your kind 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; the post is just setting off. I
shall leave the place on Thursday or Friday morning. You would forgive
me for my longer stay if you knew the fighting I have had to make it
so short. I need not say where my own feelings impel me.
It still remains fixed that Lord Byron should come to Tuscany, and, if
possible, Pisa; but more of that to-morrow.--Your faithful and
affectionate
S.
The foregoing painful episode was enough to fill Mary's mind during the
fortnight she was alone. It was well for her that she was within easy
reach of cheerful friends, yet, even as it was, she could not altogether
escape from bitter thoughts. Clare was at Leghorn, and had to be told of
everything. Mary could not but think of the relief it would be to them all
if she were to marry; a remote possibility to which she probably alludes
in the following letter, written at this time to Miss Curran--
MARY SHELLEY TO MISS CURRAN.
SAN GIULIANO, _17th August_.
MY DEAR MISS CURRAN--It gives me great pain to hear of your
ill-health. Will this hot summer conduce to a better state or not? I
hope anxiously, when I hear from you again, to learn that you are
better, having recovered from your weakness, and that you have no
return of your disorder. I should have answered your letter before,
but we have been in the confusion of moving. We are now settled in an
agreeable house at the Baths of San Giuliano, about four miles from
Pisa, under the shadow of mountains, and with delightful scenery
within a walk. We go on in our old manner, with no change. I have had
many changes for the worse; one might be for the better, but that is
nearly impossible. Our child is well and thriving, which is a great
comfort, and the Italian sky gives Shelley health, which is to him a
rare and substantial enjoyment. I did [not] receive the letter you
mention to have written in March, and you also have missed one of our
letters in which Shelley acknowledged the receipt of the drawings you
mention, and requested that the largest pyramid might be erected if
they could case it with white marble for L25. However, the whole had
better stand as I mentioned in my last; for, without the most rigorous
inspection, great cheating would take place, and no female could
detect them. When we visit Rome, we can do that which we wish. Many
thanks for your kindness, which has been very great. I would send you
on the books I mentioned, but we live out of the world, and I know of
no conveyance. Mr. Purniance says that he sent the life of your father
by sea to Rome, directed to you; so, doubtless, it is in the
custom-house there.
How enraged all our mighty rulers are at the quiet revolutions which
have taken place; it is said that some one said to the Grand Duke
here: "Ma richiedono una constituzione qui?" "Ebene, la daro subito"
was the reply; but he is not his own master, and Austria would take
care that that should not be the case; they say Austrian troops are
coming here, and the Tuscan ones will be sent to Germany. We take in
_Galignani_, and would send them to you if you liked. I do not know
what the expense would be, but I should think slight. If you
recommence painting, do not forget Beatrice. I wish very much for a
copy of that; you would oblige us greatly by making one. Pray let me
hear of your health. God knows when we shall be in Rome;
circumstances must direct, and they dance about like
will-o'-the-wisps, enticing and then deserting us. We must take care
not to be left in a bog. Adieu, take care of yourself. Believe in
Shelley's sincere wishes for your health, and in kind remembrances,
and in my being ever sincerely yours,
M. W. SHELLEY.
Clare desires (not remembrances, if they are not pleasant), however
she sends a proper message, and says she would be obliged to you, if
you let her have her picture, if you could find a mode of conveying
it....
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 desperate
mischief lately, but succeeded no further than to blacken us among the
English; so if you receive a fresh batch (or green bag) of scandal
against us, I assure you it is all a _lie_. Poor souls! we live
innocently, as you well know; if we did not, ten to one God would take
pity on us, and we should not be so unfortunate.
Shelley's absence, though eventful, was, after all, a short one. In about
a fortnight he was back again at the Bagni, and for a few weeks life was
quiet.
On the 18th of September Mary records--
Picnic on the Pugnano Mountains; music in the evening. Sleep there.
On another occasion, wishing to find some tolerably cool seaside place
where they might spend the next summer, they went,--the Shelleys and
Clare,--on a two or three days' expedition of discovery to Spezzia, and
were enchanted with the beauty of the bay. Clare had, shortly after, to
return to her situation at Florence, but the Shelleys decided to winter at
Pisa. They took a top flat in the "Tre Palazzi di Chiesa," on the Lung'
Arno, and spent part of October in furnishing it. They took possession
about the 25th; the Williams' coming, not many days later, to occupy a
lower flat in the same house. At Lord Byron's request, the Shelleys had
taken for him Casa Lanfranchi, the finest palace in the Lung' Arno, just
opposite the house where they themselves were established. This close
juxtaposition of abodes was likely to prove somewhat inconvenient, in case
of Clare's occasional presence at Tre Palazzi. Her first visit, however,
to which the following characteristic letter refers, was to the Masons at
Casa Silva, and it came to an end just before Byron's arrival in Pisa.
Clare had been staying with the Williams' at Pugnano.
CLARE TO MARY.
MY DEAR MARY--I arrived last night--won't you come and see me to-day?
The Williams' wish you to forward them Mr. Webb's answer, if possible,
to reach them by 2 o'clock afternoon to-day. If Mr. Webb says yes (you
will open his note), send Dominico with it to them, and he passing by
the Baths must order Pancani to be at Pugnano by 5 o'clock in the
afternoon. If there comes no letter from Mr. Webb, they will equally
come to you, and I wish you could also in that case contrive to get
Pancani ordered for them, for we forgot to arrange how that could be
done; if not, they will be there expecting, and perhaps get involved
for the next month. I wish you to be so good as to send me immediately
my large box and the clothes from the Busati, indeed all that you have
of mine, for I must arrange my boxes to get them _bollate_
immediately. Don't delay, and my band-box too. If you could of your
great bounty give me a sponge, I should be infinitely obliged to you.
Then, when it is dark, and the Williams' arrived, will you ask Mr.
Williams to be so good as to come and knock at Casa Silva, and I will
return to spend the evening with you? Shelley won't do to fetch me,
because he looks singular in the streets. But I wish he would come now
to give me some money, as I want to write to Livorno and arrange
everything. Later will be inconvenient for me. Kiss the chick for me,
and believe me, yours affectionately,
CLARE.
_Journal._--All October is left out, it seems.--We are at the Baths,
occupied with furnishing our house, copying my novel, etc. etc.
Mary's intention was to devote any profits which might proceed from this
work to the relief of her father's necessities, and the hope of being able
to help him had stimulated her industry and energy while it eased her
heart. She aimed at selling the copyright for L400, and Shelley opened
negotiations to this effect with Ollier the publisher. His letter on the
subject bears such striking testimony to the estimate he had formed of
Mary's powers, and gives, besides, so complete a sketch of the novel
itself, that it cannot be omitted here.
SHELLEY TO MR. OLLIER.
PISA, _25th September 1822_.
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 her wishes in that 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 labour,
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 judgment deliberately given in testimony
of the value of any production is influenced by motives of interest or
partiality.
The romance is called _Castruccio, Prince of Lucca_, and is founded,
not upon the novel of Machiavelli under that name, which substitutes a
childish fiction for the far more romantic truth of history, but upon
the actual story of his life. He was a person who, from an exile and
an adventurer, after having served in the wars of England and Flanders
in the reign of our Edward the Second, returned to his native city,
and liberating it from its tyrants, became himself its tyrant, and
died in the full splendour of his dominion, which he had extended over
the half of Tuscany. He was a little Napoleon, and with a dukedom
instead of an empire for his theatre, brought upon the same all the
passions and errors of his antitype. The chief interest of the romance
rests upon Euthanasia, his betrothed bride, whose love for him is only
equalled by her enthusiasm for the liberty of the Republic of
Florence, which is in some sort her country, and for that of Italy, to
which Castruccio is a devoted enemy, being an ally of the party of the
Emperor. This character is a masterpiece; and the keystone of the
drama, which is built up with admirable art, is the conflict between
these passions and these principles. Euthanasia, the last survivor of
a noble house, is a feudal countess, and her castle is the scene of
the exhibition of the knightly manners of the time. The character of
Beatrice, the prophetess, can only be done justice to in the very
language of the author. I know nothing in Walter Scott's novels which
at all approaches to the beauty and the sublimity of this--creation, I
may say, for it is perfectly original; and, although founded upon the
ideas and manners of the age which is represented, is wholly without
a similitude in any fiction I ever read. Beatrice is in love with
Castruccio, and dies; for the romance, although interspersed with much
lighter matter, is deeply tragic, and the shades darken and gather as
the catastrophe approaches. All the manners, customs of the age, are
introduced; the superstitions, the heresies, and the religious
persecutions are displayed; the minutest circumstance of Italian
manners in that age is not omitted; and the whole seems to me to
constitute a living and moving picture of an age almost forgotten. The
author visited the scenery which she describes in person; and one or
two of the inferior characters are drawn from her own observation of
the Italians, for the national character shows itself still in certain
instances under the same forms as it wore in the time of Dante. The
novel consists, as I told you before, of three volumes, each at least
equal to one of the _Tales of my Landlord_, and they will be very soon
ready to be sent.
No arrangement, however, was come to at this time, and early in January
Mary wrote to her father, offering the work to him, and asking him, if he
accepted it, to make a bargain concerning it with a publisher.
Godwin accepted the offer, and undertook the responsibility, in a letter
from which the following is an extract--
_31st January 1822._
I am much gratified by your letter of the 11th, which reached me on
Saturday last; it is truly generous of you to desire that I would make
use of the produce of your novel. But what can I say to it? It is
against the course of nature, unless, indeed, you were actually in
possession of a fortune.
* * * * *
I said in the preface to _Mandeville_ there were two or three works
further that I should be glad to finish before I died. If I make use
of the money from you in the way you suggest, that may enable me to
complete my present work.
The MS. was, accordingly, despatched to England, but was not published
till many months later.
_Valperga_ (as it was afterwards called) was a book of much power and more
promise; very remarkable when the author's age is taken into
consideration. Apart from local colouring, the interest of the tale turns
on the development of the character--naturally powerful and disposed to
good, but spoilt by popularity and success, and unguided by principle--of
Castruccio himself; and on the contrast between him and Euthanasia, the
noble and beautiful woman who sacrifices her possessions, her hopes, and
her affections to the cause of fidelity and patriotism.
Beatrice, the prophetess, is one of those gifted but fated souls, who,
under the persuasion that they are supernaturally inspired, mistake the
ordinary impulses of human nature for Divine commands, and, finding their
mistake, yet encourage themselves in what they know to be delusion till
the end,--a tragic end.
There are some remarkable descriptive passages, especially one where the
wandering Beatrice comes suddenly upon a house in a dreary landscape which
she knows, although she has never seen it before except in a haunting
dream; every detail of it is horribly familiar, and she is paralysed by
the sense of imminent calamity, which, in fact, bursts upon her directly
afterwards.
Euthanasia dies at sea, and the account of the running down and wreck of
her ship is a curious, almost prophetic, foreshadowing of the calamity by
which, all too soon, Shelley was to lose his life.
The wind changed to a more northerly direction during the night, and
the land-breeze of the morning filled their sails, so that, although
slowly, they dropt down southward. About noon they met a Pisan vessel,
who bade them beware of a Genoese squadron, which was cruising off
Corsica; so they bore in nearer to the shore. At sunset that day a
fierce sirocco arose, accompanied by thunder and lightning, such as is
seldom seen during the winter season. Presently they saw huge dark
columns descending from heaven, and meeting the sea, which boiled
beneath; they were borne on by the storm, and scattered by the wind.
The rain came down in sheets, and the hail clattered, as it fell to
its grave in the ocean; the ocean was lashed into such waves that,
many miles inland, during the pauses of the wind, the hoarse and
constant murmurs of the far-off sea made the well-housed landsman
mutter one more prayer for those exposed to its fury.
Such was the storm, as it was seen from shore. Nothing more was ever
known of the Sicilian vessel which bore Euthanasia. It never reached
its destined port, nor were any of those on board ever after seen. The
sentinels who watched near Vado, a town on the sea-beach of the
Maremma, found on the following day that the waves had washed on shore
some of the wrecks of a vessel; they picked up a few planks and a
broken mast, round which, tangled with some of its cordage, was a
white silk handkerchief, such a one as had bound the tresses of
Euthanasia the night that she had embarked; and in its knot were a few
golden hairs.
* * * * *
To follow the fate of Mary's novel, it has been necessary somewhat to
anticipate the history, which is resumed in the next chapter, with the
journal and letters of the latter part of 1821.