“and if he succeeds we shall have an additional motive to
induce you to come among us in the summer.”
The reader would puzzle a long time and not guess the biographer's
comment upon the above letter. It is this:
“These sound like words of A considerate and judicious friend.”
That is what he thinks. That is, it is what he thinks he thinks. No,
that is not quite it: it is what he thinks he can stupefy a particularly
and unspeakably dull reader into thinking it is what he thinks. He
makes that comment with the knowledge that Shelley is in love with this
woman's daughter, and that it is because of the fascinations of these
two that Shelley has deserted his wife--for this month, considering all
the circumstances, and his new passion, and his employment of the time,
amounted to desertion; that is its rightful name. We cannot know how
the wife regarded it and felt about it; but if she could have read the
letter which Shelley was writing to Hogg four or five days later, we
could guess her thought and how she felt. Hear him:.......
“I have been staying with Mrs. Boinville for the last month;
I have escaped, in the society of all that philosophy and
friendship combine, from the dismaying solitude of myself.”
It is fair to conjecture that he was feeling ashamed.
“They have revived in my heart the expiring flame of life.
I have felt myself translated to a paradise which has nothing
of mortality but its transitoriness; my heart sickens at the
view of that necessity which will quickly divide me from the
delightful tranquillity of this happy home--for it has become
my home.
.......
“Eliza is still with us--not here!--but will be with me when
the infinite malice of destiny forces me to depart.”
Eliza is she who blocked that game--the game in London--the one where
we were purposing to dine every night with one of the “three charming
ladies” who fed tea and manna and late hours to Hogg at Bracknell.
Shelley could send Eliza away, of course; could have cleared her out
long ago if so minded, just as he had previously done with a predecessor
of hers whom he had first worshiped and then turned against; but
perhaps she was useful there as a thin excuse for staying away himself.
“I am now but little inclined to contest this point.
I certainly hate her with all my heart and soul....
“It is a sight which awakens an inexpressible sensation of
disgust and horror, to see her caress my poor little Ianthe,
in whom I may hereafter find the consolation of sympathy.
I sometimes feel faint with the fatigue of checking the
overflowings of my unbounded abhorrence for this miserable
wretch. But she is no more than a blind and loathsome worm,
that cannot see to sting.
“I have begun to learn Italian again.... Cornelia
assists me in this language. Did I not once tell you that I
thought her cold and reserved? She is the reverse of this, as
she is the reverse of everything bad. She inherits all the
divinity of her mother.... I have sometimes forgotten
that I am not an inmate of this delightful home--that a time
will come which will cast me again into the boundless ocean of
abhorred society.
“I have written nothing but one stanza, which has no meaning,
and that I have only written in thought:
“Thy dewy looks sink in my breast;
Thy gentle words stir poison there;
Thou hast disturbed the only rest
That was the portion of despair.
Subdued to duty's hard control,
I could have borne my wayward lot:
The chains that bind this rained soul
Had cankered then, but crushed it not.
“This is the vision of a delirious and distempered dream, which
passes away at the cold clear light of morning. Its surpassing
excellence and exquisite perfections have no more reality than
the color of an autumnal sunset.”
Then it did not refer to his wife. That is plain; otherwise he would
have said so. It is well that he explained that it has no meaning, for
if he had not done that, the previous soft references to Cornelia and
the way he has come to feel about her now would make us think she was
the person who had inspired it while teaching him how to read the warm
and ruddy Italian poets during a month.
The biography observes that portions of this letter “read like the tired
moaning of a wounded creature.” Guesses at the nature of the wound are
permissible; we will hazard one.
Read by the light of Shelley's previous history, his letter seems to be
the cry of a tortured conscience. Until this time it was a conscience
that had never felt a pang or known a smirch. It was the conscience of
one who, until this time, had never done a dishonorable thing, or an
ungenerous, or cruel, or treacherous thing, but was now doing all of
these, and was keenly aware of it. Up to this time Shelley had been
master of his nature, and it was a nature which was as beautiful and as
nearly perfect as any merely human nature may be. But he was drunk now,
with a debasing passion, and was not himself. There is nothing in his
previous history that is in character with the Shelley of this letter.
He had done boyish things, foolish things, even crazy things, but never
a thing to be ashamed of. He had done things which one might laugh at,
but the privilege of laughing was limited always to the thing itself;
you could not laugh at the motive back of it--that was high, that was
noble. His most fantastic and quixotic acts had a purpose back of
them which made them fine, often great, and made the rising laugh seem
profanation and quenched it; quenched it, and changed the impulse to
homage.
Up to this time he had been loyalty itself, where his obligations
lay--treachery was new to him; he had never done an ignoble
thing--baseness was new to him; he had never done an unkind thing--that
also was new to him.
This was the author of that letter, this was the man who had deserted
his young wife and was lamenting, because he must leave another woman's
house which had become a “home” to him, and go away. Is he lamenting
mainly because he must go back to his wife and child? No, the lament is
mainly for what he is to leave behind him. The physical comforts of the
house? No, in his life he had never attached importance to such
things. Then the thing which he grieves to leave is narrowed down to a
person--to the person whose “dewy looks” had sunk into his breast, and
whose seducing words had “stirred poison there.”
He was ashamed of himself, his conscience was upbraiding him. He was
the slave of a degrading love; he was drunk with his passion, the real
Shelley was in temporary eclipse. This is the verdict which his previous
history must certainly deliver upon this episode, I think.
One must be allowed to assist himself with conjectures like these
when trying to find his way through a literary swamp which has so many
misleading finger-boards up as this book is furnished with.
We have now arrived at a part of the swamp where the difficulties
and perplexities are going to be greater than any we have yet met
with--where, indeed, the finger-boards are multitudinous, and the most
of them pointing diligently in the wrong direction. We are to be told by
the biography why Shelley deserted his wife and child and took up with
Cornelia Turner and Italian. It was not on account of Cornelia's sighs
and sentimentalities and tea and manna and late hours and soft and sweet
and industrious enticements; no, it was because “his happiness in his
home had been wounded and bruised almost to death.”
It had been wounded and bruised almost to death in this way:
1st. Harriet persuaded him to set up a carriage.
2d. After the intrusion of the baby, Harriet stopped reading aloud and
studying.
3d. Harriet's walks with Hogg “commonly conducted us to some fashionable
bonnet-shop.”
4th. Harriet hired a wet-nurse.
5th. When an operation was being performed upon the baby, “Harriet stood
by, narrowly observing all that was done, but, to the astonishment of
the operator, betraying not the smallest sign of emotion.”
6th. Eliza Westbrook, sister-in-law, was still of the household.
The evidence against Harriet Shelley is all in; there is no more. Upon
these six counts she stands indicted of the crime of driving her
husband into that sty at Bracknell; and this crime, by these helps, the
biographical prosecuting attorney has set himself the task of proving
upon her.
Does the biographer call himself the attorney for the prosecution?
No, only to himself, privately; publicly he is the passionless,
disinterested, impartial judge on the bench. He holds up his judicial
scales before the world, that all may see; and it all tries to look so
fair that a blind person would sometimes fail to see him slip the false
weights in.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded and bruised almost to
death, first, because Harriet had persuaded him to set up a carriage. I
cannot discover that any evidence is offered that she asked him to set
up a carriage. Still, if she did, was it a heavy offense? Was it unique?
Other young wives had committed it before, others have committed it
since. Shelley had dearly loved her in those London days; possibly he
set up the carriage gladly to please her; affectionate young husbands
do such things. When Shelley ran away with another girl, by-and-by, this
girl persuaded him to pour the price of many carriages and many horses
down the bottomless well of her father's debts, but this impartial
judge finds no fault with that. Once she appeals to Shelley to raise
money--necessarily by borrowing, there was no other way--to pay her
father's debts with at a time when Shelley was in danger of being
arrested and imprisoned for his own debts; yet the good judge finds no
fault with her even for this.
First and last, Shelley emptied into that rapacious mendicant's lap a
sum which cost him--for he borrowed it at ruinous rates--from eighty
to one hundred thousand dollars. But it was Mary Godwin's papa, the
supplications were often sent through Mary, the good judge is Mary's
strenuous friend, so Mary gets no censures. On the Continent Mary rode
in her private carriage, built, as Shelley boasts, “by one of the best
makers in Bond Street,” yet the good judge makes not even a passing
comment on this iniquity. Let us throw out Count No. 1 against Harriet
Shelley as being far-fetched, and frivolous.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded and bruised almost
to death, secondly, because Harriet's studies “had dwindled away to
nothing, Bysshe had ceased to express any interest in them.” At what
time was this? It was when Harriet “had fully recovered from the fatigue
of her first effort of maternity... and was now in full force, vigor,
and effect.” Very well, the baby was born two days before the close of
June. It took the mother a month to get back her full force, vigor, and
effect; this brings us to July 27th and the deadly Cornelia. If a
wife of eighteen is studying with her husband and he gets smitten with
another woman, isn't he likely to lose interest in his wife's studies
for that reason, and is not his wife's interest in her studies likely to
languish for the same reason? Would not the mere sight of those books of
hers sharpen the pain that is in her heart? This sudden breaking down of
a mutual intellectual interest of two years' standing is coincident with
Shelley's re-encounter with Cornelia; and we are allowed to gather from
that time forth for nearly two months he did all his studying in that
person's society. We feel at liberty to rule out Count No. 2 from the
indictment against Harriet.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded and bruised almost to
death, thirdly, because Harriet's walks with Hogg commonly led to some
fashionable bonnet-shop. I offer no palliation; I only ask why the
dispassionate, impartial judge did not offer one himself--merely, I
mean, to offset his leniency in a similar case or two where the girl
who ran away with Harriet's husband was the shopper. There are several
occasions where she interested herself with shopping--among them being
walks which ended at the bonnet-shop--yet in none of these cases does
she get a word of blame from the good judge, while in one of them he
covers the deed with a justifying remark, she doing the shopping that
time to find easement for her mind, her child having died.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded and bruised almost to
death, fourthly, by the introduction there of a wet-nurse. The wet-nurse
was introduced at the time of the Edinburgh sojourn, immediately after
Shelley had been enjoying the two months of study with Cornelia which
broke up his wife's studies and destroyed his personal interest in them.
Why, by this time, nothing that Shelley's wife could do would have been
satisfactory to him, for he was in love with another woman, and was
never going to be contented again until he got back to her. If he had
been still in love with his wife it is not easily conceivable that he
would care much who nursed the baby, provided the baby was well
nursed. Harriet's jealousy was assuredly voicing itself now, Shelley's
conscience was assuredly nagging him, pestering him, persecuting him.
Shelley needed excuses for his altered attitude toward his wife;
Providence pitied him and sent the wet-nurse. If Providence had sent him
a cotton doughnut it would have answered just as well; all he wanted was
something to find fault with.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded and bruised almost to
death, fifthly, because Harriet narrowly watched a surgical operation
which was being performed upon her child, and, “to the astonishment
of the operator,” who was watching Harriet instead of attending to his
operation, she betrayed “not the smallest sign of emotion.” The author
of this biography was not ashamed to set down that exultant slander. He
was apparently not aware that it was a small business to bring into his
court a witness whose name he does not know, and whose character and
veracity there is none to vouch for, and allow him to strike this blow
at the mother-heart of this friendless girl. The biographer says, “We
may not infer from this that Harriet did not feel”--why put it in,
then?--“but we learn that those about her could believe her to be hard
and insensible.” Who were those who were about her? Her husband? He
hated her now, because he was in love elsewhere. Her sister? Of course
that is not charged. Peacock? Peacock does not testify. The wet-nurse?
She does not testify. If any others were there we have no mention of
them. “Those about her” are reduced to one person--her husband. Who
reports the circumstance? It is Hogg. Perhaps he was there--we do not
know. But if he was, he still got his information at second-hand, as
it was the operator who noticed Harriet's lack of emotion, not himself.
Hogg is not given to saying kind things when Harriet is his subject.
He may have said them the time that he tried to tempt her to soil her
honor, but after that he mentions her usually with a sneer. “Among
those who were about her” was one witness well equipped to silence all
tongues, abolish all doubts, set our minds at rest; one witness, not
called, and not callable, whose evidence, if we could but get it, would
outweigh the oaths of whole battalions of hostile Hoggs and nameless
surgeons--the baby. I wish we had the baby's testimony; and yet if
we had it it would not do us any good--a furtive conjecture, a sly
insinuation, a pious “if” or two, would be smuggled in, here and there,
with a solemn air of judicial investigation, and its positiveness would
wilt into dubiety.
The biographer says of Harriet, “If words of tender affection and
motherly pride proved the reality of love, then undoubtedly she loved
her firstborn child.” That is, if mere empty words can prove it, it
stands proved--and in this way, without committing himself, he gives the
reader a chance to infer that there isn't any extant evidence but words,
and that he doesn't take much stock in them. How seldom he shows his
hand! He is always lurking behind a non-committal “if” or something of
that kind; always gliding and dodging around, distributing colorless
poison here and there and everywhere, but always leaving himself in a
position to say that his language will be found innocuous if taken to
pieces and examined. He clearly exhibits a steady and never-relaxing
purpose to make Harriet the scapegoat for her husband's first great
sin--but it is in the general view that this is revealed, not in the
details. His insidious literature is like blue water; you know what it
is that makes it blue, but you cannot produce and verify any detail of
the cloud of microscopic dust in it that does it. Your adversary can dip
up a glassful and show you that it is pure white and you cannot deny
it; and he can dip the lake dry, glass by glass, and show that every
glassful is white, and prove it to any one's eye--and yet that lake was
blue and you can swear it. This book is blue--with slander in solution.
Let the reader examine, for example, the paragraph of comment which
immediately follows the letter containing Shelley's self-exposure which
we have been considering. This is it. One should inspect the individual
sentences as they go by, then pass them in procession and review the
cake-walk as a whole:
“Shelley's happiness in his home, as is evident from this
pathetic letter, had been fatally stricken; it is evident,
also, that he knew where duty lay; he felt that his part was to
take up his burden, silently and sorrowfully, and to bear it
henceforth with the quietness of despair. But we can perceive
that he scarcely possessed the strength and fortitude needful
for success in such an attempt. And clearly Shelley himself
was aware how perilous it was to accept that respite of
blissful ease which he enjoyed in the Boinville household; for
gentle voices and dewy looks and words of sympathy could not
fail to remind him of an ideal of tranquillity or of joy which
could never be his, and which he must henceforth sternly
exclude from his imagination.”
That paragraph commits the author in no way. Taken sentence by sentence
it asserts nothing against anybody or in favor of anybody, pleads for
nobody, accuses nobody. Taken detail by detail, it is as innocent as
moonshine. And yet, taken as a whole, it is a design against the reader;
its intent is to remove the feeling which the letter must leave with him
if let alone, and put a different one in its place--to remove a feeling
justified by the letter and substitute one not justified by it. The
letter itself gives you no uncertain picture--no lecturer is needed to
stand by with a stick and point out its details and let on to explain
what they mean. The picture is the very clear and remorsefully faithful
picture of a fallen and fettered angel who is ashamed of himself; an
angel who beats his soiled wings and cries, who complains to the woman
who enticed him that he could have borne his wayward lot, he could have
stood by his duty if it had not been for her beguilements; an angel who
rails at the “boundless ocean of abhorred society,” and rages at
his poor judicious sister-in-law. If there is any dignity about this
spectacle it will escape most people.
Yet when the paragraph of comment is taken as a whole, the picture is
full of dignity and pathos; we have before us a blameless and noble
spirit stricken to the earth by malign powers, but not conquered;
tempted, but grandly putting the temptation away; enmeshed by subtle
coils, but sternly resolved to rend them and march forth victorious, at
any peril of life or limb. Curtain--slow music.
Was it the purpose of the paragraph to take the bad taste of Shelley's
letter out of the reader's mouth? If that was not it, good ink was
wasted; without that, it has no relevancy--the multiplication table
would have padded the space as rationally.
We have inspected the six reasons which we are asked to believe drove a
man of conspicuous patience, honor, justice, fairness, kindliness, and
iron firmness, resolution, and steadfastness, from the wife whom
he loved and who loved him, to a refuge in the mephitic paradise of
Bracknell. These are six infinitely little reasons; but there were six
colossal ones, and these the counsel for the destruction of Harriet
Shelley persists in not considering very important.
Moreover, the colossal six preceded the little six and had done the
mischief before they were born. Let us double-column the twelve; then we
shall see at a glance that each little reason is in turn answered by a
retorting reason of a size to overshadow it and make it insignificant:
1. Harriet sets up carriage. 1. CORNELIA TURNER.
2. Harriet stops studying. 2. CORNELIA TURNER.
3. Harriet goes to bonnet-shop. 3. CORNELIA TURNER.
4. Harriet takes a wet-nurse. 4. CORNELIA TURNER.
5. Harriet has too much nerve. 5. CORNELIA TURNER.
6. Detested sister-in-law 6. CORNELIA TURNER.
As soon as we comprehend that Cornelia Turner and the Italian lessons
happened before the little six had been discovered to be grievances,
we understand why Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded and
bruised almost to death, and no one can persuade us into laying it on
Harriet. Shelley and Cornelia are the responsible persons, and we cannot
in honor and decency allow the cruelties which they practised upon the
unoffending wife to be pushed aside in order to give us a chance to
waste time and tears over six sentimental justifications of an offense
which the six can't justify, nor even respectably assist in justifying.
Six? There were seven; but in charity to the biographer the seventh
ought not to be exposed. Still, he hung it out himself, and not only
hung it out, but thought it was a good point in Shelley's favor. For two
years Shelley found sympathy and intellectual food and all that at home;
there was enough for spiritual and mental support, but not enough for
luxury; and so, at the end of the contented two years, this latter
detail justifies him in going bag and baggage over to Cornelia Turner
and supplying the rest of his need in the way of surplus sympathy and
intellectual pie unlawfully. By the same reasoning a man in merely
comfortable circumstances may rob a bank without sin.