JULY 1823-DECEMBER 1824
Mary's journey extended over a month, one week of which was passed in
Paris and Versailles, for the sake of seeing the Horace Smiths and other
old acquaintances now living there. Her letters to the Hunts, describing
the incidents and impressions of her journey, were as lively and cheerful
as she could make them. A few extracts follow here.
TO LEIGH HUNT.
ASTI, _26th July_.
* * * * *
Percy is very good and does not in the least _annoy_ me. In the state
of mind I am now in, the motion and change is delightful to me: my
thoughts run with the coach and wind, and double, and jerk, and are up
and down, and forward, and most often backward, till the labyrinth of
Crete is a joke in comparison to my intricate wanderings. They now
lead me to you, Hunt. You rose early, wrote, walked, dined, whistled,
sang and punned most outrageously, the worst puns in the world. My
best Polly, you, full of your chicks and of your new darling, yet
sometimes called "Henry" to see a beautiful new effect of light on the
mountains.... Dear girl, I have a great affection for you, believe
that, and don't talk or think sorrowfully, unless you have the
toothache, and then don't think, but talk infinite nonsense mixed with
infinite sense, and Hunt will listen, as I used. Thorny, you have not
been cross yet. Oh, my dear Johnny (don't be angry, Polly, with this
nonsense), do not let your impatient nature ever overcome you, or you
may suffer as I have done--which God forbid! Be true to yourself, and
talk much to your Father, who will teach you as he has taught me. It
is the idea of his lessons of wisdom that makes me feel the affection
I do for him. I profit by them, so do you: may you never feel the
remorse of having neglected them when his voice and look are gone, and
he can no longer talk to you; that remorse is a terrible feeling, and
it requires a faith and a philosophy immense not to be destroyed by
the stinging monster.
_28th July._
... 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 Susa, 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 home and living for
ever. The exquisite beauty of nature, and the cloudless sky of this
summer day soothe me, and make this 28th so full of recollections that
it is almost pleasurable. 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 of the vast hills, the blue air that
penetrates their ravines and rests upon their heights. I feel him near
me when I see that which he best loved. Alas! nine years ago he took
to a home in his heart this weak being, whom he has now left for more
congenial spirits and happier regions. She lives only in the hope that
she may become one day as one of them.
Absolutely, my dear Hunt, I will pass some three summer months in this
divine spot, you shall all be with me. There are no gentlemen's seats
at Palazzi, so we will take a cottage, which we will paint and refit,
just as this country here 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 the many streams hereabouts, and so clean him.
Swinny, being so quick, shall be our Mercury, Percy our gardener,
Sylvan and Percy Florence our weeders, and Vincent our plaything; 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 prepare our meats to the tune of
the _Laughing Trio_, and when we are tired we will lie on our turf
sofas, while all our voices shall join in chorus in _Notte e giorno
faticar_. You see my paper is quite out, so I must say, for the last
time, Adieu! God bless you.
MARY W. S.
_Tuesday, 5th August._
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, the good, hackneyed maxim of
_multum in parvo_, and, when your temples throb, distil the essence of
three pages into three lines, and my "fictitious adventure"[5] will
enable me to open them out and fill up intervals. Not but what three
pages are best, but "you can understand me." And now let me tell you
that I fear you do not rise early, since you doubt my _ore mattutine_.
Be it known to you, then, that on the journey I always rise _before_ 3
o'clock, that I _never_ once made the _vetturino_ wait, and, moreover,
that there was no discontent 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 humour did not
leave him, but his self-possession. 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 the
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 the temples. I remember, in 1814, a Frenchman's
pathetic horror at Clare's and my appearance in the streets of Paris
in "Oldenburgh" (as they were called) hats; now they all wear machines
of that shape, and a high bonnet 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 at my Father's
(pray put William Godwin, Esq., since the want of that etiquette
annoys him. I remember Shelley's unspeakable astonishment when the
author of _Political Justice_ asked him, half reproachfully, why he
addressed him _Mr._ Godwin), 195 Strand.
On the 25th of August Mary met her father once more. At his house in the
Strand she spent her first ten days in England. Consideration for others,
and the old habit of repressing all show of feeling before Godwin helped
to steel her nerves and heart to bear the stings and aches of this
strange, mournful reunion.
And now again, too, she saw her friend Jane. But fondly as Mary ever clung
to her, she must have been sensible of the difference between them. Mrs.
Williams' situation was forlorn indeed; in some respects even more so than
Mrs. Shelley's. But, though she had grieved bitterly, as well she might,
for Edward's loss, her nature was not _impressible_, and the catastrophe
which had fallen upon her had left her unaltered. Jane was unhappy, but
she was not inconsolable; her grief was becoming to her, and lent her a
certain interest which enhanced her attractions. And to men in general she
was very attractive. Godwin himself was somewhat fascinated by the
"picturesque little woman" who had called on him on her first arrival; who
"did not drop one tear" and occasionally smiled. As for Hogg, he lost his
heart to her at once.
All this Mary must have seen. But Jane was an attaching creature, and Mary
loved her as the greater nature loves the lesser; she lavished on her a
wealth of pent-up tenderness, content to get what crumbs she could in
return. For herself a curious surprise was in store, which entertained, if
it did not cheer her.
Just at the time of its author's return to England, _Frankenstein_, in a
dramatised form, was having a considerable "run" at the English Opera
House.
MRS. SHELLEY TO LEIGH HUNT.
_9th September 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 destroyed all my philosophy. But now I do
so. I am in little neat 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 friendship 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 excellent passage of eleven hours and a
half, a glassy sea, and a contrary wind. The smoke of our fire was
wafted right aft, and streamed out behind us; but 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 comfortable. I exerted myself to keep up my spirits.
The house, though rather dismal, is infinitely better than the Skinner
Street one. I resolved not to think of certain things, to take all as
a matter of course, and thus contrive to keep myself out of the gulf
of melancholy, on the edge of which I was and am continually peeping.
But lo and behold! I found myself famous. _Frankenstein_ had
prodigious success as a drama, and was about to be repeated, for the
twenty-third night, at the English Opera House. The play-bill amused
me extremely, for, in the list of _dramatis personae_, came "----, by
Mr. T. Cooke." This nameless mode of naming the unnameable is rather
good.
On Friday, 29th August, Jane, my Father, William, and I went to the
theatre to see it. Wallack looked very well as Frankenstein. 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
Frankenstein's workshop; he goes to it, and you see his light at a
small window, through which a frightened servant peeps, who runs off
in terror when Frankenstein exclaims "It lives!" Presently
Frankenstein 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
unearthly 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 support; 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 breathless 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, 30th August, I went with Jane to the Gisbornes. 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 saw 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....
... On the strength of the drama, my Father had published for my
benefit a new edition of _Frankenstein_, for he despaired utterly of
my doing anything with Sir Timothy Shelley. I wrote to him, however,
to tell him of my arrival, and on the following Wednesday had a note
from Whitton, where he invited me, if I wished for an explanation of
Sir T. Shelley's intentions concerning my boy, to call on him. I went
with my Father. Whitton was very polite, though long-winded: his great
wish seemed to be to prevent my applying again to Sir T. Shelley, whom
he represented as old, infirm, and irritable. However, he advanced me
L100 for my immediate expenses, told me that he could not speak
positively until he had seen Sir T. Shelley, but that he doubted not
but that I should receive the same annually for my child, and, with a
little time and patience, I should get an allowance for myself. This,
you see, relieved me from a load of anxieties.
Having secured neat cheap lodgings, we removed hither last night.
Such, dear Hunt, is the outline of your poor exile's history. After
two days of rain, the weather has been _uncommonly_ fine, _cioe_,
without rain, and cloudless, I believe, though I trusted to other eyes
for that fact, since the white-washed 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 myself with the hope that softer gales are now
fanning your _not_ throbbing temples, that the climate of Florence
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.
* * * * *
It is difficult to imagine _Frankenstein_ on the stage; it must, at least,
lose very much in dramatic representation. Like its modern successor, _Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_,--that remarkable story which bears a certain
affinity to _Frankenstein_,--its subtle allegorical significance would be
overweighted, if not lost, by the effect of the grosser and more material
incidents which are all that could be _played_, and which, as described,
must have bordered on the ludicrous. Still the charm of life imparted by a
human impersonation to any portion, even, of one's own idea, is singularly
powerful; and so Mary felt it. She would have liked to repeat the
experience. Her situation, looked at in the face, was unenviable. She was
unprovided for, young, delicate, and with a child dependent on her. Her
rich connections would have nothing to do with her, and her boy did not
possess in their eyes the importance which would have attached to him had
he been heir to the baronetcy. She had talent, and it had been cultivated,
but with her sorely-tried health and spirits, the prospect of
self-support by the compulsory production of imaginative work must, at the
time, have seemed unpromising enough.
Two sheet-anchors of hope she had, and by these she lived. They were, her
child--so friendless but for her--and the thought of Shelley's fame. The
collecting and editing of his MSS., this was her work; no one else should
do it. It seemed as though her brief life with him had had for its purpose
to educate her for this one object.
Those who now, in naming Shelley, feel they name a part of everything
beautiful, ethereal, and spiritual--that his words are so inextricably
interwoven with certain phases of love and beauty as to be
indistinguishable from the very thing itself--may well find it hard to
realise how little he was known at the time when he died.
With other poets their work is the blossom and fruit of their lives, but
Shelley's poetry resembles rather the perfume of the flower, that subtle
quality pertaining to the bloom which can be neither described, nor
pourtrayed, nor transmitted; an essence of immortality.
Not many months after this the news of Byron's early death struck a kind
of remorseful grief into the hearts of his countrymen. A letter of Miss
Welsh's (Mrs. Carlyle) gives an idea of the general feeling--
"I was told it," she says, "in a room full of people. Had I heard that
the sun and moon had fallen out of their spheres it could not have
conveyed to me the feeling of a more awful blank than did the simple
words, 'Byron is dead.'"
How many, it may be asked, were conscious of any blank when the news
reached them that Shelley had been "accidentally drowned"? Their numbers
might be counted by tens.
The sale, in every instance, of Mr. Shelley's works has been very
confined,
was his publishers' report to his widow. One newspaper dismissed his
memory by the passing remark, "He will now find out whether there is a
Hell or not."
The small number of those who recognised his genius did not even include
all his personal friends.
"Mine is a life of failures;" so he summed it up to Trelawny and
Edward Williams. "Peacock says my poetry is composed of day-dreams and
nightmares, and Leigh Hunt does not think it good enough for the
_Examiner_. Jefferson Hogg says all poetry is inverted sense, and
consequently nonsense....
"I wrote, and the critics denounced me as a mischievous visionary, and
my friends said that I had mistaken my vocation, that my poetry was
mere rhapsody of words...."
Leigh Hunt, indeed, thought his own poetry more than equal to Shelley's or
Byron's. Byron knew Shelley's power well enough, but cared little for the
subjects of his sympathy. Trelawny was more appreciative, but his
admiration for the poetry was quite secondary to his enthusiasm for the
man. In Hogg's case, affection for the man may be said to have _excused_
the poetry. All this Mary knew, but she knew too--what she was soon to
find out by experience--that among his immediate associates he had created
too warm an interest for him to escape posthumous discussion and
criticism. And he had been familiar with some of those regarding whom the
world's curiosity was insatiable, concerning whom any shred of
information, true or false, was eagerly snapped up. His name would
inevitably figure in anecdotes and gossip. His fame was Mary's to guard.
During the years she lived at Albaro she had been employed in collecting
and transcribing his scattered MSS., and at the end of this year, 1823,
the volume of Posthumous Poems came out.
One would imagine that publishers would have bid against each other for
the possession of such a treasure. Far from it. Among the little band of
"true believers" three came forward to guarantee the expenses of
publication. They were, the poet Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Procter, and T. F.
Kelsall.
The appearance of this book was a melancholy satisfaction to Mary, though,
as will soon be seen, she was not long allowed to enjoy it.
MRS. SHELLEY TO MRS. HUNT.
LONDON, _27th November 1823_.
MY DEAREST POLLY--Are you not a naughty girl? How could you copy a
letter to that "agreeable, unaffected woman, Mrs. Shelley," without
saying a word from yourself to your loving...? My dear Polly, a line
from you forms a better picture for me of what you are about
than--alas! I was going to say three pages, but I check myself--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 carriage 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, and more than ever this day when I have come to a conclusion
with Sir Timothy Shelley as to my affairs, and I find the miserable
pittance I am to have. Nearly sufficient in Italy, here it will not go
half-way. It is L100 per annum. Nor is this all, for I foresee a
thousand troubles; yet, in truth, as far as regards mere money matters
and worldly prospects, I keep up my philosophy 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 darling
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 Whitton, 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. Godwin makes _large eyes_ at the quiet way
in which I take it all. It is England alone that annoys me, yet
sometimes I get among friends and almost forget its fogs. I go to
Shacklewell rarely, and sometimes see the Novellos elsewhere. He is my
especial favourite, 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 Hunt 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 12 at noonday,
walked deliberately into the water, taking it for the high road.
"But," as he said afterwards to Procter, "I soon found that I was in
the water, sir." So Miss Lamb 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 a 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 Shelley, and most zealous in bringing out the
volume of his poems; this alone would please me; and he is, moreover,
gentle and gentlemanly, and apparently endued with a true poetic
feeling. Besides, he is an invalid, and some time ago I told you, in a
letter, that I have always a sneaking (for sneaking read open)
kindness 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....
After all, I spend a great deal of my time in solitude. I have been
hitherto too 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 addressed 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.[6] When he does send a packet over (let it be directed to his
brother), will he also be so good as to send me a copy of my "Choice,"
beginning after the line
Entrenched sad lines, or blotted with its might?
Perhaps, dear Marianne, you would have the kindness to copy them for
me, and send them soon. I have another favour 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.[7] If you could not
cut another, perhaps you would send her one already cut, and if you
sent it with a note requesting her to return it when she had done with
it, I will engage that it will be most faithfully returned. At present
I am not quite sure where she is, but if she should be there, and you
can find her and send her this, I need not tell you how you would
oblige me.
I heard from Bessy that Hunt is writing something 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.
* * * * *
And now, dear Polly, I think I have done with gossip and business:
with words of affection and kindness I should never have done. I am
inexpressibly 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
all 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 to 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 forgotten and
promised P.S., give my love to Hunt, and believe me, my dear
Marianne, the exiled, but ever, most affectionately yours,
MARY W. SHELLEY.
_Journal, January 18_ (1824).--I have now been nearly four months in
England, and if I am to judge of the future by the past and the
present, I have small delight in looking forward. I even regret those
days and weeks of intense melancholy that composed my life at Genoa.
Yes, solitary and unbeloved as I was there, I enjoyed a more
pleasurable state of being than I do here. I was still in Italy, and
my heart and imagination were both gratified by that circumstance. I
awoke with the light and beheld the theatre of nature from my window;
the trees spread their green beauty before me, the resplendent sky was
above me, the mountains were invested with enchanting colours. I had
even begun to contemplate painlessly the blue expanse of the tranquil
sea, speckled by the snow-white sails, gazed upon by the unclouded
stars. There was morning and its balmy air, noon and its exhilarating
heat, evening and its wondrous sunset, night and its starry pageant.
Then, my studies; my drawing, which soothed me; my Greek, which I
studied with greater complacency as I stole every now and then a look
on the scene near me; my metaphysics, that strengthened and elevated
my mind. Then my solitary walks and my reveries; they were
magnificent, deep, pathetic, wild, and exalted. I sounded the depths
of my own nature; I appealed to the nature around me to corroborate
the testimony that my own heart bore to its purity. I thought of _him_
with hope; my grief was active, striving, expectant. I was worth
something then in the catalogue of beings. I could have written
something, been something. Now I am exiled from these beloved scenes;
its language is becoming a stranger to mine ears; my child is
forgetting it. I am imprisoned in a dreary town; I see neither fields,
nor hills, nor trees, nor sky; the exhilaration of enwrapt
contemplation is no more felt by me; aspirations agonising, yet grand,
from which the soul reposed in peace, have ceased to ascend from the
quenched altar of my mind. Writing has become a task; my studies
irksome; my life dreary. In this prison it is only in human
intercourse that I can pretend to find consolation; and woe, woe, and
triple woe to whoever seeks pleasure in human intercourse when that
pleasure is not founded on deep and intense affection; as for the
rest--
The bubble floats before,
The shadow stalks behind.
My Father's situation, his cares and debts, prevent my enjoying his
society.
I love Jane better than any other human being, but I am pressed upon
by the knowledge that she but slightly returns this affection. I love
her, and my purest pleasure is derived from that source--a capacious
basin, and but a rill flows into it. I love some one or two more,
"with a degree of love," but I see them seldom. I am excited while
with them, but the reaction of this feeling is dreadfully painful, but
while in London I cannot forego this excitement. I know some clever
men, in whose conversation I delight, but this is rare, like angels'
visits. Alas! having lived day by day with one of the wisest, best,
and most affectionate of spirits, how void, bare, and drear is the
scene of life!
Oh, Shelley, dear, lamented, beloved! help me, raise me, support me;
let me not feel ever thus fallen and degraded! my imagination is dead,
my genius lost, my energies sleep. Why am I not beneath that
weed-grown tower? Seeing Coleridge last night reminded me forcibly of
past times; his beautiful descriptions reminded me of Shelley's
conversations. Such was the intercourse I once daily enjoyed, added to
supreme and active goodness, sympathy, and affection, and a wild,
picturesque mode of living that suited my active spirit and satisfied
its craving for novelty of impression.
I will go into the country and philosophise; some gleams of past
entrancement may visit me there.
Lonely, poor, and dull as she was, these first months were a dreadful
trial. She was writing, or trying to write, another novel, _The Last
Man_, but it hung heavy; it did not satisfy her. Shrinking from company,
yet recoiling still more from the monotony of her own thoughts, she was
possessed by the restless wish to write a drama, perhaps with the idea
that out of dramatic creations she might (Frankenstein-like) manufacture
for herself companions more living than the characters of a novel. It may
have been fortunate for her that she did not persevere in the attempt. Her
special gifts were hardly of a dramatic order, and she had not the
necessary experience for a successful playwright. She consulted her
father, however, sending him at the same time some specimens of her work,
and got some sound advice from him in return.
GODWIN TO MARY.
NO. 195 STRAND, _27th February 1824_.
MY DEAR MARY--Your appeal to me is a painful one, and the account you
give of your spirits and tone of mind is more painful. Your appeal to
me is painful, because I by no means regard myself as an infallible
judge, and have been myself an unsuccessful adventurer in the same
field toward which, in this instance, you have turned your regards. As
to what you say of your spirits and tone of mind, your plans, and your
views, would not that much more profitably and agreeably be made the
subject of a conversation between us? You are aware that such a
conversation must be begun by you. So begun, it would be quite a
different thing than begun by me. In the former case I should be
called in as a friend and adviser, from whom some advantage was hoped
for; in the latter I should be an intruder, forcing in free speeches
and unwelcome truths, and should appear as if I wanted to dictate to
you and direct you, who are well capable of directing yourself. You
have able critics within your command--Mr. Procter and Mr. Lamb. You
have, however, one advantage in me; I feel a deeper interest in you
than they do, and would not mislead you for the world.
As to the specimens you have sent me, it is easy for me to give my
opinion. There is one good scene--Manfred and the Two Strangers in the
Cottage; and one that has some slight hints in it--the scene where
Manfred attempts to stab the Duke. The rest are neither good nor bad;
they might be endured, in the character of cement, to fasten good
things together, but no more. Am I right? Perhaps not. I state things
as they appear to my organs. Thus far, therefore, you afford an
example, to be added to Barry Cornwall, how much easier it is to write
a detached dramatic scene than to write a tragedy.
Is it not strange that so many people admire and relish Shakespeare,
and that nobody writes or even attempts to write like him? To read
your specimens, I should suppose that you had read no tragedies but
such as have been written since the date of your birth. Your
personages are mere abstractions--the lines and points of a
mathematical diagram--and not men and women. If A crosses B, and C
falls upon D, who can weep for that? Your talent is something like
mine--it cannot unfold itself without elbow-room. As Gray sings, "Give
ample room and verge enough the characters of hell to trace." I can do
tolerably well if you will allow me to explain as much as I like--if,
in the margin of what my personage says, I am permitted to set down
and anatomise all that he feels. Dramatic dialogue, in reference to
any talent I possess, is the devil. To write nothing more than the
very words spoken by the character is a course that withers all the
powers of my soul. Even Shakespeare, the greatest dramatist that ever
existed, often gives us riddles to guess and enigmas to puzzle over.
Many of his best characters and situations require a volume of
commentary to make them perspicuous. And why is this? Because the law
of his composition confines him to set down barely words that are to
be delivered.
For myself, I am almost glad that you have not (if you have not) a
dramatic talent. How many mortifications and heart-aches would that
entail on you. Managers are to be consulted; players to be humoured;
the best pieces that were ever written negatived, and returned on the
author's hands. If these are all got over, then you have to encounter
the caprice of a noisy, insolent, and vulgar-minded audience, whose
senseless _non fiat_ shall turn the labour of a year in a moment into
nothing.
Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
What hell it is----
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
It is laziness, my dear Mary, that makes you wish to be a dramatist.
It seems in prospect a short labour to write a play, and a long one to
write a work consisting of volumes; and as much may be gained by the
one as by the other. But as there is no royal road to geometry, so
there is no idle and self-indulgent activity that leads to literary
eminence.
As to the idea that you have no literary talent, for God's sake, do
not give way to such diseased imaginations. You have, fortunately,
ascertained that at a very early period. What would you have done if
you had passed through my ordeal? I did not venture to face the public
till I was seven and twenty, and for ten years after that period could
not contrive to write anything that anybody would read; yet even I
have not wholly miscarried.
Much of this was shrewd, and undeniable, but the _wish_ to write for the
stage continued to haunt Mary, and recurred two years later when she saw
Kean play _Othello_. To the end of her life she expressed regret that she
had not tried her hand at a tragedy.
Meanwhile, besides her own novel, she was at no loss for literary jobs and
literary occupation; her friends took care of that. Her pen and her powers
were for ever at their service, and they never showed any scruple in
working the willing horse. Her disinterested integrity made her an
invaluable representative in business transactions. The affairs of the
_Examiner_ newspaper, edited in England by Leigh Hunt's brother John, were
in an unsatisfactory condition; and there was much disagreement between
the two brothers as to both pecuniary and literary arrangements. Mary had
to act as arbiter between the two, softening the harsh and ungracious
expressions which, in his annoyance, were used by John; looking after
Leigh Hunt's interests, and doing all she could to make clear to him the
complicated details of the concern. In this she was aided by Vincent
Novello, the eminent musician, and intimate friend of the Hunts, to whom
she had had a letter of introduction on arriving in Italy. The Novellos
had a large, old-fashioned house on Shacklewell Green; they were the very
soul of hospitality and kindness, and the centre of a large circle of
literary and artistic friends, they had made Shelley's acquaintance in the
days when the Leigh Hunts lived at the Vale of Health in Hampstead, and
they now welcomed his widow, as well as Mrs. Williams, doing all in their
power to shed a little cheerfulness over these two broken and melancholy
lives.
"Very, very fair both ladies were," writes Mrs. Cowden Clarke, then Mary
Victoria Novello, who in her charming _Recollections of Writers_ has given
us a pretty sketch of Mary Shelley as she then appeared to a "damsel
approaching towards the age of 'sweet sixteen,' privileged to consider
herself one of the grown-up people."
"Always observant as a child," she writes, "I had now become a greater
observer than ever; and large and varied was the pleasure I derived
from my observation of the interesting men and women around me at this
time of my life. Certainly Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley was the
central figure of attraction then to my young-girl sight; and I looked
upon her with ceaseless 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 perpetually excited and
engrossed me while she continued a visitor at my parents' house."
Elsewhere she describes
... "Her well-shaped, golden-haired head, almost always a little bent
and drooping; her marble-white shoulders and arms statuesquely visible
in the perfectly 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
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 Vandyke portrait."
And though it was not in the power of these kind genial people to change
Mary's destiny, or even to modify very sensibly the tenour of her inner
life and thought, still their friendship was a solace to her; she was
grateful for it, and did her utmost to respond with cheerfulness to their
kindly efforts on her behalf. To Leigh Hunt (from whom depression, when it
passed into querulousness, met with almost as little quarter as it did
from Godwin) she wrote--
I am not always in spirits, but if my friends say that I am good,
contrive to fancy that I am so, and so continue to love yours most
truly,
MARY SHELLEY.
The news of Lord Byron's death in Greece, which in May of this year
created so profound a sensation in England, fell on Mary's heart as a
fresh calamity. She had small reason, personally, to esteem or regret him.
Circumstances had made her only too painfully familiar with his worst
side, and she might well have borne him more than one serious grudge. But
he was associated in her mind with Shelley, and with early, happy days,
and now he, like Shelley, was dead and gone, and his faults faded into
distance, while all that was great and might have been noble in him--the
hero that should have been rather than the man that was--survived, and
stood out in greater clearness and beauty, surrounded by the tearful halo
of memory. The tidings reached her at a time of unusual--it afterwards
seemed of prophetic--dejection.
_Journal, May 14._--This, then, is my English life; and thus I am to
drag on existence; confined in my small room, friendless. Each day I
string me to the task. I endeavour to read and write, my ideas
stagnate and my understanding refuses to follow the words I read; day
after day passes while torrents fall from the dark clouds, and my mind
is as gloomy as this odious sky. Without human friends I must attach
myself to natural objects; but though I talk of the country, what
difference shall I find in this miserable climate. Italy, dear Italy,
murderess of those I love and of all my happiness, one word of your
soft language coming unawares upon me, has made me shed bitter tears.
When shall I hear it again spoken, when see your skies, your trees,
your streams? The imprisonment attendant on a succession of rainy days
has quite overcome me. God knows I strive to be content, but in vain.
Amidst all the depressing circumstances that weigh on me, none sinks
deeper than the failure of my intellectual powers; nothing I write
pleases me. Whether I am just in this, or whether the want of
Shelley's (oh, my loved Shelley, it is some alleviation only to write
your name!) encouragement I can hardly tell, but it seems to me as if
the lovely and sublime objects of nature had been my best inspirers,
and, wanting them, I am lost. Although so utterly miserable at Genoa,
yet what reveries were mine as I looked on the aspect of the ravine,
the sunny deep and its boats, the promontories clothed in purple
light, the starry heavens, the fireflies, 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 with 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 extinct before me.
And thus has the accumulating sorrow of days and weeks been forced to
find a voice, because the word _lucena_ met my eyes, and the idea of
lost Italy sprang in my mind. What graceful lamps those are, though of
base construction and vulgar use; I thought of bringing one with me; I
am glad I did not. I will go back only to have a _lucena_.
If I told people so they would think me mad, and yet not madder than
they seem to be now, when I say that the blue skies and verdure-clad
earth of that dear land are necessary to my existence.
If there be a kind spirit attendant on me in compensation for these
miserable days, let me only dream to-night that I am in Italy! Mine
own Shelley, what a horror you had (fully sympathised in by me) of
returning to this miserable country! To be here without you is to be
doubly exiled, to be away from Italy is to lose you twice. Dearest,
why is my spirit thus losing all energy? Indeed, indeed, I must go
back, or your poor utterly lost Mary will never dare think herself
worthy to visit you beyond the grave.
_May 15._--This then was the coming event that cast its shadow on my
last night's miserable thoughts. Byron had become one of the people of
the grave--that miserable conclave to which the beings I best loved
belong. I knew him in the bright days of youth, when neither care nor
fear had visited me--before death had made me feel my mortality, and
the earth was the scene of my hopes. Can I forget our evening visits
to Diodati? our excursions on the lake, when he sang the Tyrolese
Hymn, and his voice was harmonised with winds and waves. Can I forget
his attentions and consolations to me during my deepest
misery?--Never.
Beauty sat on his countenance and power beamed from his eye. His
faults being, for the most part, weaknesses, induced one readily to
pardon them.
Albe--the dear, capricious, fascinating Albe--has left this desert
world! God grant I may die young! A new race is springing 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 world. "Life is the desert and the
solitude--how populous the grave"--and that region--to the dearer and
best beloved beings which it has torn from me, now adds that
resplendent spirit whose departure leaves the dull earth dark as
midnight.
_June 18._--What a divine night it is! I have just returned from
Kentish Town; 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 should write again; the lamp
of thought is again illumined in my heart, and the fire descends from
heaven that kindles it. Such, my loved Shelley, now ten years ago, at
this season, did we first meet, and these were the very scenes--that
churchyard, with its sacred tomb, was the spot where first love shone
in your dear eyes. The stars of heaven are now your country, and your
spirit drinks beauty and wisdom in those spheres, and I, beloved,
shall one day join you. Nature speaks to me of you. In towns and
society I do not feel your presence; but there you are with me, my
own, my unalienable!
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 enthusiastic
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 occupation will be a pleasure, and not a task, and this I
shall owe to sight and companionship of trees and meadows, flowers and
sunshine.
England, I charge thee, dress thyself in smiles for my sake! I will
celebrate thee, O England! and cast a glory on thy name, if thou wilt
for me remove thy veil of clouds, and let me contemplate the country
of my Shelley and feel in communion with him!
I have been gay in company before, but the inspiriting sentiment of
the heart's peace I have not felt before to-night; and yet, my own,
never was I so entirely yours. In sorrow and grief I wish sometimes
(how vainly!) for earthly consolation. At a period of pleasing
excitement I cling to your memory alone, and you alone receive the
overflowing of my heart.
Beloved Shelley, good-night. One pang will seize me when I think, but
I will only think, that thou art where I shall be, and conclude with
my usual prayer,--from the depth of my soul I make it,--May I die
young!
TRELAWNY TO MRS. SHELLEY.
MISSOLONGHI, _30th April 1824_.
MY DEAR MARY--My brain is already dizzy with business and writing. I
am transformed from the listless being you knew me to one of all
energy and fire. Not content with the Camp, I must needs be a great
diplomatist, I am again, dear Mary, in my _element_, and playing no
_second_ part in Greece. If I live, the outcast Reginald will cut his
name out on the Grecian hills, or set on its plains. I have had the
merit of discovering and bringing out a noble fellow, a gallant
_soldier_, and a man of most wonderful mind, with as little bigotry as
Shelley, and nearly as much imagination; he is a glorious being. I
have lived with him--he calls me brother--wants to connect me with his
family. We have been inseparable now for eight months--fought side by
side. But I am sick at heart with losing my friend,[8]--for still I
call him so, you know, with all his weakness, you know I loved him. I
cannot live with men for years without feeling--it is weak, it is want
of judgment, of philosophy,--but this is my weakness. Dear Mary, if
you love me,--_write_--write--write, for my heart yearns after you. I
certainly must have you and Jane out. I am serious.
This is the place after my own heart, and I am certain of our good
cause triumphing. Believe nothing you hear; Gamba will tell you
everything about me--about Lord Byron, but he knows nothing of
Greece--nothing; nor does it appear any one else does by what I see
published. Colonel Stanhope is here; he is a good fellow, and does
much good. The loan is achieved, and that sets the business at rest,
but it is badly done--the Commissioners are bad. A word as to your
wooden god, Mavrocordato. He is a miserable Jew, and I hope, ere long,
to see his head removed from his worthless and heartless body. He is a
mere shuffling soldier, an aristocratic brute--wants Kings and
Congresses; a poor, weak, shuffling, intriguing, cowardly fellow; so
no more about him. Dear Mary, dear Jane, I am serious, turn you
thoughts this way. No more a nameless being, I am now a Greek
Chieftain, willing and able to shelter and protect you; and thus I
will continue, or follow our friends to wander over some other planet,
for I have nearly exhausted this.--Your attached
TRELAWNY.
Care of John Hunt, Esq., _Examiner_ Office,
Catherine Street, London.
Tell me of Clare, do write me of her! This is written with the other
in desperate haste. I have received a letter from you, one from Jane,
and none from Hunt.
This letter reached Mary at about the same time as the fatal news.
Trelawny also sent her his narrative of the facts (now so well known to
every one) of Byron's death. It had been intended for Hobhouse, but the
writer changed his mind and entrusted it to Mrs. Shelley instead, adding,
"Hunt may pick something at it if he please."
Trelawny had been Byron's friend, and clearly as he saw the Pilgrim's
faults and deficiencies, there would seem no doubt that he genuinely
admired him, in spite of all. But his mercurial, impulsive temperament,
ever in extremes, was liable to the most sudden revulsions of feeling,
and retrospect hardened his feeling as much as it softened Mary Shelley's
towards the great man who was gone. Only four months later he was writing
again, from Livadia--
I have much to say to you, Mary, both as regards myself and the part I
am enacting here. I would give much that I could, as in times dead,
look in on you in the evening of every day and consult with you on its
occurrences, as I used to do in Italy. It is curious, but, considering
our characters, natural enough, that Byron and I took the
diametrically opposite roads in Greece--I in Eastern, he in Western.
He took part with, and became the paltry tool of the weak, imbecile,
cowardly being calling himself Prince Mavrocordato. Five months he
dozed away. By the gods! the lies that are said in his praise urge one
to speak the truth. It is well for his name, and better for Greece,
that he is dead. With the aid of his name, his fame, his talents, and
his fortune, he might have been a tower of strength to Greece, instead
of which the little he did was in favour of the aristocrats, to
destroy the republic, and smooth the road for a foreign King. But he
is dead, and I now feel my face burn with shame that so weak and
ignoble a soul could so long have influenced me. It is a degrading
reflection, and ever will be. I wish he had lived a little longer,
that he might have witnessed how I would have soared above him here,
how I would have triumphed over his mean spirit. I would do much to
see and talk to you, but as I am now too much irritated to disclose
the real state of things, I will not mislead you by false statements.
With this fine flourish was enclosed a "Description of the Cavern Fortress
of Mount Parnassus," which he was commanding (and of which a full account
is given in his _Recollections_), and then followed a P.S. to this
effect--
DEAR MARY--Will you make an article of this, as Leigh Hunt calls it,
and request his brother to publish it in the _Examiner_, which will
very much oblige me.
FROM MARY SHELLEY TO TRELAWNY.
28th July 1824.
So, dear Trelawny, you remember still poor Mary Shelley; thank you for
your remembrance, and a thousand times for your kind letter. It is
delightful to feel that absence does not diminish your affection,
excellent, warm-hearted friend, remnant of our happy days, of my
vagabond life in beloved Italy, our companion in prosperity, our
comforter in sorrow. You will not wonder that the late loss of Lord
Byron makes me cling with greater zeal to those dear friends who
remain to me. He could hardly be called a friend, but, connected with
him in a thousand ways, admiring his talents, and (with all his
faults) feeling affection for him, it went to my heart when, the other
day, the hearse that contained his lifeless form--a form of beauty
which in life I often delighted to behold--passed my windows going up
Highgate Hill on his last journey to the last seat of his ancestors.
Your account of his last moments was infinitely interesting to me.
Going about a fortnight ago to the house where his remains lay, I
found there Fletcher and Lega--Lega looking a most preposterous
rogue,--Fletcher I expect to call on me when he returns from
Nottingham. From a few words he imprudently let fall, it would seem
that his Lord spoke of Clare in his last moments, and of his wish to
do something for her, at a time when his mind, vacillating between
consciousness and delirium, would not permit him to do anything. Did
Fletcher mention this to you? It seems that this doughty Leporello
speaks of his Lord to strangers with the highest respect; more than he
did a year ago,--the best, the most generous, the most wronged of
peers,--the notion of his leading an irregular life,--quite a false
one. Lady B. sent for Fletcher; he found her in a fit of passionate
grief, but perfectly implacable, and as much resolved never to have
united herself again to him as she was when she first signed their
separation. Mrs. Claremont (the governess) was with her.
His death, as you may guess, made a great sensation here, which was
not diminished by the destruction of his Memoirs, which he wrote and
gave to Moore, and which were burned by Mrs. Leigh and Hobhouse. There
was not much in them, I know, for I read them some years ago at
Venice, but the world fancied it was to have a confession of the
hidden feelings of one concerning whom they were always passionately
curious. Moore was by no means pleased: he is now writing a life of
him himself, but it is conjectured that, notwithstanding he had the
MS. so long in his possession, he never found time to read it. I
breakfasted with him about a week ago, and he is anxious to get
materials for his work. I showed him your letter on the subject of
Lord Byron's death, and he wishes very much to obtain from you any
anecdote or account you would like to send. If you know anything that
ought to be known, or feel inclined to detail anything that you may
remember worthy of record concerning him, perhaps you will communicate
with Moore. You have often said that you wished to keep up our
friend's name in the world, and if you still entertain the same
feeling, no way is more obvious than to assist Moore, who asked me to
make this request. You can write to him through me or addressed to
Longmans....
* * * * *
Here then we are, Jane and I, in Kentish Town.... We live near each
other now, and, seeing each other almost daily, for ever dwell on one
subject.... The country about here is really pretty; lawny uplands,
wooded parks, green lanes, and gentle hills form agreeable and varying
combinations. If we had orange sunsets, cloudless noons, fireflies,
large halls, etc. etc., I should not find the scenery amiss, and yet I
can attach myself to nothing here; neither among the people, though
some are good and clever, nor to the places, though they be pretty.
Jane is my chosen companion and only friend. I am under a cloud, and
cannot form near acquaintances among that class whose manners and
modes of life are agreeable to me, and I think myself fortunate in
having one or two pleasing acquaintances among literary people, whose
society I enjoy without dreaming of friendship. My child is in
excellent health; a fine, tall, handsome boy.
And then for money and the rest of those necessary annoyances, the
means of getting at the necessaries of life; Jane's affairs are yet
unsettled....
My prospects are somewhat brighter than they were. I have little doubt
but that in the course of a few months I shall have an independent
income of L300 or L400 per annum during Sir Timothy's life, and that
with small sacrifice on my part. After his death Shelley's will
secures me an income more than sufficient for my simple habits.
One of my first wishes in obtaining the independence I mention, will
be to assist in freeing Clare from her present painful mode of life.
She is now at Moscow; sufficiently uncomfortable, poor girl, unless
some change has taken place: I think it probable that she will soon
return to England. Her spirits will have been improved by the
information I sent her that his family consider Shelley's will valid,
and that she may rely upon receiving the legacy....
But Mary's hopes of better fortune were again and again deferred, and she
now found that any concession on the part of her husband's family must be
purchased by the suppression of his later poems. She was too poor to do
other than submit.
MARY SHELLEY TO LEIGH HUNT.
KENTISH TOWN, _22d August 1824_.
... A negotiation has begun between Sir Timothy Shelley and myself, by
which, on sacrificing a small part of my future expectations on the
will, I shall ensure myself a sufficiency for the present, and not
only that, but be able, I hope, to relieve Clare from her
disagreeable situation at Moscow. I have been obliged, however, as an
indispensable preliminary, to suppress the posthumous poems. More than
300 copies had been sold, so this is the less provoking, and I have
been obliged to promise not to bring dear Shelley's name before the
public again during Sir Timothy's life. There is no great harm in
this, since he is above seventy; and, 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. Such is
the folly of the world, and so do things seem different from what they
are; since, from Whitton's account, Sir Timothy writhes under the fame
of his incomparable son, as if it were the most grievous injury done
to him; and so, perhaps, after all it will prove.
All this was pending when I wrote last, 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.
It is long since I saw your brother, nor had he any news for me. I
lead a most quiet life, and see hardly any one. The Gliddons are gone
to Hastings for a few weeks. Hogg is on Circuit. Now that he is rich
he is so very queer, so unamiable, and so strange, that I look forward
to his return without any desire of shortening the term of absence.
Poor Pierino is now in London, _Non fosse male questo paese_, he says,
_se vi vedesse mai il sole_. He is full of Greece, to which he is
going, and gave us an account of our good friend, Trelawny, which was
that he was 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, colonise
it, and Jane and I are to go out to be queens and chieftainesses of
the island. When he first came to Athens he took to a Turkish life,
bought twelve or fifteen women, _brutti mostri_, Pierino says, one a
Moor, of all things, and there he lay on his sofa, smoking, these
gentle creatures about him, till he got heartily sick of idleness,
shut them up in his harem, and joined and combated with Ulysses....
* * * * *
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.
_Journal, September 3._--With what hopes did I come to England? I
pictured little of what was pleasurable, the feeling I had could not
be called hope; it was expectation. Yet at that time, now a year ago,
what should I have said if a prophet had told me that, after the whole
revolution of the year, I should be as poor in all estimable treasures
as when I arrived.
I have only seen two persons from whom I have hoped or wished for
friendly feeling. One, a poet, who sought me first, whose voice, laden
with sentiment, passed as Shelley's, and who read with the same deep
feeling as he; whose gentle manners were pleasing, and who seemed to a
degree pleased; who once or twice listened to my sad plaints, and bent
his dark blue eyes upon me. Association, gratitude, esteem, made me
take interest in his long, though rare, visits.
The other was kind; sought me, was pleased with me. I could talk to
him; that was much. He was attached to another, so that I felt at my
ease with him. They have disappeared from my horizon. Jane alone
remains; if she loved me as well as I do her it would be much; she is
all gentleness, and she is my only consolation, yet she does not
console me.
I have just completed my twenty-seventh year; at such a time hope and
youth are still in their prime, and the pains I feel, therefore, are
ever alive and vivid within me. What shall I do? Nothing. I study,
that passes the time. I write; at times that pleases me, though double
sorrow comes when I feel that Shelley no longer reads and approves of
what I write; besides, I have no great faith in my success.
Composition is delightful; but if you do not expect the sympathy of
your fellow-creatures in what you write, the pleasure of writing is of
short duration.
I have my lovely Boy, without him I could not live. I have Jane; in
her society I forget time; but the idea of it does not cheer me in my
griefful moods. It is strange that the religious feeling that exalted
my emotions in happiness, deserts me in my misery. I have little
enjoyment, no hope. I have given myself ten years more of life. God
grant that they may not be augmented. I should be glad that they were
curtailed. Loveless beings surround me; they talk of my personal
attractions, of my talents, my manners.
The wisest and best have loved me. The beautiful, and glorious, and
noble, have looked on me with the divine expression of love, till
death, the reaper, carried to his overstocked barns my lamented
harvest.
But now I am not loved! Never, oh, never more shall I love. Synonymous
to such words are, never more shall I be happy, never more feel life
sit triumphant in my frame. I am a wreck. By what do the fragments
cling together? Why do they not part, to be borne away by the tide to
the boundless ocean, where those are whom day and night I pray that I
may rejoin.
I shall be happier, perhaps, in Italy; yet, when I sometimes think
that she is the murderess, I tremble for my boy. We shall see; if no
change comes, I shall be unable to support the burthen of time, and no
change, if it hurt not his dear head, can be for the worse.
In the month of July Mary had received another request for literary help;
this time from Medwin, who wanted her aid in eking out and correcting his
notes of conversations with Lord Byron, shortly to be published.
"You must have been, as I was, very much affected with poor Lord
Byron's death," he wrote to Mary. "All parties seem now writing in his
favour, and the papers are full of his praise....
"How do you think I have been employing myself? With writing; and the
subject I have chosen has been Memoirs of Lord Byron. Every one here
has been disappointed in the extreme by the destruction of his private
biography, and have urged me to give the world the little I know of
him. I wish I was better qualified for the task. When I was at Pisa I
made very copious notes of his conversations, for private reference
only, and was surprised to find on reading them (which I have never
done till his death, and hearing that his life had been burnt) that
they contained so many anecdotes of his life. During many nights that
we sat up together he was very confidential, and entered into his
history and opinions on most subjects, and from them I have compiled a
volume which is, I am told, highly entertaining. Shelley I have made a
very prominent feature in the work, and I think you will be pleased
with that part, at least, of the Memoir, and all the favourable
sentiments of Lord Byron concerning him. But I shall certainly not
publish the work till you have seen it, and would give the world to
consult you in person about the whole; you might be of the greatest
possible use to me, and prevent many errors from creeping in. I have
been told it cannot fail of having the greatest success, and have been
offered L500 for it--a large and tempting sum--in consequence of what
has been said in its praise by Grattan....
"Before deciding finally on the publication there are many things to
be thought of. Lady Byron will not be pleased with my account of the
marriage and separation; in fact, I shall be assailed on all sides.
Now, my dear friend, what do you advise? Let me have your full
opinion, for I mean to be guided by it. I hear to-day that Moore is
manufacturing five or six volumes out of the _burnt materials_, for
which Longman advanced L2000, and is to pay L2000 more; _they_ will be
in a great rage. If I publish, promptitude is everything, so that I
know you will answer this soon."
The idea of entertaining the world, however highly, at whatever price,
with "tit-bits" from the private life and after-dinner talk of her late
intimate friends, almost before those friends were cold in their graves,
did not find favour with Mrs. Shelley. As an excuse for declining to have
any hand in this work, she gave her own desire to avoid publicity or
notice. In a later letter Medwin assured her that her name was not even
mentioned in the book. He frankly owned that most of his knowledge of
Byron had been derived from her and Shelley, but added, by way of excuse--
They tell me it is highly interesting, and there is at this moment a
longing after and impatience to know something about the most
extraordinary man of the age that must give my book a considerable
success.
What Mary felt about this publication can be gathered from her allusion to
it in the following letter--
MRS. SHELLEY TO MRS. HUNT.
KENTISH TOWN, _10th October 1824_.
... 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 been warily
held high up, and the to-be-concealed petticoat has borne all the
ill-usage of the mud. Dismal 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 (when we are sure to be caught in the
rain) forms my catalogue of visits. I have no visitors; if it were not
for Jane I should be quite alone. The eternal rain imprisons one in
one's little room, and one's spirits flag without one exhilarating
circumstance. In some things, however, I am better off than last year,
for I do not doubt but that in the course of a few months I shall have
an independence; and I no longer balance, as I did last winter,
between Italy and England. My Father wished me to stay, and, old as he
is, and wishing as one does to be of some use somewhere, I thought
that I would make the trial, and stay if I could. But the joke has
become too serious. I look forward to the coming winter with horror,
but it _shall be_ the last. I have not yet made up my mind to the
where in Italy. I shall, if possible, immediately on arriving, push on
to Rome. Then we shall see. 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 base of the pit, when our rest together
is in the dust." But change of scene and the sun of Italy will restore
my energy; the very thought of it smooths my brow. Perhaps I shall
seek the heats of Naples, if they do not hurt my darling Percy. And
now, what news?...
* * * * *
Hazlitt is abroad; he will be in Italy in the winter; he wrote an
article in the _Edinburgh Review_ on the volume of poems I published.
I do not know whether he meant it to be favourable or not; I do not
like it at all; but when I saw him I could not be angry. I never was
so shocked in my life, he has become so thin, his hair scattered, his
cheek-bones projecting; but for his voice and smile I should not have
known him; his smile brought tears into 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 Curran in Rome? Now pray
do, and pray write; do, my dear girl. Next year by this time I shall,
perhaps, be on my way to you; it will go hard but that I contrive to
spend a week (that is, if you wish) at Florence, on my way to the
Eternal City. God send that this prove not an airy castle; but I own
that I put faith in my having money before that; and I know that I
could not, if I would, endure the torture of my English life longer
than is absolutely necessary. By the bye, I heard that you are keeping
your promise to Trelawny, and that in due time he will be blessed with
a namesake. How is _Occhi Turchini_, Thornton the reformed, Johnny
the--what Johnny? the good boy? Mary the merry, Irving the sober,
Percy the martyr, and dear Sylvan the good?
Percy is quite well; tell his friend he goes to 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. Mrs.
Williams' little girl, who calls herself Dina, is his wife. Poor
Clare, at Moscow! at least she will be independent one day, and if I
am so soon, her situation will be quickly ameliorated.
Have you heard of Medwin's book? Notes of conversations which he had
with Lord Byron (when tipsy); 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 new set of worms feed
on the carcase of the scandal he leaves behind him, and grow fat upon
the world's love of tittle-tattle. I will not be numbered among them.
Have you received the volume of poems? Give my love to "Very," and so,
dear, very patient, Adieu.--Yours affectionately,
MARY SHELLEY.
_Journal, October 26._--Time rolls on, and what does it bring? What
can I do? How change my destiny? Months change their names, years
their cyphers. My brow is sadly trenched, the blossom of youth faded.
My mind gathers wrinkles. What will become of me?
How long it is since an emotion of joy filled my once exulting heart,
or beamed from my once bright eyes. I am young still, though age
creeps on apace; but I may not love any but the dead. I think that an
emotion of joy would destroy me, so strange would it be to my withered
heart. Shelley had said--
Lift not the painted veil which men call life.
Mine is not painted; dark and enshadowed, it curtains out all
happiness, all hope. Tears fill my eyes; well may I weep, solitary
girl! The dead know you not; the living heed you not. You sit in your
lone room, and the howling wind, gloomy prognostic of winter, gives
not forth so despairing a tone as the unheard sighs your ill-fated
heart breathes.
I was loved once! still let me cling to the memory; but to live for
oneself alone, to read, and communicate your reflections to none; to
write, and be cheered by none; to weep, and in no bosom; no more on
thy bosom, my Shelley, to spend my tears--this is misery!
Such is the Alpha and Omega of my tale. I can speak to none. Writing
this is useless; it does not even soothe me; on the contrary, it
irritates me by showing the pitiful expedient to which I am reduced.
I have been a year in England, and, ungentle England, for what have I
to thank you? For disappointment, melancholy, and tears; for
unkindness, a bleeding heart, and despairing thoughts. I wish,
England, to associate but one idea with thee--immeasurable distance
and insurmountable barriers, so that I never, never might breathe
thine air more.
Beloved Italy! you are my country, my hope, my heaven!
_December 3._--I endeavour to rouse my fortitude and calm my mind by
high and philosophic thoughts, and my studies aid this endeavour. I
have pondered for hours on Cicero's description of that power of
virtue in the human mind which render's man's frail being superior to
fortune.
"Eadem ratio habet in re quiddam amplum at que magnificum ad
imperandum magis quam ad parendum accommodatum; omnia humana non
tolerabilia solum sed etiam levia ducens; altum quiddam et excelsum,
nihil temens, nemini cedens, semper invictum."
What should I fear? To whom cede? By whom be conquered?
Little truly have I to fear. One only misfortune can touch me. That
must be the last, for I should sink under it. At the age of seven and
twenty, in the busy metropolis of native England, I find myself alone.
The struggle is hard that can give rise to misanthropy in one, like
me, attached to my fellow-creatures. Yet now, did not the memory of
those matchless lost ones redeem their race, I should learn to hate
men, who are strong only to oppress, moral only to insult. Oh ye
winged hours that fly fast, that, having first destroyed my happiness,
now bear my swift-departing youth with you, bring patience, wisdom,
and content! I will not stoop to the world, or become like those who
compose it, and be actuated by mean pursuits and petty ends. I will
endeavour to remain unconquered by hard and bitter fortune; yet the
tears that start in my eyes show pangs she inflicts upon me.
So much for philosophising. Shall I ever be a philosopher?