CHAPTER XXIII

OCTOBER 1831-OCTOBER 1839

Trelawny's book was only one among many things which claimed Mrs.

Shelley's attention during these three years.

In 1830 Godwin published his _Thoughts on Man_. The relative positions of

father and daughter had come to be reversed, and Mary now negotiated with

the publishers for the sale of his work, as he had formerly done for her.

Godwin himself set a high value, even for him, on this book, and

anticipated for it a future and an influence which were not to be

realised.

GODWIN TO MARY.

_15th April 1830._

DEAR MARY--If you do me the favour to see Murray, I know not how far

you can utter the following things; or if you do, how far they will

have any weight with his highness; yet I cannot but wish you should

have them in your mind.

The book I offer is a collection of ten new and interesting truths,

illustrated in no unpopular style. They are the fruit of thirty years'

meditation (it being so long since I wrote the _Enquirer_), in the

full maturity of my understanding.

The book, therefore, will be very far from being merely one book more

added to the number of books already existing in English literature.

It must, as I conceive, when published make a deep impression, and

cause the thinking part of the public to perceive--There are here laid

before us ten interesting truths never before delivered.

Whether it is published during my life or after my death it is a light

that cannot be extinguished--"the precious life-blood of a discerning

spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life."

In the following amusing letter Clare gives Mary a few commissions. She

was to interest her literary acquaintance in Paris in the publication and

success of a French poem by a friend of Clare's at Moscow, the greatest

wish of whose heart was to appear in print. She was also to find a means

of preventing the French translatress of Moore's _Life of Byron_ from

introducing Clare's name into her elucidatory footnotes. This was indeed

all-important to Clare, as any revival of scandal about her might have

robbed her of the means of subsistence, but it was also an extremely

difficult and delicate task for Mary. But no one ever hesitated to make

her of use. Her friends estimated her power by her goodwill, and her

goodwill by their own need of her services; and they were generally right,

for the will never failed, and the way was generally found.

CLARE TO MRS. SHELLEY.

NICE, _11th December 1830_.

MY DEAR MARY--Your last letter, although so melancholy, gave me much

pleasure, merely, therefore, because it came from you.

I intended to have written to all and each of you, but until now have

not been able to put my resolution into execution. It must seem to you

that I am strangely neglectful of my friends, or perhaps you think

since I am so near Trelawny that I have been taking a lesson from him

in the art of cultivating one's friendships; but neither of these is

the case, my silence is quite on another principle than this.

I am not desperately in love, nor just risen from my bed at four in

the afternoon in order to write my millionth love letter, nor am I

indifferent to those whom time and the malice of fortune have yet

spared to me, but simply I have been too busy.

Since I have been at Nice I have had to change lodgings four times;

besides this, we were a long time without a maid, and received and

paid innumerable visits. My whole day was spent in shifting my

character. In the morning I arose a waiting-maid, and, having attended

to the toilette of Natalie, sank into a house-maid, a laundry-maid,

and, after noon, I fear me, a cook, having to look to the cleaning of

the rooms, the getting up of linen, and the preparation of various

pottages fit for the patient near me. At mid-day I turned into a

governess, gave my lessons, and at four or five became a fine lady for

the rest of the day, and paid visits or received them, for at Nice it

is the custom, so soon as a stranger arrives, that everybody _comme il

faut_ in the place comes to call upon you; nor can you shut your doors

against them even if you were dying, for as Nice is the resort of the

sick, and as everybody either is sick or has been sick, nursing has

become the common business.

So we went on day after day. We had _dejeuners dansants_, _soirees

dansantes_ (_diners dansants_ are considered as _de trop_ by order of

the physicians), _bals pares_, _theatres_, _operas_, _grands diners_,

_petits soupers_, _concerts_, _visites de matin_, _promenades a ane_,

_parties de campagne_, _reunions litteraires_, _grands cercles_,

_promenades en bateau_, _coteries choisies_, _thunder-storms_ from

the sea, and _political storms_ from France; in short, if we had only

had an earthquake, or the shock of one, we should have run through the

whole series of modifications of which human existence is susceptible.

_Voila Paris, Voila Paris_, as the song says.

You may perhaps expect that the novelty of society should have

suggested to me remarks and observations as multifarious as the forms

under which I observed it. Sorry I am to say that either from its

poverty, or from my own poverty of intellect, I have not gathered from

it anything beyond the following couple of conclusions, that people of

the world, disguise themselves as they may, possess but two qualities,

a great want of understanding, and a vast pretension to sentiment.

From this duplexity arises the duplicity with which they are so often

charged, and no wonder, for with hearts so heavy, and heads so light,

how is it possible to keep anything like a straightforward course? In

alleviation of this, I must confess that wherever I went I carried

about with me my own identity (that unhappy identity which has cost me

so dear, and of which, with all my pains, I have never been able to

lose a particle), and contemplated the people I judge through the

medium of its rusty atoms.

I must speak to you of an affair that interests me deeply. M. Gambs

has informed me that he has sent to Paris a poem of his in manuscript

called _Moeise_. He gave it to the Prince Nicolas Scherbatoff at

Moscow, just upon his setting out for Paris; this is many months ago.

Whether the Prince gave any promise to endeavour to get it published I

do not know; but if he did, he is such a very indolent and selfish man

that his efforts would never get the thing done. M. Gambs has written

to me to ask if you have any literary friends in Paris who would be

kind enough to interest themselves about it. The address of the Prince

is as follows: Son Excellence Le Prince Nicolas Scherbatoff, Rue St.

Lazare, No. 17, a Paris. Can you not get some one to call upon him to

ask about the manuscript, and to propose it to some bookseller?

This some one may enter into a direct correspondence with M. Gambs by

addressing him Chez M. Lenhold, Marchand de Musique, a Moscow. I

should be highly delighted if you could settle things in this way, as

I know my friend has nothing more at heart than to appear in print,

and that I should be glad to be the means of communicating some

pleasure to an existence which I know is almost utterly without it,

and of showing my gratitude for the kindness and goodness he has

showered upon me; nor, as far as my poor judgment goes, is the work

unworthy of inspiring interest, and of being saved from oblivion. It

pleased me much when it was read to me; but then it is true I was in a

desert, and there a drop of water will often seem to us more precious

than the finest jewel.

Another subject connected with Paris also presses itself on my mind.

In Moore's _Life of Lord Byron_ only the most distant allusion was

made to Lady Caroline Lamb; yet, in the French translation, its

performer, Madame Sophie Bellay (or some such name) had the indelicacy

to unveil the mystery in a note, and to expose it in distinct and

staring characters to the public. This piece of impudence was harmless

to Lady Caroline, since her independence of others was assured beyond

a doubt; but to any one whose bread depends upon the public a printed

exposure of their conduct will infallibly bring on destitution, and

reduce them to the necessity of weighing upon their relations for

support.

I know the subject is a disagreeable one, and that you do not like

disagreeable subjects. I know nothing of business or whether there

exists any means of averting this blow; perhaps a representation to

the translator of the evils that would follow would be sufficient; but

as I have no means of trying this, I am reduced to suggest the subject

to your attention, with the firm hope that you will find some method

of warding off the threatened mischief.

What you tell me of the state of family resources has naturally

depressed my spirits. Will the future never cease unrolling new shapes

of misery? Stair above stair of wretchedness is all we know; the

present, bad as it is, is always better than what comes after. Of all

the crowd of eager inquirers at the Delphic shrine was there ever

found one who thanked, or had any reason to thank, the Pythia for what

she disclosed to him? For me, I have long abandoned hope and the

future, and am now diligently pursuing and retracing the past, going

the back way as it were to eternity in order to avoid the

disappointments and perplexities of an unknown course. But I must beg

pardon for my cowardice and disagreeableness, and leave it, or else I

shall be recollected with as much reluctance as the Pythia.

I wish I could give you any idea of the beauty of Nice. So long as I

can walk about beside the sounding sea, beneath its ambient heaven,

and gaze upon the far hills enshrined in purple light, I catch such

pleasure from their loveliness that I am happy without happiness; but

when I come home, then it seems to me as if all the phantasmagoria of

hell danced before my eyes.

Mrs. K. has arrived and in no very amiable humour. The only

conversation I hear is, first, the numberless perfections of herself,

husband, and child; this, as it is true, would be well enough, but

still upon repetition it tires; second, the infinite superiority of

Russia over all other countries, since it is an established truth that

liberty and civilisation are the most dreadful of all evils. I, to

avoid ill-temper, assent to all they say; then in company, when

opposed in their doctrines, they drag me forward, and the tacit

consent I have given, as an argument in favour of their way of

thinking, and I am at once set down by everybody either as a fawning

creature or an utter fool. However, I am glad she has come, as the

responsibility of Natalie's health was too much. For heaven's sake

excuse me to dear Jane that I have not written. My first moment shall

be given to do so.

I think of England and my friends all day long. Entreat everybody to

write to me. Do pray do so yourself. My love to my Mother and Papa,

and William and everybody. How happy was I that Percy was well.--In

haste, ever yours,

C. CLAIRMONT.

Mrs. Shelley's mind was much occupied during 1831 by the serious question

of sending her son to a public school. She wished to give him the best

possible education, and she wished, too, to give it him in such a form as

would place him at no disadvantage among other young men when he took his

place in English society.

Shelley (she mentions in one of her letters) had expressed himself in

favour of a public school, but Shelley's family had also to be consulted,

and she seems to have had reason to hope they would help in the matter.

They quite concurred in her views for Percy, only putting a veto on Eton,

where legends of his father's school-days might still be lingering about.

Nothing was better than that she should send him to a public school--_if

she could_. These last words were implied, not expressed. But a public

school education in England is not to be given on a very limited income.

Funds had to be found; and Mrs. Shelley made, through the lawyer, a direct

request to Sir Timothy for assistance.

She received the following answer--

MR. WHITTON TO MRS. SHELLEY.

STONE HALL, _6th November 1831_.

DEAR MADAM--I have been, from the time I received your last favour to

the present, in correspondence with Sir Timothy Shelley as to your

wishes of an advance upon the L300 per annum he now makes to you, and

I recommended him to consult his friend and solicitor, Mr. Steadman,

of Horsham, thereon, and which he did.

You have not perhaps well put together and estimated on the great

amount of the charges upon the estate by the late Mr. Shelley, and on

the legacies given by his will; but looking at all these, and the very

limited interest of the estate now vested in you, Sir Timothy has

paused in his consideration thereof, and in the result has brought his

mind, that, having regard to the other provisions he is bound to make

for his other children, he ought not to increase the allowance to you,

and upon that ground he declines so doing; and therefore feels the

necessity of your making such arrangements as you may find necessary

to make the L300 per annum answer the purposes for yourself and for

your son, and he has this morning stated to me his fixed determination

to abide thereby; and I lose not a moment, after I receive this

communication from him, to make it known to you, and I trust and hope

you will find it practicable to give him a good education out of the

L300 a year.--I remain, Madam, your very obedient servant,

WM. WHITTON.

The seeming brutality of the concluding sentence must in fairness be

ascribed to the writer and not to those he represented.

To Mrs. Shelley, knowing the impossibility of carrying out the public

school plan on her own income, the wishes and hopes must have sounded a

mockery. It had to be done, however, if it was the best thing for the boy.

The money must be earned, and she worked on.

One day she received from her father a new kind of petition, which,

showing the effect on him of advancing years, must have struck a pang to

her heart. She was accustomed to his requests for money, but now he wrote

to her for _an idea_.

GODWIN TO MRS. SHELLEY.

_13th April 1832._

MY DEAR MARY--You desire me to write to you, if I have anything

particular to say.

I write, then, to say that I am still in the same dismaying

predicament in which I have been for weeks past--at a loss for

materials to make up my third volume. This is by no means what I

expected.

I knew, and I know, that incidents of hair-breadth escapes and

adventures are innumerable, and that without having fixed on any one

of them, I took for granted they would come when I called for them.

Such is the mischievous effect, the anxious expectation, that is

produced by past success.

I believe that when I came to push with all my force against the

barriers that seemed to shut me in they would give way, and place all

the treasures of invention before me.

Meanwhile, it unfortunately happens that I cannot lay my present

disappointment to the charge of advancing age.

I find all my faculties and all my strength in full bloom about me. My

disappointment has put that to a sharp trial. I thought that the

severe stretch of my faculties would cause them to yield, and subside

into feebleness and torpor. No such thing. Day after day, week after

week, I apply to this one question, without remission and with

discernment. But I cannot please myself. If I make the round of all my

thoughts, and come home empty-handed, it would seem that in the flower

and vigour of my youth I should have done the same.

Meanwhile, my situation is deplorable. I am not free to choose the

thing I would do. I have written two volumes and a quarter, and have

received five-sixths of the price of my work.

I am afraid you will think I am useless, by teasing you with

"conceptions only proper to myself." But it is not altogether so. A

bystander may see a point of game which a player overlooks. Though I

cannot furnish myself with satisfactory incidents I have disciplined

my mind into a tone that would enable me to improve them, if offered

to me.

My mind is like a train of gunpowder, and a single spark, now happily

communicated, might set the whole in motion and activity.

Do not tease yourself about my calamity; but give it one serious

thought. Who knows what such a thought may produce?--Your affectionate

Father,

WILLIAM GODWIN.

In the spring of 1832 the cholera appeared in London. Clare, at a

distance, was torn to pieces between real apprehension for the safety of

her friends, and distracting fears lest the disease should select among

them for its victim some one on whose life depended the realisation of

Shelley's will. For Percy especially she was solicitous. Mary must take

him away at once, to the seaside--anywhere: if money was an obstacle she,

Clare, was ready to help to defray the cost out of her salary.

Mrs. Shelley did leave London, although, it may safely be asserted, at no

one's expense but her own. She stayed for a month at Southend, and

afterwards for a longer time at Sandgate.

Besides contributing tales and occasionally verses to the _Keepsake_, she

was employed now and during the next two or three years in preparing and

writing the Italian and Spanish Lives of Literary Men for Lardner's

_Cabinet Cyclopaedia_. These included, among the Italians--Petrarch,

Boccaccio, Bojardo, Macchiavelli, Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Ugo

Foscolo, etc.; among the Spanish and Portuguese--Cervantes, Lope de Vega,

Calderon, Camoens, and a host of others, besides notices of the

Troubadours, the "Romances Moriscos," and the early poets of Portugal.

Clare, too, tried her hand at a story, to which she begged Mary to be a

kind of godmother.

I have written a tale, which I think will do for the _Keepsake_. I

shall send it home for your perusal. Will you correct it? Do write and

let me know where I may send it, so as to be sure to find you. Will

you be angry with me if I beg you to write the last scene of it? I am

now so unwell I can't.

My only time for writing is after 10 at night; the rest of the tale

was composed at that hour, after having been scolding and talking and

giving lessons from 7 in the morning.

It was very near its end when I got so ill, I gave it up. If you

cannot do anything with it you can at least make curl-papers of it,

and that is always something. Do not mention it to anybody; should it

be printed one can speak of it, and if you judge it not worthy, then

it is no use mortifying my vanity.

The truth, is I should never think of writing, knowing well my

incapacity for it, but I want to gain money. What would one not do for

that, since it is the only key of freedom? One is even impudent enough

to ask a great authoress to finish one's tale for one. I think, in

your hands, it might get into the _Keepsake_, for it is about a Pole,

and that is the topic of the day.

If it should get any money, half will naturally belong to you. Should

you have the kindness to arrange it, Julia would perhaps also be so

kind as to copy it out for me, that the alterations in your hand may

not be seen. I wish it to be signed "Mont Obscur."...

Mary did what was asked of her. Trelawny, now in England again, had

influence in some literary quarters, and, at her request, willingly

consented to exert it on Clare's behalf.

Meanwhile he requested her to receive his eldest daughter on a visit of

considerable length.

TRELAWNY TO MRS. SHELLEY.

_17th July 1832._

MY DEAR MARY--I am awaiting an occasion of sending ---- to Italy, my

friend, Lady D., undertaking the charge of her.

It may be a month before she leaves England. At the end of this month

Mrs. B. leaves London, and you will do me a great service if you will

permit my daughter to reside with you till I can make the necessary

arrangements for going abroad; she has been reared in a rough school,

like her father. I wish her to live and do as you do, and that you

will not put yourself to the slightest inconvenience on her account.

As we are poor, the rich are our inheritance, and we are justified on

all and every occasion to rob and use them.

But we must be honest and just amongst ourselves, therefore ---- must

to the last fraction pay her own expenses, and neither put you to

expense nor inconvenience. For the rest, I should like ---- to learn

to lean upon herself alone--to see the practical part of life: to

learn housekeeping on trifling means, and to benefit by her

intercourse with a woman like you; but I am ill at compliments.

If you will permit ---- to come to you, I will send or bring her to

you about the 25th of this month. I should like you and ---- to know

each other before she leaves England, and thus I have selected you to

take charge of her in preference to any other person; but say if it

chimes in with your wishes.

Adieu, dear Mary.--Your attached friend,

EDWARD TRELAWNY.

By the bye, tell me where the Sandgate coach starts from, its time of

leaving London, and its time of arrival at Sandgate, and where you

are, and if they will give you another bedroom in the house you are

lodging in; and if you have any intention of leaving Sandgate soon.

TRELAWNY TO MRS. SHELLEY.

_27th July 1832._

MY DEAR MARY--You told me in your letter that it would be more

convenient for you to receive ---- on the last of the month, so I made

my arrangements accordingly. I now find it will suit me better to come

to you on Wednesday, so that you may expect ---- on the evening of

that day by the coach you mention. I shall of course put up at the

inn.

As to your style of lodging or living, ---- is not such a fool as to

let that have any weight with her; if you were in a cobbler's stall

she would be satisfied; and as to the dulness of the place, why, that

must mainly depend on ourselves. Brompton is not so very gay, and the

reason of my removing ---- to Italy is that Mrs. B. was about sending

her to reside with strangers at Lincoln; besides ---- is acting

entirely by her own free choice, and she gladly preferred Sandgate to

Lincoln. At all events, come we shall; and if you, by barricading or

otherwise, oppose our entrance, why I shall do to you, not as I would

have others do unto me, but as I do unto others,--make an onslaught on

your dwelling, carry your tenement by assault, and give the place up

to plunder.

So on Wednesday evening (at 5, by your account) you must be prepared

to quietly yield up possession or take the consequences. So as you

shall deport yourself, you will find me your friend or foe,

TRELAWNY.

Mary's guest stayed with her over a month. During this time she was

saddened by the sudden death of her friendly acquaintance, Lord Dillon.

She was anxious, too, about her father, whose equable spirits had failed

him this year. No assistance seemed to avail much to ease his

circumstances; he was not far from his eightieth year, and still his hopes

were anchored in a yet-to-be-written novel.

"I feel myself able and willing to do everything, and to do it well,"

so he wrote, "and nobody disposed to give me the requisite

encouragement. If I can agree with these tyrants" (his publishers)

"for L300, L400, or L500 for a novel, and to be subsisted by them

while I write it, I probably shall not starve for a twelvemonth to

come ... but this dancing attendance wears my spirits and destroys my

tranquillity. 'Hands have I, but I handle not; I have feet, but I walk

not; neither is there any breath in my nostrils.'

"Meanwhile my life wears away, and 'there is no work, nor device, nor

knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither I go.' But, indeed, I am

wrong in talking of that, for I write now, not for marble to be placed

over my remains, but for bread to put into my mouth."

Mary tried in the summer to tempt him down to Sandgate for a change. But

the weather was very cold, and he declined.

_28th August 1832._

DEAR MARY--

See, Winter comes, to rule the varied year,

Sullen and sad, with all his rising train--

Vapours, and clouds, and storms.

I am shivering over a little fire at the bottom of my grate, and have

small inclination to tempt the sea-breezes and the waves; we must

therefore defer our meeting till it comes within the walls of London.

* * * * *

_Au revoir!_ To what am I reserved? I know not.

The wide (no not) the unbounded prospect lies before me,

But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.

A new shadow was now to fall upon the poor old man, in the death from

cholera of his only son, Mary's half-brother, William. This son in his

early youth had given some trouble and caused some anxiety, but his

character, as he grew up, had become steadier and more settled. He was

happily married, and seemed likely to be a source of real comfort and

satisfaction to his parents in their old age. By profession he was a

reporter, but he had his hereditary share of literary ability and of

talent "turned for the relation of fictitious adventures," and left in MS.

a novel called _Transfusion_, published by his father after his death,

with the motto--

Some noble spirits, judging by themselves,

May yet conjecture what I might have been.

Although inevitably somewhat hardened against misfortune of the heart by

his self-centred habits of mind and anxiety about money, Godwin was much

saddened by this loss, and to Mrs. Godwin it was a very great and bitter

grief indeed.

Clare saw at once in this the beginning of fresh troubles; the realisation

of all the gloomy forebodings in which she had indulged. She wrote to Jane

Hogg--

That nasty year, 1832, could not go over without imitating in some

respects 1822, and bringing death and misfortune to us. From the time

it came in till it went out I trembled, expecting at every moment to

hear the most gloomy tidings.

William's death came, and fulfilled my anticipations; misfortune as it

was, it was not such a heavy one to me as the loss of others might

have been. I, however, was fond of him, because I did not view his

faults in that desponding light which his other relations did. I have

seen more of the world, and, comparing him with other young men, his

frugality, his industry, his attachment to his wife, and his talents,

raised him, in my opinion, considerably above the common par.

But in our family, if you cannot write an epic poem or novel that by

its originality knocks all other novels on the head, you are a

despicable creature, not worth acknowledging. What would they have

done or said had their children been fond of dress, fond of cards,

drunken, profligate, as most people's children are?

To Mary she wrote in a somewhat different tone, assuming that she, Clare,

was the victim on whom all misfortune really fell, and wondering at Mary's

incredible temerity in allowing her boy, that all-important heir-apparent,

to face the perils of a public school.

And then, losing sight for a moment of her own feverish anxiety, she

gives a vivid sketch of Mrs. Mason's family.

MISS CLAIRMONT TO MRS. SHELLEY.

PISA, _26th October 1832_.

MY DEAR MARY--Though your last letter was on so melancholy a subject,

yet I am so destitute of all happiness that to receive it was one to

me.

I have not yet got over the shock of William's death; from the moment

I heard of it until now I have been in a complete state of

annihilation. How long it will last I am sure I cannot tell; I hope

not much longer, or perhaps I shall go mad.

A horrible and most inevitable future is the image that torments me,

just as it did ten years ago, in this very city. But I won't torment

you, who have a thousand enjoyments that veil it from you, and need

not feel the blow till it comes. Our fates were always different; mine

is to feel the shadow of coming misfortunes, and to sicken beneath it.

There seems to have been great imprudence on William's part: my Mother

says he went to Bartholomew Fair the day before he was taken ill; then

he did not have medical assistance so soon as ill, which they say is

of the highest importance in the cholera, so altogether I suppose his

life was thrown away--a most lucky circumstance for himself, but God

knows what it will be for the Godwins.

His death changed my plans. I had settled to go to Vienna, but as the

cholera is still there, I no longer considered myself free to offer

another of my Mother's children to be its victim. Mrs. Mason

represented the imprudence of it, considering my weak health, the

depressed state of my spirits for the last twelve years, the fatigue

of the long journey, and the chilliness of the season of the year,

which are all things that predispose excessively to the disease, and I

yielded out of regard to my Mother. I thought she would prefer

anything to my dying, or else at Vienna, Charles tells me, I could

earn more than I am likely to earn here. For the same reason Paris

was abandoned. I beg you will tell her this, and hope she will think I

have done well.

In the meantime I stay with Mrs. Mason, and have got an engagement as

day governess with an English family, which will supply me with money

for my own expenses, but nothing more. In the spring they wish to take

me entirely, but the pay is not brilliant. When I know more about them

I will tell you. Nothing can equal Mrs. Mason's kindness to me. Hers

is the only house, except my Mother's, in which all my life I have

always felt at home. With her, I am as her child; from the merest

trifle to the greatest object, she treats me as if her happiness

depended on mine. Then she understands me so completely. I have no

need to disguise my sentiments; to barricade myself up in silence, as

I do almost with everybody, for fear they should see what passes in my

mind, and hate me for it, because it does not resemble what passes in

theirs. This ought to be a great happiness to me, and would, did not

her unhappiness and her precarious state of health darken it with the

torture of fear. It is too bitter, after a long life passed in

unbroken misery, to find a good only that you may lose it.

Laurette's marriage is to take place at the end of November. Mrs.

Mason having tried every means to hinder it, and seeing that she

cannot, is now impatient it should be over. Their present state is too

painful. She cannot disguise her dislike of Galloni; he having nearly

killed her with his scenes, and Laurette cannot sympathise with her;

being on the point of marrying him, and feeling grateful for his

excessive attachment, she wishes to think as well of him as she can.

It is the first time the mother and daughter have ever divided in

opinion, and galls both in a way that seems unreasonable to those who

live in the world, and are accustomed to meet rebuffs in their dearest

feelings at every moment. But our friends live in solitude, and have

nursed themselves into a height of romance about everything. They both

think their destinies annihilated, because the union of their minds

has suffered this interruption. However, no violence mingles with

this sentiment and excites displeasure; on the contrary, I wish it

did, for it would be easier to heal than the tragic immutable sorrow

with which they take it.

While these two dissolve in quiet grief, Nerina, the Italian, agitates

herself on the question; she forgets all her own love affairs, and all

the sabre slashes and dagger stabs of her own poor heart, to fall into

fainting fits and convulsions every time she sees Laurette and her

mother fix their eyes mournfully upon each other; then she talks and

writes upon the subject incessantly, even till 3 o'clock in the

morning. She has a band of young friends of both sexes, and with them,

either by word of mouth or by letter, she _sfogares_ herself of her

hatred of Galloni, of the unparalleled cruelty of Laurette's fate, and

of the terrific grave that is yawning for her mother; her mind is

discursive, and she introduces into her lamentations observations upon

the faulty manner in which she and her sister have been educated,

strictures upon the nature of love, objurgations against the whole

race of man, and eloquent appeals to the female sex to prefer

patriotism to matrimony.

All the life that is left in the house is now concentrated in Nerina,

and I am sure she cannot complain of a dearth of sensations, for she

takes good care to feel with everything around her, for if the chair

does but knock the table, she shudders and quakes for both, and runs

into her own study to write it down in her journal. Into this small

study she always hurries me, and pours out her soul, and I am well

pleased to listen, for she is full of genius; when the tide has flowed

so long, it has spent itself, we generally pause, and then begin to

laugh at the ridiculous figures human beings cut in struggling all

their might and main against a destiny which forces millions and

millions of enormous planets on their way, and against which all

struggling is useless.

_8th November._

My letter has been lying by all this time, I not having time to write.

I am afraid this winter I shall scarcely be able to keep up a

correspondence at all. I must be out at 9 in the morning, and am not

home before 10 at night. I inhabit at Mrs. Mason's a room without a

fire, so that when I get home there is no sitting in it without

perishing with cold. I cannot sit with the Masons, because they have a

set of young men every night to see them, and I do not wish to make

their acquaintance. I walk straight into my own room on my return.

Writing either letters or articles will be a matter of great

difficulty. The season is very cold here. My health always diminishes

in proportion to the cold.

I am very glad to hear that Percy likes Harrow, but I shudder from

head to foot when I think of your boldness in sending him there. I

think in certain things you are the most daring woman I ever knew.

There are few mothers who, having suffered the misfortunes you have,

and having such advantages depending upon the life of an only son,

would venture to expose that life to the dangers of a public school.

As for me, it is not for nothing that my fate has been taken out of my

own hands and put into those of people who have wantonly torn it into

miserable shreds and remnants; having once endured to have my whole

happiness sacrificed to the gratification of some of their foolish

whims, why I can endure it again, and so my mind is made up and my

resolution taken. I confess, I could wish there were another world in

which people were to answer for what they do in this! I wish this,

because without it I am afraid it will become a law that those who

inflict must always go on inflicting, and those who have once suffered

must always go on suffering.

I hope nothing will happen to Percy; but the year, the school itself

that you have chosen, and the ashes[13] that lie near it, and the

hauntings of my own mind, all seem to announce the approach of that

consummation which I dread.

I am very glad you are delighted with Trelawny. My affections are

entirely without jealousy; the more those I love love others, and are

loved by them, the better pleased am I. I am in a vile humour for

writing a letter; you would not wonder at it if you knew how I am

plagued. I can say from experience that the wonderful variety there is

of miseries in this world is truly astonishing; if some Linnaeus would

class them as he did flowers, the number of their kinds would far

surpass the boasted infinitude of the vegetable creation. Not a day

nor hour passes but introduces me to some new pain, and each one

contains within itself swarms of smaller ones--animalculae pains which

float up and down in it, and compose its existence and their own. What

Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse was for love, I am for pain,--all my

letters are on the same subject, and yet I hope I do not repeat

myself, for truly, with such diversity of experience, I ought not.

Our friends here send their best love to you, and are interested in

your perilous destiny. I have just received a letter from my Mother,

and in obedience to her representations draw my breath as peacefully

as I can till the month of January. Will you explain to me one phrase

of her letter? Talking of the chances of their getting money, she

says: "Then Miss Northcote is not expected to live over the winter,"

and not a word beside. Who in the world is Miss Northcote? and what

influence can her death have in bettering their prospects?

Notwithstanding my writing such a beastly letter as this to you, pray

do write. I work myself into the most dreadful state of irritation

when I am long without letters from some of you. Tell Jane I entreat

her to write, and tell my Mother that the bill of lading of the parcel

for me is come, but Mrs. Mason sent it off to Leghorn without my

seeing it, and was too ill herself to look at the date, so I know not

when it was shipped, but as Mr. Routh has the bill, I suppose I shall

hear when it has arrived and performed quarantine.

Thank Trelawny for me for his kindness about the article. Pisa is very

dull yet. I am told there are seven or eight English families arrived,

but I have not seen them.

Farewell, my dear Mary. Be well and happy, and excuse my

dulness.--Yours ever affectionately,

C. CLAIRMONT.

One term's experience was enough to convince Mrs. Shelley that she could

only afford to continue her son's school education by leaving London

herself and settling with him at Harrow for some years.

In January 1833 she wrote an account of her affairs to her old friend,

Mrs. Gisborne--

Never was poor body so worried as I have been ever since I last wrote,

I think; worries which plague and press on one, and keep one fretting.

Money, of course, is the Alpha and Omega of my tale. Harrow proves so

fearfully expensive that I have been sadly put to it to pay Percy's

bill for one quarter (L60, _soltanto_), and, to achieve it, am

hampered for the whole year. My only resource is to live at Harrow,

for in every other respect I like the school, and would not take him

from it. He will become a home boarder, and school expenses will be

very light. I shall take a house, being promised many facilities for

furnishing it by a kind friend.

To go and live at pretty Harrow, with my boy, who improves each day

and is everything I could wish, is no bad prospect, but I have much to

go through, and am so poor that I can hardly turn myself. It is hard

on my poor dear Father, and I sometimes think it hard on myself to

leave a knot of acquaintances I like; but that is a fiction, for half

the times I am asked out I cannot go because of the expense, and I am

suffering now for the times when I do go, and so incur debt.

No, Maria mine, God never intended me to do other than struggle

through life, supported by such blessings as make existence more than

tolerable, and yet surrounded by such difficulties as make fortitude a

necessary virtue, and destroy all idea of great and good luck. I might

have been much worse off, and I repeat this to myself ten thousand

times a day to console myself for not being better.

My Father's novel is printed, and, I suppose, will come out soon. Poor

dear fellow! It is hard work for him.

I am in all the tremor of fearing what I shall get for my novel, which

is nearly finished. His and my comfort depend on it. I do not know

whether you will like it. I cannot guess whether it will succeed.

There is no writhing interest; nothing wonderful nor tragic--will it

be dull? _Chi lo sa?_ We shall see. I shall, of course, be very glad

if it succeeds.

Percy went back to Harrow to-day. He likes his school much. Have I any

other news for you? Trelawny is gone to America; he is about to cross

to Charlestown directly there is a prospect of war--war in America. I

am truly sorry. Brothers should not fight for the different and

various portions of their inheritance. What is the use of republican

principles and liberty if peace is not the offspring? War is the

companion and friend of monarchy; if it be the same of freedom, the

gain is not much to mankind between a sovereign and president.

* * * * *

Not long after taking up her residence at Harrow, which she did in April

1833, Mrs. Shelley was attacked by influenza, then prevailing in a

virulent form. She did not wholly recover from its effects till after the

Midsummer holidays, which she spent at Putney for change of air. She found

the solitude of her new abode very trying. Her boy had, of course, his

school pursuits and interests to occupy him, and, though her literary work

served while it lasted to ward off depression, the constant mental strain

was attended with an inevitable degree of reaction for which a little

genial and sympathetic human intercourse would have been the best--indeed,

the only--cure.

As for her father, now she had gone he missed her sadly.

GODWIN TO MRS. SHELLEY.

_July 1833._

DEAR MARY--I shall certainly not come to you on Monday. It would do

neither of us good. I am a good deal of a spoiled child. And were I

not so, and could rouse myself, like Diogenes, to be independent of

all outward comforts, you would treat me as if I could not, so that it

would come to the same thing.

What a while it is since I saw you! The last time was the 10th of

May,--towards two months,--we who used to see each other two or three

times a week! But for the scale of miles at the bottom of the map, you

might as well be at Timbuctoo or in the deserts of Arabia.

Oh, this vile Harrow! Your illness, for its commencement or duration,

is owing to that place. At one time I was seriously alarmed for you.

And now that I hope you are better, with what tenaciousness does it

cling to you! If I ever see you again I wonder whether I shall know

you. I am much tormented by my place, by my book, and hardly suppose I

shall ever be tranquil again.

I am disposed to adopt the song of Simeon, and to say, "Lord, now

lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!" At seventy years of age,

what is there worth living for? I have enjoyed existence, been active,

strenuous, proud, but my eyes are dim, and my energies forsake

me.--Your affectionate Father,

WILLIAM GODWIN.

The next letter is addressed to Trelawny, now in America,

MRS. SHELLEY TO TRELAWNY.

HARROW, _7th May 1834_.

DEAR TRELAWNY--I confess I have been sadly remiss in not writing to

you. I have written once, however, as you have written once (but

once) to me. I wrote in answer to your letter. I am sorry you did not

get it, as it contained a great deal of gossip. It was misdirected by

a mistake of Jane's.... It was sent at the end of last September to

New York. I told you in it of the infidelity of several of your

womankind,--how Mrs. R. S. was flirting with Bulwer, to the infinite

jealousy of Mrs. Bulwer, and making themselves the talk of the

town.... Such and much tittle-tattle was in that letter, all old news

now.... The S.'s (Captain Robert and wife, I mean) went to Paris and

were ruined, and are returned under a cloud to rusticate in the

country in England.

Bulwer is making the amiable to his own wife, who is worth in beauty

all the Mrs. R. S.'s in the world....

Jane has been a good deal indisposed, and has grown very thin. Jeff

had an appointment which took him away for several months, and she

pined and grew ill on his absence; she is now reviving under the

beneficent influence of his presence.

I called on your mother a week or two ago; she always asks after you

with _empressement_, and is very civil indeed to me. She was looking

well, but ---- tells me, in her note enclosing your letter, that she

is ill of the same illness as she had two years ago, but not so bad. I

think she lives too well.

---- is expecting to be confined in a very few weeks, or even days.

She is very happy with B.... He is a thoroughly good-natured and

estimable man; it is a pity he is not younger and handsomer; however,

she is a good girl, and contented with her lot; we are very good

friends.... I should like much to see your friend, Lady Dorothea, but,

though in Europe, I am very far from her. I live on my hill,

descending to town now and then. I should go oftener if I were richer.

Percy continues quite well, and enjoys my living at Harrow, which is

more than I do, I am sorry to say, but there is no help.

My Father is in good health. Mrs. Godwin has been very ill lately, but

is now better.

I thought Fanny Kemble was to marry and settle in America: what a

singular likeness you have discovered! I never saw her, except on the

stage.

So much for news. They say it is a long lane that has no turning. I

have travelled the same road for nearly twelve years; adversity,

poverty, and loneliness being my companions. I suppose it will change

at last, but I have nothing to tell of myself except that Percy is

well, which is the beginning and end of my existence.

I am glad you are beginning to respect women's feelings.... You have

heard of Sir H.'s death. Mrs. B. (who is great friends with S., now

Sir William, an M.P.) says that it is believed that he has left all he

could to the Catholic members of his family. Why not come over and

marry Letitia, who in consequence will be rich? and, I daresay, still

beautiful in your eyes, though thirty-four.

We have had a mild, fine winter, and the weather now is as warm,

sunny, and cheering as an Italian May. We have thousands of birds and

flowers innumerable, and the trees of spring in the fields.

Jane's children are well. The time will come, I suppose, when we may

meet again more (richly) provided by fortune, but youth will have

flown, and that in a woman is something....

I have always felt certain that I should never again change my name,

and that is a comfort, it is a pretty and a dear one. Adieu, write to

me often, and I will behave better, and as soon as I have accumulated

a little news, write again.--Ever yours,

M. W. S.

MRS. SHELLEY TO MRS. GISBORNE.

_17th July 1834._

I am satisfied with my plan as regards him (Percy). I like the school,

and the affection thus cultivated for me will, I trust, be the

blessing of my life.

Still there are many drawbacks; this is a dull, inhospitable place. I

came counting on the kindness of a friend who lived here, but she

died of the influenza, and I live in a silence and loneliness not

possible anywhere except in England, where people are so _islanded_

individually in habits; I often languish for sympathy, and pine for

social festivity.

Percy is much, but I think of you and Henry, and shrink from binding

up my life in a child who may hereafter divide his fate from mine. But

I have no resource; everything earthly fails me but him; except on his

account I live but to suffer. Those I loved are false or dead; those I

love, absent and suffering; and I, absent and poor, can be of no use

to them. Of course, in this picture, I subtract the enjoyment of good

health and usually good spirits,--these are blessings; but when driven

to think, I feel so desolate, so unprotected, so oppressed and

injured, that my heart is ready to break with despair. I came here, as

I said, in April 1833, and 9th June was attacked by the influenza, so

as to be confined to my bed; nor did I recover the effects for several

months.

In September, during Percy's holidays, I went to Putney, and recovered

youth and health; Julia Robinson was with me, and we spent days in

Richmond Park and on Putney Heath, often walking twelve or fourteen

miles, which I did without any sense of fatigue. I sorely regretted

returning here. I am too poor to furnish. I have lodgings in the

town,--disagreeable ones,--yet often, in spite of care and sorrow, I

feel wholly compensated by my boy.... God help me if anything was to

happen to him--I should not survive it a week. Besides his society I

have also a good deal of occupation.

I have finished a novel, which, if you meet with, read, as I think

there are parts which will please you. I am engaged writing the lives

of some of the Italian _literati_ for Dr. Lardner's _Cyclopaedia_. I

have written those of Petrarch, Boccaccio, etc., and am now engaged on

Macchiavelli; this takes up my time, and is a source of interest and

pleasure.

My Father, I suppose you know, has a tiny, shabby place under

Government. The retrenchments of Parliament endanger and render us

anxious. He is quite well, but old age takes from his enjoyments. Mrs.

Godwin, after influenza, has been suffering from the tic-doloreux in

her arm most dreadfully; they are trying all sorts of poisons on her

with little effect. Their discomfort and low spirits will force me to

spend Percy's holidays in town, to be near them. Jane and Jeff are

well; he was sent last autumn and winter by Lord Brougham as one of

the Corporation Commissioners; he was away for months, and Jane took

the opportunity to fall desperately in love with him--she pined and

grew ill, and wasted away for him. The children are quite well. Dina

spent a week here lately; she is a sweet girl. Edward improves daily

under the excellent care taken of his education. I leave Jane to

inform you of their progress in Greek. Dina plays wonderfully well,

and has shown great taste for drawing, but this last is not

cultivated.

I did not go to the Abbey, nor the Opera, nor hear Grisi; I am shut

out from all things--like you--by poverty and loneliness. Percy's

pleasures are not mine; I have no other companion.

What effect Paganini would have had on you, I cannot tell; he threw me

into hysterics. I delight in him more than I can express. His wild,

ethereal figure, rapt look, and the sounds he draws from his violin

are all superhuman--of human expression. It is interesting to see the

astonishment and admiration of Spagnoletti and Nervi as they watch his

evolutions.

Bulwer is a man of extraordinary and delightful talent. He went to

Italy and Sicily last winter, and, I hear, disliked the inhabitants.

Yet, notwithstanding, I am sure he will spread inexpressible and

graceful interest over the _Last Days of Pompeii_, the subject of his

new novel. Trelawny is in America, and not likely to return. Hunt

lives at Chelsea, and thrives, I hear, by his London pursuit. I have

not seen him for more than a year, for reasons I will not here

detail--they concern his family, not him.

Clare is in a situation in Pisa, near Mrs. Mason. Laurette and Nerina

are married; the elder badly, to one who won her at the dagger's

point--a sad unintelligible story; Nerina, to the best and most

delightful Pistoiese, by name Bartolomeo Cini--both to Italians.

Laurette lives at Genoa, Nerina at Livorno; the latter is only newly a

bride, and happier than words can express. My Italian maid, Maria,

says to Clare, _Non vedro ora mai la mia Padrona ed il mio Bimbo?_ her

Bimbo--as tall as I am and large in proportion--has good health

withal....

Pray write one word of information concerning your health before I

attribute your silence to forgetfulness; but you must not trifle now

with the anxiety you have awakened. I will write again soon. With

kindest regards to your poor, good husband, the fondest hopes that

your health is improved, and anxious expectation of a letter, believe

me, ever affectionately yours,

M. W. SHELLEY.

MRS. SHELLEY TO MRS. GISBORNE.

HARROW, _30th October 1834_.

MY DEAREST MARIA--Thank you many times for your kind dear letter. God

grant that your constitution may yet bear up a long time, and that you

may continue impressed with the idea of your happiness. To be loved is

indeed necessary. Sympathy and companionship are the only sweets to

make the nauseous draught of life go down; and I, who feel this, live

in a solitude such as, since the days of hermits in the desert, no one

was ever before condemned to! I see no one, speak to no one--except

perhaps for a chance half-hour in the course of a fortnight. I never

walk beyond my garden, because I cannot walk alone. You will say I

ought to force myself; so I thought once, and tried, but it would not

do. The sense of desolation was too oppressive. I only find relief

from the sadness of my position by living a dreamy existence from

which realities are excluded; but going out disturbed this; I wept; my

heart beat with a sense of injury and wrong; I was better shut up.

Poverty prevents me from visiting town; I am too far for visitors to

reach me; I must bear to the end. Twelve years have I spent, the

currents of life benumbed by poverty; life and hope are over for me,

but I think of Percy!

Yet for the present something more is needed--something not so

_unnatural_ as my present life. Not that I often feel _ennui_--I am

too much employed--but it hurts me, it destroys the spring of my mind,

and makes me at once over-sensitive with my fellow-creatures, and yet

their victim and their dupe. It takes all strength from my character,

and makes me--who by nature am too much so--timid. I used to have one

resource, a belief in my _good fortune_; this is exchanged after

twelve years--one adversity, blotted and sprinkled with many

adversities; a dark ground, with sad figures painted on it--to a

belief in my ill fortune.

Percy is spared to me, because I am to live. He is a blessing; my

heart acknowledges that perhaps he is as great an one as any human

being possesses; and indeed, my dear friend, while I suffer, I do not

repine while he remains. He is not all you say; he has no ambition,

and his talents are not so transcendent as you appear to imagine; but

he is a fine, spirited, clever boy, and I think promises good things;

if hereafter I have reason to be proud of him, these melancholy days

and weeks at Harrow will brighten in my imagination--and they are not

melancholy. I am seldom so, but they are not right, and it will be a

good thing if they terminate happily soon.

At the same time, I cannot in the least regret having come here: it

was the only way I had of educating Percy at a public school, of which

institution, at least here at Harrow, the more I see the more I like;

besides that, it was Shelley's wish that his son should be brought up

at one. It is, indeed, peculiarly suited to Percy; and whatever he may

be, he will be twice as much as if he had been brought up in the

narrow confinement of a private school.

The boys here have liberty to the verge of licence; yet of the latter,

save the breaking of a few windows now and then, there is none. His

life is not quite what it would be if he did not live with me, but

the greater scope given to the cultivation of the affections is surely

an advantage.

* * * * *

You heard of the dreadful fire at the Houses of Parliament. We saw it

here from the commencement, raging like a volcano; it was dreadful to

see, but, fortunately, I was not aware of the site. Papa lives close

to the Speaker's, so you may imagine my alarm when the news reached

me, fortunately without foundation, as the fire did not gain that part

of the Speaker's house near them, so they were not even

inconvenienced. The poor dear Speaker has lost dreadfully; what was

not burnt is broken, soaked, and drenched--all their pretty things;

and imagine the furniture and princely chambers--the house was a

palace. For the sake of convenience to the Commons, they are to take

up their abode in the ruins. With kindest wishes for you and S. G.,

ever dearest friend, your affectionate

MARY W. SHELLEY.

THE SAME TO THE SAME.

_February 1835._

... I must tell you that I have had the offer of L600 for an edition

of Shelley's works, with _Life and Notes_. I am afraid it cannot be

arranged, yet at least, and the _Life_ is out of the question; but in

talking over it the question of letters comes up. You know how I

shrink from all private detail for the public; but Shelley's letters

are beautifully written, and everything private might be omitted.

Would you allow the publisher to treat with you for their being added

to my edition? If I could arrange all as I wish, they might be an

acquisition to the books, and being transacted through me, you could

not see any inconvenience in receiving the price they would be worth

to the bookseller. This is all _in aria_ as yet, but I should like to

know what you think about it. I write all this, yet am very anxious to

hear from you; never mind postage, but do write.

Percy is reading the _Antigone_; he has begun mathematics. Mrs.

Cleveland[14] and Jane dined with me the other day. Mrs. Cleveland

thought Percy wonderfully improved.

The volume of Lardner's _Cyclopaedia_, with my _Lives_, was published

on the first of this month; it is called _Lives of Eminent Literary

Men_, vol. i. The lives of Dante and Ariosto are by Mr. Montgomery,

the rest are mine.

Do write, my dearest Maria, and believe me ever and ever,

affectionately yours,

M. W. SHELLEY.

_Lodore_, Mrs. Shelley's fifth novel, came out in 1835. It differs from

the others in being a novel of society, and has been stigmatised, rather

unjustly, as weak and colourless, although at the time of its publication

it had a great success. It is written in a style which is now out of date,

and undoubtedly fails to fulfil the promise of power held out by

_Frankenstein_ and to some extent by _Valperga_, but it bears on every

page the impress of the refinement and sensibility of the author, and has,

moreover, a special interest of its own, due to the fact that some of the

incidents are taken from actual occurrences in her early life, and some of

the characters sketched from people she had known.

Thus, in the description of Clorinda, it is impossible not to recognise

Emilia Viviani. The whole episode of Edward Villier's arrest and

imprisonment for debt, and his young wife's anxieties, is an echo of her

own experience at the time when Shelley was hiding from the bailiffs and

meeting her by stealth in St. Paul's or Holborn. Lodore himself has some

affinity to Byron, and possibly the account of his separation from his

wife and of their daughter's girlhood is a fanciful train of thought

suggested by Byron's domestic history. Most of Mary's novels present the

contrast of the Shelleyan and Byronic types. In this instance the latter

was recognised by Clare, and drew from her one of those bitter tirades

against Byron, which, natural enough in her at the outset, became in the

course of years quite morbidly venomous. Not content with laying Allegra's

death to his charge, she, in her later letters, accuses him of

treacherously plotting and conspiring, out of hatred to herself, to do

away with the child, an allegation unjust and false. In the present

instance, however, she only entered an excited protest against his

continual reappearance as the hero of a novel.

Mrs. Hare admired _Lodore_ amazingly; so do I, or should I, if it were

not for that modification of the beastly character of Lord Byron of

which you have composed Lodore. I stick to _Frankenstein_, merely

because that vile spirit does not haunt its pages as it does in all

your other novels, now as Castruccio, now as Raymond,[15] now as

Lodore. Good God! to think a person of your genius, whose moral tact

ought to be proportionately exalted, should think it a task befitting

its powers to gild and embellish and pass off as beautiful what was

the merest compound of vanity, folly, and every miserable weakness

that ever met together in one human being! As I do not want to be

severe on the poor man, because he is dead and cannot defend himself,

I have only taken the lighter defects of his character, or else I

might say that never was a nature more profoundly corrupted than his

became, or was more radically vulgar than his was from the very

outset. Never was there an individual less adapted, except perhaps

Alcibiades, for being held up as anything but an object of

commiseration, or as an example of how contemptible is even

intellectual greatness when not joined with moral greatness. I shall

be anxious to see if the hero of your new novel will be another

beautified Byron. Thank heaven! you have not taken to drawing your

women upon the same model. Cornelia I like the least of them; she is

the most like him, because she is so heartlessly proud and selfish,

but all the others are angels of light.

Euthanasia[16] is Shelley in female attire, and what a glorious being

she is! No author, much less the ones--French, English, or German--of

our day, can bring a woman that matches her. Shakespeare has not a

specimen so perfect of what a woman ought to be; his, for amiability,

deep feeling, wit, are as high as possible, but they want her

commanding wisdom, her profound benevolence.

I am glad to hear you are writing again; I am always in a fright lest

you should take it into your head to do what the warriors do after

they have acquired great fame,--retire and rest upon your laurels.

That would be very comfortable for you, but very vexing to me, who am

always wanting to see women distinguishing themselves in literature,

and who believe there has not been or ever will be one so calculated

as yourself to raise our sex upon that point. If you would but know

your own value and exert your powers you could give the men a most

immense drubbing! You could write upon metaphysics, politics,

jurisprudence, astronomy, mathematics--all those highest subjects

which they taunt us with being incapable of treating, and surpass

them; and what a consolation it would be, when they begin some of

their prosy, lying, but plausible attacks upon female inferiority, to

stop their mouths in a moment with your name, and then to add, "and if

women, whilst suffering the heaviest slavery, could out-do you, what

would they not achieve were they free?"

With this manifesto on the subject of women's genius in general and of

Mary's in particular--perhaps just redeemed by its tinge of irony from the

last degree of absurdity--it is curious to contrast Mrs. Shelley's own

conclusions, drawn from weary personal experience, and expressed, towards

the end of the following letter, in a mood which permitted her no

illusions and few hopes.

MRS. SHELLEY TO MRS. GISBORNE.

HARROW, _11th June 1835_.

MY DEAREST FRIEND--It is so inexpressibly warm that were not a frank

lying before me ready for you, I do not think I should have courage to

write. Do not be surprised, therefore, at stupidity and want of

connection. I cannot collect my ideas, and this is a goodwill offering

rather than a letter.

Still I am anxious to thank S. G. for the pleasure I have received

from his tale of Italy--a tale all Italy, breathing of the land I

love. The descriptions are beautiful, and he has shed a charm round

the concentrated and undemonstrative person of his gentle heroine. I

suppose she is the reality of the story; did you know her?

It is difficult, however, to judge how to procure for it the

publication it deserves. I have no personal acquaintance with the

editors of any of the annuals--I had with that of the _Keepsake_, but

that is now in Mrs. Norton's hands, and she has not asked me to write,

so I know nothing about it; but there arises a stronger objection from

the length of the story. As the merit lies in the beauty of the

details, I do not see how it could be cut down to _one quarter_ of its

present length, which is as long as any tale printed in an annual.

When I write for them, I am worried to death to make my things shorter

and shorter, till I fancy people think ideas can be conveyed by

intuition, and that it is a superstition to consider words necessary

for their expression.

I was so very delighted to get your last letter, to be sure the

"Wisest of Men" said no news was good news, but I am not apt to think

so, and was uneasy. I hope this weather does not oppress you. What an

odd climate! A week ago I had a fire, and now it is warmer than Italy;

warmer at least in a box pervious to the sun than in the stone palaces

where one can breathe freely. My Father is well. He had a cough in the

winter, but after we had persuaded him to see a doctor it was easily

got rid of. He writes to me himself, "I am now well, now nervous, now

old, now young." One sign of age is, that his horror is so great of

change of place that I cannot persuade him ever to visit me here. One

would think that the sight of the fields would refresh him, but he

likes his own nest better than all, though he greatly feels the

annoyance of so seldom seeing me.

Indeed, my kind Maria, you made me smile when you asked me to be civil

to the brother of your kind doctor. I thought I had explained my

situation to you. You must consider me as one buried alive. I hardly

ever go to town; less often I see any one here. My kind and dear young

friends, the Misses Robinson, are at Brussels. I am cut off from my

kind. What I suffer! What I have suffered! I, to whom sympathy,

companionship, the interchange of thought is more necessary than the

air I breathe, I will not say. Tears are in my eyes when I think of

days, weeks, months, even years spent alone--eternally alone. It does

me great harm, but no more of so odious a subject. Let me speak rather

of my Percy; to see him bright and good is an unspeakable blessing;

but no child can be a companion. He is very fond of me, and would be

wretched if he saw me unhappy; but he is with his boys all day long,

and I am alone, so I can weep unseen. He gets on very well, and is a

fine boy, very stout; this hot weather, though he exposes himself to

the sun, instead of making him languid, heightens the colour in his

cheeks and brightens his eyes. He is always gay and in good humour,

which is a great blessing.

You talk about my poetry and about the encouragement I am to find from

Jane and my Father. When they read all the fine things you said they

thought it right to attack me about it, but I answered them simply,

"She exaggerates; you read the best thing I ever wrote in the

_Keepsake_ and thought nothing of it." I do not know whether you

remember the verses I mean. I will copy it in another part; it was

written for music. Poor dear Lord Dillon spoke of it as you do of the

rest; but "one swallow does not make a summer." I can never write

verses except under the influence of strong sentiment, and seldom even

then. As to a tragedy, Shelley used to urge me, which produced his

own. When I returned first to England and saw Kean, I was in a fit of

enthusiasm, and wished much to write for the stage, but my Father very

earnestly dissuaded me. I think that he was in the wrong. I think

myself that I could have written a good tragedy, but not now. My good

friend, every feeling I have is blighted, I have no ambition, no care

for fame. Loneliness has made a wreck of me. I was always a dependent

thing, wanting fosterage and support. I am left to myself, crushed by

fortune, and I am nothing.

You speak of woman's intellect. We can scarcely do more than judge by

ourselves. I know that, however clever I may be, there is in me a

vacillation, a weakness, a want of eagle-winged resolution that

appertains to my intellect as well as to my moral character, and

renders me what I am, one of broken purposes, failing thoughts, and a

heart all wounds. My mother had more energy of character, still she

had not sufficient fire of imagination. In short, my belief is,

whether there be sex in souls or not, that the sex of our material

mechanism makes us quite different creatures, better, though weaker,

but wanting in the higher grades of intellect.

I am almost sorry to send you this letter, it is so querulous and sad;

yet, if I write with any effusion, the truth will creep out, and my

life since you left has been so stained by sorrow and disappointments.

I have been so barbarously handled both by fortune and my

fellow-creatures, that I am no longer the same as when you knew me. I

have no hope. In a few years, when I get over my present feelings and

live wholly in Percy, I shall be happier. I have devoted myself to him

as no mother ever did, and idolise him; and the reward will come when

I can forget a thousand memories and griefs that are as yet alive and

burning, and I have nothing to do but brood.

Percy is gone two miles off to bathe; he can swim, and I am obliged to

leave the rest to fate. It is no use coddling, yet it costs me many

pangs; but he is singularly trustworthy and careful. Do write, and

believe me ever your truly attached friend,

M. W. S.

A DIRGE

I

This morn thy gallant bark, love,

Sailed on a stormy sea;

'Tis noon, and tempests dark, love,

Have wrecked it on the lee.

Ah woe! ah woe! ah woe!

By spirits of the deep

He's cradled on the billow

To his unwaking sleep.

II

Thou liest upon the shore, love,

Beside the knelling surge,

But sea-nymphs ever more, love,

Shall sadly chant thy dirge.

Oh come! oh come! oh come!

Ye spirits of the deep;

While near his seaweed pillow

My lonely watch I keep.

III

From far across the sea, love,

I hear a wild lament,

By Echo's voice for thee, love,

From ocean's caverns sent.

Oh list! oh list! oh list!

Ye spirits of the deep,

Loud sounds their wail of sorrow,

While I for ever weep.

_P.S._--Do you not guess why neither these nor those I sent you could

please those you mention? Papa loves not the memory of Shelley,

because he feels that he injured him; and Jane--do you not understand

enough of her to be convinced of the thoughts that make it distasteful

to her that I should feel, and above all be thought by others to feel,

and to have a right to feel? Oh! the human heart! It is a strange

puzzle.

The weary, baffled tone of this letter was partly due to a low state of

health, which resulted in a severe attack of illness. During her boy's

Midsummer holidays she went to Dover in search of strength, and, while

there, received a letter from Trelawny, who had returned from America, as

vivacious and irrepressible as ever.

TRELAWNY TO MRS. SHELLEY.

BEDFORD HOTEL, BRIGHTON,

_12th September 1835_.

MARY, DEAR--Six days I rest, and do all that I have to do on the

seventh, because it is forbidden. If they would make it felony to

obey the Commandments (without benefit of clergy), don't you think the

pleasures of breaking the law would make me keep them?

* * * * *

I cannot surmise _one_ of the "thousand reasons" which you say are to

prevent my seeing you. On the contrary, your being "chained to your

rock" enables me to play the vulture at discretion. It is well for

you, therefore, that I am "the most prudent of men." What a host of

virtues I am gifted with! When I am dead, lady mine, build a temple

over me and make pilgrimages. Talking of tombs, let it be agreed

between you and me that whichever _first_ has _five hundred pounds_ at

his disposal shall dedicate it to the placing a fitting monument over

the ashes of Shelley.

We will go to Rome together. The time, too, cannot be far distant,

considering all things. Remember me to Percy. I shall direct this to

Jane's, not that I think you are there. Adieu, Mary!--Your

E. TRELAWNY.

During the latter part of Mary's residence in London she had seen a great

deal of Mrs. Norton, who was much attracted by her and very fond of her

society, finding in her a most sympathetic friend and confidant at the

time of those domestic troubles, culminating in the separation from her

children, which afterwards obtained a melancholy publicity. Mrs. Shelley

never became wholly intimate with her brilliant contemporary. Reserve, and

a certain pride of poverty, forbade it, but she greatly admired her, and

they constantly corresponded.

_1835._

... "I do not wonder," Mary wrote to Trelawny, "at your not being able

to deny yourself the pleasure of Mrs. Norton's society. I never saw a

woman I thought so fascinating. Had I been a man I should certainly

have fallen in love with her; as a woman, ten years ago, I should have

been spellbound, and, had she taken the trouble, she might have wound

me round her finger. Ten years ago I was so ready to give myself away,

and being afraid of men, I was apt to get _tousy-mousy_ for women;

experience and suffering have altered all that. I am more wrapt up in

myself, my own feelings, disasters, and prospects for Percy. I am now

proof, as Hamlet says, both against man and woman.

"There is something in the pretty way in which Mrs. Norton's

witticisms glide, as it were, from her lips, that is very charming;

and then her colour, which is so variable, the eloquent blood which

ebbs and flows, mounting, as she speaks, to her neck and temples, and

then receding as fast; it reminds me of the frequent quotation of

'eloquent blood,' and gives a peculiar attraction to her

conversation--not to speak of fine eyes and open brow.

"Now do not in your usual silly way show her what I say. She is,

despite all her talents and sweetness, a London lady. She would quiz

me--not, perhaps, to you--well do I know the London _ton_--but to

every one else--in her prettiest manner."

The day after this she was writing again to Mrs. Gisborne.

_13th October 1835._

Of myself, my dearest Maria, I can give but a bad account. Solitude,

many cares, and many deep sorrows brought on this summer an illness,

from which I am only now recovering. I can never forget, nor cease to

be grateful to Jane for her excessive kindness to me, when I needed it

most, confined, as I was, to my sofa, unable to move. I went to Dover

during Percy's holidays, and change of air and bathing made me so much

better that I thought myself well, but on my return here I had a

relapse, from which now this last week I am, I trust, fast

recovering. Bark and port wine seem the chief means of my getting

well. But in the midst of all this I had to write to meet my expenses.

I have published a second volume of Italian Lives in Lardner's

_Encyclopaedia_. All in that volume, except Galileo and Tasso, are

mine. The last is chief, I allow, and I grieve that it had been

engaged to Mr. M. before I began to write. I am now about to write a

volume of Spanish and Portuguese Lives. This is an arduous task, from

my own ignorance, and the difficulty of getting books and information.

The booksellers want me to write another novel, _Lodore_ having

succeeded so well, but I have not as yet strength for such an

undertaking.

Then there is no Spanish circulating library. I cannot, while here,

read in the Museum if I would, and I would not if I could. I do not

like finding myself a stray bird alone among men, even if I knew

them.[17] One hears how happy people will be to lend me their books,

but when it comes to the point it is very difficult to get at them.

However, as I am rather persevering, I hope to conquer these obstacles

after all. Percy grows; he is taller than I am, and very stout. If he

does not turn out an honour to his parents, it will be through no

deficiency in virtue or in talents, but from a dislike of mingling

with his fellow-creatures, except the two or three friends he cannot

do without. He may be the happier for it; he has a good understanding,

and great integrity of character. Adieu, my dear friend.-Ever

affectionately yours,

MARY W. SHELLEY.

In April 1836 poor old Godwin died, and with him passed away a large part

of Mary's life. Of those in whose existence her own was summed up only her

son now remained, and even he was not more dependent on her than her

father had been. Godwin had been to his daughter one of those lifelong

cares which, when they disappear, leave a blank that nothing seems to

fill, too often because the survivor has borne the burden so long as to

exhaust the power and energy indispensable to recovery. But she had also

been attached to him all her life with an "excessive and romantic

attachment," only overcome in one instance by a stronger devotion still--a

defection she never could and never did repent of, but for which her whole

subsequent life had been passed in attempting to make up. If she confided

any of her feelings to her diary, no fragment has survived.

She busied herself in trying to obtain from Government some assistance--an

annuity if possible--for Mrs. Godwin. It was very seldom in her life that

Mary asked anybody for anything, and the present exception was made in

favour of one whom she did not love, and who had never been a good friend

to her. But had Mrs. Godwin been her own mother instead of a disagreeable,

jealous, old stepmother, she could not have made greater exertions in her

behalf. Mrs. Norton was ready and willing to help by bringing influence to

bear in powerful quarters, and gave Mary some shrewd advice as to the

wording of her letter to Lord Melbourne. She wrote--

... Press _not_ on the politics of Mr. Godwin (for God knows how much

gratitude for that ever survives), but on his _celebrity_, the widow's

_age_ and _ill health_, and (if your proud little spirit will bear it)

on your own _toils_; for, after all, the truth is that you, being

generous, will, rather than see the old creature starve, work your

brains and your pen; and you have your son and delicate health to

hinder you from having _means_ to help her.

As to petitioning, no one dislikes begging more than I do, especially

when one begs for what seems mere justice; but I have long observed

that though people will resist _claims_ (however just), they like to

do _favours_. Therefore, when _I_ beg, I am a crawling lizard, a

humble toad, a brown snake in cold weather, or any other simile most

feebly _rampante_--the reverse of _rampant_, which would be the

natural attitude for petitioning,--but which must never be assumed

except in the poodle style, standing with one's paws bent to catch the

bits of bread on one's nose.

Forgive my jesting; upon my honour I feel sincerely anxious for your

anxiety, and sad enough on my own affairs, but Irish blood _will_

dance. My meaning is, that if one asks _at all_, one should rather

think of the person written to than one's own feelings. He is an

indolent man--talk of your literary labours; a kind man--speak of her

age and infirmities; a patron of all _genius_--talk of your father's

_and your own_; a prudent man--speak of the likelihood of the pension

being a short grant (as you have done); lastly, he is a _great_

man--take it all as a personal favour. As to not apologising for the

intrusion, we ought always to kneel down and beg pardon for daring to

remind people we are not so well off as they are.

What was asked was that Godwin's small salary, or a part of it, should be

continued to Mrs. Godwin for her life. As the nominal office Godwin had

held was abolished at his death, this could not be; but Lord Melbourne

pledged himself to do what he could to obtain assistance for the widow in

some form or other, so it is probable that Mary effected her purpose.

TRELAWNY TO MRS. SHELLEY.

HASTINGS, _25th September 1836_.

MARY, DEAR--Your letter was exceedingly welcome; it was honoured

accordingly. You divine truly; I am leading a vegetable sort of a

life. They say the place is pretty, the air is good, the sea is fine.

I would willingly exchange a pretty place for a pretty girl. The air

is keen and shrewish, and as to the sea, I am satisfied with a bath of

less dimensions. Notwithstanding the want of sun, and the abundance of

cold winds, I lave my sides daily in the brine, and thus I am

gradually cooling down to the temperature--of the things round about

me--so that the thinnest skinned feminine may handle me without fear

of consequences. Possibly you may think that I am like the torpid

snake that the forester warmed by his hearth. No, I am not. I am

steeling myself with Plato and Platonics; so now farewell to love and

womankind. "Othello's occupation's gone."

* * * * *

From an allusion in one of Mrs. Norton's letters to Mary, it appears

likely that what follows refers to Fanny Kemble (Mrs. Butler).

You say, "Had I seen those eyes you saw the other day." Yes, the darts

shot from those eyes are still rankling in my body; yet it is a

pleasing pain. The wound of the scorpion is healed by applying the

scorpion to the wound. Is she not a glorious being? Have you ever seen

such a presence? Is she not dazzling? There is enchantment in all her

ways. Talk of the divine power of music, why, she is all melody, and

poetry, and beauty, and harmony. How envious and malignant must the

English be not to do her homage universal. They never had, or will

have again, such a woman as that. I would rather be her slave than

king of such an island of Calibans. You have a soul, and sense, and a

deep feeling for your sex, and revere such "cunning patterns of

excelling nature," therefore--besides, I owe it you--I will transcribe

what she says of you: "I was nervous, it was my first visit to any

one, and there is a gentle frankness in her manner, and a vague

remembrance of the thought and feeling in her books which prevents my

being as with a 'visiting acquaintance.'"

* * * * *

Zella is doing wondrous well, and chance has placed her with a

womankind that even I (setting beauty aside) am satisfied with. By the

bye, I wish most earnestly you could get me some good _morality_ in

the shape of Italian and French. It is indispensable to the keeping

alive her remembrance of those languages, and not a book is to be had

here, nor do I know exactly how to get them by any other means, so

pray think of it.

* * * * *

I am inundated with letters from America, and am answering them by

Mrs. Jameson; she sailing immediately is a very heavy loss to me. She

is the friendliest-hearted woman in the world. I would rather lose

anything than her....

I don't think I shall stay here much longer; it is a bad holding

ground; my cable is chafing. I shall drift somewhere or other. It is

well for Mamma Percy has so much of her temperate blood. When us three

meet, we shall be able to ice the wine by placing it between us; that

will be nice, as the girls say.

A glance from Mrs. Nesbitt has shaken my firm nerves a little. There

is a mystery--a deep well of feeling in those star-like eyes of hers.

It is strange that actresses are the only true and natural people;

they only act in the proper season and place, whilst all the rest seem

eternally playing a part, and like dilettanti acting, damn'd absurdly.

J. TRELAWNY.

From Brighton, at New Year, Mrs. Shelley sent Trelawny a cheery greeting.

FROM MRS. SHELLEY TO TRELAWNY.

BRIGHTON, _3d January 1837_.

MY DEAR TRELAWNY--This day will please you; it is a thaw; what snow we

had! Hundreds of people have been employed to remove it during the

last week; at first they cut down deep several feet as if it had been

clay, and piled it up in glittering pyramids and masses; then they

began to cart it on to the beach; it was a new sort of Augean stable,

a never-ending labour. Yesterday, when I was out, it was only got rid

of in a very few and very circumscribed spots. Nature is more of a

Hercules; she puts out a little finger in the shape of gentle thaw,

and it recedes and disappears.

* * * * *

Percy arrived yesterday, having rather whetted than satisfied his

appetite by going seven times to the play. He plays like Apollo on the

flageolet, and like Apollo is self-taught. Jane thinks him a miracle!

it is very odd. He got a frock-coat at Mettes, and, if you had not

disappointed us with your handkerchief, he would have been complete;

he is a good deal grown, though not tall enough to satisfy me;

however, there is time yet. He is quite a child still, full of

theatres and balloons and music, yet I think there is a gentleness

about him which shows the advent of the reign of petticoats--how I

dread it!

* * * * *

Poor Jane writes dismally. She is so weak that she has frequent

fainting fits; she went to a physician, who ordered her to wean the

child, and now she takes three glasses of wine a day, and every other

strengthening medicament, but she is very feeble, and has a cough and

tendency to inflammation on the chest. I implored her to come down

here to change the air, and Jeff gave leave, and would have given the

money; but fear lest his dinner should be overdone while she was

away, and lest the children should get a finger scratched, makes her

resolve not to come; what bad bogie is this? If she got stronger how

much better they would be in consequence! I think her in a critical

state, but she will not allow of a remedy.

* * * * *

Poor dear little Zella. I hope she is well and happy.... Thank you for

your offer about money. I have plenty at present, and hope to do well

hereafter. You are very thoughtful, which is a great virtue. I have

not heard from your mother or Charlotte since you left; a day or two

afterwards I saw Betsy Freeman; she was to go to her place the next

day. I paid her for her work; she looked so radiantly happy that you

would have thought she was going to be married rather than to a place

of hardship. I never saw any one look so happy. I told her to let me

know how she got on, and to apply to me if she wanted assistance.... I

am glad you are amused at your brother's. I really imagined that Fanny

Butler had been the attraction, till, sending to the Gloucester, I

found you were gone by the Southampton coach, and then I suspected

another magnet--till I find that you are in all peace, or rather war,

at Sherfield House--much better so.

I am better a great deal; quite well, I believe I ought to call

myself, only I feel a little odd at times. I have seen nothing of the

S.'s. I have met with scarce an acquaintance here, which is odd; but

then I do not look for them. I am too lazy. I hope this letter will

catch you before you leave your present perch.--Believe me always,

yours truly,

M. W. SHELLEY.

Will this be a happy New Year? Tell me; the last I can't say much for,

but I always fear worse to come. Nobody's mare is dead,--if this frost

does not kill,--my own (such as it will be) is far enough off still.

The next letter is dated only three weeks later. What happened in that

short time to account for its complete change of tone does not appear,

except that from one allusion it may be inferred that Mrs. Shelley was

overtaken by unexpected money difficulties at a moment when she had

fancied herself tolerably at ease on that score. Nothing more likely, for

in the matter of helping others she never learnt prudence or the art of

self-defence.[18] Probably, however, there was a deeper cause for her

sombre mood. She was being pressed on all sides to write the biography of

her father. The task would have been well suited to her powers; she

looked on it, moreover, in the light of a duty which she wished and

intended to perform. Fragments and sketches of hers for this book have

been published, and are among the best specimens of her writing. But

circumstances--scruples--similar to those which had hindered her from

writing Shelley's life stood between her and the present fulfilment of the

task. There were few people to whom she could bring herself to explain her

reasons, and those few need not have required, still less insisted on any

such explanation. But Trelawny, hot and vehement, could and would not see

why Mary did not rush into the field at once, to immortalise the man whose

system of philosophy, more than any other writer's, had moulded Shelley's.

He never spared words, and he probably taxed her with cowardice or

indolence, time-serving and "worldliness."

Shaken by her father's loss, and saddened by that of her friends, Mr. and

Mrs. Gisborne, who had died within a short time of each other shortly

before this, exhausted by work, her feelings warped by solitude, struggle,

and disappointment, this challenge to explain her conduct evoked the most

mournful of all her letters, as explicit as any one could wish; true in

its bitterness, and most bitter in its truth.

MRS. SHELLEY TO TRELAWNY.

BRIGHTON, _Thursday, 27th January 1837_.

DEAR TRELAWNY--I am very glad to hear that you are amused and happy;

fate seems to have turned her sunny side to you, and I hope you will

long enjoy yourself. I know of but one pleasure in the world--sympathy

with another, or others, rather; leaving out of the question the

affections, the society of agreeable, gifted, congenial-minded beings

is the only pleasure worth having in the world. My fate has debarred

me from this enjoyment, but you seem in the midst of it.

With regard to my Father's life I certainly could not answer it to my

conscience to give it up. I shall therefore do it, but I must wait.

This year I have to fight my poor Percy's battle, to try and get him

sent to College without further dilapidation of his ruined prospects,

and he has now to enter life at College. That this should be

undertaken at a moment when a cry was raised against his mother, and

that not on the question of _politics_ but _religion_, would mar all.

I must see him fairly launched before I commit myself to the fury of

the waves.

A sense of duty towards my Father, whose passion was posthumous fame,

makes me ready, as far as I am concerned, to meet the misery that must

be mine if I become an object of scurrility and attack; for the rest,

for my own private satisfaction, all I ask is obscurity. What can I

care for the parties that divide the world, or the opinions that

possess it? What has my life been? What is it? Since I lost Shelley I

have been alone, and worse. I had my Father's fate for many a year

pressing me to the earth; I had Percy's education and welfare to guard

over, and in all this I had no one friendly hand stretched out to

support me. Shut out from even the possibility of making such an

impression as my personal merits might occasion, without a human being

to aid or encourage, or even to advise me, I toiled on my weary

solitary way. The only persons who deigned to share those melancholy

hours, and to afford me the balm of affection, were those dear

girls[19] whom you chose so long to abuse. Do you think that I have

not felt, that I do not feel all this? If I have been able to stand up

against the breakers which have dashed against my stranded, wrecked

bark, it has been by a sort of passive, dogged resistance, which has

broken my heart, while it a little supported my spirit. My happiness,

my health, my fortunes, all are wrecked. Percy alone remains to me,

and to do him good is the sole aim of my life. One thing I will add;

if I have ever found kindness, it has not been from liberals; to

disengage myself from them was the first act of my freedom. The

consequence was that I gained peace and civil usage, which they denied

me; more I do not ask; of fate I only ask a grave. I know not what my

future life is, and shudder, but it must be borne, and for Percy's

sake I must battle on.

If you wish for a copy of my novel[20] you shall have one, but I did

not order it to be sent to you, because, being a rover, all luggage

burthens. I have told them to send it to your mother, at which you

will scoff, but it was the only way I had to show my sense of her

kindness. You may pick and choose those from whom you deign to receive

kindness; you are a man at a feast, champagne and comfits your diet,

and you naturally scoff at me and my dry crust in a corner. Often have

you scoffed and sneered at all the aliment of kindness or society that

fate has afforded me. I have been silent, for the hungry cannot be

dainty, but it is useless to tell a pampered man this. Remember in all

this, except in one or two instances, my complaint is not against

_persons_, but _fate_. Fate has been my enemy throughout. I have no

wish to increase her animosity or her power by exposing [myself] more

than I possibly can to her venomous attacks.

You have sent me no address, so I direct this to your Mother; give her

and Charlotte my love, and tell them I think I shall be in town at the

beginning of next month; my time in this house is up on the 3d, and I

ought to be in town with Percy to take him to Sir Tim's solicitors,

and so begin my attack. I should advise you, by the bye, not to read

my novel; you will not like it. I cannot _teach_; I can only

paint--such as my paintings are,--and you will not approve of much of

what I deem natural feeling, because it is not founded on the new

light.

I had a long letter from Mrs. N[orton]. I admire her excessively, and

I _think_ I could love her infinitely, but I shall not be asked nor

tried, and shall take very good care not to press myself. I know what

her relations think.

If you are still so rich, and can lend me L20 till my quarter, I shall

be glad. I do not know that I absolutely [need] it here now, but may

run short at last, so, if not inconvenient, will you send it next

week?

I shall soon be in town, I suppose; _where_, I do not yet know. I

dread my return, for I shall have a thousand worries.

Despite unfavourable weather, quiet and ease have much restored my

health, but mental annoyance will soon make me as ill as ever. Only

writing this letter makes me feel half dead. Still, to be thus at

peace is an expensive luxury, and I must forego it for other duties,

which I have been allowed to forget for a time, but my holiday is

past.

Happy is Fanny Butler if she can shed tears and not be destroyed by

them; this luxury is denied me. I am obliged to guard against low

spirits as my worst disease, and I do guard, and usually I am not in

low spirits. Why then do you awaken me to thought and suffering by

forcing me to explain the motives of my conduct? Could you not trust

that I thought anxiously, decided carefully, and from disinterested

motives, not to save myself, but my child, from evil. Pray let the

stream flow quietly by, as glittering on the surface as it may, and do

not awaken the deep waters which are full of briny bitterness. I never

wish any one to dive into the secret depths; be content, if I can

render the surface safe sailing, that I do not annoy you with clouds

and tempests, but turn the silvery side outward, as I ought, for God

knows I would not render any living creature so miserable as I could

easily be; and I would also guard myself from the sense of woe which I

tie hard about, and sink low, low, out of sight and fathom line.

Adieu. Excuse all this; it is your own fault; speak of yourself. Never

speak of me, and you will never again be annoyed with so much

stupidity.--Yours truly,

M. S.

The painful mood of this letter was not destined to find present relief.

From her father's death in 1836 till the year 1840 was to be perhaps the

hardest, dreariest, and most laborious time she had ever known. No chance

had she now to distract her mind or avoid the most painful themes. Her

very occupation was to tie her down to these. She was preparing her

edition of Shelley's works, with notes. The prohibition as to bringing his

name before the public seems to have been withdrawn or at any rate

slackened; it had probably become evident, even to those least disposed to

see, that the undesirable publicity, if not given by the right person,

would inevitably be given by the wrong one. Much may also have been due to

the fact that Mr. Whitton, Sir Timothy's solicitor, was dead, and had been

replaced by another gentleman who, unlike his predecessor, used his

influence to promote milder counsels and a better mutual understanding

than had prevailed hitherto.

This task was accepted by Mary as the most sacred of duties, but it is

probable that if circumstances had permitted her to fulfil it in the years

which immediately followed Shelley's death she would have suffered from it

less than now. It might not have been so well done, she might have written

at too great length, or have indulged in too much expression of personal

feeling; and in the case of omissions from his writings, the decision

might have been even harder to make. Still it would have cost her less.

Her heart, occupied by one subject, would have found a kind of relief in

the necessity for dwelling on it. But seventeen years had elapsed, and she

was forty-two, and very tired. Seventeen years of struggle, labour, and

loneliness; even the mournful satisfaction of retrospect poisoned and

distorted by Jane Williams' duplicity. She could no longer dwell on the

thought of that affection which had consoled her in her supreme

misfortune.

Mary had had many and bitter troubles and losses, but nothing entered

into her soul so deeply as the defection of this friend. Alienation is

worse than bereavement. Other sorrows had left her desolate; this one left

her different.

Hence the fact that an undertaking which would once have been a painful

pleasure was too often a veritable martyrdom. Who does not remember Hans

Andersen's little princess, in his story of the _White Swans_, who freed

her eleven brothers from the evil enchantment which held them transformed,

by spinning shirts of stinging-nettles? Such nettle-shirts had Mary now to

weave and spin, to exorcise the evil spirits which had power of

misrepresenting and defaming Shelley's memory, and to save Percy for ever

from their sinister spells.

Her health was weak, her heart was sore, her life was lonely, and, in

spite of her undaunted efforts, she was still so badly off that she was,

as the last letter shows, reduced to accepting Trelawny's offer of a loan

of money. Nor was it only her work that she had on her mind; she was also

very anxious about her son's future. He had, at this time, an idea of

entering the Diplomatic Service, and his mother overcame her diffidence so

far as to try and procure an opening for him--no easy thing to find. Among

the people she consulted and asked was Lytton Bulwer; his answer was not

encouraging.

SIR E. L. BULWER TO MRS. SHELLEY.

HERTFORD STREET, _17th March 1839_.

MY DEAR MRS. SHELLEY--Many thanks for your kind congratulations. I am

delighted to find you like _Richelieu_.

With regard to your son, with his high prospects, the diplomacy may do

very well; but of all professions it is the most difficult to rise in.

The first steps are long and tedious. An Attache at a small Court is

an exile without pay, and very little opening to talent. However, for

young men of fortune and expectations it fills up some years agreeably

enough, what with flirting, dressing, dancing, and perhaps, if one has

good luck, a harmless duel or two!

To be serious, it is better than being idle, and one certainly learns

languages, knowledge of the world, and good manners. Perhaps I may

send my son, some seventeen years hence, if my brother is then a

minister, into that career. But it will depend on his prospects. Are

you sure that you can get an attacheship? It requires a good deal of

interest, and there are plenty of candidates among young men of rank,

and, I fear, claims more pressing and urging than the memory of

genius. I could not procure that place for a most intimate friend of

mine a little time ago. I will take my chance some evening, but I fear

not Thursday; in fact, I am so occupied just at present that till

after Easter I have scarcely a moment to myself, and at Easter I must

go to Lincoln.--Yours ever,

E. L. BULWER.

Mrs. Norton interested herself in the matter. She could not effect much,

but she was sympathetic and kind.

"You have your troubles," she wrote, "struggling for one who, I trust,

will hereafter repay you for every weary hour and years of

self-denial, and I shall be glad to hear from you now and then how all

goes on with you and him, so do not forget me when you have a spare

half hour, and if ever I have any good news to send, do not doubt my

then writing by the first post, for I think my happiest moments now

are when, in the strange mixture of helplessness and power which has

made the warp and woof of my destiny, I can accidentally serve some

one who has had more of the world's buffets than its good fortune."

Some scraps of journal belonging to 1839 afford a little insight into Mrs.

Shelley's difficulties while editing her husband's MSS.

_Journal, February 12_ (1839).--I almost think that my present

occupation will end in a fit of illness. I am editing Shelley's Poems,

and writing notes for them. I desire to do Shelley honour in the notes

to the best of my knowledge and ability; for the rest, they are or are

not well written; it little matters to me which. Would that I had more

literary vanity, or vanity of any kind; I were happier. As it is, I am

torn to pieces by memory. Would that all were mute in the grave!

I _much_ disliked the leaving out any of _Queen Mab_. I dislike it

still more than I can express, and I even wish I had resisted to the

last; but when I was told that certain portions would injure the

copyright of all the volumes to the publisher, I yielded. I had

consulted Hunt, Hogg, and Peacock; they all said I had a right to do

as I liked, and offered no one objection. Trelawny sent back the

volume to Moxon in a rage at seeing parts left out....

Hogg has written me an insulting letter because I left out the

dedication to Harriet....

Little does Jefferson, how little does any one, know me! When Clarke's

edition of _Queen Mab_ came to us at the Baths of Pisa, Shelley

expressed great pleasure that these verses were omitted. This

recollection caused me to do the same. It was to do him honour. What

could it be to me? There are other verses I should well like to

obliterate for ever, but they will be printed; and any to her could in

no way tend to my discomfort, or gratify one ungenerous feeling. They

shall be restored, though I do not feel easy as to the good I do

Shelley. I may have been mistaken. Jefferson might mistake me and be

angry; that were nothing. He has done far more, and done his best to

give another poke to the poisonous dagger which has long rankled in my

heart. I cannot forgive any man that insults any woman. She cannot

call him out,--she disdains words of retort; she must endure, but it

is never to be forgiven; not, "indeed, cherished as matter of

enmity"--that I never feel,--but of caution to shield oneself from the

like again.

In so arduous a task, others might ask for encouragement and kindness

from their friends,--I know mine better. I am unstable, sometimes

melancholy, and have been called on some occasions imperious; but I

never did an ungenerous act in my life. I sympathise warmly with

others, and have wasted my heart in their love and service.

All this together is making me feel very ill, and my holiday at

Woodlay only did me good while it lasted.

_March._ ... Illness did ensue. What an illness! driving me to the

verge of insanity. Often I felt the cord would snap, and I should no

longer be able to rule my thoughts; with fearful struggles, miserable

relapses, after long repose I became somewhat better.

_October 5, 1839._--Twice in my life I have believed myself to be

dying, and my soul being alive, though the bodily functions were faint

and perishing, I had opportunity to look Death in the face, and I did

not fear it--far from it. My feelings, especially in the first and

most perilous instance, was, I go to no new creation. I enter under no

new laws. The God that made this beautiful world (and I was then at

Lerici, surrounded by the most beautiful manifestation of the visible

creation) made that into which I go; as there is beauty and love here,

such is there, and I feel as if my spirit would when it left my frame

be received and sustained by a beneficent and gentle Power.

I had no fear, rather, though I had no active wish but a passive

satisfaction in death. Whether the nature of my illness--debility from

loss of blood, without pain--caused this tranquillity of soul, I

cannot tell; but so it was, and it had this blessed effect, that I

have never since anticipated death with terror, and even if a violent

death (which is the most repugnant to human nature) menaced me, I

think I could, after the first shock, turn to the memory of that hour,

and renew its emotion of perfect resignation.

The darkest moment is that which precedes the dawn. These unhappy years

were like the series of "clearing showers" which often concludes a stormy

day. The clouds were lifting, and though Mary Shelley could never be other

than what sorrow and endurance had made her, the remaining years of her

life were to bring alleviations to her lot,--slanting rays of afternoon

sunshine, powerless, indeed, to warm into life the tender buds of morning,

but which illumined the landscape and lightened her path, and shed over

her a mild radiance which she reflected back on others, affording to them

the brightness she herself could know no more, and diffusing around her

that sensation of peace which she was to know now, perhaps, for the first

time.