OCTOBER 1839-FEBRUARY 1851
Mrs. Shelley's annotated edition of Shelley's works was completed by the
appearance, in 1840, of the collected prose writings; along with which was
republished the _Journal of a Six Weeks' Tour_ (a joint composition) and
her own two letters from Geneva, reprinted in the present work.
Mary's correspondence with Carlyle on the subject of a motto for her book
was the occasion of the following note--
5 CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA,
_3d December 1839_.
DEAR MRS. SHELLEY--There does some indistinct remembrance of a
sentence like the one you mention hover in my head; but I cannot
anywhere lay hand on it. Indeed, I rather think it was to this effect:
"Treat men as what they should be, and you help to make them so."
Further, is it not rather one of Wilhelm's kind speeches than of the
Uncle's or the Fair Saint's? James Fraser shall this day send you a
copy of the work; you, with your own clear eyes, shall look for
yourself.
I have no horse now; the mud forced me to send it into the country
till dry weather came again. Layton House is so much the farther off.
_Tant pis pour moi._--Yours always truly,
T. CARLYLE.
The words ultimately prefixed to the collection are the following, from
Carlyle--
That thou, O my Brother, impart to me truly how it stands with thee in
that inner heart of thine; what lively images of things past thy
memory has painted there; what hopes, what thoughts, affections,
knowledge, do now dwell there. For this and no other object that I can
see was the gift of hearing and speech bestowed on us two.
The proceeds of this work were such as to set her for some time at
comparative ease on the score of money; the Godwin quicksand was no longer
there to engulf them.
_Journal, June 1, 1840_ (Brighton).--I must mark this evening, tired
as I am, for it is one among few--soothing and balmy. Long oppressed
by care, disappointment, and ill health, which all combined to depress
and irritate me, I felt almost to have lost the spring of happy
reverie. On such a night it returns--the calm sea, the soft breeze,
the silver bow new bent in the western heaven--Nature in her sweetest
mood, raised one's thoughts to God and imparted peace.
Indeed I have many, many blessings, and ought to be grateful, as I am,
though the poison lurks among them; for it is my strange fate that all
my friends are sufferers--ill health or adversity bears heavily on
them, and I can do little good, and lately ill health and extreme
depression have even marred the little I could do. If I could restore
health, administer balm to the wounded heart, and banish care from
those I love, I were in myself happy, while I am loved, and Percy
continues the blessing that he is. Still, who on such a night must not
feel the weight of sorrow lessened? For myself, I repose in gentle and
grateful reverie, and hope for others. I am content for myself. Years
have--how much!--cooled the ardent and swift spirit that at such hours
bore me freely along. Yet, though I no longer soar, I repose. Though
I no longer deem all things attainable, I enjoy what is; and while I
feel that whatever I have lost of youth and hope, I have acquired the
enduring affection of a noble heart, and Percy shows such excellent
dispositions that I feel that I am much the gainer in life.
Fate does indeed visit some too heavily--poor R. for instance, God
restore him! God and good angels guard us! surely this world, stored
outwardly with shapes and influences of beauty and good, is peopled in
its intellectual life by myriads of loving spirits that mould our
thoughts to good, influence beneficially the course of events, and
minister to the destiny of man. Whether the beloved dead make a
portion of this company I dare not guess, but that such exist I
feel--far off, when we are worldly, evil, selfish; drawing near and
imparting joy and sympathy when we rise to noble thoughts and
disinterested action. Such surely gather round one on such an evening,
and make part of that atmosphere of love, so hushed, so soft, on which
the soul reposes and is blest.
These serene lines were written by Mrs. Shelley within a few days of
leaving England on the first of those tours described by her in the series
of letters published as _Rambles in Germany and Italy_. It had been
arranged that her son and two college friends, both of whom, like him,
were studying for their degree, should go abroad for the Long Vacation,
and that Mrs. Shelley should form one of the reading party. Paris was to
be the general rendezvous. Mrs. Shelley, who was staying at Brighton,
intended travelling _via_ Dieppe, but her health was so far from strong
that she shrank from the long crossing, and started from Dover instead.
She was now accompanied by a lady's-maid, a circumstance which relieved
her from some of the fatigue incidental to a journey. They travelled by
diligence; a new experience to her, as, in her former wanderings with
Shelley, they had had their own carriage (save indeed on the first tour of
all, when they set off to walk through France with a donkey); and in more
recent years she had travelled, in England, by the newly-introduced
railroads--
"To which, whatever their faults may be, I feel eternally grateful,"
she says; adding afterwards, "a pleasant day it will be when there is
one from Calais to Paris."
So recent a time, and yet how remote it seems! Mary had never been a good
traveller, but she found now, to her surprise and satisfaction, that in
spite of her nervous suffering she was better able than formerly to stand
the fatigue of a journey. She had painful sensations, but
the fatigue I endured seemed to take away weariness instead of
occasioning it. I felt light of limb and in good spirits. On the
shores of France I shook the dust of accumulated cares from off me: I
forgot disappointment and banished sorrow: weariness of body replaced
beneficially weariness of soul--so much heavier, so much harder to
bear.
Change, in short, did her more good than travelling did her harm.
"I feel a good deal of the gipsy coming upon me," she wrote a few days
later, "now that I am leaving Paris. I bid adieu to all
acquaintances, and set out to wander in new lands, surrounded by
companions fresh to the world, unacquainted with its sorrows, and who
enjoy with zest every passing amusement. I myself, apt to be too
serious, but easily awakened to sympathy, forget the past and the
future, and am ready to be amused by all I see as much or even more
than they."
From Paris they journeyed to Metz and Treves, down the Moselle and the
Rhine, by Schaffhausen and Zurich, over the Splugen Pass to Cadenabbia on
the Lake of Como. Here they established themselves for two months. Mrs.
Shelley occupied herself in the study of Italian literature, while the
young men were busy with their Cambridge work. Her son's friends were
devoted to her, and no wonder. Indeed, her amiability and sweetness, her
enjoyment of travelling, her wide culture and great store of knowledge,
her acuteness of observation, and the keen interest she took in all she
saw, must have made her a most fascinating companion. On leaving Como they
visited Milan, and, on their way home, passing through Genoa, Mary looked
again on the Villa Diodati, and the little Maison Chapuis nestling below,
where she had begun to write _Frankenstein_. All unaltered; but in her,
what a change! Shelley, Byron, the blue-eyed William, where were they?
Where was Fanny, whose long letters had kept them informed of English
affairs? Mary herself, and Clare, were they the same people as the two
girls, one fair, one dark, who had excited so much idle and impertinent
speculation in the tourists from whose curiosity Byron had fled?
But where are the snows of yester-year?
In autumn Mrs. Shelley and her son returned to England; but the next year
they again went abroad, and this time for a longer sojourn.
They were now better off than they had ever been, for, after Percy had
attained his majority and taken his degree, his grandfather made him an
allowance of L400 a year; a free gift, not subject to the condition of
repayment. This welcome relief from care came not a day too soon. Mrs.
Shelley's strength was much shaken, her attacks of nervous illness were
more frequent, and, had she had to resume her life of unvaried toil, the
results might have been serious.
It is probably to this event that Mrs. Norton refers in the following note
of congratulation--
MRS. NORTON TO MRS. SHELLEY.
DEAR MRS. SHELLEY--I cannot tell you how sincerely glad I was to get a
note so cheerful, and cheerful on such good grounds as your last. I
hope it is the _dawn_, that your day of struggling is over, and
nothing to come but gradually increasing comfort. With tolerable
prudence, and abroad, I should hope Percy would find his allowance
quite sufficient, and I think it will be a relief that may lift your
mind and do your health good to see him properly provided for.
I am too ill to leave the sofa or I should (by rights) be at Lord
Palmerston's this evening, but, when I see any one likely to support
the very modest request made to Lord P., I will speak about it to
them; I have little doubt that, since they are not asked for a paid
attacheship, you will succeed.
... In three weeks I am to set up the magnificence of a "one 'orse
chay" myself, and then Fulham and the various streets of London where
friends and foes live will become attainable; at present I have never
stirred over the threshold since I came up from Brighton.--Ever yours
very truly,
CAR. NORTON.
They began their second tour by a residence at Kissingen, where Mrs.
Shelley had been advised to take the waters for her health. The "Cur" over
(by which she benefited a good deal), they proceeded to Gotha, Weimar,
Leipzig, Berlin, and Dresden--all perfectly new ground to Mary. Dresden
and its treasures of art were a delight to her, only marred by the
overwhelming heat of the summer.
Through Saxon Switzerland they travelled to Prague, and Mary was roused to
enthusiasm by the intense romantic interest of the Bohemian capital, as
she was afterwards by the magnificent scenery of the approach to Linz (of
which she gives in her letters a vivid description), and of Salzburg and
the Salzkammergut.
Through the Tyrol, over the Brenner Pass, by the Lake of Garda, they came
to Verona, and finally to Venice--another place fraught to Mary with
associations unspeakable.
Many a scene which I have since visited and admired has faded in my
mind, as a painting in a diorama melts away, and another struggles
into the changing canvass; but this road was as distinct in my mind as
if traversed yesterday. I will not here dwell on the sad circumstances
that clouded my first visit to Venice. Death hovered over the scene.
Gathered into myself, with my "mind's eye" I saw those before me long
departed, and I was agitated again by emotions, by passions--and those
the deepest a woman's heart can harbour--a dread to see her child even
at that instant expire, which then occupied me. It is a strange, but,
to any person who has suffered, a familiar circumstance, that those
who are enduring mental or corporeal agony are strangely alive to
immediate external objects, and their imagination even exercises its
wild power over them.... I have experienced it; and the particular
shape of a room, the progress of shadows on a wall, the peculiar
flickering of trees, the exact succession of objects on a journey,
have been indelibly engraved in my memory, as marked in and associated
with hours and minutes when the nerves were strung to their utmost
tension by endurance of pain, or the far severer infliction of mental
anguish. Thus the banks of the Brenta presented to me a moving scene;
not a palace, not a tree of which I did not recognise, as marked and
recorded, at a moment when life and death hung upon our speedy arrival
at Venice.
And at Fusina, as then, I now beheld the domes and towers of the Queen
of Ocean arise from the waves with a majesty unrivalled upon earth.
They spent the winter at Florence, and by April were in Rome. This indeed
was the Holy Land of Mary Shelley's pilgrimage. There was the spot where
William lay; there the tomb which held the heart of Shelley. Mary may well
have felt as if standing by her own graveside. Was not her heart of hearts
buried with them? And there, too, was the empty grave where now Trelawny
lies; the touching witness to that undying devotion of his to Shelley's
memory which Mary never forgot.
None of this is touched upon--it could not be--in the published letters.
The Eternal City itself filled her with such emotions and interests as not
even she had ever felt before. It is curious to compare some of these with
her earlier letters from abroad, and to notice how, while her power of
observation was undiminished, the intellectual faculties of thought and
comparison had developed and widened, while her interest was as keen as in
her younger days, nay keener, for her attention now, poor thing, was
comparatively undivided.
Scenery, art, historical associations, the political and social state of
the countries she visited, and the characteristics of the people, nothing
was lost on her, and on all she saw she brought to bear the ripened
faculties of a reflective and most appreciative mind. Some of her remarks
on Italian politics are almost prophetic in their clear-sighted
sagacity.[21] That after all she had suffered she should have retained
such keen powers of enjoyment as she did may well excite wonder. Perhaps
this enjoyment culminated at Sorrento, where she and her son positively
revelled in the luxuriant beauty and witchery of a perfect southern
summer.
Her impressions of these two tours were published in the form of letters,
and entitled _Rambles in Germany and Italy_, and were dedicated to Samuel
Rogers in 1844.
He thus acknowledged the copy of the work she sent him--
ST. JAMES'S PLACE,
_30th July 1844_.
What can I say to you in return for the honour you have done me--an
honour so undeserved! If some feelings make us eloquent, it is not so
with others, and I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart, and
assure you how highly I shall value and how carefully I shall preserve
the two precious volumes on every account--for your sake and for their
own.--Ever yours most sincerely,
S. ROGERS.
In the spring of 1844 it became evident that Sir Timothy Shelley's life
was drawing to a close. In anticipation of what was soon to happen, Mary,
always mindful of her promise to Leigh Hunt, wrote to him as follows--
PUTNEY, _20th April 1844_.
MY DEAR HUNT--The tidings from Field Place seem to say that ere long
there will be a change; if nothing untoward happens to us till then,
it will be for the better. Twenty years ago, in memory of what
Shelley's intentions were, I said that you should be considered one of
the legatees to the amount of L2000. I need scarcely mention that when
Shelley talked of leaving you this sum he contemplated reducing other
legacies, and that one among them is (by a mistake of the solicitor)
just double what he intended it to be.
Twenty years have, of course, much changed my position. Twenty years
ago it was supposed that Sir Timothy would not live five years.
Meanwhile a large debt has accumulated, for I must pay back all on
which Percy and I have subsisted, as well as what I borrowed for
Percy's going to college. In fact, I scarcely know how our affairs
will be. Moreover, Percy shares now my right; that promise was made
without his concurrence, and he must concur to render it of avail. Nor
do I like to ask him to do so till our affairs are so settled that we
know what we shall have--whether Shelley's uncle may not go to law; in
short, till we see our way before us.
It is both my and Percy's great wish to feel that you are no longer so
burdened by care and necessity; in that he is as desirous as I can be;
but the form and the degree in which we can do this must at first be
uncertain. From the time of Sir Timothy's death I shall give
directions to my banker to honour your quarterly cheques for L30 a
quarter; and I shall take steps to secure this to you, and to Marianne
if she should survive you.
Percy has read this letter, and approves. I know your _real_ delicacy
about money matters, and that you will at once be ready to enter into
my views; and feel assured that if any present debt should press, if
we have any command of money, we will take care to free you from it.
With love to Marianne, affectionately yours,
MARY SHELLEY.
Sir Timothy died in this year, and Mary's son succeeded to the baronetcy
and estates. The fortune he inherited was much encumbered, as, besides
paying Shelley's numerous legacies and the portions of several members of
the family, he had also to refund, with interest, all the money advanced
to his mother for their maintenance for the last twenty-one years,
amounting now to a large sum, which he met by means of a mortgage effected
on the estates. But all was done at last. Clare was freed from the
necessity for toil and servitude; she was, indeed, well off, as she
inherited altogether L12,000. Hers is the legacy to which Mrs. Shelley
alludes as being, by a mistake, double what had been intended. When
Shelley made his will, he bequeathed to her L6000. Not long before the end
of his life he added a codicil, to the effect that _these_ L6000 should be
invested for her benefit, intending in this way (it is supposed) to secure
to her the interest of this sum, and to protect her against recklessness
on her own part or needy rapacity on the part of others. Through the
omission in the lawyer's draft of the word "these" this codicil was
construed into a second bequest of L6000, which she received. The Hunts,
by Shelley's bounty and the generosity of his wife and son, were made
comparatively easy in their circumstances. Byron had declined to be
numbered among Shelley's legatees; not so Mr. Hogg, whose letter on the
occasion is too characteristic to omit.
HOGG TO MRS. SHELLEY.
DEAR MARY--I have just had an interview with Mr. Gregson. He spoke of
your affairs cheerfully, and thinks that, with prudence and economy,
you and your baronet-boy will do well; and such, I trust and earnestly
hope, will be the result of this long turmoil of worldly perplexity.
Mr. Gregson paid me the noble tribute of the most generous and kind
and munificent affection of our incomparable friend. He not only paid
the legacy, but very obligingly offered me some interest; for which
offer, and for such prompt payment, I return my best thanks to
yourself and to Percy.
I was glad to hear from Mr. Gregson, for the honour of poesy, that
Lord Byron had declined to receive his legacy. How much I wish that my
scanty fortunes would justify the like refusal on my part!
I daresay you wish that you were a good deal richer--that this had
happened and not that--and that a great deal, which was quite
impossible, had been done, and so on! I should be sorry to believe
that you were quite contented; such a state of mind, so preposterous
and unnatural, especially in any person whose circumstances were
affluent, would surely portend some great calamity.
I hope that I may venture to look forward to the time when the Baronet
will inhabit Field Place in a style not unworthy of his name. My
desire grows daily in the strength to keep up _families_, for it is
only from these that Shelleys and Byrons proceed.
[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON HOGG,
AS HE SAT PLAYING AT CHESS AT BOSCOMBE.
FROM A SKETCH BY R. EASTON.
_To face Page 305 (Vol. ii.)_]
If low people sometimes effect a little in some particular line, they
always show that they are poor, creeping creatures in the main and in
general.
However this may be, and whatever you or yours may take of Shelley
property, "either by heirship or conquest," as they say in Scotland, I
hope that you may not be included in the unbroken entail of gout,
which takes so largely from the comforts, and adds so greatly to the
irritability natural to yours, dear Mary, very faithfully,
T. J. HOGG.
For many and good reasons there could be little real sympathy between Hogg
and Mary Shelley. In lieu of it she willingly accepted his genuine
enthusiasm for Shelley, and she was a better friend to him than he was to
her. The veiled impertinence of his tone to her must have severely tried
her patience, if not her endurance. Indeed, the mocking style of his
ironical eulogies of her talents, and her fidelity to the memory of her
husband are more offensive to those who know what she was than any
ill-humoured tirade of Trelawny's.
The high esteem in which Mrs. Shelley was held by the eminent literary men
who were her contemporaries is pleasantly attested in a number of letters
and notes addressed to her by T. Moore, Samuel Rogers, Carlyle, Bulwer,
Prosper Merimee, and others; letters for the most part of no great
importance except in so far as they show the familiar and friendly terms
existing between the writers and Mrs. Shelley. One, however, from Walter
Savage Landor, deserves insertion here for its intrinsic interest--
DEAR MRS. SHELLEY--It would be very ungrateful in me to delay for a
single post an answer to your very kind letter. If only three or four
like yourself (supposing there are that number in one generation) are
gratified by my writings, I am quite content. Hardly do I know whether
in the whole course of fifty years I have been so fortunate. For one
of my earliest resolutions in life was never to read what was written
about me, favourable or unfavourable; and another was, to keep as
clear as possible of all literary men, well knowing their jealousies
and animosities, and so little did I seek celebrity, or even renown,
that on making a present of my Gebir and afterwards of my later poems
to the bookseller, I insisted that they should not even be advertised.
Whatever I have written since I have placed at the disposal and
discretion of some friend. Are not you a little too enthusiastic in
believing that writers can be much improved by studying my writings? I
mean in their style. The style is a part of the mind, just as feathers
are part of the bird. The style of Addison is admired--it is very lax
and incorrect. But in his manner there is the shyness of the Loves;
there is the graceful shyness of a beautiful girl not quite grown up!
People feel the cool current of delight, and never look for its
source. However, he wrote the Vision of Mirza, and no prose man in any
age of the world had written anything so delightful. Alas! so far from
being able to teach men how to write, it will be twenty years before I
teach them how to spell. They will write simil_e_, for_ei_gn,
sover_ei_gn, therefo_re_, imp_el_, comp_el_, reb_el_, etc. I wish they
would turn back to Hooker, not for theology--the thorns of theology
are good only to heat the oven for the reception of wholesome food.
But Hooker and Jonson and Milton spelt many words better than we do.
We need not wear their coats, but we may take the gold buttons off
them and put them on smoother stuff.--Believe me, dear Mrs. Shelley,
very truly yours,
W. S. LANDOR.
[Illustration]
Of individuals as of nations, it may be true that those are happiest who
have no history. The later years of Mrs. Shelley, which offer no event of
public interest, were tranquil and comparatively happy. She brought out no
new work after 1844.[22] It had been her intention, now that the
prohibition which constituted the chief obstacle was removed, to undertake
the long-projected _Life of Shelley_. It seemed the more desirable as
there was no lack of attempts at biography. Chief among these was the
series of articles entitled "Shelley Papers," contributed by Mr. Hogg to
the _New Monthly_ magazine during 1832. They were afterwards incorporated
with that so-called _Life of Shelley_ which deals only with Shelley's
first youth, and which, though it consists of one halfpennyworth of
Shelley to an intolerable deal of Hogg, is yet a classic, and one of the
most amusing classics in the world; so amusing, indeed, that, for its
sake, we might address the author somewhat as Sterne is said to have
apostrophised Mrs. Cibber, after hearing her sing a pathetic air of
Handel, "Man, for this be all thy sins forgiven thee!" The second chapter
of the book includes some fragments of biography by Mary, a facsimile of
one of which, in her handwriting, is given here.
Medwin's _Life of Shelley_, inaccurate and false in facts, distasteful in
style and manner, had caused Mrs. Shelley serious annoyance. The author,
who wrote for money chiefly, actually offered to suppress the book _for a
consideration_; a proposal which Mrs. Shelley treated with the silent
contempt it deserved. These were, however, strong arguments in favour of
her undertaking the book herself. She summoned up her resolution and began
to collect her materials.
But it was not to be. Her powers and her health were unequal to the task.
The parallel between her and the Princess of the nettle-shirts was to be
carried out to the bitter end, for the last nettle-shirt lacked a sleeve,
and the youngest brother always retained one swan's wing instead of an
arm. The last service Mary could have rendered to Shelley was never to be
completed, and so the exact details of certain passages of Shelley's life
must remain for ever, to some extent, matters of speculation. No one but
Mary could have supplied the true history and, as she herself had said, in
the introductory note to her edition of his poems, it was not yet time to
do that. Too many were living who might have been wounded or injured; nay,
there still are too many to admit of a biographer's speaking with perfect
frankness. But, although she might have furnished to some circumstances a
key which is now for ever lost, it is equally true that there was much to
be said, which hardly could, and most certainly never would have been told
by her. Of his earliest youth and his life with Harriet she could,
herself, know nothing but by hearsay. But the chief difficulty lay in the
fact that too much of her own history was interwoven with his. How could
she, now, or at any time, have placed herself, as an observer, so far
outside the subject of her story as to speak of her married life with
Shelley, of its influence on the development of his character and genius,
of the effect of that development, and of her constant association with it
on herself? Yet any life of him which left this out of account would have
been most incomplete. More than that, no biography of such a man as
Shelley can be completely successful which is written under great
restrictions and difficulties. To paint a life-like picture of a nature
like his requires a genius akin to his, aglow with the fervour of
confident enthusiasm.
It was, then, as well that Mary never wrote the book. The invaluable notes
which she did write to Shelley's poems have done for him all that it was
in her power to accomplish, and all that is necessary. They put the reader
in possession of the knowledge it concerns him to have; that of the scenes
or the circumstances which inspired or suggested the poems themselves.
In 1847 she became acquainted with the lady to whom her son was afterwards
married, and who was to be to Mrs. Shelley a kind of daughter and sister
in one. No one, except her son, is living who knew Mary so well and loved
her so enthusiastically. A mutual friend had urged them to become
acquainted, assuring them both "they ought to know each other, they would
suit so perfectly." Some people think that this course is one which tends
oftener to postpone than to promote the desired intimacy. In the present
case it was justified by the result. Mrs. Shelley called. Her future
daughter-in-law, on entering the room, beheld something utterly unlike
what she had imagined or expected in the famous Mrs. Shelley,--a fair,
lovely, almost girlish-looking being, "as slight as a reed," with
beautiful clear eyes, who put out her hand as she rose, saying half
timidly, "I'm Mary Shelley." From that moment--we have her word for
it--the future wife of Sir Percy had lost her heart to his mother! Their
intercourse was frequent, and soon became necessary to both. The younger
lady had had much experience of sorrow, and this drew the bond all the
closer.
Not for some time after this meeting did Sir Percy appear on the scene.
His engagement followed at no distant date, and after his marriage he,
with his wife and his mother, who never during her life was to be parted
from them, again went abroad.
The cup of such happiness as in this world was possible to Mary Shelley
seemed now to be full, but the time was to be short during which she could
taste it. She only lived three years longer, years chequered by very great
anxiety (on account of illness), yet to those who now look back on them
they seem as if lived under a charm. To live with Mary Shelley was indeed
like entertaining an angel. Perfect unselfishness, _selflessness_ indeed,
characterised her at all times.
One illustration of this is afforded by her repression of the terror she
felt when she saw Shelley's passion for the sea asserting itself in his
son. Her own nerves had been shaken and her life darkened by a
catastrophe, but not for this would she let it overshadow the lives of
others. Not even when her son, with a friend, went off to Norway in a
little yacht, and she was dependent for news of them on a three weeks'
post, would she ever let him know the mortal anxiety she endured, but
after his marriage she told it to her daughter-in-law, saying, "Now he
will never wish to go to sea."
But of herself she never seemed to think at all; she lived in and for
others. Her gifts and attainments, far from being obtruded, were kept out
of sight; modest almost to excess as she was, she yet knew the secret of
putting others at their ease. She was ready with sympathy and help and
gentle counsel for all who needed them, and to the friends of her son she
was such a friend as they will never forget.
The thought of Shelley, the idea of his presence, never seemed to leave
her mind for a moment. She would constantly refer to what he might think,
or do, or approve of, almost as if he had been in the next room. Of his
history, or her own, she never spoke, nor did she ever refer to other
people connected with their early life, unless there was something good to
be said of them. Of those who had behaved ill to her, no word--on the
subject of their behaviour--passed her lips. Her daughter-in-law had so
little idea of what her associations were with Clare, that on one occasion
when Miss Clairmont was coming to stay at Field Place, and Lady Shelley,
who did not like her, expressed a half-formed intention of being absent
during her visit and leaving Mrs. Shelley to entertain her, she was
completely taken aback by the exclamation which escaped Mary's lips,
"Don't go, dear! don't leave me alone with her! she has been the bane of
my life ever since I was three years old!"
No more was ever said, but this was enough, even to those who did not know
all, to reveal a long history of endurance.
Clare came, and more than once, to stay at Field Place, but her
excitability and eccentricity had so much increased as, at times, to be
little if at all under her own control, and after one unmistakable proof
of this, it was deemed (by those who cared for Mrs. Shelley) desirable
that she should go and return no more.
She died at Florence in 1878.
Mary Shelley's strength was ebbing, her nervous ailments increased, and
the result was a loss of power in one side. Life at Field Place had had to
be abandoned on grounds of health (not her own), and Sir Percy Shelley had
purchased Boscombe Manor for their country home, anticipating great
pleasure from his mother's enjoyment of the beautiful spot and fine
climate. But she became worse, and never could be moved from her house in
Chester Square till she was taken to her last resting-place. She died on
the 21st of February 1851.
She died, "and her place among those who knew her intimately has never
been filled up. She walked beside them, like a spirit of good, to comfort
and benefit, to lighten the darkness of life, to cheer it with her
sympathy and love."
These, her own words about Shelley, may with equal fitness be applied to
her.
Her grave is in Bournemouth Churchyard, where, some time after, her
father and mother were laid by her side.
* * * * *
As an author Mary Shelley did not accomplish all that was expected of her.
Her letters from abroad, both during her earlier and later tours, the
descriptive fragments intended for her father's biography, and above all
her notes on Shelley's works, are indeed valuable and enduring
contributions to literature. But it was in imaginative work that she had
aspired to excel, and in which both Shelley and Godwin had urged her to
persevere, confident that she could achieve a brilliant success. None of
her novels, however, except _Frankenstein_, can be said to have survived
the generation for which they were written. Only in that work has she left
an abiding mark on literature. Yet her powers were very great, her culture
very extensive, her ambition very high.
The friend whose description of her has been quoted in an earlier chapter
tries to account for this. She says--
I think a partial solution for the circumscribed fame of Mrs. Shelley
as a writer may be traced to her own shrinking and sensitive
retiringness of nature. If, as Thackeray, perhaps justly, observes,
"Persons, to succeed largely in this world, must assert themselves,"
most assuredly Mary Shelley never tried that path to distinction....
I never knew, in my life, either man or woman whose whole character
was so entirely in harmony: no jarring discords--no incongruous,
anomalous, antagonistic opposites met to disturb the perfect unity,
and to counteract one day the impressions of the former. Gentleness
was ever and always her distinguishing characteristic. Many years'
friendship never showed me a deviation from it. But with this softness
there was neither irresolution nor feebleness....
Many have fancied and accused her of being cold and apathetic. She was
no such thing. She had warm, strong affections: as daughter, wife, and
mother she was exemplary and devoted. Besides this, she was a
faithful, unswerving friend.
* * * * *
She was not a mirthful--scarcely could be called a cheerful person;
and at times was subject to deep and profound fits of despondency,
when she would shut herself up, and be quite inaccessible to all. Her
undeviating love of truth was ever acted on--never swerved from. Her
worst enemy could never charge her with falsification--even
equivocation. Truth--truth--truth--was the governing principle in all
the words she uttered, the thoughts and judgments she expressed. Hence
she was most intolerant to deceit and falsehood, in any shape or
guise, and those who attempted to practise it on her aroused as much
bitter indignation as her nature was capable of....
It is too often the case that authors talk too much of their writings,
and all thereunto belonging. Mrs. Shelley was the extremest reverse of
this. In fact, she was almost morbidly averse to the least allusion to
herself as an authoress. To call on her and find her table covered
with all the accessories and unmistakable traces of _book-making_,
such as copy, proofs for correction, etc., made her nearly as nervous
and unselfpossessed as if she had been detected in the commission of
some offence against the conventionalities of society, or the code of
morality....
I really think she deemed it unwomanly to print and publish; and had
it not been for the hard cash which, like so many of her craft, she so
often stood in need of, I do not think she would ever have come
before the world as an authoress....
Like all raised in supremacy above their fellows, either mentally or
physically, Mrs. Shelley had her enemies and detractors. But none ever
dared to impugn the correctness of her conduct. From the hour of her
early widowhood to the period of her death, she might have married
advantageously several times. But she often said, "I know not what
temptation could make me change the name of Shelley."
But the true cause lay deeper still, and may afford a clue to more puzzles
than this one. What Mary Godwin might have become had she remained Mary
Godwin for six or eight years longer it is impossible now to do more than
guess at. But the free growth of her own original nature was checked and a
new bent given to it by her early union with Shelley. Two original
geniuses can rarely develop side by side, certainly not in marriage, least
of all in a happy marriage. Two minds may, indeed, work consentaneously,
but one, however unconsciously, will take the lead; should the other
preserve its complete independence, angles must of necessity develop, and
the first fitness of things disappear. And in a marriage of enthusiastic
devotion and mutual admiration, the younger or the weaker mind, however
candid, will shirk or stop short of conclusions which, it instinctively
feels, may lead to collision. On the other hand, strong and pronounced
views or peculiarities on the part of one may tend to elicit their exact
opposite on the part of the other; both results being equally remote from
real independence of thought. However it may be, either in marriage or in
any intellectual partnership, it is a general truth that from the moment
one mind is penetrated by the influence of another, its own native power
over other minds has gone, and for ever. And Mary parted with this power
at sixteen, before she knew what it was to have it. When she left her
father's house with Shelley she was but a child, a thing of promise,
everything about her yet to be decided. Shelley himself was a half-formed
creature, but of infinite possibilities and extraordinary powers, and
Mary's development had not only to keep pace with his, but to keep in time
and tune with his. Sterne said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings that "to have
loved her was a liberal education." To love Shelley adequately and
worthily was that and more--it was a vocation, a career,--enough for a
life-time and an exceptional one.
Every reader of the present biography must see too that in Mary Shelley's
case physical causes had much to do with the limit of her intellectual
achievements. Between seventeen and twenty-five she had drawn too largely
on the reserve funds of life. Weak health and illness, a roving unsettled
life, the birth and rearing, and then the loss, of children; great joys
and great griefs, all crowded into a few young years, and coinciding with
study and brain-work and the constant call on her nervous energy
necessitated by companionship with Shelley, these exhausted her; and when
he who was the beginning and end of her existence disappeared, "and the
light of her life as if gone out,"[23] she was left,--left what those
eight years had made her, to begin again from the beginning all alone. And
nobly she began, manfully she struggled, and wonderfully, considering all
things, did she succeed. No one, however, has more than a certain,
limited, amount of vitality to express in his or her life; the vital force
may take one form or another, but cannot be used twice over. The best of
Mary's power spent itself in active life, in ministering to another being,
during those eight years with Shelley. What she gained from him, and it
was much, was paid back to him a hundredfold. When he was gone, and those
calls for outward activity were over, there lay before her the life of
literary labour and thought for which nature and training had
pre-eminently fitted her. But she could not call back the freshness of her
powers nor the wholeness of her heart. She did not fully know, or realise,
then, the amount of life-capital she had run through. She did realise it
at a later time, and the very interesting entry in her journal, dated
October 21, 1838, is a kind of profession of faith; a summary of her
views of life; the result of her reflections and of her experience--
_Journal, October 21._--I have been so often abused by pretended
friends for my lukewarmness in "the good cause," that I disdain to
answer them. I shall put down here a few thoughts on this subject. I
am much of a self-examiner. Vanity is not my fault, I think; if it is,
it is uncomfortable vanity, for I have none that teaches me to be
satisfied with myself; far otherwise--and, if I use the word disdain,
it is that I think my qualities (such as they are) not appreciated
from unworthy causes. In the first place, with regard to "the good
cause"--the cause of the advancement of freedom and knowledge, of the
rights of women, etc.--I am not a person of opinions. I have said
elsewhere that human beings differ greatly in this. Some have a
passion for reforming the world, others do not cling to particular
opinions. That my parents and Shelley were of the former class makes
me respect it. I respect such when joined to real disinterestedness,
toleration, and a clear understanding. My accusers, after such as
these, appear to me mere drivellers. For myself, I earnestly desire
the good and enlightenment of my fellow-creatures, and see all, in the
present course, tending to the same, and rejoice; but I am not for
violent extremes, which only bring on an injurious reaction. I have
never written a word in disfavour of liberalism: that I have not
supported it openly in writing arises from the following causes, as
far as I know--
That I have not argumentative powers: I see things pretty clearly, but
cannot demonstrate them. Besides, I feel the counter-arguments too
strongly. I do not feel that I could say aught to support the cause
efficiently; besides that, on some topics (especially with regard to
my own sex) I am far from making up my mind. I believe we are sent
here to educate ourselves, and that self-denial, and disappointment,
and self-control are a part of our education; that it is not by
taking away all restraining law that our improvement is to be
achieved; and, though many things need great amendment, I can by no
means go so far as my friends would have me. When I feel that I can
say what will benefit my fellow-creatures, I will speak; not before.
Then, I recoil from the vulgar abuse of the inimical press. I do more
than recoil: proud and sensitive, I act on the defensive--an
inglorious position. To hang back, as I do, brings a penalty. I was
nursed and fed with a love of glory. To be something great and good
was the precept given me by my Father; Shelley reiterated it. Alone
and poor, I could only be something by joining a party; and there was
much in me--the woman's love of looking up, and being guided, and
being willing to do anything if any one supported and brought me
forward--which would have made me a good partisan. But Shelley died
and I was alone. My Father, from age and domestic circumstances, could
not _me faire valoir_. My total friendlessness, my horror of pushing,
and inability to put myself forward unless led, cherished and
supported--all this has sunk me in a state of loneliness no other
human being ever before, I believe, endured--except Robinson Crusoe.
How many tears and spasms of anguish this solitude has cost me, lies
buried in my memory.
If I had raved and ranted about what I did not understand, had I
adopted a set of opinions, and propagated them with enthusiasm; had I
been careless of attack, and eager for notoriety; then the party to
which I belonged had gathered round me, and I had not been alone.
It has been the fashion with these same friends to accuse me of
worldliness. There, indeed, in my own heart and conscience, I take a
high ground. I may distrust my own judgment too much--be too indolent
and too timid; but in conduct I am above merited blame.
I like society; I believe all persons who have any talent (who are in
good health) do. The soil that gives forth nothing may lie ever
fallow; but that which produces--however humble its product--needs
cultivation, change of harvest, refreshing dews, and ripening sun.
Books do much; but the living intercourse is the vital heat. Debarred
from that, how have I pined and died!
My early friends chose the position of enemies. When I first
discovered that a trusted friend had acted falsely by me, I was nearly
destroyed. My health was shaken. I remember thinking, with a burst of
agonising tears, that I should prefer a bed of torture to the
unutterable anguish a friend's falsehood engendered. There is no
resentment; but the world can never be to me what it was before. Trust
and confidence, and the heart's sincere devotion are gone.
I sought at that time to make acquaintances--to divert my mind from
this anguish. I got entangled in various ways through my ready
sympathy and too eager heart; but I never crouched to society--never
sought it unworthily. If I have never written to vindicate the rights
of women, I have ever befriended women when oppressed. At every risk I
have befriended and supported victims to the social system; but I make
no boast, for in truth it is simple justice I perform; and so I am
still reviled for being worldly.
God grant a happier and a better day is near! Percy--my
all-in-all--will, I trust, by his excellent understanding, his clear,
bright, sincere spirit and affectionate heart, repay me for sad long
years of desolation. His career may lead me into the thick of life or
only gild a quiet home. I am content with either, and, as I grow
older, I grow more fearless for myself--I become firmer in my
opinions. The experienced, the suffering, the thoughtful, may at last
speak unrebuked. If it be the will of God that I live, I may ally my
name yet to "the Good Cause," though I do not expect to please my
accusers.
Thus have I put down my thoughts. I may have deceived myself; I may be
in the wrong; I try to examine myself; and such as I have written
appears to me the exact truth.
Enough of this! The great work of life goes on. Death draws near. To
be better after death than in life is one's hope and endeavour--to be
so through self-schooling. If I write the above, it is that those who
love me may hereafter know that I am not all to blame, nor merit the
heavy accusations cast on me for not putting myself forward. I cannot
do that; it is against my nature. As well cast me from a precipice and
rail at me for not flying.
The true success of Mary Shelley's life was not, therefore, the
intellectual triumph of which, during her youth, she had loved to dream,
and which at one time seemed to be actually within her grasp, but the
moral success of beauty of character. To those people--a daily increasing
number in this tired world--who erect the natural grace of animal spirits
to the rank of the highest virtue, this success may appear hardly worth
the name. Yet it was a very real victory. Her nature was not without
faults or tendencies which, if undisciplined, might have developed into
faults, but every year she lived seemed to mellow and ripen her finer
qualities, while blemishes or weaknesses were suppressed or overcome, and
finally disappeared altogether.
As to her theological views, about which the most contradictory opinions
have been expressed, it can but be said that nothing in Mrs. Shelley's
writings gives other people the right to formulate for her any dogmatic
opinions at all. Brought up in a purely rationalistic creed, her education
had of course, no tinge of what is known as "personal religion," and it
must be repeated here that none of her acts and views were founded, or
should be judged as if they were founded on Biblical commands or
prohibitions. That the temper of her mind, so to speak, was eminently
religious there can be no doubt; that she believed in God and a future
state there are many allusions to show.[24] Perhaps no one, having lived
with the so-called atheist, Shelley, could have accepted the idea of the
limitation, or the extinction of intelligence and goodness. Her liberality
of mind, however, was rewarded by abuse from some of her acquaintance,
because her toleration was extended even to the orthodox.
Her moral opinions, had they ever been formulated, which they never were,
would have approximated closely to those of Mary Wollstonecraft, limited,
however, by an inability, like her father's, _not_ to see both sides of a
question, and also by the severest and most elevated standard of moral
purity, of personal faith and loyalty. To be judged by such a standard she
would have regarded as a woman's highest privilege. To claim as a "woman's
right" any licence, any lowering of the standard of duty in these matters,
would have been to her incomprehensible and impossible. But, with all
this, she discriminated. Her standard was not that of the conventional
world.
At every risk, as she says, she befriended those whom she considered
"victims to the social system." It was a difficult course; for, while her
acquaintance of the "advanced" type accused her of cowardice and
worldliness for not asserting herself as a champion of universal liberty,
there were more who were ready to decry her for her friendly relations
with Countess Guiccioli, Lady Mountcashel, and others not named here; to
say nothing of Clare, to whom much of her happiness had been sacrificed.
She refrained from pronouncing judgment, but reserved her liberty of
action, and in all doubtful cases gave others the benefit of the doubt,
and this without respect of persons. She would not excommunicate a humble
individual for what was passed over in a man or woman of genius; nor
condemn a woman for what, in a man, might be excused, or might even add to
his social reputation. Least of all would she secure her own position by
shunning those whose case had once been hers, and who in their after life
had been less fortunate than she. Pure herself, she could be charitable,
and she could be just.
The influence of such a wife on Shelley's more vehement, visionary
temperament can hardly be over-estimated. Their moods did not always suit
or coincide; each, at times, made the other suffer. It could not be
otherwise with two natures so young, so strong, and so individual. But, if
forbearance may have been sometimes called for on the one hand, and on
the other a charity which is kind and thinks no evil, it was only a part
of that discipline from which the married life of geniuses is not exempt,
and which tests the temper and quality of the metal it tries; an ordeal
from which two noble natures come forth the purer and the stronger.
The indirect, unconscious power of elevation of character is great, and
not even a Shelley but must be the better for association with it, not
even he but must be the nobler, "yea, three times less unworthy" through
the love of such a woman as Mary. He would not have been all he was
without her sustaining and refining influence; without the constant sense
that in loving him she loved his ideals also. We owe him, in part, to her.
Love--the love of Love--was Shelley's life and creed. This, in Mary's
creed, was interpreted as love of Shelley. By all the rest she strove to
do her duty, but, when the end came, that survived as the one great fact
of her life--a fact she might have uttered in words like his--
And where is Truth? On tombs; for such to thee
Has been my heart; and thy dead memory
Has lain from (girlhood), many a changeful year,
Unchangingly preserved, and buried there.
_F. D. & Co._
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
POSTSCRIPT
Since this book was printed, a series of letters from Harriet Shelley to
an Irish friend, Mrs. Nugent, containing references to the separation from
Shelley, has been published in the New York _Nation_. These letters,
however, add nothing to what was previously known of Harriet's history and
life with Shelley. After November 1813 the correspondence ceases. It is
resumed in August 1814, after the separation and Shelley's departure from
England. Harriet's account of these events--gathered by her at second-hand
from those who can, themselves, have had no knowledge of the facts they
professed to relate--embodies all the slanderous reports adverted to in
the seventh chapter of the present work, and all the gratuitous falsehoods
circulated by Mrs. Godwin;--falsehoods which Professor Dowden, in the
Appendix to his _Life of Shelley_, has been at the trouble directly to
disprove, statement by statement;--falsehoods of which the Author cannot
but hope that an amply sufficient, if an indirect, refutation may be found
in the present Life of Mary Shelley.
ERRATA
Vol. i. p. 55, footnote, _for_ "Schlabrendorf," _read_ "Schlaberndorf."
Vol. i. p. 84, line 7, _for_ "(including his own mother, in Skinner
Street)," _read_ "(including his own mother) in Skinner Street."
Vol. i. p. 170, line 20, _for_ "Heeding not the misery then spoken,"
_read_ "Heeding not the words then spoken."
Vol. ii. p. 200, line 7, _for_ "Moghiteff," _read_ "Moghileff."
Vol. ii. p. 216, line 12, _for_ "Zela," _read_ "Zella."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Leigh Hunt used often to say that he was the dearest friend Shelley
had; I believe he was the most costly.--_Trelawny's Recollections._
[2] Mrs. Shelley's letter says twelve days, but this is an error, due, no
doubt, to her distress of mind. She gives the date of Trelawny's return to
Leghorn as the 25th of July; it should have been the 18th.
[3] Mrs. Mason.
[4] The Hunts.
[5] See Godwin's letter, page 96.
[6] So it happened, however.
[7] Mrs. Hunt, an amateur sculptress of talent, was also skilful in
cutting out profiles in cardboard. From some of these, notably from one of
Lord Byron, successful likenesses were made.
[8] Lord Byron.
[9] Fanny Wright subsequently married a Frenchman, M. Phiquepal Darusmont.
Under the head of "Darusmont" a sketch of her life, by Mr. R. Garnett,
containing many highly interesting details of her career, is to be found
in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.
[10] Miss Robinson.
[11] "Recollections" in the original; "Records" in the later and, now,
better known edition.
[12] Page 191.
[13] Allegra was buried at Harrow.
[14] Jane's mother.
[15] In _The Last Man_.
[16] The heroine of _Valperga_.
[17] Things have changed at the British Museum, not a little, since these
words were written.
[18] In a letter of Clare's, before this time, referring to the marriage
of one of the Miss Robinsons, she remarks, "I am quite glad to think that
for the future you may only have Percy and yourself to maintain."
[19] The Miss Robinsons.
[20] _Lodore._
[21] Such as the following, taken from the Preface: We have lately been
accustomed to look on Italy as a discontented province of Austria,
forgetful that her supremacy dates only from the downfall of Napoleon.
From the invasion of Charles VIII till 1815 Italy has been a battlefield,
where the Spaniard, the French, and the German have fought for mastery;
and we are blind indeed if we do not see that such will occur again, at
least among the two last. Supposing a war to arise between them, one of
the first acts of aggression on the part of France would be to try to
drive the Germans from Italy. Even if peace continue, it is felt that the
papal power is tottering to its fall,--it is only supported because the
French will not allow Austria to extend her dominions, and the Austrian is
eager to prevent any change that may afford pretence for the French to
interfere. Did the present Pope act with any degree of prudence, his
power, thus propped, might last some time longer; but as it is, who can
say how soon, for the sake of peace in the rest of Italy, it may not be
necessary to curtail his territories.
The French feel this, and begin to dream of dominion across the Alps; the
occupation of Ancona was a feeler put out; it gained no positive object
except to check Austria; for the rest its best effect was to reiterate the
lesson they have often taught, that no faith should be given to their
promises of liberation.
[22] She had published her last novel, _Falkner_, in 1837.
[23] Carlyle's epitaph on his wife.
[24] "My belief is," she says in the preface to her edition of Shelley's
prose works, "that spiritual improvement in this life prepares the way to
a higher existence."
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'To literary men the two volumes will have much interest; they contain the
raw material of history, and many of the gems which make it
sparkle.'--_Sword and Trowel._
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.