“The death of Shelley and the failure of theLiberalirritated Byron,” writes Trelawny; “the cuckoo-note, ‘I told you so,’ sung by his friends, and the loud crowing of enemies, by no means allayed his ill humour. In this frame of mind he was continually planning how to extricate himself. His plea for hoarding was that he might have a good round tangible sum of current coin to aid him in any emergency....“He exhausted himself in planning, projecting, beginning, wishing, intending, postponing, regretting, and doing nothing: the unready are fertile in excuses, and his were inexhaustible.”
“The death of Shelley and the failure of theLiberalirritated Byron,” writes Trelawny; “the cuckoo-note, ‘I told you so,’ sung by his friends, and the loud crowing of enemies, by no means allayed his ill humour. In this frame of mind he was continually planning how to extricate himself. His plea for hoarding was that he might have a good round tangible sum of current coin to aid him in any emergency....
“He exhausted himself in planning, projecting, beginning, wishing, intending, postponing, regretting, and doing nothing: the unready are fertile in excuses, and his were inexhaustible.”
Since that time he had been flattered and persuaded into joining the Greek Committee, formed in London to aid the Greeks in their war of independence. Byron’s name and great popularity would be a tower of strength to them. Their proposals came to him at a right moment, when he was dissatisfied with himself and his position. He hesitated for months before committing himself, and finally summoned Trelawny, in peremptory terms, to come to him and go with him.
15th June 1823.My Dear T.—You must have heard that I am going to Greece. Why do you not come to me? I want your aid and am extremely anxious to see you.... They all say I can be of use in Greece. I do not know how, nor do they; but, at all events, let us go.—Yours, etc., truly,N. Byron.
15th June 1823.
My Dear T.—You must have heard that I am going to Greece. Why do you not come to me? I want your aid and am extremely anxious to see you.... They all say I can be of use in Greece. I do not know how, nor do they; but, at all events, let us go.—Yours, etc., truly,
N. Byron.
And, always ready for adventure, the “Pirate” came. Before his arrival Mary’s journey had been decided on. Mrs. Hunt’s confinement was over: she and the infant had both done well, and she was now in a fair way to live, in tolerable health, for many years longer. Want of funds was now the chief obstacle in Mary’s way, but Byron was no longer ready, as he had been, with offers of help. Changeable as the wind, and utterly unable to put himself in another person’s place, he, without absolutely declining to fulfil his promises, made so many words about it, and treated the matter as so great a favour on his own part, that Mary at last declined his assistance, although it obliged her to take advantage of Trelawny’s often-repeated offers of help, which she would not rather have accepted, as he was poor, while Byron was rich. The whole story unfolds itself in the three ensuing letters.
Mary Shelley to Jane Williams.Albaro, near Genoa,July 1823.I write to you in preference to my Father, because you, to a great degree, understand the person I have to deal with, andin communicating what I say concerning him, you can,viva voce, add such comments as will render my relation more intelligible.The day after Marianne’s confinement, the 9th June, seeing all went on so prosperously, I told Lord Byron that I was ready to go, and he promised to provide means. When I talked of going post, it was because he said that I should go so, at the same time declaring that he would regulate all himself. I waited in vain for these arrangements. But, not to make a long story, since I hope soon to be able to relate the details—he chose to transact our negotiation through Hunt, and gave such an air of unwillingness and sense of the obligation he conferred, as at last provoked Hunt to say that there was no obligation, since he owed me £1000.Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door!Still keeping up an appearance of amity with Hunt, he has written notes and letters so full of contempt against me and my lost Shelley that I could stand it no longer, and have refused to receive his still proffered aid for my journey. This, of course, delays me. I can muster about £30 of my own. I do not know whether this is barely sufficient, but as the delicate constitution of my child may oblige me to rest several times on the journey, I cannot persuade myself to commence my journey with what is barely necessary. I have written, therefore, to Trelawny for the sum requisite, and must wait till I hear from him. I see you, my poor girl, sigh over these mischances, but never mind, I do not feel them. My life is a shifting scene, and my business is to play the part allotted for each day well, and, not liking to think of to-morrow, I never think of it at all, except in an intellectual way; and as to money difficulties, why, having nothing, I can lose nothing. Thus, as far as regards what are called worldly concerns, I am perfectly tranquil, and as free or freer from care as if my signature should be able to draw £1000 from some banker. The extravagance and anger of Lord Byron’s letters also relieve me from all pain that his dereliction might occasionme, and that his conscience twinges him is too visible from his impatient kicks and unmannerly curvets. You would laugh at his last letter to Hunt, when he says concerning his connection with Shelley “that he let himself down to the level of the democrats.”In the meantime Hunt is all kindness, consideration, and friendship—all feeling of alienation towards me has disappeared even to its last dregs. He perfectly approves of what I have done. So I am still in Italy, and I doubt not but that its sun and vivifying geniality relieve me from those biting cares which would be mine in England, I fear, if I were destitute there. But I feel above the mark of Fortune, and my heart too much wounded to feel these pricks, on all occasions that do not regard its affections,s’arma di se, e d’intero diamante. Thus am I changed; too late, alas! for what ought to have been, but not too late, I trust, to enable me, more than before, to be some stay and consolation to my own dear Jane.Mary.Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Saturday.Dear Mary—Will you tell me what sum you want, as I am settling my affairs? You must from time to time let me know your wants, that I may do my best to relieve them. You are sure of me, so let us use no more words about it. I have been racking my memory to remember some person in England that would be of service to you for my sake, but my rich friends and relations are without hearts, and it is useless to introduce you to the unfortunate; it would but augment your repinings at the injustice of Fortune. My knight-errant heart has led me many a weary journey foolishly seeking the unfortunate, the miserable, and the outcast; and when found, I have only made myself as one of them without redressing their grievances, so I pray you avoid, as you value your peace of mind, the wretched. I shall see you, I hope, to-day.—Yours very faithfully,E. Trelawny.Mary Shelley to Jane Williams.Albaro,23d July 1823.Dearest Jane—I have at length fixed with thevetturino. I depart on the 25th, my best girl. I leave Italy; I return to the dreariest reality after having dreamt away a year in this blessed and beloved country.Lord Byron, Trelawny, and Pierino Gamba sailed for Greece on the 17th inst. I did not see the former. His unconquerable avarice prevented his supplying me with money, and a remnant of shame caused him to avoid me. But I have a world of things to tell you on that score when I see you. If he were mean, Trelawny more than balanced the moral account. His whole conduct during his last stay here has impressed us all with an affectionate regard, and a perfect faith in the unalterable goodness of his heart. They sailed together; Lord Byron with £10,000, Trelawny with £50, and Lord Byron cowering before his eye for reasons you shall hear soon. The Guiccioli is gone to Bologna—e poi cosa farà? Chi lo sa? Cosa vuoi che lo dico?...I travel without a servant. I rest first at Lyons; but do you write to me at Paris, Hotel Nelson. It will be a friend to await me. Alas! I have need of consolation. Hunt’s kindness is now as active and warm as it was dormant before; but just as I find a companion in him I leave him. I leave him in all his difficulties, with his head throbbing with overwrought thoughts, and his frame sometimes sinking under his anxieties. Poor Marianne has found good medicine,facendo un bimbo, and then nursing it, but she, with her female providence, is more bent by care than Hunt. How much I wished, and wish, to settle near them at Florence; but I must submit with courage, and patience may at last come and give opiate to my irritable feelings.Both Hunt and Trelawny say that Percy is much improved since Maria left me. He is affectionately attached to Sylvan, and very fond ofBimbo nuovo. He kisses him by the hour,and tells me,Come il Signore Enrico ha comprato un Baby nuovo—forse ti darà il Baby vecchio, as he gives away an old toy on the appearance of a new one.I will not write longer. In conversation, nay, almost in thought, I can, at this most painful moment, force my excited feelings to laugh at themselves, and my spirits, raised by emotion, to seem as if they were light, but the natural current and real hue overflows me and penetrates me when I write, and it would be painful to you, and overthrow all my hopes of retaining my fortitude, if I were to write one word that truly translated the agitation I suffer into language.I will write again from Lyons, where I suppose I shall be on the 3d of August. Dear Jane, can I render you happier than you are? The idea of that might console me, at least you will see one that truly loves you, and who is for ever your affectionately attachedMary Shelley.If there is any talk of my accommodations, pray tell Mrs. Gisborne that I cannot sleep on any but ahardbed. I care not how hard, so that it be a mattress.
Mary Shelley to Jane Williams.
Albaro, near Genoa,July 1823.
I write to you in preference to my Father, because you, to a great degree, understand the person I have to deal with, andin communicating what I say concerning him, you can,viva voce, add such comments as will render my relation more intelligible.
The day after Marianne’s confinement, the 9th June, seeing all went on so prosperously, I told Lord Byron that I was ready to go, and he promised to provide means. When I talked of going post, it was because he said that I should go so, at the same time declaring that he would regulate all himself. I waited in vain for these arrangements. But, not to make a long story, since I hope soon to be able to relate the details—he chose to transact our negotiation through Hunt, and gave such an air of unwillingness and sense of the obligation he conferred, as at last provoked Hunt to say that there was no obligation, since he owed me £1000.
Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door!
Still keeping up an appearance of amity with Hunt, he has written notes and letters so full of contempt against me and my lost Shelley that I could stand it no longer, and have refused to receive his still proffered aid for my journey. This, of course, delays me. I can muster about £30 of my own. I do not know whether this is barely sufficient, but as the delicate constitution of my child may oblige me to rest several times on the journey, I cannot persuade myself to commence my journey with what is barely necessary. I have written, therefore, to Trelawny for the sum requisite, and must wait till I hear from him. I see you, my poor girl, sigh over these mischances, but never mind, I do not feel them. My life is a shifting scene, and my business is to play the part allotted for each day well, and, not liking to think of to-morrow, I never think of it at all, except in an intellectual way; and as to money difficulties, why, having nothing, I can lose nothing. Thus, as far as regards what are called worldly concerns, I am perfectly tranquil, and as free or freer from care as if my signature should be able to draw £1000 from some banker. The extravagance and anger of Lord Byron’s letters also relieve me from all pain that his dereliction might occasionme, and that his conscience twinges him is too visible from his impatient kicks and unmannerly curvets. You would laugh at his last letter to Hunt, when he says concerning his connection with Shelley “that he let himself down to the level of the democrats.”
In the meantime Hunt is all kindness, consideration, and friendship—all feeling of alienation towards me has disappeared even to its last dregs. He perfectly approves of what I have done. So I am still in Italy, and I doubt not but that its sun and vivifying geniality relieve me from those biting cares which would be mine in England, I fear, if I were destitute there. But I feel above the mark of Fortune, and my heart too much wounded to feel these pricks, on all occasions that do not regard its affections,s’arma di se, e d’intero diamante. Thus am I changed; too late, alas! for what ought to have been, but not too late, I trust, to enable me, more than before, to be some stay and consolation to my own dear Jane.
Mary.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Saturday.
Dear Mary—Will you tell me what sum you want, as I am settling my affairs? You must from time to time let me know your wants, that I may do my best to relieve them. You are sure of me, so let us use no more words about it. I have been racking my memory to remember some person in England that would be of service to you for my sake, but my rich friends and relations are without hearts, and it is useless to introduce you to the unfortunate; it would but augment your repinings at the injustice of Fortune. My knight-errant heart has led me many a weary journey foolishly seeking the unfortunate, the miserable, and the outcast; and when found, I have only made myself as one of them without redressing their grievances, so I pray you avoid, as you value your peace of mind, the wretched. I shall see you, I hope, to-day.—Yours very faithfully,
E. Trelawny.
Mary Shelley to Jane Williams.
Albaro,23d July 1823.
Dearest Jane—I have at length fixed with thevetturino. I depart on the 25th, my best girl. I leave Italy; I return to the dreariest reality after having dreamt away a year in this blessed and beloved country.
Lord Byron, Trelawny, and Pierino Gamba sailed for Greece on the 17th inst. I did not see the former. His unconquerable avarice prevented his supplying me with money, and a remnant of shame caused him to avoid me. But I have a world of things to tell you on that score when I see you. If he were mean, Trelawny more than balanced the moral account. His whole conduct during his last stay here has impressed us all with an affectionate regard, and a perfect faith in the unalterable goodness of his heart. They sailed together; Lord Byron with £10,000, Trelawny with £50, and Lord Byron cowering before his eye for reasons you shall hear soon. The Guiccioli is gone to Bologna—e poi cosa farà? Chi lo sa? Cosa vuoi che lo dico?...
I travel without a servant. I rest first at Lyons; but do you write to me at Paris, Hotel Nelson. It will be a friend to await me. Alas! I have need of consolation. Hunt’s kindness is now as active and warm as it was dormant before; but just as I find a companion in him I leave him. I leave him in all his difficulties, with his head throbbing with overwrought thoughts, and his frame sometimes sinking under his anxieties. Poor Marianne has found good medicine,facendo un bimbo, and then nursing it, but she, with her female providence, is more bent by care than Hunt. How much I wished, and wish, to settle near them at Florence; but I must submit with courage, and patience may at last come and give opiate to my irritable feelings.
Both Hunt and Trelawny say that Percy is much improved since Maria left me. He is affectionately attached to Sylvan, and very fond ofBimbo nuovo. He kisses him by the hour,and tells me,Come il Signore Enrico ha comprato un Baby nuovo—forse ti darà il Baby vecchio, as he gives away an old toy on the appearance of a new one.
I will not write longer. In conversation, nay, almost in thought, I can, at this most painful moment, force my excited feelings to laugh at themselves, and my spirits, raised by emotion, to seem as if they were light, but the natural current and real hue overflows me and penetrates me when I write, and it would be painful to you, and overthrow all my hopes of retaining my fortitude, if I were to write one word that truly translated the agitation I suffer into language.
I will write again from Lyons, where I suppose I shall be on the 3d of August. Dear Jane, can I render you happier than you are? The idea of that might console me, at least you will see one that truly loves you, and who is for ever your affectionately attached
Mary Shelley.
If there is any talk of my accommodations, pray tell Mrs. Gisborne that I cannot sleep on any but ahardbed. I care not how hard, so that it be a mattress.
And now Mary’s life in Italy was at an end. Her resolution of returning to England had been welcomed by her father in the letter which follows, and it was to his house, and not to Mrs. Gisborne’s that she finally decided to go on first arriving.
Godwin to Mary.No. 195 Strand,6th May 1823.It certainly is, my dear Mary, with great pleasure that I anticipate that we shall once again meet. It is a long, long time now since you have spent one night under my roof. You are grown a woman, have been a wife, a mother, a widow. You have realised talents which I but faintly and doubtfully anticipated. I am grown an old man, and want a child of myown to smile on and console me. I shall then feel less alone than I do at present.What William will be, I know not; he has sufficient understanding and quickness for the ordinary concerns of life, and something more; and, at any rate, he is no smiler, no consoler.When you first set your foot in London, of course I and Mamma expect that it will be in this house. But the house is smaller, one floor less, than the house in Skinner Street. It will do well enough for you to make shift with for a few days, but it would not do for a permanent residence. But I hope we shall at least have you near us, within a call. How different from your being on the shores of the Mediterranean!Your novel has sold five hundred copies—half the impression.Peacock sent your box by theBerbice, Captain Wayth. I saw him a fortnight ago, and he said that he had not yet received the bill of lading himself, but he should be sure to have it in time, and would send it. I ought to have written to you sooner. Your letter reached me on the 18th ult., but I have been unusually surrounded with perplexities.—Your affectionate Father,William Godwin.
Godwin to Mary.
No. 195 Strand,6th May 1823.
It certainly is, my dear Mary, with great pleasure that I anticipate that we shall once again meet. It is a long, long time now since you have spent one night under my roof. You are grown a woman, have been a wife, a mother, a widow. You have realised talents which I but faintly and doubtfully anticipated. I am grown an old man, and want a child of myown to smile on and console me. I shall then feel less alone than I do at present.
What William will be, I know not; he has sufficient understanding and quickness for the ordinary concerns of life, and something more; and, at any rate, he is no smiler, no consoler.
When you first set your foot in London, of course I and Mamma expect that it will be in this house. But the house is smaller, one floor less, than the house in Skinner Street. It will do well enough for you to make shift with for a few days, but it would not do for a permanent residence. But I hope we shall at least have you near us, within a call. How different from your being on the shores of the Mediterranean!
Your novel has sold five hundred copies—half the impression.
Peacock sent your box by theBerbice, Captain Wayth. I saw him a fortnight ago, and he said that he had not yet received the bill of lading himself, but he should be sure to have it in time, and would send it. I ought to have written to you sooner. Your letter reached me on the 18th ult., but I have been unusually surrounded with perplexities.—Your affectionate Father,
William Godwin.
On the 25th of July she left Genoa, Hunt accompanying her for the first twenty miles. If one thought more than any other sustained her in her unprotected loneliness, it was that of being reunited in England to her sister in misfortune, Jane Williams, to whom her heart turned with a singular tenderness, and to whom on her journey she addressed one more letter, full of grateful affection and of a touching humility, new in her character.
Mary Shelley to Jane Williams.St. Jean de la Maurienne,30th July 1823.My best Jane—I wrote to you from Genoa the day before I quitted it, but I afterwards lost the letter. I asked the Hunts to look for it, and send it if found, but ten to one you will never receive it. It contained nothing, however, but what I can tell you in five minutes if I see you. It told you of the departure of Lord Byron and Trelawny for Greece, the former escaping with all his crowns, and the other disbursing until he had hardly £10 left. It went to my heart to borrow the sum from him necessary to make up my journey, but he behaved with so much quiet generosity that one was almost glad to put him to that proof, and witness the excellence of his heart. In this and in another trial he acquitted himself so well that he gained all our hearts, while the other—but more when we meet.I left Genoa Thursday, 25th. Hunt and Thornton accompanied me the first twenty miles. This was much, you will say, for Hunt. But, thank heaven, we are now the best friends in the world. He set his heart on my quitting Italy with as comfortable feelings as possible, and he did so much that notwithstanding all the [bitterness] that such an event, joined to parting with a dear friend, occasioned me, yet I have borne up with better spirits than I could in any way have hoped. It is a delightful thing, my dear Jane, to be able to express one’s affection upon an old and tried friend like Hunt, and one so passionately attached to my Shelley as he was, and is. It is pleasant also to feel myself loved by one who loves me. You know somewhat of what I suffered during the winter, during his alienation from me. He was displeased with me for many just reasons, but he found me willing to expiate, as far as I could, the evil I had done, so his heart was again warmed; and if, my dear friend, when I return, you find me more amiable and more willing to sufferwith patience than I was, it is to him that I owe this benefit, and you may judge if I ought not to be grateful to him. I am even so to Lord Byron, who was the cause that I stayed at Genoa, and thus secured one who, I am sure, can never change.The illness of one of our horses detains me here an afternoon, so I write, and shall put the letter in the post at Chambéry. I have come without a servant or companion; but Percy is perfectly good, and no trouble to me at all. We are both well; a little tired or so. Will you tell my Father that you have heard from me, and that I am so far on my journey. I expect to be at Lyons in three days, and will write to him from that place. If there be any talk of my accommodations, pray put in a word for ahardbed, for else I am sure I cannot sleep.So I have left Italy, and alone with my child I am travelling to England. What a dream I have had! and is it over? Oh no! for I do nothing but dream; realities seem to have lost all power over me,—I mean, as it were, mere tangible realities,—for, where the affections are concerned, calamity has only awakened greater sensitiveness.I fear things do not go on well with you, my dearest girl! you are not in your mother’s house, and you cannot have settled your affairs in India,—mine too! Why, I arrive poor to nothingness, and my hopes are small, except from my own exertions; and living in England is dear. My thoughts will all bend towards Italy; but even if Sir Timothy Shelley should do anything, he will not, I am sure, permit me to go abroad. At any rate we shall be together a while. We will talk of our lost ones, and think of realising my dreams; who knows? Adieu, I shall soon see you, and you will find how truly I am your affectionateMary Shelley.
Mary Shelley to Jane Williams.
St. Jean de la Maurienne,30th July 1823.
My best Jane—I wrote to you from Genoa the day before I quitted it, but I afterwards lost the letter. I asked the Hunts to look for it, and send it if found, but ten to one you will never receive it. It contained nothing, however, but what I can tell you in five minutes if I see you. It told you of the departure of Lord Byron and Trelawny for Greece, the former escaping with all his crowns, and the other disbursing until he had hardly £10 left. It went to my heart to borrow the sum from him necessary to make up my journey, but he behaved with so much quiet generosity that one was almost glad to put him to that proof, and witness the excellence of his heart. In this and in another trial he acquitted himself so well that he gained all our hearts, while the other—but more when we meet.
I left Genoa Thursday, 25th. Hunt and Thornton accompanied me the first twenty miles. This was much, you will say, for Hunt. But, thank heaven, we are now the best friends in the world. He set his heart on my quitting Italy with as comfortable feelings as possible, and he did so much that notwithstanding all the [bitterness] that such an event, joined to parting with a dear friend, occasioned me, yet I have borne up with better spirits than I could in any way have hoped. It is a delightful thing, my dear Jane, to be able to express one’s affection upon an old and tried friend like Hunt, and one so passionately attached to my Shelley as he was, and is. It is pleasant also to feel myself loved by one who loves me. You know somewhat of what I suffered during the winter, during his alienation from me. He was displeased with me for many just reasons, but he found me willing to expiate, as far as I could, the evil I had done, so his heart was again warmed; and if, my dear friend, when I return, you find me more amiable and more willing to sufferwith patience than I was, it is to him that I owe this benefit, and you may judge if I ought not to be grateful to him. I am even so to Lord Byron, who was the cause that I stayed at Genoa, and thus secured one who, I am sure, can never change.
The illness of one of our horses detains me here an afternoon, so I write, and shall put the letter in the post at Chambéry. I have come without a servant or companion; but Percy is perfectly good, and no trouble to me at all. We are both well; a little tired or so. Will you tell my Father that you have heard from me, and that I am so far on my journey. I expect to be at Lyons in three days, and will write to him from that place. If there be any talk of my accommodations, pray put in a word for ahardbed, for else I am sure I cannot sleep.
So I have left Italy, and alone with my child I am travelling to England. What a dream I have had! and is it over? Oh no! for I do nothing but dream; realities seem to have lost all power over me,—I mean, as it were, mere tangible realities,—for, where the affections are concerned, calamity has only awakened greater sensitiveness.
I fear things do not go on well with you, my dearest girl! you are not in your mother’s house, and you cannot have settled your affairs in India,—mine too! Why, I arrive poor to nothingness, and my hopes are small, except from my own exertions; and living in England is dear. My thoughts will all bend towards Italy; but even if Sir Timothy Shelley should do anything, he will not, I am sure, permit me to go abroad. At any rate we shall be together a while. We will talk of our lost ones, and think of realising my dreams; who knows? Adieu, I shall soon see you, and you will find how truly I am your affectionate
Mary Shelley.
With the following fragment, the last of her Italian journal, this chapter may fitly close.
Journal, May 31.—The lanes are filled with fire-flies; they dart between the trunks of the trees, and people the land with earth-stars. I walked among them to-night, and descended towards the sea. I passed by the ruined church, and stood on the platform that overlooks the beach. The black rocks were stretched out among the blue waters, which dashed with no impetuous motion against them. The dark boats, with their white sails, glided gently over its surface, and the star-enlightened promontories closed in the bay: below, amid the crags, I heard the monotonous but harmonious voices of the fishermen.How beautiful these shores, and this sea! Such is the scene—such the waves within which my beloved vanished from mortality.The time is drawing near when I must quit this country. It is true that, in the situation I now am, Italy is but the corpse of the enchantress that she was. Besides, if I had stayed here, the state of things would have been different. The idea of our child’s advantage alone enables me to keep fixed in my resolution to return to England. It is best for him—and I go.Four years ago we lost our darling William; four years ago, in excessive agony, I called for death to free me from all I felt that I should suffer here. I continue to live, andthouart gone. I leave Italy and the few that still remain to me. That I regret less; for our intercourse is so much chequered with all of dross that this earth so delights to blend with kindness and sympathy, that I long for solitude, with the exercise of such affections as still remain to me. Away, I shall be conscious that these friends love me, and none can then gainsay the pure attachment which chiefly clings to them because they knew and loved you—because I knew them when with you, and I cannot think of them without feeling your spirit beside me.I cannot grieve for you, beloved Shelley; I grieve for thy friends—for the world—for thy child—most for myself, enthroned in thy love, growing wiser and better beneath thy gentle influence, taught by you the highest philosophy—yourpupil, friend, lover, wife, mother of your children! The glory of the dream is gone. I am a cloud from which the light of sunset has passed. Give me patience in the present struggle.Meum cordium cor!Good-night!I would give all that I am to be as now thou art,But I am chained to time, and cannot thence depart.
Journal, May 31.—The lanes are filled with fire-flies; they dart between the trunks of the trees, and people the land with earth-stars. I walked among them to-night, and descended towards the sea. I passed by the ruined church, and stood on the platform that overlooks the beach. The black rocks were stretched out among the blue waters, which dashed with no impetuous motion against them. The dark boats, with their white sails, glided gently over its surface, and the star-enlightened promontories closed in the bay: below, amid the crags, I heard the monotonous but harmonious voices of the fishermen.
How beautiful these shores, and this sea! Such is the scene—such the waves within which my beloved vanished from mortality.
The time is drawing near when I must quit this country. It is true that, in the situation I now am, Italy is but the corpse of the enchantress that she was. Besides, if I had stayed here, the state of things would have been different. The idea of our child’s advantage alone enables me to keep fixed in my resolution to return to England. It is best for him—and I go.
Four years ago we lost our darling William; four years ago, in excessive agony, I called for death to free me from all I felt that I should suffer here. I continue to live, andthouart gone. I leave Italy and the few that still remain to me. That I regret less; for our intercourse is so much chequered with all of dross that this earth so delights to blend with kindness and sympathy, that I long for solitude, with the exercise of such affections as still remain to me. Away, I shall be conscious that these friends love me, and none can then gainsay the pure attachment which chiefly clings to them because they knew and loved you—because I knew them when with you, and I cannot think of them without feeling your spirit beside me.
I cannot grieve for you, beloved Shelley; I grieve for thy friends—for the world—for thy child—most for myself, enthroned in thy love, growing wiser and better beneath thy gentle influence, taught by you the highest philosophy—yourpupil, friend, lover, wife, mother of your children! The glory of the dream is gone. I am a cloud from which the light of sunset has passed. Give me patience in the present struggle.Meum cordium cor!Good-night!
I would give all that I am to be as now thou art,But I am chained to time, and cannot thence depart.
July 1823-December 1824
Mary’s journey extended over a month, one week of which was passed in Paris and Versailles, for the sake of seeing the Horace Smiths and other old acquaintances now living there. Her letters to the Hunts, describing the incidents and impressions of her journey, were as lively and cheerful as she could make them. A few extracts follow here.
To Leigh Hunt.Asti,26th July.········Percy is very good and does not in the leastannoyme. In the state of mind I am now in, the motion and change is delightful to me: my thoughts run with the coach and wind, and double, and jerk, and are up and down, and forward, and most often backward, till the labyrinth of Crete is a joke in comparison to my intricate wanderings. They now lead me to you, Hunt. You rose early, wrote, walked, dined, whistled, sang and punned most outrageously, the worst puns in the world. My best Polly, you, full of your chicks and of your new darling, yet sometimes called “Henry” to see a beautiful new effect of light on the mountains.... Dear girl, I have a great affection for you, believe that, and don’t talk or thinksorrowfully, unless you have the toothache, and then don’t think, but talk infinite nonsense mixed with infinite sense, and Hunt will listen, as I used. Thorny, you have not been cross yet. Oh, my dear Johnny (don’t be angry, Polly, with this nonsense), do not let your impatient nature ever overcome you, or you may suffer as I have done—which God forbid! Be true to yourself, and talk much to your Father, who will teach you as he has taught me. It is the idea of his lessons of wisdom that makes me feel the affection I do for him. I profit by them, so do you: may you never feel the remorse of having neglected them when his voice and look are gone, and he can no longer talk to you; that remorse is a terrible feeling, and it requires a faith and a philosophy immense not to be destroyed by the stinging monster.28th July.... I was too late for the post yesterday at Turin, and too early this morning, so as I determined to put this letter in the post myself, I bring it with me to Susa, and now open it to tell you how delighted I am with my morning’s ride—the scenery is so divine. The high, dark Alps, just on this southern side tipt with snow, close in a plain; the meadows are full of clover and flowers, and the woods of ash, elm, and beech descend and spread, and lose themselves in the fields; stately trees, in clumps or singly, arise on each side, and wherever you look you see some spot where you dream of building a home and living for ever. The exquisite beauty of nature, and the cloudless sky of this summer day soothe me, and make this 28th so full of recollections that it is almost pleasurable. Wherever the spirit of beauty dwells,hemust be; the rustling of the trees is full of him; the waving of the tall grass, the moving shadows of the vast hills, the blue air that penetrates their ravines and rests upon their heights. I feel him near me when I see that which he best loved. Alas! nine years ago he took to a home in his heart this weak being, whom he has now left for more congenial spirits and happier regions. She lives only in the hope that she may become one day as one of them.Absolutely, my dear Hunt, I will pass some three summer months in this divine spot, you shall all be with me. There are no gentlemen’s seats at Palazzi, so we will take a cottage, which we will paint and refit, just as this country here is, in which I now write, clean and plain. We will have no servants, only we will give out all the needlework. Marianne shall make puddings and pies, to make up for the vegetables and meat which I shall boil and spoil. Thorny shall sweep the rooms, Mary make the beds, Johnny clean the kettles and pans, and then we will pop him into the many streams hereabouts, and so clean him. Swinny, being so quick, shall be our Mercury, Percy our gardener, Sylvan and Percy Florence our weeders, and Vincent our plaything; and then, to raise us above the vulgar, we will do all our work, keeping time to Hunt’s symphonies; we will perform our sweepings and dustings to the March inAlceste, we will prepare our meats to the tune of theLaughing Trio, and when we are tired we will lie on our turf sofas, while all our voices shall join in chorus inNotte e giorno faticar. You see my paper is quite out, so I must say, for the last time, Adieu! God bless you.Mary W. S.Tuesday, 5th August.I have your letter, and your excuses, and all. I thank you most sincerely for it: at the same time I do entreat you to take care of yourself with regard to writing; although your letters are worth infinite pleasure to me, yet that pleasure cannot be worth pain to you; and remember, if you must write, the good, hackneyed maxim ofmultum in parvo, and, when your temples throb, distil the essence of three pages into three lines, and my “fictitious adventure”[5]will enable me to open them out and fill up intervals. Not but what three pages are best, but “you can understand me.” And now let me tell you that I fear you do not rise early, since you doubt myore mattutine. Be it known to you, then, that on the journey I always risebefore3 o’clock, that Ineveronce made thevetturinowait, and, moreover, that there was no discontentin our jogging on on either side, so that I half expect to be aSantawith him. He indeed got a little out of his element when he got into France,—his good humour did not leave him, but his self-possession. He could not speak French, and he walked about as if treading on eggs.When at Paris I will tell you more what I think of the French. They still seem miracles of quietness in comparison with Marianne’s noisy friends. And the women’s dresses afford the drollest contrast with those in fashion when I first set foot in Paris in 1814. Then their waists were between their shoulders, and, as Hogg observed, they were rather curtains than gowns; their hair, too, dragged to the top of the head, and then lifted to its height, appeared as if each female wished to be a Tower of Babel in herself. Now their waists are long (not so long, however, as the Genoese), and their hair flat at the top, with quantities of curls on the temples. I remember, in 1814, a Frenchman’s pathetic horror at Clare’s and my appearance in the streets of Paris in “Oldenburgh” (as they were called) hats; now they all wear machines of that shape, and a high bonnet would of course be as far out of the right road as if the earth were to take a flying leap to another system.After you receive this letter, you must direct to me at my Father’s (pray put William Godwin, Esq., since the want of that etiquette annoys him. I remember Shelley’s unspeakable astonishment when the author ofPolitical Justiceasked him, half reproachfully, why he addressed himMr.Godwin), 195 Strand.
To Leigh Hunt.
Asti,26th July.
········
Percy is very good and does not in the leastannoyme. In the state of mind I am now in, the motion and change is delightful to me: my thoughts run with the coach and wind, and double, and jerk, and are up and down, and forward, and most often backward, till the labyrinth of Crete is a joke in comparison to my intricate wanderings. They now lead me to you, Hunt. You rose early, wrote, walked, dined, whistled, sang and punned most outrageously, the worst puns in the world. My best Polly, you, full of your chicks and of your new darling, yet sometimes called “Henry” to see a beautiful new effect of light on the mountains.... Dear girl, I have a great affection for you, believe that, and don’t talk or thinksorrowfully, unless you have the toothache, and then don’t think, but talk infinite nonsense mixed with infinite sense, and Hunt will listen, as I used. Thorny, you have not been cross yet. Oh, my dear Johnny (don’t be angry, Polly, with this nonsense), do not let your impatient nature ever overcome you, or you may suffer as I have done—which God forbid! Be true to yourself, and talk much to your Father, who will teach you as he has taught me. It is the idea of his lessons of wisdom that makes me feel the affection I do for him. I profit by them, so do you: may you never feel the remorse of having neglected them when his voice and look are gone, and he can no longer talk to you; that remorse is a terrible feeling, and it requires a faith and a philosophy immense not to be destroyed by the stinging monster.
28th July.
... I was too late for the post yesterday at Turin, and too early this morning, so as I determined to put this letter in the post myself, I bring it with me to Susa, and now open it to tell you how delighted I am with my morning’s ride—the scenery is so divine. The high, dark Alps, just on this southern side tipt with snow, close in a plain; the meadows are full of clover and flowers, and the woods of ash, elm, and beech descend and spread, and lose themselves in the fields; stately trees, in clumps or singly, arise on each side, and wherever you look you see some spot where you dream of building a home and living for ever. The exquisite beauty of nature, and the cloudless sky of this summer day soothe me, and make this 28th so full of recollections that it is almost pleasurable. Wherever the spirit of beauty dwells,hemust be; the rustling of the trees is full of him; the waving of the tall grass, the moving shadows of the vast hills, the blue air that penetrates their ravines and rests upon their heights. I feel him near me when I see that which he best loved. Alas! nine years ago he took to a home in his heart this weak being, whom he has now left for more congenial spirits and happier regions. She lives only in the hope that she may become one day as one of them.
Absolutely, my dear Hunt, I will pass some three summer months in this divine spot, you shall all be with me. There are no gentlemen’s seats at Palazzi, so we will take a cottage, which we will paint and refit, just as this country here is, in which I now write, clean and plain. We will have no servants, only we will give out all the needlework. Marianne shall make puddings and pies, to make up for the vegetables and meat which I shall boil and spoil. Thorny shall sweep the rooms, Mary make the beds, Johnny clean the kettles and pans, and then we will pop him into the many streams hereabouts, and so clean him. Swinny, being so quick, shall be our Mercury, Percy our gardener, Sylvan and Percy Florence our weeders, and Vincent our plaything; and then, to raise us above the vulgar, we will do all our work, keeping time to Hunt’s symphonies; we will perform our sweepings and dustings to the March inAlceste, we will prepare our meats to the tune of theLaughing Trio, and when we are tired we will lie on our turf sofas, while all our voices shall join in chorus inNotte e giorno faticar. You see my paper is quite out, so I must say, for the last time, Adieu! God bless you.
Mary W. S.
Tuesday, 5th August.
I have your letter, and your excuses, and all. I thank you most sincerely for it: at the same time I do entreat you to take care of yourself with regard to writing; although your letters are worth infinite pleasure to me, yet that pleasure cannot be worth pain to you; and remember, if you must write, the good, hackneyed maxim ofmultum in parvo, and, when your temples throb, distil the essence of three pages into three lines, and my “fictitious adventure”[5]will enable me to open them out and fill up intervals. Not but what three pages are best, but “you can understand me.” And now let me tell you that I fear you do not rise early, since you doubt myore mattutine. Be it known to you, then, that on the journey I always risebefore3 o’clock, that Ineveronce made thevetturinowait, and, moreover, that there was no discontentin our jogging on on either side, so that I half expect to be aSantawith him. He indeed got a little out of his element when he got into France,—his good humour did not leave him, but his self-possession. He could not speak French, and he walked about as if treading on eggs.
When at Paris I will tell you more what I think of the French. They still seem miracles of quietness in comparison with Marianne’s noisy friends. And the women’s dresses afford the drollest contrast with those in fashion when I first set foot in Paris in 1814. Then their waists were between their shoulders, and, as Hogg observed, they were rather curtains than gowns; their hair, too, dragged to the top of the head, and then lifted to its height, appeared as if each female wished to be a Tower of Babel in herself. Now their waists are long (not so long, however, as the Genoese), and their hair flat at the top, with quantities of curls on the temples. I remember, in 1814, a Frenchman’s pathetic horror at Clare’s and my appearance in the streets of Paris in “Oldenburgh” (as they were called) hats; now they all wear machines of that shape, and a high bonnet would of course be as far out of the right road as if the earth were to take a flying leap to another system.
After you receive this letter, you must direct to me at my Father’s (pray put William Godwin, Esq., since the want of that etiquette annoys him. I remember Shelley’s unspeakable astonishment when the author ofPolitical Justiceasked him, half reproachfully, why he addressed himMr.Godwin), 195 Strand.
On the 25th of August Mary met her father once more. At his house in the Strand she spent her first ten days in England. Consideration for others, and the old habit of repressing all show of feeling before Godwin helped to steel her nerves and heart to bear the stings and aches of this strange, mournful reunion.
And now again, too, she saw her friend Jane. But fondly as Mary ever clung to her, she must have been sensible of the difference between them. Mrs. Williams’ situation was forlorn indeed; in some respects even more so than Mrs. Shelley’s. But, though she had grieved bitterly, as well she might, for Edward’s loss, her nature was notimpressible, and the catastrophe which had fallen upon her had left her unaltered. Jane was unhappy, but she was not inconsolable; her grief was becoming to her, and lent her a certain interest which enhanced her attractions. And to men in general she was very attractive. Godwin himself was somewhat fascinated by the “picturesque little woman” who had called on him on her first arrival; who “did not drop one tear” and occasionally smiled. As for Hogg, he lost his heart to her at once.
All this Mary must have seen. But Jane was an attaching creature, and Mary loved her as the greater nature loves the lesser; she lavished on her a wealth of pent-up tenderness, content to get what crumbs she could in return. For herself a curious surprise was in store, which entertained, if it did not cheer her.
Just at the time of its author’s return to England,Frankenstein, in a dramatised form, was having a considerable “run” at the English Opera House.
Mrs. Shelley to Leigh Hunt.9th September 1823.My dear Hunt—Bessy promised me to relieve you from any inquietude you might suffer from not hearing from me, so I indulged myself with not writing to you until I was quietly settled in lodgings of my own. Want of time is not my excuse; I had plenty, but, until I saw all quiet around me, I had not the spirit to write a line. I thought of you all—how much? and often longed to write, yet would not till I called myself free to turn southward; to imagine you all, to put myself in the midst of you, would have destroyed all my philosophy. But now I do so. I am in little neat lodgings, my boy in bed, I quiet, and I will now talk to you, tell you what I have seen and heard, and with as little repining as I can, try (by making the best of what I have, the certainty of your friendship and kindness) to rest half content that I am not in the “Paradise of Exiles.” Well, first I will tell you, journalwise, the history of my sixteen days in London.I arrived Monday, the 25th of August. My Father and William came for me to the wharf. I had an excellent passage of eleven hours and a half, a glassy sea, and a contrary wind. The smoke of our fire was wafted right aft, and streamed out behind us; but wind was of little consequence; the tide was with us, and though the engine gave a “short uneasy motion” to the vessel, the water was so smooth that no one on board was sick, and Persino played about the deck in high glee. I had a very kind reception in the Strand, and all was done that could be done to make me comfortable. I exerted myself to keep up my spirits. The house, though rather dismal, is infinitely better than the Skinner Street one. I resolved not to think of certain things, to take all as a matter of course, and thus contrive to keep myself out of the gulf of melancholy, on the edge of which I was and am continually peeping.But lo and behold! I found myself famous.Frankensteinhad prodigious success as a drama, and was about to be repeated, for the twenty-third night, at the English Opera House. The play-bill amused me extremely, for, in the list ofdramatis personæ, came “——, by Mr. T. Cooke.” This nameless mode of naming the unnameable is rather good.On Friday, 29th August, Jane, my Father, William, and I went to the theatre to see it. Wallack looked very well as Frankenstein. He is at the beginning full of hope and expectation. At the end of the first act the stage represents a room with a staircase leading to Frankenstein’s workshop; he goes to it, and you see his light at a small window, through which a frightened servant peeps, who runs off in terror when Frankenstein exclaims “It lives!” Presently Frankenstein himself rushes in horror and trepidation from the room, and, while still expressing his agony and terror, “——” throws down the door of the laboratory, leaps the staircase, and presents his unearthly and monstrous person on the stage. The story is not well managed, but Cooke played ——’s part extremely well; his seeking, as it were, for support; his trying to grasp at the sounds he heard; all, indeed, he does was well imagined and executed. I was much amused, and it appeared to excite a breathless eagerness in the audience. It was a third piece, a scanty pit filled at half-price, and all stayed till it was over. They continue to play it even now.On Saturday, 30th August, I went with Jane to the Gisbornes. I know not why, but seeing them seemed more than anything else to remind me of Italy. Evening came on drearily, the rain splashed on the pavement, nor star nor moon deigned to appear. I looked upward to seek an image of Italy, but a blotted sky told me only of my change. I tried to collect my thoughts, and then, again, dared not think, for I am a ruin where owls and bats live only, and I lost my lastsinging birdwhen I left Albaro. It was my birthday, and it pleased me to tell the people so; to recollect and feel that time flies, and what is to arrive is nearer, and my home not so far off as it was a year ago. This same evening, on my returnto the Strand, I saw Lamb, who was very entertaining and amiable, though a little deaf. One of the first questions he asked me was, whether they made puns in Italy: I said, “Yes, now Hunt is there.” He said that Burney made a pun in Otaheite, the first that was ever made in that country. At first the natives could not make out what he meant, but all at once they discovered thepun, and danced round him in transports of joy....... On the strength of the drama, my Father had published for my benefit a new edition ofFrankenstein, for he despaired utterly of my doing anything with Sir Timothy Shelley. I wrote to him, however, to tell him of my arrival, and on the following Wednesday had a note from Whitton, where he invited me, if I wished for an explanation of Sir T. Shelley’s intentions concerning my boy, to call on him. I went with my Father. Whitton was very polite, though long-winded: his great wish seemed to be to prevent my applying again to Sir T. Shelley, whom he represented as old, infirm, and irritable. However, he advanced me £100 for my immediate expenses, told me that he could not speak positively until he had seen Sir T. Shelley, but that he doubted not but that I should receive the same annually for my child, and, with a little time and patience, I should get an allowance for myself. This, you see, relieved me from a load of anxieties.Having secured neat cheap lodgings, we removed hither last night. Such, dear Hunt, is the outline of your poor exile’s history. After two days of rain, the weather has beenuncommonlyfine,cioè, without rain, and cloudless, I believe, though I trusted to other eyes for that fact, since the white-washed sky is anything but blue to any but the perceptions of the natives themselves. It is so cold, however, that the fire I am now sitting by is not the first that has been lighted, for my Father had one two days ago. The wind is east and piercing, but I comfort myself with the hope that softer gales are now fanning yournotthrobbing temples, that the climate of Florence will prove kindly to you, and that your health and spirits will return to you. Why am I not there? This isquite a foreign country to me, the names of the places sound strangely, the voices of the people are new and grating, the vulgar English they speak particularly displeasing. But for my Father, I should be with you next spring, but his heart and soul are set on my stay, and in this world it always seems one’s duty to sacrifice one’s own desires, and that claim ever appears the strongest which claims such a sacrifice.········
Mrs. Shelley to Leigh Hunt.
9th September 1823.
My dear Hunt—Bessy promised me to relieve you from any inquietude you might suffer from not hearing from me, so I indulged myself with not writing to you until I was quietly settled in lodgings of my own. Want of time is not my excuse; I had plenty, but, until I saw all quiet around me, I had not the spirit to write a line. I thought of you all—how much? and often longed to write, yet would not till I called myself free to turn southward; to imagine you all, to put myself in the midst of you, would have destroyed all my philosophy. But now I do so. I am in little neat lodgings, my boy in bed, I quiet, and I will now talk to you, tell you what I have seen and heard, and with as little repining as I can, try (by making the best of what I have, the certainty of your friendship and kindness) to rest half content that I am not in the “Paradise of Exiles.” Well, first I will tell you, journalwise, the history of my sixteen days in London.
I arrived Monday, the 25th of August. My Father and William came for me to the wharf. I had an excellent passage of eleven hours and a half, a glassy sea, and a contrary wind. The smoke of our fire was wafted right aft, and streamed out behind us; but wind was of little consequence; the tide was with us, and though the engine gave a “short uneasy motion” to the vessel, the water was so smooth that no one on board was sick, and Persino played about the deck in high glee. I had a very kind reception in the Strand, and all was done that could be done to make me comfortable. I exerted myself to keep up my spirits. The house, though rather dismal, is infinitely better than the Skinner Street one. I resolved not to think of certain things, to take all as a matter of course, and thus contrive to keep myself out of the gulf of melancholy, on the edge of which I was and am continually peeping.
But lo and behold! I found myself famous.Frankensteinhad prodigious success as a drama, and was about to be repeated, for the twenty-third night, at the English Opera House. The play-bill amused me extremely, for, in the list ofdramatis personæ, came “——, by Mr. T. Cooke.” This nameless mode of naming the unnameable is rather good.
On Friday, 29th August, Jane, my Father, William, and I went to the theatre to see it. Wallack looked very well as Frankenstein. He is at the beginning full of hope and expectation. At the end of the first act the stage represents a room with a staircase leading to Frankenstein’s workshop; he goes to it, and you see his light at a small window, through which a frightened servant peeps, who runs off in terror when Frankenstein exclaims “It lives!” Presently Frankenstein himself rushes in horror and trepidation from the room, and, while still expressing his agony and terror, “——” throws down the door of the laboratory, leaps the staircase, and presents his unearthly and monstrous person on the stage. The story is not well managed, but Cooke played ——’s part extremely well; his seeking, as it were, for support; his trying to grasp at the sounds he heard; all, indeed, he does was well imagined and executed. I was much amused, and it appeared to excite a breathless eagerness in the audience. It was a third piece, a scanty pit filled at half-price, and all stayed till it was over. They continue to play it even now.
On Saturday, 30th August, I went with Jane to the Gisbornes. I know not why, but seeing them seemed more than anything else to remind me of Italy. Evening came on drearily, the rain splashed on the pavement, nor star nor moon deigned to appear. I looked upward to seek an image of Italy, but a blotted sky told me only of my change. I tried to collect my thoughts, and then, again, dared not think, for I am a ruin where owls and bats live only, and I lost my lastsinging birdwhen I left Albaro. It was my birthday, and it pleased me to tell the people so; to recollect and feel that time flies, and what is to arrive is nearer, and my home not so far off as it was a year ago. This same evening, on my returnto the Strand, I saw Lamb, who was very entertaining and amiable, though a little deaf. One of the first questions he asked me was, whether they made puns in Italy: I said, “Yes, now Hunt is there.” He said that Burney made a pun in Otaheite, the first that was ever made in that country. At first the natives could not make out what he meant, but all at once they discovered thepun, and danced round him in transports of joy....
... On the strength of the drama, my Father had published for my benefit a new edition ofFrankenstein, for he despaired utterly of my doing anything with Sir Timothy Shelley. I wrote to him, however, to tell him of my arrival, and on the following Wednesday had a note from Whitton, where he invited me, if I wished for an explanation of Sir T. Shelley’s intentions concerning my boy, to call on him. I went with my Father. Whitton was very polite, though long-winded: his great wish seemed to be to prevent my applying again to Sir T. Shelley, whom he represented as old, infirm, and irritable. However, he advanced me £100 for my immediate expenses, told me that he could not speak positively until he had seen Sir T. Shelley, but that he doubted not but that I should receive the same annually for my child, and, with a little time and patience, I should get an allowance for myself. This, you see, relieved me from a load of anxieties.
Having secured neat cheap lodgings, we removed hither last night. Such, dear Hunt, is the outline of your poor exile’s history. After two days of rain, the weather has beenuncommonlyfine,cioè, without rain, and cloudless, I believe, though I trusted to other eyes for that fact, since the white-washed sky is anything but blue to any but the perceptions of the natives themselves. It is so cold, however, that the fire I am now sitting by is not the first that has been lighted, for my Father had one two days ago. The wind is east and piercing, but I comfort myself with the hope that softer gales are now fanning yournotthrobbing temples, that the climate of Florence will prove kindly to you, and that your health and spirits will return to you. Why am I not there? This isquite a foreign country to me, the names of the places sound strangely, the voices of the people are new and grating, the vulgar English they speak particularly displeasing. But for my Father, I should be with you next spring, but his heart and soul are set on my stay, and in this world it always seems one’s duty to sacrifice one’s own desires, and that claim ever appears the strongest which claims such a sacrifice.
········
It is difficult to imagineFrankensteinon the stage; it must, at least, lose very much in dramatic representation. Like its modern successor,Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,—that remarkable story which bears a certain affinity toFrankenstein,—its subtle allegorical significance would be overweighted, if not lost, by the effect of the grosser and more material incidents which are all that could beplayed, and which, as described, must have bordered on the ludicrous. Still the charm of life imparted by a human impersonation to any portion, even, of one’s own idea, is singularly powerful; and so Mary felt it. She would have liked to repeat the experience. Her situation, looked at in the face, was unenviable. She was unprovided for, young, delicate, and with a child dependent on her. Her rich connections would have nothing to do with her, and her boy did not possess in their eyes the importance which would have attached to him had he been heir to the baronetcy. She had talent, and it had been cultivated, but with her sorely-triedhealth and spirits, the prospect of self-support by the compulsory production of imaginative work must, at the time, have seemed unpromising enough.
Two sheet-anchors of hope she had, and by these she lived. They were, her child—so friendless but for her—and the thought of Shelley’s fame. The collecting and editing of his MSS., this was her work; no one else should do it. It seemed as though her brief life with him had had for its purpose to educate her for this one object.
Those who now, in naming Shelley, feel they name a part of everything beautiful, ethereal, and spiritual—that his words are so inextricably interwoven with certain phases of love and beauty as to be indistinguishable from the very thing itself—may well find it hard to realise how little he was known at the time when he died.
With other poets their work is the blossom and fruit of their lives, but Shelley’s poetry resembles rather the perfume of the flower, that subtle quality pertaining to the bloom which can be neither described, nor pourtrayed, nor transmitted; an essence of immortality.
Not many months after this the news of Byron’s early death struck a kind of remorseful grief into the hearts of his countrymen. A letter of Miss Welsh’s (Mrs. Carlyle) gives an idea of the general feeling—
“I was told it,” she says, “in a room full of people. Had I heard that the sun and moon had fallen out of their spheres it could not have conveyed to me the feeling of a more awful blank than did the simple words, ‘Byron is dead.’”
How many, it may be asked, were conscious of any blank when the news reached them that Shelley had been “accidentally drowned”? Their numbers might be counted by tens.
The sale, in every instance, of Mr. Shelley’s works has been very confined,
was his publishers’ report to his widow. One newspaper dismissed his memory by the passing remark, “He will now find out whether there is a Hell or not.”
The small number of those who recognised his genius did not even include all his personal friends.
“Mine is a life of failures;” so he summed it up to Trelawny and Edward Williams. “Peacock says my poetry is composed of day-dreams and nightmares, and Leigh Hunt does not think it good enough for theExaminer. Jefferson Hogg says all poetry is inverted sense, and consequently nonsense....“I wrote, and the critics denounced me as a mischievous visionary, and my friends said that I had mistaken my vocation, that my poetry was mere rhapsody of words....”
“Mine is a life of failures;” so he summed it up to Trelawny and Edward Williams. “Peacock says my poetry is composed of day-dreams and nightmares, and Leigh Hunt does not think it good enough for theExaminer. Jefferson Hogg says all poetry is inverted sense, and consequently nonsense....
“I wrote, and the critics denounced me as a mischievous visionary, and my friends said that I had mistaken my vocation, that my poetry was mere rhapsody of words....”
Leigh Hunt, indeed, thought his own poetry more than equal to Shelley’s or Byron’s. Byron knew Shelley’s power well enough, but cared little for the subjects of his sympathy. Trelawny wasmore appreciative, but his admiration for the poetry was quite secondary to his enthusiasm for the man. In Hogg’s case, affection for the man may be said to haveexcusedthe poetry. All this Mary knew, but she knew too—what she was soon to find out by experience—that among his immediate associates he had created too warm an interest for him to escape posthumous discussion and criticism. And he had been familiar with some of those regarding whom the world’s curiosity was insatiable, concerning whom any shred of information, true or false, was eagerly snapped up. His name would inevitably figure in anecdotes and gossip. His fame was Mary’s to guard. During the years she lived at Albaro she had been employed in collecting and transcribing his scattered MSS., and at the end of this year, 1823, the volume of Posthumous Poems came out.
One would imagine that publishers would have bid against each other for the possession of such a treasure. Far from it. Among the little band of “true believers” three came forward to guarantee the expenses of publication. They were, the poet Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Procter, and T. F. Kelsall.
The appearance of this book was a melancholy satisfaction to Mary, though, as will soon be seen, she was not long allowed to enjoy it.
Mrs. Shelley to Mrs. Hunt.London,27th November 1823.My dearest Polly—Are you not a naughty girl? How could you copy a letter to that “agreeable, unaffected woman, Mrs. Shelley,” without saying a word from yourself to your loving...? My dear Polly, a line from you forms a better picture for me of what you are about than—alas! I was going to say three pages, but I check myself—the rare one page of Hunt. Do not think that I forget you—even Percy does not, and he often tells me to bid the Signor Enrico and you to get in a carriage and then into a boat, and to come toquesto paesewithBaby nuovo, Henry, Swinburne,e tutti. But that will not be, nor shall I see you at Mariano; this is a dreary exile for me. During a long month of cloud and fog, how often have I sighed for my beloved Italy, and more than ever this day when I have come to a conclusion with Sir Timothy Shelley as to my affairs, and I find the miserable pittance I am to have. Nearly sufficient in Italy, here it will not go half-way. It is £100 per annum. Nor is this all, for I foresee a thousand troubles; yet, in truth, as far as regards mere money matters and worldly prospects, I keep up my philosophy with excellent success. Others wonder at this, but I do not, nor is there any philosophy in it. After having witnessed the mortal agonies of my two darling children, after that journey from and to Lerici, I feel all these as pictures and trifles as long as I am kept out of contact with the unholy. I was upset to-day by being obliged to see Whitton, and the prospect of seeing others of his tribe. I can earn a sufficiency, I doubt not. In Italy I should be content: here I will not bemoan. Indeed I never do, and Mrs. Godwin makeslarge eyesat the quiet way in which I take it all. It is England alone that annoys me, yet sometimes I get among friends and almost forget its fogs. I go to Shacklewell rarely, and sometimes see the Novellos elsewhere. He is my especial favourite, and his music always transports me to the seventh heaven.... I see the Lambs rather often, she ever amiable, andLamb witty and delightful. I must tell you one thing and make Hunt laugh. Lamb’s new house at Islington is close to the New River, and George Dyer, after having paid them a visit, on going away at 12 at noonday, walked deliberately into the water, taking it for the high road. “But,” as he said afterwards to Procter, “I soon found that I was in the water, sir.” So Miss Lamb and the servant had to fish him out.... I must tell Hunt also a good saying of Lamb’s,—talking of some one, he said, “Now some men who are very veracious are called matter-of-fact men, but such a one I should call a matter-of-lie man.”I have seen also Procter, with his “beautifully formed head” (it is beautifully formed), several times, and I like him. He is an enthusiastic admirer of Shelley, and most zealous in bringing out the volume of his poems; this alone would please me; and he is, moreover, gentle and gentlemanly, and apparently endued with a true poetic feeling. Besides, he is an invalid, and some time ago I told you, in a letter, that I have always a sneaking (for sneaking read open) kindness for men of literary and particularly poetic habits, who have delicate health. I cannot help revering the mind delicately attuned that shatters the material frame, and whose thoughts are strong enough to throw down and dilapidate the walls of sense and dikes of flesh that the unimaginative contrive to keep in such good repair....After all, I spend a great deal of my time in solitude. I have been hitherto too fully occupied in preparing Shelley’s MSS. It is now complete, and the poetry alone will make a large volume. Will you tell Hunt that he need not send any of the MSS. that he has (except the Essay on Devils, and some lines addressed to himself on his arrival in Italy, if he should choose them to be inserted), as I have recopied all the rest? We should be very glad, however, of his notice as quickly as possible, as we wish the book to be out in a month at furthest, and that will not be possible unless he sends it immediately. It would break my heart if the book should appear without it.[6]When he does send a packet over (let itbe directed to his brother), will he also be so good as to send me a copy of my “Choice,” beginning after the lineEntrenched sad lines, or blotted with its might?Perhaps, dear Marianne, you would have the kindness to copy them for me, and send them soon. I have another favour to ask of you. Miss Curran has a portrait of Shelley, in many things very like, and she has so much talent that I entertain great hopes that she will be able to make a good one; for this purpose I wish her to have all the aids possible, and among the rest a profile from you.[7]If you could not cut another, perhaps you would send her one already cut, and if you sent it with a note requesting her to return it when she had done with it, I will engage that it will be most faithfully returned. At present I am not quite sure where she is, but if she should be there, and you can find her and send her this, I need not tell you how you would oblige me.I heard from Bessy that Hunt is writing something for theExaminerfor me. Iconjecturethat this may be concerningValperga. I shall be glad, indeed, when that comes, or in lieu of it, anything else. John Hunt begins to despair.········And now, dear Polly, I think I have done with gossip and business: with words of affection and kindness I should never have done. I am inexpressibly anxious about you all. Percy has had a similar though shorter attack to that at Albaro, but he is now recovered. I have a cold in my head, occasioned, I suppose, by the weather. Ah, Polly! if all the beauties of England were to have only the mirror that Richard III desires, a very short time would be spent at the looking-glass!What of Florence and the gallery? I saw the Elgin marbles to-day; to-morrow I am to go to the Museum to look over the prints: that will be a great treat. The Theseus is a divinity, but how very few statues they have! Kiss the children. Ask Thornton for his forgotten and promised P.S., give my love toHunt, and believe me, my dear Marianne, the exiled, but ever, most affectionately yours,Mary W. Shelley.Journal, January 18(1824).—I have now been nearly four months in England, and if I am to judge of the future by the past and the present, I have small delight in looking forward. I even regret those days and weeks of intense melancholy that composed my life at Genoa. Yes, solitary and unbeloved as I was there, I enjoyed a more pleasurable state of being than I do here. I was still in Italy, and my heart and imagination were both gratified by that circumstance. I awoke with the light and beheld the theatre of nature from my window; the trees spread their green beauty before me, the resplendent sky was above me, the mountains were invested with enchanting colours. I had even begun to contemplate painlessly the blue expanse of the tranquil sea, speckled by the snow-white sails, gazed upon by the unclouded stars. There was morning and its balmy air, noon and its exhilarating heat, evening and its wondrous sunset, night and its starry pageant. Then, my studies; my drawing, which soothed me; my Greek, which I studied with greater complacency as I stole every now and then a look on the scene near me; my metaphysics, that strengthened and elevated my mind. Then my solitary walks and my reveries; they were magnificent, deep, pathetic, wild, and exalted. I sounded the depths of my own nature; I appealed to the nature around me to corroborate the testimony that my own heart bore to its purity. I thought ofhimwith hope; my grief was active, striving, expectant. I was worth something then in the catalogue of beings. I could have written something, been something. Now I am exiled from these beloved scenes; its language is becoming a stranger to mine ears; my child is forgetting it. I am imprisoned in a dreary town; I see neither fields, nor hills, nor trees, nor sky; the exhilaration of enwrapt contemplation is no more felt by me; aspirations agonising, yet grand, from which the soul reposed in peace, have ceased to ascend from the quenched altar of my mind. Writing has become a task; my studiesirksome; my life dreary. In this prison it is only in human intercourse that I can pretend to find consolation; and woe, woe, and triple woe to whoever seeks pleasure in human intercourse when that pleasure is not founded on deep and intense affection; as for the rest—The bubble floats before,The shadow stalks behind.My Father’s situation, his cares and debts, prevent my enjoying his society.I love Jane better than any other human being, but I am pressed upon by the knowledge that she but slightly returns this affection. I love her, and my purest pleasure is derived from that source—a capacious basin, and but a rill flows into it. I love some one or two more, “with a degree of love,” but I see them seldom. I am excited while with them, but the reaction of this feeling is dreadfully painful, but while in London I cannot forego this excitement. I know some clever men, in whose conversation I delight, but this is rare, like angels’ visits. Alas! having lived day by day with one of the wisest, best, and most affectionate of spirits, how void, bare, and drear is the scene of life!Oh, Shelley, dear, lamented, beloved! help me, raise me, support me; let me not feel ever thus fallen and degraded! my imagination is dead, my genius lost, my energies sleep. Why am I not beneath that weed-grown tower? Seeing Coleridge last night reminded me forcibly of past times; his beautiful descriptions reminded me of Shelley’s conversations. Such was the intercourse I once daily enjoyed, added to supreme and active goodness, sympathy, and affection, and a wild, picturesque mode of living that suited my active spirit and satisfied its craving for novelty of impression.I will go into the country and philosophise; some gleams of past entrancement may visit me there.
Mrs. Shelley to Mrs. Hunt.
London,27th November 1823.
My dearest Polly—Are you not a naughty girl? How could you copy a letter to that “agreeable, unaffected woman, Mrs. Shelley,” without saying a word from yourself to your loving...? My dear Polly, a line from you forms a better picture for me of what you are about than—alas! I was going to say three pages, but I check myself—the rare one page of Hunt. Do not think that I forget you—even Percy does not, and he often tells me to bid the Signor Enrico and you to get in a carriage and then into a boat, and to come toquesto paesewithBaby nuovo, Henry, Swinburne,e tutti. But that will not be, nor shall I see you at Mariano; this is a dreary exile for me. During a long month of cloud and fog, how often have I sighed for my beloved Italy, and more than ever this day when I have come to a conclusion with Sir Timothy Shelley as to my affairs, and I find the miserable pittance I am to have. Nearly sufficient in Italy, here it will not go half-way. It is £100 per annum. Nor is this all, for I foresee a thousand troubles; yet, in truth, as far as regards mere money matters and worldly prospects, I keep up my philosophy with excellent success. Others wonder at this, but I do not, nor is there any philosophy in it. After having witnessed the mortal agonies of my two darling children, after that journey from and to Lerici, I feel all these as pictures and trifles as long as I am kept out of contact with the unholy. I was upset to-day by being obliged to see Whitton, and the prospect of seeing others of his tribe. I can earn a sufficiency, I doubt not. In Italy I should be content: here I will not bemoan. Indeed I never do, and Mrs. Godwin makeslarge eyesat the quiet way in which I take it all. It is England alone that annoys me, yet sometimes I get among friends and almost forget its fogs. I go to Shacklewell rarely, and sometimes see the Novellos elsewhere. He is my especial favourite, and his music always transports me to the seventh heaven.... I see the Lambs rather often, she ever amiable, andLamb witty and delightful. I must tell you one thing and make Hunt laugh. Lamb’s new house at Islington is close to the New River, and George Dyer, after having paid them a visit, on going away at 12 at noonday, walked deliberately into the water, taking it for the high road. “But,” as he said afterwards to Procter, “I soon found that I was in the water, sir.” So Miss Lamb and the servant had to fish him out.... I must tell Hunt also a good saying of Lamb’s,—talking of some one, he said, “Now some men who are very veracious are called matter-of-fact men, but such a one I should call a matter-of-lie man.”
I have seen also Procter, with his “beautifully formed head” (it is beautifully formed), several times, and I like him. He is an enthusiastic admirer of Shelley, and most zealous in bringing out the volume of his poems; this alone would please me; and he is, moreover, gentle and gentlemanly, and apparently endued with a true poetic feeling. Besides, he is an invalid, and some time ago I told you, in a letter, that I have always a sneaking (for sneaking read open) kindness for men of literary and particularly poetic habits, who have delicate health. I cannot help revering the mind delicately attuned that shatters the material frame, and whose thoughts are strong enough to throw down and dilapidate the walls of sense and dikes of flesh that the unimaginative contrive to keep in such good repair....
After all, I spend a great deal of my time in solitude. I have been hitherto too fully occupied in preparing Shelley’s MSS. It is now complete, and the poetry alone will make a large volume. Will you tell Hunt that he need not send any of the MSS. that he has (except the Essay on Devils, and some lines addressed to himself on his arrival in Italy, if he should choose them to be inserted), as I have recopied all the rest? We should be very glad, however, of his notice as quickly as possible, as we wish the book to be out in a month at furthest, and that will not be possible unless he sends it immediately. It would break my heart if the book should appear without it.[6]When he does send a packet over (let itbe directed to his brother), will he also be so good as to send me a copy of my “Choice,” beginning after the line
Entrenched sad lines, or blotted with its might?
Perhaps, dear Marianne, you would have the kindness to copy them for me, and send them soon. I have another favour to ask of you. Miss Curran has a portrait of Shelley, in many things very like, and she has so much talent that I entertain great hopes that she will be able to make a good one; for this purpose I wish her to have all the aids possible, and among the rest a profile from you.[7]If you could not cut another, perhaps you would send her one already cut, and if you sent it with a note requesting her to return it when she had done with it, I will engage that it will be most faithfully returned. At present I am not quite sure where she is, but if she should be there, and you can find her and send her this, I need not tell you how you would oblige me.
I heard from Bessy that Hunt is writing something for theExaminerfor me. Iconjecturethat this may be concerningValperga. I shall be glad, indeed, when that comes, or in lieu of it, anything else. John Hunt begins to despair.
········
And now, dear Polly, I think I have done with gossip and business: with words of affection and kindness I should never have done. I am inexpressibly anxious about you all. Percy has had a similar though shorter attack to that at Albaro, but he is now recovered. I have a cold in my head, occasioned, I suppose, by the weather. Ah, Polly! if all the beauties of England were to have only the mirror that Richard III desires, a very short time would be spent at the looking-glass!
What of Florence and the gallery? I saw the Elgin marbles to-day; to-morrow I am to go to the Museum to look over the prints: that will be a great treat. The Theseus is a divinity, but how very few statues they have! Kiss the children. Ask Thornton for his forgotten and promised P.S., give my love toHunt, and believe me, my dear Marianne, the exiled, but ever, most affectionately yours,
Mary W. Shelley.
Journal, January 18(1824).—I have now been nearly four months in England, and if I am to judge of the future by the past and the present, I have small delight in looking forward. I even regret those days and weeks of intense melancholy that composed my life at Genoa. Yes, solitary and unbeloved as I was there, I enjoyed a more pleasurable state of being than I do here. I was still in Italy, and my heart and imagination were both gratified by that circumstance. I awoke with the light and beheld the theatre of nature from my window; the trees spread their green beauty before me, the resplendent sky was above me, the mountains were invested with enchanting colours. I had even begun to contemplate painlessly the blue expanse of the tranquil sea, speckled by the snow-white sails, gazed upon by the unclouded stars. There was morning and its balmy air, noon and its exhilarating heat, evening and its wondrous sunset, night and its starry pageant. Then, my studies; my drawing, which soothed me; my Greek, which I studied with greater complacency as I stole every now and then a look on the scene near me; my metaphysics, that strengthened and elevated my mind. Then my solitary walks and my reveries; they were magnificent, deep, pathetic, wild, and exalted. I sounded the depths of my own nature; I appealed to the nature around me to corroborate the testimony that my own heart bore to its purity. I thought ofhimwith hope; my grief was active, striving, expectant. I was worth something then in the catalogue of beings. I could have written something, been something. Now I am exiled from these beloved scenes; its language is becoming a stranger to mine ears; my child is forgetting it. I am imprisoned in a dreary town; I see neither fields, nor hills, nor trees, nor sky; the exhilaration of enwrapt contemplation is no more felt by me; aspirations agonising, yet grand, from which the soul reposed in peace, have ceased to ascend from the quenched altar of my mind. Writing has become a task; my studiesirksome; my life dreary. In this prison it is only in human intercourse that I can pretend to find consolation; and woe, woe, and triple woe to whoever seeks pleasure in human intercourse when that pleasure is not founded on deep and intense affection; as for the rest—
The bubble floats before,The shadow stalks behind.
My Father’s situation, his cares and debts, prevent my enjoying his society.
I love Jane better than any other human being, but I am pressed upon by the knowledge that she but slightly returns this affection. I love her, and my purest pleasure is derived from that source—a capacious basin, and but a rill flows into it. I love some one or two more, “with a degree of love,” but I see them seldom. I am excited while with them, but the reaction of this feeling is dreadfully painful, but while in London I cannot forego this excitement. I know some clever men, in whose conversation I delight, but this is rare, like angels’ visits. Alas! having lived day by day with one of the wisest, best, and most affectionate of spirits, how void, bare, and drear is the scene of life!
Oh, Shelley, dear, lamented, beloved! help me, raise me, support me; let me not feel ever thus fallen and degraded! my imagination is dead, my genius lost, my energies sleep. Why am I not beneath that weed-grown tower? Seeing Coleridge last night reminded me forcibly of past times; his beautiful descriptions reminded me of Shelley’s conversations. Such was the intercourse I once daily enjoyed, added to supreme and active goodness, sympathy, and affection, and a wild, picturesque mode of living that suited my active spirit and satisfied its craving for novelty of impression.
I will go into the country and philosophise; some gleams of past entrancement may visit me there.
Lonely, poor, and dull as she was, these first months were a dreadful trial. She was writing,or trying to write, another novel,The Last Man, but it hung heavy; it did not satisfy her. Shrinking from company, yet recoiling still more from the monotony of her own thoughts, she was possessed by the restless wish to write a drama, perhaps with the idea that out of dramatic creations she might (Frankenstein-like) manufacture for herself companions more living than the characters of a novel. It may have been fortunate for her that she did not persevere in the attempt. Her special gifts were hardly of a dramatic order, and she had not the necessary experience for a successful playwright. She consulted her father, however, sending him at the same time some specimens of her work, and got some sound advice from him in return.