Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Zante, Ionian Islands,24th October 1827.Dearest Mary—I received your letter dated July, and replied to both you and Hunt; but I was then at Cerigo, and as the communication of the islands is carried on by a succession of boats, letters are sometimes lost. I have now your letter from Arundel, 9th September. It gives me pleasure to hear your anxieties as to money matters are at an end; it isone weighty misery off your heart. You err most egregiously if you think I am occupied with women or intrigues, or that my time passes pleasantly. The reverse of all this is the case; neither women nor amusements of any sort occupy my time, and a sadder or more accursed kind of existence I never in all my experience of life endured, or, I think, fell to the lot of human being. I have been detained here for these last ten months by a villainous law-suit, which may yet endure some months longer, and then I shall return to you as the same unconnected, lone, and wandering vagabond you first knew me. I have suffered a continual succession of fevers during the summer; at present they have discontinued their attack; but they have, added to what I suffered in Greece, cut me damnably, and I fancy now I must look like an old patriarch who has outlived his generation. I cannot tell whether to congratulate Jane or not; the foundation she has built on for happiness implies neither stability nor permanent security; for a summer bower ’tis well enough to beguile away the summer months, but for the winter of life I, for my part, should like something more durable than a fabric made up of vows and promises. Nor can I say whether it would be wise or beneficial to either should Clare consent to reside with you in England; in any other country it might be desirable, but in England it is questionable.The only motive which has deterred me from writing to Jane and Clare is that I have been long sick and ill at ease, daily anticipating my return to the Continent, and concocting plans whereby I might meet you all, for one hour after long absence is worth a thousand letters. And as to my heart, it is pretty much as you left it; no new impressions have been made on it or earlier affections erased. As we advance in the stage of life we look back with deeper recollections from where we first started; at least, I find it so. Since the death of Odysseus, for whom I had the sincerest friendship, I have felt no private interest for any individual in this country. The Egyptian fleet, and part of the Turkish, amounting to some hundred sail, including transports, have been totally destroyedby the united squadron of England, France, and Russia in the harbour of Navarino; so we soon expect to see a portion of Greece wrested from the Turks, and something definitely arranged for the benefit of the Greeks.—Dearest Mary, I am ever yourEdward Trelawny.To Jane and Clare say all that is affectionate from me, and forget not Leigh Hunt and his Mary Ann.Iwould write them all, but I am sick at heart.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Zante, Ionian Islands,24th October 1827.
Dearest Mary—I received your letter dated July, and replied to both you and Hunt; but I was then at Cerigo, and as the communication of the islands is carried on by a succession of boats, letters are sometimes lost. I have now your letter from Arundel, 9th September. It gives me pleasure to hear your anxieties as to money matters are at an end; it isone weighty misery off your heart. You err most egregiously if you think I am occupied with women or intrigues, or that my time passes pleasantly. The reverse of all this is the case; neither women nor amusements of any sort occupy my time, and a sadder or more accursed kind of existence I never in all my experience of life endured, or, I think, fell to the lot of human being. I have been detained here for these last ten months by a villainous law-suit, which may yet endure some months longer, and then I shall return to you as the same unconnected, lone, and wandering vagabond you first knew me. I have suffered a continual succession of fevers during the summer; at present they have discontinued their attack; but they have, added to what I suffered in Greece, cut me damnably, and I fancy now I must look like an old patriarch who has outlived his generation. I cannot tell whether to congratulate Jane or not; the foundation she has built on for happiness implies neither stability nor permanent security; for a summer bower ’tis well enough to beguile away the summer months, but for the winter of life I, for my part, should like something more durable than a fabric made up of vows and promises. Nor can I say whether it would be wise or beneficial to either should Clare consent to reside with you in England; in any other country it might be desirable, but in England it is questionable.
The only motive which has deterred me from writing to Jane and Clare is that I have been long sick and ill at ease, daily anticipating my return to the Continent, and concocting plans whereby I might meet you all, for one hour after long absence is worth a thousand letters. And as to my heart, it is pretty much as you left it; no new impressions have been made on it or earlier affections erased. As we advance in the stage of life we look back with deeper recollections from where we first started; at least, I find it so. Since the death of Odysseus, for whom I had the sincerest friendship, I have felt no private interest for any individual in this country. The Egyptian fleet, and part of the Turkish, amounting to some hundred sail, including transports, have been totally destroyedby the united squadron of England, France, and Russia in the harbour of Navarino; so we soon expect to see a portion of Greece wrested from the Turks, and something definitely arranged for the benefit of the Greeks.—Dearest Mary, I am ever your
Edward Trelawny.
To Jane and Clare say all that is affectionate from me, and forget not Leigh Hunt and his Mary Ann.Iwould write them all, but I am sick at heart.
All these months the gnawing sorrow of her friend’s faithlessness lay like an ambush at Mary’s heart. In responding to Fanny Wright’s overtures of friendship she had sought a distraction from the bitter thoughts and deep dejection which had been mainly instrumental in driving her from town. But in vain, like the hunted hare, she buried her head and hoped to be forgotten. Slanderous gossip advances like a prairie-fire, laying everything waste, and defying all attempts to stop or extinguish it. Jane Williams’ stories were repeated, and, very likely, improved upon. They got known in a certain set. Mary Shelley might still have chosen not to hear or not to notice, had she been allowed. But who may ignore such things in peace? As the French dramatist says inNos Intimes, “Les amis sont toujours là.”Les amisare there to enlighten you—if you are ignorant—as to your enemies in disguise, to save you from illusions, and to point out to you—should you forget it—the duty of upholding,at any sacrifice, your own interests and your own dignity.
Journal, February 12, 1828.—Moore is in town. By his advice I disclosed my discoveries to Jane. How strangely are we made! She is horror-struck and miserable at losing my friendship; and yet how unpardonably she trifled with my feelings, and made me all falsely a fable to others.The visit of Moore has been an agreeable variety to my monotonous life. I see few people—Lord Dillon, G. Paul, the Robinsons,voilà tout.Mrs. Shelley to Mrs. Hogg.Since Monday I have been ceaselessly occupied by the scene begun and interrupted, which filled me with a pain that now thrills me as I revert to it. I then strove to speak, but your tears overcame me, whilst the struggle gave me an appearance of coldness.If I revert to my devotion to you, it is to prove that no worldly motives could estrange me from the partner of my miseries. Often, having you at Kentish Town, I have wept from the overflow of affection; often thanked God who had given you to me. Could any but yourself have destroyed such engrossing and passionate love? And what are the consequences of the change?When first I heard that you did not love me, every hope of my life deserted me. The depression I sank under, and to which I am now a prey, undermines my health. How many hours this dreary winter I have paced my solitary room, driven nearly to madness, and I could not expel from my mind the memories of harrowing import that one after another intruded themselves! It was not long ago that, eagerly desiring death, though death should only be oblivion, I thought that how to purchase oblivion of what was revealed to me last July, a tortuous death would be a bed of roses.········Do not ask me, I beseech you, a detail of the revelationsmade to me. Some of those most painful you made to several; others, of less import, but which tended more, perhaps, than the more important to show that you loved me not, were made only to two.I could not write of these, far less speak of them. If any doubt remain on your mind as to what I know, write to Isabel,[10]and she will inform you of the extent of her communication to me. I have been an altered being since then; long I thought that almost a deathblow was given, so heavily and unremittingly did the thought press on and sting me; but one lives on through all to be a wreck.Though I was conscious that, having spoken of me as you did, you could not love me, I could not easily detach myself from the atmosphere of light and beauty that ever surrounded you. Now I tried to keep you, feeling the while that I had lost you; but you penetrated the change, and I owe it to you not to disguise the cause. What will become of us, my poor girl?········This explains my estrangement. While with you I was solely occupied by endeavouring not to think or feel, for had I done either I should not have been so calm as I daresay I appeared.... Nothing but my Father could have drawn me to town again; his claims only prevent me now from burying myself in the country. I have known no peace since July. I never expect to know it again. Is it not best, then, that you forget the unhappyM. W. S.?
Journal, February 12, 1828.—Moore is in town. By his advice I disclosed my discoveries to Jane. How strangely are we made! She is horror-struck and miserable at losing my friendship; and yet how unpardonably she trifled with my feelings, and made me all falsely a fable to others.
The visit of Moore has been an agreeable variety to my monotonous life. I see few people—Lord Dillon, G. Paul, the Robinsons,voilà tout.
Mrs. Shelley to Mrs. Hogg.
Since Monday I have been ceaselessly occupied by the scene begun and interrupted, which filled me with a pain that now thrills me as I revert to it. I then strove to speak, but your tears overcame me, whilst the struggle gave me an appearance of coldness.
If I revert to my devotion to you, it is to prove that no worldly motives could estrange me from the partner of my miseries. Often, having you at Kentish Town, I have wept from the overflow of affection; often thanked God who had given you to me. Could any but yourself have destroyed such engrossing and passionate love? And what are the consequences of the change?
When first I heard that you did not love me, every hope of my life deserted me. The depression I sank under, and to which I am now a prey, undermines my health. How many hours this dreary winter I have paced my solitary room, driven nearly to madness, and I could not expel from my mind the memories of harrowing import that one after another intruded themselves! It was not long ago that, eagerly desiring death, though death should only be oblivion, I thought that how to purchase oblivion of what was revealed to me last July, a tortuous death would be a bed of roses.
········
Do not ask me, I beseech you, a detail of the revelationsmade to me. Some of those most painful you made to several; others, of less import, but which tended more, perhaps, than the more important to show that you loved me not, were made only to two.
I could not write of these, far less speak of them. If any doubt remain on your mind as to what I know, write to Isabel,[10]and she will inform you of the extent of her communication to me. I have been an altered being since then; long I thought that almost a deathblow was given, so heavily and unremittingly did the thought press on and sting me; but one lives on through all to be a wreck.
Though I was conscious that, having spoken of me as you did, you could not love me, I could not easily detach myself from the atmosphere of light and beauty that ever surrounded you. Now I tried to keep you, feeling the while that I had lost you; but you penetrated the change, and I owe it to you not to disguise the cause. What will become of us, my poor girl?
········
This explains my estrangement. While with you I was solely occupied by endeavouring not to think or feel, for had I done either I should not have been so calm as I daresay I appeared.... Nothing but my Father could have drawn me to town again; his claims only prevent me now from burying myself in the country. I have known no peace since July. I never expect to know it again. Is it not best, then, that you forget the unhappy
M. W. S.?
We hear no more of this painful episode. It did not put a stop to Jane’s intercourse with Mary. Friendship, in the old sense, could never be. But, to the end of Mary’s life, her letters show the tenderness, the half-maternal solicitude she ever felt for the companion and sharer of her deepest affliction.
Another distraction came to her now in the shape of an invitation to Paris, which she accepted, although she was feeling far from well, a fact which she attributed to depression of spirits, but which proved to have quite another cause.
Journal, April 11(1828).—I depart for Paris, sick at heart, yet pining to see my friend (Julia Robinson).
A lady, an intimate friend of hers at this time, who, in a little book calledTraits of Character, has given a very interesting (though, in some details, inaccurate) sketch of Mary Shelley, says that her visit to Paris was eagerly looked forward to by many. “Honour to the authoress and admiration for the woman awaited her.” But, directly after her arrival, she was prostrated on a sick—it was feared, death-bed. Her journal, three months later, tells the sequel.
Journal, July 8, Hastings.—There was a reason for my depression: I was sickening of the small-pox. I was confined to my bed the moment I arrived in Paris. The nature of my disorder was concealed from me till my convalescence, and I am so easily duped. Health, buoyant and bright, succeeded to my illness. The Parisians were very amiable, and, a monster to look at as I was, I tried to be agreeable, to compensate to them.
The same authoress asserts that neither when she recovered nor ever after was she in appearance the Mary Shelley of the past. She was not scarred by the disease (“which in its natural form she had had in childhood”), but the pearlydelicacy and transparency of her skin and the brightness and luxuriance of her soft hair were grievously dimmed.
She bore this trial to womanly vanity well and bravely, for she had that within which passeth show—high intellectual endowments, and, better still, a true, loving, faithful heart.
The external effects of her illness must, to a great degree, have disappeared in course of time, for those who never knew her till some twenty years later than this revert to their first impression of her in words almost identical with those used by Christy Baxter when, at ninety years of age, she described Mary Godwin at fifteen as “white, bright, and clear.”
If, however, she had any womanly vanity at all, it must have been a trial to her that, just now, her old friend Trelawny should return for a few months to England. She did not see him till November, when Clare also arrived, on a flying visit to her native land. But, before their meeting, she had received some characteristic letters from Trelawny.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Southampton,8th July 1828.Dear Mary—My moving about and having had much to do must be my excuse for not writing as often as I should do. That it is but an excuse I allow; the truth would be better, but who nowadays ever thinks of speaking truth? The true reason, then, is that I am getting old, and writing has become irksome. You cannot plead either, so write on, dear Mary.I love you sincerely, no one better. Time has not quenched the fire of my nature; my feelings and passions burn fierce as ever, and will till they have consumed me. I wear the burnished livery of the sun.To whom am I a neighbour? and near whom? I dwell amongst tame and civilised human beings, with somewhat the same feelings as we may guess the lion feels when, torn from his native wilderness, he is tortured into domestic intercourse with what Shakespeare calls “forked animals,” the most abhorrent to his nature.You see by this how little my real nature is altered, but now to reply to yours. I cannot decidedly say or fix a period of our meeting. It shall be soon, if you stay there, at Hastings; but I have business on hand I wish to conclude, and now that I can see you when I determine to do so, I, as you see, postpone the engagement because it is within my grasp. Such is the perverseness of human nature! Nevertheless, I will write, and I pray you to do so likewise. You are my dear and long true friend, and as such I love you.—Yours, dear,Trelawny.I shall remain ten or twelve days here, so address Southampton; it is enough.Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Trewithen,September 1828.Dear Mary—I really do not know why I am everlastingly boring you with letters. Perhaps it is to prevent you forgetting me; or to prove to you that I do not forget you; or I like it, which is a woman’s reason....How is Jane (Hogg)? Do remember me kindly to her. I hope you are friends, and that I shall see her in town. I have no right to be discontented or fastidious when she is not. I trust she is contented with her lot; if she is, she has an advantage over most of us. Death and Time have made sad havoc amongst my old friends here; they are never idle, and yet we go on as if they concerned us not, and thus dream our lives away till we wake no more, and then our bodies arethrown into a hole in the earth, like a dead dog’s, that infects the atmosphere, and the void is filled up, and we are forgotten.Can such things be, and overcome us like a summer cloud, without our special wonder?...
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Southampton,8th July 1828.
Dear Mary—My moving about and having had much to do must be my excuse for not writing as often as I should do. That it is but an excuse I allow; the truth would be better, but who nowadays ever thinks of speaking truth? The true reason, then, is that I am getting old, and writing has become irksome. You cannot plead either, so write on, dear Mary.I love you sincerely, no one better. Time has not quenched the fire of my nature; my feelings and passions burn fierce as ever, and will till they have consumed me. I wear the burnished livery of the sun.
To whom am I a neighbour? and near whom? I dwell amongst tame and civilised human beings, with somewhat the same feelings as we may guess the lion feels when, torn from his native wilderness, he is tortured into domestic intercourse with what Shakespeare calls “forked animals,” the most abhorrent to his nature.
You see by this how little my real nature is altered, but now to reply to yours. I cannot decidedly say or fix a period of our meeting. It shall be soon, if you stay there, at Hastings; but I have business on hand I wish to conclude, and now that I can see you when I determine to do so, I, as you see, postpone the engagement because it is within my grasp. Such is the perverseness of human nature! Nevertheless, I will write, and I pray you to do so likewise. You are my dear and long true friend, and as such I love you.—Yours, dear,
Trelawny.
I shall remain ten or twelve days here, so address Southampton; it is enough.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Trewithen,September 1828.
Dear Mary—I really do not know why I am everlastingly boring you with letters. Perhaps it is to prevent you forgetting me; or to prove to you that I do not forget you; or I like it, which is a woman’s reason....
How is Jane (Hogg)? Do remember me kindly to her. I hope you are friends, and that I shall see her in town. I have no right to be discontented or fastidious when she is not. I trust she is contented with her lot; if she is, she has an advantage over most of us. Death and Time have made sad havoc amongst my old friends here; they are never idle, and yet we go on as if they concerned us not, and thus dream our lives away till we wake no more, and then our bodies arethrown into a hole in the earth, like a dead dog’s, that infects the atmosphere, and the void is filled up, and we are forgotten.
Can such things be, and overcome us like a summer cloud, without our special wonder?...
Trelawny’s visit to England was of short duration. Before the end of the next February (1829) he was in Florence, overflowing with new plans, and, as usual, imparting them eagerly, certain of sympathy, to Mrs. Shelley. His renewed intercourse with her had led to no diminution of friendship. He may have found her even more attractive than when she was younger; more equable in spirits, more lenient in her judgments, her whole disposition mellowed and ripened in the stern school of adversity.
Their correspondence, which for two or three years was very frequent, opened, however, with a difference of opinion. Trelawny was ambitious of writing Shelley’s biography, and wanted Mary to help him by giving him the facts for it.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Poste Restante, Florence,11th March 1829.Dear Mary—I arrived here some sixteen or seventeen days back. I travelled in a very leisurely way; whilst on the road I used expedition, but I stayed at Lyons, Turin, Genoa, and Leghorn. I have taken up my quarters with Brown. I thought I should get a letter here from you or Clare, but was disappointed. The letter you addressed to Paris I received; tell Clare I was pained at her silence, yet though she neglects to write to me, I shall not follow her example, but will write her in a few days.My principal object in writing to you now is to tell you that I am actually writing my own life. Brown and Landor are spurring me on, and are to review it sheet by sheet, as it is written; moreover, I am commencing as a tribute of my great love for the memory of Shelley his life and moral character. Landor and Brown are in this to have a hand, therefore I am collecting every information regarding him. I always wished you to do this, Mary; if you will not, as of the living I love him and you best, incompetent as I am, I must do my best to show him to the world as I found him. Do you approve of this? Will you aid in it? without which it cannot be done. Will you give documents? Will you write anecdotes? or—be explicit on this, dear—give me your opinion; if you in the least dislike it, say so, and there is an end of it; if on the contrary, set about doing it without loss of time. Both this and my life will be sent you to peruse and approve or alter before publication, and I need not say that you will have free scope to expunge all you disapprove of.I shall say no more till I get your reply to this.The winter here, if ten or twelve days somewhat cold can be called winter, has been clear, dry, and sunny; ever since my arrival in Italy I have been sitting without fire, and with open windows. Come away, dear Mary, from the horrible climate you are in; life is not endurable where you are.Florence is very gay, and a weight was taken from my mind, and body too, in getting on this side of the Alps. Heaven and hell cannot be very much more dissimilar....You may suppose I have now writing enough without scrawling long letters, so pardon this short one, dear Mary, from your affectionateE. J. Trelawny.P.S.—Love to Clare.Mrs. Shelley to Trelawny.April 1829.My dear Trelawny—Your letter reminded me of my misdeeds of omission, and of not writing to you as I ought,and it assured me of your kind thoughts in that happy land where as angels in heaven you can afford pity to us Arctic islanders. It is too bad, is it not, that when such a Paradise does exist as fair Italy, one should be chained here, without the infliction of such absolutely cold weather? I have never suffered a more ungenial winter. Winter it is still; a cold east wind has prevailed the last six weeks, making exercise in the open air a positive punishment. This is truly English; half a page about the weather, but here this subject has every importance; is it fine? you guess I am happy and enjoying myself; is it as it always is? you know that one is fighting against a domestic enemy which saps at the very foundations of pleasure.I am glad that you are occupying yourself, and I hope that your two friends will not cease urging you till you really put to paper the strange wild adventures you recount so well. With regard to the other subject, you may guess, my dear Friend, that I have often thought, often done more than think on the subject. There is nothing I shrink from more fearfully than publicity. I have too much of it, and, what is worse, I am forced by my hard situation to meet it in a thousand ways. Could you write my husband’s life without naming me, it would be something; but even then I should be terrified at the rousing the slumbering voice of the public;—each critique, each mention of your work might drag me forward. Nor indeed is it possible to write Shelley’s life in that way. Many men have his opinions,—none heartily and conscientiously act on them as he did,—it is his act that marks him.You know me, or you do not—in which case I will tell you what I am—a silly goose, who, far from wishing to stand forward to assert myself in any way, now that I am alone in the world, have but the time to wrap night and the obscurity of insignificance around me. This is weakness, but I cannot help it; to be in print, the subject of men’s observations, of the bitter hard world’s commentaries, to be attacked or defended, this ill becomes one who knows how little she possesses worthy to attract attention, and whose chiefmerit—if it be one—is a love of that privacy which no woman can emerge from without regret.Shelley’s life must be written. I hope one day to do it myself, but it must not be published now. There are too many concerned to speak against him; it is still too sore a subject. Your tribute of praise, in a way that cannot do harm, can be introduced into your own life. But remember, I pray for omission, for it is not that you will not be too kind, too eager to do me more than justice. But I only seek to be forgotten.Clare has written to you she is about to return to Germany. She will, I suppose, explain to you the circumstances that make her return to the lady she was before with desirable. She will go to Carlsbad, and the baths will be of great service to her. Her health is improved, though very far from restored. For myself, I am as usual well in health and longing for summer, when I may enjoy the peace that alone is left me. I am another person under the genial influence of the sun; I can live unrepining with no other enjoyment but the country made bright and cheerful by its beams; till then I languish. Percy is quite well; he grows very fast and looks very healthy.It gives me great pleasure to hear from you, dear friend, so write often. I have now answered your letter, though I can hardly call this one. So you may very soon expect another. How are your dogs? and where is Roberts? Have you given up all idea of shooting? I hear Medwin is a great man at Florence, so Pisa and economy are at an end. Adieu.—Yours,M. S.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Poste Restante, Florence,11th March 1829.
Dear Mary—I arrived here some sixteen or seventeen days back. I travelled in a very leisurely way; whilst on the road I used expedition, but I stayed at Lyons, Turin, Genoa, and Leghorn. I have taken up my quarters with Brown. I thought I should get a letter here from you or Clare, but was disappointed. The letter you addressed to Paris I received; tell Clare I was pained at her silence, yet though she neglects to write to me, I shall not follow her example, but will write her in a few days.
My principal object in writing to you now is to tell you that I am actually writing my own life. Brown and Landor are spurring me on, and are to review it sheet by sheet, as it is written; moreover, I am commencing as a tribute of my great love for the memory of Shelley his life and moral character. Landor and Brown are in this to have a hand, therefore I am collecting every information regarding him. I always wished you to do this, Mary; if you will not, as of the living I love him and you best, incompetent as I am, I must do my best to show him to the world as I found him. Do you approve of this? Will you aid in it? without which it cannot be done. Will you give documents? Will you write anecdotes? or—be explicit on this, dear—give me your opinion; if you in the least dislike it, say so, and there is an end of it; if on the contrary, set about doing it without loss of time. Both this and my life will be sent you to peruse and approve or alter before publication, and I need not say that you will have free scope to expunge all you disapprove of.
I shall say no more till I get your reply to this.
The winter here, if ten or twelve days somewhat cold can be called winter, has been clear, dry, and sunny; ever since my arrival in Italy I have been sitting without fire, and with open windows. Come away, dear Mary, from the horrible climate you are in; life is not endurable where you are.
Florence is very gay, and a weight was taken from my mind, and body too, in getting on this side of the Alps. Heaven and hell cannot be very much more dissimilar....
You may suppose I have now writing enough without scrawling long letters, so pardon this short one, dear Mary, from your affectionate
E. J. Trelawny.
P.S.—Love to Clare.
Mrs. Shelley to Trelawny.
April 1829.
My dear Trelawny—Your letter reminded me of my misdeeds of omission, and of not writing to you as I ought,and it assured me of your kind thoughts in that happy land where as angels in heaven you can afford pity to us Arctic islanders. It is too bad, is it not, that when such a Paradise does exist as fair Italy, one should be chained here, without the infliction of such absolutely cold weather? I have never suffered a more ungenial winter. Winter it is still; a cold east wind has prevailed the last six weeks, making exercise in the open air a positive punishment. This is truly English; half a page about the weather, but here this subject has every importance; is it fine? you guess I am happy and enjoying myself; is it as it always is? you know that one is fighting against a domestic enemy which saps at the very foundations of pleasure.
I am glad that you are occupying yourself, and I hope that your two friends will not cease urging you till you really put to paper the strange wild adventures you recount so well. With regard to the other subject, you may guess, my dear Friend, that I have often thought, often done more than think on the subject. There is nothing I shrink from more fearfully than publicity. I have too much of it, and, what is worse, I am forced by my hard situation to meet it in a thousand ways. Could you write my husband’s life without naming me, it would be something; but even then I should be terrified at the rousing the slumbering voice of the public;—each critique, each mention of your work might drag me forward. Nor indeed is it possible to write Shelley’s life in that way. Many men have his opinions,—none heartily and conscientiously act on them as he did,—it is his act that marks him.
You know me, or you do not—in which case I will tell you what I am—a silly goose, who, far from wishing to stand forward to assert myself in any way, now that I am alone in the world, have but the time to wrap night and the obscurity of insignificance around me. This is weakness, but I cannot help it; to be in print, the subject of men’s observations, of the bitter hard world’s commentaries, to be attacked or defended, this ill becomes one who knows how little she possesses worthy to attract attention, and whose chiefmerit—if it be one—is a love of that privacy which no woman can emerge from without regret.
Shelley’s life must be written. I hope one day to do it myself, but it must not be published now. There are too many concerned to speak against him; it is still too sore a subject. Your tribute of praise, in a way that cannot do harm, can be introduced into your own life. But remember, I pray for omission, for it is not that you will not be too kind, too eager to do me more than justice. But I only seek to be forgotten.
Clare has written to you she is about to return to Germany. She will, I suppose, explain to you the circumstances that make her return to the lady she was before with desirable. She will go to Carlsbad, and the baths will be of great service to her. Her health is improved, though very far from restored. For myself, I am as usual well in health and longing for summer, when I may enjoy the peace that alone is left me. I am another person under the genial influence of the sun; I can live unrepining with no other enjoyment but the country made bright and cheerful by its beams; till then I languish. Percy is quite well; he grows very fast and looks very healthy.
It gives me great pleasure to hear from you, dear friend, so write often. I have now answered your letter, though I can hardly call this one. So you may very soon expect another. How are your dogs? and where is Roberts? Have you given up all idea of shooting? I hear Medwin is a great man at Florence, so Pisa and economy are at an end. Adieu.—Yours,
M. S.
The fiery “Pirate” was much disappointed at Mary’s refusal to collaborate with him, and quite unable to understand her unwillingness to be the instrument of making the facts of her own and Shelley’s life the subject of public discussion. His resentment soon passed away, but his first wrath was evidently expressed with characteristic vigour.
Mary Shelley to Trelawny.15th December 1829.... Your last letter was not at all kind. You are angry with me, but what do you ask, and what do I refuse? You talk of writing Shelley’s life, and ask me for materials. Shelley’s life, as far as the public have to do with it, consisted of few events, and these are publicly known; the private events were sad and tragical. How would you relate them? As Hunt has, slurring over the real truth? Wherefore write fiction? and the truth, any part of it, is hardly for the rude cold world to handle. His merits are acknowledged, his virtues;—to bring forward actions which, right or wrong (and that would be a matter of dispute), were in their results tremendous, would be to awaken calumnies and give his enemies a voice.········As to giving Moore materials for Lord Byron’s life, I thought—I think—I did right. I think I have achieved a great good by it. I wish it to be kept secret—decidedly I am averse to its being published, for it would destroy me to be brought forward in print. I commit myself on this point to your generosity. I confided the fact to you as I would anything I did, being my dearest friend, and had no idea that I was to find in you a harsh censor and public denouncer....Did I uphold Medwin? I thought that I had always disliked him. I am sure I thought him a great annoyance, and he was always borrowing crowns which he never meant to pay and we could ill spare. He was Jane’s friend more than any one’s.To be sure, we did not desire a duel, nor a horsewhipping, and Lord Byron and Mrs. B. ... worked hard to promote peace.—Affectionately yours,M. W. S.
Mary Shelley to Trelawny.
15th December 1829.
... Your last letter was not at all kind. You are angry with me, but what do you ask, and what do I refuse? You talk of writing Shelley’s life, and ask me for materials. Shelley’s life, as far as the public have to do with it, consisted of few events, and these are publicly known; the private events were sad and tragical. How would you relate them? As Hunt has, slurring over the real truth? Wherefore write fiction? and the truth, any part of it, is hardly for the rude cold world to handle. His merits are acknowledged, his virtues;—to bring forward actions which, right or wrong (and that would be a matter of dispute), were in their results tremendous, would be to awaken calumnies and give his enemies a voice.
········
As to giving Moore materials for Lord Byron’s life, I thought—I think—I did right. I think I have achieved a great good by it. I wish it to be kept secret—decidedly I am averse to its being published, for it would destroy me to be brought forward in print. I commit myself on this point to your generosity. I confided the fact to you as I would anything I did, being my dearest friend, and had no idea that I was to find in you a harsh censor and public denouncer....
Did I uphold Medwin? I thought that I had always disliked him. I am sure I thought him a great annoyance, and he was always borrowing crowns which he never meant to pay and we could ill spare. He was Jane’s friend more than any one’s.
To be sure, we did not desire a duel, nor a horsewhipping, and Lord Byron and Mrs. B. ... worked hard to promote peace.—Affectionately yours,
M. W. S.
During this year Mrs. Shelley was busily employed on her own novel,Perkin Warbeck, the subject of which may have occurred to her inconnection with the historic associations of Arundel Castle. It is a work of great ingenuity and research, though hardly so spontaneous in conception as her earlier books. In spite of her retired life she had come to be looked on as a celebrity, and many distinguished literary people sought her acquaintance. Among these was Lord Dillon, conspicuous by his good looks, his conversational powers, his many rare qualities of head and heart, and his numerous oddities. Between him and Mrs. Shelley a strong mutual regard existed, and the following letter is of sufficient interest to be inserted here. The writer had desired Mary’s opinion on the subject of one of his poems.
Lord Dillon to Mrs. Shelley.Ditchley,18th March 1829.My dear Mrs. Shelley—I return you many thanks for your letter and your favourable opinion. It is singular that you should have hit upon the two parts that I almost think the best of all my poem. I fear that my delineations of women do not please you, or persons who think as you do. I have a classic feeling about your sex—that is to say, I prefer nature to what is called delicacy.... I must be excused, however; I have never loved or much liked women of refined sentiment, but those of strong and blunt feelings and passions.... Pray tell me candidly, for I believe you to be sincere, though at first I doubted it, for your manner is reserved, and that put me on my guard; but now I admit you to my full confidence, which I seldom give. Is not Eccelino considered as too free? Tell me then truly—I never quote whenever I write to a person. You may trust me. You might tell meall the secrets in the world; they would never be breathed. I shall see you in May, and then we may converse more freely, but I own you look more sly than I think you are, and therefore I never was so candid with you as I think I ought to be. Have not people who did not know you taken you for a cunning person? You have puzzled me very much. Women always feel flattered when they are told they have puzzled people. I will tell you what has puzzled me. Your writings and your manner are not in accordance. I should have thought of you—if I had only read you—that you were a sort of my Sybil, outpouringly enthusiastic, rather indiscreet, and even extravagant; but you are cool, quiet, and feminine to the last degree—I mean in delicacy of manner and expression. Explain this to me. Shall I desire my brother to call on you with respect to Mr. Peter in the Tower? He is his friend, not mine. He is very clever, and I think you would like him. Pray tell Miss G. to write to me.—Yours most truly,Dillon.Journal, October 8(1829).—I was at Sir Thomas Lawrence’s to-day whilst Moore was sitting, and passed a delightful morning. We then went to the Charter House, and I saw his son, a beautiful boy.January 9(1830).—Poor Lawrence is dead.Having seen him so lately, the suddenness of this event affects me deeply. His death opens all wounds. I see all those I love die around me, while I lament.January 22.—I have begun a new kind of life somewhat, going a little into society and forming a variety of acquaintances. People like me, and flatter and follow me, and then I am left alone again, poverty being a barrier I cannot pass. Still I am often amused and sometimes interested.March 23.—I gave asoirée, which succeeded very well. Mrs. Hare is going, and I am very sorry. She likes me, and she is gentle and good. Her husband is clever and her set very agreeable, rendered so by the reunion of some of the best people about town.
Lord Dillon to Mrs. Shelley.
Ditchley,18th March 1829.
My dear Mrs. Shelley—I return you many thanks for your letter and your favourable opinion. It is singular that you should have hit upon the two parts that I almost think the best of all my poem. I fear that my delineations of women do not please you, or persons who think as you do. I have a classic feeling about your sex—that is to say, I prefer nature to what is called delicacy.... I must be excused, however; I have never loved or much liked women of refined sentiment, but those of strong and blunt feelings and passions.... Pray tell me candidly, for I believe you to be sincere, though at first I doubted it, for your manner is reserved, and that put me on my guard; but now I admit you to my full confidence, which I seldom give. Is not Eccelino considered as too free? Tell me then truly—I never quote whenever I write to a person. You may trust me. You might tell meall the secrets in the world; they would never be breathed. I shall see you in May, and then we may converse more freely, but I own you look more sly than I think you are, and therefore I never was so candid with you as I think I ought to be. Have not people who did not know you taken you for a cunning person? You have puzzled me very much. Women always feel flattered when they are told they have puzzled people. I will tell you what has puzzled me. Your writings and your manner are not in accordance. I should have thought of you—if I had only read you—that you were a sort of my Sybil, outpouringly enthusiastic, rather indiscreet, and even extravagant; but you are cool, quiet, and feminine to the last degree—I mean in delicacy of manner and expression. Explain this to me. Shall I desire my brother to call on you with respect to Mr. Peter in the Tower? He is his friend, not mine. He is very clever, and I think you would like him. Pray tell Miss G. to write to me.—Yours most truly,
Dillon.
Journal, October 8(1829).—I was at Sir Thomas Lawrence’s to-day whilst Moore was sitting, and passed a delightful morning. We then went to the Charter House, and I saw his son, a beautiful boy.
January 9(1830).—Poor Lawrence is dead.
Having seen him so lately, the suddenness of this event affects me deeply. His death opens all wounds. I see all those I love die around me, while I lament.
January 22.—I have begun a new kind of life somewhat, going a little into society and forming a variety of acquaintances. People like me, and flatter and follow me, and then I am left alone again, poverty being a barrier I cannot pass. Still I am often amused and sometimes interested.
March 23.—I gave asoirée, which succeeded very well. Mrs. Hare is going, and I am very sorry. She likes me, and she is gentle and good. Her husband is clever and her set very agreeable, rendered so by the reunion of some of the best people about town.
Mrs. Shelley now resided in Somerset Street, Portman Square. Her occasional “at homes,” though of necessity simple in character, were not on that account the less frequented. Here might be met many of the most famous and most charming men and women of their day, and here Moore would thrill all hearts and bring tears to all eyes by his exquisitely pathetic singing of his own melodies.
The hostess herself, gentle and winning, was an object of more admiration than would ever be suspected from the simple, almost deprecatory tone of her scraps of journal. Among her MSS. are numerous anonymous poems addressed to her, some sentimental, others high-flown in compliment, though none, unfortunately, of sufficient literary merit to be, in themselves, worth preserving. But, whether they afforded her amusement or gratification, it is probable that she had to work too hard and too continuously to give more than a passing thought to such things. From the following letter of Clare’s it may be inferred thatPerkin Warbeck, which appeared in 1830, was, in a pecuniary sense, something of a disappointment, and that this was the more vexatious as Mary had lent Clare money during her visit to England, and would have been glad, now, to be repaid, not, however, on her own account, but that of Marshall, Godwin’s former amanuensis and her kind friendin her childhood, whom, it is evident, she was helping to support in his old age.
Clare to Mrs. Shelley.Dresden,28th March 1830.My dear Mary—At last I take up the pen to write to you. At least thus much can I affirm, that I take it up, but whether I shall ever get to the end of my task and complete this letter is beyond me to decide. One of the causes of my long delay has been the hope of being able to send you the money for Marshall. I was to have been paid in February, but as yet have received neither money nor notice from Mrs. K. ... By this I am led to think she does not intend to do so until her return here in May. I am vexed, for I have been reproaching myself the whole winter with this debt. Of this be sure, the instant I am paid I will despatch what I owe you to London.... Here I was interrupted, and for two days have been unable to continue. How delighted I was with the news of Percy’s health, as also with his letter, though I am afraid it was written unwillingly and cost him a world of pains. Poor child! he little thinks how much I am attached to him! When I first saw him I thought him cold, but afterwards he discovered so much intellect in all his speeches, and so much originality in his doings, that I willingly pardoned him for not being interested in anything but himself. In some weeks he will again be at home for Easter. But what is this to me, since I shall not see him, nor perhaps even ever again. It seems settled that my destination is Vienna. The negotiation with Mrs. K. ... has been broken off on my showing great unwillingness to go to Italy; that it may not be renewed I will not say. She now talks of going to Nice, to which place I have no objection in the world to accompany her. But nothing of this can be settled till she comes, for as neither of us can speak frankly in our letters, owing to their being subject to her husband’s inspection, we have as yet done nothing but mutually misinterpret the circumspect and circuitous phraseology in whichour real meaning was wrapped. Nothing can equal the letters she has written to me; they were detached pieces of agony. How she lived at all after bringing such productions into the world I cannot guess. Instruments of torture are nothing to them. She favoured me with one every week, which was a very clever contrivance on her part to keep us in an agitation equal to the one she suffered at Moghileff. Thanks to her and Natalie’s perpetual indisposition, I have passed a tolerably disagreeable winter. At home I was employed in rubbings, stretchings, putting on trusses, dressing ulcers, applying leeches, and bandaging swollen glands. Out-of-doors our recreations were [all] baths, baths of bullock’s blood, mud baths, steam baths, soap baths, and electricity. If I had served in a hospital I should not have been more constantly employed with sickness and its appendages. I could understand this order of things pretty well, and even perhaps from custom find some beauty in their deformity if the sky were pitch black and the stars red; but when I see them so beautiful I cannot help imagining that they were made to look down upon a life more consonant with their own natures than the one I lead, and I am filled with the most bitter dislike of it. I ought to confess, however, that it is a great mitigation of my disagreeable life to live in Dresden; such is the structure of existence here that a thousand alleviations to misery are offered. Here, as in Italy, you cannot walk the streets without meeting with some object which affords ready and agreeable occupation to the mind. I never yet was in a place where I met so much to please and so little to shock me. In vain I endeavour to recollect anything I could wish otherwise; not a fault presents itself. The more I become acquainted with the town and see its smallness, the more I am struck with the uncommon resources in literaturee le belle artiit possesses. With what regret shall I leave it for Vienna. Farewell, then, a long farewell to Mount Olympus and its treasures of wisdom, science, poetry, and skill; the vales may be green and many rills trill through them, and many flocks pasture there, but the inhabitants will be as vile and miserable to me as were the shepherds ofAdmetus to Apollo when he kept their company. At any rate Vienna is better than Russia. I trust and hope when I am there you will make some little effort to procure the newspapers and reviews and new works; this alone can soften the mortification I shall feel in being obliged to live in that city. Already I have lost the little I had gained in my English, and I can only write with an effort that is painful to me; it precludes the possibility of my finding any pleasure in composition. I pause a hundred times and lean upon my hand to endeavour to find words to express the idea that is in my mind. It is a vain endeavour; the idea is there, but no words, and I leave my task unfinished. Another favour I have to ask you, which is, if I should require your mediation to get a book published at Paris, you will write to your friends there, and otherwise interest yourself as warmly as you can about it. Promise me this, and give me an answer upon it as quick as you can. I have had many letters from Charles. His affairs have taken the most favourable turn at Vienna. Everything iscouleur de rose. More employment than he can accept seems likely to be offered to him; this is consolatory. He talks with rapture of his future plans, has taken a charming house, painted and furnished a pretty room for me, and will send Antonia and the babes to the lovely hills at some miles from the town so soon as they arrive.Mamma has written to me everything concerning Colburn; this is indeed a disappointment, and the more galling because odiously unjust. Let me hear if your plan of writing theMemoirs of Josephineis likely to be put into execution. This perhaps would pay you better. I tremble for the anxiety of mind you suffer about Papa and your own pecuniary resources.········What says the world to Moore’sLord Byron? I saw some extracts in a review, and cannot express the pleasure I experienced in finding it was sad stuff. It was the journal of the Noble Lord, and I should say contained as fine a picture of indigestion as one could expect to meet with in Dr. Paris, Graham, or Johnson. Of Trelawny I know little. He wroteto me, describing where he was living and what kind of life he was leading. I have not yet answered him, although I make a sacred promise every day not to let it go over my head without so doing. But there is a certain want of sympathy between us which makes writing to him extremely disagreeable to me. I admire, esteem, and love him; some excellent qualities he possesses in a degree that is unsurpassed, but then it is exactly in another direction from my centre and my impetus. He likes a turbid and troubled life, I a quiet one; he is full of fine feelings and has no principles, I am full of fine principles but never had a feeling; he receives all his impressions through his heart, I through my head.Que voulez vous? Le moyen de se recontrerwhen one is bound for the North Pole and the other for the South?What a terrible description you give of your winter. Ours, though severe, was an exceedingly fine one. From the time I arrived here until now there has not been a day that was not perfectly dry and clear. Within this last week we have had a great deal of rain. I well understand how much your spirits must have been affected by three months’ incessant foggy raw weather. In my mind nothing can compensate for a bad climate. How I wish I could draw you to Dresden. You would go into society and would see a quantity of things which, treated by your pen, would bring you in a good profit. Life is very cheap here, and in the summer you might take a course of Josephlitz or Carlsbad, which would set up your health and enable you to bear the winter of London with tolerable philosophy. Forgive me if I don’t write descriptions. It is impossible, situated as I am. I have not one moment free from annoyance from morning till night. This state of things depresses my mind terribly. When I have a moment of leisure it is breathed in a prayer for death. You will not wonder, therefore, that I think the Miss Booths right in their manner of acting; what is the use of trifling or mincing the matter with so despotic a ruler as the Disposer of the Universe? The one who is left is much to be pitied, for now she must die by herself, and that I think is as disagreeable as to live byoneself. In your next pray mention something about politics and how the London University is getting on. The accounts here of the distress in England are awful. Foreigners talk of that country as they would of Torre del Greco or Torre dell’ Annunciata at the announcement of an eruption of Vesuvius. I should think my mother must be delighted to be no more plagued with us; it was really a great bother and no pleasure for her. She writes me a delightful account of Papa’s health and spirits. Heaven grant it may continue. I am readingPolitical Justice, and am filled with admiration at the vastness of the plan, and the clearness and skill, nothing less than immortal, with which it is executed.Farewell! write to me about your novel and particularly the opinion it creates in society. Pray write. The letters of my acquaintances (friends I have none) are my only pleasure. Natalie is pretty well; the knee is better, inasmuch as the swelling is smaller, but the weakness is as great as ever. We sit opposite to one another in perfect wretchedness; I because I am obliged to entreat her all day to do what she does not like, and she because she is entreated.C. C.My love to William.
Clare to Mrs. Shelley.
Dresden,28th March 1830.
My dear Mary—At last I take up the pen to write to you. At least thus much can I affirm, that I take it up, but whether I shall ever get to the end of my task and complete this letter is beyond me to decide. One of the causes of my long delay has been the hope of being able to send you the money for Marshall. I was to have been paid in February, but as yet have received neither money nor notice from Mrs. K. ... By this I am led to think she does not intend to do so until her return here in May. I am vexed, for I have been reproaching myself the whole winter with this debt. Of this be sure, the instant I am paid I will despatch what I owe you to London.... Here I was interrupted, and for two days have been unable to continue. How delighted I was with the news of Percy’s health, as also with his letter, though I am afraid it was written unwillingly and cost him a world of pains. Poor child! he little thinks how much I am attached to him! When I first saw him I thought him cold, but afterwards he discovered so much intellect in all his speeches, and so much originality in his doings, that I willingly pardoned him for not being interested in anything but himself. In some weeks he will again be at home for Easter. But what is this to me, since I shall not see him, nor perhaps even ever again. It seems settled that my destination is Vienna. The negotiation with Mrs. K. ... has been broken off on my showing great unwillingness to go to Italy; that it may not be renewed I will not say. She now talks of going to Nice, to which place I have no objection in the world to accompany her. But nothing of this can be settled till she comes, for as neither of us can speak frankly in our letters, owing to their being subject to her husband’s inspection, we have as yet done nothing but mutually misinterpret the circumspect and circuitous phraseology in whichour real meaning was wrapped. Nothing can equal the letters she has written to me; they were detached pieces of agony. How she lived at all after bringing such productions into the world I cannot guess. Instruments of torture are nothing to them. She favoured me with one every week, which was a very clever contrivance on her part to keep us in an agitation equal to the one she suffered at Moghileff. Thanks to her and Natalie’s perpetual indisposition, I have passed a tolerably disagreeable winter. At home I was employed in rubbings, stretchings, putting on trusses, dressing ulcers, applying leeches, and bandaging swollen glands. Out-of-doors our recreations were [all] baths, baths of bullock’s blood, mud baths, steam baths, soap baths, and electricity. If I had served in a hospital I should not have been more constantly employed with sickness and its appendages. I could understand this order of things pretty well, and even perhaps from custom find some beauty in their deformity if the sky were pitch black and the stars red; but when I see them so beautiful I cannot help imagining that they were made to look down upon a life more consonant with their own natures than the one I lead, and I am filled with the most bitter dislike of it. I ought to confess, however, that it is a great mitigation of my disagreeable life to live in Dresden; such is the structure of existence here that a thousand alleviations to misery are offered. Here, as in Italy, you cannot walk the streets without meeting with some object which affords ready and agreeable occupation to the mind. I never yet was in a place where I met so much to please and so little to shock me. In vain I endeavour to recollect anything I could wish otherwise; not a fault presents itself. The more I become acquainted with the town and see its smallness, the more I am struck with the uncommon resources in literaturee le belle artiit possesses. With what regret shall I leave it for Vienna. Farewell, then, a long farewell to Mount Olympus and its treasures of wisdom, science, poetry, and skill; the vales may be green and many rills trill through them, and many flocks pasture there, but the inhabitants will be as vile and miserable to me as were the shepherds ofAdmetus to Apollo when he kept their company. At any rate Vienna is better than Russia. I trust and hope when I am there you will make some little effort to procure the newspapers and reviews and new works; this alone can soften the mortification I shall feel in being obliged to live in that city. Already I have lost the little I had gained in my English, and I can only write with an effort that is painful to me; it precludes the possibility of my finding any pleasure in composition. I pause a hundred times and lean upon my hand to endeavour to find words to express the idea that is in my mind. It is a vain endeavour; the idea is there, but no words, and I leave my task unfinished. Another favour I have to ask you, which is, if I should require your mediation to get a book published at Paris, you will write to your friends there, and otherwise interest yourself as warmly as you can about it. Promise me this, and give me an answer upon it as quick as you can. I have had many letters from Charles. His affairs have taken the most favourable turn at Vienna. Everything iscouleur de rose. More employment than he can accept seems likely to be offered to him; this is consolatory. He talks with rapture of his future plans, has taken a charming house, painted and furnished a pretty room for me, and will send Antonia and the babes to the lovely hills at some miles from the town so soon as they arrive.
Mamma has written to me everything concerning Colburn; this is indeed a disappointment, and the more galling because odiously unjust. Let me hear if your plan of writing theMemoirs of Josephineis likely to be put into execution. This perhaps would pay you better. I tremble for the anxiety of mind you suffer about Papa and your own pecuniary resources.
········
What says the world to Moore’sLord Byron? I saw some extracts in a review, and cannot express the pleasure I experienced in finding it was sad stuff. It was the journal of the Noble Lord, and I should say contained as fine a picture of indigestion as one could expect to meet with in Dr. Paris, Graham, or Johnson. Of Trelawny I know little. He wroteto me, describing where he was living and what kind of life he was leading. I have not yet answered him, although I make a sacred promise every day not to let it go over my head without so doing. But there is a certain want of sympathy between us which makes writing to him extremely disagreeable to me. I admire, esteem, and love him; some excellent qualities he possesses in a degree that is unsurpassed, but then it is exactly in another direction from my centre and my impetus. He likes a turbid and troubled life, I a quiet one; he is full of fine feelings and has no principles, I am full of fine principles but never had a feeling; he receives all his impressions through his heart, I through my head.Que voulez vous? Le moyen de se recontrerwhen one is bound for the North Pole and the other for the South?
What a terrible description you give of your winter. Ours, though severe, was an exceedingly fine one. From the time I arrived here until now there has not been a day that was not perfectly dry and clear. Within this last week we have had a great deal of rain. I well understand how much your spirits must have been affected by three months’ incessant foggy raw weather. In my mind nothing can compensate for a bad climate. How I wish I could draw you to Dresden. You would go into society and would see a quantity of things which, treated by your pen, would bring you in a good profit. Life is very cheap here, and in the summer you might take a course of Josephlitz or Carlsbad, which would set up your health and enable you to bear the winter of London with tolerable philosophy. Forgive me if I don’t write descriptions. It is impossible, situated as I am. I have not one moment free from annoyance from morning till night. This state of things depresses my mind terribly. When I have a moment of leisure it is breathed in a prayer for death. You will not wonder, therefore, that I think the Miss Booths right in their manner of acting; what is the use of trifling or mincing the matter with so despotic a ruler as the Disposer of the Universe? The one who is left is much to be pitied, for now she must die by herself, and that I think is as disagreeable as to live byoneself. In your next pray mention something about politics and how the London University is getting on. The accounts here of the distress in England are awful. Foreigners talk of that country as they would of Torre del Greco or Torre dell’ Annunciata at the announcement of an eruption of Vesuvius. I should think my mother must be delighted to be no more plagued with us; it was really a great bother and no pleasure for her. She writes me a delightful account of Papa’s health and spirits. Heaven grant it may continue. I am readingPolitical Justice, and am filled with admiration at the vastness of the plan, and the clearness and skill, nothing less than immortal, with which it is executed.
Farewell! write to me about your novel and particularly the opinion it creates in society. Pray write. The letters of my acquaintances (friends I have none) are my only pleasure. Natalie is pretty well; the knee is better, inasmuch as the swelling is smaller, but the weakness is as great as ever. We sit opposite to one another in perfect wretchedness; I because I am obliged to entreat her all day to do what she does not like, and she because she is entreated.
C. C.
My love to William.
During the next five years the “Author ofFrankenstein” wrote several short tales (some of which were published in theKeepsake, an annual periodical, the precursor of theBook of Beauty), but no new novel. She was to have abundant employment in furthering the work of another.
August 1830-October 1831
To all who know Trelawny’s curious book, the following correspondence, which tells the story of its publication and preparation for the press, will in itself be interesting. To readers of Mary Shelley’s life it has a strong additional interest as illustrating, better than any second-hand narrative can do, the unique kind of friendship subsisting between her and Trelawny, and which, based on genuine mutual regard and admiration, and a common devotion to the memory of Shelley and of a golden age which ended at his death, proved stronger than all obstacles, and, in spite of occasional eclipses through hasty words and misunderstandings, in spite of wide differences in temperament, in habits, in opinions, and morals, yet survived with a kind of dogged vitality for years.
Shelley said ofEpipsychidionthat it was “an idealised history of his life and feelings.”The Adventures of a Younger Sonis an idealised history of Trelawny’s youth and exploits, and veryamusing it is, though rather gruesome in some of its details; a romance of adventures, of hair-breadth escapes by flood and field. As will be seen, the original MS. had to be somewhat toned down before it was presented to the public, but it is, as it stands, quite sufficiently forcible, as well as blood-curdling, for most readers.
The letters may now be left to tell their own tale.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.16th August 1830.My dear Mary—That my letter may not be detained, I shall say nothing about Continental politics.My principal motive in writing is to inform you that I have nearly completed the first portion ofmy History, enough for three ordinary volumes, which I wish published forthwith. The Johnsons, as I told you before, are totally ruined by an Indian bankruptcy; the smallness of my income prevents my supporting them. Mr. Johnson is gone to India to see if he can save aught from the ruin of his large fortune. In the meantime his wife is almost destitute; this spurs me on. Brown, who is experienced in these matters, declares I shall have no difficulty in getting a very considerable sum for the MS. now. I shall want some friend to dispose of it for me. My name is not to appear or to be disclosed to the bookseller or any other person. The publisher who may purchase it is to be articled down to publish the work without omitting or altering a single word, there being nothing actionable, though a great deal objectionable, inasmuch as it is tinctured with the prejudices and passions of the author’s mind. However, there is nothing to prevent women reading it but its general want of merit. The opinion of the two or three who have read it is that it will be very successful, but I know how little value can be attached to such critics. I’ll tell you what I think—that it isgood, and might have been better; it is [filled] with events that, if not marred by my manner of narrating, must be interesting. I therefore plainly foresee it will be generally read or not at all. Who will undertake to, in the first place, dispose of it, and, in the second, watch its progress through the press? I care not who publishes it: the highest bidder shall have it. Murray would not like it, it is too violent; parsons andScots, and, in short, also others are spoken of irreverently, if not profanely. But when I have your reply I shall send the MS. to England, and your eyes will be the judge, so tell me precisely your movements.—Your attachedE. J. T.Poste Restante, Florence.When does Moore conclude hisLife of Byron? If I knew his address I could give him a useful hint that would be of service to the fame of the Poet.Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Florence,28th October 1830.Dearest Mary—My friend Baring left Florence on the 25th to proceed directly to London, so that he will be there as soon as you can get this letter. He took charge of my MSS., and promised to leave them at Hookham’s, Bond Street, addressed to you. I therefore pray you lose no time in inquiring about them; they are divided into chapters and volumes, copied out in a plain hand, and all ready to go to press. They have been corrected with the greatest care, and I do not think you will have any trouble with them on that score. All I want you to do is to read them attentively, and then show them to Murray and Colburn, or any other publisher, and to hear if they will publish them and what they will give. You may say the author cannot at present benamed, but that, when the work goes forth in the world, there are many who will recognise it. Besides the second series, which treats of Byron, Shelley, Greece, etc., will at once remove the veil, and the publisher who has the first shall have that. Yet at present I wish the first series to go forth strictly anonymous,and therefore you must on no account trust the publisher with my name. Surely there is matter enough in the book to make it interesting, if only viewed in the light of aromance. You will see that I have divided it into very short chapters, in the style of Fielding, and that I have selected mottoes from the only three poets who were the staunch advocates of liberty, and my contemporaries. I have left eight or nine blanks in the mottoes for you to fill up from the work of one of those poets. Brown, who was very anxious about the fame of Keats, has given many of his MSS. for the purpose. Now, if you could find any from the MSS. of Shelley or Byron, they would excite much interest, and their being strictly applicable is not of much importance. If you cannot, why, fill them up from the published works of Byron, Shelley, or Keats, but no others are to be admitted. When you have read the work and heard the opinion of the booksellers, write to me before you settle anything; only remember I am very anxious that no alterations or omissions should be made, and that the mottoes, whether long or short, double or treble, should not be curtailed. Will not Hogg assist you? I might get other people, but there is no person I have such confidence in as you, and the affair is one of confidence and trust, and are we not bound and united together by ties stronger than those which earth has to impose? Dearest friend, I am obliged hastily to conclude.—Yours affectionately,E. J. Trelawny.George Baring, Esq., who takes my book, is the brother of the banker; he has read it, and is in my confidence, and will be very ready to see and confer with you and do anything. He is an excellent person. I shall be very anxious till I hear from you.Mrs. Shelley To Trelawny.33 Somerset Street,27th December 1830.My dear Trelawny—At present I can only satisfy your impatience with the information that I have received your MS.and read the greater part of it. Soon I hope to say more. George Baring did not come to England, but after considerable delay forwarded it to me from Cologne.I am delighted with your work; it is full of passion, energy, and novelty; it concerns the sea, and that is a subject of the greatest interest to me. I should imagine that it must command success.But, my dear friend, allow me to persuade you to permit certain omissions. In one of your letters to me you say that “there is nothing in it that a woman could not read.” You are correct for the most part, and yet without the omission of a few words here and there—the scene before you go to school with the mate of your ship—and above all the scene of the burning of the house, following your scene with your Scotch enemy—I am sure that yours will be a book interdicted to women. Certain words and phrases, pardoned in the days of Fielding, are now justly interdicted, and any gross piece of ill taste will make your booksellers draw back.I have named all the objectionable passages, and I beseech you to let me deal with them as I would with Lord Byron’sDon Juan, when I omitted all that hurt my taste. Without this yielding on your part I shall experience great difficulty in disposing of your work; besides that I, your partial friend, strongly object to coarseness, now wholly out of date, and beg you for my sake to make the omissions necessary for your obtaining feminine readers. Amidst so much that is beautiful and imaginative and exalting, why leave spots which, believe me, are blemishes? I hope soon to write to you again on the subject.The burnings, the alarms, the absorbing politics of the day render booksellers almost averse to publishing at all. God knows how it will all end, but it looks as if the autocrats would have the good sense to make the necessary sacrifices to a starving people.I heard from Clare to-day; she is well and still at Nice. I suppose there is no hope of seeing you here. As for me, I of course still continue a prisoner. Percy is quite well, and is growing more and more like Shelley. Since it is necessary tolive, it is a great good to have this tie to life, but it is a wearisome affair. I hope you are happy.—Yours, my dearest friend, ever,Mary Shelley.Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Firenze,19th January 1831.My dearest Mary—For, notwithstanding what you may think of me, you every day become dearer to me. The men I have linked myself to in my wild career through life have almost all been prematurely cut off, and the only friends which are left me are women, and they are strange beings. I have lost them all by some means or other; they are dead to me in being married, or (for you are all slaves) separated by obstacles which are insurmountable, and as Lord Chatham observes, “Friendship is a weed of slow growth in aged bosoms.” But now to your letter. I to-day received yours of the 27th of December; you say you have received my MS. It has been a painful and arduous undertaking narrating my life. I have omitted a great deal, and avoided being a pander to the public taste for the sake of novelty or effect. Landor, a man of superior literary acquirements; Kirkup, an artist of superior taste; Baring, a man of the world and very religious; Mrs. Baring, moral and squeamish; Lady Burghersh, aristocratic and proud as a queen; and lastly, Charles Brown, a plain downright Cockney critic, learned in the trade of authorship, and has served his time as a literary scribe. All these male and female critics have read and passed their opinions on my narrative, and therefore you must excuse my apparent presumption in answering your objections to my book with an appearance of presumptuous dictation. Your objections to the coarseness of those scenes you have mentioned have been foreseen, and, without further preface or apology, I shall briefly state my wishes on the subject. Let Hogg or Horace Smith read it, and, without yourgiving anyopinion, hear theirs; then let the booksellers, Colburn or others, see it, and then if it is their general opinion that there arewordswhich are betteromitted, why I must submit to their being omitted; but do not prompt them by prematurely giving your opinion. My life, though I have sent it you, as the dearest friend I have, is not written for the amusement of women; it is not a novel. If you begin clipping the wings of my true story, if you begin erasing words, you must then omit sentences, then chapters; it will be pruning an Indian jungle down to a clipped French garden. I shall be so appalled at my MS. in its printed form, that I shall have no heart to go on with it. Dear Mary, I love women, and you know it, but my life is not dedicated to them; it is to men I write, and my first three volumes are principally adapted to sailors. England is a nautical nation, and, if they like it, the book will amply repay the publisher, and I predict it will be popular with sailors, for it is true to its text. By the time you get this letter the time of publishing is come, and we are too far apart to continue corresponding on the subject. Let Hogg, Horace Smith, or any one you like, read the MS.; or the booksellers; if they absolutely object to any particular words or short passages, why let them be omitted by leaving blanks; but I should prefer a first edition as it now stands, and then a second as the bookseller thought best. In the same way thatAnastasiuswas published, the suppression of the first edition of that work did not prevent its success. All men lament thatDon Juanwas not published as it was written, as under any form it would have been interdicted to women, and yet under any form they would have unavoidably read it.Brown, who is learned in the bookselling trade, says I should get £200 per volume. Do not dispose of it under any circumstances for less than £500 the three volumes. Have you seen a book written by a man named Millingen? He has written an article on me, and I am answering it. My reply to it I shall send you. TheLiterary Gazette, which published the extract regarding me, I have replied to, and to them I send my reply; the book I have not seen. If they refuse, as the article I write is amusing, you will have no difficulty in getting it admitted in some of the Londonmagazines. It will be forwarded to you in a few days, so you see I am now fairly coming forward in a new character. I have laid down the sword for the pen. Brown has just called with the article in question copied, and I send it together.I have spoken to you about filling up the mottoes; the title of my book I wish to be simply thus—The Life of a Man, and notThe Discarded Son, which looks too much like romance or a common novel....Florence is very gay, and there are many pretty girls here, and balls every night. Tell Mrs. Paul not to be angry at my calling her and her sisters by their Christian names, for I am very lawless, as you know, in that particular, and not very particular on other things.Brown talks of writing to you about the mottoes to my book, as he is very anxious about those of his friend Keats. Have you any MS. of Shelley’s or Byron’s to fill up the eight or ten I left blank? Remember the short chapters are to be adhered to in its printed form. I shall have no excitement to go on writing till I see what I have already written in print. By the bye, my next volumes will to general readers be far more interesting, and published with my name, or at least called Treloen, which is our original family name.Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Poste Restante, Firenze,5th April 1831.My dear Mary—Since your letter, dated December 1830, I have not had a single line from you, yet in that you promised to write in a few days. Why is this? or have you written, and has your letter miscarried, or have not my letters reached you? I was anxious to have published the first part of my life this year, and if it had succeeded in interesting general readers, it would have induced me to have proceeded to its completion, for I cannot doubt that if the first part, published anonymously, and treating of people, countries, and things little known, should suit the public palate, that the latter,treating of people that everybody knows, and of things generally interesting, must be successful. But till I see the effect of the first part, I cannot possibly proceed to the second, and time is fleeting, and I am lost in idleness. I cannot write a line, and thus six months, in which I had leisure to have finished my narrative, are lost, and I am now deeply engaged in a wild scheme which will lead me to the East, and it is firmly my belief that when I again leave Europe it will be for ever. I have had too many hair-breadth escapes to hope that fortune will bear me up. My present Quixotic expedition is to be in the region wherein is still standing the column erected by Sardanapalus, and on it by him inscribed words to the effect:Il faut jouir des plaisirs de la vie; tout le reste n’est rien.At present I can only say, if nothing materially intervenes to prevent me, that in the autumn of this year I shall bend my steps towards the above-mentioned column, and try the effect of it.I am sick to death of the pleasureless life I lead here, and I should rather the tinkling of the little bell, which I hear summoning the dead to its last resting-place, was ringing for my body than endure the petty vexations of what is called civilised life, and see what I saw a few days back, the Austrian tyrants trampling on their helot Italians; but letters are not safe.—Your affectionate friend,E. J. T.Mrs. Shelley to Trelawny.Somerset Street,22d March 1831.My dear Trelawny—What can you think of me and of my silence? I can guess by the contents of your letters and your not having yet received answers. Believe me that if I am at all to blame in this it arises from an error in judgment, not from want of zeal. Every post-day I have waited for the next, expecting to be able to communicate something definitive, and now still I am waiting; however, I trust that this letter will contain some certain intelligence before I send it.After all, I have done no more than send your manuscripts to Colburn, and I am still in expectation of his answer. In the first place, they insist on certain parts being expunged,—parts of which I alone had the courage to speak to you, but which had before been remarked upon as inadmissible. These, however (with trifling exceptions), occur only in the first volume. The task of deciding upon them may very properly be left to Horace Smith, if he will undertake it—we shall see. Meanwhile, Colburn has not made up his mind as to the price. He will not give £500. The terms he will offer I shall hope to send before I close this letter, so I will say no more except to excuse my having conceded so much time to his dilatoriness. In all I have done I may be wrong; I commonly act from my own judgment; but alas! I have great experience. Ibelievethat, if I sent your work to Murray, he would return it in two months unread; simply saying that he does not print novels. Your end part would be a temptation, did not your intention to be severe on Moore make it improbable that he would like to engage in it; and he would keep me as long as Colburn in uncertainty; still this may be right to do, and I shall expect your further instructions by return of post. However, in one way you may help yourself. You know Lockhart. He reads and judges for Murray; write to him; your letter shall accompany the MS. to him. Still, this thing must not be done hastily, for if I take the MS. out of Colburn’s hands, and, failing to dispose of it elsewhere, I come back to him, he will doubtless retreat from his original proposal. There are other booksellers in the world, doubtless, than these two, but, occupied as England is by political questions, and impoverished miserably, there are few who have enterprise at this juncture to offer a price. I quote examples. My father and myself would find it impossible to make any tolerable arrangement with any one except Colburn. He at least may be some guide as to what you may expect. Mr. Brown remembers the golden days of authors. When I first returned to England I found no difficulty in making agreements with publishers; they came to seek me; now money is scarce, and readers fewer than ever.I leave the rest of this page blank. I shall fill it up before it goes on Friday.Friday, 25th March.At length, my dear friend, I have received the ultimatum of these great people. They offer you £300, and another £100 on a second edition; as this was sent me in writing, and there is no time for further communication before post-hour, I cannotofficiallystate the number of the edition. I should think 1000. I think that perhaps they may be brought to say £400 at once, or £300 at once and £200 on the second edition. There can be no time for parleying, and therefore you must make up your mind whether after doing good battle, if necessary, I shall accept their terms. Believemy experienceand that of those about me; you will not get a better offer from others, because money is not to be had, and Bulwer and other fashionable and selling authors are now obliged to content themselves with half of what they got before. If you decline this offer, I will, if you please, try Murray; he will keep me two months at least, and the worst is, if he won’t do anything, Colburn will diminish his bargain, and we shall be in a greater mess than ever. I know that, as a woman, I am timid, and therefore a bad negotiator, except that I have perseverance and zeal, and, I repeat, experience of things as they are. Mr. Brown knows what they were, but they are sadly changed. The omissions mentioned must be made, but I will watch over them, and the mottoes and all that shall be most carefully attended to, depend on me.Do not be displeased, my dear friend, that I take advantage of this enormous sheet of paper to save postage, and ask you to tear off one half sheet, and to send it to Mrs. Hare. You talk of my visiting Italy. It is impossible for me to tell you how much I repine at my imprisonment here, but I dare not anticipate a change to take me there for a long time. England, its ungenial clime, its difficult society, and the annoyances to which I am subjected in it weigh on my spirits more than ever, for every step I take only shows me how impossible [itis], situated as I am, that I should be otherwise than wretched. My sanguine disposition and capacity to endure have borne me up hitherto, but I am sinking at last; but to quit so stupid a topic and to tell you news, did you hear that Medwin contrived to get himself gazetted for full pay in the Guards? I fancy that he employed his connection with the Shelleys, who are connected with the King through the Fitz Clarences. However, a week after he was gazetted as retiring. I suppose the officers cut him at mess; his poor wife and children! how I pity them! Jane is quite well, living in tranquillity. Hogg continues all that she can desire....She lives where she did; her children are well, and so is my Percy, who grows more like Shelley. I hear that your old favourite, Margaret Shelley, is prettier than ever; your Miss Burdett is married. I have been having lithographed your letter to me about Caroline. I wish to disperse about 100 copies among the many hapless fair who imagine themselves to have been the sole object of your tenderness. Clare is to have a first copy. Have you heard from poor dear Clare? She announced a little time ago that she was to visit Italy with the Kaisaroff to see you. I envied her, but I hear from her brother Charles that she has now quarrelled with Madame K., and that she will go to Vienna. God grant that her sufferings end soon. I begin to anticipate it, for I hear that Sir Tim is in a bad way. I shall hear more certain intelligence after Easter. Mrs. P. spends her Easter with Caroline, who lives in the neighbourhood, and will dine at Field Place. I have not seen Mrs. Aldridge since her marriage; she has scarcely been in town, but I shall see her this spring, when she comes up as she intends. You know, of course, that Elizabeth St. Aubyn is married, so you know that your ladies desert you sadly. If Clare and I were either to die or marry you would be left without a Dulcinea at all, with the exception of the sixscore new objects for idolatry you may have found among the pretty girls in Florence. Take courage, however; I am scarcely a Dulcinea, being your friend and not the Lady of your love, but such as I am, I do not thinkthat I shall either die or marry this year, whatever may happen the next; as it is only spring you have some time before you.We are all here on thequi viveabout the Reform Bill; if it pass, and Tories and all expect it, well,—if not, Parliament is dissolved immediately, and they say that the new writs are in preparation. The Whigs triumphed gloriously in the boldness of their measure. England will be free if it is carried. I have had very bad accounts from Rome, but you are quiet as usual in Florence. I am scarcely wicked enough to desire that you should be driven home, nor do I expect it, and yet how glad I should be to see you. You never mention Zella. Adieu, my dear Trelawny.—I am always affectionately yours,Mary W. Shelley.Hunt has set up a little 2d. paper, theTatler, which is succeeding; this keeps him above water. I have not seen him very lately. He lives a long way off. He is the same as ever, a person whom all must love and regret.Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Poste Restante, Firenze,8th April 1831.Dear Mary—The day after I had despatched a scolding letter to you, I received your Titanic letter, and sent Mrs. Hare her fathom of it....Now, let’s to business. I thank you for the trouble you have taken about the MS. Let Colburn have it, and try to get £400 down, for as to what may be promised on a second edition, I am told is mere humbug. When my work is completed I have no doubt the first part will be reprinted, but get what you can paid down at once; as to the rest, I have only to say that I consent to Horace Smith being the sole arbitrator of what is necessary to be omitted, but do not let him be prompted, and tell him only to omit what isabsolutely indispensable. Say to him that it is a friend of Shelley’s who asks him this favour, but do not let him or any other individualknow that I am the author. If my name is known, and the work can be brought home to me, the consequences will be most disastrous. I beseech you bear this in mind. Let all the mottoes appear in their respective chapters without any omission, regardless of their number to each chapter, for they are all good, and fill up the eight or ten I left blank from Byron and Shelley; if from MS. so much the better. The changes in the opinions of all mankind on political and other topics are favourable to such writers as I and the Poets of Liberty whom I have selected. We shall no longer be hooted at; it is our turn to triumph now. Would those glorious spirits, to whose genius the present age owes so much, could witness the triumphant success of these opinions. I think I see Shelley’s fine eyes glisten, and faded cheek glow with fire unearthly. England, France, and Belgium free, the rest of Europe must follow; the theories of tyrants all over the world are shaken as by an earthquake; they may be propped up for a time, but their fall is inevitable. I am forgetting the main business of my letter. I hope, Mary, that you have not told Colburn or any one else that I am the author of the book. Remember that I must have the title simplyA Man’s Life, and that I should like to have as many copies for my friends as you can get from Colburn—ten, I hope—and that you will continue to report progress, and tell me when it is come out. You must have a copy, Horace Smith one, and Jane and Lady Burghersh; she is to be heard of at Apsley House—Duke of Wellington’s—and then I have some friends here; you must send me a parcel by sea. If the time is unfavourable for publication, from men’s minds being engrossed with politics, yet it is so far an advantage that my politics go with the times, and not as they would have been some years back, obnoxious and premature. I decide on Colburn as publisher, not from liberality of his terms, but his courage, and trusting that as little as possible will be omitted; and, by the bye, I wish you to keep copies, for I have none, of those parts which are omitted. Enough of this. Of Clare I have seen nothing. Do not you, dear Mary, abandon me by following the evilexamples of my other ladies. I should not wonder if fate, without our choice, united us; and who can control his fate? I blindly follow his decrees, dear Mary.—YourE. J. T.Mrs. Shelley to Trelawny.Somerset Street,14th June 1831.My dear Trelawny—Your work is in progress at last, and is being printed with great rapidity. Horace Smith undertook the revision, and sent a very favourable report of it to the publishers; to me he says: “Having written to you a few days ago, I have only to annex a copy of my letter to Colburn and Bentley, whence you will gather my opinion of the MS.; it is a most powerful, but rather perilous work, which will be much praised and much abused by the liberal and bigoted. I have read it with great pleasure and think it admirable, in everything but the conclusion;” by this he means, as he says to Colburn and Bentley, “The conclusion is abrupt and disappointing, especially as previous allusions have been made to his later life which is not given. Probably it is meant to be continued, and if so it would be better to state it, for I have no doubt that his first part will create a sufficient sensation to ensure the sale of a second.”In his former letter to me H. S. says: “Any one who has proved himself the friend of yourself and of him whom we all deplore I consider to have strong claims on my regard, and I therefore willingly undertake the revision of the MS. Pray assure the author that I feel flattered by this little mark of his confidence in my judgment, and that it will always give me pleasure to render him these or any other services.” And now, my dear Trelawny, I hope you will not be angry at the title given to your book; the responsibility of doing anything for any one so far away as you is painful, and I have had many qualms, but what could I do? The publishers strongly objected to theHistory of a Manas being no title at all, or rather one to lead astray. The one adopted is taken from the first words of your MS., where you declare yourself ayounger son—words pregnant of meaning in this country, where to be the younger son of a man of property is to be virtually discarded,—and they will speak volumes to the English reader; it is called, therefore,The Adventures of a Younger Son. If you are angry with me for this I shall be sorry, but I knew not what to do. Your MS. will be preserved for you; and remember, also, that it is pretty well known whom it is by. I suppose the persons who read the MS. in Italy have talked, and, as I told you, your mother speaks openly about it. Still it will not appear in print, in no newspaper accounts over which I have any control as emanating from the publisher. Let me know immediately how I am to dispose of the dozen copies I shall receive on your account. One must go to H. Smith, another to me, and to whom else? The rest I will send to you in Italy.There is another thing that annoys me especially. You will be paid in bills dating from the day of publication, now not far distant; three of various dates. To what man of business of yours can I consign these? the first I should think I could get discounted at once, and send you the cash; but tell me what I am to do. I know that all these hitches and drawbacks will make you vituperate womankind, and had I ever set myself up for a woman of business, or known how to manage my own affairs, I might be hurt; but you know my irremediable deficiencies on those subjects, and I represented them strongly to you before I undertook my task; and all I can say in addition is, that as far as I have seen, both have been obliged to make the same concessions, so be as forgiving and indulgent as you can.We are full here of reform or revolution, whichever it is to be; I should think something approaching the latter, though the first may be included in the last. Will you come over and sit for the new parliament? what are you doing? Have you seen Clare? how is she? She never writes except on special occasions, when she wants anything. Tell her that Percy is quite well.You tell me not to marry,—but I will,—any one who willtake me out of my present desolate and uncomfortable position. Any one,—and with all this do you think that I shall marry? Never,—neither you nor anybody else. Mary Shelley shall be written on my tomb,—and why? I cannot tell, except that it is so pretty a name that though I were to preach to myself for years, I never should have the heart to get rid of it.Adieu, my dear friend. I shall be very anxious to hear from you; to hear that you are not angry about all thecontretempsattendant on your publication, and to receive your further directions.—Yours very truly,M. W. Shelley.Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Poste Restante, Firenze,29th June 1831.Dear Mary—Your letter, dated 14th June, I have received, after a long interval, and your letter before that is dated 22d March. It would appear by your last that you must have written another letter between March and June, by allusions in this last respecting my Mother. If so, it has never reached me, so that if it contained anything which is necessary for me to know, I pray you let me have a transcript, so far as your memory will serve to give it me. I am altogether ignorant of what arrangements you have made with Colburn; and am only in possession of the facts contained in the second, to wit, that Horace Smith is revising the work for publication. I trust he will not be too liberal with the pruning-knife. When will the cant and humbug of these costermonger times be reformed? Nevertheless tell H. Smith that the author is fully sensible of his kindness and (for once, at least, in his life) with all his heart joins his voice to that of the world in paying tribute to the sterling ability of Mr. Horace Smith; and I remember Shelley and others speaking of him as one often essayed on the touchstone of proof, and never found wanting. Horace Smith’s criticism on theLifeis flattering, and as regards the perilous part—why I never have, and never shall, crouch to those I utterly despise, to wit, the bigoted. The RomanPontiff might as well have threatened me with excommunication when on board theGrub, if I failed to strike my top-sails, and lower my proud flag to the lubberly craft which bore his silly banner, bedaubed with mitres, crosses, and St. Peter’s Keys.I did not mean to call my bookThe History of a Man, but simply thus,A Man’s Life; “Adventures” and “Younger Son” are commonplace, and I don’t like it; but if it is to be so, why, I shall not waste words in idle complaints: would it were as I had written it. By the bye, you say justly the MS. ends abruptly; the truth is, as you know, it is only the first part of my life, and to conclude it will fill three more volumes: that it is to be concluded, I thought I had stated in a paragraph annexed to the last chapter of that which is now in the press, which should run thus—“I am, or rather have, continued this history of my life, and it will prove I have not been a passive instrument of despotism, nor shall I be found consorting with those base, sycophantic, and mercenary wretches who crouch and crawl and fawn on kings, and priests, and lords, and all in authority under them. On my return to Europe, its tyrants had gathered together all their helots and gladiators to restore the cursed dynasty of the Bourbons, and thousands of slaves went forth to extinguish and exterminate liberty, truth, and justice. I went forth, too, my hand ever against them, and when tyranny had triumphed, I wandered an exile in the world and leagued myself with men worthy to be called so, for they, inspired by wisdom, uncoiled the frauds contained in lying legends, which had so long fatally deluded the majority of mankind. Alas! those apostles have not lived to see the tree they planted fructify; would they had tarried a little while to behold this new era of 1830-31, how they would have rejoiced to behold the leagued conspiracy of kings broken, and their bloodhound priests and nobles muzzled, their impious confederacy to enslave and rob the people paralysed by a blow that has shaken their usurpation to the base, and must inevitably be followed by their final overthrow. Yes, the sun of freedom is dawning on the pallid slaves of Europe,” etc.The conclusion of this diatribe I am certain you have, and if you have not the beginning, why put it in beginning with the words: “I have continued the history of my life.”If I thought there was a probability that I could get a seat in the reformed House of Commons, I would go to England, or if there was a probability of revolution. I was more delighted with your resolve not to change your name than with any other portion of your letter. Trelawny, too, is a good name, and sounds as well as Shelley; it fills the mouth as well and will as soon raise a spirit. By the bye, when you send my books, send me also Mary Wollstonecraft’sRights of Women, and Godwin’s new work onMan, and tell me what you are now writing. The Hares are at Lucca Baths. Never omit to tell me what you know of Caroline. Do you think there is any opening among the demagogues for me? It is a bustling world at present, and likely so to continue. I must play a part. Write, Mary mine, speedily.Is my book advertised? If so, the motto from Byron should accompany it.Clare only remained in Florence about ten days; some sudden death of a relative of the family she resides with recalled them to Russia. I saw her three or four times. She was very miserable, and looked so pale, thin, and haggard. The people she lived with were bigots, and treated her very badly. I wished to serve her, but had no means. Poor lady, I pity her; her life has been one of continued misery. I hope on Sir Timothy’s death it will be bettered; her spirits are broken, and she looks fifty; I have not heard of her since her departure. Mrs. Hare once saw her, but she was so prejudiced against her, from stories she had heard against her from the Beauclercs, that she could hardly be induced to notice her. You are aware that I do not wish my book to appear as if written for publication, and therefore have avoided all allusions which might induce people to think otherwise. I wish all the mottoes to be inserted, as they are a selection of beautiful poetry, and many of them not published.The bills, you say, Colburn and Bentley are to give you;perhaps Horace Smith may further favour me by getting them negotiated. I am too much indebted to him to act so scurvily as not to treat him with entire confidence, so with the injunction of secrecy you may tell him my name. If he dislikes the affair of the bills, as I cannot employ any of my people of business, why give the bills, or rather place them in the hands of a man who keeps a glover’s shop (I know him well). His name is Moon, and his shop is corner one in Orange Street, Bloomsbury Square. When I get your reply, I will, if necessary, write to him on the subject. I pray you write me on receipt of this. My child Zella is growing up very pretty, and with a soul of fire. She is living with friends of mine near Lucca.The only copies of the book I wish you to give away are to Horace Smith, Mary Shelley, Lady Burghersh, No. 1 Hyde Park Terrace, Oxford Road, and Jane Williams, to remind her that she is not forgotten. Shelley’s tomb and mine in Rome, is, I am told, in a very dilapidated state. I will see to its repair. Send me out six copies by sea; one if you can sooner. Address them to Henry Dunn, Leghorn.E. J. Trelawny.Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.Poste Restante, Firenze,19th July 1831.········By the bye, Mary, if it is not too late, I should wish the name of Zella to be spelt in the correct Arabic, thus,Zellâ, in my book. I changed it in common with several others of the names to prevent my own being too generally recognised; with regard to hers, if not too late, I should now wish it to appear in its proper form, besides which, in the chapter towards the conclusion, wherein I narrate an account of a pestilence which was raging in the town of Batavia, I wish the word Java fever to be erased, and cholera morbus substituted. For we alone had the former malady on board the schooner, having brought it into the Batavia Roadswith us, but on our arrival there we found the cholera raging with virulence, most of those attacked expiring in the interval of the setting and rising of the sun. Luis, our steward, I thought died from fever, as we had had it previously on board, but the medicals pronounced it or denounced it cholera. If the alteration can be made, it will be interesting, as in the history of the cholera I see published, they only traced the origin to 1816, when the fact is, it was in 1811 that I am speaking of, and no doubt it has existed for thousands of years before, but it is only of late, like the natives of Hindoostan, it has visited Europe. It is sent by Nemesis, a fitting retribution for the gold and spices we have robbed them of. The malediction of my Malayan friends has come to pass, for I have no doubt the Russian caravans which supply that empire with tea, silks, and spices introduced the cholera, or gave it into the bargain, or asbona mano. I wish you would write, for I am principally detained here by wishing to get a letter from you ere I go to some other place.—Yours, and truly,E. T.Mrs. Shelley to Trelawny.Somerset Street,26th July 1831.My dear Trelawny—Your third volume is now printing, so I should imagine that it will very soon be published; everything shall be attended to as you wish. The letter to which I alluded in my former one was a tiny one enclosed to Clare, which perhaps you have received by this time. It mentioned the time of the agreement; £300 in bills of three, six, and eight months, dated from the day of publication, and £100 more on a second edition. The mention I made of your mother was, that she speaks openly in society of your forthcoming memoirs, so that I should imagine very little real secrecy will attend them. However, you will but gain reputation and admiration through them.I hope you are going on, for your continuation will, I am sure, be ardently looked for. I am so sorry for the delay of all last winter, yet I did my best to conclude the affair; butthe state of the nation has so paralysed bookselling that publishers were very backward, though Colburn was in his heart eager to get at your book. As to the price, I have taken pains to ascertain; and you receive as much as is given to the best novelists at this juncture, which may console your vanity if it does not fill your pocket.The Reform Bill will pass, and a considerable revolution in the government of the country will, I imagine, be the consequence.You have talents of a high order. You have powers; these, with industry and discretion, would advance you in any career. You ought not, indeed you ought not to throw away yourself as you do. Still, I would not advise your return on the speculation, because England is so sad a place that the mere absence from it I consider a peculiar blessing.My name willneverbe Trelawny. I am not so young as I was when you first knew me, but I am as proud. I must have the entire affection, devotion, and, above all, the solicitous protection of any one who would win me. You belong to womenkind in general, and Mary Shelley willneverbe yours.I write in haste, but I will write soon again, more at length. You shall have your copies the moment I receive them. Believe me, with all gratitude and affection, yours,M. W. Shelley.Jane thanks you for the book promised. I am infinitely chagrined at what you tell me concerning Clare. If the B.’s spoke against her, that means Mrs. B. and her stories were gathered from Lord Byron, who feared Clare and did not spare her; and the stories he told were such as to excuse the prejudice of any one.The Same to the Same.Somerset Street,2d October 1831.My dear Trelawny—I suppose that I have now some certain intelligence to send you, though I fear that it will bothdisappoint and annoy you. I am indeed ashamed that I have not been able to keep these people in better order, but I trusted to honesty, when I ought to have ensured it; however, thus it stands: your book is to be published in the course of the month, and then your bills are to be dated. As soon as I get them I will dispose of them as you direct, and you will receive notice on the subject without delay. I cannot procure for you a copy until then; they pretend that it is not all printed. If I can get an opportunity I will send you one by private hand, at any rate I shall send them by sea without delay. I will write to Smith about negotiating your bills, and I have no doubt that I shall be able somehow or other to get you money on them. I will go myself to the City to pay Barr’s correspondent as soon as I get the cash. Thus yourpretty dear(how fascinating is flattery) will do her best, as soon as these tiresome people fulfil their engagements. In some degree they have the right on their side, as the day of publication is a usual time from which to date the bills, and that was the time which I acceded to; but they talked of such hurry and speed that I expected that that day was nearer at hand than it now appears to be. Novemberisthe publishing month, and no new things are coming out now. In fact, the Reform Bill swallows up every other thought. You have heard of the Lords’ majority against it, much longer than was expected, because it was not imagined that so many bishops would vote against Government....Do whenever you write send me news of Clare. She never writes herself, and we are all excessively anxious about her. I hope she is better. God knows when fate will do anything for us. I despair. Percy is well, I fancy that he will go to Harrow in the spring; it is not yet finally arranged, but this is what I wish, and therefore I suppose it will be, as they have promised to increase my allowance for him, and leave me pretty nearly free, only with Eton prohibited; but Harrow is now in high reputation under a new head-master. I am delighted to hear that Zella is in such good hands, it is so necessary in this world of woe that children should learn betimes toyield to necessity; a girl allowed to run wild makes an unhappy woman.Hunt has set up a penny daily paper, literary and theatrical; it is succeeding very well, but his health is wretched, and when you consider that his sons, now young men, do not contribute a penny towards their own support, you may guess that the burthen on him is very heavy. I see them very seldom, for they live a good way off, and when I go he is out, she busy, and I am entertained by the children, who do not edify me. Jane has just moved into a house about half a mile further from town, on the same road; they have furnished it themselves. Dina improves, or rather she always was, and continues to be, a very nice child.········
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
16th August 1830.
My dear Mary—That my letter may not be detained, I shall say nothing about Continental politics.
My principal motive in writing is to inform you that I have nearly completed the first portion ofmy History, enough for three ordinary volumes, which I wish published forthwith. The Johnsons, as I told you before, are totally ruined by an Indian bankruptcy; the smallness of my income prevents my supporting them. Mr. Johnson is gone to India to see if he can save aught from the ruin of his large fortune. In the meantime his wife is almost destitute; this spurs me on. Brown, who is experienced in these matters, declares I shall have no difficulty in getting a very considerable sum for the MS. now. I shall want some friend to dispose of it for me. My name is not to appear or to be disclosed to the bookseller or any other person. The publisher who may purchase it is to be articled down to publish the work without omitting or altering a single word, there being nothing actionable, though a great deal objectionable, inasmuch as it is tinctured with the prejudices and passions of the author’s mind. However, there is nothing to prevent women reading it but its general want of merit. The opinion of the two or three who have read it is that it will be very successful, but I know how little value can be attached to such critics. I’ll tell you what I think—that it isgood, and might have been better; it is [filled] with events that, if not marred by my manner of narrating, must be interesting. I therefore plainly foresee it will be generally read or not at all. Who will undertake to, in the first place, dispose of it, and, in the second, watch its progress through the press? I care not who publishes it: the highest bidder shall have it. Murray would not like it, it is too violent; parsons andScots, and, in short, also others are spoken of irreverently, if not profanely. But when I have your reply I shall send the MS. to England, and your eyes will be the judge, so tell me precisely your movements.—Your attached
E. J. T.
Poste Restante, Florence.
When does Moore conclude hisLife of Byron? If I knew his address I could give him a useful hint that would be of service to the fame of the Poet.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Florence,28th October 1830.
Dearest Mary—My friend Baring left Florence on the 25th to proceed directly to London, so that he will be there as soon as you can get this letter. He took charge of my MSS., and promised to leave them at Hookham’s, Bond Street, addressed to you. I therefore pray you lose no time in inquiring about them; they are divided into chapters and volumes, copied out in a plain hand, and all ready to go to press. They have been corrected with the greatest care, and I do not think you will have any trouble with them on that score. All I want you to do is to read them attentively, and then show them to Murray and Colburn, or any other publisher, and to hear if they will publish them and what they will give. You may say the author cannot at present benamed, but that, when the work goes forth in the world, there are many who will recognise it. Besides the second series, which treats of Byron, Shelley, Greece, etc., will at once remove the veil, and the publisher who has the first shall have that. Yet at present I wish the first series to go forth strictly anonymous,and therefore you must on no account trust the publisher with my name. Surely there is matter enough in the book to make it interesting, if only viewed in the light of aromance. You will see that I have divided it into very short chapters, in the style of Fielding, and that I have selected mottoes from the only three poets who were the staunch advocates of liberty, and my contemporaries. I have left eight or nine blanks in the mottoes for you to fill up from the work of one of those poets. Brown, who was very anxious about the fame of Keats, has given many of his MSS. for the purpose. Now, if you could find any from the MSS. of Shelley or Byron, they would excite much interest, and their being strictly applicable is not of much importance. If you cannot, why, fill them up from the published works of Byron, Shelley, or Keats, but no others are to be admitted. When you have read the work and heard the opinion of the booksellers, write to me before you settle anything; only remember I am very anxious that no alterations or omissions should be made, and that the mottoes, whether long or short, double or treble, should not be curtailed. Will not Hogg assist you? I might get other people, but there is no person I have such confidence in as you, and the affair is one of confidence and trust, and are we not bound and united together by ties stronger than those which earth has to impose? Dearest friend, I am obliged hastily to conclude.—Yours affectionately,
E. J. Trelawny.
George Baring, Esq., who takes my book, is the brother of the banker; he has read it, and is in my confidence, and will be very ready to see and confer with you and do anything. He is an excellent person. I shall be very anxious till I hear from you.
Mrs. Shelley To Trelawny.
33 Somerset Street,27th December 1830.
My dear Trelawny—At present I can only satisfy your impatience with the information that I have received your MS.and read the greater part of it. Soon I hope to say more. George Baring did not come to England, but after considerable delay forwarded it to me from Cologne.
I am delighted with your work; it is full of passion, energy, and novelty; it concerns the sea, and that is a subject of the greatest interest to me. I should imagine that it must command success.
But, my dear friend, allow me to persuade you to permit certain omissions. In one of your letters to me you say that “there is nothing in it that a woman could not read.” You are correct for the most part, and yet without the omission of a few words here and there—the scene before you go to school with the mate of your ship—and above all the scene of the burning of the house, following your scene with your Scotch enemy—I am sure that yours will be a book interdicted to women. Certain words and phrases, pardoned in the days of Fielding, are now justly interdicted, and any gross piece of ill taste will make your booksellers draw back.
I have named all the objectionable passages, and I beseech you to let me deal with them as I would with Lord Byron’sDon Juan, when I omitted all that hurt my taste. Without this yielding on your part I shall experience great difficulty in disposing of your work; besides that I, your partial friend, strongly object to coarseness, now wholly out of date, and beg you for my sake to make the omissions necessary for your obtaining feminine readers. Amidst so much that is beautiful and imaginative and exalting, why leave spots which, believe me, are blemishes? I hope soon to write to you again on the subject.
The burnings, the alarms, the absorbing politics of the day render booksellers almost averse to publishing at all. God knows how it will all end, but it looks as if the autocrats would have the good sense to make the necessary sacrifices to a starving people.
I heard from Clare to-day; she is well and still at Nice. I suppose there is no hope of seeing you here. As for me, I of course still continue a prisoner. Percy is quite well, and is growing more and more like Shelley. Since it is necessary tolive, it is a great good to have this tie to life, but it is a wearisome affair. I hope you are happy.—Yours, my dearest friend, ever,
Mary Shelley.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Firenze,19th January 1831.
My dearest Mary—For, notwithstanding what you may think of me, you every day become dearer to me. The men I have linked myself to in my wild career through life have almost all been prematurely cut off, and the only friends which are left me are women, and they are strange beings. I have lost them all by some means or other; they are dead to me in being married, or (for you are all slaves) separated by obstacles which are insurmountable, and as Lord Chatham observes, “Friendship is a weed of slow growth in aged bosoms.” But now to your letter. I to-day received yours of the 27th of December; you say you have received my MS. It has been a painful and arduous undertaking narrating my life. I have omitted a great deal, and avoided being a pander to the public taste for the sake of novelty or effect. Landor, a man of superior literary acquirements; Kirkup, an artist of superior taste; Baring, a man of the world and very religious; Mrs. Baring, moral and squeamish; Lady Burghersh, aristocratic and proud as a queen; and lastly, Charles Brown, a plain downright Cockney critic, learned in the trade of authorship, and has served his time as a literary scribe. All these male and female critics have read and passed their opinions on my narrative, and therefore you must excuse my apparent presumption in answering your objections to my book with an appearance of presumptuous dictation. Your objections to the coarseness of those scenes you have mentioned have been foreseen, and, without further preface or apology, I shall briefly state my wishes on the subject. Let Hogg or Horace Smith read it, and, without yourgiving anyopinion, hear theirs; then let the booksellers, Colburn or others, see it, and then if it is their general opinion that there arewordswhich are betteromitted, why I must submit to their being omitted; but do not prompt them by prematurely giving your opinion. My life, though I have sent it you, as the dearest friend I have, is not written for the amusement of women; it is not a novel. If you begin clipping the wings of my true story, if you begin erasing words, you must then omit sentences, then chapters; it will be pruning an Indian jungle down to a clipped French garden. I shall be so appalled at my MS. in its printed form, that I shall have no heart to go on with it. Dear Mary, I love women, and you know it, but my life is not dedicated to them; it is to men I write, and my first three volumes are principally adapted to sailors. England is a nautical nation, and, if they like it, the book will amply repay the publisher, and I predict it will be popular with sailors, for it is true to its text. By the time you get this letter the time of publishing is come, and we are too far apart to continue corresponding on the subject. Let Hogg, Horace Smith, or any one you like, read the MS.; or the booksellers; if they absolutely object to any particular words or short passages, why let them be omitted by leaving blanks; but I should prefer a first edition as it now stands, and then a second as the bookseller thought best. In the same way thatAnastasiuswas published, the suppression of the first edition of that work did not prevent its success. All men lament thatDon Juanwas not published as it was written, as under any form it would have been interdicted to women, and yet under any form they would have unavoidably read it.
Brown, who is learned in the bookselling trade, says I should get £200 per volume. Do not dispose of it under any circumstances for less than £500 the three volumes. Have you seen a book written by a man named Millingen? He has written an article on me, and I am answering it. My reply to it I shall send you. TheLiterary Gazette, which published the extract regarding me, I have replied to, and to them I send my reply; the book I have not seen. If they refuse, as the article I write is amusing, you will have no difficulty in getting it admitted in some of the Londonmagazines. It will be forwarded to you in a few days, so you see I am now fairly coming forward in a new character. I have laid down the sword for the pen. Brown has just called with the article in question copied, and I send it together.
I have spoken to you about filling up the mottoes; the title of my book I wish to be simply thus—The Life of a Man, and notThe Discarded Son, which looks too much like romance or a common novel....
Florence is very gay, and there are many pretty girls here, and balls every night. Tell Mrs. Paul not to be angry at my calling her and her sisters by their Christian names, for I am very lawless, as you know, in that particular, and not very particular on other things.
Brown talks of writing to you about the mottoes to my book, as he is very anxious about those of his friend Keats. Have you any MS. of Shelley’s or Byron’s to fill up the eight or ten I left blank? Remember the short chapters are to be adhered to in its printed form. I shall have no excitement to go on writing till I see what I have already written in print. By the bye, my next volumes will to general readers be far more interesting, and published with my name, or at least called Treloen, which is our original family name.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Poste Restante, Firenze,5th April 1831.
My dear Mary—Since your letter, dated December 1830, I have not had a single line from you, yet in that you promised to write in a few days. Why is this? or have you written, and has your letter miscarried, or have not my letters reached you? I was anxious to have published the first part of my life this year, and if it had succeeded in interesting general readers, it would have induced me to have proceeded to its completion, for I cannot doubt that if the first part, published anonymously, and treating of people, countries, and things little known, should suit the public palate, that the latter,treating of people that everybody knows, and of things generally interesting, must be successful. But till I see the effect of the first part, I cannot possibly proceed to the second, and time is fleeting, and I am lost in idleness. I cannot write a line, and thus six months, in which I had leisure to have finished my narrative, are lost, and I am now deeply engaged in a wild scheme which will lead me to the East, and it is firmly my belief that when I again leave Europe it will be for ever. I have had too many hair-breadth escapes to hope that fortune will bear me up. My present Quixotic expedition is to be in the region wherein is still standing the column erected by Sardanapalus, and on it by him inscribed words to the effect:Il faut jouir des plaisirs de la vie; tout le reste n’est rien.
At present I can only say, if nothing materially intervenes to prevent me, that in the autumn of this year I shall bend my steps towards the above-mentioned column, and try the effect of it.
I am sick to death of the pleasureless life I lead here, and I should rather the tinkling of the little bell, which I hear summoning the dead to its last resting-place, was ringing for my body than endure the petty vexations of what is called civilised life, and see what I saw a few days back, the Austrian tyrants trampling on their helot Italians; but letters are not safe.—Your affectionate friend,
E. J. T.
Mrs. Shelley to Trelawny.
Somerset Street,22d March 1831.
My dear Trelawny—What can you think of me and of my silence? I can guess by the contents of your letters and your not having yet received answers. Believe me that if I am at all to blame in this it arises from an error in judgment, not from want of zeal. Every post-day I have waited for the next, expecting to be able to communicate something definitive, and now still I am waiting; however, I trust that this letter will contain some certain intelligence before I send it.After all, I have done no more than send your manuscripts to Colburn, and I am still in expectation of his answer. In the first place, they insist on certain parts being expunged,—parts of which I alone had the courage to speak to you, but which had before been remarked upon as inadmissible. These, however (with trifling exceptions), occur only in the first volume. The task of deciding upon them may very properly be left to Horace Smith, if he will undertake it—we shall see. Meanwhile, Colburn has not made up his mind as to the price. He will not give £500. The terms he will offer I shall hope to send before I close this letter, so I will say no more except to excuse my having conceded so much time to his dilatoriness. In all I have done I may be wrong; I commonly act from my own judgment; but alas! I have great experience. Ibelievethat, if I sent your work to Murray, he would return it in two months unread; simply saying that he does not print novels. Your end part would be a temptation, did not your intention to be severe on Moore make it improbable that he would like to engage in it; and he would keep me as long as Colburn in uncertainty; still this may be right to do, and I shall expect your further instructions by return of post. However, in one way you may help yourself. You know Lockhart. He reads and judges for Murray; write to him; your letter shall accompany the MS. to him. Still, this thing must not be done hastily, for if I take the MS. out of Colburn’s hands, and, failing to dispose of it elsewhere, I come back to him, he will doubtless retreat from his original proposal. There are other booksellers in the world, doubtless, than these two, but, occupied as England is by political questions, and impoverished miserably, there are few who have enterprise at this juncture to offer a price. I quote examples. My father and myself would find it impossible to make any tolerable arrangement with any one except Colburn. He at least may be some guide as to what you may expect. Mr. Brown remembers the golden days of authors. When I first returned to England I found no difficulty in making agreements with publishers; they came to seek me; now money is scarce, and readers fewer than ever.I leave the rest of this page blank. I shall fill it up before it goes on Friday.
Friday, 25th March.
At length, my dear friend, I have received the ultimatum of these great people. They offer you £300, and another £100 on a second edition; as this was sent me in writing, and there is no time for further communication before post-hour, I cannotofficiallystate the number of the edition. I should think 1000. I think that perhaps they may be brought to say £400 at once, or £300 at once and £200 on the second edition. There can be no time for parleying, and therefore you must make up your mind whether after doing good battle, if necessary, I shall accept their terms. Believemy experienceand that of those about me; you will not get a better offer from others, because money is not to be had, and Bulwer and other fashionable and selling authors are now obliged to content themselves with half of what they got before. If you decline this offer, I will, if you please, try Murray; he will keep me two months at least, and the worst is, if he won’t do anything, Colburn will diminish his bargain, and we shall be in a greater mess than ever. I know that, as a woman, I am timid, and therefore a bad negotiator, except that I have perseverance and zeal, and, I repeat, experience of things as they are. Mr. Brown knows what they were, but they are sadly changed. The omissions mentioned must be made, but I will watch over them, and the mottoes and all that shall be most carefully attended to, depend on me.
Do not be displeased, my dear friend, that I take advantage of this enormous sheet of paper to save postage, and ask you to tear off one half sheet, and to send it to Mrs. Hare. You talk of my visiting Italy. It is impossible for me to tell you how much I repine at my imprisonment here, but I dare not anticipate a change to take me there for a long time. England, its ungenial clime, its difficult society, and the annoyances to which I am subjected in it weigh on my spirits more than ever, for every step I take only shows me how impossible [itis], situated as I am, that I should be otherwise than wretched. My sanguine disposition and capacity to endure have borne me up hitherto, but I am sinking at last; but to quit so stupid a topic and to tell you news, did you hear that Medwin contrived to get himself gazetted for full pay in the Guards? I fancy that he employed his connection with the Shelleys, who are connected with the King through the Fitz Clarences. However, a week after he was gazetted as retiring. I suppose the officers cut him at mess; his poor wife and children! how I pity them! Jane is quite well, living in tranquillity. Hogg continues all that she can desire....
She lives where she did; her children are well, and so is my Percy, who grows more like Shelley. I hear that your old favourite, Margaret Shelley, is prettier than ever; your Miss Burdett is married. I have been having lithographed your letter to me about Caroline. I wish to disperse about 100 copies among the many hapless fair who imagine themselves to have been the sole object of your tenderness. Clare is to have a first copy. Have you heard from poor dear Clare? She announced a little time ago that she was to visit Italy with the Kaisaroff to see you. I envied her, but I hear from her brother Charles that she has now quarrelled with Madame K., and that she will go to Vienna. God grant that her sufferings end soon. I begin to anticipate it, for I hear that Sir Tim is in a bad way. I shall hear more certain intelligence after Easter. Mrs. P. spends her Easter with Caroline, who lives in the neighbourhood, and will dine at Field Place. I have not seen Mrs. Aldridge since her marriage; she has scarcely been in town, but I shall see her this spring, when she comes up as she intends. You know, of course, that Elizabeth St. Aubyn is married, so you know that your ladies desert you sadly. If Clare and I were either to die or marry you would be left without a Dulcinea at all, with the exception of the sixscore new objects for idolatry you may have found among the pretty girls in Florence. Take courage, however; I am scarcely a Dulcinea, being your friend and not the Lady of your love, but such as I am, I do not thinkthat I shall either die or marry this year, whatever may happen the next; as it is only spring you have some time before you.
We are all here on thequi viveabout the Reform Bill; if it pass, and Tories and all expect it, well,—if not, Parliament is dissolved immediately, and they say that the new writs are in preparation. The Whigs triumphed gloriously in the boldness of their measure. England will be free if it is carried. I have had very bad accounts from Rome, but you are quiet as usual in Florence. I am scarcely wicked enough to desire that you should be driven home, nor do I expect it, and yet how glad I should be to see you. You never mention Zella. Adieu, my dear Trelawny.—I am always affectionately yours,
Mary W. Shelley.
Hunt has set up a little 2d. paper, theTatler, which is succeeding; this keeps him above water. I have not seen him very lately. He lives a long way off. He is the same as ever, a person whom all must love and regret.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Poste Restante, Firenze,8th April 1831.
Dear Mary—The day after I had despatched a scolding letter to you, I received your Titanic letter, and sent Mrs. Hare her fathom of it....
Now, let’s to business. I thank you for the trouble you have taken about the MS. Let Colburn have it, and try to get £400 down, for as to what may be promised on a second edition, I am told is mere humbug. When my work is completed I have no doubt the first part will be reprinted, but get what you can paid down at once; as to the rest, I have only to say that I consent to Horace Smith being the sole arbitrator of what is necessary to be omitted, but do not let him be prompted, and tell him only to omit what isabsolutely indispensable. Say to him that it is a friend of Shelley’s who asks him this favour, but do not let him or any other individualknow that I am the author. If my name is known, and the work can be brought home to me, the consequences will be most disastrous. I beseech you bear this in mind. Let all the mottoes appear in their respective chapters without any omission, regardless of their number to each chapter, for they are all good, and fill up the eight or ten I left blank from Byron and Shelley; if from MS. so much the better. The changes in the opinions of all mankind on political and other topics are favourable to such writers as I and the Poets of Liberty whom I have selected. We shall no longer be hooted at; it is our turn to triumph now. Would those glorious spirits, to whose genius the present age owes so much, could witness the triumphant success of these opinions. I think I see Shelley’s fine eyes glisten, and faded cheek glow with fire unearthly. England, France, and Belgium free, the rest of Europe must follow; the theories of tyrants all over the world are shaken as by an earthquake; they may be propped up for a time, but their fall is inevitable. I am forgetting the main business of my letter. I hope, Mary, that you have not told Colburn or any one else that I am the author of the book. Remember that I must have the title simplyA Man’s Life, and that I should like to have as many copies for my friends as you can get from Colburn—ten, I hope—and that you will continue to report progress, and tell me when it is come out. You must have a copy, Horace Smith one, and Jane and Lady Burghersh; she is to be heard of at Apsley House—Duke of Wellington’s—and then I have some friends here; you must send me a parcel by sea. If the time is unfavourable for publication, from men’s minds being engrossed with politics, yet it is so far an advantage that my politics go with the times, and not as they would have been some years back, obnoxious and premature. I decide on Colburn as publisher, not from liberality of his terms, but his courage, and trusting that as little as possible will be omitted; and, by the bye, I wish you to keep copies, for I have none, of those parts which are omitted. Enough of this. Of Clare I have seen nothing. Do not you, dear Mary, abandon me by following the evilexamples of my other ladies. I should not wonder if fate, without our choice, united us; and who can control his fate? I blindly follow his decrees, dear Mary.—Your
E. J. T.
Mrs. Shelley to Trelawny.
Somerset Street,14th June 1831.
My dear Trelawny—Your work is in progress at last, and is being printed with great rapidity. Horace Smith undertook the revision, and sent a very favourable report of it to the publishers; to me he says: “Having written to you a few days ago, I have only to annex a copy of my letter to Colburn and Bentley, whence you will gather my opinion of the MS.; it is a most powerful, but rather perilous work, which will be much praised and much abused by the liberal and bigoted. I have read it with great pleasure and think it admirable, in everything but the conclusion;” by this he means, as he says to Colburn and Bentley, “The conclusion is abrupt and disappointing, especially as previous allusions have been made to his later life which is not given. Probably it is meant to be continued, and if so it would be better to state it, for I have no doubt that his first part will create a sufficient sensation to ensure the sale of a second.”
In his former letter to me H. S. says: “Any one who has proved himself the friend of yourself and of him whom we all deplore I consider to have strong claims on my regard, and I therefore willingly undertake the revision of the MS. Pray assure the author that I feel flattered by this little mark of his confidence in my judgment, and that it will always give me pleasure to render him these or any other services.” And now, my dear Trelawny, I hope you will not be angry at the title given to your book; the responsibility of doing anything for any one so far away as you is painful, and I have had many qualms, but what could I do? The publishers strongly objected to theHistory of a Manas being no title at all, or rather one to lead astray. The one adopted is taken from the first words of your MS., where you declare yourself ayounger son—words pregnant of meaning in this country, where to be the younger son of a man of property is to be virtually discarded,—and they will speak volumes to the English reader; it is called, therefore,The Adventures of a Younger Son. If you are angry with me for this I shall be sorry, but I knew not what to do. Your MS. will be preserved for you; and remember, also, that it is pretty well known whom it is by. I suppose the persons who read the MS. in Italy have talked, and, as I told you, your mother speaks openly about it. Still it will not appear in print, in no newspaper accounts over which I have any control as emanating from the publisher. Let me know immediately how I am to dispose of the dozen copies I shall receive on your account. One must go to H. Smith, another to me, and to whom else? The rest I will send to you in Italy.
There is another thing that annoys me especially. You will be paid in bills dating from the day of publication, now not far distant; three of various dates. To what man of business of yours can I consign these? the first I should think I could get discounted at once, and send you the cash; but tell me what I am to do. I know that all these hitches and drawbacks will make you vituperate womankind, and had I ever set myself up for a woman of business, or known how to manage my own affairs, I might be hurt; but you know my irremediable deficiencies on those subjects, and I represented them strongly to you before I undertook my task; and all I can say in addition is, that as far as I have seen, both have been obliged to make the same concessions, so be as forgiving and indulgent as you can.
We are full here of reform or revolution, whichever it is to be; I should think something approaching the latter, though the first may be included in the last. Will you come over and sit for the new parliament? what are you doing? Have you seen Clare? how is she? She never writes except on special occasions, when she wants anything. Tell her that Percy is quite well.
You tell me not to marry,—but I will,—any one who willtake me out of my present desolate and uncomfortable position. Any one,—and with all this do you think that I shall marry? Never,—neither you nor anybody else. Mary Shelley shall be written on my tomb,—and why? I cannot tell, except that it is so pretty a name that though I were to preach to myself for years, I never should have the heart to get rid of it.
Adieu, my dear friend. I shall be very anxious to hear from you; to hear that you are not angry about all thecontretempsattendant on your publication, and to receive your further directions.—Yours very truly,
M. W. Shelley.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Poste Restante, Firenze,29th June 1831.
Dear Mary—Your letter, dated 14th June, I have received, after a long interval, and your letter before that is dated 22d March. It would appear by your last that you must have written another letter between March and June, by allusions in this last respecting my Mother. If so, it has never reached me, so that if it contained anything which is necessary for me to know, I pray you let me have a transcript, so far as your memory will serve to give it me. I am altogether ignorant of what arrangements you have made with Colburn; and am only in possession of the facts contained in the second, to wit, that Horace Smith is revising the work for publication. I trust he will not be too liberal with the pruning-knife. When will the cant and humbug of these costermonger times be reformed? Nevertheless tell H. Smith that the author is fully sensible of his kindness and (for once, at least, in his life) with all his heart joins his voice to that of the world in paying tribute to the sterling ability of Mr. Horace Smith; and I remember Shelley and others speaking of him as one often essayed on the touchstone of proof, and never found wanting. Horace Smith’s criticism on theLifeis flattering, and as regards the perilous part—why I never have, and never shall, crouch to those I utterly despise, to wit, the bigoted. The RomanPontiff might as well have threatened me with excommunication when on board theGrub, if I failed to strike my top-sails, and lower my proud flag to the lubberly craft which bore his silly banner, bedaubed with mitres, crosses, and St. Peter’s Keys.
I did not mean to call my bookThe History of a Man, but simply thus,A Man’s Life; “Adventures” and “Younger Son” are commonplace, and I don’t like it; but if it is to be so, why, I shall not waste words in idle complaints: would it were as I had written it. By the bye, you say justly the MS. ends abruptly; the truth is, as you know, it is only the first part of my life, and to conclude it will fill three more volumes: that it is to be concluded, I thought I had stated in a paragraph annexed to the last chapter of that which is now in the press, which should run thus—
“I am, or rather have, continued this history of my life, and it will prove I have not been a passive instrument of despotism, nor shall I be found consorting with those base, sycophantic, and mercenary wretches who crouch and crawl and fawn on kings, and priests, and lords, and all in authority under them. On my return to Europe, its tyrants had gathered together all their helots and gladiators to restore the cursed dynasty of the Bourbons, and thousands of slaves went forth to extinguish and exterminate liberty, truth, and justice. I went forth, too, my hand ever against them, and when tyranny had triumphed, I wandered an exile in the world and leagued myself with men worthy to be called so, for they, inspired by wisdom, uncoiled the frauds contained in lying legends, which had so long fatally deluded the majority of mankind. Alas! those apostles have not lived to see the tree they planted fructify; would they had tarried a little while to behold this new era of 1830-31, how they would have rejoiced to behold the leagued conspiracy of kings broken, and their bloodhound priests and nobles muzzled, their impious confederacy to enslave and rob the people paralysed by a blow that has shaken their usurpation to the base, and must inevitably be followed by their final overthrow. Yes, the sun of freedom is dawning on the pallid slaves of Europe,” etc.
The conclusion of this diatribe I am certain you have, and if you have not the beginning, why put it in beginning with the words: “I have continued the history of my life.”
If I thought there was a probability that I could get a seat in the reformed House of Commons, I would go to England, or if there was a probability of revolution. I was more delighted with your resolve not to change your name than with any other portion of your letter. Trelawny, too, is a good name, and sounds as well as Shelley; it fills the mouth as well and will as soon raise a spirit. By the bye, when you send my books, send me also Mary Wollstonecraft’sRights of Women, and Godwin’s new work onMan, and tell me what you are now writing. The Hares are at Lucca Baths. Never omit to tell me what you know of Caroline. Do you think there is any opening among the demagogues for me? It is a bustling world at present, and likely so to continue. I must play a part. Write, Mary mine, speedily.
Is my book advertised? If so, the motto from Byron should accompany it.
Clare only remained in Florence about ten days; some sudden death of a relative of the family she resides with recalled them to Russia. I saw her three or four times. She was very miserable, and looked so pale, thin, and haggard. The people she lived with were bigots, and treated her very badly. I wished to serve her, but had no means. Poor lady, I pity her; her life has been one of continued misery. I hope on Sir Timothy’s death it will be bettered; her spirits are broken, and she looks fifty; I have not heard of her since her departure. Mrs. Hare once saw her, but she was so prejudiced against her, from stories she had heard against her from the Beauclercs, that she could hardly be induced to notice her. You are aware that I do not wish my book to appear as if written for publication, and therefore have avoided all allusions which might induce people to think otherwise. I wish all the mottoes to be inserted, as they are a selection of beautiful poetry, and many of them not published.
The bills, you say, Colburn and Bentley are to give you;perhaps Horace Smith may further favour me by getting them negotiated. I am too much indebted to him to act so scurvily as not to treat him with entire confidence, so with the injunction of secrecy you may tell him my name. If he dislikes the affair of the bills, as I cannot employ any of my people of business, why give the bills, or rather place them in the hands of a man who keeps a glover’s shop (I know him well). His name is Moon, and his shop is corner one in Orange Street, Bloomsbury Square. When I get your reply, I will, if necessary, write to him on the subject. I pray you write me on receipt of this. My child Zella is growing up very pretty, and with a soul of fire. She is living with friends of mine near Lucca.
The only copies of the book I wish you to give away are to Horace Smith, Mary Shelley, Lady Burghersh, No. 1 Hyde Park Terrace, Oxford Road, and Jane Williams, to remind her that she is not forgotten. Shelley’s tomb and mine in Rome, is, I am told, in a very dilapidated state. I will see to its repair. Send me out six copies by sea; one if you can sooner. Address them to Henry Dunn, Leghorn.
E. J. Trelawny.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
Poste Restante, Firenze,19th July 1831.
········
By the bye, Mary, if it is not too late, I should wish the name of Zella to be spelt in the correct Arabic, thus,Zellâ, in my book. I changed it in common with several others of the names to prevent my own being too generally recognised; with regard to hers, if not too late, I should now wish it to appear in its proper form, besides which, in the chapter towards the conclusion, wherein I narrate an account of a pestilence which was raging in the town of Batavia, I wish the word Java fever to be erased, and cholera morbus substituted. For we alone had the former malady on board the schooner, having brought it into the Batavia Roadswith us, but on our arrival there we found the cholera raging with virulence, most of those attacked expiring in the interval of the setting and rising of the sun. Luis, our steward, I thought died from fever, as we had had it previously on board, but the medicals pronounced it or denounced it cholera. If the alteration can be made, it will be interesting, as in the history of the cholera I see published, they only traced the origin to 1816, when the fact is, it was in 1811 that I am speaking of, and no doubt it has existed for thousands of years before, but it is only of late, like the natives of Hindoostan, it has visited Europe. It is sent by Nemesis, a fitting retribution for the gold and spices we have robbed them of. The malediction of my Malayan friends has come to pass, for I have no doubt the Russian caravans which supply that empire with tea, silks, and spices introduced the cholera, or gave it into the bargain, or asbona mano. I wish you would write, for I am principally detained here by wishing to get a letter from you ere I go to some other place.—Yours, and truly,
E. T.
Mrs. Shelley to Trelawny.
Somerset Street,26th July 1831.
My dear Trelawny—Your third volume is now printing, so I should imagine that it will very soon be published; everything shall be attended to as you wish. The letter to which I alluded in my former one was a tiny one enclosed to Clare, which perhaps you have received by this time. It mentioned the time of the agreement; £300 in bills of three, six, and eight months, dated from the day of publication, and £100 more on a second edition. The mention I made of your mother was, that she speaks openly in society of your forthcoming memoirs, so that I should imagine very little real secrecy will attend them. However, you will but gain reputation and admiration through them.
I hope you are going on, for your continuation will, I am sure, be ardently looked for. I am so sorry for the delay of all last winter, yet I did my best to conclude the affair; butthe state of the nation has so paralysed bookselling that publishers were very backward, though Colburn was in his heart eager to get at your book. As to the price, I have taken pains to ascertain; and you receive as much as is given to the best novelists at this juncture, which may console your vanity if it does not fill your pocket.
The Reform Bill will pass, and a considerable revolution in the government of the country will, I imagine, be the consequence.
You have talents of a high order. You have powers; these, with industry and discretion, would advance you in any career. You ought not, indeed you ought not to throw away yourself as you do. Still, I would not advise your return on the speculation, because England is so sad a place that the mere absence from it I consider a peculiar blessing.
My name willneverbe Trelawny. I am not so young as I was when you first knew me, but I am as proud. I must have the entire affection, devotion, and, above all, the solicitous protection of any one who would win me. You belong to womenkind in general, and Mary Shelley willneverbe yours.
I write in haste, but I will write soon again, more at length. You shall have your copies the moment I receive them. Believe me, with all gratitude and affection, yours,
M. W. Shelley.
Jane thanks you for the book promised. I am infinitely chagrined at what you tell me concerning Clare. If the B.’s spoke against her, that means Mrs. B. and her stories were gathered from Lord Byron, who feared Clare and did not spare her; and the stories he told were such as to excuse the prejudice of any one.
The Same to the Same.
Somerset Street,2d October 1831.
My dear Trelawny—I suppose that I have now some certain intelligence to send you, though I fear that it will bothdisappoint and annoy you. I am indeed ashamed that I have not been able to keep these people in better order, but I trusted to honesty, when I ought to have ensured it; however, thus it stands: your book is to be published in the course of the month, and then your bills are to be dated. As soon as I get them I will dispose of them as you direct, and you will receive notice on the subject without delay. I cannot procure for you a copy until then; they pretend that it is not all printed. If I can get an opportunity I will send you one by private hand, at any rate I shall send them by sea without delay. I will write to Smith about negotiating your bills, and I have no doubt that I shall be able somehow or other to get you money on them. I will go myself to the City to pay Barr’s correspondent as soon as I get the cash. Thus yourpretty dear(how fascinating is flattery) will do her best, as soon as these tiresome people fulfil their engagements. In some degree they have the right on their side, as the day of publication is a usual time from which to date the bills, and that was the time which I acceded to; but they talked of such hurry and speed that I expected that that day was nearer at hand than it now appears to be. Novemberisthe publishing month, and no new things are coming out now. In fact, the Reform Bill swallows up every other thought. You have heard of the Lords’ majority against it, much longer than was expected, because it was not imagined that so many bishops would vote against Government....
Do whenever you write send me news of Clare. She never writes herself, and we are all excessively anxious about her. I hope she is better. God knows when fate will do anything for us. I despair. Percy is well, I fancy that he will go to Harrow in the spring; it is not yet finally arranged, but this is what I wish, and therefore I suppose it will be, as they have promised to increase my allowance for him, and leave me pretty nearly free, only with Eton prohibited; but Harrow is now in high reputation under a new head-master. I am delighted to hear that Zella is in such good hands, it is so necessary in this world of woe that children should learn betimes toyield to necessity; a girl allowed to run wild makes an unhappy woman.
Hunt has set up a penny daily paper, literary and theatrical; it is succeeding very well, but his health is wretched, and when you consider that his sons, now young men, do not contribute a penny towards their own support, you may guess that the burthen on him is very heavy. I see them very seldom, for they live a good way off, and when I go he is out, she busy, and I am entertained by the children, who do not edify me. Jane has just moved into a house about half a mile further from town, on the same road; they have furnished it themselves. Dina improves, or rather she always was, and continues to be, a very nice child.
········