 I have to thank all the previous students of Shelley as Poet and Man, not last and the least among whom is my husband, for their loving and truthful research on all the subjects surrounding the life of Mrs. Shelley. Every aspect has been presented, and of known material it only remained to compare, sift and use with judgment. Concerning facts subsequent to Shelley's death, many valuable papers have been placed at my service, and I have made no new statement which there are not existing documents to vouch for. This book was in the publisher's hands before the appearance of Mrs. Marshall's Life of Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley. And I have had neither to omit, add to, nor alter anything in this work, and the consequence of the publication of hers. The passages from letters of Mrs. Shelley to Mr. Trelawney were kindly placed at my disposal by his son-in-law and daughter, Colonel and Mrs. Gull, as early as the summer of 1888. Among authorities used are Professor Dowden's Life of Shelley, Mr. W. M. Rosetti's Memoir, and other writings, Mr. Jefferson's Real Shelley, Mr. Keegan-Paul's Life of William Godwin, Godwin's Memoir of Mary Wollstonecroft, Mrs. Pennell's Mary Wollstonecroft, Godwin, et cetera, et cetera. Among those to whom my special thanks are due for original information and the use of documents, et cetera, are foremost Mr. H. Buxton-Forman, Mr. Cody Jefferson, Mrs. Call, Mr. Alexander Ireland, Mr. Charles C. Pilfield, Mr. J. H. Ingram, Mrs. Cox, and Mr. Sillsby, and for Friendly Council, Professor Dowden. And I must particularly thank Lady Shelley for conveying to me her husband's courteous message and permission to use passages of letters by Mrs. Shelley and dispersed in this biography. Lucy Maddox Rosetti, 1890. End of preface. Section 1 of Mrs. Shelley. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Corey Samuel. Mrs. Shelley by Lucy Maddox Rosetti. Chapter 1. Parentage. Part 1. The daughter of Mary W. Buxtoncroft and Godwin, the wife of Shelley. Here surely is eminence by position, for those who care for the progress of humanity and the intellectual development of the race. Whether this combination conferred eminence on the daughter and wife as an individual is what we have to inquire. Born as she was at a time of great social and political disturbance, the child, by inheritance, of the great French Revolution, and suffering as soon as born, a loss certainly in her case the greatest of all, that of her noble-minded mother. We can imagine the kind of education this young being passed through with the abstracted and anxious philosopher father, with the respectable but shallow-minded stepmother provided by Godwin to guard the young children he so suddenly found himself called upon to care for, Mary and two half sisters about her own age. How the volumes of philosophic writings, too subtle for her childish experience, would be poured over. How the writings of the mother whose loving care she never knew, whose sad experiences and advice she never heard, would be read and reread. We can imagine how these writings, and the discourses she doubtless frequently heard as a child between her father and his friends, must have impressed Mary more forcibly than the respectable precepts laid down in a weak way for her guidance. How all this prepared her to admire what was noble and advanced an idea, without giving her the ballast needful for acting in the fittest way, when a time of temptation came, when Shelley appeared. He appeared as the devoted admirer of her father and his philosophy, and as such was admitted into the family intimacy of three inexperienced girls. Picture these four young imaginative beings together. Shelley, half crazed between youthful imagination and vague ideas of regenerating mankind, and ready at any incentive to feel himself freed from his part in the marriage ceremony. What prudent parents would have countenanced such a visitor, and need there be much surprise at the subsequent occurrences, and much discussion as to the right or wrong in the case. How the actors in this drama played their subsequent part on the stage of life, whether they did work which fitted them to be considered worthy human beings, remains to be examined. As no story or life begins with itself, so, more especially with this of our heroine, we must recall the past, and at least know something of her parents. Mary Wollstonecroft, one of the most remarkable and misunderstood women of even her remarkable day, was born in April 1759 in or near London, of parents of whose ancestors little is known. Her father, son of a Spittlefields manufacturer, possessed an adequate fortune for his position. Her mother was of Irish family. They had six children, of whom Mary was the second. Family misery, in her case as in many, seems to have been the fountainhead of her genius. Her father, a hot-tempered, dissipated man, enabled to settle anywhere or to any thing, naturally proved a domestic tyrant. Her mother seems little to have understood her daughter's disposition, and to have been extremely harsh, harassed no doubt by the behaviour of her husband, who frequently used personal violence on her, as well as on his children. This, doubtless, under the influence of drink. Such being the childhood of Mary Wollstonecroft, it can be understood how she early learnt to feel fierce indignation of the injustice to, and the wrongs of women, for whom there was little protection against such domestic tyranny. Picture her sheltering her little sisters and brother, from the brutal wrath of a man whom no law restricted, and can her repugnance to the laws made by men on these subjects be wondered at. Only too rarely do the victims of such treatment rise to be eloquent of their wrongs. The frequent removals of her family left a little chance of forming friendships for the sad little Mary, but she can scarcely have been exactly lonely with her small sisters and brothers. Possibly a little more positive loneliness or quiet would have been desirable. As she grew older, her father's passions increased, and often did she boldly interpose to shield her mother from his drunken wrath, or waited outside her room for the morning to break. So her childhood passed into girlhood, her senses numbed by misery, till she had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of a mister and Mrs. Clare, a clergyman and his wife, who were kind to the friendless girl, and soon found her to have undeveloped good qualities. She spent much time with them, and it was they who introduced her to fanny blood, whose friendship henceforth proved one of the chief influences of her life. This it was that first roused her intellectual faculty, and with the gratitude of a fine nature she never after forgot where she first tasted the delight of the fountain, which transmutes even misery into the source of work and poetry. Here again Mary found the story of a home that might have been ruined by a dissipated father, had it not been for the cheerful devotion of this daughter, Fanny, who kept the family chiefly by her work, painting, and brought up her young brothers and sisters with care. A bright and happy example at this moment to stimulate Mary, and raise her from the absorbing and hopeless contemplation of her own troubles. She then, at sixteen, resolved to work so as to educate herself to undertake all that might and would fall on her as the stay of her family. Fresh wanderings of the restless father ensued, and finally she decided to accept a situation as Lady's companion. This, her hard, previous life, made a position of comparative ease to her, and, although all the former companions had left the lady in despair, she remained two years with her till her mother's illness required her presence at home. Mrs. Wollstonecroft's hard life had broken her constitution, and in death she procured her first longed-for rest from sorrow and toil, counselling her daughters to patience. Deprived of the mother, the daughters could no longer remain with their father, and Mary, at eighteen, had again to seek her fortune in a hard world, fanny blood being as ever her best friend. One of her sisters became housekeeper to her brother, and Eliza married, but by no means improved her position by this, for her marriage proved another unhappy one, and only added to Mary's sad observation of the marriage-state. A little later she had to help this sister to escape from a life which had driven her to madness. When her sister's peace of mind was restored, they were enabled to open a school together at Stoke Newington Green, for a time with success, but failure and despondency followed, and Mary, whose health was broken, accepted a pressing invitation from her friend Fanny, who had married a Mr. Skees, to go and stay with her at Lisbon, and nurse her through her approaching confinement. This sad visit, for during her stay there she lost her dearly loved friend, broke the monotony of her life, and perhaps the change, with sea voyage which was beneficial to her health, helped her anew to fight the battle of life on her return. But fresh troubles assailed her. Some friend suggested to her to try literature, and a pamphlet, thoughts on the education of daughters, was her first attempt. For this she received ten guineas, with which she was able to help her friends the bloods. She shortly afterwards accepted a situation as governess in Lord Kingsborough's family, where she was much loved by her pupils, but their mother, who did little to gain their affection herself, becoming jealous of the ascendancy of Mary over them, found some pretext for dismissing her. Mary's contact, while in this house, with people of fashion, inspired her only with contempt for their small pleasures, and utterly unintellectual discourse. These surroundings, although she was treated much on a footing of equality by the family, were a severe privation for Mary, who was anxious to develop her mind, and to whom spiritual needs were ever above physical. On leaving the Kingsborough's, Mary found work of a kind more congenial to her disposition, as Mr. Johnson, the book-seller in St. Paul's Churchyard, who had taken her pamphlet, now gave her regular work as his reader, and also in translating. Now began the happiest part of Mary's life. In the midst of books, she soon formed a circle of admiring friends. She lived in the simplest way, in a room almost bare of furniture, in black friars. Here she was able to see after her sisters, and to have with her her young brother, who had been much neglected. And in the intervals of her necessary work, she began writing on the subjects which lay nearest to her heart. For here, among other work, she commenced her celebrated vindication of the rights of women, a work for which women ought always to be grateful to her. For with this began in England the movement, which, progressing amidst much obliquy and denunciation, has led to so many of the reforms in social life which have come, and may be expected to lead to many which we still hope for. When we think of the nonsense which has been talked both in and out of Parliament, even within the last decade, about the advanced women who have worked to improve the position of their less fortunate sisters, we can well understand in what light Mary Wollstonecroft was regarded by many, whom fortunately she was not bound to consider. Her reading, which had been deep and constant, together with her knowledge of life from different points of view, enabled her to form just opinions on many of the great reforms needed, and these she unhesitatingly set down. How much has since been done which she advocated for the education of women, and how much they have already benefited both by her example and precept, is perhaps not yet generally enough known. Her religious tone is always striking. It was one of the moving factors of her life, as with all seriously thinking beings, though its form became much modified with the advance in her intellectual development. Her scheme, in the vindication of the rights of women, may be summed up thus. She wished women to have education equal to that of men, and this has now to a great extent been accorded. That trades, professions, and other pursuits should be open to women. This wish is now in progress of fulfilment. That married women should own their own property, as in other European countries. Recent laws have granted this right. That they should have more facilities for divorce from husband's guilty of immoral conduct. This has been partially granted, though much still remains to be affected. That, in the case of separation, the custody of children should belong equally to both parents. That a man should be legally responsible for his illegitimate children. That he should be bound to maintain the woman he has wronged. Mary Wollstonecroft also thought that women should have representatives in Parliament to uphold their interests. But her chief desires are in the matter of education. Unlike Russo, she would have all children educated together till nine years of age. Like Russo, she would have them meet for play in a common playground. At nine years, their capacities might be sufficiently developed to judge which branch of education would then be desirable for each, girls and boys being still educated together, and capacity being the only line of demarcation. Thus it will be seen that Mary's primary wish was to make women responsible and sensible companions for men, to raise them from the beings they were made by the frivolous, fashionable education of the time, to make them fit mothers to educate or superintend the education of their children, for education does not end or begin with what may be taught in schools. To make a woman a reasoning being, by means of Euclid, if necessary, need not preclude her from being a charming woman also, as proved by the descriptions we have of Mary Wollstonecroft herself. Doubtless some of the most crying evils of civilization can only be cured by raising the intellectual and moral status of woman, and thus raising that of man also, so that he, regarding her as a companion, whose mind reflects the beauties of nature, and who can appreciate the great reflex of nature as transmitted through the human mind in the glorious art of the world, may really be raised to the ideal state where the sacrilege of love will be unknown. We know that this great desire must have passed through Mary Wollstonecroft's mind, and prompted her to her eloquent appeal for the vindication of the rights of woman. With Mary's improved prospects, for she fortunately lived in a time when the strong emotions and realities of life brought many influential people admiringly around her, she was able to pay a visit to Paris in 1792. No one can doubt her interest in the terrible drama there being enacted, and her courage was equal to the occasion, but even this journey is brought up in disparagement of her, and this, partly owing to Godwin's naive remark in his diary, that, there is no reason to doubt that if Fuselli had been disengaged at the period of their acquaintance, he would have been the man of her choice. As the little if is a very powerful word, of course this amounts to nothing, and it is scarcely the province of a biographer to say what might have taken place under other circumstances, and to criticise a character from that standpoint. If Mary was attracted by Fuselli's genius, and this would not have been surprising, and if she went to Paris for change of scene and thought, she certainly only set a sensible example. As it was, she had ample matter of interest in the stirring scenes around her. She, with a heart to feel the woes of all, the miseries, however real and terrible of the prince, did not blind her to those of the peasant. The cold and calculating torture of centuries was not to be passed over, because a maddened people, having gained for a time the right of power by might, brought to judgement the representatives, even then, vacillating and treacherous, of ages of depression. Her heart bled for all, but most for the longest suffering, and she was struck senseless to the ground by the news of the execution of the twenty-one, the brave Girondins. Would that another woman, even greater than herself, had been untrammeled by her sex, and could have wielded at first hand the power she had to exercise through others, and might not France have been thus again saved by Joan of Arc, not only France, but the revolution in all its purity of idea, not in its horror. In France, too, the women's question had been mooted. Condorcet, having written, that one of the greatest steps of progress of the human intellect, would be the freedom from prejudice that would give equality of right to both sexes, and the requited dame à l'assemblée nationale, 1791, was made simultaneously with the appearance of Mary Wollstonecroft's vindication of the rights of women. These were strong reasons to attract Mary to France, strange as the time was for such a journey, but even then her book was translated and read in both France and Germany. So here was Mary settled for a time, the English scarcely having realized the turmoil that existed. She arrived just before the execution of Louis XVI, and with a few friends was able to study the spirit of the time, and begin a work on the subject, which, unfortunately, never reached more than its first volume. Her account, in a letter to Mr. Johnson, shows how acutely she felt in her solitude on the day of the king's execution. How, for the first time in her life, at night she dared not extinguish her candle. In fact, the faculty of feeling for others so acutely as to gain courage to uphold reform does not necessarily evince a lack of sensitiveness on the part of the individual, as seems often to be supposed, but the very reverse. We can well imagine how Mary felt the need of sympathy and support separated as she was from her friends and from her country, which was now at war with France. Alone at Nualie, where she had to seek shelter both for economy and safety, with no means of returning to England, and unable to go to Switzerland through her inability to procure a passport, her money dwindling, still she managed to continue her literary work, and as well as some letters on the subject of the Revolution, she wrote at Nualie all that was ever finished of her historical and moral view of the French Revolution. Her only servant at this time was an old gardener, who used to attend her on her rambles through the woods, and more than once, as far as Paris. On one of these occasions she was so sickened with horror at the evidence of recent executions, which she saw in the streets, that she began boldly denouncing the perpetrators of such savagery, and had to be hurried away for her life by some sympathetic onlookers. It was during this time of terror around, and depression within, that Mary met Captain Gilbert Imley, an American, at the house of a mutual friend. End of Chapter 1 Part 1 Section 2 of Mrs. Shelley This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Corrie Samuel Mrs. Shelley by Lucy Maddox-Rosetti Chapter 1. Parentage Part 2 Now began the complication of reasons and deeds, which caused bitter grief in not only one generation. Mary was prompted by loneliness, love, and danger on all hands. There was risk in proclaiming herself an English subject by marriage, if indeed there was at the time the possibility of such a marriage as would have been valid in England, though as the wife of an American citizen she was safe. Thus, at a time when all laws were defied, she took the fatal step of trusting in Imley's honour and constancy, and confident of her own pure motives, entered into a union which her letters to him, full of love, tenderness, and fidelity, proved that she regarded as a sacred marriage. All the circumstances, and not least the pathetic way she writes to him for their child later on, prove how she only wished to remain faithful to him. It was now that the sad experiences of her early life told upon her, and warped her better judgment. She who had seen so much of the misery of married life when love was dead, regarded that side, not considering the sacred relationship, the right side of marriage, which she came to understand later. Too late, alas. So past this année terrible, and with it Mary's short-lived happiness with Imley, for before the end we find her writing, evidently saddened by his repeated absences. She followed him to Havera, where in April their child Fanny was born, and for a while happiness was restored, and Mary lived in comfort with him, her time fully occupied between work and love for Imley and their child, but this period was short, for in August he was called to Paris on business. She followed him, but another journey of his to England only finished the separation. Work of some sort having been ever her one resource, she started for Norway, with Fanny and a maid, furnished with a letter of Imley's, in which she requested, all men to know that he appoints Mary Imley, his wife, to transact all his business for him. Her letters, published shortly after her return from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, divested of the personal details, were considered to show a marked advance in literary style, and, from the slow modes of travelling, and the many letters of introduction to people in all the towns and villages she visited, she was enabled to send home characteristic details of all classes of people. The personal portions of the letters are to be found among her posthumous works, and these, with letters written after her return, and when she was undoubtedly convinced of Imley's baseness and infidelity, are terrible and pathetic records of her misery, misery which drove her to an attempt at suicide. This was fortunately frustrated, so that she was spared to meet with a short time of happiness later, and to prove to herself and Godwin, both previous skeptics in the matter, that lawful marriage can be happy. Mary, rescued from despair, returned to work, the restorer, and refused all assistance from Imley, not degrading herself by receiving a monetary compensation where faithfulness was wanting. She also provided for her child Fanny, as Imley disregarded entirely his promises of a settlement on her. As her literary work brought her again in contact with the society she was accustomed to, so her health and spirits revived, and she was again able to hold her place as one of its celebrities. And now it was that her friendship was renewed with that other celebrity, whose philosophy ranged beyond his age and century, and probably beyond some centuries to come. His advanced ideas are, nevertheless, what most thinking people would hope that the race might attain to, when mankind shall have reached a higher status, and selfishness should be less allowed in creeds, or rather in practice, for how small the resemblance between the founder of a creed and its followers is but too apparent. So now Mary Wollstonecroft and William Godwin, the author of Political Justice, have again met, and this time not under circumstances as adverse as in November 1790, when he dined in her company at Mr. Johnson's, and was disappointed because he wished to hear the conversation of Thomas Paine, who was a taciturn man, and he considered that Mary engrossed too much of the talk. Now it was otherwise, her literary style had gained greatly in the opinion of Godwin, as of others. And, as all their subjects of interest were similar, their friendship increased, and melted gently into mutual love, as exquisitely described by Godwin himself in a book now little known, and this love which ended in marriage had no after-break. But we must now again retrace our steps, for in the father of Mary Shelley we have another of the representative people of his time, whose early life and antecedents must not be passed over. William Godwin, the seventh of thirteen children, was born at Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire, on March 3, 1756. His parents, both of respectable, well-to-do families, were well known in their native place, his great-great-grandfather having been mayor of Newbury in 1706. The father, John Godwin, became a dissenting minister, and William was brought up in all the strictness of a sectarian country home of that period. His mother was equally strict in her views, and a cousin, who became one of the family, a Miss Godwin, afterwards Mrs. Sotherin, with whom William was in a special favourite, brought in aid her strongly Calvinistic tendencies. His first studies began with an account of the pious deaths of many godly children, and often did he feel willing to die if he could, with equal success, engage the admiration of his friends and the world. His mother devoutly believed that all who differed from the basis of her own religious views would endure the eternal torments of hell, and his father seriously reproved his levity, when, one Sunday, he happened to take the cat in his arms while walking in the garden. All this naturally impressed the child at the time, and his chief amusement or pleasure was preaching sermons in the kitchen every Sunday afternoon, unmindful whether the audience was duly attentive or not. From a dame's school, where, by the age of eight, he had read through the whole of the Old and New Testament, he passed to one held by a certain Mr. Ackers, celebrated as a penman, and also moderately efficient in Latin and mathematics. Godwin next became the pupil of Mr. Samuel Newton, whose Sundaymanian views, surpassing those of Calvin in their wholesale holocaust of souls, for a time impressed him, till later thought caused him to detest both these views and the master who promulgated them. Indeed, it is not to be wondered at that so thinking a person as Godwin, remembering the rules laid down by those he loved and respected in his childhood, should have wandered far into the abstract labyrinths of right and wrong, and, wishing to simplify what was right, should have travelled in his imagination into the dim future and have laid down a code beyond the scope of present mortals. Well, for him, perhaps, and for his code, if this is yet so far beyond that it is not taken up and distorted out of all resemblance to his original intention before the time for its possible practical application comes. For Godwin himself, it was also well that, with these uncongenial early surroundings, he, when the time came to think, was of the calm, most calm and unimpassioned philosophic temperament, instead of the high poetic nature. Not that the two may not sometimes overlap and mingle, but with Godwin the downfall of old ideas led to reasoning out new theories in clear prose, and even this he would not give to be rashly and indiscriminately read at large, but published in three guinea volumes, knowing well that those who could expend that sum on books are usually not inclined to overthrow the existing order of things. In fact, he felt it was the rich who wanted preaching to more than the poor. Apart from sectarian doctrines, his tutor, Mr. Newton, seems to have given Godwin the advantage of the free range of his library, and doubtless this was excellent education for him at that time. After he had acted as Usher for over a year, from the age of fifteen, his mother, at his father's death in 1772, wished him to enter Homerton Academy, but the authorities would not admit him on suspicion of Sandamanianism. He, however, gained admittance to Hoxton College. Here he planned tragedies on the Iphigenia and the death of Caesar, and also began to study Sandaman's work from a library to find out what he was accused of. This probably caused later his horror of these ideas, and also started his never-ending search after truth. In 1777 he became in his turn a dissenting minister, until, with reading and fresh acquaintances ever widening his views, gradually his profession became distasteful to him, and in 1788, on quitting Beaconsfield, he proposed opening a school. His life of Lord Chatham, however, gained notice, and he was led to other political writing, and so became launched on a literary career. With his simple tastes, he managed not only for years to keep himself till he became celebrated, but he was also a great help to different members of his family. Several of these did not come as well as William out of the ordeal of their strict education, but caused so little gratification to their mother and elder brother—a farmer who resided near the mother—that she destroyed all their correspondence, nearly all Williams also, as it might relate to them. Letters from the cousin, Mrs. Sutheran, show, however, that William Godwin's novel writing was likewise a sore point in his family. In the midst of his literary work and philosophic thought, it was natural that Godwin should get associated with other men of advanced opinions. Joseph Fawcett, whose literary and intellectual eminence was much admired in his day, was one of the first to influence Godwin. His declamation against domestic affections must have coincided well with Godwin's unimpassioned justice. Thomas Holcroft, with his curious ideas of death and disease, whose ardent republicanism led to his being tried for his life as a traitor. George Dyson, whose abilities unseal in the cause of literature and truth promised much that was unfortunately never realized. These, and later, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, were acknowledged by Godwin to have greatly influenced his ideas. Godwin acted according to his own theories of right in adopting and educating Thomas Cooper, a second cousin whose father died, ruined, in India. The rules laid down in his diary show that Godwin strove to educate him successfully, and he certainly gained the youth's confidence and launched him successfully in his own chosen profession as an actor. Godwin seems always to have adhered to his principles, and, after the success of his life of Chatham, when he became a contributor to the political herald, he attracted the attention of the weak party to whose cause he was so useful that Fox proposed, through Sheridan, to set a fund aside to pay him as editor. This, however, was not accepted by Godwin, who would not lose his independence by becoming attached to any party. He was, naturally, to a great extent, a follower of Rousseau, and a sympathiser with the ideas of the French Revolution, and was one of the so-called French Revolutionists at whose meetings Horn, Tuck, Holcroft, Stanhope, and others figured. Nor did he neglect to defend, in the morning chronicle, some of these went on their trial for high treason, though, from his known principles, he was himself in danger. And, without doubt, his clear exposition of the true case greatly modified public opinion and helped to prevent an adverse verdict. Among Godwin's multifarious writings are his novels, some of which had great success, especially Caleb Williams, also his sketch of English history contributed to the annual register. His historical writing shows much research and study of old documents. On comparing it with the contemporary work of his friends, such as Coleridge, it becomes evident that his knowledge and learning were utilised by them. But these works were anonymous. By his political justice he became famous. This work is a philosophical treatise based on the assumption that man, as a reasoning being, can be guided wholly by reason, and that, were he educated from this point of view, laws would be unnecessary. It must be observed here that Godwin could not then take into consideration the laws of heredity, now better understood, how the criminal has not only the weight of bad education and surroundings against him, but also how the very formation of the head is, in certain cases, an almost insuperable evil. He considered many of the laws relating to property, marriage, etc., unnecessary, as people guided by reason would not, for instance, wish for wealth at the expense of starving brethren. Far in the distance as the realisation of this doctrine may seem, it should still be remembered that, as with each physical discovery, the man of genius must foresee, as Columbus imagined land where he found America, as a planet is fixed by the astronomer before the telescope has revealed it to his mortal eye. So, in the world of psychology and morals, it is necessary to point out the aim to be attained, before human nature has reached those divine qualifications, which are only shadowed forth here and there by more than usually elevated natures. In fact, Godwin, who sympathised entirely with the theories of the French Revolution, and even surpassed French ideas on most subjects, disapproved of the immediate carrying out of these ideas and views, he wished for preaching and reasoning, till people should gradually become convinced of the truth, and the rich should be as ready to give as the poor to receive. Even in the matter of marriage, though strongly opposed to it personally, on philosophical grounds, not from the ordinary trite reasoning against it, he yielded his opinion to the claim of individual justice, towards the woman whom he came to love with an undying affection, and for whom, fortunately for his theories, he needed not to set aside the impulse of affection for that of justice. And these remarks bring us again to the happy time in the lives of Godwin and Mary Wollstonecroft, when friendship melted into love, and they were married shortly afterwards, in March, 1797, at Old St. Pancras Church, London. This new change in her life interfered no more with the energy for work with Mary Wollstonecroft than with Godwin. They adopted the singular, though in their case probably advantageous, decision to continue each to have a separate place of abode in order that each might work uninterruptedly. Though, as pointed out by an earnest student of their character, they probably wasted more time in their constant interchange of notes on all subjects than they would have lost by a few conversations. On the other hand, as their thoughts were worth recording, we have the benefit of their plan. The short notes which passed between Mary and Godwin, as many as three and four in a day, as well as letters of considerable length, written during a tour which Godwin made in the Midland Counties with his friend Basil Montague, show how deep and simple their affection was, that there was no need of hiding the passing cloud, that they both equally disliked and wished to simplify domestic details. There was, for instance, some sort of slight dispute as to who should manage a plumber, on which occasion Mary seems to have been somewhat hurt at its being put upon her as giving an idea of her inferiority. This, with the tender jokes about Godwin's icy philosophy, and the references to a little William, whom they were both anxiously expecting, all events the tender devotion of husband and wife, whose relationship was of a nature to endure through ill or good fortune. Little Fanny was evidently only an added pleasure to the two, and Godwin's thought of her at a distance, and his choice of the prettiest mug at Wedgwood's, with green and orange twenty flowers, testified the fatherly instinct of Godwin. But alas, this loving married friendship was not to last long, for the day arrived, August 30th, 1797, which had been so long expected, and the hopeful state of the case is shown in three little letters written by Mary to her husband, for she wished him to be spared anxiety by absence. And there was born a little girl, not the William so quaintly spoken of, but the Mary, whose future life we must try and realize. Even now her first trouble comes, for within a few hours of the child's birth, dangerous symptoms began with the mother. Ten days of dread anxiety ensued, and not all the care of intelligent watchers, nor the constant waiting for service of the husband's faithful intimate friends, nor the skill of the first doctors, could save the life which was doomed. Fate must wreak its relentless will. Her work remains to help many a struggling woman, and still to give hope of more justice to follow. Perchanced one important moment it misled her own child. And so the mysteries of the workings of fate, and the mysteries of death, joined with those of a new life. End of chapter 1 part 2. And now, with the beginning of this fragile little life, begin the anxieties and sorrow of poor Godwin. The blank lines drawn in his diary for Sunday 10th September 1797, show more than words how unutterable was his grief. During the time of his wife, his wife, and his wife, and his wife, and his wife, and his wife, and his wife, and his wife, and his wife, and during the time of his wife's patient agony, he'd managed to ask if she had any wishes concerning Fanny and Mary. She was fortunately able to reply that her faith in his wisdom was entire. On the very day of his wife's death, Godwin himself wrote some letters he considered necessary, nor did he neglect to write in his own characteristic plain way to one who he considered had slighted his wife. His friends, Mr. Basil Montague and Mr. Marshall, arranged the funeral, and Mrs. Reveley, who had withered the children before the mother's death, continued her care till they returned to the father on the 17th. Mrs. Fenwick, who'd been in constant attendance on Mary, then took care of them for a time. Indeed, Mary's fame and character brought forward many willing to care for the mother's infant whose life was only saved from a dangerous illness by this loving zeal. Among others, Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson appeared with offers of help, and as early as September 18 we find that Godwin had requested Mr. Nicholson to give an opinion as to the infant's visionomy, with a view to her education, which he, with Trelawney later, considered could not begin too soon, or, as the letter said, talk of education beginning at two years, two months is too late. Thus we see Godwin conscientiously trying to bring in an imperfect science to assist him in the difficult task of developing his infant's mind in place of the watchful love of an intelligent mother who would check the first symptoms of ill temper, be firm against ill-placed determination, encourage childish imagination, and not let the idea of untruth be presented to the child till old enough to discriminate for itself. A hard task enough for any father, still harder for Godwin beset by all kinds of difficulties, and having to work in the midst of them for his and the two children's daily sustenance. Friends and good friends he certainly had, but most people will recognize that strength in these matters does not rest in numbers. The wet nurse needed by little Mary, though doubtless the essential necessity of the time, would not add to the domestic comfort, especially to that of Miss Louisa Jones, a friend of Harriet Godwin, who had been installed to a superintendent Godwin's household. This letter arrangement again did not tend to Godwin's comfort. As from Miss Jones' letters it is evident that she wished to marry him. Her wish not being reciprocated, she did not long remain an inmate of his house, and the nurse who was fortunately devoted to the baby was then overlooked from time to time by Mrs. Reveley and other ladies. Of anecdotes of Mary's infancy and childhood there are a bit few, but from the surroundings we can picture the child. Her father, about this time, seems to have neglected all his literary work, except the one of love, writing his wife's memoirs, and reading her published and unpublished work. In this undertaking he was greatly assisted by Mr. Ski's. Her sisters, on the contrary, gave as little assistance as possible, and ended all communication with Godwin at this difficult period of his life, and for a long while utterly neglected their poor sister's little children, when they might have repaid to some extent the debt of gratitude they owed to her. All these complicated and jarring circumstances must have suggested to Godwin that another marriage might be the best expedient, and he accordingly set to work in a systematic way this time to acquire his end. Passion was not the motive, and probably there was too much system, for he was unsuccessful on two occasions. The first was with Miss Harriet Lee, the author of several novels, and of the Canterbury Tales. Godwin seems to have been much struck by her, and after four interviews at Bath wrote on his return to London a very characteristic and pressing letter of invitation to her to stay in his house if she came to London, explaining that there was a lady, Miss Jones, who superintendent his home. As this letter met with no answer, he tried three additional letters, drafts of all being extant. The third one was probably too much considered, for Miss Lee returned it annotated on the margin, expressing her disapproval of its egotistical character. Godwin, however, was not to be daunted, and made a fourth attempt, full of many sensible and many quaint reasons not all of which would be pleasing to a lady, but he succeeded in regaining Miss Lee's friendship, though he could not persuade her to be his wife. This was from April to August 1798. About the same time there was a project of Godwin and Thomas Wedgewood keeping house together, but as they seemed to have much different went together the plan was wisely dropped. Godwin's notes in his plan of work for the year 1798 are interesting, as showing how he was anxious to modify some of his opinions expressed in political justice, especially those bearing on the affections which he now admits must naturally play an important part in human action, though he averses his opinion that none of his previous conclusions are affected by these omissions. Much other work was planned out during this time, and many fresh intellectual acquaintances made, Wordsworth and Saudi, among others. His mother's letters to Godwin show what a constant drain his family were upon his slender means, and how nobly he always strove to help them when in need. These letters are full of much common sense, and though quaintly illiterate are perhaps not so much amiss for the period in which they were written, when many ladies who had greater social and monetary advantages were nevertheless frequently astray in these matters. Godwin's novel of Saint Leon, published in 1799, was another attempt to give the domestic affections that you place in a scheme of life, and the description of Marguerite, drawn from Mary Wollstonecraft and that of her wedded life with Saint Leon, are beautiful passages illustrative of Godwin's own happy time of marriage. In July 1799, the death of Mr. Reveley suggested a fresh attempt at marriage to Godwin, but now he was probably too prompt, for knowing that Mr. Reveley and his wife had not always been on the best of terms, although his sudden death had driven her knife frantic, Godwin, relying on certain previous expressions of affection for himself by Mrs. Reveley, proposed within a month after her husband's death and begged her to set aside prejudices and cowardly ceremonies and be his. As in the previous case, a second and a third lengthy letter full of subtle reasoning were ineffectual, and did not even bring about an interview till December the third, when Godwin and Mrs. Reveley met in company with Mr. Gisborne. To this gentleman, Mrs. Reveley was afterwards married. We shall meet them both again later on. All this time there is little though affectionate mention of Mary Godwin in her father's diary. Little Fanny, who'd always been a favourite, used to accompany Godwin on some of his visits to friends. Many of Godwin's letters at this time show that he was not too embarrassed to be able to assist his friends in time of need. Twenty pounds sent to his friend Arnott, ten pounds shortly afterwards through Mrs. Agnes Hall to a lady in great distress, whose name is unknown, proved that he was ready to carry out his theories in practice. It is interesting to observe these frequent instances of generosity as they account to some extent for subsequent difficulties. In the midst of straits and disappointments, Godwin managed to have his children well taken care of, and there was evidently a touching sympathy and confidence between himself and them, as shown in Godwin's letters to his friend Marshall during a rare absence from the children occasioned by a visit to friends in Ireland. His thought and sincere solicitude and messages, and evident anxiety to be with them again, are all equally touching. Fanny, having the same number of kisses sent her as Mary, with that perfect justice which is so beneficial to the character of children, we can now picture the scarcely three-year-old Mary and little Fanny taken to await the return of the coach with their father and sitting under the cantive town trees in glad expectancy. But this time of happy infancy was not to last long, for doubtless Godwin felt it irksome to have to consider whether the house linen was in order and such-like details, and was this prepared in 1801 to accept the demonstrative advances of Mrs. Claremont, a widow who took up her residence next door to him in a polygon somewhere's town. She had two children, a boy and a girl, the latter somewhat younger than Mary. The widow needed no introduction or admittance to his house, as from the balcony she was able to commence a campaign of flattery to which Godwin soon succumbed. The marriage took place in December 1801 at Shorted Church, and was not made known to Godwin's friends till after it had been solemnized. Mrs. Claremont evidently did her best to help Godwin through the pecuniary difficulties of his career. She was not an ignorant woman, and her work at translations proves her not to have been without cleverness of a certain kind, but this probably made more obvious than natural vulgarity of her disposition. For example, when talking of bringing children up to do the work they were fitted to, she discovered that her own daughter Jane was fitted for accomplishments, while little Mary and Fanny were turned into household judges. These distinctions would naturally engender an antipathy to her, which later on would help in a strangeing Mary from her father's house, but occasionally we have glimpses of the little ones making themselves happy in childlike fashion in the midst of difficulties and disappointments on Godwin's part. On one occasion Mary and Jane had concealed themselves under a sofa in order to hear Coleridge recite the ancient mariner. Mrs. Godwin, unmindful of the delight they would have in listening to poetry, found the little ones and was banishing them to bed, when Coleridge, with kind-heartedness, or the love ever prevalent in poets of an audience, however humble, interceded for the small things who could sit under a sofa, and so they remained up and heard the poet read this poem. The treat was never afterwards forgotten, and one cannot overestimate such pleasures in forming the character of a child, nor were such the only intellectual delights the children shared in, for Charles Lamb was among Godwin's numerous friends at this period, and a frequent visitor at his house, and who can still hear in imagination the merry laughter of children, old and young, whom he gathered about him, and who brightened at his ever-ready fun. One long remembered joke was how one evening, at supper at Godwin's, Lamb entered the room first, seized a leg of mutton, blew out the candle, and placed the mutton in Martin Bernie's hand, and, on the candle being relit, exclaimed, Oh, Martin! Martin, I should never have thought of you! End of section three. Section four of Mrs. Shelley. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Anna Simon. Mrs. Shelley, by Lucy Maddox-Brown-Rosetti. This and such like Whimsies, as when Lamb would carry off a small crewit from the table, making Mrs. Godwin go through a long search, and would then quietly walk in the next day, and replace it, as if it were the most natural thing for a crewit to find its way into a pocket, would break the monotony of the children's days. It was infinitely more enlivening than the routine in some larger houses, where poor little children are frequently shut up in a back room on a third floor, and left for long hours to attend the mercies of some nurse, whose small slaves or tyrants they become, according to their nature. And when we remember that the polygon at that time was touching fields and lanes, we know that little Mary must have had one of the delight's most prized by children, picking buttercups and daisies, unmolested by a gardener. But during this happy age, when the child would probably have infinitely more pleasure in washing a cup and saucer than in playing the scales, however superior the latter performance may be, Godwin had various schemes and hopes frustrated. At times his health was very precarious, with frequent fainting fits, causing grave anxiety for the future. In 1803 his son William was born, making the fifth member of his miscellaneous family. At times Mrs. Godwin's temper seems to have been very much tried or trying, and on one occasion she expressed the wish for a separation. But the idea appears to have been dropped on Godwin's writing one of his very calm and reasonable letters, saying that he had no obstacle to oppose to it, and that if it was to take place he hoped it would not be long in hand. He certainly went on to say that the separation would be a source of great misery to himself. Either this reason, mollified Mrs. Godwin, or else the apparent ease with which he might have carried out her project made her hesitate, as we here know more of it. Godwin, however, had occasion to write her philosophically expository letters on her temper, which we must hope for the children's sake produced a satisfactory effect. For surely nothing can be more injurious to the happiness of children than to witness the ungovernable temper of their elders. But with Godwin's calm disposition, quarrels must have been one-sided, and consequently less damaging. Godwin superintendent the education of his children himself, and wrote many books for this purpose, which formed part of his juvenile library later on. Baldwin's fables, and his histories for children, were published by Godwin under this cognomen, owing to his political views having prejudiced many people against his name. His chief aim appears to have been to keep a certain moral elevation before the minds of children, as in the excellent preface to the history of Rome, where he dwells on the fact of the stories of muesches, curches, and regalus being disputed, but considers that stories, if they be no more, handed down from the great periods of Roman history, are invaluable to stimulate the character of children to noble sentiments and actions. But in Godwin's case, as in many others, it must have been a difficult task counteracting the effect of example, for we cannot imagine the influence of a woman that have been ennobling who could act as Mrs. Godwin did at an earlier period of her married life, who, when one of her husband's friends whom she did not care about, called to see Godwin, explained that it was impossible, as the cattle had just fallen off the hob and scolded both his legs. When the same friend met Godwin the next day in the street, and was surprised at his speedy recovery, the philosopher applied that it was only an invention of his wife. The safe guard in such cases is often in the quick apprehension of children themselves who are frequently saved from the errors of their elders by their perception of the consequences. Unfortunately, Mrs. Godwin's influence must have been lessened in other matters where her feeling for propriety, if with her only from a conventional and time-serving point of view, might have averted the fatal consequences which ensued later. Could she have gained the love and respect of the children instead of making them, as afterwards expressed by Mary, hate her? Her moral precepts would have worked to more effect. It may have appeared to the girls who could not appreciate the self-devotion of Godwin in acting against theories for the sake of individual justice, of the cause of all their unhappiness, and doubtless at times they felt it acutely, was owing to their father not having adhered to his previous anti-metrimonial opinions, and they were thus prepared to disregard what seemed to them social prejudices. In the meantime Godwin struggled on to provide for his numerous family, not necessarily losing his enthusiasm through his need of money, as might be supposed, for fortunately there are great compensations in nature, and not infrequently what appears to be done for money is done really for love of those whom money will believe, and so through this necessity the very love and anguish of the soul are transfused into the work. On the other hand, we see not infrequently, after the first enthusiasm of youth wears off, how the poetic side of a man's nature deteriorates, and the world and his work lose through the very ease and comfort he has attained to, so that the real degradation of the man, or lowering of his nature, comes more from wealth than poverty. Thus what are spoken of as degrading circumstances are truly the very reverse, a fact felt strongly by Shelley and such like natures who feel their ease is to be shared. We find Godwin working at his task of Chaucer with love daily at the British Museum, and corresponding with the Keeper of Records in the Exchequer Office and Chapter Westminster at Harold College and the Librarian of the Bodleian Library, also writing many still extend letters pertaining to the subject. The sum of three hundred pounds paid to Godwin for this work was considered very small by him, though it scarcely seems so now. Godwin found means and time occasionally to pay a visit to the country, as in September 1803 when he visited his mother and introduced his wife to her, as also to his old friends in Norwich, and during the sojourn of Mrs. Godwin and some of the children at Southend, the deservedly favourite resort of Mrs. Godwin and later of Mrs. Shelley, for the sweet country and lovely Essex lanes of even so late as 30 or 40 years ago made it the resort loved by artists. Godwin superintendent letter writing of his children. We are certain also, from their letters to him during absence, that they studied history and attended lectures with him, so that in all probability his daughter Mary's mind was really more cultivated and open to receive impressions in afterlife than if she had passed through a finishing education at some fashionable school. It is no mere phrase that to know some people is a liberal education, and if she was only saved from perpetrating some of the schoolgirl trash in the way of drawing, it was a gain to her intellect for what can be more lowering to intelligence of perception than the utterly inartistic frivolities which are supposed to inculcate art in a country out of which the sense of it had been all but eradicated in Puritan England, though some great artists had happily reappeared. Mary, at least, learned to love literature and poetry, and had, by her love of reading, a universe of wealth open to her. Surely no mean beginning. In art, had she shown any disposition to it, her father could undoubtedly have obtained some of the best advice of his day, as we see that Mulready and Linnell were intimate enough to spend a day at Hampstead with the children of Mrs. Godwin during Godwin's absence in Norfolk in 1808. In fact, Charles Claremont, as seen in his account written to his stepfather, was at this time having lessons from Linnell. Perhaps Mrs. Godwin had not discovered the same gift in Mary. At this same time we have the last of old Mrs. Godwin's letters to her son. She speaks of the fearful prize of food owing to the war, says that she is wary, and only wishes to be with Christ. Godwin spent a few days with her then, and the next year we find him at her funeral, as she died on August 13, 1809. His letter to his wife on that occasion is very touching, from its death of feeling. He mourns the loss of his superior, who exercised a mysterious protection over him, so that now, at her death, he for the first time feels alone. Another severance from old associations had occurred this year in the death of Thomas Holcroft, who, in spite of occasional differences, had always known and loved Godwin well, and whose last words when dying and pressing his hands were, my dear, dear friend. Godwin, however, did not at all approve of Haslitt in bringing out Holcroft's life, using all his private memoranda and letters about his friends, and wrote expository letters to Mrs. Holcroft on subject. He considered it pandering to the worst passion of the malignity of mankind. There do not appear to be many records of the Godwin family kept during the next two or three years. Mary was intimate with the Baxter's. It was Mr. Baxter who Mrs. Godwin tried to put off by the story of Godwin's golden legs. We also find Mary at Ramsgate with Mrs. Godwin and her brother William in May 1811, when she was nearly fourteen years old. As Mary and Mrs. Godwin were evidently unsuited to live together, these visits, though desirable for our health, were probably not altogether pleasant times to either, to judge by remarks in Godwin's letters to his wife. He hopes that, in spite of unfavorable appearances, Mary will still become a wise, and what is more, a good and happy woman, this evidently in answer to some complaint of his wife's. During these years, many fresh acquaintances were made by Godwin, but as they had little or no apparent influence on Mary's after career, we may pass them over and notice at once the first communications which took place between Godwin and another personage by Father Greatest in this life drama, even great in the world's drama, for now for the first time in his story, we come across the name of Shelley, with the words in Godwin's diary, Right to Shelley. Having arrived at a name so full of import to all concerned in this life, we must yet again retrace the past. So in Shelley's case there appears little immediate intellectual relation between himself and his ancestors, who seem for nearly two centuries preceding his birth to have been almost unknown, except for the registers of their baptism's deaths and marriages. Prior to 1623, a link has been hid the two missing in the family genealogy, a link which the scrupulous care of Mr. Jefferson has brought to light, and which his courtesy places at the service of the writer. This connects the poet's family with the Michael Grove Shelley's, a fact that the two only surmised. The document is this. Shelley's case in Koch's report 896. September 25th, 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, between Edward Shelley of Warminghurst and the county of Cessex, Esquire, of the one part, and Richard Cooper and William Martin of the other part. 98. Cover it to suffer recovery to ennir, as defendant manner, etc. 90B. To the use of him the said Edward Shelley and of the heirs mail of his body loftily begotten, and for lack of such issue. To the use of the heirs mail of the body of John Shelley Esquire, some time of Michael Grove, deceased, father to the said Edward Shelley, etc. It will be obvious to all readers of this important document that the last clause carries us back unmistakably from the Warminghurst Shelley's to the Michael Grove Shelley's, establishing past dispute the relationship of father and son. The poet's great-grandfather Timothy, who died 22 years before Shelley's birth, seems to have gone out of the beaten track in migrating to America and practicing as an apothecary, or, as Captain Medwin puts it, quack doctor, probably leaving England at an early age. He may not have found facilities for qualifying in America, and we may at least hope that he would do less harm with the simple herbs used by the unqualified than with the bleeding treatment in Vogue before the Brunonian system began. Anyway, he made money to help on the fortunes of his family. His younger son, Bish, who added to the family wealth by marrying in secession two heiresses, also gained a baronetcy by adhering to the Whig party and the Duke of Norfolk. He appears to have been increased in eccentricity with age and became exceedingly penurious. He was evidently not regarded as a desirable match for either of his wives, as he had to elope with both of them, and his marriage with the first, Miss Michelle, the grandmother of the poet, is said to have been celebrated by the parson of the fleet. This took place the year before these marriages were made illegal. These facts about Shelley's ancestors, though apparently trivial, are interesting as proving that his forerunners were not altogether conventional and making the anomaly of the coming of such a poet less strange, as genius is not unfrequently allied with eccentricity. Bish's son Timothy seems to have conformed more to the ordinary views than his father, and he married when nearly forty, Elizabeth Pilfold, reputed a great beauty. The first child of this marriage, born on August 4th, 1792, was the poet, Percy Bish Shelley, born to all the ease and comfort of an English country home, but with the weird imaginings which in childhood could people the grounds and surroundings with ancient snakes and fairies of all forms, and which later on were to lead him far out of the beaten track. Shelley's little sisters were the confidants of his childhood, and their sympathy must have made up then for the lack of it in his parents. Some of their childish games at diabolical processions, making a little hell of their own by burning a faggot stack, etc., shows how early his searching mind dispersed the terrors while it delighted in the picturesque or fantastic images of superstition. Few persons realized to themselves how soon highly imaginative children may be influenced by the superstitions they hear around them, and assuredly Shelley's brain never recovered from some of these early influences. The mind that could so quickly reason and form inferences would naturally be of that sensitive and susceptible kind which would bear the scar of bad education. Shelley's mother does not appear so much to have had real good sense, or what is generally called common sense, unless she was incapable of understanding a nature like that of her son, and thought more of his bringing home a well-filled game-bag, a thing in every way repulsed to Shelley's tastes, than of trying to understand what he was thinking. So Shelley had to pass through childhood, his sister's being his chief companions, as he had no brother till he was thirteen. At ten years of age he went to school at Cyan House Academy, and thence to Eaton, before he was turned twelve. At both these schools with little exception he was solitary, not having much in common with the other boys, and consequently he found himself the butt for their tormenting ingenuity. He became a plan of resistance to the fagging system and never yielded. This seems to have displeased the masters as much as the boys. At Eaton he formed one of his romantic attachments for a youth of his own age. He seems now, as ever after, to have felt the yearning for perfect sympathy in some human being. As one idol fell short of his self-formed ideal he sought for another. This was not the nature to be trained by bullying and flogging, though sympathy and reason would never find him irresponsible. His unresentable nature was shown in the way he helped the boys who tormented him with their lessons, for though he appeared to study little in the regular way, learning came to him naturally. It must not, however, be supposed that Shelley was quite solitary, as the records of some of his old school fellows proved the contrary. Nor was he averse to society, one of a kind congenial to his tastes. But he always disliked course-talk and jokes. Nature was ever dear to him. The walks around Eaton were his chief recreation, and we can well conceive how he would feel in the lovely and peaceful churchyard of the Stoke Pogus, where undoubtedly he would read Grey's Elegy. These feelings would not be sympathized with by the average school voice, but on the other hand it is not apparent why Shelley should have changed his character, as the embryo poet would also necessarily not care for all their tastes. In short, the education at a public school of that day must have been a great cruelty to a boy of Shelley's sensitive disposition. One great pleasure of Shelley's while at Eaton was visiting Dr. Lind, who assisted him with his chemistry, and whose kindness during an illness seems to have made a lasting impression on the youth. But generally, those who had been in authority over him had only raised a spirit of revolt. When great gain for the world was the passionate love of justice and freedom, which this aroused in him, as shown in the stanzas from the revolt of Islam, thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear friend, when first the clouds which wrapped this world from youth did pass. There could be no doubt that these verses are truly autobiographical. They indicate a first determination to war against tyranny. The very fact of his great facility in acquiring knowledge must have been a drawback to him at school, where time on his hands was, for lack of better material, frequently spent in reading all the foolish romances he could like hold of in the neighboring bookshops. His own early romances showed the influence of this bad literature. Of course, then as now, Fine Out was a sealed book to the young student. It is difficult to fancy what Shelley might have been under different early influences, and wither per chance the gain to himself might not have been a loss to the world. Fortunately, Shelley's love of imagination found at last a field of poetry for itself in an ideal future for the world instead of turning to ruffianism. Higher low, which the neglect of the legitimate outlet for imagination so frequently induces. How little this moral truth seems to be considered in a country like ours. While art is quite overlooked in the system of government, and with the hereditary owners of quoted wealth rest content as a rule with the canvases acquired by some ancestor on a grand tour at a date when period in England had already obliterated perception, so that frequently a few chef d'oeuvre and many doves are hung indiscriminately together giving equal pleasure or distaste for art. This is apposite to dwell on as showing the want of this influence on Shelley and his surroundings. From a tour in Italy made by Shelley's own father, the chief acquisition is said to have been a very bad picture of a Suvious. It is becoming difficult to realize at present when flogging is scarcely permitted in schools, but the suffering of a boy like Shelley must have been sent to school by his father with the admonition to his master not to spare the rod, and where the masters left the boy, who was undoubtedly unlike his companions, to treatment of a kind from which one case of death at least has resulted quite recently in our own time. Such proceedings which might have made a tyrant or a slave of Shelley succeeded only in making a rebel. His inquiring mind was not to be easily satisfied, and must assuredly have been a difficulty in his way with a conservative master. Already at Eaton we find him styled mad Shelley and Shelley, the atheist. His father authorizing a stationer to print for him. If only, instead of this, his father had checked for a time, these immature productions of Shelley's pen, the youth might have been spared banishment from Oxford and his own father's house, and all the misfortune and tragedy which ensued. Shelley also found time for a first love with his cousin Harriet Grove. This also the unfortunate printing facilities apparently squashed. There is some discussion as to whether he left Eaton in disgrace, but anyway the matter must have been a slight affair as no one appears to have kept to any record of it. And should one of the masters have recommended the removal of Shelley from such uncongenial surroundings, it would surely have been very sensible advice. Oxford was, in many respects, much to Shelley's taste. Freedom of the student life there suited him, as he was able to follow the studies most of his liking. The professional lectures chiefly envogue on divinity, geometry, and history were not the most of his liking. History in particular seemed ever to him a terrible record of misery and crime. But in his own chambers he could study poetry, natural philosophy, and metaphysics. The outcome of these studies advanced speculative thought was not, however, to be tolerated within the university precincts, and unfortunately for Shelley his favourite subjects of conversation were tabooed. Had it not been for one light-hearted and amusing friend, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, a gentleman whose acquaintance Shelley made shortly after his settling in Oxford in the Michael-Miss term of 1810, this friendship, like all that Shelley entered on, was intended to endure forever, and as usual Shelley impulsively for a time through so much of his own personality and to his idea of the character of his friend as to prepare the way for future disappointment. Hogg was decidedly intellectual, but with a strong conservative tendency, making him quite content with the existing state of things, so long as he could take life easily and be amused. His intellect, however, was clear enough to make him perceive that it is the poet who raises life from the apathy, which assails even the most worldly-minded and contented, so that he in his turn was able to love Shelley with the love which is not afraid of a laugh, the possibility of which no friendship, it has been said, can be genuine, many of the charming stories giving a living presence to Shelley while at Oxford, reserved by this friend. Here we meet with him taking an infant from its mother's arms while crossing the bridge with Hogg, and questioning it as to its previous existence, which surely the babe had not had time to forget if it would but speak. But alas! the mother declared, she had never heard it speak, nor any other child of its age. Here comes also the charming incident of the torn coat, and Shelley's ecstasy on its having been fine-drawn. These, and such like amusing anecdotes, show the genuine and unpedantic side of Shelley's character, the delightfully natural and lovable personality which is ever allied to genius. With the fun and humor, who mixed long readings and discussions on the most serious and solemn subjects, Plato was naturally a great delight to him. He had a decided antipathy to Euclid and mathematical reasoning, and was consequently unable to pursue scientific researches on a system. But his love of chemistry and his imaginative faculty led him to wish in anticipation for the forces of nature to be utilized for human labour, etc. Shelley's reading and reading powers were enormous. He was seldom without a pocket edition of one of his favourite great authors, whose works he read with as much ease as the modern languages. This delightful time of study and ease was not to endure. Shelley's nature was impelled onwards as irresistibly as the mountain torrent and as with it all obstacles had to yield. He could not rest satisfied with reading and discussions with Hogg on theological and moral questions, and being debarred debate on these subjects in the university. He felt he must appeal to a larger audience, the public, and consequently he brought out with the cognizance of Hogg, pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Atheism. This work actually got into circulation for about 20 minutes when it was discovered by one of the fellows of the college who immediately convinced the bookseller that an auto-defei was necessary and all the pamphlets were at once consigned to the back kitchen fire. But the affair did not end there. Shelley's handwriting was recognised on some letters sent with copies of the work and consequently both he and Hogg were summoned before a meeting in the common room of the college. First Shelley and then Hogg declined to answer questions and refused to disavow all knowledge of the work for upon the two were summarily expelled from Oxford. Shelley complained bitterly of the un-gently way they were treated and the authorities were the equal reason of the rebellious defiance of the students. Yet once more we must regret that there was no one but Hogg who realised the latent genius of Shelley, that there was no one to feel that patience and sympathy would not be thrown away upon a young man free from other vices and provolities of the time and place. Whose crime was an inquiring mind and rashness in putting his views into print. Surely the dangerous which might assail a young man thus thrown on the world and alienated from his family by this disgrace might have received more consideration. This seems clear enough now when Shelley's ideals have been extolled even in as well as out of the pulpit. So now we find Shelley expelled from Oxford and arrived in London in March 1811 when only 18 years of age alone with Hogg to fight the battle of life with no previous experience of misfortune to give ballast to his feelings. But with a brain surcharged with mysteriously imbibed ideas of the woes of others and of the world a dangerous age instead of conditions for a youth to be thrown on his own resources. Admission to his father's house was only to be accorded on the condition of his giving up the society of Hogg. This condition imposed at the moment when Shelley considered himself indebted to Hogg for life for the manner in which he stood by him in the Oxford ordeal was refused. Shelley looked out for lodgings without result. Hillowall paper, representing a trellised vine apparently decided him was twenty pounds borrowed from his printer to leave Oxford. Shelley is now settled in London, unaided by his father. A small present of money sent by his mother being returned as he could not comply with the wishes which she expressed on the same occasion. From this time the march of events or of fate is as relentless as in a Greek drama. For already the needful woman had appeared in the person of Harriet Westbrook school fellow of his sisters at their Clapham school. During the previous January Shelley had made her acquaintance by visiting her at her father's house with an introduction and a present from one of his sisters. There seems no reason to doubt that Shelley was then much attracted by the beautiful girl, smarting though he was at the time from his rupture with Harriet Grove. But Shakespeare has shown us that such a time is not exempt from the potency of love shafts. This visit of Shelley was followed by his presenting Harriet Westbrook with a copy of his new romance St. Irvin which led to some correspondence. It was now Harriet's turn to visit Shelley, sent also by his sisters with presents of their pocket money. Shelley moreover visited the school on different occasions and even lectured the schoolmistress on her system of discipline. There is no doubt that Harriet's elder sister with or without the cognizance of their father a retired hotel keeper helped make meetings between the two. But Shelley, though young and a poet was no child and must have known what these dinners and visits and excursions might lead to and although the correspondence and conversation may have been more directly upon theological and philosophical questions it seems unlikely that he would have discussed thus with a young girl unless he felt some special interest in her. Besides, Shelley need not have felt any great social difference between himself and a young lady brought up and educated on a footing of equality with his own sisters. It is true that her family acted and encouraged him in a way incompatible with old-fashioned ideas of gentility. But Shelley was too prone at present to rebel against everything conventional to be particularly sensitive on this point. In May Shelley was unable to return to his father's house through the mediation of his uncle Captain Pilford and henceforth an allowance of two hundred a year was made to him. But there had been work done in the two months that no reconciliations or allowances afterwards could undo. For while Shelley was bent on proselytizing Harriet Westbrook not less for his sister's sake than for his own Harriet in a schoolgirl fashion encouraged by her sister and not discouraged by her father was falling in love with Shelley. How were the bourgeois father and sister to comprehend such a character as Shelley's when his own parents and all the college authorities failed to do so? If Shelley were not in love he must have appeared so. And Harriet's family did their best by encouraging and countenancing the intimacy to lead to a marriage and naturally having Harriet's interests more at heart than Shelley's. However the fact remains that Shelley was a most extraordinary being an embryo poet with all a poet's possible inconsistencies the very brilliancy of an intellectual spark in one direction apparently quelling it for a time in another. In most countries and ages a poet seems to have been accepted as a heaven sent gift to his nation. His very crimes and surely Shelley did not surpass King David in misdoing have been a lacrimerum giving terrible vitality to his thoughts and so reclaiming many others ere some fatal deed is done but in England the convention of at least making a show of virtues which did not exist perhaps a sorry legacy from Puritanism will not allow the poet to be accepted for what he really is nor his poetry to appeal on its own showing to the human heart he must be analysed and vilified or whitewashed in turn. At any rate Shelley was superior to some of the respectable vices of his class and one alleged concession of his father was fortunately loathsome to him. Bees that he, Sir Timothy would provide for as many illegitimate children as Percy chose to have but he would not tolerate amais-lions to what a revolt of ideas must such a coat of morality have led in a fermenting brain like Shelley's. Were the mothers to be provided for likewise and to be considered more by Shelley's respectable family than his lawful wife? We fear not. A visit to Wales followed during which Shelley's mind was in so abstracted a state that the fine scenery viewed for the first time had little power to move him while Harriet Westbrook with her sister and father was only thirty miles off at Abbastwith. A hasty and unexplained retreat of this party to London likewise hastened return of Shelley. Probably the father began to perceive that Shelley did not come forward as he had expected and so he wished to remove Harriet from his vicinity. Letters from Harriet to Shelley followed, full of misery and ejection, complaining of her father's decision to send her back to school where she was avoided by the other girls and called an abandoned wretch for sympathizing or corresponding with Shelley, she even contemplated suicide. It is curious how this idea seems to have constantly recurred to her as in the case of some others who have finally committed the act. Shelley wrote, expostulating with the father, this probably only incensed him more. He persisted. Harriet again addressed Shelley in despair, saying she would put herself under his protection and fly with him. A difficult position for any young man, and for Shelley most perplexing, with his avowed hostility to marriage and his recent assertions that he was not in love with Harriet, but it must be put to Shelley's credit that having intentionally or otherwise led Harriet on to love him, he now acted as a gentleman to his sister's school friend and influenced to some extent by Hogg's arguments in a different case in favour of marriage. He at once determined to make her his wife. He wrote to his cousin Charles Grove, announcing his intention in appending a rival in London, saying that as his own happiness was altogether blighted he could now only live to make that of others and would consequently marry Harriet Westbrook. In his arrival in London Shelley found Harriet looking ill and much changed. She spent some time in town during which Harriet's spirits revived, but Shelley, as he described in a letter to Hogg, felt much embarrassment in melancholy. Not contemplating an immediate marriage, he went into Sussex to pay a visit to Field Place and to his uncle at Cuckfield. While here he renewed the acquaintance of Miss Hitchiner, a schoolmistress of advanced ideas, who had the care of Captain Pilfold's children. To this acquaintance we owe a great number of letters which throw much light on Shelley's exalt character at this period and which afford most amusing reading, as usual with Shelley. He threw much of his own personality into his ideas of Miss Hitchiner, who was to be his eternal, inalienable friend, and to help to form his lovely wife's character on the model of her own. All these particulars are given in letters from Shelley to his friends, Charles Grove Hogg and Miss Hitchiner. To the latter he is very explanatory and apologetic, but only after the event. Shelley had scarcely been a week away from London when he received a letter from Harriet, complaining of fresh persecution and recalling him. He at once returned as he had undertaken to do if required. And then resolved that the only thing was for him to marry at once. He accordingly went straight to his cousin, Charles Grove, and was twenty-five pounds borrowed from his relative, Mr. Medwin, a solicitor of Horsham. He entered on one of the most momentous days of his life, the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth August, 1811. After passing the night with his cousin, he waited at the door of the coffee-house in Mount Street, watching for a girlish figure to turn the corner from Chapel Street. There was some delay, but what was to be could not be averted. And soon Harriet, fresh as a rosebud, appeared. The coach was called and the two cousins and the girl of sixteen drove to an inn in the city to await the Edinburgh mail. This took the two a stage farther on the fatal road, and on August twenty-eight their scotch marriage is recorded in Edinburgh. The marriage arrangements were of the quaintest. Shelly having to explain his position in one of funds to the landlord of some handsome rooms which he found. Fortunately the landlord undertook to supply what was needed, and they felt at ease in the expectation of Shelly's allowance of money coming. But this never came, as Shelly's father again resented his behaviour and took that easy means of showing as much. END OF PART TWO OF CHAPTER III CHAPTER III Shelly's wife had had the most contradictory educational possible for a young girl of an ordinary and unimaginative nature. The conventional surface education of a school of that time followed by the talks with Shelly which were doubtless far beyond her comprehension. What could be the outcome of such a marriage? Had Shelly indeed been a different character all might have gone smoothly, married as he was to a beautiful girl who loved him. But at present all Shelly's ideas were unpractical. Without the moral treadmill of work to sober his opinions, whence was the ballast to come when disappointment ensued, disappointment which he constantly prepared for himself by his over-enthusiastic idea of his friends. Trouble soon followed the marriage in the non-arrival of the money and after five weeks in Edinburgh where Hogg had joined the Shellys, followed by a little over a week in York, the need became so pressing that Shelly felt obliged to take a hurried journey to his uncles at Cuckfield in order to try and mollify his father and thus he did not succeed. Though absent a little over a week he prepared the way by his absence and by leaving Harriet under the care of Hogg for a series of complications and misunderstandings which never ended till death had absolved all concerned. Harriet's sister Eliza was to have returned to York with Shelly, but hearing of her sister's solitary state with Hogg and the vicinity, she hurried alone to York and from this time she assumed an ascendancy over the small minage which though probably useful in trifles had undoubtedly a bad effect in the long run. Eliza, rightly from her point of view thought it necessary to stand between Hogg and her sister. It seems far more likely that Hogg's gentlemanly instincts would have led him to treat his friend's wife with respect than that he should have really given cause for the grave suspicions which Shelly writes of in subsequent letters to Miss Hitchiner. Might not Eliza be inclined to take an exaggerated view of any attention shown by Hogg to her sister and have persuaded Harriet to the same effect? Harriet having seen nothing of the world as yet and Eliza's experience before her father's retirement from his tavern not being that in which ladies and gentlemen stand on a footing of equality. It is true that Shelly writes of an interview with Hogg before leaving York and which he describes Hogg as much confused and distressed. But perhaps allowance ought to be made for the fanciful turn of Shelly's own mind. However this may have been they left York for Kesswick where they delighted in the glorious scenery. At this time we see in letters to Miss Hitchiner how Shelly felt the necessity of intellectual sympathy and how he seemed to consider this friend in some way necessary for the accomplishment of various speculative and social ideas. Here at Chestnut Cottage novels were commenced and much work planned left unfinished or lost. While at Kesswick he made the acquaintance of Saudi and wrote his first letter to William Godwin whose works had already had a great influence on him and whose personal acquaintance he now sought. The often quoted letter by which Shelly introduced himself to Godwin was followed by others and led up to the subsequent intimacy which had such important results. Shelly with his wife and sister-in-law paid a visit to the Duke of Norfolk at Greystoke. This led to a quasi-reconciliation with Shelly's father owing to which the allowance of 200 a year was renewed. Harriet's father making her a similar allowance it is presumed owing to feeling flattered by his daughter's reception by the Duchess. Shortly afterwards some restless turn in the trio caused a further move to be contemplated. And now Shelly entered on what must have appeared one of the strangest of his fancies a visit to Ireland to affect Catholic emancipation and to procure the repeal of the Union Act. Hogg pretends to believe that Shelly did not even understand the meaning of the phrases and most probably many English would not have cared to do so. In any case Shelly's enthusiasm for an oppressed people must be admired and it is noticeable that our greatest statesman of the present day has come to agree with Shelly after 80 years of life in a conflicting endeavor. The plan adopted by Shelly caused infinite amusement to Harriet who entered with animation into the fun of distributing her husband's pamphlets on Irish affairs that could not well understand his seriousness on the subject. The pamphlets and the speeches which he delivered were not likely to conciliate the different Irish parties. The Catholics were not to be attracted by an atheist or anti-Christian. However tolerant he might be of them and of all religions which tend to good. Lord Fingal and his adherents were not inclined to follow the ardent republican and teacher of humanitarianism. Nor were the extreme party likely to be satisfied with appeals however eloquent for the pursuit and practice of virtue before any political changes were to be expected. Shelly's exposition of the failure of the French Revolution by the fact that although it had been ushered in by people of great intellect the moral side of intellect had been wanting was not what Irish nationalists then wished to consider. In fact Shelly had not much pondered the character of the people who went to help in reform. If he thought a week of these arguments could have much effect. Shelly was much sought after by the poor Irish during another month of his stay in Dublin on account of his generosity. Here also they met Mrs. Nugent. Harriet's correspondence with her has recently been published. Would the views which she expresses those of the present writer coincide in not casting all the blame of the future separation on Shelly? Harriet naturally feels merry most at fault and does not perceive her own mistakes. Failing in his aim and being disheartened by the distress on all sides which he could not relieve and more especially owing to the strong remonstrance of Godwin who considered that if there were any result it could only be bloodshed. The poet migrated to Nantgwilt in Wales. Here the Shellies contemplated receiving Godwin and his family Miss Hitchiner with her American pupils and why not Miss Hitchiner's father reported to have been an old smuggler. Here Shelly first met Thomas Love Peacock. They were unable to remain at Nantgwilt owing to various mishaps and migrated to that terrestrial paradise in North Devon, Linnmouth. This lovely place with its beautiful and romantic surroundings loved and exquisitely described by more than one poet cannot fail to be dear to those who know it with and through them. Here in a garden in front of their rose and myrtle-covered cottage within near sound of the rushing Linn would Shelly stand on a mound and let off his fire-balloons in the cool evening air. Here Miss Hitchiner joined them what talks and what rambles they must have had none but those who have known a poet in such a place could imagine. But perhaps Shelly, though a poet, was not sufficient for the three ladies in a neighborhood where the narrow winding paths may have caused one or other to appear neglected and left behind. Poor Shelly recalled from heaven to earth by such like vicissitudes naturally held by his wife. And forthwith disagreements began which ended in Miss Hitchiner's being called henceforth the brown demon. What a fall from the ideal reformer of the world. Another of Shelly's self-made idols shattered. The Shellys wished fanny Godwin to join their party at Linmouth. But this Godwin would not permit without more knowledge of his friends. Although Shelly wrote affecting letters to the sage, trusting that he might be the stay of his declining years. Amid the romantic scenery of Linmouth, Shelly wrote much of his Queen Mab. He also addressed a son in a longer poem to Harriet in August. These poems certainly events no failing off in affection although they are not likely the glowing love poems of a later period. From Linmouth Shelly with his party moved to Swansea and thence to Tremodoc where they agreed to take a house named Tana Ralt and then they moved on to London to meet Godwin who in the meanwhile had paid a visit to Linmouth just after their flitting. Here Shelly had the delight of seeing the philosopher face to face and now visits were exchanged and walks and dinners followed and among other friends of Godwin Shelly met Clara de Boineville and Mrs. Turner who was said to have inspired his first great lyric a way the more is dark beneath the moon. But whose husband strongly objected to Shelly visiting their house? On this occasion Fanny Godwin was the most seen. Mary Godwin who was just 15 only arriving towards the end of Shelly's stay in London from a visit to her friends the Baxter's in Scotland. No mention is made of her by Shelly though she must have dined in his company about November 5th, 1812. During this visit to London Shelly became reconciled with Hogg calling on him and begging him to come to see him and his wife. This certainly does not look as if Shelly still thought seriously of his former difference with Hogg scarcely a year before. Shortly after on the 8th we find the poor brown demon leaving the Shelly's with the promise of an annuity of one hundred pounds. She reopened to school on at Edmonton and was much loved by her pupils. Shelly now returned to Tremedoc where he passed the winter in his house at Tenneralt helping the poor through this severe season of 1812 to 13. Here one of Shelly's first practical attempts for humanity was assisting to reclaim some land from the sea. But Shelly's early effort unlike the last one of Gold's Fost did not satisfy him. And shortly afterwards another real or fancy attempt on his life on February 26th, 1813 obliged the party to leave the neighborhood this time again for Ireland. He spent a short time on the Lake of Kilnarny with his wife in Eliza. In April we again find him in London in a hotel in Abelmarle Street. Then he passed to Half Moon Street where in June their first child Ianthe was born. The baby was a great pleasure to Shelly who however objected to the wet nurse. He wrote a touching sonnet to his wife and child three months later. All this time there is no apparent change of affection suggested. Soon afterwards while at Bracknell near Windsor they kept up the acquaintance of the De Boineville family and Shelly began the study of Italian with them while Harriet relinquished hers of Latin. From Bracknell Shelly paid his last visit to Field Place to see his mother in the absence of his father and the younger children. An interview with his father followed and a journey to Edinburgh and then in December a return to London. Certainly an ominous restlessness caused no doubt considerably by one of money but moving about did not seem the way to save or to make it. Shelly visited Godwin several times during his stay in London. At this time Shelly had to raise ruinous post-abits on the family property and for legal reasons he now thought it desirable to follow the Scotch marriage by one in the English Church and he and Harriet were remarried on March 22nd 1814 at St. George's Church. But even now little rifts seem to have been growing small enough apparently and yet like the small cloud in the sky indicating the coming storm. This very time of trials through one of money seems to have been chosen by Harriet to show a hankering after luxuries which their present income could not warrant. A carriage was purchased and was with its accompanying expenses added to the small minage. And perhaps the thing most is tasteful to Shelly's natural tastes. The wet nurse was retained. Although Harriet had always appeared to be a strong young woman capable of undertaking her maternal duty, this fact was considered by Peacock to have chiefly alienated Shelly's affection. Apart from this poor Harriet with the birth of her child seems to have given up her studies which she had evidently pursued to please Shelly and to have awakened to the fact that it was a difficult task to take up the whole cause of suffering humanity and aid it with their slender purse and keep their wandering household going. It is difficult to imagine the genius that could have sufficed and it certainly needed genius or something very like it to keep the fous-like mind of Shelly in any piece. There is a letter from Fanny Godwin to Shelly after his first visit speaking of his wife as a fine lady. From this accusation Shelly strongly defended her. But now he felt that this disaster might really be impending. Poor pretty Harriet could not understand her talk philosophy with Shelly and what was worse her sister was ever present to prevent any spontaneous feeling of dependence on her husband from endearing her to him. Even before his second ceremony of marriage with Harriet we find him writing a letter and great dejection to Hogg. He seems really in the poet's premature old age as he expressed it though none like the poet have the power of rejuvenessence. His detestation of his sister-in-law at this time was extreme. But he appears to have been incapable of sending her away. It was a perfect torture to him to see her kiss the baby. He writes thus from Mrs. De Boynville's at Bracknell where he had a month's rest with philosophy and sweet converse. Talking was easier than acting philosophy at this juncture and planning the amelioration of the world pleasanter than struggling to keep one poor soul from sinking to degradation. But who shall judge the strength of another's power or feel the burden of another's woe? We can only tell how the expression of his agony may help ourselves. But surely it is worthy of admiration to find Shelly four days after writing this letter to Hogg binding his chain still firmer by remarrying so that come what would no slur should be cast on Harriet. Harriet who never understood anything of housekeeping and whose menage according to Hogg was of the funniest now that the novelty of Shelly's talk and ways was over and when even the constant changes were beginning to satiate her apparently spent a time of intolerable ennui. It is still remembered in the pill-fold family how Harriet appeared at their house late one night in a bald dress without Shawler bonnet having quarreled with Shelly a doctor who had to perform some operation on her child was struck with astonishment at her demeanor and considered her utterly without feeling and Shelly's poem Lines April 18 written according to Claire Claremont's testimony when Mr. Turner objected to was visiting his wife at Bracknell gives a touching picture of the comfortless home which he was returning to in fact they seemed to have no sooner been together again than Harriet made a fresh departure. There is one imploring poem by Shelly addressed to Harriet in May 1814 begging her to relent in pity if she cannot love and not to let him endure the misery of a fatal cure but Harriet had not generosity if it was needed and according to Thornton Hunt she left Shelly and went to Bath where she still was in July what Harriet really aimed at by this foolish move is doubtful it was certainly taken at the most fatal moment to leave Shelly alone near dear friends when she had been repelling his advances to regain her affection and making his home a place for him to dread to come into was anything but wise but wisdom was not Harriet's forte she needed a husband to be wise for her Shelly however had most gifts except such wisdom at this time beyond these facts there seems little but surmises to judge by it may always be a question how much Shelly really knew or believed of certain ideas of infidelity on his wife's pot in connection with a major Ryan ideas which even if believed would not have justified his subsequent mode of action but here for a time we must leave poor Harriet all her loveliness thrown away upon Shelly all Shelly's divine gifts worthless to her what a strange disunion to pass through life with only the sternest philosophy or callousness could have achieved it and Shelly was still so young with his philosophy all in theory End of Chapter 3 Section 8 of Mrs. Shelly This is the LibriVox Recording All LibriVox Recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Mrs. Shelly by Lucy Maddox Brown Rosetti Chapter 4 Part 1 Mary and Shelly We left Godwin about to write an answer to the letter referred to from Shelly The correspondence which followed though very interesting in itself is only important here as it led to the increasing intimacy of the families These letters are full of sound advice from an elderly philosopher to an over-enthusiastic youth and one dated March 14th, 1812 begging Shelly to leave Ireland and come to London ends with the pregnant phrase You cannot imagine how much all the females of my family Mrs. Godwin and three daughters are interested in your letters and your history So here at 14 we find Mary deeply interested in all concerning Shelly Poor Mary who used to wander fourth when in London from the Skinner Street Juvenile Library northwards to the old St. Pancras Cemetery to sit with a book beside her mother's grave to find that sympathy so sadly lacking in her home About this time Godwin wrote a letter concerning Mary's education to some correspondent anxious to be informed on the subject We cannot do better than quote from it Your inquiries relate principally to the two daughters of Mary Wollstone Croft They are neither of them brought up with an exclusive attention to the system and ideas of their mother I lost her in 1797 and in 1801 I married a second time Among the motives which led me to choose this was the feeling I had in myself of an incompetence for the education of daughters The present Mrs. Godwin has great strength in activity of mind but is not exclusively a follower of the notions of their mother and indeed having formed a family establishment without having a previous provision for the support of a family neither Mrs. Godwin nor I have leisure enough for reducing novel theories of education to practice While we both of us honestly endeavor as far as our opportunities will permit to improve the mind and characters of the younger branches of our family of the two persons to whom your inquiries relate my own daughter is considerably superior in capacity to the one her mother had before Fannie the eldest is of a quiet modest unsholy disposition somewhat given to indolence which is her greatest fault but sober observing peculiarly clear and distinct in the faculty of memory and disposed to exercise her own thoughts and follow her own judgment Mary, my daughter is the reverse of her in many particulars she is singularly bold somewhat imperious and active of mind her desire of knowledge is great and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible my own daughter is I believe very pretty Fannie is by no means handsome but in general prepossessing by this letter necessity appears to have been the chief motor in the education of the children constantly increasing difficulties surrounded the family who were however kept above the lowering influences of narrow circumstances by the intellect of Godwin and his friends even the speculations into which Mrs. Godwin is considered to have rashly drawn her husband in the Skinner Street Juvenile Library perhaps for a time really assisted in bringing up the family in educating the sons before the meeting with Shelly Mary was known as a young girl of strong poetic and emotional nature a story is still remembered by friends proving this just before her last return from the Highlands preceding her eventful meetings with Shelly she visited while staying with the Baxter's some of the most picturesque parts of the Highlands in company with Mr. Miller a bookseller of Enberg and he told her for passionate enthusiasm when taken into a room arranged with looking glasses round it to reflect the magic view without of cascade and cloudcapped mountains how she fell on her knees entranced at the site and thanked Providence for letting her witness so much beauty this was the nature with its antecedents and surroundings to come shortly into communion with Shelly at the time of his despondency at his wife's hardness and supposed desertion Shelly then so far from self-sufficiency yearning after sympathy and an ideal in life with all his former idols shattered Godwin's house became for him the home of intellectual intercourse Godwin surrounded by a cultivated family was not thought less of by Shelly owing to the accident of his then having a bookshop to look after Shelly whose childhood though passed in the comforts of an English country house yet lacked the riches of the higher culture through two months of various trials Shelly remained on terms of great intimacy visiting Godwin's house and constantly dining there this was during his wife's voluntary withdrawal to Bath from May when he seems to have entreated her to be reconciled to him till July when she in her turn becoming anxious at a four day cessation of news wrote an imploring letter to hook him the Bond Street bookseller for information about her husband in the meantime what had been passing in Godwin's house the philosopher whom Shelly loved and revered was becoming inextricably involved in money matters what was needed by this to draw still closer the sympathies of the poet who had not been exempt from like straits he was thus in the anomalous position of an air to twenty thousand a year who could wish to raise three thousand pounds on his future expectations not for discredible gambling debts or worse extravagances but to save his beloved master and his family from dire distress what a coil of circumstances to be entangling all concerned Mary returning from the delights of her Scottish home to find her father whom she always devotedly loved on the verge of bankruptcy with all the hopeless vista which her emotional and highly imaginative nature could conjure up and then to find this dreaded state of distress relieved and by her hero the poet who for more than two years all the women of her family had been profoundly interested in and for Shelly the contrast from the desolate home where sulks and ill-humour sailed him and which for a time was a deserted home for him were facts of his fitful imagination were in riot with his honour to the home where all showed its rosy at side for him were all vied to please the young benefactor who was the humble pupil of its master where Mary and the expanding glow of youth and intellect could talk on equal terms with the enthusiastic poet were not the eyes of Godwin and his wife blinded for the time when still the reconciliation with Harriet was possible surely gratitude came in to play on her false the one who were it only from personal feeling might have tried to turn the course of the rushing torrent was not there Fanny who had formally written of Shelly as a hero of romance was in Wales during this period so step by step and day by day the march of fate continued till by the time that hook'em apparently unbandaged Godwin's eyes on receiving Harriet's letter on July 7th, 1814 passion seemed to have subdued the power of will and the obstacle now imposed by Godwin only gave added impetus to the torrent which nothing further could check such times as these in a life seemed to exemplify the contrasting doctrines of Calvin and of Schopenhauer of two courses either is open but at that time Shelly was more the being of emotion than of will unless indeed will be confounded with emotion we have seen enough to gather that Shelly did not need to enter furtively the house of his benefactor to injure him in his nearest tie but that circumstances drew Shelly to marry with equal force as her to him the meetings by her mother's grave seemed to sanctify the love which should have been in others they vaguely tried to justify themselves with crude principles but self-deception could not endure much longer and when Godwin forbade Shelly his house on July 8th Shelly, ever impetuous and headstrong whose very virtues became for the time vices thrust all barriers aside what deceptions besides self-deception must have been necessary to carry out so wild a project can be imagined for certainly neither Godwin nor still less his wife was inclined to sanction so illegal and unjust an act we see from Hogg's description how impassioned was a meeting between Mary and Shelly which she chanced to witness and later on Shelly is said to have rushed into her room with Lodinum threatening to take it if she would have no pity on him these and such like scenes together with the philosophical notions which Mary must have imbibed led up to her acting at 16 as she certainly would not have done at 26 but now her knowledge of the world was small her enthusiasm great and evidently she believed in Harriet's faithlessness so that love added to the impatience of youth which could not foresee the dreadful future without doubt could they both have imagined the scene by the serpentine three years later they would have shrunk from the action which was a strong link in the chain that conduced to it but now all thoughts but love and self of each for the other were set aside and on July 20, 1814 we find Mary Godwin leaving her father's house before five o'clock in the morning much as Harriet had left her home three years earlier an entry made by Mary in a copy of Queen Mab given to her by Shelley and dated in July, 1814 shows us how a few days before the departure they had not settled on so desperate a move the words are these this book is sacred to me and as no other creature shall ever look into it I may write in it what I please yet what shall I write that I love the author beyond all powers of expression and that I imparted from him dearest and only love by that love we have promised to each other although I may not be yours I can never be in others but I am thine exclusively thine Mary in her novel of Lodor published in 1835 gave a version of the differences between Harriet and Shelley though Lord Lodor is more in impersonation of Mary's idea of Lord Byron than of Shelley Cornelia Santier the heroine may be partly drawn from Harriet while Lady Santier her matchmaking mother is taken from Eliza Westbrook Lady Santier when her daughter is married still keeps her under her influence she is described as clever though uneducated with all the petty maneuvering which frequently accompanies this condition when differences arise between Lodor and his wife the mother instead of counseling conciliation advises her daughter to reject her husband's advances under these circumstances estrangements lead to hatred and Cornelia declares she will never quit her mother and desires her husband to leave her in peace with her child this Lodor will not consent to but takes the child with him to America the mother-in-law speaks of desertion and cruelty and instigates law proceedings by these proceedings all further hope is lost we trace much of the history of Shelley and Harriet in this romance even to the age of Lady Lodor at her separation which is nineteen the same age as Harriet's Lady Lodor henceforth is regarded as an injured and deserted wife this might apply equally to Lady Byron but there are traits and descriptions evidently applicable to Harriet Lady Santerre encourages her to expect submission later from her husband but the time for that is past we here trace the period when Shelley also begged his wife to be reconciled to him in May and likewise Harriet's attempt at a reconciliation with Shelley all too late in July when Shelley had an interview with his wife and explanations were given which ended in Harriet apparently consenting to a separation the interview resulted in giving Harriet an illness very dangerous in her state of health she was even then looking forward to the birth of a child it is true that Shelley is said to have believed that this child was not his though later he acknowledged this belief was not correct the name of a certain major Ryan figures in the domestic history of the Shelley's at this time but certainly there seems no evidence to convict poor Harriet upon although Godwin at a later date informed Shelley that he had evidence of Harriet having been false to him four months before he left her this evidence is not forthcoming and the position of his daughter Mary may have made slender evidence seem more weighty at the time to Godwin in fact the small amount of evidence of any kind respecting Shelley's and Harriet's disagreements and separation seemed to point to the curious anomaly in Shelley's character that while he did not hesitate to act upon his avowed early and crude opinions as to the duration of marriage opinions which he later expressed disapproval of in his own criticism of Queen Mab yet the inate feeling of a gentleman forbade him to talk of his wife's real or supposed defects even to his intimate friends thus when Peacock cross questioned him about his liking for Harriet he only replied ah but you do not know how I hated her sister however more or less faulty or sinned against or sinning we must now leave Harriet for a while and accompany Shelley and Mary on that 28th of July when she left her father's house with Jane henceforth called Claire Claremont to meet Shelley near Hattengarden about five in the morning of the subsequent journey we have ample records for with this tour Mary also began a life of literary work in which she was fortunately able to confide much the unknown friend the public which though not always directly grateful to those who open their hearts to it is still eager for their works and influenced by them and so for Mary herself we learn all that she cared to publish from her journal in the six weeks tour and now we have the original journal by Mary and Shelley as given by Professor Dowden we must repeat for Mary the oft told tale of Shelley for henceforth till death separates them their lives