 Ferdinand Lazal and Helena Fondonegas. Volume 3 of Famous Affinities of History. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Famous Affinities of History by Lyndon Orr. Volume 3 Ferdinand Lazal and Helena Fondonegas. The middle part of the 19th century is a period which has become more or less obscure to most Americans and Englishmen. At one end, the thunderous campaigns of Napoleon are dying away. In the latter part of the century, we remember the gorgeousness of the Tuileries, the four-year strife of our own Civil War, and then the golden rift of peace with which the century ended. Between these two extremes, there is a stretch of history which seems to lack interest for the average student of the day. In America, that was a period when we took little interest in the movement of affairs on the continent of Europe. It would not be easy, for instance, to imagine an American of 1840 cogitating on problems of socialism or trying to invent some new form of a byte of a rhyme. General Chok was still swindling English emigrants. The young Colombian was still darting out from behind a table to declare how thoroughly he defined the British lion. But neither of these patriots, any more than their English compiers, was seriously disturbed about the interests of the rest of the world. The Englishman was contentedly singing God Save the Queen. The American was apostrophizing the bar of freedom with the floridity of rhetoric that reached its climax in the pogrom defines. What the Dutchies and Frenchies were doing was little more to an Englishman than to an American. Continental Europe was a mystery to English-speaking people. Those who travelled abroad took their own servants with them, spoke only English, and went through the whole European maze with absolute indifference, with absolute indifference. To them, the socialist who had scarcely received the name was an imaginary being. If he existed, he was only a sort of offspring of the Napoleonic wars, a creature who had not yet fitted into the ordinary course of things. He was an anomaly, a person who howled in beer houses and who would presently be regulated either by the statesmen or by the police. When our old friend Mark Tapley was making with his master a homeward voyage to Britain, what did he know or even care about the politics of France or Germany or Austria or Russia? Not the slightest, you may be sure. Mark and his master represented the complete indifference of the Englishman or American. Not necessarily a well-bred indifference, but an indifference that was insular on the one hand and republican on the other. If either of them had heard of a gentleman who pillaged an unmarried lady's luggage in order to secure a valuable paper for another lady who was married, they would both have looked severely at this abnormal person and the American would doubtless have added a remark which had something to do with the matchless purity of Columbia's daughters. If again they had been told that Ferdinand de Zal had joined in the great movement initiated by Karl Marx, it is absolutely certain that neither the Englishman nor the American could have given you the slightest notion as to who these individuals were. Thrones might be torturing all over Europe. The red flag might wave in a score of cities. What would all this signify so long as Britannia ruled the waves while Columbia's feathered emblem, shriek, defines 3,000 miles away? And yet few more momentous events have happened in a century than the union which led one man to give his eloquence to the social cause and the other to suffer for that cause until his death. Marx had the higher thought, but his disciple, Lazzal, had the more attractive way of presenting it. It is odd that Marx today should lie in a squalid cemetery while the whole western world echoes with his phrases and that Lazzal, brilliant, clear-sighted and remarkable for his penetrating genius should have lived in luxury but should now know nothing but oblivion even among those who shouted at his eloquence and ran beside him in the glory of his triumph. Ferdinand de Zal was a native of Breslau, the son of a wealthy Jewish silk merchant. Haman Lazzal, for thus the father spelled his name, stroked his hands at young Ferdinand's cleverness but he meant it to be a commercial cleverness. He gave the boy a tarot education at the University of Breslau and later at Berlin. He was an affectionate parent and at the same time tyrannical to a degree. It was the old story where the father wishes to direct every step that his son takes and where the son bursting out into youthful manhood feels that he has the right to freedom. The father thinks how he has toiled for the son. The son thinks that if this toil were given for love it should not be turned into a fetter and restraint. Young Lazzal, instead of becoming a clever silk merchant, insisted on a university career where he studied earnestly and was admitted to the most cultured circles. Though his birth was Jewish, he encountered little prejudice against his race. Napoleon had changed the old anti-Semitic feeling of 50 years before to a liberalism that was just beginning to be strongly felt in Germany as it had already been in France. This was true in general but especially true of Lazzal whose features were not of a Semitic type who made friends with everyone and who was a favourite in many salons. His portraits make him seem a high-bred and high-spirited Prussian with an intellectual and clean-cut forehead, a face that has a sense of humour and yet one capable of swift and cogent thought. No man of ordinary talents could have won the admiration of so many compiers. It is not likely that such a keen and cynical observer as Heinrich Heiner who'd have written as he did concerning Lazzal had not the latter been a brilliant and magnetic youth. Heiner wrote to Farnhagen von Enzer, the German historian. My friend Herr Lazzal, who brings you this letter, is a young man of remarkable intellectual gifts with the most thorough erudition, with the widest learning, with the greatest penetration that I have ever known and with the richest gift of exposition. He combines an energy of will and a capacity for action which astonish me. In no one have I found united so much enthusiasm and practical intelligence. No better proof of Lazzal's enthusiasm can be found than a few lines from his own writings. I love Heiner. He is my second self. What audacity! What overpowering eloquence! He knows how to whisper like a zipper when it kisses rose blooms, how to breathe like fire when it rages and destroys. He calls forth all that is tenderest and softest and then all that is fiercest and most daring. He has the sweep of the whole liar. Lazzal's sympathy with Heiner was like his sympathy with everyone whom he knew. This was often misunderstood. It was misunderstood in his relations with women and especially in the celebrated affair of the Countess von Hartzfeldt which began in the year 1846, that is to say in the 21st year of Lazzal's age. In truth, there was no real scandal in the matter for the Countess was twice the age of Lazzal. It was precisely because he was so young that he let his eagerness to defend a woman in distress, make him forget the ordinary usage of society and expose himself to mean and unworthy criticism which lasted all his life. It began by his introduction to the Countess von Hartzfeldt, a lady who was grossly ill-treated by her husband. She had suffered insult and imprisonment in the family casals. The Count had deprived her of medicine when she was ill and had forcibly taken away her children. Besides this, he was infatuated with another woman, a baroness, and wasted his substance upon her even contrary to the law which protected his children's rights. The Countess had a son named Paul of whom Lazzal was extremely fond. There came to the boy a letter from the Count von Hartzfeldt ordering him to leave his mother. The Countess at once sent for Lazzal who brought with him two wealthy and influential friends, one of them a judge of a high Prussian court and together they read the letter which Paul had just received. They were deeply moved by the despair of the Countess and by the cruelty of her disolute husband in seeking to separate the mother from her son. In his chivalrous adder, Lazzal swore to help the Countess and promised that he would carry on the struggle with her husband to the bitter end. He took his two friends with him to Berlin and then to Düsseldorf for they discovered that the Count von Hartzfeldt was not far away. He was, in fact, at Exler Chapelle with the Baroness. Lazzal, who had the scent of a greyhound, cried about until he discovered that the Count had given his mistress a legal document assigning to her a valuable piece of property which in the ordinary course of law should be entailed on the boy, Paul. The Countess at once hastened to the place and broke into her husband's room and secured a promise that the deed would be destroyed. No sooner, however, had she left him than he returned to the Baroness and presently it was learned that the woman had set out for Cologne. Lazzal and his two friends followed to a certain whether the document had really been destroyed. The three reached a hotel at Cologne where the Baroness had just arrived. Her luggage, in fact, was being carried upstairs. One of Lazzal's friends opened a trunk and, finding a casket there, slipped it out to his companion, the judge. Unfortunately, the latter had no means of hiding it and when the Baroness's servant shouted for help the casket was found in the possession of the judge who could give no plausible account of it. He was, therefore, arrested, as were the other two. There was no evidence against Lazzal but his friends fared badly at the trial, one being imprisoned for a year and the other for five years. From this time, Lazzal, with an almost quixotic devotion gave himself up to fighting the Countess von Hartzfeld's battle against her husband in the law courts. The ablest advocates were pitted against him. The most eloquent legal orators thundered at him and at his client but he met them all with a skill and audacity and a brilliant wit that won for him verdict after verdict. The case went from the lower to the higher tribunals until, after nine years, it reached the last court of appeal where Lazzal rested from his opponents a magnificently conclusive victory, one that made the children of the Countess absolutely safe. It was a battle fought with the determination of a soldier with the gallantry of a knight errant and the intellectual acumen of a learned lawyer. It is not surprising that many refused to believe that Lazzal's feeling toward the Countess von Hartzfeld was a disinterested one. A scandalous pamphlet which was published in French, German and Russian and written by one who styled herself Sophie Solutsov did much to spread the evil report concerning Lazzal but the very openness and frankness of the service which he did for the Countess ought to make it clear that his was the devotion over youth drawn by an impulse into a strife where there was nothing for him to gain but everything to lose. He denounced the brutality of her husband but her letters to him always addressed him as my dear child. In writing to her he confides small love secrets and ephemeral flirtations which he would scarcely have done had the Countess viewed him with the eye of passion. Lazzal was undoubtedly a man of impressionable heart and had many affairs such as Heiner had but they were not deep or lasting that he should have made a favourable impression on the women whom he met is not surprising because of his social standing, his chivalry, his fine manners and his handsome face. Mr. Clement Shorter has quoted an official document which describes him as he was in his earlier years. Ferdinand Lazzal aged 23 a civilian born at Breslau and dwelling recently at Berlin. He stands five feet six inches in height has brown curly hair, open forehead, brown eyebrows, dark blue eyes well proportioned nose and mouth and rounded chin. We ought not to be surprised then if he was a favourite in drawing rooms if both men and women admire him if Alexander von Humboldt cried out with enthusiasm that he was a Wunderkind and if there were more than Sophie Solutziff to be jealous. But the rather ungrateful remark of the Countess von Hartzfeld certainly does not represent him as he really was. You are without reason and judgement where women are concerned, she snarled at him but this near only shows that the woman who uttered it was neither in love with him nor grateful to him. In this paper we are not discussing Lazzal as a public agitator or as a socialist but simply in his relations with the two women who most seriously affected his life. The first was the Countess von Hartzfeld who as we have seen occupied or rather wasted nine of the best years of his life. Then came that profound and thrilling passion which ended the career of a man who at 39 had only just begun to be famous. Lazzal had joined his intellectual forces with those of Heine and Marx. He had obtained so great an influence over the masses of the people as to alarm many a monarch and at the same time to attract many a statesman. Prince Bismarck, for example, cared nothing for Lazzal's championship of popular rights but sought his aid on finding that he was an earnest advocate of German unity. Furthermore, he was very far from resembling what in those early days was regarded as the typical picture of a socialist. There was nothing frowsy about him. In his appearance he was elegance itself. His manners were those of a prince and his clothing was of the best. Seeing him in a drawing room no one would mistake him for anything but a gentleman and a man of parts. Hence it is not surprising that his second love was one of the nobility although her own people hated Lazzal as a bearer of the red flag. This girl was Helena von Dornigus, the daughter of a Bavarian diplomat. As a child she had travelled much especially in Italy and in Switzerland. She was very precocious and lived her own life in the direction of anyone. At 12 years of age she had been betrothed to an Italian of 40 but this dark and pedantic person always displeased her and soon afterward when she met a young Malaysian nobleman one Yanko Rakovica she was already at once to dismiss her Italian lover. Rakovica, young, a student far from home and lacking friends, came to the girl's sympathy. At that very time in Berlin where Helena was visiting her grandmother she was asked by a Prussian baron. Do you know Ferdinand Lazzal? The question came to her with a peculiar shock. She had never heard the name and yet the sound of it gave her a strange emotion. Baron Koff who perhaps took liberties because she was so young to say my dear lady have you really never seen Lazzal? Why you and he were meant for each other. She felt ashamed to ask about him but shortly after a gentleman who knew her said it is evident that you have a surprising degree of intellectual kinship with Ferdinand Lazzal. This so excited her curiosity that she asked her grandmother who is this person of whom they talk so much? This Ferdinand Lazzal? Do not speak of him. replied her grandmother. He is a shameless demagogue. A little questioning brought to Helena all sorts of stories about Lazzal. The Countess von Hartz felt the stolen casket the mysterious pamphlet the long battle in the courts all of which excited her still more. A friend offered to introduce her to the shameless demagogue. This introduction happened at a party and it must have been an extraordinary meeting. Seldom it seemed was there a better instance of love at first sight or of the true affinity of which Baron Korf had spoken. In the midst of the public gathering they almost rushed into each other's arms. They talked the free talk of acknowledged lovers and when she left he called her love names as he offered her his arm. Somehow it did not appear at all remarkable she afterwards declared we seem to be perfectly fitted to each other. Nevertheless nine months passed before they met again at a soiree at this time Lazzal, gazing upon her said, what would you do if I was sentenced to death? I should wait until your head was severed was her answer in order that you might look upon your beloved to the last I should take poison her answer delighted him but he said that there was no danger he was greeted on every hand with great consideration it seemed not unlikely that in recognition of his influence with the people he might rise to some high position the king of Frasya sympathized with him Haine called him the messiah of the 19th century when he passed from city to city the whole population turned out to do him honour houses were reaped flowers were thrown in masses upon him while the streets were spanned with triumphal arches won out with the work and excitement attending the birth of Deutsche Arbiter von Hein or workmen's union which he founded in 1863 Lazzal fled for a time to Switzerland for rest Helena heard of his whereabouts and hurried to him with several friends they met again on July 25th 1864 and discussed long and intensely the possibilities of their marriage and the opposition of her parents who would never permit her to marry a man who was at once a socialist and a Jew then comes a pitiful story of the strife between Lazzal and the Dornigal family Helena's father and mother indulged in vulgar words they spoke of Lazzal with contempt they recalled all the scandals that had been current 10 years before and forbade Helena ever to mention the man's name again the next scene in the drama took place in Geneva where the family of her von Dornigals had arrived and where Helena's sister had been betrothed to Kant von Keisling a match which filled her mother with intense joy her momentary friendliness Helena to speak of her unalterable love for Lazzal Scarcely had the words been spoken when her father and mother burst into abuse and denounced Lazzal as well as herself she sent word of this to Lazzal who was in a hotel nearby Scarcely had he received her letter when Helena herself appeared upon the scene and with all the intensity of which she was possessed she begged him to take her wherever he chose she would go with him to France to Italy to the ends of the earth what a situation and yet how simple a one for a man of spirit it is strange to have to record that to Lazzal it seemed most difficult he felt that he or she or both of them had been compromised had she a lady with her? did she know anyone in the neighborhood? what an extraordinary answer if she were compromised all the more odd he to have taken her in his arms and married her at once instead of quibbling and showing himself a prig presently her maid came in to tell them that a carriage was ready to take them to the station when a train would start for Paris in a quarter of an hour Helena begged him with a feeling that was beginning to be one of shame Lazzal repelled her in words that would to stamp him with a particular kind of cowardice why should he have stopped to think of anything except the beautiful woman who was at his feet and to whom he had pledged his love why did he care for the petty diplomat who was her father or the vulgar tongue woman who was her mother he should have hurried her and the maid into the train for Paris and have forgotten everything in the world but his Helena, glories among women who had left everything for him what was the sudden failure the curious weakness the paltryness of spirit that came at the supreme moment into the heart of this hitherto strong man here was the girl whom he loved driven from her parents putting aside all question of appearances and clinging to him with a wild and glorious desire to give herself to him and to be all his own that was the thing worthy of a true woman and he he shrinks from her and covers and acts like a simpleton his courage seems to have dribbled through his fingertips he is no longer a man he is a thing out of all the multitude of Lizard's former admirers there is scarcely one who has ventured to defend him much less to lord him and when they have done so their voices have had a sound of mockery that dies away in their own throats Helena on her side had compromised herself and even from the viewpoint of her parents it was obvious that she ought to be married immediately her father however confined her to her room until it was understood that Lizard had left Geneva then her family supplications the statement that her sister's marriage and even her father's position were in danger let her to say that she would give up Lizard it mattered very little in one way for whatever he might have done Lizard had killed or at least had chilled her love his failure at the moment of her great self sacrifice had shown him to her as he really was no bold and gallant spirit but a cringing, spiritless self seeker she wrote him a formal letter to the effect that she had become reconciled to her betrothed bridegroom and they never met again too late Lizard gave himself up to a great regret he went about trying to explain his action to his friends but he could say nothing that would ease his feeling and reinstate him in the eyes of the romantic girl in a frenzy he sought out a valetian student and challenged him to a mortal duel he also challenged Helena's father years before he had on principle declined to fight a duel but now he went raving about as if he sought the death of everyone who knew him the duel was fought on August the 28th, 1864 there was some trouble about pistols and also about seconds but finally the combatants left a small hotel in a village near Geneva and reached the dueling grounds Lizard was almost joyous in his manner his old conference had come back to him he meant to kill his man they took their stations high up among the hills a few spectators saw their figures outlined against the sky the command to fire rang out and from both pistols gushed the flame and smoke a moment later Lizard was seen to sway and fall a chance shot glancing from a wall had struck him to the ground he suffered terribly and nothing but opium in great doses could relieve his pain his wound was mortal and three days later he died long after Helena admitted that she still loved Lizard and believed that he would win the duel but after the tragedy the tenderness and patience of Rakovica won her heart she married him but within a year he died of consumption Helena being disowned by her relations prepared herself for the stage she married a third husband named Shevich who was then living in the United States but who has since made his home in Russia let us say nothing of Lizard's political career except for his work as one of the early leaders of the liberal movement in Germany it has perished and his name has been almost forgotten as a lover his story stands out forever as a warning to the timid and the requriant let men do what they will but there is just one thing which no man is permitted to do with safety in the sight of women and that is to play the craven End of Ferdinand Lisal and Helena Fondonegas volume 5 volume 3 of famous affinities of history 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 Ruth Golding famous affinities of history by Lyndon Orr volume 3 the story of Rachel outside of the English-speaking peoples the 19th century witnessed the rise and triumphant progress of three great tragic actresses the first two of these Rachel Felix and Sarah Bernhardt were of Jewish extraction the third, Elena Duce is Italian all of them made their way from pauperism to fame but perhaps the rise of Rachel was the most striking in the winter of 1821 a wretched peddler named Abraham or Jacob Felix sought shelter at a dilapidated inn at Montf, a village in Switzerland not far from Basel it was at the close of a stormy day and his small family had been toiling through the snow and sleet the inn was the lowest sort of hovel and yet its proprietor felt that it was too good for these vagabonds he consented to receive them only when he learned that the peddler's wife was to be delivered of a child that very night she became the mother of a girl who was at first called Elisa so unimportant was the advent of this little wave into the world that the burgamaster of Montf thought it necessary to make an entry only of the fact that a peddler's wife had given birth to a female child there was no mention of family or religion nor was the record anything more than a memorandum under such circumstances was born a child who was destined to excite the wonder of European courts to startle and thrill and utterly amaze great audiences by her dramatic genius but for ten years the family which grew until it consisted of one son and five daughters kept on its wanderings through Switzerland and Germany finally they settled down in Lyon where the mother opened a little shop for the sale of secondhand clothing the husband gave lessons in German whenever he could find a pupil the eldest daughter went about the cafes in the evening singing the songs that were then popular while her small sister Rachel collected coppers from those who had coppers to spare although the family was barely able to sustain existence the father and mother were by no means as ignorant as their squalor would imply the peddler Felix had studied Hebrew theology in the hope of becoming a rabbi failing this he was always much interested in declamation public reading and the recitation of poetry he was in his way no mean critic of actors and actresses long before she was ten years of age little Rachel changed her name from Elisa could render with much feeling and neatness of eloquence bits from the best known French plays of the classic stage the children's mother on her side was sharp and practical to a high degree she saved and scrimped all through her period of adversity later she was the banker of her family and would never lend any of her children a sue except on excellent security however this was all to happen in after years when the child who was destined to be famous had reached her tenth year she and her sisters made their way to Paris for four years the second hand clothing shop was continued the father still taught German and the elder sister Sarah who had a golden voice made the rounds of the cafes in the lowest quarters of the capital while Rachel passed the wooden plate to the copper's one evening in the year 1834 a gentleman named Morin having been taken out of his usual course by a matter of business entered a brasserie for a cup of coffee there he noted two girls one of them singing with remarkable sweetness and the other silently following with the wooden plate Monsieur Morin called to him the girl who sang asked her why she did not make her voice more profitable than by haunting the cafes at night where she was sure to meet with insults of the grossest kind why? said Sarah I haven't anybody to advise me what to do Monsieur Morin gave her his address and said that he would arrange to have her meet a friend who would be of great service to her on the following day he sent the two girls to a Monsieur Choron who was the head of the Conservatory of Sacred Music Choron had Sarah sing and instantly admitted her as a pupil which meant that she would soon be enrolled among the regular choristers the beauty of her voice made a deep impression on him then he happened to notice the puny meagre child who was standing near her sister turning to her he said and what can you do little one I can recite poetry was the reply oh can you said he please let me hear you Rachel readily consented she had a peculiarly harsh grating voice so that any but a very competent judge would have turned her away but Monsieur Choron whose experience was great noted the correctness of her accent and the feeling which made itself felt in every line he accepted her as well as her sister but urged her to study elocution rather than music she must indeed have had an extraordinary power even at the age of fourteen since not merely her voice but her whole appearance was against her she was dressed in a short calico frock of a pattern in which red was spotted with white her shoes were of course black leather her hair was parted at the back of her head and hung down her shoulders in two braids framing the long childish and yet gnome-like face which was unusual in its gravity at first she was little thought of but there came a time when she astonished both her teachers and her companions by a recital which she gave in public the part was the narrative of Salema in the Abufar of Ducis it describes the agony of a mother who gives birth to a child while dying of thirst amid the desert sands Madame de Barbière has left a description of this recital which it is worthwhile to quote while uttering the thrilling tale the thin face seemed to lengthen with horror the small deep-set black eyes dilated with a fixed stare as though she witnessed the harrowing scene and the deep guttural tones despite a slight Jewish accent awoken nameless terror in everyone who listened carrying him through the imaginary woe with a strange feeling of reality not to be shaken off as long as the sounds lasted even yet however the time had not come for any conspicuous success the girl was still so puny in form so monkey-like in face and so gratingly unpleasant in her tones that it needed time for her to attain her full growth and to smooth away some of the discords in her peculiar voice three years later she appeared at the gymnas in a regular debut yet even then only the experienced few appreciated her greatness among these however were the well-known critic Jules Jeannin the poet and novelist Gautier and the actress Mme Zelmars they saw that this lean, raucous, gutter girl had within her gifts which would increase until she would be first of all actresses on the French stage Jeannin wrote some lines which explain the secret of her greatness all the talent in the world especially when continually applied to the same dramatic works will not satisfy continually the hearer what pleases in a great actor as in all arts that appeal to the imagination is the unforeseen when I am utterly ignorant of what is to happen when I do not know when you yourself do not know what will be your next gesture your next look what passion will possess your heart what outcry will burst from your terror-stricken soul then indeed I am willing to see you daily for each day you will be new to me today I may blame tomorrow praise yesterday you are all powerful tomorrow perhaps you may hardly win from me a word of admiration so much the better then if you draw from me unexpected tears if in my heart you strike an unknown fibre but tell me not of hearing night after night great artists who every time present the exact counterpart of what they were on the preceding one it was at the Théâtre-Français that she won her final acceptance as the greatest of all tragedians of her time this was in her appearance in Cournet's famous play of Orras she had now in 1838 blazed forth with a power that shook her no less than it stirred the emotions and the passions of her hearers the princes of the royal blood came in succession to see her King Louis-Philippe himself was at last tempted by curiosity to be present gifts of money and jewels were showered on her and through sheer natural genius rather than through artifice she was able to master a great audience and bend it to her will she had no easy life this girl of 18 years for other actresses carped at her and she had had but little training the sordid ways of her old father excited a bitterness which was vented on the daughter she was still underage and therefore was treated as a goldmine by her exacting parents at the most she could play but twice a week her form was frail and read-like she was threatened with a complaint of the lungs yet all this served to excite rather than to diminish public interest in her the newspapers published daily bulletins of her health and her door was besieged by anxious callers who wished to know her condition as for the greed of her parents everyone said she was not to blame for that and so she passed from poverty to riches from squalor to something like splendor and from obscurity to fame much has been written about her that is quite incorrect she has been credited with virtues which she never possessed and indeed it may be said with only too much truth that she possessed no virtues whatsoever on the stage while the inspiration lasted she was magnificent off the stage she was sly, treacherous capricious, greedy ungrateful, ignorant and unchaste with such an ancestry as she had with such an early childhood as had been hers what else could one expect from her she and her old mother wrangled over money like two pickpockets some of her best friends she treated shamefully her avarice was without bounds someone said that it was not really avarice but only a reaction from generosity an exceedingly subtle theory it is possible to give illustrations of it however she did indeed make many presents with a lavish hand yet having made a present she could not rest until she got it back the fact was so well known that her associates took it for granted the younger Douma once received a ring from her immediately he bowed low and returned it to her finger permit me, Mamzelle to present it to you in my turn so as to save you the embarrassment of asking for it Mr. Vandam relates among other anecdotes about her that one evening she dined at the house of Count Duchâtel the table was loaded with the most magnificent flowers but Rachel's keen eyes presently spied out the great silver centerpiece immediately she began to admire the latter and the Count fascinated by her manners said that he would be glad to present it to her she accepted it at once but was rather fearful as he should change his mind she had come to dinner in a cab and mentioned the fact the Count offered to send her home in his carriage yes, that will do admirably said she with pleasure, Mamzelle replied the Count but you will send me back my carriage, won't you Rachel had a curious way of asking everyone she met for presents and knickknacks whether they were valuable or not she knew how to make them valuable once in a studio she noticed a guitar hanging on the wall she begged for it very earnestly as it was an old and almost worthless instrument it was given her a little later it was reported that the dilapidated guitar had been purchased by a well-known gentleman for a thousand francs the explanation soon followed Rachel had declared that it was the very guitar with which she used to earn her living as a child in the streets of Paris as a memento its value sprang from twenty francs to a thousand it has always been a mystery what Rachel did with the great sums of money which she made in various ways she never was well dressed and as for her costumes on the stage they were furnished by the theatre when her effects were sold at public auction after her death her furniture was worse than commonplace and her pictures and ornaments were worthless except such as had been given her she must have made millions of francs and yet she had very little to leave behind her some say that her brother Raphael, who acted as her personal manager was a spend-thrift but if so there are many reasons for thinking that it was not his sister's money that he spent others say that Rachel gambled in stocks but there is no evidence of it the only thing that is certain is the fact that she was almost always in want of money her mother in all probability managed to get hold of most of her earnings much may have been lost through her caprices one instance may be cited she had received an offer of three hundred thousand francs to act at St. Petersburg and was on her way there when she passed through Potsdam near Berlin the king of Prussia was entertaining the Russian Tsar an invitation was sent to her in the shape of a royal command to appear before these monarchs and their guests for some reason or other Rachel absolutely refused she would listen to no arguments she would go on to St. Petersburg without delay but it was said to her if you refuse to appear before the Tsar at Potsdam all the theatres in St. Petersburg will be closed against you because you will have insulted the emperor in this way you will be out the expenses of your journey and also the three hundred thousand francs Rachel remained stubborn as before but in about half an hour she suddenly declared that she would recite before the two monarchs which she subsequently did to the satisfaction of everybody someone said to her not long after I knew that you would do it you weren't going to give up the three hundred thousand francs and all your travelling expenses you are quite wrong returned Rachel though of course you will not believe me I did not care at all about the money and was going back to France it was something that I heard which made me change my mind do you want to know what it was well after all the arguments were over someone informed me that the Tsar Nicholas was the handsomest man in Europe and so I made up my mind that I would stay in Potsdam long enough to see him this brings us to one phase of Rachel's nature which is rather sinister she was absolutely hard she seemed to have no emotions except those which she exhibited on the stage or the impish perversity which irritated so many of those about her she was in reality a product of the gutter able to assume a demure and modest air but within course vulgar and careless decency yet the words of Jules Jeanne which have been quoted above explain how she could be personally very fascinating in all Rachel's career one can detect just a single strand of real romance it is one that makes us sorry for her because it tells us that her love was given where it never could be openly requited during the reign of Louis Philippe the Count Alexandre Valewski held many posts in the government he was a son of the great Napoleon his mother was that Polish Countess who had accepted Napoleon's love because she hoped that he might set Poland free at her desire but Napoleon was never swerved from his well-calculated plans by the wish of any woman and after a time the Countess Valewski came to love him for himself it was she to whom he confided secrets which he would not reveal to his own brothers it was she who followed him to Elba in disguise it was her son who was Napoleon's son and who afterward under the Second Empire was made Minister of Fine Arts Minister of Foreign Affairs and finally an Imperial Duke unlike the Third Napoleon's natural half-brother the Duke de Montréal Valewski was a gentleman of honour and fine feeling he never used his relationship to secure advantages for himself he tried to live in a manner worthy of the great warrior who was his father as Minister of Fine Arts he had much to do with the subsidised theatres and in time he came to know Rachel he was the son of one of the greatest men who ever lived she was the child of roving peddlers whose early training had been in the slums of cities and amid the smoke of bar rooms and cafes she was tainted in a thousand ways while he was a man of breeding and right principle she was a wandering actress he was a great Minister of State what could there be between these two? Georges Saint gave the explanation in an epigram which, like most epigrams, is only partly true she said the Count's company must prove very restful to Rachel what she meant was, of course, that Valewski's breeding his dignity and uprightness might be regarded only as a temporary repose for the impish, harsh-voiced, infinitely clever actress of course it was all this but we should not take it in a mocking sense Rachel looked up out of her depths and gave her heart to this high-minded nobleman he looked down and lifted her as it were so that she could forget for the time all the baseness and the brutality that she had known that she might put aside her forced vivacity and the self that was not in reality her own it is pitiful to think of these two separated by a great abyss which could not be passed except at times and hours when each was free but there's was, nonetheless, a meeting of two souls strangely different in many ways and yet appealing to each other with a sincerity and truth which neither could show elsewhere the end of poor Rachel was one of disappointment tempted by the fact that Jenny Lind had made nearly two million francs by her visit to the United States Rachel followed her but with slight success as was to be expected music is enjoyed by human beings everywhere while French classical plays even though acted by a genius like Rachel could be rightly understood only by a French-speaking people thus it came about that her visit to America was only moderately successful she returned to France where the rising fame of Adelaide Restory was very bitter to Rachel who had passed the zenith of her power she went to Egypt but received no benefit and in 1858 she died near Cannes the man who loved her and whom she had loved in turn heard of her death with great emotion he himself lived ten years longer and died a little while before the fall of the Second Empire end of the story of Rachel and end of Volume 3 of Famous Affinities of History by Lyndon Orr Dean Swift and the two esters Volume 4 of Famous Affinities of History this is a Liber-Vax recording all Liber-Vax recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LiberVax.org Recording by Barry Eads Famous Affinities of History by Lyndon Orr Volume 4 Dean Swift and the two esters the story of Jonathan Swift and of the two women who gave their lives for love of him is familiar to every student of English literature Swift himself both in letters and in politics stands out a conspicuous figure in the reigns of King William III and Queen Anne by writing Gulliver's Travels he made himself immortal the external facts of his singular relations with two charming women are sufficiently well known but a definite explanation of these facts has never yet been given Swift held his tongue with a repellent tachyternity no one ever dared to question him whether the true solution belongs to the sphere of psychology or of physiology is a question that remains unanswered but as the case is one of the most puzzling in the annals of love it may be well to set forth the circumstances very briefly to weigh the theories that have already been advanced and to suggest another Jonathan Swift was of Yorkshire stock though he happened to be born in Dublin and thus is often spoken of as a great Irish satirist or the Irish Dean it was in truth his fate to spend much of his life in Ireland and to die there near the cathedral where his remains now rest but in truth he hated Ireland and everything connected with it just as he hated Scotland and everything that was Scottish he was an English man to the core high stomached, proud, obstinate and over-mastering independence was the dream of his life except no favors least he should put himself under obligation and although he could give generously and even lavishly he lived for the most part a miser's life hoarding every penny and half penny that he could whatever one may think of him there is no doubt that he was a very manly man too many of his portraits give the impression of a sour supercilious pedant but the finest of them all that by Jervis shows him as he must have been at his very prime with a face that was almost handsome and a look of attractive humor which strengthens rather than lessens the power of his brows and of the large lambent eyes beneath them at 15 he entered Trinity College in Dublin where he read widely but studied little so that his degree was finally granted him only as a special favor at 21 he first visited England and became secretary to Sir William Temple at Moore Park where he lived until after a distinguished career in diplomacy had retired to his fine country estate in Surrey he is remembered now for several things for having entertained Peter the Great of Russia for having, while young, won the affections of Dorothy Osborne whose letters to him are charming in their grace and archeness for having been the patron of Jonathan Swift and for fathering the young girl named Esther Johnson a wife born out of wedlock Temple gave a place in his household when Swift first met her Esther Johnson was only eight years old and part of his duties at Moore Park consistent in giving her what was then an unusual education for a girl she was, however, still a child and nothing serious could have passed between the raw youth and this little girl who learned the lessons that he imposed upon her such acquaintance as they had was really broken off Temple, a man of high position treated Swift with an urbane condensation which drove the young man's independent soul into a frenzy he returned to Ireland where he was ordained a clergyman and received a small parish at Kilgrew near Belfast it was here that the love note was first seriously heard in the discordant music of Swiss career a college friend of his named Waring had a sister who was about the age of Swift and whom he met quite frequently at Kilgrew not very much is known of this episode but there is evidence that Swift fell in love with the girl whom he rather romantically called Barina this cannot be called a serious love affair Swift was lonely and Jane Waring was probably the only girl or refinement who lived near Kilgrew furthermore she had inherited a small fortune while Swift was miserably poor and had nothing to offer except the shadowy prospect of future advancement in England he was definitely refused by her and it was this perhaps that led him to resolve on going back to England and making his peace with Sir William Temple on leaving Swift wrote a passionate letter to Miss Waring the only true love letter that remains to us of their correspondence he protested that he does not want Barina's fortune and that he will wait until he is in a position to marry her on equal terms there is a smoldering flame of jealousy running through the letter Swift charges her with being cold affected and willing to flirt with persons who are quite beneath her Barina played no important part in Swift's larger life thereafter but something must be said of this affair in order to show first of all that Swift's love for her was due only to proximity and that when he ceased to feel it he could be not only hard but harsh his fiery spirit must have made a deep impression on Miss Waring for though she at the time missed him she afterward remembered him and tried to renew their old relations indeed no sooner had Swift been made rector of a larger parish than Barina let him know that she had changed her mind and was ready to marry him but by this time Swift had lost all interest in her he wrote an answer which even his truest admirers have called brutal yes he said in substance I will marry you though you have treated me vile and though you are living in a sort of social sink I am still poor though you probably think otherwise however I will marry you on certain conditions first you must be educated so that you can entertain me next you must put up with all my whims and likes and dislikes then you must live wherever I please on these terms I will take you without reference to your looks or to your income as to the first cleanliness is all that I require as to the second I only ask that it be enough such a letter as this was like a blow from a bludgeon the insolence the contempt and the hardness of it were such as no self-respecting woman could endure it put an end to their acquaintance as Swift undoubtedly intended it should do he would have been less censurable had he struck Barina with his fist or kicked her the true reason for Swift's utter change of heart is found no doubt in the beginning of what was destined to be his long intimacy with Esther Johnson when Swift left Sir William Temples in a huff Esther had been a mere schoolgirl now on his return she was fifteen years of age and seemed older she had blossomed out into a very comely girl vivacious clever and physically well developed with dark hair sparkling eyes and features that were unusually regular and lovely for three years the two were close friends and intimate associates though it cannot be said that Swift ever made open love to her to the outward eye they were no more than fellow workers yet love does not need the spoken word and the formal declaration to give it life and make it deep and strong Esther Johnson to whom Swift gave the pet name of Stella grew into the existence of this fiery, bold and independent genius all that he did she knew she was his confidant as to his writings his hopes and his enmities she was the mistress of all his secrets for her at last no other man existed on Sir William Temples death Esther Johnson came into a small fortune though she now lost her home at Moore Park Swift returned to Ireland and soon afterward he invited Stella to join him there Swift was now thirty-four years of age and Stella a very attractive girl of twenty one might have expected that the two would marry and yet they did not do so every precaution was taken to avoid anything like scandal Stella was accompanied by a friend a widow named Mrs. Dingley without whose presence or that of some third person Swift never saw Esther Johnson when Swift was absent however the two ladies occupied his apartments and Stella became more than ever essential to his happiness when they were separated for any length of time Swift wrote to Stella in a sort of baby talk which they called the Little Language it was made up of curious abbreviations and childish words growing more and more complicated as the years went on it is interesting to think of this stern and often savage genius who loved to hate and whose hate was almost less terrible than his love babbling and prattling in little half caressing sentences as a mother might babble over her first child pedantic writers have professed to find in Swift's use of this little language the coming shadow of that insanity which struck him down in his old age as it is these letters are among the curiosities of amatory correspondence when Swift writes O for you and D list for dearest and Veli for very there is no need of an interpreter but Riedel for letter Dallars for girls and Giver for devil are at first rather difficult to guess then there is a system of abbreviating M. D. means my dear P. P. T. means puppet and P. D. F. R. with which Swift sometimes signed his epistles poor dear foolish rogue the letter reveals how very closely the two were bound together yet still there was no talk of marriage on one occasion after they had been together for three years in Ireland Stella might have married another man this was a friend of Swift's one doctor Tisdale who made energetic love to the sweet-faced English girl Tisdale accused Swift of poisoning Stella's mind against him Swift replied that such was not the case he said that no feelings of his own would ever lead him to influence the girl if she preferred another it is quite sure then that Stella clung wholly to Swift and cared nothing for the proffered love of any other man thus through the years the relations of the two remained unchanged until in 1710 Swift left Ireland and appeared as a very brilliant figure in the London drawing rooms of the great Tory leaders of the day he was now a man of mark because of his ability as a controversialist he had learned the manners of the world and he carried himself with an air of power and impressed all those who met him among those persons was a Miss Hester or Esther Van Hamrie the daughter of a rather wealthy widow who was living in London at that time Miss Van Hamrie a name which she and her mother pronounced Van Murie was then 17 years of age or 12 years younger than the patient Stella Esther Johnson through her long acquaintance with Swift and from his confidence in her she treated him almost as an intellectual equal she knew all his moods some of which were very difficult and she bore them all though when he was most tyrannized she became only passive waiting with a woman's wisdom for the tempest to blow over Miss Van Hamrie on the other hand was one of those girls who though they have high spirit taken almost voluptuous delight in yielding to a spirit that is stronger still this beautiful creature felt a positive fascination in her presence and his imperious manner when his eyes flashed and his voice thundered out words of anger she looked at him with adoration and bowed in a sort of ecstasy before him if he chose to accost a great lady with well madam are you as ill-natured and disagreeable as when I met you last Esther Van Hamrie thrilled at the insolent audacity of the man her evident fondness for him exercised a seductive influence over Swift as the two were thrown more and more together the girl lost all her self control Swift did not in any sense make love to her though he gave her the somewhat fanciful name of Vanessa but she driven on by a high strong unbridled temperament made open love to him when he was about to return to Ireland there came one startling moment when Vanessa flung herself into the arms of Swift and amazed him by pouring out a torrent of passionate endearments Swift seems to have been surprised he did what he could to quiet her he told her that they were too unequal in years and fortune for anything but friendship and he offered to give her as much friendship as she desired doubtless he thought that after he turned into Ireland he would not see Vanessa anymore in this however he was mistaken an ardent girl with a fortune of her own was not to be kept from the man whom absence only made her love the more in addition Swift carried on his correspondence with her which served to fan the flame and to increase the sway that Swift had already acquired Vanessa wrote and with every letter she burned and pined Swift replied and each reply enhanced her yearning for him ere long Vanessa's mother died and Vanessa herself hastened to Ireland and took up her residence near Dublin there for years was enacted this tragic comedy Esther Johnson was near Swift and had all his confidence Esther Van Omri was kept apart from him while still receiving misses from him and later even visits it was at this time after he had become Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin that Swift was married to Esther Johnson for it seems probable that the ceremony took place though it was nothing more than a form they still saw each other only in the presence of a third person nevertheless some knowledge of their close relationship leaked out Stella had been jealous of her rival during the years that Swift spent in London Vanessa was now told that Swift was married to the other woman or that she was his mistress writhing with jealousy she wrote directly to Stella and asked whether she was Dean Swift's wife in answer Stella replied that she was and then she sent Vanessa's letter to Swift himself all the fury of his nature was roused in him and he was a man who could be very terrible when angry he might have remembered the intense love which Vanessa bore for him the humility with which she had accepted his conditions and finally the loneliness of this girl but Swift was utterly unsparing no gleam of pity entered his heart as he leapt upon a horse and galloped out to Marley Abbey where she was living his prominent eyes arched by jet black brows and glaring with the green fury of a cat reaching the house he dashed into it passing awful in his looks made his way to Vanessa threw her letter down upon the table and after giving her one frightful glare turned on his heel and in a moment more was galloping back to Dublin the girl fell to the floor in an agony of terror and remorse she was taken to her room and only three weeks afterward was carried forth having died literally of a broken heart five years later Stella also died withering away a sacrifice to what the world called Swiss cruel heartlessness and egotism his greatest public triumphs came to him in his final years of melancholy isolation but in spite of the applause that greeted the drape ear letters and gulliver's travels he brooded morbidly over his past life at last his powerful mind gave way so that he died a victim of senile dementia by his directions his body was interred in the same coffin with Stella's cathedral of which he had been dean such is the story of Dean Swift and it has always suggested several curious questions why if he loves Stella did he not marry her long before why when he married her did he treat her still as if she were not his wife why did he allow Vanessa's love to run like a scarlet thread across the fabric of the other affection which must have been so strong many answers have been given to these questions that which was formulated by Sir Walter Scott as a simple one and has been generally accepted Scott believed that Swift was physically incapacitated from marriage and that he needed feminine sympathy which he took where he could get it without feeling bound to give anything in return if Scott's explanation be the true one it still leaves Swift exposed to igniminy as a monster of ingratitude therefore many of his biographers have sought other explanations no one can palliate his conduct toward Vanessa but Sir Leslie Stephen makes a plea for him with reference to Stella Sir Leslie points out that until Swift became Dean of St. Patrick's his income was far too small to marry on and that after his brilliant but disappointing three years in London when his prospects of advancement were ruined he felt himself a broken man furthermore his health was always precarious since he suffered from a distressing illness which attacked him at intervals rendering him both deaf and giddy the disease is now known as Manir's disease from its classification by the French physician Manir in 1861 Swift felt that he lived in constant danger of some sudden stroke that would deprive him either of life or reason and his ultimate insanity makes it appear that his forebodings were not wholly futile therefore though he married Stella he kept the marriage secret thus leaving her free in case of his demise to marry as a maiden and not to be regarded as a widow Sir Leslie offers the further plea that after all Stella's life was what she chose to make it she enjoyed Swift's friendship which she preferred to the love of any other man another view is that of Dr. Richard Garnett who has discussed the question with some subtlety Swift says Dr. Garnett was by nature devoid of passion he was fully capable of friendship but not of love the spiritual realm whether of divine or earthly things was a region close to him where he never set foot on the side of friendship he must greatly have preferred Stella to Vanessa and yet the latter assailed him on his weakest side on the side of his love of imperious domination Vanessa hugged the fetters to which Stella merely submitted flattered to excess by her surrender yet conscious of his obligations and his real preference he could neither discard the one beauty nor desert the other therefore he temporized with both of them and when the choice was forced upon him he madly struck down the woman for whom he cared the less one may accept Dr. Garnett's theory with a somewhat altered conclusion it is not true as a matter of recorded fact that Swift was incapable of passion for when a boy at college he was sought out by various young women and he sought them out in turn his fiery letter to Miss Waring points to the same conclusion when Esther Johnson began to love him he was heart free yet unable because of his straightened means to marry but Esther Johnson always appealed more to his reason, his friendship and his comfort than to his love using the word in its material physical sense this love was stirred in him by Vanessa yet when he met Vanessa he had already gone too far with Esther Johnson to break the bond which had so long united them nor could he think of a life without her for she was to him his other self at the same time his more romantic association with Vanessa roused those instincts which he had scarcely known himself to be possessed of his position was therefore most embarrassing he hoped to end it when he left London and returned to Ireland but fate was unkind to him in this because Vanessa followed him he lacked the will to be frank with her and thus he stood a wretched, halting victim of his own dual nature he was a clergyman and at heart religious he had also a sense of honour and both of these traits compelled him to remain true to Esther Johnson the terrible outbreak which brought about Vanessa's death was probably the wild frenzy of a tortured soul it recalls the picture of some fierce animal at last abey inventing its own anguish upon any object that is within reach of its fangs and claws no matter how the story may be told it makes one shiver for it is a tragedy in which the three participants all meet their doom one crushed by a lightning bolt of unreasoning anger the other wasting away through hope deferred while the man whom the world will always hold responsible was himself destined to end his years sleepless bequeathing his fortune to a madhouse and sane with his last muttered breath I am a fool end of Dean Swift and the two esters Percy B. Shelley and Mary Godwin volume four of famous affinities of history this is LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org famous affinities of history by Lyndon Orr volume four Percy B. Shelley and Mary Godwin a great deal has been said and written in favour of early marriage and in a general way early marriage may be an admirable thing young man and young woman who have no special gift of imagination and who have practically reached their full mental development at 21 or 22 or earlier even in their teens may marry safely because they are already what they will be they are not going to experience any growth upward and outward passing years simply bring them more closely together until they have settled down into a sort of domestic unity by which they think like act alike and even gradually come to look like but early wedlock spells tragedy to the man or the woman of genius and their teens they have only begun to grow what they will be ten years hence no one can prophecy and therefore to make so early in life is to ensure almost certain storm and stress and in the end domestic wreckage as a rule it is the man and not a woman who makes a full step because it is a man who elects to marry when he is still very young if he choose some ill-fitting commonplace and unresponsive nature to match his own it is he who has bound him the cause of time to learn his great mistake when the splendid eagle shall have got his growth and shall begin to soar up into the vault of heaven the poor little barnyard fowl that he once believed to be equal seems very far away in everything he discovers that she is quite unable to follow him in his towering flights the story of Percy B. Shelley is a singular one the circumstances of his early marriage were strange the breaking of his marriage bond was also strange Shelley himself was an extraordinary creature he was blamed a great deal in his lifetime for what he did and since then some have echoed the reproach yet it would seem as if at the very beginning of his life he was put into a false position against his will because of this, he was misunderstood until the end of his brief and brilliant and erratic career Shelley and Mary Godwin in 1792 the French Revolution burst into flame the mob of Paris stormed to Tuiri the king of France was cast into a dungeon to await his execution and the wild sons of Anarchy flung their gauntlet of defiance into the face of Europe in this tremendous year was born young Shelley and perhaps this nature represented the spirit of the time certainly neither from his father nor from his mother did he derive that perpetual unrest and that frantic fondness for revolt which blazed out in the poet when he was still a boy his father Mr. Timothy Shelley was a very usual, thick-headed unromantic English squire his mother, a woman of much beauty but of no exceptional trades was the daughter of another squire and at the time of her marriage was simply one of ten thousand fresh-faced, pleasant-spoken English country girls if we look for a strain of the romantic in Shelley's ancestry we shall have to find it in the person of his grandfather who was a very remarkable and powerful character this person B. Shelley by name had in his youth been associated with some mystery he was not born in England but in America and in those days the name America meant almost anything indefinite and peculiar however this might be B. Shelley though a sign of good old English family had wandered in strange lands and it was whispered that he had seen strange sight and strange things according to one legend he had been married in America there no one knew whether his wife was white or black or how he had got rid of her he might have remained in America all his life had not a small inheritance fallen to his share this brought him back to England and he soon found that England was in reality the place to make his fortune he was a man of magnificent physique his rovings had given him easing rays and the power which comes from a wide experience of life he could be extremely pleasing when he chose and he soon won his way to the good graces of a rich heiress whom he married with her wealth he became an important personage and consorted with gentleman and statement of influence attaching himself particularly to the Duke of Northumberland by whose influence he was made baronet when his rich wife died Shelly married a still richer bride and so this man who started out as a mere adventurer without a shilling to his name died in 1813 leaving more than a million dollars in cash with lands whose render all yielded a hundred thousand dollars every year if any touch of the romantic which you find in Shelly is a matter of heredity we must raise it to this able daring restless and magnificent old grandfather who was a boy ideal of an English squire the sort of squire who had added foreign graces to native sturdiness but young Shelly, the future poet seemed scarcely to be English at all as a young boy he cared nothing for athletic sports he was given too much reading he thought a good deal about abstraction to which most schoolboys never concerned themselves at all consequently both in private schools and afterward at Eaton he became a sort of rabble against authority he resisted the fagging system he spoke on temperatures near physical prize he disliked anything that he was obliged to do and he rushed eagerly into whatever was forbidden finally when he was sent to university college Oxford, he broke all bounds at a time when Tory England was aghast over the French Revolution and its results Shelly talked of liberty and equality on all occasions he made friends with an uncouth but able fellow student who bore the remarkable name of Thomas Jefferson Hogg a name that seemed rampant with republicanism and very soon he got himself expelled from the university for publishing a little tract of an infidel character called a defense of atheism his expulsion for such a cause naturally shocked his father he had probably disturbed Shelly himself but after all it gave him some satisfaction to be a martyr for the cause of free speech he went to London with his friend Hogg and took lodgings there he read Omnivorese Hogg served as much as 16 hours a day he would walk through the most crowded streets pouring over a volume while holding another under one arm his mind was full of fancies he had begun what was afterward called his passion for reforming everything he despised most of the laws of England he thought it's parliament ridiculous he hated it's religion he was particularly opposed to marriage this last fact gives some point to the circumstance which almost immediately confronted him Shelly was now about 19 years old an age at which most English boys are emerging from the public schools and are still in the hobbledy-holy stage of their formation in a way he was quite far from boyish yet in his knowledge of life he was little more than a mere child he knew nothing thoroughly much less the weight of men and women he knew little more than a mere child as the weight of men and women he had no visible means of existence except a small allowance from his father his four sisters who were at a boarding school in Clapham Common used to save their pen money and send it to their gifted brother so that he might not actually starve these sisters he used to call upon from time to time and through them he made the acquaintance of a 16 year old girl named Harriet Westbrook Harriet Westbrook was a daughter of a black-visaged keeper of a coffee-house in Mount Street called Joe Westbrook partly because of his complexion and partly because of his ability to retain what he had made he was indeed fairly well of and had sent his younger daughter Harriet to the school where Shelly's sister studied Harriet Westbrook seemed to have been a most precocious person any girl of 16 is, of course a great deal older and more mature than a youth of 19 in the present instance Harriet might have been Shelly's senior by five years there is no doubt that she fell in love with him but having done so she by no means acted in the shy and timid way that would have been most natural to a very young girl in her first love affair having decided that she wanted him she made up her mind to get him at any cost and to her audacity was equaled only by his simplicity she was rather attractive in appearance with abundant hair a plum figure and a pink and white complexion and this description makes of her a rather doll-like girl but doll-like girls are just a sort to attract an inexperienced young man who has yet to learn that beauty and charm are quite distinct from prettiness and infinitely superior to it in addition to her prettiness Harriet Westbrook had a vivacious manner and talked quite pleasingly she was likewise not a bad listener and she would listen by the hour to Shelly in his rhapsodies about chemistry, poetry the failure of Christianity the national debt and human liberty all of which he jumbled up without much knowledge but in a lyric strain of impassioned eagerness which would probably have made the multiplication table thrilling for Shelly himself was a creature of extraordinary fascination both then and afterward there are no likenesses of him that do him justice because they cannot convey that singular appeal which the man himself made to almost everyone who met him the eminent painter Mulready once said that Shelly was too beautiful for portraiture and yet the descriptions of him showed he was quite tall and slender but he stooped so much as to make him appear undersized his head was very small quite disproportionately so but this was counteracted to the eye by his long and tumbled hair which when excited he would rub and twist in a thousand different directions until it was actually bushy his eyes and mouths were his best features where over deep violet blue and when Shelly fell deeply moved they seemed luminous with a wonderful and almost unearthly light his mouth was finally chiseled and might be regarded as representing perfection one great defect he had and this might well have overbalanced his attractive face the defecting question was his voice one would have expected to hear from him a melodious sound and vocal tones both rich and penetrating but as a matter of fact his voice was shrill at the very best and became actually discordant and peacock-like in moments of emotion such then was Shelly star-eyed with a delicate complexion of a girl wonderfully mobile in his features yet speaking in a voice high-pitched and almost raucous for the rest he arrayed himself with care and inexpensive clothing even though he took no thought of needness so that his garments were almost always rumpled and wrinkled from his frequent writhings and couches and on the floor Shelly had a strange and almost primitive habit of rolling on the earth and another of thrusting his tussled head close up to the hottest fire in the house or of lying in the glaring sun when out of doors it is related that he composed one of his finest poems The Genzi in Italy while stretched out with his face upturned to an almost tropical sun but such as he was and though he was not yet famous Harriet Westbrook the rosy-faced schoolgirl fell in love with him and rather plainly let him know that he had done so there are a thousand ways in which a woman can convey this information by anything unmaidily and of all these little arts Miss Westbrook was instinctively a mistress She played upon Shelly's feelings by telling him that her father was cruel to her and that he contemplated action still more cruel there is something absurdly comical about the grievance which he brought to Shelly but it is much more comical to note the tremendous seriousness with which he took it he wrote to his friend Hogg and her father has persecuted her in a most horrible way by endeavouring to compel her to go to school She asked my advice Resistance was the answer at the same time I essay to mollify Mr Westbrook in vain I advised her to resist She wrote to say that resistance was useless but that she would fly with me and throw herself on my protection Some letters that have recently come to light show that there was a dramatic scene between Harriet Westbrook and Shelly a scene in the course of which she threw her arms about his neck and weft upon her shoulder Here was a curious situation Shelly was not at all in love with her he had explicitly declared this only a short time before yet here was a pretty girl about to suffer the horrible persecution of being sent to school and finding no alternative safe to throw herself on his protection in other words to let him treat her as he would and to become his mistress The absurdity of the situation makes one smile Common sense should have let someone to box Harriet's ears and centre off to school without a moment's hesitation while as for Shelly he should have been told how ludicrous was the whole affair but it was only nineteen and she was only sixteen and the crisis seemed poor tensions nothing could be more flattering to young man's vanity than to have this girl cast herself upon him for protection it did not really matter that he had not loved her hitherto and that he was already half engaged to another Harriet his cousin Miss Grove he could not stop and reason with himself he must like a true knight rescue lovely girlhood from the horrors of a school however was partly managed or manipulated by the girl's father Joe Westbrook knew that Shelly was related to rich and titled people and that he was certain, if he lived to become Sir Percy and to be the heir of his grandfather's estates hence it may be that Harriet's queer conduct was not a hoolly of her own prompting in any case however it proved to be successful Shelly's ardent and depulsive nature could not bear to see a girl in tears and appealing for his help hence though in his heart she was very little to him his romantic nature gave up for her sake the affection that he had felt for his cousin his own disbelief in marriage and finally the common sense which ought to have taught him not to marry anyone on two hundred pounds a year so the pair set off to Edinburgh by stagecoach it was a weary and most uncomfortable journey when they reached the Scottish capital they were married by the Scottish law their money was all gone but their landlord with a jovial sympathy for romance let them have a room and treated them to a rather promiscuous wedding banquet in which everyone in the house participated such is the story of Shelly's marriage contracted at nineteen with a girl of sixteen whom was certainly lured him on against his own better judgment and in the absence of any actual love the girl whom he had taken to himself was a well-meaning little thing she tried for his home to meet her husband's mood and to be a real companion to him but what could one expect from such a union Shelly's father withdrew the income which he had previously given Drew Westbrook refused to contribute anything hoping probably that this cause would bring the Shelly's to the rescue but as it was the young pair drifted about from place to place getting very precarious supplies running deeper into debt each day and finding less and less to admire in each other Shelly took to Lordenham Harriet dropped her upstairs studies which he had taken up to please her husband but which could only puzzle his small brain she soon developed some of the unpleasant rate of the class to which he belonged in this his sister Eliza was a hard and grasping middle-aged woman had her share she set Harriet against her husband and made life less enjoyable for both she was so much older than the pair that she came in and ruled their household like a typical step-mother a child was born and Shelly very generously went through a second form of marriage so as to comply with the English law but by this time there was little hope of writing things again Shelly was much offended because Harriet would not know as a child he believed her hard because she saw without emotion an operation performed upon the infant finally when Shelly had last given to a considerable sum of money Harriet and Eliza made no pretense of caring for anything except the spending of it in bonnet shops and on carriages and display in time, that is to say in three years after their marriage Harriet left her husband and went to London and to Bath prompted by her elder sister this proved to be the end of an unfortunate marriage word was brought to Shelly that his wife was no longer faithful to him he, on his side had carried on a semi-sentimental platonic correspondence with the school mistress one Miss Hitchner but until now his life had been one great mistake a life of restlessness and unsatisfied longing of a desire that had no name then came the perhaps inevitable meeting with the one whom he had should have met before Shelly had taken a great interest in William Godwin the writer and a radical philosopher Godwin's household was a strange one there was Fanny Imley a child born out of wedlock the offspring of Gilbert Imley an American merchant and of Marrow Houston craft whom Godwin had subsequently married there was also a singularly striking girl who then styled herself Mary Jane Clermont and who was afterward known as Clare Clermont she and her brother being the early children of Godwin's second wife one day in 1814 Shelly called on Godwin and found there a beautiful young girl in her 17th year with shapely golden head a face very pale and pure a great forehead earnest hazel eyes and an expressionate ones of sensibility and firmness about her delicately curved lips this was Mary Godwin one who had inherited her mother's power of mind and likewise a grace and sweetness from the very moment of their meeting Shelly and this girl were fated to be joined together were well aware of it each felt the other's presence exert a magnetic thrill each listened eagerly to what the other said each thought of nothing and each cared for nothing and the other's absence it was a great compelling elemental force which drove the two together and bound them fast besides this marvellous experience how pale and pitiful and poultry seemed the affectations of Harriet Westbrook in little more than a month from the time of their first meeting Shelly and Mary Godwin and Miss Claremont left Godwin's house at four o'clock in the morning and hurried across the channel to Calais they wandered almost like vagabonds across France eating black bread and the coarsest fare walking on the highways when they could not afford to ride and putting up with every possible inconvenience yet it is worth noting that neither then nor at any other time did either Shelly or Mary regret what they had done to the very end of the poet's brief career they were inseparable later he was able to penchant Harriet who being of a mordid disposition ended her life by drowning not it may be said because of grief for Shelly it has been told that Fanny Imlay, Mary's sister likewise committed suicide because Shelly did not care for her but this has also been disproved there was rarely nothing to mar the inner happiness of the poet and the woman who at the very end became his wife living as they did in Italy and Switzerland they saw much of their own countrymen such as Lander and Les Hunt and Byron to whose fascination poor Miss Claremont yielded and became the mother of the little girl Allegra but there could have been no to reunion than this of Shelly's with the woman whom nature had intended for him it was in his love life far more than in his poetry that he attained completeness when he died by drowning in 1822 and his body was burned in the presence of Lord Byron he was truly mourned by the one whom he had only lately made his wife as a poet he never reached the same perfection for his genius was fitful and uncertain rare in its flight and mingles always was that which disappoints as a lover and husband of Mary Godwin there was nothing left to wish in his verse however the truest word concerning him will always be that exquisite sentence of massive Arnold a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating his luminous wings against a void in vain and of Percy B. Shelly and Mary Godwin