 On July 27, 1814, having previously arranged a plan with Mary, which must have also been known to Claire, in spite of her statement that she only thought of taking an early walk, she only ordered the post-chase, and as Claire says, he and Mary persuaded her to go too, as she knew French, with which language they were unfamiliar. Shelly gives the account of the subsequent journey to Dover in passage to Calais, of the first security which they felt in each other in spite of all risk and danger. Mary suffered much physically, and no doubt morally, having to pause at each stage on the road to Dover in spite of the danger of being overtaken, owing to the excessive heat causing faintness. Upon reaching Dover they found the packet already gone at four o'clock. So after bathing in the sea and dining they engaged a sailing boat to take them to Calais, and once more felt security from their pursuers, for undoubtedly, had they been found in England, Shelly would have been unable to carry out his plan. They were not allowed to pass the channel together without danger, for after some hours of calm, during which they could make no progress, a violent squall broke, and the sails of the little boat were well now shattered. The lightning of thunder were incessant, and the imminent danger gave Shelly cause for serious thought, as he with difficulty supported the sleeping form of Mary in his arms. Surely all this scene is well described in the fugitives, while around the last ocean. Though Mary woke to hear they were still far from land and might be forced to make for Boulogne, if they could not reach Calais, still the dawn of a fresh day the lightning paled, and at length they were landed on Calais sands and walked across them to their hotel. The fresh sight and sounds of a new language soon restored Mary, and she was able to remark the different costumes, and the salient contrast from the other side of the channel could not fail to charm three young people so open to impressions. But before night they were reminded that there were others whom their destiny affected, for they weren't forms that a fat lady had been inquiring for them, who said that Shelly had run away with her daughter. It was poor Mrs. Godwin, who had followed them through heat and storm, and who hoped at least to induce her daughter Clare to return to the protection of Godwin's roof. But this, after matured deliberation, which Shelly advised she refused to do, having escaped so far from the routine and fancy dullness of home life, the impetuous Clare was not to be so easily debired from sharing in the magic delight of seeing new countries and gaining fresh experience. So Mrs. Godwin returned alone to make the best story she could so as to satisfy the curious about strange doings in her family. Meanwhile the travellers proceeded by diligence on the evening of the thirtieth to Bologna, and then, as Mary was far from well, hastened on their journey to Paris, whereby a week's rest, in spite of annoyances, through want of money and difficulty in procuring it, Mary regained sufficient strength to enjoy some of the interesting sights. A pedestrian tour was undertaken across France into Switzerland. In Paris the entries and the diary are chiefly Shelly's. He makes some curious remarks about the pictures in the Louvre. It mentions with pleasure meeting a Frenchman who could speak English, who with some help, as Clare's French does not seem to have stood the test of a lengthy discussion on business at that time. At length the remittance of sixty pounds was received, and they forthwith settled to buy an ass to carry the necessity portmanteau, and Mary went unable to walk. And so they started on their journey in 1814, across a country recently devastated by the invading armies of Europe. They were not to be deterred by the harrowing tales of their landlady, and set out for Sharonton. On the evening of August 8th, but soon found their ass needed more assistance than they did, which necessitated selling it at a loss and purchasing a mule the next day. On this animal Mary set out dressed in black silk, accompanied by Clare in a light dress, and by Shelly who walked beside. This primitive way of travelling was not without its drawbacks, especially after the disastrous wars. Their fare was of the co-assist, and their accommodation frequently of the most squalid. But they were young and enthusiastic, and could enter with delight into the fact that Napoleon had slept in their room at one end. And the picturesque, though frequently ruined French towns, with their ramparts and old cathedrals, gave them happiness and content. On the other hand the dirt, discomfort, and ignorance they met with were extreme. At one Richard village, at Chamine, people would not rebuild their houses as they expected the Cossacks to return, and they had not heard that Napoleon was deposed, while two Leagues' father, at Pavillon, all was different, showing the small amount of communication between one town and another in France at that time. Shelly was now obliged to ride the mule, having sprained his ankle, and on reaching Troyes, Mary and Clare were thoroughly fatigued with walking. There they had to reconsider ways and means. The mule no longer sufficing was sold and a voiteur bought, and a man and a mule engaged for eight days to take them to Neuchâtel. But their troubles did not end here, for the man turned out far more obstinate than the mule, and was determined to enjoy the sweets of tyranny. He stopped where he would, regardless of accommodation or no accommodation, and went on when he chose, careless whether his travellers were in or out of the carriage. Mary describes how they had to sit one night over a wretched kitchen fire in the village of Molle, till they were only too glad to pursue their journey at three a.m. In fact, in those days Mary was able, in the middle of France, to experience the same discomforts which tourists have now to go much farther to find out. Their tour was far different from a later one described by Mary, when comfortable hotels are chronicled. But, oh, how she then looked back to the happy days of this time. The trio would willingly have prolonged the present state of things. But alas, money vanished in spite of frugal fare, and they decided, on arriving in Switzerland, with difficulty raising about thirty-eight pounds in silver, that their only expedient was to return to England in the least expensive way possible. They first tried, however, to live cheaply in an old chateau on the lake of Arx, which they hired at a guinea month, but the discomfort and difficulties were too great, and even the customary resources of reading and writing failed to induce them to remain in these circumstances. They, at one time, contemplated a journey south of the Alps, but only twenty-eight pounds remained to live on from September till December. They naturally felt it would be safer to return to England, and decided to travel the eight hundred miles by water as the cheapest mode of transit. They proceeded from Lucerne by the Russe, descending several falls on the way, but had to land at Laufenberg as the falls there were impassable. The next day they took a rude kind of canoe to Montf, when they were forced to continue their journey in a returned cabriolet. But this breaking down they had to walk some distance to the nearest place for boats. We're fortunate in meeting with some soldiers to carry the box. Having procured a boat they reached Basel by the evening, and leaving here for Mayance the next morning in a boat laden with merchandise. This ended their swiss tour. But they passed the time delightfully, Shelley reading Mary Walsdencraft's letters from Norway, and then again perfectly entranced as night approached, with the magic effects of sunset sky, hills surmounted with ruined castles, and their reflected colors on the changing stream. They proceeded in this manner, staying for the night at ends and taking whatever boat could be found in the morning. Thus they reached Cologne. Passing the romantic scenery of the Rhine, recalls them later when reading Child Harold. From this point they proceeded through Holland by diligence, as they found travelling by the canals and winding rivers would be too slow, and consequently more expensive. Mary does not appear to have been impressed with the picturesque flat country of Holland, and gladly reached Rotterdam, but they were unfortunately detained two days by Maesloes, the contrary winds spending their last skinny, a feeling triumphant in having travelled so far for less than thirty pounds. The captain, being an Englishman, ventured to cross the bar of the Rhine, sooner than the Dutch would have done, and consequently they returned to England in a severe squall, which must have recalled the night of their departure and banished tranquility from their minds. If they had for a time been soothed by the changing scenes in their trust in each other. This account, taking chiefly for Mary's six weeks' tour, published in 1817 first, differs in some details from the diary made at the time. In the published edition the names are suppressed, nor does Mary refer to the extraordinary letter written by Shelley from Troyers on August 13th to the unfortunate Harry, inviting her to come and stay with them in Switzerland, writing to her as his dearest Harriet, and signing himself ever most affectionately yours. Only if the proposal was not carried out, probably neither Harriet nor Mary desire the other's company, and Shelley was saved from ridicule or worse of this arrangement. CHAPTER FIVE LIFE IN INGLAND On leaving the vessel at Gravesend they engaged a boatman to take them up the Thames to Blackwall, where they had to take a coach and the boatman with them to drive about London in search of money to pay him. There was none at Shelley's banker nor elsewhere, so he had to go to Harriet, who had drawn every pound out of the bank. He was detained two hours, the ladies having to remain under the care of the boatman till his return with money. When they bade the boatman a friendly farewell and proceeded to an hotel in Oxford Street, with Shelley and Mary's return to England their troubles naturally were not at an end. Instead of money and security, debts and overdue bills assailed Shelley on all sides, so much so that he dared not remain with Mary at this critical moment of their existence, when she, unable to return to a justly indignant father, had to stay in obscure lodgings with Claire, while Shelley, from some other retreat, ransacked London for money from attorneys and on postal bits at gigantic interest. We have now letters which passed between Mary and Shelley at this time, also Mary's diary which recounts many of their misadventures. Day after day we have such phrases as, October 22nd, Shelley goes with Peacock to the lawyers, but nothing is done, till on December 21st we find that an agreement is entered into to repay by three thousand pounds, alone of one thousand. Godwin, even if he would have helped, could not have done so, as his own affairs were now in their perennial state of distress, and before long one of Shelley's chief anxieties was to raise two hundred pounds to save Mary's father from bankruptcy, although apparently they only communicated through a lawyer. It is curious to note how Mary complains of the selfishness of Harriet, for Harriet, who according to Mrs. Godwin, still hoped for the return of her husband's affection to herself, and who sent for Shelley, after passing a night of danger, some time before her confinement. At one time Mary entertained an idea, rightly or wrongly conceived, that Harriet had a plan for ruining her father by dissuading Hookam from bailing him out from a menaced arrest. And so we find in the extracts from the joint diary of Mary and Shelley, Harriet, written of as selfish, as indulging in strange behavior, and even, when she sends her creditors to Shelley, as the nasty woman who compels them to change their lodgings. Before this entry of January 2, 1815, Harriet had given birth, November 30, to a second child, a son in an heir, which fact Mary notes a week later, as having been communicated to them in a letter from a deserted wife, what recriminations and heartburnings neglect felt on one side, and insulting self selfishness on the other. In April Mary writes, Shelley passes the morning with Harriet, who was in a surprisingly good humor, and then we hear how Shelley went to Harriet to procure his son who is to appear in one of the courts. And yet once more Mary writes, Shelley goes to Harriet about his son, returns at four, he has been much teased by Harriet, and then a blank as to Harriet, for the diary is lost from May 1815 to July 1816. In the meantime we see in the diary how Mary, far from well at times, is happy in her love of Shelley, how they enjoy intellectual pleasures together. They fortunately were satisfied with each other's company, as most of their few friends fell from them. Mrs. Boynville, writing a cold and even sarcastic letter, the Newtons were considered to hold aloof, and Mrs. Turner, whom they saw a little, told Shelley, her brother considered, you have been playing a German tragedy. Shelley replied, very severe, but very true. About this time Hogg renewed his acquaintance with Shelley and made that of Mary, though at first his answer to Shelley's letter was far from sympathetic. On his first visit they also were disappointed with him. But a little later, November 14th, Hogg called at his friends lodging in Nelson Square when he made a more favorable impression on Shelley by being himself pleased with Mary. She in return found him amusing when he gested, but far astray in his opinions when discussing serious matters. In fact, on a later visit of his she finds Hogg making a sad bungle, quite muddled on the point when in an argument on virtue, and spite of being shocked by Hogg in matters of philosophy and ethics, she gets to like him better daily, and he helps them to pass the long November and December evenings with his lively talk. On one occasion he would describe an apparition of a lady whom he had loved, and whom, he avert, visited him frequently after her death. They were all much interested, but annoyed by the interruption of Clare's childish superstitions. In fact, Hogg glides back to the old friendship of the university days, and his witticisms must have beguiled many a leisure hour, while he would also help Mary with her Latin studies now commenced. Clare frequently accompanied Shelley and his walks to the lawyers and other business engagements, as Mary's health not infrequently prevented her taking long walks, and Clare stated later that Shelley had a positive fear of being alone in London, as he was haunted by the fear of an attack from Leeson, the supposed tannerald assassin. Clare's cleverness and liveliness made her a pleasant companion at times for Shelley and Mary. But even had they been sisters, and they had been brought up together as such, Mary might have found her constant presence in confined lodgings irksome, especially as Clare tormented herself with superstitious alarms which at times, even in reading Shakespeare, quite overcame her. Her fanciful imagination also conjured up causes of offence where none were intended, and magnified slight changes of mood on Shelley's or Mary's part into intentional affronts, when she ought rather to have taken Mary's delicate health and difficult position into consideration. Mary, by all accounts, seems naturally to have had a sweet and unselfish disposition. Although she had sufficient character to be self-absorbed in her work, about which no work is worth doing. It is true that her friend Trelawney later appeared to consider her somewhat selfishly indifferent to some of Shelley's caprices or whims. But this was, with the pardonable weakness of a man who, although he liked character in a woman, still considered it was her first duty to indulge her husband in all his freaks. However this may be, we have constantly recurring such entries in the joint diary as, November 9. Jane gloomy. She is very sullen with Shelley. Well, never mind my love, we are happy. November 10. Jane is not well and does not speak the whole day. Go to bed early. Shelley and Jane sit up till twelve talking. Shelley talks her into good humor. Then Shelley explains with Clara. Again Shelley and Clara explain as usual. November 26. Work, etc., etc. Clara and ill humor. She reads the Italian. Shelley sits up and talks her into humor. December 19. A discussion concerning female character. Clara imagines that I treat her unkindly. Mary consoles her with her all-powerful benevolence. I rise, having already gone to bed and speak with Clara. She was very unhappy. I leave her tranquil. Barbara herself writes as early as October. Mary says things which I construe into unkindness. I was wrong. We soon became friends, but I felt deeply the imaginary cruelties I conjured up. It is clear that where such constant explaining is necessary there could not be much satisfaction and perpetual intimacy. Mary is amused at the way Shelley and Clara sit up and frighten themselves by different reasons or forms of superstition. And on one occasion we have their two accounts of the miraculous removal of a pillow in Claire's room. Claire, avowing it, had moved while she did not see it, and Shelley attesting the miracle because the pillow was on a chair. Much as Victor Hugo describes the peasants of Brittany declaring that the frog must have talked on the stone because there was the stone it talked upon, the result might certainly have been injurious to Mary, who was awakened by the excited entrance of Claire into her room. Shelley had to interpose and get her into the next room, where he informed Claire that Mary was not in a state of health to be suddenly alarmed. They talked all night till the dawn, showing Shelley in a very haggard aspect to Claire's excited imagination. Shelley had been quite ill the previous day, as noted by Mary. She excited herself into strong convulsions, and Mary had finally to be called up to quiet her. The same effect tried a little later, fortunately fell flat. But there seemed no end to the vagaries of Claire's unsettled mind, as Shelley calls it. For she takes to walking in her sleep and groaning horribly, Shelley watching for two hours, finally having to take her to Mary. Certainly philosophy did not seem to have a calming effect on Claire Claremont's nature, and often must Shelley and Mary have bemoaned the fatal step of letting her leave her home with them. It was more difficult to induce her to return, if indeed it was possible for her to do so, with the remaining sister Fanny still under Godwin's roof. Fanny's reputation was jealously looked after by her aunts Everina and Eliza, who contemplated her succeeding in a school they had embarked in, in Ireland. But it is not to be wondered at that the excitable, lively Clara should have groaned to be bemoaned her fate when transferred from the exhilaration of travel and the beauties of the Rhine and Switzerland to the monotony of London life in her anomalous position. And although both Mary and Shelley evidently wished to be kind to her, she felt more her own wants than their kindness. Want of occupation, in any unsettled purpose in life, caused pillows and fire-boards to walk in poor Claire's room, much as other uninteresting objects have to assume a fictitious interest in the houses and lives of many fashionably unoccupied ladies of the present day, who divide their interests between a twanging voice or a damp hand in the last poem of the last fashionable poet. Shelley is not the only imaginative and simple-minded poet who could apparently believe in such a phenomenon as a faded but supernatural flower slipped under his hand in the dark, other people in whom he has faith being present and for chance helping in their performance. Genius is often very confiding. Peacock was perhaps the one other friend who, during these somber, if not altogether unhappy, days of Mary, visited them in their lodgings. Shelley threw him, hears of some of the movements of his family, and at one time Mary enters with delight into the romantic idea of carrying off two heiresses, Shelley's sisters, to the west coast of Ireland. This idea occupies them for some days through many delightful walks and talks with Hogg. Peacock also frequently accompanied Shelley to a pond touching Primrose Hill, where the poet would take a fleet of paper boats, prepared for him by Mary, to sail in the pond. Or he would twist paper up to serve the purpose. It must have been a relaxation from his projects of reform. We must not leave this delightfully unhappy time without making reference to the series of letters exchanged between Mary and Shelley during and in forced separation. Unseen meetings had to be arranged to avoid encounters with bailiffs, at a time when the landlady refused to send them up-dinner as she wanted her money, and Shelley, after a hopeless search for money, could only return home with cake. During this time some of their most precious letters were written to each other. We cannot refrain from quoting some touching passages after Mary had received letters from Shelley expressing the greatest impatience and grief at his separation from her, appointing vague meeting-places where she had to walk backwards and forwards from street to street in the hopes of a meeting in fearful animosity against the whole race of lawyers, moneylenders, etc., though all his hopes depended on them at the time. The London Coffee House seemed to be the safest meeting-place. Mary not very clear about business matters at the time, felt most the separation from her husband, the dangers that surrounded them she only felt in a reflected way through him. They must have confidence in each other, she thinks, and their troubles cannot but pass, for there is certainly money which must come to them. She thus writes, October 25. For what, a minute, did I see you yesterday? Is this the way, my beloved, we are to live till the sixth? In the morning when I wake, I turn to look for you. Dearest Shelley, you are solitary and uncomfortable. Why cannot I be with you? To cheer you and press you to my heart? Ah, my love, you have no friends. Why then should you be torn from the only one who has infection for you? But I shall see you to-night, and this is the hope that I shall live on through the day. Be happy, dear Shelley, and think of me. Why do I say this, dearest, and only one? I know how tenderly you love me, and how you repine at your absence from me. When shall we be free from fear of treachery? I send you the letter I told you of, from Harriet, and the letter we received yesterday from Fanny. This letter made an appointment for a meeting between Fanny and Clara. The history of this interview I will tell you when I come, but perhaps, as it is so rainy a day, Fanny will not be allowed to come at all. I was so dreadfully tired yesterday that I was obliged to take a coach home. Forgive this extravagance, but I am so weak at present, and I had been so agitated through the day that I was not able to stand. A morning's rest, however, will set me quite right again. I shall be well when I meet you this evening. Will you be at the door of the coffee-house at five o'clock? As it is disagreeable to go into such places. I shall be there exactly at that time, and we can go into St. Paul's where we can sit down. I send you diogenes as you have no books. Hook'em was so ill-tempered as to not send the book I asked for. Two more distracted letters from Shelley follow, showing how he had been in desperation trying to get money from Harriet, how pistols and microscope were taken to a pawn shop. Davidson, Hook'em, and others, are the most hopeless villains, but must be propitiated. Trying letters also arrive for Mrs. Godwin, who was naturally much incensed with Mary, and of whom Mary expresses her detestation and writing to Shelley. One more short letter. October 27. My own love. I do not know by what compulsion I am to answer you. But your letter says I must, so I do. By a miracle I saved your five pounds, and I will bring it. I hope indeed, O my loved Shelley, we shall indeed be happy. I meet you at three, and bring heaps of Skinner Street news. Heaven blessed my love and take care of him. His own Mary. As many as three and four letters in a day passed between Shelley and Mary at this time. Another tender, loving letter on October 28, and then they decide on the experiment of remaining together one night. Warned by Hook'em, who regained thus his character for feeling, they dared not return to the London Tavern, but took up their abode for a night or two at a tavern in St. John Street. Soon the master of this inn also became suspicious of the young people, and refused to give more food till he received money for that already given. And again they had to satisfy their hunger with cakes, which Shelley obtained money from Peacock to purchase. Another day in the lodgings, where the landlady won't serve dinner, cakes again supplying the deficiency. Still separation. Shelley seeking refuge at Peacock's. Fresh letters of despair and love. Godwin's affairs causing great anxiety and efforts on Shelley's part to extricate him. A Sussex farmer gives fresh hope. On November 3 Mary writes very dejectedly, she had been nearly two days without a letter from Shelley. That is, she had received one of November 2 early in the morning, and that of November 3 late in the evening. That day had also brought Mary. A letter from her old friends the Baxter's, or rather from Mr. David Booth, to whom her friend Isabel Baxter was engaged, desiring no further communication with her. This was a great blow to Mary, as Isabel having been a great admirer of Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary had hope she would remain her friend. Mary writes, She adores the shade of my mother, but then a married man. It is impossible to knock into some people's heads that Harriet is selfish and unfeeling, and that my father might be happy if he chose. By that can't of his selling his daughter I should half suspect that there has been some communication between the Skinner Street folks and them. By now the separation was approaching its end, and the danger of being arrested passed. They moved from their lodgings and church terraced St. Pancras to Nelson Square, where we have already seen Hogg in their company and heard of the sulk's spears and bemoanings of poor Clare. Mary Shelley's novel of Lodore gives a good account of the sufferings of this time, as referred to later. The great resource of intellectual power is manifested during all this period. During a time of ill health, anxieties of all kinds, constant moves from lodgings where landlady's refused to send up dinner, while she was discarded by all her friends, while she had to walk weary distances, dodging creditors, to get a sight from time to time of her loved Shelley, while Clare bemoaned her fate and seemed to have done her best to have the lion's share of Shelley's intellectual attention, for she partook in all the studies, was able to take walks and kept him up half the night explaining. Mary, indefatigably, kept to her studies, read endless books, and made progress with Latin, Greek, and Italian. In fact, she was educating herself in a way to subsist unaided hereafter, to bring up her son and to fit him for any position that might come to him in this world of changing fortunes. Whatever faults Mary may have had, it is not the depraved who prepare themselves for, and honestly fight out, the battle of life as she did. CHAPTER VI. PART I. DEATH OF SHELLY'S GRANDFATHER AND BIRTH OF A CHILD. After Shelley had freed himself for a time of some of his worst deaths towards the close of 1814, the year 1815, with the death of his grandfather on January 6, brought a prospect of easier circumstances as he was now his father's immediate heir. Although Shelley was not invited to the funeral and only knew of the death through the papers, he determined at once to go into Sussex with Clare as travelling companion, as Mary was not well enough for the journey. Shelley left Clare at Sinfold, and proceeded alone to his father's house, where he was refused admittance, so he adopted the singular plan of sitting in the garden before the door, passing the time, reading Comus. One or two friends come out to see him and tell his father is very angry with him, and the will is most extraordinary. Finally he is referred to Sir Timothy's solicitor, Wynton. From him Mary writes in her diary, Shelley hears that if he will entail the estate, he is to have the income of £100,000. The property was really left in this way, as explained by Professor Dowden. Serbish's possessions did not, probably, fall short of £200,000. One portion, valued at £80,000, consisted of certain entailed estates, but without Shelley's concurrence the entail would not be prolonged beyond himself. The rest consisted of unentailed landed property and personal property amounting to £120,000. Serbish desired that the whole united property should pass from eldest son to eldest son for generations. This arrangement, however, could not be affected without Shelley. Serbish, in his will, offered his grandson not only the rentals, but the income of the great personal property if he would renew the entail of the settled property and would also consent to entail the unsettled property. Otherwise he should only receive the entailed property which was bound to come to him, and which he could dispose of at his pleasure should he survive his father. He had one year to make his choice in. Shelley is considered to have been businesslike in his negotiations, but to have retained his original distaste of 1811 to entailing large estates to descend to his children. In fact he appears to have considered too little the contingency of what would come to them or to marry in the event of his death prior to that of his father. Pressing present needs, being paramount at this time, he agreed to an arrangement by which a portion of the estate valued at £18,000 could be disposed to his father for £11,000 and an income of £1,000 a year secured to Shelley during his and his father's life. At one time there was an idea of disposing of the entailed estate to his father as a reversion, but this was not sanctioned by the court of chancellery. Money was also allowed to his father to pay his debts. So now we see Mary and Shelley with £1,000 a year, less £200 which, as Shelley ordered, was to be paid to Harriet in quarterly installments. Now that the money troubles were over, which for a time absorbed their whole attention, Mary began to perceive signs of failing health in Shelley, and one doctor asserted that he had abscesses on the lungs and was rapidly dying of consumption. Whatever these symptoms were really attributable to, they rapidly disappeared, although Shelley was a frequent sufferer in various ways through his life. In February we see also the effect of the mental strain and fatigue on Mary as she gave birth about the 22nd of that month to a seven month child, a little girl who only lived a few days, but long enough to win her mother's and father's love and leave the first blank in their lives. The diary of this time kept up first by Claire and then by Mary, give some details of the baby's short life on February 22nd. Mary is well and at ease, the child is not expected to live. Shelley sits up with Mary, much agitated and exhausted. Hogg sleeps here. 23. Mary well? Child unexpectedly alive. Fanny comes and stays the night. 24. Mary still well? Favorable symptoms of the child. Dr. Clark confirms our hope. Hogg comes in evening. Shelley unwell and exhausted. 25. Child and Mary very well. Shelley is very unwell. 26. Mary rises to-day. Hogg calls. Talk. Mary retires at six o'clock. Shelley has a spasm. On 27 Shelley and Clara go about a cradle. 28 Mary goes downstairs, nurses the baby and reads Corinne and works. Shelley goes to consult Dr. Pemberton. On March 1st nurse baby read Corinne and work. Peacock and Hogg call. Stay till half past eleven. On March 2nd they move to fresh lodgings. It is uncertain whether it was to 26 Marchmont Street, from which place letters are addressed in April and May, or whether they were in some other lodgings in the interval. This early move was probably detrimental to Mary and the baby. For on March 6th we find the entry. Find my baby dead. Send for Hogg. Talk. A miserable day. Mary thinks and talks in dreams of her little baby and finds reading the best palliative to her grief. March 19. Dream that my little baby came to life again. That it had been only cold and that we rubbed it before the fire and it lived. Awake to find no baby. I think about the little thing all day, not in good spirits. Shelley is very unwell. March 20. Dream again about my little baby. Mrs. Godwin had sent a present of linen for the infant and Fanny Godwin repeated her visits. But the little baby, who might have been a link towards peace with the Godwins, has escaped from a world of sorrow where in spite of a mother's love she might later on have met with a cold reception. Godwin at this time was in the anomalous position of communicating with Shelley on his business matters. But for the very reason that Shelley lent him or gave him money he felt it the more necessary to hold back from friendly intercourse or from seeing his daughter. A curious result of philosophic reasoning which appears more like worldly wisdom. From this time the company of Claire was becoming insufferable to Mary and Shelley. At least for a time it was desirable to have a change. We find Mary sorely puzzled in her diary at times. As on March 11 she writes, Talk about Claire is going away. Nothing settled. I fear it is hopeless. She will not go to Skinner Street. Then our house is the only remaining place I plainly see. What is to be done? March 12. Talk a great deal, not well, but better. Very quiet in the morning and happy. For Clara does not get up till four. Again on 14 March. The prospect appears more dismal than ever. Not the least hope. This is indeed hard to bear. At one time Godwin, Shelley, and Mary tried to induce Mrs. Knapp to take her, but she refused. Claire also tried to get a place, as companion, but that fell through. Till it linked the bright idea occurred to them of sending her into Devonshire under the excuse of her needing change of air. And there, according to a letter from Mrs. Godwin to Lady Montcachel, she was placed with a Mrs. Bicknell, the widow of her retired Indian officer. Two more entries in Mary's journal of this time show with what feelings of relief she contemplates the departure of Shelley's friend, as she now calls Claire, noting that Shelley and his friend have their last talk the next day, May 13. Shelley walks with her and she is gone. And Mary begins a new diary with our regeneration. There is a letter from Claire to Fannie Godwin of May 28, apparently from Linmouth, describing the scenery in a very picturesque manner and saying how she delights in the peace and quiet of the country after the turmoil of passion and hatred she had passed through. She also expresses delight that their father had received one thousand pounds. This was evidently part of what Shelley had undertaken to pay for him. It was included in the sum which Sir Timothy paid for his debts. Claire, or Jane, as she was still called in Skinner Street, supposed her family would be comfortable for a month or two. Shelley and Mary now yearn for the country, and truly their eight months' experience in London had been a trying period from various causes but redeemed by their love in intellectual conversation. Now they felt unencumbered by pressing money troubles and free from the burden of Claire's still more trying presence, at least to Mary. In June we find them together at Torquay, and we can imagine the delight of the poet and his loved Mary and their first unshared companionship, the quiet ramblings by sea and cliff in the long June evenings, the sunsets, the quiet and undisturbed peace which surrounded them. They were able to give each other quaint pet names which no one could or need understand, which would have sounded silly in the presence of a third person. This was a time in which they could grow really to know each other without reserve, when there need be no jealous competition as to who was most proficient in Greek or Latin, when Shelley was drawn to poetry and Alistair was contemplated. The melancholy strain of which seemed to indicate love as the only redeeming element of life and which might well follow the time of turmoil in Shelley's career. May not this poem have been his self-indication as exhibiting what he might have become had he not followed the dictates of his heart. Peksy and the Elfin Knight were names which still stand written at the end of the first journal ending with Claire's departure. Mary added some useful receipts for future use. One is, a table spoonful of the spirit of aniseed with a small quantity of permissety, to which Shelley adds the following, nine drops of human blood, seven grains of gunpowder, half an ounce of putrefied brain, thirteen mashed graveworms, the Peksy's doomsaw, the May and her Elfin Knight. We find Mary at Clifton, July 27th, 1815, writing a much despondency at being alone while Shelley is house hunting and South Devon. Although she wishes to have a home of her own, she dreads the time it will take Shelley to find it. He ought to be with her the next day, the anniversary of their journey to Dover. Without him it will be insupportable. And then the Fourth of August will be his birthday, when they must be together. They might go to Tintor and Abbey. If Shelley does not come to her, or give her leave to join him, she will leave in the morning and be with him before night to give him her present with her own hand. And then is not Claire in North Devon? If Shelley has let her know where he is, is she sure not to join him if she thinks he is alone? Insufferable thought. As Professor Dowden shows, Mary must have been, very soon joined by Shelley after this touching appeal. In all probability a house was fixed on, but in a very opposite direction before the end of the week, and the lease or arrangements made by August 3rd as the following year he writes from Genoa to Langdale, to give up possession of his house at Bishop's Gate by August 3rd, 1816. So here, far from Devonshire by the gates of Windsor Forest, near the familiar haunts of his eaten days, we again find Shelley and Mary. Here Peacock was not far distant at Marlowe, and Hall could arrive from London, and here they were within reach of the river. No long time elapsed before they were tempted to experience again the delights of a holiday on the Thames. So Mary and Shelley, with Peacock and Charles Claremont to help him with an oar, embarked and went up the river. They passed Reading and Oxford, winding through meadows and woods, still arriving at Lecklade. Fourteen miles from the source of the Thames they still strove to help the boat to reach this point if the boat would not help them. This proved impossible, after three miles as cows had taken possession of the stream which only covered their hoofs. The party had proposed to return, still contemplating proceeding by Canal and River, even as far as the Clyde, the poet ever yearning forwards. But this, money and prudence forbade, as twenty pounds was needed to pass the first Canal, so they returned to their pleasant furnished house at Bishop's Gate. On this trip Mary saw Shelley's old quarters at Oxford, where they spent a night and they must have lingered in Lecklade Churchyard, as the sweet verses there written indicate. Shelley and Mary were now settled for the first time in a home of their own. She was making rapid progress with Latin, having finished the fifth book of the Aeneid. Much to Shelley's satisfaction, as recounted in a letter to Hogg. Hogg was expected to stay with them in October, and in the meanwhile, under the green shades of Windsor Forest, Shelley was writing his Alastor, and as his wife describes in her edition of his poems, the magnificent woodland was a fitting study to inspire the various descriptions of forest scenery we find in the poem. She writes, none of Shelley's poems is more characteristic than this. The solemn spirit that exists throughout the worship of the Majesty of Nature, and the breathings of a poet's heart and solitude, the mingling of the exulting joy which the various aspects of the visible universe inspire, with the sad and trying pangs which human passion imparts, give a touching interest to the whole. The death which he had often contemplated during the last months as certain in ear he here represented in such colors as had in his lonely musings soothed his soul to peace. The versification sustains the solemn spirit which breathes throughout. It is particularly melodious. The poem ought rather to be considered didactic than narrative. It was the outpouring of his own emotions embodied in the purest form he could conceive, painted in the ideal hues which his brilliant imagination inspired, and softened by the recent anticipation of death. END OF CHAPTER 6 PART 2 Nature in two or three friends, if we may include the Quaker, Dr. Pope, who called on Shelley and wished to discuss theology with him, and when Shelley said he feared his views would not be to the doctor's taste, replied, I like to hear thee talk, friend Shelley, I see thou art very deep. But beyond these all friends had fallen off, and certainly Godwin's conduct seems to have been most extraordinary. He did not hesitate to put Shelley to considerable inconvenience for money. For not long after the one thousand pounds had been given we find Shelley having to sell in annuity to help him with more money. Yet Godwin all his time treated Shelley and Mary with great haughtiness, much to their annoyance, though neither let it interfere with the duty they owed Godwin as father and philosopher. These perpetual worries helped to keep them in an unsettled state in their home, owing perhaps to the loss of the diary at this period we have no information about Harriet. Already in January we find there is an idea of residing in Italy, both for the sake of health and on account of the annoyance they experienced from their general treatment. Shelley had the poet's yearning for sympathy, and Mary must have suffered with and for him, especially when her father, for whom he did so much, treated him with haughty severity by way of thanks. She attributed Godwin's conduct to the influence of his wife, whom she coagulately disliked at this time. She was loathed to recognize inconsistency in her father, whom she always revered. Godwin on his side was by no means anxious for his daughter and Shelley to leave for Italy in a few weeks' time, as intimated to him by Shelley as possible on the 16th of February. We thus see that a trip to the Continent was contemplated some months prior to the journey to Geneva. This idea arose after the birth of Mary's first son, William, born January 21st, 1816, who was destined to be only for a few short years the joy of his parents, and then to rest in Rome where Shelley was not long in following him. It is evident from Godwin's diary that Claire must have been, on a visit or in direct communication with Mary at the beginning of January, as Godwin notes, right to PBS inviting Jane. And it does not seem to have been possible for Shelley and Mary to have borne resentment. The facts of this meeting early in the year, and that Mary and Shelley contemplated another of their restless journeys abroad, certainly take off from the abruptness of their departure for Geneva in May with Claire Claremont. Undoubtedly Shelley was in a worried and excited state at this period, and he acted so as to rouse the doubts of Peacock as to the reason of the hurried journey. The story of Williams, of Tremedoc, suddenly appearing at Bishop's Gate, to warn Shelley that his father and uncle were engaged in a plot to lock him up, seems without foundation. But when, in addition to this story, we consider Claire's history, we can well understand that in spite of Shelley's love of sincerity and truth, circumstances were too strong for him. At a time when he and Mary were being avoided by society for openly defying its laws, they might well reflect whether they could afford to avow the new complication which had sprung up in their small circle. Claire, in hopes of finding some theatrical engagement, had called upon Lord Byron at Drory Lane Theatre, apparently about March 1816, during the distressing period of his rupture with his wife. The result of this acquaintance is too well known, and has been too much a source of obliquy to all concerned in it, to need much comment here, and it is only as the facts affect Mary that we need refer to them at all. At this time Byron was about to leave England, pursued justly or unjustly, by the hatred of the British mob, for a poet who dared to quarrel with his wife and follow the low manners of some of the leaders of fashion whom he had been intimate with. Their obscurity has sheltered them from approbrium. He was accompanied by the young physician, Dr. John Poladori, who has somehow passed with Byron's readers as a fool, yet he certainly could have been no fool in the ordinary sense of the word, as he had taken full degrees as a doctor at an earlier age perhaps than had ever been known before. His family a simple and highly educated family, his father was Italian and had been secretary to El Fieri, caring very much for poetry and intellectual intercourse, were delighted at the prospect of the young physician having such an opening to his career as his sister, the mother of poets, has told the writer. It is true that this exciting short period with Byron must have had an injurious effect on the young physician's aftercareer, though he was still able to obtain the deep interest of Harriet Martinot at Norwich. It might be added that his nephew, not only a poet but a leader in poetic thought, deeply resented the insulting terms in which Byron wrote of Poladori, and although deeply admired the genius of Byron, did not fail to note where any weakness of form could be found in his work, such as human nature, inso is poetic justice meted out. This might appear to be a slight digression from our subject, if it were not for the fact that when Mary wrote Frankenstein, etc., as one of the tales of horror that were projected by the assembled party, it was only John Poladori's story of the Vampire, which was completed along with Mary's Frankenstein. The Vampire, published anonymously, was at first extolled everywhere under the idea that it was Byron's, and when this idea was found to be a mistake, the tale was slighted in proportion and its author with it. The fact is, that as an imaginative tale of horror, the Vampire holds its place beside Mary's Frankenstein, though not so fully developed, as a literary performance, or as an invention. So on the eve of Byron's starting for Switzerland, we find Shelly and Mary contemplating a journey with Claire in the same direction, by another route, and to the same place and hotel, previously settled on and engaged by Byron. It certainly might appear that Shelly and Mary, in this dilemma, did not feel justified in acting towards another, in a way contrary to their own conduct in life. In all probability, Claire confided her belief in Byron's attachment to herself after his wife had discarded him, to Mary or even to Shelly. Mary, however distasteful the subject must have been to her, would not perhaps allow herself to stand in the way of what, from her own experience, might appear to be a prospect of a settlement in life for Claire, especially as she must have deeply felt their responsibility in having induced or allowed her to accompany them in their own elopement. In fact, the feeling of responsibility, in this most trying case, might, to a highly imaginative mind, almost conjure up the invention of a Frankenstein. We now, May 3, 1816, find Shelly, Mary, and Claire at Dover, again on a journey to Switzerland. From Dover Shelly wrote a kind letter to Godwin, explaining money matters, and promising to do all he could to help him. They passed by Paris, then by Troyes, Dijon and Dole, through the Jura Range. This time is graphically described, by Shelly, in letters appended to the Six Weeks Tour, the Journey and the Eight Days Excursion in Switzerland. We read of the terrific changes of nature, the thunderstorms, one of which was more imposing than all the others, lighting up lake and pine forests with the most vivid brilliancy, and then nothing but blackness with rolling thunder. These letters are addressed to Peacock, but in them we have no reference to the intimacy with Byron, now being carried on. How he arrived at the Hotel Sacheron, know their removal to the Maison Chepouille, to avoid the inquisitive English. There is fortunately no further reason to refer to the rumours which scandal mongers promulgated. Rumours which undoubtedly hastened the rupture between Byron and Claire. Although evil rumours, like fire smouldering in a hold, are difficult to extinguish. And, as Mr. Gifferson shows, the slanders of this time were afterwards a trouble to Shelly at Ravenna in 1821, when his wife had to take his part. These rumours were the source of certain poems, and also, later, stories about Byron. All lovers of Shelly owe a deep debt of gratitude to Mr. Gifferson, who although severe to a fault on many of the blemishes in his character, as if he considered that poets ought to be almost superhuman in all things, nevertheless proves in so clear a way the utter groundlessness of the rumours as to relieve all future biographers from considering the subject. At the same time he shows how distasteful Claire's presence must have become to Byron, who was hoping for reconciliation with his wife, and who naturally construed fresh obduracy on her part as a result of reports that were becoming current. Anyway, it is manifest that Byron did not regard Claire in the light that Mary may have hoped for, namely that he would consider her as a wife, taking the place of her who had left him. Byron had no such new idea of the nature of a wife, but only accepted Claire as she allowed herself to be taken, with the addition that he grew to dislike her intensely. So after Shelly and Byron had made their eight days' tour of the lake, from June 23rd, unaccompanied by Mary and Claire, we find a month later Shelly taking them for an eight days' tour to Chamouni, unaccompanied by Byron. Of this tour Shelly each day writes long descriptive letters to Peacock, who was looking out for a house for them somewhere in the neighbourhood of Windsor. They return by July 28th to Mont Allegra, where he writes of the collection of seeds he has been making, and which Mary intends cultivating in her garden in England. For another month these young restless beings enjoy the calm of their cottage by the lake close to the villa Diodati, while the poets breathe in poetry on all sides and give it to the world in verse. Mary notes the books they read in their visits in the evening to Diodati, where she became accustomed to the sound of Byron's voice, with Shelly's always the answering echo, for she was too odd and timid to speak much herself. These conversations caused her subsequently when hearing Byron's voice to feel a sad want for the sound of a voice that is still. It is during this sojourn by the Swiss Lake that Mary began her first serious attempt at literature. Being asked each day by Shelly whether she had found a story she answered no, till one evening after listening to a conversation between Byron and Shelly on the principle of life, whether it would be discovered and the power of communicating life be acquired. Perhaps a corpse might be reanimated. Galvanism had given tokens of such things. She lay awake in the sound of the lake and the sight of the moonlight gleaming through chinks in the shutters, where blended the idea and the figure of a student engaged in the ghastly work of creating a man, until such a horror came to light that he shrank in fear from his own performance. Such was the original idea for this imaginative work of a girl of nineteen, which has held its place among conspicuous works of fiction to the present day. Frankenstein was the outcome of the project before mentioned of writing tales of horror. One night when pouring rain detained Shelly's party at the Villa di Ordotti, over a blazing fire, they told strange stories, till Byron, leading to poetic ideas, recited the witch's scene from Christabel, which so excited Shelly's imagination that he shrieked and ran from the room, and Paula Dory writes that he brought him to by throwing water in his face. Upon his reviving they agreed to write each a supernatural tale. Matthew Gregory Lewis, the author of The Monk, who visited at the Ordotti, assisted them with these weird fancies. End of Chapter 6 Part 2 Section 13 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 7 Frankenstein That a work by a girl of nineteen should have held its place in romantic literature so long is no small tribute to its merit. This work wrought under the influence of Byron and Shelly, and conceived after drinking in their enthralling conversation, is not unworthy of its origin. A more fantastically horrible story could scarcely be conceived. In fact, the vivid imagination piling impossible horror upon horror seems to claim for the book a place in the company of a Poe or a Hoffman. Its weakness appears to be that of placing such an idea in the annals of modern life. Such a process invariably weakens these powerful imaginative ideas, and takes away from, instead of adding to, the apparent truth, and cannot fail to give an affectation to the work. True, it might add to the difficulty to imagine a different state of society, past or future, but this seems a sign coin on. The story of Frankenstein begins with a series of letters of a young man, Robert Walton, writing to his sister, Mrs. Seville in England, from St. Petersburg, where he is about to embark on a voyage in search of the North Pole. He is bent on discovering the secret of the magnet, and is deluded with the hope of a never-absent son. When advanced some distance towards his longed-for goal, Walton writes of a most strange adventure which befalls them in the midst of the ice regions. A gigantic being of human shape, being drawn over the ice in a sludge by dogs. Not many hours after this strange sight a fresh discovery was made of another man in another sledge, with only one living dog to it. This time the man was seen to be a European, whom the sailors tried to persuade to enter their ship. On seeing Walton the stranger speaking English, asked whether they were bound before he would consent to enter the ship. This naturally caused intense excitement, as the man, reduced to a skeleton, seemed to have but a short time to live. However, on hearing that the vessel was bound northwards, he consented to enter, and with great care he was restored for the time. An answer to an inquiry as to his object and thus exposing himself, he replied, to seek one who fled from me. An affection springs up and increases between Walton and the stranger, till the latter promises to tell his sad and strange story, which he had hitherto intended to die with him. This commencement leads to the story being told in the form, which might with advantage have been avoided, of a long narrative by the dying man. The stranger describes himself as of a Genovese family of high distinction, and gives an interesting account of his father and juvenile surroundings, including a playfellow, Elizabeth Levenga, whom we encounter much later in his history. All his studies are pursued with zest. Till coming upon the works of Carnelius Agrippa, he is led with enthusiasm into the ideas of experimental philosophy. A passing remark of Trash from his father, who does not explain the difference between past and modern science, is not enough to deter him and prevent the fatal consequence of the studies he persists in. And thus a pupil of Albertus Magnus appears in the eighteenth century. The effects of a thunderstorm, described from those Mary had recently witnessed, decided him in his resolution, for electricity now was the aim of his research. After having passed his youth in his happy Swiss home with his parents and dear friends, on the death of his loved mother he starts with the University of Ingolstadt. Here he is much reprehended by the professors for his useless studies. Until one, a Mr. Waldemann, sympathizes with him, and explains how Camelius Agrippa and others, although their studies did not bring the immediate fruit they expected, nevertheless helped on science in other directions. And he advises Frankenstein to pursue his studies in natural philosophy, including mathematics. The upshot of this advice is that two years are spent in intense study and thought, till he becomes thin and haggard in appearance. He is contemplating a visit to his home. When making some fresh experiment he finds that he has discovered the principle of life. The so overcomes him for a time that oblivious of all else, he is bent on making use of his discovery. After much perplexing thought he determines to create a being superior to man, so that future generations shall bless him. In the first place, by the help of chemistry, he has to construct the form which is to be animated. The grave has to be ransacked in the attempt, and Frankenstein describes with loathing some of the details of his work, and shows the danger of overstraining the mind in any one direction, how the virtuous become vicious, and how virtue itself, carried to excess, lapses into vice. The form is created in nervous fear and fever. Frankenstein being the ideal scientist, devoid of all feeling for art, whose ideas of it indeed might be limited to the elevation and section of a pot, without any ideal of proportion or beauty, reaches the point where he considers nothing but the infusion of life necessary. All is ready, and in the first hour of the morning he applies his fatal discovery. Breath is given, the limbs move, the eyes open, and the colossal being or monster, as he is henceforth called, becomes animated. Though copied from statues, its fearful size, its terrible complexion, and drawn skin, scarcely concealing arteries and muscles beneath, add to the horror of the expression. And this is the end of two years' work to the horrified Frankenstein. Overwhelmed by disgust, he can only rush from the room, and finally falls exhausted on his bed, only to wake to find his monster grinning at him. He runs forth into the street, and here, in Mary's first work, we have a reminiscence of her own infant days, when she and Claire hid themselves under the sofa to hear Coleridge read his poem, for the following stanza from the ancient Mariner might seem almost the keynote of Frankenstein, like one who on a lonely road doth walk in fear and dread, and having once turned round walks on, and turns no more his head, because he knows a fearful fiend doth close behind him tread. Frankenstein hurries on, but coming across his old friend, Henri Clival, at the stagecoach, he recalls to his mind, his father, Elizabeth, his former life and friends. He returns to his rooms with his friend. Reaching his door, he trembles, but opening it finds himself delivered from his self-created fiend. His frenzy of delight being attributed to madness from overwork. Clival induces Frankenstein to leave his studies. And finally, after he had, for months endure, a terrible illness, to accompany him to his native village. Various delays occurring, they are detained too late in the year to pass the dangerous roads on their way home. Health and peace of mind returning to some degree, Frankenstein is about to proceed on his journey homewards, when a letter arrives from his father with the fatal news of the mysterious death of his young brother. This event hastens, still further his return, and gives a renewed gloomy turn to his mind. Not only is his beloved little brother dead, but the extraordinary events points to some unknown power. From this time Frankenstein's life is one agony. One after another, all whom he loves, falls victims to the demon he has created. He is never safe from his presence. In a storm on the elps he encounters him. In the fearful murders which annihilate his family, he always recognizes his hand. On one occasion his creation wished to have a truce and to come to terms with his creator. This, after his most fearful treachery, had caused the innocent to be sentenced, as the perpetrator of his fearful deeds. On meeting Frankenstein he recounts the most pathetic story of his falling away from sympathy with humanity. How after saving the life of a girl from drowning, he is shot by a young man who rushes up and rescues her from him. He became the unknown benefactor of a family for some period of time by doing the hard work of the household while they slept. Having taken refuge in a hovel adjoining a corner of their cottage, he hears their pathetic and romantic story, and also learns the language and ways of men. But on his wishing to make their acquaintance the family are so horrified at his appearance that the women faint, the men drive him off with blows, and the whole family leave a neighborhood, the scene of such an apparition. After these experiences he retaliates till meeting Frankenstein he proposes these terms that Frankenstein shall create another being as repulsive as himself to be his companion. In fact, he desires a wife as hideous as he is. These were the conditions, and the lies of all those whom Frankenstein held most dear were in the balance. He hesitated long but finally consented. Everything now had to be put aside to carry out this fearful task. His love of Elizabeth, his fathers and treaties that he should marry her, his hopes, his ambitions go for nothing. To save those who remain he must devote himself to his work. To carry out his aim he expresses a wish to visit England, and with his friend Clarval descends the Rhine which is described with the knowledge gained in Mary's own journey, and the same route is pursued which she, Shelley and Claire, had taken through Holland, embarking for England from Rotterdam, and thence reaching the Thames. Underpassing London and Oxford in various places of interest he expresses a desire to be left for a time in solitude and selects a remote island of the Orkneys, where an uninhabited hut answers the purpose of his laboratory. Here he works unmolested till his fearful task is nearly accomplished when a fear and loathing possesses his soul at the possible result of this second achievement, although the demon already created has sworn to abandon the haunts of man and to live in a desert country with his mate. What hold will there be over this second being with an individuality and will of its own? What might be the future consequences to humanity of the existence of such monsters? He forms a resolution to abandon his dreaded work, and at that moment it is confirmed by the sight of his monster grinning at him through the window of the hut in the moonlight. Not a moment is lost. He tears his just completed work limb from limb. The monster disappears in rage, yet to return to threaten eternal revenge on him and his, but the time of weakness is past. Better encounter any evils that may be in store, even for those he loves, than leave a curse to humanity. From that time there is no truce. Clarval is murdered and Frankenstein is seized as the murderer, but respited for worse fate. He is married to Elizabeth, and she is strangled within a few hours. When goaded to the verge of madness by all these events and seeing his beloved father reduced to impassibility through their misfortunes, he can make no one believe his self-accusing story. And if they did, what would it avail to pursue a being who could scale the Alps, live among glaciers, and pass unfathomable seas? There is nothing left but a pursuit till death, single-handed, when one might expire and the other be appeased, onward with the deluding sight from time to time of his avenging demon. Only in sleep and dreams did Frankenstein find forgetfulness of his self-imposed torture. For he lived again with those he had loved. He endured life in his pursuit by imagining his waking hours to be a horrible dream and longing for the night, when sleep should bring him life. When hopes of meeting his demon failed, some fresh trace would appear to lead him on through habited and uninhabited countries. He tracks himself to the verge of the eternal ice, and even there procures a sledge from the wretched and horrified inhabitants of the last dwelling place of men to pursue the monster, who on a similar vehicle had departed to their delight. Onwards, onwards, over the eternal ice they pass, the pursuit in the pursuer, till consciousness is nearly lost, and Frankenstein is rescued by those to whom he now narrates his history, all except his fatal scientific secret, which is to die with him shortly, for the end cannot be far off. The story is told in the friend for he feels the utmost sympathy with the tortures of Frankenstein, can only attempt to soothe his last days or hours, for he too feels the end must be near. But at this crisis in Frankenstein's existence, the expedition cannot proceed northward for the crew mutiny to return. Frankenstein determines to proceed alone, but his strength is ebbing, and Walton foresees his early death. But this is not to pass quietly, for the demon is in no mood that his creator should escape, unmolested from his grasp. Now the timer's ripe, and during a momentary absence, Walton is doddled by fearful sounds, and then in the cabin of his dying friend, a sight to appall the bravest, for the fiend is having the death struggle with him. Then all is over. Some last speeches of the demon to Walton are explanatory of his deed, and of his present intention of self-immolation, as he is now slaked his thirst to wreak vengeance for his existence. Then he disappears over the ice to accomplish this last task. Surely there is enough weird imagination for the subject. Mary and this work not merely intended to depict the horror of such a monster, but she evidently wished also to show what a being, with no naturally bad propensities, might sink to when under the influence of a false position. The education of her soul's natural man not being here possible. Some weak points, some incongruities, it would be unreasonable not to expect. Whether the eternal light expected at the north pole, if of the sun, was a misapprehension of the author, or of a Shellian application of the word eternal, as applied by him to certain friendships, or duration of residence in houses, may be questioned. The question as to the form used for the narrative has already been referred to. The difficulty of such a method is strangely exemplified in the long letters which are quoted by Frankenstein to his friend while dying, and which he could not have carried with him on his deadly pursuit. Mary's facility in writing was great, and having visited some of the most interesting places in the world with some of the most interesting people, she is saved from the dreary dullness of the dull. Her ideas, also, though sometimes affected, are genuine, not the outcome of some fashionable foieble to please a passing faith or superstition, which ought never to be the vase and detra of a romance, though it may be of a satire or a sermon. The last passage in the book is perhaps the weakest. It is scarcely the climax, but an anticlimax. The end of Frankenstein is well conceived, but that of the demon fails. It is ridiculous to conceive anyone, demon or human, having ended his vengeance, fleeing over the ice to burn himself on a funeral pyre where no fuel could be found. Surely the torches of the lowest pit of Dante's Inferno might have sufficed for the occasion. The youth of the authoress of this remarkable romance has raised comparison between it and the first work of a still younger romancesist, the author of Gabriel Denver, written at seventeen, who died before he had completed his twentieth year, while this romance was being planned during the latter part of the stay of the Shelley Party in Switzerland. After their return from Chimuni, the diary gives us a charming idea of their life in their cottage of Montelagra. We have the books they read, as usual. And well, did Mary, no less than Shelley, make use of that happy reading time of life. Youth. The Latin authors, read by Shelley, were also studied by Mary. We find her reading Quintus Curdius, ten and twelve pages at a time. Also on Shelley's birthday, August 4th, she reads him the fourth book of Virgil, while in a boat with him on the lake. Also the fire balloon is not forgotten, which Mary had made two or three days in advance for the occasion. They used generally to visit to Udati in the evening after dinner, though occasionally Shelley dined with Byron and accompanied him in his boat. On one occasion Mary wrote, Shelley and Claire go up to Diodati. I do not, for Lord Byron did not seem to wish it. Rousseau Voltaire and other authors caused the time to fly until their spirits are damped by a letter arriving from Shelley's solicitor, requiring his return to England. While in Switzerland Mary received some letters from Fanny, her half-sister. These letters are interesting, showing a sweet gentle disposition, very affectionate to both Shelley and Mary. One letter asks Mary questions about Lord Byron. There are also details as to the unfortunate state of the finances of Godwin, who seems in a perennial state of needing three hundred pounds. Fanny also writes of herself, on July 29, 1816, as not being well. Being in a state of mind which always keeps her body in a fever, her lonely life after her sister's departure, with all the money anxieties in her own dependence, evidently weighed upon her mind, and led to a state of despondency, although her letters would scarcely give the idea of a tragedy being imminent. She writes to Shelley and Mary that Mrs. Godwin, Mama, she calls her, tells her that she is the laughing stock of Mary and Shelley, and the constant beacon of their satire. She shows much affection for little William, as well as for his parents, but there is certainly no word in these letters showing more than sisterly and friendly feeling. No word showing jealousy or envy. Clear afterwards alleged that Fanny had been in love with Shelley. Mr. Keegan-Paul states the reverse most strongly. It is not easy to conceive how either should have been sure of the fact. Even Shelley's beautiful verses to her memory do not indicate any special reason for her sadness as far as he was concerned. Her voice did quiver as we parted. Yet knew I not that heart was broken, from which it came and I departed, heeding not the words then spoken. Misery, oh misery, the world is all too wide for thee. From these lines we see that Fanny was in a very depressed state of mind when her sister left England for her second Continental Tour in 1816. This being two years from the time when Mary had first left her home, it does not seem probable that Shelley was to blame, or rather was the indirect cause of Fanny's sadness. She felt herself generally useless and unneeded in the world, and this idea weighed her down. CHAPTER VIII. PART I. RETURN TO INGLAND. On leaving the Lake of Geneva on August 28, without having accomplished anything in the way of a settlement for Claire, but with pleasant reminiscences of Rousseau's surroundings and the grandeur of the Alps, the party of three returned towards England by way of Dijon, and thence by a different route from that by which they had gone, returning by Vouvre, Augsère, Fontaine Bleu, and Versailles. Here Mary and Shelley visited the palace in town, which a few years hence she would revisit under far different circumstances. Travelling in those days so very unlike what it is in ours, when Europe can be crossed without being examined, allowed them to become acquainted with the towns they passed through. Ruin was visited, but for some reason they were disappointed with the cathedral. From Havre they sailed for Portsmouth. When, with their usual fate, they encountered a stormy passage of twenty-seven hours. It must have been a trying journey for them in more ways than one. For if there was any uncertainty as to Claire's position on leaving England, Mary could now no longer have been in any doubt. On arriving in England she proceeded, with Claire and her little William, with his Swiss nurse Elise, to Bath, where Claire passed as Mrs. Claremont. Shelley addressed her as such at five Abbey Churchyard Bath. During this time Shelley was again house-hunting, while staying with Peacock on the banks of the Thames. And Mary paid a visit to Peacock at the same time, leaving little William to the care of Elise and Claire at Bath. From here Claire writes to Mary about the itty babes' baby ways, and how she and Elise puzzled and puzzled over the little nightgowns, or quoting Albie, as they called Byron. It has been suggested a condensation of Albie. They mused and coddled without effect. Claire certainly did her best to take care of the baby, walking out with it and so forth. Now the three hundred pounds, written of by Fanny, was falling due. Mary must also have been kept in great apprehension, as we see by a letter from Shelley to Godwin, dated October 2, 1816, that the money was not forthcoming as hoped. So the fatal rind gold is again helping to a tragedy, which the Romantic prefer to impute, to a still more fatal cause, for a so short a time after the second as October 10th. We find Fanny already at Bristol, writing to Godwin that she is about to depart immediately, to the place when she hopes never to return. On October 3 there is a long letter from her to Mary, written just after Shelley's letter had reached Godwin, when she had read its contents on Godwin's countenance as he perused it. Her letter is most clear-sided, noble and single-minded. She complains of Mary's way of exaggerating Mrs. Godwin's resentment to herself. Explaining that whatever Mrs. Godwin may say in moments of extreme irritation to her, she is quite incapable of making the worst of Mary's behavior to others. She shows Mary her own carelessness in leaving letters about for the servants to read, so that they in Harriet spread the reports she complains of, rather than Mrs. Godwin. She tells how she had tried to convince Shelley that he should only keep French servants, and she endeavours to persuade Mary how important it is that they should prevent bad news coming to Godwin in a way to give a sudden shock as he is so sensitive. She saw through certain sub-drufuges of Shelley, and wrote in a calm, affectionate way, trying to set everything right, with a wonderful clearness of vision for everyone but herself. For herself there was no outlet but despair, no rest but the grave. She, the utterly unselfish one, was useless. All that remained was to smooth her way to the grave. Not for herself but others. She managed to die where she was unknown, travelling for this purpose, to Swansea, where only a few shillings remained to her, and a little watch Mary had brought her from Geneva. She wrote of herself in a letter she left which neither compromised any one, nor indicated who she was, as one whose birth was unfortunate, but whose existence would soon be forgotten. Poor Fanny! Is she not rather likely to be remembered as a type of self-abnegation? Certainly hers was not the nature to cause her sister a moment's jealous pang, even though her death called forth one of Shelley's sweetest lyrics. There was nothing to be done. Godwin paid a brief visit to the scene, and ascertained that all was too true. The door, that had had to be forced, the laudanum bottle, and her letter told all that need be known. Shelley visited Bristol to obtain information, but there was no use in giving publicity to this fresh family sorrow. Discretion was the only sympathy that could be shown. Mary bought mourning and worked at it. Claire envied for herself Fanny's rest, but life had to proceed awaiting fresh events. Work was the great resource. Mary was writing her Frankenstein. She persisted with the utmost fortitude and intellectual employment, as poor Fanny wrote to Mary on September 26th. I cannot help envying your calm, contented disposition, and the calm philosophical habits of life which pursue yawn, or rather which you pursue everywhere. I allude to your description of the manner in which you passed your days at Bath, when most women would hardly have recovered from the fatigues of such a journey as you had been taking. This is indeed the keynote of Mary's character, which with her sensitive retiring nature enabled her to live through the stormy times of her life with equanimity. Mary had Shelley's company through November, but at the beginning of December she writes to Shelley, who was again staying with peacock house hunting. Mary tells him what she would like, a house with a lawn near a river or lake, noble trees or divine mountains. But she would be content if Shelley would give her a garden and absentia clare. This is very different from her way of thinking of Fanny, who she says. Might now have had a home with her. This expression occurs in a letter to Shelley, when she was on the point of marrying him, and might have had Fanny with her. Mary also speaks of her drawing lessons, and how, thank God, she had finished that tedious ugly picture she had been so long about. This points to that terrible way of teaching art, by accustoming its students to hideousness and vulgarity, till art itself might become an unknown quantity. Mary also tells what is more interesting, that she has finished the fourth chapter, a very long one, of her Frankenstein, which she thinks Shelley will like. She wishes for his return. On December 13th Mary receives a letter from Shelley, who is with Lee Hunt. On December 15th, 1816, he is back with Mary at Bath. When a letter from Hookam, who had been requested by Shelley to obtain information about Harriet for him, brought further fatal news. For Harriet had now committed suicide, and had been found drowned in the serpentine. Unknown she was called Harriet Smith, uncared for. She had gone to her grave beneath the water. Unloved the lovely Harriet cared not to live. What may have happened? It is not for those who may not have been tried to question. Of cause and effect it is not for us to judge, but that her memory must have been a haunting shadow to Shelley and to Mary no one would wish to think them, heartless enough to deny. Surely the lovely lines, with no name affixed, must be the dirge to Harriet's fate in Shelley's life's failure. The cold earth slept below, above the cold sky shone, and all around with a chilling sound. From caves of ice and fields of snow, the breath of night like death did flow, beneath the sinking moon. The wintry hedge was black, the green grass was not seen. The birds did rest on the bear-thorns breast, whose roots, beside the pathway track, had bound their folds over many a crack which the frost had made between. Thine eyes glowed in the glare of the moon's dying light. As a fen fires beam on a sluggish stream gleams dimly so the moon shone there, and it yelled strings of thy tangled hair that shook in the wind of the night. The moon made thy lips pale, beloved. The wind made thy bosom chill. The night did shed. On thy dear head, its frozen dew, and thou didst sly, where the bitter breath of the naked sky might visit thee at will. These lines are dated 1815 by Mary in her edition, but she says she cannot answer for the accuracy of all the dates of minor poems. The death of Harriet was necessarily quickly followed by the marriage of Shelley and Mary. The most sound opinions were ascertained as to the desirability of an early marriage, or of postponing the ceremony for a year after the death of Harriet. All agreed that the wedding ought to take place without delay, and it was fixed for December 30, 1816, at St. Mildred's Church in the city, where Godwin and his wife were present to their no little satisfaction, as described by Shelley to Clare, Mary notes her marriage, thus in her diary. I have omitted writing my journal for some time. Shelley goes to London and returns. I go with him. Spend the time between Lee Hunt's and Godwin's. A marriage takes place on the 30th December 1816. Draw. Read Lord Chesterfield and Lock. No sooner was the marriage over than there one anxiety was to return to Bath. For now the time of Clare's trial was approaching, and on January 13 a little girl was born, not destined to remain long in a world so sad for some. Little Allegra, a child of rare beauty, was welcomed by Shelley and Mary, with all the benevolence they were capable of, and Byron's duty to his child devolved, for the time at least, on Shelley. CHAPTER VIII. PART II Return to England During this period Shelley and Mary's chief anxiety was to welcome and care for the little children left by poor Harriet. They had been placed before her death under the care of a clergyman who kept school in Warwick, the Reverend John Kendall, vicar of Budbrook. Shelley had hoped that his marriage with Mary would remove all difficulty, and Mary was waiting to welcome Ianthe and Charles. But in this matter they were doomed to disappointment. On January 8 a bill was filed in the Court of Chancery on the part of the infants Charles and Ianthe Shelley. John Westbrook, their maternal grandfather, acting on their behalf, praying that they might not be transferred to the care of their father, Percy Bish Shelley, who had deserted their mother, who was the author of Queen Mab, and an avowed atheist, who wrote against the institution of marriage and who had been living unlawfully with a woman whom Eliza Westbrook, as Shelley had written to her, might exclusively regard as the cause of her sister's ruin. Shelley filed his answer on the eighteenth, crying the desertion of his wife, as she and he had separated with mutual consent, owing to various causes. He had wished for his children on parting with her, but left them with her at her urgent entreaty. He had given her two hundred pounds to pay her debts, and an allowance of a fifth of his income. As to his theological opinions, he understands that they are abandoned as not applicable to the case. His views on matrimony, he alleged, were only in accordance with the ideas of some of the greatest thinkers that divorce ought to be possible under various conditions. Lord Eldon gave his judgment on March 27, 1817. In fifteen carefully worded paragraphs he showed his reasons for depriving Shelley of his children. He insists through all that it is Shelley's avowed and published opinions as they affected his conduct in life, which unfitted him to be the guardian of his children. The wording in some passages caused grave anxiety to Shelley and Mary, as shown in their letters, as to whether they would be deprived of their own children, and they were prepared to abandon everything, property, country, all, and to escape with the infants. The poem, to William, was written under this misapprehension. Although when he left England in 1818, Shelley's chief reason, as given in his letter to Godwin, was on account of his health, undoubtedly the judgment in all the trying circumstances they had been passing through ever since their return from Geneva helped decide them in this determination. Those in Ianthe were finally placed under the care of Doctor and Mrs. Hume, who were to receive two hundred pounds a year, eighty pounds settled on them by Westbrook, and one hundred and twenty pounds to be paid by Shelley for the charge. Shelley might see them twelve times a year in the presence of the Humes, the Westbrooks twelve times alone, and Sir Timothy and his family when they chose. While these proceedings were progressing, Mary with Claire and the two children had moved to Marlowe, having previously joined Shelley in London on January 26th, as she feared to leave him in his depressed state alone. The intellectual society they met at Hunt's, and at Godwin's, helped to pass over this trying period. One evening Mary sought to gather the three poets, Hunt, Shelley, and Keats. Keats not being much drawn towards Shelley, while Hazlett, who was also present, was unfavorably impressed by his worn and sickly appearance, induced by the terrible anxieties and trials which he had recently passed through. Horace Smith also proved his staunch friend. Shelley once remarked it was odd that the only true generous wealthy person he ever met should be a stockbroker, and that he should write and care for poetry and yet make money. In the midst of anxieties, Mary Shelley enjoyed more social intercourse and amusement than before. We find her noting in her diary in February, dining with the Hunt's and Horace Smith, going to the opera or Figaro, music, etc. But now they had found their mile-over-treat, a house with a garden as Mary desired, not with a river view, but a shady little orchard, a kitchen garden, ews, cypresses, and a cedar tree. Here Mary was able to live on sand for a time. The Swiss nurse for the children, a cook and a man-servant, sufficed for indoor and outdoor work, and Mary, true to her name, was able to occupy herself with spiritual and intellectual employment, not to the neglect of domestic, as the succession of visitors entertained must prove. Study, drawing, and her beloved work of Frankenstein were making rapid progress. Nor could Mary have been indifferent to the woes of the poor, for Shelley would scarcely have been so actively benevolent as recorded during the residence at Marlowe, without the cooperation of his wife. While Shelley inquired into cases of distress and gave written orders for money, Mary dispensed the latter. Here Godwin paid them his first visit, and the hunts passed a pleasant time. Shelley wrote his revolt of Islam under the Bishman Beaches, and Mary had the pleasure of welcoming her old friend Mr. Baxter of Dundee, although his daughter Isabel married to Mr. Booth, still held aloof. Peacock, Horace Smith, and Hog were also among the guests. We find constant references to Godwin having been irritated and quarrelless with Mary or Shelley, a forced unnatural equanimity during one period of his life seems to have resulted in a quarrelless irritability later, a not unusual case. And he had to vent it on those who loved and revered him most, or in fact on those who would alone endure it from the amiability of disposition, a quality not remarkable in his second wife. On May 14 we find Mary has finished and corrected her Frankenstein, and she decides to go to London and stay with her father while carrying on the negotiations with Murray, whom she wishes to publish it. Shelley accompanies Mary for a few days at Godwin's invitation, but returns to look after Blue Eyes, to whom he is charged with a million kisses from Mary. But Mary returns speedily to Shelley and Blue Eyes, having felt very restless while absent. She soon falls into a plan of Shelley's for partially adopting a little Polly, who frequently spent the day or slept in their house, and Mary would find time to tell her before she went to bed whatever she or Shelley had been reading that day, always asking her what she thought of it. Mary, who was expecting another child in the autumn, was not long idle after the completion of Frankenstein, but set to work copying and revising her six weeks' tour. This work began in August, she completed after the birth of her baby Clara on September 2. In October the book was bought and published by Hilcomb. She tells in her notes, on this year, 1817, how she felt the illness and sorrows which Shelley passed through had widened his intellect, and how it was the source of some of his noblest poems, but that he had lost his early dreams of changing the world by an idea, or at least he no longer expected to see the result. A letter from Mary to her husband, written soon after the birth of her baby, shows how anxious she was at that time about his health. It had been a positive pain to her to see him languid anil, and she counseled him obtaining the best advice. Change being recommended by the physician, Mary has to decide between going to the seaside or Italy. With all the reasons foreign against Italy, Mary asks Shelley to let her know distinctly his wish in the matter, as she can be well anywhere. One strong reason for their going to Italy is that Alba, as Allegra was then called, should join her father. Evidently the embarrassment was too great to settle how to account for the poor child longer in England, and had not she had just claimed upon Byron? In another letter, September 28, Mary speaks of Claire's return to Marlowe in a croaking state, everything wrong. Harriet's debt's enormous. She had just been out for her first walk after the birth of Clara, and was surprised to find how much warmer it was out than in. Shelley is commissioned to buy a seal-skin fur hat for Willie, and to take care that it is a round fashionable shape for a boy. She is surrounded by babies while writing. William Alba and little Clara. Her love is to be given to Godwin when Mrs. Godwin is not there, as she does not love her. Frankenstein is still undisposed of. The house at Marlowe is soon found to be far too cold for a winter residence. Italy or the sea must speedily be settled on. Alba is the great consideration and favour of Italy. Mary feels she will not be safe except with them. Byron is so difficult to fix in any way, and the one hope seems to be to get him to provide for the child. Anxiety for Alba's future ruled their present so impossible is it to foretell the future, which, read and judged as our past, is easy to be severe upon. This dream of health and rest in Italy was not to be so easily realised. Instead of being there, there was still dispensing charity at Marlowe at the end of December, in spite of various negotiations for money in October and November. Horace Smith had lent two hundred pounds, and Shelley thought would lend more. Mary continued extremely anxious on Alba's account. If she could only be God to her father, who could tell how he might change his mind if there be much delay? Might he not change his mind, or go to Greece, or to the devil? And then what happens? The lawyer's delays were heavy trials, and they could not go and leave Godwin unprovided for. He was a great anxiety to Mary at this time. It was not till December 7 that Shelley wrote to tell Godwin how he felt bound to go to Italy, as he had been informed that he was in a consumption. Owing to a visit of Mr. Baxter to them at Marlowe, when he wrote a most enthusiastic letter about Shelley and Mary to his daughter Isabel Booth, Mary had hoped for a renewal of the friendship, which had afforded her so much pleasure as a girl, and she invited Isabel to accompany them to Italy. But this Mr. Booth would not allow. And, in fact, he appears to have treated his father-in-law, Mr. Baxter, who was six years younger than himself, with much severity, and wished him to stop all intimacy with Shelley. He did not, however, prevent him having a friendly parting with Shelley on March 2, although he would not allow his wife to have any communication with Mary, much to their sorrow. Mary was in constant anxiety about Shelley in the last months of 1817, writing of his suffering and the distress she feels in seeing him in such pain and looking so ill. In January 1818, the month before they left Marlowe, his sufferings became very great. But two thousand pounds being borrowed on the promise of four thousand five hundred pounds on his father's death, and the house at Marlowe being sold on January 25, we find the packing and flitting taking place soon after. By February 7, Shelley leaves for London and on Tuesday 10th, Mary follows. Godwin, as usual now, had been beseeching for money, and then, feeling his dignity wounded by the effort, retaliated on the giver with haughtiness and insulting demands. In a biography unfortunately, characters cannot always be made the consistent beings they frequently become in romances. One more happy month Mary is to pass in England with Shelley. We again have accounts of visits to the opera, to museums, plays, dinners, and pleasant evenings spent with friends. Keats is again met, and Shelley calls on Mr. Baxter, who is not allowed by his son-in-law to say farewell to Mary Shelley. Such a Martinette may a scotch schoolmaster be. Mary Lamb calls and visits are paid and received till the last evening arrives, when Shelley, exhausted with ill health, fatigue and excitement, fell into one of his profound sleeps on the sofa, before some of his friends left the lodgings in Great Russell Street, and thus the Hunts weren't able to exchange with him their farewells. The small band of literary friends were all to bid Shelley and Mary farewell on his last few days in England. The contrast is indeed marked between that time and this, when Shelley societies are found in various parts of the world, when enthusiasts write from the most remote regions and form friendships in his name, when churches, including Westminster Abbey, have rung in praise of his ideal yearnings, and when, not least, some have certainly tried to lead pure, unselfish lives in memory of the God-like part of the man in him. But he now left his native shores never to return, with Claire and Allegra in his own two little children, and certainly a true wife, willing to follow him through wheel or woe. A third time on March 11, 1818, Shelley, Mary and Claire are on the road to Dover, this time with three young lives to care for, Willie, aged two years and two months, Clara, six months, and Allegra, one year and two months. These small beings kept well during their journey, and it is touching to note how Claire Claremont, in her part of the Diary recording their progress, mentions bathing her darling at Dover, and then cancels the passage from her diary, as many others were her names given, surely one of the saddest of things for a mother to fear to mention her child's name. After another stormy passage, the party again reached Calais, which they found as delightful as ever, and where they stayed at the Grand Cerf Hotel. Mary continues to note the journey. They took a different route this time, by Duet, La Faire, Reims, Barry Labac, and St. Dizier, the road winding by the Marne. They sleep at Long Grays, which rampanted town surely ought to have left a pleasant reminiscence, but they had hitherto found the route uninteresting and fatiquing. Mary finds more interest in the country after Long Grays, and with the help of Schlegel, from whom Shelley read aloud to her, the time passed pleasantly, no long wary evenings and hotels, no complaints when a carriage broke down, and they were kept three hours at Macon for it to be repaired. They had with them the friends of whom they never tired. At Lyons they rested three days. Mary much admired the city, and they visited the theatre, where they saw, known Greece at Ephesionomist, and on Wednesday, March 25th, they set out towards the mountains, whose white tops were seen at a distance. And crossing the frontier there was a difficulty in getting their books allowed to enter Sardinian territory, until a cannon, who had met Shelley's father at the Duke of Norfolk's, helped to get them through. After leaving Chambery, where Mary stayed to allow her nurse Elise to see her child, they crossed Mount Sinise and dined on the top. The beauty of the scenery greatly raised Shelley's spirits, causing him to sing with exaltation. They stayed one night at Turin, visiting the opera, and after reaching Milan, Shelley and Mary went to Lake Como for a few days, having some idea of spending the summer on its banks. But not being able to soothe themselves with the house, they returned to Milan on April 12th and rejoined Clare, who had remained with the children. During the stay at Milan till the end of April, there had been frequent letters from Clare to Byron. These were evidently far from satisfactory, as we find Shelley writing letters of caution to Clare in 1822, with regard to Byron and Allegra. He mentions having warned her against letting Byron get possession of Allegra in the spring of 1818. But Clare thought it was for the interest of the child, whom she undoubtedly loved, to let her go to her father. Walks in the public gardens with the chicks are noted by Clare several times, and the last entry in her diary before April 28th, when Allegra was taken by the nurse Elise to Byron, mentions a walk with the chicks in the morning and drive in the evening with them, Mary and Shelley. Mary had sent her own trusted nurse Elise with the little Allegra, feeling that she would remain and in some degree replace the mother, and Clare believed that the child would stay with its father, though certainly this did not seem desirable or likely to last for long. A change of scene being needed after these trying emotions. Mary, with her husband and two children, and Clare, Nella for Pisa and Lakehorn. They slept on the way at Piacenza, Parna, Modina, and then passed a night at a little inn among the Apennines. The fifth at Barberino, the sixth at La Sala, and the seventh reaching Pisa, where they lodged at La Tre Donselle. On this journey Mary was able to enjoy the Italian scenery under the unclouded Italian sky. The vine festoon trees amid the fields of corn, the hedges full of flowers, all these seen from the carriage convey a lasting impression, and poor Clare remarks that, driving in a long straight road, she always hopes it will take her to some place where she will be happier. They passed through beautiful chestnut woods on the southern side of the Apennines, and along the fertile banks of the Arno to Pisa. After a few days stay at Pisa, with a cathedral loaded with pictures and ornaments, and the leaning tower are visited, and where, perhaps, the quiet Campo Santo, with its chapel covered with the beautiful frescoes or canga and gozale, etc., was enjoyed. They proceeded to Lakehorn. Here, after a few days, at La Quilinera, they move into apartments. They meet and see much of Mary's mother's friend, Mrs. Gisborne, who grew much attached to both Shelley and Mary, and who, from her acquaintance with literary people, must have been a pleasant companion to them. They had letters of introduction to the Gisborne's from Godwin. While here, Mary made progress with Italian, reading Ariel Stowe with her husband. Lakehorn was not a sufficiently interesting place to detain the wandering Shelley long, in spite of the attractions of the Gisborne's. On June 11th Mary, with her two children in Clare, followed Shelley to Bagny to Lucca, where he had taken a house. Here Mary much enjoyed the quiet after noisy Lakehorn. As she wrote to Mrs. Gisborne, hoping to attract her to visit them, Mary was in her element in Shady Woods, within the sound of running waters. Her only annoyance was the number of English she came in contact with in her walks, where the English nursery made flourished, a kind of animal I by no means like, she wrote. Neither was she pleased by the dashing, staring English women, who surprised the Italians, who always are carried about in sedan-chairs, by riding on horseback. Mary and Clare used to visit the Casino with Shelley, and look on at the dancing in which they did not join in. Mary, however, did not agree with Shelley in admiring the Italian style of dancing, but those things on which they were ever of the same mind they had in plenty, for their beloved books arrived after being scrutinized by the Church authority, and while Shelley reveled in the delights of Greek literature, Mary shared those of English with him, for who can estimate the advantage of hearing Shakespeare and other poets read by Shelley? It was at the baths of Luca, also, that Mary found her husband's unfinished Rosalind and Helen, and prevailed on him to complete it, for as she says in her notes, Shelley had no care for any of his poems that did not emanate from the depths of his mind and develop some high or abstruse thought. Without doubt, Mary was the ideal wife for Shelley. At this stage in the career of the Shelley, one can but deplore that relentless destiny should only bring Mary to Shelley when a victim had already been sacrificed on the altar of fate, and the more one realizes the sympathetic and intellectual nature of Claire, the less possible is it to help wasting a regret that Byron could not have met with the philosopher's booksellers adopted daughter earlier, instead of ruining his nature and his life by the fashionable follies he tampered with. But who would alter the workings of destiny? Does not the finest, lacrama Christi grow on the once devastated slopes of Asuvius? Life too has its earthquakes and the eruptions of its hidden depths seen through the minds of its poets, though causing at times agony to those who come in contact with them, work surely for the good of the whole. Mary had the years of pleasure, which are inestimable to those who can appreciate them, of contact with a great mind. But few among poets' wives have had the gifts which allow them fully to participate in such pleasures. Well for Mary, but she also inherited much of her father's philosophic nature, which enabled her to endure some of the trials inherent in her position. What Shelley wrote, Mary would transcribe, no man tasker her, for did she not, through Shelley, enjoy Plato's symposium, a translation of which he was employed upon at Lucca? How could the fashionable idlers at the baths find time to drink in inspiration from the poet and his wife? The poet gives the depths of his nature, but it is not he who writes with the fever or the tear of emotion, who can stoop to be his own interpreter to the uninitiated, which seems to be a necessity of modern times with few exceptions. Mary's education, defective though it may have been in some details, made her a fitting companion for some of the greatest of her day, and this quality in a woman could scarcely exist without a refinement of manner and tastes which at times might be misleading as to her disposition. The spirit of wandering now came over clear, and by the middle of August her desire to see her child again could no longer be suppressed. Accordingly she sent out with Shelley on August 16th and reached Florence the next day, when Shelley wrote to Mary the impression the lovely city made on him, begging her at the same time not to let Little William forget him before his return, Little Clara could not remember. Claire thought at one time of remaining at Padua, but on reaching that city could not endure being left alone, and they reached Venice in the middle of the night, during a violent storm, which Shelley did not fail to write an account of to his wife. He also told her how the Hoppners, whom they called on, Mr. Hoppner being the British consul in Venice, advised them to act with regard to Byron. By their advice Shelley called alone on him, and Byron proposed to send Allegra to Padua for a week on a visit. He would not like her to remain longer, as the Venetians would think he had grown tired of her. He afterwards offered them his villa at Estee, thinking they were all at Padua. Shelley accepted his proposal and wrote requesting Mary to join him there with the children, not knowing whether he was acting for good or harm, but looking forward to be scolded if he had done wrong, or kissed if right, the event would prove. The event did prove, but it was out of their power to rule it. End of Part 1 of Chapter 9 Section 17 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. Mrs. Shelley by Lucy Maddox Brown-Rosetti. Chapter 9 Part 2. Life in Italy. Mary had invited the Gizborns to stay with her at the Baths. They arrived on August 25. But the circumstances seemed imperative for Mary to go to Estee, and she left on the 31st with a servant, Paolo, as a attendant. They were detained a day at Florence and did not reach Estee till poor little Clara was dangerously ill from dysentery, which reduced her to a state of fever and weakness. Mary endured the misery of an incompetent doctor at Estee. Neither had they confidence in the Paduan physician. Shelley proceeded to Venice to obtain further advice and prepare for the arrival of his wife and child, writing from there that he felt somewhat uneasy, but trusted there was no cause for real anxiety. This arrangement made, Mary set out with her baby and Clara to meet Shelley at Padua, and then proceeded to Venice, Clara returning to find William and Allegra at Estee. And now Mary had to endure that terrible tension of mind with her dying child in her arms, driving to Venice, the time remembered by her so well, went on the same route nearly a quarter of a century later, each turn in the road and the very trees seemed as the most familiar objects of her daily life, for had they not been impressed on her mental vision by the strength of despair, the Austrian soldiers at the frontier could not detain them, though without passports, for even they would not prevent a dying child from being conveyed on a forlorn hope. Such grief could scarcely be rendered more or less acute by circumstances. They arrived at their inn in a gondola, but only for Clara to die in her mother's arms within an hour. In this trial the Hopners proved most kind friends, taking Mary to their house and relieving the first hopelessness of grief by kindness, which it seemed in gratitude not to respond to. Mary, whatever she may have felt, knew that no expression of her feelings in her diary would nerve her to endure. She went about her daily occupations as usual, one idle day elapsed, after her little Clara had been buried on the Lido, we find her as usual reading, shopping, and seeing Byron, with whom she hoped to make better terms for Clara with regard to Allegra. There is a curious passage in a letter from Godwin to his daughter, illustrative of his own turn of mind and not without some general truth. We seldom indulge long in depression and mourning, except when we think secretly that there is something very refined in it and that it does us honour. On September 29th Shelly and Mary returned to Estee. Clara had taken the children to Padua, but returned the next day to the villa I Cappuccini. In the evening they went to the opera, their house was most beautifully situated. Here Shelly wrote his lines among the Eugenian hills. And no intense feeling could come to the poet without the necessity of expressing himself in poetry. And it was in this September month that Shelly wrote the first act of his Prometheus unbound. Mary revisited Venice with her husband, Little William and the nurse Elise, on October 12th. The impression then formed of Byron and his surroundings was so painful as to render it a matter of surprise that they could think of returning Allegra to him. But her extreme youth was her safeguard in this respect, and Shelly returned to Estee on September 24th to take Allegra a second time from her mother, who, with all her love for her darling as she always wrote of her in the effaced passages of her diary, could not get over the insufferable difficulties of her birth. On January 22 of this same year, Claire had entered in her diary the fact of its being Byron's, Alby's, birthday, a note carefully effaced soon after. Shelly and Mary, having decided to spend the winter further south, after a few days of preparation they left Estee on November 5th, and spent the night at Ferrara, where they visited the relics of Ariel's stow and tasso, and the dungeon where the ladder was incarcerated. Thence to Bologna, where they endured much fatigue in the picture galleries, poor Shelly being obliged to confess he did not pretend to taste. From Bologna, by Fienza and Ciesena, they followed the coast from Rimi to Fano, and passed an uncomfortable night at an inn in Fosso Broni among the Apennines. Mary was greatly impressed by the beauty and grandeur of Spoleto. The impressive falls at Turney are duly chronicled by her, and November 19 and 20 are spent in winding through the Apennines, and then crossing the solitude of the Roman Campania, and then Rome is reached. In Italy, where wonder succeeds wonder, and where no place is a mere repetition of another, Mary may well have been impressed by her first visit to the eternal city. Here, in November, she was able to sit and sketch in the Colosseum with her child and her husband, who found the wonderful ruin a source of inspiration. But Rome was now only a resting place on their road to still sunnier Naples. And on November 27, Shelly set out a day in advance of Mary and her child to secure rooms in Naples where Mary arrived on December 1. In the best part of the city facing the royal gardens in front of the marvellous bay, with Shelly for her guide, who himself made use of Madame de Stales, Corinne as a handbook, Livy for the Antiquities, and Winkleman for art. Mary could enjoy the sights of Naples as no ordinary sightseer would. December was devoted to expeditions, Bay Eye, Vesuvius and Pompeii. The day at Bay Eye was perhaps the most delightful, with the return by moonlight in the boat to Naples. Vesuvius, with its depended spectacle as of heaven and hell made visible, naturally produced a profound impression. But it was a very tiring expedition, as apparently it was only Claire who had a chaise-poteur for the ascent of the cone. Mary and Shelly rode on mules as far as they could go, and Claire was carried all the way in a chair, though this seemed scarcely possible, from Rosina. How Mary could walk through the cinders up the cone seems incomprehensible. She must have had great strength, as it is a trying task for a man, and no one to Shelly, in spite of his pedestrian strength, was exhausted when they arrived at the hermitage of San Salvador. The winter at Naples seems to have been a trying one to Mary, and spite of sunshine and the beauties of nature, for Shelly was in a state of depression, as is exemplified in the stances written in dejection near Naples. What the immediate cause of this was cannot be said as seems to be one of the mysteries, or perhaps rather the one mystery, of Shelly's life. He asserted to Medwin that a lady, young married and of noble connections, had become infatuated with him, and declared her love of him on the eve of his departure for the continent in 1816, that he had gently but firmly repulsed her, that she arrived in Naples on the day he did, and had soon afterwards died. It is suggested that a little girl who was left under his guardianship in Naples, and whom he spoke of as his poor Neapolitan, might possibly be the child of this lady. Others dealt the story all together, which is not to be wondered at, although nothing can be declared impossible in a life where truth is frequently so much stranger than romance. Mary was also troubled while at Naples by her servants, and an unusual subject with her. But Paolo, having gone far beyond the limits of cheating, was detected by Mary, and also obliged by her to marry Elise, whom he had betrayed. They left for Rome, but Paolo declared he would be revenged on the Shelly's, and wrote threatening letters, which a lawyer disposed of for a time. This is known to be the origin of later Columnies, which Mr. G. Averson has now carefully and finally refuted. Mary later, with the regret of love, that would be all sufficient, wished that at Naples she had entered more into the cause of the grief, which Shelly had kept from her, in order not to add to the melancholy she was then feeling with regard to her father. Before leaving Naples they succeeded in visiting the Greek ruins at Pastum, which gives still a fresh impression in Italy. And then on February 28, 1819, Mary takes leave of Naples, never to revisit it with any of her companions of that time. In Rome they found rooms in the Villa Parigi, but removed from them to the Palazzo, Varospi, on the Corso. And we soon find them busy exploring the treasures of Rome, the inexhaustible. Here they had not to take fatiguing journeys as in Naples to visit the chief points of interest, for they were to be founded every turn. Visits to St. Peter's and the Museum of the Vatican are mentioned. Walks with Shelly to the Forum, the Capital and the Colosseum, which is visited and revisited. Frequent visits are paid in the evening to the Signora Mariana di Anici. And with her they hear Mass in St. Peter's, where the poor old Pope Pius VII was nearly dying. The Palazzo Doria and its picture galleries are examined, where the landscapes of Claude Lorraine particularly strike them. Then to the Baths at Caracalla, where the romantic beauty of the ruins forms one of their chief attractions in Rome. They also take walks and drives in the Vorghese Gardens. The statue of Pompeii at the base of which Caesar fell is not passed over. But it would be impossible to tell of all they saw and enjoyed in Rome. Mary made more acquaintances in Rome, nor did the English altogether neglect a call on Shelly. Mary also recommenced lessons and drawing, while Clair had singing lessons, and they met some celebrities at the Signora di Anici's Conversazione. Altogether this early part of their stay in Rome was happy. But Shelly's health, always fluctuating, made them contemplate taking a house for the summer at Castile of Mary, as the doctor recommended this for him. But the days were hurrying towards a fresh calamity. For little William now fell ill, and we find the visits of a physician, Dr. Bell, chronicled in on June 2, three visits are noted. Clair helps to her utmost. Shelly does not close his eyes for sixty hours, and Mary, the hopes of whose life were bound up with the child, could only endure, watch the wasting of fever, and see the last of three perish. On Monday, June 7, at noon day, as Clair enters in her diary, Mary and Shelly were deprived of their gentle, blue-eyed darling, by a stronger hand than that of the court of chancellery. And the little William was buried where Shelly was soon to follow, in the cemetery which might make one in love with death.