Mrs. Shelley by Lucy M. Rossetti

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However, the fact remains that Shelley was a most extraordinary being,
an embryo poet, with all a poet's possible inconsistencies, the very
brilliancy of the intellectual spark in one direction apparently
quelling it for a time in another. In most countries and ages a poet
seems to have been accepted as a heaven-sent gift to his nation; his
very crimes (and surely Shelley did not surpass King David in
misdoing?) have been the _lacrymae rerum_ giving terrible vitality
to his thoughts, and so reclaiming many others ere some fatal deed is
done; but in England the convention of at least making a show of
virtues which do not exist (perhaps a sorry legacy from Puritanism)
will not allow the poet to be accepted for what he really is, nor his
poetry to appeal, on its own showing, to the human heart. He must be
analysed, and vilified, or whitewashed in turn.

At any rate Shelley was superior to some of the respectable vices of
his class, and one alleged concession of his father was fortunately
loathsome to him, viz.--that he (Sir Timothy) would provide for as
many illegitimate children as Percy chose to have, but he would not
tolerate a _mesalliance_. To what a revolt of ideas must such a
code of morality have led in a fermenting brain like Shelley's! Were
the mothers to be provided for likewise, and to be considered more by
Shelley's respectable family than his lawful wife? We fear not.

A visit to Wales followed, during which Shelley's mind was in so
abstracted a state that the fine scenery, viewed for the first time,
had little power to move him, while Harriet Westbrook, with her sister
and father, was only thirty miles off at Aberystwith; a hasty and
unexplained retreat of this party to London likewise hastened the
return of Shelley. Probably the father began to perceive that Shelley
did not come forward as he had expected, and so he wished to remove
Harriet from his vicinity. Letters from Harriet to Shelley followed,
full of misery and dejection, complaining of her father's decision to
send her back to school, where she was avoided by the other girls, and
called "an abandoned wretch" for sympathising or corresponding with
Shelley; she even contemplated suicide. It is curious how this idea
seems to have constantly recurred to her, as in the case of some
others who have finally committed the act.

Shelley wrote, expostulating with the father. This probably only
incensed him more. He persisted. Harriet again addressed Shelley in
despair, saying she would put herself under his protection and fly
with him; a difficult position for any young man, and for Shelley most
perplexing, with his avowed hostility to marriage, and his recent
assertions that he was not in love with Harriet. But it must be put to
Shelley's credit that, having intentionally or otherwise led Harriet
on to love him, he now acted as a gentleman to his sister's school
friend, and, influenced to some extent by Hogg's arguments in a
different case in favour of marriage, he at once determined to make
her his wife. He wrote to his cousin, Charles Grove, announcing his
intention and impending arrival in London, saying that as his own
happiness was altogether blighted, he could now only live to make that
of others, and would consequently marry Harriet Westbrook.

On his arrival in London, Shelley found Harriet looking ill and much
changed. He spent some time in town, during which Harriet's spirits
revived; but Shelley, as he described in a letter to Hogg, felt much
embarrassment and melancholy. Not contemplating an immediate marriage,
he went into Sussex to pay a visit to Field Place and to his uncle at
Cuckfield. While here he renewed the acquaintance of Miss Kitchener, a
school mistress of advanced ideas, who had the care of Captain
Pilfold's children. To this acquaintance we owe a great number of
letters which throw much light on Shelley's _exalte_ character at
this period, and which afford most amusing reading. As usual with
Shelley, he threw much of his own personality into his ideas of Miss
Hitchener, who was to be his "eternal inalienable friend," and to help
to form his lovely wife's character on the model of her own. All these
particulars are given in letters from Shelley to his friends, Charles
Grove, Hogg, and Miss Hitchener; to the latter he is very explanatory
and apologetic, but only after the event.

Shelley had scarcely been a week away from London when he received a
letter from Harriet, complaining of fresh persecution and recalling
him. He at once returned, as he had undertaken to do if required, and
then resolved that the only thing was for him to marry at once. He
accordingly went straight to his cousin Charles Grove, and with
twenty-five pounds borrowed from his relative Mr. Medwin, a solicitor
at Horsham, he entered on one of the most momentous days of his
life--the 24th or 25th August 1811. After passing the night with his
cousin, he waited at the door of the coffee-house in Mount Street,
watching for a girlish figure to turn the corner from Chapel Street.
There was some delay; but what was to be could not be averted, and
soon Harriet, fresh as a rosebud, appeared. The coach was called, and
the two cousins and the girl of sixteen drove to an inn in the city to
await the Edinburgh mail. This took the two a stage farther on the
fatal road, and on August 28 their Scotch marriage is recorded in
Edinburgh. The marriage arrangements were of the quaintest, Shelley
having to explain his position and want of funds to the landlord of
some handsome rooms which he found. Fortunately the landlord undertook
to supply what was needed, and they felt at ease in the expectation of
Shelley's allowance of money coming; but this never came, as Shelley's
father again resented his behaviour, and took that easy means of
showing as much.

Shelley's wife had had the most contradictory education possible for a
young girl of an ordinary and unimaginative nature--the conventional
surface education of a school of that time followed by the talks with
Shelley, which were doubtless far beyond her comprehension. What could
be the outcome of such a marriage? Had Shelley, indeed, been a
different character, all might have gone smoothly, married as he was
to a beautiful girl who loved him; but at present all Shelley's ideas
were unpractical. Without the moral treadmill of work to sober his
opinions, whence was the ballast to come when disappointment ensued--
disappointment which he constantly prepared for himself by his
over-enthusiastic idea of his friends? Troubles soon followed the
marriage, in the nonarrival of the money; and after five weeks in
Edinburgh, where Hogg had joined the Shelleys, followed by a little
over a week in York, the need became so pressing that Shelley felt
obliged to take a hurried journey to his uncle's at Cuckfield, in
order to try and mollify his father; in this he did not succeed.
Though absent little over a week, he prepared the way by his absence,
and by leaving Harriet under the care of Hogg, for a series of
complications and misunderstandings which never ended till death had
absolved all concerned. Harriet's sister, Eliza, was to have returned
to York with Shelley; but hearing of her sister's solitary state with
Hogg in the vicinity, she hurried alone to York, and from this time
she assumed an ascendency over the small _menage_ which, though
probably useful in trifles, had undoubtedly a bad effect in the long
run. Eliza, rightly from her point of view, thought it necessary to
stand between Hogg and her sister. It seems far more likely that
Hogg's gentlemanly instincts would have led him to treat his friend's
wife with respect than that he should have really given cause for the
grave suspicions which Shelley writes of in subsequent letters to Miss
Hitchener. Might not Eliza be inclined to take an exaggerated view of
any attention shown by Hogg to her sister, and have persuaded Harriet
to the same effect? Harriet having seen nothing of the world as yet,
and Eliza's experience before her father's retirement from his tavern
not having been that in which ladies and gentlemen stand on a footing
of equality. It is true that Shelley writes of an interview with Hogg
before leaving York, in which he describes Hogg as much confused and
distressed; but perhaps allowance ought to be made for the fanciful
turn of Shelley's own mind. However this may have been, they left York
for Keswick, where they delighted in the glorious scenery. At this
time we see in letters to Miss Hitchener how Shelley felt the
necessity of intellectual sympathy, and how he seemed to consider this
friend in some way necessary for the accomplishment of various
speculative and social ideas. Here at Chestnut Cottage novels were
commenced and much work planned, left unfinished, or lost. While at
Keswick he made the acquaintance of Southey and wrote his first letter
to William Godwin, whose works had already had a great influence on
him, and whose personal acquaintance he now sought. The often quoted
letter by which Shelley introduced himself to Godwin was followed by
others, and led up to the subsequent intimacy which had such important
results.

Shelley with his wife and sister-in-law paid a visit to the Duke of
Norfolk at Greystoke; this led to a quasi reconciliation with
Shelley's father, owing to which the allowance of two hundred a year
was renewed, Harriet's father making her a similar allowance, it is
presumed, owing to feeling flattered by his daughter's reception by
the Duchess. Shortly afterwards some restless turn in the trio caused
a further move to be contemplated, and now Shelley entered on what
must have appeared one of the strangest of his fancies--a visit to
Ireland to effect Catholic Emancipation and to procure the repeal of
the Union Act. Hogg pretends to believe that Shelley did not even
understand the meaning of the phrases, and most probably many English
would not have cared to do so. In any case Shelley's enthusiasm for an
oppressed people must be admired, and it is noticeable that our
greatest statesman of the present day has come to agree with Shelley
after eighty years of life and of conflicting endeavour.

The plan adopted by Shelley caused infinite amusement to Harriet, who
entered with animation into the fun of distributing her husband's
pamphlets on Irish affairs, and could not well understand his
seriousness on the subject. The pamphlets and the speeches which he
delivered were not likely to conciliate the different Irish parties.
The Catholics were not to be attracted by an Atheist or Antichristian,
however tolerant he might be of them, and of all religions which tend
to good. Lord Fingal and his adherents were not inclined to follow the
Ardent Republican and teacher of Humanitarianism; nor were the extreme
party likely to be satisfied with appeals, however eloquent, for the
pursuit and practice of virtue before any political changes were to be
expected. Shelley's exposition of the failure of the French Revolution
by the fact that although it had been ushered in by people of great
intellect, the moral side of intellect had been wanting, was not what
Irish Nationalists then wished to consider. In fact, Shelley had not
much pondered the character of the people he went to help and reform,
if he thought a week of these arguments could have much effect.
Shelley was much sought after by the poor Irish, during another month
of his stay in Dublin, on account of his generosity. Here, also, they
met Mrs. Nugent. Harriet's correspondence with her has recently been
published. With the views which she expresses, those of the present
writer coincide in not casting all the blame of the future separation
on Shelley; Harriet naturally feels Mary most at fault, and does not
perceive her own mistakes. Failing in his aim, and being disheartened
by the distress on all sides which he could not relieve, and more
especially owing to the strong remonstrance of Godwin, who considered
that if there were any result it could only be bloodshed, the poet
migrated to Nantgwilt in Wales. Here the Shelleys contemplated
receiving Godwin and his family, Miss Hitchener with her American
pupils; and why not Miss Hitchener's father, reported to have been an
old smuggler? Here Shelley first met Thomas Love Peacock. They were
unable to remain at Nantgwilt owing to various mishaps, and migrated
to that terrestrial paradise in North Devon, Lynmouth. This lovely
place, with its beautiful and romantic surroundings loved and
exquisitely described by more than one poet, cannot fail to be dear to
those who know it with and through them. Here, in a garden in front of
their rose and myrtle covered cottage, within near sound of the
rushing Lynn, would Shelley stand on a mound and let off his
fire-balloons in the cool evening air. Here Miss Hitchener joined
them. What talks and what rambles they must have had, none but those
who have known a poet in such a place could imagine; but perhaps
Shelley, though a poet, was not sufficient for the three ladies in a
neighbourhood where the narrow winding paths may have caused one or
other to appear neglected and left behind. Poor Shelley, recalled from
heaven to earth by such-like vicissitudes, naturally held by his wife;
and forthwith disagreements began which ended in Miss Hitchener's
being called henceforth the "Brown Demon." What a fall from the ideal
reformer of the world!--another of Shelley's self-made idols
shattered.

The Shelleys wished Fanny Godwin to join their party at Lynmouth; but
this Godwin would not permit without more knowledge of his friends,
although Shelley wrote affecting letters to the sage, trusting that he
might be the stay of his declining years. Amid the romantic scenery
of Lynmouth, Shelley wrote much of his _Queen Mab_; he also
addressed a sonnet, and a longer poem, to Harriet, in August. These
poems certainly evince no falling off in affection, although they are
not like the glowing love-poems of a later period.

From Lynmouth Shelley, with his party, moved to Swansea, and thence to
Tremadoc, where they agreed to take a house named Tanyrallt, and then
they moved on to London to meet Godwin, who, in the meanwhile, had
paid a visit to Lynmouth just after their flitting. Here Shelley had
the delight of seeing the philosopher face to face, and now visits
were exchanged, and walks and dinners followed, and, among other
friends of Godwin, Shelley met Clara de Boinville and Mrs. Turner, who
is said to have inspired his first great lyric, "Away the moor is dark
beneath the moon," but whose husband strongly objected to Shelley
visiting their house.

On this occasion Fanny Godwin was the most seen; Mary Godwin, who was
just fifteen, only arriving towards the end of Shelley's stay in
London from a visit to her friends, the Baxters, in Scotland. No
mention is made of her by Shelley, though she must have dined in his
company about November 5, 1812. During this visit to London Shelley
became reconciled with Hogg, calling on him and begging him to come to
see him and his wife. This certainly does not look as if Shelley still
thought seriously of his former difference with Hogg--scarcely a year
before. Shortly after, on the 8th, we find the poor "Brown Demon"
leaving the Shelleys, with the promise of an annuity of one hundred
pounds. She reopened a school later on at Edmonton, and was much loved
by her pupils. Shelley now returned to Tremadoc, where he passed the
winter in his house at Tanyrallt, helping the poor through this severe
season of 1812-13. Here one of Shelley's first practical attempts for
humanity was assisting to reclaim some land from the sea; but
Shelley's early effort, unlike the last one of Goethe's _Faust_,
did not satisfy him, and shortly afterwards another real or fancied
attempt on his life, on February 26th, 1813, obliged the party to
leave the neighbourhood, this time again for Ireland. He spent a short
time on the Lake of Killarney, with his wife and Eliza. In April we
again find him in London, in an hotel in Albemarle Street; thence he
passed to Half Moon Street, where in June their first child, Ianthe,
was born. The baby was a great pleasure to Shelley, who, however,
objected to the wet nurse. He wrote a touching sonnet to his wife and
child three months later. All this time there is no apparent change of
affection suggested. Soon afterwards, while at Bracknell, near
Windsor, they kept up the acquaintance of the De Boinville family, and
Shelley began the study of Italian with them while Harriet
relinquished hers of Latin. From Bracknell Shelley paid his last visit
to Field Place to see his mother, in the absence of his father and the
younger children. An interview with his father followed, and a journey
to Edinburgh, and then in December a return to London; certainly an
ominous restlessness, caused, no doubt, considerably by want of money,
but moving about did not seem the way to save or to make it. Shelley
visited Godwin several times during his stay in London. At this time
Shelley had to raise ruinous post-obits on the family property, and
for legal reasons he now thought it desirable to follow the Scotch
marriage by one in the English church, and he and Harriet were
re-married on March 22, 1814, at St. George's Church.

But even now little rifts seem to have been growing, small enough
apparently, and yet, like the small cloud in the sky, indicating the
coming storm. This very time of trials, through want of money, seems
to have been chosen by Harriet to show a hankering after luxuries
which their present income could not warrant. A carriage was
purchased, and was with its accompanying expenses added to the small
_menage_; silver plate was also considered a necessity; and,
perhaps the thing most distasteful to Shelley's natural tastes, the
wet nurse was retained, although Harriet had always appeared to be a
strong young woman capable of undertaking her maternal duty. This fact
was considered by Peacock to have chiefly alienated Shelley's
affection.

Apart from this, poor Harriet, with the birth of her child, seems to
have given up her studies, which she had evidently pursued to please
Shelley, and to have awakened to the fact that it was a difficult task
to take up the whole cause of suffering humanity and aid it with their
slender purse, and keep their wandering household going. It is
difficult to imagine the genius that could have sufficed, and it
certainly needed genius, or something very like it, to keep the
Faust-like mind of Shelley in any peace.

There is a letter from Fanny Godwin to Shelley, after his first visit,
speaking of his wife as a fine lady. From this accusation Shelley
strongly defended her, but now he felt that this disaster might really
be impending. Poor pretty Harriet could not understand or talk
philosophy with Shelley, and, what was worse, her sister was ever
present to prevent any spontaneous feeling of dependence on her
husband from endearing her to him. Even before his second ceremony of
marriage with Harriet we find him writing a letter in great dejection
to Hogg. He seemed really in the poet's "premature old age," as he
expressed it, though none like the poet have the power of
rejuvenescence. His detestation of his sister-in-law at this time was
extreme, but he appears to have been incapable of sending her away. It
was a perfect torture to him to see her kiss his baby. He writes thus
from Mrs. de Boinville's at Bracknell, where he had a month's rest
with philosophy and sweet converse. Talking was easier than acting
philosophy at this juncture, and planning the amelioration of the
world pleasanter than struggling to keep one poor soul from sinking to
degradation; but who shall judge the strength of another's power, or
feel the burden of another's woe? We can only tell how the expression
of his agony may help ourselves; but surely it is worthy of admiration
to find Shelley, four days after writing this most heart-broken letter
to Hogg, binding his chains still firmer by remarrying, so that, come
what would, no slur should be cast on Harriet.

Harriet, who had never understood anything of housekeeping, and whose
_menage_, according to Hogg, was of the funniest, now that the
novelty of Shelley's talk and ways was over, and when even the
constant changes were beginning to satiate her, apparently spent a
time of intolerable _ennui_. It is still remembered in the
Pilfold family how Harriet appeared at their house late one night in a
ball dress, without shawl or bonnet, having quarrelled with Shelley. A
doctor who had to perform some operation on her child was struck with
astonishment at her demeanour, and considered her utterly without
feeling, and Shelley's poem, "Lines, April 1814," written, according
to Claire Clairmont's testimony, when Mr. Turner objected to his
visiting his wife at Bracknell, gives a touching picture of the
comfortless home which he was returning to; in fact, they seem to have
no sooner been together again than Harriet made a fresh departure.
There is one imploring poem by Shelley, addressed to Harriet in May
1814, begging her to relent and pity, if she cannot love, and not to
let him endure "The misery of a fatal cure"; but Harriet had not
generosity, if it was needed, and, according to Thornton Hunt, she
left Shelley and went to Bath, where she still was in July. What
Harriet really aimed at by this foolish move is doubtful; it was
certainly taken at the most fatal moment. To leave Shelley alone, near
dear friends, when she had been repelling his advances to regain her
affection, and making his home a place for him to dread to come into,
was anything but wise; but wisdom was not Harriet's _forte_; she
needed a husband to be wise for her. Shelley, however, had most gifts,
except such wisdom at this time.

Beyond these facts, there seems little but surmises to judge by. It
may always be a question how much Shelley really knew, or believed, of
certain ideas of infidelity on his wife's part in connection with a
Major Ryan--ideas which, even if believed, would not have justified
his subsequent mode of action.

But here, for a time, we must leave poor Harriet--all her loveliness
thrown away upon Shelley--all Shelley's divine gifts worthless to her.
What a strange disunion to pass through life with! Only the sternest
philosophy or callousness could have achieved it--and Shelley was
still so young, with his philosophy all in theory.

CHAPTER IV.

MARY AND SHELLEY.

We left Godwin about to write in answer to the letter referred to from
Shelley. The correspondence which followed, though very interesting in
itself, is only important here as it led to the increasing intimacy of
the families. These letters are full of sound advice from an elderly
philosopher to an over-enthusiastic youth; and one dated March 14,
1812, begging Shelley to leave Ireland and come to London, ends with
the pregnant phrase, "You cannot imagine how much all the females of
my family, Mrs. Godwin and _three_ daughters, are interested in
your letters and your history." So here, at fourteen, we find Mary
deeply interested in all concerning Shelley; poor Mary, who used to
wander forth, when in London, from the Skinner Street Juvenile Library
northwards to the old St. Pancras Cemetery, to sit with a book beside
her mother's grave to find that sympathy so sadly lacking in her home.

About this time Godwin wrote a letter concerning Mary's education to
some correspondent anxious to be informed on the subject. We cannot do
better than quote from it:--

Your inquiries relate principally to the two daughters of Mary
Wollstonecraft. They are neither of them brought up with an exclusive
attention to the system and ideas of their mother. I lost her in 1797,
and in 1801 I married a second time. One among the motives which led
me to choose this was the feeling I had in myself of an incompetence
for the education of daughters. The present Mrs. Godwin has great
strength and activity of mind, but is not exclusively a follower of
the notions of their mother; and, indeed, having formed a family
establishment without having a previous provision for the support of a
family, neither Mrs. Godwin nor I have leisure enough for reducing
novel theories of education to practice; while we both of us honestly
endeavour, as far as our opportunities will permit, to improve the
mind and characters of the younger branches of our family.

Of the two persons to whom your inquiries relate, my own daughter is
considerably superior in capacity to the one her mother had before.
Fanny, the eldest, is of a quiet, modest, unshowy disposition,
somewhat given to indolence, which is her greatest fault, but sober,
observing, peculiarly clear and distinct in the faculty of memory, and
disposed to exercise her own thoughts and follow her own judgment.
Mary, my daughter, is the reverse of her in many particulars. She is
singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of
knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes
almost invincible. My own daughter is, I believe, very pretty. Fanny
is by no means handsome, but, in general, prepossessing.

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