by Mary Shelley
The coming of the sunlit ocean,
Till at its full, a fatal storm
Wrapt in grim shade the mighty form.
Then backward rolled the ebb of Time
While I with eager steps pursue,
And though the hour had lost its prime,
Still as the dim beach wider grew,
I passed along the utmost verge
Of the inconstant fleeting surge.
Back & more back the waters rolled
And, faster yet the waves receding,
Made now, alas! my hopes grow cold,
As I, the vacant prospect heeding,
Gaze on the bleak and desert strand,
As sad I pace the barren sand.
Fair Italy! Still shines thy sun as bright
Fair Italy! Still shines thy sun as bright
As when it shed love, hope, & joy on me!
But thy fair fields enfold the sacred clay.
The mortal part of the too early dead:
Beside his lowly bed I long to rest.
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
Absence
A Dirge
A Night Scene
When I’m no more, this harp that rings
To love in solitude and mystery
I must forget thy dark eyes’ love-fraught gaze
Ode to Ignorance.
Fame
Stanzas: How like a star you rose upon my life
Oh listen while I sing to thee
Stanzas: Oh, come to me in dreams, my love!
The Choice
On Reading Wordsworth’s Lines on Peele Castle
Tribute for thee dear solace of my life
Sadly borne across the waves
La Vida es sueno
Fair Italy! Still shines thy sun as bright
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
Absence
A Dirge
A Night Scene
Fair Italy! Still shines thy sun as bright
Fame
I must forget thy dark eyes’ love-fraught gaze
La Vida es sueno
Ode to Ignorance.
Oh listen while I sing to thee
On Reading Wordsworth’s Lines on Peele Castle
Sadly borne across the waves
Stanzas: How like a star you rose upon my life
Stanzas: Oh, come to me in dreams, my love!
The Choice
To love in solitude and mystery
Tribute for thee dear solace of my life
When I’m no more, this harp that rings
The Travel Writing
Shelley and her husband went to Switzerland in 1816, spending time with Byron at his rented Villa Diodati. Their Swiss sojourn took place during “the year without a summer” and poor weather forced them to spend a lot of time indoors reading and telling stories.
HISTORY OF A SIX WEEKS’ TOUR THROUGH A PART OF FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, GERMANY, AND HOLLAND
Prior to writing her most famous novel Shelley had a History of a Six Weeks’ Tour through part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, with Letters descriptive of a Sail round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni published by Thomas Hookham, Jr and Charles and James Ollier in 1817, which was based on her journal entries and letters she wrote to her half-sister Fanny. The travel book describes two trips that were taken by Shelley, her husband and Mary’s step-sister Claire Clairmont. One was a trip across Europe in 1814 and the other was travelling to Lake Geneva in 1816, where Shelley would also find the inspiration for Frankenstein. Percy Shelley provided the preface to the work and a poem ‘Mont Blanc’ along with about a fifth of the journal entries taken from a joint diary that he and Mary kept during their travels. The letters contained in the second section of the travel narrative are a mixture of Shelley’s correspondence with her half-sister and Percy’s own letters to friends. In 1840 a revised version was published which involved Shelley including notable biographical information of her husband and increasing Percy Shelley’s writings to this addition of the Six Weeks’ Tour.
The journal section of the travel narrative is divided into countries, France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland. The narrative begins with them entering a new town in France every day. The journal entries comment on the people they encounter and the environment surrounding them. During their travels in Switzerland they begin to run out of money and are forced to work their way back to England. The letters section describes Lake Geneva, the Alps, glaciers and Mont Blanc and also includes trips around areas of Switzerland related to the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Percy Shelley’s poem ‘Mont Blanc’ emphasises the common Romantic theme of imagination as a source of truth but one which is only available to the select and chosen few. The narrative focuses not on acquisition, but on developing ‘tastes’ and underlined a form of travel based on enthusiasm and spontaneity.
An important source of inspiration for the work was Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1786) a travel narrative which encompassed politics, aesthetics, environment and personal comment. This text helped provide a template for Shelley’s work and challenged the notion that female writers should not engage in the masculine domain of political commentary. The political stance in Six Weeks Tour is a liberal position and Shelley records the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars on towns and cities. The text reveals a belief in Rousseau’s principles and despite the horrors that forced him into exile Shelley believed in attempting to restore the democratic zeal that preceded the descent into the savagery of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era.
The original title page
Shelley, close to the time of publication
CONTENTS
Preface.
FRANCE
SWITZERLAND.
GERMANY.
HOLLAND.
LETTER I.
LETTER II. COLIGNY — GENEVA — PLAINPALAIS.
LETTER III. To T. P. Esq. MEILLERIE — CLAREN — CHILLON — VEVAI — LAUSANNE.
LETTER IV. To T. P. Esq. ST. MARTIN — SERVOZ — CHAMOUNI — MONTANVERT — MONT BLANC.
MONT BLANC. LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI
Mont Blanc and the Mer de Glace glacier were significant parts of the Shelleys’ 1816 journey. The author’s husband wrote a poem on the mountain to accompany the travelogue.
Preface.
Nothing can be more unpresuming than this little volume. It contains the account of some desultory visits by a party of young people to scenes which are now so familiar to our countrymen, that few facts relating to them can be expected to have escaped the many more experienced and exact observers, who have sent their journals to the press. In fact, they have done little else than arrange the few materials which an imperfect journal, and two or three letters to their friends in England afforded. They regret, since their little History is to be offered to the public, that these materials were not more copious and complete. This is a just topic of censure to those who are less inclined to be amused than to condemn. Those whose youth has been past as their’s (with what success it imports not) in pursuing, like the swallow, the inconstant summer of delight and beauty which invests this visible world, will perhaps find some entertainment in following the author, with her husband and sister, on foot, through part of France and Switzerland, and in sailing with her down the castled Rhine, through scenes beautiful in themselves, but which, since she visited them, a great Poet has clothed with the freshness of a diviner nature. They will be interested to hear of one who has visited Mellerie, and Clarens, and Chillon, and Vevai — classic ground, peopled with tender and glorious imaginations of the present and the past.
They have perhaps never talked with one who has beheld in the enthusiasm of youth the glaciers, and the lakes, and the forests, and the fountains of the mighty Alps. Such will perhaps forgive the imperfections of their narrative for the sympathy which the adventures and feelings which it recounts, and a curiosity respecting scenes already render
ed interesting and illustrious, may excite.
The Poem, entitled “Mont Blanc,” is written by the author of the two letters from Chamouni and Vevai. It was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untameable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang.
It is now nearly three years since this Journey took place, and the journal I then kept was not very copious; but I have so often talked over the incidents that befel us, and attempted to describe the scenery through which we passed, that I think few occurrences of any interest will be omitted.
We left London July 28th, 1814, on a hotter day than has been known in this climate for many years. I am not a good traveller, and this heat agreed very ill with me, till, on arriving at Dover, I was refreshed by a sea-bath. As we very much wished to cross the channel with all possible speed, we would not wait for the packet of the following day (it being then about four in the afternoon) but hiring a small boat, resolved to make the passage the same evening, the seamen promising us a voyage of two hours.
The evening was most beautiful; there was but little wind, and the sails flapped in the flagging breeze: the moon rose, and night came on, and with the night a slow, heavy swell, and a fresh breeze, which soon produced a sea so violent as to toss the boat very much. I was dreadfully seasick, and as is usually my custom when thus affected, I slept during the greater part of the night, awaking only from time to time to ask where we were, and to receive the dismal answer each time—”Not quite half way.”
The wind was violent and contrary; if we could not reach Calais, the sailors proposed making for Boulogne. They promised only two hours’ sail from shore, yet hour after hour passed, and we were still far distant, when the moon sunk in the red and stormy horizon, and the fast-flashing lightning became pale in the breaking day.
We were proceeding slowly against the wind, when suddenly a thunder squall struck the sail, and the waves rushed into the boat: even the sailors acknowledged that our situation was perilous; but they succeeded in reefing the sail; — the wind was now changed, and we drove before the gale directly to Calais. As we entered the harbour I awoke from a comfortless sleep, and saw the sun rise broad, red, and cloudless over the pier.
FRANCE
Exhausted with sickness and fatigue, I walked over the sands with my companions to the hotel. I heard for the first time the confused buzz of voices speaking a different language from that to which I had been accustomed; and saw a costume very unlike that worn on the opposite side of the channel; the women with high caps and short jackets; the men with earrings; ladies walking about with high bonnets or coiffures lodged on the top of the head, the hair dragged up underneath, without any stray curls to decorate the temples or cheeks. There is, however, something very pleasing in the manners and appearance of the people of Calais, that prepossesses you in their favour. A national reflection might occur, that when Edward III. took Calais, he turned out the old inhabitants, and peopled it almost entirely with our own countrymen; but unfortunately the manners are not English.
We remained during that day and the greater part of the next at Calais: we had been obliged to leave our boxes the night before at the English custom-house, and it was arranged that they should go by the packet of the following day, which, detained by contrary wind, did not arrive until night. S*** and I walked among the fortifications on the outside of the town; they consisted of fields where the hay was making. The aspect of the country was rural and pleasant.
On the 30th of July, about three in the afternoon, we left Calais, in a cabriolet drawn by three horses. To persons who had never before seen any thing but a spruce English chaise and post-boy, there was something irresistibly ludicrous in our equipage. A cabriolet is shaped somewhat like a post-chaise, except that it has only two wheels, and consequently there are no doors at the sides; the front is let down to admit the passengers. The three horses were placed abreast, the tallest in the middle, who was rendered more formidable by the addition of an unintelligible article of harness, resembling a pair of wooden wings fastened to his shoulders; the harnesses were of rope; and the postillion, a queer, upright little fellow with a long pigtail, craquéed his whip, and clattered on, while an old forlorn shepherd with a cocked hat gazed on us as we passed.
The roads are excellent, but the heat was intense, and I suffered greatly from it. We slept at Boulogne the first night, where there was an ugly but remarkably good-tempered femme de chambre. This made us for the first time remark the difference which exists between this class of persons in France and in England. In the latter country they are prudish, and if they become in the least degree familiar they are impudent. The lower orders in France have the easiness and politeness of the most well-bred English; they treat you unaffectedly as their equal, and consequently there is no scope for insolence.
We had ordered horses to be ready during the night, but we were too fatigued to make use of them. The man insisted on being paid for the whole post. Ah! Madame, said the femme-de-chambre, pensez-y; ç’est pour de dommager les pauvres chevaux d’avoir perdues leur douce sommeil. A joke from an English chamber-maid would have been quite another thing.
The first appearance that struck our English eyes was the want of enclosures; but the fields were flourishing with a plentiful harvest. We observed no vines on this side Paris.
The weather still continued very hot, and travelling produced a very bad effect upon my health; my companions were induced by this circumstance to hasten the journey as much as possible; and accordingly we did not rest the following night, and the next day, about two, arrived in Paris.
In this city there are no hotels where you can reside as long or as short a time as you please, and we were obliged to engage apartments at an hotel for a week. They were dear, and not very pleasant. As usual in France, the principal apartment was a bedchamber; there was another closet with a bed, and an anti-chamber, which we used as a sitting-room.
The heat of the weather was excessive, so that we were unable to walk except in the afternoon. On the first evening we walked to the gardens of the Thuilleries; they are formal and uninteresting, in the French fashion, the trees cut into shapes, and without any grass. I think the Boulevards infinitely more pleasant. This street nearly surrounds Paris, and is eight miles in extent; it is very wide, and planted on either side with trees. At one end is a superb cascade which refreshes the senses by its continual splashing: near this stands the gate of St. Denis, a beautiful piece of sculpture. I do not know how it may at present be disfigured by the Gothic barbarism of the conquerors of France, who were not contented with retaking the spoils of Napoleon, but with impotent malice, destroyed the monuments of their own defeat. When I saw this gate, it was in its splendour, and made you imagine that the days of Roman greatness were transported to Paris.
After remaining a week in Paris, we received a small remittance that set us free from a kind of imprisonment there which we found very irksome. But how should we proceed? After talking over and rejecting many plans, we fixed on one eccentric enough, but which, from its romance, was very pleasing to us. In England we could not have put it in execution without sustaining continual insult and impertinence: the French are far more tolerant of the vagaries of their neighbours. We resolved to walk through France; but as I was too weak for any considerable distance, and my sister could not be supposed to be able to walk as far as S*** each day, we determined to purchase an ass, to carry our portmanteau and one of us by turns.
Early, therefore, on Monday, August 8th, S*** and C*** went to the ass market, and purchased an ass, and the rest of the day, until four in the afternoon, was spent in preparations for our departure; during which, Madame L’Hôte paid us a visit, and attempted to dissuade us from our design. She represented to us that a large army had been recently disbanded, that the soldiers and officers wandered idle ab
out the country, and that les Dames seroient certainement enlevèes. But we were proof against her arguments, and packing up a few necessaries, leaving the rest to go by the diligence, we departed in a fiacre from the door of the hotel, our little ass following.
We dismissed the coach at the barrier. It was dusk, and the ass seemed totally unable to bear one of us, appearing to sink under the portmanteau, although it was small and light. We were, however, merry enough, and thought the leagues short. We arrived at Charenton about ten.
Charenton is prettily situated in a valley, through which the Seine flows, winding among banks variegated with trees. On looking at this scene, C*** exclaimed, “Oh! this is beautiful enough; let us live here.” This was her exclamation on every new scene, and as each surpassed the one before, she cried, “I am glad we did not stay at Charenton, but let us live here.”
Finding our ass useless, we sold it before we proceeded on our journey, and bought a mule, for ten Napoleons. About nine o’clock we departed. We were clad in black silk. I rode on the mule, which carried also our portmanteau; S*** and C*** followed, bringing a small basket of provisions. At about one we arrived at Gros Bois, where, under the shade of trees, we ate our bread and fruit, and drank our wine, thinking of Don Quixote and Sancho.
The country through which we passed was highly cultivated, but uninteresting; the horizon scarcely ever extended beyond the circumference of a few fields, bright and waving with the golden harvest. We met several travellers; but our mode, although novel, did not appear to excite any curiosity or remark. This night we slept at Guignes, in the same room and beds in which Napoleon and some of his Generals had rested during the late war. The little old woman of the place was highly gratified in having this little story to tell, and spoke in warm praise of the Empress Josephine and Marie Louise, who had at different times passed on that road.
