by Mary Shelley
The Reform Bill will pass, and a considerable revolution in the government of the country will, I imagine, be the consequence.
You have talents of a high order. You have powers; these, with industry and discretion, would advance you in any career. You ought not, indeed you ought not to throw away yourself as you do. Still, I would not advise your return on the speculation, because England is so sad a place that the mere absence from it I consider a peculiar blessing.
My name will never be Trelawny. I am not so young as I was when you first knew me, but I am as proud. I must have the entire affection, devotion, and, above all, the solicitous protection of any one who would win me. You belong to womenkind in general, and Mary Shelley will never be yours.
I write in haste, but I will write soon again, more at length. You shall have your copies the moment I receive them. Believe me, with all gratitude and affection, yours,
M. W. Shelley.
Jane thanks you for the book promised. I am infinitely chagrined at what you tell me concerning Clare. If the B.’s spoke against her, that means Mrs. B. and her stories were gathered from Lord Byron, who feared Clare and did not spare her; and the stories he told were such as to excuse the prejudice of any one.
The Same to the Same.
Somerset Street, 2d October 1831.
My dear Trelawny — I suppose that I have now some certain intelligence to send you, though I fear that it will both disappoint and annoy you. I am indeed ashamed that I have not been able to keep these people in better order, but I trusted to honesty, when I ought to have ensured it; however, thus it stands: your book is to be published in the course of the month, and then your bills are to be dated. As soon as I get them I will dispose of them as you direct, and you will receive notice on the subject without delay. I cannot procure for you a copy until then; they pretend that it is not all printed. If I can get an opportunity I will send you one by private hand, at any rate I shall send them by sea without delay. I will write to Smith about negotiating your bills, and I have no doubt that I shall be able somehow or other to get you money on them. I will go myself to the City to pay Barr’s correspondent as soon as I get the cash. Thus your pretty dear (how fascinating is flattery) will do her best, as soon as these tiresome people fulfil their engagements. In some degree they have the right on their side, as the day of publication is a usual time from which to date the bills, and that was the time which I acceded to; but they talked of such hurry and speed that I expected that that day was nearer at hand than it now appears to be. November is the publishing month, and no new things are coming out now. In fact, the Reform Bill swallows up every other thought. You have heard of the Lords’ majority against it, much longer than was expected, because it was not imagined that so many bishops would vote against Government....
Do whenever you write send me news of Clare. She never writes herself, and we are all excessively anxious about her. I hope she is better. God knows when fate will do anything for us. I despair. Percy is well, I fancy that he will go to Harrow in the spring; it is not yet finally arranged, but this is what I wish, and therefore I suppose it will be, as they have promised to increase my allowance for him, and leave me pretty nearly free, only with Eton prohibited; but Harrow is now in high reputation under a new head-master. I am delighted to hear that Zella is in such good hands, it is so necessary in this world of woe that children should learn betimes to yield to necessity; a girl allowed to run wild makes an unhappy woman.
Hunt has set up a penny daily paper, literary and theatrical; it is succeeding very well, but his health is wretched, and when you consider that his sons, now young men, do not contribute a penny towards their own support, you may guess that the burthen on him is very heavy. I see them very seldom, for they live a good way off, and when I go he is out, she busy, and I am entertained by the children, who do not edify me. Jane has just moved into a house about half a mile further from town, on the same road; they have furnished it themselves. Dina improves, or rather she always was, and continues to be, a very nice child.
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The Adventures did not reach a second edition in their original form; the first edition failed, indeed, to repay its expenses; but they were afterwards republished in Colburn’s Family Library. The second part of Trelawny’s Autobiography took the chatty and discursive form, so popular at the present day, of “Reminiscences.” It is universally known as Recollections of Shelley, Byron, and the Author.
So long as Shelley and Byron survive as objects of interest in this world, so long must this fascinating book share their existence. As originally published, it has not a dull page. Life-like as if written at the moment it all happened, it yet has the pictorial sense of proportion which can rarely exist till a writer stands at such a distance (of time) from the scenes he describes that he can estimate them, not only as they are, but in their relation to surrounding objects. It would seem as if, for the conversations at least, Trelawny must sometimes have drawn on his imagination as well as his memory; if so, it can only be replied that, by his success, he has triumphantly vindicated his artistic right to do so. Terse, original, and characteristic, each speech paints its speaker in colours which we know and feel to be true. Nothing seems set down for effect; it is spontaneous, unstudied, everyday reality. And if the history of Trelawny’s own exploits in Greece somewhat recall the “tarasconnades” of his early adventures, it at least puts a thrilling finish to a book it was hard to conclude without falling into bathos. As a writer on Shelley, Trelawny surely stands alone. Many authors have praised Shelley, others have condemned and decried him, others again have tried to pity and “excuse” him. No one has apprehended as happily as Trelawny the peculiar timbre, if it may be so described, of his nature, or has brought out so vividly, and with so few happy touches, his moral and social characteristics. Saint or sinner, the Shelley of Trelawny is no lay figure, no statue even, no hero of romance; it is Shelley, the man, the boy, the poet. Trelawny assures us that Hogg’s picture of Shelley as a youth is absolutely faithful. But Hogg’s picture only shows us Shelley in his “salad days,” and even that we are never allowed to contemplate without the companion-portrait of the biographer, smiling with cynical amusement while he yields his tribute of heartfelt, but patronising praise.
The conclusions to which Hogg had come by observation Trelawny arrived at by intuition. Fiery and imaginative, his nature was by far the more sympathetic of the two; though it may be that, in virtue of very unlikeness, Hogg would have proved, in the long run, the fitter companion for Shelley.
Between Trelawny and Mary there existed the same kind of adjustable difference. His descriptions of her have been largely drawn upon in earlier chapters of the present work, and need not be reverted to here. She had been seven years dead when the Recollections were published. Twenty years later, when Mary Shelley had been twenty-seven years in her grave, there appeared a second edition of the book. In those twenty years, what change had come over the spirit of its pages? An undefinable difference, like that which comes over the face of Nature when the wind changes from west to east, — and yet not so undefinable either, for it had power to reverse some very definite facts. Byron’s feet, for instance, which — as the result of an investigation after death — were described, in 1858, as having, both, been “clubbed and withered to the knee,” “the feet and legs of a sylvan satyr,” are, in 1878, pronounced to have been faultless, but for the contraction of the back sinews (the “Tendon Achilles”), which prevented his heels from resting on the ground. “Unfortunately,” to quote Mr. Garnett’s comment on this discrepancy, in his article on Shelley’s Last Days, “as in the natural world the same agencies that are elevating one portion of the earth’s surface are at the same time depressing another, so, in the microcosm of Mr. Trelawny’s memory and judgment, the embellishment of Lord Byron’s feet has been accompanied by a corresponding deterioration of Mrs. Shelley’s heart and head.”
Yes; the Mary Shelley with whom, in early days, even Trelawny coul
d find no fault, save perhaps for a tendency to mournfulness in solitude and an occasional fit of literary abstraction when she might have been looking after the commissariat — who in later years was his trusty friend, his sole correspondent, his literary editor, his man of business — and withal his “pretty dear” “every day dearer” to him, “Mary — my Mary” — superior surely to the rest of her sex, with whom at one time it seems plain enough that he would have been nothing loth to enter into an alliance, offensive and defensive, for life, would she but have preferred the name of Trelawny to that of Shelley, — this Mary whose voice had been silent for seven and twenty years, and to whom he himself had raised a monument of praise, rises from her tomb as conventional and commonplace, unsympathetic and jealous, narrow, orthodox, and worldly.
Yet she had borne with his exactions and scoldings and humours for friendship’s sake, and with full faith in the loyalty and generosity of his heart. A pure and delicate-minded woman, she had not been scandalised by his lawless morals. She had had the courage to withstand him when he was wrong, working for him the while like a devoted slave. Never was a more true and disinterested friendship than hers for him; and he, who knew her better than most people did, was well aware of it.
Where then was the change? Alas! It was in himself. In this revolving world, where “Time that gave doth now his gift confound,” and where “nought may endure but mutability,” the “flourish set on youth” is soon transfixed.
Greek fevers and gunshot wounds told on the “Pirate’s” disposition as well as on his constitution. The habits of mind he had cultivated and been proud of, — combativeness, opposition to all authority as such — finally became his masters; he could not even acquiesce in his own experience. Age and the ravages of Time were to blame for his morbid censoriousness; Time — that “feeds on the rarities of Nature’s truth.” These later recollections are but the distorted images of a blurred mirror. But, none the less, the tale is a sad one. We can but echo Trelawny’s own words to Mary—”Can such things be, and overcome us like a summer cloud, without our especial wonder?”
CHAPTER XXIII
October 1831-October 1839
Trelawny’s book was only one among many things which claimed Mrs. Shelley’s attention during these three years.
In 1830 Godwin published his Thoughts on Man. The relative positions of father and daughter had come to be reversed, and Mary now negotiated with the publishers for the sale of his work, as he had formerly done for her. Godwin himself set a high value, even for him, on this book, and anticipated for it a future and an influence which were not to be realised.
Godwin to Mary.
15th April 1830.
Dear Mary — If you do me the favour to see Murray, I know not how far you can utter the following things; or if you do, how far they will have any weight with his highness; yet I cannot but wish you should have them in your mind.
The book I offer is a collection of ten new and interesting truths, illustrated in no unpopular style. They are the fruit of thirty years’ meditation (it being so long since I wrote the Enquirer), in the full maturity of my understanding.
The book, therefore, will be very far from being merely one book more added to the number of books already existing in English literature. It must, as I conceive, when published make a deep impression, and cause the thinking part of the public to perceive — There are here laid before us ten interesting truths never before delivered.
Whether it is published during my life or after my death it is a light that cannot be extinguished—”the precious life-blood of a discerning spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.”
In the following amusing letter Clare gives Mary a few commissions. She was to interest her literary acquaintance in Paris in the publication and success of a French poem by a friend of Clare’s at Moscow, the greatest wish of whose heart was to appear in print. She was also to find a means of preventing the French translatress of Moore’s Life of Byron from introducing Clare’s name into her elucidatory footnotes. This was indeed all-important to Clare, as any revival of scandal about her might have robbed her of the means of subsistence, but it was also an extremely difficult and delicate task for Mary. But no one ever hesitated to make her of use. Her friends estimated her power by her goodwill, and her goodwill by their own need of her services; and they were generally right, for the will never failed, and the way was generally found.
Clare to Mrs. Shelley.
Nice, 11th December 1830.
My dear Mary — Your last letter, although so melancholy, gave me much pleasure, merely, therefore, because it came from you.
I intended to have written to all and each of you, but until now have not been able to put my resolution into execution. It must seem to you that I am strangely neglectful of my friends, or perhaps you think since I am so near Trelawny that I have been taking a lesson from him in the art of cultivating one’s friendships; but neither of these is the case, my silence is quite on another principle than this.
I am not desperately in love, nor just risen from my bed at four in the afternoon in order to write my millionth love letter, nor am I indifferent to those whom time and the malice of fortune have yet spared to me, but simply I have been too busy.
Since I have been at Nice I have had to change lodgings four times; besides this, we were a long time without a maid, and received and paid innumerable visits. My whole day was spent in shifting my character. In the morning I arose a waiting-maid, and, having attended to the toilette of Natalie, sank into a house-maid, a laundry-maid, and, after noon, I fear me, a cook, having to look to the cleaning of the rooms, the getting up of linen, and the preparation of various pottages fit for the patient near me. At mid-day I turned into a governess, gave my lessons, and at four or five became a fine lady for the rest of the day, and paid visits or received them, for at Nice it is the custom, so soon as a stranger arrives, that everybody comme il faut in the place comes to call upon you; nor can you shut your doors against them even if you were dying, for as Nice is the resort of the sick, and as everybody either is sick or has been sick, nursing has become the common business.
So we went on day after day. We had dejeuners dansants, soirées dansantes (dîners dansants are considered as de trop by order of the physicians), bals parés, théatres, opéras, grands dîners, petits soupers, concerts, visites de matin, promenades à âne, parties de campagne, réunions littéraires, grands cercles, promenades en bateau, coteries choisies, thunder-storms from the sea, and political storms from France; in short, if we had only had an earthquake, or the shock of one, we should have run through the whole series of modifications of which human existence is susceptible. Voilà Paris, Voilà Paris, as the song says.
You may perhaps expect that the novelty of society should have suggested to me remarks and observations as multifarious as the forms under which I observed it. Sorry I am to say that either from its poverty, or from my own poverty of intellect, I have not gathered from it anything beyond the following couple of conclusions, that people of the world, disguise themselves as they may, possess but two qualities, a great want of understanding, and a vast pretension to sentiment. From this duplexity arises the duplicity with which they are so often charged, and no wonder, for with hearts so heavy, and heads so light, how is it possible to keep anything like a straightforward course? In alleviation of this, I must confess that wherever I went I carried about with me my own identity (that unhappy identity which has cost me so dear, and of which, with all my pains, I have never been able to lose a particle), and contemplated the people I judge through the medium of its rusty atoms.
I must speak to you of an affair that interests me deeply. M. Gambs has informed me that he has sent to Paris a poem of his in manuscript called Möise. He gave it to the Prince Nicolas Scherbatoff at Moscow, just upon his setting out for Paris; this is many months ago. Whether the Prince gave any promise to endeavour to get it published I do not know; but if he did, he is such a very indolent a
nd selfish man that his efforts would never get the thing done. M. Gambs has written to me to ask if you have any literary friends in Paris who would be kind enough to interest themselves about it. The address of the Prince is as follows: Son Excellence Le Prince Nicolas Scherbatoff, Rue St. Lazare, No. 17, à Paris. Can you not get some one to call upon him to ask about the manuscript, and to propose it to some bookseller?
This some one may enter into a direct correspondence with M. Gambs by addressing him Chez M. Lenhold, Marchand de Musique, à Moscow. I should be highly delighted if you could settle things in this way, as I know my friend has nothing more at heart than to appear in print, and that I should be glad to be the means of communicating some pleasure to an existence which I know is almost utterly without it, and of showing my gratitude for the kindness and goodness he has showered upon me; nor, as far as my poor judgment goes, is the work unworthy of inspiring interest, and of being saved from oblivion. It pleased me much when it was read to me; but then it is true I was in a desert, and there a drop of water will often seem to us more precious than the finest jewel.
Another subject connected with Paris also presses itself on my mind. In Moore’s Life of Lord Byron only the most distant allusion was made to Lady Caroline Lamb; yet, in the French translation, its performer, Madame Sophie Bellay (or some such name) had the indelicacy to unveil the mystery in a note, and to expose it in distinct and staring characters to the public. This piece of impudence was harmless to Lady Caroline, since her independence of others was assured beyond a doubt; but to any one whose bread depends upon the public a printed exposure of their conduct will infallibly bring on destitution, and reduce them to the necessity of weighing upon their relations for support.
I know the subject is a disagreeable one, and that you do not like disagreeable subjects. I know nothing of business or whether there exists any means of averting this blow; perhaps a representation to the translator of the evils that would follow would be sufficient; but as I have no means of trying this, I am reduced to suggest the subject to your attention, with the firm hope that you will find some method of warding off the threatened mischief.
