by Mary Shelley
The darkest moment is that which precedes the dawn. These unhappy years were like the series of “clearing showers” which often concludes a stormy day. The clouds were lifting, and though Mary Shelley could never be other than what sorrow and endurance had made her, the remaining years of her life were to bring alleviations to her lot, — slanting rays of afternoon sunshine, powerless, indeed, to warm into life the tender buds of morning, but which illumined the landscape and lightened her path, and shed over her a mild radiance which she reflected back on others, affording to them the brightness she herself could know no more, and diffusing around her that sensation of peace which she was to know now, perhaps, for the first time.
CHAPTER XXIV
October 1839-February 1851
Mrs. Shelley’s annotated edition of Shelley’s works was completed by the appearance, in 1840, of the collected prose writings; along with which was republished the Journal of a Six Weeks’ Tour (a joint composition) and her own two letters from Geneva, reprinted in the present work.
Mary’s correspondence with Carlyle on the subject of a motto for her book was the occasion of the following note —
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea,
3d December 1839.
Dear Mrs. Shelley — There does some indistinct remembrance of a sentence like the one you mention hover in my head; but I cannot anywhere lay hand on it. Indeed, I rather think it was to this effect: “Treat men as what they should be, and you help to make them so.” Further, is it not rather one of Wilhelm’s kind speeches than of the Uncle’s or the Fair Saint’s? James Fraser shall this day send you a copy of the work; you, with your own clear eyes, shall look for yourself.
I have no horse now; the mud forced me to send it into the country till dry weather came again. Layton House is so much the farther off. Tant pis pour moi. — Yours always truly,
T. Carlyle.
The words ultimately prefixed to the collection are the following, from Carlyle —
That thou, O my Brother, impart to me truly how it stands with thee in that inner heart of thine; what lively images of things past thy memory has painted there; what hopes, what thoughts, affections, knowledge, do now dwell there. For this and no other object that I can see was the gift of hearing and speech bestowed on us two.
The proceeds of this work were such as to set her for some time at comparative ease on the score of money; the Godwin quicksand was no longer there to engulf them.
Journal, June 1, 1840 (Brighton). — I must mark this evening, tired as I am, for it is one among few — soothing and balmy. Long oppressed by care, disappointment, and ill health, which all combined to depress and irritate me, I felt almost to have lost the spring of happy reverie. On such a night it returns — the calm sea, the soft breeze, the silver bow new bent in the western heaven — Nature in her sweetest mood, raised one’s thoughts to God and imparted peace.
Indeed I have many, many blessings, and ought to be grateful, as I am, though the poison lurks among them; for it is my strange fate that all my friends are sufferers — ill health or adversity bears heavily on them, and I can do little good, and lately ill health and extreme depression have even marred the little I could do. If I could restore health, administer balm to the wounded heart, and banish care from those I love, I were in myself happy, while I am loved, and Percy continues the blessing that he is. Still, who on such a night must not feel the weight of sorrow lessened? For myself, I repose in gentle and grateful reverie, and hope for others. I am content for myself. Years have — how much! — cooled the ardent and swift spirit that at such hours bore me freely along. Yet, though I no longer soar, I repose. Though I no longer deem all things attainable, I enjoy what is; and while I feel that whatever I have lost of youth and hope, I have acquired the enduring affection of a noble heart, and Percy shows such excellent dispositions that I feel that I am much the gainer in life.
Fate does indeed visit some too heavily — poor R. for instance, God restore him! God and good angels guard us! surely this world, stored outwardly with shapes and influences of beauty and good, is peopled in its intellectual life by myriads of loving spirits that mould our thoughts to good, influence beneficially the course of events, and minister to the destiny of man. Whether the beloved dead make a portion of this company I dare not guess, but that such exist I feel — far off, when we are worldly, evil, selfish; drawing near and imparting joy and sympathy when we rise to noble thoughts and disinterested action. Such surely gather round one on such an evening, and make part of that atmosphere of love, so hushed, so soft, on which the soul reposes and is blest.
These serene lines were written by Mrs. Shelley within a few days of leaving England on the first of those tours described by her in the series of letters published as Rambles in Germany and Italy. It had been arranged that her son and two college friends, both of whom, like him, were studying for their degree, should go abroad for the Long Vacation, and that Mrs. Shelley should form one of the reading party. Paris was to be the general rendezvous. Mrs. Shelley, who was staying at Brighton, intended travelling viâ Dieppe, but her health was so far from strong that she shrank from the long crossing, and started from Dover instead. She was now accompanied by a lady’s-maid, a circumstance which relieved her from some of the fatigue incidental to a journey. They travelled by diligence; a new experience to her, as, in her former wanderings with Shelley, they had had their own carriage (save indeed on the first tour of all, when they set off to walk through France with a donkey); and in more recent years she had travelled, in England, by the newly-introduced railroads —
“To which, whatever their faults may be, I feel eternally grateful,” she says; adding afterwards, “a pleasant day it will be when there is one from Calais to Paris.”
So recent a time, and yet how remote it seems! Mary had never been a good traveller, but she found now, to her surprise and satisfaction, that in spite of her nervous suffering she was better able than formerly to stand the fatigue of a journey. She had painful sensations, but
the fatigue I endured seemed to take away weariness instead of occasioning it. I felt light of limb and in good spirits. On the shores of France I shook the dust of accumulated cares from off me: I forgot disappointment and banished sorrow: weariness of body replaced beneficially weariness of soul — so much heavier, so much harder to bear.
Change, in short, did her more good than travelling did her harm.
“I feel a good deal of the gipsy coming upon me,” she wrote a few days later, “now that I am leaving Paris. I bid adieu to all acquaintances, and set out to wander in new lands, surrounded by companions fresh to the world, unacquainted with its sorrows, and who enjoy with zest every passing amusement. I myself, apt to be too serious, but easily awakened to sympathy, forget the past and the future, and am ready to be amused by all I see as much or even more than they.”
From Paris they journeyed to Metz and Trèves, down the Moselle and the Rhine, by Schaffhausen and Zurich, over the Splugen Pass to Cadenabbia on the Lake of Como. Here they established themselves for two months. Mrs. Shelley occupied herself in the study of Italian literature, while the young men were busy with their Cambridge work. Her son’s friends were devoted to her, and no wonder. Indeed, her amiability and sweetness, her enjoyment of travelling, her wide culture and great store of knowledge, her acuteness of observation, and the keen interest she took in all she saw, must have made her a most fascinating companion. On leaving Como they visited Milan, and, on their way home, passing through Genoa, Mary looked again on the Villa Diodati, and the little Maison Chapuis nestling below, where she had begun to write Frankenstein. All unaltered; but in her, what a change! Shelley, Byron, the blue-eyed William, where were they? Where was Fanny, whose long letters had kept them informed of English affairs? Mary herself, and Clare, were they the same people as the two girls, one fair, one dark, who had excited so much idle and impertinent speculation in the tourists from whose curiosity Byron had fled?
But where are the snows of yester-year?
In autumn Mrs. Shelley and her son returned to England; but the next year they again went abroad, and this time for a longer sojourn.
They were now better off than they had ever been, for, after Percy had attained his majority and taken his degree, his grandfather made him an allowance of £400 a year; a free gift, not subject to the condition of repayment. This welcome relief from care came not a day too soon. Mrs. Shelley’s strength was much shaken, her attacks of nervous illness were more frequent, and, had she had to resume her life of unvaried toil, the results might have been serious.
It is probably to this event that Mrs. Norton refers in the following note of congratulation —
Mrs. Norton to Mrs. Shelley.
Dear Mrs. Shelley — I cannot tell you how sincerely glad I was to get a note so cheerful, and cheerful on such good grounds as your last. I hope it is the dawn, that your day of struggling is over, and nothing to come but gradually increasing comfort. With tolerable prudence, and abroad, I should hope Percy would find his allowance quite sufficient, and I think it will be a relief that may lift your mind and do your health good to see him properly provided for.
I am too ill to leave the sofa or I should (by rights) be at Lord Palmerston’s this evening, but, when I see any one likely to support the very modest request made to Lord P., I will speak about it to them; I have little doubt that, since they are not asked for a paid attachéship, you will succeed.
... In three weeks I am to set up the magnificence of a “one ‘orse chay” myself, and then Fulham and the various streets of London where friends and foes live will become attainable; at present I have never stirred over the threshold since I came up from Brighton. — Ever yours very truly,
Car. Norton.
They began their second tour by a residence at Kissingen, where Mrs. Shelley had been advised to take the waters for her health. The “Cur” over (by which she benefited a good deal), they proceeded to Gotha, Weimar, Leipzig, Berlin, and Dresden — all perfectly new ground to Mary. Dresden and its treasures of art were a delight to her, only marred by the overwhelming heat of the summer.
Through Saxon Switzerland they travelled to Prague, and Mary was roused to enthusiasm by the intense romantic interest of the Bohemian capital, as she was afterwards by the magnificent scenery of the approach to Linz (of which she gives in her letters a vivid description), and of Salzburg and the Salzkammergut.
Through the Tyrol, over the Brenner Pass, by the Lake of Garda, they came to Verona, and finally to Venice — another place fraught to Mary with associations unspeakable.
Many a scene which I have since visited and admired has faded in my mind, as a painting in a diorama melts away, and another struggles into the changing canvass; but this road was as distinct in my mind as if traversed yesterday. I will not here dwell on the sad circumstances that clouded my first visit to Venice. Death hovered over the scene. Gathered into myself, with my “mind’s eye” I saw those before me long departed, and I was agitated again by emotions, by passions — and those the deepest a woman’s heart can harbour — a dread to see her child even at that instant expire, which then occupied me. It is a strange, but, to any person who has suffered, a familiar circumstance, that those who are enduring mental or corporeal agony are strangely alive to immediate external objects, and their imagination even exercises its wild power over them.... I have experienced it; and the particular shape of a room, the progress of shadows on a wall, the peculiar flickering of trees, the exact succession of objects on a journey, have been indelibly engraved in my memory, as marked in and associated with hours and minutes when the nerves were strung to their utmost tension by endurance of pain, or the far severer infliction of mental anguish. Thus the banks of the Brenta presented to me a moving scene; not a palace, not a tree of which I did not recognise, as marked and recorded, at a moment when life and death hung upon our speedy arrival at Venice.
And at Fusina, as then, I now beheld the domes and towers of the Queen of Ocean arise from the waves with a majesty unrivalled upon earth.
They spent the winter at Florence, and by April were in Rome. This indeed was the Holy Land of Mary Shelley’s pilgrimage. There was the spot where William lay; there the tomb which held the heart of Shelley. Mary may well have felt as if standing by her own graveside. Was not her heart of hearts buried with them? And there, too, was the empty grave where now Trelawny lies; the touching witness to that undying devotion of his to Shelley’s memory which Mary never forgot.
None of this is touched upon — it could not be — in the published letters. The Eternal City itself filled her with such emotions and interests as not even she had ever felt before. It is curious to compare some of these with her earlier letters from abroad, and to notice how, while her power of observation was undiminished, the intellectual faculties of thought and comparison had developed and widened, while her interest was as keen as in her younger days, nay keener, for her attention now, poor thing, was comparatively undivided.
Scenery, art, historical associations, the political and social state of the countries she visited, and the characteristics of the people, nothing was lost on her, and on all she saw she brought to bear the ripened faculties of a reflective and most appreciative mind. Some of her remarks on Italian politics are almost prophetic in their clear-sighted sagacity. That after all she had suffered she should have retained such keen powers of enjoyment as she did may well excite wonder. Perhaps this enjoyment culminated at Sorrento, where she and her son positively revelled in the luxuriant beauty and witchery of a perfect southern summer.
Her impressions of these two tours were published in the form of letters, and entitled Rambles in Germany and Italy, and were dedicated to Samuel Rogers in 1844.
He thus acknowledged the copy of the work she sent him —
St. James’s Place,
30th July 1844.
What can I say to you in return for the honour you have done me — an honour so undeserved! If some feelings make us eloquent, it is not so with others, and I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart, and assure you how highly I shall value and how carefully I shall preserve the two precious volumes on every account — for your sake and for their own. — Ever yours most sincerely,
S. Rogers.
In the spring of 1844 it became evident that Sir Timothy Shelley’s life was drawing to a close. In anticipation of what was soon to happen, Mary, always mindful of her promise to Leigh Hunt, wrote to him as follows —
Putney, 20th April 1844.
My dear Hunt — The tidings from Field Place seem to say that ere long there will be a change; if nothing untoward happens to us till then, it will be for the better. Twenty years ago, in memory of what Shelley’s intentions were, I said that you should be considered one of the legatees to the amount of £2000. I need scarcely mention that when Shelley talked of leaving you this sum he contemplated reducing other legacies, and that one among them is (by a mistake of the solicitor) just double what he intended it to be.
Twenty years have, of course, much changed my position. Twenty years ago it was supposed that Sir Timothy would not live five years. Meanwhile a large debt has accumulated, for I must pay back all on which Percy and I have subsisted, as well as what I borrowed for Percy’s going to college. In fact, I scarcely know how our affairs will be. Moreover, Percy shares now my right; that promise was made without his concurrence, and he must concur to render it of avail. Nor do I like to ask him to do so till our affairs are so settled that we know what we shall have — whether Shelley’s uncle may not go to law; in short, till we see our way before us.
It is both my and Percy’s great wish to feel that you are no longer so burdened by care and necessity; in that he is as desirous as I can be; but the form and the degree in which we can do this must at first be uncertain. From the time of Sir Timothy’s death I shall give directions to my banker to honour your quarterly cheques for £30 a quarter; and I shall take steps to secure this to you, and to Marianne if she should surviv
e you.
Percy has read this letter, and approves. I know your real delicacy about money matters, and that you will at once be ready to enter into my views; and feel assured that if any present debt should press, if we have any command of money, we will take care to free you from it.
With love to Marianne, affectionately yours,
Mary Shelley.
Sir Timothy died in this year, and Mary’s son succeeded to the baronetcy and estates. The fortune he inherited was much encumbered, as, besides paying Shelley’s numerous legacies and the portions of several members of the family, he had also to refund, with interest, all the money advanced to his mother for their maintenance for the last twenty-one years, amounting now to a large sum, which he met by means of a mortgage effected on the estates. But all was done at last. Clare was freed from the necessity for toil and servitude; she was, indeed, well off, as she inherited altogether £12,000. Hers is the legacy to which Mrs. Shelley alludes as being, by a mistake, double what had been intended. When Shelley made his will, he bequeathed to her £6000. Not long before the end of his life he added a codicil, to the effect that these £6000 should be invested for her benefit, intending in this way (it is supposed) to secure to her the interest of this sum, and to protect her against recklessness on her own part or needy rapacity on the part of others. Through the omission in the lawyer’s draft of the word “these” this codicil was construed into a second bequest of £6000, which she received. The Hunts, by Shelley’s bounty and the generosity of his wife and son, were made comparatively easy in their circumstances. Byron had declined to be numbered among Shelley’s legatees; not so Mr. Hogg, whose letter on the occasion is too characteristic to omit.
Hogg to Mrs. Shelley.
Dear Mary — I have just had an interview with Mr. Gregson. He spoke of your affairs cheerfully, and thinks that, with prudence and economy, you and your baronet-boy will do well; and such, I trust and earnestly hope, will be the result of this long turmoil of worldly perplexity.
