The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Volume I Part 5

_Monday, August 22._--Leave Soleure at half-past five; very cold indeed, but we now again see the magnificent mountains of Le Valais.

Mary is not well, and all are tired of wheeled machines. Sh.e.l.ley is in a jocosely horrible mood. We dine at Zoffingen, and sleep there two hours. In our drive after dinner we see the mountains of St. Gothard, etc. Change our plan of going over St. Gothard. Arrive tired to death; find at the room of the inn a horrible spinet and a case of stuffed birds. Sup at _table d'hote_.

_Tuesday, August 23._--We leave at four o'clock and arrive at Lucerne about ten. After breakfast we hire a boat to take us down the lake.

Sh.e.l.ley and Mary go out to buy several needful things, and then we embark. It is a most divine day; the farther we advance the more magnificent are the sh.o.r.es of the lake--rock and pine forests covering the feet of the immense mountains. We read part of L'Abbe Barruel's _Histoire du Jacobinisme_. We land at Bessen, go to the wrong inn, where a most comical scene ensues. We sleep at Brunnen. Before we sleep, however, we look out of window.

_Wednesday, August 24._--We consult on our situation. We cannot procure a house; we are in despair; the filth of the apartment is terrible to Mary; she cannot bear it all the winter. We propose to proceed to Fluelen, but the wind comes from Italy, and will not permit. At last we find a lodging in an ugly house they call the Chateau for one louis a month, which we take; it consists of two rooms. Mary and Sh.e.l.ley walk to the sh.o.r.e of the lake and read the description of the Siege of Jerusalem in Tacitus. We come home, look out of window and go to bed.

_Thursday, August 25._--We read Abbe Barruel. Sh.e.l.ley and Jane make purchases; we pack up our things and take possession of our house, which we have engaged for six months. Receive a visit from the _Medecin_ and the old Abbe, whom, it must be owned, we do not treat with proper politeness. We arrange our apartment, and write part of Sh.e.l.ley's romance.

_Friday, August 26._--Write the romance till three o'clock. Propose crossing Mount St. Gothard. Determine at last to return to England; only wait to set off till the washerwoman brings home our linen. The little Frenchman arrives with tubs and plums and scissors and salt.

The linen is not dry; we are compelled to wait until to-morrow. We engage a boat to take us to Lucerne at six the following morning.

_Sat.u.r.day, August 27._--We depart at seven; it rains violently till just the end of our voyage. We conjecture the astonishment of the good people at Brunnen. We arrive at Lucerne, dine, then write a part of the romance, and read _Shakespeare_. Interrupted by Jane's horrors; pack up. We have engaged a boat for Basle.

_Sunday, August 28._--Depart at six o'clock. The river is exceedingly beautiful; the waves break on the rocks, and the descents are steep and rapid. It rained the whole day. We stopped at Mettingen to dine, and there surveyed at our ease the horrid and slimy faces of our companions in voyage; our only wish was to absolutely annihilate such uncleanly animals, to which we might have addressed the boatman's speech to Pope: "'Twere easier for G.o.d to make entirely new men than attempt to purify such monsters as these." After a voyage in the rain, rendered disagreeable only by the presence of these loathsome "creepers," we arrive, Sh.e.l.ley much exhausted, at Dettingen, our resting-place for the night.

It never seems to have occurred to them before arriving in Switzerland that they had no money wherewith to carry out their further plans, that it was more difficult to obtain it abroad than at home, and that the remainder of their little store would hardly suffice to take them back to England. No sooner thought, however, than done. They gave themselves no rest after their long and arduous journey, but started straight back via the Rhine, arriving in Rotterdam on 8th September with only twenty ecus remaining, having been "horribly cheated." "Make arrangements, and talk of many things, past, present, and to come."

_Journal, Friday, September 9._--We have arranged with a captain to take us to England--three guineas a-piece; at three o'clock we sail, and in the evening arrive at Marsluys, where a bad wind obliges us to stay.

_Sat.u.r.day, September 10._--We remain at Marsluys, Mary begins _Hate_, and gives Sh.e.l.ley the greater pleasure. Sh.e.l.ley writes part of his romance. Sleep at Marsluys. Wind contrary.

_Sunday, September 11._--The wind becomes more favourable. We hear that we are to sail. Mary writes more of her _Hate_. We depart, cross the bar; the sea is horribly tempestuous, and Mary is nearly sick, nor is Sh.e.l.ley much better. There is an easterly gale in the night which almost kills us, whilst it carries us nearer our journey's end.

_Monday, September 12._--It is calm; we remain on deck nearly the whole day. Mary recovers from her sickness. We dispute with one man upon the slave trade.

The wanderers arrived at last at Gravesend, not only penniless, but unable even to pay their pa.s.sage money, or to discharge the hackney coach in which they drove about from place to place in search of a.s.sistance. At the time of Sh.e.l.ley's sudden flight, the deeds by which part of his income was transferred to Harriet were still in preparation only, and he had, without thinking of the consequences of his act, written from Switzerland to his bankers, directing them to honour her calls for money, as far as his account allowed of it. She must have availed herself so well of this permission that now he found he could only obtain the sum he wanted by applying for it to her.

The relations between Sh.e.l.ley and Harriet, must, at first, have seemed to Mary as incomprehensible as they still do to readers of the _Journal_.

Their interviews, necessarily very frequent in the next few months, were, on the whole, quite friendly. Sh.e.l.ley was kind and perfectly ingenuous and sincere; Harriet was sometimes "civil" and good tempered, sometimes cross and provoking. But on neither side was there any pretence of deep pain, of wounded pride or bitter constraint.

_Journal, Tuesday, September 13._--We arrive at Gravesend, and with great difficulty prevail on the captain to trust us. We go by boat to London; take a coach; call on Hookham. T. H. not at home. C. treats us very ill. Call at Voisey's. Henry goes to Harriet. Sh.e.l.ley calls on her, whilst poor Mary and Jane are left in the coach for two whole hours. Our debt is discharged. Sh.e.l.ley gets clothes for himself. Go to Strafford Hotel, dine, and go to bed.

_Wednesday, September 14._--Talk and read the newspaper. Sh.e.l.ley calls on Harriet, who is certainly a very odd creature; he writes several letters; calls on Hookham, and brings home Wordsworth's _Excursion_, of which we read a part, much disappointed. He is a slave. Sh.e.l.ley engages lodgings, to which we remove in the evening.

Sh.e.l.ley now lost no time in putting himself in communication with Skinner Street, and on the first day after they settled in their new lodgings he addressed a letter to G.o.dwin.

CHAPTER VII

SEPTEMBER 1814-MAY 1816

Whatever may have been G.o.dwin's degree of responsibility for the opinions which had enabled Sh.e.l.ley to elope in all good faith with his daughter, and which saved her from serious scruple in eloping with Sh.e.l.ley, it would be impossible not to sympathise with the father's feelings after the event.

People do not resent those misfortunes least which they have helped to bring on themselves, and no one ever derived less consolation from his own theories than did G.o.dwin from his, as soon as they were unpleasantly put into practice. He had done little to win his daughter's confidence, but he was keenly wounded by the proof she had given of its absence. His pride, as well as his affection, had suffered a serious blow through her departure and that of Jane. For a philosopher like him, accustomed to be looked up to and consulted on matters of education, such a failure in his own family was a public stigma. False and malicious reports got about, which had an additional and peculiar sting from their originating partly in his well-known impecuniosity. It was currently rumoured that he had sold the two girls to Sh.e.l.ley for 800 and 700 respectively. No wonder that G.o.dwin, accustomed to look down from a lofty alt.i.tude on such minor matters as money and indebtedness, felt now that he could not hold up his head. He shunned his old friends, and they, for the most part, felt this and avoided him. His home was embittered and spoilt. Mrs. G.o.dwin, incensed at Jane's conduct, vented her wrath in abuse and invective on Sh.e.l.ley and Mary.

No one has thought it worth while to record how poor f.a.n.n.y was affected by the first news of the family calamity. It must have reached her in Ireland, and her subsequent return home was dismal indeed. The loss of her only sister was a bitter grief to her; and, strong as was her disapproval of that sister's conduct, it must have given her a pang to feel that the culpable Jane had enjoyed Sh.e.l.ley's and Mary's confidence, while she who loved them with a really unselfish love, had been excluded from it. What could she now say or do to cheer G.o.dwin? How parry Mrs. G.o.dwin's inconsiderate and intemperate complaints and innuendos? No doubt f.a.n.n.y had often stood up for Mary with her stepmother, and now Mary herself had cut the ground from under her feet.

Charles Clairmont was at home again; ostensibly on the plea of helping in the publishing business, but as a fact idling about, on the lookout for some lucky opening. He cared no more than did Jane for the family (including his own mother) in Skinner Street: like every Clairmont, he was an adventurer, and promptly transferred his sympathies to any point which suited himself. To crown all, William, the youngest son, had become infected with the spirit of revolt, and had, as G.o.dwin expresses it, "eloped for two nights," giving his family no little anxiety.

The first and immediate result of Sh.e.l.ley's letter to G.o.dwin was _a visit to his windows_ by Mrs. G.o.dwin and f.a.n.n.y, who tried in this way to get a surrept.i.tious peep at the three truants. Sh.e.l.ley went out to them, but they would not speak to him. Late that evening, however, Charles Clairmont appeared. He was to be another thorn in the side of the interdicted yet indispensable Sh.e.l.ley. He did not mind having a foot in each camp, and had no scruples about coming as often and staying as long as he liked, or in retailing a large amount of gossip. They discussed William's escapade, and the various plans for the immuring of Jane, if she could be caught. This did not predispose Jane to listen to the overtures subsequently made to her from time to time by her relatives.

G.o.dwin replied to Sh.e.l.ley's letter, but declined all further communication with him except through a solicitor. Mrs. G.o.dwin's spirit of rancour was such that, several weeks later, she, on one occasion, forbade f.a.n.n.y to come down to dinner because she had received a lock of Mary's hair, probably conveyed to her by Charles Clairmont, who, in return, did not fail to inform Mary of the whole story. In spite, however, of this vehement show of animosity, Sh.e.l.ley was kept through one channel or another only too well informed of G.o.dwin's affairs. Indeed, he was never suffered to forget them for long at a time. No sign of impatience or resentment ever appears in his journal or letters. Not only was G.o.dwin the father of his beloved, but he was still, to Sh.e.l.ley, the fountain-head of wisdom, philosophy, and inspiration. Mary, too, was devoted to her father, and never wavered in her conviction that his inimical att.i.tude proceeded from no impulse of his own mind, but that he was upheld in it by the influence and interference of Mrs. G.o.dwin.

The journal of Sh.e.l.ley and Mary for the next few months is, in its extreme simplicity, a curious record of a most uncomfortable time; a medley of lodgings, lawyers, money-lenders, bailiffs, wild schemes, and literary pursuits. Penniless themselves, they were yet responsible for hundreds and thousands of pounds of other people's debts; there was Harriet running up bills at shops and hotels and sending her creditors on to Sh.e.l.ley; G.o.dwin perpetually threatened with bankruptcy, refusing to see the man who had robbed him of his daughter, yet with literally no other hope of support but his help; Jane Clairmont now, as for years to come, entirely dependent on them for everything; Sh.e.l.ley's friends quartering themselves on him all day and every day, often taking advantage of his love of society and intellectual friction, of Mary's youth and inexperience and compliant good-nature, to live at his expense, and, in one case at least, to obtain from him money which he really had not got, and could only borrow, at ruinous interest, on his expectations. He had frequently to be in hiding from bailiffs, change his lodgings, sleep at friends' houses or at different hotels, getting his letters when he could make a stealthy appointment to meet Mary, perhaps at St. Paul's, perhaps at some street corner or outside some coffee-house,--anywhere where he might escape observation. He was not always certain how far he could rely on those whom he had considered his friends, such as the brothers Hookham. Rightly or wrongly, he was led to imagine that Harriet, from motives of revenge, was bent on ruining G.o.dwin, and that for this purpose she would aid and abet in his own arrest, by persuading the Hookhams in such a case to refuse bail. The rumour of this conspiracy was conveyed to the Sh.e.l.leys in a note from f.a.n.n.y, who, for G.o.dwin's sake and theirs, broke through the stern embargo laid on all communication.

Yet through all these troubles and bewilderments there went on a perpetual under-current of reading and study, thought and discussion. The actual existence was there, and all these external accidents of circ.u.mstance, the realities in ordinary lives were, in these extraordinary lives, treated really as accidents, as pa.s.sing hindrances to serious purpose, and no more.

Nothing but Mary's true love for Sh.e.l.ley and perfect happiness with him could have tided her over this time. Youth, however, was a wonderful helper, added to the unusual intellectual vigour and vivacity which made it possible for her, as it would be to few girls of seventeen, to forget the daily worries of life in reading and study. Perhaps at no time was the even balance of her nature more clearly manifested than now, when, after living through a romance that will last in story as long as the name of Sh.e.l.ley, her existence revolutionised, her sensibilities preternaturally stimulated, having taken, as it were, a life's experiences by c.u.mulation in a few months; weak and depressed in health, too, she still had sufficient energy and self-control to apply herself to a solid course of intellectual training.

Jane's presence added to their unsettlement, although at times it may have afforded them some amus.e.m.e.nt. Wilful, fanciful, with a sense of humour and many good impulses, but with that decided dash of charlatanism which characterised the Clairmonts, and little true sensibility, she was a willing disciple for any wild flights of fancy, and a keen partic.i.p.ator in all impossible projects and harum-scarum makeshifts. Her presence stimulated and enlivened Sh.e.l.ley, her whims and fancies did not seriously affect, beyond amusing him, and she was an indefatigable companion for him in his walks and wanderings, now that Mary was becoming less and less able to go about. To Mary, however, she must often have been an incubus, a perpetual _third_, and one who, if sometimes useful, often gave a great deal of trouble too. She did not bring to Mary, as she did to Sh.e.l.ley, the charm of novelty; nor does the unfolding of one girl's character present to another girl whose character is also in process of development such attractive problems as it does to a young and speculative man. Mary was too n.o.ble by nature and too perfectly in accord with Sh.e.l.ley to indulge in actual jealousy of Jane's companionship with him; still, she must often have had a weary time when those two were scouring the town on their multifarious errands; misunderstandings, also, would occur, only to be removed by long and patient explanation. Jane (or "Clara," as about this time she elected to call herself, in preference to her own less romantic name) was hardly more than a child, and in some respects a very childish child. Excitable and nervous, she had no idea of putting constraint upon herself for others' sake, and gave her neighbours very little rest, as she preferred any amount of scenes to humdrum quiet. She and Sh.e.l.ley would sit up half the night, amusing themselves with wild speculations, natural and supernatural, till she would go off into hysterics or trances, or, when she had at last gone to bed, would walk in her sleep, see phantoms, and frighten them all with her terrors. In the end she was invariably brought to poor Mary, who, delicate in health, had gone early to rest, but had to bestir herself to bring Jane to reason, and to "console her with her all-powerful benevolence," as Sh.e.l.ley describes it.

Every page of the journal testifies to the extreme youth of the writers; likely and unlikely events are chronicled with equal simplicity. Where all is new, one thing is not more startling than another; and the commonplaces of everyday life may afford more occasion for surprise than the strangest anomalies. Specimens only of the diary can be given here, and they are best given without comment.

_Sunday, September 18._--Mary receives her first lesson in Greek. She reads the _Curse of Kehama_, while Sh.e.l.ley walks out with Peac.o.c.k, who dines. Sh.e.l.ley walks part of the way home with him. Curious account of Harriet. We talk, study a little Greek, and go to bed.

_Tuesday, September 20._--Sh.e.l.ley writes to Hookham and Tavernier; goes with Hookham to Ballachy's. Mary reads _Political Justice_ all the morning. Study Greek. In the evening Sh.e.l.ley reads _Thalaba_ aloud.

_Monday, September 26._--Sh.e.l.ley goes with Peac.o.c.k to Ballachy's, and engages lodgings at Pancras. Visit from Mrs. Pringer. Read _Political Justice_ and the _Empire of the Nairs_.

_Tuesday, September 21._--Read _Political Justice_; finish the _Nairs_; pack up and go to our lodgings in Somers Town.

_Friday, September 30._--After breakfast walk to Hampstead Heath.

Discuss the possibility of converting and liberating two heiresses; arrange a plan on the subject.... Peac.o.c.k calls; talk with him concerning the heiresses and Marian, arrange his marriage.

_Sunday, October 2._--Peac.o.c.k comes after breakfast; walk over Primrose Hill; sail little boats; return a little before four; talk.

Read _Political Justice_ in the evening; talk.

_Monday, October 3._--Read _Political Justice_. Hookham calls. Walk with Peac.o.c.k to the Lake of Nangis and set off little fire-boats.

After dinner talk and let off fireworks. Talk of the west of Ireland plan.

_Wednesday, October 5._--Peac.o.c.k at breakfast. Walk to the Lake of Nangis and sail fire-boats. Read _Political Justice_. Sh.e.l.ley reads the _Ancient Mariner_ aloud. Letter from Harriet, very civil. 400 for 2400.

_Friday, October 7_ (Sh.e.l.ley).--Read _Political Justice_. Peac.o.c.k calls. Jane, for some reason, refuses to walk. We traverse the fields towards Hampstead. Under an expansive oak lies a dead calf; the cow, lean from grief, is watching it. (Contemplate subject for poem.) The sunset is beautiful. Return at 9. Peac.o.c.k departs. Mary goes to bed at half-past 8; Sh.e.l.ley sits up with Jane. Talk of oppression and reform, of cutting squares of skin from the soldiers' backs. Jane states her conception of the subterranean community of women. Talk of Hogg, Harriet, Miss. .h.i.tchener, etc. At 1 o'clock Sh.e.l.ley observes that it is the witching time of night; he inquires soon after if it is not horrible to feel the silence of night tingling in our ears; in half an hour the question is repeated in a different form; at 2 they retire awestruck and hardly daring to breathe. Sh.e.l.ley says to Jane, "Good-night;" his hand is leaning on the table; he is conscious of an expression in his countenance which he cannot repress. Jane hesitates.

"Good-night" again. She still hesitates.

"Did you ever read the tragedy of _Orra_?" said Sh.e.l.ley.

"Yes. How horribly you look!--take your eyes off."

"Good-night" again, and Jane runs to her room. Sh.e.l.ley, unable to sleep, kissed Mary, and prepared to sit beside her and read till morning, when rapid footsteps descended the stairs. Jane was there; her countenance was distorted most unnaturally by horrible dismay--it beamed with a whiteness that seemed almost like light; her lips and cheeks were of one deadly hue; the skin of her face and forehead was drawn into innumerable wrinkles--the lineaments of terror that could not be contained; her hair came prominent and erect; her eyes were wide and staring, drawn almost from the sockets by the convulsion of the muscles; the eyelids were forced in, and the eyeb.a.l.l.s, without any relief, seemed as if they had been newly inserted, in ghastly sport, in the sockets of a lifeless head. This frightful spectacle endured but for a few moments--it was displaced by terror and confusion, violent indeed, and full of dismay, but human. She asked me if I had touched her pillow (her tone was that of dreadful alarm). I said, "No, no! if you will come into the room I will tell you." I informed her of Mary's pregnancy; this seemed to check her violence. She told me that a pillow placed upon her bed had been removed, in the moment that she turned her eyes away to a chair at some distance, and evidently by no human power. She was positive as to the facts of her self-possession and calmness. Her manner convinced me that she was not deceived. We continued to sit by the fire, at intervals engaging in awful conversation relative to the nature of these mysteries. I read part of _Alexy_; I repeated one of my own poems. Our conversation, though intentionally directed to other topics, irresistibly recurred to these. Our candles burned low; we feared they would not last until daylight. Just as the dawn was struggling with moonlight, Jane remarked in me that unutterable expression which had affected her with so much horror before; she described it as expressing a mixture of deep sadness and conscious power over her. I covered my face with my hands, and spoke to her in the most studied gentleness. It was ineffectual; her horror and agony increased even to the most dreadful convulsions. She shrieked and writhed on the floor. I ran to Mary; I communicated in few words the state of Jane. I brought her to Mary.

The convulsions gradually ceased, and she slept. At daybreak we examined her apartment and found her pillow on the chair.

_Sat.u.r.day, October 8_ (Mary).--Read _Political Justice_. We walked out; when we return Sh.e.l.ley talks with Jane, and I read _Wrongs of Women_. In the evening we talk and read.

_Tuesday, October 11._--Read _Political Justice_. Sh.e.l.ley goes to the Westminster Insurance Office. Study Greek. Peac.o.c.k dines. Receive a refusal about the money....