The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Volume Ii Part 28

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 a.s.sociations, 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.[21] 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 ent.i.tled _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 a.s.sure 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 Sh.e.l.ley's life was drawing to a close. In antic.i.p.ation 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 Sh.e.l.ley'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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 acc.u.mulated, 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 Sh.e.l.ley'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 survive 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 a.s.sured 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 Sh.e.l.lEY.

Sir Timothy died in this year, and Mary's son succeeded to the baronetcy and estates. The fortune he inherited was much enc.u.mbered, as, besides paying Sh.e.l.ley'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. Sh.e.l.ley alludes as being, by a mistake, double what had been intended. When Sh.e.l.ley 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 Sh.e.l.ley's bounty and the generosity of his wife and son, were made comparatively easy in their circ.u.mstances. Byron had declined to be numbered among Sh.e.l.ley's legatees; not so Mr. Hogg, whose letter on the occasion is too characteristic to omit.

HOGG TO MRS. Sh.e.l.lEY.

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.

Mr. Gregson paid me the n.o.ble tribute of the most generous and kind and munificent affection of our incomparable friend. He not only paid the legacy, but very obligingly offered me some interest; for which offer, and for such prompt payment, I return my best thanks to yourself and to Percy.

I was glad to hear from Mr. Gregson, for the honour of poesy, that Lord Byron had declined to receive his legacy. How much I wish that my scanty fortunes would justify the like refusal on my part!

I daresay you wish that you were a good deal richer--that this had happened and not that--and that a great deal, which was quite impossible, had been done, and so on! I should be sorry to believe that you were quite contented; such a state of mind, so preposterous and unnatural, especially in any person whose circ.u.mstances were affluent, would surely portend some great calamity.

I hope that I may venture to look forward to the time when the Baronet will inhabit Field Place in a style not unworthy of his name. My desire grows daily in the strength to keep up _families_, for it is only from these that Sh.e.l.leys and Byrons proceed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS JEFFERSON HOGG,

AS HE SAT PLAYING AT CHESS AT BOs...o...b...

FROM A SKETCH BY R. EASTON.

_To face Page 305 (Vol. ii.)_]

If low people sometimes effect a little in some particular line, they always show that they are poor, creeping creatures in the main and in general.

However this may be, and whatever you or yours may take of Sh.e.l.ley property, "either by heirship or conquest," as they say in Scotland, I hope that you may not be included in the unbroken entail of gout, which takes so largely from the comforts, and adds so greatly to the irritability natural to yours, dear Mary, very faithfully,

T. J. HOGG.

For many and good reasons there could be little real sympathy between Hogg and Mary Sh.e.l.ley. In lieu of it she willingly accepted his genuine enthusiasm for Sh.e.l.ley, and she was a better friend to him than he was to her. The veiled impertinence of his tone to her must have severely tried her patience, if not her endurance. Indeed, the mocking style of his ironical eulogies of her talents, and her fidelity to the memory of her husband are more offensive to those who know what she was than any ill-humoured tirade of Trelawny's.

The high esteem in which Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley was held by the eminent literary men who were her contemporaries is pleasantly attested in a number of letters and notes addressed to her by T. Moore, Samuel Rogers, Carlyle, Bulwer, Prosper Merimee, and others; letters for the most part of no great importance except in so far as they show the familiar and friendly terms existing between the writers and Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley. One, however, from Walter Savage Landor, deserves insertion here for its intrinsic interest--

DEAR MRS. Sh.e.l.lEY--It would be very ungrateful in me to delay for a single post an answer to your very kind letter. If only three or four like yourself (supposing there are that number in one generation) are gratified by my writings, I am quite content. Hardly do I know whether in the whole course of fifty years I have been so fortunate. For one of my earliest resolutions in life was never to read what was written about me, favourable or unfavourable; and another was, to keep as clear as possible of all literary men, well knowing their jealousies and animosities, and so little did I seek celebrity, or even renown, that on making a present of my Gebir and afterwards of my later poems to the bookseller, I insisted that they should not even be advertised.

Whatever I have written since I have placed at the disposal and discretion of some friend. Are not you a little too enthusiastic in believing that writers can be much improved by studying my writings? I mean in their style. The style is a part of the mind, just as feathers are part of the bird. The style of Addison is admired--it is very lax and incorrect. But in his manner there is the shyness of the Loves; there is the graceful shyness of a beautiful girl not quite grown up!

People feel the cool current of delight, and never look for its source. However, he wrote the Vision of Mirza, and no prose man in any age of the world had written anything so delightful. Alas! so far from being able to teach men how to write, it will be twenty years before I teach them how to spell. They will write simil_e_, for_ei_gn, sover_ei_gn, therefo_re_, imp_el_, comp_el_, reb_el_, etc. I wish they would turn back to Hooker, not for theology--the thorns of theology are good only to heat the oven for the reception of wholesome food.

But Hooker and Jonson and Milton spelt many words better than we do.

We need not wear their coats, but we may take the gold b.u.t.tons off them and put them on smoother stuff.--Believe me, dear Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, very truly yours,

W. S. LANDOR.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Of individuals as of nations, it may be true that those are happiest who have no history. The later years of Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, which offer no event of public interest, were tranquil and comparatively happy. She brought out no new work after 1844.[22] It had been her intention, now that the prohibition which const.i.tuted the chief obstacle was removed, to undertake the long-projected _Life of Sh.e.l.ley_. It seemed the more desirable as there was no lack of attempts at biography. Chief among these was the series of articles ent.i.tled "Sh.e.l.ley Papers," contributed by Mr. Hogg to the _New Monthly_ magazine during 1832. They were afterwards incorporated with that so-called _Life of Sh.e.l.ley_ which deals only with Sh.e.l.ley's first youth, and which, though it consists of one halfpennyworth of Sh.e.l.ley to an intolerable deal of Hogg, is yet a cla.s.sic, and one of the most amusing cla.s.sics in the world; so amusing, indeed, that, for its sake, we might address the author somewhat as Sterne is said to have apostrophised Mrs. Cibber, after hearing her sing a pathetic air of Handel, "Man, for this be all thy sins forgiven thee!" The second chapter of the book includes some fragments of biography by Mary, a facsimile of one of which, in her handwriting, is given here.

Medwin's _Life of Sh.e.l.ley_, inaccurate and false in facts, distasteful in style and manner, had caused Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley serious annoyance. The author, who wrote for money chiefly, actually offered to suppress the book _for a consideration_; a proposal which Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley treated with the silent contempt it deserved. These were, however, strong arguments in favour of her undertaking the book herself. She summoned up her resolution and began to collect her materials.

But it was not to be. Her powers and her health were unequal to the task.

The parallel between her and the Princess of the nettle-shirts was to be carried out to the bitter end, for the last nettle-shirt lacked a sleeve, and the youngest brother always retained one swan's wing instead of an arm. The last service Mary could have rendered to Sh.e.l.ley was never to be completed, and so the exact details of certain pa.s.sages of Sh.e.l.ley's life must remain for ever, to some extent, matters of speculation. No one but Mary could have supplied the true history and, as she herself had said, in the introductory note to her edition of his poems, it was not yet time to do that. Too many were living who might have been wounded or injured; nay, there still are too many to admit of a biographer's speaking with perfect frankness. But, although she might have furnished to some circ.u.mstances a key which is now for ever lost, it is equally true that there was much to be said, which hardly could, and most certainly never would have been told by her. Of his earliest youth and his life with Harriet she could, herself, know nothing but by hearsay. But the chief difficulty lay in the fact that too much of her own history was interwoven with his. How could she, now, or at any time, have placed herself, as an observer, so far outside the subject of her story as to speak of her married life with Sh.e.l.ley, of its influence on the development of his character and genius, of the effect of that development, and of her constant a.s.sociation with it on herself? Yet any life of him which left this out of account would have been most incomplete. More than that, no biography of such a man as Sh.e.l.ley can be completely successful which is written under great restrictions and difficulties. To paint a life-like picture of a nature like his requires a genius akin to his, aglow with the fervour of confident enthusiasm.

It was, then, as well that Mary never wrote the book. The invaluable notes which she did write to Sh.e.l.ley's poems have done for him all that it was in her power to accomplish, and all that is necessary. They put the reader in possession of the knowledge it concerns him to have; that of the scenes or the circ.u.mstances which inspired or suggested the poems themselves.

In 1847 she became acquainted with the lady to whom her son was afterwards married, and who was to be to Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley a kind of daughter and sister in one. No one, except her son, is living who knew Mary so well and loved her so enthusiastically. A mutual friend had urged them to become acquainted, a.s.suring them both "they ought to know each other, they would suit so perfectly." Some people think that this course is one which tends oftener to postpone than to promote the desired intimacy. In the present case it was justified by the result. Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley called. Her future daughter-in-law, on entering the room, beheld something utterly unlike what she had imagined or expected in the famous Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley,--a fair, lovely, almost girlish-looking being, "as slight as a reed," with beautiful clear eyes, who put out her hand as she rose, saying half timidly, "I'm Mary Sh.e.l.ley." From that moment--we have her word for it--the future wife of Sir Percy had lost her heart to his mother! Their intercourse was frequent, and soon became necessary to both. The younger lady had had much experience of sorrow, and this drew the bond all the closer.

Not for some time after this meeting did Sir Percy appear on the scene.

His engagement followed at no distant date, and after his marriage he, with his wife and his mother, who never during her life was to be parted from them, again went abroad.

The cup of such happiness as in this world was possible to Mary Sh.e.l.ley seemed now to be full, but the time was to be short during which she could taste it. She only lived three years longer, years chequered by very great anxiety (on account of illness), yet to those who now look back on them they seem as if lived under a charm. To live with Mary Sh.e.l.ley was indeed like entertaining an angel. Perfect unselfishness, _selflessness_ indeed, characterised her at all times.

One ill.u.s.tration of this is afforded by her repression of the terror she felt when she saw Sh.e.l.ley's pa.s.sion for the sea a.s.serting itself in his son. Her own nerves had been shaken and her life darkened by a catastrophe, but not for this would she let it overshadow the lives of others. Not even when her son, with a friend, went off to Norway in a little yacht, and she was dependent for news of them on a three weeks'

post, would she ever let him know the mortal anxiety she endured, but after his marriage she told it to her daughter-in-law, saying, "Now he will never wish to go to sea."

But of herself she never seemed to think at all; she lived in and for others. Her gifts and attainments, far from being obtruded, were kept out of sight; modest almost to excess as she was, she yet knew the secret of putting others at their ease. She was ready with sympathy and help and gentle counsel for all who needed them, and to the friends of her son she was such a friend as they will never forget.

The thought of Sh.e.l.ley, the idea of his presence, never seemed to leave her mind for a moment. She would constantly refer to what he might think, or do, or approve of, almost as if he had been in the next room. Of his history, or her own, she never spoke, nor did she ever refer to other people connected with their early life, unless there was something good to be said of them. Of those who had behaved ill to her, no word--on the subject of their behaviour--pa.s.sed her lips. Her daughter-in-law had so little idea of what her a.s.sociations were with Clare, that on one occasion when Miss Clairmont was coming to stay at Field Place, and Lady Sh.e.l.ley, who did not like her, expressed a half-formed intention of being absent during her visit and leaving Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley to entertain her, she was completely taken aback by the exclamation which escaped Mary's lips, "Don't go, dear! don't leave me alone with her! she has been the bane of my life ever since I was three years old!"