The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Volume I Part 8

_Thursday, March 2._--A bustle of moving. Read _Corinne_. I and my baby go about 3. Sh.e.l.ley and Clara do not come till 6. Hogg comes in the evening.

_Friday, March 3._--Nurse my baby; talk, and read _Corinne_. Hogg comes in the evening.

_Sat.u.r.day, March 4._--Read, talk, and nurse. Sh.e.l.ley reads the _Life of Chaucer_. Hogg comes in the evening and sleeps.

_Sunday, March 5._--Sh.e.l.ley and Clara go to town. Hogg here all day.

Read _Corinne_ and nurse my baby. In the evening talk. Sh.e.l.ley finishes the _Life of Chaucer_. Hogg goes at 11.

_Monday, March 6._--Find my baby dead. Send for Hogg. Talk. A miserable day. In the evening read _Fall of the Jesuits_. Hogg sleeps here.

_Tuesday, March 7._--Sh.e.l.ley and Clara go after breakfast to town.

Write to f.a.n.n.y. Hogg stays all day with us; talk with him, and read the _Fall of the Jesuits_ and _Rinaldo Rinaldini_. Not in good spirits. Hogg goes at 11. A fuss. To bed at 3.

_Wednesday, March 8._--Finish _Rinaldini_. Talk with Sh.e.l.ley. In very bad spirits, but get better; sleep a little in the day. In the evening net. Hogg comes; he goes at half-past 11. Clara has written for f.a.n.n.y, but she does not come.

_Thursday, March 9._--Read and talk. Still think about my little baby.

'Tis hard, indeed, for a mother to lose a child. Hogg and Charles Clairmont come in the evening. C. C. goes at 11. Hogg stays all night.

Read Fontenelle, _Plurality of Worlds_.

_Friday, March 10._--Hogg's holidays begin. Sh.e.l.ley, Hogg, and Clara go to town. Hogg comes back soon. Talk and net. Hogg now remains with us. Put the room to rights.

_Sat.u.r.day, March 11._--Very unwell. Hogg goes to town. Talk about Clara's going away; nothing settled; I fear it is hopeless. She will not go to Skinner Street; then our house is the only remaining place, I see plainly. What is to be done? Hogg returns. Talk, and Hogg reads the _Life of Goldoni_ aloud.

_Sunday, March 4._--Talk a great deal. Not well, but better. Very quiet all the morning, and happy, for Clara does not get up till 4. In the evening read Gibbon, fourth volume; go to bed at 12.

_Monday, March 13._--Sh.e.l.ley and Clara go to town. Stay at home; net, and think of my little dead baby. This is foolish, I suppose; yet, whenever I am left alone to my own thoughts, and do not read to divert them, they always come back to the same point--that I was a mother, and am so no longer. f.a.n.n.y comes, wet through; she dines, and stays the evening; talk about many things; she goes at half-past 9. Cut out my new gown.

_Tuesday, March 14._--Sh.e.l.ley calls on Dr. Pemberton. Net till breakfast. Sh.e.l.ley reads _Religio Medici_ aloud, after Hogg has gone to town. Work; finish Hogg's purse. Sh.e.l.ley and I go upstairs and talk of Clara's going; the prospect appears to me more dismal than ever; not the least hope. This is, indeed, hard to bear. In the evening Hogg reads Gibbon to me. Charles Clairmont comes in the evening.

_Sunday, March 19._--Dream that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and it lived. Awake and find no baby. I think about the little thing all day. Not in good spirits. Sh.e.l.ley is very unwell. Read Gibbon. Charles Clairmont comes. Hogg goes to town till dinner-time. Talk with Charles Clairmont about Skinner Street. They are very badly off there. I am afraid nothing can be done to save them. C. C. says that he shall go to America; this I think a rather wild project in the Clairmont style.

Play a game of chess with Clara. In the evening Sh.e.l.ley and Hogg play at chess. Sh.e.l.ley and Clara walk part of the way with Charles Clairmont. Play chess with Hogg, and then read Gibbon.

_Monday, March 20._--Dream again about my baby. Work after breakfast, and then go with Sh.e.l.ley, Hogg, and Clara to Bullock's Museum; spend the morning there. Return and find more letters for A. Z.--one from a "Disconsolate Widow."[15]

_Wednesday, March 22._--Talk, and read the papers. Read Gibbon all day. Charles Clairmont calls about Sh.e.l.ley lending 100. We do not return a decisive answer.

_Thursday, March 23._--Read Gibbon. Sh.e.l.ley reads Livy. Walk with Sh.e.l.ley and Hogg to Arundel Street. Read _Le Diable Boiteux_. Hear that Bonaparte has entered Paris. As we come home, meet my father and Charles Clairmont.... C. C. calls; he tells us that Papa saw us, and that he remarked that Sh.e.l.ley was so beautiful, it was a pity he was so wicked.

_Tuesday, March 28._--Work in the morning and then walk out to look at house.

_Sat.u.r.day, April 8._--Peac.o.c.k comes at breakfast-time; Hogg and he go to town. Read _L'Esprit des Nations_. Settle to go to Virginia Water.

_Sunday, April 9._--Rise at 8. Charles Clairmont comes to breakfast at 10. Read some lines of Ovid before breakfast; after, walk with Sh.e.l.ley, Hogg, Clara, and C. C. to pond in Kensington Gardens; return about 2. C. C. goes to Skinner Street. Read Ovid with Hogg (finish second fable). Sh.e.l.ley reads Gibbon and _Pastor Fido_ with Clara. In the evening read _L'Esprit des Nations_. Sh.e.l.ley reads Gibbon, _Pastor Fido_, and the story of Myrrha in Ovid.

_Monday, April 10._--Read Voltaire before breakfast. After breakfast work. Sh.e.l.ley pa.s.ses the morning with Harriet, who is in a surprisingly good humour. Mary reads third fable of Ovid: Sh.e.l.ley and Clara read _Pastor Fido_. Sh.e.l.ley reads Gibbon. Mrs. G.o.dwin after dinner parades before the windows. Talk in the evening with Hogg about mountains and lakes and London.

_Tuesday, April 11._--Work in the morning. Receive letters from Skinner Street to say that Mamma had gone away in the pet, and had stayed out all night. Read fourth and fifth fables of Ovid.... After tea, work. Charles Clairmont comes.

_Sat.u.r.day, April 15._--Read Ovid till 3. Sh.e.l.ley and Clara finish _Pastor Fido_, and then go out about Clara's lottery ticket; draws.

Clara's ticket comes up a prize. She buys two desks after dinner. Read Ovid (ninety-five lines). Sh.e.l.ley and Clara begin _Orlando Furioso_. A very grim dream.

_Friday, April 21._--After breakfast go with Sh.e.l.ley to Peac.o.c.k's.

Sh.e.l.ley goes to Longdill's. Read third canto of the _Lord of the Isles_. Return about 2. Sh.e.l.ley goes to Harriet to procure his son, who is to appear in one of the courts. After dinner look over W. W.'s poems. After tea read forty lines of Ovid. f.a.n.n.y comes and gives us an account of Hogan's threatened arrest of my Father. Sh.e.l.ley walks home part of the way with her. Very sleepy. Sh.e.l.ley reads one canto of Ariosto.

_Sat.u.r.day, April 22._--Read a little of Ovid. Sh.e.l.ley goes to Harriet's about his son. Work. f.a.n.n.y comes. Sh.e.l.ley returns at 4; he has been much teased with Harriet. He has been to Longdill's, Whitton's, etc., and at length has got a promise that he shall appear Monday. After dinner f.a.n.n.y goes. Read sixty lines of Ovid. Sh.e.l.ley and Clara read to the middle of the fourteenth canto of Ariosto.

Shortly after this several leaves of the journal are lost.

_Friday, May 5._--After breakfast to Marshall's,[16] but do not see him. Go to the Tomb. Sh.e.l.ley goes to Longdill's. Return soon. Read Spenser; construe Ovid.... After dinner talk with Sh.e.l.ley; then Sh.e.l.ley and Clara go out.... f.a.n.n.y comes; she tells us of Marshall's servant's death. Papa is to see Mrs. Knapp to-morrow. Read Spenser.

Walk home with f.a.n.n.y and with Sh.e.l.ley.... Sh.e.l.ley reads Seneca.

_Monday, May 8._--Go out with Sh.e.l.ley to Mrs. Knapp; not at home. Buy Sh.e.l.ley a pencil-case. Return at 1. Read Spenser. Go again with Sh.e.l.ley to Mrs. Knapp; she cannot take Clara. Read Spenser after dinner. Clara goes out with Sh.e.l.ley. Talk with Jefferson (Hogg); write to Marshall. Read Spenser. They return at 8. Very tired; go to bed early. Jefferson scolds.

_Wednesday, May 10._--Not very well; rise late. Walk to Marshall's, and talk with him for an hour. Go with Jefferson and Sh.e.l.ley to British Museum--attend most to the statues; return at 2. Construe Ovid. After dinner construe Ovid (100 lines); finish second book of Spenser, and read two cantos of the third. Sh.e.l.ley reads Seneca every day and all day.

_Friday, May 12._--Not very well. After breakfast read Spenser.

Sh.e.l.ley goes out with his friend; he returns first. Construe Ovid (90 lines); read Spenser. Jefferson returns at half-past 4, and tells us that poor Sawyer is to be hung. These blessed laws! After dinner read Spenser. Read over the Ovid to Jefferson, and construe about ten lines more. Read Spenser. Sh.e.l.ley and the lady walk out. After tea, talk; write Greek characters. Sh.e.l.ley and his friend have a last conversation.

_Sat.u.r.day, May 13._--Clara goes; Sh.e.l.ley walks with her. C. C. comes to breakfast; talk. Sh.e.l.ley goes out with him. Read Spenser all day (finish Canto 8, Book V.) Jefferson does not come till 5. Get very anxious about Sh.e.l.ley; go out to meet him; return; it rains. Sh.e.l.ley returns at half-past 6; the business is finished. After dinner Sh.e.l.ley is very tired, and goes to sleep. Read Ovid (60 lines). C. C. comes to tea. Talk of pictures.

(Mary).--A tablespoonful of the spirit of aniseed, with a small quant.i.ty of spermaceti.

(Sh.e.l.ley)--9 drops of human blood, 7 grains of gunpowder, 1/2 oz. of putrified brain, 13 mashed grave worms--the Pecksie's doom salve.

The Maie and her Elfin Knight.

I begin a new journal with our regeneration.

CHAPTER VIII

MAY 1815-SEPTEMBER 1816

"Our regeneration" meant, in other words, the departure of Jane or "Clara"

Clairmont who, on the plea of needing change of air, went off by herself into cottage lodgings at Lynmouth, in North Devon. She had never shown any very great desire to go back to her family in Skinner Street, but even had it been otherwise, objections had now been raised to her presence there which made her return difficult if not impossible. f.a.n.n.y G.o.dwin's aunts, Everina Wollstonecraft and Mrs. Bishop, were Princ.i.p.als of a select Ladies' School in Dublin, and intended that, on their own retirement, their niece should succeed them in its management. They strongly objected now to her a.s.sociating with Miss Clairmont, pointing out that, even if her morals were not injured, her professional prospects must be marred by the fact being generally known of her connection and companionship with a girl who undoubtedly had run away from home, and who was, untruly but not groundlessly, reported to be concerned in a notorious scandal.

Her continued presence in the Sh.e.l.ley household, a thing probably never contemplated at the time of their hurried flight, was manifestly undesirable, on many grounds. To Mary it was a perpetual trial, and must, in the end, have tended towards disagreement between her and Sh.e.l.ley, while it put Clara herself at great and unjust social disadvantage. Not that she heeded that, or regretted the barrier that divided her from Skinner Street, where poverty and anxiety and gloom reigned paramount, and where she would have been watched with ceaseless and unconcealed suspicion. She had heard that her relations had even discussed the advisability of immuring her in a convent if she could be caught,--but she did not mean to be caught. She advertised for a situation as companion; nothing, however, came of this. An idea of sending her to board in the family of a Mrs. Knapp seems to have been entertained for some months both by G.o.dwins and Sh.e.l.leys, Charles Clairmont probably acting as a medium between the two households. But, after appearing well disposed at first, Mrs. Knapp thought better of the plan. She did not want, and would not have Clara. The final project, that of the Lynmouth lodgings, was a sudden idea, suddenly carried out, and devised with the Sh.e.l.leys independently of the G.o.dwins, who were not consulted, nor even informed, until it had been put into execution. So much is to be gathered from the letter which Clara wrote to f.a.n.n.y a fortnight after her arrival.

CLARA TO f.a.n.n.y.