The Radicalism of Shelley and Its Sources Part 3

_The Empire of the Naires_ is not so much an exposition of the free-love system of the Naires as a grossly distorted and exaggerated picture of the miseries that follow from the present system of regulating the relations between the s.e.xes in the different countries of the world. Lawrence draws horrible pictures of misery, degradation, and even murder that are a consequence of our opinions on love and marriage. "Whenever women are treated like slaves," he writes, "they act like slaves with artifice and hypocricy."[42] Sh.e.l.ley affirms that "the present system of constraint does no more, in the majority of instances, than make hypocrites of open enemies."[43]

Lawrence attributes the social evil to the existing code of morality. If a girl falls, she is driven from her home, and the only road then open to her is that which leads to the brothel. "Prost.i.tution," says Sh.e.l.ley, "is the legitimate offspring of marriage and its accompanying errors. Women for no other crime than having followed the dictates of a natural appet.i.te are driven with fury from the comforts and sympathies of society. Society avenges herself on the criminals of her own creation."[44]

It does not seem that Sh.e.l.ley made much use of the plot or rather of the different incidents of the _Empire of the Naires_. However, it may not be amiss to indicate the slight resemblance that exists between the story of Margaret Montgomery and that of Rosalind in _Rosalind and Helen_.

Rosalind loves a young man whom she is about to marry. On the day fixed for the wedding, her father returns from a distant land to die, and informs them that Rosalind and her lover are brother and sister.

Hold, hold!

He cried! I tell thee 'tis her brother!

Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod Of yon churchyard rests in her shroud so cold; I am now weak and pale, and old: We were once dear to one another, I and that corpse! Thou art our child!

Her betrothed falls dead on the receipt of this news. Rosalind marries another who uses her very cruelly, perhaps because she gives birth to an illegitimate child. Her husband dies, and his will, because she was adulterous,

Imported, that if e'er again I sought my children to behold

Or in my birthplace did remain Beyond three days, whose hours were told, They should inherit naught:

In _The Naires_ Margaret Montgomery and James Forbes had known and loved each other from childhood. Shortly before the time set for their wedding, James' father sent a letter to Margaret's father breaking off the marriage in the most positive terms. The latter's pride was inflamed, and a quarrel ensued in which Forbes was mortally wounded. The dying man sent for Margaret and told her that she and her lover are sister and brother, that he and not Montgomery was her father, and hence her mother's and his opposition to the marriage. Margaret is enceinte, and her reputed father turns her out of doors. Her lover is killed in Naples. A friend sends Margaret some money during her stay in London. Sh.e.l.ley makes Rosalind, who has been dispossessed too, receive some money from an old servant.

Rosalind and Margaret are separated from their life-long friends who know--

What to the evil world is due And therefore sternly did refuse

to link themselves with the infamy of ones so lost as their sinning sisters. In both cases common misery reunites them and their friends again.

In May or June, 1814, Sh.e.l.ley became acquainted with Mary G.o.dwin. Her father described her as being "singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active in mind; her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible." She was brought up in an atmosphere of free thought, having spent most of her girlhood with Mr.

Baxter, a faithful disciple of G.o.dwin. Sh.e.l.ley and Mary had many sympathies in common, and it is not surprising to find them soon falling in love with each other.

Peac.o.c.k tells us that Sh.e.l.ley at this time was in agony. On the one hand he was tormented by his desire to treat Harriet rightly, and on the other by his pa.s.sion for Mary. Pa.s.sion won the day, and on July 28 Sh.e.l.ley eloped with Mary to the Continent. He tried to ease his conscience by offering Harriet his friendship and protection. He wrote her from the Continent and urged her to join himself and Mary in Switzerland. He a.s.sured her that she would find in him a firm, constant friend to whom her interests would be always dear.

While pa.s.sing judgment on Sh.e.l.ley one should not forget that he simply put into practice those doctrines which he believed to be true. Neither Sh.e.l.ley nor Mary thought they were inflicting any wrong on Harriet as long as they offered her their friendship and protection.

In September, 1814, Sh.e.l.ley, Mary and Jane Clairmont, Mary's half-sister, settled in London. About this time he was troubled a great deal with money embarra.s.sments and was in continual hiding from the bailiffs. Toward the end of the year he read "the tale of G.o.dwin's American disciple in romance, Charles Brockden Brown."[45] "Brown's four novels," says Peac.o.c.k, "Schiller's Robbers, and Goethe's Faust, were of all the works with which he was familiar those which took the deepest root in Sh.e.l.ley's mind and had the strongest influence in the formation of his character."

Brown's most important novel, _Wieland_, is a gruesome tale in which the horrors portrayed owe their existence to the errors of the sufferers.

Wieland, a very religious man, is deceived by an unscrupulous ventriloquist who persuades him that a voice from heaven bids him sacrifice the life of his wife and four children. "If Wieland had framed juster notions of moral duty, and of the divine attributes; or if he had been gifted with ordinary equanimity or foresight, the double tongued deceiver would have been baffled and repelled." This is the doctrine of Sh.e.l.ley; he believed that the evils of society were man's own creation.

Ye princes of the earth, ye sit aghast Amid the ruin which yourselves have made.

Yes, Desolation heard your trumpet's blast, And sprang from sleep.[46]

Brown's views on love are almost as radical as those of G.o.dwin. Wieland's sister is in love with Pleyel, and is anxious to act in such a way as to give him hope and at the same time not to appear too forward. "Time was,"

she says, "when these emotions would be hidden with immeasurable solicitude from every human eye. Alas! these airy and fleeting impulses of shame are gone. My scruples were preposterous and criminal. They are bred in all hearts, by a perverse and vicious education, and they would have maintained their place in my heart had not my portion been set in misery.

My errors have taught me thus much wisdom; that those sentiments which we ought not to disclose it is criminal to harbor."[47] Sh.e.l.ley's ideal woman would hold the same views. He writes:

And women too, frank, beautiful and kind ...

... From custom's evil taint exempt and pure Speaking the wisdom once they could not think, Looking emotions once they feared to feel.

And changed to all which once they dared not be Yet, being now, made earth like heaven.

In May, 1816, Sh.e.l.ley, accompanied by Mary and Jane Clairmont, started for Italy. It is probable that the undesirable state of Sh.e.l.ley's health, together with the constant begging of G.o.dwin, determined them to leave England. J. C. Jeafferson maintains that Miss Clairmont persuaded Sh.e.l.ley to accompany her to Geneva, where she was to meet Lord Byron. It is quite certain though that Mary and Sh.e.l.ley were ignorant of Byron's intrigue with Miss Clairmont. The most that can be said is that Jane's solicitations may have hastened their departure.

In September, 1816, the Sh.e.l.leys returned to London. About a month afterwards news reached them that f.a.n.n.y Imlay (Mary's half-sister) had committed suicide. It is said that love for Sh.e.l.ley drove her to despair.

In December Sh.e.l.ley was seeking for Harriet, of whom he had lost trace some time previously. On December 10, her body was found in the Serpentine. Very little is known of the life she led after her separation from Sh.e.l.ley. Rumor had it that she drank heavily and became the mistress of a soldier, who deserted her.

It may be that "in all Sh.e.l.ley did, he, at the time of doing it, believed himself justified to his own conscience," but surely that conscience is warped which finds no cause for remorse in Sh.e.l.ley's treatment of his first wife. No one can view his self-complacency and a.s.sumption of righteousness at this time without feelings of detestation. On the day he heard the news of his wife's suicide he wrote to Mary: "Everything tends to prove, however, that beyond the shock of so hideous a catastrophe having fallen on a human being once so nearly connected with me, there would in any case, have been little to regret." "Little to regret" save the shock to his nerves. What about the suffering of the poor woman that forced her to commit such a terrible deed?

Sh.e.l.ley claimed his children from the Westbrooks, but the claim was denied. The children were committed to the care of a Dr. Hume, of Hanwell.

Lord Eldon gave his judgment against Sh.e.l.ley on the ground that Sh.e.l.ley's opinions led to immoral conduct. Sh.e.l.ley gave vent to his rage in sixteen vitriolic stanzas, which he addressed to the Lord Chancellor.

During his residence at Marlow on the Thames in 1817, Sh.e.l.ley wrote _The Revolt of Islam_, which was first published under the t.i.tle _Laon and Cythna_. In its first form it contained violent attacks on theism and Christianity; and the hero and heroine were brother and sister. Ollier refused to publish it unless everything indicating such a relationship were removed, and Sh.e.l.ley reluctantly consented to make the necessary alterations.

_The Revolt of Islam_ opens with an allegorical myth in which the strife between a serpent and an eagle--good and evil--is described. While the poet sympathizes with the snake, a mysterious woman (Asia in Prometheus Unbound) suddenly appears and conducts him to heaven. There he meets Laon and Cythna who recount the sufferings which made them worthy of this heavenly place. First of all, Laon tells about his love for Cythna, who is described as a shape of brightness moving upon the earth. She mourned with him over the servitude--

In which the half of humankind were mewed, Victims of l.u.s.t and hate, the slaves of slaves, She mourned that grace and power were thrown as food To the hyena l.u.s.t, who, among graves, Over his loathed meal, laughing in agony raves.[48]

Cythna determines to make all good and just. By the force of kindness she will "disenchant the captives," and "then millions of slaves shall leap in joy as the benumbing cramp of ages shall leave their limbs." The happiness of the lovers was rudely interrupted. Cythna is taken away by the emissaries of the tyrant Othman; and Laon, who killed three of the king's slaves while defending her, is cast into prison. A hermit sets him free, conveys him to an island, and supports him there for seven years. During all of this time Laon's mind is deranged. He recovers, however, and then they both embark to help overthrow the tyrant Othman. The revolutionists are successful princ.i.p.ally because of the influence of their leader, who is a woman, Laone. Such is the strength of her quiet words that none dare harm her. Tyrants send their armed slaves to quell--

Her power, they, even like a thundergust Caught by some forest, bend beneath the spell Of that young maiden's speech, and to their chiefs rebel.[49]

Some of the revolutionists demand that Othman be put to death for his crimes. Laon interposes and tells them that if their hearts are tried in the true love of freedom they should cease to dread this one poor lonely man. Here is G.o.dwin's doctrine again:

The chastened will Of virtue sees that justice is the light Of love, and not revenge and terror and despite.[50]

That same night the tyrant with the aid of a foreign army treacherously attacks the revolutionists. In the midst of the carnage

A black Tartarian horse of giant frame Comes trampling o'er the dead; the living bleed Beneath the hoofs of that tremendous steed On which like to an angel robed in white Sate one waving a sword.[51]

Needless to say, this is Cythna who comes to rescue Laon. They both flee to a lonely ruin where they recount to each other the stories of their sufferings. Cythna tells that she was carried to a submarine cavern by order of the tyrant, and that she was fed there by an eagle. She became a mother, and was comforted for a while by the caresses of her child until it mysteriously disappeared. An earthquake changed the position of the cavern, and Cythna is rescued by some pa.s.sing sailors. She is taken to the city of Othman, where she leads the revolutionists as described in the previous cantos. Want and pestilence follow in the wake of ma.s.sacre, and cause awful misery. An Iberian priest in whose breast "hate and guile lie watchful" says that G.o.d will not stay the plague until a pyre is built and Laon and Cythna burned upon it. An immense reward is offered for their capture. The person who brings them both alive shall espouse the princess and reign with the king. A stranger comes to the tyrant's court and tells them that they themselves have made all the desolation which they bewail.

However, he cannot expect them to change their ways so he promises to betray Laon if they will only allow Cythna to go to America. The tyrant agrees to the stranger's terms, who then tells them that he is Laon himself. He is placed upon the altar, and as the torches are about to be applied to it Cythna appears on her Tartarian steed. The priest urges his comrades to seize her, but the king has scruples about breaking his promise. She is set on the pyre, however, and both perish in the flames.

They wake reclining--

On the waved and golden sand Of a clear pool, upon a bank o'ertwined With strange and star-bright flowers, which to the wind Breathed divine odour.[52]

A boat approaches them with an angel (Cythna's child) in it. They are all carried in this "curved sh.e.l.l of hollow pearl" to a haven of rest and joy.

This disconnected story serves as a vehicle to convey exhortations regarding liberty and justice. Thus, during the voyage from the cavern to Othman's city, Cythna delivers an address to the sailors which contains some of the best pa.s.sages in the poem. She tells them for example:

To feel the peace of self-contentment's lot, To own all sympathies, and outrage none, And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought, Until life's sunny day is quite gone down, To sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of woe; To live as if to love and live were one; This is not faith or law, nor those who bow To thrones on Heaven or Earth such destiny may know.[53]

The poem aims at kindling a virtuous enthusiasm for the doctrines of liberty and equal rights to all. "It is a series of pictures ill.u.s.trating the growth and progress of individual mind aspiring after excellence" and the regeneration of humanity. Laon is the expression of ideal devotion to the happiness of mankind; and Cythna is a type of the new woman, "the free, equal, fearless companion of man." The poem depicts "the awakening of an immense nation from their slavery and degradation to a true sense of moral dignity and freedom; the tranquillity of successful patriotism and the universal toleration and benevolence of true philanthropy." It concludes by showing that the triumph of oppression is temporary and a sure pledge of its inevitable fall.

So much attention is here given to _The Revolt of Islam_ because of the influence on it of a love story--_The Missionary_, by Miss Owenson--an influence which up to the present has escaped the notice of Sh.e.l.ley students.[54] In a letter to Hogg, dated June 27, 1811, Sh.e.l.ley writes "the only thing that has interested me, if I except your letters, has been one novel. It is Miss Owenson's _Missionary_, an Indian tale; will you read it? It is really a divine thing; Luxima, the Indian, is an angel.

What a pity we cannot incorporate these creatures of fancy; the very thoughts of them thrill the soul! Since I have read this book, I have read no other."[55] This tale is a very striking one, and it is not strange that Sh.e.l.ley made its philosophy his own. The descriptions are so vivid, the tale so simple, and the experiences recorded apparently so true, that it takes a maturer mind than Sh.e.l.ley's to lay bare the fallacies of the work and to unmask its half truths. No outline of the story can give an idea of its strength. In the beginning of the seventeenth century Hilarion Count d'Acugna of the royal house of Braganza joins the Franciscans, and on account of his zeal and piety is known as "the man without a fault." He is full of zeal for the salvation of souls and goes to India to convert pagans to Christianity. "Devoted to a higher communion his soul only stooped from heaven to earth, to relieve the sufferings he pitied, or to correct the errors he condemned; to subst.i.tute peace for animosity ... to watch, to pray, to fast, to suffer for all. Such was the occupation of a life, active as it was sinless." Pa.s.sages like the above serve as sugar coating for the following: "Hitherto the life of the young monk resembled the pure and holy dream of saintly slumbers, for it was still a dream; splendid indeed, but unsubstantial, dead to all those ties which const.i.tute at once the charm and the anxiety of existence, which agitate while they bless the life of man, the spring of human affection lay untouched within his bosom and the faculty of human reason unused within his mind.... Yet these feelings though unexercised were not extinct; they betrayed their existence even in the torpid life he had chosen, etc." The missionary spends some time at Lah.o.r.e studying the dialects of Upper India under the tutelage of a Pundit. During his stay there the Guru of Cashmere comes to Lah.o.r.e for the ceremony of Upaseyda. He is accompanied by his beautiful and accomplished granddaughter, Luxima, the Prophetess and Brachmachira of Cashmere.

The Pundit tells the missionary about the wonderful influence that the Guru's granddaughter, Luxima, has over the people of the place, just as the old man of _The Revolt of Islam_, who represents Sh.e.l.ley's teacher, Dr. Lind, tells Laon about the extraordinary influence of Cythna on the people she meets. "The Indians of the most distinguished rank drew back as she approached lest their very breath should pollute that region of purity her respiration consecrated, and the odour of the sacred flowers, by which she was adorned, was inhaled with an eager devotion, as if it purified the soul it almost seemed to penetrate." The Pundit says that "her beauty, her enthusiasm, her graces, and her genius, alike capacitate her to propagate and support the errors of which she herself is the victim." The old man tells Laon that Cythna--

Paves her path with human hearts, and o'er it flings The wildering gloom of her immeasurable wings.

At the ceremony of Upaseyda, which the Guru holds, disputants of various sects put forth the claims of their respective religions. "A devotee of the Musnavi sect took the lead; he praised the mysteries of the Bhagavat, and explained the profound allegory of the six Ragas.... A disciple of the Vedanti school spoke of the transports of mystic love, and maintained the existence of spirit only; while a follower of Buddha supported the doctrine of matter, etc." The missionary takes advantage of this opportunity to tell them about Christianity. "The impression of his appearance was decisive, it sank at once to the soul; and he imposed conviction on the senses, ere he made his claim on the understanding....

He ceased to speak and all was still as death. His hands were folded on his bosom, to which his crucifix was pressed; his eyes were cast in meekness on the earth; but the fire of his zeal still played like a ray from heaven on his brow." This reminds one at once of Canto IX, of _The Revolt of Islam_: