by Mary Shelley
M. W. S.
Have you got my books on shore from the Bolivar? If you have, pray let me have them, for many are odd volumes, and I wish to see if they are too much destroyed to rank with those I have.
Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.
November 1822.
Dear Mary — I will gladly dine on Monday with you. As to melancholy, I refer you to the good Antonio in Shylock. “Alas! I know now why I am so sad. It is time, I think.” You are not so learned in human dealings as Iago, but you cannot so sadly err as to doubt the extent or truth of my friendship. As to gain esteem, I do not think it a word applicable to such a lawless character. Ruled by impulse, not by reason, I am satisfied you should like me upon my own terms — impulse. As to gratitude for uttering my thoughts of him I so loved and admired, it was a tribute that all who knew him have paid to his memory. “But weeping never could restore the dead,” and if it could, hope would prevent our tears. You may remember I always in preference selected as my companion Edward, not Jane, and that I always dissented from your general voice of her being perfection. I am still of the same opinion; nothing more. But I have and ever shall feel deeply interested, and would do much to serve her, and if thinking on those trifles which diminish her lustre in my eyes makes me flag, Edward’s memory and my perfect friendship for him is sufficient excitement to spur me on to anything. It is impossible to dislike Jane; but to have an unqualified liking, such as I had for Edward, no — no — no! Talking of gratitude, I really am and ought to be so to you, for bearing on, untired, with my spleen, humours, and violence; it is a proof of real liking, particularly as you are not of the sect who profess or practise meekness, humility, and patience in common.
T.
Mary had not as yet been successful in getting possession of the half-finished portrait of Shelley. Her letters had followed Miss Curran to Paris, whence, in October, a reply at last arrived.
“I am sorry,” Miss Curran wrote, “I am not at Rome to execute your melancholy commission. I mean to return in spring, but it may be then too late. I am sure Mr. Brunelli would be happy to oblige you or me, but you may have left Pisa before this, so I know not what to propose. Your picture and Clare’s I left with him to give you when you should be at Rome, as I expected, before you returned to England. The one you now write for I thought was not to be inquired for; it was so ill done, and I was on the point of burning it with others before I left Italy. I luckily saved it just as the fire was scorching, and it is packed up with my other pictures at Rome; and I have not yet decided where they can be sent to, as there are serious difficulties in the way I had not adverted to. I am very sorry indeed, dear Mary, but you shall have it as soon as I possibly can.”...
This was the early history of that portrait, which was recovered a year or two later, and which has passed, and passes still, for Shelley’s likeness, and which, bad or good, is the only authentic one in existence.
Mary now began to feel it a matter of duty as well as of expediency to resume literary work, but she found it hard at first.
“I am quite well, but very nervous,” she wrote to Mrs. Gisborne; “my excessive nervousness (how new a disorder for me — my illness in the summer is the foundation of it) is the cause I do not write.”
She made a beginning with an article for the Liberal. Shelley’s Defence of Poetry was, also, to be published in the forthcoming number, and the MS. of this had to be got from England. She had reason to believe, too, that Ollier, the publisher, had in his keeping other MSS. of Shelley’s, and she was restlessly desirous to get possession of all these, feeling convinced that among them there was nothing perfect, nothing ready for publication exactly as it stood. In her over-anxiety she wrote to several people on this subject, thereby incurring the censure of her father, whom she had also consulted about her literary plans. His criticisms on his daughter’s style were not unsound; she had not been trained in a school of terseness, and, like many young authors, she was apt to err on the side of length, and not to see that she did so.
Godwin to Mary.
No. 195 Strand, 15th November 1822.
My dear Mary — I have devoted the last two days to the seeing everybody an interview with whom would best enable me to write you a satisfactory letter. Yesterday I saw Hogg and Mrs. Williams, and to-day Peacock and Hanson junior. From Hogg I had, among other things, to learn Mrs. Williams’ address, for, owing to your neglect, she had been a fortnight in London before I knew of her arrival. She appeared to be in better health and better spirits than I expected; she did not drop one tear; occasionally she smiled. She is a picturesque little woman, and, as far as I could judge from one interview, I like her.
Peacock has got Ollier’s promise to deliver all Shelley’s manuscripts, and as earnest, he has received Peter Bell and A Curse on L.E., which he holds at your disposal. By the way, you should never give one commission but to one person; you commissioned me to recover these manuscripts from Ollier, you commissioned Peacock, and, I believe, Mrs. Gisborne. This puts us all in an awkward situation. I heard of Peacock’s applying just in time to prevent me from looking like a fool. Peacock says he cannot make up a parcel for you till he has been a second time to Marlow on the question, which cannot be till about Christmas. He appears to me, not lukewarm, but assiduous. Mrs. Williams told me she should write to you by this day’s post. She had been inquiring in vain for Miss Curran’s address — you should have referred her to me for it, but you referred her to me for nothing. This, by the way, is another instance of your giving one commission to more than one person. You gave the commission about Miss Curran to Mrs. Williams and to me. I received your letter, inclosing one to Miss Curran, 21st October, which I immediately forwarded to her by a safe hand, through her brother. You have probably heard from her by this time; she is in Paris.... I have a plan upon the house of Longman respecting Castruccio, but that depends upon coincidences, and I must have patience.
You ask my opinion of your literary plans. If you expect any price, you must think of something new: Manfred is a subject that nobody interests himself about; the interest, therefore, must be made, and no bookseller understands anything about that contingency. A book about Italy as it is, written with any talent, would be sure to sell; but I am afraid you know very little about the present race of Italians.
As to my own affairs, nothing is determined. I expected something material to have happened this week, but as yet I have heard nothing. If the subscription fills, I shall perhaps be safe; if not, I shall be driven to sea on a plank.
Perhaps it may be of some use to you if I give you my opinion of Castruccio. I think there are parts of high genius, and that your two females are exceedingly interesting; but I am not satisfied. Frankenstein was a fine thing; it was compressed, muscular, and firm; nothing relaxed and weak; no proud flesh. Castruccio is a work of more genius; but it appears, in reading, that the first rule you prescribed to yourself was, I will let it be long. It contains the quantity of four volumes of Waverley. No hard blow was ever hit with a woolsack! Mamma desires me to remember her to you in the kindest manner, and to say that she feels a deep interest in everything that concerns you. She means to take the earliest opportunity to see Mrs. Williams, both as she feels an earnest sympathy in her calamity, and as she will be likely to learn a hundred particulars respecting the dispositions and prospects of yourself and Jane, which she might in vain desire to learn in any other quarter. You asked Mamma for some present, a remembrance of your mother. She has reserved for you a ring of hers, with Fanny Blood’s hair set round with pearls.
You will, of course, rely on it that I will send you the letters you ask for by Peacock’s parcel. Miss Curran’s address is Hotel de Dusseldorf Rue Petits St. Augustin, à Paris. — Believe me, ever your most affectionate Father,
William Godwin.
My last letter was dated 11th October.
Journal, November 10. — I have made my first probation in writing, and it has done me much good, and I get more calm; the stream begins to take to it
s new channel, insomuch as to make me fear change. But people must know little of me who think that, abstractedly, I am content with my present mode of life. Activity of spirit is my sphere. But we cannot be active of mind without an object; and I have none. I am allowed to have some talent — that is sufficient, methinks, to cause my irreparable misery; for, if one has genius, what a delight it is to be associated with a superior! Mine own Shelley! the sun knows of none to be likened to you — brave, wise, noble-hearted, full of learning, tolerance, and love. Love! what a word for me to write! yet, my miserable heart, permit me yet to love, — to see him in beauty, to feel him in beauty, to be interpenetrated by the sense of his excellence; and thus to love singly, eternally, ardently, and not fruitlessly; for I am still his — still the chosen one of that blessed spirit — still vowed to him for ever and ever!
November 11. — It is better to grieve than not to grieve. Grief at least tells me that I was not always what I am now. I was once selected for happiness; let the memory of that abide by me. You pass by an old ruined house in a desolate lane, and heed it not. But if you hear that that house is haunted by a wild and beautiful spirit, it acquires an interest and beauty of its own.
I shall be glad to be more alone again; one ought to see no one, or many; and, confined to one society, I shall lose all energy except that which I possess from my own resources; and I must be alone for those to be put in activity.
A cold heart! Have I a cold heart? God knows! But none need envy the icy region this heart encircles; and at least the tears are hot which the emotions of this cold heart forces me to shed. A cold heart! yes, it would be cold enough if all were as I wished it — cold, or burning in the flame for whose sake I forgive this, and would forgive every other imputation — that flame in which your heart, beloved, lay unconsumed. My heart is very full to-night.
I shall write his life, and thus occupy myself in the only manner from which I can derive consolation. That will be a task that may convey some balm. What though I weep? All is better than inaction and — not forgetfulness — that never is — but an inactivity of remembrance.
And you, my own boy! I am about to begin a task which, if you live, will be an invaluable treasure to you in after times. I must collect my materials, and then, in the commemoration of the divine virtues of your Father, I shall fulfil the only act of pleasure there remains for me, and be ready to follow you, if you leave me, my task being fulfilled. I have lived; rapture, exultation, content — all the varied changes of enjoyment — have been mine. It is all gone; but still, the airy paintings of what it has gone through float by, and distance shall not dim them. If I were alone, I had already begun what I had determined to do; but I must have patience, and for those events my memory is brass, my thoughts a never-tired engraver. France — Poverty — A few days of solitude, and some uneasiness — A tranquil residence in a beautiful spot — Switzerland — Bath — Marlow — Milan — the Baths of Lucca — Este — Venice — Rome — Naples — Rome and misery — Leghorn — Florence — Pisa — Solitude — The Williams’ — The Baths — Pisa: these are the heads of chapters, and each containing a tale romantic beyond romance.
I no longer enjoy, but I love. Death cannot deprive me of that living spark which feeds on all given it, and which is now triumphant in sorrow. I love, and shall enjoy happiness again. I do not doubt that; but when?
These fragments of journal give the course of her inward reflections; her letters sometimes supply the clue to her outward life, au jour le jour.
Mary Shelley to Clare Clairmont.
20th December 1822.
My dear Clare — I have delayed writing to you so long for two reasons. First, I have every day expected to hear from you; and secondly, I wished to hear something decisive from England to communicate to you. But I have waited in vain for both things. You do not write, and I begin to despair of ever hearing from you again. A few words will tell you all that has been done in England. When I wrote to you last, I think that I told you that Lord Byron had written to Hanson, bidding him call upon Whitton. Hanson wrote to Whitton desiring an interview, which Whitton declined, requesting Hanson to make his application by letter, which Hanson has done, and I know no more. This does not look like an absolute refusal, but Sir Timothy is so capricious that we cannot trust to appearances.
And now the chapter about myself is finished, for what can I say of my present life? The weather is bitterly cold with a sharp wind, very unlike dear, carissima Pisa; but soft airs and balmy gales are not the attributes of Genoa, which place I daily and duly join Marianne in detesting. There is but one fireplace in the house, and although people have been for a month putting up a stove in my room, it smokes too much to permit of its being lighted. So I am obliged to pass the greater part of my time in Hunt’s sitting-room, which is, as you may guess, the annihilation of study, and even of pleasure to a great degree. For, after all, Hunt does not like me: it is both our faults, and I do not blame him, but so it is. I rise at 9, breakfast, work, read, and if I can at all endure the cold, copy my Shelley’s MSS. in my own room, and if possible walk before dinner. After that I work, read Greek, etc., till 10, when Hunt and Marianne go to bed. Then I am alone. Then the stream of thought, which has struggled against its argine all through the busy day, makes a piena, and sorrow and memory and imagination, despair, and hope in despair, are the winds and currents that impel it. I am alone, and myself; and then I begin to say, as I ever feel, “How I hate life! What a mockery it is to rise, to walk, to feed, and then go to rest, and in all this a statue might do my part. One thing alone may or can awake me, and that is study; the rest is all nothing.” And so it is! I am silent and serious. Absorbed in my own thoughts, what am I then in this world if my spirit live not to learn and become better? That is the whole of my destiny; I look to nothing else. For I dare not look to my little darling other than as — not the sword of Damocles, that is a wrong simile, or to a wrecked seaman’s plank — true, he stands, and only he, between me and the sea of eternity; but I long for that plunge! No, I fear for him pain, disappointment, — all, all fear.
You see how it is, it is near 11, and my good friends repose. This is the hour when I can think, unobtruded upon, and these thoughts, malgré moi, will stain this paper. But then, my dear Clare, I have nothing else except my nothingless self to talk about. You have doubtless heard from Jane, and I have heard from no one else. I see no one. The Guiccioli and Lord Byron once a month. Trelawny seldom, and he is on the eve of his departure for Leghorn....
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Marianne suffers during this dreadfully cold weather, but less than I should have supposed. The children are all well. So also is my Percy, poor little darling: they all scold him because he speaks loud à l’Italien. People love to, nay, they seem to exist on, finding fault with others, but I have no right to complain, and this unlucky stove is the sole source of all my dispiacere; if I had that, I should not tease any one, or any one me, or my only one; but after all, these are trifles. I have sent for another ingeniere, and I hope, before many days are elapsed, to retire as before to my hole.
I have again delayed finishing this letter, waiting for letters from England, that I might not send you one so barren of all intelligence. But I have had none. And nothing new has happened except Trelawny’s departure for Leghorn, so that our days are more monotonous than ever. The weather is drearily cold, and an eternal north-east whistles through every crevice. Percy, however, is far better in this cold than in summer; he is warmly clothed, and gets on.
Adieu. Pray write. My love to Charles; I am ashamed that I do not write to him, but I have only an old story to repeat, and this letter tells that. — Affectionately yours,
Mary Shelley.
Journal, December 31. — So this year comes to an end. Shelley, beloved! the year has a new name from any thou knewest. When spring arrives leaves you never saw will shadow the ground, and flowers you never beheld will star it; the grass will be of another growth, and the birds sing a new song — the age
d earth dates with a new number.
Sometimes I thought that fortune had relented towards us; that your health would have improved, and that fame and joy would have been yours, for, when well, you extracted from Nature alone an endless delight. The various threads of our existence seemed to be drawing to one point, and there to assume a cheerful hue.
Again, I think that your gentle spirit was too much wounded by the sharpness of this world; that your disease was incurable, and that in a happy time you became the partaker of cloudless days, ceaseless hours, and infinite love. Thy name is added to the list which makes the earth bold in her age and proud of what has been. Time, with unwearied but slow feet, guides her to the goal that thou hast reached, and I, her unhappy child, am advanced still nearer the hour when my earthly dress shall repose near thine, beneath the tomb of Cestius.
It must have been at about this time that Mary wrote the sad, retrospective poem entitled “The Choice.”
THE CHOICE.
My Choice! — My Choice, alas! was had and gone
With the red gleam of last autumnal sun;
Lost in that deep wherein he bathed his head,
My choice, my life, my hope together fled: —
A wanderer here, no more I seek a home,
The sky a vault, and Italy a tomb.
Yet as some days a pilgrim I remain,
Linked to my orphan child by love’s strong chain;
And, since I have a faith that I must earn,
By suffering and by patience, a return
Of that companionship and love, which first
Upon my young life’s cloud like sunlight burst,