Chapter XX: January 1825-July 1827 (2)

From the ends of the world we were brought together to be friends till
death; separated as we are, this tie still subsists. I do not wonder
that you are out of heart concerning Greece; the mismanagement here is
not less than the misgovernment there, the discord the same, save that
here ink is spilt instead of blood. Lord Cochrane alone can assist
them--but without vessels or money how can he acquire sufficient
power? at any rate except as the Captain of a vessel I do not see what
good you can do them. But the mischief is this,--that while some cold,
unimpressive natures can go to a new country, reside among a few
friends, enter into the interests of an intimate and live as a brother
among them for a time, and then depart, leaving small trace, retaining
none,--as if they had ascended from a bath, they change their garments
and pass on;--while others of subtler nature receive into their very
essences a part of those with whom they associate, and after a while
they become enchained, either for better or worse, and during a series
of years they bear the marks of change and attachment. These natures
indeed are the purest and best, and of such are you, dear friend;
having you once, I ever have you; losing you once, I have lost you for
ever; a riddle this, but true. And so life passes, year is added to
year, the word youth is becoming obsolete, while years bring me no
change for the better. Yet I said, change is at hand--I know it,
though as yet I do not feel it--you will come, in the spring you will
come and add fresh delight for me to the happy change from winter to
summer. I cannot tell what else material is to change, but I feel sure
the year will end differently from its beginning. Jane is quite well,
we talk continually of you, and expect you anxiously. Her fortunes
have been more shifting than mine, and they are about to
conclude,--differently from mine,--but I leave her to say what she
thinks best concerning herself, though probably she will defer the
explanation until your arrival. She is my joy and consolation. I could
never have survived my exile here but for her. Her amiable temper,
cheerfulness, and never ceasing sympathy are all so much necessary
value for one wounded and lost as I.

Come, dear friend, again I read your melancholy sentences and I say,
come! let us try if we can work out good from ill; if I may not be
able to throw a ray of sunshine on your path, at least I will lead you
as best I may through the gloom. Believe me that all that belongs to
you must be dear to me, and that I shall never forget all I owe to
you.

Do you remember those pretty lines of Burns?--

A monarch may forget his crown
That on his head an hour hath been,
A bridegroom may forget his bride
Who was his wedded wife yest'reen,
A mother may forget her child
That smiles so sweetly on her knee,
But I'll remember thee, dear friend,
And all that thou hast done for me.

Such feelings are not the growth of the moment. They must have lived
for years--have flourished in smiles, and retained their freshness
watered by tears; to feel them one must have sailed much of life's
voyage together--have undergone the same perils, and sympathised in
the same fears and griefs; such is our situation; and the heartfelt
and deep-rooted sentiments fill my eyes with tears as I think of you,
dear friend, we shall meet soon. Adieu,

M. S.

... I cannot close this letter without saying a word about dear
Hunt--yet that must be melancholy. To feed nine children is no small
thing. His health has borne up pretty well hitherto, though his
spirits sink. What is it in the soil of this green earth that is so
ill adapted to the best of its sons? He speaks often of you with
affection.

To Edward Trelawny, Esq.,
To the care of Samuel Barff, Esq.,
Zante, The Ionian Isles.

Seal--Judgment of Paris.
Endorsed--Received 10th April 1827.

Change was indeed at hand, though not of a kind that Mary could have anticipated. The only event in prospect likely to affect her much was a step shortly to be taken by Mrs. Williams. That intended step, vaguely foreshadowed in Jane's correspondence, aroused the liveliest curiosity in Clare Clairmont, as was natural.

MISS CLAIRMONT TO MRS. WILLIAMS.

MY DEAREST JANE--If I have not written to you before, it is owing to
low spirits. I have not been able to take the pen, because it would
have been dipped in too black a melancholy. I am tired of being in
trouble, particularly as it goes on augmenting every day. I have had a
hard struggle with myself lately to get over the temptation I had to
lay down the burthen at once, and be free as spirits are, and leave
this horrid world behind me. In order to let you understand what now
oppresses me, I must tell you my history since I came to Moscow. I
came here quite unknown. I was at first ill treated on that account,
but I soon acquired a great reputation, because all my pupils made
much more progress in whatever they undertook than those of other
people. I had few acquaintances among the English; to these I had
never mentioned a single circumstance of myself or fortunes, but took
care, on the contrary, to appear content and happy, as if I had never
known or seen any other society all my days. I sent you a letter by
Miss F., because I knew your name would excite no suspicions; but it
seems my mother got hold of Miss F., sought her out, and has thereby
done me a most incalculable mischief. Miss F. came back full of my
story here, and though she is very friendly to me, yet others who are
not so have already done me injury. The Professor at the University
here is a man of a good deal of talent, and was in close connection
with Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott, and all that party;
he has a great deal of friendship for me, because, as he says, very
truly, I am the only person here besides himself who knows how to
speak English. He professes the most rigid principles, and is come to
that age when it is useless to endeavour to change them. I, however,
took care not to get upon the subject of principles, and so he was of
infinite use to me both by counselling and by protecting me with the
weight of his high approbation. You may imagine this man's horror when
he heard who I was; that the charming Miss Clairmont, the model of
good sense, accomplishments, and good taste, was brought, issued from
the very den of freethinkers. I see that he is in a complete puzzle on
my account; he cannot explain to himself how I can be so extremely
delightful, and yet so detestable. The inveteracy of his objections is
shaken. This, however, has not hindered him from doing me serious
mischief. I was to have undertaken this winter the education of an
only daughter, the child of a very rich family where the Professor
reigns despotic, because he always settles every little dispute with
some unintelligible quotation or reference to a Latin or Greek author.
I am extremely interested in the child, he used to say, and no one can
give her the education she ought to have but Miss Clairmont. The
father and the mother have been running after me these years to
persuade me to enter when the child should be old enough. I consented,
when now, all is broken off, because the scruples of my professor do
not allow of it. God knows, he says, what Godwinish principles she
might not instil. You may, therefore, think how teased I have been;
more so from the uncertainty of my position, as I do not know how far
this may extend. If this is only the beginning, what may be the end? I
am not angry with this man, he only acts according to his conscience;
nor am I surprised. I shall never cease feeling and thinking that if I
had my choice, I had rather a thousand times have a child of mine
resigned to an early grave, and lost for ever to me, than have it
brought up in principles I abhor. If you ask me what I shall do, I can
only answer you as did the Princess Mentimiletto, when buried under
the ruins of her villa by an earthquake, "I await my fate in silence."
In the meantime, while the page of fate is unrolling, I feel a secret
agitation which consumes me, the more so for being repressed. I am
fallen again into a bad state of health, but this is habitual to me
upon the recurrence of winter. What torments me the most is the
restraint I am under of always appearing gay in society, which I am
obliged to do to avoid their odious curiosity. Farewell awhile dismay
and terror, and let us turn to love and happiness. Never was
astonishment greater than mine on receiving your letter. I had somehow
imagined to myself that you never would love again, and you may say
what you like, dearest Jane, you won't drive that out of my head.
"Blue Bag" may be a friend to you, but he never can be a lover. A
happy attachment that has seen its end leaves a void that nothing can
fill up; therefore I counsel the timorous and the prudent to take the
greatest care always to have an unhappy attachment, because with it
you can veer about like a weathercock to every point of life. What
would I not give to have an unhappy passion, for then one has full
permission and a perfect excuse to fall into a happy one; one has
something to expect, but a _happy passion_, like death, has _finis_
written in such large characters in its face there is no hoping for
any possibility of a change. You will allow me to talk upon this
subject, for I am unhappily the victim of a _happy passion_. I had
one; like all things perfect in its kind, it was fleeting, and mine
only lasted ten minutes, but these ten minutes have discomposed the
rest of my life. The passion, God knows for what cause, from no faults
of mine, however, disappeared, leaving no trace whatever behind it
except my heart wasted and ruined as if it had been scorched by a
thousand lightnings. You will therefore, I hope, excuse my not
following the advice you give me in your last letter, of falling in
love, and you will readily believe me when I tell you that I am not in
love, as you suspected, with my German friend Hermann. He went away
last spring for five years to the country. I have a great friendship
for him, because he has the most ardent love of all that is good and
beautiful of any one I know. I feel interested for his happiness and
welfare, but he is not the being who could make life feel less a
burthen to me than it does. It would, however, seem that you are a
little happier than you were, therefore I congratulate you on this
change of life. I am delighted that you have some one to watch over
you and guard you from the storms of life. Do pray tell me Blue Bag's
name, (for what is a man without a name?), or else I shall get into
the habit of thinking of him as Blue Bag, and never be able to divest
myself of this disagreeable association all my life. You say Trelawny
is coming home, but you have said so so long, I begin to doubt it. If
he does come, how happy you will be to see him. Happy girl! you have a
great many happinesses. I have written to him many times, but he never
answers my letters; I suppose he does not wish to keep up the
correspondence, and so I have left off. If he comes home I am sure he
will fall ill, because the change of climate is most pernicious to the
health. The first winter I passed in Russia I thought I should have
died, but then a good deal was caused by extreme anxiety. So take care
of Trelawny, and do not let him get his feet wet. You ask me to tell
you every particular of my way of life. For these last six months I
have been tormented to death; I am shut up with five hateful children;
they keep me in a fever from morning till night. If they fall into
their father's or mother's way, and are troublesome, they are whipped;
but the instant they are with me, which is pretty nearly all the day,
they give way to all their violence and love of mischief, because they
are not afraid of my mild disposition. They go on just like people in
a public-house, abusing one another with the most horrid names and
fighting; if I separate them, then they roll on the ground, shrieking
that I have broken their arm, or pretend to fall into convulsions, and
I am such a fool I am frightened. In short, I never saw the evil
spirit so plainly developed. What is worse, I cannot seriously be
angry with them, for I do not know how they can be otherwise with the
education they receive. Everything is a crime; they may neither jump,
nor run, nor laugh. It is now two months they have never been out of
the house, and the only thing they are indulged in is in eating,
drinking, and sleeping, so that I look upon their defects as
proceeding entirely from the pernicious lives they lead. This is a
pretty just picture of all Russian children, because the Russians are
as yet totally ignorant of anything like real education. You may,
therefore, imagine what a life I have been leading. In the summer, and
we had an Italian one, I bore up very well, because we were often in
the garden, but since the return of winter, which always makes me ill,
and their added tiresomeness, I am quite overpowered. The whole winter
long I have a fever, which comes on every evening, and prevents my
sleeping the whole night; sometimes it leaves me for a fortnight, but
then it begins again, but in summer I am as strong and healthy as
possible. The approach of winter fills me with horror, because I know
I have eight long months of suffering and sickness. The only amusement
I have is Sunday evening, to see Miss F. and some others like her, and
the only subject of conversation is to laugh at the Russians, or
dress. My God, what a life! But complaint is useless, and therefore I
shall not indulge in it. I have said, so as those I love live, I will
bear all without a murmur. If ever I am independent, I will instantly
retire to some solitude; I will see no one, not even you nor Mary, and
there I will live until the horrible disgust I feel at all that is
human be somewhat removed by quiet and retirement. My heart is too
full of hatred to be fit for society in its present mood. I am very
sorry for the death of little Charles. The chances for succession are
now so equally balanced--the life of an old man and the life of _one_
young child--that I confess I see less hope than ever of the will's
taking effect. It is frightful for the despairing to have their hopes
suspended thus upon a single hair. Pray do not forget to write to me
when Trelawny is come. How glad I shall be to know he is in England,
and yet how frightened for fear he should catch cold. I wish you would
tell me how you occupy your days; at what hour you do this, and at
what hour that. From 11 till 4 I teach my children, then we dine; at 5
we rise from the table. They have half an hour's dawdling, for play it
cannot be called, as they are in the drawing-room, and then they learn
two hours more. At 8 we drink tea, and then they go to bed, which is
never over till 11, because all must have their hair curled, which
takes up an enormous time.

Since I have written the first part of my letter I have thought over
my affairs. I must go to Petersburgh, because it is quite another town
from Moscow, and being so much more foreign in their manners and ways
of thinking, I shall be less tormented. I have decided to go,
therefore I wish you very much to endeavour to procure me letters of
introduction. If Trelawny comes home, beg him to do so for me,
because, as he will be much in fashion, some of the numerous dear
female friends he will instantly have will do it for him. If I could
have a letter of recommendation, not a letter of introduction, to the
English ambassador or his wife, I should be able to get over the
difficulties which now beset my passage. Do think of this, Jane. My
head is so completely giddy from worry and torment, that I am unable
to think upon my own affairs; only this I know, that I am in a
tottering situation. It is absolutely necessary that I should have
letters of recommendation, and to people high in the world at
Petersburgh, because it is very common in Russia for adventurers, such
as opera dancers too old to dance any more, and milliners, and that
class of women to come here. They are received with open arms by the
Russians, who are very hospitable, and then naturally they betray
themselves by their atrocious conduct, and are thrown off; and I have
known since I have been here several lamentable instances of this, and
I shall be classed with these people if I cannot procure letters to
people whose countenance and protection must refute the possibility of
such a supposition. I must confess to you that my pride never could
stand this, for these adventurers are such detestable people that I
have the utmost horror of them. What a miserable imposture is life,
that such as follow philosophy, nature and truth, should be classed
with the very refuse of mankind; that people who ought to be cited as
models of virtue and self-sacrifice should be trampled under foot with
the dregs of vice. It was not thus in the time of the Greeks; and this
reflection makes me tired of life, for I might have been understood in
the time of Socrates, but never shall be by the moderns. For this
reason I do not wish to live, as I cannot be understood; in order,
therefore, not to be despised, I must renounce all worldly concerns
whatever. I have long done so, and therefore you will not wonder that
I have long since given my parting look to life. Do not be surprised I
am so dull; I am surrounded by difficulties which I am afraid I never
shall get out of, and after so many years of trouble and anguish it is
natural I should wish it were over. Do not, my dearest Jane, mention
to my mother the harm her indiscretion has done, for though I shall
frankly tell her of it, yet it would wound her if she were to know I
had told you, and there is already so much pain in the world it is
frightful to add ever so little to the stock. You can merely say I
have asked for letters of introduction at Petersburgh.

From the time of her first arrival in England after Edward's death, Hogg had been Jane Williams' persistent, devoted, and long-suffering admirer. Not many months after receiving Clare's letter, she changed her name and her abode, and was thenceforward known as Mrs. Hogg. Mary's familiar intercourse with her might, in any case, have been somewhat checked by this event, but such a change would have been a small matter compared to the bitter discovery she was soon to make, that, while accepting her affection, Jane had never really cared for her; that her feeling had been of the most superficial sort. Once independent of Mary, and under other protection, she talked away for the benefit and amusement of other people,--talked of their past life, prating of her power over Shelley and his devotion to her,--of Mary's gloom during those sad first weeks at Lerici,--intimating that jealousy of herself was the cause. Stories which lost nothing in the telling, wherein Jane Williams figured as a good angel, while Mary Shelley was made to appear in an unfavourable or even an absurd light.

Mary had no suspicion, no foreboding of the mine that was preparing to explode under her feet. She sympathised in her friend's happiness, for she could not regard it but as happiness for one in Jane's circumstances to be able to accept the love and protection of a devoted man. She herself could not do it, but she often felt a wish that she were differently constituted. She knew it was impossible; but no tinge of envy or bitterness coloured her words to Trelawny when she wrote to tell him of Jane's resolution.

... This is to be an eventful summer to us. Janey is writing to you
and will tell her own tale best. The person to whom she unites herself
is one of my oldest friends, the early friend of my own Shelley. It
was he who chose to share the honour, as he generously termed it, of
Shelley's expulsion from Oxford. (And yet he is unlike what you may
conceive to be the ideal of the best friend of Shelley.) He is a man
of talent,--of wit,--he has sensibility and even romance in his
disposition, but his exterior is composed and, at a superficial
glance, cold. He has loved Jane devotedly and ardently since she first
arrived in England, almost five years ago. At first she was too
faithfully attached to the memory of Edward, nor was he exactly the
being to satisfy her imagination; but his sincere and long-tried love
has at last gained the day.

... Nor will I fear for her in the risk she must run when she confides
her future happiness to another's constancy and good principles. He is
a man of honour, he longs for home, for domestic life, and he well
knows that none could make such so happy as Jane. He is liberal in his
opinions, constant in his attachments, if she is happy with him now
she will be always.... Of course after all that has passed it is our
wish that all this shall be as little talked of as possible, the
obscurity in which we have lived favours this. We shall remove hence
during the summer, for of course we shall still continue near each
other. I, as ever, must derive my only pleasure and solace from her
society.

Before the summer of 1827 was over the cloud burst.

Mary's journal in June is less mournful than usual. Congenial society always had the power of cheering her and making her forget herself. And in her acquaintance with Thomas Moore she found a novelty which yet was akin to past enjoyment.

_Journal, June 26_ (1827).--I have just made acquaintance with Tom
Moore. He reminds me delightfully of the past, and I like him much.
There is something warm and genuine in his feelings and manner which
is very attractive, and redeems him from the sin of worldliness with
which he has been charged.

_July 2._--Moore breakfasted with me on Sunday. We talked of past
times,--of Shelley and Lord Byron. He was very agreeable, and I never
felt myself so perfectly at my ease with any one. I do not know why
this is; he seems to understand and to like me. This is a new and
unexpected pleasure. I have been so long exiled from the style of
society in which I spent the better part of my life; it is an
evanescent pleasure, but I will enjoy it while I can.

_July 11._--Moore has left town; his singing is something new and
strange and beautiful. I have enjoyed his visits, and spent several
happy hours in his society. That is much.

_July 13._--My friend has proved false and treacherous! Miserable
discovery. For four years I was devoted to her, and earned only
ingratitude. Not for worlds would I attempt to transfer the deathly
blackness of my meditations to these pages. Let no trace remain save
the deep, bleeding, hidden wound of my lost heart of such a tale of
horror and despair. Writing, study, quiet, such remedies I must seek.
What deadly cold flows through my veins! My head weighed down; my
limbs sink under me. I start at every sound as the messenger of fresh
misery, and despair invests my soul with trembling horror.

_October 9._--Quanto bene mi rammento sette anni fa, in questa
medesima stagione i pensieri, I sentimenti del mio cuore! Allora
cominciai Valperga--allora sola col mio Bene fui felice. Allora le
nuvole furono spinte dal furioso vento davanti alla luna, nuvole
magnifiche, che in forme grandiose e bianche parevano stabili quanto
le montagne e sotto la tirannia del vento si mostravano piu fragili
che un velo di seta minutissima, scendeva allor la pioggia, gli albori
si spogliavano. Autunno bello fosti allora, ed ora bello terribile,
malinconico ci sei, ed io, dove sono?

By those who hold their hearts safe at home in their own keeping, these little breezes are called "storms in tea-cups." The matter was of no importance to any one but Mary. The aspect of her outward life was unchanged by this heart-shipwreck over which the world's waves closed and left no sign.