Chapter XIX: July 1823-December 1824 (2)

Tell me of Clare, do write me of her! This is written with the other
in desperate haste. I have received a letter from you, one from Jane,
and none from Hunt.

This letter reached Mary at about the same time as the fatal news. Trelawny also sent her his narrative of the facts (now so well known to every one) of Byron's death. It had been intended for Hobhouse, but the writer changed his mind and entrusted it to Mrs. Shelley instead, adding, "Hunt may pick something at it if he please."

Trelawny had been Byron's friend, and clearly as he saw the Pilgrim's faults and deficiencies, there would seem no doubt that he genuinely admired him, in spite of all. But his mercurial, impulsive temperament, ever in extremes, was liable to the most sudden revulsions of feeling, and retrospect hardened his feeling as much as it softened Mary Shelley's towards the great man who was gone. Only four months later he was writing again, from Livadia--

I have much to say to you, Mary, both as regards myself and the part I
am enacting here. I would give much that I could, as in times dead,
look in on you in the evening of every day and consult with you on its
occurrences, as I used to do in Italy. It is curious, but, considering
our characters, natural enough, that Byron and I took the
diametrically opposite roads in Greece--I in Eastern, he in Western.
He took part with, and became the paltry tool of the weak, imbecile,
cowardly being calling himself Prince Mavrocordato. Five months he
dozed away. By the gods! the lies that are said in his praise urge one
to speak the truth. It is well for his name, and better for Greece,
that he is dead. With the aid of his name, his fame, his talents, and
his fortune, he might have been a tower of strength to Greece, instead
of which the little he did was in favour of the aristocrats, to
destroy the republic, and smooth the road for a foreign King. But he
is dead, and I now feel my face burn with shame that so weak and
ignoble a soul could so long have influenced me. It is a degrading
reflection, and ever will be. I wish he had lived a little longer,
that he might have witnessed how I would have soared above him here,
how I would have triumphed over his mean spirit. I would do much to
see and talk to you, but as I am now too much irritated to disclose
the real state of things, I will not mislead you by false statements.

With this fine flourish was enclosed a "Description of the Cavern Fortress of Mount Parnassus," which he was commanding (and of which a full account is given in his _Recollections_), and then followed a P.S. to this effect--

DEAR MARY--Will you make an article of this, as Leigh Hunt calls it,
and request his brother to publish it in the _Examiner_, which will
very much oblige me.

FROM MARY SHELLEY TO TRELAWNY.

28th July 1824.

So, dear Trelawny, you remember still poor Mary Shelley; thank you for
your remembrance, and a thousand times for your kind letter. It is
delightful to feel that absence does not diminish your affection,
excellent, warm-hearted friend, remnant of our happy days, of my
vagabond life in beloved Italy, our companion in prosperity, our
comforter in sorrow. You will not wonder that the late loss of Lord
Byron makes me cling with greater zeal to those dear friends who
remain to me. He could hardly be called a friend, but, connected with
him in a thousand ways, admiring his talents, and (with all his
faults) feeling affection for him, it went to my heart when, the other
day, the hearse that contained his lifeless form--a form of beauty
which in life I often delighted to behold--passed my windows going up
Highgate Hill on his last journey to the last seat of his ancestors.
Your account of his last moments was infinitely interesting to me.
Going about a fortnight ago to the house where his remains lay, I
found there Fletcher and Lega--Lega looking a most preposterous
rogue,--Fletcher I expect to call on me when he returns from
Nottingham. From a few words he imprudently let fall, it would seem
that his Lord spoke of Clare in his last moments, and of his wish to
do something for her, at a time when his mind, vacillating between
consciousness and delirium, would not permit him to do anything. Did
Fletcher mention this to you? It seems that this doughty Leporello
speaks of his Lord to strangers with the highest respect; more than he
did a year ago,--the best, the most generous, the most wronged of
peers,--the notion of his leading an irregular life,--quite a false
one. Lady B. sent for Fletcher; he found her in a fit of passionate
grief, but perfectly implacable, and as much resolved never to have
united herself again to him as she was when she first signed their
separation. Mrs. Claremont (the governess) was with her.

His death, as you may guess, made a great sensation here, which was
not diminished by the destruction of his Memoirs, which he wrote and
gave to Moore, and which were burned by Mrs. Leigh and Hobhouse. There
was not much in them, I know, for I read them some years ago at
Venice, but the world fancied it was to have a confession of the
hidden feelings of one concerning whom they were always passionately
curious. Moore was by no means pleased: he is now writing a life of
him himself, but it is conjectured that, notwithstanding he had the
MS. so long in his possession, he never found time to read it. I
breakfasted with him about a week ago, and he is anxious to get
materials for his work. I showed him your letter on the subject of
Lord Byron's death, and he wishes very much to obtain from you any
anecdote or account you would like to send. If you know anything that
ought to be known, or feel inclined to detail anything that you may
remember worthy of record concerning him, perhaps you will communicate
with Moore. You have often said that you wished to keep up our
friend's name in the world, and if you still entertain the same
feeling, no way is more obvious than to assist Moore, who asked me to
make this request. You can write to him through me or addressed to
Longmans....

* * * * *

Here then we are, Jane and I, in Kentish Town.... We live near each
other now, and, seeing each other almost daily, for ever dwell on one
subject.... The country about here is really pretty; lawny uplands,
wooded parks, green lanes, and gentle hills form agreeable and varying
combinations. If we had orange sunsets, cloudless noons, fireflies,
large halls, etc. etc., I should not find the scenery amiss, and yet I
can attach myself to nothing here; neither among the people, though
some are good and clever, nor to the places, though they be pretty.
Jane is my chosen companion and only friend. I am under a cloud, and
cannot form near acquaintances among that class whose manners and
modes of life are agreeable to me, and I think myself fortunate in
having one or two pleasing acquaintances among literary people, whose
society I enjoy without dreaming of friendship. My child is in
excellent health; a fine, tall, handsome boy.

And then for money and the rest of those necessary annoyances, the
means of getting at the necessaries of life; Jane's affairs are yet
unsettled....

My prospects are somewhat brighter than they were. I have little doubt
but that in the course of a few months I shall have an independent
income of L300 or L400 per annum during Sir Timothy's life, and that
with small sacrifice on my part. After his death Shelley's will
secures me an income more than sufficient for my simple habits.

One of my first wishes in obtaining the independence I mention, will
be to assist in freeing Clare from her present painful mode of life.
She is now at Moscow; sufficiently uncomfortable, poor girl, unless
some change has taken place: I think it probable that she will soon
return to England. Her spirits will have been improved by the
information I sent her that his family consider Shelley's will valid,
and that she may rely upon receiving the legacy....

But Mary's hopes of better fortune were again and again deferred, and she now found that any concession on the part of her husband's family must be purchased by the suppression of his later poems. She was too poor to do other than submit.

MARY SHELLEY TO LEIGH HUNT.

KENTISH TOWN, _22d August 1824_.

... A negotiation has begun between Sir Timothy Shelley and myself, by
which, on sacrificing a small part of my future expectations on the
will, I shall ensure myself a sufficiency for the present, and not
only that, but be able, I hope, to relieve Clare from her
disagreeable situation at Moscow. I have been obliged, however, as an
indispensable preliminary, to suppress the posthumous poems. More than
300 copies had been sold, so this is the less provoking, and I have
been obliged to promise not to bring dear Shelley's name before the
public again during Sir Timothy's life. There is no great harm in
this, since he is above seventy; and, from choice, I should not think
of writing memoirs now, and the materials for a volume of more works
are so scant that I doubted before whether I could publish it. Such is
the folly of the world, and so do things seem different from what they
are; since, from Whitton's account, Sir Timothy writhes under the fame
of his incomparable son, as if it were the most grievous injury done
to him; and so, perhaps, after all it will prove.

All this was pending when I wrote last, but until I was certain I did
not think it worth while to mention it. The affair is arranged by
Peacock, who, though I seldom see him, seems anxious to do me all
these kind of services in the best manner that he can.

It is long since I saw your brother, nor had he any news for me. I
lead a most quiet life, and see hardly any one. The Gliddons are gone
to Hastings for a few weeks. Hogg is on Circuit. Now that he is rich
he is so very queer, so unamiable, and so strange, that I look forward
to his return without any desire of shortening the term of absence.

Poor Pierino is now in London, _Non fosse male questo paese_, he says,
_se vi vedesse mai il sole_. He is full of Greece, to which he is
going, and gave us an account of our good friend, Trelawny, which was
that he was not at all changed. Trelawny has made a hero of the Greek
chief, Ulysses, and declares that there is a great cavern in Attica
which he and Ulysses have provisioned for seven years, and to which,
if the cause fails, he and this chieftain are to retire; but if the
cause is triumphant, he is to build a city in the Negropont, colonise
it, and Jane and I are to go out to be queens and chieftainesses of
the island. When he first came to Athens he took to a Turkish life,
bought twelve or fifteen women, _brutti mostri_, Pierino says, one a
Moor, of all things, and there he lay on his sofa, smoking, these
gentle creatures about him, till he got heartily sick of idleness,
shut them up in his harem, and joined and combated with Ulysses....

* * * * *

One of my principal reasons for writing just now is that I have just
heard Miss Curran's address (64 Via Sistina, Roma), and I am anxious
that Marianne should (if she will be so very good) send one of the
profiles already cut to her, of Shelley, since I think that, by the
help of that, Miss Curran will be able to correct her portrait of
Shelley, and make for us what we so much desire--a good likeness. I am
convinced that Miss Curran will return the profile immediately that
she has done with it, so that you will not sacrifice it, though you
may be the means of our obtaining a good likeness.

_Journal, September 3._--With what hopes did I come to England? I
pictured little of what was pleasurable, the feeling I had could not
be called hope; it was expectation. Yet at that time, now a year ago,
what should I have said if a prophet had told me that, after the whole
revolution of the year, I should be as poor in all estimable treasures
as when I arrived.

I have only seen two persons from whom I have hoped or wished for
friendly feeling. One, a poet, who sought me first, whose voice, laden
with sentiment, passed as Shelley's, and who read with the same deep
feeling as he; whose gentle manners were pleasing, and who seemed to a
degree pleased; who once or twice listened to my sad plaints, and bent
his dark blue eyes upon me. Association, gratitude, esteem, made me
take interest in his long, though rare, visits.

The other was kind; sought me, was pleased with me. I could talk to
him; that was much. He was attached to another, so that I felt at my
ease with him. They have disappeared from my horizon. Jane alone
remains; if she loved me as well as I do her it would be much; she is
all gentleness, and she is my only consolation, yet she does not
console me.

I have just completed my twenty-seventh year; at such a time hope and
youth are still in their prime, and the pains I feel, therefore, are
ever alive and vivid within me. What shall I do? Nothing. I study,
that passes the time. I write; at times that pleases me, though double
sorrow comes when I feel that Shelley no longer reads and approves of
what I write; besides, I have no great faith in my success.
Composition is delightful; but if you do not expect the sympathy of
your fellow-creatures in what you write, the pleasure of writing is of
short duration.

I have my lovely Boy, without him I could not live. I have Jane; in
her society I forget time; but the idea of it does not cheer me in my
griefful moods. It is strange that the religious feeling that exalted
my emotions in happiness, deserts me in my misery. I have little
enjoyment, no hope. I have given myself ten years more of life. God
grant that they may not be augmented. I should be glad that they were
curtailed. Loveless beings surround me; they talk of my personal
attractions, of my talents, my manners.

The wisest and best have loved me. The beautiful, and glorious, and
noble, have looked on me with the divine expression of love, till
death, the reaper, carried to his overstocked barns my lamented
harvest.

But now I am not loved! Never, oh, never more shall I love. Synonymous
to such words are, never more shall I be happy, never more feel life
sit triumphant in my frame. I am a wreck. By what do the fragments
cling together? Why do they not part, to be borne away by the tide to
the boundless ocean, where those are whom day and night I pray that I
may rejoin.

I shall be happier, perhaps, in Italy; yet, when I sometimes think
that she is the murderess, I tremble for my boy. We shall see; if no
change comes, I shall be unable to support the burthen of time, and no
change, if it hurt not his dear head, can be for the worse.

In the month of July Mary had received another request for literary help; this time from Medwin, who wanted her aid in eking out and correcting his notes of conversations with Lord Byron, shortly to be published.

"You must have been, as I was, very much affected with poor Lord
Byron's death," he wrote to Mary. "All parties seem now writing in his
favour, and the papers are full of his praise....

"How do you think I have been employing myself? With writing; and the
subject I have chosen has been Memoirs of Lord Byron. Every one here
has been disappointed in the extreme by the destruction of his private
biography, and have urged me to give the world the little I know of
him. I wish I was better qualified for the task. When I was at Pisa I
made very copious notes of his conversations, for private reference
only, and was surprised to find on reading them (which I have never
done till his death, and hearing that his life had been burnt) that
they contained so many anecdotes of his life. During many nights that
we sat up together he was very confidential, and entered into his
history and opinions on most subjects, and from them I have compiled a
volume which is, I am told, highly entertaining. Shelley I have made a
very prominent feature in the work, and I think you will be pleased
with that part, at least, of the Memoir, and all the favourable
sentiments of Lord Byron concerning him. But I shall certainly not
publish the work till you have seen it, and would give the world to
consult you in person about the whole; you might be of the greatest
possible use to me, and prevent many errors from creeping in. I have
been told it cannot fail of having the greatest success, and have been
offered L500 for it--a large and tempting sum--in consequence of what
has been said in its praise by Grattan....

"Before deciding finally on the publication there are many things to
be thought of. Lady Byron will not be pleased with my account of the
marriage and separation; in fact, I shall be assailed on all sides.
Now, my dear friend, what do you advise? Let me have your full
opinion, for I mean to be guided by it. I hear to-day that Moore is
manufacturing five or six volumes out of the _burnt materials_, for
which Longman advanced L2000, and is to pay L2000 more; _they_ will be
in a great rage. If I publish, promptitude is everything, so that I
know you will answer this soon."

The idea of entertaining the world, however highly, at whatever price, with "tit-bits" from the private life and after-dinner talk of her late intimate friends, almost before those friends were cold in their graves, did not find favour with Mrs. Shelley. As an excuse for declining to have any hand in this work, she gave her own desire to avoid publicity or notice. In a later letter Medwin assured her that her name was not even mentioned in the book. He frankly owned that most of his knowledge of Byron had been derived from her and Shelley, but added, by way of excuse--

They tell me it is highly interesting, and there is at this moment a
longing after and impatience to know something about the most
extraordinary man of the age that must give my book a considerable
success.

What Mary felt about this publication can be gathered from her allusion to it in the following letter--

MRS. SHELLEY TO MRS. HUNT.

KENTISH TOWN, _10th October 1824_.

... I write to you on the most dismal of all days, a rainy Sunday,
when dreary church-going faces look still more drearily from under
dripping umbrellas, and the poor plebeian dame looks reproachfully at
her splashed white stockings,--not her gown,--that has been warily
held high up, and the to-be-concealed petticoat has borne all the
ill-usage of the mud. Dismal though it is, dismal though I am, I do
not wish to write a discontented letter, but in a few words to
describe things as they are with me. A weekly visit to the Strand, a
monthly visit to Shacklewell (when we are sure to be caught in the
rain) forms my catalogue of visits. I have no visitors; if it were not
for Jane I should be quite alone. The eternal rain imprisons one in
one's little room, and one's spirits flag without one exhilarating
circumstance. In some things, however, I am better off than last year,
for I do not doubt but that in the course of a few months I shall have
an independence; and I no longer balance, as I did last winter,
between Italy and England. My Father wished me to stay, and, old as he
is, and wishing as one does to be of some use somewhere, I thought
that I would make the trial, and stay if I could. But the joke has
become too serious. I look forward to the coming winter with horror,
but it _shall be_ the last. I have not yet made up my mind to the
where in Italy. I shall, if possible, immediately on arriving, push on
to Rome. Then we shall see. I read, study, and write; sometimes that
takes me out of myself; but to live for no one, to be necessary to
none, to know that "Where is now my hope? for my hope, who shall see
it? They shall go down to the base of the pit, when our rest together
is in the dust." But change of scene and the sun of Italy will restore
my energy; the very thought of it smooths my brow. Perhaps I shall
seek the heats of Naples, if they do not hurt my darling Percy. And
now, what news?...

* * * * *

Hazlitt is abroad; he will be in Italy in the winter; he wrote an
article in the _Edinburgh Review_ on the volume of poems I published.
I do not know whether he meant it to be favourable or not; I do not
like it at all; but when I saw him I could not be angry. I never was
so shocked in my life, he has become so thin, his hair scattered, his
cheek-bones projecting; but for his voice and smile I should not have
known him; his smile brought tears into my eyes, it was like a sunbeam
illuminating the most melancholy of ruins, lightning that assured you
in a dark night of the identity of a friend's ruined and deserted
abode....

Have you, my Polly, sent a profile to Miss Curran in Rome? Now pray
do, and pray write; do, my dear girl. Next year by this time I shall,
perhaps, be on my way to you; it will go hard but that I contrive to
spend a week (that is, if you wish) at Florence, on my way to the
Eternal City. God send that this prove not an airy castle; but I own
that I put faith in my having money before that; and I know that I
could not, if I would, endure the torture of my English life longer
than is absolutely necessary. By the bye, I heard that you are keeping
your promise to Trelawny, and that in due time he will be blessed with
a namesake. How is _Occhi Turchini_, Thornton the reformed, Johnny
the--what Johnny? the good boy? Mary the merry, Irving the sober,
Percy the martyr, and dear Sylvan the good?

Percy is quite well; tell his friend he goes to school and learns to
read and write, being very handy with his hands, perhaps having a pure
anticipated cognition of the art of painting in his tiny fingers. Mrs.
Williams' little girl, who calls herself Dina, is his wife. Poor
Clare, at Moscow! at least she will be independent one day, and if I
am so soon, her situation will be quickly ameliorated.

Have you heard of Medwin's book? Notes of conversations which he had
with Lord Byron (when tipsy); every one is to be in it; every one will
be angry. He wanted me to have a hand in it, but I declined. Years
ago, when a man died, the worms ate him; now a new set of worms feed
on the carcase of the scandal he leaves behind him, and grow fat upon
the world's love of tittle-tattle. I will not be numbered among them.
Have you received the volume of poems? Give my love to "Very," and so,
dear, very patient, Adieu.--Yours affectionately,

MARY SHELLEY.

_Journal, October 26._--Time rolls on, and what does it bring? What
can I do? How change my destiny? Months change their names, years
their cyphers. My brow is sadly trenched, the blossom of youth faded.
My mind gathers wrinkles. What will become of me?

How long it is since an emotion of joy filled my once exulting heart,
or beamed from my once bright eyes. I am young still, though age
creeps on apace; but I may not love any but the dead. I think that an
emotion of joy would destroy me, so strange would it be to my withered
heart. Shelley had said--

Lift not the painted veil which men call life.

Mine is not painted; dark and enshadowed, it curtains out all
happiness, all hope. Tears fill my eyes; well may I weep, solitary
girl! The dead know you not; the living heed you not. You sit in your
lone room, and the howling wind, gloomy prognostic of winter, gives
not forth so despairing a tone as the unheard sighs your ill-fated
heart breathes.

I was loved once! still let me cling to the memory; but to live for
oneself alone, to read, and communicate your reflections to none; to
write, and be cheered by none; to weep, and in no bosom; no more on
thy bosom, my Shelley, to spend my tears--this is misery!

Such is the Alpha and Omega of my tale. I can speak to none. Writing
this is useless; it does not even soothe me; on the contrary, it
irritates me by showing the pitiful expedient to which I am reduced.

I have been a year in England, and, ungentle England, for what have I
to thank you? For disappointment, melancholy, and tears; for
unkindness, a bleeding heart, and despairing thoughts. I wish,
England, to associate but one idea with thee--immeasurable distance
and insurmountable barriers, so that I never, never might breathe
thine air more.

Beloved Italy! you are my country, my hope, my heaven!

_December 3._--I endeavour to rouse my fortitude and calm my mind by
high and philosophic thoughts, and my studies aid this endeavour. I
have pondered for hours on Cicero's description of that power of
virtue in the human mind which render's man's frail being superior to
fortune.

"Eadem ratio habet in re quiddam amplum at que magnificum ad
imperandum magis quam ad parendum accommodatum; omnia humana non
tolerabilia solum sed etiam levia ducens; altum quiddam et excelsum,
nihil temens, nemini cedens, semper invictum."

What should I fear? To whom cede? By whom be conquered?

Little truly have I to fear. One only misfortune can touch me. That
must be the last, for I should sink under it. At the age of seven and
twenty, in the busy metropolis of native England, I find myself alone.
The struggle is hard that can give rise to misanthropy in one, like
me, attached to my fellow-creatures. Yet now, did not the memory of
those matchless lost ones redeem their race, I should learn to hate
men, who are strong only to oppress, moral only to insult. Oh ye
winged hours that fly fast, that, having first destroyed my happiness,
now bear my swift-departing youth with you, bring patience, wisdom,
and content! I will not stoop to the world, or become like those who
compose it, and be actuated by mean pursuits and petty ends. I will
endeavour to remain unconquered by hard and bitter fortune; yet the
tears that start in my eyes show pangs she inflicts upon me.

So much for philosophising. Shall I ever be a philosopher?