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In Defence Of Harriet=
By
Mark Twain
Contents
I =
II =
III =
I have committed sins, of course; but I have n=
ot
committed enough of them to entitle me to the punishment of reduction to the
bread and water of ordinary literature during six years when I might have b=
een
living on the fat diet spread for the righteous in Professor Dowden's Life =
of Shelley,
if I had been justly dealt with.
During these six years I have been living a li=
fe
of peaceful ignorance. I was not aware that Shelley's first wife was unfait=
hful
to him, and that that was why he deserted her and wiped the stain from his
sensitive honor by entering into soiled relations with Godwin's young daugh=
ter.
This was all new to me when I heard it lately, and was told that the proofs=
of
it were in this book, and that this book's verdict is accepted in the girls'
colleges of America and its view taught in their literary classes.
In each of these six years multitudes of young
people in our country have arrived at the Shelley-reading age. Are these six
multitudes unacquainted with this life of Shelley? Perhaps they are; indeed,
one may feel pretty sure that the great bulk of them are. To these, then, I
address myself, in the hope that some account of this romantic historical f=
able
and the fabulist's manner of constructing and adorning it may interest them=
.
First, as to its literary style. Our negroes in
America have several ways of entertaining themselves which are not found am=
ong
the whites anywhere. Among these inventions of theirs is one which is
particularly popular with them. It is a competition in elegant deportment. =
They
hire a hall and bank the spectators' seats in rising tiers along the two si=
des,
leaving all the middle stretch of the floor free. A cake is provided as a p=
rize
for the winner in the competition, and a bench of experts in deportment is
appointed to award it. Sometimes there are as many as fifty contestants, ma=
le
and female, and five hundred spectators. One at a time the contestants ente=
r,
clothed regardless of expense in what each considers the perfection of style
and taste, and walk down the vacant central space and back again with that
multitude of critical eyes on them. All that the competitor knows of fine a=
irs
and graces he throws into his carriage, all that he knows of seductive
expression he throws into his countenance. He may use all the helps he can
devise: watch-chain to twirl with his fingers, cane to do graceful things w=
ith,
snowy handkerchief to flourish and get artful effects out of, shiny new sto=
vepipe
hat to assist in his courtly bows; and the colored lady may have a fan to w=
ork
up her effects with, and smile over and blush behind, and she may add other
helps, according to her judgment. When the review by individual detail is o=
ver,
a grand review of all the contestants in procession follows, with all the a=
irs
and graces and all the bowings and smirkings on exhibition at once, and this
enables the bench of experts to make the necessary comparisons and arrive a=
t a
verdict. The successful competitor gets the prize which I have before
mentioned, and an abundance of applause and envy along with it. The negroes
have a name for this grave deportment-tournament; a name taken from the pri=
ze contended
for. They call it a Cake-walk.
This Shelley biography is a literary cake-walk.
The ordinary forms of speech are absent from it. All the pages, all the
paragraphs, walk by sedately, elegantly, not to say mincingly, in their
Sunday-best, shiny and sleek, perfumed, and with boutonnieres in their
button-holes; it is rare to find even a chance sentence that has forgotten =
to
dress. If the book wishes to tell us that Mary Godwin, child of sixteen, had
known afflictions, the fact saunters forth in this nobby outfit: "Mary=
was
herself not unlearned in the lore of pain"--meaning by that that she h=
ad not
always traveled on asphalt; or, as some authorities would frame it, that she
had "been there herself," a form which, while preferable to the b=
ook's
form, is still not to be recommended. If the book wishes to tell us that
Harriet Shelley hired a wet-nurse, that commonplace fact gets turned into a
dancing-master, who does his professional bow before us in pumps and
knee-breeches, with his fiddle under one arm and his crush-hat under the ot=
her,
thus: "The beauty of Harriet's motherly relation to her babe was marre=
d in
Shelley's eyes by the introduction into his house of a hireling nurse to wh=
om
was delegated the mother's tenderest office."
This is perhaps the strangest book that has se=
en
the light since Frankenstein. Indeed, it is a Frankenstein itself; a
Frankenstein with the original infirmity supplemented by a new one; a
Frankenstein with the reasoning faculty wanting. Yet it believes it can rea=
son,
and is always trying. It is not content to leave a mountain of fact standin=
g in
the clear sunshine, where the simplest reader can perceive its form, its de=
tails,
and its relation to the rest of the landscape, but thinks it must help him
examine it and understand it; so its drifting mind settles upon it with that
intent, but always with one and the same result: there is a change of
temperature and the mountain is hid in a fog. Every time it sets up a premi=
se
and starts to reason from it, there is a surprise in store for the reader. =
It
is strangely nearsighted, cross-eyed, and purblind. Sometimes when a mastod=
on
walks across the field of its vision it takes it for a rat; at other times =
it
does not see it at all.
The materials of this biographical fable are
facts, rumors, and poetry. They are connected together and harmonized by the
help of suggestion, conjecture, innuendo, perversion, and semi-suppression.=
The fable has a distinct object in view, but t=
his
object is not acknowledged in set words. Percy Bysshe Shelley has done
something which in the case of other men is called a grave crime; it must be
shown that in his case it is not that, because he does not think as other m=
en
do about these things.
Ought not that to be enough, if the fabulist is
serious? Having proved that a crime is not a crime, was it worth while to g=
o on
and fasten the responsibility of a crime which was not a crime upon somebody
else? What is the use of hunting down and holding to bitter account people =
who
are responsible for other people's innocent acts?
Still, the fabulist thinks it a good idea to do
that. In his view Shelley's first wife, Harriet, free of all offense as far=
as
we have historical facts for guidance, must be held unforgivably responsible
for her husband's innocent act in deserting her and taking up with another =
woman.
Any one will suspect that this task has its
difficulties. Any one will divine that nice work is necessary here, cautious
work, wily work, and that there is entertainment to be had in watching the
magician do it. There is indeed entertainment in watching him. He arranges =
his
facts, his rumors, and his poems on his table in full view of the house, an=
d shows
you that everything is there--no deception, everything fair and above board.
And this is apparently true, yet there is a defect, for some of his best st=
ock
is hid in an appendix-basket behind the door, and you do not come upon it u=
ntil
the exhibition is over and the enchantment of your mind accomplished--as the
magician thinks.
There is an insistent atmosphere of candor and fairness about this book which is engaging at first, then a little burdenso= me, then a trifle fatiguing, then progressively suspicious, annoying, irritatin= g, and oppressive. It takes one some little time to find out that phrases whic= h seem intended to guide the reader aright are there to mislead him; that phrases which seem intended to throw light are there to throw darkness; that phrases which seem intended to interpret a fact are there to misinterpret it; that phrases which seem intended to forestall prejudice are there to create it; = that phrases which seem antidotes are poisons in disguise. The naked facts array= ed in the book establish Shelley's guilt in that one episode which disfigures = his otherwise superlatively lofty and beautiful life; but the historian's caref= ul and methodical misinterpretation of them transfers the responsibility to the wife's shoulders as he persuades himself. The few meagre facts of Harriet S= helley's life, as furnished by the book, acquit her of offense; but by calling in the forbidden helps of rumor, gossip, conjecture, insinuation, and innuendo he destroys her character and rehabilitates Shelley's--as he believes. And in truth his unheroic work has not been barren of the results he aimed at; as witness the assertion made to me that girls in the colleges of America are taught that Harriet Shelley put a stain upon her husband's honor, and that = that was what stung him into repurifying himself by deserting her and his child = and entering into scandalous relations with a school-girl acquaintance of his.<= o:p>
If that assertion is true, they probably use a
reduction of this work in those colleges, maybe only a sketch outlined from=
it.
Such a thing as that could be harmful and misleading. They ought to cast it=
out
and put the whole book in its place. It would not deceive. It would not dec=
eive
the janitor.
All of this book is interesting on account of =
the
sorcerer's methods and the attractiveness of some of his characters and the
repulsiveness of the rest, but no part of it is so much so as are the chapt=
ers
wherein he tries to think he thinks he sets forth the causes which led to
Shelley's desertion of his wife in 1814.
Harriet Westbrook was a school-girl sixteen ye=
ars
old. Shelley was teeming with advanced thought. He believed that Christiani=
ty
was a degrading and selfish superstition, and he had a deep and sincere des=
ire to
rescue one of his sisters from it. Harriet was impressed by his various
philosophies and looked upon him as an intellectual wonder--which indeed he
was. He had an idea that she could give him valuable help in his scheme
regarding his sister; therefore he asked her to correspond with him. She was
quite willing. Shelley was not thinking of love, for he was just getting ov=
er a
passion for his cousin, Harriet Grove, and just getting well steeped in one=
for
Miss Hitchener, a school-teacher. What might happen to Harriet Westbrook be=
fore
the letter-writing was ended did not enter his mind. Yet an older person co=
uld
have made a good guess at it, for in person Shelley was as beautiful as an
angel, he was frank, sweet, winning, unassuming, and so rich in unselfishne=
ss,
generosities, and magnanimities that he made his whole generation seem poor=
in
these great qualities by comparison. Besides, he was in distress. His colle=
ge
had expelled him for writing an atheistical pamphlet and afflicting the
reverend heads of the university with it, his rich father and grandfather h=
ad
closed their purses against him, his friends were cold. Necessarily, Harriet
fell in love with him; and so deeply, indeed, that there was no way for She=
lley
to save her from suicide but to marry her. He believed himself to blame for
this state of things, so the marriage took place. He was pretty fairly in l=
ove
with Harriet, although he loved Miss Hitchener better. He wrote and explain=
ed
the case to Miss Hitchener after the wedding, and he could not have been
franker or more naive and less stirred up about the circumstance if the mat=
ter
in issue had been a commercial transaction involving thirty-five dollars.
Shelley was nineteen. He was not a youth, but =
a man.
He had never had any youth. He was an erratic and fantastic child during
eighteen years, then he stepped into manhood, as one steps over a door-sill=
. He
was curiously mature at nineteen in his ability to do independent thinking =
on
the deep questions of life and to arrive at sharply definite decisions
regarding them, and stick to them--stick to them and stand by them at cost =
of
bread, friendships, esteem, respect, and approbation.
For the sake of his opinions he was willing to
sacrifice all these valuable things, and did sacrifice them; and went on do=
ing
it, too, when he could at any moment have made himself rich and supplied
himself with friends and esteem by compromising with his father, at the
moderate expense of throwing overboard one or two indifferent details of hi=
s cargo
of principles.
He and Harriet eloped to Scotland and got marr=
ied.
They took lodgings in Edinburgh of a sort answerable to their purse, which =
was
about empty, and there their life was a happy, one and grew daily more so. =
They
had only themselves for company, but they needed no additions to it. They w=
ere
as cozy and contented as birds in a nest. Harriet sang evenings or read alo=
ud;
also she studied and tried to improve her mind, her husband instructing her=
in
Latin. She was very beautiful, she was modest, quiet, genuine, and, accordi=
ng
to her husband's testimony, she had no fine lady airs or aspirations about =
her.
In Matthew Arnold's judgment, she was "a pleasing figure."
The pair remained five weeks in Edinburgh, and
then took lodgings in York, where Shelley's college mate, Hogg, lived. Shel=
ley
presently ran down to London, and Hogg took this opportunity to make love to
the young wife. She repulsed him, and reported the fact to her husband when=
he
got back. It seems a pity that Shelley did not copy this creditable conduct=
of
hers some time or other when under temptation, so that we might have seen t=
he
author of his biography hang the miracle in the skies and squirt rainbows at
it.
At the end of the first year of marriage--the =
most
trying year for any young couple, for then the mutual failings are coming o=
ne
by one to light, and the necessary adjustments are being made in pain and t=
ribulation--Shelley
was able to recognize that his marriage venture had been a safe one. As we =
have
seen, his love for his wife had begun in a rather shallow way and with not =
much
force, but now it was become deep and strong, which entitles his wife to a
broad credit mark, one may admit. He addresses a long and loving poem to he=
r,
in which both passion and worship appear:
Exhibit A
&=
quot;O
thou Whose dear love glea=
med
upon the gloomy path Whic=
h this
lone spirit travelled, ............. ...
wilt thou not turn Those
spirit-beaming eyes and look on me. Until I be assured that Earth is
Heaven And Heaven is Eart=
h? ........ Harriet! let death all mortal t=
ies
dissolve, But ours shall =
not be
mortal."
Shell=
ey
also wrote a sonnet to her in August of this same year in celebration of her
birthday:
Exhibit B
"Ever as now with Love and Virtue's glow May thy unwithering soul not ce=
ase to
burn, Still may thine hea=
rt
with those pure thoughts o'erflow Which force from mine such quic=
k and
warm return."
Was t=
he
girl of seventeen glad and proud and happy? We may conjecture that she was.=
That was the year 1812. Another year passed st= ill happily, still successfully--a child was born in June, 1813, and in Septemb= er, three months later, Shelley addresses a poem to this child, Ianthe, in whic= h he points out just when the little creature is most particularly dear to him:<= o:p>
Exhibit C
"Dearest when most thy tender traits express The image of thy mother's
loveliness."
Up to=
this
point the fabulist counsel for Shelley and prosecutor of his young wife has=
had
easy sailing, but now his trouble begins, for Shelley is getting ready to m=
ake
some unpleasant history for himself, and it will be necessary to put the bl=
ame
of it on the wife.
Shelley had made the acquaintance of a charming
gray-haired, young-hearted Mrs. Boinville, whose face "retained a cert=
ain
youthful beauty"; she lived at Bracknell, and had a young daughter nam=
ed
Cornelia Turner, who was equipped with many fascinations. Apparently these
people were sufficiently sentimental. Hogg says of Mrs. Boinville:
"The greater part of her associates were odious. I generally found there two or three sentim=
ental
young butchers, an eminently philosophical tinker, and
several very unsophistica=
ted
medical practitioners or medical students, all of low origin and vulgar and
offensive manners. They sighed, turned up their eyes, retailed
philosophy, such as it was," etc.
Shelley moved to Bracknell, July 27th (this is
still 1813) purposely to be near this unwholesome prairie-dogs' nest. The
fabulist says: "It was the entrance into a world more amiable and
exquisite than he had yet known."
"In this acquaintance the attraction was
mutual"--and presently it grew to be very mutual indeed, between Shell=
ey
and Cornelia Turner, when they got to studying the Italian poets together.
Shelley, "responding like a tremulous instrument to every breath of pa=
ssion
or of sentiment," had his chance here. It took only four days for
Cornelia's attractions to begin to dim Harriet's. Shelley arrived on the 27=
th
of July; on the 31st he wrote a sonnet to Harriet in which "one detects
already the little rift in the lover's lute which had seemed to be healed or
never to have gaped at all when the later and happier sonnet to Ianthe was =
written"--in
September, we remember:
Exhibit D
"EVENING. TO HARRIET
"O thou bright Sun! Be=
neath
the dark blue line Of wes=
tern
distance that sublime descendest, And, gleaming lovelier as thy b=
eams
decline, Thy million hues=
to
every vapor lendest, And =
over
cobweb, lawn, and grove, and stream Sheddest the liquid magic of thy
light, Till calm Earth, w=
ith
the parting splendor bright, Shows like the vision of a beau=
teous
dream; What gazer now with
astronomic eye Could cold=
ly
count the spots within thy sphere? Such were thy lover, Harriet, c=
ould
he fly The thoughts of al=
l that
makes his passion dear, A=
nd
turning senseless from thy warm caress Pick flaws in our close-woven
happiness."
I can=
not
find the "rift"; still it may be there. What the poem seems to say
is, that a person would be coldly ungrateful who could consent to count and
consider little spots and flaws in such a warm, great, satisfying sun as
Harriet is. It is a "little rift which had seemed to be healed, or nev=
er
to have gaped at all." That is, "one detects" a little rift
which perhaps had never existed. How does one do that? How does one see the
invisible? It is the fabulist's secret; he knows how to detect what does not
exist, he knows how to see what is not seeable; it is his gift, and he work=
s it
many a time to poor dead Harriet Shelley's deep damage.
"As yet, however, if there was a speck up=
on
Shelley's happiness it was no more than a speck"--meaning the one which
one detects where "it may never have gaped at all"--"nor had
Harriet cause for discontent."
Shelley's Latin instructions to his wife had
ceased. "From a teacher he had now become a pupil." Mrs. Boinville
and her young married daughter Cornelia were teaching him Italian poetry; a
fact which warns one to receive with some caution that other statement that
Harriet had no "cause for discontent."
Shelley had stopped instructing Harriet in Lat=
in,
as before mentioned. The biographer thinks that the busy life in London some
time back, and the intrusion of the baby, account for this. These were
hindrances, but were there no others? He is always overlooking a detail here
and there that might be valuable in helping us understand a situation. For =
instance,
when a man has been hard at work at the Italian poets with a pretty woman, =
hour
after hour, and responding like a tremulous instrument to every breath of
passion or of sentiment in the meantime, that man is dog-tired when he gets
home, and he can't teach his wife Latin; it would be unreasonable to expect=
it.
Up to this time we have submitted to having Mr=
s.
Boinville pushed upon us as ostensibly concerned in these Italian lessons, =
but
the biographer drops her now, of his own accord. Cornelia "perhaps&quo=
t;
is sole teacher. Hogg says she was a prey to a kind of sweet melancholy,
arising from causes purely imaginary; she required consolation, and found i=
t in
Petrarch. He also says, "Bysshe entered at once fully into her views a=
nd
caught the soft infection, breathing the tenderest and sweetest melancholy,=
as
every true poet ought."
Then the author of the book interlards a most
stately and fine compliment to Cornelia, furnished by a man of approved
judgment who knew her well "in later years." It is a very good
compliment indeed, and she no doubt deserved it in her "later years,&q=
uot;
when she had for generations ceased to be sentimental and lackadaisical, and
was no longer engaged in enchanting young husbands and sowing sorrow for yo=
ung
wives. But why is that compliment to that old gentlewoman intruded there? I=
s it
to make the reader believe she was well-chosen and safe society for a young=
, sentimental
husband? The biographer's device was not well planned. That old person was =
not
present--it was her other self that was there, her young, sentimental,
melancholy, warm-blooded self, in those early sweet times before antiquity =
had
cooled her off and mossed her back.
"In choosing for friends such women as Mr=
s.
Newton, Mrs. Boinville, and Cornelia Turner, Shelley gave good proof of his
insight and discrimination." That is the fabulist's opinion--Harriet S=
helley's
is not reported.
Early in August, Shelley was in London trying =
to
raise money. In September he wrote the poem to the baby, already quoted fro=
m.
In the first week of October Shelley and family went to Warwick, then to Ed=
inburgh,
arriving there about the middle of the month.
"Harriet was happy." Why? The author
furnishes a reason, but hides from us whether it is history or conjecture; =
it
is because "the babe had borne the journey well." It has all the
aspect of one of his artful devices--flung in in his favorite casual way--t=
he
way he has when he wants to draw one's attention away from an obvious thing=
and
amuse it with some trifle that is less obvious but more useful--in a history
like this. The obvious thing is, that Harriet was happy because there was m=
uch
territory between her husband and Cornelia Turner now; and because the peri=
lous
Italian lessons were taking a rest; and because, if there chanced to be any
respondings like a tremulous instrument to every breath of passion or of
sentiment in stock in these days, she might hope to get a share of them
herself; and because, with her husband liberated, now, from the fetid
fascinations of that sentimental retreat so pitilessly described by Hogg, w=
ho
also dubbed it "Shelley's paradise" later, she might hope to pers=
uade
him to stay away from it permanently; and because she might also hope that =
his
brain would cool, now, and his heart become healthy, and both brain and hea=
rt
consider the situation and resolve that it would be a right and manly thing=
to
stand by this girl-wife and her child and see that they were honorably dealt
with, and cherished and protected and loved by the man that had promised th=
ese things,
and so be made happy and kept so. And because, also--may we conjecture
this?--we may hope for the privilege of taking up our cozy Latin lessons ag=
ain,
that used to be so pleasant, and brought us so near together--so near, inde=
ed,
that often our heads touched, just as heads do over Italian lessons; and our
hands met in casual and unintentional, but still most delicious and thrilli=
ng
little contacts and momentary clasps, just as they inevitably do over Itali=
an
lessons. Suppose one should say to any young wife: "I find that your
husband is poring over the Italian poets and being instructed in the beauti=
ful
Italian language by the lovely Cornelia Robinson"--would that cozy pic=
ture
fail to rise before her mind? would its possibilities fail to suggest
themselves to her? would there be a pang in her heart and a blush on her fa=
ce?
or, on the contrary, would the remark give her pleasure, make her joyous an=
d gay?
Why, one needs only to make the experiment--the result will not be uncertai=
n.
However, we learn--by authority of deeply reas=
oned
and searching conjecture--that the baby bore the journey well, and that that
was why the young wife was happy. That accounts for two per cent. of the ha=
ppiness,
but it was not right to imply that it accounted for the other ninety-eight
also.
Peacock, a scholar, poet, and friend of the
Shelleys, was of their party when they went away. He used to laugh at the
Boinville menagerie, and "was not a favorite." One of the Boinvil=
le
group, writing to Hogg, said, "The Shelleys have made an addition to t=
heir
party in the person of a cold scholar, who, I think, has neither taste nor
feeling. This, Shelley will perceive sooner or later, for his warm nature
craves sympathy." True, and Shelley will fight his way back there to g=
et
it--there will be no way to head him off.
Toward the end of November it was necessary for
Shelley to pay a business visit to London, and he conceived the project of
leaving Harriet and the baby in Edinburgh with Harriet's sister, Eliza West=
brook,
a sensible, practical maiden lady about thirty years old, who had spent a g=
reat
part of her time with the family since the marriage. She was an estimable
woman, and Shelley had had reason to like her, and did like her; but along
about this time his feeling towards her changed. Part of Shelley's plan, as=
he
wrote Hogg, was to spend his London evenings with the Newtons--members of t=
he
Boinville Hysterical Society. But, alas, when he arrived early in December,
that pleasant game was partially blocked, for Eliza and the family arrived =
with
him. We are left destitute of conjectures at this point by the biographer, =
and
it is my duty to supply one. I chance the conjecture that it was Eliza who
interfered with that game. I think she tried to do what she could towards
modifying the Boinville connection, in the interest of her young sister's p=
eace
and honor.
If it was she who blocked that game, she was n=
ot
strong enough to block the next one. Before the month and year were out--no
date given, let us call it Christmas--Shelley and family were nested in a
furnished house in Windsor, "at no great distance from the
Boinvilles"--these decoys still residing at Bracknell.
What we need, now, is a misleading conjecture.=
We
get it with characteristic promptness and depravity:
"But Prince Athanase found not the aged Zonoras, the friend of =
his boyhood, in any wanderings =
to
Windsor. Dr. Lind had died a year since, and with his death
Windsor must have lost, for Shelley, its chief attraction.&=
quot;
Still, not to mention Shelley's wife, there was
Bracknell, at any rate. While Bracknell remains, all solace is not lost.
Shelley is represented by this biographer as doing a great many careless
things, but to my mind this hiring a furnished house for three months in or=
der
to be with a man who has been dead a year, is the carelessest of them all. =
One
feels for him--that is but natural, and does us honor besides--yet one is
vexed, for all that. He could have written and asked about the aged Zonoras=
before
taking the house. He may not have had the address, but that is nothing--any
postman would know the aged Zonoras; a dead postman would remember a name l=
ike
that.
And yet, why throw a rag like this to us raven=
ing
wolves? Is it seriously supposable that we will stop to chew it and let our
prey escape? No, we are getting to expect this kind of device, and to give =
it merely
a sniff for certainty's sake and then walk around it and leave it lying.
Shelley was not after the aged Zonoras; he was pointed for Cornelia and the
Italian lessons, for his warm nature was craving sympathy.
The year 1813 is just ended now, and we step i=
nto
1814.
To recapitulate, how much of Cornelia's society
has Shelley had, thus far? Portions of August and September, and four days =
of
July. That is to say, he has had opportunity to enjoy it, more or less, dur=
ing
that brief period. Did he want some more of it? We must fall back upon hist=
ory,
and then go to conjecturing.
"In the early part of the year 1814, Shelley was a frequent
"Frequent" is a cautious word, in th=
is
author's mouth; the very cautiousness of it, the vagueness of it, provokes
suspicion; it makes one suspect that this frequency was more frequent than =
the
mere common everyday kinds of frequency which one is in the habit of averag=
ing
up with the unassuming term "frequent." I think so because they f=
ixed
up a bedroom for him in the Boinville house. One doesn't need a bedroom if =
one
is only going to run over now and then in a disconnected way to respond lik=
e a
tremulous instrument to every breath of passion or of sentiment and rub up
one's Italian poetry a little.
The young wife was not invited, perhaps. If she
was, she most certainly did not come, or she would have straightened the ro=
om
up; the most ignorant of us knows that a wife would not endure a room in th=
e condition
in which Hogg found this one when he occupied it one night. Shelley was
away--why, nobody can divine. Clothes were scattered about, there were book=
s on
every side: "Wherever a book could be laid was an open book turned dow=
n on
its face to keep its place." It seems plain that the wife was not invi=
ted.
No, not that; I think she was invited, but said to herself that she could n=
ot
bear to go there and see another young woman touching heads with her husband
over an Italian book and making thrilling hand-contacts with him accidental=
ly.
As remarked, he was a frequent visitor there,
"where he found an easeful resting-place in the house of Mrs.
Boinville--the white-haired Maimuna--and of her daughter, Mrs. Turner."
The aged Zonoras was deceased, but the white-haired Maimuna was still on de=
ck,
as we see. "Three charming ladies entertained the mocker (Hogg) with c=
ups
of tea, late hours, Wieland's Agathon, sighs and smiles, and the celestial
manna of refined sentiment."
"Such," says Hogg, "were the
delights of Shelley's paradise in Bracknell."
The white-haired Maimuna presently writes to H=
ogg:
"I will not have you despise home-spun pleasures. Shelley is making a trial of them with
us--"
A trial of them. It may be called that. It was
March 11, and he had been in the house a month. She continues:
Shelley "likes theM so well that he is resolved to leave off rambling--"
But he has already left it off. He has been th=
ere
a month.
"And begin a course of them himself."
But he has already begun it. He has been at it=
a
month. He likes it so well that he has forgotten all about his wife, as a
letter of his reveals.
"Seriously, I think his mind and body want rest."
Yet he has been resting both for a month, with
Italian, and tea, and manna of sentiment, and late hours, and every restful
thing a young husband could need for the refreshment of weary limbs and a s=
ore conscience,
and a nagging sense of shabbiness and treachery.
"His journeys after what he has never found have racked his
But she does not say whether the young wife, a
stranger and lonely yonder, wants another woman and her daughter Cornelia t=
o be
lavishing so much inflamed interest on her husband or not. That young wife =
is
always silent--we are never allowed to hear from her. She must have opinion=
s about
such things, she cannot be indifferent, she must be approving or disapprovi=
ng,
surely she would speak if she were allowed--even to-day and from her grave =
she
would, if she could, I think--but we get only the other side, they keep her
silent always.
"He has deeply interested us.
In the course of your intimacy he must have made you feel what=
we
now feel for him. He is seeking a house close to us--&q=
uot;
Ah! he is not close enough yet, it seems--
"and if he succeeds we shall have an additional motive to induce you to come among us in the
summer."
The reader would puzzle a long time and not gu=
ess
the biographer's comment upon the above letter. It is this:
"These sound like words of A considerate and judicious
friend."
That is what he thinks. That is, it is what he
thinks he thinks. No, that is not quite it: it is what he thinks he can stu=
pefy
a particularly and unspeakably dull reader into thinking it is what he thin=
ks.
He makes that comment with the knowledge that Shelley is in love with this =
woman's
daughter, and that it is because of the fascinations of these two that Shel=
ley
has deserted his wife--for this month, considering all the circumstances, a=
nd
his new passion, and his employment of the time, amounted to desertion; tha=
t is
its rightful name. We cannot know how the wife regarded it and felt about i=
t;
but if she could have read the letter which Shelley was writing to Hogg fou=
r or
five days later, we could guess her thought and how she felt. Hear him:....=
...
"I have been staying with Mrs. Boinville for the last month; I have escaped, in the society =
of all
that philosophy and frien=
dship
combine, from the dismaying solitude of myself."
It is fair to conjecture that he was feeling
ashamed.
"They have revived in my heart the expiring flame of life. I have felt myself translated t=
o a
paradise which has nothing of
mortality but its transitoriness; my heart sickens at the view of that necessity which wi=
ll
quickly divide me from the delightful tranquillity of this=
happy
home--for it has become my
home. ....... "Eliza is still with us--n=
ot
here!--but will be with me when the infinite malice of destiny =
forces
me to depart."
Eliza is she who blocked that game--the game in
London--the one where we were purposing to dine every night with one of the
"three charming ladies" who fed tea and manna and late hours to H=
ogg
at Bracknell.
Shelley could send Eliza away, of course; coul=
d have
cleared her out long ago if so minded, just as he had previously done with a
predecessor of hers whom he had first worshipped and then turned against; b=
ut perhaps
she was useful there as a thin excuse for staying away himself.
"I am now but little inclined to contest this point. I certainly hate her with all my
heart and soul....
"It is a sight which awakens an inexpressible sensation of disgust and horror, to see her =
caress
my poor little Ianthe, in=
whom
I may hereafter find the consolation of sympathy. I sometimes feel faint with the
fatigue of checking the overflowings of my unbounded
abhorrence for this miserable wretch. But she is no more than a blind and loa=
thsome
worm, that cannot see to =
sting.
"I have begun to learn Italian again.... Cornelia assists me in this language.
"I have written nothing but one stanza, which has no meaning, <=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> and that I have only written in
thought:
=
"Thy dewy looks sink in my breast; Thy gentle words stir
poison there; T=
hou
hast disturbed the only rest That was the portion =
of
despair. Subdue=
d to
duty's hard control, I could have borne my
wayward lot: The
chains that bind this rained soul Had cankered then, but
crushed it not.
"This is the vision of a delirious and distempered dream, which=
passes away at the cold clear l=
ight
of morning. Its surpassing excellence and exquisite perfec=
tions
have no more reality than the
color of an autumnal sunset."
Then it did not refer to his wife. That is pla=
in;
otherwise he would have said so. It is well that he explained that it has no
meaning, for if he had not done that, the previous soft references to Corne=
lia
and the way he has come to feel about her now would make us think she was t=
he
person who had inspired it while teaching him how to read the warm and ruddy
Italian poets during a month.
The biography observes that portions of this
letter "read like the tired moaning of a wounded creature." Guess=
es
at the nature of the wound are permissible; we will hazard one.
Read by the light of Shelley's previous histor=
y,
his letter seems to be the cry of a tortured conscience. Until this time it=
was
a conscience that had never felt a pang or known a smirch. It was the
conscience of one who, until this time, had never done a dishonorable thing=
, or
an ungenerous, or cruel, or treacherous thing, but was now doing all of the=
se,
and was keenly aware of it. Up to this time Shelley had been master of his
nature, and it was a nature which was as beautiful and as nearly perfect as=
any
merely human nature may be. But he was drunk now, with a debasing passion, =
and
was not himself. There is nothing in his previous history that is in charac=
ter
with the Shelley of this letter. He had done boyish things, foolish things,
even crazy things, but never a thing to be ashamed of. He had done things w=
hich
one might laugh at, but the privilege of laughing was limited always to the
thing itself; you could not laugh at the motive back of it--that was high, =
that
was noble. His most fantastic and quixotic acts had a purpose back of them
which made them fine, often great, and made the rising laugh seem profanati=
on
and quenched it; quenched it, and changed the impulse to homage.
Up to this time he had been loyalty itself, wh=
ere
his obligations lay--treachery was new to him; he had never done an ignoble=
thing--baseness
was new to him; he had never done an unkind thing--that also was new to him=
.
This was the author of that letter, this was t=
he
man who had deserted his young wife and was lamenting, because he must leave
another woman's house which had become a "home" to him, and go aw=
ay.
Is he lamenting mainly because he must go back to his wife and child? No, t=
he
lament is mainly for what he is to leave behind him. The physical comforts =
of
the house? No, in his life he had never attached importance to such things.
Then the thing which he grieves to leave is narrowed down to a person--to t=
he
person whose "dewy looks" had sunk into his breast, and whose
seducing words had "stirred poison there."
He was ashamed of himself, his conscience was
upbraiding him. He was the slave of a degrading love; he was drunk with his
passion, the real Shelley was in temporary eclipse. This is the verdict whi=
ch
his previous history must certainly deliver upon this episode, I think.
One must be allowed to assist himself with
conjectures like these when trying to find his way through a literary swamp
which has so many misleading finger-boards up as this book is furnished wit=
h.
We have now arrived at a part of the swamp whe=
re
the difficulties and perplexities are going to be greater than any we have =
yet
met with--where, indeed, the finger-boards are multitudinous, and the most =
of
them pointing diligently in the wrong direction. We are to be told by the
biography why Shelley deserted his wife and child and took up with Cornelia
Turner and Italian. It was not on account of Cornelia's sighs and
sentimentalities and tea and manna and late hours and soft and sweet and
industrious enticements; no, it was because "his happiness in his home=
had
been wounded and bruised almost to death."
It had been wounded and bruised almost to deat=
h in
this way:
1st. Harriet persuaded him to set up a carriag=
e.
2d. After the intrusion of the baby, Harriet
stopped reading aloud and studying.
3d. Harriet's walks with Hogg "commonly
conducted us to some fashionable bonnet-shop."
4th. Harriet hired a wet-nurse.
5th. When an operation was being performed upon
the baby, "Harriet stood by, narrowly observing all that was done, but=
, to
the astonishment of the operator, betraying not the smallest sign of
emotion."
6th. Eliza Westbrook, sister-in-law, was still=
of
the household.
The evidence against Harriet Shelley is all in;
there is no more. Upon these six counts she stands indicted of the crime of
driving her husband into that sty at Bracknell; and this crime, by these he=
lps,
the biographical prosecuting attorney has set himself the task of proving u=
pon
her.
Does the biographer call himself the attorney =
for
the prosecution? No, only to himself, privately; publicly he is the
passionless, disinterested, impartial judge on the bench. He holds up his j=
udicial
scales before the world, that all may see; and it all tries to look so fair
that a blind person would sometimes fail to see him slip the false weights =
in.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wound=
ed
and bruised almost to death, first, because Harriet had persuaded him to se=
t up
a carriage. I cannot discover that any evidence is offered that she asked h=
im
to set up a carriage. Still, if she did, was it a heavy offence? Was it uni=
que?
Other young wives had committed it before, others have committed it since.
Shelley had dearly loved her in those London days; possibly he set up the
carriage gladly to please her; affectionate young husbands do such things. =
When
Shelley ran away with another girl, by-and-by, this girl persuaded him to p=
our
the price of many carriages and many horses down the bottomless well of her
father's debts, but this impartial judge finds no fault with that. Once she
appeals to Shelley to raise money--necessarily by borrowing, there was no o=
ther
way--to pay her father's debts with at a time when Shelley was in danger of
being arrested and imprisoned for his own debts; yet the good judge finds n=
o fault
with her even for this.
First and last, Shelley emptied into that
rapacious mendicant's lap a sum which cost him--for he borrowed it at ruino=
us
rates--from eighty to one hundred thousand dollars. But it was Mary Godwin's
papa, the supplications were often sent through Mary, the good judge is Mar=
y's strenuous
friend, so Mary gets no censures. On the Continent Mary rode in her private=
carriage,
built, as Shelley boasts, "by one of the best makers in Bond Street,&q=
uot;
yet the good judge makes not even a passing comment on this iniquity. Let us
throw out Count No. 1 against Harriet Shelley as being far-fetched, and
frivolous.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wound=
ed
and bruised almost to death, secondly, because Harriet's studies "had
dwindled away to nothing, Bysshe had ceased to express any interest in
them." At what time was this? It was when Harriet "had fully
recovered from the fatigue of her first effort of maternity... and was now =
in
full force, vigor, and effect." Very well, the baby was born two days
before the close of June. It took the mother a month to get back her full
force, vigor, and effect; this brings us to July 27th and the deadly Cornel=
ia.
If a wife of eighteen is studying with her husband and he gets smitten with=
another
woman, isn't he likely to lose interest in his wife's studies for that reas=
on,
and is not his wife's interest in her studies likely to languish for the sa=
me
reason? Would not the mere sight of those books of hers sharpen the pain th=
at
is in her heart? This sudden breaking down of a mutual intellectual interes=
t of
two years' standing is coincident with Shelley's re-encounter with Cornelia;
and we are allowed to gather from that time forth for nearly two months he =
did
all his studying in that person's society. We feel at liberty to rule out C=
ount
No. 2 from the indictment against Harriet.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wound=
ed
and bruised almost to death, thirdly, because Harriet's walks with Hogg
commonly led to some fashionable bonnet-shop. I offer no palliation; I only=
ask
why the dispassionate, impartial judge did not offer one himself--merely, I=
mean,
to offset his leniency in a similar case or two where the girl who ran away
with Harriet's husband was the shopper. There are several occasions where s=
he
interested herself with shopping--among them being walks which ended at the
bonnet-shop--yet in none of these cases does she get a word of blame from t=
he
good judge, while in one of them he covers the deed with a justifying remar=
k,
she doing the shopping that time to find easement for her mind, her child
having died.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wound=
ed
and bruised almost to death, fourthly, by the introduction there of a
wet-nurse. The wet-nurse was introduced at the time of the Edinburgh sojour=
n,
immediately after Shelley had been enjoying the two months of study with
Cornelia which broke up his wife's studies and destroyed his personal inter=
est
in them. Why, by this time, nothing that Shelley's wife could do would have
been satisfactory to him, for he was in love with another woman, and was ne=
ver
going to be contented again until he got back to her. If he had been still =
in
love with his wife it is not easily conceivable that he would care much who
nursed the baby, provided the baby was well nursed. Harriet's jealousy was
assuredly voicing itself now, Shelley's conscience was assuredly nagging hi=
m,
pestering him, persecuting him. Shelley needed excuses for his altered atti=
tude
toward his wife; Providence pitied him and sent the wet-nurse. If Providence
had sent him a cotton doughnut it would have answered just as well; all he
wanted was something to find fault with.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wound=
ed
and bruised almost to death, fifthly, because Harriet narrowly watched a
surgical operation which was being performed upon her child, and, "to =
the
astonishment of the operator," who was watching Harriet instead of
attending to his operation, she betrayed "not the smallest sign of
emotion." The author of this biography was not ashamed to set down that
exultant slander. He was apparently not aware that it was a small business =
to
bring into his court a witness whose name he does not know, and whose chara=
cter
and veracity there is none to vouch for, and allow him to strike this blow =
at
the mother-heart of this friendless girl. The biographer says, "We may=
not
infer from this that Harriet did not feel"--why put it in, then?--&quo=
t;but
we learn that those about her could believe her to be hard and
insensible." Who were those who were about her? Her husband? He hated =
her
now, because he was in love elsewhere. Her sister? Of course that is not
charged. Peacock? Peacock does not testify. The wet-nurse? She does not
testify. If any others were there we have no mention of them. "Those a=
bout
her" are reduced to one person--her husband. Who reports the circumsta=
nce?
It is Hogg. Perhaps he was there--we do not know. But if he was, he still g=
ot
his information at second-hand, as it was the operator who noticed Harriet's
lack of emotion, not himself. Hogg is not given to saying kind things when
Harriet is his subject. He may have said them the time that he tried to tem=
pt
her to soil her honor, but after that he mentions her usually with a sneer.
"Among those who were about her" was one witness well equipped to
silence all tongues, abolish all doubts, set our minds at rest; one witness,
not called, and not callable, whose evidence, if we could but get it, would=
outweigh
the oaths of whole battalions of hostile Hoggs and nameless surgeons--the b=
aby.
I wish we had the baby's testimony; and yet if we had it it would not do us=
any
good--a furtive conjecture, a sly insinuation, a pious "if" or tw=
o,
would be smuggled in, here and there, with a solemn air of judicial
investigation, and its positiveness would wilt into dubiety.
The biographer says of Harriet, "If words=
of
tender affection and motherly pride proved the reality of love, then
undoubtedly she loved her firstborn child." That is, if mere empty wor=
ds
can prove it, it stands proved--and in this way, without committing himself=
, he
gives the reader a chance to infer that there isn't any extant evidence but
words, and that he doesn't take much stock in them. How seldom he shows his=
hand!
He is always lurking behind a non-committal "if" or something of =
that
kind; always gliding and dodging around, distributing colorless poison here=
and
there and everywhere, but always leaving himself in a position to say that =
his
language will be found innocuous if taken to pieces and examined. He clearly
exhibits a steady and never-relaxing purpose to make Harriet the scapegoat =
for
her husband's first great sin--but it is in the general view that this is
revealed, not in the details. His insidious literature is like blue water; =
you
know what it is that makes it blue, but you cannot produce and verify any
detail of the cloud of microscopic dust in it that does it. Your adversary =
can
dip up a glassful and show you that it is pure white and you cannot deny it;
and he can dip the lake dry, glass by glass, and show that every glassful is
white, and prove it to any one's eye--and yet that lake was blue and you can
swear it. This book is blue--with slander in solution.
Let the reader examine, for example, the parag=
raph
of comment which immediately follows the letter containing Shelley's
self-exposure which we have been considering. This is it. One should inspect
the individual sentences as they go by, then pass them in procession and re=
view
the cake-walk as a whole:
"Shelley's happiness in his home, as is evident from this pathetic letter, had been fatal=
ly
stricken; it is evident, =
also,
that he knew where duty lay; he felt that his part was to take up his burden, silently and sorrowf=
ully,
and to bear it henceforth=
with
the quietness of despair. But we c=
an
perceive that he scarcely
possessed the strength and fortitude needful for success in such an attempt.=
And clearly Shelley himself was aware how perilous it was to
accept that respite of bl=
issful
ease which he enjoyed in the Boinville household; for gentle voices and dewy looks and
words of sympathy could not fail to remind him of an ideal =
of
tranquillity or of joy which could never be his, and which h=
e must
henceforth sternly exclud=
e from
his imagination."
That paragraph commits the author in no way. T=
aken
sentence by sentence it asserts nothing against anybody or in favor of anyb=
ody,
pleads for nobody, accuses nobody. Taken detail by detail, it is as innocen=
t as
moonshine. And yet, taken as a whole, it is a design against the reader; its
intent is to remove the feeling which the letter must leave with him if let
alone, and put a different one in its place--to remove a feeling justified =
by
the letter and substitute one not justified by it. The letter itself gives =
you
no uncertain picture--no lecturer is needed to stand by with a stick and po=
int
out its details and let on to explain what they mean. The picture is the ve=
ry
clear and remorsefully faithful picture of a fallen and fettered angel who =
is
ashamed of himself; an angel who beats his soiled wings and cries, who
complains to the woman who enticed him that he could have borne his wayward
lot, he could have stood by his duty if it had not been for her beguilement=
s;
an angel who rails at the "boundless ocean of abhorred society," =
and
rages at his poor judicious sister-in-law. If there is any dignity about th=
is spectacle
it will escape most people.
Yet when the paragraph of comment is taken as a
whole, the picture is full of dignity and pathos; we have before us a blame=
less
and noble spirit stricken to the earth by malign powers, but not conquered;=
tempted,
but grandly putting the temptation away; enmeshed by subtle coils, but ster=
nly
resolved to rend them and march forth victorious, at any peril of life or l=
imb.
Curtain--slow music.
Was it the purpose of the paragraph to take the
bad taste of Shelley's letter out of the reader's mouth? If that was not it,
good ink was wasted; without that, it has no relevancy--the multiplication
table would have padded the space as rationally.
We have inspected the six reasons which we are
asked to believe drove a man of conspicuous patience, honor, justice, fairn=
ess,
kindliness, and iron firmness, resolution, and steadfastness, from the wife
whom he loved and who loved him, to a refuge in the mephitic paradise of Br=
acknell.
These are six infinitely little reasons; but there were six colossal ones, =
and
these the counsel for the destruction of Harriet Shelley persists in not
considering very important.
Moreover, the colossal six preceded the little=
six
and had done the mischief before they were born. Let us double-column the
twelve; then we shall see at a glance that each little reason is in turn
answered by a retorting reason of a size to overshadow it and make it
insignificant:
1=
. Harriet sets up carriage. 1.
CORNELIA TURNER. 2. Harriet stops studying. 2.
CORNELIA TURNER. 3. Harriet goes to bonnet-shop. 3.
CORNELIA TURNER. 4. Harriet takes a wet-nurse. 4.
CORNELIA TURNER. 5. Harriet has too much nerve. 5.
CORNELIA TURNER. 6. Detested sister-in-law 6.
CORNELIA TURNER.
As soon as we comprehend that Cornelia Turner =
and
the Italian lessons happened before the little six had been discovered to be
grievances, we understand why Shelley's happiness in his home had been woun=
ded
and bruised almost to death, and no one can persuade us into laying it on H=
arriet.
Shelley and Cornelia are the responsible persons, and we cannot in honor and
decency allow the cruelties which they practised upon the unoffending wife =
to
be pushed aside in order to give us a chance to waste time and tears over s=
ix
sentimental justifications of an offence which the six can't justify, nor e=
ven
respectably assist in justifying.
Six? There were seven; but in charity to the
biographer the seventh ought not to be exposed. Still, he hung it out himse=
lf,
and not only hung it out, but thought it was a good point in Shelley's favo=
r.
For two years Shelley found sympathy and intellectual food and all that at
home; there was enough for spiritual and mental support, but not enough for=
luxury;
and so, at the end of the contented two years, this latter detail justifies=
him
in going bag and baggage over to Cornelia Turner and supplying the rest of =
his
need in the way of surplus sympathy and intellectual pie unlawfully. By the
same reasoning a man in merely comfortable circumstances may rob a bank wit=
hout
sin.
It is 1814, it is the 16th of March, Shelley h=
as
written his letter, he has been in the Boinville paradise a month, his dese=
rted
wife is in her husbandless home. Mischief had been wrought. It is the
biographer who concedes this. We greatly need some light on Harriet's side =
of
the case now; we need to know how she enjoyed the month, but there is no wa=
y to
inform ourselves; there seems to be a strange absence of documents and lett=
ers
and diaries on that side. Shelley kept a diary, the approaching Mary Godwin
kept a diary, her father kept one, her half-sister by marriage, adoption, a=
nd
the dispensation of God kept one, and the entire tribe and all its friends
wrote and received letters, and the letters were kept and are producible wh=
en
this biography needs them; but there are only three or four scraps of Harri=
et's
writing, and no diary. Harriet wrote plenty of letters to her husband--nobo=
dy
knows where they are, I suppose; she wrote plenty of letters to other
people--apparently they have disappeared, too. Peacock says she wrote good
letters, but apparently interested people had sagacity enough to mislay the=
m in
time. After all her industry she went down into her grave and lies silent t=
here--silent,
when she has so much need to speak. We can only wonder at this mystery, not
account for it.
No, there is no way of finding out what Harrie=
t's
state of feeling was during the month that Shelley was disporting himself in
the Bracknell paradise. We have to fall back upon conjecture, as our fabuli=
st
does when he has nothing more substantial to work with. Then we easily conj=
ecture
that as the days dragged by Harriet's heart grew heavier and heavier under =
its
two burdens--shame and resentment: the shame of being pointed at and gossip=
ed
about as a deserted wife, and resentment against the woman who had beguiled=
her
husband from her and now kept him in a disreputable captivity. Deserted
wives--deserted whether for cause or without cause--find small charity among
the virtuous and the discreet. We conjecture that one after another the
neighbors ceased to call; that one after another they got to being
"engaged" when Harriet called; that finally they one after the ot=
her
cut her dead on the street; that after that she stayed in the house daytime=
s,
and brooded over her sorrows, and nighttimes did the same, there being noth=
ing
else to do with the heavy hours and the silence and solitude and the dreary
intervals which sleep should have charitably bridged, but didn't.
Yes, mischief had been wrought. The biographer
arrives at this conclusion, and it is a most just one. Then, just as you be=
gin
to half hope he is going to discover the cause of it and launch hot bolts of
wrath at the guilty manufacturers of it, you have to turn away disappointed.
You are disappointed, and you sigh. This is what he says --the italics ['']=
are
mine:
"However the mischief may have been wrought--'and at this day <=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> no one can wish to heap blame o=
n any
buried head'--"
So it is poor Harriet, after all. Stern justice
must take its course--justice tempered with delicacy, justice tempered with=
compassion,
justice that pities a forlorn dead girl and refuses to strike her. Except in
the back. Will not be ignoble and say the harsh thing, but only insinuate i=
t.
Stern justice knows about the carriage and the wet-nurse and the bonnet-shop
and the other dark things that caused this sad mischief, and may not, must =
not
blink them; so it delivers judgment where judgment belongs, but softens the
blow by not seeming to deliver judgment at all. To resume--the italics are
mine:
"However the mischief may have been wrought--and at this day no=
one can wish to heap blame on a=
ny
buried head--'it is certain that some cause or causes of de=
ep
division between Shelley and his wife were in operation duri=
ng the
early part of the year 1814'."
This shows penetration. No deduction could be =
more
accurate than this. There were indeed some causes of deep division. But nex=
t comes
another disappointing sentence:
"To guess at the precise nature of these causes, in the absence=
of definite statement, were
useless."
Why, he has already been guessing at them for
several pages, and we have been trying to outguess him, and now all of a su=
dden
he is tired of it and won't play any more. It is not quite fair to us. Howe=
ver,
he will get over this by-and-by, when Shelley commits his next indiscretion=
and
has to be guessed out of it at Harriet's expense.
"We may rest content with Shelley's own
words"--in a Chancery paper drawn up by him three years later. They we=
re
these: "Delicacy forbids me to say more than that we were disunited by
incurable dissensions."
As for me, I do not quite see why we should re=
st
content with anything of the sort. It is not a very definite statement. It =
does
not necessarily mean anything more than that he did not wish to go into the=
tedious
details of those family quarrels. Delicacy could quite properly excuse him =
from
saying, "I was in love with Cornelia all that time; my wife kept crying
and worrying about it and upbraiding me and begging me to cut myself free f=
rom
a connection which was wronging her and disgracing us both; and I being stu=
ng
by these reproaches retorted with fierce and bitter speeches--for it is my
nature to do that when I am stirred, especially if the target of them is a
person whom I had greatly loved and respected before, as witness my various
attitudes towards Miss Hitchener, the Gisbornes, Harriet's sister, and
others--and finally I did not improve this state of things when I deserted =
my
wife and spent a whole month with the woman who had infatuated me."
No, he could not go into those details, and we
excuse him; but, nevertheless, we do not rest content with this bland propo=
sition
to puff away that whole long disreputable episode with a single mean, meani=
ngless
remark of Shelley's.
We do admit that "it is certain that some
cause or causes of deep division were in operation." We would admit it
just the same if the grammar of the statement were as straight as a string,=
for
we drift into pretty indifferent grammar ourselves when we are absorbed in
historical work; but we have to decline to admit that we cannot guess those
cause or causes.
But guessing is not really necessary. There is
evidence attainable--evidence from the batch discredited by the biographer =
and set
out at the back door in his appendix-basket; and yet a court of law would t=
hink
twice before throwing it out, whereas it would be a hardy person who would
venture to offer in such a place a good part of the material which is placed
before the readers of this book as "evidence," and so treated by =
this
daring biographer. Among some letters (in the appendix-basket) from Mrs.
Godwin, detailing the Godwinian share in the Shelleyan events of 1814, she
tells how Harriet Shelley came to her and her husband, agitated and weeping=
, to
implore them to forbid Shelley the house, and prevent his seeing Mary Godwi=
n.
"She related that last November he had fallen in love with Mrs.=
Turner and paid her such marked
attentions Mr. Turner, the husband, had carried off his wi=
fe to
Devonshire."
The biographer finds a technical fault in this;
"the Shelleys were in Edinburgh in November." What of that? The w=
oman
is recalling a conversation which is more than two months old; besides, she=
was
probably more intent upon the central and important fact of it than upon its
unimportant date. Harriet's quoted statement has some sense in it; for that
reason, if for no other, it ought to have been put in the body of the book.
Still, that would not have answered; even the biographer's enemy could not =
be
cruel enough to ask him to let this real grievance, this compact and
substantial and picturesque figure, this rawhead-and-bloody-bones, come
striding in there among those pale shams, those rickety spectres labeled
WET-NURSE, BONNET-SHOP, and so on--no, the father of all malice could not a=
sk
the biographer to expose his pathetic goblins to a competition like that.
The fabulist finds fault with the statement
because it has a technical error in it; and he does this at the moment that=
he
is furnishing us an error himself, and of a graver sort. He says:
"If Turner carried off his wife to Devonshire he brought her back and Shelley was staying with her an=
d her
mother on terms of cordial
intimacy in March, 1814."
We accept the "cordial intimacy"--it=
was
the very thing Harriet was complaining of--but there is nothing to show tha=
t it
was Turner who brought his wife back. The statement is thrown in as if it w=
ere
not only true, but was proof that Turner was not uneasy. Turner's movements=
are
proof of nothing. Nothing but a statement from Turner's mouth would have any
value here, and he made none.
Six days after writing his letter Shelley and =
his
wife were together again for a moment--to get remarried according to the ri=
tes
of the English Church.
Within three weeks the new husband and wife we=
re
apart again, and the former was back in his odorous paradise. This time it =
is
the wife who does the deserting. She finds Cornelia too strong for her,
probably. At any rate, she goes away with her baby and sister, and we have a
playful fling at her from good Mrs. Boinville, the "mysterious spinner
Maimuna"; she whose "face was as a damsel's face, and yet her hair
was gray"; she of whom the biographer has said, "Shelley was inde=
ed
caught in an almost invisible thread spun around him, but unconsciously, by
this subtle and benignant enchantress." The subtle and benignant encha=
ntress
writes to Hogg, April 18: "Shelley is again a widower; his beauteous h=
alf
went to town on Thursday."
Then Shelley writes a poem--a chant of grief o=
ver
the hard fate which obliges him now to leave his paradise and take up with =
his
wife again. It seems to intimate that the paradise is cooling toward him; t=
hat
he is warned off by acclamation; that he must not even venture to tempt with
one last tear his friend Cornelia's ungentle mood, for her eye is glazed and
cold and dares not entreat her lover to stay:
Exhibit E
"Pause not! the time is past! Every voice cries 'Away!' Tempt not with one last tear thy
friend's ungentle mood; T=
hy
lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay: Duty and dereliction guide thee=
back
to solitude."
Back to the solitude of his now empty home, th=
at
is!
"Away! away! to thy sad and silent home; Pour bitter tears on its desola=
ted
hearth." ........
But he will have rest in the grave by-and-by.
Until that time comes, the charms of Bracknell will remain in his memory, a=
long
with Mrs. Boinville's voice and Cornelia Turner's smile:
"Thou in the grave shalt rest--yet, till the phantoms flee Which that house and hearth and gard=
en made
dear to thee ere while, Thy
remembrance and repentance and deep musings are not free From the music of two voices and the=
light
of one sweet smile."
We cannot wonder that Harriet could not stand =
it.
Any of us would have left. We would not even stay with a cat that was in th=
is
condition. Even the Boinvilles could not endure it; and so, as we have seen,
they gave this one notice.
"Early in May, Shelley was in London. He did not yet despair of reconciliation with Harriet,=
nor
had he ceased to love her."
Shelley's poems are a good deal of trouble to =
his
biographer. They are constantly inserted as "evidence," and they =
make
much confusion. As soon as one of them has proved one thing, another one
follows and proves quite a different thing. The poem just quoted shows that=
he
was in love with Cornelia, but a month later he is in love with Harriet aga=
in,
and there is a poem to prove it.
"In this piteous appeal Shelley declares that he has now no
Exhibit F
"Thy look of love has power to calm The stormiest passion of my
soul."
But w=
ithout
doubt she had been reserving her looks of love a good part of the time for =
ten
months, now--ever since he began to lavish his own on Cornelia Turner at the
end of the previous July. He does really seem to have already forgotten
Cornelia's merits in one brief month, for he eulogizes Harriet in a way whi=
ch
rules all competition out:
"Thou only virtuous, gentle, kind, Amid a world of hate."=
;
He complains of her hardness, and begs her to = make the concession of a "slight endurance"--of his waywardness, perhaps--for the sake of "a fellow-being's lasting weal." But the main force of his appeal is in his closing stanza, and is strongly worded:<= o:p>
"O trust for once no erring guide! Bid the remorseless feeling
flee; 'Tis malice, '=
tis
revenge, 'tis pride, 'Tis anything but thee; O deign a nobler pride to =
prove,
And pity if thou can=
st not
love."
This is in May--apparently towards the end of =
it.
Harriet and Shelley were corresponding all the time. Harriet got the poem--a
copy exists in her own handwriting; she being the only gentle and kind pers=
on
amid a world of hate, according to Shelley's own testimony in the poem, we =
are permitted
to think that the daily letters would presently have melted that kind and
gentle heart and brought about the reconciliation, if there had been time b=
ut
there wasn't; for in a very few days--in fact, before the 8th of June--Shel=
ley
was in love with another woman.
And so--perhaps while Harriet was walking the
floor nights, trying to get her poem by heart--her husband was doing a fresh
one--for the other girl--Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin--with sentiments like t=
hese
in it:
Exhibit G
To spend years thus and be rewarded, As thou, sweet love, requi=
ted me
When none were near. ...
thy lips did meet Mine tremblingly;...
"Gentle and good and mild thou art, Nor can I live if thou app=
ear Aught but thyself."..=
.
And s=
o on.
"Before the close of June it was known and felt by Mary and Shelley th=
at
each was inexpressibly dear to the other." Yes, Shelley had found this
child of sixteen to his liking, and had wooed and won her in the graveyard.=
But
that is nothing; it was better than wooing her in her nursery, at any rate,
where it might have disturbed the other children.
However, she was a child in years only. From t=
he
day that she set her masculine grip on Shelley he was to frisk no more. If =
she
had occupied the only kind and gentle Harriet's place in March it would have
been a thrilling spectacle to see her invade the Boinville rookery and read=
the
riot act. That holiday of Shelley's would have been of short duration, and
Cornelia's hair would have been as gray as her mother's when the services w=
ere
over.
Hogg went to the Godwin residence in Skinner
Street with Shelley on that 8th of June. They passed through Godwin's little
debt-factory of a book-shop and went up-stairs hunting for the proprietor.
Nobody there. Shelley strode about the room impatiently, making its crazy f=
loor
quake under him. Then a door "was partially and softly opened. A thril=
ling
voice called 'Shelley!' A thrilling voice answered, 'Mary!' And he darted o=
ut
of the room like an arrow from the bow of the far-shooting King. A very you=
ng
female, fair and fair-haired, pale, indeed, and with a piercing look, weari=
ng a
frock of tartan, an unusual dress in London at that time, had called him ou=
t of
the room."
This is Mary Godwin, as described by Hogg. The
thrill of the voices shows that the love of Shelley and Mary was already up=
ward
of a fortnight old; therefore it had been born within the month of May--bor=
n while
Harriet was still trying to get her poem by heart, we think. I must not be
asked how I know so much about that thrill; it is my secret. The biographer=
and
I have private ways of finding out things when it is necessary to find them=
out
and the customary methods fail.
Shelley left London that day, and was gone ten
days. The biographer conjectures that he spent this interval with Harriet in
Bath. It would be just like him. To the end of his days he liked to be in l=
ove
with two women at once. He was more in love with Miss Hitchener when he mar=
ried
Harriet than he was with Harriet, and told the lady so with simple and unos=
tentatious
candor. He was more in love with Cornelia than he was with Harriet in the e=
nd
of 1813 and the beginning of 1814, yet he supplied both of them with love p=
oems
of an equal temperature meantime; he loved Mary and Harriet in June, and wh=
ile
getting ready to run off with the one, it is conjectured that he put in his=
odd
time trying to get reconciled to the other; by-and-by, while still in love =
with
Mary, he will make love to her half-sister by marriage, adoption, and the v=
isitation
of God, through the medium of clandestine letters, and she will answer with
letters that are for no eye but his own.
When Shelley encountered Mary Godwin he was
looking around for another paradise. He had tastes of his own, and there we=
re
features about the Godwin establishment that strongly recommended it. Godwin
was an advanced thinker and an able writer. One of his romances is still re=
ad, but
his philosophical works, once so esteemed, are out of vogue now; their
authority was already declining when Shelley made his acquaintance --that i=
s,
it was declining with the public, but not with Shelley. They had been his m=
oral
and political Bible, and they were that yet. Shelley the infidel would hims=
elf
have claimed to be less a work of God than a work of Godwin. Godwin's
philosophies had formed his mind and interwoven themselves into it and beco=
me a
part of its texture; he regarded himself as Godwin's spiritual son. Godwin =
was
not without self-appreciation; indeed, it may be conjectured that from his
point of view the last syllable of his name was surplusage. He lived serene=
in
his lofty world of philosophy, far above the mean interests that absorbed
smaller men, and only came down to the ground at intervals to pass the hat =
for
alms to pay his debts with, and insult the man that relieved him. Several o=
f his
principles were out of the ordinary. For example, he was opposed to marriag=
e.
He was not aware that his preachings from this text were but theory and win=
d;
he supposed he was in earnest in imploring people to live together without
marrying, until Shelley furnished him a working model of his scheme and a
practical example to analyze, by applying the principle in his own family; =
the
matter took a different and surprising aspect then. The late Matthew Arnold
said that the main defect in Shelley's make-up was that he was destitute of=
the
sense of humor. This episode must have escaped Mr. Arnold's attention.
But we have said enough about the head of the =
new
paradise. Mrs. Godwin is described as being in several ways a terror; and e=
ven
when her soul was in repose she wore green spectacles. But I suspect that h=
er
main unattractiveness was born of the fact that she wrote the letters that =
are
out in the appendix-basket in the back yard--letters which are an outrage a=
nd
wholly untrustworthy, for they say some kind things about poor Harriet and =
tell
some disagreeable truths about her husband; and these things make the fabul=
ist
grit his teeth a good deal.
Next we have Fanny Godwin--a Godwin by courtesy
only; she was Mrs. Godwin's natural daughter by a former friend. She was a
sweet and winning girl, but she presently wearied of the Godwin paradise, a=
nd poisoned
herself.
Last in the list is Jane (or Claire, as she
preferred to call herself) Clairmont, daughter of Mrs. Godwin by a former
marriage. She was very young and pretty and accommodating, and always ready=
to
do what she could to make things pleasant. After Shelley ran off with her p=
art-sister
Mary, she became the guest of the pair, and contributed a natural child to
their nursery--Allegra. Lord Byron was the father.
We have named the several members and advantag=
es
of the new paradise in Skinner Street, with its crazy book-shop underneath.
Shelley was all right now, this was a better place than the other; more var=
iety
anyway, and more different kinds of fragrance. One could turn out poetry he=
re without
any trouble at all.
The way the new love-match came about was this=
:
Shelley told Mary all his aggravations and sor=
rows
and griefs, and about the wet-nurse and the bonnetshop and the surgeon and =
the
carriage, and the sister-in-law that blocked the London game, and about
Cornelia and her mamma, and how they had turned him out of the house after
making so much of him; and how he had deserted Harriet and then Harriet had=
deserted
him, and how the reconciliation was working along and Harriet getting her p=
oem
by heart; and still he was not happy, and Mary pitied him, for she had had
trouble herself. But I am not satisfied with this. It reads too much like
statistics. It lacks smoothness and grace, and is too earthy and business-l=
ike.
It has the sordid look of a trades-union procession out on strike. That is =
not
the right form for it. The book does it better; we will fall back on the bo=
ok
and have a cake-walk:
"It was easy to divine that some restless grief possessed him; =
Mary herself was not unlearned =
in the
lore of pain. His generous zeal in her father's b=
ehalf,
his spiritual sonship to Godwin, his reverence for her
mother's memory, were guarantees with Mary of his excellence.--[=
What
she was after was guarant=
ees of
his excellence. That he stood read=
y to
desert his wife and child=
was
one of them, apparently.]--The new friends could not lack subjects=
of
discourse, and underneath their
words about Mary's mother, and 'Political Justice,' and 'Rights of Woman,' were two you=
ng
hearts, each feeling towards the other, each perhaps unaware,
trembling in the direction of the other. The desire to assuage the suffering of =
one
whose happiness has grown
precious to us may become a hunger of the spirit as keen as any other, an=
d this
hunger now possessed Mary=
's
heart; when her eyes rested unseen on Shelley, it was with a look full of the ardor o=
f a
'soothing pity.'"
Yes, that is better and has more composure. Th=
at
is just the way it happened. He told her about the wet-nurse, she told him
about political justice; he told her about the deadly sister-in-law, she to=
ld him
about her mother; he told her about the bonnet-shop, she murmured back abou=
t the
rights of woman; then he assuaged her, then she assuaged him; then he assua=
ged
her some more, next she assuaged him some more; then they both assuaged one
another simultaneously; and so they went on by the hour assuaging and assua=
ging
and assuaging, until at last what was the result? They were in love. It will
happen so every time.
"He had married a woman who, as he now persuaded himself, had <=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> never truly loved him, who love=
d only
his fortune and his rank, and
who proved her selfishness by deserting him in his misery."
I think that that is not quite fair to Harriet=
. We
have no certainty that she knew Cornelia had turned him out of the house. He
went back to Cornelia, and Harriet may have supposed that he was as happy w=
ith
her as ever. Still, it was judicious to begin to lay on the whitewash, for
Shelley is going to need many a coat of it now, and the sooner the reader
becomes used to the intrusion of the brush the sooner he will get reconcile=
d to
it and stop fretting about it.
After Shelley's (conjectured) visit to Harriet=
at
Bath--8th of June to 18th--"it seems to have been arranged that Shelley
should henceforth join the Skinner Street household each day at dinner.&quo=
t;
Nothing could be handier than this; things will
swim along now.
"Although now Shelley was coming to believe that his wedded
We must not get impatient over these curious
inharmoniousnesses and irreconcilabilities in Shelley's character. You can =
see
by the biographer's attitude towards them that there is nothing objectionab=
le about
them. Shelley was doing his best to make two adoring young creatures happy:=
he
was regarding the one with affectionate consideration by mail, and he was
assuaging the other one at home.
"Unhappy Harriet, residing at
Bath, had perhaps never desired that the breach between herself=
and
her husband should be irreparable and complete."=
I find no fault with that sentence except that=
the
"perhaps" is not strictly warranted. It should have been left out=
. In
support--or shall we say extenuation?--of this opinion I submit that there =
is
not sufficient evidence to warrant the uncertainty which it implies. The on=
ly
"evidence" offered that Harriet was hard and proud and standing o=
ut against
a reconciliation is a poem--the poem in which Shelley beseeches her to
"bid the remorseless feeling flee" and "pity" if she
"cannot love." We have just that as "evidence," and out=
of
its meagre materials the biographer builds a cobhouse of conjectures as big=
as
the Coliseum; conjectures which convince him, the prosecuting attorney, but
ought to fall far short of convincing any fair-minded jury.
Shelley's love-poems may be very good evidence,
but we know well that they are "good for this day and train only."=
; We
are able to believe that they spoke the truth for that one day, but we know=
by
experience that they could not be depended on to speak it the next. The ver=
y supplication
for a rewarming of Harriet's chilled love was followed so suddenly by the
poet's plunge into an adoring passion for Mary Godwin that if it had been a
check it would have lost its value before a lazy person could have gotten to
the bank with it.
Hardness, stubbornness, pride,
vindictiveness--these may sometimes reside in a young wife and mother of
nineteen, but they are not charged against Harriet Shelley outside of that
poem, and one has no right to insert them into her character on such shadowy
"evidence" as that. Peacock knew Harriet well, and she has a flex=
ible
and persuadable look, as painted by him:
"Her manners were good, and her whole aspect and demeanor such =
manifest emanations of pure and
truthful nature that to be once in her company was to know her
thoroughly. She was fond of her husband, and accommodated herse=
lf in
every way to his tastes. =
If
they mixed in society, she adorned it; if they lived in retirement, she was satisfied; =
if
they travelled, she enjoyed the
change of scene."
"Perhaps" she had never desired that=
the
breach should be irreparable and complete. The truth is, we do not even know
that there was any breach at all at this time. We know that the husband and
wife went before the altar and took a new oath on the 24th of March to love=
and
cherish each other until death--and this may be regarded as a sort of recon=
ciliation
itself, and a wiping out of the old grudges. Then Harriet went away, and the
sister-in-law removed herself from her society. That was in April. Shelley
wrote his "appeal" in May, but the corresponding went right along
afterwards. We have a right to doubt that the subject of it was a
"reconciliation," or that Harriet had any suspicion that she need=
ed
to be reconciled and that her husband was trying to persuade her to it--as =
the
biographer has sought to make us believe, with his Coliseum of conjectures
built out of a waste-basket of poetry. For we have "evidence"
now--not poetry and conjecture. When Shelley had been dining daily in the
Skinner Street paradise fifteen days and continuing the love-match which was
already a fortnight old twenty-five days earlier, he forgot to write Harrie=
t;
forgot it the next day and the next. During four days Harriet got no letter
from him. Then her fright and anxiety rose to expression-heat, and she wrot=
e a
letter to Shelley's publisher which seems to reveal to us that Shelley's
letters to her had been the customary affectionate letters of husband to wi=
fe,
and had carried no appeals for reconciliation and had not needed to: "BATH (postma=
rk
July 7, 1814).
"MY DEAR SIR,--You will greatly oblige me by giving the enclosed to Mr. Shelley.
I would not trouble you, but it is now four days since I have hear=
d from
him, which to me is an age.
Will you write by return of post and tell me what has become of him? as I always fancy
something dreadful has ha=
ppened
if I do not hear from him. If you =
tell
me that he is well I shal=
l not
come to London, but if I do not hear from you or him I shall certainly come, =
as I
cannot endure this dreadful state of suspense. You are his friend and you can feel for=
me.
"I rem=
ain
yours truly,
=
"H.
S."
Even
without Peacock's testimony that "her whole aspect and demeanor were
manifest emanations of a pure and truthful nature," we should hold thi=
s to
be a truthful letter, a sincere letter, a loving letter; it bears those mar=
ks;
I think it is also the letter of a person accustomed to receiving letters f=
rom
her husband frequently, and that they have been of a welcome and satisfacto=
ry
sort, too, this long time back--ever since the solemn remarriage and
reconciliation at the altar most likely.
The biographer follows Harriet's letter with a
conjecture. He conjectures that she "would now gladly have retraced her
steps." Which means that it is proven that she had steps to
retrace--proven by the poem. Well, if the poem is better evidence than the
letter, we must let it stand at that.
Then the biographer attacks Harriet Shelley's
honor--by authority of random and unverified gossip scavengered from a grou=
p of
people whose very names make a person shudder: Mary Godwin, mistress to
Shelley; her part-sister, discarded mistress of Lord Byron; Godwin, the
philosophical tramp, who gathers his share of it from a shadow--that is to =
say,
from a person whom he shirks out of naming. Yet the biographer dignifies th=
is sorry
rubbish with the name of "evidence."
Nothing remotely resembling a distinct charge =
from
a named person professing to know is offered among this precious
"evidence."
1. "Shelley believed" so and so.
2. Byron's discarded mistress says that Shelley
told Mary Godwin so and so, and Mary told her.
3. "Shelley said" so and so--and lat=
er
"admitted over and over again that he had been in error."
4. The unspeakable Godwin "wrote to Mr.
Baxter" that he knew so and so "from unquestionable
authority"--name not furnished.
How any man in his right mind could bring hims=
elf
to defile the grave of a shamefully abused and defenceless girl with these
baseless fabrications, this manufactured filth, is inconceivable. How any m=
an,
in his right mind or out of it, could sit down and coldly try to persuade a=
nybody
to believe it, or listen patiently to it, or, indeed, do anything but scoff=
at
it and deride it, is astonishing.
The charge insinuated by these odious slanders=
is
one of the most difficult of all offences to prove; it is also one which no=
man
has a right to mention even in a whisper about any woman, living or dead, u=
nless
he knows it to be true, and not even then unless he can also prove it to be
true. There is no justification for the abomination of putting this stuff in
the book.
Against Harriet Shelley's good name there is n=
ot
one scrap of tarnishing evidence, and not even a scrap of evil gossip, that
comes from a source that entitles it to a hearing.
On the credit side of the account we have stro=
ng
opinions from the people who knew her best. Peacock says:
"I feel it due to the memory of Harriet to state my most decided conviction that her con=
duct
as a wife was as pure, as true,
as absolutely faultless, as that of any who for such conduct are held most in honor.=
"
Thornton Hunt, who had picked and published sl=
ight
flaws in Harriet's character, says, as regards this alleged large one:
"There is not a trace of evidence or a whisper of scandal against her before her voluntary
departure from Shelley."
Trelawney says:
"I was assured by the evidence of the few friends who knew both=
Shelley and his wife--Hookham, =
Hogg,
Peacock, and one of the Godwins--that Harriet was perfe=
ctly
innocent of all offence."
What excuse was there for raking up a parcel of
foul rumors from malicious and discredited sources and flinging them at this
dead girl's head? Her very defenselessness should have been her protection.=
The
fact that all letters to her or about her, with almost every scrap of her o=
wn writing,
had been diligently mislaid, leaving her case destitute of a voice, while e=
very
pen-stroke which could help her husband's side had been as diligently
preserved, should have excused her from being brought to trial. Her witness=
es
have all disappeared, yet we see her summoned in her grave-clothes to plead=
for
the life of her character, without the help of an advocate, before a
disqualified judge and a packed jury.
Harriet Shelley wrote her distressed letter on=
the
7th of July. On the 28th her husband ran away with Mary Godwin and her
part-sister Claire to the Continent. He deserted his wife when her confinem=
ent
was approaching. She bore him a child at the end of November, his mistress =
bore
him another one something over two months later. The truants were back in
London before either of these events occurred.
On one occasion, presently, Shelley was so pre=
ssed
for money to support his mistress with that he went to his wife and got some
money of his that was in her hands--twenty pounds. Yet the mistress was not
moved to gratitude; for later, when the wife was troubled to meet her engag=
ements,
the mistress makes this entry in her diary:
"Harriet sends her creditors here; nasty woman. Now we shall have to change our lodgings.&qu=
ot;
The deserted wife bore the bitterness and oblo=
quy
of her situation two years and a quarter; then she gave up, and drowned
herself. A month afterwards the body was found in the water. Three weeks la=
ter
Shelley married his mistress.
I must here be allowed to italicize a remark of
the biographer's concerning Harriet Shelley:
"That no act of Shelley's during the two years which immediately preceded her death =
tended
to cause the rash act whi=
ch
brought her life to its close seems certain."
Yet her husband had deserted her and her child=
ren,
and was living with a concubine all that time! Why should a person attempt =
to
write biography when the simplest facts have no meaning to him? This book is
littered with as crass stupidities as that one--deductions by the page which
bear no discoverable kinship to their premises.
The biographer throws off that extraordinary
remark without any perceptible disturbance to his serenity; for he follows =
it
with a sentimental justification of Shelley's conduct which has not a pang =
of conscience
in it, but is silky and smooth and undulating and pious--a cake-walk with a=
ll
the colored brethren at their best. There may be people who can read that p=
age
and keep their temper, but it is doubtful. Shelley's life has the one indel=
ible
blot upon it, but is otherwise worshipfully noble and beautiful. It even st=
ands
out indestructibly gracious and lovely from the ruck of these disastrous pa=
ges,
in spite of the fact that they expose and establish his responsibility for =
his forsaken
wife's pitiful fate--a responsibility which he himself tacitly admits in a
letter to Eliza Westbrook, wherein he refers to his taking up with Mary God=
win
as an act which Eliza "might excusably regard as the cause of her sist=
er's
ruin."