The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Volume I Part 9

_Sunday, 28th May 1815._

MY DEAR f.a.n.n.y--Mary writes me that you thought me unkind in not letting you know before my departure; indeed, I meant no unkindness, but I was afraid if I told you that it might prevent my putting a plan into execution which I preferred before all the Mrs. Knapps in the world. Here I am at liberty; there I should have been under a perpetual restraint. Mrs. Knapp is a forward, impertinent, superficial woman. Here there are none such; a few cottages, with little, rosy-faced children, scolding wives, and drunken husbands. I wish I had a more amiable and romantic picture to present to you, such as shepherds and shepherdesses, flocks and madrigals; but this is the truth, and the truth is best at all times. I live in a little cottage, with jasmine and honeysuckle twining over the window; a little downhill garden full of roses, with a sweet arbour. There are only two gentlemen's seats here, and they are both absent. The walks and shrubberies are quite open, and are very delightful. Mr. Foote's stands at top of the hill, and commands distant views of the whole country. A green tottering bridge, flung from rock to rock, joins his garden to his house, and his side of the bridge is a waterfall. One tumbles directly down, and then flows gently onward, while the other falls successively down five rocks, and seems like water running down stone steps. I will tell you, so far, that it is a valley I live in, and perhaps one you may have seen. Two ridges of mountains enclose the village, which is situated at the west end. A river, which you may step over, runs at the foot of the mountains, and trees hang so closely over, that when on a high eminence you sometimes lose sight of it for a quarter of a mile. One ridge of hills is entirely covered with luxuriant trees, the opposite line is entirely bare, with long pathways of slate and gray rocks, so that you might almost fancy they had once been volcanic. Well, enough of the valleys and the mountains.

You told me you did not think I should ever be able to live alone. If you knew my constant tranquillity, how cheerful and gay I am, perhaps you would alter your opinion. I am perfectly happy. After so much discontent, such violent scenes, such a turmoil of pa.s.sion and hatred, you will hardly believe how enraptured I am with this dear little quiet spot. I am as happy when I go to bed as when I rise. I am never disappointed, for I know the extent of my pleasures; and let it rain or let it be fair weather, it does not disturb my serene mood. This is happiness; this is that serene and uninterrupted rest I have long wished for. It is in solitude that the powers concentre round the soul, and teach it the calm, determined path of virtue and wisdom. Did you not find this--did you not find that the majestic and tranquil mountains impressed deep and tranquil thoughts, and that everything conspired to give a sober temperature of mind, more truly delightful and satisfying than the gayest ebullitions of mirth?

The foaming cataract and tall rock Haunt me like a pa.s.sion.

Now for a little chatting. I was quite delighted to hear that Papa had at last got 1000. Riches seem to fly from genius. I suppose, for a month or two, you will be easy--pray be cheerful. I begin to think there is no situation without its advantages. You may learn wisdom and fort.i.tude in adversity, and in prosperity you may relieve and soothe.

I feel anxious to be wise; to be capable of knowing the best; of following resolutely, however painful, what mature and serious thought may prescribe; and of acquiring a prompt and vigorous judgment, and powers capable of execution. What are you reading? Tell Charles, with my best love, that I will never forgive him for having disappointed me of Wordsworth, which I miss very much. Ask him, likewise, to lend me his Coleridge's poems, which I will take great care of. How is dear w.i.l.l.y? How is every one? If circ.u.mstances get easy, don't you think Papa and Mamma will go down to the seaside to get up their health a little? Write me a very long letter, and tell me everything. How is your health? Now do not be melancholy; for heaven's sake be cheerful; so young in life, and so melancholy! The moon s.h.i.+nes in at my window, there is a roar of waters, and the owls are hooting. How often do I not wish for a curfew!--"swinging slow with sullen roar!" Pray write to me. Do, there's a good f.a.n.n.y.--Affectionately yours,

M. J. CLAIRMONT.

Miss f.a.n.n.y G.o.dwin, 41 Skinner Street, Snow Hill, London.

How long this delightful life of solitude lasted is not exactly known. For a year after this time both Clara's journal and that of Sh.e.l.ley and Mary are lost, and the next thing we hear of Clara is her being in town in the spring of 1816, when she first made Lord Byron's acquaintance.

Mary, at any rate, enjoyed nearly a year of comparative peace and _tete-a-tete_ with Sh.e.l.ley, which, after all she had gone through, must have been happiness indeed. Had she known that it was the only year she would ever pa.s.s with him without the presence of a third person, it may be that--although her loyalty to Sh.e.l.ley stood every test--her heart might have sunk within her. But, happily for her, she could not foresee this.

Her letter from Clifton shows that Clara's shadow haunted her at times.

Still she was happy, and at peace. Her health, too, was better; and, though always weighed down by G.o.dwin's anxieties, she and Sh.e.l.ley were, themselves, free for once from the pinch of actual penury and the perpetual fear of arrest.

In June they made a tour in South Devon, and very probably paid Clara a visit in her rural retirement; after which Mary stayed for some time at Clifton, while Sh.e.l.ley travelled about looking for a country house to suit them. It was during one of his absences that Mary wrote to him the letter referred to above.

MARY TO Sh.e.l.lEY.

CLIFTON, _27th July 1815_.

MY BELOVED Sh.e.l.lEY--What I am now going to say is not a freak from a fit of low spirits, but it is what I earnestly entreat you to attend to and comply with.

We ought not to be absent any longer; indeed we ought not. I am not happy at it. When I retire to my room, no sweet love; after dinner, no Sh.e.l.ley; though I have heaps of things _very particular_ to say; in fine, either you must come back, or I must come to you directly. You will say, shall we neglect taking a house--a dear home? No, my love, I would not for worlds give up that; but I know what seeking for a house is, and, trust me, it is a very, _very_ long job, too long for one love to undertake in the absence of the other. Dearest, I know how it will be; we shall both of us be put off, day after day, with the hopes of the success of the next day's search, for I am frightened to think how long. Do you not see it in this light, my own love? We have been now a long time separated, and a house is not yet in sight; and even if you should fix on one, which I do not hope for in less than a week, then the settling, etc. Indeed, my love, I cannot bear to remain so long without you; so, if you will not give me leave, expect me without it some day; and, indeed, it is very likely that you may, for I am quite sick of pa.s.sing day after day in this hopeless way.

Pray, is Clara with you? for I have inquired several times and no letters; but, seriously, it would not in the least surprise me, if you have written to her from London, and let her know that you are without me, that she should have taken some such freak.

The Dormouse has hid the brooch; and, pray, why am I for ever and ever to be denied the sight of my case? Have you got it in your own possession? or where is it? It would give me very great pleasure if you would send it me. I hope you have not already appropriated it, for if you have I shall think it un-Pecksie of you, as Maie was to give it you with her own hands on your birthday; but it is of little consequence, for I have no hope of seeing you on that day; but I am mistaken, for I have hope and certainty, for if you are not here on or before the 3d of August, I set off on the 4th, in early coach, so as to be with you in the evening of that dear day at least.

To-morrow is the 28th of July. Dearest, ought we not to have been together on that day? Indeed we ought, my love, as I shall shed some tears to think we are not. Do not be angry, dear love; your Pecksie is a good girl, and is quite well now again, except a headache, when she waits so anxiously for her love's letters.

Dearest, best Sh.e.l.ley, pray come to me; pray, pray do not stay away from me! This is delightful weather, and you better, we might have a delightful excursion to Tintern Abbey. My dear, dear love, I most earnestly, and with tearful eyes, beg that I may come to you if you do not like to leave the searches after a house.

It is a long time to wait, even for an answer. To-morrow may bring you news, but I have no hope, for you only set off to look after one in the afternoon, and what can be done at that hour of the day? You cannot.

They finally settled on a house at Bishopsgate just outside Windsor Park, where they pa.s.sed several months of tranquillity and comparative health; perhaps the most peacefully happy time that Sh.e.l.ley had ever known or was ever to know. Shadows he, too, had to haunt him, but he was young, and the reaction from the long-continued strain of anxiety, fear, discomfort, and ill-health was so strong that it is no wonder if he yielded himself up to its influence. The summer was warm and dry, and most of the time was pa.s.sed out of doors. They visited the source of the Thames, making the voyage in a wherry from Windsor to Cricklade. Charles Clairmont was of the party, and Peac.o.c.k also, who gives a humorous account of the expedition, and of the cure he effected of Sh.e.l.ley's ailments by his prescription of "three mutton chops, well peppered." Sh.e.l.ley was at this time a strict vegetarian. Mary, Peac.o.c.k says, kept a diary of the excursion, which, however, has been lost. Sh.e.l.ley's "Stanzas in the churchyard of Lechlade"

were an enduring memento of the occasion. At Bishopsgate, under the oak shades of Windsor Great Park, he composed _Alastor_, the first mature production of his genius, and at Bishopsgate Mary's son William was born, on 24th January 1816.

The list of books read during 1815 by Sh.e.l.ley and Mary is worth appending, as giving some idea of their wonderful mental activity and insatiable thirst for knowledge, and the singular sympathy which existed between them in these intellectual pursuits.

LIST OF BOOKS READ IN 1815.

MARY.

_Those marked * Sh.e.l.ley read also._

Posthumous Works. 3 vols.

Sorrows of Werter.

Don Roderick. By Southey.

*Gibbon's Decline and Fall 12 vols.

*Gibbon's Life and Letters. 1st Edition. 2 vols.

*Lara.

New Arabian Knights. 3 vols.

Corinna.

Fall of the Jesuits.

Rinaldo Rinaldini.

Fontenelle's Plurality of Worlds.

Hermsp.r.o.ng.

Le Diable Boiteux.

Man as he is.

Rokeby.

Ovid's Metamorphoses in Latin.

*Wordsworth's Poems.

*Spenser's Fairy Queen.

*Life of the Phillips.

*Fox's History of James II.

The Reflector.

Fleetwood.

Wieland.

Don Carlos.

*Peter Wilkins.

Rousseau's Confessions.

Leonora: a Poem.

Emile.

*Milton's Paradise Lost.

*Life of Lady Hamilton.

De l'Allemagne. By Madame de Stael.

Three vols, of Barruet.

*Caliph Vathek.

Nouvelle Heloise.

*Kotzebue's Account of his Banishment to Siberia.

Waverley.

Clarissa Harlowe.

Robertson's History of America.

*Virgil.

*Tale of a Tub.

*Milton's Speech on Unlicensed Printing.

*Curse of Kehama.

*Madoc.

La Bible Expliquee.

Lives of Abelard and Heloise.

*The New Testament.

*Coleridge's Poems.

First vol. of Systeme de la Nature.