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39 - Life and Letters of Mary Shelley by Mrs. Julian Marshall · Life and Letters of Mary Shelley

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen, Part two of the Life in Letters of
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  Speaker 1: Mary Woolstonecraft Shelley, Volume one by Julian Missus Marshall. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter fourteen, Part two. Shelley, meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: never far from her in thought, and knowing only too
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  Speaker 1: well how acutely she would suffer from all this, was
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  Speaker 1: writing to her again, Shelley to Mary, my dearest Mary,
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  Speaker 1: I wrote to you yesterday, and I begin another letter
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  Speaker 1: to day, without knowing exactly when I can send it.
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  Speaker 1: As I am told, the post only goes once a week.
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  Speaker 1: I dare say the subject of the latter half of
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  Speaker 1: my letter gave you pain, But it was necessary to
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  Speaker 1: look the affair in the face, and the only satisfactory
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  Speaker 1: answer to the calumny must be given by you, and
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  Speaker 1: could be given by you alone. This is evidently the
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  Speaker 1: source of the violent denunciations of the literary gazette, in
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  Speaker 1: themselves contemptible enough and only to be regarded as effects
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  Speaker 1: which show us their cause, which, until we put off
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  Speaker 1: our mortal nature, we never despise. That is the belief
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  Speaker 1: of persons who have known and seen you, that you
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  Speaker 1: are guilty of crimes. A certain degree, and a certain
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  Speaker 1: kind of infamy is to be borne, and in fact
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  Speaker 1: is the best compliment which an exalted nature can receive
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  Speaker 1: from a filthy world of which it is its hell
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  Speaker 1: to be a part. But this sort of thing exceeds
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  Speaker 1: the measure. And even if it were only for the
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  Speaker 1: sake of our dear Percy, I would take some pains
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  Speaker 1: to repress it. In fact, it shall be suppressed, even
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  Speaker 1: if I am driven to the disagreeable necessity of prosecuting
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  Speaker 1: him before the Tuscan tribunals. Write to me at Florence,
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  Speaker 1: where I shall remain a day at least, and send
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  Speaker 1: me letters or news of letters. How is my little darling,
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  Speaker 1: and how are you? And how do you get on
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  Speaker 1: with your book? Be severe in your corrections, and expect
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  Speaker 1: severity from me, your sincere admirer. I flatter myself. You
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  Speaker 1: have composed something unequaled in its kind, and that not
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  Speaker 1: content with the honors of your birth and your hereditary aristocracy.
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  Speaker 1: You will add still higher renown to your name. Expect
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  Speaker 1: me at the end of my appointed time. I do
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  Speaker 1: not think I shall be detail hained. Is Claire with
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  Speaker 1: you or is she coming? Have you heard anything of
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  Speaker 1: my poor Amelia, from whom I got a letter the
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  Speaker 1: day of my departure saying that her marriage was deferred
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  Speaker 1: for a very short time on account of the illness
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  Speaker 1: of HERSPOSO. How are the Williams Aunt Williams especially, Give
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  Speaker 1: my very kindest love to them. Lord Byron has here
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  Speaker 1: splendid apartments in the house of his mistress's husband, who
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  Speaker 1: was one of the richest men in Italy. She is
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  Speaker 1: divorced with an allowance of twelve hundred crowns a year,
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  Speaker 1: a miserable pittance from a man who has one hundred
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  Speaker 1: and twenty thousand a year. Here are two monkeys, five cats,
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  Speaker 1: eight dogs, and ten horses, all of whom except the horses,
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  Speaker 1: walk about the house like the masters of it. Tita
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  Speaker 1: the Venetian is here and operates as my valet, a
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  Speaker 1: fine fellow with a prodigious blackbeard, and who has stabbed
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  Speaker 1: two or three people, and is one of the most
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  Speaker 1: good natured looking fellows I ever saw. I have good
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  Speaker 1: rumors of the Greeks here and a Russian war. I
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  Speaker 1: hardly wish the Russians to take any part in it.
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  Speaker 1: My maxim is with Eschylus to de Seves metammpleona ticti
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  Speaker 1: sveetera deocote jenna. There is a Greek exercise for you.
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  Speaker 1: How should slaves produce anything but tyranny, even as the
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  Speaker 1: seed produces a plant? I do dear Mary, yours affectionately,
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  Speaker 1: s at ravenna. There was only a weekly post. Shelley
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  Speaker 1: had to wait a long time for Mary's answer, and
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  Speaker 1: before it could reach him, he was writing to her
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  Speaker 1: yet a third time. His mind was now full of allegra.
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  Speaker 1: She was not to be left alone in Italy. Shelley,
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  Speaker 1: enlightened by Amelia Viviani, had been able to give Byron
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  Speaker 1: on the subject of convents, such information as to shake
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  Speaker 1: his faith and the purity of these receptacles. But no
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  Speaker 1: conclusions of any sort had been arrived at as to
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  Speaker 1: her future, and Shelley entreated Mary to rack her brains,
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  Speaker 1: to inquire of all her friends, to leave no stone unturned,
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  Speaker 1: if by any possibility she could find some fitting asylum,
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  Speaker 1: some safe home for the lovely child. He had been
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  Speaker 1: to see the little girl at her convent, and all
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  Speaker 1: readers of his letters know the description of the fairy
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  Speaker 1: creature who, with her contemplative seriousness mixed with excessive vivacity
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  Speaker 1: seemed a thing of a higher and finer order than
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  Speaker 1: the children around her, happy and well cared for, as
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  Speaker 1: far as he could judge, pale, but lovelier and livelier
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  Speaker 1: than ever, and full of childish glee and fun. At
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  Speaker 1: this point of his letter, Mary's budget arrived, and Shelley
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  Speaker 1: continued as follows, Ravenna Thursday, I have received your letter
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  Speaker 1: with that to missus Hopner. I do not wonder, my
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  Speaker 1: dearest friend, that you should have been moved. I was
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  Speaker 1: at first, but speedily regained the indifference which the opinion
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  Speaker 1: of anything or anybody except our own consciousness amply merits,
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  Speaker 1: and day by day shall more receive from me. I
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  Speaker 1: have not recopied your letter, such a measure would destroy
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  Speaker 1: its authenticity, but have given it to Lord Byron, who
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  Speaker 1: has engaged to send it with his own comments to
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  Speaker 1: the Hopners. People do not hesitate. It seems to make
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  Speaker 1: themselves panders and accomplices to slander, for the Hopners had
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  Speaker 1: exacted from Lord Byron that these accusations should be concealed
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  Speaker 1: from me. Lord Byron is not a man to keep
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  Speaker 1: a secret, good or bad. But in openly confessing that
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  Speaker 1: he has not done, so he must observe a certain delicacy,
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  Speaker 1: and therefore wished to send the letter himself. And indeed
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  Speaker 1: this adds weight to your representations. Have you seen the
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  Speaker 1: article in the literary gazette on me? They evidently allude
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  Speaker 1: to some story of this kind. However cautious the hopners
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  Speaker 1: have been in preventing the calumniated person from asserting his justification.
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  Speaker 1: You know too much of the world not to be
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  Speaker 1: certain that this was the utmost limit of their caution.
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  Speaker 1: So much for nothing. Lord Byron is immediately coming to Pisa.
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  Speaker 1: He will set off the moment I can get him
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  Speaker 1: a house. Who would have imagined this? What think you
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  Speaker 1: of remaining at Pisa? The Williams would probably be induced
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  Speaker 1: to stay there if we did. Hunt would certainly stay
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  Speaker 1: at least this winter near us. Should he emigrate at all,
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  Speaker 1: Lord Byron and his Italian friends would remain quietly there.
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  Speaker 1: And Lord Byron has certainly a very great regard for us.
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  Speaker 1: The regard of such a man is worth some of
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  Speaker 1: the tribute we must pay to the base passions of
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  Speaker 1: humanity in any intercourse with those within their circle. He
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  Speaker 1: is better worth it than those on whom we bestow
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  Speaker 1: it from mere custom. The Masons are there, and as
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  Speaker 1: far as solid affairs are concerned, are my friends. I
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  Speaker 1: allow this is an argument for Florence. Missus Mason's perversity
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  Speaker 1: is very annoying to me, especially as mister Tigue is
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  Speaker 1: seriously my friend. This circumstance makes me a verse from
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  Speaker 1: that intimate continuation of intercourse, which, once having begun, I
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  Speaker 1: can no longer avoid. At Pisa, I need not distill
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  Speaker 1: my water if I can distill it anywhere. Last winter
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  Speaker 1: I suffered less from my painful disorder than the winter
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  Speaker 1: I spent in Florence. The arguments for Florence, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and they are very weighty. Judge, I know you like
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  Speaker 1: the job which scale is overbalanced. My greatest content would
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  Speaker 1: be utterly to desert all human society. I would retire
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  Speaker 1: with you and our child to a solitary island in
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  Speaker 1: the sea. Would build a boat and shut upon my
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  Speaker 1: retreat the floodgates of the world. I would read no
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  Speaker 1: reviews and talk with no authors. If I dared trust
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  Speaker 1: my imagination, it would tell me that there are one
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  Speaker 1: or two chosen companions beside yourself whom I should desire.
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  Speaker 1: But to this I would not listen. Where two or
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  Speaker 1: three are gathered together, the devil is among them, and
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  Speaker 1: good far more than evil impulses, love far more than
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  Speaker 1: hatred has been to me, except as you have been
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  Speaker 1: its object, the source of all sorts of mischief. So
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  Speaker 1: on this plan I would be alone, and would devote
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  Speaker 1: either to oblivion or to future generations, the overflowings of
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  Speaker 1: a mind which timely withdrawn from the contagion, should be
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  Speaker 1: kept fit for no baser object. But this it does
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  Speaker 1: not appear that we shall do. The other side of
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  Speaker 1: the alternative, For a medium ought not to be adopted,
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  Speaker 1: is to form for ourselves a society of our own class,
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  Speaker 1: as much as possible in intellect or in feelings, and
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  Speaker 1: to connect ourselves with the interests of that society. Our
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  Speaker 1: roots never struck so deeply as at Pisa, and the
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  Speaker 1: transplanted tree flourishes. Not people who lead the lives which
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  Speaker 1: we led until last winter are like a family of
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  Speaker 1: Wahabi Arabs pitching their tent in the midst of London.
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  Speaker 1: We must do one thing or the other, for yourself,
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  Speaker 1: for our child, for our existence. The calumnies, the source
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  Speaker 1: of which are probably deeper than we perceive have ultimately
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  Speaker 1: for object the depriving us of the means of security
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  Speaker 1: and subsistence. You will easily perceive the gradations by which
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  Speaker 1: which Calumny proceeds to pretext pretext, to persecution and persecution,
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  Speaker 1: to the ban of fire and water. It is for this,
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  Speaker 1: and not because this or that fool, or the whole
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  Speaker 1: court of fools, curse and rail, that Calumny is worth
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  Speaker 1: refuting or chastising. P. B s so much for nothing. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: when Byron made himself responsible for Mary's letter, it was
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  Speaker 1: probably without any definite intention of withholding it from those
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  Speaker 1: to whom it was addressed. He may well have wished
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  Speaker 1: to add to this glowing denial of his own insinuations
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  Speaker 1: some palliating personal explanation. When in the previous March Claire
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  Speaker 1: had protested against an a Italian convent education for Allegra,
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  Speaker 1: he had sent her letter to the Hopners with a
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  Speaker 1: sneer at the excellent grace with which these representations came
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  Speaker 1: from a woman of the writer's character and present way
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  Speaker 1: of life. And yet he knew Shelley knew him, as
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  Speaker 1: the Hopners could not do. He knew what Shelley had
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  Speaker 1: done for him, for Claire and Allegra, and to how
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  Speaker 1: much slander and misrepresentation he had voluntarily submitted that they
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  Speaker 1: might go scot free. Byron was and he knew it,
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  Speaker 1: the last person who should have accepted or allowed others
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  Speaker 1: to accept this fresh scandal without proof and without inquiry.
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  Speaker 1: He was ashamed of the part he had played, and
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  Speaker 1: reluctant to confess to the Hopners that he had been wrong,
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  Speaker 1: and that his words, as often happened, had been far
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  Speaker 1: in advance of his knowledge or his solid convictions. But
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  Speaker 1: his intentions were to do the best he could, and,
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  Speaker 1: satisfying himself with good intentions, he put off the unwelcome
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  Speaker 1: day until the occasion was pasted, until finally the friend
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  Speaker 1: whose honor had been entrusted to his keeping was beyond
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  Speaker 1: his power to help or to harm Shelley was dead,
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  Speaker 1: and how then explained to the Hoppners why the letter
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  Speaker 1: had not been sent before. It was not worth while,
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  Speaker 1: probably to revive the subject in order to vindicate a
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  Speaker 1: mere memory, nor yet to remove an unjust and cruel
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  Speaker 1: stigma from the character of those who survived. However it
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  Speaker 1: may have been one, one thing is undoubted. Mary Shelley
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  Speaker 1: never received any answer to her letter of protest, which,
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  Speaker 1: after Byron's death, was found safe among his papers. One
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  Speaker 1: more note Shelley sent to Mary from Ravenna on the
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  Speaker 1: subject of the promised portrait. It would not seem that
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  Speaker 1: the miniature was actually despatched now, but as his return
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  Speaker 1: was so long delayed, the birthday plot had to be divulged. Revenna, Tuesday,
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  Speaker 1: the fifteenth of August eighteen twenty one. My dearest love,
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  Speaker 1: I accept your kind present of your picture and wish
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  Speaker 1: you would get it prettily framed for me. I will
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  Speaker 1: wear for your sake upon my heart this image, which
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  Speaker 1: is ever present to my mind. I have only two
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  Speaker 1: minutes to write. The post is just setting off. I
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  Speaker 1: shall leave the place on Thursday or Friday morning. You
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  Speaker 1: would forgive me for my longer stay if you knew
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  Speaker 1: the fighting I have had to make it so short.
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  Speaker 1: I need not say where my own feelings impel me.
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  Speaker 1: It still remains fixed that Lord Byron should come to
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  Speaker 1: Tuscany and of possible Pisa. But more of that tomorrow,
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  Speaker 1: your faithful and affectionate s. The foregoing painful episode was
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  Speaker 1: enough to fill Mary's mind during the fortnight she was alone.
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  Speaker 1: It was well for her that she was within easy
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  Speaker 1: reach of cheerful friends, Yet even as it was, she
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  Speaker 1: could not altogether escape from bitter thoughts. Claire was at
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  Speaker 1: Lakehorn and had to be told of everything. Mary could
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  Speaker 1: not but think of the relief it would be to
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  Speaker 1: them all if she were to marry, a remote possibility
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  Speaker 1: to which she probably alludes in the following letter written
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  Speaker 1: at this time to Miss Kurran. Mary Shelley to Miss Kurran,
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  Speaker 1: San Juliano, seventeenth of August, My dear Miss Curran, it
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  Speaker 1: gives me great pain to hear of your ill health.
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  Speaker 1: Will this hot summer conduce to a better state or not?
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  Speaker 1: I hope anxiously when I hear from you again to
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  Speaker 1: learn that you are better, having recovered from your weakness,
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  Speaker 1: and that you have no return of your disorder. I
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  Speaker 1: should have answered your letter before, but we have been
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  Speaker 1: in the confusion of moving. We are now settled in
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  Speaker 1: an agreeable house at the baths of San Juliano, about
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  Speaker 1: four miles from Pisa, under the shadow of mountains, and
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  Speaker 1: with delightful scenery within a walk. We go on in
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  Speaker 1: our old manner with no change. I have had many
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  Speaker 1: changes for the worse, one might be for the better,
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  Speaker 1: but that is nearly impossible. Our child is well and thriving,
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  Speaker 1: which is a great comfort, and the Italian sky gives
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  Speaker 1: Shelley health, which is to him a rare and substantial enjoyment.
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  Speaker 1: I did not receive the letter you mentioned to have
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  Speaker 1: written in March, and you also have missed one of
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  Speaker 1: our letters in which Shelley acknowledged the receipt of the
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  Speaker 1: drawings you mention, and requested that the largest pyramid might
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  Speaker 1: be erected if they could case it with white marble
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  Speaker 1: for twenty five hounds. However, the whole had better stand,
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  Speaker 1: as I mentioned in my last for without the most
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  Speaker 1: rigorous inspection, great cheating would take place, and no female
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  Speaker 1: could detect them. When we visit Rome, we can do
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  Speaker 1: that which we wish. Many thanks for your kindness, which
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  Speaker 1: has been very great. I would send you on the
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  Speaker 1: books I mentioned, but we live out of the world,
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  Speaker 1: and I know of no conveyance. Mister Perniance says that
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  Speaker 1: he sent the life of your father by sea to Rome,
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  Speaker 1: directed to you, So doubtless it is in the custom
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: house there. How enraged, all our mighty rulers are at
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  Speaker 1: the quiet revolutions which have taken place. It has said
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  Speaker 1: that some one said to the Grand Duke here mariky
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  Speaker 1: doo uno constitzione qui eh benny lador subito was the reply.
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  Speaker 1: But he is not his own master, and Austria would
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  Speaker 1: take care that that should not be the case. They
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  Speaker 1: say Austrian troops are coming here, and the Tuscan ones
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  Speaker 1: will be sent to Germany. We take in Garlignani and
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  Speaker 1: would send them to you if you liked. I do
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  Speaker 1: not know what the expense would be, but I should
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  Speaker 1: think slight. If you recommence painting, do not forget Beatrice.
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  Speaker 1: I wish very much for a copy of that. You
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: would oblige us greatly by making one pray. Let me
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  Speaker 1: hear of your health. God knows when we shall be
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  Speaker 1: in Rome. Circumstances must direct, and they dance about like
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: will O the Win, enticing and then deserting us. We
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  Speaker 1: must take care not to be left in a bog
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  Speaker 1: But do take care of yourself. Believe in Shelley's sincere
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  Speaker 1: wishes for your health, and in kind remembrances, and in
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  Speaker 1: my being ever sincerely yours M. W. Shelley Claire desires
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  Speaker 1: not remembrances if they are not pleasant. However, she sends
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  Speaker 1: a proper message and says she would be obliged to
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: you if you let her have the picture, if you
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  Speaker 1: could find a mode of conveying it. Do you know
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: we lose many letters having spies, not government ones about
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  Speaker 1: us in plenty. They made a desperate push to do
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: us a desperate mischief lately, but succeeded no further than
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: to black enough among the English. So if you receive
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  Speaker 1: a fresh batch or green bag of scandal against us,
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  Speaker 1: I assure you it is all a lie. Poor souls,
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  Speaker 1: we live innocently as well. You know if we did
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  Speaker 1: not ten to one, God would take pity on us,
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  Speaker 1: and we should not be so unfortunate. And of Chapter fourteen,
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  Speaker 1: Part two,