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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen, Part one of the Life and Letters of
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  Speaker 1: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Volume one by Julian Missus Marshall. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter fifteen, Part one,
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  Speaker 1: November eighteen twenty one to April eighteen twenty two. Journal
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  Speaker 1: Thursday November first, Go to Florence. Copy ride with the Guicioli.
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  Speaker 1: Albi arrives Sunday, November fourth. The Williams arrive. Copy call
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  Speaker 1: on the Guiccioli. Thursday November fifteenth, Copy read Caleb Williams
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  Speaker 1: to Jane. Ride with the Guicioli. Shelley goes on translating
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  Speaker 1: Spinoza with Edward Medwin arrives, Tafe calls are Giropulo calls
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  Speaker 1: good news from the Greeks. Tuesday, November twenty eighth, Ride
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  Speaker 1: with the Gricioli. Suffer much with rheumatism in my head. Wednesday,
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  Speaker 1: November twenty ninth. I mark this day because I begin
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  Speaker 1: my Greek again, and that is a study that ever
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  Speaker 1: delights me. I do not feel the bore of it,
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  Speaker 1: as in learning another language, although it be so difficult,
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  Speaker 1: it so richly repays one. Yet I read little, for
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  Speaker 1: I am not well. Shelley and the Williams go to Leghorn.
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  Speaker 1: They dine with us afterwards with Medwin. Write to Claire Thursday,
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  Speaker 1: November thirtieth, correct the novel read a little Greek not Well.
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  Speaker 1: Ride with the Guiccioli the Count Pietro Gamba in the evening.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Shelley to Missus Gisborne, Pisa, thirtieth of November eighteen
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  Speaker 1: twenty one. My dear Missus Gisborne, although having much to
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  Speaker 1: do be a bad excuse for not writing to you,
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  Speaker 1: yet you must in some sort admit this plea on
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  Speaker 1: my part. Here we are in Pisa, having furnished very
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  Speaker 1: nice apartments for ourselves, and what is more, paid for
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  Speaker 1: the furniture out of the fruits of two years economy.
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  Speaker 1: We are at the top of the tre Palazzi di Quiesa.
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  Speaker 1: I dare say, you know the house next door to
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  Speaker 1: Loscoto's house on the north side of Lungarno. But the
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  Speaker 1: rooms we inhabit are south and look over the whole
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  Speaker 1: country towards the sea, so that we are entirely out
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  Speaker 1: of the bustle and disagreeable puzzi et cetera of the town,
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  Speaker 1: and hardly know that we are so enveloped until we
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  Speaker 1: descend into the street. The Williams have been less lucky.
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  Speaker 1: Though they have followed our example in furnishing their own house,
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  Speaker 1: but renting it of mister Webb, they have been treated scurvily.
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  Speaker 1: So here we live Lord Byron. Just opposite to us
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  Speaker 1: in Cassa Lanfranki, the late Senora Feliki's house. So Pisa,
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  Speaker 1: you see, has become a little nest of singing birds.
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  Speaker 1: You will be both surprised and delighted at the work
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  Speaker 1: just about to be published by him, his Cane, which
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  Speaker 1: is in the highest style of imaginative poetry. It made
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  Speaker 1: a great impression upon me and appears almost a revelation
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  Speaker 1: from its power and beauty. Shelley rides with him, I
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  Speaker 1: of course see little of him. The lady whom he
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  Speaker 1: serves is a nice, pretty girl, without pretensions, good hearted
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  Speaker 1: and amiable. Her relations were banished Romagna for carbonarism. What
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  Speaker 1: do you know of Hunt? About two months ago he
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  Speaker 1: wrote to say that on the twenty first of October
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  Speaker 1: he should quit England. And we have heard nothing more
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  Speaker 1: of him in any way. I expect some day he
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  Speaker 1: and six children will drop in from the clouds, trusting
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  Speaker 1: that God will temper the wind to the shorn lamb.
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  Speaker 1: Pray when you write, tell us everything you know concerning him.
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  Speaker 1: Do you get any intelligence of the Greeks? Our worthy
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  Speaker 1: countrymen take part against them in every possible way. Yet
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  Speaker 1: such is the spirit of freedom, and such the hatred
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  Speaker 1: of these poor people for their oppressors, that I have
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  Speaker 1: the warmest hopes. Mantiseeim Isla nagunon Mavro Cordotto is there
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  Speaker 1: justly revered for the sacrifice he has made of his
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  Speaker 1: whole fortune to the cause, and besides for his firmness
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  Speaker 1: and talents. If Greece be free, Shelley and I have
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  Speaker 1: vowed to go, perhaps to settle there in one of
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  Speaker 1: those beautiful islands where earth, ocean and sky formed the paradise.
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  Speaker 1: You will, I hope, tell us all the news of
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  Speaker 1: our friends when you write, I see no one that
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  Speaker 1: you know. We live in our usual, retired way, with
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  Speaker 1: few friends and no acquaintances. Claire is returned to her
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  Speaker 1: usual residence, and our tranquility is unbroken in upon except
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  Speaker 1: by those winds Siroco or Tramontana, which now and then
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  Speaker 1: will sweep over the ocean of one's mind and disturb
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  Speaker 1: or cloud its surface. Since this must be a double letter,
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  Speaker 1: I save myself the trouble of copying the enclosed, which
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  Speaker 1: was part of a letter written to you a month ago,
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  Speaker 1: but which I did not send. Will you attend to
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  Speaker 1: my requests every day increases my anxiety concerning the desk.
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  Speaker 1: Do have the goodness to pack it off as soon
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  Speaker 1: as you can. Shelley was at your high yesterday. It
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  Speaker 1: is as dirty and busy as ever. So people live
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  Speaker 1: in the same narrow circle of space and thought, while
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  Speaker 1: time goes on not as a race horse but a
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  Speaker 1: six inside dilly and puts them down softly at their
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  Speaker 1: journey's end while they have slept and ate and Eco tuto.
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  Speaker 1: With this piece of morality, Dear Missus Gisborne, I end
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  Speaker 1: Shelley begs every remembrance of his to be joined with
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  Speaker 1: mine to mister Gisborne and Henry ever yours Mary w S.
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  Speaker 1: And now my dear Missus Gisborne, I have a great
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  Speaker 1: favor to ask of you all your rights, to say
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  Speaker 1: that He has placed our two desks in the hands
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  Speaker 1: of a merchant of the city, and that they are
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  Speaker 1: to come God knows when. Now, as we sent for
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  Speaker 1: them two years ago and are tired of waiting, will
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  Speaker 1: you do us the favor to get them out of
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  Speaker 1: his hands and to send them without delay. If they
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  Speaker 1: can be sent without being opened, send them in statuquo.
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  Speaker 1: If they must be opened, do not send the smallest,
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  Speaker 1: but get a key, being a patent lock. A key
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  Speaker 1: will cost half a guinea, made for the largest, and
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  Speaker 1: send it and return the other to Peacock. If you
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  Speaker 1: send the desk, will you send it with the following things,
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  Speaker 1: A few copies of all Shelley's works, particularly of the
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  Speaker 1: second edition of the Senseea, my mother's posthumous works, and
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  Speaker 1: letters from Norway from Peacock. If you can, but do
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  Speaker 1: not delay, the box for them. Journal Sunday, December second,
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  Speaker 1: Read the History of shipwrecks. Read Horotidus with Shelley, Ride
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  Speaker 1: with La Guccioli, Pietro and her In the evening Monday,
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  Speaker 1: December third, write letters, Read Horotutus with Shelley. Finish. Caleb
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  Speaker 1: Williams to Jane Tafe calls. He says that his Turk
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  Speaker 1: is a very moral man, for that when he began
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  Speaker 1: a scandalous story, he interrupted him immediately saying, ah, we
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  Speaker 1: must never speak thus of our neighbors. Taife would do
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  Speaker 1: well to take the hint. Thursday, December sixth read Homer,
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  Speaker 1: Walk with Williams, spend the evening with them, Call Antique
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  Speaker 1: Uichioli with Jane while Tafe amuses Shelley and Edward read
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  Speaker 1: Tacitus a dismal day. Friday, December seventh, letter from Hunt
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  Speaker 1: and Bessie. Walk with Shelley, buy furniture for them, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: Walk with Edward and Jane to the garden, and return
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  Speaker 1: with Ta Guicioli in the carriage. Edward reads the Shipwreck
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  Speaker 1: of the Wager to us in the evening. Saturday, December eighth,
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  Speaker 1: get up late and talk with Shelley, the Williams and
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  Speaker 1: Medwin to dinner, Walk with Edward and Jane in the garden,
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  Speaker 1: return with t Guicioli, t g and Pietro in the evening.
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  Speaker 1: Write to Claire. Read Tacitus. Sunday, December ninth, Go to
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  Speaker 1: church at doctor Nott's, walk with Edward and Jane in
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  Speaker 1: the garden in the evening first Pietro and Teresa. Afterwards
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  Speaker 1: go to the Williams. Monday, December tenth out shopping, walk
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  Speaker 1: with the Williams and Tea Guicioli to the garden, Medwin
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  Speaker 1: at Tea. Afterwards we are alone, and after reading a
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  Speaker 1: little Heratodus, Shelley reads Chaucer's Flower and the Leaf and
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  Speaker 1: then Chaucer's Dream to me a divine cold Tromontana Day, Monday,
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  Speaker 1: January fourteenth read Emil call on Tea Guiciole and see
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  Speaker 1: Lord Byron Trelawney arrives Edward John Trelawney, whose subsequent history
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  Speaker 1: was to be closely bound up with that of Shelley
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  Speaker 1: and of Missus. Shelley was of good Cornish family and
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  Speaker 1: had led a wandering life full of romantic adventure. He
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  Speaker 1: had become acquainted with Williams and Medwin in Switzerland a
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  Speaker 1: year before, since which he had been in Paris in London.
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  Speaker 1: Tired of a town life and of society, and in
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  Speaker 1: order to maintain the just equilibrium between the body and
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  Speaker 1: the brain, he had determined to pass the next winter
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  Speaker 1: hunting and shooting in the wilds of the Marema with
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  Speaker 1: a Captain Roberts and Lieutenant Williams for the exercise of
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  Speaker 1: his brain. He proposed passing the summer with Shelley and
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  Speaker 1: Byron boding in the Mediterranean, as he had heard that
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  Speaker 1: they proposed doing. Neither of the poets were as yet
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  Speaker 1: personally known to him, but he had lost no time
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  Speaker 1: in seeking their acquaintance. On the very evening of his
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  Speaker 1: arrival in Pisa, he repaired to the Tre Palazzi, where
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  Speaker 1: in the William's room he first saw Shelley and was
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  Speaker 1: struck speechless with astonishment. Was it possible this mild looking,
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  Speaker 1: beardless boy could be the veritable monster at war with
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  Speaker 1: all the world, excommunicated by the fathers of the Church,
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  Speaker 1: deprived of his civil rights by the fiat of a
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  Speaker 1: grim lord Chancellor, discarded by every member of his family,
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  Speaker 1: and denounced by the rival sages of our literature as
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  Speaker 1: the founder of a Satanic school. I could not believe it.
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  Speaker 1: It must to be a hoax. But presently, when Shelley
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  Speaker 1: was led to talk on a theme that interested him
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  Speaker 1: the works of Calderon, his marvelous powers of mind and
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  Speaker 1: command of language held Trelawney spellbound. After this touch of
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  Speaker 1: his quality, he says, I no longer doubted his identity.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Shelley appeared soon after, and the visitor looked with
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  Speaker 1: lively curiosity at the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
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  Speaker 1: Such a rare pedigree of genius was enough to interest
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  Speaker 1: me in her, irrespective of her own merits as an authoress.
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  Speaker 1: The most striking feature in her face was her calm,
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  Speaker 1: gray eyes. She was rather under the English standard of
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  Speaker 1: woman's height, very fair and light haired, witty, social, and
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  Speaker 1: animated in the society of friends, though mournful in solitude
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  Speaker 1: like Shelley, though in a minor degree, she had the
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  Speaker 1: power of expressing her thoughts in varied and appropriate words
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  Speaker 1: derived from familiarity with the works of our vigorous old writers.
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  Speaker 1: Neither of them used obsolete or foreign words. This command
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  Speaker 1: of our language struck me the more as contrasted with
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  Speaker 1: the scanty vocabulary used by ladies in society, in which
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  Speaker 1: a score of poor, hackneyed phrases sufficed to express all
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  Speaker 1: that is felt or considered proper to reveal. Mary's impressions
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  Speaker 1: of the newcomer may be gathered from her journal and
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  Speaker 1: her supper consequent letter to Missus Gisborne Journal, Saturday, January
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  Speaker 1: nineteenth copy Walk with Jane the Opera in the evening
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  Speaker 1: Trelawny is extravagant, un Giovanni stravaganti, partly natural and partly
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  Speaker 1: perhaps put on, but it suits him well. And if
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  Speaker 1: his abrupt but not unpolished manners be assumed, they are
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  Speaker 1: nevertheless in unison with his Moorish face, for he looks
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  Speaker 1: oriental yet not asiatic, his dark hair his herculean form.
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  Speaker 1: And then there is an air of extreme good nature
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  Speaker 1: which pervades his whole countenance, especially when he smiles, which
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  Speaker 1: assures me that his heart is good. He tells strange
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  Speaker 1: stories of himself, horrific ones so that they harrow one up,
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  Speaker 1: while with his emphatic but unmodulated voice, his simple yet
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  Speaker 1: strong language, he portrays the most frightful situations. Then all
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  Speaker 1: these adventures took place between the ages of thirteen and twenty.
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  Speaker 1: I believe them. Now I see the man, and, tired
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  Speaker 1: with the every day sleepiness of human intercourse, I am
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  Speaker 1: glad to meet with one who, among other valuable qualities,
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  Speaker 1: has the rare merit of interesting my imagination. The crew
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  Speaker 1: and Medwin dine with us Sunday, January twenty seventh Read
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  Speaker 1: Homer Walk Dine at the Williams the Opera in the evening,
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  Speaker 1: ride with Tea Guiccioli. Monday, January twenty eighth, the Williams
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  Speaker 1: breakfast with us, go down Bocadarno in the boat with
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  Speaker 1: Shelley and Jane. Edward and E. Trelawney meet us there,
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  Speaker 1: return in the gig. They dine with us, very tired.
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  Speaker 1: Tuesday January twenty ninth, Read Homer and Tacitus ride with T. Guiccioli, E. Trelawny,
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  Speaker 1: and Medwin to dinner the baron lutserode in the evening,
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  Speaker 1: But as the torrent widens towards the ocean, we pondered
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  Speaker 1: deeply on each past emotion. Read the first volume of
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  Speaker 1: the Pirate. Sunday, February third, Read Homer walk to the
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  Speaker 1: garden with j return with Medwin to dinner Trelawney in
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  Speaker 1: the evening. A wild day and night. Some clouds in
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  Speaker 1: the sky in the morning, but they clear away a
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  Speaker 1: north wind. Monday, February fourth, breakfast with the Williams, Edward, Jane,
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  Speaker 1: and Trelawney go to Leghorn, walk with Jane southeast. Letter
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  Speaker 1: concerning Lord Byron write to Claire in the evening. The
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  Speaker 1: Gambus and Taife end of chapter fifteen, Part one,