Little Journeys to the Homes of Famous Women — Mary W. Shelley, Part 2

And so he went to Godwin.

Now, this young man Shelley was of noble blood.

His grandfather was Sir Bysshe Shelley, Bart.

, and worth near three hundred thousand pounds, all of which would some day come to our pale-faced youth.

But the youth was a republican--he believed in the brotherhood of man.

He longed to benefit his fellows, to lift them out of the bondage of fear, and sin, and ignorance.

After reading Hume, and Godwin, and Wollstonecraft, he had decided that Christianity as defined by the Church of England was a failure: it was only an organized fetish, kept in place by the State, and devoid of all that thrills to noble thinking and noble doing.

And so young Shelley at Oxford had written a pamphlet to this end, explaining the matter to the world.

A copy being sent to the headmaster of the school, young Shelley was hustled off the premises in short order, and a note was sent to his father requesting that the lad be well flogged and kept several goodly leagues from Oxford.

Shelley the elder was furious that his son should so disgrace the family name, and demanded he should write another pamphlet supporting the Church of England and recanting all the heresy he had uttered.

Young Percy replied that conscience would not admit of his doing this.

The father said conscience be blanked: and further used almost the same words that were used by Professor Jowett some years later to a certain skeptical youth.

Professor Jowett sent for the youth and said, "Young man, I am told that you say you can not find God.

Is this true?"

"Yes, sir," said the youth.

"Well, you will please find Him before eight o'clock tonight or get out of this college."

Shelley was not allowed to return home, and moreover his financial allowance was cut off entirely.

And so he wandered up to London and chewed the cud of bitter fancy, resolved to starve before he would abate one jot or tittle of what he thought was truth.

And he might have starved had not his sisters sent him scanty sums of money from time to time.

The messenger who carried the money to him was a young girl by the name of Harriet Westbrook, round and smooth and pink and sixteen.

Percy was nineteen.

Harriet was the daughter of an innkeeper and did not get along very well at home.

She told Percy about it, and of course she knew his troubles, and so they talked about it over the gate, and mutually condoled with each other.

Soon after this Harriet had a fresh quarrel with her folks; and with the tears yet on her pretty lashes ran straight to Shelley's lodging and throwing herself into his arms proposed that they cease to fight unkind Fate, and run away together and be happy ever afterward.

And so they ran away.

Shelley's father instanced this as another proof of depravity and said, "Let 'em go!"

The couple went to Scotland.

In a few months they came back from Scotland, because no one can really be happy away from home.

Besides they were out of money--and neither one had ever earned any money--and as the Westbrooks were willing to forgive, even if the Shelleys were not, they came back.

But the Westbrooks were only willing to forgive in consideration of Percy and Harriet being properly married by a clergyman of the Church of England.

Now, Shelley had not wavered in his Godwin-Wollstonecraft theories, but he was chivalrous and Harriet was tearful, and so he gracefully waived all private considerations and they were duly married.

It was a quiet wedding.

In a short time a baby was born.

Harriet was amiable, being healthy and having very moderate sensibilities.

She had no opinion on any subject, and in no degree sympathized with Shelley's wild aspirations.

She thought a title would be nice, and urged that her husband make peace by renouncing his "infidelity."

Literature was silly business anyway, and folks should do as other folks did.

If they didn't, lawks-a-daisy!

there was trouble!!

And so, with income cut off, banished from home, from school, out of employment, with a wife who had no sympathy with him--who could not understand him--whose pitiful weakness stung him and wrung him, he thought of Godwin, the philosopher: for at the last philosophy is the cure for all our ills.

Godwin was glad to see Shelley--Godwin was glad to see any one.

Godwin was fifty-five, bald, had a Socratic forehead, was smooth-cheeked, shabby and genteel.

Yes, Godwin was the author of "Political Justice"--but that was written quite a while before, twenty years!

One of the girls was sent out for a quart of half-and-half, and the pale visitor cast his eyes around this family room, which served for dining-room, library and parlor.

Godwin had married again--Shelley had heard that, but he was a bit shocked to find that the great man who was once mate to Mary Wollstonecraft had married a shrew.

The sound of her high-pitched voice convinced the visitor at once that she was a very commonplace person.

There were three girls and a boy in the room, busy at sewing or reading.

None of them was introduced, but the air of the place was Bohemian, and the conversation soon became general.

All talked except one of the girls: she sat reading, and several times when the young man glanced over her way she was looking at him.

Shelley stayed an hour, spending a very pleasant time, but as he had no opportunity of stating his case to the philosopher he made an engagement to call again.

As he groped his way downstairs and walked homewards he mused.

The widow Clairmont, whom Godwin had married, was a worldling, that was sure; her daughter Jane was good-looking and clever, but both she and Charles, the boy, were the children of their mother--he had picked them out intuitively.

The little young woman with brown eyes and merry ways was Fanny Godwin, the first child of Mary Wollstonecraft and adopted daughter of Godwin.

The tall slender girl who was so very quiet was the daughter of Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.

"Ye gods, what a pedigree!"

said Shelley.

The young man called again, and after explaining his situation was advised to go back home and make peace with his wife and father at any cost of personal intellectual qualms.

Philosophy was all right; but life was one thing and philosophy another.

Live with Harriet as he had vowed to do--love was a good deal glamour, anyway; write poetry, of course, if he felt like it, but keep it to himself.

The world was not to be moved by enthusiastic youth.

Godwin had tried it--he had been an enthusiastic youth himself, and that was why he now lived in Somerstown instead of Piccadilly.

Move in the line of least resistance.

Shelley went away shocked and stunned.

Going by Old Saint Pancras Church he turned back to step in a moment and recover his scattered senses.

He walked through the cool, dim, old building, out into the churchyard, where toppling moss-covered gray slabs marked the resting-places of the sleeping dead.

All seemed so cool and quiet and calm there!

The dead are at rest: they have no vexatious problems.

A few people were moving about, carelessly reading the inscriptions.

The young man unconsciously followed their example; he passed slowly along one of the walks, scanning the stones.

His eye fell upon the word "Wollstonecraft," marked on a plain little slate slab.

He paused and, leaning over removed his hat and read, and then glancing just beyond, saw seated on the grass--the tall girl.

She held a book in her hands, but she was looking at him very soberly.

Their eyes met, and they smiled just a little.

The young man sat down on the turf on the other side of the grave from the girl, and they talked of the woman by whose dust they watched: and the young man found that the tall girl was an Ancestor-Worshiper and a mystic, and moreover had a flight of soul that held him in awe.

Besides, in form and feature, she was rarely beautiful.

She was quiet, but she could talk.

The next day, as Percy Shelley strolled through the churchyard of Old Saint Pancras, the tall girl was there again with her book, in the same place.

* * * * * When Shelley made that first call at the Godwins he was twenty.

The three girls he met were fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, respectively.

Mary being the youngest in years, but the most mature, she would have easily passed for the oldest.

Now, all three of these girls were dazzled by the beauty and grace and intellect of the strange, pale-faced visitor.

He came to the house again and again during the next few months.

All the girls loved him violently, for that's the way girls under eighteen often love.

Mr. Godwin soon discovered the fact that all his girls loved Shelley.

They lost appetite, and were alternately in chills of fear and fevers of ecstacy.

Mr. Godwin, being a kind man and a good, took occasion to explain to them that Mr. Shelley was a married man, and although it was true he did not live on good terms with his wife, yet she was his lawful wife, and marriage was a sacred obligation: of course, pure philosophy or poetic justice took a different view, but in society the marriage-tie must not be held lightly.

In short, Shelley was married and that was all there was about it.

Shelley still continued to call, coming via Saint Pancras Church.

In a few months, Mary confided to Jane that she and Shelley were about to elope, and Jane must make peace and explain matters after they were gone.

Jane cried and declared she would go, too--she would go or die: she would go as servant, scullion--anything, but go she would.

Shelley was consulted, and to prevent tragedy consented to Jane going as maid to Mary, his well-beloved.

So the trinity eloped.

It being Shelley's second elopement, he took the matter a little more coolly than did the girls, who had never eloped before.

Having reached Dover, and while waiting at a hotel for the boat, the landlord suddenly appeared and breathlessly explained to Shelley, "A fat woman has just arrived and swears that you have run away with her girls!"

It was Mrs. Godwin.

The party got out by the back way and hired a small boat to take them to Calais.

They embarked in a storm, and after beating about all night, came in sight of France the next morning as the sun arose.

Godwin was very much grieved and shocked to think that Shelley had broken in upon established order and done this thing.

But Shelley had read Godwin's book and simply taken the philosopher at his word: "The impulses of the human heart are just and right; they are greater than law, and must be respected."

The runaways seemed to have had a jolly time in France as long as their money lasted.

They bought a mule to carry their luggage, and walked.

Jane's feet blistered, however, and they seated her upon the luggage upon the mule, and as the author of "Queen Mab" led the patient beast, Mary with a switch followed behind.

After some days Shelley sprained his ankle, and then it was his turn to ride while Mary led the mule and Jane trudged after.

Thus they journeyed for six weeks, writing poetry, discussing philosophy;

loving, wild, free and careless, until they came to Switzerland.

One morning they counted their money and found they had just enough to take them to England.

Arriving in London the Godwins were not inclined to take them back, and society in general looked upon them with complete disfavor.

Shelley's father was now fully convinced of his son's depravity, but doled out enough money to prevent actual starvation.

Shelley began to perceive that any man who sets himself against the established order--the order that the world has been thousands of years in building up--will be ground into the dust.

The old world may be wrong, but it can not be righted in a day, and so long as a man chooses to live in society he must conform, in the main, to society usages.

These old ways that have done good service all the years can not be replaced by the instantaneous process.

If changed at all they must change as man changes, and man must change first.

It is man that must be reformed, not custom.

Shelley and Mary Godwin were mates if ever such existed.

In a year Mary had developed from a child into splendid womanhood--a beautiful, superior, earnest woman.

By her own efforts, of course aided by Shelley (for they were partners in everything), she became versed in the classics and delved deeply into the literature of a time long past.

Unlike her mother, Mary Shelley could do no great work alone.

The sensitiveness and the delicacy of her nature precluded that self-reliant egoism which can create.

She wrote one book, "Frankenstein," which in point of prophetic and allegorical suggestion stamps the work as classic: but it was written under the immediate spell of Shelley's presence.

Shelley also could not work alone, and without her the world's disfavor must have whipped him into insanity and death.

As it was they sought peace in love and Italy, living near Lord Byron in great intimacy, and befriended by him in many ways.

But peace was not for Shelley.

Calamity was at the door.

He could never forget how he had lifted Harriet Westbrook into a position for which she was not fitted and then left her to flounder alone.

And when word came that Harriet had drowned herself, his cup of woe was full.

Shortly before this, Fanny Godwin had gone away with great deliberation, leaving an empty laudanum-bottle to tell the tale.

On December Thirtieth, Eighteen Hundred Sixteen, Shelley and Mary Godwin were married at Saint Mildred's Church, London.

Both had now fully concluded with Godwin that man owes a duty to the unborn and to society, and that to place one's self in opposition to custom is at least very bad policy.

But although Shelley had made society tardy amends, society would not forgive; and in a long legal fight to obtain possession of his children, Ianthe and Charles, of whom Harriet was the mother, the Court of Chancery decided against Shelley, on the grounds that he was "an unfit person, being an atheist and a republican."

About this time was born little Allegra, "the Dawn," child of Lord Byron and Jane Clairmont.

Then afterwards came bickerings with Byron and threats of a duel and all that.

Finally there was a struggle between Byron and Miss Clairmont for the child: but death solved the issue and the beautiful little girl passed beyond the reach of either.

And so we find Shelley's heart wrung by the sorrows of others and by his own; and when Mary and he laid away in death their bright boy William and their baby girl Clara, the Fates seemed to have done their worst.

But man seems to have a certain capacity for pain, and beyond this even God can not go.

Shelley struggled on and with Mary's help continued to write.

Another babe was born and the world grew brighter.

They were now on the shores of the Mediterranean with a little group of enthusiasts who thought and felt as they did.

For the first time they realized that, after all, they were a part of the world, and linked to the human race--not set off alone, despised, forsaken.

Then to join their little community were coming Leigh Hunt and his wife--Leigh Hunt, who had lain in prison for the right of free thought and free speech.

What a joy to greet and welcome such a man to their home!

And so Shelley, blithe and joyous, sailed away to meet his friend.

But Shelley never came back to his wife and baby boy.

A few days after, the waves cast his body up on the beach, and you know the rest--how the faithful Trelawney and Byron made the funeral-pyre and reduced the body to ashes.

Mary was twenty-six years old then.

She continued to live--to live only in the memory of her Shelley and with the firm thought in her mind that they would be united again.

She seemed to exist but to care for her boy, and to do as best she could the work that Shelley had left undone.

The boy grew into a fine youth, and was as devoted to his mother as she was to him.

The title of the estate with all its vast wealth descended to him, and together she lived out her days, tenderly cared for to the last, dying in her son's arms, aged fifty-four.

She has told us that the first sixteen years of her life were spent in waiting for her Shelley, eight years she lived with him in divinest companionship, and twenty-eight years she waited and worked to prepare herself to rejoin him.

* * * * * SO HERE ENDETH "LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF FAMOUS WOMEN," BEING VOLUME TWO OF THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD: EDITED AND ARRANGED BY FRED BANN; BORDERS AND INITIALS BY ROYCROFT ARTISTS AND PRODUCED BY THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK, MCMXXII

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