In Defence of Harriet Shelley

II

The year 1813 is just ended now, and we step into 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, during that brief period. Did he want some more of it? We must fall back upon history, and then go to conjecturing.

“In the early part of the year 1814, Shelley was a frequent visitor at Bracknell.”

“Frequent” is a cautious word, in this 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 averaging up with the unassuming term “frequent.” I think so because they fixed 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 like 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 room up; the most ignorant of us knows that a wife would not endure a room in the 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 books on every side: “Wherever a book could be laid was an open book turned down on its face to keep its place.” It seems plain that the wife was not invited. No, not that; I think she was invited, but said to herself that she could not 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 accidentally.

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 deck, as we see. “Three charming ladies entertained the mocker (Hogg) with cups 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 Hogg:

“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 then so well that he is resolved to leave off rambling—”

But he has already left it off. He has been there 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 sore conscience, and a nagging sense of shabbiness and treachery.

“His journeys after what he has never found have racked his purse and his tranquillity. He is resolved to take a little care of the former, in pity to the latter, which I applaud, and shall second with all, my might.”

But she does not say whether the young wife, a stranger and lonely yonder, wants another woman and her daughter Cornelia to 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 opinions about such things, she cannot be indifferent, she must be approving or disapproving, 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—”

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 guess the biographer’s comment upon the above letter. It is this:

“These sound like words of s 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 stupefy a particularly and unspeakably dull reader into thinking it is what he thinks. 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 Shelley has deserted his wife – for this month, considering all the circumstances, and his new passion, and his employment of the time, amounted to desertion; that is its rightful name. We cannot know how the wife regarded it and felt about it; but if she could have read the letter which Shelley was writing to Hogg four 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 friendship 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 to a paradise which has nothing of mortality but its transitoriness; my heart sickens at the view of that necessity which will quickly divide me from the delightful tranquillity of this happy home – for it has become my home.

…….

“Eliza is still with us – not 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 Hogg at Bracknell.

Shelley could send Eliza away, of course; could 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; but 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 loathsome worm, that cannot see to sting.

“I have begun to learn Italian again…. Cornelia assists me in this language. Did I not once tell you that I thought her cold and reserved? She is the reverse of this, as she is the reverse of everything bad. She inherits all the divinity of her mother…. I have sometimes forgotten that I am not an inmate of this delightful home – that a time will come which will cast me again into the boundless ocean of abhorred society.

“I have written nothing but one stanza, which has no meaning, and that I have only written in thought:

“This is the vision of a delirious and distempered dream, which passes away at the cold clear light of morning. Its surpassing excellence and exquisite perfections have no more reality than the color of an autumnal sunset.”

Then it did not refer to his wife. That is plain; 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 Cornelia and the way he has come to feel about her now would make us think she was the 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.” Guesses at the nature of the wound are permissible; we will hazard one.

Read by the light of Shelley’s previous history, 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 these, 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 character 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 which 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 profanation and quenched it; quenched it, and changed the impulse to homage.

Up to this time he had been loyalty itself, where 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 the 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 away. Is he lamenting mainly because he must go back to his wife and child? No, the 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 the 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 which 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 with.

We have now arrived at a part of the swamp where 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 death in this way:

1st. Harriet persuaded him to set up a carriage.

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 helps, the biographical prosecuting attorney has set himself the task of proving upon 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 judicial 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 wounded and bruised almost to death, first, because Harriet had persuaded him to set up a carriage. I cannot discover that any evidence is offered that she asked him to set up a carriage. Still, if she did, was it a heavy offence? Was it unique? 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 pour 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 other 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 no 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 ruinous 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 Mary’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,” 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 wounded 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 Cornelia. 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 reason, and is not his wife’s interest in her studies likely to languish for the same reason? Would not the mere sight of those books of hers sharpen the pain that is in her heart? This sudden breaking down of a mutual intellectual interest 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 Count No. 2 from the indictment against Harriet.

Shelley’s happiness in his home had been wounded 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 she 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 the good judge, while in one of them he covers the deed with a justifying remark, she doing the shopping that time to find easement for her mind, her child having died.

Shelley’s happiness in his home had been wounded 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 sojourn, immediately after Shelley had been enjoying the two months of study with Cornelia which broke up his wife’s studies and destroyed his personal interest 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 never 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 him, pestering him, persecuting him. Shelley needed excuses for his altered attitude towards 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 wounded 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 character 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? – “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 about her” are reduced to one person – her husband. Who reports the circumstance? It is Hogg. Perhaps he was there – we do not know. But if he was, he still got 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 tempt 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 baby. 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 two, 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 words 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 paragraph 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 review the cake-walk as a whole:

“Shelley’s happiness in his home, as is evident from this pathetic letter, had been fatally stricken; it is evident, also, that he knew where duty lay; he felt that his part was to take up his burden, silently and sorrowfully, and to bear it henceforth with the quietness of despair. But we can 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 blissful 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 he must henceforth sternly exclude from his imagination.”

That paragraph commits the author in no way. Taken sentence by sentence it asserts nothing against anybody or in favor of anybody, pleads for nobody, accuses nobody. Taken detail by detail, it is as innocent 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 point out its details and let on to explain what they mean. The picture is the very 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 beguilements; 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 this spectacle it will escape most people.