Books: Percy Bysshe Shelley
J >>
John Addington Symonds >> Percy Bysshe Shelley
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13
At this time Shelley found it difficult to pay his lodgings and to buy
food. It is said that his sisters saved their pocket-money to support
him: and we know that he paid them frequent visits at their school on
Clapham Common. It was here that his characteristic hatred of tyranny
displayed itself on two occasions. "One day," writes Miss Hellen
Shelley, "his ire was greatly excited at a black mark hung round one of
our throats, as a penalty for some small misdemeanour. He expressed
great disapprobation, more of the system than that one of his sisters
should be so punished. Another time he found me, I think, in an iron
collar, which certainly was a dreadful instrument of torture in my
opinion. It was not worn as a punishment, but because I POKED; but
Bysshe declared that it would make me grow crooked, and ought to be
discontinued immediately." The acquaintance which he now made with one
of his sister's school friends was destined to lead to most important
results. (It is probable that he saw her for the first time in January,
1811.) Harriet Westbrook was a girl of sixteen years, remarkably
good-looking, with a brilliant pink and white complexion, beautiful
brown hair, a pleasant voice, and a cheerful temper. She was the
daughter of a man who kept a coffee-house in Mount Street, nick-named
"Jew" Westbrook, because of his appearance. She had an elder sister,
called Eliza, dark of complexion, and gaunt of figure, with the abundant
hair that plays so prominent a part in Hogg's relentless portrait.
Eliza, being nearly twice as old as Harriet, stood in the relation of a
mother to her. Both of these young ladies, and the "Jew" their father,
welcomed Shelley with distinguished kindness. Though he was penniless
for the nonce, exiled from his home, and under the ban of his family's
displeasure, he was still the heir to a large landed fortune and a
baronetcy. It was not to be expected that the coffee-house people should
look upon him with disfavour.
Shelley paid Harriet frequent visits, both at Mrs. Fenning's school and
at Mount Street, and soon began a correspondence with her, hoping, as he
expressly stated in a letter of a later date, by converting her to his
theories, to add his sister and her "to the list of the good, the
disinterested and the free." At first she seems to have been horrified
at the opinions he expressed; but in this case at least he did not
overrate the powers of eloquence. With all the earnestness of an
evangelist, he preached his gospel of freethought or atheism, and had
the satisfaction of forming his young pupil to his views. He does not
seem to have felt any serious inclination for Harriet; but in the
absence of other friends, he gladly availed himself of her society.
Gradually she became more interesting to him, when he heard mysterious
accounts of suffering at home and tyranny at school. This was enough to
rouse in Shelley the spirit of Quixotic championship, if not to sow the
seeds of love. What Harriet's ill-treatment really was, no one has been
able to discover; yet she used to affirm that her life at this time was
so irksome that she contemplated suicide.
During the summer of 1811, Shelley's movements were more than usually
erratic, and his mind was in a state of extraordinary restlessness. In
the month of May, a kind of accommodation was come to with his father.
He received permission to revisit Field Place, and had an allowance made
him of 200 pounds a year. His uncle, Captain Pilfold of Cuckfield, was
instrumental in effecting this partial reconciliation. Shelley spent
some time at his uncle's country house, oscillating between London,
Cuckfield, and Field Place, with characteristic rapidity, and paying one
flying visit to his cousin Grove at Cwm Elan, near Rhayader, in North
Wales. This visit is worth mention, since he now for the first time saw
the scenery of waterfalls and mountains. He was, however, too much
preoccupied to take much interest in nature. He was divided between his
old affection for Miss Grove, his new but somewhat languid interest in
Harriet, and a dearly cherished scheme for bringing about a marriage
between his sister Elizabeth and his friend Hogg. The letters written to
Hogg at this period (volume 1 pages 387-418) are exceedingly important
and interesting, revealing as they do the perturbation of his feelings
and the almost morbid excitement of his mind. But they are unluckily so
badly edited, whether designedly or by accident, that it would be
dangerous to draw minute conclusions from them. As they stand, they
raise injurious suspicions, which can only be set at rest by a proper
assignment of dates and explanation.
Meanwhile his destiny was shaping itself with a rapidity that plunged
him suddenly into decisive and irrevocable action. It is of the greatest
moment to ascertain precisely what his feelings were during this summer
with regard to Harriet. Hogg has printed two letters in immediate
juxtaposition: the first without date, the second with the post-mark of
Rhayader. Shelley ends the first epistle thus: "Your jokes on Harriet
Westbrook amuse me: it is a common error for people to fancy others in
their own situation, but if I know anything about love, I am NOT in
love. I have heard from the Westbrooks, both of whom I highly esteem."
He begins the second with these words: "You will perhaps see me before
you can answer this; perhaps not; heaven knows! I shall certainly come
to York, but HARRIET WESTBROOK will decide whether now or in three
weeks. Her father has persecuted her in a most horrible way, by
endeavouring to compel her to go to school. She asked my advice:
resistance was the answer, at the same time that I essayed to mollify
Mr. W. in vain! And in consequence of my advice SHE has thrown herself
upon MY protection. I set off for London on Monday. How flattering a
distinction!--I am thinking of ten million things at once. What have I
said? I declare, quite LUDICROUS. I advised her to resist. She wrote to
say that resistance was useless, but that she would fly with me, and
threw herself upon my protection. We shall have 200 pounds a year; when
we find it run short, we must live, I suppose, upon love! Gratitude and
admiration, all demand that I should love her FOR EVER. We shall see you
at York. I will hear your arguments for matrimonialism, by which I am
now almost convinced. I can get lodgings at York, I suppose. Direct to
me at Graham's, 18 Sackville Street, Piccadilly." From a letter recently
published by Mr. W.M. Rossetti (the University Magazine, February 1878),
we further learn that Harriet, having fallen violently in love with her
preceptor, had avowed her passion and flung herself into his arms.
It is clear from these documents, first, that Shelley was not deeply in
love with Harriet when he eloped with her; secondly, that he was not
prepared for the step; thirdly, that she induced him to take it; and
fourthly, that he took it under a strong impression of her having been
ill-treated. She had appealed to his most powerful passion, the hatred
of tyranny. She had excited his admiration by setting conventions at
defiance, and showing her readiness to be his mistress. Her confidence
called forth his gratitude. Her choice of him for a protector flattered
him: and, moreover, she had acted on his advice to carry resistance a
outrance. There are many good Shelleyan reasons why he should elope with
Harriet; but among them all I do not find that spontaneous and
unsophisticated feeling, which is the substance of enduring love.
In the same series of letters, so incoherently jumbled together by
Hogg's carelessness or caprice, Shelley more than once expresses the
utmost horror of matrimony. Yet we now find him upon the verge of
contracting marriage with a woman whom he did not passionately love, and
who had offered herself unreservedly to him. It is worth pausing to
observe that even Shelley, fearless and uncompromising as he was in
conduct, could not at this crisis practise the principles he so
eloquently impressed on others. Yet the point of weakness was
honourable. It lay in his respect for women in general, and in his
tender chivalry for the one woman who had cast herself upon his
generosity. (See Shelley's third letter to Godwin (Hogg 2 page 63) for
another defence of his conduct. "We agreed," etc.)
"My unfortunate friend Harriet," he writes under date August 15, 1811,
from London, whether he had hurried to arrange the affairs of his
elopement, "is yet undecided; not with respect to me, but to herself.
How much, my dear friend, have I to tell you. In my leisure moments for
thought, which since I wrote have been few, I have considered the
important point on which you reprobated my hasty decision. The ties of
love and honour are doubtless of sufficient strength to bind congenial
souls--they are doubtless indissoluble, but by the brutish force of
power; they are delicate and satisfactory. Yet the arguments of
impracticability, and what is even worse, the disproportionate sacrifice
which the female is called upon to make--these arguments, which you have
urged in a manner immediately irresistible, I cannot withstand. Not that
I suppose it to be likely that _I_ shall directly be called upon to
evince my attachment to either theory. I am become a perfect convert to
matrimony, not from temporizing, but from YOUR arguments; nor, much as I
wish to emulate your virtues and liken myself to you, do I regret the
prejudices of anti-matrimonialism from your example or assertion. No.
The ONE argument, which you have urged so often with so much energy; the
sacrifice made by the woman, so disproportioned to any which the man can
give--this alone may exculpate me, were it a fault, from uninquiring
submission to your superior intellect."
Whether Shelley from his own peculiar point of view was morally
justified in twice marrying, is a question of casuistry which has often
haunted me. The reasons he alleged in extenuation of his conduct with
regard to Harriet prove the goodness of his heart, his openness to
argument, and the delicacy of his unselfishness. But they do not square
with his expressed code of conduct; nor is it easy to understand how,
having found it needful to submit to custom, for his partner's sake, he
should have gone on denouncing an institution which he recognized in his
own practice. The conclusion seems to be that, though he despised
accepted usage, and would fain have fashioned the world afresh to suit
his heart's desire, the instincts of a loyal gentleman and his practical
good sense were stronger than his theories.
A letter from Shelley's cousin, Mr. C.H. Grove, gives the details of
Harriet's elopement. "When Bysshe finally came to town to elope with
Miss Westbrook, he came as usual to Lincoln's Inn Fields, and I was his
companion on his visits to her, and finally accompanied them early one
morning--I forget now the month, or the date, but it might have been
September--in a hackney coach to the Green Dragon, in Gracechurch
Street, where we remained all day, till the hour when the mail-coaches
start, when they departed in the northern mail for York." From York the
young couple made their way at once to Edinburgh, where they were
married according to the formalities of the Scotch law.
Shelley had now committed that greatest of social crimes in his father's
eyes--a mesalliance. Supplies and communications were at once cut off
from the prodigal; and it appears that Harriet and he were mainly
dependent upon the generosity of Captain Pilfold for subsistence. Even
Jew Westbrook, much as he may have rejoiced at seeing his daughter
wedded to the heir of several thousands a year, buttoned up his pockets,
either because he thought it well to play the part of an injured parent,
or because he was not certain about Shelley's expectations. He
afterwards made the Shelleys an allowance of 200 pounds a year, and
early in 1812 Shelley says that he is in receipt of twice that income.
Whence we may conclude that both fathers before long relented to the
extent of the sum above mentioned.
In spite of temporary impecuniosity, the young people lived happily
enough in excellent lodgings in George Street. Hogg, who joined them
early in September, has drawn a lively picture of their domesticity.
Much of the day was spent in reading aloud; for Harriet, who had a fine
voice and excellent lungs, was never happy unless she was allowed to
read and comment on her favourite authors. Shelley sometimes fell asleep
during the performance of these rites; but when he woke refreshed with
slumber, he was no less ready than at Oxford to support philosophical
paradoxes with impassioned and persuasive eloquence. He began to teach
Harriet Latin, set her to work upon the translation of a French story by
Madame Cottin, and for his own part executed a version of one of
Buffon's treatises. The sitting-room was full of books. It was one of
Shelley's peculiarities to buy books wherever he went, regardless of
their volume or their cost. These he was wont to leave behind, when the
moment arrived for a sudden departure from his temporary abode; so that,
as Hogg remarks, a fine library might have been formed from the waifs
and strays of his collections scattered over the three kingdoms. This
quiet course of life was diversified by short rambles in the
neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and by many episodes related with Hogg's
caustic humour. On the whole, the impression left upon the reader's mind
is that Shelley and Harriet were very happy together at this period, and
that Harriet was a charming and sweet-tempered girl, somewhat too much
given to the study of trite ethics, and slightly deficient in
sensibility, but otherwise a fit and soothing companion for the poet.
They were not, however, content to remain in Edinburgh. Hogg was obliged
to leave that city, in order to resume his law studies at York, and
Shelley's programme of life at this period imperatively required the
society of his chosen comrade. It was therefore decided that the three
friends should settle at York, to remain "for ever" in each other's
company. They started in a post-chaise, the good Harriet reading aloud
novels by the now forgotten Holcroft with untiring energy, to charm the
tedium of the journey. At York more than one cloud obscured their triune
felicity. In the first place they were unfortunate in their choice of
lodgings. In the second Shelley found himself obliged to take an
expensive journey to London, in the fruitless attempt to come to some
terms with his father's lawyer, Mr. Whitton. Mr. Timothy Shelley was
anxious to bind his erratic son down to a settlement of the estates,
which, on his own death, would pass into the poet's absolute control. He
suggested numerous arrangements; and not long after the date of
Shelley's residence in York, he proposed to make him an immediate
allowance of 2000 pounds, if Shelley would but consent to entail the
land on his heirs male. This offer was indignantly refused. Shelley
recognized the truth that property is a trust far more than a
possession, and would do nothing to tie up so much command over labour,
such incalculable potentialities of social good or evil, for an unborn
being of whose opinions he knew nothing. This is only one among many
instances of his readiness to sacrifice ease, comfort, nay, the bare
necessities of life, for principle.
On his return to York, Shelley found a new inmate established in their
lodgings. The incomparable Eliza, who was henceforth doomed to guide his
destinies to an obscure catastrophe, had arrived from London. Harriet
believed her sister to be a paragon of beauty, good sense, and
propriety. She obeyed her elder sister like a mother; never questioned
her wisdom; and foolishly allowed her to interpose between herself and
her husband. Hogg had been told before her first appearance in the
friendly circle that Eliza was "beautiful, exquisitely beautiful; an
elegant figure, full of grace; her face was lovely,--dark, bright eyes;
jet-black hair, glossy; a crop upon which she bestowed the care it
merited,--almost all her time; and she was so sensible, so amiable, so
good!" Now let us listen to the account he has himself transmitted of
this woman, whom certainly he did not love, and to whom poor Shelley had
afterwards but little reason to feel gratitude. "She was older than I
had expected, and she looked much older than she was. The lovely face
was seamed with the smallpox, and of a dead white, as faces so much
marked and scarred commonly are; as white indeed as a mass of boiled
rice, but of a dingy hue, like rice boiled in dirty water. The eyes were
dark, but dull, and without meaning; the hair was black and glossy, but
coarse; and there was the admired crop--a long crop, much like the tail
of a horse--a switch tail. The fine figure was meagre, prim, and
constrained. The beauty, the grace, and the elegance existed, no doubt,
in their utmost perfection, but only in the imagination of her partial
young sister. Her father, as Harriet told me, was familiarly called 'Jew
Westbrook,' and Eliza greatly resembled one of the dark-eyed daughters
of Judah."
This portrait is drawn, no doubt, with an unfriendly hand; and, in
Hogg's biography, each of its sarcastic touches is sustained with
merciless reiteration, whenever the mention of Eliza's name is
necessary. We hear, moreover, how she taught the blooming Harriet to
fancy that she was a victim of her nerves, how she checked her favourite
studies, and how she ruled the household by continual reference to a
Mrs. Grundy of her earlier experience. "What would Miss Warne say?" was
as often on her lips, if we may credit Hogg, as the brush and comb were
in her hands.
The intrusion of Eliza disturbed the harmony of Shelley's circle; but it
is possible that there were deeper reasons for the abrupt departure
which he made from York with his wife and her sister in November, 1811.
One of his biographers asserts with categorical precision that Shelley
had good cause to resent Hogg's undue familiarity with Harriet, and
refers to a curious composition, published by Hogg as a continuation of
Goethe's "Werther", but believed by Mr. McCarthy to have been a letter
from the poet to his friend, in confirmation of his opinion. (McCarthy's
Shelley's Early Life, page 117.) However this may be, the precipitation
with which the Shelleys quitted York, scarcely giving Hogg notice of
their resolution, is insufficiently accounted for in his biography.
The destination of the travellers was Keswick. Here they engaged
lodgings for a time, and then moved into a furnished house. Probably
Shelley was attracted to the lake country as much by the celebrated men
who lived there, as by the beauty of its scenery, and the cheapness of
its accommodation. He had long entertained an admiration for Southey's
poetry, and was now beginning to study Wordsworth and Coleridge. But if
he hoped for much companionship with the literary lions of the lakes, he
was disappointed. Coleridge was absent, and missed making his
acquaintance--a circumstance he afterwards regretted, saying that he
could have been more useful to the young poet and metaphysician than
Southey. De Quincey, though he writes ambiguously upon this point, does
not seem to have met Shelley. Wordsworth paid him no attention; and
though he saw a good deal of Southey, this intimacy changed Shelley's
early liking for the man and poet into absolute contempt. It was not
likely that the cold methodical student, the mechanical versifier, and
the political turncoat, who had outlived all his earlier illusions,
should retain the good-will of such an Ariel as Shelley, in whose brain
"Queen Mab" was already simmering. Life at Keswick began to be
monotonous. It was, however, enlivened by a visit to the Duke of
Norfolk's seat, Greystoke. Shelley spent his last guinea on the trip;
but though the ladies of his family enjoyed the honour of some days
passed in ducal hospitalities, the visit was not fruitful of results.
The Duke at this time kindly did his best, but without success, to bring
about a reconciliation between his old friend, the member for Horsham,
and his rebellious son.
Another important incident of the Keswick residence was Shelley's letter
to William Godwin, whose work on Political Justice he had studied with
unbounded admiration. He never spoke of this book without respect in
after-life, affirming that the perusal of it had turned his attention
from romances to questions of public utility. The earliest letter dated
to Godwin from Keswick, January 3, 1812, is in many respects remarkable,
and not the least so as a specimen of self-delineation. He entreats
Godwin to become his guide, philosopher, and friend, urging that "if
desire for universal happiness has any claim upon your preference," if
persecution and injustice suffered in the cause of philanthropy and
truth may commend a young man to William Godwin's regard, he is not
unworthy of this honour. We who have learned to know the flawless purity
of Shelley's aspirations, can refrain from smiling at the big
generalities of this epistle. Words which to men made callous by long
contact with the world, ring false and wake suspicion, were for Shelley
but the natural expression of his most abiding mood. Yet Godwin may be
pardoned if he wished to know more in detail of the youth, who sought to
cast himself upon his care in all the panoply of phrases about
philanthropy and universal happiness. Shelley's second letter contains
an extraordinary mixture of truth willingly communicated, and of curious
romance, illustrating his tendency to colour facts with the
hallucinations of an ardent fancy. Of his sincerity there is, I think,
no doubt. He really meant what he wrote; and yet we have no reason to
believe the statement that he was twice expelled from Eton for
disseminating the doctrines of "Political Justice", or that his father
wished to drive him by poverty to accept a commission in some distant
regiment, in order that he might prosecute the "Necessity of Atheism" in
his absence, procure a sentence of outlawry, and so convey the family
estates to his younger brother. The embroidery of bare fact with a
tissue of imagination was a peculiarity of Shelley's mind; and this
letter may be used as a key for the explanation of many strange
occurrences in his biography. What he tells Godwin about his want of
love for his father, and his inability to learn from the tutors imposed
upon him at Eton and Oxford, represents the simple truth. Only from
teachers chosen by himself, and recognized as his superiors by his own
deliberate judgment, can he receive instruction. To Godwin he resigns
himself with the implicit confidence of admiration. Godwin was greatly
struck with this letter. Indeed, he must have been "or God or beast,"
like the insensible man in Aristotle's "Ethics", if he could have
resisted the devotion of so splendid and high-spirited a nature, poured
forth in language at once so vehement and so convincingly sincere. He
accepted the responsible post of Shelley's Mentor; and thus began a
connexion which proved not only a source of moral support and
intellectual guidance to the poet, but was also destined to end in a
closer personal tie between the two illustrious men.
In his second letter Shelley told Godwin that he was then engaged in
writing "An inquiry into the causes of the failure of the French
Revolution to benefit mankind," adding, "My plan is that of resolving to
lose no opportunity to disseminate truth and happiness." Godwin sensibly
replied that Shelley was too young to set himself up as a teacher and
apostle: but his pupil did not take the hint. A third letter (January
16, 1812) contains this startling announcement: "In a few days we set
off to Dublin. I do not know exactly where, but a letter addressed to
Keswick will find me. Our journey has been settled some time. We go
principally TO FORWARD AS MUCH AS WE CAN the Catholic Emancipation." In
a fourth letter (January 28, 1812) he informs Godwin that he has already
prepared an address to the Catholics of Ireland, and combats the
dissuasions of his counsellor with ingenious arguments to prove that his
contemplated expedition can do no harm, and may be fruitful of great
good.
It appears that for some time past Shelley had devoted his attention to
Irish politics. The persecution of Mr. Peter Finnerty, an Irish
journalist and editor of "The Press" newspaper, who had been sentenced
to eighteen months' imprisonment in Lincoln jail (between February 7,
1811, and August 7, 1812) for plain speech about Lord Castlereagh,
roused his hottest indignation. He published a poem, as yet unrecovered,
for his benefit; the proceeds of the sale amounting, it is said, to
nearly one hundred pounds. (McCarthy, page 255.) The young enthusiast,
who was attempting a philosophic study of the French Revolution, whose
heart was glowing with universal philanthropy, and who burned to
disseminate truth and happiness, judged that Ireland would be a fitting
field for making a first experiment in practical politics. Armed with
the manuscript of his "Address to the Irish People" (It was published in
Dublin. See reprint in McCarthy, page 179.), he set sail with Harriet
and Eliza on the 3rd of February from Whitehaven. They touched the Isle
of Man; and after a very stormy passage, which drove them to the north
coast of Ireland, and forced them to complete their journey by land, the
party reached Dublin travel-worn, but with unabated spirit, on the 12th.
Harriet shared her husband's philanthropical enthusiasm. "My wife,"
wrote Shelley to Godwin, "is the partner of my thoughts and feelings."
Indeed, there is abundant proof in both his letters and hers, about this
period, that they felt and worked together. Miss Westbrook, meantime,
ruled the household; "Eliza keeps our common stock of money for safety
in some nook or corner of her dress, but we are not dependent on her,
although she gives it out as we want it." This master-touch of
unconscious delineation tells us all we need to know about the domestic
party now established in 7, Lower Sackville Street. Before a week had
passed, the "Address to the Irish People" had been printed. Shelley and
Harriet immediately engaged their whole energies in the task of
distribution. It was advertised for sale; but that alone seemed
insufficient. On the 27th of February Shelley wrote to a friend in
England: "I have already sent 400 of my Irish pamphlets into the world,
and they have excited a sensation of wonder in Dublin. Eleven hundred
yet remain for distribution. Copies have been sent to sixty public
houses.... Expectation is on the tiptoe. I send a man out every day to
distribute copies, with instructions where and how to give them. His
account corresponds with the multitudes of people who possess them. I
stand at the balcony of our window and watch till I see a man WHO LOOKS
LIKELY. I throw a book to him."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13