Godwin to Mrs. Shelley.

July 1833.

Dear Mary—I shall certainly not come to you on Monday. It would do neither of us good. I am a good deal of a spoiled child. And were I not so, and could rouse myself, like Diogenes, to be independent of all outward comforts, you would treat me as if I could not, so that it would come to the same thing.

What a while it is since I saw you! The last time was the 10th of May,—towards two months,—we who used to see each other two or three times a week! But for the scale of miles at the bottom of the map, you might as well be at Timbuctoo or in the deserts of Arabia.

Oh, this vile Harrow! Your illness, for its commencement or duration, is owing to that place. At one time I was seriously alarmed for you.

And now that I hope you are better, with what tenaciousness does it cling to you! If I ever see you again I wonder whether I shall know you. I am much tormented by my place, by my book, and hardly suppose I shall ever be tranquil again.

I am disposed to adopt the song of Simeon, and to say, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!” At seventy years of age, what is there worth living for? I have enjoyed existence, been active, strenuous, proud, but my eyes are dim, and my energies forsake me.—Your affectionate Father,

William Godwin.

Mrs. Shelley to Trelawny.

Harrow, 7th May 1834.

Dear Trelawny—I confess I have been sadly remiss in not writing to you. I have written once, however, as you have written once (but once) to me. I wrote in answer to your letter. I am sorry you did not get it, as it contained a great deal of gossip. It was misdirected by a mistake of Jane’s.... It was sent at the end of last September to New York. I told you in it of the infidelity of several of your womankind,—how Mrs. R. S. was flirting with Bulwer, to the infinite jealousy of Mrs. Bulwer, and making themselves the talk of the town.... Such and much tittle-tattle was in that letter, all old news now.... The S.’s (Captain Robert and wife, I mean) went to Paris and were ruined, and are returned under a cloud to rusticate in the country in England.

Bulwer is making the amiable to his own wife, who is worth in beauty all the Mrs. R. S.’s in the world....

Jane has been a good deal indisposed, and has grown very thin. Jeff had an appointment which took him away for several months, and she pined and grew ill on his absence; she is now reviving under the beneficent influence of his presence.

I called on your mother a week or two ago; she always asks after you with empressement, and is very civil indeed to me. She was looking well, but —— tells me, in her note enclosing your letter, that she is ill of the same illness as she had two years ago, but not so bad. I think she lives too well.

—— is expecting to be confined in a very few weeks, or even days. She is very happy with B.... He is a thoroughly good-natured and estimable man; it is a pity he is not younger and handsomer; however, she is a good girl, and contented with her lot; we are very good friends.... I should like much to see your friend, Lady Dorothea, but, though in Europe, I am very far from her. I live on my hill, descending to town now and then. I should go oftener if I were richer. Percy continues quite well, and enjoys my living at Harrow, which is more than I do, I am sorry to say, but there is no help.

My Father is in good health. Mrs. Godwin has been very ill lately, but is now better.

I thought Fanny Kemble was to marry and settle in America: what a singular likeness you have discovered! I never saw her, except on the stage.

So much for news. They say it is a long lane that has no turning. I have travelled the same road for nearly twelve years; adversity, poverty, and loneliness being my companions. I suppose it will change at last, but I have nothing to tell of myself except that Percy is well, which is the beginning and end of my existence.

I am glad you are beginning to respect women’s feelings.... You have heard of Sir H.’s death. Mrs. B. (who is great friends with S., now Sir William, an M.P.) says that it is believed that he has left all he could to the Catholic members of his family. Why not come over and marry Letitia, who in consequence will be rich? and, I daresay, still beautiful in your eyes, though thirty-four.

We have had a mild, fine winter, and the weather now is as warm, sunny, and cheering as an Italian May. We have thousands of birds and flowers innumerable, and the trees of spring in the fields.

Jane’s children are well. The time will come, I suppose, when we may meet again more (richly) provided by fortune, but youth will have flown, and that in a woman is something....

I have always felt certain that I should never again change my name, and that is a comfort, it is a pretty and a dear one. Adieu, write to me often, and I will behave better, and as soon as I have accumulated a little news, write again.—Ever yours,

M. W. S.

Mrs. Shelley to Mrs. Gisborne.

17th July 1834.

I am satisfied with my plan as regards him (Percy). I like the school, and the affection thus cultivated for me will, I trust, be the blessing of my life.

Still there are many drawbacks; this is a dull, inhospitable place. I came counting on the kindness of a friend who lived here, but she died of the influenza, and I live in a silence and loneliness not possible anywhere except in England, where people are so islanded individually in habits; I often languish for sympathy, and pine for social festivity.

Percy is much, but I think of you and Henry, and shrink from binding up my life in a child who may hereafter divide his fate from mine. But I have no resource; everything earthly fails me but him; except on his account I live but to suffer. Those I loved are false or dead; those I love, absent and suffering; and I, absent and poor, can be of no use to them. Of course, in this picture, I subtract the enjoyment of good health and usually good spirits,—these are blessings; but when driven to think, I feel so desolate, so unprotected, so oppressed and injured, that my heart is ready to break with despair. I came here, as I said, in April 1833, and 9th June was attacked by the influenza, so as to be confined to my bed; nor did I recover the effects for several months.

In September, during Percy’s holidays, I went to Putney, and recovered youth and health; Julia Robinson was with me, and we spent days in Richmond Park and on Putney Heath, often walking twelve or fourteen miles, which I did without any sense of fatigue. I sorely regretted returning here. I am too poor to furnish. I have lodgings in the town,—disagreeable ones,—yet often, in spite of care and sorrow, I feel wholly compensated by my boy.... God help me if anything was to happen to him—I should not survive it a week. Besides his society I have also a good deal of occupation.

I have finished a novel, which, if you meet with, read, as I think there are parts which will please you. I am engaged writing the lives of some of the Italian literati for Dr. Lardner’s CyclopÆdia. I have written those of Petrarch, Boccaccio, etc., and am now engaged on Macchiavelli; this takes up my time, and is a source of interest and pleasure.

My Father, I suppose you know, has a tiny, shabby place under Government. The retrenchments of Parliament endanger and render us anxious. He is quite well, but old age takes from his enjoyments. Mrs. Godwin, after influenza, has been suffering from the tic-doloreux in her arm most dreadfully; they are trying all sorts of poisons on her with little effect. Their discomfort and low spirits will force me to spend Percy’s holidays in town, to be near them. Jane and Jeff are well; he was sent last autumn and winter by Lord Brougham as one of the Corporation Commissioners; he was away for months, and Jane took the opportunity to fall desperately in love with him—she pined and grew ill, and wasted away for him. The children are quite well. Dina spent a week here lately; she is a sweet girl. Edward improves daily under the excellent care taken of his education. I leave Jane to inform you of their progress in Greek. Dina plays wonderfully well, and has shown great taste for drawing, but this last is not cultivated.

I did not go to the Abbey, nor the Opera, nor hear Grisi; I am shut out from all things—like you—by poverty and loneliness. Percy’s pleasures are not mine; I have no other companion.

What effect Paganini would have had on you, I cannot tell; he threw me into hysterics. I delight in him more than I can express. His wild, ethereal figure, rapt look, and the sounds he draws from his violin are all superhuman—of human expression. It is interesting to see the astonishment and admiration of Spagnoletti and Nervi as they watch his evolutions.

Bulwer is a man of extraordinary and delightful talent. He went to Italy and Sicily last winter, and, I hear, disliked the inhabitants. Yet, notwithstanding, I am sure he will spread inexpressible and graceful interest over the Last Days of Pompeii, the subject of his new novel. Trelawny is in America, and not likely to return. Hunt lives at Chelsea, and thrives, I hear, by his London pursuit. I have not seen him for more than a year, for reasons I will not here detail—they concern his family, not him.

Clare is in a situation in Pisa, near Mrs. Mason. Laurette and Nerina are married; the elder badly, to one who won her at the dagger’s point—a sad unintelligible story; Nerina, to the best and most delightful Pistoiese, by name Bartolomeo Cini—both to Italians. Laurette lives at Genoa, Nerina at Livorno; the latter is only newly a bride, and happier than words can express. My Italian maid, Maria, says to Clare, Non vedrÒ ora mai la mia Padrona ed il mio Bimbo? her Bimbo—as tall as I am and large in proportion—has good health withal....

Pray write one word of information concerning your health before I attribute your silence to forgetfulness; but you must not trifle now with the anxiety you have awakened. I will write again soon. With kindest regards to your poor, good husband, the fondest hopes that your health is improved, and anxious expectation of a letter, believe me, ever affectionately yours,

M. W. Shelley.

Mrs. Shelley To Mrs. Gisborne.

Harrow, 30th October 1834.

My dearest Maria—Thank you many times for your kind dear letter. God grant that your constitution may yet bear up a long time, and that you may continue impressed with the idea of your happiness. To be loved is indeed necessary. Sympathy and companionship are the only sweets to make the nauseous draught of life go down; and I, who feel this, live in a solitude such as, since the days of hermits in the desert, no one was ever before condemned to! I see no one, speak to no one—except perhaps for a chance half-hour in the course of a fortnight. I never walk beyond my garden, because I cannot walk alone. You will say I ought to force myself; so I thought once, and tried, but it would not do. The sense of desolation was too oppressive. I only find relief from the sadness of my position by living a dreamy existence from which realities are excluded; but going out disturbed this; I wept; my heart beat with a sense of injury and wrong; I was better shut up. Poverty prevents me from visiting town; I am too far for visitors to reach me; I must bear to the end. Twelve years have I spent, the currents of life benumbed by poverty; life and hope are over for me, but I think of Percy!

Yet for the present something more is needed—something not so unnatural as my present life. Not that I often feel ennui—I am too much employed—but it hurts me, it destroys the spring of my mind, and makes me at once over-sensitive with my fellow-creatures, and yet their victim and their dupe. It takes all strength from my character, and makes me—who by nature am too much so—timid. I used to have one resource, a belief in my good fortune; this is exchanged after twelve years—one adversity, blotted and sprinkled with many adversities; a dark ground, with sad figures painted on it—to a belief in my ill fortune.

Percy is spared to me, because I am to live. He is a blessing; my heart acknowledges that perhaps he is as great an one as any human being possesses; and indeed, my dear friend, while I suffer, I do not repine while he remains. He is not all you say; he has no ambition, and his talents are not so transcendent as you appear to imagine; but he is a fine, spirited, clever boy, and I think promises good things; if hereafter I have reason to be proud of him, these melancholy days and weeks at Harrow will brighten in my imagination—and they are not melancholy. I am seldom so, but they are not right, and it will be a good thing if they terminate happily soon.

At the same time, I cannot in the least regret having come here: it was the only way I had of educating Percy at a public school, of which institution, at least here at Harrow, the more I see the more I like; besides that, it was Shelley’s wish that his son should be brought up at one. It is, indeed, peculiarly suited to Percy; and whatever he may be, he will be twice as much as if he had been brought up in the narrow confinement of a private school.

The boys here have liberty to the verge of licence; yet of the latter, save the breaking of a few windows now and then, there is none. His life is not quite what it would be if he did not live with me, but the greater scope given to the cultivation of the affections is surely an advantage.

········

You heard of the dreadful fire at the Houses of Parliament. We saw it here from the commencement, raging like a volcano; it was dreadful to see, but, fortunately, I was not aware of the site. Papa lives close to the Speaker’s, so you may imagine my alarm when the news reached me, fortunately without foundation, as the fire did not gain that part of the Speaker’s house near them, so they were not even inconvenienced. The poor dear Speaker has lost dreadfully; what was not burnt is broken, soaked, and drenched—all their pretty things; and imagine the furniture and princely chambers—the house was a palace. For the sake of convenience to the Commons, they are to take up their abode in the ruins. With kindest wishes for you and S. G., ever dearest friend, your affectionate

Mary W. Shelley.

The Same to the Same.

February 1835.

... I must tell you that I have had the offer of £600 for an edition of Shelley’s works, with Life and Notes. I am afraid it cannot be arranged, yet at least, and the Life is out of the question; but in talking over it the question of letters comes up. You know how I shrink from all private detail for the public; but Shelley’s letters are beautifully written, and everything private might be omitted.

Would you allow the publisher to treat with you for their being added to my edition? If I could arrange all as I wish, they might be an acquisition to the books, and being transacted through me, you could not see any inconvenience in receiving the price they would be worth to the bookseller. This is all in aria as yet, but I should like to know what you think about it. I write all this, yet am very anxious to hear from you; never mind postage, but do write.

Percy is reading the Antigone; he has begun mathematics. Mrs. Cleveland[14] and Jane dined with me the other day. Mrs. Cleveland thought Percy wonderfully improved.

The volume of Lardner’s CyclopÆdia, with my Lives, was published on the first of this month; it is called Lives of Eminent Literary Men, vol. i. The lives of Dante and Ariosto are by Mr. Montgomery, the rest are mine.

Do write, my dearest Maria, and believe me ever and ever, affectionately yours,

M. W. Shelley.

Mrs. Hare admired Lodore amazingly; so do I, or should I, if it were not for that modification of the beastly character of Lord Byron of which you have composed Lodore. I stick to Frankenstein, merely because that vile spirit does not haunt its pages as it does in all your other novels, now as Castruccio, now as Raymond,[15] now as Lodore. Good God! to think a person of your genius, whose moral tact ought to be proportionately exalted, should think it a task befitting its powers to gild and embellish and pass off as beautiful what was the merest compound of vanity, folly, and every miserable weakness that ever met together in one human being! As I do not want to be severe on the poor man, because he is dead and cannot defend himself, I have only taken the lighter defects of his character, or else I might say that never was a nature more profoundly corrupted than his became, or was more radically vulgar than his was from the very outset. Never was there an individual less adapted, except perhaps Alcibiades, for being held up as anything but an object of commiseration, or as an example of how contemptible is even intellectual greatness when not joined with moral greatness. I shall be anxious to see if the hero of your new novel will be another beautified Byron. Thank heaven! you have not taken to drawing your women upon the same model. Cornelia I like the least of them; she is the most like him, because she is so heartlessly proud and selfish, but all the others are angels of light.

Euthanasia[16] is Shelley in female attire, and what a glorious being she is! No author, much less the ones—French, English, or German—of our day, can bring a woman that matches her. Shakespeare has not a specimen so perfect of what a woman ought to be; his, for amiability, deep feeling, wit, are as high as possible, but they want her commanding wisdom, her profound benevolence.

I am glad to hear you are writing again; I am always in a fright lest you should take it into your head to do what the warriors do after they have acquired great fame,—retire and rest upon your laurels. That would be very comfortable for you, but very vexing to me, who am always wanting to see women distinguishing themselves in literature, and who believe there has not been or ever will be one so calculated as yourself to raise our sex upon that point. If you would but know your own value and exert your powers you could give the men a most immense drubbing! You could write upon metaphysics, politics, jurisprudence, astronomy, mathematics—all those highest subjects which they taunt us with being incapable of treating, and surpass them; and what a consolation it would be, when they begin some of their prosy, lying, but plausible attacks upon female inferiority, to stop their mouths in a moment with your name, and then to add, “and if women, whilst suffering the heaviest slavery, could out-do you, what would they not achieve were they free?”

Mrs. Shelley to Mrs. Gisborne.

Harrow, 11th June 1835.

My dearest Friend—It is so inexpressibly warm that were not a frank lying before me ready for you, I do not think I should have courage to write. Do not be surprised, therefore, at stupidity and want of connection. I cannot collect my ideas, and this is a goodwill offering rather than a letter.

Still I am anxious to thank S. G. for the pleasure I have received from his tale of Italy—a tale all Italy, breathing of the land I love. The descriptions are beautiful, and he has shed a charm round the concentrated and undemonstrative person of his gentle heroine. I suppose she is the reality of the story; did you know her?

It is difficult, however, to judge how to procure for it the publication it deserves. I have no personal acquaintance with the editors of any of the annuals—I had with that of the Keepsake, but that is now in Mrs. Norton’s hands, and she has not asked me to write, so I know nothing about it; but there arises a stronger objection from the length of the story. As the merit lies in the beauty of the details, I do not see how it could be cut down to one quarter of its present length, which is as long as any tale printed in an annual. When I write for them, I am worried to death to make my things shorter and shorter, till I fancy people think ideas can be conveyed by intuition, and that it is a superstition to consider words necessary for their expression.

I was so very delighted to get your last letter, to be sure the “Wisest of Men” said no news was good news, but I am not apt to think so, and was uneasy. I hope this weather does not oppress you. What an odd climate! A week ago I had a fire, and now it is warmer than Italy; warmer at least in a box pervious to the sun than in the stone palaces where one can breathe freely. My Father is well. He had a cough in the winter, but after we had persuaded him to see a doctor it was easily got rid of. He writes to me himself, “I am now well, now nervous, now old, now young.” One sign of age is, that his horror is so great of change of place that I cannot persuade him ever to visit me here. One would think that the sight of the fields would refresh him, but he likes his own nest better than all, though he greatly feels the annoyance of so seldom seeing me.

Indeed, my kind Maria, you made me smile when you asked me to be civil to the brother of your kind doctor. I thought I had explained my situation to you. You must consider me as one buried alive. I hardly ever go to town; less often I see any one here. My kind and dear young friends, the Misses Robinson, are at Brussels. I am cut off from my kind. What I suffer! What I have suffered! I, to whom sympathy, companionship, the interchange of thought is more necessary than the air I breathe, I will not say. Tears are in my eyes when I think of days, weeks, months, even years spent alone—eternally alone. It does me great harm, but no more of so odious a subject. Let me speak rather of my Percy; to see him bright and good is an unspeakable blessing; but no child can be a companion. He is very fond of me, and would be wretched if he saw me unhappy; but he is with his boys all day long, and I am alone, so I can weep unseen. He gets on very well, and is a fine boy, very stout; this hot weather, though he exposes himself to the sun, instead of making him languid, heightens the colour in his cheeks and brightens his eyes. He is always gay and in good humour, which is a great blessing.

You talk about my poetry and about the encouragement I am to find from Jane and my Father. When they read all the fine things you said they thought it right to attack me about it, but I answered them simply, “She exaggerates; you read the best thing I ever wrote in the Keepsake and thought nothing of it.” I do not know whether you remember the verses I mean. I will copy it in another part; it was written for music. Poor dear Lord Dillon spoke of it as you do of the rest; but “one swallow does not make a summer.” I can never write verses except under the influence of strong sentiment, and seldom even then. As to a tragedy, Shelley used to urge me, which produced his own. When I returned first to England and saw Kean, I was in a fit of enthusiasm, and wished much to write for the stage, but my Father very earnestly dissuaded me. I think that he was in the wrong. I think myself that I could have written a good tragedy, but not now. My good friend, every feeling I have is blighted, I have no ambition, no care for fame. Loneliness has made a wreck of me. I was always a dependent thing, wanting fosterage and support. I am left to myself, crushed by fortune, and I am nothing.

You speak of woman’s intellect. We can scarcely do more than judge by ourselves. I know that, however clever I may be, there is in me a vacillation, a weakness, a want of eagle-winged resolution that appertains to my intellect as well as to my moral character, and renders me what I am, one of broken purposes, failing thoughts, and a heart all wounds. My mother had more energy of character, still she had not sufficient fire of imagination. In short, my belief is, whether there be sex in souls or not, that the sex of our material mechanism makes us quite different creatures, better, though weaker, but wanting in the higher grades of intellect.

I am almost sorry to send you this letter, it is so querulous and sad; yet, if I write with any effusion, the truth will creep out, and my life since you left has been so stained by sorrow and disappointments. I have been so barbarously handled both by fortune and my fellow-creatures, that I am no longer the same as when you knew me. I have no hope. In a few years, when I get over my present feelings and live wholly in Percy, I shall be happier. I have devoted myself to him as no mother ever did, and idolise him; and the reward will come when I can forget a thousand memories and griefs that are as yet alive and burning, and I have nothing to do but brood.

Percy is gone two miles off to bathe; he can swim, and I am obliged to leave the rest to fate. It is no use coddling, yet it costs me many pangs; but he is singularly trustworthy and careful. Do write, and believe me ever your truly attached friend,

M. W. S.

P.S.—Do you not guess why neither these nor those I sent you could please those you mention? Papa loves not the memory of Shelley, because he feels that he injured him; and Jane—do you not understand enough of her to be convinced of the thoughts that make it distasteful to her that I should feel, and above all be thought by others to feel, and to have a right to feel? Oh! the human heart! It is a strange puzzle.

Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.

Bedford Hotel, Brighton,
12th September 1835.

Mary, dear—Six days I rest, and do all that I have to do on the seventh, because it is forbidden. If they would make it felony to obey the Commandments (without benefit of clergy), don’t you think the pleasures of breaking the law would make me keep them?

········

I cannot surmise one of the “thousand reasons” which you say are to prevent my seeing you. On the contrary, your being “chained to your rock” enables me to play the vulture at discretion. It is well for you, therefore, that I am “the most prudent of men.” What a host of virtues I am gifted with! When I am dead, lady mine, build a temple over me and make pilgrimages. Talking of tombs, let it be agreed between you and me that whichever first has five hundred pounds at his disposal shall dedicate it to the placing a fitting monument over the ashes of Shelley.

We will go to Rome together. The time, too, cannot be far distant, considering all things. Remember me to Percy. I shall direct this to Jane’s, not that I think you are there. Adieu, Mary!—Your

E. Trelawny.

1835.

... “I do not wonder,” Mary wrote to Trelawny, “at your not being able to deny yourself the pleasure of Mrs. Norton’s society. I never saw a woman I thought so fascinating. Had I been a man I should certainly have fallen in love with her; as a woman, ten years ago, I should have been spellbound, and, had she taken the trouble, she might have wound me round her finger. Ten years ago I was so ready to give myself away, and being afraid of men, I was apt to get tousy-mousy for women; experience and suffering have altered all that. I am more wrapt up in myself, my own feelings, disasters, and prospects for Percy. I am now proof, as Hamlet says, both against man and woman.

“There is something in the pretty way in which Mrs. Norton’s witticisms glide, as it were, from her lips, that is very charming; and then her colour, which is so variable, the eloquent blood which ebbs and flows, mounting, as she speaks, to her neck and temples, and then receding as fast; it reminds me of the frequent quotation of ‘eloquent blood,’ and gives a peculiar attraction to her conversation—not to speak of fine eyes and open brow.

“Now do not in your usual silly way show her what I say. She is, despite all her talents and sweetness, a London lady. She would quiz me—not, perhaps, to you—well do I know the London ton—but to every one else—in her prettiest manner.”

13th October 1835.

Of myself, my dearest Maria, I can give but a bad account. Solitude, many cares, and many deep sorrows brought on this summer an illness, from which I am only now recovering. I can never forget, nor cease to be grateful to Jane for her excessive kindness to me, when I needed it most, confined, as I was, to my sofa, unable to move. I went to Dover during Percy’s holidays, and change of air and bathing made me so much better that I thought myself well, but on my return here I had a relapse, from which now this last week I am, I trust, fast recovering. Bark and port wine seem the chief means of my getting well. But in the midst of all this I had to write to meet my expenses. I have published a second volume of Italian Lives in Lardner’s EncyclopÆdia. All in that volume, except Galileo and Tasso, are mine. The last is chief, I allow, and I grieve that it had been engaged to Mr. M. before I began to write. I am now about to write a volume of Spanish and Portuguese Lives. This is an arduous task, from my own ignorance, and the difficulty of getting books and information. The booksellers want me to write another novel, Lodore having succeeded so well, but I have not as yet strength for such an undertaking.

Then there is no Spanish circulating library. I cannot, while here, read in the Museum if I would, and I would not if I could. I do not like finding myself a stray bird alone among men, even if I knew them.[17] One hears how happy people will be to lend me their books, but when it comes to the point it is very difficult to get at them. However, as I am rather persevering, I hope to conquer these obstacles after all. Percy grows; he is taller than I am, and very stout. If he does not turn out an honour to his parents, it will be through no deficiency in virtue or in talents, but from a dislike of mingling with his fellow-creatures, except the two or three friends he cannot do without. He may be the happier for it; he has a good understanding, and great integrity of character. Adieu, my dear friend.-Ever affectionately yours,

Mary W. Shelley.

... Press not on the politics of Mr. Godwin (for God knows how much gratitude for that ever survives), but on his celebrity, the widow’s age and ill health, and (if your proud little spirit will bear it) on your own toils; for, after all, the truth is that you, being generous, will, rather than see the old creature starve, work your brains and your pen; and you have your son and delicate health to hinder you from having means to help her.

As to petitioning, no one dislikes begging more than I do, especially when one begs for what seems mere justice; but I have long observed that though people will resist claims (however just), they like to do favours. Therefore, when I beg, I am a crawling lizard, a humble toad, a brown snake in cold weather, or any other simile most feebly rampante—the reverse of rampant, which would be the natural attitude for petitioning,—but which must never be assumed except in the poodle style, standing with one’s paws bent to catch the bits of bread on one’s nose.

Forgive my jesting; upon my honour I feel sincerely anxious for your anxiety, and sad enough on my own affairs, but Irish blood will dance. My meaning is, that if one asks at all, one should rather think of the person written to than one’s own feelings. He is an indolent man—talk of your literary labours; a kind man—speak of her age and infirmities; a patron of all genius—talk of your father’s and your own; a prudent man—speak of the likelihood of the pension being a short grant (as you have done); lastly, he is a great man—take it all as a personal favour. As to not apologising for the intrusion, we ought always to kneel down and beg pardon for daring to remind people we are not so well off as they are.

Trelawny to Mrs. Shelley.

Hastings, 25th September 1836.

Mary, dear—Your letter was exceedingly welcome; it was honoured accordingly. You divine truly; I am leading a vegetable sort of a life. They say the place is pretty, the air is good, the sea is fine. I would willingly exchange a pretty place for a pretty girl. The air is keen and shrewish, and as to the sea, I am satisfied with a bath of less dimensions. Notwithstanding the want of sun, and the abundance of cold winds, I lave my sides daily in the brine, and thus I am gradually cooling down to the temperature—of the things round about me—so that the thinnest skinned feminine may handle me without fear of consequences. Possibly you may think that I am like the torpid snake that the forester warmed by his hearth. No, I am not. I am steeling myself with Plato and Platonics; so now farewell to love and womankind. “Othello’s occupation’s gone.”

········

You say, “Had I seen those eyes you saw the other day.” Yes, the darts shot from those eyes are still rankling in my body; yet it is a pleasing pain. The wound of the scorpion is healed by applying the scorpion to the wound. Is she not a glorious being? Have you ever seen such a presence? Is she not dazzling? There is enchantment in all her ways. Talk of the divine power of music, why, she is all melody, and poetry, and beauty, and harmony. How envious and malignant must the English be not to do her homage universal. They never had, or will have again, such a woman as that. I would rather be her slave than king of such an island of Calibans. You have a soul, and sense, and a deep feeling for your sex, and revere such “cunning patterns of excelling nature,” therefore—besides, I owe it you—I will transcribe what she says of you: “I was nervous, it was my first visit to any one, and there is a gentle frankness in her manner, and a vague remembrance of the thought and feeling in her books which prevents my being as with a ‘visiting acquaintance.’”

········

Zella is doing wondrous well, and chance has placed her with a womankind that even I (setting beauty aside) am satisfied with. By the bye, I wish most earnestly you could get me some good morality in the shape of Italian and French. It is indispensable to the keeping alive her remembrance of those languages, and not a book is to be had here, nor do I know exactly how to get them by any other means, so pray think of it.

········

I am inundated with letters from America, and am answering them by Mrs. Jameson; she sailing immediately is a very heavy loss to me. She is the friendliest-hearted woman in the world. I would rather lose anything than her....

I don’t think I shall stay here much longer; it is a bad holding ground; my cable is chafing. I shall drift somewhere or other. It is well for Mamma Percy has so much of her temperate blood. When us three meet, we shall be able to ice the wine by placing it between us; that will be nice, as the girls say.

A glance from Mrs. Nesbitt has shaken my firm nerves a little. There is a mystery—a deep well of feeling in those star-like eyes of hers. It is strange that actresses are the only true and natural people; they only act in the proper season and place, whilst all the rest seem eternally playing a part, and like dilettanti acting, damn’d absurdly.

J. Trelawny.