Shelley | Page 8

The story of the two years and nine months during which Shelley lived
with Harriet must seem insane to a rational mind. Life was one
comfortless picnic. When Shelley wanted food, he would dart into a
shop and buy a loaf or a handful of raisins. Always accompanied by
Eliza, they changed their dwelling-place more than twelve times.
Edinburgh, York, Keswick, Dublin, Nantgwillt, Lynmouth, Tremadoc,
Tanyrallt, Killarney, London (Half Moon Street and Pimlico),

Bracknell, Edinburgh again, and Windsor, successively received this
fantastic household. Each fresh house was the one where they were to
abide for ever, and each formed the base of operations for some new
scheme of comprehensive beneficence. Thus at Tremadoc, on the
Welsh coast, Shelley embarked on the construction of an embankment
to reclaim a drowned tract of land; 'Queen Mab' was written partly in
Devonshire and partly in Wales; and from Ireland, where he had gone
to regenerate the country, he opened correspondence with William
Godwin, the philosopher and author of 'Political Justice'. His energy in
entering upon ecstatic personal relations was as great as that which he
threw into philanthropic schemes; but the relations, like the schemes,
were formed with no notion of adapting means to ends, and were often
dropped as hurriedly. Eliza Westbrook, at first a woman of estimable
qualities, quickly became "a blind and loathsome worm that cannot see
to sting", Miss Hitchener, who had been induced to give up her school
and come to live with them "for ever," was discovered to be a "brown
demon," and had to be pensioned off. He loved his wife for a time, but
they drifted apart, and he found consolation in a sentimental attachment
to a Mrs. Boinville and her daughter, Cornelia Turner, ladies who read
Italian poetry with him and sang to guitars. Harriet had borne him a
daughter, Ianthe, but she herself was a child, who soon wearied of
philosophy and of being taught Latin; naturally she wanted fine clothes,
fashion, a settlement. Egged on by her sister, she spent on plate and a
carriage the money that Shelley would have squandered on humanity at
large. Money difficulties and negotiations with his father were the
background of all this period. On March 24, 1814, he married Harriet in
church, to settle any possible question as to the legitimacy of his
children; but they parted soon after. Attempts were made at
reconciliation, which might have. succeeded had not Shelley during
this summer drifted into a serious and relatively permanent passion. He
made financial provision for his wife, who gave birth to a second child,
a boy, on November 30, 1814; but, as the months passed, and Shelley
was irrevocably bound to another, she lost heart for life in the
dreariness of her father's house. An Irish officer took her for his
mistress, and on December 10, 1816, she was found drowned in the
Serpentine. Twenty days later Shelley married his second wife.
This marriage was the result of his correspondence with William

Godwin, which had ripened into intimacy, based on community of
principles, with the Godwin household. The philosopher, a short, stout
old man, presided, with his big bald head, his leaden complexion, and
his air of a dissenting minister, over a heterogeneous family at 41
Skinner Street, Holborn, supported in scrambling poverty by the energy
of the second Mrs. Godwin, who carried on a business of publishing
children's books. In letters of the time we see Mrs. Godwin as a fat little
woman in a black velvet dress, bad-tempered and untruthful. "She is a
very disgusting woman, and wears green spectacles," said Charles
Lamb. Besides a small son of the Godwins, the family contained four
other members--Clara Mary Jane Clairmont and Charles Clairmont
(Mrs. Godwin's children by a previous marriage), Fanny Godwin (as
she was called), and Mary Godwin. These last two were the daughters
of Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of 'The Rights of Women', the great
feminist, who had been Godwin's first wife. Fanny's father was a scamp
called Imlay, and Mary was Godwin's child.
Mary disliked her stepmother, and would wander on fine days to read
beside her mother's grave in Old St. Pancras Churchyard. This girl of
seventeen had a strong if rather narrow mind; she was imperious,
ardent, and firm-willed. She is said to have been very pale, with golden
hair and a large forehead, redeemed from commonplace by hazel eyes
which had a piercing look. When sitting, she appeared to be of more
than average height; when she stood, you saw that she had her father's
stumpy legs. Intellectually, and by the solidity of her character, she was
better fitted to be Shelley's mate than any other woman he ever came
across. It was natural that she should be interested in this bright
creature, fallen as from another world