ELQPEMEN1 
 
 ALEXANDER HARVE1 
 
 ia

 
 SHELLEY'S ELOPEMENT
 
 By ALEXANDER HARVEY 
 WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
 
 A Study of the Achievement 
 of a Literary Artist
 
 WVU, 
 
 SHELLEY'S ELOPEMENT 
 
 A STUDY OF THE MOST ROMANTIC 
 EPISODE IN LITERARY HISTORY 
 
 BY ALEXANDER HARVEY 
 
 NEW YORK ALFRED A KNOPF MCMXVIII 
 
 THE
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY 
 
 ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. 
 
 Published September 1918 
 
 FKTNTED IN TH* UNTTBD STATES OF AMERICA
 
 TO 
 ROBERT ALLERTON PARKER 
 
 2024369
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Love or Marriage i 
 
 II The Stepmother 15 
 
 III Poet and Philosopher 5 1 
 
 IV The Romantic 79 
 V Mary Takes a Hand 91 
 
 VI The Daughter of Mary Wollstone- 
 craft and the Wife of William 
 
 Godwin 113 
 
 VII The Child of Song 129 
 
 VIII The Loves of the Poet Shelley 171 
 
 IX The Infatuation of Jefferson Hogg 185 
 
 X The Deep One 191 
 
 XI Recrimination 209 
 
 XII A Pard-Like Spirit 225 
 
 XIII The Event 249 
 
 Characters Involved in Shelley's Elopement 265
 
 I 
 
 LOVE OR MARRIAGE? 
 
 iHEN you mean to elope with a 
 married man 1 ?" 
 
 Mary Godwin fairly hissed the 
 words. Her pale young face took on unwonted 
 colour. Her deep grey eyes seemed afire. 
 
 Fanny started up from the broken old chair. 
 She confronted her tormentor with a boldness of 
 which her instinctive timidity made her for the 
 most part incapable. 
 
 "I have never said so, Mary." 
 
 Fanny's impulse to retort hotly found no other 
 outlet than these words these words and a deep 
 flush in her cheeks. This made its way slowly 
 to the roots of her long and plentiful black hair. 
 
 Fanny's hair comprised her solitary pretension
 
 Shelley's 
 
 to beauty. It coiled itself massively at the nape 
 of a sallow neck which, like her countenance, be- 
 trayed the past ravages of small-pox. Her long 
 face pointed itself more markedly than might 
 otherwise have been the case owing to the unusual 
 length of her chin. The lips of this girl were 
 wide and full. The nose was too long and too 
 sallow. The ears, clinging closely to the head, 
 were hidden by the plentiful hair. A copper tint 
 in the sallow complexion of the girl suggested 
 the American Indian. 
 
 Fanny's dark eyes, blazing for the moment, 
 cowed even so determined a nature as that of Mary 
 Godwin. There ensued between these half-sisters 
 a moment of the tensest silence. They faced one 
 another with the feelings of two gladiators. At 
 last, Fanny, the meek spirit, succumbed to the 
 bolder soul. 
 
 "Mary!" 
 
 The name became a sigh. In another moment 
 these two had embraced. Fanny laid her head 
 upon the shoulder of Mary and wept. 
 
 "You love him. I can see that." 
 
 I weep for Adonais he is dead! 
 L O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
 
 Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! *\ 
 
 And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years J 
 
 Fanny raised her head. Confession was writ- 
 ten in her sallow face. 
 
 "Bysshe has been very good to me " 
 
 She was cut short. 
 
 "Bysshe !" echoed Mary. Her tone was one of 
 horror and surprise blended. "So that is the way 
 in which you refer to Mr. Shelley. And does he 
 call you Fanny?" 
 
 "We have known each other a very long time." 
 
 Fanny faltered the words. The extreme plain- 
 ness of her face seemed to catch something of the 
 charm she too evidently felt in the mere memory 
 of her intercourse with Shelley. Mary's pretty 
 countenance wore an expression of almost ma- 
 tronly severity. There was scorn in her deep 
 grey eyes. 
 
 "It matters not, Fanny, how long you have 
 known this Mr. Shelley. He has a wife. When 
 you let a married man make love to you " 
 
 Until this was said, Fanny had remained upon 
 the ancient chair in which she collapsed after 
 weeping upon Mary's shoulder. She now stood 
 up. Her pitted face was almost flushed. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Bysshe Mr. Shelley has never made love to 
 me." 
 
 Mary laughed aloud. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley is too much of a poet not to make 
 love to every woman he meets," she retorted. 
 "Has he never kissed you?" 
 
 "He and his wife have both kissed me." 
 
 "That was before they quarrelled." 
 
 There was something very like a sneer upon 
 Mary's thin and finely chiselled lips. It could 
 not conquer the rare sweetness of Fanny's expres- 
 sion. The spirituality of her liquid eyes, swim- 
 ming in the depths of their profound colour, dis- 
 armed all Mary's criticism. Fanny's smile, part- 
 ing lips too wide, was like a gleam of colour 
 through shaded forest trees. The perfection of 
 Fanny's manner was completed by her voice. It 
 was a blend of tones, giving utterance to every 
 beautiful and tender sentiment with no necessity 
 for framing sentences to tell what might be in her 
 mind. 
 
 This young woman, who had entered her 
 twentieth year, was athletic in build for one of 
 
 To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 
 4 And teach them thine own sorrow! Say: "With me
 
 Died Adonais; till the Future dares 
 Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 
 
 her sex. She seemed all the taller owing to the 
 craziness of the low attic ceiling over her head. It 
 descended in places until she could have touched 
 it by raising a shoulder. Fanny's surroundings 
 were bare and mean. The roped bed with its 
 gaping straw mattress and one odd blanket sug- 
 gested anything but repose. There was a cracked 
 pitcher on a washstand in a corner. The table 
 had lost a leg. The chair beside the bed was 
 almost without a back. Everything was spot- 
 lessly clean. Two huge books one a Bible lay 
 on the floor beside the bed. 
 
 "The trash this Mr. Shelley writes you spend 
 much of your time poring over it, I am told," 
 ran on Mary. "You have taken him very seri- 
 ously, as he takes himself." 
 
 She lifted a thin volume from the rickety table 
 beside the window. Fanny stepped over from 
 the bed. Mary fled into a corner. She had 
 divined the purpose of her half-sister. 
 
 "I mean to look at it, Fanny. Don't provoke 
 me." 
 
 The elder girl resumed her seat upon the bed, 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 throwing her apron over her face. Mary laughed 
 again. 
 
 "You're not in love with Shelley, oh no !" she 
 mocked. "You merely give your nights to his 
 trashy poetry. No wonder your candle is always 
 burned down to the socket." 
 
 Fanny uncovered her face. 
 
 "It isn't trash !" she retorted with spirit. "You 
 are too young to understand such a thing as Queen 
 Mab." 
 
 "So this is Queen Mab, is it*?" said Mary, fin- 
 gering the thin volume in boards. "I've heard of 
 that poem. Pa has read it. He told me this 
 Mr. Shelley has a false taste in poetry. He loves 
 a perpetual sparkle and glitter, Pa says, such as 
 are to be found in Southey." 
 
 The full and rich tones in which the positive 
 and affirmative Mary uttered her protest afforded 
 the most striking of contrasts with the timid and 
 suppressed accents of Fanny. The difference in 
 their voices reflected a marked disparity in their 
 temperaments. Where the dusky Fanny hesi- 
 tated and shrank, the paler Mary walked boldly. 
 
 6 An echo and a light unto 
 eternity!"
 
 Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, w 
 
 When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies / 
 
 The plainness of Fanny seemed the greater just 
 now because of the radiant prettiness of Mary. 
 Fanny was tall. Mary, without being too short, 
 was what the French call petite. The features 
 of the brunette had gentleness and calm stamped 
 upon every lineament. Mary seemed perpetually 
 a-flutter. If she sat down, she tapped one little 
 foot upon the floor. Fanny was all repose. The 
 gestures of Mary were incessant. All that Fanny 
 said was spoken slowly and in hesitating accents. 
 Mary talked freely, decidedly. This difference 
 in characters was emphasized by a difference in 
 ages. Fanny, it has been said, had attained her 
 twentieth year. Mary was scarcely seventeen. 
 
 "Trash !" she cried at last, flinging the volume 
 across the room. "This Bysshe Shelley of yours 
 is no poet and I shall tell him so." 
 
 Fanny, her dusky face aglow, ran across the 
 attic floor to rescue the precious verses. She re- 
 stored the slim volume to its place upon her 
 lamed table, whither Mary herself had now re- 
 paired to finger one or two more specimens of 
 Shelley's genius. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Zastrozzi," read out Mary. "A romance. 
 By P. B. S. Just what does the '' stand for? 
 Patrick?" 
 
 "Percy." 
 
 "Percy Bysshe Shelley!" echoed Mary. Her 
 accents were as high as they were scornful. "I 
 declare you have his name pat enough. And see ! 
 Every one of these things has your name in it." 
 
 It was true. One pamphlet, entitled: "An 
 Address to the Irish People," was inscribed to 
 "Miss Fanny Godwin" with "the homage of the 
 author her humble admirer and friend." Mary 
 read these words aloud and then burst into a peal 
 of laughter. 
 
 "Dearest!" cried Fanny. "You are unkind." 
 
 Mary kissed her half-sister once more. 
 
 "I spoke only for your good just now, Fanny. 
 I am sure you know as much." 
 
 "Perhaps I am too much " 
 
 She hesitated. Mary supplied the word. 
 
 "Interested." 
 
 "Yes. Mr. Shelley is very interesting." 
 
 A smile revealed the even rows of Mary's teeth. 
 
 8 
 
 In darkness? where was lorn Urania 
 When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,
 
 'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise 
 
 She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 
 
 "His wife doesn't seem to find him interesting. 
 She spends very little of her time with him." 
 
 "She does not understand a nature like his." 
 
 Mary tossed her head. 
 
 "That's what they all say!" she ejaculated. 
 She had resumed her first mockery of tone. 
 "Why doesn't he try to make her understand 
 him?" 
 
 "He's a poet." 
 
 Mary laughed so merrily that Fanny had at last 
 to join in. 
 
 "These Shelleys have had another quarrel," 
 Mary observed, more gravely. "I do hope it was 
 not on your account." 
 
 "Mary!" 
 
 The reply of that young lady, whatever it 
 might have been, was anticipated by the collision 
 of her shapely brow with the ceiling. She had 
 incautiously advanced too near that portion of 
 the ancient attic which formed the support of the 
 roof. Lifting her head too suddenly in her access 
 of disdain at Shelley, it came into smart con- 
 tact with the edge of a heavy beam. For a mo- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 ment she stood stunned. Fanny rushed over to 
 Mary's side. 
 
 "Poor dear!" she said, tenderly, placing a hand 
 upon her sister's brow. 
 
 A lump had already formed upon the spotless 
 whiteness of the skin of Mary's temple. Fanny 
 kissed the place. Luckily, the abundant hair on 
 Mary's head had saved her from the worst conse- 
 quences of this accident. She hid her face against 
 Fanny's bosom. 
 
 "Upon my word, Fanny !" she cried penitently, 
 "you are so kind. I hope I didn't wound your 
 feelings." 
 
 Fanny's reply was another kiss. The lips of 
 the fair and lovely Mary were pressed fervidly 
 against the heavier mouth of the dark girl. For 
 a moment they stood entwined. 
 
 "What makes you say such things, Mary?" 
 
 "Haven't you been a frequent visitor of theirs? 
 Hasn't he written you letters?" 
 
 Fanny sank upon her bed. 
 
 "I shall never write him again," she said. 
 
 Rekindled all the fading melodies 
 I O With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,
 
 He had adorned and hid the coming j -r 
 
 bulk of death. * A 
 
 "You will do wisely, Fanny. And I wouldn't 
 encourage his visits, either." 
 
 Once more Fanny looked up, quickly, indigna- 
 tion expressing itself upon every swarthy feature. 
 
 " He doesn't come to see me, Mary. He comes 
 here only to help poor Pa." 
 
 It was Mary's turn to look indignant. 
 
 "What nonsense ! Pa needs no help that Mr. 
 Shelley can give." 
 
 Fanny sighed and remained for a moment con- 
 templating the great hole in the carpet on the 
 floor. Above their heads the rain was beating 
 heavily upon the roof. Fanny was the first to 
 break the silence. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley has promised to advance Pa a 
 thousand pounds." 
 
 Into the deep grey eyes of the pretty Mary 
 there flashed a look of amazement so blank that 
 Fanny's face relaxed into a smile. 
 
 "We have had much trouble while you were 
 away in Scotland, Mary." 
 
 "Then you should have written me. I am 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 sure Pa's old friend, Mr. Baxter, would have 
 helped." 
 
 Her musical voice was positive. She even 
 stamped a pretty foot. But Fanny shook her head 
 with a sigh. 
 
 "Mr. Baxter has already helped as much as he 
 could. He wrote last month from Edinburgh to 
 say that his last penny was at the service of Mr. 
 William Godwin. Mr. Shelley heard of it and 
 offered himself to raise all the money that is 
 needed." 
 
 Mary was reduced to a temporary silence by the 
 shock of this intelligence. She began to uncoil 
 the masses of her auburn hair a sure indication 
 of some uneasiness of mind. Fanny watched the 
 unfolding of the long tresses without proffering a 
 word. She had gone to the washstand where, 
 steeping her apron in the water of the cracked 
 pitcher, she contrived a cold compress. With this 
 she mopped the lump on Mary's brow. 
 
 "I am surprised, Fanny, you did not let me 
 know the truth. Pa in straits and I not told of it ! 
 But why should he require the officious aid of this 
 
 Oh weep for Adonais he is dead ! 
 L i* Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
 
 Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed j /j 
 Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep, J 
 
 preposterous Mr. Shelley? Surely the friends of 
 William Godwin, the greatest author in England, 
 will come to his assistance*?" 
 
 Fanny began braiding her half-sister's hair. 
 This was a service she never failed to render 
 when the state of Mary's spirits grew too agi- 
 tated. 
 
 "Why don't you answer me?" 
 
 Mary spoke sharply. She had assumed a re- 
 clining position upon the wretched apology of a 
 bed, a thing of ropes and boards. 
 
 "I have told you that Pa's friends have just 
 come to his assistance. They raised a thousand 
 pounds for him last year, too." 
 
 Fanny spoke soothingly, mopping Mary's head 
 with her wet apron the while. 
 
 "Upon my word!" cried the younger of these 
 half-sisters at last. "Pa a beggar and I not told 
 of it ! Living upon charity !" 
 
 The girls started up in consternation. They 
 heard stertorous breathings upon the threshold of 
 the attic. 
 
 "Living upon charity!" echoed a querulous 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 voice at the door. "You're Pa's living upon me, 
 I'm thinking!" 
 
 Fanny looked into Mary's deep grey eyes from 
 which a glance of disgust shot back into Fanny's 
 black orbs. Neither of the two had been aware 
 of the approach of the newcomer until they heard 
 the panting scantness of an asthmatic breathing. 
 
 It was their stepmother. 
 
 Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep; 
 For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
 
 II 
 
 THE STEPMOTHER 
 
 THE very fat little woman wearing 
 green spectacles who stood in the door- 
 way of Fanny's garret, glaring sternly 
 at the two girls, was Mrs. William Godwin, sec- 
 ond wife of the illustrious author whose financial 
 embarrassments just now occupied the thoughts of 
 his admiring daughter. 
 
 The present Mrs. William Godwin was an 
 asthmatic woman of mature years. Shortness of 
 breath as well as shortness of temper betrayed 
 themselves in the tones of her shrill voice. She 
 stood panting on the threshold. The unusual ex- 
 ertion of climbing the stairs took all her breath. 
 
 Fanny hastened to offer the lady the broken- 
 backed chair. 
 
 "I'm speechless calling you two this last hour!" 
 she gasped, dropping into the seat. 
 
 Descend ; oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 
 
 Will yet restore him to the vital air; S
 
 Shelley's 
 
 She was very red in the face. For a minute 
 she could only struggle for her lost breath. 
 Mary paid no attention at all to the presence of 
 her stepmother, burying her head, in fact, in the 
 one pillow on the bed. 
 
 "You've grown very deaf, you two," repeated 
 Mrs. Godwin finally, clutching the worn old chair 
 as if to keep it from collapsing beneath her own 
 tremendous weight. 
 
 It had been cracking ominously, this chair, be- 
 neath the strain of Mrs. Godwin's three hundred 
 pounds. She spoke in the injured tone of a 
 woman who feels that her grievance is against all 
 the world rather than against any one individual. 
 Her feet, small and shapely in spite of her un- 
 gainly build, were encased in slippers of carpet, 
 very much worn. The worsted stockings she wore 
 were of black, like her plain dress. She had a 
 ribbon of velvet in the masses of her plentiful 
 grey hair. The double chin was folded over a 
 string of beads, pendent from the full throat. 
 Mrs. Godwin had no waist. In the place at which 
 normally it might have been expected, there be- 
 
 j Death feeds on his mute voice, and 
 M. O laughs at our despair.
 
 Most musical of mourners, weep again! j r*i 
 
 Lament anew, Urania ! He died, / 
 
 gan a vast roundness extending in all directions 
 until she assumed the aspect of a gigantic top. 
 Her light blue eyes could not be seen through 
 the green spectacles perched upon her nose in huge 
 circles. Her fat arms were exposed as far as the 
 elbows. 
 
 "How dare you refer to my father in such a 
 fashion!" cried Mary, suddenly. She fairly 
 leaped from her recumbent position upon Fanny's 
 bed. "Woman, how dare you*?" 
 
 The obese Mrs. Godwin was plunged into a 
 fresh asthmatic fit by the fierceness as well as the 
 suddenness of the attack. She, also, rose from 
 her reposeful posture. She was too short to risk 
 any collision of her head with the beam under 
 the ceiling. She stood speechless. Mary walked 
 in her tartan dress brought from Scotland after 
 her visit to the Baxters there across the floor to 
 her stepmother's side. The pair glared at one an- 
 other some little time before Mrs. Godwin found 
 breath. 
 
 "Don't dare to speak to me, minx!" she re- 
 torted. "I'd like to know what would have be- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 come of your father and of you, too, but for 
 me." 
 
 "You are the cause of all my father's troubles," 
 Mary replied, more calmly. "You forced your- 
 self upon him. You pursued him " 
 
 At this point Fanny, whose arm was now round 
 Mary's waist, placed a hand upon her sister's 
 mouth. 
 
 "Mary !" she said gently. "Mary !" 
 
 "Don't Mary me !" was the retort of that young 
 lady, wrenching herself from Fanny's hold. "I 
 refuse to endure this treatment any longer. I 
 mean to complain to my father." 
 
 The stepmother placed her fat arms akimbo and 
 glared fiercely through her green spectacles. 
 
 "As if your father hadn't troubles enough!" 
 she observed. "I see what's the matter with you, 
 my fine lady. You've been living all your life 
 in a dream. You've been living the life of a 
 princess lately with your father's friends in Scot- 
 land. You don't know your place." 
 
 She shot the last words around the bust of 
 Fanny, whose arms were now clasping her step- 
 
 Q Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 
 1 O Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride,
 
 The priest, the slave, and the liberticide, j Q 
 
 Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite s 
 
 mother. Mary walked slowly back to the little 
 window under the roof and looked out at the 
 soaking rain. A great tree outside on Skinner 
 Street reared its branches in the spring weather 
 until their green leaves beat against the pines. 
 There came a quick gust of wind. A shutter be- 
 low banged against the wall. The crazy old 
 house shook to its infirm foundations. 
 
 "Did you want us, Ma?" 
 
 If Fanny, who spoke in a tone of conciliation 
 and with all her characteristic gentleness, meant 
 by the question to soothe her stepmother, she 
 effected the precise opposite. 
 
 Mrs. Godwin was steeped afresh in the waters 
 of her usual mood. 
 
 "I did think of asking this fine lady to serve 
 a customer in the shop," she answered queru- 
 lously. "People come in downstairs to buy books 
 only to be served by a ten year old boy who can 
 not understand their questions." 
 
 "I'm not your apprentice, Mrs. Godwin," broke 
 in Mary, her eyes ablaze. "If you want your 
 shop taken care of, ask Jane to do it." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Jane was Mrs. Godwin's own daughter, a girl 
 of about the age of Mary. The tie of blood that 
 bound Jane to the wife of William Godwin did 
 not cement any friendliness in their intercourse. 
 In truth, Mrs. Godwin quarrelled with her own 
 daughter even more fiercely than she fought her 
 stepdaughters. 
 
 "Jane !" echoed the mother of the absent young 
 lady. "Indeed, I'd like to know where that hussy 
 is this minute. Ever since you put it into her 
 head to go on the stage, she haunts Drury Lane." 
 
 "I will go down to the shop," said Fanny, 
 dreading the outbreak of a scene even more violent 
 than any that had preceded. 
 
 "I'm glad to see," observed the mollified fat 
 woman, "that William Godwin has one daughter 
 who is not too proud to make herself useful." 
 
 She kissed Fanny effusively. Mary was now 
 bathing the bruised forehead in the little basin 
 upon the washstand. Her stepmother paused 
 upon the threshold with Fanny long enough to 
 hurl one last barb. 
 
 "You bold hussy!" she cried. "I'll tell your 
 
 Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified, 
 2 O Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite
 
 Yet reigns o'er earth ; the third 
 among the sons of light. 
 
 father what I think of this impertinence of yours. 
 I can not understand what your father " 
 
 "Ma!" 
 
 Fanny's gentle hand was upon her stepmother's 
 mouth again. 
 
 "Remember," she whispered, "that I, too, am a 
 daughter of William Godwin." 
 
 "God bless you, Fanny," answered the fat 
 woman, throwing her arms about the dark girl's 
 neck. "You are the only true daughter William 
 Godwin has." 
 
 Mary threw the wet towel straight at her step 
 mother's head. 
 
 "Devil!" Mary's shrill voice was a perfect 
 scream. "Fanny is not the daughter of William 
 Godwin and you know it." 
 
 Fanny's hold upon her stepmother's shoulder 
 tightened. She turned in the doorway and spoke 
 to Mary with a sharpness of accent most unusual 
 in her. 
 
 "This is the second time within a week that 
 you have said that I am not William Godwin's 
 daughter." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Fanny's words caused her stepmother to place 
 an arm about her neck. 
 
 "Come downstairs, my dear," she said. 
 
 Something in the tone and something in the 
 manner of her stepmother impelled Fanny to re- 
 turn to Mary's side. 
 
 "Am I the daughter of William Godwin?" 
 
 Mary exchanged a glance with her stepmother. 
 Fanny caught it. She looked from one to the 
 other mutely. Walking to her miserable straw 
 bed, she literally fell upon it and burst into 
 sobs. 
 
 "Hussy!" cried Mrs. Godwin, shaking a fist 
 in Mary's face. "What new deviltry are you up 
 to now?" 
 
 Fanny lay weeping where she fell, her face 
 buried in the pillow. Mrs. Godwin knelt beside 
 the prostrate girl and kissed her. 
 
 "It's a lie, Fanny," she said, tenderly. "It's 
 a lie." 
 
 "It's the truth!" Mary shrieked, stamping her 
 foot. 
 
 "What do you want to tell it now, for?" 
 
 Most musical of mourners, weep anew! 
 2 2 Not all to that bright station dared to climb ;
 
 And happier they their happiness who knew, sy *y 
 
 Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time J 
 
 At this question, Fanny sat up. She had dried 
 her tears. The two women looked at her with- 
 out a word. A crisis had arrived in this girl's life. 
 The fact overwhelmed them all. 
 
 "I am not William Godwin's daughter. 
 Whose daughter am I?" 
 
 The situation was one which the elder woman 
 had long foreseen. Many a time had Mrs. God- 
 win besought her husband to reveal to Fanny the 
 secret of her birth. Godwin, with his character- 
 istic aloofness, had always evaded the necessity. 
 
 "Fanny, my dear," broke in Mrs. Godwin, "we 
 will talk of this another time." 
 
 She would have drawn the girl out of the room 
 but the gentle Fanny was for once bent upon hav- 
 ing her own way. 
 
 "Tell me the truth, Mary," she said. Her 
 voice was one of earnest entreaty. She laid a 
 hand upon the brow of the radiant girl whose 
 words had just provoked this scene. 
 
 The truth respecting her birth, which Fanny 
 was not destined to learn until she was twenty, in- 
 volved the life led by her mother in Paris during 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 the days of the Terror. Fanny was not the 
 daughter of William Godwin. Godwin seemed 
 to prefer that she live in ignorance of the history 
 of her mother's early life. He had pledged Mrs. 
 Clairmont, prior to her nuptials with himself, to 
 respect this secret. How Mary had ascertained 
 the truth was a mystery. She had every detail of 
 it precisely. Mrs. Godwin listened in silence as 
 her stepdaughters conversed. At last she found 
 a voice. 
 
 "You are the deep one!" 
 
 This was the only comment of the stepmother. 
 Whenever Mary effected some stroke of domestic 
 policy her stepmother would observe that she was 
 a deep one. The term became in Godwin's dis- 
 cordant household a phrase denoting Mary. 
 
 No illusions on the subject of her husband, the 
 renowned author, seemed to be left in the soul of 
 Mrs. William Godwin. 
 
 "You have a variety of particular information," 
 sneered Mrs. Godwin, when Mary had told the 
 weeping Fanny the tale of her mother's life with 
 
 In which suns perished; others more sublime, 
 Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,
 
 Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime; /^ 
 
 And some yet live, treading the thorny road, ^ 
 
 Imlay. "Perhaps you'll condescend to tell us 
 where you got it all." 
 
 Mary ignored her stepmother. 
 
 "What I have told you, Fanny," she proceeded, 
 "is contained in our mother's letters." 
 
 "Oh," blurted out Mrs. Godwin. "You've 
 been reading things not meant for your eyes." 
 
 Mary blazed up at this. 
 
 "Pray attend to your own affairs, Mrs. G.," 
 she said, tartly. "I'm attending to mine." 
 
 "You're attending to Fanny's," said the elder 
 lady, wiping her green spectacles, and putting 
 them on again to glare at her contumacious step- 
 daughter. "Those letters were written by your 
 mother to Fanny's father, Captain Imlay." 
 
 "Where is he now?" 
 
 Fanny asked this question. She was seated 
 upon her bed, dry-eyed now, but very pale. 
 
 "I don't know what became of your father," 
 said Mrs. Godwin. "He died, I believe, many 
 years ago." 
 
 "And my parents," Fanny proceeded, swallow- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 ing a lump in her throat, "you say they never 
 married 1 ?" 
 
 Mrs. Godwin returned to Fanny's side ere she 
 answered. 
 
 "My dear child," she began, placing an arm 
 about the girl's neck and kissing her, while Mary 
 watched from the threshold, "you must remember 
 that twenty years ago people held the most sub- 
 versive notions." 
 
 "My parents never married?" 
 
 "No they never married. It was in Paris 
 that your parents met. Robespierre and those 
 Godless men ruled the country. There was no 
 one to advise your mother regarding her duty to 
 God. The clergy all had their heads cut off." 
 
 "Nonsense!" broke in Mary. "Our mother 
 was a radical. She was free from the supersti- 
 tions of the time. She did not believe in mar- 
 riage. No more do I." 
 
 She disappeared down the stairs with a final 
 toss of her pretty auburn head. Mrs. Godwin 
 shook her fat fist. 
 
 ^< Which leads, through toil and hate, 
 2* O to Fame's serene abode.
 
 But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished, /* r^i 
 
 The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew, / 
 
 "Oh, that deep one," she commented. "I won- 
 der what game she's playing." 
 
 "Where is my father?" 
 
 Fanny referred now to William Godwin. She 
 started from her bed and asked this question with 
 a wildness quite different from the usual repose 
 of her manner. 
 
 "Where," she repeated, "is my father? I must 
 go to him." 
 
 "Your father is downstairs in his study, my 
 dear. I'd be careful how I disturbed him just 
 now when you're not yourself. Drat that Mary !" 
 
 Fanny said no more. Before her stepmother 
 could interpose the least objection, she had leaped 
 from the room. Mrs. Godwin stood motionless, 
 staring at the rain outside. Then, seized by a 
 sudden idea, she, too, waddled in panting scant- 
 ness of breath down the stairs. 
 
 When Fanny opened the door of William God- 
 win's study a place sacred from profane intru- 
 sion and rushed frantically over to that philoso- 
 pher's table, where he sat immersed in manu- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 scripts, an expression of blank amazement was 
 the only greeting he could find for her. 
 
 An irruption like Fanny's was unprecedented. 
 From the female portion of his household, Wil- 
 liam Godwin exacted a deference which the world 
 had long since ceased to accord him. When, 
 many years before, his masterpiece entitled 
 "Political Justice" took young England by storm, 
 Europe was still in the throes of the French Revo- 
 lution. Godwin attacked nearly every institu- 
 tion which made England a constitutional mon- 
 archy. He had been particularly severe in his 
 denunciation of marriage. The thing was to him 
 anathema, an evil. The sensation had been 
 prodigious. With the opening of the nineteenth 
 century, there had come a decline of his fame. 
 That decline was steady. By the time Fanny 
 had attained the age of twenty, the world had well 
 nigh forgotten William Godwin. 
 
 He was living now in embarrassed pecuniary 
 circumstances partly upon the business in books 
 conducted by his second wife and partly upon the 
 meagre earnings of a pen always prolific but sel- 
 
 Q Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished, 
 TL O And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;
 
 Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! /^ /> 
 
 Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and last, jr 
 
 dom profitable. He had reached his fifty-eighth 
 year. He lived much in the library and few 
 cared to intrude upon him there. 
 
 The bitterness in the tone of William Godwin 
 when he spoke reminded all who knew him that 
 he was a disappointed man. This was the open 
 secret of his household the iron entering into 
 the soul of his existence. The career that had 
 opened so gloriously for William Godwin twenty 
 years before, when his work on "Political Justice" 
 brought him a thousand guineas and the intoxica- 
 tion of an international fame, was threatening 
 now to close in the ignominy of a debtor's 
 prison. 
 
 Godwin was still the passionless, frugal being 
 who had burst into fame with his great work. 
 But his spirit was poor. His life of seclusion in 
 an eccentric household had forced him to a mode 
 of daily existence both eremitical and pedantic. 
 He had lost the money that came to him when 
 "Caleb Williams" first thrilled the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. Disaster followed with her heaviest tread 
 when his tragedy of "Antonio" failed at Drury 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Lane, although Kemble had essayed the leading 
 part. 
 
 As a miracle of. dullness, indeed, the play of 
 "Antonio," which Godwin, it must be confessed, 
 staged in high hope, received some attention in 
 the press. There was an audience which as- 
 sembled in expectation because the name of God- 
 win was still well enough remembered to pro- 
 voke the curiosity of the public. He had himself 
 laboured long and lovingly over the play. The 
 first act seems to have chilled. The second bored 
 beyond endurance. Godwin, witnessing the ca- 
 tastrophe, bore up under the humiliation with his 
 usual grave impassivity. He revealed the same 
 coldness of exterior with which he endured the 
 harsh tongue of his wife, the fretful complaints of 
 his stepdaughter, Claire, the temperament of his 
 own daughter Mary and the insistent demands of 
 his growing troop of creditors. 
 
 Godwin's vanity had not been wounded by the 
 checks his ambition as a playwright had received. 
 
 He loved solitude and the study of documents 
 relative to the life and times of Milton, whose 
 
 The bloom, whose petals nipt before they blew 
 2 O Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste ;
 
 The broken lily lies the storm 
 is over-past. 
 
 3 1 
 
 nephews he was preparing to serve up to the public 
 in a ponderous biography. He had been rash 
 enough to embark in business as a publisher and 
 bookseller of scholastic and juvenile publications. 
 The venture had gone badly. There were fur- 
 rows across the wide brow and deep lines under 
 the large dark eyes. 
 
 Godwin looked up from the papers under his 
 big nose and stared speechlessly at Fanny. She 
 had closed the heavy door behind her and stood 
 for a moment in a crestfallen attitude, looking at 
 him. One glance sufficed to betray her agita- 
 tion. 
 
 "Fanny!" 
 
 That was all he said. The voice was low and 
 not unmusical, but it sounded stern in her ears. 
 In a trice she had rushed, with an impulsiveness 
 unusual in one of her composure, to his side and 
 was kneeling at his feet. 
 
 The room which served Godwin as study and 
 library in one was a vast apartment immediately 
 above the shop fronting on Skinner Street. In 
 shape, this room was a great quadrant. Two 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 windows let in the light at the front. Against 
 the wall was a fire place in which no wood burned, 
 although the spring morning was cool enough. 
 Ranged along the walls were roomy shelves with 
 rows of venerable volumes stacked closely to- 
 gether. Opposite the fire place stood the huge 
 table which did duty as a desk. The floor of 
 this room was as ancient as the books. 
 
 It creaked and groaned at every step taken by 
 one who crossed its aged precincts. Facing God- 
 win as he sat was a large canvas the portrait of 
 a beautiful woman, done in oil after the lacka- 
 daisical fashion of the time. The eyes in the por- 
 trait were great and gleaming, of some indefinable 
 shade of grey. They stared down upon the phi- 
 losopher with an uncanny brightness, the one touch 
 of living colour in his everyday life. The hair 
 of the woman had evidently been red, and the 
 artist had done it full justice. She had stalwart 
 shoulders and a full open throat and she had 
 been lovely in her day. The original of the paint- 
 ing was or rather had been Mary Wollstonecraft, 
 
 To that high Capital, where kingly Death 
 ^ 2 Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,
 
 He came; and bought, with price of purest breath, ** f\ 
 A grave among the eternal. Come away! J J 
 
 the first wife of William Godwin and the mother 
 of Fanny. 
 
 Godwin suffered the girl to kneel at his feet 
 without attempting to break the silence. He 
 laid a hand affectionately upon her shoulder. His 
 stern face did not relax a line. Only the strong 
 mouth twitched as he felt the suppression of her 
 sobs for Fanny was weeping. At last she raised 
 her head. 
 
 "My dear father," she began, looking intently 
 into his eyes, "I know all." 
 
 He looked down wonderingly. 
 
 "All?' 
 
 His thoughts seemed far away. She spoke 
 more earnestly, wiping her eyes. 
 
 "I know now," she said, "that I am not Fanny 
 Godwin. I am Fanny Imlay." 
 
 Her eyes wandered to the portrait of her mother 
 above the desk. His glance followed hers. 
 Then he got hastily upon his feet. 
 
 "My child" 
 
 The words were cut short by the hasty entry 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 of his wife. Her fat frame set every crazy board 
 in the floor to creaking and groaning. 
 
 "Godwin," she gasped, panting. "This is all 
 Mary's fault." 
 
 She spoke in the tone of one to whom misery 
 was no stranger. In truth, it was upon poor Mrs. 
 Godwin, the second, that the burden of this er- 
 ratic household fell heaviest. She had no such 
 pretensions to genius as brought renown to Wil- 
 liam Godwin, fame to Mary Wollstonecraft and 
 the attentive interest of the world to their daugh- 
 ter, growing up in the poverty of Skinner Street. 
 Mrs. Godwin the second translated from the 
 French in a capable and faithful fashion. She 
 had an intimate knowledge of whatever literature 
 for the young was available in her time. She con- 
 ducted the "Juvenile Library" in the shop on the 
 ground floor and strove desperately to retrieve 
 her husband's falling fortunes. With her great 
 green spectacles upon her nose and a black velvet 
 dress to outline her figure in its fatness, she sat 
 hour after hour in the shop, serving the customers 
 who asked for Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare" 
 
 Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day 
 * &L Is yet his fitting charnel-roof ! while still
 
 He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay; 
 Awake him not! surely he takes his fill 
 
 one of Godwin's few successes as a publisher 
 or sought a treatise on grammar. Finally, she 
 was a most excellent cook. She had reached God- 
 win's soul through his stomach even if she had 
 first reached his heart through his vanity. 
 
 Godwin received his wife's remark now with a 
 gesture denoting some slight impatience. He had 
 long perceived that his wife had caught him in 
 the wiles of a flattery so gross that even he blushed 
 as he looked back upon the past. Her cookery 
 alone reconciled him to his lot. He did not suffer 
 her presence in his study gladly, for it was an 
 open secret that Godwin's wife ruled him with a 
 rod of iron. The supreme nature of the domestic 
 crisis forced him to tolerate her now, but he was 
 manifestly chagrined by the necessity. 
 
 "Sit down." 
 
 He addressed her shortly, even sharply. The 
 fat lady needed no invitation. She had col- 
 lapsed already upon a great chair, which, like 
 every article of furniture in that house, seemed to 
 symbolize by its conditions the fallen state of 
 Godwin's fortunes. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "My dear Fanny " 
 
 But Godwin was destined to another interrup- 
 tion. It was occasioned this time by the arrival 
 of Mary. That young lady, still in her tartan 
 dress, dashed in unceremoniously and flew to her 
 father's side. Nothing revealed more plainly 
 than the ease of her manner how spoiled this child 
 was. 
 
 Mary had inherited the ardour and the tem- 
 perament of her mother. She was growing into 
 just such a character as had produced "A Vindica- 
 tion of the Rights of Woman" years before. 
 Mary Godwin had what her mother, Mary Woll- 
 stonecraft, lacked a constructive faculty. Mary 
 Wollstonecraft had been incapable of a plan. 
 The life of Mary Godwin, her daughter, was one 
 consistent plan. Mary Wollstonecraft had been 
 impulsive. Mary Godwin was cool and calculat- 
 ing. She had her father's coldness of head with 
 her mother's ferocious jealousy. Where her 
 mother would have given all for love, the daughter 
 necessarily wanted all for love because she could 
 not give a thing. The mother was a dreamer. 
 
 Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful 
 of all ill.
 
 He will awake no more, oh, never more! 
 Within the twilight chamber spreads apace, 
 
 37 
 
 The daughter was a doer. The mother was as 
 transparent as the ether. The daughter's nature 
 was like some garden pond out of which lilies and 
 all things lovely could spring but in the depths 
 of which strange lizards crawled. The mother 
 was an original genius. The daughter never 
 formed an idea at first hand. 
 
 "Yes, Pa," Mary now said, with something like 
 a pout, "I told Fanny the truth about herself." 
 
 Godwin's thin lips parted to form a smile his 
 first that day. 
 
 "You might have waited." 
 
 That was all he permitted himself to say. He 
 understood the bold spirit of his daughter and 
 brave as he was he never risked a collision with 
 her indomitable will. 
 
 "And perhaps you will tell us why you did not 
 mind your own business," broke in Mrs. Godwin. 
 
 "Perhaps you will tell us why you don't mind 
 yours," interjected Mary. "This is a matter 
 which concerns me but does not regard you.'* 
 
 "Of all the hussies " broke forth the fat 
 woman in the green spectacles. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Godwin held up his hand and there was silence. 
 The profound respect he exacted from all his 
 women folk held them spellbound as he paced the 
 floor in his agitation. The boards groaned be- 
 neath his booted feet. He did not heed them, al- 
 though ordinarily the jarring of a passing dray 
 gave him torture. 
 
 In the opinion of the more serious element 
 among his contemporaries, Godwin was a man of 
 considerable abilities, but of little judgment and 
 less wisdom. The pious felt that in his efforts at 
 reform, he lacked that foundation without which 
 all such efforts are hopeless a recognition of 
 man's moral depravity and the necessity of main- 
 taining a constant sense of strict accountability to 
 his maker. His first wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, 
 was indeed dead long since, but the circumstance 
 that he had formed a connection of any kind with 
 a woman of such notoriously bad character in the 
 estimation of the evangelical disposed the general 
 opinion against him. It kept his children in some- 
 thing like disrepute. When Godwin subsequently 
 wrote and published memoirs of his first wife, the 
 
 The shadow of white Death, and at the door 
 Invisible Corruption waits to trace
 
 His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place; 
 The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 
 
 pious denounced it as disreputable to his name as 
 well as to that of his late spouse. "She appears," 
 said The Gentleman's Magazine^ "to have been 
 grossly irreligious, indelicate and dissolute." The 
 basis of this impression was the irregular and no- 
 torious character of the union which had produced 
 Fanny Imlay and the unconventional inti- 
 macy with Godwin that preceded the birth of 
 Mary. 
 
 "I presume," he said slowly at last, without 
 looking at the three women, "that the revelation 
 which has so profoundly affected our Fanny has 
 reference to the circumstances of her birth." 
 
 "It's all the work of that deep one," burst out 
 Mrs. Godwin, pressing a hand to her full bosom 
 and panting as she spoke. "What her object can 
 have been God only knows." 
 
 "My love," said Godwin, turning to his spouse 
 with as much warmth of manner as his cold na- 
 ture permitted, "pray compose yourself. You are 
 by no means the least agitated of us all." 
 
 "Fanny had to be told some time, Papa," Mary 
 ventured to say. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Fanny, who had been kneeling before her moth- 
 er's portrait, arose and faced Godwin. 
 
 "My dear father," she said, taking him by the 
 arm, "I may still be your child*?" 
 
 The philosopher halted in his walk and took 
 Fanny's face in his large white hands. He gazed 
 long into her eyes before he spoke. 
 
 "You have always been my child," he said. 
 "You will always be my child." 
 
 "And mine." 
 
 Mrs. Godwin bawled these words. She stood 
 upright, evidently intending to rush over to Fanny 
 and clasp her in the ample arms she extended in 
 the direction of the waif. The fat lady was un- 
 equal to the physical strain of her purpose, how- 
 ever, and she collapsed again in her chair. The 
 episode amused Mary hugely. 
 
 "I told Fanny for Fanny's good," she ventured 
 to say. "I think she has been quite too free with 
 Mr. Shelley of late." 
 
 "My love." 
 
 Godwin spoke reprovingly, but Mary was not 
 to be abashed. 
 
 Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 
 So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law
 
 Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal 
 curtain draw. 
 
 "I mean just what I say, Papa," she persisted. 
 "Mr. Shelley, I find, has been rather frequent in 
 his visits here. What other object can he have 
 than to see Fanny?" 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 A slight exclamation burst from the lips of 
 Fanny. She hid her face on Godwin's shoulder, 
 much to the discomfiture of that distinguished 
 man. He could not receive any manifestation of 
 feminine sensibility with composure. He stood 
 now patting Fanny's dark hair and frowning at 
 the wall. 
 
 "I conceive, my dear child," he said with sever- 
 ity to Mary, "that you do not comprehend the 
 nobility of Mr. Shelley's motives." 
 
 "Nobility of Mr. Shelley's motives!" echoed 
 the asthmatic Mrs. Godwin in amazement. "I'd 
 like to know what noble motive ever inspired that 
 madman. He's broken his wife's heart, that he 
 has." 
 
 Her flow of words was checked by a look from 
 her husband. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley's visits here," he said coldly, 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "have no other object than the relief of my 
 ahem financial embarrassments." 
 
 Mary started. 
 
 "Are you financially embarrassed, Papa?" 
 
 Godwin conducted Fanny to one of the broken 
 chairs in the room before he replied. 
 
 "Unless I raise three thousand pounds," he said 
 then, "I shall go to a prison cell." 
 
 "A cell!" 
 
 This revelation stunned the women. They 
 gazed in mute dismay at the author of "Political 
 Justice." That immortal confronted them with 
 cold composure. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley," he observed after a pause, "has 
 pledged himself to raise the money for me." 
 
 Mrs. Godwin broke in. 
 
 "That Mr. Shelley! I can't abide him. He's 
 mad, I tell you again." 
 
 It was obvious that mere mention of the poet's 
 name clouded the whole horizon of this fat lady's 
 day. Her green spectacles lost their conspicuity 
 in the greater effect of the look of disgust and 
 horror blended which now wrinkled her nose. 
 
 Oh weep for Adonais! The quick Dreams, 
 A Zr The passion-winged Ministers of thought,
 
 Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams A *\ 
 
 Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught | J 
 
 Nor had she concluded the counts of her indict- 
 ment. 
 
 "Such manners as Mr. Shelley has! Did you 
 ever heed the way he eats? Such bird peckings 
 at this and that without tasting anything. And 
 the style about him of clattering up and down 
 the stairs. He never talks to a person face to 
 face. He goes off into the next room and screams 
 at you. Then he rolls over and over on the floor 
 until he makes you giddy." 
 
 "He has a very generous heart." 
 
 Fanny put in this word for the absent Shelley. 
 
 "He's a great poet," Mary observed. "While 
 I was in Scotland his poem of Queen Mab was 
 read aloud to us by Mr. Baxter. He said it was 
 a masterpiece." 
 
 This report impressed Godwin. 
 
 "Did Mr. Baxter say that?' 
 
 Mary nodded. 
 
 "My stars and garters !" cried the wife of God- 
 win. 
 
 She exchanged a significant glance with Mary. 
 Fanny was the first to say the next word. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Bysshe is a great poet." 
 
 She said this in a low voice as if she meant to 
 speak only to herself. But Mary had caught the 
 phrase. 
 
 "So he is Bysshe to you still, Fanny. I am 
 afraid you do not distinguish between gratitude 
 and" 
 
 She hesitated. Her father looked inquiringly 
 at his youngest daughter. 
 
 "Between .gratitude and what, Mary*?" 
 
 "Love," she said defiantly. "I think .this 
 poetical Mr. Shelley is falling in love with our 
 Fanny. Perhaps he comes here to see her as much 
 as to lend you three thousand pounds." 
 
 Godwin winced. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley married his wife for the second 
 time only the other day," he said quietly. 
 
 "I don't believe it," cried Mary. 
 
 "I went with him to get the license," remarked 
 her father with his habitual coolness. 
 
 "I can understand a man's marrying a woman 
 once," commented Mrs. Godwin, when she could 
 
 The love which was its music, wander not, 
 A A Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
 
 But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn A * 
 
 their lot 
 
 find a voice, "but I never heard of his marrying the 
 same woman twice." 
 
 "I thought this Mr. Shelley did not believe in 
 marriage, Papa," observed Mary. "Does he not 
 say that he gets his principles from your book?" 
 
 Godwin winced again. 
 
 "I am always eager to protect the young from 
 a hasty application of principle." 
 
 There was some embarrassment in his man- 
 ner as he said that. His wife was looking at him 
 rather keenly. She did not share the 'radical 
 views of her predecessor. She had taken Godwin 
 to the altar. 
 
 "I am afraid that Mr. Shelley's visits here, when 
 he is lending you so much money, will place poor 
 Fanny in a false position." 
 
 Mary spoke with judicial impartiality. Her 
 words transfixed her father. 
 
 "What if Fanny were to go away," he sug- 
 gested suddenly. "I have an invitation from 
 some relatives of hers. They want her to go to 
 Wales." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Fanny raised her arm in protest. 
 
 "Father!" She had placed a hand upon his 
 arm and her voice was pleading. "Will you 
 send me away? And just after I have been told 
 the truth about myself." 
 
 There was a tear upon her cheek. In the rush 
 of emotion which overcame her, poor Fanny now 
 looked almost pretty. She had been so deeply 
 scarred by the small pox when a mere babe that 
 its pittings never left her skin. The complexion 
 was like that of boiled rice. Yet the skin of this 
 girl was more pleasing to the eye than seemed 
 just then the leaden hue of the face of Godwin. 
 His large face was contracted by something sug- 
 gestive of a spasm. He was a large man with 
 large features, but he was not tall. Fanny ex- 
 ceeded him in height by a foot, at least. She 
 could look down into his eyes as she entreated 
 him to let her stay. 
 
 "Fanny, my child," he began, "you shall please 
 yourself." 
 
 Mary's grey eyes flashed. The devouring jeal- 
 
 46 
 
 Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, 
 They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again.
 
 And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head, * r-j 
 And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries; | / 
 
 ousy of her nature was awakened by this scene. 
 Yet there was only sisterly love in the expression 
 of the face she turned to Fanny to say what was 
 in her mind. 
 
 "Would you have the world say William God- 
 win had sold our Fanny for money ?" 
 
 She looked up into the face of her sister. God- 
 win could note the great difference in the natures 
 as well as in the faces of his first wife's two daugh- 
 ters as they both stood there by his side. Fanny 
 was tall, as has been noted already, but Mary 
 tended to the abbreviated stature of her father. 
 The scarred skin of the elder girl sustained no 
 comparison with the pale but clear and exquisite 
 complexion of Mary. The dark tresses of Fanny 
 relieved or rather heightened the auburn effect of 
 Mary's abundant coils of hair. For a minute the 
 grey and glittering eyes of Mary poured them- 
 selves into the beady blackness of Fanny's orbs. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley does not love me," Fanny said 
 faintly. 
 
 "He is courting you openly," insisted Mary 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 with her usual decisiveness of tone. "He has a 
 wife and a child and yet I hear him reading aloud 
 his most passionate verses to you. He comes here 
 to assist Papa financially " 
 
 "I will go to Wales." 
 
 Fanny spoke in a whisper. 
 
 Godwin indulged in a display of sentiment rare 
 for one of his cold temperament. He took 
 Fanny's head in his large hands and drew it down 
 to his. 
 
 "You are a good girl," he said. "I think it 
 well that you should accept this invitation from 
 your mother's good friends." 
 
 "It's all very well to talk," interjected Mrs. 
 Godwin, "but who's to help me in the shop*?" 
 
 Godwin waived the objection aside with an im- 
 patient gesture. 
 
 "Since Mr. Shelley is aiding you with his 
 money," Mary broke in, "help can be hired. I 
 will discuss that matter with him myself." 
 
 "No, no, my dear," objected Godwin. "Leave 
 that to me. He is to dine with us this evening." 
 
 48 
 
 "Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ; 
 See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,
 
 Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 
 
 A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain." 
 
 This intelligence did not quite delight the 
 philosopher's wife. 
 
 "Dine !" she exclaimed. "Do you call his style 
 of eating dining*? Sure, he never was taught to 
 eat. He pecks like a bird." 
 
 Indifferent as Shelley might be to the things he 
 put into his stomach, William Godwin liked a 
 good dinner. No one appreciated that circum- 
 stance with a nicer instinct than his second wife. 
 She had, to be sure, won him originally by appeals 
 to his consciousness of greatness. She retained 
 her empire over his nature by the excellence of 
 the meals she cooked. The hint from Godwin 
 that the young poet would be a guest at their 
 table that evening was taken by Mrs. Godwin 
 to mean that Godwin himself would feel better 
 equipped for the financial negotiations if his in- 
 ner man were fortified. Mrs. Godwin was well 
 aware of the vital importance of the sum her hus- 
 band wanted from Shelley. Printers came daily 
 to the little shop in Skinner Street with impatient 
 demands for their money. She had held earnest 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 discourse with her husband regarding the necessity 
 of saving him from a debtor's prison. Their one 
 hope was in Shelley. With a sigh the obese little 
 Mrs. Godwin waddled off to the kitchen and ab- 
 sorbed herself in roast beef and potatoes and 
 greens. 
 
 Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise! 
 C O She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain
 
 Ill 
 
 POET AND PHILOSOPHER 
 
 THE pessimism of obese Mrs. Godwin 
 on the subject of her husband's poetical 
 young friend was justified by his un- 
 punctuality in arriving for dinner that day. The 
 hour ordinarily set for the meal was the odd one 
 of three. It had been postponed until much later 
 on this occasion, owing to an engagement of the 
 inspired Shelley in town. The long afternoon 
 was spent by the bustling Mrs. Godwin over pots 
 and pans. Her kitchen was established imme- 
 diately behind the Juvenile Library she conducted 
 on Skinner Street. The apartment in which the 
 meal was cooked was the same in which the meal 
 was eaten. The room looked out upon a strip of 
 dreary garden now straggling into bloom at the 
 back of the decayed old house. 
 
 "Now, William," vociferated Mrs. Godwin in 
 
 She faded, like a cloud which had p j 
 
 outwept its rain. ^
 
 Shelley's 
 
 her sharpest voice to her eleven year old son, who 
 was aiding his mother about the stove, "be sure 
 to keep silent until you are spoken to while Mr. 
 Shelley is here." 
 
 The little boy's face assumed an injured ex- 
 pression. He dropped a potato upon the floor. 
 "But he makes faces at me." 
 The little boy was sorting the newly boiled 
 potatoes at a great tub. The vegetables swam 
 about or sank in the hot water according to their 
 size or weight. 
 
 "Then you must not heed him, my child." 
 'Til pull his hair if he pulls mine." 
 "Didn't he give you a sovereign last week?" 
 "That was to get me away while he sparked 
 Fan." 
 
 Mrs. Godwin turned from the great oven. She 
 was extracting a huge piece of meat preparatory 
 to its adjustment on the spit. 
 
 "Does he talk to Fanny more than to you?" 
 
 The little boy laughed. 
 
 "He comes here only to see Fanny." 
 
 A great clock standing in the angle of the door 
 
 One from a lucid urn of starry dew 
 K X Washed his light limbs as if embalming them;
 
 Another dipt her profuse locks, and threw p *y 
 
 The wreath upon him, like an anadem, J 3 
 
 post ticked towards four when a summons to din- 
 ner was issued in Mrs. Godwin's most peremptory 
 manner. She exacted from every member of that 
 household the preciseness which only the good 
 cook can command. She was sovereign over all 
 meals. Her title to such sway was without a 
 flaw. Her dinners were excellent. 
 
 Fanny was the first to put in an appearance 
 at the table. She had been serving an unexpected 
 customer in the shop. 
 
 "A man came in for a copy of 'Sepulchres,' " she 
 observed. 
 
 This was an essay put forth in a limited edition 
 by Godwin some years before. It had not proved 
 financially remunerative, yet the small edition was 
 now exhausted. 
 
 "Did you tell him it was printing?" asked Mrs. 
 Godwin. 
 
 Fanny nodded. 
 
 "That was a lie," observed Mrs. Godwin, "but 
 we can't tell people the printers refuse to do any 
 work for us until we pay them." 
 
 "Isn't Mr. Shelley to advance some money?" 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 This question, put by Fanny with her usual 
 timidity of manner, was uttered in her usual low 
 tone. It was not intended for the little William's 
 ear but that acute organ caught it none the less. 
 
 "Oh, yes," he cried from his station beside 
 the potatoes, "Mr. Shelley is to lend Papa three 
 thousand pounds." 
 
 "Then we'll pay the printer," laughed Fanny. 
 
 "Mind your own business!" exclaimed Mrs. 
 Godwin, flapping her son's face with a towel. 
 "Who told you anything about three thousand 
 pounds'?" 
 
 William set up a bawl. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley told me himself," cried the child. 
 "And I am to have a new suit of clothes." 
 
 "I think Mr. Shelley is rather free with his 
 promises," observed the mother, as she set a plate 
 of bread upon the table, "I'd like to know where 
 he's to get three thousand pounds from, while his 
 father refuses him a shilling to pay his debts." 
 
 "He's been to see the Jews," returned the lad. 
 "Mr. Shelley told me so." 
 
 "He might be better employed than in talking 
 
 Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem; 
 Another in her wilful grief would break
 
 Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 
 
 A greater loss with one which was more weak ; 
 
 over his money affairs with you," said the mother. 
 "Where's that Mary?" 
 
 The young lady walked in just then and seated 
 herself without a word to any one. She still wore 
 the tartan dress. There was a ribbon in her hair. 
 Mrs. Godwin contemplated Mary's pretty but 
 inscrutable face with obvious disapproval. 
 
 "Call your father!" she said shortly. 
 
 The injunction was superfluous. Godwin, the 
 incarnation of punctuality, entered the room at 
 that moment. 
 
 Whatever traces of manly beauty might have 
 lingered about the form and face of William God- 
 win when first he made the acquaintance of the 
 divine Shelley were now obliterated by the hand 
 of time. The author of "Political Justice" was at 
 present as stout as he was short and he was de- 
 cidedly short. That shortness was accentuated by 
 the thickness of his frame. The hair had receded 
 from his forehead until he had become very bald. 
 The largeness of the head confirmed the baldness 
 cruelly. His dress was so very severe as to sug- 
 gest narrow means. The long coat was of a very 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 old-fashioned make, even for the time. His ap- 
 pearance suggested a decrepit old age. 
 
 Pacing in his magisterial manner to the head 
 of the table, he seated himself without a word. 
 Not until he had taken his place did little William, 
 the fruit of his union with his second spouse, fol- 
 low the august example. Godwin had in his hand 
 a copy of that day's Times. He unfolded it be- 
 fore his plate and was soon absorbed in its con- 
 tents. 
 
 "Bliicher is to visit England," he said without 
 looking up. "The Prince Regent has invited him. 
 There will be a great outpouring of the troops." 
 
 Mary clapped her hands. 
 
 "The soldiers," she cried. "Oh, I do love to 
 see them." 
 
 Godwin frowned. 
 
 "The presence of the military in numbers," he 
 observed, "is evidence of a disturbed state of so- 
 ciety." 
 
 "They'll get the best of Bonyparte this time," 
 observed his wife. "I'm sorry for that." 
 
 "Bonaparte," commented Godwin with a most 
 
 And dull the barbed fire against 
 his frozen cheek.
 
 Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 
 
 That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath 
 
 unwonted vehemence, "is a curse to the human 
 race." 
 
 There was an unpleasant dryness in the tones of 
 William Godwin's voice. He spoke like a man 
 who had to clear his throat for the purpose. The 
 utterance was indistinct, hesitating, even sugges- 
 tive of a stutterer. There were moments when the 
 mere effort of talking seemed painful. He would 
 then clear his throat audibly, essay a sentence 
 and at last give it up as too great a physical 
 strain. 
 
 He was eating the soup before him with most 
 majestic calm. The table was well supplied with 
 silver and plate, relics of a former and more pros- 
 perous marriage of his second wife's. Godwin's 
 eye suddenly lit upon the vacant chair set for the 
 poet. 
 
 "Where is our young friend?" 
 
 The philosopher had scarcely framed the ques- 
 tion when a clatter arose in the shop. The street 
 door shivered and groaned upon well worn hinges. 
 There was an unearthly scream without. A rush 
 of footsteps succeeded. Shelley burst precipi- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 tately into the room, heralded by a cap which he 
 flung before him. He said nothing at first to 
 any one, but dashed to the fire, where he stood 
 shivering and chafing his hands. Suddenly the 
 poet turned around and faced the company. 
 
 "Godwin!" he cried, "I have discovered Ario- 
 sto ! The easy, flowing style of Ariosto presents 
 fewer difficulties than do the elaborate stanzas of 
 Tasso." 
 
 He held a book aloft in high glee, facing the 
 company with excitement in his eyes and a de- 
 light thrilling his freckled face. 
 
 "Late again." 
 
 Godwin spoke with a mouth full of meat. 
 
 "I attended a lecture," explained the poet in a 
 shrill whisper. "I went away indeed before the 
 lecture was finished. I stole away. It was so 
 stupid. I was so cold. My teeth chattered. 
 The lecturer saw me go and appeared furious. I 
 thought I should have got out without being ob- 
 served. I struck my knee against a bench and 
 made a noise." 
 
 "What did the man talk about?" 
 
 O Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded 
 K O And pass into the panting heart beneath 
 
 wit,
 
 With lightning and with music: the damp death 
 Quenched its caress upon his icy lips; 
 
 "Stones. Stones. Stones. Nothing but stones. 
 And so drily." 
 
 Mary had not during the progress of this scene 
 once taken her eyes from the face of Shelley. 
 She studied him as a savant might have studied a 
 curious specimen in the laboratory. 
 
 In this twenty-second year of a brief life Percy 
 Bysshe Shelley did not look his six feet of height. 
 That tendency to stoop which much poring over 
 books had already confirmed in him was decided. 
 Yet were his limbs well-proportioned, strong and 
 long. Two details of his aspect riveted atten- 
 tion. One was his extraordinarily juvenile look. 
 He was eternal youth incarnate. But his won- 
 drous youth was not more amazing than the qual- 
 ity of his eyes. These were very large and very 
 blue. The light seemed to stream from a wild 
 but profound soul through these magnetic and rov- 
 ing eyes, now deep as the ocean and again glint- 
 ing and glittering with the flash of the diamond. 
 Nothing could be slighter and more fragile than 
 the build of his frame. This delicate appearance 
 lost nothing from a perpetual stoop. His attire 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 was costly but fantastic. A black velvet coat con- 
 trasted sharply with the tight brown breeches en- 
 casing the long limbs closely. The collar was 
 open, exposing the milky whiteness of a girlish 
 throat. His dress suggested the tumbled and 
 rumpled, like the disorder of his masses of hair. 
 Every gesture was abrupt. He waved his arms 
 incessantly. 
 
 "You are late again, my dear Shelley," Godwin 
 found occasion to repeat at the poet's outburst. 
 "I am afraid you are not tempted to regularity of 
 habits by any awe of the name of Godwin." 
 
 "The name of Godwin," shrieked Shelley, run- 
 ning his long and tapering white fingers through 
 his masses of hair, "the name of Godwin has been 
 used to excite in me feelings of reverence and 
 admiration. I have been accustomed to consider 
 him a luminary too dazzling for the darkness 
 which surrounds him. From the earliest period of 
 my knowledge of his principles, I have ardently 
 desired to share, on the footing of intimacy, that 
 intellect which I have delighted to contemplate 
 in its emanations." 
 
 X And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath 
 
 O O Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips,
 
 It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed ^ j 
 
 to its eclipse. 
 
 The wealth of gesture with which the young 
 poet accompanied this florid speech was exceeded 
 by the wealth of emotion streaming from his eye. 
 His voice ascended in pitch as he proceeded until 
 the closing words left his lips in a scream. He 
 darted hither and thither about the room, now 
 pointing a finger at Godwin, and again raising a 
 hand aloft to give solemnity to his language. 
 The distinguished object of the poet's eulogy re- 
 ceived it with gravity and listened with evident 
 satisfaction. Shelley's speech left upon the minds 
 of his auditors a conviction that however great he 
 might be as a poet he was even greater as an 
 orator. 
 
 "I have been puzzling myself over the poem 
 you last sent me, asking my opinion," observed 
 Godwin, cutting the meat in the great platter be- 
 fore him. "I wrote you this morning. Perhaps 
 you have not received the letter?" 
 
 Shelley fluttered the leaves of the volume of 
 Ariosto in his hand and shook his immense head 
 of hair blankly. Godwin shovelled a mess of 
 potatoes into his large mouth before proceeding, 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "I hoped to find a beginning of what your poem 
 was all about," he proceeded. "I could find noth- 
 ing but high sounding words. I could discover 
 no clue to the subject or middle or end. It was 
 like a discharged cartridge in a sham battle. 
 There was noise, clamour, and some fury in the 
 words but what it portended I could not discover 
 except that poetry is not your vocation. You 
 should write prose. Your letter to the Lord 
 Chancellor on Eaton's case was admirable. Log- 
 ical. Argumentative. Convincing. Prose must 
 be your forte." 
 
 Shelley exchanged one of his wild looks with 
 Fanny. Occasionally he sawed the air violently 
 with both hands, but more frequently he moved 
 an arm with natural and instinctive grace. The 
 delicacy of the very fair complexion brought out 
 that girlishness of aspect which Godwin much ad- 
 mired and which to Fanny was adorable. Ex- 
 posure to the sun had tanned and freckled him 
 without robbing his countenance of the angelical 
 quality for which it was so remarkable. The 
 nose, the ears and the chin were, like the face as a 
 
 >< And others came . . . Desires and Adorations, 
 
 O 2 Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,
 
 Splendours and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations ^ f\ 
 Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies; J 
 
 whole, built upon an unusually small scale for 
 one of Shelley's height. The wild disorder and 
 the unusual plenitude of his massed hair, glinting 
 redly in the light, made his head seem normal in 
 size despite its diminutive proportions. In the 
 height of the excitement precipitated by the rush 
 of his ideas Shelley ran his hands through his 
 disordered locks, fiercely but unconsciously. The 
 result was disconcerting, for he tumbled his locks 
 like water. His features could not be called sym- 
 metrical. Only the mouth was quite regular in 
 outline. Animation, enthusiasm, a vivid and 
 preternatural intelligence flashed from every fea- 
 ture. The moral expression vied with the intel- 
 lectuality of this boyish face. The softness of 
 the countenance was not less appealing than its 
 spirituality and its intelligence. 
 
 The one disappointment in his personality was 
 occasioned by the voice. The look denoted an 
 angel of peace. The voice betrayed the agitation 
 of a restless soul. It seemed now and then to rise 
 into a scream. Shrillness, discordance and the 
 pipings of old age seemed to blend themselves into 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 disharmonies. Were it not for the perpetual idea- 
 tion in which he poured forth the riches of his 
 mind, the voice of Shelley would have made his 
 conversation intolerable. Only when he per- 
 mitted his tone to sink to a note or two above a 
 whisper did his utterance gain a musical quality. 
 Nor did this unpleasing quality of voice seem 
 incongruous in one who like Shelley was a com- 
 bination of inexpressible grace with an incredible 
 degree of awkwardness. 
 
 Displeasing as was the tone in which he now 
 spoke his listeners forgot this in the dart and play 
 of the majestic blue eyes. They seemed never 
 still in his head. They transfixed, magnetized, 
 riveted. 
 
 "I hope," he said at last, shaking his mane, 
 "in the course of our communication, to acquire 
 that sobriety of spirit which is the characteristic 
 of true heroism. I have not heard without bene- 
 fit that Newton was a modest man. I am not 
 ignorant that folly delights in forwardness and 
 assumption. But I think there is a line to be 
 drawn between affectation of unpossessed talents 
 
 64 
 
 And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, 
 
 And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam
 
 Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, /C * 
 
 Came in slow pomp ; the moving pomp might seem ^ 
 
 and the deceit of self distrust by which much 
 power has been lost to the world." 
 
 Knowing her father's contempt for all poetry 
 except the dramatic, Mary essayed now to divert 
 the talk into a more congenial channel. 
 
 "Papa has himself condescended to verse," she 
 observed. "It was dramatic." 
 
 The allusion did not quite please the philoso- 
 pher. The memory of his failure as a writer for 
 the stage made him wince. Shelley burst forth 
 again. 
 
 "That William Godwin should have a deep 
 and earnest interest in my welfare," he piped, 
 "can but produce the most intoxicating sensa- 
 tions." 
 
 "You, my dear Shelley," observed the philoso- 
 pher, rubbing his smooth chin and introducing a 
 topic that haunted him, "have special motives for 
 wariness in deportment. You are at variance 
 with your father and I think you said in one of 
 your letters that he allows you only two hundred 
 pounds a year." 
 
 The poet shot out his long arm. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "You mistake me," he cried in his shrill treble, 
 "if you think I am angry with my father. I have 
 ever been desirous of a reconciliation with him. 
 The price he demands is a renunciation of my 
 opinions or at least a subjection to conditions 
 binding me to act in opposition to their very 
 spirit." 
 
 Godwin interrupted the flow of the freckled 
 poet's language. 
 
 "Your father is guided by consideration for 
 your welfare," he objected gravely. 
 
 "It is probable that my father has acted for 
 my welfare," conceded Shelley, who was walking 
 now in hasty strides about the table, "but the 
 manner in which he has done so will not allow me 
 to suppose that he has felt for it unconnectedly 
 with certain considerations of birth." 
 
 "I fear," sighed Godwin, who was eating with 
 far more relish than his philosophical temper 
 might have led one to suspect, "I fear that early 
 authorship on the part of an heir to a great prop- 
 erty is not conducive to the domestic happiness of 
 his parents." 
 
 j< ^ Like pageantry of mist on an 
 O O autumnal stream.
 
 All he had loved, and moulded into thought, fa 
 
 From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound, / 
 
 "I have a great wish of adding to my father's 
 happiness," ran on Shelley, looking inscrutably 
 at a pellet, "because the filial connection seems to 
 require it and even to render it as it were more 
 particularly in my power. But it is impossible." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 The query emanated from Mrs. Godwin, 
 whose nerves were evidently upset by the aspect 
 and deportment of the poet. 
 
 "A little time since," answered Shelley, "my 
 father sent me a letter through his attorney re- 
 newing an allowance of two hundred pounds per 
 annum but with the remark that his sole reason 
 for doing so was to prevent my cheating stran- 
 gers." 
 
 This speech was so obviously bewildering to 
 the mind of Mrs. Godwin that the poet, who 
 seemed sensitive to the weather and whose shiver- 
 ing fit was yet upon him, remarked it neverthe- 
 less. 
 
 "The habits of thinking of my father and myself 
 never coincided," he proceeded. "Passive obedi- 
 ence was inculcated and enforced in my child- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 hood. I was required to love because it was my 
 duty to love." 
 
 "And wasn't it?" Mrs. Godwin asked blankly 
 in a tone of some horror. 
 
 "Coercion obviated its own intention," retorted 
 Shelley. "No sooner had I formed the principles 
 which I now profess than I was anxious to dis- 
 seminate their benefits." 
 
 "Queer principles !" commented the lady. She 
 placed her knife and fork upon the plate before 
 her and sank back in her chair, contemplating the 
 poet through her immense spectacles with a dis- 
 favour perfectly obvious but to which he seemed 
 indifferent. 
 
 "Your husband's work on political justice first 
 opened my eyes and mind to extensive views," 
 Shelley rejoined, directing his great blue eyes at 
 the fat little woman. "Godwin's tremendous 
 work materially influenced my character and I 
 arose from its perusal a wiser and a better man. I 
 was no longer the votary of romance. Till then I 
 had existed in an ideal world now I found that in 
 this universe of ours was enough to excite the in- 
 
 S O Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 
 
 O O Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,
 
 Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, /C f^ 
 Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day; ^ 7 
 
 terest of the heart, enough to employ the discus- 
 sions of reason. I beheld, in short, that I had 
 duties to perform." 
 
 The shrill voice had not died away when Mary 
 stole a look at Fanny. That young lady's black 
 eyes were fixed in a species of fascination upon the 
 shivering poet by the fire. 
 
 Shelley had not even approached the large but 
 damaged old chair set for him at the table by the 
 thoughtful spouse of Godwin. The poet was al- 
 ready crumbling a great lump of bread which he 
 had picked up from a plate. The bread rapidly 
 assumed the form of little pellets under the manip- 
 ulation of his nervous fingers. From time to time 
 he shot a pellet of bread from between his thumb 
 and forefinger. His dexterity in this sport had 
 already been discovered by little William, who 
 displayed no less dexterity in dodging the missiles 
 which from time to time Shelley sent in his direc- 
 tion. Mary was less experienced in an art made 
 necessary by intimacy with Shelley. She did not 
 dodge in time to escape the collision of a pellet 
 with her nose. Little William laughed aloud but 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 he was speedily checked by a stern look from his 
 father. No one paid the slightest heed to Shel- 
 ley's curious diversion. It was too well known 
 for remark. 
 
 As he munched the bread in his mouth, and de- 
 voured the copy of Ariosto with his eyes, or rushed 
 hither and thither in his speechmaking, Shelley 
 extracted from a pocket of his waistcoat an oc- 
 casional raisin. This, with the bread, comprized 
 the meal. Little by little a ring of bread crumbs 
 formed here and there on the floor as he began 
 devouring this improvized dinner. The raisins 
 he was wont to purchase at some mean little shop 
 in the course of his walks abroad. He preferred 
 shops of the poorer sort because in them he was 
 waited upon more speedily. The supply of rai- 
 sins carried loose in his waistcoat pockets seemed 
 just at present inexhaustible. Nor did he divert 
 himself with the shying of his bread pellets at 
 ordinary mortals. William Godwin narrowly es- 
 caped the indignity of a shot. The philosopher 
 had learned from experience to tolerate these vaga- 
 ries. They were as much an accomplishment of 
 
 Afar the melancholy thunder moaned, 
 j O Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,
 
 And the wild winds flew round, sobbing ^i T 
 
 in their dismay. / 
 
 Shelley's as was his knowledge of Aeschylus. 
 When he was eating his bread alone over his book 
 he would shoot his pellets about the solitude of 
 his chamber, taking aim at a picture or a statue or 
 any other object that attracted his attention. 
 
 There was meat on Godwin's table as inevitably 
 as there were raisins in Shelley's pocket. Of the 
 meat, however, Godwin ate sparingly. The 
 sherry poured out for his wife did not meet with 
 his disapproval. He tasted a glass with evident 
 relish, nor did he refuse the second helping of 
 the golden liquor to which Mrs. Godwin treated 
 him. 
 
 "I can not help considering you as a friend 
 and adviser," resumed Shelley, discharging a 
 freshly made pellet at the head of Mrs. Godwin 
 as she poured the glittering sherry into the glass, 
 but confining his remarks to her distinguished 
 husband. "This circumstance must generate a 
 degree of familiarity which will cease to appear 
 surprising to you when the intimacy I had ac- 
 quired with your writings so much preceded the in- 
 formation which led to my first letter." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Being yet a scholar," replied Godwin with his 
 characteristic majesty as essential in his deport- 
 ment as was timidity in Fanny's, "you ought to 
 have no intolerable itch to become a teacher." 
 
 Shelley thrust the copy of Ariosto into his 
 pocket and arose from the floor upon which he 
 had sprawled. 
 
 "Into whatever company I go," he observed, 
 "I have introduced my own sentiments, partly with 
 a view, if they were erroneous, that unforeseen 
 elucidations might rectify them." 
 
 He passed his fingers again through his locks, 
 until their appearance was singularly wild and 
 rough. 
 
 "Your toleration of mind, my dear Shelley," 
 Godwin observed, after a sharp look at Mary, 
 who was revealing some amusement at the eccen- 
 tricities of the poet's behaviour, "must ever be the 
 foundation of your intellectual greatness." 
 
 "One whose mind is strongly imbued " 
 
 But Shelley was cut short in this sentence by 
 the sound of some person's entry into the shop. 
 Fanny arose at once. Facing her as she walked 
 
 Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, 
 I 2 And feeds her grief with his remembered lay,
 
 And will no more reply to winds or fountains, p* *\ 
 
 Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, / j 
 
 into the Juvenile Library she beheld a smart-look- 
 ing little man attired in a military cloak. 
 
 "I have come to see Godwin." He announced 
 that intention in anything but a friendly tone. 
 
 "La, Mr. Hookham," said Fanny, affecting a 
 boldness and an ease she was far from feeling, 
 "my poor father can not be disturbed today." 
 
 "I want my money." 
 
 The stranger spoke surlily. 
 
 "You shall have your money," said Fanny 
 firmly. 
 
 "When?" 
 
 The man was incredulous. 
 
 "My father is negotiating a loan from Mr. Shel- 
 ley. Come back next week." 
 
 "Look you here," cried the little man with a 
 frown, "I came for my money. Do you want to 
 see your pa in a jail*?" 
 
 Fanny had no such desire. She said so tim- 
 idly. 
 
 "I've heard all about that three thousand pound 
 your father is to get from Mr. Shelley," added 
 Hookham. "I'm getting doubtful about it. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Your mad Mr. Shelley had best be quick or I'll 
 have the law on Godwin." 
 
 He strode out. Fanny glanced after his fig- 
 ure receding in the rain. Turning to go back to 
 the dining room, she found herself in the arms of 
 the poet. 
 
 "My dear friend," whispered Shelley, kissing 
 her pock-marked face, "may I still call you so or 
 have I forfeited by the equivocality of my con- 
 duct the esteem of the wise and virtuous?" 
 
 Fanny placed a hand upon his lips. But he 
 withdrew it and held her despite her efforts. 
 
 "Have I disgraced the professions of that vir- 
 tue which has been the idol of my love?" 
 
 She made no further resistance. Her head sank 
 upon his shoulder. 
 
 "Bysshe," she whispered, "I am to go away. 
 They are sending me to Wales." 
 
 The poet's large blue eyes rolled and roamed 
 the book shelves. 
 
 "How are we the slaves of circumstance," he 
 cried. "How I curse their bondage." 
 
 He kissed her again. 
 
 Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day ; 
 J A Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear
 
 Than those for whose disdain she pined away p 
 
 Into a shadow of all sounds: a drear / ^) 
 
 "You forget that you were married not long 
 ago," she observed with rather more tartness than 
 her nature possessed. "Not satisfied with making 
 Harriet your wife once you must do it twice." 
 
 "It was unavoidable," pleaded Shelley. "You 
 know what I must do for Godwin. I can get no 
 money from the Jews if there be a doubt about my 
 marriage." 
 
 "Will the Jews lend only to married 
 men*?" 
 
 "When a post obit is in question, the law pre- 
 supposes a valid marriage. Mine was contracted 
 in Scotland under doubtful circumstances." 
 
 "But you don't believe in marriage, Bysshe." 
 
 He ran his hands through his locks and again 
 gazed wildly about the book shelves. 
 
 "You inquire how I, an atheist, chose to sub- 
 ject myself to the ceremony of marriage," he 
 whispered. "Why I united myself thus to a 
 female, as it is not in itself immoral, can make 
 no diminution in my rectitude. Yet how useless 
 to attempt by singular examples to renovate the 
 face of society." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 He was interrupted by the entry of little Wil- 
 liam from the dining room. 
 
 "Here, you two," called the boy. "My 
 mamma wants you back at once." 
 
 Fanny freed her arm from Shelley's and with 
 many blushes retraced her steps to the table. 
 Shelley lingered to finger a volume of Aeschylus, 
 which he bore back with him to the room in the 
 rear. 
 
 "I read Locke, Hume, Reid and whatever 
 metaphysics come in my way," he said to Godwin, 
 holding up the book, "without, however, renounc- 
 ing poetry, an attachment which will character- 
 ize all my changes." 
 
 Godwin had placed his knife and fork upon the 
 plate in front of him with an air of having finished 
 his frugal meal. He listened without talking for 
 some little time. Gradually his big bald head be- 
 gan to nod. In no long time he was plunged into 
 the profoundest slumber. His heavy head fell 
 forward upon his chest. The body manifested a 
 tendency to droop forward as well. It seemed 
 more than once as if he must collapse from the 
 
 76 
 
 Murmur, between their songs, is all 
 the woodmen hear.
 
 Grief made the young Spring wild, and she ^i 
 
 threw down / / 
 
 chair to the floor. He snored with energy. 
 From this sleep he emerged suddenly and glanced 
 about him with sharp eyes. No one at the table 
 made the least sign of having perceived the slum- 
 bers of the great philosopher. His wife had been 
 busily decocting a great urn of tea. She poured 
 the brew into a huge cup. The beverage was very 
 strong and smelled horribly. Godwin sniffed the 
 odor and seemed to enjoy it. Then he applied the 
 drink to his wide lips and slowly absorbed it with 
 relish. 
 
 Godwin, making a dessert of one large apple, 
 which he cut solemnly into slices and devoured as 
 solemnly, cleared his throat for some reply to 
 Shelley's last remark. His purpose was frus- 
 trated by so prosaic a circumstance as the door 
 of the shop. This was heard once more to creak 
 upon its complaining hinges. They all listened. 
 Fanny had already stepped in the direction of the 
 Juvenile Library when a loud clear voice an- 
 nounced the identity of the newcomer. 
 
 "It's I," proclaimed the rich, high voice, "I've 
 come to see you and to find how you do." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 There was a scurry of dainty feet, a laugh that 
 rang like a chime, a swirl of skirts and a young 
 woman bounded into the room accompanied by a 
 perfume of roses. 
 
 Q Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, 
 I O Or they dead leaves ; since her delight is flown
 
 J 
 
 IV 
 
 THE ROMANTIC 
 
 " "W ANE!" cried Mrs. Godwin. 
 
 Her fat chin creased itself into the 
 broadest of smiles. Her eyes shone with 
 tears through her spectacles. 
 
 "Come and kiss me, you naughty girl !" 
 "How often, Ma," exclaimed the young lady, 
 ignoring her mother's injunction, "how often have 
 I bade you not to call me by that hateful name 
 of Jane. My name is Claire. Miss Claire Clair- 
 mont, if you please, of Drury Lane Theatre, at 
 your service." 
 
 She made them all a little curtesy. Dark- 
 haired and dark-eyed as Fanny had been made 
 by Nature, this girl was even darker. It was an 
 almost Oriental type of odalisque voluptuousness 
 which found expression in her beauty. She was 
 a few months younger than Mary, a step daugh- 
 
 For whom should she have waked the sullen year? 
 
 To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear j O
 
 Shelley's 
 
 ter of Godwin's, moreover, through his marriage 
 with the former Mrs. Clairmont. The responsi- 
 bilities assumed by the philosopher when he en- 
 tered the wedded state a second time had em- 
 braced the two children of the widow. One of 
 these, Charles, was at present in a situation at 
 Edinburgh, where the interest of Godwin had 
 procured him a post in the great publishing es- 
 tablishment of Constable. Claire, the sister of 
 this youth, had the temperament of the artist to 
 her finger tips. The quickness of her intelligence 
 announced itself in the eyes. The sensibilities 
 of the girl were reflected in the changing expres- 
 sions of her face, as she flashed beady glances 
 upon Godwin, upon Shelley, upon her mother, 
 upon Fanny and upon little William, to whom 
 now she gave a kiss. Her gifts were an inherit- 
 ance from a dead father. He must have been 
 witty as well as wilful. Claire was devoted to 
 music, to poetry, to all that beautified existence. 
 The very tones of her eager voice revealed the 
 brilliance of her talents, the ardour of a being who 
 was yet destined to bear a daughter to Byron. 
 
 Q Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both 
 
 OO Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere
 
 Amid the faint companions of their youth, Q T 
 
 With dew all turned to tears ; odour, to sighing ruth. 
 
 The conversation had ceased in the pleasurable 
 distraction of contemplating Claire's lively per- 
 son. There was an indescribable romance in ev- 
 ery gesture, in every word, in every expression 
 of hers, and it held the household captive. The 
 sharpness of Claire's temper and the generosity 
 of Claire's nature showed themselves in the quiv- 
 ering nostril of this girl. The temper was too 
 obviously not under perfect control. The fancy 
 was a vagrant one. Here was a nature prone to 
 ask too much of life, ready to fret over much, avid 
 of pleasure, with the instincts of genius but desti- 
 tute, it might be feared, of strong principle. 
 
 Godwin studied his stepdaughter with calculat- 
 ing scrutiny. He knew human nature too little 
 upon its emotional side to feel at all easy in the 
 presence of so volatile a spirit. But there was 
 something in his nature which responded to the 
 appeal of this girl. He greeted her with a smile. 
 
 "My child," he remarked sedately, "have you 
 been to Drury Lane?" 
 
 "Have I been to Drury Lane? Indeed, Sir, I 
 have been nowhere else since I left this house 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 some three weeks last Easter day. I am to have 
 an engagement." 
 
 "Jane!" 
 
 The forbidden name from the lips of her mother 
 drew a sharp glance from the young lady. Mrs. 
 Godwin hastened to correct herself. 
 
 "Claire!" she cried. "I know the child was 
 called Clara Mary Jane but I always forget it. 
 I shall never do so again." 
 
 Mollified by the pledge, Claire gave her mother 
 a kiss upon the spectacles. Godwin, having made 
 his speech of welcome and finished his apple, rose 
 majestically. Shelley, who had been chewing 
 raisins and reading Aeschylus by the kitchen fire, 
 darted from the room and up the stairs. He ar- 
 rived in the study ahead of the philosopher he 
 revered and held the door open for him. 
 
 "My dear Shelley," began Godwin, seating 
 himself at the desk opposite the portrait of Mary 
 Wollstonecraft, "you will not misunderstand me, 
 I am sure, if I say I must send our dear Fanny 
 away on your account." 
 
 Shelley thrust a finger into his waistcoat pocket 
 
 8 Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, 
 
 2* Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain;
 
 Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale 
 Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain 
 
 for a raisin and finding none, gazed in distress at 
 the man who had opened to him the great book of 
 life. 
 
 "Fanny !" He repeated the name in a tone of 
 consternation, his flow of words being dammed 
 for once. "In Wales?" 
 
 "Wales," repeated Godwin, his wide thin lips 
 repressing a faint smile. "I'm afraid, my dear 
 Shelley, she is falling in love with you." 
 
 "Fanny !" repeated Shelley in a voice that was 
 as tragic as Kemble's in a Shakespearean part, 
 "she must be to me for ever the sweetest of 
 sisters." 
 
 "I know, I know," Godwin rejoined, rising from 
 his desk and pacing the room, "but I fear you do 
 not altogether realize how profoundly your poet- 
 ical nature impresses the feminine temperament. 
 Remember Miss Kitchener." 
 
 "Miss Kitchener! She is a woman of desper- 
 ate views and of dreadful passions, but of cool 
 and undeviating revenge. She can assume the 
 character of Christian or of infidel as suits her 
 purpose." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "You seem to have been entirely deceived in 
 her character and in the republicanism of her 
 views," conceded Godwin. "Your wife intimates 
 as much." 
 
 "To you*?" asked Shelley. 
 
 "To a mutual friend," rejoined the champion 
 of political justice. "Miss Hitchener built all 
 her hopes upon separating your wife and your- 
 self." 
 
 "She had the artfulness to say I was in love 
 with her!" Shelley was indignant at the idea. 
 "I saw her but twice before my marriage." 
 
 "I fear that ladies do not always understand 
 your intentions," said Godwin, sighing again. 
 The feminine nature was too abstruse a puzzle for 
 his mind. He frankly gave it up. "I have for 
 that reason among others resolved to despatch 
 poor Fanny to Wales." 
 
 Shelley was off now upon another scent. He 
 had gone to the shelves of books ranged in solem- 
 nity against the walls of Godwin's study. 
 
 "Southey, the pot poet," he now observed, re- 
 
 84 
 
 Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, 
 Soaring and screaming round her empty nest,
 
 As Albion wails for thee; the curse of Cain Q 
 
 Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast, ^ 
 
 turning to the desk with a volume of the verse 
 of that genius, "clung once to principles both pure 
 and elevated. He is today the paid champion of 
 every abuse." 
 
 Godwin abandoned the theme of Fanny in de- 
 spair. 
 
 "Perhaps the necessities of Southey account for 
 his change of heart," said the philosopher bitterly. 
 "I, too, know what it is to be driven by terrible 
 pecuniary distress." 
 
 "Your embarrassment shall be relieved," cried 
 Shelley, dropping the volume of Southey incon- 
 tinently upon the floor. "I have written my 
 father on the subject of money." 
 
 Godwin's lined face grew eager. 
 
 "My dear Shelley," he exclaimed, "how gener- 
 ous of you! Could you raise anything upon a 
 post obit^ now that your marriage has been vali- 
 dated?" 
 
 Shelley paced the room in his turn. 
 
 "In my letter to my father," he confessed, "I 
 stated plainly that the posture of my affairs is 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 too critical to longer delay the raising of money 
 by the sale of post obit bonds to a considerable 
 amount." 
 
 "Has that letter been answered?" 
 
 "I am expecting the reply momently. I told 
 my father about the vast sacrifices which money 
 lenders require." 
 
 "Your grandfather what will he be likely to 
 do?" 
 
 Godwin's eyes studied the freckled face of the 
 young poet as a pike might contemplate a minnow 
 in a pool. 
 
 "My grandfather must perceive that his hopes 
 of perpetuating the integrity of the estate will 
 be frustrated by neglecting to relieve my necessi- 
 ties." 
 
 Godwin drew a deep breath. 
 
 "My dear Shelley," he cried with unusual 
 warmth, "you are my saviour." 
 
 Godwin took from a drawer of the mahogany 
 table the diary in which he entered so punctili- 
 ously the slightest detail of his daily life. As 
 the most methodical of men, he never received a 
 
 Q X And scared the angel soul that was 
 O O its earthly guest !
 
 Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone, Q rj 
 
 But grief returns with the revolving year; / 
 
 visit or paid one, never read a book or bor- 
 rowed one, never received a letter or sent one 
 without effecting a corresponding contribution 
 to the wealth of detail heaped up in his intermin- 
 able diary. The notes were all made in the neat- 
 est of hands and in the neatest of abbreviations. 
 One unfamiliar with his elliptical mode of ex- 
 pression in this record of his would have found it 
 unreadable, unintelligible. The entries were all 
 jottings of initials and dates with cryptic words 
 opposite each. Into this diary Godwin now set 
 down the details of his financial arrangement with 
 his poetical young friend. He looked up with a 
 satisfied air. 
 
 "My dear Shelley," he repeated, "you are my 
 saviour." 
 
 Some consciousness of the insignificance of the 
 appearance he presented when upon his feet may 
 have been responsible for the habit Godwin had 
 of sitting for ever at his desk. With the great 
 picture of Mary Wollstonecraft directly in front 
 of him and the bare wall behind him, William 
 Godwin, in the chair he occupied for so many 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 hours daily, was an imposing spectacle. He 
 looked the sage calm, deliberate, profound. 
 The measured tones in which he habitually spoke 
 seemed the more impressive owing to his leonine 
 head, which towered above the papers and notes 
 before him. The long and lean hand he stretched 
 forth as he sat upright seemed to lend dignity and 
 massiveness to his seated aspect. Not until he 
 got reluctantly upon his feet did it become evident 
 that William Godwin was physically little. He 
 seemed a majestic head, imposed arbitrarily upon 
 a frame not weighty enough to support it. He 
 acquired when standing an insignificance of man- 
 ner and of speech even which destroyed whatever 
 moral effect he may have had upon the admiring 
 Shelley. 
 
 The poet looked down from his superior height 
 into the eyes of the smaller man. 
 
 "Why, my dear Godwin," he said in his low- 
 est tone, "will you send poor Fanny into Wales?" 
 
 "Have you not yourself sent us the most glow- 
 ing accounts of that country, its mountains and 
 streams?" 
 
 The airs and streams renew their joyous tone: 
 The ants, the bees, the swallows re-appear;
 
 Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Season's bier; C /-v 
 The amorous birds now pair in every brake, 7 
 
 Shelley's face lighted: 
 
 "Wales!" he cried aloud, waving an arm to the 
 ceiling. "Never can I view its scenery, moun- 
 tains and rocks, seeming to form a barrier around 
 its repose, without associating your greatness with 
 the idea." 
 
 "Fanny will take no harm there." 
 
 "I fear she may alone. Wait until I visit 
 that sanctuary once more with Harriet upon a 
 new honeymoon." 
 
 Godwin hesitated. 
 
 "I will speak to Mary," he said slowly. "She 
 understands her sister best." 
 
 Elopement
 
 MARY TAKES A HAND 
 
 THAT confidence in Mary's judgment 
 which Godwin had expressed so delib- 
 erately to his young friend Shelley was 
 not at all wanting in herself. She had spent the 
 interval consecrated to dinner in careful study of 
 Fanny's face. During the conversation between 
 her father and the poet, Mary noted each ex- 
 pression on the girl's changing brow. She had 
 arrived at certain conclusions of her own. These 
 she was now imparting to Fanny in the solitude 
 of the kitchen. This spacious place was now un- 
 tenanted with the exception of the two young 
 ladies. Mrs. Godwin had gone to her chair in 
 the Juvenile Library. She was casting up sun- 
 dry accounts and supplying the wants of stray 
 patrons. 
 
 There was no one to wash the dishes but Fanny. 
 
 And build their mossy homes in field and brere; 
 O O And the green lizard, and the golden snake,
 
 Like unimprisoned flames, out of 
 their trance awake. 
 
 This function was undertaken by the pockmarked 
 girl the moment the others had gone. William 
 was again at the day school. Claire had ascended 
 to her room. Mary sat at a table near the win- 
 dow. 
 
 "I declare, Fanny," Mary began her attack, as 
 she unbound her long tresses and worked at them 
 with a brush, "I am ashamed to be seen in the 
 same room with you and that mad Shelley." 
 
 Fanny had poured the hot water into the dish- 
 pan. She confronted her stepsister or foster 
 sister, whichever it was with a look of dismay 
 upon her whitened features. 
 
 "Mad Shelley?' she echoed. "He's not mad, 
 Mary." 
 
 "Not mad!" voiced Mary, in scorn. "Dare 
 you tell me that a man who has lived upon 
 laudanum all his life is not mad?" 
 
 "Don't be silly, my dear." 
 
 "Don't set me the example, my dear. I de- 
 clare the whole house is talking of the way you 
 follow Shelley about." 
 
 Fanny crimsoned through the markings upon 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 her plain face. She said nothing but piled the 
 greasy plates into the battered pan before her. 
 
 "I tell you, Shelley's mad," reiterated the angry 
 Mary, brushing her tresses more vigorously than 
 ever. "Hasn't he been cast off by his people for 
 a madman?" 
 
 Fanny retreated into the little garden behind 
 the house to get cold water at the pump. She 
 seldom dared oppose her energetic and self-willed 
 sister. The difference in their dispositions was 
 like that between the lion and the kitten. When 
 she had filled a basin with the water, Fanny re- 
 turned to the dishes. She set fiercely to work. 
 First she threw a piece of refuse meat at the cat in 
 the garden through the window beside which her 
 work was done. 
 
 "So you will not answer me, Fanny*?" 
 
 "What is there to say, dear?' 
 
 "Don't dear me. I don't want any one to 
 dear me who is thinking of eloping with a mar- 
 ried man." 
 
 "Mary!" 
 
 "It's true. I know your plans. You think 
 
 Through wood and stream and field and hill 
 O 2 and Ocean
 
 A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst 
 As it has ever done, with change and motion, 
 
 poor Papa will not dare object because he needs 
 Shelley's money. Then my poor Papa will be 
 disgraced in the eyes of the world." 
 
 Quivering in every fibre of her frame at this 
 series of insults, Fanny quitted the sink where she 
 had so industriously scoured the kettle and strode 
 to the great cupboard at the other end of the 
 kitchen. Her eyes were filled with tears. These 
 she wiped away with the dishcloth, an article 
 which often did duty with her as a handkerchief. 
 Kneeling on the floor, Fanny, exposing the worn 
 soles of a pair of Mrs. Clairemont's old boots 
 which she now wore, studied the collection of 
 cutlery. It was a melancholy disarray of carving 
 knives, barber's shears and table forks at which 
 she pretended to gaze. It was characteristic of 
 the Godwin household to live amid relics of some- 
 body's former grandeur. The table on which the 
 family dined belonged years before to an admirer 
 of the author of "Political Justice" who had left 
 it to his favourite author in his will. The cutlery 
 seemed to have descended from some not less re- 
 mote antiquity, as did the dishes. It was the 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 function of Fanny to guard these treasures and 
 preserve them from the rust that corrupts. 
 
 "How can you think so meanly of Shelley*?" 
 
 Fanny had regained control of her voice. 
 Mary retorted hotly. 
 
 "Everybody thinks meanly of him unless it be 
 those who excuse him for being mad. He got 
 twenty pounds from Hookham, the bookseller, by 
 pretending that some one had tried to murder him. 
 Do you call that honesty or madness?" 
 
 Fanny sighed. For an instant her black eyes 
 glanced about the meanly equipped kitchen, with 
 its rows of cracked pots upon the dresser and its 
 yellowing dishes ranged along the walls on nails. 
 There was a solitary ornament in this place a 
 huge portrait in oils of the Prince Regent, sent to 
 Godwin by some freak and relegated to the ig- 
 nominy of the kitchen. Fanny fixed an eye dis- 
 consolately upon this piece of art. 
 
 "Don't stare at that picture," snapped Mary. 
 "Answer me!" 
 
 "You mean that Shelley pretended he had been 
 attacked?" 
 
 From the great morning of the world when first 
 04 God dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersed
 
 The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light; 
 All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst; 
 
 "Of course, he pretended. That is Hookham's 
 own belief. Ask him." 
 
 As Hookham was one of Godwin's most press- 
 ing creditors the advice was not practicable. 
 Fanny refrained from pointing this out, how- 
 ever. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley told me all about the attack upon 
 him," she said quietly. 
 
 "And you like a goose pretended to believe all 
 he said." 
 
 "I didn't pretend. His house was entered by 
 some villain." 
 
 Mary laughed in her peculiar and mirthless 
 way. 
 
 "I know the story he tells," she cried. "We 
 have our mad Mr. Shelley coming down like a 
 lion with his pistols in his hand. Shots are fired. 
 There is a struggle. The murderer runs away. 
 Bah!" 
 
 Mary had adjusted her coils of hair. She 
 looked up at Fanny and sneered. Fanny grew 
 slightly excited. 
 
 "I am sure Shelley tells the truth," she in- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 sisted. "Later in the night they tried to murder 
 him again." 
 
 Again Mary's laugh rang out loud and clear. 
 
 "He fled the house next day at sunrise," she 
 observed when her hilarity had abated. "This 
 hero could not remain on the field of his 
 glory." 
 
 "His wife tells quite a different story." 
 
 Mary received this intelligence with more scorn. 
 
 "Mrs. Shelley," she exclaimed. "That poor 
 thing is a mere child." 
 
 "She is her husband's worst enemy now." 
 
 Fanny suspended her work on the dishes to 
 look over at Mary while saying this. The blonde 
 girl stamped her foot impatiently. 
 
 "Then Mr. Shelley tells you stories against his 
 wife. I warn you, Fanny this going on with a 
 married man can not come to any good. He lied 
 to you about that attempt to murder him. Mur- 
 der him !" 
 
 Mary ended her speech in a tone of such scorn 
 that Fanny could not refrain from expressing a 
 rising indignation. 
 
 Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight, 
 The beauty and the joy of their renewed might.
 
 The leprous corpse touched by this spirit tender 
 Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath; 
 
 "There was a second attack upon Mr. Shelley 
 that night," she blazed forth. Her hands were 
 busy with the dishes while her tongue ran on. 
 "Mrs. Shelley had gone back to bed when she 
 heard pistols go off again. She ran down and 
 saw Bysshe's flannel nightgown shot through. 
 Thank Heaven, the ball went through the gown 
 and he remained unhurt. That was because 
 Bysshe was standing sideways. Had he stood 
 fronting the window, the ball must have killed 
 him. Bysshe fired his pistol but it would not go 
 off" 
 
 "Stop making a fool of yourself!" cried Mary. 
 "The shopkeepers in the town believed it all part 
 of a trick to let Shelley get away without paying 
 his bills." 
 
 "That's a lie!" vociferated Fanny. 
 
 In her eagerness to defend her friend she al- 
 lowed a great china platter to drop to the floor. 
 It shivered into fragments. Fanny gazed for an 
 instant at the ruin and then burst into tears. 
 She essayed to lift the fragments one by one from 
 the floor. Suddenly she stood upright. A quick 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 fury was flaming in her dark eyes as she turned 
 on Mary. 
 
 "It is you who are in love with Shelley !" cried 
 Fanny. She forgot every restraint in the despera- 
 tion to which she was driven by the taunts of her 
 tormentor. "What if I have allowed myself to 
 be moved by this man 4 ? Do I not live here in 
 neglect!" 
 
 Mary had risen to her feet at the first sign of 
 Fanny's loss of self control. The blonde tresses 
 of the daughter of William Godwin fell afresh 
 in their plenitude all over her shoulders until 
 they reached her waist. She flushed to the very 
 summit of her white forehead. The colour de- 
 serted her face the next instant. She stood con- 
 fronting Fanny in the whiteness of skin for which 
 she was always noted. 
 
 There was a glitter in her eye that disclosed 
 the spirit of the dead Mary Wollstonecraft. 
 
 "You have begun," said Mary, white with 
 passion. "Go on." 
 
 "I will," Fanny cried, throwing her dish cloth 
 upon the edge of the dirty sink and wiping her 
 
 98 
 
 Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour 
 Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death
 
 And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath ; /-x /-x 
 
 Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows / / 
 
 hands upon her apron. "For years I have lived 
 here in misery. I have never been taught any- 
 thing. You have been the pet and the pam- 
 pered one. You have ruled the house. I have 
 been allowed to work my fingers to the bone in 
 this kitchen. Because I show myself now and 
 then when this Mr. Shelley comes, I am brow- 
 beaten and insulted. And by you. You ! You, 
 who want him for yourself." 
 
 "Are you quite through*?" 
 
 "No. I warn you that you will be miserable 
 with Shelley. I understand how pretty you are 
 and how plain I am. I know how ambitious you 
 are. Do you suppose I have not studied you 
 when Shelley is here just as you have studied 
 me 4 ?" 
 
 "Really, Fanny, I must leave the room if you 
 will be so theatrical." 
 
 "One warning I must give you. There is a 
 person here who can take Shelley from you." 
 
 Mary's grey eyes lighted. The jealousy in 
 her soul was aflame. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Oh, don't play a part. I know how that 
 thought must rack you." 
 
 "And who could take Shelley from me*?" 
 
 "Claire!" 
 
 As the two daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft 
 confronted one another in the crisis of this con- 
 test between them, the difference in their char- 
 acters as well as in their appearance seemed mo- 
 mentarily extinguished. It was easy to see they 
 must be children of the same mother. Fanny 
 seemed ordinarily a living demonstration that her 
 father must have had gentleness, simplicity and 
 humility of heart. These qualities he certainly 
 had handed on to his child. She never got them 
 from the wild Mary Wollstonecraft. Fanny had 
 her father's dark hair and skin. She was a Woll- 
 stonecraft only in her ardour, suppressed though 
 it might be. Mary was a Wollstonecraft in all 
 things self-willed, imperious, bent at any cost 
 upon the accomplishment of whatever design she 
 set her heart upon. She had the great advantage 
 of beauty. Fanny was plain enough in all con- 
 science, but in contrast with her sister now she 
 
 Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
 I O O By sightless lightning? the intense atom glows
 
 A moment, then is quenched in a most TOT 
 
 cold repose. M. \J 1 
 
 seemed positively ugly. A sense of her own in- 
 capacity to struggle against a creature equipped 
 for strife seemed now to overcome Fanny. She 
 yielded to Mary as the hare might yield to the 
 fox. 
 
 When Fanny mentioned that name of Claire, 
 the two girls glared at one another like tigresses 
 crouched for a spring. There was a moment of 
 the most intense silence. Slowly and deliberately 
 Mary resumed her place beside the worn kitchen 
 table. 
 
 "I am afraid we have both been too high 
 spirited, Fanny," she said at last. "Let us for- 
 get this." 
 
 The gentle Fanny melted almost at once. A 
 reaction had set in. She was once more her meek 
 self. 
 
 She began to weep. Then she bethought her- 
 self of the broken dishes. She sprang to her 
 domestic labours at the sink. 
 
 "Dear Mary, forgive me," she pleaded. "I 
 ought not to have forgotten myself. I shall go 
 to Wales." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Why is he living in London?" 
 
 Mary's mind had reverted to Shelley the mo- 
 ment her sister calmed down. Fanny looked up 
 quickly from the morsels of broken china in her 
 apron. 
 
 "He has quarrelled with his wife again." 
 
 Fanny spoke in a subdued tone. She seemed 
 half ashamed of mentioning so delicate a subject. 
 Mary plunged into the topic boldly. 
 
 "Of course he has quarrelled with his wife," 
 she assented. "You seem to hold her responsible 
 for that" 
 
 Fanny made a deprecatory gesture. 
 
 " anyhow," ran on the other girl, "I am not 
 at all disposed to censure Mr. Shelley. He has 
 learned the pitfalls surrounding marriage. You 
 know and I know that marriage is the relic of a 
 political superstition." 
 
 This was a bit of her father's philosophy. 
 
 "Our mother was not married." 
 
 Mary fired a shot at poor Fanny. 
 
 "Our mother was not married to your father. 
 She was married to mine." 
 
 Alas! that all we loved of him should be 
 But for our grief, as if it had not been,
 
 And grief itself be mortal ! Woe is me ! TO"? 
 
 Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene J 
 
 But Fanny fired a shot back. 
 
 "Not until " She had proceeded thus far 
 when she hesitated. 
 
 "She was married to my father before I was 
 born," concluded Mary calmly. 
 
 "Oh, Mary," cried Fanny, "you do not mean 
 to censure our dear mother " 
 
 Mary laughed aloud. 
 
 "I think it was very foolish of my mother to 
 let herself be duped by your father!" 
 
 The gentle Fanny flared up. 
 
 "I think my father" 
 
 Again, with the hesitation of her nature, she 
 dared not finish her sentence. Mary again rushed 
 into the breach. 
 
 "You mean that your father was as good as my 
 father. Now, Fanny, you know well that your 
 father did not treat our mother with anything 
 like the generosity of Godwin. Godwin, to be 
 sure, is my father. Gilbert Imlay was yours. 
 You feel that your father was a better man than 
 my father." 
 
 "Each loved our mother." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Fanny said this with her usual sweetness of 
 manner. The remark displeased Mary. 
 
 "I wish you would not speak of your father 
 loving my mother," she pouted. "I am sure it 
 was most villainous of him to desert her. She 
 tried to drown." 
 
 "He wanted her back," said Fanny. "Godwin 
 would not let her go." 
 
 The attention of the girls was suddenly diverted 
 by a loud banging noise in the regions overhead. 
 There was a furious clatter of descending feet 
 upon the stairs. The kitchen door flew violently 
 open. Shelley rushed in, wild, disheveled, breath- 
 less. The copy of Aeschylus was under his arm. 
 He made for the fire and sprawled at full length 
 before it, not addressing a word to the girls. 
 They allowed him to make himself comfortable 
 before the blaze. For nearly ten minutes he 
 sprawled reading, turning a page now and then 
 with complete absorption in the words of his 
 author. 
 
 "You are silent." 
 
 It was the first word spoken since he made 
 
 The actors or spectators? Great 
 and mean
 
 Meet massed in death, who lends what life T O C 
 
 must borrow i) 
 
 his abrupt appearance. Mary smiled at him. 
 Fanny was still busying herself about the pots 
 and pans. She left the burden of conducting the 
 conversation to her sister. Shelley stretched his 
 long limbs and ran a finger through his locks. 
 
 "I have long been convinced," he began, "of 
 the eventual omnipotence of mind over matter." 
 
 Mary again smiled sweetly into his eyes. She 
 was obviously overwhelmed by the profound wis- 
 dom of this reflection. 
 
 "La, Mr. Shelley," she said, "you talk over 
 our heads. How should we, poor things that we 
 are, understand the language of a philosopher?" 
 
 Shelley leaped to his feet and raced madly 
 into the yard, cavorting in the sunshine. Then 
 he flew back to the kitchen fire, exclaiming, as he 
 warmed his hands : 
 
 "I feel a sickening distrust when I see all that 
 I had considered good, great or imitable fall 
 around me into the gulf of error." 
 
 Mary's face assumed a shocked expression. 
 
 "Are you speaking of my father, sir?" 
 
 "To William Godwin," retorted the poet 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 warmly, "I must ever look with real respect and 
 veneration as the regulator and former of my 
 mind." 
 
 Mary was about to proffer some remark but 
 Shelley ran on still. 
 
 "That he, as a man, should be my friend and 
 my advisor, the moderator of my enthusiasm, the 
 personal exciter and strengthener of my virtuous 
 habits all this was more than I dared to trust 
 myself to hope." 
 
 He took a raisin from his waistcoat pocket, 
 tossed it lightly into the air and caught it dex- 
 terously in his mouth as it descended. For a min- 
 ute he chewed the morsel reflectively and at last 
 resumed his prostrate position in front of the fire. 
 There he turned the leaves of his Greek author 
 for so long without speaking that Mary, who 
 had exchanged a mischievous glance with Fanny, 
 could tolerate the silence no longer. 
 
 "Pray, Mr. Shelley," she began, "do you have 
 no principles but those you derive from my 
 father?" 
 
 "My mind has been formed by the precepts of 
 
 / Ai l n g as skies are blue, and fields are green 
 J. O \J Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
 
 Month follow month with woe, and year T O *7 
 
 wake year to sorrow. / 
 
 Mary Wollstonecraft," he cried, springing to his 
 feet with the swiftness of an acrobat. "That 
 I should be made acquainted with two of the 
 daughters of that heroic woman is the highest 
 privilege of my soul. I worship the memory of 
 Mary Wollstonecraft." 
 
 Mary sighed. There was a heaving of her 
 bosom and a flutter of her pretty eyelids. 
 
 "I at least am unworthy to be the child of that 
 heroic being," she observed, taking out a dainty 
 piece of linen and applying it to her eyes. 
 
 "I love you more than any relation," said 
 Shelley, "for being the daughter of Mary Woll- 
 stonecraft. I profess you are the sister of my 
 soul." 
 
 He looked across the kitchen to where Fanny 
 was busily employed at the sink. She did not 
 look up. Shelley proceeded. 
 
 "I think the component parts of that soul of 
 mine must undergo dissolution before its sympa- 
 thies with you can perish." 
 
 "But we are not really relations, Mr. Shelley. 
 Pray recollect that, sir." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Not relations through the tie of consanguin- 
 ity," conceded the poet, eagerly. "But what are 
 ties of that nature compared with the tie that binds 
 soul to soul?" 
 
 "The marriage tie?" inquired Mary. 
 
 "The marriage tie," echoed Shelley in scorn. 
 "Marriage is monopolizing, exclusive, jealous. 
 The tie which binds it bears the same relation to 
 friendship in which excess is lovely that the 
 body doth to the soul. This I have learned from 
 the writings of your most noble mother." 
 
 "Let me do that, Fanny !" 
 
 Mary was taking the care of the pots and pans 
 out of the hands of her sister. Fanny at first 
 demurred. Mary very sweetly objected that 
 Fanny needed rest. It was the turn of her sister, 
 she said, to relieve Fanny of a care so necessary 
 to the orderly life of the house. Shelley watched 
 the new activity of Mary. She was going about 
 the domestic task in a pretty dress and with hair 
 neatly beribboned. Fanny's dark locks were 
 tumbled. 
 
 "Then you don't believe in marriage*?" 
 
 O He will awake no more, oh, never more! 
 I O O "Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother, rise
 
 Out of ray sleep, and slake, in thy TOO 
 
 heart's core, jr 
 
 Mary put her query innocently enough. Fanny 
 sat down with a sigh. 
 
 "A law to compel you to hear music in the 
 company of a particular person and only in the 
 society of that person," Shelley said, "appears to 
 me parallel to that of marriage." 
 
 "Marriage, is it? It seems to me that Mr. 
 Shelley is always finding the oddest things to talk 
 about to mere chits of girls." 
 
 They all turned in consternation. The en- 
 trance of the obese and peremptory Mrs. Godwin 
 had not been observed by any of them. She had 
 come in from the Juvenile Library without the 
 slightest sound, thanks to the felt slippers she in- 
 variably put on after her dinner. Mary got the 
 full benefit of the orbs of her stepmother shining 
 through the great spectacles. 
 
 "We were talking of Wales, as it happens," 
 returned Mary demurely. "Fanny is going 
 there." 
 
 Had the malicious stepdaughter of the second 
 Mrs. Godwin discharged a brace of pistols at 
 the ceiling, she could scarcely have created more 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 tremendous a sensation in the minds of her audi- 
 tors. Shelley leaped into the air with a quota- 
 tion from the Greek upon his lips. Mrs. Godwin 
 took off her spectacles, wiped them carefully and 
 resumed them to gaze in stupefaction at Fanny. 
 
 "Wales! Fanny!" gasped Mrs. Godwin. "I 
 thought that plan had been given up." 
 
 When she had recovered from the shock she 
 turned to see how Shelley would receive the in- 
 telligence. That poet had disappeared as com- 
 pletely as if the atmosphere had absorbed him. 
 The three ladies heard the great door of the 
 Juvenile Library close with a slam. Rushing to 
 the little passage way that led from the kitchen 
 to the shop, Mrs. Godwin beheld the poet racing 
 through Skinner Street with his enormous yellow 
 coat tails streaming. 
 
 "Mad Shelley !" she reflected, turning again to 
 the kitchen. "They may well call you mad. 
 You've escaped Fanny but I'm thinking you're to 
 fall into the clutches of the deep one." 
 
 A wound more fierce than his, with tears 
 I I O and sighs."
 
 VI 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF MARY WOLL- 
 
 STONECRAFT AND THE WIFE 
 
 OF WILLIAM GODWIN 
 
 AS the departure of Fanny for Wales 
 would deprive the second wife of 
 William Godwin of a valuable domes- 
 tic servant, the lady of the great spectacles re- 
 turned to her kitchen in anything but an amiable 
 frame of mind. Whatever might be said of 
 Mrs. Godwin's disposition her husband's friend 
 Charles Lamb once called it abominable she 
 was an excellent housekeeper and a still more ex- 
 cellent cook. The success of her household econ- 
 omy was in a measure founded upon the sweet- 
 ness of Fanny in the capacity of drudge. When 
 first the departure of the oldest daughter of Mary 
 Wollstonecraft had been mooted in her presence, 
 Mrs. Godwin vetoed it upon the spot. Fanny 
 acquiesced in her stepmother's decision. 
 
 And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes, 
 
 And all the Echoes whom their sister's song 111
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Between them, in fact, there existed a common 
 bond of sympathy. They were each domestic in 
 their tastes. Mrs. Godwin's own daughter Claire, 
 had made up her mind to become a heroine. The 
 precise field in which this romantic mood was to 
 be sustained did not as yet transpire. Claire 
 went to Drury Laneat regular intervals. She de- 
 fied the authority of her mother on every occa- 
 sion. There were vague rumours already that 
 Claire had written to the great Lord Byron. Her 
 object was to interest him in her career as an 
 actress. It had been whispered in fact that Claire 
 might at any moment receive a summons from 
 Kemble himself to assume a role suited to her 
 prodigious talents. For the most part, she lived 
 in expectations only. Her leisure was devoted to 
 the recital of extracts from the repertories of the 
 play houses. She held the household in Skinner 
 Street spellbound by the fidelity and pathos with 
 which she interpreted the dying Ophelia. 
 
 Promising as these traits were from one point 
 of view, they afforded Mrs. Godwin little help in 
 the care of a large household. There was the 
 
 Had held in holy silence, cried: "Arise!" 
 112 Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung,
 
 From her ambrosial rest the fading T I 2 
 
 Splendour sprung. J 
 
 great philosopher himself to consider. He ate 
 little and lived frugally. His meals were pre- 
 pared exquisitely, none the less. Mrs. Godwin 
 had still great hopes of her husband, notwith- 
 standing the debts that haunted Skinner Street 
 like a ghost. She had presented him with one 
 son, the little William whose young life was 
 so constantly perplexed by the comings and go- 
 ings of his own sister, his half-sister Mary and 
 his adopted sister Fanny. Whatever dowry Mrs. 
 Godwin had brought to her husband had been de- 
 voured in that great pecuniary famine which the 
 publication of unsalable classics entailed. There 
 was no possibility of affording a servant should 
 Fanny determine to retire into the remote perspect- 
 ive of the Welsh mountains. 
 
 "Now you're satisfied!" was the first sign of 
 impending storm with which Mrs. Godwin greeted 
 Mary upon returning to the kitchen. "Now 
 you're satisfied! You're driving Fanny out of 
 the house so that you can set your cap for that 
 mad Shelley." 
 
 The good lady placed her arms akimbo in her 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 characteristic attitude of indignation. She glared 
 fiercely at the object of her wrath. Fanny, strug- 
 gling to play the part of mediator between the 
 belligerents, was at first ignored. 
 
 "Shelley thinks far more of Aeschylus than he 
 does of me," said Mary gravely, sitting upon the 
 upturned tub in which the butter was usually kept. 
 "I doubt if he could tell me from a Greek verb." 
 
 "I see through you, you artful minx," roared 
 Mrs. Godwin, her fat sides shaking, "ever since 
 you got back from your Baxter friends in Scot- 
 land you've been running after Shelley. There's 
 nothing for you but Shelley! Shelley! Shel- 
 ley!" 
 
 The spectacled one repeated the name in a 
 rising tone until the last utterance of the hated 
 name was a scream. 
 
 "There's been nothing but bad luck ever since 
 that Shelley darkened this door," resumed Mrs. 
 Godwin, who having glared at Fanny and then 
 at Mary without eliciting an observation from 
 either, felt compelled to talk for the sake of keep- 
 ing the ball rolling. "I don't know what that 
 
 She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs 
 I I A Out of the East, and follows wild and drear
 
 The golden Day, which, on eternal wings, T T C 
 
 Even as a ghost abandoning a bier, J 
 
 father of yours sees in the fellow. He's like a 
 mountebank." 
 
 The good lady postured in a Shelleyan atti- 
 tude, casting her bespectacled eyes to the ceiling 
 and running her hand through her hair in the 
 poet's usual style. She then took an imaginary 
 loaf from her belt and went through the motions 
 of a person devouring it ravenously. This pan- 
 tomime was too much for Mary who burst into the 
 wildest laughter. The graver Fanny contem- 
 plated the mimicry with a smile. 
 
 "I think Mr. Shelley's manners are a little 
 odd," she said. 
 
 "You're in love with him just the same," re- 
 torted Mrs. Godwin, whereat Fanny crimsoned. 
 "I know why he keeps coming here day after day. 
 It's for you." 
 
 "What of it?" 
 
 Mary had asked this. She looked indignant. 
 
 "What of it, miss? There's this of it that he 
 would have run away with Fanny right under 
 your father's eyes if you hadn't hurried back 
 from Scotland to get him yourself." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Mary walked out into the little garden in the 
 rear of the kitchen. 
 
 "That's right, get out!" bawled Mrs. Godwin. 
 "I don't wonder you're ashamed to listen. I see 
 through you." 
 
 "Mamma!" 
 
 "Oh, it's all very well for you to say Mamma, 
 Fanny. That girl has been boldness itself since 
 she came back from the Baxters. You know 
 as well as I do that she's chasing you off to Wales 
 so as to get him the easier." 
 
 Fanny rushed to her stepmother's side and plac- 
 ing an arm about her neck kissed her on both 
 cheeks. 
 
 "We mustn't forget that Mr. Shelley has a 
 wife and child at home, Mamma." 
 
 "A wife and child at home, Mamma! They've 
 gone out of London, I tell you. Her father is 
 supporting them both. He was supporting Shel- 
 ley until he got tired of it. If this Shelley were 
 good for anything he'd be at his home, instead 
 of talking philosophy with other women." 
 
 The words had just inflicted the pain in which 
 
 S Had left the Earth a corpse, Sorrow and fear 
 1 1 \J So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania;
 
 So saddened round her like an atmosphere T T 7 
 
 Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way / 
 
 Mrs. Godwin took such delight when her roving 
 eye caught sight of a bit of the broken platter upon 
 the floor. Fanny had carefully picked up the 
 ruins, but in the eagerness with which she heard 
 Mary's complaints she had neglected the last of 
 the dish. That now rested in guilty hugeness 
 under the window. For a moment Mrs. Godwin 
 gazed in horror at what she saw. 
 "So that's the way you do, Fanny." 
 Her voice rang out with a suppressed whoop. 
 In silent majesty she next advanced to the win- 
 dow. For an instant she contemplated the bit of 
 china. Then with much labour and puffing, ow- 
 ing to her great accumulation of fat, Mrs. God- 
 win lifted the piece of pottery from its resting 
 place. 
 
 "My fine china platter," she said in horror. 
 She held it aloft for the inspection of the two 
 girls. Fanny had retreated to the table near the 
 kitchen door. 
 
 "I am so sorry, Ma," she said. "It was " 
 Mary, who had come in from the garden, inter- 
 rupted her sister. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Really, and upon my word, Mrs. G., why do 
 you make so much fuss over a trifle?" 
 
 Mrs. Godwin held the broken china in front 
 of Mary's eyes in an attitude of defiance. 
 
 "Is this what you call a trifle*?" she demanded 
 in a scream. "I was about to say that my fine 
 china" 
 
 Mary, gazing for an instant at the thing held so 
 close to her face, now took it in her fingers as if 
 for the purpose of a better inspection. The mo- 
 ment the broken morsel had been parted with by 
 her stepmother, however, Mary calmly tossed it 
 through the window. The relic shattered into 
 fresh fragments. 
 
 "There," said Mary calmly, "I think that's the 
 best way to end this matter." 
 
 "It's the best way to begin it, you minx!" 
 screamed Mrs. Godwin. "Not satisfied with the 
 mischief already done you strew the yard with 
 broken dishes for your poor little William of a 
 brother to cut his naked feet on. I'll tell your 
 father." 
 
 Mary lifted a saucer from the pile of dishes 
 
 O Even to the mournful place 
 I I O where Adonais lay.
 
 Out of her secret Paradise 
 she sped, 
 
 left by Fanny when she dried the last of them at 
 the sink. Mrs. Godwin watched her stepdaughter 
 silently. Fanny uttered a faint exclamation. 
 She realized that Mary was about to inflict a new 
 exasperation upon her stepmother, the nature of 
 which she could not divine. 
 
 "When you tell my father I have broken a dish, 
 Madam," said Mary, "you will for once not be a 
 liar. I shall break a dish for the sake of making 
 your story true." 
 
 She hurled the saucer into the garden, where 
 it collided with a flagstone and shattered into a 
 thousand bits. 
 
 "Don't you dare !" 
 
 Mrs. Godwin thrust her form between her 
 stepdaughter and the open window as if to pre- 
 vent any further destruction of table ware. 
 If that were really her intention it was frus- 
 trated. 
 
 "Don't dare !" said Mary, with unruffled cool- 
 ness. "Why not, Madam?" 
 
 She threw a plate into the yard. It smashed 
 to pieces. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "That's right!" cried Mrs. Godwin, suddenly 
 dropping her tragic manner and assuming an ap- 
 pearance of the highest good humour. "That's 
 right. Don't leave us any dishes to eat our food 
 off." 
 
 As if in obedience to this injunction, Mary 
 seized a saucer and sent it flying. Her manner 
 was as cool as that of a surgeon directing a major 
 operation. Mrs. Godwin had left the kitchen 
 window and gone to the stove, where she pro- 
 fessed to be in the greatest glee at the spectacle 
 of destruction going forward. Fanny did not 
 wait for the last saucer to fly to the end of the 
 garden fence. She rushed to Mary's side, placed 
 an arm about that young lady's waist and snatched 
 another saucer from her hand. 
 
 "Come, Mary, dear," she said, "don't be silly." 
 
 Mary submitted without a word and resumed 
 her seat beside the table. She looked from her 
 place at Mrs. Godwin, who was now glaring in 
 fury at the new object of her wrath. 
 
 "I understand you," observed Mrs. Godwin, 
 rising to glare with greater ferocity at Mary. 
 
 Through camps and cities rough with stone, 
 I 2 O and steel,
 
 And human hearts, which to her airy tread j /j x 
 
 Yielding not, wounded the invisible 
 
 "You have made up your mind to have this Shel- 
 ley, this madman." 
 
 Fanny drew near her stepmother and raised 
 swimming eyes to the exasperated and reddened 
 face. 
 
 "For the love of God, Mamma," she pleaded. 
 
 "My poor girl," retorted Mrs. Godwin, in 
 whom the pent up emotions of the day were 
 proving too much for her self-control, "I think it 
 would be best if you addressed your words to 
 that fiend." 
 
 She pointed an accusing forefinger at Mary. 
 The daughter of Godwin was smiling archly and 
 serenely at the wall with the expression of a per- 
 son who is both scornful and amused. 
 
 "That fiend!" repeated the excited Mrs. God- 
 win, whom Fanny was striving vainly to draw 
 to the chair beside the window. "I know her 
 purpose. She wants to rule this house. While 
 she was away we had peace. In Scotland she 
 had word of what was taking place here. She 
 hurried home to steal the mad Shelley from you." 
 
 Fanny, her face burning with blushes, tried 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 to place a hand over Mrs. Godwin's mouth. 
 Mary observed the gesture. 
 
 "Let her talk on, Fanny," she said. "I'm sure 
 it does not bother me." 
 
 Mrs. Godwin hurled a dish cloth at Mary. 
 This dish cloth had reposed in vain wetness upon 
 the edge of the sink. It was a greasy clout, ne- 
 glected by Fanny because of the distractions she 
 had endured. The article had not escaped the 
 observation of Mrs. Godwin who mentally re- 
 served it for the purpose to which it was now 
 applied. For once Mary was taken unawares. 
 Ordinarily she fully understood the tactical re- 
 sources of her stepmother. She had learned from 
 bitter experience to dodge tablespoons and even 
 pieces of food in a raw condition. Having only 
 lately come back from a long visit to her Scotch 
 friends, Mary was out of practice. She did not 
 dodge with the necessary speed. The heavy and 
 saturated cloth caught her fairly on the mouth. 
 It dropped into her lap, leaving the bosom of her 
 dress stained in ruin. 
 
 Blank amazement held Fanny spellbound. In 
 
 Palms of her tender feet where'er 
 122 they fell:
 
 And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp T ^ *? 
 
 than they J 
 
 the tremendous excitement of seeing the majestic 
 Mary subjected to an indignity of the sort, Mrs. 
 Godwin likewise was overcome. She had ex- 
 pected to see her stepdaughter dodge out of the 
 way with the cat-like agility for which her little 
 body was so noted. Unfortunately the worst 
 happened. Mrs. Godwin determined, notwith- 
 standing her secret regret at the mischief she had 
 achieved, to stand by her guns. 
 
 "That's good for you," she roared, waving an 
 arm of triumph. 
 
 The words were scarcely out of her mouth when 
 Mary ran around the table with the wet cloth in 
 her hands. She dealt her stepmother one clout 
 on the head. This sent the spectacles flying to 
 the remotest end of the kitchen. The attack had 
 caught the unfortunate lady unawares. Before 
 she could recover from her surprise, she received 
 another clout. There was no help for it. 
 
 Mrs. Godwin began a retreat round the kitchen 
 table. Mary, in hot pursuit, dealt her stepmother 
 clout after clout with the wet rag. The destruc- 
 tion of her spectacles prevented the unfortunate 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 lady, deprived of all presence of mind, from pro- 
 tecting herself with her fists. 
 
 Fanny leaped to her feet while the fray was 
 in its initial stage. 
 
 "Mary!" she exclaimed. "Mary dear!" 
 
 The pock-faced girl strove to place herself be- 
 tween pursuer and pursued. The effort was 
 baffled by the quickness of the attacking party. 
 The bosom of the elder lady's dress was so com- 
 pletely saturated through the successive clouts she 
 sustained from Mary's weapon that it was no 
 longer decent. Yet the blows rained remorse- 
 lessly, Mrs. Godwin being impeded by her exces- 
 sive weight from the effective flight which alone 
 was expedient. Fanny, having the advantage of 
 height over these two, was fortunate enough in 
 the end to intercept the blows Mary was raining 
 upon her stepmother's head and shoulders. 
 
 Without a word and in perfect coolness, Mary 
 resumed the seat she had vacated. Her face was 
 lost in a wilderness of her own dishevelled hair. 
 The ribbon at her neck was torn and twisted. 
 There was a long scratch on her nose the work of 
 
 Rent the soft Form they never could repel, 
 I 2. Zj. Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May,
 
 Paved with eternal flowers that I "2, C 
 
 undeserving way. O 
 
 her stepmother's finger nails. But Mrs. Godwin 
 showed severest traces of the fray. Her specta- 
 cles were lying in a broken mass under the win- 
 dow. Her breath was gone from her body. She 
 had lost one of her felt slippers. There was a 
 tooth either loose or missing from her jaw. She 
 felt her mouth in a dazed -way. 
 
 Elopement
 
 VII 
 THE CHILD OF SONG 
 
 SHELLEY, having quitted the house of 
 William Godwin, did not for an instant 
 cease running at the top of his speed un- 
 til he had passed quite out of Skinner Street. 
 
 He still hugged the volume of Aeschylus. His 
 long locks streamed in the wind. The breezes of 
 that spring morning played freely upon his ex- 
 posed neck. 
 
 At last, as he ran, his eye was attracted by 
 the sight of some sparse and starved pines which 
 at that early period of the nineteenth century, still 
 dragged out a forlorn existence in a few favoured 
 spots in the London of the Prince Regent. The 
 author of Queen Mab halted suddenly. Drawing 
 near the first of the trees, he began to lick its 
 trunk. This gratification of one of Shelley's 
 most peculiar habits attracted an old gentleman 
 
 ~ ~ * n the deatn - chamber f r a moment Death, 
 I 2 O Shamed by the presence of that living Might,
 
 Blushed to annihilation, and the breath T ^ ^7 
 
 Revisited those lips, and Life's pale light / 
 
 who essayed to speak a word to the poet. The 
 author of Queen Mab had no eyes for the stranger. 
 He looked instead upon the book under his arm, 
 of which he seemed to grow suddenly aware like 
 one emerging from a dream. 
 
 Crowded as was the thoroughfare along which 
 he paced, Shelley lost no time in opening the sub- 
 stantial edition of the Greek poet. He was soon 
 absorbed in its contents. The poet stooped low 
 over his pages, accentuating the forward slope of 
 his shoulders. The neck was stretched out with 
 the curve of a swan's. He held the book at some 
 six or seven inches from his nose. The drays 
 moved rapidly along the streets. Men and 
 women of all ranks, seeing the poet absorbed, made 
 way for him with a smile. Sometimes a look of 
 wonder was drawn from the pedestrian owing 
 to the grotesqueness of the figure Shelley now pre- 
 sented. 
 
 For more than an hour the poet went thus upon 
 the highway, evading the heads of horses and the 
 whips of their drivers by what seemed the sheer- 
 est miracle. He came in time to one of those 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 little hostelries for which the London of the year 
 before Waterloo was famed. Shelley paused. 
 He did not seem to know where he was. He 
 stared, glanced up at the windows and walked into 
 the house, as if unfamiliar with its architecture. 
 
 There was a narrow and darkened hallway for 
 him to pass through. This circumstance did not 
 suffice to divert his eye from the copy of Aeschylus. 
 He was still reading when he pushed open a door 
 on the second landing. 
 
 "If I were to read as long as you read, Shelley, 
 my hair and my teeth would be strewed about on 
 the floor and my eyes would slip down my cheeks 
 into my waistcoat pockets." 
 
 The words were spoken in a deep bass voice. 
 They issued from the lips of a young man of 
 twenty-two, a great dark lump of humanity with 
 the neck of a bull and the features of an epicure. 
 
 "Hogg!" exclaimed Shelley. He dropped his 
 classic to the floor, rushing into the arms of his 
 friend. "Believe me, that I sympathize with 
 your feelings on Bonaparte and peace very 
 warmly !" 
 
 O Flashed through those limbs, so late her 
 I 2 O dear delight
 
 "Leave me not wild and drear and T 2, O 
 
 comfortless, yr 
 
 "Bonaparte!" roared Hogg, rising to his full 
 height from the lounging chair in which he had 
 been poring over Ariosto, "what put Bonaparte 
 into your dreaming head?" 
 
 "Bonaparte," cried Shelley, "is a person to 
 whom I have a very great objection. He is to 
 me a hateful and despicable being." 
 
 Establishing himself in close proximity to a fire 
 which burned in the grate, notwithstanding the 
 advanced spring, Shelley sprawled on the floor. 
 
 The unpleasant and jarring note in the voice 
 of Shelley which made his ordinary conversation 
 such an affliction to the ear seemed to be toned 
 down into harmony. This always happened 
 when he held discourse with his friend Hogg. 
 The poet dropped the sharpness of utterance for 
 which he was noted then dropped it as one might 
 drop a dead weight. He spoke usually in what a 
 friend of his once called sharp fourths, "the most 
 unpleasing sequence of sound that can fall upon 
 the human ear." As he spoke calmly now to 
 Hogg, the disharmony left his voice as a cloud 
 leaves the sky before the sun or as a sail sinks 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 below the horizon. Every note in his scale was 
 at last attuned to sweetness. He was clear. He 
 was expressive. He was distinct. In a word, his 
 voice was under complete control, reflecting by its 
 sweetness the mood into which the sight of his 
 dearest friend and most intimate companion, 
 Thomas Jefferson Hogg, had plunged him. 
 
 "Do grapes really grow in that manner any- 
 where?" 
 
 Hogg, following with his eye the direction of 
 Shelley's pointing forefinger, noted the trellised 
 pattern of the paper on the wall of the poet's sit- 
 ting room. The leaves of the vine, the clusters 
 of the grape on their immense bunches, and even 
 the tendrils were delineated with the extravagance 
 of a fantastic but genuine art. Shelley was so 
 pleased with the design that he leaped from his 
 recumbent attitude before the fire and patted the 
 papered wall. Hogg grunted. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I believe grapes grow in that 
 manner somewhere in the world." 
 
 Shelley clapped his hands and kissed the wall in 
 rapture. 
 
 As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! 
 JL W Leave me not!" cried Urania: her distress
 
 Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, T *y T 
 
 and met her vain caress. 3 
 
 "Then we shall go to see them growing." 
 
 "In that event," retorted Hogg, "we shall not 
 stay here for ever. Thank God ! The confusion 
 of this room of yours drives me to distraction." 
 
 The friends took a survey of the apartment as 
 the words were uttered. 
 
 The eye could not wander from corner to comer 
 of the spacious sitting room without deriving im- 
 pressions of the chaotic, the jumbled, the con- 
 fused. The centre of the apartment was a tower- 
 ing pyramid of portmanteaus, hat boxes and 
 trunks. The carpet was exposed only here and 
 there, thanks to the layers of printed sheets, of 
 etchings, of bits of underwear and even of bank 
 notes. These were inches deep, with traces of 
 dust to tell how little they were usually disturbed. 
 Suggestions of a chemical laboratory took the 
 form of scattered or broken vials. A brace of 
 pistols lay in the embrasure of a window, sur- 
 rounded on all sides by copies of classical authors, 
 opened at favourite passages. Shoes were bolt up- 
 right alongside mathematical instruments and 
 pairs of trousers. The large square table bore 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 one immense acid stain, flanked by smaller dis- 
 colourations. The table cloth lay on the floor 
 in a mass of blackened stains. A broken pitcher 
 stood at the very edge of this table, the legs of 
 which were surrounded by splinters of china and 
 a broken bottle or two. A bust of Socrates, 
 broken in two, was beside the fireplace. 
 
 The glittering eye of Thomas Jefferson Hogg 
 lighted upon the copy of Aeschylus which in his 
 hasty entry Shelley had flung at the feet of his 
 friend. The inseparable companion of the poet 
 picked the classic from the floor and began idly 
 turning the leaves. He looked up suddenly to the 
 ceiling. 
 
 "William Godwin!" he cried. "I see by the 
 entry upon the fly leaf that this is his. You have 
 just come from Skinner Street." 
 
 "With what delight," cried Shelley, devouring 
 a biscuit he found on the mantelpiece, "what 
 cheerfulness, what goodwill may it be conceived 
 that I constitute myself the pupil of him under 
 whose actual guidance my very thoughts have 
 hitherto been arranged." 
 
 "Stay yet awhile ! speak to me once again ; 
 J. 4 ii Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;
 
 And in my heartless breast and burning brain T ^ t\ 
 
 That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive, j J 
 
 He ran from the fire to plunge his head into a 
 basin filled with cold water. This had reposed 
 in neglect until that moment upon the wash stand, 
 amid an assortment of chemical apparatus. The 
 locks of the poet were soon dripping. The water 
 scattered in all directions. He did not dry him- 
 self with a towel. He simply ran his hand 
 through his head and shook his mane as if he had 
 been a huge dog. 
 
 "Ha!" cried Hogg. "The disciple of Godwin 
 is immersed, but not in the waters of baptism." 
 
 The keenness of the eye of Thomas Jefferson 
 Hogg went with a mockery of manner and a sharp- 
 ness of wit that rendered him at once a delight and 
 a terror to his friend Shelley. Hogg was hand- 
 some in his large and material way, athletic and 
 intellectual both. The mental gifts for which 
 he was already famed in his youth found expres- 
 sion in his face even when in repose. He had wit 
 and audacity and the gifts of the satirist. His 
 looks revealed the man. Aquiline of nose, yellow 
 in complexion, large-footed, with a pair of great 
 hands, held clasped in his lap or waved with no 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 awkwardness as he pointed some animated period, 
 he seemed contrived by nature as a contrast to 
 the etherealized aspect of his poetical friend. 
 Hogg was ever in the company of books. He 
 knew Greek like an Oxford don. He read the 
 Italian and French poets in the originals. He 
 spoke of all things like a man well informed. 
 Shelley was slight and fragile to look at. Hogg 
 was fleshy and solid. The head of Shelley was 
 unusually small. That of Hogg seemed gigantic. 
 Shelley's tones were high and piercing. Hogg 
 spoke in a large, rich and ample voice, deep yet 
 pleasing to the ear. 
 
 "It has always been my experience of you," 
 said Hogg, with an irrelevancy worthy of Shelley 
 at his worst, "that into whatever household you 
 go, the female portion of the establishment be- 
 comes violently interested in yourself." 
 
 Shelley did not make any reply. He stood in 
 dripping majesty, still running the fingers of both 
 hands through his masses of tangled hair. His 
 waistcoat was entirely unbuttoned. He had cast 
 aside his neckcloth and his white throat was bare. 
 
 With food of saddest memory kept alive, 
 
 34 ~ s " w thou art dead ' as ** ** were a part
 
 Of thee, my Adonais! I would give T *\ r* 
 
 All that I am to be as thou now art! J ) 
 
 He smiled and revealed the even whiteness of his 
 teeth but otherwise took no notice of the remark 
 of his friend. Hogg had not quite finished what 
 he had to say. 
 
 "The fact that the female portion of the God- 
 win household is so large three young ladies to 
 say nothing of the wife makes me uneasy." 
 
 Shelley drew near the fire and began cowering 
 over it with the sensitiveness to cold for which he 
 was always noted. In a second he had stuck his 
 feet upon the fender. Hogg cleared the fireplace 
 with the poker. There was a blaze at which the 
 poet gazed in pleasure while his teeth chattered. 
 The room was suddenly impregnated with so dis- 
 agreeable an odour that Hogg glanced about to 
 ascertain the source of it. 
 
 The offense emanated from the contents of a 
 retort poised above an argand lamp. The liquor 
 in the vessel had attained so high a temperature 
 that it effervesced. There was a sudden addition 
 to the stains upon the carpet. The poet antici- 
 pated a movement of his friend by seizing the 
 retort and hurling it beneath the grate. It 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 smashed to atoms, the odour attaining a pungency 
 that forced them both to hold their noses. 
 
 "I think your visits to the house of Godwin," 
 proceeded Hogg, as if nothing had happened, "are 
 likely to unbalance the ladies there. They will 
 all fall in love with you." 
 
 "The threatened arrest of Godwin for debt," 
 replied Shelley, "is the calamity which impends 
 over the household in Skinner Street. I proceed 
 thither to relieve distress, not to be the herald of 
 it." 
 
 "Remember that you can't marry the ladies in 
 Godwin's house not even one of them. You 
 have a wife already." 
 
 Shelley threw his hat into the fire. 
 
 "Godwin has been trying to borrow of his dis- 
 ciple," bantered Hogg, closing the book of Italian 
 verse he had been reading for an hour prior to 
 the appearance of his inspired friend. "Is it five 
 thousand pounds he wants'?" 
 
 "Three!" 
 
 The poet shifted both his feet abruptly as he 
 spoke. The fender at once flew up. A decoction 
 
 I 3 6 
 
 But I am chained to Time, 
 and cannot thence depart!
 
 "O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, T 3 T 
 
 Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men J / 
 
 of cheese and oysters was precipitated into the 
 fire by that accident. A mass of scalloped oysters 
 was ruined. The cinders and the edibles were 
 mingled in inextricable confusion. Hogg, horror- 
 stricken, indulged in a round oath. Shelley 
 seemed unaware of the ruin. He paid not the 
 smallest attention to it, at first. His attention 
 was at last drawn to the loss of the refreshments 
 by his friend's exclamation. Shelley thereupon 
 scooped up the ruin with a shovel, and held it 
 forth for inspection to the eye of the friend and 
 companion of his college days. 
 
 "When last I saw you," he said, "I was about 
 to enter into the profession of physic. You may 
 wonder at a change in my determination." 
 
 "If you could only realize the sensation your 
 invasion of the Godwin household has caused in 
 Skinner Street!" pursued Hogg, without heeding 
 the irrelevancies of his friend. "Godwin, as you 
 ought to know, is harassed by his creditors. His 
 wife has been unable to make the Juvenile Li- 
 brary a success. The three girls live in penury 
 and in misery." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Misery!" Shelley spoke with incredulity. 
 "What felicity can equal daily association with a 
 Godwin?" 
 
 "Misery!" echoed Hogg "They are all in de- 
 spair. They quarrel from morning until night. 
 Suddenly the mad Shelley arrives. He lifts the 
 burden of debt from the shoulders of Godwin by 
 offering to raise five thousand pounds " 
 
 "Three!" 
 
 "Three ! So be it. That is as nothing to the 
 effect upon the three young ladies of the arrival 
 of a poet who does not believe in marriage and 
 who aches with a passion for reforming the world. 
 They fall to fighting for you among themselves. 
 What is to be the end?" 
 
 "Marriage," piped the poet in his shrillest tone, 
 "is detestable. Godwin taught me so. A kind 
 of ineffable, sickening disgust seizes my mind 
 when I think of this most despotic, most unre- 
 quired fetter which prejudice has forged to con- 
 fine its energies. Yes ! This is the fruit of su- 
 perstition and superstition must perish before this 
 can fall." 
 
 138 
 
 Too soon, and with weak hands though 
 mighty heart
 
 Dare the unpastured dragon in his den? 
 Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was then 
 
 "Why did you banish me from the presence of 
 your wife," persisted the incorrigible Hogg, 
 "when you discovered I had been making love to 
 her?' 
 
 "I had observed that Harriet's behaviour to my 
 friend had been greatly altered. I saw she re- 
 garded him with prejudice and hatred. I saw it 
 with great pain. I remarked it to her. Her dark 
 hints of his unworthiness alarmed me." 
 
 "You were not jealous of your rights as a hus- 
 band*? You did not for once repudiate the teach- 
 ings of Godwin on the subject of marriage?" 
 
 "All I recollect of that terrible day," went on 
 the poet, harking back to the ceiling for an audi- 
 tor, "was that I pardoned my friend freely. I 
 fully pardoned him. I said I would still be a 
 friend to him and hoped soon to convince him how 
 lovely virtue is " 
 
 "By making me leave the house! That's al- 
 ways the way with these men who do not believe 
 in marriage. They are always most jealous of 
 their own marital rights." 
 
 Shelley found a cake under the table and 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 snatched it eagerly. He thrust the delicacy whole 
 into his mouth before replying. 
 
 "I think marriage an evil an evil of immense 
 and extensive magnitude, but I think a previous 
 reformation in morals and that a general and 
 a great one is requisite before it may be reme- 
 died." 
 
 Hogg burst into a loud laugh. He thrust the 
 poker between the leaves of a copy of Homer at 
 his feet. 
 
 "I hope you will bear that in mind when you 
 exchange ideas with the young ladies in Godwin's 
 household. All have been reared in an atmos- 
 phere fatal to marriage." 
 
 Shelley had made a pellet of another biscuit. 
 He was squatted upon the floor, fingering a bank 
 note into which a hole had been eaten by a live 
 coal. 
 
 "Marriage ! No !" he cried. "I do not accept 
 it as an ultimate." 
 
 "For a man who does not believe in marriage 
 your attitude to your own wife is conventional 
 enough," rejoined Hogg, loudly. "Again I ask, 
 
 Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn 
 1-j.O the spear?
 
 Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when T A T 
 
 Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere, | 
 
 what did you say and do when I made love to 
 Harriet?" 
 
 Shelley started to his feet like a man who has 
 received a sudden blow. Hogg, fearing he had 
 outraged his friend's feelings, was stammering a 
 word of excuse when the poet took one of the 
 candles from its place beside a crucible. He be- 
 gan to walk with the candle about the room, pick- 
 ing his wary way through the maze of boots, 
 classics, underwear and chemical appartus. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 Hogg asked this in a whisper, an awe-struck 
 whisper. Shelley did not pay the slightest atten- 
 tion. He walked on until he had reached the door 
 of the tiny study off the main apartments of his 
 suite. Fully five minutes passed before he 
 emerged. When Shelley hove once more in sight, 
 he had a plate of fruit and nuts in his hand. 
 These he laid at the feet of Hogg with a look of 
 triumph and sprawled again before the blazing 
 logs in the chimney piece. 
 
 "You are a penitent, I see," observed Hogg, 
 taking an apple from the plate and biting an 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 enormous piece out of it. "You make restitution 
 and reparation. This fruit is not as delectable 
 as the scalloped oysters, but it suffices." 
 
 But Shelley's brow had clouded all at once. 
 The look of triumph had left his little face. He 
 brushed his hair with his hand and began speaking 
 in his highest and most discordant tones. 
 
 "You spoke of making love to my wife," he 
 cried. "You know how I went to Sussex to set- 
 tle my affairs. I left my Harriet at York under 
 the protection of him who was sworn to be true 
 to me. I left her under the protection of Hogg, 
 the companion of my soul. You! You know 
 the implicit faith I had in you, the unalterable- 
 ness of my attachment, the exalted thoughts I 
 entertained of your excellence !" 
 
 Hogg devoured the apple gravely. He sought 
 to utter a word. Shelley waved a razor to enjoin 
 silence. 
 
 "Can you then conceive," he cried in the shrill- 
 est treble he had yet reached, "that I should sus- 
 pect you of trying to seduce my wife?" 
 
 Hogg, unabashed, threw the core of the apple 
 
 The monsters of life's waste had fled 
 from thee like deer.
 
 "The herded wolves bold only to pursue; T /I "5 
 
 The abscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead ; | j 
 
 into the fire. He scanned the fruit in the dish 
 critically and at last selected an orange. 
 
 "That my friend should have chosen the very 
 time for this attempt when I most confided in 
 him," resumed Shelley, "this is the cruelty of it. 
 Conceive the sophistry! Conceive the energy of 
 vice, for energy is inseparable from high powers 
 like yours. Oh, that resistless and pathetic elo- 
 quence of yours, the illumination of your coun- 
 tenance on which I sometimes gazed until I fan- 
 cied the world could be reformed by gazing too " 
 
 "That is my point," interrupted Hogg, eagerly. 
 "For a man who scoffs at marriage you show a 
 remarkable insistence upon the rights of a hus- 
 band. That is proper. I merely wish to point 
 out your inconsistency." 
 
 "Virtue has lost one of her defenders!" cried 
 Shelley. "Vice has gained a proselyte." 
 
 "Why did you kick me out for making love to 
 Harriet*?" asked the unabashed Hogg, "if you 
 don't believe in marriage? And those letters you 
 have written to everybody denouncing me " 
 
 "Can not I reason with him*?" Shelley ad- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 dressed this query to the ceiling. "Is he dead, 
 gone, cold, annihilated 4 ? None, none of these! 
 Therefore not irretrievable not fallen like Luci- 
 fer, never to rise again!" 
 
 "What about yourself and those young ladies 
 in Godwin's house?" 
 
 "I told him that I pardoned him freely," ran 
 on Shelley, his great deer-like eyes scrutinizing 
 the ceiling as if he had found an auditor there. 
 "His vices and not himself were the object of my 
 horror and my hatred." 
 
 "Rather hard on me," commented Hogg, "but 
 as I was saying, since you refuse to accept mar- 
 riage " 
 
 "Are you not he whom I love," asked Shelley 
 addressing his friend directly on a sudden, "whom 
 I deem capable of exciting the emulation and at- 
 tracting the admiration of thousands?" 
 
 In the animation of this debate, Shelley had 
 extracted a large loaf from beneath a stained sofa. 
 He was munching as he spoke. When the subject 
 had quite carried him away, he began to pace the 
 room heedless of the manuscripts, personal belong- 
 
 The vultures to the conquerer's banner true 
 I *4 4 Who feed where De!!olation <"" has fed.
 
 And whose wings rain contagion ; how they fled, T A p 
 When, like Apollo, from his golden bow, T" D 
 
 ings and books scattered over it. These he kicked 
 as he proceeded, until a razor which had been 
 used as a knife, was sent flying among the poet's 
 boots while the boots themselves went hither and 
 thither kicked by the poet's feet. A great rent 
 in the carpet, caused by the flames of an acid, 
 caught the philosopher's foot and he went sprawl- 
 ing, the loaf flying to a remote corner. 
 
 "Let's have a cup of tea," he said, rising, and 
 smiling into the face of Hogg. 
 
 There began an instant search for cups and 
 saucers. Hogg scanned each article of chinaware 
 carefully. He came upon a seven shilling piece 
 which had become half dissolved in the strong acid 
 covering its bulk at the bottom of an ornate tea 
 cup. Not until he had wiped the chinaware with 
 one of Shelley's shirts did Hogg brew the favour- 
 ite beverage of his friend. 
 
 "The Duke of Norfolk does not like bread," 
 said Shelley, as he gulped down half the tea in 
 the large cup he held. "Did you ever meet a 
 man who did not like bread*?" 
 
 "How do you know," asked Hogg, after a mo- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 ment's meditation, "that the Duke does not like 
 bread?" 
 
 "I met him in Piccadilly once and offered him 
 some of my loaf. He would not take any. He 
 said he didn't like the look of it." 
 
 "The individual in question probably has no 
 objection to bread in a moderate quantity," re- 
 plied Hogg, peeling another orange. "At a 
 proper time and with the usual adjuncts the Duke 
 might eat bread with relish. His grace may be 
 unwilling to devour two or three pounds of bread 
 dry in the public street and at an early hour." 
 
 Throughout the elucidation of this theme by 
 the sagacious Hogg, his poetical young friend 
 spent the time in breaking a quantity of bread 
 picked from the floor into a large basin. Shelley 
 worked away with infinite patience until the basin 
 was quite full. He next lifted the steaming ket- 
 tle from the fender and poured its contents over 
 the broken bread. The mass steeped for several 
 minutes in the basin, during which time Hogg 
 buried his nose in Homer, whose Iliad he had 
 drawn towards him on the floor with the aid of 
 
 146 
 
 The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 
 
 And smiled ! The spoilers tempt no second blow,
 
 They fawn on the proud feet that spurn T A ^ 
 
 them lying low. I / 
 
 the poker. Shelley, having satisfied himself that 
 the water had swollen the bread in the basin to 
 correct proportions, poured the liquid off on to 
 the carpet. The bread still required some squeez- 
 ing by the poet's hands, a task which was exe- 
 cuted with nicety and despatch. 
 
 "Hand me a spoon, Hogg." 
 
 This command received no attention from the 
 young man poring over Homer. Shelley seized 
 a razor at the foot of a chair and cut the mass of 
 wet bread into pieces. The morsels were now of 
 dimensions to receive nutmeg gratings, which Shel- 
 ley applied from an improvised pantry in one of 
 his neglected boots, out of which he likewise ex- 
 tracted a paper bag filled with lumps of sugar. 
 
 "I am happy that you like Kehama," said Shel- 
 ley, gorging himself with the mass after it had 
 been sprinkled with sugar and nutmeg. "Is not 
 the chapter where Kailyal despises the leprosy 
 grand*?" 
 
 "Why, Bysshe," cried Hogg, looking up from 
 his Homer without paying the least attention to 
 his friend's question, "you lap that stuff up as 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 greedily as the Valkyriae in the Scandinavian 
 story lap up the blood of the slain." 
 
 The observation delighted Shelley hugely. 
 
 "Aye !" he shrieked, dancing about on one foot 
 and stuffing the preparation he had just manu- 
 factured down his throat, "I lap up the blood of 
 the slain!" 
 
 He continued dancing about with a hand filled 
 with the mixture. For a full minute he did not 
 cease to repeat: 
 
 "I lap up the blood of the slain ! I sup up the 
 gore of murdered kings !" 
 
 By that time he had consumed every fragment 
 of his favourite food. 
 
 "You lap up the blood of the slain !" echoed a 
 sweet voice. "How does it taste?" 
 
 "Harriet!" 
 
 The name was an exclamation of delight upon 
 the lips of Hogg. He gazed at the newcomer, 
 and sighed and looked, sighed and looked, like the 
 gentleman in the greatest of Dryden's odes. 
 
 She was the wife of Shelley. 
 
 A complete change came over the expression 
 
 148 
 
 "The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn; 
 He sets, and each ephemeral insect then
 
 Is gathered into death without a dawn, j Ar\ 
 
 And the immortal stars awake again; IX 
 
 on the countenance of the poet's wife and over 
 the countenance of Hogg too as the young lady 
 advanced just within the door. She had brought 
 her sister. Perhaps it would be more accurate to 
 say that the sister had brought the wife. Shelley 
 had started in sheer delight when his ear caught 
 first the accents of the little lady to whom he had 
 so recently given his name after eloping with her 
 from London to Edinburgh. It seemed as if he 
 must clasp her in his arms, as if, too, she could 
 not have resisted an impulse to surrender her sweet 
 person to the embrace. Before there could occur 
 the least display of mutual affection between them, 
 a tall and forbidding figure had thrust itself be- 
 tween the couple. 
 
 Shelley gasped. 
 
 "Eliza!" 
 
 His pronunciation of the name was a revela- 
 tion. His tones were sharp, strident, shrill. He 
 seemed to see a ghost. 
 
 One look at the sprawling figure of Shelley had 
 been enough to set his tiny and exquisite wife 
 into a gale of laughter. The ringing music of 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 this mirth was absorbed by the ear like music. 
 Hogg's eye wandered in transports of admiration 
 from the light brown hair to the hues of the rose 
 in the cheeks of the fair girl. He suppressed a 
 sigh as he eyed the round and dimpled chin. 
 There was not a line of intellectuality in the whole 
 face but its loveliness lost no infantile quality 
 through that circumstance. In the first flush of 
 youth, clinging by nature and by instinct, sweet 
 in temper, Mrs. Percy Bysshe Shelley looked a 
 girl who should be learning to spell rather than 
 a wife and mother. 
 
 One look at Miss Eliza Westbrook was suffi- 
 cient to reveal how greatly she was the superior of 
 her sister Harriet in years. Mrs. Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley was fifteen years younger than her trim 
 and neat sister Eliza. The elder Miss Westbrook 
 had many of the traits which made the character 
 of her father known to his intimates as "Jew" 
 Westbrook respected rather than loved. She 
 had in her earlier years officiated as maid of all 
 work in the coffee house from which the snug 
 fortune of her father had been derived. She re- 
 
 So is it in the world of living men: 
 1 ^ O A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight
 
 Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when T C T 
 It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 
 
 tained even after the lapse of many years the 
 characteristics she had acquired in serving the 
 patrons of her father's hostelry. She spoke with 
 peremptory respectfulness. She marched rather 
 than walked. She avoided smiling into the face 
 of any male, lest he think her wanting in maidenly 
 modesty. She was positive in statement. In 
 short, the virtues which make a barmaid valuable 
 to the keeper of a public house were all conspicu- 
 ous in the sister of Mrs. Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 The maternal relation they sustained to one an- 
 other was indicated by the pet name Harriet be- 
 stowed upon Eliza: "Mummy." On formal oc- 
 casions Miss Westbrook was addressed by her 
 young sister as Eliza. 
 
 The straightness of the sapling suggested itself 
 in the slightest motion of Miss Eliza Westbrook. 
 She moved or rather glided across the room much 
 as some mast in the light of the moon might out- 
 line itself against the sky on a lone sea. She was 
 as ghostly as that sort of thing in her personal 
 deportment. She was silent but it was a stern 
 and prim silence. She was neat, but it was a 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 stern and prim neatness. The one attractive thing 
 about her head was the tremendous mass of ex- 
 ceedingly black hair which crowned it. This hair 
 showed traces of most careful treatment. Not a 
 strand was in disorder. Not a coil of it was mis- 
 placed upon her brow or at the back of her head. 
 Abundant, glossy, black as a sloe and instinct with 
 a life that seemed at moments apart from her own, 
 the hair of Miss Eliza Westbrook indicated that 
 she spent many hours of every day in its arrange- 
 ment. This was in truth the case. Apart from 
 her hair, she had nothing lovely in the appear- 
 ance of her face. It was disfigured by the pittings 
 of small-pox, a disease which wrought much havoc 
 with female beauty in an age to which vaccine 
 therapy was unknown. Her neck was long. 
 Her ears were large. Her skin was the colour of 
 boiled rice. 
 
 " 'Arriet, my love," interrupted her sister, like a 
 marble statue coming suddenly to a brief and fitful 
 life, " remember your nerves ! " 
 
 Harriet took her pocket handkerchief from her 
 belt and applied it to her pretty eyes. Hogg, who 
 
 Leave to its kindred lamps 
 
 I k 2 the spirit's awful night."
 
 Thus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came, 
 Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent; 
 
 had resumed the chair in which the ladies found 
 him when they entered, got upon his large feet 
 once more. He placed a box at the disposal of 
 Harriet. There was nothing else for him to offer 
 her. The great arm chair in which he was en- 
 sconced precluded its occupancy by a prettily 
 dressed lady because of a too soiled condition. 
 Harriet, however, did not wish to lose the ad- 
 vantage which comes to an orator in the upright 
 attitude. She took no notice of the civility. 
 
 "I have come, Mr. Hogg," began Harriet, "to 
 see if your influence over my husband can be ex- 
 erted in favour of his wife and child." 
 
 " Good God ! " cried Hogg, staggering back into 
 the armchair out of which this irruption had 
 startled him. He sat in stupefaction, staring at 
 little Mrs. Shelley. 
 
 From the pink ribbon, tied coquettishly in the 
 masses of her sunny brown hair, to the silver 
 buckles on her dainty furred boots, the aspect of 
 this pretty nineteen-year-old wife and mother was 
 one of neatness incarnate. The face was pink 
 and white. Its sweetness was further embel- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 lished by eyes of which the baby blue borrowed 
 an additional gleam from their roundness and their 
 largeness. The little nose was perfection in its 
 straight line, terminating in nostrils as delicately 
 curved as the tendrils of the grape in the wall 
 paper of this disordered room. She had so arch a 
 mouth, all curves and carmine, that its very 
 gravity was of the dimpled and childish order. 
 She held her delicate head poised on one side as 
 if to set off the tracery of the curved neck, white 
 like the face and flushing or paling as she peered 
 first at Hogg and next at Shelley. One dimin- 
 utive pink and white hand was on the knob of the 
 door. The wrist that tapered roundly up to the 
 arm and outlined that arm all the better though 
 its delicacy was hidden by the suggestion of lace 
 cuffs, not so white nor so delicate as the complex- 
 ion of this girl wife. The slim waist, the tender 
 bust and the outline of the hips formed lines too 
 maddening for the eye to contemplate without 
 desire. 
 
 "I would have Mr. Shelley understand," pro- 
 ceeded the small Harriet, putting her hands to 
 
 The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 
 J. <4i Over his living head like Heaven is bent,
 
 An early but enduring monument, 
 
 Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
 
 the strings of her bonnet as if she felt a choking 
 sensation, " that I regard myself as in all respects 
 his social equal. I have heard some talk about 
 my father's calling. I do not see that his money 
 was made in any way less creditable to him than 
 the fortune of Sir Bysshe Shelley. I am told that 
 Sir Bysshe made his money by running away with 
 heiresses. My father made his money out of a 
 coffee house. I know that Mr. Shelley was glad 
 enough to live upon my father's money when " 
 
 There was a sudden choking in the voice of the 
 pretty creature. Hogg, who had listened to Har- 
 riet with deference, endeavoured to say a word. 
 She was too quick for him. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley," proceeded Harriet, "does not 
 seem to think he has married a lady. He does not 
 treat me as if I were a lady born. He seems to 
 think any mode of life suitable to the mother of 
 his child and the wife who bears his name. I want 
 Mr. Shelley to understand that I am not the crea- 
 ture he has been abusing for so long. I intend 
 that he shall be made to treat me with the respect 
 due to a wife." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Shelley flicked a pellet of the dough he had 
 mixed. It went straight at the head of his little 
 wife, who dodged it without seeming to be aware 
 that she did so. During the debate, or rather the 
 monologue, these pellets did not cease to fly from 
 the thumb and forefinger of the poet. Not that 
 he aimed in any spirit of combat. He appeared 
 to be acting from force of habit and impersonally, 
 even when he sent a pellet of bread straight at 
 the head of Miss Eliza Westbrook herself. That 
 swarthy lady did not at first seem to care whether 
 the pellets hit her or not. One stung her on the 
 cheek. She paid not the least heed to it. An- 
 other struck her fairly on the brow. To this she 
 was as oblivious as before. She never flinched 
 when the bombardment began. The aim of 
 Shelley was from long practise perfect. He could 
 touch his man or his woman from any angle and 
 at almost any distance. The luckless Harriet was 
 the principal victim on the present occasion. As 
 she stood in the doorway her head and her neck 
 and her bosom formed too conspicuous a target for 
 a marksman so expert as the husband against 
 
 156 
 
 In sorrow; form her wilds lerne sent 
 The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,
 
 And Love taught Grief to fall like music 
 from his tongue. 
 
 whom she had come to proffer her complaint. 
 The floor at her feet was in almost no time cov- 
 ered with the pellets which ere they fell stung 
 her on the cheek or on the brow or on the hand. 
 
 "No one realizes as well as I," Harriet per- 
 sisted, fixing her round eyes upon the staring 
 Hogg, who had abandoned all hope of breaking in 
 upon her flow of protest, "no one realizes so well 
 as I how impossible it is for me to talk philos- 
 ophy with Mr. Shelley. He prefers his philos- 
 ophy to his wife. He talks philosophy with the 
 young ladies he meets at Mr. William God- 
 win's" 
 
 The attentive countenance of Hogg was di- 
 verted by that hint to the face of Shelley. The 
 poet was prostrate in front of the fire into which 
 he was now thrusting the poker. Harriet's eyes 
 followed the direction of Hogg's. She raised her 
 voice. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley excuses himself when he is ac- 
 cused of making love to Fanny by saying that 
 he seeks her improvement, the uplift of her 
 mind" 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Fanny!" Hogg was incredulous. 
 
 "It was Fanny," said Harriet. "It may be 
 Claire now. Tomorrow it will be Mary. These 
 young ladies seem to take pleasure in talking over 
 their philosophical ideas with another woman's 
 husband." 
 
 "My dear Harriet," put in the persuasive but 
 sarcastic Hogg, "you have yourself been the cause 
 of your husband's lack of interest in your intellec- 
 tual life. I do not remember having heard you 
 read aloud to us once since the birth of your 
 child." 
 
 " 'Arriet, my dear," put in the stern sister from 
 her station beside the window, "remember your 
 nerves!" 
 
 "Neither do you read much to yourself," re- 
 sumed the sagacious Hogg, ignoring this last re- 
 mark. "Your studies, which had been so con- 
 stand and so exemplary, have dwindled to noth- 
 ing. It is true that Bysshe has ceased to express 
 the least interest in them." 
 
 He looked over to the poet as he said so and 
 exchanged with him a slight smile. 
 
 158 
 
 Midst others of less note, came one frail Form 
 A phantom among men; companionless
 
 As the last cloud of an expiring storm 
 Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess, 
 
 From the first moment of her entry into the 
 apartment of Shelley, Eliza Westbrook had not 
 spoken to either of the young men. Picking her 
 way warily along the floor, avoiding a boot as if 
 it were a serpent and stepping out of the way of a 
 cake or a classic like a pedestrian in the Strand 
 on a rainy day, Miss Eliza Westbrook had reached 
 the window. There she took up her station, as if 
 she were a sentinel on guard. Not once did she 
 take her eye from her sister's face. During the 
 progress of the colloquy in which Harriet bore so 
 important a part, the pretty Mrs. Shelley looked 
 up to her sister beside the window, like an actor 
 in a play listening for the signal of a prompter. 
 Hogg, on his side, paid no attention to Miss West- 
 brook. She had bestowed upon him a look of 
 disgust no less intense than the one she gave 
 Shelley. 
 
 "The scandal my husband has caused in every 
 household he enters is one reason I must leave 
 him," Harriet cried now. She had wiped away 
 a tear or two which dropped down her cheek when 
 first she opened her pretty mouth to address Hogg. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Mr. Shelley seems to have become utterly de- 
 praved and sensual. He is always making love to 
 married ladies " 
 
 Hogg crimsoned. 
 
 "Making love to married ladies?" 
 
 Hogg, having repeated so much, looked across 
 to the window where Eliza Westbrook stood like 
 a statue of duty. He got no glance in return 
 from Harriet's sister. She seemed absorbed in 
 the floor. Hogg could but look back to Harriet, 
 since Shelley himself refused to meet his eye. 
 
 "Shelley does not make love to married ladies. 
 You do not understand a way he has with all 
 women." 
 
 "The gentleman where we lodged had to remove 
 his wife from the city to escape my husband's 
 odious attentions and advances." 
 
 Hogg whistled. Then he suppressed a grin. 
 
 " 'Arriet, my love," the stern sister was heard 
 to say once more in her sharp accents, "remember 
 your nerves !" 
 
 Hogg apostrophized the ceiling in Shelley's 
 manner. One might conjecture that he had 
 
 X Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, 
 
 I OO Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray
 
 With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, TOT 
 
 And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, 
 
 caught the trick from his gifted and inspired 
 friend. 
 
 "Yes, yes," he said. "Those nerves !" 
 
 "Mr. Shelley must likewise abandon his vice 
 of laudanum," Harriet now resumed, referring as 
 she spoke to a paper in her hand. She seemed 
 to have compiled a list of Shelley's shortcom- 
 ings and to be using it as a memorandum, after the 
 fashion of public speakers with bad memories. 
 "Mr. Shelley must abandon his vice of lauda- 
 num " 
 
 "Laudanum !" 
 
 Hogg repeated the word in amazement and 
 gazed across the table to where the poet was seated 
 upon the carpet. Shelley flicked a pellet of bread 
 straight at Hogg's nose, which organ suffered a 
 smart sting. Otherwise he made no observation. 
 
 "Laudanum," went on Mrs. Shelley. "I find 
 this vice of his intolerable. It is undermining his 
 character " 
 
 "I never heard of Shelley's being the slave of 
 opium or laudanum," began Hogg. 
 
 Those words seemed to act like a battery upon 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 the frigid Miss Eliza Westbrook. She came out 
 of the trance in which she had been plunged be- 
 side the window. Opening the black bag she 
 clutched, the elderly spinster withdrew from it 
 three small bottles. These she took out one by 
 one in silence. 
 
 "These are the proofs of my husband's vice," 
 cried Harriet, holding the bottles up to Hogg's in- 
 spection in triumph. 
 
 That gentleman gazed blankly, gasped and re- 
 lapsed into the ample arm chair which had been 
 his coign of vantage during this scene. Mrs. 
 Shelley handed the bottles back to her sister the 
 moment her demonstration had been made. The 
 black bag closed over the evidence of Shelley's 
 guilt with a snap. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley has neglected to support his wife 
 in the manner becoming her position as the bearer 
 of a great name," Harriet broke in now, having 
 consulted her written memorandum for the re- 
 freshment of her memory. "Neither I nor my 
 child have enough to eat or proper clothes to 
 wear " 
 
 ^ Pursued, like raging hounds, 
 
 1 \J 2* their father and their prey.
 
 A pardlikc Spirit beautiful and swift 
 A Love in desolation masked; a Power 
 
 163 
 
 "Harriet!" interrupted the incorrigible Hogg, 
 dodging a pellet from the fingers of Shelley with 
 such success that it struck Miss Westbrook in the 
 eye, "have you not been running to milliners and 
 dressmakers for the last month 1 ?" 
 
 "I am obliged to take refuge in my Pa's house 
 at Bath," went on Harriet, paying no more atten- 
 tion to Hogg's comments than he paid to her sis- 
 ter's. "I must have a roof over my head and 
 Mr. Shelley fails to provide me with that. I am 
 forced to return to my Pa." 
 
 "Don't!" implored Hogg in obvious distress. 
 
 "My dear Harriet," repeated the elder sister, 
 "remember your nerves !" 
 
 Hogg faced Eliza in his irritation. He opened 
 his mouth but shut it again without speaking. 
 
 The flow of words upon which the dainty Har- 
 riet had launched herself as if it were a sea had its 
 tide checked by the slamming of the front door 
 below. It was a loud and tremendous slam. It 
 heralded the arrival of an impatient and insistent 
 caller. For a brief instant the ears of Hogg were 
 cocked in alarm. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Hide!" 
 
 The word was spoken to Shelley. It was a 
 command. The poet darted to the trunk upon 
 which his books and retorts were piled in indis- 
 criminate confusion. In a trice he had lifted the 
 massive lid and dived below to the very depths of 
 the receptacle. The lid fell upon him. Hogg 
 seated himself upon the baggage. 
 
 "Are you Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley?" 
 
 The words were uttered in rough accents. A 
 long, lean fellow had thrust an unshorn head 
 through the door. Harriet shrank into the angle 
 of the door, cowering there in alarm. Her sister 
 stood as immovable as ever. 
 
 Hogg did not .look at the intruder. 
 
 "What if I am Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley*?" he 
 asked, with an air of defiance, folding his arms. 
 
 The answer was spoken in a smooth and oily 
 accent by a second bailiff, who now strode through 
 the door. This man was all courtesy. He fol- 
 lowed his associate into the room, at the confusion 
 of which he glanced with significant looks. 
 
 "We know very well that you are the de- 
 
 164 
 
 Girt round with weakness ; it can scarce uplift 
 The weight of the superincumbent hour;
 
 It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, T ^ C 
 
 A breaking billow; even whilst we speak * 
 
 fendant," he spoke up, with an ingratiating smile. 
 "It would be useless for you to deny it." 
 
 "In that event," answered Hogg, "I will not 
 try to deny it." 
 
 "Well, sir," said the long and lean one, rather 
 insolently, "we have an attachment." 
 
 He produced a writ and waved it with some 
 solemnity. 
 
 "The sooner you make ready to go with us," he 
 observed, "the sooner you can settle the bill for the 
 carriage and the harness." 
 
 "Is it a livery bill?" asked Hogg. 
 
 The oily one laughed. 
 
 "You'll find out all about it at his Worship's." 
 
 "I am ready to go with you," said the phil- 
 osophical Hogg, who had donned his hat and taken 
 up his great coat. "But I tell you this is a mis- 
 take." 
 
 The bailiffs laughed. 
 
 "That," said the oily one, "is what they all 
 say." 
 
 The little fellow laid a hand upon the arm of 
 Hogg. Together the three descended to the lower 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 landing. In another moment the front door had 
 slammed behind the trio. 
 
 The sound was simultaneous with the elevation 
 of the lid of the trunk in which the poet had lain 
 concealed. His head emerged with the precip- 
 itation of a missile flung from a catapult. He 
 faced his wife with hair like quills and a great 
 lump of wet bread in one hand. She burst into 
 the loudest laughter. 
 
 "I feel as if this occurrence had deprived me 
 of the breath of life," he began, "which now with 
 such eagerness I inhale." 
 
 Harriet shrieked in laughter. 
 
 "This is no place for us," broke in Miss Eliza 
 Westbrook, coming from her place of refuse at the 
 window and taking her sister by the arm. "We 
 must be off to Bath. The coach leaves in less than 
 an hour." 
 
 Shelley waved a distracted arm. 
 
 "Preserve your individuality," he called to his 
 wife, who was receding to the door as if under 
 arrest by her sister. "Reason for yourself! 
 Compare and discuss with me! I will do the 
 
 j? Is it not broken ? On the withering flower 
 A OO The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek
 
 The life can burn in blood, even while TOT 
 
 the heart may break. / 
 
 same with you. Are you not my second self, the 
 stronger shadow of that soul whose dictates I 
 have been accustomed to obey?" 
 
 The ladies were now on the threshold. As 
 they departed, Miss Westbrook bringing up the 
 rear, Shelley let fly the lump of bread. It 
 caught Miss Westbrook fairly in the small of the 
 back and bespattered her dress with its spreading 
 stains. 
 
 Elopement
 
 VIII 
 THE LOVES OF THE POET SHELLEY 
 
 ""W "W" T HEN Fanny was packed off to 
 %M/ Wales I thought we could deal 
 
 Y T with that mad Shelley !" 
 Mrs. Godwin stood in the Juvenile Library, 
 gazing out into Skinner Street through the win- 
 dows of that decaying establishment. A porter 
 was lazily swabbing the glass panes. Mary God- 
 win, with a copy of "A Vindication of the Rights 
 of Woman" under her arm, stood in her tartan 
 dress and smiled inscrutably. There was so 
 troubled an expression upon the countenance of the 
 stepmother that it actually heightened the look of 
 serenity and even of happiness upon the face of 
 the stepdaughter. Those who knew the secrets of 
 Godwin's life with his second spouse understood 
 perfectly that whenever the face of that lady 
 lighted beatifically the features of the pretty 
 
 S O His head was bound with pansies overblown, 
 I O O And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue;
 
 And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, 
 Round whose rude shaft dark ivy tresses grew 
 
 daughter of his first wife fell correspondingly. So 
 it was now. The name of Shelley was the present 
 provocation. 
 
 "No wonder they call him the mad Shelley," 
 resumed Mrs. Godwin, averting her green spec- 
 tacles from Skinner Street at last. "He has been 
 in love with poor Fanny. Of that I am sure. 
 She's gone. Now he has eyes for no one but 
 Claire. He's forgotten Fanny." 
 
 "Mr. Shelley is not happy in his home life." 
 
 This observation from Mary provoked Mrs. 
 Godwin afresh. She turned the green spectacles 
 upon Mary. 
 
 "You seem to know all about Mr. Shelley's 
 domestic misery," v/as her sharp retort. "Is that 
 why he spends his time with you*?" 
 
 Mary Godwin coloured. 
 
 "You just said he was mad after Claire." 
 
 "I said he was teaching her the Italian lan- 
 guage," snapped Mrs. Godwin. "But I see what 
 you mean. Your insane jealousy " 
 
 But Mary Godwin would not stay to hear more. 
 Her ears had been assailed too repeatedly on the 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 subject of Shelley. She did not choose to be lec- 
 tured by a stepmother whom she loathed. Mrs. 
 Godwin, on her side, did not care to be made a 
 target for the caustic remarks of one who regarded 
 her as an interloper. 
 
 The Skinner Street entrance of the Juvenile 
 Library was opened for the first time that morn- 
 ing. Mrs. Godwin, who had gone to the back of 
 the establishment to sort some newly arrived clas- 
 sics, advanced with eager interest. It had oc- 
 curred to her that at last the eager public was 
 arriving. There would ensue literary trans- 
 actions of an important nature. That was her 
 ambition. She intended that the Juvenile Library 
 should not only make her fortune but constitute 
 in a sense her monument, her memorial, with pos- 
 terity. The dream had not come true yet. The 
 fact did not daunt Mrs. Godwin. She never 
 heard the shop door open without feeling that the 
 great hour was at last about to strike. Thus she 
 felt now. 
 
 She hastened forward with an eager smile to 
 greet the pair of ladies who had just entered. 
 
 Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew, 
 I I O Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart
 
 Shook the weak hand that grasped it ; of that crew T T T 
 He came the last, neglected and apart; / 
 
 The visitors were no less important a pair than 
 Miss Eliza Westbrook and her little sister, Mrs. 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. The pretty wife of the 
 poet was very pale. Mrs. Godwin did not have 
 to look into the sweet face more than once to 
 divine some tragedy. The grim and swarthy vis- 
 age of Eliza was impenetrable, even forbidding. 
 She stood glaring about the rows of volumes on 
 the shelves of the Juvenile Library like a person 
 who associated sin and error with literature. In 
 truth, this state of mind was characteristic of Miss 
 Eliza Westbrook. Her experience of the literary 
 had not prejudiced her in their favour. She re- 
 garded poets and prose writers with peculiar ab- 
 horrence as a breed of men and women with scant 
 respect for the moralities and the conventions. 
 She had at first been open-minded on the subject 
 of poetry. Her intercourse with Shelley had led 
 her to infer that men of genius went in for atheism 
 and all that is subversive. A poet meant to Miss 
 Westbrook an individual with a tendency to 
 throw pellets of bread at people and a tendency to 
 speak lightly of sacred things. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "My dear child," broke out Mrs. Godwin as 
 soon as she could find a voice, "I understood that 
 you had gone to Bath to visit your Pa." 
 
 "She was goin', ma'am," put in Eliza, "but hin 
 consequence hof what 'as 'appened, she 'as post- 
 poned 'er visit." 
 
 Mrs. Godwin was not disposed to engage her- 
 self in any conversation with the formidable sister 
 of the sweet Mrs. Shelley. She turned from the 
 former to the latter like a child turning from a 
 medicine to a sweetmeat. 
 
 "We have come to see Mr. Godwin !" Harriet 
 said this in so still and small a voice that it lent 
 an additional touch of tragedy to her aspect. 
 
 "Mr. Godwin !" echoed his wife. "Of course, 
 you shall see Mr. Godwin, my dear, if you wish 
 it." 
 
 The fat lady in the green spectacles kissed 
 the little Harriet and besought her to enter a most 
 sacred place her own sitting room. Eliza fol- 
 lowed through the rear of the Juvenile Library 
 and on up the crazy stairs to a tiny room. This 
 had long been set apart for the greater privacy of 
 
 A herd-abandoned deer struck by 
 the hunter's dart.
 
 All stood aloof, and at his T fj *y 
 
 partial moan / J 
 
 Mrs. Godwin in moments of recuperation from 
 the ordeal of keeping house for a literary group. 
 It was a neat little room, with a portrait of Mrs. 
 Godwin's first husband on the wall over a giant 
 chimney piece. This portrait corresponded to 
 that of Mary Wollstonecraft on the wall of God- 
 win's own study. 
 
 "Just you wait here, my dear," besought Mrs. 
 Godwin, offering a seat to Harriet, she allowing 
 Eliza to dispose of herself as best she could upon 
 a hard sofa. "Mr. Godwin is in his study. I 
 will let him know you are here." 
 
 Mrs. Godwin did not immediately enter the 
 remote and sequestered region of her husband's 
 study. Instead, she fairly flew up the stairs de- 
 spite the weight of her fleshy limbs. She was 
 out of breath by the time she had reached the 
 tiny attic in which Fanny slept when at home. 
 The bare room was at this present time given 
 over to the use of Mary. That young lady was 
 now seated in a great arm chair devoting her 
 mind to a Shelley pamphlet upon the subject of 
 deism. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Mrs. Shelley is downstairs," said Mrs. God- 
 win abruptly. "She wants to see your father." 
 
 For a moment these two exchanged significant 
 looks. Dismay was upon both faces. 
 
 "Pa can't be disturbed," was all Mary thought 
 of saying. 
 
 "He must be disturbed," insisted Mrs. God- 
 win. "That poor little creature seems to have 
 broken her heart." 
 
 Mary shrugged her shoulders. Bending her 
 eyes once more upon the Shelley pamphlet, she 
 took no notice of her stepmother. This behaviour 
 infuriated Mrs. Godwin. Mary realized that and 
 was delighted in consequence. Mrs. Godwin had 
 meant to inflict upon Mary the duty of disturbing 
 her father in his study a thing she hated to do 
 herself. Few there were who dared even in that 
 disorganized and undisciplined family burst in 
 upon the great man in his moments of literary 
 creation. 
 
 "Will you tell your father Mrs. Shelley is 
 here?" 
 
 Mary shrugged her shoulders once more but 
 
 Smiled through their tears; well knew that 
 1/4 gentle band
 
 Who in another's fate now wept his own ; 
 As in the accents of an unknown land, 
 
 did not otherwise give any sign of heeding the 
 request. 
 
 "You bold minx!" was Mrs. Godwin's com- 
 ment. "You're the deep one!" 
 
 The spectacled lady returned to her own 
 sitting room without breaking in upon her 
 husband. 
 
 "My husband will be delighted to see you," 
 she said to Harriet, with her sweetest smile. 
 
 Mrs. Godwin led the way to her husband's 
 study and without more ado broke in upon the 
 meditations of the object of Shelley's idolatry. 
 
 The author of that gigantic epoch-making work, 
 "Political Justice," was seated as usual in front 
 of the old desk at which he spent so many hours of 
 each day. His pen was busy. His great bald 
 head was bent over a pile of papers. He could 
 hardly divine at first the nature of this invasion. 
 He gazed at the face of the sweet Harriet, who 
 went in first, then at the lean and yellow coun- 
 tenance of Eliza, who went next, and finally at 
 his wife's spectacles. He was so overwhelmed 
 at the audacity of the intrusion that he stared in 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 speechless amazement until Harriet had seated 
 herself in a small chair at his elbow. 
 
 "Mr. Godwin," she began, "my husband has 
 confessed to me that he loves your daughter 
 Mary." 
 
 Godwin laid aside his quill to gaze at the 
 tear-stained face of the little lady. Then he 
 looked blankly at Eliza, who was on the sofa op- 
 posite the portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft. 
 Mrs. Godwin had gone over to the window and 
 was gazing across Skinner Street. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley told me himself last night that 
 he had just fallen madly in love with Mary God- 
 win." 
 
 The eyes of the sweet faced Harriet filled with 
 tears. She looked as she spoke right into the eyes 
 of the cold Godwin. He turned from them when 
 the tears came. He seemed more moved than any 
 member of that household had seen him for a 
 long time. Mrs. Godwin returning from the win- 
 dow, opened her fat arms for the head of the woe- 
 begone Harriet. The little wife of Shelley made 
 no further effort to maintain a courage she had 
 
 176 
 
 He sung new sorrow; sad Urania 
 scanned
 
 The Stranger's mien, and murmured : T T T 
 
 "Who art thou?" / / 
 
 assumed. She relapsed into the arms of Mrs. 
 Godwin and sobbed aloud. 
 
 "We were so happy for the past few months," 
 she sobbed. "I thought our troubles were over 
 until he began to come here and to meet the young 
 ladies in Skinner Street." 
 
 "Were there not ahem! troubles before?" 
 
 In reply to this query from Godwin, Harriet 
 lifted her tear-stained face from the lap of the 
 obese lady. 
 
 "There had been trouble," she confessed. 
 "Mr. Shelley fell violently in love with Mrs. 
 Turner last November." 
 
 "Tut, tut, my dear," interposed Mrs. Godwin, 
 patting the head of the little wife and seating her 
 on a mass of volumes near one of the book cases. 
 "He's all over that, now, isn't he?" 
 
 The fat woman bestowed herself upon the floor 
 beside Harriet and drew the little wife's childish 
 face to her breast. 
 
 "He's all over that," sobbed Harriet. "But 
 this new trouble is serious." 
 
 "I thought it was Fanny to whom Mr. Shelley 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 had been imparting ideas." Godwin added the 
 last word after some little hesitation. 
 
 "He told me last night that he is infatuated 
 with Mary," rejoined Harriet, lifting her head 
 from the ample bosom of Godwin's second wife. 
 
 "Did he say infatuated*?" 
 
 "Not that he said love," agreed Harriet, in 
 reply to Godwin, who had put the query. 
 
 "I thought it was Claire," observed Mrs. God- 
 win, with a sigh of relief. "When Fanny left it 
 did seem to me that they were in love with one 
 another. She did more loving than Mr. Shelley 
 did." 
 
 Eliza waved an arm. It was her mode of ex- 
 pressing an extreme disgust. 
 
 "Hit's hall the poetry," she insisted. "Hi tell 
 'Arriet hover hand hover that hif Mr. Shelley 
 wants so much poetry, why does 'e get hit from 
 hother women*?" 
 
 Godwin glanced at the speaker. He was evi- 
 dently as much puzzled by the circumstance as 
 was the sister-in-law of the poet himself. The 
 query in one form or another had been much in 
 
 178 
 
 He answered not, but with a sudden hand 
 Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow,
 
 Which was like Cain's or Christ's oh, T T O 
 
 that it should be so! / X 
 
 his thoughts since his first knowledge of Shelley's 
 existence. 
 
 "Does Mrs. Shelley care for poetry?" he asked. 
 
 Godwin injected himself actively into the dis- 
 cussion. It had been his aim to stand aloof, to 
 play the serene and detached observer of crises. 
 He found now that he had a share in it. The 
 revelation concerning his daughter Mary was a 
 shock. He cleared his throat and relaxed suffi- 
 ciently from his usual coldness of manner to look 
 at Harriet with a smile a cold smile, like the 
 isolated moonbeam which on winter nights plays 
 about the icicles. 
 
 "Propinquity accounts for all that Mr. Shelley 
 has confessed," he said. "Propinquity." 
 
 "Propinquity !" 
 
 Harriet lifted her head from the bosom of Mrs. 
 Godwin to repeat that. The word was not new 
 to her. She had some vague idea that it meant 
 companionship, vicinity, perhaps meetings. Eliza 
 did not possess the remotest clue to the mysteri- 
 ous and awful word. She had an idea that it im- 
 plied a lack of mental balance in Shelley. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Propinquity," repeated Godwin, becoming 
 grave again. "Mr. Shelley has seen a good deal 
 of Mary in the last week or so. He thinks he 
 has fallen in love with her. Let him see less of 
 her and he will lose his fancy." 
 
 Harriet was visibly impressed by this line of 
 reasoning. She ceased to sob and looked up into 
 the countenance of the great philosopher. 
 
 180 
 
 What softer voice is hushed over the dead ? 
 Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?
 
 IX 
 
 THE INFATUATION OF JEFFERSON 
 HOGG 
 
 "^T T" OU don't think my husband's fancy 
 ^^ for Mary is a real one*?" 
 
 M There was a world of relief and 
 
 of hope in the tone of the little woman's voice. 
 She evidently regarded William Godwin as an 
 interpreter not of political justice only but of the 
 intimate sentiments of the soul and of the work- 
 ings of the heart. There was something like a 
 smile upon the thin lips of the great man as he 
 cleared his throat to say the next word. 
 
 "I shall write to Mr. Shelley," pursued God- 
 win. "In my letter I shall explain to him how 
 necessary it is that his visits here be less frequent." 
 
 "That," assented Mrs. Godwin, smiling at Har- 
 riet, genially, "is a good plan." 
 
 What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, Q 
 
 In mockery of monumental stone, 1 O 1
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "I don't know," Godwin proceeded, gravely, 
 "that he comes here very often." 
 
 "He comes," put in his wife, "too frequently." 
 
 "Not according to my diary," Godwin, looking 
 at the leaves of that volume, was saying, when his 
 wife burst into a loud and mocking laugh. 
 
 "You don't suppose Mr. Shelley sees you every 
 time he comes, Mr. Godwin," she cried. "There 
 are moments when you can't tell who's here and 
 who isn't. Mr. Shelley drops in and drops out 
 without saying a word to me or to you." 
 
 This intelligence confounded Godwin. He 
 stole a look at Harriet's clouded brow. 
 
 "We shall see, we shall see," was all he chose 
 to say. "I shall have a long talk with Mr. Shel- 
 ley and with Mary." 
 
 "I remember when Mrs. Turner was taken away 
 by her husband, Mr. Shelley forgot all about 
 her." 
 
 Harriet gazed into the eye of Godwin. Her 
 veneration for him although great had never ap- 
 proached the idolatry of Shelley. However, it 
 seemed to her now that he was a healer to her 
 
 O The heavy heart heaving without a moan ? 
 
 1 O 2 If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,
 
 Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the 
 departed one; 
 
 ,8 3 
 
 soul. He spoke the word of hope. Her eyes 
 danced. She averted her face to smile she was 
 so ashamed of her sudden happiness. 
 
 "I remember now," interjected Mrs. Godwin, 
 "how much attention Mr. Shelley paid Fanny. 
 He talked to her of republicanism, of the regenera- 
 tion of the world. He said he loved her." 
 
 "Tell Mr. Godwin what Mr. 'Ogg said to you, 
 'Arriet love," implored Eliza, looking over to 
 where her small sister was hiding her blushes in 
 Mrs. Godwin's bosom. 
 
 Harriet shook her little head. Not for worlds 
 would she go over that episode. 
 
 "Didn't 'e hask you for a kiss 1 ?" 
 
 Harriet nodded. 
 
 "When you refused didn't Mr. 'Ogg swear and 
 say by God 'e'd 'ave that kiss or die?" 
 
 "Please don't say anything more about it, 
 Eliza" implored Harriet. 
 
 "You spoke just now," said Godwin, "of a 
 previous entanglement er or let us say a pre- 
 vious fancy of Mr. Shelley's." 
 
 "It began by his reading Italian with Mrs. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Turner," confessed Harriet, her utterance being 
 choked by a great sob. 
 
 "That's hit," cried the stem Eliza, with a snap 
 of her gaunt jaw. "Hi halways says to 'Arriet 
 not to let 'im be readin' that poetry all day long 
 with people. Hif 'e's so fond of 'is poetry, let 
 'er read hit with 'im." 
 
 "You say it began when he read Italian to Mrs. 
 Turner*?" asked Mrs. Godwin. "Was he teach- 
 ing her the language?' 
 
 "Yes," replied Harriet. "In no long time they 
 had begun on Petrarch. Then Mr. Turner came 
 and stopped the readings. He took her away." 
 
 "Where is Mrs. Turner now 1 ?" asked Mrs. God- 
 win. 
 
 "In Scotland or in Devonshire, I think." 
 
 "Did you object to the readings with Mrs. 
 Turner?" 
 
 Eliza volunteered an answer. 
 
 "Hit would 'ave done no good." 
 
 Harriet seemed about to say a word for her- 
 self but one glance at the swarthy face of Eliza 
 settled the point. 
 
 184 
 
 Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs 
 The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice.
 
 Our Adonais has drunk poison Oh! j Q p* 
 
 What deaf and viperous murderer could crown ^ 
 
 "I shall go to Bath, Mr. Godwin," she said 
 sweetly. "My father is ill and I think my little 
 girl needs the change of air." 
 
 Godwin seemed about to proffer an additional 
 word but a look from his wife checked him. He 
 rose to his feet as Harriet, following her sister's 
 example, stood up. Eliza took her sister by the 
 arm very much as a bailiff might have taken a 
 person under arrest. The elder led the younger 
 from the room, Godwin going as far as the door 
 as if still bent upon offering some objection. His 
 wife intercepted him. The ladies filed out. The 
 philosopher was left alone with the portrait of 
 his first wife for company. He returned to his 
 desk to spend some minutes in a long study of the 
 face of his dead wife. 
 
 Never had Godwin looked older. The mouth 
 of the eminent philosopher a large, thin mouth 
 with hardness and coldness in every line twitched 
 nervously. He caught at the edge of the great 
 desk as if to steady himself. Slowly he removed 
 his eyes from the auburn hair of the head in the 
 painting. He looked about the room like a man 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 coming out of a dream and went with tottering 
 steps to the door. He opened it mechanically and 
 stood listening. 
 
 The voices of the three women floated up to 
 him from the Juvenile Library. Mrs. Godwin's 
 deep bass alternated with the sharp accents of 
 Miss Westbrook and the timid plaintive notes of 
 Mrs. Shelley's voice. He heard the door close. 
 The heavy footfalls of Mrs. Godwin next as- 
 sailed his ear as she returned to her sitting room. 
 
 ,"Mary!" called Godwin, in a choked and dry 
 tone. 
 
 He had to repeat the name, raising his voice 
 many times, before he elicited the slightest re- 
 sponse. At last a pair of light feet scurried from 
 the upper regions. A fresh young voice answered 
 "Pa!" The familiar tartan dress was fluttering 
 down. Godwin took the child of Mary Woll- 
 stonecraf t by the hand without a word. In silence 
 on her side she suffered herself to be led within 
 the study of her father, who closed the door. 
 
 _ O Life's early cup with such a draught of woe? 
 I O O The nameless worm would DOW itself disown:
 
 THE DEEP ONE 
 
 TO Godwin's blank amazement, he had 
 not himself to introduce the delicate 
 theme. He had resolved to have a 
 settlement with his daughter. He did not know 
 how to go about it. Mary broke the ice herself. 
 
 "Mrs. Shelley has been here to say her hus- 
 band has fallen in love with me." 
 
 Having thrown this little bomb, Mary stopped 
 short. 
 
 Godwin's mouth had framed the first word of 
 a sentence. He had designed it as a delicate ap- 
 proach to the subject. Mary's tactics disarmed 
 him. She had seized the initiative. He stared. 
 
 "I am right, am I not, Pa 9" 
 
 She looked at him innocently out of her dark 
 grey eyes. They were unfathomable. 
 
 If felt, yet could escape, the magic tone Q 
 
 Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong, 1 O J
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Yes that is true." 
 
 He was forced to speak tersely. The speech 
 he had rehearsed was useless. He had expected 
 Mary to be tongue-tied. He was that himself in- 
 stead. 
 
 "I knew Mr. Shelley would say he loved me. 
 It is what he tells all women when he is ready." 
 
 Mary gazed archly at her father. The sugges- 
 tion of a smile played about the thin and wide 
 lips she had inherited from him. 
 
 "And has he told you?" 
 
 Godwin had to speak in a hesitating and dry 
 tone of voice. The words came with difficulty. 
 He seemed so much embarrassed and his child 
 seemed so much at ease ! But love was the theme. 
 She knew all about the subject by instinct. To 
 him it was a riddle. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley can not open his lips without 
 telling me in some form or other how he loves 
 me." 
 
 She burst into a ringing laugh as she finished her 
 sentence. Godwin marvelled. How easily she 
 bore the strain of a subject that baffled him com- 
 
 T O O But what was howling in one breast alone, 
 1 O O Silent with expectation of the song,
 
 Whose master's hand is cold, 
 whose silver lyre unstrung. 
 
 pletely! He wondered what to say next. She 
 anticipated. 
 
 "I am glad Mrs. Shelley has been here to dis- 
 cuss this matter, Pa. I knew you would have to 
 be told. I didn't like to trouble you. There 
 are so many more important things to concern 
 you." 
 
 "It concerns me, my child, that Mr. Shelley 
 makes love to you." 
 
 "Mr. Shelley is talking only his poetry. He is 
 a poet and a genius. I let him run on. It saves 
 Claire." 
 
 "Ah ! I understood he was addressing Claire." 
 
 "She takes him seriously, poor child." 
 
 "Don't you?" 
 
 "I told you just now he is a poet." 
 
 "Does that matter*?" 
 
 "He forgets me when his back is turned." 
 
 Godwin hesitated to say the next word. At 
 last he opened his lips. 
 
 "I must forbid him the house." 
 
 "By all means !" assented Mary. "I may have 
 listened to him with more patience than I should. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 I knew he was helping you with your financial 
 affairs." 
 
 Godwin grew livid. 
 
 "He can not make love to you because he is 
 lending me money." 
 
 Mary rushed upon her father. She threw her 
 arms around his neck. 
 
 "It is natural for me to be grateful to him when 
 he is saving you from a prison cell." 
 
 She whispered those words with her mouth close 
 to his ear. 
 
 Prison! The thought haunted Godwin night 
 and day. He knew how narrowly he had escaped 
 in the recent past. There had been nights when 
 he had not once closed an eye in sleep through 
 dread of the disgrace which threatened to close his 
 career at any moment. He had kept the worst 
 from his family. He had summoned his calm 
 fortitude to his aid. There had been no conceal- 
 ment from Shelley. That generous youth had 
 saddled the whole financial burden. In his grati- 
 tude to Shelley, Godwin had unbosomed himself 
 completely. He understood from what Mary 
 
 Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 
 J. O O Live fear no heavier chastisement from me,
 
 Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! TOT 
 
 But be thyself, and know thyself to be! V 
 
 now said that she had been in Shelley's confidence. 
 How much she knew and how much of that knowl- 
 edge had been gleaned from Shelley he could not 
 tell and he dared not ask. He was eager to ques- 
 tion the child of his heart but a certain sense of 
 dignity and a fatherly pride held his tongue. 
 Mary was the next to speak : 
 
 "Mr. Shelley tells me that when he is crossed 
 in love he takes laudanum. He said that when 
 last a young lady refused to listen to his love for 
 her he tried to poison himself." 
 
 Mary spoke with so much amusement in her 
 tone and in the look on her face that Godwin 
 could but sigh. 
 
 "I'm afraid he's losing his reason," was the 
 philosopher's melancholy comment. 
 
 "He's not, Pa! He says these things as nat- 
 urally as I take a cup of tea." 
 
 "He must not be allowed to come here. He 
 will create a scandal." 
 
 "Not if we humour him, Pa. I am afraid he 
 will forget to aid you as readily as he forgets me 
 or Claire." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 That hint was a trifle too much for Godwin's 
 nerves. His daughter had shot her arrow true. 
 She had another to send in the same direction. 
 
 "I'm sure Mr. Shelley will keep his pledge to 
 you about that money if we remind him." 
 
 "You don't mean that he will forgo his word?" 
 
 Mary was a specimen of the type of human 
 female to whom the members of her own sex ap- 
 ply the name of "cat." She could make cut- 
 ting remarks in the sweetest manner. They 
 ruffled the susceptibilities cruelly. This was her 
 special accomplishment. Her jealousy of dispo- 
 sition was so notorious that it diverted attention 
 from the fury of her temper. Luckily for her- 
 self, Mary had great self-control. She seldom 
 permitted this fury of temper to become a matter 
 of common observation. Godwin feared it. He 
 understood how determined his daughter was, how 
 dangerous it must be to cross or to thwart her. 
 He dealt with her always very cautiously. He 
 had not been prepared, however, for the sudden- 
 ness and completeness with which she turned the 
 tables upon him. It was expedient that he retire 
 
 And ever at thy season be thou free 
 L \J 2* To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow:
 
 Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee ; T O ^ 
 
 Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, s J 
 
 from the discussion regarding Shelley with what 
 little dignity his child's references to his pecuniary 
 embarrassments left him. He had been relieved 
 at first by her ready assent to the idea of forbid- 
 ding Shelley to come to Skinner Street, but now 
 he perceived that her assent was but a pretence. 
 
 "Can I see my father marched off to a prison 
 when I know a friend stands ready to aid him?" 
 
 Godwin winced. 
 
 "Perhaps I do not need Shelley's aid as much as 
 all that." 
 
 Mary clasped her hands in an attitude of sup- 
 plication. 
 
 "Dearest Pa," she cried, "do not break my 
 heart. Do not let your pride stand in the way 
 of accepting the aid of Mr. Shelley." 
 
 "My creditors can wait." 
 
 "They will not. Mr. Hookham was here again 
 the other day." 
 
 "Hookham!" cried Godwin. "My best 
 friend!" 
 
 "He says the people who have your notes will 
 press him. They are holding off only because 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 they see how eager Mr. Shelley is to aid you. If 
 Mr. Shelley ceases his visits, there will be a proc- 
 ess at law." 
 
 "That is the subject of your conversations with 
 Mr. Shelley?" 
 
 "He talks of love, to be sure. You will tell 
 him to stop that." 
 
 Mary smiled at her last words. 
 
 Knowledge that his Mary had ceased to be a 
 child flashed upon the consciousness of Godwin 
 with the suddenness of the white light that blinded 
 Saul of Tarsus. The author of "Political Jus- 
 tice" realized that the discussion in which he had 
 involved himself was too profound for a mere 
 intellect to grasp. He was opening a page in 
 the great book of woman. He found its lessons 
 set down in an unknown tongue. Little had he 
 dreamed when he summoned his daughter into 
 his awful presence that he would be taught, not 
 she. Godwin was making the discovery which in 
 time comes so painfully to all men, the discovery 
 that woman is the supreme mystery. He floun- 
 dered. He told himself that he was standing 
 
 And like a beaten hound tremble 
 I Q4 thou shalt as now.
 
 Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 
 
 Far from these carrion kites that scream below ; 
 
 upon a quicksand. He was sinking deeper and 
 deeper. In the next breath he denied the truth 
 to himself. He stared into the pretty face op- 
 posite his. He was baffled afresh by what he 
 failed to read there. Mary was calm, cool, self- 
 contained and perfectly poised. Godwin was em- 
 barrassed, uneasy, vaguely conscious that to this 
 child he looked a fool. 
 
 "Then," he stammered, "you're not in love with 
 Mr. Shelley?' 
 
 "Love Shelley? I?" 
 
 Mary lifted her apron with one hand and threw 
 it over her face. Then she burst into a peal of 
 laughter so ringing that her father's jaw relaxed 
 into a wan smile. 
 
 "When first he told me of his love, Pa, what 
 do you suppose led him to it? He began to wrig- 
 gle all over the floor." 
 
 Mary threw herself upon the carpet and began 
 to squirm hither and thither at her father's feet. 
 She waved her arms and kicked her young limbs 
 about. Then she stood up with flushed cheeks 
 and hair tumbled. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "That is how he began his tale of love," said 
 she. 
 
 Godwin steadied himself by holding to his desk. 
 His sense of humour was rudimentary. 
 
 "You bade him get up off the floor, my 
 child." 
 
 "No, Pa. He would have refused. He said 
 he had elephantiasis." 
 
 Godwin gazed at Mary in fresh amazement. 
 
 "Elephantiasis!" he cried. "I never heard of 
 that." 
 
 "Neither had I, Pa. Mr. Shelley told me of 
 his love. I did not take him seriously. He be- 
 gan wriggling. He says this elephantiasis makes 
 the legs swell until they are as thick as trees." 
 
 Godwin listened in speechless surprise. 
 
 "He's always looking at his own skin," pursued 
 Mary. "On this particular evening, he began to 
 feel the skin of my arm. He said it looked rough, 
 as if I had the elephantiasis. He was tremend- 
 ously frightened for he said it was catching." 
 
 The face of Godwin had taken on such an ex- 
 pression of panic by the time Mary had concluded 
 
 196 
 
 He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead; 
 Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now.-
 
 Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow T 
 Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
 
 her last words, that she felt impelled to reassure 
 him with another laugh. 
 
 "Don't be afraid, Pa," she said. "Mr. Shelley 
 is not mad. I cured him of his delusion." 
 
 "Did you send him to a doctor*?" 
 
 "I told him the disease was never heard of out- 
 side of Egypt. One could not catch it unless one 
 lived on the Nile." 
 
 Godwin smiled wanly. The mind of the 
 philosopher reverted to what he had once written 
 his friend Baxter concerning the young lady in 
 his embrace. Godwin had always been eager that 
 this child of his by Mary Wollstonecraft be 
 brought up like a philosopher, even like a cynic. 
 Thus he put it in one of his letters to his friend. 
 That would add immeasurably to the strength 
 and worth of her character. Mary Godwin, so 
 far as her father could see, had no love of dissipa- 
 tion. She seemed perfectly satisfied with the 
 mountains and the woods surrounding her when 
 she went upon her long visits to the family of 
 Mr. Baxter. Much of her girlhood had been 
 passed in the Baxter circle. Mr. Baxter imbibed 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 the Godwin philosophy years before. He had 
 been expelled from a religious body to which he 
 once adhered as a result of this faith in what God- 
 win taught. Baxter had been urged by Godwin 
 to excite Mary to industry. She had occasionally 
 great perseverance, but she needed greatly to be 
 "roused." Godwin now asked himself if Mary 
 had not been unduly "roused" by the mad Shel- 
 ley. 
 
 "He says he has been obliged by an accession 
 of nervous attacks," conceded the philosopher, "to 
 take a quantity of laudanum. He says he did it 
 very reluctantly." 
 
 "He has said to me," chimed in Mary, "that 
 he hopes to be compelled to have recourse to lauda- 
 num no more." 
 
 Godwin saw a chance now to let fly an arrow. 
 
 "He spends much time in reading your mother's 
 books with you, I hear." 
 
 "Mr. Shelley is a great enthusiast regarding my 
 mother," said Mary, with a flush in her cheek. 
 "He asked to see my own copy of my mother's 
 vindication of the rights of woman." 
 
 A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 
 Though time and change, unquenchably the same,
 
 Whilst thy cold embers choke the TOO 
 
 sordid hearth of shame. X X 
 
 She was disconcerted. Godwin detected the 
 fact beneath her assumption of composure. 
 
 "Is he not teaching you Greek?" 
 
 "I told him I wanted to learn it." 
 
 Godwin wished to follow up this line of attack. 
 He had noted that whenever he pressed Mary very 
 far on the subject of Shelley she took refuge in 
 the subject of the pecuniary embarrassments. 
 That annoyed him. Yet what was he to do? 
 Moreover, he feared that his child was threaten- 
 ing him. She could keep Shelley from raising 
 the imperative three thousand pounds. 
 
 "Certain scandalous reports have been hi cir- 
 culation regarding Mr. Shelley and a er Miss 
 Kitchener," observed Godwin. 
 
 Mary flushed. 
 
 "You never believed them, Pa?" 
 
 "No. I merely call your attention to the dis- 
 advantages to Miss Kitchener's reputation from 
 her association with our young friend." 
 
 Mary was not at all disposed to see any hint in 
 this observation, apparently, for she abruptly 
 turned the subject. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "Mr. Shelley tells me the rent of this house 
 has not been paid for some years," she observed. 
 "Is he not raising the money for us?" 
 
 Godwin's jaw relaxed. This was another of 
 his nightmares. 
 
 "I have been here rent free for a long time," 
 he confessed, turning paler than ever Mary had 
 seen him in her life. "A demand has been made 
 upon me unexpectedly for the rent of several years 
 accumulated." 
 
 "I had some talk with Mr. Shelley regarding 
 that," she said, pensively. "I think it very noble 
 of him to secure that large sum." 
 
 "Ah! He said he would secure it?" 
 
 Mary nodded. 
 
 "I understand, Pa, that a promissory note of 
 yours for three hundred pounds is in the hands of 
 a stranger a person from whom you can expect 
 no mercy." 
 
 Godwin was pacing the floor, which groaned 
 under his tread as if in sympathy with the woes 
 which rent his soul. 
 
 "It seems," he remarked at last, "that Mr. 
 
 Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep 
 2* \J O He hath awakened from the dream of life 

 
 "Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep 2. O I 
 
 With phantoms an unprofitable strife, 
 
 Shelley confides to you all he learns about me." 
 
 Mary stopped her father in his walk and placed 
 a hand upon his chin. 
 
 "Pa," she began, kissing him on the brow and 
 fondling his chin with her pretty little hand, 
 "how can I remain in ignorance of what so con- 
 cerns you*? It robs me of sleep. You tell me 
 nothing. Shelley is told all. I try to find out 
 from him what you refuse to tell me." 
 
 "You could not understand these things, my 
 child." 
 
 "I understand them as well as Shelley. He 
 has agreed to help you through." 
 
 "He said so positively?" 
 
 "I asked him." 
 
 There was a long silence. The father and the 
 daughter exchanged profound glances. 
 
 "The mind of Mr. Shelley is restless," said 
 Mary. "He means to help you. He will do all 
 he says. But he forgets things. I have had to 
 remind him often of your troubles here." 
 
 "I believe your " 
 
 Godwin wished to use the word "Mother." He 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 hesitated because he understood Mary's disgust 
 at the application of the name to the second Mrs. 
 Godwin. 
 
 "I detest Mrs. Godwin !" cried Mary, divining 
 her father's mind. "She is the source of all our 
 embarrassments." 
 
 "My child," interrupted the philosopher 
 mildly, "you are singularly bold, somewhat im- 
 perious and active in mind -" 
 
 "I am like my mother." 
 
 "Your desire for knowledge is great," he pro- 
 ceeded, like one saying a piece he had got by 
 heart. "Your perseverance in everything you un- 
 dertake is almost invincible." 
 
 "I mean to make this Mr. Shelley keep his 
 word with you, Pa." 
 
 Mary thoroughly appreciated the extent to 
 which she held her father in her power. She 
 wanted him to realize the source of that power. 
 She had no intention of humiliating him more 
 than was necessary. She had resolved, however, 
 that in no circumstances should Godwin decide 
 for her the extent to which she associated with 
 
 And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife 
 2* W 2* Invulnerable nothings. We decay.
 
 Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief ^ O O 
 
 Convulse us and consume us day by day, J 
 
 Shelley. She was a woman now. That fact was 
 no less apparent to herself than it had become to 
 Godwin. She shrank from any open confession 
 of the state of her mind and heart to the cold 
 and philosophical Godwin. Nevertheless, she 
 would make her father feel the pressure of her 
 own will. Godwin on his side did not wish to 
 come to grips with the child who before his eyes 
 had transformed herself from a babe into a 
 woman. He well knew the indomitable char- 
 acter of her will, the firmness with which she fol- 
 lowed a course of action upon which was resolved. 
 He looked at her out of his narrow eyes and won- 
 dered what she had planned. It vexed him to 
 find himself wound around this child's finger. He 
 realized all at once how helpless he was. He 
 suspected that the smile on Mary's face was one 
 of triumph. 
 
 Elopement
 
 XI 
 RECRIMINATION 
 
 GODWIN gave his daughter a kiss. It 
 resembled nothing so much as the cold 
 peck of the bill of a bird. It was a 
 sign that the interview was at an end. Mary left 
 her father's presence, a thrill of triumph exhilarat- 
 ing her pretty little frame. She turned cold at 
 sight of her step-sister Claire on the stairs. 
 
 "Home at last!" cried the deep one. "I am 
 so glad!" 
 
 "You're not glad!" snapped the dark-eyed girl. 
 "Don't try your arts on me, miss." 
 
 The blonde and the brunette exchanged a look 
 of profound antipathy. There was little lost be- 
 tween them in the shape of love. Just now their 
 mutual antagonism was at a white heat. 
 
 "Come upstairs with me!" commanded Claire. 
 
 Claire's tiny little room reflected in every de- 
 
 And cold hopes swarm like worms 
 2* O ^4. within our living clay.
 
 He has outsoared the shadow of our night; 2, O C 
 
 Envy and calumny and hate and pain, ^ 
 
 tail of its furniture and arrangement the roman- 
 tic moods in which she revelled. There was an 
 immense portrait of the actor Kemble against the 
 wall facing any one who entered. Above the 
 picture, Claire's own fingers had woven a garland 
 of artificial flowers. The effigy of Mrs. Siddons 
 looked down from the mantelpiece. There were 
 handbills from the playhouses, all neatly framed 
 and stuck about conspicuously. In a corner were 
 hung upon a series of pegs the several costumes 
 of parts in which this young lady was ambitious 
 to appear before the public. Upon the floor lay 
 boots and buskins of many colours. Gorgeous 
 silk stockings had been suspended upon a line of 
 rope stretched from the window to the edge of 
 Claire's bed. Copies of acting editions of plays 
 were everywhere. Claire had infinite faith in her 
 own gifts. These she exploited in recitations 
 within the family circle. The kitchen had rung 
 more than once with her shrieks as Ophelia. She 
 had stalked through the Juvenile Library as Lady 
 Macbeth. She was still, however, without any 
 public engagement. 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Mary's impulse to disobey the command she 
 had just received was checked by the expression 
 on Claire's dark brow. There was trouble brew- 
 ing between this pair of temperamental young 
 ladies, as Mrs. Godwin would have divined had 
 she beheld them just then. That obese woman 
 was for the moment immersed in the embarrassed 
 accounts of her Juvenile Library. She might 
 else have taken a deep personal interest in this 
 meeting of the pair. In silence Mary followed 
 Claire. 
 
 They wended their way to the snug little room 
 on the second floor. It served the radiant Miss 
 Clairmont as a sleeping apartment only when she 
 spent her nights at home. 
 
 "I've got something," began Claire. She ex- 
 hibited a morsel of paper. "It's addressed to 
 you." 
 
 She waved the missive in Mary's face, anticipat- 
 ing an effort of that young lady to seize it by 
 withdrawing it suddenly behind her back. 
 
 "No, no," cried Claire. "It's from that mad 
 Shelley." 
 
 X And that unrest which men miscall delight, 
 2 O O Can touch him not and torture not again ;
 
 From the contagion of the world's slow stain 2, O 7 
 He is secure, and now can never mourn / 
 
 "It's mine !" cried Mary. She made a fresh ef- 
 fort to take possession of the letter. 
 
 "You have been bribing the porter downstairs," 
 went on Claire. "What if I showed this to 
 Pa?" 
 
 The look of fury that shot from the eyes of 
 Mary into the eyes of Claire while they tried 
 conclusions in the light of the afternoon sun 
 streaming through the window did not lead either 
 into an excess of speech. These two young and 
 pretty ladies understood one another perfectly. 
 Mary knew so much about Claire! Claire felt 
 quite frightened at the thought of that. Claire to 
 be sure comprehended many of Mary's manoeuvres 
 too well. The result had been an armed truce 
 between them. Together, they swayed the for- 
 tunes of Godwin's household more completely 
 than he ever suspected. When at odds, Mary and 
 Claire had Skinner Street in an uproar. When 
 they were friends Mary called her step-sister 
 "Claire." If a quarrel arose between them, Mary 
 used the name of "Jane" instead. 
 
 Claire hated to be called Jane. It was not 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 appropriate to that career upcn the stage to which 
 she looked forward. 
 
 The threat to give Shelley's letter to Godwin 
 reduced Mary to terms on the spot. 
 
 "You wouldn't do that, Claire," she said with 
 an affectation of composure. 
 
 "You mean that if I tell of your goings on, 
 you'll tell about my staying out late," remarked 
 Claire, with perfect coolness. "Very good ! But 
 you don't get this letter in a hurry." 
 
 "I'll have an explanation from Dan," said 
 Mary. "I don't see why he gave you a letter 
 meant for me." 
 
 "When you paid him to let you have it without 
 telling any one," laughed Claire. "I want that 
 gold brooch you've promised me this last half 
 year." 
 
 "You shall have it," said Mary. "Give me 
 the letter." 
 
 Claire searched the countenance of her step- 
 sister with a suspicious gaze. Satisfied with what 
 she saw there, she placed the missive in Mary's 
 hand. That young lady put the communication 
 
 O A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain ; 
 <* >J O Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn,
 
 With sparkless ashes load an 'i O O 
 
 unlamcnted urn. ^/ 
 
 into the bosom of her dress without reading it. 
 
 "An assignation with Mr. Shelley," observed 
 Claire. "Upon my word, you carry things here 
 with a high hand." 
 
 Mary had heard this form of attack before but 
 she had her own weapon. 
 
 Claire had been absenting herself by stealth 
 from her maiden bed of late with such frequency 
 that she dreaded discovery. This was the sword 
 of Damocles suspended by the smiling Mary over 
 the head of her stepsister. Claire had fallen in 
 with a theatrical manager who, from her own 
 account, had boundless influence over Lord Byron. 
 To meet this star of the literary firmament was 
 now the aim of Claire's whole existence. She 
 talked of him very much as a follower of Peter 
 the Hermit might have talked of the holy sepul- 
 chre. Claire had not yet gratified her ambition 
 to meet the author of "Childe Harold" face to 
 face. She had followed his personal chagrins in 
 the prints, so far as the papers concerned them- 
 selves with the vicissitudes of the noble lord. She 
 devoured his poetry. Mary had assisted her ally 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 in the household by framing epistles to the au- 
 thorities at Drury Lane, for Claire was not al- 
 ways coherent in her letters, although she could 
 tell a story on paper in a very romantic manner. 
 The fear of discovery by her mother was the one 
 obstacle to her ambition which this girl acknowl- 
 edged. 
 
 "It's no assignation he proposes," cried 
 Mary. 
 
 "You'll say next you didn't interfere between 
 Mr. Shelley and Fanny!" Claire exclaimed. 
 "Poor Fanny! She loves the mad Shelley and 
 he loved her." 
 
 "Why doesn't he take her? She can be had 
 for the asking." 
 
 "You didn't give her a chance," Claire fairly 
 screamed. "The moment you got back from Scot- 
 land and saw how things were going you packed 
 her off to Wales." 
 
 Mary looked at the door with the air of a per- 
 son who wishes to lose no time. Claire had some- 
 thing else on her mind. 
 
 He lives, he wakes 'tis Death is dead, not he; 
 2r I O Mourn not for Adonais. Thou young Dawn,
 
 Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee 2, I I 
 
 The spirit thou lamentest is not gone; 
 
 "You think you can force Pa to tolerate your 
 goings on," she said, "because he's so much in 
 need of Mr. Shelley's money " 
 
 "You may need it yourself," said Mary 
 quietly, "if you are to keep a roof over your head." 
 
 Claire bent a keen look of her black eyes upon 
 the pair of grey ones that met her own. 
 
 "I don't believe you," she said. "You make 
 matters worse in order to have an excuse." 
 
 "The rent of this place has been unpaid for 
 three years," was all Mary found it necessary to 
 say. 
 
 Intellectually, Mary was infinitely the superior 
 of Claire. The latter invariably lost in any con- 
 test of wits with the daughter of Mary Woll- 
 stonecraft. Claire took refuge in ridicule of 
 everything to which she applied the term of 
 "mind." Mary read the philosophers, the poets 
 and even the scientists. These worthies bored 
 Claire to death. Mary was grave in all her de- 
 portment. Claire was for ever singing like a 
 bird or bounding in and out like a gazelle. Claire 
 had not the self-control of the other. She could 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 not manage her temper. She had no system. 
 She was disorderly in her habits. But she lacked 
 the secretiveness of Mary. Mary lacked the gen- 
 erosity of Claire. Mary was jealous. Mary was 
 revengeful. Claire forgave her worst enemy 
 within an hour after vowing awful revenge. 
 Mary professed the loftiest sentiments while de- 
 termining to make her foe rue the day. Mary 
 planned and Claire executed. When Claire 
 wanted to outwit her mother's watchful eye she 
 always went to Mary for advice. Mary, to use 
 the favourite phrase of Mrs. Godwin, was the 
 deep one. Claire, truth to tell, was somewhat 
 shallow. She now lost all self-command. 
 
 "You can have him for all I care!" hissed 
 Claire, the glow in her dusky cheek becoming 
 crimson. "That is," she added, with a scornful 
 laugh, "if you can get him." 
 
 Mary relaxed into her inscrutable smile. 
 
 "Perhaps I have him already," she observed 
 with unruffled composure." 
 
 "Don't be too sure." 
 
 "Perhaps I don't want him." 
 
 Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan! 
 2, I 2, Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air
 
 Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown /j y *y 
 O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare J 
 
 Claire broke into a ringing laugh. She lifted 
 her dark eyes to the stained ceiling. 
 
 "Perhaps you don't want him!" she mocked, 
 imitating Mary's quietness of tone with a his- 
 trionic fidelity which revealed that she had not 
 mistaken her vocation in going to Drury Lane. 
 
 "Perhaps you don't want him! And perhaps 
 you do!" 
 
 She raised her voice at the last words in a 
 peculiarly irritating manner. But Mary was not 
 to be aggravated out of her self-control. 
 
 "Mr. Shelley seems fond of my conversa- 
 tion." 
 
 "Mr. Shelley seemed fond of my conversation," 
 snapped Claire. "But you took him from me." 
 
 "I didn't interfere between him and you." 
 
 Claire opened her bright black eyes. She had 
 forgotten an important factor in the bargain she 
 was driving, however. She suddenly reverted to 
 it. 
 
 "Will you let me have the pink satin slippers 
 Isobel Baxter gave you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Mary's consent to the bargain was so ready 
 that Claire went further. 
 
 "I want that silk dress with the furbelows." 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 Mary spoke vehemently. She looked very well 
 in that dress. 
 
 "I want it," said Claire. 
 
 Mary's eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "Really, Claire, you might have some considera- 
 tion for my feelings. I wanted to wear it " she 
 hesitated. 
 
 "You wanted to wear it at your mother's 
 grave," sneered Claire. "I understand." 
 
 "You can have five pounds," said Mary. 
 
 "Where will you get it?' 
 
 Mary pulled a bank note from the bosom of 
 her tartan dress. 
 
 "Shelley gave you that," remarked Claire, after 
 a critical examination of the paper. "I under- 
 stand perfectly. Good ! I will take the money. 
 Keep the dress." 
 
 Godwin's detachment from his family circle 
 
 Even to the joyous stars which smile 
 2 I _1 on its despair!
 
 He is made one with Nature: there is heard /j j p 
 
 His voice in all her music, from the moan 
 
 made it easy for Claire to live pretty much the 
 life she pleased. The histrionic ambitions of her 
 daughter were not entirely approved by the sec- 
 ond Mrs. Godwin. She had striven to foil them. 
 In every instance her efforts had been thwarted by 
 Mary. The child of Godwin by Mary Woll- 
 stonecraft was animated less by a desire to pro- 
 mote her step-sister's ambitions than by hatred of 
 the lady who had taken her dead mother's place. 
 The clandestine visits of Claire to Drury Lane by 
 night could be effected only with the co-operation 
 of Mary. Time and again had the stage-struck 
 miss taken flight from her little bed without the 
 knowledge of her own mother. Mrs. Godwin 
 suspected the tacit conspiracy of this pair against 
 her own maternal authority. She was perpetually 
 on the watch to entrap the conspirators. She was 
 often thwarted by the cleverness of Mary. Claire 
 had on one occasion slid down a rope improvised 
 out of Mary's skirts only to drop into the fat 
 arms of her bespectacled mother and taken back 
 summarily to bed. 
 
 Mary, having bought Claire with a five pound 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 note, assumed an impenetrable aspect of counten- 
 ance. 
 
 "The wife of a man like Shelley," she remarked, 
 "should understand poetry and philosophy. His 
 present wife " 
 
 "Pshaw!" cried Claire, with a laugh of vexa- 
 tion. "Don't try that glibness with me. I 
 know what you mean. I see through your 
 tricks." 
 
 Mary's face remained impassive. 
 
 "You are bent upon enraging me, Claire." 
 
 "You are bent upon infuriating me !" shrieked 
 Claire. "The idea of your making such pretences 
 with me. I know you too well. You are bent 
 upon having Shelley." 
 
 "I can not prevent his seeking me out." 
 
 "Seeking you out! What does your pretence 
 mean regarding your mother's grave. Does Shel- 
 ley take you there*?" 
 
 Mary was for the first time disposed to lose her 
 temper. 
 
 "My mother's grave has nothing to do with 
 you." 
 
 ^ T /^ Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird ; 
 2t L \J He is a presence to be felt and known
 
 In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, s\ j rj 
 
 Spreading itself where'er that Power may move / 
 
 "You took Shelley there the other day. I know 
 what for. You never thought of your mother's 
 grave last year when poor Fanny spent all her 
 time in keeping it green. When you found that 
 Shelley met Fanny there you showed a sudden in- 
 terest in the dead." 
 
 The dusky girl had advanced a step nearer to 
 hiss the words. Mary saw that she had best not 
 pursue the conversation along these lines. She 
 was a mistress of the art of cajolery. 
 
 "I am sure you need not talk so cruelly," Mary 
 began, taking out a handkerchief. "If I do care 
 for Mr. Shelley's society, does he not care for 
 mine'?" 
 
 "Don't be mad," objected Claire. "What can 
 you gain from Shelley? He has a wife." 
 
 "She does not love him." 
 
 "Will it do you any good to compromise your- 
 self with him? What if he desert you and re- 
 turn to her?" 
 
 "He will never do that." 
 
 "Then he has told you so?" 
 
 Mary saw that she had revealed her heart 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 too much. There was no chance now for retreat. 
 She pushed boldly ahead. 
 
 "I go with my mother," she said proudly. 
 "My mother's whole life was a protest against the 
 conventions." 
 
 "Don't be silly, Mary. If he lives with you for 
 a time, don't you see that his people will in the 
 end make him give you up? They will recognize 
 his child by Harriet. What would become of 
 yours?" 
 
 This frankness of speech was too much for 
 Mary. She stood facing Claire in silence. 
 
 "I am sure Shelley would never desert the 
 woman to whom he was pledged." 
 
 "He pledges himself too lightly. You have 
 heard of his loves. First it is Miss Kitchener. 
 Then it is Mrs. Turner. Then it is the mysteri- 
 ous lady he meets by chance." 
 
 "Then it is you," added Mary. 
 
 "Then it is Fanny," corrected Claire. 
 
 Mary, having become possessed of Shelley's let- 
 ter, was too eager to master its contents to feel 
 interested in Claire's state of mind. She darted 
 
 Q Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 
 2 I O Which wields the world with never wearied love,
 
 Sustains it from beneath, 
 and kindles it above. 
 
 from the room while her stepsister was preparing 
 for another outburst and fled up to the attic. 
 There she devoured the words of the poet. His 
 letter was an entreaty to meet him that day week 
 at St. Pancras churchyard where her mother was 
 buried. 
 
 Elopement
 
 XII 
 A PARD-LIKE SPIRIT 
 
 AS Mary Godwin left the door of the 
 Juvenile Library and wended her way 
 along Skinner Street to keep her tryst 
 with Shelley at the grave of her mother, she be- 
 thought herself of the circumstance that the poet 
 dwelt hard by. He had taken a room in a little 
 house on Hatton Garden. His wife was now at 
 Bath with her father. The object of this tem- 
 porary change of the poet's place of abode was, 
 as Shelley assured his guide, philosopher and 
 friend Mary's father that he might be near 
 Godwin. The financial affairs of that author of 
 "Political Justice" required, it would seem, con- 
 stant association with the poet. Shelley had but 
 to dress himself in the morning, to rush, with a 
 raisin in his mouth, across the lanes and he could 
 
 He is a portion of the loveliness 
 2 2 O Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear
 
 His part, while the one Spirit's 
 plastic stress 
 
 find himself at the portal of the philosopher. 
 Many a time in the course of a week would the 
 poet dash wildly and without a hat into the Juven- 
 ile Library and on through the shop to the study 
 upon the floor above. 
 
 It occurred to Mary upon this bright July after- 
 noon, that she might find her favourite poet in the 
 vicinity of his new Hatton Garden abode. She 
 did not proceed, therefore, straight to the tomb. 
 That isolated shrine was connected with the 
 churchyard of St. Pancras. In this early period 
 of the nineteenth century the little church of St. 
 Pancras nestled by itself among clumps of trees 
 in a wilderness of meadows and neglected fields. 
 Ponds formed from the successive rains were 
 monopolized by ducks. The neighbourhood was 
 quite unfamiliar to Mary. 
 
 Her eagerness to spend some portion of her 
 abundant leisure at her mother's grave was quite 
 a new propensity. Death and the grave were not 
 the ideas in which she revelled. Her discovery 
 that as the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft she 
 derived importance and that as a daughter of God- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 win she might be additionally the child of genius 
 had come to Mary as a delightful surprise. She 
 had been impressed by the sentimental value her 
 stepsister Fanny acquired in the poet's eye from 
 her frequent pilgrimages to the lonely and ne- 
 glected grave in which Mary Wollstonecraft was 
 now taking her last sleep. 
 
 Mary Godwin, finding grief and the romanti- 
 cism of the tomb so fashionable, had fallen in with 
 the Shelley cult. No sooner was Fanny dis- 
 patched to Wales for the sake of getting rid of a 
 dangerous rival, than Mary, book in hand, would 
 wend her way more or less ostentatiously to the 
 grave of her mother. 
 
 Shelley had soon ascertained the goal of her pil- 
 grimages. One sunny afternoon he had preceded 
 her thither. How innocent was her surprise! 
 Mary found occasion to shed a tear in the gloomy 
 spot. She called it in Shelley's presence the 
 "hallowed" spot. Shelley thereupon likewise 
 shed his tear. The grave was to them both by 
 this time the most sacred of all shrines. They 
 repaired to it to forget in the presence of the im- 
 
 Sweeps through the dull dense world, 
 2* 2t 2* compelling there
 
 All new successions to the forms they wear; <^ ^ f\ 
 
 Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight J 
 
 mortal dead the corruption of a materialized 
 world. 
 
 Mary looked eagerly about her as she came 
 within the vicinity of Hatton Garden. The resi- 
 dence of the poet was a worn old mansion. It had 
 stood neglected for many years in a great field. 
 The few trees near the door overtopped a gabled 
 roof. There was a round window under the 
 eaves. Here, as Mary had been told, the poet 
 often stationed himself to muse upon the Platonic 
 philosophy. He was not at his accustomed place 
 on the present occasion. Mary stifled a sigh. 
 She walked daintily in the low slippers which 
 fashion permitted her sex to wear on pedestrian 
 occasions. Her white stockings peeped shyly 
 forth as she moved her little feet. 
 
 It was no very long walk to the churchyard. 
 There happened to be a great flock of geese in 
 one of the lanes. The fowls approached her with 
 a tendency to crane their long necks and cackle 
 and hiss. Mary lifted her dark skirt and trod 
 mincingly through the mud. She had trouble in 
 repelling the attentions of the flock. She climbed 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 delicately a fence of hickory limbs which bounded 
 the southern extremity of the churchyard. She 
 vaulted upon a marble slab sacred to the memory 
 of one in whom she was not interested. Through 
 the tangled mass of shrubbery and weeds which 
 bordered the lanes Mary tripped. She had to 
 look carefully about her lest she miss the way to 
 the grave of Mary Wollstonecraft. 
 
 This was the plainest of mounds. It had been 
 fixed by chance beneath the limbs of a spreading 
 ewe. The slab was in a state of complete neglect. 
 The long stone bore simply the name of the dead 
 heroine of feminism and the date of her birth and 
 of her passing. There had been some vague out- 
 lines of an inscription, but the years which had 
 gone since her death had sufficed to obliterate the 
 words. Mary sniffed the summer air with a sense 
 of pleasure. The trees growing more or less wild, 
 the twittering of the birds, the shade cast by the 
 foliage everywhere afforded the most complete 
 seclusion. Through the trees she caught glimpses 
 now and then of the roofs of London or of a bit 
 of sky. The churchyard might well have been in 
 
 To its own likeness, as each mass may bear; 
 2r 2 ^ And bursting in its beauty and its might
 
 From trees and beasts and men into the 
 Heaven's light. 
 
 the forest of Nottingham so far as the presence of 
 fellow creatures was concerned. 
 
 Mary did not like the direct contact with na- 
 ture to which her environment exposed her. 
 There were too many great spiders, too many 
 strange insects about to please her fancy. She 
 wondered that Shelley had thought it advisable 
 to be late. Her pretty lips were soon pouting 
 with displeasure. She smiled very suddenly when 
 she saw the poet running towards her. He had 
 a loaf of bread under his arm, but he threw it 
 away when he caught sight of her. Leaping over 
 the hickory barrier, he was at her side in an in- 
 stant. 
 
 "Never!" cried Shelley, throwing his head back 
 like a man who calls Heaven to witness what he 
 says, "never can I express the abundance of pleas- 
 ure which your three letters have given me." 
 
 "I," replied Mary, "wear yours next my heart." 
 
 This was a lie or rather it was an untrue state- 
 ment, for Mary had the capacity of believing 
 whatever she felt ought to be true. 
 
 "Surely," proceeded the poet whose voice was 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 now low and musical, "you must have known by 
 intuition all my thoughts to write me as you have 
 done." 
 
 "How good of you, who are so occupied with 
 philosophy," she murmured, "to keep your word. 
 Shelley is to me incarnate virtue." 
 
 "Virtue," rejoined Shelley, "consists in the mo- 
 tive. Why am I obliged to keep my word?. Is 
 it because I desire Heaven and hate Hell? Ob- 
 ligation and virtue would in that case be words of 
 no value as the criterion of excellence." 
 
 "But parents and children " began Mary. 
 
 "Do you agree to my definition of virtue?" 
 
 The poet's wide eyes were fastened upon hers. 
 Mary, who had never heard the definition referred 
 to, nodded in a kind of trance. 
 
 "Divest every event of its improper tendency," 
 proceeded Shelley, "and evil becomes annihilate." 
 
 Mary could not see the relevance of this. She 
 feared to show her lack of comprehension lest the 
 poet despise her intellectual powers. 
 
 "I am afraid," she sighed, "that Pa is bent on 
 parting us." 
 
 ^ The splendous of the firmament of time 
 2 2r O May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not;
 
 Like stars to their appointed height they climb 
 And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
 
 Shelley started like a man who has received a 
 blow. Then he raised an arm aloft. His next 
 words were spoken in his shrillest tones. 
 
 "Never, with my consent, shall that intercourse 
 cease which has been the day-dawn of my exist- 
 ence, the sun which has shed the warmth on the 
 cold, drear length of the anticipated prospect of 
 life." 
 
 He took a large red apple from the open bosom 
 of his shirt and began to crunch it with avidity. 
 Checking himself suddenly, he concentrated his 
 gaze upon Mary. At last he offered her a bite. 
 
 "Prejudice," he resumed, "might demand this 
 sacrifice, but she is an idol to which we bow not. 
 The world might demand it. Its opinion might 
 require so much. But the cloud which fleets over 
 yonder hills were as important to our happiness." 
 
 Mary had taken a bite of the apple while he 
 was saying this. She chewed it thoughtfully as 
 he went on with his train of ideas : 
 
 "When time has enrolled us in the list of the 
 departed, surely this one friendship will survive to 
 bear our identity in Heaven." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 "You are melancholy," she observed with a 
 sigh. 
 
 "I cannot be gay. Gaiety is not in my nature." 
 
 He, too, sighed. The wind was blowing his 
 coat in a sheet about his form. He drew it over 
 his exposed chest to say what was on his mind. 
 
 "Yet, I will be happy. And I claim it as a 
 sacred right that you share my happiness." 
 
 To Mary's dismay the poet drew an immense 
 duelling pistol from one of his capacious pockets. 
 
 "Do take care !" she implored, as he saw to its 
 priming. 
 
 He did not seem to hear, for he cried these 
 words : 
 
 "Oh ! lovely sympathy, thou are life's sweetest, 
 only solace, and is not my Mary the shrine of 
 sympathy?" 
 
 "What," she asked, "if you weary of that sym- 
 pathy?" 
 
 Shelley drew a white card from his pocket. 
 
 "Suppose your frame were wasted by sickness, 
 your brow covered with wrinkles'?" cried the poet, 
 looking at a tree behind the grave. "Suppose age 
 
 O The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 
 2* <** O Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,
 
 And love and life contend in it, for what *) *) C\ 
 
 Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there y 
 
 had bowed your form till it reached the ground, 
 would you not be as lovely as now?" 
 
 Mary was at a loss for a reply to this. The 
 poet's demeanour made one superfluous. He had 
 approached the tree and was examining it critic- 
 ally. Mary saw him lick the bark with his tongue 
 in accordance with one of his inveterate habits. 
 Satisfied with the taste, apparently, he proceeded 
 next to affix the card to the tree with the aid of 
 a broken twig. For some half a minute he eyed 
 the card intently. Mary interrupted his reverie: 
 
 "The question is " 
 
 "The question is," vociferated Shelley, talking 
 with such speed that Mary could scarcely follow 
 the torrent of words, "what do I love? Do I love 
 the person, the embodied identity? No. What 
 I love is superior, what is excellent or what I con- 
 ceive to be so." 
 
 He had to pause from sheer agitation. Mary 
 would have rushed to his side, so near falling did 
 he appear. But the poet had recovered himself 
 sufficiently to regain his powers of speech. 
 
 "For love is Heaven and Heaven is love," he 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 ran on. "You think so, too, and you disbelieve 
 not in the existence of an eternal, omnipresent 
 spirit." 
 
 Her eyes were fixed upon him with a look of 
 such intensity that his own eyes were caught again. 
 
 "Am I not mad?" he asked with a smile. 
 "Alas ! I am, but I pour out my ravings into the 
 ear of a friend who will pardon them." 
 
 He raised the duelling pistol, took careful aim 
 at the card affixed to the tree and pulled the rusty 
 trigger. Mary held her ears. The explosion was 
 so loud that a man in the distance passing on 
 horseback looked across the wide meadow of the 
 heath. Then he gave spurs to his horse and gal- 
 loped off. 
 
 "Missed, by Heavens!" 
 
 Mary looked at the tree. The card was un- 
 marked. The poet was plainly put out. He 
 looked at the smoking weapon in his hand, then 
 at the tree. 
 
 "I have now in contemplation," said the poet, 
 who seemed to be talking to the tree, so rapt was 
 his contemplation of it, "a poem. I intend it to 
 
 And move like winds of light on dark 
 2* < O and stormy air.
 
 The inheritors of unfulfilled renown "2. "2 T 
 
 Rose from the thrones, built beyond mortal thought, J 
 
 be by anticipation a picture of the manners, sim- 
 plicity and delights of a perfect state of society, 
 though still earthly. Will you assist me?" 
 
 Mary's eyes followed the direction of Shelley's 
 to the mark he had missed. 
 
 "Could I but assist you !" 
 
 It was spoken like the devout aspiration of a 
 St. Cecilia. 
 
 "I shall draw a picture of Heaven," Shelley 
 rejoined. "I can do neither without some hints 
 from you." 
 
 The pistol had been cocked again by this time 
 and Shelley was taking aim. Again the shot rang 
 out. Again Mary put her hands to her head. 
 
 "Missed !" cried Shelley in vexation, adding as 
 if by after-thought : "by Heaven !" 
 
 "Your hand," she said, "is unsteady today." 
 
 He did not seem to hear. 
 
 "I consider you," cried the poet, his eye rolling 
 in fine frenzy to the sky, "I consider you one of 
 those beings who carry happiness, reform, liberty 
 wherever they go. To me you are as my better 
 genius, the judge of my reasonings, the guide of 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 my actions, the influencer of my usefulness." 
 
 Mary shook her head. She made a deprecatory 
 gesture. 
 
 "Greater responsibility," he resumed, running 
 his free hand through the masses of his long hair, 
 "is the consequence of higher powers. I am, as 
 you must be, a despiser of mock modesty, accus- 
 tomed to conceal more defects than excellences. 
 I know I am superior to the mob of mankind, 
 but I am inferior to you in everything but the 
 equality of friendship." 
 
 He had reloaded. For a minute more he eyed 
 the card upon the tree as he had eyed it before. 
 Mary saw the weapon raised afresh. There was 
 a silence so intense that even the birds in the tree 
 seemed to have caught the spirit of the crisis. 
 For a third time the shot rang out upon the sum- 
 mer day. 
 
 "A hit!" shrieked Shelley. 
 
 He began to dance. Mary was overwhelmed 
 with blank amazement. Shelley paid little heed 
 to the expression upon her face. He had begun 
 an incessant tripping and cavorting around and 
 
 Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton 
 2* 2* Rose pale, his solemn agony bad not
 
 Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought ^ 9 O 
 
 And as he fell and as he lived and loved J J 
 
 about the grave. Of a sudden she felt her waist 
 encircled by his arm. He was twirling her in 
 the mazes of his movement. 
 
 "It is necessary that reason should disinterest- 
 edly determine," Shelley avowed, his hair now a 
 tangled mass so confused that he could no longer 
 run his fingers through it. "The passion of the 
 virtuous will then energetically put its decree into 
 execution." 
 
 He ceased speaking through lack of breath. 
 His arm fell from her waist. Mary was so be- 
 wildered that she could think of nothing to say. 
 The poet himself took up his train of thought 
 where he had left off. 
 
 "I have not been alone, for you have been with 
 me!" Shelley stretched forth an arm to give 
 solemnity to the exclamation. "I have been 
 thinking of you and of human nature." 
 
 "What of fate?" 
 
 It was all Mary could think of saying. Shelley 
 seemed prepared for the question. 
 
 "And has not fate been more than kind to me? 
 Did I expect her to lavish upon me the inexhaust- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 ible stores of her munificence? Yet has she not 
 done so? Has she not given you to me?" 
 
 "Yet," Mary urged, "my Pa" 
 
 "Your attention to your father's happiness," 
 cried Shelley, "is at once so noble, so refined, so 
 delicate, so desirous of accomplishing its design 
 that how could he fail, if he knew it, to give you 
 that esteem and respect besides the love which he 
 does?" 
 
 "He is greatly my superior in all things," 
 Mary's voice was a whisper. Her eyes were upon 
 her mother's grave. 
 
 "Methinks he is not your equal," retorted the 
 poet. "I have not found you equalled." 
 
 "And my duty?" 
 
 She spoke so low that he barely caught the 
 words. 
 
 "If virtue depended on duty, then would 
 prudence be virtuous," Shelley cried in his most 
 discordant tone, "and imprudence would be vice. 
 The only difference between the Duke of Well- 
 ington and William Godwin would be that the 
 latter had more cunningly devised the means of 
 
 Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot, 
 2 2 ^1 Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved:
 
 Oblivion as they rose shrank like ^ 1 
 
 a thing reproved. J * 
 
 his own benefit. This cannot be. Prudence is 
 only an auxiliary of virtue, by which it may be- 
 come useful." 
 
 "If every one loved," said Mary, "then every 
 one would be happy." 
 
 "This is impossible," Shelley urged. "But 
 certain it is that the more that love the more are 
 blest." 
 
 Mary placed her handkerchief to her eyes. She 
 was standing now at the head of that grave. 
 
 "Shall, then, the world step forward?" asked 
 Shelley, regardless of the circumstances that the 
 young lady's back was turned to him. "That 
 world which wallows in selfishness and every base 
 passion, the consequence of every absence of rea- 
 son?" 
 
 Mary's face was in the handkerchief. She 
 shook her head energetically. 
 
 "Shall that world give law to souls," asked 
 Shelley, touching her shoulder, "who smile su- 
 perior to its palsying influence, who let the temp- 
 est of prejudice rave unheeded, happy in the con- 
 sciousness of perfection of motive?" 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 He was handling his pistol with such extreme 
 carelessness that Mary shuddered. She feared to 
 exhibit this dread. Shelley might deem her lack- 
 ing in that courage which could alone character- 
 ize the true sister of his soul. Nevertheless, she 
 did not relish the thought of a bullet in her back. 
 She kept a wary eye upon her admirer. 
 
 "You are married." 
 
 She had been wondering how to bring that cir- 
 cumstance to his recollection without a too rapid 
 descent from the sublimity of their communion. 
 Shelley paused as he was about to fix that card 
 with his eye. 
 
 "Man is the creature of circumstance," con- 
 ceded the poet gloomily. "These casual circum- 
 stances custom has made unto him a second na- 
 ture." 
 
 He sank into an abstraction so complete that 
 she did not scruple to take the pistol out of his 
 hand. The act passed unobserved by the poet. 
 Mary scrupulously dropped the old weapon be- 
 hind the tree. 
 
 "Might there not have been a prior state of 
 
 236 
 
 And many more, whose names on Earth are dark, 
 But whose transmitted effluence cannot die
 
 So long as fire outlives the parent spark, 
 Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 
 
 existence?" asked Shelley, drawing her to his side. 
 "Might we not have been friends then"?" 
 
 "Might not you and Harriet," she asked with 
 a smile, "have been friends then?" 
 
 "She has never been a sister to my soul." 
 
 "Then why did you make her your wife?" 
 
 He had begun to devour a pear extracted from 
 one of his inexhaustible receptacles for edibles. 
 
 "At that period," began Shelley, a few drops of 
 perspiration which Mary had seen upon his brow 
 growing thick and large, "at that period I watched 
 over my sister, designing, if possible, to add her 
 to the list of the good, the disinterested, the 
 free." 
 
 "What a brother!" Mary was in an ecstasy. 
 
 "When my sister was at school," resumed Shel- 
 ley, "she contracted an intimacy with Harriet." 
 
 He paused to wipe his brow upon the cuff of his 
 coat. The pear dropped upon the grave. 
 
 "I desired, therefore," he began again, "to in- 
 vestigate Harriet's character. For this purpose I 
 called upon her. I requested leave to correspond 
 with her, designing that her advancement should 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 keep pace with and possibly accelerate that of my 
 sister." 
 
 Mary clasped her hands upon her bosom. 
 
 "Noble soul!" she said, addressing a flight of 
 crows above her head. 
 
 "Harriet's frank and ready acceptance of my 
 proposals pleased me," proceeded the poet. 
 "Though with ideas the remotest to those which 
 led to the consummation of our intimacy, I wrote 
 her much." 
 
 "Oh !" cried Mary. "You wrote her much." 
 
 Shelley did not seem to heed. He was him- 
 self attentive to the sky and to what he saw 
 there. 
 
 "The frequency of Harriet's letters," Shelley 
 went on, speaking as much to himself as to Mary, 
 "became greater during my stay in Wales. I an- 
 swered them. They became interesting." 
 
 "Did she write of political justice?" Mary 
 put the question with perfect gravity. With 
 equal gravity the poet replied. 
 
 "They contained complaints of the irrational 
 conduct of her relations. The misery of living 
 
 238 
 
 "Thou art become as one of us," they cry, 
 "It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long
 
 Swung blind in unascended majesty, 
 Silent alone amid an Heaven of Song. 
 
 where she could not love filled her missives. Sui- 
 cide was with her a favourite theme." 
 
 Mary looked intently at the pear upon her 
 mother's grave. 
 
 "Suicide," she said in low tones, "is with Har- 
 riet a favourite theme still." 
 
 "Her total uselessness was urged by Harriet 
 in defence of her plan of suicide," went on the 
 poet. "This I admitted, supposing she could 
 prove her inutility." 
 
 "Did she try suicide then?" 
 
 "Her letters," answered Shelley, "became more 
 and more gloomy." 
 
 He was eating raisins now. 
 
 "At length," resumed Shelley, who had begun a 
 restless pacing about the grave, "one letter of 
 Harriet's assumed a tone of such despair as in- 
 duced me to quit Wales precipitately. I ar- 
 rived in London." 
 
 Mary was kneeling upon the grave of her 
 mother. She plucked a blade of grass and began 
 to bite it nervously. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 She looked up into Shelley's face with a twitch 
 at her mouth. 
 
 "I arrived in London," went on the poet, mop- 
 ping his perspiring brow once more. "I was 
 shocked at observing the alteration in Harriet's 
 looks. Little did I divine its cause." 
 
 "What was the cause?" 
 
 Mary had risen to her feet. She placed a 
 hand upon his arm. 
 
 "Harriet had become violently attached to me." 
 Shelley spoke simply. "She feared that I could 
 not return her attachment." 
 
 "Did she say those things of her own accord?" 
 
 "Prejudice," said Shelley, "made the confes- 
 sion painful to her." 
 
 "Did you ask her to marry you?" 
 
 "It was impossible to avoid being much af- 
 fected," said Shelley evasively, mopping that brow 
 more energetically than ever. "I promised to 
 unite my fate with hers." 
 
 He gulped down a raisin. She stared fixedly 
 at the little circle of edibles that had accumulated 
 around the spot on which they stood. Mary sud- 
 
 Assume thy winged throne, 
 2r ^L O thou Vesper of our throng !"
 
 Who mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth, ' *) /\ ~\ 
 Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright. *t 
 
 denly left Shelley's side to reach the head of her 
 mother's grave. She knelt quickly upon the 
 granite slab which recorded the name of the im- 
 mortal dead. Her lips moved in prayer. For a 
 long time no word was said by the poet. He 
 seemed infected with the devotional spirit of the 
 mood of his fair friend. He had taken from his 
 waistcoat pocket a fresh handful of the raisins 
 with which he seemed inexhaustibly supplied and 
 was now chewing them moodily. Mary got upon 
 her feet. 
 
 "Shelley," she said, "I was praying to my 
 mother's spirit. Do you think me superstitious?" 
 
 "How much worthier of a rational being is 
 skepticism," sighed the wan Shelley, "which, 
 though it wants none of the impassionateness 
 which some have characterized as inseparable 
 from the superstitious, yet retains judgment " 
 
 "Judgment !" 
 
 Mary's tone in saying the word was almost 
 scornful. 
 
 "Judgment," repeated Shelley. "Judgment is 
 not blind, though it may chance to see something 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 like perfection in its object, which retains its sen- 
 sibility bat whose sensibility is celestial and in- 
 tellectual unallied to the grovelling passions of 
 Ac earth." 
 
 "Yet the world seeks perfection in prayer." 
 
 1 feel a sickening distrust," Shelley declared 
 vehemently, "when I see all around me, all that 
 I bad S**! good, great or imitable fall into 
 the golf of error." 
 
 He stared wildly about like one who saw that 
 gulf at Us very feet. 
 
 fifcelley !" cried Mary, looking straight into his 
 eyes as she confronted him, "Have you ever 
 given a thought to a woman's heart?" 
 
 He ceased dewing the raisin in his mouth. 
 
 "Hare you not seen how my heart has re- 
 sponded to your appeal?" she asked him, her dark 
 grey eyes flashing. 4 Shelley, I have grown to 
 love you. The fault is yours." 
 
 For a full minute their eyes did not cease to 
 pour themselves out, the one pair into the other. 
 Mary seemed to be waiting for a word from him. 
 It remained unspoken. 
 
 242 As .*, dart
 
 Beyood all worlcb, until itt spacious might ^ J. ~ 
 
 Satiate the void circumference: Aea akrink i ^ 
 
 'The fault is yours," she proceeded. "You 
 have made me love you." 
 
 She looked at him for another moment. Then 
 she covered her face with her hands. He seemed 
 like a man in a trance. Mary sank upon her 
 knees beside the grave of her mother. 
 
 "Ah ! my dead mother," she cried, lifting her 
 hand to the sky. "Wherever you be, you at least 
 understand your child." 
 
 She bowed her head. He leaped across the 
 grave. Mary could feel the tangled mass of the 
 poet's hair as it brushed her cheek. In a trice 
 he had put an arm around her waist. She yielded 
 to its pressure with a sob. Her head sank upon 
 his shoulder. 
 
 "My Mary!" 
 
 He murmured the words into her ear. She 
 made no effort to disengage herself from his em- 
 brace. Beneath the tree that cast its shade upon 
 them and across the grave of Mary Wollstone- 
 craft they exchanged the kiss that ranked them 
 with Heloise and Abelard, with Paolo and 
 Francesca, among love's immortals. 
 
 Elopement
 
 XIII 
 THE EVENT 
 
 NO ghost was ever paler than Mary 
 Godwin as with noiseless tread she 
 crept out from under a table in the 
 kitchen of her Skinner Street home at four o'clock 
 on the morning of her elopement. 
 
 She had made an elaborate pretence of ascend- 
 ing to her small bare room. That was at her 
 usual hour on the previous night. Evasion of 
 the unobservant Godwin was no difficult matter. 
 Mrs. Godwin placed before her husband his usual 
 glass of hot water. She retired to her own rest. 
 Mary saw the obese lady depart with a sigh of 
 relief. Claire had gone to bed an hour before. 
 At that time Mary herself had gone noisily up- 
 stairs. She had not stolen down until her step- 
 mother began to snore. It was an ancient signal, 
 
 Even to a point within our day and night; 
 2 44 And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink
 
 When hope has kindled hope, and lured sy A f 
 
 thee to the brink I O 
 
 audible to the entire family. It elicited protest, 
 as a rule, only from tiny William, the fruit of 
 Godwin's union with his second spouse. The 
 child was at the indiscreet age. He had been 
 packed off to one of Godwin's admirers iri North- 
 umberland not long after the departure of that 
 half-sister Fanny of whom Mary was so jealous. 
 
 Mary had concealed in the kitchen the few be- 
 longings with which she intended to make her 
 elopement romantic. These included no more, 
 however, than a change of apparel. A silk dress 
 a birthday gift from her young friend in Scot- 
 land, Isobel Baxter afforded apparel for the 
 flight. 
 
 Mary dared not trust her young eyes to sleep. 
 She counted the hours. The bell in the old church 
 half a mile away tolled the slow departure of the 
 night. Dawn was already pink in a corner of the 
 sky when at last the hour of her fate arrived. 
 
 Step by step Mary stole from the kitchen to the 
 book-lined walls enshrining the treasures of the 
 Juvenile Library. Dan, the old porter, had been 
 bribed by Shelley. There was no possibility of 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 opposition from that source. Yet the heart of 
 Mary stood still. A slight figure emerged from 
 the shadow of one of the tallest of the bookcases. 
 It blocked her path. 
 
 "Claire!" 
 
 Mary spoke in a whisper. Her father slept al- 
 most immediately above. 
 
 "I said I would go with you." Claire spoke in 
 muffled accents. 
 
 "I will not go at all." 
 
 Mary said it with positiveness. Her extreme 
 irritation did not get into her tone. Claire was 
 less discreet. She ventured a laugh. 
 
 "Don't come, then," she mocked. "Shelley 
 and I will go alone." 
 
 Mary had retreated half way to the kitchen. 
 Claire's threat acted like magic. Mary gained 
 the street door. Claire was at her side. To- 
 gether they passed out. 
 
 Neither exchanged a word as, threading their 
 way cautiously around to Hatton Garden, they 
 came upon a post-chaise. The vehicle was en- 
 shrouded in the morning fog. The lamps had 
 
 246 
 
 Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre 
 Oh, not of him, but of our joy: 'tis nought
 
 That ages, empires, and religions there *). A ^ 
 
 Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought; i / 
 
 been extinguished. The recumbent figure upon 
 the box paid no heed. 
 
 "Shelley!" 
 
 It was Claire who greeted the poet. He re- 
 clined inside, a volume of Aeschylus in his hand, 
 reading by the light of a dark lantern. He 
 seemed to accept Claire as part of the natural 
 order of his elopement with Mary. The floor of 
 the post-chaise was piled high with classics and 
 clothes. The poet placed a warning finger to his 
 lips. The girls climbed in. 
 
 "Where are we to sit?" asked the dark young 
 lady. 
 
 Her step-sister made herself comfortable upon 
 a set of Euripides in twelve huge volumes. Claire 
 grew impatient at Shelley's continued silence. 
 She asked another question now. 
 
 "Do we get to France tonight*?" 
 
 The horses had broken into a gallop. The 
 vehicle rattled through the streets. It was upon 
 the highway to Dover before Claire had succeeded 
 in exchanging ten words with Shelley. Mary and 
 her lover had ventured upon endearments which 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 the feminine nature forced Claire to avoid con- 
 templating. She gazed out of the window. 
 
 "Change horses !" 
 
 It was the voice of the man on the box. They 
 had reached Deptford. Shelley leaped to the 
 ground. The girls followed his example. Mary 
 had not said a word to Claire, not a word since 
 the flight from London. 
 
 "Vixen!" whispered Claire. "I don't care if 
 you never speak to me again." 
 
 Mary contemplated the forest trees upon the 
 hill tops. Shelley was leaping excitedly among 
 the hostlers. The whip cracked. The poet sig- 
 nalled to the sister of his soul. Mary and Claire 
 resumed their positions upon top of the baggage 
 piled within. 
 
 They were tearing along the road again. 
 Claire heard the poet promise the man on the 
 box five extra guineas if Dover were reached by 
 four. She failed to extract so much as a look 
 from Mary. Shelley did not relax his hold of 
 his dear one's waist. Claire continued her studies 
 of the scenery. She fell asleep at last. A loud 
 
 248 
 
 For such as he can lend, they borrow not 
 Glory from those who made the world their prey;
 
 And he is gathered to the kings of thought *\ A C\ 
 
 Who waged contention with their time's decay. | y 
 
 cry startled her into a half torpor. She became 
 aware that Shelley's head was thrust through a 
 window. 
 
 "Are they overtaking us?" 
 
 It was Mary's voice. Claire, awakened com- 
 pletely by the possibility of pursuit, stretched 
 her young neck. She was pulled within by the 
 poet. 
 
 "Don't fall out." 
 
 He spoke shortly, with more of command than 
 she had supposed him capable of. 
 
 It was four o'clock in the afternoon. The 
 horses in front of the post-chaise dragged the 
 vehicle through the Dover streets. They drew 
 up in front of an inn. Shelley tossed the coach- 
 man a coin. 
 
 "The boat!" 
 
 "Ready, sir!" 
 
 The answer was roughly spoken by a man as 
 roughly dressed. Claire was completely ex- 
 hausted. Her silk dress was stained. She ex- 
 changed a look with Mary. That young lady 
 gazed into the face of the man she adored. He 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 was taciturn, unresponsive, knitting his brows 
 closely. 
 
 "When do we reach Calais?" 
 
 He spoke with an economy of words that filled 
 Claire with wonder. 
 
 "Two hours but we must start at once." 
 
 The heart of Claire leaped within her as she 
 caught sight of the staunch little vessel moored 
 at the wharf. Shelley, now a man of action, saw 
 the girls aboard. He clambered up the plank 
 after them. Mary went below to eat. That was 
 the one longing of her soul. They had been 
 supplied all day with raisins and with bread. 
 Shelley had flourished prodigiously upon this fare. 
 Neither Claire nor her stepsister had been able 
 to tolerate more than a nibble of it occasion- 
 ally. 
 
 It was six o'clock when the mariners drew the 
 anchor up. Claire and Mary had partaken of a 
 bowl of milk. The delicacy was bestowed by 
 the captain's wife. She drew from Claire the 
 story of that day's escapade before they had been 
 out five hours. The weather grew so stormy that 
 
 And of the past are all that 
 2* ^\J cannot pass away.
 
 Go thou to Rome, at once the Paradise, /j p* T 
 
 The grave, the city, and the wilderness; 
 
 the wife of the captain looked serious. Mary 
 and Claire took refuge in berths. Shelley trod 
 the deck above. 
 
 "I shall die ! I know I shall die !" 
 
 Claire was vociferating the words. The eve- 
 ning shadows thickened on the deep. The pas- 
 sage had become perilous. 
 
 "France!" 
 
 The exclamation burst from the lips of Shelley. 
 They stepped ashore. He seemed to Claire a 
 newer and diviner man. He was no longer eager 
 to philosophize. She felt a certain guilty pride 
 in his beauty. She wondered why he had eloped 
 with Mary. She was, she told herself, eloping 
 with Shelley. 
 
 "France!" echoed Claire, "I love it." 
 
 "Is that because you speak French so well?" 
 
 Mary had broken in upon Claire's ecstasy. 
 She spoke with matronly severity. She was wont 
 to reveal such a tendency when Claire asserted a 
 rebellious spirit in their childhood. 
 
 "We're not in Skinner Street now," said Claire. 
 "Are we, Bysshe?" 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Mary started at the name. Claire, in fact, had 
 never used it before. It seemed so natural now. 
 She felt that he and she were in some strange sense 
 intimate. 
 
 "There is a hotel upon the hill," observed 
 Shelley. "Shall we take rooms'?" 
 
 Claire clapped her hands. Mary nodded. 
 The voluble servants from the hostelry had al- 
 ready assisted in disembarking the bits of baggage. 
 The French of which Claire was so proud did 
 admirably. 
 
 "// faut payer" 
 
 The man in uniform who said so, smiled at 
 Claire. 
 
 "Two guineas!" she cried, looking at Shelley. 
 
 That poet produced the sum, not without won- 
 der. He was too much in love to be parsimonious. 
 The French official snatched the money. Then 
 he lost all interest in them. Slowly the servants 
 ascended the street. The English voyagers were 
 left to the tender mercies of the cabmen. The 
 drivers of three vehicles of villainous appearance 
 clamoured around them. More to escape their 
 
 And where its wrecks like shattered 
 2t ^ 2t mountains rise,
 
 And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress ^ i* ^ 
 The bones of Desolation's nakedness, J 
 
 persistence than to gratify any desire for further 
 observation, Mary took her seat in the neatest of 
 the equipages. Her example was followed by 
 Claire. The poet leaped in between them. 
 
 The ride was long. It grew weary. Shelley 
 thrust his head out of the window. He insisted 
 in his best French that they be taken to Dessein's 
 hotel. The emaciated little French cab driver 
 gesticulated. The head of Shelley was with- 
 drawn. He had felt a pull from behind. Mary 
 rescued him, she insisted, from falling into the 
 road. The driver whipped up his horses. They 
 were eager steeds for several minutes. Thereafter 
 they resumed a formal and elaborate walk. This 
 went on for half an hour. 
 
 "Tell them to take us to the hotel," pleaded 
 Mary. "You have studied French all your life." 
 
 Claire thrust her head through the window. 
 Her exchange of ideas with the yellow Frenchman 
 resulted as Shelley's had done. 
 
 They were ridden through and about the envir- 
 ons of Calais for five terrible hours before the 
 Frenchman on the box took the least pity upon 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 them. Even his heart melted at last. He 
 stopped to peer at his victims in the course of 
 one of their innumerable windings and turnings. 
 The head of Mary was pillowed upon the shoul- 
 der of Shelley. Claire had fainted at their feet. 
 The Frenchman was human. In another half 
 hour he had pulled up in front of Dessein's hotel. 
 
 "Ees dees se Inglese milor who ordaire se apart- 
 ment?" 
 
 Shelley acknowledged himself in that capacity. 
 The smart landlord twirled his waxed moustache 
 before making his next observation. 
 
 "Zere ees an Inglees lady who say here ze milor 
 run off vit der daughtaire. Fat lady." 
 
 Claire screamed. She had caught sight of a 
 pair of green spectacles. They were thrust clear 
 back from the eyes of Claire's own mother, the 
 second Mrs. Godwin, who was stepmother to 
 Mary. The fat lady in the green spectacles 
 pointed a huge umbrella of faded colour at Shel- 
 ley. 
 
 "Monster!" was her first exclamation. "Give 
 me back my child." 
 
 Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead 
 2 K A Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
 
 Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead * 
 
 A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. 
 
 Mary was ostentatiously ignored by her step- 
 mother. 
 
 "La, ma," snapped Claire, "how you talk." 
 
 Mrs. Godwin's reply took the form of physical 
 violence. She seized her daughter by the waist. 
 
 "How did you find out where we had gone?" 
 asked Claire. She pushed her fleshy parent about 
 so deftly as to knock the breath out of Mrs. God- 
 win's body. 
 
 The reply was somewhat delayed. It seemed, 
 when the worthy lady could speak, that she had 
 missed the girl's within two hours after their flight. 
 She was put upon the scent by the absence of 
 their silk dresses. To rush to Shelley's lodgings 
 in Hatton Garden and to trace the post-chaise had 
 been the work of three hours. The fugitives had 
 gained time. They lost it during their stormy 
 passage. 
 
 "Leave these creatures, my child!" implored 
 Claire's mother. 
 
 Despite an effort of Mary's to exert gentle 
 suasion upon Shelley, he thrust himself between 
 mother and daughter. His act had an overwhelm- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 ing physical effect upon Mrs. Godwin. She sank 
 to her knees. 
 
 "Monster!" 
 
 She screamed that word. A crowd of wonder- 
 ing French was now before the hotel. The local 
 gendarmerie became interested. 
 
 "Where is the office of the British consul?" 
 
 A uniformed man pointed with his finger. 
 Mrs. Godwin waddled off. She vowed vengeance 
 upon all who bore the name of Shelley. 
 
 "Quick!" 
 
 A pair of steeds had drawn up around the corner. 
 Claire had noted their arrival. She had not sus- 
 pected that they had anything to do with Shelley's 
 plans. The poet took Mary by the hand. Claire 
 followed. 
 
 "You are at liberty to return with Ma if you so 
 desire." 
 
 Mary made this remark in cutting tones. 
 Claire's only reply was to take her place in the 
 coach on the other side of Shelley. He glanced 
 out. The steeds had begun their gallop. The 
 evening air was chill. Claire looked around for 
 
 And gray walls moulder round, on which 
 dull Time
 
 Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand; 2, C 7 
 
 And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, J / 
 
 the baggage. An exclamation of dismay was 
 checked upon her lips when Shelley threw a purse 
 into her lap. There was joy in his face. 
 
 "You're glad of our escape*?" Claire said. 
 
 He clapped his hands. 
 
 "I've an idea!" 
 
 "An idea !" repeated Mary. "You mean with 
 reference to ma*?" 
 
 "No my wife. I'll write her to join us." 
 
 Elopement
 
 CHARACTERS INVOLVED IN 
 SHELLEY'S ELOPEMENT
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL DATA 
 
 William Godwin 
 
 Godwin lived to be past eighty, for he was born 
 at Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire, England, March 3, 
 1756, and he did not die until April 7, 1836. He 
 passed away in London, neglected and poor, al- 
 though he had managed to get a sinecure under some 
 public department or other. The "Political Jus- 
 tice" to which he is indebted for his fame as a 
 thinker is all but inaccessible now and it is not easy 
 to get hold of his "Caleb Williams," a novel which 
 critics of capacity have termed great. A cold 
 selfishness was at the foundation of Godwin's 
 character, according to George Ticknor. Bryan 
 Waller Procter says Godwin was ever the same 
 "very cold, very selfish, very calculating." God- 
 win's conversation gave Robert Dale Owen the 
 
 Pavilioning the dust of him who planned S 
 
 This refuge for his memory, doth stand 2r O X
 
 Shelley's 
 
 impression of intellect without warmth of heart. 
 "It touched on great principles, but was measured 
 and unimpulsive." People who were intimate 
 with him seem to have agreed that he was without 
 the traits of character which inspire admiration. 
 "And yet this man," to revert to the judgment of 
 Procter upon him, 'lias in his study compiled fine 
 rhetorical sentences, which strangers have been 
 ready to believe flowed warm from his heart." 
 This keen judge of Godwin likens him to one of 
 "those cold intellectual demons of whom we read 
 in French and German stories, who come upon 
 earth to do good to no one and harm to many." 
 He seems never to have known what love was. 
 When on one occasion Shelley in writing him 
 omitted the word "Esquire," the irritation of 
 Godwin was extreme. "Godwin as a man," 
 wrote Southey, "is very contemptible." 
 
 It is undeniable that "Political Justice" had a 
 profound effect upon the mind of the generation 
 to which it was addressed, especially upon the 
 youth of the period. Nor must it be forgotten 
 that his "Caleb Williams" was pronounced in its 
 
 ^ /^^ Like fl arae transformed to marble ; and beneath, 
 2. O 2 A field is spread, on which a newer band
 
 Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp ^ \\ ^ 
 
 of death, ^ ^ 5 
 
 day probably the finest novel produced by a man 
 since "The Vicar of Wakefield." It was drama- 
 tized in France and Germany. His "St. Leon" 
 is important as well as interesting from the fact 
 that in it Godwin traces the portrait of Mary 
 Wollstonecraft as he knew her. 
 
 II 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley 
 
 Shelley, whom it seems agreed to call the great- 
 est lyrical poet in the English language, was born 
 at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, England, 
 August 4, 1792, and he was drowned off the Ital- 
 ian coast on July 8, 1822. "I never can forget 
 the night," writes Byron, "that his poor wife 
 rushed into my room at Pisa, with a face as pale 
 as marble, and terror impressed on her brow, de- 
 manding with all the tragic impetuosity of grief 
 and alarm, where was her husband?" Vain, adds 
 Byron, were all their efforts to calm her. "I have 
 seen nothing in tragedy or on the stage so power- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 ful or so affecting as her appearance." Byron 
 knew nothing then, he explains, of the catastro- 
 phe, but the "vividness" of her terror proved con- 
 tagious and he feared what had happened. 
 
 Mary Godwin Shelley, the girl with whom he 
 eloped, wrote many years after, that the qualities 
 impressing any one newly introduced to Shelley 
 were "a gentle and cordial goodness" and "the 
 eagerness and ardour with which he was attached 
 to the cause of human happiness." His discus- 
 sion of the felicity attainable by man was elo- 
 quent, overpowering. He was a child in his 
 habits, and he thought it would be delightful to 
 be drowned, that is, by shipwreck in a beautiful 
 bay. De Quincey thought Shelley an angel 
 touched by lunacy, to use his own spirited phrase. 
 
 It is not easy for us in the light of Shelley's 
 established position, to realize the hatred he in- 
 spired and the neglect which his genius from the 
 first had to suffer. The diabolistic interpretation 
 of Shelley has lasted into our own day, and that 
 competent critic, Mr. W. J. Dawson, states it 
 boldly when he says of Shelley: "He cursed his 
 
 264 
 
 Welcoming him we lose with scarce 
 extinguished breath.
 
 Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet 2, O C 
 To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned * 
 
 father, deceived his friend and deserted his wife; 
 yet every literary critic for sixty years has hesi- 
 tated to call him a bad man. His poetry is full 
 of a more subtle and perilous poison even than 
 Byron's." This is the view that prevailed in 
 Shelley's own time among the public. Perhaps 
 Maurice Thompson has set the truth down most 
 sanely when he says that critical appreciation of 
 Shelley's poetry does not imply "any such reckless 
 eulogy of Shelley's character as had been the 
 recent vogue in America and England." We 
 should not distinguish, Mr. Thompson adds, be- 
 tween "the wife murderer who cleans stables or 
 keeps a dive and the wife murderer who writes 
 'Prometheus Unbound' or 'An Ode to a Skylark.' " 
 Perhaps it is best to suggest that Shelley had the 
 character which women can understand. To 
 women he was sweet and spiritual and sympa- 
 thetic and sincere. Ouida, for instance, observes : 
 "That sweetness and spirituality which are in his 
 physiognomy characterize the fascination which 
 his memory, like his verse, must exercise over all 
 who can understand his soul." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 The sane worldly verdict upon Shelley's life is 
 that of an experienced married woman, Mrs. 
 Julian Marshall, who studied the career of the 
 poet and of the girl who ran away with him. 
 Shelley, says Mrs. Marshall, never exactly under- 
 stood how the world necessarily viewed his rela- 
 tion with Mary Godwin after the elopement. 
 "The world merely saw in him a married man 
 who had deserted his wife and eloped with a girl 
 of sixteen." He was amazed that people did not 
 "understand," that people did not honour Mary 
 for the high courage she had shown. 
 
 It is interesting to know that Charles Brockden 
 Brown, the American, was Shelley's favourite 
 novelist. 
 
 m 
 Byron 
 
 Shelley met Byron for the first time on the 
 continent of Europe. Byron was a social outcast 
 in spite of his wealth and his position in the Brit- 
 ish peerage. The influence of Shelley upon 
 
 ^ / Its charge to each ; and if the seal is set, 
 2 O O Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind,
 
 Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find "2. 6 *7 
 
 Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, / 
 
 Byron was prodigious. It has been well observed 
 that those parts of "Childe Harold" written after 
 Byron fell under the influence of Shelley, and 
 those parts alone, have the divine touch. 
 
 Shelley and Byron were introduced to one an- 
 other by Trelawney, who has left an elaborate 
 account of the meeting. At two o'clock on a cer- 
 tain afternoon, in company with Shelley, Tre- 
 lawney crossed the Ponte Vecchio and went on the 
 Lung 5 Arno to the Palazzo Lanfranchi, the resi- 
 dence of Lord Byron. They entered a great hall 
 to give the story in Trelawney's words as- 
 cended a giant staircase, passed through an equally 
 large room over the hall, and were shown into a 
 smaller apartment which had books and a billiard 
 table in it. A bull dog growled. Byron came 
 out, presumably from his bedroom. He limped 
 but moved briskly. His quick perception of the 
 truth of Shelley's comments upon his poetry 
 "transfixed" Byron. Shelley from that hour held 
 Byron captive. 
 
 Peacock, however, says that Shelley and Byron 
 first met in Switzerland. At any rate, Shelley in 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 time lost his enthusiasm for Byron, whose profli- 
 gacy shocked him. Shelley became anxious not 
 long before his death to put an end to this inti- 
 macy. Nevertheless, Shelley was in two minds 
 about Byron, as this letter, during their life to- 
 gether, from the valuable compilation made by 
 Mr. Roger Ingpen (Scribner's) suggests: 
 
 We ride out in the evening, through the pine forests 
 which divide this city from the sea. Our way of life is 
 this, and I have accommodated myself to it without much 
 difficulty: L. B. gets up at two, breakfasts; we talk, 
 read, etc., until six ; then we ride, and dine at eight ; and 
 after dinner sit talking till four or five in the morning. 
 I get up at twelve, and am now devoting the interval 
 between my rising and his, to you. 
 
 L. B. is greatly improved in every respect. In genius, 
 in temper, in moral views, in health, in happiness. The 
 connexion with la Guiccioli has been an inestimable bene- 
 fit to him. He lives in considerable splendour, but 
 within his income, which is now about 4,000 a-year; 
 lOO of which he devotes to purposes of charity. He has 
 had mischievous passions, but these he seems to have sub- 
 dued, and he is becoming what he should be, a virtuous 
 man. The interest which he took in the politics of Italy, 
 and the actions he performed in consequence of it, are 
 subjects not fit to be written, but are such as will delight 
 and surprise you. He is not yet decided to go to Switzer- 
 land a place, indeed, little fitted for him : the gossip 
 
 268 
 
 Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
 Seek shelter in the ihadow of the tomb. 
 What Adonais is, why fear we to become?
 
 The One remains, the many change and pass ; /% fi Q 
 
 Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly ; ^/ 
 
 and the cabals of those anglicised coteries would torment 
 him, as they did before, and might exasperate him into 
 a relapse of libertinism, which he says he plunged into 
 not from taste, but despair. 
 
 IV 
 
 Mrs. Mary Wollstonecraft 
 Godwin Shelley 
 
 The daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft by Wil- 
 liam Godwin was born in London, August 30, 
 1797, and died in London, February 21, 1851. 
 Shelley's wealthy father regarded her with marked 
 disapproval. In a letter to Lord Byron, written 
 after the author of "Queen Mab" was drowned, 
 we find old Sir Timothy Shelley writing: "Mrs. 
 Shelley was, I have been told, the intimate friend 
 of my son in the lifetime of his first wife and to 
 the time of her death, and in no small degree, as 
 I suspect, estranged my son's mind from his fam- 
 ily, and all his first duties in life." To this may 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 be added the estimate of Mary Wollstonecraft 
 Godwin Shelley formed by Trelawney, who knew 
 her very well both before and after the poet's 
 tragic end he was really murdered. 
 
 Mrs. Shelley was of a soft, lymphatic temperament, 
 the exact opposite to Shelley in everything; she was 
 moping and miserable when alone, and yearning for so- 
 ciety. Her capacity can be judged by the novels she 
 wrote after Shelley's death, more than ordinarily com- 
 monplace and conventional. Whilst overshadowed by 
 Shelley's greatness her faculties expanded ; but when she 
 had lost him they shrank into their natural littleness. 
 We never know the value of anything till we have lost 
 it, and can't replace it. The memory of how often she 
 had irritated and vexed him tormented her after-exist- 
 ence, and she endeavoured by rhapsodies of panegyric to 
 compensate for the past. But Dr. Johnson says 
 " Lapidary inscriptions must not be judged literally." 
 They are influenced by our own shortcomings to the ob- 
 ject when living. It would be difficult to find minds 
 more opposite than Shelley's and his wife's ; but the tragi- 
 cal end of his first wife was ever present in his mind, 
 and he was prepared to endure the utmost malice of 
 fortune. 
 
 Mrs. Shelley seldom omitted to avail herself of any 
 opportunities (which were rare) to attend Church serv- 
 ice, partly to show that she did not participate in her 
 husband's views of atheism; and she was present when 
 Dr. Nott preached in a private room in the basement 
 
 270 
 
 Life like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
 
 Until Death tramples it to fragments. Die, 2 T I 
 
 If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! / 
 
 story of the house in Pisa she and Shelley were living in. 
 Godwin her father had no means of providing for her; 
 and he educated her for a teacher or governess in a per- 
 fectly orthodox manner, which he knew was indispens- 
 able; and carefully withheld his own particular views 
 and her mother's, as he knew they would be a bar to her 
 success. Mrs. Shelley was a firm believer, and had little 
 or no sympathy with any of her husband's theories ; she 
 could not but admire the great capacity and learning of 
 her husband, but she had no faith in his views. 
 
 "Claire" 
 
 Mary Jane Clairmont, who perhaps was given 
 the name of Clara in baptism, was born April 27, 
 1798, in London (?) and died at Florence, Italy, 
 March 19, 1879. She has her place in history 
 as the mother of Allegra, who is said to have been 
 the daughter of Byron, although Shelley com- 
 plained to Claire that Byron made the "basest 
 insinuations" regarding the true paternity of Al- 
 legra. Claire is accused by the biographers of 
 Shelley of forcing herself upon Byron. "Through 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 Byron's spite," writes Mr. Roger Ingpen, "Claire's 
 name became linked with Shelley's in the vile 
 Hoppner scandal." Mr. Ingpen tells us that 
 Claire Clairmont did not get on well with her 
 half sister Mary after the establishment of the 
 Shelley household and she thereafter became a 
 governess in the home of an Italian professor of 
 eminence. After Shelley was drowned, Claire 
 continued to live on the continent of Europe and 
 was, Mr. Ingpen adds, a governess in Russia. 
 Shelley left her a legacy in his will. 
 
 After that we hear of Claire (who never mar- 
 ried) as a pious Roman Catholic lady with a 
 horror of irregular unions of the kind exemplified 
 in the careers of Shelley and Byron. Allegra, 
 the child of Claire, over whom she had a fierce 
 quarrel with Byron, died at the age of five. 
 
 Claire was said, upon the authority of a maid 
 in the service of Mary Godwin, to have borne a 
 child to Shelley which was subsequently sent to a 
 foundling asylum. In addition it was stated that 
 Claire and Shelley treated Mary in the "most 
 shameful manner" when they were all living to- 
 
 Follow where all is fled ! Rome's azure sky, 
 2 J 2r Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words are weak
 
 The glory they transfuse with fitting truth * *7 O 
 
 to speak. / 3 
 
 gether in Italy. This constitutes the "Hoppner 
 scandal," concerning which Shelley wrote Mary: 
 
 Lord Byron has also told me of a circumstance that 
 shocks me exceedingly; because it exhibits a degree of 
 desperate and wicked malice for which I am at a loss to 
 account. When I hear such things my patience and my 
 philosophy are put to a severe proof, whilst I refrain 
 from seeking out some obscure hiding-place, where the 
 countenance of man may never meet me more. It seems 
 that Elise, actuated either by some inconceivable malice 
 for our dismissing her, or bribed by my enemies, or mak- 
 ing common cause with her infamous husband, has per- 
 suaded the Hoppners of a story so monstrous and in- 
 credible that they must have been prone to believe any 
 evil to have believed such assertions upon such evidence. 
 Mr. Hoppner wrote to Lord Byron to state this story as 
 the reason why he declined any further communications 
 with us, and why he advised him to do the same. 
 
 VI 
 
 Harriet Shelley 
 
 Harriet, first wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, was 
 born in 1795. She drowned herself in the Ser- 
 pentine in 1816. Mr. Ingpen, who has made an 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 exhaustive investigation of the Shelley archives, 
 thinks Harriet has been slandered. Suggestions, 
 he notes, have been made that she was faithless to 
 Shelley before their separation and that she was 
 in love with a Major. Apparently, says Mr. 
 Ingpen, there is nothing to support this idea. On 
 the contrary, he says, the evidence is entirely in 
 her favour. Peacock, Hogg and Hookham, all of 
 whom knew her intimately, believed her to be 
 perfectly innocent and Thornton Hunt and Tre- 
 lawney shared the same belief. On the other 
 hand Shelley was convinced of Harriet's guilt. 
 
 VII 
 
 Hogg 
 
 Thomas Jefferson Hogg, intimate friend of 
 Shelley at Oxford and later, was born at Norton, 
 Durham, England, May 24, 1792, and died near 
 London, November 6, 1862. He wrote a very 
 remarkable life of Shelley which gave great of- 
 fence to Shelley's surviving relatives. Neverthe- 
 
 Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, ray Heart? 
 2r I A Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here
 
 They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ; 
 A light is passed from the revolving year, 
 
 less, it was the best portrait of Shelley ever 
 painted, according to Trelawney, who has also left 
 us his impressions of the poet. I give Dowden's 
 estimate of Hogg : 
 
 Thomas Jefferson Hogg, son of a gentleman of old 
 family and high Tory politics, residing at Stockton-on- 
 Tees, had entered University College in the early part of 
 the year 1810, a short time before Shelley. . . . There 
 was little resemblance between the friends. Hogg had 
 intellectual powers of no common order, and all through 
 his life was an ardent lover of literature; but he cared 
 little or nothing for doctrines and abstract principles 
 such as formed the very food on which the revolutionary 
 intellect of Shelley fed ; and his interest in literature was 
 that of a man of the world, who finds in poetry a refuge 
 from the tedium of common life. For the foibles and 
 follies and false enthusiasms of individuals or coteries 
 Hogg had a keen eye and a mocking tongue ; yet he tol- 
 erated all novelties of opinion or of practice as bright 
 oases in the desert of common sense. Above all things 
 he hated a dullard and a bore. For his own part he was 
 well pleased to enjoy the world, to accept things as they 
 are, to toil in the appointed ways for the allotted re- 
 wards, to take life pleasantly and have his laugh and 
 his jest at the human comedy; and thus he was pro- 
 tected by a fine non-conducting web of intellectuality 
 and of worldliness from all those influences which startle 
 and waylay the soul of the poet, the lover, the saint, and 
 the hero. But his perception was clear that it is they, 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 and they alone, who make life something better than a 
 dull round of commonplace from which one might at 
 any moment sink to apathy or disgust. In Shelley there 
 stood real and living before him " the divine poet " all 
 that he himself could never be, and could not even choose 
 to be. For "the divine poet" Hogg's admiration was 
 genuine and vivid ; but with his admiration for the poet 
 there mingled a man of the world's sense of superiority 
 to the immortal child. 
 
 Hogg finally married the beautiful widow Jane 
 Williams who, with her first husband, had shared 
 the house in which Shelley lived with Mary at 
 Pisa. Jane is the lady to whom Shelley ad- 
 dressed so many exquisite stanzas, the lady in 
 whose society he spent such happy hours, to whom 
 he gave a guitar, whom he once nearly drowned, 
 who lives for ever in these lines of his : 
 
 TO JANE: " THE KEEN STARS WERE 
 TWINKLING" 
 
 i 
 
 The keen stars were twinkling, 
 And the fair moon was rising among them, 
 
 Dear Jane ! 
 
 The guitar was tinkling, 
 But the notes were not sweet till you sung them 
 Again. 
 
 276 
 
 And man, and woman ; and what still is dear 
 Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
 
 The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near ; /} FJ ^ 
 'Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither, / / 
 
 As the moon's soft splendour 
 O'er the faint cold starlight of heaven 
 
 Is thrown, 
 
 So your voice most tender 
 To the strings without soul had them given 
 Its own. 
 
 in 
 
 The stars will awaken, 
 Though the moon sleep a full hour later, 
 
 Tonight ; 
 
 No leaf will be shaken 
 Whilst the dews of your melody scatter 
 Delight. 
 
 IV 
 
 Though the sound overpowers, 
 Sing again, with your dear voice revealing 
 
 A tone 
 
 Of some world far from ours, 
 Where music and moonlight and feeling 
 Are one. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Fanny Imlay 
 
 Fanny Imlay, who fell in love with Shelley, 
 was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft by Gil- 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 bert Imlay, an American. She was bora in Paris 
 in 1794 and she committed suicide at Swansea, 
 Wales, October 9, 1816, within a few weeks of 
 the day on which Shelley's first wife, Harriet, 
 drowned herself in the Serpentine. Harriet, 
 while still living with Shelley, wrote a pressing 
 invitation to Fanny to come for a visit to them 
 both. 
 
 The second Mrs. Godwin always insisted that 
 Fanny Imlay had fallen in love with Shelley, and 
 Godwin himself, in his old age, proclaimed the 
 same theory. Shelley's own view is preserved in 
 these lines on Fanny : 
 
 Her voice did quiver as we parted, 
 
 Yet knew I not that heart was broken 
 From which it came, and I departed 
 Heeding not the words then spoken. 
 Misery O Misery, 
 This world is all too wide for thee. 
 
 Those who search the verses of Shelley with 
 insight and industry, will detect more than one 
 veiled allusion to Fanny Imlay or Fanny Godwin, 
 as she was called. 
 
 278 
 
 No more let Life divide what Death 
 can join together.
 
 That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, ""T Tfl 
 
 That Beauty in which all things work and move, / / 
 
 Gilbert Imlay, father of poor Fanny, was a sort 
 of military adventurer from the United States. 
 He rejoiced in the title of Captain, acquired, it 
 has been vaguely conjectured, in our revolution- 
 ary war. As Mary had pretensions to beauty, 
 this Imlay had pretensions to literature. He had 
 given a three-volume novel to the world. The 
 world took no notice. He had described in many 
 vivid published letters the western wilds of the 
 newly established American republic. His knowl- 
 edge of the region was derived, it seems, from 
 personal observation in the course of the timber 
 and land speculations to which he owed his supply 
 of funds. He and Mary ran across one another 
 in the American colony then subsisting so precari- 
 ously in the Paris of the lantern and the rights of 
 man. Of Imlay's past, Mary knew absolutely 
 nothing definite. Perhaps he had a wife in Amer- 
 ica. It is possible that he had quitted his native 
 land for reasons anything but creditable to him- 
 self. Such is the mystery on the subject of his 
 antecedents and such is the uncertainty regarding 
 his career apart from his meretricious relations 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 with the vindicator of the rights of woman that 
 one hardly knows whether to deem him a rascal, 
 living under an assumed name, or a man of prin- 
 ciple. He was living at this juncture upon the 
 profits of timber operations in the Scandinavian 
 peninsula. He had been heard to talk about 
 writing a book and he appears to have held the- 
 ories of the rights of man. 
 
 It is easy to see how a fellow of this sort could 
 attract the volatile fancy of Mary Wollstone- 
 craft. To begin with, her finances were in dis- 
 order. She had no source of regular income. 
 His funds were just now ample. In addition to 
 her prettiness of physique and of manner, Mary 
 was a brilliant talker. Coleridge, who fully real- 
 ized her imbecility as a maker of books, and who 
 expressed to Hazlitt his contempt of her literary 
 powers, acknowledged that she shone in conversa- 
 tion. In spite of her masculine attitude as a vin- 
 dicator of the rights of woman, Mary was most 
 feminine in social life. She felt hurt when a 
 man did not stoop to pick up the fan or hand- 
 kerchief she dropped. She longed for the pretty 
 
 Q That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse 
 
 2 O O Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
 
 Which through the web of being blindly wove ^ Q T 
 
 By man and beast and earth and air and sea, 
 
 attentions paid by fops to dolls of fashion. She 
 was flirtatious. She was chatty. She talked 
 about the future of woman in a bold yet delight- 
 ful way. She made no concealment of her theory 
 that with ninety-nine men out of a hundred, "a 
 very sufficient dash of folly is necessary to render 
 a woman piquante." Imlay, on his side, was 
 deferential and gallant. He had the charm so 
 irresistible in many a woman's eyes of seeming 
 "literary." 
 
 The first advances were undoubtedly made by 
 Mary. That was characteristic of her in the vari- 
 ous affairs through which she compromised herself 
 with men. Godwin, with whom her relations, 
 prior to her marriage with that dealer in political 
 justice, were long notorious, contributes unwit- 
 tingly to the evidence against her on this point. 
 "The partiality we conceived for each other," he 
 says in his memoir of the woman who had been 
 his mistress before she became his wife, "was in 
 that mode which I have always considered as the 
 purest and most refined style of love. It grew 
 with equal advances in the mind of each. It 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 would have been impossible for the most minute 
 observer to have said who was before and who 
 was after. One sex did not take the priority which 
 long established custom has awarded it, nor the 
 other overstep that delicacy which is so severely 
 imposed. I am not conscious that either party 
 can assume to have been the agent or the patient, 
 the toil spreader or the prey, in the affair." God- 
 win's experience and Imlay's experience, had the 
 American been as elaborate a diarist as the Eng- 
 lishman, would in all likelihood be found to tally. 
 The affair with Imlay, like the affair with God- 
 win, but unlike the affair with Fuseli, "grew with 
 equal advances." Mary, taught discretion by the 
 shocks to her vanity in the pursuit of Fuseli, did 
 not throw herself at the head of the American 
 Captain with the recklessness she displayed in try- 
 ing to break up the Swiss artist's home. Imlay's 
 wife, if he had one anywhere, was not on the 
 ground to defend the sanctity of her hearth upon 
 the precedent established by Mrs. Fuseli. 
 
 From Mary's point of view, any wife of Im- 
 lay's need not have entered into the calculation. 
 
 O Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
 
 2 O 2r The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,
 
 Consuming the last clouds of cold 
 mortality. 
 
 283 
 
 "Her view," to quote the words of Mary's most 
 sympathetic interpreter, C. Kegan Paul, "was that 
 a common affection was marriage and that the 
 marriage tie should not bind after the death of 
 love, if love should die." As for a marriage cere- 
 mony to set the seal upon her relations with Im- 
 lay, that was, from Mary's point of view again, 
 superfluous. The one thing essential was love. 
 Marriage, the institution as civilization knows it, 
 was outworn. Her state of mind was at the op- 
 posite pole from that of Juliet who, in bidding 
 Romeo good night as he loitered under her bal- 
 cony, could say that if his bent of love was 
 honorable, his purpose marriage, they twain could 
 find some one to "perform the rite that makes of 
 lovers man and wife." Juliet lived long before 
 the vindication of the rights of woman. She 
 could not have realized that "a common affection 
 was marriage." Mary plagued her Romeo with 
 no such considerations as Shakespeare's heroine 
 deemed vital. Imlay could scarcely imagine with 
 what pleasure his Mary anticipated the day when 
 they were to begin "almost to live together." 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 She was confident that her heart had found peace 
 in his bosom. She implored him to cherish her 
 with that "dignified tenderness" she found only in 
 him. True, Mary had a hot temper. Imlay 
 learned that to his cost early in the affair. The 
 trait disconcerted him. But his "own dear girl" 
 promised to "keep under a quickness of feeling 3 ' 
 that had often given him pain. She had been 
 feeling very miserable, she wrote him. Like poor 
 Missis Gummidge, who was always thinking of 
 "the old un," Mary, doubtless, had remembered 
 Fuseli now and then. That, at any rate, is a 
 legitimate inference from her epistolary protesta- 
 tion to Imlay that her heart, "now trembling into 
 peace," was agitated by every emotion that awak- 
 ened the remembrance of old griefs. Meanwhile, 
 let him write soon to his own girl he might add 
 "fear" if he pleased. 
 
 As winter drew nigh, it became apparent that 
 Mary was to become a mother. Her lover being 
 called away from Paris more and more frequently 
 by those timber operations in the Scandinavian 
 peninsula upon which his fortunes depended, 
 
 284 
 
 The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
 Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,
 
 Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 2, R T 
 Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; J 
 
 Mary deluged him with her characteristic effu- 
 sions. She wanted her whole sex, she wrote him, 
 "to become wiser," with never a suspicion that she 
 might be a little wiser herself. She cherished a 
 plan to settle with Imlay in the country. But her 
 mind was ill at ease. Her theoretical Eden, from 
 which the marriage ceremony was practically 
 eliminated, was haunted already by a serpent of 
 distrust. She soothed herself by pouring out her 
 heart on paper to him. He excused his absences 
 upon the plea of business. She admitted the 
 validity of the explanation. She prayed to the 
 divine being. 
 
 Imlay had already revealed by his attitude how 
 subject he was to that eternal law of the mascu- 
 line nature which makes it impossible for any man 
 to respect permanently the woman of whose virtue 
 he cherishes the slightest suspicion. To him she 
 was a mistress, not a wife. Such is the man's 
 point of view always in these affairs, disguise it 
 as he may. Imlay's temper seems to have been 
 as violent as was Mary's. She flew perpetually 
 into a passion. She resented even the appearance 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 of a slight, any manifestation of indifference to 
 herself. Not being a wife, she could never be 
 sure of her position. "When I am hurt by the 
 person most dear to me," she explained in the 
 course of one of her innumerable epistles, "I must 
 let out a whole torrent of emotions." Too true. 
 She did it on paper in Paris, Imlay having gone 
 to Havre, whence he seems to have delayed his 
 return unconscionably. Mary meanwhile was 
 dreaming of their future felicity in their own 
 home when they had six children. Little did she 
 suspect, seemingly, that the foundation of a home, 
 the faith of a husband in the purity of the mother 
 of his children, had been destroyed when she per- 
 mitted herself to become Imlay's mistress. The 
 love that comes after marriage the supreme love 
 of all could not exist where there was no mar- 
 riage. The illegitimate daughter of Mary Woll- 
 stonecraft came into the world about a year after 
 the mother had begun to live openly with Imlay. 
 The child received the name of Fanny' in memory 
 of a dear friend to whose husband Mary had once 
 proved a source of infinite domestic discord. The 
 
 ^ O /^ The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 
 2 O O I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
 
 Whilst, burning through the inmost veil sy Q rj 
 
 of Heaven, A " / 
 
 infant Fanny was nursed by its own mother. 
 "My lying-in scarcely deserved the name," wrote 
 Mary to one of her sisters in England. "I only 
 rested through persuasion in bed one day, and was 
 out walking on the eighth." While the newly 
 born little Fanny was yet the tenderest of infants, 
 less than a few months old, she caught the small 
 pox. Mary took devoted care of the patient her- 
 self, putting the infant twice a day into a warm 
 bath. It recovered completely, although the 
 child's beauty was destroyed. Mary describes 
 her little Fanny as wonderfully intelligent. "I 
 am sure," she adds, in a letter to her sister, "she 
 has her father's quick temper and feelings." 
 What Mary wanted her sisters at home to think 
 of Imlay is revealed in yet another of the epistles 
 upon which she expended so much of her leisure. 
 "I am safe," she said, after dwelling in France 
 over a year, "through the protection of an Ameri- 
 can, a most worthy man, who joins to uncommon 
 tenderness of heart and quickness of feeling a 
 soundness of understanding and reasonableness of 
 temper rarely to be met with. Having also been 
 
 Elopement
 
 Shelley's 
 
 brought up in the interior parts of America, he is 
 a most natural, unaffected creature." Not a 
 word did Mary say on the subject of marriage. 
 The only hint she conveyed, however, of the real 
 nature of her relations with Imlay took the form 
 of the avowal : "I am with him much now." 
 
 She was not with him much longer. Imlay 
 had wearied of his "girl." His long absences left 
 her with no other resource than playing with little 
 Fanny, whose fate was to be so dreadful. "Be- 
 sides looking at me, there are three or four other 
 things which delight her," wrote Mary to the 
 child's father, "to ride in a coach, to look at a 
 scarlet waistcoat and hear loud music." 
 
 Q Q The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
 2 O O Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
 
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