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Mary W. Shelley
by
But peace was not for Shelley. Calamity was at the door. He could never forget how he had lifted Harriet Westbrook into a position for which she was not fitted and then left her to flounder alone. And when word came that Harriet had drowned herself, his cup of woe was full. Shortly before this, Fanny Godwin had gone away with great deliberation, leaving an empty laudanum-bottle to tell the tale.
On December Thirtieth, Eighteen Hundred Sixteen, Shelley and Mary Godwin were married at Saint Mildred’s Church, London. Both had now fully concluded with Godwin that man owes a duty to the unborn and to society, and that to place one’s self in opposition to custom is at least very bad policy. But although Shelley had made society tardy amends, society would not forgive; and in a long legal fight to obtain possession of his children, Ianthe and Charles, of whom Harriet was the mother, the Court of Chancery decided against Shelley, on the grounds that he was “an unfit person, being an atheist and a republican.”
About this time was born little Allegra, “the Dawn,” child of Lord Byron and Jane Clairmont. Then afterwards came bickerings with Byron and threats of a duel and all that.
Finally there was a struggle between Byron and Miss Clairmont for the child: but death solved the issue and the beautiful little girl passed beyond the reach of either.
And so we find Shelley’s heart wrung by the sorrows of others and by his own; and when Mary and he laid away in death their bright boy William and their baby girl Clara, the Fates seemed to have done their worst. But man seems to have a certain capacity for pain, and beyond this even God can not go.
Shelley struggled on and with Mary’s help continued to write.
Another babe was born and the world grew brighter. They were now on the shores of the Mediterranean with a little group of enthusiasts who thought and felt as they did. For the first time they realized that, after all, they were a part of the world, and linked to the human race–not set off alone, despised, forsaken.
Then to join their little community were coming Leigh Hunt and his wife–Leigh Hunt, who had lain in prison for the right of free thought and free speech. What a joy to greet and welcome such a man to their home!
And so Shelley, blithe and joyous, sailed away to meet his friend. But Shelley never came back to his wife and baby boy. A few days after, the waves cast his body up on the beach, and you know the rest–how the faithful Trelawney and Byron made the funeral-pyre and reduced the body to ashes.
Mary was twenty-six years old then. She continued to live–to live only in the memory of her Shelley and with the firm thought in her mind that they would be united again. She seemed to exist but to care for her boy, and to do as best she could the work that Shelley had left undone.
The boy grew into a fine youth, and was as devoted to his mother as she was to him. The title of the estate with all its vast wealth descended to him, and together she lived out her days, tenderly cared for to the last, dying in her son’s arms, aged fifty-four.
She has told us that the first sixteen years of her life were spent in waiting for her Shelley, eight years she lived with him in divinest companionship, and twenty-eight years she waited and worked to prepare herself to rejoin him.