daughter, and that it is because of the fascinations of these two that
Shelley has deserted his wife–for this month, considering all the
circumstances, and his new passion, and his employment of the time,
amounted to desertion; that is its rightful name. We cannot know how the
wife regarded it and felt about it; but if she could have read the letter
which Shelley was writing to Hogg four or five days later, we could guess
her thought and how she felt. Hear him:
. . . . . . .
“I have been staying with Mrs. Boinville for the last month;
I have escaped, in the society of all that philosophy and
friendship combine, from the dismaying solitude of myself.”
It is fair to conjecture that he was feeling ashamed.
“They have revived in my heart the expiring flame of life.
I have felt myself translated to a paradise which has nothing
of mortality but its transitoriness; my heart sickens at the
view of that necessity which will quickly divide me from the
delightful tranquillity of this happy home–for it has become
my home.
. . . . . . .
“Eliza is still with us–not here!–but will be with me when
the infinite malice of destiny forces me to depart.”
Eliza is she who blocked that game–the game in London–the one where we
were purposing to dine every night with one of the “three charming
ladies” who fed tea and manna and late hours to Hogg at Bracknell.
Shelley could send Eliza away, of course; could have cleared her out long
ago if so minded, just as he had previously done with a predecessor of
hers whom he had first worshipped and then turned against; but perhaps
she was useful there as a thin excuse for staying away himself.
“I am now but little inclined to contest this point.
I certainly hate her with all my heart and soul . . . .
“It is a sight which awakens an inexpressible sensation of
disgust and horror, to see her caress my poor little Ianthe,
in whom I may hereafter find the consolation of sympathy.
I sometimes feel faint with the fatigue of checking the
overflowings of my unbounded abhorrence for this miserable
wretch. But she is no more than a blind and loathsome worm,
that cannot see to sting.
“I have begun to learn Italian again . . . . Cornelia
assists me in this language. Did I not once tell you that I
thought her cold and reserved? She is the reverse of this, as
she is the reverse of everything bad. She inherits all the
divinity of her mother . . . . I have sometimes forgotten
that I am not an inmate of this delightful home–that a time
will come which will cast me again into the boundless ocean of
abhorred society.
“I have written nothing but one stanza, which has no meaning,
and that I have only written in thought:
“Thy dewy looks sink in my breast;
Thy gentle words stir poison there;
Thou hast disturbed the only rest
That was the portion of despair.
Subdued to duty’s hard control,
I could have borne my wayward lot:
The chains that bind this rained soul
Had cankered then, but crushed it not.
“This is the vision of a delirious and distempered dream, which
passes away at the cold clear light of morning. Its surpassing
excellence and exquisite perfections have no more reality than
the color of an autumnal sunset.”
Then it did not refer to his wife. That is plain; otherwise he would
have said so. It is well that he explained that it has no meaning, for
if he had not done that, the previous soft references to Cornelia and the
way he has come to feel about her now would make us think she was the
person who had inspired it while teaching him how to read the warm and
ruddy Italian poets during a month.
The biography observes that portions of this letter “read like the tired
moaning of a wounded creature.” Guesses at the nature of the wound are
permissible; we will hazard one.
Read by the light of Shelley’s previous history, his letter seems to be