Mary W. Shelley

A few people were moving about, carelessly reading the inscriptions. The young man unconsciously followed their example; he passed slowly along one of the walks, scanning the stones. His eye fell upon the word "Wollstonecraft," marked on a plain little slate slab. He paused and, leaning over removed his hat and read, and then glancing just beyond, saw seated on the grass—the tall girl. She held a book in her hands, but she was looking at him very soberly. Their eyes met, and they smiled just a little. The young man sat down on the turf on the other side of the grave from the girl, and they talked of the woman by whose dust they watched: and the young man found that the tall girl was an Ancestor-Worshiper and a mystic, and moreover had a flight of soul that held him in awe. Besides, in form and feature, she was rarely beautiful. She was quiet, but she could talk.

The next day, as Percy Shelley strolled through the churchyard of Old Saint Pancras, the tall girl was there again with her book, in the same place.

When Shelley made that first call at the Godwins he was twenty. The three girls he met were fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, respectively. Mary being the youngest in years, but the most mature, she would have easily passed for the oldest. Now, all three of these girls were dazzled by the beauty and grace and intellect of the strange, pale-faced visitor.

He came to the house again and again during the next few months. All the girls loved him violently, for that's the way girls under eighteen often love. Mr. Godwin soon discovered the fact that all his girls loved Shelley. They lost appetite, and were alternately in chills of fear and fevers of ecstacy. Mr. Godwin, being a kind man and a good, took occasion to explain to them that Mr. Shelley was a married man, and although it was true he did not live on good terms with his wife, yet she was his lawful wife, and marriage was a sacred obligation: of course, pure philosophy or poetic justice took a different view, but in society the marriage-tie must not be held lightly. In short, Shelley was married and that was all there was about it.

Shelley still continued to call, coming via Saint Pancras Church. In a few months, Mary confided to Jane that she and Shelley were about to elope, and Jane must make peace and explain matters after they were gone.

Jane cried and declared she would go, too—she would go or die: she would go as servant, scullion—anything, but go she would. Shelley was consulted, and to prevent tragedy consented to Jane going as maid to Mary, his well-beloved.

So the trinity eloped. It being Shelley's second elopement, he took the matter a little more coolly than did the girls, who had never eloped before. Having reached Dover, and while waiting at a hotel for the boat, the landlord suddenly appeared and breathlessly explained to Shelley, "A fat woman has just arrived and swears that you have run away with her girls!"

It was Mrs. Godwin.

The party got out by the back way and hired a small boat to take them to Calais. They embarked in a storm, and after beating about all night, came in sight of France the next morning as the sun arose.

Godwin was very much grieved and shocked to think that Shelley had broken in upon established order and done this thing. But Shelley had read Godwin's book and simply taken the philosopher at his word: "The impulses of the human heart are just and right; they are greater than law, and must be respected."

The runaways seemed to have had a jolly time in France as long as their money lasted. They bought a mule to carry their luggage, and walked. Jane's feet blistered, however, and they seated her upon the luggage upon the mule, and as the author of "Queen Mab" led the patient beast, Mary with a switch followed behind. After some days Shelley sprained his ankle, and then it was his turn to ride while Mary led the mule and Jane trudged after.

Thus they journeyed for six weeks, writing poetry, discussing philosophy; loving, wild, free and careless, until they came to Switzerland. One morning they counted their money and found they had just enough to take them to England.

Arriving in London the Godwins were not inclined to take them back, and society in general looked upon them with complete disfavor.

Shelley's father was now fully convinced of his son's depravity, but doled out enough money to prevent actual starvation. Shelley began to perceive that any man who sets himself against the established order—the order that the world has been thousands of years in building up—will be ground into the dust. The old world may be wrong, but it can not be righted in a day, and so long as a man chooses to live in society he must conform, in the main, to society usages. These old ways that have done good service all the years can not be replaced by the instantaneous process. If changed at all they must change as man changes, and man must change first. It is man that must be reformed, not custom.

Shelley and Mary Godwin were mates if ever such existed. In a year Mary had developed from a child into splendid womanhood—a beautiful, superior, earnest woman. By her own efforts, of course aided by Shelley (for they were partners in everything), she became versed in the classics and delved deeply into the literature of a time long past. Unlike her mother, Mary Shelley could do no great work alone. The sensitiveness and the delicacy of her nature precluded that self-reliant egoism which can create. She wrote one book, "Frankenstein," which in point of prophetic and allegorical suggestion stamps the work as classic: but it was written under the immediate spell of Shelley's presence. Shelley also could not work alone, and without her the world's disfavor must have whipped him into insanity and death.

As it was they sought peace in love and Italy, living near Lord Byron in great intimacy, and befriended by him in many ways.

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.

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