When Shelley encountered Mary Godwin he was looking around for another paradise.He had,tastes of his own,and there were features about the Godwin establishment that strongly recommended it.Godwin was an advanced thinker and an able writer.One of his romances is still read,but his philosophical works,once so esteemed,are out of vogue now;their authority was already declining when Shelley made his acquaintance --that is,it was declining with the public,but not with Shelley.They had been his moral and political Bible,and they were that yet.Shelley the infidel would himself have claimed to be less a work of God than a work of Godwin.Godwin's philosophies had formed his mind and interwoven themselves into it and become a part of its texture;he regarded himself as Godwin's spiritual son.Godwin was not without self-appreciation;indeed,it may be conjectured that from his point of view the last syllable of his name was surplusage.He lived serene in his lofty world of philosophy,far above the mean interests that absorbed smaller men,and only came down to the ground at intervals to pass the hat for alms to pay his debts with,and insult the man that relieved him.Several of his principles were out of the ordinary.For example,he was opposed to marriage.He was not aware that his preachings from this text were but theory and wind;he supposed he was in earnest in imploring people to live together without marrying,until Shelley furnished him a working model of his scheme and a practical example to analyze,by applying the principle in his own family;the matter took a different and surprising aspect then.The late Matthew Arnold said that the main defect in Shelley's make-up was that he was destitute of the sense of humor.This episode must have escaped Mr.Arnold's attention.
But we have said enough about the head of the new paradise.Mrs.Godwin is described as being in several ways a terror;and even when her soul was in repose she wore green spectacles.But I suspect that her main unattractiveness was born of the fact that she wrote the letters that are out in the appendix-basket in the back yard--letters which are an outrage and wholly untrustworthy,for they say some kind things about poor Harriet and tell some disagreeable truths about her husband;and these things make the fabulist grit his teeth a good deal.
Next we have Fanny Godwin--a Godwin by courtesy only;she was Mrs.
Godwin's natural daughter by a former friend.She was a sweet and winning girl,but she presently wearied of the Godwin paradise,and poisoned herself.
Last in the list is Jane (or Claire,as she preferred to call herself)Clairmont,daughter of Mrs.Godwin by a former marriage.She was very young and pretty and accommodating,and always ready to do what she could to make things pleasant.After Shelley ran off with her part-sister Mary,she became the guest of the pair,and contributed a natural child to their nursery--Allegra.Lord Byron was the father.
We have named the several members and advantages of the new paradise in Skinner Street,with its crazy book-shop underneath.Shelley was all right now,this was a better place than the other;more variety anyway,and more different kinds of fragrance.One could turn out poetry here without any trouble at all.
The way the new love-match came about was this:
Shelley told Mary all his aggravations and sorrows and griefs,and about the wet-nurse and the bonnetshop and the surgeon and the carriage,and the sister-in-law that blocked the London game,and about Cornelia and her mamma,and how they had turned him out of the house after making so much of him;and how he had deserted Harriet and then Harriet had deserted him,and how the reconciliation was working along and Harriet getting her poem by heart;and still he was not happy,and Mary pitied him,for she had had trouble herself.But I am not satisfied with this.
It reads too much like statistics.It lacks smoothness and grace,and is too earthy and business-like.It has the sordid look of a trades-union procession out on strike.That is not the right form for it.The book does it better;we will fall back on the book and have a cake-walk:
"It was easy to divine that some restless grief possessed him;Mary herself was not unlearned in the lore of pain.His generous zeal in her father's behalf,his spiritual sonship to Godwin,his reverence for her mother's memory,were guarantees with Mary of his excellence.--[What she was after was guarantees of his excellence.That he stood ready to desert his wife and child was one of them,apparently.]--The new friends could not lack subjects of discourse,and underneath their words about Mary's mother,and 'Political Justice,'and 'Rights of Woman,'were two young hearts,each feeling towards the other,each perhaps unaware,trembling in the direction of the other.The desire to assuage the suffering of one whose happiness has grown precious to us may become a hunger of the spirit as keen as any other,and this hunger now possessed Mary's heart;when her eyes rested unseen on Shelley,it was with a look full of the ardor of a 'soothing pity.'"Yes,that is better and has more composure.That is just the way it happened.He told her about the wet-nurse,she told him about political justice;he told her about the deadly sister-in-law,she told him about her mother;he told her about the bonnet-shop,she murmured back about the rights of woman;then he assuaged her,then she assuaged him;then he assuaged her some more,next she assuaged him some more;then they both assuaged one another simultaneously;and so they went on by the hour assuaging and assuaging and assuaging,until at last what was the result?
They were in love.It will happen so every time.