Percy Bysshe Shelley | Page 7

"He passed among his
school-fellows as a strange and unsocial being; for when a holiday
relieved us from our tasks, and the other boys were engaged in such
sports as the narrow limits of our prison-court allowed, Shelley, who
entered into none of them, would pace backwards and forwards--I think
I see him now--along the southern wall, indulging in various vague and
undefined ideas, the chaotic elements, if I may say so, of what
afterwards produced so beautiful a world."
Two of Shelley's most important biographical compositions
undoubtedly refer to this period of his boyhood. The first is the passage
in the Prelude to "Laon and Cythna" which describes his suffering
among the unsympathetic inmates of a school:--
Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first The clouds
which wrap this world from youth did pass. I do remember well the
hour which burst My spirit's sleep: a fresh May-dawn it was, When I
walked forth upon the glittering grass, And wept, I knew not why; until
there rose From the near school-room, voices, that, alas! Were but one
echo from a world of woes-- The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and
of foes.
And then I clasped my hands and looked around-- --But none was near
to mock my streaming eyes, Which poured their warm drops on the
sunny ground-- So without shame I spake:--"I will be wise, And just,
and free, and mild, if in me lies Such power, for I grow weary to behold
The selfish and the strong still tyrannize Without reproach or check." I
then controlled My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and
bold.
And from that hour did I with earnest thought Heap knowledge from
forbidden mines of lore, Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught I
cared to learn, but from that secret store Wrought linked armour for my
soul, before It might walk forth to war among mankind. Thus power

and hope were strengthened more and more Within me, till there came
upon my mind A sense of loneliness, a thirst with which I pined.
The second is a fragment on friendship preserved by Hogg. After
defining that kind of passionate attachment which often precedes love
in fervent natures, he proceeds: "I remember forming an attachment of
this kind at school. I cannot recall to my memory the precise epoch at
which this took pace; but I imagine it must have been at the age of
eleven or twelve. The object of these sentiments was a boy about my
own age, of a character eminently generous, brave, and gentle; and the
elements of human feeling seemed to have been, from his birth,
genially compounded within him. There was a delicacy and a
simplicity in his manners, inexpressibly attractive. It has never been my
fortune to meet with him since my school-boy days; but either I
confound my present recollections with the delusions of past feelings,
or he is now a source of honour and utility to every one around him.
The tones of his voice were so soft and winning, that every word
pierced into my heart; and their pathos was so deep, that in listening to
him the tears have involuntarily gushed from my eyes. Such was the
being for whom I first experienced the sacred sentiments of friendship."
How profound was the impression made on his imagination and his
feelings by this early friendship, may again be gathered from a passage
in his note upon the antique group of Bacchus and Ampelus at Florence.
"Look, the figures are walking with a sauntering and idle pace, and
talking to each other as they walk, as you may have seen a younger and
an elder boy at school, walking in some grassy spot of the play-ground
with that tender friendship for each other which the age inspires."
These extracts prove beyond all question that the first contact with the
outer world called into activity two of Shelley's strongest moral
qualities--his hatred of tyranny and brutal force in any form, and his
profound sentiment of friendship. The admiring love of women, which
marked him no less strongly, and which made him second only to
Shakespere in the sympathetic delineation of a noble feminine ideal,
had been already developed by his deep affection for his mother and
sisters. It is said that he could not receive a letter from them without
manifest joy.

"Shelley," says Medwin, "was at this time tall for his age, slightly and
delicately built, and rather narrow-chested, with a complexion fair and
ruddy, a face rather long than oval. His features, not regularly
handsome, were set off by a profusion of silky brown hair, that curled
naturally. The expression of his countenance was one of exceeding
sweetness and innocence. His blue eyes were very