Proserpine and Midas | Page 2

The force of
style which even adverse critics acknowledged in Frankenstein was
sometimes perilously akin to the most disputable kinds of romantic rant.
But in the historical or society novels which followed, in the
contributions which graced the 'Keepsakes' of the thirties, and
even--alas--in the various prefaces and commentaries which
accompanied the publication of so many poems of Shelley, his wife
succumbed to an increasing habit of almost Victorian reticence and
dignity. And those later novels and tales, though they sold well in their
days and were kindly reviewed, can hardly boast of any reputation now.
Most of them are pervaded by a brooding spirit of melancholy of the
'moping' rather than the 'musical' sort, and consequently rather
ineffective as an artistic motive. Students of Shelley occasionally scan

those pages with a view to pick some obscure 'hints and indirections',
some veiled reminiscences, in the stories of the adventures and
misfortunes of The Last Man or Lodore. And the books may be good
biography at times--they are never life.
Altogether there is a curious contrast between the two aspects, hitherto
revealed, of Mary Shelley's literary activities. It is as if the pulse which
had been beating so wildly, so frantically, in Frankenstein (1818), had
lapsed, with Valperga (1823) and the rest, into an increasingly sluggish
flow.
The following pages may be held to bridge the gap between those two
extremes in a felicitous way. A more purely artistic mood, instinct with
the serene joy and clear warmth of Italian skies, combining a good deal
of youthful buoyancy with a sort of quiet and unpretending philosophy,
is here represented. And it is submitted that the little classical fancies
which Mrs. Shelley never ventured to publish are quite as worthy of
consideration as her more ambitious prose works.
For one thing they give us the longest poetical effort of the writer. The
moon of Epipsychidion never seems to have been thrilled with the
music of the highest spheres. Yet there were times when Shelley's
inspiration and example fired her into something more than her usual
calm and cold brilliancy.
One of those periods--perhaps the happiest period in Mary's life--was
during the early months in Italy of the English 'exiles'. 'She never was
more strongly impelled to write than at this time; she felt her powers
fresh and strong within her; all she wanted was some motive, some
suggestion to guide her in the choice of a subject.' [Footnote: Mrs.
Marshall, The Life and Letters of Mary W. Shelley, i. 216.]
Shelley then expected her to try her hand at a drama, perhaps on the
terrible story of the Cenci, or again on the catastrophes of Charles the
First. Her Frankenstein was attracting more attention than had ever
been granted to his own works. And Shelley, with that touching
simplicity which characterized his loving moments, showed the
greatest confidence in the literary career of his wife. He helped her and

encouraged her in every way. He then translated for her Plato's
Symposium. He led her on in her Latin and Italian studies. He wanted
her--probably as a sort of preliminary exercise before her flight into
tragedy--to translate Alfieri's Myrrha. 'Remember _Charles the First,
and do you be prepared to bring at least some of Myrrha_ translated,'
he wrote; 'remember, remember Charles the First and Myrrha,' he
insisted; and he quoted, for her benefit, the presumptuous aphorism of
Godwin, in St. Leon, 'There is nothing which the human mind can
conceive which it may not execute'. [Footnote: Letter from Padua, 22
September 1818.]
But in the year that followed these auspicious days, the strain and stress
of her life proved more powerful on Mary Shelley than the inspiration
of literature. The loss of her little girl Clara, at Venice, on the 24th of
September 1818, was cruel enough. However, she tried hard not to
show the 'pusillanimous disposition' which, Godwin assured his
daughter, characterizes the persons 'that sink long under a calamity of
this nature'. [Footnote: 27 October 1818] But the death of her boy,
William, at Rome, on the 4th of June 1819, reduced her to a 'kind of
despair'. Whatever it could be to her husband, Italy no longer was for
her a 'paradise of exiles'. The flush and excitement of the early months,
the 'first fine careless rapture', were for ever gone. 'I shall never recover
that blow,' Mary wrote on the 27th of June 1819; 'the thought never
leaves me for a single moment; everything on earth has lost its interest
for me,' This time her imperturbable father 'philosophized' in vain.
With a more sympathetic and acuter intelligence of her case, Leigh
Hunt insisted (July 1819) that she should try and give her paralysing
sorrow some literary expression, 'strike her pen into some... genial
subject... and bring up a fountain of gentle