Daughter of Earth and Water: A Biography of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley by Gerson Noel

Author:Gerson, Noel [Gerson, Noel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-03-07T05:00:00+00:00

XIII

“I HAVE not kept my journal all this time,” Mary wrote on December 31, 1819, “but I have little to say all this time except that in the morning of Friday, November 13th little Percy Florence was born ... I now begin a new year — may it be a happier one than the last unhappy one.”

Mary, who had not been able to shed her superstitions, believed that the omens were favourable. She gave birth to her new son after a labour of less than two hours, and the baby was robust, perfectly formed and cheerful. She even insisted her son had been born on November twelfth rather than Friday the thirteenth, a date which Shelley wrote on the baptismal certificate when Percy Florence was christened by an Anglican clergyman late in January, 1820.

For the first time since little Clara’s death Mary was truly happy, and when the baby was awake she spent most of her time with him. She even luxuriated in a lazy way of life completely alien to her, and somewhat to Shelley’s surprise she neither read extensively nor allowed herself to feel guilty because she could take no interest in books. She had not lost her ability to look at herself with humour, however, and a few weeks after Percy Florence came into the world she wrote to Mrs. Gisborne:

Study I cannot, for I have no books, and I may not call simple reading study, for Papa is continually saying and writing that to read one book without others beside you to which you may refer is mere child’s work. But still I hope now to get on with Latin and Spanish.

Mary’s idea of what she called simple reading was not like that of people who lacked her intellect and training, of course. Her Journal indicates that she was reading the works of Livy, Byron’s Don Juan, the Books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, Bernard de Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees, a history of Mexico and, with Shelley, a number of Shakespeare’s plays. In addition, strictly for the pleasure of the mental exercise it afforded her, she translated into English those metaphysical works of Spinoza which had been written in Dutch.

Claire, who was following Mrs. Mason’s advice, was absorbed in singing lessons and was creating a somewhat separate social life of her own in the English colony of Florence, so she was causing less friction with Mary than formerly. The atmosphere in the Shelley household was so improved that Mary sent an invitation to Leigh and Marianne Hunt, asking them to come to Italy for a visit. She also conquered her dislike of Peacock and Hogg sufficiently to make no protest when Shelley sent them similar invitations.

But she drew at least a temporary line when her husband suggested that William and Mary Jane Godwin come to Florence for a visit. Shelley, who was still annoyed with his father-in-law, nevertheless knew Mary was worried because of Godwin’s continuing financial difficulties, and was particularly concerned because it appeared that he could no longer afford his Skinner Street office and home.

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