“I have but just entered on the scene of human operations, yet my feelings and my reasonings correspond with what yours were. My course has been short, but eventful. . . . The ill-treatment I have met with has more than ever impressed the truth of my principles on my judgment.”
When Godwin received this letter he was well pleased. Much talked of at the moment that Political Justice appeared, he had fallen back since into comparative neglect. He, too, though with less reason than his young disciple, could talk of an “eventful life.” He began his career as a clergyman, and at the age of thirty was an avowed atheist and republican.
In 1793 he had published his famous book. Pitt was in half a mind to have him prosecuted for it, but the high price of the work—it was sold at six guineas—had seemed to the Prime Minister a sufficient protection against its dangerous teaching.
Four years later Godwin had married Mary Wollstonecraft, a woman writer of genius, with whom he had been living. She had died in giving birth to a daughter, and the inveterate enemy of marriage at once married a second time, a certain Mrs. Clairmont. This lady, who was a widow, lived in the next house to his, and had made his acquaintance by addressing gross flattery to him from her balcony.
The couple led a thorny life. There were five children, the offspring of complicated crossings. First, the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and Godwin, by Genius out of Genius; she was named Mary. Then two children from Mrs. Clairmont’s first marriage, Jane and Charles. Thirdly, a little boy, son of Godwin and Mrs. Clairmont. Finally, the eldest in age, was a young girl who no longer belonged to anyone in the house, the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and her American lover, Captain Gilbert Imlay. This was the gentle and attractive Fanny Imlay, the Cinderella of the household.
The second Mrs. Godwin, “a disgusting woman who wore green spectacles,” had a mendacious tongue and a nasty temper. She treated Fanny and Mary with harshness, and managed the Juvenile Library in Skinner Street, which Godwin had started in order to earn the living of his own juveniles. The poor Philosopher led a sorrowful and difficult existence, entirely weaned from any sops to his vanity. On this account, a disciple writing him an enthusiastic letter from Keswick was extremely welcome. For a publisher of Children’s Books snowed under by Bills of Exchange, nothing could be more opportune than the acquaintance of a man who considered him as a luminary too dazzling for close inspection.
He answered Shelley’s letter by saying he should be glad to have a few personal details concerning his unknown correspondent. By return of post he received an autobiography, in which Timothy Shelley and the Dean of Oxford played ignoble parts. He was informed that his correspondent would inherit £6,000 a year, that he was married to a woman who shared all his ideas, and that he had already published two novels and a pamphlet, all of which he was sending to “the regulator and former” of his mind.
This enthusiastic epistle was read with great excitement by the young girls of the Godwin-Clairmont household, but the author of Political Justice was somewhat dubious about it. Since becoming himself the father of a family, he valued paternal authority more highly than heretofore. Possibly, Mr. Timothy Shelley had only acted in his son’s interests? One ought not to criticize the powers that be when one is young, above all one ought not to publish such criticisms. While yet a scholar, one ought to have no intolerable itch to become a teacher.
Had anyone but the “venerated” Godwin written this he would have been relegated at once to the class of stipended upholders of Intolerance. But Authority and Hierarchies are so essential to Youth, even to rebellious Youth, that it humbles itself with delight before the chosen director of its conscience.
The mystic side of Shelley’s nature had more need than another’s of some shrine at which to worship. “I am willing to become a scholar; nay a pupil,” he replied. “My humility and confidence is unfeigned and complete, where I am conscious that I am not imposed upon, and where I perceive talents and powers so undoubtedly superior.”