CHAPTER XV.
MOTIVE AND INFLUENCES.
The fatal Marriage—Was Shelley trapt into it?—Mr. Garnett’s Assurances—The Fiction about Claire—Lady Shelley’s Use of Hogg’s Evidences—The Prenuptial Intercourse—Was it slight?—Shelley’s Opportunities for knowing all about Harriett—His Use and Abuse of those Opportunities—Mr. Westbrook’s Action towards Shelley—His endeavour to preserve Harriett from Shelley—Eliza Westbrook’s part in making up the Match—The Tool’s Reward—The Etonian Free Lover—The Social Condition of the Westbrooks and Godwins—Harriett Westbrook’s Beauty—Her Education—Her Knowledge of French—Her quick Progress in Latin—What Wonder that Shelley fell in love with her?
Thus it was that Shelley carried off Mr. Westbrook’s sixteen-years-old child, and made her his wife, instead of acting on ‘the hasty decision,’ from which Hogg dissuaded him. Did he take this momentous step inconsiderately? On a slight acquaintance with the young lady? Under circumstances that denied him fair opportunities for observing the temper and studying the character of the girl whose singular beauty had fascinated him? Was he lured, drawn, inveigled, into the marriage by influences, stronger than those that are usually employed by a girl’s nearest relatives for compassing what they think a good match for her? The enthusiasts, who draw their inspiration on Shelleyan questions from Field Place, do not hesitate to answer all these questions in the affirmative.
Mr. Garnett (vide his Shelley in Pall Mall) assures us that whenever certain documents, hitherto withheld from the world, shall be made public, i.e. when Field Place shall issue its authoritative biography for the ending of all controversies on Shelleyan matters, ‘it will for the first time be clearly understood how slight was the acquaintance of Shelley with Harriet, previous to their marriage; what advantage was taken of his chivalry of sentiment, and her compliant disposition, and the inexperience of both; and how little entitled or disposed she felt herself to complain of his behaviour.’ It is certain that before submitting to what she could not prevent, Harriett complained with passionate vehemence of her husband’s behaviour to her. Let that matter, however, pass for the present. What are the grounds for saying that unfair advantage was taken of Shelley’s inexperience, and that Shelley, by reason of the slightness of his acquaintance with her, when he stole her from her father, knew much less of Harriett than young men usually know of girls they are on the point of marrying?
Strange things may of course be looked for from the people, who have recently required the world to believe that, instead of taking Claire from London to Byron at Geneva, Shelley and Mary Godwin were taken (like two little children) by Claire to Switzerland,—and so taken there by her, although they (as the Field Place story goes) disliked her exceedingly, even to the point of disgustful aversion. But even the authorities of Field Place will scarcely declare the documents published in Hogg’s Life to be spurious documents. They will scarcely declare that Hogg (the writer with a peculiar style from which he could not liberate himself for an instant) forged the multitude of letters, published in his book as letters written to him by Shelley,—the epistles, some of which Lady Shelley herself used for evidential purposes in writing her Shelley Memorials,—the epistles which are so Shelleyan in thought and diction, feeling and language, form and style, that no other human being but Shelley could have written them. Field Place has dared to do strange things, but its daring will stop short of this extravagance. To produce documents, drawn by Shelley’s hand or at his dictation, in contradiction of these letters, would not be to discredit the letters, but only to produce fresh illustration of one of Shelley’s most perplexing infirmities,—fresh evidence that he often made statements contrary to the truth.
From documentary evidences of unimpeachable genuineness and irresistible cogency, it is certain that Shelley made Harriett Westbrook’s acquaintance in January, 1811, eight lunar months before his elopement with her; that he corresponded with her between the day on which he made her acquaintance and the date of his expulsion from Oxford; that in the spring of 1811 he saw her repeatedly at her home and elsewhere,—receiving her at least on one occasion at his lodgings in Poland Street, attending her from her father’s house to her school on Clapham Common, walking about with her on Clapham Common, and sitting up with her (at least on one occasion) till past midnight, at Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square, in the absence of a third person; that he corresponded with her from March to September; that the wooing, which began at Oxford by letter, if not on the occasion of their first meeting, was strenuously prosecuted by Shelley to the day of the elopement; that he had opportunities for seeing and influencing her, which enabled him to illuminate her out of Christianity and (to use Mr. Rossetti’s expression) to ‘philosophise her out of the ordinary standard of propriety’; that he had opportunities, and used them, for making her think lightly of the matrimonial rite; that he had opportunities, and used them, for encouraging her in rebellion against her own father; that instead of being kept in the dark as to the chief, and indeed the only important defect of her temper—a constitutional proneness to discontent—he was peculiarly interested in her manifestations of this significant quality, and sympathized cordially with her groundless grievances and imaginary sorrows. Though he was uncertain as to the day on which Shelley determined to win Harriett Westbrook’s affections, Hogg had no doubt his friend had begun to woo the girl before he left Oxford. ‘Shelley’s epistles show the progress of his courtship,’ he says, ‘and that his marriage was not quite so hasty an affair as it is commonly represented to have been. The wooing continued for half-a-year at least, and this is a long time in the life,—in the life of love, of such young persons.’ The interval, between Shelley’s withdrawal from Oxford and his marriage at Edinburgh, wanted at least three weeks of an entire half-year. Yet, Field Place requires us to believe slightness was a principal characteristic of the prenuptial intercourse of these young people!
How about the charge of inveiglement? No one has ever suggested that Mr. Westbrook was an accomplice in measures for luring the heir of the heir to a wealthy Sussex baronetcy into wedlock with his younger daughter. On the contrary there were reasons why he should regard any such project with disfavour. If he was not a gentleman, Mr. Westbrook was a man of the world, who came in contact with gentlemen, and knew something of the ways of the higher world and fashionable society, from the gossip of the gentlemen who used his public-house. The west-end taverner, who had risen to comfortable circumstances by attention to his affairs, was not the man to be keenly desirous of having for his son-in-law the scatterbrain youngster who only the other day was expelled from Oxford. He had seen too many youngsters of quality drop to grief and ruin, not to know that a young gentleman of Shelley’s parentage and expectations and story might prove a very poor match for a prosperous tradesman’s daughter. He knew the value of his money too well, not to be aware that his pretty daughter, to whom he could make a good allowance during his life and perhaps leave ten thousand pounds at his death, might do much better for herself than marry the harum-scarum son of the Member for New Shoreham. Mr. Westbrook did not need to be told that, so married, his pretty daughter and her children might drain his pocket to his last hour. Like a prudent man, he did nothing to hurry his daughter into the unfortunate marriage.