M. W. S.
Mrs. Shelley to Mrs. Gisborne.
17th July 1834.
I am satisfied with my plan as regards him (Percy). I like the school, and the affection thus cultivated for me will, I trust, be the blessing of my life.
Still there are many drawbacks; this is a dull, inhospitable place. I came counting on the kindness of a friend who lived here, but she died of the influenza, and I live in a silence and loneliness not possible anywhere except in England, where people are so islanded individually in habits; I often languish for sympathy, and pine for social festivity.
Percy is much, but I think of you and Henry, and shrink from binding up my life in a child who may hereafter divide his fate from mine. But I have no resource; everything earthly fails me but him; except on his account I live but to suffer. Those I loved are false or dead; those I love, absent and suffering; and I, absent and poor, can be of no use to them. Of course, in this picture, I subtract the enjoyment of good health and usually good spirits,—these are blessings; but when driven to think, I feel so desolate, so unprotected, so oppressed and injured, that my heart is ready to break with despair. I came here, as I said, in April 1833, and 9th June was attacked by the influenza, so as to be confined to my bed; nor did I recover the effects for several months.
In September, during Percy’s holidays, I went to Putney, and recovered youth and health; Julia Robinson was with me, and we spent days in Richmond Park and on Putney Heath, often walking twelve or fourteen miles, which I did without any sense of fatigue. I sorely regretted returning here. I am too poor to furnish. I have lodgings in the town,—disagreeable ones,—yet often, in spite of care and sorrow, I feel wholly compensated by my boy.... God help me if anything was to happen to him—I should not survive it a week. Besides his society I have also a good deal of occupation.
I have finished a novel, which, if you meet with, read, as I think there are parts which will please you. I am engaged writing the lives of some of the Italian literati for Dr. Lardner’s Cyclopædia. I have written those of Petrarch, Boccaccio, etc., and am now engaged on Macchiavelli; this takes up my time, and is a source of interest and pleasure.
My Father, I suppose you know, has a tiny, shabby place under Government. The retrenchments of Parliament endanger and render us anxious. He is quite well, but old age takes from his enjoyments. Mrs. Godwin, after influenza, has been suffering from the tic-doloreux in her arm most dreadfully; they are trying all sorts of poisons on her with little effect. Their discomfort and low spirits will force me to spend Percy’s holidays in town, to be near them. Jane and Jeff are well; he was sent last autumn and winter by Lord Brougham as one of the Corporation Commissioners; he was away for months, and Jane took the opportunity to fall desperately in love with him—she pined and grew ill, and wasted away for him. The children are quite well. Dina spent a week here lately; she is a sweet girl. Edward improves daily under the excellent care taken of his education. I leave Jane to inform you of their progress in Greek. Dina plays wonderfully well, and has shown great taste for drawing, but this last is not cultivated.
I did not go to the Abbey, nor the Opera, nor hear Grisi; I am shut out from all things—like you—by poverty and loneliness. Percy’s pleasures are not mine; I have no other companion.