I believe that when I came to push with all my force against the barriers that seemed to shut me in they would give way, and place all the treasures of invention before me.
Meanwhile, it unfortunately happens that I cannot lay my present disappointment to the charge of advancing age.
I find all my faculties and all my strength in full bloom about me. My disappointment has put that to a sharp trial. I thought that the severe stretch of my faculties would cause them to yield, and subside into feebleness and torpor. No such thing. Day after day, week after week, I apply to this one question, without remission and with discernment. But I cannot please myself. If I make the round of all my thoughts, and come home empty-handed, it would seem that in the flower and vigour of my youth I should have done the same.
Meanwhile, my situation is deplorable. I am not free to choose the thing I would do. I have written two volumes and a quarter, and have received five-sixths of the price of my work.
I am afraid you will think I am useless, by teasing you with “conceptions only proper to myself.” But it is not altogether so. A bystander may see a point of game which a player overlooks. Though I cannot furnish myself with satisfactory incidents I have disciplined my mind into a tone that would enable me to improve them, if offered to me.
My mind is like a train of gunpowder, and a single spark, now happily communicated, might set the whole in motion and activity.
Do not tease yourself about my calamity; but give it one serious thought. Who knows what such a thought may produce?—Your affectionate Father,
William Godwin.
In the spring of 1832 the cholera appeared in London. Clare, at a distance, was torn to pieces between real apprehension for the safety of her friends, and distracting fears lest the disease should select among them for its victim some one on whose life depended the realisation of Shelley’s will. For Percy especially she was solicitous. Mary must take him away at once, to the seaside—anywhere: if money was an obstacle she, Clare, was ready to help to defray the cost out of her salary.
Mrs. Shelley did leave London, although, it may safely be asserted, at no one’s expense but her own. She stayed for a month at Southend, and afterwards for a longer time at Sandgate.