In most men, and especially in very young men, an excessive addiction to study tends to chill the heart and to blunt the feelings, by engrossing the attention. Notwithstanding his extreme devotion to literature, and amidst his various and ardent speculations, he retained a most affectionate regard for his relations, and particularly for the females of his family; it was not without manifest joy that he received a letter from his mother or his sisters.
A child of genius is seldom duly appreciated by the world during his life, least of all by his own kindred. The parents of a man of talent may claim the honour of having given him birth, yet they commonly enjoy but little of his society. Whilst we hang with delight over the immortal pages, we are apt to suppose that the gifted author was fondly cherished; that a possession so uncommon and so precious was highly prized; that his contemporaries anxiously watched his going out and eagerly looked for his coming in; for we should ourselves have borne him tenderly in our hands, that he might not dash his foot against a stone. Surely such an one was given in charge to angels, we cry. On the contrary, Nature appears most unaccountably to slight a gift that she gave grudgingly, as if it were of small value, and easily replaced.
An unusual number of books, Greek or Latin classics, each inscribed with the name of the donor, which had been presented to him, according to custom, on quitting Eton, attested that Shelley had been popular among his schoolfellows. Many of them were then at Oxford, and they frequently called at his rooms. Although he spoke of them with regard, he generally avoided their society, for it interfered with his beloved study, and interrupted the pursuits to which he ardently and entirely devoted himself.
In the nine centuries that elapsed from the time of our great founder, Alfred, to our days, there never was a student who more richly merited the favour and assistance of a learned body, or whose fruitful mind would have repaid with a larger harvest the labour of careful and judicious cultivation. And such cultivation he was well entitled to receive. Nor did his scholar-like virtues merit neglect, still less to be betrayed, like the young nobles of Falisci, by a traitorous schoolmaster to an enemy less generous than Camillus. No student ever read more assiduously. He was to be found book in hand at all hours, reading in season and out of season, at table, in bed and especially during a walk; not only in the quiet country and in retired paths; not only at Oxford in the public walks and High Street, but in the most crowded thoroughfares of London. Nor was he less absorbed by the volume that was open before him in Cheapside, in Cranbourne Alley or in Bond Street, than in a lonely lane, or a secluded library.
Sometimes a vulgar fellow would attempt to insult or annoy the eccentric student in passing. Shelley always avoided the malignant interruption by stepping aside with his vast and quiet agility.
Sometimes I have observed, as an agreeable contrast to these wretched men, that persons of the humblest station have paused and gazed with respectful wonder as he advanced, almost unconscious of the throng, stooping low, with bent knees and outstretched neck, poring earnestly over the volume, which he extended before him; for they knew this, although the simple people knew but little, that an ardent scholar is worthy of deference, and that the man of learning is necessarily the friend of humanity, and especially of the many. I never beheld eyes that devoured the pages more voraciously than his. I am convinced that two-thirds of the period of the day and night were often employed in reading. It is no exaggeration to affirm, that out of the twenty-four hours he frequently read sixteen. At Oxford his diligence in this respect was exemplary, but it greatly increased afterwards, and I sometimes thought that he carried it to a pernicious excess. I am sure, at least, that I was unable to keep pace with him.
On the evening of a wet day, when we had read with scarcely any intermission from an early hour in the morning, I have urged him to lay aside his book. It required some extravagance to rouse him to join heartily in conversation; to tempt him to avoid the chimney-piece on which commonly he had laid the open volume.
“If I were to read as long as you read, Shelley, my hair and my teeth would be strewed about on the floor, and my eyes would slip down my cheeks into my waistcoat pockets, or, at least, I should become so weary and nervous that I should not know whether it were so or not.”
He began to scrape the carpet with his feet, as if teeth were actually lying upon it, and he looked fixedly at my face, and his lively fancy represented the empty sockets. His imagination was excited, and the spell that bound him to his books was broken, and, creeping close to the fire, and, as it were, under the fireplace, he commenced a most animated discourse.
Few were aware of the extent, and still fewer, I apprehend, of the profundity of his reading. In his short life and without ostentation he had in truth read more Greek than many an aged pedant, who with pompous parade prides himself upon this study alone. Although he had not entered critically into the minute niceties of the noblest of languages, he was thoroughly conversant with the valuable matter it contains. A pocket edition of Plato, of Plutarch, of Euripides, without interpretation or notes, or of the Septuagint, was his ordinary companion; and he read the text straightforward for hours, if not as readily as an English author, at least with as much facility as French, Italian or Spanish.