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LETTERS
TO
ELIZABETH KITCHENER.
'* The peculiar virtue of his [S/reliey's] epistles is to
express the mind of the poet as Perfectly as Macaulay's
express the mind of the man of letters, or Welling'
ton's the 7nind of the general ; and a r'ery
great part of the pleasure to he derived from them is
the observation of their intimate correspondence with
the deliberate poetical achievement upon which they
are an uttdesigned commentary. They prove that
Shelley's ideal world was a real world to Shelley
himself; and contain nothing to suggest that the man
habitually lived on a loiver level than the author."
LETTER.S
FROM
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
TO
ELIZABETH KITCHENER.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL I.
1890.
London : Privately Printed.
(Not for Sale.)
CONTENTS.
Vol. I.
LETTER I.
Field Place, Horsham.
Wednesday, ^th JtmCy i8il , , 3
LETTER II.
Field Place, Horsham.
Tuesday y lUhJune, iSll . , . 6
LETTER III.
Field Place, Horsham.
Thursday, loth Jimc, i8ii . . 15
LETTER IV.
Field Place, Horsham,
Tuesday, 2^thjune, 1811. . . .22
LETTER V.
Cwm Elan, Rhayader.
Thursday, 2$th July, 181 1 . . . 28
LETTER VI.
Cwm Elan, Rhayader.
Friday, 26ihjuly, 18 11 . . . 34
viii CONTENTS.
PAGE
LETTER VII.
London.
' Saturday ^ \oth August, i8ii . . 39
LETTER VIII.
London.
Monday f igth August, 181 1 . . 42
LETTER IX.
Coney Street, York.
Tuesday, %th October, 1811 . . . 46
LETTER X.
York.
Wednesday, 16th October, 1811 . . 50
LETTER XI.
Cuckfield.
Saturday, l^th October, 181 1 . , 59
LETTER XII.
Blake Street, York.
Saturday, 26tk October, i8ii . . 62
LETTER XIII.
Townhead, Keswick.
Friday, Zlh November, \%\\ . . 72
CONTENTS. ix
LETTER XIV. ^*^^
Chesnut Cottage, Keswick.
Tuesday, llth Ncwembei', 1811 . . 7S
LETTER XV.
Chesnut Hill, Keswick.
Thursday, 20th November, i%ii 3^
LETTER XVI.
Keswick, Cumberland.
Wednesday, 2.0th Ncruember, 1811 . 91
LETTER XVII.
Keswick, Cumberland.
Saturday, 2Zrd November, 1811 . 96
LETTER XVIII.
Keswick, Cumberland.
Sunday, 2^h November, iZii , . ic6
LETTER XIX.
Keswick, Cumberland.
Tuesday, 26th November, 181 1 . . 113
LETTER XX.
Keswick, Cumberland.
Monday, ^th December, iZii . .1^^
X CONTENTS.
PACE
LETTER XXI.
Keswick, Cumberland.
Tuesday, loth December, i^il . 125
LETTER XXn.
Keswick, Cumberland.
Sunday, i^th December, 181 1 . 134
LETTER XXin.
Keswick, Cumberland.
Thursday, zdtk December, 181 1 . 142
LETTER XXIV.
Keswick, Cumberland.
Thursday, 2nd January, 1812 . 151
ERRATUM.
Page 78.
For, Tuesday, nth November, 18 11,
Read, Tuesday, 12th November, 18 n.
LETTERS.
LETTERS TO
ELIZABETH KITCHENER.
LETTER I.
Field Place,
[ PVednesday] ^ne $, 1 8 1 1 ,
Dear Madam,
I desired Locke to be sent to
you from London, and the Captain has
two books which he will give you —
The Curse of Kehama, and Ensor's
National Education. The latter is the
production of a very clever man. You
may keep the poem as long as you
please ; but I shall want the latter in
the course of a month or two, — before
which, however, I shall have the plea-
sure of seeing you.
4 LETTERS TO
I fear our arguments are too long,
and too candidly carried on, to make
any figure on paper. Feelings do not
look so well as reasonings on black
and white. If, however, secure of
your own orthodoxy, you would at-
tempt my proselytism, believe me I
should be most happy to subject my-
self to the danger. But I know that
you, like myself, are a devotee at the
shrine of Truth. Truth is my God ;
and say he is air, water, earth, or
electricity, but I think yours is redu-
cible to the same simple Divinityship.
Seriously, however : if you very widely
differ, or differ indeed in the least,
from me on the subject of our late
argument, the only reason which would
induce me to object to a polemical
correspondence is that it might deprive
your time of that application which its
value deserves : mine is totally vacant.
Walter Scott has published a new
poem, The Vision of Don Roderick. I
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 5
have ordered it. You shall have it
when I have finished. I am not very
enthusiastic in the cause of Walter
Scott. The aristocratical tone which
his writings assume does not prepossess
me in his favour, since my opinion is
that all poetical beauty ought to be
subordinate to the inculcated moral, —
that metaphorical language ought to
be a pleasing vehicle for useful and
momentous instruction. But see Ensor
on the subject of poetry.
Adieu.
Your sincere
Percy Shelley.
LETTERS TO
LETTER II.
Field Place,
{TuesdaylJune ii, i8u.
My Dear Madam,
With pleasure I engage in a
correspondence which carries its own
recommendation both with my feeHngs
and my reason. I am now, however,
an imdivided votary of the latter. I
do not know which were most compli-
mefitary : but, as you do not admire,
as I do not study, this aristocratical
science, it is of little consequence.
Am I to expect an enemy or an
ally in Locke? Locke proves that
there are no innate ideas; that, in
consequence, there can be no innate
speculative or practical principles, —
thus overturning all appeals oi feeling
in favour of Deity, since that feeling
must be referable to some origin.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER 7
There must have been a time when
it did not exist; in consequence, a
time when it began to exist. Since
all ideas are derived from the senses,
this feeling must have originated from
some sensual excitation : consequently
the possessor of it may be aware of
the time, of the circumstances, attend-
ing its commencement. Locke proves
this by induction too clear to admit
of rational objection. He affirms,
in a chapter of whose reasoning I
leave your reason to judge, that there
is a God : he affirms also, and that
in a most unsupported way, that the
Holy Ghost dictated St. Paul's writings.
Which are we to prefer? The proof
or the affirmation?
To a belief in Deity I have no
objection on the score of feeling: I
would as gladly, perhaps with greater
pleasure, admit than doubt his exist-
ence. I now do neither : I have not
the shadow of a doubt.
8 LETTERS TO
My wish to convince you of his
non-existence is twofold : first, on the
score of truth; secondly, because I
conceive it to be the most summary
way of eradicating Christianity. I
plainly tell you my intentions and my
views. I see a being whose aim, like
mine, is virtue. Christianity militates
with a high pursuit of it. Hers is a
high pursuit of it : she is therefore not
a Christian. Yet wherefore does she
deceive herself? Wherefore does she
attribute to a spurious, irrational (as
proved), disjointed system of desultory
ethics, — insulting, intolerant theology,
— that high sense of calm dispassionate
virtue which her own meditations have
elicited ? Wherefore is a man who has
profited by this error to say : " You
are regarded as a monster in society ;
eternal punishment awaits your infi-
delity?" "I do not believe it," is
your reply. " Here is a book," is the
rejoinder. " Pray to. the Being who is
I
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 9
here described, and you shall soon
believe."
Surely, if a person obstinately 7vills
to believe, — determines spite of him-
self, spite of the refusal of that part
of mind to admit the assent in which
only can assent rationally be centred,
— wills thus to put himself under the
influence of passion,— all reasoning is
superfluous. Yet I do not suppose
that you act thus (for action it must be
called, as belief is a passion) ; since the
religion does not hold out high morality
as an apology for an aberration from
reason. In this latter case, reason
might sanction the aberration, and
fancy become but an auxiliary to its
influence.
Dismiss, then, Christianity, in which
no arguments can enter. Passion and
Reason are in their natures opposite.
Christianity is the former ; and Deism
(for we are now no further) is the
latter.
10 LETTERS TO
What, then, is a " God " ? It is a
name which expresses the unknown
cause, the suppositious origin of all
existence. When we speak of the soul
of man, we mean that unknown cause
which produces the observable effect
evinced by his intelligence and bodily
animation, which are in their nature
conjoined, and (as we suppose, as we
observe) inseparable. The word God,
then, in the sense which you take it,
analogizes with the universe as the soul
of man to his body ; as the vegetative
power to vegetables ; the stony power
to stones. Yet, were each of these
adjuncts taken away, wl^at would be
the remainder ? What \i man without
his soul ? He is not man. What are
Vegetables without their vegetative
power? stones without their stony?
Each of these as much constitutes the
essence of men, stones, &c., as much
make it what it is, as your " God " does
the universe. In this sense I acknow-
ELIZABETH HITCH EN ER. II
ledge a God ; but merely as a synonym
for the existing pouter of existence.
I do not in this (nor can you do, I
think) recognize a being which has
created that to which it is confessedly
annexed as an essence, as that without
which the universe would not be what
it is. It is therefore the essence of the
universe : the universe is the essence of
it. It is another word for " the essence
of the universe." You recognize not in
this an identical being to whom are
attributable the properties of virtue,
mercy, loveHness. Imagination delights
in personification. Were it not for this
embodying quality of eccentric fancy,
we should be, to this day, without a
God. Mars was personified as the God
of War, Juno of Policy, &c.
But you have formed in your mind
the Deity of Virtue. The personifica-
tion— beautiful in poetry, inadmissible
in reasoning — in the true style of
Hindoostanish devotion, you have
12 LETTERS TO
adopted. I war against it for the sake
of truth. There is such a thing as
virtue : but what, who, is this Deity of
Virtue ? Not the father of Christ, not
the source of the Holy Ghost ; not the
God who beheld with favour the coward
wretch Abraham, who built the grandeur
of his favourite Jews on the bleeding
bodies of myriads, on the subjugated
necks of the dispossessed inhabitants
of Canaan. But here my instances
were as long as the memoir of his
furious King-like exploits, did not con-
tempt succeed to hatred. Did I now
see him seated in gorgeous and tyrannic
majesty, as described, upon the throne
of infinitude, if I bowed before him,
what would Virtue say ? Virtue's voice
is almost inaudible ; yet it strikes upon
the brain, upon the heart. The howl
of self-interest is loud ; but the heart
is black which throbs solely to its note.
You say our theory is the same : I
believe it. Then why all this ? The
ELIZABETH HITCH EN ER. 1 3
power which makes me a sctibbler
knows !
I have just finished a novel of the
day — The Missionary, \>^ Mrs. Owenson.
It dwells on ideas which, when young,
I dwelt on with enthusiasm : now I
laugh at the weakness which is past.
The Curse of Kehatna, which you will
have, is my most favourite poem ; yet
there is a great error — faith in the
character of the divine Kailyal.
Yet I forgot. I intended to mention
to you something essential. I recom-
mend reason. Why? Is it because,
since I have devoted myself unreserved-
ly to its influencing, I have never felt
happiness? I have rejected all fancy,
all imagination : I find that all pleasure
resulting to self is thereby completely
annihilated. I am led into this egotism,
that you may be clearly aware of the
nature of reason, as it affects me. I
am sincere : will you comment upon
this?
14 LETTERS TO
Adieu. A picture of Christ hangs
opposite in my room : it is well done,
and has met my look at the conclusion
of this. Do not believe but that I am
sincere : but am I not too prolix ?
Yours most sincerely,
Percy Shelley.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 15
LETTER III.
Field Place.
[Thursday^ June 20, 181 1.
My Dear Madam,
Your letter, though dated the
14th, has not reached me until this
moment.
" Reason sanctions an aberration
from reason." I admit it ; or rather, on
some subjects, I conceive it to com-
mand a dereliction of itself. What I
mean by this is an habitual analysis of
our own thoughts. It is this habit,
acquired by length of solitary labour,
never then to be shaken off, which
induces gloom; which deprives the
being thus affected of any anticipation
or retrospection of happiness, and leaves
him eagerly in pursuit of virtue, — yet
(apparent paradox) pursuing it without
the weakest stimulus. It is this, then,
1 6 LETTERS TO
against which I intended to caution
you : this is the tree which it is
dangerous to eat, but which 1 have fed
upon to satiety.
We both look around us. We find
that we exist. We find ourselves
reasoning upon the mystery which
involves our being. We see virtue
and vice ; we see light and darkness.
Each is separate, distinct : the line
which divides them is glaringly per-
ceptible. Yet how racking it is to
the soul, when enquiring into its own
operations, to find that perfect virtue is
very far from attainable, — to find reason
tainted by feeling, to see the mind,
when analysed, exhibit a picture of
irreconcileable inconsistencies, even
when perhaps, a moment before, it
imagined that it had grasped the fleet-
ing phantom of virtue ! But let us
dismiss the subject.
It is still my opinion, for reasons
before mentioned, that Christianity
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 17
strongly militates with virtue. Both
yourself and Lyttelton are guilty of amis-
take of the term " Christian." A Chris-
tian is a follower of the religion which
has constantly gone by the name of
Christianity, as a Mahometan is of
Mahometanism. Each of these pro-
fessors ceases to belong to the sect
which either word means, when they
set up a doctrine of their own, irre-
concileable with that of either religion
except in a few instances in which
common and self-evident morality coin-
cides with its tenets. It is then moraHty,
virtue, which they set up as the
criterion of their actions, and not the
exclusive doctrine preached by the
founder of any religion. Why, your
religion agrees as much with Bramah,
Zoroaster, or Mahomet, as with Christ.
Virtue is self-evident : consequently I
act in unison with its dictates when
the doctrines of Christ do not differ
from virtue ; there I follow them.
i8 LETTERS TO
Surely you then follow virtue : or you
equally follow Bramah and Mahomet
as Christ. Your Christianity does not
interfere with virtue : and why ?
Because it is not Christianity !
Yet you still appear to court the
delusion. How is this ? Do I know
you as well as I know myself? Then
it is that this religion promises a future
state, which otherwise were a matter at
least of doubt. Let us consider. A
false view of any subject, when a true
one were attainable, were best avoided,
inasmuch as truth and falsehood are in
themselves good and bad. All that nat-
ural reason enables us to discover is that
we now are ; that there was a time when
we were not ; that the moment, even,
when we are now reasoning is a point be-
fore and after which is eternity. Shall
we sink into the nothing from whence we
have arisen ? But could we have arisen
from nothing ? We put an acorn into the
ground. In process of time it modifies
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 19
the particles of earth, air and water
by infinitesimal division, so as to pro-
duce an oak. That power which makes
it to be this oak we may call its
vegetative principle, symbolizing with
the animal principle, or soul of animated
existence.
An hundred years pass. The oak
moulders in putrefaction : it ceases to
be what it is : its soul is gone. Is then
soul annihilable ? Yet one of the pro-
perties of animal soul is consciousness
of identity. If this is destroyed, in
consequence the soul (whose essence
this is) must perish. But, as I conceive
(and as is certainly capable of demon-
stration) that nothing can be annihilated,
but that everything appertaining to
nature, consisting of constituent parts
infinitely divisible, is in a continual
change, then do I suppose — and I think
I have a right to draw this inference —
that neither will soul perish ; that, in a
future existence, it will lose all conscious-
20 LETTERS TO
ness of having formerly lived elsewhere,
- — will begin life anew, possibly under
a shape of which we have no idea. — But
we have no right to make hypotheses.
This is not one : at least I flatter myself
that I have kept clear of supposition.
What think you of the bubbling
brooks and mossy banks at Carlton
House, — the allees vertes, &c. ? It is
said that this entertainment will cost
;;^ 1 20,000. Nor will it be the last
bauble which the nation must buy to
amuse this overgrown bantling of
Regency. How admirably this grow-
ing spirit of ludicrous magnificence
tallies with the disgusting splendours of
the stage of the Roman Empire which
preceded its destruction ! Yet here
are a people advanced in intellectual
improvement wilfully rushing to a
revolution, the natural death of all
great commercial empires, which must
plunge them in the barbarism from
which they are slowly arising.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 21
Don Roderick is not yet come
out : when it is, you shall see it. —
Adieu.
Yours most sincerely,
Percy Shelley.
22 LETTERS TO
LETTER IV.
Field Place.
\Tuesda}>\ yune 2$, 1811.
My Dear Madam,
Do not speak any more of my
time thrown away, or you will compel
me, in my own defence, to say things
which, although they could not share in
the nature, would participate in the
appearance, of compliment.
What you say of the fallen state of
Man I will remark upon. Man is fallen.
How is he fallen ? You see a thing
imperfect and diminutive ; but you
cannot infer that it had degenerated to
this state, without first proving that it
had anteriorly existed in a perfect
state. Apply this rule, the accuracy of
which is unquestionable, to Man.
Look at history, even the earliest.
What does it tell you of Man ? An
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 23
ancient tradition recorded in the Bible
(upon the truth or falsehood of which
this depends) tells you that Man once
existed in a superior state. But how
are you to beHeve this ? how, in
short, is this to be urged as a proof of
the truth of the Scriptures, which itself
depends upon the previously demon-
strated truth or fallacy of them ?
You look around, you say ; and see
in everything a wonderful harmony
conspicuous. How know you this ?
Might not some animal, the victim of
man's capricious tyranny, itself possibly
the capricious tyrant of another, reason
thus ? " How wretched, how peculi-
arly wretched, is our state ! In man all
is harmony. Their buildings arise in
method, their society is united by
bonds of indissolubility. All nature,
but that of horses^ is harmonical ; and
he is born to misery only because he is
a horse." Yet this reasoning is yours.
Surely this applies to all nature : surely
24 LETTERS TO
this may be called harmony. But
then it is the harmony of irregular con-
fusion, which equalizes everything by
being itself unequal, wherever it acts.
This brings me again to the point
which I aim at — the eternal existence
of Intellect. You have read Locke.
You are convinced that there are no
innate ideas, and that you do not
always think when asleep. Yet, let me
enquire : in these moments of intellec-
tual suspension do you suppose that the
soul is annihilated? You cannot
suppose it, knowing the infallibility of
the rule — " From nothing, nothing can
come : to nothing, nothing can return ; "
as, by this rule, it could not be annihil-
ated, or, if annihilated, could not be
capable of resuscitation. This brings
me to the point. Those around the
lifeless corpse are perfectly aware that
// thinks not : at least, they are aware
that, when scattered through all the
changes which matter undergoes, it
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 25
cannot then think. You have witnessed
one suspension of intellect in dreamless
sleep : you witness another in death.
From the first, you well know that you
cannot infer diminution of intellectual
force. How contrary then to all
analogy to infer annihilation from
death, which you cannot prove suspends
for a moment the force of mind. — This
is not hypothesis, this is not assumption :
at least, I am not aware of the admis-
sion of either. WilHngly would I
exclude both — would influence you to
their total exclusion.
Yet examine this argument w^ith
your reason : tell me the result.
You wish to " pass among those who,
like you, have deceived themselves."
I defy you to produce to me one who
like you has deceived herself. Deceive
the world like yourself, and I will no
longer object to the immoral influence
of Christianity : in short, let the world
be Christians, //Xvj'^w. Z^/ them not
26 LETTERS TO
be Christians, and they would not be
Christians.
Atheism appears a terrific monster at
a distance. Dare to examine it, look
at its companions, — it loses half
its terrors. In short, treat the word
Atheism as you have done that of
Christianity : it is not then much. I
do not place your wish for justification
to prejudice, but to the highest, the
noblest, of motives. You have named
your God. The worship of that God
is clear, self-evident, perspicuous: it
alone is unceremonious, it alone refuses
to contradict natural analogies, can be
the subject of no disputes, the
countenancer of no misconceptions.
Since we conversed on the subject, I
have seen no reason to change my
political opinions. In theology, — •
enquiries into our intellect, its eternity
or perishability, — I advance with
caution and circumspection. I pursue
it in the privacy of retired thought, or
the interchange of friendship. But in
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 27
politics — here I am enthusiastic. I have
reasoned ; and my reason has brought
me, on this subject, to the end of my
enquiries. I am no aristocrat, nor any
^^craf at all; but vehemently long for
the time when man may dare to live in
accordance with Nature and Reason, — ■
in consequence, with Virtue : to which
I firmly believe that Religion, its
establishment, — Polity, and its establish-
ments,— are the formidable, though
destructible, barriers.
We heard from the Captain the other
day : I am happy to find that my aunt
is recovering.
On Monday I shall be in London on
my w^ay to Wales, where I purpose to
spend the summer. My excursion will
be on foot, for the purpose of better
remarking the manners and disposi-
tions of the peasantry. I shall call on
you in London, and write to you from
the resting-places of my movements.
Your sincere friend,
Percy Shelley.
28 LETTERS TO
LETTER V.
CwM Elan, Rhayader,
Radnorshire.
Thursday {July 25, 181 1.]
My dear Madam,
Be assured that, as long as you
are what you are, as long as I am what
I am — which is likely to continue until
our tra7ismigration — you will always
occupy a most exalted place in my
warmest esteem. I am no courtier,
aristocrat, or loyalist : therefore you
may believe that your correspondence
would be resigned with the pain of
having lost a most valuable thing, when
I tell you so.
I am truly sorry to hear that my aunt
has not recovered : I shall write to the
Captain to-day.
You say that Equality is unattainable :
so, will I observe, is Perfection. Yet
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 29
they both symbolize in their nature :
they both demand that an unremitting
tendency towards themselves should
be made : and, the nearer society
approaches towards this point, the
happier will it be. No one has yet
been found resolute enough in dog-
matizing to deny that Nature made
man equal : that society has destroyed
this equality is a truth not more in-
controvertible. It is found that the
vilest cottager is often happier than the
proud lord of his manorial rights. Is
it fit that the most frightful passions
of human nature should be let loose,
by an unnatural compact of society,
upon this unhappy aristocrat ? Is he
not to be pitied when, by an hereditary
possession of a fortune which, if divided,
would have very different effects, he is,
as it were, predestined to dissipation,
ennuif self-reproach, and (to crown the
climax) a deathbed of despairing in-
utility? It is often found that the
30 LETTERS TO
peasant's life is embittered by the
commission of crime. — (Yet can we
call it crime? Certainly, when we
compare the seizure of a few shillings
from the purse of a Nobleman, to pre-
serve a beloved family from starving, to
the destruction which the unrestrained
propensities of this Nobleman scatter
around him, we may almost call it
virtue). — To what cause are we to
refer this ? The noble has too much :
therefore he is wretched and wicked.
The peasant has too little. Are not
then the consequences the same from
causes which nothing but EquaHty can
annihilate? And, although you may
consider equality as impossible, yet,
admitting this, a strenuous tendency
towards it appears recommended by the
consequent diminution of wickedness
and misery which my system holds
out. Is this to be denied ? Ridicule per-
fection as impossible. Do more : prove
it by arguments which are irresistible.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 31
Let the defender of perfection acknow-
ledge 'their cogency. Still, a strenuous
tendency towards this principle, how-
ever unattainable, cannot be considered
as \^Tong.
You are willing to dismiss for the
present the subject of Religion. As
to its influence on individuals, we will.
But it is so intimately connected with
politics, and augments in so vivid a
degree the evils resulting from the
system before us, that I will make a
few remarks on it. Shall I sum up the
evidence? It is needless. The per-
secutions against the Christians under
the Greek Empire, their energetic
retaliations and burning each other, the
excommunications bandied between
the Popes of Rome and the Patriarchs
of Constantinople, their influence up-
on politics (war, assassination, the
Sicilian Vespers, the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew, Lord G. Gordon's mob,
and the state of religious things at
32 LETTERS TO
present), can amply substantiate my
assertions.
And Liberty ! — Poor Liberty ! even
the religionists who cry so much for
thee use thy name but as a mask, that
they alone may seize the torch, and
show their gratitude by burning their
deliverer.
I should doubt the existence of a
God who, if he cannot command our
reverence by love, surely can have no
demand upon it, from Virtue, on the
score of terror. It is this empire of
terror which is established by Religion.
Monarchy is its prototype : Aristocracy
may be regarded as symbolizing with
its very essence. They are mixed : one
can now scarce be distinguished from
the other ; and equality in politics, like
perfection in morality, appears now far
removed from even the visionary
anticipations of what is called " the
wildest theorist." /, then, am wilder
than the wildest.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 33
I am happy that you Hke Kehama.
Is not the chapter where Kailyal
despises the leprosy grand? You
would hke also Joan of Arc by
Southey. — Whenever I have any new
books, I will send them to you.
I will write again soon. I now
remain, with the highest esteem,
Yours sincerely,
Percy Shelley.
34 LETTERS TO
LETTER VI.
CwM Elan.
\_Friday\ July 26, 181 1.
My dear Madam,
I wrote to you yesterday
in a great hurry ; at least, very much
interfered with. I began poHtics ; and
although, from the mental discussion
which I have given the subject, I do
not think my arguments are incon-
clusive, still they may be obscure.
What I contend for is this. Were
I a moral legislator, I would propose
to my followers that they should arrive
at the perfection of morality. Equality
is natural : at least, many evils totally
inconsistent with a state which
symboHzes with Nature prevail in
every system of inequality. I will
assume this point. Therefore, even
although it be your opinion, or my
ELIZABETH HITCHENER, 35 ^
opinion, that equality is unattainable
except by a parcel of peas, or beans,
still political virtue is to be estimated
in proportion as it approximates to
this ideal point of perfection, however
unattainable. But what can be worse
than the present aristocratical system ?
Here are, in England, 10,000,000, only
500,000 of whom live in a state of
ease : the rest earn their livelihood
with toil and care. If therefore these
500,000 aristocrats, who possess re-
sources of various degrees of immensity,
were to permit these resources to be
resolved into their original stock (that
is, entirely to destroy it), if each earned
his own living (which I do not see is
at all incompatible with the height of
intellectual refinement), then I affirm
that each would be happy and con,
tented — that crime, and the temptation
to crime, would scarcely exist. — " But
this paradise is all visionary." — Why
is it visionary ? Have you tried ? The
36 LETTERS TO
first inventor of a plough doubtless
was looked upon as a mad innovator :
he who altered it from its original
absurd form doubtless had to contend
with great prejudices in its disfavour.
But is it not worth while that (although it
tnay not be certain) the remaining
9,500,000 victims to its infringement
[should] make some exertions in favour
of a system evidently founded on the
first principles of natural justice ? If two
children were placed together in a
desert island, and they found some
scarce fruit, would not justice dictate
an equal division ? If this number is
multiplied to any extent of which
number is capable, — if these children
are men, families, — is not justice
capable of the same extension and
multiplication? Is it not the same?
Are not its decrees invariable? and,
for the sake of his earth-formed
schemes, has the politician a right to
infringe upon that which itself consti-
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 37
tutes all right and wrong? Surely
not.
I know why you differ from me on
this point. It is because you suspect
yourself of partiality for the cause
with which you agree. I must say,
my friend and fellow-traveller in the
path of truth, that this is wrong. You
are unworthy of the suspicion with
which you regard yourself.
I am now with people who, strange
to say, never think : I have, however,
much more of my own society than of
theirs. Nature is here marked with
the most impressive characters of
lordliness and grandeur. Once I was
tremulously alive to tones and scenes :
the habit of analysing feelings, I fear,
does not agree with this. It is
spontaneous; and, when it becomes
subject to consideration, ceases to
exist. But you do right to indulge
feeling, where it does not militate with
reason : I wish I could too.
38 LETTERS TO
This valley is covered with trees : so
are partly the mountains that surround
it. Rocks, piled on each other to an
immense height, and clouds intersecting
them, — in other places, waterfalls midst
the umbrage of a thousand shadowy
trees, — form the principal features of
the scenery. I am not wholly unin-
fluenced by its magic in my lonely
walks. But I long for a thunder-
storm.
Adieu: let me soon hear from
you.
Your most sincere friend,
P. B. Shelley.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 39
LETTER VII.
London.
\Saturday\ Aug. 10, 181 1.
My dear Madam,
I understand that there is a
letter for me at Cvvm Elan. I have
not received it. Particular business
has occasioned my sudden return. I
shall be at Field Place to-morrow, and
shall possibly see you before
September.
My engagements have hindered
much devotion of time to a consider-
ation of the subject of our discussion.
I here see palaces the thirtieth part of
which would bless with every requisite
of habitation, their pampered owners ;
theatres converted from schools of
morality into places for the inculcation
of abandonment of every moral
principle ; whilst the haughty aristocrat
40 LETTERS TO
and the commercial monopolist unite in
sanctioning by example the depravities
to which the importations of the latter
give rise.
All monopolies are bad. I do not,
however, when condemning commercial
aggrandizement, think it in the least
necessary to panegyrize hereditary
accumulation. Both are flagrant
encroachments on liberty : neither can
be used as an antidote for the poison
of the other. We will suppose even
the best aristocrat. Yet look at our
noblemen : take the Court Calendar :
hear even what the world, who judges
favourably of grandeur, narrates con-
cerning their actions. The very
encomia which it confers are insults
to reason. Take the best aristocrat.
He monopolizes a large house, gold
dishes, glittering dresses ; his very
servants are decked in magnificence.
How does one monopoly differ from
another, — that of the mean Duke from
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. ^\
that of the mean pacer between the
pillars of the Exchange ?
Having once established the position
that a state of equality, if attainable,
were preferable to any other, I think
that the unavoidable inference must
induce us to confess the irrationality of
Aristocracy. Intellectual inequality
could never be obviated until moral
perfection be attained : then all
distinctions would be levelled.
Adieu.
42 LETTERS TO
LETTER VIII.
\Mondayi\ August i<)th, [i8li.]
My dear Madam,
Your letter yesterday disap-
pointed me; not because it set me
right in one of those trivial sacrifices
to custom which I am wont, through
their real unimportance, to overlook,
but because, in place of liberal ideas
which have ever marked those
characters of your mind which I have
had an opportunity of observing, I
noticed that you said : " though you
should have disregarded the real
difference that exists between us."
You remind me thus of a misfortune
which I could never have obviated :
not that the sturdiest aristocrat could
suppose that a real difference sub-
sisted between me, who am sprung
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 43
from a race of rich men, and you,
whom talents and virtue have lifted
from|^'the obscurity of poverty. If
there is any difference, surely the
balance of real distinction would fall
on your side. You remind me of what
I hate, despise, and shudder at, what
willingly I would not : and the part
which I can emancipate myself from,
in this detestable coil of primaeval
prejudice, that will I free myself from.
Have I not forsworn all this ? Am I
not a worshipper of Equality ? It was
the custom, even with the Jews, never to
insult the Gods of other nations : why
then do you put a sarcasm so galling
upon the object of my adoration ?
Let us consider. In a former letter
you say that " Nature has decidedly
distinguished degrees among a degen-
erate race." Admit for a moment
that the composition of soul varies in
every recipient, still Nature must have
been blind to give a kingdom to a fool,
44 LETTERS TO
a dukedom to a sensualist, an empire
to a tyrant. If she thus distinguishes
degrees, how does the wildest anarchy
differ from Nature's law ? or rather,
how are they not, by this account,
synonymous ? — Again : Soul may be
proved to be, not that which changes
its first principles in every new
recipient, but an elementary essence,
an essence of first principles which
bears the mark of casual or of intended
impressions. For instance : the non-
existence of innate ideas is proved by
Locke ; he challenges any one to find
an idea which is innate. This is
conclusive. If no ideas are innate,
then all ideas must take their origin
subsequent to the transfusion of the
soul. In consequence of this indis-
putable truth, intellect varies but in
the impressions with which casuality
or inattention has marked it. When
is now Nature, distinguishing degrees ?
or rather do you not see that Art has
ELIZABETH HITCHENER 45
assumed that office, even in the gifts of
the mind ?
I see the impropriety of dining with
you — even of calling upon you. I
shall not willingly, however, give up the
friendship and correspondence of one
whom, however superior to me, my
arrogance calls an equal.
Adieu.
Yours most sincerely,
Percy S.
Excuse the haste in which I write this.
46 LETTERS TO
LETTER IX.
York. Miss Dancer's, Coney Street.
{Tuesday, 8 October y 1811.]
My dear Friend,
May I still call you so ? or have
I forfeited, by the equivocality of my
conduct, the esteem of the wise and
virtuous? have I disgraced the pro-
fessions of that virtue which has been
the idol of my love, whose votaries
have been the brothers and sisters 01
my soul ?
When last I saw you, 1 was about to
enter into the profession of physic. 1
told you so. I represented my views
as unembarrassed ; myself at liberty to
experiment upon morality, uninfluenced
by the possibility of giving pain to
others. You will know that my
relational connexions were such as
ELIZABETH HITCHENER 47
could have no hold but that of con-
sanguinity: how weak this is may be
referred to the bare feeling to explain.
I saw you. In one short week, how
changed were all my prospects ! How
are we the slaves of circumstances !
how bitterly I curse their bondage !
Yet this was unavoidable.
You will enquire how I, an Atheist,
chose to subject myself to the ceremony
of marriage, — how my conscience could
consent to it. This is all I am now
anxious of elucidating. Why I united
myself thus to a female, as it is not in
itself immoral, can make no part in
diminution of my rectitude : this, if
misconceived, may.
/ am indifferent to reputation : all are
not. Reputation, and its consequent
advantages, are rights to which every
individual may lay claim, unless he has
justly forfeited them by an immoral
action. Political rights also, which
justly appertain equally to each, ought
48 LETTERS TO
only to be forfeited by immorality.
Yet both of these must be dispensed
with, if two people live together without
having undergone the ceremony of
marriage. How unjust this is ! Cer-
tainly it is not inconsistent with morality
to evade these evils. How useless to
attempt, by singular examples, to re-
novate the face of society, until reason-
ing has made so comprehensive a
change as to emancipate the experi-
mentalist from the resulting evils, and
the prejudice with which his opinion
(which ought to have weight, for the
sake of virtue) would be heard by the
immense majority ! — These are my
reasons.
Will you write to me? Shall we
proceed in our discussions of Nature
and Morality ? Nay more : will you
be my friend, may I be yours ? The
shadow of worldly impropriety is
effaced by my situation. Our strictest
intercourse would excite none of those
ELIZABETH HITCHENER 49
disgusting remarks with -^Mxoh females of
the present day think right to load the
friendships of opposite sexes. Nothing
would be transgressed by your even living
with us. Could you not pay me a visit ?
My dear friend Hogg, that noble being,
is with me, and will be always : but
my wife will abstract from our inter-
course the shadow of impropriety.
How happy should I be to see you !
There is no need to tell you this ; and
my happiness is not so great that it
becomes a friend to be sparing in that
society which constitutes its only charm.
I will close this letter. I have
enough to say, but will wait for your
answer until I write again.
Your great friend,
P. B. Shelley.
50 LETTERS TO
LETTER X.
York,
[Wednesday, i6] October^ 1811.
I write to-day, because not to
answer such a letter as yours instantly,
eagerly — I will add, gratefully — were
impossible. But I shall be at Cuckfield
on Friday night. My dearest friend
(for I will call you so), you, who under-
stand my motives to action, which, I
flatter myself, unisionize with your own,
— you, who can contemn the world's
prejudices, whose views are mine, — I
will dare to say I love: nor do I risk
the possibility of that degrading and
contemptible interpretation of this
sacred word, nor do I risk the sup-
position that the lump of organized
matter which enshrines thy soul excites
the love which that soul alone dare
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 51
claim. Henceforth will I be yours —
yours with truth, sincerity, and unreserve.
Not a thought shall arise which shall
not seek its responsion in your bosom ;
not a motive of action shall be un-
enwafted by your cooler reason : and, by
so doing, do I not choose a criterion
more infallible than my own conscious-
ness of right and wrong (though this
may not be required) ? for what conflict
of a frank mind is more terrible than the
balance between two opposing imparl-
ances of morality ? This is surely the
only wretchedness which a mind who
only acknowledges virtue its master can
feel.
I leave York to-night for Cuckfield,
where I shall arrive on Friday. That
mistaken man, my father, has refused
us money, and commanded that our
names should never be mentioned. I
had thought that this blind resentment
had long been banished to the regions
of Dullness, comedies and farces: or
52 LETTERS TO
was used merely to augment the
difficulties, and consequently the at-
tachment, of the hero and heroine of a
modem novel. I have written fre-
quently to this thoughtless man, and
am now determined to visit him, in
order to try the force of truth ; though
I must confess I consider it merely as
hyperbolical as "music rending the
knotted oak." Some philosophers have
ascribed indefiniteness to the powers of
intellect; but I question whether it
ever would make an ink-stand capable
of free agency. Is this too severe?
But, you know, I, like the God of the
Jews, set myself up as no respec-
ter of persons ; and relationship is con-
sidered by me as bearing that relation
to reason which a band of straw does
to fire. I love you more than any
relation; I profess you are the sis-
ter of my soul, its dearest sister;
and I think the component parts
of that soul must undergo complete
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 53
dissolution before its sympathies can
perish.
Some philosophers have taken a
world of pains to persuade us that
congeniality is but romance. Cer-
tainly, reason can never either account
for, or prove the truth of, feeling. I
have considered it in every possible
light; and reason tells me that death
is the boundary of the life of man : yet
I feel, I believe, the direct contrary.
The senses are the only inlets of know-
ledge, and there is an inward sense
that has persuaded me of this.
How I digress ! how does one rea-
soning lead to another, involving a
chain of endless considerations ! Cer-
tainly, everything is connected. Both
in the moral and physical world there
is a train of events ; and (though not
likely) it is impossible to deny that
the turn which my mind has taken
originated from the conquest of England
by William of Normandy.
54 LETTERS TO
By the bye, I have something to talk
to you of — Money. I covet it. —
"What, you? you a miser ! you desire
gold ! you a slave to the most con-
temptible of ambitions ! " — No, I am
not; but I still desire money, and I
desire it because J think I know the
use of it. It commands labour, it gives
leisure; and to give leisure to those
who will employ it in the forwarding
of truth is the noblest present an in-
dividual can make to the whole. I
will open to you my views. On my
coming to the estate which, worldly
considered, is mine, but which actually
I have not more, perhaps not so great
a right to, as you, — ^justice demands
that it should be shared between my
sisters. Does it, or does it not ? Man-
kind are as much my brethren and
sisters as they: all ought to share.
This cannot be; it must be confined.
But thou art a sister of my soul, he is
its brother : surely these have a right.
ELI Z ABE TH HITCH EN ER. 5 5
Consider this subject, write to me on
it. Divest yourself of individuality:
dare to place self at a distance, which
I know you can : spurn those bugbears,
gratitude, obhgation, and modesty.
The world calls these "virtues." They
are well enough for the world. It
wants a chain : it hath forged one for
itself. But with the sister of my soul
I have no obligation : to her I feel no
gratitude: I stand not on etiquette,
alias insincerity. The ideas excited by
these words are varying, frequently un-
just, always selfish. Love, in the sense
in which we understand it, needs not
these succedanea. — Consider the ques-
tion which I have proposed to you. I
know you are above that pretended
confession of your own imbecility which
the world has nicknamed modesty, and
you must be conscious of your own high
worth. To underrate your powers is an
evil of greater magnitude than the con-
trary : the former benumbs, whilst the
56 LETTERS TO
latter excites to action. My friend
Hogg and myself consider our property
in common : that the day will arrive
when we shall do the same is the wish
of my soul, whose consummation I
most eagerly anticipate.
My uncle is a most generous fellow.
Had he not assisted us, we should still
[have] been chained to the filth and
commerce of Edinburgh. Vile as aris-
tocracy is, commerce — purse-proud
ignorance and illiterateness — is more
contemptible.
I still see ReHgion to be immoral.
When I contemplate these gigantic
piles of superstition — when I consider,
too, the leisure for the exercise of mind
which the labour which erected them
annihilated — I set them down as so
many retardations of the period when
Truth becomes omnipotent. Every
useless ornament — the pillars, the iron
railings, the juttings of wainscot, and
(as Southey says) the cleaning of grates
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 57
— are all exertions of bodily labour
which — though trivial, separately con-
sidered,— when united, destroy a vast
proportion of this invaluable leisure.
How many things could we do with-
out ! How unnecessary are mahogany
tables, silver vases, myriads of viands
and liquors, expensive printing, — that,
worst of all. Look even [around some]
little habitation, — the dirtiest cottage,
which [exhibits] myriads of instances
where ornament is sacrificed [? pre-
ferred] to cleanliness or leisure.
Whither do I wander ? Certainly, I
wish to prove, by my own proper
prowess, that the chain which I spoke
of is real.
The letter at Field Place has been
opened and read, exposed to all the
remarks of impertinence : not that they
understood it.
Henceforth I shall have no secrets
from you; and indeed I have much
then to tell you — wonderful changes !
S8 LETTERS TO
Direct to me at the Captain's until you
hear again : but I only stay two days
in Sussex, — but I shall see you.
Sister of my soul, adieu.
With, I hope, eternal love,
Your
Percy Shelley.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 59
LETTER XI.
CUCKFIELD.
{^Saturday, 19 October, 181 1.?]
I do not know that I shall have time
to see you, my dear friend, whilst in
Sussex. On Monday or Tuesday I
must return. The intervening periods
will be employed in the hateful task of
combating prejudice and mistake. Yet
our souls can meet, for these become
embodied on paper: all else is even
emptier than the breath of fame.
I omitted mentioning something in
my last : 'tis of your visiting us. You
say that at some reitiote period^ &c.
What is this remote period ? when will
it arrive ? The term is indefinite, and
friendship cannot be satisfied with this.
I do not mean to-day, to-morrow, or
this week ; but the time approaches
when you need not attend the business
6o LETTERS TO
of the school : then you have your own
choice to make of the place of your
intermediate residence. If that choice
were in favour of me !
I shall come to live in this county.
My friend Hogg, Harriet, my new
sister, . . . could but be added to these
the sister of my soul ! That I cannot
hope : but still she may visit us.
I have been convinced of the even-
tual omnipotence of mind over matter.
Adequacy of motive is sufficient to any-
thing : and my Golden Age is when the
present potence will become omnipo-
tence. This will be the millennium ot
Christians, when "the lion shall lie
down with the lamb " : though neither
will it be accomplished to complete a
prophecy, nor by the intervention of
a miracle. This has been the favourite
idea of all religions, the thesis on which
the impassioned and benevolent have
delighted to dwell. Will it not be the
task of human reason, human powers, —
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 6i
whose progression in improvement has
been so great since the remotest tradi-
tion, tracing general history to the point
where now we stand ? The series is in-
finite— can never end !
Now you will laugh at what I am
about to tell you. Whence think [you]
this reasoning has arisen? Just [con-
ceive] its possible origin ! Never [could]
you have [conceived] that three days on
the outside of a coach caused it. [Yet]
so it is. I am now at Cuckfield; I
arrived this morning; and, though
three nights without sleep, I feel now
neither sleepy nor fatigued. This is
adequacy of motive. During my jour-
ney I had the proposed end in view
of accumulating money to myself for
the motives which I stated in my last
letter.
I know I have something more to
tell you — I forget what. The Captain
is talking.
r
62 LETTERS TO
I must settle my plan of attack to-
morrow.
Adieu, my dear friend.
Your
Percy S.
I am happy to hear what I have just
heard. You are to come to dine here,
and bring Emma, on Monday 21st, in
the coach.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 63
LETTER XII.
Mr. Strickland's, Blake St., York.
\^Saturday, 26 October, 181 1..?]
It is no " generosity " : it is justice —
bare, simple justice. Oh, to what a
state must poor human nature have
arrived when simply to do our duty
merits praise ! Let us delight in the
anticipation (though it may not be our
lot to breathe that air of paradise) that
the time will arrive when all that now
is called generosity will be simply,
barely duty. But you shall not refuse
it. Private feelings must not be grati-
fied at the expense of public benefit by
your refusal : deeply would the latter
suffer. I know you speak from con-
viction ; nor, except from conviction,
should I allow you to act as far as con-
cerns me. It is impossible that you
should do otherwise. Yet I hope to
64 LETTERS TO
produce that conviction. You cannot
be convinced — quite convinced. It is
impossible that any one should thor-
oughly know themselves, particularly in
an instance like this, where self-deceit
is so likely to creep in from the con-
tagious sophistications of society, and,
assuming the garb of virtue, represent
itself to you as its substance. I know
you to be superior to that mock-modesty
of self- depreciation : this therefore has
no weight. See yourself, then, as you
are. I esteem you more than I esteem
myself. Am I not right therefore in
giving you at least equal opportunities
of conferring on mankind the benefits
of that which has excited this esteem ?
You may then share your possessions
with that friend whom I ardently long
to know and to love, but who must
receive the tribute of gratitude from
you, — though, if she has made you what
you are, what claims may not just re-
tribution make upon me in her behalf?
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 65
I have thus said what I think, at
least two years before I can accomplish
the projects which I have to execute.
"It is the mere prodigality of promise,"
would the slave of others' opinion ex-
claim, " never to be executed : two
months will dissipate the sickly rav-
ings ; it demands two years of uniform
opinion." Let them thus rave, — 'tis
their element ! But, whilst the sister of
my soul, the friend of my heart, knows
its unchangeableness, how futile are
these gnat-bites ! But it is necessary
that the world should not know this : to
preserve in some measure the good
opinion of Prejudice is necessary to its
destruction. This must be the most
secret of communications : thine are
most sacredly secret to me. But the
time you lose in thus acquiring money
for the noblest of human purposes
would be saved by your acceptance
of my offer. There are two years,
however, to argue this subject in. We
66 LETTERS TO
have now begun : I am convinced that
I shall conquer.
When may I see the woman who
indeed deserves my love, if she was thy
instructress? Let not the period be
very distant. I already reverence her
as a mother. How useful are such
characters ! how they propagate intel-
lect, and add to the list of the virtuous
and free ! Every error conquered, every
mind enlightened, is so much added to
the progression of human perfectibility.
Sure, such as you, then, ought to
possess the amplest leisure for a task to
the completion of which each of those
excellencies which excite my love for
you is so adapted. Believe that I do
not flatter; suspect me not of rash
judgment. My judgment of you has
been unimpassioned, though now un-
itnpassionateness is over, and I could
not believe you other than the being I
have hitherto considered as enshrined
in the identity of Elizabeth Kitchener.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 67
I hesitate not a moment to write to
you : rare though it be in this existence,
communion with you can unite mental
benefit with pure gratification. I will
explain, however, the circumstances
which caused my marriage : these must
certainly have caused much conjecture
in your mind.
Some time ago, when my sister was
at Mrs. Fenning's school, she contracted
an intimacy with Harriet. At that
period I attentively watched over my
sister, designing, if possible, to add her
to the list of the good, the disinterested,
the free. I desired therefore to inves-
tigate Harriet's character: for which
purpose I called on her, requested to
correspond with her, designing that her
advancement should keep pace with,
and possibly accelerate, that of my
sister. Her ready and frank accept-
ance of my proposal pleased me ; and,
though with ideas the remotest to those
which have led to this conclusion of our
68 LETTERS TO
intimacy, [I] continued to correspond
with her for some time. The frequency
of her letters became greater during my
stay in Wales. I answered them : they
became interesting. They contained
complaints of the irrational conduct of
her relations, and the misery of living
where she could love no one. Suicide
was with her a favourite theme, her total
uselessness was urged in its defence.
This I admitted, supposing she could
prove her inutility, [and that she] was
powerless. Her letters became more
and more [gloomy]. At length one
assumed a tone of such despair as in-
duced me to quit Wales precipitately.
I arrived in London. I was shocked
at observing the alteration of her looks.
Little did I divine its cause : she had
become violently attached to me, and
feared that I should not return her
attachment. Prejudice made the con-
fession painful. It was impossible to
avoid being much affected I promised
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 69
to unite my fate with hers. I stayed in
London several days, during which she
recovered her spirits. I had promised at
her bidding to come again to London.
They endeavoured to compel her to
return to a school where malice and
pride embittered every hour : she wrote
to me. I came to London. I pro-
posed marriage, for the reasons which
I have given you, and she complied. —
Blame me if thou wilt, dearest friend,
for still thou art dearest to me : yet pity
even this error, if thou blamest me.
If Harriet be not, at sixteen, all that
you are at a more advanced age, assist
me to mould a really noble soul into
all that can make its nobleness useful
and lovely. Lovely it is now, or I am
the weakest slave of error.
Adieu to this subject until I hear
again from you. Write soon, in pity
to my suspense.
We did not call on Whitton as we
passed. We find he means absolutely
70 LETTERS TO
nothing: he talks of disrespect, duty,
&c.
I observed that you were much
shocked at my mother's depravity. I
have heard some reasons (and as mere
reasons they are satisfactory) that there
is no such thing as moral depravity.
But it does not prove the non-existence
of a thing that it is not discoverable by
reason : feeling here affords us sufficient
proof. I pity those who have not this
demonstration, though I can scarce
believe that such exist.
Those who really feel the being of a
God, have the best right to believe it.
They may, indeed, pity those who do
not ; they may pity me : but, until I
feel it, I must be content with the sub
stitute, Reason.
Here is a letter ! — well, answer some
of it, — though I allow 'tis terribly long.
Southey has pubHshed something new
— The Bridal of Fernandez : have you
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 71
seen it ? Have you read St. Leon or
Caleb Williams'^
Adieu, dear friend. Believe me
Ever yours sincerely,
Percy B. Shelley.
Have you heard anything of Cap-
tain P[ilford*s] proceedings at F[ield]
P[lace] ? — I have more to say, but no
more room, so adieu.
72 LETTERS TO
LETTER XIII.
[Keswick,
Friday y 8 November, 1811. ?]
My friend will be surprised to hear
of me from Keswick in Cumberland :
more so will [she] be astonished at the
occasion. It is a thing that makes my
blood run cold to think of. I almost
lose my confidence in the power of
truth, its unalterableness. Human na-
ture appears so depraved. Even those
in whom we place unlimited confidence,
between whom and yourself suspicion
never came, appear depraved as the
rest. High powers appear but to pre-
sent opportunities for occasioning supe-
rior misery. Can it be thus always ?
You know how I have described
Hogg, — my enthusiasm in his defence,
my love for him. You know I have
considered him but little below perfec-
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 73
tion. I have spoken to you of him —
have described him not with the exag-
gerations but with the truth of friend-
ship. I have resolved, because I am
your friend, to make you the deposi-
tary of a secret : it is to me a most
terrible one.
Hogg is a mistaken man — vilely,
dreadfully mistaken. But you shall
hear ; then judge of the extent of the
evil which I deplore. That he whom
my fond expectations had pictured the
champion of virtue, the enemy of pre-
judice, should himself become the
meanest slave of the most contemptible
of prejudices, is indeed dreadful. But
listen. How fast you read this ! I
fancy I behold you !
You know I came to Sussex to settle
my affairs, and left Harriet at York
under the protection of Hogg. You
know the implicit faith I had in him,
the unalterableness of my attachment,
the exalted thoughts I entertained of
74 LETTERS TO
his excellence. Can you then conceive
that he would have attempted to seduce
my wife 7 that he should have chosen
the very time for this attempt when I
most confided in him, when least I
doubted him? Yet when did I ever
doubt him? Yet, my friend, this is
the case. And such an attempt ! You
may conceive his sophistry ; you may
conceive the energy of vice, for energy
is inseparable from high powers : but
never could you conceive, never having
experienced it, that resistless and pathe-
tic eloquence of his, never the illumi-
nation of that countenance, on which I
have sometimes gazed till I fancied the
world could be reformed by gazing too !
You — you have never seen him, never
heard him; or Harriet would have
stood first in your regards as the heroic,
or the unfeeling, who could have done
other than as he directed. The latter
she is not.
Conjecture, conceive, friend, how I
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. -js
love you ! how firm my reliance is on
your principles, how impossible to be
shaken is my faith in your nobleness !
Then, then imagine what I have felt at
losing by so terrible a reverse, a friend
like you — lost too not only to me but
to the world ! Virtue has lost one of
its defenders, Vice has gained a prose-
lyte. The thought makes me shudder !
But must it be thus ? Cannot I pre-
vent it? cannot I reason with him?
Is he dead, cold, gone, annihilated?
None, none of these ! therefore Jiot
irretrievable — not fallen like Lucifer,
never to rise again !
Before I quitted York, I spoke to
him. Our conversation was long. He
was silent, pale, over-whelmed. The
suddenness of the disclosure — and oh
I hope its heinousness — had affected
him. I told him that I pardoned him
— freely, fully, completely pardoned ;
that not the least anger against him
possessed me. His vices, and not
76 LETTERS TO
himself, were the objects of my horror
and my hatred, I told him I yet
ardently panted for his real welfare;
but that ill-success in crime and misery
appeared to me an earnest of its oppo-
site in benevolence. I engaged him to
promise to write to me. You can con-
jecture that my letters to him will be
neither infrequent nor short.
I have little time to-day, but I pay
this short tribute to friendship. Never,
dearest friend, may you experience a
disappointment so keen as mine ! Write.
I am at Mr. D. Crosthwaite's, Town-
head, Keswick, Cumberland. The
scenery is awfully grand : it even affects
me in such a time as this. Adieu :
write to me. I am in need of your
sympathy.
Harriet and her sister liked this part
of the country ; and / was, at the mo-
ment of our sudden departure, indiffe-
rent to all places.
A letter, I suppose, is waiting for me
ELIZABETH HITCHENER, 77
at York. H. will forward them. Adieu,
my almost only friend.
Yours eternally, sincerely,
Percy B. Shelley.
78 LETTERS TO
LETTER XIV.
[Chesnut Cottage, Keswick.
Ttiesday^ ii November, i8ii].
Your letter of the ist hath this
moment reached me. I answer it
according to our agreement, which
shall be inviolable.
Truly did you say that, at our
arising in the morning, Nature assumes
a different aspect. Who could have
conjectured the circumstances of my
last letter ? Friend of my soul, this is
terrible, dismaying : it makes one's
heart sink, it withers vital energy.
Had a common man done so, 'twould
have been but a common event, but a
common mistake. Now, if for a
moment the soul forgets (as at times
it will) that it must enshrine the body
for others, how beautiful does death
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 79
appear, what a release from the crimes
and miseries of mortality ! To be con-
demned to feed on the garbage of
grinding misery, that hungry hyaena,
mortal life ! — But no ! I will not, I do
not, repine. Dear being, I am thine
again : thy happiness shall again
predominate over this fleeting tribute
to self-interest. Yet who would not
feel now ? Oh 'twere as reckless a
task to endeavour to annihilate per-
ception while sense existed, as to blunt
the sixth sense to such impressions as
these ! — Forgive me, dearest friend !
I pour out my whole soul to you. I
write by fleeting intervals : my pen
runs away with my senses. The im-
passionateness of my sensations grows
upon me.
Your letter, too, has much af-
fected me. Never, with my consent,
shall that intercourse cease which has
been the day-dawn of my existence,
the sun which has shed warmth on the
8o LETTERS TO
cold drear length of the anticipated
prospect of life. Prejudice might
demand this sacrifice, but she is an
idol to whom ive bow not. The world
might demand it ; its opinion might
require : but the cloud which fleets
over yon mountain were as important
to our happiness, to our usefulness.
This must never be, never whilst this
existence continues; and, when Time
has enrolled us in the list of the
departed, surely this one friendship
will survive to bear our identity to
heaven.
What is love, or friendship? Is
it something material — a ball, an apple,
a plaything-«-which must be taken
from one to be given to another? Is
it capable of no extension, no com-
munication ? Lord Kaimes defines love
to be a particularization of the gen-
eral passion. But this is the love of
sensation, of sentiment — the absurdest
of absurd vanities: it is the love of
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 8i
pleasure, not the love of happiness.
The one is a love which is self-centred,
self-devoted, self-interested : it desires
its own interest : it is the parent of
jealousy. Its object is the plaything
which it desires to monopolize. Selfish-
ness, monopoly, is its very soul ; and
to communicate to others part of this
love were to destroy its essence, to
annihilate this chain of straw. But
love, the love which we worship, —
virtue, heaven, disinterestedness — in a
word, Friendship, — which has as
much to do with the senses as with
yonder mountains ; that which seeks
the good of all, — the good of its object
first, not because that object is a
minister to its pleasures, not merely
because it even contributes to its
happiness, but because it is really
worthy, because it has powers, sen-
sibilities, is capable of abstracting self,
and loving virtue for virtue's own love-
liness,—desiring the happiness of others
82 LETTERS TO
not from the obligation of fearing hell
or desiring heaven ; but for pure, simple,
unsophisticated virtue.
You will soon hear again. Adieu,
my dearest friend. Continue to be-
lieve that when I am insensible to
your excellence, I shall cease to exist.
Yours most sincerely,
inviolably, eternally,
Percy S.
I have filled my sheet before I
was aware of it. I told Harriet of your
scruples, for which there is not the
slightest foundation. You have mis-
taken her character, if you consider
her a slave to this meanest of mean
jealousies. She desires to add some-
thing : I have scarcely room for her.
Southey lives at Keswick. I
have been contemplating the outside
of his house. More of him hereafter.
Write : I need not tell you, write.
I am in need of your letters.
Harriet desires her love to you and
ELIZABETH HITCHENER, 83
begs you will not entertain so un-
favourable an opinion of her. She
desires me to say that she longs to see
you, — to welcome you to our habitation,
wherever we are, as my best friend and
sister.
Direct me at Chesnut Cottage,
Mr. Dayer's, Keswick, Cumberland.
84 LETTERS TO
LETTER XV.
Keswick, Chesnut Hill, Cumberland.
{Thursday t 14 November, 1811].
My dearest Friend,
Probably my letters have not
left Keswick sufficiently long for your
answer, I have more to tell you, how-
ever, which relates to this late terrible
affair.
The day we left him, he wrote
several letters to me, — the first evidently
in the frenzy of his disappointment (for
I had not told him the titne of our
departure). " I will have Harriet's
forgiveness, or blow my brains out at
her feet." The others, being written in
moments of tranquillity, appeased im-
mediate alarm on that score. You are
already surprised, shocked : I can con-
ceive it. Oh, it is terrible ! this stroke
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 85
has almost withered my being ! Were it
not for that dear friend whose happi.
ness I so much prize, which at some
future period 1 may perhaps consti-
tute,— did I not live for an end, an
aim, sanctified, hallowed, — I might
have slept in peace. Yet no — not
quite that : I might have been a colo-
nist of Bedlam.
Stay: I promised to relate the cir-
cumstances. I will proceed histori-
cally.
I had observed that Harriet's beha-
viour to my friend had been greatly
altered : I saw she regarded him with
prejudice and hatred. I saw it with
great pain, and remarked it to her.
Her dark hints of his unworthiness
alarmed me, yet alarmed me vaguely ;
for, believe me, this alarm was un-
tainted with the slightest suspicion of
his disloyalty to virtue and friendship.
Conceive my horror when, on pressing
the conversation, the secret of his un-
\
86 LETTERS TO
faithfulness was divulged ! I sought
him, and we walked to the fields be-
yond York. I desired to know fully
the account of this affair. I heard it
from hinty and I believe he was sincere.
All I can recollect of that terrible day
was that I pardoned him — freely, fully
pardoned him ; that I would still be a
friend to him, and hoped soon to con-
vince him how lovely virtue was ; that
his crime, not himself, was the object
of my detestation ; that I value a
human being, not for what it has been,
but for what it is ; that I hoped the
time would come when he would re-
gard this horrible error with as much
disgust as I did. He said little: he
was pale, terror-struck, remorseful.
This character is not his own : it sits
ill upon him, — it will not long be his.
His account was this. He came to
Edinburgh. He saw me ; he saw
Harriet. He loved her (I use the
word because he used it. You com-
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. Sy
prebend the different ideas it excites
under different modes of application).
He loved her. This passion, so far
from meeting with resistance, was en-
couraged,— purposely encouraged, from
motives which then appeared to him
not wrong. On our arrival at York, he
avowed it. Harriet forbade other
mention ; yet forbore to tell me,
hoping she might hear no more of it.
On my departure from York to Sus-
sex (when you saw me), he urged the
same suit, — urged it with arguments of
detestable sophistry. " There is no in-
jury to him who knows it not : — why is
it wrong to permit my love, if it does
not alienate affection ? " These failed
of success. At last, Harriet talked to
him much of its immorality : and
(though I fear her arguments were such
as cou/d not be logically superior to his)
he confessed to her his conviction of
having acted wrong, and, as some ex-
piation, proposed instantly to inform
88 LETTERS TO
me by letter of the whole. This Har-
riet refused to permit, fearing its effect
upon my mind at such a distance : she
could not know wJmi I should return
home. I returned the very next day.
This, as near as I recollect, was
the substance of what cool considera-
tion can extract from his account. The
circumstances are true : Harriet's ac-
count coincides.
I have since written to him — fre-
quently, and at great length. His
letters are exculpatory : you shall see
them. — Adieu at present to the subject.
No, my dearest friend, I will never
cease to write to you. I never can
cease to think of you.
Happiness, fleeting creation of cir-
cumstances, where art thou? I read
your letter with delight; but this de-
light is even mixed with melancholy.
And you ! Tell me that you too are
unhappy, — the cup of my misfortunes
is then completed to the dregs. Yet
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 89
did you not say that we should stimu-
late each other to virtue? Shall
I be the first to fail ? No ! This
listless torpor of regret will never
do — it never shall possess me. Be-
hold me then reassuming myself, de-
serving your esteem, — you, my second
self I
Harriet has laughed at your sup-
positions. She invites you to our
habitation wherever we are : she does
this sincerely, and bids me send her
love to you.
Eliza, her sister, is with us. She is,
I think, a woman rather superior to
the generality. She is prejudiced ; but
her prejudices I do not consider un-
vanquishable. Indeed, I have already
conquered some of them.
The scenery here is awfully beauti-
ful. Our window commands a view of
two lakes, and the giant mountains
which confine them. But the ob-
ject most interesting to my feelings is
90 LETTERS TO
Southey's habitation. He is now on
a journey : when he returns, I shall
call on him.
Adieu, dearest friend.
Ever yours, with true devotement
and love,
Percy Shelley.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 9]
LETTER XVI.
Keswick, Cumberland.
\Wednesday, ^o November, 181 1.]
Writing is slow, soulless, incommu-
nicative. I long to talk with you. My
soul is bursting. Ideas, millions of
ideas, are crowding into it : it pants for
communion with you.
Your letter, too, has affected me
deeply. You must not quite despair
of human nature. Our conceptions
are scarcely vivid enough to picture
the degree of crime, of degradation,
which sullies human society : but what
words are equal to express their inade-
quacy to picture its hidden virtue?
My friend, my dear only friend, never
doubt virtue so long as yourself exists.
Be yourself a living proof that human
nature is a creation of its own, resolves
its own determinations; that on the
92 LETTERS TO
vividness of these depends the inten-
sity of our characters.
It was a terrible, a soul- appalling
fall : but it was not, it could not be, a
fall never to rise again. It shall not, if
I can retrieve it. He desires to live
with us again. His supplications (if
his letters are, as mine have been, the
language of his soul) have much of
ardency, passionateness, and sincerity,
in them. But this must not be. I
have endeavoured to judge on this
subject, if possible, with disinterested-
ness ; and I think I owe to Harriet's
happiness and his reformation that this
should not be. Keen as might have
been my feelings, I think, if virtue
compelled it, I could have lived with
him now.
You say he mistook the love of
virtue for the practice. I think that
you have endeavoured to separate cause
and effect. No cause do I esteem so
indissolubly annexed to its effect as the
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 93
real sincere love of virtue to the dis-
interested practice of its dictates. You
seem to have confounded love of virtue
with talking of the love of virtue. Yet
was not his conduct most nobly disin-
terested at Oxford? This appeared
real love of virtue. Then what a fall !
But not a remediless one. How are
we to tell a tree ? Not even by its
fruits. Are changes possible so quick,
so sudden ? I am immersed in a
labyrinth of doubt. My friend, I need
your advice, your reason : my own
seems almost withered.
Will you come here in your Christ-
mas holidays? Harriet delights so
much in this place that I do not think
I can quit it. Will you come here?
The poison-blast of calumny will not
dare to infect you. Besides, what is
the world ? Eliza Westbrook is here :
it is not likely, therefore, that anything
would be said.
We will never part in spirit : we are
94 LETTERS TO
too firmly convinced of what we
are ever to fear failure. Let the Chris-
tian talk of faith, but I am convinced
that the wildest bigot who ever carried
fury and fanaticism through a country
never could so firmly believe his idol
as I believe in you. Be you but false,
and I have no more to accomplish :
my usefulness is ended.
You talk of religion, — the influence
human depravity gained over your
mind towards acceding to it. But,
for this purpose, the religion of the
deist or the worshiper of virtue would
suffice, without involving the persecu-
tion, battles, bloodshed, which counten-
ancing Christianity countenances. I
think, my friend, we are the devoutest
professors of true religion I know, — if
the perverted and prostituted name of
" religion " is applicable to the idea of
devotion to virtue.
" The just man made perfect " I
doubt not of : but to this simple truth
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 95
where is the necessity of answering
fifty contradictory dogmas, in order
that men may destroy each other to
know which is right ? You see even
now I can write against Christianity,
" the enormous faith of many made
for one."
I write this hasty letter by return of
post, because I do not wish to excite
the anxiety you name : it is a terrible
feeling.
My friend, my dearest friend, adieu.
One blessing has Fate given, to coun-
terpoise all the evil she has thrown
into my balance ; and, when I cease to
estimate this blessing — a true, dear
friend — may I cease to live !
Your true, sincere, affectionate,
Percy Shelley.
96 LETTERS TO
LETTER XVII.
Keswick,
Nm). 23, 18 1 1— Saturday.
My dearest Friend,
Your letter reached me one day
too late, on account of a tempest
happening, and delaying the mail. It
hath at length reached me ; and dear,
sacredly dear, to me is every line of it.
I feel as if this occurrence had de-
prived me of the breath of life which
now with such eagerness I inhale. Oh
friendship like ours ! its most soul-
lulling comforts can, ought, never to
be called selfish; for, although we
give each other pleasure, our love is
not selfish. Reasoning is necessary to
selfishness ; and the delight I feel in
bracing my mind with the energies of
yours is involuntary. It is the remote
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 97
result of reason \ but, in cases of this
nature, it is necessary that a pleasure
should immediately arise from the cool
calculation of degree of benefit result-
ing to itself, before it can be called
selfishness. Your letter has soothed,
tranquiUized me : it seems as if every
bitter disappointment had changed its
bitter character.
I could have borne to die, to die
eternally, with my once-loved friend.
I could coolly have reasoned: to the
conclusions of reason I could have un-
hesitatingly submitted. Earth seemed
to be enough for our intercourse : on
earth its bounds appeared to be stated,
as the event hath dreadfully proved.
But with you — your friendship seems
to have generated a passion to which
fifty such fleeting inadequate existences
as these appear to be but the drop in
the bucket, too trivial for account.
With you, I cannot submit to perish
like the flower of the field. I cannot
98 LETTERS TO
consent that the same shroud which
shall moulder around these perishing
frames shall enwrap the vital spirit
which hath produced, sanctified-^may
I say, eternized ? — a friendship such
as ours. Most high and noble feelings
are referable to passion : but these —
these are referable to reason (certainly
" inspiration " hath nothing to do with
the latter). I say, passion is referable
to reason : but I mean the great aspir-
ing passions of disinterested Friend-
ship, Philanthropy. It is necessary
that reason should disinterestedly de-
termine : the passion of the virtuous
will then energetically put its decrees
in execution.
Your fancy does not run away with
your reason ; but your too great de-
pendence on mine does. Preserve
your individuality; reason for yourself;
compare and discuss with me, I will do
the same with you : for are you not
my second self, the stronger shadow of
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. c^c)
that soul whose dictates I have been
accustomed to obey ?
I have taken a long solitary ramble
to-day. These gigantic mountains
piled on each other, these water-falls,
these million-shaped clouds tinted by
the varying colours of innumerable
rainbows hanging between yourself and
a lake as smooth and dark as a plain
of polished jet — oh, these are sights
attunable to the contemplation ! I
have been much struck by the gran-
deur of its imagery. Nature here sports
in the awful waywardness of her soli-
tude. The summits of the loftiest of
these immense piles of rock seem but
to elevate Skiddaw and Helvellyn.
Imagination is resistlessly compelled
to look back upon the myriad ages
whose silent change placed them here ;
to look back when perhaps this retire-
ment of peace and mountain-simplicity
was the pandemonium of druidical
imposture, the scene of Roman poUu-
loo LETTERS TO
tion, the resting-place of the savage
denizen of these solitudes with the
wolf.— Still, still further. Strain thy
reverted fancy when no rocks, no lakes,
no cloud-soaring mountains, were here ;
but a vast, populous and licentious
city stood in the midst of an immense
plain. Myriads flocked towards it.
London itself scarcely exceeds it in the
variety, the extensiveness of its corrup-
tion. Perhaps ere Man had lost rea-
son, and lived an happy, happy race :
no tyranny, no priestcraft, no war. —
Adieu to the dazzling picture !
I have been thinking of you and of
human nature. Your letter has been
the partner of my solitude, — or rather
I have not been alone, for you have
been with me. Ought I to grieve?
I ? and hath not Fate been more than
kind to me? Did I expect her to
lavish on me the inexhaustible stores of
her munificence? Yet hath she not
done so ? What right have I to
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. loi
lament, to accuse her of barbarity?
Hath she not given you to me? Oh
how pityful ought all her other boons,
how contemptible ought all her inju-
ries, now to be considered ! and you
to share my sorrows ! Oh am I not
doubly now a wretch to cherish them ?
I will tear them from my remembrance.
I cannot be gay — gaiety is not my
nature : I have seen too much ever to
be so. Yet I will be happy: and I
claim it as a sacred right too that you
should share my happiness. I will
not be very long at this distance from
you.
I transcribe a little poem I found
this morning. It was written some
time ago ; but, as it appears to show
what I then thought of eternal life, I
send it.
I02 LETTERS TO
TO MARY,
WHO DIED IN THIS OPINION.
Maiden, quench the glare of sorrow
Struggling in thine haggard eye :
Firmness dare to borrow
From the wreck of destiny ;
For the ray morn's bloom revealing
Can never boast so bright an hue
As that which mocks concealing.
And sheds its loveliest light on you.
Yet is the tie departed
Which bound thy lovely soul to bliss?
Has it left thee broken-hearted
In a world so cold as this ?
Yet, though, fainting fair one.
Sorrow's self thy cup has given,
Dream thou'lt meet thy dear one,
Never more to part, in heaven.
Existence would I barter
For a dream so dear as thine,
And smile to die a martyr
On affection's bloodless shrine.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 103
Nor would I change for pleasure
That withered hand and ashy cheek,
If my heart enshrined a treasure
Such as forces thine to break.
Pardon me for thus writing on. I
preserve no connexion : I do not
hesitate, I do not pause one moment,
in writing to you. It seems to me as
if some spirit guided my pen.
I feel with you. I will stifle all
these idle regrets. I will sympathize
with you. Write to me your sensa-
tions, your feelings : ah, I fear I have
monopolized them ! Would that this
terrible sensation had not forced me
to call them thus into action ! But to
share grief is a sacred right of friend-
ship— to share every thought, every
idea. Remember, this is a sacred right.
But why need I remind you of what
neither of us is in any danger of
forgetting ?
Harriet will write to you : I have
I04 LETTERS TO
persuaded her. May she not share
the sunshine of my Hfe ? O lovely sym-
pathy 1 thou art indeed life's sweetest,
only solace ! and is not my friend the
shrine of sympathy ?
I hear nothing of my temporal
affairs. The D[uke] of N[orfolk] hath
written to me : I have answered his
letter. He is polite enough. In truth,
I do not covet any ducal intercourse
or interference. I suppose this is
inevitable and necessary.
I have not seen Southey : he is not
now at Keswick. Believe that, on his
return, I will not be slow to pay
homage to a really great man.
Oh I have much, much to say ! Me-
thinks words can scarcely embody ideas:
how wretchedly inadequate are letters !
Adieu, dearest of friends. Never do
I for a moment forget how eternally,
sincerely, I am
Yours,
Percy S.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 105
Your letters are six days in coming.
Perhaps one of those hateful Sundays
has been envious of my solace.
lo6 LETTERS TO
LETTER XVIII.
Keswick, Cumberland,
Stcnday^ Nov. 24, 181 1.
I ANSWER your letter, my dearest
Friend, not by return of post, because
the Keswick post comes in at seven and
goes out at nine, and we are some
distance.
Your letters revive me : they resus-
citate my slumbering hopes. The
languid flame of life, which before
burns feebly, glows at communication
with that vivid spark of friendship.
*' Love " I do not think is so adequate
a sign of the idea : its usual significa-
tion involves selfish monopoly, the
sottish idiotism of frenzy-nourished
fools, as once I was. But let that era
be blotted from the memory of my
shame, when purity, truth, reason,
virtue, all sanctify a friendship which
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 107
shall endure when the " love " of com-
mon souls shall sleep where the shroud
moulders around their soulless bodies.
— What a rhapsody ! But with you I
feel half inspired ; and then feel half
ashamed, lest my inspiration, like that
of others, result [not] from a little
vanity.
I am discouraged. His letters of
late appear to me to betray cunning,
deep cunning. But I may be de-
ceived : oh that I were in all that
these five weeks had brought forth !
His letters are long ; but they never ex-
press any conviction or unison. They
appear merely calculated to bring about
what he calls " intimacy on the same
happy terms as formerly." This I
have positively forbade the very thought
of. I tell him that I am open to rea-
son,— I wish, ardently wish, that he
would reason sincerely ; but that, were
even convinced that his conduct re-
sulted from disinterested love of virtue,
lo8 LETTERS TO
he could not live with us, as I should
thereby barter Harriet's happiness for
his short-lived pleasure, — since, my
friend, if it is true that such passions
are unconquerable (which I do not
believe), how much greater ascend-
ency will they gain when under the
immediate influence of their original
excitement !
Love of what ? Not love of my
wife, for love seeks the happiness of its
object, even when combined with the
common-place infatuation of novels
and gay life (oh no ! I don't know
that). Love of self; aye, as genuine
and complete as the most bigoted
believer in original sin could desire to
defile mankind, — these fi7ie suscepti-
bilities, to which casual deformity and
advanced age are such wonderful cures
and preventatives. But these have
nothing to do with real love, with
friendship. Suppose your frame were
wasted by sickness, your brow covered
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 109
with wrinkles ; suppose age had bowed
your form till it reached the ground,
would you not be as lovely as now ?
Yet one of these beings would pass
that intellect, that soul, that sensi-
bility, with as much indifference as I
would show to the night-star of a ball-
room, the magnet of the apes, asses,
geese, its inhabitants. So much for
real [ ? false] and so much for true
love. The one perishes with the body
whence on earth it never dares to soar ;
the other lives with the soul which was
the exclusive object of its homage.
Oh if this last be but true !
You talk of a future state : "is not
this imagination," you ask, " a proof of
it?" To me it appears so: to me
everything proves it. But what we
earnestly desire we are very much
prejudiced in favour of. It seems to
me that everything lives again. — What
is the Soul ? Look at yonder flower.
The blast of the North sweeps it from
no LETTERS TO
the earth ; it withers beneath the
breath of the destroyer. Yet that
flower hath a soul : for what is soul
but that which makes an organized
being to be what it is, — without which
it would not be so ? On this hypo-
thesis, must not that (the soul) without
which a flower cannot be a flower
exist, when the earthly flower hath
perished? Yet where does it exist —
in what state of being? Have not
flowers also some end which Nature
destines their being to answer ? Doubt-
less, it ill becomes us to deny this
because we cannot certainly discover
it ; since so many analogies seem to
favour the probability of this hypo-
thesis. I will say, then, that all Na-
ture is animated ; that microscopic
vision, as it hath discovered to us
millions of animated beings whose pur-
suits and passions are as eagerly fol-
lowed as our own; so might it, if
extended, find that Nature itself was
ELIZABETH HITCHENER.wi
but a mass of organized animation.
Perhaps the animative intellect of all
this is in a constant rotation of change :
perhaps a future state is no other
than a different mode of terrestrial
existence to which we have fitted our-
selves in this mode.
Is there any probability in this sup-
position ? On this plan, congenial souls
must meet ; because, having fitted
themselves for nearly the same mode
of being, they cannot fail to be near
each other. Free-will must give energy
to this infinite mass of being, and
thereby constitute Virtue. If our
change be in this mortal life, do not
fear that we shall be among the gro-
velling souls of heroes, aristocrats, and
commercialists. — Adieu to this.
I have scribbled a great deal : all
my feeling, all my ideas as they arise,
are thus yours. My dear friend, be-
lieve that thou art the cheering beam
which gilds this wintry day of life, —
112 LETTERS TO
perhaps ere long to be the exhaustless
sun which shall gild my millenniums
of immortality.
Adieu, my dearest friend.
Ever, ever yours,
Percy S.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER.ii^
LETTER XIX.
Keswick, Cumberland.
[Tuesday^ 26 Novembei', 181 1.}
Your letters are like angels sent
from heaven on missions of peace.
They assure me that existence is not
valueless; they point out the path
which it is paradise to tread. And
yet, my dearest friend, I am not satis-
fied that we should be so far asunder.
Methinks letters are but imperfect pic-
tures of the mind. They give the
permanent and energic outline, but a
thousand minutiae of varied expres-
sions are omitted in the portraiture.
I am therefore sorry that you cannot
come now. Cannot the sweet little
nurslings of liberty come ? But I will
not press you.
Strange prejudices have these coun-
try people ! I must relate one very
114 LETTERS TO
singular one. The other night I was
explaining to Harriet and Eliza the
nature of the atmosphere ; and, to
illustrate my theory, I made some ex-
periments on hydrogen gas, one of its
constituent parts. This was in the
garden, and the vivid flame was seen
at some distance. A few days after,
Mr. Dare entered our cottage, and
said he had something to say to me.
"Why, sir," said he, "I am not satis-
fied with you. I wish you to leave my
house." " Why, sir ? " " Because the
country talks very strangely of your
proceedings. Odd things have been
seen at night near your dwelling. I
am very ill satisfied with this. Sir, I
don't like to talk of it : I wish you to
provide yourself elsewhere." — I have,
with much difficulty, quieted Mr. D.'s
fears. He does not, however, much
like us ; and I am by no means cer-
tain that he will permit us to remain.
Have you found a house? I have
ELI Z ABE TH HITCHENER. 1 1 5
your promise : next Midsummer will
be my holidays. Heaven ! were I the
charioteer of Time, his burning wheels
would rapidly attain the goal of my
aspirations.
You believe, firmly believe me.
How invaluably dear ought now to be
that credit, when an example so ter-
rible has warned you to be sceptical !
That I believe in you cannot be won-
derful, for the first words you spoke to
me, the manner, are eternal earnests of
your taintlessness and sincerity. But
wherefore do I talk thus, when we
know, feel, each other ; when every sen-
timent is reciprocal ; when congeniality,
so often laughed at, both have found
proof strong as internal evidence can
afford ?
I do not love him now: bear wit-
ness for me, thou reciprocity of thought,
that I do not ! It is, it is true — too
true : what you say is conclusive. It
tallies too well with what I have yet to
Ii6 LETTERS TO
tell you. Oh I have been fearfully de-
ceived ! It is not the degradation of
imposition that I lament ; but that a
character moulded, as I imagined, in
all the symmetry of virtue, should ex-
hibit the loathsome deformity of vice —
that a saviour should change to a de-
stroyer.— But adieu to that now.
I shall not accuse my friend of en-
deavouring to insinuate the tenets of a
religion in one sentence, the founda-
tion, the corner-stone, of which she
defies all the powers that exist to make
her believe, in the next.
Miss Weeke's marriage induces you
to think marriage an evil. / think it
an evil — an evil of immense and ex-
tensive magnitude : but I think a pre-
vious reformation in myself — and that
a general and a great one — is requisite
before it may be remedied. Man is
the creature of circumstances ; and
these, casual circumstances, custom
hath made unto him a second nature.
ELIZABETH HTTCHENER. 117
That which hath no more to do with
virtue than the most indifferent actions
of our lives hath been exalted into its
criterion ; and, from being C07isidered
so, hath become one of its criterions.
Marriage is monopolizing, exclusive,
jealous. The tie which binds it bears
the same relation to ** friendship in
which excess is lovely " that the body
doth to the soul. Everything which
relates simply to this clay-formed dun-
geon is comparatively despicable ; and,
in a state of perfectible society, could
not be made the subject of either
virtue or vice. The most delicious
strains of music, viands the most titil-
lating to the palate, wines of the most
exquisite flavour, if it be innocent to
derive delight from them (supposing
such a case), it surely must be as inno-
cent in whosesoever company it were
derived. A law to compel you to
hear this music, in the company of
such a particular person, appears to me
Ii8 LETTERS TO
parallel to that of marriage. Were there
even now such a law as this, were this
exclusiveness reckoned the criterion of
virtue, it certainly would not be worth
the while of rational people to ** offend
their weak brothers " (as St. Paul says)
"by eating meats placed before the
idols." It ill would become them to
risk the peace of others, however pre-
judiced, by gaining to themselves what
from their souls they hold in contempt.
Am I right ? It delights me to dis-
cuss and to be sceptical : thus we must
arrive at truth — that introducer of
virtue and usefulness.
Have you read Godwin's Enquirer
(i)— his St. Leon (2)— his Political
Justice (3) — his Caleb Williams (4) ? —
I is very good ; 2 is good, very good ;
3 is long, sceptical, good j 4 is good.
I put them in the order that I would
advise you to read them.
I understand you when you say we
are free. Liberty is the very soul of
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 119
friendship, and from the very soul of
Hberty art thou my friend ; aye, and
such a sense as this can never fade.
" Earthly those passions of the earth
Which perish where they had their birth,
But Love is indestructible."
I almost wish that Southey had not
made the Glendover a male : these
detestable distinctions will surely be
abolished in a future state of being.
** The holy flame for ever burneth :
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth."
Might there not have been a prior
state of existence ? might we not have
been friends then? The creation of
soul at birth is a thing I do not like.
Where we have no premisses, we can
therefore draw no conclusions. It may
be all vanity : but I cannot think so.
I may be in Sussex soon. I do not
know where I shall be : but, wherever
I am, I shall be with you in spirit and
in truth. Do not think I am going to
insinuate Christianity, though I think
120 LETTERS TO
it is as likely a thing as that you should.
I annihilate God; you destroy the
Devil : and then we make a heaven
entirely to our own mind. It must be
owned that we are tolerably indepen-
dent. As to your ghostly director,
who told you to put out your sun of
common sense in order that he might
set up his rushlight, I can scarcely
believe that he ever even imagined a
" call."
When shall you change your abode ?
Are you fixed at Hurst for some years ?
I wish to know, as this will enable me
to determine on some place of resi-
dence near to yours.
This country is heavenly : I will
describe it when I have seen more of
it. I wish to stay, too, to see Southey.
You may imagine, then, that I was
very humble to Mr. Dare : I should
think he was tolerably afraid of the
devil.
I have heard from Hogg since, often :
ELIZABETH HirCHENER. 121
his letters give me little hope. He
still earnestly desires to live with us.
You have brought me into a dilemma,
concerning his conduct, from which it
is impossible to escape. I do not
love him. I have examined his con-
duct, I hope with cool impartiality;
and I grieve to find the conclusion
thus unfavourable.
I hope you are indebted (as you call
it) to the coolness of my judgment for
my opinion of you. I have repeatedly
told you what I think of you. I con-
sider you one of those beings who
carry happiness, reform, liberty, wher-
ever they go. To me you are as my
better genius — the judge of my reason-
ings, the guide of my actions, the
influencer of my usefulness. Great
responsibility is the consequence of
high powers.
/ am, as you must be, a despiser of
the mock-modesty of the world, which
is accustomed to conceal more defects
122 LETTERS TO
than excellencies. I know I am su-
perior to the mob of mankind : but I
am inferior to you in everything but
the equality of friendship.
But my paper ends. Adieu. I bid
adieu to-day to what is to me inex-
pressibly dear, your society.
Ever yours unalterably,
Percy S,
Tuesday morning. On what day
does this letter reach you ?
Harriet desires me to send her love,
and hopes you will answer her letter
very soon.
ELIZABETH HITCH ENER. 123
LETTER XX.
[Keswick.
Monday, 9 Dec ember ^ 1811?]
My dearest Friend,
I have just found your letters.
Three of them were here on our return
from Greystoke. What will you think
of not hearing from me so long ? Not
that I have forgotten you. Your
letters were indeed a most valuable
treasure. I have just finished reading
them. I shall answer them to-morrow.
We met several people at the Duke's.
One in particular struck me. He was
an elderly man, who seemed to know
all my concerns; and the expression
of his face, whenever I held the argu-
ments, which I do everywhere^ was such
as I shall not readily forget. I shall
124 LETTERS TO
have more to tell of him, for we have
met him before in these mountains, and
his particular look then struck Harriet.
Adieu, my dearest friend. I am
compelled to break off in the middle
of my letter by the conviction that this
may be too late. You will hear from
me to-morrow.
Yours, ever yours,
Percy Shelley.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 125
LETTER XXI.
Keswick, Cumberland.
[ Tuesday, i o December, 1 8 1 1 . ]
You received a fleeting letter from
me yesterday. An immediate acknow-
ledgement of your letters I judged
equal in value to the postage of a blank
sheet of paper.
Your letters, my dearest friend, are
to me an exhaustless mine of pleasure.
Fatigued with aristocratical insipidity,
left alone scarce one moment by those
senseless monopolizers of time that
form the court of a Duke, who would
be very well as a man, how delightful to
commune with the soul which is undis-
guised— whose importance no arts are
necessary nor adequate to exalt I
I admire your father, but I do not
think him capable of sympathizing
with you. I, you know, consider mind
126 LETTERS TO
to be the creature of education : that,
in proportion to the characters thereon
impressed by circumstance or inten-
tion, so does it assume the appearances
which vary with these varying events.
Divest every event of its improper ten-
dency, and evil becomes annihilate.
Thus, then, I am led to love a being,
not because it stands in the physical
relation of blood to me, but because
I discern an intellectual relationship.
It is because chance hath placed us in
a situation most fit for rendering hap-
piness to our relations that, if higher
considerations intervene not, makes it
our duty to devote ourselves to this
object. This is your duty, and nobly
do you fulfil it. Your father, I plainly
see, has some mistakes. Cannot you
reason him out of that rough exterior ?
It has the semblance of sincerity : in
reality is it not deceit ? Your attention
to his happiness is at once so noble, so
delicate, so desirous of accomplishing
ELIZABETH HITCHENER, 127
its design, that how could he fail, if he
knew it, to give you that esteem and
respect, besides the love which he
does ? Methinks he is not your equal
— that I have not found you equalled.
Were he so, would he not discern your
attentions ? No : he must be like you,
before I can ever institute a comparison
between your characters.
Of your mother I have not much
opinion. She appears to me one of
those every-day characters by whom
the stock of prejudice is augmented
rather than decreased.
Obedience (were society as I could
wish it) is a word which ought to be
without meaning. If virtue depended
on duty, then would prudence be
virtue, and imprudence vice ; and the
only difference between the Marquis
Wellesley and William Godwin would
be that the latter had more cunningly
devised the means of his own benefit.
This cannot be. Prudence is only an
128 LETTERS TO
auxiliary of virtue, by which it may be-
come useful. Virtue consists in the
motive. Paley's Moral Philosophy be-
gins : •' Why am I obliged to keep my
word ? Because I desire heaven, and
hate hell." Obligation and duty, there-
fore, are words of no value as the
criterion of excellence. — So much for
obedience — parents and children. Do
you agree to my definition of Virtue
— "Disinterestedness?" — Why do I
enquire ?
I am as little inclined as you are to
quarrel with Taffy : I am as much
obliged to him for the complex idea,
Tyranny. You do understand Locke.
This is one of his "complex ideas."
The ideas of power, evil, pain, together
with a very clear perception of the two
latter which may almost define the idea
"hatred," together with other minor
ideas, enter into its composition.
What you say about residing near
you is true. We cannot either get a
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 129
house there immediately. At mid-
summer, perhaps before, we see you
here : that is certain. Oh how you
will delight in this scenery ! These
mountains are now capped with snow.
The lake, as I see it hence, is glassy
and calm. Snow-vapours, tinted by
the loveliest colours of refraction, pass
far below the summits of these giant
rocks. The scene, even in a winter
sunset, is inexpressibly lovely. The
clouds assume shapes which seem pe-
culiar to these regions. What will it
be in summer? What when you are
here ? Oh give me a little cottage in
that scene ! Let all live in peaceful
little houses — let temples and palaces
rot with their perishing masters! Be
society civilized ; be you with us ;
grant eternal life to all ; and I will ask
not the paradise of religionists ! I
think the Christian heaven (with its
hell) would be to us no paradise : but
such a scene as this !
I30 LETTERS TO
How my pen runs away with me ! —
We design, after your visit (which
Heaven knows, I wish would never
end), to visit Ireland. We are very
near Port-Patrick. If you could ex-
tend your time, could you not accom-
pany us ? But am I not building on a
foundation more flimsy than air ? Can
I look back to the last year, and decide
with certainty on anything but the
eternity of my regard for you ?
Every day augments the strength of
my friendship for you, dearest friend.
Every day makes me feel more keenly
that our being is eternal. Every day
brings the conviction how futile, how
inadequate, are all reasonings to de-
monstrate it ? Yet are we — are these
souls which measure in their circum-
scribed domain the distance of yon
orbs — are we but bubbles which arise
from the filth of a stagnant pool, merely
to be again re-absorbed into the mass
of its corruption ? I think not : I feel
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 131
not. Can you prove it? Yet the
eternity of man has ever been believed.
It is not merely one of the dogmas of
an inconsistent religion, though all reli-
gions have taken it for their foundation.
The wild American, who never heard
of Christ, or dreamed of original sin,
whose " Great Spirit " was nothing but
the Soul of Nature, could not reconcile
his feelings to annihilation. He too
has his paradise. And in truth is not
the Iroquois's " human life perfected "
better than to " circle with harps the
golden throne " of one who dooms half
of his creatures to eternal destruction ?
— Thus much for the Soul.
I have now, my dear friend, in con-
templation a poem. I intend it to be
by anticipation a picture of the manners,
simplicity, and delights of a perfect state
of society, though still earthly. Will
you assist me ? I only thought of it
last night I design to accomplish it,
and publish. After, I shall draw a
132 LETTERS TO
picture of Heaven. I can do neither
without some hints from you. The
latter I think you ought to make.
I told you of a strange man I met
the other day : I am going to see him.
I shall also see Southey, Wordsworth,
and Coleridge, there. I shall then give
you a picture of them. '
I owe you several letters, nor shall I
be slack to pay you. I even now have
much — oh, much ! — to say. But never
can I express the abundance of pleasure
which your three letters have given me.
Surely, my dearest friend, you must
have known by intuition all my thoughts
to write me as you have done.
Give my love to Anne: what does
she think of me ? You delight me by
what you tell me of her. Every preju-
dice conquered, every error rooted out,
every virtue given, is so much gained
in the cause of reform. I am never
unmindful of this : I see that you are
not. Tell Anne that if she would
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 133
write to me, I would answer her
letters.
Now, my dearest friend, adieu. This
paper is at an end, but what I have to
say is not. I owe you several letters,
and shall not fail in the payment.
What think you of my undertaking ?
Shall I not get into prison ? Harriet
is sadly afraid that his Majesty will pro-
vide me with a lodging, in consideration
of the zeal which I evince for the
bettering of his subjects.
I think I shall also make a selection
of my younger poems for publication.
You will give me credit for their
morality.
Well, adieu, my dearest friend — ^thou
to whom every thought, every shade of
thought, is owing, since last I wrote.
Adieu.
Your sincerest,
Percy S.
Harriet sends her love to you : the
dear girl will write to you.
134 LETTERS TO
LETTER XXII.
Keswick, [Cumberland.]
Sunday y December 15 [1811].
My dearest Friend,
You will before now have my last
letter. I have felt the distrustful recur-
rences of the post-office, which you felt
when no answer to all your letters
came. I have regretted that visit to
Greystoke, because this delay must
have given you uneasiness.
I have since heard from Captain P.
His letter contains the account of a
meditated proposal, on the part of my
father and grandfather, to make my
income immediately larger than the
former's, in case I will consent to entail
the estate on my eldest son, and, in
default of issue, on my brother. Silly
dotards ! do they think I can be thus
bribed and ground into an act of such
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 135
contemptible injustice and inutility?
that I will forswear my principles in
consideration of ^£2000 a year ? that the
good-will I could thus purchase, or the
ill-will I could thus overbear, would
recompense me for the loss of self-
esteem, of conscious rectitude? And
with what face can they make to me a
proposal so insultingly hateful ? Dare
one of them propose such a condition
to my face — to the face of any virtuous
man — and not sink into nothing at
his disdain? That I should entail
j;^! 20,000 of command over labour, of
power to remit this, to employ it for
beneficient purposes, on one whom I
know not — who might, instead of being
the benefactor of mankind, be its bane,
or use this for the worst purposes,
which the real delegates of my chance-
given property might convert into a
most useful instrument of benevolence !
— No ! this you will not suspect
me of.
136 LETTERS TO
What I have told you will serve to
put in its genuine light the grandeur of
aristocratical distinctions ; and to show
that contemptible vanity will gratify its
unnatural passion at the expense of
every just, humane, and philanthropic
consideration, —
" Though to a radiant angel linked
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage."
I have written this to you just as I
have received the Captain's letter. My
indignant contempt has probably con-
fused ray language, and rendered my
writing rather illegible. But it is my
custom to communicate to you, my
dearest friend, — to that brain of sym-
pathetic sensibility — every idea as it
comes, as I do to my own.
Hogg at length has declared himself
to be one of those mad votaries of
selfishness who are cool to destroy the
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 137
peace of others, and revengeful, when
their schemes are foiled, even to idiot-
ism. In answer to a letter in which
I strongly insisted on the criminality of
exposing himself to the inroads of a
passion which he had proved himself
unequal to control, and endangering
Harriet's happiness, he has talked of
my '* consistency in despising religion,
despising duelling, and despising sin-
cere friendship" — with some hints as
to duelHng, to induce me to meet him
in that manner. I have answered his
letter ; in which I have said I shall not
fight a duel with him, whatever he may
say or do ; that I have no right either
to expose my own life, or take his — in
addition to the wish I have, from
various motives, to prolong my exist-
tence. Nor do I think that his life is
a fair exchange for mine ; since I have
acted up to my principles, and he has
denied his, and acted inconsistently
with any morality whatsoever. That,
138 LETTERS TO
if he would show how I had wronged
him, I would repair it to the utter-
most mite; but I would not fight a
duel.
Now, dearest partner of that friend-
ship which once he shared, now I am
at peace. He is incapable of being
other but the every-day villain who
parades St. James's Street ; though even
as a villain will he be eminent and im-
posing. The chances are now much
against my ever influencing him to
adopt habits of benevolence and phi-
lanthropy. This passion of animal
love which has seized him, this which
the false refinements of society have
exalted into an idol to which its mis-
guided members burn incense, has
intoxicated him, and rendered him
incapable of being influenced by any
but the consideration of self-love. How
much worthier of a rational being is
friendship ! which, though it wants
none of the *' impassionateness " which
ELIZABETH HITCHENER, 139
some have characterized as the inse-
parable of the other, yet retains judg-
ment, which is not blind though it
may chance to see something like
perfections in its object, which re-
tains its sensibility, but whose sen-
sibility is celestial and intellectual,
unallied to the grovelling passions of
the earth.
Southey has changed. I shall see
him soon, and I shall reproach him
for his tergiversation. He, to whom
bigotry, tyranny, law were hateful, has
become the votary of these idols in a
form the most disgusting. The Church
of England — its Hell and all — has be-
come the subject of his panegyric. The
war in Spain, that prodigal waste of
human blood to aggrandize the fame of
statesmen, is his delight. The constitu-
tion of England — with its Wellesley, its
Paget, and its Prince — is inflated with
the prostituted exertions of his pen. I
feel a sickening distrust when I see all
I40 LETTERS TO
that I had considered good, great, or
imitable, fall around me into the gulf of
error. But we will struggle on its brink
to the last ; and, if compelled we fall,
we shall have at all events the consola-
tion of knowing that we have struggled
with a nature that is bad, and that this
nature — not the imbecility of our proper
cowardice — has involved us in the
ignominy of defeat.
Wordsworth, a quondam associate of
Southey, yet retains the integrity of his
independence ; but his poverty is such
that he is frequently obliged to beg for
a shirt to his back.
Well, dearest friend, adieu. Changes
happen, friends fall around us: what
once was great sinks into the imbe-
cility of human grandeur. Empires
shall fade, kings shall be peasants,
and peasants shall be kings : but
never will we cease to regard each
other, because we never will cease to
deserve it.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 141
My Harriet desires her love to you.
Yours most imperishably, and eter-
nally,
P. B. Shelley.
I shall write again. Do these letters
come as a single sheet ?
142 LETTERS TO
LETTER XXIII.
Keswick, [Cumberland,
Thursday ^^ December 26, 181 1.
My dearest Friend,
I have delayed writing for two days,
that my letters might not succeed each
other so closely as one day. I have
also been engaged in talking with
Southey. You may conjecture that a
man must possess high and estimable
qualities if, with the prejudices of such
total difference from my sentiments, I
can regard him great and worthy. In
fact, Southey is an advocate of liberty
and equality. He looks forward to a
state when all shall be perfected, and
matter become subjected to the omni-
potence of mind. But he is now an
advocate for existing establishments.
He says he designs his three statues in
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 143
Kehama to be contemplated with re-
publican feelings, but not in this age.
Southey hates the Irish : he speaks
against Catholic Emancipation, and
Parliamentary Reform. In these things
we diifer, and our differences were the
subject of a long conversation. Southey
calls himself a Christian ; but he does
not believe that the Evangelists were
inspired \ he rejects the Trinity, and
thinks that Jesus Christ stood precisely
in the same relation to God as himself.
Yet he calls himself a Christian. Now,
if ever there were a definition of a
Deist, I think it could never be clearer
than this confession of faith. But
Southey, though far from being a man
of great reasoning powers, is a great
man. He has all that characterizes the
poet,— great eloquence, though obsti-
nacy in opinion, which arguments are
the last thing that can shake. He is a
man of virtue. He will never belie
what he thinks ; his professions are in
144 LETTERS TO
strict compatibility with his practice. —
More of him another time.
With Calvert, the man whom I men-
tioned to you in that pygmy letter, we
have now become acquainted. He
knows everything that relates to my
family and myself : my expulsion from
Oxford, the opinions that caused it, are
no secrets to him. We first met Southey
at his house. He has been very kind
to us. The rent of our cottage was
two guineas and a half a week, with
linen provided : he has made the pro-
prietor lower it to one guinea, and has
lent us linen himself. We are likely
therefore to continue where we are, as
we have engaged, on these terms, for
three months. After that, we will
augment his rent.
Believe me, my most valued friend,
that I am, no less than yourself, an ad-
mirer of sincerity and openness. Mys-
tery is hateful and foreign to all my
habits : I wish to have no reserves.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 145
Were the world composed of such
individuals as that which shares my
soul, it should be the keeper of my
conscience. But I do not know whe-
ther, in the first place, the circumstance
of Hogg's apostacy is such as would
in any wise contribute to benefit by its
publication ; and, not knowing this,
should I not be highly criminal to risk
anything by its disclosure ? Though I
have much respect and love for my
uncle and aunt, and indeed can never
be sufficiently thankful for their un-
limited kindness, yet I know that no
good end, save explicitness, is to be
answered by this explanation ; and my
uncle's indignation would be so great
that I have frequently pictured to
myself the possibility of [its] out-
stepping the limits of justice. My
aunt, too, would be voluble in resent-
ment; and I am conscious that she
suspected, long before its event, the oc-
currence of this terrible disappointment.
140 LETTERS TO
To you I tell everything that passes
in my soul, even the secret thoughts
sacred alone to sympathy. But you
are my dearest friend ; and, so long as
the present system of things continues
(which I fear is not yet verging to its
demolition), so long must some dis-
tinction be established between those
for whom you have a great esteem, a
high regard, and those who are to you
what Eliza Kitchener is to me.
Since I have answered Hogg's letter,
I have received another. It was not
written until after the receipt of my
answer. Its strain is humble and
compliant : he talks of his quick pas-
sions, his high sense of honour. I
have not answered it, nor shall I. He
has too deeply plunged into hypocrisy
iox my arguments to effect any change.
I leave him to his fate. Would that I
could have reached him ! It is an
unavailing wish — the last one that I
shall breathe over departed excellence.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 147
How I have loved him you can leel.
But he is no longer the being whom
perhaps 'twas the warmth of my ima
gination that pictured. I love no
longer what is not that which I loved.
Do not praise me so much : my
counsellor will overturn the fabric she
is erecting. You strengthen me in
virtue : but weaken not the energy of
your example by proposing your so
high esteem as a reward for acting well.
I know none, of my principles, who
would do otherwise.
This proposal will be (if made) a
proof of the imbecility of aristocracy.
I have been led into reasonings which
make me hate more and more the
existing establishment, of every kind.
I gasp when I think of plate and balls
and titles and kings. I have beheld
scenes of miser}-. The manufactureis
are reduced to starvation. My friends
the military are gone to Nottingham.
Curses light on them for their motives,
148 LETTERS TO
if they destroy one of its famine-wasted
inhabitants ! But, if I were a friend to
the destroyed, myself about to perish,
I fancy that I could bless them for
saving my friend the bitter mockery of
a trial. Southey thinks that a revolution
is inevitable : this is one of his reasons
for supporting things as they are. But
let us not belie our principles. They
may feed and may riot and may sin to
the last moment. The groans of the
wretched may pass unheeded till the
latest moment of this infamous revelry,
— till the storm burst upon them, and
the oppressed take ruinous vengeance
on the oppressors.
I do not proceed with my poem :
the subject is not now to my mind. I
am composing some essays which I
design to publish in the summer. The
minor poems I mentioned you will see
soon : they are about to be sent to the
printers. I think it wrong to publish
anything anonymously, and shall annex
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 149
my name, and a preface in which I
shall lay open my intentions, as the
poems are not wholly useless.
" I sing, and Liberty may love the song."
Can you assist my graver labours ?
Harriet complains that I hurt my
health, and fancies that I shall get into
prison. The dear girl sends her love
to you : she is quite what is called " in
love " with you.
What do you advise me about Hogg
and my uncle ? If you think best, I
will tell him. Do you be my mentor,
my guide, my counsellor, the half of
my soul : I demand it.
I never heard of Parkinson. I have
not room to say anything of Xeno-
phanes. I shall send for the Organic
Remains^ &c. You will like the Poli-
tical Justice: for its politics you are
prepared. I hope you have got the
first edition. The chapters on Truth
and sincerity are impressively true. —
But I anticipate your opinions.
I50 LETTERS TO
I have neglected ten thousand things
— in my next.
I will live beyond this life.
Yours, yours most imperishably,
Percy S.
If they charge you a double sheet
show this,* or open it before them, and
thev will retract.
* Marked outside: "This is only z. lai^e
single sheet."
ELIZABETH HITCH ENER. 151
LETTER XXIV.
Keswick, [Cumberland,
Thursday, '\ Jan. 2, 18 12.
My dearest Friend,
Your immense sheet, and the vol-
uminousness of your writing, and my
pleasure, demand an equivalent. I
can give it at length : but do not flatter
me so much as to suppose that I can
equal you in interest. Your style may
not be so polished ; sometimes I think it
is not so legal as mine : but words are
only signs of ideas, and their arrange-
ment only valuable as it is adapted
adequately to express them. Your elo-
quence comes from the soul : it has
the impassionateness of nature. I
sometimes doubt the source of mine,
and suspect the genuineness of my
sincerity. But I do not think I have
any reason : no, I am firm, secure, un-
152 LETTERS TO
changeable. — Pardon this scepticism;
but I will incorporate, for the inspec-
tion of my second conscience, each
shadow, however fleeting, each idea
which worth or chance imprints on my
recollection.
You have loved God, but not the
God of Christianity. A God of par-
dons and revenge, a God whose will
could change the order of the universe,
seems never to have been the object of
your affections. I have lately had
some conversation with Southey which
has elicited my true opinions of God.
He says I ought not to call myself an
atheist, since in reality I believe that
the Universe is God. I tell him I
believe that " God " is another signifi-
cation for "the Universe." I then
explain : — I think reason and analogy
seem to countenance the opinion that
life is infinite ; that, as the soul which
now animates this frame was once the
vivifying principle of the infinitely
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 153
lowest link in the chain of existence, so
is it ultimately destined to attain the
highest ; that everything is animation
(as explained in my last letter) ; and in
consequence, being infinite, we can
never arrive at its termination. How,
on this hypothesis, are we to arrive at
a First Cause? — Southey admits and
believes this. Can he be a Christian ?
Can God be three ? Southey agrees in
my idea of Deity, — the mass of infinite
intelligence. I, you, and he, are con-
stituent parts of this immeasurable
whole. What is now to be thought of
Jesus Christ's divinity? To me it
appears clear as day that it is the false-
hood of human-kind.
You seem much to doubt Christi-
anity. I do not : I cannot conceive in
my mind even the possibility of its gen-
uineness. I am far from thinking you
weak and imbecile : you must know
this. I look up to you as a mighty
mind. I anticipate the era of reform
154 LETTERS TO
with the more eagerness as I picture to
myself 7^?/ the barrier between violence
and renovation. Assert your true char-
acter, and believe one who loves you
for what you are to be sincere. Know-
ing you to be thus great, I should grieve
that you countenanced imposture.
Love God, if thou wilt (I do not think
you ever feared Him), but recollect
what God is.
If what I have urged against Christ-
ianity is insufficient, read its very books,
that a nearer inspection may contribute
to the rectifying any false judgment.
Physical considerations must not be
disregarded, when physical improbabili-
ties are asserted by the witnesses of a
contested question. Bearing in mind
that disinterestedness is the essence of
virtuous motive, any dogmas militating
with this principle are to be rejected.
Considering that belief is not a volun-
tary operation of the mind, any system
which makes it a subject of reward or
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 155
punishment cannot be supposed to
emanate from one who has a master-
knowledge of the human mind. All
investigations of the era of the world's
existence are incongruous with that of
Moses. Whether is it probable that
Moses or Sir Isaac Newton, knew as-
tronomy best ? Besides, Moses writes
the history of his own death; which
is almost as extraordinary a thing to do
as to describe the creation of the world.
Thus much for Christianity. This only
relates to the truth of it : do not forget
the weightier consideration of its direct
effects.
Southey is no believer in original sin :
he thinks that which appears to be a
taint of our nature is in effect the result
of unnatural political institutions.
There we agree. He thinks the pre-
judices of education, and sinister influ-
ences of political institutions, adequate
to account for all the specimens of vice
which have fallen within his observation.
156 LETTERS TO
You talk of Montgomery. We all
sympathise with him, and often think
and converse of him. I am going to
write to him to-day. His story is a
terrible one : it is briefly this. — His
father and mother were Moravian
missionaries. They left their country
to convert the Indians : they were
young, enthusiastic, and excellent.
The Indians savagely murdered them.
Montgomery was then quite a child ;
but the impression of this event never
wore away. When he grew up, he
became a disbeUever of Christianity,
having very much such principles as a
virtuous enquirer for truth. In the
mean time he loved an apparently ami-
able female : he was about to marry her.
Having some affairs in the West Indies,
he went to settle them before his mar-
riage. On his return to Sheffield, he
actually met the marriage-procession of
this woman, who had in the mean time
chosen another love. He became
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 157
melancholy-mad : the horrible events
of his life preyed on his mind. He
was shocked at having forsaken a faith
for which a father and mother whom
he loved had suffered martyrdom
The contest between his reason and
his faith was destroying. He is now a
Methodist. Will not this tale account
for the melancholy and religious cast
of his poetry ? — This is what Southey
told me, word for word.
"POET'S EPITAPH.
"Art thou a Statesman, in the van
Of public business bom and bred ?
First learn to love one living man ;
Then mayest thou think upon the
dead.
" Art thou a lawyer ? Come not nigh :
Go, carry to some other place
The hardness of thy coward eye,
The falsehood of thy sallow face.
158 LETTERS TO
" Art thou a man of rosy cheer,
A purple man right plump to see ?
Approach : but, Doctor, not too near !
This grave no cushion is for thee.
** Physician art thou — one all eyes —
Philosopher — a fingering slave —
One who would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave?
" Wrapped closely in thy sensual fleece,
Pass quickly on : and take, I pray.
That he below may rest in peace,
Thy pin-point of a soul away.
"But who is he, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet — brown,
Who murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own?
" And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.
ELIZABETH HITCHENER. 159
*' All outward shows of sky and earth,
Of sea and valley, he hath viewed ;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude."
I have transcribed a piece of
Wordsworth's poetry. It may give
you some idea of the man. How
expressively keen are the first stanzas !
I shall see this man soon.
I wish I knew your mother: I do
not mean your natural, but your moral,
mother. I have many thanks to give
to her. I owe her much : more than
I can hope to repay, yet not without
the reach of an attempt at remunera-
tion.
I look forward to the time when you
will live with us : I think you ought at
some time. If then principle still
directs you to take scholars, this will
be no impediment : but I think you
might be far more usefully employed.
Your pen — so overflowing, so demon-
i6o LETTERS TO
strative, so impassioned — ought to
trace characters for a nation's perusal,
and not make grammar-books for chil-
dren. This latter is undoubtedly a
most useful employment: but who
would consent that such powers should
always be so employed ? This is, how-
ever, a subject for afterwards.
My Poems will make their appear-
ance as soon as I can find a printer.
As to the poem, I have for the present
postponed its execution ; thinking that,
if I can finish my Essays, and a Tale in
which I design to exhibit the cause of
the failure of the French Revolution,
and the state of morals and opinions
in France during the latter years of its
monarchy.* Some of the leading pas-
sions of the human mind will of course
have a place in its fabric. I design to
exclude the sexual passion ; and think
the keenest satire on its intemperance
will be complete silence on the subject.
* Shelley has left this sentence uncompleted.
ELIZABETH HITCHENEK. i6i
I have already done about 200 pages
of this work, and about 150 of the
Essays.
Now, you can assist me, and you do
assist me. I must censure my friend's
inadequate opinion of herself; for truly
inadequate must it be if it inequalizes
our intellectual powers. Have confi-
dence in yourself: dare to believe "I
am great."
1 fear you cannot read my crossed
writing : indeed, I very much doubt
whether the whole of my scribbling be
not nearly illegible.
Adieu, my dearest friend. Harriet
sends her love.
Eliza, her sister, is a very amiable
girl. Her opinions are gradually rectify-
ing ; and, although I have never spoken
of her to you before, it is injustice to
her to conceal [her] from you so long.
I have said nothing of Godwin —
nothing of a thousand topics I had to
write on. But I admire Godwin as
l62 LETTERS, ETC,
much as you can. 1 shall write to him
too to-day or to-morrow. I do not sup
pose that he will answer my address. I
shall, however, call on him whenever I
go to London.
I am not sure that Southey is quite
uninfluenced by venality. He is dis-
interested, so far as respects his family ;
but I question if he is so, as far as re-
spects the world. His writings solely
support a numerous family. His sweet
children are such amiable creatures that
I almost forgive what I suspect. His
wife is very stupid : Mrs. Coleridge is
worse. Mrs. Lovel, who was once an
actress, is the best of them.
Adieu, my friend and fellow-labourer ;
and never think that I can be otherwise
than devoted to you till annihilation.
Yours for ever,
P. B. Shelley.
Southey says I am not an Atheisti
but a Pantheist.
Privately Printed: 1890.
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