|
In Defence of Harriet Shelleyby Mark TwainI
I have committed sins, of course; but I have not committed enough of them
to entitle me to the punishment of reduction to the bread and water of
ordinary literature during six years when I might have been living on the
fat diet spread for the righteous in Professor Dowden's Life of Shelley,
if I had been justly dealt with.
During these six years I have been living a life of peaceful ignorance.
I was not aware that Shelley's first wife was unfaithful to him, and that
that was why he deserted her and wiped the stain from his sensitive honor
by entering into soiled relations with Godwin's young daughter. This was
all new to me when I heard it lately, and was told that the proofs of it
were in this book, and that this book's verdict is accepted in the girls'
colleges of America and its view taught in their literary classes.
In each of these six years multitudes of young people in our country have
arrived at the Shelley-reading age. Are these six multitudes
unacquainted with this life of Shelley? Perhaps they are; indeed, one
may feel pretty sure that the great bulk of them are. To these, then, I
address myself, in the hope that some account of this romantic historical
fable and the fabulist's manner of constructing and adorning it may
interest them.
First, as to its literary style. Our negroes in America have several
ways of entertaining themselves which are not found among the whites
anywhere. Among these inventions of theirs is one which is particularly
popular with them. It is a competition in elegant deportment. They hire
a hall and bank the spectators' seats in rising tiers along the two
sides, leaving all the middle stretch of the floor free. A cake is
provided as a prize for the winner in the competition, and a bench of
experts in deportment is appointed to award it. Sometimes there are as
many as fifty contestants, male and female, and five hundred spectators.
One at a time the contestants enter, clothed regardless of expense in
what each considers the perfection of style and taste, and walk down the
vacant central space and back again with that multitude of critical eyes
on them. All that the competitor knows of fine airs and graces he throws
into his carriage, all that he knows of seductive expression he throws
into his countenance. He may use all the helps he can devise: watch-
chain to twirl with his fingers, cane to do graceful things with, snowy
handkerchief to flourish and get artful effects out of, shiny new
stovepipe hat to assist in his courtly bows; and the colored lady may
have a fan to work up her effects with, and smile over and blush behind,
and she may add other helps, according to her judgment. When the review
by individual detail is over, a grand review of all the contestants in
procession follows, with all the airs and graces and all the bowings and
smirkings on exhibition at once, and this enables the bench of experts to
make the necessary comparisons and arrive at a verdict. The successful
competitor gets the prize which I have before mentioned, and an abundance
of applause and envy along with it. The negroes have a name for this
grave deportment-tournament; a name taken from the prize contended for.
They call it a Cakewalk. This Shelley biography is a literary cake-walk. The ordinary forms of
speech are absent from it. All the pages, all the paragraphs, walk by
sedately, elegantly, not to say mincingly, in their Sunday-best, shiny
and sleek, perfumed, and with boutonnieres in their button-holes; it is
rare to find even a chance sentence that has forgotten to dress. If the
book wishes to tell us that Mary Godwin, child of sixteen, had known
afflictions, the fact saunters forth in this nobby outfit: "Mary was
herself not unlearned in the lore of pain"--meaning by that that she had
not always traveled on asphalt; or, as some authorities would frame it,
that she had "been there herself," a form which, while preferable to the
book's form, is still not to be recommended. If the book wishes to tell
us that Harriet Shelley hired a wet-nurse, that commonplace fact gets
turned into a dancing-master, who does his professional bow before us in
pumps and knee-breeches, with his fiddle under one arm and his crush-hat
under the other, thus: "The beauty of Harriet's motherly relation to her
babe was marred in Shelley's eyes by the introduction into his house of a
hireling nurse to whom was delegated the mother's tenderest office."
This is perhaps the strangest book that has seen the light since
Frankenstein. Indeed, it is a Frankenstein itself; a Frankenstein with
the original infirmity supplemented by a new one; a Frankenstein with the
reasoning faculty wanting. Yet it believes it can reason, and is always
trying. It is not content to leave a mountain of fact standing in the
clear sunshine, where the simplest reader can perceive its form, its
details, and its relation to the rest of the landscape, but thinks it
must help him examine it and understand it; so its drifting mind settles
upon it with that intent, but always with one and the same result: there
is a change of temperature and the mountain is hid in a fog. Every time
it sets up a premise and starts to reason from it, there is a surprise in
store for the reader. It is strangely nearsighted, cross-eyed, and
purblind. Sometimes when a mastodon walks across the field of its vision
it takes it for a rat; at other times it does not see it at all.
The materials of this biographical fable are facts, rumors, and poetry.
They are connected together and harmonized by the help of suggestion,
conjecture, innuendo, perversion, and semi-suppression.
The fable has a distinct object in view, but this object is not
acknowledged in set words. Percy Bysshe Shelley has done something which
in the case of other men is called a grave crime; it must be shown that
in his case it is not that, because he does not think as other men do
about these things.
Ought not that to be enough, if the fabulist is serious? Having proved
that a crime is not a crime, was it worth while to go on and fasten the
responsibility of a crime which was not a crime upon somebody else? What
is the use of hunting down and holding to bitter account people who are
responsible for other people's innocent acts?
Still, the fabulist thinks it a good idea to do that. In his view
Shelley's first wife, Harriet, free of all offense as far as we have
historical facts for guidance, must be held unforgivably responsible for
her husband's innocent act in deserting her and taking up with another
woman. ORBuy "The Mark Twain Collection" and receive all 45 of the ebooks for only $9.95 Ebook Titles: - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- TOM SAWYER ABROAD
- TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE
- THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
- 1601
- A Burlesque Autobiography
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
- A Dog's Tale
- A Horse's Tale
- A TRAMP ABROAD
- Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories
- Carnival of Crime in CT
- Christian Science
- Complete Letters of Mark Twain
- Curious Republic of Gondour
- Double Barrelled Detective
- Essays on Paul Bourget
- Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
- Extracts From Adam's Diary
- FENIMORE COOPER'S LITERARY OFFENCES
- FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR
- Goldsmiths Friend Abroad Again
- How Tell a Story and Others
- In Defence of Harriet Shelley
- Innocents Abroad
- IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?
- LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
- MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY
- Mark Twain's Speeches
- On the Decay of the Art of Lying
- Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc v1
- Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc v2
- Rambling Idle Excursion
- Roughing It
- Sketches New and Old
- THE $30,000 BEQUEST and Other Stories
- The American Claimant
- The Gilded Age
- The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg
- The Mysterious Stranger
- The Prince and the Pauper
- The Stolen White Elephant
- The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
- Those Extraordinary Twins
- WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN
That's right! No more waiting for the mailman to come to your door 7-10 days later.. You can start reading this book instantly!
It doesn't matter if it's 2 AM in the morning, you'll be downloading and reading "In Defence of Harriet Shelley" within just a few minutes. There's absolutely no risk to you - so what are you waiting for?
Here's how to order
In Defence of Harriet Shelley is delivered in PDF format and is viewable on any computer. All you need is "Adobe Reader" or "Acrobat eBook Reader" which is available free and already on most computers. to get the software. They are both Free.
Click below for an INSTANT download of the In Defence of Harriet Shelley (.PDF, 98 KB) ebook.
The cost of this ebook is only $3.00
get the ebook INSTANTLY
The charge will show on your billing statement as CLKBANK*COM or PayPal
Once your credit card is approved, you will be taken to a special download page where you will download the In Defence of Harriet Shelley ebook.
You'll be reading in less than three minutes.
Purchase Online with Credit Card by Secure Server.
Click Here NOW to download your copy (98 KB).
It doesn't matter if it's 2:00 a.m. in the morning!
All the best!
| |
and eLibrary present:
