, bad-tempered and untruthful. "She is a very
disgusting woman, and wears green spectacles," said Charles Lamb.
Besides a small son of the Godwins, the family contained four other
members--Clara Mary Jane Clairmont and Charles Clairmont (Mrs. Godwin's
children by a previous marriage), Fanny Godwin (as she was called), and
Mary Godwin. These last two were the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft,
the author of 'The Rights of Women', the great feminist, who had been
Godwin's first wife. Fanny's father was a scamp called Imlay, and Mary
was Godwin's child.

Mary disliked her stepmother, and would wander on fine days to read
beside her mother's grave in Old St. Pancras Churchyard. This girl of
seventeen had a strong if rather narrow mind; she was imperious, ardent,
and firm-willed. She is said to have been very pale, with golden hair
and a large forehead, redeemed from commonplace by hazel eyes which had
a piercing look. When sitting, she appeared to be of more than average
height; when she stood, you saw that she had her father's stumpy legs.
Intellectually, and by the solidity of her character, she was better
fitted to be Shelley's mate than any other woman he ever came across.
It was natural that she should be interested in this bright creature,
fallen as from another world into their dingy, squabbling family. If
it was inevitable that her interest, touched with pity (for he was in
despair over the collapse of his life with Harriet), should quickly warm
to love, we must insist that the rapture with which he leaped to meet
her had some foundation in reality. That she was gifted is manifest in
her writings--chiefly, no doubt, in 'Frankenstein', composed when she
had Shelley to fire her imagination; but her other novels are competent,
and her letters are the work of a vigorous intellect. She had her
limitations. She was not quite so free from conventionality as either he
or she believed; but on the whole they were neither deceiving themselves
nor one another when they plighted faith by Mary Wollstonecraft's grave.
With their principles, it was nothing that marriage was impossible.
Without the knowledge of the elder Godwins, they made arrangements to
elope, and on July 28, 1814, crossed from Dover to Calais in an open
boat, taking Jane Clairmont with them on the spur of the moment. Jane
also had been unhappy in Skinner Street. She was about Mary's age, a
pert, olive-complexioned girl, with a strong taste for life. She changed
he