preface to the collected
edition of his works, she says: "I have the liveliest recollection of
all that was done and said during the period of my knowing him.
Every impression is as clear as if stamped yesterday, and I have no
apprehension of any mistake in my statements, as far as they go. In
other respects I am, indeed, incompetent; but I feel the importance of
the task, and regard it as my most sacred duty. I endeavor to fulfil
it in a manner he would himself approve; and hope in this publication
to lay the first stone of a monument due to Shelley's genius, his
sufferings, and his virtues." And in the postscript, written in
November, 1839, she says: "At my request, the publisher has restored
the omitted passages of 'Queen Mab.' I now present this edition as
a complete collection of my husband's poetical works, and I do not
foresee that I can hereafter add to or take away a word or line." So
writes the wife-editor; and then "The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe
Shelley" begin with a dedication to Harriet, restored to its place
by Mary. While the biographers of Shelley are chargeable with
suppression, the most straightforward and frank of all of them is
Mary, who, although not insensible to the passion of jealousy, and
carrying with her the painful sense of a life-opportunity not fully
used, thus writes the name of Harriet the first on her husband's
monument, while she has nobly abstained from telling those things that
other persons should have supplied to the narrative. I have heard her
accused of an over-anxiety to be admired; and something of the sort
was discernible in society: it was a weakness as venial as it was
purely superficial. Away from society, she was as truthful and simple
a woman as I have ever met,--was as faithful a friend as the world
has produced,--using that unreserved directness towards those whom she
regarded with affection which is the very crowning glory of friendly
intercourse. I suspect that these qualities came out in their greatest
force after her calamity; for many things which she said in her
regret, and passages in Shelley's own poetry, make me doubt whether
little habits of temper, and possibly of a refined and exacting
coquettishness, had not prevented him from acquiring so full a
knowledge of her as she had of him. This was natural for many reasons,
and especially two. Shelley had not the opportunity of retrospectively
studying her character, and his mind was by nature more constructed