Chained Rebellion*

Shelley, Poeta et Vir Sui Judicii

The Story. Percy Bysshe Shelley, scion of a rich Whig family, first went to Eton. He was "exceptionally beautiful, with brilliant blue eyes, dark curling hair and a delicate complexion." The brutal Vita Etonica shocked his sensitive mind and he was glad to move on to the freedom of Oxford.

But Oxford's freedom proved a dangerous drug to the impressionable Shelley. He rapidly conceived an intense loathing of the whole social order, the marriage contract in particular. He became an atheist. Most Oxford men go through such phases, but Shelley was supersensitive and these seeming sane ideas crystallized into a philosophy. He became for life, with notable exceptions, vir sui judicii. The writing and distribution to the Dons of the Necessity of Atheism ended his Oxford sojourn with cataclysmic suddenness. Shelley was "sent down."

Not long after, he married the beautiful Harriet Westbrook--married her because it was "useless to seek by an individual example to rejuvenate . . . society." Nevertheless, he convinced himself that it was "an act of will, not an act of passion."

His married life was at first happy. The very young couple, bent on reform, hurried hither and thither, always intent upon settling down "for ever" in every place which touched their fancy. But their marital bliss became clouded, they parted, and Shelley entered concubinage with beautiful Mary Godwin, daughter of his hero-philosopher.

Claire, another Godwin daughter, deliberately got herself into trouble with the notorious Lord Byron. This brought Shelley and the then greater poet into close touch and the rest of the story deals with life in Italy, the death of two of Shelley's children, the platonic affection of Shelley for several beautiful women, his naked appearance before the ladies of his household, the gradual cooling of his relation with Mary, the building of the boat Ariel,/- named after him.

One day the Ariel put out to sea. A storm was brewing--a few days later Shelley and his friend were found dead on the beach. His corpse was "terrible to look upon for the face and hands and parts of the body had been eaten away by the fish." Upon a pyre, the last remains of Shelley were cremated in the presence of Byron and some friends:

The intense heat made the atmosphere tremulous and wavy. At the end of three hours the heart, which was unusually big remained unconsumed. The frontal bone of the skull . . . fell off, and the brains literally seethed, bubbled and boiled. . . . Byron could not face the scene. . . . The village children . . . told each other that from these bones, once they had reached England, the dead man would come to life.

The Significance. The incredulity of a life of Shelley by a Frenchman is more apparent than real. Shelley was preeminently a romantic idealist, and at romanticism and idealism the French have long been past masters. M. Maurois has made the past live with words succinct and decisive, sentences deep with comprehension, paragraphs full of irony and delight, chapters seething with critical observations; in all, a book that may well deserve to crown the host of Shelleyana.

The Author. M. Andre Maurois was born in Normandy, and until after the War he had no opportunity for writing. He celebrated his literary freedom with Les Silences du Colonel Bramble, which received a stupendous reception for a first novel. Then followed Les Discours du Docteur O'Grady and Ni Ange Ni Bete. But his Ariel surpasses all, and M. Maurois has been well called "worthy disciple of Lytton Strachey."

*ARIEL, THE LIFE OF SHELLEY--AndrE Maurois--Appleton ($2.50 ).

/-Jane and Edward Williams, Shelley's constant associates at Pisa, called him "Ariel." Said Jane: "He comes and goes like a spirit, no one knows when or where." (Ariel, in medieval folklore, was a light, changeable spirit of the air.)