BOOKS OF THE DAY
Shelley the .jrotean OF all the tasks to be imagined for a biographer, that of writing a life of Shelley must be the most nightmarish—and the most enthralling. Who is, actually, this human being he is trying to make real to others ? Is it the self-centred demon so many people found it impossible to deal with, or the selfless angel only too many found themselves able to get almost anything out of ? Is it the practical man of affairs, or the being who, as two or three contem- poraries remarked, seemed to be more than human ? The pro- foundly religious person, or the scoffing atheist ? The man of divine purity of intention, or the scandalous example of self-indul- gence? The rapt poet, or the deluded politician? The most that one can perhaps know for certain is that of all the people one would wish to have heard talk, Shelley is easily the first, with his fervour, his sincerity, his miraculous command of language, his vivid mastery of ideas. The difficulty for the biographer must be that he cannot help knowing from the start that whatever Shelley he presents cannot possibly be the Shelley of the reader's imagination. For no one would tackle a formidable-looking two-volume life of Shelley without having a preliminary idea of who and what Shelley was, an idea which any biographer is bound—since he is dealing with so astonishing and protean a person—to alter both in shape and in substance.
Professor White has done his best to produce a book which will not influence any innocent reader ; and he set out with clear limiting . views as to the function of a biographer, views which he lays down in his preface. The principles are impeccable, if rightly interpreted. " Attempts to be witty or profound commonly warp the straight grain of truth and justice. Cleverness and brilliance usually score their points for the biographer and against his subject. . . . The best the biographer can do is to keep himself as far as possible in the background and try as unobtria.sively as he can to provide his readers with every opportunity of forming just judgements of their own." There is, it is clear, to be no " chatter about Shelley." Yet, it might be asked, would one not wish a biographer to be profound ? What is—the question is not altogether new—the truth, the straight grain of which may be warped ? After all, how can a biographer help interpreting ? Brute facts, the facts you can record and measure, by themselves are meaningless. They can always be grubbed up ; and selection from them has to be made—made, moreover, according to some plan of what is felt will give the fullest picture. The biographer must " understand " even to state so complex a thing as a " fact " in human behaviour.
It must be confessed that such remarks as Mr. White makes induce dismal forebodings, by no means lightened as one plunges into the book. Secure fact succeeds fact ; sometimes, indeed, there are facts which seem sheer obstructions. How does a paragraph such as the following help us to see Shelley ; not plain—no one ever saw Shelley plain, or can hope to do so—but to see him in any way ?
" Another native of Horsham, John Thornton (1778-1866), was also a member of Wadham College, but his list of degrees and appointments in the college register does not make it certain that he was in residence while Shelley was at Oxford."
That is a " fact " we can ponder on—if we are interested in the long-lived John Thornton. Or, again, we can muse upon foreign travel in 1814 when we read a time-table of the journey Shelley and Mary made when they first went abroad: Monday, August 8. Paris to Charenton.
Tuesday, August 9. Charenton to Guignes. . . .
and so on, day by day, to Friday, August 26th. How does this help us to understand Shelley—or Mary ? Such things are befogging blankets ; they get between us and Shelley because they dull our awareness ; they should have. been relegated to the notes On the other hand, there are many things in Mr. White's copious notes that would adorn and enliven the text. They are, indeed, often more fascinating, more illuminating, than the body of the book, and one cannot but heartily wish that many of them could, in a future edition, replace the dead wood that often clutters up the text.
This is to be wished because, in spite of this dangerous fault, the book has very great merits. The reader actually is provided, as far as is humanly possible, with every opportunity (or nearly every one) of forming a judgement of his own. And, luckily, Mr. White often forgets his own precepts, or sometimes, 'v#th 'many apologies, contravenes them. Warm blood does after all fl. through the pages of the book, and makes it live'; and a book is to live independently as .a book if its subject is to come to life- a d remain alive. And increasingly, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes with de- preciation (as in the matter of the Naples " daughter "), Mr. White shows us what Shelley, at least in some respects, was, and the sort of person he was becoming. The gathering gloom of the first few chapters is gradually dispelled, and the reader will lay the book down with regret, feeling that he knows more about Shelley than he did
before, and would like to stay longer with him. .
There can be no doubt, I think (speaking as one who does not pretend to be a Shelley scholar), that this sumptuously produced and everi too profusely illustrated life displaces all others. It is not a study such as Mr. Blunden's, nor a brilliant apercu of one' aspect of Shelley such as Mr. Read gave us, but a basic biography, founded on fuller materials than were available to Professor Peck, and, certainly, to Dowden. Mr. White is throughout scrupulously fair. He never takes sides, and he enables us to see the point of view of Sir Timothy Shelley, and other anti-Shelleyites. It is true that he does not waste much sympathy on Eliza Westbrook or Elizabeth Hitchener (we never get an inkling of the stages by which Shelley came to abhor them), and he has a tough job with- Godwin. He la, admirable about Hogg and Byron ; he does full justice to Peacock and Leigh Hunt, the Gisbornes and so on, while his treatment of. Harriet Westbrook and Claire Clairemont are sympathetic without being in the least sentimental. In fact, Mr. White is never senti- mental, even about Shelley, to whom he has a deep devotion; he has a delightful and saving sense of humour which now and again, peeps out only too shyly. One may say that recent discoveries—by Mr. Ingpen, Mr. Blunden, Professor Hotson and others—are excellently and discreetly used, some may think too discreetly. He is never out for effect, and all the sources are given us, 'together with much controversial matter, in the notes. We can check where we will, and dally with false surmise if the mood takes us The most interesting part, naturally, is the later, where Shelley is rapidly creating, swiftly maturing, relating his immense reading to his experience, bitter and melancholy experience which would have tainted most men. Here Mr. White could not avoid a certain degree of interpretation ; he is at his best, and a very good best it is, when he is dealing with the period after Shelley and Mary lost their daughter - and when he interprets the poems with respect to the relations between Shelley and Mary (also admirably treated) and the platonic love-affairs with Emilia Viviani and Jane Williams. In fact, after about half-way through the book we no longer wade ; we are borne along the stream in a buoyant vessel. There are, of course, contentious points • how should there mot be in a book about so amazing a person ? But those who love Shelley will, we think, finish the book with a still profounder appreciation of the man ; those hitherto indifferent will, perhaps, be curiously attracted. No, biographer could wish for greater success than that.
BONAMY DOBEttE..
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