Tales and Stories: Now First CollectedShelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
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Tales and Stories: Now First Collected
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
English fiction -- 19th century; Short stories, English
“One little incident alone occurred during our intercourse that appeared
at all to connect her with the world. Sometimes I brought her a
newspaper, for those were stirring times; and though, before I knew her,
she had forgotten all except the world her own heart enclosed, yet, to
please me, she would talk of Napoleon—Russia, from whence the emperor
now returned overthrown—and the prospect of his final defeat. The paper
lay one day on her table; some words caught her eye; she bent eagerly
down to read them, and her bosom heaved with violent palpitation; but
she subdued herself, and after a few moments told me to take the paper
away. Then, indeed, I did feel an emotion of even impertinent
inquisitiveness; I found nothing to satisfy it—though afterwards I
became aware that it contained a singular advertisement, saying, ‘If
these lines meet the eye of any one of the passengers who were on board
the _St. Mary_, bound for Liverpool from Barbadoes, which sailed on the
third of May last, and was destroyed by fire in the high seas, a part of
the crew only having been saved by his Majesty’s frigate the
_Bellerophon_, they are entreated to communicate with the advertiser;
and if any one be acquainted with the particulars of the Hon. Miss
Eversham’s fate and present abode, they are earnestly requested to
disclose them, directing to L. E., Stratton Street, Park Lane.’
“It was after this event, as winter came on, that symptoms of decided
ill-health declared themselves in the delicate frame of my poor Ellen. I
have often suspected that, without positively attempting her life, she
did many things that tended to abridge it and to produce mortal disease.
Now, when really ill, she refused all medical attendance; but she got
better again, and I thought her nearly well when I saw her for the last
time, before going home for the Christmas holidays. Her manner was full
of affection: she relied, she said, on the continuation of my
friendship; she made me promise never to forget her, though she refused
to write to me, and forbade any letters from me.
“Even now I see her standing at her humble doorway. If an appearance of
illness and suffering can ever he termed lovely, it was in her. Still
she was to be viewed as the wreck of beauty. What must she not have been
in happier days, with her angel expression of face, her nymph-like
figure, her voice, whose tones were music? ‘So young—so lost!’ was the
sentiment that burst even from me, a young lad, as I waved my hand to
her as a last adieu. She hardly looked more than fifteen, but none could
doubt that her very soul was impressed by the sad lines of sorrow that
rested so unceasingly on her fair brow. Away from her, her figure for
ever floated before my eyes;—I put my hands before them, still she was
there: my day, my night dreams were filled by my recollections of her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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