The Real Shelley. New Views of the Poet's Life. Vol. 2 (of 2)Jeaffreson, John Cordy
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The Real Shelley. New Views of the Poet's Life. Vol. 2 (of 2)
Jeaffreson, John Cordy
Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822
There are passages in the concluding Letters to Imlay fit to be given in
evidence that, as the hour of their final separation drew nearer, Mary’s
love for him revived and regained all its former force; and it is
conceivable that, under the influence of jealousy of the object of Imlay’s
new attachment, Mary loved him again in a wild, tempestuous way, as all
hope of recovering him to herself and her child died in her breast.
Certainly she acted like a woman driven to distraction by the anguish of
despised and disappointed love. On the other hand, she did nothing more
than many a violent woman has done under the goadings and torture of
wounded vanity and injured pride. In her rage and misery, Gilbert Imlay’s
whilom mate in Free-Love went one cold and dismal winter’s day to the
river’s side near Putney Bridge. On coming to the scene, where she
intended to escape from life, she either walked into the river and stood
in it, or walked on the Bridge in the pouring rain, until the skirts of
her clothing were saturated and heavily charged with water. This having
been done, so that a few minutes later her garments should operate as a
dead weight in drawing her beneath the tide’s surface, and, at the same
time, deprive her limbs of the power to struggle against the cold current,
she climbed the parapet of the Bridge,[1] and threw herself into the deep
stream. This deliberate attempt at self-murder was, however, unsuccessful,
Mary being picked up and saved by the watermen of a passing boat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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