No More Learning

***


NOTE ON QUEEN MAB, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

Shelley was eighteen when he wrote "Queen Mab"; he never published it.
When it was written, he had come to the decision that he was too young
to be a 'judge of controversies'; and he was desirous of acquiring 'that
sobriety of spirit which is the characteristic of true heroism. ' But he
never doubted the truth or utility of his opinions; and, in printing and
privately distributing "Queen Mab", he believed that he should further
their dissemination, without occasioning the mischief either to others
or himself that might arise from publication. It is doubtful whether he
would himself have admitted it into a collection of his works. His
severe classical taste, refined by the constant study of the Greek
poets, might have discovered defects that escape the ordinary reader;
and the change his opinions underwent in many points would have
prevented him from putting forth the speculations of his boyish days.
But the poem is too beautiful in itself, and far too remarkable as the
production of a boy of eighteen, to allow of its being passed over:
besides that, having been frequently reprinted, the omission would be
vain. In the former edition certain portions were left out, as shocking
the general reader from the violence of their attack on religion. I
myself had a painful feeling that such erasures might be looked upon as
a mark of disrespect towards the author, and am glad to have the
opportunity of restoring them. The notes also are reprinted entire--not
because they are models of reasoning or lessons of truth, but because
Shelley wrote them, and that all that a man at once so distinguished and
so excellent ever did deserves to be preserved. The alterations his
opinions underwent ought to be recorded, for they form his history.

A series of articles was published in the "New Monthly Magazine" during
the autumn of the year 1832, written by a man of great talent, a
fellow-collegian and warm friend of Shelley: they describe admirably the
state of his mind during his collegiate life. Inspired with ardour for
the acquisition of knowledge, endowed with the keenest sensibility and
with the fortitude of a martyr, Shelley came among his fellow-creatures,
congregated for the purposes of education, like a spirit from another
sphere; too delicately organized for the rough treatment man uses
towards man, especially in the season of youth, and too resolute in
carrying out his own sense of good and justice, not to become a victim.
To a devoted attachment to those he loved he added a determined
resistance to oppression.
Refusing to fag at Eton, he was treated with
revolting cruelty by masters and boys: this roused instead of taming his
spirit, and he rejected the duty of obedience when it was enforced by
menaces and punishment. To aversion to the society of his
fellow-creatures, such as he found them when collected together in
societies, where one egged on the other to acts of tyranny, was joined
the deepest sympathy and compassion; while the attachment he felt for
individuals, and the admiration with which he regarded their powers and
their virtues, led him to entertain a high opinion of the perfectibility
of human nature; and he believed that all could reach the highest grade
of moral improvement, did not the customs and prejudices of society
foster evil passions and excuse evil actions.

The oppression which, trembling at every nerve yet resolute to heroism,
it was his ill-fortune to encounter at school and at college, led him to
dissent in all things from those whose arguments were blows, whose faith
appeared to engender blame and hatred. 'During my existence,' he wrote
to a friend in 1812, 'I have incessantly speculated, thought, and read. '
His readings were not always well chosen; among them were the works of
the French philosophers: as far as metaphysical argument went, he
temporarily became a convert. At the same time, it was the cardinal
article of his faith that, if men were but taught and induced to treat
their fellows with love, charity, and equal rights, this earth would
realize paradise. He looked upon religion, as it is professed, and above
all practised, as hostile instead of friendly to the cultivation of
those virtues which would make men brothers.

Can this be wondered at? At the age of seventeen, fragile in health and
frame, of the purest habits in morals, full of devoted generosity and
universal kindness, glowing with ardour to attain wisdom, resolved at
every personal sacrifice to do right, burning with a desire for
affection and sympathy,--he was treated as a reprobate, cast forth as a
criminal.

The cause was that he was sincere; that he believed the opinions which
he entertained to be true. And he loved truth with a martyr's love; he
was ready to sacrifice station and fortune, and his dearest affections,
at its shrine. The sacrifice was demanded from, and made by, a youth of
seventeen. It is a singular fact in the history of society in the
civilized nations of modern times that no false step is so irretrievable
as one made in early youth. Older men, it is true, when they oppose
their fellows and transgress ordinary rules, carry a certain prudence or
hypocrisy as a shield along with them. But youth is rash; nor can it
imagine, while asserting what it believes to be true, and doing what it
believes to be right, that it should be denounced as vicious, and
pursued as a criminal.

Shelley possessed a quality of mind which experience has shown me to be
of the rarest occurrence among human beings: this was his UNWORLDLINESS.