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TRELAWNY'S LETTERS 119
As Trelawny could scarcely write to a
woman without making love to her, and as his
relations with Mary Shelley were necessarily
emotional and intimate, an ambiguous proposal
and a handful of affectionate letters will not
persuade us that he ever cared more seriously
for her than for scores of others. Though
some letters must have been written when he
was courting the sister of Odysseus or keeping
a harem at Athens, and others when his heart
was disengaged, can any one decide which are
sincere and which are not ? Or, rather, are
they not all equally sincere ? The following
extract may help us to a conclusion :
" I say ! the poet [Shelley] was a thorough
mormon why did he not declare himself and
anticipate the sect ? I would have joined him
and found him a settlement it would not
for man
hold together without a superstition
all over the world are [sic]
it's
superstitious
the nature of the animal your mother was a
simpleton to have never heard of a man being
in love with two women ;
when we are young
we are in love with all women the bible
would call it by its proper name, lust."
So wrote Trelawny in 1 869 (he had recovered
his style) to Claire Clairmont. His letters to
her, now published for the first time, compose
the largest and liveliest part of the volume.