Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

I remained in Switzerland for two months, during which period I put my affairs in order and relinquished the administration of the company to M. Fabre who had always been trusted by my father. I had written to the Master of my college in Oxford, explaining the reasons for my delay and asking him for leave of absence until the following term; this was permitted, under the statutes, and I looked forward to returning to my studies with redoubled zeal and ambition. I was now the heir to a large fortune, which I could employ without check or scrutiny, and I had already determined to devote it to my pursuits in the science of life.

I was happy to return for other reasons. I had heard nothing of Bysshe for several months, and I was eager to learn of all his exploits in London. Now I contemplated the notion of renting a commodious house in the city, where he and I could live in close intercourse. I had other schemes, drawn up in my mind’s eye with as much fidelity as if I sat with an architect beside me. I planned to create a great laboratory, where I could engage in experiments on the largest possible scale. I wished to build a “gallery of life” where all the emerging forms of primitive existence could be displayed. In truth, I wished to become a benefactor of mankind. So, in the early autumn of that eventful year, I returned with enthusiasm and anticipation to England. I believed that in London a man with sovereigns in his pocket is master of his destiny. In this, however, I was to be proved mistaken.

WHEN I ARRIVED IN LONDON I rented rooms in Jermyn Street, but took the precaution of having my heavy luggage sent before me to Oxford. I had scarcely swallowed down a plate of beef, in the chop-house next to St. James’s church, when I made my way to Poland Street. The windows of Bysshe’s old lodging were closed, and so I mounted the stairs and rapped upon the door with the ivory cane I had brought with me from Switzerland. A young woman came to the door, nursing a small infant. I was at a loss for words in that instant, and simply stared at her.

“Yes, sir?”

“Mr. Shelley?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Is Mr. Shelley here?”

“No one of that name.”

“Percy Bysshe Shelley?”

“No, sir. John Donaldson. His wife, Amelia, which is me. And this is Arthur.” She patted the baby with her free hand.

I must say that I experienced a moment of relief. “Forgive me, Mrs. Donaldson. May I ask if you have lived here long?”

“We came early in the summer, sir. We are from Devon.”

“There was a young man here before you, I believe. He is a friend of mine-”

“Oh. The young party. I did hear something of him from Mr. Lawson above us. A strange party. Very volatile. Is that so?” I nodded. “He vanished, sir. He left one morning. Never seen again. Now you are here-” She retreated into the rooms which I knew so well, and presently returned with a small volume. “If you were to find him, would you give him this?” She handed me the book that I recognised as a copy of Lyrical Ballads. He had often read from it, during our evening conversations. “I found it beneath the settle. It must have fallen. Mr. Donaldson and I have no use for it, sir.”

I gave her a sovereign, which she accepted with many expressions of delight. I considered calling upon Daniel West -brook in Whitechapel for news of Bysshe. Yet the memory of that neighbourhood, dark and dim, dissuaded me. Instead I determined to return to Oxford, where Bysshe might find me if he so wished. I retained my chambers in Jermyn Street, however, as a refuge from the quiet life of the university.

FLORENCE, MY COLLEGE SERVANT, greeted me at the top of the staircase with an expression of surprise. “Well, Mr. Frankenlime, we was despairing of you.”

“Never despair, Florence.”

“Then the head porter tells us you was coming back. So I gave them a good clean.” She motioned towards my rooms. “You will find them in a state of perfection.”

“I am pleased to hear it.” I walked past her and, on opening the door, was relieved to see my luggage piled high in a corner.

So I entered once more the diurnal round of divine service, college meals, and college friendships. Such was the nature of the place that, as soon as I had settled myself in my rooms, I felt a resurgence of my old life. I sought out the company of Horace Lang, who had known Bysshe before my own arrival at Oxford; together we walked by the Thames towards Binsey, or towards Godstow, and speculated about our poet. Lang had heard nothing from him since Bysshe’s forced departure from the college, and so I enlightened him about the radical meetings in London. It was with a feeling of some excitement, then, that we learned of the imminent arrival of Mr. Coleridge as a lecturer in the Welsh Hall in Cornmarket Street. His poetry was already known to me, of course, partly through Lyrical Ballads and partly through my own earnest enquiries into the political and economic science of the day. Ever since I had begun reading his essays in the Friend, I had entertained a vast respect for his intellectual powers no less than for his mental agility that seemed to surmount every challenge.

The series of lectures he was about to undertake was entitled “The Course of English Poetry,” and on the evening of the first lecture the Welsh Hall was packed to suffocation with the young men of the university. When Mr. Coleridge walked upon the platform he seemed unwell; he had a hectic flush upon his cheeks but otherwise his complexion was pale. He appeared older than I had imagined, unless his hair were preternaturally white, and his hands shook as he approached the rostrum. He was by no means ill favoured, having the open visage of a child, but there was an indefinable languor about him that suggested sloth or lack of will.

“Gentlemen,” he said, taking some papers from the pocket of his jacket, “you must forgive my frailty. I have recently returned from a long journey, during which my health has suffered. But I pray and hope that the mind is untouched by the tortures of the body.” At this the audience hurrahed and, given the generosity of the reception, Coleridge seemed to be eased. He began talking from his notes on the roots of English poetry in the Anglo-Saxon bards, but it was laboured stuff. He had no real enthusiasm for these subjects. Sensing the restlessness of his audience, I think, he laid aside his papers and began to speak warmly and spontaneously about the genius of the language itself. He had an inspired eye, if I may put it that way, and seemed able to catch sight of phrases and sentences before he uttered them. He spoke of language possessing an organic rather than a mechanical form; he extolled its active agency, as an instrument of the imagination, and declared that “man creates the world in which he lives.” I noted down one sentiment in particular that interested me immensely. “ Newton,” he said, “claimed that his theories were created by experiment and observation. Not so. They were created by his mind and imagination.” Coleridge no longer seemed weary, and in the fire of his utterance his countenance had become ennobled; he spoke very freely, with a sibilance that was strangely appealing, and he used his gestures to great effect. “Under the impress of the imagination,” he went on, “nature is instinct with passion and with change. It is altered-it is moved-by human perception.” In what sense did he mean “moved”? Did it simply denote change, or could it be construed as the sensation of pity or of joy?

I believe that these sentiments were quite novel to the audience assembled in the Welsh Hall, and they listened with keen anticipation. Coleridge seemed to be exalted by their attention, and I noticed that the hectic flush upon his cheeks had been succeeded by a radiance of-I know not what-of belief, of self-belief. “All knowledge,” he said, “rests on the coincidence of a subject with an object in living unity. We must discover the in-dwelling and living ground of all things. In that procedure, we may render the mind intuitive of the spiritual.”