Perhaps most touching is her pride in her son, also called Percy and the only one of her children with Shelley to survive infancy. “Percy is growing up a very fine young man & developing tastes & talents that would remind you of his father ”“ though he has not that touch that at once made Shelley angelic & unfortunate.” After her son goes to Cambridge, she writes, “he is getting all that we could wish ”“ he is getting very liberal ”“ & has so much character & talent ”“ though still shy ”“ that I have every hope for his future happiness”.
His sweet nature “repays me for how many years of sadness”, she writes later, though she also admits: “I am mortified he is not taller.”
Her own worsening health hampers the communication in later years. “Today I have been down stairs & taken an airing for the first time ”“ I hope I shall have no relapse,” she writes to Eliza in 1846. “This note looks blotty and invalidy ”“ indeed my drive has tired me.”
Read it all.
(Guardian) Mary Shelley letters discovered in Essex archive
Perhaps most touching is her pride in her son, also called Percy and the only one of her children with Shelley to survive infancy. “Percy is growing up a very fine young man & developing tastes & talents that would remind you of his father ”“ though he has not that touch that at once made Shelley angelic & unfortunate.” After her son goes to Cambridge, she writes, “he is getting all that we could wish ”“ he is getting very liberal ”“ & has so much character & talent ”“ though still shy ”“ that I have every hope for his future happiness”.
His sweet nature “repays me for how many years of sadness”, she writes later, though she also admits: “I am mortified he is not taller.”
Her own worsening health hampers the communication in later years. “Today I have been down stairs & taken an airing for the first time ”“ I hope I shall have no relapse,” she writes to Eliza in 1846. “This note looks blotty and invalidy ”“ indeed my drive has tired me.”
Read it all.