She rejoices that her friend has taken to
work, and hopes that his friends will keep him to recording his own
adventures; but she strongly dissuades him from writing a life of
Shelley, for how could that be done without bringing her into
publicity? which she shrinks from fearfully, though she is forced by
her hard situation to meet it in a thousand ways; or as she expresses
it, "I will tell you what I am, a silly goose, who, far from wishing
to stand forward to assert myself in any way, now that I am alone in
the world have but the desire to wrap night and the obscurity of
insignificance around me. This is weakness, but I cannot help it."
Neither does Mary consider that the time has come to write Shelley's
life, though she her-self hopes to do so some day.
Towards the end of 1830 we find Mary in Somerset Street, Portman
Square, from which place she writes to Trelawny on the subject of his
MS. of _The Adventures of a Younger Son,_ which he had consigned
to her hands to place with a publisher, make the best terms for that
she could, and see through the press; a task distasteful to Trelawny
to the last. Mrs. Shelley much admired the work, considering it full
of passion and interest.
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