Mary’s Girlhood: “The Outlines of Intelligence”
When little Mary
Godwin was not quite three weeks old, her father, William Godwin, had his
friend William Nicholson, a phrenologist, examine her. Nicholson wrote a report
to Godwin in September 18, 1797, the same day that he’d examined the infant. “The
outline of the head viewed from above, its profile, the outline of the
forehead, seen from behind and in its horizontal positions, are such as I have
invariably and exclusively seen in subjects who possessed considerable memory
and intelligence. … The mouth was too much employed to be well observed. It has
the outlines of intelligence.[1]
When I began eating my Frankenstein sundae (the
metaphorical, not the actual one) in 1997, I knew nothing about little Mary
Godwin—hell, I didn't even know who Mary Godwin was. I knew only the slimmest bit about Mary Shelley—nothing at all
about her Godwin girlhood. I’d never even heard
of William Godwin when I began nibbling. But that would soon change.
I've already written about my journey through all the
Mary Shelley biographies, beginning with Emily Sunstein’s 1988 volume, Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality. As I
look now at my copy of that book—which I read in January 1997, beginning it
just days after I retired from the
Aurora City Schools—I notice the myriads of underlinings, especially about
Mary's girlhood. A simple formula, really: the more underlinings in the text,
the less I knew.
As I’ve said, I subsequently read every other
biography of Mary Shelley—and all the biographies of Godwin and Wollstonecraft,
as well. But this story about the phrenologist stuck with me. Of course, the “science”
of phrenology is right up there with astrology in its nonsense (both –ologies have
mastered the technique of saying little while saying a lot), and Godwin’s
friend knew very well that this infant was the offspring of two of the most
remarkable and talented human beings of the era. So observing that the child
looked as if she might be intelligent, affectionate, and of “quick sensibility,”
and “surely not given to rage” was not exactly the riskiest prediction I’ve
ever read.[2]
But my favorite line of all? The mouth was too much employed to be well observed. Gee, an infant
with a busy mouth? What a surprise.
No comments:
Post a Comment