r name to Claire because it sounded more romantic.

Mrs. Godwin pursued the fugitives to Calais, but in vain. Shelley
was now launched on a new life with a new bride, and--a freakish
touch--accompanied as before by his bride's sister. The more his life
changed, the more it was the same thing--the same plunging without
forethought, the same disregard for all that is conventionally deemed
necessary. His courage is often praised, and rightly, though we
ought not to forget that ignorance, and even obtuseness, were large
ingredients in it. As far as they had any plan, it was to reach
Switzerland and settle on the banks of some lake, amid sublime mountain
scenery, "for ever." In fact, the tour lasted but six weeks. Their
difficulties began in Paris, where only an accident enabled Shelley to
raise funds. Then they moved slowly across war-wasted France, Mary and
Claire, in black silk dresses, riding by turns on a mule, and Shelley
walking. Childish happiness glows in their journals. From Troyes Shelley
wrote to the abandoned Harriet, in perfect good faith, pressing her
to join them in Switzerland. There were sprained ankles, dirty inns,
perfidious and disobliging drivers--the ordinary misadventures of
the road, magnified a thousand times by their helplessness, and all
transfigured in the purple light of youth and the intoxication of
literature. At last they reached the Lake of Lucerne, settled at
Brunnen, and began feverishly to read and write. Shelley worked at a
novel called 'The Assassins', and we hear of him "sitting on a rude pier
by the lake" and reading aloud the siege of Jerusalem from Tacitus. Soon
they discovered that they had only just enough money left to take them
home. Camp was struck in haste, and they travelled down the Rhine.
When their boat was detained at Marsluys, all three sat writing in the
cabin--Shelley his novel, Mary a story called 'Hate', and Claire a
story called 'The Idiot'--until they were tossed across to England, and
reached London after borrowing passage-money from the captain.

The winter was spent in poverty, dodging creditors through the
labyrinthine gloom of the town. Chronic embarrassment was caused by
Shelley's extravagant credulity. His love of the astonishing, his
readiness to believe merely because a thing was impossible, made him the
prey of every impostor. Knowing that he was heir to a large fortune, he
would subsidise any project or any grievance, only provided it were wild
enough.