Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/29

 DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY

nation.&quot; That is the fabulist s opinion Harriet Shelley s is not reported.

Early in August, Shelley was in London trying to raise money. In September he wrote the poem to the baby, already quoted from. In the first week of October Shelley and family went to Warwick, then to Edinburgh, arriving there about the middle of the month.

&quot;Harriet was happy. * Why? The author fur nishes a reason, but hides from us whether it is history or conjecture; it is because &quot;the babe had borne the journey well.&quot; It has all the aspect of one of his artful devices flung in in his favorite casual way the way he has when he wants to draw one s attention away from an obvious thing and amuse it with some trifle that is less obvious but more useful in a history like this. The obvious thing is, that Harriet was happy because there was much territory between her husband and Cornelia Turner now ; and because the perilous Italian lessons were taking a rest ; and because, if there chanced to be any respond- ings like a tremulous instrument to every breath of passion or of sentiment in stock in these days, she might hope to get a share of them herself; and be cause, with her husband liberated, now, from the fetid fascinations of that sentimental retreat so pitilessly described by Hogg, who also dubbed it &quot;Shelley s paradise&quot; later, she might hope to per suade him to stay away from it permanently; and because she might also hope that his brain would cool, now, and his heart become healthy, and both brain and heart consider the situation and resolve

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