Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/31

 DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY

to laugh at the Boinville menagerie, and &quot;was not a favorite.&quot; One of the Boinville group, writing to Hogg, said, &quot;The Shelleys have made an addition to their party in the person of a cold scholar, who, I think, has neither taste nor feeling. This, Shelley will perceive sooner or later, for his warm nature craves sympathy.&quot; True, and Shelley will fight his way back there to get it there will be no way to head him off.

Toward the end of November it was necessary for Shelley to pay a business visit to London, and he conceived the project of leaving Harriet and the baby in Edinburgh with Harriet s sister, Eliza Westbrook, a sensible, practical maiden lady about thirty years old, who had spent a great part of her time with the family since the marriage. She was an estimable woman, and Shelley had had reason to like her, and did like her; but along about this time his feeling toward her changed. Part of Shelley s plan, as he wrote Hogg, was to spend his London evenings with the Newtons members of the Boinville Hysterical Society. But, alas, when he arrived early in De cember, that pleasant game was partially blocked, for Eliza and the family arrived with him. We are left destitute of conjectures at this point by the biographer, and it is my duty to supply one. I chance the conjecture that it was Eliza who inter fered with that game. I think she tried to do what she could toward modifying the Boinville connec tion, in the interest of her young sister s peace and honor.

If it was she who blocked that game, she was not

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