Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/33

 DEFENSE OP HARRIET SHELLEY

around it and leave it lying. Shelley was not after the aged Zonoras ; he was pointed for Cornelia and the Italian lessons, for his warm nature was craving sympathy.

II

THE year 1813 is just ended now, and we step into 1814.

To recapitulate, how much of Cornelia s society has Shelley had, thus far? Portions of August and September, and four days of July. That is to say, he has had opportunity to enjoy it, more or less, during that brief period. Did he want some more of it? We must fall back upon history, and then go to conjecturing.

In the early part of the year 1814, Shelley was a frequent visitor at Bracknell.

Frequent&quot; is a cautious word, in this author s mouth; the very cautiousness of it, the vagueness of it, provokes suspicion; it makes one suspect that this frequency was more frequent than the mere common every-day kinds of frequency which one is in the habit of averaging up with the unassuming term &quot;frequent.&quot; I think so because they fixed up a bedroom for him in the Boinville house. One doesn t need a bedroom if one is only going to run over now and then in a disconnected way to respond like a tremulous instrument to every breath of pas sion or of sentiment and rub up one s Italian poetry a little.

The young wife was not invited, perhaps. If she

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