Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/35

 DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY

Shelley &quot;likes them so well that he is resolved to leave off rambling

But he has already left it oil. He has been there a month.

&quot;And begin a course of them himself.&quot;

But he has already begun it. He has been at it a month. He likes it so well that he has forgotten all about his wife, as a letter of his reveals.

Seriously, I think his mind and body want rest.

Yet he has been resting both for a month, with Italian, and tea, and manna of sentiment, and late hours, and every restful thing a young husband could need for the refreshment of weary limbs and a sore conscience, and a nagging sense of shabbiness and treachery.

His journeys after what he has never found have racked his purse and his tranquillity. He is resolved to take a little care of the former, in pity to the latter, which I applaud, and shall second with all my might.

But she does not say whether the young wife, a stranger and lonely yonder, wants another woman and her daughter Cornelia to be lavishing so much inflamed interest on her husband or not. That young wife is always silent we are never allowed to hear from her. She must have opinions about such things, she cannot be indifferent, she must be approving or disapproving, surely she would speak if she were allowed even to-day and from her grave she would, if she could, I think but we get only the other side, they keep her silent always.

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