Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/37

 DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY

It is fair to conejcture that he was feeling ashamed.

They have revived in my heart the expiring flame of life. I have felt myself translated to a paradise which has nothing of mortality but its transitoriness ; my heart sickens at the view of that necessity which will quickly divide me from the delightful tranquillity of this happy home for it has become my home.

Eliza is still with us not here! but will be with me when the infinite malice of destiny forces me to depart.

Eliza is she who blocked that game the game in London the one where we were purposing to dine every night with one of the &quot;three charming ladies&quot; who fed tea and manna and late hours to Hogg at Bracknell.

Shelley could send Eliza away, of course; could have cleared her out long ago if so minded, just as he had previously done with a predecessor of hers whom he had first worshiped and then turned against; but perhaps she was useful there as a thin excuse for staying away himself.

I am now but little inclined to contest this point. I cer tainly hate her with all my heart and soul. . ..

It is a sight which awakens an inexpressible sensation of dis gust and horror, to see her caress my poor little lanthe, in whom I may hereafter find the consolation of sympathy. I sometimes feel faint with the fatigue of checking the overflowings of my un bounded abhorrence for this miserable wretch. But she is no more than a blind and loathsome worm, that cannot see to sting.

I have begun to learn Italian again. . . . Cornelia assists me in this language. Did I not once tell you that I thought her cold and reserved? She is the reverse of this, as she is the reverse of everything bad. She inherits all the divinity of her mother. ... I have sometimes forgotten that I am not an inmate of this delightful home that a time will come which will cast me again into the boundless ocean of abhorred society.

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