Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/40

 MARK TWAIN

Then the thing which he grieves to leave is narrowed down to a person to the person whose &quot;dewy looks&quot; had sunk into his breast, and whose seducing words had stirred poison there. *

He was ashamed of himself, his conscience was upbraiding him. He was the slave of a degrading love; he was drunk with his passion, the real Shel ley was in temporary eclipse. This is the verdict which his previous history must certainly deliver upon this episode, I think.

One must be allowed to assist himself with conjec tures like these when trying to find his way through a literary swamp which has so many misleading finger-boards up as this book is furnished with.

We have now arrived at a part of the swamp where the difficulties and perplexities are going to be greater than any we have yet met with where, indeed, the finger-boards are multitudinous, and the most of them pointing diligently in the wrong direc tion. We are to be told by the biography why Shelley deserted his wife and child and took up with Cornelia Turner and Italian. It was not on account of Cornelia s sighs and sentimentalities and tea and manna and late hours and soft and sweet and indus trious enticements; no, it was because &quot;his happi ness in his home had been wounded and bruised almost to death.&quot;

It had been wounded and bruised almost to death in this way:

i st. Harriet persuaded him to set up a carriage.

2d. After the intrusion of the baby, Harriet stopped reading aloud and studying.

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