Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/43

 DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY

before the close of June. It took the mother a month to get back her full force, vigor, and effect; this brings us to July 27th and the deadly Cornelia. If a wife of eighteen is studying with her husband and he gets smitten with another woman, isn t he likely to lose interest in his wife s studies for that reason, and is not his wife s interest in her studies likely to languish for the same reason? Would not the mere sight of those books of hers sharpen the pain that is in her heart? This sudden breaking down of a mutual intellectual interest of two years standing is coincident with Shelley s re-encounter with Cornelia; and we are allowed to gather from that time forth for nearly two months he did all his studying in that person s society. We feel at liberty to rule out Count No. 2 from the indictment against Harriet.

Shelley s happiness in his home had been wounded and bruised almost to death, thirdly, because Har riet s walks with Hogg commonly led to some fashion able bonnet-shop. I offer no palliation; I only ask why the dispassionate, impartial judge did not offer one himself merely, I mean, to offset his leniency in a similar case or two where the girl who ran away with Harriet s husband was the shopper. There are several occasions where she interested herself with shopping among them being walks which ended at the bonnet-shop yet in none of these cases does she get a word of blame from the good judge, while in one of them he covers the deed with a justifying remark, she doing the shopping that time to find easement for her mind, her child having died.

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