Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/48

 MARK TWAIN

cries, who complains to the woman who enticed him that he could have borne his wayward lot, he could have stood by his duty if it had not been for her beguilements; an angel who rails at the &quot;boundless ocean of abhorred society,&quot; and rages at his poor judicious sister-in-law. If there is any dignity about this spectacle it will escape most people.

Yet when the paragraph of comment is taken as a whole, the picture is full of dignity and pathos; we have before us a blameless and noble spirit stricken to the earth by malign powers, but not conquered; tempted, but grandly putting the temptation away; enmeshed by subtle coils, but sternly resolved to rend them and march forth victorious, at any peril of life or limb. Curtain slow music.

Was it the purpose of the paragraph to take the bad taste of Shelley s letter out of the reader s mouth? If that was not it, good ink was wasted; without that, it has no relevancy the multiplica tion table would have padded the space as rationally.

We have inspected the six reasons which we are asked to believe drove a man of conspicuous pa tience, honor, justice, fairness, kindliness, and iron firmness, resolution, and steadfastness, from the wife whom he loved and who loved him, to a refuge in the mephitic paradise of Bracknell. These are six infinitely little reasons; but there were six colos sal ones, and these the counsel for the destruction of Harriet Shelley persists in not considering very important.

Moreover, the colossal six preceded the little six, and had done the mischief before they were born.

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