Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/52

 MARK TWAIN

you sigh. This is what he says the italics are mine:

However the mischief may have been wrought and at this day no one can wish to heap blame on any buried head

So it is poor Harriet, after all. Stern justice must take its course justice tempered with delicacy, jus tice tempered with compa?sion, justice that pities a forlorn dead girl and refuses to strike her. Ex cept in the back. Will not be ignoble and say the harsh thing, but only insinuate it. Stern justice knows about the carriage and the wet-nurse and the bonnet-shop and the other dark things that caused this sad mischief, and may not, must not blink them; so it delivers judgment where judgment belongs, but softens the blow by not seeming to deliver judgment at all. To resume the italics are mine:

However the mischief may have been wrought and at this day no one can wish to heap blame on any buried head it is certain that some cause or causes of deep division between Shelley and his wife were in operation during the early part of the year 1814.

This shows penetration. No deduction could be more accurate than this. There were indeed some causes of deep division. But next comes another disappointing sentence :

To guess at the precise nature of these causes, in the absence of definite statement, were useless.

Why, he has already been guessing at them for several pages, and we have been trying to outguess him, and now all of a sudden he is tired of it and won t play any more. It is not quite fair to us.

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