Page:Poetical works of Mathilde Blind.djvu/51

 Rh The most remarkable passage in the essay proper was an eloquent appreciation of Shelley's Cythna, as the ideal of emancipated and regenerated womanhood, which should rebuke the comparative neglect of "The Revolt of Islam," a poem inferior in the essentials of poetry to none of its author's writings. A few years later Mathilde wrote an abridged biography of Shelley for the Tauchnitz edition. About the same time she visited Sir Percy and Lady Shelley at Boscombe, and saw the Shelley relics deposited there at that time. "You can imagine," she writes to Mrs. Wolfsohn, "how interesting all this was to me, as was also my talk with Lady Shelley, who is an ardent spiritualist. I shall not easily forget a walk through the grounds on one of those tender misty February days when there is a stir and quiver of song in every tree, and she described to me the strangest experience, which yet scarcely seemed so strange when heard amid that mystical murmur of pine trees and faint lapping of the tide below."

In 1871, Mathilde, while maintaining affectionate relations with her family, took a home for herself, and from this time it is less easy to trace the continuous story of her life. She rarely remained long in one place, for even if she conceived no distaste to her quarters impulse was continually calling her away to rural beauty in England, or romantic" scenery in Scotland, or Switzerland, or Italy. The state of her health, moreover, after a while came to require frequent change, to ward off the bronchitis which became almost habitual in cold or otherwise unfavourable weather. When able to remain in London, however, she continued to be as much prized as ever by a wide circle of friends, among whom after her brother, her sister, and Mr. Charles Hancock, her brother-in-law, may especially be named Mr. Eirikr Magnusson, now assistant librarian