Page:Studies in Letters and Life (Woodberry, 1890).djvu/150

140 Shelley could give him. Shelley had no thought of not doing his own duty, because of the conduct of other people; and while he felt Godwin's hardness and inconsistency, nevertheless he would relieve that great mind from the little annoyances consequent on borrowing money without providing means of repayment. He, however, was not blind; and what he learned of Godwin in the course of these transactions had a destroying influence upon that ideal of the man which he had formed in his first days of revolutionary hope. In the second year of his life with Mary he told the philosopher what he thought of the whole matter in a letter which one may be excused for reading with peculiar satisfaction:—

"It has perpetually appeared to me to have been your especial duty to see that, so far as mankind value your good opinion, we were dealt justly by, and that a young family, innocent and benevolent and united, should not be confounded with prostitutes and seducers. My astonishment, and, I will confess, when I have been treated with most harshness and cruelty by you, my indignation, has been extreme, that, knowing as you do my nature, any considerations should