code of morality have led in a fermenting brain like Shelley's! Were
the mothers to be provided for likewise, and to be considered more by
Shelley's respectable family than his lawful wife? We fear not.

A visit to Wales followed, during which Shelley's mind was in so
abstracted a state that the fine scenery, viewed for the first time,
had little power to move him, while Harriet Westbrook, with her sister
and father, was only thirty miles off at Aberystwith; a hasty and
unexplained retreat of this party to London likewise hastened the
return of Shelley. Probably the father began to perceive that Shelley
did not come forward as he had expected, and so he wished to remove
Harriet from his vicinity. Letters from Harriet to Shelley followed,
full of misery and dejection, complaining of her father's decision to
send her back to school, where she was avoided by the other girls, and
called "an abandoned wretch" for sympathising or corresponding with
Shelley; she even contemplated suicide. It is curious how this idea
seems to have constantly recurred to her, as in the case of some
others who have finally committed the act.

Shelley wrote, expostulating with the father. This probably only
incensed him more. He persisted. Harriet again addressed Shelley in
despair, saying she would put herself under his protection and fly
with him; a difficult position for any young man, and for Shelley most
perplexing, with his avowed hostility to marriage, and his recent
assertions that he was not in love with Harriet. But it must be put to
Shelley's credit that, having intentionally or otherwise led Harriet
on to love him, he now acted as a gentleman to his sister's school
friend, and, influenced to some extent by Hogg's arguments in a
different case in favour of marriage, he at once determined to make
her his wife. He wrote to his cousin, Charles Grove, announcing his