imly, hoping that others, better qualified,
will bring you face to face with the full rays.

I have shown you Shelley in his writings, his life and poetry, only
where they trench on his philosophical and reform ideas--I could have
related to you much about his inflexibly moral, generous, and
unselfishly benevolent character--his pure, gentle and loveable
existence--his utter abnegation of self, learnt from the hermetic
philosophy, and his despisal of transitory legislative honors--how he,
the heir to thousands of dollars annually, and a baronetage, threw
aside pecuniary considerations for love of the truth and
benevolence,[G] and how, therefrom, he was often nearly dying of
hunger in the streets. I could have treated him simply as a poet, full
of experienced impetuosity, subtlety of expression, and precision of
verse, but I have aimed to exhibit one side of his immortality to you,
which lives in and by the race, for humanity.

[Footnote G: "In his heart there was nothing depraved or unsound;
those who had opportunities of knowing him best, tell us that his life
was spent in the contemplation of nature, in arduous study, or in acts
of kindness and affection. A man of learning, who shared the poverty
so often attached to it, enjoyed from him at one period a pension of a
hundred pounds sterling a year, and continued to enjoy it till fortune
rendered it superfluous. To another man of letters, in similar
circumstances, he presented fourteen hundred pounds; and many other
acts like these are on record to his immortal honor. Himself a frugal
and abstemious ascetic, by saving and economising, he was able to
assist the industrious poor--and they had frequent cause to bless his
name."--_National Magazine._]

Cut short in the youth of manhood, who can tell what Percy Bysshe
Shelley might, not have become, living for us even perhaps at this
moment? What need we care, though, for does not the "Empire of the
dead increase of the living from age to age?" Shelley's terrestrial
body may have been cast up by the waves on the lonely Italian shore,
in sweet companionship with the souls of Keats and Sophocles. His
mundane elements, purified through the fire, may have returned to
their kindred elements, and been

"made one with Nature, where is heard
His voice in all her music, from the moan
Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird;
He is a presence to be felt and known,
In darkness and in light,