ly mature at nineteen in his ability to do independent thinking
on the deep questions of life and to arrive at sharply definite
decisions regarding them, and stick to them--stick to them and stand by
them at cost of bread, friendships, esteem, respect, and approbation.

For the sake of his opinions he was willing to sacrifice all these
valuable things, and did sacrifice them; and went on doing it, too, when
he could at any moment have made himself rich and supplied himself with
friends and esteem by compromising with his father, at the moderate
expense of throwing overboard one or two indifferent details of his
cargo of principles.

He and Harriet eloped to Scotland and got married. They took lodgings
in Edinburgh of a sort answerable to their purse, which was about empty,
and there their life was a happy, one and grew daily more so. They had
only themselves for company, but they needed no additions to it. They
were as cozy and contented as birds in a nest. Harriet sang evenings or
read aloud; also she studied and tried to improve her mind, her husband
instructing her in Latin. She was very beautiful, she was modest, quiet,
genuine, and, according to her husband's testimony, she had no fine lady
airs or aspirations about her. In Matthew Arnold's judgment, she was "a
pleasing figure."

The pair remained five weeks in Edinburgh, and then took lodgings in
York, where Shelley's college mate, Hogg, lived. Shelley presently ran
down to London, and Hogg took this opportunity to make love to the young
wife. She repulsed him, and reported the fact to her husband when he got
back. It seems a pity that Shelley did not copy this creditable conduct
of hers some time or other when under temptation, so that we might
have seen the author of his biography hang the miracle in the skies and
squirt rainbows at it.

At the end of the first year of marriage--the most trying year for any
young couple, for then the mutual failings are coming one by one
to light, and the necessary adjustments are being made in pain and
tribulation--Shelley was able to recognize that his marriage venture had
been a safe one. As we have seen, his love for his wife had begun in a
rather shallow way and with not much force, but now it was become deep
and strong, which entitles his wife to a broad credit mark, one may
admit. He addresses a long and loving poem to her, in which both passion
and worship appear:

Exhibit A