necessity which will quickly divide me from the
delightful tranquillity of this happy home--for it has become
my home.
.......
"Eliza is still with us--not here!--but will be with me when
the infinite malice of destiny forces me to depart."

Eliza is she who blocked that game--the game in London--the one where
we were purposing to dine every night with one of the "three charming
ladies" who fed tea and manna and late hours to Hogg at Bracknell.

Shelley could send Eliza away, of course; could have cleared her out
long ago if so minded, just as he had previously done with a predecessor
of hers whom he had first worshipped and then turned against; but
perhaps she was useful there as a thin excuse for staying away himself.

"I am now but little inclined to contest this point.
I certainly hate her with all my heart and soul....

"It is a sight which awakens an inexpressible sensation of
disgust and horror, to see her caress my poor little Ianthe,
in whom I may hereafter find the consolation of sympathy.
I sometimes feel faint with the fatigue of checking the
overflowings of my unbounded abhorrence for this miserable
wretch. But she is no more than a blind and loathsome worm,
that cannot see to sting.

"I have begun to learn Italian again.... Cornelia
assists me in this language. Did I not once tell you that I
thought her cold and reserved? She is the reverse of this, as
she is the reverse of everything bad. She inherits all the
divinity of her mother.... I have sometimes forgotten
that I am not an inmate of this delightful home--that a time
will come which will cast me again into the boundless ocean of
abhorred society.

"I have written nothing but one stanza, which has no meaning,
and that I have only written in thought:

"Thy dewy looks sink in my breast;
Thy gentle words stir poison there;
Thou hast disturbed the only rest
That was the portion of despair.
Subdued to duty's hard control,
I could have borne my wayward lot:
The chains that bind this rained soul
Had cankered then, but crushed it not.

"This i