s for me, I do not quite see why we should rest content with anything of
the sort. It is not a very definite statement. It does not necessarily
mean anything more than that he did not wish to go into the tedious
details of those family quarrels. Delicacy could quite properly excuse
him from saying, "I was in love with Cornelia all that time; my wife kept
crying and worrying about it and upbraiding me and begging me to cut
myself free from a connection which was wronging her and disgracing us
both; and I being stung by these reproaches retorted with fierce and
bitter speeches--for it is my nature to do that when I am stirred,
especially if the target of them is a person whom I had greatly loved and
respected before, as witness my various attitudes towards Miss Hitchener,
the Gisbornes, Harriet's sister, and others--and finally I did not
improve this state of things when I deserted my wife and spent a whole
month with the woman who had infatuated me."

No, he could not go into those details, and we excuse him; but,
nevertheless, we do not rest content with this bland proposition to puff
away that whole long disreputable episode with a single mean, meaningless
remark of Shelley's.

We do admit that "it is certain that some cause or causes of deep
division were in operation." We would admit it just the same if the
grammar of the statement were as straight as a string, for we drift into
pretty indifferent grammar ourselves when we are absorbed in historical
work; but we have to decline to admit that we cannot guess those cause or
causes.

But guessing is not really necessary. There is evidence attainable--
evidence from the batch discredited by the biographer and set out at the
back door in his appendix-basket; and yet a court of law would think
twice before throwing it out, whereas it would be a hardy person who
would venture to offer in such a place a good part of the material which
is placed before the readers of this book as "evidence," and so treated
by this daring biographer. Among some letters (in the appendix-basket)
from Mrs. Godwin, detailing the Godwinian share in the Shelleyan events
of 1814, she tells how Harriet Shelley came to her and her husband,
agitated and weeping, to implore them to forbid Shelley the house, and
prevent his seeing Mary Godwin.

"She related that last November he had fallen in love with Mrs.
Turner and paid her such marked attentions Mr. Turner, the