“Read that part of your letter which contains the accusation. I tried, but I could not write it. I think I could as soon have died. I send also Elise’s last letter: enclose it or not as you think best. “I wrote to you with far different feeling last night, beloved friend. Our barque is indeed ‘tempest-tost,’ but love me, as you have ever done, and God preserve my child to me, and our enemies shall not be too much for us. “Adieu, dearest! Take care of yourself—all yet is well. The shock for me is over, and I now despise the slander; but it must not pass uncontradicted. I sincerely thank Lord Byron for his kind unbelief. “P.S. Do not think me imprudent in mentioning Claire’s illness at Naples. It is well to meet facts. They are as cunning as wicked. I have read over my letter; it is written in haste, but it were as well that the first burst of feeling should be expressed.” _Mary Shelley to Mrs. Hoppner._ “PISA, AUG. 10, 1821. “After a silence of nearly two years, I address you again, and most bitterly do I regret the occasion on which I now write. . . . “I write to defend him to whom I have the happiness to be united, whom I love and esteem beyond all living creatures, from the foulest calumnies; and to you I write this, who were so kind, and to Mr. Hoppner, to both of whom I indulged the pleasing idea that I have every reason to feel gratitude. This is indeed a painful task. Shelley is at present on a visit to Lord Byron at Ravenna, and I received a letter from him to-day, containing accounts that make my hand tremble so much that I can hardly hold the pen. “He says Claire was Shelley’s mistress, that . . . Upon my word, I solemnly assure you that I cannot write the words. I send you a part of Shelley’s letter that you may see what I am now about to refute, but I had rather die than copy anything so vilely, so wickedly false, so beyond all imagination fiendish. “But that you should believe it! That my beloved Shelley should stand thus slandered in your minds—he, the gentlest and most humane of creatures—is more painful to me than words can express. Need I say that the union between my husband and myself has ever been undisturbed? Love caused our first imprudence—love which, improved by esteem, a perfect trust one in the other, has increased daily and knows no bounds. . . .