books in the warm days of June, to spend every hour she could call her own. Here her intimacy with Shelley ripened, and here, in Lady Shelley’s words, “she placed her hand in his, and linked her fortunes with his own.” On July 28th, early in the morning, Mary Godwin left her father’s house, accompanied by Jane Clairmont. They joined Shelley, posted to Dover, and crossed in an open boat to Calais during a violent storm.... The three went to Paris, where they bought a donkey, and rode him in turns to Geneva, the others walking. Sleeping now in a cabaret and now in a cottage, they at last finished this strange honeymoon, and the strangest sentimental journey ever undertaken since Adam and Eve went forth with all the world before them where to choose. C. KEGAN PAUL: ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: No moral conflict.] The theories in which the daughter of the authors of ‘Political Justice’ and of the ‘Rights of Woman’ had been educated, spared her from any conflict between her duty and her affection. For she was the child of parents whose writings had had for their object to prove that marriage was one among the many institutions which a new era in the history of mankind was about to sweep away. By her father, whom she loved--by the writings of her mother, whom she had been taught to venerate--these doctrines had been rendered familiar to her mind. It was, therefore, natural that she should listen to the dictates of her own heart, and willingly unite her fate with one who was so worthy of her love. LADY SHELLEY: ‘Shelley Memorials, from Authentic Sources.’ London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875. * * * * * [Sidenote: Mary at this period.] It is remarkable that her youth was not the period of her greatest beauty, and certainly at that date [1816-17] she did not do justice to herself either in her aspect or in the tone of her conversation. She was singularly pale. With a figure that needed to be set off, she was careless in her dress; and the decision of purpose which ultimately gained her the title of ‘Wilful Woman,’ then appeared, at least in society, principally in the negative form--her temper being easily crossed, and her resentments taking a somewhat querulous and peevish tone. THORNTON HUNT: ‘Shelley,’ in the _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1863. * * * * * [Sidenote: Origin of ‘Frankenstein.’]