The Real Shelley. New Views of the Poet's Life. Vol. 1 (of 2)Jeaffreson, John Cordy
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The Real Shelley. New Views of the Poet's Life. Vol. 1 (of 2)
Jeaffreson, John Cordy
Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822
pleasant and unusually interesting love-passage. Some of them are unable
to see that Shelley was at all to blame in the business. Those of them,
who admit it was not altogether right of him to act thus towards so young
a girl, maintain that the author of such superlatively fine poetry as
_Adonais_ and _The Cenci_ cannot have been very wrong in the affair, and
should not be judged in respect to the matter, as though he were a young
man incapable of writing fine poetry. No one of them has a word of
compassion for the girl's father. Mr. Froude is of opinion that in this
matter Shelley was guilty of nothing worse than 'the sin of acting on
emotional theories of liberty,' and should be judged tenderly, because he
was young and enthusiastic! Differing from Mr. Froude, I venture to say
that, in acting thus ill towards the girl, Shelley was guilty of very
hateful treason towards his friend. I ask English fathers with young
children about them, and English brothers with young sisters for
playmates, to judge between me and my adversary.
Since it dismissed Hogg with scant courtesy for being too realistic and
communicative, Field Place has done much to gratify the Shelleyan
enthusiasts and socialists. Soon after publishing the uniformly erroneous
_Shelley Memorials_, Field Place promised to produce, in due season,
evidence that Shelley was not seriously to blame in his treatment of his
first wife. For years Field Place has gathered evidences for the poet's
vindication. Field Place aided Mr. Buxton Forman in producing his stately
and careful edition of the poet's works. In comparatively recent time the
Field Place muniments have enabled a well-known writer to produce the
memoir of the poet's father-in-law (William Godwin), and a memoir of Mary
Wollstonecraft, in which she is styled Gilbert Imlay's wife, and is said
to have thought herself his wife before God and man, though they were
never married. And now Field Place is enabling another writer to produce
another authoritative history of Shelley and Mary, that shall raise Mary
Godwin yet nearer to the angels, and bring her husband's story into more
perfect harmony with the straight nose and symmetrical lineaments of
Clint's composition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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