It is clear the cousins never plighted troth to one another. On 23rd December, 1810, Shelley wishes to know, whether he did wrong in luring his cousin to correspond with him, in order that they 'might see if by coincidence of intellect,' it would be well for them 'to enter into a closer, an eternal union;' the desire for information being clothed in words, amounting to an admission there had been no regular engagement. In the same letter, speaking of Miss Grove's coldness, Shelley speaks also of the failure of his sister's efforts to make the self-possessed beauty regard him with feelings warmer than those of cousinly kindness. That the young gentleman's strongest affections were not concerned in the affair appears from the fact that, within eight days of swearing on the altar of perjured love, he could write with comparative calmness of his inability to fall in love at present with any other young lady. In language that may be suspected of having contributed something to Lord Dundreary's colloquial style, he wrote to Hogg, on 28th December, 1810, 'at present a thousand barriers oppose any more intimate connexion, any union with another, which, although unnatural and fettering to a virtuous mind, are nevertheless unconquerable.' After writing thus calmly, however, he relapsed into moods, of alternate dejection and fury. He 'slept with a loaded pistol and some poison last night' (_i.e._ 2nd January, 1811), 'but did not die.' Again he vowed vengeance on the religious intolerance that had robbed him of his Harriett. On the 11th January, 1811, he wrote fiercely to Hogg, 'She is gone! She is lost to me for ever! She is married! Married to a clod of earth; she will become as insensible as himself; all these fine capabilities will moulder!'