To apprehend the significance of these six words, readers must remember that in 1813 a journey to Edinburgh was a more laborious and costly affair than a trip to Rome in these days of punctual steamers and fast trains. If a party of four persons,--a young husband with his young wife, sister-in-law, and a male friend,--should start now-a-days from London for a trip to Rome, with the intention of staying there six weeks, and before the expiration of the time the young husband (being no man of affairs, likely to call him suddenly back to England) should write to a familiar friend in London, ‘I shall shortly have the pleasure of seeing you again. I shall return to London alone,’ what inference would the receiver of the epistle naturally draw from so startling an announcement? Surely he would conclude that there was discord in the party, that ‘something had gone wrong,’ and that the disagreement affected the young wife’s relations with her husband, who had resolved to return to England by himself, leaving her to follow him. On reviewing the chief features of the poet’s life at Bracknell in the summer and early autumn, no reader can question that they indicated on Shelley’s part discontent with his home, and on Harriett’s part more or less annoyance at finding herself an insufficient companion for him. In her rural retirement she had even less of his society than when they were in London. Most of the time spent by him at home he spent with a book or pen in hand. As soon as he had done reading and writing, he took his hat and went for a solitary walk that, wherever else his path led him, never failed to take him to Maimuna’s house standing at a considerable distance from Harriett’s cottage:--to the house of the woman whom he regarded and declared ‘the most admirable specimen of a human being he had ever seen.’ Going daily to Mrs. Boinville’s house, he spent hours at a time with her, reading poetry and philosophy with her, communing with her on fine questions touching the perfectibility of the human species, and still more delicate questions about the source, nature, and activity of the emotional energies,--conversations that afforded him daily opportunities, for studying ‘the extreme subtlety and delicacy of Mrs. Boinville’s understanding and affections.’ If he went to her house in the evening it was no uncommon thing for him to stay with her and her friends, talking and drinking strong tea till long after midnight, and to re-enter his cottage at dawn. Consulting Maimuna on the affairs of his highest intellectual interests, he consulted her also on his divers domestic anxieties and mere matters of the house. Is it conceivable that Harriett liked all this?