He then believed himself
to be laboring under a tendency to consumption, not without medical
warnings to that effect, although there were strong reasons for
doubting the validity of the belief, which was based upon less precise
grounds before the introduction of auscultation and the careful
examinations of our day. It was, however, characteristic of Shelley
to rest his actions upon the dominant motive; so that, if several
inducements operated to the same end, he absolutely discarded the
minor considerations, and acted solely upon the grand one. I can well
remember, that, when other persons urged upon him cumulative reasons
for any course of action, whether in politics, or morality, or
trifling personal matters of the day, he indignantly cast aside all
such makeweights, and insisted upon the one sufficient motive. I
mention this the more explicitly because the opposite course is the
most common, and some who did not sympathize with his concentration
of purpose afterwards imputed the suppression of all but one, out of
several apparent motives, to reserve, or even to a want of candor.
The accusation was first made by some of Shelley's false
friends,--creatures who gathered round him to get what they could, and
afterwards made a market of their connection, to his disadvantage.
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