Circumstances had
come to his knowledge which had thrown considerable light upon his
relations with Harriet. There can be no doubt that one member of the
family had hoped to derive gain from the connection with himself, as a
person of rank and property. There seems also reason to suppose, that,
about the same time, Harriet's father, an aged man, became so ill that
his death might be regarded as approaching, and he had something to
leave. Poor, foolish Harriet had undoubtedly formed an attachment to
Shelley, whom she had been allowed to marry; but she had then
suffered herself to become a tool in the hands of others, and the fact
accounted for the idle way in which she importuned him to do things
repugnant to his feelings and convictions. She thus exasperated his
temper, and lost her own; they quarrelled, in the ordinary conjugal
sense, and, from all I have learned, I am induced to guess, that, when
she left him, it was not only in the indulgence of self-will, but also
in the vain hope that her retreating would induce him to follow her,
perhaps in a more obedient spirit. She sought refuge in her father's
house, where she might have expected kindness; but, as the old man
bent towards the grave, with rapid loss of faculties, he became more
severe in his treatment of the poor woman; and she was driven from the
paternal roof.
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