land on his heirs male. This offer was indignantly refused. Shelley
recognized the truth that property is a trust far more than a
possession, and would do nothing to tie up so much command over labour,
such incalculable potentialities of social good or evil, for an unborn
being of whose opinions he knew nothing. This is only one among many
instances of his readiness to sacrifice ease, comfort, nay, the bare
necessities of life, for principle.

On his return to York, Shelley found a new inmate established in their
lodgings. The incomparable Eliza, who was henceforth doomed to guide his
destinies to an obscure catastrophe, had arrived from London. Harriet
believed her sister to be a paragon of beauty, good sense, and
propriety. She obeyed her elder sister like a mother; never questioned
her wisdom; and foolishly allowed her to interpose between herself and
her husband. Hogg had been told before her first appearance in the
friendly circle that Eliza was "beautiful, exquisitely beautiful; an
elegant figure, full of grace; her face was lovely,--dark, bright eyes;
jet-black hair, glossy; a crop upon which she bestowed the care it
merited,--almost all her time; and she was so sensible, so amiable, so
good!" Now let us listen to the account he has himself transmitted of
this woman, whom certainly he did not love, and to whom poor Shelley had
afterwards but little reason to feel gratitude. "She was older than I
had expected, and she looked much older than she was. The lovely face
was seamed with the smallpox, and of a dead white, as faces so much
marked and scarred commonly are; as white indeed as a mass of boiled
rice, but of a dingy hue, like rice boiled in dirty water. The eyes were
dark, but dull, and without meaning; the hair was black and glossy, but
coarse; and there was the admired crop--a long crop, much like the tail
of a horse--a switch tail. The fine figure was meagre, prim, and
constrained. The beauty, the grace, and the elegance existed, no doubt,