“All are brethren,” sang Elizabeth like the good pupil she was, “even the African bending to the stroke of the hard-hearted Englishman’s rod” . . . and more in the same strain.
In return, Shelley gave his sister Hogg’s poems which he declared to be “extremely beautiful” and in which he himself was compared to a young oak, and Harriet Grove to the ivy which stifles the tree by its embraces.
“You have not said,” wrote Shelley, “that the ivy after it had destroyed the oak, as if to mock the miseries which it had caused, twined around a pine which stood near.”
The neighbouring pine was Mr. Heylar, a wealthy landowner, and a man of sound doctrines, who had been expressly created by Providence to escort his wife to county balls.
“She is lost to me for ever! She is married! Married to a clod of earth! She will become as insensible herself. All those fine capabilities will moulder. Let us speak no more on the subject.”
He would have liked to invite Hogg to Field Place, so that Elizabeth might judge for herself of his admirable qualities. But the squire, remembering Stockdale’s warnings concerning a certain Evil Genius, forbade the invitation.
CHAPTER V
QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM
About a month after these unfortunate holidays, Messrs. Munday & Slatter, the Oxford booksellers to whom Timothy Shelley had recommended the literary freaks of his son, saw that young man burst into their shop, his hair flying, his shirt-collar wide open, and a fat parcel of pamphlets under his arm. He wished these to be sold at sixpence each, and to be displayed conspicuously in the shop-window. To be sure of this being well done, he set about doing it himself.
The booksellers watched him at work with the amused and fatherly benevolence which Oxford tradesmen show to Oxford freshmen who have plenty of money. Had they looked closer they would have been horrified at the explosive matter with which their young customer strewed their counters and windows.
The title of the pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism, was the most scandalous imaginable in a mealy-mouthed, theological city like Oxford. It was signed by the unknown name of “Jeremiah Stukeley,” and had Messrs. Munday & Slatter turned over its pages they would have been more horrified still by the insolent logic of the imaginary Stukeley.