He kissed Harriet tenderly, and begged Hogg to walk with him to the fields beyond York. Hogg knew there must be a scene. He was prepared for it. He denied nothing.
“Yes, it’s true. I’ve been in love with Harriet since the first day I saw her in Edinburgh. Is it my fault? I can’t resist beauty in women, and Harriet is admirably beautiful. I repeat I fell in love with her at once.”
“It is not love but lust. A low animal instinct. Not the exalted passion which differentiates Man from the brute. Love? Think a little, Hogg. Love supposes self-forgetfulness, and the desire for the happiness of the beloved object. You could only bring about Harriet’s misery. Therefore, your feelings are not those of love, but of egotism. . . .”
“Call it what you like. . . . What do words signify? It is, anyhow, a terrible passion, which I should have fought against had I not felt it was invincible.”
“No passion is invincible. Our will can always be victorious. Had you thought of me . . . This revelation has aged and broken me more than twenty years of misery could have done. . . . my heart seems seared . . . and then there is Harriet, do you not suppose that all this has been very painful for her?”
Hogg was pale, cast-down. He looked ashamed and unhappy, and he felt so. For he too loved Shelley and he blamed his own conduct severely. “No woman in the world,” he thought, “is worth the sacrifice of such a friend.” Then aloud, “I’m awfully sorry, Bysshe, for what has happened. I’ll try to forget, and do you and Harriet try to forgive me. Let us begin life anew as it was before. Don’t be angry with me any longer. . . .”
“I’m not angry with you, I hate your crime, but not yourself. I hope that one day you will regard this horrible error with as much disgust as I do. When that day comes, you will no longer be responsible for it. The man who feels remorse is no longer the man who was guilty. It is certainly not I who would ever reproach you, for I value a human being not for what it has been, but for what it is.”
Shelley felt such satisfaction at having trodden down his anger and his jealousy, at having discovered for Hogg the way of salvation, that the offence was almost forgotten.
But women are much less indulgent. When Shelley on going home announced that he had forgiven the criminal: “What!” cried Eliza, “you mean to go on living with that fellow? Good heavens! What will become of Harriet’s poor nerves?”
Hogg, coming in from his chambers next day, found an empty house.