This girl, grown to womanhood, was Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and without whom the name of Shelley would be to us unknown.
In writing of the mother who died in giving her birth, Mary Shelley says: "Mary Wollstonecraft was one of those rare beings who appear once, perhaps, in a generation, to gild humanity with a ray which no difference of opinion nor chance of circumstance can cloud. Her genius was undeniable. She had been bred in the hard school of adversity, and having experienced the sorrows entailed on the poor and oppressed, an earnest desire was kindled within her to diminish these sorrows.
"Her sound understanding, her intrepidity, her sensibility and eager sympathy, stamped all her writings with force and truth, and endowed them with a tender charm that enchants while it enlightens. Many years have passed since that beating heart has been laid in the cold, still grave, but no one who has ever seen her speaks of her without enthusiastic love and veneration. Was there discord among friends or relatives, she stood by the weaker party, and by her earnest appeals and kindliness awoke latent affection, and healed all wounds. Open as day to melting charity, with a heart brimming with generous affection, yearning for sympathy, helpful, hopeful and self-reliant, such was Mary Wollstonecraft." And here let us leave her.
DANTE AND BEATRICE
What should be said of him can not be said;
By too great splendor is his name attended;
To blame is easier those who him offended,
Than reach the faintest glory round him shed.
This man descended to the doomed and dead
For our instruction; then to God ascended;
Heaven opened wide to him its portals splendid,
Who from his country's, closed against him, fled.
Ungrateful land! To its own prejudice
Nurse of his fortunes; and this showeth well,
That the most perfect, most of grief shall see.
Among a thousand proofs let one suffice,
That as his exile hath no parallel,
Ne'er walked the earth a greater man than he.
DANTE