"Mr. Taylor begs to be spared the superfluous pain of seeing a person who has injured him so grievously, and has made the pretence of presenting a petition on his behalf a means of insulting him more than his bitterest enemy could have done. Mr. Taylor would have rather terminated his existence, with his own hand, than have accepted his deliverance upon that degrading and atrociously insulting promise and condition with which Miss Sharples has taken upon herself to implore it. Mr. Taylor has written to Lord Melbourne to counteract as much as possible the mischievous and scandalous falsehood of which Miss Sharples has been the instrument. Mr. T.'s only hopes of a lessening of his term of imprisonment rested in the doubt that existed in Lord M.'s mind as to the nature of the alleged offence. Miss S. has removed that doubt and justified the imprisonment to any extent.
"To Miss Sharples,
"Editress of the Isis."
Following this, in a few days, after Carlile had written to Taylor telling him that "he ought to apologise to Isis on his knees for grieving her thus, when she was turning every stone to do him good ". Taylor replied:—
"Ah, Lord! you talk of romance and recommend wisdom and reason. Nobody loves wisdom and reason more than I do; but my knees are now too stiff to undergo the operation you recommend. I would rather and better support the consciousness of being altogether in the wrong, than to rescue even my life itself by kneeling. If you should find me as I intend you shall, on good terms with Miss Sharples, they will not have been achieved by kneeling. Mark! I will achieve my peace without you. Humiliations never yet healed grievances,
"Yours affectionately,
"R. Taylor."
Later still we find him lamenting from the bottom of his heart that he should ever have been the cause of bringing tears to those lovely violet eyes, and asks forgiveness for whatever has seemed excessive in the expression of his grief, which has indeed been intense, and "assure Miss Sharples that I am sorry in my soul for the weight which my mental anguish has thrown upon her".
Several months passed away and the further acquaintance and constant daily interviews of Miss Sharples with Richard Carlile, which were necessary to the business and the cause in which they were both so earnestly engaged, developed a very strong attachment between them. It would seem, almost, as though Miss Sharples had been reserved for this union, it being more than singular that she should have arrived at the age of twenty-six without having met anyone who had made any impression upon her heart. Yet she had many admirers, and indeed, one would think that so beautiful a girl had been formed for love alone. We cannot find, however, a single instance in her history which would show that her heart had ever been touched before she met Carlile. It seemed as though she was waiting for the summons to take her part in the allotted task, and when he wrote to her in his delight at hearing of a young and beautiful woman who wanted to wield a sword in the battle of free thought, saying that such a woman should be everything to him, she was not surprised, but expressed her complete willingness in her simple "so be it". But when she was brought into close relationship with Carlile and had the opportunity of seeing the genuine superiority of his character, the generosity, the unselfishness, the amiability of his temper, his kindness to everybody in his employ, his great love and patience with his children, and his unfailing sense of justice in all the relations of life, she found one who was worthy of all the love and appreciation she had to bestow, and he received it: a love that filled the measure to overflowing. Unfortunately, Carlile had been and was still paying the penalty of the mistake of his early manhood, his unhappy marriage, although after twenty years of unhappiness he was as free as he could be when no divorce was possible. So, in this state of affairs, Carlile did all that was left to him to do, and that was to explain every particular of his situation to her, for her consideration and reflection.