ABSTRACT
To the family of Godwin, Shelley had, from the period of his self-introduction at Keswick, been an object of interest; and the acquaintanceship which had sprung up between them during the poet’s occasional visits to London had grown into a cordial friendship. Shelley sought and found some relief in his present sorrow. His anguish, isolation, difference from other men, gifts of genius and eloquent enthusiasm, made a deep impression on Godwin’s daughter Mary who had been accustomed to hear Shelley spoken of as something rare and strange. The theories in which the daughter of the authors of Political Justice and of the Rights of Woman had been educated, spared her from any conflict between her duty and her affection. For she was the child of parents whose writings had had for their object to prove that marriage was one among the many institutions which a new era in the history of mankind was about to sweep away.
