So Shelley remained in London. Here he went
often to visit his sisters at school, and came to known one of
their school friends, Harriet Westbrook. She was a pretty, good-
tempered girl of sixteen with "hair like a poet's dream."*
Shelley thought that she too was oppressed and ill-used as he had
been. She loved him, he liked her, so they decided to get
married, and ran away to Scotland and were married in Edinburgh.
Shelley was nineteen and his little bride sixteen.
*Hogg.
This boy and girl marriage was a terrible mistake, and three
years later husband and wife separated.
I can tell you very little more of Shelley's life, some of it was
wrong, much of it was sad, as it could hardly fail to be
following on this wrong beginning. When you grow older you will
be able to read it with charity and understanding. Meantime keep
the picture of the kindly big brother, and imagine him growing
into a lovable and brave man, into a poet who wins our hearts
almost unawares by the beauty of his poetry, his poetry which has
been called "a beautiful dream of the future.
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