This man Shelley was sick at heart, bereft, perplexed, in sore straits, and to whom should he turn for advice in this time of undoing but to Godwin, the philosopher!  Besides, Godwin had been the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, and the splendid precepts of these two had nourished into being all the latent excellence of the youth.  Yes, he would go to Godwin, the Plato of England!

And so he went to Godwin.

Now, this young man Shelley was of noble blood.  His grandfather was Sir Bysshe Shelley, Bart., and worth near three hundred thousand pounds, all of which would some day come to our pale-faced youth.  But the youth was a republican—­he believed in the brotherhood of man.  He longed to benefit his fellows, to lift them out of the bondage of fear, and sin, and ignorance.  After reading Hume, and Godwin, and Wollstonecraft, he had decided that Christianity as defined by the Church of England was a failure:  it was only an organized fetish, kept in place by the State, and devoid of all that thrills to noble thinking and noble doing.

And so young Shelley at Oxford had written a pamphlet to this end, explaining the matter to the world.

A copy being sent to the headmaster of the school, young Shelley was hustled off the premises in short order, and a note was sent to his father requesting that the lad be well flogged and kept several goodly leagues from Oxford.

Shelley the elder was furious that his son should so disgrace the family name, and demanded he should write another pamphlet supporting the Church of England and recanting all the heresy he had uttered.  Young Percy replied that conscience would not admit of his doing this.  The father said conscience be blanked:  and further used almost the same words that were used by Professor Jowett some years later to a certain skeptical youth.

Professor Jowett sent for the youth and said, “Young man, I am told that you say you can not find God.  Is this true?”

“Yes, sir,” said the youth.

“Well, you will please find Him before eight o’clock tonight or get out of this college.”

Shelley was not allowed to return home, and moreover his financial allowance was cut off entirely.

And so he wandered up to London and chewed the cud of bitter fancy, resolved to starve before he would abate one jot or tittle of what he thought was truth.  And he might have starved had not his sisters sent him scanty sums of money from time to time.  The messenger who carried the money to him was a young girl by the name of Harriet Westbrook, round and smooth and pink and sixteen.  Percy was nineteen.  Harriet was the daughter of an innkeeper and did not get along very well at home.  She told Percy about it, and of course she knew his troubles, and so they talked about it over the gate, and mutually condoled with each other.

Soon after this Harriet had a fresh quarrel with her folks; and with the tears yet on her pretty lashes ran straight to Shelley’s lodging and throwing herself into his arms proposed that they cease to fight unkind Fate, and run away together and be happy ever afterward.