In spite of temporary impecuniosity, the young people lived happily enough in excellent lodgings in George Street.  Hogg, who joined them early in September, has drawn a lively picture of their domesticity.  Much of the day was spent in reading aloud; for Harriet, who had a fine voice and excellent lungs, was never happy unless she was allowed to read and comment on her favourite authors.  Shelley sometimes fell asleep during the performance of these rites; but when he woke refreshed with slumber, he was no less ready than at Oxford to support philosophical paradoxes with impassioned and persuasive eloquence.  He began to teach Harriet Latin, set her to work upon the translation of a French story by Madame Cottin, and for his own part executed a version of one of Buffon’s treatises.  The sitting-room was full of books.  It was one of Shelley’s peculiarities to buy books wherever he went, regardless of their volume or their cost.  These he was wont to leave behind, when the moment arrived for a sudden departure from his temporary abode; so that, as Hogg remarks, a fine library might have been formed from the waifs and strays of his collections scattered over the three kingdoms.  This quiet course of life was diversified by short rambles in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and by many episodes related with Hogg’s caustic humour.  On the whole, the impression left upon the reader’s mind is that Shelley and Harriet were very happy together at this period, and that Harriet was a charming and sweet-tempered girl, somewhat too much given to the study of trite ethics, and slightly deficient in sensibility, but otherwise a fit and soothing companion for the poet.

They were not, however, content to remain in Edinburgh.  Hogg was obliged to leave that city, in order to resume his law studies at York, and Shelley’s programme of life at this period imperatively required the society of his chosen comrade.  It was therefore decided that the three friends should settle at York, to remain “for ever” in each other’s company.  They started in a post-chaise, the good Harriet reading aloud novels by the now forgotten Holcroft with untiring energy, to charm the tedium of the journey.  At York more than one cloud obscured their triune felicity.  In the first place they were unfortunate in their choice of lodgings.  In the second Shelley found himself obliged to take an expensive journey to London, in the fruitless attempt to come to some terms with his father’s lawyer, Mr. Whitton.  Mr. Timothy Shelley was anxious to bind his erratic son down to a settlement of the estates, which, on his own death, would pass into the poet’s absolute control.  He suggested numerous arrangements; and not long after the date of Shelley’s residence in York, he proposed to make him an immediate allowance of 2000 pounds, if Shelley would but consent to entail the land on his heirs male.  This offer was indignantly refused.  Shelley recognized the truth that property is a trust far more than a possession, and would do nothing to tie up so much command over labour, such incalculable potentialities of social good or evil, for an unborn being of whose opinions he knew nothing.  This is only one among many instances of his readiness to sacrifice ease, comfort, nay, the bare necessities of life, for principle.