"[Shelley was an heir] to fortune and title, while yet a boy he revolted against tyranny, dogma, and falsehood, so openly and uncompromisingly that his family disowned him as far as it might, society looked askance at him, and only they welcomed him who were at issue with the dominant idolatry of that period, now passed away. ... and refusing a family condonation, a seat in Parliament, and higher honours in prospect, he sought his life in poetry made real; wedding the daughter and intellectual heiress of Political Justice, and literally leading her clear mind into his own path of classic study and exalted speculation. As he advanced towards its midst he drew around him men older in years, more trained in the world; and more accustomed to embody their thoughts in definite aims, whether of social action or worldly success."2

"I beheld a fair, freckled, blue-eyed, light-haired, delicate-looking person, whose countenance was serious and thoughtful, whose stature would have been rather tall had he carried himself upright; whose earnest voice, though never loud, was somewhat unmusical. Manifest as it was that his preoccupied mind had no thought to spare for the modish adjustment of his fashionably made clothes, it was impossible to doubt even for a moment that you were gazing upon a gentleman, ... one that is gentle, generous, accomplished, brave."3