{"product_id":"2940013158009","title":"IN DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY","description":"I have committed sins, of course; but I have not committed enough of\u003cbr\u003ethem to entitle me to the punishment of reduction to the bread and water\u003cbr\u003eof ordinary literature during six years when I might have been living\u003cbr\u003eon the fat diet spread for the righteous in Professor Dowden's Life of\u003cbr\u003eShelley, if I had been justly dealt with.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring these six years I have been living a life of peaceful ignorance.\u003cbr\u003eI was not aware that Shelley's first wife was unfaithful to him, and\u003cbr\u003ethat that was why he deserted her and wiped the stain from his sensitive\u003cbr\u003ehonor by entering into soiled relations with Godwin's young daughter.\u003cbr\u003eThis was all new to me when I heard it lately, and was told that the\u003cbr\u003eproofs of it were in this book, and that this book's verdict is accepted\u003cbr\u003ein the girls' colleges of America and its view taught in their literary\u003cbr\u003eclasses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn each of these six years multitudes of young people in our country\u003cbr\u003ehave arrived at the Shelley-reading age. Are these six multitudes\u003cbr\u003eunacquainted with this life of Shelley? Perhaps they are; indeed, one\u003cbr\u003emay feel pretty sure that the great bulk of them are. To these, then,\u003cbr\u003eI address myself, in the hope that some account of this romantic\u003cbr\u003ehistorical fable and the fabulist's manner of constructing and adorning\u003cbr\u003eit may interest them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst, as to its literary style. Our negroes in America have several\u003cbr\u003eways of entertaining themselves which are not found among the whites\u003cbr\u003eanywhere. Among these inventions of theirs is one which is particularly\u003cbr\u003epopular with them. It is a competition in elegant deportment. They hire\u003cbr\u003ea hall and bank the spectators' seats in rising tiers along the two\u003cbr\u003esides, leaving all the middle stretch of the floor free. A cake is\u003cbr\u003eprovided as a prize for the winner in the competition, and a bench of\u003cbr\u003eexperts in deportment is appointed to award it. Sometimes there are as\u003cbr\u003emany as fifty contestants, male and female, and five hundred spectators.\u003cbr\u003eOne at a time the contestants enter, clothed regardless of expense in\u003cbr\u003ewhat each considers the perfection of style and taste, and walk down the\u003cbr\u003evacant central space and back again with that multitude of critical eyes\u003cbr\u003eon them. All that the competitor knows of fine airs and graces he throws\u003cbr\u003einto his carriage, all that he knows of seductive expression he\u003cbr\u003ethrows into his countenance. He may use all the helps he can devise:\u003cbr\u003ewatch-chain to twirl with his fingers, cane to do graceful things with,\u003cbr\u003esnowy handkerchief to flourish and get artful effects out of, shiny new\u003cbr\u003estovepipe hat to assist in his courtly bows; and the colored lady may\u003cbr\u003ehave a fan to work up her effects with, and smile over and blush behind,\u003cbr\u003eand she may add other helps, according to her judgment. When the review\u003cbr\u003eby individual detail is over, a grand review of all the contestants in\u003cbr\u003eprocession follows, with all the airs and graces and all the bowings and\u003cbr\u003esmirkings on exhibition at once, and this enables the bench of\u003cbr\u003eexperts to make the necessary comparisons and arrive at a verdict. The\u003cbr\u003esuccessful competitor gets the prize which I have before mentioned, and\u003cbr\u003ean abundance of applause and envy along with it. The negroes have a\u003cbr\u003ename for this grave deportment-tournament; a name taken from the prize\u003cbr\u003econtended for. They call it a Cake-walk.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47147464524016,"sku":"2940013158009","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013158009_p0.jpg?v=1763577806","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013158009","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}