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SHELLEY
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higher plane that one realises how, and why, the claims made in behalf of the personal greatness of the Shelleys or the Blakes are so untenable. Jeanne d'Arc was a visionary, but that did not in the least prevent her from being a shrewd and sensible young woman, wonderfully in touch with the actualities of things. She knew what life and living meant, which is to say that she knew what men and women were like, and this was why she was able not only to achieve so much herself, but also to remain one of the perpetually inspiring figures of history. Shelley achieved little or nothing, even in his own small circle, and his personal blunders were the cause of catastrophe after catastrophe. Once and once only do we see him at his truest, at his best, and that is in the charming pages of Trelawny's Records, where we have him alone. Left to himself, or to the society of the one or two who understood him, he lived the free life of the happy, melodious, childlike dreamer who is master of his dreams. The moment he came into contact with the more or less everyday man or woman, the trouble began. He had a most liberal supply of good intentions, of course. As Keats sardonically observed of him, he had 'his quota of good qualities.' But he never saw any one or any thing as they really were, and all the while he piqued himself on a deeper and