The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-03-23
SheIIey's HaIIucination.

| from real or imaginary pains and hysteri-
cal symptoms On one occasion he travel
ed in coach with an OLD lady with thick
| ankles, whom he concluded was suffering
! from elephantiasis, and imagined that the
contasion had infected himself. He was
forever feeling and stroking his skin to see
If 1t was swollen. and used to alarm ladies.
at the parties he attended, by turning 10
| them and stroking their necks or arms 10
see, not If they were sufferers from the dis
ease. but whether the outlines of their form
| correspondent with his own. On one occa-
sion at the Newton's he slipped from his
chair on the ground, sroaned aloud and
| writhed like an eel. Whats the matter,
| Shelley?" said his host I've got elephan-
| tisas:s." he replied in a hollow tone of
| dreary conviction. This grotesque fear was
at last banished by classical quotation
made by Hogg to the effect that the dis
| ease could only be contracted IN Arabia
This leads up TO the singular event which
was the cause of his leaving Tan-yr-aIlt,
and which has never been satisfactorily ex-
planned. On Friday, February 26, 1913. a
night of storm and rain, he appeared to
have told his wife that he expected an at
tack from an assassin, loaded a brace of
pistols, and gone TO bed about eleven.
Shortly after he declared that he heard a
noise, went down stairs, and found a man
leaving the house by a glass door opening
:: on shrubbery. The man fired pistol at
I him. Shelley discharged one of his own in
answer, but the powder only flashed in the
pan. The man then leaped upon him, knock
ed him down, and closed with him. Shelley
thereupon fired the second shot, wounding
his assailant. he thought, in the shoulder.
whereupon the man broke out into excla-
nations: "By God, I viii be revenged,
Will murder your wife, / will ravish your
sister! By God. viii be revengedv' He
then made his escape. The others now
rushed down stairs, but did not see the as
sa!lant, and after awhile all retired again
to bed, except Shelley and Daniel Hill. the
servant, who had lately been released from
prison. At 4 o'clock Shelley sent Daniel
Hill to see what time it was, and instantly,
as if he had been waiting for Shelley to be
left alone, a man thrust his arm through
the glass of the window and fired at him.
The ball passed through Shelley's dressing
gown and a curtain, and buried itself in
the wainscot. Shelley's pistol would not so
sword that he had found in the house The
servant rushed in, but the man had again
escaped.
Such is Mrs. Shelley's account OF the
transaction; but be it observed that on
neither occasion was the man seen by any
one but Shelley. and that on the first at
tempt the man was leaving the house and
not entering 1t.
Shelley afterwards gave a totally differ
ent account of the second attack. He said
that he saw face pressed against the
window, fired, and followed the assassin
out on to the lawn, where he saw him, "a
ghost or devil" leaning against a tree; on
Shelley's approach he slipped into the wood
Shelley Immediately set fire to the wood
Che said) in several places. to burn the
devil and the confagration was with d.f-
ficulty extinguished. This last incident
Mrs. Shelley does not mention in her letter,
yet it could hardly have escaped her.
The official investigation of the affair
showed two things; first, that there was a
trampled place on the lawn, but no foot
steps leading to it except from the house,
so that the prints were presumably made
by Shelley himself; secondly, that the shot
which pierced Shelley's dressing-gown and
the wainscot, was not fired from the win
dow, but from near the door, leading to the
irresistible conclusion that ii was fired by
Shelley himself, probably while nervously
lingering the pistol. This also accounts
for Shelleys statement that his pistol would
not afterwards go off.
The next day the whole party, in a con-
dition of extreme nervous agitation. escap-
ed to the house of Mr.. Nancy, friend and
neighbor, who was also solicitor general
for the county.
Shelley declared that the assassin was a
man called Lesson. into whose hands one
of his Irish pamphlets had fallen. and who
had m ba crOyarpmant He added
that a mysterious stranger had on the fol-
lowing day gone round Tremadoc and told
the story to the tradespeople, saying that
it was ruse of Mr.. Shelley's TO escape
from the place without paying his debts;
an explanation unhappily not inconsistent
with the facts; though Mr.. Dowden says
that this cruel assertion is amply disprOved
by the state of nervous excitement in which
Shelley was found next morning by Agent
Williams. Afterwards Shelley used 10 say
that the internal pain he suffered from orig
mated from the place where the assassin's
knee had pressed against his side: and there
seem to have been days long after when
he said that he was dogged by Lesson, and
refused to leave the house.
From Mr. Nanney's. on February II, Mr..
Shelley wrote to his friend Hookham: MY
Dear Sir:-I have just escaped an atrocious
assassination. Oh, send the t3O II you nave
it. You will perhaps hear of me no more
Percy Shelley" He was too
much agitated to finish the letter properly, |
and his wife added POSTSCRIPT. A few days
the party crossed to Ireland |
and settled at Killarney. Shelley saw Ire
madoc no more.
We are driven to the conclusion that the |
whole event was a nervous Authorization, |
and had no material existence except in |
Shelley's own mind For months he had |
been leading a life that predisposed him TO |
nervous terrors, and the only wonder IS |
that he did not infiict on himself more |
,rievoCs harm.