CHAPTER 4.
SECOND RESIDENCE IN LONDON, AND SEPARATION FROM HARRIET.
Early in May the Shelleys arrived in London, where they were soon joined by Eliza, from whose increasingly irksome companionship the poet had recently enjoyed a few weeks' respite.

After living for a short while in hotels, they took lodgings in Half Moon Street.

The house had a projecting window, where the poet loved to sit with book in hand, and catch, according to his custom, the maximum of sunlight granted by a chary English summer.

"He wanted," said one of his female admirers, "only a pan of clear water and a fresh turf to look like some young lady's lark, hanging outside for air and song." According to Hogg, this period of London life was a pleasant and tranquil episode in Shelley's troubled career.

His room was full of books, among which works of German metaphysics occupied a prominent place, though they were not deeply studied.