While attending the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Byron and
Shelley obtained lodgings from a local lawyer who had two beautiful daughters
named Faith and Hope. Because of the
thickness of their accents, Shelley thought of them as Feth and Hawp, and while
Feth was the prettier of the two, she did not hesitate to express a flood of
aggressively vocal opinions about everything from the weather to politics, and
spoke so constantly that it would have taken a medical examination to determine
exactly how she managed to breathe.
Shelley much preferred Hawp, a demure and respectful creature who had
little to say about anything at all while in her sister’s presence, but she was
smitten with Byron.
On their second night in town, Shelley took Feth to see a
comedy from England, during which she continually whispered comments, questions
and opinions about the acting.
Meanwhile, Byron took Hawp out to dinner, and the moment they sat down,
Byron found himself in the company of a woman who was just as vocal, twice as
opinionated, and ten times as discontented as her sister. His sole contribution to her unceasing flow
of invective and dissatisfaction was the occasional grunt of sympathy and the
infrequent interjection of the words “Oh really?” “Do you now?” and “Is that so?”
At the end of the evening, having bid their respective dates
good night, the two men retired to their chambers in a state of wearisome
distemper.
“How was your evening?” Byron asked.
“Oh it was Intolerable,” Shelley declared. “The Creature chattered away throughout the
entire Performance. She is a sad
Paradox, Byron—her opinions are as Odious as her features are Beautiful. And how was your dinner with Hawp?”
Copyright 2014 Matthew J Wells
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