[titania7]

Oh, Lionel, in addition to those pesky lesbian rumors, let's not forget Ms. Wylie's obession with Percy Shelley. In the words of Rebecca West:

"Elinor was quite dotty, not just crazy, but dotty about Shelley. I remember her telling me that she had heard Shelley come into the next room that afternoon and then saw him press his face to the door. She was quite serious!"

Elinor was fixated on the similarities between her own life and Shelley's--both shared ill health, a disregard for obligations, cruelty with their first spouses, a string of dead children, and a passion for water and for the country. Apparently, Elinor loved Shelley a great deal more than she did any of her husbands. Sarah Teasdale even made this witty remark: "Elinor Wylie, Elinor Wylie, What do I hear you say? I wish it were Shelley astride my belly instead of poor Bill Benet."

Elinor herself "painted" an interesting portrait of Shelley (though she titled this piece of writing "Shiloh," a name borrowed from Shelley):

"He (Shelley, obviously) looked very tall....very slim....with preposterous elegance, his romantic grace, and the aristocratic attenuation of his frame. At the same time, he wore the indubitable air of an athlete....His face was bronzed, save where the exceeding whiteness of the forehead betrayed itself under the tumbled hair, whose dark eccentric exuberance was flecked with silver."

Shelley also inspired much of Elinor's work in regard to her novel, The Orphan Angel.
Lest anyone wonder, Elinor's obsession with Shelley began at the age of eleven.

~Titania