This letter, if she saw it, may well have made Clare curse the day when she let Allegra go.
Still, after they returned to Rome at the beginning of March, a brighter time set in.
Journal, Friday, March 5.—After passing over the beautiful hills of Albano, and traversing the Campagna, we arrive at the Holy City again, and see the Coliseum again.
All that Athens ever brought forth wise,
All that Afric ever brought forth strange,
All that which Asia ever had of prize,
Was here to see. Oh, marvellous great change!
Rome living was the world’s sole ornament;
And dead, is now the world’s sole monument.
Sunday, March 7.—Move to our lodgings. A rainy day. Visit the Coliseum. Read the Bible.
Monday, March 8.—Visit the Museum of the Vatican. Read the Bible.
Tuesday, March 9.—Shelley and I go to the Villa Borghese. Drive about Rome. Visit the Pantheon. Visit it again by moonlight, and see the yellow rays fall through the roof upon the floor of the temple. Visit the Coliseum.
Wednesday, March 10.—Visit the Capitol, and see the most divine statues.
Not one of the party but was revived and invigorated by the beauty and overpowering interest of the surrounding scenes, and the delight of a lovely Italian spring. To Shelley it was life itself.
“The charm of the Roman climate,” says Mrs. Shelley, “helped to clothe his thoughts in greater beauty than they had ever worn before. And as he wandered among the ruins, made one with nature in their decay, or gazed on the Praxitelean shapes that throng the Vatican, the Capitol, and the palaces of Rome, his soul imbibed forms of loveliness which became a portion of itself.”