Saturday, October 21.—Rain in the night and morning; very cloudy; not an air stirring; the leaves of the trees quite still. After a showery morning it clears up somewhat, and the sun shines. Read Villani, and ride to Pisa.
Sunday, October 22.—Rainy night and rainy morning; as bad weather as is possible in Italy. A little patience and we shall have St. Martin’s summer. At sunset the arch of clear sky appears where it sets, becoming larger and larger, until at 7 o’clock the dark clouds are alone over Monte Nero; Venus shines bright in the clear azure, and the trunks of the trees are tinged with the silvery light of the rising moon. Write, and read Villani. Shelley returns with Medwin. Read Sismondi.
Of Tom Medwin, Shelley’s cousin and great admirer, who now for the first time appeared on the scene, they were to see, if anything, more than they wished.
He was a lieutenant on half-pay, late of the 8th Dragoons; much addicted to literature, and with no mean opinion of his own powers in that line.
Journal, Tuesday, October 24.—Rainy night and morning; it does not rain in the afternoon. Shelley and Medwin go to Pisa. Walk; write.
Wednesday, October 25.—Rain all night. The banks of the Serchio break, and by dark all the baths are overflowed. Water four feet deep in our house. “The weather fine.”
This flood brought their stay at the Baths to a sudden end. As soon as they could get lodgings they returned to Pisa. Here, not long after, Medwin fell ill, and was six weeks invalided in their house. They showed him the greatest kindness; Shelley nursing him like a brother. His society was, for a time, a tolerably pleasant change; he knew Spanish, and read with Shelley a great deal in that language, but he had no depth or breadth of mind, and his literary vanity and egotism made him at last what Mary Shelley described as a seccatura, for which the nearest English equivalent is, a bore.
Journal, Sunday, November 12.—Percy’s birthday. A divine day; sunny and cloudless; somewhat cold in the evening. It would be pleasant enough living in Pisa if one had a carriage and could escape from one’s house to the country without mingling with the inhabitants, but the Pisans and the Scolari, in short, the whole population, are such that it would sound strange to an English person if I attempted to express what I feel concerning them—crawling and crab-like through their sapping streets. Read Corinne. Write.
Monday, November 13.—Finish Corinne. Write. My eyes keep me from all study; this is very provoking.
Tuesday, November 14.—Write. Read Homer, Targione, and Spanish. A rainy day. Shelley reads Calderon.