And at Fusina, as then, I now beheld the domes and towers of the Queen of Ocean arise from the waves with a majesty unrivalled upon earth.
They spent the winter at Florence, and by April were in Rome. This indeed was the Holy Land of Mary Shelley’s pilgrimage. There was the spot where William lay; there the tomb which held the heart of Shelley. Mary may well have felt as if standing by her own graveside. Was not her heart of hearts buried with them? And there, too, was the empty grave where now Trelawny lies; the touching witness to that undying devotion of his to Shelley’s memory which Mary never forgot.
None of this is touched upon—it could not be—in the published letters. The Eternal City itself filled her with such emotions and interests as not even she had ever felt before. It is curious to compare some of these with her earlier letters from abroad, and to notice how, while her power of observation was undiminished, the intellectual faculties of thought and comparison had developed and widened, while her interest was as keen as in her younger days, nay keener, for her attention now, poor thing, was comparatively undivided.
Scenery, art, historical associations, the political and social state of the countries she visited, and the characteristics of the people, nothing was lost on her, and on all she saw she brought to bear the ripened faculties of a reflective and most appreciative mind. Some of her remarks on Italian politics are almost prophetic in their clear-sighted sagacity.[21] That after all she had suffered she should have retained such keen powers of enjoyment as she did may well excite wonder. Perhaps this enjoyment culminated at Sorrento, where she and her son positively revelled in the luxuriant beauty and witchery of a perfect southern summer.
Her impressions of these two tours were published in the form of letters, and entitled Rambles in Germany and Italy, and were dedicated to Samuel Rogers in 1844.
He thus acknowledged the copy of the work she sent him—
St. James’s Place,
30th July 1844.
What can I say to you in return for the honour you have done me—an honour so undeserved! If some feelings make us eloquent, it is not so with others, and I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart, and assure you how highly I shall value and how carefully I shall preserve the two precious volumes on every account—for your sake and for their own.—Ever yours most sincerely,
S. Rogers.
In the spring of 1844 it became evident that Sir Timothy Shelley’s life was drawing to a close. In anticipation of what was soon to happen, Mary, always mindful of her promise to Leigh Hunt, wrote to him as follows—