--As the lovely girl spoke my own eyes filled with bitter drops--the spirit of Fantasia seemed to fade from within me and when after placing my hand before my swimming eyes I withdrew it again I found myself under the trees on the banks of the Tiber--The sun was just setting & tinging with crimson the clouds that floated over St. Peters--all was still no human voice was heard--the very air was quiet I rose--& bewildered with the grief that I felt within me the recollection of what I had heard--I hastened to the city that I might see human beings not that I might forget my wandering recollections but that I might impress on my mind what was reality & what was either dream--or at least not of this earth--The Corso of Rome was filled with carriages and as I walked up the Trinita dei’ Montes I became disgusted with the crowd that I saw about me & the vacancy & want of beauty not to say deformity of the many beings who meaninglessly buzzed about me--I hastened to my room which overlooked the whole city which as night came on became tranquil--Silent lovely Rome I now gaze on thee--thy domes are illuminated by the moon--and the ghosts of lovely memories float with the night breeze among thy ruins-- contemplating thy loveliness which half soothes my miserable heart I record what I have seen--Tomorrow I will again woo Fantasia to lead me to the same walks & invite her to visit me with her visions which I before neglected--Oh let me learn this lesson while yet it may be useful to me that to a mind hopeless & unhappy as mine--a moment of forgetfullness a moment [in] which it can pass out of itself is worth a life of painful recollection. CHAP. 2 The next morning while sitting on the steps of the temple of Aesculapius in the Borghese gardens Fantasia again visited me & smilingly beckoned to me to follow her--My flight was at first heavy but the breezes commanded by the spirit to convoy me grew stronger as I advanced--a pleasing languour seized my senses & when I recovered I found my self by the Elysian fountain near Diotima--The beautiful female who[m] I had left on the point of narrating her earthly history seemed to have waited for my return and as soon as I appeared she spoke thus--[100] NOTES TO _THE FIELDS OF FANCY_ [88] Here is printed the opening of _F of F--A_, which contains the fanciful framework abandoned in _Mathilda_. It has some intrinsic interest, as it shows that Mary as well as Shelley had been reading Plato, and especially as it reveals the close connection of the writing of _Mathilda_ with Mary’s own grief and depression. The first chapter is a fairly good rough draft. Punctuation, to be sure, consists largely of dashes or is non-existent, and there are some corrections. But there are not as many changes as there are in the remainder of this MS or in _F of F--B_. [89] It was in Rome that Mary’s oldest child, William, died on June 7, 1819.