The most striking feature in her face was her calm, gray eyes; she was rather under the English standard of woman’s height, very fair and light-haired, witty, social, and animated in the society of friends, though mournful in solitude; like Shelley, though in a minor degree, she had the power of expressing her thoughts in varied and appropriate words, derived from familiarity with the works of our vigorous old writers. E. J. TRELAWNY: ‘Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron.’ Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1858. * * * * * It is clear that the society of Shelley was to her a great school, which she did not appreciate to the full until most calamitously it was taken away; and yet, of course, she could not fail to learn the greater part of what it had become to her. This again showed itself even in her appearance, after she had spent some years in Italy; for, while she had grown far more comely than she was in her mere youth, she had acquired a deeper insight into many subjects that interested Shelley, and some others; and she had learned to express the force of natural affection, which she was born to feel, but which had somehow been stunted and suppressed in her youth. [Sidenote: Her peculiar powers.] She was a woman of extraordinary power, of heart as well as head. Many circumstances conspired to conceal some of her natural faculties.... Her father--speaking with great diffidence, from a very slight and imperfect knowledge--appeared to me a harsh and ungenial man. She inherited from him her thin voice,[6] but not the steel-edged sharpness of his own; and she inherited, not from him, but from her mother, a largeness of heart that entered proportionately into the working of her mind. She had a masculine capacity for study; for, though I suspect her early schooling was irregular, she remained a student all her life, and by painstaking industry made herself acquainted with any subject that she had to handle. THORNTON HUNT: ‘Shelley.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Constant reading.] In looking over the journal in which, from day to day, Mrs. Shelley was in the habit of noting their occupations, as well as passing events, one is struck with wonder at the number of books which they read in the course of the year. At home or traveling--before breakfast, or waiting for the mid-day meal--by the side of a stream, or on the ascent of a mountain--a book was never absent from the hands of one or the other: and there were never two books; one read while the other listened. LADY SHELLEY: ‘Shelley Memorials.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Loss of William Shelley.] We suffered a severe affliction in Rome [in 1819] by the loss of our eldest child, who was of such beauty and promise as to cause him deservedly to be the idol of our hearts. We left the capital of the world, anxious for a time to escape a spot associated too intimately with his presence and loss.