but not unfelt, prognostics hovered around us. The beauty of the place seemed unearthly in its excess: the distance we were at from all signs of civilization, the sea at our feet, its murmurs or its roarings forever in our ears--all these things led the mind to brood over strange thoughts, and, lifting it from every-day life, caused it to be familiar with the unreal. A sort of spell surrounded us, and each day, as the voyagers did not return, we grew restless and disquieted; and yet, strange to say, we were not fearful of the most apparent danger. The spell snapped, it was all over; an interval of agonizing doubt was changed to the certainty of the death that eclipsed all happiness for the survivors forevermore. MARY SHELLEY: _Notes_, in ‘Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley.’ Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1857. * * * * * She impressed me as a person with warm social feelings, dependent for happiness on loving encouragement, needing a guiding and sustaining hand. [Sidenote: Mrs. Shelley in her widowhood.] In person she was of middle height and graceful figure. Her face, though not regularly beautiful, was comely and spiritual, of winning expression, and with a look of inborn refinement; as well as culture. It had a touch of sadness when at rest. ROBERT DALE OWEN: _Quoted in_ ‘Heroines of Free Thought,’ S. A. Underhill. New York: Charles P. Somerby, 139 Eighth Street, 1876. * * * * * [Sidenote: Development of character.] I have heard her accused of an over-anxiety to be admired; and something of the sort was discernible in society: it was a weakness as venial as it was purely superficial. Away from society she was as truthful and simple a woman as I have ever met--was as faithful a friend as the world has produced--using that unreserved directness toward those whom she regarded with affection, which is the very crowning glory of friendly intercourse. I suspect that these qualities came out in their greatest force after her calamity; for many things which she said in her regret, and passages in Shelley’s own poetry, make me doubt whether little habits of temper, and possibly of a refined and exacting coquettishness, had not prevented him from acquiring so full a knowledge of her as she had of him. THORNTON HUNT: ‘Shelley.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Appearance.]