The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. 2 [of 2]Shelley, Percy Bysshe
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The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. 2 [of 2]
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
English prose literature
Pisa, they say, is uninhabitable in the midst of summer--we shall
do, therefore, what other people do, retire to Florence, or to the
mountains. But I will write to you our plans from Pisa, when I shall
understand them better myself.
You may easily conjecture the motives which led us to forego the
divine solitude of Como. To me, whose chief pleasure in life is the
contemplation of nature, you may imagine how great is this loss.
Let us hear from you _once a fortnight_. Do not forget those who do not
forget you.
Adieu.--Ever most sincerely yours,
P. B. Shelley.
TO THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK.
_Livorno, June 5, 1818._
My dear Peacock,
We have not heard from you since the middle of April--that is, we
have received only _one_ letter from you since our departure from
England. It necessarily follows that some accident has intercepted
them. Address, in future, to the care of Mr. Gisborne, Livorno--and I
shall receive them, though sometimes somewhat circuitously, yet always
securely.
We left Milan on the first of May, and travelled across the Apennines
to Pisa. This part of the Apennine is far less beautiful than the
Alps; the mountains are wide and wild, and the whole scenery broad and
undetermined--the imagination cannot find a home in it. The plain of
the Milanese, and that of Parma, is exquisitely beautiful--it is like
one garden, or rather cultivated wilderness; because the corn and the
meadow-grass grow under high and thick trees, festooned to one another
by regular festoons of vines. On the seventh day we arrived at Pisa,
where we remained three or four days. A large disagreeable city, almost
without inhabitants. We then proceeded to this great trading town,
where we have remained a month, and which, in a few days, we leave for
the Bagni di Lucca, a kind of watering-place situated in the depth of
the Apennines; the scenery surrounding this village is very fine.
We have made some acquaintance with a very amiable and acccomplished
lady, Mrs. Gisborne, who is the sole attraction in this most
unattractive of cities. We had no idea of spending a month here, but
she has made it even agreeable. We shall see something of Italian
society at the Bagni di Lucca, where the most fashionable people resort.
When you send my parcel--which, by-the-bye, I should request you to
direct to Mr. Gisborne--I wish you could contrive to enclose the two
last parts of Clarke’s Travels, relating to Greece, and belonging to
Hookham. You know I subscribe there still--and I have determined to
take the _Examiner_ here. You would, therefore, oblige me, by sending
it weekly, after having read it yourself, to the same direction, and so
clipped, as to make as little weight as possible.
I write as if writing where perhaps my letter may never arrive.
With every good wish from all of us, Believe me most sincerely yours,
P. B. S.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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