No More Learning

Our near neighbours of San
Terenzo were more like savages than any people I ever before lived
among. Many a night they passed on the beach, singing, or rather
howling; the women dancing about among the waves that broke at their
feet, the men leaning against the rocks and joining in their loud wild
chorus. We could get no provisions nearer than Sarzana, at a distance
of three miles and a half off, with the torrent of the Magra between;
and even there the supply was very deficient. Had we been wrecked on an
island of the South Seas, we could scarcely have felt ourselves farther
from civilisation and comfort; but, where the sun shines, the latter
becomes an unnecessary luxury, and we had enough society among
ourselves. Yet I confess housekeeping became rather a toilsome task,
especially as I was suffering in my health, and could not exert myself
actively.

At first the fatal boat had not arrived, and was expected with great
impatience. On Monday, 12th May, it came. Williams records the
long-wished-for fact in his journal: 'Cloudy and threatening weather.
M. Maglian called; and after dinner, and while walking with him on the
terrace, we discovered a strange sail coming round the point of Porto
Venere, which proved at length to be Shelley's boat. She had left Genoa
on Thursday last, but had been driven back by the prevailing bad winds.
A Mr. Heslop and two English seamen brought her round, and they speak
most highly of her performances. She does indeed excite my surprise and
admiration. Shelley and I walked to Lerici, and made a stretch off the
land to try her: and I find she fetches whatever she looks at.
In
short, we have now a perfect plaything for the summer. '--It was thus
that short-sighted mortals welcomed Death, he having disguised his grim
form in a pleasing mask! The time of the friends was now spent on the
sea; the weather became fine, and our whole party often passed the
evenings on the water when the wind promised pleasant sailing. Shelley
and Williams made longer excursions; they sailed several times to
Massa. They had engaged one of the seamen who brought her round, a boy,
by name Charles Vivian; and they had not the slightest apprehension of
danger. When the weather was unfavourable, they employed themselves
with alterations in the rigging, and by building a boat of canvas and
reeds, as light as possible, to have on board the other for the
convenience of landing in waters too shallow for the larger vessel.
When Shelley was on board, he had his papers with him; and much of the
"Triumph of Life" was written as he sailed or weltered on that sea
which was soon to engulf him.

The heats set in in the middle of June; the days became excessively
hot. But the sea-breeze cooled the air at noon, and extreme heat always
put Shelley in spirits. A long drought had preceded the heat; and
prayers for rain were being put up in the churches, and processions of
relics for the same effect took place in every town. At this time we
received letters announcing the arrival of Leigh Hunt at Genoa. Shelley
was very eager to see him. I was confined to my room by severe illness,
and could not move; it was agreed that Shelley and Williams should go
to Leghorn in the boat. Strange that no fear of danger crossed our
minds! Living on the sea-shore, the ocean became as a plaything: as a
child may sport with a lighted stick, till a spark inflames a forest,
and spreads destruction over all, so did we fearlessly and blindly
tamper with danger, and make a game of the terrors of the ocean. Our
Italian neighbours, even, trusted themselves as far as Massa in the
skiff; and the running down the line of coast to Leghorn gave no more
notion of peril than a fair-weather inland navigation would have done
to those who had never seen the sea.