We then removed to Pisa, and took up our abode there for the winter.  The extreme mildness of the climate suited Shelley, and his solitude was enlivened by an intercourse with several intimate friends.  Chance cast us strangely enough on this quiet half-unpeopled town; but its very peace suited Shelley.  Its river, the near mountains, and not distant sea, added to its attractions, and were the objects of many delightful excursions.  We feared the south of Italy, and a hotter climate, on account of our child; our former bereavement inspiring us with terror.  We seemed to take root here, and moved little afterwards; often, indeed, entertaining projects for visiting other parts of Italy, but still delaying.  But for our fears on account of our child, I believe we should have wandered over the world, both being passionately fond of travelling.  But human life, besides its great unalterable necessities, is ruled by a thousand lilliputian ties that shackle at the time, although it is difficult to account afterwards for their influence over our destiny.

Note on poems of 1821, by Mrs. Shelley.

My task becomes inexpressibly painful as the year draws near that which sealed our earthly fate, and each poem, and each event it records, has a real or mysterious connection with the fatal catastrophe.  I feel that I am incapable of putting on paper the history of those times.  The heart of the man, abhorred of the poet, who could

’peep and botanize Upon his mother’s grave,’

does not appear to me more inexplicably framed than that of one who can dissect and probe past woes, and repeat to the public ear the groans drawn from them in the throes of their agony.

The year 1821 was spent in Pisa, or at the Baths of San Giuliano.  We were not, as our wont had been, alone; friends had gathered round us.  Nearly all are dead, and, when Memory recurs to the past, she wanders among tombs.  The genius, with all his blighting errors and mighty powers; the companion of Shelley’s ocean-wanderings, and the sharer of his fate, than whom no man ever existed more gentle, generous, and fearless; and others, who found in Shelley’s society, and in his great knowledge and warm sympathy, delight, instruction, and solace; have joined him beyond the grave.  A few survive who have felt life a desert since he left it.  What misfortune can equal death?  Change can convert every other into a blessing, or heal its sting—­death alone has no cure.  It shakes the foundations of the earth on which we tread; it destroys its beauty; it casts down our shelter; it exposes us bare to desolation.  When those we love have passed into eternity, ’life is the desert and the solitude’ in which we are forced to linger—­but never find comfort more.

There is much in the “Adonais” which seems now more applicable to Shelley himself than to the young and gifted poet whom he mourned.  The poetic view he takes of death, and the lofty scorn he displays towards his calumniators, are as a prophecy on his own destiny when received among immortal names, and the poisonous breath of critics has vanished into emptiness before the fame he inherits.