Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Tales and Stories Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

IT was to see this beautiful lake that I made my last excursion before quitting Rome. Thespring had nearly grown into summer, the trees were all in full but fresh green foliage, thevine-dresser was singing, perched among them, training his vines: the cicada had not yetbegun her song, the heats therefore had not commenced; but at evening the fire-fliesgleamed among the hills, and the cooing aziola assured us of what in that country needs noassurance-fine weather for the morrow. We set out early in the morning to avoid theheats, breakfasted at Albano, and till ten o'clock passed our time in visiting the Mosaic, thevilla of Cicero, and other curiosities of the place. We reposed during the middle of the dayin a tent elevated for us at the hill-top, whence we looked on the hill-embosomed lake, andthe distant eminence crowned by a town with its church. Other villages and cottages werescattered among the foldings of mountains, and beyond we saw the deep blue sea of thesouthern poets, which received the swift and immortal Tiber, rocking it to repose among itsdevouring waves. The Coliseum falls and the Pantheon decays, -the very hills of Rome areperishing, -but the Tiber lives for ever, flows for ever, and for ever feeds the land-encircledMediterranean with fresh waters. Our summer and pleasure-seeking party consisted of many: to me the most interestingperson was the Countess Atanasia D--, who was as beautiful as an imagination ofRaphael, and good as the ideal of a poet. Two of her children accompanied her, withanimated looks and gentle manners, quiet, yet enjoying. I sat near her, watching thechanging shadows of the landscape before us. As the sun descended, it poured a tide of lightinto the valley of the lake, deluging the deep bank formed by the mountain with liquid gol