The want of rain was severely
felt in the country. The weather continued sultry and fine. I have heard
that Shelley all this time was in brilliant spirits. Not long before,
talking of presentiment, he had said the only one that he ever found
infallible was the certain advent of some evil fortune when he felt
peculiarly joyous. Yet, if ever fate whispered of coming disaster, such
inaudible 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
roaring for ever in our ears,--all these things led the mind to brood
over strange thoughts, and, lifting it from everyday 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--of
days passed in miserable journeys to gain tidings, of hopes that took
firmer root even as they were more baseless--was changed to the
certainty of the death that eclipsed all happiness for the survivors for
evermore.
There was something in our fate peculiarly harrowing.
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