This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ...This event did much to raise the drooping spirits of both parents; and as it was felt that a more settled mode of life was now desirable, both for the infant's sake and for Shelley's health, which was affected by severe periodical attacks of spasms, the exact cause of which was never satisfactorily ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ...This event did much to raise the drooping spirits of both parents; and as it was felt that a more settled mode of life was now desirable, both for the infant's sake and for Shelley's health, which was affected by severe periodical attacks of spasms, the exact cause of which was never satisfactorily determined, they decided to take up their abode at Pisa, that place being especially recommended on account of the purity of the water. They accordingly left Florence early in the new year, and journeyed by boat down the river Arno to Pisa. CHAPTER X. LIFE AT PISA. Pisa soon became to Shelley in Italy what Marlow had been to him in England. He came there out of health and out of spirits, depressed by the apparent failure of his literary hopes, and disgusted by the coldness or insolence of the Englishmen he met abroad. Hitherto he and Mary had been leading a solitary and cheerless life among people with whom they were wholly out of sympathy; being, in fact, as Shelley had himself described it, "like a family of Wahabee Arabs, pitching their tent in the midst of London"; but at Pisa they found health and repose, and gradually gathered around them quite a circle of congenial and sympathetic friends. They stayed there during the whole of 1820 and 1821, with the exception of visits occasionally made to Leghorn, and more frequently to the baths of San Giuliano--a village distant about four miles; so that there was truth in Shelley's words when he wrote on a later occasion to Mary, "Our roots never struck so deeply as at Pisa, and the transplanted tree flourishes not." The manner of Shelley's life at Pisa was much the same as at Marlow. He was up early, and was busily engaged in reading or writing till two o'clock, with a hunch of...
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