So after Shelley and Byron had made their eight days' tour of the
lake, from June 23, unaccompanied by Mary and Claire, we find a month
later Shelley taking them for an eight days' tour to Chamouni,
unaccompanied by Byron. Of this tour Shelley each day writes long
descriptive letters to Peacock, who is looking out for a house for
them somewhere in the neighbourhood of Windsor. They return by July 28
to Montalegre, where he writes of the collection of seeds he has been
making, and which Mary intends cultivating in her garden in England.
For another month these young restless beings enjoy the calm of their
cottage by the lake, close to the Villa Diodati, while the poets
breathe in poetry on all sides, and give it to the world in verse.
Mary notes the books they read, and their visits in the evening to
Diodati, where she became accustomed to the sound of Byron's voice,
with Shelley's always the answering echo, for she was too awed and
timid to speak much herself. These conversations caused her,
subsequently, when hearing Byron's voice, to feel a sad want for "the
sound of a voice that is still."
It is during this sojourn by the Swiss Lake that Mary began her first
serious attempt at literature.
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