Page:Mrs Shelley (Rossetti 1890).djvu/175

Rh get him to turn shore wards, and escaped at the first opportunity from the boat.

Mary was not without her prophetic periods—a deep melancholy settled on her amid the lovely scenery. Generally at home with mountain and water, she now only felt oppressed by their proximity. Shelley was at work on the Triumph of Life, one of his grandest poems ; but Mary was always apprehensive except when with her husband, least so when lying in a boat with her head on his knees. If Shelley were absent, she feared for Percy, her son, so that, in spite of the oasis of peace and rest and beauty around them, she was weak and nervous ; and Shelley, for fear of hurting her, had to conceal such matters as might trouble her, especially the again critical state of the affairs of her father, who was in want of four hundred pounds to compound with his creditors. These alarms for Mary's health and tranquillity of mind, and the consequent necessity of keeping any trying subject from her, may have induced Shelley in writing to Claire to adopt a confidential tone not otherwise advisable.

While at Casa Magni, the fatal boat which had been discussed on the first evening Trelawny spent with the Shelleys, arrived. The "perfect plaything for the summer" had been built against the advice of Trelawny, by a Genoese ship-builder, after a model obtained by Lieutenant Williams from one of the royal dockyards in England. Originally it was intended to call it the Don Juan, but recent circumstances had caused a break in the intimacy of Shelley with Byron, and Shelley felt that this would be eternal. He, therefore, no longer wished any name to remind him of Bvron, and gave the name Ariel, proposed by