LETTER IV.
To T. P. Esq.
ST. MARTIN—SERVOZ—CHAMOUNI—MONTANVERT—MONT BLANC.
Hôtel de Londres, Chamouni,
July 22d, 1816.
Whilst you, my friend, are engaged in securing a home for us,[1] we are wandering in search of recollections to embellish it. I do not err in conceiving that you are interested in details of all that is majestic or beautiful in nature; but how shall I describe to you the scenes by which I am now surrounded? To exhaust the epithets which express the astonishment and the admiration—the very excess of satisfied astonishment, where expectation
- ↑ The hiatus implied in this opening is filled by the long and very interesting letter of which a large portion is printed in Middleton's Shelley and his Writings (Vol. II, pp. 38 et seq.). Shelley's reason for omitting it from this book is obvious: it is not cognate to the subject, and is mainly on the choice of a house, entrusted to Peacock. What has become of the original I know not; but it was evidently the letter, or a part of the letter, disposed of at the Dillon Sale, mentioned in Mr. Rossetti's Memoir (ed. 1878), Vol. I, p. 63. From the auctioneer's catalogue, it would seem as if Middleton's fragment and the preceding letter were originally continuous; and the extract given by the auctioneer would rather have been in the previous letter than in the fragment. The extract is as follows:
"Lord Byron is an exceedingly interesting person; and, as such, is it not to be regretted that he is a slave to the vilest and most vulgar prejudices, and as mad as the winds?"
