United States or Paraguay ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She recalled the alarm of George in the morning, which it was impossible for him to disguise, and she thought she recognised in this hurried message and vague assurances of safety something of the same apprehension, and the same fruitless efforts to conceal it. Now came the time of terrible suspense. Sarzana was nearly twenty miles distant from Spezzia.
Byron arrived in Pisa with the Countess Guiccioli and her brother Pietro Gamba, on November the 1st, at the Lanfranchi Palace, and the Shelleys had apartments at the top of I Tre Palazzi di Chiesa, opposite. Claire, who had been staying with them, and accompanied them on a trip to Spezzia, had now returned to Professor Bojti's at Florence.
To those who know the best portions of the coast of Wales or Cornwall or better still, the western coast of Ireland, of Clare and Kerry for instance it would not be in any way remarkable. It is by no means equal to Dieppe or Biarritz, and not to be talked of in the same breath with Spezzia.
At Spezzia he embarked on Doria's flagship; the Duke of Alva, of sanguinary memory, commanded the troops, many of whom had been brought by the Emperor himself from the German highlands. Ill-luck attended them from the outset: a storm, no unusual phenomenon with November coming on, drove the ships back into shelter at Corsica.
They visited Spezzia and glanced at the house of Shelley at Lerici; passed through olive woods and vineyards, and rested in "a sort of eagle's nest" at the highest habitable point of the Baths of Lucca. Here the baby's great cheeks grew rosier; Browning gained in spirits; and his wife was able "to climb the hills and help him to lose himself in the forests."
Claire had thought of returning to Florence, but was overruled by Shelley, who, as Mary wrote to Mrs. Gisborne, carried all like a torrent before him and sent Mary and Claire with Trelawny to Spezzia.
In every excursion I make some discovery, and bring home some golden store for memory. Yesterday I found the olive slopes over Letojanni beautiful old gnarled trees, such as I have never seen except where the nightingales sing by the eastern shore of Spezzia. I did not doubt when I was told that those orchards yield the sweetest oil in the world.
And again raged the sale of the islands as penny salt- cellars, finger-basins, etc.; in broker's and sub-editor's office the tape-machine clicked the hourly progress of preparations at Spezzia; while every by-street was dreadful with that music-hall chorus: "To Spezzia runs the Pullman train; The Follies soon their sense will teach; We've Beech, O dear, upon the brain, He brains upon the beach".
Crispi also hinted that the naval support of England might be forthcoming if Italy were seriously threatened; and when the naval preparations at Toulon seemed to portend a raid on the ill-protected dockyard of Spezzia, British warships took up positions at Genoa in order to render help if it were needed.
In my poem the virtuous and "misunderstood" Byron is pursued and persecuted by the spirits of Evil, Hypocrisy, Fraud, and Tyranny, but is finally redeemed by the Spirit of Good, whose function it is to introduce the triumphant poet to Shelley. There follows another dramatic lyric on Shelley's death, which takes the form of the death-bed confession to his priest of an old sailor at Spezzia.
Word Of The Day