"In the weather for this tour (of thirteen days) I have been very
fortunate--fortunate in a companion (Mr. H.)--fortunate in all our
prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays
which often render journeys in a less wild country disappointing. I was
disposed to be pleased. I am a lover of nature, and an admirer of beauty;
I can bear fatigue and welcome privation, and have seen some of the
noblest views in the world. But in all this--the recollection of
bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which
must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the
music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the
mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment
lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched
identity in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above, and
beneath me----."
On his return from an excursion to Diodati, an occasion was afforded for
the gratification of his jesting propensities by the avowal of the young
physician (Polidori) that--he had fallen in love. On the evening of this
tender confession they both appeared at Shelley's cottage--Lord Byron, in
the highest and most boyish spirits, rubbing his hands as he walked about
the room, and in that utter incapacity of retention which was one of his
foibles, making jesting allusions to the secret he had just heard. The
brow of the doctor darkened as this pleasantry went on, and, at last, he
angrily accused Lord Byron of hardness of heart. "I never," said he, "met
with a person so unfeeling." This sally, though the poet had evidently
brought it upon himself, annoyed him most deeply. "Call _me_
cold-hearted--_me_ insensible!" he exclaimed, with manifest emotion--"as
well might you say that glass is not brittle, which has been cast down a
precipice, and lies dashed to pieces at the foot!"