It is now nearly three years since this Journey took place, and the journal I then kept was not very copious; but I have so often talked over the incidents that befel us, and attempted to describe the scenery through which we passed, that I think few occurrences of any interest will be omitted.[1]
We left London July 28th, 1814, on a hotter day than 28 July, 1814.has been known in this climate for many years. I am not a good traveller, and this heat agreed very ill with me, till, on arriving at Dover, I was refreshed by a sea-bath. As we very much wished to cross the channel with all possible speed, we would not wait for the packet of the following day (it being then about four in the afternoon) but hiring a small boat, resolved to make the passage the same evening, the seamen promising us a voyage of two hours.
- ↑ It is evident from this opening paragraph that what Shelley printed was not the journal as actually kept during the tour, but an amplified version written before the end of July, 1817. As Mrs. Shelley expressly says she did not either mean it or think it worthy to be published, we must assume that she wrote it afresh either from her well-known love of writing, or from some other motive apart from publication. This section is headed with the word Journal in Mrs. Shelley's editions; but it has no heading in Shelley's.
