of its beauty. Miss Clairmont wrote to Byron in 1820 that her health had been injured by her "attentions" to her child during its first year; but she found time to study Italian, and to write a book, for which Shelley tried in vain to find a publisher, and the very title of which is now forgotten. The little household at Great Marlow was not a tranquil one. Mrs. Shelley had grown weary of her step-sister's society. Her diary—all these young people kept diaries with uncommendable industry—abounds in notes, illustrative of Claire's ill-temper, and of her own chronic irritation. "Clara imagines that I treat her unkindly." "Clara in an ill-humour." "Jane[1] gloomy." "Jane for some reason refuses to walk." "Jane is not well, and does not speak the whole day."
This was bad enough, but there were other moods more trying than mere sulkiness. Miss Clairmont possessed nerves. She had "the horrors" when "King Lear" was read aloud. She was, or professed to be, afraid of ghosts. She would come downstairs in the middle of the night to tell Shelley that an invisible
- ↑ Clara Mary Jane Clairmont was "Claire's" full name.
