I am in Rome. Today I went to the Keats/Shelley house and read the unpublished journal of Marianne Hunt, a friend of Mary Shelley. Byron criticizes her children for “disfiguring” the walls of his house. How petty, she exclaims.

We are living near the Piazza di Spagna, a few doors from where the Shelleys used to live. I dragged my son to Shelley’s grave and then to many of the Shelley’s favorite places. Or some of them. He complained, but did not disfigure any walls.

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