Thinking of all this, and feeling the sun keenly,
she gradually retraced her steps to the garden within the moat, and seated
herself, Shelley in hand, within the summer-house. The bench was narrow,
hard, and broken; and there were some snails which discomposed her; but,
nevertheless, she would make the best of it. Her darling "Queen Mab" must
be read without the coarse, inappropriate, every-day surroundings of a
drawing-room; and it was now manifest to her that unless she could get up
much earlier in the morning, or come out to her reading after sunset, the
knob of rock would not avail her.
She began her reading, resolved that she would enjoy her poetry in spite
of the narrow seat. She had often talked of "Queen Mab," and perhaps she
thought she had read it. This, however, was in truth her first attempt at
that work. "How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep." Then she
half-closed the volume, and thought that she enjoyed the idea. Death-and
his brother Sleep! She did not know why they should be more wonderful than
Action, or Life, or Thought; but the words were of a nature which would
enable her to remember them, and they would be good for quoting.
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