During a week of rain at this time, having amused themselves with reading German ghost-stories, they agreed, at last, to write something in imitation of them.  “You and I,” said Lord Byron to Mrs. Shelley, “will publish ours together.”  He then began his tale of the Vampire; and, having the whole arranged in his head, repeated to them a sketch of the story[120] one evening,—­but, from the narrative being in prose, made but little progress in filling up his outline.  The most memorable result, indeed, of their story-telling compact, was Mrs. Shelley’s wild and powerful romance of Frankenstein,—­one of those original conceptions that take hold of the public mind at once, and for ever.

Towards the latter end of June, as we have seen in one of the preceding letters, Lord Byron, accompanied by his friend Shelley, made a tour in his boat round the Lake, and visited, “with the Heloise before him,” all those scenes around Meillerie and Clarens, which have become consecrated for ever by ideal passion, and by that power which Genius alone possesses, of giving such life to its dreams as to make them seem realities.  In the squall off Meillerie, which he mentions, their danger was considerable[121].  In the expectation, every moment, of being obliged to swim for his life, Lord Byron had already thrown off his coat, and, as Shelley was no swimmer, insisted upon endeavouring, by some means, to save him.  This offer, however, Shelley positively refused; and seating himself quietly upon a locker, and grasping the rings at each end firmly in his hands, declared his determination to go down in that position, without a struggle.[122]

Subjoined to that interesting little work, the “Six Weeks’ Tour,” there is a letter by Shelley himself, giving an account of this excursion round the Lake, and written with all the enthusiasm such scenes should inspire.  In describing a beautiful child they saw at the village of Nerni, he says, “My companion gave him a piece of money, which he took without speaking, with a sweet smile of easy thankfulness, and then with an unembarrassed air turned to his play.”  There were, indeed, few things Lord Byron more delighted in than to watch beautiful children at play;—­“many a lovely Swiss child (says a person who saw him daily at this time) received crowns from him as the reward of their grace and sweetness.”

Speaking of their lodgings at Nerni, which were gloomy and dirty, Mr. Shelley says, “On returning to our inn, we found that the servant had arranged our rooms, and deprived them of the greater portion of their former disconsolate appearance.  They reminded my companion of Greece:—­it was five years, he said, since he had slept in such beds.”

Luckily for Shelley’s full enjoyment of these scenes, he had never before happened to read the Heloise; and though his companion had long been familiar with that romance, the sight of the region itself, the “birth-place of deep Love,” every spot of which seemed instinct with the passion of the story, gave to the whole a fresh and actual existence in his mind.  Both were under the spell of the Genius of the place,—­both full of emotion; and as they walked silently through the vineyards that were once the “bosquet de Julie,” Lord Byron suddenly exclaimed, “Thank God, Polidori is not here.”