<After this my life became busier, and reality stood in
place of fiction. My husband, however, was from the first, very
anxious that I should prove myself worthy of my parentage, and
enrol myself on the page of fame. He was for ever inciting me
to obtain literary reputation, which even on my own part I cared
for then, though since I have become infinitely indifferent to
it. At this time he desired that I should write, not so much
with the idea that I could produce any thing worthy of notice,
but that he might himself judge how far I possessed the promise
of better things hereafter. Still I did nothing. Travelling,
and the cares of a family, occupied my time; and study, in the
way of reading, or improving my ideas in communication with his
far more cultivated mind, was all of literary employment that
engaged my attention.
In the summer of 1816, we visited Switzerland, and became the
neighbours of Lord Byron. At first we spent our pleasant hours
on the lake, or wandering on its shores; and Lord Byron, who was
writing the third canto of Childe Harold, was the only one among
us who put his thoughts upon paper. These, as he brought them
successively to us, clothed in all the light and harmony of
poetry, seemed to stamp as divine the glories of heaven and
earth, whose influences we partook with him.>