“In the Depths”

This chapter treats how depressed Edith became after dispatching “Offa” to Manly. Her depression worsened when he failed to acknowledge receipt and further worsened when Edith learned in 1903 that he had become engaged to the Contessa Lisi Cipriani (b. 1861 or 1862). (Edith seems not to have known that the engagement lasted less than three months.) Because she had abandoned her Diaries already in April 1902 it is only by chance that we know that Edith, accompanied this time by Ethel, was again in Shetland in summer 1902. She returned to her Diaries only in early 1904, when she visited Bruges and Veere.