Shelley's death at an early age has often been lamented. Yet, leaving aside the elements of fate or karma, we may see how the negative quality of impatience contributed towards it. He had bought a small sailing vessel during his residence, on the Italian coast. He went on a journey to purchase supplies and to tend to other matters and then was about to return to the residence, where his wife and child awaited him. It was only one day's sailing from where he was, but an expert seaman and also the lighthouse-keeper warned him that a storm was coming and that he would do better to postpone his trip until it had passed. He did not listen to them owing to his eagerness to return to his wife, and he sailed away. Within a very short time, quite short, the storm suddenly appeared. There were violent upheavals of the water, and the little ship disappeared beneath the waves. This is how he was drowned. Shelley was lost with it--at least the living Shelley--for his body was recovered later, and humanity was deprived of the products of his bright genius at a still more mature age.
-- Notebooks Category 14: The Arts in Culture > Chapter 4 : Reflections On Specific Arts > # 71
