He seemed thoughtful and absent.

He ate little, and had no acquaintance with any one." The two young men began a conversation, which turned upon the respective merits of German and Italian poetry, a subject they neither of them knew anything about.
After dinner it was continued in Hogg's rooms, where Shelley soon led the talk to his favourite topic of science.

"As I felt, in truth, but a slight interest in the subject of his conversation, I had leisure to examine, and I may add, to admire, the appearance of my very extraordinary guest.

It was a sum of many contradictions.

His figure was slight and fragile, and yet his bones and joints were large and strong.
He was tall, but he stooped so much, that he seemed of a low stature.
His clothes were expensive, and made according to the most approved mode of the day; but they were tumbled, rumpled, unbrushed.