anged, was included here.
[19] Here the MS of _F of F--B_ breaks off to resume only with the
meeting of Mathilda and Woodville.
[20] At the end of the story (p. 79) Mathilda says, "Death is too
terrible an object for the living." Mary was thinking of the deaths of
her two children.
[21] Mary had read the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius in 1817
and she had made an Italian translation, the MS of which is now in the
Library of Congress. See _Journal_, pp. 79, 85-86.
[22] The end of this paragraph gave Mary much trouble. In _F of F--A_
after the words, "my tale must," she develops an elaborate figure: "go
with the stream that hurries on--& now was this stream precipitated by
an overwhelming fall from the pleasant vallies through which it
wandered--down hideous precipieces to a desart black & hopeless--".
This, the original ending of the chapter, was scored out, and a new,
simplified version which, with some deletions and changes, became that
used in _Mathilda_ was written in the margins of two pages (ff. 57,
58). This revision is a good example of Mary's frequent improvement of
her style by the omission of purple patches.
[23] In _F of F--A_ there follows a passage which has been scored out
and which does not appear in _Mathilda_: "I have tried in somewhat
feeble language to describe the excess of what I may almost call my
adoration for my father--you may then in some faint manner imagine my
despair when I found that he shunned [me] & that all the little arts I
used to re-awaken his lost love made him"--. This is a good example of
Mary's frequent revision for the better by the omission of the obvious
and expository. But the passage also has intrinsic interest.
Mathilda's "adoration" for her father may be compared to Mary's
feeling for Godwin. In an unpublished letter (1822) to Jane Williams
she wrote, "Until I met Shelley I [could?] justly say that he was my
God--and I remember many childish instances of the [ex]cess of
attachment I bore for him." See Nitchie, _Mary Shelley_, p. 89, and
note 9.
[24] Cf. the account of the services of Fantasia in the opening
chapter of _F of F--A_ (see pp. 90-102) together with note 3 to _The
Fields of Fancy_.
[25] This passage beginning "Day after day" and closing with the
quotation is not in _F of F--A_, but it is in _S-R fr_. The quotation
is from _The Captain_ by John Fletcher and a collaborator, possibly
Massinger. These lines from Act I, Sc. 3 are part of a speech
|