is writing
of her approach to Venice, where, twenty-five years before, little
Clara had died. "It is a strange, but to any person who has suffered,
a familiar circumstance, that those who are enduring mental or
corporeal agony are strangely alive to immediate external objects, and
their imagination even exercises its wild power over them.... Thus the
banks of the Brenta presented to me a moving scene; not a palace, not
a tree of which I did not recognize, as marked and recorded, at a
moment when life and death hung upon our speedy arrival at Venice."

[32] The remainder of this chapter, which describes the crucial scene
between Mathilda and her father, is the result of much revision from
_F of F--A_. Some of the revisions are in _S-R fr_. In general the
text of _Mathilda_ is improved in style. Mary adds concrete, specific
words and phrases; e.g., at the end of the first paragraph of
Mathilda's speech, the words "of incertitude" appear in _Mathilda_ for
the first time. She cancels, even in this final draft, an
over-elaborate figure of speech after the words in the father's reply,
"implicated in my destruction"; the cancelled passage is too flowery
to be appropriate here: "as if when a vulture is carrying off some
hare it is struck by an arrow his helpless victim entangled in the
same fate is killed by the defeat of its enemy. One word would do all
this." Furthermore the revised text shows greater understanding and
penetration of the feelings of both speakers: the addition of "Am I
the cause of your grief?" which brings out more dramatically what
Mathilda has said in the first part of this paragraph; the analysis of
the reasons for her presistent questioning; the addition of the final
paragraph of her plea, "Alas! Alas!... you hate me!" which prepares
for the father's reply.

[33] Almost all the final paragraph of the chapter is added to _F of
F--A_. Three brief _S-R fr_ are much revised and simplified.

[34] _Decameron_, 4th day, 1st story. Mary had read the _Decameron_ in
May, 1819. See _Journal_, p. 121.

[35] The passage "I should fear ... I must despair" is in _S-R fr_ but
not in _F of F--A_. There, in the margin, is the following: "Is it not
the prerogative of superior virtue to pardon the erring and to weigh
with mercy their offenses?" This sentence does not appear in
_Mathilda_. Also in the margin of _F of F--A_ is the number (9), the
number of the _S-R fr_.

[36] The passage "enough of the world ... in unmi