Chapter II
is entirely new.
[15] The account of the return of Mathilda’s father is very slightly revised from that in _F of F--A_. _F of F--B_ has only a few fragmentary sentences, scored out. It resumes with the paragraph beginning, “My father was very little changed.”
[16] Symbolic of Mathilda’s subsequent life.
[17] _Illusion, or the Trances of Nourjahad_, a melodrama, was performed at Drury Lane, November 25, 1813. It was anonymous, but it was attributed by some reviewers to Byron, a charge which he indignantly denied. See Byron, _Letters and Journals_, ed. by Rowland E. Prothero (6 vols. London: Murray, 1902-1904), II, 288.
[18] This paragraph is in _F of F--B_ but not in _F of F--A_. In the margin of the latter, however, is written: “It was not of the tree of knowledge that I ate for no evil followed--it must be of the tree of life that grows close beside it or--”. Perhaps this was intended to go in the preceding paragraph after “My ideas were enlarged by his conversation.” Then, when this paragraph was added, the figure, noticeably changed, 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 by Lelia addressed to her lover. Later in the play Lelia attempts to seduce her father--possibly a reason for Mary’s selection of the lines.
[26] At this point (f. 56 of the notebook) begins a long passage, continuing through