Chapter V

are much expanded from _F of F--A_. Some of the details are in the _S-R fr_. This scene is recalled at the end of the story. (See page 80) Cf. what Mary says about places that are associated with former emotions in her _Rambles in Germany and Italy_ (2 vols., London: Moxon, 1844), II, 78-79. She 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 unmixed delight” is on a slip pasted over the middle of the page. Some of the obscured text is visible in the margin, heavily scored out. Also in the margin is “Canto IV Vers Ult,” referring to the quotation from Dante’s _Paradiso_. This quotation, with the preceding passage beginning “in whose eyes,” appears in _Mathilda_ only.

[37] The reference to Diana, with the father’s rationalization of his love for Mathilda, is in _S-R fr_ but not in _F of F--A_.

[38] In _F of F--A_ this is followed by a series of other gloomy concessive clauses which have been scored out to the advantage of the text.

[39] This paragraph has been greatly improved by the omission of elaborate over-statement; e.g., “to pray for mercy & respite from my fear” (_F of F--A_) becomes merely “to pray.”

[40] This paragraph about the Steward is added in _Mathilda_. In _F of F--A_ he is called a servant and his name is Harry. See note 29.

[41] This sentence, not in _F of F--A_, recalls Mathilda’s dream.

[42] This passage is somewhat more dramatic than that in _F of F--A_, putting what is there merely a descriptive statement into quotation marks.

[43] A stalactite grotto on the island of Antiparos in the Aegean Sea.

[44] A good description of Mary’s own behavior in England after Shelley’s death, of the surface placidity which concealed stormy emotion. See Nitchie, _Mary Shelley_, pp. 8-10.

[45] _Job_, 17: 15-16, slightly misquoted.

[46] Not in _F of F--A_. The quotation should read:

Fam. Whisper it, sister! so and so! In a dark hint, soft and slow.

[47] The mother of Prince Arthur in Shakespeare’s _King John_. In the MS the words “the little Arthur” are written in pencil above the name of Constance.

[48] In _F of F--A_ this account of her plans is addressed to Diotima, and Mathilda’s excuse for not detailing them is that they are too trivial to interest spirits no longer on earth; this is the only intrusion of the framework into Mathilda’s narrative in _The Fields of Fancy_. Mathilda’s refusal to recount her stratagems, though the omission is a welcome one to the reader, may represent the flagging of Mary’s invention. Similarly in _Frankenstein_ she offers excuses for not explaining how the Monster was brought to life. The entire passage, “Alas! I even now ... remain unfinished. I was,” is on a slip of paper pasted on the page.

[49] The comparison to a Hermitess and the wearing of the “fanciful nunlike dress” are appropriate though melodramatic. They appear only in _Mathilda_. Mathilda refers to her “whimsical nunlike habit” again after she meets Woodville (see page 60) and tells us in a deleted passage that it was “a close nunlike gown of black silk.”

[50] Cf. Shelley, _Prometheus Unbound_, I, 48: “the wingless, crawling hours.” This phrase (“my part in submitting ... minutes”) and the remainder of the paragraph are an elaboration of the simple phrase in _F of F--A_, “my part in enduring it--,” with its ambiguous pronoun. The last page of