[62] In _F of F--B_ this quotation is used in the laudanum scene, just before Level’s (Woodville’s) long speech of dissuasion. [63] The passage “air, & to suffer ... my compassionate friend” is on a slip of paper pasted across the page. [64] This phrase sustains the metaphor better than that in _F of F--B_: “puts in a word.” [65] This entire paragraph is added to _F of F--B_; it is in rough draft in _S-R fr_. [66] This is changed in the MS of _Mathilda_ from “a violent thunderstorm.” Evidently Mary decided to avoid using another thunderstorm at a crisis in the story. [67] The passage “It is true ... I will” is on a slip of paper pasted across the page. [68] In the revision from _F of F--B_ the style of this whole episode becomes more concise and specific. [69] An improvement over the awkward phrasing in _F of F--B_: “a friend who will not repulse my request that he would accompany me.” [70] These two paragraphs are not in _F of F--B_; portions of them are in _S-R fr_. [71] This speech is greatly improved in style over that in _F of F--B_, more concise in expression (though somewhat expanded), more specific. There are no corresponding _S-R fr_ to show the process of revision. With the ideas expressed here cf. Shelley, _Julian and Maddalo_, ll. 182-187, 494-499, and his letter to Claire in November, 1820 (Julian _Works_, X, 226). See also White, _Shelley_, II, 378. [72] This solecism, copied from _F of F--B_, is not characteristic of Mary Shelley. [73] This paragraph prepares for the eventual softening of Mathilda’s feeling. The idea is somewhat elaborated from _F of F--B_. Other changes are necessitated by the change in the mode of presenting the story. In _The Fields of Fancy_ Mathilda speaks as one who has already died. [74] Cf. Shelley’s emphasis on hope and its association with love in all his work. When Mary wrote _Mathilda_ she knew _Queen Mab_ (see Part VIII, ll. 50-57, and Part IX, ll. 207-208), the _Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_, and the first three acts of _Prometheus Unbound_. The fourth act was written in the winter of 1819, but Demogorgon’s words may already have been at least adumbrated before the beginning of November: To love and bear, to hope till hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates. [75] Shelley had written, “Desolation is a delicate thing” (_Prometheus Unbound_, Act I, l. 772) and called the Spirit of the Earth “a delicate spirit” (_Ibid._, Act III, Sc. iv, l. 6). [76] _Purgatorio_, Canto 28, ll. 31-33. Perhaps by this time Shelley had translated ll. 1-51 of this canto. He had read the _Purgatorio_ in April, 1818, and again with Mary in August, 1819, just as she was beginning to write _Mathilda_. Shelley showed his translation to Medwin in 1820, but there seems to be no record of the date of composition.