Note 22 — Chapter III

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.