Note 23 — Chapter IV

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 In an unpublished letter (1822) to Jane Williams she wrote, “Until I met Shelley I [could?]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.