Mathilda Read Free Page B

27.
    [vii] See Thomas Medwin,
The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley
, revised, with introduction and notes by H. Buxton Forman (London, 1913), p. 252.
    [viii]
Journal
, pp. 159, 160.
    [ix]
Maria Gisborne, etc.
, pp. 43-44.
    [x]
Letters
, I, 182.
    [xi]
Ibid.
, I, 224.
    [xii] See White,
Shelley
, II, 40-56.
    [xiii] See
Letters
, II, 88, and note 23 to
Mathilda
.
    [xiv] See
Shelley and Mary
(4 vols. Privately printed [for Sir Percy and Lady Shelley], 1882), II, 338A.
    [xv] See Mrs. Julian Marshall,
The Life and Letters of Mary W. Shelley
(2 vols. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1889), I, 255.
    [xvi] Julian
Works
, X, 69.
    [xvii]
Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal
(3 vols., Nos. 63, 71, and 96 of the Rev. Dionysius Lardner's
Cabinet Cyclopaedia
, London, 1835-1837), II, 291-292.
    [xviii] The most significant revisions are considered in detail in the notes. The text of the opening of
The Fields of Fancy
, containing the fanciful framework of the story, later discarded, is printed after the text of
Mathilda
.
----
    MATHILDA[1]
----
    CHAP. I
    Florence. Nov. 9th 1819
    It is only four o'clock; but it is winter and the sun has already set: there are no clouds in the clear, frosty sky to reflect its slant beams, but the air itself is tinged with a slight roseate colour which is again reflected on the snow that covers the ground. I live in a lone cottage on a solitary, wide heath: no voice of life reaches me. I see the desolate plain covered with white, save a few black patches that the noonday sun has made at the top of those sharp pointed hillocks from which the snow, sliding as it fell, lay thinner than on the plain ground: a few birds are pecking at the hard ice that covers the pools--for the frost has been of long continuance.[2]
    I am in a strange state of mind.[3] I am alone--quite alone--in the world--the blight of misfortune has passed over me and withered me; I know that I am about to die and I feel happy--joyous.--I feel my pulse; it beats fast: I place my thin hand on my cheek; it burns: there is a slight, quick spirit within me which is now emitting its last sparks. I shall never see the snows of another winter--I do believe that I shall never again feel the vivifying warmth of another summer sun; and it is in this persuasion that I begin to write my tragic history. Perhaps a history such as mine had better die with me, but a feeling that I cannot define leads me on and I am too weak both in body and mind to resist the slightest impulse. While life was strong within me I thought indeed that there was a sacred horror in my tale that rendered it unfit for utterance, and now about to die I pollute its mystic terrors. It is as the wood of the Eumenides none but the dying may enter; and Oedipus is about to die.[4]
    What am I writing?--I must collect my thoughts. I do not know that any will peruse these pages except you, my friend, who will receive them at my death. I do not address them to you alone because it will give me pleasure to dwell upon our friendship in a way that would be needless if you alone read what I shall write. I shall relate my tale therefore as if I wrote for strangers. You have often asked me the cause of my solitary life; my tears; and above all of my impenetrable and unkind silence. In life I dared not; in death I unveil the mystery. Others will toss these pages lightly over: to you, Woodville, kind, affectionate friend, they will be dear--the precious memorials of a heart-broken girl who, dying, is still warmed by gratitude towards you:[5] your tears will fall on the words that record my misfortunes; I know they will--and while I have life I thank you for your sympathy.
    But enough of this. I will begin my tale: it is my last task, and I hope I have strength sufficient to fulfill it. I record no crimes; my faults may easily be pardoned; for they proceeded not from evil motive but from want of judgement; and I believe few would say that they could, by a different