name of masculine from its
firmness and strength." This adjective had often been applied to Mary
Wollstonecraft's mind. Mary Shelley's own understanding had been
called masculine by Leigh Hunt in 1817 in the _Examiner_. The word was
used also by a reviewer of her last published work, _Rambles in
Germany and Italy, 1844_. (See Nitchie, _Mary Shelley_, p. 178.)

[9] The account of Diana in _Mathilda_ is much better ordered and more
coherent than that in _F of F--B_.

[10] The description of the effect of Diana's death on her husband is
largely new in _Mathilda_. _F of F--B_ is frankly incomplete; _F of
F--A_ contains some of this material; _Mathilda_ puts it in order and
fills in the gaps.

[11] This paragraph is an elaboration of the description of her aunt's
coldness as found in _F of F--B_. There is only one sentence in _F of
F--A_.

[12] The description of Mathilda's love of nature and of animals is
elaborated from both rough drafts. The effect, like that of the
preceding addition (see note 11), is to emphasize Mathilda's
loneliness. For the theme of loneliness in Mary Shelley's work, see
Nitchie, _Mary Shelley_, pp. 13-17.

[13] This paragraph is a revision of _F of F--B_, which is
fragmentary. There is nothing in _F of F--A_ and only one scored-out
sentence in _S-R fr_. None of the rough drafts tells of her plans to
join her father.

[14] The final paragraph in Chapter II is entirely new.

[15] The account of the return of Mathilda's father is very slightly
revised from that in _F of F--A_. _F of F--B_ has only a few
fragmentary sentences, scored out. It resumes with the paragraph
beginning, "My father was very little changed."

[16] Symbolic of Mathilda's subsequent life.

[17] _Illusion, or the Trances of Nourjahad_, a melodrama, was
performed at Drury Lane, November 25, 1813. It was anonymous, but it
was attributed by some reviewers to Byron, a charge which he
indignantly denied. See Byron, _Letters and Journals_, ed. by Rowland
E. Prothero (6 vols. London: Murray, 1902-1904), II, 288.

[18] This paragraph is in _F of F--B_ but not in _F of F--A_. In the
margin of the latter, however, is written: "It was not of the tree of
knowledge that I ate for no evil followed--it must be of the tree of
life that grows close beside it or--". Perhaps this was intended to go
in the preceding paragraph after "My ideas were enlarged by his
conversation." Then, when this paragraph was added, the figure,
noticeably ch