n unfinished (and unpublished) tale about Valerius,
an ancient Roman brought back to life in modern Rome. Valerius, like
Shelley's Stranger, was instructed by a woman whom he met in the
Coliseum. Mary's story is indebted to Shelley's in other ways as well.

[94] Mathilda.

[95] I cannot find a prototype for this young man, though in some ways
he resembles Shelley.

[96] Following this paragraph is an incomplete one which is scored out
in the MS. The comment on the intricacy of modern life is interesting.
Mary wrote: "The world you have just quitted she said is one of doubt
& perplexity often of pain & misery--The modes of suffering seem to
me to be much multiplied there since I made one of the throng &
modern feelings seem to have acquired an intracacy then unknown but
now the veil is torn aside--the events that you felt deeply on earth
have passed away & you see them in their nakedness all but your
knowledge & affections have passed away as a dream you now wonder at
the effect trifles had on you and that the events of so passing a
scene should have interested you so deeply--You complain, my friends
of the"

[97] The word is blotted and virtually illegible.

[98] With Diotima's conclusion here cf. her words in the _Symposium_:
"When any one ascending from a correct system of Love, begins to
contemplate this supreme beauty, he already touches the consummation
of his labour. For such as discipline themselves upon this system, or
are conducted by another beginning to ascend through these transitory
objects which are beautiful, towards that which is beauty itself,
proceeding as on steps from the love of one form to that of two, and
from that of two, to that of all forms which are beautiful; and from
beautiful forms to beautiful habits and institutions, and from
institutions to beautiful doctrines; until, from the meditation of
many doctrines, they arrive at that which is nothing else than the
doctrine of the supreme beauty itself, in the knowledge and
contemplation of which at length they repose." (Shelley's translation)
Love, beauty, and self-knowledge are keywords not only in Plato but in
Shelley's thought and poetry, and he was much concerned with the
problem of the presence of good and evil. Some of these themes are
discussed by Woodville in _Mathilda_. The repetition may have been one
reason why Mary discarded the framework.

[99] Mathilda did have such a friend, but, as she admits, she profited
little from his