16457Oh yes, there had been beauty here, & life here &An incomprehensible symbol that could be 'n' appears below the line following the word 'here'. [Shillingsburg, P.]Beauty was gone, & life was ended. & it was gone, & it was ended;& Mrs. McNab yet the living with their mops & their dusterslet issue on the grave of beauty, a this incongruous song, of thetwisted the crazed & the thwarted, who, one would think hadno reason to desire life, no gift to bestow, or [?]fireCompare 'gift to take' at page 166, line 6. [Shillingsburg, P.] to take; & yetas they lurch & leer, through the lurching & leering, at oncesongdirgetheyasperform the [?]obsequioussing the elegy & let rise up intertwinedwith the dirge & the elegy itself an incorrigible hope; aThe vertical line, moving upward from 'certainly not' to 'a' in the previous line, appears to have been made at the same time as the squiggle or wavy line cancelling the first part of the line ('hope founded...certainly') and the first part of the next line ('reason not on'). [Shillingsburg, P.]there twined inwith itthishope founded, in the case of Mrs. MacNab, certainly not onreason not ona hopenot founded on reason, not founded surely on satisfaction (forof the town[?]she was the butt &outcast) but founded perhaps(hereas her wits were half crazed, all conjecture must be(her cheeks wereyellow & old)distorted) on the dumb persistency of the fountain of life, &on moments (say they came obscurely, here & there, at thewash tub, in with her children who had gone now toAmerica) of which breathed of illumination, when thewithbreeze was in the west & the clouds white in the sun, &standing at her & she & it was some the gift of lifeshe understood what, in moments of high great emotiongreat poets have said whatever it may be that thenwhatever it may be:appears to sweeten labour, & consolatory, & com& beneficent;A vertical line sweeps upward from '& beneficent' to 'high' three lines before, appearing to cancel all from 'what, in moments' through '& beneficent', leaving 'she understood it seemed better to live'. [Shillingsburg, P.] it seemed better to live; it seemed as ifa channel were tunnelled in the heart of obscurity, &the meaning & through the rift they made &there issued peace, enough, when the grind & thegrit returned, to sweeten that barrenness; forstrangely as in her sidelong glance there was,account for it as one may, the forgiveness of ancompl understanding mind.

How Mrs. MacNab, of all people, had come totolerate & g to forgive, who shall say - Mrs MacNab, theto makeher leanher heart againstthethron & if she wasinfinitelyspelled infinity [Shillingsburg, P.] mournful,& dirgelike as she[?]on the day [Shillingsburg, P.]setin he faceher,- hadThe dash could be a stray mark; the word 'had' seems to have no logical place in the line. [Shillingsburg, P.]
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