She then spoke of the difficulties inherent in such a subject, "inequality of age adding to the unnatural incest.

To shed any interest over such an attachment, the dramatist ought to adorn the father with such youthful attributes as would be by no means contrary to probability."[xvii] This she endeavored to do in _Mathilda_ (aided indeed by the fact that the situation was the reverse of that in _Myrrha_).

Mathilda's father was young: he married before he was twenty.

When he returned to Mathilda, he still showed "the ardour and freshness of feeling incident to youth." He lived in the past and saw his dead wife reincarnated in his daughter.

Thus Mary attempts to validate the situation and make it "by no means contrary to probability." _Mathilda_ offers a good example of Mary Shelley's methods of revision.