-------- Original Message --------
I haven't seen anything in the archive on the following:-
JS is disappointed to find that Mrs. Z's "tall white fountain" in
line 758 is not his own "tall white fountain" of line 707 because
of the misprint. But isn't there something which echoes Mrs. Z's
"tall white mountain" (i.e. after correcting for the misprint) in
PF anyway?
In lines 509 onwards we have:
"To Yewshade, in another, higher state./I love great mountains.
From the iron gate/Of the ramshackle house we rented there/One saw
a snowy form, so far, so fair/That one could only fetch a sigh, as
if/It might assist assimilation."
So we have "Yewshade" which has obvious allusions to death (both
"yew" and "shade" in fact) and to JS (obviously, but see also
"just half a shade...").
Then we have a "higher state" and "assimilation" which could both
allude to death. And a tall white (because snowy) mountain.
And those "iron gates" bring to mind Andrew Marvell's "To his Coy
Mistress" ("the Iron G(r)ates of life") which alludes to death
quite a bit.
So in a sense, at the start of Canto III, JS is confirming Mrs Z's
"tall white mountain" and was looking in the wrong direction when
he was trying to confirm his own "tall white fountain".