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Eminent (Ulomen $eries
Edited by JoHN H. INGRAM
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
GODWIN
1759—1797
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MARY
WOLLSTONECRAFT
GODWIN
BY
ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL
SECOND EDITION
LONDON
GIBBINGS AND COMPANY, LIMITED
18 BURY STREET, W.C.
1909

7 - 34°4′ 2 &
vºice. TP, ºr $vklſ, %/iſ,
library
P. R. E. F. A. C. E.
==ºse--
CoMPARATIVELY little has been written about the life of
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. The two chief authori-
ties upon the subject are William Godwin and Mr.
C. Kegan Paul. In writing the following Biography
I have relied chiefly upon the Memoir written by the
former, and the Life of Godwin and Prefatory Memoir
to the Letters to Imlay of the latter. I have endea-
voured to supplement the facts recorded in these books
by a careful analysis of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s
writings and study of the period in which she lived.
I must here express my thanks to Dr. Richard
Garnett, and to Mr. C. Kegan Paul, for the kind
assistance they have given me in my work. To the
first-named of these gentlemen I am indebted for the
loan of a manuscript containing some particulars of
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s last illness which have
never yet appeared in print, and to the latter for the
gift, as well as the loan, of several important books.
E. R. P.
C O N T E N T S.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION . Q o © © e . 1
CHAPTER I.-CHILDHooD AND EARLY YoUTH. 1759–
1778 . o 5
CHAPTER II.-FIRST YEARs of WoRK. 1778–1785 20
CHAPTER III.-LIFE As GovKRNESS. 1786–1788 . 44
CHAPTER IV.-LITERARY LIFE. 1788–1791 . . 65
CHAPTER W.—LITERARY WORK. 1788–1791 . . 83
CHAPTER WI.-‘‘WINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF
WOMEN” & o º º e & . 90
CHAPTER WII.-VISIT TO PARIS. 1792–1793 . 101
CHAPTER VIII.-LIFE WITH IMLAY. 1793–1794 . 122
CHAPTER IX. —IMLAY's DESERTION. 1794–1795 . 135
CHAPTER X.-LITERARY WORK. 1793–1796. . 151
CHAPTER XI.-RETROSPECTIVE. 1794–1796 . . 163
CHAPTER XII.—WILLIAM GoDWIN o e . 168
CHAPTER XIII.—LIFE witH GoDWIN : MARRIAGE.
1796–1797 . g & . 185
CHAPTER XIV.-LAST MONTHS : DEATH. 1797 . 197
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
(HODWIN.
INTRODUCTION,
FEw women have worked so faithfully for the cause
of humanity as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and few
have been the objects of such censure. She devoted
herself to the relief of her suffering fellow-beings with
the ardour of a Saint Vincent de Paul, and in return
she was considered by them a moral scourge of God.
Because she had the courage to express opinions new
to her generation, and the independence to live ac-
cording to her own standard of right and wrong, she
was denounced as another Messalina. The young were
bidden not to read her books, and the more mature
warned not to follow her example, the miseries she
endured being declared the just retribution of her
actions.[ Indeed, the infamy attached to her name is
almost incredible in the present age, when new theories
are more patiently criticised, and when purity of motive
has been accepted as the vindication of at least one well-
known breach of social laws. The malignant attacks
l
2 MARY WOI, LSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
made upon her character since her death have been too
widely known to be ignored, but the Life which follows
may serve for their refutation.
As a rule, the notices which were published after
she was dead were harsher and more uncompromising
than those written during her lifetime. There were
happily one or two exceptions. The writer of her
obituary in the Monthly Magazine for September, 1797,
speaks of her in terms of unlimited admiration, but it
is more than probable that it was written by a personal
friend. A year later the same magazine, in its semi-
annual retrospect of British literature, expressed some-
what altered opinions. The notice in the Gentleman's
Magazine for October, 1797, the month after her death,
was friendly, but guarded in its praise.
In 1798 Godwin published his Memoir of Mary
Wollstonecraft, together with her posthumous writings.
He hoped, no doubt, by a clear statement of the prin-
cipal incidents of her life to moderate the popular
feeling against her. But he was the last person to
have undertaken the task. Outside the small circle of
friends and sympathisers who really loved him, he was
by no means popular. There were some who even
seemed to think that the greatest hardship of Mary’s
life was to have been his wife. Thus Roscoe, after
reading the Memoir, expressed the sentiments it aroused
in him in the following lines:—
Hard was thy fate in all the scenes of life,
As daughter, sister, mother, friend, and wife;
But harder still thy fate in death we own,
Thus mourned by Godwin with a heart of stone.
Moreover, Godwin’s views about marriage, as set forth
in his Political Justice, were held in such abhorrence
INTRODUCTION. 3
that the fact that he approved of Mary's conduct was
reason enough for the multitude to disapprove of it.
His book, therefore, was not a success as far as Mary’s
reputation was concerned, and, indeed, increased rather
than lessened the asperity of her detractors. It was
greeted by the European Magazine for April, 1798,
almost immediately after its publication, by one of the
most scathing denunciations of Mary’s character which
had yet appeared, and the opinion of the European
Magazine was the one most generally adopted, and
almost invariably re-echoed when Mary Wollstone-
craft's name was mentioned in print.
Probably the article which was most influential in
perpetuating the ill-repute in which she stood with
her contemporaries, is the sketch of her life given in
Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary. The papers and
many books of the day soon passed out of sight, but
the Dictionary was long used as a standard work of
reference. In this particular article every action of
Mary's life was construed unfavourably, and her cha-
racter shamefully vilified. Beloe, in the Sea agenarian,
borrowed the scurrilous abuse of the Biographical
Dictionary, which was furthermore accepted by almost
every history of English literature and encyclopaedia
as the correct estimate of Mary’s character and teach-
ings. It is, therefore, no wonder that the immorality
of her doctrines and unwomanliness of her conduct
came to be believed in implicitly by the too credulous
public.
That she fully deserved this disapprobation and con-
tempt seemed to many confirmed by the fact that her
daughter, Mary Godwin, consented to live with Shelley
before their union could be legalized. The indepen-
1 *
4. MARY WOLI/STONECRAFT GODWIN.
dence of mother and daughter excited private as well
as public animosity. During all these years Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin was not without defenders, but
their number was small. Southey was always enthu-
siastic in his admiration, and his letters are full of her
praises. Shelley, too, offered her the tribute of his
praise in verse.
But the mere admiration of Southey and Shelley
had little weight against popular prejudice. Year by
year Mary’s books were less frequently read, and the
prediction that in another generation her name would
be unknown bade fair to be fulfilled. But the latest of
her admirers, Mr. Kegan Paul, has, by his zealous
efforts in her behalf, succeeded in vindicating her
character and reviving interest in her writings. By
his careful history of her life, and noble words in her
defence, he has re-established her reputation. As he
says himself, “Only eighty years after her death has
any serious attempt been made to set her right in the
eyes of those who will choose to see her as she was.”
His attempt has been successful. No one after reading
her sad story as he tells it in his Life of Godwin,
can doubt her moral uprightness. His statement of
her case attracted the attention it deserved. Two years
after it appeared, Miss Mathilde Blind published, in
the New Quarterly Review, a paper containing a brief
sketch of the incidents he recorded, and expressing
an honest recognition of this good but much-maligned
WOIſlall,
CHAPTER H.
CIIILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH,
1759–1778.
MARY WollstonECRAFT was born on the 27th of April,
1759, but whether in London or in Epping Forest,
where she spent the first five years of her life, is not
quite certain. There is no history of her ancestors to
show from whom she inherited the intellectual great-
ness which distinguished her, but which characterised
neither of her parents. Her paternal grandfather was
a manufacturer in Spitalfields, of whom little is known,
except that he was of Irish extraction and that he
himself was respectable and prosperous. To his son,
Edward John, Mary's father, he left a fortune of ten
thousand pounds, no inconsiderable sum in those days
for a man of his social position. Her mother was
Elizabeth, daughter of a Mr. Dixon, of Ballyshannon,
Ireland, member of a good family. Mary was the
second of six children. The eldest, Edward, who was
more successful in his worldly affairs than the others,
and James, who went to sea to seek his fortunes, both
passed to a great extent out of her life. But her two
sisters, Eliza and Everina, and her youngest brother,
6 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
Charles, were so dependent upon her for assistance in
their many troubles that their career is intimately
associated with hers.
With her very first years Mary Wollstonecraft began
a bitter training in the school of experience, which
was to no small degree instrumental in developing her
character and forming her philosophy. There are few
details of her childhood, and no anecdotes indicating
a precocious genius. But enough is known of her early
life to make us understand what were the principal
influences to which she was exposed. Her strength
sprang from the very uncongeniality of her home and
her successful struggles against the poverty and vice
which surrounded her. Her father was a selfish, hot-
tempered despot, whose natural bad qualities were
aggravated by his dissipated habits. His chief cha-
racteristic was his instability. He could persevere in
nothing. Apparently brought up to no special pro-
fession, he was by turns a gentleman of leisure, a
farmer, a man of business. It seems to have been
sufficient for him to settle in any one place to almost
immediately wish to depart from it. The history of
the first fifteen or twenty years of his married life is
that of one long series of migrations. The discomforts
and petty miseries unavoidable to travellers with large
families in pre-railroad days necessarily increased his
irascibility. The inevitable consequence of these many
changes was loss of money and still greater loss of
temper. That his financial experiments proved to be
failures, is certain from the abject poverty of his later
years. That they were bad for him morally, is shown
in the fact that his children, when grown up, found it
impossible to live under the same roof with him. His
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH, 7
indifference in one particular to their wishes and
welfare led in the end to disregard of them in all
matters.
It is more than probable that Mary, in her Wrongs
of Woman, drew largely from her own experience for
the characters therein represented, and we shall not
err in identifying the father she describes in this novel
with Mr. Wollstonecraft himself. “His orders,” she
Writes, “were not to be disputed; and the whole house
was expected to fly at the word of command. . . .
He was to be instantaneously obeyed, especially by my
mother, whom he very benevolently married for love;
but took care to remind her of the obligation when
she dared in the slightest instance to question his abso-
lute authority.” He was, in a word, an egotist of the
worst description, who found no brutality too low once
his anger was aroused, and no amount of despotism too
odious when the rights and comforts of others interfered
with his own desires. When contradicted or thwarted
his rage was ungovernable, and he used personal vio-
lence not only to his dogs and children, but even to his
wife. Drink and unrestrained selfishness had utterly
degraded him. Such was Mary’s father.
Mrs. Wollstonecraft was her husband's most abject
slave, but was in turn somewhat of a tyrant herself.
She approved of stern discipline for the young. She
was too indolent to give much attention to the educa-
tion of her children, and devoted what little energy she
possessed to enforcing their unquestioning obedience
even in trifles, and to making them as afraid of her dis-
pleasure as they were of their father's anger. “It is
perhaps difficult to give you an idea of the petty cares
which obscured the morning of my life,” Mary declares
8 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
through her heroine,—“continual restraint in the most
trivial matters, unconditional submission to orders, which
as a mere child I soon discovered to be unreasonable,
because inconsistent and contradictory. Thus are We
destined to experience a mixture of bitterness with the
recollection of our most innocent enjoyment.” Edward,
as the mother's favourite, escaped her severity; but it
fell upon Mary with double force, and was with her
carried out with a thoroughness that laid its short-
comings bare, and consequently forced Mrs. Wollstone-
craft to modify her treatment of her younger children.
This concession on her part shows that she must have
had their well-being at heart, even when her policy in
their regard was most misguided, and that her unkind-
ness was not, like her husband’s cruelty, born of
caprice. But it was sad for Mary that her mother did
not discover her mistake sooner.
When Mary was five years old, and before she had
lºad time to form any strong impressions of her earliest
home, her father moved to another part of Epping
Forest near the Chelmsford Road. Then, at the end
of a year, he carried his family to Barking in Essex,
where he established them in a comfortable home, a
little way out of the town. Many of the London
markets were then supplied from the farms around
Barking, so that the chance for his success here was
promising.
This place was the scene of Mary’s principal childish
recollections and associations. Natural surroundings
were with her of much more importance than they
usually are to the very young, because she depended
upon them for her pleasures. She cared nothing for
dolls and the ordinary amusements of girls. Having
CHILD HOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. 0
received few caresses and little tender nursing, she did
not know how to play the part of mother. Her
recreation led her out of doors with her brothers.
That she lived much in the open air and became
thoroughly acquainted with the town and the neigh-
bourhood, seems certain from the eagerness with which
she visited it years afterwards with Godwin.
Only too often the victim of her father's cruel fury,
and at all times a sufferer because of her mother's
theories, she had little chance for happiness during her
childhood. She was, like Carlyle's hero of Sartor
Resartus, one of those children whose sad fate it is to
weep “in the playtime of the others.” Not even to
the David Copperfields and Paul Dombeys of fiction
has there fallen a lot so hard to bear and so sad to
record, as that of the little Mary Wollstonecraft. She
was then the most deserving object of that pity which
later, as a woman, she was always ready to bestow
upon others. Her affections were unusually warm and
deep, but they could find no outlet. She met, on the
one hand, indifference and sternness; on the other,
injustice and ill-usage.
To whatever town they went, the Wollstonecrafts
seem to have given signs of gentility and good social
standing, which won for them, if not many at least
respectable friends. At Barking an intimacy sprang
up between them and the family of Mr. Bamber Gas-
coyne, a member of Parliament. But Mary was too
young to profit by this friendship. It was most ruth-
lessly interrupted three years later, when, in 1768, the
restless head of the house, whose industry in Barking
had not equalled the enterprise which brought him
there, took his departure for Beverly, in Yorkshire.
10 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
This was the most complete change that he had as
yet made. Heretofore his wanderings had been con-
fined to Essex. But he either found in his new home
more promising occupation and congenial companion-
ship than he had hitherto, or else there was a short
respite to his feverish restlessness, for he continued
in it for six years. It was here Mary received almost
all the education that was ever given her by regular
schooling. Beverly was nothing but a small market-
town, though she in her youthful enthusiasm thought
it large and handsome, and its inhabitants brilliant
and elegant, and was much disappointed when she
passed through it many years afterwards, on her way to
Norway, to see how far the reality fell short of her
youthful idealizations. Its schools could not have been
of a very high order, and we do not need Godwin's
assurance to know that Mary owed little of her subse-
quent culture to them. But her education may be
said to have really begun in 1775, when her father,
tired of farming and tempted by commercial hopes,
left Beverly for London, and settled in Hoxton.
Mary was at this time in her sixteenth year. The
effect of her home life, under which most children
would have succumbed, had been to develop her char-
acter at an earlier age than is usual with women. In
spite of the tyranny and caprice of her parents, and,
indeed, perhaps because of them, she had soon asserted
her individuality and superiority. When she had
recognized the mistaken motives of her mother and
the weakness of her father, she had been forced to
rely upon her own judgment and self-command. It is
a wonderful proof of her fine instincts that, though she
must have known her strength, she did not rebel, and
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH, 11
that her keen insight into the injustice of some actions
did not prevent her realizing the justice of others.
Her mind seems to have been from the beginning too
evenly balanced for any such misconceptions. When
reprimanded, she deservedly found in the reprimand,
as she once told Godwin, the one means by which she
became reconciled to herself for the fault which had
called it forth. As she matured, her immediate rela-
tions could not but yield to the influence which she
exercised over all with whom she was brought into
close contact. If there be such a thing as animal
magnetism, she possessed it in perfection. Her per-
sonal attractions commanded love, and her great
powers of sympathy drew people, without their know-
ing why, to lean upon her for moral support. In the
end she became an authority in her family. Mrs.
Wollstonecraft was in time compelled to bestow upon
her the affection which she had first withheld. It was
the ugly duckling after all who proved to be the swan
of the flock. Mr. Wollstonecraft learned to hold his
eldest daughter in awe, and his anger sometimes
diminished in her presence.
Pity was always Mary’s ruling passion. Feeling
deeply the family sorrows, she was quick to forget
herself in her efforts to lighten them when this
privilege was allowed to her. There were opportunities
enough for self-sacrifice. With every year Mr. Woll-
stonecraft squandered more money, and grew idler and
more dissipated. Home became unbearable, the wife's
burden heavier. Mary, emancipated from the restraints
of childhood, no longer remained a silent spectator of
her father’s fits of passion. When her mother was the
victim of his violence, she interposed boldly between
12 MIARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
them, determined that if his blows fell upon any one,
it should be upon herself. There were occasions when
she so feared the results of his drunken rage that she
would not even go to bed at night, but, throwing her-
self upon the floor outside her room, would wait there,
on the alert, to meet whatever horrors darkness might
bring forth.
Mary's existence up to 1775 had been, save when
disturbed by family storms, quiet, lonely, and unevent-
ful. As yet no special incident had occurred in it, nor
had she been awakened to intellectual activity. But
in Hoxton she contracted a friendship which, though
it was with a girl of her own age, was always esteemed
by her as the chief and leading event in her existence.
This it was which first aroused her love of study and of
independence, and opened a channel for the outpouring
of her too long suppressed affections. Her love for
Fanny Blood was the spark which kindled the latent
fire of her genius. Her arrival in Hoxton, therefore,
marks the first important era in her life.
She owed this new pleasure to Mr. Clare, a clergy-
man, and his wife, who lived next to the Wollstone-
crafts in Hoxton. The acquaintanceship formed with
their neighbours ripened in Mary’s case into intimacy.
Mr. Clare was deformed and delicate, and, because of
his great physical weakness, led the existence of a
hermit. He rarely, if ever, went out, and his habits
were so essentially sedentary that a pair of shoes lasted
him for fourteen years. It is hardly necessary to add
that he was eccentric, but he was a man of a certain
amount of culture, and had read largely, his oppor-
tunity for so doing being great. He was attracted by
Mary, whom he soon discovered to be no ordinary
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTII. 13
girl, and he interested himself in forming and training
her mind. She, in return, liked him. His deformity
alone would have appealed to her, but she found him
a congenial companion, and, as she proved herself a
willing pupil, he was glad to have her much with him.
She was a friend of Mrs. Clare as well; indeed, the
latter remained true to her through later storms which
wrecked many other less sincere friendships. Mary
sometimes spent days and even weeks in the house of
these good people ; and it was on one of these occa-
sions, probably, that Mrs. Clare took her to Newington
Butts, then a village at the extreme southern end of
London, and there introduced her to Frances Blood.
The first meeting between them, Godwin says,
“ bore a resemblance to the first interview of Werter
with Charlotte.” The Bloods lived in a small, but
scrupulously well-kept house, and when its door was
first opened for Mary, Fanny, a bright-looking girl
about her own age, was busy, like another Charlotte,
in superintending the meal of her younger brothers
and sisters. It was a scene well calculated to excite
Mary's interest. She, better than anyone else, could
understand its full worth. It revealed to her at a
glance the skeleton in the family closet,_the ineffi-
ciency of the parents to care for the children whom
they had brought into the world, and the poverty
which prevented their hiring others to do their work
for them. And at the same time it showed her the
noble unselfishness of the daughter, who not only took
upon herself the burden so easily shifted by the parents,
but who accepted her fate cheerfully. Mary then and
there vowed in her heart eternal friendship for her
new acquaintance, and the vow was never broken.
14 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
Balzac, in his Cousine Bette, says that there is no
stronger passion than the love of one woman for
another. Mary Wollstonecraft's affection for Frances
Blood is a striking illustration of the truth of his
statement. It was strong as that of a Sappho for an
Erinna, tender and constant as that of a mother for
her child. From the moment they met until they
were separated by poor Fanny’s untimely death, Mary
never wavered in her devotion and its active expression,
nor could the vicissitudes and joys of her later life
destroy her loving loyalty to the memory of her first
and dearest friend. “When a warm heart has strong
impressions,” she wrote in a letter long years after-
wards, “they are not to be effaced. Emotions become
sentiments: and the imagination renders transient
sensations permanent, by fondly retracing them I
cannot without a thrill of delight recollect views I have
seen, which are not to be forgotten, nor looks I have
felt in every nerve, which I shall never more meet.
The grave has closed over a dear friend, the friend of
my youth; still she is present with me, and I hear her
soft voice warbling as I stray over the heath.”
There was much to draw the two friends together.
They had many miseries and many tastes and interests
in common Fanny’s parents were poor, and her
father, like Mr. Wollstonecraft, was idle and dissipated.
There were young children to be reared, and an
incompetent mother to do it. Fanny was only two
years older than Mary, but was, at that time, far more
advanced mentally. Her education had been more
complete. She was in a small way both musician and
artist, was fond of reading, and had even tried her
powers at writing. But her drawing had proved her
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH, 15
most profitable accomplishment, and by it she sup-
ported her entire family. Mary as yet had perfected
herself in nothing, and was helpless where money-
making was concerned. Her true intellectual education
had but just begun under Mr. Clare's direction. She
had previously read voluminously, but, having done so
for mere immediate gratification, had derived but little
profit therefrom. As she lived in Hoxton and Fanny
in Newington Butts, they could not see each other
very often, and so in the intervals between their visits
they corresponded. Mary found that her letters were
far inferior to those of her friend. She could not
spell so well, and had none of Fanny's ease in shaping
her thoughts into words. Her pride was hurt and her
ambition stirred. She determined to make herself at
least Fanny's intellectual equal. It was humiliating to
know herself powerless to improve her own condition,
when her friend was already earning an income large
enough not only to meet her own wants but those of
others depending upon her. To prepare herself for a
like struggle with the world, a struggle which in all
likelihood she would be obliged to make single-handed,
she studied earnestly. Books acquired new value in
her eyes. She read no longer for passing amusement,
but to strengthen and cultivate her mind for future
work. It cannot be doubted that under any cir-
cumstances she would, in the course of a few years,
have become conscious of her power and the necessity
to exercise it. But to Fanny Blood belongs the honour
of having given the first incentive to her intellectual
energy. This brave, heavily burdened young English
girl, accepting toils and tribulations with stout heart.
would, with many another silent heroine or hero, have
16 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
been forgotten, had it not been for the stimulus her
love and example were to an even stronger sister-
sufferer. The larger field of interests thus opened for
Mary was like the bright dawn after a long and dark
night. For the first time she was happy.
There was therefore much in her life at Hoxton to
relieve the gloomy influence of the family troubles.
Work for a definite end is in itself a great joy. Many
pleasant hours were spent with the Clares, and occa-
sional gala-days with Fanny. These last two pleasures,
however, were short-lived. The inexorable family
tyrant, her father, grew tired of commerce, as indeed
he did of everything, and in the spring of 1776 he
abandoned it for agriculture, and removed to Pembroke,
where he owned some little property. With a heavy
heart Mary bade farewell to her new friends.
Of external incidents the year in Wales was barren.
The only one on record is the intimacy which sprang
up between the Wollstonecrafts and the Allens. Two
daughters of this family afterwards married sons of the
famous potter, Wedgwood, and the friendship then
begun lasted for life. To Mary, herself, however, this
year was full and fertile. It was devoted to study and
work. Hers was the only true genius, -the genius for
industry. She never relaxed in the task she had set
for herself, and her progress was rapid. The signs she
soon manifested of her mental power added to the
respect with which her family now treated her. Real-
izing that the assistance she could give by remaining
at home was but little compared to that which might
result from her leaving it for some definite employ-
ment, she seems at this period to have announced her
intention of seeking her fortunes abroad. But Mrs.
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. 17
Wollstonecraft looked upon the presence of her
daughter as a strong bulwark of defence against the
brutal attacks of her husband, and was loath to lose it.
Mary yielded to her entreaties to wait a little longer;
but her sympathy and tender pity for human suffering
fortunately never destroyed her common sense. She
knew that the day must come when on her own indi-
vidual exertions would depend not only her own but a
large share of her sisters’ and brothers’ maintenance,
and, in consenting to remain at home, she exacted
certain conditions. She insisted upon being allowed
freedom in the regulation of her actions. She demanded
that she should have a room for her exclusive property,
and that, when engaged in study, she should not be
interrupted. She would attend to certain domestic
duties, and after they were over, her time must be her
own. It was little to ask. All she wanted was the
liberty to make herself independent of the paternal
care which girls of eighteen, as a rule, claim as their
right. It was granted her.
At the end of another year, the demon of restlessness
again attacked Mr. Wollstonecraft. Wales proved less
attractive than it had appeared at a distance. Orders
were given to repack the family goods and chattels,
and to set out upon new wanderings. On this occa-
sion, Mary interfered with a strong hand. Since a
change was to be made, it might as well be turned to
her advantage. She had, without a word, allowed her-
self to be carried to Wales away from the one person
she really loved, and she now knew the sacrifice had
been useless. It was clear to her that one place was
no better for her father than another; therefore he
should go where it pleased her. It was better that one
2
18 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
member of the family should be content, than that all
should be equally miserable. She prevailed upon him
to choose Walworth as his next resting-place. Here
she would be near Fanny, and life would again hold
some brightness for her.
It was at Walworth that she took the first step in
what was fated to be a long life of independence and
work. The conditions which she had made with her
family seem to have been here neglected, and study at
home became more and more impossible. She was
further stimulated to action by the personal influence
of her energetic friend, by the fact that the younger
children were growing up to receive their share of the
family sorrow and disgrace, and by her own great
dread of poverty. “How writers professing to be
friends to freedom and the improvement of morals can
assert that poverty is no evil, I cannot imagine !” she
exclaims in the Wrongs of Woman. She cared nothing
for the luxuries and the ease and idleness which
wealth gives, but she prized above everything the time
and opportunity for self-culture of which the poor, in
their struggle for existence, are deprived. The Woll-
stonecraft fortunes were at low ebb. Her share in
them, should she remain at home, would be drudgery
and slavery, which would grow greater with every year.
Her one hope for the future depended upon her pro-
fitable use of the present. The sooner she earned
money for herself, the sooner would she be able to free
her brothers and sisters from the yoke whose weight
she knew full well because of her own eagerness to
throw it off. Unselfish as her father was selfish, she
thought quite as much of their welfare as of her own.
Therefore when, at the age of nineteen, a situation as
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. 19
lady's companion was offered to her, neither tears nor
entreaties could alter her resolution to accept it. She
entered at once upon her new duties, and with them
her career as woman may be said to have begun.
20 MARY WOLLSTONECI&AE T GOD WIN.
CHAPTER II.
FIRST YEARS OF WOR [.
1778–1785.
MARY Wollston ECRAFT did not become famous at
once. She began her career as humbly as many a less
gifted woman. Like the heroes of old, she had tasks
allotted her before she could attain the goal of her
ambition.
It is difficult for a young man without money, in-
fluential friends, or professional education to make his
way in the world. With a woman placed in similar
circumstances the difficulty is increased a hundred-fold.
We of to-day, when government and other clerkships
are open to women, cannot quite realize their helpless-
ness a few generations back. In Mary Wollstonecraft’s
time those whose birth and training had unfitted them
for the more menial occupations—who could neither
bake nor scrub—had but two resources : they must
either become governesses or ladies’ companions. In
neither case was their position enviable. They ranked
as little better than upper servants. Mary’s first
appearance on the world-stage, therefore, was not
brilliant.
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 21
The lady with whom she went to live was a Mrs.
Dawson, a widow who had but one child, a grown-up
son. Her residence was in Bath. Mary must then
have given at least signs of the beauty which did not
reach its full development until many years later, her
sorrows had not entirely destroyed her natural gaiety,
and she was only nineteen years old. The mission in
Bath in those days of young girls of her age was to
dance and to flirt, to lose their hearts and to find
husbands, to gossip, to listen to the music, to show
themselves in the Squares and Circus and on the
Parades, or, sometimes, when they were seriously in-
clined, to drink the waters. Mary’s was to cater to
the caprices of a cross-grained, peevish woman. There
was little sunshine in the morning of her life. She
was destined always to see the darkest side of human
nature. Mrs. Dawson's temper was bad, and her com-
panions, of whom there seem to have been many, had
hitherto fled before its outbreaks, as the leaves wither
and fall at the first breath of winter. Mary’s home-
schooling was now turned to good account. Mrs.
Dawson's rage could not, at its worst, equal her father's
drunken violence; and long experience of the latter
prepared her to bear the former with apparent, if not
real, stoicism. We have no particulars of her life as
companion nor knowledge of the exact nature of her
duties. But of one thing we are certain, the fulfilment
of them cost her many a heart-ache. In Bath she
was separated from her friends, she was alone in her
struggle, and she held a position which did not always
command respect. However, her indomitable will and
unflagging energy availed her to such good purpose
that she continued with Mrs. Dawson for two years,
22 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
doubtless to the surprise of the latter, accustomed as
she was to easily frightened and hastily retreating
companions. Her departure them was due, not to
moral cowardice or exhaustion, but to a summons from
home.
Mrs. Wollstonecraft's health had begun to fail. Her
life had been a hard one, and the drains upon her
constitution many. She was the mother of a large
family, and had had her full share of the by no means
insignificant pains and cares of maternity. In addition
to these she had had to contend against poverty, that
evil which, says the Talmud, is worse than fifty plagues,
and against the vagaries of a good-for-nothing drunken
husband. Once she fell beneath her burden, she could
not rise with it again. She had no strength left to
withstand her illness. Eliza and Everina were both
at home to take care of her, but she could not rest
without the eldest daughter, upon whom experience
had taught her to rely implicitly. She sent for Mary,
and the latter hastened at once to her mother’s side.
Her own hopes and ambitions, her chances and pro-
spects, all were forgotten in her desire to do what she
could for the poor patient. She waited upon her
mother with untiring care. Mrs. Wollstonecraft's ill-
ness was long and lingering, though it declared itself
at an early stage to be hopeless. In her pleasure at
her daughter's return she received her services with
grateful thanks. But, as she grew worse, she became
more accustomed to the presence of her nurse, and
exacted as a right that which she had first accepted as
a favour. She would allow no one else to attend to
her, and day and night Mary was with her.
Finally the end came. Mrs. Wollstonecraft died,
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 23
happy to be released from a world which had given
her nothing but unkindness and sorrow. Her parting
Words were: “A little patience, and all will be over !”
It was not difficult for the dying woman, so soon to
have eternity to rest in, to bear quietly time's last
agony. But for the weary, heart-sick young girl, be-
fore whom there stretched a vista of long years of toil,
the lesson of patience was less easy to learn. Mary
never forgot these words, nor did she heed their bitter
sarcasm. Often and often, in her after trials, they
returned to her, carrying with them peace and comfort.
Her mother’s death took place in 1780. The family
were then living in Enfield, which place had succeeded
Walworth in their periodical migrations. After her
mother's death Mary, tired out from constant nursing,
want of sleep, and anxiety of mind, became ill. She
Sorely needed quiet and an interval from work. But
the necessity to depart from her father’s house was
imperative. He had fallen so low that his daughters
were forced to leave him. The difficulty was to find
immediate means to meet the emergency. A return
to Mrs. Dawson does not seem to have suggested
itself as a possibility. Mary’s great ambition was to
become a teacher and to establish a school. But this
could not be easily or at once accomplished. She
must have time to prepare herself for the venture, to
make friends, and to give proof of her ability to teach.
Fortunately, at this juncture Fanny Blood proved a
true friend and offered her at least a temporary home
at Walham Green.
Fanny was still gaining a small income from her
drawings, to which Mrs. Blood added whatever she
could make by her needle. Mary was not one to live
24 MARY IVOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
upon another's bread. Too proud to become an ad-
ditional charge to these two hard-working women, she
helped the latter with her sewing and so contributed
her share to the family means. Though she was happy
because she was with her friend, her life here was
well-migh as tragic as it had been in her father's house.
The family sorrows were great and many. Mr. Blood
was a ne'er-do-weel and a drunkard. Caroline, one
of the daughters, had then probably begun her rapid
descent down-hill, moved thereto, poor girl, by the
relief which vice alone gave to the poverty and gloom
of her home. George, the brother, with whom Mary
afterwards corresponded for so many years, was un-
happy because of his unrequited love for Everina
Wollstonecraft. He was an honest, good-principled
young man, but his associates were disreputable, and
he was at times compromised by their actions. But
still sadder for Mary was the fact that Fanny, in
addition to domestic grievances, was tortured by the
unkindness of an uncertain lover. She had met, not
long before, Mr. Hugh Skeys, a young but already
successful merchant. Attracted by her, he had been
sufficiently attentive and devoted to warrant her con-
clusion that his intentions were serious. He seems to
have loved her as deeply as he was capable of loving,
but discouraged perhaps by the wretched circumstances
of the family, he could not make up his mind to marry
her. At one moment he was ready to desert her, and
at the next to claim her as his wife. Instead of re-
senting his unpardonable conduct, as a prouder woman
would have done, she bore it with the humble patience
of a Griselda. When he was kind, she hoped for the
best ; when he was cold, she dreaded the worst. The
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 25
consequence of these alternate states of hope and
despair was mental depression, and finally physical
ill-health. Through her troubles, Mary, who had
given her the warmest and best, because the first,
love of her life, was her faithful ally and comforter.
Indeed, her friendship grew warmer with Fanny's
increasing misfortunes. As she said of herself a few
years later, she was not a fair-weather friend. “I
think,” she wrote once in a letter to George Blood,
“I love most people best when they are in adversity,
for pity is one of my prevailing passions.” She real-
ized that she had made herself her friend’s equal, if
not superior, intellectually, and that, so far as moral
courage and will-power were concerned, she was much
the stronger of the two. There is nothing which so
deepens a man’s or a woman’s tenderness, as the know-
ledge that the object of it looks up to her or to him
for support, and Mary’s affection increased because of
its new inspiration. - r r
It has been said that it was necessary for all Mr.
Wollstonecraft's daughters to leave his house. Mary
was not yet in a position to help her sisters, and they
had but few friends. Their chances of self-support
were small. Their position was the trying one of
gentlewomen who could not make servants of them-
selves, and who indeed would not be employed as such,
and who had not had the training to fit them for
higher occupations. Everina, therefore, was glad to
find an asylum with her brother Edward, who was an
attorney in London. She became his housekeeper,
for, like Mary, she was too independent to allow her-
self to be supported by the charity of others. Eliza,
the youngest sister, who, with greater love of culture
26 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
than Everina, had had even less education, solved her pre-
sent problem by marrying, but she escaped one difficulty
only to fall into another still greater and more serious.
The history of her married experience is important
because of the part Mary played in it. The latter's
independent conduct, in her sister’s regard, is a fore-
shadowing of the course she pursued at a later period
in the management of her own affairs.
Eliza was the most excitable and nervous of the
three sisters. The family sensitiveness was developed
in her to a painful degree. She was not only quick to
take offence, but was ever on the look-out for slights
and insults even from people she dearly loved. She
assumed a defensive attitude against the world and
mankind, and therefore life went harder with her than
with more cheerfully constituted women. Her indig-
nation and rage were not so easily appeased as aroused.
Altogether, she was a very impossible person to live
with peacefully. Mr. Bishop, the man she married,
was as quick-tempered and passionate as she, and,
morally, was infinitely beneath her. He was the ori-
ginal of the husband in the Wrongs of Woman, who
is represented as an unprincipled sensualist, brute, and
hypocrite. The worst of it was that, when not carried
away by his temper, his address was good and his
manners insinuating. As one of his friends said of
him, he was “either a lion or a spaniel.” Unfortu-
nately, at home he was always the lion, a fact which
those who knew him only as the spaniel could not well
believe. The marriage of two such people, needless
to say, was not happy. They mutually aggravated
each other. Eliza, with her sensitive, unforgiving
nature, could not make allowances. Mr. Bishop would
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 27
not, Much as her waywardness and hastiness were
at fault, he was still more to blame in effecting the
rupture between them.
The strain upon Eliza's nervous system, caused by
almost daily quarrels and scenes of violence, was more
than she could bear. Then, to add to her misery, she
found herself in that condition in which women are
apt to be peculiarly susceptible and irritable. Her
prospect of maternity so stimulated her abnormal
emotional excitement that her reason gave way, and
for months she was insane. Though she had passive
intervals, she was at times very violent, and disastrous
results were feared. It was necessary for someone to
keep constant guard over her, and Mary was asked to
undertake this task.
Relentless as Fate in pursuing the hero of Greek
Tragedy to his predestined end, were the cirsumstances
which formed Mary’s prejudice against the institution
of marriage. This was the third domestic tragedy
caused by the husband's petty tyranny and the wife’s
slender resources of defence, of which she was the
immediate witness. Her experience was unfortunate.
The bright side of the married state was hidden from
her. She saw only its shadows, and these darkened
until her soul rebelled against the injustice, not of life,
but of man’s shaping of it. Sad as was the fate of
the Bloods, and much as they needed her, the Bishop
household was still sadder and its appeals more urgent,
and Mary hurried thither at once. -
Without a murmur she left Walham Green and
established herself as nurse and keeper to the poor mad
sister. There could be no greater heroism than this.
With a nervous constitution not unlike that of “poor
28 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
Bess,” she had to watch over the frenzied mania of the
wife and to confront the almost equally insane fury of
the husband. -
To her desire to keep Everina posted as to the pro-
gress of affairs, we are indebted for her letters, which
give a very life-like picture of herself and her sur-
roundings while she remained in her brother-in-law's
house. They are interesting because, by showing the
difficulties against which she had to contend, and the
effect these had upon her, we can better appreciate
the greatness of her nature by which she triumphed
over them. There is one written during this sad period
which must be quoted here because it throws still more
light upon Bishop’s true character and his ingenuity
in tormenting those who lived with him :-
Monday morning, Jan. 1784.
I have nothing to tell you, my dear girl, that will give you pleasure.
Yesterday was a dismal day, long and dreary. Bishop was very ill,
&c. &c. He is much better to-day, but misery haunts this house in
one shape or other. How sincerely do I join with you in saying that
if a person has common sense, they cannot make one completely un-
happy. But to attempt to lead or govern a weak mind is impossible;
it will ever press forward to what it wishes, regardless of impedi-
ments, and, with a selfish eagerness, believes what it desires prac-
ticable, though the contrary is as clear as the noon-day. My spirits
are hurried with listening to pros and cons; and my head is so
confused, that I sometimes say no when I ought to say yes. My
heart is almost broken with listening to B. while he reasons the case.
I cannot insult him with advice, which he would never have wanted
if he was capable of attending to it. May my habitation never be
fixed among the tribe that can't look beyond the present gratification,
that draw fixed conclusions from general rules, that attend to the
literal meaning only, and, because a thing ought to be, expect that it
will come to pass. B. has made a confidant of Skeys; and as I can
never speak to him in private, I suppose his pity may cloud his
judgment. If it does, I should not either wonder at it or blame him.
For I that know, and am fixed in my opinion, cannot unwaveringly
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 29
adhere to it; and when I reason, I am afraid of being unfeeling.
Miracles don’t occur now, and only a miracle can alter the minds of
some people. They grow old, and we can only discover by their
countenances that they are so. To the end of their chapter will their
misery last. I expect Fanny next Thursday, and she will stay with
us but a few days. Bess desires her love; she grows better, and of
course more sad. º
Though Mary’s heart was breaking and her brain
reeling, her closer acquaintance with Bishop convinced.
her that Eliza must not continue with him. She
determined at all hazards to free her sister from a man
who was slowly but surely killing her, and she knew
she was right in her determination. For some months
Eliza's physical and mental illness made it impossible
to take a decided step or to form definite plans. But
when her child was born, and she returned to a normal,
though at the same time sadder, because conscious,
state, Mary felt that the time for action had arrived.
That she still thought it advisable for her sister to
leave her husband, though this necessitated the aban.
donment of her child, conclusively proves the serious-
ness of Bishop's faults. It was no easy matter to
effect the separation. Bishop objected to it. It is
never unpleasant for a man to play the tyrant, and he
was averse to losing his victim. Pecuniary assistance
was therefore not to be had from him, and the sisters
were penniless. Mary applied to Edward, though she
was not sure it was desirable for Eliza to take refuge
with him. However, he does not seem to have
responded Warmly, for Mary’s suggestion was never
acted upon. Theirs was a situation in which friends
are not apt to interfere, and besides, Bishop's plausibility
had won over not a few to his side. Furthermore, the
chance was that if he worked successfully upon Mr.
30 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
Skeys' sympathies, the Bloods would be influenced.
There was absolutely no one to help them, but Mary
knew that it was useless to wait, and that the morrow
would not make easier what seemed to her the task of
the present day. What she now most wanted for her
sister was liberty, and she resolved to secure this at
once, and then afterwards to look about her to see how
it was to be maintained.
Accordingly, one day, Bishop well out of the way,
the sisters left his house for ever. There was a mad,
breathless drive, Bess, with her insanity half returned,
biting her wedding-ring to pieces, a hurried exchange
of coaches to further insure escape from detection, a
joyful arrival at modest lodgings in Hackney, a giving
in of false names, a hasty locking of doors, and then—
the reaction. Eliza, whose excitement had exhausted
itself on the way, became quiet and even ready for
sleep. Mary, now that immediate necessity for calm-
ness and courage was over, grew nervous and restless.
With strained ears she listened to every sound. Her
heart beat time to the passing carriages, and she
trembled at the lightest knock.
That night, in a wild, nervous letter to Everina, she
Wrote :-
I hope B, will not discover us, for I would sooner face a lion; yet
the door never opens but I expect to see him, panting for breath.
Ask Ned how we are to behave if he should find us out, for Bess is
determined not to return. Can he force her? but I’ll not suppose
it, yet I can think of nothing else. She is sleepy, and going to bed;
my agitated mind will not permit me. Don't tell Charles or any crea-
ture Oh! let me entreat you to be careful, for Bess does not dread
him now as much as I do. Again, let me request you to write, as B.'s
behaviour may silence my fears.
The Rubicon was crossed. But the hardships thereby
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 31
incurred were but just beginning. The two sisters
were obliged to keep in hiding as if they had been
criminals, for they dared not risk a chance meeting
with Bishop. They had barely money enough to pay
their immediate expenses, and their means of making
more were limited by the precautions they had to take.
It had only been possible in their flight to carry off a
few things, and they were without sufficient clothing.
Then there came from their friends an outcry against
their conduct. The general belief then was, as indeed
it unfortunately continues to be, that women should
accept without a murmur whatever it suits their
husbands to give them, whether it be kindness or
blows. Better a thousand times that one human soul
should be stifled and killed than that the Philistines of
society should be scandalized by its struggles for air
and life. Eliza's happiness might have been totally
sacrificed had she remained with Bishop; but at least
the feelings of her acquaintances, in whom respectability |
had destroyed the more humane qualities, would have
been saved. Her scheme, Mary wrote bitterly tol
Everina, was contrary to all the rules of conduct that
are published for the benefit of new married ladies.
Many felt forced to forfeit the friendship of these two
social rebels, though it grieved them to the heart to do
it. Mrs. Clare, be it said to her honour, remained
staunch, but even she only approved cautiously, and
Mary had her misgivings that she would advise a
reconciliation if she once saw Bishop. To add to the
hopelessness of their case, the deserted husband re-
strained his rage so well, and made so much of Eliza's
heartlessness in abandoning her child, that he drew to
himself the sympathy which should have been given to
32 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
her. Mary feared the effect his pleadings and repre-
sentations would have upon Edward, the extent of
whose egotism she had not yet measured, and she com-
missioned Everina to keep him firm. As for Eliza,
she was so shaken and weak, and so unhappy about
the poor motherless infant, that she could neither think
nor act. The duty of providing for their wants, imme-
diate and still to come, fell entirely upon Mary. She
felt this to be just, since it was chiefly through her
influence that they had been brought to their present
plight; but the responsibility was great, and it is no
wonder that, brave as she was, she longed for someone
to share it with her.
Her one source of consolation and strength at this
time was her religion. This will seem strange to
many, who, knowing but few facts of her life, conclude
from her connection with Godwin and her social
radicalism that she was an atheist. But the sincerest
spirit of piety breathes through her letters written
during her early troubles. These passages, evangelical
in tone, occur in private letters, meant to be read only
by those to whom they were addressed, so that they
must be counted as honest expressions of her convic-
tions, and not mere cant. Just as she wrote freely to
her sisters and her intimate friends about her temporal
matters, so without hesitation she talked to them of
her spiritual affairs. Her belief became broader as she
grew older. She never was an atheist like Godwin, or
an unbeliever of the Voltaire school. But as the years
went on, and her knowledge of the world increased,
her religion concerned itself more with conduct and
less with creed, until she finally gave up going to
church altogether. But at the time of which we are
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 33
writing she was regular in her attendance, and, though
not strictly orthodox, clung to certain forms.
There seem to have been several schemes for work
afoot just then. One was that the two sisters and
Fanny Blood, who, some time before, had expressed
herself willing and anxious to leave home, should join
their fortunes. Fanny could paint and draw. Mary
and Eliza could take in needlework until more pleasant
and profitable employment could be procured. Poverty
and toil would be more than compensated for by the
joy which freedom and congenial companionship would
give them. There was nothing very Utopian in such a
plan; but Fanny, when the time came for its accom-
plishment, grew frightened. Her hard apprenticeship
had given her none of the self-confidence and reliance
which belonged to Mary by right of birth. Her family,
despite their dependence upon her, seemed like a pro-
tection against the outer world. And so she held
back, pleading the small chances of success by such a
partnership, her own poor health, which would make
her a burden to them, and, in fact, so many good
reasons that the plan was abandoned. She, then, with
greater aptitude for suggestion than for action, pro-
posed that Mary and Eliza should keep a haberdashery
shop, to be stocked at the expense of the much-called-
upon but sadly unsusceptible Edward. Fortunately,
Fanny’s project was never carried out, Probably
Edward, as usual, failed to meet the proposals made to
him, and Mary realized that the chains by which she
would thus bind herself would be unendurable.
The plan finally adopted was that dearest to Mary's
heart. She began her career as teacher. She and
Eliza went to Islington, where Fanny was then living,
3
34. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
and lodged in the same house with her. Then they
announced their intention of receiving day pupils.
Mary was eminently fitted to teach. Her sad expe-
rience had increased her natural sympathy and benevo-
lence. She now made her own troubles subservient to
those of her fellow-sufferers, and resolved that the
welfare of others should be the principal object of her
life. Before the word had passed into moral philosophy,
she had become an altruist in its truest sense. The
task of teacher particularly attracted her because it
enabled her to prepare the young for the struggle with
the world for which she had been so ill qualified.
Because so little attention had been given to her in her
early youth, she keenly appreciated the advantage of a
good practical education. But her merits were not
recognized in Islington. Like the man in the parable,
she set out a banquet of which the bidden guests
refused to partake. No scholars were sent to her.
Therefore, at the end of a few months, she was glad to
move to Newington Green, where better prospects
seemed to await her. There she had relatives and in-
fluential friends, and the encouragement she received
from them induced her to begin work on a large scale.
She rented a house, and opened a regular school. Her
efforts met with success. Twenty children became her
pupils, while a Mrs. Campbell, a relative, and her son,
and another lady, with three children, came to board
with her. Mary was now more comfortable than she
had heretofore been. She was, comparatively speaking,
prosperous. She had much work to do, but by it she
was supporting herself, and at the same time advancing
towards her “clear-purposed goal” of self-renunciation.
Then she had cause for pleasure in the fact that Eliza
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 35
was now really free, Bishop having finally agreed to
the separation. Mary Wollstonecraft, at the head of a
house, and mistress of a school, was a very different
person from Mary Wollstonecraft, simple companion
to Mrs. Dawson or dependent friend of Fanny Blood.
Her position was one to attract attention, and it was
sufficient for her to be known, to be loved and admired.
Her social sphere was enlarged. No one could care
more for society than she did, when that society was
congenial. At Newington Green she already began to
show the preference for men and women of intellectual
tastes and abilities -- at she manifested so strongly in
her life in London. Foremost among her intimate
acquaintances at this time was Dr. Richard Price, a
clergyman, a Dissenter, then well known because of
his political and mathematical speculations. He was
an honest, upright, simple-hearted man, who com-
manded the respect and love of all who knew him, and
whose benevolence was great enough to realize even
Mary’s ideals. She became deeply attached to him
personally, and was a warm admirer of his religious
and moral principles. His sermons gave her great
delight, and she often went to listen to them. He in
return seems to have felt great interest in her, and to
have recognized her extraordinary mental force. Mr.
John Hewlet, also a clergyman, was another of her
friends, and she retained his friendship for many years
afterwards. A third friend, mentioned by Godwin in
his Memoirs, was Mrs. Burgh, widow of a man now
almost forgotten, but once famous as the author of
Political Disquisitions. In sorrows soon to come, Mrs.
Burgh gave practical proof of her affection. If a
man can be judged by the character of his associates,
3 *
36 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
then the age, professions, and serious connections of
Mary's friends at Newington Green are not a little
significant.
Much as she cared for these older friends, however,
they could not be so dear to her as Fanny and George
Blood. She had begun by pitying the latter for his
hopeless passion for Everina, and had finished by loving
him for himself with true sisterly devotion. To brother
and sister both, she could open her heart as she could
to no one else. They were young with her, and that
in itself is a strong bond of union. They, too, were
but just beginning life, and they could sympathise
with all her aspirations and disappointments. It was,
therefore, an irreparable loss to her when they, at
almost the same time, but for different reasons, left
England. Fanny's health had finally become so
wretched that even her uncertain lover was moved to
pity. Mr. Skeys seems to have been one of the men
who only appreciate that which they think they cannot
have. Not until the ill-health of the woman he loved
warned him of the possibility of his losing her altoge-
ther did he make definite proposals to her. Her love
for him had not been shaken by his unkindness, and
in February, 1785, she married him, and went with
him to Lisbon, where he was established in business.
A few years earlier he might, by making her his wife,
have secured her a long life’s happiness. Now, as it
turned out, he succeeded but in making her path
smooth for a few short months. Mary's love for
Fanny made her much more sensitive to Mr. Skeys'
shortcomings as a lover than Fanny had been. Shortly
after the marriage she wrote indignantly to George :—
. Skeys has received congratulatory letters from most of his friends
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 37
and relations in Ireland, and he now regrets that he did not marry
Sooner. All his mighty fears had no foundation, so that if he had
had courage to brave the world's opinion, he might have spared
Fanny many griefs, the scars of which will never be obliterated.
Nay, more, if she had gone a year or two ago, her health might have
been perfectly restored, which I do not now think will ever be the
case. Before true passion, I am convinced, everything but a sense of
duty moves; true love is warmest when the object is absent. How
Hugh could let Fanny languish in England, while he was throwing
money away at Lisbon, is to me inexplicable, if he had a passion that
did not require the fuel of seeing the object. I much fear he loves
her not for the qualities that render her dear to my heart. Her ten-
derness and delicacy are not even dreamed of by a man who would be
Satisfied with the fondness of one of the general run of women.
George Blood's departure was due to less pleasant
circumstances than Fanny’s. One youthful escapade
which had come to light was sufficient to attach to his
name the blame for another, of which he was innocent.
Some of his associates had become seriously compro-
mised; and he, to avoid being implicated with them,
had literally taken flight, and had made Ireland his
place of refuge. -
Mary's friends left her just when she most needed
them. Unfortunately, the interval of peace inaugu-
rated by the opening of the school was but short-lived.
Encouraged by the first success of her enterprise, she
rented a larger house, hoping that in it she would do
even better. But this step proved the prelude to an
inexhaustible mine of difficulties. The expense in-
volved by the change was greater than she had ex-
pected, and her means of meeting it smaller; more
pupils were not forthcoming to avail themselves of the
new accommodations provided for them. Moreover,
her boarders neglected to pay their bills regularly.
Instead of being a source of profit, they were an ad-
38 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
ditional burden. Her life now became unspeakably
sad. Her whole day was spent in teaching. This in
itself would not have been hard. She always inte-
rested herself in her pupils, and the consciousness of
good done for others was her most highly prized
pleasure. Had the physical fatigue entailed by her
work been her only hardship, she would have borne it
patiently and perhaps gaily. But from morning till
might, waking and sleeping, she was haunted by
thoughts of unpaid bills and of increasing debts.
Poverty and creditors were the two unavoidable evils
which stared her in the face. Then, when she did
hear from Fanny, it was to know that the chances for
her recovery were diminishing rather than increasing.
Reports of George Blood's ill-conduct, repeated for her
benefit, hurt and irritated her. On one occasion, her
house was visited by men sent thither in his pursuit
by the girl who had vilely slandered him. Mrs. Camp-
bell, with the meanness of a small nature, reproached
Mary for the encouragement which she had given his
vices. She loved him so truly that this must have
been gall and wormwood to her sensitive heart. Mr.
and Mrs. Blood continued poor and miserable, he
drinking and idling, and she faring as it must ever
fare with the wives of such men. Mary saw nothing
before her but a dreary pilgrimage through the wide
Valley of the Shadow of Death, from which there
seemed no escape to the Mount Zion beyond. If she
dragged herself out of the deep pit of mental despon-
dency, it was to fall into a still deeper one of physical
prostration. The bleedings and blisters ordered by
her physician could help her but little. What she
needed to make her well was new pupils and honest
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 39
boarders, and these the most expert physician could
not give her. Is it any wonder that she came in time
to hate Newington Green—“ the grave of all my
comforts,” she called it—to lose relish for life, and to
feel cheered only by the prospect of death She had
nothing to reproach herself with. In sorrow and sick-
ness alike she had toiled to the best of her abilities.
That which her hand had found to do, she had done
with all her might. The result of her labours and
long-sufferance had hitherto been but misfortune and
failure. Though her difficulties accumulated with
alarming rapidity, there was no relaxation in her at-
tentions to Mr. and Mrs. Blood, in her care for her
sister, nor in the sympathy she gave to George Blood.
Perhaps the greatest joy that came to her during
this year was the news that Mr. Skeys had found a
position for his brother-in-law in Lisbon. But this
pleasure was more than counterbalanced by the dis-
couraging bulletins of Fanny’s health. Mr. Skeys
was alarmed at his wife’s increasing weakness, and was
anxious to gratify her every desire. Fanny expressed
a wish to have Mary with her during her confinement.
The latter, with characteristic unselfishness, consented,
when Mr. Skeys asked her to go to Lisbon, though in
so doing she was obliged to leave school and house.
This shows the sincerity of her opinion that before true
passion everything but duty moves. To her, Fanny’s
need seemed greater than her own; and she thought
to fulfil her duty towards her sister, and to provide for
her welfare by giving her charge of her scholars and
boarders while she was away from them. Mary’s deci-
sion was vigorously questioned by her friends. Indeed,
there were many reasons against it. It was feared her
40 MARY WOLL STONECRAFT GOD WIN.
absence from the school for a necessarily long period
would be injurious to it, and this eventually proved to
be the case. The journey was a long one for a woman
to make alone. And last, but not least, she had not
the ready money to pay her expenscs. But, despite all
her friends could say, she could not be moved from
her original resolution. When they saw their argu-
ments were useless, they manifested, their friendship
in a more practical manner. Mrs. Burgh lent her the
necessary sum of money for the journey. Godwin,
however, thinks that in doing this she was acting in
behalf of Dr. Price, who modestly preferred to con-
ceal his share in the transaction. All impediments
having thus been removed, Mary, in the autumn of
1785, started upon the saddest, up to this date, of her
many missions of charity.
The reunion of the friends was a joyless pleasure.
When Mary arrived in Lisbon, she found Fanny in the
last stages of her illness, and before she had time to
rest from her journey she began her work as sick-
nurse. Four hours after her arrival Fanny’s child was
born. It had been sad enough for Mary to watch her
mother's last moments and Eliza's insanity; but this
new duty was still more painful. She loved Fanny
Blood with a passion whose depth is beyond the com-
prehension of ordinary mortals. Her affection for her
was the one romance of her youth, and she lavished
upon it all the sweetness and tenderness, the enthu-
siasm and devotion of her nature, which make her
seem to us lovable above all women. And now this
friend, the best gift life had so far given her, was to be
taken from her. She saw Fanny grow weaker and
weaker day by day, and knew that she was powerless
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 41
to avert the coming calamity. Yet whatever could be
done, she did. There never has been, and there never
can be, a more faithful, gentle nurse. The following
letter gives a graphic description of her journey, of the
sad welcome which awaited her at its termination, and
the still sadder duties she fulfilled in Lisbon :---
Lisbon, Nov. or Dec. 1785.
MY DEAR GIRLs, I am beginning to awake out of a terrifying
dream, for in that light do the transactions of these two or three last
days appear. Before I say more, let me tell you that, when I arrived
here, Fanny was in labour, and that four hours after she was
delivered of a boy. The child is alive and well, and considering the
very, very low state to which Fanny was reduced she is better than
could be expected. I am now watching her and the child. My active
spirits have not been much at rest over since I left England. I could
not write to you on shipboard, the sea was so rough; and we had such
hard gales of wind, the captain was afraid we should be dismasted. I
cannot write to-night or collect my scattered thoughts, my mind is so
unsettled. Fanny is so worn out, her recovery would be almost a
resurrection, and my reason will scarce allow me to think it possible.
I labour to be resigned, and by the time I am a little so, some faint
hope sets my thoughts again afloat, and for a moment I look forward
to days that will, alas ! never come.
I will try to-morrow to give you some little regular account of my
journey, though I am almost afraid to look beyond the present
moment. Was not my arrival providential 2 I can scarce be per-
suaded that I am here, and that so many things have happened in so
short a time. My head grows light with thinking on it.
Friday morning.—Fanny has been so alarmingly ill since I wrote the
above, I entirely gave her up, and yet I could not write and tell you
so: it seemed like signing her death-warrant. Yesterday afternoon
some of the most alarming symptoms a little abated, and she had a
comfortable night; yet I rejoice with trembling lips, and am afraid to
indulge hopes. She is very low. The stomach is so weak it will
scarce bear to receive the slightest nourishment; in short, if I were to
tell you all her complaints you would not wonder at my fears. The
child, though a puny one, is well. I have got a wet-nurse for it. The
packet does not sail till the latter end of next week, and I send this
by a ship. I shall write by every opportunity. We arrived last
Monday. We were only thirteen days at sea. The wind was so high
42 MARY WOI, LSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
and the sea so boisterous the water came in at the cabin windows;
and the ship rolled about in such a manner, it was dangerous to stir.
The women were sea-sick the whole time, and the poor invalid so
oppressed by his complaints, I never expected he would live to see
Lisbon. I have supported him for hours together gasping for breath,
and at night, if I had been inclined for sleep, his dreadful cough
would have kept me awake. You may suppose that I have not rested
much since I came here, yet I am tolerably well, and calmer than I
could expect to be. Could I not look for comfort where only ’tis to
be found, I should have been mad before this, but I feel that I am
supported by that Being who alone can heal a wounded spirit. May
He bless you both.
Yours,
MARY,
Her state of uncertainty about poor Fanny did not
last long. Shortly after the above letter was written,
Mrs. Skeys died. Just as life was beginning to smile
upon her, she was called from it. She had worked so
long that when happiness at length came, she had no
strength left to bear it
Godwin, in his Memoirs, says that Mary's trip to
Portugal probably enlarged her underständing. “She
was admitted,” he writes, “to the very best company
the English colony afforded. She made many pro-
found observations on the character of the natives and
the baleful effects of superstition.” But it seems doubt-
ful whether she really saw many people in Lisbon, or
gave great heed to what was going on around her.
Arrived there just in time to see her friend die, she
remained but a short time after all was over. There
was no inducement for her to make a longer stay.
Her feelings for Mr. Skeys were not friendly. She
could not forget that had he but treated Fanny as she,
for example, would have done had she been in his
place, this early death might have been prevented.
Her school, intrusted to Mrs. Bishop’s care, was a
FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 43
strong reason for her speedy return to England. The
cause which had called her from it being gone, she was
anxious to return to her post.
An incident highly characteristic of her is told of the
journey home. She had nursed a poor sick man on
the way to Portugal; on the way back she was instru-
mental in saving the lives of many men. The ship in
which she sailed met at mid-sea a French vessel so
dismantled and storm-beaten that it was in imminent
risk of sinking, and its stock of provisions was almost
exhausted. Its officers hailed the English ship, beg-
ging its captain to take them and its entire crew on
board. The latter hesitated. This was no trifling
request. He had his own crew and passengers to con-
sider, and he feared to lay such a heavy tax on the
provisions provided for a certain number only. This
was a case which aroused Mary's tenderest sympathy.
It was impossible for her to witness it unmoved. She
could not without a protest allow her fellow-creatures
to be so cruelly deserted. Like another Portia come to
judgment, she clinched the difficulty by representing
to the captain that if he did not yield to their entreaties
she would expose his inhumanity upon her return to
England. Her arguments prevailed. The sufferers
were saved, and the intercessor in their behalf added
one more to the long list of her good deeds.
44. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
CHAPTER III.
LIFE AS GOVERNESS.
1786–1788.
THERE was little pleasure for Mary in her home-
coming. The school, whose difficulties had begun
before her departure, had prospered still less under
Mrs. Bishop's care. Many of the pupils had been
taken away. Eliza, her quick temper and excitability
aggravated at that time by her late misfortunes, was
not a fitting person to have the control of children.
She had thoughtlessly quarrelled with their most profit-
able boarder, the mother of the three boys, who had in
consequence given up her rooms. As yet no one else
had been found to occupy them. The rent of the house
was so high that these losses left the sisters without the
means to pay it. They were therefore in debt, and
that deeply, for people with no immediate, or even
remote, prospects of an addition to their income. Then
the Bloods during Mary’s absence had fallen further
into the Slough of Despond, out of which, now their
daughter was dead, there was no one to help them.
George could not aid them, because, though they did
LIFE AS GOVERNESS. 45
not know it, he was just then without employment.
Unable to live amicably with his brother-in-law after
Fanny’s death, he had resigned his position in Lisbon
and gone to Ireland, where for a long while he could
find nothing to do. Mr. Skeys simply refused to
satisfy the never-ceasing wants of his wife's parents.
He cannot be severely censured when their shiftless-
ness is borne in mind. He probably had already
received many appeals from them. But Mary could
not accept their troubles so passively.
To add to her distress, she was weakened by the
painful task she had just completed. She was low-
spirited and broken-hearted, and really ill. Her eyes
gave out ; and no greater inconvenience could have
just then befallen her. Her mental activity was
temporarily paralyzed, and yet she knew that prompt
measures were necessary to avert the evils crowding
upon her.
There was no chance of relief from her own family.
Her father had married again, but his second marriage
had not improved him. He had descended to the
lowest stage of drunkenness and insignificance. His
home was in Laugharne, Wales, where he barely
managed to exist. James, the second son, had gone to
sea in search of better fortune. Charles, the youngest,
was not old enough to seek his, and hence had to
endure as best he could the wretchedness of the
Wollstonecraft household. Instead of Mary’s receiving
help from this quarter, she was called upon to give it.
Kinder to her father than he had ever been to her, she
never ignored his difficulties. When she had money,
she shared it with him. When she had none, she did
all she could to force Edward, the one prosperous
46 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
member of the family, to send his father the pecuniary
assistance which, it seems, he had promised.
In whatever direction she looked, she saw misery
and unhappiness. The present was unendurable, the
future hopeless. For a brief interval she was almost
crushed by her circumstances. To George Blood, now
even dearer to her than he had been before, she laid
bare the weariness of her heart. Shortly after her
return she wrote him this letter, pathetic in its
despair:- -
Newington Green, Feb. 4, 1786.
I write to you, my dear George, lest my silence should make you
uneasy; yet what have I to say that will not have the same effect?
Things do not go well with me, and my spirits seem for ever flown.
I was a month on my passage, and the weather was so tempestuous
we were several times in imminent danger. I did not expect ever to
have reached land. If it had pleased Heaven to have called me
hence, what a world of care I should have missed I have lost all
relish for pleasure, and life seems a burden almost too heavy to be
endured. My head is stupid, and my heart sick and exhausted. But
why should I worry you? and yet, if I do not tell you my vexations,
what can I write about 2
Your father and mother are tolerably well, and inquire most affec-
tionately concerning you. They do not suspect that you have left
Lisbon, and I do not intend informing them of it till you are provided
for. I am very unhappy on their account, for though I am deter-
mined they shall share my last shilling, yet I have every reason to
apprehend extreme distress, and of course they must be involved in
it. The school dwindles to nothing, and we shall soon lose our last
boarder, Mrs. Disney. She and the girls quarrelled while I was
away, which contributed to make the house very disagreeable. Her
sons are to be whole boarders at Mrs. Cockburn's. Let me turn my
eyes on which side I will, I can only anticipate misery. Are such
prospects as these likely to heal an almost broken heart 2 The loss
of Fanny was sufficient of itself to have thrown a cloud over my
brightest days; what effects then, must it have when I am bereft of
every other comfort? I have, too, many debts. I cannot think of
remaining any longer in this house, the rent is so enormous; and
where to go, without money or friends, who can point out 2 My eyes
LIFE AS GOTVERNESS. 47
are very bad and my memory gone. I am not fit for any situation;
and as for Eliza, I don't know what will become of her. My con-
stitution is impaired. I hope I shan’t live long, yet I may be a tedious
time dying. . . .
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
“There is but one true cure for suffering, and that,”
says Dr. Maudsley, “is action.” . The first thing
Mary did in her misery was to undertake new work,
this time a literary venture, not for herself, but for the
benefit of Mr. and Mrs. Blood. Their son-in-law
having refused to contribute from his plenty, their
daughter's friend came forward and gave her labour.
At the instigation of Mr. Hewlet, one of her friends
already mentioned, she wrote a small pamphlet called
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. This gentle-
man rated her powers so high that he felt sure of her .
success as a writer. As he was well acquainted with
Mr. Johnson, a prominent bookseller in Fleet Street,
he could promise that her manuscript would be dealt
with fairly. Her choice of subject was, in one way,
fortunate. Being a teacher she could speak on educa-
tional matters with authority. But this first work is
not striking or remarkable. Indeed, it is chiefly worth
notice because it was the means of introducing her to
Mr. Johnson, who was a true friend to her through
her darkest, as well as through her brightest days,
and whose influence was strong in shaping her career.
He paid her ten guineas for her pamphlet, and these
she at once gave to Mr. and Mrs. Blood, who were
thereby enabled to leave England and go to Dublin.
There, they thought, because they and their disgrace
were not yet known, the chances of their starting in
life afresh were greater.
48 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
It was now time for Mary to turn her attention to
her own affairs. It was absolutely necessary to give up
the school. Her presence could not recall the pupils
who had left it, and her debts were pressing. The
success of the sisters had been too slight to tempt them
to establish a similar institution in another town. They
determined to separate, and each to earn her livelihood
alone. Mary was not loath to do this. Because of
her superior administrative ability, too large a share of
the work in the school had devolved upon her, while
her sisters' society was a hindrance rather than a
comfort. She was ready to sacrifice herself for others,
but she had enough common sense to realize that too
great unselfishness in details would in the end destroy
her power of aiding in larger matters. She could do
more for Eliza and Everina away from them, than if
she continued to live with them. w
What she desired most earnestly was to devote all
her time to literary work. Mr. Hewlet had repre-
sented to her that she would be certain to make an
ample support by writing. Mr. Johnson had received
her pamphlet favourably, and had asked for further
contributions. But her present want was urgent, and
she could not wait on a probability. She had abso-
lutely no money to live upon while she made a second
experiment. She had learned thoroughly the lesson of
patience and of self-restraint, and she resolved for the
present to continue to teach. By doing this, she could
still find a few spare hours for literary purposes, while
she could gradually save enough money to warrant her
beginning the life for which she longed. One plan,
abandoned, however, before she attempted to put it
into execution, she describes in the following letter to
LIFE AS GOVERNESS, 49
George Blood. The tone in which she writes is much
less hopeless than that of the letter last quoted from.
Already the remedy of activity was beginning to have
its effect :——
Newington Green, May 22, 1787.
By this time, my dear George, I hope your father and mother have
reached Dublin. I long to hear of their safe arrival. A few days
after they set sail, I received a letter from Skeys. He laments his
inability to assist them, and dwells on his own embarrassments.
How glad I am they are gone! My affairs are hastening to a crisis.
. . . Some of my creditors cannot afford to wait for their money; as
to leaving England in debt, I am determined not to do it. . . . Everina
• and Eliza are both endeavouring to go out into the world, the one as
a companion, and the other as a teacher, and I believe I shall continue
some time on the Green. I intend taking a little cheap lodging, and
living without a servant; and the few scholars I have will maintain
me. I have done with all worldly pursuits and wishes; I only desire
to submit without being dependent on the caprice of our fellow-
creatures. I shall have many solitary hours, but I have not much
to hope for in life, and so it would be absurd to give way to fear
Besides, I try to look on the best side, and not to despond. While
I am trying to do my duty in that station in which Providence has
placed me, I shall enjoy some tranquil moments, and the pleasures
I have the greatest relish for are not entirely out of my reach. . . .
I have been trying to muster up my fortitude, and labouring for
patience to bear my many trials. Surely, when I could determine
to survive Fanny, I can endure poverty and all the lesser ills of life.
I dreaded, oh l how I dreaded this time, and now it is arrived I am
calmer than I expected to be. I have been very unwell; my con-
stitution is much impaired ; the prison walls are decaying, and the
prisoner will ere long get free. . . . Remember that I am your truly
affectionate friend and sister,
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
Perhaps the uncertainty of keeping her pupils, or the
double work necessitated by this project, discouraged
her. At all events, it was relinquished when other
and seemingly better proposals were made to her.
Some of her friends at Newington Green recommended
her to the notice of Mr. Prior, then Assistant Master
4.
50 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
at Eton, and his wife. Through them she was offered
the situation of governess to the children of Lord
Kingsborough, an Irish nobleman. If she accepted
it, she would be spared the anxiety which a school
of her own had heretofore brought her. The salary
would be forty pounds a year, out of which she cal-
culated she could pay her debts and then assist Mrs.
Bishop. But she would lose her independence, and
would expose herself to the indifference or contempt
then the portion of governesses. “I should be shut
out from society,” she explained to George Blood,
“and be debarred the pleasures of imperfect friend-
ship, as I should on every side be surrounded by
unequals. To live only on terms of civility and com-
mon benevolence, without any interchange of little
acts of kindness and tenderness, would be to me ex-
tremely irksome.” The prospect, it must be admitted,
was not pleasant. But still the advantages outweighed
the drawbacks, and Mary agreed to Lady Kingsborough's
terms.
Mr. and Mrs. Prior intended taking a trip to Ireland,
and they suggested that she should accompany them.
Travelling was not easy in those days, and she decided
to wait and go with them. But, for some reason, they
did not start as soon as they had expected. She had
already joined them in their home at Eton, in which
place their delay detained her for some time. This
gave her an opportunity to study the school and the
principles upon which it was conducted. The entire
system met with her disapprobation, and afterwards, in
her Rights of Women, she freely and strongly expressed
her unfavourable opinion. Judging from what she
there saw, she concluded that schools regulated accord-
LIFE AS GOVERNESS. 51
ing to such rules were but hot-beds of vice. Nothing
disgusted her so much in this institution as the false
basis upon which religion was established. The slavery
to forms, demanded of the boys, seemed to her to
at once undermine their moral uprightness. What,
indeed, could be expected of a boy who would take
the sacrament for no other reason than to avoid the
fine of half-a-guinea imposed upon those who would
not conform to this ceremony ? Her visit did much
towards developing and formulating her ideas on the
subject of education.
Finally the time came for her departure. In Oc-
tober, 1787, she set out with Mr. and Mrs. Prior for
Ireland, and towards the end of the month arrived at
the castle of Lord Kingsborough in Mitchelstown.
Her first impressions were gloomy. But, indeed, her
depression and weakness were so great, that she looked
at all things, as if “through a glass, darkly.” Her
sorrows were still too fresh to be forgotten in idle
curiosity about the inhabitants and customs of her new
home. Even if she had been in the best of spirits,
her arrival at the castle would have been a trying
moment. It is never easy for one woman to face
alone several of her sex, who, she knows, are waiting
to criticise her. There were then staying with Lady
Kingsborough her step-mother and her three un-
married step-sisters and several guests. Governesses
in this household had fared much as companions in
Mrs. Dawson's. They had come and gone in rapid
succession. Therefore Mary was examined by these
ladies much as a new horse is inspected by a racer, or
a new dog by a sportsman. She passed through the
ordeal successfully, but it left her courage at low ebb.
|
4 *
52 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
Her first report to her sister is not cheerful:—
The Castle, Mitchelstown, Oct. 30, 1787.
Well, my dear girl, I am at length arrived at my journey's end.
I sigh when I say so, but it matters not, I must labour for content,
and try to reconcile myself to a state which is contrary to every
feeling of my soul. I can scarcely persuade myself that I am
awake; my whole life appears like a frightful vision, and equally
disjointed. I have been so very low-spirited for some days past, I
could not write. All the moments I could spend in solitude were
lost in sorrow and unavailing tears. There was such a solemn kind
of stupidity about this place as froze my very blood. I entered
the great gates with the same kind of feeling as I should have if I
was going into the Bastille. You can make allowance for the feelings
which the General would term ridiculous or artificial. I found I was
to encounter a host of females—My Lady, her step-mother and three
sisters, and Mrses. and Misses without number, who, of course, would
examine me with the most minute attention. I cannot attempt to
give you a description of the family, I am so low; I will only mention
some of the things which particularly worry me. I am sure much
more is expected from me than I am equal to. With respect to
French, I am certain Mr. P. has misled them, and I expect in con-
sequence of it to be very much mortified. Lady K. is a shrewd,
clever woman, a great talker. I have not seen much of her, as she
is confined to her room by a sore throat; but I have seen half-a-
dozen of her companions. I mean not her children, but her dogs:
To see a woman, without any softness in her manners, caressing
animals, and using infantine expressions, is, you may conceive, very
absurd and ludicrous, but a fine lady is a new species to me of
animal. I am, however, treated like a gentlewoman by overy part
of the family, but the forms and parade of high life suit not my
mind. . . . I hear a fiddle below, the servants are dancing, and the
rest of the family are diverting themselves. I only am melancholy
and alone. To tell the truth, I hope part of my misery arises from
disordered nerves, for I would fain believe my mind is not so very
weak. The children are, literally speaking, wild Irish, unformed and
not very pleasing; but you shall have a full and true account, my
dear girl, in a few days.
I am your affectionate sister and sincere friend,
MARY WollSTONECRAFT,
It was at least fortunate that she escaped, with Lady
Kingsborough, the indignities which she had feared
LIFE AS GOTVERNESS. 53
she, as governess, would receive. Instead of being
placed on a level with the servants, as was often the
fate of gentlewomen in her position, she was treated as
one of the family, but she had little else to be thankful
for. There was absolutely no congeniality between
herself and her employers. She had no tastes or
views in common with them. Lady Kingsborough
was a thorough woman of the world. She was clever
but cold, and her natural coldness had been increased
by the restraints and exactions of her social rank. If
she rouged to preserve her good looks, and talked to
cxhibit her cleverness, she was fulfilling all the re-
quirements of her station in life. Her character and
conduct were in every way opposed to Mary's ideals.
The latter, who was instinctively honest, and who never
stooped to curry favour with anyone, must have found
it difficult to treat Lady Kingsborough with a deference
she did not feel, but which her subordinate position
obliged her to show. The struggle between impulse
and duty thus caused was doubtless one of the chief
factors in making her experiences in Ireland so painful.
How great this struggle was can be best estimated
when it is known what she thought of the mother of
her pupils. She was never thrown into such intimate
relations with any other woman of fashion, and there-
fore it is not illogical to believe that many passages in
the Rights of Women, relating to women of this class,
are descriptions of Lady Kingsborough. The allusion
to pet dogs in the following seems to establish the
identity beyond dispute:–
. . . She who takes her dogs to bed, and nurses them with a
parade of sensibility when sick, will suffer her babes to grow up
crooked in a nursery. This illustration of my argument is drawn
54. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
from a matter of fact. The woman whom I allude to was handsome,
reckoned very handsome by those who do not miss the mind when the
face is plump and fair; but her understanding had not been led from
female duties by literature, nor her innocence debauched by know-
ledge. No, she was quite feminine according to the masculine ac-
ceptation of the word; and so far from loving these spoiled brutes
that filled the place which her children ought to have occupied, she
only lisped out a pretty mixture of French and English nonsense,
to please the men who flocked round her. The wife, mother, and
human creature were all swallowed up by the factitious character
which an improper education and the selfish vanity of beauty had
produced.
I do not like to make a distinction without a difference, and I
own that I have been as much disgusted by the fine lady who took
her lap-dog to her bosom, instead of her child, as by the ferocity of a
man, who, beating his horse, declared that he knew as well when he
did wrong as a Christian.
If Lady Kingsborough was a representative lady of
fashion, her husband was quite as much the typical
country lord. Tom Jones was still the ideal hero of
fiction, and Squire Westerns had not disappeared from
real life. Lord Kingsborough was good-natured and
kind, but, like the rest of the species, coarse. “His
countenance does not promise more than good humour
and a little fun, not refined,” Mary told Mrs. Bishop
The three step-sisters were too preoccupied with ma-
trimonial calculations to manifest their character, if
indeed they had any. Clearly, in such a household
Mary Wollstonecraft was as a child of Israel among
the Philistines.
The society of the children, though they were “wild
Irish,” was more to her taste than that of the grown-up
members of the family. Three were given into her
charge. At first she thought them not very pleasing,
but after a better acquaintance she grew fond of them.
The eldest, Margaret, afterwards Lady Mountcashel,
LIFE AS GOVERNESS. 55
was then fourteen years of age. She was very talented,
and a “sweet girl,” as Mary called her in a letter to
Mrs. Bishop. She became deeply attached to her new
governess, not with the passing fancy of a child, but
with a lasting devotion. The other children also
learned to love her, but being younger there was less
friendship in their affection. They were afraid of their
mother, who lavished her caresses upon her dogs, until
she had none left for them. Therefore, when Mary
treated them affectionately and sympathised with their
interests and pleasures, they naturally turned to her
and gave her the love which no one else seemed to
want. That this was the case was entirely Lady
Kingsborough's fault, but she resented it bitterly, and
it was later a cause of serious complaint against the
too competent governess. The affection of her pupils,
which was her principal pleasure during her residence
in Ireland, thus became in the end a misfortune.
A more prolific source of trouble to her was,
strangely enough, her interest in them. Lady Kings-
borough had very positive ideas upon the subject of her
children’s education, and by insisting upon adherence
to them she made Mary's task doubly hard. Had she
not been interfered with, her position would not have
been so unpleasant. She could put her whole soul into
her work, whatever it might be, and find in its success
one of her chief joys. She wished to do her utmost
for Margaret and her sisters, but this was impossible,
since she knew the system Lady Kingsborough exacted
to be vicious. The latter cared more for a show of
knowledge than for knowledge itself, and laid the
greatest stress upon the acquirement of accomplish-
ments. This was not in accord with Mary’s theories,
56 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
who prized reality and not appearances. A less con-
scientious woman might have contented herself with
the thought that she was carrying out the wishes of
her employer. But Mary could not quiet her scruples
in this way. She was tormented by the sense of duty
but half fulfilled. She realized, by her own sad experi-
ence, how much depends upon the training received
in childhood, and yet she was powerless to bring up
her pupils in the way she knew to be best. She had,
besides, constantly before her in Lady Kingsborough
and her sisters a but too melancholy example of the
result of the methods she was asked to adopt. They
had been carefully taught many different languages and
much history, but had been as carefully instilled with
the idea that their studies were but means to social
success and to a brilliant marriage. The consequence
was that their education, despite its thoroughness, had
made them puppets, self-interest being the wire which
moved them. She did not want this to be the fate
of her pupils, but she could see no escape for them.
In addition to her honest anxiety for their future,
she must have been worried by the certainty that, if
she remained with them, she would be held responsible
for their character and conduct in after-life. Though
she had charge of them only for a year, this eventually
proved to be the case. Margaret’s reputation as Lady
Mountcashel was not wholly unsullied, and when it
was remembered that she had, at one time, been under
the influence of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the
Rights of Women, the fault was attributed to the
immoral and irreligious teaching of the latter. Never
was any woman so unjustly condemned. In the first
place, Mary was not her governess long enough to
LIFE AS GOVERNESS, 57
actually change her nature, or to influence her for life;
and, in the second place, she was not allowed to have
her own way with her pupils. Had she been free she
would have been more apt to encourage a spirit of
piety, and inculcate a fine moral sense. For she was
at that period in a deeply religious frame of mind,
while she did all she could to counteract what she con-
sidered the deteriorating tendencies of the children’s
home training. Her sorrow was deep that her pupils’
lives were such as to render sustained study and
and religious habits of mind alike difficult.
This caused her much unhappiness. Her anxiety
developed into positive illness. After she had been
with them some months, the strain seemed more than
she could bear, as she confessed to Mr. Johnson, to
whom she wrote from Dublin on the 4th of April –
I am still an invalid, and begin to believe that I ought never to
expect to enjoy health. My mind preys on my body, and, when I
endeavour to be useful, I grow too much interested for my own peace.
Confined almost entirely to the society of children, I am anxiously
solicitous for their future welfare, and mortified beyond measure when
counteracted in my endeavours to improve them. I feel all a mother's
fears for the swarm of little ones which surround me, and observe
disorders, without having power to apply the proper remedies. How
can I be reconciled to life, when it is always a painful warfare, and
when I am deprived of all the pleasures I relish 2 I allude to rational
conversations and domestic affections. Here, alone, a poor solitary
individual in a strange land, tied to one spot, and subject to the
caprice of another, can I be contented 2 I am desirous to convince
you that I have some cause for Sorrow, and am not without reason
detached from life. I shall hope to hear that you are well, and am
yours sincerely,
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
The family troubles followed Mary to Ireland. The
news which reached her from home was discouraging.
Edward Wollstonecraft at this period declared he
58 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
would do nothing more for his father. Prudent, and
with none of his sister's unselfishness, he grew tired of
the drain upon his purse. There was also difficulty
about some money which Mary and her sisters con-
sidered theirs by right, but which the eldest brother,
with shameless selfishness, refused to give up. What
the exact circumstances were is not certain ; but it
could have been no light tax upon Mary to contribute
the necessary amount for her father's support, and no
small disappointment to be deprived of money which
she thought to be legally hers. Money cares were to
her what the Old Man of the Sea was to Sindbad. They
were a burden from which she was never free. When
from forty pounds a year she had to take half to pay
her debts, and then give from the remainder to her
father, her share of her earnings was not large. And
yet she counted upon her savings to purchase her
future release from a life of dependence.
Though she wrote to Mr. Johnson that she was
almost entirely confined to the society of children, she
really did see much of the family, often taking part in
their amusements. Judging from the attractions and
conversational powers which made her a favourite in
London society, it is natural to conclude she was a
pleasant addition to the household. She seems at times
to have excrted herself to be agreeable. Godwin records
the extreme discomfiture of a fine lady of quality,
when, on one occasion, after having singled her out
and treated her with marked friendliness, she dis-
covered that she had been entertaining the children’s
governess 1 Mary cared nothing for these people, but
as they were civil to her, she returned their politeness
by showing them she was well worth being polite
1, IFE AS GOTVERNESS. 59
to. Low-spirited as she was, she mustered up sufficient
courage to discuss the husband-hunts of the young
ladies and even to notice the dogs. This was, indeed,
a concession. To Everina she sent a bulletin—not
untouched with humour—of her wonderful and praise-
worthy progress with the inmates of the castle :-
Mitchelstown, Nov. 17, 1787.
. . . Confined to the society of a set of silly females, I have no
Social converse, and their boisterous spirits and unmeaning laughter
exhaust me, not forgetting hourly domestic bickerings. The topics of
matrimony and dress take their turn, not in a very sentimental style,
—alas ! poor sentiment, it has no residence here. I almost wish the
girls were novel-readers and romantic. I declare false refinement is
better than none at all; but these girls understand several languages,
and have read cartloads of history, for their mother was a prudent
woman. Lady K.’s passion for animals fills up the hours which are
not spent in dressing. All her children have been ill,—very dis-
agreeable fevers. Her ladyship visited them in a formal way, though
their situation called forth my tenderness, and I endeavoured to
amuse them, while she lavished awkward fondness on her dogs. I
think now I hear her infantine lisp. She rouges, and, in short, is a
fine lady, without fancy or sensibility. I am almost tormented to
death by dogs. But you will perceive I am not under the iufluence
of my darling passion—pity; it is not always so. I make allowance
and adapt myself, talk of getting husbands for the ladies—and the
dogs, and am wonderfully entertaining; and then I retire to my room,
form figures in the fire, listen to the wind, or view the Gotties, a fine
range of mountains near us, and so does time waste away in apathy or
misery. . . . I am drinking asses’ milk, but do not find it of any
Service. I am very ill, and so low-spirited my tears flow in torrents
almost insensibly. I struggle with myself, but I hope my Heavenly
Father will not be extreme to mark my weakness, and that He will
have compassion upon a poor bruised reed, and pity a miserable
wretch, whose sorrows He only knows. . . . I almost wish my war-
fare was over.
The religious tone of this letter calls for special
notice, since it was written at the very time she was
supposed to be imparting irreligious principles to her
pupils.
60 MARY WOLLSTONECRAIFT GOD WIN.
Mary had none of the false sentiment of a Sterne,
and could not waste sympathy over brutes, when she
felt that there were human beings who needed it. Her
ladyship's dogs worried her because of the contrast
between the attention they received and the indiffer-
ence which fell to the lot of the children. Besides, the
then distressing condition of the labouring population
in Ireland made the luxuries and silly affectations of
the rich doubly noticeable. Mary saw for herself the
poverty of the peasantry. Margaret was allowed to
visit the poor, and she accompanied her on her
charitable rounds. The almost bestial squalor in which
these people lived was another cruel contrast to the
pampered existence led by the dogs at the Castle. She
had none of Strap's veneration for the epithet of
gentleman. Eliza owned to a “sneaking kindness for
people of quality.” But Mary cared only for a man’s
intrinsic merit. His rank could not cover his faults.
Therefore, with the misery and destitution of so many
men and women staring her in the face, the amuse-
ments and occupations of the few within Lady Kings-
borough's household continually grated upon her finer
instincts.
In the winter of 1788 the family went to Dublin,
and Mary accompanied them. She liked the society
of the capital no better than she had that of the
country. She, however, occasionally shared in its
frivolities, her relations to Lady Kingsborough obliging
her to do this. She was still young enough to possess
the capacity for enjoyment, though her many hard-
ships and sorrows had made her think this impossible,
and she was sometimes carried away by the gaiety
around her. But, a hater of shams, she was disgusted
LIFE AS GOVERNESS, 61
with herself once the passing excitement was over.
From Dublin she wrote to Everina giving her a
description of a masked ball to which she had gone,
and of which she had evidently been a conspicuous
feature :-
Dublin, March 14, 1788.
. . . I am very weak to-day, but I can account for it. The day
before yesterday there was a masquerade; in the course of con-
versation some time before, I happened to wish to go to it. Lady K.
offered me two tickets for myself and Miss Delane to accompany me.
I refused them on account of the expense of dressing properly. She
then, to obviate that objection, lent me a black domino. I was out of
spirits, and thought of another excuse; but she proposed to take me
and Betty Delane to the houses of several people of fashion who saw
masks. We went to a great number, and were a tolerable, nay, a
much-admired, group. Lady K. went in a domino with a smart
cockade ; Miss Moore dressed in the habit of one of the females of the
new discovered islands; Betty D. as a forsaken shepherdess ; and
your sister Mary in a black domino. As it was taken for granted the
stranger who had just arrived could not speak the language, I was to
be her interpreter, which afforded me an ample field for satire. I
happened to be very melancholy in the morning, as I am almost every
morning, but at night my fever gives me false spirits; this night the
lights, the novelty of the scene, and all things together contributed to
make me more than half mad. I gave full scope to a satirical vein,
and suppose. . .
Unfortunately, the rest of the letter is lost.
In the midst of her duties and dissipations she
managed to find some little time for more solid plea-
sures and more congenial work. In her letters she
speaks of nothing with so much enthusiasm as of
Rousseau, whose Emile she read while she was in
Dublin. She wrote to Everina on the 24th of March :
I believe I told you before that as a nation I do not admire the
Irish; and as to the great world and its frivolous ceremonies, I can-
not away with them ; they fatigue me. I thank Heaven I was not
so unfortunate as to be born a lady of quality. I am now reading
Rousseau's Euvile, and love his paradoxes. He chooses a common
62 MARY WOLLSTONECRAIFT GOD WIN.
capacity to educate, and gives as a reason that a genius will educate
itself. However, he rambles into that chimerical world in which I
have too often wandered, and draws the usual conclusion that all is
vanity and vexation of spirit. He was a strange, inconsistent, un-
happy, clever creature, yet he possessed an uncommon portion of
sensibility and penetration. . . .
Adieu, yours sincerely,
MARY.
It was also during this period that she wrote a novel
called Mary. It is a narrative of her acquaintance
and friendship with Fanny Blood—her In Memoriam
of the friend she so dearly loved. In writing it she
sought relief for the bitter sorrow with which her loss
had filled her heart.
The Irish gaieties lasted through the winter. In the
spring the family crossed over to England and went to
Bristol Hotwells and Bath. In all these places Mary
saw more of the gay world, but it was only to deepen
the disgust with which it inspired her. Those were the
days when men drank at dinner until they fell under
the table ; when young women thought of nothing but
beaux, and were exhibited by their fond mothers as so
much live-stock to be delivered to the highest bidder;
and when dowagers, whose flirting season was over,
spent all their time at the card-table. Nowhere were
the absurdities and emptiness of polite society so fully
exposed as at these fashionable resorts. Even the
frivolity of Dublin paled in comparison. Mary’s
health improved in England. The Irish climate seems
to have specially disagreed with her. But notwith-
standing the much-needed improvement in her physical
condition, and despite her occasional concessions to
her circumstances, her life became more unbearable
every day, while her sympathies and tastes grew
farther apart from those of her employers.
LIFE AS GOVERNESS, 63
But while even the little respect she felt for Lord
and Lady Kingsborough lessened, her love for the
children increased. This they returned with interest.
Once, when one of them had to go into the country
with her mother and without her governess, she cried
so bitterly that she made herself ill. The strength of
Margaret's affection can be partly measured by the
following passage from a letter written by Mary shortly
after their separation:—
I had, the other day, the satisfaction of again receiving a letter
from my poor dear Margaret. With all the mother's fondness, I
could transcribe a part of it. She says, every day her affection to
me, and dependence on heaven, increase, &c. I miss her innocent
caresses, and sometimes indulge a pleasing hope that she may be
allowed to cheer my childless age, if I am to live to be old. At
any rate, I may hear of the virtues I may not contemplate.
Lady Kingsborough made no effort to win her chil-
dren’s affection, but she was unwilling that they should
bestow it upon a stranger. She could not forgive the
governess who had taken her place in their hearts.
She and her eldest daughter had on this account
frequent quarrels. Mary’s position was therefore un-
tenable. Her surroundings were uncongenial, her
duties distasteful, and she was disapproved of by her
employer. Nothing was needed but a decent pretext
for the latter to dismiss her. This she before long
found when, Mary being temporarily separated from
her pupils, Margaret showed more regret than her
mother thought the occasion warranted. Lady Kings-
borough seized the opportunity to give the governess
her dismissal. This was in the autumn of 1788, and
the family were in London. Mary had for some weeks
known that this end was inevitable, but still her de-
parture, when the time came, was sudden. It was a
64 MARY WOLLSTONEóRAFT GODWIN.
trial to her to leave the children, but escape from the
household was a joyful emancipation. Again she was
obliged to face the world, and again she emerged
triumphant from her struggles. With each new change
she advanced a step in her intellectual progress. After
she left Lady Kingsborough she began the literary life
which was to make her famous.
CHAPTER IV.
LITERARY IIIFE,
1788–1791.
DURING her residence with the family of Lady Kings-
borough in , Ireland, Mary, as has been seen, corre-
sponded with Mr. Johnson the publisher. In her hour
of need she went to him for advice and assistance.
He strongly recommended, as he had more than once
before, that she should give up teaching altogether, and
devote her time to literary work.
Mr. Johnson was a man of considerable influence
and experience, and he was enterprising and progres-
sive. He published most of the principal books of
the day. The Edgeworths sent him their novels from
Ireland, and Cowper his poetry from Olney: one day
he gave the reading world Mrs. Barbauld's works for
the young, and the next, the speculations of reformers
and social philosophers whose rationalism had deterred
many other publishers. It was for printing the Rev.
Gilbert Wakefield's too plain-spoken writings that he
was, at a later date, fined and imprisoned. Quick to
discern true merit, he was equally prompt in encou-
66 MARY WOLLSTONEO, RAFT GOD WIN.
raging it. As Mary once said of him, he was a man
before he was a bookseller. His kind, generous mature
made him as ready to assist needy and deserving
authors with his purse as he was to publish their works.
From the time he had seen Mary's pamphlet on the
Education of Daughters, he had been deeply and
honestly interested in her. It had convinced him of
her power to do something greater. Her letters
had sustained him in this opinion, and her novel still
further confirmed it. He now, in addition to urging
her to try to support herself by writing, promised
her continual employment if she would settle in
London.
To-day there would seem no possible reason for any-
one in her position hesitating before accepting such
an offer; but in her time it was an unusual occur-
rence for a woman to adopt literature as a profession.
It is true there had been a great change since Swift
declared that “not one gentleman’s daughter in a
thousand has been brought to read or understand her
own natural tongue.” Women had learned not only
to read, but to write. Miss Burney had written her
novels, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu her Letters, and
Mrs. Inchbald her Simple Story and her plays, before
Mary came to London. Though the Amelias and
Lydia Melfords of fiction were still favourite types,
the blue-stocking was gaining ascendency. Because
she was such a rara avis she received a degree of
attention and devotion which now appears extraor-
dinary. Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Opie, Maria Edge.
worth and Mrs. Barbauld, at the end of the last and
beginning of this century, were fêted and praised as
sclöom falls to the lot of their successors of the pre-
I/ITERARY LIFE. 67
sent generation. But, despite this fact, they were not
quite sure that they were keeping within the limits of
feminine modesty by publishing their writings. Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu had considered it necessary
to apologise for having translated Epictetus. Miss
Burney shrank from publicity, and preferred the slavery
of a court to the liberty of home life, which meant time
for writing. Good Mrs. Barbauld feared she “stepped
out of the bounds of female reserve '’ when she became
an author. They all wrote either for amusement, or
as a last resource to eke out a slender income. But
Mary would, by agreeing to Mr. Johnson’s proposi-
tion, deliberately throw over other chances of making
a livelihood to rely entirely upon literature. She was
young, unmarried, and, to all intents and purposes,
alone in the world. Such a step was unprecedented
in English literary annals. She would really be, as she
wrote to her sister, the first of a new genus. Her
conduct would unquestionably be criticised and cen-
sured. She would have to run the gauntlet of public
opinion, a much more trying ordeal than that through
which she had passed at the castle in Mitchelstown.
But, on the other hand, she would thereby gain
freedom and independence, for which she had always
yearned above all else; her work would be congenial;
and, what to her was even more important, she would
obtain better means to further the welfare of her sisters
and brothers, and to assist her father. Compared to
these inducements, the fact that people would look
upon her askance was a very insignificant consideration.
She believed in a woman’s right to independence; and,
the first chance she had, she acted according to her
lights.
5 *
68 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
At the same time, she knew that if her friends
heard of her determination before she had carried it
into effect, they would try to dissuade her from it.
She was firmly resolved not to be influenced in this
matter by anyone ; and therefore, to avoid the un-
pleasant discussions and disputes that might arise from
a difference of opinion, she maintained strict secrecy as
to her plans. From her letters it seems probable that
she had made definite arrangements with Mr. Johnson
before her formal dismissal by Lady Kingsborough.
In September of 1788 she stayed at Henley for a short
time with Mrs. Bishop; and it was doubtless this visit
that caused Margaret's unhappiness and hence her
mother’s indignation. At Henley Mary enjoyed a
short interval of rest. The quiet of the place and
temporary idleness were the best of tonics for her
disordered nerves, and an excellent preparation for her
new labours. She was determined to give up teaching
for literature, but did not take her sister into her con-
fidence, as is shown by this letter to Mr. Johnson —
Henley, Thursday, Sept. 13.
MY DEAR SIR,-Since I saw you I have, literally speaking, enjoyed
solitude. My sister could not accompany me in my rambles; I there-
fore wandered alone by the side of the Thames, and in the neighbour-
ing beautiful fields and pleasure grounds : the prospects were of such
a placid kind, I caught tranquillity while I surveyed them; my mind
was still, though active. Were I to give you an account how I have
spent my time, you would smile. I found an old French Bible here,
and amused myself with comparing it with our English translation;
then I would listen to the falling leaves, or observe the various tints
the autumn gave to them. At other times, the singing of a robin or
the noise of a water-mill engaged my attention; for I was at the
same time, perhaps, discussing some knotty point, or straying from
this tiny world to new systems. After these excursions I returned to
the family meals, told the children stories (they think me vastly agree-
I/ITERARY LIFE. 69
able), and my sister was amused. Well, will you allow me to call
this way of passing my days pleasant 2 . . . Have you yet heard of
an habitation for me? I often think of my new plan of life; and lest
my sister should try to prevail on me to alter it, I have avoided
mentioning it to her. . . .
Hopeful for herself and her sisters, she started out
upon a new road, which, smoother than any she had
yet trodden, was not without its many thorns and pit-
falls. For a little while she stayed with Mr. Johnson,
whose house was then, as ever, open to her. But as
soon as possible she moved to lodgings he found for
her in George Street, in the neighbourhood of Black-
friars' Bridge. Here she was near him; and this was
a consideration, as the work he proposed to give her
necessitated frequent intercourse between them, and it
was also an advantage for her to be within reasonable
distance of the only friend she possessed in London.
Mr. Johnson made her his “reader”; that is to say,
he gave her the manuscripts sent to him to read and
criticise; he also required that she should translate for
him foreign works, for which there was then a great
demand, and that she should contribute to the Ana-
lytical Review, which had just been established. Her
position was a good one. It is true it left her little
time for original work, and Godwin thought that it
contracted rather than enlarged her genius for the
time being. But it gave her a certain valuable expe-
rience and much practise which she would not other-
wise have obtained, and it insured her steady employ-
ment. She was to the publisher what a staff contributor
is to a newspaper. Whenever anything was to be done
she was called upon to do it. Therefore, there was no
danger of her dying of starvation in a garret, like
Chatterton, or of her offering her manuscripts to one
70 MA.R. Y WOLLSTONECRAIFT GOD WIN.
unwilling bookseller after another, as happened to
Carlyle.
She did not disappoint Mr. Johnson's expectations.
She worked well and diligently, being thoroughly con-
scientious in whatever she did. The office of “reader”
is no mere sinecure; it requires a keen critical sense,
an impartial mind, and not a little moral courage.
The first of these qualifications Mary possessed natu-
rally, and her honesty enabled her to cultivate the
two last. She was as fearless in her criticisms as she
was just ; she praised and found fault with equal
temerity. This disagreeable duty was the indirect
cause of the happiest event of her life. The circum-
stance in question belongs to a later date, but it may
more appropriately be mentioned here in connection
with this branch of her work. On one occasion she
had to read a volume of Essays written by Miss Hayes.
The preface displeased her, and this she told the
author, stating her reasons with unhesitating frank-
ness. Miss Hayes was a woman capable of appre-
ciating such candour of speech ; and the business
transaction led to a sincere and lasting friendship.
Miss Hayes was the mutual friend who succeeded in
producing a better feeling between Godwin and Mary,
who, as the sequel will show, were not very friendly
when they first met.
She was principally occupied in translating. Follow-
ing Mr. Johnson's advice, she had, while in Ireland,
perfected her French. She was tolerably familiar with
Italian; and she now devoted all her spare minutes
—and these could not have been many—to mastering
German.
Before long Mary undertook, for practice, to translate
LITERARY LIFE. 71
Salzmann's Elements of Morality, and her exercise
proved so masterly that she, with a few corrections
and additions, published it. This gave rise to a corre-
spondence between the author and herself; and after
several years the former returned the compliment by
translating the Rights of Women into German. Some
idea will be given of her industry when it is stated that
during the five years of her London life, she, in ad-
dition to the work already mentioned, re-wrote a
translation from the Dutch of Young Grandison; trans-
lated from the German Young Robinson, and from the
French Necker on Religious Opinions, and Lavater’s
Physiognomy; wrote a volume of Original Stories from
Real Life for Children, and compiled a Female Reader.
As these works were undertaken for money rather than
for fame, she did not through them exert any personal
influence on contemporary thought, or leave any im-
pression on posterity.
She never degenerated, however, into a mere hack
writer, nor did she accept the literary tasks which
came in her way, unless she felt able to accomplish
them. She was too conscientious to fall into a fault
unfortunately common among men and women in a
similar position. She did not shrink from any work
if she knew she was capable of doing it justice. When
it was beyond her powers, she frankly admitted this to
be the case.
When she settled in London, she was in no humour
for social pleasures. Her sole ambition was to be
useful, and she worked incessantly. She at first hid
herself from almost everybody. When she expected
her sisters to stay with her, she begged them before-
hand, “If you pay any visits you will comply with my
72 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
whim, and not mention my place of abode or mode of
life.” She lived in very simple fashion; her rooms
were furnished with the merest necessities. Another
warning she had to give Everina and Mrs. Bishop was,
“I have a room, but no furniture. J. offered you
both a bed in his house, but that would not be plea-
sant. I believe I must try to purchase a bed, which I
shall reserve for my poor girls while I have a house.”
It has been recorded that Talleyrand visited her in her
lodgings in George Street, and that while the two dis-
cussed social and political problems, they drank their
tea and then their wine from tea-cups, wine-glasses
being an elegance beyond Mary's means. Her dress
was as plain as her furniture. Her gowns were mean
in material and often shabby, and her hair hung loosely
on her shoulders, instead of being twisted and looped
as was then fashionable. Knowles, in his Life of Fuseli,
finds fault with her on this account. She was not,
however, a philosophical sloven, with romantic ideas of
benevolence, as he intimates. Either he or Fuseli
strangely misjudged her. The reason she paid so little
heed to the luxuries and frivolities which custom then
exacted, was because other more pressing demands
were made upon her limited income. Then, as usual,
she was troubled by the wretched complications and
misfortunes of her family. The entire care and re-
sponsibility fell upon her shoulders. None of the
other members seemed to consider that she was as
destitute as they were—that what she did was literally
her one source of revenue. Assistance would have
been as welcome to her as it was to them. But they
accepted what she had to give, and were never deterred
by reflecting upon the difficulty with which she re-
LITERARY LIFE. 73
sponded to their needs. The amount of practical help
she gave them is almost incredible. Eliza and Everina
had, when the school at Newington Green failed,
become governesses, but their education had been so
sadly neglected that they were not competent for their
work. Mary, knowing this, sent Everina to France,
that she might study to be a good French teacher.
The tide of emigration caused by the Revolution had
only just begun, and French governesses and tutors
were not the drug on the market they became later.
Everina remained two years in France at her eldest
sister's expense. Mary found a place for Eliza, first as
parlour boarder, and them as assistant, in an excellent
school near London. For most of the time, however,
both sisters were birds of passage. Everina was for a
while at Putney, and then in Ireland, where she pro-
bably learned for herself the discomforts which Mary
had once endured. Eliza was now at Market Har-
borough, then at Henley, again at Putney, and finally
she obtained a situation in Pembrokeshire, which she
retained longer than any she had hitherto held.
During these years there were occasional intermissions
when both sisters were out of work, and there were
holiday seasons to be provided for. To their father's
house it was still impossible for them to go. Its
wretchedness was so great, it could no longer be called
a home. Eliza, soon to see it, found it unbearable.
Edward, it appears, was willing to give shelter to Eve-
rina; but this brother, of whom less mention is made
in the sisters' letters, was never a favourite, and re-
sidence with him was an evil to be avoided. The one
place, therefore, where they were sure of a warm
welcome was the humble lodging near Blackfriars'
74. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
Bridge. Mary fulfilled her promise of being a mother
to them both. She stinted herself that she might
make their lot more endurable. -
When Eliza went to begin her Welsh engagement at
Upton Castle, she spent a night on the way with her
father. Her report of this visit opened a new channel
for Mary's benevolence. Mr. Wollstonecraft was then
living at Laugharne, where he had taken his family
many years before, and where his daughters had made
several very good friends. But Eliza, as she lamented
to Everina, went sadly from one old beloved haunt to
another, without meeting an eye which glistened at
seeing her. Old acquaintances were dead, or had
sought a home elsewhere. The few who were left
would not, probably because of the father's disgrace,
come to see her. The step-mother, the second Mrs.
Wollstonecraft, was helpful and economical; but her
thrift availed little against the drunken follies of her
husband. The latter had but just recovered from an
illness. He was worn to a skeleton, he coughed and
groaned all night in a way to make the listener’s blood
run cold, and he could not walk ten yards without
pausing to pant for breath. His poverty was so abject
that his clothes were barely decent, and his habits so
low that he was indifferent to personal cleanliness.
For days and weeks after she had seen him, Eliza
was haunted by the memory of his unkempt hair and
beard, his red face and his beggarly shabbiness. Poor
unfortunate Charles, the last child left at home, was
half-naked, and his time was spent in quarrelling with
his father. Eliza, who knew how to be independent,
was irritated by her brother's idleness. “I am very
cool to Charles, and have said all I can to rouse
LITERARY LIFE 75
him,” she wrote to Everina; but then immediately she
added, forced to do him justice, “But where can he
go in his present plight?” Through all, Mr. Woll-
stonecraft's one cry was for money. He threatened to
go to London in his rags, and compel the obdurate
Edward to comply with his demands. When Eliza
told him of the sacrifices Mary made in order to help
him, he only flew into a rage.
It was not long before Mary had Charles to Ilondon,
and her initiatory act in his behalf was to clothe him.
She took him to her house, where he lived, if not
elegantly and extravagantly, at least decently, a new
experience for the poor lad. She then had him ar-
ticled to Edward, the attorney; but this experiment,
as might have been expected, proved a failure. Mary
next consulted with Mr. Barlow about the chances of
settling him advantageously on a farm in America;
and to prepare him for this life, which seemed full of
promise, she sent him to serve a sort of apprentice-
ship with an English farmer. About this time James,
the second son, who had been at sea, came home, and
for him also Mary found room in her lodgings until,
through her influence, he went to Woolwich, where for
a few months he was under the instruction of Mr.
Bonnycastle, the mathematician. Eventually he en-
tered the navy, and rose to the rank of lieutenant.
Mary, as if this were not enough, also undertook the
care of her father's estate, or rather of the little left of
it. Mr. Wollstonecraft had long since been incapable
of managing his own affairs, and had intrusted them
to some relations, with whose management Mary was
not satisfied. She consequently took matters into her
own hands, though she could ill afford to spare the
76 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
time for this new duty. She did all that was possible
to disembarrass the property, so that it might produce
sufficient for her father's maintenance. She was ably
assisted by Mr. Johnson. “During a part of this
period,” he wrote of her residence in George Street,
“ which certainly was the most active part of her
life, she had the care of her father's estate, which was
attended with no little trouble to both of us She
could not,” he adds, “during this time, I think, expend
less than £200 on her brothers and sisters.” Their
combined efforts were in vain. Mr. Wollstonecraft
had succeeded too well in ruining himself; and for the
remainder of her life all Mary could do for him was to
help him with her money. Godwin says that, in addi-
tion to these already burdensome duties, she took
charge, in her own house, of a little girl of seven years
of age, a relation of Mr. Skeys.
She struggled bravely, but there were times when it
required superhuman efforts to persevere. She was
subject to attacks of depression which usually resulted
in physical illness.
In these dark days it was always to Mr. Johnson she
turned for sympathy and advice. She had never been
on very confidential terms with either of her sisters,
and her friendship with George Blood had grown
cooler. Their paths in life had so widely diverged that
this was unavoidable.
Good friends as they continued to be, he was far
away in Dublin, with different interests; and Mary
craved immediate and comprehensive sympathy. Mr.
Johnson was ever ready to administer to her spiritual
wants; he was a friend in very truth. He evidently
understood her nature, and knew how best to deal with
LITERARY LIFE. 77
her when she was in these moods. Sometimes her
mental condition threatened to interfere seriously with
her work, and then Mr. Johnson knew how to stimu-
late and encourage her. When she was writing her
answer to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution,
and when the first half of her paper had been sent to
the printer, her interest in her subject and her power
of writing suddenly deserted her. It was important to
publish all that was written in the controversy while
lºt.blic attention was still directed to it. And yet,
though Mary knew this full well, it was simply im-
possible for her to finish what she had eagerly begun.
In this frame of mind she called upon Mr. Johnson,
and told him her troubles. Instead of finding fault
with her, he was sympathetic and bade her not to
worry, for if she could not continue her pamphlet he
would throw aside the printed sheets. This roused her
pride. It was a far better stimulus than abuse would
have been, and it sent her home to write the second
half immediately.
The dry morsel and quietness which were now her
portion were infinitely better than the house full of
strife which she had just left. She was happier than
she had ever been before, but she was only happy by
comparison. Solitude was preferable to the society of
Lady Kingsborough and her friends, but for anyone
of Mary's temperament it could not be esteemed as a
good in itself. Her unnatural isolation fortunately did
not last very long. Her friendship with Mr. Johnson
was sufficient in itself to break through her barrier of
reserve. She was constantly at his house, and it was
one of the gayest and most sociable in London. It
was the rendezvous of the literati of the day. Persons
78 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
of note, foreigners as well as Englishmen, frequented
it. There one could meet Fuseli, impetuous, impatient,
and overflowing with conversation; Paine, somewhat
hard to draw out of his shell; Bonnycastle, Dr.
George Fordyce, Mr. George Anderson, Dr. Geddes,
and a host of other prominent artists, scientists, and
literary men. Their meetings were informal. They
gathered together to talk about what interested them,
and not to simper and smirk, and give utterance to
platitudes and affectations, as was the case with the
society to which Mary had lately been introduced. It
is no wonder that Mrs. Barbauld found the evenings
she spent with her publisher lively. “We protracted
them sometimes till ” she wrote to her brother in
the course of one of her visits to London ; “but I am
not telling tales. Ask at what time we used to
separate.” Mary was also a welcome guest at Mrs.
Trimmer's house, which, like that of Mr. Johnson, was
a centre of attraction for clever people. This Mrs.
Trimmer had acquired some little literary reputation,
and had secured the patronage of the royal family and
the clergy. She and Mary differed greatly, both in
character and creed, but they became very good friends.
“I spent a day at Mrs. Trimmer's, and found her a
truly respectable woman,” was the verdict the latter
sent to Everina; nor had she ever reason to alter it.
Her intimacy with Miss Hayes also brought her into
contact with many of the same class.
As soon as she began to be known in London she
was admired. She was young—being only twenty-
nine when she came there to live—and she was hand-
some. Her face was very striking. She had a profusion
of auburn hair; her eyes were brown and beautiful,
LITERARY LIFE. 79
despite a slight droop in one of them ; and her com-
plexion, as is usually the case in connection with such
Titianesque colouring of hair and eyes, was rich and
clear. The strength and unutterable sadness of her
expression combined with her other charms to make
her face one which a stranger would turn to look at
a second time. She possessed to a rare degree the
power of attracting people. Few could resist the in-
fluence of her personality. Added to this she talked
cleverly, and even brilliantly, although, at times, the
tone of her conversation was acrid and gloomy. Long
years of toil in a hard world had borne the fruit of
pessimism. She was too apt to overlook the bright
for the dark side of a picture. But this was a fault
which was amply counterbalanced by her talents. For
the first time she made friends who were competent to
justly measure her merits. She was recognised to be
a woman of more than ordinary talents, and she was
treated accordingly. Mean clothes and shabby houses
were no drawbacks to clever women in those days.
Mrs. Inchbald, in gowns “always becoming, and very
seldom worth so much as eightpence,” as one of her
admirers described them, was surrounded as soon as
she entered a crowded room, even when powdered
and elegantly attired ladies of fashion were deserted.
And Mary, though she had not glasses out of which
to drink her wine, and though her coiffure was un-
fashionable, became a person of consequence in literary
circles. - -
Under the influence of congenial social surroundings
she gave up her habits of retirement. She began to
find enjoyment in society, and her interest in life re-
vived. She could even be gay, nor was there so much
80 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
sorrow in her laughter as there had been of yore.
Among the most intimate of her new acquaintances
were Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli; and the account has been
preserved of at least one pleasure party to which she
accompanied them. This was a masked ball, and
young Lavater, then in England, was with them.
Masquerades were then at the height of popularity.
All sorts and conditions of men went to them. Beau-
tiful Amelia Opie, in her poorest days, spent five
pounds to gain admittance to one given to the Russian
ambassadors. Mrs. Inchbald, when well advanced in
years, could enter so thoroughly into the spirit of an-
other as to beg a friend to lend her a faded blue silk
handkerchief or sash, that she might represent her
real character of a passée blue-stocking. Mary’s gaiety
on the present occasion was less artificial than it had
been at the Dublin mask. -
As a rule, the most regular frequenters of Mr.
Johnson's house, and the leaders of conversation
during his evenings, were Reformers. Men like Paine.
and Fuseli and Dr. Priestley were, each in his own
fashion, seeking to discover the true nature of human
rights. As the Reformation in the sixteenth century
had aimed at freeing the religion of Christ from the
abuses and errors of centuries, and thus restoring it to
its original purity, so the political movement of the
latter half of the eighteenth century had for object
the destruction of arbitrary laws and the re-establish-
ment of government on primary principles. The
French Revolution and the American Rebellion were
but means to the greater end. Philosophers, who sys-
tematised the dissatisfaction which the people felt
without being able to trace it to its true source,
LITERARY LIFE. 81
preached the necessity of distinguishing between right
and wrong per se, and right and wrong as defined by
custom. This was the doctrine which Mary heard
most frequently discussed, and it was but the embodi-
ment of the motives which had invariably governed
her actions from the time she had urged her sister to
leave her husband. She had never, even in her most
religious days, been Orthodox in her beliefs, nor con-
servative in her conduct.
Her first public profession of her political and social
faith was her answer to Burke's Reflections on the
French Revolution, which had summoned all the
liberals and reformers in England to arms. Many
came forward boldly and refuted his arguments in print.
Mary was among the foremost, her pamphlet in reply
to his being the first published. Later authorities have
given precedence to Dr. Priestley's, but this fact is
asserted by Godwin in his Memoirs, and he would
hardly have made the statement at a time when there
were many living to deny it, had it not been true.
Naturally, these answers were received with abuse and
sneers by the Tories. Burke denounced his female
opponents as “viragoes and English poissardes"; and
Horace Walpole wrote of them as “Amazonian allies,”
who “spit their rage at eighteen-pence a head, and will
return to Fleet-ditch, more fortunate in being forgotten
than their predecessors, immortalized in the ‘Dun-
ciad.’” Peter Burke, in his Life of Burke, says that
the replies made by Dr. Price, Mrs. Macaulay, and Mary
Wollstonecraft were merely attempts and nothing more.
Yet all three were writers of too much force to be
ignored. They were thrown into the shade because
Paine's Rights of Man, written for the same purpose,
6
82 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
was so much more startling in its wholesale condemna-
tion of government that the principal attention of the
public was drawn to it.
Mary’s pamphlet, however, added considerably to her
reputation, especially among the reformers. It was her
first really important work. Her success encouraged
her greatly. It increased her confidence in her powers
and possibilities to influence the reading public, and it
proved, therefore, an incentive to fresh exertions in the
same field. Much as she was interested in the rights
of men, she was even more concerned with the rights
of women: the former had obtained many able de-
fenders, but no one had as yet thought of saying a
word for the latter. Her own experience had been so
bitter that she realized the disadvantages of her sex as
others, whose path had been easier, never could. She
saw that women were hindered and hampered in a
thousand and one ways by obstacles created not by
nature, but by man. And she also saw that long suffer-
ing had blinded them to their, in her estimation, humili-
ating and too often painful condition.
Clearly, since she had found the light, it was her duty
to illuminate with it those who were groping in dark-
ness. She could not with a word revolutionize woman-
kind, but she could at least be the herald to proclaim
the dawn of the day during which the good seed was
to be sown. She had discovered her life's mission, and,
in her enthusiasm, she wrote the Vindication of the
Rights of Women.
83
CHAPTER W.
LITERARY WORK.
1788–1791.
As has been stated, Mary Wollstonecraft began her
literary career by writing a small pamphlet on the
subject of education. Its title, in full, is Thoughts
on the Education of Daughters : with Reflections on
Female Conduct in the more Important Duties of Life.
It is interesting as her first work, but otherwise it is of
no great value.
The pamphlet consists of a number of short treatises,
indicating certain laws and principles which Mary
thought needed to be more generally understood and
more firmly established. Many passages show that
as early as 1787 she had seriously considered the
problems which, in 1791, she attempted to solve. She
was even then perplexed by the unfortunate situation
of women of the upper classes who, having received
but the pretence of an education, eventually become
dependent on their own exertions. Her sad experience
probably led her to these thoughts. Reflection upon
them made her the champion of her sex. Already in
this little pamphlet she declares her belief that, by a
6 *
A 84 MARY WOLI/STONECRAFT GOD WIN.
rational training of their intellectual powers, women
can be prepared at one and the same time to meet
any emergencies of fortune and to fulfil the duties of
wife and mother, and demonstrates that good mental
discipline, instead of interfering with feminine occu-
pations, increases a woman's fitness for them.
The next work Mary published was a volume called
Original Stories from Real Life ; with Conversations
calculated to regulate the Affections and form the Mind
to Truth and Goodness. This was written while her
experience as school-mistress and governess was still
fresh in her memory. As she explained in the preface,
her object was to make up, in some measure, for the
defective education or moral training which, as a rule,
children in those days received from their parents.
In addressing a youthful audience, Mary was as
deeply inspired by her love of goodness, per se, and
her detestation of conventional conceptions of virtue,
as she was afterwards in appealing to older readers.
She represents, in her book, two little girls, aged re-
spectively twelve and fourteen, who have been sadly
neglected during their early years, but fall, fortunately,
at this period of their life, under the care of a Mrs.
Mason, who at once undertakes to form their character
and train their intellect. This good lady, in whose
name Mary sermonizes, seizes upon every event of the
day to teach her charges a moral lesson. The defects
she attacks are those most common to childhood.
Cruelty to animals, peevishness, lying, greediness, in-
dolence, procrastination, are in turn censured, and their
opposite virtues praised. Mary is careful to explain
in the preface that she writes to assist teachers. She
wishes to give them hints which they must apply to
LITERARY WORK. 85
the children under their care as they think best. The
religious tone of the Stories is even more pronounced
than that of the Education of Daughters.
The book is, on the whole, well written, and was
popular enough in its day, and, to make it still more
attractive, Mr. Johnson engaged Blake, whom he was
then befriending, to illustrate it.
Of the several translations Mary made at this period,
but the briefest mention is necesssary. It often happens
that the book translated is in a great degree indicative
of the mental calibre of its translator; but Mary's
case was entirely different. The choice of foreign
works rendered into English was not hers, but Mr.
Johnson’s. By adhering to it she was simply fulfilling
the contract she had entered into with him, and there
were times when she had but a poor opinion of the
books he put into her hands. There was at least one
book the translation of which must have been a pleasure
to her. This was the Rev. C. G. Salzmann’s Elements
of Morality, for the use of Children. Its object, like
that of the Original Stories, was to teach the young,
by practical illustration, why virtue is good, why vice
is evil.
Mary never pretended to produce perfectly literal
translations. Her version of Lavater's Physiognomy,
now unknown, was but an abridgment. She purposely
“naturalized" the Elements of Morality, she ex-
plains, in order not to “puzzle children by pointing out
modifications of manners, when the grand principles of
morality were to be fixed on a broad basis.” She made
free with the originals that they might better suit
English readers, and this she frankly confesses in
her prefaces. Her translations are, in consequence,
86 IMARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
proofs of her industry and varied talents, and not
demonstrations of her own mental character.
Her novel, Mary, has disappeared. There are a few
men and women of the present generation who remem-
ber having seen it, but it is now not to be found either
in public libraries or in book-stores. It was the record
of a happy friendship, and to write it had been a labour
of love. As Mary always wrote most eloquently on
subjects which were of heartfelt interest, i's disappear-
ance is to be regretted.
However, after sho had been in London about two
years, constant writing and translating having by that
time made her readier with her pen, she undertook
another task, in which her feelings were as strongly in-
terested. This was her answer to Burke's Reflec-
tions on the French Revolution. Love of humanity
was an emotion which moved her quite as deeply as
affection for individual friends. Burke, by his disregard
for the sufferings of that portion of the human race
which especially appealed to her, excited her wrath.
Carried away by the intensity of her indignation, she
at once set about proving to him and the world that
the reasoning which led to such insensibility, plausible
as it might seem, was wholly unsound. She never
paused for reflection, but her chief arguments, the re-
sult of previous thought, being already prepared, she
wrote before her excitement had time to cool. As
she explains in the Advertisement to her Letter to
Burke, the Reflections had first engaged her atten-
tion as the transient topic of the day. Commenting
upon it as she read, her remarks increased to such
an extent that she decided to publish them as a short
Vindication of the Rights of Man.
LITERARY WORK. 87
A sermon preached by Dr. Richard Price was the
immediate reason which moved Burke to write the
Reflections. The Revolutionists were in the habit
of meeting every 4th of November, the anniversary of
the arrival of the Prince of Orange in England, to com-
memorate the Revolution of 1688. Dr. Price was, in
1789, the orator of the day. He, on this occasion,
expressed his warm approbation of the actions of the
French Republicans, in which sentiment he was warmly
seconded by all the other members of the society.
Burke seized upon these demonstrations as a pretext
for expounding his own views upon the proceedings
in France.
In her detestation of his insensibility to the natural
equality of mankind, Mary was too impatient to con-
sider the minor points of his reasoning. She announced
in her Advertisement that she intended to confine her
strictures, in a great measure, to the grand principles
at which he levels his ingenious arguments. Her object,
therefore, as well as Burke's, is to demonstrate what
are the rights of men; but she reasons from a very
different stand-point. Burke defends the claims of those
who inherit rights from long generations of ancestors ;
Mary cries aloud in defence of men whose one inheri-
tance is the deprivation of all rights. Burke is moved
by the misery of a Marie Antoinette, shorn of her great-
ness; Mary, by the wretchedness of the poor peasant
woman who has never possessed even its shadow. The
former knows no birthright for individuals save that
which results from the prescription of centuries; the
latter contends that every man has a right, as a human
being, to “such a degree of liberty, civil and religious,
as is compatible with the liberty of the other indivi-
88 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
duals with whom he is united in social compact.” Burke
asserts that the present rights of man cannot be decided
by reason alone, since they are founded on laws and
customs long established. But Mary asks, How far
back are we to go to discover their first foundation ?
Burke's contempt for the poor, which Mary thought
the most conspicuous feature of his treatise, was the
chief cause of her indignation. She could not endure
silently his admonitions to the labouring class to respect
the property which they could not possess, and his
exhortations to them to find their consolation for ill-
rewarded labour in the “final proportions of eternal
justice.” “It is, Sir, possible,” she tells him with some
dignity, “to render the poor happier in this world,
without depriving them of the consolation which you
gratuitously grant them in the next.” To her mind,
the oppression which the lower classes had endured
for ages, until they had become in the end beings
scarcely above the brutes, made the losses of the French
nobility and clergy seem by comparison very insignifi-
cant evils. The horrors of the 6th of October, the dis-
comforts and degradation of Louis XVI. and Marie
Antoinette, and the destitution to which many French
refugees had been reduced, blinded Burke to the long
suffering of the multitude which now rendered the
distress of the few imperative.
The chief fault of her Letter is undue haste in
its composition. It was written on the spur of the
moment, and is without the method indispensable to
such a work. There is no order in the arguments
advanced, and too often reasoning gives place to ex-
hortation and meditation. Another serious error is
the personal abuse with which her Letter abounds.
LITERARY WORK. 89
She treats Burke in the very same manner with which
she reproves him for treating Dr. Price.
Vituperation is not argument, and abuse proves
nothing. This is a fault, however, into which youth
readily falls. Mary was young when she wrote the
Vindication of the Rights of Man, and feeling was
still too strong to be forgotten in calm discussion. It
was a mistake, too, to dwell, as she did, on the incon-
sistency between Burke's earlier and present policy.
This was a powerful weapon against him at the time,
but posterity has recognized the consistency which,
in reality, underlays his seemingly diverse political
creeds.
90 MARY WOLLSTONECHAFT GOD WIN.
CHAPTER WI.
WINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.
THE Vindication of the Rights of Women is the work
on which Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s fame as an
author rests. It is more than probable that, but for it,
her other writings would long since have been forgotten
In it she speaks the first word in behalf of female eman-
cipation. Her book is the forerunner of a movement
which, whatever may be its results, will always be ranked
as one of the most important of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Many of her propositions are, to the present
advocates of the cause, foregone conclusions. Hers
was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, to pre-
pare the way. What she had to do was to awaken
mankind to the knowledge that women are human
beings, and then to insist that they should be given
the opportunity to assert themselves as such, and that
their sex should become a secondary consideration.
It would have been useless for her to analyze their
rights in detail until she had established the premises
upon which their claims must rest. It is true she
contends for their political emancipation. “I really
think,” she writes, “ that women ought to have repre-
THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 91
sentatives instead of being arbitrarily governed without
having any direct share allowed them in the delibera-
tions of Government.” And she also maintains their
ability for the practice of many professions, especially
of medicine. But this she says, as it were, in paren-
thesis. These necessary reforms cannot be even
begun until the equality of the sexes as human beings
is proved beyond a doubt. The object of the Vindi-
cation is to demonstrate this equality, and to point out
the preliminary measures by which it may be secured.
Women, it is said, are not so strong physically as
men. True ; but this does not imply that they have
no strength whatsoever. Because they are weak
relatively, it does not follow that they should be made
so absolutely. The sedentary life to which they are
condemned weakens them, and then their weakness is
accepted as an inherent, instead of an artificial, quality.
The truth is, were girls allowed the same freedom in
the choice of amusements as boys, they would manifest
an equal fondness for out-of-door sports, to the neglect
of dolls and frivolous pastimes. But it is denied to
them. Directors of their education have, as a rule,
been blind adherents to the doctrine that whatever is
is right, and hence have argued that, because women
lave always been brought up in a certain way, they
should continue to be so trained.
The worst of it is that the artificial delicacy of consti-
tution thus produced is the cause of a corresponding
weakness of mind; and women are in actual fact fair
defects in creation, as they have been called. And yet,
after having been unfitted for action, they are expected
to be competent to take charge of a family. The
woman who is well-disposed, and whose husband is a
º
92 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
sensible man, may act with propriety so long as he is
alive to direct her. But if he were to die how could
she alone educate her children and manage her house-
hold with discretion ?
Mary, after having given the picture of woman as
she is now, describes her as she ought to be. This
description is worth quoting; but not because it con-
tains any originality of thought or charm of expression.
It is interesting as showing exactly what the first
sower of the seeds of female enfranchisement expected
to reap for her harvest. People who are frightened
by a name are apt to suppose that women who defend
their rights would have the world filled with uninspired
Joans of Arc, and unrefined Portias. Those who judge
Mary Wollstonecraft by her conduct, without inquir-
ing into her motives or reading her book, might con-
clude that what she desired was the destruction of
family ties and, consequently, of moral order. There-
fore, in justice to her, the purity of her ideals of
feminine perfection and her respect for the sanctity
of domestic life should be clearly established.
From the primal source of their wrongs—that is,
the undue importance attached to the sexual character
—Mary next explains that minor causes have arisen to
prevent women from realizing this ideal. The narrow-
ness of mind engendered by their vicious education
hinders them from looking beyond the interests of the
present. They consider immediate rather than remote
effects, and prefer to be “short-lived queens than to
labour to attain the sober pleasures that arise from equa-
lity.” Then, again, the desire to be loved or respected
for something, which is instinctive in all human beings,
is gratified in women by the homage paid to charms
THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 93
born of indolence. They thus, like the rich, lose the
stimulus to exertion which this desire gives to men of
the middle class, and which is one of the chief factors
in the development of rational creatures. A man with
a profession struggles to succeed in it. A woman
struggles to marry advantageously. With the former,
pleasure is a relaxation; with the latter, it is the main
purpose of life. Therefore, while the man is forced to
forget himself in his work, the woman’s attention is
more and more concentrated upon her own person.
The great evil of this self-culture is that the emotions
are developed instead of the intellect. Women become
a prey to what is delicately called sensibility. They
feel and do not reason, and, depending upon men
for protection and advice, the only effort they make
is to give their weakness a graceful covering. They
require, in the end, support even in the most trifling
circumstances. Their fears are perhaps pretty and at-
tractive to men, but they reduce them to such a degree
of imbecility that they will start “from the frown of an
old cow or the jump of a mouse,” and a rat becomes a
serious danger. These fair, fragile creatures are the
objects of Mary Wollstonecraft's deepest contempt, and
she gives a good wholesome prescription for their cure,
which, despite modern co-education and Women Con-
ventions, female doctors and lawyers, might still be
more generally adopted to great advantage.
The chapter on Paternal Affection introduces an
important section of the treatise. It is not enough for
a reformer to pull down. He must build up as well,
or at least lay the foundation-stone of a new struc-
ture. The missionary does not only tell the heathen
that his religion is false, but he instructs him in the
94; M.A R Y WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
new one which is to take its place. The scientist,
besides maintaining that old theories are exploded,
explains to the student new facts which have super-
seded them. Mary, after demonstrating the viciousness
of existing educational systems, suggests wherein they
may be improved, so that women, their understandings
trained and developed, may have the chance to show
what they really are.
Family duties necessarily precede those of society.
As the “formation of the mind must be begun very
early, and the temper, in particular, requires the most
judicious attention,” a child's training should be
undertaken, not from the time it is sent to school,
but almost from the moment of its birth. Therefore
a few words as to the relations between parents and
children are an indispensable introduction to the larger
subject of education, properly so called, which prepares
the young for social life.
Father and mother are rightful protectors of their
child, and should accept the charge of it, instead of hiring
a substitute for this purpose. It is not even enough for
them to be regulated in this matter by the dictates of
natural affection. They must be guided by reason.
Parents have a right to expect their children throughout
their lives to pay them due respect, give heed to their
advice, and take care of them should illness or old age
make it impossible for them to do this for themselves;
but they should never desire to subjugate their sons and
daughters to their own will, after they have arrived
at years of discretion and can answer for their actions.
To obey a parent, “only on account of his being a
parent, shackles the mind, and prepares it for a slavish
submission to any power but reason.” These remarks
THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 95
are particularly applicable to girls, who “ from various
causes are more kept down by their parents, in every
sense of the word, than boys,” though in the case of
the latter there is still room for improvement.
The first step in solving the great problem of edu-
cation—and here both sexes are referred to—is to
decide whether it should be public or private. The
objections to private education are serious. It is not
good for children to be too much in the society of
men and women; for they then “acquire that kind of
premature manhood which stops the growth of every
vigorous power of mind or body.” By growing ac-
customed to have their questions answered by older
people instead of being obliged to seek the answers
for themselves, as they are forced to do when thrown
with other children, they do not learn how to think for
themselves. The very groundwork of self-reliance is
thus destroyed. “Besides, in youth the seeds of every
affection should be sown, and the respectful regard
which is felt for a parent is very different from the
social affections that are to constitute the happiness of
life as it advances.” “Frank ingenuousness” can only
be attained by young people being frequently in
society where they dare to speak what they think.
To know how to live with their equals when they are
grown up, children must learn to associate with them
when they are young.
The evils which result from the boarding-school
system are almost as great as those of private educa-
tion. The tyranny established among the boys is
demoralizing, while the acquiescence to the forms of
religion demanded of them, encourages hypocrisy.
Children who live away from home are unfitted for
96 MARY WOLI/STONECRAFT GOD WIN.
A
V
--> *
domestic life. “Public education of every denomina-
tion should be directed to form citizens, but if you
wish to make good citizens, you must first exercise the
affections of a son and a brother.” Home-training on
the one hand, and boarding-schools on the other,
being equally vicious, the only way out of the difficulty
is to combine the two systems, retaining what is best
in each, and doing away with what is evil. This
combination could be obtained by the establishment of
national day-schools.
They must be supported by Government, because the
school-master who is dependent upon the parents of
children committed to his charge, necessarily caters to
them. In schools for the upper classes, where the
number of pupils is small and select, he spends his
energies in giving them a show of knowledge wherewith
they may startle friends and relations into admiration
of his superior system. In common schools, where the
charges are small, he is forced, in order to support
himself, to multiply the number of pupils until it is
impossible for him to do any one of them justice. But
if education were a national affair, school-masters would
be responsible to a board of directors, whose interest
would be given to the children collectively and not
individually, while the number of pupils to be received
would be strictly regulated.
^ To perfect national schools the sexes must be edu-
cated together. By this means only can they be pre-
Tared for their after relations to each other, women
thus becoming enlightened citizens and rational com-
panions for men. The experiment of co-education is
at all events worth making. Even should it fail, women
would not be injured thereby, “for it is not in the
THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 97
power of man to render them more insignificant than)
they are at present.”
Mary is very practical in this branch of her subject,
and suggests an admirable educational scheme. In
her levelling of rank among the young, she shows the
influence of Plato; in her hint as to the possibility of
uniting play and study in elementary education, she
anticipates Froebel.
A plainness of speech, amounting in some places to
coarseness, and a deeply religious tone, are to many
modern readers the most curious features of the book.
A just estimate of it could not be formed if these two
facts were overlooked. A century ago men and women
were much more straightforward in their speech than
we are to-day. They were not squeamish. In real
life Amelias listened to raillery from Squire Westerns
not a whit more refined than Fielding's good country
gentleman. Therefore, when it came to serious dis-
cussions for moral purposes, there was little reason for
writers to be timid. It was impossible for Mary to
avoid certain subjects not usually spoken of in polite
conversation. Had she done so, she would but have
half stated her case. She was not to be deterred be-
cause she was a woman. Such mock-modesty would
at once have undermined her arguments. According
to her own theories, there was no reason why she should
not think and speak as unhesitatingly as men, when her
sex was as vitally interested as theirs. And therefore,
with her characteristic consistency, she did so.
Even more remarkable than this boldness of expres-
sion is the strong vein of piety running through her
arguments. Religion was to her as important as it was
to a Wesley or a Bishop Watts. The equality of man,
98 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
in her eyes, would have been of small importance had
it not been instituted by man's Creator. It is because
there is a God, and because the soul is immortal, that
men and women must exercise their reason. Other-
wise, they might, like animals, yield to the rule of their
instincts and emotions. If women were without souls,
they would, notwithstanding their intellects, have no
rights to vindicate. But, though sincerely pious, she
despised the meaningless forms of religion as much as
she did social conventionalities, and was as free in
denouncing them. The clergy, who from custom cling
to old rites and ceremonies, were, in her opinion,
“indolent slugs, who guard, by liming it over, the
snug place which they consider in the light of an
hereditary estate,” and “idle vermin who two or three
times a day perform, in the most slovenly manner,
a service which they think useless, but call their duty.”
She believed in the spirit, but not in the letter of the
law.
Even the warmest admirers of Mary Wollstonecraft
must admit that the faults of the Vindication of the
Rights of Women are many. Criticised from a lite-
rary stand-point, they exceed its merits. Perfection of
style was not, it is true, the aim of the writer, as she
at once explains in her Introduction. She there says,
that being animated by a far greater end than that of
fine writing,<
. . . I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style. I aim
at being useful, and sincerity will render me unaffected; for wishing
rather to persuade by the force of my arguments than to dazzle by
the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding
periods, nor in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings,
which, coming from the head, never reach the heart. I shall be
employed about things, not words 1 and, anxious to render my sex
THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 99
more respectable members of society, I shall try to avoid that ſlowery
diction which has slided from essays into novels, and from novels into
familiar letters and conversation.
Yet she errs principally from the fault she deter-
mines to avoid, as the very sentence in which she
announces this determination proves. Despite her
sincerity, she is affected, and her arguments are often
weakened by meretricious forms of expression. No
one can for a moment doubt that her feelings are real,
but neither can the turgidity and bombast of her
language be denied. She borrows, unconsciously per-
haps, the “flowery diction ” which she so heartily con-
demns.
She is too ready to moralize, and her moralizing
degenerates unfortunately often into commonplace plati-
tudes. She is even at times disagreeably pompous and
authoritative, and preaches rather than argues. This
was due partly to a then prevailing tendency in litera-
ture. Every writer—essayist, poet, and novelist—
preached in those days.
Great as are these faults, they are more than counter-
balanced by the merits of the book. All the flowers
of rhetoric cannot conceal its genuineness. As is always
the case with the work of honest writers, it commands
respect even from those who disapprove of its doctrine
and criticise its style. Despite its moralizing it is
strong with the strength born of an earnest purpose.
It was written neither for money nor for amusement,
too often the inspiration of book-making. The one
she had not time to seek; the other she could have
obtained with more certainty by translating for Mr.
Johnson, or by contributing to the Analytical Review.
She wrote it because she thought it her duty to do so,
7 *
100 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
and hence its vigour and eloquence. All her pompous
platitudes cannot conceal the earnestness of her denun-
ciation of shams. The Rights of Women is an outcry
against them. The age was an artificial one : ladies
played at being shepherdesses, and men wept over dead
donkeys. Sensibility was a cultivated virtue, and
philanthropy a pastime. The excess of sentimentalism
had given rise to the other extreme of naturalism. In
France the reaction against arbitrary laws, empty forms,
and the unjust privileges of rank, led to the French
Revolution. In England its outcome was a Wesley in
religious speculation, a Wilkes in political action, and
a Godwin and a Paine in social and political theorizing.
(But those who were most eager to uphold reason as a
guide to the conduct of men, had nothing to say in
lſº of women.
Mary’s enthusiasm did not make her blind; she
knew that women were wronged by the existing state
of affairs; but she did not for this reason believe that
they must be removed to a new sphere of action. She
defended their rights, not to unfit them for duties
assigned them by natural and social necessities, but
that they might fulfil them the better. She eloquently
denied their inferiority to men, not that they might
, claim superiority, but simply that they might show
themselves to be the equals of the other sex. Woman
was to fight for liberty that she might in deed and in
truth be worthy to have her children and her husband
rise up and call her blessed 1
CHAPTER WII.
VISIT TO PARIS.
1792–1793.
THE Vindication of the Rights of Women made Mary
still more generally known. Its fame spread far and
wide, not only at home but abroad, where it was trans-
lated into German and French. Like Paine’s Rights of
Man, or Malthus’ Essay on the Theory of Population,
it advanced new doctrines which threatened to overturn
existing social relations, and it consequently struck
men with fear and wonder, and evoked more censure
than praise. Some were disgusted with such a bold
breaking of conventional chains; a few were startled
into admiration. Much of the public amazement was
due not only to the principles of the book, but to its
warmth and earnestness. As Miss Thackeray says, the
English authoresses of those days “ kept their readers
carefully at pen's length, and seemed for the most part
to be so conscious of their surprising achievement in
the way of literature, as never to forget for a single
minute that they were in print.” But here was a
woman who wrote eloquently from her heart, who told
people boldly what she thoughf upon subjects of which
102 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
her sex, as a rule, pretended to know nothing, and who
forgot herself in her interest in her work. It was
natural that curiosity was felt as to what manner of
being she was, and that curiosity changed into surprise
when, instead of the virago expected, she was found to
be, to use Godwin’s words, “lovely in her person, and,
in the best and most engaging sense, feminine in her
manners.” The fable was in this case reversed; it was
the sheep who had appeared in Wolf's clothing.
In her own circle of friends and acquaintances she
was lionized. Some of her readers were converted into
enthusiasts. The reputation she had won by her
answer to Burke was now firmly established. She was
respected as an independent thinker and a bold dealer
with social problems.
But conservatives avoided her and her book as moral
plagues. Many people would not even look at what
she had written. Satisfied with the old-fashioned way
of treating the subjects therein discussed, they would
not run the risk of finding out that they were wrong.
They dreaded the increase of knowledge which would
bring with it greater sorrow. Mrs. Barbauld, eloquent
in her defence of men’s rights, could conceive no higher
aim for women than the attainment of sufficient know-
ledge to make them agreeable companions to their
husbands and brothers. Should there be any deviation
from the methods of education which insured this end,
they would, she feared, become like the Précieuses or
Femmes Savantes of Molière. Mary’s vigorous appeal
for improvement could, therefore, have no meaning for
her. Hannah More, enthusiastic in her denunciations
of slavery, but unconscious that her liberty was in the
least restricted, did not hesitate to form an opinion of
VISIT TO PARIS. i03
the Rights of Women without examining it, thus neces-
sarily missing its true significance. In this she doubt-
less represented a large majority of her sex. She wrote
to Horace Walpole in 1793:—
I have been much pestered to read the Rights of Women, but am
invincibly resolved not to do it. Of all jargon, I hate metaphysical
jargon beside, there is something fantastic and absurd in the very
title. Iow many ways there are of being ridiculous ! I am sure I
have as much liberty as I can make a good use of, now I am an old
maid; and when I was a young one I had, I dare say, more than was
good for me. If I were still young, perhaps I should not make this
confession; but so many women are fond of government, I suppose,
because they are not fit for it. To be unstable and capricious, I
really think, is but too characteristic of our sex; and there is,
perhaps, no animal so much indebted to subordination for its good
behaviour as woman. I have soberly and uniformly maintained this
doctrine ever since I have been capable of observation, and I used
horridly to provoke some of my female friends—maitresses femmes—
by it, especially such heroic spirits as poor Mrs. Walsingham.
Men, on the other hand, thought Mary was unsexing
herself by her arguments, which seemed to interfere
with their rights, an interference they could not
brook. Walpole, when he answered the letter from
which the above extract is taken, wrote with warmth :—
. . . It is better to thank Providence for the tranquillity and
happiness we enjoy in this country, in spite of the philosophizing
serpents we have in our bosom, the Paines, the Tookes, and the
Wollstonecrafts. I am glad you have not read the tract of the last-
mentioned Writer. I would not look at it, though assured it contains
neither metaphysics nor politics; but as she entered the lists of the
latter, and borrowed her title from the demon's book which aimed at
spreading the wrongs of men, she is excommunicated from the pale of
my library. We have had enough of new systems, and the world a
great deal too much already.
She seems always to have incurred Walpole's deepest
scorn and wrath He could not speak of her without
heaping scorn upon her name. A year or two later,
104. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
when she had published her book on the French Revo-
lution, writing again to Hannah More, he thus con-
cludes his letter :—
Adieu, thou excellent woman I thou reverse of that hyena in petti-
coats, Mrs. Wollstonecraft, who to this day discharges her ink and
gall on Marie Antoinette, whose unparalleled sufferings have not yet
staunched that Alecto’s blazing ferocity.
There was at least one man in London whose opinion
was worth having who, it is known, treated the book
with indifference, and he, by a strange caprice of fate,
was William Godwin. It was at this time, when she
was in the fulness of her fame, that Mary first met him.
She was dining at Johnson’s with Paine and Shovet,
and Godwin had come purposely to meet the American
philosopher and to hear him talk. But Paine was at
best a silent man ; and Mary, it seems, monopolized
the conversation. Godwin was disappointed, and con-
sequently the impression she made upon him was not
pleasing. He afterwards wrote an account of this first
meeting, which is interesting because of the closer
relationship to which an acquaintance so unpropitiously
begun was to lead. He says:–
The interview was not fortunate. Mary and myself parted mutu-
ally displeased with each other. I had not read her Rights of Women.
I had barely looked into her answer to Burke, and been displeased,
as literary men are apt to be with a few offences against grammar
and other minute points of composition. I had therefore little curi-
osity to see Mrs. Wollstonecraft, and a very great curiosity to see
Thomas Paine. Paine, in his general habits, is no great talker; and,
though he threw in occasionally some shrewd and striking remarks,
the conversation lay principally between me and Mary. I, of con-
sequence, heard her very frequently when I wished to hear Paine.
We touched on a considerable variety of topics, and particularly
on the character and habits of certain eminent men. Mary, as has
already been observed, had acquired, in a very blameable degree, the
practice of seeing everything on the gloomy side, and bestowing
VISIT TO PARIS. 105
censure with a plentiful hand, where circumstances were in any
degree doubtful. I, on the contrary, had a strong propensity to favour-
able construction, and, particularly where I found unequivocal marks
of genius, strongly to incline to the supposition of generous and
manly virtue. We ventilated in this way the character of Woltaire
and others, who have obtained from some individuals an ardent ad-
miration, while the greater number have treated them with extreme
moral severity. Mary was at last provoked to tell me that praise,
lavished in the way that I lavished it, could do no credit either to the
commended or the commender. We discussed some questions on the
subject of religion, in which her opinions approached much nearer to
the received ones than mine. As the conversation proceeded, I be-
came dissatisfied with the tone of my own share in it. We touched
upon all topics without treating forcibly or connectedly upon any.
Meanwhile, I did her the justice, in giving an account of the con-
versation to a party in which I supped, though I was not sparing of
my blame, to yield her the praise of a person of active and indepen-
dent thinking. On her side she did me no part of what perhaps I
considered as justice.
We met two or three times in the course of the following year,
but made a very small degree of progress towards a cordial ac-
quaintance.
Not until Mary had lived through the tragedy of her
life were they destined to become more to each other
than mere fellow mortals. There was much to be
learned, and much to be forgotten, before the time
came to her to give herself into his keeping.
Her family were naturally interested in her book from
personal motives; but Eliza and Everina heartily dis-
approved of it, and their feelings for their eldest sister
became, from this period, less and less friendly. Both
were now in good situations. Mary felt free, therefore,
to consider her own comforts a little. Besides, she
had attained a position which it became her to sus-
tain with dignity. She was now known as Mrs. Woll-
stonecraft, and was a prominent figure in the literary
world. Shortly after the publication of the Rights of
106 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
Women, she moved from the modest lodgings in George
Street, to larger, better rooms in Store Street, Bedford
Square, and these she furnished comfortably. Neces-
sity was no longer her only standard. She also gave
more care to her dress. Her stern apprenticeship was
over. She had so successfully trampled upon the
thorns in her path that she could pause to enjoy the
flowers. To modern readers her new furniture and
gowns are welcome signs of the awakening of the
springtime in her cold and wintry life. But her sisters
resented them, particularly because, while they, need-
ing less, received less from her bounty, and Charles,
waiting for a good opening in America, was living at
her expense. He, with thoughtless ingratitude, sent
them semi-satirical accounts of her new mode of
living, and thus unconsciously kindled their jealousy
into a fierce flame. When the extent of Mary’s kind-
ness and self-sacrifice in their regard is remembered,
the petty ill-nature of brother and sisters, as expressed
in the following letter from Mrs. Bishop to Everina, is
unpardonable:—
Upton Castle, July 3, 1792.
. . He [Charles] informs me too that Mrs. Wollstonecraft is
grown quite handsome; he adds likewise that, being conscious she is
on the wrong side of thirty, she now endeavours to set off those
charms she once despised, to the best advantage. This, entre nous,
for he is delighted with her affection and kindness to him.
So the author of the Rights of Women is going to Francel I dare-
say her chief motive is to promote poor Bess's comfort, or thine, my
girl, or at least I think she will so reason. Well, in spite of reason,
when Mrs. W. reaches the Continent she will be but a woman l I
cannot help painting her in the height of all her wishes, at the very
summit of happiness, for will not ambition fill every chink of her
great soul (for such I really think hers) that is not occupied by
love? After having drawn this sketch, you can hardly suppose me
so sanguine as to expect my pretty face will be thought of when
VISIT TO PARIS. 107
Imatters of State are in agitation, yet I know you think such a
miracle not impossible. I wish I could think it at all probable, but,
alas ! it has so much the appearance of castle-building that I think it
will soon disappear like the “baseless fabric of a vision, and leave
not a wrack behind.”
And you actually have the vanity to imagine that in the National
Assembly, personages like M. and F.[useli] will bestow a thought
on two females whom nature meant to “suckle fools and chronicle
Small beer.”
Only a few days before Mary had written to Everina
to discuss with her a matter relative to Mrs. Bishop's
prospects. This letter explains the allusions of the
latter to Mary's proposed trip to France, and shows how
little reason she had for her ill-natured conclusions:—
London, June 20, 1792.
. . . I have been considering what you say respecting Eliza's re-
sidence in France. For some time past Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli, Mr.
Johnson, and myself have talked of a summer excursion to Paris; it
is now determined on, and we think of going in about six weeks. I
shall be introduced to many people. My book has been translated,
and praised in some popular prints, and Mr. Fuseli of course is well
known; it is then very probable that I shall hear of some situation
for Eliza, and I shall be on the watch. We intend to be absent only
six weeks; if then I fix on an eligible situation for her she may
avoid the Welsh winter. This journey will not lead me into any ex-
traordinary expense, or I should put it off to a more convenient
season, for I am not, as you may suppose, very flush of money, and
Charles is wearing out the clothes which were provided for his
voyage. Still I am glad he has acquired a little practical knowledge
of farming. . .
The French trip was, however, put off until the
following December; and when the time came for
her departure, neither Mr. Johnson nor the Fuselis ac-
companied her. Since the disaffection of the latter has
been construed in a way which reflects upon Mary's
character, it is necessary to pause here to consider the
nature of the friendship which existed between them.
108 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
The shadow unfairly cast upon her reputation must
be dissipated.
Mary valued Fuseli as one of her dearest friends,
He, like her, was an enthusiast. He was a warm
partisan of justice and a rebel against established insti-
tutions. He would take any steps to see that the
rights of the individual were respected. His inter-
ference in a case where men in subordinate positions
were defrauded by those in authority, but which did
not affect him personally, was the cause of his being
compelled to leave Zurich, his home, and thus, event-
ually, of his coming to England. Besides their unity
of thought and feeling, their work often lay in the same
direction. Fuseli, as well as Mary, translated for John-
son, and contributed to the Analytical Review. He
was an intimate friend of Lavater, whose work on
Physiognomy Mary had translated with the liveliest
interest. There was thus a strong bond of sympathy
between them, and many ways in which they could
help and consult with each other in their literary tasks.
Mary was devoid of the coquetry which is so strong
with some women that they carry it even into their
friendships. She never attempted to conceal her liking
for Fuseli. His sex was no drawback. Why should
it be? It had not interfered with her warm feelings
for George Blood and Mr. Johnson. She was the last
person in the world to be deterred from what she
thought was right for the sake of appearances.
However, another construction was given to her
friendly demonstrations. The story told both by
Knowles, the biographer of Fuseli, and by Godwin,
is that Mary was in love with the artist; and that the
necessity of suppressing, even if she could not destroy,
WISIT TO PARIS. 109
her passion—hopeless since its object was a married
man—was the immediate reason of her going to
France alone. But they interpret the circumstances
very differently. The incidents, as given by Godwin,
are in no wise to Mary’s discredit, though his account
of them was later on twisted and distorted by Beloe
in his Sewagenarian. The latter writer, however,
is so prejudiced that his words have but little value.
Godwin, in the Memoirs, after demonstrating the
strength of the intimacy between Mary and Fuseli,
says:—
Notwithstanding the inequality of their years, Mary was not of a
temper to live upon terms of so much intimacy with a man of merit
and genius without loving him. The delight she enjoyed in his
society, she transferred by association to his person. What she ex-
perienced in this respect was no doubt heightened by the state of
celibacy and restraint in which she had hitherto lived, and to which
the rules of polished society condemn an unmarried woman. She
conceived a personal and ardent affection for him. Mr. Fuseli was a
married man, and his wife the acquaintance of Mary. She readily
perceived the restrictions which this circumstance seemed to impose
upon her; but she made light of any difficulty that might arise out
of them. Not that she was insensible to the value of domestic en-
dearments between persons of an opposite sex, but that she scorned
to suppose that she could feel a struggle in conforming to the laws
she should lay down to her conduct.
. . . There is no reason to doubt that if Mr. Fuseli had been
disengaged at the period of their acquaintance, he would have been
the man of her choice.
. . . One of her principal inducements to this step [her visit to
France], related, I believe, to Mr. Fuseli. She had at first considered
it as reasonable and judicious to cultivate what I may be permitted
to call a platonic affection for him; but she did not, in the sequel,
find all the satisfaction in this plan which she had originally expected
from it. It was in vain that she enjoyed much pleasure in his society,
and that she enjoyed it frequently. Her ardent imagination was con-
tinually conjuring up pictures of the happiness she should have found
if fortune had favoured their more intimate union. She felt herse'f
formed for domestic affection, and all those tender charitics which
110 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
men of sensibility have constantly treated as the dearest bond of
human society. General conversation and society could not satisfy
her. She felt herself alone, as it were, in the great mass of her
species, and she repined when she reflected that the best years of
her life were spent in this comfortless solitude. These ideas made
the cordial intercourse of Mr. Fuseli, which had at first been one of
her greatest pleasures, a source of perpetual torment to her. She
conceived it necessary to snap the chain of this association in her
mind; and, for that purpose, determined to seek a new climate, and
mingle in different scenes.
Mr. Kegan Paul, Mary’s able defender of modern
times, denies the whole story. He writes in his
Prefatory Memoirs to her Letters to Imlay :-
. . . Godwin knew extremely little of his wife's earlier life, nor was
this a subject on which he had sought enlightenment from herself.
I can only here say that I fail to find any confirmation whatever of
this preposterous story, as told in Knowles's Life of Fuseli, or in any
other form, while I find much which makes directly against it, the
strongest fact being that Mary remained to the end the correspondent
and close friend of Mrs. Fuseli.
Her character is the best refutation of Knowles's
charges. She was too proud to demean herself to any
man. She was too sensitive to slights to risk the
repulses he says she accepted. And since always
before and after this period she had nothing more at
heart than the happiness of others, it is not likely that
she would have deliberately tried to step in between
Fuseli and his wife, and gain, at the latter's expense,
her own ends. She could not have changed her cha-
racter in a day. She never played fast and loose with
her principles. These were in many ways contrary to
the standard of the rest of mankind, but they were also
equally opposed to the conduct imputed to hor. The
testimony of her actions is her acquittal. That she
did not for a year produce any work of importance is
no argument against her. It was only after three years
VISIT TO PARIS. 111
of uninterrupted industry that she found time to write
the Rights of Women. On account of the urgency
of her every-day needs, she had no leisure for work
whose financial success was uncertain.
However this may have been, it is certain that Mr.
Johnson and the Fuselis decided to remain at home
when Mary in December started for Paris.
The excitement in the French capital was then at
fever heat. But the outside world hardly compre-
hended how serious the troubles were. Princes and
their adherents trembled at the blow given to royalty
in the person of Louis XVI. Liberals rejoiced at the
successful revolt against monarchical tyranny. But
neither one party nor the other for a moment forc-
saw what a terrible weapon reform was to become in
the hands of the excitable French people. If, in the
city where the tragedy was being enacted, the custom-
ary baking and brewing, the promenading under the
trees, and dog-dancing and the shoe-blacking on
the Pont-Neuf could still continue, it is not strange
that those who watched it from afar mistook its real
weight.
The terrible night of the 10th of August had come
and gone. The September massacres, the details of
which had not yet reached England, were over. The
Girondists were in the ascendency and had restored
order. There were fierce contentions in the National
Convention, but, on the whole, its attitude was one to
inspire confidence. The English, who saw in the arrest
of the king, and in the popular feeling against him, just |
such a crisis as their nation had passed through once
or twice, were not deterred from visiting the country
by its unsettled state. The French prejudice against
1 12 MARY WOLI/STONECRAFT GOD WIN.
England, it is true, was strong. Lafayette had some
time before publicly expressed his belief that she was
secretly conspiring against the peace of France. But
his imputation had been vigorously denied, and nomi-
nally the two governments were friendly. English citi-
zens had no reason to suppose they would not be safe
in Paris, and those among them whose opinions brought
them en rapport with the French Republicans felt
doubly secure. Consequently Mary’s departure for
that capital, alone and unprotected, did not seem so
hazardous then as it does now that the true condition
of affairs is better understood.
She knew in Paris a Madame Filiettaz, daughter of
the Madame Bregantz at whose school in Putney Eliza
and Everina had been teachers, and to her house she
went, by invitation. Monsieur and Madame Filiettaz
were absent, and she was for some little time its sole
occupant, save the servants. The object of her visit
was twofold. She wished to study French, for though
she could read and translate this language fluently, from
want of practice she could neither speak nor under-
stand it when it was spoken ; and she also desired to
watch for herself the development of the cause of free-
dom. Their love of liberty had made the French, as
a nation, peculiarly attractive to her. She had long
since openly avowed her sympathy by her indignant
reply to Burke's outcry against them. It was now a
great satisfaction to be where she could follow day by
day the progress of their struggle. She had excellent
opportunities not only to see what was on the surface
of society, which is all visitors to a strange land can
usually do, but to study the actual forces at work in
the movement. Thomas Paine was then in Paris. He
VISIT TO PARIS. 113
was a member of the National Convention, and was
on terms of intimacy with Condorcet, Brissot, Madame
Roland, and other Republican leaders. Mary had
known him well in London. She now renewed the ac-
quaintance, and was always welcomed to his house near
the Rue de Richelieu. Later, when, worn out by his
numerous visitors, he retired to the Faubourg St. Denis,
to a hotel where Madame de Pompadour had once lived,
and allowed it to be generally believed that he had
gone into the country for his health, Mary was one
of the few favoured friends who knew of his where-
abouts. She thus, through him, was brought into close
contact with the leading spirits of the day. She also
saw much of Helen Maria Williams, the poetess, already
motorious for her extreme liberalism, and who had
numerous friends and acquaintances among the Revolu-
tionary party in Paris. Mrs. Christie was still another
friend of this period. Her husband's business having
kept them in France, they had become thoroughly
nationalized. At their house many Americans congre-
gated, among others a Captain Gilbert Imlay, of whom
more hereafter. In addition to these English friends,
Mary had letters of introduction to several prominent
French citizens.
She arrived in Paris just before Louis XVI.'s trial.
The city was comparatively quiet, but there was in the
air an oppression which betokened the coming storm.
She felt the people's suspense as if she, too, had been
personally interested. Between her studies and her
efforts to obtain the proper clue by which she could in
her own mind reduce the present political chaos to
order, she found more than enough wherewith to fill
her days. As always happened with her, the mental
8
114 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
strain reacted upon her physical health, and her old
enemies, depression of spirits and headaches, returned
to harass her.
She wrote to Everina on the 24th of December :—
To-morrow I expect to see Aline [Madame Filiettaz]. During her
absence the servants endeavoured to render the house—a most ex-
cellent one—comfortable to me; but as I wish to acquire the language
as fast as I can, I was sorry to be obliged to remain so much alone.
I apply so closely to the language, and labour so continually to
understand what I hear, that I never go to bed without a headache,
and my spirits are fatigued with endeavouring to form a just opinion
of public affairs. The day after to-morrow I expect to see the King
at the bar, and the consequences that will follow I am almost afraid
to anticipate.
I have seen very little of Paris, the streets are so dirty; and I
wait till I can make myself understood before I call upon Madame
Laurent, &c. Miss Williams has behaved very civilly to me, and I
shall visit her frequently because I rather like her, and I meet French
company at her house. Her manners are affected, yet the simple
goodness of her heart continually breaks through the warnish, so
that one would be more inclined, at least I should, to love than
admire her. Authorship is a heavy weight for female shoulders,
especially in the sunshine of prosperity. Of the French I will not
speak till I know more of them. They seem the people of all
others for a stranger to come amongst, yet sometimes when I have
given a commission, which was eagerly asked for, it has not been
executed, and when I ask for an explanation—I allude to the servant.
maid, a quick girl, who, an’t please you, has been a teacher in an
English boarding-school—dust is thrown up with a self-sufficient air,
and I am obliged to appear to see her meaning clearly, though she
puzzles herself, that I may not make her feel her ignorance; but you
must have experienced the same thing. I will write to you soon
again. Meantime, let me hear from you, and believe me yours
sincerely and affectionately,
M. W.
When the dreaded 26th came, there was no one in
Paris more excited and interested than Mary. From
her window she saw the King as he rode by with calm
dignity to his trial. Throughout the entire day she
|WISIT TO PARIS. 115
waited anxiously, uncertain as to what would be the
effects of the morning’s proceedings. Then, when
evening came, and all continued quiet and the danger
was over, she grew nervous and fearful, as she had that
other memorable night when she kept her vigil in the
little room at Hackney. She was absolutely alone with
her thoughts, and it was a relief to write to Mr. John-
son. It gave her a sense of companionship. This
“hyena in petticoats,” this “ philosophizing serpent,”
was at heart as feminine as Hannah More or any other
“excellent woman.”
Paris, Dec. 26, 1792.
I should immediately on the receipt of your letter, my dear friend,
have thanked you for your punctuality, for it highly gratified me,
had I not wished to wait till I could tell you that this day was not
stained with blood. Indeed, the prudent precautions taken by the
National Convention to prevent a tumult made me suppose that the
dogs of faction would not dare to bark, much less to bite, however
true to their scent; and I was not mistaken; for the citizens, who
were all called out, are returning home with composed countenances,
shouldering their arms. About nine o'clock this morning the King
passed by my window, moving silently along, excepting now and then
a few strokes on the drum, which rendered the stillness more awful,
through empty streets, surrounded by the National Guards, who,
clustering round the carriage, seemed to deserve their name. The
inhabitants flocked to their windows, but the casements were all
shut ; not a voice was heard, nor did I See anything like an insulting
gesture. For the first time since I entered France I bowed to the
majesty of the people, and respected the propriety of behaviour, so
perfectly in unison with my own feelings. I can scarcely tell you
why, but an association of ideas made the tears flow insensibly from
my eyes, when I saw Louis sitting, with more dignity than I expected
from his character, in a hackney-coach, going to meet death where so
many of his race have triumphed. My fancy instantly brought Louis
XIV. before me, entering the capital with all his pomp, after one of
the victories most flattering to his pride, only to see the sunshine of
prosperity overshadowed by the sublime gloom of misery. I have
been alone ever since ; and though my mind is calm, I cannot dismiss
the lively images that have filled my imagination all the day. Nay,
8 *
II6 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
do not smile, but pity me, for, once or twice, lifting my eyes from the
paper, I have seen eyes glare through a glass door opposite my chair,
and bloody hands shook at me. Not the distant sound of a footstep
can I hear. My apartments are remote from those of the servants,
the only persons who sleep with me in an immense hotel, one folding-
door opening after another. I wish I had even kept the cat with me !
I want to see something alive—death in so many frightful shapes has
taken hold of my fancy. I am going to bed, and for the first time in
my life I cannot put out the candle.
M. W.
These imaginary terrors gave way to real ones soon
enough. The execution of Louis was followed by the
declaration of war between France and England and
the complete demoralization of the French people,
especially of the Parisians. The feeling against Eng-
land grew daily more bitter, and the position of English
residents in Paris more precarious. It was next to
impossible for them to send letters home, and therefore
their danger was not realized by their countrymen on
the other side of the Channel. Mrs. Bishop, in the
far-away Welsh castle, grew impatient at Mary's silence.
Politics was a subject dear to her heart, but one
tabooed at Upton. At her first word upon the topic
the family, her employers, left the room, and she was
consequently obliged to ignore it when she was with
them. But when, some months later on, two or three
French refugees came to Pembroke, she was quick to
go to them, ostensibly for French lessons, but in reality
to hear their accounts of the scenes through which they
had passed. Forced to live in quiet, remote places,
she longed for the excitement only to be had in the
large centres of action, and at one time, in her discon-
tent, began to make plans to join her sister in France.
While Eliza was thus contemplating a journey to Paris,
Mary was wondering how it would be possible either
VISIT TO PARIS. 117
to continue living there or to leave the country. It
was equally out of the question to obtain fresh supplies
of money from England or a passport to carry her
safely back. She had, when she left London, only
intended to be absent for a few weeks, and had not
even given up her rooms in George Street. But the
weeks had lengthened into months, and now her return
was an impossibility.
For motives of economy she left the large Filiettaz
mansion. At first she thought of making a trip to
Switzerland, but this plan had to be abandoned because
of the difficulty in procuring a passport. She therefore
went to Neuilly, where, her ready money well-nigh ex-
hausted, she lived as simple as she could. Economy
was doubly necessary at a time when heavy taxes were
sending a hungry multitude into the streets, clamouring
for bread. She was now more alone than ever. Her
sole attendant was an old man, a gardener. He became
her warm friend, succumbing completely to her power
of attraction. With the gallantry of his race he could
not do enough for Madame. He waited upon her with
unremitting attention; he even disputed for the honour
of making her bed. He served up at her table, unasked,
the grapes from his garden which he absolutely refused
to give to her guests. He objected to her English
independence; her lonely walks through the woods of
Neuilly met with his serious disapproval, and he be-
sought her to allow him the privilege of accompanying
her, painting in awful colours the robbers and other
dangers with which the place abounded. But Mary
persisted in going alone; and when, evening after even-
ing, she returned unharmed, it must have seemed to
bim as if she bore a charmed life. Such incidents as
118 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
these show, better than volumes of praise, the true
kindliness of her nature which was not influenced by
distinctions of rank.
Those who knew her but by name, however, dealt
with her in less gentle fashion. Her fame had been
carried even into Pembroke; and while she was living
her solitary and inoffensive life in Paris, Mrs. Bishop
was writing to Everina : “The conversation [at Upton
Castle] turns on Murphy, on Irish potatoes, or Tommy
Paine, whose effigy they burnt at Pembroke the other
day. Nay, they talk of immortalizing Miss Wollstone-
craft in like manner, but all end in damning all
politics: What good will they do men 2 and what
rights have men that three meals a day will not sup-
ply?” After all, perhaps they were wise, these Welsh-
men. Were not their brethren in France purchasing
their rights literally at the price of their three meals
a day?
Sometimes, perhaps to please her friend, the gar-
dener, instead of her rambles through the woods, Mary
walked towards and even into Paris, and then she saw
sights which made Pembroke logic seem true wisdom,
and freedom a farce. Once, in so doing, she passed
by chance a place of execution, just at the close of one
of its too frequent tragic scenes. The blood was still
fresh upon the pavement ; the crowd of lookers-on
not yet dispersed. She heard them as they stood there
rehearsing the day's horror, and she chafed against the
cruelty and inhumanity of the deed. In a moment—
her French so improved that she could make herself
understood—she was telling the people near her some-
thing of what she thought of their new tyrants. Those
were dangerous times for freedom of speech. So far
TVISIT TO PARIS. 1T 9
the champions of liberty had proved themselves more
inexorable masters than the Bourbons. Some of the
bystanders, who, though they dared not speak their
minds, sympathized with Mary’s indignation, warned
her of her danger and hurried her away from the spot.
Horror at the ferocity of men's passions, wrath at in-
justices committed in the name of freedom, and impa-
tience at her own helplessness to right the evils by
which she was surrounded, no doubt inspired her,
as saddened and sobered she walked back alone to
Neuilly.
During all this time she continued her literary work.
She proposed to write a series of letters upon the pre-
sent character of the French nation, and with this end
in view she silently studied the people and the course
of political action. She was quick and observant, and
nothing escaped her notice. She came to Paris pre-
pared to continue a firm partisan of the French Revo-
lution; but she could not be blind to the national
defects. She saw the frivolity and sensuality of the
people, their hunger for all things sweet, and the un-
restrained passions of the greater number of the Re-
publican leaders, which made them love liberty more
than law itself. She valued their cause, but she de-
spised the means by which they sought to gain it.
Thus, in labouring to grasp the meaning of the move-
ment, not as it appeared to petty factions, but as it was
as a whole, she was confronted by the greatest of all
mysteries, the relation of good and evil. Again, as
when she had analyzed the rights of women, she recog-
nized evil to be a power which eventually works for
righteousness, thereby proving the clearness of her
mental vision. Only one of these letters, however, was
120 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
written and published. It is dated Feb. 15, 1793, so
that the opinions therein expressed were not hastily
formed. As its style is that of a familiar letter, and as
it gives a good idea of the thoroughness with which
she had applied herself to her task, it may appropriately
be quoted from here. She writes:–
. . . The whole mode of life here tends indeed to render the people
frivolous, and, to borrow their favourite epithet, amiable. Ever on
the wing, they are always sipping the sparkling joy on the brim of
the cup, leaving satiety in the bottom for those who venture to drink
deep. On all sides they trip along, buoyed up by animal spirits, and
scemingly so void of care that often, when I am walking on the Boule-
wards, it occurs to me that they alone understand the full import of the
term leisure; and they triſle their time away with such an air of con-
tentment, I know not how to wish them wiser at the expense of gaiety.
They play before me like motes in a sunbeam, enjoying the passing
ray; whilst an English head, searching for more solid happiness,
loses in the analysis of pleasure the volatile sweets of the moment.
Their chief enjoyment, it is true, rises from vanity; but it is not
the vanity that engenders vexation of spirit: on the contrary, it
lightens the heavy burden of life, which reason too often weighs,
merely to shift from one shoulder to the other. . . .
Before I came to France, I cherished, you know, an opinion that
strong virtues might exist with the polished manners produced by the
progress of civilisation; and I even anticipated the epoch, when, in
the course of improvement, men would labour to become virtuous,
without being goaded on by misery. But now the perspective of the
golden age, fading before the attentive eye of observation, almost eludes
my sight ; and, losing thus in part my theory of a more perfect state,
start not, my friend, if I bring forward an opinion which, at the first
glance, seems to be levelled against the existence of God l I am not
become an atheist, I assure you, by residing at Paris; yet I begin to
fear that vice or, if you will, evil is the grand mobile of action, and
that, when the passions are justly poised, we become harmless, and in
the same proportion useless. . . .
You may think it too soon to form an opinion of the future govern-
ment, yet it is impossible to avoid hazarding some conjectures, when
overything whispers me that names, not principles, are changed, and
when I see that the turn of the tide has left the dregs of the old
system to corrupt the new. For the same pride of office, the same
WISIT TO PARIS. 121
desire of power, are still visible; with this aggravation, that, fearing
to return to obscurity after having but just acquired a relish for dis-
tinction, each hero or philosopher, for all are dubbed with these new
titles, endeavours to make hay while the sun shines; and every petty
municipal officer, become the idol, or rather the tyrant of the day,
stalks like a cock on a dunghill.
The letters were discontinued, probably because Mary
thought letter-writing too easy and familiar a style in
which to treat so weighty a subject. She only gave up
the one work, however, to undertake another still more
ambitious. At Neuilly she began and wrote almost
all that was ever finished of her Historical and Moral
View of the French Revolution.
While she was thus living the quiet life of a student
in the midst of excitement, her own affairs, as well as
those of France, were hastening to a crisis.
122 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
CHAPTER VIII.
LIFE WITH IMLAY.
1793–1794.
WHILE Mary was living at Neuilly, the terrors of the
French Revolution growing daily greater, she took a
step to which she was prompted by pure motives, but
which has left a blot upon her fair fame. The outcry
raised by her Vindication of the Rights of Women has
ceased, since its theories have found so many champions;
but that which followed her assertion of her individual
rights has never yet been hushed. Mr. Kegan Paul
speaks the truth when he says, “The name of Mary
Wollstonecraft has long been a mark for obloquy
and scorn”; and the least that can be done to clear
her memory of stains is to state impartially the facts of
her case.
As has been said in the previous chapter, Mary often
spent her free hours with Mrs. Christie, and at her
house she met Captain Gilbert Imlay. He was one of
the many Americans then living in Paris; was an
attractive man personally, and by his position and abili-
ties entitled to respect. He had taken an active part
in the American rebellion, having then risen to the
a y
LIFE WITH IMLA. Y. I23
rank of captain, and, after the war, had been sent as
commissioner to survey still unsettled districts of the
western States. On his return from this work he wrote
A Topographical Description of the Western Territory
of North America, which is remarkable for its thorough-
ness and its clear, condensed style. It passed through
several editions and increased his reputation. His
business in France is not very explicitly explained.
His head-quarters seem to have been at Havre, while
he had certain commercial relations with Norway and
Sweden. He was most probably in the timber trade,
and was, at least at this period, successful. Godwin
says that he had no property whatever, but his specula-
tions apparently brought him plenty of ready money.
Foreigners in Paris, especially Americans and Eng-
lish, were naturally drawn together. Mary and Imlay
had mutual acquaintances, and they saw much of each
other. His republican sentiments alone would have
appealed to her. But the better she learned to know
him, the more she liked him personally. He, on his
side, was equally attracted, and his kindness and con-
sideration for her were greatly in his favour. Their
affection in the end developed into a feeling stronger
than mere friendship. Its consequence, since both
were free, would, under ordinary circumstances, have
been marriage.
But her circumstances just then were extraordinary.
Godwin says that she objected to a marriage with Im-
lay because she did not wish to “involve him in cer-
tain family embarrassments to which she conceived
herself exposed, or make him answerable for the pecun-
iary demands that existed against her.” There were,
however, more formidable objections, not of her own
124. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
making. The English who remained in Paris ran the
chance from day to day of being arrested with the
priests and aristocrats, and even of being carried to
the guillotine. Their only safeguard lay in obscurity.
They had, above all else, to evade the notice of Govern-
ment officers. Mary, if she married Imlay, would be
obliged to proclaim herself a British subject, and would
thus be risking imprisonment, and perhaps death.
Besides, it was very doubtful whether a marriage cere-
mony performed by the French authorities would be
recognized in England as valid.
To Mary, however, this did not seem an insurmount-
able obstacle to their union. “Her view had now
become,” Mr. Kegan Paul says, “that mutual affection
was marriage, and that the marriage tie should not bind
after the death of love, if love should die.” In her
Vindication she had upheld the sanctity of marriage
because she believed that the welfare of society de-
pends upon the order maintained in family relations;
but her belief also was that the form the law demands
is nothing, the feeling which leads those concerned to
desire it, everything. What she had hitherto seen of
married life, as at present instituted, was not calculated
to make her think highly of it. Her mother and her
friend's mother had led the veriest dogs’ lives because
the law would not permit them to leave brutal and sen-
sual husbands, whom they had ceased to honour or love.
IHer sister had been driven mad by the ill-treatment
of a man to whom she was bound by legal, but not by
natural ties. Probably in London other cases had
come within her notice. Love was the one unimportant
clement in the marriage compact. The artificial tone
of society had disgusted all the more earnest thinkers
ºrs
LIFE WITH IMLAY. 125
of the day. The one extreme to which existing evils
were carried drove reformers to the other. Mary
reasoned in the same spirit as they did, and from no
desire to uphold the doctrine of free love. Fearless
in her practice as in her theories, she did not hesitate
in this emergency to act in a way that seemed to her
conscience right. She loved Imlay honestly and sin-
cerely; but because she loved him she could not think
evil of him, nor suppose for a moment that his passion
was not as pure and true as hers. Therefore she con-
sented to live with him as his wife, though no religious
nor civil ceremony could sanction their union.
That this, according to the world’s standard, was
wrong, is a fact beyond dispute. But before the first
stones are thrown, the pros as well as the cons must
be remembered. If Mary had held the conventional
beliefs as to the relations of the sexes, she would be
judged by them. Had she thought her connection
with Imlay criminal, then she would be condemned
by her own conviction. But she did not think so.
Moreover, her opinions to the contrary were very de-
cided. When she gave herself to Imlay without wait-
ing for a minister's blessing or a legal permit, she
acted in strict adherence to her moral ideals; and this
at once places her in a far different rank from that of
the Mrs. Robinsons and Mrs. Jordans, with whom
men have been too ready to class her. To Mary love
was literally her whole existence, and fidelity a virtue
to be cultivated above all others. Mary Wollstonecraft
might rely upon her friends and acquaintances for
recognition of her virtue, but she should have remem-
bered that to the world at large her conduct would
appear immoral; that by it she would become a pariah
126 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
in society, and her work lose much of its efficacy;
while she would be giving to her children, if she had
any, an inheritance of shame that would cling to them
for ever.
She may probably have realized this drawback and
determined to avoid the evil consequences of her de-
fiance to social usages. For the first few months it
seems that she kept her intimacy with Imlay secret, and
she may have intended concealing it until such time
as she could make it legal in the eyes of the world.
Godwin dates its beginning in April, 1793. The only
information in this respect is to be had from her pub-
lished letters to Imlay, the first of which was written
in June of the same year, though, it must be added,
Mr. Kegan Paul queries the date. This and the follow-
ing note, dated August, prove the secrecy she had for
a time maintained. The latter seems to have been
written after she had determined to live openly with
Imlay in Paris, but just before she carried her deter-
mination into practice:—
Past Twelve o'clock, Monday night.
I obey an emotion of my heart which made me think of wishing
thce, my love, good-night ! before I go to rest, with more tenderness
than I can to-morrow, when writing a hasty line or two under Colonel
's eye. You can scarcely imagine with what pleasure I anticipate
the day when we are to begin almost to live together; and you would
smile to hear how many plans of employment I have in my head, now
that I am confident my heart has found peace in your bosom. Cherish
me with that dignified tenderness which I have only found in you, and
your own dear girl will try to keep under a quickness of feeling that
has sometimes given you pain. Yes, I will be good, that I may deserve
to be happy; and whilst you love me, I cannot again fall into the
miserable state which rendered life a burden almost too heavy to be
borne.
But good-night ! God bless you! . . . I will be at the barrier a
little after ten o’clock to-morrow,
IIFE WITH IMLA. Y. 127
The reason for this step was probably the fact that
, it was not safe to her to continue in Paris alone and
, unprotected. The robbers in the woods at Neuilly
might be laughed at ; but the red-capped citoyens and
citoyennes, drunk from the first drop of aristocratic
blood, were no old man’s dangers. The peril of the
English in the city increased with every new develop-
ment of the struggle; but Americans were looked
upon as staunch brother citizens, and a man who had
fought for the American Republic was esteemed as the
friend and honoured guest of the French Republic. As
Imlay's wife, Mary’s safety would therefore be assured.
The murderous greed of the people, to break out in
September in the Law of the Suspect, was already felt
in August, and at the cnd of that month she sought
protection under Imlay's roof, and shielded herself by
his name.
She could not at once judge of the manner in which
this expedient would be received. It was impossible
to hold any communication with England. For
eighteen months after her letter to Mr. Johnson not a
word from her reached her friends at home. As for
those in Paris, so intense was the great human tragedy
of which they were the witnesses, that they probably
forgot to gossip about each other. The crimes and
horrors that stared them in the face were so appalling
that desire to seek out imaginary ones in their neigh-
bours was lost. As far as can be known from Mary’s
letters, her connection with Imlay did not take from
her the position she had held in the English colony. No
door was closed against her; no scandal was spread
about her. The truth is, these people must have under-
stood her difficulties as well as she did. They knew
128 MARY WOI, LSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
the impossibility of a legal ceremony and the import-
ance in her case of an immediate union; and, under-
standing this, they seem to have considered her Imlay's
wife. At least the rumours which months afterwards
came to her sisters treated her marriage as a certainty.
Charles Wollstonecraft, now settled in Philadelphia,
wrote on June 16, 1794, to Eliza, a year after Mary
and Imlay had begun their joint life: “I heard from
Mary six months ago by a gentleman who knew her at
Paris, and since that have been informed she is married
to Captain Imlay of this country.” The same report
had found its way to Mr. Johnson, and through him
again to Mrs. Bishop. It was hard to doubt its truth,
and yet Mrs. Bishop knew as well if not better than
any one Mary’s views about marriage. She had, happily
for herself, reaped the benefit of them. In her surprise
she sent Charles's letter to Everina, accompanied by
her own reflections upon the startling news.
The only record of Mary’s connection with Imlay,
which lasted for about two years, are the letters which
she wrote to him while he was away from her, his ab-
sences being frequent and long. Fortunately, these
letters have been preserved. They were published by
Godwin almost immediately after her death, and were
republished in 1879 by Mr. Kegan Paul. “They are,”
says Godwin, “the offspring of a glowing imagination,
and a heart penetrated with the passion it essays to
describe.” She was thirty-five when she met Imlay.
Her passion for him was strong with the strength of
full womanhood, nor had it been weakened by the
flirtations in which so many women fritter away what
ever deep feeling they may have originally possessed.
Her letters contain the unreserved expression of her
LIH'E WITH IMLAY. 129
feelings. Those written before she had cause to doubt
her lover are full of wifely devotion and tenderness;
those written from the time she was forced to question
his sincerity, through the gradual realization of his
faithlessness, until the bitter end, are the most pathetic
and heart-rending that have ever been given to the
World. They are the cry of a human soul in its death-
agony, and are the more tragic because they belong
to real life and not to fiction.
Imlay's love was to Mary what the kiss of the Prince
was to the Sleeping Beauty in the fairy tale. It
awakened her heart to happiness, leading her into
that new world which is the old. Hitherto the love
which had been her portion was that which she had
sought
. . . In the pity of other's woe,
In the gentle relief of another's care.
And yet she had always believed that the pure passion
which a man gives to a woman is the greatest good in
life. That she was without it had been to her a heavier
trial than an unhappy home and overwhelming debts.
Now, when she least expected it, it had come to her.
While women in Paris were either trembling with fear
for what the morrow might bring forth, or else caught
in the feverish whirl of rebellion, one at least had found
rest. But human happiness can never be quite perfect.
Sensitiveness was a family fault with the Wollstone-
crafts. It had been developed rather than suppressed
in Mary by her circumstances. She was therefore
keenly susceptible not only to Imlay's love, but to his
failings. Of these he had not a few. He does not
seem to have been a refined man. From some remarks
in Mary’s lettels it may be concluded that he had at
!)
130 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
one time been very dissipated, and that the society of
coarse men and women had blunted his finer instincts.
His faults were peculiarly calculated to offend her.
His passion had to be stimulated. His business called
him away often, and his absences were unmistakably
necessary to the maintenance of his devotion. The
sunshine of her new life was therefore not entirely
unclouded. She was by degrees obliged to lower the
high pedestal on which she had placed her lover, and
to admit to herself that he was not much above the
level of ordinary men. This discovery did not lessen
her affection, though it made her occasionally melan-
choly. But she was, on the whole, happy.
In September he was compelled to leave her to go
to Havre, where he was detaincó for several months.
Love had cast out all fear from her heart. She was
certain that he considered himself, in every sense of the
word, her husband ; and therefore, during his absence,
she frankly told him how much she missed him, and in
her letters shared her troubles and pleasures with him.
She wrote the last thing at night to tell him of her love
and her loneliness. She could not take his slippers
from their old place by the door. She would not look
at a package of books sent to her, but said she would
keep them until he could read them to her while she
was mending her stockings. She drew pictures of the
happy days to come, when in the farm, cither in America
or France, to which they both looked forward as their
Ultima Thule, they would spend long evenings by their
fireside, perhaps with children about their knees. If
Eliza sent her a worrying letter, half the worry was
gone when she had confided it to him. If ne'er-do-
weel Charles, temporarily prosperous, or promising to
LIFE WITH IMLA. Y. 13]
be so, wrote her one that pleased her, straightway she
described the delight with which he would make a friend
of Imlay. When the latter had been away but a short
time, she found there was to be a new tie between them.
As the father of her unborn child he became doubly
dear to her, while the consciousness that another life
depended upon her made her more careful of her health.
“This thought,” she told him, “ has not only produced
an overflowing of tenderness to you, but made me very
attentive to calm my mind and take exercise, lest I
should destroy an object in whom we are to have a
mutual interest, you know.” As Mr. Kegan Paul says,
“No one can read her letters without seeing that she
was a pure, high-minded, and refined woman, and that
she considered herself, in the eyes of God and man,
his wife.”
During the first part of his absence, Imlay appears
to have been as devoted as she could have wished him
to be. When her letters to him did not come regularly,
—as, indeed, how could they in those troubled days 2–
he grew impatient. His impatience Mary greeted as a
good sign.
The business at Havre apparently could not be easily
settled. The date of Imlay's return became more and
more uncertain, and Mary grew restless at his prolonged
stay. This she let him know soon enough. She was
not a silent heroine willing to let concealment prey on
her spirits. It was as impossible for her to smile at
grief as it was to remain unconscious of her lover's
shortcomings. Her first complaints, however, are half
playful, half serious. They were inspired by her
desire to see him more than by any misgiving as to
the cause of his detention.
9
132 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
On the 29th of December she wrote:--
You seem to have taken up your abode at Havre. Pray, sir! when
do you think of coming home? or, to write very considerately, when
will business permit you? I shall expect (as the country people say
in England) that you will make a power of money to indemnify me for
your absence. . . .
Well! but, my love, to the old story, am I to see you this week, or
this month? I do not ask what you are about, for as you did not
tell me, I would not ask Mr. , who is generally pretty communi-
cative.
But the playfulness quickly disappeared. Mary was
ill, and her illness aggravated her normal sensitiveness,
while the terrible death-drama of the Revolution was
calculated to deepen rather than to relieve her gloom.
Imlay's answers to her letters were kind and re.
assuring, and contained ample explanation of his ap-
parent coldness. To give him the benefit of the doubt,
he was probably at this time truthful in pleading
business as an excuse for his long absence. His reasons,
at all events, not only satisfied Mary but made her
ashamed of what seemed to her a want of faith in him.
She was as humble in her penitence as if she had been
grievously at fault.
As it continued impossible for Imlay to leave Havre,
it was arranged that Mary should join him there. She
could not go at once on account of her health. While
she had been so unhappy, she had neglected to take
that care of herself which her condition necessitated,
and she was suffering the consequences. Once her
mind was at rest, she made what amends she could by
exercise in the bracing winter air, in defiance of dirt
and intense cold, and by social relaxation, at least such
as could be had while the guillotine was executing daily
tasks to the tune of Ca ira, and women were madly
;
LIFE WITH IMLAY. 133
turning in the mazes of the Carmagnole. Though she
could not boast of being quite recovered, she was soon
able to report to Imlay, “I am so lightsome, that I
think it will not go badly with me.” Her health
sufficiently restored, and an escort—the excited condi-
tion of the country making one more than usually
indispensable—having been found, she began her wel-
come journey. It was doubly welcome. One could
breathe more freely away from Paris, the seat of the
Reign of Terror, where the Revolution, as Vergniaud
said, was, Saturn-like, devouring its own children ; and
for Mary the journey had likewise the positive pleasure
of giving her her heart's desire. Before Imlay's warm
assurances of his love, her uneasiness melted away as
quickly as the snow at the first breath of spring.
She arrived in Havre in the February of 1794.
About a fortnight later Imlay left for Paris, but many
proofs of his affection had greeted her, and during these
few days he had completely calmed her fears. Judging
from the letters she sent him during this absence, he
must have been as lover-like as in the first happy days
of their union. One was written the very day after his
departure.
Imlay’s absence was brief, nor did he again leave
Mary until the following August. In April their child,
a daughter, was born, whom Mary called Fanny in
memory of her first and dearest friend. Despite her
past imprudences, she was so well that she remained in
bed but a day. Eight days later she was out again.
Though she felt no ill effects at the time, her rashness
had probably something to do with her illness when her
second child was born. These months at Havre were
a pleasant oasis in the dreary desert of her existence.
134, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
She seems to have had a house of her own in Havre,
and to have seen a little of the Havrais, whom she found
“ugly without doubt,” and their houses smelling too
much of commerce. They were, in a word, bourgeois.
But her husband and child were all the society she
wanted. With them any wilderness would have been a
paradise. Her affection increased with time, and Imlay,
though discovered not to be a demigod, grew ever dearer
to her. Her love for her child, which she confessed
was at first the effect of a sense of duty, developed
soon into a deep and tender feeling. With Imlay’s
wants to attend to, the little Fanny, at one time ill
with small-pox, to nurse, and her book on the Revolu-
tion to write, the weeks and months passed quickly and
happily. In August Imlay was summoned to Paris,
and at once the sky of her paradise was overcast. She
wrote to him,
You too have somehow clung round my heart. I found I could not
eat my dinner in the great room, and when I took up the large knife
to carve for myself, tears rushed into my eyes. Do not, however,
suppose that I am melancholy, for, when you are from me, I not only
wonder how I can find fault with you, but how I can doubt your
affection.
185
CHAPTER IX.
IMLAY's DESERTION.
1794–1795.
UNFORTUNATELY, as a rule, the traveller on life’s jour-
ney has but as short a time to stay in the pleasant
green resting-places, as the wanderer through the desert.
In September Mary followed Imlay to Paris. But
before the end of the month he had bidden her fare-
well and had gone to London. Against the fascination
of money-making, her charms had little chance. His
estrangement dates from this separation. When Mary
met him again he had forgotten love and honour, and
had virtually deserted her. While her affection became
stronger, his weakened until finally it perished alto-
gether.
Her confidence in him, however, was confirmed by
the months spent at Havre, and she little dreamed his
departure was the prelude to their final parting For
a time she was lighter-hearted than she had ever be-
fore been while he was away. The memory of her
late happiness reassured her. Her little girl was an
unceasing source of joy, and she never tired of writing
to Imlay about her. Her maternal tenderness over-
136 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
flows in her letters. She said in one of them, not
doubting his interest to be as great as hers:—
. . . You will want to be told over and over again that our little
Hercules is quite recovered.
Besides looking at me, there are three other things which delight
her : to ride in a coach, to look at a scarlet waistcoat, and hear
loud music. Yesterday at the fête she enjoyed the two latter ; but,
to honour J. J. Rousseau, I intend to give her a sash, the first sho
has ever had round her. .
In a second she writes:—
I have been playing and laughing with the little girl so long, that
I cannot take up my pen to address you without emotion. Pressing
her to my bosom, she looked so like you (entre nous, your best looks,
for I do not admire your commercial face), every nerve seemed to
vibrate to her touch, and I began to think that there was something in
the assertion of man and wife being one, for you seemed to pervade
my whole frame, quickening the beat of my heart, and lending me the
sympathetic tears you excited.
As the devout go on pilgrimage to places once sanc-
tified by the presence of a departed saint, so she visited
alone the haunts of the early days of their love, living
over again the incidents which had made them sacred.
“My imagination,” she wrote to him, “ . . . chooses
to ramble back to the barrier with you, or to see you
coming to meet me and my basket of grapes. With
what pleasure do I recollect your looks and words,
when I have been sitting on the window, regarding
the waving corn.” She begged him to bring back
his “barrier face,” as she thus fondly recalled their
interviews at the barrier. She told him of a night
passed at Saint Germains, in the very room which had
once been theirs, and, glowing with these recollections,
she warned him that, if he should return changed in
aught, she would fly from him to cherish remem-
brances which must be ever dear to her. Occasion-
IMLAY'S DESERTION. 137
ally a little humorous pleasantry intel rupted the more
tender outpourings in her letters. On the 26th of
October, Imlay having now been absent for over a
month, she writes:—
I have almost charmed a judge of the tribunal, R., who, though I
should not have thought it possible, has humanity, if not beaucoup
d'esprit. But, let me tell you, if you do not make haste back, I shall
be half in love with the author of the Marseillaise, who is a hand-
Some man, a little too broad-faced or so, and plays sweetly on the
violin,
What do you say to this threat 2—why, entre nous, I like to give
way to a sprightly vein when writing to you. “The devil,” you know,
is proverbially said to “be in a good humour when he is pleased.”
Many of her old friends in the capital had been
numbered among the children devoured by the insa-
tiable monster. A few, however, were still left, and
she seems to have made new ones and to have again
gone into Parisian society. The condition of affairs
was more conducive to social pleasures than it had
been the year before. Robespierre was dead. There
were others besides Mary who feared “the last flap of
the tail of the beast ’’; but, as a rule, the people, now
the reaction had come, were over-confident, and the
season was one of merry-making. There were fêtes
and balls. Even mourning for the dead became the
signal for rejoicing; and gay Parisians, their arms tied
with crape, danced to the memory of the victims of
the late national delirium. The Reign of Terror was
over, but so was Mary's happiness. Public order was
partly restored, but her own short-lived peace was
rudely interrupted. Imlay in London became more
absorbed in his immediate affairs, a fact which he
could not conceal in his letters; and Mary realised that,
compared to business, she was of little or no importance
138 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
to him. She expostulated earnestly with him on the
folly of allowing money cares and ambitions to pre-
occupy him. She sincerely sympathised with him in
his disappointments, but she could not understand his
willingness to sacrifice sentiment and affection to
sordid cares. “It appears to me absurd,” she told
him, “to waste life in preparing to live.”
But by degrees the dark shades increased until they
had completely blotted out the light made by the past.
Imlay's letters were fewer and shorter, more taken up
with business, and less concerned with her. Ought she
to endure his indifference, or ought she to separate
from him for ever ? was the question which now tor-
tured her. She had tasted the higher pleasures, and
the present pain was intense in proportion. Her letters
became mournful as dirges.
Once, but only once, the light shone again. On the
15th of January she received a kind letter from Imlay,
and her anger died away. “It is pleasant to forgive
those we love,” she said to him simply. But it was
followed by his usual hasty business notes or by com-
plete silence, and henceforward she knew hope only by
name. Her old habit of seeing everything from the
dark side returned. She could not find one redeeming
point in his conduct. Despair seized her soul. Other
discomforts contributed their share to her burden. A
severe cold had settled upon her lungs, and she ima-
gined she was in a galloping consumption. Her lodg-
ings were not very convenient, but she had put up with
them, waiting day by day for Imlay's return. Weary of
her life as Job was of his, she, like him, spake out in the
bitterness of her soul. Her letters from this time on
are written from the very valley of the shadow of death.
lMLAY'S DESERTION. 139
Grief sometimes makes men strong. Mary's stimu-
lated her into a determination to break her connection
with Imlay, and to live for her child alone. She would
remain in Paris and superintend Fanny’s education.
She had already been able to labour for herself, and
there was no reason why she should not do it again.
Until she settled upon the means of support to be
adopted, she would borrow money from her friends.
Anything was better than to live at Imlay’s expense.
As for him, such a course would probably be a relief,
and certainly it would do him no harm. “As I never
concealed the nature of my connection with you,” she
wrote to him, “your reputation will not suffer.” But
her plans, for some reason, did not meet with his
approval. He was tired of her, and yet he seems to
have been ashamed to confess his inconstancy. At
one moment he wrote that he was coming to Paris; at
the next he bade her meet him in London. But no
mention was made of the farm in America. The excite-
ment of commerce proved more alluring than the peace
of country life. His shilly-shallying unnerved Mary;
positive desertion would have been easier to bear.
The child was now the strongest bond of union
between them. For her sake she felt the necessity of
continuing to live with Imlay as long as possible, though
his love was dead. Therefore, when he wrote definitely
that he would like her to come to him, since he could
not leave his business to go to her, she relinquished her
intentions of remaining alone in France with Fanny,
and set out at once for London. She could hardly
have passed through Havre without feeling the bitter
contrast between her happiness of the year before, and
her present hopelessness. “I sit, lost in thought,” she
140 MARY WOI, LSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
wrote to Imlay, “ looking at the sea, and tears rush
into my eyes when I find that I am cherishing any fond
expectations. I have indeed been so unhappy this
winter, I find it as difficult to acquire fresh hopes as
to regain tranquillity. Enough of this; be still, foolish
heart | But for the little girl, I could almost wish that
it should cease to beat, to be no more alive to the an-
guish of disappointment.”
She reached London in April 1795. Her gloomiest
forebodings were confirmed. Imlay had provided a
furnished house for her, and had considered her com-
forts. But his manner was changed. He was cold and
constrained, and she felt the difference immediately.
He was little with her, and business was, as of old, the
excuse. According to Godwin, he had formed another
connection with a young strolling actress. Life was
thus even less bright in London than it had been in
Paris. For her there were, indeed, worse things wait-
ing at the gate of life than death; and she resolved
by suicide to escape from them. This part of her
story is very obscure. But it is certain that her sui-
cidal intentions were so nearly carried into effect that
she had written several letters containing her, as she
thought, last wishes, and which were to be opened after
all was over. There is no exact account of the manner
in which she proposed to kill herself, nor of the means
by which she was prevented. “I only know,” Godwin
says, “that Mr. Imlay became acquainted with her
purpose at a moment when he was uncertain whether
or no it was already executed, and that his feelings
were roused by the intelligence. It was, perhaps, owing
to his activity and representations that her life was at
this time saved. She determined to continue to exist.”
IMLAY'S DESERTION. 141
This event sobered both Imlay and Mary. They saw
the danger they were in, and the consequent necessity
of forming a definite conclusion as to the nature of their
future relations. They must either live together in
perfect confidence, or else they must separate. “My
friend, my dear friend,” she wrote him, “ examine
yourself well,—I am out of the question; for, alas !
I am nothing, and discover what you wish to do, what
will render you most comfortable ; or, to be more ex-
plicit, whether you desire to live with me, or part for
ever ! When you can ascertain it, tell me frankly, I
conjure you! for, believe me, I have very involuntarily
interrupted your peace.” The determination could not
be made in a hurry. In the meantime Mary knew it
would be unwise to remain idle, meditating upon her
wrongs. Forgetfulness of self in active work appeared
the only possible means of living through the period of
uncertainty. Imlay had business in Norway and Sweden
which demanded the personal superintendence either
of himself or of a trustworthy agent. He gave it in
charge to Mary, and at the end of May she started
upon this mission. That Imlay still looked upon her
as his wife, and that his confidence in her was unlimited,
is shown by the following document in which he
authorizes her to act for him :—
May 19, 1795.
Rnow all men by these presents that I, Gilbert Imlay, citizen of
the United States of America, at present residing in London, do no-
minate, constitute, and appoint Mary Imlay, my best friend and wife,
to take the sole management and direction of all my affairs, and
business which I had placed in the hands of Mr. Elias Bachman,
negotiant, Gottenburg, or in those of Messrs. Myburg & Co., Copen-
hagen, desiring that she will manage and direct such concerns in
such manner as she may deem most wise and prudent. For which
this letter shall be a sufficient power, enabling her to receive all the
142 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
money or sums of money that may be recovered from Peter Ellison
or his connections, whatever may be the issue of the trial now carry-
ing on, instigated by Mr. Elias Bachman, as my agent, for the viola-
tion of the trust which I had reposed in his integrity.
Considering the aggravated distresses, the accumulated losses and
damages sustained in consequence of the said Ellison's disobedience
of my injunctions, I desire the said Mary Imlay will clearly ascertain
the amount of such damages, taking first the advice of persons
qualified to judge of the probability of obtaining satisfaction, or the
means the said Ellison or his connections, who may be proved to be
implicated in his guilt, may have, or power of being able to make
restitution, and then commence a new prosecution for the same
accordingly. . . .
Respecting the cargo of goods in the hands of Messrs. Myburg &
Co., Mrs. Imlay has only to consult the most experienced persons en-
gaged in the disposition of such articles, and then, placing them at
their disposal, act as she may deem right and proper. . . .
Thus confiding in the talent, zeal, and earnestness of my dearly
beloved friend and companion, I submit the management of these
affairs entirely and implicitly to her discretion.
Remaining most sincerely and affectionately hers truly,
G. IMLAY.
Witness, J. SAMUEL.
Unfortunately for Mary, she was detained at Hull,
from which town she was to set sail, for about a month.
She was thus unable immediately to still the memory
of her sorrows. It is touching to see how, now that she
could no longer doubt that Imlay was made of common
clay, she began to find excuses for him. She repre-
sented to herself that it was her misfortune to have met
him too late. Had she known him before dissipation
had enslaved him, there would have been none of this
trouble. She was, furthermore, convinced that his
natural refinement was not entirely destroyed, and that
if he would but make the effort he could overcome his
grosser appetites.
After almost a month of inactivity, the one bright
spot in it being a visit to Beverly, the home of her
IMLAY'S DESERTION. 143
childhood, she sailed for Sweden, with Fanny and a
maid as her only companions. Her Letters from Sweden,
Norway, and Denmark, with the more personal passages
omitted, were published in a volume by themselves
shortly after her return to England. Notice of them
will find a more appropriate place in another chapter.
All that is necessary here is the very portion which was
then suppressed, but which Godwin later included with
the Letters to Imlay. The northern trip had at least
this good result. It strengthened her physically. She
was so weak when she first arrived in Sweden that the
day she landed she fell fainting to the ground as she
walked to her carriage. For a while everything fatigued
her. The bustle of the people around her seemed “flat,
dull, and unprofitable.” The civilities by which she
was overwhelmed, and the endeavours of the people she
met to amuse her, were fatiguing. Nothing, for a while,
could lighten her deadly weight of sorrow. But by
degrees, as her letters show, she improved. Pure air,
long walks, and rides on horseback, rowing and bathing,
and days in the country had their beneficial effect, and
she wrote to Imlay on July 4th, “The rosy fingers of
health already streak my cheeks; and I have seen a phy-
sical life in my eyes, after I have been climbing the rocks,
that resembled the fond, credulous hopes of youth.”
But even a sound body cannot heal a broken heart.
Mary could not throw off her troubles in a day. She
after a time tried to distract her mind by entering into
the amusements she had at first scorned, but it was
often in vain. There was a change for the better,
however, in her mental state ; for though her grief
was not completely cured, she at least voluntarily
sought to recover her emotional equilibrium.
144. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
She had at least one pleasure that helped to soften
her cares. This was her love for the child, which,
always great, was increased by Imlay’s cruelty. The
tenderness which he by his indifference repulsed, she
now lavished upon Fanny. She seemed to feel that
she ought to make amends for the fact that her child
was, to all intents and purposes, fatherless.
It so happened that at one time she was obliged to
leave her child with her nurse for about a month.
Business called her to Tönsberg in Norway, and the
journey would have been bad for Fanny, who was cut-
ting her teeth. “I felt more at leaving my child than
I thought I should,” she wrote to Imlay, “and whilst
at night I imagined every instant that I heard the half-
formed sounds of her voice, I asked myself how I could
think of parting with her for ever, of leaving her thus
helpless.” Here indeed was a stronger argument
against suicide than Christianity or its “ aftershine.”
This absence stimulated her motherly solicitude and
heightened her sense of responsibility. In her appeals
to Imlay to settle upon his future course in her regard,
she now began to dwell upon their child as the most
important reason to keep them together.
He seems to have written to her regularly. At times
she reproached him for not letting her hear from him,
but at others she acknowledged the receipt of three
and five letters in one morning. If these had been
preserved, hers would not seem as importunate as they
do now, for he gave her reason to suppose that he was
anxious for a reunion, and wrote in a style which she
told him she may have deserved, but which she had not
expected from him. She also referred to his admission
that her words tortured him; and there was talk of a
IMLAY'S DESEETION. 145
trip together to Switzerland. But at the same time his
proofs of indifference forced her to declare that she and
pleasure had shaken hands. “How often,” she breaks
out in her agony, “passing through the rocks, I have
thought, ‘But for this child, I would lay my head on
one of them, and never open my eyes again l’” The
only particular in which he remained firm was his un-
willingness to give a final decision in what, to her, was
the one all-important matter. His vacillating behaviour
was heartless in the extreme. Her suspense became
unbearable, and all her letters contained entreaties for
him to relieve it.
Finally, after allowing her to suffer three months
of acute agony, he summoned up resolution enough
to write and tell her he would abide by her decision.
Her business in the North had been satisfactorily
settled, for which she was, alas ! to receive but poor
thanks; and the welfare of the child having now
become the pivot of her actions, she returned to Eng-
land. From Dover she sent him a letter informing
him that she was prepared once more to make his
home hers:–
You say I must decide for myself. I have decided that it was most
for the interest of my little girl, and for my own comfort, little as I
expect, for us to live together; and I even thought that you would be
glad some years hence, when the tumult of business was over, to
repose in the society of an affectionate friend, and mark the pro-
gress of our interesting child, whilst endeavouring to be of use in
the circle you at last resolved to rest in, for you cannot run about
for ever. .
The result of this letter was that Imlay and Mary
tried to retie the broken thread of their domestic rela-
tions. The latter went up to London, and they settled
together in lodgings. It would have been better for
10
146 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
her had she never seen him again. The fire of his love
had burnt out. No power could rekindle it. His in-
difference was hard to bear; but so long as he assured
her that he had formed no other attachment, she made
no complaint. For Fanny’s sake she endured the new
bitterness, and found such poor comfort as she could in
being with him. It was but too true that the constancy
of her affection was the torment of her life. In spite
of everything, she still loved him. Before long, however,
she discovered through her servants that he was basely
deceiving her. He was keeping up a separate esta-
blishment for a new mistress. Mary, following the im-
pulse of the moment, went at once to this house, where
she found him. The particulars of their interview are
not known ; but her wretchedness during the night
which followed maddened her. His perfidy hurt her
more deeply than his indifference. Her cup of sorrow
was filled to overflowing, and for the second time she
made up her mind to fly from a world which held
nothing but miscry for her. It may be concluded that
for the time being she was really mad. It will be
remembered that troubles of a kindred nature had
driven Mrs. Bishop to insanity. All the Wollstone-
crafts inherited a peculiarly excitable temperament.
Mary, had she not lost all self-control, would have been
deterred from suicide, as she had been from thoughts
of it in Sweden, by her love for Fanny. But her grief
was so great it drowned all memory and reason. The
morning after this might of agony she wrote to Imlay:—
I write you now on my knees, imploring you to send my child and
the maid with — to Paris, to be consigned to the care of Madame
—, Rue , Section de . Should they be removed,
give their direction. . . .
Call
IMLAY'S DESERTION. 147
I shall make no comments on your conduct or any appeal to the
world. Let my wrongs sleep with me! Soon, very soon, I shall be
at peace. When you receive this my burning head will be cold.
I would encounter a thousand deaths rather than a night like the
last. Your treatment has thrown my mind into a state of chaos;
yet I am serene. I go to find comfort; and my only fear is that my
poor body will be insulted by an endeavour to recall my hated exis-
tence. But I shall plunge into the Thames where there is the least
chance of my being snatched from the death I seek.
God bless you! May you never know by experience what you have
made me endure. Should your sensibility ever awake, remorse will
find its way to your heart; and, in the midst of business and sensual
pleasures, I shall appear before you, the victim of your deviation
from rectitude.
Then she left her house to seek refuge in the waters
of the river. She went first to Battersea Bridge; but
it was too public for her purpose. She could not
risk a second frustration of her designs. There was
no place in London where she could be unobserved.
With the calmness of despair she hired a boat and
rowed to Putney. It was a cold, foggy November day,
and by the time she arrived at her destination the
night had come, and the rain fell in torrents. An idea
occurred to her: if she wet her clothes thoroughly
before jumping into the river, their weight would make
her sink rapidly. She walked up and down, up and
down the bridge in the driving rain. The fog en-
veloped the night in a gloom as impenetrable as that of
her heart. No one passed to interrupt her preparations.
At the end of half an hour, satisfied that her end was
accomplished, she leaped from the bridge into the
water below. Despite her soaked clothing, she dio
not sink at once. In her desperation she pressed her
skirts around her; then she became unconscious. She
was found, however, before it was too late. Vigorous
efforts were made to restore life, and she was brought
10 *
148 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
back to consciousness. She had met with the insult
she most dreaded, and her disappointment was keen.
Her failure only increased her determination to destroy
herself.
Imlay, whose departure to his other house Mary
construed into abandonment of her, made, in spite of
this letter, many inquiries as to her health and tran-
quillity, repeated offers of pecuniary assistance, and, at
the request of mutual acquaintances, even went to see
her. But a show of interest was not what she wanted,
and her thanks for it was the assurance that before
long she would be where he would be saved the trouble
of either thinking or talking of her. Fortunately Mr.
Johnson and her other friends interfered actively in her
behalf, and by their arguments and representations
prevailed upon her to relinquish the idea of suicide.
Through their kindness, the fever which consumed her
was somewhat abated. Her temporary madness over,
she again remembered her responsibility as a mother,
and realized that true courage consists in facing a foe,
and not in flying from it. Of the change in her inten-
tions for the future she informed Imlay.
Godwin makes the incredible statement that Imlay
refusing to break off his new connection, though he
declared it to be of a temporary nature, Mary proposed
that she should live in the same house with his mistress.
In this way he would not be separated from his child,
and she would quietly wait the end of his intrigue.
Imlay, according to Godwin, consented to her sugges-
tion, but afterwards thought better of it and refused.
There is not a word in her letters to confirm this ex-
traordinary story. It is simply impossible that at
one moment she should have been driven to suicide by
IMLA Y'S DESERTION. 149
the knowledge that he had a mistress, and that at the
next she should take a step which was equivalent to
countenancing his conduct. It is more rational to
conclude that Godwin was misinformed, than to believe
this.
Towards the end of November Imlay went to Paris
with the woman for whom he had sacrificed wife and
child. Mary felt that the end had now really come,
as is seen in the few letters which still remain. Once
the first bitterness of her disappointment had been
mastered, the old tenderness revived, and she renewed
her excuses for him. “My affection for you is rooted
in my heart,” she wrote fondly and sadly. “I know
you are not what you now seem, nor will you always
act and feel as you now do, though I may never be
comforted by the change.” Writing to him, however,
was more than she could bear. Each letter reopened
the wound he had inflicted, and inspired her with a
wild desire to see him. She therefore wisely concluded
that all correspondence between them must cease. In
December, 1795, while he was still in Paris, she bade
him her last farewell, though in so doing she was, as
she says, piercing her own heart. She refused to hold
further communication with him, or to receive his
money; but she told him she would not interfere in
anything he might wish to do for Fanny. Here it may
be said that, though Imlay declared that a certain
sum should be settled upon the latter, not a shilling of
it was ever paid.
Mary saw him once or twice afterwards. When he
came to London again, Godwin says that “she could
not restrain herself from making another effort, and
desiring to see him once more. During his absence,
150 MARY WOL LSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
affection had led her to make numberless excuses for
his conduct, and she probably wished to believe that
his present connection was, as he represented it, purely
of a casual nature. To this application she observes
that he returned no other answer, except declaring,
with unjustifiable passion, that he would not see her.
They did meet, however, but their meeting was ac-
cidental. Imlay was one day paying a visit to Mr.
Christie, who had returned to London, and with whom
he had business relations. He was sitting in the parlour
when Mary called. Mrs. Christie, hearing her voice,
and probably fearing an embarrassing scene, hurried
out to warn her of his presence, and to advise her not
to come into the room. But Mary, not heeding her,
entered fearlessly and, with Fanny by the hand, went
up and spoke to Imlay. They retired, it seems, to
another room, and he then promised to see her again,
and indeed to dine with her at her lodgings on the
following day. He kept his promise, and there was
a second interview ; but it did not lead to a reconcili-
ation. The very next day she went into Berkshire,
where she spent the month of March with her friend,
Mrs. Cotton. She never again made the slightest at-
tempt to see him or to hear from him. There was a
limit even to her affection and forbearance. One day,
after her return to town, she was walking along the
New Road when Imlay passed her on horseback. He
jumped off his horse and walked with her for some little
distance. This was the last time they met. From that
moment he passed completely out of her life.
151
CHAPTER X.
LITERARY WORK.
1793-1796.
THE first volume of An Historical and Moral View of
the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, and
the Effect it has produced in Europe, which Mary wrote
during the months she lived in France, was published
by Johnson in 1794. It was favourably received and
criticised, especially by that portion of the public who
had sympathised with the Revolutionists in the con-
troversy with Burke. One admirer, in 1803, declared
it was not second even to Gibbon's Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire. It went very quickly through
two editions, surest proof of its success.
Mary had apparently spent in idleness the years
which had elapsed since the Rights of Women had
taken England by storm, but, in reality, she must
have made good use of them. This new book marks
an enormous advance in her mental development. It
is but little disfigured by the faults of style, and is
never weakened by the lack of method, which de-
tract from the strength and power of the work by which
she is best known. In the French Revolution her
152 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
arguments are well weighed and balanced, and flowers
of rhetoric, with a few exceptions, are sacrificed for a
simple and concise statement of facts. Unfortunately
the first volume was never followed by a second. Had
Mary finished the book, as she certainly intended to
do when she began it, it probably would still be ranked
with the standard works on the Revolution.
Among the most remarkable passages in the book
are those relating to Marie Antoinette. As was the
case when she wrote her answer to Burke, the misery
of millions unjustly subjected moved Mary more than
the woes of one woman justly deprived of an ill-used
liberty. Her love and sympathy for the people made
her perhaps a little too harsh in her judgment of the
queen. “Some hard words, some very strong epithets,
are indeed used of Marie Antoinette,” Mr. Kegan Paul
says in his short but appreciative criticism of this book,
“showing that she, who could in those matters know
nothing personally, could not but depend on Paris
gossip; but this is interesting, as showing what the
view taken of the queen was before passion rose to its
highest, before the fury of the people, with all the
ferocity of word and deed attendant on great popular
movements, had broken out.” The following lines,
reflecting the feelings and opinions of the day, must be
read with as much, if not more interest than those of
later and better-informed historians:—
The unfortunate Queen of France, beside the advantages of birth
and station, possessed a very fine person; and her lovely face, spark-
ling with vivacity, hid the want of intelligence. Her complexion was
dazzlingly clear; and when she was pleased, her manners were be-
witching; for she happily mingled the most insinuating voluptuous
softness and affability with an air of grandeur bordering on pride,
that rendered the contrast more striking. Independence also of
LITERARY WORK. 153
whatever kind, always gives a degree of dignity to the mien; so
that monarchs and nobles with most ignoble souls, from believing
themselves superior to others, have actually acquired a look of su-
periority.
But her opening faculties were poisoned in the bud; for before
she came to Paris she had already been prepared, by a corrupt,
supple abbé, for the part she was to play; and, young as she was,
became so firmly attached to the aggrandizement of her house, that,
though plunged deep in pleasure, she never omitted sending immense
sums to her brother on every occasion. The person of the king, in
itself very disgusting, was rendered more so by gluttony, and a total
disregard of delicacy, and even decency, in his apartments; and when
jealous of the queen, for whom he had a kind of devouring passion,
he treated her with great brutality, till she acquired sufficient finesse
to subjugate him. Is it then surprising that a very desirable woman,
with a sanguine constitution, should shrink, abhorrent, from his em-
braces; or that an empty mind should be employed only to vary the
pleasures which emasculated her Circean court 2
Mary’s inflexible hatred of the cruelty of the court
and the nobility, which had led to the present horrors,
through great, did not prevent her from seeing the
tyranny and brutality in which the people indulged so
soon as they obtained the mastery. Her treatment of
the facts of the Revolution is characterized by honesty.
She is above all else an impartial historian and philoso-
pher. She distinguishes, it is true, between the well-
meaning multitude—those who took the Bastille, for
example—and the rabble composed of the dregs of
society,+those who headed the march to Versailles.
She declares, “There has been seen amongst the
French a spurious race of men, a set of cannibals, who
have gloried in their crimes; and, tearing out the
hearts that did not feel for them, have proved that they
themselves had iron bowels.” But while she makes
this distinction, she does not hesitate to admit that the
retaliation of the French people, suddenly all become
154. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
sovereigns, was as terrible as that of slaves unex-
pectedly loosed from their fetters. It is but fair, after
quoting her denunciations of Marie Antoinette, to tell
that the new rule was far from receiving her unqualified
approbation.
The same impartiality is preserved in the relation of
even the most exciting and easily misconceived inci-
dents of the Revolution. The courageous and resolute
resistance of the Third Estate to the clergy and nobility
is described with dignified praise which never descends
into fulsome flattery. The ignorance, vanity, jealousy,
disingenuousness, self-sufficiency, and interested mo-
tives of members of the National Assembly are unhesi-
tatingly exposed in recording such of their actions
as, examined superficially, might seem the outcome of
a love of freedom. In giving the details of the taking
of the Bastille, and the women’s march on Versailles,
Mary becomes really eloquent.
Notwithstanding its excellence and the reputation it
once had, this work is now almost unknown. But few
have ever heard of it, still fewer read it ; a fact due, of
course, to its incompleteness. The first and only
volume ends with the departure of Louis from Ver-
sailles to Paris, when the Revolution was as yet in its
earliest stages. This must ever be a matter of regret.
That succeeding volumes, had she written them, would
have been even better is very probable. There was
marked development in her intellectual powers after
she published the Rights of Women. The increased
merit of her later works somewhat confirms Southey’s
declaration, made three years after her death, that
“Mary Wollstonecraft was but beginning to reason
when she died.”
LITERARY WORK. 155
The last book she finished and published during her
life-time was her Letters written during a Short Resi-
dence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Her journey,
as has been explained in the last chapter, was under-
taken to attend to certain business affairs for Imlay.
Landing in Sweden, she went thence to Norway, then
again to Sweden and then to Denmark, and finally
to Hamburg, in which latter place she remained a
comparatively short period. Not being free to go and
come as she chose, she was sometimes detained in
small places for two or three weeks, while she could
stay but a day or two in large cities. But she had
letters of introduction to many of the principal inhabi-
tants of the towns and villages to which business called
her, and was thus able to see something of the life of
the better classes. The then rough mode of travelling
also brought her into close contact with the peasantry.
As the ground over which she travelled was then but
little visited by English people, she knew that her
letters would have at least the charm of novelty.
They were published by her friend Johnson in 1796.
Hitherto, her work had been purely of a philosophical,
historical, or educational nature. The familiar episto-
lary style in which she had begun to record her
observations of the French people had been quickly
changed for the more formal tone of the French
Revolution. These travels, consequently, marked an
entirely new departure in her literary career. Their
success was at once assured. Even the fastidious
Godwin, who had condemned her other books, could
find no fault with this one. Contemporary critics
agreed in sharing his good opinion.
It is true that occasionally affected and involved
156 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
phrases occur in Mary's letters from the North, and
that the tone of many passages is a trifle too sombre.
But the former defects are much less glaring and fewer
in number than those of her earlier writings; while,
when it is remembered that during her journey her
heart was heavy-laden with disappointment and despair,
her melancholy reflections must be forgiven her. With
the exception of these really trifling shortcomings,
she may be said to have ably fulfilled the required
conditions.
She found Swedes and Norwegians unaffected and
hospitable, but sensual and indolent. Both good and
evil she attributes to the influence of climate and to the
comparatively low stage of culture attained in these
northern countries. The long winter nights, she
explains in her letters, have made the people sluggish.
Their want of interest in politics, literature, and
scientific pursuits, have concentrated their attention
upon the pleasures of the senses. They are hospitable
because of the excitement and social amusements
hospitality ensures. They care for the flesh-pots of
Egypt because they have not yet heard of the joys of
the Promised Land. The women of the upper classes
are so indolent that they exercise neither mind nor
body; consequently the former has but a narrow
range, the latter soon loses all beauty. The men seek
no relaxation from their business occupations save
in Brobdignagian dinners and suppers. If they are
godly, they are never cleanly, cleanliness requiring an
effort of which they are incapable. Indolence and
indifference to culture throughout Sweden and Norway
are the chief characteristics of the natives.
To Mary the coarseness of the people seemed the
LITERARY WORK. 157
more unbearable because of the wonderful beauty of
their country as she saw it in midsummer. She could
not understand their continued indifference to its
loveliness. Her own keen enjoyment of it shows itself
in all her letters. She constantly pauses in relating
her experiences to dwell upon the grandeur of cliffs
and sea, upon the impressive wildness of certain dis-
tricts, full of great pine-covered mountains and endless
fir woods, contrasting with others more gentle and
fertile, which are covered with broad fields of corn and
rye. She loves to describe the long still summer
nights and the grey dawn when the birds begin
to sing, the sweet scents of the forest, and the soft
freshness of the western breeze. The smallest details
of the living picture did not escape her notice. She
records the musical tinkling of distant cow-bells and
the mournful cry of the bittern. She even tells how
she sometimes, when she is out in her boat, lays down
her oars that she may examine the purple masses of
jelly-fish floating in the water.
The Letters were published in the same year, 1796,
in Wilmington, Delaware. A few years later, extracts
from them, translated into Portuguese, together with a
brief sketch of their author, were published in Lisbon,
while a German edition appeared in Hamburg and
Altona. The book is not now so well known as it
deserves to be. Mary's descriptions of the physical
characteristics of Norway and Sweden are equal to any
written by more recent English travellers to Scandi-
navia; and her account of the people is valuable as an
unprejudiced record of the manners and customs exist-
ing among them towards the end of the eighteenth
century. But though so little known, it is still true
158 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
that, as her self-appointed defender said in 1803, “Let-
ters so replete with correctness of remark, delicacy of
feeling, and pathos of expression, will cease to exist
only with the language in which they were written.”
Shortly after her death, Godwin published in four
volumes all Mary's unprinted writings, unfinished as
well as finished. This collection, which is called simply
Posthumous Works of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin,
may more appropriately be noticed here in connection
with the more complete productions of her last years.
Of the Letters to Imlay, which fill the third and a
part of the fourth volume, nothing more need be said.
The next in importance of these writings is Maria, or,
The Wrongs of Woman, a novel. It is but a fragment.
Mary intended to revise the first chapters carefully,
and of the last she had written nothing but the head-
ings and a few detached hints and passages. Godwin,
in his Preface, says “So much of it as is here given
to the public, she was far from considering as finished;
and in a letter to a friend directly written on this sub-
ject, she says, “I am perfectly aware that some of the
incidents ought to be transposed and heightened by
more luminous shading; and I wished in some degree
to avail myself of criticism before I began to adjust my
events into a story, the outline of which I had sketched
in my mind.’” It therefore must be more gently criti-
cised than such of her books as were published during
her life-time, and considered by her ready to be given
to the public. But, as the last work upon which she
was engaged, and as one which engrossed her thoughts
for months, and to which she devoted, for her, an un-
usual amount of labour, it must be read with interest.
The incidents of the story are, in a large measure,
LITERARY WORK 159
drawn from real life. Her own experience, that of
her sister, and events which had come within her actual
knowledge, are the materials which she used. These
served her purpose as well as, if not better than, any
she could have invented. The only work of her imagi-
nation is the manner in which she grouped them to-
gether to form her plot. The story is, briefly, as follows:
Maria, the heroine, whose home-life seems to be a de-
scription of the interior of the Wollstonecraft household,
marries to secure her freedom, rather than from affec-
tion for her lover, as was probably the case with “poor
Bess.” Her husband, who even in the days of court-
ship had been a dissolute rascal, but hypocrite enough
to conceal the fact, throws off his mask after marriage.
He speculates rashly, drinks, and indulges in every low
vice. All this she bears until he, calculating upon her
endurance, seeks to sell her to a friend, that her dis-
honour may be his gain financially. Then he learns
that he has gone too far. She flies from his house, to
which she refuses, on any consideration, to return. All
attempts to bring her back having failed, he, by a suc-
cessful stratagem, seizes her as she is on her way
to Dover with her child, and, taking possession of the
latter, has his wife confined in an insane asylum.
Here, after days of horror, Maria succeeds in softening
the heart of her keeper, Jemima by name, and through
her makes the acquaintance of Henry Darnford, a
young man who, like her, has been made a prisoner
under the false charge of lunacy. Jemima's friendship
is so completely won that she allows these companions
in misery to see much of each other. She even tells
them her story, which, as a picture of degradation,
equals that of some of Defoe's heroines. Darnford
160 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
then tells his, and the reader at once recognizes in him
another Imlay. Finally, by a lucky accident, the two
prisoners make their escape, and Jemima accompanies
them. The latter part of the story consists of sketches
and the barest outlines; but these indicate the succes-
sion of its events and its conclusion. Maria and
Darnford live together as husband and wife in London.
The former believes that she is right in so doing, and
cares nothing for the condemnation of society. She
endures neglect and contumely because she is sup-
ported by confidence in the rectitude of her conduct.
Her husband now has her lover tried for adultery and
seduction, and in his absence Maria undertakes his
defence. Her separation from her husband is the
consequence, but her fortune is thrown into chancery.
She refuses to leave Darnford, but he, after a few
years, during which she has borne him two children,
proves unfaithful. In her despair she attempts to
commit suicide, but fails. When consciousness and
reason return, she resolves to live for her child.
Maria is a story with a purpose. Its aim is the
reformation of the evils which result from the esta-
blished relations of the sexes. Certain rights are to be
vindicated by a full exposition of the wrongs which
their absence causes. Mary wished, as her Preface
set forth, to exhibit the misery and oppression pe-
culiar to women, that arise out of the partial laws and
customs of society. Maria, in fact, was to be a forcible
proof of the necessity of those social changes which
she had urged in the Vindication of the Rights of
Women. In the career of the heroine the wrongs
women suffer from matrimonial despotism and cruelty
are demonstrated; while that of Jemima shows how
*.
**
I/ITERARY WORK. 161
impossible it is for poor or degraded women to find
employment.
The incidents selected by Mary to prove her case
are, it must be admitted, disagreeable, and the minor
details too frequently revolting. The stories of Maria,
Darnford, and Jemima are records of shame and crime,
little less unpleasant than the realism of a Zola. It
is an astonishing production, even for an age when
Fielding and Smollett were not considered coarse. But,
as was the case in the Rights of Women, this plainness
of speech was due not to a delight in impurity and
uncleanliness for their own sakes, but to Mary's cer.
tainty that by the proper use of subjects vile in them-
selves, she could best establish principles of purity.
Whatever may be thought of her moral creed and of
her manner of promulgating it, no reader of her books
can deny her the respect which her courage and sin-
cerity evoke. Maria seemed to many of its readers an
unanswerable proof of the charge of immorality brought
against its authoress. Mrs. West, in her Letters to a
Young Man, pointed to it as evidence of Mary's unfit-
ness for the world beyond the grave. The Biographical
Dictionary undoubtedly referred to it when it declared
that much of the four volumes of Mary's posthumous
writings had better been suppressed, as ill calculated to
excite sympathy for one who seems to have rioted in
sentiments alike repugnant to religion, sense, an
decency. Modern readers have been kinder. The
following is Miss Mathilde Blind's criticism, which,
though somewhat enthusiastic, shows a keen apprecia-
tion of the redeeming merits of the book:—
For originality of invention, tragic incident, and a certain fiery
eloquence of style, this is certainly the most remarkable and mature
11
162 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
of her works, although one may object that for a novel the moral
purpose is far too obvious, the manner too generalised, and many of
the situations revolting to the taste of a modern reader. But, with
all its faults, it is a production that, in the implacable truth with
which it lays open the festering sores of society, in the unshrinking
courage with which it drags into the light of day the wrongs the
feeble have to suffer at the hands of the strong, in the fiery enthusi-
asm with which it lifts up its voice for the voiceless outcasts, may
be said to resemble Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo.
The other contents of these four volumes are: a series
of lessons in spelling and reading, which, because pre-
pared especially for her child, Fanny Imlay, are an
interesting relic ; the “Letter on the French Nation,”
mentioned in a previous chapter; a fragment and list
of proposed “Letters on the Management of Infants”;
several letters to Mr. Johnson, the most important
of which have already been referred to ; the “Cave of
Fancy,” an Oriental tale, as Godwin calls it, the story
of an old philosopher who lives in a desolate sea-coast
district and there seeks to educate a child, saved from a
shipwreck, by means of the spirits under his command
(the few chapters Godwin thought proper to print were
written in 1787, and then put aside, never to be
finished); an “Essay on Poetry, and Our Relish for
the Beauties of Nature,” a short discussion of the
difference between the poetry of the ancients, who
recorded their own impressions from nature, and that
of the moderns, who are too apt to express sentiments
borrowed from books; and finally, to conclude the list
of contents, the book contains some “Hints" which
were to have been incorporated in the second part of
the Rights of Women which Mary intended to write.
These fragments and works are intrinsically of small
value.
l63
CHAPTER XI.
RETROSPECTIVE.
1794–1796,
MARY's torture of suspense was now over. The reac-
tion from it would probably have been serious, if she
had not had the distraction of work. Activity was,
as it had often been before, the tonic which restored
her to comparative health. She had no money, and
Fanny, despite Imlay’s promises, was entirely dependent
upon her. Her exertions to maintain herself and her
child obliged her to stifle at least the expression of
misery.
Outwardly she became much calmer. She resumed
her old tasks; Mr. Johnson now, as ever, practically
befriending her by providing her with work. She had
nothing so much at heart as her child’s interests, and
these seemed to demand her abjuration of solitude and
her return to social life. Her existence externally was,
save for the presence of Fanny, exactly the same as it
had been before her departure for France. Another
minor change was that she was now known as Mrs.
Imlay. Imlay had asked her to retain his name; and to
11 *
164 MIAR Y WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
prevent the awkwardness and misunderstandings that
otherwise would have arisen, she consented to do so.
During this period she had held but little communi-
cation with her family. The coolness between her sis-
ters and herself had, from no fault of hers, developed
into positive anger. Their ill-will, which had begun
some years previous, had been stimulated by her com-
parative silence during her residence abroad. She had
really written to them often, but it was impossible at
that time for letters not to miscarry. Those which she
sent by private opportunities reached them, and they
contain proofs of her unremitting and affectionate solici-
tude for them. Always accustomed to help them out
of difficulties, she worried over what she heard of their
circumstances, and while her hands were, so to speak,
tied, she made plans to contribute to their future com-
forts.
That she had discussed the question of her sister’s
prospects with Imlay seems probable from the fact that
while he was in London alone, in November, 1794, he
wrote very affectionately to Eliza, saying,
. . . We shall both of us continue to cherish feelings of tenderness
for you, and a recollection of your unpleasant situation, and we shall
also endeavour to alleviate its distress by all the means in our power.
The present state of our fortune is rather [word omitted]. How-
ever, you must know your sister too well, and I am sure you judge
of that knowledge too favourably, to suppose that whenever she has
it in her power she will not apply some specific aid to promote
your happiness. I shall always be most happy to receive your
letters; but as I shall most likely leave England the beginning of
next week, I will thank you to let me hear from you as soon as con-
venient, and tell me ingenuously in what way I can serve you in any
manner or respect. . . .”
But all Mary's efforts to be kind could not soften
their resentment. On the contrary, it was still further
RETR )SPECTIVE!, 165
increased by the step she took in their regard on her
return to England in the same year. When in France
she had gladly suggested Everina's joining her there;
but in London, after her discovery of Imlay’s change
of feeling, she naturally shrank from receiving her or
Eliza into her house. Her sorrow was too sacred to
be exposed to their gaze. She was brave enough to
tell them not to come to her, a course of action that
few in her place would have had the courage to pur-
Sue. In giving them her reasons for this new deter-
mination, she of course told them but half the truth.
To Everina she wrote:—
April 27, 1795.
When you hear, my dear Everina, that I have been in London near
a fortnight without writing to you or Eliza, you will perhaps accuse
me of insensibility; for I shall not lay any stress on my not being
well in consequence of a violent cold I caught during the time I
was nursing, but tell you that I put off writing because I was at a
loss what I could do to render Eliza's situation more comfortable.
I instantly gave Jones ten pounds to send, for a very obvious
reason, in his own name to my father, and could send her a trifle of
this kind immediately, were a temporary assistance necessary. I
believe I told you that Mr. Imlay had not a fortune when I first knew
him ; since that he has entered into very extensive plans which
promise a degree of success, though not equal to the first prospect.
When a sufficient sum is actually realized, I know he will give me for
you and Eliza five or six hundred pounds, or more if he can. In what
way could this be of the most use to you? I am above concealing
my sentiments, though I have boggled at uttering them. It would
give me sincere pleasure to be situated near you both. I cannot yet
say where I shall determine to spend the rest of my life; but I do
not wish to have a third person in the house with me; my domes-
tic happiness would perhaps be interrupted, without my being of
much use to Eliza. This is not a hastily formed opinion, nor is it in
consequence of my present attachment, yet I am obliged now to
express it because it appears to me that you have formed some such
expectation for Eliza. You may wound me by remarking on my de-
termination, still I know on what principle I act, and therefore you
166 MAR Y WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
can only judge for yourself. I have not heard from Charles for a great
while. By writing to me immediately you would relieve me from
considerable anxiety. Mrs. Imlay, No. 26 Charlotte Street, Rathbone
Place.
Yours sincerely,
MARY.
Two days later she wrote to this effect to Eliza.
Both letters are almost word for word the same, so
that it would be useless to give the second. It was too
much for Eliza's inflammable temper. All her worst
feelings were stirred by what she considered an insult.
The kindness of years was in a moment effaced from
her memory. Her indignation was probably fanned
into fiercer fury by her disappointment. From a few
words she wrote to Everina it seems as if both had been
relying upon Mary for the realization of certain
“goodly prospects.” She returned Mary’s letter
without a word, but to Everina she wrote:—
I have enclosed this famous letter to the author of the Rights of
Women, without any reflection. She shall never hear from Poor Bess
again. Remember, I am fixed as my misery, and nothing can change
my present plan. This letter has so strangely agitated me that I
know not what I say; but this I feel and know, that if you value
my existence you will comply with my requisition [that is, to find her
a situation in Ireland where she, Everina, then was], for I am positive
I will never torture our amiable friend in Charlotte Street. Is not
this a good spring, my dear girl? At least poor Bess can say it is a
fruitful one. Alas, poor Bess!
But, though deserted by those nearest to her, her
friends rallied round her. She was joyfully re-welcomed
to the literary society which she had before frequented.
She was not treated as an outcast, because people reso-
lutely refused to believe the truth about her connection
with Imlay. She was far from encouraging them in
this. Godwin says in her desire to be honest she went
so far as to explain the true state of the case to a man
RETROSPECTIVE. 167
whom she knew to be the most inveterate tale bearer
in London, and who would be sure to repeat what she
told him. But it was of no avail. Her personal at-
tractions and cleverness predisposed friends in her
favour. In order to retain her society and also to silence
any scruples that might arise, they held her to be an
injured wife, as indeed she really was, and not a deserted
mistress. A few turned from her coldly; but those
who eagerly re-opened their doors to her were in the
majority.
168 MARY WOLLSTONEURAFT GODWIN,
CHAPTER XII.
WILLIAM GODWIN,
WILLIAM GoDw1N was one of those with whom Mary
renewed her acquaintance. The impression they now
made on each other was very different from that which
they had received in the days when she was still known
as Mrs. Wollstonecraft. Since he was no less famous
than she, and since it was his good fortune to make the
last year of her life happy, and by his love to compen-
sate her for her first wretched experience, a brief sketch
of his life, his character, and his work is here necessary.
It is only by knowing what manner of man he was,
and what standard of conduct he deduced from his
philosophy, that his relations to her can be fairly
understood.
William Godwin, the seventh child of thirtcen, was
the son of a Dissenting minister, and was born March
3, 1756, at Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire. He came on
both sides of respectable middle-class families. His
father's father and brother had both been clergymen,
the one a Methodist preacher, the other a Dissenter.
His father was a man of but little learning, whose
$53
strongest feeling was disapprobation of the Church of
WILLIAM GOD WIN. 169
England, and whose “creed was so puritanical that he
considered the fondling of a cat a profanation of the
Lord’s day.” Mrs. Godwin in her earlier years was
gay, too much so for the wife of a minister, some people
thought, but after her husband’s death she joined a
Methodistical sect, and her piety in the end grew into
famaticism. A Miss Godwin, a cousin, who lived with
the family, had perhaps the greatest influence over
William Godwin when he was a mere child. She was
not without literary culture, and through her he learnt
something of books. But her religious principles were
severely Calvinistic, and these she impressed upon him
at the same time.
His first school-mistress was an old woman, who was
concerned chiefly with his soul, and who gave him,
before he had completed his eighth year, an intimate
knowledge of the Bible. The inevitable consequence
of this training was that religion became his first
thought. Thanks to his cousin, however, and to his
natural cleverness and ambition, he was saved from
bigotry by his interest in wider subjects, though they
were for many years secondary considerations. From
an early age he had, as he says of himself, developed an
insatiable curiosity and love of distinction. One of his
later tutors was Mr. Samuel Newton, an Independent
minister and a follower of Sandeman, “a celebrated
north country apostle, who, after Calvin had damned
ninety-nine out of a hundred of mankind, has contrived
a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the
followers of Calvin.” Godwin remained some years with
him, and was so far influenced by his doctrines, that
when, later, he sought admission into Homerton
Acadciny, a Dissenting institution, he was refused,
170 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
because he seemed to the authorities to show signs of
Sandemanianism. But he had no difficulty in entering
Hoxton College; and here, in his twenty-third year, he
finished his religious and secular education. During
these years his leading inspiration had been a thirst
after knowledge and truth.
This was in 1778. Upon leaving college he began
his career as minister, but he was never very successful,
and before long his religious views were much modified.
His search for truth led him in a direction in which he
had least expected to go. In 1781, when he was ful-
filling the duties of his profession at Stowmarket, he
began to read the French philosophers, and by them
his faith in Christianity was seriously shaken. 1783
was the last year in which he appeared in the pulpit.
He gave up the office and returned to London, where
he supported himself by writing. In the course of a
short time he dropped the title of Reverend and eman-
cipated himself entirely from his old religious associa-
tions.
His first literary work was the Life of Lord Chatham,
and this was followed by a defence of the Coalition of
1783. He then obtained regular employment on the
English Review, published by Murray in Fleet Street,
wrote several novels, and became a contributor to the
Political Herald. He was entirely dependent upon his
writings, which fact accounts for the variety displayed
in them. His chief interest was, however, in politics.
He was a Radical of the most pronounced type, and his
articles soon attracted the attention of the Whigs.
His services to that party were considered so valuable
that when the above-mentioned paper perished, Fox,
through Sheridan, proposed to Godwin that he should
WILLIAM GOD WIN. 171
edit it, the whole expense to be paid from a fund set
aside for just such purposes. But Godwin declined.
13y accepting he would have sacrificed his independence
and have become their mouthpiece, and he was not
willing to sell himself. He seems at one time to have
been ambitious to be a Member of Parliament, and
records with evident satisfaction Sheridan’s remark to
him: “You ought to be in Parliament.” But his
integrity again proved a stumbling-block. He could
not reconcile himself to the subterfuges which Whigs
as well as Tories silently countenanced. Honesty was
his dominant quality quite as much as it was Mary's.
He was unfit to take an active part in politics; his
sphere of work was speculative.
He was the foremost among the devoted adherents
in England of Rousseau, Helvetius, and the other
Frenchmen of their school. He was one of the
“French Revolutionists,” so called because of their
sympathy with the French apostles of liberty and equa-
lity; and at their meetings he met such men as Price,
Holcroft, Earl Stanhope, Horne Tooke, Geddes, all of
whom considered themselves fortunate in having his
co-operation. Thomas Paine was one of his intimate
acquaintances; and the Rights of Man was submitted
to him, to receive his somewhat qualified praise, before
it was published. He was one of the leading spirits
in developing the Radicalism of his time, and thus in
preparing the way for that of the present day; and the
influence of his writings over men of his and the next
generation was enormous. Indeed, it can hardly now be
measured, since much which he wrote, being unsigned
and published in papers and periodicals, has been lost.
He was always on the alert in political matters,
172 MA R Y WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
ready to seize every opportunity to do good and to
promote the cause of freedom. He was, in a word,
one of that large army of pilgrims whose ambition is to
“make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight.”
In 1791 he wrote an anonymous letter to Fox, in which
he explained at once the two leading doctrines of his
philosophy : the necessity of change, and the equal im-
portance of moderation in effecting it. His political
creed was, paradoxical as this may seem, the outcome
of his religious education. He had long since given up
the actual faith in which he was born and trained;
after going through successive stages of Sandemanian-
ism, Deism, and Socinianism, he had, in 1787, become
a “complete unbeliever *; but he never entirely out-
lived its influence. This was of a twofold nature. It
taught him to question the sanctity of established
institutions, and it crushed in him, even if it did not
wholly eradicate, strong passion and emotional demon-
stration. No man in England was as thorough a
Radical as he ; after he ceased to be a religious, he
became a political and social dissenter. In his zeal
for the liberty of humanity, he contended for nothing
less than the destruction of all human laws. French
Republicans demanded the simplest possible form of
Government. But Godwin, outstripping them, declared
there should be none whatsoever. “It may seem
strange,” Mrs. Shelley writes, “ that anyone should, in
the sincerity of his heart, believe that no vice could
exist with perfect freedom, but my father did; it was
the very basis of his system, the very key-stone of the
arch of justice, by which he desired to knit together
the whole human family.”
IIis ultra-radicalism led him to some new and start-
WILLIAM GOD WIN. 173
ling conclusions, and these he set before the public in
his Political Justice, the first book he published under
his own name. It appeared in 1793, and immediately
created a great sensation. It must be ranked as one
of the principal factors in the development of English
thought. A short explanation of the doctrines em-
bodied in it will throw important light on his subse-
quent relations to Mary, as well as on his own charac-
ter. The foundation of the arguments he advances in
this book is his belief in the efficacy of reason in the
individual as a guide to conduct. He thought that, if
each human being were free to act as he chose, he
would be sure to act for the best ; for, according to
him, instincts do not exist. He makes no allowance
for the influence of the past in forming the present,
ignoring the laws of heredity. A man's nature is
formed by the character of his surroundings. Virtue
and vice are the result not of innate tendencies, but
of external circumstances. When these are perfected,
evil will necessarily disappear from the world. He had
so successfully subordinated his own emotions, that in
his philosophical system he calmly ignores passion as a
mainspring of human activity. This is exemplified by
the rule he lays down for the regulation of a man’s
conduct to his fellow-beings. He must always measure
their respective worth, and not the strength of his
affection for them, even if the individuals concerned
be his near relations. Supposing, for example, he had
to choose between saving the life of a Fénelon and
that of a chambermaid, he must select the former
because of his superior talents, even though the latter
should be his mother or his wife. Affections are to
be forgotten in the calculations of reason. Godwin's
174, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
faith in the supremacy of the intellect was not lessened
because he was forced to admit that men often do not
act reasonably. This is, he explains, because they are
without knowledge of the absolute truth. Show them
what is true or right, and all, even the most abandoned
criminal, will give up what is false or wrong. He boldly
advanced the substitution of an appeal to reason fºr
punishment in the treatment of criminals, and this at
a time when such a doctrine was considered treason,
He declared that any article of property justly belongs
to those who most want it, “ or to whom the posses-
sion of it will be most beneficial.” But his objection
to the marriage law seemed the most glaringly im-
moral part of his philosophy. He assailed theoretically
an institution for which Mary Wollstonecraft had
practically shown her disapprobation. His reasoning
in this regard is curious, and reveals the little import-
ance he attached to passion. He disapproved of the
marriage tie because he thought that two people who
are bound together by it are not at liberty to follow
the dictates of their own minds, and hence are not
acting in accordance with pure reason. Free love, or
a system of voluntary divorce, would be less immoral;
because in either of these cases men and women would
be self-ruled, and therefore could be relied upon to do
what is right.
Besides, according to his ideal of justice in the
matter of property, a man or a woman belongs to whom .
soever most needs him or her, irrespective of any rela-
tions already formed. It follows naturally that the
children born in a community where these ideas are
adopted are to be educated by the State, and must not
be subjected to rules or discipline, but taught from
WILLIAM GOD WIN. 175
the beginning to regulate their conduct by the light
of reason.
It is not surprising that this book made a stir in
the political world. None of the Revolutionists had
delivered themselves of such ultra-revolutionary senti-
ments. Men had been accused of high treason for
much more moderate views. Perhaps it was their very
extravagance that saved him, though he accounted for
it in another way. “I have frequently,” Mrs. Shelley
explains, “heard my father say that Political Justice
escaped prosecution from the reason that it appeared
in a form too expensive for general acquisition. Pitt
observed, when the question was debated in the Privy
Council, that ‘ a three-guinea book could never do
much harm among those who had not three shillings
to spare.’” Godwin purposely published his work in
this expensive form because he knew that by so doing
he would keep it from the multitude, whose passions
he would have been the last to arouse or to stimulate.
He only wished it to be studied by men too enlight-
ened to encourage abrupt innovation. Festina lente
was his motto. The success of the book, however,
went beyond his expectations and perhaps his in-
tentions. Three editions were issued in as many
years. Among the class of readers to whom he imme-
diately appealed, the verdict passed upon it varied.
Dr. Priestley thought it very original, and that it would
probably prove useful, though its fundamental princi-
ples were too pure to be practical. Horne Tooke
pronounced it a bad book, calculated to do harm.
The Rev. Samuel Newton’s vigorous disapproval of
it caused a final breach between Godwin and his old
tutor. As a rule, the reformers accepted it as the work
17G MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
of inspiration, and the Tories condemned it as the
outcome of atheism and political rebellion.
His novel, Caleb Williams, established his literary
reputation. Its success almost realized Mrs. Inchbald’s
prediction that “fine ladies, milliners, mantua-makers,
and boarding-school girls will love to tremble over it,
and that men of taste and judgment will admire the
superior talents, the incessant energy of mind you have
cvinced.” He was at this time one of the most con-
spicuous and most talked-about men in London. He
counted among his friends and acquaintances all the
distinguished men and women of the day; among
whom he was in great demand, notwithstanding the
fact that he talked neither much nor well, and that not
even the most brilliant conversation could prevent his
taking short maps when in company.
He was as cold in his conduct as in his philosophy.
He was always methodical in his work. Great as his
interest in his subject might be, his ardour was held
within bounds. There were no long vigils spent wrest-
ling with thought, or days and weeks passed alone and
locked in his study that nothing might interfere with
the flow of ideas, unless, as happened occasionally, he
was working against time. He wrote from nine till
one, and then, when he found his brain confused by
this amount of labour, he readily reduced the number
of his working hours. Literary composition was under-
taken by him with the same placidity with which
another man might devote himself to book-keeping.
He was equally uncompromising in his friendships.
His feelings towards his friends were always ruled by
his sense of justice. He was the first to come forward
with substantial help in their hour of need, but he was
WILLIAM GOD WIN. 177
also the first to tell them the truth, even though it
might be unpleasant, when he thought it his duty to
do so. His unselfishness is shown in his conduct
during the famous state trials, in which Holcroft, his
most intimate friend, Horne Tooke, and several other
highly-prized acquaintances, were accused of high trea-
son. His boldly avowed revolutionary principles made
him a marked man, but he did all that was in his
power to defend them. He expressed in the columns
of the Morning Chronicle his unqualified opinion of
the atrocity of the proceedings against them ; and
throughout the trials he stood by the side of the
prisoners, though by so doing he ran the risk of being
arrested with them. But if his friends asked his
assistance when it did not seem to him that they de-
served it, he was as fearless in withholding it. A Jew
money-lender, John King by name, at whose house
he dined frequently, was arrested on some charge
connected with his business. He appealed to Godwin
to appear in court and give evidence in his favour;
whereupon the latter wrote to him, not only declining,
but forcibly explaining that he declined because he
could not conscientiously attest to his, the Jew’s,
moral character. There was no ill-will on his part,
and he continued to dine amicably with King. En-
grossed as he was with his own work, he could still
find time to read a manuscript for Mrs. Inchbald, or a
play for Holcroft; but when he did so, he was very plain-
spoken in pointing out their faults. He incurred the
former's displeasure by correcting some grammatical
errors in a story she had submitted to him, and he
deeply wounded the latter by his unmerciful abuse
of the Lawyer. Yet his affection for Holcroft was un-
| 2.
178 MARY WOLLSTONECHAFT GOD WIN.
wavering. The conflicting results to which his honesty
sometimes led are strikingly set forth in his relations
to Thomas Cooper, a distant cousin, who at one time
lived with him as pupil. He studied attentively the
boy's character, and did his utmost to treat him gently
and kindly; but, on the other hand, he expressed in his
presence his opinion of him in language harsh enough
to justify his pupil's indignation. It is more than pro-
bable that this same frankness was one of the causes of
his many quarrels—demélés, he calls them in his diary
—with his most devoted friends. His sincerity, how-
ever, invariably triumphed, and these were always mere
passing storms.
He was passionless even in relations which usually
arouse warmth in the most phlegmatic natures. He
was a good son and brother, yet so undemonstrative
that his manner passed at times for indifference.
Though in beliefs and sentiments he had drifted far
apart from his mother, he never let this fact interfere
with his filial respect and duty; and her long and many
letters to him are proofs of his unfailing kindness for
her. He was always willing to look out for the welfare
of his brothers, two of whom were somewhat disrepu-
table characters, and of his sister Hannah who lived
in London. With the latter he was on particularly
friendly terms, and saw much of her, yet Mrs. Sothren
—the cousin who had been such a help to him in his
early years—reproves him for writing of her as “Miss
Godwin’’ instead of “sister,” and fears lest this may
be a sign that his brotherly affection, once great, had
abated.
He seems at one time to have thought that he could
provide himself with a wife in the same manner in
WILLIAM GOD WIN. 179
which he managed his other affairs. He imagined that
in contracting such a relationship, love was no more
indispensable than a heroine was to the interest of
a novel. He proposed that his sister Hannah should
choose a wife for him : and she, in all seriousness, set
about complying with his request. In a spirit as busi-
ness-like as his, she decided upon a friend, calculated
she was sure to meet his requirements, and then sent
him a list of her merits, much as one might write a
recommendation of a governess or a cook.
Not even her glowing report could kindle the philo-
sophical William into warmth. He waited many
months before he called upon the paragon, and when
he finally saw her he failed to be enraptured according
to Hannah’s expectations, “Poor Miss Gay,” as the
Godwins subsequently called her, never received a
second visit.
There must have been, beneath all his coldness, a
substratum of warm and strong feeling. He possessed,
to a rare degree, the power of making friends and of
giving sympathy to his fellow-beings. The man who
can command the affection of others, and enter into
their emotions, must know how to feel himself. It
was for more than his intellect that he was loved by
men like Holcroft and Josiah Wedgwood, like Coleridge
and Lamb, and that he was sought after by beautiful
and clever women. His talents alone would not have
won the hearts of young men, and yet he invariably
made friends with those who came under his influence.
Willis Webb and Thomas Cooper, who, in his earlier
London life, lived with him as pupils, not only re-
spected, but loved him, and gave him their confidence.
In a later generation, youthful enthusiasts, of whom
12 *
180 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
Bulwer and Shelley are the most notable, looked upon
Godwin as the chief apostle in the cause of humanity, and,
beginning by admiring him as a philosopher, finished
by loving him as a man. Those who know him only
through his works or by reading his biography, cannot
altogether understand how it was that he thus attracted
and held the affections of so many men and women.
But the truth is that, while Godwin was naturally a
man of an uncommonly cold temperament, much of his
emotional insensibility was artificially produced by his
puritanical training. He was perfectly homest when
in his philosophy of life he banished the passions from
his calculations. He was so thoroughly schooled in
stifling emotion and its expression, that he thought
himself incapable of passional excitement, and, reason-
ing from his own experience, failed to appreciate its
importance in shaping the course of human affairs.
But it may be that people brought into personal con-
tact with him felt that beneath his passive exterior
there was at least the possibility of passion. Mary
Wollstonecraft was the first to develop this possibility
into certainty, and to arouse Godwin to a consciousness
of its existence. She revolutionized not only his life,
but his social doctrines. Through her he discovered
the flaw in his arguments, and then honestly confessed
his mistake to the world.
When Godwin met Mary, after her desertion by
Imlay, he was forty years of age, in the full prime
and vigour of his intellect, and in the height of his
fame. She was thirty-seven, only three years his
junior, and deemed the cleverest woman in England.
Her talents had matured, and grief had made her
strong. She was strikingly handsome. She had, by
|WILLIAM GOD WIN. 181
her struggles and sufferings, acquired what she calls
in her Rights of Women a physionomie. Even Mrs.
Inchbald and Mrs. Reveley, hard as life had gone with
them, had never approached the depth of misery which
she had fathomed. The eventful meeting took place in
the month of January, 1796, shortly after Mary had
returned from her travels in the North. Miss Hayes
invited Godwin to come to her house one evening
when Mary expected to be there. He accepted her
invitation without hesitation, but evinced no great
eagerness.
The meeting was more propitious than their first,
some few years earlier, had been. Godwin had, with
others, heard her sad story, and felt sorry for her, and
perhaps admired her for her bold, practical application
of his principles. This was better than the positive
dislike with which she had once inspired him. But
still his feeling for her was negative. He would pro-
bably never have made an effort to see her again.
What Mary thought of him has not been recorded.
But she must have been favourably impressed, for when
she came back to London from her trip to Berkshire,
she called upon him in his lodgings in Somer's Town.
He, in the meantime, had read her Letters from Nor-
way, and they had given him a higher respect for her
talents. The inaccuracies and the roughness of style
which had displeased him in her earlier works had dis-
appeared. There was no fault to be found with the
book, but much to be said in its praise. Once she
had pleased him intellectually, he began to discover
her other attractions, and to enjoy being with her.
Her conversation, instead of wearying him, as it once
had, interested him. He no longer thought her for-
º
182 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
ward and conceited, but succumbed to her personal
charms.
Godwin now began to see her frequently. She had
established herself in rooms in Cumming Street, Pen-
tonville, where she was very near him. They met
often at the houses of Miss Hayes, Mr. Johnson, and
other mutual friends. Her interests and tastes were
the same as his ; and this fact he recognized more
fully as time went on. It is probably because his
thoughts were so much with her, that the work he ac-
complished during this year was comparatively small.
None of the other women he knew and admired had
made him act spontaneously and forget to reason out
his conduct as she did. He really had, at one time,
thought of making Amelia Alderson his wife; but this,
for some unrecorded reason, proving an impossibility,
he calmly dismissed the suggestion from his mind and
continued the friend he had been before. Had Mrs.
Reveley been single he might have allowed himself
to love her, as he did later, when he was a widower
and she a widow. But so long as her husband was
alive, and he knew he had no right to do so, he, with
perfect equanimity, regulated his affection to suit the
circumstances. But he never reasoned either for or
against his love for Mary Wollstonecraft. It sprang
from his heart, and it had grown into a strong pas-
sion before he had paused to deliberate as to its
advisability.
As for Mary, Godwin's friendship, coming just when
it did, was an inestimable service. Never in all her life
had she needed sympathy as she did then. She was
virtually alone. Her friends were kind, but their
kindness could not quite take the place of the indivi-
|
}
WILLIAM GOD WIN. 183
dual love she craved. Imlay had given it to her for a
while, and her short-lived happiness with him made
her present loneliness seem more unendurable. Her
separation from him really dated back to the time
when she left Havre. Her affection for him had been
destroyed sooner than she thought, because she had
struggled bravely to retain it for the sake of her child.
The gaiety and many distractions of London life could
not drown her heart's wretchedness. It was through
Godwin that she became reconciled to England, to life,
and to herself. He revived her enthusiasm and re-
newed her interest in work and in mankind; but above
all he gave her that special devotion without which
she but half lived. In the restlessness that followed
her loss of Imlay's love, she had resolved to make the
tour of Italy or Switzerland. Therefore, when she had
returned to London, expecting it to be but a tem-
porary resting-place, she had taken furnished lodgings.
“Now, however,” as Godwin says in his Memoirs,
“she felt herself reconciled to a longer abode in
England, probably without exactly knowing why this
change had taken place in her mind.” She moved to
other rooms in the extremity of Somer's Town, and
filled them with the furniture she had used in Store
Street in the first days of her prosperity, and which
had since been packed away. The unpacking of this
furniture was with her what the removal of widows’
weeds is with other women. Her first love had perished;
but from it rose another, stronger and better; just as
the ripening of autumn's fruits follows the withering
of spring's blossoms. She mastered the harvest-secret,
learning the value of that death which yields higher
fruition.
*184. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
In July, Godwin left London and spent the month in
Norfolk. Absence from Mary made him realize more
than he had hitherto done that she had become indis-
pensable to his happiness. She was constantly in his
thoughts. The more he meditated upon her, the
more he appreciated her. There was less pleasure in
his excursion than in the meeting with her which fol-
lowed it. They were both glad to be together again;
nor did they hesitate to make their gladness evident.
At the end of three weeks they had confessed to each
other that they could no longer live apart. Hence-
forward their lines must be cast in the same places.
Godwin's story of their courtship is eloquent in its
simplicity. It is almost impossible to believe that it
was written by the author of Political Justice. He
explains:–
The partiality we conceived for each other was in that mode which
I have always regarded as the purest and most refined style of love.
It grew with equal advances in the mind of each. It would have
been impossible for the most minute observer to have said who was
before, and who was after. One sex did not take the priority which
long-established custom has awarded it, nor the other overstep that
delicacy which is so severely imposed. I am not conscious that either
party can assume to have been the agent or the patient, the toil-
spreader or the prey, in the affair. When, in the course of things,
the disclosure came, there was nothing, in a manner, for either
party to disclose to the othcr. . . It was friendship melting into
love.
185
CHAPTER, XIII.
LIFE WITH GODWIN : MARRIAGEe
1796–1797.
Godwin and Mary did not at once marry. The former,
in his Political Justice, had frankly confessed to the
world that he thought the existing institution of mar-
riage an evil. Mary had by her conduct avowed her
agreement with him. But their views in this connec-
tion having already been fully stated need not be
repeated. In omitting to seek legal sanction to their
union both were acting in perfect accord with their
standard of morality. Judged according to their mo-
tives, neither can be accused of wrong-doing. Pure in
their own eyes, they deserve to be so in the world’s
cstcem. Their mistake consisted in their disregard of
the fact that, to preserve social order in the community,
sacrifices are required from the individual. They for-
got—as Godwin, who was opposed to sudden change,
should not have forgotten—that laws made for men in
general cannot be arbitrarily altered to suit cach man
in particular.
Godwin, strange to say, was ruled in this matter not
only by principle, but by sentiment. For the first time
186 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
his emotions were stirred, and he really loved. He
was more awed by his passion than a more susceptible
man would have been. It seemed to him too sacred
to flaunt before the public. “Nothing can be so
ridiculous upon the face of it,” he says in the story
of their love, “ or so contrary to the genuine march of
sentiment, as to require the overflowing of the soul to
wait upon a ceremony, and that which, wherever
delicacy and imagination exist, is of all things most
sacredly private, to blow a trumpet before it, and to
record the moment when it has arrived at its climax.”
Mary was anxious to conceal, at least for a time, their
new relationship. She was not ashamed of it, for
never, even when her actions seem most daring, did
she swerve from her ideas of right and wrong. But
though, as a rule, people had blinded themselves to
the truth, some bitter things had been said about her
life with Imlay, and some friends had found it their
duty to be unkind. All that was unpleasant she had
of course heard. One is always sure to hear the evil
spoken of one. A second offence against social decrees
would assuredly call forth redoubled discussion and in
creased vituperation. The misery-eaused by her late
experience was still vivid in her memory. She was no
less sensitive than she had been then, and she shrank
from a second scandal.
The great change in their relations made little differ-
ence in their way of living. Their determination to
keep it a secret would have been sufficient to prevent
any domestic innøvations in the establishment of either.
But, in addition to this, Godwin had certain theories
upon the subject. Because his love was the outcome
of strong feeling, and not of calm discussion, his
LIFE WITH GOD WIN : MARRIAGE. 187
reliance upon reason, as the regulator of his actions,
did not cease. The habits of a life-time could not be
so easily broken. If he had not governed love in its
growth, he at least ruled its expression. It was neces-
sary to decide upon a course of conduct for the two
lives now made one. Since he and Mary were to be
really, if not legally, man and wife, the time had come
to test the truth of these ideas. The plan he proposed
was that they should be as independent of each other
as they had hitherto been, that the time spent together
should not in any way be restricted or regulated by
stated hours, and that, in their amusements and social
intercourse, each should continue wholly free.
Mary readily acquiesced, though such a suggestion
would probably never have originated with her. Her
heart was too large and warm for doubts, where love
was concerned. She was the very opposite of Godwin
in this respect. She had the poetic rather than the
philosophic temperament, and when she loved it was
with an intensity that made analysis of her feelings
and their possible results out of the question. It is
true that in her Rights of Women she had shown that
passion must inevitably lose its first ardour, and that
love between man and wife must in the course of time
become either friendship or indifference. But while
she had reasoned dispassionately in an abstract treatise,
she had not been equally temperate in the direction of
her own affairs. Her love for Imlay had not passed
into the second stage, but his had deteriorated into in-
difference very quickly. Godwin was, as she well knew,
in every way unlike Imlay. That she felt perfect con-
fidence in him is seen by her willingness to live with
him. But still, sure as she was of his innate upright-
188 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
mess, when he suggested to her means by which to in-
sure the continuance of his love, she was only too glad
to adopt them. She had learned, if not to be prudent
herself, at least to comply with the prudence of others.
It would not be well for many people to follow their
plan of life, but with them it succeeded admirably.
Godwin remained in his lodgings, Mary in hers. He
continued his old routine of work, made his usual
round of visits, and went by himself, as of yore, to the
theatre, and to the dinners and suppers of his friends.
Mary pursued uninterruptedly her studies and writings,
conducted her domestic concerns in the same way,
and sought her amusements singly, sometimes meeting
Godwin quite unexpectedly at the play or in private
houses. His visits to her were as irregular in point of
time as they had previously been, and when one wanted
to make sure of the other for a certain hour or at a
certain place, a regular engagement had to be made.
Not only did they not inform each other of their
movements, but they even considered it unnecessary
to speak when they met by chance. The peculiar
terms on which they lived had at least one advantage.
They were the means of giving to later generations a
clear insight into their domestic relations. For, as the
two occupied separate lodgings and were apart during
the greater part of the day, they often wrote to each
other concerning matters which people so united usually
settle by word of mouth. Godwin's diary was a record
of bare facts. Mary never kept one. There was no
one else to describe their every-day life. This is
exactly what is accomplished by the notes, which thus,
while they are without absolute merit, are of relative
importance. They are really little informal conversa-
LIFE WITH GOD WIN: MARRIAGE. 189
tions on paper. To read them is like listening to some
one talking. They show how ready Mary was to enlist
Godwin’s sympathy on all occasions, small as well as
great, and how equally ready he was to be interested.
It is strange to hear these two apostles of reform talking
much in the same strain as ordinary mortals, making
engagements to dine on beef, groaning over petty
ailments and miseries, and greeting each other in true
bon compagnon style. Mary's notes, like her letters to
Imlay, are essentially feminine. Short as they are,
they are full of womanly tenderness and weakness.
Sometimes she wrote to invite Godwin to dinner, or
to notify to him that she intended calling at his apart-
ments, at the same time sending a bulletin of her
health and of her plans for the day.
There was now a decided improvement in the lives
of both Mary and Godwin. The latter, under the new
influence, was humanized. Domestic ties, which he had
never known before, softened him. He hereafter ap-
pears not only as the passionless philosopher, but as the
loving husband and the affectionate father, little Fanny
Imlay being treated by him as if she had been his own
child. His love transformed him from a mere student
of men to a man like all others. He who had always
been, so far as his emotional nature was concerned,
apart from the rest of his kind, was, in the end, one
with them. From being a sceptic on the subject, he
was converted into a firm believer in human passion.
With the zeal usually attributed to converts, he became
as warm in his praise of the emotions as he had before
been indifferent in his estimation of them.
Mary was as much metamorphosed by her new cir-
cumstances as Godwin. Her heart at rest, she grew
190 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
gay and happy. She was at all times, even when ha-
rassed with cares, thoughtful of other people, When
her own troubles had ceased, her increased kindliness
was shown in many little ways, which unfortunately
cannot be appreciated by posterity, but which made
her, to her contemporaries, a more than ever delightful
companion and sympathetic friend.
On March 29th, 1797, after they had lived together
happily and serenely for seven months, Mary and
Godwin were married. The marriage ceremony was
performed at old Saint Pancras Church, in London, and
Mr. Marshal, their mutual friend, and the clerk were
the only witnesses. So unimportant did it seem to
Godwin, to whom reason was more binding than
any conventional form, that he never mentioned it in
his diary, though in the latter he kept a strict account
of his daily actions.
They were induced to take this step, not by any
dissatisfaction with the nature of the connection they
had already formed, but by the fact that Mary was
soon to become a mother for the second time. God-
win explains that “she was unwilling, and perhaps
with reason, to incur that exclusion from the society
of many valuable and excellent individuals, which cus-
tom awards in cases of this sort. I should have felt
an extreme repugnance to the having caused her such
an inconvenience.” But probably another equally
strong motive was, that both had at heart the welfare
of their unborn child.
At first they told no one of their marriage. Mrs.
Shelley gives two reasons for their silence. Godwin
was very sensitive to criticism, perhaps even more so
than Mary. This was true not only in connection
LIFE WITH GOD WIN : MARRIAGE 191
with his literary work, but with all his relations in life.
He knew that severe comments would be called forth
by an act in direct contradiction to doctrines he had
emphatically preached. His adherents would condemn
him as an apostate. His enemies would accept his
practical retraction of one of his theories as a proof of
the unsoundness of the rest. It required no little
courage to submit to such an ordeal. But the other
motive for secrecy was more urgent. Mary, after
Imlay left her, was penniless. She resumed at once
her old tasks. But her expenses were greater than
they had been, and her free time less, since she had
to provide for and take care of Fanny. Besides, Imlay's
departure had caused certain money complications.
Mr. Johnson and other kind friends, however, were
now, as always, ready to help her out of pressing
difficulties, and to assume the debts which she could
not meet. Godwin, who had made it a rule of life
not to earn more money than was absolutely necessary
for his very small wants, and who had never looked
forward to maintaining a family, could not at once con-
tribute towards Mary’s support, or relieve her financial
embarrassments. The announcement of their marriage
would be the signal for her friends to cease giving her
their aid, and she could not, as yet, settle her affairs
alone. This was the difficulty which forced them into
temporary silence.
However, to secure the end for which they had
married, long concealment was impossible. Godwin
applied to Mr. Thomas Wedgwood of Etruria for a
loan of £50, without giving him any explanation for
his request, though he was sure, on account of his well-
known economy and simple habits, it would appear
192 MARY WOLI/STONECRAFT GOD WIN.
extraordinary. This sum enabled Mary to tide over
her present emergency, and the marriage was made
public on the 6th of April, a few days after the cere.
mony had been performed. One of the first to whom
Godwin told the news was Miss Hayes. This was but
fair, since it was under her auspices that they renewed
their acquaintance to such good purpose.
About ten days later he wrote to Mr. Wedgwood,
and his letter confirms Mrs. Shelley's statement. His
effort to prove that his conduct was not inconsistent
with his creed shows how keenly he felt the criticisms
it would evoke; and his demand for more money re-
veals the slender state of the finances of husband and
wife.
Strange to say, the announcement of their marriage
did not produce quite so satisfactory an effect as they
had anticipated. Mary, notwithstanding her frank
protest, was still looked upon as Imlay’s wife. Her
intimate connection with Godwin had been very gene-
rally understood, but not absolutely known, and hence
it had not ostracised her socially. If conjectures and
comments were made, they were whispered, and not
uttered aloud. But the marriage had to be recognized,
and the fact that Mary was free to marry Godwin,
though Imlay was alive, was an incontrovertible proof
that her relation to the latter had been illegal. People
who had been deaf to her statements could not ignore
this formal demonstration of their truth. Hitherto,
their friendliness to her could not be construed into
approval of her unconventionality. But now, by con-
tinuing to visit her and receive her at their houses,
they would be countenancing an offence against morality
which the world ranks with the unpardonable sins,
LIFE WITH GODWIN: MARRIAGE. 193
They might temporize with their own consciences, but
not with public opinion. They were therefore in a di-
lemma, from which there was no middle course of
extrication. Thus forced to decisive measures, a num-
ber of her friends felt obliged to forego all acquaintance
with her. Two whom she then lost, and whom she
most deeply regretted, were Mrs. Siddons and Mrs.
Inchbald. In speaking of their secession, Godwin
says: “Mrs. Siddons, I am sure, regretted the neces-
sity which she conceived to be imposed on her by
the peculiarity of her situation, to conform to the rules
I have described.”
The majority of her acquaintances, knowing that her
intentions were pure, though her actions were opposed
to accepted ideals of purity, were brave enough to regu-
late their behaviour to her by their convictions. Beau-
tiful Mrs. Reveley was as much moved as Mrs. Inch-
bald when she heard the news of Godwin's marriage,
but her friendship was formed in a finer mould. Mrs.
Shelley says that “she feared to lose a kind and con-
stant friend; but, becoming intimate with Mary Woll-
stonecraft, she soon learnt to appreciate her virtues and
to love her. She soon found, as she told me in after
days, that instead of losing one she had secured two
friends, unequalled, perhaps, in the world for genius,
single-heartedness, and nobleness of disposition, and a
cordial intercourse subsisted between them.” It was
from Mrs. Reveley that Mrs. Shelley obtained most of
her information about her mother's married life. Men
like Johnson, Basil Montague, Thomas Wedgwood,
Horne Tooke, Thomas Holcroft, did not, of course,
allow the marriage to interfere with their friendship.
It is rather strange that Fuseli should have now been
13
194 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
willing enough to be civil. Marriage, in his opinion,
had restored Mary to respectability. “You have not,
perhaps, heard,” he wrote to a friend, “that the assertrix
of female rights has given her hand to the balancier of
political justice.” He not only called on Mrs. God-
win, but he dimed with her; an experiment, however,
which did not prove pleasurable, for Horne Tooke, Cur-
ran, and Grattan were of the party, and they discussed
politics. Fuseli, who loved nothing better than to talk,
had never a chance to say a word. “I wonder you
invited me to meet such wretched company,” he ex-
claimed to Mary in disgust.
Mary's family were not so cordial. Everina and
Mrs. Bishop apparently never quite forgave her for the
letter she wrote after her return to England with Imlay,
and they disapproved of her marriage. They com-
plained that her strange course of conduct made it
doubly difficult for them, as her sisters, to find situa-
tions. When, shortly after the marriage, Godwin went
to stay a day or two at Etruria, Everina, who was then
governess in the Wedgwood household, would not at
first come down to see him, and, as far as can be judged
from his letters, treated him very coolly throughout
his visit.
Godwin and Mary now made their joint home in the
Polygon, Somer's Town. But the former had his sepa-
rate lodgings in the Evesham Buildings, where he went
every morning to work, and where he sometimes spent
the night. They saw little, if any, more of each other
than they had before, and were as independent in their
goings-out and comings-in.
While Mary seconded Godwin in his domestic theo-
ries, there were times when less independence would
LIFE WITH GOD WIN: MARRIAGE. 195
have pleased her better. She had been obliged to
fight the battle of life alone, and, when the occasion
required it, she was equal to meeting single-handed
whatever difficulties might arise. But instinctively she
preferred to lean upon others for protection and help.
Godwin would never wittingly have been selfish or
cruel in withholding his assistance. But, as each had
agreed to go his and her own way, it no more occurred
to him to interfere with what he thought her duties, than
it would have pleased him had she interfered with his.
She had consented to his proposition, and in accepting
her consent he had not been wise enough to read
between the lines. Much as he loved Mary, he never
seems to have really understood her. She had now to
take entire charge of matters which her friends had
hitherto been eager to attend to for her. They could
not well come forward, once it had become Godwin’s
right to do what to them had been a privilege. Mary
felt their loss and his indifference, and frankly told
him so.
These were mere passing clouds over the bright
horizon of their lives, such as it is almost impossible
for any two people living together in the same relation-
ship to escape. Both were sensitive, and each had
certain qualities peculiarly calculated to irritate the
other. Mary was quick-tempered and nervous. God-
win was cool and methodical. With Mary, love was
the first consideration ; Godwin, who had lived alone
for many years, was ruled by habit. Their natures
were so dissimilar, that occasional interruptions to their
peace were unavoidable. But these never developed
into serious warfare. They loved each other too
homestly to cherish ill-feeling.
13 *
196 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
“Ours was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish
and transitory pleasures,” Godwin asserts in referring
to the months of their married life. Mary never let
her work come to a standstill. Idleness was a failing
unknown to her; nor had marriage, as has been seen,
lessened the necessity of industry. Indeed, it was now
especially important that she should exert her powers
of working to the utmost, which is probably the reason
that little remains to show as product of this period.
Reviewing and translating were still more profitable,
because more certain, than original writing; and her
notes to Godwin prove by their allusions that Johnson
continued to keep her supplied with employment of
this kind. She had several larger schemes afoot, for
the accomplishment of which nothing was wanting but
time. But her chief literary enterprise during the
last year of her life was her story of Maria ; or, the
Wrongs of Woman. Her interest in it as an almost
personal narrative, and her desire to make it a really
good novel, were so great that she wrote and re-wrote
parts of it many times. She devoted more hours to
it than would be supposed possible, judging from the
rapidity with which her other books were produced.
197
CHAPTER XIV.
LAST MONTHS : DEATH.
1797.
DURING the month of June of this year, Godwin made
a pleasure trip into Staffordshire with Basil Montague.
The two friends went in a carriage, staying over night
at the houses of different acquaintances, and were
absent for a little more than a fortnight. Godwin,
while away, made his usual concise entries in his
diary, but to his wife he wrote long and detailed ac-
counts of his travels. The guide-book style of his
letters is somewhat redeemed by occasional outbursts
of tenderness, pleasant to read as evidences that he
could give Mary the demonstrations of affection which
to her were so indispensable. By his playful messages
to little Fanny, and his interest in his unborn child, it
can be seen that, despite his bachelor habits, domestic
life had become very dear to him. He warns Mary
to be careful of herself, assuring her that he remem-
bers at all times the condition of her health, and
wishes he could hear from moment to moment how she
feels. *
But even his tenderness is regulated by his philo-
198 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
sophy. The lover becomes the philosopher quite un-
consciously. He writes in another letter:—
One of the pleasures I promised myself in my excursion was to
increase my value in your estimation, and I am not disappointed.
What we possess without intermission, we inevitably hold light; it is
a refinement in voluptuousness to submit to voluntary privations.
Separation is the image of death, but it is death stripped of all that
is most tremendous, and his dart purged of its deadly venom. I
always thought St. Paul's rule, that we should die daily, an ex-
quisite Epicurean maxim. The practice of it would give to life a
double relish.
Imlay, too, had found absence a stimulus to love,
but there was this difference in what at first appears to
be a similarity of opinion between himself and Godwin;
while the former sought it that he might not tire of
Mary, the latter hoped it would keep her from growing
tired of him.
Mary’s letters to her husband are full of the tender
love which no woman knew how to express as well as
she did. They are not as passionate and burning as
those to Imlay, but they are sincerely and lovingly affec-
tionate, and reveal an ever-increasing devotion and a
calmer happiness than that she had derived from her
first union.
Once during this trip the peaceful intercourse be-
tween husband and wife was interrupted. Godwin
might philosophize to his heart's content about the
advantages of separation, but Mary could not be so
sure of them. Absence in Imlay’s case had not in the
end brought about very good results; and as the days
went by, Godwin's letters, at least so it seemed to her,
became more descriptive and statistical, and less tender
and affectionate. Interest in Dr. Parr and the Wedg-
woods and the country through which he was travel-
LAST MONTHS : 1) EATH. 199
ling overshadowed for the time being matters of mere
sentiment. With the memory of another correspon-
dence from which love had gradually disappeared, still
fresh, she felt this change bitterly, and reproached
Godwin for it in very plain language.
This misunderstanding, however, was not of long
duration. The “ little rift” in their case never
widened to make their life-music mute. Godwin re-
turned to London, his love in no wise diminished, and
all ill-feeling and doubts were completely effaced from
Mary's mind. His shortcomings were, after all, not
due to any change in his affections, nor to the slightest
suspicion of satiety. By writing long letters with
careful description of everything he saw and did, he
was treating Mary as he would have desired to be
treated himself. His “icy philosophy,” which made
him so undemonstrative, was not altogether to her
liking, but it was incomparably better than the warmth
of a man like Imlay, who was too indifferent as to
the individuality of the object of his demonstrations.
The uprightness of Godwin precluded all possibility
of infidelity, and once Mary's first disappointment at
some new sign of his coldness was over, her confi-
dence in him was unabated. After this short inter-
ruption to their semi-domestic life, they both resumed
their old habits. Their separate establishments were
still kept up, their social amusements continued, though
Mary, because of the condition of her health, could
not now enter into them quite so freely, and the
little notes again began to pass between them. These
were as amicable as they had ever been.
But a short period of happiness now remained to
them. Mary expected to be confined about the
200 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
end of August, and she awaited that event with no
misgivings. She had been perfectly strong and well
when Fanny was born. She considered women’s illness
on such occasions due much more to imaginative than
to physical causes, and her health through the past
few months had been, save for one or two trifling
ailments, uncommonly good. There was really no
reason for her to fear the consequences. Both she
and Godwin looked forward with pleasure to the
arrival of their first son, as they hoped the child would
prove to be.
She was taken ill early on Wednesday morning, the
30th of August, and sent at once for Mrs. Blenkinsop,
matron and midwife to the Westminster Lying-in Hos-
pital. Godwin says that, “influenced by ideas of
decorum, which certainly ought to have no place, at
least in cases of danger, she determined to have a
woman to attend her in the capacity of midwife.”
But it seems much more in keeping with her charac-
ter that the engagement of Mrs. Blenkinsop was due,
not so much to motives of decorum as to her desire
to uphold women in a sphere of action for which she
believed them eminently fitted. Godwin went, as
usual, to his rooms in the Evesham Buildings. Mary
specially desired that he should not remain in the
house, and, to reassure him that all was well, she
wrote him several notes during the course of the
morning.
Finally, in the night of August 30th, 1797, at twenty
minutes after eleven, the child—not the William talked
of for months, but a daughter, afterwards to be Mrs.
Shelley—was born. Godwin was now sitting in the
parlour below, waiting the, as he never doubted, happy
LAST MONTHS : 1) EATH. 201
cnd. But shortly after two o'clock he received the
alarming news that the patient was in some danger.
He went immediately and summoned Dr. Poignard,
physician to the Westminster Hospital, who hastened to
the assistance of Mrs. Blenkinsop, and by eight o’clock
the next morning the peril was thought safely over.
Mary having expressed a wish to see Dr. Fordyce, who
was her friend as well as a prominent physician, God-
win sent for him, in spite of some objections to his so
doing on the part of Dr. Poignard. Dr. Fordyce was
very well satisfied with her condition, and later, in
the afternoon, mentioned as a proof of the propriety
of employing midwives on such occasions, for which
practice he was a strong advocate, that Mrs. Godwin
“ had had a woman, and was doing extremely well.”
For a day or two Godwin was so anxious that he did
not leave the house; but Mary’s progress seemed
thoroughly satisſactory, and on Sunday he went with
a friend to pay some visits, going as far even as Ken-
sington, and did not return until dinner-time. His
home-coming was a sad one. Mary had been much
worse, and in her increasing illness had worried because
of his long absence. He did not leave her again,
for from this time until her death on the following
Sunday, the physicians could give him but the faintest
shadow of a hope.
The week that intervened was long and suffering for
the sick woman, and heart-breaking for the watcher.
Every possible effort was made to save her; and if
medical skill and the devotion of friends could have
availed, she must have lived. Dr. Fordyce and Dr.
Clarke were in constant attendance. Mr.—afterwards
Sir—Anthony Carlisle, who had of his own accord al-
202 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
ready called once or twice, was summoned professionally
on Wednesday evening, September 6th, and remained
by her side until all was over. Godwin never left her
room except to snatch a few moments of sleep that he
might be better able to attend to her slightest wants.
His loving care during these miserable days could not
have been surpassed. Mary, had she been the nurse,
and he the patient, could not have been more tender
and devoted. But his curious want of sentiment, and
the eminently practical bent of his mind, manifested
themselves even at this sad and solemn time. Once
when Mary was given an anodyne to quiet her well-
nigh unendurable pain, the relief that followed was so
great that she exclaimed to her husband, “Oh, Godwin,
I am in heaven l’ But, as Mr. Kegan Paul says, “even
at that moment Godwin declined to be entrapped into
the admission that heaven existed.” His immediate
reply was, “You mean, my dear, that your physical
sensations are somewhat easier.”
Mrs. Fenwick and Miss Hayes, two good true friends,
nursed her and took charge of the sick-room. Mr.
Fenwick, Mr. Basil Montague, Mr. Marshal, and Mr.
Dyson established themselves in the lower part of the
house that they might be ready and on hand for any
emergency. It is in the hour of trouble that friendship
receives its strongest test. Mary’s friends, when it
came, were not found wanting.
“Nothing,” Godwin says, “could exceed the equa-
nimity, the patience, and affectionateness of the poor
sufferer. I entreated her to recover ; I dwelt with
trembling fondness on every favourable circumstance;
and, as far as it was possible in so dreadful a situation,
she, by her smiles and kind speeches, rewarded my
LAST MONTHS : DEATH. 203
affection.” After the first night of her illness she told
him that she would have died during its agony had she
not been determined not to leave him. Throughout
her sickness she was considerate of those around her.
Her ruling passion was strong in death. When her
attendants recommended her to sleep, she tried to
obey, though her disease made this almost impossible.
She was gentle even in her complaints. Expostulation
and contradiction were peculiarly irritating to her in
her then nervous condition; but one night, when a ser-
vant heedlessly expostulated with her, all she said was,
“Pray, pray do not let her reason with me !” Religion
was not once, to use Godwin's expression, a torment
to her. Her religious views had modified since the
days long past when she had sermonized so earnestly to
George Blood. She had never, however, despite God-
win’s atheism, lost her belief in God nor her reliance
upon Him. But, at no time an adherent to mere form,
she was not disturbed in her last moments by a desire
to conform to church ceremonies. Religion was at this
crisis, as it had always been, a source of comfort and
not of worry. She had invariably preferred virtue to
vice, and she was not now afraid of reaping the reward
of her actions. The probability of her approaching
death did not occur to her until the last two days, and
then she was so enfeebled that she was not harassed by
the thought as she had been at first. On Saturday, the
9th, Godwin, who had been warned by Mr. Carlisle that
her hours were numbered, and who wished to ascertain
if she had any directions to leave, consulted her about
the future of the two children. The physician had
particularly charged him not to startle her, for she was
too weak to bear any excitement. He therefore spoke
204 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
as if he wished to arrange for the time of her illness
and convalescence. But she understood his real mo-
tive. “I know what you are thinking of,” she told
him. But she added that she had nothing to com-
municate upon the subject. Her faith in him and in
his wisdom was entire. “He is the kindest, best man
in the world,” were among the very last words she
uttered before she lost consciousness. Her survival
from day to day seemed almost miraculous to the
physicians who attended her. Mr. Carlisle refused,
until the very end, to lose all hope. “Perhaps one in
a million of persons in her state might possibly re-
cover,” he said. But his hopes were in vain. At six
o'clock on Sunday morning, the 10th, he was obliged
to summon Godwin, who had retired for a few hours’
sleep, to his wife's bedside. At twenty minutes before
eight the same morning, Mary died.
A somewhat different version of Mary’s last hours
and of the immediate cause of her death is given in
some manuscript Notes and Observations on the Shelley
Memorials, written by Mr. H. W. Reveley, son of the
Mrs. Reveley who was Godwin’s great friend. His
account is as follows:–
When Mrs. Godwin was confined of her daughter, the late Mary
Shelley, she was very ill; and my mother, then Mrs. Reveley, was
constantly visiting her until her death, eight days after her confine-
ment. I was often there with my mother, and I saw Mrs. Godwin
the day before her death, when she was considered much better and
quite out of danger. Her death was occasioned by a dreadful fright,
in this manner. At the time of her confinement a gentleman and
lady lodged in the first floor, whether as visitors or otherwise I can-
not say, but that they were intruders in some way I am certain. The
husband was continually beating his wife, and at last there was a
violent contest between them, owing to his endeavouring to throw his
wife over the balcony into the street. Her screams, of course, at-
LAST MONTHS. DEATH. 205
tracted a crowd in front of the house. Mrs. Godwin heard the lady's
shrieks and the shouts of the crowd that a man was throwing his
wife out of the window, and the next day Mrs. Godwin died. What
became of that miscreant and his wife I never knew.
There may have been some foundation for this story.
An ill-tempered husband may have had lodgings in
the same house; but it is extremely doubtful that his
ill-temper had so fatal an effect on Mary. Godwin would
certainly have recorded the fact had it been true, for his
Memoir gives the minutest details of his wife's illness.
The very day on which Mr. Reveley says Mary was out
of danger was that on which Godwin was asking her for
final instructions about her children, so sure were the
physicians that her end was near. Mr. Reveley was
very young at the time. His observations were not
written until he was quite an old man. It would not
be unlikely, then, that his memory played him false in
this particular.
Mary was thirty-eight years of age, in the full prime
of her powers. Her best work probably remained to
be done; for her talents, like her beauty, were late in
maturing. Her style had already greatly improved
since she first began to write. Constant communica-
tion with Godwin would no doubt have developed her
intellect, and the calm created by her more happy cir-
cumstances would have lessened her pessimistic ten-
dencies. Moreover, life, just as she lost it, promised to
be brighter than it had ever been before. Godwin’s after
career shows that he would not have proved unworthy
of her love. Domestic pleasures were as dear to her as
intellectual pursuits. In her own house, surrounded by
husband and children, she would have been not only a
great but a happy woman. It is at least a satisfaction
206 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GOD WIN.
to know that her last year was content and peaceful. Few
have needed happiness more than she did, for to few has
it been given to suffer the hardships that fell to her
share.
The very same day, Godwin himself wrote to announce
his wife's death to several of his friends. It was charac-
teristic of the man to be systematic even in his grief,
which was sincere. He recorded in his diary the de-
tails of each day during Mary’s illness, and it was not
until the last that he shrank from coldly stating events
to him so truly tragic. The only dashes which occur
in his diary follow the date of Sunday, Sept. 10, 1797.
Mr. Kegan Paul says that writing to his friends “was
probably an attempt to be stoical, but a real indulgence
in the luxury of woe.” To Holcroft, who, he knew,
could appreciate his sorrow, he said, “I firmly believe
that there does not exist her equal in the world. I
know from experience we were formed to make each
other happy. I have not the least expectation that I
can now ever know happiness again.” Mrs. Inchbald
was another to whom he at once sent the melancholy
news. “I always thought you used her ill, but I for-
give you,” he told her in his note. Now that Mary
was dead he felt the insult that had been shown her
even more keenly than at the time. His words roused
all Mrs. Inchbald’s ill-feeling, and, with a singular want
of consideration, she sent with her condolences an
elaborate explanation of her own conduct. Two or
three more notes passed between them. Godwin’s
plain-speaking—he told his correspondent very clearly
what he thought of her—is excusable. But her argu-
ments in self-justification and her want of respect for
the dead are unpardonable.
LAST MONTHS : DEATH. 207
Mrs. Fenwick was entrusted with the duty of inform-
ing the Wollstonecrafts, through Everina, of Mary’s
death.
Sept. 12, 1797.
I am a stranger to you, Miss Wollstonecraft, and at present greatly
enfeebled both in mind and body; but when Mr. Godwin desired that I
would inform you of the death of his most beloved and most excellent
wife, I was willing to undertake the task, because it is some consola-
tion to render him the slightest service, and because my thoughts
perpetually dwell upon her virtues and her loss. Mr. Godwin himself
cannot, upon this occasion, write to you.
Mrs. Godwin died on Sunday, September 10, about eight in the
morning. I was with her at the time of her delivery, and with very
little intermission until the moment of her death. Every skilful
effort that medical knowledge of the highest class could make was
exerted to save her. It is not possible to describe the unremitting and
devoted attentions of her husband. Nor is it easy to give you an
adequate idea of the affectionate zeal of many of her friends, who were
on the watch night and day to seize on an opportunity of contributing
towards her recovery, and to lessen her sufferings.
No woman was ever more happy in marriage than Mrs. Godwin.
Who ever endured more anguish than Mr. Godwin endures 2 Her de-
scription of him in the very last moments of her recollection was,
“He is the kindest, best man in the world.”
I know of no consolations for myself, but in remembering how
happy she had lately been, and how much she was admired and
almost idolised by some of the most eminent and best of human
beings.
The children are both well, the infant in particular. It is the finest
baby I ever saw. Wishing you peace and prosperity, I remain your
humble servant,
ELIZA FENWICK.
Mr. Godwin requests you will make Mrs. Bishop acquainted with
the particulars of this afflicting event. He tells me that Mrs. Godwin
entertained a sincere and earnest affection for Mrs. Bishop.
The funeral was arranged by Mr. Basil Montague
and Mr. Marshal for Friday, the 15th. All Godwin’s
and Mary's intimate acquaintances were invited to be
present. Among these was Mr. Tuthil, whose views were
208 MARY WOLI/STONECRAFT GOD WIN.
identical with Godwin’s. This invitation gave rise to
another short correspondence, unfortunate at such a
time. Mr. Tuthil considered it inconsistent with his
principles, if not immoral, to take part in any religious
ceremonies; and Godwin, while he respected his scru-
ples, disapproved of his coldness, which made such a
decision possible. But he was the only one who re-
fused to show this mark of respect to Mary’s memory.
Godwin himself was too exhausted mentally and physi-
cally to appear at the funeral. When Friday morning
came he shut himself up in Marshal's rooms and un-
burdened his heavy heart by writing to Mr. Carlisle.
At the same hour Mary was buried at old Saint Pancras,
the church where but a few short months before she had
been married. A monument was afterwards erected
over her willow-shadowed grave. It bore this inscrip-
tion:—
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN,
AUTHOR OF
A WINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN,
BORN XVII. APRIL, MDCCLIX.
DIED x. SEPTEMBER, MDCCXCVII.
Many years later, when Godwin's body lay by her
side, the quiet old churchyard was ruined by the build-
ing of the Metropolitan and Midland Railways. But
there were those living who loved their memory too
dearly to allow their graves to be so ruthlessly dis-
turbed. The remains of both were removed by Sir
Percy Shelley to Bournemouth, where his mother, Mary
Godwin Shelley, was already laid. “There,” Mr.
Kegan Paul writes, “on a sunny bank sloping to the
west, among the rose-wreathed crosses of many who
LAST MONTHS: DEATH. 209
have died in more orthodox beliefs, lie those who at
least might each of them have said,
* Write me as one who loves his fellow-men.’”
Mary's death was followed by exhaustive discussion
not only of her work but of her character. The result
was, as Dr. Beloe affirms, “not very honourable to
her fair fame as a woman, whatever it might be to her
reputation as an author.”
It was to silence all calumnies that Godwin wrote
his Memoirs, and this was undoubtedly the wisest way
to answer Mary’s critics. As he says of Marguerite in
St. Leon, “The story of her life is the best record of
her virtues. Her defects, if defects she had, drew their
pedigree from rectitude of sentiment and perception,
from the most generous sensibility, from a heart
pervaded and leavened with tenderness.” That truth
is mighty above all things is shown by this story to
have been her creed. By it she regulated her feelings,
her thoughts, and her deeds. Whether her principles
and conduct be applauded or condemned, she must
always be honoured for her integrity of motive, her
fearlessness of action, and her faithful devotion to the
cause of humanity.
14
WYMAN AND SONS, LIMITED,
PRINTERs,
LONDON AND REL)HILLs
INDEX.
THE ITALICS INDICATE THE WRITINGS OF MARY
WOILSTONECRAFT GoDWIN.
A.
Analytical Review, The, 69,
108.
B.
Barbauld, Mrs., 78, 102.
Bishop, Mrs., see Wollstone-
craft, Eliza.
Bishop ( ), brother-in-
law of Mary W., 26, 28, 29,
30, 31, 35.
Blenkinsop, Mrs., 200, 201.
Blood, Caroline, 24.
Blood, Fanny, afterwards
Skeys, 12–15, 16, 23, 24, 25,
29, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41,
42, 133.
Blood, George, 24, 25, 36, 37,
38, 39, 44, 46, 49, 76, 108,
203.
Burgh, Mrs., 35, 40.
C.
Christie, Mrs., 113, 122, 150.
Clare, Rev. Mr., 12, 15, 16.
Clare, Mrs., 13, 16, 31.
D.
Dawson, Mrs., 21, 51.
Dixon, Elizabeth, see Woll-
stonecraft, Elizabeth.
F.
Fenwick, Mrs., 202, 207.
Filiettaz, Madame, 112, 114,
117.
Fordyce, George, 78, 201.
I'useli, Henry, 72, 78,
107–110, 193, 194.
80,
G.
Gascoyne, Bamber, M.P., 9.
Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft,
see Wollstonecraft, Mary,
afterwards Godwin.
Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft,
afterwards Shelley, second
daughter of Mary Wollstone-
craft Godwin, 3, 175, 190,
192, 193, 200, 208.
Godwin, William, v., 2, 9, 11,
32, 35, 40, 42, 69, 70, 76, 81,
102, 104, 109, 123, 126, 128,
140, 148, 155, 158, 162, 166,
168—208.
H.
Hayes, Miss, 70, 78, 181, 182,
192, 202.
Hewlet, Rev. John, 35, 47,
48.
211
212
Historical and Moral View of
the French Revolution, 121,
151–154, 155.
I.
Imlay, Fanny, Mary’s first
child, 133, 135, 139, 143,
144, 145, 146, 150, 162, 163,
191, 197.
Imlay, Gilbert, 113, 122–150,
163, 164, 183, 187, 191, 192,
198, 199.
Inchbald, Mrs., 66, 79, 80, 181,
206.
J.
Johnson, Joseph (the book-
seller), 47, 48, 57, 58, 65, 67,
68, 69, 70, 72, 76, 77, 104,
107, 108, 111, 115, 127, 128,
148, 151, 155, 182, 193, 196.
K.
King, Margaret, daughter of
Lord Kingsborough, after-
wardsLady Mountcashel, 54,
55, 56, 60, 63.
Ringsborough, Lady, 50, 52,
53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 63.
L.
Letters from Sweden and Nor-
way, 143, 155–158, 181.
Letters to Imlay, v., 110, 143,
158, 189.
M.
Maria, or Wrongs of Woman,
7, 18, 26, 158–161, 196.
Mary, 62, 66, 86. &
IWDEX
O.
Original Stories from Real Life
for Children, 71, 84, 85.
Montagu, Basil, 193, 197, 202,
207.
P.
Paine, Thomas, 78, 80, 81, 103,
104, 112, 118.
Posthumous Works of Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin, 158.
Price, Rev. Richard, 35, 40,
87, 89.
Prior, Mr., 49, 50, 51.
R.
Reveley, Mrs., 181, 182, 204.
S.
Shelley, Mrs., see Godwin,
Mary Wollstonecraft, after-
wards Shelley.
Shelley, P. B., 3, 4.
Skeys, Hugh, 24, 28, 29, 36,
39, 42, 45, 49, 76.
Skeys, Mrs., see Blood, Fanny.
Y-
T.
Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters, 47, 66, 83, 85, 86,
88.
Trimmer, Mrs., 78.
V.
|Windication of the Rights of
Man, 77, 81, 86, 89.
|Windication of the Rights of
|Woman, 50, 53, 56, 71, 82,
IVDEAT & 213
90–100, 101–106, 111, 122,
124, 151, 154, 162, 181, 187.
W.
Wedgwood, Josiah, 16, 179,
198.
Wedgwood, Thomas, 191, 192,
193, 198.
Wollstonecraft,Charles, brother
of Mary W., 6, 45, 74, 75,
106, 128, 130.
Wollstonecraft, Edward, bro-
ther of Mary W., 5, 8, 25,
29, 30, 32, 33, 45, 73, 75.
Wollstonecraft, Edward John,
father of Mary Wollstone-
craft, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17,
45, 57, 73, 74, 75.
Wollstonecraft, Eliza, after-
wards Bishop, sister of Mary
W., 5, 22, 25–33, 41, 42, 44,
47, 48, 54, 55, 68, 72, 73, 74,
105, 106, 107, 116, 118, 128,
130, 146, 164, 165, 166, 194.
Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth, née
Dixon, mother of Mary
Wollstonecraft, 5, 7, 10, 11,
17, 22.
Wollstonecraft, Everina, sister
of Mary W., 5, 22, 24, 25,
28, 30, 32, 36, 48, 59, 72,
73, 74, 75, 78, 105, 106, 107,
114, 118, 128, 165, 194, 207.
Wollstonecraft, James, brother
of Mary W., 5, 45, 75.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, after-
wards Godwin, sources for
her biography, 1–4 ; her
birth and parentage, 5; her
early experiences, 6 ; living
in Epping Forest and at
Barking, 8; removal to
Beverley, 9; thence to
Boxton, 10; her friendship
for Fanny Blood, 12; their
correspondence an incentive
to study, 15 ; removal of the
family to Pembroke, 16;
and, thence to Walworth,
18; accepts a situation as
lady’s companion, 19; with
Mrs. Dawson at Bath, 21 ;
comes home to nurse her
mother in her last illness, 22;
goes to live with Fanny
Blood, 23 ; leaves to take
care of her sister Eliza, 27 ;
takes her sister away from
her husband, 30; her spirit
of piety, 32; removes to
Islington and takes pupils,
34; starts a school at New-
ington Green, 34; school
unsuccessful, 38 ; goes to
Lisbon to the Skeys, 40;
her return to England, 43 ;
her monetary troubles, 45;
writes her Thoughts on the
Education of Daughters, 47;
makes the friendship of
Mr. Johnson the bookseller,
47; goes to Ireland as gover-
ness to Lady Kingsborough's
children, 51 ; the affection
of her pupils her greatest
pleasure, 55; the difficulties
of her position, 55 ; goes
with the family to Dublin,
60; writes her novel Mary,
62; with Lady IKingsborough,
visits Bristol and Bath, 62 ;
discharged from her situa-
tion, 63; advised by Johnson
to devote herself to litera-
ture, 65 ; stays with her
sister Eliza at Henley, 68 ;
her start as “publisher’s
reader,” 69; contributes to
the Analytical Review, 69 ;
her translations from Ger-
man, Dutch, and French, 71;
her care of her family, 72–
76; her answer to Burke's
Reflections on the French
Revolution, 77; the friends
she met at Johnson’s, 78; a
description of her appear-
ance, 78; her literary work,
1788–1791, 88–89; her Vºn-
dication of the Rights of
Women analysed, 90–100 ;
214
and its influence on public
opinion, 101; her first meeting
with Godwin, 104; removes
to Store Street, 106; her
“proposed trip to France,
107; her association with
Fuseli, 107–110 ; her visit
to France, 111–121 ; her
meeting with Imlay, 122;
her affection for him, 123;
reasons against her marriage,
124; lives with him as his
wife, 125 ; at first secretly,
126; then openly, 127;
she is left lonely for months
at a time, 130; her letters in
Imlay’s absence, 130, 131 ;
her anxiety for his return,
13] ; leaves Paris and joins
Imlay at Havre, 133; birth
of her daughter Fanny, 133;
she is left at Havre whilst
Imlay goes to London and
thence to Paris, 134 ;
whither she follows him, and
remains there when he re-
turns to London, 135; she
goes to join Imlay in London,
140 ; she resolves on suicide,
140; she goes to Norway and
Sweden on business for
Imlay, 141 ; detained in
Hull for a month, 142; her
return to Imlay in London,
145 ; discovers that Imlay
is keeping a mistress, 146;
she again contemplates
suicide, 146; attempts to
drown herself, 147; finally
breaks with Imlay, 149;
meets him once by accident,
INDEX
150; publishes her book on
the French Revolution, 151–
154; her later writings, 155–
162; resumes work under
Johnson, 163; resumes her
acquaintance with William
Godwin, 168; their meeting
at Miss Hayes's, 180 ; she
calls upon him, 181; they
meet frequently and she
moves nearer to him, 182;
mutual confession that they
could not live apart, 184;
not married at first, 185 ;
and having separate lodgings
188; the notes that passed
between them, 189 ; married
after some months, 190 ;
but only announced some
days later, 192; loss of
many friends, 193; their
joint home in Somers’ Town,
194; she still translates for
Johnson, 196; birth of her
second daughter, Mary, 200 ;
her last illness, 201 ; her
death, 204; supposed cause
of her death, 204–5; buried
in old St. Pancras church-
yard, 208; remains removed
by Sir Percy Shelley to
Bournemouth, 208.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, her writ-
ings and letters quoted, 7, 14,
18, 25, 28–29, 30, 36, 41–42,
46–47, 49, 52, 53–54, 57, 59,
61, 62, 63, 68–69, 114, 115–
116, 120–121, 126, 132, 134,
136, 137, 139–140, 141, 145,
146–147, 149, 152–153, 165–
166.
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