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LIVES of GREAT ALTRURIANS
Williamſodwin
and Mary
--- ba, º,
Wollstonecraft
*u Hirtur Rahimault
--
Published by 35% e Altrurians tº New York, 1907
ºn 1 + 2. º

2.Ép
TO NMOTHER
This first bud from a youthful goirden
is consecrated by her first child
with the hope thcºt in coming years
it will bec r fruit
which will in some smc 11 mecisure
recilize the drecims she drecimt when she
rocked her first Crcidle
Cind scing her first loving lulld by,
— T H E AUTHOR,
TO MARY SHELLEY.
THEY SAY that thou wert lovely from thy birth,
Of glorious parents thou the aspiring child;
I wonder not—for one then left this earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild,
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
Of its departing glory; still her fame
Shines on thee, thru the tempests dark and wild
Which shake these latter days; and thou canst claim
The shelter, from thy sire 2 of an immortal name.
—Shelley.
1 Mary Wollstonecraft.
2 William Godwin.
WILLIAM GOD WIN.

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f"." N DEALING WITH philosophic problems,
Henry George was deficient; in religion he
was superstitious, but as an economist he was
ºlº unexcelled. A more useful and thoughtful
lººl book than his “Progress and Poverty" has
not come out of America. Before Henry
George could show the doctrine of the Single
Tax to be a splendid, scientific, necessary and
needed idea, he had to attack current Political
Economy. He knew his published opinions would
bring upon him the hatred of hypocrites, the
sneer of society, the laughter of fools and the
ingratitude of the ignorant. But it was not for Henry
George to recant or retreat ; it was not for him to con-
cede to the conclusions of others; it was for him to
spread the tidings of a new gospel; it was for him
to carry the cross of a new crusade right thru the world
of wrong; it was for him to Say, “I propose to beg no
question, to shrink from no conclusion, but to follow
truth wherever it may lead. Upon us is the responsi-
bility, for in the very heart of our civilization to-day
women faint and little children moan. If the conclu-
sions that we reach run counter to our prejudices, let us
not flinch; if they challenge institutions that have long
been deemed wise and natural, let us not turn back.”
In this book quite some complimentary mention is
1
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
made of William Godwin and his conceptions. God-
win, like Nietzsche, Froude, Grant Allen, Olive
Schreiner, Emerson, Ingersoll and other libertarians,
was the child of a theologian. He was raised in “a hot-
bed of forced piety,” in\a very hell-house of theology/
He himself relates that one Sunday, while walking in
the garden, he took his little kitten in his arms, and
his father, who saw him, seriously reproved his levity,
remarking that on the Lord's Day he was ashamed to
observe him demeaning himself with such profaneness.
The first books which he read were bound in brim-
Stone, and Godwin’s eager, active mind absorbed them
to such an extent that he soon became more calvinistic
than Calvin himself/He developed into a prig, and
undoubtedly sang with unbounded enthusiasm the
heavenly hymn that “Hell is crammed with infants
damned, without a day of grace.” Early in life he too
became a parson. He claimed his companions were not
godly enuf, and he preached to them until the tears
ran down their cheeks.
Yet in spite of all—in spite of his belief in a reli-
gion whose usual tendency is to prepare a coffin for
thought—within his breast was still a Sacred passion
burning, before his eyes a holy light gleaming—the
shining light of desire for truth, which all the howling
winds of error could not quench. That intense all-de-
vouring passion to know was always strong within him.
At one period of his life he would begin his studies at
five in the morning and retire at midnight. Moreover
he said that often for weeks at a time he was willing
to remain in his room, without once going out into the
open. The years went by, and his thought broadened;
2
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
he grew in intellect, reason came to him, and like an
eagle moulting its feather because it receives a better
one, the Reverend William Godwin\ put aside his
Christian Cloak and clothed himself in the garments
of Progress/He lit the lamp of liberty and basked in its
gleam. He planted the seed of the tree of knowledge
and ate of its fruit. He left the stagnant slops of super-
stition and sailed away on the high seas of free, unfet-
tered thought. He worked for that glad new day when,
instead of pious fraud and legal iniquity, we shall have
justice for man, woman and child.
In 1793, when Godwin was thirty-seven, appeared
his most important literary work, “An Enquiry Con-
cerning Political Justice.” The book showed that a
new leader had arisen, that a new champion was making
freedom's fight, and with hand of vigor, leveling a well-
aimed shaft at custom's citadel. It marked an epoch in
rationalism. It gathered around Godwin all the radi-
cals of the day. Many splendid youths, inspired with
the glowing splendor of a high ideal, Sat at his feet,
and one of these young men was named P. B. Shelley.
In this book Godwin showed himself to be opposed
not merely to monarchical government, but to all gov-
ernment whatsoever ; he was in reality the first philo-
Sophical Anarchist_of_England. “Political Justice,”
besides being calm and deep and sensible, was so bold,
so frank, so free, that in the Privy Council there was
\a debate whether or no its author should be prosecuted/
And the only thing that saved Godwin was the high
price at which the book was sold. William Pitt’s dictum
was that a three-guinea book cannot be read by people
who haven’t three shillings to spare, But had this vol-
3
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
ume been printed in a popular edition and sold to the
multitude, it is certain that Godwin would have been
either imprisoned or deported on the charge of high
treason.

* BOUT THE VERY TIME that Godwin
was writing “Political Justice,” an-
other immortal work was being penned
arºrºnal behind French prison-bars, and the
lº! hand that held the pen was the hand
of Thomas Paine. Paine was the man
who started the American Revolution,
by his pamphlet, “Common Sense/ Now the nation
for which he had struggled was free from the yoke of
George III., and on the brow of the author-hero rested
the wreath of victory. Yet his work was not done.
As long as there was an injustice to be attacked, as
long as there remained a superstition to be dethroned,
his task was not over.
Paine was one of the few men who live their philoso-
phy, whose theory and whose practice recognize each
other. Benjamin Franklin said, “Where Liberty is,
there is my home '’; but Thomas Paine answered :
“Where Liberty is not, there is my home.” Then
from across the sea, from enslaved France, there came
a cry; a voice was speaking thru Freedom’s bugle,
and Tom Paine listened. The Seeds which Rousseau
and Voltaire had planted were bearing the fruits of en-
lightenment; a nation was awakening; a people was
arousing itself. \“It is a riot,” said the Emperor.
“Sire, it is a revolution,” the courtiers responded/
4
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Tom Paine looked across to this France where Lib-
berty was not, and he said, “There is my home.” He
went, and by the course of circumstances was jailed
and sentenced to kiss Madame Guillotine. She cried
with keen appetite for his embrace, but Nhe whose
country was the world/and whose religion was to do
good, knew no fear, and under the shadow of death he
hurled an imperishable bomb on Superstition’s shore—
“The Age of Reason.” However, it was Robespierre
who bowed his head to the Lady, and Paine was re-
leased, and visited England.
William Godwin thought he would like to see Thom-
as Paine and hear him speak. He knew that on a cer-
tain evening he would find him in the drawing-room of
Miss Hayes, and there he went. But he didn’t hear
Paine speak much, for he was a silent, taciturn man
and sat alone, and when he did speak, he spoke on pa-
per, and his audience was the world and posterity.
On this occasion Godwin heard a woman indulge in
conversation/and she annoyed him considerably. He
claimed she spoke too much, and they do say that she
made the same complaint concerning him. She too was
a writer — her name was Mary Wollstonecraft. She
was three years younger than Godwin, but Fate had
used her in an entirely different way. Godwin’s life
had no history. Godwin was a student, and all his
battles, all his victories and defeats took place within
his brain. Not so with Mary Wollstonecraft. From
her earliest years her life had been one sad series of
shifts and struggles. Born of worthless parents and
brought up among brutal brothers and sisters, in an at-
mospherewhere the milk of human kindness was skim
5
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
and sour/ she was always the same sweet, serene,
charitable and confiding soul. Mother Earth never
produced a more perfect woman—So good, so great, so
generous and So unafraid. From her lonely little house
at Blackfriar's she published “A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman,” and then it was that she shook the
world as it has seldom been shaken before or since
Then it was that respectability elevated her proboscis,
and priggery asked, “Why did you not use the fig
leaf 2 ” Then it was that the air grew thick with
insult and insinuation, with the NShrill, polished shriek
of society, and the loud-mouthed gutteral growl of the
rabble/ But the book did not die—how could it, when
it was so well advertised by its enemies 2 From it was
born one of the grandest movements which exist in
the world to-day—the Woman Suffrage movement.
Elbert Hubbard says of this book: “It sums up all
that has since been written on the subject. Like an
essay by Herbert Spencer, it views the matter from
every side, anticipates every objection, exhausts the
theme.” We still go to it for ammunition. It still has
its place in the bookcases of the reformers.
When we remember that, in writing this volume,
Mary Wollstonecraft wiped the dust of tradition from
the slate of custom, we cease to wonder at the wild
whirlwind of wailing and vituperation which so loudly
beat about her. For century after century the preach-
ers had been preaching, unannoyed and undisturbed :
“Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it
is a shame for them to speak. If they wish knowledge
let them ask their husbands at home. The man is as
much above the woman as Christ is above the man.
6
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Man was created for the glory of God, but woman for
the glory of man. Wives, submit yourselves unto your
husbands as unto the Lord.’’
And now, in the midst of all thesebraying asses feed-
ing on their worn-out thistle-creeds/ a sane and- 24-
clear-headed woman aross, threw down the glove of a, cº-e
defiance, and, for the first time, unmistakably Sounded
the grand note of the equality of the sexes.
Mary Wollstonecraft's sisters, after the publication
of this book, no longer referred to her as “Mary,” or
“Sister,” but always as “the author of ‘The Rights
of Woman,’” as if that were a disgrace, and they
claimed that nowhere could they secure a situation, on
account of their relationship to her.
ºrm", ARY WOLLSTONECRAFT was one
of the first who tried to get out of peo-
ple’s heads the foul and awful idea that
there is something essentially unclean
in sex, or in any of the sexual func-
tions/ Further, her far-reaching intel-
lect caused her to state that woman can
never be really free until she is free economically. It
matters not how much sentiment we bring into the
matter; it makes no difference how poetic, romantic
and chivalrous we become—the fact is, there can be
little equality between the sexes as long as the male
partner has entire charge of the purse. Woman may
be free Socially ; she may get rid of all sexual supersti-
tion, and she may crack and cast from her every theo-
logical trammel \but of what value is all this if she is

7
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
still dependent upon man for food, raiment and shelter 2
What good does it do her to say, “My body is my
own, subject to the whims and lusts of no man,” if upon
that very man depends her livelihood 2 Woman's eco-
nomic dependence is the root of that tree which nour-
ishes the poisonous fruits of her subjection and abject
slavery. Tear up the bitter roots and you destroy its
deadly fruits forever.
Mary Wollstonecraft's book appeared some time ago,
for she was born in the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury (1759), the same year with Schiller and Robert
Burns. We are living in the dawn—such as it is—of
the twentieth. It often happens that the radical of one
age becomes the conservative of the next, but Mary
Wollstonecraft is Still “a star in the east, the horizon
adorning % she still belongs to the advance guard, to
the reformers, to the thinking agitators.
But we have advanced, just a little, because to-day
a woman may advocate nearly all that Mary Wollstone-
Craft advocated and be considered what she was not—
fairly respectable. I say nearly all, because there is
Still one belief of hers which no woman dare touch
upon, unless she is willing to become what Mary
Wollstonecraft became—an outcast. I refer to her
idea that mutual love is the most essential part of mar-
riage, and that the mumbling or murmuring of minister
or magistrate is not absolutely necessary.
Mary Wollstonecraft believed that when love died,
in its grave should be buried the bond which united
the man and the woman.
I suppose it is a grand thing to be ahead of your age;
to be a beacon light upon the highway of progress, to
8
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
shatter idols, to battle silly taboos, to crack custom’s
chains, to reveal new truths, to hold aloft new lights—
\ but you must pay the penalty / Surely Mary Woll-
stonecraft did.
At Paris, where she saw Queen Marie Antoin-
ette led to execution, she became acquainted with
a rather brilliant American — Captain Gilbert Im-
lay. They lived together as man and wife, and Mary
became the mother of a girl, whom she named after a
dear dead friend, Fanny. Then the Captain suddenly
imitated the Prophet Elijah — he vanished into space,
and the trusting Mary Wollstonecraft, the faithful, be-
lieving Mary Wollstonecraft, was friendless and penni-
less in a foreign land. This unexpected blow, coming
after so many other Sorrows, as the culminating stroke
of a long, long list of bereavements, drove her to des-
pair, and from Putney Bridge, with suicidal intent, she
leaped into the waters below. Once again were her
plans frustrated, for she was rescued. The Captain
sent her a letter announcing his willingness to support
her and her child. But I guess a Mary Wollstonecraft
is not the kind that takes such money. She wrote to
him, “I never wanted but your heart; that gone, you
have nothing more to give.”
For the Sake of her child she entered certain London
literary circles, and there it was that Godwin met her
when he came to hear Tom Paine. As has already
been said, they mutually disliked each other, just as
the inseparable Goethe and Schiller at first repelled
each other, when first they looked into each other’s
9
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
eyes. But their hearts soon changed on the subject,
and Godwin conceived for Mary Wollstonecraft the
deepest love that he was to know in his long life of 80
years.

==A
T IS TRUE that, several years before this,
Godwin had written a letter to his sister,
asking her to choose him a wife. His sister
immediately wrote back a most enthusiastic
ſº effusion, telling him she had found the love-
liest lady that ever was. Oh, she could
sing, and she played her own accompani-
ments on her musical instruments; she was econom-
ical and yet generous ; in manners she was neither
free nor reserved ; she had just the kind of religion
Godwin wanted, and oh, she was just the one for him.
As soon as Godwin received this letter he seemed to
forget it, but after a few months he wrote a note ask-
ing the age of this wonderful individual, which was
absurd. That is, the asking was absurd, not the age.
Again a few months went by, and Godwin paid her a
visit. Then it was that he improved on the great
Julius—he came, he saw, he departed.
But now he had met his Mary Wollstonecraft, his
“lover and perfect equal,” a mate, a comrade. Per-
haps, for the first time in her life, Mary Wollstone-
craft was really happy, for now her barque had glided
out upon the calm waters.
There is much satisfaction in work well done; praise
is sweet, but there can béno happiness equal to the
joy of finding a heart that understands/ Life may be
10
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
a dark cloud, but there is still the silver streak of love;
it may be a bleak and barren desert, but there still
grows the blooming flower of love; it may be a waste-
ful wilderness, but listen, and you hear the singing-
bird of love. And as long as that streak shines, as
long as that flower blosoms, as long as that bird sings,
we may still be happy—more or less.
Neither Godwin nor Mary believed in the marriage
institution, and for four months they were together
without any ceremony being performed; but then, for
the sake of convenience and children, and several other
reasons, too long, too uninteresting and too unimportant
to give, these two actually consented to undergo a legal
operation. NIn his “Political Justice ’” Godwin had
Širºngly Attacked what he calls cohabitation —that is,
Hi-iian audiºisºninually ºlius-lºsiº
Tº More recently this idea has been advanced by the
Russian novelist, the Supreme martyr of modern days,
N. G. Tchernishevsky, in his wonderful “What's to
Be DOne P’ ºars.
Mary Wollstonecraft agreed with Godwin on this
question. She said to him X“I want a husband riveted
to my heart, but I don’t wish him at my elbow the en-
tire day.” So they took rooms some distance from
each other, and seldom met until dinner-time. Surely
if this cheerful idea were universally followed it would
do away with that provoking problem of divorce to such
an exceſſent extent that, when we mentioned the sub-
ject, we would be asked, “Who is she?”
But William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft would
have been together constantly had they known how
soon they were to be parted forever; had they realized
Y

11
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
how quickly the great Divider would separate them for
the last time. Just five months after their legal marri-
age Mary Wollstonecraft again became the mother of a
girl, named after herself, Mary, and then she died, aged
38. That very day a letter came to her from Archibald
Hamilton Rowan, congratulating her on her marriage.
I guess this woman's parallel hardly exists in real
life. If you wish to find her equal, and your time is
limited, go to a novel—to Grant Allen’s “The Woman
Who Did.”
Whenever I think of Mary Wollstonecraft I think
that what Robert Ingersoll said of another woman, we
may very well say of her : “When she is seen climbing
the banks of Jordan, Christ should lift his hat to her.’’
Mary Wollstonecraft's death was so unexpected, and
so deep was Godwin’s love for her that, serene philos-
opher and stoic as he was, he became too weak in
mind and body to attend her funeral. For days he sat
alone in her study, toying with her books, running his
fingers thru the pages, but afraid to open and read
them. Gradually this feeling wore away, and he did
read them, and then he wrote the story of her life, in
language So Sweet, so tender, so pathetic that, in the
realm of literature, it can remind us of but one thing—
of Ernest Renan’s tribute to his Sister Henriette.
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William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
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V&Vä
ODWIN WAS NOW left alone with
two little girls, and he was as unable
to properly bring them up as a theolo-
gian is incapable of bringing an argu-
ment to its logical conclusion. So,
since it was necessary, as the days
went by, Godwin again conceived an
affection for an authoress by the name of Harriet Lee.
Ingersoll says, if Hannah More had never written
anything, the same number of people would read her
as read her now. Ditto for Miss Harriet Lee. She
liked Godwin, double harness had its attractions, and,
in reading the correspondence which passed between
them, we see there is only one reason why she at last
refused to become Godwin’s wife, and that was because
Godwin did not believe in her God. Godwin Com-
plained of this. He wrote to her : “You are too much
like the people of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
who put out of sight the man and ask merely for his
creed.” Thus we find these love-letters well sprinkled
with religious discussion. Harriet Lee was no match for
Godwin, who gave fact after fact, and piled on argument
after argument, while conclusion followed conclusion.
These letters show that, while Godwin knew a great
deal about religion, he knew precious little about the
ladies, for had he known anything about the latter sub-
ject he would have permitted Harriet to win this first
argument, and then she surely would have married
him to reform him. Then one fine day at a Sidney-
Smithized dinner, when everything was sour except
the vinegar, he could have broached the subject and
won to his heart's content. But, as it was, he van-
. (3)

13
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
quished her so completely that she saw what was com-
ing, and so she wrote to him what so many other ladies
have written before and since. Every man has received
it : “I hope we will always be friends, and that our
beautiful companionship will end as it has begun.’’
Godwin had a tremendous knowledge of, and an un-
bounded faith in, logic, but he didn’t seem to under-
stand that it has no effect on the cardiac muscle, and
the result was that he received the chilly no-no.
When once it starts a-going there is nothing more
persistent than this germ of matrimony. It becomes a
regular business man; it takes advantage of every
opportunity. An opportunity soon occurred, for one of
Godwin’s friends burst a blood vessel in his brain,
and died, and was buried, and left behind him a good
name and a good widow. Dear Marilla Ricker, herself
a widow, has often told me that widows are divided
into two classes—the bereaved and the relieved. She
forgot the deceived, the grass widows; but to which-
ever of these three classes the widow of Godwin’s
friend belonged seemed to be a matter of scant import-
ance to the author of “Political Justice,” who sent
his proposal right in. He told Maria Reveley he knew
she had not mourned very long, “but,” said he, “how
my whole Soul disdains and tramples upon such insult-
ing ceremonies You are free. With this stroke of
my pen I sign your freedom.” It seems that the lady
was free and that her regard for custom was no stronger
than Godwin’s, for she soon married—another man.
Godwin always was a good teacher.
It was now time for the law of compensation to show
itself, and it did. If Godwin wooed twice in vain, all he
14
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
had to do the third time was to fall in line, for the lady
did all the work. He was sitting one day in his little
balcony, when Mrs. Clairmont, a widow, whose house
was next to his, looked across and said : “Is it possible
that I behold the immortal Godwin P’’
I forget in what church she became the better-half of
this piece of immortality, but before the espousal was
consummated Godwin wrote her a letter in which he
advised her to manage and to economize her temper—
that is, not to be so liberal with it, not to give so much
of it away for nothing. If this could have happened
‘‘ before,” if this could have occurred in that tender
period when the heart is supposed to be a blooming
garden, filled to the full with the perfume of love—a
great swelling ocean in whose affectionate waves the
lovers continually bathe—you can conceive, provided
you are gifted with a glowing imagination, Act No. II.
They say Godwin was beginning to look like Socra-
tes; and you may be sure that Mrs. Clairmont was no
cheap imitation of Xantippe ; tho it must be admitted
that in this case, as in the famous former, much of the
lip-labor was produced by the peculiar stunts of the pro-
vider who would not provide.
Once again do we see the unerring wisdom of the
warning of the Sage of East Aurora : “The advice to
give to a woman about to marry a philosopher is —
Don’t,” which is an improvement on Punch, who gave
that advice to every one.
To the end Mrs. Clairmont admired Godwin, but as
a stepmother she lived up to the name. She thought
her own daughter Jane should be the lady of the house,
and that Mary's place was the kitchen. Whenever she
15
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
saw Mary with a book she reminded her that the dishes
were neither washed nor wiped.
Jane Clairmont was that romantic chunk of flesh
who found her name altogether too prosaic, so she
changed it to Claire Clairmont, and of course that en-
titled her to become Lord Byron's friend.
Since Mary was not permitted to study at home,
whenever she had any time to spare, she would take
her books to her mother’s grave, to the sleeping-place
of Mary Wollstonecraft, and there she educated herself
to such an extent that, when she was 20, she was able
to write “‘Frankenstein.” Godwin voiced universal:
opinion when he told his daughter that never before
was so remarkable a novel written by a person so
young. It still astonishes and mystifies the world.
One day, during Mary's 17th year, as she sat upon
her mother’s mound, in the shade of the weeping wil-
low tree, there came to her a youth, the most wonder-
ful youth in the world, about whom probably more has
been written and will be written than any who has ever
lived. His name was Shelley — Shelley, whose rare
and exquisite quality is seen in everything he wrote,
whether he mourned so tenderly the death of the boy
John Keats or sang of “that orbed maiden, with white
"fire laden, whom mortals call the moon”; or, in bolder,
Sterner language, told how
Earth groans beneath Religion’s iron age,
And priests dare babble of a God of Peace,
Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood,
Murdering the while, uprooting every germ
Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all,
Making the earth a slaughter-house !
Well, Shelley and Mary eloped, and as such an
16
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
affair was altogether too romantic for Claire Clairmont
to think of remaining behind, she too went along.
They were pursued by Mrs. Clairmont, who was a .
heavyweight, but nevertheless overtook them in a
hotel. “You better come home,” she said. “We guess
not,” they said. I'm glad they did, for on this subject
I am of the opinion that parents have no business to
interfere. I am of the opinion that the law of England
and the Episcopal Church have no business to interfere.
I really wonder what has a right to interfere or in any
way to impede the heart's desires 2
When Godwin was a theologian he said: “God him-
self has no right to be a tyrant.” Certain it is that no
God could have the right to make a world so full of
struggle and sorrow and suffering as this one.
ln medieval times there lived in Persia a poet by the
name of Omar Khayyam. I think the best thing he
ever said was this, tho I admit it is hard to choose
“ the sweetest rose where all are roses”; it is so diffi-
cult to select the brightest gem where all are jewels.
He said :
Ah Love | Could you and I with him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits—and then
Remould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire?
That's the kind of a God to have, if you have any—
one who would like to smash this world to bits and then
remould it nearer to the heart’s desire.
ſººn RNEST HAECKEL, in his “Riddle of the
Universe,” writes of Heinrich Hertz, who
made some extremely important discover-
ies concerning the ether waves, and died
young. Ernest Haeckel says that the

17
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
premature death of this great man, like the pre-
mature deaths of so many other great men, is enuf
of itself to destroy the untenable myth of a wise
Providence and an all-loving Father in Heaven.
And surely when we remember how many of
the world’s supreme thinkers — men like Buckle,
Winwood Reade and William Kingdon Clifford—have
died with the ruddy flush of youth upon the brow, in
the very midst of their useful and joyous activity, it is
not at all difficult to sympathize with the sentiment of
the scientist; but, in reading the biographies of the
eminent, I have come across something sadder than a
man dying too young, and that is, a man living too long.
Unlike Helen H. Gardener, most people think that
because Eve ate the apple, we should insist upon hav-
ing the colic, and they mournfully tell us that, were it
not for her bite, we would never die. But I say, as I
heard Hugh O. Pentecost say: “What a blessed thing
it is that some of the old fogies do die off ”
We often notice that men, as they grow old, lose all
enthusiasm for Humanity; the ideals fade away, and
they continually say to every aspiring youth, “Hold
on, you’re going too fast.” They become crabs and
walk backward. They no longer love to sing in the
Sunshine of science as they used to, but they croak all
night long for the shelter of dark Superstition’s shad-
ows. They become anxious for the world’s approba-
tion, they crave society’s smile, so they conform to its
customs and uphold its institutions.
Well, Such a man is dead too. A man who at one
period of his life could sing so divinely that we almost
thoughtwewere listening toShelley, a man who could say
18
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Forever in thine eyes, O Liberty,
Shines that high light whereby the world is saved,
And tho thou slay us, we will trust in thee . . .
and then in his old age becomes a full-fledged imperial-
ist—is dead. He may still live on in the flesh, the
world may do him honor, we may make him an Am-
bassador, but all else is gone.
From those great eyes the soul has fled.
When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead.
Never can we say this of William Godwin. Society
never placed him upon its anvil and beat him into
shape. He was never whipped into obedience—
obedience, the virtue of dogs and slaves and church-
mbers.
Authority is the dam which has blocked the River of
ogress. Alt is the clog in the wheel of Improvement,
the barnacle on the ship of Science, the dark cloud
which obscures the dawn of day, the radiance of reason.
Godwin’s whole life was a walking periodical of pro-
test. When he destroyed one superstition he did not
endeavor to put another in its place, any more than the
surgeon who cuts a cancer from your breast apologizes
for not placing another tumor there.
Liberty’s light never grew faint to Godwin’s eyes.
That is the prime reason why I speak of him ; for such
men inspire us to carry on their unfinished business;
and let the children of Freedom slumber for one brief
moment and all may be lost. *
“Eternal vigilance,” said one who threw the world
away for Freedom’s smile, “Eternal vigilance is the
price of liberty.”
19
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
We who live in America and in the 20th century may
boast that we have liberty, but look out! for, like the
sword of Damocles, it hangs upon a thread.
In one breath they often tell us that Godwin was a
materialist, that he cared merely for the low pleasures
and base benefits of this vile earth, and the next mo-
ment these same people inform us just as loudly that
Godwin was a dreamer, a visionary, a utopian, a rash
reformer, a rainbow-chaser. They say his feet were off
the earth, that his head was among the clouds. They
say he gathered together the wings of his fancy, and,
with lawless pinions, soared into that enchanted realm
where the magic muse with a wand of wonder arouses
in her worshippers the sense of the ideal.
I wonder if you are willing to admit that it is some-
what difficult to logically connect all these epithets;
but if what Godwin fought for and Mary Wollstonecraft
worked for is a dream, it is a dream to which I must
Cling.
I understand perfectly well that he who makes a
journey to the home of Truth must drop many sweet
illusions on the way ; but, in an age like the present
one, so barren of joy and bitter with grief, this dream
is too soothing to be relinquished.
This dream has been dreamed by every beautiful
soul, by every choice spirit who ever blessed this earth;
by all who love the sound of the music of Liberty's
drummer, by all who are parts of the process by which
this world is revolving to something better and nobler
and happier and grander, by all whose faces are toward
the light and upon whose brows fall the first beams of
the morning. It has been the dream of every man
20
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.
whose name has become an oasis where the weary pil-
grims of freedom, wandering thru the dark Desert of
Despair, rest and quench their thirst.
It has been the dream of all the good and true and
loving, and free men and free women will work for it
and fight for it, and suffer and die for it, as long as Su-
perstition has sway, and tyranny rules, and hypocrisy
is enthroned.
-N T IS THE DREAM that some day the
human race will exist without a Govern-
ment upheld by the bayonet of the soldier
and the club of the policeman ; that our
jails will be empty of prisoners and our
streets of beggars; that the whirr of cot-
ton mills will not drown the Sobs of
babies; that breaker boys and old men will not sit in
the coal mines year after year and wear their lives
away; that women will not be compelled to toil in
poison factories five hours before their children are
born, and thus give birth to poisoned offspring. It is
the dream that some day all will have enuf bread to
eat, enuf clothes to wear, a home to lay their heads
and just a little time to love, loaf and laugh ; the
dream that the serpent with a hundred fangs, the Me-
dusa with a thousand faces, the leech with a million
mouths, will loosen their terrible grip from the toiler’s
bleeding throat; that labor will receive what labor
earns; that they who create wealth will not be penni-
less; that they who feed us will not starve; that they
who clothe us will not wear rags ; that they who house

21
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft,
us will not dwell in hovels ; the dream that Chauvin-
ism (which is a small, cheap, two-cent feeling that
Small, cheap, two-cent politicians fan up in small, cheap,
two-cent people), will disappear, and phoenix-like,
from the ashes, will be born the desire to be the Uni-
versal Brother ; the fond dream, the sweetest hope of
all, that war, the worst of crimes, will cease, and the
soldier, the worst of slaughterers, the bravo butcher—
the useless wholesale murderer—will no longer flourish;
the dream that some day all the nations of the earth,
black and white, red and yellow, will be spokes in the
wheel of progress, will be links in the grand unbroken
chain of mutual friendship.
For no sect elect
Is the soul’s wine poured
And her table decked;
Whom should man reject
From man’s common board P
Gods refuse and choose,
Grudge and sell and spare,
None shall man refuse,
None of all men lose,
None leave out of care.
In the battle for the realization of this dream, if it be
a dream, you can name no better workers than William
Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Their printed word,
their crystalized thought is still ours, but they them-
Selves have long, long been sleeping ; and, as from the
tripod of the Delphian Oracle there used to exale a
vapor, so from the graves of the Godwins there seems
to rise a benediction : Undaunted and unafraid, may
you ever march on to a better time and a happier land.
[FINIS. I
22
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.

3Ltutg of Ørrat Øltruriang
(In Preparation )
PETER KROPOTKIN
ROBERT INGERSOLL
WALT WHITMAN
GIUSEPPE CARIBALDI
THOMAS PAlNE
ELISEE RECLUS
LOUISE MICHEL
GRANT ALLEN
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON
ALEXANDER HERZEN
FERDINAND LASSALLE
CHARLES DARWIN
ERNST HAECKEL
Q • SE NPTINIE L*
By Freedom’s camp-fires I will watch, tho I be but
a 25olitary 25&ntirel, before the T&mple of Truth.
I will bow, tho I be the only worshipper, against,
injusticº I will raise my voice, tho it, be but, a
cry in the wilderness. 40/C 7"OR A203//Y, 50/Y → •