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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of
+the Rights of Woman, by William Godwin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman
+
+Author: William Godwin
+
+Release Date: July 4, 2005 [EBook #16199]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.]
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIRS
+OF THE
+AUTHOR
+OF A
+VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.
+
+By WILLIAM GODWIN.
+
+_LONDON_:
+PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, NO. 72, ST. PAUL'S
+CHURCH.YARD; AND G.G. AND J. ROBINSON,
+PATERNOSTER-ROW.
+1798.
+
+[Transcriber's Note: corrobation has been corrected to corroboration]
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIRS.
+
+
+CHAP. I.
+
+1759-1775.
+
+
+It has always appeared to me, that to give to the public some account of
+the life of a person of eminent merit deceased, is a duty incumbent on
+survivors. It seldom happens that such a person passes through life,
+without being the subject of thoughtless calumny, or malignant
+misrepresentation. It cannot happen that the public at large should be
+on a footing with their intimate acquaintance, and be the observer of
+those virtues which discover themselves principally in personal
+intercourse. Every benefactor of mankind is more or less influenced by a
+liberal passion for fame; and survivors only pay a debt due to these
+benefactors, when they assert and establish on their part, the honour
+they loved. The justice which is thus done to the illustrious dead,
+converts into the fairest source of animation and encouragement to those
+who would follow them in the same carreer. The human species at large is
+interested in this justice, as it teaches them to place their respect
+and affection, upon those qualities which best deserve to be esteemed
+and loved. I cannot easily prevail on myself to doubt, that the more
+fully we are presented with the picture and story of such persons as the
+subject of the following narrative, the more generally shall we feel in
+ourselves an attachment to their fate, and a sympathy in their
+excellencies. There are not many individuals with whose character the
+public welfare and improvement are more intimately connected, than the
+author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
+
+The facts detailed in the following pages, are principally taken from
+the mouth of the person to whom they relate; and of the veracity and
+ingenuousness of her habits, perhaps no one that was ever acquainted
+with her, entertains a doubt. The writer of this narrative, when he has
+met with persons, that in any degree created to themselves an interest
+and attachment in his mind, has always felt a curiosity to be acquainted
+with the scenes through which they had passed, and the incidents that
+had contributed to form their understandings and character. Impelled by
+this sentiment, he repeatedly led the conversation of Mary to topics of
+this sort; and, once or twice, he made notes in her presence, of a few
+dates calculated to arrange the circumstances in his mind. To the
+materials thus collected, he has added an industrious enquiry among the
+persons most intimately acquainted with her at the different periods of
+her life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mary Wollstonecraft was born on the 27th of April 1759. Her father's
+name was Edward John, and the name of her mother Elizabeth, of the
+family of Dixons of Ballyshannon in the kingdom of Ireland: her paternal
+grandfather was a respectable manufacturer in Spitalfields, and is
+supposed to have left to his son a property of about 10,000l. Three of
+her brothers and two sisters are still living; their names, Edward,
+James, Charles, Eliza, and Everina. Of these, Edward only was older than
+herself; he resides in London. James is in Paris, and Charles in or near
+Philadelphia in America. Her sisters have for some years been engaged in
+the office of governesses in private families, and are both at present
+in Ireland.
+
+I am doubtful whether the father of Mary was bred to any profession;
+but, about the time of her birth, he resorted, rather perhaps as an
+amusement than a business, to the occupation of farming. He was of a
+very active, and somewhat versatile disposition, and so frequently
+changed his abode, as to throw some ambiguity upon the place of her
+birth. She told me, that the doubt in her mind in that respect, lay
+between London, and a farm upon Epping Forest, which was the principal
+scene of the five first years of her life.
+
+Mary was distinguished in early youth, by some portion of that exquisite
+sensibility, soundness of understanding, and decision of character,
+which were the leading features of her mind through the whole course of
+her life. She experienced in the first period of her existence, but few
+of those indulgences and marks of affection, which are principally
+calculated to sooth the subjection and sorrows of our early years. She
+was not the favourite either of her father or mother. Her father was a
+man of a quick, impetuous disposition, subject to alternate fits of
+kindness and cruelty. In his family he was a despot, and his wife
+appears to have been the first, and most submissive of his subjects. The
+mother's partiality was fixed upon the eldest son, and her system of
+government relative to Mary, was characterized by considerable rigour.
+She, at length, became convinced of her mistake, and adopted a different
+plan with her younger daughters. When, in the Wrongs of Woman, Mary
+speaks of "the petty cares which obscured the morning of her heroine's
+life; continual restraint in the most trivial matters; unconditional
+submission to orders, which, as a mere child, she soon discovered to be
+unreasonable, because inconsistent and contradictory; and the being
+often obliged to sit, in the presence of her parents, for three or four
+hours together, without daring to utter a word;" she is, I believe, to
+be considered as copying the outline of the first period of her own
+existence.
+
+But it was in vain, that the blighting winds of unkindness or
+indifference, seemed destined to counteract the superiority of Mary's
+mind. It surmounted every obstacle; and, by degrees, from a person
+little considered in the family, she became in some sort its director
+and umpire. The despotism of her education cost her many a heart-ache.
+She was not formed to be the contented and unresisting subject of a
+despot; but I have heard her remark more than once, that, when she felt
+she had done wrong, the reproof or chastisement of her mother, instead
+of being a terror to her, she found to be the only thing capable of
+reconciling her to herself. The blows of her father on the contrary,
+which were the mere ebullitions of a passionate temper, instead of
+humbling her, roused her indignation. Upon such occasions she felt her
+superiority, and was apt to betray marks of contempt. The quickness of
+her father's temper, led him sometimes to threaten similar violence
+towards his wife. When that was the case, Mary would often throw herself
+between the despot and his victim, with the purpose to receive upon her
+own person the blows that might be directed against her mother. She has
+even laid whole nights upon the landing-place near their chamber-door,
+when, mistakenly, or with reason, she apprehended that her father might
+break out into paroxysms of violence. The conduct he held towards the
+members of his family, was of the same kind as that he observed towards
+animals. He was for the most part extravagantly fond of them; but, when
+he was displeased, and this frequently happened, and for very trivial
+reasons, his anger was alarming. Mary was what Dr. Johnson would have
+called, "a very good hater." In some instance of passion exercised by
+her father to one of his dogs, she was accustomed to speak of her
+emotions of abhorrence, as having risen to agony. In a word, her conduct
+during her girlish years, was such, as to extort some portion of
+affection from her mother, and to hold her father in considerable awe.
+
+In one respect, the system of education of the mother appears to have
+had merit. All her children were vigorous and healthy. This seems very
+much to depend upon the management of our infant years. It is affirmed
+by some persons of the present day, most profoundly skilled in the
+sciences of health and disease, that there is no period of human life so
+little subject to mortality, as the period of infancy. Yet, from the
+mismanagement to which children are exposed, many of the diseases of
+childhood are rendered fatal, and more persons die in that, than in any
+other period of human life. Mary had projected a work upon this subject,
+which she had carefully considered, and well understood. She has indeed
+left a specimen of her skill in this respect in her eldest daughter,
+three years and a half old, who is a singular example of vigorous
+constitution and florid health. Mr. Anthony Carlisle, surgeon, of
+Soho-square, whom to name is sufficiently to honour, had promised to
+revise her production. This is but one out of numerous projects of
+activity and usefulness, which her untimely death has fatally
+terminated.
+
+The rustic situation in which Mary spent her infancy, no doubt
+contributed to confirm the stamina of her constitution. She sported in
+the open air, and amidst the picturesque and refreshing scenes of
+nature, for which she always retained the most exquisite relish. Dolls
+and the other amusements usually appropriated to female children, she
+held in contempt; and felt a much greater propensity to join in the
+active and hardy sports of her brothers, than to confine herself to
+those of her own sex.
+
+About the time that Mary completed the fifth year of her age, her father
+removed to a small distance from his former habitation, and took a farm
+near the Whalebone upon Epping Forest, a little way out of the
+Chelmsford road. In Michaelmas 1765, he once more changed his residence,
+and occupied a convenient house behind the town of Barking in Essex,
+eight miles from London. In this situation some of their nearest
+neighbours were, Bamber Gascoyne, esquire, successively member of
+parliament for several boroughs, and his brother, Mr. Joseph Gascoyne.
+Bamber Gascoyne resided but little on this spot; but his brother was
+almost a constant inhabitant, and his family in habits of the most
+frequent intercourse with the family of Mary. Here Mr. Wollstonecraft
+remained for three years. In September 1796, I accompanied my wife in a
+visit to this spot. No person reviewed with greater sensibility, the
+scenes of her childhood. We found the house uninhabited, and the garden
+in a wild and ruinous state. She renewed her acquaintance with the
+market-place, the streets, and the wharf, the latter of which we found
+crowded with barges, and full of activity.
+
+In Michaelmas 1768, Mr. Wollstonecraft again removed to a farm near
+Beverley in Yorkshire. Here the family remained for six years, and
+consequently, Mary did not quit this residence, till she had attained
+the age of fifteen years and five months. The principal part of her
+school-education passed during this period; but it was not to any
+advantage of infant literature, that she was indebted for her subsequent
+eminence; her education in this respect was merely such, as was afforded
+by the day-schools of the place, in which she resided. To her
+recollections Beverley appeared a very handsome town, surrounded by
+genteel families, and with a brilliant assembly. She was surprized, when
+she visited it in 1795, upon her voyage to Norway, to find the reality
+so very much below the picture in her imagination.
+
+Hitherto Mr. Wollstonecraft had been a farmer; but the restlessness of
+his disposition would not suffer him to content himself with the
+occupation in which for some years he had been engaged, and the
+temptation of a commercial speculation of some sort being held out to
+him, he removed to a house in Queen's-Row, in Hoxton near London, for
+the purpose of its execution. Here he remained for a year and a half;
+but, being frustrated in his expectations of profit, he, after that
+term, gave up the project in which he was engaged, and returned to his
+former pursuits. During this residence at Hoxton, the writer of these
+memoirs inhabited, as a student, at the dissenting college in that
+place. It is perhaps a question of curious speculation to enquire, what
+would have been the amount of the difference in the pursuits and
+enjoyments of each party, if they had met, and considered each other
+with the same distinguishing regard in 1776, as they were afterwards
+impressed with in the year 1796. The writer had then completed the
+twentieth, and Mary the seventeenth year of her age. Which would have
+been predominant; the disadvantages of obscurity, and the pressure of a
+family; or the gratifications and improvement that might have flowed
+from their intercourse?
+
+One of the acquaintances Mary formed at this time was with a Mr. Clare,
+who inhabited the next house to that which was tenanted by her father,
+and to whom she was probably in some degree indebted for the early
+cultivation of her mind. Mr. Clare was a clergyman, and appears to have
+been a humourist of a very singular cast. In his person he was deformed
+and delicate; and his figure, I am told, bore a resemblance to that of
+the celebrated Pope. He had a fondness for poetry, and was not destitute
+of taste. His manners were expressive of a tenderness and benevolence,
+the demonstrations of which appeared to have been somewhat too
+artificially cultivated. His habits were those of a perfect recluse. He
+seldom went out of his drawing-room, and he showed to a friend of Mary a
+pair of shoes, which had served him, he said, for fourteen years. Mary
+frequently spent days and weeks together, at the house of Mr. Clare.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. II
+
+1775-1783.
+
+
+But a connection more memorable originated about this time, between Mary
+and a person of her own sex, for whom she contracted a friendship so
+fervent, as for years to have constituted the ruling passion of her
+mind. The name of this person was Frances Blood; she was two years older
+than Mary. Her residence was at that time at Newington Butts, a village
+near the southern extremity of the metropolis; and the original
+instrument for bringing these two friends acquainted, was Mrs. Clare,
+wife of the gentleman already mentioned, who was on a footing of
+considerable intimacy with both parties. The acquaintance of Fanny, like
+that of Mr. Clare, contributed to ripen the immature talents of Mary.
+
+The situation in which Mary was introduced to her, bore a resemblance to
+the first interview of Werter with Charlotte. She was conducted to the
+door of a small house, but furnished with peculiar neatness and
+propriety. The first object that caught her sight, was a young woman of
+a slender and elegant form, and eighteen years of age, busily employed
+in feeding and managing some children, born of the same parents, but
+considerably inferior to her in age. The impression Mary received from
+this spectacle was indelible; and, before the interview was concluded,
+she had taken, in her heart, the vows of an eternal friendship.
+
+Fanny was a young woman of extraordinary accomplishments. She sung and
+played with taste. She drew with exquisite fidelity and neatness; and,
+by the employment of this talent, for some time maintained her father,
+mother, and family, but ultimately ruined her health by her
+extraordinary exertions. She read and wrote with considerable
+application; and the same ideas of minute and delicate propriety
+followed her in these, as in her other occupations.
+
+Mary, a wild, but animated and aspiring girl of sixteen, contemplated
+Fanny, in the first instance, with sentiments of inferiority and
+reverence. Though they were much together, yet, the distance of their
+habitation being considerable, they supplied the want of mere frequent
+interviews by an assiduous correspondence. Mary found Fanny's letters
+better spelt and better indited than her own, and felt herself abashed.
+She had hitherto paid but a superficial attention to literature. She had
+read, to gratify the ardour of an inextinguishable thirst of knowledge;
+but she had not thought of writing as an art. Her ambition to excel was
+now awakened, and she applied herself with passion and earnestness.
+Fanny undertook to be her instructor; and, so far as related to accuracy
+and method, her lessons were given with considerable skill.
+
+It has already been mentioned that, in the spring of the year 1776, Mr.
+Wollstonecraft quitted his situation at Hoxton, and returned to his
+former agricultural pursuits. The situation upon which he now fixed was
+in Wales, a circumstance that was felt as a severe blow to Mary's
+darling spirit of friendship. The principal acquaintance of the
+Wollstonecrafts in this retirement, was the family of a Mr. Allen, two
+of whose daughters are since married to the two elder sons of the
+celebrated English potter, Josiah Wedgwood.
+
+Wales however was Mr. Wollstonecraft's residence for little more than a
+year. He returned to the neighbourhood of London; and Mary, whose spirit
+of independence was unalterable, had influence enough to determine his
+choice in favour of the village of Walworth, that she might be near her
+chosen friend. It was probably before this, that she has once or twice
+started the idea of quitting her parental roof, and providing for
+herself. But she was prevailed upon to resign this idea, and conditions
+were stipulated with her, relative to her having an apartment in the
+house that should be exclusively her own, and her commanding the other
+requisites of study. She did not however think herself fairly treated in
+these instances, and either the conditions abovementioned, or some
+others, were not observed in the sequel, with the fidelity she expected.
+In one case, she had procured an eligible situation, and every thing was
+settled respecting her removal to it, when the intreaties and tears of
+her mother led her to surrender her own inclinations, and abandon the
+engagement.
+
+These however were only temporary delays. Her propensities continued the
+same, and the motives by which she was instigated were unabated. In the
+year 1778, she being nineteen years of age, a proposal was made to her
+of living as a companion with a Mrs. Dawson of Bath, a widow lady, with
+one son already adult. Upon enquiry she found that Mrs. Dawson was a
+woman of great peculiarity of temper, that she had had a variety of
+companions in succession, and that no one had found it practicable to
+continue with her. Mary was not discouraged by this information, and
+accepted the situation, with a resolution that she would effect in this
+respect, what none of her predecessors had been able to do. In the
+sequel she had reason to consider the account she had received as
+sufficiently accurate, but she did not relax in her endeavours. By
+method, constancy and firmness, she found the means of making her
+situation tolerable; and Mrs. Dawson would occasionally confess, that
+Mary was the only person that had lived with her in that situation, in
+her treatment of whom she had felt herself under any restraint.
+
+With Mrs. Dawson she continued to reside for two years, and only left
+her, summoned by the melancholy circumstance of her mother's rapidly
+declining health. True to the calls of humanity, Mary felt in this
+intelligence an irresistible motive, and eagerly returned to the
+paternal roof, which she had before resolutely quitted. The residence of
+her father at this time, was at Enfield near London. He had, I believe,
+given up agriculture from the time of his quitting Wales, it appearing
+that he now made it less a source of profit than loss, and being thought
+advisable that he should rather live upon the interest of his property
+already in possession.
+
+The illness of Mrs. Wollstonecraft was lingering, but hopeless. Mary was
+assiduous in her attendance upon her mother. At first, every attention
+was received with acknowledgments and gratitude; but, as the attentions
+grew habitual, and the health of the mother more and more wretched, they
+were rather exacted, than received. Nothing would be taken by the
+unfortunate patient, but from the hands of Mary; rest was denied night
+or day, and by the time nature was exhausted in the parent, the
+daughter was qualified to assume her place, and become in turn herself a
+patient. The last words her mother ever uttered were, "A little
+patience, and all will be over!" and these words are repeatedly referred
+to by Mary in the course of her writings.
+
+Upon the death of Mrs. Wollstonecraft, Mary bid a final adieu to the
+roof of her father. According to my memorandums, I find her next the
+inmate of Fanny at Walham Green, near the village of Fulham. Upon what
+plan they now lived together I am unable to ascertain; certainly not
+that of Mary's becoming in any degree an additional burthen upon the
+industry of her friend. Thus situated, their intimacy ripened; they
+approached more nearly to a footing of equality; and their attachment
+became more rooted and active.
+
+Mary was ever ready at the call of distress, and, in particular, during
+her whole life was eager and active to promote the welfare of every
+member of her family. In 1780 she attended the death-bed of her mother;
+in 1782 she was summoned by a not less melancholy occasion, to attend
+her sister Eliza, married to a Mr. Bishop, who, subsequently to a
+dangerous lying-in, remained for some months in a very afflicting
+situation. Mary continued with her sister without intermission, to her
+perfect recovery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. III.
+
+1783-1785.
+
+
+Mary was now arrived at the twenty-fourth year of her age. Her project,
+five years before, had been personal independence; it was now
+usefulness. In the solitude of attendance on her sister's illness, and
+during the subsequent convalescence, she had had leisure to ruminate
+upon purposes of this sort. Her expanded mind led her to seek something
+more arduous than the mere removal of personal vexations; and the
+sensibility of her heart would not suffer her to rest in solitary
+gratifications. The derangement of her father's affairs daily became
+more and more glaring; and a small independent provision made for
+herself and her sisters, appears to have been sacrificed in the wreck.
+For ten years, from 1782 to 1792, she may be said to have been, in a
+great degree, the victim of a desire to promote the benefit of others.
+She did not foresee the severe disappointment with which an exclusive
+purpose of this sort is pregnant; she was inexperienced enough to lay a
+stress upon the consequent gratitude of those she benefited; and she did
+not sufficiently consider that, in proportion as we involve ourselves in
+the interests and society of others, we acquire a more exquisite sense
+of their defects, and are tormented with their untractableness and
+folly.
+
+The project upon which she now determined, was no other than that of a
+day-school, to be superintended by Fanny Blood, herself, and her two
+sisters.
+
+They accordingly opened one in the year 1783, at the village of
+Islington; but in the course of a few months removed it to Newington
+Green. Here Mary formed some acquaintances who influenced the future
+events of her life. The first of these in her own estimation, was Dr.
+Richard Price, well known for his political and mathematical
+calculations, and universally esteemed by those who knew him, for the
+simplicity of his manners, and the ardour of his benevolence. The regard
+conceived by these two persons for each other, was mutual, and partook
+of a spirit of the purest attachment. Mary had been bred in the
+principles of the church of England, but her esteem for this venerable
+preacher led her occasionally to attend upon his public instructions.
+Her religion was, in reality, little allied to any system of forms; and,
+as she has often told me, was founded rather in taste, than in the
+niceties of polemical discussion. Her mind constitutionally attached
+itself to the sublime and the amiable. She found an inexpressible
+delight in the beauties of nature, and in the splendid reveries of the
+imagination. But nature itself, she thought, would be no better than a
+vast blank, if the mind of the observer did not supply it with an
+animating soul. When she walked amidst the wonders of nature, she was
+accustomed to converse with her God. To her mind he was pictured as not
+less amiable, generous and kind, than great, wise and exalted. In fact,
+she had received few lessons of religion in her youth, and her religion
+was almost entirely of her own creation. But she was not on that account
+the less attached to it, or the less scrupulous in discharging what she
+considered as its duties. She could not recollect the time when she had
+believed the doctrine of future punishments. The tenets of her system
+were the growth of her own moral taste, and her religion therefore had
+always been a gratification, never a terror, to her. She expected a
+future state; but she would not allow her ideas of that future state to
+be modified by the notions of judgment and retribution. From this
+sketch, it is sufficiently evident, that the pleasure she took in an
+occasional attendance upon the sermons of Dr. Price, was not accompanied
+with a superstitious adherence to his doctrines. The fact is, that, as
+far down as the year 1787, she regularly frequented public worship, for
+the most part according to the forms of the church of England. After
+that period her attendance became less constant, and in no long time was
+wholly discontinued. I believe it may be admitted as a maxim, that no
+person of a well furnished mind, that has shaken off the implicit
+subsection of youth, and is not the zealous partizan of a sect, can
+bring himself to conform to the public and regular routine of sermons
+and prayers.
+
+Another of the friends she acquired at this period, was Mrs. Burgh,
+widow of the author of the Political Disquisitions, a woman universally
+well spoken of for the warmth and purity of her benevolence. Mary,
+whenever she had occasion to allude to her, to the last period of her
+life, paid the tribute due to her virtues. The only remaining friend
+necessary to be enumerated in this place, is the rev. John Hewlet, now
+master of a boarding-school at Shacklewel near Hackney, whom I shall
+have occasion to mention hereafter.
+
+I have already said that Fanny's health had been materially injured by
+her incessant labours for the maintenance of her family. She had also
+suffered a disappointment, which preyed upon her mind. To these
+different sources of ill health she became gradually a victim; and at
+length discovered all the symptoms of a pulmonary consumption. By the
+medical men that attended her, she was advised to try the effects of a
+southern climate; and, about the beginning of the year 1785, sailed for
+Lisbon.
+
+The first feeling with which Mary had contemplated her friend, was a
+sentiment of inferiority and reverence; but that, from the operation of
+a ten years' acquaintance, was considerably changed. Fanny had
+originally been far before her in literary attainments; this disparity
+no longer existed. In whatever degree Mary might endeavour to free
+herself from the delusions of self-esteem, this period of observation
+upon her own mind and that of her friend, could not pass, without her
+perceiving that there were some essential characteristics of genius,
+which she possessed, and in which her friend was deficient. The
+principal of these was a firmness of mind, an unconquerable greatness of
+soul, by which, after a short internal struggle, she was accustomed to
+rise above difficulties and suffering. Whatever Mary undertook, she
+perhaps in all instances accomplished; and, to her lofty spirit,
+scarcely anything she desired, appeared hard to perform. Fanny, on the
+contrary, was a woman of a timid and irresolute nature, accustomed to
+yield to difficulties, and probably priding herself in this morbid
+softness of her temper. One instance that I have heard Mary relate of
+this sort, was, that, at a certain time, Fanny, dissatisfied with her
+domestic situation, expressed an earnest desire to have a home of her
+own. Mary, who felt nothing more pressing than to relieve the
+inconveniences of her friend, determined to accomplish this object for
+her. It cost her infinite exertions; but at length she was able to
+announce to Fanny that a house was prepared, and that she was on the
+spot to receive her. The answer which Fanny returned to the letter of
+her friend, consisted almost wholly of an enumeration of objections to
+the quitting her family, which she had not thought of before, but which
+now appeared to her of considerable weight.
+
+The judgment which experience had taught Mary to form of the mind of her
+friend, determined her in the advice she gave, at the period to which I
+have brought down the story. Fanny was recommended to seek a softer
+climate, but she had no funds to defray the expence of such an
+undertaking. At this time Mr. Hugh Skeys of Dublin, but then resident
+in the kingdom of Portugal, paid his addresses to her. The state of her
+health Mary considered as such as scarcely to afford the shadow of a
+hope; it was not therefore a time at which it was most obvious to think
+of marriage. She conceived however that nothing should be omitted, which
+might alleviate, if it could not cure; and accordingly urged her speedy
+acceptance of the proposal. Fanny accordingly made the voyage to Lisbon;
+and the marriage took place on the twenty-fourth of February 1785.
+
+The change of climate and situation was productive of little benefit;
+and the life of Fanny was only prolonged by a period of pregnancy, which
+soon declared itself. Mary, in the mean time, was impressed with the
+idea that her friend would die in this distant country; and, shocked
+with the recollection of her separation from the circle of her friends,
+determined to pass over to Lisbon to attend her. This resolution was
+treated by her acquaintance as in the utmost degree visionary; but she
+was not to be diverted from her point. She had not money to defray her
+expences: she must quit for a long time the school, the very existence
+of which probably depended upon her exertions.
+
+No person was ever better formed for the business of education; if it be
+not a sort of absurdity to speak of a person as formed for an inferior
+object, who is in possession of talents, in the fullest degree adequate
+to something on a more important and comprehensive scale. Mary had a
+quickness of temper, not apt to take offence with inadvertencies, but
+which led her to imagine that she saw the mind of the person with whom
+she had any transaction, and to refer the principle of her approbation
+or displeasure to the cordiality or injustice of their sentiments. She
+was occasionally severe and imperious in her resentments; and, when she
+strongly disapproved, was apt to express her censure in terms that gave
+a very humiliating sensation to the person against whom it was directed.
+Her displeasure however never assumed its severest form, but when it was
+barbed by disappointment. Where she expected little, she was not very
+rigid in her censure of error.
+
+But, to whatever the defects of her temper might amount, they were never
+exercised upon her inferiors in station or age. She scorned to make use
+of an ungenerous advantage, or to wound the defenceless. To her servants
+there never was a mistress more considerate or more kind. With children
+she was the mirror of patience. Perhaps, in all her extensive experience
+upon the subject of education, she never betrayed one symptom of
+irascibility. Her heart was the seat of every benevolent feeling; and
+accordingly, in all her intercourse with children, it was kindness and
+sympathy alone that prompted her conduct. Sympathy, when it mounts to a
+certain height, inevitably begets affection in the person towards whom
+it is exercised; and I have heard her say, that she never was concerned
+in the education of one child, who was not personally attached to her,
+and earnestly concerned, not to incur her displeasure. Another eminent
+advantage she possessed in the business of education, was that she was
+little troubled with scepticism and uncertainty. She saw, as it were by
+intuition, the path which her mind determined to pursue, and had a firm
+confidence in her own power to effect what she desired. Yet, with all
+this, she had scarcely a tincture of obstinacy. She carefully watched
+symptoms as they rose, and the success of her experiments; and governed
+herself accordingly. While I thus enumerate her more than maternal
+qualities, it is impossible not to feel a pang at the recollection of
+her orphan children!
+
+Though her friends earnestly dissuaded her from the journey to Lisbon,
+she found among them a willingness facilitate the execution of her
+project, when it was once fixed. Mrs. Burgh in particular, supplied her
+with money, which however she always conceived came from Dr. Price. This
+loan, I have reason to believe, was faithfully repaid.
+
+It was during her residence at Newington Green, that she was introduced
+to the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson, who was at that time considered as
+in some sort the father of English literature. The doctor treated her
+with particular kindness and attention, had a long conversation with
+her, and desired her to repeat her visit often. This she firmly purposed
+to do; but the news of his last illness, and then of his death,
+intervened to prevent her making a second visit.
+
+Her residence in Lisbon was not long. She arrived but a short time
+before her friend was prematurely delivered, and the event was fatal to
+both mother and child. Frances Blood, hitherto the chosen object of
+Mary's attachment, died on the twenty-ninth of November 1785.
+
+It is thus that she speaks of her in her Letters from Norway, written
+ten years after her decease. "When a warm heart has received strong
+impressions, they are not to be effaced. Emotions become sentiments; and
+the imagination renders even 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. IV.
+
+1785-1787.
+
+
+No doubt the voyage to Lisbon tended considerably to enlarge the
+understanding of Mary. She was admitted into the best company the
+English factory afforded. She made many profound observations on the
+character of the natives, and the baleful effects of superstition. The
+obsequies of Fanny, which it was necessary to perform by stealth and in
+darkness, tended to invigorate these observations in her mind.
+
+She sailed upon her voyage home about the twentieth of December. On this
+occasion a circumstance occurred, that deserves to be recorded. While
+they were on their passage, they fell in with a French vessel, in great
+distress, and in daily expectation of foundering at sea, at the same
+time that it was almost destitute of provisions. The Frenchman hailed
+them, and intreated the English captain, in consideration of his
+melancholy situation, to take him and his crew on board. The Englishman
+represented in reply, that his stock of provisions was by no means
+adequate to such an additional number of mouths, and absolutely refused
+compliance. Mary, shocked at his apparent insensibility, took up the
+cause of the sufferers, and threatened the captain to have him called
+to a severe account, when he arrived in England. She finally prevailed,
+and had the satisfaction to reflect, that the persons in question
+possibly owed their lives to her interposition.
+
+When she arrived in England, she found that her school had suffered
+considerably in her absence. It can be little reproach to any one, to
+say that they were found incapable of supplying her place. She not only
+excelled in the management of the children, but had also the talent of
+being attentive and obliging to the parents, without degrading herself.
+
+The period at which I am now arrived is important, as conducting to the
+first step of her literary carreer. Mr. Hewlet had frequently mentioned
+literature to Mary as a certain source of pecuniary produce, and had
+urged her to make trial of the truth of his judgment. At this time she
+was desirous of assisting the father and mother of Fanny in an object
+they had in view, the transporting themselves to Ireland; and, as usual,
+what she desired in a pecuniary view, she was ready to take on herself
+to effect. For this purpose she wrote a duodecimo pamphlet of one
+hundred and sixty pages, entitled, Thoughts on the Education of
+Daughters. Mr. Hewlet obtained from the bookseller, Mr. Johnson in St.
+Paul's Church Yard, ten guineas for the copy-right of this manuscript,
+which she immediately applied to the object for the sake of which the
+pamphlet was written.
+
+Every thing urged Mary to put an end to the affair of the school. She
+was dissatisfied with the different appearance it presented upon her
+return, from the state in which she left it. Experience impressed upon
+her a rooted aversion to that sort of cohabitation with her sisters,
+which the project of the school imposed. Cohabitation is a point of
+delicate experiment, and is, in a majority of instances, pregnant with
+ill-humour and unhappiness. The activity and ardent spirit of adventure
+which characterized Mary, were not felt in an equal degree by her
+sisters, so that a disproportionate share of every burthen attendant
+upon the situation, fell to her lot. On the other hand, they could
+scarcely perhaps be perfectly easy, in observing the superior degree of
+deference and courtship, which her merit extorted from almost every one
+that knew her. Her kindness for them was not diminished, but she
+resolved that the mode of its exertion in future should be different,
+tending to their benefit, without intrenching upon her own liberty.
+
+Thus circumstanced, a proposal was made her, such as, regarding only the
+situations through which she had lately passed, is usually termed
+advantageous. This was, to accept the office of governess to the
+daughters of lord viscount Kingsborough, eldest son to the earl of
+Kingston of the kingdom of Ireland. The terms held out to her were such
+as she determined to accept, at the same time resolving to retain the
+situation only for a short time. Independence was the object after which
+she thirsted, and she was fixed to try whether it might not be found in
+literary occupation. She was desirous however first to accumulate a
+small sum of money, which should enable her to consider at leisure the
+different literary engagements that might offer, and provide in some
+degree for the eventual deficiency of her earliest attempts.
+
+The situation in the family of lord Kingsborough, was offered to her
+through the medium of the rev. Mr. Prior, at that time one of the under
+masters of Eton school. She spent some time at the house of this
+gentleman, immediately after her giving up the school at Newington
+Green. Here she had an opportunity of making an accurate observation
+upon the manners and conduct of that celebrated seminary, and the ideas
+she retained of it were by no means favourable. By all that she saw,
+she was confirmed in a very favourite opinion of her's, in behalf of
+day-schools, where, as she expressed it, "children have the opportunity
+of conversing with children, without interfering with domestic
+affections, the foundation of virtue."
+
+Though her residence in the family of lord Kingsborough continued
+scarcely more than twelve months, she left behind her, with them and
+their connections, a very advantageous impression. The governesses the
+young ladies had hitherto had, were only a species of upper servants,
+controlled in every thing by the mother; Mary insisted upon the
+unbounded exercise of her own discretion. When the young ladies heard of
+their governess coming from England, they heard in imagination of a new
+enemy, and declared their resolution to guard themselves accordingly.
+Mary however speedily succeeded in gaining their confidence, and the
+friendship that soon grew up between her and Margaret King, now countess
+Mount Cashel, the eldest daughter, was in an uncommon degree cordial and
+affectionate. Mary always spoke of this young lady in terms of the
+truest applause, both in relation to the eminence of her intellectual
+powers, and the ingenuous amiableness of her disposition. Lady
+Kingsborough, from the best motives, had imposed upon her daughters a
+variety of prohibitions, both as to the books they should read, and in
+many other respects. These prohibitions had their usual effects;
+inordinate desire for the things forbidden, and clandestine indulgence.
+Mary immediately restored the children to their liberty, and undertook
+to govern them by their affections only. The consequence was, that their
+indulgences were moderate, and they were uneasy under any indulgence
+that had not the sanction of their governess. The salutary effects of
+the new system of education were speedily visible; and lady Kingsborough
+soon felt no other uneasiness, than lest the children should love their
+governess better than their mother.
+
+Mary made many friends in Ireland, among the persons who visited lord
+Kingsborough's house, for she always appeared there with the air of an
+equal, and not of a dependent. I have heard her mention the ludicrous
+distress of a woman of quality, whose name I have forgotten, that, in a
+large company, singled out Mary, and entered into a long conversation
+with her. After the conversation was over, she enquired whom she had
+been talking with, and found, to her utter mortification and dismay,
+that it was Miss King's governess.
+
+One of the persons among her Irish acquaintance, whom Mary was
+accustomed to speak of with the highest respect, was Mr. George Ogle,
+member of parliament for the county of Wexford. She held his talents in
+very high estimation; she was strongly prepossessed in favour of the
+goodness of his heart; and she always spoke of him as the most perfect
+gentleman she had ever known. She felt the regret of a disappointed
+friend, at the part he has lately taken in the politics of Ireland.
+
+Lord Kingsborough's family passed the summer of the year 1787 at
+Bristol Hot-Wells, and had formed the project of proceeding from thence
+to the continent, a tour in which Mary purposed to accompany them. The
+plan however was ultimately given up, and Mary in consequence closed her
+connection with them, earlier than she otherwise had purposed to do.
+
+At Bristol Hot-Wells she composed the little book which bears the title
+of Mary, a Fiction. A considerable part of this story consists, with
+certain modifications, of the incidents of her own friendship with
+Fanny. All the events that do not relate to that subject are fictitious.
+
+This little work, if Mary had never produced any thing else, would
+serve, with persons of true taste and sensibility, to establish the
+eminence of her genius. The story is nothing. He that looks into the
+book only for incident, will probably lay it down with disgust. But the
+feelings are of the truest and most exquisite class; every circumstance
+is adorned with that species of imagination, which enlists itself under
+the banners of delicacy and sentiment. A work of sentiment, as it is
+called, is too often another name for a work of affectation. He that
+should imagine that the sentiments of this book are affected, would
+indeed be entitled to our profoundest commiseration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. V.
+
+1787-1790.
+
+
+Being now determined to enter upon her literary plan, Mary came
+immediately from Bristol to the metropolis. Her conduct under this
+circumstance was such as to do credit both to her own heart, and that of
+Mr. Johnson, her publisher, between whom and herself there now commenced
+an intimate friendship. She had seen him upon occasion of publishing
+her Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, and she addressed two or
+three letters to him during her residence in Ireland. Upon her arrival
+in London in August 1787, she went immediately to his house, and frankly
+explained to him her purpose, at the same time requesting his advice and
+assistance as to its execution. After a short conversation, Mr. Johnson
+invited her to make his house her home, till she should have suited
+herself with a fixed residence. She accordingly resided at this time two
+or three weeks under his roof. At the same period she paid a visit or
+two of similar duration to some friends, at no great distance from the
+metropolis.
+
+At Michaelmas 1787, she entered upon a house in George street, on the
+Surry side of Black Friar's Bridge, which Mr. Johnson had provided for
+her during her excursion into the country. The three years immediately
+ensuing, may be said, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, to have
+been the most active period of her life. She brought with her to this
+habitation, the novel of Mary, which had not yet been sent to the press,
+and the commencement of a sort of oriental tale, entitled, the Cave of
+Fancy, which she thought proper afterwards to lay aside unfinished. I am
+told that at this period she appeared under great dejection of spirits,
+and filled with melancholy regret for the loss of her youthful friend. A
+period of two years had elapsed since the death of that friend; but it
+was possibly the composition of the fiction of Mary, that renewed her
+sorrows in their original force. Soon after entering upon her new
+habitation, she produced a little work, entitled, Original Stories from
+Real Life, intended for the use of children. At the commencement of her
+literary carreer, she is said to have conceived a vehement aversion to
+the being regarded, by her ordinary acquaintance, in the character of an
+author, and to have employed some precautions to prevent its occurrence.
+
+The employment which the bookseller suggested to her, as the easiest and
+most certain source of pecuniary income, of course, was translation.
+With this view she improved herself in her French, with which she had
+previously but a slight acquaintance, and acquired the Italian and
+German languages. The greater part of her literary engagements at this
+time, were such as were presented to her by Mr. Johnson. She
+new-modelled and abridged a work, translated from the Dutch, entitled,
+Young Grandison: she began a translation from the French, of a book,
+called, the New Robinson; but in this undertaking, she was, I believe,
+anticipated by another translator: and she compiled a series of extracts
+in verse and prose, upon the model of Dr. Enfield's Speaker, which bears
+the title of the Female Reader; but which, from a cause not worth
+mentioning, has hitherto been printed with a different name in the
+title-page.
+
+About the middle of the year 1788, Mr. Johnson instituted the Analytical
+Review, in which Mary took a considerable share. She also translated
+Necker on the Importance of Religious Opinions; made an abridgment of
+Lavater's Physiognomy, from the French, which has never been published;
+and compressed Salzmann's Elements of Morality, a German production,
+into a publication in three volumes duodecimo. The translation of
+Salzmann produced a correspondence between Mary and the author; and he
+afterwards repaid the obligation to her in kind, by a German translation
+of the Rights of Woman. Such were her principal literary occupations,
+from the autumn of 1787, to the autumn of 1790.
+
+It perhaps deserves to be remarked that this sort of miscellaneous
+literary employment, seems, for the time at least, rather to damp and
+contract, than to enlarge and invigorate, the genius. The writer is
+accustomed to see his performances answer the mere mercantile purpose of
+the day, and confounded with those of persons to whom he is secretly
+conscious of a superiority. No neighbour mind serves as a mirror to
+reflect the generous confidence he felt within himself; and perhaps the
+man never yet existed, who could maintain his enthusiasm to its full
+vigour, in the midst of this kind of solitariness. He is touched with
+the torpedo of mediocrity. I believe that nothing which Mary produced
+during this period, is marked with those daring flights, which exhibit
+themselves in the little fiction she composed just before its
+commencement. Among effusions of a nobler cast, I find occasionally
+interspersed some of that homily-language, which, to speak from my own
+feelings, is calculated to damp the moral courage, it was intended to
+awaken. This is probably to be assigned to the causes above described.
+
+I have already said that one of the purposes which Mary had conceived, a
+few years before, as necessary to give a relish to the otherwise
+insipid, or embittered, draught of human life, was usefulness. On this
+side, the period of her existence of which I am now treating, is more
+brilliant, than in a literary view. She determined to apply as great a
+part as possible of the produce of her present employments, to the
+assistance of her friends and of the distressed; and, for this purpose,
+laid down to herself rules of the most rigid economy. She began with
+endeavouring to promote the interest of her sisters. She conceived that
+there was no situation in which she could place them, at once so
+respectable and agreeable, as that of governess in private families.
+She determined therefore in the first place, to endeavour to qualify
+them for such an undertaking. Her younger sister she sent to Paris,
+where she remained near two years. The elder she placed in a school near
+London, first as a parlour-boarder, and afterwards as a teacher. Her
+brother James, who had already been at sea, she first took into her
+house, and next sent to Woolwich for instruction, to qualify him for a
+respectable situation in the royal navy, where he was shortly after made
+a lieutenant. Charles, who was her favourite brother, had been articled
+to the eldest, an attorney in the Minories; but, not being satisfied
+with his situation, she removed him; and in some time after, having
+first placed him with a farmer for instruction, she fitted him out for
+America, where his speculations, founded upon the basis she had
+provided, are said to have been extremely prosperous. The reason so much
+of this parental sort of care fell upon her, was, that her father had by
+this time considerably embarrassed his circumstances. His affairs having
+grown too complex for himself to disentangle, he had intrusted them to
+the management of a near relation; but Mary, not being satisfied with
+the conduct of the business, took them into her own hands. The exertions
+she made, and the struggle into which she entered however, in this
+instance, were ultimately fruitless. To the day of her death her father
+was almost wholly supported by funds which she supplied to him. In
+addition to her exertions for her own family, she took a young girl of
+about seven years of age under her protection and care, the niece of
+Mrs. John Hunter, and of the present Mrs. Skeys, for whose mother, then
+lately dead, she had entertained a sincere friendship.
+
+The period, from the end of the year 1787 to the end of the year 1790,
+though consumed in labours of little eclat, served still further to
+establish her in a friendly connection from which she derived many
+pleasures. Mr. Johnson, the bookseller, contracted a great personal
+regard for her, which resembled in many respects that of a parent. As
+she frequented his house, she of course became acquainted with his
+guests. Among these may be mentioned as persons possessing her esteem,
+Mr. Bonnycastle, the mathematician, the late Mr. George Anderson,
+accountant to the board of control, Dr. George Fordyce, and Mr. Fuseli,
+the celebrated painter. Between both of the two latter and herself,
+there existed sentiments of genuine affection and friendship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. VI.
+
+1790-1792.
+
+
+Hitherto the literary carreer of Mary, had for the most part, been
+silent; and had been productive of income to herself, without apparently
+leading to the wreath of fame. From this time she was destined to
+attract the notice of the public, and perhaps no female writer ever
+obtained so great a degree of celebrity throughout Europe.
+
+It cannot be doubted that, while, for three years of literary
+employment, she "held the noiseless tenor of her way," her mind was
+insensibly advancing towards a vigorous maturity. The uninterrupted
+habit of composition gave a freedom and firmness to the expression of
+her sentiments. The society she frequented, nourished her understanding,
+and enlarged her mind. The French revolution, while it gave a
+fundamental shock to the human intellect through every region of the
+globe, did not fail to produce a conspicuous effect in the progress of
+Mary's reflections. The prejudices of her early years suffered a
+vehement concussion. Her respect for establishments was undermined. At
+this period occurred a misunderstanding upon public grounds, with one of
+her early friends, whose attachment to musty creeds and exploded
+absurdities, had been increased, by the operation of those very
+circumstances, by which her mind had been rapidly advanced in the race
+of independence.
+
+The event, immediately introductory to the rank which from this time she
+held in the lids of literature, was the publication of Burke's
+Reflections on the Revolution in France. This book, after having been
+long promised to the world, finally made its appearance on the first of
+November 1790; and Mary, full of sentiments of liberty, and impressed
+with a warm interest in the struggle that was now going on, seized her
+pen in the first burst of indignation, an emotion of which she was
+strongly susceptible. She was in the habit of composing with rapidity,
+and her answer, which was the first of the numerous ones that appeared,
+obtained extraordinary notice. Marked as it is with the vehemence and
+impetuousness of its eloquence, it is certainly chargeable with a too
+contemptuous and intemperate treatment of the great man against whom its
+attack is directed. But this circumstance was not injurious to the
+success of the publication. Burke had been warmly loved by the most
+liberal and enlightened friends of freedom, and they were proportionably
+inflamed and disgusted by the fury of his assault, upon what they deemed
+to be its sacred cause.
+
+Short as was the time in which Mary composed her Answer to Burke's
+Reflections, there was one anecdote she told me concerning it, which
+seems worth recording in this place. It was sent to the press, as is
+the general practice when the early publication of a piece is deemed a
+matter of importance, before the composition was finished. When Mary had
+arrived at about the middle of her work, she was seized with a temporary
+fit of torpor and indolence, and began to repent of her undertaking. In
+this state of mind, she called, one evening, as she was in the practice
+of doing, upon her publisher, for the purpose of relieving herself by an
+hour or two's conversation. Here, the habitual ingenuousness of her
+nature, led her to describe what had just past in her thoughts. Mr.
+Johnson immediately, in a kind and friendly way, intreated her not to
+put any constraint upon her inclination, and to give herself no
+uneasiness about the sheets already printed, which he would cheerfully
+throw aside, if it would contribute to her happiness. Mary had wanted
+stimulus. She had not expected to be encouraged, in what she well knew
+to be an unreasonable access of idleness. Her friend's so readily
+falling in with her ill-humour, and seeming to expect that she would lay
+aside her undertaking, piqued her pride. She immediately went home; and
+proceeded to the end of her work, with no other interruptions but what
+were absolutely indispensible.
+
+It is probable that the applause which attended her Answer to Burke,
+elevated the tone of her mind. She had always felt much confidence in
+her own powers; but it cannot be doubted, that the actual perception of
+a similar feeling respecting us in a multitude of others, must increase
+the confidence, and stimulate the adventure of any human being. Mary
+accordingly proceeded, in a short time after, to the composition of her
+most celebrated production, the Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
+
+Never did any author enter into a cause, with a more ardent desire to be
+found, not a flourishing and empty declaimer, but an effectual champion.
+She considered herself as standing forth in defence of one half of the
+human species, labouring under a yoke which, through all the records of
+time, had degraded them from the station of rational beings, and almost
+sunk them to the level of the brutes. She saw indeed, that they were
+often attempted to be held in silken fetters, and bribed into the love
+of slavery; but the disguise and the treachery served only the more
+fully to confirm her opposition. She regarded her sex, in the language
+of Calista, as
+
+    "In every state of life the slaves of men:"
+
+the rich as alternately under the despotism of a father, a brother, and
+a husband; and the middling and the poorer classes shut out from the
+acquisition of bread with independence, when they are not shut out from
+the very means of an industrious subsistence. Such were the views she
+entertained of the subject; and such the feelings with which she warmed
+her mind.
+
+The work is certainly a very bold and original production. The strength
+and firmness with which the author repels the opinions of Rousseau, Dr.
+Gregory, and Dr. James Fordyce, respecting the condition of women,
+cannot but make a strong impression upon every ingenuous reader. The
+public at large formed very different opinions respecting the character
+of the performance. Many of the sentiments are undoubtedly of a rather
+masculine description. The spirited and decisive way in which the author
+explodes the system of gallantry, and the species of homage with which
+the sex is usually treated, shocked the majority. Novelty produced a
+sentiment in their mind, which they mistook for a sense of injustice.
+The pretty, soft creatures that are so often to be found in the female
+sex, and that class of men who believe they could not exist without such
+pretty, soft creatures to resort to, were in arms against the author of
+so heretical and blasphemous a doctrine. There are also, it must be
+confessed, occasional passages of a stern and rugged feature,
+incompatible with the true stamina of the writer's character. But, if
+they did not belong to her fixed and permanent character, they belonged
+to her character _pro tempore_; and what she thought, she scorned to
+qualify.
+
+Yet, along with this rigid, and somewhat amazonian temper, which
+characterised some parts of the book, it is impossible not to remark a
+luxuriance of imagination, and a trembling delicacy of sentiment, which
+would have done honour to a poet, bursting with all the visions of an
+Armida and a Dido.
+
+The contradiction, to the public apprehension, was equally great, as to
+the person of the author, as it was when they considered the temper of
+the book. In the champion of her sex, who was described as endeavouring
+to invest them with all the rights of man, those whom curiosity prompted
+to seek the occasion of beholding her, expected to find a sturdy,
+muscular, raw-boned virago; and they were not a little surprised, when,
+instead of all this, they found a woman, lovely in her person, and, in
+the best and most engaging sense, feminine in her manners.
+
+The Vindication of the Rights of Woman is undoubtedly a very unequal
+performance, and eminently deficient in method and arrangement. When
+tried by the hoary and long-established laws of literary composition, it
+can scarcely maintain its claim to be placed in the first class of human
+productions. But when we consider the importance of its doctrines, and
+the eminence of genius it displays, it seems not very improbable that it
+will be read as long as the English language endures. The publication of
+this book forms an epocha in the subject to which it belongs; and Mary
+Wollstonecraft will perhaps hereafter be found to have performed more
+substantial service for the cause of her sex, than all the other
+writers, male or female, that ever felt themselves animated in the
+behalf of oppressed and injured beauty.
+
+The censure of the liberal critic as to the defects of this performance,
+will be changed into astonishment, when I tell him, that a work of this
+inestimable moment, was begun, carried on, and finished in the state in
+which it now appears, in a period of no more than six weeks.
+
+It is necessary here that I should resume the subject of the friendship
+that subsisted between Mary and Mr. Fuseli, which proved the source of
+the most memorable events in her subsequent history. He is a native of
+the republic of Switzerland, but has spent the principal part of his
+life in the island of Great-Britain. The eminence of his genius can
+scarcely be disputed; it has indeed received the testimony which is the
+least to be suspected, that of some of the most considerable of his
+contemporary artists. He has one of the most striking characteristics of
+genius, a daring, as well as persevering, spirit of adventure. The work
+in which he is at present engaged, a series of pictures for the
+illustration of Milton, upon a very large scale, and produced solely
+upon the incitement of his own mind, is a proof of this, if indeed his
+whole life had not sufficiently proved it.
+
+Mr. Fuseli is one of Mr. Johnson's oldest friends, and was at this time
+in the habit of visiting him two or three times a week. Mary, one of
+whose strongest characteristics was the exquisite sensations of pleasure
+she felt from the associations of visible objects, had hitherto never
+been acquainted, or never intimately acquainted, with an eminent
+painter. The being thus introduced therefore to the society of Mr.
+Fuseli, was a high gratification to her; while he found in Mary, a
+person perhaps more susceptible of the emotions painting is calculated
+to excite, than any other with whom he ever conversed. Painting, and
+subjects closely connected with painting, were their almost constant
+topics of conversation; and they found them inexhaustible. It cannot be
+doubted, but that this was a species of exercise very conducive to the
+improvement of Mary's mind.
+
+Nothing human however is unmixed. If Mary derived improvement from Mr.
+Fuseli, she may also be suspected of having caught the infection of some
+of his faults. In early life Mr. Fuseli was ardently attached to
+literature; but the demands of his profession have prevented him from
+keeping up that extensive and indiscriminate acquaintance with it, that
+belles-lettres scholars frequently possess. Of consequence, the
+favourites of his boyish years remain his only favourites. Homer is with
+Mr. Fuseli the abstract and deposit of every human perfection. Milton,
+Shakespear, and Richardson, have also engaged much of his attention. The
+nearest rival of Homer, I believe, if Homer can have a rival, is Jean
+Jacques Rousseau. A young man embraces entire the opinions of a
+favourite writer, and Mr. Fuseli has not had leisure to bring the
+opinions of his youth to a revision. Smitten with Rousseau's conception
+of the perfectness of the savage state, and the essential abortiveness
+of all civilization, Mr. Fuseli looks at all our little attempts at
+improvement, with a spirit that borders perhaps too much upon contempt
+and indifference. One of his favourite positions is the divinity of
+genius. This is a power that comes complete at once from the hands of
+the Creator of all things, and the first essays of a man of real genius
+are such, in all their grand and most important features, as no
+subsequent assiduity can amend. Add to this, that Mr. Fuseli is somewhat
+of a caustic turn of mind, with much wit, and a disposition to search,
+in every thing new or modern, for occasions of censure. I believe Mary
+came something more a cynic out of the school of Mr. Fuseli, than she
+went into it.
+
+But the principal circumstance that relates to the intercourse of Mary,
+and this celebrated artist, remains to be told. She saw Mr. Fuseli
+frequently; he amused, delighted and instructed her. As a painter, it
+was impossible she should not wish to see his works, and consequently to
+frequent his house. She visited him; her visits were returned.
+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 experienced 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 endearments 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 cannot perhaps be a properer place than the present, to state her
+principles upon this subject, such at least as they were when I knew her
+best. She set a great value on a mutual affection between persons of an
+opposite sex. She regarded it as the principal solace of human life. It
+was her maxim, "that the imagination should awaken the senses, and not
+the senses the imagination." In other words, that whatever related to
+the gratification of the senses, ought to arise, in a human being of a
+pure mind, only as the consequence of an individual affection. She
+regarded the manners and habits of the majority of our sex in that
+respect, with strong disapprobation. She conceived that true virtue
+would prescribe the most entire celibacy, exclusively of affection, and
+the most perfect fidelity to that affection when it existed.--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. As it
+was, she conceived it both practicable and eligible, to cultivate a
+distinguishing affection for him, and to foster it by the endearments of
+personal intercourse and a reciprocation of kindness, without departing
+in the smallest degree from the rules she prescribed to herself.
+
+In September 1791, she removed from the house she occupied in
+George-street, to a large and commodious apartment in Store street,
+Bedford-square. She began to think that she had been too rigid, in the
+laws of frugality and self-denial with which she set out in her literary
+career; and now added to the neatness and cleanliness which she had
+always scrupulously observed a certain degree of elegance, and those
+temperate indulgences in furniture and accommodation, from which a sound
+and uncorrupted taste never fails to derive pleasure.
+
+It was in the month of November in the same year (1791), that the writer
+of this narrative was first in company with the person to whom it
+relates. He dined with her at a friend's, together with Mr. Thomas Paine
+and one or two other persons. The invitation was of his own seeking, his
+object being to see the author of the Rights of Man, with whom he had
+never before conversed.
+
+The interview was not fortunate. Mary and myself parted, mutually
+displeased with each other. I had not read her Rights of Woman. 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 curiosity 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 consequence, heard her, very
+frequently when I wished to hear Paine.
+
+We touched on a considerable variety of topics, and particularly on the
+characters and habits of certain eminent men. Mary, as has already been
+observed, had acquired, in a very blameable degree, the practice of
+seeing every thing on the gloomy side, and bestowing censure with a
+plentiful hand, where circumstances were in any respect doubtful. I, on
+the contrary, had a strong propensity, to favourable 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 characters of Voltaire and others, who have obtained
+from some individuals an ardent admiration, 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 became dissatisfied with the tone of my own
+share in it. We touched upon all topics, without treating forcibly and
+connectedly upon any. Meanwhile, I did her the justice, in giving an
+account of the conversation 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 independent 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 acquaintance.
+
+In the close of the year 1792, Mary went over to France, where she
+continued to reside for upwards of two years. One of her principal
+inducements to this step, 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 continually conjuring up pictures of the happiness she
+should have found, if fortune had favoured their more intimate union.
+She felt herself formed for domestic affection, and all those tender
+charities, which men of sensibility have constantly treated as the
+dearest band 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.
+
+It is singular, that during her residence in Store street, which lasted
+more than twelve months, she produced nothing, except a few articles in
+the Analytical Review. Her literary meditations were chiefly employed
+upon the Sequel to the Rights of Woman; but she has scarcely left behind
+her a single paper, that can, with any certainty, be assigned to have
+had this destination.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. VII.
+
+1792-1795.
+
+
+The original plan of Mary, respecting her residence in France, had no
+precise limits in the article of duration; the single purpose she had in
+view being that of an endeavour to heal her distempered mind. She did
+not proceed so far as even to discharge her lodging in London; and, to
+some friends who saw her immediately before her departure, she spoke
+merely of an absence of six weeks.
+
+It is not to be wondered at, that her excursion did not originally seem
+to produce the effects she had expected from it. She was in a land of
+strangers; she had no acquaintance; she had even to acquire the power of
+receiving and communicating ideas with facility in the language of the
+country. Her first residence was in a spacious mansion to which she had
+been invited, but the master of which (monsieur Fillietaz) was absent at
+the time of her arrival. At first therefore she found herself surrounded
+only with servants. The gloominess of her mind communicated its own
+colour to the objects she saw; and in this temper she began a series of
+Letters on the Present Character of the French Nation, one of which she
+forwarded to her publisher, and which appears in the collection of her
+posthumous works. This performance she soon after discontinued; and it
+is, as she justly remarks, tinged with the saturnine temper which at
+that time pervaded her mind.
+
+Mary carried with her introductions to several agreeable families in
+Paris. She renewed her acquaintance with Paine. There also subsisted a
+very sincere friendship between her and Helen Maria Williams, author of
+a collection of poems of uncommon merit, who at that time resided in
+Paris. Another person, whom Mary always spoke of in terms of ardent
+commendation, both for the excellence of his disposition, and the force
+of his genius, was a count Slabrendorf, by birth, I believe, a Swede. It
+is almost unnecessary to mention, that she was personally acquainted
+with the majority of the leaders in the French revolution.
+
+But the house that, I believe, she principally frequented at this time,
+was that of Mr. Thomas Christie, a person whose pursuits were
+mercantile, and who had written a volume on the French revolution. With
+Mrs. Christie her acquaintance was more intimate than with the husband.
+
+It was about four months after her arrival at Paris in December 1792,
+that she entered into that species of connection, for which her heart
+secretly panted, and which had the effect of diffusing an immediate
+tranquillity and cheerfulness over her manners. The person with whom it
+was formed (for it would be an idle piece of delicacy, to attempt to
+suppress a name, which is known to every one whom the reputation of
+Mary has reached), was Mr. Gilbert Imlay, native of the United States of
+North America.
+
+The place at which she first saw Mr. Imlay was at the house of Mr.
+Christie; and it perhaps deserves to be noticed, that the emotions he
+then excited in her mind, were, I am told, those of dislike, and that,
+for some time, she shunned all occasions of meeting him. This sentiment
+however speedily gave place to one of greater kindness.
+
+Previously to the partiality she conceived for him, she had determined
+upon a journey to Switzerland, induced chiefly by motives of economy.
+But she had some difficulty in procuring a passport; and it was probably
+the intercourse that now originated between her and Mr. Imlay, that
+changed her purpose, and led her to prefer a lodging at Neuilly, a
+village three miles from Paris. Her habitation here was a solitary house
+in the midst of a garden, with no other inhabitants than herself and the
+gardener, an old man, who performed for her many of the offices of a
+domestic, and would sometimes contend for the honour of making her bed.
+The gardener had a great veneration for his guest, and would set before
+her, when alone, some grapes of a particularly fine sort, which she
+could not without the greatest difficulty obtain, when she had any
+person with her as a visitor. Here it was that she conceived, and for
+the most part executed, her Historical and Moral View of the French
+Revolution[A], into which, as she observes, are incorporated most of the
+observations she had collected for her Letters, and which was written
+with more sobriety and cheerfulness than the tone in which they had been
+commenced. In the evening she was accustomed to refresh herself by a
+walk in a neighbouring wood, from which her old host in vain endeavoured
+to dissuade her, by recounting divers horrible robberies and murders
+that had been committed there.
+
+[A] No part of the proposed continuation of this work, has been found
+among the papers of the author.
+
+The commencement of the attachment Mary now formed, had neither
+confident nor adviser. She always conceived it to be a gross breach of
+delicacy to have any confidant in a matter of this sacred nature, an
+affair of the heart. The origin of the connection was about the middle
+of April 1793, and it was carried on in a private manner for four
+months. At the expiration of that period a circumstance occurred that
+induced her to declare it. The French convention, exasperated at the
+conduct of the British government, particularly in the affair of Toulon,
+formed a decree against the citizens of this country, by one article of
+which the English, resident in France, were ordered into prison till the
+period of a general peace. Mary had objected to a marriage with Mr.
+Imlay, who, at the time their connection was formed, had no property
+whatever; because she would not involve him in certain family
+embarrassments to which she conceived herself exposed, or make him
+answerable for the pecuniary demands that existed against her. She
+however considered their engagement as of the most sacred nature; and
+they had mutually formed the plan of emigrating to America, as soon as
+they should have realized a sum, enabling them to do it in the mode
+they desired. The decree however that I have just mentioned, made it
+necessary, not that a marriage should actually take place, but that Mary
+should take the name of Imlay, which, from the nature of their
+connexion, she conceived herself entitled to do, and obtain a
+certificate from the American ambassador, as the wife of a native of
+that country.
+
+Their engagement being thus avowed, they thought proper to reside under
+the same roof, and for that purpose removed to Paris.
+
+Mary was now arrived at the situation, which, for two or three preceding
+years, her reason had pointed out to her as affording the most
+substantial prospect of happiness. She had been tossed and agitated by
+the waves of misfortune. Her childhood, as she often said, had known
+few of the endearments, which constitute the principal happiness of
+childhood. The temper of her father had early given to her mind a severe
+cast of thought, and substituted the inflexibility of resistance for the
+confidence of affection. The cheerfulness of her entrance upon
+womanhood, had been darkened, by an attendance upon the death-bed of her
+mother, and the still more afflicting calamity of her eldest sister. Her
+exertions to create a joint independence for her sisters and herself,
+had been attended, neither with the success, nor the pleasure, she had
+hoped from them. Her first youthful passion, her friendship for Fanny,
+had encountered many disappointments, and, in fine, a melancholy and
+premature catastrophe. Soon after these accumulated mortifications, she
+was engaged in a contest with a near relation, whom she regarded as
+unprincipled, respecting the wreck of her father's fortune. In this
+affair she suffered the double pain, which arises from moral
+indignation, and disappointed benevolence. Her exertions to assist
+almost every member of her family, were great and unremitted. Finally,
+when she indulged a romantic affection for Mr. Fuseli, and fondly
+imagined that she should find in it the solace of her cares, she
+perceived too late, that, by continually impressing on her mind
+fruitless images of unreserved affection and domestic felicity, it only
+served to give new pungency to the sensibility that was destroying her.
+
+Some persons may be inclined to observe, that the evils here enumerated,
+are not among the heaviest in the catalogue of human calamities. But
+evils take their rank, more from the temper of the mind that suffers
+them, than from their abstract nature. Upon a man of a hard and
+insensible disposition, the shafts of misfortune often fall pointless
+and impotent. There are persons, by no means hard and insensible, who,
+from an elastic and sanguine turn of mind, are continually prompted to
+look on the fair side of things, and, having suffered one fall,
+immediately rise again, to pursue their course, with the same eagerness,
+the same hope, and the same gaiety, as before. On the other hand, we not
+unfrequently meet with persons, endowed with the most exquisite and
+delicious sensibility, whose minds seem almost of too fine a texture to
+encounter the vicissitudes of human affairs, to whom pleasure is
+transport, and disappointment is agony indescribable. This character is
+finely pourtrayed by the author of the Sorrows of Werter. Mary was in
+this respect a female Werter.
+
+She brought then, in the present instance, a wounded and sick heart, to
+take refuge in the bosom of a chosen friend. Let it not however be
+imagined, that she brought a heart, querulous, and ruined in its taste
+for pleasure. No; her whole character seemed to change with a change of
+fortune. Her sorrows, the depression of her spirits, were forgotten, and
+she assumed all the simplicity and the vivacity of a youthful mind. She
+was like a serpent upon a rock, that casts its slough, and appears again
+with the brilliancy, the sleekness, and the elastic activity of its
+happiest age. She was playful, full of confidence, kindness and
+sympathy. Her eyes assumed new lustre, and her cheeks new colour and
+smoothness. Her voice became chearful; her temper overflowing with
+universal kindness; and that smile of bewitching tenderness from day to
+day illuminated her countenance, which all who knew her will so well
+recollect, and which won, both heart and soul, the affection of almost
+every one that beheld it.
+
+Mary now reposed herself upon a person, of whose honour and principles
+she had the most exalted idea. She nourished an individual affection,
+which she saw no necessity of subjecting to restraint; and a heart like
+her's was not formed to nourish affection by halves. Her conception of
+Mr. Imlay's "tenderness and worth, had twisted him closely round her
+heart;" and she "indulged the thought, that she had thrown out some
+tendrils, to cling to the elm by which she wished to be supported." This
+was "talking a new language to her;" but, "conscious that she was not a
+parasite-plant," she was willing to encourage and foster the
+luxuriancies of affection. Her confidence was entire; her love was
+unbounded. Now, for the first time in her life she gave a loose to all
+the sensibilities of her nature.
+
+Soon after the time I am now speaking of, her attachment to Mr. Imlay
+gained a new link, by finding reason to suppose herself with child.
+
+Their establishment at Paris, was however broken up almost as soon as
+formed, by the circumstance of Mr. Imlay's entering into business,
+urged, as he said, by the prospect of a family, and this being a
+favourable crisis in French affairs for commercial speculations. The
+pursuits in which he was engaged, led him in the month of September to
+Havre de Grace, then called Havre Marat, probably to superintend the
+shipping of goods, in which he was jointly engaged with some other
+person or persons. Mary remained in the capital.
+
+The solitude in which she was now left, proved an unexpected trial.
+Domestic affections constituted the object upon which her heart was
+fixed; and she early felt, with an inward grief, that Mr. Imlay "did not
+attach those tender emotions round the idea of home," which, every time
+they recurred, dimmed her eyes with moisture. She had expected his
+return from week to week, and from month to month, but a succession of
+business still continued to detain him at Havre. At the same time the
+sanguinary character which the government of France began every day more
+decisively to assume, contributed to banish tranquillity from the first
+months of her pregnancy. Before she left Neuilly, she happened one day
+to enter Paris on foot (I believe, by the _Place de Louis Quinze_), when
+an execution, attended with some peculiar aggravations, had just taken
+place, and the blood of the guillotine appeared fresh upon the pavement.
+The emotions of her soul burst forth in indignant exclamations, while a
+prudent bystander warned her of her danger, and intreated her to hasten
+and hide her discontents. She described to me, more than once, the
+anguish she felt at hearing of the death of Brissot, Vergniaud, and the
+twenty deputies, as one of the most intolerable sensations she had ever
+experienced.
+
+Finding the return of Mr. Imlay continually postponed, she determined,
+in January 1794, to join him at Havre. One motive that influenced her,
+though, I believe, by no means the principal, was the growing cruelties
+of Robespierre, and the desire she felt to be in any other place, rather
+than the devoted city, in the midst of which they were perpetrated.
+
+From January to September, Mr. Imlay and Mary lived together, with great
+harmony, at Havre, where the child, with which she was pregnant, was
+born, on the fourteenth of May, and named Frances, in remembrance of
+the dear friend of her youth, whose image could never be erased from
+her memory.
+
+In September, Mr. Imlay took his departure from Havre for the port of
+London. As this step was said to be necessary in the way of business, he
+endeavoured to prevail upon Mary to quit Havre, and once more take up
+her abode at Paris. Robespierre was now no more, and, of consequence,
+the only objection she had to residing in the capital, was removed. Mr.
+Imlay was already in London, before she undertook her journey, and it
+proved the most fatiguing journey she ever made; the carriage, in which
+she travelled, being overturned no less than four times between Havre
+and Paris.
+
+This absence, like that of the preceding year in which Mr. Imlay had
+removed to Havre, was represented as an absence that was to have a
+short duration. In two months he was once again to join her at Paris. It
+proved however the prelude to an eternal separation. The agonies of such
+a separation, or rather desertion, great as Mary would have found them
+upon every supposition, were vastly increased, by the lingering method
+in which it was effected, and the ambiguity that, for a long time, hung
+upon it. This circumstance produced the effect, of holding her mind, by
+force, as it were, to the most painful of all subjects, and not
+suffering her to derive the just advantage from the energy and
+elasticity of her character.
+
+The procrastination of which I am speaking was however productive of one
+advantage. It put off the evil day. She did not suspect the calamities
+that awaited her, till the close of the year. She gained an additional
+three months of comparative happiness. But she purchased it at a very
+dear rate. Perhaps no human creature ever suffered greater misery, than
+dyed the whole year 1795, in the life of this incomparable woman. It was
+wasted in that sort of despair, to the sense of which the mind is
+continually awakened, by a glimmering of fondly cherished, expiring
+hope.
+
+Why did she thus obstinately cling to an ill-starred, unhappy passion?
+Because it is of the very essence of affection, to seek to perpetuate
+itself. He does not love, who can resign this cherished sentiment,
+without suffering some of the sharpest struggles that our nature is
+capable of enduring. Add to this, Mary had fixed her heart upon this
+chosen friend; and one of the last impressions a worthy mind can submit
+to receive, is that of the worthlessness of the person upon whom it has
+fixed all its esteem. Mary had struggled to entertain a favourable
+opinion of human nature; she had unweariedly fought for a kindred mind,
+in whose integrity and fidelity to take up her rest. Mr. Imlay undertook
+to prove, in his letters written immediately after their complete
+separation, that his conduct towards her was reconcilable to the
+strictest rectitude; but undoubtedly Mary was of a different opinion.
+Whatever the reader may decide in this respect, there is one sentiment
+that, I believe, he will unhesitatingly admit: that of pity for the
+mistake of the man, who, being in possession of such a friendship and
+attachment as those of Mary, could hold them at a trivial price, and,
+"like the base Indian, throw a pearl away, richer than all his
+tribe.[A]"
+
+[A] A person, from whose society at this time Mary derived particular
+gratification, was Archibald Hamilton Rowan, who had lately become a
+fugitive from Ireland, in consequence of a political prosecution, and in
+whom she found those qualities which were always eminently engaging to
+her, great integrity of disposition, and great kindness of heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. VIII.
+
+1795, 1796.
+
+
+In April 1795, Mary returned once more to London, being requested to do
+so by Mr. Imlay, who even sent a servant to Paris to wait upon her in
+the journey, before she could complete the necessary arrangements for
+her departure. But, notwithstanding these favourable appearances, she
+came to England with a heavy heart, not daring, after all the
+uncertainties and anguish she had endured, to trust to the suggestions
+of hope.
+
+The gloomy forebodings of her mind, were but too faithfully verified.
+Mr. Imlay had already formed another connexion; as it is said, with a
+young actress from a strolling company of players. His attentions
+therefore to Mary were formal and constrained, and she probably had but
+little of his society. This alteration could not escape her penetrating
+glance. He ascribed it to pressure of business, and some pecuniary
+embarrassments which, at that time, occurred to him; it was of little
+consequence to Mary what was the cause. She saw, but too well, though
+she strove not to see, that his affections were lost to her for ever.
+
+It is impossible to imagine a period of greater pain and mortification
+than Mary passed, for about seven weeks, from the sixteenth of April to
+the sixth of June, in a furnished house that Mr. Imlay had provided for
+her. She had come over to England, a country for which she, at this
+time, expressed "a repugnance, that almost amounted to horror," in
+search of happiness. She feared that that happiness had altogether
+escaped her; but she was encouraged by the eagerness and impatience
+which Mr. Imlay at length seemed to manifest for her arrival. When she
+saw him, all her fears were confirmed. What a picture was she capable of
+forming to herself, of the overflowing kindness of a meeting, after an
+interval of so much anguish and apprehension! A thousand images of this
+sort were present to her burning imagination. It is in vain, on such
+occasions, for reserve and reproach to endeavour to curb in the emotions
+of an affectionate heart. But the hopes she nourished were speedily
+blasted. Her reception by Mr. Imlay, was cold and embarrassed.
+Discussions ("explanations" they were called) followed; cruel
+explanations, that only added to the anguish of a heart already
+overwhelmed in grief! They had small pretensions indeed to explicitness;
+but they sufficiently told, that the case admitted not of remedy.
+
+Mary was incapable of sustaining her equanimity in this pressing
+emergency. "Love, dear, delusive love!" as she expressed herself to a
+friend some time afterwards, "rigorous reason had forced her to resign;
+and now her rational prospects were blasted, just as she had learned to
+be contented with rational enjoyments". Thus situated, life became an
+intolerable burthen. While she was absent from Mr. Imlay, she could
+talk of purposes of reparation and independence. But, now that they were
+in the same house, she could not withhold herself from endeavours to
+revive their mutual cordiality; and unsuccessful endeavours continually
+added fuel to the fire that destroyed her. She formed a desperate
+purpose to die.
+
+This part of the story of Mary is involved in considerable obscurity. I
+only know, that Mr. Imlay became acquainted with her purpose, at a
+moment when he was uncertain whether or no it were 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. Actuated by this purpose,
+she took a resolution, worthy both of the strength and affectionateness
+of her mind. Mr. Imlay was involved in a question of considerable
+difficulty, respecting a mercantile adventure in Norway. It seemed to
+require the presence of some very judicious agent, to conduct the
+business to its desired termination. Mary determined to make the voyage,
+and take the business into her own hands. Such a voyage seemed the most
+desireable thing to recruit her health, and, if possible, her spirits,
+in the present crisis. It was also gratifying to her feelings, to be
+employed in promoting the interest of a man, from whom she had
+experienced such severe unkindness, but to whom she ardently desired to
+be reconciled. The moment of desperation I have mentioned, occurred in
+the close of May, and, in about a week after, she set out upon this new
+expedition.
+
+The narrative of this voyage is before the world, and perhaps a book of
+travels that so irresistibly seizes on the heart, never, in any other
+instance, found its way from the press. The occasional harshness and
+ruggedness of character, that diversify her Vindication of the Rights of
+Woman, here totally disappear. If ever there was a book calculated to
+make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.
+She speaks of her sorrows, in a way that fills us with melancholy, and
+dissolves us in tenderness, at the same time that she displays a genius
+which commands all our admiration. Affliction had tempered her heart to
+a softness almost more than human; and the gentleness of her spirit
+seems precisely to accord with all the romance of unbounded attachment.
+
+Thus softened and improved, thus fraught with imagination and
+sensibility, with all, and more than all, "that youthful poets fancy,
+when they love," she returned to England, and, if he had so pleased, to
+the arms of her former lover. Her return was hastened by the ambiguity,
+to her apprehension, of Mr. Imlay's conduct. He had promised to meet her
+upon her return from Norway, probably at Hamburgh; and they were then to
+pass some time in Switzerland. The style however of his letters to her
+during her tour, was not such as to inspire confidence; and she wrote to
+him very urgently, to explain himself, relative to the footing upon
+which they were hereafter to stand to each other. In his answer, which
+reached her at Hamburgh, he treated her questions as "extraordinary and
+unnecessary," and desired her to be at the pains to decide for herself.
+Feeling herself unable to accept this as an explanation, she instantly
+determined to sail for London by the very first opportunity, that she
+might thus bring to a termination the suspence that preyed upon her
+soul.
+
+It was not long after her arrival in London in the commencement of
+October, that she attained the certainty she sought. Mr. Imlay procured
+her a lodging. But the neglect she experienced from him after she
+entered it, flashed conviction upon her, in spite of his asseverations.
+She made further enquiries, and at length was informed by a servant, of
+the real state of the case. Under the immediate shock which the painful
+certainty gave her, her first impulse was to repair to him at the
+ready-furnished house he had provided for his new mistress. What was the
+particular nature of their conference I am unable to relate. It is
+sufficient to say that the wretchedness of the night which succeeded
+this fatal discovery, impressed her with the feeling, that she would
+sooner suffer a thousand deaths, than pass another of equal misery.
+
+The agony of her mind determined her; and that determination gave her a
+sort of desperate serenity. She resolved to plunge herself in the
+Thames; and, not being satisfied with any spot nearer to London, she
+took a boat, and rowed to Putney. Her first thought had led her to
+Battersea-bridge, but she found it too public. It was night when she
+arrived at Putney, and by that time had begun to rain with great
+violence. The rain suggested to her the idea of walking up and down the
+bridge, till her clothes were thoroughly drenched and heavy with the
+wet, which she did for half an hour without meeting a human being. She
+then leaped from the top of the bridge, but still seemed to find a
+difficulty in sinking, which she endeavoured to counteract by pressing
+her clothes closely round her. After some time she became insensible;
+but she always spoke of the pain she underwent as such, that, though she
+could afterwards have determined upon almost any other species of
+voluntary death, it would have been impossible for her to resolve upon
+encountering the same sensations again. I am doubtful, whether this is
+to be ascribed to the mere nature of suffocation, or was not rather
+owing to the preternatural action of a desperate spirit.
+
+After having been for a considerable time insensible, she was recovered
+by the exertions of those by whom the body was found. She had sought,
+with cool and deliberate firmness, to put a period to her existence, and
+yet she lived to have every prospect of a long possession of enjoyment
+and happiness. It is perhaps not an unfrequent case with suicides, that
+we find reason to suppose, if they had survived their gloomy purpose,
+that they would, at a subsequent period, have been considerably happy.
+It arises indeed, in some measure, out of the very nature of a spirit of
+self-destruction; which implies a degree of anguish, that the
+constitution of the human mind will not suffer to remain long
+undiminished. This is a serious reflection, Probably no man would
+destroy himself from an impatience of present pain, if he felt a moral
+certainty that there were years of enjoyment still in reserve for him.
+It is perhaps a futile attempt, to think of reasoning with a man in that
+state of mind which precedes suicide. Moral reasoning is nothing but the
+awakening of certain feelings: and the feeling by which he is actuated,
+is too strong to leave us much chance of impressing him with other
+feelings, that should have force enough to counterbalance it. But, if
+the prospect of future tranquillity and pleasure cannot be expected to
+have much weight with a man under an immediate purpose of suicide, it is
+so much the more to be wished, that men would impress their minds, in
+their sober moments, with a conception, which, being rendered habitual,
+seems to promise to act as a successful antidote in a paroxysm of
+desperation.
+
+The present situation of Mary, of necessity produced some further
+intercourse between her and Mr. Imlay. He sent a physician to her; and
+Mrs. Christie, at his desire, prevailed on her to remove to her house in
+Finsbury-square. In the mean time Mr. Imlay assured her that his present
+was merely a casual, sensual connection; and, of course, fostered in her
+mind the idea that it would be once more in her choice to live with him.
+With whatever intention the idea was suggested, it was certainly
+calculated to increase the agitation of her mind. In one respect however
+it produced an effect unlike that which might most obviously have been
+looked for. It roused within her the characteristic energy of mind,
+which she seemed partially to have forgotten. She saw the necessity of
+bringing the affair to a point, and not suffering months and years to
+roll on in uncertainty and suspence. This idea inspired her with an
+extraordinary resolution. The language she employed, was, in effect, as
+follows: "If we are ever to live together again, it must be now. We meet
+now, or we part for ever. You say, You cannot abruptly break off the
+connection you have formed. It is unworthy of my courage and character,
+to wait the uncertain issue of that connexion. I am determined to come
+to a decision. I consent then, for the present, to live with you, and
+the woman to whom you have associated yourself. I think it important
+that you should learn habitually to feel for your child the affection of
+a father. But, if you reject this proposal, here we end. You are now
+free. We will correspond no more. We will have no intercourse of any
+kind. I will be to you as a person that is dead."
+
+The proposal she made, extraordinary and injudicious as it was, was at
+first accepted; and Mr. Imlay took her accordingly, to look at a house
+he was upon the point of hiring, that she might judge whether it was
+calculated to please her. Upon second thoughts however he retracted his
+concession.
+
+In the following month, Mr. Imlay, and the woman with whom he was at
+present connected, went to Paris, where they remained three months. Mary
+had, previously to this, fixed herself in a lodging in Finsbury-place,
+where, for some time, she saw scarcely any one but Mrs. Christie, for
+the sake of whose neighbourhood she had chosen this situation;
+"existing," as she expressed it, "in a living tomb, and her life but an
+exercise of fortitude, continually on the stretch."
+
+Thus circumstanced, it was unavoidable for her thoughts to brood upon a
+passion, which all that she had suffered had not yet been able to
+extinguish. Accordingly, as soon as Mr. Imlay returned to England, she
+could not restrain herself from making another effort, and desiring to
+see him once more. "During his absence, 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."
+
+This answer, though, at the moment, highly irritating to Mary, was not
+the ultimate close of the affair. Mr. Christie was connected in business
+with Mr. Imlay, at the same time that the house of Mr. Christie was the
+only one at which Mary habitually visited. The consequence of this was,
+that, when Mr. Imlay had been already more than a fortnight in town,
+Mary called at Mr. Christie's one evening, at a time when Mr. Imlay was
+in the parlour. The room was full of company. Mrs. Christie heard Mary's
+voice in the passage, and hastened to her, to intreat her not to make
+her appearance. Mary however was not to be controlled. She thought, as
+she afterwards told me, that it was not consistent with conscious
+rectitude, that she should shrink, as if abashed, from the presence of
+one by whom she deemed herself injured. Her child was with her. She
+entered; and, in a firm manner, immediately led up the child, now near
+two years of age, to the knees of its father. He retired with Mary into
+another apartment, and promised to dine with her at her lodging, I
+believe, the next day.
+
+In the interview which took place in consequence of this appointment, he
+expressed himself to her in friendly terms, and in a manner calculated
+to sooth her despair. Though he could conduct himself, when absent from
+her, in a way which she censured as unfeeling; this species of sternness
+constantly expired when he came into her presence. Mary was prepared at
+this moment to catch at every phantom of happiness; and the gentleness
+of his carriage, was to her as a sun-beam, awakening the hope of
+returning day. For an instant she gave herself up to delusive visions;
+and, even after the period of delirium expired, she still dwelt, with an
+aching eye, upon the air-built and unsubstantial prospect of a
+reconciliation.
+
+At his particular request, she retained the name of Imlay, which, a
+short time before, he had seemed to dispute with her. "It was not," as
+she expresses herself in a letter to a friend, "for the world that she
+did so--not in the least--but she was unwilling to cut the Gordian knot,
+or tear herself away in appearance, when she could not in reality".
+
+The day after this interview, she set out upon a visit to the country,
+where she spent nearly the whole of the month of March. It was, I
+believe, while she was upon this visit, that some epistolary
+communication with Mr. Imlay, induced her resolutely to expel from her
+mind, all remaining doubt as to the issue of the affair.
+
+Mary was now aware that every demand of forbearance towards him, of duty
+to her child, and even of indulgence to her own deep-rooted
+predilection, was discharged. She determined to rouse herself, and cast
+off for ever an attachment, which to her had been a spring of
+inexhaustible bitterness. Her present residence among the scenes of
+nature, was favourable to this purpose. She was at the house of an old
+and intimate friend, a lady of the name of Cotton, whose partiality for
+her was strong and sincere. Mrs. Cotton's nearest neighbour was Sir
+William East, baronet; and, from the joint effect of the kindness of her
+friend, and the hospitable and distinguishing attentions of this
+respectable family, she derived considerable benefit. She had been
+amused and interested in her journey to Norway; but with this
+difference, that, at that time, her mind perpetually returned with
+trembling anxiety to conjectures respecting Mr. Imlay's future conduct,
+whereas now, with a lofty and undaunted spirit, she threw aside every
+thought that recurred to him, while she felt herself called upon to make
+one more effort for life and happiness.
+
+Once after this, to my knowledge, she saw Mr. Imlay; probably, not long
+after her return to town. They met by accident upon the New Road; he
+alighted from his horse, and walked with her for some time; and the
+rencounter passed, as she assured me, without producing in her any
+oppressive emotion.
+
+Be it observed, by the way, and I may be supposed best to have known the
+real state of the case, she never spoke of Mr. Imlay with acrimony, and
+was displeased when any person, in her hearing, expressed contempt of
+him. She was characterised by a strong sense of indignation; but her
+emotions of this sort were short-lived, and in no long time subsided
+into a dignified sereneness and equanimity.
+
+The question of her connection with Mr. Imlay, as we have seen, was not
+completely dismissed, till March 1796. But it is worthy to be observed,
+that she did not, like ordinary persons under extreme anguish of mind,
+suffer her understanding, in the mean time, to sink into listlessness
+and debility. The most inapprehensive reader may conceive what was the
+mental torture she endured, when he considers, that she was twice, with
+an interval of four months, from the end of May to the beginning of
+October, prompted by it to purposes of suicide. Yet in this period she
+wrote her Letters from Norway. Shortly after its expiration she prepared
+them for the press, and they were published in the close of that year.
+In January 1796, she finished the sketch of a comedy, which turns, in
+the serious scenes, upon the incidents of her own story. It was offered
+to both the winter-managers, and remained among her papers at the
+period of her decease; but it appeared to me to be in so crude and
+imperfect a state, that I judged it most respectful to her memory to
+commit it to the flames. To understand this extraordinary degree of
+activity, we must recollect however the entire solitude, in which most
+of her hours were at that time consumed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. IX.
+
+1796, 1797.
+
+
+I am now led, by the progress of the story, to the last branch of her
+history, the connection between Mary and myself. And this I shall relate
+with the same simplicity that has pervaded every other part of my
+narrative. If there ever were any motives of prudence or delicacy, that
+could impose a qualification upon the story, they are now over. They
+could have no relation but to factitious rules of decorum. There are no
+circumstances of her life, that, in the judgment of honour and reason,
+could brand her with disgrace. Never did there exist a human being, that
+needed, with less fear, expose all their actions, and call upon the
+universe to judge them. An event of the most deplorable sort, has
+awfully imposed silence upon the gabble of frivolity.
+
+We renewed our acquaintance in January 1796, but with no particular
+effect, except so far as sympathy in her anguish, added in my mind to
+the respect I had always entertained for her talents. It was in the
+close of that month that I read her Letters from Norway; and the
+impression that book produced upon me has been already related.
+
+It was on the fourteenth of April that I first saw her after her
+excursion into Berkshire. On that day she called upon me in Somers Town,
+she having, since her return, taken a lodging in Cumming-street,
+Pentonville, at no great distance from the place of my habitation. From
+that time our intimacy increased, by regular, but almost imperceptible
+degrees.
+
+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 other.
+
+In July 1796 I made an excursion into the county of Norfolk, which
+occupied nearly the whole of that month. During this period Mary
+removed, from Cumming-street, Pentonville, to Judd place West, which may
+be considered as the extremity of Somers Town. In the former situation,
+she had occupied a furnished lodging. She had meditated a tour to Italy
+or Switzerland, and knew not how soon she should set out with that view.
+Now however she felt herself reconciled to a longer abode in England,
+probably without exactly knowing why this change had taken place in her
+mind. She had a quantity of furniture locked up at a broker's ever since
+her residence in Store-street, and she now found it adviseable to bring
+it into use. This circumstance occasioned her present removal.
+
+The temporary separation attendant on my little journey, had its effect
+on the mind of both parties. It gave a space for the maturing of
+inclination. I believe that, during this interval, each furnished to the
+other the principal topic of solitary and daily contemplation. Absence
+bestows a refined and aërial delicacy upon affection, which it with
+difficulty acquires in any other way. It seems to resemble the
+communication of spirits, without the medium, or the impediment, of
+this earthly frame.
+
+When we met again, we met with new pleasure, and, I may add, with a more
+decisive preference for each other. It was however three weeks longer,
+before the sentiment which trembled upon the tongue, burst from the lips
+of either. There was, as I have already said, no period of throes and
+resolute explanation attendant on the tale. It was friendship melting
+into love. Previously to our mutual declaration, each felt half-assured,
+yet each felt a certain trembling anxiety to have assurance complete.
+
+Mary rested her head upon the shoulder of her lover, hoping to find a
+heart with which she might safely treasure her world of affection;
+fearing to commit a mistake, yet, in spite of her melancholy
+experience, fraught with that generous confidence, which, in a great
+soul, is never extinguished. I had never loved till now; or, at least,
+had never nourished a passion to the same growth, or met with an object
+so consummately worthy.
+
+We did not marry. It is difficult to recommend any thing to
+indiscriminate adoption, contrary to the established rules and
+prejudices of mankind; but certainly nothing can be so ridiculous upon
+the face of it, 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.
+
+There were however other reasons why we did not immediately marry. Mary
+felt an entire conviction of the propriety of her conduct. It would be
+absurd to suppose that, with a heart withered by desertion, she was not
+right to give way to the emotions of kindness which our intimacy
+produced, and to seek for that support in friendship and affection,
+which could alone give pleasure to her heart, and peace to her
+meditations. It was only about six months since she had resolutely
+banished every thought of Mr. Imlay; but it was at least eighteen that
+he ought to have been banished, and would have been banished, had it not
+been for her scrupulous pertinacity in determining to leave no measure
+untried to regain him. Add to this, that the laws of etiquette
+ordinarily laid down in these cases, are essentially absurd, and that
+the sentiments of the heart cannot submit to be directed by the rule and
+the square. But Mary had an extreme aversion to be made the topic of
+vulgar discussion; and, if there be any weakness in this, the dreadful
+trials through which she had recently passed, may well plead in its
+excuse. She felt that she had been too much, and too rudely spoken of,
+in the former instance; and she could not resolve to do any thing that
+should immediately revive that painful topic.
+
+For myself, it is certain that I had for many years regarded marriage
+with so well-grounded an apprehension, that, notwithstanding the
+partiality for Mary that had taken possession of my soul, I should have
+felt it very difficult, at least in the present stage of our
+intercourse, to have resolved on such a measure. Thus, partly from
+similar, and partly from different motives, we felt alike in this, as we
+did perhaps in every other circumstance that related to our intercourse.
+
+I have nothing further that I find it necessary to record, till the
+commencement of April 1797. We then judged it proper to declare our
+marriage, which had taken place a little before. The principal motive
+for complying with this ceremony, was the circumstance of Mary's being
+in a state of pregnancy. She was unwilling, and perhaps with reason, to
+incur that exclusion from the society of many valuable and excellent
+individuals, which custom awards in cases of this sort. I should have
+felt an extreme repugnance to the having caused her such an
+inconvenience. And, after the experiment of seven months of as intimate
+an intercourse as our respective modes of living would admit, there was
+certainly less hazard to either, in the subjecting ourselves to those
+consequences which the laws of England annex to the relations of husband
+and wife. On the sixth of April we entered into possession of a house,
+which had been taken by us in concert.
+
+In this place I have a very curious circumstance to notice, which I am
+happy to have occasion to mention, as it tends to expose certain
+regulations of polished society, of which the absurdity vies with the
+odiousness. Mary had long possessed the advantage of an acquaintance
+with many persons of genius, and with others whom the effects of an
+intercourse with elegant society, combined with a certain portion of
+information and good sense, sufficed to render amusing companions. She
+had lately extended the circle of her acquaintance in this respect; and
+her mind, trembling between the opposite impressions of past anguish and
+renovating tranquillity, found ease in this species of recreation.
+Wherever Mary appeared, admiration attended upon her. She had always
+displayed talents for conversation; but maturity of understanding, her
+travels, her long residence in France, the discipline of affliction, and
+the smiling, new-born peace which awaked a corresponding smile in her
+animated countenance, inexpressibly increased them. The way in which the
+story of Mr. Imlay was treated in these polite circles, was probably
+the result of the partiality she excited. These elegant personages were
+divided between their cautious adherence to forms, and the desire to
+seek their own gratification. Mary made no secret of the nature of her
+connection with Mr. Imlay; and in one instance, I well know, she put
+herself to the trouble of explaining it to a person totally indifferent
+to her, because he never failed to publish every thing he knew, and, she
+was sure, would repeat her explanation to his numerous acquaintance. She
+was of too proud and generous a spirit to stoop to hypocrisy. These
+persons however, in spite of all that could be said, persisted in
+shutting their eyes, and pretending they took her for a married woman.
+
+Observe the consequence of this! While she was, and constantly
+professed to be, an unmarried mother; she was fit society for the
+squeamish and the formal. The moment she acknowledged herself a wife,
+and that by a marriage perhaps unexceptionable, the case was altered.
+Mary and myself, ignorant as we were of these elevated refinements,
+supposed that our marriage would place her upon a surer footing in the
+calendar of polished society, than ever. But it forced these people to
+see the truth, and to confess their belief of what they had carefully
+been told; and this they could not forgive. Be it remarked, that the
+date of our marriage had nothing to do with this, that question being
+never once mentioned during this period. Mary indeed had, till now,
+retained the name of Imlay which had first been assumed from necessity
+in France; but its being retained thus long, was purely from the
+aukwardness that attends the introduction of a change, and not from an
+apprehension of consequences of this sort. Her scrupulous explicitness
+as to the nature of her situation, surely sufficed to make the name she
+bore perfectly immaterial.
+
+It is impossible to relate the particulars of such a story, but in the
+language of contempt and ridicule. A serious reflection however upon the
+whole, ought to awaken emotions of a different sort. Mary retained the
+most numerous portion of her acquaintance, and the majority of those
+whom she principally valued. It was only the supporters and the subjects
+of the unprincipled manners of a court, that she lost. This however is
+immaterial. The tendency of the proceeding, strictly considered, and
+uniformly acted upon, would have been to proscribe her from all valuable
+society. And who was the person proscribed? The firmest champion, and,
+as I strongly suspect, the greatest ornament her sex ever had to boast!
+A woman, with sentiments as pure, as refined, and as delicate, as ever
+inhabited a human heart! It is fit that such persons should stand by,
+that we may have room enough for the dull and insolent dictators, the
+gamblers and demireps of polished society!
+
+Two of the persons, the loss of whose acquaintance Mary principally
+regretted upon this occasion, were Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Siddons. Their
+acquaintance, it is perhaps fair to observe, is to be ranked among her
+recent acquisitions. Mrs. Siddons, I am sure, regretted the necessity,
+which she conceived to be imposed on her by the peculiarity of her
+situation, to conform to the rules I have described. She is endowed with
+that rich and generous sensibility, which should best enable its
+possessor completely to feel the merits of her deceased friend. She very
+truly observes, in a letter now before me, that the Travels in Norway
+were read by no one, who was in possession of "more reciprocity of
+feeling, or more deeply impressed with admiration of the writer's
+extraordinary powers."
+
+Mary felt a transitory pang, when the conviction reached her of so
+unexpected a circumstance, that was rather exquisite. But she disdained
+to sink under the injustice (as this ultimately was) of the supercilious
+and the foolish, and presently shook off the impression of the first
+surprize. That once subsided, I well know that the event was thought of,
+with no emotions, but those of superiority to the injustice she
+sustained; and was not of force enough, to diminish a happiness, which
+seemed hourly to become more vigorous and firm.
+
+I think I may venture to say, that no two persons ever found in each
+other's society, a satisfaction more pure and refined. What it was in
+itself, can now only be known, in its full extent, to the survivor. But,
+I believe, the serenity of her countenance, the increasing sweetness of
+her manners, and that consciousness of enjoyment that seemed ambitious
+that every one she saw should be happy as well as herself, were matters
+of general observation to all her acquaintance. She had always
+possessed, in an unparalleled degree, the art of communicating
+happiness, and she was now in the constant and unlimited exercise of it.
+She seemed to have attained that situation, which her disposition and
+character imperiously demanded, but which she had never before attained;
+and her understanding and her heart felt the benefit of it.
+
+While we lived as near neighbours only, and before our last removal, her
+mind had attained considerable tranquillity, and was visited but seldom
+with those emotions of anguish, which had been but too familiar to her.
+But the improvement in this respect, which accrued upon our removal and
+establishment, was extremely obvious. She was a worshipper of domestic
+life. She loved to observe the growth of affection between me and her
+daughter, then three years of age, as well as my anxiety respecting the
+child not yet born. Pregnancy itself, unequal as the decree of nature
+seems to be in this respect, is the source of a thousand endearments. No
+one knew better than Mary how to extract sentiments of exquisite
+delight, from trifles, which a suspicious and formal wisdom would
+scarcely deign to remark. A little ride into the country with myself and
+the child, has sometimes produced a sort of opening of the heart, a
+general expression of confidence and affectionate soul, a sort of
+infantine, yet dignified endearment, which those who have felt may
+understand, but which I should in vain attempt to pourtray.
+
+In addition to our domestic pleasures, I was fortunate enough to
+introduce her to some of my acquaintance of both sexes, to whom she
+attached herself with all the ardour of approbation and friendship.
+
+Ours was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish and transitory
+pleasures. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to mention, that, influenced
+by the ideas I had long entertained upon the subject of cohabitation, I
+engaged an apartment, about twenty doors from our house in the Polygon,
+Somers Town, which I designed for the purpose of my study and literary
+occupations. Trifles however will be interesting to some readers, when
+they relate to the last period of the life of such a person as Mary. I
+will add therefore, that we were both of us of opinion, that it was
+possible for two persons to be too uniformly in each other's society.
+Influenced by that opinion, it was my practice to repair to the
+apartment I have mentioned as soon as I rose, and frequently not to make
+my appearance in the Polygon, till the hour of dinner. We agreed in
+condemning the notion, prevalent in many situations in life, that a man
+and his wife cannot visit in mixed society, but in company with each
+other; and we rather sought occasions of deviating from, than of
+complying with, this rule. By these means, though, for the most part, we
+spent the latter half of each day in one another's society, yet we were
+in no danger of satiety. We seemed to combine, in a considerable degree,
+the novelty and lively sensation of visit, with the more delicious and
+heart-felt pleasures of domestic life.
+
+Whatever may be thought, in other respects, of the plan we laid down to
+ourselves, we probably derived a real advantage from it, as to the
+constancy and uninterruptedness of our literary pursuits. Mary had a
+variety of projects of this sort, for the exercise of her talents, and
+the benefit of society; and, if she had lived, I believe the world would
+have had very little reason to complain of any remission of her
+industry. One of her projects, which has been already mentioned, was of
+a series of Letters on the Management of Infants. Though she had been
+for some time digesting her ideas on this subject with a view to the
+press, I have found comparatively nothing that she had committed to
+paper respecting it. Another project, of longer standing, was of a
+series of books for the instruction of children. A fragment she left in
+execution of this project, is inserted in her Posthumous Works.
+
+But the principal work, in which she was engaged for more than twelve
+months before her decease, was a novel, entitled, The Wrongs of Woman. I
+shall not stop here to explain the nature of the work, as so much of it
+as was already written, is now given to the public. I shall only observe
+that, impressed, as she could not fail to be, with the consciousness of
+her talents, she was desirous, in this instance, that they should effect
+what they were capable of effecting. She was sensible how arduous a task
+it is to produce a truly excellent novel; and she roused her faculties
+to grapple with it. All her other works were produced with a rapidity,
+that did not give her powers time fully to expand. But this was written
+slowly and with mature consideration. She began it in several forms,
+which she successively rejected, after they were considerably advanced.
+She wrote many parts of the work again and again, and, when she had
+finished what she intended for the first part, she felt herself more
+urgently stimulated to revise and improve what she had written, than to
+proceed, with constancy of application, in the parts that were to
+follow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. X.
+
+
+I am now led, by the course of my narrative, to the last fatal scene of
+her life. She was taken in labour on Wednesday, the thirtieth of August.
+She had been somewhat indisposed on the preceding Friday, the
+consequence, I believe, of a sudden alarm. But from that time she was in
+perfect health. She was so far from being under any apprehension as to
+the difficulties of child-birth, as frequently to ridicule the fashion
+of ladies in England, who keep their chamber for one full month after
+delivery. For herself, she proposed coming down to dinner on the day
+immediately following. She had already had some experience on the
+subject in the case of Fanny; and I cheerfully submitted in every point
+to her judgment and her wisdom. She hired no nurse. 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. She was sensible that the proper business of a midwife, in the
+instance of a natural labour, is to sit by and wait for the operations
+of nature, which seldom, in these affairs, demand the interposition of
+art.
+
+At five o'clock in the morning of the day of delivery, she felt what
+she conceived to be some notices of the approaching labour. Mrs.
+Blenkinsop, matron and midwife to the Westminster Lying in Hospital, who
+had seen Mary several times previous to her delivery, was soon after
+sent for, and arrived about nine. During the whole day Mary was
+perfectly cheerful. Her pains came on slowly; and, in the morning, she
+wrote several notes, three addressed to me, who had gone, as usual, to
+my apartments, for the purpose of study. About two o'clock in the
+afternoon, she went up to her chamber,--never more to descend.
+
+The child was born at twenty minutes after eleven at night. Mary had
+requested that I would not come into the chamber till all was over, and
+signified her intention of then performing the interesting office of
+presenting the new-born child to its father. I was sitting in a parlour;
+and it was not till after two o'clock on Thursday morning, that I
+received the alarming intelligence, that the placenta was not yet
+removed, and that the midwife dared not proceed any further, and gave
+her opinion for calling in a male practitioner. I accordingly went for
+Dr. Poignand, physician and man-midwife to the same hospital, who
+arrived between three and four hours after the birth of the child. He
+immediately proceeded to the extraction of the placenta, which he
+brought away in pieces, till he was satisfied that the whole was
+removed. In that point however it afterwards appeared that he was
+mistaken.
+
+The period from the birth of the child till about eight o'clock the next
+morning, was a period full of peril and alarm. The loss of blood was
+considerable, and produced an almost uninterrupted series of fainting
+fits. I went to the chamber soon after four in the morning, and found
+her in this state. She told me some time on Thursday, "that she should
+have died the preceding night, but that she was determined not to leave
+me." She added, with one of those smiles which so eminently illuminated
+her countenance, "that I should not be like Porson," alluding to the
+circumstance of that great man having lost his wife, after being only a
+few months married. Speaking of what she had already passed through, she
+declared, "that she had never known what bodily pain was before."
+
+On Thursday morning Dr. Poignand repeated his visit. Mary had just
+before expressed some inclination to see Dr. George Fordyce, a man
+probably of more science than any other medical professor in England,
+and between whom and herself there had long subsisted a mutual
+friendship. I mentioned this to Dr. Poignand, but he rather
+discountenanced the idea, observing that he saw no necessity for it, and
+that he supposed Dr. Fordyce was not particularly conversant with
+obstetrical cases; but that I would do as I pleased. After Dr. Poignand
+was gone, I determined to send for Dr. Fordyce. He accordingly saw the
+patient about three o'clock on Thursday afternoon. He however perceived
+no particular cause of alarm; and, on that or the next day, quoted, as I
+am told, Mary's case, in a mixed company, as a corroboration of a
+favourite idea of his, of the propriety of employing females in the
+capacity of midwives. Mary "had had a woman, and was doing extremely
+well."
+
+What had passed however in the night between Wednesday and Thursday, had
+so far alarmed me, that I did not quit the house, and scarcely the
+chamber, during the following day. But my alarms wore off, as time
+advanced. Appearances were more favourable, than the exhausted state of
+the patient would almost have permitted me to expect. Friday morning
+therefore I devoted to a business of some urgency, which called me to
+different parts of the town, and which, before dinner, I happily
+completed. On my return, and during the evening, I received the most
+pleasurable sensations from the promising state of the patient. I was
+now perfectly satisfied that every thing was safe, and that, if she did
+not take cold, or suffer from any external accident, her speedy recovery
+was certain.
+
+Saturday was a day less auspicious than Friday, but not absolutely
+alarming.
+
+Sunday, the third of September, I now regard as the day, that finally
+decided on the fate of the object dearest to my heart that the universe
+contained. Encouraged by what I considered as the progress of her
+recovery, I accompanied a friend in the morning in several calls, one of
+them as far as Kensington, and did not return till dinner-time. On my
+return I found a degree of anxiety in every face, and was told that she
+had had a sort of shivering fit, and had expressed some anxiety at the
+length of my absence. My sister and a friend of hers, had been engaged
+to dine below stairs, but a message was sent to put them off, and Mary
+ordered that the cloth should not be laid, as usual, in the room
+immediately under her on the first floor, but in the ground-floor
+parlour. I felt a pang at having been so long and so unseasonably
+absent, and determined that I would not repeat the fault.
+
+In the evening she had a second shivering fit, the symptoms of which
+were in the highest degree alarming. Every muscle of the body trembled,
+the teeth chattered, and the bed shook under her. This continued
+probably for five minutes. She told me, after it was over, that it had
+been a struggle between life and death, and that she had been more than
+once, in the course of it, at the point of expiring. I now apprehend
+these to have been the symptoms of a decided mortification, occasioned
+by the part of the placenta that remained in the womb. At the time
+however I was far from considering it in that light. When I went for Dr.
+Poignand, between two and three o'clock on the morning of Thursday,
+despair was in my heart. The fact of the adhesion of the placenta was
+stated to me; and, ignorant as I was of obstetrical science, I felt as
+if the death of Mary was in a manner decided. But hope had re-visited my
+bosom; and her chearings were so delightful, that I hugged her
+obstinately to my heart. I was only mortified at what appeared to me a
+new delay in the recovery I so earnestly longed for. I immediately sent
+for Dr. Fordyce, who had been with her in the morning, as well as on
+the three preceding days. Dr. Poignand had also called this morning but
+declined paying any further visits, as we had thought proper to call in
+Dr. Fordyce.
+
+The progress of the disease was now uninterrupted. On Tuesday I found it
+necessary again to call in Dr. Fordyce in the afternoon, who brought
+with him Dr. Clarke of New Burlington-street, under the idea that some
+operation might be necessary. I have already said, that I pertinaciously
+persisted in viewing the fair side of things; and therefore the interval
+between Sunday and Tuesday evening, did not pass without some mixture of
+cheerfulness. On Monday, Dr. Fordyce forbad the child's having the
+breast, and we therefore procured puppies to draw off the milk. This
+occasioned some pleasantry of Mary with me and the other attendants.
+Nothing could exceed the equanimity, the patience and affectionateness
+of the poor sufferer. I intreated her to recover; I dwelt with trembling
+fondness on every favourable circumstance; and, as far it was possible
+in so dreadful a situation, she, by her smiles and kind speeches,
+rewarded my affection.
+
+Wednesday was to me the day of greatest torture in the melancholy
+series. It was now decided that the only chance of supporting her
+through what she had to suffer, was by supplying her rather freely with
+wine. This task was devolved upon me. I began about four o'clock in the
+afternoon. But for me, totally ignorant of the nature of diseases and of
+the human frame, thus to play with a life that now seemed all that was
+dear to me in the universe, was too dreadful a task. I knew neither what
+was too much, nor what was too little. Having begun, I felt compelled,
+under every disadvantage, to go on. This lasted for three hours. Towards
+the end of that time, I happened foolishly to ask the servant who came
+out of the room, "What she thought of her mistress?" she replied, "that,
+in her judgment, she was going as fast as possible." There are moments,
+when any creature that lives, has power to drive one into madness. I
+seemed to know the absurdity of this reply; but that was of no
+consequence. It added to the measure of my distraction. A little after
+seven I intreated a friend to go for Mr. Carlisle, and bring him
+instantly wherever he was to be found. He had voluntarily called on the
+patient on the preceding Saturday, and two or three times since. He had
+seen her that morning, and had been earnest in recommending the
+wine-diet. That day he dined four miles out of town, on the side of the
+metropolis, which was furthest from us. Notwithstanding this, my friend
+returned with him after three-quarters of an hour's absence. No one who
+knows my friend, will wonder either at his eagerness or success, when I
+name Mr. Basil Montagu. The sight of Mr. Carlisle thus unexpectedly,
+gave me a stronger alleviating sensation, than I thought it possible to
+experience.
+
+Mr. Carlisle left us no more from Wednesday evening, to the hour of her
+death. It was impossible to exceed his kindness and affectionate
+attention. It excited in every spectator a sentiment like adoration.
+His conduct was uniformly tender and anxious, ever upon the watch,
+observing every symptom, and eager to improve every favourable
+appearance. If skill or attention could have saved her, Mary would still
+live. In addition to Mr. Carlisle's constant presence, she had Dr.
+Fordyce and Dr. Clarke every day. She had for nurses, or rather for
+friends, watching every occasion to serve her, Mrs. Fenwick, author of
+an excellent novel, entitled Secrecy, another very kind and judicious
+lady, and a favourite female servant. I was scarcely ever out of the
+room. Four friends, Mr. Fenwick, Mr. Basil Montagu, Mr. Marshal, and Mr.
+Dyson, sat up nearly the whole of the last week of her existence in the
+house, to be dispatched, on any errand, to any part of the metropolis,
+at a moment's warning.
+
+Mr. Carlisle being in the chamber, I retired to bed for a few hours on
+Wednesday night. Towards morning he came into my room with an account
+that the patient was surprisingly better. I went instantly into the
+chamber. But I now sought to suppress every idea of hope. The greatest
+anguish I have any conception of, consists in that crushing of a
+new-born hope which I had already two or three times experienced. If
+Mary recovered, it was well, and I should see it time enough. But it was
+too mighty a thought to bear being trifled with, and turned out and
+admitted in this abrupt way.
+
+I had reason to rejoice in the firmness of my gloomy thoughts, when,
+about ten o'clock on Thursday evening, Mr. Carlisle told us to prepare
+ourselves, for we had reason to expect the fatal event every moment. To
+my thinking, she did not appear to be in that state of total exhaustion,
+which I supposed to precede death; but it is probable that death does
+not always take place by that gradual process I had pictured to myself;
+a sudden pang may accelerate his arrival. She did not die on Thursday
+night.
+
+Till now it does not appear that she had any serious thoughts of dying;
+but on Friday and Saturday, the two last days of her life, she
+occasionally spoke as if she expected it. This was however only at
+intervals; the thought did not seem to dwell upon her mind. Mr. Carlisle
+rejoiced in this. He observed, and there is great force in the
+suggestion, that there is no more pitiable object, than a sick man, that
+knows he is dying. The thought must be expected to destroy his courage,
+to co-operate with the disease, and to counteract every favourable
+effort of nature.
+
+On these two days her faculties were in too decayed a state, to be able
+to follow any train of ideas with force or any accuracy of connection.
+Her religion, as I have already shown, was not calculated to be the
+torment of a sick bed; and, in fact, during her whole illness, not one
+word of a religious cast fell from her lips.
+
+She was affectionate and compliant to the last. I observed on Friday and
+Saturday nights, that, whenever her attendants recommended to her to
+sleep, she discovered her willingness to yield, by breathing, perhaps
+for the space of a minute, in the manner of a person that sleeps, though
+the effort, from the state of her disorder, usually proved ineffectual.
+
+She was not tormented by useless contradiction. One night the servant,
+from an error in judgment, teazed her with idle expostulations, but she
+complained of it grievously, and it was corrected. "Pray, pray, do not
+let her reason with me," was her expression. Death itself is scarcely so
+dreadful to the enfeebled frame, as the monotonous importunity of nurses
+ever-lastingly repeated.
+
+Seeing that every hope was extinct, I was very desirous of obtaining
+from her any directions, that she might wish to have followed after her
+decease. Accordingly, on Saturday morning, I talked to her for a good
+while of the two children. In conformity to Mr. Carlisle's maxim of not
+impressing the idea of death, I was obliged to manage my expressions. I
+therefore affected to proceed wholly upon the ground of her having been
+very ill, and that it would be some time before she could expect to be
+well; wishing her to tell me any thing that she would choose to have
+done respecting the children, as they would now be principally under my
+care. After having repeated this idea to her in a great variety of
+forms, she at length said, with a significant tone of voice, "I know
+what you are thinking of," but added, that she had nothing to
+communicate to me upon the subject.
+
+The shivering fits had ceased entirely for the two last days. Mr.
+Carlisle observed that her continuance was almost miraculous, and he was
+on the watch for favourable appearances, believing it highly improper
+to give up all hope, and remarking, that perhaps one in a million, of
+persons in her state might possibly recover. I conceive that not one in
+a million, unites so good a constitution of body and of mind.
+
+These were the amusements of persons in the very gulph of despair. At
+six o'clock on Sunday morning, September the tenth, Mr. Carlisle called
+me from my bed to which I had retired at one, in conformity to my
+request, that I might not be left to receive all at once the
+intelligence that she was no more. She expired at twenty minutes before
+eight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her remains were deposited, on the fifteenth of September, at ten
+o'clock in the morning, in the church-yard of the parish church of St.
+Pancras, Middlesex. A few of the persons she most esteemed, attended the
+ceremony; and a plain monument is now erecting on the spot, by some of
+her friends, with the following inscription:
+
+       +------------------------------+
+       | MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN,  |
+       |          AUTHOR OF           |
+       |        A VINDICATION         |
+       |   OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.    |
+       |  BORN, XXVII APRIL MDCCLIX.  |
+       | DIED, X SEPTEMBER MDCCXCVII. |
+       +------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The loss of the world in this admirable woman, I leave to other men to
+collect; my own I well know, nor can it be improper to describe it. I do
+not here allude to the personal pleasures I enjoyed in her
+conversation: these increased every day, in proportion as we knew each
+other better, and as our mutual confidence increased. They can be
+measured only by the treasures of her mind, and the virtues of her
+heart. But this is a subject for meditation, not for words. What I
+purposed alluding to, was the improvement that I have for ever lost.
+
+We had cultivated our powers (if I may venture to use this sort of
+language) in different directions; I chiefly an attempt at logical and
+metaphysical distinction, she a taste for the picturesque. One of the
+leading passions of my mind has been an anxious desire not to be
+deceived. This has led me to view the topics of my reflection on all
+sides; and to examine and re-examine without end, the questions that
+interest me.
+
+But it was not merely (to judge at least from all the reports of my
+memory in this respect) the difference of propensities, that made the
+difference in our intellectual habits. I have been stimulated, as long
+as I can remember, by an ambition for intellectual distinction; but, as
+long as I can remember, I have been discouraged, when I have endeavoured
+to cast the sum of my intellectual value, by finding that I did not
+possess, in the degree of some other men, an intuitive perception of
+intellectual beauty. I have perhaps a strong and lively sense of the
+pleasures of the imagination; but I have seldom been right in aligning
+to them their proportionate value, but by dint of persevering
+examination, and the change and correction of my first opinions.
+
+What I wanted in this respect, Mary possessed, in a degree superior to
+any other person I ever knew. The strength of her mind lay in intuition.
+She was often right, by this means only, in matters of mere speculation.
+Her religion, her philosophy, (in both of which the errors were
+comparatively few, and the strain dignified and generous) were, as I
+have already said, the pure result of feeling and taste. She adopted one
+opinion, and rejected another, spontaneously, by a sort of tact, and the
+force of a cultivated imagination; and yet, though perhaps, in the
+strict sense of the term, she reasoned little, it is surprising what a
+degree of soundness is to be found in her determinations. But, if this
+quality was of use to her in topics that seem the proper province of
+reasoning, it was much more so in matters directly appealing to the
+intellectual taste. In a robust and unwavering judgment of this sort,
+there is a kind of witchcraft; when it decides justly, it produces a
+responsive vibration in every ingenuous mind. In this sense, my
+oscillation and scepticism were fixed by her boldness. When a true
+opinion emanated in this way from another mind, the conviction produced
+in my own assumed a similar character, instantaneous and firm. This
+species of intellect probably differs from the other, chiefly in the
+relation of earlier and later. What the one perceives instantaneously
+(circumstances having produced in it, either a premature attention to
+objects of this sort, or a greater boldness of decision) the other
+receives only by degrees. What it wants, seems to be nothing more than a
+minute attention to first impressions, and a just appreciation of them;
+habits that are never so effectually generated, as by the daily
+recurrence of a striking example.
+
+This light was lent to me for a very short period, and is now
+extinguished for ever!
+
+While I have described the improvement I was in the act of receiving, I
+believe I have put down the leading traits of her intellectual
+character.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of
+the Rights of Woman, by William Godwin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman
+
+Author: William Godwin
+
+Release Date: July 4, 2005 [EBook #16199]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<hr style="width: 95%;" />
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/mary2.jpg"
+alt="Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin."
+title="Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin." />
+<br /><span class="caption">Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>MEMOIRS<br />
+<span class="smcap"><small>of the</small></span><br />
+AUTHOR<br />
+<span class="smcap"><small>of a</small></span><br />
+VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.<br /><br /></h1>
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">By</span> WILLIAM GODWIN.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><i>LONDON</i>:<br />
+<span class="smcap">printed for j. johnson, no. 72, st. paul's<br />
+church.yard; and g.g. and j. robinson,<br />
+paternoster-row.</span><br />
+1798.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAP_I"><b><small>CHAP. I</small></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAP_II"><b><small>CHAP. II</small></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAP_III"><b><small>CHAP. III.</small></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAP_IV"><b><small>CHAP. IV.</small></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAP_V"><b><small>CHAP. V.</small></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAP_VI"><b><small>CHAP. VI.</small></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAP_VII"><b><small>CHAP. VII.</small></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAP_VIII"><b><small>CHAP. VIII.</small></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAP_IX"><b><small>CHAP. IX.</small></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAP_X"><b><small>CHAP. X.</small></b></a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>MEMOIRS.<br /><br /></h1>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAP_I" id="CHAP_I"></a>CHAP. I.</h2>
+
+<h3>1759-1775.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It has always appeared to me, that
+to give to the public some account of
+the life of a person of eminent merit
+deceased, is a duty incumbent on survivors.
+It seldom happens that such
+a person passes through life, without
+being the subject of thoughtless calumny,
+or malignant misrepresentation.<a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>
+It cannot happen that the public at
+large should be on a footing with their
+intimate acquaintance, and be the observer
+of those virtues which discover
+themselves principally in personal intercourse.
+Every benefactor of mankind
+is more or less influenced by a
+liberal passion for fame; and survivors
+only pay a debt due to these benefactors,
+when they assert and establish on
+their part, the honour they loved. The
+justice which is thus done to the illustrious
+dead, converts into the fairest
+source of animation and encouragement
+to those who would follow them
+in the same carreer. The human
+species at large is interested in this
+justice, as it teaches them to place
+their respect and affection, upon those
+qualities which best deserve to be
+esteemed and loved. I cannot easily
+<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>prevail on myself to doubt, that the
+more fully we are presented with the
+picture and story of such persons as
+the subject of the following narrative,
+the more generally shall we feel in
+ourselves an attachment to their fate,
+and a sympathy in their excellencies.
+There are not many individuals with
+whose character the public welfare
+and improvement are more intimately
+connected, than the author of A Vindication
+of the Rights of Woman.</p>
+
+<p>The facts detailed in the following
+pages, are principally taken from the
+mouth of the person to whom they
+relate; and of the veracity and ingenuousness
+of her habits, perhaps no
+one that was ever acquainted with her,
+entertains a doubt. The writer of this
+narrative, when he has met with persons,
+that in any degree created to
+<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>themselves an interest and attachment
+in his mind, has always felt a curiosity
+to be acquainted with the scenes
+through which they had passed, and
+the incidents that had contributed to
+form their understandings and character.
+Impelled by this sentiment, he
+repeatedly led the conversation of
+Mary to topics of this sort; and, once
+or twice, he made notes in her presence,
+of a few dates calculated to
+arrange the circumstances in his mind.
+To the materials thus collected, he has
+added an industrious enquiry among
+the persons most intimately acquainted
+with her at the different periods of
+her life.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mary Wollstonecraft was born on
+the 27th of April 1759. Her father's
+name was Edward John, and the name
+<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>of her mother Elizabeth, of the family
+of Dixons of Ballyshannon in the kingdom
+of Ireland: her paternal grandfather
+was a respectable manufacturer
+in Spitalfields, and is supposed to have
+left to his son a property of about
+10,000l. Three of her brothers and
+two sisters are still living; their names,
+Edward, James, Charles, Eliza, and
+Everina. Of these, Edward only was
+older than herself; he resides in London.
+James is in Paris, and Charles in
+or near Philadelphia in America. Her
+sisters have for some years been engaged
+in the office of governesses in
+private families, and are both at present
+in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>I am doubtful whether the father of
+Mary was bred to any profession; but,
+about the time of her birth, he resorted,
+rather perhaps as an amusement than
+<a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>a business, to the occupation of farming.
+He was of a very active, and
+somewhat versatile disposition, and so
+frequently changed his abode, as to
+throw some ambiguity upon the place
+of her birth. She told me, that the
+doubt in her mind in that respect, lay
+between London, and a farm upon
+Epping Forest, which was the principal
+scene of the five first years of her
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Mary was distinguished in early
+youth, by some portion of that exquisite
+sensibility, soundness of understanding,
+and decision of character, which
+were the leading features of her mind
+through the whole course of her life.
+She experienced in the first period of
+her existence, but few of those indulgences
+and marks of affection, which
+are principally calculated to sooth the
+<a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>subjection and sorrows of our early
+years. She was not the favourite
+either of her father or mother. Her
+father was a man of a quick, impetuous
+disposition, subject to alternate fits
+of kindness and cruelty. In his family
+he was a despot, and his wife appears
+to have been the first, and most submissive
+of his subjects. The mother's
+partiality was fixed upon the eldest son,
+and her system of government relative
+to Mary, was characterized by considerable
+rigour. She, at length, became
+convinced of her mistake, and adopted
+a different plan with her younger
+daughters. When, in the Wrongs of
+Woman, Mary speaks of "the petty
+cares which obscured the morning of
+her heroine's life; continual restraint
+in the most trivial matters; unconditional
+submission to orders, which, as a
+<a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>mere child, she soon discovered to be
+unreasonable, because inconsistent and
+contradictory; and the being often
+obliged to sit, in the presence of her
+parents, for three or four hours together,
+without daring to utter a word;"
+she is, I believe, to be considered as
+copying the outline of the first period
+of her own existence.</p>
+
+<p>But it was in vain, that the blighting
+winds of unkindness or indifference,
+seemed destined to counteract the superiority
+of Mary's mind. It surmounted
+every obstacle; and, by degrees,
+from a person little considered
+in the family, she became in some sort
+its director and umpire. The despotism
+of her education cost her many
+a heart-ache. She was not formed to
+be the contented and unresisting subject
+of a despot; but I have heard her
+<a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>remark more than once, that, when she
+felt she had done wrong, the reproof
+or chastisement of her mother, instead
+of being a terror to her, she found to
+be the only thing capable of reconciling
+her to herself. The blows of her father
+on the contrary, which were the
+mere ebullitions of a passionate temper,
+instead of humbling her, roused
+her indignation. Upon such occasions
+she felt her superiority, and was apt to
+betray marks of contempt. The quickness
+of her father's temper, led him
+sometimes to threaten similar violence
+towards his wife. When that was the
+case, Mary would often throw herself
+between the despot and his victim,
+with the purpose to receive upon her
+own person the blows that might be
+directed against her mother. She has
+even laid whole nights upon the <a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>landing-place
+near their chamber-door,
+when, mistakenly, or with reason, she
+apprehended that her father might
+break out into paroxysms of violence.
+The conduct he held towards the members
+of his family, was of the same
+kind as that he observed towards animals.
+He was for the most part extravagantly
+fond of them; but, when he
+was displeased, and this frequently
+happened, and for very trivial reasons,
+his anger was alarming. Mary
+was what Dr. Johnson would have
+called, "a very good hater." In some
+instance of passion exercised by her
+father to one of his dogs, she was accustomed
+to speak of her emotions of
+abhorrence, as having risen to agony.
+In a word, her conduct during her
+girlish years, was such, as to extort
+some portion of affection from her <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>mother,
+and to hold her father in considerable
+awe.</p>
+
+<p>In one respect, the system of education
+of the mother appears to have had
+merit. All her children were vigorous
+and healthy. This seems very
+much to depend upon the management
+of our infant years. It is affirmed by
+some persons of the present day, most
+profoundly skilled in the sciences of
+health and disease, that there is no
+period of human life so little subject to
+mortality, as the period of infancy.
+Yet, from the mismanagement to
+which children are exposed, many of
+the diseases of childhood are rendered
+fatal, and more persons die in that, than
+in any other period of human life.
+Mary had projected a work upon this
+subject, which she had carefully considered,
+and well understood. She has
+<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>indeed left a specimen of her skill in
+this respect in her eldest daughter,
+three years and a half old, who is a singular
+example of vigorous constitution
+and florid health. Mr. Anthony Carlisle,
+surgeon, of Soho-square, whom
+to name is sufficiently to honour, had
+promised to revise her production.
+This is but one out of numerous projects
+of activity and usefulness, which
+her untimely death has fatally terminated.</p>
+
+<p>The rustic situation in which Mary
+spent her infancy, no doubt contributed
+to confirm the stamina of her constitution.
+She sported in the open air,
+and amidst the picturesque and refreshing
+scenes of nature, for which she
+always retained the most exquisite relish.
+Dolls and the other amusements
+usually appropriated to female <a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>children,
+she held in contempt; and felt a
+much greater propensity to join in the
+active and hardy sports of her brothers,
+than to confine herself to those of her
+own sex.</p>
+
+<p>About the time that Mary completed
+the fifth year of her age, her father
+removed to a small distance from his
+former habitation, and took a farm
+near the Whalebone upon Epping
+Forest, a little way out of the Chelmsford
+road. In Michaelmas 1765, he
+once more changed his residence, and
+occupied a convenient house behind
+the town of Barking in Essex, eight
+miles from London. In this situation
+some of their nearest neighbours were,
+Bamber Gascoyne, esquire, successively
+member of parliament for several boroughs,
+and his brother, Mr. Joseph
+Gascoyne. Bamber Gascoyne resided
+<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>but little on this spot; but his brother
+was almost a constant inhabitant, and
+his family in habits of the most frequent
+intercourse with the family of Mary.
+Here Mr. Wollstonecraft remained for
+three years. In September 1796, I
+accompanied my wife in a visit to this
+spot. No person reviewed with greater
+sensibility, the scenes of her childhood.
+We found the house uninhabited, and
+the garden in a wild and ruinous state.
+She renewed her acquaintance with
+the market-place, the streets, and the
+wharf, the latter of which we found
+crowded with barges, and full of activity.</p>
+
+<p>In Michaelmas 1768, Mr. Wollstonecraft
+again removed to a farm near
+Beverley in Yorkshire. Here the family
+remained for six years, and consequently,
+Mary did not quit this <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>residence,
+till she had attained the age of
+fifteen years and five months. The
+principal part of her school-education
+passed during this period; but it was
+not to any advantage of infant literature,
+that she was indebted for her
+subsequent eminence; her education
+in this respect was merely such, as was
+afforded by the day-schools of the
+place, in which she resided. To her
+recollections Beverley appeared a very
+handsome town, surrounded by genteel
+families, and with a brilliant assembly.
+She was surprized, when she visited it
+in 1795, upon her voyage to Norway,
+to find the reality so very much below
+the picture in her imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto Mr. Wollstonecraft had
+been a farmer; but the restlessness of
+his disposition would not suffer him to
+content himself with the occupation
+<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>in which for some years he had been
+engaged, and the temptation of a commercial
+speculation of some sort being
+held out to him, he removed to a house
+in Queen's-Row, in Hoxton near London,
+for the purpose of its execution.
+Here he remained for a year and a
+half; but, being frustrated in his expectations
+of profit, he, after that term,
+gave up the project in which he was
+engaged, and returned to his former
+pursuits. During this residence at
+Hoxton, the writer of these memoirs
+inhabited, as a student, at the dissenting
+college in that place. It is perhaps
+a question of curious speculation to
+enquire, what would have been the
+amount of the difference in the pursuits
+and enjoyments of each party, if
+they had met, and considered each other
+with the same distinguishing regard in<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>
+1776, as they were afterwards impressed
+with in the year 1796. The
+writer had then completed the twentieth,
+and Mary the seventeenth year
+of her age. Which would have been
+predominant; the disadvantages of
+obscurity, and the pressure of a family;
+or the gratifications and improvement
+that might have flowed from their intercourse?</p>
+
+<p>One of the acquaintances Mary
+formed at this time was with a Mr.
+Clare, who inhabited the next house
+to that which was tenanted by her
+father, and to whom she was probably
+in some degree indebted for the
+early cultivation of her mind. Mr.
+Clare was a clergyman, and appears
+to have been a humourist of a very singular
+cast. In his person he was deformed
+and delicate; and his figure,<a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>
+I am told, bore a resemblance to that
+of the celebrated Pope. He had a
+fondness for poetry, and was not destitute
+of taste. His manners were expressive
+of a tenderness and benevolence,
+the demonstrations of which
+appeared to have been somewhat too
+artificially cultivated. His habits were
+those of a perfect recluse. He seldom
+went out of his drawing-room, and he
+showed to a friend of Mary a pair of
+shoes, which had served him, he said,
+for fourteen years. Mary frequently
+spent days and weeks together, at the
+house of Mr. Clare.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAP_II" id="CHAP_II"></a>CHAP. II</h2>
+
+<h3>1775-1783.</h3>
+
+
+<p>But a connection more memorable
+originated about this time, between
+Mary and a person of her own sex, for
+whom she contracted a friendship so
+fervent, as for years to have constituted
+the ruling passion of her mind. The
+name of this person was Frances
+Blood; she was two years older than
+Mary. Her residence was at that time
+at Newington Butts, a village near the
+<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>southern extremity of the metropolis;
+and the original instrument for bringing
+these two friends acquainted, was Mrs.
+Clare, wife of the gentleman already
+mentioned, who was on a footing of
+considerable intimacy with both parties.
+The acquaintance of Fanny, like
+that of Mr. Clare, contributed to ripen
+the immature talents of Mary.</p>
+
+<p>The situation in which Mary was
+introduced to her, bore a resemblance
+to the first interview of Werter with
+Charlotte. She was conducted to the
+door of a small house, but furnished
+with peculiar neatness and propriety.
+The first object that caught her sight,
+was a young woman of a slender and
+elegant form, and eighteen years of
+age, busily employed in feeding and
+managing some children, born of the
+same parents, but considerably inferior
+<a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>to her in age. The impression Mary
+received from this spectacle was indelible;
+and, before the interview was
+concluded, she had taken, in her heart,
+the vows of an eternal friendship.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny was a young woman of extraordinary
+accomplishments. She sung
+and played with taste. She drew with
+exquisite fidelity and neatness; and, by
+the employment of this talent, for some
+time maintained her father, mother,
+and family, but ultimately ruined her
+health by her extraordinary exertions.
+She read and wrote with considerable
+application; and the same ideas
+of minute and delicate propriety followed
+her in these, as in her other
+occupations.</p>
+
+<p>Mary, a wild, but animated and
+aspiring girl of sixteen, contemplated
+Fanny, in the first instance, with <a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>sentiments
+of inferiority and reverence.
+Though they were much together, yet,
+the distance of their habitation being
+considerable, they supplied the want of
+mere frequent interviews by an assiduous
+correspondence. Mary found
+Fanny's letters better spelt and better
+indited than her own, and felt herself
+abashed. She had hitherto paid but a
+superficial attention to literature. She
+had read, to gratify the ardour of an
+inextinguishable thirst of knowledge;
+but she had not thought of writing as
+an art. Her ambition to excel was
+now awakened, and she applied herself
+with passion and earnestness. Fanny
+undertook to be her instructor; and, so
+far as related to accuracy and method,
+her lessons were given with considerable
+skill.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>It has already been mentioned that,
+in the spring of the year 1776, Mr.
+Wollstonecraft quitted his situation at
+Hoxton, and returned to his former
+agricultural pursuits. The situation
+upon which he now fixed was in
+Wales, a circumstance that was felt as
+a severe blow to Mary's darling spirit
+of friendship. The principal acquaintance
+of the Wollstonecrafts in this retirement,
+was the family of a Mr.
+Allen, two of whose daughters are
+since married to the two elder sons of
+the celebrated English potter, Josiah
+Wedgwood.</p>
+
+<p>Wales however was Mr. Wollstonecraft's
+residence for little more than a
+year. He returned to the neighbourhood
+of London; and Mary, whose
+spirit of independence was unalterable,
+had influence enough to determine his
+<a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>choice in favour of the village of Walworth,
+that she might be near her
+chosen friend. It was probably before
+this, that she has once or twice started
+the idea of quitting her parental roof,
+and providing for herself. But she
+was prevailed upon to resign this idea,
+and conditions were stipulated with
+her, relative to her having an apartment
+in the house that should be exclusively
+her own, and her commanding
+the other requisites of study. She did
+not however think herself fairly treated
+in these instances, and either the conditions
+abovementioned, or some others,
+were not observed in the sequel, with
+the fidelity she expected. In one case,
+she had procured an eligible situation,
+and every thing was settled respecting
+her removal to it, when the intreaties
+and tears of her mother led her to <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>surrender
+her own inclinations, and abandon
+the engagement.</p>
+
+<p>These however were only temporary
+delays. Her propensities continued
+the same, and the motives by which
+she was instigated were unabated. In
+the year 1778, she being nineteen
+years of age, a proposal was made to
+her of living as a companion with a
+Mrs. Dawson of Bath, a widow lady,
+with one son already adult. Upon enquiry
+she found that Mrs. Dawson was
+a woman of great peculiarity of temper,
+that she had had a variety of companions
+in succession, and that no one
+had found it practicable to continue
+with her. Mary was not discouraged
+by this information, and accepted the
+situation, with a resolution that she
+would effect in this respect, what none
+of her predecessors had been able to
+<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>do. In the sequel she had reason to
+consider the account she had received
+as sufficiently accurate, but she did not
+relax in her endeavours. By method,
+constancy and firmness, she found the
+means of making her situation tolerable;
+and Mrs. Dawson would occasionally
+confess, that Mary was the only
+person that had lived with her in that
+situation, in her treatment of whom she
+had felt herself under any restraint.</p>
+
+<p>With Mrs. Dawson she continued to
+reside for two years, and only left her,
+summoned by the melancholy circumstance of
+her mother's rapidly declining
+health. True to the calls of humanity,
+Mary felt in this intelligence an irresistible
+motive, and eagerly returned to
+the paternal roof, which she had before
+resolutely quitted. The residence of
+her father at this time, was at Enfield
+<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>near London. He had, I believe,
+given up agriculture from the time of
+his quitting Wales, it appearing that
+he now made it less a source of profit
+than loss, and being thought advisable
+that he should rather live upon the
+interest of his property already in
+possession.</p>
+
+<p>The illness of Mrs. Wollstonecraft
+was lingering, but hopeless. Mary
+was assiduous in her attendance upon
+her mother. At first, every attention
+was received with acknowledgments
+and gratitude; but, as the attentions
+grew habitual, and the health of the
+mother more and more wretched, they
+were rather exacted, than received.
+Nothing would be taken by the unfortunate
+patient, but from the hands of
+Mary; rest was denied night or day,
+and by the time nature was exhausted
+<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>in the parent, the daughter was qualified
+to assume her place, and become in
+turn herself a patient. The last words
+her mother ever uttered were, "A
+little patience, and all will be over!"
+and these words are repeatedly referred
+to by Mary in the course of her
+writings.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the death of Mrs. Wollstonecraft,
+Mary bid a final adieu to the
+roof of her father. According to my
+memorandums, I find her next the inmate
+of Fanny at Walham Green, near
+the village of Fulham. Upon what
+plan they now lived together I am unable
+to ascertain; certainly not that of
+Mary's becoming in any degree an additional
+burthen upon the industry of
+her friend. Thus situated, their intimacy
+ripened; they approached more
+nearly to a footing of equality; and
+<a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>their attachment became more rooted
+and active.</p>
+
+<p>Mary was ever ready at the call of
+distress, and, in particular, during her
+whole life was eager and active to promote
+the welfare of every member of
+her family. In 1780 she attended the
+death-bed of her mother; in 1782 she
+was summoned by a not less melancholy
+occasion, to attend her sister
+Eliza, married to a Mr. Bishop, who,
+subsequently to a dangerous lying-in,
+remained for some months in a very afflicting
+situation. Mary continued with
+her sister without intermission, to her
+perfect recovery.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAP_III" id="CHAP_III"></a>CHAP. III.</h2>
+
+<h3>1783-1785.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mary was now arrived at the twenty-fourth
+year of her age. Her project,
+five years before, had been personal
+independence; it was now usefulness.
+In the solitude of attendance on her
+sister's illness, and during the subsequent
+convalescence, she had had leisure
+to ruminate upon purposes of this
+sort. Her expanded mind led her to
+seek something more arduous than the
+mere removal of personal vexations;
+<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>and the sensibility of her heart would
+not suffer her to rest in solitary gratifications.
+The derangement of her father's
+affairs daily became more and
+more glaring; and a small independent
+provision made for herself and her
+sisters, appears to have been sacrificed
+in the wreck. For ten years, from 1782
+to 1792, she may be said to have been,
+in a great degree, the victim of a desire
+to promote the benefit of others. She
+did not foresee the severe disappointment
+with which an exclusive purpose
+of this sort is pregnant; she was inexperienced
+enough to lay a stress upon
+the consequent gratitude of those she
+benefited; and she did not sufficiently
+consider that, in proportion as we
+involve ourselves in the interests and
+society of others, we acquire a more
+exquisite sense of their defects, and are
+<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>tormented with their untractableness
+and folly.</p>
+
+<p>The project upon which she now
+determined, was no other than that
+of a day-school, to be superintended by
+Fanny Blood, herself, and her two
+sisters.</p>
+
+<p>They accordingly opened one in the
+year 1783, at the village of Islington;
+but in the course of a few months removed
+it to Newington Green. Here
+Mary formed some acquaintances who
+influenced the future events of her life.
+The first of these in her own estimation,
+was Dr. Richard Price, well known for
+his political and mathematical calculations,
+and universally esteemed by
+those who knew him, for the simplicity
+of his manners, and the ardour of his
+benevolence. The regard conceived
+by these two persons for each other,
+<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>was mutual, and partook of a spirit of
+the purest attachment. Mary had been
+bred in the principles of the church of
+England, but her esteem for this venerable
+preacher led her occasionally to
+attend upon his public instructions.
+Her religion was, in reality, little allied
+to any system of forms; and, as she has
+often told me, was founded rather in
+taste, than in the niceties of polemical
+discussion. Her mind constitutionally
+attached itself to the sublime and the
+amiable. She found an inexpressible
+delight in the beauties of nature, and
+in the splendid reveries of the imagination.
+But nature itself, she thought,
+would be no better than a vast blank,
+if the mind of the observer did not
+supply it with an animating soul. When
+she walked amidst the wonders of
+nature, she was accustomed to converse
+<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>with her God. To her mind he was
+pictured as not less amiable, generous
+and kind, than great, wise and exalted.
+In fact, she had received few lessons of
+religion in her youth, and her religion
+was almost entirely of her own creation.
+But she was not on that account
+the less attached to it, or the less scrupulous
+in discharging what she considered
+as its duties. She could not
+recollect the time when she had believed
+the doctrine of future punishments.
+The tenets of her system
+were the growth of her own moral
+taste, and her religion therefore had
+always been a gratification, never a
+terror, to her. She expected a future
+state; but she would not allow her ideas
+of that future state to be modified by
+the notions of judgment and retribution.
+From this sketch, it is <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>sufficiently
+evident, that the pleasure she
+took in an occasional attendance upon
+the sermons of Dr. Price, was not accompanied
+with a superstitious adherence
+to his doctrines. The fact is,
+that, as far down as the year 1787, she
+regularly frequented public worship,
+for the most part according to the
+forms of the church of England. After
+that period her attendance became less
+constant, and in no long time was
+wholly discontinued. I believe it may
+be admitted as a maxim, that no person
+of a well furnished mind, that has
+shaken off the implicit subsection of
+youth, and is not the zealous partizan
+of a sect, can bring himself to conform
+to the public and regular routine of
+sermons and prayers.</p>
+
+<p>Another of the friends she acquired
+at this period, was Mrs. Burgh, widow
+<a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>of the author of the Political Disquisitions,
+a woman universally well spoken
+of for the warmth and purity of her
+benevolence. Mary, whenever she had
+occasion to allude to her, to the last
+period of her life, paid the tribute due
+to her virtues. The only remaining
+friend necessary to be enumerated in
+this place, is the rev. John Hewlet,
+now master of a boarding-school at
+Shacklewel near Hackney, whom I
+shall have occasion to mention hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said that Fanny's
+health had been materially injured by
+her incessant labours for the maintenance
+of her family. She had also suffered
+a disappointment, which preyed
+upon her mind. To these different
+sources of ill health she became gradually
+a victim; and at length discovered
+<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>all the symptoms of a pulmonary consumption.
+By the medical men that
+attended her, she was advised to try the
+effects of a southern climate; and,
+about the beginning of the year 1785,
+sailed for Lisbon.</p>
+
+<p>The first feeling with which Mary
+had contemplated her friend, was a
+sentiment of inferiority and reverence;
+but that, from the operation of a ten
+years' acquaintance, was considerably
+changed. Fanny had originally been
+far before her in literary attainments;
+this disparity no longer existed. In
+whatever degree Mary might endeavour
+to free herself from the delusions
+of self-esteem, this period of observation
+upon her own mind and that of
+her friend, could not pass, without her
+perceiving that there were some essential
+characteristics of genius, which she
+<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>possessed, and in which her friend was
+deficient. The principal of these was
+a firmness of mind, an unconquerable
+greatness of soul, by which, after a
+short internal struggle, she was accustomed
+to rise above difficulties and
+suffering. Whatever Mary undertook,
+she perhaps in all instances accomplished;
+and, to her lofty spirit, scarcely
+anything she desired, appeared hard to
+perform. Fanny, on the contrary, was
+a woman of a timid and irresolute nature,
+accustomed to yield to difficulties,
+and probably priding herself in this
+morbid softness of her temper. One
+instance that I have heard Mary relate
+of this sort, was, that, at a certain time,
+Fanny, dissatisfied with her domestic
+situation, expressed an earnest desire to
+have a home of her own. Mary, who
+felt nothing more pressing than to <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>relieve
+the inconveniences of her friend,
+determined to accomplish this object
+for her. It cost her infinite exertions;
+but at length she was able to announce
+to Fanny that a house was prepared,
+and that she was on the spot to receive
+her. The answer which Fanny returned
+to the letter of her friend, consisted
+almost wholly of an enumeration
+of objections to the quitting her family,
+which she had not thought of before,
+but which now appeared to her of considerable
+weight.</p>
+
+<p>The judgment which experience had
+taught Mary to form of the mind of
+her friend, determined her in the advice
+she gave, at the period to which I have
+brought down the story. Fanny was
+recommended to seek a softer climate,
+but she had no funds to defray the expence
+of such an undertaking. At this
+<a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>time Mr. Hugh Skeys of Dublin, but
+then resident in the kingdom of Portugal,
+paid his addresses to her. The
+state of her health Mary considered as
+such as scarcely to afford the shadow of
+a hope; it was not therefore a time at
+which it was most obvious to think of
+marriage. She conceived however that
+nothing should be omitted, which
+might alleviate, if it could not cure;
+and accordingly urged her speedy acceptance
+of the proposal. Fanny accordingly
+made the voyage to Lisbon;
+and the marriage took place on the
+twenty-fourth of February 1785.</p>
+
+<p>The change of climate and situation
+was productive of little benefit; and the
+life of Fanny was only prolonged by a
+period of pregnancy, which soon declared
+itself. Mary, in the mean time,
+was impressed with the idea that her
+<a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>friend would die in this distant country;
+and, shocked with the recollection of
+her separation from the circle of her
+friends, determined to pass over to
+Lisbon to attend her. This resolution
+was treated by her acquaintance as in
+the utmost degree visionary; but she
+was not to be diverted from her point.
+She had not money to defray her expences:
+she must quit for a long time
+the school, the very existence of which
+probably depended upon her exertions.</p>
+
+<p>No person was ever better formed
+for the business of education; if it be
+not a sort of absurdity to speak of a
+person as formed for an inferior object,
+who is in possession of talents, in the
+fullest degree adequate to something
+on a more important and comprehensive
+scale. Mary had a quickness of <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>temper,
+not apt to take offence with inadvertencies,
+but which led her to imagine
+that she saw the mind of the
+person with whom she had any transaction,
+and to refer the principle of
+her approbation or displeasure to the
+cordiality or injustice of their sentiments.
+She was occasionally severe
+and imperious in her resentments; and,
+when she strongly disapproved, was
+apt to express her censure in terms
+that gave a very humiliating sensation
+to the person against whom it was directed.
+Her displeasure however never
+assumed its severest form, but when it
+was barbed by disappointment. Where
+she expected little, she was not very
+rigid in her censure of error.</p>
+
+<p>But, to whatever the defects of her
+temper might amount, they were never
+exercised upon her inferiors in station
+<a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>or age. She scorned to make use of an
+ungenerous advantage, or to wound the
+defenceless. To her servants there
+never was a mistress more considerate
+or more kind. With children she
+was the mirror of patience. Perhaps,
+in all her extensive experience upon
+the subject of education, she never betrayed
+one symptom of irascibility. Her
+heart was the seat of every benevolent
+feeling; and accordingly, in all her
+intercourse with children, it was kindness
+and sympathy alone that prompted
+her conduct. Sympathy, when it
+mounts to a certain height, inevitably
+begets affection in the person towards
+whom it is exercised; and I have heard
+her say, that she never was concerned
+in the education of one child, who was
+not personally attached to her, and
+earnestly concerned, not to incur her
+<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>displeasure. Another eminent advantage
+she possessed in the business of
+education, was that she was little troubled
+with scepticism and uncertainty.
+She saw, as it were by intuition, the
+path which her mind determined to
+pursue, and had a firm confidence in
+her own power to effect what she desired.
+Yet, with all this, she had
+scarcely a tincture of obstinacy. She
+carefully watched symptoms as they
+rose, and the success of her experiments;
+and governed herself accordingly.
+While I thus enumerate her
+more than maternal qualities, it is impossible
+not to feel a pang at the recollection
+of her orphan children!</p>
+
+<p>Though her friends earnestly dissuaded
+her from the journey to Lisbon,
+she found among them a <a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>willingness
+facilitate the execution of her
+project, when it was once fixed. Mrs.
+Burgh in particular, supplied her with
+money, which however she always conceived
+came from Dr. Price. This
+loan, I have reason to believe, was
+faithfully repaid.</p>
+
+<p>It was during her residence at Newington
+Green, that she was introduced
+to the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson,
+who was at that time considered as in
+some sort the father of English literature.
+The doctor treated her with
+particular kindness and attention, had
+a long conversation with her, and desired
+her to repeat her visit often. This
+she firmly purposed to do; but the
+news of his last illness, and then of his
+death, intervened to prevent her making
+a second visit.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>Her residence in Lisbon was not
+long. She arrived but a short time
+before her friend was prematurely delivered,
+and the event was fatal to
+both mother and child. Frances Blood,
+hitherto the chosen object of Mary's
+attachment, died on the twenty-ninth
+of November 1785.</p>
+
+<p>It is thus that she speaks of her in her
+Letters from Norway, written ten years
+after her decease. "When a warm heart
+has received strong impressions, they are
+not to be effaced. Emotions become
+sentiments; and the imagination renders
+even 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
+<a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>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."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAP_IV" id="CHAP_IV"></a>CHAP. IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>1785-1787.</h3>
+
+
+<p>No doubt the voyage to Lisbon
+tended considerably to enlarge the
+understanding of Mary. She was admitted
+into the best company the
+English factory afforded. She made
+many profound observations on the
+character of the natives, and the baleful
+effects of superstition. The obsequies
+of Fanny, which it was necessary
+to perform by stealth and in <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>darkness,
+tended to invigorate these observations
+in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>She sailed upon her voyage home
+about the twentieth of December.
+On this occasion a circumstance
+occurred, that deserves to be recorded.
+While they were on their passage,
+they fell in with a French vessel,
+in great distress, and in daily expectation
+of foundering at sea, at the
+same time that it was almost destitute
+of provisions. The Frenchman hailed
+them, and intreated the English captain,
+in consideration of his melancholy
+situation, to take him and his crew on
+board. The Englishman represented
+in reply, that his stock of provisions
+was by no means adequate to such an
+additional number of mouths, and absolutely
+refused compliance. Mary,
+shocked at his apparent insensibility,
+took up the cause of the sufferers, and
+<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>threatened the captain to have him
+called to a severe account, when he
+arrived in England. She finally prevailed,
+and had the satisfaction to reflect,
+that the persons in question
+possibly owed their lives to her interposition.</p>
+
+<p>When she arrived in England, she
+found that her school had suffered considerably
+in her absence. It can be
+little reproach to any one, to say that
+they were found incapable of supplying
+her place. She not only excelled in
+the management of the children, but
+had also the talent of being attentive
+and obliging to the parents, without
+degrading herself.</p>
+
+<p>The period at which I am now arrived
+is important, as conducting to
+the first step of her literary carreer.
+Mr. Hewlet had frequently mentioned
+<a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>literature to Mary as a certain source
+of pecuniary produce, and had urged
+her to make trial of the truth of his
+judgment. At this time she was desirous
+of assisting the father and mother
+of Fanny in an object they had in view,
+the transporting themselves to Ireland;
+and, as usual, what she desired in a
+pecuniary view, she was ready to take
+on herself to effect. For this purpose
+she wrote a duodecimo pamphlet of
+one hundred and sixty pages, entitled,
+Thoughts on the Education of Daughters.
+Mr. Hewlet obtained from the
+bookseller, Mr. Johnson in St. Paul's
+Church Yard, ten guineas for the
+copy-right of this manuscript, which
+she immediately applied to the object
+for the sake of which the pamphlet
+was written.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>Every thing urged Mary to put an
+end to the affair of the school. She
+was dissatisfied with the different appearance
+it presented upon her return,
+from the state in which she left it.
+Experience impressed upon her a
+rooted aversion to that sort of cohabitation
+with her sisters, which the project
+of the school imposed. Cohabitation
+is a point of delicate experiment,
+and is, in a majority of instances,
+pregnant with ill-humour and unhappiness.
+The activity and ardent spirit
+of adventure which characterized
+Mary, were not felt in an equal degree
+by her sisters, so that a disproportionate
+share of every burthen attendant upon
+the situation, fell to her lot. On the
+other hand, they could scarcely perhaps
+be perfectly easy, in observing the
+superior degree of deference and <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>courtship,
+which her merit extorted from
+almost every one that knew her. Her
+kindness for them was not diminished,
+but she resolved that the mode of its
+exertion in future should be different,
+tending to their benefit, without intrenching
+upon her own liberty.</p>
+
+<p>Thus circumstanced, a proposal was
+made her, such as, regarding only the
+situations through which she had
+lately passed, is usually termed advantageous.
+This was, to accept the office
+of governess to the daughters of lord
+viscount Kingsborough, eldest son to
+the earl of Kingston of the kingdom of
+Ireland. The terms held out to her
+were such as she determined to accept,
+at the same time resolving to retain the
+situation only for a short time. Independence
+was the object after which
+she thirsted, and she was fixed to try
+<a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>whether it might not be found in literary
+occupation. She was desirous
+however first to accumulate a small
+sum of money, which should enable her
+to consider at leisure the different literary
+engagements that might offer, and
+provide in some degree for the eventual
+deficiency of her earliest attempts.</p>
+
+<p>The situation in the family of lord
+Kingsborough, was offered to her
+through the medium of the rev. Mr.
+Prior, at that time one of the under
+masters of Eton school. She spent
+some time at the house of this gentleman,
+immediately after her giving up
+the school at Newington Green. Here
+she had an opportunity of making an
+accurate observation upon the manners
+and conduct of that celebrated
+seminary, and the ideas she retained of
+it were by no means favourable. By
+<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>all that she saw, she was confirmed in a
+very favourite opinion of her's, in behalf
+of day-schools, where, as she expressed
+it, "children have the opportunity
+of conversing with children, without
+interfering with domestic affections, the
+foundation of virtue."</p>
+
+<p>Though her residence in the family
+of lord Kingsborough continued scarcely
+more than twelve months, she left behind
+her, with them and their connections,
+a very advantageous impression.
+The governesses the young ladies had
+hitherto had, were only a species of
+upper servants, controlled in every
+thing by the mother; Mary insisted
+upon the unbounded exercise of her
+own discretion. When the young
+ladies heard of their governess coming
+from England, they heard in imagination
+of a new enemy, and declared
+<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>their resolution to guard themselves
+accordingly. Mary however speedily
+succeeded in gaining their confidence,
+and the friendship that soon grew up
+between her and Margaret King, now
+countess Mount Cashel, the eldest
+daughter, was in an uncommon degree
+cordial and affectionate. Mary always
+spoke of this young lady in terms of
+the truest applause, both in relation to
+the eminence of her intellectual powers,
+and the ingenuous amiableness of
+her disposition. Lady Kingsborough,
+from the best motives, had imposed
+upon her daughters a variety of prohibitions,
+both as to the books they
+should read, and in many other respects.
+These prohibitions had their usual effects;
+inordinate desire for the things
+forbidden, and clandestine indulgence.
+Mary immediately restored the <a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>children
+to their liberty, and undertook to
+govern them by their affections only.
+The consequence was, that their indulgences
+were moderate, and they were
+uneasy under any indulgence that had
+not the sanction of their governess.
+The salutary effects of the new system
+of education were speedily visible; and
+lady Kingsborough soon felt no other
+uneasiness, than lest the children
+should love their governess better than
+their mother.</p>
+
+<p>Mary made many friends in Ireland,
+among the persons who visited lord
+Kingsborough's house, for she always
+appeared there with the air of an
+equal, and not of a dependent. I have
+heard her mention the ludicrous distress
+of a woman of quality, whose
+name I have forgotten, that, in a large
+company, singled out Mary, and <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>entered
+into a long conversation with
+her. After the conversation was over,
+she enquired whom she had been talking
+with, and found, to her utter mortification
+and dismay, that it was Miss
+King's governess.</p>
+
+<p>One of the persons among her Irish
+acquaintance, whom Mary was accustomed
+to speak of with the highest
+respect, was Mr. George Ogle, member
+of parliament for the county of Wexford.
+She held his talents in very
+high estimation; she was strongly prepossessed
+in favour of the goodness of
+his heart; and she always spoke of him
+as the most perfect gentleman she had
+ever known. She felt the regret of a
+disappointed friend, at the part he has
+lately taken in the politics of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Kingsborough's family passed
+the summer of the year 1787 at Bristol<a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>
+Hot-Wells, and had formed the project
+of proceeding from thence to the continent,
+a tour in which Mary purposed
+to accompany them. The plan however
+was ultimately given up, and
+Mary in consequence closed her connection
+with them, earlier than she
+otherwise had purposed to do.</p>
+
+<p>At Bristol Hot-Wells she composed
+the little book which bears the title of
+Mary, a Fiction. A considerable part
+of this story consists, with certain modifications,
+of the incidents of her own
+friendship with Fanny. All the events
+that do not relate to that subject are
+fictitious.</p>
+
+<p>This little work, if Mary had never
+produced any thing else, would serve,
+with persons of true taste and sensibility,
+to establish the eminence of her
+genius. The story is nothing. He
+<a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>that looks into the book only for incident,
+will probably lay it down with
+disgust. But the feelings are of the
+truest and most exquisite class; every
+circumstance is adorned with that
+species of imagination, which enlists
+itself under the banners of delicacy and
+sentiment. A work of sentiment, as
+it is called, is too often another name
+for a work of affectation. He that
+should imagine that the sentiments of
+this book are affected, would indeed
+be entitled to our profoundest commiseration.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAP_V" id="CHAP_V"></a>CHAP. V.</h2>
+
+<h3>1787-1790.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Being now determined to enter
+upon her literary plan, Mary came
+immediately from Bristol to the metropolis.
+Her conduct under this circumstance
+was such as to do credit both to
+her own heart, and that of Mr. Johnson,
+her publisher, between whom and
+herself there now commenced an intimate
+friendship. She had seen him
+<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>upon occasion of publishing her
+Thoughts on the Education of
+Daughters, and she addressed two or
+three letters to him during her residence
+in Ireland. Upon her arrival in
+London in August 1787, she went immediately
+to his house, and frankly
+explained to him her purpose, at the
+same time requesting his advice and
+assistance as to its execution. After a
+short conversation, Mr. Johnson invited
+her to make his house her home, till
+she should have suited herself with a
+fixed residence. She accordingly resided
+at this time two or three weeks
+under his roof. At the same period
+she paid a visit or two of similar duration
+to some friends, at no great distance
+from the metropolis.</p>
+
+<p>At Michaelmas 1787, she entered
+upon a house in George street, on the<a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>
+Surry side of Black Friar's Bridge,
+which Mr. Johnson had provided for her
+during her excursion into the country.
+The three years immediately ensuing,
+may be said, in the ordinary acceptation
+of the term, to have been the
+most active period of her life. She
+brought with her to this habitation, the
+novel of Mary, which had not yet been
+sent to the press, and the commencement
+of a sort of oriental tale, entitled,
+the Cave of Fancy, which she thought
+proper afterwards to lay aside unfinished.
+I am told that at this period she
+appeared under great dejection of spirits,
+and filled with melancholy regret
+for the loss of her youthful friend. A
+period of two years had elapsed since
+the death of that friend; but it was
+possibly the composition of the fiction
+of Mary, that renewed her sorrows in
+<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>their original force. Soon after entering
+upon her new habitation, she produced
+a little work, entitled, Original
+Stories from Real Life, intended for
+the use of children. At the commencement
+of her literary carreer, she is said
+to have conceived a vehement aversion
+to the being regarded, by her ordinary
+acquaintance, in the character of an
+author, and to have employed some
+precautions to prevent its occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>The employment which the bookseller
+suggested to her, as the easiest
+and most certain source of pecuniary
+income, of course, was translation.
+With this view she improved herself in
+her French, with which she had previously
+but a slight acquaintance, and acquired
+the Italian and German languages.
+The greater part of her literary
+engagements at this time, were
+<a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>such as were presented to her by Mr.
+Johnson. She new-modelled and
+abridged a work, translated from the
+Dutch, entitled, Young Grandison:
+she began a translation from the French,
+of a book, called, the New Robinson;
+but in this undertaking, she was, I
+believe, anticipated by another translator:
+and she compiled a series of extracts
+in verse and prose, upon the
+model of Dr. Enfield's Speaker, which
+bears the title of the Female Reader;
+but which, from a cause not worth
+mentioning, has hitherto been printed
+with a different name in the title-page.</p>
+
+<p>About the middle of the year 1788,
+Mr. Johnson instituted the Analytical
+Review, in which Mary took a considerable
+share. She also translated Necker
+on the Importance of Religious Opinions;
+made an abridgment of Lavater's<a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>
+Physiognomy, from the French, which
+has never been published; and compressed
+Salzmann's Elements of Morality,
+a German production, into a publication
+in three volumes duodecimo.
+The translation of Salzmann produced
+a correspondence between Mary and
+the author; and he afterwards repaid
+the obligation to her in kind, by a
+German translation of the Rights of
+Woman. Such were her principal literary
+occupations, from the autumn
+of 1787, to the autumn of 1790.</p>
+
+<p>It perhaps deserves to be remarked
+that this sort of miscellaneous literary
+employment, seems, for the time at
+least, rather to damp and contract,
+than to enlarge and invigorate, the
+genius. The writer is accustomed to
+see his performances answer the mere
+mercantile purpose of the day, and
+<a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>confounded with those of persons to
+whom he is secretly conscious of a
+superiority. No neighbour mind serves
+as a mirror to reflect the generous
+confidence he felt within himself;
+and perhaps the man never yet existed,
+who could maintain his enthusiasm to
+its full vigour, in the midst of this kind
+of solitariness. He is touched with
+the torpedo of mediocrity. I believe
+that nothing which Mary produced
+during this period, is marked with
+those daring flights, which exhibit
+themselves in the little fiction she composed
+just before its commencement.
+Among effusions of a nobler cast, I find
+occasionally interspersed some of that
+homily-language, which, to speak from
+my own feelings, is calculated to damp
+the moral courage, it was intended to
+<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>awaken. This is probably to be assigned
+to the causes above described.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said that one of the
+purposes which Mary had conceived,
+a few years before, as necessary to give
+a relish to the otherwise insipid, or embittered,
+draught of human life, was
+usefulness. On this side, the period of
+her existence of which I am now treating,
+is more brilliant, than in a literary
+view. She determined to apply as
+great a part as possible of the produce
+of her present employments, to the assistance
+of her friends and of the distressed;
+and, for this purpose, laid
+down to herself rules of the most rigid
+economy. She began with endeavouring
+to promote the interest of her sisters.
+She conceived that there was no
+situation in which she could place
+them, at once so respectable and <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>agreeable,
+as that of governess in private
+families. She determined therefore in
+the first place, to endeavour to qualify
+them for such an undertaking. Her
+younger sister she sent to Paris, where
+she remained near two years. The
+elder she placed in a school near London,
+first as a parlour-boarder, and afterwards
+as a teacher. Her brother
+James, who had already been at sea,
+she first took into her house, and next
+sent to Woolwich for instruction, to
+qualify him for a respectable situation
+in the royal navy, where he was shortly
+after made a lieutenant. Charles,
+who was her favourite brother, had
+been articled to the eldest, an attorney
+in the Minories; but, not being satisfied
+with his situation, she removed
+him; and in some time after, having
+first placed him with a farmer for <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>instruction,
+she fitted him out for America,
+where his speculations, founded
+upon the basis she had provided, are
+said to have been extremely prosperous.
+The reason so much of this parental
+sort of care fell upon her, was,
+that her father had by this time considerably
+embarrassed his circumstances.
+His affairs having grown too complex
+for himself to disentangle, he had intrusted
+them to the management of a
+near relation; but Mary, not being
+satisfied with the conduct of the business,
+took them into her own hands.
+The exertions she made, and the struggle
+into which she entered however,
+in this instance, were ultimately fruitless.
+To the day of her death her father
+was almost wholly supported by
+funds which she supplied to him. In
+addition to her exertions for her own
+<a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>family, she took a young girl of about
+seven years of age under her protection
+and care, the niece of Mrs. John
+Hunter, and of the present Mrs. Skeys,
+for whose mother, then lately dead,
+she had entertained a sincere friendship.</p>
+
+<p>The period, from the end of the
+year 1787 to the end of the year
+1790, though consumed in labours of
+little eclat, served still further to
+establish her in a friendly connection
+from which she derived many
+pleasures. Mr. Johnson, the bookseller,
+contracted a great personal regard for
+her, which resembled in many respects
+that of a parent. As she frequented
+his house, she of course became acquainted
+with his guests. Among
+these may be mentioned as persons
+possessing her esteem, Mr. Bonnycastle,
+<a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>the mathematician, the late Mr.
+George Anderson, accountant to the
+board of control, Dr. George Fordyce,
+and Mr. Fuseli, the celebrated painter.
+Between both of the two latter and
+herself, there existed sentiments of genuine
+affection and friendship.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAP_VI" id="CHAP_VI"></a>CHAP. VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>1790-1792.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Hitherto the literary carreer of
+Mary, had for the most part, been silent;
+and had been productive of income to
+herself, without apparently leading to
+the wreath of fame. From this time
+she was destined to attract the notice
+of the public, and perhaps no female
+writer ever obtained so great a degree
+of celebrity throughout Europe.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be doubted that, while,
+<a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>for three years of literary employment,
+she "held the noiseless tenor of her
+way," her mind was insensibly advancing
+towards a vigorous maturity. The
+uninterrupted habit of composition gave
+a freedom and firmness to the expression
+of her sentiments. The society
+she frequented, nourished her understanding,
+and enlarged her mind. The
+French revolution, while it gave a fundamental
+shock to the human intellect
+through every region of the globe, did
+not fail to produce a conspicuous effect
+in the progress of Mary's reflections.
+The prejudices of her early
+years suffered a vehement concussion.
+Her respect for establishments
+was undermined. At this period occurred
+a misunderstanding upon public
+grounds, with one of her early
+friends, whose attachment to musty
+<a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>creeds and exploded absurdities, had
+been increased, by the operation of
+those very circumstances, by which
+her mind had been rapidly advanced
+in the race of independence.</p>
+
+<p>The event, immediately introductory
+to the rank which from this time she
+held in the lids of literature, was the
+publication of Burke's Reflections on
+the Revolution in France. This book,
+after having been long promised to
+the world, finally made its appearance
+on the first of November 1790; and
+Mary, full of sentiments of liberty, and
+impressed with a warm interest in the
+struggle that was now going on, seized
+her pen in the first burst of indignation,
+an emotion of which she was
+strongly susceptible. She was in the
+habit of composing with rapidity, and
+her answer, which was the first of the
+<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>numerous ones that appeared, obtained
+extraordinary notice. Marked as
+it is with the vehemence and impetuousness
+of its eloquence, it is certainly
+chargeable with a too contemptuous
+and intemperate treatment of the great
+man against whom its attack is directed.
+But this circumstance was not
+injurious to the success of the publication.
+Burke had been warmly loved
+by the most liberal and enlightened
+friends of freedom, and they were proportionably
+inflamed and disgusted by
+the fury of his assault, upon what they
+deemed to be its sacred cause.</p>
+
+<p>Short as was the time in which
+Mary composed her Answer to
+Burke's Reflections, there was one
+anecdote she told me concerning it,
+which seems worth recording in this
+place. It was sent to the press, as is
+<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>the general practice when the early
+publication of a piece is deemed a
+matter of importance, before the composition
+was finished. When Mary
+had arrived at about the middle of her
+work, she was seized with a temporary
+fit of torpor and indolence, and
+began to repent of her undertaking.
+In this state of mind, she called, one
+evening, as she was in the practice of
+doing, upon her publisher, for the purpose
+of relieving herself by an hour
+or two's conversation. Here, the habitual
+ingenuousness of her nature, led
+her to describe what had just past
+in her thoughts. Mr. Johnson immediately,
+in a kind and friendly way,
+intreated her not to put any constraint
+upon her inclination, and to give herself
+no uneasiness about the sheets already
+printed, which he would <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>cheerfully
+throw aside, if it would contribute
+to her happiness. Mary had
+wanted stimulus. She had not expected
+to be encouraged, in what she
+well knew to be an unreasonable access
+of idleness. Her friend's so readily
+falling in with her ill-humour, and
+seeming to expect that she would lay
+aside her undertaking, piqued her
+pride. She immediately went home;
+and proceeded to the end of her work,
+with no other interruptions but what
+were absolutely indispensible.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable that the applause
+which attended her Answer to Burke,
+elevated the tone of her mind. She
+had always felt much confidence in her
+own powers; but it cannot be doubted,
+that the actual perception of a
+similar feeling respecting us in a multitude
+of others, must increase the
+<a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>confidence, and stimulate the adventure
+of any human being. Mary accordingly
+proceeded, in a short time
+after, to the composition of her most
+celebrated production, the Vindication
+of the Rights of Woman.</p>
+
+<p>Never did any author enter into a
+cause, with a more ardent desire to be
+found, not a flourishing and empty
+declaimer, but an effectual champion.
+She considered herself as standing forth
+in defence of one half of the human
+species, labouring under a yoke which,
+through all the records of time, had
+degraded them from the station of
+rational beings, and almost sunk them
+to the level of the brutes. She saw
+indeed, that they were often attempted
+to be held in silken fetters, and
+bribed into the love of slavery; but
+the disguise and the treachery served
+<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>only the more fully to confirm her opposition.
+She regarded her sex, in
+the language of Calista, as</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In every state of life the slaves of men:"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>the rich as alternately under the despotism
+of a father, a brother, and a
+husband; and the middling and the
+poorer classes shut out from the acquisition
+of bread with independence,
+when they are not shut out from the
+very means of an industrious subsistence.
+Such were the views she entertained
+of the subject; and such the
+feelings with which she warmed her
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>The work is certainly a very bold
+and original production. The strength
+and firmness with which the author
+repels the opinions of Rousseau, Dr.
+Gregory, and Dr. James Fordyce, <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>respecting
+the condition of women,
+cannot but make a strong impression
+upon every ingenuous reader. The
+public at large formed very different
+opinions respecting the character of
+the performance. Many of the sentiments
+are undoubtedly of a rather
+masculine description. The spirited
+and decisive way in which the author
+explodes the system of gallantry, and
+the species of homage with which the
+sex is usually treated, shocked the majority.
+Novelty produced a sentiment
+in their mind, which they mistook for
+a sense of injustice. The pretty, soft
+creatures that are so often to be found
+in the female sex, and that class of
+men who believe they could not exist
+without such pretty, soft creatures to
+resort to, were in arms against the author
+of so heretical and blasphemous
+<a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>a doctrine. There are also, it must be
+confessed, occasional passages of a
+stern and rugged feature, incompatible
+with the true stamina of the writer's
+character. But, if they did not
+belong to her fixed and permanent
+character, they belonged to her character
+<i>pro tempore</i>; and what she thought,
+she scorned to qualify.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, along with this rigid, and somewhat
+amazonian temper, which characterised
+some parts of the book, it
+is impossible not to remark a luxuriance
+of imagination, and a trembling
+delicacy of sentiment, which would
+have done honour to a poet, bursting with
+all the visions of an Armida and
+a Dido.</p>
+
+<p>The contradiction, to the public apprehension,
+was equally great, as to
+the person of the author, as it was
+when they considered the temper of
+<a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>the book. In the champion of her
+sex, who was described as endeavouring
+to invest them with all the rights
+of man, those whom curiosity prompted
+to seek the occasion of beholding
+her, expected to find a sturdy, muscular,
+raw-boned virago; and they were
+not a little surprised, when, instead of
+all this, they found a woman, lovely
+in her person, and, in the best and most
+engaging sense, feminine in her manners.</p>
+
+<p>The Vindication of the Rights of
+Woman is undoubtedly a very unequal
+performance, and eminently deficient
+in method and arrangement. When
+tried by the hoary and long-established
+laws of literary composition, it can
+scarcely maintain its claim to be
+placed in the first class of human productions.
+But when we consider the
+<a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>importance of its doctrines, and the
+eminence of genius it displays, it seems
+not very improbable that it will be
+read as long as the English language
+endures. The publication of this
+book forms an epocha in the subject
+to which it belongs; and Mary Wollstonecraft
+will perhaps hereafter be
+found to have performed more substantial
+service for the cause of her sex,
+than all the other writers, male or female,
+that ever felt themselves animated
+in the behalf of oppressed and injured
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>The censure of the liberal critic as
+to the defects of this performance,
+will be changed into astonishment,
+when I tell him, that a work of this inestimable
+moment, was begun, carried
+on, and finished in the state in which
+<a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>it now appears, in a period of no more
+than six weeks.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary here that I should resume
+the subject of the friendship that
+subsisted between Mary and Mr. Fuseli,
+which proved the source of the
+most memorable events in her subsequent
+history. He is a native of the
+republic of Switzerland, but has spent
+the principal part of his life in the
+island of Great-Britain. The eminence
+of his genius can scarcely be
+disputed; it has indeed received the
+testimony which is the least to be suspected,
+that of some of the most considerable
+of his contemporary artists.
+He has one of the most striking characteristics
+of genius, a daring, as well
+as persevering, spirit of adventure.
+The work in which he is at present
+engaged, a series of pictures for the
+<a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>illustration of Milton, upon a very
+large scale, and produced solely upon
+the incitement of his own mind, is a
+proof of this, if indeed his whole life
+had not sufficiently proved it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fuseli is one of Mr. Johnson's
+oldest friends, and was at this time in
+the habit of visiting him two or three
+times a week. Mary, one of whose
+strongest characteristics was the exquisite
+sensations of pleasure she felt from
+the associations of visible objects, had
+hitherto never been acquainted, or never
+intimately acquainted, with an
+eminent painter. The being thus introduced
+therefore to the society of
+Mr. Fuseli, was a high gratification to
+her; while he found in Mary, a person
+perhaps more susceptible of the emotions
+painting is calculated to excite,
+than any other with whom he ever
+<a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>conversed. Painting, and subjects closely
+connected with painting, were their almost
+constant topics of conversation; and
+they found them inexhaustible. It cannot
+be doubted, but that this was a species
+of exercise very conducive to the
+improvement of Mary's mind.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing human however is unmixed.
+If Mary derived improvement
+from Mr. Fuseli, she may also be suspected
+of having caught the infection
+of some of his faults. In early life
+Mr. Fuseli was ardently attached to
+literature; but the demands of his
+profession have prevented him from
+keeping up that extensive and indiscriminate
+acquaintance with it, that
+belles-lettres scholars frequently possess.
+Of consequence, the favourites
+of his boyish years remain his only favourites.
+Homer is with Mr. Fuseli the
+<a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>abstract and deposit of every human
+perfection. Milton, Shakespear, and
+Richardson, have also engaged much of
+his attention. The nearest rival of Homer,
+I believe, if Homer can have a rival,
+is Jean Jacques Rousseau. A young
+man embraces entire the opinions of
+a favourite writer, and Mr. Fuseli has
+not had leisure to bring the opinions
+of his youth to a revision. Smitten
+with Rousseau's conception of the
+perfectness of the savage state, and
+the essential abortiveness of all civilization,
+Mr. Fuseli looks at all our little
+attempts at improvement, with a
+spirit that borders perhaps too much
+upon contempt and indifference. One
+of his favourite positions is the divinity
+of genius. This is a power that
+comes complete at once from the
+hands of the Creator of all things,
+and the first essays of a man of real
+<a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>genius are such, in all their grand and
+most important features, as no subsequent
+assiduity can amend. Add to
+this, that Mr. Fuseli is somewhat of
+a caustic turn of mind, with much wit,
+and a disposition to search, in every
+thing new or modern, for occasions of
+censure. I believe Mary came something
+more a cynic out of the school of
+Mr. Fuseli, than she went into it.</p>
+
+<p>But the principal circumstance that
+relates to the intercourse of Mary,
+and this celebrated artist, remains to
+be told. She saw Mr. Fuseli frequently;
+he amused, delighted and instructed
+her. As a painter, it was impossible
+she should not wish to see his
+works, and consequently to frequent
+his house. She visited him; her visits
+were returned. Notwithstanding the
+inequality of their years, Mary was not
+<a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>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 experienced 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 endearments between
+<a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>There cannot perhaps be a properer
+place than the present, to state her
+principles upon this subject, such at
+least as they were when I knew her
+best. She set a great value on a mutual
+affection between persons of an
+opposite sex. She regarded it as the
+principal solace of human life. It was
+her maxim, "that the imagination
+should awaken the senses, and not the
+senses the imagination." In other
+words, that whatever related to the
+gratification of the senses, ought to
+arise, in a human being of a pure mind,
+only as the consequence of an individual
+affection. She regarded the<a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a> manners
+and habits of the majority of our
+sex in that respect, with strong disapprobation.
+She conceived that true
+virtue would prescribe the most entire
+celibacy, exclusively of affection, and
+the most perfect fidelity to that affection
+when it existed.&mdash;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. As it was, she
+conceived it both practicable and eligible,
+to cultivate a distinguishing affection
+for him, and to foster it by the
+endearments of personal intercourse
+and a reciprocation of kindness, without
+departing in the smallest degree
+from the rules she prescribed to herself.</p>
+
+<p>In September 1791, she removed
+from the house she occupied in George-street,
+to a large and commodious
+<a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>apartment in Store street, Bedford-square.
+She began to think that she
+had been too rigid, in the laws of frugality
+and self-denial with which she
+set out in her literary career; and now
+added to the neatness and cleanliness
+which she had always scrupulously observed
+a certain degree of elegance,
+and those temperate indulgences in
+furniture and accommodation, from
+which a sound and uncorrupted taste
+never fails to derive pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the month of November
+in the same year (1791), that the
+writer of this narrative was first in
+company with the person to whom it
+relates. He dined with her at a
+friend's, together with Mr. Thomas
+Paine and one or two other
+persons. The invitation was of his
+own seeking, his object being to see
+<a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>the author of the Rights of Man, with
+whom he had never before conversed.</p>
+
+<p>The interview was not fortunate.
+Mary and myself parted, mutually
+displeased with each other. I had not
+read her Rights of Woman. 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 curiosity 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 consequence,
+heard her, very frequently when I wished
+to hear Paine.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>We touched on a considerable variety
+of topics, and particularly on
+the characters and habits of certain
+eminent men. Mary, as has already
+been observed, had acquired, in a very
+blameable degree, the practice of seeing
+every thing on the gloomy side,
+and bestowing censure with a plentiful
+hand, where circumstances were in
+any respect doubtful. I, on the contrary,
+had a strong propensity, to favourable
+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 characters
+of Voltaire and others, who have
+obtained from some individuals an ardent
+admiration, while the greater
+number have treated them with extreme
+moral severity. Mary was at
+<a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>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 became dissatisfied with
+the tone of my own share in it. We
+touched upon all topics, without treating
+forcibly and connectedly upon
+any. Meanwhile, I did her the justice,
+in giving an account of the conversation
+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 independent thinking. On
+her side, she did me no part of what
+perhaps I considered as justice.</p>
+
+<p>We met two or three times in the
+<a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>course of the following year, but made
+a very small degree of progress towards
+a cordial acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>In the close of the year 1792, Mary
+went over to France, where she continued
+to reside for upwards of two
+years. One of her principal inducements
+to this step, 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 continually conjuring up pictures
+of the happiness she should have found,
+if fortune had favoured their more <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>intimate
+union. She felt herself formed
+for domestic affection, and all those
+tender charities, which men of sensibility
+have constantly treated as the dearest
+band 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.</p>
+
+<p>It is singular, that during her residence
+in Store street, which lasted more
+<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>than twelve months, she produced nothing,
+except a few articles in the Analytical
+Review. Her literary meditations
+were chiefly employed upon the
+Sequel to the Rights of Woman; but
+she has scarcely left behind her a single
+paper, that can, with any certainty, be
+assigned to have had this destination.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAP_VII" id="CHAP_VII"></a>CHAP. VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>1792-1795.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The original plan of Mary, respecting
+her residence in France, had
+no precise limits in the article of duration;
+the single purpose she had in
+view being that of an endeavour to heal
+her distempered mind. She did not
+proceed so far as even to discharge her
+lodging in London; and, to some friends
+who saw her immediately before her
+departure, she spoke merely of an absence
+of six weeks.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>It is not to be wondered at, that her
+excursion did not originally seem to
+produce the effects she had expected
+from it. She was in a land of strangers;
+she had no acquaintance; she had even
+to acquire the power of receiving and
+communicating ideas with facility in
+the language of the country. Her first
+residence was in a spacious mansion to
+which she had been invited, but the
+master of which (monsieur Fillietaz)
+was absent at the time of her arrival.
+At first therefore she found herself
+surrounded only with servants. The
+gloominess of her mind communicated
+its own colour to the objects she saw;
+and in this temper she began a series of
+Letters on the Present Character of the
+French Nation, one of which she forwarded
+to her publisher, and which appears
+in the collection of her posthumous
+<a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>works. This performance she soon
+after discontinued; and it is, as she
+justly remarks, tinged with the saturnine
+temper which at that time pervaded
+her mind.</p>
+
+<p>Mary carried with her introductions
+to several agreeable families in Paris.
+She renewed her acquaintance with
+Paine. There also subsisted a very sincere
+friendship between her and Helen
+Maria Williams, author of a collection
+of poems of uncommon merit, who at
+that time resided in Paris. Another
+person, whom Mary always spoke of in
+terms of ardent commendation, both
+for the excellence of his disposition,
+and the force of his genius, was a count
+Slabrendorf, by birth, I believe, a
+Swede. It is almost unnecessary to
+mention, that she was personally <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>acquainted
+with the majority of the
+leaders in the French revolution.</p>
+
+<p>But the house that, I believe, she
+principally frequented at this time, was
+that of Mr. Thomas Christie, a person
+whose pursuits were mercantile, and
+who had written a volume on the
+French revolution. With Mrs. Christie
+her acquaintance was more intimate
+than with the husband.</p>
+
+<p>It was about four months after her
+arrival at Paris in December 1792,
+that she entered into that species of
+connection, for which her heart secretly
+panted, and which had the effect of
+diffusing an immediate tranquillity and
+cheerfulness over her manners. The
+person with whom it was formed (for
+it would be an idle piece of delicacy,
+to attempt to suppress a name, which is
+known to every one whom the<a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a> reputation
+of Mary has reached), was Mr. Gilbert
+Imlay, native of the United States
+of North America.</p>
+
+<p>The place at which she first saw Mr.
+Imlay was at the house of Mr. Christie;
+and it perhaps deserves to be noticed,
+that the emotions he then excited
+in her mind, were, I am told, those
+of dislike, and that, for some time, she
+shunned all occasions of meeting him.
+This sentiment however speedily gave
+place to one of greater kindness.</p>
+
+<p>Previously to the partiality she conceived
+for him, she had determined
+upon a journey to Switzerland, induced
+chiefly by motives of economy.
+But she had some difficulty in procuring
+a passport; and it was probably
+the intercourse that now originated between
+her and Mr. Imlay, that changed
+her purpose, and led her to prefer
+<a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>a lodging at Neuilly, a village three
+miles from Paris. Her habitation here
+was a solitary house in the midst of a
+garden, with no other inhabitants than
+herself and the gardener, an old man,
+who performed for her many of the
+offices of a domestic, and would
+sometimes contend for the honour of
+making her bed. The gardener had a
+great veneration for his guest, and
+would set before her, when alone,
+some grapes of a particularly fine sort,
+which she could not without the greatest
+difficulty obtain, when she had any
+person with her as a visitor. Here it
+was that she conceived, and for the
+most part executed, her Historical and
+Moral View of the French Revolution<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>,
+into which, as she observes, are incorporated
+most of the observations she
+<a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>had collected for her Letters, and
+which was written with more sobriety
+and cheerfulness than the tone in which
+they had been commenced. In the
+evening she was accustomed to refresh
+herself by a walk in a neighbouring
+wood, from which her old host in vain
+endeavoured to dissuade her, by recounting
+divers horrible robberies and
+murders that had been committed
+there.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> No part of the proposed continuation of this work,
+has been found among the papers of the author.</p></div>
+
+<p>The commencement of the attachment
+Mary now formed, had neither
+confident nor adviser. She always conceived
+it to be a gross breach of delicacy
+to have any confidant in a matter
+of this sacred nature, an affair of the
+heart. The origin of the connection
+was about the middle of April 1793,
+and it was carried on in a private manner
+for four months. At the expiration
+of that period a circumstance <a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>occurred
+that induced her to declare it.
+The French convention, exasperated
+at the conduct of the British government,
+particularly in the affair of Toulon,
+formed a decree against the citizens
+of this country, by one article of
+which the English, resident in France,
+were ordered into prison till the period
+of a general peace. Mary had objected
+to a marriage with Mr. Imlay, who,
+at the time their connection was formed,
+had no property whatever; because
+she would not involve him in certain
+family embarrassments to which she
+conceived herself exposed, or make
+him answerable for the pecuniary demands
+that existed against her. She
+however considered their engagement
+as of the most sacred nature; and they
+had mutually formed the plan of emigrating
+to America, as soon as they
+<a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>should have realized a sum, enabling
+them to do it in the mode they desired.
+The decree however that I have just
+mentioned, made it necessary, not that
+a marriage should actually take place,
+but that Mary should take the name of
+Imlay, which, from the nature of their
+connexion, she conceived herself entitled
+to do, and obtain a certificate
+from the American ambassador, as the
+wife of a native of that country.</p>
+
+<p>Their engagement being thus avowed,
+they thought proper to reside under
+the same roof, and for that purpose
+removed to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Mary was now arrived at the situation,
+which, for two or three preceding
+years, her reason had pointed out to
+her as affording the most substantial
+prospect of happiness. She had been
+tossed and agitated by the waves of
+<a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>misfortune. Her childhood, as she often
+said, had known few of the endearments,
+which constitute the principal
+happiness of childhood. The temper
+of her father had early given to
+her mind a severe cast of thought, and
+substituted the inflexibility of resistance
+for the confidence of affection. The
+cheerfulness of her entrance upon womanhood,
+had been darkened, by an
+attendance upon the death-bed of her
+mother, and the still more afflicting
+calamity of her eldest sister. Her exertions
+to create a joint independence
+for her sisters and herself, had been attended,
+neither with the success, nor
+the pleasure, she had hoped from them.
+Her first youthful passion, her friendship
+for Fanny, had encountered many disappointments,
+and, in fine, a melancholy
+and premature catastrophe. Soon
+<a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>after these accumulated mortifications,
+she was engaged in a contest with a
+near relation, whom she regarded as
+unprincipled, respecting the wreck of
+her father's fortune. In this affair she
+suffered the double pain, which arises
+from moral indignation, and disappointed
+benevolence. Her exertions to assist
+almost every member of her family,
+were great and unremitted. Finally,
+when she indulged a romantic affection
+for Mr. Fuseli, and fondly imagined
+that she should find in it the solace of
+her cares, she perceived too late, that,
+by continually impressing on her mind
+fruitless images of unreserved affection
+and domestic felicity, it only served to
+give new pungency to the sensibility
+that was destroying her.</p>
+
+<p>Some persons may be inclined to observe,
+that the evils here enumerated,
+<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>are not among the heaviest in the catalogue
+of human calamities. But evils
+take their rank, more from the temper
+of the mind that suffers them, than
+from their abstract nature. Upon
+a man of a hard and insensible disposition,
+the shafts of misfortune often fall
+pointless and impotent. There are persons,
+by no means hard and insensible,
+who, from an elastic and sanguine
+turn of mind, are continually prompted
+to look on the fair side of things,
+and, having suffered one fall, immediately
+rise again, to pursue their course,
+with the same eagerness, the same
+hope, and the same gaiety, as before.
+On the other hand, we not unfrequently
+meet with persons, endowed with
+the most exquisite and delicious sensibility,
+whose minds seem almost of too
+fine a texture to encounter the vicissitudes
+<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>of human affairs, to whom pleasure
+is transport, and disappointment is
+agony indescribable. This character is
+finely pourtrayed by the author of the
+Sorrows of Werter. Mary was in this
+respect a female Werter.</p>
+
+<p>She brought then, in the present instance,
+a wounded and sick heart, to
+take refuge in the bosom of a chosen
+friend. Let it not however be imagined,
+that she brought a heart, querulous,
+and ruined in its taste for pleasure.
+No; her whole character seemed
+to change with a change of fortune.
+Her sorrows, the depression of her
+spirits, were forgotten, and she assumed
+all the simplicity and the vivacity of a
+youthful mind. She was like a serpent
+upon a rock, that casts its slough, and
+appears again with the brilliancy, the
+sleekness, and the elastic activity of its
+<a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>happiest age. She was playful, full of
+confidence, kindness and sympathy. Her
+eyes assumed new lustre, and her cheeks
+new colour and smoothness. Her voice
+became chearful; her temper overflowing
+with universal kindness; and that
+smile of bewitching tenderness from
+day to day illuminated her countenance,
+which all who knew her will so
+well recollect, and which won, both
+heart and soul, the affection of almost
+every one that beheld it.</p>
+
+<p>Mary now reposed herself upon a
+person, of whose honour and principles
+she had the most exalted idea.
+She nourished an individual affection,
+which she saw no necessity of subjecting
+to restraint; and a heart like her's
+was not formed to nourish affection by
+halves. Her conception of Mr. Imlay's
+"tenderness and worth, had
+<a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>twisted him closely round her heart;"
+and she "indulged the thought, that
+she had thrown out some tendrils, to
+cling to the elm by which she wished
+to be supported." This was "talking
+a new language to her;" but, "conscious
+that she was not a parasite-plant,"
+she was willing to encourage
+and foster the luxuriancies of affection.
+Her confidence was entire; her love
+was unbounded. Now, for the first
+time in her life she gave a loose to all
+the sensibilities of her nature.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the time I am now speaking
+of, her attachment to Mr. Imlay
+gained a new link, by finding reason
+to suppose herself with child.</p>
+
+<p>Their establishment at Paris, was
+however broken up almost as soon as
+formed, by the circumstance of Mr.
+Imlay's entering into business, urged,
+<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>as he said, by the prospect of a family,
+and this being a favourable crisis in
+French affairs for commercial speculations.
+The pursuits in which he was
+engaged, led him in the month of September
+to Havre de Grace, then called
+Havre Marat, probably to superintend
+the shipping of goods, in which he was
+jointly engaged with some other person
+or persons. Mary remained in the
+capital.</p>
+
+<p>The solitude in which she was now
+left, proved an unexpected trial.
+Domestic affections constituted the object
+upon which her heart was fixed;
+and she early felt, with an inward
+grief, that Mr. Imlay "did not attach
+those tender emotions round the idea
+of home," which, every time they recurred,
+dimmed her eyes with moisture.
+She had expected his return
+<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>from week to week, and from month
+to month, but a succession of business
+still continued to detain him at Havre.
+At the same time the sanguinary character
+which the government of France
+began every day more decisively to assume,
+contributed to banish tranquillity
+from the first months of her pregnancy.
+Before she left Neuilly, she
+happened one day to enter Paris on
+foot (I believe, by the <i>Place de Louis
+Quinze</i>), when an execution, attended
+with some peculiar aggravations, had
+just taken place, and the blood of the
+guillotine appeared fresh upon the
+pavement. The emotions of her soul
+burst forth in indignant exclamations,
+while a prudent bystander warned her
+of her danger, and intreated her to
+hasten and hide her discontents. She
+described to me, more than once, the
+<a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>anguish she felt at hearing of the death
+of Brissot, Vergniaud, and the twenty
+deputies, as one of the most intolerable
+sensations she had ever experienced.</p>
+
+<p>Finding the return of Mr. Imlay
+continually postponed, she determined,
+in January 1794, to join him at Havre.
+One motive that influenced her,
+though, I believe, by no means the
+principal, was the growing cruelties
+of Robespierre, and the desire she felt
+to be in any other place, rather than
+the devoted city, in the midst of
+which they were perpetrated.</p>
+
+<p>From January to September, Mr.
+Imlay and Mary lived together, with
+great harmony, at Havre, where the
+child, with which she was pregnant,
+was born, on the fourteenth of May,
+and named Frances, in remembrance of
+<a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>the dear friend of her youth, whose
+image could never be erased from her
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>In September, Mr. Imlay took his
+departure from Havre for the port of
+London. As this step was said to be
+necessary in the way of business, he
+endeavoured to prevail upon Mary to
+quit Havre, and once more take up her
+abode at Paris. Robespierre was now
+no more, and, of consequence, the only
+objection she had to residing in the capital,
+was removed. Mr. Imlay was
+already in London, before she undertook
+her journey, and it proved the
+most fatiguing journey she ever made;
+the carriage, in which she travelled,
+being overturned no less than four times
+between Havre and Paris.</p>
+
+<p>This absence, like that of the preceding
+year in which Mr. Imlay had
+<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>removed to Havre, was represented as
+an absence that was to have a short
+duration. In two months he was once
+again to join her at Paris. It proved
+however the prelude to an eternal separation.
+The agonies of such a separation,
+or rather desertion, great as
+Mary would have found them upon
+every supposition, were vastly increased,
+by the lingering method in which it
+was effected, and the ambiguity that,
+for a long time, hung upon it. This
+circumstance produced the effect, of
+holding her mind, by force, as it were,
+to the most painful of all subjects, and
+not suffering her to derive the just advantage
+from the energy and elasticity
+of her character.</p>
+
+<p>The procrastination of which I am
+speaking was however productive of
+one advantage. It put off the evil
+<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>day. She did not suspect the calamities
+that awaited her, till the close of
+the year. She gained an additional
+three months of comparative happiness.
+But she purchased it at a very dear rate.
+Perhaps no human creature ever suffered
+greater misery, than dyed the whole
+year 1795, in the life of this incomparable
+woman. It was wasted in
+that sort of despair, to the sense of
+which the mind is continually awakened,
+by a glimmering of fondly cherished,
+expiring hope.</p>
+
+<p>Why did she thus obstinately cling
+to an ill-starred, unhappy passion? Because
+it is of the very essence of affection,
+to seek to perpetuate itself. He
+does not love, who can resign this cherished
+sentiment, without suffering
+some of the sharpest struggles that our
+nature is capable of enduring. Add
+<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>to this, Mary had fixed her heart upon
+this chosen friend; and one of the last
+impressions a worthy mind can submit
+to receive, is that of the worthlessness
+of the person upon whom it has fixed
+all its esteem. Mary had struggled to
+entertain a favourable opinion of human
+nature; she had unweariedly
+fought for a kindred mind, in whose
+integrity and fidelity to take up her
+rest. Mr. Imlay undertook to prove,
+in his letters written immediately
+after their complete separation, that his
+conduct towards her was reconcilable
+to the strictest rectitude; but undoubtedly
+Mary was of a different opinion.
+Whatever the reader may decide in
+this respect, there is one sentiment
+that, I believe, he will unhesitatingly
+admit: that of pity for the mistake of
+the man, who, being in possession of
+<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>such a friendship and attachment as
+those of Mary, could hold them at a
+trivial price, and, "like the base Indian,
+throw a pearl away, richer than
+all his tribe.<a name="FNanchor_A_2" id="FNanchor_A_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_2" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>"</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_2" id="Footnote_A_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_2"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> A person, from whose society at this time Mary
+derived particular gratification, was Archibald
+Hamilton Rowan, who had lately become a fugitive
+from Ireland, in consequence of a political
+prosecution, and in whom she found those qualities
+which were always eminently engaging to her,
+great integrity of disposition, and great kindness
+of heart.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAP_VIII" id="CHAP_VIII"></a>CHAP. VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>1795, 1796.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In April 1795, Mary returned once
+more to London, being requested to do
+so by Mr. Imlay, who even sent a servant
+to Paris to wait upon her in the
+journey, before she could complete the
+necessary arrangements for her departure.
+But, notwithstanding these favourable
+appearances, she came to England
+with a heavy heart, not daring,
+after all the uncertainties and anguish
+she had endured, to trust to the suggestions
+of hope.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>The gloomy forebodings of her
+mind, were but too faithfully verified.
+Mr. Imlay had already formed another
+connexion; as it is said, with a young
+actress from a strolling company of
+players. His attentions therefore to
+Mary were formal and constrained, and
+she probably had but little of his society.
+This alteration could not escape
+her penetrating glance. He ascribed
+it to pressure of business, and some pecuniary
+embarrassments which, at that
+time, occurred to him; it was of little
+consequence to Mary what was the
+cause. She saw, but too well, though
+she strove not to see, that his affections
+were lost to her for ever.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to imagine a period of
+greater pain and mortification than
+Mary passed, for about seven weeks,
+from the sixteenth of April to the
+<a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>sixth of June, in a furnished house
+that Mr. Imlay had provided for her.
+She had come over to England, a
+country for which she, at this time, expressed
+"a repugnance, that almost
+amounted to horror," in search of happiness.
+She feared that that happiness
+had altogether escaped her; but she
+was encouraged by the eagerness and
+impatience which Mr. Imlay at length
+seemed to manifest for her arrival.
+When she saw him, all her fears were
+confirmed. What a picture was she
+capable of forming to herself, of the
+overflowing kindness of a meeting,
+after an interval of so much anguish
+and apprehension! A thousand images
+of this sort were present to her burning
+imagination. It is in vain, on such occasions,
+for reserve and reproach to endeavour
+to curb in the emotions of an
+<a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>affectionate heart. But the hopes she
+nourished were speedily blasted. Her
+reception by Mr. Imlay, was cold and
+embarrassed. Discussions ("explanations"
+they were called) followed;
+cruel explanations, that only added to
+the anguish of a heart already overwhelmed
+in grief! They had small pretensions
+indeed to explicitness; but
+they sufficiently told, that the case admitted
+not of remedy.</p>
+
+<p>Mary was incapable of sustaining
+her equanimity in this pressing emergency.
+"Love, dear, delusive love!"
+as she expressed herself to a friend
+some time afterwards, "rigorous reason
+had forced her to resign; and now
+her rational prospects were blasted, just
+as she had learned to be contented with
+rational enjoyments". Thus situated,
+life became an intolerable burthen.<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>
+While she was absent from Mr. Imlay,
+she could talk of purposes of reparation
+and independence. But, now that
+they were in the same house, she could
+not withhold herself from endeavours to
+revive their mutual cordiality; and unsuccessful
+endeavours continually added
+fuel to the fire that destroyed her.
+She formed a desperate purpose to die.</p>
+
+<p>This part of the story of Mary is involved
+in considerable obscurity. I
+only know, that Mr. Imlay became acquainted
+with her purpose, at a moment
+when he was uncertain whether
+or no it were 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. Actuated
+by this purpose, she took a <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>resolution,
+worthy both of the strength and
+affectionateness of her mind. Mr. Imlay
+was involved in a question of considerable
+difficulty, respecting a mercantile
+adventure in Norway. It seemed to require
+the presence of some very judicious
+agent, to conduct the business to
+its desired termination. Mary determined
+to make the voyage, and take
+the business into her own hands. Such
+a voyage seemed the most desireable
+thing to recruit her health, and, if possible,
+her spirits, in the present crisis.
+It was also gratifying to her feelings, to
+be employed in promoting the interest
+of a man, from whom she had experienced
+such severe unkindness, but
+to whom she ardently desired to be reconciled.
+The moment of desperation
+I have mentioned, occurred in the close
+of May, and, in about a week after,
+<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>she set out upon this new expedition.</p>
+
+<p>The narrative of this voyage is before
+the world, and perhaps a book of travels
+that so irresistibly seizes on the
+heart, never, in any other instance,
+found its way from the press. The
+occasional harshness and ruggedness of
+character, that diversify her Vindication
+of the Rights of Woman, here totally
+disappear. If ever there was a book
+calculated to make a man in love with
+its author, this appears to me to be the
+book. She speaks of her sorrows, in a
+way that fills us with melancholy, and
+dissolves us in tenderness, at the same
+time that she displays a genius which
+commands all our admiration. Affliction
+had tempered her heart to a
+softness almost more than human; and
+the gentleness of her spirit seems <a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>precisely
+to accord with all the romance of
+unbounded attachment.</p>
+
+<p>Thus softened and improved, thus
+fraught with imagination and sensibility,
+with all, and more than all, "that
+youthful poets fancy, when they love,"
+she returned to England, and, if he had
+so pleased, to the arms of her former
+lover. Her return was hastened by
+the ambiguity, to her apprehension, of
+Mr. Imlay's conduct. He had promised
+to meet her upon her return
+from Norway, probably at Hamburgh;
+and they were then to pass some time in
+Switzerland. The style however of
+his letters to her during her tour, was
+not such as to inspire confidence; and
+she wrote to him very urgently, to explain
+himself, relative to the footing
+upon which they were hereafter to
+stand to each other. In his answer,
+<a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>which reached her at Hamburgh, he
+treated her questions as "extraordinary
+and unnecessary," and desired her
+to be at the pains to decide for herself.
+Feeling herself unable to accept this as
+an explanation, she instantly determined
+to sail for London by the very first opportunity,
+that she might thus bring to
+a termination the suspence that preyed
+upon her soul.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long after her arrival in
+London in the commencement of October,
+that she attained the certainty
+she sought. Mr. Imlay procured her a
+lodging. But the neglect she experienced
+from him after she entered it,
+flashed conviction upon her, in spite of
+his asseverations. She made further enquiries,
+and at length was informed by
+a servant, of the real state of the case.
+Under the immediate shock which the
+<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>painful certainty gave her, her first impulse
+was to repair to him at the ready-furnished
+house he had provided for his
+new mistress. What was the particular
+nature of their conference I am
+unable to relate. It is sufficient to say
+that the wretchedness of the night which
+succeeded this fatal discovery, impressed
+her with the feeling, that she would
+sooner suffer a thousand deaths, than
+pass another of equal misery.</p>
+
+<p>The agony of her mind determined
+her; and that determination gave her a
+sort of desperate serenity. She resolved
+to plunge herself in the Thames;
+and, not being satisfied with any spot
+nearer to London, she took a boat, and
+rowed to Putney. Her first thought
+had led her to Battersea-bridge, but
+she found it too public. It was night
+when she arrived at Putney, and by
+<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>that time had begun to rain with great
+violence. The rain suggested to her
+the idea of walking up and down the
+bridge, till her clothes were thoroughly
+drenched and heavy with
+the wet, which she did for half an
+hour without meeting a human being.
+She then leaped from the top of the
+bridge, but still seemed to find a difficulty
+in sinking, which she endeavoured
+to counteract by pressing her clothes
+closely round her. After some time
+she became insensible; but she always
+spoke of the pain she underwent as
+such, that, though she could afterwards
+have determined upon almost any other
+species of voluntary death, it would have
+been impossible for her to resolve upon
+encountering the same sensations again.
+I am doubtful, whether this is to be
+ascribed to the mere nature of <a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>suffocation,
+or was not rather owing to the
+preternatural action of a desperate
+spirit.</p>
+
+<p>After having been for a considerable
+time insensible, she was recovered by
+the exertions of those by whom the
+body was found. She had sought, with
+cool and deliberate firmness, to put a
+period to her existence, and yet she
+lived to have every prospect of a long
+possession of enjoyment and happiness.
+It is perhaps not an unfrequent case
+with suicides, that we find reason to
+suppose, if they had survived their
+gloomy purpose, that they would, at a
+subsequent period, have been considerably
+happy. It arises indeed, in some
+measure, out of the very nature of a
+spirit of self-destruction; which implies
+a degree of anguish, that the constitution
+of the human mind will not
+<a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>suffer to remain long undiminished.
+This is a serious reflection, Probably
+no man would destroy himself from an
+impatience of present pain, if he felt
+a moral certainty that there were years
+of enjoyment still in reserve for him.
+It is perhaps a futile attempt, to think
+of reasoning with a man in that state
+of mind which precedes suicide. Moral
+reasoning is nothing but the awakening
+of certain feelings: and the feeling
+by which he is actuated, is too
+strong to leave us much chance of impressing
+him with other feelings, that
+should have force enough to counterbalance
+it. But, if the prospect of future
+tranquillity and pleasure cannot be
+expected to have much weight with a
+man under an immediate purpose of
+suicide, it is so much the more to be
+wished, that men would impress their
+<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>minds, in their sober moments, with a
+conception, which, being rendered habitual,
+seems to promise to act as a successful
+antidote in a paroxysm of desperation.</p>
+
+<p>The present situation of Mary, of
+necessity produced some further intercourse
+between her and Mr. Imlay.
+He sent a physician to her; and Mrs.
+Christie, at his desire, prevailed on her
+to remove to her house in Finsbury-square.
+In the mean time Mr. Imlay
+assured her that his present was merely
+a casual, sensual connection; and, of
+course, fostered in her mind the idea
+that it would be once more in her
+choice to live with him. With whatever
+intention the idea was suggested,
+it was certainly calculated to increase
+the agitation of her mind. In one
+respect however it produced an effect
+<a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>unlike that which might most obviously
+have been looked for. It roused within
+her the characteristic energy of mind,
+which she seemed partially to have forgotten.
+She saw the necessity of bringing
+the affair to a point, and not suffering
+months and years to roll on in uncertainty
+and suspence. This idea inspired
+her with an extraordinary resolution.
+The language she employed,
+was, in effect, as follows: "If we are
+ever to live together again, it must be
+now. We meet now, or we part for
+ever. You say, You cannot abruptly
+break off the connection you have
+formed. It is unworthy of my courage
+and character, to wait the uncertain
+issue of that connexion. I am determined
+to come to a decision. I
+consent then, for the present, to live
+with you, and the woman to whom
+<a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>you have associated yourself. I think
+it important that you should learn habitually
+to feel for your child the affection
+of a father. But, if you reject this
+proposal, here we end. You are now
+free. We will correspond no more.
+We will have no intercourse of any
+kind. I will be to you as a person that
+is dead."</p>
+
+<p>The proposal she made, extraordinary
+and injudicious as it was, was at first
+accepted; and Mr. Imlay took her
+accordingly, to look at a house he was
+upon the point of hiring, that she
+might judge whether it was calculated
+to please her. Upon second thoughts
+however he retracted his concession.</p>
+
+<p>In the following month, Mr. Imlay,
+and the woman with whom he was at
+present connected, went to Paris, where
+they remained three months. Mary
+<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>had, previously to this, fixed herself in
+a lodging in Finsbury-place, where, for
+some time, she saw scarcely any one
+but Mrs. Christie, for the sake of whose
+neighbourhood she had chosen this
+situation; "existing," as she expressed
+it, "in a living tomb, and her life but
+an exercise of fortitude, continually on
+the stretch."</p>
+
+<p>Thus circumstanced, it was unavoidable
+for her thoughts to brood upon a
+passion, which all that she had suffered
+had not yet been able to extinguish.
+Accordingly, as soon as Mr. Imlay returned
+to England, she could not restrain
+herself from making another
+effort, and desiring to see him once
+more. "During his absence, affection
+had led her to make numberless excuses
+for his conduct," and she probably wished
+to believe that his present connection
+<a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>This answer, though, at the moment,
+highly irritating to Mary, was not the
+ultimate close of the affair. Mr.
+Christie was connected in business with
+Mr. Imlay, at the same time that the
+house of Mr. Christie was the only one
+at which Mary habitually visited. The
+consequence of this was, that, when
+Mr. Imlay had been already more than
+a fortnight in town, Mary called at
+Mr. Christie's one evening, at a time
+when Mr. Imlay was in the parlour.
+The room was full of company. Mrs.
+Christie heard Mary's voice in the passage,
+and hastened to her, to intreat
+her not to make her appearance. Mary
+<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>however was not to be controlled. She
+thought, as she afterwards told me,
+that it was not consistent with conscious
+rectitude, that she should shrink,
+as if abashed, from the presence of one
+by whom she deemed herself injured.
+Her child was with her. She entered;
+and, in a firm manner, immediately led
+up the child, now near two years of
+age, to the knees of its father. He
+retired with Mary into another apartment,
+and promised to dine with her
+at her lodging, I believe, the next day.</p>
+
+<p>In the interview which took place in
+consequence of this appointment, he
+expressed himself to her in friendly
+terms, and in a manner calculated to
+sooth her despair. Though he could
+conduct himself, when absent from her,
+in a way which she censured as unfeeling;
+this species of sternness constantly
+<a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>expired when he came into her presence.
+Mary was prepared at this moment
+to catch at every phantom of
+happiness; and the gentleness of his
+carriage, was to her as a sun-beam,
+awakening the hope of returning day.
+For an instant she gave herself up to
+delusive visions; and, even after the
+period of delirium expired, she still
+dwelt, with an aching eye, upon the
+air-built and unsubstantial prospect of
+a reconciliation.</p>
+
+<p>At his particular request, she retained
+the name of Imlay, which, a short time
+before, he had seemed to dispute with
+her. "It was not," as she expresses
+herself in a letter to a friend, "for the
+world that she did so&mdash;not in the least&mdash;but
+she was unwilling to cut the Gordian
+knot, or tear herself away in appearance,
+when she could not in reality".</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>The day after this interview, she set
+out upon a visit to the country, where
+she spent nearly the whole of the month
+of March. It was, I believe, while
+she was upon this visit, that some epistolary
+communication with Mr. Imlay,
+induced her resolutely to expel from
+her mind, all remaining doubt as to the
+issue of the affair.</p>
+
+<p>Mary was now aware that every
+demand of forbearance towards him,
+of duty to her child, and even of indulgence
+to her own deep-rooted predilection,
+was discharged. She determined
+to rouse herself, and cast off for
+ever an attachment, which to her had
+been a spring of inexhaustible bitterness.
+Her present residence among
+the scenes of nature, was favourable
+to this purpose. She was at the house
+of an old and intimate friend, a lady of
+<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>the name of Cotton, whose partiality
+for her was strong and sincere. Mrs.
+Cotton's nearest neighbour was Sir
+William East, baronet; and, from the
+joint effect of the kindness of her
+friend, and the hospitable and distinguishing
+attentions of this respectable
+family, she derived considerable benefit.
+She had been amused and interested in
+her journey to Norway; but with this
+difference, that, at that time, her mind
+perpetually returned with trembling
+anxiety to conjectures respecting Mr.
+Imlay's future conduct, whereas now,
+with a lofty and undaunted spirit, she
+threw aside every thought that recurred
+to him, while she felt herself called
+upon to make one more effort for life
+and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Once after this, to my knowledge,
+she saw Mr. Imlay; probably, not long
+<a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>after her return to town. They met
+by accident upon the New Road; he
+alighted from his horse, and walked
+with her for some time; and the rencounter
+passed, as she assured me,
+without producing in her any oppressive
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Be it observed, by the way, and I
+may be supposed best to have known
+the real state of the case, she never
+spoke of Mr. Imlay with acrimony,
+and was displeased when any person, in
+her hearing, expressed contempt of him.
+She was characterised by a strong sense
+of indignation; but her emotions of
+this sort were short-lived, and in no
+long time subsided into a dignified sereneness
+and equanimity.</p>
+
+<p>The question of her connection with
+Mr. Imlay, as we have seen, was not
+completely dismissed, till March<a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>
+1796. But it is worthy to be observed,
+that she did not, like ordinary
+persons under extreme anguish of
+mind, suffer her understanding, in the
+mean time, to sink into listlessness and
+debility. The most inapprehensive
+reader may conceive what was the
+mental torture she endured, when he
+considers, that she was twice, with an
+interval of four months, from the end
+of May to the beginning of October,
+prompted by it to purposes of suicide.
+Yet in this period she wrote her Letters
+from Norway. Shortly after its expiration
+she prepared them for the press,
+and they were published in the close of
+that year. In January 1796, she finished
+the sketch of a comedy, which turns,
+in the serious scenes, upon the incidents
+of her own story. It was offered
+to both the winter-managers, and <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>remained
+among her papers at the period
+of her decease; but it appeared to me
+to be in so crude and imperfect a state,
+that I judged it most respectful to her
+memory to commit it to the flames.
+To understand this extraordinary degree
+of activity, we must recollect however
+the entire solitude, in which most
+of her hours were at that time consumed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAP_IX" id="CHAP_IX"></a>CHAP. IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>1796, 1797.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I am now led, by the progress of the
+story, to the last branch of her history,
+the connection between Mary and myself.
+And this I shall relate with the
+same simplicity that has pervaded every
+other part of my narrative. If there
+ever were any motives of prudence or
+delicacy, that could impose a qualification
+upon the story, they are now
+over. They could have no relation
+but to factitious rules of decorum.<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>
+There are no circumstances of her life,
+that, in the judgment of honour and
+reason, could brand her with disgrace.
+Never did there exist a human being,
+that needed, with less fear, expose all
+their actions, and call upon the universe
+to judge them. An event of the
+most deplorable sort, has awfully imposed
+silence upon the gabble of frivolity.</p>
+
+<p>We renewed our acquaintance in
+January 1796, but with no particular
+effect, except so far as sympathy in
+her anguish, added in my mind to the
+respect I had always entertained for
+her talents. It was in the close of
+that month that I read her Letters from
+Norway; and the impression that book
+produced upon me has been already
+related.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the fourteenth of April
+<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>that I first saw her after her excursion
+into Berkshire. On that day she called
+upon me in Somers Town, she
+having, since her return, taken a lodging
+in Cumming-street, Pentonville, at
+no great distance from the place of
+my habitation. From that time our
+intimacy increased, by regular, but almost
+imperceptible degrees.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>
+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 other.</p>
+
+<p>In July 1796 I made an excursion
+into the county of Norfolk, which occupied
+nearly the whole of that month.
+During this period Mary removed,
+from Cumming-street, Pentonville, to
+Judd place West, which may be considered
+as the extremity of Somers
+Town. In the former situation, she
+had occupied a furnished lodging. She
+had meditated a tour to Italy or Switzerland,
+and knew not how soon she
+should set out with that view. Now
+however she felt herself reconciled to
+a longer abode in England, probably
+<a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>without exactly knowing why this
+change had taken place in her mind.
+She had a quantity of furniture locked
+up at a broker's ever since her residence
+in Store-street, and she now found it
+adviseable to bring it into use. This
+circumstance occasioned her present
+removal.</p>
+
+<p>The temporary separation attendant
+on my little journey, had its effect on
+the mind of both parties. It gave
+a space for the maturing of inclination.
+I believe that, during this interval,
+each furnished to the other the
+principal topic of solitary and daily
+contemplation. Absence bestows a
+refined and a&euml;rial delicacy upon affection,
+which it with difficulty acquires
+in any other way. It seems to resemble
+the communication of spirits, <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>without
+the medium, or the impediment,
+of this earthly frame.</p>
+
+<p>When we met again, we met with
+new pleasure, and, I may add, with a
+more decisive preference for each
+other. It was however three weeks
+longer, before the sentiment which
+trembled upon the tongue, burst from
+the lips of either. There was, as I
+have already said, no period of throes
+and resolute explanation attendant on
+the tale. It was friendship melting
+into love. Previously to our mutual
+declaration, each felt half-assured, yet
+each felt a certain trembling anxiety to
+have assurance complete.</p>
+
+<p>Mary rested her head upon the
+shoulder of her lover, hoping to find
+a heart with which she might safely
+treasure her world of affection; fearing
+to commit a mistake, yet, in spite
+<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>of her melancholy experience, fraught
+with that generous confidence, which,
+in a great soul, is never extinguished.
+I had never loved till now; or, at least,
+had never nourished a passion to the
+same growth, or met with an object
+so consummately worthy.</p>
+
+<p>We did not marry. It is difficult to
+recommend any thing to indiscriminate
+adoption, contrary to the established
+rules and prejudices of mankind;
+but certainly nothing can be so
+ridiculous upon the face of it, 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 <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>moment
+when it has arrived at its climax.</p>
+
+<p>There were however other reasons
+why we did not immediately marry.
+Mary felt an entire conviction of the
+propriety of her conduct. It would
+be absurd to suppose that, with a heart
+withered by desertion, she was not
+right to give way to the emotions of
+kindness which our intimacy produced,
+and to seek for that support in
+friendship and affection, which could
+alone give pleasure to her heart, and
+peace to her meditations. It was only
+about six months since she had resolutely
+banished every thought of Mr. Imlay;
+but it was at least eighteen that he
+ought to have been banished, and
+would have been banished, had it not
+been for her scrupulous pertinacity in
+determining to leave no measure untried
+<a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>to regain him. Add to this, that the
+laws of etiquette ordinarily laid down
+in these cases, are essentially absurd,
+and that the sentiments of the heart
+cannot submit to be directed by the
+rule and the square. But Mary had an
+extreme aversion to be made the topic
+of vulgar discussion; and, if there be
+any weakness in this, the dreadful trials
+through which she had recently passed,
+may well plead in its excuse. She felt
+that she had been too much, and too
+rudely spoken of, in the former instance;
+and she could not resolve to do
+any thing that should immediately revive
+that painful topic.</p>
+
+<p>For myself, it is certain that I had
+for many years regarded marriage with
+so well-grounded an apprehension, that,
+notwithstanding the partiality for Mary
+that had taken possession of my soul, I
+<a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>should have felt it very difficult, at least
+in the present stage of our intercourse,
+to have resolved on such a measure.
+Thus, partly from similar, and partly
+from different motives, we felt alike in
+this, as we did perhaps in every other
+circumstance that related to our intercourse.</p>
+
+<p>I have nothing further that I find it
+necessary to record, till the commencement
+of April 1797. We then judged
+it proper to declare our marriage,
+which had taken place a little before.
+The principal motive for complying
+with this ceremony, was the circumstance
+of Mary's being in a state of
+pregnancy. She was unwilling, and
+perhaps with reason, to incur that exclusion
+from the society of many valuable
+and excellent individuals, which
+custom awards in cases of this sort. I
+<a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>should have felt an extreme repugnance
+to the having caused her such an inconvenience.
+And, after the experiment
+of seven months of as intimate
+an intercourse as our respective modes
+of living would admit, there was certainly
+less hazard to either, in the subjecting
+ourselves to those consequences
+which the laws of England annex to
+the relations of husband and wife. On
+the sixth of April we entered into possession
+of a house, which had been taken
+by us in concert.</p>
+
+<p>In this place I have a very curious circumstance
+to notice, which I am happy
+to have occasion to mention, as it tends
+to expose certain regulations of polished
+society, of which the absurdity vies with
+the odiousness. Mary had long possessed
+the advantage of an acquaintance
+<a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>with many persons of genius, and with
+others whom the effects of an intercourse
+with elegant society, combined
+with a certain portion of information
+and good sense, sufficed to render amusing
+companions. She had lately extended
+the circle of her acquaintance
+in this respect; and her mind, trembling
+between the opposite impressions
+of past anguish and renovating tranquillity,
+found ease in this species of recreation.
+Wherever Mary appeared, admiration
+attended upon her. She had
+always displayed talents for conversation;
+but maturity of understanding,
+her travels, her long residence in France,
+the discipline of affliction, and the smiling,
+new-born peace which awaked a corresponding
+smile in her animated countenance,
+inexpressibly increased them.
+The way in which the story of Mr. <a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>Imlay
+was treated in these polite circles,
+was probably the result of the partiality
+she excited. These elegant personages
+were divided between their cautious
+adherence to forms, and the desire to
+seek their own gratification. Mary
+made no secret of the nature of her
+connection with Mr. Imlay; and in one
+instance, I well know, she put herself
+to the trouble of explaining it to a person
+totally indifferent to her, because
+he never failed to publish every thing
+he knew, and, she was sure, would repeat
+her explanation to his numerous
+acquaintance. She was of too proud
+and generous a spirit to stoop to hypocrisy.
+These persons however, in spite
+of all that could be said, persisted in
+shutting their eyes, and pretending they
+took her for a married woman.</p>
+
+<p>Observe the consequence of this!<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>
+While she was, and constantly professed
+to be, an unmarried mother; she was
+fit society for the squeamish and the
+formal. The moment she acknowledged
+herself a wife, and that by a
+marriage perhaps unexceptionable, the
+case was altered. Mary and myself,
+ignorant as we were of these elevated
+refinements, supposed that our marriage
+would place her upon a surer footing in
+the calendar of polished society, than
+ever. But it forced these people to see
+the truth, and to confess their belief of
+what they had carefully been told; and
+this they could not forgive. Be it remarked,
+that the date of our marriage
+had nothing to do with this, that question
+being never once mentioned during
+this period. Mary indeed had,
+till now, retained the name of Imlay
+which had first been assumed from <a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>necessity
+in France; but its being retained
+thus long, was purely from the aukwardness
+that attends the introduction
+of a change, and not from an apprehension
+of consequences of this sort. Her
+scrupulous explicitness as to the nature
+of her situation, surely sufficed to make
+the name she bore perfectly immaterial.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to relate the particulars
+of such a story, but in the language
+of contempt and ridicule. A serious
+reflection however upon the whole,
+ought to awaken emotions of a different
+sort. Mary retained the most
+numerous portion of her acquaintance,
+and the majority of those whom she
+principally valued. It was only the
+supporters and the subjects of the unprincipled
+manners of a court, that she
+lost. This however is immaterial. The
+tendency of the proceeding, strictly
+<a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>considered, and uniformly acted upon,
+would have been to proscribe her from
+all valuable society. And who was
+the person proscribed? The firmest
+champion, and, as I strongly suspect,
+the greatest ornament her sex ever had
+to boast! A woman, with sentiments
+as pure, as refined, and as delicate, as
+ever inhabited a human heart! It is
+fit that such persons should stand by,
+that we may have room enough for the
+dull and insolent dictators, the gamblers
+and demireps of polished society!</p>
+
+<p>Two of the persons, the loss of whose
+acquaintance Mary principally regretted
+upon this occasion, were Mrs. Inchbald
+and Mrs. Siddons. Their acquaintance,
+it is perhaps fair to observe,
+is to be ranked among her recent
+acquisitions. Mrs. Siddons, I am sure,
+regretted the necessity, which she <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>conceived
+to be imposed on her by the
+peculiarity of her situation, to conform
+to the rules I have described. She is
+endowed with that rich and generous
+sensibility, which should best enable
+its possessor completely to feel the
+merits of her deceased friend. She
+very truly observes, in a letter now before
+me, that the Travels in Norway
+were read by no one, who was in possession
+of "more reciprocity of feeling,
+or more deeply impressed with admiration
+of the writer's extraordinary
+powers."</p>
+
+<p>Mary felt a transitory pang, when
+the conviction reached her of so unexpected
+a circumstance, that was rather
+exquisite. But she disdained to sink
+under the injustice (as this ultimately
+was) of the supercilious and the foolish,
+and presently shook off the impression
+<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>of the first surprize. That once subsided,
+I well know that the event was
+thought of, with no emotions, but those
+of superiority to the injustice she sustained;
+and was not of force enough,
+to diminish a happiness, which seemed
+hourly to become more vigorous
+and firm.</p>
+
+<p>I think I may venture to say, that no
+two persons ever found in each other's
+society, a satisfaction more pure and
+refined. What it was in itself, can
+now only be known, in its full extent,
+to the survivor. But, I believe, the
+serenity of her countenance, the increasing
+sweetness of her manners, and
+that consciousness of enjoyment that
+seemed ambitious that every one she
+saw should be happy as well as herself,
+were matters of general observation to
+all her acquaintance. She had always
+<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>possessed, in an unparalleled degree, the
+art of communicating happiness, and
+she was now in the constant and unlimited
+exercise of it. She seemed to
+have attained that situation, which
+her disposition and character imperiously
+demanded, but which she had
+never before attained; and her understanding
+and her heart felt the benefit
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>While we lived as near neighbours
+only, and before our last removal, her
+mind had attained considerable tranquillity,
+and was visited but seldom
+with those emotions of anguish, which
+had been but too familiar to her. But
+the improvement in this respect, which
+accrued upon our removal and establishment,
+was extremely obvious. She
+was a worshipper of domestic life.
+She loved to observe the growth of
+<a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>affection between me and her daughter,
+then three years of age, as well as my
+anxiety respecting the child not yet
+born. Pregnancy itself, unequal as the
+decree of nature seems to be in this respect,
+is the source of a thousand endearments.
+No one knew better than
+Mary how to extract sentiments of exquisite
+delight, from trifles, which a
+suspicious and formal wisdom would
+scarcely deign to remark. A little
+ride into the country with myself and
+the child, has sometimes produced a
+sort of opening of the heart, a general
+expression of confidence and affectionate
+soul, a sort of infantine, yet dignified
+endearment, which those who
+have felt may understand, but which I
+should in vain attempt to pourtray.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to our domestic pleasures,
+I was fortunate enough to introduce her
+<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>to some of my acquaintance of both
+sexes, to whom she attached herself
+with all the ardour of approbation and
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p>Ours was not an idle happiness, a
+paradise of selfish and transitory pleasures.
+It is perhaps scarcely necessary
+to mention, that, influenced by the
+ideas I had long entertained upon the
+subject of cohabitation, I engaged an
+apartment, about twenty doors from
+our house in the Polygon, Somers Town,
+which I designed for the purpose of my
+study and literary occupations. Trifles
+however will be interesting to some
+readers, when they relate to the last period
+of the life of such a person as Mary.
+I will add therefore, that we were both
+of us of opinion, that it was possible
+for two persons to be too uniformly in
+each other's society. Influenced by
+<a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>that opinion, it was my practice to
+repair to the apartment I have mentioned
+as soon as I rose, and frequently
+not to make my appearance in the
+Polygon, till the hour of dinner. We
+agreed in condemning the notion, prevalent
+in many situations in life, that
+a man and his wife cannot visit in mixed
+society, but in company with each
+other; and we rather sought occasions
+of deviating from, than of complying
+with, this rule. By these means, though,
+for the most part, we spent the latter
+half of each day in one another's society,
+yet we were in no danger of
+satiety. We seemed to combine, in a
+considerable degree, the novelty and
+lively sensation of visit, with the more
+delicious and heart-felt pleasures of
+domestic life.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be thought, in other
+<a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>respects, of the plan we laid down to
+ourselves, we probably derived a real
+advantage from it, as to the constancy
+and uninterruptedness of our literary
+pursuits. Mary had a variety of projects
+of this sort, for the exercise of
+her talents, and the benefit of society;
+and, if she had lived, I believe
+the world would have had very little
+reason to complain of any remission of
+her industry. One of her projects,
+which has been already mentioned, was
+of a series of Letters on the Management
+of Infants. Though she had been
+for some time digesting her ideas
+on this subject with a view to the
+press, I have found comparatively nothing
+that she had committed to paper
+respecting it. Another project, of
+longer standing, was of a series of
+books for the instruction of children.<a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>
+A fragment she left in execution of
+this project, is inserted in her Posthumous
+Works.</p>
+
+<p>But the principal work, in which she
+was engaged for more than twelve
+months before her decease, was a novel,
+entitled, The Wrongs of Woman. I
+shall not stop here to explain the nature
+of the work, as so much of it as
+was already written, is now given to
+the public. I shall only observe that,
+impressed, as she could not fail to be,
+with the consciousness of her talents,
+she was desirous, in this instance, that
+they should effect what they were capable
+of effecting. She was sensible how
+arduous a task it is to produce a truly
+excellent novel; and she roused her
+faculties to grapple with it. All her
+other works were produced with a
+rapidity, that did not give her powers
+<a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>time fully to expand. But this was
+written slowly and with mature consideration.
+She began it in several
+forms, which she successively rejected,
+after they were considerably advanced.
+She wrote many parts of the work
+again and again, and, when she had
+finished what she intended for the first
+part, she felt herself more urgently
+stimulated to revise and improve what
+she had written, than to proceed, with
+constancy of application, in the parts
+that were to follow.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAP_X" id="CHAP_X"></a>CHAP. X.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I am now led, by the course of my
+narrative, to the last fatal scene of her
+life. She was taken in labour on
+Wednesday, the thirtieth of August.
+She had been somewhat indisposed on
+the preceding Friday, the consequence,
+I believe, of a sudden alarm. But
+from that time she was in perfect health.
+She was so far from being under any
+apprehension as to the difficulties of
+child-birth, as frequently to ridicule
+<a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>the fashion of ladies in England, who
+keep their chamber for one full month
+after delivery. For herself, she proposed
+coming down to dinner on the
+day immediately following. She had
+already had some experience on the
+subject in the case of Fanny; and I
+cheerfully submitted in every point to
+her judgment and her wisdom. She
+hired no nurse. 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.
+She was sensible that the proper
+business of a midwife, in the instance
+of a natural labour, is to sit by
+and wait for the operations of nature,
+which seldom, in these affairs, demand
+the interposition of art.</p>
+
+<p>At five o'clock in the morning of the
+<a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>day of delivery, she felt what she conceived
+to be some notices of the approaching
+labour. Mrs. Blenkinsop,
+matron and midwife to the Westminster
+Lying in Hospital, who had seen
+Mary several times previous to her delivery,
+was soon after sent for, and arrived
+about nine. During the whole
+day Mary was perfectly cheerful. Her
+pains came on slowly; and, in the
+morning, she wrote several notes, three
+addressed to me, who had gone, as
+usual, to my apartments, for the purpose
+of study. About two o'clock in the
+afternoon, she went up to her chamber,&mdash;never
+more to descend.</p>
+
+<p>The child was born at twenty minutes
+after eleven at night. Mary had
+requested that I would not come into
+the chamber till all was over, and signified
+her intention of then <a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>performing
+the interesting office of presenting
+the new-born child to its father. I was
+sitting in a parlour; and it was not till
+after two o'clock on Thursday morning,
+that I received the alarming intelligence,
+that the placenta was not yet
+removed, and that the midwife dared
+not proceed any further, and gave her
+opinion for calling in a male practitioner.
+I accordingly went for Dr. Poignand,
+physician and man-midwife to the same
+hospital, who arrived between three
+and four hours after the birth of the
+child. He immediately proceeded to
+the extraction of the placenta, which
+he brought away in pieces, till he was
+satisfied that the whole was removed.
+In that point however it afterwards
+appeared that he was mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>The period from the birth of the
+child till about eight o'clock the next
+<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>morning, was a period full of peril and
+alarm. The loss of blood was considerable,
+and produced an almost uninterrupted
+series of fainting fits. I went
+to the chamber soon after four in the
+morning, and found her in this state.
+She told me some time on Thursday,
+"that she should have died the preceding
+night, but that she was determined
+not to leave me." She added, with one
+of those smiles which so eminently illuminated
+her countenance, "that I
+should not be like Porson," alluding to
+the circumstance of that great man having
+lost his wife, after being only a few
+months married. Speaking of what
+she had already passed through, she declared,
+"that she had never known
+what bodily pain was before."</p>
+
+<p>On Thursday morning Dr. Poignand
+repeated his visit. Mary had just<a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a> before
+expressed some inclination to see
+Dr. George Fordyce, a man probably
+of more science than any other medical
+professor in England, and between
+whom and herself there had long subsisted
+a mutual friendship. I mentioned
+this to Dr. Poignand, but he rather discountenanced
+the idea, observing that
+he saw no necessity for it, and that he
+supposed Dr. Fordyce was not particularly
+conversant with obstetrical cases;
+but that I would do as I pleased. After
+Dr. Poignand was gone, I determined
+to send for Dr. Fordyce. He accordingly
+saw the patient about three o'clock
+on Thursday afternoon. He however
+perceived no particular cause of alarm;
+and, on that or the next day, quoted,
+as I am told, Mary's case, in a mixed
+company, as a <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'corrobation'">corroboration</ins> of a favourite
+idea of his, of the propriety of <a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>employing
+females in the capacity of midwives.
+Mary "had had a woman, and
+was doing extremely well."</p>
+
+<p>What had passed however in the
+night between Wednesday and Thursday,
+had so far alarmed me, that I did
+not quit the house, and scarcely the
+chamber, during the following day.
+But my alarms wore off, as time advanced.
+Appearances were more favourable,
+than the exhausted state of
+the patient would almost have permitted
+me to expect. Friday morning
+therefore I devoted to a business of
+some urgency, which called me to different
+parts of the town, and which,
+before dinner, I happily completed.
+On my return, and during the evening,
+I received the most pleasurable sensations
+from the promising state of the
+patient. I was now perfectly satisfied
+<a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>that every thing was safe, and that, if
+she did not take cold, or suffer from
+any external accident, her speedy recovery
+was certain.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday was a day less auspicious
+than Friday, but not absolutely alarming.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday, the third of September, I
+now regard as the day, that finally decided
+on the fate of the object dearest
+to my heart that the universe contained.
+Encouraged by what I considered
+as the progress of her recovery, I accompanied
+a friend in the morning in
+several calls, one of them as far as
+Kensington, and did not return till
+dinner-time. On my return I found a
+degree of anxiety in every face, and
+was told that she had had a sort of
+shivering fit, and had expressed some
+anxiety at the length of my absence.<a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>
+My sister and a friend of hers, had been
+engaged to dine below stairs, but a
+message was sent to put them off, and
+Mary ordered that the cloth should not
+be laid, as usual, in the room immediately
+under her on the first floor, but
+in the ground-floor parlour. I felt a
+pang at having been so long and so unseasonably
+absent, and determined that
+I would not repeat the fault.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening she had a second
+shivering fit, the symptoms of which
+were in the highest degree alarming.
+Every muscle of the body trembled,
+the teeth chattered, and the bed shook
+under her. This continued probably
+for five minutes. She told me, after it
+was over, that it had been a struggle
+between life and death, and that she
+had been more than once, in the course
+of it, at the point of expiring. I now
+<a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>apprehend these to have been the symptoms
+of a decided mortification, occasioned
+by the part of the placenta that
+remained in the womb. At the time
+however I was far from considering it
+in that light. When I went for Dr.
+Poignand, between two and three
+o'clock on the morning of Thursday,
+despair was in my heart. The fact of
+the adhesion of the placenta was stated
+to me; and, ignorant as I was of obstetrical
+science, I felt as if the death of
+Mary was in a manner decided. But
+hope had re-visited my bosom; and her
+chearings were so delightful, that I
+hugged her obstinately to my heart.
+I was only mortified at what appeared
+to me a new delay in the recovery I so
+earnestly longed for. I immediately
+sent for Dr. Fordyce, who had been
+with her in the morning, as well as on
+<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>the three preceding days. Dr. Poignand
+had also called this morning
+but declined paying any further visits,
+as we had thought proper to call in
+Dr. Fordyce.</p>
+
+<p>The progress of the disease was now
+uninterrupted. On Tuesday I found
+it necessary again to call in Dr. Fordyce
+in the afternoon, who brought with
+him Dr. Clarke of New Burlington-street,
+under the idea that some operation
+might be necessary. I have already
+said, that I pertinaciously persisted in
+viewing the fair side of things; and
+therefore the interval between Sunday
+and Tuesday evening, did not pass
+without some mixture of cheerfulness.
+On Monday, Dr. Fordyce
+forbad the child's having the breast,
+and we therefore procured puppies to
+draw off the milk. This occasioned
+<a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>some pleasantry of Mary with me and
+the other attendants. Nothing could
+exceed the equanimity, the patience
+and affectionateness of the poor sufferer.
+I intreated her to recover; I dwelt with
+trembling fondness on every favourable
+circumstance; and, as far it was possible
+in so dreadful a situation, she, by her
+smiles and kind speeches, rewarded my
+affection.</p>
+
+<p>Wednesday was to me the day of
+greatest torture in the melancholy series.
+It was now decided that the only chance
+of supporting her through what she
+had to suffer, was by supplying her
+rather freely with wine. This task was
+devolved upon me. I began about
+four o'clock in the afternoon. But
+for me, totally ignorant of the nature
+of diseases and of the human
+frame, thus to play with a life that now
+<a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>seemed all that was dear to me in the
+universe, was too dreadful a task. I
+knew neither what was too much, nor
+what was too little. Having begun, I
+felt compelled, under every disadvantage,
+to go on. This lasted for three
+hours. Towards the end of that time,
+I happened foolishly to ask the servant
+who came out of the room, "What
+she thought of her mistress?" she replied,
+"that, in her judgment, she was
+going as fast as possible." There are
+moments, when any creature that lives,
+has power to drive one into madness.
+I seemed to know the absurdity of
+this reply; but that was of no consequence.
+It added to the measure of
+my distraction. A little after seven I
+intreated a friend to go for Mr. Carlisle,
+and bring him instantly wherever he
+was to be found. He had voluntarily
+<a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>called on the patient on the preceding
+Saturday, and two or three times since.
+He had seen her that morning, and
+had been earnest in recommending the
+wine-diet. That day he dined four
+miles out of town, on the side of the
+metropolis, which was furthest from us.
+Notwithstanding this, my friend returned
+with him after three-quarters of
+an hour's absence. No one who knows
+my friend, will wonder either at his
+eagerness or success, when I name Mr.
+Basil Montagu. The sight of Mr. Carlisle
+thus unexpectedly, gave me a
+stronger alleviating sensation, than I
+thought it possible to experience.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carlisle left us no more from
+Wednesday evening, to the hour of her
+death. It was impossible to exceed
+his kindness and affectionate attention.
+It excited in every spectator a <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>sentiment
+like adoration. His conduct was
+uniformly tender and anxious, ever
+upon the watch, observing every symptom,
+and eager to improve every favourable
+appearance. If skill or attention
+could have saved her, Mary would
+still live. In addition to Mr. Carlisle's
+constant presence, she had Dr. Fordyce
+and Dr. Clarke every day. She had
+for nurses, or rather for friends, watching
+every occasion to serve her, Mrs.
+Fenwick, author of an excellent novel,
+entitled Secrecy, another very kind and
+judicious lady, and a favourite female
+servant. I was scarcely ever out of
+the room. Four friends, Mr. Fenwick,
+Mr. Basil Montagu, Mr. Marshal, and
+Mr. Dyson, sat up nearly the whole of
+the last week of her existence in the
+house, to be dispatched, on any errand,
+to any part of the metropolis, at a
+moment's warning.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>Mr. Carlisle being in the chamber, I
+retired to bed for a few hours on Wednesday
+night. Towards morning he
+came into my room with an account
+that the patient was surprisingly better.
+I went instantly into the chamber.
+But I now sought to suppress
+every idea of hope. The greatest anguish
+I have any conception of, consists
+in that crushing of a new-born hope
+which I had already two or three times
+experienced. If Mary recovered, it
+was well, and I should see it time
+enough. But it was too mighty a
+thought to bear being trifled with, and
+turned out and admitted in this abrupt
+way.</p>
+
+<p>I had reason to rejoice in the firmness
+of my gloomy thoughts, when, about
+ten o'clock on Thursday evening, Mr.
+Carlisle told us to prepare ourselves, for
+<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>we had reason to expect the fatal event
+every moment. To my thinking, she
+did not appear to be in that state of
+total exhaustion, which I supposed to
+precede death; but it is probable that
+death does not always take place by
+that gradual process I had pictured to
+myself; a sudden pang may accelerate
+his arrival. She did not die on Thursday
+night.</p>
+
+<p>Till now it does not appear that she
+had any serious thoughts of dying;
+but on Friday and Saturday, the two
+last days of her life, she occasionally
+spoke as if she expected it. This was
+however only at intervals; the thought
+did not seem to dwell upon her mind.
+Mr. Carlisle rejoiced in this. He observed,
+and there is great force in the
+suggestion, that there is no more pitiable
+object, than a sick man, that knows
+<a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>he is dying. The thought must be expected
+to destroy his courage, to co-operate
+with the disease, and to counteract
+every favourable effort of nature.</p>
+
+<p>On these two days her faculties were
+in too decayed a state, to be able to
+follow any train of ideas with force or
+any accuracy of connection. Her religion,
+as I have already shown, was
+not calculated to be the torment of a
+sick bed; and, in fact, during her whole
+illness, not one word of a religious cast
+fell from her lips.</p>
+
+<p>She was affectionate and compliant
+to the last. I observed on Friday and
+Saturday nights, that, whenever her
+attendants recommended to her to
+sleep, she discovered her willingness to
+yield, by breathing, perhaps for the
+space of a minute, in the manner of a
+person that sleeps, though the effort,
+<a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>from the state of her disorder, usually
+proved ineffectual.</p>
+
+<p>She was not tormented by useless
+contradiction. One night the servant,
+from an error in judgment, teazed her
+with idle expostulations, but she complained
+of it grievously, and it was
+corrected. "Pray, pray, do not let
+her reason with me," was her expression.
+Death itself is scarcely so dreadful
+to the enfeebled frame, as the monotonous
+importunity of nurses ever-lastingly
+repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that every hope was extinct,
+I was very desirous of obtaining from
+her any directions, that she might wish
+to have followed after her decease.
+Accordingly, on Saturday morning, I
+talked to her for a good while of the
+two children. In conformity to Mr.
+Carlisle's maxim of not impressing the
+<a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>idea of death, I was obliged to manage
+my expressions. I therefore affected to
+proceed wholly upon the ground of her
+having been very ill, and that it would
+be some time before she could expect
+to be well; wishing her to tell me any
+thing that she would choose to have
+done respecting the children, as they
+would now be principally under my
+care. After having repeated this idea
+to her in a great variety of forms, she
+at length said, with a significant tone
+of voice, "I know what you are thinking
+of," but added, that she had nothing
+to communicate to me upon the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>The shivering fits had ceased entirely
+for the two last days. Mr. Carlisle observed
+that her continuance was almost
+miraculous, and he was on the watch
+for favourable appearances, believing
+<a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>it highly improper to give up all hope,
+and remarking, that perhaps one in a
+million, of persons in her state might
+possibly recover. I conceive that not
+one in a million, unites so good a constitution
+of body and of mind.</p>
+
+<p>These were the amusements of persons
+in the very gulph of despair. At
+six o'clock on Sunday morning, September
+the tenth, Mr. Carlisle called
+me from my bed to which I had retired
+at one, in conformity to my request,
+that I might not be left to receive
+all at once the intelligence that
+she was no more. She expired at
+twenty minutes before eight.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Her remains were deposited, on the
+fifteenth of September, at ten o'clock
+in the morning, in the church-yard of
+<a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>the parish church of St. Pancras, Middlesex.
+A few of the persons she most
+esteemed, attended the ceremony; and
+a plain monument is now erecting on
+the spot, by some of her friends, with
+the following inscription:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">mary wollstonecraft godwin,</span> <br />
+<span class="smcap">author of</span>                   <br />
+<span class="smcap">a vindication</span>               <br />
+<span class="smcap">of the rights of woman.</span>     <br />
+<span class="smcap">born, XXVII april MDCCLIX.</span>  <br />
+<span class="smcap">died, X september MDCCXCVII.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The loss of the world in this admirable
+woman, I leave to other men to
+collect; my own I well know, nor can
+it be improper to describe it. I do not
+here allude to the personal pleasures I
+<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>enjoyed in her conversation: these increased
+every day, in proportion as we
+knew each other better, and as our
+mutual confidence increased. They can
+be measured only by the treasures of
+her mind, and the virtues of her heart.
+But this is a subject for meditation, not
+for words. What I purposed alluding
+to, was the improvement that I have
+for ever lost.</p>
+
+<p>We had cultivated our powers (if I
+may venture to use this sort of language)
+in different directions; I chiefly an attempt
+at logical and metaphysical distinction,
+she a taste for the picturesque.
+One of the leading passions of my mind
+has been an anxious desire not to be
+deceived. This has led me to view the
+topics of my reflection on all sides; and
+to examine and re-examine without
+end, the questions that interest me.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>But it was not merely (to judge at
+least from all the reports of my memory
+in this respect) the difference of propensities,
+that made the difference in
+our intellectual habits. I have been
+stimulated, as long as I can remember,
+by an ambition for intellectual distinction;
+but, as long as I can remember,
+I have been discouraged, when I have
+endeavoured to cast the sum of my intellectual
+value, by finding that I did
+not possess, in the degree of some other
+men, an intuitive perception of intellectual
+beauty. I have perhaps a
+strong and lively sense of the pleasures
+of the imagination; but I have seldom
+been right in aligning to them their
+proportionate value, but by dint of persevering
+examination, and the change
+and correction of my first opinions.</p>
+
+<p>What I wanted in this respect, Mary
+<a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>possessed, in a degree superior to any
+other person I ever knew. The
+strength of her mind lay in intuition.
+She was often right, by this means
+only, in matters of mere speculation.
+Her religion, her philosophy, (in both
+of which the errors were comparatively
+few, and the strain dignified and generous)
+were, as I have already said, the
+pure result of feeling and taste. She
+adopted one opinion, and rejected another,
+spontaneously, by a sort of tact,
+and the force of a cultivated imagination;
+and yet, though perhaps, in
+the strict sense of the term, she reasoned
+little, it is surprising what a degree
+of soundness is to be found in her
+determinations. But, if this quality
+was of use to her in topics that seem
+the proper province of reasoning, it
+was much more so in matters directly
+<a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>appealing to the intellectual taste. In
+a robust and unwavering judgment of
+this sort, there is a kind of witchcraft;
+when it decides justly, it produces a
+responsive vibration in every ingenuous
+mind. In this sense, my oscillation and
+scepticism were fixed by her boldness.
+When a true opinion emanated in this
+way from another mind, the conviction
+produced in my own assumed a similar
+character, instantaneous and firm. This
+species of intellect probably differs from
+the other, chiefly in the relation of
+earlier and later. What the one perceives
+instantaneously (circumstances
+having produced in it, either a premature
+attention to objects of this sort, or
+a greater boldness of decision) the
+other receives only by degrees. What
+it wants, seems to be nothing more
+than a minute attention to first <a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>impressions,
+and a just appreciation of
+them; habits that are never so effectually
+generated, as by the daily recurrence
+of a striking example.</p>
+
+<p>This light was lent to me for a very
+short period, and is now extinguished
+for ever!</p>
+
+<p>While I have described the improvement
+I was in the act of receiving, I
+believe I have put down the leading
+traits of her intellectual character.</p>
+
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">the end.</span></h2>
+<hr style="width: 95%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication
+of the Rights of Woman, by William Godwin
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+</pre>
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+</body>
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