Mary Wollstonecraft
by Elizabeth Robins Pennell · English · Gutenberg #22800 · 644,973 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Mary Wollstonecraft
Author: Elizabeth Robins Pennell
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Louise Pryor and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
BY
ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1890.
_Copyright, 1884_,
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
UNIVERSITY PRESS:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
PREFACE.
Comparatively little has been written about the life of MARY
WOLLSTONECRAFT. The two authorities upon the subject are Godwin and Mr.
C. Kegan Paul. In writing the following Biography I have relied chiefly
upon the Memoir written by the former, and the Life of Godwin and
Prefatory Memoir to the Letters to Imlay of the latter. I have endeavored
to supplement the facts recorded in these books by a careful analysis of
Mary Wollstonecraft's writings and study of the period in which she
lived.
I must here express my thanks to Mr. Garnett, of the British Museum, and
to Mr. C. Kegan Paul, for the kind assistance they have given me in my
work. To the first named of these gentlemen I am indebted for the loan of
a manuscript containing some particulars of Mary Wollstonecraft's last
illness which have never yet appeared in print, and to Mr. Paul for the
gift, as well as the loan, of several important books.
E. R. P.
LONDON, August, 1884.
CONTENTS.
Page
INTRODUCTION 1
Chapter
I. CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. 1759-1778 12
II. FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 1778-1785 30
III. LIFE AS GOVERNESS. 1786-1788 60
IV. LITERARY LIFE. 1788-1791 85
V. LITERARY WORK. 1788-1791 117
VI. "VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN" 136
VII. VISIT TO PARIS. 1792-1793 171
VIII. LIFE WITH IMLAY. 1793-1794 198
IX. IMLAY'S DESERTION. 1794-1795 218
X. LITERARY WORK. 1793-1796 248
XI. RETROSPECTIVE. 1794-1796 280
XII. WILLIAM GODWIN 290
XIII. LIFE WITH GODWIN: MARRIAGE. 1796-1797 314
XIV. LAST MONTHS: DEATH. 1797 340
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
INTRODUCTION.
Few women have worked so faithfully for the cause of humanity as Mary
Wollstonecraft, and few have been the objects of such bitter censure. She
devoted herself to the relief of her suffering fellow-beings with the
ardor of a Saint Vincent de Paul, and in return she was considered by
them a moral scourge of God. Because she had the courage to express
opinions new to her generation, and the independence to live according to
her own standard of right and wrong, she was denounced as another
Messalina. The young were bidden not to read her books, and the more
mature warned not to follow her example, the miseries she endured being
declared the just retribution of her actions. Indeed, the infamy attached
to her name is almost incredible in the present age, when new theories
are more patiently criticised, and when purity of motive has been
accepted as the vindication of at least one well-known breach of social
laws. The malignant attacks made upon her character since her death have
been too great to be ignored. They had best be stated here, that the life
which follows may serve as their refutation.
As a rule, the notices which were published after she was dead were
harsher and more uncompromising than those written during her lifetime.
There were happily one or two exceptions. The writer of her obituary
notice in the "Monthly Magazine" for September, 1797, speaks of her in
terms of unlimited admiration.
"This extraordinary woman," he writes, "no less distinguished by
admirable talents and a masculine tone of understanding, than by active
humanity, exquisite sensibility, and endearing qualities of heart,
commanding the respect and winning the affections of all who were favored
with her friendship or confidence, or who were within the sphere of her
influence, may justly be considered as a public loss. Quick to feel, and
indignant to resist, the iron hand of despotism, whether civil or
intellectual, her exertions to awaken in the minds of her oppressed sex a
sense of their degradation, and to restore them to the dignity of reason
and virtue, were active and incessant; by her impassioned reasoning and
glowing eloquence, the fabric of voluptuous prejudice has been shaken to
its foundation and totters towards its fall; while her philosophic mind,
taking a wider range, perceived and lamented in the defects of civil
institutions interwoven in their texture and inseparable from them the
causes of those partial evils, destructive to virtue and happiness, which
poison social intercourse and deform domestic life." Her eulogist
concludes by calling her the "ornament of her sex, the enlightened
advocate for freedom, and the benevolent friend of humankind."
It is more than probable, however, that this was written by a personal
friend; for a year later the same magazine, in its semi-annual
retrospect of British literature, expressed somewhat altered opinions.
This time it says: "It is not for us to vindicate Mary Godwin from the
charge of multiplied immorality which is brought against her by the
candid as well as the censorious, by the sagacious as well as the
superstitious observer. Her character in our estimation is far from being
entitled to unqualified praise; she had many faults; she had many
transcendent virtues. But she is now dead, and we shall
'No farther seek her merits to disclose,
Or draw her frailties from the dread abode;
There they alike in trembling hope repose,
The bosom of her father and her God!'"
The notice in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for October, 1797, the month
after her death, is friendly, but there are limitations to its praise.
The following is the sentence it passed upon her: "Her manners were
gentle, easy, and elegant; her conversation intelligent and amusing,
without the least trait of literary pride, or the apparent consciousness
of powers above the level of her sex; and, for fondness of understanding
and sensibility of heart, she was, perhaps, never equalled. Her practical
skill in education was ever superior to her speculations upon that
subject; nor is it possible to express the misfortune sustained in that
respect by her children. This tribute we readily pay to her character,
however adverse we may be to the system she supported in politics and
morals, both by her writings and practice."
In 1798 Godwin published his Memoir of Mary, together with her posthumous
writings. He no doubt hoped by a clear statement of the principal
incidents of her life to moderate the popular feeling against her. But he
was the last person to have undertaken the task. Outside of the small
circle of friends and sympathizers who really loved him, he was by no
means popular. There were some who even seemed to think that the greatest
hardship of Mary's life was to have been his wife. Thus Roscoe, after
reading the Memoir, expressed the sentiments it aroused in him in the
following lines:--
"Hard was thy fate in all the scenes of life,
As daughter, sister, mother, friend, and wife;
But harder still thy fate in death we own,
Thus mourned by Godwin with a heart of stone."
Moreover, Godwin's views about marriage, as set forth in his "Political
Justice," were held in such abhorrence that the fact that he approved of
Mary's conduct was reason enough for the multitude to disapprove of it.
His book, therefore, was not a success as far as Mary's reputation was
concerned. Indeed, it increased rather than lessened the asperity of her
detractors. It was greeted by the "European Magazine" for April, 1798,
almost immediately after its publication, by one of the most scathing
denunciations of Mary's character which had yet appeared.
"The lady," the article begins, "whose memoirs are now before us, appears
to have possessed good abilities, and originally a good disposition, but,
with an overweening conceit of herself, much obstinacy and self-will, and
a disposition to run counter to established practices and opinions. Her
conduct in the early part of her life was blameless, if not exemplary;
but the latter part of it was blemished with actions which must consign
her name to posterity (in spite of all palliatives) as one whose example,
if followed, would be attended with the most pernicious consequences to
society: a female who could brave the opinion of the world in the most
delicate point; a philosophical wanton, breaking down the bars designed
to restrain licentiousness; and a mother, deserting a helpless offspring
disgracefully brought into the world by herself, by an intended act of
suicide." Here follows a short sketch of the incidents recorded by
Godwin, and then the article concludes: "Such was the catastrophe of a
female philosopher of the new order, such the events of her life, and
such the apology for her conduct. It will be read with disgust by every
female who has any pretensions to delicacy; with detestation by every one
attached to the interests of religion and morality; and with indignation
by any one who might feel any regard for the unhappy woman, whose
frailties should have been buried in oblivion. Licentious as the times
are, we trust it will obtain no imitators of the heroine in this country.
It may act, however, as a warning to those who fancy themselves at
liberty to dispense with the laws of propriety and decency, and who
suppose the possession of perverted talents will atone for the well
government of society and the happiness of mankind."
This opinion of the "European Magazine" was the one most generally
adopted. It was re-echoed almost invariably when Mary Wollstonecraft's
name was mentioned in print. A Mrs. West, who, in 1801, published a
series of "Letters to a Young Man," full of goodly discourse and moral
exhortation, found occasion to warn him against Mary's works, which she
did with as much energy as if the latter had been the Scarlet Woman of
Babylon in the flesh. "This unfortunate woman," she says in conclusion,
"has _terribly_ terminated her guilty career; terribly, I say, because
the account of her last moments, though intentionally panegyrical, proves
that she died as she lived; and her posthumous writings show that her
soul was in the most unfit state to meet her pure and holy judge."
A writer in the "Beauties of England and Wales," though animated by the
same spirit, saw no reason to caution his readers against Mary's
pernicious influence, because of his certainty that in another generation
she would be forgotten. "Few writers have attained a larger share of
temporary celebrity," he admits. "This was the triumph of wit and
eloquence of style. To the age next succeeding it is probable that her
name will be nearly unknown; for the calamities of her life so miserably
prove the impropriety of her doctrines that it becomes a point of charity
to close the volume treating of the Rights of Women with mingled wonder
and pity."
But probably the article which was most influential in perpetuating the
ill-repute in which she stood with her contemporaries, is the sketch of
her life given in Chalmers's "Biographical Dictionary." The papers and
many books of the day soon passed out of sight, but the Dictionary was
long used as a standard work of reference. In this particular article
every action of Mary's life is construed unfavorably, and her character
shamefully vilified. Judging from Godwin's Memoir, it decides that Mary
"appears to have been a woman of strong intellect, which might have
elevated her to the highest ranks of English female writers, had not her
genius run wild for want of cultivation. Her passions were consequently
ungovernable, and she accustomed herself to yield to them without
scruple, treating female honor and delicacy as vulgar prejudices. She was
therefore a voluptuary and sensualist, without that refinement for which
she seemed to contend on other subjects. Her history, indeed, forms
entirely a warning, and in no part an example. Singular she was, it must
be allowed, for it is not easily to be conceived that such another
heroine will ever appear, unless in a novel, where a latitude is given to
that extravagance of character which she attempted to bring into real
life." Beloe, in the "Sexagenarian," borrowed the scurrilous abuse of the
"Biographical Dictionary," which was furthermore accepted by almost every
history of English literature and encyclopaedia as the correct estimate of
Mary's character and teachings. It is, therefore, no wonder that the
immorality of her doctrines and unwomanliness of her conduct came to be
believed in implicitly by the too credulous public.
That she fully deserved this disapprobation and contempt seemed to many
confirmed by the fact that her daughter, Mary Godwin, consented to live
with Shelley before their union could be legalized. The independence of
mother and daughter excited private as well as public animosity. There is
in the British Museum a book containing a collection of drawings,
newspaper slips, and written notes, illustrative of the history and
topography of the parish of Saint Pancras. As Mary Wollstonecraft was
buried in the graveyard of Saint Pancras Church, mention is made of her.
A copy of the painting{1} by Opie, which was supposed until very recently
to be her portrait, is pasted on one of the pages of this book, and
opposite to it is the following note, written on a slip of paper, and
dated 1821: "Mary Wollstonecraft, a disgrace to modesty, an eminent
instance of a perverted strong mind, the defender of the 'Rights of
Women,' but an ill example to them, soon terminated her life of error,
and her remains were laid in the cemetery of Saint Pancras, amidst the
believers of the papal creed.
{1} It was engraved and published in the "Monthly Mirror," with Mary's
name attached to it, during her lifetime. When Mr. Kegan Paul
published the "Letters to Imlay," in 1879, there seemed no doubt
of its authenticity. But since then it has been proved to be the
portrait of the wife of an artist who lived in the latter part
of the eighteenth century.
"There is a monument placed over her remains, being a square pillar."
(The inscription here follows.) "A willow was planted on each side of the
pillar, but, like the character of Mary, they do not flourish. Her
unfortunate daughters were reared by their infamous father for
prostitution,--one is sold to the wicked poet Shelley, and the other to
attend upon her. The former became Mrs. Shelley." The prejudice of the
writer of these lines against the subject of them, together with his
readiness to accept all the ill spoken of her, is at once shown in his
reference to Claire, who was the daughter of the second Mrs. Godwin by
her first husband, and hence no relation whatever to Mrs. Shelley. This
mistake proves that he relied overmuch upon current gossip.
During all these years Mary was not entirely without friends, but their
number was small. In 1803 an anonymous admirer published a defence of her
character and conduct, "founded on principles of nature and reason as
applied to the peculiar circumstances of her case," in a series of nine
letters to a lady. But his defence is less satisfactory to his readers
than it is to be presumed it was to himself. In it he carefully repeats
those details of Godwin's Memoir which were most severely criticised, and
to some of them gives a new and scarcely more favorable construction. He
candidly admits that he does not pretend to vindicate the _whole_ of her
conduct. He merely wishes to apologize for it by demonstrating the
motives from which she acted. But to accomplish this he evolves his
arguments chiefly from his inner consciousness. Had he appealed more
directly to her writings, and thought less of showing his own ingenuity
in reasoning, he would have written to better purpose.
Southey was always enthusiastic in his admiration. His letters are full
of her praises. "We are going to dine on Wednesday next with Mary
Wollstonecraft, of all the literary characters the one I most admire," he
wrote to Thomas Southey, on April 28, 1797. And a year or two after her
death, he declared in a letter to Miss Barker, "I never praised living
being yet, except Mary Wollstonecraft." He made at least one public
profession of his esteem in these lines, prefixed to his "Triumph of
Woman:"--
"The lily cheek, the 'purple light of love,'
The liquid lustre of the melting eye,
Mary! of these the Poet sung, for these
Did Woman triumph ... turn not thou away
Contemptuous from the theme. No Maid of Arc
Had, in those ages, for her country's cause
Wielded the sword of freedom; no Roland
Had borne the palm of female fortitude;
No Conde with self-sacrificing zeal
Had glorified again the Avenger's name,
As erst when Caesar perished; haply too
Some strains may hence be drawn, befitting me
To offer, nor unworthy thy regard."
Shelley too offered her the tribute of his praise in verse. In the
dedication of the "Revolt of Islam," addressed to his wife, he thus
alludes to the latter's famous mother:--
"They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth,
Of glorious parents, thou aspiring child.
I wonder not; for one then left the earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
Of its departing glory."
But the mere admiration of Southey and Shelley had little weight against
popular prejudice. Year by year Mary's books, like so many other literary
productions, were less frequently read, and the prediction that in
another generation her name would be unknown bade fair to be fulfilled.
But the latest of her admirers, Mr. Kegan Paul, has, by his zealous
efforts in her behalf, succeeded in vindicating her character and
reviving interest in her writings. By his careful history of her life,
and noble words in her defence, he has re-established her reputation. As
he says himself, "Only eighty years after her death has any serious
attempt been made to set her right in the eyes of those who will choose
to see her as she was." His attempt has been successful. No one after
reading her sad story as he tells it in his Life of Godwin, can doubt her
moral uprightness. His statement of her case attracted the attention it
deserved. Two years after it appeared, Miss Mathilde Blind published, in
the "New Quarterly Review," a paper containing a briefer sketch of the
incidents he recorded, and expressing an honest recognition of this great
but much-maligned woman.
Thus, at this late day, the attacks of her enemies are being defeated.
The critic who declared the condition of the trees planted near her grave
to be symbolical of her fate, were he living now, would be forced to
change the conclusions he drew from his comparison. In that part of Saint
Pancras Churchyard which lies between the two railroad bridges, and which
has not been included in the restored garden, but remains a dreary waste,
fenced about with broken gravestones, the one fresh green spot is the
corner occupied by the monument{1} erected to the memory of Mary
Wollstonecraft, and separated from the open space by an iron railing.
There is no sign of withering willows in this enclosure. Its trees are of
goodly growth and fair promise. And, like them, her character now
_flourishes_, for justice is at last being done to her.
{1} Her body has been removed to Bournemouth.
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH.
1759-1778.
Mary Wollstonecraft was born on the 27th of April, 1759, but whether in
London or in Epping Forest, where she spent the first five years of her
life, is not quite certain. There is no history of her ancestors to show
from whom she inherited the intellectual greatness which distinguished
her, but which characterized neither of her parents. Her paternal
grandfather was a manufacturer in Spitalfields, of whom little is known,
except that he was of Irish extraction and that he himself was
respectable and prosperous. To his son, Edward John, Mary's father, he
left a fortune of ten thousand pounds, no inconsiderable sum in those
days for a man of his social position. Her mother was Elizabeth, daughter
of Mr. Dixon, of Ballyshannon, Ireland, who belonged to an eminently good
family. Mary was the second of six children. The eldest, Edward, who was
more successful in his worldly affairs than the others, and James, who
went to sea to seek his fortunes, both passed to a great extent out of
her life. But her two sisters, Eliza and Everina, and her youngest
brother, Charles, were so dependent upon her for assistance in their many
troubles that their career is intimately associated with hers.
With her very first years Mary Wollstonecraft began a bitter training in
the school of experience, which was to no small degree instrumental in
developing her character and forming her philosophy. There are few
details of her childhood, and no anecdotes indicating a precocious
genius. But enough is known of her early life to make us understand what
were the principal influences to which she was exposed. Her strength
sprang from the very uncongeniality of her home and her successful
struggles against the poverty and vice which surrounded her. Her father
was a selfish, hot-tempered despot, whose natural bad qualities were
aggravated by his dissipated habits. His chief characteristic was his
instability. He could persevere in nothing. Apparently brought up to no
special profession, he was by turns a gentleman of leisure, a farmer, a
man of business. It seems to have been sufficient for him to settle in
any one place to almost immediately wish to depart from it. The history
of the first fifteen or twenty years of his married life is that of one
long series of migrations. The discomforts and petty miseries unavoidable
to travellers with large families in pre-railroad days necessarily
increased his irascibility. The inevitable consequence of these many
changes was loss of money and still greater loss of temper. That his
financial experiments proved to be failures, is certain from the abject
poverty of his later years. That they were bad for him morally, is shown
in the fact that his children, when grown up, found it impossible to live
under the same roof with him. His indifference in one particular to their
wishes and welfare led in the end to disregard of them in all matters.
It is more than probable that Mary, in her "Wrongs of Woman," drew
largely from her own experience for the characters therein represented,
and we shall not err in identifying the father she describes in this
novel with Mr. Wollstonecraft himself. "His orders," she writes, "were
not to be disputed; and the whole house was expected to fly at the word
of command.... He was to be instantaneously obeyed, especially by my
mother, whom he very benevolently married for love; but took care to
remind her of the obligation when she dared in the slightest instance to
question his absolute authority." He was, in a word, an egotist of the
worst description, who found no brutality too low once his anger was
aroused, and no amount of despotism too odious when the rights and
comforts of others interfered with his own desires. When contradicted or
thwarted his rage was ungovernable, and he used personal violence not
only to his dogs and children, but even to his wife. Drink and
unrestrained selfishness had utterly degraded him. Such was Mary's
father.
Mrs. Wollstonecraft was her husband's most abject slave, but was in turn
somewhat of a tyrant herself. She approved of stern discipline for the
young. She was too indolent to give much attention to the education of
her children, and devoted what little energy she possessed to enforcing
their unquestioning obedience even in trifles, and to making them as
afraid of her displeasure as they were of their father's anger. "It is
perhaps difficult to give you an idea of the petty cares which obscured
the morning of my life," Mary declares through her heroine,--"continual
restraint in the most trivial matters, unconditional submission to
orders, which as a mere child I soon discovered to be unreasonable,
because inconsistent and contradictory. Thus are we destined to
experience a mixture of bitterness with the recollection of our most
innocent enjoyment." Edward, as the mother's favorite, escaped her
severity; but it fell upon Mary with double force, and was with her
carried out with a thoroughness that laid its shortcomings bare, and
consequently forced Mrs. Wollstonecraft to modify her treatment of her
younger children. This concession on her part shows that she must have
had their well-being at heart, even when her policy in their regard was
most misguided, and that her unkindness was not, like her husband's
cruelty, born of caprice. But it was sad for Mary that her mother did not
discover her mistake sooner.
When Mary was five years old, and before she had had time to form any
strong impressions of her earliest home, her father moved to another part
of Epping Forest near the Chelmsford Road. Then, at the end of a year, he
carried his family to Barking in Essex, where he established them in a
comfortable home, a little way out of the town. Many of the London
markets were then supplied from the farms around Barking, so that the
chance for his success here was promising.
This place was the scene of Mary's principal childish recollections and
associations. Natural surroundings were with her of much more importance
than they usually are to the very young, because she depended upon them
for her pleasures. She cared nothing for dolls and the ordinary
amusements of girls. Having received few caresses and little tender
nursing, she did not know how to play the part of mother. Her recreation
led her out of doors with her brothers. That she lived much in the open
air and became thoroughly acquainted with the town and the neighborhood,
seems certain from the eagerness with which she visited it years
afterwards with Godwin. This was in 1796, and Mary with enthusiasm sought
out the old house in which she had lived. It was unoccupied, and the
garden around it was a wild and tangled mass. Then she went through the
town itself; to the market-place, which had perhaps been the Mecca of
frequent pilgrimages in the old times; to the wharves, the bustle and
excitement of which had held her spellbound many a long summer afternoon;
and finally from one street to another, each the scene of well-remembered
rambles and adventures. Time can soften sharp and rugged lines and
lighten deep shadows, and the pleasant reminiscences of Barking days made
her overlook bitterer memories.
That there were many of the latter, cannot be doubted. Only too often the
victim of her father's cruel fury, and at all times a sufferer because of
her mother's theories, she had little chance for happiness during her
childhood. She was, like Carlyle's hero of "Sartor Resartus," one of
those children whose sad fate it is to weep "in the playtime of the
others." Not even to the David Copperfields and Paul Dombeys of fiction
has there fallen a lot so hard to bear and so sad to record, as that of
the little Mary Wollstonecraft. She was then the most deserving object of
that pity which later, as a woman, she was always ready to bestow upon
others. Her affections were unusually warm and deep, but they could find
no outlet. She met, on the one hand, indifference and sternness; on the
other, injustice and ill-usage. It is when reading the story of her
after-life, and learning from it how, despite her masculine intellect,
she possessed a heart truly feminine, that we fully appreciate the
barrenness of her early years. She was one of those who, to use her own
words, "cannot live without loving, as poets love." At the strongest
period of her strong womanhood she felt, as she so touchingly confesses
in her appeals to Imlay, the need of some one to lean upon,--some one to
give her the love and sympathy, which were to her what light and heat are
to flowers. It can therefore easily be imagined how much greater was the
necessity, and consequently the craving caused by its non-gratification,
when she was nothing but a child. Overflowing with tenderness, she dared
not lavish it on the mother who should have been so ready to receive it.
Instead of the confidence which should exist between mother and daughter,
there was in their case nothing but cold formality. Nor was there for her
much compensation in the occasional caresses of her father. Sensitive to
a fault, she could not forgive his blows and unkindness so quickly as to
be able to enjoy his smiles and favors. Moreover, she had little chance
of finding, without, the devotion and gentle care which were denied to
her within her own family. Mr. Wollstonecraft remained so short a time in
each locality in which he made his home, that his wife saw but little of
her relations and old acquaintances; while no sooner had his children
made new friends, than they were separated from them.
To whatever town they went, the Wollstonecrafts seem to have given signs
of gentility and good social standing, which won for them, if not many,
at least respectable friends. At Barking an intimacy sprang up between
them and the family of Mr. Bamber Gascoyne, Member of Parliament. But
Mary was too young to profit by this friendship. It was most ruthlessly
interrupted three years later, when, in 1768, the restless head of the
house, whose industry in Barking had not equalled the enterprise which
brought him there, took his departure for Beverly, in Yorkshire.
This was the most complete change that he had as yet made. Heretofore his
wanderings had been confined to Essex. But he either found in his new
home more promising occupation and congenial companionship than he had
hitherto, or else there was a short respite to his feverish restlessness,
for he continued in it for six years. It was here Mary received almost
all the education that was ever given her by regular schooling. Beverly
was nothing but a small market-town, though she in her youthful
enthusiasm thought it large and handsome, and its inhabitants brilliant
and elegant, and was much disappointed, when she passed through it many
years afterwards, on her way to Norway, to see how far the reality fell
short of her youthful idealizations. Its schools could not have been of a
very high order, and we do not need Godwin's assurance to know that Mary
owed little of her subsequent culture to them. But her education may be
said to have really begun in 1775, when her father, tired of farming and
tempted by commercial hopes, left Beverly for Hoxton, near London.
Mary was at this time in her sixteenth year. The effect of her home
life, under which most children would have succumbed, had been to develop
her character at an earlier age than is usual with women. In spite of the
tyranny and caprice of her parents, and, indeed, perhaps because of them,
she had soon asserted her individuality and superiority. When she had
recognized the mistaken motives of her mother and the weakness of her
father, she had been forced to rely upon her own judgment and
self-command. It is a wonderful proof of her fine instincts that, though
she must have known her strength, she did not rebel, and that her keen
insight into the injustice of some actions did not prevent her realizing
the justice of others. Her mind seems to have been from the beginning too
evenly balanced for any such misconceptions. When reprimanded, she
deservedly found in the reprimand, as she once told Godwin, the one means
by which she became reconciled to herself for the fault which had called
it forth. As she matured, her immediate relations could not but yield to
the influence which she exercised over all with whom she was brought into
close contact. If there be such a thing as animal magnetism, she
possessed it in perfection. Her personal attractions commanded love, and
her great powers of sympathy drew people, without their knowing why, to
lean upon her for moral support. In the end she became an authority in
her family. Mrs. Wollstonecraft was in time compelled to bestow upon her
the affection which she had first withheld. It was the ugly duckling
after all who proved to be the swan of the flock. Mr. Wollstonecraft
learned to hold his eldest daughter in awe, and his wrath sometimes
diminished in her presence.
Pity was always Mary's ruling passion. Feeling deeply the family
sorrows, she was quick to forget herself in her efforts to lighten them
when this privilege was allowed to her. There were opportunities enough
for self-sacrifice. With every year Mr. Wollstonecraft squandered more
money, and grew idler and more dissipated. Home became unbearable, the
wife's burden heavier. Mary, emancipated from the restraints of
childhood, no longer remained a silent spectator of her father's fits of
passion. When her mother was the victim of his violence, she interposed
boldly between them, determined that if his blows fell upon any one, it
should be upon herself. There were occasions when she so feared the
results of his drunken rage that she would not even go to bed at night,
but, throwing herself upon the floor outside her room, would wait there,
on the alert, to meet whatever horrors darkness might bring forth. Could
there be a picture more tragical than this of the young girl, a weary
woman before her time, protecting the mother who should have protected
her, fighting against the vices of a father who should have shielded her
from knowledge of them! Already before she had left her home there must
have come into her eyes that strangely sad expression, which Kegan Paul,
in speaking of her portrait by Opie, says reminds him of nothing unless
it be of the agonized sorrow in the face of Guido's Beatrice Cenci. No
one can wonder that she doubted if marriage can be the highest possible
relationship between the sexes, when it is remembered that for years she
had constantly before her, proofs of the power man possesses, by sheer
physical strength and simple brutality, to destroy the happiness of an
entire household.
It was fortunate for her that she spent these wretched years in or very
near the country. She could wear off the effects of the stifling home
atmosphere by races over neighboring heaths, or by walks through lanes
and woods. Constant exercise in the open air is the best of stimulants.
It helped her to escape the many ills which childish flesh is heir to; it
lessened the morbid tendency of her nature; and it developed an energy of
character which proved her greatest safeguard against her sensitive and
excitable temperament. Besides this, she seems to have taken real delight
in her out-of-doors life. If at a later age she loved to sit in solitude
and listen to the singing of a robin and the falling of the leaves, she
must, as a child, have possessed much of that imaginative power which
transforms all nature into fairyland. If, in the bitter consciousness
that she was a betrayed and much-sinned-against woman, she could still
find moments of exquisite pleasure in wandering through woods and over
rocks, such haunts must have been as dear to her when she sought in them
escape from her young misery. It is probable that she refers to herself
when she makes her heroine, Maria, say, "An enthusiastic fondness for the
varying charms of nature is the first sentiment I recollect."
Mary's existence up to 1775 had been, save when disturbed by family
storms, quiet, lonely, and uneventful. As yet no special incident had
occurred in it, nor had she been awakened to intellectual activity. But
in Hoxton she contracted a friendship which, though it was with a girl of
her own age, was always esteemed by her as the chief and leading event in
her existence. This it was which first aroused her love of study and of
independence, and opened a channel for the outpouring of her too-long
suppressed affections. Her love for Fanny Blood was the spark which
kindled the latent fire of her genius. Her arrival in Hoxton, therefore,
marks the first important era in her life.
She owed this new pleasure to Mr. Clare, a clergyman, and his wife, who
lived next to the Wollstonecrafts in Hoxton. The acquaintanceship formed
with their neighbors ripened in Mary's case into intimacy. Mr. Clare was
deformed and delicate, and, because of his great physical weakness, led
the existence of a hermit. He rarely, if ever, went out, and his habits
were so essentially sedentary that a pair of shoes lasted him for
fourteen years. It is hardly necessary to add that he was eccentric. But
he was a man of a certain amount of culture. He had read largely, his
opportunity for so doing being great. He was attracted by Mary, whom he
soon discovered to be no ordinary girl, and he interested himself in
forming and training her mind. She, in return, liked him. His deformity
alone would have appealed to her, but she found him a congenial
companion, and, as she proved herself a willing pupil, he was glad to
have her much with him. She was a friend of Mrs. Clare as well; indeed,
the latter remained true to her through later storms which wrecked many
other less sincere friendships. Mary sometimes spent days and even weeks
in the house of these good people; and it was on one of these occasions,
probably, that Mrs. Clare took her to Newington Butts, then a village at
the extreme southern end of London, and there introduced her to Frances
Blood.
The first meeting between them, Godwin says, "bore a resemblance to the
first interview of Werter with Charlotte." The Bloods lived in a small,
but scrupulously well-kept house, and when its door was first opened for
Mary, Fanny, a bright-looking girl about her own age, was busy, like
another Lotte, in superintending the meal of her younger brothers and
sisters. It was a scene well calculated to excite Mary's interest. She,
better than any one else, could understand its full worth. It revealed to
her at a glance the skeleton in the family closet,--the inefficiency of
the parents to care for the children whom they had brought into the
world, and the poverty which prevented their hiring others to do their
work for them. And at the same time it showed her the noble unselfishness
of the daughter, who not only took upon herself the burden so easily
shifted by the parents, but who accepted her fate cheerfully.
Cheerfulness is a virtue but too lightly prized. When maintained in the
face of difficulties and unhappiness it becomes the finest heroism. The
recognition of this heroic side of Fanny's nature commanded the instant
admiration and respect of her visitor. Mary then and there vowed in her
heart eternal friendship for her new acquaintance, and the vow was never
broken.
Balzac, in his "Cousine Bette," says that there is no stronger passion
than the love of one woman for another. Mary Wollstonecraft's affection
for Frances Blood is a striking illustration of the truth of his
statement. It was strong as that of a Sappho for an Erinna; tender and
constant as that of a mother for her child. From the moment they met
until they were separated by poor Fanny's untimely death, Mary never
wavered in her devotion and its active expression, nor could the
vicissitudes and joys of her later life destroy her loving loyalty to the
memory of her first and dearest friend. "When a warm heart has strong
impressions," she wrote in a letter long years afterwards, "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."
There was much to draw the two friends together. They had many miseries
and many tastes and interests in common. Fanny's parents were poor, and
her father, like Mr. Wollstonecraft, was idle and dissipated. There were
young children to be reared, and an incompetent mother to do it. Fanny
was only two years older than Mary, but was, at that time, far more
advanced mentally. Her education had been more complete. She was in a
small way both musician and artist, was fond of reading, and had even
tried her powers at writing. But her drawing had proved her most
profitable accomplishment, and by it she supported her entire family.
Mary as yet had perfected herself in nothing, and was helpless where
money-making was concerned. Her true intellectual education had but just
begun under Mr. Clare's direction. She had previously read voluminously,
but, having done so for mere immediate gratification, had derived but
little profit therefrom. As she lived in Hoxton, and Fanny in Newington
Butts, they could not see each other very often, and so in the intervals
between their visits they corresponded. Mary found that her letters were
far inferior to those of her friend. She could not spell so well; she had
none of Fanny's ease in shaping her thoughts into words. Her pride was
hurt and her ambition stirred. She determined to make herself at least
Fanny's intellectual equal. It was humiliating to know herself powerless
to improve her own condition, when her friend was already earning an
income large enough not only to meet her own wants but those of others
depending upon her. To prepare herself for a like struggle with the
world, a struggle which in all likelihood she would be obliged to make
single-handed, she studied earnestly. Books acquired new value in her
eyes. She read no longer for passing amusement, but to strengthen and
cultivate her mind for future work. It cannot be doubted that under any
circumstances she would, in the course of a few years, have become
conscious of her power and the necessity to exercise it. But to Fanny
Blood belongs the honor of having given the first incentive to her
intellectual energy. This brave, heavily burdened young English girl,
accepting toils and tribulations with stout heart, would, with many
another silent heroine or hero, have been forgotten, had it not been for
the stimulus her love and example were to an even stronger
sister-sufferer. The larger field of interests thus opened for Mary was
like the bright dawn after a long and dark night. For the first time she
was happy.
There was therefore much in her life at Hoxton to relieve the gloomy
influence of the family troubles. Work for a definite end is in itself a
great joy. Many pleasant hours were spent with the Clares, and occasional
gala-days with Fanny. These last two pleasures, however, were
short-lived. The inexorable family tyrant, her father, grew tired of
commerce, as indeed he did of everything, and in the spring of 1776 he
abandoned it for agriculture, this time settling in Pembroke, Wales,
where he owned some little property. With a heavy heart Mary bade
farewell to her new friends.
It is well worth recording that in 1775, while Mary Wollstonecraft was
living in Hoxton, William Godwin was a student at the Dissenting College
in that town. Godwin, in his short Memoir of his wife, pauses to
speculate as to what would have been the result had they then met and
loved. In his characteristic philosophical way he asks, "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?" But the vital question is: Would an acquaintanceship
formed between them at that time have ever become more than mere
friendship? She was then a wild, untrained girl, and had not reduced her
contempt for established institutions to fixed principles. Godwin, the
son of a Dissenting clergyman, was studying to be one himself, and his
opinions of the rights of man were still unformed. Neither had developed
the ideas and doctrines which afterwards were the bond of sympathy
between them. One thing is certain: while they might have benefited had
they married twenty years earlier than they did, the world would have
lost. Godwin, under the influence of a wife's tender love, would never
have became a cold, systematic philosopher. And Mary, had she found a
haven from her misery so soon, would not have felt as strongly about the
wrongs of women. Whatever her world's work under those circumstances
might have been, she would not have become the champion of her sex.
Of external incidents the year in Wales was barren. The only one on
record is the intimacy which sprang up between the Wollstonecrafts and
the Allens. Two daughters of this family afterwards married sons of the
famous potter, Wedgwood, and the friendship then begun lasted for life.
To Mary herself, however, this year was full and fertile. It was devoted
to study and work. Hers was the only true genius,--the genius for
industry. She never relaxed in the task she had set for herself, and her
progress was rapid. The signs she soon manifested of her mental power
added to the respect with which her family now treated her. Realizing
that the assistance she could give by remaining at home was but little
compared to that which might result from her leaving it for some definite
employment, she seems at this period to have announced her intention of
seeking her fortunes abroad. But Mrs. Wollstonecraft looked upon the
presence of her daughter as a strong bulwark of defence against the
brutal attacks of her husband, and was loath to lose it. Mary yielded to
her entreaties to wait a little longer; but her sympathy and tender pity
for human suffering fortunately never destroyed her common sense. She
knew that the day must come when on her own individual exertions would
depend not only her own but a large share of her sisters' and brothers'
maintenance, and, in consenting to remain at home, she exacted certain
conditions. She insisted upon being allowed freedom in the regulation of
her actions. She demanded that she should have a room for her exclusive
property, and that, when engaged in study, she should not be interrupted.
She would attend to certain domestic duties, and after they were over,
her time must be her own. It was little to ask. All she wanted was the
liberty to make herself independent of the paternal care which girls of
eighteen, as a rule, claim as their right. It was granted her.
At the end of another year, the demon of restlessness again attacked Mr.
Wollstonecraft. Wales proved less attractive than it had appeared at a
distance. Orders were given to repack the family goods and chattels, and
to set out upon new wanderings. On this occasion, Mary interfered with a
strong hand. Since a change was to be made, it might as well be turned to
her advantage. She had, without a word, allowed herself to be carried to
Wales away from the one person she really loved, and she now knew the
sacrifice had been useless. It was clear to her that one place was no
better for her father than another; therefore he should go where it
pleased her. It was better that one member of the family should be
content, than that all should be equally miserable. She prevailed upon
him to choose Walworth as his next resting-place. Here she would be near
Fanny, and life would again hold some brightness for her.
It was at Walworth that she took the first step in what was fated to be a
long life of independence and work. The conditions which she had made
with her family seem to have been here neglected, and study at home
became more and more impossible. She was further stimulated to action by
the personal influence of her energetic friend, by the fact that the
younger children were growing up to receive their share of the family
sorrow and disgrace, and by her own great dread of poverty. "How writers
professing to be friends to freedom and the improvement of morals can
assert that poverty is no evil, I cannot imagine!" she exclaims in the
"Wrongs of Woman." She cared nothing for the luxuries and the ease and
idleness which wealth gives, but she prized above everything the time and
opportunity for self-culture of which the poor, in their struggle for
existence, are deprived. The Wollstonecraft fortunes were at low ebb. Her
share in them, should she remain at home, would be drudgery and slavery,
which would grow greater with every year. Her one hope for the future
depended upon her profitable use of the present. The sooner she earned
money for herself, the sooner would she be able to free her brothers and
sisters from the yoke whose weight she knew full well because of her own
eagerness to throw it off. Unselfish as her father was selfish, she
thought quite as much of their welfare as of her own. Therefore when, at
the age of nineteen, a situation as lady's companion was offered to her,
neither tears nor entreaties could alter her resolution to accept it. She
entered at once upon her new duties, and with them her career as woman
may be said to have begun.
CHAPTER II.
FIRST YEARS OF WORK.
1778-1785.
Mary Wollstonecraft did not become famous at once. She began her career
as humbly as many a less gifted woman. Like the heroes of old, she had
tasks allotted her before she could attain the goal of her ambition. And
Heracles in his twelve labors, Jason in search of the Golden Fleece,
Sigurd in pursuit of the treasure, did not have greater hardships to
endure or dangers to overcome than she had before she won for herself
independence and fame.
It is difficult for a young man without money, influential friends, or
professional education to make his way in the world. With a woman placed
in similar circumstances the difficulty is increased a hundred-fold. We
of to-day, when government and other clerkships are open to women, cannot
quite realize their helplessness a few generations back. In Mary
Wollstonecraft's time those whose birth and training had unfitted them
for the more menial occupations--who could neither bake nor scrub--had
but two resources. They must either become governesses or ladies'
companions. In neither case was their position enviable. They ranked as
little better than upper servants. Mary's first appearance on the
world-stage, therefore, was not brilliant.
The lady with whom she went to live was a Mrs. Dawson, a widow who had
but one child, a grown-up son. Her residence was in Bath. Mary must then
have given at least signs of the beauty which did not reach its full
development until many years later, her sorrows had not entirely
destroyed her natural gayety, and she was only nineteen years old. The
mission in Bath in those days of young girls of her age was to dance and
to flirt, to lose their hearts and to find husbands, to gossip, to listen
to the music, to show themselves in the Squares and Circus and on the
Parades, or, sometimes, when they were seriously inclined, to drink the
waters. Mary's was to cater to the caprices of a cross-grained, peevish
woman. There was little sunshine in the morning of her life. She was
destined always to see the darkest side of human nature. Mrs. Dawson's
temper was bad, and her companions, of whom there seem to have been many,
had hitherto fled before its outbreaks, as the leaves wither and fall at
the first breath of winter. Mary's home-schooling was now turned to good
account. Mrs. Dawson's rage could not, at its worst, equal her father's
drunken violence; and long experience of the latter prepared her to bear
the former with apparent, if not real, stoicism. We have no particulars
of her life as companion nor knowledge of the exact nature of her duties.
But of one thing we are certain, the fulfilment of them cost her many a
heartache. Those who know her only as the vindicator of the Rights of
Women and the defiant rebel against social laws, may think her case calls
for little sympathy. But the truth is, there have been few women so
dependent for happiness upon human love, so eager for the support of
their fellow-beings, and so keenly alive to neglects and slights. In Bath
she was separated from her friends, she was alone in her struggle, and
she held a position which did not always command respect. However, her
indomitable will and unflagging energy availed her to such good purpose
that she continued with Mrs. Dawson for two years, doubtless to the
surprise of the latter, accustomed as she was to easily frightened and
hastily retreating companions. Her departure then was due, not to moral
cowardice or exhaustion, but to a summons from home.
Mrs. Wollstonecraft's health had begun to fail. Her life had been a hard
one, and the drains upon her constitution many. She was the mother of a
large family, and had had her full share of the by no means insignificant
pains and cares of maternity. In addition to these she had had to contend
against poverty, that evil which, says the Talmud, is worse than fifty
plagues, and against the vagaries of a good-for-nothing drunken husband.
Once she fell beneath her burden, she could not rise with it again. She
had no strength left to withstand her illness. Eliza and Everina were
both at home to take care of her, but she could not rest without the
eldest daughter, upon whom experience had taught her to rely implicitly.
She sent for Mary, and the latter hastened at once to her mother's side.
Her own hopes and ambitions, her chances and prospects, all were
forgotten in her desire to do what she could for the poor patient. Fierce
and fearless as an inspired Joan of Arc, when fighting in the cause of
justice, she was tender and gentle as a sister of charity when tending
the sick. She waited upon her mother with untiring care. Mrs.
Wollstonecraft's illness was long and lingering, though it declared
itself at an early stage to be hopeless. In her pleasure at her
daughter's return she received her services with grateful thanks. But, as
she grew worse, she became more accustomed to the presence of her nurse,
and exacted as a right that which she had first accepted as a favor. She
would allow no one else to attend to her, and day and night Mary was with
her.
Finally the end came. Mrs. Wollstonecraft died, happy to be released from
a world which had given her nothing but unkindness and sorrow. Her
parting words were: "A little patience, and all will be over!" It was not
difficult for the dying woman, so soon to have eternity to rest in, to
bear quietly time's last agony. But for the weary, heart-sick young girl,
before whom there stretched a vista of long years of toil, the lesson of
patience was less easy to learn. Mary never forgot these words, nor did
she heed their bitter sarcasm. Often and often, in her after trials, they
returned to her, carrying with them peace and comfort.
This event occurred in 1780. The family were then living in Enfield,
which place had succeeded Walworth in their periodical migrations. After
her mother's death Mary, tired out from constant nursing, want of sleep,
and anxiety of mind, became ill. She sorely needed quiet and an interval
from work. But the necessity to depart from her father's house was
imperative. He had fallen so low that his daughters were forced to leave
him. The difficulty was to find immediate means to meet the emergency. A
return to Mrs. Dawson does not seem to have suggested itself as a
possibility. Mary's great ambition was to become a teacher and to
establish a school. But this could not be easily or at once accomplished.
She must have time to prepare herself for the venture, to make friends,
and to give proof of her ability to teach. Fortunately, at this juncture
Fanny Blood proved a true friend, and offered her at least a temporary
home at Walham Green.
Fanny was still gaining a small income from her drawings, to which Mrs.
Blood added whatever she could make by her needle. Mary was not one to
fare upon another's bread. Too proud to become an additional charge to
these two hard-working women, she helped the latter with her sewing and
so contributed her share to the family means. It was not a congenial
occupation. But to her any work was preferable to waiting, Micawber-like,
for something better to turn up. Though she was happy because she was
with her friend, her life here was wellnigh as tragic as it had been in
her father's house. The family sorrows were great and many. Mr. Blood was
a ne'er-do-weel and a drunkard. Caroline, one of the daughters, had then
probably begun her rapid descent down-hill, moved thereto, poor girl, by
the relief which vice alone gave to the poverty and gloom of her home.
George, the brother, with whom Mary afterwards corresponded for so many
years, was unhappy because of his unrequited love for Everina
Wollstonecraft. He was an honest, good-principled young man, but his
associates were disreputable, and he was at times compromised by their
actions. But still sadder for Mary was the fact that Fanny, in addition
to domestic grievances, was tortured by the unkindness of an uncertain
lover. She had met, not long before, Mr. Hugh Skeys, a young but already
successful merchant. Attracted by her, he had been sufficiently attentive
and devoted to warrant her conclusion that his intentions were serious.
He seems to have loved her as deeply as he was capable of loving, but
discouraged perhaps by the wretched circumstances of the family, he could
not make up his mind to marry her. At one moment he was ready to desert
her, and at the next to claim her as his wife. Instead of resenting his
unpardonable conduct, as a prouder woman would have done, she bore it
with the humble patience of a Griselda. When he was kind, she hoped for
the best; when he was cold, she dreaded the worst. The consequence of
these alternate states of hope and despair was mental depression, and
finally physical ill health. Through her troubles, Mary, who had given
her the warmest and best, because the first, love of her life, was her
faithful ally and comforter. Indeed, her friendship grew warmer with
Fanny's increasing misfortunes. As she said of herself a few years later,
she was not a fair-weather friend. "I think," she wrote once in a letter
to George Blood, "I love most people best when they are in adversity, for
pity is one of my prevailing passions." She realized that she had made
herself her friend's equal, if not superior, intellectually, and that, so
far as moral courage and will power were concerned, she was much the
stronger of the two. There is nothing which so deepens a man's or a
woman's tenderness, as the knowledge that the object of it looks up to
her or to him for support, and Mary's affection increased because of its
new inspiration.
It has been said that it was necessary for all Mr. Wollstonecraft's
daughters to leave his house. Mary was not yet in a position to help her
sisters, and they had but few friends. Their chances of self-support were
small. Their position was the trying one of gentlewomen who could not
make servants of themselves, and who indeed would not be employed as
such, and who had not had the training to fit them for higher
occupations. Everina, therefore, was glad to find an asylum with her
brother Edward, who was an attorney in London. She became his
housekeeper, for, like Mary, she was too independent to allow herself to
be supported by the charity of others. Eliza, the youngest sister, who,
with greater love of culture than Everina, had had even less education,
solved her present problem by marrying, but she escaped one difficulty
only to fall into another still greater and more serious. The history of
her married experience is important because of the part Mary played in
it. The latter's independent conduct in her sister's regard is a
foreshadowing of the course she pursued at a later period in the
management of her own affairs.
Eliza was the most excitable and nervous of the three sisters. The family
sensitiveness was developed in her to a painful degree. She was not only
quick to take offence, but was ever on the lookout for slights and
insults even from people she dearly loved. She assumed a defensive
attitude against the world and mankind, and therefore life went harder
with her than with more cheerfully constituted women. It was almost
invariably the little rift that made her life-music mute. Her indignation
and rage were not so easily appeased as aroused. Altogether, she was a
very impossible person to live with peacefully. Mr. Bishop, the man she
married, was as quick-tempered and passionate as she, and, morally, was
infinitely beneath her. He was the original of the husband in the "Wrongs
of Woman," who is represented as an unprincipled sensualist, brute, and
hypocrite. The worst of it was that, when not carried away by his temper,
his address was good and his manners insinuating. As one of his friends
said of him, he was "either a lion or a spaniel." Unfortunately, at home
he was always the lion, a fact which those who knew him only as the
spaniel could not well believe. The marriage of two such people, needless
to say, was not happy. They mutually aggravated each other. Eliza, with
her sensitive, unforgiving nature, could not make allowances. Mr. Bishop
would not. Much as her waywardness and hastiness were at fault, he was
still more to blame in effecting the rupture between them.
The strain upon Eliza's nervous system, caused by almost daily quarrels
and scenes of violence, was more than she could bear. Then, to add to her
misery, she found herself in that condition in which women are apt to be
peculiarly susceptible and irritable. Her pregnancy so stimulated her
abnormal emotional excitement that her reason gave way, and for months
she was insane. Though she had her intervals of passivity she was at
times very violent, and disastrous results were feared. It was necessary
for some one to keep constant guard over her, and Mary was asked to
undertake this task.
Relentless as Fate in pursuing the hero of Greek Tragedy to his
predestined end, were the circumstances which formed Mary's prejudice
against the institution of marriage. This was the third domestic tragedy
caused by the husband's petty tyranny and the wife's slender resources of
defence, of which she was the immediate witness. Her experience was
unfortunate. The bright side of the married state was hidden from her.
She saw only its shadows, and these darkened until her soul rebelled
against the injustice, not of life, but of man's shaping of it. Sad as
was the fate of the Bloods and much as they needed her, the Bishop
household was still sadder and its appeals more urgent, and Mary hurried
thither at once.
No one can read the life of Mary Wollstonecraft without loving her, or
follow her first bitter struggles without feeling honor, nay reverence,
for her true womanliness which bore her bravely through them. She never
shrank from her duty nor lamented her clouded youth. Without a murmur she
left Walham Green and established herself as nurse and keeper to the poor
mad sister. There could be no greater heroism than this. With a nervous
constitution not unlike that of "poor Bess," she had to watch over the
frenzied mania of the wife and to confront the almost equally insane fury
of the husband. One of the letters which she wrote at this time to
Everina describes forcibly enough her sister's sad condition and her own
melancholy:--
_Saturday afternoon_, Nov. 1783.
I expected to have seen you before this, but the extreme coldness
of the weather is a sufficient apology. I cannot yet give any
certain account of Bess, or form a rational conjecture with
respect to the termination of her disorder. She has not had a
violent fit of frenzy since I saw you, but her mind is in a most
unsettled state, and attending to the constant fluctuation of it is
far more harassing than the watching these raving fits that had not
the least tincture of reason. Her ideas are all disjointed, and a
number of wild whims float on her imagination, and fall from her
unconnectedly something like strange dreams, when judgment sleeps,
and fancy sports at a fine rate. Don't smile at my language, for I
am so constantly forced to observe her, lest she run into mischief,
that my thoughts continually turn on the unaccountable wanderings
of her mind. She seems to think she has been very ill used, and, in
short, till I see some more favorable symptoms, I shall only
suppose that her malady has assumed a new and more distressing
appearance.
One thing, by way of comfort, I must tell you, that persons who
recover from madness are generally in this way before they are
perfectly restored, but whether Bess's faculties will ever regain
their former tone, time only will show. At present I am in
suspense. Let me hear from you, or see you, and believe me to be
yours affectionately,
M. W.
_Sunday noon._--Mr. D. promised to call last night, and I intended
sending this by him. We have been out in a coach, but still Bess is
far from being _well_. Patience--patience. Farewell.
To her desire to keep Everina posted as to the progress of affairs, we
are indebted, for her letters, which give a very life-like picture of
herself and her surroundings while she remained in her brother-in-law's
house. They are interesting because, by showing the difficulties against
which she had to contend, and the effect these had upon her, we can
better appreciate the greatness of her nature by which she triumphed over
them. There is another one written during this sad period which must be
quoted here because it throws still more light upon Bishop's true
character and his ingenuity in tormenting those who lived with him:--
_Monday morning_, Jan. 1784.
I have nothing to tell you, my dear girl, that will give you
pleasure. Yesterday was a dismal day, long and dreary. Bishop was
very ill, etc., etc. He is much better to-day, but misery haunts
this house in one shape or other. How sincerely do I join with you
in saying that if a person has common sense, they cannot make one
completely unhappy. But to attempt to lead or govern a weak mind is
impossible; it will ever press forward to what it wishes,
regardless of impediments, and, with a selfish eagerness, believe
what it desires practicable though the contrary is as clear as the
noon-day. My spirits are hurried with listening to pros and cons;
and my head is so confused, that I sometimes say no, when I ought
to say yes. My heart is almost broken with listening to B. while he
reasons the case. I cannot insult him with advice, which he would
never have wanted, if he was capable of attending to it. May my
habitation never be fixed among the tribe that can't look beyond
the present gratification, that draw fixed conclusions from general
rules, that attend to the literal meaning only, and, because a
thing ought to be, expect that it will come to pass. B. has made a
confidant of Skeys; and as I can never speak to him in private, I
suppose his pity may cloud his judgment. If it does, I should not
either wonder at it, or blame him. For I that know, and am fixed in
my opinion, cannot unwaveringly adhere to it; and when I reason, I
am afraid of being unfeeling. Miracles don't occur now, and only a
miracle can alter the minds of some people. They grow old, and we
can only discover by their countenances that they are so. To the
end of their chapter will their misery last. I expect Fanny next
Thursday, and she will stay with us but a few days. Bess desires
her love; she grows better and of course more sad.
Though Mary's heart was breaking and her brain reeling, her closer
acquaintance with Bishop convinced her that Eliza must not continue with
him. She determined at all hazards to free her sister from a man who was
slowly but surely killing her, and she knew she was right in her
determination. "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist," Emerson
says. Mary, because she was a true woman, was ruled in her conduct not by
conventionalities or public opinion, but by her sense of righteousness.
In her own words, "The sarcasms of society and the condemnation of a
mistaken world were nothing to her, compared with acting contrary to
those feelings which were the foundation of her principles." For some
months Eliza's physical and mental illness made it impossible to take a
decided step or to form definite plans. But when her child was born, and
she returned to a normal, though at the same time sadder, because
conscious, state, Mary felt that the time for action had arrived. That
she still thought it advisable for her sister to leave her husband,
though this necessitated the abandonment of her child, conclusively
proves the seriousness of Bishop's faults. It was no easy matter to
effect the separation. Bishop objected to it. It is never unpleasant for
a man to play the tyrant, and he was averse to losing his victim.
Pecuniary assistance was therefore not to be had from him, and the
sisters were penniless. Mary applied to Edward, though she was not sure
it was desirable for Eliza to take refuge with him. However, he does not
seem to have responded warmly, for Mary's suggestion was never acted
upon. Theirs was a situation in which friends are not apt to interfere,
and besides, Bishop's plausibility had won over not a few to his side.
Furthermore, the chance was that if he worked successfully upon Mr.
Skeys' sympathies, the Bloods would be influenced. There was absolutely
no one to help them, but Mary knew that it was useless to wait, and that
the morrow would not make easier what seemed to her the task of the
present day. When there was work to be done she never could rest with
"unlit lamp and ungirt loin." What she now most wanted for her sister was
liberty, and she resolved to secure this at once, and then afterwards to
look about her to see how it was to be maintained.
Accordingly, one day, Bishop well out of the way, the sisters left his
house forever. There was a mad, breathless drive, Bess, with her insanity
half returned, biting her wedding ring to pieces, a hurried exchange of
coaches to further insure escape from detection, a joyful arrival at
modest lodgings in Hackney, a giving in of false names, a hasty locking
of doors, and then--the reaction. Eliza, whose excitement had exhausted
itself on the way, became quiet and even ready for sleep. Mary, now that
immediate necessity for calmness and courage was over, grew nervous and
restless. With strained ears she listened to every sound. Her heart beat
time to the passing carriages, and she trembled at the lightest knock.
That night, in a wild, nervous letter to Everina, she wrote:--
I hope B. will not discover us, for I would sooner face a lion; yet
the door never opens but I expect to see him, panting for breath.
Ask Ned how we are to behave if he should find us out, for Bess is
determined not to return. Can he force her? but I'll not suppose
it, yet I can think of nothing else. She is sleepy, and going to
bed; my agitated mind will not permit me. Don't tell Charles or any
creature! Oh! let me entreat you to be careful, for Bess does not
dread him now as much as I do. Again, let me request you to write,
as B.'s behavior may silence my fears. You will soon hear from me
again. Fanny carried many things to Lear's, brush-maker in the
Strand, next door to the White Hart.
Yours,
MARY.
Miss Johnston--Mrs. Dodds, opposite the Mermaid, Church Street,
Hackney.
She looks now very wild. Heaven protect us!
I almost wish for an husband, for I want somebody to support me.
The Rubicon was crossed. But the hardships thereby incurred were but just
beginning. The two sisters were obliged to keep in hiding as if they had
been criminals, for they dared not risk a chance meeting with Bishop.
They had barely money enough to pay their immediate expenses, and their
means of making more were limited by the precautions they had to take. It
had only been possible in their flight to carry off a few things, and
they were without sufficient clothing. Then there came from their friends
an outcry against their conduct. The general belief then was, as indeed
it unfortunately continues to be, that women should accept without a
murmur whatever it suits their husbands to give them, whether it be
kindness or blows. Better a thousand times that one human soul should be
stifled and killed than that the Philistines of society should be
scandalized by its struggles for air and life. Eliza's happiness might
have been totally sacrificed had she remained with Bishop; but at least
the feelings of her acquaintances, in whom respectability had destroyed
the more humane qualities, would have been saved. Her scheme, Mary wrote
bitterly to Everina, was contrary to all the rules of conduct that are
published for the benefit of new married ladies. Many felt forced to
forfeit the friendship of these two social rebels, though it grieved them
to the heart to do it. Mrs. Clare, be it said to her honor, remained
stanch, but even she only approved cautiously, and Mary had her
misgivings that she would advise a reconciliation if she once saw Bishop.
To add to the hopelessness of their case, the deserted husband restrained
his rage so well, and made so much of Eliza's heartlessness in abandoning
her child, that he drew to himself the sympathy which should have been
given to her. Mary feared the effect his pleadings and representations
would have upon Edward, the extent of whose egotism she had not yet
measured, and she commissioned Everina to keep him firm. As for Eliza,
she was so shaken and weak, and so unhappy about the poor motherless
infant, that she could neither think nor act. The duty of providing for
their wants, immediate and still to come, fell entirely upon Mary. She
felt this to be just, since it was chiefly through her influence that
they had been brought to their present plight; but the responsibility was
great, and it is no wonder that, brave as she was, she longed for some
one to share it with her.
Her one source of consolation and strength at this time was her religion.
This will seem strange to many, who, knowing but few facts of her life,
conclude from her connection with Godwin and her social radicalism that
she was an atheist. But the sincerest spirit of piety breathes through
her letters written during her early troubles. When the desertion of her
so-called friends made her most bitter, she wrote to Everina:--
"Don't suppose I am preaching when I say uniformity of conduct
cannot in any degree be expected from those whose first motive of
action is not the pleasing the Supreme Being, and those who humbly
rely on Providence will not only be supported in affliction but
have peace imparted to them that is past describing. This state is
indeed a warfare, and we learn little that we don't smart for in
the attaining. The cant of weak enthusiasts has made the
consolations of religion and the assistance of the Holy Spirit
appear ridiculous to the inconsiderate; but it is the only solid
foundation of comfort that the weak efforts of reason will be
assisted and our hearts and minds corrected and improved till the
time arrives when we shall not only see _perfection_, but see every
creature around us happy."
The consolation she found was sufficient to make her advise her friends
to seek for it from the same quarter. She wrote to George Blood at a time
when he was in serious difficulties:--
"It gives me the sincerest satisfaction to find that you look for
comfort where only it is to be met with, and that Being in whom you
trust will not desert you. Be not cast down; while we are
struggling with care life slips away, and through the assistance of
Divine Grace we are obtaining habits of virtue that will enable us
to relish those joys that we cannot now form any idea of. I feel
myself particularly attached to those who are heirs of the
promises, and travel on in the thorny path with the same Christian
hopes that render my severe trials a cause of thankfulness when I
_can_ think."
These passages, evangelical in tone, occur in private letters, meant to
be read only by those to whom they were addressed, so that they must be
counted as honest expressions of her convictions and not mere cant. Just
as she wrote freely to her sisters and her intimate friends about her
temporal matters, so without hesitation she talked to them of her
spiritual affairs. Her belief became broader as she grew older. She never
was an atheist like Godwin, or an unbeliever of the Voltaire school. But
as the years went on, and her knowledge of the world increased, her
religion concerned itself more with conduct and less with creed, until
she finally gave up going to church altogether. But at the time of which
we are writing she was regular in her attendance, and, though not
strictly orthodox, clung to certain forms. The mere fact that she
possessed definite ideas upon the subject while she was young shows the
naturally serious bent of her mind. She had received the most superficial
religious education. Her belief, such as it was, was wholly the result of
her own desire to solve the problems of existence and of the world beyond
the senses. It is this fact, and the inferences to be drawn from it,
which make her piety so well worth recording.
There seem to have been several schemes for work afoot just then. One was
that the two sisters and Fanny Blood, who, some time before, had
expressed herself willing and anxious to leave home, should join their
fortunes. Fanny could paint and draw. Mary and Eliza could take in
needlework until more pleasant and profitable employment could be
procured. Poverty and toil would be more than compensated for by the joy
which freedom and congenial companionship would give them. There was
nothing very Utopian in such a plan; but Fanny, when the time came for
its accomplishment, grew frightened. Her hard apprenticeship had given
her none of the self-confidence and reliance which belonged to Mary by
right of birth. Her family, despite their dependence upon her, seemed
like a protection against the outer world. And so she held back, pleading
the small chances of success by such a partnership, her own poor health,
which would make her a burden to them, and, in fact, so many good reasons
that the plan was abandoned. She, then, with greater aptitude for
suggestion than for action, proposed that Mary and Eliza should keep a
haberdashery shop, to be stocked at the expense of the much-called-upon
but sadly unsusceptible Edward. There is something grimly humorous in the
idea of Mary Wollstonecraft, destined as she was from all eternity to
sound an alarum call to arouse women from their lethargy, spending her
days behind a counter attending to their trifling temporal wants! A
Roland might as well have been asked to become cook, a Sir Galahad to
turn scullion. Honest work is never disgraceful in itself. Indeed,
"Better do to no end, than nothing!" But one regrets the pain and the
waste when circumstances force men and women capable of great work to
spend their energies in ordinary channels. A greater misery than
indifference to the amusement in which one seeks to take part, which
Hamerton counts as the most wearisome of all things, is positive dislike
for the work one is bound to do. Fortunately, Fanny's project was never
carried out. Probably Edward, as usual, failed to meet the proposals made
to him, and Mary realized that the chains by which she would thus bind
herself would be unendurable.
The plan finally adopted was that dearest to Mary's heart. She began her
career as teacher. She and Eliza went to Islington, where Fanny was then
living, and lodged in the same house with her. Then they announced their
intention of receiving day pupils. Mary was eminently fitted to teach.
Her sad experience had increased her natural sympathy and benevolence.
She now made her own troubles subservient to those of her
fellow-sufferers, and resolved that the welfare of others should be the
principal object of her life. Before the word had passed into moral
philosophy, she had become an altruist in its truest sense. The task of
teacher particularly attracted her because it enabled her to prepare the
young for the struggle with the world for which she had been so ill
qualified. Because so little attention had been given to her in her early
youth, she keenly appreciated the advantage of a good practical
education. But her merits were not recognized in Islington. Like the man
in the parable, she set out a banquet of which the bidden guests refused
to partake. No scholars were sent to her. Therefore, at the end of a few
months, she was glad to move to Newington Green, where better prospects
seemed to await her. There she had relatives and influential friends, and
the encouragement she received from them induced her to begin work on a
large scale. She rented a house, and opened a regular school. Her efforts
met with success. Twenty children became her pupils, while a Mrs.
Campbell, a relative, and her son, and another lady, with three children,
came to board with her. Mary was now more comfortable than she had
heretofore been. She was, comparatively speaking, prosperous. She had
much work to do, but by it she was supporting herself, and at the same
time advancing towards her "clear-purposed goal" of self-renunciation.
Then she had cause for pleasure in the fact that Eliza was now really
free, Bishop having finally agreed to the separation. Mary
Wollstonecraft, at the head of a house, and mistress of a school, was a
very different person from Mary Wollstonecraft, simple companion to Mrs.
Dawson or dependent friend of Fanny Blood. Her position was one to
attract attention, and it was sufficient for her to be known, to be loved
and admired. Her social sphere was enlarged. No one could care more for
society than she did, when that society was congenial. At Newington Green
she already began to show the preference for men and women of
intellectual tastes and abilities that she manifested so strongly in her
life in London. Foremost among her intimate acquaintances at this time
was Dr. Richard Price, a clergyman, a Dissenter, then well known because
of his political and mathematical speculations. He was an honest,
upright, simple-hearted man, who commanded the respect and love of all
who knew him, and whose benevolence was great enough to realize even
Mary's ideals. She became deeply attached to him personally, and was a
warm admirer of his religious and moral principles. His sermons gave her
great delight, and she often went to listen to them. He in return seems
to have felt great interest in her, and to have recognized her
extraordinary mental force. Mr. John Hewlet, also a clergyman, was
another of her friends, and she retained his friendship for many years
afterwards. A third friend, mentioned by Godwin in his Memoirs, was Mrs.
Burgh, widow of a man now almost forgotten, but once famous as the author
of "Political Disquisitions." In sorrows soon to come, Mrs. Burgh gave
practical proof of her affection. If a man can be judged by the character
of his associates, then the age, professions, and serious connections of
Mary's friends at Newington Green are not a little significant.
Much as she cared for these older friends, however, they could not be so
dear to her as Fanny and George Blood. She had begun by pitying the
latter for his hopeless passion for Everina, and had finished by loving
him for himself with true sisterly devotion. To brother and sister both,
she could open her heart as she could to no one else. They were young
with her, and that in itself is a strong bond of union. They, too, were
but just beginning life, and they could sympathize with all her
aspirations and disappointments. It was, therefore, an irreparable loss
to her when they, at almost the same time, but for different reasons,
left England. Fanny's health had finally become so wretched that even her
uncertain lover was moved to pity. Mr. Skeys seems to have been one of
the men who only appreciate that which they think they cannot have. Not
until the ill-health of the woman he loved warned him of the possibility
of his losing her altogether did he make definite proposals to her. Her
love for him had not been shaken by his unkindness, and in February,
1785, she married him, and went with him to Lisbon, where he was
established in business. A few years earlier he might, by making her his
wife, have secured her a long life's happiness. Now, as it turned out,
he succeeded but in making her path smooth for a few short months. Mary's
love for Fanny made her much more sensitive to Mr. Skeys' shortcomings as
a lover than Fanny had been. Shortly after the marriage she wrote
indignantly to George:--
"Skeys has received congratulatory letters from most of his friends
and relations in Ireland, and he now regrets that he did not marry
sooner. All his mighty fears had no foundation, so that if he had
had courage to brave the world's opinion, he might have spared
Fanny many griefs, the scars of which will never be obliterated.
Nay, more, if she had gone a year or two ago, her health might have
been perfectly restored, which I do not now think will ever be the
case. Before true passion, I am convinced, everything but a sense
of duty moves; true love is warmest when the object is absent. How
Hugh could let Fanny languish in England, while he was throwing
money away at Lisbon, is to me inexplicable, if he had a passion
that did not require the fuel of seeing the object. I much fear he
loves her not for the qualities that render her dear to my heart.
Her tenderness and delicacy are not even conceived of by a man who
would be satisfied with the fondness of one of the general run of
women."
George Blood's departure was due to less pleasant circumstances than
Fanny's. One youthful escapade which had come to light was sufficient to
attach to his name the blame for another, of which he was innocent. Some
of his associates had become seriously compromised; and he, to avoid
being implicated with them, had literally taken flight, and had made
Ireland his place of refuge.
Mary's friends left her just when she most needed them. Unfortunately,
the interval of peace inaugurated by the opening of the school was but
short-lived. Encouraged by the first success of her enterprise, she
rented a larger house, hoping that in it she would do even better. But
this step proved the _Open Sesame_ to an inexhaustible mine of
difficulties. The expense involved by the change was greater than she had
expected, and her means of meeting it smaller. The population at
Newington Green was not numerous or wealthy enough to support a large
first-class day-school, and more pupils were not forthcoming to avail
themselves of the new accommodations provided for them. It was a second
edition of the story of the wedding feast, and again highways and by-ways
were searched in vain. Moreover, her boarders neglected to pay their
bills regularly. Instead of being a source of profit, they were an
additional burden. Her life now became unspeakably sad. Her whole day was
spent in teaching. This in itself would not have been hard. She always
interested herself in her pupils, and the consciousness of good done for
others was her most highly prized pleasure. Had the physical fatigue
entailed by her work been her only hardship, she would have borne it
patiently and perhaps gayly. But from morning till night, waking and
sleeping, she was haunted by thoughts of unpaid bills and of increasing
debts. Poverty and creditors were the two unavoidable evils which stared
her in the face. Then, when she did hear from Fanny, it was to know that
the chances for her recovery were diminishing rather than increasing.
Reports of George Blood's ill-conduct, repeated for her benefit, hurt and
irritated her. On one occasion, her house was visited by men sent thither
in his pursuit by the girl who had vilely slandered him. Mrs. Campbell,
with the meanness of a small nature, reproached Mary for the
encouragement which she had given his vices. She loved him so truly that
this must have been gall and wormwood to her sensitive heart. Mr. and
Mrs. Blood continued poor and miserable, he drinking and idling, and she
faring as it must ever fare with the wives of such men. Mary saw nothing
before her but a dreary pilgrimage through the wide Valley of the Shadow
of Death, from which there seemed no escape to the Mount Zion beyond. If
she dragged herself out of the deep pit of mental despondency, it was to
fall into a still deeper one of physical prostration. The bleedings and
blisters ordered by her physician could help her but little. What she
needed to make her well was new pupils and honest boarders, and these the
most expert physician could not give her. Is it any wonder that she came
in time to hate Newington Green,--"the grave of all my comforts," she
called it,--to lose relish for life, and to feel cheered only by the
prospect of death? She had nothing to reproach herself with. In sorrow
and sickness alike she had toiled to the best of her abilities. That
which her hand had found to do, she had done with all her might. The
result of her labors and long-sufferance had hitherto been but misfortune
and failure. Truly could she have called out with the Lady of Sorrows in
the Lamentations: "Attend, all ye who pass by, and see if there be any
sorrow like unto mine." Because we know how great her misery was, we can
more fully appreciate the extent of her heroism. Though, as she confessed
to her friends in her weariest moments, her heart was broken, she never
once swerved from allegiance to the heaven-given mandate, as Carlyle
calls it, "Work thou in well-doing!" She never faltered in the
accomplishment of the duty she had set for herself, nor forgot the
troubles of others because of her own. Though her difficulties
accumulated with alarming rapidity, there was no relaxation in her
attentions to Mr. and Mrs. Blood, in her care for her sister, nor in the
sympathy she gave to George Blood.
Perhaps the greatest joy that came to her during this year was the news
that Mr. Skeys had found a position for his brother-in-law in Lisbon. But
this pleasure was more than counterbalanced by the discouraging bulletins
of Fanny's health. Mr. Skeys was alarmed at his wife's increasing
weakness, and was anxious to gratify her every desire. Fanny expressed a
wish to have Mary with her during her confinement. The latter, with
characteristic unselfishness, consented, when Mr. Skeys asked her to go
to Lisbon, though in so doing she was obliged to leave school and house.
This shows the sincerity of her opinion that before true passion
everything but duty moves. To her, Fanny's need seemed greater than her
own; and she thought to fulfil her duty towards her sister, and to
provide for her welfare by giving her charge of her scholars and boarders
while she was away from them. Mary's decision was vigorously questioned
by her friends. Indeed, there were many reasons against it. It was feared
her absence from the school for a necessarily long period would be
injurious to it, and this eventually proved to be the case. The journey
was a long one for a woman to make alone. And last, but not least, she
had not the ready money to pay her expenses. But, despite all her
friends could say, she could not be moved from her original resolution.
When they saw their arguments were useless, they manifested their
friendship in a more practical manner. Mrs. Burgh lent her the necessary
sum of money for the journey. Godwin, however, thinks that in doing this
she was acting in behalf of Dr. Price, who modestly preferred to conceal
his share in the transaction. All impediments having thus been removed,
Mary, in the autumn of 1785, started upon the saddest, up to this date,
of her many missions of charity.
The reunion of the friends was a joyless pleasure. When Mary arrived in
Lisbon, she found Fanny in the last stages of her illness, and before she
had time to rest from her journey she began her work as sick-nurse. Four
hours after her arrival Fanny's child was born. It had been sad enough
for Mary to watch her mother's last moments and Eliza's insanity; but
this new duty was still more painful. She loved Fanny Blood with a
passion whose depth is beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals. Her
affection for her was the one romance of her youth, and she lavished upon
it all the sweetness and tenderness, the enthusiasm and devotion of her
nature, which make her seem to us lovable above all women. And now this
friend, the best gift life had so far given her, was to be taken from
her. She saw Fanny grow weaker and weaker day by day, and knew that she
was powerless to avert the coming calamity. Yet whatever could be done,
she did. There never has been, and there never can be, a more faithful,
gentle nurse. The following letter gives a graphic description of her
journey, of the sad welcome which awaited her at its termination, and
the still sadder duties she fulfilled in Lisbon:--
LISBON, Nov. or Dec. 1785.
MY DEAR GIRLS,--I am beginning to awake out of a terrifying dream,
for in that light do the transactions of these two or three last
days appear. Before I say more, let me tell you that, when I
arrived here, Fanny was in labor, and that four hours after she was
delivered of a boy. The child is alive and well, and considering
the _very, very_ low state to which Fanny was reduced she is better
than could be expected. I am now watching her and the child. My
active spirits have not been much at rest ever since I left
England. I could not write to you on shipboard, the sea was so
rough; and we had such hard gales of wind, the captain was afraid
we should be dismasted. I cannot write to-night or collect my
scattered thoughts, my mind is so unsettled. Fanny is so worn out,
her recovery would be almost a resurrection, and my reason will
scarce allow me to think it possible. I labor to be resigned, and
by the time I am a little so, some faint hope sets my thoughts
again afloat, and for a moment I look forward to days that will,
alas! never come.
I will try to-morrow to give you some little regular account of my
journey, though I am almost afraid to look beyond the present
moment. Was not my arrival providential? I can scarce be persuaded
that I am here, and that so many things have happened in so short a
time. My head grows light with thinking on it.
_Friday morning._--Fanny has been so alarmingly ill since I wrote
the above, I entirely gave her up, and yet I could not write and
tell you so: it seemed like signing her death-warrant. Yesterday
afternoon some of the most alarming symptoms a little abated, and
she had a comfortable night; yet I rejoice with trembling lips, and
am afraid to indulge hopes. She is very low. The stomach is so weak
it will scarce bear to receive the slightest nourishment; in short,
if I were to tell you all her complaints you would not wonder at my
fears. The child, though a puny one, is well. I have got a
wet-nurse for it. The packet does not sail till the latter end of
next week, and I send this by a ship. I shall write by every
opportunity. We arrived last Monday. We were only thirteen days at
sea. The wind was so high and the sea so boisterous the water came
in at the cabin windows; and the ship rolled about in such a
manner, it was dangerous to stir. The women were sea-sick the whole
time, and the poor invalid so oppressed by his complaints, I never
expected he would live to see Lisbon. I have supported him for
hours together gasping for breath, and at night, if I had been
inclined to sleep, his dreadful cough would have kept me awake. You
may suppose that I have not rested much since I came here, yet I am
tolerably well, and calmer than I could expect to be. Could I not
look for comfort where only 'tis to be found, I should have been
mad before this, but I feel that I am supported by that Being who
alone can heal a wounded spirit. May He bless you both.
Yours,
MARY.
Her state of uncertainty about poor Fanny did not last long. Shortly
after the above letter was written, the invalid died. Just as life was
beginning to smile upon her, she was called from it. She had worked so
long that when happiness at length came, she had no strength left to bear
it. The blessing her wrestling had wrought was but of short duration.
Godwin, in his Memoirs, says that Mary's trip to Portugal probably
enlarged her understanding. "She was admitted," he writes, "to the very
best company the English colony afforded. She made many profound
observations on the character of the natives and the baleful effects of
superstition." But it seems doubtful whether she really saw many people
in Lisbon, or gave great heed to what was going on around her. Arrived
there just in time to see her friend die, she remained but a short time
after all was over. There was no inducement for her to make a longer
stay. Her feelings for Mr. Skeys were not friendly. She could not forget
that had he but treated Fanny as she, for example, would have done had
she been in his place, this early death might have been prevented. Her
school, intrusted to Mrs. Bishop's care, was a strong reason for her
speedy return to England. The cause which had called her from it being
gone, she was anxious to return to her post.
An incident highly characteristic of her is told of the journey home. She
had nursed a poor sick man on the way to Portugal; on the way back she
was instrumental in saving the lives of many men. The ship in which she
sailed met at mid-sea a French vessel so dismantled and storm-beaten that
it was in imminent risk of sinking, and its stock of provisions was
almost exhausted. Its officers hailed the English ship, begging its
captain to take them and their entire crew on board. The latter
hesitated. This was no trifling request. He had his own crew and
passengers to consider, and he feared to lay such a heavy tax on the
provisions provided for a certain number only. This was a case which
aroused Mary's tenderest sympathy. It was impossible for her to witness
it unmoved. She could not without a protest allow her fellow-creatures to
be so cruelly deserted. Like another Portia come to judgment, she
clinched the difficulty by representing to the captain that if he did not
yield to their entreaties she would expose his inhumanity upon her return
to England. Her arguments prevailed. The sufferers were saved, and the
intercessor in their behalf added one more to the long list of her good
deeds. Never has there been a woman, not even a Saint Rose of Lima or a
Saint Catherine of Siena, who could say as truly as Mary
Wollstonecraft,--
"... I sate among men
And I have loved these."
CHAPTER III.
LIFE AS GOVERNESS.
1786-1788.
There was little pleasure for Mary in her home-coming. The school, whose
difficulties had begun before her departure, had prospered still less
under Mrs. Bishop's care. Many of the pupils had been taken away. Eliza,
her quick temper and excitability aggravated at that time by her late
misfortunes, was not a fitting person to have the control of children.
She had thoughtlessly quarrelled with their most profitable boarder, the
mother of the three boys, who had in consequence given up her rooms. As
yet no one else had been found to occupy them. The rent of the house was
so high that these losses left the sisters without the means to pay it.
They were therefore in debt, and that deeply, for people with no
immediate, or even remote, prospects of an addition to their income. Then
the Bloods during Mary's absence had fallen further into the Slough of
Despond, out of which, now their daughter was dead, there was no one to
help them. George could not aid them, because, though they did not know
it, he was just then without employment. Unable to live amicably with his
brother-in-law after Fanny's death, he had resigned his position in
Lisbon and gone to Ireland, where for a long while he could find nothing
to do. Mr. Skeys simply refused to satisfy the never-ceasing wants of his
wife's parents. He cannot be severely censured when their shiftlessness
is borne in mind. He probably had already received many appeals from
them. But Mary could not accept their troubles so passively.
To add to her distress, she was weakened by the painful task she had just
completed. She was low-spirited and broken-hearted, and really ill. Her
eyes gave out; and no greater inconvenience could have just then befallen
her. Her mental activity was temporarily paralyzed, and yet she knew that
prompt measures were necessary to avert the evils crowding upon her. She
had truly been anointed to wrestle and not to reign.
There was no chance of relief from her own family. Her father had married
again, but his second marriage had not improved him. He had descended to
the lowest stage of drunkenness and insignificance. His home was in
Laugharne, Wales, where he barely managed to exist. James, the second
son, had gone to sea in search of better fortune. Charles, the youngest,
was not old enough to seek his, and hence had to endure as best he could
the wretchedness of the Wollstonecraft household. Instead of Mary's
receiving help from this quarter, she was called upon to give it. Kinder
to her father than he had ever been to her, she never ignored his
difficulties. When she had money, she shared it with him. When she had
none, she did all she could to force Edward, the one prosperous member of
the family, to send his father the pecuniary assistance which, it seems,
he had promised.
In whatever direction she looked, she saw misery and unhappiness. The
present was unendurable, the future hopeless. For a brief interval she
was almost crushed by her circumstances. To George Blood, now even dearer
to her than he had been before, she laid bare the weariness of her heart.
Shortly after her return she wrote him this letter, pathetic in its
despair:
NEWINGTON GREEN, Feb. 4, 1786.
I write to you, my dear George, lest my silence should make you
uneasy; yet what have I to say that will not have the same effect?
Things do not go well with me, and my spirits seem forever flown. I
was a month on my passage, and the weather was so tempestuous we
were several times in imminent danger. I did not expect ever to
have reached land. If it had pleased Heaven to have called me
hence, what a world of care I should have missed! I have lost all
relish for pleasure, and life seems a burden almost too heavy to be
endured. My head is stupid, and my heart sick and exhausted. But
why should I worry you? and yet, if I do not tell you my vexations,
what can I write about?
Your father and mother are tolerably well, and inquire most
affectionately concerning you. They do not suspect that you have
left Lisbon, and I do not intend informing them of it till you are
provided for. I am very unhappy on their account, for though I am
determined they shall share my last shilling, yet I have every
reason to apprehend extreme distress, and of course they must be
involved in it. The school dwindles to nothing, and we shall soon
lose our last boarder, Mrs. Disney. She and the girls quarrelled
while I was away, which contributed to make the house very
disagreeable. Her sons are to be whole boarders at Mrs. Cockburn's.
Let me turn my eyes on which side I will, I can only anticipate
misery. Are such prospects as these likely to heal an almost broken
heart? The loss of Fanny was sufficient of itself to have thrown a
cloud over my brightest days; what effect, then, must it have when
I am bereft of every other comfort? I have, too, many debts. I
cannot think of remaining any longer in this house, the rent is so
enormous; and where to go, without money or friends, who can point
out? My eyes are very bad and my memory gone. I am not fit for any
situation; and as for Eliza, I don't know what will become of her.
My constitution is impaired. I hope I shan't live long, yet I may
be a tedious time dying.
Well, I am too impatient. The will of heaven be done! I will labor
to be resigned. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." I
scarce know what I write, yet my writing at all when my mind is so
disturbed is a proof to you that I can never be lost so entirely in
misery as to forget those I love. I long to hear that you are
settled. It is the only quarter from which I can reasonably expect
pleasure. I have received a very short, unsatisfactory letter from
Lisbon. It was written to apologize for not sending the money to
your father which he promised. It would have been particularly
acceptable to them at this time; but he is prudent, and will not
run any hazard to serve a friend. Indeed, delicacy made me conceal
from him my dismal situation, but he must know how much I am
embarrassed....
I am very low-spirited, and of course my letter is very dull. I
will not lengthen it out in the same strain, but conclude with what
alone will be acceptable, an assurance of love and regard.
Believe me to be ever your sincere and affectionate friend,
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
"There is but one true cure for suffering, and that is action," Dr.
Maudsley says. The first thing Mary did in her misery was to undertake
new work, this time a literary venture, not for herself, but for the
benefit of Mr. and Mrs. Blood. Their son-in-law having refused to
contribute from his plenty, their daughter's friend came forward and gave
from her nothing.
At the instigation of Mr. Hewlet, one of her friends already mentioned,
she wrote a small pamphlet called "Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters." This gentleman rated her powers so high that he felt sure of
her success as a writer. As he was well acquainted with Mr. Johnson, a
prominent bookseller in Fleet Street, he could promise that her
manuscript would be dealt with fairly. Her choice of subject was, in one
way, fortunate. Being a teacher she could speak on educational matters
with authority. But this first work is not striking or remarkable.
Indeed, it is chiefly worth notice because it was the means of
introducing her to Mr. Johnson, who was a true friend to her through her
darkest, as well as through her brightest, days, and whose influence was
strong in shaping her career. He paid her ten guineas for her pamphlet,
and these she at once gave to Mr. and Mrs. Blood, who were thereby
enabled to leave England and go to Dublin. There, they thought, because
they and their disgrace were not yet known, the chances of their starting
in life afresh were greater.
It was now time for Mary to turn her attention to her own affairs. It was
absolutely necessary to give up the school. Her presence could not recall
the pupils who had left it, and her debts were pressing. The success of
the sisters had been too slight to tempt them to establish a similar
institution in another town. They determined to separate, and each to
earn her livelihood alone. Mary was not loath to do this. Because of her
superior administrative ability, too large a share of the work in the
school had devolved upon her, while her sisters' society was a hindrance
rather than a comfort. She was ready to sacrifice herself for others, but
she had enough common sense to realize that too great unselfishness in
details would in the end destroy her power of aiding in larger matters.
She could do more for Eliza and Everina away from them, than if she
continued to live with them.
What she desired most earnestly was to devote all her time to literary
work. Mr. Hewlet had represented to her that she would be certain to make
an ample support by writing. Mr. Johnson had received her pamphlet
favorably, and had asked for further contributions. But her present want
was urgent, and she could not wait on a probability. She had absolutely
no money to live upon while she made a second experiment. She had learned
thoroughly the lesson of patience and of self-restraint, and she resolved
for the present to continue to teach. By doing this, she could still find
a few spare hours for literary purposes, while she could gradually save
enough money to warrant her beginning the life for which she longed. One
plan, abandoned, however, before she attempted to put it into execution,
she describes in the following letter to George Blood. The tone in which
she writes is much less hopeless than that of the letter last quoted.
Already the remedy of activity was beginning to have its effect:--
NEWINGTON GREEN, May 22, 1787.
By this time, my dear George, I hope your father and mother have
reached Dublin. I long to hear of their safe arrival. A few days
after they set sail, I received a letter from Skeys. He laments
his inability to assist them, and dwells on his own embarrassments.
How glad I am they are gone! My affairs are hastening to a
crisis.... Some of my creditors cannot afford to wait for their
money; as to leaving England in debt, I am determined not to do
it.... Everina and Eliza are both endeavoring to go out into the
world, the one as a companion, and the other as a teacher, and I
believe I shall continue some time on the Green. I intend taking a
little cheap lodging, and living without a servant; and the few
scholars I have will maintain me. I have done with all worldly
pursuits and wishes; I only desire to submit without being
dependent on the caprice of our fellow-creatures. I shall have many
solitary hours, but I have not much to hope for in life, and so it
would be absurd to give way to fear. Besides, I try to look on the
best side, and not to despond. While I am trying to do my duty in
that station in which Providence has placed me, I shall enjoy some
tranquil moments, and the pleasures I have the greatest relish for
are not entirely out of my reach.... I have been trying to muster
up my fortitude, and laboring for patience to bear my many trials.
Surely, when I could determine to survive Fanny, I can endure
poverty and all the lesser ills of life. I dreaded, oh! how I
dreaded this time, and now it is arrived I am calmer than I
expected to be. I have been very unwell; my constitution is much
impaired; the prison walls are decaying, and the prisoner will ere
long get free.... Remember that I am your truly affectionate friend
and sister,
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
Perhaps the uncertainty of keeping her pupils, or the double work
necessitated by this project, discouraged her. At all events, it was
relinquished when other and seemingly better proposals were made to her.
Some of her friends at Newington Green recommended her to the notice of
Mr. Prior, then Assistant Master at Eton, and his wife. Through them she
was offered the situation of governess to the children of Lord
Kingsborough, an Irish nobleman. If she accepted it, she would be spared
the anxiety which a school of her own had heretofore brought her. The
salary would be forty pounds a year, out of which she calculated she
could pay her debts and then assist Mrs. Bishop. But she would lose her
independence, and would expose herself to the indifference or contempt
then the portion of governesses. "I should be shut out from society," she
explained to George Blood, "and be debarred the pleasures of imperfect
friendship, as I should on every side be surrounded by unequals. To live
only on terms of civility and common benevolence, without any interchange
of little acts of kindness and tenderness, would be to me extremely
irksome." The prospect, it must be admitted, was not pleasant. But still
the advantages outweighed the drawbacks, and Mary agreed to Lady
Kingsborough's terms.
Mr. and Mrs. Prior intended taking a trip to Ireland, and they suggested
that she should accompany them. Travelling was not easy in those days,
and she decided to wait and go with them. But, for some reason, they did
not start as soon as they had expected. She had already joined them in
their home at Eton, in which place their delay detained her for some
time. This gave her the opportunity to study the school and the
principles upon which it was conducted. The entire system met with her
disapprobation, and afterwards, in her "Rights of Women," she freely and
strongly expressed her unfavorable opinion. Judging from what she there
saw, she concluded that schools regulated according to the same rules
were hot-beds of vice. Nothing disgusted her so much in this institution
as the false basis upon which religion was established. The slavery to
forms, demanded of the boys, seemed to her to at once undermine their
moral uprightness. What, indeed, could be expected of a boy who would
take the sacrament for no other reason than to avoid the fine of half a
guinea imposed upon those who would not conform to this ceremony? Her
visit did much towards developing and formulating her ideas on the
subject of education.
Mrs. Prior seems to have given her every chance to become acquainted not
only with the school, but with the social life at Eton. But her interest
in the gay world, as there represented, was lukewarm. Its shallowness
provoked her. She, looking upon life as real and earnest, and not as a
mere playground, could not sympathize with women who gave themselves up
to dress, nor with men who expended their energies in efforts to raise a
laugh. Wit of rather an affected kind was the fashion of the day. At its
best it was odious, but when manufactured by the weaklings of society, it
was beyond endurance. Heine says that there is no man so crazy that he
may not find a crazier comrade who will understand him. And it may be
said as truly, that there is no man so foolish that he will not meet
still greater fools ready to admire his folly. To Mary Wollstonecraft it
was doubtful which was most to be despised, the affectation itself or the
applause which nourished it. The governess elect, whose heart was heavy
laden, saw in the flippant gayeties of Eton naught but vanity and
vexation of spirit.
She wrote to Everina on the 9th of October,--
The time I spend here appears lost. While I remained in England I
would fain have been near those I love.... I could not live the
life they lead at Eton; nothing but dress and ridicule going
forward, and I really believe their fondness for ridicule tends to
make them affected, the women in their manners and the men in their
conversation; for witlings abound, and puns fly about like
crackers, though you would scarcely guess they had any meaning in
them, if you did not hear the noise they create. So much company
without any sociability would be to me an insupportable fatigue. I
am, 'tis true, quite alone in a crowd, yet cannot help reflecting
on the scene around me, and my thoughts harass me. Vanity in one
shape or other reigns triumphant.... My thoughts and wishes tend to
that land where the God of love will wipe away all tears from our
eyes, where sincerity and truth will flourish, and the imagination
will not dwell on pleasing illusions which vanish like dreams when
experience forces us to see things as they really are. With what
delight do I anticipate the time when neither death nor accidents
of any kind will interpose to separate me from those I love....
Adieu; believe me to be your affectionate friend and sister,
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
Finally the time came for her departure. In October, 1787, she set out
with Mr. and Mrs. Prior for Ireland, and towards the end of the month
arrived at the castle of Lord Kingsborough in Mitchelstown. Her first
impressions were gloomy. But, indeed, her depression and weakness were so
great, that she looked at all things, as if through a glass, darkly. Her
sorrows were still too fresh to be forgotten in idle curiosity about the
inhabitants and customs of her new home. Even if she had been in the best
of spirits, her arrival at the castle would have been a trying moment. It
is never easy for one woman to face alone several of her sex, who, she
knows, are waiting to criticise her. There were then staying with Lady
Kingsborough her step-mother and her three unmarried step-sisters and
several guests. Governesses in this household had fared much as
companions in Mrs. Dawson's. They had come and gone in rapid succession.
Therefore Mary was examined by these ladies much as a new horse is
inspected by a racer, or a new dog by a sportsman. She passed through the
ordeal successfully, but it left her courage at low ebb. Her first report
to her sister is not cheerful:--
THE CASTLE, MITCHELSTOWN, Oct. 30, 1787.
Well, my dear girl, I am at length arrived at my journey's end. I
sigh when I say so, but it matters not, I must labor for content,
and try to reconcile myself to a state which is contrary to every
feeling of my soul. I can scarcely persuade myself that I am awake;
my whole life appears like a frightful vision, and equally
disjointed. I have been so very low-spirited for some days past, I
could not write. All the moments I could spend in solitude were
lost in sorrow and unavailing tears. There was such a solemn kind
of stupidity about this place as froze my very blood. I entered the
great gates with the same kind of feeling as I should have if I was
going into the Bastille. You can make allowance for the feelings
which the General would term ridiculous or artificial. I found I
was to encounter a host of females,--My Lady, her step-mother and
three sisters, and Mrses. and Misses without number, who, of
course, would examine me with the most minute attention. I cannot
attempt to give you a description of the family, I am so low; I
will only mention some of the things which particularly worry me. I
am sure much more is expected from me than I am equal to. With
respect to French, I am certain Mr. P. has misled them, and I
expect in consequence of it to be very much mortified. Lady K. is a
shrewd, clever woman, a great talker. I have not seen much of her,
as she is confined to her room by a sore throat; but I have seen
half a dozen of her companions. I mean not her children, but her
dogs. To see a woman without any softness in her manners caressing
animals, and using infantine expressions, is, you may conceive,
very absurd and ludicrous, but a fine lady is a new species to me
of animal. I am, however, treated like a gentlewoman by every part
of the family, but the forms and parade of high life suit not my
mind.... I hear a fiddle below, the servants are dancing, and the
rest of the family are diverting themselves. I only am melancholy
and alone. To tell the truth, I hope part of my misery arises from
disordered nerves, for I would fain believe my mind is not so very
weak. The children are, literally speaking, wild Irish, unformed
and not very pleasing; but you shall have a full and true account,
my dear girl, in a few days....
I am your affectionate sister and sincere friend,
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
It was at least fortunate that she escaped, with Lady Kingsborough, the
indignities which she had feared she, as governess, would receive.
Instead of being placed on a level with the servants, as was often the
fate of gentlewomen in her position, she was treated as one of the
family, but she had little else to be thankful for. There was absolutely
no congeniality between herself and her employers. She had no tastes or
views in common with them. Lady Kingsborough was a thorough woman of the
world. She was clever but cold, and her natural coldness had been
increased by the restraints and exactions of her social rank. If she
rouged to preserve her good looks, and talked to exhibit her cleverness,
she was fulfilling all the requirements of her station in life. Her
character and conduct were in every way opposed to Mary's ideals. The
latter, who was instinctively honest, and who never stooped to curry
favor with any one, must have found it difficult to treat Lady
Kingsborough with a deference she did not feel, but which her subordinate
position obliged her to show. The struggle between impulse and duty thus
caused was doubtless one of the chief factors in making her experiences
in Ireland so painful. How great this struggle was can be best estimated
when it is known what she thought of the mother of her pupils. She was
never thrown into such intimate relations with any other woman of
fashion, and therefore it is not illogical to believe that many passages
in the "Rights of Women," relating to women of this class, are
descriptions of Lady Kingsborough. The allusion to pet dogs in the
following seems to establish the identity beyond dispute:--
"... She who takes her dogs to bed, and nurses them with a parade
of sensibility when sick, will suffer her babes to grow up crooked
in a nursery. This illustration of my argument is drawn from a
matter of fact. The woman whom I allude to was handsome, reckoned
very handsome by those who do not miss the mind when the face is
plump and fair; but her understanding had not been led from female
duties by literature, nor her innocence debauched by knowledge. No,
she was quite feminine according to the masculine acceptation of
the word; and so far from loving these spoiled brutes that filled
the place which her children ought to have occupied, she only
lisped out a pretty mixture of French and English nonsense, to
please the men who flocked round her. The wife, mother, and human
creature were all swallowed up by the factitious character which an
improper education and the selfish vanity of beauty had produced.
"I do not like to make a distinction without a difference, and I
own that I have been as much disgusted by the fine lady who took
her lap-dog to her bosom, instead of her child, as by the ferocity
of a man, who beating his horse, declared that he knew as well when
he did wrong as a Christian."
If Lady Kingsborough was a representative lady of fashion, her husband
was quite as much the typical country lord. Tom Jones was still the ideal
hero of fiction, and Squire Westerns had not disappeared from real life.
Lord Kingsborough was good-natured and kind, but, like the rest of the
species, coarse. "His countenance does not promise more than good humor
and a little _fun_, not refined," Mary told Mrs. Bishop. The three
step-sisters were too preoccupied with matrimonial calculations to
manifest their character, if indeed they had any. Clearly, in such a
household Mary Wollstonecraft was as a child of Israel among the
Philistines.
The society of the children, though they were "wild Irish," was more to
her taste than that of the grown-up members of the family. Three were
given into her charge. At first she thought them not very pleasing, but
after a better acquaintance she grew fond of them. The eldest, Margaret,
afterwards Lady Mountcashel, was then fourteen years of age. She was very
talented, and a "sweet girl," as Mary called her in a letter to Mrs.
Bishop. She became deeply attached to her new governess, not with the
passing fancy of a child, but with a lasting devotion. The other children
also learned to love her, but being younger there was less friendship in
their affection. They were afraid of their mother, who lavished her
caresses upon her dogs, until she had none left for them. Therefore, when
Mary treated them affectionately and sympathized with their interests and
pleasures, they naturally turned to her and gave her the love which no
one else seemed to want. That this was the case was entirely Lady
Kingsborough's fault, but she resented it bitterly, and it was later a
cause of serious complaint against the too competent governess. The
affection of her pupils, which was her principal pleasure during her
residence in Ireland, thus became in the end a misfortune.
A more prolific source of trouble to her was, strangely enough, her
interest in them. Lady Kingsborough had very positive ideas upon the
subject of her children's education, and by insisting upon adherence to
them she made Mary's task doubly hard. Had she not been interfered with,
her position would not have been so unpleasant. She could put her whole
soul into her work, whatever it might be, and find in its success one of
her chief joys. She wished to do her utmost for Margaret and her sisters,
but this was impossible, since she knew the system Lady Kingsborough
exacted to be vicious. The latter cared more for a show of knowledge than
for knowledge itself, and laid the greatest stress upon the acquirement
of accomplishments. This was not in accord with Mary's theories, who
prized reality and not appearances. A less conscientious woman might have
contented herself with the thought that she was carrying out the wishes
of her employer. But Mary could not quiet her scruples in this way. She
was tormented by the sense of duty but half fulfilled. She realized, by
her own sad experience, how much depends upon the training received in
childhood, and yet she was powerless to bring up her pupils in the way
she knew to be best. She had, besides, constantly before her in Lady
Kingsborough and her sisters a, to her, melancholy example of the result
of the methods she was asked to adopt. They had been carefully taught
many different languages and much history, but had been as carefully
instilled with the idea that their studies were but means to social
success and to a brilliant marriage. The consequence was that their
education, despite its thoroughness, had made them puppets, self-interest
being the wire which moved them. She did not want this to be the fate of
her pupils, but she could see no escape for them.
In addition to her honest anxiety for their future, she must have been
worried by the certainty that, if she remained with them, she would be
held responsible for their character and conduct in after-life. Though
she had charge of them only for a year, this eventually proved to be the
case. Margaret's reputation as Lady Mountcashel was not wholly unsullied,
and when it was remembered that she had, at one time, been under the
influence of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the "Rights of Women," the
fault was attributed to the immoral and irreligious teaching of the
latter. Never was any woman so unjustly condemned. In the first place,
Mary was not her governess long enough to actually change her nature, or
to influence her for life; and, in the second place, she was not allowed
to have her own way with her pupils. Had she been free she would have
been more apt to encourage a spirit of piety, and inculcate a fine moral
sense. For she was at that period in a deeply religious frame of mind,
while she did all she could to counteract what she considered the
deteriorating tendencies of the children's home training. As Kegan Paul
says, "Her whole endeavor was to train them for higher pursuits and to
instil into them a desire for a wider culture than fell to the lot of
most girls in those days. Her sorrow was deep that her pupils' lives were
such as to render sustained study and religious habits of mind alike
difficult."
This caused her much unhappiness. Her worriment developed into positive
illness. After she had been with them some months, the strain seemed more
than she could bear, as she confessed to Mr. Johnson, to whom she wrote
from Dublin on the 14th of April,--
I am still an invalid, and begin to believe that I ought never to
expect to enjoy health. My mind preys on my body, and, when I
endeavor to be useful, I grow too much interested for my own peace.
Confined almost entirely to the society of children, I am anxiously
solicitous for their future welfare, and mortified beyond measure
when counteracted in my endeavors to improve them. I feel all a
mother's fears for the swarm of little ones which surround me, and
observe disorders, without having power to apply the proper
remedies. How can I be reconciled to life, when it is always a
painful warfare, and when I am deprived of all the pleasures I
relish? I allude to rational conversations and domestic affections.
Here, alone, a poor solitary individual in a strange land, tied to
one spot, and subject to the caprice of another, can I be
contented? I am desirous to convince you that I have _some_ cause
for sorrow, and am not without reason detached from life. I shall
hope to hear that you are well, and am yours sincerely,
WOLLSTONECRAFT.
The family troubles followed Mary to Ireland. The news which reached her
from home was discouraging. Edward Wollstonecraft at this period declared
he would do nothing more for his father. Prudent, and with none of his
sister's unselfishness, he grew tired of the drain upon his purse. There
was also difficulty about some money which Mary and her sisters
considered theirs by right, but which the eldest brother, with shameless
selfishness, refused to give up. What the exact circumstances were is not
certain; but it could have been no light tax upon Mary to contribute the
necessary amount for her father's support, and no small disappointment to
be deprived of money which she thought to be legally hers. Money cares
were to her what the Old Man of the Sea was to Sinbad. They were a burden
from which she was never free. When from forty pounds a year she had to
take half to pay her debts, and then give from the remainder to her
father, her share of her earnings was not large. And yet she counted upon
her savings to purchase her future release from a life of dependence.
Though she wrote to Mr. Johnson that she was almost entirely confined to
the society of children, she really did see much of the family, often
taking part in their amusements. Judging from the attractions and
conversational powers which made her a favorite in London society, it is
but natural to conclude that she was an addition to the household. She
seems at times to have exerted herself to be agreeable. Godwin records
the extreme discomfiture of a fine lady of quality, when, on one
occasion, after having singled her out and treated her with marked
friendliness, she discovered that she had been entertaining the
children's governess! Mary cared nothing for these people, but as they
were civil to her, she returned their politeness by showing them she was
well worth being polite to. Low-spirited as she was, she mustered up
sufficient courage to discuss the husband-hunts of the young ladies and
even to notice the dogs. This was, indeed, a concession. To Everina she
sent a bulletin--not untouched with humor--of her wonderful and
praiseworthy progress with the inmates of the castle:--
MITCHELSTOWN, Nov. 17, 1787.
... Confined to the society of a set of silly females, I have no
social converse, and their boisterous spirits and unmeaning
laughter exhaust me, not forgetting hourly domestic bickerings. The
topics of matrimony and dress take their turn, not in a very
sentimental style,--alas! poor sentiment, it has no residence here.
I almost wish the girls were novel-readers and romantic. I declare
false refinement is better than none at all; but these girls
understand several languages, and have read _cartloads_ of history,
for their mother was a prudent woman. Lady K.'s passion for animals
fills up the hours which are not spent in dressing. All her
children have been ill,--very disagreeable fevers. Her ladyship
visited them in a formal way, though their situation called forth
my tenderness, and I endeavored to amuse them, while she lavished
awkward fondness on her dogs. I think now I hear her infantine
lisp. She rouges, and, in short, is a fine lady, without fancy or
sensibility. I am almost tormented to death by dogs. But you will
perceive I am not under the influence of my darling passion--pity;
it is not always so. I make allowance and adapt myself, talk of
getting husbands for the _ladies_--and the _dogs_, and am
wonderfully entertaining; and then I retire to my room, form
figures in the fire, listen to the wind, or view the Gotties, a
fine range of mountains near us, and so does time waste away in
apathy or misery.... I am drinking asses' milk, but do not find it
of any service. I am very ill, and so low-spirited my tears flow in
torrents almost insensibly. I struggle with myself, but I hope my
Heavenly Father will not be extreme to mark my weakness, and that
He will have compassion upon a poor bruised reed, and pity a
miserable wretch, whose sorrows He only knows.... I almost wish my
warfare was over.
The religious tone of this letter calls for special notice, since it was
written at the very time she was supposed to be imparting irreligious
principles to her pupils.
Mary had none of the false sentiment of a Sterne, and could not waste
sympathy over brutes, when she felt that there were human beings who
needed it. Her ladyship's dogs worried her because of the contrast
between the attention they received and the indifference which fell to
the lot of the children. Besides, the then distressing condition of the
laboring population in Ireland made the luxuries and silly affectations
of the rich doubly noticeable. Mary saw for herself the poverty of the
peasantry. Margaret was allowed to visit the poor, and she accompanied
her on her charitable rounds. The almost bestial squalor in which these
people lived was another cruel contrast to the pampered existence led by
the dogs at the castle. She had none of Strap's veneration for the
epithet of gentleman. Eliza owned to a "sneaking kindness for people of
quality." But Mary cared only for a man's intrinsic merit. His rank could
not cover his faults. Therefore, with the misery and destitution of so
many men and women staring her in the face, the amusements and
occupations of the few within Lady Kingsborough's household continually
grated upon her finer instincts.
In the winter of 1788 the family went to Dublin, and Mary accompanied
them. She liked the society of the capital no better than she had that of
the country. She, however, occasionally shared in its frivolities, her
relations to Lady Kingsborough obliging her to do this. She was still
young enough to possess the capacity for enjoyment, though her many
hardships and sorrows had made her think this impossible, and she was
sometimes carried away by the gayety around her. But, as thorough a hater
of shams as Carlyle, she was disgusted with herself once the passing
excitement was over. From Dublin she wrote to Everina giving her a
description of a mask to which she had gone, and of which she had
evidently been a conspicuous feature:--
DUBLIN, March 14, 1788.
... I am very weak to-day, but I can account for it. The day before
yesterday there was a masquerade; in the course of conversation
some time before, I happened to wish to go to it. Lady K. offered
me two tickets for myself and Miss Delane to accompany me. I
refused them on account of the expense of dressing properly. She
then, to obviate that objection, lent me a black domino. I was out
of spirits, and thought of another excuse; but she proposed to take
me and Betty Delane to the houses of several people of fashion who
saw masks. We went to a great number, and were a tolerable, nay, a
much-admired, group. Lady K. went in a domino with a smart
cockade; Miss Moore dressed in the habit of one of the females of
the new discovered islands; Betty D. as a forsaken shepherdess; and
your sister Mary in a black domino. As it was taken for granted the
stranger who had just arrived could not speak the language, I was
to be her interpreter, which afforded me an ample field for satire.
I happened to be very melancholy in the morning, as I am almost
every morning, but at night my fever gives me false spirits; this
night the lights, the novelty of the scene, and all things together
contributed to make me _more_ than half mad. I gave full scope to a
satirical vein, and suppose ...
Unfortunately, the rest of the letter is lost.
In the midst of her duties and dissipations she managed to find some
little time for more solid pleasures and more congenial work. In her
letters she speaks of nothing with so much enthusiasm as of Rousseau,
whose "Emile" she read while she was in Dublin. She wrote to Everina, on
the 24th of March,--
I believe I told you before that as a nation I do not admire the
Irish; and as to the great world and its frivolous ceremonies, I
cannot away with them; they fatigue me. I thank Heaven I was not so
unfortunate as to be born a lady of quality. I am now reading
Rousseau's "Emile," and love his paradoxes. He chooses a common
capacity to educate, and gives as a reason that a genius will
educate itself. However, he rambles into that chimerical world in
which I have too often wandered, and draws the usual conclusion
that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. He was a strange,
inconsistent, unhappy, clever creature, yet he possessed an
uncommon portion of sensibility and penetration....
Adieu, yours sincerely,
MARY.
It was also during this period that she wrote a novel called "Mary." It
is a narrative of her acquaintance and friendship with Fanny Blood,--her
_In Memoriam_ of the friend she so dearly loved. In writing it she sought
relief for the bitter sorrow with which her loss had filled her heart.
The Irish gayeties lasted through the winter. In the spring the family
crossed over to England and went to Bristol, Hotwells, and Bath. In all
these places Mary saw more of the gay world, but it was only to deepen
the disgust with which it inspired her. Those were the days when men
drank at dinner until they fell under the table; when young women thought
of nothing but beaux, and were exhibited by their fond mothers as so much
live-stock to be delivered to the highest bidder; and when dowagers,
whose flirting season was over, spent all their time at the card-table.
Nowhere were the absurdities and emptiness of polite society so fully
exposed as at these three fashionable resorts. Even the frivolity of
Dublin paled in comparison. Mary's health improved in England. The Irish
climate seems to have specially disagreed with her. But notwithstanding
the much-needed improvement in her physical condition, and despite her
occasional concessions to her circumstances, her life became more
unbearable every day, while her sympathies and tastes grew farther apart
from those of her employers.
But while even the little respect she felt for Lord and Lady Kingsborough
lessened, her love for the children increased. This they returned with
interest. Once, when one of them had to go into the country with her
mother and without her governess, she cried so bitterly that she made
herself ill. The strength of Margaret's affection can be partly measured
by the following passage from a letter written by Mary shortly after
their separation:--
"I had, the other day, the satisfaction of again receiving a letter
from my poor dear Margaret. With all the mother's fondness, I could
transcribe a part of it. She says, every day her affection to me,
and dependence on heaven, increase, etc. I miss her innocent
caresses, and sometimes indulge a pleasing hope, that she may be
allowed to cheer my childless age if I am to live to be old. At any
rate, I may hear of the virtues I may not contemplate."
Lady Kingsborough made no effort to win her children's affection, but she
was unwilling that they should bestow it upon a stranger. She could not
forgive the governess who had taken her place in their hearts. She and
her eldest daughter had on this account frequent quarrels. Mary's
position was therefore untenable. Her surroundings were uncongenial, her
duties distasteful, and she was disapproved of by her employer. Nothing
was needed but a decent pretext for the latter to dismiss her. This she
before long found when, Mary being temporarily separated from her pupils,
Margaret showed more regret than her mother thought the occasion
warranted. Lady Kingsborough seized the opportunity to give the governess
her dismissal. This was in the autumn of 1788, and the family were in
London. Mary had for some weeks known that this end was inevitable, but
still her departure, when the time came, was sudden. It was a trial to
her to leave the children, but escape from the household was a joyful
emancipation. Again she was obliged to face the world, and again she
emerged triumphant from her struggles. With each new change she advanced
a step in her intellectual progress. After she left Lady Kingsborough she
began the literary life which was to make her famous.
CHAPTER IV.
LITERARY LIFE.
1788-1791.
During her residence with the family of Lady Kingsborough in Ireland,
Mary, as has been seen, corresponded with Mr. Johnson the publisher. In
her hour of need she went to him for advice and assistance. He strongly
recommended, as he had more than once before, that she should give up
teaching altogether, and devote her time to literary work.
Mr. Johnson was a man of considerable influence and experience, and he
was enterprising and progressive. He published most of the principal
books of the day. The Edgeworths sent him their novels from Ireland, and
Cowper his poetry from Olney. One day he gave the reading world Mrs.
Barbauld's works for the young, and the next, the speculations of
reformers and social philosophers whose rationalism deterred many another
publisher. It was for printing the Rev. Gilbert Wakefield's too
plain-spoken writings that he was, at a later date, fined and imprisoned.
Quick to discern true merit, he was equally prompt in encouraging it. As
Mary once said of him, he was a man before he was a bookseller. His kind,
generous nature made him as ready to assist needy and deserving authors
with his purse as he was to publish their works. From the time he had
seen Mary's pamphlet on the "Education of Daughters," he had been deeply
and honestly interested in her. It had convinced him of her power to do
something greater. Her letters had sustained him in this opinion, and her
novel still further confirmed it. He now, in addition to urging her to
try to support herself by writing, promised her continual employment if
she would settle in London.
To-day there would seem no possible reason for any one in her position to
hesitate before accepting such an offer. But in her time it was an
unusual occurrence for a woman to adopt literature as a profession. It is
true there had been a great change since Swift declared that "not one
gentleman's daughter in a thousand has been brought to read or understand
her own natural tongue." Women had learned not only to read, but to
write. Miss Burney had written her novels, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu her
Letters, and Mrs. Inchbald her "Simple Story" and her plays, before Mary
came to London. Though the Amelias and Lydia Melfords of fiction were
still favorite types, the blue-stocking was gaining ascendency. Because
she was such a _rara avis_ she received a degree of attention and
devotion which now appears extraordinary. Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Opie,
Maria Edgeworth and Mrs. Barbauld, at the end of the last and beginning
of this century, were feted and praised as seldom falls to the lot of
their successors of the present generation. But, despite this fact, they
were not quite sure that they were keeping within the limits of feminine
modesty by publishing their writings. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had
considered it necessary to apologize for having translated Epictetus.
Miss Burney shrank from publicity, and preferred the slavery of a court
to the liberty of home life, which meant time for writing. Good Mrs.
Barbauld feared she "stepped out of the bounds of female reserve" when
she became an author. They all wrote either for amusement or as a last
resource to eke out a slender income. But Mary would, by agreeing to Mr.
Johnson's proposition, deliberately throw over other chances of making a
livelihood to rely entirely upon literature. She was young, unmarried,
and, to all intents and purposes, alone in the world. Such a step was
unprecedented in English literary annals. She would really be, as she
wrote to her sister, the first of a new genus. Her conduct would
unquestionably be criticised and censured. She would have to run the
gauntlet of public opinion, a much more trying ordeal than that through
which she had passed at the castle in Mitchelstown.
But, on the other hand, she would thereby gain freedom and independence,
for which she had always yearned above all else; her work would be
congenial; and, what to her was even more important, she would obtain
better means to further the welfare of her sisters and brothers, and to
assist her father. Compared to these inducements, the fact that people
would look upon her askance was a very insignificant consideration. She
believed in a woman's right to independence; and, the first chance she
had, she acted according to her lights.
But, at the same time, she knew that if her friends heard of her
determination before she had carried it into effect, they would try to
dissuade her from it. She was firmly resolved not to be influenced in
this matter by any one; and therefore, to avoid the unpleasant
discussions and disputes that might arise from a difference of opinion,
she maintained strict secrecy as to her plans. From her letters it seems
probable that she had made definite arrangements with Mr. Johnson before
her formal dismissal by Lady Kingsborough. In September of 1788 she
stayed at Henley for a short time with Mrs. Bishop; and it was doubtless
this visit that caused Margaret's unhappiness and hence her mother's
indignation. At Henley Mary enjoyed a short interval of rest. The quiet
of the place and temporary idleness were the best of tonics for her
disordered nerves, and an excellent preparation for her new labors. That
she was at that time determined to give up teaching for literature, but
that she did not take her sister into her confidence, is shown by this
letter written to Mr. Johnson, containing a pleasant description of her
holiday:--
HENLEY, Thursday, Sept. 13.
MY DEAR SIR,--Since I saw you I have, literally speaking, _enjoyed_
solitude. My sister could not accompany me in my rambles; I
therefore wandered alone by the side of the Thames, and in the
neighboring beautiful fields and pleasure grounds: the prospects
were of such a placid kind, I _caught_ tranquillity while I
surveyed them; my mind was _still_, though active. Were I to give
you an account how I have spent my time, you would smile. I found
an old French Bible here, and amused myself with comparing it with
our English translation; then I would listen to the falling leaves,
or observe the various tints the autumn gave to them. At other
times, the singing of a robin or the noise of a water-mill engaged
my attention; for I was at the same time, perhaps, discussing some
knotty point, or straying from this _tiny_ world to new systems.
After these excursions I returned to the family meals, told the
children stories (they think me _vastly_ agreeable), and my sister
was amused. Well, will you allow me to call this way of passing my
days pleasant?
I was just going to mend my pen; but I believe it will enable me to
say all I have to add to this epistle. Have you yet heard of an
habitation for me? I often think of my new plan of life; and lest
my sister should try to prevail on me to alter it, I have avoided
mentioning it to her. I am determined! Your sex generally laugh at
female determinations; but let me tell you, I never yet resolved to
do anything of consequence, that I did not adhere resolutely to it,
till I had accomplished my purpose, improbable as it might have
appeared to a more timid mind. In the course of near nine and
twenty years I have gathered some experience, and felt many
_severe_ disappointments; and what is the amount? I long for a
little peace and _independence_! Every obligation we receive from
our fellow-creatures is a new shackle, takes from our native
freedom, and debases the mind, makes us mere earthworms. I am not
fond of grovelling!
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
When she parted from Lady Kingsborough, and the time arrived for
beginning her new life, she thought it best to communicate her prospects
to Everina; but she begged the latter not to mention them to any one
else. She seems for some time to have wished that her family at least
should know nothing of her whereabouts or her occupations.
She wrote from London on the 7th of November to Everina,--
I am, my dear girl, once more thrown on the world. I _have_ left
Lord K.'s, and they return next week to Mitchelstown. I long since
imagined that my departure would be sudden. I have not _seen_ Mrs.
Burgh, but I have informed her of this circumstance, and at the
same time mentioned to her, that I was determined not to see any of
my friends till I am in a way to earn my own subsistence. And to
this determination I _will_ adhere. You can conceive how
disagreeable pity and advice would be at this juncture. I have two
other cogent reasons. Before I go on will you pause, and if, after
deliberating, you will promise not to mention to any one what you
know of my designs, though you may think my requesting you to
conceal them unreasonable, I will trust to your honor, and proceed.
Mr. Johnson, whose uncommon kindness, I believe, has saved me from
despair and vexation I shrink back from, and fear to encounter,
assures me that if I exert my talents in writing, I may support
myself in a comfortable way. I am then going to be the first of a
new genus. I tremble at the attempt; yet if I fail _I_ only suffer;
and should I succeed, my dear girls will ever in sickness have a
home and a refuge, where for a few months in the year they may
forget the cares that disturb the rest. I shall strain every nerve
to obtain a situation for Eliza nearer town: in short, I am once
more involved in schemes. Heaven only knows whether they will
answer! Yet while they are pursued life slips away. I would not on
any account inform my father or Edward of my designs. You and Eliza
are the only part of the family I am interested about; I wish to be
a mother to you both. My undertaking would subject me to ridicule
and an inundation of friendly advice to which I cannot listen; I
must be independent. I wish to introduce you to Mr. Johnson. You
would respect him; and his sensible conversation would soon wear
away the impression that a formality, or rather stiffness of
manners, first makes to his disadvantage. I am sure you would love
him, did you know with what tenderness and humanity he has behaved
to me....
I cannot write more explicitly. I have indeed been very much
harassed. But Providence has been very kind to me, and when I
reflect on past mercies, I am not without hope with respect to the
future; and freedom, even uncertain freedom, is dear.... This
project has long floated in my mind. You know I am not born to
tread in the beaten track; the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me
on. Adieu; believe me ever your sincere friend and affectionate
sister,
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
Seas will not now divide us, nor years elapse before we see each
other.
Thus, hopeful for herself and her sisters, she started out upon a new
road, which, smoother than any she had yet trodden, was not without its
many thorns and pitfalls. For a little while she stayed with Mr. Johnson,
whose house was then, as ever, open to her. But as soon as possible she
moved to lodgings he found for her in George Street, in the neighborhood
of Blackfriars' Bridge. Here she was near him, and this was an important
consideration, as the work he proposed to give her necessitated frequent
intercourse between them, and it was also an advantage for her to be
within reasonable distance of the only friend she possessed in London.
Mr. Johnson made her his "reader;" that is to say, he gave her the
manuscripts sent to him to read and criticise; he also required that she
should translate for him foreign works, for which there was then a great
demand, and that she should contribute to the "Analytical Review," which
had just been established. Her position was a good one. It is true it
left her little time for original work, and Godwin thought that it
contracted rather than enlarged her genius for the time being. But it
gave her a certain valuable experience and much practice which she would
not otherwise have obtained, and it insured her steady employment. She
was to the publisher what a staff contributor is to a newspaper. Whenever
anything was to be done, she was called upon to do it. Therefore, there
was no danger of her dying of starvation in a garret, like Chatterton, or
of her offering her manuscripts to one unwilling bookseller after
another, as happened to Carlyle.
She did not disappoint Mr. Johnson's expectations. She worked well and
diligently, being thoroughly conscientious in whatever she did. The
office of "reader" is no mere sinecure; it requires a keen critical
sense, an impartial mind, and not a little moral courage. The first of
these qualifications Mary possessed naturally, and her honesty enabled
her to cultivate the two last. She was as fearless in her criticisms as
she was just; she praised and found fault with equal temerity. This
disagreeable duty was the indirect cause of the happiest event of her
life. The circumstance in question belongs to a later date, but it may
more appropriately be mentioned here in connection with this branch of
her work. On one occasion she had to read a volume of Essays written by
Miss Hayes. The preface displeased her, and this she told the author,
stating her reasons with unhesitating frankness. Miss Hayes was a woman
capable of appreciating such candor of speech; and the business
transaction led to a sincere and lasting friendship. Miss Hayes was the
mutual friend who succeeded in producing a better feeling between Godwin
and Mary, who, as the sequel will show, were not very friendly when they
first met. This fact adds a personal interest to Mary's letter. She
writes,--
"I yesterday mentioned to Mr. Johnson your request, and he
assented, desiring that the titlepage might be sent to him. I
therefore can say nothing more, for trifles of this kind I have
always left to him to settle; and you must be aware, madam, that
the _honor_ of publishing, the phrase on which you have laid a
stress, is the cant of both trade and sex; for if really equality
should ever take place in society, the man who is employed and
gives a just equivalent for the money he receives will not behave
with the servile obsequiousness of a servant.
"I am now going to treat you with still greater frankness. I do not
approve of your preface, and I will tell you why: if your work
should deserve attention, it is a blur on the very face of it.
Disadvantages of education, etc., ought, in my opinion, never to be
pleaded with the public in excuse for defects of any importance,
because if the writer has not sufficient strength of mind to
overcome the common difficulties that lie in his way, nature seems
to command him, with a very audible voice, to leave the task of
instructing others to those who can. This kind of vain humility has
ever disgusted me; and I should say to an author, who humbly sued
for forbearance, If you have not a tolerably good opinion of your
own production, why intrude it on the public? We have plenty of bad
books already, that have just gasped for breath and died. The last
paragraph I particularly object to, it is so full of vanity. Your
male friends will still treat you like a woman; and many a man, for
instance Dr. Johnson, Lord Littleton, and even Dr. Priestley have
insensibly been led to utter warm eulogiums in private that they
would be sorry openly to avow without some cooling explanatory ifs.
An author, especially a woman, should be cautious, lest she too
hastily swallows the crude praises which partial friend and polite
acquaintance bestow thoughtlessly when the supplicating eye looks
for them. In short, it requires great resolution to try rather to
be useful than to please. With this remark in your head, I must beg
you to pardon my freedom whilst you consider the purport of what I
am going to add,--rest on yourself. If your essays have merit,
they will stand alone; if not, the _shouldering up_ of Dr. this or
that will not long keep them from falling to the ground. The vulgar
have a pertinent proverb, 'Too many cooks spoil the broth;' and let
me remind you that when weakness claims indulgence, it seems to
justify the despotism of strength. Indeed, the preface, and even
your pamphlet, is too full of yourself. Inquiries ought to be made
before they are answered; and till a work strongly interests the
public, true modesty should keep the author in the background, for
it is only about the character and life of a _good_ author that
curiosity is active. A blossom is but a blossom."
It is a pity that most of Mary's contributions to the "Analytical
Review," being unsigned, cannot be credited to her. She wrote for it many
reviews and similar articles, and they probably were characterized by her
uncompromising honesty and straightforwardness of speech. "If you do not
like the manner in which I reviewed Dr. J----'s S---- on his wife," she
wrote in a note to Mr. Johnson, "be it known unto you, I _will_ not do it
any other way. I felt some pleasure in paying a just tribute of respect
to the memory of a man, who, spite of all his faults, I have an affection
for." From this it appears, that to tell the truth in these matters was
not always an uncongenial duty.
She was principally occupied in translating. Following Mr. Johnson's
advice, she had while in Ireland perfected her French. She was tolerably
familiar with Italian; and she now devoted all her spare minutes, and
these could not have been many, to mastering German. Her energy was
unflagging, and her determination to succeed in the calling she had
chosen, indomitable. By studying she was laying up the only capital she
knew how to accumulate, and she feared her future loss should she not
make use of present opportunities. She wrote to Mr. Johnson, who was
materially interested in her progress,--
I really want a German grammar, as I intend to attempt to learn
that language, and I will tell you the reason why. While I live, I
am persuaded, I must exert my understanding to procure an
independence and render myself useful. To make the task easier, I
ought to store my mind with knowledge. The seed-time is passing
away. I see the necessity of laboring now, and of that necessity I
do not complain; on the contrary, I am thankful that I have more
than common incentives to pursue knowledge, and draw my pleasures
from the employments that are within my reach. You perceive this is
not a gloomy day. I feel at this moment particularly grateful to
you. Without your humane and _delicate_ assistance, how many
obstacles should I not have had to encounter! Too often should I
have been out of patience with my fellow-creatures, whom I wish to
love. Allow me to love you, my dear sir, and call friend a being I
respect. Adieu.
MARY W.
She had indeed reason to be grateful to Mr. Johnson, and she expressed
her gratitude in a more practical way than by protestations. The German
grammar was not wasted. Before long Mary undertook for practice to
translate Salzmann's "Elements of Morality," and her exercise proved so
masterly that she, with a few corrections and additions, published it.
This gave rise to a correspondence between the author and herself; and
after several years the former returned the compliment by translating the
"Rights of Women" into German. Some idea will be given of her industry
when it is stated that during the five years of her London life, she, in
addition to the work already mentioned, rewrote a translation from the
Dutch of "Young Grandison;" translated from the French "Young Robinson,"
Necker on "Religious Opinions," and Lavater's "Physiognomy;" wrote a
volume of "Original Stories from Real Life for Children," and compiled a
"Female Reader." As these works were undertaken for money rather than for
fame, she did not through them exert any personal influence on
contemporary thought, or leave any impression on posterity.
She never degenerated, however, into a mere hack writer, nor did she
accept the literary tasks which came in her way, unless she felt able to
accomplish them. She was too conscientious to fall into a fault
unfortunately common among men and women in a similar position. She did
not shrink from any work, if she knew she was capable of doing it
justice. When it was beyond her powers, she frankly admitted this to be
the case. Thus, she once wrote to Mr. Johnson:--
"I return you the Italian manuscript, but do not hastily imagine
that I am indolent. I would not spare any labor to do my duty; that
single thought would solace me more than any pleasures the senses
could enjoy. I find I could not translate the manuscript well. If
it were not a manuscript I should not be so easily intimidated; but
the hand, and errors in orthography or abbreviations, are a
stumbling-block at the first setting out. I cannot bear to do
anything I cannot do well; and I should lose time in the vain
attempt."
When she settled in London, she was in no humor for social pleasures. Her
sole ambition was to be useful, and she worked incessantly. She at first
hid herself from almost everybody. When she expected her sisters to stay
with her, she begged them beforehand, "If you pay any visits, you will
comply with my whim and not mention my place of abode or mode of life."
She lived in very simple fashion; her rooms were furnished with the
merest necessities. Another warning she had to give Everina and Mrs.
Bishop was, "I have a room, but not furniture. J. offered you both a bed
in his house, but that would not be pleasant. I believe I must try to
purchase a bed, which I shall reserve for my poor girls while I have a
house." It has been recorded that Talleyrand visited her in her lodgings
on George Street, and that while the two discussed social and political
problems, they drank their tea and then their wine from tea-cups,
wine-glasses being an elegance beyond Mary's means. Her dress was as
plain as her furniture. Her gowns were mean in material and often shabby,
and her hair hung loosely on her shoulders, instead of being twisted and
looped as was then fashionable. Knowles, in his "Life of Fuseli," finds
fault with her on this account. She was not, however, a _philosophical
sloven_, with _romantic_ ideas of benevolence, as he intimates. Either he
or Fuseli strangely misjudged her. The reason she paid so little heed to
the luxuries and frivolities which custom then exacted, was because other
more pressing demands were made upon her limited income. Then, as usual,
she was troubled by the wretched complications and misfortunes of her
family. The entire care and responsibility fell upon her shoulders. None
of the other members seemed to consider that she was as destitute as they
were,--that what she _did_ was literally her one source of revenue.
Assistance would have been as welcome to her as it was to them. But they
accepted what she had to give, and were never deterred by reflecting upon
the difficulty with which she responded to their needs. This is always
the way. The strong are made to bear the burdens of the weak.
The amount of practical help she gave them is almost incredible. Eliza
and Everina had, when the school at Newington Green failed, become
governesses, but their education had been so sadly neglected that they
were not competent for their work. Mary, knowing this, sent Everina to
France, that she might study to be a good French teacher. The tide of
emigration caused by the Revolution had only just begun, and French
governesses and tutors were not the drug on the market they became later.
Everina remained two years in France at her eldest sister's expense. Mary
found a place for Eliza, first as parlor boarder, and then as assistant,
in an excellent school near London. For most of the time, however, both
sisters were birds of passage. Everina was for a while at Putney, and
then in Ireland, where she probably learned for herself the discomforts
which Mary had once endured. Eliza was now at Market Harborough and
Henley, and again at Putney, and finally she obtained a situation in
Pembrokeshire, Wales, which she retained longer than any she had hitherto
held. During these years there were occasional intermissions when both
sisters were out of work, and there were holiday seasons to be provided
for. To their father's house it was still impossible for them to go. Its
wretchedness was so great, it could no longer be called a home. Eliza,
soon to see it, found it unbearable. Edward, it appears, was willing to
give shelter to Everina; but this brother, of whom less mention is made
in the sisters' letters, was never a favorite, and residence with him was
an evil to be avoided. The one place, therefore, where they were sure of
a warm welcome was the humble lodging near Blackfriars' Bridge. Mary
fulfilled her promise of being a mother to them both. She stinted herself
that she might make their lot more endurable.
When Eliza went to begin her Welsh engagement at Upton Castle, she spent
a night on the way with her father. Her report of this visit opened a new
channel for Mary's benevolence. Mr. Wollstonecraft was then living at
Laugharne, where he had taken his family many years before, and where his
daughters had made several very good friends. But Eliza, as she lamented
to Everina, went sadly from one old beloved haunt to another, without
meeting an eye which glistened at seeing her. Old acquaintances were
dead, or had sought a home elsewhere. The few who were left would not,
probably because of the father's disgrace, come to see her. The
step-mother, the second Mrs. Wollstonecraft, was helpful and economical;
but her thrift availed little against the drunken follies of her husband.
The latter had but just recovered from an illness. He was worn to a
skeleton, he coughed and groaned all night in a way to make the
listener's blood run cold, and he could not walk ten yards without
pausing to pant for breath. His poverty was so abject that his clothes
were barely decent, and his habits so low that he was indifferent to
personal cleanliness. For days and weeks after she had seen him, Eliza
was haunted by the memory of his unkempt hair and beard, his red face
and his beggarly shabbiness. Poor unfortunate Charles, the last child
left at home, was half-naked, and his time was spent in quarrelling with
his father. Eliza, who knew how to be independent, was irritated by her
brother's idleness. "I am very cool to Charles, and have said all I can
to rouse him," she wrote to Everina; but then immediately she added,
forced to do him justice, "But where can he go in his present plight?" It
scarcely seems possible that such misery should have befallen a
gentleman's family. Mr. Wollstonecraft's one cry, through it all, was for
money. He threatened to go to London in his rags, and compel the obdurate
Edward to comply with his demands. When Eliza told him of the sacrifices
Mary made in order to help him, he only flew into a rage.
It was not long before Mary had brought Charles to London. The first
thing to be done for him was much what Mr. Dick had advised in the case
of ragged David Copperfield, and her initiatory act in his behalf was to
clothe him. She took him to her house, where he lived, if not elegantly
and extravagantly, at least decently, a new experience for the poor lad.
She then had him articled to Edward, the attorney; but this experiment,
as might have been expected, proved a failure. Mary next consulted with
Mr. Barlow about the chances of settling him advantageously on a farm in
America; and to prepare him for this life, which seemed full of promise,
she sent him to serve a sort of apprenticeship with an English farmer.
About this time James, the second son, who had been at sea, came home,
and for him also Mary found room in her lodgings until, through her
influence, he went to Woolwich, where for a few months he was under the
instruction of Mr. Bonnycastle, the mathematician, as a preparation to
enter the Royal Navy. He eventually went on Lord Hood's fleet as a
midshipman, and was then promoted to the rank of lieutenant, after which
he appears to have been able to shift for himself.
Mary, as if this were not enough, also undertook the care of her father's
estate, or rather of the little left of it. Mr. Wollstonecraft had long
since been incapable of managing his own affairs, and had intrusted them
to some relations, with whose management Mary was not satisfied. She
consequently took matters into her own hands, though she could ill afford
to spare the time for this new duty. She did all that was possible to
disembarrass the estate so that it might produce sufficient for her
father's maintenance. She was ably assisted by Mr. Johnson. "During a
part of this period," he wrote of her residence in George Street, "which
certainly was the most active part of her life, she had the care of her
father's estate, which was attended with no little trouble to both of us.
She could not," he adds, "during this time, I think, expend less than
L200 on her brothers and sisters." Their combined efforts were in vain.
Mr. Wollstonecraft had succeeded too well in ruining himself; and for the
remainder of her life all Mary could do for him was to help him with her
money. Godwin says that, in addition to these already burdensome duties,
she took charge, in her own house, of a little girl of seven years of
age, a relation of Mr. Skeys.
She struggled bravely, but there were times when it required superhuman
efforts to persevere. She was subject to attacks of depression which
usually resulted in physical illness. She gives a graphic description of
the mental and bodily weakness against which she had to fight, in a note
written at this period and addressed to Mr. Johnson:--
"I am a mere animal, and instinctive emotions too often silence the
suggestions of reason. Your note, I can scarcely tell why, hurt me,
and produced a kind of winterly smile, which diffuses a beam of
despondent tranquillity over the features. I have been very ill;
Heaven knows it was more than fancy. After some sleepless,
wearisome nights, towards the morning I have grown delirious. Last
Thursday, in particular, I imagined ---- was thrown into his great
distress by his folly; and I, unable to assist him, was in an
agony. My nerves were in such a painful state of irritation I
suffered more than I can express. Society was necessary, and might
have diverted me till I gained more strength; but I blush when I
recollect how often I have teased you with childish complaints and
the reveries of a disordered imagination. I even _imagined_ that I
intruded on you, because you never called on me though you
perceived that I was not well. I have nourished a sickly kind of
delicacy, which gave me as many unnecessary pangs. I acknowledge
that life is but a jest, and often a frightful dream, yet catch
myself every day searching for something serious, and feel real
misery from the disappointment. I am a strange compound of weakness
and resolution. However, if I must suffer, I will endeavor to
suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind; my
wayward heart creates its own misery. Why I am made thus, I cannot
tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence,
I must be content to weep and dance like a child,--long for a toy,
and be tired of it as soon as I get it.
"We must each of us wear a fool's cap; but mine, alas! has lost its
bells and grown so heavy I find it intolerably troublesome.
Good-night! I have been pursuing a number of strange thoughts since
I began to write, and have actually both laughed and wept
immoderately. Surely I am a fool."
In these dark days it was always to Mr. Johnson she turned for sympathy
and advice. She had never been on very confidential terms with either of
her sisters, and her friendship with George Blood had grown cooler. Their
paths in life had so widely diverged that this was unavoidable. The
following extract from a letter Mary wrote to him in the winter of 1791
shows that the change in their intimacy had not been caused by
ill-feeling on either side. He apparently had, through her, renewed his
offer of marriage to Everina, as he was now able to support a wife:--
"... Now, my dear George, let me more particularly allude to your
own affairs. I ought to have done so sooner, but there was an
awkwardness in the business that made me shrink back. We have all,
my good friend, a sisterly affection for you; and this very morning
Everina declared to me that she had more affection for you than for
either of her brothers; but, accustomed to view you in that light,
she cannot view you in any other. Let us then be on the old
footing; love us as we love you, but give your heart to some worthy
girl, and do not cherish an affection which may interfere with your
prospects when there is no reason to suppose that it will ever be
returned. Everina does not seem to think of marriage. She has no
particular attachment; yet she was anxious when I spoke explicitly
to her, to speak to you in the same terms, that she might
correspond with you as she has ever done, with sisterly freedom and
affection."
But good friends as they continued to be, he was far away in Dublin, with
different interests; and Mary craved immediate and comprehensive
sympathy. Mr. Johnson was ever ready to administer to her spiritual
wants; he was a friend in very truth. He evidently understood her nature
and knew how best to deal with her when she was in these moods. "During
her stay in George Street," he says in a note referring to her, "she
spent many of her afternoons and most of her evenings with me. She was
incapable of disguise. Whatever was the state of her mind, it appeared
when she entered, and the tone of conversation might easily be guessed.
When harassed, which was very often the case, she was relieved by
unbosoming herself, and generally returned home calm, frequently in
spirits." Sometimes her mental condition threatened to interfere
seriously with her work, and then again Mr. Johnson knew how to stimulate
and encourage her. When she was writing her answer to Burke's
"Reflections on the French Revolution," and when the first half of her
paper had been sent to the printer, her interest in her subject and her
power of writing suddenly deserted her. It was important to publish all
that was written in the controversy while public attention was still
directed to it. And yet, though Mary knew this full well, it was simply
impossible for her to finish what she had eagerly begun. In this frame of
mind she called upon Mr. Johnson and told him her troubles. Instead of
finding fault with her, he was sympathetic and bade her not to worry, for
if she could not continue her pamphlet he would throw aside the printed
sheets. This roused her pride. It was a far better stimulus than abuse
would have been, and it sent her home to write the second half
immediately. That she at times reproached herself for taking undue
advantage of Mr. Johnson's kindness appears from the following apologetic
little note:--
You made me very low-spirited last night by your manner of talking.
You are my only friend, the only person I am _intimate_ with. I
never had a father or a brother; you have been both to me ever
since I knew you, yet I have sometimes been very petulant. I have
been thinking of those instances of ill-humor and quickness, and
they appear like crimes.
Yours sincerely,
MARY.
The dry morsel and quietness which were now her portion were infinitely
better than the house full of strife which she had just left. She was
happier than she had ever been before, but she was only happy by
comparison. Solitude was preferable to the society of Lady Kingsborough
and her friends, but for any one of Mary's temperament it could not be
esteemed as a good in itself. Her unnatural isolation fortunately did not
last very long. Her friendship with Mr. Johnson was sufficient in itself
to break through her barrier of reserve. She was constantly at his house,
and it was one of the gayest and most sociable in London. It was the
rendezvous of the _literati_ of the day. Persons of note, foreigners as
well as Englishmen, frequented it. There one could meet Fuseli,
impetuous, impatient, and overflowing with conversation; Paine, somewhat
hard to draw out of his shell; Bonnycastle, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr.
George Anderson, Dr. Geddes, and a host of other prominent artists,
scientists, and literary men. Their meetings were informal. They
gathered together to talk about what interested them, and not to simper
and smirk, and give utterance to platitudes and affectations, as was the
case with the society to which Mary had lately been introduced. The
people with whom she now became acquainted were too earnest to lay undue
stress on what Herbert Spencer calls the _non-essentials_ of social
intercourse. Sincerity was more valued by them than standard forms of
politeness. When Dr. Geddes was indignant with Fuseli, he did not
disguise his feelings, but in the face of the assembled company rushed
out of the room to walk two or three times around Saint Paul's
Churchyard, and then, when his rage had diminished, to return and resume
the argument. This indifference to conventionalities, which would have
been held by the polite world to be a fault, must have seemed to Mary,
after her late experience, an incomparable virtue. It is no wonder that
Mrs. Barbauld found the evenings she spent with her publisher lively. "We
protracted them sometimes till ----" she wrote to her brother in the
course of one of her visits to London. "But I am not telling tales. Ask
---- at what time we used to separate." Mary was also a welcome guest at
Mrs. Trimmer's house, which, like that of Mr. Johnson, was a centre of
attraction for clever people. This Mrs. Trimmer had acquired some little
literary reputation, and had secured the patronage of the royal family
and the clergy. She and Mary differed greatly, both in character and
creed, but they became very good friends. "I spent a day at Mrs.
Trimmer's, and found her a truly respectable woman," was the verdict the
latter sent to Everina; nor had she ever reason to alter it. Her intimacy
with Miss Hayes also brought her into contact with many of the same
class.
As soon as she began to be known in London, she was admired. She was
young,--being only twenty-nine when she came there to live--and she was
handsome. Her face was very striking. She had a profusion of auburn hair;
her eyes were brown and beautiful, despite a slight droop in one of them;
and her complexion, as is usually the case in connection with her
Titianesque coloring of hair and eyes, was rich and clear. The strength
and unutterable sadness of her expression combined with her other charms
to make her face one which a stranger would turn to look at a second
time. She possessed to a rare degree the power of attracting people. Few
could resist the influence of her personality. Added to this she talked
cleverly, and even brilliantly. The tone of her conversation was at times
acrid and gloomy. Long years of toil in a hard, unjust world had borne
the fruit of pessimism. She was too apt to overlook the bright for the
dark side of a picture. But this was a fault which was amply
counterbalanced by her talents. For the first time she made friends who
were competent to justly measure her merits. She was recognized to be a
woman of more than ordinary talents, and she was treated accordingly.
Mean clothes and shabby houses were no drawbacks to clever women in those
days. Mrs. Inchbald, in gowns "always becoming, and very seldom worth so
much as eight-pence," as one of her admirers described them, was
surrounded as soon as she entered a crowded room, even when powdered and
elegantly attired ladies of fashion were deserted. And Mary, though she
had not glasses out of which to drink her wine, and though her coiffure
was unfashionable, became a person of consequence in literary circles.
Under the influence of congenial social surroundings, she gave up her
habits of retirement. She began to find enjoyment in society, and her
interest in life revived. She could even be gay, nor was there so much
sorrow in her laughter as there had been of yore. Among the most intimate
of her new acquaintances were Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli; and the account has
been preserved of at least one pleasure party to which she accompanied
them. This was a masked ball, and young Lavater, then in England, was
with them. Masquerades were then at the height of popularity. All sorts
and conditions of men went to them. Beautiful Amelia Opie, in her poorest
days, spent five pounds to gain admittance to one given to the Russian
ambassadors. Mrs. Inchbald, when well advanced in years, could enter so
thoroughly into the spirit of another as to beg a friend to lend her a
faded blue silk handkerchief or sash, that she might represent her real
character of a _passee_ blue-stocking. Mary's gayety on the present
occasion was less artificial than it had been at the Dublin mask. But
Fuseli's hot temper and fondness for a joke brought their amusement to a
sudden end. They were watching the masks, when one among the latter,
dressed as a devil, danced up to them, and, with howls and many mad
pranks, made merry at their expense. Fuseli, when he found he could not
rid himself of the tormentor, called out half angrily, half facetiously,
"Go to Hell!" The devil proved to be of the dull species, and instead of
answering with a lively jest, broke out into a torrent of hot abuse, and
refused to be appeased. Fuseli, wishing to avoid a scene, literally
turned and fled, leaving Mary and the others to save themselves as best
they could.
At this period a man, whose name, luckily for himself, is now forgotten,
wished to make Mary his wife. Her treatment of him was characteristic. He
could not have known her very well, or else he would not have been so
foolish as to represent his financial prosperity as an argument in his
favor. For a woman to sell herself for money, even when the bargain was
sanctioned by the marriage ceremony, was, in her opinion, the
unpardonable sin. Therefore, what he probably intended as an honor, she
received as an insult. She declared that it must henceforward end her
acquaintance not only with him, but with the third person through whom
the offer was sent, and to whom Mary gave her answer. Her letters in
connection with this subject are among the most interesting in her
correspondence. They bear witness to the sanctity she attached to the
union of man and wife. Her views in this relation cannot be too
prominently brought forward, since, by manifesting the purity of her
principles, light is thrown on her subsequent conduct. In her first burst
of wrath she unbosomed herself to her ever-sympathetic confidant, Mr.
Johnson:--
"Mr. ---- called on me just now. Pray did you know his motive for
calling? I think him impertinently officious. He had left the house
before it had occurred to me in the strong light it does now, or I
should have told him so. My poverty makes me proud. I will not be
insulted by a superficial puppy. His intimacy with Miss ---- gave
him a privilege which he should not have assumed with me. A
proposal might be made to his cousin, a milliner's girl, which
should not have been mentioned to me. Pray tell him that I am
offended, and do not wish to see him again. When I meet him at your
house, I shall leave the room, since I cannot pull him by the nose.
I can force my spirit to leave my body, but it shall never bend to
support that body. God of heaven, save thy child from this living
death! I scarcely know what I write. My hand trembles; I am very
sick,--sick at heart."
Then she wrote to the man who had undertaken in an evil moment to deliver
the would-be lover's message:
SIR,--When you left me this morning, and I reflected a moment, your
_officious_ message, which at first appeared to me a joke, looked
so very like an insult, I cannot forget it. To prevent, then, the
necessity of forcing a smile when I chance to meet you, I take the
earliest opportunity of informing you of my sentiments.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
This brief note seems to have called forth an answer, for Mary wrote
again, and this time more fully and explicitly:--
Sir,--It is inexpressibly disagreeable to me to be obliged to enter
again on a subject that has already raised a tumult of _indignant_
emotions in my bosom, which I was laboring to suppress when I
received your letter. I shall now _condescend_ to answer your
epistle; but let me first tell you that, in my _unprotected_
situation, I make a point of never forgiving a _deliberate
insult_,--and in that light I consider your late officious conduct.
It is not according to my nature to mince matters. I will tell you
in plain terms what I think. I have ever considered you in the
light of a _civil_ acquaintance,--on the word friend I lay a
peculiar emphasis,--and, as a mere acquaintance, you were rude and
_cruel_ to step forward to insult a woman whose conduct and
misfortunes demand respect. If my friend Mr. Johnson had made the
proposal, I should have been severely hurt, have thought him unkind
and unfeeling, but not _impertinent_. The privilege of intimacy you
had no claim to, and should have referred the man to myself, if you
had not sufficient discernment to quash it at once. I am, sir, poor
and destitute; yet I have a spirit that will never bend, or take
indirect methods to obtain the consequences I despise; nay, if to
support life it was necessary to act contrary to my principles, the
struggle would soon be over. I can bear anything but my own
contempt.
In a few words, what I call an insult is the bare supposition that
I could for a moment think of _prostituting_ my person for a
maintenance; for in that point of view does such a marriage appear
to me, who consider right and wrong in the abstract, and never by
words and local opinions shield myself from the reproaches of my
own heart and understanding.
It is needless to say more; only you must excuse me when I add that
I wish never to see, but as a perfect stranger, a person who could
so grossly mistake my character. An apology is not necessary, if
you were inclined to make one, nor any further expostulations. I
again repeat, I cannot overlook an affront; few indeed have
sufficient delicacy to respect poverty, even when it gives lustre
to a character; and I tell you, sir, I am _poor_, yet can live
without your benevolent exertions.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
Her struggles with work wearied her less than her struggles with the
follies of men, of which the foregoing is an example. Indeed, while she
was eminently fitted to enjoy society, she was also peculiarly
susceptible to the many slings and arrows from which those who live in
the world cannot escape. The very tenderness of her feelings for
humanity, which was a blessing in one way, was almost a curse in
another. For, just as the conferring of a benefit on one in need gave her
intense pleasure, so, if she was the chance cause of pain to friend or
foe, she suffered acutely. Intentionally she could not have injured any
man. But often a word or action, said or done in good faith, will involve
others in serious difficulties. The misery she endured under such
circumstances was greater than that aroused by her own individual
troubles. The thought that she had added to a fellow-sufferer's
life-burden cut her to the quick, and she was unsparing in her
self-reproaches. She then reached the very acme of mental torture, as is
seen by this letter to Mr. Johnson:--
"I am sick with vexation, and wish I could knock my foolish head
against the wall, that bodily pain might make me feel less anguish
from self-reproach! To say the truth, I was never more displeased
with myself, and I will tell you the cause. You may recollect that
I did not mention to you the circumstance of ---- having a fortune
left to him; nor did a hint of it drop from me when I conversed
with my sister, because I knew he had a sufficient motive for
concealing it. Last Sunday, when his character was aspersed, as I
thought unjustly, in the heat of vindication I informed ---- that
he was now independent; but, at the same time, desired him not to
repeat my information to B----; yet last Tuesday he told him all,
and the boy at B----'s gave Mrs. ---- an account of it. As Mr.
---- knew he had only made a confidant of me (I blush to think of
it!) he guessed the channel of intelligence, and this morning came,
not to reproach me,--I wish he had,--but to point out the injury I
have done him. Let what will be the consequence, I will reimburse
him, if I deny myself the necessaries of life, and even then my
folly will sting me. Perhaps you can scarcely conceive the misery I
at this moment endure. That I, whose power of doing good is so
limited, should do harm, galls my very soul. ---- may laugh at
these qualms, but, supposing Mr. ---- to be unworthy, I am not the
less to blame. Surely it is hell to despise one's self! I did not
want this additional vexation. At this time I have many that hang
heavily on my spirits. I shall not call on you this month, nor stir
out. My stomach has been so suddenly and violently affected, I am
unable to lean over the desk."
The sequel of the affair is not known, but this letter, because it is so
characteristic, is interesting.
The advantages social intercourse procured for her were, however, more
than sufficient compensation for the heart-beats it caused her. If there
is nothing so deteriorating as association with one's intellectual
inferiors, there is, on the other hand, nothing so improving as the
society of one's equals or superiors. Stimulated into mental activity by
her associates in the world in which she now moved, Mary's genius
expanded, and ideas but half formed developed into fixed principles. As
Swinburne says of Blake, she was born into the church of rebels. Her
present experience was her baptism. The times were exciting. The effect
of the work of Voltaire and the French philosophers was social upheaval
in France. The rebellion of the colonies and the agitation for reform at
home had encouraged the liberal party into new action. Men had fully
awakened to a realization of individual rights, and in their first
excitement could think and talk of nothing else. The interest then taken
in politics was general and wide-spread to a degree now unknown. Every
one, advocates and opponents alike, discussed the great social problems
of the day.
As a rule, the most regular frequenters of Mr. Johnson's house, and the
leaders of conversation during his evenings, were Reformers. Men like
Paine and Fuseli and Dr. Priestley were, each in his own fashion, seeking
to discover the true nature of human rights. As the Reformation in the
sixteenth century had aimed at freeing the religion of Christ from the
abuses and errors of centuries, and thus restoring it to its original
purity, so the political movement of the latter half of the eighteenth
century had for object the destruction of arbitrary laws and the
re-establishment of government on primary principles. The French
Revolution and the American Rebellion were but means to the greater end.
Philosophers, who systematized the dissatisfaction which the people felt
without being able to trace it to its true source, preached the necessity
of distinguishing between right and wrong _per se_, and right and wrong
as defined by custom. This was the doctrine which Mary heard most
frequently discussed, and it was but the embodiment of the motives which
had invariably governed her actions from the time she had urged her
sister to leave her husband. She had never, even in her most religious
days, been orthodox in her beliefs, nor conservative in her conduct. As
she said in a letter just quoted, she considered right and wrong in the
abstract, and never shielded herself by words or local opinions.
Hitherto, owing chiefly to her circumstances, she had been content to
accept her theory as a guide for herself in her relations to the world
and her fellow-beings. But now that her scope of influence was extended,
she felt compelled to communicate to others her moral creed, which had
assumed definite shape.
Her first public profession of her political and social faith was her
answer to Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution," which had
summoned all the Liberals and Reformers in England to arms. Many came
forward boldly and refuted his arguments in print. Mary was among the
foremost, her pamphlet in reply to his being the first published. Later
authorities have given precedence to Dr. Priestley's, but this fact is
asserted by Godwin in his Memoirs, and he would hardly have made the
statement at a time when there were many living to deny it, had it not
been true. These answers naturally were received with abuse and sneers by
the Tories. Burke denounced his female opponents as "viragoes and English
_poissardes_;" and Horace Walpole wrote of them as "Amazonian allies,"
who "spit their rage at eighteen-pence a head, and will return to
Fleet-ditch, more fortunate in being forgotten than their predecessors,
immortalized in the 'Dunciad.'" Peter Burke, in his "Life of Burke," says
that the replies made by Dr. Price, Mrs. Macaulay, and Mary
Wollstonecraft were merely attempts and nothing more. Yet all three were
writers of too much force to be ignored. They were thrown into the shade
because Paine's "Rights of Man," written for the same purpose, was so
much more startling in its wholesale condemnation of government that the
principal attention of the public was drawn to it.
Mary's pamphlet, however, added considerably to her reputation,
especially among the Liberals. It was her first really important work.
Her success encouraged her greatly. It increased her confidence in her
powers and possibilities to influence the reading public. It therefore
proved an incentive to fresh exertions in the same field. Much as she was
interested in the rights of men, she was even more concerned with the
rights of women. The former had obtained many able defenders, but no one
had as yet thought of saying a word for the latter. Her own experience
had been so bitter that she realized the disadvantages of her sex as
others, whose path had been easier, never could. She saw that women were
hindered and hampered in a thousand and one ways by obstacles created not
by nature, but by man. And she also saw that long suffering had blinded
them to their, in her estimation, humiliating and too often painful
condition. A change for the better must originate with them, and yet how
was this possible, if they did not see their degradation?
"Can the sower sow by night,
Or the ploughman in darkness plough?"
Clearly, since she had found the light, it was her duty to illuminate
with it those who were groping in darkness. She could not with a word
revolutionize womankind, but she could at least be the herald to proclaim
the dawn of the day during which the good seed was to be sown. She had
discovered her life's mission, and, in her enthusiasm, she wrote the
"Vindication of the Rights of Women."
CHAPTER V.
LITERARY WORK.
1788-1791.
As has been stated, Mary Wollstonecraft began her literary career by
writing a small pamphlet on the subject of education. Its title, in full,
is "Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: with Reflections on Female
Conduct in the more Important Duties of Life." It is interesting as her
first work. Otherwise it is of no great value. Though Mr. Johnson saw in
it the marks of genius, there is really little originality in its
contents or striking merit in the method of treating them. The ideas it
sets forth, while eminently commendable, are remarkable only because it
was unusual in the eighteenth century for women, especially the you
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