CHAP. I.
1759-1775.

CHAP. II.
1775-1783.

BUT a connection more memorable originated about this time, between Mary and a person of her own sex, for whom she contracted a friendship so fervent, as for years to have constituted the ruling passion of her mind. The name of this person was Frances Blood; she was two years older than Mary. Her residence was at that time at Newington Butts, a village near the [Page 20] southern extremity of the metropolis; and the original instrument for bringing these two friends acquainted, was Mrs. Clare, wife of the gentleman already mentioned, who was on a footing of considerable intimacy with both par­ties. The acquaintance of Fanny, like that of Mr. Clare, contributed to ripen the immature talents of Mary.

The situation in which Mary was introduced to her, bore a resemblance to the first interview of Werter with Charlotte. She was conducted to the door of a small house, but furnished with peculiar neatness and propriety. The first object that caught her sight, was a young woman of a slender and elegant form, and eighteen years of age, busily employed in feeding and managing some children, born of the same parents, but considerably inferior [Page 21] to her in age. The impression Mary received from this spectacle was inde­lible; and, before the interview was concluded, she had taken, in her heart, the vows of an eternal friendship.

Fanny was a young woman of extra­ordinary accomplishments. She sung and played with taste. She drew with exquisite fidelity and neatness; and, by the employment of this talent, for some time maintained her father, mother, and family, but ultimately ruined her health by her extraordinary exer­tions. She read and wrote with consi­derable application; and the same ideas of minute and delicate propriety fol­lowed her in these, as in her other occupations.

Mary, a wild, but animated and aspiring girl of sixteen, contemplated Fanny, in the first instance, with senti­ments [Page 22] of inferiority and reverence, Though they were much together, yet, the distance of their habitation being considerable, they supplied the want of more frequent interviews by an assi­duous correspondence. Mary found Fanny's letters better spelt and better indited than her own, and felt herself abashed. She had hitherto paid but a superficial attention to literature. She had read, to gratify the ardour of an inextinguishable thirst of knowledge; but she had not thought of writing as an art. Her ambition to excel was now awakened, and she applied her­self with passion and earnestness. Fanny undertook to be her instructor; and, so far as related to accuracy and method, her lessons were given with conside­rable skill.

[Page 23] It has already been mentioned that, in the spring of the year 1776, Mr. Wollstonecraft quitted his situation at Hoxton, and returned to his former agricultural pursuits. The situation upon which he now fixed was in Wales, a circumstance that was felt as a severe blow to Mary's darling spirit of friendship. The principal acquaint­ance of the Wollstonecrafts in this re­tirement, was the family of a Mr. Allen, two of whose daughters are since married to the two elder sons of the celebrated English potter, Josiah Wedgwood.

Wales however was Mr. Wollstone­craft's residence for little more than a year. He returned to the neighbour­hood of London; and Mary, whose spirit of independence was unalterable, had influence enough to determine his [Page 24] choice in favour of the village of Wal­worth, that she might be near her chosen friend. It was probably before this, that she has once or twice started the idea of quitting her parental roof, and providing for herself. But she was prevailed upon to resign this idea, and conditions were stipulated with her, relative to her having an apart­ment in the house that should be ex­clusively her own, and her commanding the other requisites of study. She did not however think herself fairly treated in these instances, and either the con­ditions abovementioned, or some others, were not observed in the sequel, with the fidelity she expected. In one case, she had procured an eligible situation, and every thing was settled respecting her removal to it, when the intreaties and tears of her mother led her to sur­render [Page 25] her own inclinations, and aban­don the engagement.

These however were only temporary delays. Her propensities continued the same, and the motives by which she was instigated were unabated. In the year 1778, she being nineteen years of age, a proposal was made to her of living as a companion with a Mrs. Dawson of Bath, a widow lady, with one son already adult. Upon en­quiry she found that Mrs. Dawson was a woman of great peculiarity of tem­per, that she had had a variety of com­panions in succession, and that no one had found it practicable to continue with her. Mary was not discouraged by this information, and accepted the situation, with a resolution that she would effect in this respect, what none of her predecessors had been able to [Page 26] do. In the sequel she had reason to consider the account she had received as sufficiently accurate, but she did not relax in her endeavours. By method, constancy and firmness, she found the means of making her situation tole­rable; and Mrs. Dawson would occa­sionally confess, that Mary was the only person that had lived with her in that situation, in her treatment of whom she had felt herself under any restraint.

With Mrs. Dawson she continued to reside for two years, and only left her, summoned by the melancholy circum­stance of her mother's rapidly declining health. True to the calls of humanity, Mary felt in this intelligence an irre­sistible motive, and eagerly returned to the paternal roof, which she had before resolutely quitted. The residence of her father at this time, was at Enfield [Page 27] near London. He had, I believe, given up agriculture from the time of his quitting Wales, it appearing that he now made it less a source of profit than loss, and being thought advisable that he should rather live upon the interest of his property already in possession.

The illness of Mrs. Wollstonecraft was lingering, but hopeless. Mary was assiduous in her attendance upon her mother. At first, every attention was received with acknowledgments and gratitude; but, as the attentions grew habitual, and the health of the mother more and more wretched, they were rather exacted, than received. Nothing would be taken by the unfor­tunate patient, but from the hands of Mary; rest was denied night or day, and by the time nature was exhausted [Page 28] in the parent, the daughter was quali­fied to assume her place, and become in turn herself a patient. The last words her mother ever uttered were, "A little patience, and all will be over!" and these words are repeatedly refer­red to by Mary in the course of her writings.

Upon the death of Mrs. Wollstone­craft, Mary bid a final adieu to the roof of her father. According to my memorandums, I find her next the in­mate of Fanny at Walham-Green, near the village of Fulham. Upon what plan they now lived together I am un­able to ascertain; certainly not that of Mary's becoming in any degree an ad­ditional burthen upon the industry of her friend. Thus situated, their inti­macy ripened; they approached more nearly to a footing of equality; and [Page 29] their attachment became more rooted and active.

Mary was ever ready at the call of distress, and, in particular, during her whole life was eager and active to pro­mote the welfare of every member of her family. In 1780 she attended the death-bed of her mother; in 1782 she was summoned by a not less melan­choly occasion, to attend her sister Eliza, married to a Mr. Bishop, who, subsequently to a dangerous lying-in, remained for some months in a very af­flicting situation. Mary continued with her sister without intermission, to her perfect recovery.

CHAP. III.
1783-1785.

MARY was now arrived at the twen­ty-fourth year of her age. Her project, five years before, had been personal independence; it was now usefulness. In the solitude of attendance on her sister's illness, and during the subse­quent convalescence, she had had lei­sure to ruminate upon purposes of this sort. Her expanded mind led her to seek something more arduous than the mere removal of personal vexations; [Page 31] and the sensibility of her heart would not suffer her to rest in solitary gratifi­cations. The derangement of her fa­ther's affairs daily became more and more glaring; and a small independent provision made for herself and her [...]isters, appears to have been sacrificed [...] the wreck. For ten years, from 1782 [...] 1792, she may be said to have been, [...] a great degree, the victim of a desire [...] promote the benefit of others. She did not foresee the severe disappoint­ment with which an exclusive purpose of this sort is pregnant; she was inex­perienced enough to lay a stress upon [...] consequent gratitude of those she [...]enefited; and she did not sufficiently [...]onsider that, in proportion as we [...]volve ourselves in the interests and [...]ociety of others, we acquire a more [...]xquisite sense of their defects, and are [Page 32] tormented with their untractableness and folly.

The project upon which she now determined, was no other than that of a day-school, to be superintended by Fanny Blood, herself, and her two sisters.

They accordingly opened one in the year 1783, at the village of Islington but in the course of a few months re­moved it to Newington Green. Her [...] Mary formed some acquaintances who influenced the future events of her life. The first of these in her own estimation was Dr. Richard Price, well known [...] his political and mathematical calcu­lations, and universally esteemed [...] those who knew him, for the simplicit [...] of his manners, and the ardour of [...] benevolence. The regard conceive [...] by these two persons for each other [Page 33] was mutual, and partook of a spirit of the purest attachment. Mary had been bred in the principles of the church of England, but her esteem for this vene­rable preacher led her occasionally to attend upon his public instructions. Her religion was, in reality, little allied to any system of forms; and, as she has often told me, was founded rather in taste, than in the niceties of polemical discussion. Her mind constitutionally attached itself to the sublime and the amiable. She found an inexpressible delight in the beauties of nature, and in the splendid reveries of the imagi­nation. But nature itself, she thought, would be no better than a vast blank, if the mind of the observer did not supply it with an animating soul. When she walked amidst the wonders of nature, she was accustomed to converse [Page 34] with her God. To her mind he was pictured as not less amiable, generous and kind, than great, wise and exalted In fact, she had received few lessons of religion in her youth, and her religion was almost entirely of her own crea­tion. But she was not on that account the less attached to it, or the less scru­pulous in discharging what she consi­dered as its duties. She could not recollect the time when she had be­lieved the doctrine of future punish­ments. The tenets of her system were the growth of her own mora [...] taste, and her religion therefore had always been a gratification, never a terror, to her. She expected a future state; but she would not allow her ideas of that future state to be modified, by the notions of judgment and retri­bution. From this sketch, it is suffi­ciently [Page 35] evident, that the pleasure she took in an occasional attendance upon the sermons of Dr. Price, was not ac­companied with a superstitious ad­herence to his doctrines. The fact is, that, as far down as the year 1787, she regularly frequented public worship, for the most part according to the forms of the church of England. After that period her attendance became less constant, and in no long time was wholly discontinued. I believe it may be admitted as a maxim, that no per­son of a well furnished mind, that has shaken off the implicit subjection of youth, and is not the zealous partizan of a sect, can bring himself to conform to the public and regular routine of sermons and prayers.

Another of the friends she acquired at this period, was Mrs. Burgh, widow [Page 36] of the author of the Political Disquisi­tions, a woman universally well spoken of for the warmth and purity of her benevolence. Mary, whenever she had occasion to allude to her, to the last period of her life, paid the tribute due to her virtues. The only remaining friend necessary to be enumerated in this place, is the rev. John Hewlet, now master of a boarding-school at Shacklewel near Hackney, whom I shall have occasion to mention here­after.

I have already said that Fanny's health had been materially injured by her incessant labours for the mainte­nance of her family. She had also suf­fered a disappointment, which preyed upon her mind. To these different sources of ill health she became gradu­ally a victim; and at length discovered [Page 37] all the symptoms of a pulmonary con­sumption. By the medical men that attended her, she was advised to try the effects of a southern climate; and, about the beginning of the year 1785, sailed for Lisbon.

The first feeling with which Mary had contemplated her friend, was a sentiment of inferiority and reverence; but that, from the operation of a ten years' acquaintance, was considerably changed. Fanny had originally been far before her in literary attainments; this disparity no longer existed. In whatever degree Mary might endea­vour to free herself from the delusions of self-esteem, this period of observa­tion upon her own mind and that of her friend, could not pass, without her perceiving that there were some essen­tial characteristics of genius, which she [Page 36] [...] [Page 37] [...] [Page 38] possessed, and in which her friend was deficient. The principal of these was a firmness of mind, an unconquerable greatness of soul, by which, after a short internal struggle, she was accus­tomed to rise above difficulties and suffering. Whatever Mary undertook, she perhaps in all instances accom­plished; and, to her lofty spirit, scarcely any thing she desired, appeared hard to perform. Fanny, on the contrary, was a woman of a timid and irresolute na­ture, accustomed to yield to difficulties, and probably priding herself in this morbid softness of her temper. One instance that I have heard Mary relate of this sort, was, that, at a certain time, Fanny, dissatisfied with her domestic situation, expressed an earnest desire to have a home of her own. Mary, who felt nothing more pressing than to re­lieve [Page 39] the inconveniences of her friend, determined to accomplish this object for her. It cost her infinite exertions; but at length she was able to announce to Fanny that a house was prepared, and that she was on the spot to receive her. The answer which Fanny re­turned to the letter of her friend, con­sisted almost wholly of an enumeration of objections to the quitting her family, which she had not thought of before, but which now appeared to her of con­siderable weight.

The judgment which experience had taught Mary to form of the mind of her friend, determined her in the advice she gave, at the period to which I have brought down the story. Fanny was recommended to seek a softer climate, but she had no funds to defray the ex­pence of such an undertaking. At this [Page 40] time Mr. Hugh Skeys of Dublin, but then resident in the kingdom of Portu­gal, paid his addresses to her. The state of her health Mary considered as such as scarcely to afford the shadow of a hope; it was not therefore a time at which it was most obvious to think of marriage. She conceived however that nothing should be omitted, which might alleviate, if it could not cure; and accordingly urged her speedy ac­ceptance of the proposal. Fanny ac­cordingly made the voyage to Lisbon; and the marriage took place on the twenty-fourth of February 1785.

The change of climate and situation was productive of little benefit; and the life of Fanny was only prolonged by a period of pregnancy, which soon de­clared itself. Mary, in the mean time, was impressed with the idea that her [Page 41] friend would die in this distant country; and, shocked with the recollection of her separation from the circle of her friends, determined to pass over to Lisbon to attend her. This resolution was treated by her acquaintance as in the utmost degree visionary; but she was not to be diverted from her point. She had not money to defray her ex­pences: she must quit for a long time the school, the very existence of which probably depended upon her exer­tions.

No person was ever better formed for the business of education; if it be not a sort of absurdity to speak of a person as formed for an inferior object, who is in possession of talents, in the fullest degree adequate to something on a more important and comprehensive scale. Mary had a quickness of tem­per, [Page 42] not apt to take offence with inad­vertencies, but which led her to ima­gine that she saw the mind of the person with whom she had any trans­action, and to refer the principle of her approbation or displeasure to the cordiality or injustice of their senti­ments. She was occasionally severe and imperious in her resentments; and, when she strongly disapproved, was apt to express her censure in terms that gave a very humiliating sensation to the person against whom it was di­rected. Her displeasure however never assumed its severest form, but when it was barbed by disappointment. Where she expected little, she was not very rigid in her censure of error.

But, to whatever the defects of her temper might amount, they were never exercised upon her inferiors in station [Page 43] or age. She scorned to make use of an ungenerous advantage, or to wound the defenceless. To her servants there never was a mistress more considerate or more kind. With children she was the mirror of patience. Perhaps, in all her extensive experience upon the subject of education, she never be­trayed one symptom of irascibility. Her heart was the seat of every benevolent feeling; and accordingly, in all her intercourse with children, it was kind­ness and sympathy alone that prompted her conduct. Sympathy, when it mounts to a certain height, inevitably begets affection in the person towards whom it is exercised; and I have heard her say, that she never was concerned in the education of one child, who was not personally attached to her, and earnestly concerned not to incur her [Page 44] displeasure. Another eminent advan­tage she possessed in the business of education, was that she was little trou­bled with scepticism and uncertainty. She saw, as it were by intuition, the path which her mind determined to pursue, and had a firm confidence in her own power to effect what she de­sired. Yet, with all this, she had scarcely a tincture of obstinacy. She carefully watched symptoms as they rose, and the success of her experi­ments; and governed herself accord­ingly. While I thus enumerate her more than maternal qualities, it is im­possible not to feel a pang at the recol­lection of her orphan children!

Though her friends earnestly dis­suaded her from the journey to Lisbon, she found among them a willing­ness [Page 45] to facilitate the execution of her project, when it was once fixed. Mrs. Burgh in particular, supplied her with money, which however she always con­ceived came from Dr. Price. This loan, I have reason to believe, was faithfully repaid.

It was during her residence at New­ington Green, that she was introduced to the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson, who was at that time considered as in some sort the father of English litera­ture. The doctor treated her with particular kindness and attention, had a long conversation with her, and de­sired her to repeat her visit often. This she firmly purposed to do; but the news of his last illness, and then of his death, intervened to prevent her mak­ing a second visit.

[Page 46] Her residence in Lisbon was not long. She arrived but a short time before her friend was prematurely de­livered, and the event was fatal to both mother and child. Frances Blood, hitherto the chosen object of Mary's attachment, died on the twenty-ninth of November 1785.

It is thus that she speaks of her in her Letters from Norway, written ten years after her decease. "When a warm heart has received strong impressions, they are not to be effaced. Emotions become sentiments; and the imagination ren­ders even transient sensations perma­nent, by fondly retracing them. I cannot, without a thrill of delight, re­collect views I have seen, which are not to be forgotten, nor looks I have felt in every nerve, which I shall never [Page 47] more meet. The grave has closed over a dear friend, the friend of my youth; still she is present with me, and I hear her soft voice warbling as I stray over the heath."

CHAP. IV.
1785-1787.

No doubt the voyage to Lisbon tended considerably to enlarge the understanding of Mary. She was ad­mitted into the best company the English factory afforded. She made many profound observations on the character of the natives, and the bale­ful effects of superstition. The ob­sequies of Fanny, which it was neces­sary to perform by stealth and in dark­ness, [Page 49] tended to invigorate these obser­vations in her mind.

She sailed upon her voyage home about the twentieth of December. On this occasion a circumstance occurred, that deserves to be record­ed. While they were on their pas­sage, they fell in with a French ves­sel, in great distress, and in daily expec­tation of foundering at sea, at the same time that it was almost destitute of provisions. The Frenchman hailed them, and intreated the English cap­tain, in consideration of his melancholy situation, to take him and his crew on board. The Englishman represented in reply, that his stock of provisions was by no means adequate to such an additional number of mouths, and ab­solutely refused compliance. Mary, shocked at his apparent insensibility, took up the cause of the sufferers, and [Page 50] threatened the captain to have him called to a severe account, when he arrived in England. She finally pre­vailed, and had the satisfaction to re­flect, that the persons in question possibly owed their lives to her inter­position.

When she arrived in England, she sound that her school had suffered con­siderably in her absence. It can be little reproach to any one, to say that they were found incapable of supply­ing her place. She not only excelled in the management of the children, but had also the talent of being attentive and obliging to the parents, without degrading herself.

The period at which I am now ar­rived is important, as conducting to the first step of her literary carreer. Mr. Hewlet had frequently mentioned [Page 51] literature to Mary as a certain source of pecuniary produce, and had urged her to make trial of the truth of his judgment. At this time she was de­sirous of assisting the father and mother of Fanny in an object they had in view, the transporting themselves to Ireland; and, as usual, what she desired in a pecuniary view, she was ready to take on herself to effect. For this purpose she wrote a duodecimo pamphlet of one hundred and sixty pages, entitled, Thoughts on the Education of Daugh­ters. Mr. Hewlet obtained from the bookseller, Mr. Johnson in St. Paul's Church Yard, ten guineas for the [...]py-right of this manuscript, which [...] immediately applied to the object for the sake of which the pamphlet was written.

[Page 52] Every thing urged Mary to put an end to the affair of the school. She was dissatisfied with the different ap­pearance it presented upon her return, from the state in which she left it. Experience impressed upon her a rooted aversion to that sort of cohabi­tation with her sisters, which the pro­ject of the school imposed. Cohabi­tation is a point of delicate experi­ment, and is, in a majority of instances, pregnant with ill-humour and unhap­piness. The activity and ardent spirit of adventure which characterized Mary, were not felt in an equal degree by her sisters, so that a disproportionate share of every burthen attendant upon the situation, fell to her lot. On the other hand, they could scarcely per­haps be perfectly easy, in observing the superior degree of deference and court­ship, [Page 53] which her merit extorted from almost every one that knew her. Her kindness for them was not diminished, but she resolved that the mode of its exertion in future should be different, tending to their benefit, without in­trenching upon her own liberty.

Thus circumstanced, a proposal was made her, such as, regarding only the situations through which she had lately passed, is usually termed advan­tageous. This was, to accept the office of governess to the daughters of lord viscount Kingsborough, eldest son to the earl of Kingston of the kingdom of Ireland. The terms held out to her were such as she determined to accept, at the same time resolving to retain the situation only for a short time. Inde­pendence was the object after which she thirsted, and she was fixed to try [Page 54] whether it might not be found in lite­rary occupation. She was desirous however first to accumulate a small sum of money, which should enable her to consider at leisure the different lite­rary engagements that might offer, and provide in some degree for the even­tual deficiency of her earliest attempts.

The situation in the family of lord Kingsborough, was offered to her through the medium of the rev. Mr. Prior, at that time one of the under masters of Eton school. She spent some time at the house of this gentle­man, immediately after her giving up the school at Newington Green. Here she had an opportunity of making an accurate observation upon the man­ners and conduct of that celebrated seminary, and the ideas she retained of it were by no means favourable. By [Page 55] all that she saw, she was confirmed in a very favourite opinion of her's, in be­half of day-schools, where, as she ex­pressed it, "children have the opportu­nity of conversing with children, without interfering with domestic affections, the foundation of virtue."

Though her residence in the family of lord Kingsborough continued scarcely more than twelve months, she left be­hind her, with them and their connec­tions, a very advantageous impression. The governesses the young ladies had hitherto had, were only a species of upper servants, controlled in every thing by the mother; Mary insisted upon the unbounded exercise of her own discretion. When the young ladies heard of their governess coming from England, they heard in imagina­tion of a new enemy, and declared [Page 56] their resolution to guard themselves accordingly. Mary however speedily succeeded in gaining their confidence, and the friendship that soon grew up between her and Margaret King, now countess Mount Cashel, the eldest daughter, was in an uncommon degree cordial and affectionate. Mary always spoke of this young lady in terms of the truest applause, both in relation to the eminence of her intellectual pow­ers, and the ingenuous amiableness of her disposition. Lady Kingsborough, from the best motives, had imposed upon her daughters a variety of prohi­bitions, both as to the books they should read, and in many other respects. These prohibitions had their usual ef­fects; inordinate desire for the things forbidden, and clandestine indulgence▪ Mary immediately restored the chil­dren [Page 57] to their liberty, and undertook to govern them by their affections only. The consequence was, that their indul­gences were moderate, and they were uneasy under any indulgence that had not the sanction of their governess. The salutary effects of the new system of education were speedily visible; and lady Kingsborough soon felt no other uneasiness, than lest the children should love their governess better than their mother.

Mary made many friends in Ireland, among the persons who visited lord Kingsborough's house, for she always appeared there with the air of an equal, and not of a dependent. I have heard her mention the ludicrous dis­tress of a woman of quality, whose name I have forgotten, that, in a large company, singled out Mary, and en­tered [Page 58] into a long conversation with her. After the conversation was over, she enquired whom she had been talk­ing with, and found, to her utter morti­fication and dismay, that it was Miss King's governess.

One of the persons among her Irish acquaintance, whom Mary was accus­tomed to speak of with the highest respect, was Mr. George Ogle, member of parliament for the county of Wex­ford. She held his talents in very high estimation; she was strongly pre­possessed in favour of the goodness of his heart; and she always spoke of him as the most perfect gentleman she had ever known. She felt the regret of a disappointed friend, at the part he has lately taken in the politics of Ireland.

Lord Kingsborough's family passed the summer of the year 1787 at Bristol [Page 59] Hot-Wells, and had formed the project of proceeding from thence to the con­tinent, a tour in which Mary purposed to accompany them. The plan how­ever was ultimately given up, and Mary in consequence closed her con­nection with them, earlier than she otherwise had purposed to do.

At Bristol Hot-Wells she composed the little book which bears the title of Mary, a Fiction. A considerable part of this story consists, with certain modi­fications, of the incidents of her own friendship with Fanny. All the events that do not relate to that subject are fictitious.

This little work, if Mary had never produced any thing else, would serve, with persons of true taste and sensibi­lity, to establish the eminence of her genius. The story is nothing. He [Page 60] that looks into the book only for inci­dent, will probably lay it down with disgust. But the feelings are of the truest and most exquisite class; every circumstance is adorned with that species of imagination, which enlists itself under the banners of delicacy and sentiment. A work of sentiment, as it is called, is too often another name for a work of affectation. He that should imagine that the sentiments of this book are affected, would indeed be entitled to our profoundest commi­seration.

CHAP. V.
1787-1790.

BEING now determined to enter upon her literary plan, Mary came immediately from Bristol to the metro­polis. Her conduct under this circum­stance was such as to do credit both to her own heart, and that of Mr. John­son, her publisher, between whom and herself there now commenced an inti­mate friendship. She had seen him [Page 62] upon occasion of publishing her Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, and she addressed two or three letters to him during her resi­dence in Ireland. Upon her arrival in London in August 1787, she went im­mediately to his house, and frankly explained to him her purpose, at the same time requesting his advice and assistance as to its execution. After a short conversation, Mr. Johnson invited her to make his house her home, till she should have suited herself with a fixed residence. She accordingly re­sided at this time two or three weeks under his roof. At the same period she paid a visit or two of similar dura­tion to some friends, at no great dis­tance from the metropolis.

At Michaelmas 1787, she entered upon a house in George street, on the [Page 63] Surry side of Black Friar's Bridge, which Mr. Johnson had provided for her during her excursion into the country. The three years immediately ensuing, may be said, in the ordinary accep­tation of the term, to have been the most active period of her life. She brought with her to this habitation, the novel of Mary, which had not yet been sent to the press, and the commence­ment of a sort of oriental tale, entitled, the Cave of Fancy, which she thought proper afterwards to lay aside unfinish­ed. I am told that at this period she appeared under great dejection of spi­rits, and filled with melancholy regret for the loss of her youthful friend. A period of two years had elapsed since the death of that friend; but it was possibly the composition of the fiction of Mary, that renewed her sorrows in [Page 64] their original force. Soon after enter­ing upon her new habitation, she pro­duced a little work, entitled, Original Stories from Real Life, intended for the use of children. At the commence­ment of her literary carreer, she is said to have conceived a vehement aversion to the being regarded, by her ordinary acquaintance, in the character of an author, and to have employed some precautions to prevent its occurrence.

The employment which the book­seller suggested to her, as the easiest and most certain source of pecuniary income, of course, was translation. With this view she improved herself in her French, with which she had previ­ously but a slight acquaintance, and ac­quired the Italian and German lan­guages. The greater part of her lite­rary engagements at this time, were [Page 65] such as were presented to her by Mr. Johnson. She new-modelled and abridged a work, translated from the Dutch, entitled, Young Grandison: she began a translation from the French, of a book, called, the New Robinson; but in this undertaking, she was, I believe, anticipated by another trans­lator: and she compiled a series of ex­tracts in verse and prose, upon the model of Dr. Enfield's Speaker, which bears the title of the Female Reader; but which, from a cause not worth mentioning, has hitherto been printed with a different name in the title-page.

About the middle of the year 1788, Mr. Johnson instituted the Analytical Review, in which Mary took a consi­derable share. She also translated Necker on the Importance of Religious Opi­nions; made an abridgment of Lavater's [Page 66] Physiognomy, from the French, which has never been published; and com­pressed Salzmann's Elements of Mora­lity, a German production, into a pub­lication in three volumes duodecimo. The translation of Salzmann produced a correspondence between Mary and the author; and he afterwards repaid the obligation to her in kind, by a German translation of the Rights of Woman. Such were her principal li­terary occupations, from the autumn of 1787, to the autumn of 1790.

It perhaps deserves to be remarked that this sort of miscellaneous literary employment, seems, for the time at least, rather to damp and contract, than to enlarge and invigorate, the genius. The writer is accustomed to see his performances answer the mere mercantile purpose of the day, and [Page 67] confounded with those of persons to whom he is secretly conscious of a superiority. No neighbour mind serves as a mirror to reflect the generous confidence he felt within himself; and perhaps the man never yet existed, who could maintain his enthusiasm to its full vigour, in the midst of this kind of solitariness. He is touched with the torpedo of mediocrity. I believe that nothing which Mary produced during this period, is marked with those daring flights, which exhibit themselves in the little fiction she com­posed just before its commencement. Among effusions of a nobler cast, I find occasionally interspersed some of that homily-language, which, to speak from my own feelings, is calculated to damp the moral courage, it was intended to [Page 68] awaken. This is probably to be as­signed to the causes above described.

I have already said that one of the purposes which Mary had conceived, a few years before, as necessary to give a relish to the otherwise insipid, or em­bittered, draught of human life, was usefulness. On this side, the period of her existence of which I am now treat­ing, is more brilliant, than in a literary view. She determined to apply as great a part as possible of the produce of her present employments, to the as­sistance of her friends and of the dis­tressed; and, for this purpose, laid down to herself rules of the most rigid economy. She began with endeavour­ing to promote the interest of her sis­ters. She conceived that there was no situation in which she could place them, at once so respectable and agree­able, [Page 69] as that of governesses in private families. She determined therefore in the first place, to endeavour to qualify them for such an undertaking. Her younger sister she sent to Paris, where she remained near two years. The elder she placed in a school near Lon­don, first as a parlour-boarder, and af­terwards as a teacher. Her brother James, who had already been at sea, she first took into her house, and next sent to Woolwich for instruction, to qualify him for a respectable situation in the royal navy, where he was sho [...] ­ly after made a lieutenant. Charles, who was her favourite brother, had been articled to the eldest, an attorney in the Minories; but, not being satis­fied with his situation, she removed him; and in some time after, having first placed him with a farmer for in­struction, [Page 70] she fitted him out for Ame­rica, where his speculations, founded upon the basis she had provided, are said to have been extremely prosper­ous. The reason so much of this pa­rental sort of care fell upon her, was, that her father had by this time con­siderably embarrassed his circumstances. His affairs having grown too complex for himself to disentangle, he had in­trusted them to the management of a near relation; but Mary, not being satisfied with the conduct of the busi­ness, took them into her own hands. The exertions she made, and the strug­gle into which she entered however, in this instance, were ultimately fruit­less. To the day of her death her fa­ther was almost wholly supported by funds which she supplied to him. In addition to her exertions for her own [Page 93] family, she took a young girl of about seven years of age under her protec­tion and care, the niece of Mrs. John Hunter, and of the present Mrs. Skeys, for whose mother, then lately dead, she had entertained a sincere friend­ship.

The period, from the end of the year 1787 to the end of the year 1790, though consumed in labours of little eclat, served still further to establish her in a friendly connec­tion from which she derived many pleasures. Mr. Johnson, the bookseller, contracted a great personal regard for her, which resembled in many respects that of a parent. As she frequented his house, she of course became ac­quainted with his guests. Among these may be mentioned as persons possessing her esteem, Mr. Bonnycastle, [Page 72] the mathematician, the late Mr. George Anderson, accountant to the board of control, Dr. George Fordyce, and Mr. Fuseli, the celebrated painter. Between both of the two latter and herself, there existed sentiments of ge­nuine affection and friendship.

CHAP. VI.
1790-1792.

HITHERTO the literary carreer of Mary, had for the most part, been silent; and had been productive of income to herself, without apparently leading to the wreath of fame. From this time she was destined to attract the notice of the public, and perhaps no female writer ever obtained so great a degree of celebrity throughout Europe.

It cannot be doubted that, while, [Page 74] for three years of literary employment, she "held the noiseless tenor of her way," her mind was insensibly advanc­ing towards a vigorous maturity. The uninterrupted habit of composition gave a freedom and firmness to the expres­sion of her sentiments. The society she frequented, nourished her under­standing, and enlarged her mind. The French revolution, while it gave a fun­damental shock to the human intellect through every region of the globe, did not fail to produce a conspicuous ef­fect in the progress of Mary's reflec­tions. The prejudices of her early years suffered a vehement concus­sion. Her respect for establishments was undermined. At this period oc­curred a misunderstanding upon pub­lic grounds, with one of her early friends, whose attachment to musty [Page 75] creeds and exploded absurdities, had been increased, by the operation of those very circumstances, by which her mind had been rapidly advanced in the race of independence.

The event, immediately introductory to the rank which from this time she held in the lists of literature, was the publication of Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. This book, after having been long promised to the world, finally made its appearance on the first of November 1790; and Mary, full of sentiments of liberty, and impressed with a warm interest in the struggle that was now going on, seized her pen in the first burst of indig­nation, an emotion of which she was strongly susceptible. She was in the habit of composing with rapidity, and her answer, which was the first of the [Page 76] numerous ones that appeared, obtain­ed extraordinary notice. Marked as it is with the vehemence and impetu­ousness of its eloquence, it is certainly chargeable with a too contemptuous and intemperate treatment of the great man against whom its attack is direct­ed. But this circumstance was not injurious to the success of the publi­cation. Burke had been warmly loved by the most liberal and enlightened friends of freedom, and they were pro­portionably inflamed and disgusted by the fury of his assault, upon what they deemed to be its sacred cause.

Short as was the time in which Mary composed her Answer to Burke's Reflections, there was one anecdote she told me concerning it, which seems worth recording in this place. It was sent to the press, as is [Page 77] the general practice when the early publication of a piece is deemed a matter of importance, before the com­position was finished. When Mary had arrived at about the middle of her work, she was seized with a tempo­rary fit of torpor and indolence, and began to repent of her undertaking. In this state of mind, she called, one evening, as she was in the practice of doing, upon her publisher, for the pur­pose of relieving herself by an hour or two's conversation. Here, the ha­bitual ingenuousness of her nature, led her to describe what had just past in her thoughts. Mr. Johnson imme­diately, in a kind and friendly way, intreated her not to put any constraint upon her inclination, and to give her­self no uneasiness about the sheets al­ready printed, which he would cheer­fully [Page 78] throw aside, if it would contri­bute to her happiness. Mary had wanted stimulus. She had not ex­pected to be encouraged, in what she well knew to be an unreasonable ac­cess of idleness. Her friend's so rea­dily falling in with her ill-humour, and seeming to expect that she would lay aside her undertaking, piqued her pride. She immediately went home; and proceeded to the end of her work, with no other interruptions but what were absolutely indispensible.

It is probable that the applause which attended her Answer to Burke, elevated the tone of her mind. She had always felt much confidence in her own powers; but it cannot be doubt­ed, that the actual perception of a similar feeling respecting us in a mul­titude of others, must increase the [Page 79] confidence, and stimulate the adven­ture of any human being. Mary ac­cordingly proceeded, in a short time after, to the composition of her most celebrated production, the Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Never did any author enter into a cause, with a more ardent desire to be found, not a flourishing and empty declaimer, but an effectual champion. She considered herself as standing forth in defence of one half of the human species, labouring under a yoke which, through all the records of time, had degraded them from the station of rational beings, and almost sunk them to the level of the brutes. She saw indeed, that they were often attempt­ed to be held in silken fetters, and bribed into the love of slavery; but the disguise and the treachery served [Page 78] [...] [Page 79] [...] [Page 80] only the more fully to confirm her op­position. She regarded her sex, in the language of Calista, as ‘"In every state of life the slaves of men:"’ the rich as alternately under the despo­tism of a father, a brother, and a husband; and the middling and the poorer classes shut out from the acqui­sition of bread with independence, when they are not shut out from the very means of an industrious subsist­ence. Such were the views she en­tertained of the subject; and such the feelings with which she warmed her mind.

The work is certainly a very bold and original production. The strength and firmness with which the author repels the opinions of Rousseau, Dr. Gregory, and Dr. James Fordyce, re­specting [Page 81] the condition of women, cannot but make a strong impression upon every ingenuous reader. The public at large formed very different opinions respecting the character of the performance. Many of the sen­timents are undoubtedly of a rather masculine description. The spirited and decisive way in which the author explodes the system of gallantry, and the species of homage with which the sex is usually treated, shocked the ma­jority. Novelty produced a sentiment in their mind, which they mistook for a sense of injustice. The pretty, soft creatures that are so often to be found in the female sex, and that class of men who believe they could not exist without such pretty, soft creatures to resort to, were in arms against the au­thor of so heretical and blasphemous [Page 82] a doctrine. There are also, it must be consessed, occasional passages of a stern and rugged feature, incompati­ble with the true stamina of the wri­ter's character. But, if they did not belong to her fixed and permanent character, they belonged to her cha­racter pro tempore; and what she thought, she scorned to qualify.

Yet, along with this rigid, and some­what amazonian temper, which cha­racterised some parts of the book, it is impossible not to remark a luxu­riance of imagination, and a trembling delicacy of sentiment, which would have done honour to a poet, bursting with all the visions of an Armida and a Dido.

The contradiction, to the public ap­prehension, was equally great, as to the person of the author, as it was when they considered the temper of [Page 83] the book. In the champion of her sex, who was described as endeavour­ing to invest them with all the rights of man, those whom curiosity prompt­ed to seek the occasion of beholding her, expected to find a sturdy, muscu­lar, raw-boned virago; and they were not a little surprised, when, instead of all this, they found a woman, lovely in her person, and, in the best and most engaging sense, feminine in her man­ners.

The Vindication of the Rights of Woman is undoubtedly a very unequal performance, and eminently deficient in method and arrangement. When tried by the hoary and long-established laws of literary composition, it can scarcely maintain its claim to be placed in the first class of human pro­ductions. But when we consider the [Page 84] importance of its doctrines, and the eminence of genius it displays, it seems not very improbable that it will be read as long as the English language endures. The publication of this book forms an epocha in the subject to which it belongs; and Mary Woll­stonecraft will perhaps hereafter be found to have performed more substan­tial service for the cause of her sex, than all the other writers, male or fe­male, that ever felt themselves animat­ed in the behalf of oppressed and in­jured beauty.

The censure of the liberal critic as to the defects of this performance, will be changed into astonishment, when I tell him, that a work of this in­estimable moment, was begun, carried on, and finished in the state in which [Page 85] it now appears, in a period of no more than six weeks.

It is necessary here that I should re­sume the subject of the friendship that subsisted between Mary and Mr. Fu­seli, which proved the source of the most memorable events in her subse­quent history. He is a native of the republic of Switzerland, but has spent the principal part of his life in the island of Great-Britain. The emi­nence of his genius can scarcely be disputed; it has indeed received the testimony which is the least to be sus­pected, that of some of the most con­siderable of his contemporary artists. He has one of the most striking cha­racteristics of genius, a daring, as well as persevering, spirit of adventure. The work in which he is at present engaged, a series of pictures for the [Page 86] illustration of Milton, upon a very large scale, and produced solely upon the incitement of his own mind, is a proof of this, if indeed his whole life had not sufficiently proved it.

Mr. Fuseli is one of Mr. Johnson's oldest friends, and was at this time in the habit of visiting him two or three times a week. Mary, one of whose strongest characteristics was the exqui­site sensations of pleasure she felt from the associations of visible objects, had hitherto never been acquainted, or ne­ver intimately acquainted, with an eminent painter. The being thus in­troduced therefore to the society of Mr. Fuseli, was a high gratification to her; while he found in Mary, a person perhaps more susceptible of the emo­tions painting is calculated to excite, than any other with whom he ever [Page 87] conversed. Painting, and subjects closely connected with painting, were their al­most constant topics of conversation; and they found them inexhaustible. It can­not be doubted, but that this was a spe­cies of exercise very conducive to the improvement of Mary's mind.

Nothing human however is unmix­ed. If Mary derived improvement from Mr. Fuseli, she may also be sus­pected of having caught the infection of some of his faults. In early life Mr. Fuseli was ardently attached to literature; but the demands of his profession have prevented him from keeping up that extensive and indis­criminate acquaintance with it, that belles-lettres scholars frequently pos­sess. Of consequence, the favourites of his [...] years remain his only fa­vouri [...] [...] is with Mr. Fuseli the [Page 88] abstract and deposit of every human perfection. Milton, Shakespear, and Richardson, have also engaged much of his attention. The nearest rival of Ho­mer, I believe, if Homer can have a ri­val, is Jean Jacques Rousseau. A young man embraces entire the opinions of a favourite writer, and Mr. Fuseli has not had leisure to bring the opinions of his youth to a revision. Smitten with Rousseau's conception of the perfectness of the savage state, and the essential abortiveness of all civili­zation, Mr. Fuseli looks at all our lit­tle attempts at improvement, with a spirit that borders perhaps too much upon contempt and indifference. One of his favourite positions is the divi­nity of genius. This is a power that comes complete at once from the hands of the Creator of all things, and the first essays of a man of real [Page 89] genius are such, in all their grand and most important features, as no subse­quent assiduity can amend. Add to this, that Mr. Fuseli is somewhat of a caustic turn of mind, with much wit, and a disposition to search, in every thing new or modern, for occasions of censure. I believe Mary came some­thing more a cynic out of the school of Mr. Fuseli, than she went into it.

But the principal circumstance that relates to the intercourse of Mary, and this celebrated artist, remains to be told. She saw Mr. Fuseli frequent­ly; he amused, delighted and instruct­ed her. As a painter, it was impossi­ble she should not wish to see his works, and consequently to frequent his house. She visited him; her visits were returned. Notwithstanding the inequality of their years, Mary was not [Page 90] of a temper to live upon terms of so much intimacy with a man of merit and genius, without loving him. The delight she enjoyed in his society, she transferred by association to his person. What she experienced in this respect, was no doubt heightened, by the state of celibacy and restraint in which she had hitherto lived, and to which the rules of polished society condemn an unmarried woman. She conceived a personal and ardent af­fection for him. Mr. Fuseli was a married man, and his wife the ac­quaintance of Mary. She readily perceived the restrictions which this circumstance seemed to impose upon her; but she made light of any diffi­culty that might arise out of them. Not that she was insensible to the va­lue of domestic endearments between [Page 91] persons of an opposite sex, but that the scorned to suppose, that she could feel a struggle, in conforming to the laws she should lay down to her con­duct.

There cannot perhaps be a proper­er place than the present, to state her principles upon this subject, such at least as they were when I knew her best. She set a great value on a mu­tual affection between persons of an opposite sex. She regarded it as the principal solace of human life. It was her maxim, "that the imagination should awaken the senses, and not the senses the imagination." In other words, that whatever related to the gratification of the senses, ought to arise, in a human being of a pure mind, only as the consequence of an indivi­dual affection. She regarded the man­ners [Page 92] and habits of the majority of our sex in that respect, with strong disap­probation. She conceived that true virtue would prescribe the most entire celibacy, exclusively of affection, and the most perfect fidelity to that affec­tion when it existed.—There is no rea­son to doubt that, if Mr. Fuseli had been disengaged at the period of their acquaintance, he would have been the man of her choice. As it was, she conceived it both practicable and eli­gible, to cultivate a distinguishing af­fection for him, and to foster it by the endearments of personal intercourse and a reciprocation of kindness, with­out departing in the smallest degree from the rules she prescribed to herself.

In September 1791, she removed from the house she occupied in George-street, to a large and commodious [Page 93] apartment in Store street, Bedford­square. She began to think that she had been too rigid, in the laws of fru­gality and self-denial with which she set out in her literary career; and now added to the neatness and cleanliness which she had always scrupulously ob­served, a certain degree of elegance, and those temperate indulgences in furniture and accommodation, from which a sound and uncorrupted taste never fails to derive pleasure.

It was in the month of November in the same year (1791), that the writer of this narrative was first in company with the person to whom it relates. He dined with her at a friend's, together with Mr. Tho­mas Paine and one or two other persons. The invitation was of his own seeking, his object being to see [Page 94] the author of the Rights of Man, with whom he had never before conversed

The interview was not fortunate Mary and myself parted, mutually displeased with each other. I had no read her Rights of Woman. I had barely looked into her Answer to Burke and been displeased, as literary men are apt to be, with a few offences against grammar and other minute points of composition. I had there­fore little curiosity to see Mrs. Woll­stonecraft, and a very great curiosity to see Thomas Paine. Paine, in his ge­neral habits, is no great talker; and, though he threw in occasionally some shrewd and striking remarks; the conversation lay principally between me and Mary. I, of consequence, heard her, very frequently when I wish­ed to hear Paine.

[Page 95] We touched on a considerable va­riety of topics, and particularly on the characters and habits of certain eminent men. Mary, as has already been observed, had acquired, in a very blameable degree, the practice of see­ing every thing on the gloomy side, and bestowing censure with a plentiful hand, where circumstances were in any respect doubtful. I, on the con­trary, had a strong propensity, to fa­vourable construction, and particularly, where I found unequivocal marks of genius, strongly to incline to the sup­position of generous and manly virtue. We ventilated in this way the charac­ters of Voltaire and others, who have obtained from some individuals an ar­dent admiration, while the greater number have treated them with ex­treme moral severity. Mary was at [Page 96] last provoked to tell me, that praise lavished in the way that I lavished it could do no credit either to the com­mended or the commender. We dis­cussed some questions on the subject of religion, in which her opinions ap­proached much nearer to the received ones, than mine. As the conversation proceeded, I became dissatisfied with the tone of my own share in it. We touched upon all topics, without treat­ing forcibly and connectedly upon any. Meanwhile, I did her the jus­tice, in giving an account of the con­versation to a party in which I supped, though I was not sparing of my blame, to yield her the praise of a person of active and independent thinking. On her side, she did me no part of what perhaps I considered as justice.

We met two or three times in the [Page 97] course of the following year, but made a very small degree of progress towards a cordial acquaintance.

In the close of the year 1792, Mary went over to France, where she con­tinued to reside for upwards of two years. One of her principal induce­ments to this step, related, I believe, to Mr. Fuseli. She had, at first, consider­ed it as reasonable and judicious, to cultivate what I may be permitted to call, a Platonic affection for him; but she did not, in the sequel, find all the satisfaction in this plan, which she had originally expected from it. It was in vain that she enjoyed much pleasure in his society, and that she enjoyed it frequently. Her ardent imagination was continually conjuring up pictures of the happiness she should have found, if fortune had favoured their more in­timate [Page 98] union. She felt herself former for domestic affection, and all those tender charities, which men of sensibi­lity have constantly treated as the dear­est band of human society. Genera [...] conversation and society could not sa­tisfy her. She felt herself alone, as were, in the great mass of her species and she repined when she reflected that the best years of her life were spe [...] in this comfortless solitude. These ide [...] made the cordial intercourse of [...] Fuseli, which had at first been one [...] her greatest pleasures, a source of pe [...] ­petual torment to her. She conceiv [...] it necessary to snap the chain of [...] association in her mind; and, for [...] purpose, determined to seek a new [...] ­mate, and mingle in different scenes.

It is singular, that during her re [...] ­dence in Store street, which lasted [...] [Page 99] than twelve months, she produced no­thing, except a few articles in the Ana­lytical Review. Her literary medita­tions were chiefly employed upon the Sequel to the Rights of Woman; but she has scarcely left behind her a single paper, that can, with any certainty, be assigned to have had this destination.

CHAP. VII.
1792-1795.

THE original plan of Mary, re­specting her residence in France, had no precise limits in the article of du­ration; the single purpose she had in view being that of an endeavour to heal her distempered mind. She did not proceed so far as even to discharge her lodging in London; and, to some friends who saw her immediately before her departure, she spoke merely of an ab­sence of six weeks.

[Page 101] It is not to be wondered at, that her excursion did not originally seem to produce the effects she had expected from it. She was in a land of strangers; she had no acquaintance; she had even to acquire the power of receiving and communicating ideas with facility in the language of the country. Her first residence was in a spacious mansion to which she had been invited, but the master of which (monsieur Fillietaz) was absent at the time of her arrival. At first therefore she found herself surrounded only with servants. The gloominess of her mind communicated its own colour to the objects she saw; and in this temper she began a series of Letters on the Present Character of the French Nation, one of which she for­warded to her publisher, and which ap­pears in the collection of her posthumous [Page 102] works. This performance she soon after discontinued; and it is, as she justly remarks, tinged with the satur­nine temper which at that time per­vaded her mind.

Mary carried with her introductions to several agreeable families in Paris. She renewed her acquaintance with Paine. There also subsisted a very sin­cere friendship between her and Helen Maria Williams, author of a collection of poems of uncommon merit, who at that time resided in Paris. Another person, whom Mary always spoke of in terms-of ardent commendation, both for the excellence of his disposition, and the force of his genius, was a count Slabrendorf, by birth, I believe, a Swede. It is almost unnecessary to mention, that she was personally ac­quainted [Page 103] with the majority of the leaders in the French revolution.

But the house that, I believe, she principally frequented at this time, was that of Mr. Thomas Christie, a person whose pursuits were mercantile, and who had written a volume on the French revolution. With Mrs. Christie her acquaintance was more intimate than with the husband.

It was about four months after her arrival at Paris in December 1792, that she entered into that species of connection, for which her heart secretly panted, and which had the effect of diffusing an immediate tranquillity and cheerfulness over her manners. The person with whom it was formed (for it would be an idle piece of delicacy, to attempt to suppress a name, which is known to every one whom the reputa­tion [Page 104] of Mary has reached, was Mr. Gil­bert Imlay, native of the United States of North America

The place at which she first saw Mr. Imlay was at the house of Mr. Chris­tie; and it perhaps deserves to be no­ticed, that the emotions he then excit­ed in her mind, were, I am told, those of dislike, and that, for some time, she shunned all occasions of meeting him. This sentiment however speedily gave place to one of greater kindness.

Previously to the partiality she con­ceived for him, she had determined upon a journey to Switzerland, induc­ed chiefly by motives of economy. But she had some difficulty in procur­ing a passport; and it was probably the intercourse that now originated be­tween her and Mr. Imlay, that chang­ed her purpose, and led her to prefer [Page 105] a lodging at Neuilly, a village three miles from Paris. Her habitation here was a solitary house in the midst of a garden, with no other inhabitants than herself and the gardener, an old man, who performed for her many of the offices of a domestic, and would sometimes contend for the honour of making her bed. The gardener had a great veneration for his guest, and would set before her, when alone, some grapes of a particularly fine sort, which she could not without the great­est difficulty obtain, when she had any person with her as a visitor. Here it was that she conceived, and for the most part executed, her Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution ^*, into which, as she observes, are incor­porated most of the observations she [Page 106] had collected for her Letters, and which was written with more sobriety and cheerfulness than the tone in which they had been commenced. In the evening she was accustomed to refresh herself by a walk in a neighbouring wood, from which her old host in vain endeavoured to dissuade her, by re­counting divers horrible robberies and murders that had been committed there.

The commencement of the attach­ment Mary now formed, had neither confident nor adviser. She always con­ceived it to be a gross breach of deli­cacy to have any confidant in a matter of this sacred nature, an affair of the heart. The origin of the connection was about the middle of April 1793, and it was carried on in a private man­ner for four months. At the expira­tion of that period a circumstance oc­curred [Page 107] that induced her to declare it. The French convention, exasperated at the conduct of the British govern­ment, particularly in the affair of Tou­lon, formed a decree against the citi­zens of this country, by one article of which the English, resident in France, were ordered into prison till the period of a general peace. Mary had object­ed to a marriage with Mr. Imlay, who, at the time their connection was form­ed, had no property whatever; because she would not involve him in certain family embarrassments to which she conceived herself exposed, or make him answerable for the pecuniary de­mands that existed against her. She however considered their engagement as of the most sacred nature; and they had mutually formed the plan of emi­grating to America, as soon as they [Page 108] should have realized a sum, enabling them to do it in the mode they desired. The decree however that I have just mentioned, made it necessary, not that a marriage should actually take place, but that Mary should take the name of Imlay, which, from the nature of their connection, she conceived herself en­titled to do and obtain a certificate from the American ambassador, as the wife of a native of that country.

Their engagement being thus avow­ed, they thought proper to reside un­der the same roof, and for that purpose removed to Paris.

Mary was now arrived at the situa­tion, which, for two or three preceding years, her reason had pointed out to her as affording the most substantial prospect of happiness. She had been tossed and agitated by the waves of [Page 109] misfortune. Her childhood, as she of­ten said, had known few of the en­dearments, which constitute the princi­pal happiness of childhood. The tem­per of her father had early given to her mind a severe cast of thought, and substituted the inflexibility of resistance for the confidence of affection. The cheerfulness of her entrance upon wo­manhood, had been darkened, by an attendance upon the death-bed of her mother, and the still more afflicting calamity of her eldest sister. Her exer­tions to create a joint independence for her sisters and herself, had been at­tended, neither with the success, nor the pleasure, she had hoped from them. Her first youthful passion, her friendship for Fanny, had encountered many dis­appointments, and, in fine, a melan­choly and premature catastrophe. Soon [Page 110] after these accumulated mortifications, she was engaged in a contest with a near relation, whom she regarded as unprincipled, respecting the wreck of her father's fortune. In this affair she suffered the double pain, which arises from moral indignation, and disappoint­ed benevolence. Her exertions to assist almost every member of her family, were great and unremitted. Finally, when she indulged a romantic affection for Mr. Fuseli, and fondly imagined that she should find in it the solace of her cares, she perceived too late, that, by continually impressing on her mind fruitless images of unreserved affection and domestic felicity, it only served to give new pungency to the sensibility that was destroying her.

Some persons may be inclined to ob­serve, that the evils here enumerated, [Page 111] are not among the heaviest in the cata­logue of human calamities. But evils take their rank, more from the temper of the mind that suffers them, than from their abstract nature. Upon a man of a hard and insensible disposi­tion, the shafts of misfortune often fall pointless and impotent. There are per­sons, by no means hard and insensible, who, from an elastic and sanguine turn of mind, are continually prompt­ed to look on the fair side of things, and, having suffered one fall, immedi­ately rise again, to pursue their course, with the same eagerness, the same hope, and the same gaiety, as before. On the other hand, we not unfrequent­ly meet with persons, endowed with the most exquisite and delicious sensi­bility, whose minds seem almost of too fine a texture to encounter the vicissi­tudes [Page 112] of human affairs, to whom pleasure is transport, and disappointment is agony indescribable. This character is finely pourtrayed by the author of the Sorrows of Werter. Mary was in this respect a female Werter.

She brought then, in the present in­stance, a wounded and sick heart, to take refuge in the bosom of a chosen friend. Let it not however be ima­gined, that she brought a heart, que­rulous, and ruined in its taste for plea­sure. No; her whole character seem­ed to change with a change of fortune. Her sorrows, the depression of her spirits, were forgotten, and she assumed all the simplicity and the vivacity of a youthful mind. She was like a serpent upon a rock, that casts its slough, and appears again with the brilliancy, the sleekness, and the elastic activity of its [Page 113] happiest age. She was playful, full of confidence, kindness and sympathy. Her eyes assumed new lustre, and her cheeks new colour and smoothness. Her voice became chearful; her temper overflow­ing with universal kindness; and that smile of bewitching tenderness from day to day illuminated her counte­nance, which all who knew her will so well recollect, and which won, both heart and soul, the affection of almost every one that beheld it.

Mary now reposed herself upon a person, of whose honour and princi­ples she had the most exalted idea. She nourished an individual affection, which she saw no necessity of subject­ing to restraint; and a heart like her's was not formed to nourish affection by halves. Her conception of Mr. Im­lay's "tenderness and worth, had [Page 114] twisted him closely round her heart;" and she "indulged the thought, that she had thrown out some tendrils, to cling to the elm by which she wished to be supported." This was "talking a new language to her; but, con­scious that she was not a parasite-plant," she was willing to encourage and foster the luxuriancies of affection. Her confidence was entire; her love was unbounded. Now, for the first time in her life, she gave a loose to all the sensibilities of her nature.

Soon after the time I am now speak­ing of, her attachment to Mr. Imlay gained a new link, by finding reason to suppose herself with child.

Their establishment at Paris, was however broken up almost as soon as formed, by the circumstance of Mr. Imlay's entering into business, urged, [Page 115] as he said, by the prospect of a family, and this being a favourable crisis in French affairs for commercial specula­tions. The pursuits in which he was engaged, led him in the month of Sep­tember to Havre de Grace, then called Havre Marat, probably to superintend the shipping of goods, in which he was jointly engaged with some other per­son or persons. Mary remained in the capital.

The solitude in which she was now left, proved an unexpected trial. Domestic affections constituted the ob­ject upon which her heart was fixed; and she early felt, with an inward grief, that Mr. Imlay "did not attach those tender emotions round the idea of home," which, every time they re­curred, dimmed her eyes with mois­ture. She had expected his return [Page 116] from week to week, and from month to month; but a succession of business still continued to detain him at Havre. At the same time the sanguinary cha­racter which the government of France began every day more decisively to as­sume, contributed to banish tranquil­lity from the first months of her preg­nancy. Before she left Neuilly, she happened one day to enter Paris on foot (I believe, by the Place de Louis Quinze), when an execution, attended with some peculiar aggravations, had just taken place, and the blood of the guillotine appeared fresh upon the pavement. The emotions of her foul burst forth in indignant exclamations, while a prudent bystander warned her of her danger, and intreated her to hasten and hide her discontents. She described to me, more than once, the [Page 117] anguish she felt at hearing of the death of Brissot, Vergniaud, and the twenty deputies, as one of the most intolera­ble sensations she had ever experi­enced.

Finding the return of Mr. Imlay continually postponed, she determined, in January 1794, to join him at Havre. One motive that influenced her, though, I believe, by no means the principal, was the growing cruelties of Robespierre, and the desire she felt to be in any other place, rather than the devoted city, in the midst of which they were perpetrated.

From January to September, Mr. Imlay and Mary lived together, with great harmony, at Havre, where the child, with which she was pregnant, was born, on the fourteenth of May, and named Frances, in remembrance of [Page 118] the dear friend of her youth, whose image could never be erased from her memory.

In September, Mr. Imlay took his departure from Havre for the port of London. As this step was said to be necessary in the way of business, he endeavoured to prevail upon Mary to quit Havre, and once more take up her abode at Paris. Robespierre was now no more, and, of consequence, the only objection she had to residing in the ca­pital, was removed. Mr. Imlay was already in London, before she under­took her journey, and it proved the most fatiguing journey she ever made; the carriage, in which she travelled, being overturned no less than four times between Havre and Paris.

This absence, like that of the pre­ceding year in which Mr. Imlay had [Page 119] removed to Havre, was represented as an absence that was to have a short duration. In two months he was once again to join her at Paris. It proved however the prelude to an eternal se­paration. The agonies of such a sepa­ration, or rather desertion, great as Mary would have found them upon every supposition, were vastly increased, by the lingering method in which it was effected, and the ambiguity that, for a long time, hung upon it. This circumstance produced the effect, of holding her mind, by force, as it were, to the most painful of all subjects, and not suffering her to derive the just ad­vantage from the energy and elasticity of her character.

The procrastination of which I am speaking was however productive of one advantage. It put off the evil [Page 120] day. She did not suspect the calami­ties that awaited her, till the close of the year. She gained an additional three months of comparative happiness. But she purchased it at a very dear rate. Perhaps no human creature ever suffer­ed greater misery, than dyed the whole year 1795, in the life of this incom­parable woman. It was wasted in that sort of despair, to the sense of which the mind is continually awaken­ed, by a glimmering of fondly cherish­ed, expiring hope.

Why did she thus obstinately cling to an ill-starred, unhappy passion? Be­cause it is of the very essence of affec­tion, to seek to perpetuate itself. He does not love, who can resign this che­rished sentiment, without suffering some of the sharpest struggles that our nature is capable of enduring. Add [Page 121] to this, Mary had fixed her heart upon this chosen friend; and one of the last impressions a worthy mind can submit to receive, is that of the worthlessness of the person upon whom it has fixed all its esteem. Mary had struggled to entertain a favourable opinion of hu­man nature; she had unweariedly sought for a kindred mind, in whose integrity and fidelity to take up her rest. Mr. Imlay undertook to prove, in his letters written immediately after their complete separation, that his conduct towards her was reconcilable to the strictest rectitude; but undoubt­edly Mary was of a different opinion. Whatever the reader may decide in this respect, there is one sentiment that, I believe, he will unhesitatingly admit: that of pity for the mistake of the man, who, being in possession of [Page 122] such a friendship and attachment as those of Mary, could hold them at a trivial price, and, "like the base In­dian, throw a pearl away, richer than all his tribe. ^*"

CHAP. VIII.
1795, 1796.

IN April 1795, Mary returned once more to London, being requested to do so by Mr. Imlay, who even sent a ser­vant to Paris to wait upon her in the journey, before she could complete the necessary arrangements for her depar­ture. But, notwithstanding these fa­vourable appearances, she came to Eng­land with a heavy heart, not daring, after all the uncertainties and anguish she had endured, to trust to the sugges­tions of hope.

[Page 124] The gloomy forebodings of he mind, were but too faithfully verified Mr. Imlay had already formed another connection; as it is said, with a young actress from a strolling company of players. His attentions therefore to Mary were formal and constrained, and she probably had but little of his soci­ety. This alteration could not escape her penetrating glance. He ascribed it to pressure of business, and some pe­cuniary embarrassments which, at that time, occurred to him; it was of little consequence to Mary what was the cause. She saw, but too well, though she strove not to see, that his affections were lost to her for ever.

It is impossible to imagine a period of greater pain and mortification than Mary passed, for about seven weeks, from the sixteenth of April to the [Page 125] sixth of June, in a furnished house that Mr. Imlay had provided for her. She had come over to England, a country for which she, at this time, ex­pressed "a repugnance, that almost amounted to horror," in search of hap­piness. She feared that that happiness had altogether escaped her; but she was encouraged by the eagerness and impatience which Mr. Imlay at length seemed to manifest for her arrival. When she saw him, all her fears were confirmed. What a picture was she capable of forming to herself, of the overflowing kindness of a meeting, after an interval of so much anguish and apprehension! A thousand images of this sort were present to her burning imagination. It is in vain, on such oc­casions, for reserve and reproach to en­deavour to curb in the emotions of an [Page 126] affectionate heart. But the hopes she nourished were speedily blasted. He reception by Mr. Imlay, was cold and embarrassed. Discussions ("explana­tions" they were called) followed; cruel explanations, that only added to the anguish of a heart already over­whelmed in grief! They had small pre­tensions indeed to explicitness; but they sufficiently told, that the case ad­mitted not of remedy.

Mary was incapable of sustaining her equanimity in this pressing emer­gency. "Love, dear, delusive love! as she expressed herself to a friend some time afterwards, rigorous rea­son had forced her to resign; and now her rational prospects were blasted, just as she had learned to be contented with rational enjoyments." Thus situated, life became an intolerable burthen. [Page 127] While she was absent from Mr. Imlay, she could talk of purposes of separation and independence. But, now that they were in the same house, she could not withhold herself from endeavours to revive their mutual cordiality; and un­successful endeavours continually add­ed fuel to the fire that destroyed her. She formed a desperate purpose to die.

This part of the story of Mary is in­volved in considerable obscurity. I only know, that Mr. Imlay became ac­quainted with her purpose, at a mo­ment when he was uncertain whether or no it were already executed, and that his feelings were roused by the intelli­gence. It was perhaps owing to his activity and representations, that her life was, at this time, saved. She de­termined to continue to exist. Actu­ated by this purpose, she took a resolu­tion, [Page 128] worthy both of the strength and affectionateness of her mind. Mr. Imlay was involved in a question of consider­able difficulty, respecting a mercantile adventure in Norway. It seemed to re­quire the presence of some very judici­ous agent, to conduct the business to its desired termination. Mary deter­mined to make the voyage, and take the business into her own hands. Such a voyage seemed the most desireable thing to recruit her health, and, if pos­sible, her spirits, in the present crisis. It was also gratifying to her feelings, to be employed in promoting the inte­rest of a man, from whom she had ex­perienced such severe unkindness, but to whom she ardently desired to be re­conciled. The moment of desperation I have mentioned, occurred in the close of May, and, in about a week after, [Page 129] she set out upon this new expedition.

The narrative of this voyage is before the world, and perhaps a book of tra­vels that so irresistibly seizes on the heart, never, in any other instance, found its way from the press. The occasional harshness and ruggedness of character, that diversify her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, here totally disappear. If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book. She speaks of her sorrows, in a way that fills us with melancholy, and dissolves us in tenderness, at the same time that she displays a genius which commands all our admiration. Afflic­tion had tempered her heart to a softness almost more than human; and the gentleness of her spirit seems pre­cisely [Page 130] to accord with all the romance of unbounded attachment.

Thus softened and improved, thus fraught with imagination and sensibi­lity, with all, and more than all, "that youthful poets fancy, when they love," she returned to England, and, if he had so pleased, to the arms of her former lover. Her return was hastened by the ambiguity, to her apprehension, of Mr. Imlay's conduct. He had pro­mised to meet her upon her return from Norway, probably at Hamburgh; and they were then to pass some time in Switzerland. The style however of his letters to her during her tour, was not such as to inspire confidence; and she wrote to him very urgently, to ex­plain himself, relative to the footing upon which they were hereafter to stand to each other. In his answer, [Page 131] which reached her at Hamburgh, he treated her questions as "extraordi­nary and unnecessary," and desired her to be at the pains to decide for herself. Feeling herself unable to accept this as an explanation, she instantly determined to sail for London by the very first op­portunity, that she might thus bring to a termination the suspence that prey­ed upon her soul.

It was not long after her arrival in London in the commencement of Oc­tober, that she attained the certainty she sought. Mr. Imlay procured her a lodging. But the neglect she experi­enced from him after she entered it, flashed conviction upon her, in spite of his asseverations. She made further en­quiries, and at length was informed by a servant, of the real state of the case. Under the immediate shock which the [Page 132] painful certainty gave her, her first im­pulse was to repair to him at the ready furnished house he had provided for [...] new mistress. What was the particu­lar nature of their conference I aM unable to relate. It is sufficient to say that the wretchedness of the night which succeeded this fatal discovery, impress­ed her with the feeling, that she would sooner suffer a thousand deaths, than pass another of equal misery.

The agony of her mind determined her; and that determination gave her a sort of desperate serenity. She re­solved to plunge herself in the Thames; and, not being satisfied with any spot nearer to London, she took a boat, and rowed to Putney. Her first thought had led her to Battersea-bridge, but she found it too public. It was night when she arrived at Putney, and by [Page 133] that time had begun to rain with great violence. The rain suggested to her the idea of walking up and down the bridge, till her clothes were tho­roughly drenched and heavy with the wet, which she did for half an hour without meeting a human being. She then leaped from the top of the bridge, but still seemed to find a diffi­culty in sinking, which she endeavour­ed to counteract by pressing her clothes closely round her. After some time she became insensible; but she always spoke of the pain she underwent as such, that, though she could afterwards have determined upon almost any other species of voluntary death, it would have been impossible for her to resolve upon encountering the same sensations again. I am doubtful, whether this is to be ascribed to the mere nature of suffoca­tion, [Page 134] or was not rather owing to the preternatural action of a desperate spirit.

After having been for a considerable time insensible, she was recovered by the exertions of those by whom the body was found. She had sought, with cool and deliberate firmness, to put a period to her existence, and yet she lived to have every prospect of a long possession of enjoyment and happiness. It is perhaps not an unfrequent case with suicides, that we find reason to suppose, if they had survived their gloomy purpose, that they would, at a subsequent period, have been consider­ably happy. It arises indeed, in some measure, out of the very nature of a spirit of self-destruction; which im­plies a degree of anguish, that the con­sistution of the human mind will not [Page 135] suffer to remain long undiminished. This is a serious reflection, Probably no man would destroy himself from an impatience of present pain, if he felt a moral certainty that there were years of enjoyment still in reserve for him. It is perhaps a futile attempt, to think of reasoning with a man in that state of mind which precedes suicide. Moral reasoning is nothing but the awaken­ing of certain feelings; and the feel­ing by which he is actuated, is too strong to leave us much chance of im­pressing him with other feelings, that should have force enough to counter­balance it. But, if the prospect of fu­ture tranquillity and pleasure cannot be expected to have much weight with a man under an immediate purpose of suicide, it is so much the more to be wished, that men would impress their [Page 136] minds, in their sober moments, with a conception, which, being rendered ha­bitual, seems to promise to act as a suc­cessful antidote in a paroxysm of des­peration.

The present situation of Mary, of necessity produced some further inter­course between her and Mr. Imlay. He sent a physician to her; and Mrs. Christie, at his desire, prevailed on her to remove to her house in Finsbury­square. In the mean time Mr. Imlay assured her that his present was merely a casual, sensual connection; and, of course, fostered in her mind the idea that it would be once more in her choice to live with him. With what­ever intention the idea was suggested, it was certainly calculated to increase the agitation of her mind. In one respect however it produced an effect [Page 137] unlike that which might most obviously have been looked for. It roused within her the characteristic energy of mind, which she seemed partially to have for­gotten. She saw the necessity of bring­ing the affair to a point, and not suffer­ing months and years to roll on in un­certainty and suspence. This idea in­spired her with an extraordinary reso­lution. The language she employed, was, in effect, as follows: "If we are ever to live together again, it must be now. We meet now, or we part for ever. You say, You cannot abruptly break off the connection you have formed. It is unworthy of my courage and character, to wait the uncertain issue of that connection. I am de­termined to come to a decision. I consent then, for the present, to live with you, and the woman to whom [Page 138] you have associated yourself. I think it important that you should learn ha­bitually to feel for your child the affec­tion of a father. But, if you reject this proposal, here we end. You are now free. We will correspond no more. We will have no intercourse of any kind. I will be to you as a person that is dead."

The proposal she made, extraordinary and injudicious as it was, was at first accepted; and Mr. Imlay took her accordingly, to look at a house he was upon the point of hiring, that she might judge whether it was calculated to please her. Upon second thoughts however he retracted his concession.

In the following month, Mr. Imlay, and the woman with whom he was at present connected, went to Paris, where they remained three months. Mary [Page 139] had, previously to this, fixed herself in a lodging in Finsbury-place, where, for some time, she saw scarcely any one but Mrs. Christie, for the sake of whose neighbourhood she had chosen this situation; "existing," as she expressed it, "in a living tomb, and her life but an exercise of fortitude, continually on the stretch."

Thus circumstanced, it was unavoid­able for her thoughts to brood upon a passion, which all that she had suffered had not yet been able to extinguish. Accordingly, as soon as Mr. Imlay re­turned to England, she could not re­strain herself from making another effort, and desiring to see him once more. "During his absence, affection had led her to make numberless excuses for his conduct," and she probably wish­ed to believe that his present connection [Page 140] was, as he represented it, purely of a casual nature. To this application, she observes, that "he returned no other answer, except declaring, with unjusti­fiable passion, that he would not see her."

This answer, though, at the moment, highly irritating to Mary, was not the ultimate close of the affair. Mr. Christie was connected in business with Mr. Imlay, at the same time that the house of Mr. Christie was the only one at which Mary habitually visited. The consequence of this was, that, when Mr. Imlay had been already more than a fortnight in town, Mary called at Mr. Christie's one evening, at a time when Mr. Imlay was in the parlour. The room was full of company. Mrs. Christie heard Mary's voice in the pas­sage, and hastened to her, to intreat her not to make her appearance. Mary [Page 141] however was not to be controlled. She thought, as she afterwards told me, that it was not consistent with consci­ous rectitude, that she should shrink, as if abashed, from the presence of one by whom she deemed herself injured. Her child was with her. She entered; and, in a firm manner, immediately led up the child, now near two years of age, to the knees of its father. He retired with Mary into another apart­ment, and promised to dine with her at her lodging, I believe, the next day.

In the interview which took place in consequence of this appointment, he expressed himself to her in friendly terms, and in a manner calculated to sooth her despair. Though he could conduct himself, when absent from her, in a way which she censured as unfeel­ing; this species of sternness constantly [Page 142] expired when he came into her pre­sence. Mary was prepared at this mo­ment to catch at every phantom of happiness; and the gentleness of his carriage, was to her as a sun-beam, awakening the hope of returning day. For an instant she gave herself up to delusive visions; and, even after the period of delirium expired, she still dwelt, with an aching eye, upon the air-built and unsubstantial prospect of a reconciliation.

At his particular request, she retained the name of Imlay, which, a short time before, he had seemed to dispute with her. "It was not," as she expresses herself in a letter to a friend, "for the world that she did so—not in the least—but she was unwilling to cut the Gordian knot, or tear herself away in appear­ance, when she could not in reality."

[Page 143] The day after this interview, she set out upon a visit to the country, where she spent nearly the whole of the month of March. It was, I believe, while she was upon this visit, that some epis­tolary communication with Mr. Imlay, induced her resolutely to expel from her mind, all remaining doubt as to the issue of the affair.

Mary was now aware that every demand of forbearance towards him, of duty to her child, and even of in­dulgence to her own deep-rooted pre­dilection, was discharged. She deter­mined to rouse herself, and cast off for ever an attachment, which to her had been a spring of inexhaustible bitter­ness. Her present residence among the scenes of nature, was favourable to this purpose. She was at the house of an old and intimate friend, a lady of [Page 144] the name of Cotton, whose partiality for her was strong and sincere. Mrs. Cotton's nearest neighbour was Sir William East, baronet; and, from the joint effect of the kindness of her friend, and the hospitable and distin­guishing attentions of this respectable family, she derived considerable benefit. She had been amused and interested in her journey to Norway; but with this difference, that, at that time, her mind perpetually returned with trembling anxiety to conjectures respecting Mr. Imlay's future conduct, whereas now, with a lofty and undaunted spirit, she threw aside every thought that recurred to him, while she felt herself called upon to make one more effort for life and happiness.

Once after this, to my knowledge, she saw Mr. Imlay; probably, not long [Page 145] after her return to town. They met by accident upon the New Road; he alighted from his horse, and walked with her for some time; and the ren­counter passed, as she assured me, without producing in her any oppres­sive emotion.

Be it observed, by the way, and I may be supposed best to have known the real state of the case, she never spoke of Mr. Imlay with acrimony, and was displeased when any person, in her hearing, expressed contempt of him. She was characterised by a strong sense of indignation; but her emotions of this sort were short-lived, and in no long time subsided into a dignified se­reneness and equanimity.

The question of her connection with Mr. Imlay, as we have seen, was not completely dismissed, till March [Page 146] 1796. But it is worthy to be ob­served, that she did not, like ordi­nary persons under extreme anguish of mind, suffer her understanding, in the mean time, to sink into listlessness and debility. The most inapprehensive reader may conceive what was the mental torture she endured, when he considers, that she was twice, with an interval of four months, from the end of May to the beginning of October, prompted by it to purposes of suicide. Yet in this period she wrote her Letters from Norway. Shortly after its expi­ration she prepared them for the press, and they were published in the close of that year. In January 1796, she finish­ed the sketch of a comedy, which turns, in the serious scenes, upon the inci­dents of her own story. It was offered to both the winter-managers, and re­mained [Page 147] among her papers at the period of her decease; but it appeared to me to be in so crude and imperfect a state, that I judged it most respectful to her memory to commit it to the flames. To understand this extraordinary de­gree of activity, we must recollect how­ever the entire solitude, in which most of her hours were at that time con­sumed.

CHAP. IX.
1796, 1797.

I AM now led, by the progress of the story, to the last branch of her history the connection between Mary and my­self. And this I shall relate with the same simplicity that has pervaded every other part of my narrative. If there ever were any motives of prudence or delicacy, that could impose a qualifi­cation upon the story, they are now over. They could have no relation but to factitious rules of decorum. [Page 149] There are no circumstances of her life, that, in the judgment of honour and reason, could brand her with disgrace. Never did there exist a human being, that needed, with less fear, expose all their actions, and call upon the uni­verse to judgè them. An event of the most deplorable sort, has awfully im­posed silence upon the gabble of fri­volity.

We renewed our acquaintance in January 1796, but with no particular effect, except so far as sympathy in her anguish, added in my mind to the respect I had always entertained for her talents. It was in the close of that month that I read her Letters from Norway; and the impression that book produced upon me has been already related.

It was on the fourteenth of April [Page 150] that I first saw her after her excursion into Berkshire. On that day she call­ed upon me in Somers Town, she having, since her return, taken a lodg­ing in Cumming-street, Pentonville, at no great distance from the place of my habitation. From that time our intimacy increased, by regular, but al­most imperceptible degrees.

The partiality we conceived for each other, was in that mode, which I have always regarded as the purest and most refined style of love. It grew with equal advances in the mind of each. It would have been impossible for the most minute observer to have said who was before, and who was after. One sex did not take the priority which long-established custom has awarded it, nor the other overstep that delicacy which is so severely imposed. [Page 151] I am not conscious that either party can assume to have been the agent or the patient, the toil-spreader or the prey, in the affair. When, in the course of things, the disclosure came, there was nothing, in a manner, for either party to disclose to the other.

In July 1796 I made an excursion into the county of Norfolk, which oc­cupied nearly the whole of that month. During this period Mary removed, from Cumming-street, Pentonville, to Judd place West, which may be con­sidered as the extremity of Somers Town. In the former situation, she had occupied a furnished lodging. She had meditated a tour to Italy or Swit­zerland, and knew not how soon she should set out with that view. Now however she felt herself reconciled to a longer abode in England, probably [Page 152] without exactly knowing why this change had taken place in her mind. She had a quantity of furniture locked up at a broker's ever since her residence in Store-street, and she now found it adviseable to bring it into use. This circumstance occasioned her present removal.

The temporary separation attendant on my little journey, had its effect on the mind of both parties. It gave a space for the maturing of inclina­tion. I believe that, during this inter­val, each furnished to the other the principal topic of solitary and daily contemplation. Absence bestows a refined and aerial delicacy upon affec­tion, which it with difficulty acquires in any other way. It seems to resem­ble the communication of spirits, with­out [Page 153] the medium, or the impediment, of this earthly frame.

When we met again, we met with new pleasure, and, I may add, with a more decisive preference for each other. It was however three weeks longer, before the sentiment which trembled upon the tongue, burst from the lips of either. There was, as I have already said, no period of throes and resolute explanation attendant on the tale. It was friendship melting into love. Previously to our mutual declaration, each felt half-assured, yet each felt a certain trembling anxiety to have assurance complete.

Mary rested her head upon the shoulder of her lover, hoping to find a heart with which she might safely treasure her world of affection; fear­ing to commit a mistake, yet, in spite [Page 154] of her melancholy experience, fraught with that generous confidence, which, in a great soul, is never extinguished. I had never loved till now; or, at least, had never nourished a passion to the same growth, or met with an object so consummately worthy.

We did not marry. It is difficult to recommend any thing to indiscrimi­nate adoption, contrary to the estab­lished rules and prejudices of man­kind; but certainly nothing can be so ridiculous upon the face of it, or so contrary to the genuine march of sen­timent, as to require the overflowing of the soul to wait upon a ceremo­ny, and that which, wherever delicacy and imagination exist, is of all things most sacredly private, to blow a trum­pet before it, and to record the mo­ment [Page 155] when it has arrived at its cli­max.

There were however other reasons why we did not immediately marry. Mary felt an entire conviction of the propriety of her conduct. It would be absurd to suppose that, with a heart withered by desertion, she was not right to give way to the emotions of kindness which our intimacy produc­ed, and to seek for that support in friendship and affection, which could alone give pleasure to her heart, and peace to her meditations. It was only about six months since she had resolutely banished every thought of Mr. Imlay; but it was at least eighteen that he ought to have been banished, and would have been banished, had it not been for her scrupulous pertinacity in determining to leave no measure untried [Page 156] to regain him. Add to this, that the laws of etiquette ordinarily laid down in these cases, are essentially absurd, and that the sentiments of the heart cannot submit to be directed by the rule and the square. But Mary had an extreme aversion to be made the topic of vulgar discussion; and, if there be any weakness in this, the dreadful trials through which she had recently passed, may well plead in its excuse. She felt that she had been too much, and too rudely spoken of, in the former in­stance; and she could not resolve to do any thing that should immediately re­vive that painful topic.

For myself, it is certain that I had for many years regarded marriage with so well-grounded an apprehension, that, notwithstanding the partiality for Mary that had taken possession of my soul, I [Page 157] should have felt it very difficult, at least in the present stage of our intercourse, to have resolved on such a measure. Thus, partly from similar, and partly from different motives, we felt alike in this, as we did perhaps in every other circumstance that related to our inter­course.

I have nothing further that I find it necessary to record, till the commence­ment of April 1797. We then judged it proper to declare our marriage, which had taken place a little before. The principal motive for complying with this ceremony, was the circum­stance of Mary's being in a state of pregnancy. She was unwilling, and perhaps with reason, to incur that ex­clusion from the society of many valu­able and excellent individuals, which custom awards in cases of this sort. I [Page 158] should have felt an extreme repugnance to the having caused her such an in­convenience. And, after the experi­ment of seven months of as intimate an intercourse as our respective modes of living would admit, there was cer­tainly less hazard to either, in the sub­jecting ourselves to those consequences which the laws of England annex to the relations of husband and wife. On the sixth of April we entered into pos­session of a house, which had been taken by us in concert.

In this place I have a very curious cir­cumstance to notice, which I am happy to have occasion to mention, as it tends to expose certain regulations of polished society, of which the absurdity vies with the odiousness. Mary had long pos­sessed the advantage of an acquaintance [Page 159] with many persons of genius, and with others whom the effects of an inter­course with elegant society, combined with a certain portion of information and good sense, sufficed to render amus­ing companions. She had lately ex­tended the circle of her acquaintance in this respect; and her mind, trem­bling between the opposite impressions of past anguish and renovating tranquil­lity, found ease in this species of recre­ation. Wherever Mary appeared, ad­miration attended upon her. She had always displayed talents for conver­sation; but maturity of understanding, her travels, her long residence in France, the discipline of affliction, and the smil­ing, new-born peace which awaked a cor­responding smile in her animated coun­tenance, inexpressibly increased them. The way in which the story of Mr. Im­lay [Page 160] was treated in these polite circles, was probably the result of the partiality she excited. These elegant personages were divided between their cautious adherence to forms, and the desire to seek their own gratification. Mary made no secret of the nature of her connection with Mr. Imlay; and in one instance, I well know, she put herself to the trouble of explaining it to a per­son totally indifferent to her, because he never failed to publish every thing he knew, and, she was sure, would re­peat her explanation to his numerous acquaintance. She was of too proud and generous a spirit to stoop to hypo­crisy. These persons however, in spite of all that could be said, persisted in shutting their eyes, and pretending they took her for a married woman.

Observe the consequence of this! [Page 161] While she was, and constantly professed to be, an unmarried mother; she was fit society for the squeamish and the formal. The moment she acknow­ledged herself a wife, and that by a marriage perhaps unexceptionable, the case was altered. Mary and myself, ignorant as we were of these elevated refinements, supposed that our marriage would place her upon a surer footing in the calendar of polished society, than ever. But it forced these people to see the truth, and to confess their belief of what they had carefully been told; and this they could not forgive. Be it re­marked, that the date of our marriage had nothing to do with this, that ques­tion being never once mentioned dur­ing this period. Mary indeed had, till now, retained the name of Imlay which had first been assumed from ne­cessity [Page 162] in France; but its being retain­ed thus long, was purely from the auk­wardness that attends the introduction of a change, and not from an apprehen­sion of consequences of this sort. Her scrupulous explicitness as to the nature of her situation, surely sufficed to make the name she bore perfectly immaterial.

It is impossible to relate the particu­lars of such a story, but in the language of contempt and ridicule. A serious reflection however upon the whole, ought to awaken emotions of a dif­ferent sort. Mary retained the most numerous portion of her acquaintance, and the majority of those whom she principally valued. It was only the supporters and the subjects of the un­principled manners of a court, that she lost. This however is immaterial. The tendency of the proceeding, strictly [Page 163] considered, and uniformly acted upon, would have been to proscribe her from all valuable society. And who was the person proscribed? The firmest champion, and, as I strongly suspect, the greatest ornament her sex ever had to boast! A woman, with sentiments as pure, as refined, and as delicate, as ever inhabited a human heart! It is fit that such persons should stand by, that we may have room enough for the dull and insolent dictators, the gamblers and demireps of polished society!

Two of the persons, the loss of whose acquaintance Mary principally regret­ted upon this occasion, were Mrs. Inch­bald and Mrs. Siddons. Their ac­quaintance, it is perhaps fair to ob­serve, is to be ranked among her recent acquisitions. Mrs. Siddons, I am sure, regretted the necessity, which she con­ceived [Page 164] to be imposed on her by the peculiarity of her situation, to conform to the rules I have described. She is endowed with that rich and generous sensibility, which should best enable its possessor completely to feel the merits of her deceased friend. She very truly observes, in a letter now be­fore me, that the Travels in Norway were read by no one, who was in posses­sion of "more reciprocity of feeling, or more deeply impressed with admira­tion of the writer's extraordinary powers."

Mary felt a transitory pang, when the conviction reached her of so unex­pected a circumstance, that was rather exquisite. But she disdained to sink under the injustice (as this ultimately was) of the supercilious and the foolish, and presently shook off the impression [Page 165] of the first surprize. That once sub­sided, I well know that the event was thought of, with no emotions, but those of superiority to the injustice she sus­tained; and was not of force enough, to diminish a happiness, which seem­ed hourly to become more vigorous and firm.

I think I may venture to say, that no two persons ever found in each other's society, a satisfaction more pure and refined. What it was in itself, can now only be known, in its full extent, to the survivor. But, I believe, the serenity of her countenance, the in­creasing sweetness of her manners, and that consciousness of enjoyment that seemed ambitious that every one she saw should be happy as well as herself, were matters of general observation to all her acquaintance. She had always [Page 166] possessed, in an unparalleled degree, the art of communicating happiness, and she was now in the constant and un­limited exercise of it. She seemed to have attained that situation, which her disposition and character imperi­ously demanded, but which she had never before attained; and her under­standing and her heart felt the benefit of it.

While we lived as near neighbours only, and before our last removal, her mind had attained considerable tran­quillity, and was visited but seldom with those emotions of anguish, which had been but too familiar to her. But the improvement in this respect, which accrued upon our removal and estab­lishment, was extremely obvious. She was a worshipper of domestic life. She loved to observe the growth of [Page 167] affection between me and her daughter, then three years of age, as well as my anxiety respecting the child not yet born. Pregnancy itself, unequal as the decree of nature seems to be in this re­spect, is the source of a thousand en­dearments. No one knew better than Mary how to extract sentiments of ex­quisite delight, from trifles, which a suspicious and formal wisdom would scarcely deign to remark. A little ride into the country with myself and the child, has sometimes produced a sort of opening of the heart, a general expression of confidence and affection­ate soul, a sort of infantine, yet dig­nified endearment, which those who have felt may understand, but which I should in vain attempt to pourtray.

In addition to our domestic pleasures, I was fortunate enough to introduce her [Page 168] to some of my acquaintance of both sexes, to whom she attached herself with all the ardour of approbation and friendship.

Ours was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish and transitory plea­sures. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to mention, that, influenced by the ideas I had long entertained upon the subject of cohabitation, I engaged an apartment, about twenty doors from our house in the Polygon, Sômers Town, which I designed for the purpose of my study and literary occupations. Trifles however will be interesting to some readers, when they relate to the last pe­riod of the life of such a person as Mary. I will add therefore, that we were both of us of opinion, that it was possible for two persons to be too uniformly in each other's society. Influenced by [Page 169] that opinion, it was my practice to repair to the apartment I have men­tioned as soon as I rose, and frequently not to make my appearance in the Polygon, till the hour of dinner. We agreed in condemning the notion, pre­valent in many situations in life, that a man and his wife cannot visit in mix­ed society, but in company with each other; and we rather sought occasions of deviating from, than of complying with, this rule. By these means, though, for the most part, we spent the latter half of each day in one another's so­ciety, yet we were in no danger of fatiety. We seemed to combine, in a considerable degree, the novelty and lively sensation of a visit, with the more delicious and heart-felt pleasures of domestic life.

Whatever may be thought, in other [Page 170] respects, of the plan we laid down to ourselves, we probably derived a real advantage from it, as to the constancy and uninterruptedness of our literary pursuits. Mary had a variety of pro­jects of this sort, for the exercise of her talents, and the benefit of so­ciety; and, if she had lived, I believe the world would have had very little reason to complain of any remission of her industry. One of her projects, which has been already mentioned, was of a series of Letters on the Manage­ment of Infants. Though she had been for some time digesting her ideas on this subject with a view to the press, I have found comparatively no­thing that she had committed to paper respecting it. Another project, of longer standing, was of a series of books for the instruction of children. [Page 171] A fragment she left in execution of this project, is inserted in her Post­humous Works.

But the principal work, in which she was engaged for more than twelve months before her decease, was a novel, entitled, The Wrongs of Woman. I shall not stop here to explain the na­ture of the work, as so much of it as was already written, is now given to the public. I shall only observe that, impressed, as she could not fail to be, with the consciousness of her talents, she was desirous, in this instance, that they should effect what they were capa­ble of effecting. She was sensible how arduous a task it is to produce a truly excellent novel; and she roused her faculties to grapple with it. All her other works were produced with a rapidity, that did not give her powers [Page 172] time fully to expand. But this was written slowly and with mature consi­deration. She began it in several forms, which she successively rejected, after they were confiderably advanced. She wrote many parts of the work again and again, and, when she had finished what she intended for the first part, she felt herself more urgently stimulated to revise and improve what she had written, than to proceed, with constancy of application, in the parts that were to follow.

CHAP. X.