OF
Mary Wollstonecraft
TO GILBERT IMLAY

WITH A PREFATORY MEMOIR
By Roger Ingpen

_ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS_

Philadelphia
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
London: HUTCHINSON & CO.
1908

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT’S LETTERS

EDITED BY ROGER INGPEN

LEIGH HUNT’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Illustrated Edition. 2 Vols. A. CONSTABLE &
CO.

ONE THOUSAND POEMS FOR CHILDREN: A Collection of Verse Old and New.
HUTCHINSON & CO.

FORSTER’S LIFE OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH. _Abridged._ (Standard Biographies.)
HUTCHINSON & CO.

BOSWELL’S LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. _Abridged._ (Standard Biographies.)
HUTCHINSON & CO.

BOSWELL’S LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. Complete. Illustrated Edition. 2 Vols.
PITMAN.

PREFACE

Of Mary Wollstonecraft’s ancestors little is known, except that they were
of Irish descent. Her father, Edward John Wollstonecraft, was the son of a
prosperous Spitalfields manufacturer of Irish birth, from whom he
inherited the sum of ten thousand pounds. He married towards the middle of
the eighteenth century Elizabeth Dixon, the daughter of a gentleman in
good position, of Ballyshannon, by whom he had six children: Edward, Mary,
Everina, Eliza, James, and Charles. Mary, the eldest daughter and second
child, was born on April 27, 1759, the birth year of Burns and Schiller,
and the last year of George II.’s reign. She passed her childhood, until
she was five years old, in the neighbourhood of Epping Forest, but it is
doubtful whether she was born there or at Hoxton. Mr. Wollstonecraft
followed no profession in particular, although from time to time he
dabbled in a variety of pursuits when seized with a desire to make money.
He is described as of idle, dissipated habits, and possessed of an
ungovernable temper and a restless spirit that urged him to perpetual
changes of residence. From Hoxton, where he squandered most of his
fortune, he wandered to Essex, and then, among other places, in 1768 to
Beverley, in Yorkshire. Later he took up farming at Laugharne in
Pembrokeshire, but he at length grew tired of this experiment and returned
once more to London. As his fortunes declined, his brutality and
selfishness increased, and Mary was frequently compelled to defend her
mother from his acts of personal violence, sometimes by thrusting herself
bodily between him and his victim. Mrs. Wollstonecraft herself was far
from being an amiable woman; a petty tyrant and a stern but incompetent
ruler of her household, she treated Mary as the scapegoat of the family.
Mary’s early years therefore were far from being happy; what little
schooling she had was spasmodic, owing to her father’s migratory habits.

In her sixteenth year, when the Wollstonecrafts were once more in London,
Mary formed a friendship with Fanny Blood, a young girl about her own age,
which was destined to be one of the happiest events of her life. There was
a strong bond of sympathy between the two friends, for Fanny contrived by
her work as an artist to be the chief support of her family, as her
father, like Mr. Wollstonecraft, was a lazy, drunken fellow.

Mary’s new friend was an intellectual and cultured girl. She loved music,
sang agreeably, was well-read too, for her age, and wrote interesting
letters. It was by comparing Fanny Blood’s letters with her own, that Mary
first recognised how defective her education had been. She applied herself
therefore to the task of increasing her slender stock of
knowledge–hoping ultimately to become a governess. At length, at the age
of nineteen, Mary went to Bath as companion to a tiresome and exacting old
lady, a Mrs. Dawson, the widow of a wealthy London tradesman. In spite of
many difficulties, she managed to retain her situation for some two years,
leaving it only to attend the deathbed of her mother.

Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s death (in 1780) was followed by the break-up of the
home. Mary went to live temporarily with the Bloods at Walham Green, and
assisted Mrs. Blood, who took in needle-work; Everina became for a short
time housekeeper to her brother Edward, a solicitor; and Eliza married a
Mr. Bishop.

Mr. Kegan Paul has pointed out that “all the Wollstonecraft sisters were
enthusiastic, excitable, and hasty tempered, apt to exaggerate trifles,
sensitive to magnify inattention into slights, and slights into studied
insults. All had bad health of a kind which is especially trying to the
nerves, and Eliza had in excess the family temperament and constitution.”
Mrs. Bishop’s married life from the first was one of utter misery; they
were an ill-matched pair, and her peculiar temperament evidently
exasperated her husband’s worst nature. His outbursts of fury and the
scenes of violence of daily occurrence, for which he was responsible, were
afterwards described with realistic fidelity by Mary in her novel, “The
Wrongs of Women.” It was plainly impossible for Mrs. Bishop to continue
to live with such a man, and when, in 1782, she became dangerously ill,
Mary, with her characteristic good nature, went to nurse her, and soon
after assisted her in her flight from her husband.

In the following year (1783) Mary set up a school at Islington with Fanny
Blood, and she was thus in a position to offer a home to her sisters, Mrs.
Bishop and Everina. The school was afterwards moved to Newington Green,
where Mary soon had an establishment with some twenty day scholars. After
a time, emboldened by her success, she took a larger house; but
unfortunately the number of her pupils did not increase in proportion to
her obligations, which were now heavier than she could well meet.

While Mary was living at Newington Green, she was introduced to Dr.
Johnson, who, Godwin says, treated her with particular kindness and
attention, and with whom she had a long conversation. He desired her to
repeat her visit, but she was prevented from seeing him again by his last
illness and death.

In the meantime Fanny Blood had impaired her health by overwork, and signs
of consumption were already evident. A Mr. Hugh Skeys, who was engaged in
business at Lisbon, though somewhat of a weak lover, had long admired
Fanny, and wanted to marry her. It was thought that the climate of
Portugal might help to restore her health, and she consented, perhaps more
on that account than on any other, to become his wife. She left England
in February 1785, but her health continued to grow worse. Mary’s anxiety
for her friend’s welfare was such that, on hearing of her grave condition,
she at once went off to Lisbon, and arrived after a stormy passage, only
in time to comfort Fanny in her dying moments. Mary was almost
broken-hearted at the loss of her friend, and she made her stay in Lisbon
as short as possible, remaining only as long as was necessary for Mrs.
Skeys’s funeral.

She returned to England to find that the school had greatly suffered by
neglect during her absence. In a letter to Mrs. Skeys’s brother, George
Blood, she says: “The loss of Fanny was sufficient to have thrown a cloud
over my brightest days: what effect then must it have, when I am bereft of
every other comfort? I have too many debts, the rent is so enormous, and
where to go, without money or friends, who can point out?”

She thus realised that to continue her school was useless. But her
experience as a schoolmistress was to bear fruit in the future. She had
observed some of the defects of the educational methods of her time, and
her earliest published effort was a pamphlet entitled, “Thoughts on the
Education of Daughters,” (1787). For this essay she received ten guineas,
a sum that she gave to the parents of her friend, Mr. and Mrs. Blood, who
were desirous of going over to Ireland.

She soon went to Ireland herself, for in the October of 1787 she became
governess to the daughters of Lord Kingsborough at Michaelstown, with a
salary of forty pounds a year. Lady Kingsborough in Mary’s opinion was “a
shrewd clever woman, a great talker…. She rouges, and in short is a fine
lady without fancy or sensibility. I am almost tormented to death by
dogs….” Lady Kingsborough was rather selfish and uncultured, and her
chief object was the pursuit of pleasure. She pampered her dogs, much to
the disgust of Mary Wollstonecraft, and neglected her children. What views
she had on education were narrow. She had been accustomed to submission
from her governess, but she learnt before long that Mary was not of a
tractable disposition. The children, at first unruly and defiant,
“literally speaking, wild Irish, unformed and not very pleasing,” soon
gave Mary their confidence, and before long their affection. One of her
pupils, Margaret King, afterwards Lady Mountcashel, always retained the
warmest regard for Mary Wollstonecraft. Lady Mountcashel continued her
acquaintance with William Godwin after Mary’s death, and later came across
Shelley and his wife in Italy. Mary won from the children the affection
that they withheld from their mother, consequently, in the autumn of 1788,
when she had been with Lady Kingsborough for about a year, she received
her dismissal. She had completed by this time the novel to which she gave
the name of “Mary,” which is a tribute to the memory of her friend Fanny
Blood.

And now, in her thirtieth year, Mary Wollstonecraft had concluded her
career as a governess, and was resolved henceforth to devote herself to
literature. Her chances of success were slender indeed, for she had
written nothing to encourage her for such a venture. It was her fortune,
however, to make the acquaintance of Joseph Johnson, the humanitarian
publisher and bookseller of St. Paul’s Churchyard, who issued the works of
Priestley, Horne Tooke, Gilbert Wakefield, and other men of advanced
thought, and she met at his table many of the authors for whom he
published, and such eminent men of the day as William Blake, Fuseli, and
Tom Paine. Mr. Johnson, who afterwards proved one of her best friends,
encouraged her in her literary plans. He was the publisher of her
“Thoughts on the Education of Daughters,” and had recognised in that
little book so much promise, that when she sought his advice, he at once
offered to assist her with employment.

Mary therefore settled at Michaelmas 1788 in a house in George Street,
Blackfriars. She had brought to London the manuscript of her novel “Mary,”
and she set to work on a book for children entitled “Original Stories from
Real Life.” Both of these books appeared before the year was out, the
latter with quaint plates by William Blake. Mary also occupied some of her
time with translations from the French, German, and even Dutch, one of
which was an abridged edition of Saltzmann’s “Elements of Morality,” for
which Blake also supplied the illustrations. Besides this work, Johnson
engaged Mary as his literary adviser or “reader,” and secured her services
in connexion with _The Analytical Review_, a periodical that he had
recently founded.

While she was at George Street she also wrote her “Vindication of the
Rights of Man” in a letter to Edmund Burke. Her chief satisfaction in
keeping up this house was to have a home where her brothers and sisters
could always come when out of employment. She was never weary of assisting
them either with money, or by exerting her influence to find them
situations. One of her first acts when she settled in London was to send
Everina Wollstonecraft to Paris to improve her French accent. Mr. Johnson,
who wrote a short account of Mary’s life in London at this time, says she
often spent her afternoons and evenings at his house, and used to seek his
advice, or unburden her troubles to him. Among the many duties she imposed
on herself was the charge of her father’s affairs, which must indeed have
been a profitless undertaking.

The most important of Mary Wollstonecraft’s labours while she was living
at Blackfriars was the writing of the book that is chiefly associated with
her name, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” This volume–now much
better known by its title than its contents–was dedicated to the astute
M. Talleyrand de Périgord, late Bishop of Autun, apparently on account of
his authorship of a pamphlet on National Education. It is unnecessary to
attempt an analysis of this strikingly original but most unequal
book–modern reprints of the work have appeared under the editorship both
of Mrs. Fawcett and Mrs. Pennell. It is sufficient to say that it is
really a plea for a more enlightened system of education, affecting not
only her own sex, but also humanity in its widest sense. Many of her
suggestions have long since been put to practical use, such as that of a
system of free national education, with equal advantages for boys and
girls. The book contains too much theory and is therefore to a great
extent obsolete. Mary Wollstonecraft protests against the custom that
recognises woman as the plaything of man; she pleads rather for a friendly
footing of equality between the sexes, besides claiming a new order of
things for women, in terms which are unusually frank. Such a book could
not fail to create a sensation, and it speedily made her notorious, not
only in this country, but on the Continent, where it was translated into
French. It was of course the outcome of the French Revolution; the whole
work is permeated with the ideas and ideals of that movement, but whereas
the French patriots demanded rights for men, she made the same demands
also for women.

It is evident that the great historical drama then being enacted in France
had made a deep impression on Mary’s mind–its influence is stamped on
every page of her book, and it was her desire to visit France with Mr.
Johnson and Fuseli. Her friends were, however, unable to accompany her, so
she went alone in the December of 1792, chiefly with the object of
perfecting her French. Godwin states, though apparently in error, that
Fuseli was the cause of her going to France, the acquaintance with the
painter having grown into something warmer than mere friendship. Fuseli,
however, had a wife and was happily married, so Mary “prudently resolved
to retire into another country, far remote from the object who had
unintentionally excited the tender passion in her breast.”

She certainly arrived in Paris at a dramatic moment; she wrote on December
24 to her sister Everina: “The day after to-morrow I expect to see the
King at the bar, and the consequences that will follow I am almost afraid
to anticipate.” On the day in question, the 26th, Louis XVI. appeared in
the Hall of the Convention to plead his cause through his advocate,
Desize, and on the same day she wrote that letter to Mr. Johnson which has
so often been quoted: “About nine o’clock this morning,” she says, “the
King passed by my window, moving silently along (excepting now and then a
few strokes on the drum, which rendered the stillness more awful) through
empty streets, surrounded by the national guards, who, clustering round
the carriage, seemed to deserve their name. The inhabitants flocked to
their windows, but the casements were all shut, not a voice was heard, nor
did I see anything like an insulting gesture. For the first time since I
entered France I bowed to the majesty of the people, and respected the
propriety of behaviour so perfectly in unison with my own feelings. I can
scarcely tell you why, but an association of ideas made the tears flow
insensibly from my eyes, when I saw Louis sitting, with more dignity than
I expected from his character, in a hackney coach, going to meet death,
where so many of his race had triumphed. My fancy instantly brought Louis
XIV. before me, entering the capital with all his pomp, after one of his
victories so flattering to his pride, only to see the sunshine of
prosperity overshadowed by the sublime gloom of misery….”

Mary first went to stay at the house of Madame Filiettaz, the daughter of
Madame Bregantz, in whose school at Putney both Mrs. Bishop and Everina
Wollstonecraft had been teachers. Mary was now something of a
celebrity–“Authorship,” she writes, “is a heavy weight for female
shoulders, especially in the sunshine of prosperity”–and she carried with
her letters of introduction to several influential people in Paris. She
renewed her acquaintance with Tom Paine, became intimate with Helen Maria
Williams (who is said to have once lived with Imlay), and visited, among
others, the house of Mr. Thomas Christie. It was her intention to go to
Switzerland, but there was some trouble about her passport, so she
settled at Neuilly, then a village three miles from Paris. “Her
habitation here,” says Godwin, “was a solitary house in the midst of a
garden, with no other habitant than herself and the gardener, an old man
who performed for her many 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 of him 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 she
incorporated most of the observations she had collected for her letters,
and which was written with more sobriety and cheerfulness than the tone in
which they had been commenced. In the evening she was accustomed to
refresh herself by a walk in a neighbouring wood, from which her host in
vain endeavoured to dissuade her, by recounting divers horrible robberies
and murders that had been committed there.”

It is probable that in March 1793 Mary Wollstonecraft first saw Gilbert
Imlay. The meeting occurred at Mr. Christie’s house, and her immediate
impression was one of dislike, so that on subsequent occasions she avoided
him. However, her regard for him rapidly changed into friendship, and
later into love. Gilbert Imlay was born in New Jersey about 1755. He
served as a captain in the American army during the Revolutionary war, and
was the author of “A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of
North America,” 1792, and a novel entitled “The Emigrants,” 1793. In the
latter work, as an American, he proposes to “place a mirror to the view of
Englishmen, that they may behold the decay of these features that were
once so lovely,” and further “to prevent the sacrilege which the present
practice of matrimonial engagements necessarily produce.” It is not known
whether these views regarding marriage preceded, or were the result of,
his connexion with Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1793 he was engaged in
business, probably in the timber trade with Sweden and Norway.

In deciding to devote herself to Imlay, Mary sought no advice and took no
one into her confidence. She was evidently deeply in love with him, and
felt that their mutual confidence shared by no one else gave a sacredness
to their union. Godwin, who is our chief authority on the Imlay episode,
states that “the origin of the connexion was about the middle of April
1793, and it was carried on in a private manner for about three months.”
Imlay had no property whatever, and Mary had objected to marry him,
because she would not burden him with her own debts, or “involve him in
certain family embarrassments,” for which she believed herself
responsible. She looked upon her connexion with Imlay, however, “as of the
most inviolable nature.” Then the French Government passed a decree that
all British subjects resident in France should go to prison until a
general declaration of peace. It therefore became expedient, not that a
marriage should take place, for that would necessitate Mary declaring her
nationality, but that she should take the name of Imlay, “which,” says
Godwin, “from the nature of their connexion (formed on her part at least,
with no capricious or fickle design), 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.”

In a letter from Mary Wollstonecraft to her sister Everina, dated from
Havre, March 10, 1794, she describes the climate of France as “uncommonly
fine,” and praises the common people for their manners; but she is also
saddened by the scenes that she had witnessed and adds that “death and
misery, in every shape of terror, haunt this devoted country…. If any of
the many letters I have written have come to your hands or Eliza’s, you
know that I am safe, through the protection of an American, a most worthy
man who joins to uncommon tenderness of heart and quickness of feeling, a
soundness of understanding, and reasonableness of temper rarely to be met
with. Having been brought up in the interior parts of America, he is a
most natural, unaffected creature.”

Mary has expressed in the “Rights of Woman” her ideal of the relations
between man and wife; she now looked forward to such a life of domestic
happiness as she had cherished for some time. She had known much
unhappiness in the past. Godwin says: “She brought in the present
instance, a wounded and sick heart, to take refuge in the attachment 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 playful, full of confidence,
kindness, and sympathy. Her eyes assumed new lustre, and her cheeks new
colour and smoothness. Her voice became cheerful; 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 affections of almost
every one that beheld it.” She had now met the man to whom she earnestly
believed she could surrender herself with entire devotion. Naturally of an
affectionate nature, for the first time in her life, with her impulsive
Irish spirit, as Godwin says, “she gave way to all the sensibilities of
her nature.”

The affair was nevertheless doomed to failure from the first. Mary had
taken her step without much forethought. She attributed to Imlay
“uncommon tenderness of heart,” but she did not detect his instability of
character. He certainly fascinated her, as he fascinated other women, both
before and after his attachment to Mary. He was not the man to be
satisfied with one woman as his life-companion. A typical American, he was
deeply immersed in business, but his affairs may not have claimed as much
of his time as he represented. In the September after he set up house with
Mary, that is in ’93, the year of the Terror, he left her in Paris while
he went to Havre, formerly known as Havre de Grace, but then altered to
Havre Marat. It is awful to think what must have been the life of this
lonely stranger in Paris at such a time. Yet her letters to Imlay contain
hardly a reference to the events of the Revolution.

Mary, tired of waiting for Imlay’s return to Paris, and sickened with the
“growing cruelties of Robespierre,” joined him at Havre in January 1794,
and on May 14 she gave birth to a girl, whom she named Frances in memory
of Fanny Blood, the friend of her youth. There is every evidence
throughout her letters to Imlay of how tenderly she loved the little one.
In a letter to Everina, dated from Paris on September 20, she speaks thus
of little Fanny:

“I want you to see my little girl, who is more like a boy. She is ready to
fly away with spirits, and has eloquent health in her cheeks and eyes. She
does not promise to be a beauty, but appears wonderfully intelligent, and
though I am sure she has her father’s quick temper and feelings, her good
humour runs away with all the credit of my good nursing.”

In September Imlay left Havre for London, and now that the Terror had
subsided Mary returned to Paris. This separation really meant the end of
their camaraderie. They were to meet again, but never on the old footing.
The journey proved the most fatiguing that she ever made, the carriage in
which she travelled breaking down four times between Havre and Paris.
Imlay promised to come to Paris in the course of two months, and she
expected him till the end of the year with cheerfulness. With the press of
business and other distractions his feelings for her and the child had
cooled, as the tone of his letters betrayed. For three months longer Imlay
put her off with unsatisfactory explanations, but her suspense came to an
end in April, when she went to London at his request. Her gravest
forebodings proved too true. Imlay was already living with a young actress
belonging to a company of strolling players; and it was evident, though at
first he protested to the contrary, that Mary was only a second
consideration in his life. He provided her, however, with a furnished
house, and she did not at once abandon hope of a reconciliation: but when
she realised that hope was useless, in her despair she resolved to take
her life. Whether she actually attempted suicide, or whether Imlay learnt
of her intention in time to prevent her, is not actually known. Imlay was
at this time engaged in trade with Norway, and requiring a trustworthy
representative to transact some confidential business, it was thought that
the journey would restore Mary’s health and spirits. She therefore
consented to take the voyage, and set out early in April 1795, with a
document drawn up by Imlay appointing her as his representative, and
describing her as “Mary Imlay, my best friend, and wife,” and concluding:
“Thus, confiding in the talent, zeal, and earnestness of my dearly beloved
friend and companion; I submit the management of these affairs entirely
and implicitly to her discretion: Remaining most sincerely and
affectionately hers truly, G. Imlay.”

The letters describing her travels, excluding any personal matters, were
issued in 1796, as “Letters from Sweden and Norway,” one of her most
readable books. The portions eliminated from these letters were printed by
Godwin in his wife’s posthumous works, and are given in the present
volume. She returned to England early in October with a heavy heart. Imlay
had promised to meet her on the homeward journey, possibly at Hamburg, and
to take her to Switzerland, but she hastened to London to find her
suspicions confirmed. He provided her with a lodging, but entirely
neglected her for some woman with whom he was living. On first making the
discovery of his fresh intrigue, and in her agony of mind, she sought
Imlay at the house he had furnished for his new companion. The conference
resulted in her utter despair, and she decided to drown herself. She
first went to Battersea Bridge, but found too many people there; and
therefore walked on to Putney. It was night and raining when she arrived
there, and after wandering up and down the bridge for half-an-hour until
her clothing was thoroughly drenched she threw herself into the river. She
was, however, rescued from the water and, although unconscious, her life
was saved.

Mary met Imlay casually on two or three other occasions; probably her last
sight of him was in the New Road (now Marylebone Road), when “he alighted
from his horse, and walked with her some time; and the re-encounter
passed,” she assured Godwin, “without producing in her any oppressive
emotion.” Mary refused to accept any pecuniary assistance for herself from
Imlay, but he gave a bond for a sum to be settled on her, the interest to
be devoted to the maintenance of their child; neither principal nor
interest, however, was ever paid. What ultimately became of Imlay is not
known.

Mary at length resigned herself to the inevitable. Her old friend and
publisher, Mr. Johnson, came to her aid, and she resolved to resume her
literary work for the support of herself and her child. She was once more
seen in literary society. Among the people whom she met at this time was
William Godwin. Three years her senior, he was one of the most advanced
republicans of the time, the author of “Political Justice” and the novel
“Caleb Williams.” They had met before, for the first time in November
1791, but she displeased Godwin, because her vivacious gossip silenced the
naturally quiet Thomas Paine, whom he was anxious to hear talk. Although
they met occasionally afterwards, it was not until 1796 that they became
friendly. There must have been something about Godwin that made him
extremely attractive to his friends, for he numbered among them some of
the most charming women of the day, and such men as Wordsworth, Lamb,
Hazlitt, and Shelley were proud to be of his circle. To the members of his
family he was of a kind, even affectionate, disposition. Unfortunately, he
appears to the worst advantage–a kind of early Pecksniff–in his later
correspondence and relations with Shelley, and it is by this
correspondence at the present day that he is best known. The fine
side-face portrait of Godwin by Northcote, in the National Portrait
Gallery, preserves for us all the beauty of his intellectual brow and
eyes. Another portrait of Godwin, full-face, with a long sad nose, by
Pickersgill, once to be seen in the National Portrait Gallery, is not so
pleasing. In a letter to Cottle, Southey gives an unflattering portrait of
Godwin at the time of his marriage, which seems to suggest the full-face
portrait of the philosopher–“he has large noble eyes, and a _nose_–oh,
most abominable nose! Language is not vituperatious enough to describe the
effect of its downward elongation.”

Godwin describes his courtship with Mary as “friendship melting into
love.” They agreed to live together, but Godwin took rooms about twenty
doors from their home in the Polygon, Somers Town, as it was one of his
theories that living together under the same roof is destructive of family
happiness. Godwin went to his rooms as soon as he rose in the morning,
generally without taking breakfast with Mary, and he sometimes slept at
his lodgings. They rarely met again until dinner-time, unless to take a
walk together. During the day this extraordinary couple would communicate
with each other by means of short letters or notes. Mr. Kegan Paul prints
some of these; such as Godwin’s:

“I will have the honour to dine with you. You ask me whether I can get you
four orders. I do not know, but I do not think the thing impossible. How
do you do?”

And Mary’s: “Fanny is delighted with the thought of dining with you. But I
wish you to eat your meat first, and let her come up with the pudding. I
shall probably knock at your door on my way to Opie’s; but should I not
find you, let me request you not to be too late this evening. Do not give
Fanny butter with her pudding.” This note is dated April 20, 1797, and
probably fixes the time when Mary was sitting for her portrait to Opie.

On the whole, Godwin and Mary lived happily together, with very occasional
clouds, mainly due to her over-sensitive nature, and his confirmed
bachelor habits.

Although both were opposed to matrimony on principle, they were married at
Old St. Pancras Church on March 29, 1797, the clerk of the church being
witness. Godwin does not mention the event in his carefully registered
diary. The reason for the marriage was that Mary was about to become a
mother, and it was for the sake of the child that they deemed it prudent
to go through the ceremony. But it was not made public at once, chiefly
for fear that Johnson should cease to help Mary. Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs.
Reveley, two of Godwin’s admirers, were so upset at the announcement of
his marriage that they shed tears.

An interesting description of Mary at this time is given in Southey’s
letter to Cottle, quoted above, dated March 13, 1797. He says, “Of all the
lions or _literati_ I have seen here, Mary Imlay’s countenance is the
best, infinitely the best: the only fault in it is an expression somewhat
similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display–an expression
indicating superiority; not haughtiness, not sarcasm, in Mary Imlay, but
still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and although the lid of
one of them is affected by a little paralysis, they are the most meaning I
ever saw.”

Mary busied herself with literary work; otherwise her short married life
was uneventful. Godwin made a journey with his friend Basil Montagu to
Staffordshire from June 3 to 20, and the correspondence between husband
and wife during this time, which Mr. Paul prints, is most delightful
reading, and shows how entirely in sympathy they were.

On August 30, Mary’s child was born, not the William so much desired by
them both but Mary, who afterwards became Mrs. Shelley. All seemed well
with the mother until September 3, when alarming symptoms appeared. The
best medical advice was obtained, but after a week’s illness, on Sunday
morning, the 10th, at twenty minutes to eight, she sank and died. During
her illness, when in great agony, an anodyne was administered, which gave
Mary some relief, when she exclaimed, “Oh, Godwin, I am in heaven.” But,
as Mr. Kegan Paul says, “even at that moment Godwin declined to be
entrapped into the admission that heaven existed,” and his instant reply
was: “You mean, my dear, that your physical sensations are somewhat
easier.” Mary Godwin, however, did not share her husband’s religious
doubts. Her sufferings had been great, but her death was a peaceful one.

Godwin’s grief was very deep, as the letters that he wrote immediately
after her death, and his tribute to her memory in the “Memoirs” testify.
Mary Godwin was buried in Old St. Pancras churchyard on September 15, in
the presence of most of her friends. Godwin lived till 1836, when he was
laid beside her. Many years afterwards, at the same graveside, Shelley is
said to have plighted his troth to Mary Godwin’s daughter. In 1851, when
the Metropolitan and Midland Railways were constructed at St. Pancras,
the graveyard was destroyed, but the bodies of Mary and William Godwin
were removed by their grandson, Sir Percy Shelley, to Bournemouth, where
they now rest with his remains, and those of his mother, Mrs. Shelley.

In the year following Mary’s death (1798) Godwin edited his wife’s
“Posthumous Works,” in four volumes, in which appeared the letters to
Imlay, and her incomplete novel “The Wrongs of Woman.” His tribute to Mary
Godwin’s memory was also published in 1798, under the title of “Memoirs of
the Author of _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_.” Godwin’s novel,
“St. Leon” came out in 1799; his tragedy “Antonio” was produced only to
fail, in 1800, and in 1801, he was wooed and won by Mrs. Clairmont, a
widow. The Godwin household was a somewhat mixed one, consisting, as it
did, of Fanny Imlay, Mary Godwin, Mrs. Godwin’s two children, Charles and
Claire Clairmont, and also of William, the only child born of her marriage
with Godwin. In 1812 Shelley began a correspondence with Godwin, which
ultimately led to Mary Godwin’s elopement with the poet. Poor Fanny Imlay,
or Godwin, as she was called after her mother’s death, died at the age of
nineteen by her own hand, in October 1816. Her life had been far from
happy in this strange household. She had grown to love Shelley, but his
choice had fallen on her half-sister, so she bravely kept her secret to
herself. One day she suddenly left home and travelled to Swansea, where
she was found lying dead the morning after her arrival, in the inn where
she had taken a room, “her long brown hair about her face; a bottle of
laudanum upon the table, and a note which ran thus: ‘I have long
determined that the best thing I could do was to put an end to the
existence of a being whose birth was unfortunate, and whose life has only
been a series of pain to those persons who have hurt their health in
endeavouring to promote her welfare.’ She had with her the little Genevan
watch, a gift of travel from Mary and Shelley: and in her purse were a few
shillings.”[1]

Shelley, afterwards recalling his last interview with Fanny in London,
wrote this stanza:

“Her voice did quiver as we parted;
Yet knew I not that heart was broken
From whence it came, and I departed
Heeding not the words then spoken.
Misery–O Misery,
This world is all too wide for thee!”

III

The vicissitudes to which Mary Wollstonecraft was so largely a prey during
her lifetime seem to have pursued her after death. In her own day
recognised as a public character, reviled by most of her contemporaries in
terms not less ungentle than Horace Walpole’s epithets, “a hyena in
petticoats” or “a philosophising serpent,” posterity has proved hardly
more lenient to her. But the vigorous work of this “female patriot” has
saved her name from that descent into obscurity which is the reward of
many men and women more talented than Mary Wollstonecraft. Reputed chiefly
as an unsexed being, who had written “A Vindication of the Rights of
Women,” she was not the first woman to hold views on the emancipation of
her sex; but her chief crimes were in expressing them for the instruction
of the public, and having the courage to live up to her opinions. Whether
right or wrong, she paid the penalty of violating custom by discussing
forbidden subjects. It is true that she detected many social evils, and
suggested some excellent remedies for their amelioration, but the time was
not ripe for her book, and she suffered the usual fate of the pioneer.
Moreover, her memoir by William Godwin, beautiful as it is in many
respects, exercised a distinctly harmful influence in regard to her
memory. The very fact that she became the wife of so notorious a man, was
sufficient reason to condemn her in the eyes of her countrymen.

For two generations after her death practically no attempt was made to
remove the stigma from her name. But at length the late Mr. Kegan Paul, a
man of wide and generous sympathies, made a serious effort to obtain
something like justice for Mary Wollstonecraft. In his book on William
Godwin, published in 1876, the true story of Mary’s life was told for the
first time. It was somewhat of a revelation, for it recorded the history
of an unhappy but brave and loyal woman, whose faults proceeded from
excessive sensibility and from a heart that was over-susceptible. Mary
Wollstonecraft was an idealist in a very matter-of-fact age, and her
outlook on life, like that of most idealists, was strongly affected by her
imagination. She saw people and events in brilliant lights or sombre
shadows–it was a power akin to enthusiasm which enabled her to produce
some of her best writing, but it also prevented her from seeing the
defects of her worst work. Since Mr. Kegan Paul’s memoir, Mary
Wollstonecraft has been viewed from an entirely different aspect, and many
there are who have come under the spell of her fascinating personality. It
is not, however, her message alone that now interests us, but the woman
herself, her desires, her aspirations, her struggles, and her love.
Pathetic and lonely, she stands out in the faint mists of the past, a
woman that will continue to evoke sympathy when her books are no longer
read. But it is safe to predict that the pages reprinted in this volume
are not destined to share the fate of the rest of her work. Other writers
have been unhappy and have known the pains of unrequited love, but Mary
Wollstonecraft addressed these letters with a breaking heart to the man
whom she adored, the most passionate love letters in our literature. It is
true that she was a votary of Rousseau, and that she had probably
assimilated from the study of his work not only many of his views, but
something of his style; it does not, however, appear that she had any
motive in writing these letters other than to plead her cause with Imlay.
She was far too sensitive to have intended them for publication, and it
was only by a mere chance that they were rescued from oblivion.