1783-1785.
Mary was now arrived at the twenty-fourth year of her age. Her project,
five years before, had been personal independence; it was now
usefulness. In the solitude of attendance on her sister's illness, and
during the subsequent convalescence, she had had leisure to ruminate
upon purposes of this sort. Her expanded mind led her to seek something
more arduous than the mere removal of personal vexations; and the
sensibility of her heart would not suffer her to rest in solitary
gratifications. The derangement of her father's affairs daily became
more and more glaring; and a small independent provision made for
herself and her sisters, appears to have been sacrificed in the wreck.
For ten years, from 1782 to 1792, she may be said to have been, in a
great degree, the victim of a desire to promote the benefit of others.
She did not foresee the severe disappointment with which an exclusive
purpose of this sort is pregnant; she was inexperienced enough to lay a
stress upon the consequent gratitude of those she benefited; and she did
not sufficiently consider that, in proportion as we involve ourselves in
the interests and society of others, we acquire a more exquisite sense
of their defects, and are tormented with their untractableness and
folly.
The project upon which she now determined, was no other than that of a
day-school, to be superintended by Fanny Blood, herself, and her two
sisters.
They accordingly opened one in the year 1783, at the village of
Islington; but in the course of a few months removed it to Newington
Green. Here Mary formed some acquaintances who influenced the future
events of her life. The first of these in her own estimation, was Dr.
Richard Price, well known for his political and mathematical
calculations, and universally esteemed by those who knew him, for the
simplicity of his manners, and the ardour of his benevolence. The regard
conceived by these two persons for each other, was mutual, and partook
of a spirit of the purest attachment. Mary had been bred in the
principles of the church of England, but her esteem for this venerable
preacher led her occasionally to attend upon his public instructions.
Her religion was, in reality, little allied to any system of forms; and,
as she has often told me, was founded rather in taste, than in the
niceties of polemical discussion. Her mind constitutionally attached
itself to the sublime and the amiable. She found an inexpressible
delight in the beauties of nature, and in the splendid reveries of the
imagination. But nature itself, she thought, would be no better than a
vast blank, if the mind of the observer did not supply it with an
animating soul. When she walked amidst the wonders of nature, she was
accustomed to converse with her God. To her mind he was pictured as not
less amiable, generous and kind, than great, wise and exalted. In fact,
she had received few lessons of religion in her youth, and her religion
was almost entirely of her own creation. But she was not on that account
the less attached to it, or the less scrupulous in discharging what she
considered as its duties. She could not recollect the time when she had
believed the doctrine of future punishments. The tenets of her system
were the growth of her own moral taste, and her religion therefore had
always been a gratification, never a terror, to her. She expected a
future state; but she would not allow her ideas of that future state to
be modified by the notions of judgment and retribution. From this
sketch, it is sufficiently evident, that the pleasure she took in an
occasional attendance upon the sermons of Dr. Price, was not accompanied
with a superstitious adherence to his doctrines. The fact is, that, as
far down as the year 1787, she regularly frequented public worship, for
the most part according to the forms of the church of England. After
that period her attendance became less constant, and in no long time was
wholly discontinued. I believe it may be admitted as a maxim, that no
person of a well furnished mind, that has shaken off the implicit
subsection of youth, and is not the zealous partizan of a sect, can
bring himself to conform to the public and regular routine of sermons
and prayers.
Another of the friends she acquired at this period, was Mrs. Burgh,
widow of the author of the Political Disquisitions, a woman universally
well spoken of for the warmth and purity of her benevolence. Mary,
whenever she had occasion to allude to her, to the last period of her
life, paid the tribute due to her virtues. The only remaining friend
necessary to be enumerated in this place, is the rev. John Hewlet, now
master of a boarding-school at Shacklewel near Hackney, whom I shall
have occasion to mention hereafter.
I have already said that Fanny's health had been materially injured by
her incessant labours for the maintenance of her family. She had also
suffered a disappointment, which preyed upon her mind. To these
different sources of ill health she became gradually a victim; and at
length discovered all the symptoms of a pulmonary consumption. By the
medical men that attended her, she was advised to try the effects of a
southern climate; and, about the beginning of the year 1785, sailed for
Lisbon.
The first feeling with which Mary had contemplated her friend, was a
sentiment of inferiority and reverence; but that, from the operation of
a ten years' acquaintance, was considerably changed. Fanny had
originally been far before her in literary attainments; this disparity
no longer existed. In whatever degree Mary might endeavour to free
herself from the delusions of self-esteem, this period of observation
upon her own mind and that of her friend, could not pass, without her
perceiving that there were some essential characteristics of genius,
which she possessed, and in which her friend was deficient. The
principal of these was a firmness of mind, an unconquerable greatness of
soul, by which, after a short internal struggle, she was accustomed to
rise above difficulties and suffering. Whatever Mary undertook, she
perhaps in all instances accomplished; and, to her lofty spirit,
scarcely anything she desired, appeared hard to perform. Fanny, on the
contrary, was a woman of a timid and irresolute nature, accustomed to
yield to difficulties, and probably priding herself in this morbid
softness of her temper. One instance that I have heard Mary relate of
this sort, was, that, at a certain time, Fanny, dissatisfied with her
domestic situation, expressed an earnest desire to have a home of her
own. Mary, who felt nothing more pressing than to relieve the
inconveniences of her friend, determined to accomplish this object for
her. It cost her infinite exertions; but at length she was able to
announce to Fanny that a house was prepared, and that she was on the
spot to receive her. The answer which Fanny returned to the letter of
her friend, consisted almost wholly of an enumeration of objections to
the quitting her family, which she had not thought of before, but which
now appeared to her of considerable weight.
The judgment which experience had taught Mary to form of the mind of her
friend, determined her in the advice she gave, at the period to which I
have brought down the story. Fanny was recommended to seek a softer
climate, but she had no funds to defray the expence of such an
undertaking. At this time Mr. Hugh Skeys of Dublin, but then resident
in the kingdom of Portugal, paid his addresses to her. The state of her
health Mary considered as such as scarcely to afford the shadow of a
hope; it was not therefore a time at which it was most obvious to think
of marriage. She conceived however that nothing should be omitted, which
might alleviate, if it could not cure; and accordingly urged her speedy
acceptance of the proposal. Fanny accordingly made the voyage to Lisbon;
and the marriage took place on the twenty-fourth of February 1785.
The change of climate and situation was productive of little benefit;
and the life of Fanny was only prolonged by a period of pregnancy, which
soon declared itself. Mary, in the mean time, was impressed with the
idea that her friend would die in this distant country; and, shocked
with the recollection of her separation from the circle of her friends,
determined to pass over to Lisbon to attend her. This resolution was
treated by her acquaintance as in the utmost degree visionary; but she
was not to be diverted from her point. She had not money to defray her
expences: she must quit for a long time the school, the very existence
of which probably depended upon her exertions.
No person was ever better formed for the business of education; if it be
not a sort of absurdity to speak of a person as formed for an inferior
object, who is in possession of talents, in the fullest degree adequate
to something on a more important and comprehensive scale. Mary had a
quickness of temper, not apt to take offence with inadvertencies, but
which led her to imagine that she saw the mind of the person with whom
she had any transaction, and to refer the principle of her approbation
or displeasure to the cordiality or injustice of their sentiments. She
was occasionally severe and imperious in her resentments; and, when she
strongly disapproved, was apt to express her censure in terms that gave
a very humiliating sensation to the person against whom it was directed.
Her displeasure however never assumed its severest form, but when it was
barbed by disappointment. Where she expected little, she was not very
rigid in her censure of error.
But, to whatever the defects of her temper might amount, they were never
exercised upon her inferiors in station or age. She scorned to make use
of an ungenerous advantage, or to wound the defenceless. To her servants
there never was a mistress more considerate or more kind. With children
she was the mirror of patience. Perhaps, in all her extensive experience
upon the subject of education, she never betrayed one symptom of
irascibility. Her heart was the seat of every benevolent feeling; and
accordingly, in all her intercourse with children, it was kindness and
sympathy alone that prompted her conduct. Sympathy, when it mounts to a
certain height, inevitably begets affection in the person towards whom
it is exercised; and I have heard her say, that she never was concerned
in the education of one child, who was not personally attached to her,
and earnestly concerned, not to incur her displeasure. Another eminent
advantage she possessed in the business of education, was that she was
little troubled with scepticism and uncertainty. She saw, as it were by
intuition, the path which her mind determined to pursue, and had a firm
confidence in her own power to effect what she desired. Yet, with all
this, she had scarcely a tincture of obstinacy. She carefully watched
symptoms as they rose, and the success of her experiments; and governed
herself accordingly. While I thus enumerate her more than maternal
qualities, it is impossible not to feel a pang at the recollection of
her orphan children!
Though her friends earnestly dissuaded her from the journey to Lisbon,
she found among them a willingness facilitate the execution of her
project, when it was once fixed. Mrs. Burgh in particular, supplied her
with money, which however she always conceived came from Dr. Price. This
loan, I have reason to believe, was faithfully repaid.
It was during her residence at Newington Green, that she was introduced
to the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson, who was at that time considered as
in some sort the father of English literature. The doctor treated her
with particular kindness and attention, had a long conversation with
her, and desired her to repeat her visit often. This she firmly purposed
to do; but the news of his last illness, and then of his death,
intervened to prevent her making a second visit.
Her residence in Lisbon was not long. She arrived but a short time
before her friend was prematurely delivered, and the event was fatal to
both mother and child. Frances Blood, hitherto the chosen object of
Mary's attachment, died on the twenty-ninth of November 1785.
It is thus that she speaks of her in her Letters from Norway, written
ten years after her decease. "When a warm heart has received strong
impressions, they are not to be effaced. Emotions become sentiments; and
the imagination renders even transient sensations permanent, by fondly
retracing them. I cannot, without a thrill of delight, recollect views I
have seen, which are not to be forgotten, nor looks I have felt in every
nerve, which I shall never more meet. The grave has closed over a dear
friend, the friend of my youth; still she is present with me, and I hear
her soft voice warbling as I stray over the heath."