GIRLHOOD OF MARY--PATERNAL TROUBLES.
And now with the beginning of this fragile little life begin the
anxieties and sorrow of poor Godwin. The blank lines drawn in his
diary for Sunday 10th September 1797, show more than words how
unutterable was his grief. During the time of his wife's patient agony
he had managed to ask if she had any wishes concerning Fanny and Mary.
She was fortunately able to reply that her faith in his wisdom was
entire.
On the very day of his wife's death Godwin himself wrote some letters
he considered necessary, nor did he neglect to write in his own
characteristic plain way to one who he considered had slighted his
wife. His friends Mr. Basil Montague and Mr. Marshall arranged the
funeral, and Mrs. Reveley, who had with her the children before the
mother's death, continued her care till they returned to the father on
the 17th. Mrs. Fenwick, who had been in constant attendance on Mary,
then took care of them for a time. Indeed, Mary's fame and character
brought forward many willing to care for the motherless infant, whose
life was only saved from a dangerous illness by this loving zeal.
Among others Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson appeared with offers of help, and
as early as September 18 we find that Godwin had requested Mr.
Nicholson to give an opinion as to the infant's physiognomy, with a
view to her education, which he (with Trelawny later) considered could
not begin too soon, or as the latter said: "Talk of education
beginning at two years! Two months is too late."
Thus we see Godwin conscientiously trying to bring in an imperfect
science to assist him in the difficult task of developing his infant's
mind, in place of the watchful love of an intelligent mother, who
would check the first symptoms of ill-temper, be firm against
ill-placed determination, encourage childish imagination, and not let
the idea of untruth be presented to the child till old enough to
discriminate for itself. A hard task enough for any father, still
harder for Godwin, beset by all kinds of difficulties, and having to
work in the midst of them for his and the two children's daily
sustenance. Friends, and good friends, he certainly had; but most
people will recognise that strength in these matters does not rest in
numbers. The wet nurse needed by little Mary, though doubtless the
essential necessity of the time, would not add to the domestic
comfort, especially to that of Miss Louisa Jones, a friend of Harriet
Godwin, who had been installed to superintend Godwin's household. This
latter arrangement, again, did not tend to Godwin's comfort, as from
Miss Jones's letters it is evident that she wished to marry him. Her
wish not being reciprocated, she did not long remain an inmate of his
house, and the nurse, who was fortunately devoted to the baby, was
then over-looked from time to time by Mrs. Reveley and other ladies.
Of anecdotes of Mary's infancy and childhood there are but few, but
from the surroundings we can picture the child. Her father about this
time seems to have neglected all his literary work except the one of
love--writing his wife's "Memoirs" and reading her published and
unpublished work. In this undertaking he was greatly assisted by Mr.
Skeys. Her sisters, on the contrary, gave as little assistance as
possible, and ended all communication with Godwin at this difficult
period of his life, and for a long while utterly neglected their poor
sister's little children, when they might have repaid to some extent
the debt of gratitude they owed to her.
All these complicated and jarring circumstances must have suggested to
Godwin that another marriage might he the best expedient, and he
accordingly set to work in a systematic way this time to acquire his
end. Passion was not the motive, and probably there was too much
system, for he was unsuccessful on two occasions. The first was with
Miss Harriet Lee, the authoress of several novels and of _The
Canterbury Tales_. Godwin seems to have been much struck by her,
and, after four interviews at Bath, wrote on his return to London a
very characteristic and pressing letter of invitation to her to stay
in his house if she came to London, explaining that there was a lady
(Miss Jones) who superintended his home. As this letter met with no
answer, he tried three additional letters, drafts of all being extant.
The third one was probably too much considered, for Miss Lee returned
it annotated on the margin, expressing her disapproval of its
egotistical character. Godwin, however, was not to be daunted, and
made a fourth attempt, full of many sensible and many quaint reasons,
not all of which would be pleasing to a lady; but he succeeded in
regaining Miss Lee's friendship, though he could not persuade her to
be his wife. This was from April to August 1798.
About the same time there was a project of Godwin and Thomas Wedgewood
keeping house together; but as they seem to have much differed when
together, the plan was wisely dropped. Godwin's notes in his plan of
work for the year 1798 are interesting, as showing how he was anxious
to modify some of his opinions expressed in _Political Justice_,
especially those bearing on the affections, which he now admits must
naturally play an important part in human action, though he avers his
opinion that none of his previous conclusions are affected by these
admissions. Much other work was planned out during this time, and many
fresh intellectual acquaintances made, Wordsworth and Southey among
others. His mother's letters to Godwin show what a constant drain his
family were upon his slender means, and how nobly he always strove to
help them when in need. These letters are full of much common sense,
and though quaintly illiterate are, perhaps, not so much amiss for the
period at which they were written, when many ladies who had greater
social and monetary advantages were, nevertheless, frequently astray
in these matters.
Godwin's novel of _St. Leon_, published in 1799, was another
attempt to give the domestic affections their due place in his scheme
of life; and the description of Marguerite, drawn from Mary
Wollstonecraft, and that of her wedded life with St. Leon, are
beautiful passages illustrative of Godwin's own happy time of
marriage.
In July 1799, the death of Mr. Reveley suggested a fresh attempt at
marriage to Godwin; but now he was probably too prompt, for, knowing
that Mr. Reveley and his wife had not always been on the best of
terms, although his sudden death had driven her nigh frantic, Godwin,
relying on certain previous expressions of affection for himself by
Mrs. Reveley, proposed within a month after her husband's death, and
begged her to set aside prejudices and cowardly ceremonies and be his.
As in the previous case, a second and a third lengthy letter, full of
subtle reasoning, were ineffectual, and did not even bring about an
interview till December 3rd, when Godwin and Mrs. Reveley met, in
company with Mr. Gisborne. To this gentleman Mrs. Reveley was
afterwards married. We shall meet them both again later on.
All this time there is little though affectionate mention of Mary
Godwin in her father's diary. Little Fanny, who had always been a
favourite, used to accompany Godwin on some of his visits to friends.
Many of Godwin's letters at this time show that he was not too
embarrassed to be able to assist his friends in time of need; twenty
pounds sent to his friend Arnot, ten pounds shortly afterwards through
Mrs. Agnes Hall to a lady in great distress, whose name is unknown,
prove that he was ready to carry out his theories in practice. It is
interesting to observe these frequent instances of generosity, as they
account to some extent for his subsequent difficulties. In the midst
of straits and disappointments Godwin managed to have his children
well taken care of, and there was evidently a touching sympathy and
confidence between himself and them, as shown in Godwin's letters to
his friend Marshall during a rare absence from the children occasioned
by a visit to friends in Ireland. His thought and sincere solicitude
and messages, and evident anxiety to be with them again, are all
equally touching; Fanny having the same number of kisses sent her as
Mary, with that perfect justice which is so beneficial to the
character of children. We can now picture the scarcely three year old
Mary and little Fanny taken to await the return of the coach with
their father, and sitting under the Kentish Town trees in glad
expectancy.
But this time of happy infancy was not to last long; for doubtless
Godwin felt it irksome to have to consider whether the house-linen was
in order, and such like details, and was thus prepared, in 1801, to
accept the demonstrative advances of Mrs. Clairmont, a widow who took
up her residence next door to him in the Polygon, Somers Town. She had
two children, a boy and a girl, the latter somewhat younger than Mary.
The widow needed no introduction or admittance to his house, as from
the balcony she was able to commence a campaign of flattery to which
Godwin soon succumbed. The marriage took place in December 1801, at
Shoreditch Church, and was not made known to Godwin's friends till
after it had been solemnised. Mrs. Clairmont evidently did her best to
help Godwin through the pecuniary difficulties of his career. She was
not an ignorant woman, and her work at translations proves her not to
have been without cleverness of a certain kind; but this probably made
more obvious the natural vulgarity of her disposition. For example,
when talking of bringing children up to do the work they were fitted
to, she discovered that her own daughter Jane was fitted for
accomplishments, while little Mary and Fanny were turned into
household drudges. These distinctions would naturally engender an
antipathy to her, which later on would help in estranging Mary from
her father's house; but occasionally we have glimpses of the little
ones making themselves happy, in childlike fashion, in the midst of
difficulties and disappointments on Godwin's part. On one occasion
Mary and Jane had concealed themselves under a sofa in order to hear
Coleridge recite _The Ancient Mariner_. Mrs. Godwin, unmindful of
the delight they would have in listening to poetry, found the little
ones and was banishing them to bed; when Coleridge with
kind-heartedness, or the love ever prevalent in poets of an audience,
however humble, interceded for the small things who could sit under a
sofa, and so they remained up and heard the poet read his poem. The
treat was never afterwards forgotten, and one cannot over-estimate
such pleasures in forming the character of a child. Nor were such the
only intellectual delights the children shared in, for Charles Lamb
was among Godwin's numerous friends at this period, and a frequent
visitor at his house; and we can still hear in imagination the merry
laughter of children, old and young, whom he gathered about him, and
who brightened at his ever ready fun. One long-remembered joke was how
one evening, at supper at Godwin's, Lamb entered the room first,
seized a leg of mutton, blew out the candle, and placed the mutton in
Martin Burney's hand, and, on the candle being relit, exclaimed, "Oh,
Martin! Martin! I should never have thought it of you."
This and such like whimsies (as when Lamb would carry off a small
cruet from the table, making Mrs. Godwin go through a long search, and
would then quietly walk in the next day and replace it as if it were
the most natural thing for a cruet to find its way into a pocket),
would break the monotony of the children's days. It was infinitely
more enlivening than the routine in some larger houses, where poor
little children are frequently shut up in a back room on a third floor
and left for long hours to the tender mercies of some nurse, whose
small slaves or tyrants they become, according to their nature. And
when we remember that the Polygon at that time was touching fields and
lanes, we know that little Mary must have had one of the delights most
prized by children, picking buttercups and daisies, unmolested by a
gardener. But during this happy age, when the child would probably
have infinitely more pleasure in washing a cup and saucer than in
playing the scales, however superior the latter performance may be,
Godwin had various schemes and hopes frustrated. At times his health
was very precarious, with frequent fainting fits, causing grave
anxiety for the future. In 1803 his son William was born, making the
fifth member of his miscellaneous family. At times Mrs. Godwin's
temper seems to have been very much tried or trying, and on one
occasion she expressed the wish for a separation; but the idea appears
to have been dropped on Godwin's writing one of his very calm and
reasonable letters, saying that he had no obstacle to oppose to it,
and that, if it was to take place, he hoped it would not be long in
hand; he certainly went on to say that the separation would be a
source of great misery to himself. Either this reason mollified Mrs.
Godwin, or else the apparent ease with which she might have carried
out her project, made her hesitate, as we hear no more of it. Godwin,
however, had occasion to write her philosophically expostulatory
letters on her temper, which we must hope, for the children's sake,
produced a satisfactory effect; for surely nothing can be more
injurious to the happiness of children than to witness the
ungovernable temper of their elders; but with Godwin's calm
disposition, quarrels must have been one-sided, and consequently less
damaging.
Godwin superintended the education of his children himself, and wrote
many books for this purpose, which formed part of his juvenile library
later on. "Baldwin's" fables and his histories for children were
published by Godwin under this cognomen, owing to his political views
having prejudiced many people against his name. His chief aim appears
to have been to keep a certain moral elevation before the minds of
children, as in the excellent preface to the _History of Rome_,
where he dwells on the fact of the stories of Mucius, Curtius, and
Regulus being disputed; but considers that stories--if they be no
more--handed down from the great periods of Roman history are
invaluable to stimulate the character of children to noble sentiments
and actions. But in Godwin's case, as in many others, it must have
been a difficult task counteracting the effect of example; for we
cannot imagine the influence of a woman to have been ennobling who
could act as Mrs. Godwin did at an early period of her married life;
who, when one of her husband's friends, whom she did not care about,
called to see Godwin, explained that it was impossible, as the kettle
had just fallen off the hob and scalded both his legs. When the same
friend met Godwin the next day in the street, and was surprised at his
speedy recovery, the philosopher replied that it was only an invention
of his wife. The safe-guard in such cases is often in the quick
apprehension of children themselves, who are frequently saved from the
errors of their elders by their perception of the consequences.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Godwin's influence must have been lessened in
other matters where her feeling for propriety, if with her only from a
conventional and time-serving point of view, might have averted the
fatal consequences which ensued later. Could she have gained the love
and respect of the children instead of making them, as afterwards
expressed by Mary, hate her, her moral precepts would have worked to
more effect. It may have appeared to the girls, who could not
appreciate the self-devotion of Godwin in acting against theories for
the sake of individual justice, that the cause of all their
unhappiness (and doubtless at times they felt it acutely) was owing to
their father not having adhered to his previous anti-matrimonial
opinions, and they were thus prepared to disregard what seemed to them
social prejudices.
In the meantime Godwin struggled on to provide for his numerous
family, not necessarily losing his enthusiasm through his need of
money as might be supposed, for, fortunately, there are great
compensations in nature, and not unfrequently what appears to be done
for money is done really for love of those whom money will relieve;
and so through this necessity the very love and anguish of the soul
are transfused into the work. On the other hand, we see not
infrequently, after the first enthusiasm of youth wears off, how the
poetic side of a man's nature deteriorates, and the world and his work
lose through the very ease and comfort he has attained to, so that the
real degradation of the man or lowering of his nature comes more from
wealth than poverty: thus what are spoken of as degrading
circumstances, are, truly, the very reverse--a fact felt strongly by
Shelley and such like natures who feel their ease is to be shared. We
find Godwin working at his task of Chaucer, with love, daily at the
British Museum, and corresponding with the Keeper of Records in the
Exchequer Office and Chapter of Westminster, and Herald College, and
the Librarian of the Bodleian Library; also writing many still extant
letters pertaining to the subject. The sum of three hundred pounds
paid to Godwin for this work was considered very small by him, though
it scarcely seems so now.
Godwin found means and time occasionally to pay a visit to the
country, as in September 1803, when he visited his mother and
introduced his wife to her, as also to his old friends in Norwich; and
during the sojourn of Mrs. Godwin and some of the children at
Southend, a deservedly favourite resort of Mrs. Godwin, and later of
Mrs. Shelley (for the sweet country and lovely Essex lanes, of even so
late as thirty or forty years ago, made it a resort loved by artists)
Godwin superintended the letter-writing of his children. We ascertain,
also, from their letters to him during absence, that they studied
history and attended lectures with him; so that in all probability his
daughter Mary's mind was really more cultivated and open to receive
impressions in after life than if she had passed through a "finishing"
education at some fashionable school. It is no mere phrase that to
know some people is a liberal education; and if she was only saved
from perpetrating some of the school-girl trash in the way of drawing,
it was a gain to her intellect, for what can be more lowering to
intelligence of perception than the utterly inartistic frivolities
which are supposed to inculcate art in a country out of which the
sense of it had been all but eradicated in Puritan England, though
some great artists had happily reappeared! Mary at least learnt to
love literature and poetry, and had, by her love of reading, a
universe of wealth opened to her--surely no mean beginning. In art,
had she shown any disposition to it, her father could undoubtedly have
obtained some of the best advice of his day, as we see that Mulready
and Linnell were intimate enough to spend a day at Hampstead with the
children and Mrs. Godwin during Godwin's absence in Norfolk in 1808;
in fact, Charles Clairmont, as seen in his account written to his
step-father, was at this time having lessons from Linnell. Perhaps
Mrs. Godwin had not discovered the same gift in Mary.
At this same date we have the last of old Mrs. Godwin's letters to her
son. She speaks of the fearful price of food owing to the war, says
that she is weary, and only wishes to be with Christ. Godwin spent a
few days with her then, and the next year we find him at her funeral,
as she died on August 13, 1809. His letter to his wife on that
occasion is very touching, from its depth of feeling. He mourns the
loss of a superior who exercised a mysterious protection over him, so
that now, at her death, he for the first time feels alone.
Another severance from old associations had occurred this year in the
death of Thomas Holcroft who, in spite of occasional differences, had
always known and loved Godwin well, and whose last words when dying
and pressing his hands were, "My dear, dear friend." Godwin, however,
did not at all approve of Hazlitt, in bringing out Holcroft's life,
using all his private memoranda and letters about his friends, and
wrote expostulatory letters to Mrs. Holcroft on the subject. He
considered it pandering to the worst passion of the malignity of
mankind.
There do not appear to be many records of the Godwin family kept
during the next two or three years. Mary was intimate with the
Baxters. It was Mr. Baxter whom Mrs. Godwin tried to put off by the
story of Godwin's scalded legs. We also find Mary at Ramsgate with
Mrs. Godwin and her brother William, in May 1811, when she was nearly
fourteen years old. As Mary and Mrs. Godwin were evidently unsuited to
live together, these visits, though desirable for her health, were
probably not altogether pleasant times to either, to judge by remarks
in Godwin's letters to his wife. He hopes that, in spite of
unfavourable appearances, Mary will still become a wise, and, what is
more, a good and happy woman; this, evidently, in answer to some
complaint of his wife. During these years many fresh acquaintances
were made by Godwin; but as they had little or no apparent influence
on Mary's after career, we may pass them over and notice at once the
first communications which took place between Godwin and another
personage, by far the greatest in this life drama, even great in the
world's drama, for now for the first time in this story we come across
the name of Shelley, with the words in Godwin's diary, "Write to
Shelley." Having arrived at a name so full of import to all concerned
in this Life, we must yet again retrace the past.