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.
_December 1907._