CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
APPENDIX
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CONCLUSION
MARIA
or
The Wrongs of Woman
PREFACE
The public are here presented with the last literary attempt of an
author, whose fame has been uncommonly extensive, and whose talents
have probably been most admired, by the persons by whom talents are
estimated with the greatest accuracy and discrimination. There are few,
to whom her writings could in any case have given pleasure, that would
have wished that this fragment should have been suppressed, because it
is a fragment. There is a sentiment, very dear to minds of taste and
imagination, that finds a melancholy delight in contemplating these
unfinished productions of genius, these sketches of what, if they had
been filled up in a manner adequate to the writer’s conception, would
perhaps have given a new impulse to the manners of a world.
The purpose and structure of the following work, had long formed a
favourite subject of meditation with its author, and she judged them
capable of producing an important effect. The composition had been in
progress for a period of twelve months. She was anxious to do justice
to her conception, and recommenced and revised the manuscript several
different times. So much of it as is here given to the public, she was
far from considering as finished, and, in a letter to a friend directly
written on this subject, she says, “I am perfectly aware that some of
the incidents ought to be transposed, and heightened by more harmonious
shading; and I wished in some degree to avail myself of criticism,
before I began to adjust my events into a story, the outline of which I
had sketched in my mind.”[1] The only friends to whom the author
communicated her manuscript, were Mr. Dyson, the translator of the
Sorcerer, and the present editor; and it was impossible for the most
inexperienced author to display a stronger desire of profiting by the
censures and sentiments that might be suggested.[2]
[1] A more copious extract of this letter is subjoined to the author’s
preface.
[2] The part communicated consisted of the first fourteen chapters.
In revising these sheets for the press, it was necessary for the
editor, in some places, to connect the more finished parts with the
pages of an older copy, and a line or two in addition sometimes
appeared requisite for that purpose. Wherever such a liberty has been
taken, the additional phrases will be found inclosed in brackets; it
being the editor’s most earnest desire to intrude nothing of himself
into the work, but to give to the public the words, as well as ideas,
of the real author.
What follows in the ensuing pages, is not a preface regularly drawn out
by the author, but merely hints for a preface, which, though never
filled up in the manner the writer intended, appeared to be worth
preserving.
W. GODWIN.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
The wrongs of woman, like the wrongs of the oppressed part of mankind,
may be deemed necessary by their oppressors: but surely there are a
few, who will dare to advance before the improvement of the age, and
grant that my sketches are not the abortion of a distempered fancy, or
the strong delineations of a wounded heart.
In writing this novel, I have rather endeavoured to pourtray passions
than manners.
In many instances I could have made the incidents more dramatic, would
I have sacrificed my main object, the desire of exhibiting the misery
and oppression, peculiar to women, that arise out of the partial laws
and customs of society.
In the invention of the story, this view restrained my fancy; and the
history ought rather to be considered, as of woman, than of an
individual.
The sentiments I have embodied.
In many works of this species, the hero is allowed to be mortal, and to
become wise and virtuous as well as happy, by a train of events and
circumstances. The heroines, on the contrary, are to be born
immaculate, and to act like goddesses of wisdom, just come forth highly
finished Minervas from the head of Jove.
[The following is an extract of a letter from the author to a friend,
to whom she communicated her manuscript.]
For my part, I cannot suppose any situation more distressing, than for
a woman of sensibility, with an improving mind, to be bound to such a
man as I have described for life; obliged to renounce all the
humanizing affections, and to avoid cultivating her taste, lest her
perception of grace and refinement of sentiment, should sharpen to
agony the pangs of disappointment. Love, in which the imagination
mingles its bewitching colouring, must be fostered by delicacy. I
should despise, or rather call her an ordinary woman, who could endure
such a husband as I have sketched.
These appear to me (matrimonial despotism of heart and conduct) to be
the peculiar Wrongs of Woman, because they degrade the mind. What are
termed great misfortunes, may more forcibly impress the mind of common
readers; they have more of what may justly be termed stage-effect; but
it is the delineation of finer sensations, which, in my opinion,
constitutes the merit of our best novels. This is what I have in view;
and to show the wrongs of different classes of women, equally
oppressive, though, from the difference of education, necessarily
various.
CHAPTER 1
Abodes of horror have frequently been described, and castles, filled
with spectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic spell of genius to
harrow the soul, and absorb the wondering mind. But, formed of such
stuff as dreams are made of, what were they to the mansion of despair,
in one corner of which Maria sat, endeavouring to recall her scattered
thoughts!
Surprise, astonishment, that bordered on distraction, seemed to have
suspended her faculties, till, waking by degrees to a keen sense of
anguish, a whirlwind of rage and indignation roused her torpid pulse.
One recollection with frightful velocity following another, threatened
to fire her brain, and make her a fit companion for the terrific
inhabitants, whose groans and shrieks were no unsubstantial sounds of
whistling winds, or startled birds, modulated by a romantic fancy,
which amuse while they affright; but such tones of misery as carry a
dreadful certainty directly to the heart. What effect must they then
have produced on one, true to the touch of sympathy, and tortured by
maternal apprehension!
Her infant’s image was continually floating on Maria’s sight, and the
first smile of intelligence remembered, as none but a mother, an
unhappy mother, can conceive. She heard her half speaking half cooing,
and felt the little twinkling fingers on her burning bosom—a bosom
bursting with the nutriment for which this cherished child might now be
pining in vain. From a stranger she could indeed receive the maternal
aliment, Maria was grieved at the thought—but who would watch her with
a mother’s tenderness, a mother’s self-denial?
The retreating shadows of former sorrows rushed back in a gloomy train,
and seemed to be pictured on the walls of her prison, magnified by the
state of mind in which they were viewed—Still she mourned for her
child, lamented she was a daughter, and anticipated the aggravated ills
of life that her sex rendered almost inevitable, even while dreading
she was no more. To think that she was blotted out of existence was
agony, when the imagination had been long employed to expand her
faculties; yet to suppose her turned adrift on an unknown sea, was
scarcely less afflicting.
After being two days the prey of impetuous, varying emotions, Maria
began to reflect more calmly on her present situation, for she had
actually been rendered incapable of sober reflection, by the discovery
of the act of atrocity of which she was the victim. She could not have
imagined, that, in all the fermentation of civilized depravity, a
similar plot could have entered a human mind. She had been stunned by
an unexpected blow; yet life, however joyless, was not to be indolently
resigned, or misery endured without exertion, and proudly termed
patience. She had hitherto meditated only to point the dart of anguish,
and suppressed the heart heavings of indignant nature merely by the
force of contempt. Now she endeavoured to brace her mind to fortitude,
and to ask herself what was to be her employment in her dreary cell?
Was it not to effect her escape, to fly to the succour of her child,
and to baffle the selfish schemes of her tyrant—her husband?
These thoughts roused her sleeping spirit, and the self-possession
returned, that seemed to have abandoned her in the infernal solitude
into which she had been precipitated. The first emotions of
overwhelming impatience began to subside, and resentment gave place to
tenderness, and more tranquil meditation; though anger once more stopt
the calm current of reflection when she attempted to move her manacled
arms. But this was an outrage that could only excite momentary feelings
of scorn, which evaporated in a faint smile; for Maria was far from
thinking a personal insult the most difficult to endure with
magnanimous indifference.
She approached the small grated window of her chamber, and for a
considerable time only regarded the blue expanse; though it commanded a
view of a desolate garden, and of part of a huge pile of buildings,
that, after having been suffered, for half a century, to fall to decay,
had undergone some clumsy repairs, merely to render it habitable. The
ivy had been torn off the turrets, and the stones not wanted to patch
up the breaches of time, and exclude the warring elements, left in
heaps in the disordered court. Maria contemplated this scene she knew
not how long; or rather gazed on the walls, and pondered on her
situation. To the master of this most horrid of prisons, she had, soon
after her entrance, raved of injustice, in accents that would have
justified his treatment, had not a malignant smile, when she appealed
to his judgment, with a dreadful conviction stifled her remonstrating
complaints. By force, or openly, what could be done? But surely some
expedient might occur to an active mind, without any other employment,
and possessed of sufficient resolution to put the risk of life into the
balance with the chance of freedom.
A woman entered in the midst of these reflections, with a firm,
deliberate step, strongly marked features, and large black eyes, which
she fixed steadily on Maria’s, as if she designed to intimidate her,
saying at the same time “You had better sit down and eat your dinner,
than look at the clouds.”
“I have no appetite,” replied Maria, who had previously determined to
speak mildly; “why then should I eat?”
“But, in spite of that, you must and shall eat something. I have had
many ladies under my care, who have resolved to starve themselves; but,
soon or late, they gave up their intent, as they recovered their
senses.”
“Do you really think me mad?” asked Maria, meeting the searching glance
of her eye.
“Not just now. But what does that prove?—Only that you must be the more
carefully watched, for appearing at times so reasonable. You have not
touched a morsel since you entered the house.”—Maria sighed
intelligibly.—“Could any thing but madness produce such a disgust for
food?”
“Yes, grief; you would not ask the question if you knew what it was.”
The attendant shook her head; and a ghastly smile of desperate
fortitude served as a forcible reply, and made Maria pause, before she
added—“Yet I will take some refreshment: I mean not to die.—No; I will
preserve my senses; and convince even you, sooner than you are aware
of, that my intellects have never been disturbed, though the exertion
of them may have been suspended by some infernal drug.”
Doubt gathered still thicker on the brow of her guard, as she attempted
to convict her of mistake.
“Have patience!” exclaimed Maria, with a solemnity that inspired awe.
“My God! how have I been schooled into the practice!” A suffocation of
voice betrayed the agonizing emotions she was labouring to keep down;
and conquering a qualm of disgust, she calmly endeavoured to eat enough
to prove her docility, perpetually turning to the suspicious female,
whose observation she courted, while she was making the bed and
adjusting the room.
“Come to me often,” said Maria, with a tone of persuasion, in
consequence of a vague plan that she had hastily adopted, when, after
surveying this woman’s form and features, she felt convinced that she
had an understanding above the common standard, “and believe me mad,
till you are obliged to acknowledge the contrary.” The woman was no
fool, that is, she was superior to her class; nor had misery quite
petrified the life’s-blood of humanity, to which reflections on our own
misfortunes only give a more orderly course. The manner, rather than
the expostulations, of Maria made a slight suspicion dart into her mind
with corresponding sympathy, which various other avocations, and the
habit of banishing compunction, prevented her, for the present, from
examining more minutely.
But when she was told that no person, excepting the physician appointed
by her family, was to be permitted to see the lady at the end of the
gallery, she opened her keen eyes still wider, and uttered a—“hem!”
before she enquired—“Why?” She was briefly told, in reply, that the
malady was hereditary, and the fits not occurring but at very long and
irregular intervals, she must be carefully watched; for the length of
these lucid periods only rendered her more mischievous, when any
vexation or caprice brought on the paroxysm of phrensy.
Had her master trusted her, it is probable that neither pity nor
curiosity would have made her swerve from the straight line of her
interest; for she had suffered too much in her intercourse with
mankind, not to determine to look for support, rather to humouring
their passions, than courting their approbation by the integrity of her
conduct. A deadly blight had met her at the very threshold of
existence; and the wretchedness of her mother seemed a heavy weight
fastened on her innocent neck, to drag her down to perdition. She could
not heroically determine to succour an unfortunate; but, offended at
the bare supposition that she could be deceived with the same ease as a
common servant, she no longer curbed her curiosity; and, though she
never seriously fathomed her own intentions, she would sit, every
moment she could steal from observation, listening to the tale, which
Maria was eager to relate with all the persuasive eloquence of grief.
It is so cheering to see a human face, even if little of the divinity
of virtue beam in it, that Maria anxiously expected the return of the
attendant, as of a gleam of light to break the gloom of idleness.
Indulged sorrow, she perceived, must blunt or sharpen the faculties to
the two opposite extremes; producing stupidity, the moping melancholy
of indolence; or the restless activity of a disturbed imagination. She
sunk into one state, after being fatigued by the other: till the want
of occupation became even more painful than the actual pressure or
apprehension of sorrow; and the confinement that froze her into a nook
of existence, with an unvaried prospect before her, the most
insupportable of evils. The lamp of life seemed to be spending itself
to chase the vapours of a dungeon which no art could dissipate.—And to
what purpose did she rally all her energy?—Was not the world a vast
prison, and women born slaves?
Though she failed immediately to rouse a lively sense of injustice in
the mind of her guard, because it had been sophisticated into
misanthropy, she touched her heart. Jemima (she had only a claim to a
Christian name, which had not procured her any Christian privileges)
could patiently hear of Maria’s confinement on false pretences; she had
felt the crushing hand of power, hardened by the exercise of injustice,
and ceased to wonder at the perversions of the understanding, which
systematize oppression; but, when told that her child, only four months
old, had been torn from her, even while she was discharging the
tenderest maternal office, the woman awoke in a bosom long estranged
from feminine emotions, and Jemima determined to alleviate all in her
power, without hazarding the loss of her place, the sufferings of a
wretched mother, apparently injured, and certainly unhappy. A sense of
right seems to result from the simplest act of reason, and to preside
over the faculties of the mind, like the master-sense of feeling, to
rectify the rest; but (for the comparison may be carried still farther)
how often is the exquisite sensibility of both weakened or destroyed by
the vulgar occupations, and ignoble pleasures of life?
The preserving her situation was, indeed, an important object to
Jemima, who had been hunted from hole to hole, as if she had been a
beast of prey, or infected with a moral plague. The wages she received,
the greater part of which she hoarded, as her only chance for
independence, were much more considerable than she could reckon on
obtaining any where else, were it possible that she, an outcast from
society, could be permitted to earn a subsistence in a reputable
family. Hearing Maria perpetually complain of listlessness, and the not
being able to beguile grief by resuming her customary pursuits, she was
easily prevailed on, by compassion, and that involuntary respect for
abilities, which those who possess them can never eradicate, to bring
her some books and implements for writing. Maria’s conversation had
amused and interested her, and the natural consequence was a desire,
scarcely observed by herself, of obtaining the esteem of a person she
admired. The remembrance of better days was rendered more lively; and
the sentiments then acquired appearing less romantic than they had for
a long period, a spark of hope roused her mind to new activity.
How grateful was her attention to Maria! Oppressed by a dead weight of
existence, or preyed on by the gnawing worm of discontent, with what
eagerness did she endeavour to shorten the long days, which left no
traces behind! She seemed to be sailing on the vast ocean of life,
without seeing any land-mark to indicate the progress of time; to find
employment was then to find variety, the animating principle of nature.