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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
BY
ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1890.
_Copyright, 1884_,
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
UNIVERSITY PRESS:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
PREFACE.
Comparatively little has been written about the life of MARY
WOLLSTONECRAFT. The two authorities upon the subject are Godwin and Mr.
C. Kegan Paul. In writing the following Biography I have relied chiefly
upon the Memoir written by the former, and the Life of Godwin and
Prefatory Memoir to the Letters to Imlay of the latter. I have endeavored
to supplement the facts recorded in these books by a careful analysis of
Mary Wollstonecraft's writings and study of the period in which she
lived.
I must here express my thanks to Mr. Garnett, of the British Museum, and
to Mr. C. Kegan Paul, for the kind assistance they have given me in my
work. To the first named of these gentlemen I am indebted for the loan of
a manuscript containing some particulars of Mary Wollstonecraft's last
illness which have never yet appeared in print, and to Mr. Paul for the
gift, as well as the loan, of several important books.
E. R. P.
LONDON, August, 1884.
CONTENTS.
Page
INTRODUCTION 1
Chapter
I. CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. 1759-1778 12
II. FIRST YEARS OF WORK. 1778-1785 30
III. LIFE AS GOVERNESS. 1786-1788 60
IV. LITERARY LIFE. 1788-1791 85
V. LITERARY WORK. 1788-1791 117
VI. "VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN" 136
VII. VISIT TO PARIS. 1792-1793 171
VIII. LIFE WITH IMLAY. 1793-1794 198
IX. IMLAY'S DESERTION. 1794-1795 218
X. LITERARY WORK. 1793-1796 248
XI. RETROSPECTIVE. 1794-1796 280
XII. WILLIAM GODWIN 290
XIII. LIFE WITH GODWIN: MARRIAGE. 1796-1797 314
XIV. LAST MONTHS: DEATH. 1797 340
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
INTRODUCTION.
Few women have worked so faithfully for the cause of humanity as Mary
Wollstonecraft, and few have been the objects of such bitter censure. She
devoted herself to the relief of her suffering fellow-beings with the
ardor of a Saint Vincent de Paul, and in return she was considered by
them a moral scourge of God. Because she had the courage to express
opinions new to her generation, and the independence to live according to
her own standard of right and wrong, she was denounced as another
Messalina. The young were bidden not to read her books, and the more
mature warned not to follow her example, the miseries she endured being
declared the just retribution of her actions. Indeed, the infamy attached
to her name is almost incredible in the present age, when new theories
are more patiently criticised, and when purity of motive has been
accepted as the vindication of at least one well-known breach of social
laws. The malignant attacks made upon her character since her death have
been too great to be ignored. They had best be stated here, that the life
which follows may serve as their refutation.
As a rule, the notices which were published after she was dead were
harsher and more uncompromising than those written during her lifetime.
There were happily one or two exceptions. The writer of her obituary
notice in the "Monthly Magazine" for September, 1797, speaks of her in
terms of unlimited admiration.
"This extraordinary woman," he writes, "no less distinguished by
admirable talents and a masculine tone of understanding, than by active
humanity, exquisite sensibility, and endearing qualities of heart,
commanding the respect and winning the affections of all who were favored
with her friendship or confidence, or who were within the sphere of her
influence, may justly be considered as a public loss. Quick to feel, and
indignant to resist, the iron hand of despotism, whether civil or
intellectual, her exertions to awaken in the minds of her oppressed sex a
sense of their degradation, and to restore them to the dignity of reason
and virtue, were active and incessant; by her impassioned reasoning and
glowing eloquence, the fabric of voluptuous prejudice has been shaken to
its foundation and totters towards its fall; while her philosophic mind,
taking a wider range, perceived and lamented in the defects of civil
institutions interwoven in their texture and inseparable from them the
causes of those partial evils, destructive to virtue and happiness, which
poison social intercourse and deform domestic life." Her eulogist
concludes by calling her the "ornament of her sex, the enlightened
advocate for freedom, and the benevolent friend of humankind."
It is more than probable, however, that this was written by a personal
friend; for a year later the same magazine, in its semi-annual
retrospect of British literature, expressed somewhat altered opinions.
This time it says: "It is not for us to vindicate Mary Godwin from the
charge of multiplied immorality which is brought against her by the
candid as well as the censorious, by the sagacious as well as the
superstitious observer. Her character in our estimation is far from being
entitled to unqualified praise; she had many faults; she had many
transcendent virtues. But she is now dead, and we shall
'No farther seek her merits to disclose,
Or draw her frailties from the dread abode;
There they alike in trembling hope repose,
The bosom of her father and her God!'"
The notice in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for October, 1797, the month
after her death, is friendly, but there are limitations to its praise.
The following is the sentence it passed upon her: "Her manners were
gentle, easy, and elegant; her conversation intelligent and amusing,
without the least trait of literary pride, or the apparent consciousness
of powers above the level of her sex; and, for fondness of understanding
and sensibility of heart, she was, perhaps, never equalled. Her practical
skill in education was ever superior to her speculations upon that
subject; nor is it possible to express the misfortune sustained in that
respect by her children. This tribute we readily pay to her character,
however adverse we may be to the system she supported in politics and
morals, both by her writings and practice."
In 1798 Godwin published his Memoir of Mary, together with her posthumous
writings. He no doubt hoped by a clear statement of the principal
incidents of her life to moderate the popular feeling against her. But he
was the last person to have undertaken the task. Outside of the small
circle of friends and sympathizers who really loved him, he was by no
means popular. There were some who even seemed to think that the greatest
hardship of Mary's life was to have been his wife. Thus Roscoe, after
reading the Memoir, expressed the sentiments it aroused in him in the
following lines:--
"Hard was thy fate in all the scenes of life,
As daughter, sister, mother, friend, and wife;
But harder still thy fate in death we own,
Thus mourned by Godwin with a heart of stone."
Moreover, Godwin's views about marriage, as set forth in his "Political
Justice," were held in such abhorrence that the fact that he approved of
Mary's conduct was reason enough for the multitude to disapprove of it.
His book, therefore, was not a success as far as Mary's reputation was
concerned. Indeed, it increased rather than lessened the asperity of her
detractors. It was greeted by the "European Magazine" for April, 1798,
almost immediately after its publication, by one of the most scathing
denunciations of Mary's character which had yet appeared.
"The lady," the article begins, "whose memoirs are now before us, appears
to have possessed good abilities, and originally a good disposition, but,
with an overweening conceit of herself, much obstinacy and self-will, and
a disposition to run counter to established practices and opinions. Her
conduct in the early part of her life was blameless, if not exemplary;
but the latter part of it was blemished with actions which must consign
her name to posterity (in spite of all palliatives) as one whose example,
if followed, would be attended with the most pernicious consequences to
society: a female who could brave the opinion of the world in the most
delicate point; a philosophical wanton, breaking down the bars designed
to restrain licentiousness; and a mother, deserting a helpless offspring
disgracefully brought into the world by herself, by an intended act of
suicide." Here follows a short sketch of the incidents recorded by
Godwin, and then the article concludes: "Such was the catastrophe of a
female philosopher of the new order, such the events of her life, and
such the apology for her conduct. It will be read with disgust by every
female who has any pretensions to delicacy; with detestation by every one
attached to the interests of religion and morality; and with indignation
by any one who might feel any regard for the unhappy woman, whose
frailties should have been buried in oblivion. Licentious as the times
are, we trust it will obtain no imitators of the heroine in this country.
It may act, however, as a warning to those who fancy themselves at
liberty to dispense with the laws of propriety and decency, and who
suppose the possession of perverted talents will atone for the well
government of society and the happiness of mankind."
This opinion of the "European Magazine" was the one most generally
adopted. It was re-echoed almost invariably when Mary Wollstonecraft's
name was mentioned in print. A Mrs. West, who, in 1801, published a
series of "Letters to a Young Man," full of goodly discourse and moral
exhortation, found occasion to warn him against Mary's works, which she
did with as much energy as if the latter had been the Scarlet Woman of
Babylon in the flesh. "This unfortunate woman," she says in conclusion,
"has _terribly_ terminated her guilty career; terribly, I say, because
the account of her last moments, though intentionally panegyrical, proves
that she died as she lived; and her posthumous writings show that her
soul was in the most unfit state to meet her pure and holy judge."
A writer in the "Beauties of England and Wales," though animated by the
same spirit, saw no reason to caution his readers against Mary's
pernicious influence, because of his certainty that in another generation
she would be forgotten. "Few writers have attained a larger share of
temporary celebrity," he admits. "This was the triumph of wit and
eloquence of style. To the age next succeeding it is probable that her
name will be nearly unknown; for the calamities of her life so miserably
prove the impropriety of her doctrines that it becomes a point of charity
to close the volume treating of the Rights of Women with mingled wonder
and pity."
But probably the article which was most influential in perpetuating the
ill-repute in which she stood with her contemporaries, is the sketch of
her life given in Chalmers's "Biographical Dictionary." The papers and
many books of the day soon passed out of sight, but the Dictionary was
long used as a standard work of reference. In this particular article
every action of Mary's life is construed unfavorably, and her character
shamefully vilified. Judging from Godwin's Memoir, it decides that Mary
"appears to have been a woman of strong intellect, which might have
elevated her to the highest ranks of English female writers, had not her
genius run wild for want of cultivation. Her passions were consequently
ungovernable, and she accustomed herself to yield to them without
scruple, treating female honor and delicacy as vulgar prejudices. She was
therefore a voluptuary and sensualist, without that refinement for which
she seemed to contend on other subjects. Her history, indeed, forms
entirely a warning, and in no part an example. Singular she was, it must
be allowed, for it is not easily to be conceived that such another
heroine will ever appear, unless in a novel, where a latitude is given to
that extravagance of character which she attempted to bring into real
life." Beloe, in the "Sexagenarian," borrowed the scurrilous abuse of the
"Biographical Dictionary," which was furthermore accepted by almost every
history of English literature and encyclopaedia as the correct estimate of
Mary's character and teachings. It is, therefore, no wonder that the
immorality of her doctrines and unwomanliness of her conduct came to be
believed in implicitly by the too credulous public.
That she fully deserved this disapprobation and contempt seemed to many
confirmed by the fact that her daughter, Mary Godwin, consented to live
with Shelley before their union could be legalized. The independence of
mother and daughter excited private as well as public animosity. There is
in the British Museum a book containing a collection of drawings,
newspaper slips, and written notes, illustrative of the history and
topography of the parish of Saint Pancras. As Mary Wollstonecraft was
buried in the graveyard of Saint Pancras Church, mention is made of her.
A copy of the painting{1} by Opie, which was supposed until very recently
to be her portrait, is pasted on one of the pages of this book, and
opposite to it is the following note, written on a slip of paper, and
dated 1821: "Mary Wollstonecraft, a disgrace to modesty, an eminent
instance of a perverted strong mind, the defender of the 'Rights of
Women,' but an ill example to them, soon terminated her life of error,
and her remains were laid in the cemetery of Saint Pancras, amidst the
believers of the papal creed.
{1} It was engraved and published in the "Monthly Mirror," with Mary's
name attached to it, during her lifetime. When Mr. Kegan Paul
published the "Letters to Imlay," in 1879, there seemed no doubt
of its authenticity. But since then it has been proved to be the
portrait of the wife of an artist who lived in the latter part
of the eighteenth century.
"There is a monument placed over her remains, being a square pillar."
(The inscription here follows.) "A willow was planted on each side of the
pillar, but, like the character of Mary, they do not flourish. Her
unfortunate daughters were reared by their infamous father for
prostitution,--one is sold to the wicked poet Shelley, and the other to
attend upon her. The former became Mrs. Shelley." The prejudice of the
writer of these lines against the subject of them, together with his
readiness to accept all the ill spoken of her, is at once shown in his
reference to Claire, who was the daughter of the second Mrs. Godwin by
her first husband, and hence no relation whatever to Mrs. Shelley. This
mistake proves that he relied overmuch upon current gossip.
During all these years Mary was not entirely without friends, but their
number was small. In 1803 an anonymous admirer published a defence of her
character and conduct, "founded on principles of nature and reason as
applied to the peculiar circumstances of her case," in a series of nine
letters to a lady. But his defence is less satisfactory to his readers
than it is to be presumed it was to himself. In it he carefully repeats
those details of Godwin's Memoir which were most severely criticised, and
to some of them gives a new and scarcely more favorable construction. He
candidly admits that he does not pretend to vindicate the _whole_ of her
conduct. He merely wishes to apologize for it by demonstrating the
motives from which she acted. But to accomplish this he evolves his
arguments chiefly from his inner consciousness. Had he appealed more
directly to her writings, and thought less of showing his own ingenuity
in reasoning, he would have written to better purpose.
Southey was always enthusiastic in his admiration. His letters are full
of her praises. "We are going to dine on Wednesday next with Mary
Wollstonecraft, of all the literary characters the one I most admire," he
wrote to Thomas Southey, on April 28, 1797. And a year or two after her
death, he declared in a letter to Miss Barker, "I never praised living
being yet, except Mary Wollstonecraft." He made at least one public
profession of his esteem in these lines, prefixed to his "Triumph of
Woman:"--
"The lily cheek, the 'purple light of love,'
The liquid lustre of the melting eye,
Mary! of these the Poet sung, for these
Did Woman triumph ... turn not thou away
Contemptuous from the theme. No Maid of Arc
Had, in those ages, for her country's cause
Wielded the sword of freedom; no Roland
Had borne the palm of female fortitude;
No Conde with self-sacrificing zeal
Had glorified again the Avenger's name,
As erst when Caesar perished; haply too
Some strains may hence be drawn, befitting me
To offer, nor unworthy thy regard."
Shelley too offered her the tribute of his praise in verse. In the
dedication of the "Revolt of Islam," addressed to his wife, he thus
alludes to the latter's famous mother:--
"They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth,
Of glorious parents, thou aspiring child.
I wonder not; for one then left the earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
Of its departing glory."
But the mere admiration of Southey and Shelley had little weight against
popular prejudice. Year by year Mary's books, like so many other literary
productions, were less frequently read, and the prediction that in
another generation her name would be unknown bade fair to be fulfilled.
But the latest of her admirers, Mr. Kegan Paul, has, by his zealous
efforts in her behalf, succeeded in vindicating her character and
reviving interest in her writings. By his careful history of her life,
and noble words in her defence, he has re-established her reputation. As
he says himself, "Only eighty years after her death has any serious
attempt been made to set her right in the eyes of those who will choose
to see her as she was." His attempt has been successful. No one after
reading her sad story as he tells it in his Life of Godwin, can doubt her
moral uprightness. His statement of her case attracted the attention it
deserved. Two years after it appeared, Miss Mathilde Blind published, in
the "New Quarterly Review," a paper containing a briefer sketch of the
incidents he recorded, and expressing an honest recognition of this great
but much-maligned woman.
Thus, at this late day, the attacks of her enemies are being defeated.
The critic who declared the condition of the trees planted near her grave
to be symbolical of her fate, were he living now, would be forced to
change the conclusions he drew from his comparison. In that part of Saint
Pancras Churchyard which lies between the two railroad bridges, and which
has not been included in the restored garden, but remains a dreary waste,
fenced about with broken gravestones, the one fresh green spot is the
corner occupied by the monument{1} erected to the memory of Mary
Wollstonecraft, and separated from the open space by an iron railing.
There is no sign of withering willows in this enclosure. Its trees are of
goodly growth and fair promise. And, like them, her character now
_flourishes_, for justice is at last being done to her.
{1} Her body has been removed to Bournemouth.
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH.
1759-1778.
Mary Wollstonecraft was born on the 27th of April, 1759, but whether in
London or in Epping Forest, where she spent the first five years of her
life, is not quite certain. There is no history of her ancestors to show
from whom she inherited the intellectual greatness which distinguished
her, but which characterized neither of her parents. Her paternal
grandfather was a manufacturer in Spitalfields, of whom little is known,
except that he was of Irish extraction and that he himself was
respectable and prosperous. To his son, Edward John, Mary's father, he
left a fortune of ten thousand pounds, no inconsiderable sum in those
days for a man of his social position. Her mother was Elizabeth, daughter
of Mr. Dixon, of Ballyshannon, Ireland, who belonged to an eminently good
family. Mary was the second of six children. The eldest, Edward, who was
more successful in his worldly affairs than the others, and James, who
went to sea to seek his fortunes, both passed to a great extent out of
her life. But her two sisters, Eliza and Everina, and her youngest
brother, Charles, were so dependent upon her for assistance in their many
troubles that their career is intimately associated with hers.
With her very first years Mary Wollstonecraft began a bitter training in
the school of experience, which was to no small degree instrumental in
developing her character and forming her philosophy. There are few
details of her childhood, and no anecdotes indicating a precocious
genius. But enough is known of her early life to make us understand what
were the principal influences to which she was exposed. Her strength
sprang from the very uncongeniality of her home and her successful
struggles against the poverty and vice which surrounded her. Her father
was a selfish, hot-tempered despot, whose natural bad qualities were
aggravated by his dissipated habits. His chief characteristic was his
instability. He could persevere in nothing. Apparently brought up to no
special profession, he was by turns a gentleman of leisure, a farmer, a
man of business. It seems to have been sufficient for him to settle in
any one place to almost immediately wish to depart from it. The history
of the first fifteen or twenty years of his married life is that of one
long series of migrations. The discomforts and petty miseries unavoidable
to travellers with large families in pre-railroad days necessarily
increased his irascibility. The inevitable consequence of these many
changes was loss of money and still greater loss of temper. That his
financial experiments proved to be failures, is certain from the abject
poverty of his later years. That they were bad for him morally, is shown
in the fact that his children, when grown up, found it impossible to live
under the same roof with him. His indifference in one particular to their
wishes and welfare led in the end to disregard of them in all matters.
It is more than probable that Mary, in her "Wrongs of Woman," drew
largely from her own experience for the characters therein represented,
and we shall not err in identifying the father she describes in this
novel with Mr. Wollstonecraft himself. "His orders," she writes, "were
not to be disputed; and the whole house was expected to fly at the word
of command.... He was to be instantaneously obeyed, especially by my
mother, whom he very benevolently married for love; but took care to
remind her of the obligation when she dared in the slightest instance to
question his absolute authority." He was, in a word, an egotist of the
worst description, who found no brutality too low once his anger was
aroused, and no amount of despotism too odious when the rights and
comforts of others interfered with his own desires. When contradicted or
thwarted his rage was ungovernable, and he used personal violence not
only to his dogs and children, but even to his wife. Drink and
unrestrained selfishness had utterly degraded him. Such was Mary's
father.
Mrs. Wollstonecraft was her husband's most abject slave, but was in turn
somewhat of a tyrant herself. She approved of stern discipline for the
young. She was too indolent to give much attention to the education of
her children, and devoted what little energy she possessed to enforcing
their unquestioning obedience even in trifles, and to making them as
afraid of her displeasure as they were of their father's anger. "It is
perhaps difficult to give you an idea of the petty cares which obscured
the morning of my life," Mary declares through her heroine,--"continual
restraint in the most trivial matters, unconditional submission to
orders, which as a mere child I soon discovered to be unreasonable,
because inconsistent and contradictory. Thus are we destined to
experience a mixture of bitterness with the recollection of our most
innocent enjoyment." Edward, as the mother's favorite, escaped her
severity; but it fell upon Mary with double force, and was with her
carried out with a thoroughness that laid its shortcomings bare, and
consequently forced Mrs. Wollstonecraft to modify her treatment of her
younger children. This concession on her part shows that she must have
had their well-being at heart, even when her policy in their regard was
most misguided, and that her unkindness was not, like her husband's
cruelty, born of caprice. But it was sad for Mary that her mother did not
discover her mistake sooner.
When Mary was five years old, and before she had had time to form any
strong impressions of her earliest home, her father moved to another part
of Epping Forest near the Chelmsford Road. Then, at the end of a year, he
carried his family to Barking in Essex, where he established them in a
comfortable home, a little way out of the town. Many of the London
markets were then supplied from the farms around Barking, so that the
chance for his success here was promising.
This place was the scene of Mary's principal childish recollections and
associations. Natural surroundings were with her of much more importance
than they usually are to the very young, because she depended upon them
for her pleasures. She cared nothing for dolls and the ordinary
amusements of girls. Having received few caresses and little tender
nursing, she did not know how to play the part of mother. Her recreation
led her out of doors with her brothers. That she lived much in the open
air and became thoroughly acquainted with the town and the neighborhood,
seems certain from the eagerness with which she visited it years
afterwards with Godwin. This was in 1796, and Mary with enthusiasm sought
out the old house in which she had lived. It was unoccupied, and the
garden around it was a wild and tangled mass. Then she went through the
town itself; to the market-place, which had perhaps been the Mecca of
frequent pilgrimages in the old times; to the wharves, the bustle and
excitement of which had held her spellbound many a long summer afternoon;
and finally from one street to another, each the scene of well-remembered
rambles and adventures. Time can soften sharp and rugged lines and
lighten deep shadows, and the pleasant reminiscences of Barking days made
her overlook bitterer memories.
That there were many of the latter, cannot be doubted. Only too often the
victim of her father's cruel fury, and at all times a sufferer because of
her mother's theories, she had little chance for happiness during her
childhood. She was, like Carlyle's hero of "Sartor Resartus," one of
those children whose sad fate it is to weep "in the playtime of the
others." Not even to the David Copperfields and Paul Dombeys of fiction
has there fallen a lot so hard to bear and so sad to record, as that of
the little Mary Wollstonecraft. She was then the most deserving object of
that pity which later, as a woman, she was always ready to bestow upon
others. Her affections were unusually warm and deep, but they could find
no outlet. She met, on the one hand, indifference and sternness; on the
other, injustice and ill-usage. It is when reading the story of her
after-life, and learning from it how, despite her masculine intellect,
she possessed a heart truly feminine, that we fully appreciate the
barrenness of her early years. She was one of those who, to use her own
words, "cannot live without loving, as poets love." At the strongest
period of her strong womanhood she felt, as she so touchingly confesses
in her appeals to Imlay, the need of some one to lean upon,--some one to
give her the love and sympathy, which were to her what light and heat are
to flowers. It can therefore easily be imagined how much greater was the
necessity, and consequently the craving caused by its non-gratification,
when she was nothing but a child. Overflowing with tenderness, she dared
not lavish it on the mother who should have been so ready to receive it.
Instead of the confidence which should exist between mother and daughter,
there was in their case nothing but cold formality. Nor was there for her
much compensation in the occasional caresses of her father. Sensitive to
a fault, she could not forgive his blows and unkindness so quickly as to
be able to enjoy his smiles and favors. Moreover, she had little chance
of finding, without, the devotion and gentle care which were denied to
her within her own family. Mr. Wollstonecraft remained so short a time in
each locality in which he made his home, that his wife saw but little of
her relations and old acquaintances; while no sooner had his children
made new friends, than they were separated from them.
To whatever town they went, the Wollstonecrafts seem to have given signs
of gentility and good social standing, which won for them, if not many,
at least respectable friends. At Barking an intimacy sprang up between
them and the family of Mr. Bamber Gascoyne, Member of Parliament. But
Mary was too young to profit by this friendship. It was most ruthlessly
interrupted three years later, when, in 1768, the restless head of the
house, whose industry in Barking had not equalled the enterprise which
brought him there, took his departure for Beverly, in Yorkshire.
This was the most complete change that he had as yet made. Heretofore his
wanderings had been confined to Essex. But he either found in his new
home more promising occupation and congenial companionship than he had
hitherto, or else there was a short respite to his feverish restlessness,
for he continued in it for six years. It was here Mary received almost
all the education that was ever given her by regular schooling. Beverly
was nothing but a small market-town, though she in her youthful
enthusiasm thought it large and handsome, and its inhabitants brilliant
and elegant, and was much disappointed, when she passed through it many
years afterwards, on her way to Norway, to see how far the reality fell
short of her youthful idealizations. Its schools could not have been of a
very high order, and we do not need Godwin's assurance to know that Mary
owed little of her subsequent culture to them. But her education may be
said to have really begun in 1775, when her father, tired of farming and
tempted by commercial hopes, left Beverly for Hoxton, near London.
Mary was at this time in her sixteenth year. The effect of her home
life, under which most children would have succumbed, had been to develop
her character at an earlier age than is usual with women. In spite of the
tyranny and caprice of her parents, and, indeed, perhaps because of them,
she had soon asserted her individuality and superiority. When she had
recognized the mistaken motives of her mother and the weakness of her
father, she had been forced to rely upon her own judgment and
self-command. It is a wonderful proof of her fine instincts that, though
she must have known her strength, she did not rebel, and that her keen
insight into the injustice of some actions did not prevent her realizing
the justice of others. Her mind seems to have been from the beginning too
evenly balanced for any such misconceptions. When reprimanded, she
deservedly found in the reprimand, as she once told Godwin, the one means
by which she became reconciled to herself for the fault which had called
it forth. As she matured, her immediate relations could not but yield to
the influence which she exercised over all with whom she was brought into
close contact. If there be such a thing as animal magnetism, she
possessed it in perfection. Her personal attractions commanded love, and
her great powers of sympathy drew people, without their knowing why, to
lean upon her for moral support. In the end she became an authority in
her family. Mrs. Wollstonecraft was in time compelled to bestow upon her
the affection which she had first withheld. It was the ugly duckling
after all who proved to be the swan of the flock. Mr. Wollstonecraft
learned to hold his eldest daughter in awe, and his wrath sometimes
diminished in her presence.
Pity was always Mary's ruling passion. Feeling deeply the family
sorrows, she was quick to forget herself in her efforts to lighten them
when this privilege was allowed to her. There were opportunities enough
for self-sacrifice. With every year Mr. Wollstonecraft squandered more
money, and grew idler and more dissipated. Home became unbearable, the
wife's burden heavier. Mary, emancipated from the restraints of
childhood, no longer remained a silent spectator of her father's fits of
passion. When her mother was the victim of his violence, she interposed
boldly between them, determined that if his blows fell upon any one, it
should be upon herself. There were occasions when she so feared the
results of his drunken rage that she would not even go to bed at night,
but, throwing herself upon the floor outside her room, would wait there,
on the alert, to meet whatever horrors darkness might bring forth. Could
there be a picture more tragical than this of the young girl, a weary
woman before her time, protecting the mother who should have protected
her, fighting against the vices of a father who should have shielded her
from knowledge of them! Already before she had left her home there must
have come into her eyes that strangely sad expression, which Kegan Paul,
in speaking of her portrait by Opie, says reminds him of nothing unless
it be of the agonized sorrow in the face of Guido's Beatrice Cenci. No
one can wonder that she doubted if marriage can be the highest possible
relationship between the sexes, when it is remembered that for years she
had constantly before her, proofs of the power man possesses, by sheer
physical strength and simple brutality, to destroy the happiness of an
entire household.
It was fortunate for her that she spent these wretched years in or very
near the country. She could wear off the effects of the stifling home
atmosphere by races over neighboring heaths, or by walks through lanes
and woods. Constant exercise in the open air is the best of stimulants.
It helped her to escape the many ills which childish flesh is heir to; it
lessened the morbid tendency of her nature; and it developed an energy of
character which proved her greatest safeguard against her sensitive and
excitable temperament. Besides this, she seems to have taken real delight
in her out-of-doors life. If at a later age she loved to sit in solitude
and listen to the singing of a robin and the falling of the leaves, she
must, as a child, have possessed much of that imaginative power which
transforms all nature into fairyland. If, in the bitter consciousness
that she was a betrayed and much-sinned-against woman, she could still
find moments of exquisite pleasure in wandering through woods and over
rocks, such haunts must have been as dear to her when she sought in them
escape from her young misery. It is probable that she refers to herself
when she makes her heroine, Maria, say, "An enthusiastic fondness for the
varying charms of nature is the first sentiment I recollect."
Mary's existence up to 1775 had been, save when disturbed by family
storms, quiet, lonely, and uneventful. As yet no special incident had
occurred in it, nor had she been awakened to intellectual activity. But
in Hoxton she contracted a friendship which, though it was with a girl of
her own age, was always esteemed by her as the chief and leading event in
her existence. This it was which first aroused her love of study and of
independence, and opened a channel for the outpouring of her too-long
suppressed affections. Her love for Fanny Blood was the spark which
kindled the latent fire of her genius. Her arrival in Hoxton, therefore,
marks the first important era in her life.
She owed this new pleasure to Mr. Clare, a clergyman, and his wife, who
lived next to the Wollstonecrafts in Hoxton. The acquaintanceship formed
with their neighbors ripened in Mary's case into intimacy. Mr. Clare was
deformed and delicate, and, because of his great physical weakness, led
the existence of a hermit. He rarely, if ever, went out, and his habits
were so essentially sedentary that a pair of shoes lasted him for
fourteen years. It is hardly necessary to add that he was eccentric. But
he was a man of a certain amount of culture. He had read largely, his
opportunity for so doing being great. He was attracted by Mary, whom he
soon discovered to be no ordinary girl, and he interested himself in
forming and training her mind. She, in return, liked him. His deformity
alone would have appealed to her, but she found him a congenial
companion, and, as she proved herself a willing pupil, he was glad to
have her much with him. She was a friend of Mrs. Clare as well; indeed,
the latter remained true to her through later storms which wrecked many
other less sincere friendships. Mary sometimes spent days and even weeks
in the house of these good people; and it was on one of these occasions,
probably, that Mrs. Clare took her to Newington Butts, then a village at
the extreme southern end of London, and there introduced her to Frances
Blood.
The first meeting between them, Godwin says, "bore a resemblance to the
first interview of Werter with Charlotte." The Bloods lived in a small,
but scrupulously well-kept house, and when its door was first opened for
Mary, Fanny, a bright-looking girl about her own age, was busy, like
another Lotte, in superintending the meal of her younger brothers and
sisters. It was a scene well calculated to excite Mary's interest. She,
better than any one else, could understand its full worth. It revealed to
her at a glance the skeleton in the family closet,--the inefficiency of
the parents to care for the children whom they had brought into the
world, and the poverty which prevented their hiring others to do their
work for them. And at the same time it showed her the noble unselfishness
of the daughter, who not only took upon herself the burden so easily
shifted by the parents, but who accepted her fate cheerfully.
Cheerfulness is a virtue but too lightly prized. When maintained in the
face of difficulties and unhappiness it becomes the finest heroism. The
recognition of this heroic side of Fanny's nature commanded the instant
admiration and respect of her visitor. Mary then and there vowed in her
heart eternal friendship for her new acquaintance, and the vow was never
broken.
Balzac, in his "Cousine Bette," says that there is no stronger passion
than the love of one woman for another. Mary Wollstonecraft's affection
for Frances Blood is a striking illustration of the truth of his
statement. It was strong as that of a Sappho for an Erinna; tender and
constant as that of a mother for her child. From the moment they met
until they were separated by poor Fanny's untimely death, Mary never
wavered in her devotion and its active expression, nor could the
vicissitudes and joys of her later life destroy her loving loyalty to the
memory of her first and dearest friend. "When a warm heart has strong
impressions," she wrote in a letter long years afterwards, "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."
There was much to draw the two friends together. They had many miseries
and many tastes and interests in common. Fanny's parents were poor, and
her father, like Mr. Wollstonecraft, was idle and dissipated. There were
young children to be reared, and an incompetent mother to do it. Fanny
was only two years older than Mary, but was, at that time, far more
advanced mentally. Her education had been more complete. She was in a
small way both musician and artist, was fond of reading, and had even
tried her powers at writing. But her drawing had proved her most
profitable accomplishment, and by it she supported her entire family.
Mary as yet had perfected herself in nothing, and was helpless where
money-making was concerned. Her true intellectual education had but just
begun under Mr. Clare's direction. She had previously read voluminously,
but, having done so for mere immediate gratification, had derived but
little profit therefrom. As she lived in Hoxton, and Fanny in Newington
Butts, they could not see each other very often, and so in the intervals
between their visits they corresponded. Mary found that her letters were
far inferior to those of her friend. She could not spell so well; she had
none of Fanny's ease in shaping her thoughts into words. Her pride was
hurt and her ambition stirred. She determined to make herself at least
Fanny's intellectual equal. It was humiliating to know herself powerless
to improve her own condition, when her friend was already earning an
income large enough not only to meet her own wants but those of others
depending upon her. To prepare herself for a like struggle with the
world, a struggle which in all likelihood she would be obliged to make
single-handed, she studied earnestly. Books acquired new value in her
eyes. She read no longer for passing amusement, but to strengthen and
cultivate her mind for future work. It cannot be doubted that under any
circumstances she would, in the course of a few years, have become
conscious of her power and the necessity to exercise it. But to Fanny
Blood belongs the honor of having given the first incentive to her
intellectual energy. This brave, heavily burdened young English girl,
accepting toils and tribulations with stout heart, would, with many
another silent heroine or hero, have been forgotten, had it not been for
the stimulus her love and example were to an even stronger
sister-sufferer. The larger field of interests thus opened for Mary was
like the bright dawn after a long and dark night. For the first time she
was happy.
There was therefore much in her life at Hoxton to relieve the gloomy
influence of the family troubles. Work for a definite end is in itself a
great joy. Many pleasant hours were spent with the Clares, and occasional
gala-days with Fanny. These last two pleasures, however, were
short-lived. The inexorable family tyrant, her father, grew tired of
commerce, as indeed he did of everything, and in the spring of 1776 he
abandoned it for agriculture, this time settling in Pembroke, Wales,
where he owned some little property. With a heavy heart Mary bade
farewell to her new friends.
It is well worth recording that in 1775, while Mary Wollstonecraft was
living in Hoxton, William Godwin was a student at the Dissenting College
in that town. Godwin, in his short Memoir of his wife, pauses to
speculate as to what would have been the result had they then met and
loved. In his characteristic philosophical way he asks, "Which would have
been predominant,--the disadvantages of obscurity and the pressure of a
family, or the gratifications and improvement that might have flowed from
their intercourse?" But the vital question is: Would an acquaintanceship
formed between them at that time have ever become more than mere
friendship? She was then a wild, untrained girl, and had not reduced her
contempt for established institutions to fixed principles. Godwin, the
son of a Dissenting clergyman, was studying to be one himself, and his
opinions of the rights of man were still unformed. Neither had developed
the ideas and doctrines which afterwards were the bond of sympathy
between them. One thing is certain: while they might have benefited had
they married twenty years earlier than they did, the world would have
lost. Godwin, under the influence of a wife's tender love, would never
have became a cold, systematic philosopher. And Mary, had she found a
haven from her misery so soon, would not have felt as strongly about the
wrongs of women. Whatever her world's work under those circumstances
might have been, she would not have become the champion of her sex.
Of external incidents the year in Wales was barren. The only one on
record is the intimacy which sprang up between the Wollstonecrafts and
the Allens. Two daughters of this family afterwards married sons of the
famous potter, Wedgwood, and the friendship then begun lasted for life.
To Mary herself, however, this year was full and fertile. It was devoted
to study and work. Hers was the only true genius,--the genius for
industry. She never relaxed in the task she had set for herself, and her
progress was rapid. The signs she soon manifested of her mental power
added to the respect with which her family now treated her. Realizing
that the assistance she could give by remaining at home was but little
compared to that which might result from her leaving it for some definite
employment, she seems at this period to have announced her intention of
seeking her fortunes abroad. But Mrs. Wollstonecraft looked upon the
presence of her daughter as a strong bulwark of defence against the
brutal attacks of her husband, and was loath to lose it. Mary yielded to
her entreaties to wait a little longer; but her sympathy and tender pity
for human suffering fortunately never destroyed her common sense. She
knew that the day must come when on her own individual exertions would
depend not only her own but a large share of her sisters' and brothers'
maintenance, and, in consenting to remain at home, she exacted certain
conditions. She insisted upon being allowed freedom in the regulation of
her actions. She demanded that she should have a room for her exclusive
property, and that, when engaged in study, she should not be interrupted.
She would attend to certain domestic duties, and after they were over,
her time must be her own. It was little to ask. All she wanted was the
liberty to make herself independent of the paternal care which girls of
eighteen, as a rule, claim as their right. It was granted her.
At the end of another year, the demon of restlessness again attacked Mr.
Wollstonecraft. Wales proved less attractive than it had appeared at a
distance. Orders were given to repack the family goods and chattels, and
to set out upon new wanderings. On this occasion, Mary interfered with a
strong hand. Since a change was to be made, it might as well be turned to
her advantage. She had, without a word, allowed herself to be carried to
Wales away from the one person she really loved, and she now knew the
sacrifice had been useless. It was clear to her that one place was no
better for her father than another; therefore he should go where it
pleased her. It was better that one member of the family should be
content, than that all should be equally miserable. She prevailed upon
him to choose Walworth as his next resting-place. Here she would be near
Fanny, and life would again hold some brightness for her.
It was at Walworth that she took the first step in what was fated to be a
long life of independence and work. The conditions which she had made
with her family seem to have been here neglected, and study at home
became more and more impossible. She was further stimulated to action by
the personal influence of her energetic friend, by the fact that the
younger children were growing up to receive their share of the family
sorrow and disgrace, and by her own great dread of poverty. "How writers
professing to be friends to freedom and the improvement of morals can
assert that poverty is no evil, I cannot imagine!" she exclaims in the
"Wrongs of Woman." She cared nothing for the luxuries and the ease and
idleness which wealth gives, but she prized above everything the time and
opportunity for self-culture of which the poor, in their struggle for
existence, are deprived. The Wollstonecraft fortunes were at low ebb. Her
share in them, should she remain at home, would be drudgery and slavery,
which would grow greater with every year. Her one hope for the future
depended upon her profitable use of the present. The sooner she earned
money for herself, the sooner would she be able to free her brothers and
sisters from the yoke whose weight she knew full well because of her own
eagerness to throw it off. Unselfish as her father was selfish, she
thought quite as much of their welfare as of her own. Therefore when, at
the age of nineteen, a situation as lady's companion was offered to her,
neither tears nor entreaties could alter her resolution to accept it. She
entered at once upon her new duties, and with them her career as woman
may be said to have begun.