FIRST YEARS OF WORK.
1778-1785.
Mary Wollstonecraft did not become famous at once. She began her career
as humbly as many a less gifted woman. Like the heroes of old, she had
tasks allotted her before she could attain the goal of her ambition. And
Heracles in his twelve labors, Jason in search of the Golden Fleece,
Sigurd in pursuit of the treasure, did not have greater hardships to
endure or dangers to overcome than she had before she won for herself
independence and fame.
It is difficult for a young man without money, influential friends, or
professional education to make his way in the world. With a woman placed
in similar circumstances the difficulty is increased a hundred-fold. We
of to-day, when government and other clerkships are open to women, cannot
quite realize their helplessness a few generations back. In Mary
Wollstonecraft's time those whose birth and training had unfitted them
for the more menial occupations--who could neither bake nor scrub--had
but two resources. They must either become governesses or ladies'
companions. In neither case was their position enviable. They ranked as
little better than upper servants. Mary's first appearance on the
world-stage, therefore, was not brilliant.
The lady with whom she went to live was a Mrs. Dawson, a widow who had
but one child, a grown-up son. Her residence was in Bath. Mary must then
have given at least signs of the beauty which did not reach its full
development until many years later, her sorrows had not entirely
destroyed her natural gayety, and she was only nineteen years old. The
mission in Bath in those days of young girls of her age was to dance and
to flirt, to lose their hearts and to find husbands, to gossip, to listen
to the music, to show themselves in the Squares and Circus and on the
Parades, or, sometimes, when they were seriously inclined, to drink the
waters. Mary's was to cater to the caprices of a cross-grained, peevish
woman. There was little sunshine in the morning of her life. She was
destined always to see the darkest side of human nature. Mrs. Dawson's
temper was bad, and her companions, of whom there seem to have been many,
had hitherto fled before its outbreaks, as the leaves wither and fall at
the first breath of winter. Mary's home-schooling was now turned to good
account. Mrs. Dawson's rage could not, at its worst, equal her father's
drunken violence; and long experience of the latter prepared her to bear
the former with apparent, if not real, stoicism. We have no particulars
of her life as companion nor knowledge of the exact nature of her duties.
But of one thing we are certain, the fulfilment of them cost her many a
heartache. Those who know her only as the vindicator of the Rights of
Women and the defiant rebel against social laws, may think her case calls
for little sympathy. But the truth is, there have been few women so
dependent for happiness upon human love, so eager for the support of
their fellow-beings, and so keenly alive to neglects and slights. In Bath
she was separated from her friends, she was alone in her struggle, and
she held a position which did not always command respect. However, her
indomitable will and unflagging energy availed her to such good purpose
that she continued with Mrs. Dawson for two years, doubtless to the
surprise of the latter, accustomed as she was to easily frightened and
hastily retreating companions. Her departure then was due, not to moral
cowardice or exhaustion, but to a summons from home.
Mrs. Wollstonecraft's health had begun to fail. Her life had been a hard
one, and the drains upon her constitution many. She was the mother of a
large family, and had had her full share of the by no means insignificant
pains and cares of maternity. In addition to these she had had to contend
against poverty, that evil which, says the Talmud, is worse than fifty
plagues, and against the vagaries of a good-for-nothing drunken husband.
Once she fell beneath her burden, she could not rise with it again. She
had no strength left to withstand her illness. Eliza and Everina were
both at home to take care of her, but she could not rest without the
eldest daughter, upon whom experience had taught her to rely implicitly.
She sent for Mary, and the latter hastened at once to her mother's side.
Her own hopes and ambitions, her chances and prospects, all were
forgotten in her desire to do what she could for the poor patient. Fierce
and fearless as an inspired Joan of Arc, when fighting in the cause of
justice, she was tender and gentle as a sister of charity when tending
the sick. She waited upon her mother with untiring care. Mrs.
Wollstonecraft's illness was long and lingering, though it declared
itself at an early stage to be hopeless. In her pleasure at her
daughter's return she received her services with grateful thanks. But, as
she grew worse, she became more accustomed to the presence of her nurse,
and exacted as a right that which she had first accepted as a favor. She
would allow no one else to attend to her, and day and night Mary was with
her.
Finally the end came. Mrs. Wollstonecraft died, happy to be released from
a world which had given her nothing but unkindness and sorrow. Her
parting words were: "A little patience, and all will be over!" It was not
difficult for the dying woman, so soon to have eternity to rest in, to
bear quietly time's last agony. But for the weary, heart-sick young girl,
before whom there stretched a vista of long years of toil, the lesson of
patience was less easy to learn. Mary never forgot these words, nor did
she heed their bitter sarcasm. Often and often, in her after trials, they
returned to her, carrying with them peace and comfort.
This event occurred in 1780. The family were then living in Enfield,
which place had succeeded Walworth in their periodical migrations. After
her mother's death Mary, tired out from constant nursing, want of sleep,
and anxiety of mind, became ill. She sorely needed quiet and an interval
from work. But the necessity to depart from her father's house was
imperative. He had fallen so low that his daughters were forced to leave
him. The difficulty was to find immediate means to meet the emergency. A
return to Mrs. Dawson does not seem to have suggested itself as a
possibility. Mary's great ambition was to become a teacher and to
establish a school. But this could not be easily or at once accomplished.
She must have time to prepare herself for the venture, to make friends,
and to give proof of her ability to teach. Fortunately, at this juncture
Fanny Blood proved a true friend, and offered her at least a temporary
home at Walham Green.
Fanny was still gaining a small income from her drawings, to which Mrs.
Blood added whatever she could make by her needle. Mary was not one to
fare upon another's bread. Too proud to become an additional charge to
these two hard-working women, she helped the latter with her sewing and
so contributed her share to the family means. It was not a congenial
occupation. But to her any work was preferable to waiting, Micawber-like,
for something better to turn up. Though she was happy because she was
with her friend, her life here was wellnigh as tragic as it had been in
her father's house. The family sorrows were great and many. Mr. Blood was
a ne'er-do-weel and a drunkard. Caroline, one of the daughters, had then
probably begun her rapid descent down-hill, moved thereto, poor girl, by
the relief which vice alone gave to the poverty and gloom of her home.
George, the brother, with whom Mary afterwards corresponded for so many
years, was unhappy because of his unrequited love for Everina
Wollstonecraft. He was an honest, good-principled young man, but his
associates were disreputable, and he was at times compromised by their
actions. But still sadder for Mary was the fact that Fanny, in addition
to domestic grievances, was tortured by the unkindness of an uncertain
lover. She had met, not long before, Mr. Hugh Skeys, a young but already
successful merchant. Attracted by her, he had been sufficiently attentive
and devoted to warrant her conclusion that his intentions were serious.
He seems to have loved her as deeply as he was capable of loving, but
discouraged perhaps by the wretched circumstances of the family, he could
not make up his mind to marry her. At one moment he was ready to desert
her, and at the next to claim her as his wife. Instead of resenting his
unpardonable conduct, as a prouder woman would have done, she bore it
with the humble patience of a Griselda. When he was kind, she hoped for
the best; when he was cold, she dreaded the worst. The consequence of
these alternate states of hope and despair was mental depression, and
finally physical ill health. Through her troubles, Mary, who had given
her the warmest and best, because the first, love of her life, was her
faithful ally and comforter. Indeed, her friendship grew warmer with
Fanny's increasing misfortunes. As she said of herself a few years later,
she was not a fair-weather friend. "I think," she wrote once in a letter
to George Blood, "I love most people best when they are in adversity, for
pity is one of my prevailing passions." She realized that she had made
herself her friend's equal, if not superior, intellectually, and that, so
far as moral courage and will power were concerned, she was much the
stronger of the two. There is nothing which so deepens a man's or a
woman's tenderness, as the knowledge that the object of it looks up to
her or to him for support, and Mary's affection increased because of its
new inspiration.
It has been said that it was necessary for all Mr. Wollstonecraft's
daughters to leave his house. Mary was not yet in a position to help her
sisters, and they had but few friends. Their chances of self-support were
small. Their position was the trying one of gentlewomen who could not
make servants of themselves, and who indeed would not be employed as
such, and who had not had the training to fit them for higher
occupations. Everina, therefore, was glad to find an asylum with her
brother Edward, who was an attorney in London. She became his
housekeeper, for, like Mary, she was too independent to allow herself to
be supported by the charity of others. Eliza, the youngest sister, who,
with greater love of culture than Everina, had had even less education,
solved her present problem by marrying, but she escaped one difficulty
only to fall into another still greater and more serious. The history of
her married experience is important because of the part Mary played in
it. The latter's independent conduct in her sister's regard is a
foreshadowing of the course she pursued at a later period in the
management of her own affairs.
Eliza was the most excitable and nervous of the three sisters. The family
sensitiveness was developed in her to a painful degree. She was not only
quick to take offence, but was ever on the lookout for slights and
insults even from people she dearly loved. She assumed a defensive
attitude against the world and mankind, and therefore life went harder
with her than with more cheerfully constituted women. It was almost
invariably the little rift that made her life-music mute. Her indignation
and rage were not so easily appeased as aroused. Altogether, she was a
very impossible person to live with peacefully. Mr. Bishop, the man she
married, was as quick-tempered and passionate as she, and, morally, was
infinitely beneath her. He was the original of the husband in the "Wrongs
of Woman," who is represented as an unprincipled sensualist, brute, and
hypocrite. The worst of it was that, when not carried away by his temper,
his address was good and his manners insinuating. As one of his friends
said of him, he was "either a lion or a spaniel." Unfortunately, at home
he was always the lion, a fact which those who knew him only as the
spaniel could not well believe. The marriage of two such people, needless
to say, was not happy. They mutually aggravated each other. Eliza, with
her sensitive, unforgiving nature, could not make allowances. Mr. Bishop
would not. Much as her waywardness and hastiness were at fault, he was
still more to blame in effecting the rupture between them.
The strain upon Eliza's nervous system, caused by almost daily quarrels
and scenes of violence, was more than she could bear. Then, to add to her
misery, she found herself in that condition in which women are apt to be
peculiarly susceptible and irritable. Her pregnancy so stimulated her
abnormal emotional excitement that her reason gave way, and for months
she was insane. Though she had her intervals of passivity she was at
times very violent, and disastrous results were feared. It was necessary
for some one to keep constant guard over her, and Mary was asked to
undertake this task.
Relentless as Fate in pursuing the hero of Greek Tragedy to his
predestined end, were the circumstances which formed Mary's prejudice
against the institution of marriage. This was the third domestic tragedy
caused by the husband's petty tyranny and the wife's slender resources of
defence, of which she was the immediate witness. Her experience was
unfortunate. The bright side of the married state was hidden from her.
She saw only its shadows, and these darkened until her soul rebelled
against the injustice, not of life, but of man's shaping of it. Sad as
was the fate of the Bloods and much as they needed her, the Bishop
household was still sadder and its appeals more urgent, and Mary hurried
thither at once.
No one can read the life of Mary Wollstonecraft without loving her, or
follow her first bitter struggles without feeling honor, nay reverence,
for her true womanliness which bore her bravely through them. She never
shrank from her duty nor lamented her clouded youth. Without a murmur she
left Walham Green and established herself as nurse and keeper to the poor
mad sister. There could be no greater heroism than this. With a nervous
constitution not unlike that of "poor Bess," she had to watch over the
frenzied mania of the wife and to confront the almost equally insane fury
of the husband. One of the letters which she wrote at this time to
Everina describes forcibly enough her sister's sad condition and her own
melancholy:--
_Saturday afternoon_, Nov. 1783.
I expected to have seen you before this, but the extreme coldness
of the weather is a sufficient apology. I cannot yet give any
certain account of Bess, or form a rational conjecture with
respect to the termination of her disorder. She has not had a
violent fit of frenzy since I saw you, but her mind is in a most
unsettled state, and attending to the constant fluctuation of it is
far more harassing than the watching these raving fits that had not
the least tincture of reason. Her ideas are all disjointed, and a
number of wild whims float on her imagination, and fall from her
unconnectedly something like strange dreams, when judgment sleeps,
and fancy sports at a fine rate. Don't smile at my language, for I
am so constantly forced to observe her, lest she run into mischief,
that my thoughts continually turn on the unaccountable wanderings
of her mind. She seems to think she has been very ill used, and, in
short, till I see some more favorable symptoms, I shall only
suppose that her malady has assumed a new and more distressing
appearance.
One thing, by way of comfort, I must tell you, that persons who
recover from madness are generally in this way before they are
perfectly restored, but whether Bess's faculties will ever regain
their former tone, time only will show. At present I am in
suspense. Let me hear from you, or see you, and believe me to be
yours affectionately,
M. W.
_Sunday noon._--Mr. D. promised to call last night, and I intended
sending this by him. We have been out in a coach, but still Bess is
far from being _well_. Patience--patience. Farewell.
To her desire to keep Everina posted as to the progress of affairs, we
are indebted, for her letters, which give a very life-like picture of
herself and her surroundings while she remained in her brother-in-law's
house. They are interesting because, by showing the difficulties against
which she had to contend, and the effect these had upon her, we can
better appreciate the greatness of her nature by which she triumphed over
them. There is another one written during this sad period which must be
quoted here because it throws still more light upon Bishop's true
character and his ingenuity in tormenting those who lived with him:--
_Monday morning_, Jan. 1784.
I have nothing to tell you, my dear girl, that will give you
pleasure. Yesterday was a dismal day, long and dreary. Bishop was
very ill, etc., etc. He is much better to-day, but misery haunts
this house in one shape or other. How sincerely do I join with you
in saying that if a person has common sense, they cannot make one
completely unhappy. But to attempt to lead or govern a weak mind is
impossible; it will ever press forward to what it wishes,
regardless of impediments, and, with a selfish eagerness, believe
what it desires practicable though the contrary is as clear as the
noon-day. My spirits are hurried with listening to pros and cons;
and my head is so confused, that I sometimes say no, when I ought
to say yes. My heart is almost broken with listening to B. while he
reasons the case. I cannot insult him with advice, which he would
never have wanted, if he was capable of attending to it. May my
habitation never be fixed among the tribe that can't look beyond
the present gratification, that draw fixed conclusions from general
rules, that attend to the literal meaning only, and, because a
thing ought to be, expect that it will come to pass. B. has made a
confidant of Skeys; and as I can never speak to him in private, I
suppose his pity may cloud his judgment. If it does, I should not
either wonder at it, or blame him. For I that know, and am fixed in
my opinion, cannot unwaveringly adhere to it; and when I reason, I
am afraid of being unfeeling. Miracles don't occur now, and only a
miracle can alter the minds of some people. They grow old, and we
can only discover by their countenances that they are so. To the
end of their chapter will their misery last. I expect Fanny next
Thursday, and she will stay with us but a few days. Bess desires
her love; she grows better and of course more sad.
Though Mary's heart was breaking and her brain reeling, her closer
acquaintance with Bishop convinced her that Eliza must not continue with
him. She determined at all hazards to free her sister from a man who was
slowly but surely killing her, and she knew she was right in her
determination. "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist," Emerson
says. Mary, because she was a true woman, was ruled in her conduct not by
conventionalities or public opinion, but by her sense of righteousness.
In her own words, "The sarcasms of society and the condemnation of a
mistaken world were nothing to her, compared with acting contrary to
those feelings which were the foundation of her principles." For some
months Eliza's physical and mental illness made it impossible to take a
decided step or to form definite plans. But when her child was born, and
she returned to a normal, though at the same time sadder, because
conscious, state, Mary felt that the time for action had arrived. That
she still thought it advisable for her sister to leave her husband,
though this necessitated the abandonment of her child, conclusively
proves the seriousness of Bishop's faults. It was no easy matter to
effect the separation. Bishop objected to it. It is never unpleasant for
a man to play the tyrant, and he was averse to losing his victim.
Pecuniary assistance was therefore not to be had from him, and the
sisters were penniless. Mary applied to Edward, though she was not sure
it was desirable for Eliza to take refuge with him. However, he does not
seem to have responded warmly, for Mary's suggestion was never acted
upon. Theirs was a situation in which friends are not apt to interfere,
and besides, Bishop's plausibility had won over not a few to his side.
Furthermore, the chance was that if he worked successfully upon Mr.
Skeys' sympathies, the Bloods would be influenced. There was absolutely
no one to help them, but Mary knew that it was useless to wait, and that
the morrow would not make easier what seemed to her the task of the
present day. When there was work to be done she never could rest with
"unlit lamp and ungirt loin." What she now most wanted for her sister was
liberty, and she resolved to secure this at once, and then afterwards to
look about her to see how it was to be maintained.
Accordingly, one day, Bishop well out of the way, the sisters left his
house forever. There was a mad, breathless drive, Bess, with her insanity
half returned, biting her wedding ring to pieces, a hurried exchange of
coaches to further insure escape from detection, a joyful arrival at
modest lodgings in Hackney, a giving in of false names, a hasty locking
of doors, and then--the reaction. Eliza, whose excitement had exhausted
itself on the way, became quiet and even ready for sleep. Mary, now that
immediate necessity for calmness and courage was over, grew nervous and
restless. With strained ears she listened to every sound. Her heart beat
time to the passing carriages, and she trembled at the lightest knock.
That night, in a wild, nervous letter to Everina, she wrote:--
I hope B. will not discover us, for I would sooner face a lion; yet
the door never opens but I expect to see him, panting for breath.
Ask Ned how we are to behave if he should find us out, for Bess is
determined not to return. Can he force her? but I'll not suppose
it, yet I can think of nothing else. She is sleepy, and going to
bed; my agitated mind will not permit me. Don't tell Charles or any
creature! Oh! let me entreat you to be careful, for Bess does not
dread him now as much as I do. Again, let me request you to write,
as B.'s behavior may silence my fears. You will soon hear from me
again. Fanny carried many things to Lear's, brush-maker in the
Strand, next door to the White Hart.
Yours,
MARY.
Miss Johnston--Mrs. Dodds, opposite the Mermaid, Church Street,
Hackney.
She looks now very wild. Heaven protect us!
I almost wish for an husband, for I want somebody to support me.
The Rubicon was crossed. But the hardships thereby incurred were but just
beginning. The two sisters were obliged to keep in hiding as if they had
been criminals, for they dared not risk a chance meeting with Bishop.
They had barely money enough to pay their immediate expenses, and their
means of making more were limited by the precautions they had to take. It
had only been possible in their flight to carry off a few things, and
they were without sufficient clothing. Then there came from their friends
an outcry against their conduct. The general belief then was, as indeed
it unfortunately continues to be, that women should accept without a
murmur whatever it suits their husbands to give them, whether it be
kindness or blows. Better a thousand times that one human soul should be
stifled and killed than that the Philistines of society should be
scandalized by its struggles for air and life. Eliza's happiness might
have been totally sacrificed had she remained with Bishop; but at least
the feelings of her acquaintances, in whom respectability had destroyed
the more humane qualities, would have been saved. Her scheme, Mary wrote
bitterly to Everina, was contrary to all the rules of conduct that are
published for the benefit of new married ladies. Many felt forced to
forfeit the friendship of these two social rebels, though it grieved them
to the heart to do it. Mrs. Clare, be it said to her honor, remained
stanch, but even she only approved cautiously, and Mary had her
misgivings that she would advise a reconciliation if she once saw Bishop.
To add to the hopelessness of their case, the deserted husband restrained
his rage so well, and made so much of Eliza's heartlessness in abandoning
her child, that he drew to himself the sympathy which should have been
given to her. Mary feared the effect his pleadings and representations
would have upon Edward, the extent of whose egotism she had not yet
measured, and she commissioned Everina to keep him firm. As for Eliza,
she was so shaken and weak, and so unhappy about the poor motherless
infant, that she could neither think nor act. The duty of providing for
their wants, immediate and still to come, fell entirely upon Mary. She
felt this to be just, since it was chiefly through her influence that
they had been brought to their present plight; but the responsibility was
great, and it is no wonder that, brave as she was, she longed for some
one to share it with her.
Her one source of consolation and strength at this time was her religion.
This will seem strange to many, who, knowing but few facts of her life,
conclude from her connection with Godwin and her social radicalism that
she was an atheist. But the sincerest spirit of piety breathes through
her letters written during her early troubles. When the desertion of her
so-called friends made her most bitter, she wrote to Everina:--
"Don't suppose I am preaching when I say uniformity of conduct
cannot in any degree be expected from those whose first motive of
action is not the pleasing the Supreme Being, and those who humbly
rely on Providence will not only be supported in affliction but
have peace imparted to them that is past describing. This state is
indeed a warfare, and we learn little that we don't smart for in
the attaining. The cant of weak enthusiasts has made the
consolations of religion and the assistance of the Holy Spirit
appear ridiculous to the inconsiderate; but it is the only solid
foundation of comfort that the weak efforts of reason will be
assisted and our hearts and minds corrected and improved till the
time arrives when we shall not only see _perfection_, but see every
creature around us happy."
The consolation she found was sufficient to make her advise her friends
to seek for it from the same quarter. She wrote to George Blood at a time
when he was in serious difficulties:--
"It gives me the sincerest satisfaction to find that you look for
comfort where only it is to be met with, and that Being in whom you
trust will not desert you. Be not cast down; while we are
struggling with care life slips away, and through the assistance of
Divine Grace we are obtaining habits of virtue that will enable us
to relish those joys that we cannot now form any idea of. I feel
myself particularly attached to those who are heirs of the
promises, and travel on in the thorny path with the same Christian
hopes that render my severe trials a cause of thankfulness when I
_can_ think."
These passages, evangelical in tone, occur in private letters, meant to
be read only by those to whom they were addressed, so that they must be
counted as honest expressions of her convictions and not mere cant. Just
as she wrote freely to her sisters and her intimate friends about her
temporal matters, so without hesitation she talked to them of her
spiritual affairs. Her belief became broader as she grew older. She never
was an atheist like Godwin, or an unbeliever of the Voltaire school. But
as the years went on, and her knowledge of the world increased, her
religion concerned itself more with conduct and less with creed, until
she finally gave up going to church altogether. But at the time of which
we are writing she was regular in her attendance, and, though not
strictly orthodox, clung to certain forms. The mere fact that she
possessed definite ideas upon the subject while she was young shows the
naturally serious bent of her mind. She had received the most superficial
religious education. Her belief, such as it was, was wholly the result of
her own desire to solve the problems of existence and of the world beyond
the senses. It is this fact, and the inferences to be drawn from it,
which make her piety so well worth recording.
There seem to have been several schemes for work afoot just then. One was
that the two sisters and Fanny Blood, who, some time before, had
expressed herself willing and anxious to leave home, should join their
fortunes. Fanny could paint and draw. Mary and Eliza could take in
needlework until more pleasant and profitable employment could be
procured. Poverty and toil would be more than compensated for by the joy
which freedom and congenial companionship would give them. There was
nothing very Utopian in such a plan; but Fanny, when the time came for
its accomplishment, grew frightened. Her hard apprenticeship had given
her none of the self-confidence and reliance which belonged to Mary by
right of birth. Her family, despite their dependence upon her, seemed
like a protection against the outer world. And so she held back, pleading
the small chances of success by such a partnership, her own poor health,
which would make her a burden to them, and, in fact, so many good reasons
that the plan was abandoned. She, then, with greater aptitude for
suggestion than for action, proposed that Mary and Eliza should keep a
haberdashery shop, to be stocked at the expense of the much-called-upon
but sadly unsusceptible Edward. There is something grimly humorous in the
idea of Mary Wollstonecraft, destined as she was from all eternity to
sound an alarum call to arouse women from their lethargy, spending her
days behind a counter attending to their trifling temporal wants! A
Roland might as well have been asked to become cook, a Sir Galahad to
turn scullion. Honest work is never disgraceful in itself. Indeed,
"Better do to no end, than nothing!" But one regrets the pain and the
waste when circumstances force men and women capable of great work to
spend their energies in ordinary channels. A greater misery than
indifference to the amusement in which one seeks to take part, which
Hamerton counts as the most wearisome of all things, is positive dislike
for the work one is bound to do. Fortunately, Fanny's project was never
carried out. Probably Edward, as usual, failed to meet the proposals made
to him, and Mary realized that the chains by which she would thus bind
herself would be unendurable.
The plan finally adopted was that dearest to Mary's heart. She began her
career as teacher. She and Eliza went to Islington, where Fanny was then
living, and lodged in the same house with her. Then they announced their
intention of receiving day pupils. Mary was eminently fitted to teach.
Her sad experience had increased her natural sympathy and benevolence.
She now made her own troubles subservient to those of her
fellow-sufferers, and resolved that the welfare of others should be the
principal object of her life. Before the word had passed into moral
philosophy, she had become an altruist in its truest sense. The task of
teacher particularly attracted her because it enabled her to prepare the
young for the struggle with the world for which she had been so ill
qualified. Because so little attention had been given to her in her early
youth, she keenly appreciated the advantage of a good practical
education. But her merits were not recognized in Islington. Like the man
in the parable, she set out a banquet of which the bidden guests refused
to partake. No scholars were sent to her. Therefore, at the end of a few
months, she was glad to move to Newington Green, where better prospects
seemed to await her. There she had relatives and influential friends, and
the encouragement she received from them induced her to begin work on a
large scale. She rented a house, and opened a regular school. Her efforts
met with success. Twenty children became her pupils, while a Mrs.
Campbell, a relative, and her son, and another lady, with three children,
came to board with her. Mary was now more comfortable than she had
heretofore been. She was, comparatively speaking, prosperous. She had
much work to do, but by it she was supporting herself, and at the same
time advancing towards her "clear-purposed goal" of self-renunciation.
Then she had cause for pleasure in the fact that Eliza was now really
free, Bishop having finally agreed to the separation. Mary
Wollstonecraft, at the head of a house, and mistress of a school, was a
very different person from Mary Wollstonecraft, simple companion to Mrs.
Dawson or dependent friend of Fanny Blood. Her position was one to
attract attention, and it was sufficient for her to be known, to be loved
and admired. Her social sphere was enlarged. No one could care more for
society than she did, when that society was congenial. At Newington Green
she already began to show the preference for men and women of
intellectual tastes and abilities that she manifested so strongly in her
life in London. Foremost among her intimate acquaintances at this time
was Dr. Richard Price, a clergyman, a Dissenter, then well known because
of his political and mathematical speculations. He was an honest,
upright, simple-hearted man, who commanded the respect and love of all
who knew him, and whose benevolence was great enough to realize even
Mary's ideals. She became deeply attached to him personally, and was a
warm admirer of his religious and moral principles. His sermons gave her
great delight, and she often went to listen to them. He in return seems
to have felt great interest in her, and to have recognized her
extraordinary mental force. Mr. John Hewlet, also a clergyman, was
another of her friends, and she retained his friendship for many years
afterwards. A third friend, mentioned by Godwin in his Memoirs, was Mrs.
Burgh, widow of a man now almost forgotten, but once famous as the author
of "Political Disquisitions." In sorrows soon to come, Mrs. Burgh gave
practical proof of her affection. If a man can be judged by the character
of his associates, then the age, professions, and serious connections of
Mary's friends at Newington Green are not a little significant.
Much as she cared for these older friends, however, they could not be so
dear to her as Fanny and George Blood. She had begun by pitying the
latter for his hopeless passion for Everina, and had finished by loving
him for himself with true sisterly devotion. To brother and sister both,
she could open her heart as she could to no one else. They were young
with her, and that in itself is a strong bond of union. They, too, were
but just beginning life, and they could sympathize with all her
aspirations and disappointments. It was, therefore, an irreparable loss
to her when they, at almost the same time, but for different reasons,
left England. Fanny's health had finally become so wretched that even her
uncertain lover was moved to pity. Mr. Skeys seems to have been one of
the men who only appreciate that which they think they cannot have. Not
until the ill-health of the woman he loved warned him of the possibility
of his losing her altogether did he make definite proposals to her. Her
love for him had not been shaken by his unkindness, and in February,
1785, she married him, and went with him to Lisbon, where he was
established in business. A few years earlier he might, by making her his
wife, have secured her a long life's happiness. Now, as it turned out,
he succeeded but in making her path smooth for a few short months. Mary's
love for Fanny made her much more sensitive to Mr. Skeys' shortcomings as
a lover than Fanny had been. Shortly after the marriage she wrote
indignantly to George:--
"Skeys has received congratulatory letters from most of his friends
and relations in Ireland, and he now regrets that he did not marry
sooner. All his mighty fears had no foundation, so that if he had
had courage to brave the world's opinion, he might have spared
Fanny many griefs, the scars of which will never be obliterated.
Nay, more, if she had gone a year or two ago, her health might have
been perfectly restored, which I do not now think will ever be the
case. Before true passion, I am convinced, everything but a sense
of duty moves; true love is warmest when the object is absent. How
Hugh could let Fanny languish in England, while he was throwing
money away at Lisbon, is to me inexplicable, if he had a passion
that did not require the fuel of seeing the object. I much fear he
loves her not for the qualities that render her dear to my heart.
Her tenderness and delicacy are not even conceived of by a man who
would be satisfied with the fondness of one of the general run of
women."
George Blood's departure was due to less pleasant circumstances than
Fanny's. One youthful escapade which had come to light was sufficient to
attach to his name the blame for another, of which he was innocent. Some
of his associates had become seriously compromised; and he, to avoid
being implicated with them, had literally taken flight, and had made
Ireland his place of refuge.
Mary's friends left her just when she most needed them. Unfortunately,
the interval of peace inaugurated by the opening of the school was but
short-lived. Encouraged by the first success of her enterprise, she
rented a larger house, hoping that in it she would do even better. But
this step proved the _Open Sesame_ to an inexhaustible mine of
difficulties. The expense involved by the change was greater than she had
expected, and her means of meeting it smaller. The population at
Newington Green was not numerous or wealthy enough to support a large
first-class day-school, and more pupils were not forthcoming to avail
themselves of the new accommodations provided for them. It was a second
edition of the story of the wedding feast, and again highways and by-ways
were searched in vain. Moreover, her boarders neglected to pay their
bills regularly. Instead of being a source of profit, they were an
additional burden. Her life now became unspeakably sad. Her whole day was
spent in teaching. This in itself would not have been hard. She always
interested herself in her pupils, and the consciousness of good done for
others was her most highly prized pleasure. Had the physical fatigue
entailed by her work been her only hardship, she would have borne it
patiently and perhaps gayly. But from morning till night, waking and
sleeping, she was haunted by thoughts of unpaid bills and of increasing
debts. Poverty and creditors were the two unavoidable evils which stared
her in the face. Then, when she did hear from Fanny, it was to know that
the chances for her recovery were diminishing rather than increasing.
Reports of George Blood's ill-conduct, repeated for her benefit, hurt and
irritated her. On one occasion, her house was visited by men sent thither
in his pursuit by the girl who had vilely slandered him. Mrs. Campbell,
with the meanness of a small nature, reproached Mary for the
encouragement which she had given his vices. She loved him so truly that
this must have been gall and wormwood to her sensitive heart. Mr. and
Mrs. Blood continued poor and miserable, he drinking and idling, and she
faring as it must ever fare with the wives of such men. Mary saw nothing
before her but a dreary pilgrimage through the wide Valley of the Shadow
of Death, from which there seemed no escape to the Mount Zion beyond. If
she dragged herself out of the deep pit of mental despondency, it was to
fall into a still deeper one of physical prostration. The bleedings and
blisters ordered by her physician could help her but little. What she
needed to make her well was new pupils and honest boarders, and these the
most expert physician could not give her. Is it any wonder that she came
in time to hate Newington Green,--"the grave of all my comforts," she
called it,--to lose relish for life, and to feel cheered only by the
prospect of death? She had nothing to reproach herself with. In sorrow
and sickness alike she had toiled to the best of her abilities. That
which her hand had found to do, she had done with all her might. The
result of her labors and long-sufferance had hitherto been but misfortune
and failure. Truly could she have called out with the Lady of Sorrows in
the Lamentations: "Attend, all ye who pass by, and see if there be any
sorrow like unto mine." Because we know how great her misery was, we can
more fully appreciate the extent of her heroism. Though, as she confessed
to her friends in her weariest moments, her heart was broken, she never
once swerved from allegiance to the heaven-given mandate, as Carlyle
calls it, "Work thou in well-doing!" She never faltered in the
accomplishment of the duty she had set for herself, nor forgot the
troubles of others because of her own. Though her difficulties
accumulated with alarming rapidity, there was no relaxation in her
attentions to Mr. and Mrs. Blood, in her care for her sister, nor in the
sympathy she gave to George Blood.
Perhaps the greatest joy that came to her during this year was the news
that Mr. Skeys had found a position for his brother-in-law in Lisbon. But
this pleasure was more than counterbalanced by the discouraging bulletins
of Fanny's health. Mr. Skeys was alarmed at his wife's increasing
weakness, and was anxious to gratify her every desire. Fanny expressed a
wish to have Mary with her during her confinement. The latter, with
characteristic unselfishness, consented, when Mr. Skeys asked her to go
to Lisbon, though in so doing she was obliged to leave school and house.
This shows the sincerity of her opinion that before true passion
everything but duty moves. To her, Fanny's need seemed greater than her
own; and she thought to fulfil her duty towards her sister, and to
provide for her welfare by giving her charge of her scholars and boarders
while she was away from them. Mary's decision was vigorously questioned
by her friends. Indeed, there were many reasons against it. It was feared
her absence from the school for a necessarily long period would be
injurious to it, and this eventually proved to be the case. The journey
was a long one for a woman to make alone. And last, but not least, she
had not the ready money to pay her expenses. But, despite all her
friends could say, she could not be moved from her original resolution.
When they saw their arguments were useless, they manifested their
friendship in a more practical manner. Mrs. Burgh lent her the necessary
sum of money for the journey. Godwin, however, thinks that in doing this
she was acting in behalf of Dr. Price, who modestly preferred to conceal
his share in the transaction. All impediments having thus been removed,
Mary, in the autumn of 1785, started upon the saddest, up to this date,
of her many missions of charity.
The reunion of the friends was a joyless pleasure. When Mary arrived in
Lisbon, she found Fanny in the last stages of her illness, and before she
had time to rest from her journey she began her work as sick-nurse. Four
hours after her arrival Fanny's child was born. It had been sad enough
for Mary to watch her mother's last moments and Eliza's insanity; but
this new duty was still more painful. She loved Fanny Blood with a
passion whose depth is beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals. Her
affection for her was the one romance of her youth, and she lavished upon
it all the sweetness and tenderness, the enthusiasm and devotion of her
nature, which make her seem to us lovable above all women. And now this
friend, the best gift life had so far given her, was to be taken from
her. She saw Fanny grow weaker and weaker day by day, and knew that she
was powerless to avert the coming calamity. Yet whatever could be done,
she did. There never has been, and there never can be, a more faithful,
gentle nurse. The following letter gives a graphic description of her
journey, of the sad welcome which awaited her at its termination, and
the still sadder duties she fulfilled in Lisbon:--
LISBON, Nov. or Dec. 1785.
MY DEAR GIRLS,--I am beginning to awake out of a terrifying dream,
for in that light do the transactions of these two or three last
days appear. Before I say more, let me tell you that, when I
arrived here, Fanny was in labor, and that four hours after she was
delivered of a boy. The child is alive and well, and considering
the _very, very_ low state to which Fanny was reduced she is better
than could be expected. I am now watching her and the child. My
active spirits have not been much at rest ever since I left
England. I could not write to you on shipboard, the sea was so
rough; and we had such hard gales of wind, the captain was afraid
we should be dismasted. I cannot write to-night or collect my
scattered thoughts, my mind is so unsettled. Fanny is so worn out,
her recovery would be almost a resurrection, and my reason will
scarce allow me to think it possible. I labor to be resigned, and
by the time I am a little so, some faint hope sets my thoughts
again afloat, and for a moment I look forward to days that will,
alas! never come.
I will try to-morrow to give you some little regular account of my
journey, though I am almost afraid to look beyond the present
moment. Was not my arrival providential? I can scarce be persuaded
that I am here, and that so many things have happened in so short a
time. My head grows light with thinking on it.
_Friday morning._--Fanny has been so alarmingly ill since I wrote
the above, I entirely gave her up, and yet I could not write and
tell you so: it seemed like signing her death-warrant. Yesterday
afternoon some of the most alarming symptoms a little abated, and
she had a comfortable night; yet I rejoice with trembling lips, and
am afraid to indulge hopes. She is very low. The stomach is so weak
it will scarce bear to receive the slightest nourishment; in short,
if I were to tell you all her complaints you would not wonder at my
fears. The child, though a puny one, is well. I have got a
wet-nurse for it. The packet does not sail till the latter end of
next week, and I send this by a ship. I shall write by every
opportunity. We arrived last Monday. We were only thirteen days at
sea. The wind was so high and the sea so boisterous the water came
in at the cabin windows; and the ship rolled about in such a
manner, it was dangerous to stir. The women were sea-sick the whole
time, and the poor invalid so oppressed by his complaints, I never
expected he would live to see Lisbon. I have supported him for
hours together gasping for breath, and at night, if I had been
inclined to sleep, his dreadful cough would have kept me awake. You
may suppose that I have not rested much since I came here, yet I am
tolerably well, and calmer than I could expect to be. Could I not
look for comfort where only 'tis to be found, I should have been
mad before this, but I feel that I am supported by that Being who
alone can heal a wounded spirit. May He bless you both.
Yours,
MARY.
Her state of uncertainty about poor Fanny did not last long. Shortly
after the above letter was written, the invalid died. Just as life was
beginning to smile upon her, she was called from it. She had worked so
long that when happiness at length came, she had no strength left to bear
it. The blessing her wrestling had wrought was but of short duration.
Godwin, in his Memoirs, says that Mary's trip to Portugal probably
enlarged her understanding. "She was admitted," he writes, "to the very
best company the English colony afforded. She made many profound
observations on the character of the natives and the baleful effects of
superstition." But it seems doubtful whether she really saw many people
in Lisbon, or gave great heed to what was going on around her. Arrived
there just in time to see her friend die, she remained but a short time
after all was over. There was no inducement for her to make a longer
stay. Her feelings for Mr. Skeys were not friendly. She could not forget
that had he but treated Fanny as she, for example, would have done had
she been in his place, this early death might have been prevented. Her
school, intrusted to Mrs. Bishop's care, was a strong reason for her
speedy return to England. The cause which had called her from it being
gone, she was anxious to return to her post.
An incident highly characteristic of her is told of the journey home. She
had nursed a poor sick man on the way to Portugal; on the way back she
was instrumental in saving the lives of many men. The ship in which she
sailed met at mid-sea a French vessel so dismantled and storm-beaten that
it was in imminent risk of sinking, and its stock of provisions was
almost exhausted. Its officers hailed the English ship, begging its
captain to take them and their entire crew on board. The latter
hesitated. This was no trifling request. He had his own crew and
passengers to consider, and he feared to lay such a heavy tax on the
provisions provided for a certain number only. This was a case which
aroused Mary's tenderest sympathy. It was impossible for her to witness
it unmoved. She could not without a protest allow her fellow-creatures to
be so cruelly deserted. Like another Portia come to judgment, she
clinched the difficulty by representing to the captain that if he did not
yield to their entreaties she would expose his inhumanity upon her return
to England. Her arguments prevailed. The sufferers were saved, and the
intercessor in their behalf added one more to the long list of her good
deeds. Never has there been a woman, not even a Saint Rose of Lima or a
Saint Catherine of Siena, who could say as truly as Mary
Wollstonecraft,--
"... I sate among men
And I have loved these."