LIFE WITH IMLAY.
1793-1794.
While Mary was living at Neuilly, the terrors of the French Revolution
growing daily greater, she took a step to which she was prompted by pure
motives, but which has left a blot upon her fair fame. The outcry raised
by her "Vindication of the Rights of Women" has ceased, since its
theories have found so many champions. But that which followed her
assertion of her individual rights has never yet been hushed. Kegan Paul
speaks the truth when he says, "The name of Mary Wollstonecraft has long
been a mark for obloquy and scorn." The least that can be done to clear
her memory of stains is to state impartially the facts of her case.
As has been said in the previous chapter, Mary often spent her free hours
with Mrs. Christie, and at her house she met Captain Gilbert Imlay. He
was one of the many Americans then living in Paris. He was an attractive
man personally, and his position and abilities entitled him to respect.
He had taken an active part in the American rebellion, having then risen
to the rank of captain, and, after the war, had been sent as commissioner
to survey still unsettled districts of the western States. On his return
from this work he wrote a monograph, called "A Topographical Description
of the Western Territory of North America," which is remarkable for its
thoroughness and its clear, condensed style, appropriate to such a
treatise. It passed through several editions and increased his
reputation. His business in France is not very explicitly explained. His
headquarters seem to have been at Havre, while he had certain commercial
relations with Norway and Sweden. He was most probably in the timber
business, and was, at least at this period, successful. Godwin says that
he had no property whatever, but his speculations apparently brought him
plenty of ready money.
Foreigners in Paris, especially Americans and English, were naturally
drawn together. Mary and Imlay had mutual acquaintances, and they saw
much of each other. His republican sentiments alone would have appealed
to her. But the better she learned to know him, the more she liked him
personally. He, on his side, was equally attracted, and his kindness and
consideration for her were greatly in his favor. Their affection in the
end developed into a feeling stronger than mere friendship. Its
consequence, since both were free, would under ordinary circumstances
have been marriage.
But her circumstances just then were extraordinary. Godwin says that she
objected to a marriage with Imlay because she did not wish to "involve
him in certain family embarrassments to which she conceived herself
exposed, or make him answerable for the pecuniary demands that existed
against her." There were, however, more formidable objections, not of her
own making. The English who remained in Paris ran the chance from day to
day of being arrested with the priests and aristocrats, and even of being
carried to the guillotine. Their only safeguard lay in obscurity. They
had above all else to evade the notice of government officers. Mary, if
she married Imlay, would be obliged to proclaim herself a British
subject, and would thus be risking imprisonment and perhaps death.
Besides, it was very doubtful whether a marriage ceremony performed by
the French authorities would be recognized in England as valid. Had she
been willing to pass through this perilous ordeal she would have gained
nothing. Love's labor would indeed have been lost. Marriage was thus out
of the question.
To Mary, however, this did not seem an insurmountable obstacle to their
union. "Her view had now become," Kegan Paul says, "that mutual affection
was marriage, and that the marriage tie should not bind after the death
of love, if love should die." In her "Vindication," she had upheld the
sanctity of marriage because she believed that the welfare of society
depends upon the order maintained in family relations. But her belief
also was that the form the law demands is nothing, the feeling which
leads those concerned to desire it, everything. What she had hitherto
seen of married life, as at present instituted, was not calculated to
make her think highly of it. Her mother and her friend's mother had led
the veriest dogs' lives because the law would not permit them to leave
brutal and sensual husbands, whom they had ceased to honor or love. Her
sister had been driven mad by the ill-treatment of a man to whom she was
bound by legal, but not by natural ties. Lady Kingsborough, giving to
dogs the love which neither her coarse husband nor her children by him
could evoke, was not a brilliant example of conjugal pleasure. Probably
in London other cases had come within her notice. Marriage vows, it
seemed, were with the majority but the convenient cloak of vice. Women
lived with their husbands that they might be more free to entertain their
lovers. Men lived with their wives that they might keep establishments
elsewhere for their mistresses. Love was the one unimportant element in
the marriage compact. The artificial tone of society had disgusted all
the more earnest thinkers of the day. The very extreme to which existing
evils were carried drove reformers to the other. Rousseau and Helvetius
clamored for a relapse into a state of nature without exactly knowing
what the realization of their theories would produce. Mary reasoned in
the same spirit as they did, and from no desire to uphold the doctrine of
free love. Fearless in her practice as in her theories, she did not
hesitate in this emergency to act in a way that seemed to her conscience
right. She loved Imlay honestly and sincerely. Because she loved him she
could not think evil of him, nor suppose for a moment that his passion
was not as pure and true as hers. Therefore she consented to live with
him as his wife, though no religious nor civil ceremony could sanction
their union.
That this, according to the world's standard, was wrong, is a fact beyond
dispute. But before the first stones are thrown, the _pros_ as well as
the _cons_ must be remembered. If Mary had held the conventional beliefs
as to the relations of the sexes, she would be judged by them. Had she
thought her connection with Imlay criminal, then she would be condemned
by her own conviction. But she did not think so. Moreover, her opinions
to the contrary were very decided. When she gave herself to Imlay without
waiting for a minister's blessing or a legal permit, she acted in strict
adherence to her moral ideals; and this at once places her in a far
different rank from that of the Mrs. Robinsons and Mrs. Jordans, with
whom men have been too ready to class her. Neither can she be compared to
a woman like George Sand, who also believed that love was a more sacred
bond of union than the marriage tie, and who acted accordingly. But to
George Sand, as masculine by nature as by dress, love was of her life a
thing apart, and a change of lovers a matter of secondary importance. To
Mary love was literally her whole existence, and fidelity a virtue to be
cultivated above all others. Since she in her conduct in this instance
stands alone, she can be justly judged by no other standard than her own.
Whether marriage does or does not represent the ideal relation which can
exist between a man and woman is without the compass of the present work.
But since it is and has been for ages held to be so, the woman who bids
defiance to this law must abide by the consequences. Custom has
inconsistently pardoned freedom in such matters to men, but never to
women. Mary Wollstonecraft might rely upon her friends and acquaintances
for recognition of her virtue, but she should have remembered that to the
world at large her conduct would appear immoral; that by it she would
become a pariah in society, and her work lose much of its efficacy; while
she would be giving to her children, if she had any, an inheritance of
shame that would cling to them forever.
She may probably have realized this drawback and determined to avoid the
evil consequences of her defiance to social usages. For the first few
months it seems that she kept her intimacy with Imlay secret, and she may
have intended concealing it until such time as she could make it legal in
the eyes of the world. Godwin dates its beginning in April, 1793. The
only information in this respect is to be had from her published letters
to Imlay, the first of which was written in June of the same year,
though, it must be added, Kegan Paul queries the date. This and the
following note, dated August, prove the secrecy she for a time
maintained. The latter seems to have been written after she had
determined to live openly with Imlay in Paris, but just before she
carried her determination into practice:--
_Past Twelve o'clock, Monday night._
I obey an emotion of my heart which made me think of wishing thee,
my love, good-night! before I go to rest, with more tenderness than
I can to-morrow, when writing a hasty line or two under Colonel
----'s eye. You can scarcely imagine with what pleasure I
anticipate the day when we are to begin almost to live together;
and you would smile to hear how many plans of employment I have in
my head, now that I am confident my heart has found peace in your
bosom. Cherish me with that dignified tenderness which I have only
found in you, and your own dear girl will try to keep under a
quickness of feeling that has sometimes given you pain. Yes, I will
be _good_, that I may deserve to be happy; and whilst you love me,
I cannot again fall into the miserable state which rendered life a
burden almost too heavy to be borne.
But good-night! God bless you! Sterne says that is equal to a
kiss, yet I would rather give you the kiss into the bargain,
glowing with gratitude to Heaven and affection to you. I like the
word affection, because it signifies something habitual; and we are
soon to meet, to try whether we have mind enough to keep our hearts
warm.
I will be at the barrier a little after ten o'clock to-morrow.
Yours,
----
The reason for this step was probably the fact that it was not safe for
her to continue in Paris alone and unprotected. The robbers in the woods
at Neuilly might be laughed at; but the red-capped _citoyens_ and
_citoyennes_, drunk from the first draught of aristocratic blood, were no
old man's dangers. The peril of the English in the city increased with
every new development of the struggle; but Americans were looked upon as
stanch brother citizens, and a man who had fought for the American
Republic was esteemed as the friend and honored guest of the French
Republic. As Imlay's wife, Mary's safety would therefore be assured. The
murderous greed of the people, to break out in September in the _Law of
the Suspect_, was already felt in August, and at the end of that month
she sought protection under Imlay's roof, and shielded herself by his
name.
She could not at once judge of the manner in which this expedient would
be received. It was impossible to hold any communication with England.
For eighteen months after her letter to Mr. Johnson, not a word from her
reached her friends at home. As for those in Paris, so intense was the
great human tragedy of which they were the witnesses, that they probably
forgot to gossip about each other. The crimes and horrors that stared
them in the face were so appalling that desire to seek out imaginary ones
in their neighbors was lost. As far as can be known from Mary's letters,
her connection with Imlay did not take from her the position she had held
in the English colony. No door was closed against her; no scandal was
spread about her. The truth is, these people must have understood her
difficulties as well as she did. They knew the impossibility of a legal
ceremony and the importance in her case of an immediate union; and
understanding this, they seem to have considered her Imlay's wife. At
least the rumors which months afterwards came to her sisters treated her
marriage as a certainty. Charles Wollstonecraft, now settled in
Philadelphia, wrote on June 16, 1794, to Eliza, a year after Mary and
Imlay had begun their joint life: "I heard from Mary six months ago by a
gentleman who knew her at Paris, and since that have been informed she is
married to Captain Imlay of this country." The same report had found its
way to Mr. Johnson, and through him again to Mrs. Bishop. It was hard to
doubt its truth, and yet Mrs. Bishop knew as well as, if not better than,
any one Mary's views about marriage. She had, happily for herself, reaped
the benefit of them. In her surprise she sent Charles's letter to
Everina, accompanied by her own reflections upon the startling news.
These are a curious testimony to the strength of Mary's objections to
matrimony. Eliza's petty envy of her greater sister is still apparent in
this letter. It is dated August 15:--
"... If Mary is _actually_ married to Mr. Imlay, it is not
impossible but she might settle there [in America] too. Yet Mary
cannot be _married_! It is natural to conclude her protector is her
_husband_. Nay, on reading Charles's letter, I for an instant
believed it true. I would, my Everina, we were out of suspense, for
all at present is uncertainty and the most cruel suspense; still,
Johnson does not repeat things at random, and that the very same
tale should have crossed the Atlantic makes me almost believe that
the once M. is now Mrs. Imlay, and a mother. Are we ever to see
this mother and her babe?"
The only record of Mary's connection with Imlay, which lasted for about
two years, are the letters which she wrote to him while he was away from
her, his absences being frequent and long. Fortunately, these letters
have been preserved. They were published by Godwin almost immediately
after her death, and were republished in 1879 by C. Kegan Paul. "They
are," says Godwin, "the offspring of a glowing imagination, and a heart
penetrated with the passion it essays to describe." She was thirty-five
when she met Imlay. Her passion for him was strong with the strength of
full womanhood, nor had it been weakened by the flirtations in which so
many women fritter away whatever deep feeling they may have originally
possessed. She was no coquette, as she told him many times. She could not
have concealed her love in order to play upon that of the man to whom she
gave it. What she felt for him she showed him with no reservation or
affectation of feminine delicacy. She despised such false sentiments. The
consequence is, that her letters contain the unreserved expression of her
feelings. Those written before she had cause to doubt her lover are full
of wifely devotion and tenderness; those written from the time she was
forced to question his sincerity, through the gradual realization of his
faithlessness, until the bitter end, are the most pathetic and
heart-rending that have ever been given to the world. They are the cry of
a human soul in its death-agony, and are the more tragic because they
belong to real life and not to fiction. The sorrows of the Heros,
Guineveres, and Francescas of romance are not greater than hers were.
Their grief was separation from lovers who still loved them. Hers was the
loss of the love of a man for whom her passion had not ceased, and the
admission of the unworthiness of him whom she had chosen as worthy above
all others. Who will deny that her fate was the more cruel?
She in her letters tells her story better than any one else could do it
for her. Therefore, as far as it is possible, it will be repeated here in
her own words.
Imlay's love was to Mary what the kiss of the Prince was to the Sleeping
Beauty in the fairy tale. It awakened her heart to happiness, leading her
into that new world which is the old. Hitherto the love which had been
her portion was that which she had sought
"... in the pity of other's woe,
In the gentle relief of another's care."
And yet she had always believed that the pure passion which a man gives
to a woman is the greatest good in life. That she was without it had been
to her a heavier trial than an unhappy home and overwhelming debts. Now,
when she least expected it, it had come to her. While women in Paris were
either trembling with fear for what the morrow might bring forth, or else
caught in the feverish whirl of rebellion, one at least had found rest.
But human happiness can never be quite perfect. Sensitiveness was a
family fault with the Wollstonecrafts. It had been developed rather than
suppressed in Mary by her circumstances. She was therefore keenly
susceptible not only to Imlay's love, but to his failings. Of these he
had not a few. He does not seem to have been a refined man. From some
remarks in Mary's letters it may be concluded that he had at one time
been very dissipated, and that the society of coarse men and women had
blunted his finer instincts. His faults were peculiarly calculated to
offend her. His passion had to be stimulated. His business called him
away often, and his absences were unmistakably necessary to the
maintenance of his devotion. The sunshine of her new life was therefore
not entirely unclouded. She was by degrees obliged to lower the high
pedestal on which she had placed her lover, and to admit to herself that
he was not much above the level of ordinary men. This discovery did not
lessen her affection, though it made her occasionally melancholy. But she
was, on the whole, happy.
In September he was compelled to leave her to go to Havre, where he was
detained for several months. Love had cast out all fear from her heart.
She was certain that he considered himself in every sense of the word her
husband; and therefore during his absence she frankly told him how much
she missed him, and in her letters shared her troubles and pleasures with
him. She wrote the last thing at night to tell him of her love and her
loneliness. She could not take his slippers from their old place by the
door. She would not look at a package of books sent to her, but said she
would keep them until he could read them to her while she would mend her
stockings. She drew pictures of the happy days to come when in the farm,
either in America or France, to which they both looked forward as their
_Ultima Thule_, they would spend long evenings by their fireside, perhaps
with children about their knees. If Eliza sent her a worrying letter,
half the worry was gone when she had confided it to him. If ne'er-do-weel
Charles, temporarily prosperous or promising to be so, wrote her one that
pleased her, straightway she described the delight with which he would
make a friend of Imlay. When the latter had been away but a short time,
she found there was to be a new tie between them. As the father of her
unborn child he became doubly dear to her, while the consciousness that
another life depended upon her made her more careful of her health. "This
thought," she told him, "has not only produced an overflowing of
tenderness to you, but made me very attentive to calm my mind and take
exercise lest I should destroy an object in whom we are to have a mutual
interest, you know." As Kegan Paul says, "No one can read her letters
without seeing that she was a pure, high-minded, and refined woman, and
that she considered herself, in the eyes of God and man, his wife."
During the first part of his absence, Imlay appears to have been as
devoted as she could have wished him to be. When her letters to him did
not come regularly,--as indeed, how could they in those troubled
days?--he grew impatient. His impatience Mary greeted as a good sign. In
December she wrote:--
I am glad to find that other people can be unreasonable as well as
myself, for be it known to thee, that I answered thy _first_ letter
the very night it reached me (Sunday), though thou couldst not
receive it before Wednesday, because it was not sent off till the
next day. There is a full, true, and particular account.
Yet I am not angry with thee, my love, for I think that it is a
proof of stupidity, and, likewise, of a milk-and-water affection,
which comes to the same thing, when the temper is governed by a
square and compass. There is nothing picturesque in this
straight-lined equality, and the passions always give grace to the
actions.
Recollection now makes my heart bound to thee; but it is not to thy
money-getting face, though I cannot be seriously displeased with
the exertion which increases my esteem, or rather is what I should
have expected from thy character. No; I have thy honest countenance
before me,--Pop,--relaxed by tenderness; a little, little wounded
by my whims; and thy eyes glistening with sympathy. Thy lips then
feel softer than soft, and I rest my cheek on thine, forgetting all
the world. I have not left the hue of love out of the picture--the
rosy glow; and fancy has spread it over my own cheeks, I believe,
for I feel them burning, whilst a delicious tear trembles in my
eye, that would be all your own, if a grateful emotion, directed to
the Father of nature, who has made me thus alive to happiness, did
not give more warmth to the sentiment it divides. I must pause a
moment.
Need I tell you that I am tranquil after writing thus? I do not
know why, but I have more confidence in your affection when absent
than present; nay, I think that you must love me, for, in the
sincerity of my heart let me say it, I believe I deserve your
tenderness, because I am true, and have a degree of sensibility
that you can see and relish.
Yours sincerely,
MARY.
But there were days during his absence when her melancholy returned with
full force. She could not but fear that the time would come when the
coarse fibre of his love would work her evil. Just after he left, she
wrote,--
"... So much for business! May I venture to talk a little longer
about less weighty affairs? How are you? I have been following you
all along the road this comfortless weather; for when I am absent
from those I love, my imagination is as lively as if my senses had
never been gratified by their presence--I was going to say
caresses, and why should I not? I have found out that I have more
mind than you in one respect; because I can, without any violent
effort of reason, find food for love in the same object much longer
than you can. The way to my senses is through my heart; but,
forgive me! I think there is sometimes a shorter cut to yours.
"With ninety-nine men out of a hundred, a very sufficient dash of
folly is necessary to render a woman _piquante_, a soft word for
desirable; and, beyond these casual ebullitions of sympathy, few
look for enjoyment by fostering a passion in their hearts. One
reason, in short, why I wish my whole sex to become wiser, is, that
the foolish ones may not, by their pretty folly, rob those whose
sensibility keeps down their vanity, of the few roses that afford
them some solace in the thorny road of life.
"I do not know how I fell into these reflections, excepting one
thought produced it--that these continual separations were
necessary to warm your affection. Of late we are always separating.
Crack! crack! and away you go! This joke wears the sallow cast of
thought; for, though I began to write cheerfully, some melancholy
tears have found their way into my eyes, that linger there, whilst
a glow of tenderness at my heart whispers that you are one of the
best creatures in the world. Pardon then the vagaries of a mind
that has been almost 'crazed by care,' as well as 'crossed in
hapless love,' and bear with me a _little_ longer. When we are
settled in the country together, more duties will open before me;
and my heart, which now, trembling into peace, is agitated by every
emotion that awakens the remembrance of old griefs, will learn to
rest on yours with that dignity your character, not to talk of my
own, demands."
The business at Havre apparently could not be easily settled. The date of
Imlay's return became more and more uncertain, and Mary grew restless at
his prolonged stay. This she let him know soon enough. She was not a
silent heroine willing to let concealment prey on her spirits. It was as
impossible for her to smile at grief as it was to remain unconscious of
her lover's shortcomings. Her first complaints, however, are half
playful, half serious. They were inspired by her desire to see him more
than by any misgiving as to the cause of his detention. On the 29th of
December she wrote:
"You seem to have taken up your abode at Havre. Pray, sir! when do
you think of coming home? or, to write very considerately, when
will business permit you? I shall expect (as the country people say
in England) that you will make a _power_ of money to indemnify me
for your absence....
"Well! but, my love, to the old story,--am I to see you this week,
or this month? I do not know what you are about, for as you did not
tell me, I would not ask Mr. ----, who is generally pretty
communicative."
But the playfulness quickly disappeared. Mary was ill, and her illness
aggravated her normal sensitiveness, while the terrible death-drama of
the Revolution was calculated to deepen rather than to relieve her gloom.
A day or two later she broke out vehemently:--
"... I hate commerce. How differently must ----'s head and heart be
organized from mine! You will tell me that exertions are necessary.
I am weary of them! The face of things public and private vexes me.
The 'peace' and clemency which seemed to be dawning a few days ago,
disappear again. 'I am fallen,' as Milton said, 'on evil days,' for
I really believe that Europe will be in a state of convulsion
during half a century at least. Life is but a labor of patience; it
is always rolling a great stone up a hill; for before a person can
find a resting-place, imagining it is lodged, down it comes again,
and all the work is to be done over anew!
"Should I attempt to write any more, I could not change the strain.
My head aches and my heart is heavy. The world appears an 'unweeded
garden' where things 'rank and vile' flourish best.
"If you do not return soon,--or, which is no such weighty matter,
talk of it,--I will throw my slippers out at window, and be off,
nobody knows where."
The next morning she added in a postscript:--
"I was very low-spirited last night, ready to quarrel with your
cheerful temper, which makes absence easy to you. And why should I
mince the matter? I was offended at your not even mentioning it. I
do not want to be loved like a goddess, but I wish to be necessary
to you. God bless you!"
Imlay's answers to these letters were kind and reassuring, and contained
ample explanation of his apparent coldness. He probably, to give him the
benefit of the doubt, was at this time truthful in pleading business as
an excuse for his long absence. His reasons, at all events, not only
satisfied Mary but made her ashamed of what seemed to her a want of faith
in him. She was as humble in her penitence as if she had been grievously
at fault. One Monday night she wrote:--
"I have just received your kind and rational letter, and would fain
hide my face, glowing with shame for my folly. I would hide it in
your bosom, if you would again open it to me, and nestle closely
till you bade my fluttering heart be still, by saying that you
forgave me. With eyes overflowing with tears, and in the humblest
attitude, I entreat you. Do not turn from me, for indeed I love you
fondly, and have been very wretched since the night I was so
cruelly hurt by thinking that you had no confidence in me."
As it continued impossible for Imlay to leave Havre, it was arranged that
Mary should join him there. She could not go at once on account of her
health. While she had been so unhappy, she had neglected to take that
care of herself which her condition necessitated, and she was suffering
the consequences. Once her mind was at rest, she made what amends she
could by exercise in the bracing winter air, in defiance of dirt and
intense cold, and by social relaxation, at least such as could be had
while the guillotine was executing daily tasks to the tune of _Ca ira_,
and women were madly turning in the mazes of the _Carmagnole_. Though she
could not boast of being quite recovered, she was soon able to report to
Imlay, "I am so _lightsome_, that I think it will not go badly with me."
Her health sufficiently restored, and an escort--the excited condition of
the country making one more than usually indispensable--having been
found, she began her welcome journey. It was doubly welcome. One could
breathe more freely away from Paris, the seat of the Reign of Terror,
where the Revolution, as Vergniaud said, was, Saturn-like, devouring its
own children; and for Mary the journey had likewise the positive pleasure
of giving her her heart's desire. Before Imlay's warm assurances of his
love, her uneasiness melted away as quickly as the snow at the first
breath of spring. How completely, is shown in this extract from a letter
in which she prepared him for her coming:--
"You have by your tenderness and worth twisted yourself more
artfully round my heart than I supposed possible. Let me indulge
the thought that I have thrown out some tendrils to cling to the
elm by which I wish to be supported. This is talking a new language
for me! But, knowing that I am not a parasite-plant, I am willing
to receive the proofs of affection that every pulse replies to when
I think of being once more in the same house with you. God bless
you!"
She arrived in Havre in the February of 1794. About a fortnight later
Imlay left for Paris, but many proofs of his affection had greeted her,
and during these few days he had completely calmed her fears. Judging
from the letters she sent him during this absence, he must have been as
lover-like as in the first happy days of their union. One was written the
very day after his departure:--
HAVRE, _Thursday morning_, March 12.
We are such creatures of habit, my love, that, though I cannot say
I was sorry, childishly so, for your going, when I knew that you
were to stay such a short time, and I had a plan of employment, yet
I could not sleep. I turned to your side of the bed, and tried to
make the most of the comfort of the pillow, which you used to tell
me I was churlish about; but all would not do. I took,
nevertheless, my walk before breakfast, though the weather was not
inviting; and here I am, wishing you a finer day, and seeing you
peep over my shoulder, as I write, with one of your kindest looks,
when your eyes glisten and a suffusion creeps over your relaxing
features.
But I do not mean to dally with you this morning. So God bless you!
Take care of yourself, and sometimes fold to your heart your
affectionate
MARY.
The second note was written shortly before his return, and was a mere
postscript to a letter on business. Had she covered reams of paper with
her protestations, she could not have expressed her tender devotion more
strongly than in these few lines:--
Do not call me stupid for leaving on the table the little bit of
paper I was to enclose. This comes of being in love at the fag-end
of a letter of business. You know you say they will not chime
together. I had got you by the fire-side with the _gigot_ smoking
on the board, to lard your bare ribs, and behold, I closed my
letter without taking the paper up, that was directly under my
eyes! What had I got in them to render me so blind? I give you
leave to answer the question, if you will not scold; for I am
Yours most affectionately,
MARY.
Imlay's absence was brief, nor did he again leave Mary until the
following August. In April their child, a daughter, was born, whom Mary
called Fanny in memory of her first and dearest friend. Despite her past
imprudences, she was so well that she remained in bed but a day. Eight
days later she was out again. Though she felt no ill effects at the time,
her rashness had probably something to do with her illness when her
second child was born. These months at Havre were a pleasant oasis in
the dreary desert of her existence. To no parched, sun-weary traveller
have the cooling waters of the well and the shade of the palm-tree been
more refreshing and invigorating than domestic pleasures were to Mary.
Years before she had told Mr. Johnson they were among her most highly
cherished joys, nor did they prove less desirable when realized than they
had in anticipation. She seems to have had a house of her own in Havre,
and to have seen a little of the Havrais, whom she found "ugly without
doubt," and their houses smelling too much of commerce. They were, in a
word, _bourgeois_. But her husband and child were all the society she
wanted. With them any wilderness would have been a paradise. Her
affection increased with time, and Imlay, though discovered not to be a
demigod, grew ever dearer to her. Her love for her child, which she
confessed was at first the effect of a sense of duty, developed soon into
a deep and tender feeling. With Imlay's wants to attend to, the little
Fanny, at one time ill with small-pox, to nurse, and her book on the
Revolution to write, the weeks and months passed quickly and happily. In
August Imlay was summoned to Paris, and at once the sky of her paradise
was overcast. She wrote to him,--
"You too have somehow clung round my heart. I found I could not eat
my dinner in the great room, and when I took up the large knife to
carve for myself, tears rushed into my eyes. Do not, however,
suppose that I am melancholy, for, when you are from me, I not only
wonder how I can find fault with you, but how I can doubt your
affection."