LITERARY WORK.
1793-1796.
The first volume of "An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and
Progress of the French Revolution, and the Effect it has produced in
Europe," which Mary wrote during the months she lived in France, was
published by Johnson in 1794. It was favorably received and criticised,
especially by that portion of the public who had sympathized with the
Revolutionists in the controversy with Burke. One admirer, in 1803,
declared it was not second even to Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire." It went very quickly through two editions, surest proof of
its success. The "Analytical Review" called it
"... a work of uncommon merit, abounding with strong traits of
original genius, and containing a great variety of just and
important observations on the recent affairs of France and on the
general interests of society at the present crisis."
Mary had apparently spent in idleness the years which had elapsed since
the "Rights of Women" had taken England by storm. But in reality she must
have made good use of them. This new book marks an enormous advance in
her mental development. It is but little disfigured by the faults of
style, and is never weakened by the lack of method, which detract from
the strength and power of the work by which she is best known. In the
"French Revolution" her arguments are well weighed and balanced, and
flowers of rhetoric, with a few exceptions, are sacrificed for a simple
and concise statement of facts. Unfortunately the first volume was never
followed by a second. Had Mary finished the book, as she certainly
intended to do when she began it, it probably would still be ranked with
the standard works on the Revolution.
As the title demonstrates, her object in writing this history was to
explain the moral significance, as well as the historical value, of the
incidents which she recorded. This moral element is uppermost in every
page of her book. The determination to discover the truth at all hazards
is its key-note. This end Mary hoped to accomplish, first by tracing the
French troubles to their real causes, and then by giving an unprejudiced
account of them. The result of a thorough study and investigation of her
subject was the formation of doctrines which are in close sympathy with
those of the evolutionists of to-day. Nothing strikes the reader so much
as her firm belief in the theory of development, and her conclusion
therefrom that progress in government consists in the gradual
substitution of altruistic principles for the egotism which was the
primal foundation of law and order. Profession of this creed is at once
made in both the preface and first chapter of the "French Revolution." In
the former, she writes:--
"By ... attending to circumstances, we shall be able to discern
clearly that the Revolution was neither produced by the abilities
or the intrigues of a few individuals, nor was the effect of sudden
and short-lived enthusiasm; but the natural consequence of
intellectual improvement, gradually proceeding to perfection in the
advancement of communities from a state of barbarism to that of
polished society."
In considering this subject, she concludes that the civilization of the
ancients was deficient because it paid more attention to the cultivation
of taste in the few than to the development of understanding in the many,
and that that of the moderns is superior to it because of the more
general diffusion of knowledge which followed the invention of printing.
Her arguments in support of her theories are excellent.
"When," she writes, "learning was confined to a small number of the
citizens of a state, and the investigation of its privileges was
left to a number still smaller, governments seem to have acted as
if the people were formed only for them; and ingeniously
confounding their rights with metaphysical jargon, the luxurious
grandeur of individuals has been supported by the misery of the
bulk of their fellow-creatures, and ambition gorged by the butchery
of millions of innocent victims."
This despotism, she further asserts, always continues so long as men are
unqualified to judge with precision of their civil and political rights.
But once they begin to think, and hence to learn the true facts of
history, they must discover that the first social systems were founded on
passion,--"individuals wishing to fence round their own wealth or power,
and make slaves of their brothers to prevent encroachment,"--and that the
laws of society could not have been originally "adjusted so as to take in
the future conduct of its members, because the faculties of man are
unfolded and perfected by the improvements made by society." This
knowledge necessarily destroys belief in the sanctity of prescription,
and when once it is made the basis of government, the ruling powers will
have as much consideration for the rights of others as for their own.
"When society was first subjugated to laws," she writes, "probably
by the ambition of some, and the desire of safety in all, it was
natural for men to be selfish, because they were ignorant how
intimately their own comfort was connected with that of others; and
it was also very natural that humanity, rather the effect of
feeling than of reason, should have a very limited range. But when
men once see clear as the light of heaven--and I hail the glorious
day from afar!--that on the general happiness depends their own,
reason will give strength to the fluttering wings of passion, and
men will 'do unto others what they wish they should do unto them.'"
One of the first means, therefore, by which this much-to-be-desired end
is to be attained, is the destruction of blind reverence of the past.
With uncompromising honesty, she says:--
"We must get entirely clear of all the notions drawn from the wild
traditions of original sin: the eating of the apple, the theft of
Prometheus, the opening of Pandora's box, and the other fables too
tedious to enumerate, on which priests have erected their
tremendous structures of imposition to persuade us that we are
naturally inclined to evil. We shall then leave room for the
expansion of the human heart, and, I trust, find that men will
insensibly render each other happier as they grow wiser."
After a brief analysis of the laws of progress in general, Mary proceeds
to their special application in the case of France. The illumination of
the French people she believes was hastened by the efforts of such men,
on the one hand, as Rousseau and Voltaire, who warred against
superstition, and on the other, as Quesnay and Turgot, who opposed unjust
taxation. It was through them that the nation awoke to a consciousness of
its wrongs, and saw for the first time, in the clear light of truth, the
inveterate pride of the nobles, the rapacity of the clergy, and the
prodigality of the court. The farmer then realized to the full the
injustice of a government which could calmly allow taxes and feudal
claims to swallow all but the twentieth part of the profit of his labor.
Citizens discovered the iniquity of laws which gave so little security to
their lives and property, that these could be sported with impunity by
the aristocracy. In a word, the people found that without a pretext of
justice, they were forced to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for a
chosen few. Once enlightened they rebelled against the nobles who treated
them as beasts of burden and trod them under foot with the mud; and they
boldly demanded their rights as human beings and as citizens.
Having thus given the _raison d'etre_ of the great French crisis, she
describes with striking energy the events which ensued. She makes
manifest the folly and blindness of the court, the shortcomings and vile
intrigues of ministers, the duplicity and despotism of the parliaments,
which prevented the petitions and demands of the people from receiving
the attention and consideration which alone could have satisfied them.
That there were evils in the French government, not even its friends
could deny. The recognition of them necessitated their being done away
with. There were but two methods by which this could be accomplished:
they must either be reformed or destroyed. The government refused to
accept the first course; the people resolved to adopt the second. Mary's
treatment of this question is interesting. The following passage contains
her chief arguments upon the subject, and the conclusion she drew from
them, so very different from the result of Burke's reasoning on the same
point in the "Reflections." This passage is an excellent specimen of the
style in which the book is written. The hasty measures of the French, she
says, being worthy of philosophical investigation, fall into two distinct
inquiries:--
"First, if from the progress of reason we be authorized to infer
that all governments will be meliorated, and the happiness of man
placed on the solid basis gradually prepared by the improvement of
political science; if the degrading distinctions of rank, born in
barbarism and nourished by chivalry, be really becoming in the
estimation of all sensible people so contemptible, that a modest
man, in the course of fifty years, would probably blush at being
thus distinguished; if the complexion of manners in Europe be
completely changed from what it was half a century ago, and the
liberty of its citizens tolerably secured; if every day extending
freedom be more firmly established in consequence of the general
dissemination of truth and knowledge,--it then seems injudicious
for statesmen to force the adoption of any opinion, by aiming at
the speedy destruction of obstinate prejudices; because these
premature reforms, instead of promoting, destroy the comfort of
those unfortunate beings who are under their dominion, affording at
the same time to despotism the strongest arguments to urge in
opposition to the theory of reason. Besides, the objects intended
to be forwarded are probably retarded, whilst the tumult of
internal commotion and civil discord leads to the most dreadful
consequence,--the immolating of human victims.
"But, secondly, it is necessary to observe, that, if the degeneracy
of the higher orders of society be such that no remedy less fraught
with horror can effect a radical cure; and if, enjoying the fruits
of usurpation, they domineer over the weak, and check, by all the
means in their power, every humane effort to draw man out of the
state of degradation into which the inequality of fortune has sunk
him; the people are justified in having recourse to coercion to
repel coercion. And, further, if it can be ascertained that the
silent sufferings of the citizens of the world are greater, though
less obvious, than the calamities produced by such violent
convulsions as have happened in France, which, like hurricanes
whirling over the face of nature, strip off all its blooming
graces, it may be politically just to pursue such measures as were
taken by that regenerating country, and at once root out those
deleterious plants which poison the better half of human
happiness."
Among the most remarkable passages in the book are those relating to
Marie Antoinette. As was the case when she wrote her answer to Burke, the
misery of millions unjustly subjected moved Mary more than the woes of
one woman justly deprived of an ill-used liberty. Her love and sympathy
for the people made her perhaps a little too harsh in her judgment of the
queen. "Some hard words, some very strong epithets, are indeed used of
Marie Antoinette," Mr. Kegan Paul says in his short but appreciative
criticism of this book, "showing that she, who could in those matters
know nothing personally, could not but depend on Paris gossip; but this
is interesting, as showing what the view taken of the queen was before
passion rose to its highest, before the fury of the people, with all the
ferocity of word and deed attendant on great popular movements, had
broken out." The following lines, therefore, reflecting the feelings and
opinions of the day, must be read with as much, if not more interest than
those of later and better-informed historians:--
"The unfortunate Queen of France, beside the advantages of birth
and station, possessed a very fine person; and her lovely face,
sparkling with vivacity, hid the want of intelligence. Her
complexion was dazzlingly clear; and when she was pleased, her
manners were bewitching; for she happily mingled the most
insinuating voluptuous softness and affability with an air of
grandeur bordering on pride, that rendered the contrast more
striking. Independence also, of whatever kind, always gives a
degree of dignity to the mien; so that monarchs and nobles with
most ignoble souls, from believing themselves superior to others,
have actually acquired a look of superiority.
"But her opening faculties were poisoned in the bud; for before she
came to Paris she had already been prepared, by a corrupt, supple
abbe, for the part she was to play; and, young as she was, became
so firmly attached to the aggrandizement of her house, that, though
plunged deep in pleasure, she never omitted sending immense sums to
her brother on every occasion. The person of the king, in itself
very disgusting, was rendered more so by gluttony, and a total
disregard of delicacy, and even decency, in his apartments; and
when jealous of the queen, for whom he had a kind of devouring
passion, he treated her with great brutality, till she acquired
sufficient finesse to subjugate him. Is it then surprising that a
very desirable woman, with a sanguine constitution, should shrink,
abhorrent, from his embraces; or that an empty mind should be
employed only to vary the pleasures which emasculated her Circean
court? And, added to this, the histories of the Julias and
Messalinas of antiquity convincingly prove that there is no end to
the vagaries of the imagination, when power is unlimited, and
reputation set at defiance.
"Lost, then, in the most luxurious pleasures, or managing court
intrigues, the queen became a profound dissembler; and her heart
was hardened by sensual enjoyments to such a degree that, when her
family and favorites stood on the brink of ruin, her little portion
of mind was employed only to preserve herself from danger. As a
proof of the justness of this assertion, it is only necessary to
observe that, in the general wreck, not a scrap of her writing has
been found to criminate her; neither has she suffered a word to
escape her to exasperate the people, even when burning with rage
and contempt. The effect that adversity may have on her choked
understanding, time will show [this was written some months before
the death of the queen]; but, during her prosperity, the moments of
languor that glide into the interstices of enjoyment were passed in
the most childish manner, without the appearance of any vigor of
mind to palliate the wanderings of the imagination. Still, she was
a woman of uncommon address; and though her conversation was
insipid, her compliments were so artfully adapted to flatter the
person she wished to please or dupe, and so eloquent is the beauty
of a queen, in the eyes even of superior men, that she seldom
failed to carry her point when she endeavored to gain an ascendency
over the mind of an individual. Over that of the king she acquired
unbounded sway, when, managing the disgust she had for his person,
she made him pay a kingly price for her favors. A court is the best
school in the world for actors; it was very natural then for her to
become a complete actress, and an adept in all the arts of coquetry
that debauch the mind, whilst they render the person alluring."
Mary's inflexible hatred of the cruelty of the court and the nobility,
which had led to the present horrors, though great, did not prevent her
from seeing the tyranny and brutality in which the people indulged so
soon as they obtained the mastery. Her treatment of the facts of the
Revolution is characterized by honesty. She is above all else an
impartial historian and philosopher. She distinguishes, it is true,
between the well-meaning multitude--those who took the Bastille, for
example--and the rabble composed of the dregs of society,--those who
headed the march to Versailles. She declares, "There has been seen
amongst the French a spurious race of men, a set of cannibals, who have
gloried in their crimes; and, tearing out the hearts that did not feel
for them, have proved that they themselves had iron bowels." But while
she makes this distinction, she does not hesitate to admit that the
retaliation of the French people, suddenly all become sovereigns, was as
terrible as that of slaves unexpectedly loosed from their fetters. It is
but fair, after quoting her denunciations of Marie Antoinette, to show
how far the new rule was from receiving her unqualified approbation.
Describing the silence and ruin which have succeeded the old-time gayety
and grandeur of Versailles, she exclaims:--
"Weeping, scarcely conscious that I weep, O France! over the
vestiges of thy former oppression, which, separating man from man
with a fence of iron, sophisticated all, and made many completely
wretched, I tremble, lest I should meet some unfortunate being,
fleeing from the despotism of licentious freedom, hearing the snap
of the _guillotine_ at his heels, merely because he was once noble,
or has afforded an asylum to those whose only crime is their name;
and, if my pen almost bound with eagerness to record the day that
levelled the Bastille with the dust, making the towers of despair
tremble to their base, the recollection that still the abbey is
appropriated to hold the victims of revenge and suspicion palsies
the hand that would fain do justice to the assault, which tumbled
into heaps of ruins, walls that seemed to mock the resistless force
of time. Down fell the temple of despotism; but--despotism has not
been buried in its ruins! Unhappy country! when will thy children
cease to tear thy bosom? When will a change of opinion, producing a
change of morals, render thee truly free? When will truth give life
to real magnanimity, and justice place equality on a stable seat?
When will thy sons trust, because they deserve to be trusted; and
private virtue become the guarantee of patriotism? Ah! when will
thy government become the most perfect, because thy citizens are
the most virtuous?"
The same impartiality is preserved in the relation of even the most
exciting and easily misconceived incidents of the Revolution. The
courageous and resolute resistance of the Third Estate to the clergy and
nobility is described with dignified praise which never descends into
fulsome flattery. The ignorance, vanity, jealousy, disingenuousness,
self-sufficiency, and interested motives of members of the National
Assembly are unhesitatingly exposed in recording such of their actions
as, examined superficially, might seem the outcome of a love of freedom.
In giving the details of the taking of the Bastille, and the women's
march on Versailles, Mary becomes really eloquent. Mr. Kegan Paul's
opinion may be here advantageously cited. "Her accounts of the Bastille
siege and of the Versailles episode," he says, "are worth reading beside
those of the master to whose style they are so great a contrast. Carlyle
has seized on the comic element in the march to Versailles, Mary
Wollstonecraft on the tragic; and hers seems to me the worthier view."
Many of the remarks upon civilization and the influence of the
cultivation of science on the understanding, with which the book is
interspersed, are full of wisdom and indicative of deep thought and
careful research. Hers was, to use with but slight change the words with
which she concludes, the philosophical eye, which, looking into the
nature and weighing the consequence of human actions, is able to discern
the cause which has produced so many dreadful effects.
Notwithstanding its excellence and the reputation it once had, this work
is now almost unknown. But few have ever heard of it, still fewer read
it; a fact due, of course, to its incompleteness. The first and only
volume ends with the departure of Louis from Versailles to Paris, when
the Revolution was as yet in its earliest stages. This must ever be a
matter of regret. That succeeding volumes, had she written them, would
have been even better is very probable. There was marked development in
her intellectual powers after she published the "Rights of Women." The
increased merit of her later works somewhat confirms Southey's
declaration, made three years after her death, that "Mary Wollstonecraft
was but beginning to reason when she died."
The last book she finished and published during her life-time was her
"Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and
Denmark." Her journey, as has been explained in the last chapter, was
undertaken to attend to certain business affairs for Imlay. Landing in
Sweden, she went from there to Norway, then again to Sweden, and finally
to Denmark and Hamburg, in which latter places she remained a
comparatively short period. Not being free to go and come as she chose,
she was sometimes detained in small places for two or three weeks, while
she could stay but a day or two in large cities. But she had letters of
introduction to many of the principal inhabitants of the towns and
villages to which business called her, and was thus able to see something
of the life of the better classes. The then rough mode of travelling also
brought her into close contact with the peasantry. As the ground over
which she travelled was then but little visited by English people, she
knew that her letters would have at least the charm of novelty.
They were published by her friend Johnson in 1796. Hitherto, her work had
been purely of a philosophical, historical, or educational nature. The
familiar epistolary style in which she had begun to record her
observations of the French people had been quickly changed for the more
formal tone of the "French Revolution." These travels, consequently,
marked an entirely new departure in her literary career. Their success
was at once assured. Even the fastidious Godwin, who had condemned her
other books, could find no fault with this one. Contemporary critics
agreed in sharing his good opinion.
"Have you ever met with Mary Wollstonecraft's 'Letters from Sweden and
Norway'?" Southey asked in a letter to Thomas Southey. "She has made me
in love with a cold climate and frost and snow, with a northern
moonlight." The impression they produced was lasting. When, several years
later, he wrote an "Epistle" to A. S. Cottle to be published in the
latter's volume of "Icelandic Poetry," he again alluded to them. In
referring to the places described in northern poems he declared,--
"... Scenes like these
Have almost lived before me, when I gazed
Upon their fair resemblance traced by him
Who sung the banished man of Ardebeil,
Or to the eye of Fancy held by her,
Who among Women left no equal mind
When from the world she passed; and I could weep
To think that _She_ is to the grave gone down!"
The "Annual Register" for 1796 honored the "Letters" by publishing in its
columns a long extract from them containing a description of the
Norwegian character. The "Monthly Magazine" for July of the same year
concluded that the book, "though not written with studied elegance,
interests the reader in an uncommon degree by a philosophical turn of
thought, by bold sketches of nature and manners, and above all by strong
expressions of delicate sensibility." The verdict of the "Analytical
Review" was as follows:--
"A vigorous and cultivated intellect easily accommodates itself to
new occupations. The notion that individual genius can only excel
in one thing is a vulgar error. A mind endued by nature with strong
powers and quick sensibility, and by culture furnished in an
uncommon degree with habits of attention and reflection, wherever
it is placed will find itself employment, and whatever it
undertakes will execute it well. After the repeated proofs which
the ingenious and justly admired writer of these letters has given
the public, that her talents are far above the ordinary level, it
will not be thought surprising that she could excel in different
kinds of writing; that the qualifications which have enabled her to
instruct young people by moral lessons and tales, and to furnish
the philosopher with original and important speculations, should
also empower her to entertain and interest the public in a manner
peculiarly her own by writing a book of travels.
"We have no hesitation in assuring our readers that Mrs.
Wollstonecraft has done this in the present volume."
The qualities most desirable in a writer of travels are quickness of
perception, active interest in the places and people described,
appreciation of local color, a nice sense of discrimination, and a
pleasant, simple style. It is true that occasionally affected and
involved phrases occur in Mary's letters from the North, and that the
tone of many passages is a trifle too sombre. But the former defects are
much less glaring and fewer in number than those of her earlier writings;
while, when it is remembered that during her journey her heart was
heavy-laden with disappointment and despair, her melancholy reflections
must be forgiven her. With the exception of these really trifling
shortcomings, she may be said to have ably fulfilled the required
conditions. It may be asserted of her, in almost the identical words
which Heine uses in praise of Goethe's "Italian Journey," that she,
during her travels, saw all things, the dark and the light, colored
nothing with her individual feelings, and pictured the land and its
people in the true outlines and true colors in which God clothed it.
Determined to avoid the mistake common to most travellers, of speaking
from feeling rather than from reason, she shows her readers the virtues
and faults of the people among whom she travelled, without overestimating
the former or exaggerating the latter. She found Swedes and Norwegians
unaffected and hospitable, but sensual and indolent. Both good and evil
she attributes to the influence of climate and to the comparatively low
stage of culture attained in these northern countries. The long winter
nights, she explains in her letters, have made the people sluggish. Their
want of interest in politics, literature, and scientific pursuits have
concentrated their attention upon the pleasures of the senses. They are
hospitable because of the excitement and social amusements hospitality
insures. They care for the flesh-pots of Egypt because they have not yet
heard of the joys of the Promised Land. The women of the upper classes
are so indolent that they exercise neither mind nor body; consequently
the former has but a narrow range, the latter soon loses all beauty. The
men seek no relaxation from their business occupations save in
Brobdingnagian dinners and suppers. If they are godly, they are never
cleanly, cleanliness requiring an effort of which they are incapable.
Indolence and indifference to culture throughout Sweden and Norway are
the chief characteristics of the natives.
To Mary the coarseness of the people seemed the more unbearable because
of the wonderful beauty of their country as she saw it in midsummer. She
could not understand their continued indifference to its loveliness. Her
own keen enjoyment of it shows itself in all her letters. She constantly
pauses in relating her experiences to dwell upon the grandeur of cliffs
and sea, upon the impressive wildness of certain districts, full of great
pine-covered mountains and endless fir woods, contrasting with others
more gentle and fertile, which are covered with broad fields of corn and
rye. She loves to describe the long still summer nights and the gray
dawn when the birds begin to sing, the sweet scents of the forest, and
the soft freshness of the western breeze. The smallest details of the
living picture do not escape her notice. She records the musical tinkling
of distant cow-bells and the mournful cry of the bittern. She even tells
how she sometimes, when she is out in her boat, lays down her oars that
she may examine the purple masses of jelly-fish floating in the water.
Truly, her ways were not as those of the Philistines around her.
The following extract from a letter written from Gothenburg gives a good
idea of the impression made upon her by the moral ugliness and natural
beauty which she met wherever she went. The passage is characteristic,
since its themes are the two to which she most frequently recurs:--
"... Every day, before dinner and supper, even whilst the dishes
are cooling on the table, men and women repair to a side-table,
and, to obtain an appetite, eat bread and butter, cheese, raw
salmon or anchovies, drinking a glass of brandy. Salt fish or meat
then immediately follows, to give a further whet to the stomach. As
the dinner advances,--pardon me for taking up a few minutes to
describe what, alas! has detained me two or three hours on the
stretch, observing,--dish after dish is changed, in endless
rotation, and handed round with solemn pace to each guest; but
should you happen not to like the first dishes, which was often my
case, it is a gross breach of politeness to ask for part of any
other till its turn comes. But have patience, and there will be
eating enough. Allow me to run over the acts of a visiting day, not
overlooking the interludes.
"Prelude, a luncheon; then a succession of fish, flesh, and fowl
for two hours; during which time the dessert--I was sorry for the
strawberries and cream--rests on the table to be impregnated by the
fumes of the viands. Coffee immediately follows in the
drawing-room, but does not preclude punch, ale, tea and cakes, raw
salmon, etc. A supper brings up the rear, not forgetting the
introductory luncheon, almost equalling in removes the dinner. A
day of this kind you would imagine sufficient--but a to-morrow and
a to-morrow. A never-ending, still-beginning feast may be bearable,
perhaps, when stern Winter frowns, shaking with chilling aspect his
hoary locks; but during a summer sweet as fleeting, let me, my kind
strangers, escape sometimes into your fir groves, wander on the
margin of your beautiful lakes, or climb your rocks to view still
others in endless perspective; which, piled by more than giant's
hand, scale the heavens to intercept its rays, or to receive the
parting tinge of lingering day,--day that, scarcely softened into
twilight, allows the freshening breeze to wake, and the moon to
burst forth in all her glory to glide with solemn elegance through
the azure expanse.
"The cow's bell has ceased to tinkle the herd to rest; they have all
paced across the heath. Is not this the witching time of night? The
waters murmur, and fall with more than mortal music, and spirits of
peace walk abroad to calm the agitated breast. Eternity is in these
moments; worldly cares melt into the airy stuff that dreams are made
of; and reveries, mild and enchanting as the first hopes of love, or
the recollection of lost enjoyment, carry the hapless wight into
futurity, who, in bustling life, has vainly strove to throw off the
grief which lies heavy at the heart. Good-night! A crescent hangs
out in the vault before, which wooes me to stray abroad: it is not a
silvery reflection of the sun, but glows with all its golden
splendor. Who fears the falling dew? It only makes the mown grass
smell more fragrant."
As might be expected, judging from Mary's natural benevolence, the
poverty and misery she saw during her journey awakened feelings of deep
compassion. She describes in tones of pity the wretched condition of the
lower classes in Sweden. Servants, she writes, are no better than slaves.
They are beaten and maltreated by their masters, and are paid so little
that they cannot afford to wear sufficient clothing or to eat decent
food. Laborers live in huts wretched beyond belief, and herd together
like animals. They have so accustomed themselves to a stifling
atmosphere, that fresh air is never let into their houses even in summer,
and the mere idea of cleanliness is beyond their comprehension. Indolence
is their failing as well as that of their superiors in rank. Many in
their brutishness refuse to exert themselves save to find the food
absolutely necessary to support life, and are too sluggish to be curious.
It is pleasant to know that they have at least one good quality, in the
exercise of which they surpass the rich. This is politeness, the national
virtue. Mary observes:--
"The Swedes pique themselves on their politeness; but far from
being the polish of a cultivated mind, it consists merely of
tiresome forms and ceremonies. So far indeed from entering
immediately into your character, and making you feel instantly at
your ease, like the well-bred French, their over-acted civility is
a continual restraint on all your actions. The sort of superiority
which a fortune gives when there is no superiority of education,
excepting what consists in the observance of senseless forms, has a
contrary effect than what is intended; so that I could not help
reckoning the peasantry the politest people of Sweden, who, only
aiming at pleasing you, never think of being admired for their
behavior."
Mary found the condition of the Norwegians somewhat better. The lower
classes were freer, more industrious, and more opulent. She describes
their inns as comfortable, whereas those of the Swedes had not been even
inhabitable. The upper classes, though, like the Swedes, over-fond of the
pleasures of the table, narrow in their range of ideas, and wholly
without imagination, at least gave some signs of better days in their
dawning interest in culture. She writes:--
"The Norwegians appear to me a sensible, shrewd people, with little
scientific knowledge, and still less taste for literature; but they
are arriving at the epoch which precedes the introduction of the
arts and sciences.
"Most of the towns are seaports, and seaports are not favorable to
improvement. The captains acquire a little superficial knowledge by
travelling, which their indefatigable attention to the making of
money prevents their digesting; and the fortune that they thus
laboriously acquire is spent, as it usually is in towns of this
description, in show and good living. They love their country, but
have not much public spirit. Their exertions are, generally
speaking, only for their families; which I conceive will always be
the case, till politics, becoming a subject of discussion, enlarges
the heart by opening the understanding. The French Revolution will
have this effect. They sing at present, with great glee, many
republican songs, and seem earnestly to wish that the republic may
stand; yet they appear very much attached to their prince royal;
and, as far as rumor can give an idea of character, he appears to
merit their attachment."
She remained in Copenhagen and Hamburg but a short time. Imlay's
unkindness and indecision had, by the time she reached Holland, so
increased her melancholy that the good effect of the bracing northern air
was partially destroyed. She lost her interest in the novelty of her
surroundings, and as she says in one of her last letters, stayed much at
home. But her perceptive faculties were not wholly deadened. She notes
with her usual precision the indolence and dulness of the Danes, and the
unwavering devotion of the Hamburgers to commerce, and describes the
towns of Hamburg and Copenhagen with graphic force. These descriptions
are well worth reading.
It was always impossible for Mary not to reflect and moralize upon what
passed around her. She not only wanted to examine and record phenomena
and events, but to discover a reason for their existence. She invariably
sought for the primal causes and the final results of the facts in which
she was interested. The civilization of the northern countries through
which she travelled, so different from the culture of England and France,
gave her ample food for thought. The reflections it aroused found their
way into her letters. Some of them are really remarkable, as for example,
the following:--
"Arriving at Sleswick, the residence of Prince Charles of
Hesse-Cassel, the sight of the soldiers recalled all the unpleasing
ideas of German despotism, which imperceptibly vanished as I
advanced into the country. I viewed, with a mixture of pity and
horror, these beings training to be sold to slaughter, or be
slaughtered, and fell into reflections on an old opinion of mine,
that it is the preservation of the species, not of individuals,
which appears to be the design of the Deity throughout the whole of
nature. Blossoms come forth only to be blighted; fish lay their
spawn where it will be devoured; and what a large portion of the
human race are born merely to be swept prematurely away! Does not
this waste of budding life emphatically assert, that it is not men,
but man, whose preservation is so necessary to the completion of
the grand plan of the universe? Children peep into existence,
suffer, and die; men play like moths about a candle, and sink into
the flame; war and the 'thousand ills which flesh is heir to' mow
them down in shoals, whilst the more cruel prejudices of society
palsy existence, introducing not less sure, though slower decay."
Had Mary Wollstonecraft lived in the present time, she too would have
written hymns to Man. This is another of the many strange instances in
her writings of the resemblance between theories which she evolved for
herself and those of modern philosophers. She lived a century too soon.
The "Letters" were published in the same year, 1796, in Wilmington,
Delaware. A few years later, extracts from them, translated into
Portuguese, together with a brief sketch of their author, were published
in Lisbon, while a German edition appeared in Hamburg and Altona. The
book is now not so well known as it deserves to be. Mary's descriptions
of the physical characteristics of Norway and Sweden are equal to any
written by more recent English travellers to Scandinavia; and her account
of the people is valuable as an unprejudiced record of the manners and
customs existing among them towards the end of the eighteenth century.
But though so little known, it is still true that, as her self-appointed
defender said in 1803, "Letters so replete with correctness of remark,
delicacy of feeling, and pathos of expression, will cease to exist only
with the language in which they were written."
Shortly after her death, Godwin published in four volumes all Mary's
unprinted writings, unfinished as well as finished. This collection,
which is called simply "Posthumous Works of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin,"
may most appropriately be noticed here in connection with the more
complete productions of her last years.
Of the "Letters to Imlay," which fill the third and a part of the fourth
volume, nothing more need be said. They have been fully explained, and
sufficient extracts from them have been made in the account of that
period of her life during which they were written. The next in importance
of these writings is "Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman," a novel. It is but
a fragment. Mary intended to revise the first chapters carefully, and of
the last she had written nothing but the headings and a few detached
hints and passages. Godwin, in his Preface, says, "So much of it as is
here given to the public, she was far from considering as finished; and
in a letter to a friend directly written on this subject, she says, 'I am
perfectly aware that some of the incidents ought to be transposed and
heightened by more luminous shading; and I wished in some degree to avail
myself of criticism before I began to adjust my events into a story, the
outline of which I had sketched in my mind.'" It therefore must be more
gently criticised than such of her books as were published during her
life-time, and considered by her ready to be given to the public. But, as
the last work upon which she was engaged, and as one which engrossed her
thoughts for months, and to which she devoted, for her, an unusual amount
of labor, it must be read with interest.
The incidents of the story are, in a large measure, drawn from real life.
Her own experience, that of her sister, and events which had come within
her actual knowledge, are the materials which she used. These served her
purpose as well as, if not better than, any she could have invented. The
only work of her imagination is the manner in which she grouped them
together to form her plot. The story is, briefly, as follows: Maria, the
heroine, whose home-life seems to be a description of the interior of the
Wollstonecraft household, marries to secure her freedom, rather than from
affection for her lover, as was probably the case with "poor Bess." Her
husband, who even in the days of courtship had been a dissolute rascal,
but hypocrite enough to conceal the fact, throws off his mask after
marriage. He speculates rashly, drinks, and indulges in every low vice.
All this she bears until he, calculating upon her endurance, seeks to
sell her to a friend, that her dishonor may be his gain financially. Then
he learns that he has gone too far. She flies from his house, to which
she refuses, on any consideration, to return. All attempts to bring her
back having failed, he, by a successful stratagem, seizes her as she is
on her way to Dover with her child, and, taking possession of the latter,
has his wife confined in an insane asylum. Here, after days of horror,
Maria succeeds in softening the heart of her keeper, Jemima by name, and
through her makes the acquaintance of Henry Darnford, a young man who,
like her, has been made a prisoner under the false charge of lunacy.
Jemima's friendship is so completely won that she allows these two
companions in misery to see much of each other. She even tells them her
story, which, as a picture of degradation, equals that of some of Defoe's
heroines. Darnford then tells his, and the reader at once recognizes in
him another Imlay. Finally, by a lucky accident the two prisoners make
their escape, and Jemima accompanies them. The latter part of the story
consists of sketches and the barest outlines; but these indicate the
succession of its events and its conclusion. Maria and Darnford live
together as husband and wife in London. The former believes that she is
right in so doing, and cares nothing for the condemnation of society. She
endures neglect and contumely because she is supported by confidence in
the rectitude of her conduct. Her husband now has her lover tried for
adultery and seduction, and in his absence Maria undertakes his defence.
Her separation from her husband is the consequence, but her fortune is
thrown into chancery. She refuses to leave Darnford, but he, after a few
years, during which she has borne him two children, proves unfaithful. In
her despair, she attempts to commit suicide, but fails. When
consciousness and reason return, she resolves to live for her child.
"Maria" is a story with a purpose. Its aim is the reformation of the
evils which result from the established relations of the sexes. Certain
rights are to be vindicated by a full exposition of the wrongs which
their absence causes. Mary wished, as her Preface sets forth, to exhibit
the misery and oppression peculiar to women, that arise out of the
partial laws and customs of society. "Maria," in fact, was to be a
forcible proof of the necessity of those social changes which she had
urged in the "Vindication of the Rights of Women." In the career of the
heroine the wrongs women suffer from matrimonial despotism and cruelty
are demonstrated; while that of Jemima shows how impossible it is for
poor or degraded women to find employment. The principal interest in the
book arises from the fact that in it Mary explains more definitely than
she had in any previous work, her views about the laws and restrictions
of matrimony. Otherwise the principles laid down in it do not differ from
those which she had already stated in print. Her justification of Maria's
conduct is in reality a declaration of her belief that cruelty,
depravity, and infidelity in a man are sufficient reasons for his wife to
separate herself from him, this separation requiring no legal permit; and
that a pure honest love sanctifies the union of two people which may not
have been confirmed by a civil or religious ceremony. The following
passage is a partial statement of these views, which proved very
exasperating to her contemporaries. It is the advice given to Maria,
after her flight, by a friendly uncle:--
"The marriage state is certainly that in which women, generally
speaking, can be most useful; but I am far from thinking that a
woman, once married, ought to consider the engagement as
indissoluble (especially if there be no children to reward her for
sacrificing her feelings) in case her husband merits neither her
love nor esteem. Esteem will often supply the place of love, and
prevent a woman from being wretched, though it may not make her
happy. The magnitude of a sacrifice ought always to bear some
proportion to the utility in view; and for a woman to live with a
man for whom she can cherish neither affection nor esteem, or even
be of any use to him, excepting in the light of a housekeeper, is
an abjectness of condition, the enduring of which no concurrence of
circumstances can ever make a duty in the sight of God or just men.
If indeed she submits to it merely to be maintained in idleness,
she has no right to complain bitterly of her fate; or to act, as a
person of independent character might, as if she had a title to
disregard general rules.
"But the misfortune is, that many women only submit in appearance,
and forfeit their own respect to secure their reputation in the
world. The situation of a woman separated from her husband is
undoubtedly very different from that of a man who has left his
wife. He, with lordly dignity, has shaken off a clog; and the
allowing her food and raiment is thought sufficient to secure his
reputation from taint. And, should she have been inconsiderate, he
will be celebrated for his generosity and forbearance. Such is the
respect paid to the master-key of property! A woman, on the
contrary, resigning what is termed her natural protector (though he
never was so but in name), is despised and shunned for asserting
the independence of mind distinctive of a rational being, and
spurning at slavery."
The incidents selected by Mary to prove her case are, it must be
admitted, disagreeable, and the minor details too frequently revolting.
The stories of Maria, Darnford, and Jemima are records of shame, crime,
and human bestiality little less unpleasant than the realism of a Zola.
It is an astonishing production, even for an age when Fielding and
Smollett were not considered coarse. But, as was the case in the "Rights
of Women," this plainness of speech was due not to a delight in impurity
and uncleanness for their own sakes, but to Mary's certainty that by the
proper use of subjects vile in themselves, she could best establish
principles of purity. Whatever may be thought of her moral creed and of
her manner of promulgating it, no reader of her books can deny her the
respect which her courage and sincerity evoke. One may mistrust the
mission of a Savonarola, and yet admire his inexorable adherence to it.
Mary Wollstonecraft's faith in, and devotion to, the doctrines she
preached was as firm and unflinching as those of any religiously
inspired prophet.
This story gives little indication of literary merit. The style is
stilted, and there is no attempt at delineation of character. It is
wholly without dramatic action; for this, Mary explains, would have
interfered with her main object. But then its straightforward statement
of facts, by concentrating the attention upon them, adds very strongly to
the impression they produce. Maria is as complete a departure from the
conventional heroine of the day, as, at a later period, Charlotte
Bronte's Rochester was from the heroes of contemporary novelists. And the
book contains at least one description which should find a place here.
This is the account Maria gives of a visit she makes to her country home
a few years after her marriage and realization of its bitterness, and is
really a record of the sentiments awakened in her when she visited
Beverly, her early home, just before she left England for Sweden. The
passage, in its contrast to the oppressive narrative which it interrupts,
is as refreshing as a cool sea-breeze after the suffocating sirocco of
the desert:--
"This was the first time I had visited my native village since my
marriage. But with what different emotions did I return from the
busy world, with a heavy weight of experience benumbing my
imagination, to scenes that whispered recollections of joy and hope
most eloquently to my heart! The first scent of the wild-flowers
from the heath thrilled through my veins, awakening every sense to
pleasure. The icy hand of despair seemed to be removed from my
bosom; and, forgetting my husband, the nurtured visions of a
romantic mind, bursting on me with all their original wildness and
gay exuberance, were again hailed as sweet realities. I forgot,
with equal facility, that I ever felt sorrow or knew care in the
country; while a transient rainbow stole athwart the cloudy sky of
despondency. The picturesque forms of several favorite trees, and
the porches of rude cottages, with their smiling hedges, were
recognized with the gladsome playfulness of childish vivacity. I
could have kissed the chickens that pecked on the common; and
longed to pat the cows, and frolic with the dogs that sported on
it. I gazed with delight on the wind-mill, and thought it lucky
that it should be in motion at the moment I passed by: and entering
the dear green lane which led directly to the village, the sound of
the well-known rookery gave that sentimental tinge to the varying
sensations of my active soul, which only served to heighten the
lustre of the luxuriant scenery. But spying, as I advanced, the
spire peeping over the withered tops of the aged elms that composed
the rookery, my thoughts flew immediately to the church-yard; and
tears of affection, such was the effect of my imagination, bedewed
my mother's grave! Sorrow gave place to devotional feelings. I
wandered through the church in fancy as I used sometimes to do on a
Saturday evening. I recollected with what fervor I addressed the
God of my youth; and once more with rapturous love looked above my
sorrows to the Father of nature. I pause, feeling forcibly all the
emotions I am describing; and (reminded, as I register my sorrows,
of the sublime calm I have felt when, in some tremendous solitude,
my soul rested on itself, and seemed to fill the universe) I
insensibly breathe softly, hushing every wayward emotion, as if
fearing to sully with a sigh a contentment so ecstatic."
"Maria" seemed to many of its readers an unanswerable proof of the charge
of immorality brought against its authoress. Mrs. West, in her "Letters
to a Young Man," pointed to it as evidence of Mary's unfitness for the
world beyond the grave. The "Biographical Dictionary" undoubtedly
referred to it when it declared that much of the four volumes of Mary's
posthumous writings "had better been suppressed, as ill calculated to
excite sympathy for one who seems to have rioted in sentiments alike
repugnant to religion, sense, and decency." Modern readers have been
kinder. The following is Miss Mathilde Blind's criticism, which, though a
little too enthusiastic perhaps, shows a keen appreciation of the
redeeming merits of the book:--
"For originality of invention, tragic incident, and a certain fiery
eloquence of style, this is certainly the most remarkable and
mature of her works, although one may object that for a novel the
moral purpose is far too obvious, the manner too generalized, and
many of the situations revolting to the taste of a modern reader.
But, with all its faults, it is a production that, in the
implacable truth with which it lays open the festering sores of
society, in the unshrinking courage with which it drags into the
light of day the wrongs the feeble have to suffer at the hands of
the strong, in the fiery enthusiasm with which it lifts up its
voice for the voiceless outcasts, may be said to resemble 'Les
Miserables,' by Victor Hugo."
The other contents of these four volumes are as follows: a series of
lessons in spelling and reading, which, because prepared especially for
her "unfortunate child," Fanny Imlay, are an interesting relic; the
"Letters on the French Nation," mentioned in a previous chapter; a
fragment and list of proposed "Letters on the Management of Infants;"
several letters to Mr. Johnson, the most important of which have been
already given; the "Cave of Fancy," an Oriental tale, as Godwin calls
it,--the story of an old philosopher who lives in a desolate sea-coast
district and there seeks to educate a child, saved from a shipwreck, by
means of the spirits under his command (the few chapters Godwin thought
proper to print were written in 1787, and then put aside, never to be
finished); an "Essay on Poetry, and Our Relish for the Beauties of
Nature," a short discussion of the difference between the poetry of the
ancients, who recorded their own impressions from nature, and that of the
moderns, who are too apt to express sentiments borrowed from books (this
essay was published in the "Monthly Magazine" for April, 1797); and
finally, to conclude the list of contents, the book contains some "Hints"
which were to have been incorporated in the second part of the "Rights of
Women" which Mary intended to write.
These fragments and works are intrinsically of small value. The "Cave of
Fancy" contains an interesting definition of sensibility, in which Mary,
perhaps unconsciously, gives an excellent analysis of her own sensitive
nature. This quality, the old sage says, is the
"result of acute senses, finely fashioned nerves, which vibrate at
the slightest touch, and convey such clear intelligence to the
brain, that it does not require to be arranged by the judgment.
Such persons instantly enter into the character of others, and
instinctively discern what will give pain to every human being;
their own feelings are so varied that they seem to contain in
themselves not only all the passions of the species, but their
various modifications. Exquisite pain and pleasure is their
portion; nature wears for them a different aspect than is displayed
to common mortals. One moment it is a paradise: all is beautiful; a
cloud arises, an emotion receives a sudden damp, darkness invades
the sky, and the world is an unweeded garden."
Of the "Hints," one on a subject which has of late years been very
eloquently discussed is valuable as demonstrating her opinion of the
relation of religion to morals. It is as follows:--
"Few can walk alone. The staff of Christianity is the necessary
support of human weakness. An acquaintance with the nature of man
and virtue, with just sentiments on the attributes, would be
sufficient, without a voice from heaven, to lead some to virtue,
but not the mob."