from which may be gathered the author's notions regarding the baleful
influence of slavery upon the moral aspirations of her sex. Nearly all
contemporary authors agreed that woman's chief aim ought to be "to
please". Among their number were Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Piozzi, Mme de
Genlis and Mme de Staël. From the first the notion was inculcated that
the chief object is to make an advantageous match, "it is acknowledged
that they spend many of the first years of their lives in acquiring
a smattering of accomplishments, meanwhile strength of mind and body
are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of
establishing themselves--the only way women can rise in the world--by
marriage."
The cardinal virtues of the sex are therefore those qualities which
are best calculated to make them acceptable to men, as gentleness,
sweetness of temper, docility and a "spaniel-like" affection. Men
complain, and with reason, of the follies and caprices of women,
forgetting that they are the natural outcome of an ignorance which is
very far removed from innocence.
The education of women, such as it is, consists only in some kind of
preparation for social life, instead of being considered the first
step to form a rational being, advancing by gradual steps towards
perfection. Thus a woman is methodically prepared for the bondage
that awaits her, and never gets an opportunity of asserting her better
possibilities. A sexual character is established by artificial means,
and in this circumstance Mary sees the chief cause of woman's moral
decay, for which she herself is only partly responsible.
All her life she remains powerless to get away from the shackles of
first impressions. Her conduct is regulated by absurd notions of a
specially feminine virtue, chastity, modesty and propriety. Instead
of realising that virtue--which surely ought to be the same for women
as for men--is nothing but love of truth and fortitude, she confounds
with it reputation. Respect for the opinion of the world is considered
one of her chief duties, for does not Rousseau himself declare that
reputation is no less indispensable than chastity?
For true modesty--which is only that purity of thought which is
characteristic of cultivated minds--she substitutes the coquettish
affectations which are to draw the lover on while seemingly rejecting
him. The insincerity of these principles of daily conduct tend to
develop in the female mind that cunning which Rousseau calls natural
and accordingly recommends! For a woman to show her actual feelings is
to be guilty of the most flagrant breach of modesty.
Where writers have granted to man the monopoly of reason, they have
given to woman as a substitute that which is delicately termed
"sensibility", but is in reality nothing but a morbid sort of
sensuality, the consequence of devouring novels which have the effect
of inflaming the senses, and the only antidote to which is healthy
exercise.
Mary Wollstonecraft, like the Bluestocking moralists, regarded the
quality of sensibility with favour only when regulated by Reason.
In her enjoyment of the beauty of natural scenery, according to her
own analysis, it is her very reason which "obliged her to permit her
feelings to be her criterion." (Letters from Sweden). But it was one
of her chief contentions that far too much stress was laid on the
cultivation of that kind of sensibility in women which in its very
exaggeratedness leads to the worst excesses of sentimentalism. The
eighteenth century interpretation of the term "sensibility" with its
concomitant absurdities awakened in her feelings of intense disgust.
All Rousseau's errors in her opinion arose from its source. To indulge
his feelings, and not to imbibe moral strength at the fountain of
Nature, or to satisfy a thirst for scientific investigation, he sought
for solitude when meditating the rapturous but dangerous love-scenes
of the _Nouvelle Héloise_. No doubt these scenes were in her mind
when she wrote: "Love such as the glowing pen of genius has traced,
exists not, or only resides in those exalted, fervid imaginations that
have sketched such dangerous pictures." She only sees in them "sheer
sensuality under a sentimental veil." The sentimentalists who, like
Richardson and Rousseau, laid bare the play of the human passions to a
reading public consisting almost entirely of women, whose minds were
not sufficiently occupied to keep their imagination within bounds, "set
fire to a house for the sake of making the pumps play."
Morbid sensibility, in its exaggerated tenderness over insignificant
trifles and corresponding indifference to real social evils, excludes
from the mind all sense of moral duty.
Two writers of Mary Wollstonecraft's time had shown a more than usual
narrowness of views. They were the Rev. Dr. James Fordyce, author
of a number of sermons addressed to women, and Dr. Gregory, who had
written a "_Legacy to his Daughters_." The former proceeded from the
propositions which had formed the basis of Rousseau's argument. He is
so thoroughly convinced of the all-round superiority of man, that he
assumes the natural folly of woman to be the cause of all matrimonial
differences. He feels sure that women who behave to their husbands with
"respectful observance", studying their humours and overlooking their
mistakes, submitting to their opinion, passing by little instances of
unevenness, caprice or fashion, and relieving their anxieties will find
their homes "the abode of domestic bliss."
Fordyce held the principal charm of women to be a sickly sort of
delicacy which, as it flatters the vanity of the male, is not wholly
without effect even in our days, in spite of all Mrs. Fawcett may say
to the contrary. Men of sensibility, he says, "desire in every woman
soft features and a flowing voice, a form not robust, and demeanour
delicate and gentle." This hint could only have the effect of making
women more insipid than even Rousseau's Sophie, who at least after her
marriage shared her husband's outdoor exercise. But the worst part of
Fordyce's argument is that passage in which he advises young women to
remember that the devout attitude of pious recollection (in prayer)
is most likely to conquer a man's heart. When a clergyman thus by
well-meant advice perverts his flock, what are we to expect from the
grosser bulk of mankind!
As Mary Wollstonecraft justly points out, there is about these
sermons, for all their sentimental posing and bombastic phrasing, a
certain sneaking voluptuousness which would strike a modern woman as
most insulting; a confident tone of proprietorship which could not
fail to stimulate any woman of independent temper into revolt. Mrs.
Rauschenbusch points out that Dr. Fordyce was acting in accordance with
the tendencies of the Church in advocating that meekness and bearing of
injuries without retaliation which are taught by the Gospel.
What particularly galled Mary was the hypocritical prostration of men
before woman's charms, that mock politeness which seemed to her the
most cruel proof of the degradation of her sex. The description of
women by Fordyce as "smiling, fair innocents", and the frequent use of
terms like "fair defects", "amiable weakness", etc. where women were
concerned, sounded to her as an insult.
In Gregory's "_Legacy to his Daughters_" the case was slightly
different. The author was an affectionate father, whose anxiety to
shield his motherless girls induced him to become an author. That an
honest, well-intentioned man like he should be capable of writing such
trash makes us realise the hopelessness of Mary's task. He openly
recommends dissimulation. For a woman to show what she feels must be
termed indelicate. A girl should be careful to hide her gaiety of
heart, "lest the men who beheld her might either suppose that she was
not entirely dependent on their protection for her safety, or else
entertain dark suspicions as to her modesty." In the lives of the poor
Gregory girls Mrs. Grundy was omnipotent!
Unreserved praise, on the contrary, is bestowed upon Mrs. Catherine
Macaulay's "_Letters on Education with Observations on Religion and
Metaphysical Subjects_", which had appeared in 1790, shortly before
their author's death. Mrs. Macaulay had been among the opponents of
Burke in a vindication of a French government which owed its authority
to the will of a majority; and also in matters educational her
views coincided with those of Mary Wollstonecraft. She believed in
co-education up to a certain age, which has the obvious advantage of
making the daily intercourse between people of different sexes less
strained and more natural not only in early youth, but also later in
life, when the relations between the sexes ought to be based upon
mutual appreciation and esteem. Like Mary Wollstonecraft, she protested
against what she called "the absurd notion of a sexual excellence",
which not only excluded the female sex from every political right, but
left them hardly a civil right to save them from the grossest injuries.
It was an unlucky circumstance indeed that the only woman who might
have granted Mary the full support of her reputation as the author of
a very successful work on the "_History of England from the Accession
of James the First to that of the Brunswick Line_" should have been
removed by death at a time when that support might have been of so much
value to one who felt forsaken by the majority of her own sex.[47]
Mary Wollstonecraft pleads the necessity of giving woman an education
like that which is granted to man, that she may learn to take
Reason for her guide. Only then will she be able to perform the
specific duties of her sex. But there is a weightier argument for
the cultivation of Reason in women. Their deplorable deficiency in
this quality has so far made them consider only earthly interests and
disqualified them from looking beyond the affairs of this world to the
promise of that eternity for which only the soul can fit them. It is
in pointing out the evil consequences to the soul of a life devoted to
pleasure that Mary's pleadings attain their greatest depth of pathos
and intensity. The profound piety of her character makes her protest
against this sordid view of life.
"Surely" she exclaims, "she has not an immortal soul who can loiter
life away merely employed to adorn her person that she may amuse the
languid hours and soften the cares of a fellow-creature who is willing
to be enlivened by her smiles and tricks when the serious business of
life is over."
Once a woman has attained her aim of a profitable marriage, the
circumstances of which almost exclude the possibility of love, she
turns all her "natural" cunning to account to establish a sort of mock
tyranny over her master. She lives in the enjoyment of her present
influence, forgetting that adoration will cease with the loss of her
charms, and that woman is "quickly scorned when not adored". In later
years there will be no sound basis of friendship arising from equality
of tastes to take its place, no reflection to be substituted for
sensation, and their earthly punishment consists in a miserable old
age. Even when married to a sensible husband, who thinks for her, what
will be the fate of a woman who is left a widow with a large family?
"Unable to educate her sons, or to impress them with respect, she
pines under the anguish of unavailing impotent regret." The passage
in which she pictures her ideal of rational womanhood, who, far from
being rendered helpless by her husband's death, rises to the occasion
and devotes herself with a strong heart to the discharge of her
maternal duties, finally reaping the reward of her care when she sees
her children attain a strength of character enabling them to endure
adversity, is a piece of true eloquence. "The task of life fulfilled,
she calmly waits for the sleep of death, and rising from the grave, may
say: "Behold, thou gavest me a talent, and here are five talents".[48]
There never was a more fervent champion of marriage and domesticity
than Mary. The sanctity of matrimony needed no enforcement by means of
a wedding ceremony, but consisted in the mutual affection and esteem
which was felt. Hence her violent criticism of loveless marriages
contracted from mercenary motives and her severe condemnation of the
harshness with which society treated poor ruined girls.
The twelfth chapter of the _Rights of Women_ contains a plea for
national education. Mary is here seen treading in the steps of
Talleyrand, and forsaking her old masters Locke and Rousseau. They
both advocate a private education. Locke wants to educate the
"gentleman", making his scheme practicable in isolated applications,
but disregarding the bulk of the nation.
Rousseau, who did regard the mass of the people in matters of political
speculation, entirely loses sight of the public interest in favour
of the private in his educational scheme, thus reducing it to mere
abstract speculation, incapable of extensive realisation. But Mary
Wollstonecraft adopts the more practical view of the active socialist.
The children of the nation are to be educated without the slightest
reference to class distinction, and they ought to be brought up
together. The exclusive teaching of a child by a tutor will make him
acquire a sort of premature manhood, and will not tend to make him a
good citizen. He is to be a member of society, and it will not do to
regard him as a unit, complete in himself. The same view limits the
freedom of the individual to what is compatible with the rights of
others. To ignore the duties of the individual towards society would be
to build the entire structure of education upon an unsound basis.
This plea for co-education will be seen to be a recantation from former
opinions expressed in the "_Original Stories_". The latter had their
rise chiefly in the experience gained of boarding-schools during her
stay at Eton with the Priors. They seemed to her absolute hotbeds of
vice and folly, where an utter want of modesty introduced the most
repulsive habits. The younger boys delighted in mischief, the older in
every form of vice. The colleges were full of the relics of popery, the
'mouth-service',which makes all religion but a cold parade of show, and
the educators themselves were very poor champions of true religion.
What Mary saw at Eton confirmed her in the belief that dayschools were
to be preferred, as the only way of combining the advantages of private
and public education.
That important part of education which aims at awakening the affections
can only be given in the home of loving parents, and only that man can
be a good citizen who has first learned to be a good son and brother.
A country day-school, affording the best opportunities for unstinted
physical exercise, might be expected to be productive of the greatest
benefit to young pupils. The division of the educational task between
school and home will moreover leave the children the necessary amount
of freedom which is denied them when living the cramped lives of
boarding-schools.
To make women the companions of men, and to remove the unhealthy
atmosphere of an artificial separation of the sexes which produces
indelicacy in both, she thinks it necessary that boys and girls should
be brought up together. All children should be dressed regardless of
class and submitted to the same rules of discipline. They should not be
made to remain in the schoolroom for longer than an hour, and be taken
out into the schoolyard, or better still, for walks. A good deal of
outdoor instruction of the kind Rousseau described might be given by
means of spectacular illustration.
At the age of nine comes the first great change in the daily routine.
The two sexes will still be together in the morning, engaged in common
pursuits, but the afternoon will find the girls bent over their
needlework, millinery, etc., while the boys' further instruction
will depend on their choice of a trade. Special schools ought to be
established for those whose superior abilities render them fit to
pursue some course of scientific studies.
Being thus together will take the edge off that unnatural restraint
which too often marks the relations between children of a different
sex. The position of the teachers--not ushers--should be such as to
render them entirely independent of their pupils' parents. The usher's
ambiguous position of mixed authority and submission frequently
rendered him an object of ridicule to the children. Talleyrand, from
whom Mary in all probability borrowed this suggestion, even wanted
to make the children independent of their masters in respect of
punishment, by having it inflicted only after the offender had been
tried and found guilty by his peers.
It will be seen that the "_Vindication of the Rights of Women_" touches
upon a great many points which at the present time have become foregone
conclusions, but which, nevertheless, were in Mary's days daring
speculations, which were received with anything but general approval.
If it should now appear to us that some of her conclusions were rather
too sweeping, that the very physical inferiority of woman which she
is willing to grant makes it impossible for her to combine in her
person the wife, the mother and the social woman, and that a too
ardent application of her theories of the social possibilities of her
sex is responsible for some abominations of the public hustings, who,
banging their fists on the table, "refuse to be the playthings of men
any longer"--it should be remembered that she insisted with equal
emphasis upon the cultivation of the female qualities, and that it was
not granted her to be taught moderation by the repulsive spectacle
of female extremism in later times! Moreover, in the introduction to
the first edition of the _Vindication_, she expresses her disgust of
"masculine women". And yet the type of a "masculine woman" in Mary's
days, with her "ardour in hunting, shooting and gaming", was not nearly
so objectionable as her modern sister.
It is, indeed, very difficult to find anything to praise in the
_Vindication_ when viewed as a literary effort. Mary Wollstonecraft
herself clearly did not regard it as such. The importance of the
object by which she was animated made her disdain to cull her phrases
or polish her style, wishing rather to persuade by the force of her
arguments than dazzle by the elegance of her language. Unfortunately
the former is not inconsiderably weakened by a deplorable tendency
to reiteration, and a general desultoriness and lack of system which
cannot fail to strike the reader. The "flowery diction" which she
professed herself anxious to avoid, but did not succeed in completely
banishing, is responsible for a great deal of the turgidity and false
rhetoric which disfigure certain passages.
Godwin, whose unemotional nature enabled him to judge of his wife's
work without prejudice and whose _Memoirs_ contain a most sincere and
therefore valuable criticism, although admiring the courage of her
convictions, the disinterestedness of her motives and the originality
of her contentions, finds fault with what he calls "the stern and
rugged nature" of certain passages which will probably impress the
modern reader as coarse and indelicate. Her great devotion to the cause
may account for the "amazonian" temper which fills some parts of her
book, more especially the "animadversions" on the opinions of those
of her opponents whose "backs demanded the scourge". Her disapproval
of Lord Chesterfield's moral standpoint has already been referred to.
Mary Wollstonecraft was not in the habit of mincing matters, and her
sincerity and consequent frankness brought her the ill-will of many.
The publication of the _Rights of Women_ at once brought Mary into
prominence. Unfortunately, the scare of a French invasion and the
trial of the reformers were most unfavourable to the spread of any
new ideas in England. From her sisters she had little sympathy, and
"poor Bess" rather spitefully alluded to information she had received
to the effect that "Mrs. Wollstonecraft was grown quite handsome" and
intended going to Paris. For this trip to France there were several
causes. In the first place she felt intensely interested in the march
of events there, which were hastening to a crisis, Louis XVI being a
prisoner in the hands of the Convention. The second motive--perhaps
the principal--was connected with her friendship for Mr. Fuseli, the
celebrated Swiss painter; but whether she hoped to make the trip in
company with the Fuselis and her friend Johnson, as Mr. Kegan Paul
supposes[49], or wanted to get away from the influence of the artist,
with whom Godwin informs us she was in love, is uncertain. The end was
that she went to Paris alone in December 1792, and boarded at the house
of Mme Filliettaz, a lady in whose school Eliza and Everina had been
teachers, but who was absent from home, so that Mary's French was put
to the severe test of conversation with the servants.
She now became a close spectator of the progress of that Revolution
which upon the whole had her sympathy. Yet it was with mingled feelings
that she saw the chariot pass her house in which the royal prisoner
was conveyed to his trial a few days after her arrival. The sight of
Louis going to meet death with more dignity than she expected from his
character, brought before her mind the picture of his ancestor Louis
XIV, entering his capital after a glorious victory, and pity, her
ruling passion, interceded for the poor victim who had to pay for the
crimes of his forefathers.
Economy prescribed her removal from the Filliettaz mansion to less
pretentious quarters at Neuilly, where she was left a great deal to
herself, save for an occasional visit to her English friends in Paris
Miss Williams and Mrs. Christie. It was at the latter's house that a
meeting took place which decided the next few years of her life.
Her days at Neuilly were thus spent in retirement. She had a devoted
old gardener to wait upon her and generally went out for a walk in
the evening, the hours of daylight being given up to the composition
of a new work, combining history with philosophy and inspired by the
stirring events to which she was such a close witness. Although not
published until some years after, "_An Historical and Moral View of
the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, and the Effect it
has produced in Europe_" was written in the first months of 1793 at
Neuilly. The Advertisement with which it opens declares the author's
intention of extending the work to two or three more volumes, a
considerable part of which, it informs us, had already been written;
but Godwin assures us that no part of the proposed continuation was
found among her papers after her death. The only existing volume both
in style and method shows a very decided advance upon the earlier
_Vindication_. Mary's narrative powers were even greater than her
capacity for philosophy, and her imagination had been fired by the
thrilling accounts she had received from her Parisian friends of the
march of events. The greater freedom and fluency of the style, the
greater cogency of the reasoning and the dignity of the narrative
render the volume very pleasant reading, the more so, as it shows great
moderation and impartiality as far as actual facts are concerned.
That the delineations of personal character are not always felicitous
may be due to the fact that the author obtained all her information
from witnesses who were not free from the prejudices which strong
party-feelings awaken. On the whole, however, Mary succeeded in placing
herself above her subject and in proving that time had taught her
to modify her extreme views and made her readier to grant certain
concessions. The book is a compromise between her former principles
of abstract philosophy and those of gradual evolution. Although
unwilling to abandon her original view that "Reason beaming on the
grand theatre of political changes, can prove the only sure guide to
direct us to a favourable or just conclusion", and that the erroneous
inferences of sensibility should be carefully guarded against, yet she
felt sufficient appreciation for her old enemy Burke's principle of
growth to admit that the Revolution was the natural consequence of
intellectual improvement, gradually proceeding to perfection.
Never before had her hopes been so sanguine. It seemed to her that
the time was at hand for the final overthrow of the tremendous empire
of superstition and hypocrisy. What, in comparison with the great
end in view, were the inevitable horrors of the Revolution, produced
by desperate and enraged factions? There is not a single page in
the history of man but is tarnished by some foul deed or bloody
transaction. That the vices of man in a savage state make him appear an
angel compared with the refined villain of artificial life finds its
cause in those unjust plans of government which exist in every part of
the globe. A simpler and more effective political system would be sure
to check those evils, and a faithful adherence to the new principles
will lead mankind towards happiness.
Her feelings for mankind, however strong, were not powerful enough
to interfere with the coolness of her judgment, and the light of her
reason which was so soon to be temporarily eclipsed by the conflict of
passions a thousand times more powerful because proceeding from within,
was never obscured by the contemplation of social evils, which could
not disturb her optimistic faith.
The history of the French Revolution is traced down to the king's
removal to Paris, where he was sent to stand for trial. It is, upon
the whole, a successful attempt at impartial narrative not only of
the course of events in Paris, but also of the causes which produced
them, the author indulging in a minute survey of the state of French
society and politics previous to and during the catastrophe. The
severity of the judgment she passes on the king and more especially on
Marie Antoinette has been commented upon. Here especially it should
be remembered that she had everything from hearsay. What she heard of
the character and actions of the queen struck her as characteristic
of the type of womanhood she had so violently attacked in the _Rights
of Women_. She saw in Marie Antoinette the product of education by a
priest, who had instilled into her all those vices which Mary held in
abhorrence. She was devoted to a life of pleasure, vain of her good
looks, but dead to intelligence and benevolence, using the fascination
of her cultivated smiles and artificial weakness to exercise the
tyranny of sex over a sensual, besotted husband, whose depravity she
completed; an artificial dissembler, regarding only decorum, without
any reference to moral character, making free with the nation's
money to support a worthless brother, and depraving the morals of
those around her; in short, Mary Wollstonecraft regarded her as the
Babylonian scarlet woman, a sort of "painted Jezebel." Her judgment is
diametrically opposed to that of Burke, who went into such raptures
over the beauty and dignity of the queen, and gave vent to such a burst
of indignation at her sad and ignominious fate that Thomas Paine saw
fit to remind him that "while pitying the plumage, he was forgetting
the dying bird."
The outer revolution which was to assert the rights of the species
was followed by an inner revolution in the individual which came to
constitute the tragedy of Mary Wollstonecraft's life. The Father of
Nature, whom she thanked for having made her so intensely alive to
happiness, had also implanted in her breast an overwhelming capacity
for sorrow, and after a short taste of the former, the latter became
her portion to such an extent that life seemed to her unendurable.
The letter to Mr. Johnson referring to the king's trial was the last
news her friends in England received from her for eighteen months.
In February 1793 war broke out between England and France and Mary's
nationality made it advisable for her to keep close. Among her
new acquaintances was an American, Captain Gilbert Imlay, and the
tenderness which about this time she began to cherish for him, was no
doubt fostered by a sense of loneliness. Moreover, that affection for
Mr. Fuseli which she had so resolutely suppressed,--Fuseli was happily
married--left her more vulnerable than before to Cupid's arrows, in
addition to which Imlay was to her the representative of that nation
which embodied her ideals of liberty and virtue. She gave herself up
body and soul to the all-devouring passion of love, and Reason, seeing
another in full possession of the field, "with a sigh retired."
Mr. Imlay had served as a captain in the revolutionary army during
the War of Independence, and derived some slight literary fame
from the publication of a short monograph on the state of America,
entitled "_Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North
America_." He was, therefore, a man of some accomplishments, which
makes his subsequent behaviour to Mary all the more unpardonable.
At the time of Mary's first meeting him he appears to have been in
business--probably his line was timber--and the dealings of his
trade claimed a great deal of his time and nearly all his attention.
Circumstances putting marriage out of the question,--a wedding-ceremony
would have betrayed that nationality she was so anxious to conceal--she
consented to live with him as his wife by virtue of their mutual
affections. His correspondence shows that he regarded her as his
lawful wife, and as Mary fully expected the alliance to be of a
permanent nature, and believed him capable of that affection which
Reason causes to subside into friendship after the first flame of
passion is spent, she was acting in full accordance with the views she
had repeatedly expressed.[50]
The letters which she wrote him in the first stage of their growing
intimacy are full of exquisite tenderness. Her repeated "God bless
you", which Sterne says is equal to a kiss, shows the depth of her
feelings towards him. Seldom was a purer, more unselfish love wasted
upon a more unworthy recipient. Imlay was a "mere man", of a cheerful
disposition and to a certain extent good-natured, but easy-going,
self-indulgent, inconstant and incapable of appreciating a noble love
which he himself could not cherish. He evidently looked upon his
relation to Mary as the amusement of a day,--she lavished upon him
that which might have made a greater soul happy for life. She tried to
draw him up to her level and failed; her efforts to cure him of his
sordid love of money which so disgusted her only irritated him, and
made him anxious to cast off the bonds of a union of which he soon
began to tire. Their agreement had been entered upon in a different
spirit, and it was Mary who paid the full penalty of disillusionment. A
letter he wrote to Mrs. Bishop in November 1794, when the estrangement
had already begun, at a time when Mary was deeply conscious of the
fact that he neglected her for business and perhaps worse, in which he
states that he is "in but indifferent spirits occasioned by his long
absence from Mrs. Imlay and their little girl" shows that he cannot
even be acquitted from the charge of absolute hypocrisy.
Such was the individual whom Mary had appointed the sole keeper of her
possibilities of happiness. Love had come to her late in life, but when
it did, it took the shape of that complete surrender in which consists
woman's greatest bliss and which she had never thought possible. It
came as a revelation and brought experience in its train. Who shall
describe the anguish of her heart when after a short spell of ecstatic
bliss, the inevitable truth began to dawn upon her! Mary was not an
essentially sensual woman; almost from the first she looked for that
sympathy of the mind which was not forthcoming. She found him wanting,
and the recognition of this probably irritated him, and ultimately
made him transfer his easy-going affections to those who were less
exacting. He was far too matter-of-fact to sympathise with or even
understand her moments of tenderness, and too much occupied with his
business to be much of a companion to her. In the month of September,
after a few months together, he went to Hâvre. Then it was that Mary's
troubles began. In her letters she repeatedly protested against his
prolonged absences. She grew to hate commerce, which kept him away from
her. His promise "to make a power of money to indemnify her for his
absence", failed to produce any impression. Perhaps there was already
then the vague fear of a possible desertion haunting her. She was in
expectations, and the tenderness with which her letters refer to the
coming event would stamp a repetition of her hopes and fears as an
indelicacy. For the first time in her life, the champion of the rights
of women was happy in acknowledging the superiority of a man. "Let me
indulge the thought that I have thrown out some tendrils to cling to
the elm by which I wish to be supported." Well might she say that this
was talking a new language for her! The feelings, so long pent up and
cheated of their birthright by tyrannical Reason, were indeed asserting
themselves with a vengeance!
The undefined dread of coming disaster makes her letters more and
more insistent. Grief and indignation at Imlay's neglect struggle for
the mastery. At last he wrote to ask her to join him at Hâvre. The
irritation he had felt against her--which she humbly ascribed to the
querulous tone of her correspondence--had worn away and there was a
brief renewal of happiness when in the spring of 1794 a little girl
was born, to whom the name of Fanny was given in commemoration of the
friend of Mary's youth.
In the course of the following August Imlay went to Paris, where Mary
joined him in September, at the end of which month he proceeded to
London on business. The extensive trade he was carrying on with Sweden
and Norway at this time completely engrossed him. Mary's first letters
after this fresh separation were cheerful and pleasant, although she
was subject to occasional fits of depression. The conviction that Imlay
was about to forsake her does not appear to have taken root until the
closing month of the year. The days of the Terror were now over, and
people once more breathed freely. Mary made an heroic effort to let
the future take care of itself and to concentrate her attention upon
her little girl, who developed an early fondness for scarlet coats
and music, and on one occasion wore the red sash in honour of J. J.
Rousseau, her mother confessing that "she had always been half in love
with him."
Imlay's letters now became few and far between. His business-schemes
were unsuccessful, and Mary took the opportunity to point out to him
the absurdity of thus wasting life in preparing to live. The tone of
her correspondence betrays a growing indignation at his treatment
of her, which appeared in spite of herself and which repeated
protestations of unalterable affection could not hide. "I do not
consent to your taking any other journey," she writes, "or the little
woman and I will be off the Lord knows where." She wants none of his
cold kindness and distant civilities, but wishes to have him about her,
enjoying life and love. The picture of sweet domesticity, of parents
sharing the sacred duty of education, of pleasant evenings of homely
tenderness spent at the fireside, recurred to her mind with a sense
of aching regret. She would far sooner struggle with poverty than go
on living this unnatural life of separation. Too proud to be under
pecuniary obligations to a neglectful husband, she began to consider
the possibility of having to provide for herself and her child.
When at last he allowed her to join him in England, she no longer
cherished false hopes, but begged him to tell her frankly whether
he had ceased to care. But Imlay wanted her support for his
business-schemes. He asked her to go to Sweden and Norway for him to
attend to his interests and Mary consented with a heavy heart, hoping
that a complete change of surroundings might afford distraction, if not
amusement, for she was feeling utterly worn out and ill.
Imlay kept up the melancholy farce a few months longer. Mary wrote him
a series of long epistles from Scandinavia, into which, as a means
of keeping her mind concentrated upon other matters, she inserted
elaborate descriptions of the voyage, of the countries in which she was
travelling, and of their inhabitants.
Of these letters, the descriptive portions of which were published in
1796, Godwin speaks highly. Their perusal caused him to change his
opinion of the author of the _Rights of Women_. Their first, and so
far only, meeting--in November 1791--had not prepossessed him in her
favour. She seemed to him to monopolize the conversation, and prevented
him from listening to Tom Paine, who never was a great talker, and whom
she reduced to absolute silence. But he now learned to think highly of
her literary talent. The passages dealing with personal affairs had
of course been omitted, and afterwards found their way into Godwin's
_Posthumous Edition of the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft_, and also into
Mr. Kegan Paul's collection of _Letters to Imlay_. The tone of despair
has on the whole given way to one of resigned melancholy. In spite
of the sadness which prevailed in Mary's heart, the change was doing
her good, and her health was improving rapidly. Before her arrival at
Tonsberg in Sweden, she had felt very ill, a slow fever preyed on her
every night. One day she found "a fine rivulet filtered through the
rocks and confined in a basin for the cattle." The water was pure, and
she determined to turn her morning-walks towards it and seek for health
from the nymph of the fountain. She also wished to bathe, and there
being no convenience near, took to rowing as a pleasant and at the same
time useful exercise.
While thus the flush of health was returning to her cheeks, she found
it easier to arrive at a conclusion. She made up her mind that there
should be an end to all uncertainty. Imlay was put before a dilemma.
Either they must live together after her return, or part forever. Still
he kept flattering her with the hope that he might join her at Hamburg,
for a trip to Switzerland, the country of her dreams since the days of
Neuilly. But he did not keep his word, and when Mary landed at Dover in
October 1795, she realised that all was over and that Imlay had entered
into a new connection with an actress.
Then it was that Mary made up her mind to die. The harrowing details
of her fruitless attempt at suicide may be found in Godwin's _Memoirs_
and also in Mr. Kegan Paul's work. After her rescue she learnt to live
for her child's sake, and not to flinch from the sacred duties which
tied her to life. Imlay passed out of her sphere, and she parted with
him in peace. But the sufferings through which he had made her pass had
stamped themselves indelibly upon her heart.
The "_Letters written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and
Denmark_" met with a favourable reception. Being the narrative of
foreign travel, they mark a new departure in her literary career. She
held with Rousseau that travelling, as the completion of a liberal
education, ought to be adopted on rational grounds.[51] The writing
of a journal was to her a means of keeping the mind employed, and
preventing it from dwelling overmuch on painful recollections of
disappointed hopes. Her works of education and reform had been so
full of the militant spirit, and her correspondence with Imlay so
replete with the anguish of unrequited love, that she had not yet come
to recognise the soothing effect upon the mind of a close communion
with Nature. It is in the Scandinavian correspondence that the
Nature-element is first met with. The contemplation of the grand
coast-scenery gave her that peace and quiet for which her heart
yearned. It did not bring her forgetfulness of present troubles, but
it gave her the necessary strength to meet them without flinching.
In her little boat, surrounded by the glorious works of Nature,
she found herself for the first time capable of grappling with her
problem, which the sense of human insignificance reduced to its true
proportions. The nature of her worship stamps her as the true spiritual
child of Jean-Jacques. The writers of an earlier period had been
able to appreciate only what is congenial in nature. The forbidding
austerity of the snow-clad mountains of Switzerland had produced no
raptures in Goldsmith's breast, and Cowper's English landscape owed its
attractiveness to its suggestion of peaceful harmony. Rousseau had been
the first to love Nature also in her sterner moods and aspects; like
Wordsworth, "the sounding cataract haunted him like a passion", and
the _Nouvelle Héloise_ contains the faithful record of the impressions
produced upon him by the grandeur of the Valais mountains. Some of
Mary's nature-descriptions--notably those of the Trolhaettan Falls, and
of the rocky Norwegian coast--afford a parallel to these passages. She
was deeply impressed by the wonders of Nature she witnessed, and by the
exquisite loveliness of the short northern summer. "In the evening the
western gales which prevail during the day, die away, the aspen leaves
tremble into stillness, and reposing Nature seems to be warmed by the
moon, which here assumes a genial aspect; and if a light shower has
chanced to fall with the sun, the juniper, the underwood of forest,
exhales a wild perfume, mixed with a thousand nameless sweets, that,
soothing the heart, leave images in the memory which the imagination
will ever hold dear."
There is an anticipation of Wordsworth in the last line of the above
passage. Mary recognises in Nature "the nurse of sentiment", producing
melancholy as well as rapture, as it touches the different chords of
the human soul like the changing wind which agitates the aeolian harp.
Her worship of Nature, like that of Wordsworth, contains an element
of profound piety. When she wrote her letters from Sweden, Mary had
reached that stage in her religious life which is marked by a complete
silence as far as dogma is concerned. Yet this silence should not be
misconstrued into indifference. Her feelings on the subject were not of
the nature of a systematic creed, and therefore never took an external
organisation. They remained perfectly subjective in their vagueness,
like the natural religion of Rousseau with which they have so much
in common. Mary did not care to become an apostle of faith, to her
religion was rather a matter of the inner life, which wanted no outlet
into the world, but remained locked up in itself. She believed that her
rational powers enabled her to discover certain portions of Truth, but
that the mystery which veiled the presence of God could not be removed
by Reason, but remained a matter of the heart. There is no touch of
rationalism, or anything but pure sentiment, in the passage in which
she describes her return from Fredericshall in a perfect summer night.
"A vague pleasurable sentiment absorbed me, as I opened my bosom to the
embraces of Nature, and my soul rose to its author, with the chirping
of the solitary birds, which began to feel, rather than see, advancing
day."
A great deal of attention is paid in the letters to the national
character of the inhabitants of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, which
she holds to be the result chiefly of the climatic conditions. Never
had she seen the blessings of civilisation more clearly demonstrated
than by the utter lack of them among the Scandinavians. Especially in
Sweden, civilisation was at that time in its earliest infancy, and what
struck Mary from the first was the ignorance of the people. What she
saw of their manners and customs was not calculated to make her fall
in love with Rousseau's golden age of simplicity. They were full of
vices, and their very virtues had their origin in considerations of a
lower order. They were hospitable, but their hospitality, arising from
a total want of scientific pursuits, was merely the outcome of their
inordinate fondness of social pleasures, "in which, the mind not having
its proportion of exercise, the bottle must be pushed about."
Being ignorant of the advantages of the cultivation of the mind, they
were content to remain as they were: ignorant, sluggish and indifferent
to social progress. They moved in a narrow sphere, did not care for
politics, had no interest whatever in literature and no topics of
conversation, and were strangely incapable of appreciating the charms
of Nature. Mary's experience was chiefly gained in the small provincial
towns. They necessarily presented to her--so she thought--the worst
side of the picture. To her, the ideal condition was "to rub off in
a metropolis the rust of thought, and polish the taste which the
contemplation of Nature had rendered just." But no place seemed to her
so disagreeable and unimproving as a small country-town.
The refined amusements of a cultivated society being thus inaccessible
to the Swede, he will choose them of the coarsest kind. Meals occupy a
prominent place in the daily routine, and a good many hours are wasted
at table. A "visiting-day" means a severe strain upon the powers of
digestion, and to make matters worse, the brandy-bottle,--the bane of
the country--passes round freely.
What Mary saw of wedded life in Sweden did not give her a high opinion
of Swedish morals. The men were generally inconstant, and also the
women lacked chastity--the product of the mind. The statement that
in later life "the husband becomes a sot, whilst the wife spends her
time in scolding the servants", likewise finds its explanation in
the _Rights of Women_ as the natural result of vacancy of mind where
youthful beauty and animal spirits have gone the way of all flesh!
Neither has the treatment of servants Mary's sympathy. "They are not
termed slaves; yet a man may strike a man with impunity because he pays
him wages." But the lot of female servants is immeasurably harder.
Their having to eat a different kind of food from their masters strikes
Mary as a remnant of barbarism.
The general appearance of the women is not prepossessing. Too much
attention to the delights of a well-provided table makes them fat and
unwieldy and soon changes the natural pink of their complexions to a
sallow hue. They are uncleanly of their persons, and vanity is more
inherent in them than taste. Their ignorance is even more profound than
that of the males, and Mary once had the compliment paid her that "she
asked men's questions."
The peasantry of Sweden impressed her as more really polite and
obliging than the better-situated classes, whose cold politeness
consisted chiefly in tiresome ceremonies.
In Norway, however, the unmistakable signs of a coming dawn were
noticeable. A river forms the boundary between the two countries, and
yet, what a difference in the manners of the inhabitants of the two
sides! Instead of the sluggishness and poverty of the Swede, here
are industry and consequent prosperity. It is the patient labour of
men who are only seeking for a subsistence which affords leisure for
the cultivation of the arts and sciences that lift man so far above
his first state. The world requires the hand of man to perfect it,
and as this task naturally unfolds the faculties he exercises, it is
physically impossible that he should remain in Rousseau's golden age
of stupidity. And although the cultivation of science in Norway is as
yet in its earliest stages--the time for universities having not yet
come--yet a bright future is awaiting her.
Norway seemed to Mary Wollstonecraft the country of the greatest
individual freedom. The king of Denmark, it is true, was an absolute
monarch, but the state of imbecility to which illness had reduced him
placed the reins of government into the hands of his son the prince
royal and of his wise and moderate minister Count Bernstorff. Under
their almost patriarchal authority every man was left to enjoy an
almost unlimited amount of freedom. The law was mild, and the lot of
those it sentenced to hard labour not unnecessarily hard. She found
in Norway no accumulation of property such as existed in Sweden,
resulting in the abject poverty of the submerged tenth. Rich merchants
were made to divide their personal fortunes among their children;
and the distribution of all landed property into small farms,--one
of the ideals hesitatingly put forward by Mary in the _Rights of
Women_--produced a degree of equality which was found nowhere else in
Europe. The tenants occupied their farms for life, which made them
independent. There was every hope that drunkenness, the inherent vice
of generations, would before long disappear, giving place to gallantry
and refinement of manners; "but the change will not be suddenly
produced."
The Norwegians love their country, but they have not yet arrived at
that point where an enlarged understanding extends the love they
cherish for the land of their birth to the entire human race. They have
not much public spirit. However, the French Revolution meets with a
great deal of sympathy among the people of Norway, who follow with the
most lively interest the successes of the French arms. "So determined
were they," says Mary, "to excuse everything, disgracing the struggle
of freedom by admitting the tyrant's plea necessity, that I could
hardly persuade them that Robespierre was a monster."
Mary hoped that the French Revolution would have the effect of making
politics a subject of discussion among them, "enlarging the heart by
opening the understanding," and leading to the cultivation of that
public spirit the absence of which she regretted.
Although the women of Norway were not much more cultivated than their
Swedish sisters, regarding custom and opinion to such an extent that
Mary's educational advice was not listened to lest "the town might
talk", and on the plea that "they must do as other people did"--yet
they compared favourably with the latter in the matter of personal
appearance and cheerfulness of disposition. They had rosy complexions,
and were pronouncedly fond of dancing. They were very strict in the
performance of their religious duties; yet showed the greatest
toleration; nor was the Norwegian Sunday remarkable for that stupid
dulness which characterises the English Sabbath, the outcome of that
fanatical spirit which Mary feared was gaining ground in England.
The same lack of public spirit which Mary commented upon in her
description of the national character of the Norwegians, also struck
her when observing the manners and customs of the Danes in their
capital. There had been a huge fire, destroying a considerable portion
of the town, and held by some to be the work of Pitt. It was the
general opinion, that the conflagration might have been smothered in
the beginning by pulling down several houses before the flames had
reached them, to which, however, the inhabitants would not consent.
Mary found among the Danes a great many vices. The men led dissolute
lives, and utterly neglected their wives, who were reduced to the state
of mere house-slaves. Their only interest was love of gain, which, in
rendering them over-cautious, sapped their energy. A visit to a theatre
showed Mary the state of the dramatic art in Denmark and the gross
taste of the audience, and the fact that well-dressed women took their
children to witness the execution of a criminal as a favourite kind of
entertainment, filled her with unutterable disgust. "And to think that
these are the people," she exclaims, "who found fault with the late
Queen Matilda's education of her son!" Matilda, it appears, had carried
some of Rousseau's principles into effect, which, however, had found no
favour at the court.
The ignorance and coarse brutality which she found among the Danes
were instrumental in changing Mary's opinions of the French. The
Parisian festivals were rendered more interesting by the sobriety of
those who took part in them, a Danish merry-making, however, generally
degenerated into a drunken bacchanal. "I should have been less severe,"
she says, "in the remarks I have made on the vanity and depravity of
the French, had I travelled towards the north before I visited France."
The antipathy with which she had always regarded the dealings of
business was increased by the experience she gained during her stay in
Scandinavia. At Gotheburg and at Hamburg the contrast between opulence
and penury which the war had called forth filled her with indignation,
and at Laurvig, in Norway, the lawyers proved to be all great
chicaners. It seemed to her that traffic was necessarily allied with
cunning. The gulf which now yawned between her and Imlay was widened
by the circumstance that she was unable to feel anything but contempt
for what he had made his chief object in life. She was willing to admit
that England and America to a certain extent owed their liberty to
commerce, which created a new species of power to undermine the feudal
system. But let them beware of the consequence, the tyranny of wealth
is still more galling and debasing than that of rank!
Shortly after the final rupture with Imlay Mary renewed her
acquaintance with Godwin in the house of their mutual friend Miss
Hayes. She took a fancy to him, and in the following month of April
called upon him in Somers Town, having herself taken a lodging in
Pentonville. In Godwin's _Memoirs_ the description of their friendship,
"melting into love" may be found. A temporary separation in July 1796,
when Godwin made an excursion into Norfolk, had its effect on the mind
of both parties. As Godwin says, it "gave a space for the maturing of
inclination," and both realised that each had become indispensable to
the other.
They did not at once marry. Godwin, in his _Political Justice_, had
declared himself against marriage, which compels both parties to go
on cherishing a relation long after both have discovered their fatal
mistake. Moreover, marriage is a contract for life, and binding to
both parties; and no rational being can undertake to promise that
his opinions will undergo no change in the future. Mary's ideas of
marriage we have seen to be different, nor did she change her mind
under Godwin's influence. But she had been much and rudely spoken of in
connection with Imlay, and she could not resolve to do anything that
might revive that painful topic, and therefore agreed to keep their
relations a secret from the world.
Mary's pregnancy, however, became their motive for complying with
a ceremony to which Godwin in a letter to Mr. Wedgwood, refers as
follows: "Nothing but a regard for the happiness of the individual,
which I had no right to injure, could have induced me to submit to an
institution which I wish to see abolished, and which I would recommend
to my fellowmen never to practise but with the greatest caution." The
marriage took place at Old St. Pancras Church on March 29th, 1797, but
was not declared till the beginning of April. Godwin records with some
bitterness that certain of his friends, among whom were Mrs. Inchbald
and Mrs. Siddons, from this moment treated him with coldness.
In accordance with Godwin's ideas of cohabitation he engaged an
apartment about twenty doors from their house in Somers Town, where
he pursued his literary occupations and sometimes remained for days
together. The notes which passed between the two lovers in their five
months of married life show that upon the whole they were very happy,
although they had one or two slight differences. Their most serious
trouble in those days were the constant financial embarrassments. In
June Godwin went on a long excursion with his friend Montagu, and the
letters of both husband and wife are full of the most affectionate
solicitude. The time of Mary's confinement was now rapidly approaching,
but her health was quite good, and she concentrated a good deal of
energy upon a novel which she had begun in the first period of her
intimacy with Godwin. It engrossed her mind for months, and she wrote
and rewrote several chapters of it with the most elaborate care. When
she died, the work, to which she gave the name of "_Maria, or the
Wrongs of Woman_", was unfinished, in spite of which circumstance
Godwin decided to include the fragment in his edition of her posthumous
works.
A long and circumstantial account of Mary's last days is given in
Mr. Kegan Paul's "_William Godwin; His Friends and Contemporaries_."
Suffice it to say, that she gave birth to a daughter Mary on the 30th
of August, 1797, and in spite of the constant attendance of some of the
best doctors in London, died eleven days later.
In the year following her death, Godwin published his _Memoirs_. They
are an admirable piece of writing; yet they did not produce the effect
he hoped for: that of making the principles and motives by which she
was actuated in life better understood and more generally appreciated.
The disfavour with which his personality was regarded in many circles
on account of his radicalism rendered him all unfit for the task.
Fortunately, later generations have done justice to the impartiality of
his judgments. We, at least, realise what the unstinted praise of a man
of Godwin's sincerity means, although to us her character and actions
require no vindication.
Perhaps without being aware of it himself, Godwin paid his deceased
wife the greatest compliment in his power when insisting on the
astonishing degree of soundness which pervaded her sentiments, enabling
her to supplement her husband's deficiencies. Both he and Mary carried
farther than to their common extent the characteristics of the sexes
to which they belonged. Godwin, while stimulated by the love of
intellectual distinction, was painfully aware of his lack of what he
calls "an intuitive sense of the pleasures of the imagination." Women,
he says, who are more delicate and susceptible of impression than men,
in proportion as they receive a less intellectual education, are more
unreservedly under the empire of feeling."
If this estimate of women is correct, it proves the superiority of Mary
Wollstonecraft over the other members of her sex. For the fact that
her great natural gifts, joined to her boundless energy enabled her to
attain an intellectual level far beyond the reach of others, did not in
any sense detract from the warmth of her heart and the intensity of her
feelings, by which she proved herself above all a tender, loving woman,
thoroughly capable of constituting the happiness of a husband who was
himself a leader of men.
When two years after Mary's death Godwin published "_St. Leon_," he
gave in his idealised description of the married life of St. Leon and
Margaret what he felt to be a faithful account of their short spell of
matrimonial happiness. Well might he say of his Margaret that the story
of her life is the best record of her virtues.
It has been the aim of the present study to prove Mary Wollstonecraft
the spiritual child and heir to the French philosophers of her own
and of the preceding century--to a Poullain de la Barre, a Fénelon, a
Mme de Lambert, a d'Holbach, who ventured to propose a scheme for the
improvement of the deplorable conditions of an erring and suffering
womanhood. More extreme in her views, and more determined in her claims
than her Bluestocking sisters, she stands out the one great apostle of
female emancipation among the revolutionary leaders who held out the
hope of lasting social improvement to all mankind. That she aimed too
high and failed to find that recognition among her contemporaries to
which her spirit of ready sacrifice entitled her, lends her a certain
tragic dignity which adds materially to the interest felt by posterity
in her striking personality.
And yet her work certainly was not done in vain, although it was left
to a later generation to build the huge structure of modern feminism
on the ruins of a hope which, together with even more comprehensive
ideals, had been blasted by the rude winds of Reaction. This structure
the present generation beholds with feelings which are not wholly
unmixed, for it is as yet full of imperfections, and much remains to be
done. But those who feel doubtful of the final issue, may turn to Mary
Wollstonecraft, to borrow from her that unshakable faith in evolution
and progress which to her became a kind of religion which never forsook
her.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] C. Kegan Paul, _William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries_.
[37] See Letter from Mary to Everina, dated from Dublin, March 24th.
1788, with which compare the following severe judgment by Hannah More
in her _Strictures_: "It is worthy of remark that 'Depart from me, I
never knew you', is not the malediction denounced on the sceptic or
the scoffer, but on the high professor, on the unfruitful worker of
"miracles", on the unsanctified utterer of "prophecies", for even acts
of piety, wanting the purifying principle, however they may dazzle men,
offend God. Cain sacrificed, Balaam prophesied, Rousseau most sublimely
panegyrised the son of Mary...." Those who lacked true humility did not
fall within the range of Hannah More's compassion.
[38] E. Dowden, _The French Revolution and English Literature_.
[39] W. Godwin, _Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights
of Women_.
[40] "A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind."
(_A Vindication_, Chapter on _Duty to Parents_).
[41] The creation of congenial surroundings, and the bringing about
of circumstances which involuntarily lead the pupil to draw certain
illuminating inferences, is recommended also in _Emile_, where the
preceptor relies largely upon them. There seems nothing to be said
against them, unless it were that the pupil might sooner or later
discover that he was "being sold", which might be attended with awkward
consequences!
[42] The position of servants very naturally called for discussion in
the great liberty scheme. The treatment of female servants never failed
to interest Mary. Many years later, Godwin treated the subject in an
essay.
[43] Mr. Falkland, the "high-spirited and highly cultured" gentleman of
the dramatis personae, utilises all the advantages of his superior rank
to crush his enemy Caleb and finds the law upon his side.
[44] See H. W. Brailsford, _Shelley, Godwin and their Circle_.
[45] This rule, which also applies to property, and may be traced to
the _Contrat Social_, strikes the keynote of what was the common view
of the social reformers. Mary's scheme of enfranchisement advocates the
admission of women to the different professions to ensure their social
independence.
[46] See Morley's _Rousseau_.
[47] See Lilly Bascho, _Englische Schriftstellerinnen in ihre
Beziehungen zur französischen Revolution_. (_Anglia 41)._
[48] Curiously enough, Hannah More,--who refers to the education of
the children as "the great object to which those who are, or may be
mothers, are especially called"--unwittingly copies Mary Wollstonecraft
where she says: "In the great day of general account, may every
Christian mother be enabled, through Divine grace, to say, with humble
confidence, to her Maker and Redeemer, Behold the children whom thou
hast given me!"
[49] C. Kegan Paul, Memoir to the "_Letters to Imlay_".
[50] "We are soon to meet, to try whether we have mind enough to keep
our hearts warm". (_Letter to Imlay_, August 1793).
[51] When Emile's education is almost completed, he is sent abroad for
the final touch. In this way he obtains full command of the principal
languages of Europe.
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STELLINGEN
1. There never was a more fervent champion of marriage and
domesticity than Mary Wollstonecraft, who twice lived with a man
to whom she was not married.
2. The Bluestocking assemblies differed in their essential
qualities from the French salons both of the seventeenth and of
the eighteenth century.
3. British influence was a potent factor in the intellectual
revolt which preceded the French Revolution.
4. Those who, like St. Marc Girardin and Lord John Morley, observe
that in the fifth Book of Rousseau's "_Emile_" we are confronted
with the oriental conception of women, do its author an injustice.
5. The views expressed in Paine's "_Rights of Man_" regarding the
attitude of Burke towards democracy are open to criticism.
6. Mr. R. H. Case's interpretation of the text of Shakespeare's
"_The Tragedy of Coriolanus_", Act I, Scene IX, l. 45:
When steel grows soft as the parasite's silk,
Let him be made an overture for the wars!
is quite plausible.
7. The popularity of Tennyson's poetry is largely due to
circumstances which are independent of his greater poetic
qualities.
8. There is a strong element of romance in Richardson's so-called
"realistic" novels.
9. Behoudens het geven van eene beknopte historische inleiding is
het niet wenschelijk het onderwijs in de Engelsche letterkunde
aan onze middelbare scholen en gymnasia uit te strekken tot die
perioden welke vallen vóór Shakespeare.