Chapter C: KEGAN PAUL: Prefatory Memoir to Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘Letters to

Imlay.’ London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879.

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[Sidenote: Impressions of married life.]

[The family life of the Blood household, of which Mary was for a time, after her mother’s death, an inmate, was as utterly unhappy as that of the Wollstonecrafts: Mr. Blood being “a ne’er-do-well and a drunkard.” Mary was “an immediate witness” of similar and still more painful scenes in the home of her sister Eliza, who had married a Mr. Bishop, a man described by one of his own friends as “either a lion or a spaniel--” fawning abroad, tyrannical at home. I subjoin extracts from two of Mary’s letters to her other sister, Everina, which seem to me to illustrate her experience more forcibly than the narrative of her biographers.]

December, 1783.

Poor Eliza’s situation almost turns my brain. I can’t stay and see this continual misery, and to leave her to bear it by herself without anyone to comfort her, is still more distressing.... Nothing can be done till she leaves the house. I have been some time deliberating on this, for I can’t help pitying B., but misery must be his portion at any rate till he alters himself, and that would be a miracle.... I tell you she will soon be deprived of reason.

January, 1784.

Here we are, Everina; but my trembling hand will scarce let me tell you so. Bess is much more composed than I expected her to be; but ... I was afraid in the coach she was going to have one of her flights, for she bit her wedding-ring to pieces.... My heart beats time with every carriage that rolls by, and a knocking at the door almost throws me into a fit. I hope B. will not discover us, for I could sooner face a lion.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letters_, in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1876.

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[Mary spent some time at Eton as the guest of Mr. Prior, Assistant Master, through whom she subsequently obtained a situation as governess in the family of Lord Kingsborough.]

ETON, Oct., 1787.

[Sidenote: Impressions of Eton.]

I could not live the life they lead at Eton; nothing but dress and ridicule going forward.... Witlings abound and puns fly about like crackers, though you would scarcely guess they had any meaning in them, if you did not hear the noise they create. So much company without any sociability would be to me an insupportable fatigue.... Vanity in one shape or other reigns triumphant.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to her sister_, in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

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In great schools, what can be more prejudicial to the moral character than the system of tyranny and abject slavery which is established among the boys, to say nothing of the slavery to forms, which makes religion worse than a farce? For what good can be expected from the youth who receives the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to avoid forfeiting a guinea, which he probably afterward spends in some sensual manner?

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.’ London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72 St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1792.

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[The following letter was written in Ireland, while Mary was governess to the daughters of Lord Kingsborough, at a salary of £40 a year.]

MITCHELSTOWN, Nov., 1787.

[Sidenote: Impressions of aristocratic society.]

Confined to the society of a set of silly females, I have no social converse, and their boisterous spirits and unmeaning laughter exhaust me, not forgetting hourly domestic bickerings. The topics of matrimony and dress take their turn, not in a very sentimental style--alas, poor sentiment! it has no residence here.... Lady K.’s passion for animals fills up the hours which are not spent in dressing. All her children have been ill--very disagreeable fevers. Her ladyship visited them in a formal way, though their situation called forth my tenderness, and I endeavored to amuse them, while she lavished awkward fondness on her dogs. I think now I hear her infantine lisps. She rouges--and, in short, is a fine lady, without fancy or sensibility,

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to her sister_, in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

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[Sidenote: Adopts literature as a profession.]

Mr. Johnson [the publisher], whose uncommon kindness, I believe, has saved me from despair and vexation I shrink back from, and fear to encounter, assures me that if I exert my talents in writing, I may support myself in a comfortable way. I am then going to be the first of a new genus. I tremble at the attempt; yet if I fail _I_ only suffer; and should I succeed, my dear girls [her sisters Eliza and Everina] will ever in sickness have a home and a refuge, where for a few months in the year they may forget the cares that disturb the rest.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to her sister_, 1788, in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

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[Sidenote: Dress, etc., at this period.]

Fuseli found in her a philosophical sloven: her usual dress being a habit of coarse cloth, black worsted stockings, and a beaver hat, with her hair hanging lank about her shoulders.

When the Prince Talleyrand was in this country, in a low condition with regard to his pecuniary affairs, and visited her, they drank their tea, and the little wine they took, indiscriminately from tea-cups.[4]

JOHN KNOWLES: ‘The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli.’ London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1831.

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[Sidenote: Account of ‘A Vindication,’ etc.]

“The main argument” of the work “is built on this simple principle, that if woman be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice. And how can woman be expected to co-operate, unless she know why she ought to be virtuous?--unless freedom strengthen her reason till she comprehend her duty, and see in what manner it is connected with her real good. If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; and the love of mankind, from which an orderly train of virtues springs, can only be produced by considering the moral and civil interest of mankind; but the education and situation of woman at present shuts her out from such investigations.”

In the carrying out of this argument the most noticeable fact is the extraordinary plainness of speech, and this it was which caused all or nearly all the outcry. For Mary Wollstonecraft did not, as has been supposed, attack the institution of marriage, she did not assail orthodox religion, she did not directly claim much which at the present day is claimed for women by those whose arguments obtain respectful hearing. The book was really a plea for equality of education, a protest against being deemed only the plaything of man, an assertion that the intellectual intercourse was that which should chiefly be desired in marriage, and which made its lasting happiness.... It may, however, be admitted that her frankness on some subjects is little less than astounding.