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

Imlay.’

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Mr. Kegan Paul, in the spring of 1884, showed the author of this life a lock of Mary Wollstonecraft’s hair. It is wonderfully soft in texture, and in color a rich auburn, turning to gold in the sunlight.

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL: ‘Life of Mary Wollstonecraft.’

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[Sidenote: Her conscientiousness.]

I return you the Italian manuscript; but do not hastily imagine that I am indolent. I would not spare any labor to do my duty; that single thought would solace me more than any pleasures the senses could enjoy. I find I could not translate the manuscript well.... I cannot bear to do anything I cannot do well; and I should lose time in the vain attempt.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to Mr. Johnson_, in ‘Posthumous Works of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.’

London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72 St. Paul’s Churchyard; and G. G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster Row, 1798.

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[Sidenote: Independent spirit.]

I long for a little peace and _independence_! Every obligation we receive from our fellow-creatures is a new shackle, takes from our native freedom and debases the mind, makes us mere earth-worms. I am not fond of grovelling!

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to Mr. Johnson_, 1788, in ‘Posthumous Works.’

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[Sidenote: Craving for love.]

I have dearly paid for one conviction. Love, in some minds, is an affair of sentiment, arising from the same delicacy of perception (or taste) as renders them alive to the beauties of nature, poetry, etc., alive to the charms of those evanescent graces that are, as it were, impalpable--they must be felt, they cannot be described. Love is a want of my heart.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: ‘Letters to Imlay.’

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I can not live without loving my fellow-creatures; nor can I love them without discovering some merit.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to Mr. Johnson_, in ‘Posthumous Works.’

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It is ... an affection for the whole human race that makes my pen dart rapidly along to support what I believe to be the cause of virtue.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Dedication_ of ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.’

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[Sidenote: Tenderness.]

I will own to you that, feeling extreme tenderness for my little girl, I grow sad very often when I am playing with her, that you are not here to observe with me how her mind unfolds, and her little heart becomes attached! These appear to me to be true pleasures, and still you suffer them to escape you.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: ‘Letters to Imlay.’

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[Sidenote: Inconsistency.]

She was, I have been told by an intimate friend, very pretty and feminine in manners and person; much attached to those very observances she decries in her works; so that if any gentleman did not fly to open the door as she approached it, or take up the handkerchief she dropped, she showered on him the full weight of reproach and displeasure; an inconsistency she would have doubtless despised in a disciple.

MRS. ELWOOD (quoting a communication from “a well-known living writer”): ‘Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England.’ London: Henry Colburn, 1843.

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[Sidenote: Irritability]

Previous to your departure, I requested you not to torment me by leaving the day of your return undecided. But whatever tenderness you took away with you seems to have evaporated on the journey.... In short, your being so late to-night, and the chance of your not coming, shows so little consideration, that unless you suppose me to be a stick or a stone, you must have forgot to think, as well as to feel, since you have been on the wing.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (GODWIN): _Letter to Wm. Godwin_, in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

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[Sidenote: Religious spirit.]

It gives me the sincerest satisfaction to find that you look for comfort where only it is to be met with, and that Being in whom you trust will not desert you. Be not cast down, while we are struggling with care, life slips away, and, through the assistance of Divine grace, we are obtaining habits of virtue that will enable us to relish those joys that we cannot now form any idea of.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to George Blood_, 1785.

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[After Fanny’s death:] Could I not look for comfort where only ’tis to be found, I should have been mad before this, but I feel that I am supported by that Being who alone can heal a wounded spirit.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to her sister_, 1785. In ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

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Love to man leads to devotion--grand and sublime images strike the imagination--God is seen in every floating cloud, and comes from the misty mountain to receive the noblest homage of an intelligent creature--praise. How solemn is the moment, when all affections and remembrances fade before the sublime admiration which the wisdom and goodness of God inspires, when he is worshipped in a _temple not made with hands_, and the world seems to contain only the mind that formed, and the mind that contemplates it! These are not the weak responses of ceremonial devotion.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Essay on Poetry, and our Relish for the Beauties of Nature_, in ‘Posthumous Works.’

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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.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Hints_, in ‘Posthumous Works.’

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[Sidenote: Her character sketched by her daughter.]

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of those beings who appear once perhaps in a generation, to gild humanity with a ray which no difference of opinion nor chance of circumstances can cloud. Her genius was undeniable. She had been bred in the hard school of adversity, and having experienced the sorrows entailed on the poor and the oppressed, an earnest desire was kindled within her to diminish these sorrows. Her sound understanding, her intrepidity, her sensibility, and eager sympathy, stamped all her writings with force and truth, and endowed them with a tender charm that enchants while it enlightens. She was one whom all loved who had ever seen her.... “Open as day to melting charity,” with a heart brimful of generous affection, yearning for sympathy, she had fallen on evil days, and her life had been one course of hardship, poverty, lonely struggle, and bitter disappointment.

MARY SHELLEY: quoted in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

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[Sidenote: Appearance.]

Of all the lions or _literati_ I have seen here, Mary Imlay’s countenance is the best, infinitely the best: the only fault in it is an expression somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display--an expression indicating superiority; not haughtiness, not sarcasm, in Mary Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and although the lid of one of them is affected by a little paralysis, they are the most meaning I ever saw.... As for Godwin himself, he has large, noble eyes, and a _nose_--oh, most abominable nose! Language is not vituperatious enough to describe the effect of its downward elongation.

ROBERT SOUTHEY: _Letter to J. Cottle, March, 1797_, in the former’s ‘Life and Correspondence,’ edited by Rev. C. C. Southey, M. A. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1849.

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[Sidenote: Mary and Godwin.]

Coleridge asked me if I had ever seen Mary Wollstonecraft, and I said, I had once for a few moments, and that she seemed to me to turn off Godwin’s objection to something she advanced with quite a playful, easy air. He replied that “this was only one instance of the ascendency which people of imagination exercised over those of mere intellect.”... He had a great idea of Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s powers of conversation; none at all of her talents for book-making.

WILLIAM HAZLITT: _My First Acquaintance with Poets_, in ‘Sketches and Essays,’ edited by Wm. Carew Hazlitt. London: Bell and Daldy, 1869.

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[Sidenote: Their married life.]

And now Mary Wollstonecraft had a season of real calm in her stormy life. Godwin for once only in his life was stirred by a real passion, and his admiration for his wife equalled his affection. The very slight clouds which arose now and then were of a transient character, and sprang from Mary Wollstonecraft’s excessive sensitiveness and eager quickness of temper. These were, perhaps, occasionally tried by Godwin’s confirmed bachelor habits, and also by the fact that he took _au pied de la lettre_ all that she had said about the independence of women, when in truth she leant a good deal on the aid of others. In some respects she was content to acquiesce in his bachelor ways; they adopted a singular device for their uninterrupted student life. Godwin’s strong view of the possibility that people may weary of being always together, led him to take rooms in a house about twenty doors from that in the Polygon, Somers Town, which was their joint home. To this study he repaired as soon as he rose in the morning, rarely even breakfasting at the Polygon, and here also he often slept. Each was engaged in his and her own literary occupations, and they seldom met, unless they walked out together, till dinner-time each day.