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MARY
WOLLSTONECRAFT
LETTERS,, TO IMLA Y,
WITH PREFATOR Y MEMOIR BY
C. KEGAN PAUL.

LONDON:
C. KEGAN PAUL 8& CO., I, PATERNOSTER SQUARE,
S879.



(7/le right/s of Iranslalion and of reljroduclio;z are reserved.)



CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFATORY MEMOIR
LETTERS TO IMLAY.

I

ETCHINGS.

FROM PORTRAIT IN POSSESSION OF SIR PERCY
F. SHELLEY, BART.......    To face Title
FROM PORTRAIT IN POSSESSION OF WILLIAM
RUSSELL, ESQ........    Toface fage i
** In giving reproductions of both the portraits by Opie,
bearing the name of Mary Wollstonecraft, a word is necessary
in reference to some of the difficulties which they present.
The portrait etched for the frontispiece is beyond all doubt
that painted by Opie for Godwin during the few months of his
marriage with Mary Wollstonecraft, and very shortly before
her death. It is now in the possession c'f Sir Percy Shelley, a
direct heirloom from his grandfather, William Godwin. The
hair in this portrait is a bright auburn, and corresponds in



iv             Mary Wollstonecraft.
colour with that cut from Mary Wollstonecraft's head after
death. A considerable quantity of this hair is also in Sir Percy
Shelley's keeping. The features of the portrait correspond in
every degree with a cast taken from the face after death, and
show that the likeness must have been as striking as the painting
is excellent. It was first engraved, as by Opie, by Heath in
1798, and was published by Johnson, Mary Wollstonecraft's
publisher and intimate friend.
The second portrait is in the possession of Mr. William
Russell, and was sold to him twenty years since as by Northcote,
but was immediately pronounced by him to be by Opie, a fact
now certain.
Is it Mary Wollstonecraft?
The face is older, though the likeness to the other portrait
is strong. The hair is grey or powdered, the first being impossible in Mary's case, the second unlikely. But it was engraved,
as by Opie, by Ridley, and published by Bellamy for the proprietors of the Monthly Mirror in 1796, with the name 'Mrs. Wollstonecraft,' that is to say in Mary Wollstonecraft's lifetime, and
it does not seem that any doubt was thrown upon it. It is,
however, clear from an article in the Monthly ZMirror, that the
print was issued without authority.
There is here a difficulty which is to me quite unsoluble, and
I can only leave the puzzle as I find it, saying simply that the
authenticity of the first portrait is obviously indisputable, while
it is not easy to dispute that of the second.

C. K. P.



MEMOIR.

THE name of Mary Wollstonecraft has long
been a mark for obloquy and scorn. Living
and dying as a Christian, she has been called an
atheist, always a hard name, but harder still
some years ago. She ran counter to the customs
of society, yet not wantonly or lightly, but with
forethought, in order to carry out a moral theory
gravely and religiously adopted. Her opinions,
save on one point, were those which most cultivated women now hold. Mary Wollstonecraft
loved much and suffered much; she had the
real enthusiasm of humanity before the words
were known which designate a feeling still far
from common; and, like many more who think
always of others rather than self, she has been



vi

vM ary WollstonecrafI.

one of the martyrs of society. Nor did she win,
like some other such martyrs, any immediate
recognition when her sufferings ceased in rest,
nor had she a certain pride in her rejection while
here. She did not carry about in men's sight,
as has been said of Byron"The pageant of her bleeding heart."
For the most part her great sorrows were hidden,
herself was unrecognised, and her name despised.
Known to and loved by only a very few, her
writings have been almost unread, the facts of
her life ignored, and only eighty years after her
death has any serious attempt been made to set
her right in the eyes of those who will choose to
see her as she was. As the wife of Godwin, her
life found place in a memoir of the philosopher
published by me in 1876. How completely
ignored she has been may be judged from the
fact that when Miss Yonge, the well-known
authoress of The Ileirof Redcliffe, prepared some
few years since a new edition of The Elemetzts



Memoir.                vii
of Morality, a book for children, translated by
Mary Wollstonecraft from the German, she did
not even take the trouble to discover the right
name of her whose work she was reproducing,
and spelt it Wolstoncroft and Woolstoncroft.
The following pages reproduce in part, and in
part supplement, what was said in my Life of
Godwin, in order to do justice to the memory of
a woman as good as she was fair, and lovable as
she was unfortunate.
Mary Wollstonecraft was born at Hoxton on
April 27, 1759. Her father had once been rich,
the son of a respectable manufacturer in Spitalfields who had realised a considerable fortune.
The family was originally Irish; and Wollstonecraft the younger married an Irishwoman of
good family, Elizabeth Dixon.
Never bred to any profession, Mr. Wollstonecraft, when he had spent great part of his patrimony in drink, tried farming, an occupation in
which shrewdness, vigilance, and early hours



viii

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

are, above all things, requisite. He got into
deeper 'difficulties, and began a wandering,
shifty life, marking each change of residence by
a deeper fall in poverty and disrepute. The
family roamed from Hoxton to Edmonton, to
Essex, to Beverley in Yorkshire, to Laugharne
in Pembrokeshire, where he seems to have had
some little property, and back to London again.
Mrs. Wollstonecraft died in 1780, leaving six
children: Edward, an attorney, in business near
the Tower; Mary, Everina, and Eliza; James,
who went into the Navy; Charles, who finally
emigrated to America. There are some of the
name now settled in Australia. I am unable to
say of which son they are the descendants.
Mr. Wollstonecraft soon married again; and
his wife appears to have done what she could,
but quite in vain, to keep him steady and respectable. His home became no fit place for
his daughters, and, indeed, the circumstances of
the family drove them out to endeavour to earn
a livelihood.



Memoir.

ix

The sisters were all clever women, Mary and
Eliza far above the average; but their opportunities of culture had been few. They all had
a real desire to learn, and were fair French
scholars.  They all, therefore, turned  their
thoughts towards teaching, as a profession; and
Mary, the eldest, was to make the venture first.
In the meantime she went to live with her
friend, Fanny Blood, a girl of her own age,
whose home life was also unhappy, whose father
was much such another as Mr. Wollstonecraft.
Fanny Blood was an artist, and supported her
family by her profession, or nearly did so, for
Mrs. Blood gained a small sum by taking in
needlework, in which, so long as they lived
together, Mary aided her. Everina went to
keep house for Edward; and Eliza made a hasty
marriage with Mr. Bishop, in order, it may be supposed, to escape from the shame of her home
life and the irksomeness of a teacher's career.
I am not able to discover what position in
life Mr. Bishop held: he was, however, what is



x

iMary  Wollsionecraft.

called a gentleman, and I have some notion he
was a clergyman. The marriage was from the
first unhappy. It is more than probable there
were faults on both sides. All the Wollstonecraft sisters were enthusiastic, excitable, and
hasty tempered, apt to exaggerate trifles, sensitive to magnify inattention into slights, and
slights into studied insults. All had ill health
of a kind which is especially trying to the
nerves; and Eliza had, in excess, the family
temperament and constitution: She had little
actual education, she was very young and inexperienced-scarcely more than seventeen, I
take it-at the date of her marriage, so that
there was little to counteract the waywardness
of a hasty disposition.  Yet there can be no
doubt, on the other hand, that Bishop was a
man of the most furious violence; and this, the
third married home which Mary knew intimately, was far worse than even that of her own
parents or of the Bloods.
Mary, much attached to her family, was de


Memoir.

xi

voted to Eliza, and considered no sacrifice too
great to make for her. To save her from misery
she gave up all hopes of an independent career,
and offered a home to her sister, whom she
urged to leave her husband, and, when Mrs.
Bishop's reason all but gave way under her
trials, arranged her secret and sudden flight.
It was the first occasion on which any of the
great social questions presented themselves to
Mary Wollstonecraft: but her rapid mind had
no hesitation how this one should be answered.
Bishop had dissolved his marriage by his
brutality, whether temporary laws still held his
wife to him or no. Many years afterwards,
Mary wrote a sketch, and worked out in detail
some chapters, of a story called The Wrongs of  4
Woman, but it was still unfinished when she
died. Most of the painful scenes in it are
simple transcriptions of what she had known
and witnessed in her sister's married life; and
the root idea of the whole book is the gross
immorality of laws which hold a woman to a



xii

Mary   Wollstonecraft.

brutal, loveless savage, who keeps none of those
promises on the strength of which the marriage
contract has been undertaken.
Mrs. Bishop was in hiding from her husband
for some time; but a legal separation-no more
was possible-was at last arranged, and the
sisters, with Fanny Blood, took a house together. The scheme proposed was that Mary
and Eliza should obtain daily pupils, while
Fanny should maintain herself as an artist.
Their school existed for a while at Newington
Green: some influential friends sent them about
twenty day scholars; some boarders, two ladies
and their children, came to live with them.
But the board was irregularly paid; the original
want of capital hampered the sisters; and, after
languishing for two years, the school expired.
Fanny Blood married, during that time, Mr.
Hugh Skeys, a merchant, and went with him to
Lisbon. There she died in childbed, having
sent for Mary to nurse her, but she only arrived
in time to close the eyes of her friend. The



Mnemoir.

xiii

first romance which Mary ever wrote, and published a year or two afterwards, was founded on
her recollection of this dear companion.
During the period we have now traversed,
which brings us to the summer of 1787, when
Mary was twenty-eight, she was a voluminous
but not a very remarkable letter-writer, and she
had written nothing else. Her letters are, save
in one point, mainly interesting for the vivid
pictures they give of the miserable home life,
making the whole family, the Bishops, the
Bloods, and others, live again before us.  I
must, however, venture to refer those who wish
to read them, or at least the most interesting of
them, to the Life of Godwin before mentioned.
The one point in which they are all specially
remarkable is the line they take about religion.
It must be remembered that this woman is
one' accused of having set religion at defiance,
and therefore it is that I lay such stress on
certain passages. In the same letter in which
she has written to Everina that, on her advice



xiv

Mary Wollstonecraft.

and   her responsibility, Mrs. Bishop    was to
leave her husband for ever, and in which she
recognises that she is flying in the face of all
received traditions by giving such counsel, she
says:
Don't suppose I am preaching when I say uniformity of
conduct cannot in any degree be expected from those
whose first motive of action is not the pleasing the
Supreme Being; and those who humbly rely on Providence will not only be supported in affliction, but have a
peace imparted to them that is past all describing. This
state is indeed a warfarc, and we have little that we don't
smart for in the attaining. The cant of weak enthusiasts
has made the consolations of religion and the assistance
of the Holy Spirit appear ridiculous to the inconsiderate,
but it is the only solid foundation of comfort that the
weak efforts of reason will be assisted, and our hearts and
minds corrected and improved, till the time arrives when
we shall not only see p5erfection, but every creature around
us happy.
Again, to George Blood, Fanny's brother,
who had got into a somewhat serious scrape,
she writes:
Do your duty and leave the rest to Heaven; forfeit not
that sure support in the time of trouble, and though your
want of experience and judgment may betray you into



Miemoir.

XV

many errors, let not your heart be corrupted by bad
example, and then, though it may be wounded by neglect
and torn by anguish, you will not feel that most acute of
all sorrows, a sense of having deserved the miseries that
you undergo.
Again, to the same:
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. I feel
myself particularly attached to those who are heirs of the
promises, and travel on in the thorny path with the same
Christian hopes that render my severe trials a cause of
thankfulness when I can think.
These   quotations   need   not, though    they
might indefinitely, be multiplied. Nor is the
advice given with the unconcerned manner of
one who looks on suffering from the outside.
Remember that she herself was crying out of
the deeps, was walking in the valley of the
shadow of death. There have been few more



xvi

Mary     Wollstonecraft.

joyless lives-all who surrounded her sordid,
sensual, and base-constant ill-health, constant
poverty. As Mrs. Browning says of Cowper,
He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted,
Mary, while building    up her sister and her
friend in the faith and in hope, wrote of herself:
My harrassed mind will in time wear out my body. I
have been so hunted down by cares, and see so many that
I must encounter, that my spirits are quite depressed. I
have lost all relish for life, and my almost broken heart is
only cheered by the prospect of death.. I may be years
a-dying though, and so JI ought to be patient, for at this
time to wish myself away would be selfish.
Again, 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. May He bless you both.
It is not perhaps unworthy of notice that
among the friends gathered round the sisters at
Newington, who gained them pupils and aided



Memoir.zo

xvii

them with friendly counsel, two out of the three
names of men which meet us most often in the
letters are those of clergymen.
Through one of these she became acquainted
with Mr. Prior, an Assistant Master at Eton,
who was commissioned by Lord Kingsborough to
find a governess for his daughter. After spending some time at Eton she travelled to Ireland
with her hosts, and entered on her duties as
governess to the Misses King in October, 1787,
at a salary of ~40 a year. Her sisters obtained
various situations of the same kind which need
not here be particularised.
It was singularly unfortunate that Mary
Wollstonecraft was fated, as it were, to see the
unattractive side of almost all the great institutions of society with which she was brought
into contact: marriage, education, particularly
religious education as administered at Eton,
and aristocratic life.  When she afterwards
wrote her Vindication of The Rzghts of Woman
her views on all these subjects were coloured



xviii

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

by her own personal experiences.         Like all
women and most men, she generalised from
particulars, and never suspected that such a
one-sided view must be partially unfair.
The language which she uses of Eton is probably not too severe, and the points on which
she animadverts are not exaggerated: the fine
of a   guinea   for  non-attendance    at certain
religious rites was still in existence, if not at
Eton, yet in several Oxford colleges, even in
my own recollection.
At boarding schools of every description (she writes)
the relaxation of the junior boys is mischief; and of the
senior vice. Besides, 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 afterwards spends in some sensual manner?
Nothing, indeed, can be more irreverent than the
cathedral service as it is now performed in this country,
neither does it contain a set of weaker men than those
who are the slaves of this childish routine. A disgusting
skeleton of the former state is still exhibited, but all the



Memoir.

xix

solemnity that interested the imagination, if it did not
purify the heart, is stripped off. The performance of
high mass on the Continent must impress every mind
where a spark of fancy glows, with that awful melancholy,
that sublime tenderness, so near akin to devotion. I do
not say that these devotional feelings are of more use in a
moral sense than any other question of taste, but I contend
that the theatrical pomp which gratifies our senses is to
be preferred to the cold parade which insults the understanding without reaching the heart.
The remarks on the teachers and the teaching are quite as severe, and, I take it, not less
deserved.
The society which she found in Ireland was
scarcely more congenial. Lord Kingsborough,
afterwards Earl of Kingston, was a coarse,
hearty, jovial, but not unkindly country squire;
Lady Kingsborough, a mere fine lady, without
true refinement. One child only among her
charges specially attracted her, " dear Margaret,"
as she is called in the letters, afterwards Lady
Mountcashel.    This lady's own after-life was
sad, nor was her character free from blame. It is
therefore necessary once more to draw attention



xx         Mary Wollstonecraft.
to Mary Wollstonecraft's own earnest orthodox
piety, and the high morality which runs through
all her letters. For one of the chief slanders
brought against the governess in long-after days
was that she had corrupted the minds of her
pupils, teaching them base morality and false
religion. On the contrary, her whole endeavour
was to train them for higher pursuits, and to
instil into them a desire for a wider culture than
fell to the lot of most girls in those days. Her
sorrow was deep that her pupils' lives were such
as to render sustained study and religious habits
of mind alike difficult.  Most of the women
with whom Mary Wollstonecraft came in contact were frivolous, and most of the men were
coarse.  It is not wonderful that her spirits
flagged, and in spite of the affection of the one
child to whom she was attracted, she saw almost
everything around her in gloomy colours.
After a year's sojourn in Ireland Lady Kingston dismissed her governess because-the reason was distinctly avowed-the children loved



Memoir.                  xxi
the governess more than their mother, and the
latter became jealous.
The promise of literary skill which Mary had
shown before she left London, and a little tale
called Mary, written during her year in Ireland,
induced Mr. Johnson, the publisher in St. Paul's
Churchyard, to offer her constant literary work,
mainly in the way of translation from the
French.
She also acted    as Mr. Johnson's literary
adviser or " reader," and the following letter to
Miss Hayes in regard to the preface of a volume
of Essays was written in this capacity. Her
honest plainness of speech on this occasion, led
to a long friendship, which had, as will be seen,
memorable influence on her after life.
I yesterday mentioned to Mr. Johnson your request,
and he assented, desiring that the title page might be sent
to him. I therefore can say nothing more, for trifles of
this kind I have always left to him to settle; and, you
must be aware, madam, that the honour of publishing,
the phrase on which you have laid a stress, is the cant of
both trade and sex: for if really equality should ever



xxii         Mary    J/'ollstonecrafl.
take place in society, the man who is employed and gives
a just equivalent for the money he receives will not behave
with the servile obsequiousness of a servant.
I am now going to treat you with still greater frankness.
I do not approve of your preface-and I will tell you why.
If your work should deserve attention, it is a blur on the
very face of it. Disadvantages of education, &c., ought,
in my opinion, never to be pleaded with the public in
excuse for defects of any importance, because if the writer
has not sufficient strength of mind to overcome the
common difficulties which lie in his way, nature seems to
command him, with a very audible voice, to leave the task
of instructing others to those who can. This kind of vain
humility has ever disgusted me-and I should say to an
author, who humbly sued for forbearance, If you have not
a tolerably good opinion of your own production, why
intrude it on the public? We have plenty of bad books
already, that have just gasped for breath and died. The
last paragraph I particularly object to-it is so full of
vanity. Your male friends will still treat you like a
woman-and many a man, for instance Dr. Johnson,
Lord Littleton, and even Dr. Priestley have insensibly been
led to utter warm eulogiums in private that they would be
sorry openly to avow without some cooling explanatory
ifs. An author, especially a woman, should be cautious
lest she too hastily swallows the crude praises which
partial friend and polite acquaintance bestow thoughtlessly when the supplicating eye looks for them. In short,
it requires great resolution to try rather to be useful than
to please. With this remark in your head, I must beg
you to pardon my freedom whilst you consider the pur


e.VIzoz r0 z.

xxiii

port of what I am going to add-rest on yourself. If
your essays have merit, they will stand alone, if not, the
shozldering up of Dr. this or that will not long keep them
from falling to the ground. The vulgar have a pertinent
proverb-" Too many cooks spoil the broth; " and let me
remind you that when weakness claims indulgence, if
seems to justify the despotism of strength. Indeed, the
preface, and even your pamphlet, is too full of yourselfinquiries ought to be made before they are answered; and
till a work strongly interests the public, true modesty
should keep the author in the back ground-for it is only
about the character and life of a good author that curiosity
is active-a blossom is but a blossom.
Nov. 25th, 1792.
St. Paul's.-As you seemed uneasy when you wrote,
contrary to my first intention, I have just now spoken to
Mr. J., who desires me to tell you that he very willingly
waves the privilege of seniority, though as it is an impropriety, I should think his name might as well be
omitted.
While working in this manner for Mr. Johnson, Mary lived in lodgings in George Street,
close to Blackfriars Bridge, and worked hard
in this employ for five years, finding places
for her sisters, and giving them a home when
they needed one. Out of her slender earnings



xxiv

xMary [Vollslonecraft.

she sent Everina to France. Mr. Johnson lived
above his business premises, and saw much
literary society, among which Mary was always
welcome. It is amusing to find that she made
a friend of Mrs. Trimmer, whom she calls "a
truly respectable woman." During this period
she translated, among many other books,
Lavater's Physiognomy; wrote for children
Original Stories from Real Lzfe, now, perhaps,
best known by Blake's striking illustrations;
and last, but not least, A  Vindication of the
Rikhts of Woman.
This work is one which has ever been more
known by name than by perusal, and it is
written on a subject which even now excites
acrimony rather than calm discussion. The
very words "A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman" are held, without examination, to
claim emancipation, alike from law, from custom,
and from morality. Yet it is evident that the
writer, as she has shown herself in her letters,
must have changed far more suddenly than is



iMemoir.              xxv
wont to be the case, if such indeed was the
object she set before her in writing the treatise.
It is not among the least oddities of this
singular work that it is dedicated "to M. Talleyrand-Perigord, late Bishop of Autun." Mary
Wollstonecraft, always confiding and always
charitable, still believed in him.  She little
knew how unstable was the liberalism for which
she gave him credit, and though well aware
that some of her opinions were opposed to
those which Talleyrand had put forward in
his pamphlet on National Education, she yet
thought him sincere.
Mary Wollstonecraft, like so many others,
turned to France as the land from which was
rising the day-star of a new time; yet, unlike
many others, she was far from considering that
all French manners were worthy of imitation.
Even in the dedication to Talleyrand are some
noble words in defence of English cleanliness
in life and talk, even of seeming prudery, rather
than much which is still tolerated in France.



xxvi

Mary Wollstonecraft.

In  the dedication   she states the " main
argument" of the work, "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."
In  carrying out this argument the most
noticeable fact is the extraordinary plainness
of speech, and this it was that 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 even directly claim
much which at the present day is claimed by
the most moderate Liberals for women and
their work. She says:I respect marriage as the foundation of almost every
social virtue. Religion, (she exclaims in another place,)
pure source of comfort in this vale of tears! how has
thy clear stream been muddled by the dabblers who



Memoir.                 xxvii
have presumptuously endeavoured to confine in one
narrow channel the living waters that ever flow towards
God, the sublime ocean of existence! What would life
be without that peace which the love of God, built on
humanity, alone can impart? Every earthly affection
turns back at intervals to prey upon the heart that feeds
it, and the purest effusions of benevolence, often rudely
damped by man, must mount as a free-will offering to
Him who gave them birth, whose bright image they faintly
reflect.
The book was really a plea for equality of
education, passing into one for State education,
and for the joint education of the sexes, which
some of us now again strongly uphold, and
which has been, in some instances, tried with
marked success.     It was a    protest against
woman being deemed only the plaything of
man, an assertion that intellectual companionship was the chief as it is the lasting happiness
of marriage. In maintaining these theses, she
assailed the theories not only of Rousseau in
Emile, which would have been easily forgiven
her, but those of Dr. Fordyce, whose sermons
had long made a part of a young woman's



xxviii      Mary Wollstonecraft.

library, of Dr. Gregory, and others, whose
words were as a gospel to the average English
matron. She did but carry out what Day had
sketched in Sandford and M3erton almost without blame.
It may, however, be admitted that her frankness on some subjects not usually discussed in
print, is little less than astounding, while side
blows are administered to much which was then
unquestioned. The fallacy by which virtue is
confounded with reputation is laid bare, and
she by no means shrinks from uncovering the
worst sores of society. She dealt directly with
dangerous and explosive subjects, incidentally
upheld greater freedom of divorce, and denied
the eternity of the torments of hell.
It was not only the plain speaking which
alarmed, not only that a woman spoke, but
every page showed that she too was affected
by the thoughts which claimed rights for Man,
and the demand for these rights was even then
issuing in the French Revolution.



Mlemoir.

xxix

The   book has grave faults, besides those
necessarily incident to the time, but its merits
are great also; there is much that is valuable
for these days-it is fresh, vigorous, eloquent; it
should ever be remembered, if not read, as the
herald of the demand that woman should be the
equal and the friend, not the slave and toy of
man. I will quote as a specimen of her sarcastic vehemence the concluding passage of this
memorable book:
Let woman share the rights, and she will emulate the
virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when
emancipated, or justify the authority that chains such
a weak being to her duty. If the latter, it will be expedient to open a fresh trade with Russia for whips; a
present which a father should always make to his son-inlaw on his wedding-day, that a husband may keep his
whole family in order by the same means; and without
any violation of justice reign, wielding this sceptre, sole
master of his house, because he is the only being in it
who has reason-the Divine indefeasible earthly sovereignty breathed into man by the Master of the Universe.
Allowing this position, women have not any inherent
rights to claim, and, by the same rule, their duties vanish,
for rights and duties are inseparable.
Be just then, Q ye men of understanding! and mark



XXx
11=x

Mary Wollstonecraft.

not more severely what women do amiss than the vicious
tricks of the horse or the ass for whom ye provide provender, and allow her the privileges of ignorance, to
whom ye deny the rights of reason, or ye will be worse
than Egyptian taskmasters, expecting virtue where nature
has not given understanding!
Among those most scandalised by the publication of the work were Mrs. Bishop and
Everina Wollstonecraft.    It is not surprising
that they did not agree with the views contained in it, but the small spite with which it is
discussed in their letters which still remain
seems to point to envy and jealousy far more
than to honest indignation at opinions. The
sisters were both in situations, and in a degree
independent of Mary's pecuniary aid. She did
less for them since they needed less, more for
her own culture, and more for her needy and,
it must be added, worthless brother Charles.
These were sins which jealous and petty natures
could neither overlook nor forgive.
Mrs. Wollstonecraft, for such was the brevet
rank she took after the publication of her book,



Memoir.

xxxi

determined to go to France for a few weeks;
her book had been translated into French, she
wished to see the Revolution at, as it then
seemed, its peaceful work, and to perfect her
French accent; her scholarship was already
excellent. The party was to consist of Mr.
Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli, and herself, but
the others were prevented going, and Mary
went alone to Paris in December, 1792, boarding at the house of Madame Filliettaz, ne;e
Bregantz, a lady in whose school at Putney
Mrs. Bishop and Everina had been teachers.
Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli had long been friends
of Mary, and slander attempted in after years
to make out an attachment between her and
Fuseli, which stuck sufficiently to make even
Godwin surmise that had Fuseli been free, Mary
might have been in love with him. But in fact
Godwin knew extremely little of his wife's
earlier life, nor was this a subject on which he
had sought enlightenment from herself. I can
only here say that I fail to find any confirmation



xxxii

Mary Wollstonecraip.

whatever of this preposterous story, as told in
Knowles's Life of Fuseli, or in any other form,
while I find much which makes. directly against
it, the strongest fact being that Mary remained
to the end the correspondent and close friend
of Mrs. Fuseli.
She went to Paris heart-whole, having reached
the age of thirty-five without, so far as I can
discover, any trace of a romance such as comes
into most women's lives at a far earlier period.
Were it not that her life had been so lonely,
that her gentlemen friends had     been staid
elderly persons, who stood to her in the light
of father or elder brothers, this might seem
strange in the case of one so gifted and so fair.
Like her mind, however, her beauty would
appear to have ripened late.   In July, 1792,
Mrs. Bishop says in a letter to Everina that
Charles informs her "that Mrs. Wollstonecraft
had grown quite handsome." The grudging
admission  is more   than  confirmed by her
portrait by Opie, now in the possession of Sir



A'/emzoir.          xxxiii
Percy Shelley, which is the first in this volume,
and which was painted for Godwin during the
brief period of her marriage; long therefore
after she had reached mature age, and when
all the waves and storms of her sorrows had
gone over her.    More than one print was
engraved of that portrait, in which is well
preserved its tender, wistful, childlike, pathetic
beauty, with a look of pleading against the
hardness of the world, which I know in one
only other face, that of Beatrice Cenci. But
those prints can give no notion of the complexion, rich, full, healthy, vivid, of the clear
brown eyes, and masses of brownish auburn
hair. The fault of the face was that one eyelid slightly drooped.  In spite of this defect
Southey speaks of her eyes as the most meaning he ever saw, though he did not quite like
an expression on her features "indicating
superiority," whatever that may imply, for he
says it was not haughtiness or sarcasm.
Such was Mary Wollstonecraft when she



xxxiv      Mary Wollstonecrafl.

landed in France. She had very good introductions, amongst others to Helen Maria Williams,
the author, great-aunt to the late distinguished
Athanase Coquerel.      A  few   days after her
arrival she saw one of the memorable scenes of
the Revolution, and described it in words worthy
of its unique character. She thus narrates the
passage of the King to his trial in a letter to
Mr. Johnson:
About nine o'clock this morning (Dec. 26, 1792) the King
passed by my window, moving silently along- excepting
now and then a few strokes on the drum, which rendered
the stillness more awful-through empty streets, surrounded by the National Guards, who, clustering round
the carriage, seemed to deserve their name. The inhabitants flocked to their windows, but the casements were all
shut; not a voice was heard, nor did I see anything like
an insulting gesture. For the first time since I entered
France I bowed to the majesty of the people, and respected the propriety of behaviour, so perfectly in unison
with my own feelings. I can scarcely tell you why, but an
association of ideas made the tears flow insensibly from
my eyes, when I saw Louis, sitting with more dignity than
I expected from his character, in a hackney coach, going
to meet death where so many of his race have triumphed.
My fancy instantly brought Louis XIV. before me, entering the capital with all his pomp, after one of the victories



Memoir.

XXXV

most flattering to his pride, only to see the sunshine of
prosperity overshadowed by the sublime gloom of misery.
I have been alone ever since, and though my mind is
calm, I cannot dismiss the lively images that have filled
my imagination all the day. Nay, do not smile, but pity
me; for once or twice, lifting my eyes from the paper, I
have seen eyes glare through a glass door opposite my
chair, and bloody hands shook at me. Not the distant
sound of a footstep can I hear. My apartments are
remote from those of the servants, the only persons who
sleep with me in an immense hotel, one folding-door
opening after another. I wish I had even kept the cat
with me! I want to see something alive; death, in so
many frightful shapes, has taken hold of my fancy. I am
going to bed, and for the first time in my life I cannot
put out the candle.
We all remember that within a month the
king, whom   Mary saw and pitied, went on a
sadder journey still.    On  January 21, 1793,
Louis was beheaded, and before the first week
of March had ended all diplomatic relations
were over between England and France-the
two countries were at war. "The coalised kings
threaten us," said Danton; "we hurl at their
feet, as gage of battle, the head of a king."
Unless Mary had gone at once, she could not
S2



xxxvi     Mary Wollstonecraft.

go away at all. From the date of the king's
death the position of every English resident in
France became extremely hazardous. The hatred
against the countrymen and the countrywomen
of Pitt can scarcely be imagined in these calmer
times; and Paris, always cruel in panic, was
soon in the throes of what has been so well
called "The Terror." Want was added to
personal danger in the case of many residents;
crowds assembled in the streets, clamouring for
the barest needs of life, du pain et du savonfor bread and soap.
Mary shared to the full this want and difficulty. It was impossible for her to communicate
with her sisters, or to receive remittances from
England. The letter to Mr. Johnson was the
last tidings of her for more than eighteen
months.
The American community in Paris did not of
course share the suspicion, dislike, and danger
which were the lot of the English. One of
these Americans, Captain Gilbert Imlay, be


Miemoir.

xxxvii

came acquainted with Mary in the spring of
1793.
After he left the American army, on the conclusion of peace, he became a commissioner for
laying out land in the back settlements. From
Kentucky he wrote letters on the state of the
country to an Irish friend, who published them
in Dublin in 1793. Though they were written
currente calamo, and had not the advantage of
the writer's final revision, the Topographical
Description of the Western Territory of North
America is a model of what a monograph on a
new country should be. It is at once clear, full,
and condensed, is even now interesting, and in
its own day went through many editions. Its
language throughout shows an educated, accomplished man.
Imlay had now entered into various commercial speculations, of which the centre appears to
have been Havre, and his trade was with
Norway and Sweden, presumably in timber,
since that industry had mainly attracted him in



xxxviii    Mary Wollstonecraft.
America. At the time of which we speak he
was successful in commerce, and he had considerable command of money. The kindness
he showed Mary Wollstonecraft disposed her to
look on him favourably; she soon gave him a
very sincere affection, and consented to become
his wife.
I use this word deliberately, although no legal
ceremony ever passed between them. Her view
was that a common affection was marriage, and
that the marriage tie should not bind after the
death of love, if love should die. It is probable,
however, that, like many others who hold the
same views, only a series of untoward circumstances made her act upon her opinions. A
legal marriage with Imlay was certainly difficult,
apparently impossible. Her position as a British
subject was full of danger-a marriage would
have forced her openly to declare herself as such.
It is a strong confirmation of the view here taken
to find that Madame de Stael, who, if any one,
knew the period of which we are speaking, makes



Memoir.

xxxix

a like fact the sole obstacle to the marriage of
Lord Nelvil and Madame d'Arbigny. She says:
Je l'aurais 4pousde, comme elle le voulait, s'il ne se ffit
pas rencontre dans ce moment les plus grands obstacles a
ce qu'un Anglais put se marier en France, en declarant,
comme il le fallait, son nom. l'officier civil.-" Corinne,
ou l'Italie," Vol. II., p. 63. 8th Edition. Paris, 1818.
It may be doubted whether the ceremony,
if any could have taken place, would have been
valid in  England.    Passing  as Imlay's wife,
without such preparatory declaration, her safety
was assured, and as his wife she was acknowledged by him. Charles Wollstonecraft wrote
from Philadelphia that he had seen a gentleman
who knew his sister in Paris, and that he was
" informed that she is married to Captain Imlay
of this country."
Long after the period at which we have now
arrived, when Imlay's affection had ceased, and
his desertion of Mary had practically begun, he
entrusted certain important business negotiations
to her, and speaks of her in a legal document



xl

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

as " Mary Imlay, my best friend and wife," a
document which in many cases and countries
would be considered as constituting a marriage.
She believed that his love, which was to her
sacred, would endure. No one can read her
letters without seeing that she was a pure, highminded, and refined woman, and that she considered herself, in the eyes of God and man,
Imlay's wife. Religious as she was and with a
strong moral sense, she yet made the grand
mistake of supposing that it is possible for one
woman to undo the consecrated custom of ages,
to set herself in opposition to the course of
society, and not be crushed by it. And she
made the no less fatal mistake of judging Imlay
by her own standard, and thinking that he
was as true, as impassioned, as self-denying as
herself.Mary Wollstonecraft was living with Imlay as
his wife in Paris in August, 1793, when he was
called to Havre on business, and was absent for
some months. During this period began the



Memoir.

x1i

series of letters written to Imlay,.which were given
up to her on their final separation, and which
were first published after her death. "They are,"
as Godwin said of them, " the offspring of a glowing imagination, and a heart penetrated with the
passion it essays to describe."  But the earlier
letters of the series are also those of a tender and
devoted wife, who feels no doubt of her position.
Towards the close of 1793 Mary joined Imlay
at Havre, and there in the spring of 1794
gave birth to a girl, who received the name of
Fanny, in memory of the dear friend of her
youth.
At Havre, as before in Paris, she was left
much   alone, and  turned  again  eagerly to
literary work. She wrote at this time a book
which is almost unknown, but which well
deserves recognition, under the somewhat ambitious title of An Historical and Moral View of
the Orzigin and Progress of the French Revolution, and the Effect it has produced in Euroepe.
She intended to complete this in three or four



xlii

Mary     Wollstonecraft.

volumes, but only one was published, and went
almost immediately through two editions.
It brings the history of the Revolution down
to the time of the King's removal to Paris, and
therefore includes the taking of the Bastille, the
march of the women on Versailles, and other
dramatic occurrences, which we all know so well
in the graphic pages of Carlyle. But she also
goes carefully into the whole state of society and
politics, and into the causes of the Revolution,
in a most masterly way; her remarks are
throughout characterised by a singular moderation, and the work is, I think, the best balanced
and most philosophical book on the Revolution,
as far as it had then gone.
It has the great advantage that the writer
lived and preserved her calmness through so
much of what she describes, and it is strangely
little coloured by the fleeting opinion of the
time.  Some hard words, some very strong
epithets, are indeed used of Marie Antoinette,
showing that she who could in those matters



Memoir.

xliii

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. May we not say that probably the
truth lies between Burke's sparkling eloquence
and Carlyle's enthusiastic exclamations on the
one side, and on the other the scurrilous insinuations of the mob about the f6tes at the Trianon?
Her accounts of the Bastille siege, and of the
Versailles episode, 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.
As an instance of her impartial-may I,
remembering what those days were, say masculine judgment, the concluding passage of the
volume may be quoted, in which she accounts



xliv         Mary    WollstonecraJt.
for, while fully admitting the ferocity of the
Revolution.
The only excuse that can be made for the ferocity of
the Parisians is then simply to observe that they had not
any confidence in the laws, which they had always found
to be merely cobwebs to catch small flies. Accustomed
to be punished themselves for every trifle, and often for
only being in the way of the rich, or their parasites;
when in fact had the Parisians seen the execution of a
noble or priest, though convicted of crimes beyond the
daring of vulgar minds? When justice, or the law, is so
partial, the day of retribution will come with the red sky
of vengeance, to confound the innocent with the guilty.
The mob were barbarous beyond the tiger's cruelty: for
how could they trust a Court that had so often deceived
them, or expect to see its agents punished, when the
same measures were pursuing?
Let us cast our eyes over the history of man, and we
shall scarcely find a page that is not tarnished by some
foul deed or bloody transaction. Let us examine the
catalogue of the vices of men in a savage state, and
contrast them with those of men civilized; we shall find
that a barbarian, considered as a moral being, is an angel
compared with the refined villain of artificial life. Let us
investigate the causes which have produced this degeneracy, and we shall discover that they are those unjust
plans of government, which have been formed by peculiar
circumstances in every part of the globe. Then let us
coolly and impartially contemplate the improvements
which are gaining ground in the formation of principles



Memoir.

xlv

of policy; and I flatter myself it will be allowed by every
humane and considerate being, that a political system
more simple than has hitherto existed, would effectually
check those aspiring follies, which, by imitation, leading
to vice, have banished from governments the very shadow
of justice and magnanimity.
Thus had France grown up and sickened on the corruption of a state diseased. But, as in medicine, there is
a species of complaint in the bowels which works its own
cure, and, leaving the body healthy, gives an invigorated
tone to the system, so there is in politics: and whilst the
agitation of its regeneration continues, the excrementitious humours exuding from the contaminated body will
excite a general dislike and contempt for the nation; and
it is only the philosophical eye, which looks into the
nature and weighs the consequences of human actions,
that will be able to discern the cause which has produced
so many dreadful effects.
From Havre, then called Havre Marat, in lieu
of its old name, Le Havre de Grace, Mary wrote,
as soon as she could, to her sisters, quite
unconscious of their change of feeling towards
her, though her letters insensibly to herself begin
to betray a change in her own happiness.
Imlay became involved in a multitude of
speculations, which   rendered   him  dissatisfiec
with the competency hitherto secured, and



xlvi

xMary Wollslonecraft.

thoroughly restless. The plan that he and his
wife had proposed to themselves was that they
should settle in a farm either in France or
America, but he now embarked in fresh ventures
in Norway, which would, he considered, bring him
a large fortune. His interest in Mary and his
child sensibly cooled, and though he allowed them
to join him in England-he had left them still
longer alone at Havre than he had done in Paris
-her letters to him show that she went with a
heavy heart and gloomy forebodings of coming
sorrow. The meeting was but the prelude to
another long separation. Imlay's affairs were
seriously embarrassed, and although there was
no word of a permanent breach, it was evident
that trade was, before all things, the- main
interest in his life, and that nothing was farther
from his intentions than to be satisfied with
competency, if it might be realised, and to settle
down.   It proved necessary that some one
should go to Sweden and Norway, on Imlay's
part, to arrange some business matters, while



Memoir.               xlvii
his own presence was urgently needed elsewhere.
The voyage, it was thought, would prove advantageous to Mary's health, and in June, 1795, less
than two months after their meeting, she started
on her journey.
The document still exists, of which I have
already spoken, in which Imlay calls her his
wife, and gives her plenary powers to act for
him.
Her letters to Imlay during this period were
afterwards divested of all that was personal and
private, and published under the title Letters
written during a s/hort Residence in Sweden,
Norway, and Denmark, and are a thoroughly
picturesque and graceful description of a summer
tour.
On her return to England, in the late autumn,
she found letters awaiting her from Imlay, which
made it plain that he intended to leave her, but
offering to settle an annuity on her and her child.
For herself she rejected this offer with scorn.
" From you," she wrote, "I will not receive any



xlviii

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

more. I am not sufficiently humbled to depend
on your beneficence." They met again, when
Imlay attempted to gloss over the past, and it
seemed possible that for the child's sake they
might still remain together. But though he had
assured her that he had no other attachment, she
soon discovered that he was carrying on an unworthy intrigue under her own roof. Driven to
despair, and for a time quite out of her mind, she
attempted to drown herself by leaping from
Putney Bridge, and when that attempt was frustrated-although she was quite insensible when
she was taken out of the water-she still nursed
for awhile the desire of ending her existence.
I do not know how far a great novelist of our
day has consciously borrowed the incident, or
has adopted it only with the keen insight of
genius, but the attempted suicide of Myra, in
Daniel Deronda, is in its touching details very
like that of Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary, before
the leap which should have been fatal, walked
into the water, and stood there a while; not



Memoir.

xlix

however in the glory of a summer sunset, which
might add a picturesqueness to death, but in
the chill fog of a winter's day, in order that
her garments might be sufficiently saturated to
prevent her instinctive struggles to save herself
from the fate she deliberately chose. The unexpected succour given her by some watermen, in a
passing boat, long seemed but cruel kindness.
Mr. Johnson, as before, was the most helpful
and most cordial among her friends, and aided
her once more to support herself by her pen.
She thenceforward resented all attempts of
Imlay to provide for her-attempts which, as
after circumstances proved, were made for the
sake of appearances, and not with any cordial
reality.
I want not (she said) such vulgar comfort, nor will I
accept it. I never wanted but your heart; that gone, you
have nothing more to give. Forgive me if I say that I
shall consider any direct or indirect attempt to supply my
necessities as an insult I have not merited, and as rather
done out of tenderness for your own reputation than
for me.



Mary    Wollstonecraft.

With reference to Fanny's maintenance, she
neither accepted nor refused anything. "You
must do as you please with regard to the child,"
was her final decision. Imlay eventually gave a
bond for a sum to be settled on his child, the
interest to be devoted to her education; but
neither principal nor interest was ever paid.
Imlay vanishes thenceforward from our sight,
and we care little to endeavour to trace him;
it would probably be useless. I have found
no mention of his further notice of his daughter,
or, if he was still living, of sorrow for her tragic
fate in 1816.
In the literary and liberal society among
which Mary Wollstonecraft now mixed, Mrs.
Reveley, afterwards the Mrs. Gisborne to whom
were written Shelley's well-known lines, was,
perhaps, her most intimate friend. From her,
and from Miss Hayes, Mrs. Shelley in after life
heard almost all that she knew of her mother.
Miss Hayes was a lady of some little literary
fame in her own day, which fame she long sur


Miemoir.

li

vived, dying in 1843, aged eighty-three. At her
house Mary Wollstonecraft met William Godwin
once or twice before she went to Norway, and
there they met again when after her separation
from Imlay she went once more into society.
I am indebted to the niece of this lady for
various interesting letters in her possession.
Godwin wrote as follows to Miss H-ayes in
answer to her invitation to him to renew the
acquaintance:
[-an. 1796].
Tuesday, I o'clock.
I will do myself the pleasure of waiting on you on
Friday, and shall be happy to meet Mrs. Wollstonecraft,
of whom I know not that I ever said a word of harm, and
who has frequently amused herself with depreciating me.
But I trust you acknowledge in me the reality of a habit
upon which I pique myself, that I speak of the qualities
of others uninfluenced by personal considerations, and am
as prompt to do justice to an enemy as to a friend.
From the testimony of these loving friends
Mrs. Shelley gives the following picture of her
mother. Her note is especially interesting as
showing the sympathy, partly intellectual, partly
d2



lii

Mary. Wollstonecraft.

physical, felt by the gifted daughter for the still
more gifted    mother, who died in giving her
birth.
Mary Wollstonecraft (says Mirs. Shelley) was one of
those beings who appear once perhaps in a generation to
gild humanity with a riay 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
in her to diminish those 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 which enchants while
it enlightens. She was one whom all loved who had ever
seen her. Many years are passed since that beating heart
has been laid in the cold still grave, but no one who has
ever seen her speaks of her without enthusiastic veneration. Did she witness an act of injustice, she came boldly
forward to point it out and induce its reparation; was
there discord between friends or relatives, she stood by
the weaker party, and by her earnest appeals and kindliness awoke latent affection, and healed all wounds. " 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.
Godwin met her at the moment when she was deeply
depressed by the ingratitude of one utterly incapable of



Memoir.

liii

appreciating her excellence, who had stolen her heart,
and availed himself of her excessive and thoughtless
generosity to plunge her in difficulties and then desert
her. Difficulties, worldly difficulties, indeed, she set at
nought, compared with her-despair of good, her confidence
betrayed; and when once she could conquer the misery
which clung to her heart, she struggled cheerfully to meet
the poverty which was her inheritance, and to do her duty
by her darling child.
Godwin's first impression of her was not a
pleasing one. He wished to hear Tom        Paine
talk, who was also of the party, and always a
silent man, and he thought Mrs. Imlay talked
too much. He was also an extremely fastidious
critic, and had been offended at some slight
verbal inaccuracies, or what seemed to him such,
in her earlier works. But after reading the
Letters from Sweden, his views about her culture
were wholly altered. He saw that the blemishes,
if indeed they had existed, were but superficial,
and he speedily yielded to the charm which all
who knew    her recognised. She on her side
found that she could love again, and an attachment was soon understood between them, though



liv

IMary Wollslonecraft.

not at once declared to the world. Godwin
writes of this period:
The partiality we conceived for each other was in that
mode which I have always considered as the purest and
most refined style of love. It grew with equal advances
in the mind of each. It would have been impossible for
the most minute observer to have said who was before
and who was after. One sex did not take the priority
which long-established custom has awarded it, nor the
other overstep that delicacy which is so severely imposed.
I am not conscious that either party can assume to have
been the agent or the patient, the toil-spreader or the
prey in the affair. When in the course of things the disclosure came, there was nothing in a manner for either
party to disclose to the other. There was no period of
throes and resolute explanation attendant on the tale. It
was friendship melting into love.
The relation into which they now entered was
an extremely happy one. Both held the same
views on marriage, yet both felt the need of
being inconsistent. It should be in their opinion
apart from and independent of forms, yet for the
sake of the child who was to be born, and for
the sake of society, the ceremony took place at



Memoir.

Iv

Old St. Pancras Church on March 29, 1797. It
was characteristic of Godwin that he did not
notice the circumstance in his minute and careful
diary, so wholly did he regard it as superfluous,
the marriage having been binding on his heart
and conscience long before.
The first intimation of the marriage was
made to Miss Hayes, in the following letter:
April Io.
My fair neighbour desires me to announce to you a
piece of news, which it is consonant to the regard that
she and I entertain for you, you should rather learn from
us than from any other quarter. She bids me remind you
of the earnest way in which you pressed me to prevail
upon her to change her name, and she directs me to add,
that it has happened to me, like many other disputants,
to be entrapped in my own toils: in short, that we found
that there was no way so obvious for her to drop the
name of Imlay, as to assume the name of Godwin. Mrs.
Godwin-who the devil is that?-will be glad to see you
at No. 29, Polygon, Somers Town, whenever you are
inclined to favour her with a call.
And now Mary Wollstonecraft had a season
of real calm in her stormy life. Godwin for



Ivi        Mary   Wollstonecraft.
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 fied 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



Memoir.                 Ivii
often slept. Each was engaged in his and her
own literary occupations, and they seldom met,
unless they walked out together, till dinnertime each day.
We agreed also (says Godwin) in condemning the
notion that a man and his wife cannot visit in mixed
society but in company with each other, and we rather
sought occasions of deviating from than in complying
with this rule.
When the marriage was declared, some time
after it had taken place, it was cordially received
by all but Mrs. Inchbald, one of Godwin's oldest
friends.  All else, the Lambs, Holcroft, Mrs.
Reveley, Mr. Johnson, found that they had
gained two friends, if they had only known one
before, that the marriage had brought out the
higher qualities of each.
But the brighter life was to last but a short
time. In five months after the marriage was
declared it ended unexpectedly and tragically.
Mary had suffered so little when Fanny was
born, that she was, perhaps, imprudent before



Iviii       Mary    Wollstonecraft.
the birth of her next child. Mary Godwin, afterwards Mrs. Shelley, was born at 20 minutes past
S1, August 30, 1797. At first all seemed going
on well, but fever set in, and in spite of the most
untiring care of Dr. Fordyce, Sir Anthony Carlisle, and tender nurses among her friends, Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin died on September io
at 20 minutes past 8 in the morning.
Miss Hayes, who had been with her, wrote
thus to Mr. Hugh Skeys:
Myself and Mrs. Fenwick were the two female friends
that were with Mrs. Godwin during her last illness. Mrs.
Fenwick attended her from the beginning of her confinemnent with scarcely any intermission. I was with her for
the four last days of her life; and though I have had but
little experience of scenes of this sort, yet I can confidently
affirm that my imagination could never have pictured to
me a mind so tranquil under affliction so great.... Her
whole soul seemed to dwell with anxious fondness on her
friends; and her affections, which were at all times more
alive than perhaps those of any other human being,
seemed to gather new disinterestedness upon this trying
occasion. The attachment and regret of those who
surrounded her seemed to increase every hour; and if her
principles are to be judged of by what I saw of her death,
I should say that no principles could be more conducive
to calmness and consolation.



Maemoir.                  lix
Miss Fenwick wrote to Everina Wollstonecraft in the same strain, and says:
It is not possible to describe the unremitting and
devoted attentions of her husband....
No woman was ever more happy in marriage than
Mrs. Godwin. Who ever endured more anguish than
Mr. Godwin endures? Her description of him in the
very last moments of her recollection was, " He is the
kindest, best man in the world."
It has often been noticed, so often that the
subject is trite, how a vein of comedy is found
in the deepest tragedies of life. This is exemplified in a remark of Godwin to his dying wife,
too characteristic of that unsentimental materialist to be passed over. In one of Mary Wollstonecraft's last hours, when she was suffering
acute agony, Mr. Basil Montagu ran to Dr.
Carlisle, and returned before the physician with
an anodyne which he administered himself,
raising her in bed to give it. The medicine had
an immediate effect, and she turned to her
husband, who held her hand, with a sigh of
relief, and.said, " Oh, Godwin, I am in heaven."



Ix

Mxary WollsIonecraft.

But even at that moment Godwin declined to
be entrapped into the admission that heaven
existed, and he calmly replied, "You mean, my
dear, that your physical sensations are somewhat easier."
How much he loved her is proved by her
exquisite portrait, drawn by his hand, in his
novel of St. Leon, where Marguerite, one of the
sweetest characters in the fiction of that day, is
unmistakably sketched from the recollection of
the writer's married life.
Mary Godwin was buried where she had been
married, at Old St. Pancras. This was then a
quiet, almost a country churchyard, with its
pretty Norman church embowered in trees. A
large weeping willow  shadowed   the  grave
itself.
There sixteen years afterwards the child whose
birth had proved so fatal to her mother used to
take her books in the warm days of June to
spend every hour she could call her own. Behind the drooping boughs she made her study,



Miemoir.               lxi
and found peace from a stepmother who never
loved her, and a father whom his increasing
difficulties and constitutional unfitness to have
the charge of a warm-hearted, impulsive girl,
made hard and unsympathising. There Shelley
found her over her books, and their intimacy
ripened till over her mother's resting-place
Mary Godwin placed her hand in his, and
linked her fortunes with his own.  But that
event belongs to another biography and another
generation.
Old St. Pancras churchyard has seen strange
vicissitudes. The Midland Railway broke in
on its peace; and when I visited it some
years ago to search for Mary Wollstonecraft's
original grave, I thought I had seldom seen a
place of the dead so desecrated. Once more
the wilderness blossoms as the rose; it has
become a public garden, well tended and fair.
But neither in its shame nor its reparation
did Mary Wollstonecraft lie there. When the
railway invaded the spot, and Godwin had lain



lxii       HaIry  Wollslonecraft.
some years by his wife's side, their grandson,
Sir Percy Shelley, removed their remains to
Bournemouth churchyard to the grave where he
had laid his mother. There, on a sunny bank
sloping to the west, among the rose-wreathed
crosses of many who have died in more orthodox beliefs, lie those who at least might each
of them have said:
Write me as one who loves his fellow-men.
It is always idle to speculate on what might
have been. Yet fancy will sometimes enjoy
idleness, and it is difficult not to think for a
moment on those two lives of Godwin and his
wife, one shortened so untimeously, one so
blighted. No one can doubt that each had a
power to supplement and improve at once the
life and genius of the other, and it is probable
that Mary Godwin's calm faith might have
softened her husband's ruggedness-his critical
faculty would have matured her style, and
pruned her luxuriant fancy.  She had been



Memoir.               lxiii
more schooled in the actual work of life than
he, and her experience might have saved her
husband from the unfortunate pecuniary difficulties which were so great a burden on his
later years. But this was not to be. She died
in her prime, intellectual and physical, leaving
to the daughter to whom she then gave birth a
mingled inheritance of genius and sadness, of
filial duty met by coldness at home, of deep
wedded joys, and deep widowed sorrows. Her
opinions have become in many particulars the
commonplaces of our own day, while she who was
first to proclaim what is now held innocently
was forgotten or assailed.
C. K. P,







~n~~i,
~'~~ _~b~arpas~plsap~



LETTERS TO IMLAY.
LETTER      I.
[PARIS, Sune,? 1793.]
Two o'clock.
MY DEAR LOVE,
After making my arrangements for our
snug dinner to-day, I have been taken by storm,
and obliged to promise to dine, at an early
hour, with the Miss - s, the only day they
intend to pass here. I shall however leave the
key in the door, and hope to find you at my
fire-side when I return, about eight o'clock.
Will you not wait for poor Joan? whom you
will find better, and till then think very affectionately of her.
Yours truly,
MARY.
I am sitting down to dinner; so do not send
an answer.



IMauy Wollstonecraft.

LETTER II.
[PARIS, August, 1793.1
Past Twelve o'clock, Monday NZgkt.
I OBEY an emotion of my heart, which made
me think of wishing thee, my love, good-night!
before I go to rest, with more tenderness than I
can to-morrow, when writing a hasty line or two
under Colonel    's eye. You can scarcely
imagine with what pleasure I anticipate the day,
when we are to begin almost to live together;
and you would smile to hear how many plans of
employment I have in my head, now that I
am confident my heart has found peace in
your bosom. Cherish me with that dignified
tenderness, which I have only found in you;
and your own dear girl will try to keep under
a quickness of feeling, that has sometimes given
you pain. Yes, I will be good, that I may



Letters to Imlay.

deserve to be happy; and whilst you love me,
I cannot again fall into the miserable state
which rendered life a burthen almost too heavy
to be borne.
But, good-night! God bless you! Sterne says
that is equal to a kiss-yet I would rather give
you the kiss into the bargain, glowing with
gratitude to Heaven, and affection to you. I
like the word affection, because it signifies
something habitual; and we are soon to meet,
to try whether we have mind enough to keep
our hearts warm.
I will be at the barrier a little after ten
o'clock to-morrow. Yours,

F 2



Ma1ry Wollslonecraft.

LETTER III.
[PARIS, August, I793.]
Wednesday Moorning.
You have often called me 'dear girl,' but you
would now say good, did you know how very
attentive I have been to the -  ever since I
came to Paris. I am not however going to
trouble you with the account, because I like to
see your eyes praise me; and Milton insinuates
that during such recitals, there are interruptions
not ungrateful to the heart, when the honey that
drops from the lips is not merely words.
Yet, I shall not (let me tell you before these
people enter, to force me to huddle away my
letter) be content with only a kiss of duty. You;must be glad to see me, because you are glad,
or I will make love to the shade of Mvirabeau, to
whom my heart continually turned, whilst I was



Lelters to Imlay.

talking with Madame -, forcibly telling me
that it will ever have sufficient warmth to love,
whether I will or not, sentiment, though I so
highly respect principle.
Not that I think Mirabeau utterly devoid
of principles, far from it; and if I had not
begun to form a new theory respecting men, I
should, in the vanity of my heart, have imagined
that I could have made something of his, it
was composed of such materials. Hush! here
they come! and love flies away in the twinkling of an eye, leaving a little brush of his wing
on my pale cheeks.
I hope to see Dr. -   this morning; I am
going to Mr. - 's to meet him. -, and some
others, are invited to dine with us to-day; and
to-morrow I am to spend the day with
I shall probably not be able to return to
St. Germains to-morrow; but it is no matter,
because I must take a carriage, I have so many
books that I immediately want, to take with
me.   On Friday then I shall expect you to



6         Mary Wollstonecraft.
dine with me. And, if you come a little before
dinner, it is so long since I have seen you, you
will not be scolded by yours affectionately,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

[This and the thirteen following letters
were written during a separation of
several months, during which Imlay
was chiefly at Havre.]
LETTER IV.
[PARIS, September, 1793.]
Friday Mornving.
A  MAN, whom a letter from Mr. -        previously announced, called here yesterday for the
payment of a draft; and, as he seemed disappointed at not finding you at home, I sent
him to Mr. -. I have since seen him, and
he tells me he has settled the business.
So much for business! May I venture to talk
a little longer about less weighty affairs?  How
are you? I have been following you all along
the road this comfortless weather; for, when I
am absent from those I love, my imagination is
as lively as if my senses had never been gratified
by their presence-I was going to say caresses
-and why should I not? I have found out



Mary    Wollstonecraft.

that I have more mind than you, in one respect;
because I can, without any violent effort of
reason, find food for love in the same object,
much longer than you can. The way to my
senses is through my heart; but, forgive me! I
think there is sometimes a shorter cut to yours.
With ninety-nine men out of a hundred, a
very sufficient dash of folly is necessary to
render a woman piquante, a soft word for
desirable; and, beyond these casual ebullitions
of sympathy, few look for enjoyment by fostering a passion in their hearts. One reason, in
short, why I wish my whole sex to become
wiser, is, that the foolish ones may not, by their
pretty folly, rob those whose sensibility keeps
down their vanity, of the few roses that afford
them some solace in the thorny road of life.
I do not know how I fell into these reflections, excepting one thought produced it-that
these continual separations were necessary to
warm your affection.   Of late we are always
separating. Crack! crack! and away you go I



Letters to Imlzay.

This joke wears the sallow cast of thought;
for, though I began to write cheerfully, some
melancholy tears have found their way into my
eyes, that linger there, whilst a glow of tenderness at my heart whispers that you are one of
the best creatures in the world. Pardon then
the vagaries of a mind that has been almost
" crazed by care," as well as " crossed in hapless
love," and bear with me a little longer! When
we are settled in the country together, more
duties will open before me, and my heart,
which now, trembling into peace, is agitated by
every emotion that awakens the remembrance
of old griefs, will learn to rest on yours, with
that dignity your character, not to talk of my
own, demands.
Take care of yourself, and write soon to your
own girl (you may add dear, if you please) who
sincerely loves you, and will try to convince
you of it, by becoming happier.



10        Mary    Wollstonecraft.
LETTER V.
[PARIS, November, 1793.1
Sunday Night.
I HAVE just received your letter, and feel as
if I could not go to bed tranquilly without
saying a few words in reply, merely to tell
you that my mind is serene, and my heart
affectionate.
Ever since you last saw me inclined to faint,
I have felt some gentle twitches, which make
me begin to think that I am nourishing a creature who will soon be sensible of my care. This
thought has not only produced an overflowing
of tenderness to you, but made me very attentive to calm my mind and take exercise, lest I
should destroy an object, in whom we are to
have a mutual interest, you know. Yesterday
-do not smile!-finding that I had hurt myself



Letters to Imlay.

II

by lifting precipitately a large log of wood, I
sat down in an agony, till I felt those said
twitches again.
Are you very busy?
So you may reckon on its being finished soon,
though not before you come home, unless you
are, detained longer than I now allow myself to
believe you will.
Be that as it may, write to me, my best love,
and bid me be patient-kindly-and the expressions of kindness will again beguile the time,
as sweetly as they have done to-night. Tell
me also over and over again, that your happiness (and you deserve to be happy!) is closely
connected with mine, and I will try to dissipate,
as they rise, the fumes of former discontent,
that have too often clouded the sunshine which
you have endeavoured to diffuse through my
mind. God bless you! Take care of your


12        Menay  Wolls/onecraft.
self, and remember with tenderness your affectionate
MARY.
I am going to rest very happy, and you have
made me so. This is the kindest good-night I
can utter.



Letters to Imlay.

I,3

LETTER VI.
[PARIS, December, 1793.]
Friday Morning,*
I AM glad to find that other people can be
unreasonable as well as myself, for be it known
to thee, that I answered thyfirst letter the very
night it reached me (Sunday), though thou
couldst not receive it before Wednesday, because it was not sent off till the next day.
There is a full, true, and particular account.
Yet I am not angry with thee, my love, for I
think that it is a proof of stupidity, and, likewise,
of a milk-and-water affection, which comes to
the same thing, when the temper is governed
by a square and compass. There is nothing
picturesque in this straight-lined equality, and
the passions always give grace to the actions.
Recollection now makes my heart bound to



14

Mary    Wollstonecraft

thee; but, it is not to thy money-getting face,
though I cannot be seriously displeased with
the exertion which increases my esteem, or
rather is what I should have expected from thy
character. No; I have thy honest countenance
before me-Pop-relaxed by tenderness; a little
-little wounded by my whims; and thy eyes
glistening with sympathy. Thy lips then feel
softer than soft, and I rest my cheek on thine,
forgetting all the world. I have not left the
hue of love out of the picture-the rosy glow;
and fancy has spread it over my own cheeks,
I believe, for I feel them  burning, whilst a
delicious tear trembles in my eye, that would
be all your own, if a grateful emotion, directed
to the Father of nature, who has made me thus
alive to happiness, did not give more warmth
to the sentiment it divides. I must pause a
moment.
Need I tell you that I am tranquil after
writing thus? I do not know why, but I have
more confidence in your affection, when absent,



Lellers to ImIay.            I5
than present; nay, I think that you must love
me, for, in the sincerity of my heart let me say
it, I believe I deserve your tenderness, because
I am true, and have a degree of sensibility that
you can see and relish.
Yours sincerely,
MARY.



I6

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

LETTER VII.
[PARIS, December 29, 1793.]
Sunday Morning.
You seem to have taken up your abode at
Havre. Pray sir! when do you think of coming
home? or, to write very considerately, when will
business permit you? I shall expect (as the
country people say in England) that you will
make a power of money to indemnify me for
your absence.
*      *      *      *      *
Well! but, my love, to the old story-am I
to see you this week, or this month? I do not
know what you are about, for, as you did not
tell me, I would not ask Mr., who is
generally pretty communicative.
I long to see Mrs. -; not to hear from you,



Letters to Imlay.

I7

so do not give yourself airs, but to get a letter
from Mr. --. And I am half angry with you
for not informing me whether she had brought
one with her or not. On this score I will cork
up some of the kind things that were ready to
drop from my pen, which has never been dipt in
gall when addressing you; or, will only suffer
an exclamation-" The creature! " or a kind
look, to escape me, when I pass the slippers,
which I could not remove from my salle door,
though they are not the handsomest of their
kind.
Be not too anxious to get money! for nothing
worth having is to be purchased. God bless
you.
Yours affectionately,
MARY.



18

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       VIII.
[PARIS, December 30, 1793.]
Monday Night.
MY BEST LOVE,
Your letter to-night was particularly grateful to my heart, depressed by the letters I received
by -, for he brought me several, and the parcel
of books directed to Mr. -  was for me. Mr.
-   's letter was very long and very affectionate;
but the account he gives me of his own affairs,
though he obviously makes the best of them, has
vexed me.
A melancholy letter from my sister Eliza has
also harrassed my mind-that from my brother
would have given me sincere pleasure; but for
There is a spirit of independence in his letter



Letters to Imlay.

i9

that will please you; and you shall see it, when
we are once more over the fire together. I
think that you would hail him as a brother, with
one of your tender looks, when your heart not
only gives a lustre to your eye, but a dance of
playfulness, that he would meet with a glow
half made up of bashfulness, and a desire to
please the, where shall I find a word to
express the relationship which subsists between
us? Shall I ask the little twitcher? But I have
dropt half the sentence that was to tell you how
much he would be inclined to love the man
loved by his sister. I have been fancying myself sitting between you, ever since I began to
write, and my heart has leaped at the thought!
You see how I chat to you.
I did not receive your letter till I came home;
and I did not expect it, for the post came in
much later than usual. It was a cordial to me,
and I wanted one.
Mr. --   tells me that he has written again
and again. Love him a little! It would be a
c 2



20        Mary    Wolls/onecraft.
kind of separation, if you did not love those I
love.
There was so much considerate tenderness in
your epistle to-night, that, if it has not made
you dearer to me, it has made me forcibly feel
how very dear you are to me, by charming away
half my cares.
Yours affectionately,
MARY.



Letters to nIlay.

21

LETTER       IX.
[PARIS, December 31, 1793.]
Tuesday Morning.
THOUGH I have just sent a letter off, yet, as
Captain -- offers to take one, I am not willing
to let him go without a kind greeting, because
trifles of this sort, without having any effect on
my mind, damp my spirits; and you, with all
your struggles to be manly, have some of the
same sensibility. Do not bid it begone, for I
love to see it striving to master your features;
besides, these kind of sympathies are the life of
affection; and why, in cultivating our understandings, should we try to dry up these springs
of pleasure, which gush out to give a freshness
to days browned by care!
The books sent to me are such as we may
read together; so I shall not look into them



22         Miary Wollslonecraft.
till you return, when you shall read, whilst I
mend my stockings.
Yours truly,
MARY.



Lelltters to Imlay.

23

LETTER X.
[PARIS, January 1, 1794.]
Wednesday Night.
As I have been, you tell me, three days without writing, I ought not to complain of two;
yet, as I expected to receive a letter this afternoon, I am hurt; and why should I, by concealing it, affect the heroism I do not feel?
I hate commerce. How differently must
-   's head and heart be organized from mine!
You will tell me that exertions are necessary:
I am weary of them! The face of things,
public and private, vexes me. The "peace"
and clemency which seemed to be dawning a
few days ago, disappear again. "I am fallen,"
as Milton said, " on evil days;" for I really
believe that Europe will be in a state of convulsion during half a century at least. Life is



24

Mary     Wollstonecraft.

but a labour of patience: it is always rolling a
great stone up a hill; for, before a person can
find a resting-place, imagining it is lodged,
down it comes again, and all the work is to be
done over anew!
Should I attempt to write any more, I could
not change the strain. My head aches, and my
heart is heavy. The world appears an " unweeded garden " where "things rank and vile"
flourish best.
If you do not return soon-or, which is no
such mighty matter, talk of it-I will throw my
slippers out at window, and be off-nobody
knows where.
Finding that I was observed, I told the good
women, the two Mrs. -   s simply that I was
with child: and let them stare! and --, and
--, nay, all the world, may know it for aught I
care! Yet I wish to avoid - 's coarse jokes.
Considering the care and anxiety a woman
must have about a child before it comes into the



Letters to Imlay.

25

world, it seems to me, by a natural right, to
belong to her. When men get immersed in the
world, they seem to lose all sensations, excepting
those necessary to continue or produce life!
Are these the privileges of reason? Amongst
the feathered race, whilst the hen keeps the
young warm, her mate stays by to cheer her;
but it is sufficient for man to condescend to get
a child, in order to claim it. A man is a
tyrant!
You may now tell me, that, if it were not for
me, you would be laughing away with some
honest fellows in London. The casual exercise
of social sympathy would not be sufficient for
me-I should not think such an heartless life
worth preserving. It is necessary to be in good
humour with you, to be pleased with the world.
Thursday Morning.
I was very low-spirited last night, ready to
quarrel with your cheerful temper, which makes



26        Muay Wollstonecraft.
absence easy to you. And why should I mince
the matter? I was offended at your not even
mentioning it. I do not want to be loved like a
goddess, but I wish to be necessary to you.
God bless you!



Letters to Imlay.

27

LETTER       XI.
[PARIS, January, 1794.]
Monday Night.
I HAVE just received your kind and rational
letter, and would fain hide my face, glowing
with shame for my folly. I would hide it in
your bosom, if you would again open it to me,
and nestle closely till you bade my fluttering
heart be still, by saying that you forgave me.
With eyes overflowing with tears, and in the
humblest attitude, I entreat you. Do not turn
from me, for indeed I love you fondly, and have
been very wretched since the night I was so
cruelly hurt by thinking that you had no confidence in me.
It is time for me to grow more reasonable, a
few more of these caprices of sensibility would
destroy me. I have, in fact, been very much



28

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

indisposed for a few days past, and the notion
that I was tormenting, or perhaps killing, a poor
little animal, about whom I am grown anxious
and tender, now I feel it alive, made me worse.
My bowels have been dreadfully disordered, and
everything I ate or drank disagreed with my
stomach; still I feel intimations of its existence,
though they have been fainter.
Do you think that the creature goes regularly
to sleep? I am ready to ask as many questions
as Voltaire's Man of Forty Crowns. Ah! do
not continue to be angry with me! You perceive that I am already smiling through my
tears. You have lightened my heart, and my
frozen spirits are melting into playfulness.
Write the moment you receive this. I shall
count the minutes. But drop not an angry
word. I cannot now bear it. Yet, if you think
I deserve a scolding (it does not admit of a
question, I grant), wait till you come back, and
then, if you are angry one day, I shall be sure of
seeing you the next.



Letters to Imlay.           29
- did not write to you, I suppose, because
he talked of going to Havre. Hearing that I
was ill, he called very kindly on me, not
dreaming that it was some words that he incautiously let fall, which rendered me so.
God bless you, my love; do not shut your
heart against a return of tenderness; and, as I
now in fancy cling to you, be more than ever
my support. Feel but as affectionate when you
read this letter, as I did writing it, and you will
make happy, your
MARY.



30

MIary WollstonecraftI

LETTER       XII.
[PARIS, 7anua'y, 1794]-1
Wednesday IAorning.
I WILL never, if I am not entirely cured of
quarrelling, begin to encourage "quick-coming
fancies," when we are separated. Yesterday,
my love, I could not open your letter for some
time; and, though it was not half as severe as I
merited, it threw me into such a fit of trembling,
as seriously alarmed me.  I did not, as you
may suppose, care for a little pain on my own
account; but all the fears which I have had for
a few days past, returned with fresh force. This
morning I am better; will you not be glad to
hear it? You perceive that sorrow has almost
made a child of me, and that I want to be
soothed to peace.
One thing you mistake in my character, and



Lelltters to Imlay.

31

imagine that to be coldness, which is just the
contrary. For, when I am hurt by the person
most dear to me, I must let out a whole torrent
of emotions, in which tenderness would be
uppermost, or stifle them altogether; and it
appears to me almost a duty to stifle them
when I imagine that I am treated with coldness.
I am afraid that I have vexed you, my own
love. I know the quickness of your feelings-and
let me, in the sincerity of my heart, assure you,
there is nothing I would not suffer to make you
happy. My own happiness wholly depends on
you; and, knowing you, when my reason is not
clouded, I look forward to a rational prospect
of as much felicity as the earth affords, with a
little dash of rapture into the bargain, if you
will look at me, when we meet again, as you
have sometimes greeted your humbled, yet most
affectionate
MVARY.



32
0

M7ary }Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       XIII.
[PARIS,.anuary, 1794.]
Tk ursday Night.
I HAVE been wishing the time away, my kind
love, unable to rest till I knew that my penitential letter had reached your hand; and this
afternoon when your tender epistle of Tuesday
gave such exquisite pleasure to your poor sick
girl, her heart smote her to think that you were
still to receive another cold one. Burn it also, my
dearest; yet do not forget that even those letters
were full of love; and I shall ever recollect that
you did not wait to be mollified by my penitence, before you took me again to your heart.
I have been unwell, and would not, now I am
recovering, take the journey, because I have
been seriously alarmed and angry with myself,
dreading continually the fatal consequence of
my folly.  But, should you think it right to



Letters to Imlay,

33

remain at Havre, I shall find some opportunity
in the course of a fortnight, or less perhaps, to
come to you, and before then I shall be strong
again. Yet do not be uneasy! I am really
better, and never took such care of myself as I
have done since you restored my peace of mind.
The girl is come to warm my bed, so I will
tenderly say, good night! and write a line or
two in the morning.
Morning.
I wish you were here to walk with me this
fine morning! yet your absence shall not prevent me. I have stayed at home too much;
though, when I was so dreadfully out of spirits,
I was careless of everything.
I will now sally forth (you will go with me in
my heart) and try whether this fine bracing air
will not give the vigour to the poor babe it had
before I so inconsiderately gave way to the grief
that deranged my bowels, and gave a turn to
my whole system.
Yours truly,   MARY IMLAY.



3 4

Mary     Wollslonecraft.

LETTER       XIV.
[PARIS, February, 1794.1
Saturday Morning.
THE two or three letters, which I have written
to you lately, my love, will serve as an answer
to your explanatory one. I cannot but respect
your motives and conduct. I always respected
them; and was only hurt, by what seemed to
me a want of confidence, and consequently
affection.  I thought also, that if you were
obliged to stay three months at Havre, I might
as well have been with you. Well, well! what
signifies what I brooded over. Let us now be
friends!
I shall probably receive a letter from you today, sealing my pardon-and I will be careful
not to torment you with my querulous humours,



Letters 1o Imlay.

3 5
33

at least, till I see you again. Act as circumstances direct, and I will not enquire when
they will permit you to return, convinced that
you will hasten to your love when you have
attained (or lost sight of) the object of your
journey.
What a picture have you sketched of our fireside! Yes, my love, my fancy was instantly at
work, and I found my head on your shoulder,
whilst my eyes were fixed on the little creatures
that were clinging about your knees. I did not
absolutely determine that there should be sixif you have not set your heart on this round
number.
I am going to dine with Mrs. -. I have
not been to visit her since the first day she
came to Paris. I wish indeed to be out in the
air as much as I can; for the exercise I have
taken these two or three days past has been of
such service to me, that I hope shortly to tell
you that I am quite well. I have scarcely slept
before last night, and then not much. The
D2



36        Mary Wollstonecraft
two Mrs. -   s have been very anxious and
tender.
Yours truly,
MARY.
I need not desire you to give the colonel a
good bottle of wine.



Lelters to Imlay.

37

LETTER XV.
[PARIS, February, 1794.1
Sunday Morning.
I WROTE to you yesterday, my dearest; but,
finding that the colonel is still detained (for his
passport was forgotten at the office yesterday)
I am not willing to let so many days elapse
without your hearing from me, after having
talked of illness and apprehensions.
I cannot boast of being quite recovered, yet I
am (I must use my Yorkshire phrase; for, when
my heart is warm, pop come the expressions of
childhood into my head) so lzgktsome, that I
think it will not go badly with me. And nothing
shall be wanting on my part, I assure you; for
I am urged on, not only by an enlivened affection for you, but by a new-born tenderness that
plays cheerily round my dilating heart.



38

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

I was, therefore, in defiance of cold and dirt,
out in the air the greater part of yesterday;
and, if I get over this evening without a return
of the fever that has tormented me, I shall
talk no more of illness. I have promised the
little creature, that its mother, who ought to
cherish it, will not again plague it, and begged
it to pardon me; and, since I could not hug
either it or you to my breast, I have to my
heart. I am afraid to read over this prattle,
but it is only for your eye.
I have been seriously vexed to find that,
whilst you were harrassed by impediments in
your undertakings, I was giving you additional
uneasiness. If you can make any of your plans
answer, it is well; I do not think a little money
inconvenient; but, should they fail, we will
struggle cheerfully together-drawn closer by
the pinching blasts of poverty.
Adieu, my love! Write often to your girl, and
write long letters; for I not only like them for
being longer, but because more heart steals into



Letters to Imlay.          39
them; and I am happy to catch your heart
whenever I can.
Yours sincerely,
MARY.



40

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       XVI.
[PARIS, February, 1794.]
Tuesday Morning.
I SEIZE this opportunity to inform you, that I
am to set out on Thursday with Mr. -, and
hope to tell you soon (on your lips) how glad I
shall be to see you. I have just got my passport, so I do not foresee any impediment to my
reaching Havre, to bid you good night next
Friday in my new apartment, where I am to
meet you and love, in spite of care, to smile me
to sleep, for I have not caught much rest since
we parted.
You have, by your tenderness and worth,
twisted yourself more artfully round my heart
than I supposed possible. Let me indulge the
thought that I have thrown out some tendrils to
cling to the elm by which I wish to be sup


Letters to Imlay.           41
ported. This is talking a new language for me!
But, knowing that I am not a parasite-plant, I
am willing to receive the proofs of affection,
that every pulse replies to, when I think of
being once more in the same house with you.
God bless you!
Yours truly,
MARY.



42

Mary   Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       XVII.
[PARIS, February, 1794.]
Wednesday Morning.
I ONLY send this as an avant-coureur, without
jack-boots, to tell you that I am again on the
wing, and hope to be with you a few hours after
you receive it. I shall find you well and composed, I am sure; or, more properly speaking,
cheerful. What is the reason that my spirits
are not as manageable as yours? Yet, now I
think of it, I will not allow that your temper is
even, though I have promised myself, in order
to obtain my own forgiveness, that I will not
ruffle it for a long, long time-I am afraid to
say never.
Farewell for a moment! Do not forget that
I am driving towards you in person! My mind,



Letters to Imlay.           43
unfettered, has flown to you long since, or rather
has never left you.
I am well, and have no apprehension that I
shall find the journey too fatiguing, when I
follow the lead of my heart. With my face
turned to Havre my spirits will not sink, and
my mind has always hitherto enabled my body
to do whatever I wished.
Yours affectionately,
MARY.



44         Mary    Wollstonecraft.

On March I, after a brief union of about
a fortnight, Imlay returned to Paris.
LETTER        XVIII.
[I794.]
HAVRE, Thursday Morning-, Marck 1z.
WE are such creatures of habit, my love, that,
though I cannot say I was sorry, childishly so,
for your going, when I knew that you were to
stay such a short time, and I had a plan of
employment; yet I could not sleep. I turned
to your side of the bed, and tried to make the
most of the comfort of the pillow, which you
used to tell me I was churlish about; but all
would not do. I took, nevertheless, my walk
before breakfast, though the weather was not
inviting-and here I am, wishing you a finer
day, and seeing you peep over my shoulder, as
I write, with one of your kindest looks-when
your eyes glisten, and a suffusion creeps over
your relaxing features.



Leltters to Imlay.         45
But I do not mean to daily with you this
morning. So God bless you! Take care of
yourself, and sometimes fold to your heart your
affectionate
MARY.



46

4 Mary Wollslonecraft.

LETTER       XIX.
[HAVRE, March, 1794.]
Do not call me stupid for leaving on the
table the little bit of paper I was to inclose.
This comes of being in love at the fag-end of a
letter of business. You know, you say, they
will not chime together. I had got you by the
fire-side, with the gigot smoking on the board,
to lard your bare ribs, and behold, I closed my
letter without taking the paper up, that was
directly under my eyes! What had I got in
them to render me so blind? I give you leave
to answer the question, if you will not scold; for
I am
Yours most affectionately,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

47

Imlay returned to Havre shortly after the
above letter was written. Mary gave
birth to a daughter (Fanny) about the
end of April, 1794. In August Imlay
went alone to Paris, where he was
joined by Mary in September, at the
end of which month Imlay went on
business to London.
LETTER XX.
[HAVRE, 1794.]
Sunday, August 17.
*        *        *        **      *
I HAVE promised -        to go with him    to his
country-house, where he is now permitted to
dine-I, and the little darling, to be sure-whom
I cannot help kissing with more fondness since
you left us. I think I shall enjoy the fine
prospect, and that it will rather enliven, than
satiate my imagination.
I have called on Mrs..  She has the
manners of a gentlewoman, with a dash of



48

Mfary   Wollstonecraft.

the easy French coquetry, which renders her
piquante. But Monsieur her husband, whom
nature never dreamed of casting in either the
mould of a gentleman or lover, makes but an
awkward figure in the foreground of the picture.
The Havrais are very ugly without doubtand the house smelt of commerce from top to
toe-so that his abortive attempt to display
taste, only proved it to be one of the things not
to be bought with gold. I was in a room a
moment alone, and my attention was attracted
by the pendule. A nymph was offering up her
vows, before a smoking altar, to a fat-bottomed
Cupid (saving your presence), who was kicking
his heels in the air. Ah! kick on, thought I;
for the demon of traffic will ever fright away the
loves and graces that streak with the rosy beams
of infant fancy the somre day of life; whilst the
imagination, not allowing us to see things as they
are, enables us to catch a hasty draught of the
running stream of delight, the thirst for which
seems to be given only to tantalise us,



Lellers to Imla/y.

49

But I am philosophizing; nay, perhaps you
will call me severe, and bid me let the squareheaded money-getters alone. Peace to them!
though none of the social sprites (and there are
not a few, of different descriptions, who sport
about the various inlets to my heart) gave me
a twitch to restrain my pen.
I have been writing on, expecting poor -
to come; for, when I began, I merely thought
of business; and, as this is the idea that most
naturally associates with your image, I wonder
I stumbled on any other.
Yet, as common life, in my opinion, is scarcely
worth having, even with a gigot every day, and
a pudding added thereunto, I will allow you to
cultivate my judgment, if you will permit me
to keep alive the sentiments in your heart,
which may be termed romantic, because, the
offspring of the senses and the imagination,
they resemble the mother more than the.father,
when they produce the suffusion I admire. In
spite of icy age, I hope still to see it, if you have
E



50         Mary   Wollstonecraft.
not determined only to eat and drink, and be
stupidly useful to the stupid.
Yours,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

51

LETTER XXI.
[1794.]
HAVRE, August 19, Tuesday.
I RECEIVED both your letters to-day. I had
reckoned on hearing from you yesterday, therefore was disappointed, though I imputed your
silence to the right cause. I intended answering your kind letter immediately, that you
might have felt the pleasure it gave me; but
-     came in, and some other things interrupted me; so that the fine vapour has evaporated, yet, leaving a sweet scent behind.  I
have only to tell you, what is sufficiently
obvious, that the earnest desire I have shown
to keep my place, or gain more ground in your
heart, is a sure proof how necessary your affection is to my happiness. Still I do not think it
false delicacy, or foolish pride, to wish that your
E2



52

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

attention to my happiness should arise as much
from love, which is always rather a selfish
passion, as reason-that is, I want you to promote my felicity, by seeking your own. For,
whatever pleasure it may give me to discover
your generosity of soul, I would not be dependent for your affection on the very quality
I most admire. No; there are qualities in your
heart which demand my affection; but unless
the attachment appears to me clearly mutual,
I shall labour only to esteem your character
instead of cherishing a tenderness for your
person.
I write in a hurry, because the little one, who
has been sleeping a long time, begins to call
for me. Poor thing! when I am sad, I lament
that all my affections grow on me, till they
become too strong for my peace, though they
all afford. me snatches of exquisite enjoyment.
This for our little girl was at first very reasonable-more the effect of reason, a sense of
duty, than feeling-now she has got into my



Lelters to Imlay.

53

heart and imagination, and when I walk out
without her, her little figure is ever dancing
before me.
You too have somehow clung round my
heart. I found I could not eat my dinner in
the great room, and, when I took up the large
knife to carve for myself, tears rushed into my
eyes. Do not, however, suppose that I am
melancholy, for, when you are from me, I not
only wonder how I can find fault with you, but
how I can doubt your affection.
I will not mix any comments on the inclosed
(it roused my indignation) with the effusion of
tenderness, with which I assure you that you
are the friend of my bosom, and the prop of my
heart.



54

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

LETTER XXII.
[1794
HAVRE, August 20.
I WANT to know what steps you have taken
respecting. Knavery always rouses my
indignation. I should be gratified to hear that
the law had chastised - severely; but I do
not wish you to see him, because the business
does not now admit of peaceful discussion, and
I do not exactly know how you would expressyour contempt.
Pray ask some questions about Tallien. I
am still pleased with the dignity of his conduct.
The other day, in the cause of humanity, he
made use of a degree of address, which I admire,
and mean to point out to you, as one of the
few instances of address which do credit to the
abilities of the man, without taking away from
that confidence in his openness of heart, which



Letters to Imlay.

55

is the true basis of both public and private
friendship.
Do not suppose that I mean to allude to a
little reserve of temper in you, of which I
have sometimes complained! You have been
used to a cunning woman, and you almost look
for cunning. Nay, in managing my happiness,
you now and then wounded my sensibility, concealing yourself till honest sympathy, giving you
to me without disguise, lets me look into a
heart, which my half-broken one wishes to
creep into, to be revived and cherished. You
have frankness of heart, but not often exactly
that overflowing (depanckement de caur), which
becoming almost childish, appears a weakness
only to the weak.
But I have left poor Tallien. I wanted you
to enquire likewise whether, as a member declared in the Convention, Robespierre really
maintained a number of mistresses. Should it
prove so, I suspect that they rather flattered
his vanity than his senses.



56         Mary   Wollstonecraft.
Here is a chatting, desultory epistle! But
do not suppose that I mean to close it without
mentioning the little damsel-who has been
almost springing out of my arm-she certainly
looks very like you; but I do not love her the
less for that, whether I am angry or pleased
with you.
Yours affectionately,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

57

[This is the first of a series of letters written
during a separation of many months,
to which no cordial meeting ever succeeded. They were sent from Paris,
and bear the address of London.]
LETTER XXIII.
[PARIS, 1794.]
September 22.
I HAVE just written two letters, that are
going   by  other conveyances, and       which   I
reckon on your receiving long before this.       I
therefore merely write, because I know I should
be disappointed at seeing anyone who had left
you if you did not send a letter, were it ever
so short, to tell me why you did not write a
longer, and you will want to be told, over and
over again, that our little Hercules is quite
recovered.
Besides looking at me, there are three other
things which delight her; to ride in a coach, to
look at a scarlet waistcoat, and hear loud music



58

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

-yesterday, at the fete, she enjoyed the two
latter; but, to honour J. J. Rousseau, I intend
to give her a sash, the first she has ever had
round her-and why not?-for I have always
been half in love with him.
Well, this you will say is trifling-shall I
talk about alum or soap? There is nothing
picturesque in your present pursuits; my imagination, then, rather chooses to ramble back to the
barrier with you, or to see you coming to meet
me, and my basket of grapes.      With what
pleasure do I recollect your looks and words,
when I have been sitting on the window,
regarding the waving corn!
Believe me, sage sir, you have not sufficient
respect for the imagination. I could prove to
you in a trice that it is the mother of sentiment,
the great distinction of our nature, the only
purifier of the passions-animals have a portion
of reason, and equal, if not more exquisite,
senses; but no trace of imagination, or her offspring taste, appears in any of their actions.



Letters to Imlay.

59

The impulse of the senses, passions, if you will,
and the conclusions of reason, draw men together; but the imagination is the true fire,
stolen from heaven, to animate this cold creature of clay, producing all those fine sympathies
that lead to rapture, rendering men social by
expanding their hearts, instead of leaving them
leisure to calculate how many comforts society
affords.
If you call these observations romantic, a
phrase in this place which would be tantamount
to nonsensical, I shall be apt to retort, that you
are embruted by trade and the vulgar enjoyments of life. Bring me then back your barrierface, or you shall have nothing to say to my
barrier-girl; and I shall fly from you, to cherish
the remembrances that will ever be dear to me;
for I am yours truly,
MARY.



60

M ary   Wollstonecraft.

LETTER XXIV.
[PARIS, 1794.]
Evening, September 23.
I HAVE been playing and laughing with the
little girl so long, that I cannot take up my pen
to address you without emotion. Pressing her
to my bosom, she looked so like you (entre nous,
your best looks, for I do not admire your commercial face), every nerve seemed to vibrate to
the touch, and I began to think that there was
something in the assertion of man and wife
being one-for you seemed to pervade my
whole frame, quickening the beat of my heart,
and lending me the sympathetic tears you
excited.
Have I anything more to say to you? No;
not for the present-the rest is all flown away;
and indulging tenderness for you, I cannot now



Letters to Imlay.

complain of some people here, who have ruffled
my temper for two or three days past.
Morning.
YESTERDAY B--      sent to me for my packet
of letters. He called on me before; and I like
him better than I did-that is, I have the same
opinion of his understanding; but I think with
you, he has more tenderness and real delicacy of
feeling with respect to women, than are commonly to be met with. His manner, too, of
speaking of his little girl, about the age of mine,
interested me. I gave him a letter for my
sister, and requested him to see her.
I have been interrupted. Mr. -   I suppose
will write about business. Public affairs I do
not descant on, except to tell you that they
write now with great freedom and truth; and
this liberty of the press will overthrow the
Jacobins, I plainly perceive.
I hope you take care of your health. I



62

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

have got a habit of restlessness at night, which
arises, I believe, from activity of mind; for,
when I am alone, that is, not near one to whom
I can open my heart, I sink into reveries and
trains of thinking, which agitate and fatigue me.
This is my third letter; when am I to hear
from you? I need not tell you, I suppose, that
I am now writing with somebody in the room
with me, and Marguerite is waiting to carry
this to Mr. -  's. I will then kiss the girl for
you, and bid you adieu.
I desired you, in one of my other letters, to
bring back to me your barrier-face-or that you
should not be loved by my barrier-girl. I know
that you will love her more and more, for she is
a little affectionate, intelligent creature, with as
much vivacity, I should think, as you could wish
for.
I was going to tell you of two or three things
which displease me here; but they are not of
sufficient consequence to interrupt pleasing sensations. I have received a letter from Mr. -.



Letters to Idlay.          63
I want you to bring -   with you. Madame
S-    is by me, reading a German translation
of your letters; she desires me to give her love
to you, on account of what you say of the
negroes.
Yours most affectionately,
MARY.



64

Mary Wollstonecraft.

LETTER XXV.
[1794.1
PARIS, September 28.
I HAVE written to you three or four letters;
but different causes have prevented my sending
them by the persons who promised to take or
forward them. The inclosed is one I wrote to
go by B-; yet, finding that he will not
arrive, before I hope, and believe, you will have
set out on your return, I inclose it to you, and
shall give it in charge to -, as Mr. -   is
detained, to whom also I gave a letter.
I cannot help being anxious to hear from
you; but I shall not harrass you with accounts
of inquietudes, or of cares that arise from peculiar circumstances. I have had so many little
plagues here, that I have almost lamented that I
left Havre. -, who is at best a most helpless



Letters to Imlay.

65

creature, is now, on account of her pregnancy,
more trouble than use to me, so that I still
continue to be almost a slave to the child. She
indeed rewards me, for she is a sweet little
creature; for, setting aside a mother's fondness
(which, by the bye, is growing on me, her little
intelligent smiles sinking into my heart), she has
an astonishing degree of sensibility and observation. The other day by B-'s child, a fine
one, she looked like a little sprite. She is all
life and motion, and her eyes are not the eyes of
a fool, I will swear.
I slept at St. Germain's, in the very room (if
you have not forgot) in which you pressed me
very tenderly to your heart. I did not forget to
fold my darling to mine, with sensations that
are almost too sacred to be alluded to.
Adieu, my love! Take care of yourself, if
you wish to be the protector of your child, and
the comfort of her mother.
I have received, for you, letters from -. I
want to hear how that affair finishes, though I
F



66       iMary Wollsonzecraft.
do not know whether I have most contempt for
his folly or knavery.
Your own,
MARY.



Le/lers to Imlay.

67

LETTER XXVI.
[PARIS, 17941.]
October I.
IT is a heartless task to write letters without
knowing whether they will ever reach you. I
have given two to -, who has been a-going,
a-going every day for a week past; and three
others, which were written in a low-spirited strain,
a little querulous or so, I have not been able to
forward by the opportunities that were mentioned to me. Tant mieux! you will say, and I
will not say nay; for I should be sorry that the
contents of a letter, when you are so far away,
should damp the pleasure that the sight of it
would afford--judging of your feelings by my
own. I just now stumbled on one of the kind
letters which you wrote during your last absence.
You are, then, a dear affectionate creature, and I
F 2



68

Mary     Wollstonecraft.

will not plague you. The letter which you
chance to receive, when the absence is so long,
ought to bring only tears of tenderness, without
any bitter alloy, into your eyes.
After your return, I hope indeed that you
will not be so immersed in business, as during
the last three or four months past-for even
money, taking into the account all the future
comforts it is to procure, may be gained at too
dear a rate, if painful impressions are left on the
mind. These impressions were much more lively
soon after you went away, than at present-for a
thousand tender recollections efface the melancholy traces they left on my mind-and every
emotion is on the same side as my reason, which
always was on yours. Separated, it would be
almost impious to dwell on real or imaginary
imperfections of character. I feel that I love
you; and, if I cannot be happy with you, I will
seek it nowhere else.
My little darling grows every day more dear
to me, and she often has a kiss when we are



Lellers to Imlay.

69

alone together, which I give her for you with all
my heart.
I have been interrupted-and must send off
my letter. The liberty of the press will produce
a great effect here-the cry of blood will not be
vain! Some more monsters will perish-and
the Jacobins are conquered. Yet I almost fear
the last flap of the tail of the beast.
I have had several trifling teazing inconveniences here, which I shall not now trouble
you with a detail of. I am sending -    back;
her pregnancy rendered her useless. The girl
I have got has more vivacity, which is better for
the child.
I long to hear from you. Bring a copy of
--- and -- with you.
--   is still here: he is a lost man. He really
loves his wife, and is anxious about his children;
but his indiscriminate hospitality and social
feelings have given him an inveterate habit
of drinking, that destroys his health, as well as
renders his person disgusting. If his wife had



70         Mary   Wollstonecraft.
more sense or delicacy, she might restrain him
as it is, nothing will save him.
Yours most truly and affectionately,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

71

LETTER       XXVII.
[PARIS, 1794.]
October 26.
MY DEAR LOVE,-I began to wish so earnestly
to hear from you, that the sight of your letters
occasioned such pleasurable emotions, I was
obliged to throw them aside till the little girl
and I were alone together; and this said little
girl, our darling, is become a most intelligent
little creature, and as gay as a lark, and that in
the morning too, which I do not find quite so
convenient. I once told you, that the sensations
before she was born, and when she is sucking,
were pleasant; but they do not deserve to be
compared to the emotions I feel, when she stops
to smile upon me, or laughs outright on meeting
me unexpectedly in the street, or after a short
absence. She has now the advantage of having



72

7Mary Tolls/onecraft.

two good nurses, and I am at present able to
discharge my duty to her, without being the
slave of it.
I have therefore employed and amused myself
since I got rid of -, and am making a progress in the language, amongst other things. I
have also made some new acquaintance. I have
almost charmed a judge of the tribunal, R,
who, though I should not have thought it possible, has humanity, if not beaucoup d'esfrit.
But let me tell you, if you do not make haste
back, I shall be half in love with the author of
the VMarseillaise, who is a handsome man, a
little too broad-faced or so, and plays sweetly
on the violin.
What do you say to this threat? Why, entre
nous, I like to give way to a sprightly vein when
writing to you, that is, when I am pleased with
you. "The devil," you know, is proverbially
said to be "in a good humour when he is
pleased." Will you not then be a good boy,
and come back quickly to play with your girls?



Letters to Imlay.

73

but I shall not allow you to love the new-comer
best.
*      *      *       *      *
My heart longs for your return, my love, and
only looks for, and seeks happiness with you;
yet do not imagine that I childishly wish you to
come back before you have arranged things in
such a manner that it will not be necessary for
you to leave us soon again, or to make exertions
which injure your constitution.
Yours most truly and tenderly,
MARY.
P.S.-You would oblige me by delivering the
inclosed to Mr. -, and pray call for an
answer.  It is for a person uncomfortably
situated.



74

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       XXVIII.
[PARIS, 1794,]
December 26.
I HAVE been, my love, for some days tormented by fears, that I would not allow to
assume a form. I had been expecting you
daily, and I heard that many vessels had been
driven on shore during the late gale. Well, I
now see your letter, and find that you are safe;
I will not regret, then, that your exertions have
hitherto been so unavailing.
Be that as it may, return to me when you
have arranged the other matters, which -  has
been crowding on you. I want to be sure that
you are safe, and not separated from me by a
sea that must be passed. For, feeling that I



Letters to Imlay.            75
am happier than I ever was, do you wonder
at my sometimes dreading that fate has not
done persecuting me? Come to me, my dearest
friend, husband, father of my child! All these
fond ties glow at my heart at this moment, and
dim my eyes. With you an independence is
desirable; and it is always within our reach, if
affluence escapes us-without you the world
again appears empty to me. But I am recurring
to some of the melancholy thoughts that have
flitted across my mind for some days past, and
haunted my dreams.
My little darling is indeed a sweet childc; and
I am sorry that you are not here to see her little
mind unfold itself. You talk of "dalliance," but
certainly no lover was ever more attached to his
mistress, than she is to me. Her eyes follow
me everywhere, and by affection I have the
most despotic power over her.     She is all
vivacity or softness-yes; I love her more than
I thought I should. When I have been hurt at
your stay, I have embraced her as my only



76        Mary Wollstonecraft.
comfort-when pleased with you, for looking and
laughing like you; nay, I cannot, I find, long
be angry with you, whilst I am kissing her for
resembling you. But there would be no end to
these details. Fold us both to your heart; for
I am truly and affectionately
Yours,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

77

LETTER XXIX.
[PARIS, 1794.]
December 28.
I DO, my love, indeed sincerely sympathise
with you in all your disappointments. Yet,
knowing that you are well, and think of me with
affection, I only lament other disappointments,
because I am sorry that you should thus exert
yourself in vain, and that you are kept from me.
--, I know, urges you to stay, and is continually branching out into new projects, because
he has the idle desire to amass a large fortune,
rather an immense one, merely to have the
credit of having made it.  But we who are
governed by other motives, ought not to be led
on by him. When we meet, we will discuss this
subject. You will listen to reason, and it has



78

Mary     Wollstonecraft.

probably occurred to you, that it will be better,
in future, to pursue some sober plan, which may
demand more time, and still enable you to
arrive at the same end.    It appears to me
absurd to waste life in preparing to live.
Would it not now be possible to arrange your
business in such a manner as to avoid the inquietudes, of- which I have had my share since
your departure? Is it not possible to enter into
business as an employment necessary to keep
the faculties awake, and (to sink a little in the
expressions) the pot boiling, without suffering
what must ever be considered as a secondary
object, to engross the mind, and drive sentiment
and affection out of the heart?
I am in a hurry to give this letter to the
person who has promised to forward it with
-   's.  I wish then, to counteract, in some
measure, what he has doubtless recommended
most warmly.
Stay, my friend, whilst it is absolutely necessary. I will give you no tenderer name, though



Letters to Imlay.

79

it glows at my heart, unless you come the
moment the settling the present objects permit.
I do not consent to your taking any other journey,
or the little woman and I will be off, the Lord
knows where. But, as I had rather owe everything to your affection, and, I may add, to your
reason (for this immoderate desire of wealth,
which makes -    so eager to have you remain,
is contrary to your principles of action), I will
not importune you. I will only tell you that I
long to see you, and, being at peace with you, I
shall be hurt, rather than made angry, by delays.
Having suffered so much in life, do not be surprised if I sometimes, when left to myself, grow
gloomy, and suppose that it was all a dream,
and that my happiness is not to last. I say
happiness, because remembrance retrenches all
the dark shades of the picture.
My little one begins to show her teeth, and
use her legs. She wants you to bear your part
in the nursing business, for I am fatigued with
dancing her, and yet she is not satisfied; she



80        Mary Wollstonecrajt.
wants you to thank her mother for taking such
care of her, as you only can.
Yours truly,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

81

LETTER XXX.
[PARIS, I794.]
December 29.
THOUGH I suppose you have later intelligence, yet, as -  has just informed me that
he has an opportunity of sending immediately
to you, I take advantage of it to inclose you
*      *      *      *      *
How I hate this crooked business! This
intercourse with the world, which obliges one
to see the worst side of human nature! Why
cannot you be content with the object you had
first in view when you entered into this wearisome labyrinth? I know very well that you
have imperceptibly been drawn on; yet why
does one project, successful or abortive, only
give place to two others? Is it not sufficient
to avoid poverty? I am contented to do my



82

8 Mary Wollstonecraft.

part; and, even here, sufficient to escape from
wretchedness is not difficult to obtain. And,
let me tell you, I have my project also, and if
you do not soon return, the little girl and I will
take care of ourselves; we will not accept any
of your cold kindness-your distant civilitiesno; not we.
This is but half jesting, for I am really tormented by the desire which -     manifests to
have you remain where you are. Yet why do I
talk to you? If he can persuade you, let him!
for, if you are not happier with me, and your
own wishes do not make you throw aside these
eternal projects, I am above using any arguments, though reason as well as affection seems
to offer them, if our affection be mutual, they
will occur to you, and you will act accordingly.
Since my arrival here, I have found the
German lady of whom you have heard me
speak. Her first child died in the month; but
she has another about the age of my Fanny, a
fine little creature. They are still but contriving



Letters to Imlay.

8 3

to live-earning their daily bread-yet, though
they are but just above poverty, I envy them.
She is a tender, affectionate mother, fatigued
even by her attention. However, she has an
affectionate husband in her turn to render her
care light, and to share her pleasure.
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, in search of what we
may never enjoy. It is your own maxim to
(" live in the present moment." If you do, stay,
for God's sake; but tell me the truth-if not.
tell me when I may expect to see you, and let
me not be always vainly looking for you, till I
grow sick at heart.
Adieu! I am a little hurt. I must take my
darling to my bosom to comfort me.

G2



84

Mary    Wollstonec raft.

LETTER XXXI.
[PARIS, 1794-]
December 30.
SHOULD you receive three or four of the
letters at once which I have written lately, do
not think of Sir John Brute, for I do not mean
to wife you. I only take advantage of every
occasion, that one out of three of my epistles
may reach your hands, and inform you that I
am  not of.--  's opinion, who talks till he
makes me angry, of the necessity of your staying two or three months longer. I do not like
this life of continual inquietude, and, entre nous,
I am determined to try to earn some money
here myself, in order to convince you that, if
you choose to run about the world to get a
fortune, it is for yourself, for the little girl and I
will live without your assistance, unless you are



Letters to Imlay.

85

with us. I may be termed proud; be it so, but I
will never abandon certain principles of action.
The common run of men have such an ignoble
way of thinking, that, if they debauch their
hearts, and prostitute their persons, following
perhaps a gust of inebriation, they suppose the
wife, slave rather, whom they maintain, has no
right to complain, and ought to receive the
sultan, whenever he deigns to return, with open
arms, though his have been polluted by half an
hundred promiscuous amours during his absence.
I consider fidelity and constancy as two
distinct things; yet the former is necessary to
give life to the other, and such a degree of
respect do I think due to myself, that, if only
probity, which is a good thing in its place, brings
you back, never return!-for if a wandering of
the heart, or even a caprice of the imagination
detains you, there is an end of all my hopes of
happiness. I could not forgive it if I would.
I have gotten into a melancholy mood, you
perceive. You know my opinion of men in



86

Mary    Wollsto;ccraft.

general; you know that I think them systematic
tyrants, and that it is the rarest thing in the
world to meet with a man with sufficient delicacy
of feeling to govern desire. When I am thus sad
I lament that my little darling, fondly as I doat
on her, is a girl. I am sorry to have a tie to a
world that for me is ever sown with thorns.
You will call this an ill-humoured letter, when
in fact, it is the strongest proof of affection I can
give, to dread to lose you. -  has taken such
pains to convince me that you must and ought
to stay, that it has inconceivably depressed my
spirits. You have always known my opinion. I
have ever declared, that two people who mean to
live together ought not to be long separated. If
certain things are more necessary to you than me
-search for them. Say but one word, and you
shall never hear of me more. If not, for God's
sake let us struggle with poverty - with any
evil, but these continual inquietudes of business,
which I have been told were to last but a few
months, though every day the end appears more



Letters to imlay.           87
distant! This is the first letter in this strain
that I have determined to forward to you; the
rest lie by, because I was unwilling to give you
pain, and I should not now write if I did not
think that there would be no conclusion to the
schemes, which demand, as I am told, your
presence.



88

Mary   Wollstonecraft.

LETTER XXXII.
[PARIS, 1795.1
yanuary 9.
I JUST now received one of your hasty notes;
for business so entirely occupies you, that you
have not time, or sufficient command of thought,
to write letters. Beware! you seem to be got
into a whirl of projects and schemes, which are
drawing you into a gulf, that, if it do not absorb
your happiness, will infallibly destroy mine.
Fatigued during my youth by the most
arduous struggles, not only to obtain independence, but to render myself useful, not merely
pleasure, for which I had the most lively taste,I mean the simple pleasures that flow from
passion and affection,-escaped me, but the most
melancholy views of life were impressed by a
disappointed heart on my mind. Since I knew



Letters to Imlay.

89

you I have been endeavouring to go back to
my former nature, and have allowed some time
to glide away, winged with the delight which
only spontaneous enjoyment can give. Why
have you so soon dissolved the charm?
I am really unable to bear the continual
inquietude which your and -  's never-ending
plans produce. This you may term want of
firmness, but you are mistaken; I have still
sufficient firmness to pursue my principle of
action. The present misery, I cannot find a
softer word to do justice to my feelings, appears
to me unnecessary, and therefore I have not
firmness to support it as you may think I ought.
I should have been content, and still wish, to
retire with you to a farm. My God! anything
but these continual anxieties, anything but commerce, which debases the mind, and roots out
affection from the heart.
I do not mean to complain of subordinate
inconveniences; yet I will simply observe, that,
led to expect you every week, I did not make



90

M9 ary  TWo'lstonecraft.

the arrangements required by the present circumstances, to procure the necessaries of life.
In order to have them, a servant, for that purpose
only, is indispensable. The want of wood has
made me catch the most violent cold I ever had;
and my head is so disturbed by continual coughing, that I am unable to write without stopping
frequently to recollect myself. This however,
is one of the common evils which must be borne
with-bodily pain does not touch the heart,
though it fatigues the spirits.
Still, as you talk of your return, even in
February, doubtingly, I have determined, the
moment the weather changes, to wean my
child. It is too soon for her to begin to divide
sorrow! And as one has well said, "despair
is a freeman," we will go and seek our fortune
together.
This is not a caprice of the moment, for your
absence has given new weight to some conclusions that I was very reluctantly forming before
you left me. I do not choose to be a secondary



Lellers to Imlay.           9'
object. If your feelings were in unison with
mine, you would not sacrifice so much to
visionary prospects of future advantage.



92

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       XXXIII.
[PARIS, 1795.]
yanuary 15.
I WAS just going to begin my letter with the
fag end of a song, which would only have told
you, what I may as well say simply, that it is
pleasant to forgive those we love.   I have
received your two letters, dated the 26th and
28th of December, and my anger died away.
You can scarcely conceive the effect some of
your letters have produced on me. After longing to hear from you during a tedious interval
of suspense, I have seen a superscription written
by you. Promising myself pleasure, and feeling emotion, I have laid it by me, till the person
who brought it, left the room,-when, behold!
on opening it, I have found only half-a-dozen



Letters to     mZlay.

93

hasty lines, that have damped all the rising
affection of my soul.
Well, now for businessMy animal is well; I have not yet taught her
to eat, but nature is doing the business. I gave
her a crust to assist the cutting of her teeth;
and now she has two, she makes good use of
them to gnaw a crust, biscuit, &c. You would
laugh to see her; she is just like a little squirrel;
she will guard a crust for two hours; and, after
fixing her eye on an object for some time, dart
on it with an aim as sure as a bird of preynothing can equal her life and spirits. I suffer
from a cold; but it does not affect her. Adieu!
Do not forget to love us-and come soon to tell
us that you do.



94

iary    Wollstonecraft.

LETTER XXXIV.
[PARIS, 1795.]1
7anuary 30.
FROM the purport of your last letters, I should
suppose that this will scarcely reach you; and
I have already written so many letters, that you
have either not received, or neglected to acknowledge, I do not find it pleasant, or rather
I have no inclination, to go over the same
ground again. If you have received them, and
are still detained by new projects, it is useless
for me to say any more on the subject. I have
done with it for ever; yet I ought to remind
you that your pecuniary interest suffers by your
absence.
For my part, my head is turned giddy, by



Letlers to Imlay.

95

only hearing of plans to make money, and my
contemptuous feelings have sometimes burst
out. I therefore was glad that a violent cold
gave me a pretext to stay at home, lest I should
have uttered unseasonable truths.
My child is well, and the spring will perhaps
restore me to myself. I have endured many
inconveniences this winter, which I should be
ashamed to mention, if they had been unavoidable. "The secondary pleasures of life," yoii
say, "are very necessary to my comfort:" it
may be so; but I have ever considered them
as secondary. If therefore you accuse me ot
wanting the resolution necessary to bear the
common evils of life, I should answer that I
have not fashioned my mind to sustain them,
because I would avoid them, cost what it would.
Adieu!



96

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

LETTER XXXV.
[PARIS, 1795.]
February 9.
THE melancholy presentiment has for some
time hung on my spirits, that we were parted
for ever; and the letters I received this day,
by Mr. --, convince me that it was not without foundation.  You allude to some other
letters, which I suppose have miscarried; for
most of those I have got, were only a few hasty
lines, calculated to wound the tenderness the
sight of the superscriptions excited.
I mean not however to complain; yet so
many feelings are struggling for utterance, and
agitating a heart almost bursting with anguish,
that I find it very difficult to write with any
degree of coherence.
You left me indisposed, though you have



Letters to Imlay.

97

taken no notice of it; and the most fatiguing
journey I ever had, contributed to continue it.
However, I recovered my health; but a neglected
cold, and continual inquietude during the last
two months, have reduced me to a state of
weakness I never before experienced. Those
who did not know that the canker-worm was at
work at the core, cautioned me about suckling
my child too long. God preserve this poor
child, and render her happier than her mother!
But I am wandering from my subject: indeed
my head turns giddy, when I think that all the
confidence I have had in the affection of others
is come to this. I did not expect this blow from
you. I have done my duty to you and my
child; and if I am not to have any return of
affection to reward me, I have the sad consolation of knowing that I deserved a better fate.
My soul is weary, I am sick at heart; and, but
for this little darling, I would cease to care
about a life, which is now stripped of every
charm.
if



98

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

You see how stupid I am, uttering declamation, when I meant simply to tell you, that I
consider your requesting me to come to you,
as merely dictated by honour. Indeed I scarcely
understand you. You request me to come, and
then tell me that you have not given up all
thoughts of returning to this place.
When I determined to live with you, I was
only governed by affection.   I would share
poverty with you, but I turn with affright from
the sea of trouble on which you are entering.
I have certain principles of action; I know
what I look for to found my happiness on. It
is not money. With you I wished for sufficient
to procure the comforts of life, as it is, less will
do,   I can still exert myself to obtain the
necessaries of life for my child, and she does not
want more at present. I have two or three plans
in my head to earn our subsistence; for do not
suppose that, neglected by you, I will lie under
obligations of a pecuniary kind to you! No; I
would sooner submit to menial service.     I



Letters to      imlay.

99

wanted the support of your affection; that gone,
all is over! I did not think, when I complained
of --  's contemptible avidity to accumulate
money, that he would have dragged you into
his schemes.
I cannot write. I inclose a fragment of a
letter, written soon after your departure, and
another which tenderness made me keep back
when it was written. You will see then the sentiments of a calmer, though not a more determined moment. Do not insult me by saying,
that " our being together is paramount to every
other consideration! " Were it, you would not
be running after a bubble, at the expense of my
peace of mind.
Perhaps this is the last letter you will ever
receive from me.

H 2



I 00

IMa;y TWollstonecraft.

LETTER XXXVI.
[PARIS, 1795.1
February o0.
You talk of "permanent views and future comfort "-not for me, for I am dead to hope. The
inquietudes of the last winter have finished the
business, and my heart is not only broken, but
my constitution destroyed. I conceive myself
in a galloping consumption, and the continual
anxiety I feel at the thought of leaving my
child, feeds the fever that nightly devours me.
It is on her account that I again write to you, to
conjure you, by all that you hold sacred, to leave
her here with the German lady you may have
heard me mention! She has a child of the
same age, and they may be brought up together,
as I wish her to be brought up. I shall write
more fully on the subject. To facilitate this, I



Letters to Imlay.

IO0

shall give up my present lodgings, and go into
the same house.   I can live much cheaper
there, which is now become an object. I have
had 3,000 livres from, and I shall take one
more, to pay my servant's wages, &c., and then
I shall endeavour to procure what I want by
my own exertions. I shall entirely give up the
acquaintance of the Americans.
S and I have not been on good terms for
a long time.  Yesterday he very unmanlily
exulted over me, on account of your determination to stay. I had provoked it, it is true, by
some asperities against commerce which have
dropped from me when we have argued about
the propriety of your remaining where you are;
and it is no matter, I have drunk too deep of
the bitter cup to care about trifles.
When you first entered into these plans, you
bounded your views to the gaining of a thousand
pounds. It was sufficient to have procured a
farm in America, which would have been an
independence. You find now that you did not



102        Mary   Wollstonecraft.
know yourself, and that a certain situation in
life is more necessary to you than you imagined
-more necessary than an uncorrupted heart.
For a year or two you may procure yourself
what you call pleasure; but, in the solitude of
declining life, I shall be remembered with regret
-I was going to say with remorse, but checked
my pen.
As I have never concealed the nature of my
connection with you, your reputation will not
suffer. I shall never have a confident; I am
content with the approbation of my own mind;
and, if there be a searcher of hearts, mine will
not be despised. Reading what you have written
relative to the desertion of women, I have often
wondered how theory and practice could be so
different, till I recollected that the sentiments
of passion, and the resolves of reason are very
distinct. As to my sisters, as you are so continually hurried with business, you need not
write to them; I shall, when my mind is calmer.
God bless you! Adieu!



Letters to Imlay.         Io3
This has been such a period of barbarity and
misery, I ought not to complain of having my
share. I wish one moment that I had never
heard of the cruelties that have been practised
here, and the next, envy the mothers who have
been killed with their children. Surely I had
suffered enough in life, not to be cursed with a
fondness, that burns up the vital stream I am
imparting. You will think me mad: I would I
were so, that I could forget my misery-so that
my head or heart would be still.



10o4

Mlary    Vollstonecraft.

LETTER XXXVII.
[PARIS, 1795.]
February 19.
WHEN I first received your letter, putting oft
your return to an indefinite time, I felt so hurt
that I know not what I wrote. I am       now
calmer, though it was not the kind of wound
over which time has the quickest effect; on the
contrary, the more I think, the sadder I grow.
Society fatigues me inexpressibly. So much so,
that finding fault with everyone, I have only
reason enough to discover that the fault is in
myself. My child alone interests me, and, but
for her, I should not take any pains to recover
my health.
As it is, I shall wean her, and try if by that
step (to which I feel a repugnance, for it is
my only solace) I can get rid of my cough.



Letters to Imlay.

Io5

Physicians talk much of the danger attending
any complaint on the lungs, after a woman has
suckled for some months. They lay a stress also
on the necessity of keeping the mind tranquiland, my God! how has mine been harrassed! But
whilst the caprices of other women are gratified,
" the wind of heaven not suffered to visit them
too rudely," I have not found a guardian angel,
in heaven or on earth, to ward off sorrow or care
from my bosom.
What sacrifices have you not made for a
woman you did not respect! But I will not go
over this ground. I want to tell you that I do
not understand you. You say that you have
not given up all thoughts of returning hereand I know that it will be necessary-nay is. I
cannot explain myself; but if you have not lost
your memory, you will easily divine my meaning. What! is our life then only to be made
up of separations? and am I only to return to
a country, that has not merely lost all charms
for me, but for which I feel a repugnance that



io6

Mary    WoIllstonecraft.

almost amounts to horror, only to be left there
a prey to it!
Why is it so necessary that I should return?
brought up here, my girl would be freer. Indeed, expecting you to join us, I had formed
some plans of usefulness that have now vanished
with my hopes of happiness.
In the bitterness of my heart, I could complain
with reason, that I am left here dependent on a
man, whose avidity to acquire a fortune has
rendered him callous to every sentiment connected with social or affectionate emotions.
With a brutal insensibility, he.cannot help displaying the pleasure your determination to stay
gives him, in spite of the effect it is visible it has
had on me.
Till I can earn money, I shall endeavour to
borrow some, for I want to avoid asking him
continually for the sum necessary to maintain
me. Do not mistake me, I have never been
refused. Yet I have gone half a dozen times to
the house to ask for it, and come away without



Lelters to Imlay.          107o
speaking-you must guess why.     Besides, I
wish to avoid hearing of the eternal projects to
which you have sacrificed my peace-not rememnbering-but I will be silent for ever


108

o8 Mary Wolls/tonecraft.

LETTER       XXXVIII.
[HAVRE, I795.]
Atril 7.
HERE I am at Havre, on the wing towards
you, and I write now only to tell you that you
may expect me in the course of three or four
days; for I shall not attempt to give vent to
the different emotions which agitate my heart.
You may term a feeling, which appears to me
to be a degree of delicacy that naturally arises
from sensibility, pride. Still I cannot indulge
the very affectionate tenderness which glows in
my bosom, without trembling, till I see, by your
eyes, that it is mutual.
I sit, lost in thought, looking at the sea; and
tears rush into my eyes when I find that I am
cherishing any fond expectations.  I have indeed been so unhappy this winter, I find it as



Lelters to Imlay.

Iog

difficult to acquire fresh hopes, as to regain
tranquillity. Enough of this; lie still, foolish
heart! But for the little girl, I could almost
wish that it should cease to beat, to be no more
alive to the anguish of disappointment.
Sweet little creature! I deprived myself of
my only pleasure when I weaned her, about ten
days ago. I am, however, glad I conquered my
repugnance. It was necessary it should be done
soon, and I did not wish to embitter the renewal
of your acquaintance with her, by putting it off
till we met. It was a painful exertion to me, and
I thought it best to throw this inquietude with
the rest, into the sack that I would fain throw
over my shoulder. I wished to endure it alone,
in short. Yet, after sending her to sleep in the
next room for three or four nights, you cannot
think with what joy I took her back again to
sleep in my bosom!
I suppose I shall find you when I arrive, for
I do not see any necessity for your coming
to me. Pray inform   Mr. -     that I have his



1 1J0     Mary   WollstonecrafI.
little friend with me. My wishing to oblige
him made me put myself to some inconvenience,
and delay my departure, which was irksome to
me, who have not quite so much philosophy, I
would not for the world say indifference, as you.
God bless you!
Yours truly,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

III

LETTER XXXIX.
[1795].
BRIGHTHELMSTONE, Saturday, April I.
HERE we are, my love, and mean to set out
early in the morning; and, if I can find you, I
hope to dine with you to-morrow. I shall drive
to -   's hotel, where -  tells me you have
been-and, if you have left it, I hope you will
take care to be there to receive us.
I have brought with me Mr. - 's little friend,
and a girl whom I like to take care of our little
darling, not on the way, for that fell to my share.
But why do I write about trifles? or anything?
are we not to meet soon? What does your
heart say?
Yours truly,
MARY.
I have weaned my Fanny, and she is now
eating away at the white bread.



112       Mary Wollsstonecrafl.
LETTER XL.
['795.1
LONDON, Friday, May 22.
I HAVE just received your affectionate letter,
and am distressed to think that I have added
to your embarrassments at this troublesome
juncture, when the exertion of all the faculties
of your mind appears to be necessary to extricate
you out of your pecuniary difficulties. I suppose
it was something relative to the circumstance
you have mentioned, which made - request to
see me to-day, to converse about a matter of great
importance. Be that as it may, his letter (such
is the state of my spirits) inconceivably alarmed
me, and rendered the last night as distressing,
as the two former had been.
I have laboured to calm my mind since you
left me. Still I find that tranquillity is not to



Letters to lmlay.

113

be obtained by exertion; it is a feeling so
different from the resignation of despair! I
am, however, no longer angry with you, nor will
I ever utter another complaint; there are arguments which convince the reason, whilst they
carry death to the heart. We have had too
many cruel explanations, that not only cloud
every future prospect, but embitter the remembrances which alone give life to affection. Let
the subject never be revived!
It seems to me that I have not only lost the
hope, but the power of being happy. Every
emotion is now sharpened by anguish. My
soul has been shook, and my tone of feelings
destroyed. I have gone out and sought for
dissipation, if not amusement, merely to fatigue
still more, I find, my irritable nerves--
My friend-my dear friend-examine yourself
well. I am out of the question; for, alas! I am
nothing, and discover what you wish to dowhat will render you most comfortable-or, to
be more explicit, whether you desire to live



11 4       Mary   Wollslonecraft.
with me, or part for ever! When you can once
ascertain it, tell me frankly, I conjure you!
for, believe me, I have very involuntarily interrupted your peace.
I shall expect you to dinner on Mon-iday, and
will endeavour to assume a cheerful face to
greet you; at any rate I will avoid conversations, which only tend to harrass your feelings,
because I am most affectionately yours,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

115

LETTER XLI.
May 27, 1795-1
Wednesday.
I INCLOSE you the letter which you desired
me to forward, and I am tempted very laconically to wish you a good morning, not because
I am angry, or have nothing to say; but to
keep down a wounded spirit. I shall make
every effort to calm my mind, yet a strong
conviction seems to whirl round in the very
centre of my brain, which, like the fiat of fate,
emphatically assures me that grief has a firm
hold of my heart.
God bless you!
Yours sincerely,
MARY,

S2



II6

6 Mary Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       XLII.
[HULL, May 27, 1795.]
Wednesday, Two o'clock.
WE arrived here about an hour ago. I am
extremely fatigued with the child, who would
not rest quiet with anybody but me during the
night; and now we are here in a comfortless,
damp room, in a sort of a tomb-like house.
This, however, I shall quickly remedy, for, when
I have finished this letter, (which I must do
immediately, because the post goes out early),
I shall sally forth, and enquire about a vessel
and an inn.
I will not distress you by talking of the
depression of my spirits, or the struggle I had
to keep alive my dying heart. It is even now
too full to allow me to write with composure.Imlay,-dear Imlay, am I always to be tossed



Letters to Imlay.

117

about thus? shall I never find an asylum to
rest contented in? How can you love to fly
about continually, dropping down, as it were,
in a new world-cold and strange-every other
day! Why do you not attach those tender
emotions round the idea of ho'me, which even
now dim my eyes? This alone is affectionevery thing else is only humanity, electrified by
sympathy.
I will write to you again to-morrow, when I
know how long I am to be detained, and hope
to get a letter quickly from you, to cheer yours
sincerely and affectionately,
MARY.
Fanny is playing near me in high spirits.
She was so pleased with the noise of the mailhorn, she has been continually imitating it.
Adieu!



i 18

Maiy    Wolls/onecrafl.

LETTER       XLIII.
[HULL, May 28, 1795.]
Thursday,
A LADY has just sent to offer to take me to
Beverley. I have then only a moment to exclaim against the vague manner in which people
give information.
But why talk of inconveniences, which are in
fact trifling, when compared with the sinking of
the heart I have felt! I did not intend to touch
this painful string. God bless you!
Yours truly,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

119ig

LETTER XLIV.
[HULL, 1795.]
Fridaye, 7une 12.
I HAVE just received yours dated the 9th,
which I suppose was a mistake, for it could
scarcely have loitered so long on the road. The
general observations which apply to the state of
your own mind, appear to me just, as far as they
go; and I shall always consider it as one of
the most serious misfortunes of my life, that I
did not meet you, before satiety had rendered
your senses so fastidious, as almost to close up
every tender avenue of sentiment and affection
that leads to your sympathetic- heart.  You
have a heart, my friend, yet, hurried away by
the impetuosity of inferior feelings, you have
sought in vulgar excesses for that gratification
which only the heart can bestow.



120

MaI  y  Wollstonecraft.

The common run of men, I know, with strong
health and gross appetites, must have variety
to banish ennui, because the imagination never
lends its magic wand, to convert appetite into
love, cemented by according reason. Ah! my
friend, you know not the ineffable delight, the
exquisite pleasure, which arises from an unison
of affection and desire, when the whole soul and
senses are abandoned to a lively imagination,
that renders every emotion delicate and rapturous. Yes; these are emotions, over which
satiety has no power, and the recollection of
which, even disappointment cannot disenchant;
but they do not exist without self-denial. These
emotions, more or less strong, appear to me
to be the distinctive characteristic of genius,
the foundation of taste, and of that exquisite
relish for the beauties of nature, of which the
common herd of eaters and drinkers and childbegetters certainly have no idea. You will smile
at an observation that has just occurred to me:I consider those minds as the most strong and



Lellers to Imlay.

I2I

original whose imagination acts as the stimulus
to their senses.
Well! you will ask what is the result of all this
reasoning? Why, I cannot help thinking that
it is possible for you, having great strength of
mind, to return to nature, and regain a sanity of
constitution, and purity of feeling, which would
open your heart to me. I would fain rest there!
Yet, convinced more than ever of the sincerity
and tenderness of my attachment to you, the
involuntary hopes which a determination to live
has revived, are not sufficiently strong to dissipate the cloud that despair has spread over
futurity. I have looked at the sea, and at my
child, hardly daring to own to myself the secret
wish, that it might become our tomb; and that
the heart, still so alive to anguish, might there
be quieted by death. At this moment ten
thousand complicated sentiments press for utterance, weigh on my heart, and obscure my sight.
Are we ever to meet again? and will you
endeavour to render that meeting happier than



122

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

the last? Will you endeavour to restrain your
caprices, in order to give vigour to affection, and
to give play to the checked sentiments that
nature intended should expand your heart? I
cannot indeed, without agony, think of your
bosom's being continually contaminated; and
bitter are the tears which exhaust my eyes,
when I recollect why my child and I are forced
to stray from the asylum, in which, after so
many storms, I had hoped to rest, smiling at
angry fate. These are not common sorrows;
nor can you perhaps conceive how much active
fortitude it requires to labour perpetually to
blunt the shafts of disappointment.
Examine now yourself, and ascertain whether
you can live in something like a settled style.
Let our confidence in future be unbounded;
consider whether you find it necessary to sacrifice me to what you term "the zest of life;" and,
when you have once a clear view of your own
motives, of your own incentive to action, do not
deceive me!



Letters to Imlay.

123

The train of thoughts which the writing of
this epistle awoke, makes me so wretched that I
must take a walk, to rouse and calm my mind.
But first, let me tell you, that, if you really wish
to promote my happiness, you will endeavour to
give me as much as you can of yourself. You
have great mental energy, and your judgment
seems to me so just that it is only the dupe of
your inclination in discussing one subject.
The post does not go out to-day. To-morrow
I may write more tranquilly. I cannot yet say
when the vessel will sail in which I have determined to depart.
[The passage below in regard to a destroyed
document, refers to some letters which were
written under a purpose of suicide and not
intended to be opened till afterwards.]
[HULL, 7une 13, 1795.]
Saturyday Morning.
YOUR second letter reached me about an hour
ago. You were certainly wrong in supposing
that I did not mention you with respect; though,



124

MIary Wollstonecraft.

without my being conscious of it, some sparks
of resentment may have animated the gloom of
despair-Yes; with less affection, I should have
been more respectful.   However the regard
which I have for you is so unequivocal to
myself, I imagine that it must be sufficiently
obvious to everybody else. Besides, the only
letter I intended for the public eye was to -,
and that I destroyed from delicacy before you
saw them, because it was only written (of course
warmly in your praise) to prevent any odium
being thrown on you.
I am harrassed by your embarrassments, and
shall certainly use all my efforts to make the
business terminate to your satisfaction in which
I am engaged.
My friend-my dearest friend-I feel my fate
united to yours by the most sacred principles of
my soul, and the yearnings of-yes, I will say
it-a true, unsophisticated heart.
Yours most truly,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

125

If the wind be fair, the captain talks of sailing
on Monday; but I am afraid I shall be detained
some days longer. At any rate, continue to
write (I want this support) till you are sure I am
where I cannot expect a letter; and, if any
should arrive after my departure, a gentleman
(not Mr. -  's friend, I promise you) from whom
I have received great civilities, will send them
after me.
Do write by every occasion! I am anxious
to hear how your affairs go on; and, still more,
to be convinced that you are not separating
yourself from  us.  For my little darling is
calling papa, and adding her parrot wordCome, Come! And will you not come, and let
us exert ourselves? I shall recover all my
energy, when I am convinced that my exertions
will draw us more closely together. One more
adieu!



126

2 Mary Wollstonecraft.

LETTER XLV.
[HULL, 1795.]
Sunday, Yune 14.
I RATHER expected to hear from you to-day.
I wish you would not fail to write to me for a
little time, because I am not quite well. Whether
I have any good sleep or not, I wake in the
morning in violent fits of trembling, and in
spite of all my efforts, the child-everythingfatigues me, in which I seek for solace or
amusement.
Mr. -    forced on me a letter to a physician
of this place; it was fortunate, for I should
otherwise have had some difficulty to obtain
the necessary information. His wife is a pretty
woman (I can admire, you know, a pretty
woman, when I am alone,) and he an intelligent
and rather interesting man. They have behaved



Letters to Imlay.

127

to me with great hospitality; and poor Fanny
was never so happy in her life as amongst their
young brood.
They took me in their carriage to Beverley,
and I ran over my favourite walks with a
vivacity that would have astonished you. The
town did not please me quite so well as
formerly.  It appeared so diminutive; and
when I found that many of the inhabitants had
lived in the same houses ever since I left it,
I could not help wondering how they could thus
have vegetated, whilst I was running over a
world of sorrow, snatching at pleasure, and
throwing off prejudices. The place where I at
present am, is much improved; but it is astonishing what strides aristocracy and fanaticism
have made since I resided in this country.
The wind does not appear inclined to change,
so I am still forced to linger. When do you
think that you shall be able to set out for
France? I do not entirely like the aspect of
your affairs, and still less your connections on



128       MIary Wollstonecraft.
either side of the water. Often do I sigh, when
I think of your entanglements in business, and
your extreme restlessness of mind. Even now I
am almost afraid to ask you, whether the pleasure of being free does not overbalance the pain
you felt at parting with me? Sometimes I
indulge the hope that you will feel me necessary
to you, or why should we meet again? but the
moment after, despair damps my rising spirits,
aggravated by the emotions of tenderness, which
ought to soften the cares of life. God bless you!
Yours sincerely and affectionately,
MARY.



Lellers to Imlay.

129

LETTER       XLVI.
[HULL, 1795.3
June 15.
I WANT to know how you have settled with
respect to -. In short, be very particular in
your account of all your affairs; let our confidence, my dear, be unbounded. The last time
we were separated, was a separation indeed on
your part. Now you have acted more ingenuously, let the most affectionate interchange
of sentiments fill up the aching void of disappointment. I almost dread that your plans will
prove abortive, yet, should the most unlucky
turn send you home to us, convinced that a true
friend is a treasure, I should not much mind
having to struggle with the world again. Accuse
me not of pride-yet sometimes, when nature has
opened my heart to its author, I have wondered
K



130      wMary    Wollstonecraft.
that you did not set a higher value on my
heart.
Receive a kiss from Fanny, I was going to
add, if you will not take one from me, and believe me yours
Sincerely,
MARY.
The wind still continues in the same quarter.



Lelle,;-s /o Aday.~z~

'13

LETTER       XLVII.
[HULL June 16, 1795.]
Tuesday JMorning.
THE captain has just sent to inform me that
I must be on board in the course of a few hours.
I wished to have stayed till to-morrow.    It
would have been a comfort to me to have
received another letter from you. Should one
arrive, it will be sent after me.
My spirits are agitated, I scarcely know why.
The quitting England seems to be a fresh pa:rting. Surely you will not forget me. A thousand weak forebodings assault my soul, and the
state of my health renders me sensible to everything. It is surprising that in London, in a
continual conflict of mind, I was still growing
better, whilst here, bowed down by the despotic
hand of fate, forced into resignation by despair,
K 2



132

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

I seem to be fading away-perishing beneath a
cruel blight, that withers up all my faculties.
The child is perfectly well. My hand seems
unwilling to add adieu! I know not why this
inexpressible sadness has taken possession of
me. It is not a presentiment of ill. Yet, having
been so perpetually the sport of disappointment,
having a heart that has been as it were a mark
for misery, I dread to meet wretchedness in
some new shape. Well, let it come, I care not!
What have I to dread, who have so little to hope
for! God bless you; I am most affectionately
and sincerely yours,
MARY.



Letters to Irlay.

I33

LETTER       XLVIII.
[Mune 17, 1795-]
Wednesday Morning.
I WAS hurried on board yesterday about three
o'clock, the wind having changed. But before
evening it veered round to the old point; and
here we are, in the midst of mists and water,
only taking advantage of the tide to advance a
few miles.
You will scarcely suppose that I left the town
with reluctance, yet it was even so, for I wished
to receive another letter from you, and I felt
pain at parting, for ever perhaps, from the
amiable family who had treated me with so
much hospitality and kindness. They will probably send me your letter if it arrives this
morning; for here we are likely to remain, I am
afraid to think how long.



134

Mary     Volls/on ecraft.

The vessel is very commodious, and the captain
a civil, open-hearted, kind of man. There being
no other passengers, I have the cabin to myself,
which is pleasant; and I have brought a few
books with me to beguile weariness; but I seem
inclined rather to employ the dead moments of
suspense in writing some effusions than in
reading.
What are you about? How are your affairs
going on? It may be a long time before you
answer these questions. My dear friend, my
heart sinks within me! Why am I forced thus
to struggle continually with my affections and
feelings? Ah! why are those affections and
feelings the source of so much misery, when
they seem to have been given to vivify my
heart and extend my usefulness! But I must
riot dwell on this subject.  Will you not
endeavour to cherish all the affection you can
for me? What am I saying? Rather forget
me, if you can-if other gratifications are dearer
to you. How is every remembrance of mine



Letters to Imlay.         1 35
embittered by disappointment? What a world
is this! They only seem happy who never
look beyond sensual or artificial enjoyments.
Adieu!
Fanny begins to play with the cabin-boy, and
is as gay as a lark. I will labour to be tranquil;
and am in every mood,
Yours sincerely,
MARY.



I36

Ilary   Wollstonecraft.

LETTER XLIX.
[yune 18, 17951.]
Thursday.
HERE I am still, and I have just received your
letter of Monday by the pilot, who promised
to bring it to me, if we were detained, as he
expected, by the wind. It is indeed wearisome
to be thus tossed about without going forward.
I have a violent head-ache, yet I am obliged to
take care of the child, who is a little tormented
by her teeth, because Marguerite is unable to do
anything, she is rendered so sick by the motion
of the ship as we ride at anchor.
These are, however, trifling inconveniences,
compared with anguish of mind, compared with
the sinking of a broken heart. To tell you the
truth, I never suffered in my life so much from
depression of spirits, from despair. I do not



Letters to Imlay.

i37

sleep, or if I close my eyes, it is to have the
most terrifying dreams, in which I often meet
you with different casts of countenance.
I will not, my dear love, torment you by
dwelling on my sufferings, and will use all my
efforts to calm my mind, instead of deadening
it: at present it is most painfully active. I find
I am not equal to these continual struggles, yet
your letter this morning has afforded me some
comfort, and I will try to revive hope. One
thing let me tell you: when we meet againsurely we are to meet!-it must be to part no
more. I mean not to have the sea between us;
it is more than I can support.
The pilot is hurrying me. God bless you.
In spite of the commodiousness of the vessel,
everything here would disgust my senses, had
I nothing else to think of. "'When the mind's
free, the body's delicate;" mine has been too
much hurt to regard trifles.
Yours most truly,
MARY.



I38

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

LETTER L.
[7une 20, 1795.]
Saturday.
THIS is the fifth dreary day I have been imprisoned by the wind, with every outward object
to disgust the senses, and unable to banish the
remembrances that sadden my heart.
How am I altered by disappointment! When
going to Lisbon, ten years ago, the elasticity of
my mind was sufficient to ward off weariness,
and the imagination still could dip her brush
in the rainbow of fancy, and sketch futurity in
smiling colours. Now I am going towards the
North in search of sunbeams! Will any ever
warm this desolated heart? All nature seems
to frown, or rather mourn with me. Everything
is cold-cold as my expectations! Before I left
the shore, tormented, as I now am, by the Northeast chillers, I could not help exclaiming, Give
me, gracious Heaven! at least genial weather, if



Letters to Imlay.

139

I am never to meet the genial affection that still
warms this agitated bosom, compelling life to
linger there.
I am now going on shore with the captain,
though the weather be rough, to seek for milk,
&c., at a little village, and to take a walk-after
which I hope to sleep-for confined here, surrounded by disagreeable smells, I have lost the
little appetite I had; and I lie awake till thinking almost drives me to the brink of madness,
only to the brink, for I never forget, even in the
feverish slumbers I sometimes fall into, the
misery I am labouring to blunt the sense of,
by every exertion in my power.
Poor Marguerite still continues sick, and
Fanny grows weary when the weather will not
allow her to remain on deck.
I hope this will be the last letter I shall write
from England to you; are you not tired of this
lingering adieu?
Yours truly,
MARY.



140

2da ry   WollsIonecrrff.

LETTER LI.
[HULL, 7une 21, 1795.]
Sunday Morningi
THE captain last night, after I had written
my letter to you intended to be left at a little
village, offered to go to Hull to pass to-day.
We had a troublesome sail; and now I must
hurry on board again, for the wind has changed.
I half expected to find a letter from you here.
Had you written one hap-hazard, it would have
been kind and considerate; you might have
known, had you thought, that the wind would
not permit me to depart. These are attentions
more grateful to the heart than offers of service.
But why do I foolishly continue to look for
them?
Adieu, adieu! My friend-your friendship is
very cold-you see I am hurt. God bless you!



Letters to Imlay.           141
I may perhaps be, some time or other, independent in every sense of the word. Ah! there is
but one sense of it of consequence. I will break
or bend this weak heart, yet even now it is full.
Yours sincerely,
MARY.
The child is well; I did not leave her on
board.



142

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

[A work published by Mary Wollstonecraft in 1796, under the title " Letters
written during a Short Residence in
Sweden, Norway, and Denmark,"
formed a part of the fourteen letters
next following. All, however, that
is here retained is the portion of the
correspondence published by Godwin
in 1798. The journal portion, however interesting, is a mere interruption'
to the personal narrative.]
LETTER LII.
[GOTHENBURG, 1795.]
June 27, Saturday.
I ARRIVED in Gothenburg this afternoon, after
vainly attempting to land at Arendall.        I have
now but a moment, before the post goes out, to
inform you we have got here; though not without considerable difficulty, for we were set ashore
in a boat about twenty miles below.
What I suffered in the vessel I will not now
descant    upon, nor     mention    the  pleasure I
received from the sight of the rocky coast.



Letlers to Imlay.

I43

This morning, however, walking to join the carriage that was to transport us to this place, I fell,
without any previous warning, senseless on the
rocks, and how I escaped with life I can scarcely
guess. I was in a stupor for a quarter of an
hour; the suffusion of blood at last restored, me
to my senses; the contusion is great, and my
brain confused. The child is well.
Twenty miles' ride in the rain, after my accident, has sufficiently deranged me; and here I
could not get a fire to warm me, or anything
warm to eat; the inns are mere stables; I must
nevertheless go to bed. For God's sake, let me
hear from you immediately, my friend! I am
not well, and yet you see I cannot die.
Yours sincerely,
MARY.



I44

' Mary Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       LIII.
[GOTHENBURG, 1795.]
June 29.
I WROTE to you by the last post, to inform
you of my arrival; and I believe I alluded to
the extreme fatigue I endured on ship-board,
owing to Marguerite's illness and the roughness
of the weather. I likewise mentioned to you
my fall, the effects of which I still feel, though I
do not think it will have any serious consequences.
--   will go with me, if I find it necessary to
go to Stromstad. The inns here are so bad, I
was forced to accept an apartment in his house,
I am overwhelmed with civilities on all sides,
and fatigued with the endeavours to amuse me,
from which I cannot escape.
My friend-my friend, I am     not well; a



Letters to Imlay.

i45

deadly weight of sorrow lies heavily on my
heart.  I am again tossed on the troubled
billows of life; and obliged to cope with difficulties, without being buoyed up by the hopes
that alone render them bearable. "How flat,
dull, and unprofitable" appears to me all the
bustle into which I see people here so eagerly
enter! I long every night to go to bed, to hide
my melancholy face -in my pillow; but there is
a canker-worm in my bosom that never sleeps,



146

4/lMary Wollstonecraft.

LETTER LIV.
[SWEDEN, 1795-1
Yuly 1,
I LABOUR in vain to calm my mind-my soul
has been overwhelmed by sorrow and disappointment. Everything fatigues me; this is a
life that cannot last long. It is you who must
determine with respect to futurity; and, when
you have, I will act accordingly-I mean, we
must either resolve to live together or part for
ever; I cannot bear these continual struggles.
But I wish you to examine carefully your own
heart and mind; and, if you perceive the least
chance of being happier without me than with
me, or if your inclination leans capriciously to
that side, do not dissemble; but tell me frankly
that you will never see me more. I will then
adopt the plan I mentioned to you-for we must



Letters to ImTlay.

I47

either live together, or I will be entirely independent.
My heart is so oppressed, I cannot write with
precision. You know however, that what I so
imperfectly express, are not the crude sentiments
of the moment. You can only contribute to
my comfort (it is the consolation I am in need
of) by being with me; and, if the tenderest
friendship is of any value, why will you not look
to me for a degree of satisfaction that heartless
affection cannot bestow?
Tell me then, will you determine to meet me
at Basle? I shall, I should imagine, be at
Hamburg before the close of August; and
after you settle your affairs at Paris, could we
not meet there?
God bless you!
Yours truly,
MARV.
Poor Fanny has suffered during the journey
with her teeth.

L2



148

Mfary    Wollstonecraft.

LETTER LV.
[SWEDEN, 1795.1
July 3 -THERE was a gloominess diffused through
your last letter, the impression of which still
rests on my mind; though, recollecting how
quickly you throw off the forcible feelings of
the moment, I flatter myself it has long since
given place to your usual cheerfulness.
Believe me (and my eyes fill with tears of
tenderness as I assure you) there is nothing I
would not endure in the way of privation, rather
than disturb your tranquillity. If I am fated to
be unhappy, I will labour to hide my sorrows in
my own bosom; and you shall always find me
a faithful, affectionate friend.
I grow more and more attached to my little
girl, and I cherish this affection without fear,



Lellers to I;nlay.

I49

because it must be a long time before it can
become bitterness of soul. She is an interesting creature. On ship-board, how often, as I
gazed at the sea, have I longed to bury my
troubled bosom in the less troubled deep; asserting with Brutus, " that the virtue I had followed
too far, was merely an empty name!" and
nothing but the sight of her-her playful smiles,
which seemed to cling and twine round my
heart-could have stopped me.
What peculiar misery has fallen to my share 1
To act up to my principles, I have laid the
strictest restraint on iny very thoughts. Yes;
not to sully the delicacy of my feelings, I have
reined in my imagination; and started with
affright from every sensation, that stealing with
balmy sweetness into my soul, led me to scent
from afar the fragrance of reviving nature.
My friend, 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



I5o

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

the beauties of nature, poetry, &c., 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. I have examined myself lately with more care than formerly, and find that to deaden is not to calm
the mind. Aiming at tranquillity, I have almost
destroyed all the energy of my soul-almost
rooted out what renders it estimable. Yes, I
have damped that enthusiasm     of character,
which converts the grossest materials into a
fuel that imperceptibly feeds hopes, which aspire
above common enjoyment. Despair, since the
birth of my child, has rendered me stupid; soul
and body seemed to be fading away before the
withering touch of disappointment.
I am now endeavouring to recover myself;
and such is the elasticity of my constitution, and
the purity of the atmosphere here, that health unsought for begins to reanimate my countenance.
I have the sincerest esteem and affection for



Letlers to Imlay.          151
you, but the desire of regaining peace (do you
understand me?) has made me forget the respect
due to my own emotions - sacred emotions,
that are the sure harbingers of the delights I
was formed to enjoy - and shall enjoy, for
nothing can extinguish the heavenly spark.
Still, when we meet again, I will not torment
you, I promise you. I blush when I recollect
my former conduct, and will not in future confound myself with the beings whom I feel to be
my inferiors. I will listen to delicacy, or pride.



I52

Mary     Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       LVI.
[SWEDEN, 1795.1
yuly 4.
I HOPE to hear from you by to-morrow's mail.
My dearest friend 1 I cannot tear my affections
from  you-and, though every remembrance
stings me to the soul, I think of you till I make
allowance for the very defects of character that
have given such a cruel stab to my peace.
Still, however, I am more alive than you have
seen me for a long, long time. I have a degree
of vivacity, even in my grief, which is preferable
to the benumbing stupor that, for the last year,
has frozen up all my faculties. Perhaps this
change is more owing to returning health than
to the vigour of my reason, for in spite of sadness (and surely I have had my share), the
purity of this air, and the being continually out



Letters to Imlay.

i53

in it, for I sleep in the country every night, has
made an alteration in my appearance that really
surprises me. The rosy fingers of health already
streak my cheeks-and I have seen a physical
life in my eyes, after I have been climbing the
rocks, that resembled the fond, credulous hopes
of youth.
With what a cruel sigh have I recollected that
I had forgotten to hope! Reason, or rather
experience, does not thus cruelly damp poor
Fanny's pleasures; she plays all day in the
garden with -   's children, and makes friends
for herself.
Do not tell me that you are happier without
us. Will you not come to us in Switzerland?
Ah, why do not you love us with more sentiment?-why are you a creature of such sympathy, that the warmth of your feelings, or rather
quickness of your senses, hardens your heart?
It is my misfortune that my imagination is perpetually shading your defects, and lending you
charms, whilst the grossness of your senses



154       Mary Wollstonecrafjt.
makes you (call me not vain) overlook graces in
me, that only dignity of mind and the sensibility
of an expanded heart can give. God bless you!
Adieu.



Letters to Imlay.

i55

LETTER LVII.
[SWEDEN, T795-j
7zty 7.
I COULD not help feeling extremely mortified
last post at not receiving a letter from you. My
being at Stromstad was but a chance, and you
might have hazarded it; and would a year ago.
I shall not, however, complain. There are
misfortunes so great as to silence the usual expressions of sorrow. Believe me there is such a
thing as a broken heart! There are characters
whose very energy preys upon them; and who,
ever inclined to cherish by reflection some passion, cannot rest satisfied with the common
comforts of life. I have endeavoured to fly from
myself, and launched into all the dissipation
possible here, only to feel keener anguish, when
alone with my child.



156        Macy    fWollstonecraff.
Still, could anything please me-had not disappointment cut me off from life, this romantic
country, these fine evenings, would interest me.
My God! can anything? and am I ever to feel
alive only to painful sensations? But it cannot
-it shall not last long.
The post is again arrived; I have sent to seek
for letters, only to be wounded to the soul
by a negative. My brain seems on fire. I must
go into the air.



Letters to Imlay.

157

LETTER       LVIII.
[LAURVIG, NORWAY, 1795.]
yuly 14.
I AM now on my journey to Tonsberg. I felt
more at leaving my child than I thought I
should; and, whilst at night I imagined every
instant that I heard the half-formed sounds of
her voice, I asked myself how I could think of
parting with her for ever, of leaving her thus
helpless?
Poor lamb! It may run very well in a tale,
that " God will temper the winds to the shorn
lamb! " but how can I expect that she will be
shielded, when my naked bosom has had to
brave continually the pitiless storm? Yes; I
could add, with poor Lear, What is the war
of elements to the pangs of disappointed affection, and the horror arising from a discovery



158

M5 ary   Wollston;ecrafl.

of a breach of confidence that snaps every social
tie!
All is not right somewhere! When you first
knew me, I was not thus lost. I could still confide, for I opened my heart to you. Of this only
comfort you have deprived me, whilst my happiness, you tell me, was your first object. Strange
want of judgment!
I will not complain; but from the soundness
of your understanding, I am convinced, if you
give yourself leave to reflect, you will also feel
that your conduct to me, so far from being
generous, has not been just. I mean not to
allude to factitious principles of morality; but
to the simple basis of all rectitude. However I
did not intend to argue. Your not writing is
cruel-and my reason is perhaps disturbed by
constant wretchedness.
Poor Marguerite would fain have accompanied
me, out of tenderness; for my fainting, or rather
convulsion, when I landed, and my sudden
changes of countenance since, have alarmed her



Letters to Imlay.           159
so much, that she is perpetually afraid of some
accident. But it would have injured the child
this warm season, as she is cutting her teeth.
I hear not of your having written to me at
Stromstad. Very well! Act as you pleasethere is nothing I fear or care for! When I see
whether I can, or cannot obtain the money I am
come here about, I will not trouble you with
letters to which you do not reply.



i6o

M~fary Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       LIX.
[TONSBERG, NORWAY, 1795.]
7uly 18.
I AM here in Tonsberg, separated from my
child-and here I must remain a month at least,
or I might as well never have come.
I have begun -, which will, I hope, discharge all my obligations of a pecuniary kind.
I am lowered in my own eyes, on account of my
not having done it sooner.
I shall make no further comments on your
silence. God bless you!



Letters to Imlay.

16i

LETTER LX.
[TONSBERG, 1795.].Zly 30.
I HAVE just received two of your letters, dated
the 26th and 30th of June; and you must have
received several from me, informing you of my
detention, and how much I was hurt by your
silence.
Write to me then, my friend, and write explicitly. I have suffered, God knows, since I
left you. Ah! you have never felt this kind of
sickness of heart!  My mind, however, is at
present painfully active, and the sympathy I
feel almost rises to agony, But this is not a
subject of complaint; it has afforded me pleasure
-and reflected pleasure is all I have to hope
M



l62

Miary    Wollsionecraft.

for--if a spark of hope be yet alive in my
forlorn bosom.
I will try to write with a degree of composure.
I wish for us to live together, because I want
you to acquire an habitual tenderness for my
poor girl. I cannot bear to think of leaving her
alone in the world, or that she should only be
protected by your sense of duty. Next to preserving her, my most earnest wish is not to
disturb your peace. I have nothing to expect,
and little to fear, in life. There are wounds that
can never be healed-but they may be allowed
to fester in silence without wincing.
When we meet again, you shall be convinced
that I have more resolution than you give me
credit for. I will not torment you. If I am
destined always to be disappointed and unhappy,
I will conceal the anguish I cannot dissipate;
and the tightened cord of life or reason will at
last snap, and set me free.
Yes; I shall be happy. This heart is worthy
of the bliss its feelings anticipate-and I cannot



Letters to Imlay.

163

even persuade myself, wretched as they have
made me, that my principles and sentiments are
not founded in nature and truth. But to have
done with these subjects.
*      *       *      *       *
I have been seriously employed in this way
since I came to Tonsberg; yet I never was so
much in the air. I walk, I ride on horseback,
row, bathe, and even sleep in the fields; my
health is consequently improved. The child'
Marguerite informs me, is well. I long to be
with her.
Write to me immediately. Were I only to
think of myself, I could wish you to return to
me poor, with the simplicity of character, part
of which you seem lately to have lost, that first
attached to you.
Yours most affectionately,
MARY IMLAY.
I have been subscribing other letters, so I
mechanically did the same to yours.
M 2



164

Alary   Wollslonecraft.

LETTER       LXI.
[TONSBERG, 1795.]
Augzt:t 5.
EMPLOYMENT and exercise have been of great
service to me; and I have entirely recovered the
strength and activity I lost during the time of
my nursing.   I have seldom  been in better
health; and my mind, though trembling to the
touch of anguish, is calmer-yet still the same.
I have, it is true, enjoyed some tranquillity, and
more happiness here, than for a long, long time
past. (I say happiness, for I can give no other
appellation to the exquisite delight this wild
country and fine summer have afforded me.)
Still, on examining my heart, I find that it is so
constituted, I cannot live without some particular affection-I am afraid not without a passion



Letters to Imlay.

165

--and I feel the want of it more in society, than
in solitude.
*      *      *      *      *
Writing to you, whenever an affectionate
epithet occurs, my eyes fill with tears, and my
trembling hand stops; you may then depend
on my resolution when with you. If I am
doomed to be unhappy, I will confine my
anguish in my own bosom; tenderness, rather
than passion, has made me sometimes overlook
delicacy; the same tenderness will in future
restrain me.
God bless you!



I66

Mary     Wollstonecraft.

LETTER       LXII.
[TONSBERG, 1795.1
August 7.
A IR, exercise, and bathing, have restored me
to health, braced my muscles, and covered my
ribs, even whilst I have recovered my former
activity. I cannot tell you that my mind is
calm, though I have snatched some moments of
exquisite delight, wandering through the woods,
and resting on the rocks.
This state of suspense, my friend, is intolerable; we must determine on something, and
soon; we must meet shortly, or part for ever.
I am sensible that I acted foolishly, but I was
wretched when we were together. Expecting
too much, I let the pleasure I might have caught
slip from me. I cannot live with you, I ought
not-if you form another attachment. But I



Letters to Imlay.

I67

promise you, mine shall not be intruded on you.
Little reason have I to expect a shadow of
happiness, after the cruel disappointments that
have rent my heart; but that of my child seems
to depend on our being together. Still I do
not wish you to sacrifice a chance of enjoyment
for an uncertain good. I feel a conviction that
I can provide for her, and it shall be my object
-if we are indeed to part to meet no more.
Her affection must not be divided. She must
be a comfort to me-if I am to have no otherand only know me as her support. I feel that
I cannot endure the anguish of corresponding
with you-if we are only to correspond. No;
if you seek for happiness elsewhere, my letters
shall not interrupt your repose. I will be dead
to you. I cannot express to you what pain it
gives me to write about an eternal separation.
You must determine-examine yourself. But,
for God's sake! spare me the anxiety of uncertainty! I may sink under the trial; but I will
not complain.



168       Mary Wollstonecraft.
Adieu! If I had any thing more to say to
you, it is all flown, and absorbed by the most
tormenting apprehensions; yet I scarcely know
what new form of misery I have to dread.
I ought to beg your pardon for having sometimes written peevishly, but you will impute it
to affection, if you understand anything of the
heart of
Yours truly,
MARY.



Lellers to Imlay.

I69

LETTER       LXIII.
[TONSBERG, I795.]
August 9.
FIVE of your letters have been sent after me
from Stromstad. One, dated the 14th of July,
was written in a style which I may have merited,
but did not expect from you. However this is
not a time to reply to it, except to assure you
that you shall not be tormented with any more
complaints.. I am disgusted with myself for
having so long importuned you with my affection.
My child is very well. We shall soon meet,
to part no more, I hope-I mean I and my girl.
I shall wait with some degree of anxiety till I
am informed how your affairs terminate.
Yours sincerely,
MARY.



170

Mary Wollstonecraft.

LETTER LXIV.
[GOTHENBURG, 1795.]
August 26.
I ARRIVED here last night, and with the most
exquisite delight, once more pressed my babe to
my heart. We shall part no more. You perhaps cannot conceive the pleasure it gave me,
to see her run about, and play alone. Her increasing intelligence attaches me more and more
to her. I have promised her that I will fulfil
my duty to her, and nothing in future shall
make me forget it. I will also exert myself to
obtain an independence for her, but I will not
be too anxious on this head.
I have already told you that I have recovered
my health. Vigour, and even vivacity of mind,
have returned with a renovated constitution.
As for peace, we will not talk of it. I was not



Letters to Imlay.

I7I

made, perhaps, to enjoy the calm contentment
so termed.
You tell me that my letters torture you; I
will not describe the effect yours have on me.
I received three this morning, the last dated the
7th of this month. I mean not to give vent to
the emotions they produced. Certainly you are
right; our minds are not congenial. I have
lived in an ideal world, and fostered sentiments
that you do not comprehend, or you would not
treat me thus. I am not, I will not be, merely
an object of compassion-a clog, however light,
to teaze you. Forget that I exist: I will never
remind you. Something emphatical whispers
me to put an end to these struggles. Be free
-I will not torment, when I cannot please. I
can take care of my child; you need not continually tell me that our fortune is inseparable,
that you will try to cherish tenderness for me.
Do no violence to yourself! When we are



172

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

separated, our interest, since you give so much
weight to pecuniary considerations, will be
entirely divided. I want not protection without
affection; and support I need not, whilst my
faculties are undisturbed. I had a dislike to
living in England; but painful feelings must give
way to superior considerations. I may not be
able to acquire the sum necessary to maintain
my child and self elsewhere. It is too late to go
to Switzerland. I shall not remain at [Hamburg],
living expensively. But be not alarmed! I shall
not force myself on you any more.
Adieu! I am agitated, my whole frame is
convulsed, my lips tremble, as if shook by cold,
though fire seems to be circulating in my veins.
God bless you!



Letters to Imlay.

i73

LETTER LXV.
[COPENHAGEN, 1795-1
September 6.
I RECEIVED just now your letter of the 20th.
I had written you a letter last night, into which
imperceptibly slipt some of my bitterness of
soul. I will copy the part relative to business.
I am not sufficiently vain to imagine that I can,
for more than a moment, cloud your enjoyment
of life-to prevent even that, you had better
never hear from me-and repose on the idea
that I am happy.
Gracious God! It is impossible for me to
stifle something like resentment, when I receive
fresh proofs of your indifference.. What I have
suffered this last year is not to be forgotten! I
have not that happy substitute for wisdom,
insensibility-and the lively sympathies which



I74

Mary    WollslonecrafJ.

bind me to my fellow creatures, are all of a
painful kind. They are the agonies of a broken
heart; pleasure and I have shaken hands.
I see here nothing but heaps of ruin, and only"
converse with people immersed in trade and
sensuality.
I am weary of travelling, yet seem to have
no home-no resting place to look to. I am
strangely cast off. How often, passing through
the rocks, I have thought, "But for this child, I
would lay my head on one of them, and never
open my eyes again!" With a heart feelingly
alive to all the affections of my nature, I have
never met with one softer than the stone that
I would fain take for my last pillow. I once
thought I had, but it was all a delusion. I meet
with families continually, who are bound together by affection or principle, and, when I am
conscious that I have fulfilled the duties of my
station, almost to a forgetfulness of myself, I
am ready to demand, in a murmuring tone, of
Heaven, "Why am I thus abandoned?"



Letters to Imlay.

175

You say now
*      *       *      *       *I do not understand you. It is necessary for
you to write more explicitly, and determine
on some mode of conduct. I cannot endure
this suspense. Decide. Do you fear to strike
another blow? We live together, or eternally
apart! I shall not write to you again, till I
receive an answer to this.   I must compose
my tortured soul before I write on indifferent
subjects.
I do not know whether I write iritelligibly,
for my head is disturbed. But this you ought
to pardon, for it is with difficulty frequently that
I make out what you rhean to say. You write, I
suppose, at Mr. -   's after dinner, when your
head is not the clearest-and as for your heart,
if you have one, I see nothing like the dictates of
affection, unless a glimpse when you mention the
child. Adieu!



S76        Mary   Wollstonecraft.
LETTER LXVI.
[HAMBURG, I795.]
September 25.
I HAVE just finished a letter to be given in
charge to Captain -. In that I complained
of your silence, and expressed my surprise that
three mails should have arrived without bringing
a line for me. Since I closed it, I hear of
another, and still no letter. I am labouring to
write calmly-this silence is a refinement on
cruelty. Had Captain -      remained a few
days longer, I would have returned with him to
England. What have I to do here? I have
repeatedly written to you fully. Do you do
the same, and quickly. Do not leave me in
suspense. I have not deserved this of you. I
cannot write, my mind is so distressed. Adieu!
* * * *



Lellers to Imlay.

177

LETTER LXVIL.
[HAMBURG, 1795.3
September 27.
WHEN you receive this, I shall either have
landed, or be hovering on the British coast; your
letter of the i8th decided me.
By what criterion of principle or affection you
term my questions extraordinary and unnecessary, I cannot determine. You desire me to
decide. I had decided. You must have had
long ago two letters of mine, to the same purport, to consider. In these, God knows! there
was but too much affection, and the agonies of
a distracted mind were but too faithfully pourtrayed 1 What more then had I to say? The
negative was to come from   you.   You had
perpetually recurred to your promise of meeting
me in the autumn. Was it extraordinary that I



178

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

should demand a yes, or no? Your letter is
written with extreme harshness, coldness I am
accustomed to, in it I find not a trace of the
tenderness of humanity, much less of friendship.
I only see a desire to heave a load off your
shoulders.
I am above disputing about words. It matters
not in what terms you decide.
The tremendous power who formed this heart,
must have foreseen that, in a world in which
self-interest, in various shapes, is the principal
mobile, I had little chance of escaping misery.
To the fiat of fate I submit. I am content to
be wretched; but I will not be contemptible.
Of me you have no cause to complain, but for
having had too much regard for you-for having
expected a degree of permanent happiness,
when you only fought for a momentary gratification.
I am strangely deficient in sagacity. Uniting
myself to you, your tenderness seemed to make
me amends for all my former misfortunes. On



Letters to Imlay.

I79

this tenderness and affection with that confidence
did I rest I-but I leaned on a spear that has
pierced me to the heart. You have thrown off
a faithful friend, to pursue the caprices of the
moment. We certainly are differently organized;
for even now, when conviction has been stamped
on my soul by sorrow, I can scarcely believe
it possible. It depends at present on you,
whether you will see me or not. I shall take
no step, till I see or hear from you.
Preparing myself for the worst-I have determined, if your next letter be like the last, to
write to Mr. Johnson to procure me an obscure
lodging, and not to inform any body of my
arrival. There I will endeavour in a few months
to obtain the sum necessary to take me to
France; from you I will not receive any more.
I am not yet sufficiently humbled to depend on
your beneficence.
Some people, whom my unhappiness has interested, though they know not the extent of it,
will assist me to attain the object I have in view,
N2



I8o

Mary Wollslonecraft.

the independence of my child. Should a peace
take place, ready money will go a great way
in France, and I will borrow a sum, which my
industry shall enable me to pay at my leisure,
to purchase a small estate for my girl. The
assistance I shall find necessary to complete her
education, I can get at an easy rate at Paris.
I can introduce her to such society as she will
like; and thus, securing for her all the chance
for happiness, which depends on me, I shall die
in peace, persuaded that the felicity which has
hitherto cheated my expectation, will not always elude my grasp. No poor tempest-tossed
mariner ever more earnestly longed to arrive at
his port.
I shall not come up in the vessel all the way,
because I have no place to go to. Captain -
will inform you where I am. It is needless to
add, that I am not in a state of mind to bear
suspense-and that I wish to see you, though it
be for the last time.



Lellers to Imlay.

18I

LETTER       LXVIII.
[DOVER, 1797.]
Sunday, October 4.
I WROTE to you by the packet, to inform you,
that your letter of the i8th of last month, had
determined me to set out with Captain -;
but, as we sailed very quick, I take it for granted,
that you have not received it.
You say, I must decide for myself. I have
decided, that it was most for the interest of my
little girl, and for my own comfort, little as I
expect, for us to live together; and I even
thought that you would be glad, some years
hence, when the tumult of business was over, to
repose in the society of an affectionate friend,
and mark the progress of our interesting child,
whilst endeavouring to be of use in the circle



182

Mary     Wollslonecraft.

you at last resolved to rest in; for you cannot
run about for ever.
From the tenour of your last letter however, I
am led to imagine that you have formed some
new attachment. If it be so, let me earnestly
request you to see me once more, and immediately. This is the only proof I require of
the friendship you profess for me. I will then
decide, since you boggle about a mere form.
I am labouring to write with calmness; but
the extreme anguish I feel, at landing without
having any friend to receive me, and even to
be conscious that the friend whom I most wish
to see, will feel a disagreeable sensation at being
informed of my arrival, does not come under
the description of common misery.     Every
emotion yields to an overwhelming flood of
sorrow, and the playfulness of my child distresses me. On her account, I Wished to remain
a few days here, comfortless as is my situation.
Besides, I did not wish to surprise you. You
have told me, that you would make any sacrifice



Lelters to Imlay.

I8.3

to promote my happiness-and, even in your
last unkind letter, you talk of the ties which
bind  you to me and my child. Tell me
that you wish it, and I will cut this Gordian
knot.
I now most earnestly intreat you to write to
me, without fail, by the return of the post.
Direct your letter to be left at the post-office,
and tell me whether you will come to me
here, or where you will meet me. I can receive
your letter on Wednesday morning.
Do not keep me in suspense. I expect nothing from you, or any human being: my die is
cast! I have fortitude enough to determine to
do my duty; yet I cannot raise my depressed
spirits, or calm my trembling heart. That being
who moulded it thus, knows that I am unable
to tear up by the roots the propensity to affection which has been the torment of my lifebut life will have an end!
Should you come here (a few months ago I
could not have doubted it) you will find me



S84       Mary Wollstonecrajt.
at -. If you prefer meeting me on the road,
tell me where.
Yours affectionately,
MARY.



Letters to Imlay.

18 ý5

LETTER LXIX.
[LONDON, November, 1795.]
I WRITE you now on my knees; imploring
you to send my child and the maid with -,
to Paris, to be consigned to the care of Madame
--, Rue -, Section de -. Should they
be removed, -  can give their direction.
Let the maid have all my clothes without
distinction.
Pray pay the cook her wages, and do not
mention the confession which I forced from her;
a little sooner or later is of no consequence.
Nothing but my extreme stupidity could have
rendered me blind so long. Yet, whilst you
assured me that you -had no attachment, I
thought we might still have lived together.
I shall make no comments on your conduct



186

Mary    Wolistonecraft.

or any appeal to the world. Let my wrongs
sleep with me! Soon, very soon, I shall be at
peace.  When you receive this, my burning
head will be cold.
I would encounter a thousand deaths, rather
than a night like the last. Your treatment has
thrown my mind into a state of chaos; yet I
am serene. I go to find comfort, and my only
fear is, that my poor body will be insulted by
an endeavour to recall my hated existence. But
I shall plunge into the Thames where there is
the least chance of my being snatched from the
death I seek.
God bless you! May you never know by
experience what you have made me endure.
Should your sensibility ever awake, remorse will
find its way to your heart; and, in the midst
of business and sensual pleasure, I shall appear
before you, the victim of your deviation from
rectitude.



Letters to lmiay.

I87

LETTER - LXX.
[LONDON, November, 1795.
Sunday forning.
I HAVE only to lament, that, when the bitterness of death was past, I was inhumanly brought
back to life and misery. But a fixed determination is not to be baffled by disappointment;
nor will I allow that to be a frantic attempt
which was one of the calmest acts of reason.
In this respect, I am only accountable to myself.
Did I care for what is termed reputation, it is
by other circumstances that I should be dishonoured.
You say, " that you know not how to extricate
ourselves out of the wretchedness into which we
have been plunged." You are extricated long
since. But I forbear to comment. If I am
condemned to live longer, it is a living death.



I88

8Mary  WVollstonecrajft.

It appears to me that you lay much more
stress on delicacy than on principle; for I am
unable to discover what sentiment of delicacy
would have been violated by your visiting a
wretched friend, if indeed you have any friendship for me. But since your new attachment
is the only sacred thing in your eyes, I am
silent-Be happy! My complaints shall never
more damp your enjoyment; perhaps I am
mistaken in supposing that even my death could,
for more than a moment. This is what you call
magnanimity. It is happy for yourself, that you
possess this quality in the highest degree.
Your continually asserting that you will do
all in your power to contribute to my comfort,
when you only allude to pecuniary assistance,
appears to me a flagrant breach of delicacy.
I want not such vulgar comfort, nor will I accept
it. I never wanted but your heart-That gone,
you have nothing more to give. Had I only
poverty to fear, I should not shrink from life.
Forgive me then, if I say, that I shall consider



Letters to Imlay.           189
any direct or indirect attempt to supply my
necessities, as an insult which I have not merited,
and as rather done out of tenderness for your
own reputation, than for me. Do not mistake
me; I do not think that you value money,
therefore I will not accept what you do not care
for, though I do much less, because certain
privations are not painful to me. When I am
dead, respect for yourself will make you take
care of the child.
I write with difficulty-probably I shall never
write to you again. Adieu!
God bless you!



Jgo

Mary Wollstonecraft.

LETTER LXXI.
[LONDON, November, 1795.]
Monday Morning.
I AM compelled at last to say that you treat!me ungenerously. I agree with you, that
But let the obloquy now fall on me. I fear neither
poverty nor infamy. I am unequal to the task
of writing, and explanations are not necessary.
My child may have to blush for her mother's
want of prudence, and may lament that the
rectitude of my heart made me above vulgar
precautions; but she shall not despise me for
meanness. You are now perfectly free. God
bless you!



Lellers to Irniay.

I9I

LETTER       LXXII.
LUONDON, November, 1795.1
Saturday Nzigt.
I HAVE, been hurt by indirect enquiries, which
appear to me not to be dictated by any tenderness to me. You ask, " If I am well or tranquil?" They who think me so, must want a
heart to estimate my feelings by. I choose
then to be the organ of my own sentiments.
I must tell you, that I am very mortified by
your continually offering me pecuniary assistance; and, considering your going to the new
house, as an open avowal that you abandon me,
let me tell you that I will sooner perish than
receive anything from you-and I say this at
the moment when I am disappointed in my first
attempt to obtain a temporary supply. But
this even pleases me; an accumulation of dis


192

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

appointments and misfortunes seems to suit the
habit of my mind.
Have but a little patience, and I will remove
myself where it will not be necessary for you to
talk-of course, not to think of me. But let me
see, written by yourself-for I will not receive it
through any other medium-that the affair is
finished. It is an insult to me to suppose that
I can be reconciled or recover my spirits; but,
if you hear nothing of me, it will be the same
thing to you.
Even your seeing me, has been to oblige other
people, and not to soothe my distracted mind.



Letters to Imlay.

I93

LETTER       LXXIII.
[LONDON, ANovember, 1795.]
Thursday Afternoon.
MR. JOHNSON having forgot to desire you to
send the things of mine which were left at the
house, I have to request you to let Marguerite
bring them to me.
I shall go this evening to the lodging; so
you need not be restrained from coming here to
transact your business. And, whatever I may
think and feel, you need not fear that I shall
publicly complain. No! If I have any criterion
to judge of right and wrong, I have been most
ungenerously treated: but, wishing now only to
hide myself, I shall be silent as the grave in
which I long to forget myself. I shall protect
and provide for my child. I only mean by this



I194      Mary Wollstonecraft.
to say, that you have nothing to fear from my
desperation.
Farewell.



Letters to     mlay.

I95

LETTER LXXIV.
[1795.]
LONDON, November 27.
THE letter, without an address, which you
put up with the letters you returned, did not
meet my eyes till just now. I had thrown the
letters aside; I did not wish to look over a
register of sorrow.
My not having seen it, will account for my
having written to you with anger-under the
impression your departure, without even a line
left for me, made on me, even after your late
conduct, which could not lead me to expect
much attention to my sufferings. In fact, "the
decided conduct which appeared to me so unfeeling," has almost overturned my reason; my
mind is injured, I scarcely know where I am or
what I do. The grief I cannot conquer (for
o 2



196

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

some cruel recollections never quit me, banishing almost every other), I labour to conceal in
total solitude.  My life therefore is but an
exercise of fortitude, continually on the stretch,
and hope never gleams in this tomb, where I
am buried alive.
But I meant to reason with you, and not to
complain. You tell me, "that I shall judge
Tmore coolly of your mode of acting, some time
hence." But is it not possible that passion clouds
your reason as much as it does mine? And
ought you not to doubt whether those principles
are so " exalted," as you term them, which only
lead to your own gratification? In other words,
whether it would be just to have no principle
of action but that of following your inclination,
trampling on the affection you have fostered,
and the expectations you have excited?
My affection for you is rooted in my heart.
I know you are not what you now seem, nor
will you always act or feel as you now do,
though I may never be comforted by the change.



Lellers to Imlay.

197

Even at Paris, my image will haunt you. You
will see my pale face, and sometimes the tears
of anguish will drop on your heart, which you
have forced from mine.
I cannot write. I thought I could quickly
have refuted all your ingenious arguments; but
my head is confused. Right or wrong, I am
miserable!
It seems to me that my conduct has always
been governed by the strictest principles of
justice and truth. Yet, how wretched have my
social feelings and delicacy of sentiment rendered
me! I have loved with my whole soul, only to
discover that I had no chance of a return, and
that existence is a burthen without it.
I do not perfectly understand you. If, by the
offer of your friendship, you still only mean
pecuniary  support, I must again reject it.
Trifling are the ills of poverty in the scale of
my misfortunes. God bless you!



198

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

I have been treated ungenerously-if I understand what is generosity. You seem   to me
only to have been anxious to shake me offregardless whether you dashed me to atoms by
the fall. In truth, I have been rudely handled.
Do you judge coolly, and I trust you will not
continue to call those capricious feelings "the
most refined," which would undermine not only
the most sacred principles, but the affections
which  unite mankind.    You  would render
mothers unnatural-and there would be no
such thing as a father! If your theory of
morals is the most "exalted," it is certainly the
most easy. It does not require much magnanimity to determine to please ourselves for
the moment, let others suffer what they will!
Excuse me for again tormenting you; my
heart thirsts for justice from you; and whilst I
recollect that you approved Miss - 's conduct,
I am convinced you will not always justify your
own.
Beware of the deceptions of passion! It will



Letters to Imlay.         199
not always banish from your mind that you
have acted ignobly, and condescended to subterfuge to gloss over the conduct you could not
excuse. Do truth and principle require such
sacrifices?



200

Mary   Wollstonecraft.

LETTER LXXV.
[1795.]
LONDON, December 8,
HAVING just been informed that -    is to
return immediately to Paris, I would not miss a
sure opportunity of writing, because I am not
certain that my last by Dover has reached you.
Resentment, and even anger, are momentary
emotions with me, and I wish to tell you so,
that if you ever think of me, it may not be in
the light of an enemy.
That I have not been used well I must ever
feel; perhaps, not always with the keen anguish
I do at present, for I began even now to write
calmly, and I cannot restrain my tears.
I am stunned! Your late conduct still appears to me a frightful dream. Ah! ask yourself if you have not condescended to employ a
little address, I could almost say cunning, un


Letters to Imlay.

201

worthy of you? Principles are sacred things,
and we never play with truth with impunity.
The expectation (I have too fondly nourished
it) of regaining your affection, every day grows
fainter and fainter. Indeed, it seems to me, when
I am more sad than usual, that I shall never see
you more. Yet you will not always forget me.
You will feel something like remorse for having
lived only for yourself, and sacrificed my peace
to inferior gratifications. In a comfortless old
age, you will remember that you had one disinterested friend, whose heart you wounded to
the quick. The hour of recollection will come,
and you will not be satisfied to act the part of a
boy, till you fall into that of a dotard. I know
that your mind, your heart, and your principles
of action are all superior to your present conduct. You do, you must, respect me-and you
will be sorry to forfeit my esteem.
You know best whether I am still preserving
the remembrance of an imaginary being. I once
thought that I knew you thoroughly, but now



202

Mary    Wollstonecraft.

I am obliged to leave some doubts that involuntarily press on me, to be cleared up by time.
You may render me unhappy, but cannot
make me contemptible in my own eyes. I shall
still be able to support my child, though I am
disappointed in some other plans of usefulness,
which I once believed would have afforded you
equal pleasure.
Whilst I was with you, I restrained my natural
generosity, because I thought your property in
jeopardy. When I went to Sweden I requested
you, if you could conveniently, not to forget my
father, sisters, and some other people, whom I
was interested about. Money was lavished
away, yet not only my requests were neglected,
but some trifling debts were not discharged,
that now come on me. Was this friendship, or
generosity? Will you not grant you have forgotten yourself? Still I have an affection for
you. God bless you!



Letters to Imlay.

203

LETTER LXXVI.
[LONDON, December, 1795.]
As the parting from you for ever is the most
serious event of my life, I will once expostulate
with you, and call not the language of truth and
feeling ingenuity!
I know the soundness of your understanding, and know that it is impossible for you
always to confound the caprices of every
wayward inclination with manly dictates of
principle.
You tell me "that I torment you." Why do I?
Because you cannot estrange your heart entirely
from me, and you feel that justice is on my side.
You urge " that your conduct was unequivocal."
It was not. When your coolness has hurt me,
with what tenderness have you endeavoured to



204

Mary   Wollslonecraft.

remove the impression! and even before I returned to England, you took great pains to
convince me that all my uneasiness was occasioned by the effect of a worn-out constitution;
and you concluded your letter with these words,
" Business alone has kept me from you. Come
to any port, and I will fly down to my two dear
girls with a heart all their own."
With these assurances, is it extraordinary that
I should believe what I wished? I might, and
did think that you had a struggle with old
propensities; but I still thought that I and
virtue should at last prevail. I still thought
that you had a magnanimity of character, which
would enable you to conquer yourself.
Imlay, believe me, it is not romance, you have
acknowledged to me feelings of this kind. You
could restore me to life and hope, and the satisfaction you would feel would amply repay you.
In tearing myself from you, it is my own
heart I pierce; and the time will come, when
you will lament that you have thrown away a



Letters to Inm lay.        205
heart, that, even in the moment of passion, you
cannot despise. I would owe everything to
your generosity, but, for God's sake, keep me
no longer in suspense! Let me see you once
more!



206

7Mary Wollslonecraft.

LETTER       LXXVII.
[LONDON, December, 1795.]
You must do as you please with respect to
the child. I could wish that it might be done
soon, that my name may be no more mentioned
to you. It is now finished. Convinced that
you have neither regard nor friendship, I disdain
to utter a reproach, though I have had reason to
think that the "forbearance" talked of has not
been very delicate. It is, however, of no consequence. I am glad you are satisfied with
your own conduct.
I now solemnly assure you, that this is an
eternal farewell. Yet I flinch not from the duties
which tie me to life.
That there is "sophistry" on one side or other,
is certain; but now it matters not on which.
On my part it has not been a question of



Letters to Imlay.

207

words. Yet your understanding or mine must
be strangely warped, for what you term " delicacy," appears to me to be exactly the contrary.
I have no criterion for morality, and have
thought in vain, if the sensations which lead
you to follow an ancle or step, be the sacred
foundation of principle and affection. Mine has
been of a very different nature, or it would not
have stood the brunt of your sarcasms.
The sentiment in me is still sacred. If there
be any part of me that will survive the sense of
my misfortunes, it is the purity of my affections.
The impetuosity of your senses may have led
you to term mere animal desire, the source of
principle; and it may give zest to some years
to come. Whether you will always think so, I
shall never know.
It is strange that, in spite of all you do, something like conviction forces me to believe that
you are not what you appear to be.
I part with you in peace.



LONDON:
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHIITEFRIARS.