CHAPTER VII.

“To render this [that is, co-education] practicable, day-schools for particular ages should be established by government, in which boys and girls might be educated together. The school for the younger children, from five to nine years of age, ought to be absolutely free and open to all classes. A sufficient number of masters should also be chosen by a select committee, in each parish, to whom any complaint of negligence, etc., might be made, if signed by six of the children’s parents.“Ushers would then be unnecessary: for I believe experience will ever prove that this kind of subordinateauthority is particularly injurious to the morals of youth....“But nothing of this kind [that is, amusement at the expense of ushers] would occur in an elementary day-school, where boys and girls, the rich and poor, should meet together. And to prevent any of the distinctions of vanity, they should be dressed alike, and all obliged to submit to the same discipline, or leave the school. The schoolroom ought to be surrounded by a large piece of ground, in which the children might be usefully exercised, for at this age they should not be confined to any sedentary employment for more than an hour at a time. But these relaxations might all be rendered a part of elementary education, for many things improve and amuse the senses when introduced as a kind of show, to the principles of which, dryly laid down, children would turn a deaf ear. For instance, botany, mechanics, and astronomy, reading, writing, arithmetic, natural history, and some simple experiments in natural philosophy, might fill up the day; but these pursuits should never encroach on gymnastic plays in the open air. The elements of religion, history, the history of man, and politics might also be taught by conversations in Socratic form.“After the age of nine, girls and boys intended for domestic employments or mechanical trades ought to be removed to other schools, and receive instruction in some measure appropriated to the destination of each individual, the two sexes being still together in the morning; but in the afternoon the girls should attend a school where plain work, mantua-making, millinery, etc., would be their employment.“The young people of superior abilities or fortune might now be taught, in another school, the dead and living languages, the elements of society, and continue the study of history and politics on a more extensive scale, which would not exclude polite literature. ‘Girls and boys still together?’ I hear some readers ask. Yes; and I should not fear any other consequence than that some early attachment might take place....“Besides, this would be a sure way to promote early marriages, and from early marriages the most salutary physical and moral effects naturally flow....“... Those (youths) who were designed for particular professions might attend, three or four mornings in the week, the schools appropriated for their immediate instruction....“My observations on national education are obviously hints; but I principally wish to enforce the necessity of educating the sexes together to perfect both, and of making children sleep at home, that they may learn to love home; yet to make private ties support, instead of smothering, public affections, they should be sent to school to mix with a number of equals, for only by the jostlings of equality can we form a just opinion of ourselves....“... The conclusion which I wish to draw is obvious: make women rational creatures and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives and mothers; that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.”

“Ushers would then be unnecessary: for I believe experience will ever prove that this kind of subordinateauthority is particularly injurious to the morals of youth....

“But nothing of this kind [that is, amusement at the expense of ushers] would occur in an elementary day-school, where boys and girls, the rich and poor, should meet together. And to prevent any of the distinctions of vanity, they should be dressed alike, and all obliged to submit to the same discipline, or leave the school. The schoolroom ought to be surrounded by a large piece of ground, in which the children might be usefully exercised, for at this age they should not be confined to any sedentary employment for more than an hour at a time. But these relaxations might all be rendered a part of elementary education, for many things improve and amuse the senses when introduced as a kind of show, to the principles of which, dryly laid down, children would turn a deaf ear. For instance, botany, mechanics, and astronomy, reading, writing, arithmetic, natural history, and some simple experiments in natural philosophy, might fill up the day; but these pursuits should never encroach on gymnastic plays in the open air. The elements of religion, history, the history of man, and politics might also be taught by conversations in Socratic form.

“After the age of nine, girls and boys intended for domestic employments or mechanical trades ought to be removed to other schools, and receive instruction in some measure appropriated to the destination of each individual, the two sexes being still together in the morning; but in the afternoon the girls should attend a school where plain work, mantua-making, millinery, etc., would be their employment.

“The young people of superior abilities or fortune might now be taught, in another school, the dead and living languages, the elements of society, and continue the study of history and politics on a more extensive scale, which would not exclude polite literature. ‘Girls and boys still together?’ I hear some readers ask. Yes; and I should not fear any other consequence than that some early attachment might take place....

“Besides, this would be a sure way to promote early marriages, and from early marriages the most salutary physical and moral effects naturally flow....

“... Those (youths) who were designed for particular professions might attend, three or four mornings in the week, the schools appropriated for their immediate instruction....

“My observations on national education are obviously hints; but I principally wish to enforce the necessity of educating the sexes together to perfect both, and of making children sleep at home, that they may learn to love home; yet to make private ties support, instead of smothering, public affections, they should be sent to school to mix with a number of equals, for only by the jostlings of equality can we form a just opinion of ourselves....

“... The conclusion which I wish to draw is obvious: make women rational creatures and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives and mothers; that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.”

This is no place to enter into a discussion as to whether Mary Wollstonecraft’s theories were right or wrong. National education and co-education are still subjects of controversy. But even those who object most strongly to her conclusions must admit that they were the logical results of her premises. Equality! was her battle-cry. All men and women are equal inasmuch as they are human. Her scheme is the only possible one by which this fundamental equality can be maintained. It covers the whole ground, too, by its recognition of the secondary distinctions of rank and sex, and the necessary division of labor. Mary was not a communist in her social philosophy. She knew such differences must always exist, and she allowed for them.

In the remaining chapter she cites instances of folly generated by women’s ignorance, and makes reflections upon the probable improvement to be produced by a revolution in female manners. Some of the evils with which she deals are trifling, as, for example, the prevailing mania for mesmerism and fortune-telling. Others are serious, as, for instance, the incapacity of ignorant women to rear children. But all which are of real weight have already been more than amply discussed. She here merely repeats herself, and these last pages are of little or no consequence.

A plainness of speech, amounting in some places to coarseness, and a deeply religious tone, are to many modern readers the most curious features of the book. A just estimate of it could not be formed if these two facts were overlooked. A century ago men and women were much more straightforward in their speech than we are to-day. They were not squeamish. In real life Amelias listened to raillery from Squire Westerns not a whit more refined than Fielding’s good country gentlemen. Therefore, when it came to serious discussions for moral purposes, there was little reason for writers to be timid. It was impossible for Mary to avoid certain subjects not usually spoken of in polite conversation. Had she done so, she would but have half stated her case. She was not to be deterred because she was a woman. Such mock-modesty would at once have undermined her arguments. According to her own theories, there was no reason why she should not think and speak as unhesitatingly as men, when her sex was as vitally interested as theirs. And therefore, with her characteristic consistency, she did so. Butwhile her language may seem coarse to our over-fastidious ears, it never becomes prurient or indecent. In her Dedication she expresses very distinctly her disgust for the absence of modesty among contemporary Frenchwomen. Hers is the plain-speaking of the Jewish law-giver, who has for end the good of man; and not that of an Aretino, who rejoices in it for its own sake.

Even more remarkable than this boldness of expression is the strong vein of piety running through her arguments. Religion was to her as important as it was to a Wesley or a Bishop Watts. The equality of man, in her eyes, would have been of small importance had it not been instituted by man’s Creator. It is because there is a God, and because the soul is immortal, that men and women must exercise their reason. Otherwise, they might, like animals, yield to the rule of their instincts and emotions. If women were without souls, they would, notwithstanding their intellects, have no rights to vindicate. If the Christian heaven were like the Mahometan paradise, then they might indeed be looked upon as slaves and playthings of beings who are worthy of a future life, and hence are infinitely their superiors. But, though sincerely pious, she despised the meaningless forms of religion as much as she did social conventionalities, and was as free in denouncing them. The clergy, who from custom cling to old rites and ceremonies, were, in her opinion, “indolent slugs, who guard, by liming it over, the snug place which they consider in the light of an hereditary estate,” and “idle vermin who two or three times a day perform, in the most slovenly manner, a service whichthey think useless, but call their duty.” She believed in the spirit, but not in the letter of the law. The scriptural account of the creation is for her “Moses’ poetical story,” and she supposes that very few who have thought seriously upon the subject believe that Eve was, “literally speaking, one of Adam’s ribs.” She is indignant at the blasphemy of sectarians who teach that an all-merciful God has instituted eternal punishment, and she is impatient of the debtor and creditor system which was then the inspiration of the religion of the people. She believes in God as the life of the universe, and she accepts neither the theory of man’s innate wickedness nor that of his natural perfection, the two then most generally adopted, but advocates his power of development:—

“Rousseau exerts himself to prove that allwasright originally; a crowd of authors that allisnow right; and I, that allwill beright.”

She, in fact, teaches the doctrine of evolution. But where its modern upholders refer all things to an unknowable source, she builds her belief “on the perfectibility of God.”

Even the warmest admirers of Mary Wollstonecraft must admit that the faults of the “Vindication of the Rights of Women” are many. Criticised from a literary stand-point, they exceed its merits. Perfection of style was not, it is true, the aim of the writer, as she at once explains in her Introduction. She there says, that being animated by a far greater end than that of fine writing,—

“... I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style. I aim at being useful, and sincerity will render meunaffected; for wishing rather to persuade by the force of my arguments than to dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, nor in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings, which, coming from the head, never reach the heart. I shall be employed about things, not words! and, anxious to render my sex more respectable members of society, I shall try to avoid that flowery diction which has slided from essays into novels, and from novels into familiar letters and conversation.”

Yet she errs principally from the fault she determines to avoid, as the very sentence in which she announces this determination proves. Despite her sincerity, she is affected, and her arguments are often weakened by meretricious forms of expression. No one can for a moment doubt that her feelings are real, but neither can the turgidity and bombast of her language be denied. She borrows, unconsciously perhaps, the “flowery diction” which she so heartily condemns. Her style, instead of being clear and simple, as would have best suited her subject, is disfigured by the euphuism which was the fashion among writers of the last century. When she is enthusiastic, her pen “darts rapidly along” and her “heart bounds;” if she grows indignant at Rousseau’s ideal of feminine perfection, “the rigid frown of insulted virtue effaces the smile of complacency which his eloquent periods are wont to raise, when I read his voluptuous reveries.” When she wants to prove that men of genius, as a rule, have good constitutions, she says:—

“... Considering the thoughtless manner in which they lavished their strength when, investigating a favorite science, they have wasted the lamp of life, forgetful of themidnight hour, or when, lost in poetic dreams, fancy has peopled the scene, and the soul has been disturbed, till it shook the constitution by the passions that meditation had raised, whose objects, the baseless fabric of a vision, faded before the exhausted eye, they must have had iron frames.”

In her praise of the virtue of modesty, she exclaims:

“... It is the pale moon-beam that renders more interesting every virtue it softens, giving mild grandeur to the contracted horizon. Nothing can be more beautiful than the poetical fiction which makes Diana, with her silver crescent, the goddess of chastity. I have sometimes thought that, wandering in sedate step in some lonely recess, a modest dame of antiquity must have felt a glow of conscious dignity, when, after contemplating the soft, shadowy landscape, she has invited with placid fervor the mild reflection of her sister’s beams to turn to her chaste bosom.”

She is too ready to moralize, and her moralizing degenerates unfortunately often into commonplace platitudes. She is even at times disagreeably pompous and authoritative, and preaches rather than argues. This was due partly to a then prevailing tendency in literature. Every writer—essayist, poet, and novelist—preached in those days. Mary frequently forgets she has a cause to prove in her desire to teach a lesson. She exhorts her sisters as a minister might appeal to his brethren, and this resemblance is made still more striking by the oratorical flights or prayers with which she interrupts her argument to address her Creator. Moreover, the book is throughout, as Leslie Stephen says, “rhetorical rather than speculative.” It is unmistakably the creation of a zealous partisan, and notof a calm advocate. It reads more like an extempore declamation than a deliberately written essay. Godwin says, as if in praise, that it was begun and finished within six weeks. It would have been better had the same number of months or years been devoted to it. Because of the lack of all method it is so full of repetition that the argument is weakened rather than strengthened. She is so certain of the truth of abstract principles from which she reasons, that she does not trouble herself to convince the sceptical by concrete proofs. Owing to this want of system, the “Vindication” has little value as a philosophical work. Women to-day, with none of her genius, have written on the same subject books which exert greater influence than hers, because they have appreciated the importance of a definite plan.

Great as are these faults, they are more than counterbalanced by the merits of the book. All the flowers of rhetoric cannot conceal its genuineness. As is always the case with the work of honest writers, it commands respect even from those who disapprove of its doctrine and criticise its style. Despite its moralizing it is strong with the strength born of an earnest purpose. It was written neither for money nor for amusement, too often the inspiration to book-making. The one she had not time to seek; the other she could have obtained with more certainty by translating for Mr. Johnson, or by contributing to the “Analytical Review.” She wrote it because she thought it her duty to do so, and hence its vigor and eloquence. All her pompous platitudes cannot conceal the earnestness of her denunciation of shams. The “Rights of Women” is an outcry against them. The age was an artificial one.Ladies played at being shepherdesses, and men wept over dead donkeys. Sensibility was a cultivated virtue, and philanthropy a pastime. Women were the arch-sufferers from this evil; but, pleased at being likened unto angels, they failed to see that the ideal set up for them was false. It is to Mary’s glory that she could penetrate the mists of prevailing prejudices and see the clear unadulterated truth. The excess of sentimentalism had given rise to the other extreme of naturalism. In France the reaction against arbitrary laws, empty forms, and the unjust privileges of rank, led to the French Revolution. In England its outcome was a Wesley in religious speculation, a Wilkes in political action, and a Godwin and a Paine in social and political theorizing. But those who were most eager to uphold reason as a guide to the conduct of men, had nothing to say in behalf of women. Even the reformers, by ignoring their cause, seemed to look upon them as beings belonging to another world. Day, in his “Sandford and Merton,” was the only man in the least practical where the weaker sex was concerned. Mary knew that no reform would be complete which did not recognize the fact that what is law and truth for man must be so for women also. She carried the arguments for human equality to their logical conclusion. Her theories are to the philosophy of the Revolutionists what modern rationalism is to the doctrine of the right of private judgment. She saw the evil to which greater philosophers than she had been indifferent. The same contempt for conventional standards which characterized her actions inspired her thoughts. Once she had evolved this belief, she felt the necessity of proclaimingit to the world at large; and herein consists her greatness. “To believe your own thought,” Emerson says, “to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius.” The “Vindication of the Rights of Women” will always live because it is the work of inspiration, the words of one who speaketh with authority.

Furthermore, another and very great merit of the book is that the ideas expressed in it are full of common sense, and eminently practical. Mary’s educational theories, far in advance of her time, are now being to a great extent realized. The number of successful women physicians show how right she was in supposing medicine to be a profession to which they are well suited. The ability which a few women have manifested as school directors and in other minor official positions confirms her belief in the good to be accomplished by giving them a voice in social and political matters. But what is especially to her credit is her moderation. Apostles of a new cause or teachers of a new doctrine are, as a rule, enthusiasts or extremists who lose all sense of the fitness of things. A Diogenes, to express his contempt for human nature, must needs live in a tub. A Fox knows no escape from the shams of society, save flight to the woods and an exchange of linen and cloth covering for a suit of leather. But Mary’s enthusiasm did not make her blind; she knew that women were wronged by the existing state of affairs; but she did not for this reason believe that they must be removed to a new sphere of action. She defended their rights, not to unfit them for duties assigned them by natural and socialnecessities, but that they might fulfil them the better. She eloquently denied their inferiority to men, not that they might claim superiority, but simply that they might show themselves to be the equals of the other sex. Woman was to fight for her liberty that she might in deed and in truth be worthy to have her children and her husband rise up and call her blessed!

VISIT TO PARIS.

1792-1793.

The “Vindication of the Rights of Women” made Mary still more generally known. Its fame spread far and wide, not only at home but abroad, where it was translated into German and French. Like Paine’s “Rights of Man,” or Malthus’ “Essay on the Theory of Population,” it advanced new doctrines which threatened to overturn existing social relations, and it consequently struck men with fear and wonder, and evoked more censure than praise. To-day, after many years’ agitation, the question of women’s rights still creates contention. The excitement caused by the first word in its favor may, therefore, be easily imagined. If one of the bondsmen helping to drag stones for the pyramids, or one of the many thousand slaves in Athens, had claimed independence, Egyptians or Greeks could not have been more surprised than Englishmen were at a woman’s assertion that, mentally, she was man’s equal. Some were disgusted with such a bold breaking of conventional chains; a few were startled into admiration. Much of the public amazement was due not only to the principles of the book, but to its warmth and earnestness. As Miss Thackeray says, the English authoresses of those days “kept their readers carefullyat pen’s length, and seemed for the most part to be so conscious of their surprising achievement in the way of literature, as never to forget for a single minute that they were in print.” But here was a woman who wrote eloquently from her heart, who told people boldly what she thought upon subjects of which her sex, as a rule, pretended to know nothing, and who forgot herself in her interest in her work. It was natural that curiosity was felt as to what manner of being she was, and that curiosity changed into surprise when, instead of the virago expected, she was found to be, to use Godwin’s words, “lovely in her person, and, in the best and most engaging sense, feminine in her manners.” The fable was in this case reversed. It was the sheep who had appeared in wolf’s clothing.

In her own circle of friends and acquaintances she was lionized. Some of her readers were converted into enthusiasts. One of these—a Mr. John Henry Colls—a few years later addressed a poem to her. However, his admiration unfortunately did not teach him justly to appreciate its object, nor to write good poetry, and his verses have been deservedly forgotten. The reputation she had won by her answer to Burke was now firmly established. She was respected as an independent thinker and a bold dealer with social problems. The “Analytical Review” praised her in a long and leading criticism.

“The lesser wits,” her critic writes, “will probably affect to make themselves merry at the title and apparent object of this publication; but we have no doubt, if even her contemporaries should fail to do her justice, posterity will compensate the defect; and have no hesitation indeclaring that if the bulk of the great truths which this publication contains were reduced to practice, the nation would be better, wiser, and happier than it is upon the wretched, trifling, useless, and absurd system of education which is now prevalent.”

But the conservative avoided her and her book as moral plagues. Many people would not even look at what she had written. Satisfied with the old-fashioned way of treating the subjects therein discussed, they would not run the risk of finding out that they were wrong. Their attitude in this respect was much the same as that of Cowper when he refused to read Paine’s “Rights of Man.” “No man,” he said, “shall convince me that I am improperly governed, while I feel the contrary.”

Women then, even the cleverest and most liberal, bowed to the decrees of custom with a submission as servile as that of the Hindu to the laws of caste. Like the latter, they were contented with their lot and had no desire to change it. They dreaded the increase of knowledge which would bring with it greater sorrow. Mrs. Barbauld, eloquent in her defence of men’s rights, could conceive no higher aim for women than the attainment of sufficient knowledge to make themagreeablecompanions to their husbands and brothers. Should there be any deviation from the methods of education which insured this end, they would, she feared, become like thePrécieusesorFemmes Savantesof Molière. Mary’s vigorous appeal for improvement could, therefore, have no meaning for her. Hannah More, enthusiastic in her denunciations of slavery, but unconscious that her liberty was in the leastrestricted, did not hesitate to form an opinion of the “Rights of Women” without examining it, thus necessarily missing its true significance. In this she doubtless represented a large majority of her sex. She wrote to Horace Walpole in 1793:—

“I have been much pestered to read the ‘Rights of Women,’ but am invincibly resolved not to do it. Of all jargon, I hate metaphysical jargon; beside, there is something fantastic and absurd in the very title. How many ways there are of being ridiculous! I am sure I have as much liberty as I can make a good use of, now I am an old maid; and when I was a young one I had, I dare say, more than was good for me. If I were still young, perhaps I should not make this confession; but so many women are fond of government, I suppose, because they are not fit for it. To be unstable and capricious, I really think, is but too characteristic of our sex; and there is, perhaps, no animal so much indebted to subordination for its good behavior as woman. I have soberly and uniformly maintained this doctrine ever since I have been capable of observation, and I used horridly to provoke some of my female friends—maîtresses femmes—by it, especially such heroic spirits as poor Mrs. Walsingham.”

Men, on the other hand, thought Mary was unsexing herself by her arguments, which seemed to interfere withtheirrights,—an interference they could not brook. To the Tories the fact that she sympathized with the Reformers was enough to damn her. Walpole, when he answered the letter from which the above extract is taken, wrote with warmth:—

“... It is better to thank Providence for the tranquillity and happiness we enjoy in this country, in spite of the philosophizing serpents we have in our bosom, thePaines, the Tookes, and the Wollstonecrafts. I am glad you have not read the tract of the last-mentioned writer. I would not look at it, though assured it contains neither metaphysics nor politics; but as she entered the lists of the latter, and borrowed her title from the demon’s book which aimed at spreading thewrongsof men, she is excommunicated from the pale of my library. We have had enough of new systems, and the world a great deal too much already.”

Walpole may be accepted as the typical Tory, and to all his party Mary probably appeared as the “philosophizing serpent.” She seems always to have incurred his deepest scorn and wrath. He could not speak of her without calling her names. A year or two later, when she had published her book on the French Revolution, writing again to Hannah More, he thus concludes his letter:—

“Adieu, thou excellent woman! thou reverse of that hyena in petticoats, Mrs. Wollstonecraft, who to this day discharges her ink and gall on Marie Antoinette, whose unparalleled sufferings have not yet stanched that Alecto’s blazing ferocity.”

There was at least one man in London whose opinion was worth having who, it is known, treated the book with indifference, and he, by a strange caprice of fate, was William Godwin. It was at this time, when she was in the fulness of her fame, that Mary first met him. She was dining at Johnson’s with Paine and Shovet, and Godwin had come purposely to meet the American philosopher and to hear him talk. But Paine was at best a silent man; and Mary, it seems, monopolized the conversation. Godwin was disappointed, and consequently the impression she made upon himwas not pleasing. He afterwards wrote an account of this first meeting, which is interesting because of the closer relationship to which an acquaintance so unpropitiously begun was to lead.

“The interview was not fortunate,” he says. “Mary and myself parted mutually displeased with each other. I had not read her ‘Rights of Women.’ I had barely looked into her answer to Burke, and been displeased, as literary men are apt to be, with a few offences against grammar and other minute points of composition. I had therefore little curiosity to see Mrs. Wollstonecraft, and a very great curiosity to see Thomas Paine. Paine, in his general habits, is no great talker; and, though he threw in occasionally some shrewd and striking remarks, the conversation lay principally between me and Mary. I, of consequence, heard her very frequently when I wished to hear Paine.“We touched on a considerable variety of topics and particularly on the character and habits of certain eminent men. Mary, as has already been observed, had acquired, in a very blamable degree, the practice of seeing everything on the gloomy side, and bestowing censure with a plentiful hand, where circumstances were in any degree doubtful. I, on the contrary, had a strong propensity to favorable construction, and, particularly where I found unequivocal marks of genius, strongly to incline to the supposition of generous and manly virtue. We ventilated in this way the character of Voltaire and others, who have obtained from some individuals an ardent admiration, while the greater number have treated them with extreme moral severity. Mary was at last provoked to tell me that praise, lavished in the way that I lavished it, could do no credit either to the commended or the commender. We discussed some questions on the subject of religion, in which her opinions approached much nearer to the received ones than mine. As the conversation proceeded, I became dissatisfied with the tone of my ownshare in it. We touched upon all topics without treating forcibly and connectedly upon any. Meanwhile, I did her the justice, in giving an account of the conversation to a party in which I supped, though I was not sparing of my blame, to yield her the praise of a person of active and independent thinking. On her side, she did me no part of what perhaps I considered as justice.“We met two or three times in the course of the following year, but made a very small degree of progress towards a cordial acquaintance.”

“We touched on a considerable variety of topics and particularly on the character and habits of certain eminent men. Mary, as has already been observed, had acquired, in a very blamable degree, the practice of seeing everything on the gloomy side, and bestowing censure with a plentiful hand, where circumstances were in any degree doubtful. I, on the contrary, had a strong propensity to favorable construction, and, particularly where I found unequivocal marks of genius, strongly to incline to the supposition of generous and manly virtue. We ventilated in this way the character of Voltaire and others, who have obtained from some individuals an ardent admiration, while the greater number have treated them with extreme moral severity. Mary was at last provoked to tell me that praise, lavished in the way that I lavished it, could do no credit either to the commended or the commender. We discussed some questions on the subject of religion, in which her opinions approached much nearer to the received ones than mine. As the conversation proceeded, I became dissatisfied with the tone of my ownshare in it. We touched upon all topics without treating forcibly and connectedly upon any. Meanwhile, I did her the justice, in giving an account of the conversation to a party in which I supped, though I was not sparing of my blame, to yield her the praise of a person of active and independent thinking. On her side, she did me no part of what perhaps I considered as justice.

“We met two or three times in the course of the following year, but made a very small degree of progress towards a cordial acquaintance.”

Not until Mary had lived through the tragedy of her life were they destined to become more to each other than mere fellow mortals. There was much to be learned, and much to be forgotten, before the time came for her to give herself into his keeping.

Her family were naturally interested in her book from personal motives; but Eliza and Everina heartily disapproved of it, and their feelings for their eldest sister became, from this period, less and less friendly. However, as Kegan Paul says, their small spite points to envy and jealousy rather than to honest indignation.

Both were now in good situations. Mary felt free, therefore, to consider her own comforts a little. Besides, she had attained a position which it became her to sustain with dignity. She was now known asMrs.Wollstonecraft, and was a prominent figure in the literary world. Shortly after the publication of the “Rights of Women” she moved from the modest lodgings on George Street, to larger, finer rooms on Store Street, Bedford Square, and these she furnished comfortably. Necessity was no longer her only standard. She also gave more care to her dress. Her stern apprenticeship was over. She had so successfully trampled upon thethorns in her path that she could pause to enjoy the flowers. To modern readers her new furniture and gowns are welcome signs of the awakening of the springtime in her cold and wintry life. But her sisters resented them, particularly because, while they, needing less, received less from her bounty, Charles, waiting for a good opening in America, was living at her expense. He, with thoughtless ingratitude, sent them semi-satirical accounts of her new mode of living, and thus unconsciously kindled their jealousy into a fierce flame. When the extent of Mary’s kindness and self-sacrifice in their regard is remembered, the petty ill-nature of brother and sisters, as expressed in the following letter from Mrs. Bishop to Everina, is unpardonable:—

Upton Castle, July 3, 1792.... He [Charles] informs me too thatMrs. Wollstonecraftis grown quite handsome; he adds likewise that, being conscious she is on the wrong side of thirty, she now endeavors to set off those charms she once despised, to the best advantage. This,entre nous, for he is delighted with her affection and kindness to him.So the author of “The Rights of Women” is going to France! I dare say her chief motive is to promote poor Bess’s comfort, or thine, my girl, or at least I think she will so reason. Well, in spite of reason, when Mrs. W. reaches the Continent she will be but a woman! I cannot help painting her in the height of all her wishes, at the very summit of happiness, for will not ambition fill every chink of her great soul (for such I really think hers) that is not occupied by love? After having drawn this sketch, you can hardly suppose me so sanguine as to expect my pretty face will be thought of when matters of State are in agitation, yet I know you think such a miracle not impossible. I wish I could think it at allprobable, but, alas! it has so much the appearance of castle-building that I think it will soon disappear like the “baseless fabric of a vision, and leave not a wrack behind.”And you actually have the vanity to imagine that in the National Assembly, personages like M. and F.[useli] will bestow a thought on two females whom nature meant to “suckle fools and chronicle small beer.”

Upton Castle, July 3, 1792.

... He [Charles] informs me too thatMrs. Wollstonecraftis grown quite handsome; he adds likewise that, being conscious she is on the wrong side of thirty, she now endeavors to set off those charms she once despised, to the best advantage. This,entre nous, for he is delighted with her affection and kindness to him.

So the author of “The Rights of Women” is going to France! I dare say her chief motive is to promote poor Bess’s comfort, or thine, my girl, or at least I think she will so reason. Well, in spite of reason, when Mrs. W. reaches the Continent she will be but a woman! I cannot help painting her in the height of all her wishes, at the very summit of happiness, for will not ambition fill every chink of her great soul (for such I really think hers) that is not occupied by love? After having drawn this sketch, you can hardly suppose me so sanguine as to expect my pretty face will be thought of when matters of State are in agitation, yet I know you think such a miracle not impossible. I wish I could think it at allprobable, but, alas! it has so much the appearance of castle-building that I think it will soon disappear like the “baseless fabric of a vision, and leave not a wrack behind.”

And you actually have the vanity to imagine that in the National Assembly, personages like M. and F.[useli] will bestow a thought on two females whom nature meant to “suckle fools and chronicle small beer.”

But a few days before Mary had written to Everina to discuss with her a matter relative to Mrs. Bishop’s prospects. This letter explains the allusions of the latter to Mary’s proposed trip to France, and shows how little reason she had for her ill-natured conclusions:—

London, June 20, 1792.... I have been considering what you say respecting Eliza’s residence in France. For some time past Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli, Mr. Johnson, and myself have talked of a summer excursion to Paris; it is now determined on, and we think of going in about six weeks. I shall be introduced to many people. My book has been translated, and praised in some popular prints, and Mr. Fuseli of course is well known; it is then very probable that I shall hear of some situation for Eliza, and I shall be on the watch. We intend to be absent only six weeks; if then I fix on an eligible situation for her she may avoid the Welsh winter. This journey will not lead me into any extraordinary expense, or I should put it off to a more convenient season, for I am not, as you may suppose, very flush of money, and Charles is wearing out the clothes which were provided for his voyage. Still, I am glad he has acquired a little practical knowledge of farming....

London, June 20, 1792.

... I have been considering what you say respecting Eliza’s residence in France. For some time past Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli, Mr. Johnson, and myself have talked of a summer excursion to Paris; it is now determined on, and we think of going in about six weeks. I shall be introduced to many people. My book has been translated, and praised in some popular prints, and Mr. Fuseli of course is well known; it is then very probable that I shall hear of some situation for Eliza, and I shall be on the watch. We intend to be absent only six weeks; if then I fix on an eligible situation for her she may avoid the Welsh winter. This journey will not lead me into any extraordinary expense, or I should put it off to a more convenient season, for I am not, as you may suppose, very flush of money, and Charles is wearing out the clothes which were provided for his voyage. Still, I am glad he has acquired a little practical knowledge of farming....

The French trip was, however, put off until the following December; and when the time came for her departure, neither Mr. Johnson nor the Fuselisaccompanied her. Since the disaffection of the latter has been construed in a way which reflects upon her character, it is necessary to pause here to consider the nature of the friendship which existed between them. The slightest shadow unfairly cast upon her reputation must be dissipated.

Mary valued Fuseli as one of her dearest friends. He, like her, was an enthusiast. He was a warm partisan of justice and a rebel against established institutions. He would take any steps to see that the rights of the individual were respected. His interference in a case where men in subordinate positions were defrauded by those in authority, but which did not affect him personally, was the cause of his being compelled to leave Zurich, his home, and thus eventually of his coming to England. Besides their unity of thought and feeling, their work often lay in the same direction. Fuseli, as well as Mary, translated for Johnson, and contributed to the “Analytical Review.” He was an intimate friend of Lavater, whose work on Physiognomy Mary had translated with the liveliest interest. There was thus a strong bond of sympathy between them, and many ways in which they could help and consult with each other in their literary tasks. Mary was devoid of the coquetry which is so strong with some women that they carry it even into their friendships. She never attempted to conceal her liking for Fuseli. His sex was no drawback. Why should it be? It had not interfered with her warm feelings for George Blood and Mr. Johnson. She was the last person in the world to be deterred from what she thought was right for the sake of appearances.

However, another construction was given to her friendly demonstrations. The story told both by Knowles, the biographer of Fuseli, and by Godwin, is that Mary was in love with the artist; and that the necessity of suppressing, even if she could not destroy, her passion—hopeless since its object was a married man—was the immediate reason of her going to France alone. But they interpret the circumstances very differently. The incidents, as given by Godwin, are in nowise to Mary’s discredit, though his account of them was later twisted and distorted by Dr. Beloe in his “Sexagenarian.” The latter, however, is so prejudiced a writer that his words have but little value. Godwin, in his Memoirs, after demonstrating the strength of the intimacy between Mary and Fuseli, says:—

“Notwithstanding the inequality of their years, Mary was not of a temper to live upon terms of so much intimacy with a man of merit and genius without loving him. The delight she enjoyed in his society, she transferred by association to his person. What she experienced in this respect was no doubt heightened by the state of celibacy and restraint in which she had hitherto lived, and to which the rules of polished society condemn an unmarried woman. She conceived a personal and ardent affection for him. Mr. Fuseli was a married man, and his wife the acquaintance of Mary. She readily perceived the restrictions which this circumstance seemed to impose upon her; but she made light of any difficulty that might arise out of them. Not that she was insensible to the value of domestic endearments between persons of an opposite sex, but that she scorned to suppose that she could feel a struggle in conforming to the laws she should lay down to her conduct.“... There is no reason to doubt that if Mr. Fuseli had been disengaged at the period of their acquaintance, he would have been the man of her choice.“... One of her principal inducements to this step, [her visit to France] related, I believe, to Mr. Fuseli. She had at first considered it as reasonable and judicious to cultivate what I may be permitted to call a platonic affection for him; but she did not, in the sequel, find all the satisfaction in this plan which she had originally expected from it. It was in vain that she enjoyed much pleasure in his society, and that she enjoyed it frequently. Her ardent imagination was continually conjuring up pictures of the happiness she should have found if fortune had favored their more intimate union. She felt herself formed for domestic affection, and all those tender charities which men of sensibility have constantly treated as the dearest bond of human society. General conversation and society could not satisfy her. She felt herself alone, as it were, in the great mass of her species, and she repined when she reflected that the best years of her life were spent in this comfortless solitude. These ideas made the cordial intercourse of Mr. Fuseli, which had at first been one of her greatest pleasures, a source of perpetual torment to her. She conceived it necessary to snap the chain of this association in her mind; and, for that purpose, determined to seek a new climate, and mingle in different scenes.”

“... There is no reason to doubt that if Mr. Fuseli had been disengaged at the period of their acquaintance, he would have been the man of her choice.

“... One of her principal inducements to this step, [her visit to France] related, I believe, to Mr. Fuseli. She had at first considered it as reasonable and judicious to cultivate what I may be permitted to call a platonic affection for him; but she did not, in the sequel, find all the satisfaction in this plan which she had originally expected from it. It was in vain that she enjoyed much pleasure in his society, and that she enjoyed it frequently. Her ardent imagination was continually conjuring up pictures of the happiness she should have found if fortune had favored their more intimate union. She felt herself formed for domestic affection, and all those tender charities which men of sensibility have constantly treated as the dearest bond of human society. General conversation and society could not satisfy her. She felt herself alone, as it were, in the great mass of her species, and she repined when she reflected that the best years of her life were spent in this comfortless solitude. These ideas made the cordial intercourse of Mr. Fuseli, which had at first been one of her greatest pleasures, a source of perpetual torment to her. She conceived it necessary to snap the chain of this association in her mind; and, for that purpose, determined to seek a new climate, and mingle in different scenes.”

Knowles, on the other hand, represents her as importunate with her love as a Phaedra, as consumed with passion as a Faustina. He states as a fact that it was for Fuseli’s sake that she changed her mode of life and adopted a new elegance in dress and manners. He declares that when the latter made no return to her advances, she pursued him so persistently that on receiving her letters, he thrust them unopened out of sight, so sure was he that they contained nothing butprotestations of regard and complaints of neglect; that, finally, she became so ill and miserable and unfitted for work that, despite Fuseli’s arguments against such a step, she went boldly to Mrs. Fuseli and asked to be admitted into her house as a member of the family, declaring that she could not live without daily seeing the man she loved; and that, thereupon, Mrs. Fuseli grew righteously wrathful and forbade her ever to cross her threshold again. He furthermore affirms that she considered her love for Fuseli strictly within the bounds of modesty and reason, that she encouraged it without scruple, and that she made every effort to win his heart. These proving futile, he concludes: “No resource was now left for Mrs. Wollstonecraft but to fly from the object which she regarded; her determination was instantly fixed; she wrote a letter to Fuseli, in which she begged pardon ‘for having disturbed the quiet tenor of his life,’ and on the 8th of December left London for France.”

An anonymous writer who in 1803 published a “Defence of the Character of the Late Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin,” repeats the story, but a little more kindly, declaring that Mary’s discovery of an unconsciously nurtured passion for a married man, and her determination to flee temptation, were the cause of her leaving England. That there was during her life-time some idle gossip about her relations to Fuseli is shown in the references to it in Eliza’s ill-natured letter. This counts for little, however. It was simply impossible for the woman who had written in defiance of social laws and restrictions, to escape having scandals attached to her name.

Kegan Paul, Mary’s able defender of modern times, denies the whole story. He writes in his Prefatory Memoir to her “Letters to Imlay:”—

“... 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 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.”

Her character is the best refutation of Knowles’s charges. She was too proud to demean herself to any man. She was too sensitive to slights to risk the repulses he says she accepted. And since always before and after this period she had nothing more at heart than the happiness of others, it is not likely that she would have deliberately tried to step in between Fuseli and his wife, and gain at the latter’s expense her own ends. She could not have changed her character in a day. She never played fast and loose with her principles. These were in many ways contrary to the standard of the rest of mankind, but they were also equally opposed to the conduct imputed to her. The testimony of her actions is her acquittal. That she did not for a year produce any work of importance is no argument against her. It was only after three years of uninterrupted industry that she found time to write the “Rights of Women.” On account of the urgency of her every-day needs, she had no leisure for work whose financial success was uncertain. Knowles’s storyis too absurdly out of keeping with her character to be believed for a moment.

The other version of this affair is not so inconceivable. That her affection may in the end have developed into a warmer feeling, and that she would have married Fuseli had he been free, is just possible. Allusions in her first letters to Imlay to a late “hapless love,” and to trouble, seem to confirm Godwin’s statement. But it is quite as likely that Fuseli, whose heart was, as his biographer admits, very susceptible, felt for her a passion which as a married man he had no right to give, and that she fled to France for his sake rather than for her own. In either of these cases, she would deserve admiration and respect. But the insufficiency of evidence reduces everything except the fact of her friendship for him to mere surmise.

However this may have been, it is certain that Mr. Johnson and the Fuselis decided to remain at home when Mary in December started for Paris.

The excitement in the French capital was then at fever heat. But the outside world hardly comprehended how serious the troubles were. Princes and their adherents trembled at the blow given to royalty in the person of Louis XVI. Liberals rejoiced at the successful revolt against monarchical tyranny. But neither one party nor the other for a moment foresaw what a terrible weapon reform was to become in the hands of the excitable French people. If, in the city where the tragedy was being enacted, the customary baking and brewing, the promenading under the trees, and the dog-dancing and the shoe-blacking on thePont-Neufcould still continue, it is not strangethat those who watched it from afar mistook its real weight.

The terrible night of the 10th of August had come and gone. The September massacres, the details of which had not yet reached England, were over. The Girondists were in the ascendency and had restored order. There were fierce contentions in the National Convention, but, on the whole, its attitude was one to inspire confidence. The English, who saw in the arrest of the king, and in the popular feeling against him, just such a crisis as their nation had passed through once or twice, were not deterred from visiting the country by its unsettled state. The French prejudice against England, it is true, was strong. Lafayette had some time before publicly expressed his belief that she was secretly conspiring against the peace of France. But his imputation had been vigorously denied, and nominally the two governments were friendly. English citizens had no reason to suppose they would not be safe in Paris, and those among them whose opinions brought themen rapportwith the French Republicans felt doubly secure. Consequently Mary’s departure for that capital, alone and unprotected, did not seem so hazardous then as it does now that the true condition of affairs is better understood.

She knew in Paris a Madame Filiettaz, daughter of the Madame Bregantz at whose school in Putney Eliza and Everina had been teachers, and to her house she went, by invitation. Monsieur and Madame Filiettaz were absent, and she was for some little time its sole occupant save the servants. The object of her visit was twofold. She wished to study French, for thoughshe could read and translate this language fluently, from want of practice she could neither speak nor understand it when it was spoken; and she also desired to watch for herself the development of the cause of freedom. Their love of liberty had made the French, as a nation, peculiarly attractive to her. She had long since openly avowed her sympathy by her indignant reply to Burke’s outcry against them. It was now a great satisfaction to be where she could follow day by day the progress of their struggle. She had excellent opportunities not only to see what was on the surface of society, which is all visitors to a strange land can usually do, but to study the actual forces at work in the movement. Thomas Paine was then in Paris. He was a member of the National Convention, and was on terms of intimacy with Condorcet, Brissot, Madame Roland, and other Republican leaders. Mary had known him well in London. She now renewed the acquaintance, and was always welcomed to his house near the Rue de Richelieu. Later, when, worn out by his numerous visitors, he retired to the Faubourg St. Denis, to a hotel where Madame de Pompadour had once lived, and allowed it to be generally believed that he had gone into the country for his health, Mary was one of the few favored friends who knew of his whereabouts. She thus, through him, was brought into close contact with the leading spirits of the day. She also saw much of Helen Maria Williams, the poetess, already notorious for her extreme liberalism, and who had numerous friends and acquaintances among the Revolutionary party in Paris. Mrs. Christie was still another friend of this period. Her husband’s business having kept them inFrance, they had become thoroughly nationalized. At their house many Americans congregated, among others a Captain Gilbert Imlay, of whom more hereafter. In addition to these English friends, Mary had letters of introduction to several prominent French citizens.

She arrived in Paris just before Louis XVI.’s trial. The city was comparatively quiet, but there was in the air an oppression which betokened the coming storm. She felt the people’s suspense as if she too had been personally interested. Between her studies and her efforts to obtain the proper clew by which she could in her own mind reduce the present political chaos to order, she found more than enough wherewith to fill her days. As always happened with her, the mental strain reacted upon her physical health, and her old enemies, depression of spirits and headaches, returned to harass her.

She wrote to Everina on the 24th of December:

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