CHAPTER XIII.

“No man could be more desirous than I was of adopting a practice conformable to my principles, as far as I could do so without affording reasonable ground of offence to any other person. I was anxious not to spend a penny on myself which I did not imagine calculated to render me a more capable servant of the public; and as I was averse to the expenditure of money, so I was not inclined to earn it but in small portions. I considered the disbursement of money for the benefit of others as a very difficult problem, which he who has the possession of it is bound to solve in the best manner he can, but which affords small encouragement to any one to acquire it who has it not. The plan, therefore, I resolved on was leisure,—a leisure to be employed in deliberate composition, and in the pursuit of such attainments as afforded me the most promise to render me useful. For years I scarcely did anything at home or abroad without the inquiry being uppermost in my mind whether I could be better employed for general benefit.”

He was equally uncompromising in his friendships. His feelings towards his friends were always ruled by his sense of justice. He was the first to come forward with substantial help in their hour of need, but he was also the first to tell them the truth, even though it might be unpleasant, when he thought it his duty to do so. His unselfishness is shown in his conduct during the famous state trials, in which Holcroft, his most intimate friend, Horne Tooke, and several other highly prized acquaintances, were accused of high treason. His boldly avowed revolutionary principles made him a marked man, but he did all that was in his power to defend them. He expressed in the columns of the “Morning Chronicle” his unqualified opinion of the atrocity of the proceedings against them; and throughout the trials he stood by the side of theprisoners, though by so doing he ran the risk of being arrested with them. But if his friends asked his assistance when it did not seem to him that they deserved it, he was as fearless in withholding it. A Jew money-lender, John King by name, at whose house he dined frequently, was arrested on some charge connected with his business. He appealed to Godwin to appear in court and give evidence in his favor; whereupon the latter wrote to him, not only declining, but forcibly explaining that he declined because he could not conscientiously attest to his, the Jew’s, moral character. There was no ill-will on his part, and he continued to dine amicably with King. Engrossed as he was with his own work, he could still find time to read a manuscript for Mrs. Inchbald, or a play for Holcroft, but when he did so, he was very plain-spoken in pointing out their faults. He incurred the former’s displeasure by correcting some grammatical errors in a story she had submitted to him, and he deeply wounded the latter by his unmerciful abuse of the “Lawyer.” “You come with a sledge-hammer of criticism,” Holcroft said to him on this occasion, “describe it [the play] as absolutely contemptible, tell me it must be damned, or, if it should escape, that it cannot survive five nights.” Yet his affection for Holcroft was unwavering. The conflicting results to which his honesty sometimes led are strikingly set forth in his relations to Thomas Cooper, a distant cousin, who at one time lived with him as pupil. He studied attentively the boy’s character, and did his utmost to treat him gently and kindly, but, on the other hand, he expressed in his presence his opinionof him in language harsh enough to justify his pupil’s indignation. It is more than probable that this same frankness was one of the causes of his many quarrels—démêlés, he calls them in his diary—with his most devoted friends. His sincerity, however, invariably triumphed, and these were always mere passing storms.

He was passionless even in relations which usually arouse warmth in the most phlegmatic natures. He was a good son and brother, yet so undemonstrative that his manner passed at times for indifference. Though in beliefs and sentiments he had drifted far apart from his mother, he never let this fact interfere with his filial respect and duty; and her long and many letters to him are proofs of his unfailing kindness for her. Men more affectionate than he might have rebelled against her maternal sermons. He never did. But the good lady had occasion to object to his coldness. In one of her letters she asks him why he cannot call her “Honored Mother” as well as “Madam,” by which title he addressed her, adding naïvely that “it would be full as agreeable.” He was always willing to look out for the welfare of his brothers, two of whom were somewhat disreputable characters, and of his sister Hannah, who lived in London. With the latter he was on particularly friendly terms, and saw much of her, yet Mrs. Sothren—the cousin who had been such a help to him in his early years—reproves him for writing of her as “Miss Godwin” instead of “sister,” and fears lest this may be a sign that his brotherly affection, once great, had abated.

He seems at one time to have thought that he couldprovide himself with a wife in the same manner in which he managed his other affairs. He imagined that in contracting such a relationship, love was no more indispensable than a heroine was to the interest of a novel. He proposed that his sister Hannah should choose a wife for him; and she, in all seriousness, set about complying with his request. In a spirit as business-like as his, she decided upon a friend, calculated she was sure to meet his requirements, and then sent him a list of her merits, much as one might write a recommendation of a governess or a cook. Her letter on the subject is so unique, and it is so impossible that it should have been written to any one but Godwin, that it is well worth while quoting part of it. She sent him a note of introduction to the lady in question, who, she writes,—

“... is in every sense formed to make one of your disposition really happy. She has a pleasing voice, with which she accompanies her musical instrument with judgment. She has an easy politeness in her manners, neither free nor reserved. She is a good housekeeper and a good economist, and yet of a generous disposition. As to her internal accomplishments, I have reason to speak still more highly of them; good sense without vanity, a penetrating judgment without a disposition to satire, good nature and humility, with about as much religion as my William likes, struck me with a wish that she was my William’s wife. I have no certain knowledge of her fortune, but that I leave for you to learn. I only know her father has been many years engaged in an employment which brings in £500 or £600 per annum, and Miss Gay is his only child.”

Not even this report could kindle the philosophical William into warmth. He waited many months beforehe called upon this paragon, and when he finally saw her, he failed to be enraptured according to Hannah’s expectations. “Poor Miss Gay,” as the Godwins subsequently called her, never received a second visit.

When it came to the point he found that something depended upon himself, and that he could not be led by his sister’s choice, satisfactory as it might be. That he should for a moment have supposed such a step possible is the more surprising, because he afterwards showed himself to be not only fond of the society of women, but unusually nice and discriminating in selecting it. His women friends were all famous either for beauty or cleverness. Before his marriage he was on terms of intimacy with Mrs. Inchbald, with Amelia Alderson, soon to become Mrs. Opie, and with the beautiful Mrs. Reveley, whose interest in politics and desire for knowledge were to him greater charms than her personal attractions. Notwithstanding his unimpassioned nature, William Godwin was never a philosophical Aloysius of Gonzaga, to voluntarily blind himself to feminine beauty.

Indeed, there must have been beneath all his coldness a substratum of warm and strong feeling. He possessed to a rare degree the power of making friends and of giving sympathy to his fellow-beings. The man who can command the affection of others, and enter into their emotions, must know how to feel himself. It was for more than his intellect that he was loved by men like Holcroft and Josiah Wedgwood, like Coleridge and Lamb, and that he was sought after by beautiful and clever women. His talents alonewould not have won the hearts of young men, and yet he invariably made friends with those who came under his influence. Willis Webb and Thomas Cooper, who, in his earlier London life, lived with him as pupils, not only respected but loved him, and gave him their confidence. In a later generation, youthful enthusiasts, of whom Bulwer and Shelley are the most notable, looked upon Godwin as the chief apostle in the cause of humanity, and, beginning by admiring him as a philosopher, finished by loving him as a man. Those who know him only through his works or by reading his biography, cannot altogether understand how it was that he thus attracted and held the affections of so many men and women. But the truth is that, while Godwin was naturally a man of an uncommonly cold temperament, much of his emotional insensibility was artificially produced by his puritanical training. He was perfectly honest when in his philosophy of life he banished the passions from his calculations. He was so thoroughly schooled in stifling emotion and its expression, that he thought himself incapable of passional excitement, and, reasoning from his own experience, failed to appreciate its importance in shaping the course of human affairs. But it may be that people brought into personal contact with him felt that beneath his passive exterior there was at least the possibility of passion. Mary Wollstonecraft was the first to develop this possibility into certainty, and to arouse Godwin to a consciousness of its existence. She revolutionized not only his life, but his social doctrines. Through her he discovered the flaw in his arguments, and then honestly confessed hismistake to the world. A few years after her death he wrote in the Introduction to “St. Leon:”—

“... I think it necessary to say on the present occasion ... that for more than four years I have been anxious for opportunity and leisure to modify some of the earlier chapters of that work [“Political Justice”] in conformity to the sentiments inculcated in this. Not that I see cause to make any change respecting the principle of justice, or anything else fundamental to the system there delivered; but that I apprehend domestic and private affections inseparable from the nature of man, and from what may be styled the culture of the heart, and am fully persuaded that they are not incompatible with a profound and active sense of justice in the mind of him that cherishes them.”

When Godwin met Mary, after her desertion by Imlay, he was forty years of age, in the full prime and vigor of his intellect, and in the height of his fame. She was thirty-seven, only three years his junior. She was the cleverest woman in England. Her talents had matured, and grief had made her strong. She was strikingly handsome. She had, by her struggles and sufferings, acquired what she calls in her “Rights of Women” aphysionomie. Even Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Reveley, hard as life had gone with them, had never approached the depth of misery which she had fathomed. The eventful meeting took place in the month of January, 1796, shortly after Mary had returned from her travels in the North. Miss Hayes invited Godwin to come to her house one evening when Mary expected to be there. He accepted her invitation without hesitation, but evinced no great eagerness.

“I will do myself the pleasure of waiting on you Friday,” he wrote, “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.”

The meeting was more propitious than their first some few years earlier had been. Godwin had, with others, heard her sad story, and felt sorry for her, and perhaps admired her for her bold practical application of his principles. This was better than the positive dislike with which she had once inspired him. But still his feeling for her was negative. He would probably never have made an effort to see her again. What Mary thought of him has not been recorded. But she must have been favorably impressed, for when she came back to London from her trip to Berkshire, she called upon him in his lodgings in Somer’s Town. He, in the mean time, had read her “Letters from Norway,” and they had given him a higher respect for her talents. The inaccuracies and the roughness of style which had displeased him in her earlier works had disappeared. There was no fault to be found with the book, but much to be said in its praise. Once she had pleased him intellectually, he began to discover her other attractions, and to enjoy being with her. Her conversation, instead of wearying him, as it once had, interested him. He no longer thought her forward and conceited, but succumbed to her personal charms. How great these were can be learned from the following description ofher character written by Mrs. Shelley, who obtained her knowledge from her mother’s intimate acquaintances. She says:—

“Mary Wollstonecraft was one of those beings who appear once perhaps in a generation to gild humanity with a ray which no difference of opinion nor chance of circumstance 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 these sorrows. Her sound understanding, her intrepidity, her sensibility and eager sympathy, stamped all her writings with force and truth, and endowed them with a tender charm 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 appreciating her excellence; who had stolen her heart, and availed himself of her excessive and thoughtless generosity and lofty independence of character, to plunge her in difficulties and then desert her. Difficulties, worldly difficulties, indeed, she set at naught, compared with her despair of good, her confidence betrayed, and when once she could conquer the misery that clung to her heart, she struggled cheerfully to meet the poverty that was her inheritance, and to do her duty by her darling child.”

“Godwin met her at the moment when she was deeply depressed by the ingratitude of one utterly incapable of appreciating her excellence; who had stolen her heart, and availed himself of her excessive and thoughtless generosity and lofty independence of character, to plunge her in difficulties and then desert her. Difficulties, worldly difficulties, indeed, she set at naught, compared with her despair of good, her confidence betrayed, and when once she could conquer the misery that clung to her heart, she struggled cheerfully to meet the poverty that was her inheritance, and to do her duty by her darling child.”

Godwin now began to see her frequently. She had established herself in rooms in Gumming Street, Pentonville, where she was very near him. They met often at the houses of Miss Hayes, Mr. Johnson, and other mutual friends. Her interests and tastes were the same as his; and this fact he recognized more fully as time went on. It is probably because his thoughts were so much with her, that the work he accomplished during this year was comparatively small. None of the other women he knew and admired had made him act spontaneously and forget to reason out his conduct as she did. He really had at one time thought of making Amelia Alderson his wife, but this, for some unrecorded reason, proving an impossibility, he calmly dismissed the suggestion from his mind and continued the friend he had been before. Had Mrs. Reveley been single he might have allowed himself to love her, as he did later, when he was a widower and she a widow. But so long as her husband was alive, and he knew he had no right to do so, he, with perfect equanimity, regulated his affection to suit the circumstances. But he never reasoned either for or against his love for Mary Wollstonecraft. It sprang from his heart, and it had grown into a strong passion before he had paused to deliberate as to its advisability.

As for Mary, Godwin’s friendship coming just when it did was an inestimable service. Never in all her life had she needed sympathy as she did then. She was virtually alone. Her friends were kind, but their kindness could not quite take the place of the individual love she craved. Imlay had given it to her for awhile, and her short-lived happiness with him made her present loneliness seem more unendurable. Her separation from him really dated back to the time when she left Havre. Her affection for him had been destroyed sooner than she thought because she had struggled bravely to retain it for the sake of her child. The gayety and many distractions of London life could not drown her heart’s wretchedness. It was through Godwin that she became reconciled to England, to life, and to herself. He revived her enthusiasm and renewed her interest in the world and mankind; but above all he gave her that special devotion without which she but half lived. In the restlessness that followed her loss of Imlay’s love, she had resolved to make the tour of Italy or Switzerland. Therefore when she had returned to London, expecting it to be but a temporary resting-place, she had taken furnished lodgings. “Now, however,” as Godwin says in his Memoirs, “she felt herself reconciled to a longer abode in England, probably without exactly knowing why this change had taken place in her mind.” She moved to other rooms in the extremity of Somer’s Town, and filled them with the furniture she had used in Store Street in the first days of her prosperity, and which had since been packed away. The unpacking of this furniture was with her what the removal of widows’ weeds is with other women. Her first love had perished; but from it rose another stronger and better, just as the ripening of autumn’s fruits follows the withering of spring’s blossoms. She mastered the harvest-secret, learning the value of that death which yields higher fruition.

In July, Godwin left London and spent the month in Norfolk. Absence from Mary made him realize more than he had hitherto done that she had become indispensable to his happiness. She was constantly in his thoughts. The more he meditated upon her, the more he appreciated her. There was less pleasure in his excursion than in the meeting with her which followed it. They were both glad to be together again; nor did they hesitate to make their gladness evident. At the end of three weeks they had confessed to each other that they could no longer live apart. Henceforward their lines must be cast in the same places. Godwin’s story of their courtship is eloquent in its simplicity. It is almost impossible to believe that it was written by the author of “Political Justice.”

“The partiality we conceived for each other,” he explains, “was in that mode which I have always regarded 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.... It was friendship melting into love.”

LIFE WITH GODWIN: MARRIAGE.

1796-1797.

Godwin and Mary did not at once marry. The former, in his “Political Justice,” had frankly confessed to the world that he thought the existing institution of marriage an evil. Mary had by her conduct avowed her agreement with him. But their views in this connection having already been fully stated need not be repeated. In omitting to seek legal sanction to their union both were acting in perfect accord with their standard of morality. Judged according to their motives, neither can be accused of wrong-doing. Pure in their own eyes, they deserve to be so in the world’s esteem. Their mistake consisted in their disregard of the fact that, to preserve social order in the community, sacrifices are required from the individual. They forgot—as Godwin, who was opposed to sudden change, should not have forgotten—that laws made for men in general cannot be arbitrarily altered to suit each man in particular.

Godwin, strange to say, was ruled in this matter not only by principle, but by sentiment. For the first time his emotions were stirred, and he really loved. He was more awed by his passion than a more susceptible man would have been. It seemed to him too sacredto flaunt before the public. “Nothing can be so ridiculous upon the face of it,” he says in the story of their love, “or so contrary to the genuine march of sentiment, as to require the overflowing of the soul to wait upon a ceremony, and that which, wherever delicacy and imagination exist, is of all things most sacredly private, to blow a trumpet before it, and to record the moment when it has arrived at its climax.” Mary was anxious to conceal, at least for a time, their new relationship. She was not ashamed of it, for never, even when her actions seem most daring, did she swerve from her ideas of right and wrong. But though, as a rule, people had blinded themselves to the truth, some bitter things had been said about her life with Imlay, and some friends had found it their duty to be unkind. All that was unpleasant she had of course heard. One is always sure to hear the evil spoken of one. A second offence against social decrees would assuredly call forth redoubled discussion and increased vituperation. The misery caused by her late experience was still vivid in her memory. She was no less sensitive than she had been then, and she shrank from a second scandal. She dreaded the world’s harshness, much as a Tennyson might that of critics whom he knows to be immeasurably his inferiors.

The great change in their relations made little difference in their way of living. Their determination to keep it secret would have been sufficient to prevent any domestic innovations in the establishment of either. But, in addition to this, Godwin had certain theories upon the subject. Because his love was the outcome of strong feeling and not of calm discussion, hisreliance upon reason, as the regulator of his actions, did not cease. The habits of a life-time could not be so easily broken. If he had not governed love in its growth, he at least ruled its expression. It was necessary to decide upon a course of conduct for the two lives now made one. At this juncture he was again the placid philosopher. It had occurred to him, probably in the days when Hannah Godwin was wife-hunting for him, or later, when Amelia Alderson met with his good-will, that if husband and wife live on too intimate and familiar terms, the chances are they will tire of each other very soon. When the charm of novelty and uncertainty is removed, there is danger of satiety. Whereas, if domestic pleasures can be combined with a little of the formality which exists previous to marriage, all the advantages of the married state are secured, while the monotony that too often kills passion is avoided. Since he and Mary were to be really, if not legally, man and wife, the time had come to test the truth of these ideas. The plan he proposed was that they should be as independent of each other as they had hitherto been, that the time spent together should not in any way be restricted or regulated by stated hours, and that, in their amusements and social intercourse, each should continue wholly free.

Mary readily acquiesced, though such a suggestion would probably never have originated with her. Her heart was too large and warm for doubts, where love was concerned. She was the very opposite of Godwin in this respect. She had the poetic rather than the philosophic temperament, and when she loved it was with an intensity that made analysis of her feelingsand their possible results out of the question. It is true that in her “Rights of Women” she had shown that passion must inevitably lose its first ardor, and that love between man and wife must in the course of time become either friendship or indifference. But while she had reasoned dispassionately in an abstract treatise, she had not been equally temperate in the direction of her own affairs. Her love for Imlay had not passed into the second stage, but his had deteriorated into indifference very quickly. Godwin was, as she well knew, in every way unlike Imlay. That she felt perfect confidence in him is seen by her willingness to live with him. But still, sure as she was of his innate uprightness, when he suggested to her means by which to insure the continuance of his love, she was only too glad to adopt them. She had learned, if not to be prudent herself, at least to comply with the prudence of others.

It would not be well perhaps for every one to follow their plan of life, but with them it succeeded admirably. Godwin remained in his lodgings, Mary in hers. He continued his old routine of work, made his usual round of visits, and went by himself, as of yore, to the theatre, and to the dinners and suppers of his friends. Mary pursued uninterruptedly her studies and writings, conducted her domestic concerns in the same way, and sought her amusements singly, sometimes meeting Godwin quite unexpectedly at the play or in private houses. His visits to her were as irregular in point of time as they had previously been, and when one wanted to make sure of the other for a certain hour or at a certain place, a regular engagement had to be made. The thoroughness with which they maintained theirindependence is illustrated by the following note which Mary sent to Godwin one morning, about a month before their marriage:—

“Did I not see you, friend Godwin, at the theatre last night? I thought I met a smile, but you went out without looking around.”

She was not mistaken. Godwin has recorded in his diary that he was at the theatre on that particular occasion. They not only did not inform each other of their movements, but they even considered it unnecessary to speak when they met by chance. Godwin’s realization of his theory further confirmed him in the belief that in this particular he was right. When he wrote “St. Leon,” he is supposed to have intended Marguerite, the heroine, for the picture of his wife. In that novel, in his account of the hero’s domestic affairs, he indirectly testifies to the merits of his own home-life. St. Leon says:—

“We had each our separate pursuits, whether for the cultivation of our minds or the promotion of our mutual interests. Separation gave us respectability in each other’s eyes, while it prepared us to enter with fresh ardor into society and conversation.”

The peculiar terms on which they lived had at least one advantage. They were the means of giving to later generations a clear insight into their domestic relations. For, as the two occupied separate lodgings and were apart during the greater part of the day, they often wrote to each other concerning matters which people so united usually settle by word of mouth. Godwin’s diary was a record of bare facts.Mary never kept one. There was no one else to describe their every-day life. This is exactly what is accomplished by the notes which thus, while they are without absolute merit, are of relative importance. They are really little informal conversations on paper. To read them is like listening to some one talking. They show how ready Mary was to enlist Godwin’s sympathy on all occasions, small as well as great, and how equally ready he was to be interested. It is always a surprise to find that the children of light are, despite their high mission, made of the same stuff as other men. It is therefore strange to hear these two apostles of reform talking much in the same strain as ordinary mortals, making engagements to dine on beef, groaning over petty ailments and miseries, and greeting each other in truebon compagnonstyle. Mary’s notes, like her letters to Imlay, are essentially feminine. Short as they are, they are full of womanly tenderness and weakness. Sometimes she wrote to invite Godwin to dinner or to notify him that she intended calling at his apartments, at the same time sending a bulletin of her health and of her plans for the day. At others she seems to have written simply because she could not wait, even a few hours, to make a desired explanation, to express an irrepressible complaint, or to acquaint him with some domesticcontretemps. The following are fair specimens of this correspondence:—

Jan. 5, 1797.Thursday morning.—I was very glad that you were not with me last night, for I could not rouse myself. To say the truth, I was unwell and out of spirits; I am better to-day.I shall take a walk before dinner, and expect to see you this evening,chez moi, about eight, if you have no objection.

Jan. 5, 1797.

Thursday morning.—I was very glad that you were not with me last night, for I could not rouse myself. To say the truth, I was unwell and out of spirits; I am better to-day.

I shall take a walk before dinner, and expect to see you this evening,chez moi, about eight, if you have no objection.

Jan. 12, 1797.Thursday morning.—I am better this morning, but it snows so incessantly that I do not know how I shall be able to keep my appointment this evening. What say you? But you have no petticoats to dangle in the snow. Poor women,—how they are beset with plagues within and without!

Jan. 12, 1797.

Thursday morning.—I am better this morning, but it snows so incessantly that I do not know how I shall be able to keep my appointment this evening. What say you? But you have no petticoats to dangle in the snow. Poor women,—how they are beset with plagues within and without!

Jan. 13, 1797.Friday morning.—I believe I ought to beg your pardon for talking at you last night, though it was in sheer simplicity of heart, and I have been asking myself why it so happened. Faith and troth, it was because there was nobody else worth attacking, or who could converse. C. had wearied me before you entered. But be assured, when I find a man that has anything in him, I shall let my every-day dish alone.I send you the “Emma” for Mrs. Inchbald, supposing you have not altered your mind.Bring Holcroft’s remarks with you, and Ben Jonson.

Jan. 13, 1797.

Friday morning.—I believe I ought to beg your pardon for talking at you last night, though it was in sheer simplicity of heart, and I have been asking myself why it so happened. Faith and troth, it was because there was nobody else worth attacking, or who could converse. C. had wearied me before you entered. But be assured, when I find a man that has anything in him, I shall let my every-day dish alone.

I send you the “Emma” for Mrs. Inchbald, supposing you have not altered your mind.

Bring Holcroft’s remarks with you, and Ben Jonson.

Jan. 27, 1797.I am not well this morning. It is very tormenting to be thus, neither sick nor well, especially as you scarcely imagine me indisposed.Women are certainly great fools; but nature made them so. I have not time or paper, else I could draw an inference, not very illustrative of your chance-medley system. But I spare the moth-like opinion; there is room enough in the world, etc.

Jan. 27, 1797.

I am not well this morning. It is very tormenting to be thus, neither sick nor well, especially as you scarcely imagine me indisposed.

Women are certainly great fools; but nature made them so. I have not time or paper, else I could draw an inference, not very illustrative of your chance-medley system. But I spare the moth-like opinion; there is room enough in the world, etc.

Feb. 3, 1797.Friday morning.—Mrs. Inchbald was gone into the city to dinner, so I had to measure back my steps.To-day I find myself better, and, as the weather is fine,mean to call on Dr. Fordyce. I shall leave home about two o’clock. I tell you so, lest you should call after that hour. I do not think of visiting you in my way, because I seem inclined to be industrious. I believe I feel affectionate to you in proportion as I am in spirits; still I must not dally with you, when I can do anything else. There is a civil speech for you to chew.

Feb. 3, 1797.

Friday morning.—Mrs. Inchbald was gone into the city to dinner, so I had to measure back my steps.

To-day I find myself better, and, as the weather is fine,mean to call on Dr. Fordyce. I shall leave home about two o’clock. I tell you so, lest you should call after that hour. I do not think of visiting you in my way, because I seem inclined to be industrious. I believe I feel affectionate to you in proportion as I am in spirits; still I must not dally with you, when I can do anything else. There is a civil speech for you to chew.

Feb. 22, 1797.Everina’s [her sister was at this time staying with her] cold is still so bad, that unless pique urges her, she will not go out to-day. For to-morrow I think I may venture to promise. I will call, if possible, this morning. I know I must come before half after one; but if you hear nothing more from me, you had better come to my house this evening.Will you send the second volume of “Caleb,” and praylendme a bit of Indian-rubber. I have lost mine. Should you be obliged to quit home before the hour I have mentioned, say. You will not forget that we are to dine at four. I wish to be exact, because I have promised to let Mary go and assist her brother this afternoon. I have been tormented all this morning by puss, who has had four or five fits. I could not conceive what occasioned them, and took care that she should not be terrified. But she flew up my chimney, and was so wild, that I thought it right to have her drowned. Fanny imagines that she was sick and ran away.

Feb. 22, 1797.

Everina’s [her sister was at this time staying with her] cold is still so bad, that unless pique urges her, she will not go out to-day. For to-morrow I think I may venture to promise. I will call, if possible, this morning. I know I must come before half after one; but if you hear nothing more from me, you had better come to my house this evening.

Will you send the second volume of “Caleb,” and praylendme a bit of Indian-rubber. I have lost mine. Should you be obliged to quit home before the hour I have mentioned, say. You will not forget that we are to dine at four. I wish to be exact, because I have promised to let Mary go and assist her brother this afternoon. I have been tormented all this morning by puss, who has had four or five fits. I could not conceive what occasioned them, and took care that she should not be terrified. But she flew up my chimney, and was so wild, that I thought it right to have her drowned. Fanny imagines that she was sick and ran away.

March 11, 1797.Saturday morning.—I must dine to-day with Mrs. Christie, and mean to return as early as I can; they seldom dine before five.Should you call and find only books, have a little patience, and I shall be with you.Do not give Fanny a cake to-day. I am afraid she stayed too long with you yesterday.You are to dine with me on Monday, remember; the salt beef awaits your pleasure.

March 11, 1797.

Saturday morning.—I must dine to-day with Mrs. Christie, and mean to return as early as I can; they seldom dine before five.

Should you call and find only books, have a little patience, and I shall be with you.

Do not give Fanny a cake to-day. I am afraid she stayed too long with you yesterday.

You are to dine with me on Monday, remember; the salt beef awaits your pleasure.

March 17, 1797.Friday morning.—And so, you goose, you lost your supper, and deserved to lose it, for not desiring Mary to give you some beef.There is a good boy, write me a review of Vaurien. I remember there is an absurd attack on a Methodist preacher because he denied the eternity of future punishments.I should be glad to have the Italian, were it possible, this week, because I promised to let Johnson have it this week.

March 17, 1797.

Friday morning.—And so, you goose, you lost your supper, and deserved to lose it, for not desiring Mary to give you some beef.

There is a good boy, write me a review of Vaurien. I remember there is an absurd attack on a Methodist preacher because he denied the eternity of future punishments.

I should be glad to have the Italian, were it possible, this week, because I promised to let Johnson have it this week.

These notes speak for themselves.

There was now a decided improvement in the lives of both Mary and Godwin. The latter, under the new influence, was humanized. Domestic ties, which he had never known before, softened him. He hereafter appears not only as the passionless philosopher, but as the loving husband and the affectionate father, little Fanny Imlay being treated by him as if she had been his own child. His love transformed him from a mere student of men to a man like all others. He who had always been, so far as his emotional nature was concerned, apart from the rest of his kind, was, in the end, one with them. From being a sceptic on the subject, he was converted into a firm believer in human passion. With the zeal usually attributed to converts, he became as warm in his praise of the emotions as he had before been indifferent in his estimation of them. This change is greatly to Mary’s credit. As, in his Introduction to “St. Leon” he made his public recantation of faith, so in the course of the story he elaborated his new doctrines, and, by so doing, paid tribute to the woman who had wrought the wonder. His hero’s descriptionof married pleasures being based on his own knowledge of them, he writes:—

“Now only it was that I tasted of perfect happiness. To judge from my own experience in this situation, I should say that nature has atoned for all the disasters and miseries she so copiously and incessantly pours upon her sons by this one gift, the transcendent enjoyment and nameless delights which, wherever the heart is pure and the soul is refined, wait on the attachment of two persons of opposite sexes.... It has been said to be a peculiar felicity for any one to be praised by a man who is himself eminently a subject of praise; how much happier to be prized and loved by a person worthy of love. A man may be prized and valued by his friend; but in how different a style of sentiment from the regard and attachment that may reign in the bosom of his mistress or his wife.... In every state we long for some fond bosom on which to rest our weary head; some speaking eye with which to exchange the glances of intelligence and affection. Then the soul warms and expands itself; then it shuns the observation of every other beholder; then it melts with feelings that are inexpressible, but which the heart understands without the aid of words; then the eyes swim with rapture, then the frame languishes with enjoyment; then the soul burns with fire; then the two persons thus blest are no longer two; distance vanishes, one thought animates, one mind informs them. Thus love acts; thus it is ripened to perfection; never does man feel himself so much alive, so truly ethereal, as when, bursting the bonds of diffidence, uncertainty, and reserve, he pours himself entire into the bosom of the woman he adores.”

Mary was as much metamorphosed by her new circumstances as Godwin. Her heart at rest, she grew gay and happy. She was at all times, even when harassed with cares, thoughtful of other people. Whenher own troubles had ceased, her increased kindliness was shown in many little ways, which unfortunately cannot be appreciated by posterity, but which made her, to her contemporaries, a more than ever delightful companion and sympathetic friend. “She had always possessed,” Godwin says of her, “in an unparalleled degree the art of communicating happiness, and she was now in the constant and unlimited exercise of it. She seemed to have attained that situation which her disposition and character imperiously demanded, but which she had never before attained; and her understanding and her heart felt the benefit of it.” She never at any time tried to hide her feelings, whatever these might be; therefore she did not disguise her new-found happiness, though she gave no reason for its existence. It revealed itself in her face, in her manners, and even in her conversation. “The serenity of her countenance,” again to quote Godwin, best of all authorities for this period of her life, “the increasing sweetness of her manners, and that consciousness of enjoyment that seemed ambitious that every one she saw should be happy as well as herself, were matters of general observation to all her acquaintance.” Her beauty, depending so much more upon expression than upon charm of coloring or regularity of features, naturally developed rather than decreased with years. Suffering and happiness had left their impress upon her face, giving it the strength, the strange melancholy, and the tenderness which characterize her portrait, painted by Opie about this time. Southey, who was just then visiting London, bears witness to her striking personal appearance. He wrote to his friend Cottle:—

“Of all the lions orliteratiI have seen here, Mary Imlay’s countenance is the best, infinitely the best; the only fault in it is an expression somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display,—an expression indicating superiority, not haughtiness, not sarcasm in Mary Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and although the lid of one of them is affected by a little paralysis, they are the most meaning I ever saw.”1

1Mr. Kegan Paul, in the spring of 1884, showed the author of this Life a lock of Mary Wollstonecraft’s hair. It is wonderfully soft in texture, and in color a rich auburn, turning to gold in the sunlight.

On March 29, 1797, after they had lived together happily and serenely for seven months, Mary and Godwin were married. The marriage ceremony was performed at old Saint Pancras Church, in London, and Mr. Marshal, their mutual friend, and the clerk were the only witnesses. So unimportant did it seem to Godwin, to whom reason was more binding than any conventional form, that he never mentioned it in his diary, though in the latter he kept a strict account of his daily actions. It meant as little to Mary as it did to him, and she playfully alluded to the change, in one of her notes written a day or two afterwards:

March 31, 1797.Tuesday.—I return you the volumes; will you get me the rest? I have not perhaps given it as careful a reading as some of the sentiments deserve.Pray send me by Mary, for my luncheon, a part of the supper you announced to me last night, as I am to be a partaker of your worldly goods, you know!

March 31, 1797.

Tuesday.—I return you the volumes; will you get me the rest? I have not perhaps given it as careful a reading as some of the sentiments deserve.

Pray send me by Mary, for my luncheon, a part of the supper you announced to me last night, as I am to be a partaker of your worldly goods, you know!

They were induced to take this step, not by any dissatisfaction with the nature of the connection theyhad already formed, but by the fact that Mary was soon to become a mother for the second time. Godwin explains that “she was unwilling, and perhaps with reason, to incur that exclusion from the society of many valuable and excellent individuals, which custom awards in cases of this sort. I should have felt an extreme repugnance to the having caused her such an inconvenience.” But probably another equally strong motive was, that both had at heart the welfare of their unborn child. In Godwin’s ideal state of society, illegitimacy would be no disgrace. But men were very far from having attained it; and children born of unmarried parents were still treated as if they were criminals. Mary doubtlessly realized the bitterness in store for Fanny, through no fault of her own, and was unwilling to bring another child into the world to meet so cruel a fate. So long as their actions affected no one but themselves, she and Godwin could plead a right to bid defiance to society and its customs, since they were willing to bear the penalty; but once they became responsible for a third life, they were no longer free agents. The duties they would thereby incur were so many arguments for compliance with social laws.

At first they told no one of their marriage. Mrs. Shelley gives two reasons for their silence. Godwin was very sensitive to criticism, perhaps even more so than Mary. He confessed once to Holcroft: “Though I certainly give myself credit for intellectual powers, yet I have a failing which I have never been able to overcome. I am so cowed and cast down by rude and unqualified assault, that for a time I am unableto recover.” This was true not only in connection with his literary work, but with all his relations in life. He knew that severe comments would be called forth by an act in direct contradiction to doctrines he had emphatically preached. His adherents would condemn him as an apostate. His enemies would accept his practical retraction of one of his theories as a proof of the unsoundness of the rest. It required no little courage to submit to such an ordeal. But the other motive for secrecy was more urgent. Mary, after Imlay left her, was penniless. She resumed at once her old tasks. But her expenses were greater than they had been, and her free time less, since she had to provide for and take care of Fanny. Besides, Imlay’s departure had caused certain money complications. Mr. Johnson and other kind friends, however, were now, as always, ready to help her out of pressing difficulties, and to assume the debts which she could not meet. Godwin, who had made it a rule of life not to earn more money than was absolutely necessary for his very small wants, and who had never looked forward to maintaining a family, could not at once contribute towards Mary’s support, or relieve her financial embarrassments. The announcement of their marriage would be the signal for her friends to cease giving her their aid, and she could not, as yet, settle her affairs alone. This was the difficulty which forced them into temporary silence.

However, to secure the end for which they had married, long concealment was impossible. Godwin applied to Mr. Thomas Wedgwood of Etruria for a loan of £50, without giving him any explanation forhis request, though he was sure, on account of his well-known economy and simple habits, it would appear extraordinary. This sum enabled Mary to tide over her present emergency, and the marriage was made public on the 6th of April, a few days after the ceremony had been performed. One of the first to whom Godwin told the news was Miss Hayes. This was but fair, since it was under her auspices that they renewed their acquaintance to such good purpose. His note is dated April 10:—

“My fair neighbor desires me to announce to you a piece of news which it is consonant to the regard which 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, Somer’s Town, whenever you are inclined to favor her with a call.”

About ten days later he wrote to Mr. Wedgwood, and his letter confirms Mrs. Shelley’s statement. His effort to prove that his conduct was not inconsistent with his creed shows how keenly he felt the criticisms it would evoke; and his demand for more money reveals the slender state of the finances of husband and wife:—

No. 7 Evesham Buildings, Somer’s Town,April 19, 1797.You have by this time heard from B. Montague of my marriage. This was the solution of my late application toyou, which I promised speedily to communicate. Some persons have found an inconsistency between my practice in this instance and my doctrines. But I cannot see it. The doctrine of my “Political Justice” is, that an attachment in some degree permanent between two persons of opposite sexes is right, but that marriage as practised in European countries is wrong. I still adhere to that opinion. Nothing but a regard for the happiness of the individual which I had no right to injure could have induced me to submit to an institution which I wish to see abolished, and which I would recommend to my fellow-men never to practise but with the greatest caution. Having done what I thought necessary for the peace and respectability of the individual, I hold myself no otherwise bound than I was before the ceremony took place.It is possible, however, that you will not see the subject in the same light, and I perhaps went too far, when I presumed to suppose that if you were acquainted with the nature of the case, you would find it to be such as to make the interference I requested of you appear reasonable. I trust you will not accuse me of duplicity in having told you that it was not for myself that I wanted your assistance. You will perceive that that remark was in reference to the seeming inconsistency between my habits of economy and independence, and the application in question.I can see no reason to doubt that, as we are both successful authors, we shall be able by our literary exertions, though with no other fortune, to maintain ourselves either separately or, which is more desirable, jointly. The loan I requested of you was rendered necessary by some complication in her pecuniary affairs, the consequence of her former connection, the particulars of which you have probably heard. Now that we have entered into a new mode of living, which will probably be permanent, I find a further supply of fifty pounds will be necessary to enable us to start fair. This you shall afford us, if you feel perfectly assured of its propriety; but if there be the smallest doubt in your mind, I shall be much more gratified by your obeying that doubt, than superseding it. I do not atpresent feel inclined to remain long in any man’s debt, not even in yours. As to the not having published our marriage at first, I yielded in that to her feelings. Having settled the principal point in conformity to her interests, I felt inclined to leave all inferior matters to her disposal.We do not entirely cohabit.W. Godwin.

No. 7 Evesham Buildings, Somer’s Town,April 19, 1797.

You have by this time heard from B. Montague of my marriage. This was the solution of my late application toyou, which I promised speedily to communicate. Some persons have found an inconsistency between my practice in this instance and my doctrines. But I cannot see it. The doctrine of my “Political Justice” is, that an attachment in some degree permanent between two persons of opposite sexes is right, but that marriage as practised in European countries is wrong. I still adhere to that opinion. Nothing but a regard for the happiness of the individual which I had no right to injure could have induced me to submit to an institution which I wish to see abolished, and which I would recommend to my fellow-men never to practise but with the greatest caution. Having done what I thought necessary for the peace and respectability of the individual, I hold myself no otherwise bound than I was before the ceremony took place.

It is possible, however, that you will not see the subject in the same light, and I perhaps went too far, when I presumed to suppose that if you were acquainted with the nature of the case, you would find it to be such as to make the interference I requested of you appear reasonable. I trust you will not accuse me of duplicity in having told you that it was not for myself that I wanted your assistance. You will perceive that that remark was in reference to the seeming inconsistency between my habits of economy and independence, and the application in question.

I can see no reason to doubt that, as we are both successful authors, we shall be able by our literary exertions, though with no other fortune, to maintain ourselves either separately or, which is more desirable, jointly. The loan I requested of you was rendered necessary by some complication in her pecuniary affairs, the consequence of her former connection, the particulars of which you have probably heard. Now that we have entered into a new mode of living, which will probably be permanent, I find a further supply of fifty pounds will be necessary to enable us to start fair. This you shall afford us, if you feel perfectly assured of its propriety; but if there be the smallest doubt in your mind, I shall be much more gratified by your obeying that doubt, than superseding it. I do not atpresent feel inclined to remain long in any man’s debt, not even in yours. As to the not having published our marriage at first, I yielded in that to her feelings. Having settled the principal point in conformity to her interests, I felt inclined to leave all inferior matters to her disposal.

We do not entirely cohabit.

W. Godwin.

Strange to say, the announcement of their marriage did not produce quite so satisfactory an effect as they had anticipated. Mary, notwithstanding her frank protest, was still looked upon as Imlay’s wife. Her intimate connection with Godwin had been very generally understood, but not absolutely known, and hence it had not ostracized her socially. If conjectures and comments were made, they were whispered, and not uttered aloud. But the marriage had to be recognized, and the fact that Mary was free to marry Godwin, though Imlay was alive, was an incontrovertible proof that her relation to the latter had been illegal. People who had been deaf to her statements could not ignore this formal demonstration of their truth. Hitherto, their friendliness to her could not be construed into approval of her unconventionality. But now, by continuing to visit her and receive her at their houses, they would be countenancing an offence against morality which the world ranks with the unpardonable sins. They might temporize with their own consciences, but not with public opinion. They were therefore in a dilemma, from which there was no middle course of extrication. Thus forced to decisive measures, a number of her friends felt obliged to forego all acquaintance with her. Two whom she then lost, and whom she most deeply regretted, were Mrs. Siddons and Mrs.Inchbald. In speaking of their secession, Godwin says: “Mrs. Siddons, I am sure, regretted the necessity which she conceived to be imposed on her by the peculiarity of her situation, to conform to the rules I have described.” Mrs. Inchbald wept when she heard the news. Godwin was one of her highly valued friends and admirers, and was a constant visitor at her house. She feared, now he had a wife, his visits would be less frequent. Her conduct on this occasion was so ungracious that one wonders if her vanity were not more deeply wounded than her moral sensibility. Her congratulations seem inspired by personal pique, rather than by strong principle. She wrote and wished Godwin joy, and then declared that she was so sure his new-found happiness would make him forgetful of all other engagements, that she had invited some one else to take his place at the theatre on a certain night when they had intended going together. “If I have done wrong,” she told him, “when you next marry, I will do differently.” Notwithstanding her note, Godwin thought her friendship would stand the test to which he had put it, and both he and Mary accompanied her on the appointed night. But Mrs. Inchbald was very much in earnest, and did not hesitate to show her feelings. She spoke to Mary in a way that Godwin later declared to be “base, cruel, and insulting;” adding, “There were persons in the box who heard it, and they thought as I do.” The breach thus made was never completely healed. Mr. and Mrs. Twiss, at whose house Mary had hitherto been cordially welcomed, also sacrificed her friendship to what, Godwin says, they were “silly enough to think a proper etiquette.”

But there still remained men and women of larger minds and hearts who fully appreciated that Mary’s case was exceptional, and not to be judged by ordinary standards. The majority of her acquaintances, knowing that her intentions were pure, though her actions were opposed to accepted ideals of purity, were brave enough to regulate their behavior to her by their convictions. Beautiful Mrs. Reveley was as much moved as Mrs. Inchbald when she heard the news of Godwin’s marriage, but her friendship was formed in a finer mould. Mrs. Shelley says that “she feared to lose a kind and constant friend; but becoming intimate with Mary Wollstonecraft, she soon learnt to appreciate her virtues and to love her. She soon found, as she told me in after days, that instead of losing one she had secured two friends, unequalled, perhaps, in the world for genius, single-heartedness, and nobleness of disposition, and a cordial intercourse subsisted between them.” It was from Mrs. Reveley that Mrs. Shelley obtained most of her information about her mother’s married life. Men like Johnson, Basil Montague, Thomas Wedgwood, Horne Tooke, Thomas Holcroft, did not of course allow the marriage to interfere with their friendship. It is rather strange that Fuseli should have now been willing enough to be civil. Marriage, in his opinion, had restored Mary to respectability. “You have not, perhaps, heard,” he wrote to a friend, “that the assertrix of female rights has given her hand to thebalancierof political justice.” He not only called on Mrs. Godwin, but he dined with her, an experiment, however, which did not prove pleasurable, for Horne Tooke, Curran, and Grattan were of theparty, and they discussed politics. Fuseli, who loved nothing better than to talk, had never a chance to say a word. “I wonder you invited me to meet such wretched company,” he exclaimed to Mary in disgust.

Thomas Holcroft, one of the four men whom Godwin acknowledged to have greatly influenced him, wrote them an enthusiastic letter of congratulation. Addressing them both, he says:—

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