"Maria" is a story with a purpose. Its aim is the reformation of the evils which result from the established relations of the sexes. Certain rights are to be vindicated by a full exposition of the wrongs which their absence causes. Mary wished, as her Preface sets forth, to exhibit the misery and oppression peculiar to women, that arise out of the partial laws and customs of society. "Maria," in fact, was to be a forcible proof of the necessity of those social changes which she had urged in the "Vindication of the Rights of Women." In the career of the heroine the wrongs women suffer from matrimonial despotism and cruelty are demonstrated; while that of Jemima shows how impossible it is for poor or degraded women to find employment. The principal interest in the book arises from the fact that in it Mary explains more definitely than she had in any previous work, her views about the laws and restrictions of matrimony. Otherwise the principles laid down in it do not differ from those which she had already stated in print. Her justification of Maria's conduct is in reality a declaration of her belief that cruelty, depravity, and infidelity in a man are sufficient reasons for his wife to separate herself from him, this separation requiring no legal permit; and that a pure honest love sanctifies the union of two people which may not have been confirmed by a civil or religious ceremony. The following passage is a partial statement of these views, which proved very exasperating to her contemporaries. It is the advice given to Maria, after her flight, by a friendly uncle:—

"The marriage state is certainly that in which women, generally speaking, can be most useful; but I am far from thinking that a woman, once married, ought to consider the engagement as indissoluble (especially if there be no children to reward her for sacrificing her feelings) in case her husband merits neither her love nor esteem. Esteem will often supply the place of love, and prevent a woman from being wretched, though it may not make her happy. The magnitude of a sacrifice ought always to bear some proportion to the utility in view; and for a woman to live with a man for whom she can cherish neither affection nor esteem, or even be of any use to him, excepting in the light of a housekeeper, is an abjectness of condition, the enduring of which no concurrence of circumstances can ever make a duty in the sight of God or just men. If indeed she submits to it merely to be maintained in idleness, she has no right to complain bitterly of her fate; or to act, as a person of independent character might, as if she had a title to disregard general rules.

"But the misfortune is, that many women only submit in appearance, and forfeit their own respect to secure their reputation in the world. The situation of a woman separated from her husband is undoubtedly very different from that of a man who has left his wife. He, with lordly dignity, has shaken off a clog; and the allowing her food and raiment is thought sufficient to secure his reputation from taint. And, should she have been inconsiderate, he will be celebrated for his generosity and forbearance. Such is the respect paid to the master-key of property! A woman, on the contrary, resigning what is termed her natural protector (though he never was so but in name), is despised and shunned for asserting the independence of mind distinctive of a rational being, and spurning at slavery."

The incidents selected by Mary to prove her case are, it must be admitted, disagreeable, and the minor details too frequently revolting. The stories of Maria, Darnford, and Jemima are records of shame, crime, and human bestiality little less unpleasant than the realism of a Zola. It is an astonishing production, even for an age when Fielding and Smollett were not considered coarse. But, as was the case in the "Rights of Women," this plainness of speech was due not to a delight in impurity and uncleanness for their own sakes, but to Mary's certainty that by the proper use of subjects vile in themselves, she could best establish principles of purity. Whatever may be thought of her moral creed and of her manner of promulgating it, no reader of her books can deny her the respect which her courage and sincerity evoke. One may mistrust the mission of a Savonarola, and yet admire his inexorable adherence to it. Mary Wollstonecraft's faith in, and devotion to, the doctrines she preached was as firm and unflinching as those of any religiously inspired prophet.

This story gives little indication of literary merit. The style is stilted, and there is no attempt at delineation of character. It is wholly without dramatic action; for this, Mary explains, would have interfered with her main object. But then its straightforward statement of facts, by concentrating the attention upon them, adds very strongly to the impression they produce. Maria is as complete a departure from the conventional heroine of the day, as, at a later period, Charlotte Bronte's Rochester was from the heroes of contemporary novelists. And the book contains at least one description which should find a place here. This is the account Maria gives of a visit she makes to her country home a few years after her marriage and realization of its bitterness, and is really a record of the sentiments awakened in her when she visited Beverly, her early home, just before she left England for Sweden. The passage, in its contrast to the oppressive narrative which it interrupts, is as refreshing as a cool sea-breeze after the suffocating sirocco of the desert:—

"This was the first time I had visited my native village since my marriage. But with what different emotions did I return from the busy world, with a heavy weight of experience benumbing my imagination, to scenes that whispered recollections of joy and hope most eloquently to my heart! The first scent of the wild-flowers from the heath thrilled through my veins, awakening every sense to pleasure. The icy hand of despair seemed to be removed from my bosom; and, forgetting my husband, the nurtured visions of a romantic mind, bursting on me with all their original wildness and gay exuberance, were again hailed as sweet realities. I forgot, with equal facility, that I ever felt sorrow or knew care in the country; while a transient rainbow stole athwart the cloudy sky of despondency. The picturesque forms of several favorite trees, and the porches of rude cottages, with their smiling hedges, were recognized with the gladsome playfulness of childish vivacity. I could have kissed the chickens that pecked on the common; and longed to pat the cows, and frolic with the dogs that sported on it. I gazed with delight on the wind-mill, and thought it lucky that it should be in motion at the moment I passed by: and entering the dear green lane which led directly to the village, the sound of the well-known rookery gave that sentimental tinge to the varying sensations of my active soul, which only served to heighten the lustre of the luxuriant scenery. But spying, as I advanced, the spire peeping over the withered tops of the aged elms that composed the rookery, my thoughts flew immediately to the church-yard; and tears of affection, such was the effect of my imagination, bedewed my mother's grave! Sorrow gave place to devotional feelings. I wandered through the church in fancy as I used sometimes to do on a Saturday evening. I recollected with what fervor I addressed the God of my youth; and once more with rapturous love looked above my sorrows to the Father of nature. I pause, feeling forcibly all the emotions I am describing; and (reminded, as I register my sorrows, of the sublime calm I have felt when, in some tremendous solitude, my soul rested on itself, and seemed to fill the universe) I insensibly breathe softly, hushing every wayward emotion, as if fearing to sully with a sigh a contentment so ecstatic."

"Maria" seemed to many of its readers an unanswerable proof of the charge of immorality brought against its authoress. Mrs. West, in her "Letters to a Young Man," pointed to it as evidence of Mary's unfitness for the world beyond the grave. The "Biographical Dictionary" undoubtedly referred to it when it declared that much of the four volumes of Mary's posthumous writings "had better been suppressed, as ill calculated to excite sympathy for one who seems to have rioted in sentiments alike repugnant to religion, sense, and decency." Modern readers have been kinder. The following is Miss Mathilde Blind's criticism, which, though a little too enthusiastic perhaps, shows a keen appreciation of the redeeming merits of the book:—

"For originality of invention, tragic incident, and a certain fiery eloquence of style, this is certainly the most remarkable and mature of her works, although one may object that for a novel the moral purpose is far too obvious, the manner too generalized, and many of the situations revolting to the taste of a modern reader. But, with all its faults, it is a production that, in the implacable truth with which it lays open the festering sores of society, in the unshrinking courage with which it drags into the light of day the wrongs the feeble have to suffer at the hands of the strong, in the fiery enthusiasm with which it lifts up its voice for the voiceless outcasts, may be said to resemble 'Les Miserables,' by Victor Hugo."

The other contents of these four volumes are as follows: a series of lessons in spelling and reading, which, because prepared especially for her "unfortunate child," Fanny Imlay, are an interesting relic; the "Letters on the French Nation," mentioned in a previous chapter; a fragment and list of proposed "Letters on the Management of Infants;" several letters to Mr. Johnson, the most important of which have been already given; the "Cave of Fancy," an Oriental tale, as Godwin calls it,—the story of an old philosopher who lives in a desolate sea-coast district and there seeks to educate a child, saved from a shipwreck, by means of the spirits under his command (the few chapters Godwin thought proper to print were written in 1787, and then put aside, never to be finished); an "Essay on Poetry, and Our Relish for the Beauties of Nature," a short discussion of the difference between the poetry of the ancients, who recorded their own impressions from nature, and that of the moderns, who are too apt to express sentiments borrowed from books (this essay was published in the "Monthly Magazine" for April, 1797); and finally, to conclude the list of contents, the book contains some "Hints" which were to have been incorporated in the second part of the "Rights of Women" which Mary intended to write.

These fragments and works are intrinsically of small value. The "Cave of Fancy" contains an interesting definition of sensibility, in which Mary, perhaps unconsciously, gives an excellent analysis of her own sensitive nature. This quality, the old sage says, is the

"result of acute senses, finely fashioned nerves, which vibrate at the slightest touch, and convey such clear intelligence to the brain, that it does not require to be arranged by the judgment. Such persons instantly enter into the character of others, and instinctively discern what will give pain to every human being; their own feelings are so varied that they seem to contain in themselves not only all the passions of the species, but their various modifications. Exquisite pain and pleasure is their portion; nature wears for them a different aspect than is displayed to common mortals. One moment it is a paradise: all is beautiful; a cloud arises, an emotion receives a sudden damp, darkness invades the sky, and the world is an unweeded garden."

Of the "Hints," one on a subject which has of late years been very eloquently discussed is valuable as demonstrating her opinion of the relation of religion to morals. It is as follows:—

"Few can walk alone. The staff of Christianity is the necessary support of human weakness. An acquaintance with the nature of man and virtue, with just sentiments on the attributes, would be sufficient, without a voice from heaven, to lead some to virtue, but not the mob."



CHAPTER XI.

RETROSPECTIVE.

1794-1796.

Mary's torture of suspense was now over. The reaction from it would probably have been serious, if she had not had the distraction of work. Activity was, as it had often been before, the tonic which restored her to comparative health. She had no money, and Fanny, despite Imlay's promises, was entirely dependent upon her. Her exertions to maintain herself and her child obliged her to stifle at least the expression of misery. One of her last outbursts of grief found utterance in a letter to Mr. Archibald Hamilton Rowan, who in France had been the witness of her happiness. Shortly after her final farewell to Imlay, she wrote to this friend:—

LONDON, Jan. 26, 1796.

MY DEAR SIR,—Though I have not heard from you, I should have written to you, convinced of your friendship, could I have told you anything of myself that could have afforded you pleasure. I am unhappy. I have been treated with unkindness, and even cruelty, by the person from whom I had every reason to expect affection. I write to you with an agitated hand. I cannot be more explicit. I value your good opinion, and you know how to feel for me. I looked for something like happiness in the discharge of my relative duties, and the heart on which I leaned has pierced mine to the quick. I have not been used well, and live but for my child; for I am weary of myself. I still think of settling in France, because I wish to leave my little girl there. I have been very ill, have taken some desperate steps; but I am now writing for independence. I wish I had no other evil to complain of than the necessity of providing for myself and my child. Do not mistake me. Mr. Imlay would be glad to supply all my pecuniary wants; but unless he returns to himself, I would perish first. Pardon the incoherence of my style. I have put off writing to you from time to time, because I could not write calmly. Pray write to me. I will not fail, I was going to say, when I have anything good to tell you. But for me there is nothing good in store. My heart is broken! I am yours, etc.,

MARY IMLAY.

Outwardly she became much calmer. She resumed her old tasks; Mr. Johnson now, as ever, practically befriending her by providing her with work. She had nothing so much at heart as her child's interests, and these seemed to demand her abjuration of solitude and her return to social life. Her existence externally was, save for the presence of Fanny, exactly the same as it had been before her departure for France. Another minor change was that she was now known as Mrs. Imlay. Imlay had asked her to retain his name; and to prevent the awkwardness and misunderstandings that otherwise would have arisen, she consented to do so.

During this period she had held but little communication with her family. The coolness between her sisters and herself had, from no fault of hers, developed into positive anger. Their ill-will, which had begun some years previous, had been stimulated by her comparative silence during her residence abroad. She had really written to them often, but it was impossible at that time for letters not to miscarry. Those which she sent by private opportunities reached them, and they contain proofs of her unremitting and affectionate solicitude for them. Always accustomed to help them out of difficulties, she worried over what she heard of their circumstances, and while her hands were, so to speak, tied, she made plans to contribute to their future comforts. These letters were not given in the order of their date, that they might not interrupt the narrative of the Imlay episode. They may more appropriately be quoted here. The following was written to Everina about a month before Fanny's birth:—

HAVRE, March 10, 1794.

MY DEAR GIRL,—It is extremely uncomfortable to write to you thus without expecting, or even daring to ask for an answer, lest I should involve others in my difficulties, and make them suffer for protecting me. The French are at present so full of suspicion that had a letter of James's, imprudently sent to me, been opened, I would not have answered for the consequence. I have just sent off a great part of my manuscripts, which Miss Williams would fain have had me burn, following her example; and to tell you the truth, my life would not have been worth much had they been found. It is impossible for you to have any idea of the impression the sad scenes I have witnessed have left on my mind. The climate of France is uncommonly fine, the country pleasant, and there is a degree of ease and even simplicity in the manners of the common people which attaches me to them. Still death and misery, in every shape of terror, haunt this devoted country. I certainly am glad that I came to France, because I never could have had a just opinion of the most extraordinary event that has ever been recorded, and I have met with some uncommon instances of friendship, which my heart will ever gratefully store up, and call to mind when the remembrance is keen of the anguish it has endured for its fellow-creatures at large, for the unfortunate beings cut off around me, and the still more unfortunate survivors. If any of the many letters I have written have come to your hands or Eliza's, you know that I am safe, through the protection of an American, a most worthy man, who joins to uncommon tenderness of heart and quickness of feeling, a soundness of understanding and reasonableness of temper rarely to be met with. Having been brought up in the interior parts of America, he is a most natural, unaffected creature. I am with him now at Havre, and shall remain there till circumstances point out what is necessary for me to do. Before I left Paris, I attempted to find the Laurents, whom I had several times previously sought for, but to no purpose. And I am apt to think that it was very prudent in them to leave a shop that had been the resort of the nobility.

Where is poor Eliza? From a letter I received many, many months after it was written, I suppose she is in Ireland. Will you write to tell her that I most affectionately remember her, and still have in my mind some places for her future comfort. Are you well? But why do I ask? you cannot reply to me. This thought throws a damp on my spirits whilst I write, and makes my letter rather an act of duty than a present satisfaction. God bless you! I will write by every opportunity, and am yours sincerely and affectionately,

MARY.

Another written from Paris, before Imlay had shown himself in his true colors, is full of kindness, containing a suggestion that Everina should join her in the spring:

PARIS, September, 1794.

As you must, my dear girl, have received several letters from me, especially one I sent to London by Mr. Imlay, I avail myself of this opportunity just to tell you that I am well and my child, and to request you to write by this occasion. I do, indeed, long to hear from you and Eliza. I have at last got some tidings of Charles, and as they must have reached you, I need not tell you what sincere satisfaction they afforded me. I have also heard from James; he too, talks of success, but in a querulous strain. What are you doing? Where is Eliza? You have perhaps answered these questions in answer to the letters I gave in charge to Mr. I.; but fearing that some fatality might have prevented their reaching you, let me repeat that I have written to you and to Eliza at least half a score of times, pointing out different ways for you to write to me, still have received no answers. I have again and again given you an account of my present situation, and introduced Mr. Imlay to you as a brother you would love and respect. I hope the time is not very distant when we shall all meet. Do be very particular in your account of yourself, and if you have not time to procure me a letter from Eliza, tell me all about her. Tell me, too, what is become of George, etc., etc. I only write to ask questions, and to assure you that I am most affectionately yours,

MARY IMLAY.

P. S. September 20.—Should peace take place this winter, what say you to a voyage in the spring, if not to see your old acquaintance, to see Paris, which I think you did not do justice to. I want you to see my little girl, who is more like a boy. She is ready to fly away with spirits, and has eloquent health in her cheeks and eyes. She does not promise to be a beauty, but appears wonderfully intelligent, and though I am sure she has her father's quick temper and feelings, her good-humor runs away with all the credit of my good nursing....

That she had discussed the question of her sisters' prospects with Imlay seems probable from the fact that while he was in London alone, in November, 1794, he wrote very affectionately to Eliza, saying,—

"... We shall both of us continue to cherish feelings of tenderness for you, and a recollection of your unpleasant situation, and we shall also endeavor to alleviate its distress by all the means in our power. The present state of our fortune is rather [word omitted]. However, you must know your sister too well, and I am sure you judge of that knowledge too favorably, to suppose that whenever she has it in her power she will not apply some specific aid to promote your happiness. I shall always be most happy to receive your letters; but as I shall most likely leave England the beginning of next week, I will thank you to let me hear from you as soon as convenient, and tell me ingenuously in what way I can serve you in any manner or respect...."

But all Mary's efforts to be kind could not soften their resentment. On the contrary, it was still further increased by the step she took in their regard on her return to England in the same year. When in France she had gladly suggested Everina's joining her there; but in London, after her discovery of Imlay's change of feeling, she naturally shrank from receiving her or Eliza into her house. Her sorrow was too sacred to be exposed to their gaze. She was brave enough to tell them not to come to her, a course of action that few in her place would have had the courage to pursue. In giving them her reasons for this new determination, she of course told them but half the truth. To Everina she wrote:—

April 27, 1795.

When you hear, my dear Everina, that I have been in London near a fortnight without writing to you or Eliza, you will perhaps accuse me of insensibility; for I shall not lay any stress on my not being well in consequence of a violent cold I caught during the time I was nursing, but tell you that I put off writing because I was at a loss what I could do to render Eliza's situation more comfortable. I instantly gave Jones ten pounds to send, for a very obvious reason, in his own name to my father, and could send her a trifle of this kind immediately, were a temporary assistance necessary. I believe I told you that Mr. Imlay had not a fortune when I first knew him; since that he has entered into very extensive plans which promise a degree of success, though not equal to the first prospect. When a sufficient sum is actually realized, I know he will give me for you and Eliza five or six hundred pounds, or more if he can. In what way could this be of the most use to you? I am above concealing my sentiments, though I have boggled at uttering them. It would give me sincere pleasure to be situated near you both. I cannot yet say where I shall determine to spend the rest of my life; but I do not wish to have a third person in the house with me; my domestic happiness would perhaps be interrupted, without my being of much use to Eliza. This is not a hastily formed opinion, nor is it in consequence of my present attachment, yet I am obliged now to express it because it appears to me that you have formed some such expectation for Eliza. You may wound me by remarking on my determination, still I know on what principle I act, and therefore you can only judge for yourself. I have not heard from Charles for a great while. By writing to me immediately you would relieve me from considerable anxiety. Mrs. Imlay, No. 26 Charlotte Street, Rathbone Place.

Yours sincerely, MARY.

Two days later she wrote to this effect to Mrs. Bishop. Both letters are almost word for word the same, so that it would be useless to give the second. It was too much for Eliza's inflammable temper. All her worst feelings were stirred by what she considered an insult. The kindness of years was in a moment effaced from her memory. Her indignation was probably fanned into fiercer fury by her disappointment. From a few words she wrote to Everina it seems as if both had been relying upon Mary for the realization of certain "goodly prospects." She returned Mary's letter without a word, but to Everina she wrote;—

"I have enclosed this famous letter to the author of the 'Rights of Women,' without any reflection. She shall never hear from Poor Bess again. Remember, I am fixed as my misery, and nothing can change my present plan. This letter has so strangely agitated me that I know not what I say, but this I feel and know, that if you value my existence you will comply with my requisition [that is, to find her a situation in Ireland where she, Everina, then was], for I am positive I will never torture our amiable friend in Charlotte Street. Is not this a good spring, my dear girl? At least poor Bess can say it is a fruitful one. Alas, poor Bess!"

It seemed to be Mary's fate to prove the truth of the saying, that if to him that hath, it shall be given, so also from him that hath not, shall it be taken away. Just as she realized that Imlay's love was lost forever, Eliza's cruel, silent answer to her letter came to tell her it would be useless to turn to her sisters for sympathy. They failed to do justice to her heart, but she bore them no resentment. In one of her last letters to Imlay, she reminds him that when she went to Sweden she had asked him to attend to the wants of her father and sisters, a request which he had ignored. The anger she excited in them, however, was never entirely appeased, and from that time until her death, she heard but little of them, and saw still less.

But, though deserted by those nearest to her, her friends rallied round her. She was joyfully re-welcomed to the literary society which she had before frequented. She was not treated as an outcast, because people resolutely refused to believe the truth about her connection with Imlay. She was far from encouraging them in this. Godwin says in her desire to be honest she went so far as to explain the true state of the case to a man whom she knew to be the most inveterate tale-bearer in London, and who would be sure to repeat what she told him. But it was of no avail. Her personal attractions and cleverness predisposed friends in her favor. In order to retain her society and also to silence any scruples that might arise, they held her to be an injured wife, as indeed she really was, and not a deserted mistress. A few turned from her coldly; but those who eagerly reopened their doors to her were in the majority. One old friend who failed at this time, when his friendship would have been most valued, was Fuseli. Knowles has published a note in which Mary reproaches the artist for his want of sympathy. It reads as follows:—

When I returned from France I visited you, sir, but finding myself after my late journey in a very different situation, I vainly imagined you would have called upon me. I simply tell you what I thought, yet I write not at present to comment on your conduct or to expostulate. I have long ceased to expect kindness or affection from any human creature, and would fain tear from my heart its treacherous sympathies. I am alone. The injustice, without alluding to hopes blasted in the bud, which I have endured, wounding my bosom, have set my thoughts adrift into an ocean of painful conjecture. I ask impatiently what and where is truth? I have been treated brutally, but I daily labor to remember that I still have the duty of a mother to fulfil.

I have written more than I intended,—for I only meant to request you to return my letters: I wish to have them, and it must be the same to you. Adieu!

MARY.



CHAPTER XII.

WILLIAM GODWIN.

William Godwin was one of those with whom Mary renewed her acquaintance. The impression they now made on each other was very different from that which they had received in the days when she was still known as Mrs. Wollstonecraft. Since he was no less famous than she, and since it was his good fortune to make the last year of her life happy, and by his love to compensate her for her first wretched experience, a brief sketch of his life, his character, and his work is here necessary. It is only by knowing what manner of man he was, and what standard of conduct he deduced from his philosophy, that his relations to her can be fairly understood.

William Godwin, the seventh child of thirteen, was the son of a Dissenting minister, and was born March 3, 1756, at Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire. He came on both sides of respectable middle-class families. His father's father and brother had both been clergymen, the one a Methodist preacher, the other a Dissenter. His father was a man of but little learning, whose strongest feeling was disapprobation of the Church of England, and whose "creed was so puritanical that he considered the fondling of a cat a profanation of the Lord's day." Mrs. Godwin in her earlier years was gay, too much so for the wife of a minister, some people thought, but after her husband's death she joined a Methodistical sect, and her piety in the end grew into fanaticism. A Miss Godwin, a cousin, who lived with the family, had perhaps the greatest influence over William Godwin when he was a mere child. She was not without literary culture, and through her he learnt something of books. But her religious principles were severely Calvinistic, and these she impressed upon him at the same time.

His first school-mistress was an old woman, who was concerned chiefly with his soul, and who gave him, before he had completed his eighth year, an intimate knowledge of the Bible. The inevitable consequence of this training was that religion became his first thought. Thanks to his cousin, however, and to his natural cleverness and ambition, he was saved from bigotry by his interest in wider subjects, though they were for many years secondary considerations. From an early age he had, as he says of himself, developed an insatiable curiosity and love of distinction. One of his later tutors was Mr. Samuel Newton, an Independent minister and a follower of Sandeman, "a celebrated north country apostle, who, after Calvin had damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, has contrived a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin." Godwin remained some years with him, and was so far influenced by his doctrines, that when, later, he sought admission into Homerton Academy, a Dissenting institution, he was refused, because he seemed to the authorities to show signs of Sandemanianism. But he had no difficulty in entering Hoxton College; and here, in his twenty-third year, he finished his religious and secular education. During these years his leading inspiration had been a thirst after knowledge and truth.

This was in 1778. Upon leaving college he began his career as minister, but he was never very successful, and before long his religious views were much modified. His search for truth led him in a direction in which he had least expected to go. In 1781, when he was fulfilling the duties of his profession at Stowmarket, he began to read the French philosophers, and by them his faith in Christianity was seriously shaken. 1783 was the last year in which he appeared in the pulpit. He gave up the office and went to London, where he supported himself by writing. In the course of a short time he dropped the title of Reverend and emancipated himself entirely from his old religious associations.

His first literary work was the "Life of Lord Chatham," and this was followed by a defence of the coalition of 1783. He then obtained regular employment on the "English Review," published by Murray in Fleet Street, wrote several novels, and became a contributor to the "Political Herald." He was entirely dependent upon his writings, which fact accounts for the variety displayed in them. His chief interest was, however, in politics. He was a Liberal of the most pronounced type, and his articles soon attracted the attention of the Whigs. His services to that party were considered so valuable that when the above-mentioned paper perished, Fox, through Sheridan, proposed to Godwin that he should edit it, the whole expense to be paid from a fund set aside for just such purposes. But Godwin declined. By accepting he would have sacrificed his independence and have become their mouthpiece, and he was not willing to sell himself. He seems at one time to have been ambitious to be a Member of Parliament, and records with evident satisfaction Sheridan's remark to him: "You ought to be in Parliament." But his integrity again proved a stumbling-block. He could not reconcile himself to the subterfuges which Whigs as well as Tories silently countenanced. Honesty was his besetting quality quite as much as it was Mary's. He was unfit to take an active part in politics; his sphere of work was speculative.

He was the foremost among the devoted adherents in England of Rousseau, Helvetius, and the other Frenchmen of their school. He was one of the "French Revolutionists," so called because of their sympathy with the French apostles of liberty and equality; and at their meetings he met such men as Price, Holcroft, Earl Stanhope, Horne Tooke, Geddes, all of whom considered themselves fortunate in having his co-operation. Thomas Paine was one of his intimate acquaintances; and the "Rights of Man" was submitted to him, to receive his somewhat qualified praise, before it was published. He was one of the leading spirits in developing the radicalism of his time, and thus in preparing the way for that of the present day; and the influence of his writings over men of his and the next generation was enormous. Indeed, it can hardly now be measured, since much which he wrote, being unsigned and published in papers and periodicals, has been lost.

He was always on the alert in political matters, ready to seize every opportunity to do good and to promote the cause of freedom. He was, in a word, one of that large army of pilgrims whose ambition is to "make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight." In 1791 he wrote an anonymous letter to Fox, in which he advanced the sentiments to which he later gave expression in his "Political Justice," his principal work. In his autobiographical notes he explains:—

"Mr. Fox, in the debate on the bill for giving a new constitution to Canada, had said that he would not be the man to propose the abolition of a House of Lords in a country where such a power was already established; but as little would he be the man to recommend the introduction of such a power where it was not. This was by no means the only public indication he had shown how deeply he had drank of the spirit of the French Revolution. The object of the above-mentioned letters [that is, his own to Fox, and one written by Holcroft to Sheridan] was to excite these two illustrious men to persevere gravely and inflexibly in the career on which they had entered. I was strongly impressed with the sentiment that in the then existing circumstances of England and of Europe, great and happy improvements might be achieved under such auspices without anarchy and confusion. I believed that important changes must arise, and I was inexpressibly anxious that such changes should be effected under the conduct of the best and most competent leaders."

This brief note explains at once the two leading doctrines of his philosophy: the necessity of change, and the equal importance of moderation in effecting it. His political creed was, paradoxical as this may seem, the outcome of his religious education. He had long since given up the actual faith in which he was born and trained; after going through successive stages of Sandemanianism, Deism, and Socinianism, he had, in 1787, become a "complete unbeliever;" but he never entirely outlived its influence. This was of a twofold nature. It taught him to question the sanctity of established institutions, and it crushed in him, even if it did not wholly eradicate, strong passion and emotional demonstration. No man in England was as thorough a radical as he. Paine's or Holcroft's conceptions of human freedom were like forms of slavery compared to his broad, exhaustive theories. But, on the other hand, there never was a more earnest advocate of moderation. Burke and the French royalists could not have been more eloquent opponents of violent measures of reform than he was. Towards the end of the last century it was easier for a Dissenter, who had already overthrown one barrier, than for the orthodox, to rebel against existing social and political laws and customs. From the belief that freedom from the authority of the Church of England was necessary to true piety, it was but a step to the larger faith that freedom from the restraints of government and society was indispensable to virtue. Godwin, after he ceased to be a religious, became a political and social Dissenter. In his zeal for the liberty of humanity, he contended for nothing less than the destruction of all human laws. French Republicans demanded the simplest possible form of government. But Godwin, outstripping them, declared there should be none whatsoever. "It may seem strange," Mrs. Shelley writes, "that any one should, in the sincerity of his heart, believe that no vice could exist with perfect freedom, but my father did; it was the very basis of his system, the very keystone of the arch of justice, by which he desired to knit together the whole human family."

His ultra-radicalism led him to some wise and reasonable, and other strange and startling conclusions, and these he set before the public in his "Political Justice," the first book he published under his own name. It appeared in 1793, and immediately created a great sensation. It must be ranked as one of the principal factors in the development of English thought. A short explanation of the doctrines embodied in it will throw important light on his subsequent relations to Mary, as well as on his own character. The foundation of the arguments he advances in this book is his belief in the efficacy of reason in the individual as a guide to conduct. He thought that, if each human being were free to act as he chose, he would be sure to act for the best; for, according to him, instincts do not exist. He makes no allowance for the influence of the past in forming the present, ignoring the laws of heredity. A man's character is formed by the nature of his surroundings. Virtue and vice are the result not of innate tendencies, but of external circumstances. When these are perfected, evil will necessarily disappear from the world. He had so successfully subordinated his own emotions, that in his philosophical system he calmly ignores passion as a mainspring of human activity. This is exemplified by the rule he lays down for the regulation of a man's conduct to his fellow-beings. He must always measure their respective worth, and not the strength of his affection for them, even if the individuals concerned be his near relations. Supposing, for example, he had to choose between saving the life of a Fenelon and that of a chambermaid, he must select the former because of his superior talents, even though the latter should be his mother or his wife. Affections are to be forgotten in the calculations of reason. Godwin's faith in the supremacy of the intellect was not lessened because he was forced to admit that men often do not act reasonably. This is, he explains, because they are without knowledge of the absolute truth. Show them what is true or right, and all, even the most abandoned criminal, will give up what is false or wrong. Logic is the means by which the regeneration of mankind is to be effected. Reason is the dynamite by which the monopoly of rank is to be shattered. "Could Godwin," Leslie Stephen very cleverly says, "have caught Pitt, or George III., or Mrs. Brownrigg, and subjected them to a Socratic cross-examination, he could have restored them to the paths of virtue, as he would have corrected an error in a little boy's sums."

Men, Godwin taught, can never know the truth so long as human laws exist; because when subject to any control, good, bad, or indifferent, they are not free to reason, and hence their actions are deprived of their only legitimate inspiration. Arguing from these premises, his belief in the necessity of the abolition of all forms of government, political and social, and his discouragement of the acquirement of habits, were perfectly logical. Had he confined himself to general terms in expressing his convictions, his conclusions would not have been so startling. Englishmen were becoming accustomed to theories of reform. But always just and uncompromising, he unhesitatingly defined particular instances by which he illustrated the truth of his teaching, thus making the ends he hoped to achieve clearer to his readers. He boldly advanced the substitution of an appeal to reason for punishment in the treatment of criminals, and this at a time when such a doctrine was considered treason. He declared that any article of property justly belongs to those who most want it, "or to whom the possession of it will be most beneficial." But his objection to the marriage law seemed the most glaringly immoral part of his philosophy. He assailed theoretically an institution for which Mary Wollstonecraft had practically shown her disapprobation. His reasoning in this regard is curious, and reveals the little importance he attached to passion. He disapproved of the marriage tie because he thought that two people who are bound together by it are not at liberty to follow the dictates of their own minds, and hence are not acting in accordance with pure reason. Free love or a system of voluntary divorce would be less immoral, because in either of these cases men and women would be self-ruled, and therefore could be relied upon to do what is right. Besides, according to his ideal of justice in the matter of property, a man or a woman belongs to whomsoever most needs him or her, irrespective of any relations already formed. It follows naturally that the children born in a community where these ideas are adopted are to be educated by the state, and must not be subjected to rules or discipline, but taught from the beginning to regulate their conduct by the light of reason. Godwin, like so many other philosophers of his times, based his arguments upon abstract principles, and failed to seek concrete proofs. He built up a structure beautiful in theory, but impossible in real life until man develops into a very much higher order of being. An enthusiast, despite his calmness, he looked forward to the time when death would be an evil of the past, and when no new men would be born into the world. He believed that the day would come when "there will be no war, no crimes, no administration of justice, as it is called, and no government." There will be "neither disease, anguish, melancholy, nor resentment. Every man will seek with ineffable ardor the good of all." Human optimism could go no farther.

It is not surprising that his book made a stir in the political world. None of the Revolutionists had delivered themselves of such ultra-revolutionary sentiments. Men had been accused of high treason for much more moderate views. Perhaps it was their very extravagance that saved him, though he accounted for it in another way. "I have frequently," Mrs. Shelley explains, "heard my father say that 'Political Justice' escaped prosecution from the reason that it appeared in a form too expensive for general acquisition. Pitt observed, when the question was debated in the Privy Council, that 'a three-guinea book could never do much harm among those who had not three shillings to spare.'" Godwin purposely published his work in this expensive form because he knew that by so doing he would keep it from the multitude, whose passions he would have been the last to arouse or to stimulate. He only wished it to be studied by men too enlightened to encourage abrupt innovation. Festina lente was his motto. The success of the book, however, went beyond his expectations and perhaps his intentions. Three editions were issued in as many years. Among the class of readers to whom he immediately appealed, the verdict passed upon it varied. Dr. Priestley thought it very original, and that it would probably prove useful, though its fundamental principles were too pure to be practical. Horne Tooke pronounced it a bad book, calculated to do harm. The Rev. Samuel Newton's vigorous disapproval of it caused a final breach between Godwin and his old tutor. As a rule, the Liberal party accepted it as the work of inspiration, and the conservative condemned it as the outcome of atheism and political rebellion. When Godwin, after its publication, made a trip into Warwickshire to stay with Dr. Parr, he found that his fame had preceded him. He was known to the reading public in the counties as well as in the capital, and he was everywhere received with curiosity and kindness. To no one whom he met was he a stranger.

His novel, "Caleb Williams," established his literary reputation. Its success almost realized Mrs. Inchbald's prediction that "fine ladies, milliners, mantua-makers, and boarding-school girls will love to tremble over it, and that men of taste and judgment will admire the superior talents, the incessant energy of mind you have evinced." He was at this time one of the most conspicuous and most talked-about men in London. He counted among his friends and acquaintances all the distinguished men and women of the day; among whom he was in great demand, notwithstanding the fact that he talked neither much nor well, and that not even the most brilliant conversation could prevent his taking short naps when in company. But he was extremely fond of social pleasures. His philosophy had made him neither an ascetic nor an anchorite. He worked for only three or four hours each day; and the rest of the time was given up to reading, to visiting, and to the theatre, he being particularly attracted to the latter form of amusement. His reading was as omnivorous as that of Lord Macaulay. Metaphysics, poetry, novels, were all grist for his mill. This general interest saved him from becoming that greatest of all bores, a man with but one idea.

He was as cold in his conduct as in his philosophy. He maintained in the various relations of life an imperturbable calmness. But it was not that of a Goethe, who knows how to harmonize passion and intellect; it was that of a man in whom the former is an unknown quantity. He was always methodical in his work. Great as his interest in his subject might be, his ardor was held within bounds. There were no long vigils spent wrestling with thought, or days and weeks passed alone and locked in his study that nothing might interfere with the flow of ideas, unless, as happened occasionally, he was working against time. He wrote from nine till one, and then, when he found his brain confused by this amount of labor, he readily reduced the number of his working hours. Literary composition was undertaken by him with the same placidity with which another man might devote himself to book-keeping. His moral code was characterized by the same cool calculation. He had early decided that usefulness to his fellow-creatures was the only thing which made life worth living. It is doubtful whether any other human being would have set about fulfilling this object as he did. He writes of himself:—

"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 the prisoners, 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 opinion of 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—demeles, 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 naively 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 could provide 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 L500 or L600 per annum, and Miss Gay is his only child."

Not even this report could kindle the philosophical William into warmth. He waited many months before he 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 alone would 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 his mistake 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" a physionomie. 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 of her 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 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 a while, 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."



CHAPTER XIII.

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 sacred to 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, his reliance 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 feelings and 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 their independence 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 true bon compagnon style. 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 domestic contretemps. 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. 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. 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. 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 pray lend me 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 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 description of 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. When her 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 or literati I have seen here, Mary Imlay's countenance is the best, infinitely the best; the only fault in it is an expression somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display,—an expression indicating superiority, not haughtiness, not sarcasm in Mary Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and although the lid of one of them is affected by a little paralysis, they are the most meaning I ever saw."{1}

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

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!

They were induced to take this step, not by any dissatisfaction with the nature of the connection they had 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 unable to 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 L50, without giving him any explanation for his 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."