Part 1 (1/2)
Mary Wollstonecraft
by Elizabeth Robins Pennell
PREFACE
Comparatively little has been written about the life of MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT The two authorities upon the subject are Godwin and Mr
C Kegan Paul In writing the following Biography I have relied chiefly upon the Memoir written by the former, and the Life of Godwin and Prefatory Memoir to the Letters to Imlay of the latter I have endeavored to supplement the facts recorded in these books by a careful analysis of Mary Wollstonecraft's writings and study of the period in which she lived
I must here express my thanks to Mr Garnett, of the British Museuan Paul, for the kind assistance they have given entle some particulars of Mary Wollstonecraft's last illness which have never yet appeared in print, and to Mr Paul for the gift, as well as the loan, of several iust, 1884
INTRODUCTION
Feomen have worked so faithfully for the cause of humanity as Mary Wollstonecraft, and few have been the objects of such bitter censure She devoted herself to the relief of her suffering fellow-beings with the ardor of a Saint Vincent de Paul, and in return she was considered by thee to express opinions new to her generation, and the independence to live according to her own standard of right and wrong, she was denounced as another Messalina The young were bidden not to read her books, and the more mature warned not to follow her exa declared the just retribution of her actions Indeed, the infae, when new theories are more patiently criticised, and when purity of motive has been accepted as the vindication of at least one well-known breach of social laws The nant attacks reat to be ignored They had best be stated here, that the life which follows may serve as their refutation
As a rule, the notices which were published after she was dead were harsher andher lifetime
There were happily one or two exceptions The writer of her obituary notice in the ”Monthly Magazine” for September, 1797, speaks of her in terms of unlimited admiration
”This extraordinary wouished by ad, than by active hu qualities of heart, co the affections of all ere favored with her friendshi+p or confidence, or ithin the sphere of her influence, may justly be considered as a public loss Quick to feel, and indignant to resist, the iron hand of despotism, whether civil or intellectual, her exertions to awaken in the radation, and to restore thenity of reason and virtue, were active and incessant; by her i eloquence, the fabric of voluptuous prejudice has been shaken to its foundation and totters towards its fall; while her philosophic e, perceived and lamented in the defects of civil institutions interwoven in their texture and inseparable from them the causes of those partial evils, destructive to virtue and happiness, which poison social intercourse and defor her the ”ornahtened advocate for freedom, and the benevolent friend of humankind”
It is more than probable, however, that this ritten by a personal friend; for a year later the saazine, in its semi-annual retrospect of British literature, expressed somewhat altered opinions
This time it says: ”It is not for us to vindicate Mary Godwin froainst her by the candid as well as the censorious, by the sagacious as well as the superstitious observer Her character in our esti entitled to unqualified praise; she had many faults; she had many transcendent virtues But she is now dead, and we shall
'No farther seek her merits to disclose, Or draw her frailties fro hope repose, The bosom of her father and her God!'”
The notice in the ”Gentleazine” for October, 1797, the month after her death, is friendly, but there are li is the sentence it passed upon her: ”Her ant; her conversation intelligent and a, without the least trait of literary pride, or the apparent consciousness of powers above the level of her sex; and, for fondness of understanding and sensibility of heart, she was, perhaps, never equalled Her practical skill in education was ever superior to her speculations upon that subject; nor is it possible to express the misfortune sustained in that respect by her children This tribute we readily pay to her character, however adverse we may be to the systes and practice”
In 1798 Godwin published his Mes He no doubt hoped by a clear statement of the principal incidents of her life to ainst her But he was the last person to have undertaken the task Outside of the small circle of friends and sympathizers who really loved him, he was by no means popular There were soreatest hardshi+p of Mary's life was to have been his wife Thus Roscoe, after reading the Memoir, expressed the senti lines:--
”Hard was thy fate in all the scenes of life, As daughter, sister, mother, friend, and wife; But harder still thy fate in death n, Thus mourned by Godith a heart of stone”
Moreover, Godwin's views about e, as set forth in his ”Political Justice,” were held in such abhorrence that the fact that he approved of Mary's conduct was reason enough for the multitude to disapprove of it
His book, therefore, was not a success as far as Mary's reputation was concerned Indeed, it increased rather than lessened the asperity of her detractors It was greeted by the ”European Magazine” for April, 1798, almost i denunciations of Mary's character which had yet appeared
”The lady,” the article begins, ”whose ood abilities, and originally a good disposition, but, with an overweening conceit of herself, much obstinacy and self-will, and a disposition to run counter to established practices and opinions Her conduct in the early part of her life was blameless, if not exemplary; but the latter part of it was blen her name to posterity (in spite of all palliatives) as one whose example, if folloould be attended with the most pernicious consequences to society: a female who could brave the opinion of the world in thedown the bars designed to restrain licentiousness; and a ht into the world by herself, by an intended act of suicide” Here follows a short sketch of the incidents recorded by Godwin, and then the article concludes: ”Such was the catastrophe of a female philosopher of the new order, such the events of her life, and such the apology for her conduct It will be read with disgust by every female who has any pretensions to delicacy; with detestation by every one attached to the interests of religion and ht feel any regard for the unhappy woman, whose frailties should have been buried in oblivion Licentious as the times are, we trust it will obtain no imitators of the heroine in this country
Itto those who fancy themselves at liberty to dispense with the laws of propriety and decency, and who suppose the possession of perverted talents will atone for the well government of society and the happiness of azine” was the one enerally adopted It was re-echoed almost invariably when Mary Wollstonecraft's name was mentioned in print A Mrs West, who, in 1801, published a series of ”Letters to a Young Man,” full of goodly discourse and ainst Mary's works, which she did with as y as if the latter had been the Scarlet Woman of Babylon in the flesh ”This unfortunate wouilty career; terribly, I say, because the account of her last yrical, proves that she died as she lived; and her posthus show that her soul was in the e”
A writer in the ”Beauties of England and Wales,” though animated by the saainst Mary's pernicious influence, because of his certainty that in another generation she would be forgotten ”Feriters have attained a larger share of temporary celebrity,” he admits ”This was the triu it is probable that her name will be nearly unknown; for the calamities of her life so miserably prove the impropriety of her doctrines that it becohts of Woled wonder and pity”
But probably the article which wasthe ill-repute in which she stood with her conteraphical Dictionary” The papers and ht, but the Dictionary was long used as a standard work of reference In this particular article every action of Mary's life is construed unfavorably, and her character sha from Godwin's Memoir, it decides that Mary ”appears to have been a woht have elevated her to the highest ranks of English feenius run wild for want of cultivation Her passions were consequently ungovernable, and she accusto fear prejudices She was therefore a voluptuary and sensualist, without that refinement for which she seemed to contend on other subjects Her history, indeed, forular she was, it must be allowed, for it is not easily to be conceived that such another heroine will ever appear, unless in a novel, where a latitude is given to that extravagance of character which she atteenarian,” borrowed the scurrilous abuse of the ”Biographical Dictionary,” which was furtherlish literature and encyclopaedia as the correct estis It is, therefore, no wonder that the immorality of her doctrines and unwomanliness of her conduct came to be believed in implicitly by the too credulous public