Part 3 (2/2)

The tiland I would fain have been near those I love I could not live the life they lead at Eton; nothing but dress and ridicule going forward, and I really believe their fondness for ridicule tends to make them affected, the women in their s abound, and puns fly about like crackers, though you would scarcely guess they had anyin them, if you did not hear the noise they create So much company without any sociability would be to ue I am, 'tis true, quite alone in a crowd, yet cannot help reflecting on the scene around hts harass ns triuhts and wishes tend to that land where the God of love ipe away all tears from our eyes, where sincerity and truth will flourish, and the i illusions which vanish like dreas as they really are With what delight do I anticipate the time when neither death nor accidents of any kind will interpose to separate me from those I love

Adieu; believe me to be your affectionate friend and sister,

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

Finally the time came for her departure In October, 1787, she set out with Mr and Mrs Prior for Ireland, and towards the end of the h in Mitchelstown Her first ilooreat, that she looked at all things, as if through a glass, darkly Her sorroere still too fresh to be forgotten in idle curiosity about the inhabitants and customs of her new home Even if she had been in the best of spirits, her arrival at the castle would have been a trying moment It is never easy for one woman to face alone several of her sex, who, she knows, are waiting to criticise her There were then staying with Lady Kingsborough her step-uests Governesses in this household had fared one in rapid succession

Therefore Mary was examined by these ladiesby a sportsh the ordeal successfully, but it left her courage at low ebb Her first report to her sister is not cheerful:--

THE CASTLE, MITCHELSTOWN, Oct 30, 1787

Well, th arrived at h when I say so, but it matters not, I must labor for content, and try to reconcileof my soul I can scarcely persuade htful vision, and equally disjointed I have been so very low-spirited for some days past, I could not write All the moments I could spend in solitude were lost in sorrow and unavailing tears There was such a solemn kind of stupidity about this place as froze ates with the sa into the Bastille You can s which the General would term ridiculous or artificial I found I was to encounter a host of females,--My Lady, her step-mother and three sisters, and Mrses and Misses without number, who, of course, would exaive you a description of the fas which particularly worry me I am sure much more is expected from me than I am equal to With respect to French, I am certain Mr P has misled them, and I expect in consequence of it to be very reat talker I have not seen much of her, as she is confined to her room by a sore throat; but I have seen half a dozen of her cos To see a wo ani infantine expressions, is, you may conceive, very absurd and ludicrous, but a fine lady is a new species to entlewoman by every part of the fah life suit not , and the rest of the fa themselves I only am melancholy and alone To tell the truth, I hope part of my misery arises from disordered nerves, for I would fain believe my , wild Irish, unfor; but you shall have a full and true account, irl, in a few days

I am your affectionate sister and sincere friend,

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

It was at least fortunate that she escaped, with Lady Kingsborough, the indignities which she had feared she, as governess, would receive

Instead of being placed on a level with the servants, as was often the fate of gentlewomen in her position, she was treated as one of the family, but she had little else to be thankful for There was absolutely no congeniality between herself and her employers She had no tastes or views in coh woman of the world She was clever but cold, and her natural coldness had been increased by the restraints and exactions of her social rank If she rouged to preserve her good looks, and talked to exhibit her cleverness, she was fulfilling all the requirements of her station in life Her character and conduct were in every way opposed to Mary's ideals The latter, as instinctively honest, and who never stooped to curry favor with any one, h with a deference she did not feel, but which her subordinate position obliged her to show The struggle between impulse and duty thus caused was doubtless one of the chief factors in reat this struggle was can be best estiht of the mother of her pupils She was never thrown into such intimate relations with any other woical to believe thatto woh The allusion to pet dogs in the following seems to establish the identity beyond dispute:--

” She who takes her dogs to bed, and nurses them with a parade of sensibility when sick, will suffer her babes to grow up crooked in a nursery This illustration of ument is drawn from a matter of fact The woman whom I allude to was handsome, reckoned very handsome by those who do not miss thehad not been led from female duties by literature, nor her innocence debauched by knowledge No, she was quite fe to thethese spoiled brutes that filled the place which her children ought to have occupied, she only lisped out a pretty lish nonsense, to please the men who flocked round her The wife, mother, and human creature were all sed up by the factitious character which an improper education and the selfish vanity of beauty had produced

”I do not like to make a distinction without a difference, and I own that I have been asto her bosom, instead of her child, as by the ferocity of ahis horse, declared that he knehen he did wrong as a Christian”

If Lady Kingsborough was a representative lady of fashi+on, her husband was quite as much the typical country lord Tom Jones was still the ideal hero of fiction, and Squire Westerns had not disappeared froood-natured and kind, but, like the rest of the species, coarse ”His countenance does not proood humor and a little _fun_, not refined,” Mary told Mrs Bishop The three step-sisters were too preoccupied with matrimonial calculations to manifest their character, if indeed they had any Clearly, in such a household Mary Wollstonecraft was as a child of Israel ah they were ”wild Irish,” was rown-up e At first she thought therew fond of thearet, afterwards Lady Mountcashel, was then fourteen years of age She was very talented, and a ”sweet girl,” as Mary called her in a letter to Mrs

Bishop She becaoverness, not with the passing fancy of a child, but with a lasting devotion The other children also learned to love her, but being younger there was less friendshi+p in their affection They were afraid of their s, until she had none left for them Therefore, when Mary treated them affectionately and sympathized with their interests and pleasures, they naturally turned to her and gave her the love which no one else seesborough's fault, but she resented it bitterly, and it was later a cause of serious cooverness The affection of her pupils, which was her principal pleasure during her residence in Ireland, thus became in the end a misfortune

A h, her interest in theh had very positive ideas upon the subject of her children's education, and by insisting upon adherence to them she made Mary's task doubly hard Had she not been interfered with, her position would not have been so unpleasant She could put her whole soul into her work, whatever it ht be, and find in its success one of her chief joys She wished to do her utaret and her sisters, but this was ih exacted to be vicious The latter cared e itself, and laid the greatest stress upon the acquirement of accomplishments This was not in accord with Mary's theories, who prized reality and not appearances A less conscientious woht that she was carrying out the wishes of her employer But Mary could not quiet her scruples in this way She was tormented by the sense of duty but half fulfilled She realized, by her own sad experience, howreceived in childhood, and yet she was powerless to bring up her pupils in the way she knew to be best She had, besides, constantly before her in Lady Kingsborough and her sisters a, to her, melancholy example of the result of the ht es and much history, but had been as carefully instilled with the idea that their studies were but e The consequence was that their education, despite its thoroughness, hadthe hich moved them She did not want this to be the fate of her pupils, but she could see no escape for them

In addition to her honest anxiety for their future, she must have been worried by the certainty that, if she remained with them, she would be held responsible for their character and conduct in after-life Though she had charge of thearet's reputation as Lady Mountcashel was not wholly unsullied, and when it was remembered that she had, at one time, been under the influence of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the ”Rights of Woious teaching of the latter Never was any woman so unjustly conde enough to actually change her nature, or to influence her for life; and, in the second place, she was not allowed to have her oith her pupils Had she been free she would have been e a spirit of piety, and inculcate a fine ious frame of mind, while she did all she could to counteract what she considered the deteriorating tendencies of the children's hoan Paul says, ”Her whole endeavor was to train theher pursuits and to instil into theirls in those days Her sorroas deep that her pupils' lives were such as to render sustained study and religious habits of mind alike difficult”

This caused her much unhappiness Her worriment developed into positive illness After she had been with them some months, the strain seemed more than she could bear, as she confessed to Mr Johnson, to whom she wrote from Dublin on the 14th of April,--

I aht never to expect to enjoy health My row too much interested for my own peace

Confined almost entirely to the society of children, I am anxiously solicitous for their future welfare, and mortified beyond measure when counteracted in my endeavors to improve them I feel all a mother's fears for the swarm of little ones which surroundpower to apply the proper remedies How can I be reconciled to life, when it is always a painful warfare, and when I am deprived of all the pleasures I relish? I allude to rational conversations and domestic affections

Here, alone, a poor solitary individual in a strange land, tied to one spot, and subject to the caprice of another, can I be contented? I am desirous to convince you that I have _some_ cause for sorrow, and am not without reason detached from life I shall hope to hear that you are well, and am yours sincerely,

WOLLSTONECRAFT

The family troubles followed Mary to Ireland The nehich reached her fro Edward Wollstonecraft at this period declared he would do nothing more for his father Prudent, and with none of his sister's unselfishness, he grew tired of the drain upon his purse There was also difficulty about soht, but which the eldest brother, with shaive up What the exact circuht tax upon Mary to contribute the necessary amount for her father's support, and no sht to be legally hers Money cares were to her what the Old Man of the Sea was to Sinbad They were a burden from which she was never free When from forty pounds a year she had to take half to pay her debts, and then give fros was not large And yet she counted upon her savings to purchase her future release froh she wrote to Mr Johnson that she was almost entirely confined to the society of children, she really did seepart in their a from the attractions and conversational pohich made her a favorite in London society, it is but natural to conclude that she was an addition to the household She seereeable Godwin records the extreme discomfiture of a fine lady of quality, when, on one occasion, after having singled her out and treated her with marked friendliness, she discovered that she had been entertaining the children's governess! Mary cared nothing for these people, but as they were civil to her, she returned their politeness by showing the polite to Low-spirited as she was, she e to discuss the husband-hunts of the young ladies and even to notice the dogs This was, indeed, a concession To Everina she sent a bulletin--not untouched with huress with the inmates of the castle:--

MITCHELSTOWN, Nov 17, 1787

Confined to the society of a set of silly females, I have no social converse, and their boisterous spirits and un hourly dos The topics of matrimony and dress take their turn, not in a very sentimental style,--alas! poor sentiment, it has no residence here