Part 14 (1/2)

It is strange that, in spite of all you do, so like conviction forces me to believe that you are not what you appear to be

I part with you in peace

She saw hiain, Godwin says that ”she could not restrain herself fro to see hi his absence, affection had led her to make numberless excuses for his conduct, and she probably wished to believe that his present connection was, as he represented it, purely of a casual nature To this application she observes that he returned no other answer, except declaring, with unjustifiable passion, that he would not see her”

They didwas accidental I a visit to Mr Christie, who had returned to London, and ho in the parlor, when Mary called Mrs Christie, hearing her voice, and probably fearing an e scene, hurried out to warn her of his presence, and to advise her not to co her, entered fearlessly, and, with fanny by the hand, went up and spoke to Imlay They retired, it seeain, and indeed to dine with her at her lodgings on the following day

He kept his promise, and there was a second interview, but it did not lead to a reconciliation The very next day she went into Berkshi+re, where she spent the ain htest attempt to see him or to hear from him

There was a limit even to her affection and forbearance One day, after her return to town, she alking along the New Road when Imlay passed her on horseback He jumped off his horse and walked with her for some little distance This was the last time they met From that moment he passed completely out of her life

And so ends the saddest of all sad love stories

CHAPTER X

LITERARY WORK

1793-1796

The first voluress of the French Revolution, and the Effect it has produced in Europe,” which Mary wrote during the months she lived in France, was published by Johnson in 1794 It was favorably received and criticised, especially by that portion of the public who had sympathized with the Revolutionists in the controversy with Burke One admirer, in 1803, declared it was not second even to Gibbon's ”Decline and Fall of the Roh two editions, surest proof of its success The ”analytical Review” called it

” a work of uncoenius, and containing a great variety of just and important observations on the recent affairs of France and on the general interests of society at the present crisis”

Mary had apparently spent in idleness the years which had elapsed since the ”Rights of Woland by storood use of them This new book marks an enormous advance in her ured by the faults of style, and is never weakened by the lack of th and power of the work by which she is best known In the ”French Revolution” her arguhed and balanced, and flowers of rhetoric, with a few exceptions, are sacrificed for a simple and concise statement of facts Unfortunately the first volume was never followed by a second Had Mary finished the book, as she certainly intended to do when she began it, it probably would still be ranked with the standard works on the Revolution

As the title de this history was to explain the nificance, as well as the historical value, of the incidents which she recorded This e of her book The determination to discover the truth at all hazards is its key-note This end Mary hoped to acco the French troubles to their real causes, and then by giving an unprejudiced account of theation of her subject was the formation of doctrines which are in close sy strikes the reader so much as her firm belief in the theory of developovernradual substitution of altruistic principles for the egotism which was the primal foundation of law and order Profession of this creed is at once made in both the preface and first chapter of the ”French Revolution” In the for to circumstances, we shall be able to discern clearly that the Revolution was neither produced by the abilities or the intrigues of a few individuals, nor was the effect of sudden and short-lived enthusiasradually proceeding to perfection in the advancement of communities from a state of barbaris this subject, she concludes that the civilization of the ancients was deficient because it paid more attention to the cultivation of taste in the few than to the develop in the many, and that that of the eneral diffusion of knowledge which followed the invention of printing

Her arguments in support of her theories are excellent

”When,” she writes, ”learning was confined to a sation of its privileges was left to a nuovernments seem to have acted as if the people were forhts with randeur of individuals has been supported by the orged by the butchery of millions of innocent victims”

This despotis as e with precision of their civil and political rights

But once they begin to think, and hence to learn the true facts of history, they must discover that the first social syste to fence round their oealth or power, and make slaves of their brothers to prevent encroachinally ”adjusted so as to take in the future conduct of its members, because the faculties of man are unfolded and perfected by the ie necessarily destroys belief in the sanctity of prescription, and when once it ispoill have as hts of others as for their own

”When society was first subjugated to laws,” she writes, ”probably by the ambition of some, and the desire of safety in all, it was natural for norant how intimately their own comfort was connected with that of others; and it was also very natural that hu than of reason, should have a very liht of heaven--and I hail the glorious day froeneral happiness depends their own, reason will give strength to the fluttering wings of passion, and men will 'do unto others what they wish they should do unto them'”

One of the first means, therefore, by which this much-to-be-desired end is to be attained, is the destruction of blind reverence of the past

With uncoet entirely clear of all the notions drawn fro of the apple, the theft of Pro of Pandora's box, and the other fables too tedious to enumerate, on which priests have erected their tremendous structures of imposition to persuade us that we are naturally inclined to evil We shall then leave room for the expansion of the human heart, and, I trust, find that roiser”

After a brief analysis of the laws of progress in general, Mary proceeds to their special application in the case of France The illumination of the French people she believes was hastened by the efforts of such ainst superstition, and on the other, as Quesnay and Turgot, who opposed unjust taxation It was through thes, and saw for the first tiht of truth, the inveterate pride of the nobles, the rapacity of the clergy, and the prodigality of the court The farovernment which could calmly allow taxes and feudal claims to s all but the twentieth part of the profit of his labor