Part 18 (1/2)

Feb 3, 1797

_Friday one 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 Ielse There is a civil speech for you to chew

Feb 22, 1797

Everina's [her sister was at this ti with her] cold is still so bad, that unless pique urges her, she will not go out to-day For to-morrow I think II know I

Will you send the second volume of ”Caleb,” and pray _lend_ me a bit of Indian-rubber I have lost ed to quit hoet that we are to dine at four I wish to be exact, because I have proo and assist her brother this afternoon

I have been tor 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 ht to have her drowned fanny iines that she was sick and ran away

March 11, 1797

_Saturday _--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 a with you yesterday

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

March 17, 1797

_Friday oose, you lost your supper, and deserved to lose it, for not desiring Mary to give you soood 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 punishlad 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 I 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 the 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 estireatly 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 woht the wonder His hero's description of e 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 enjoyhts 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 sentin in the boso for so eye hich 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 s that are inexpressible, but which the heart understands without the aid of words; then the eyes sith rapture, then the frauishes 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 hi 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 circuay and happy She was at all tihtful 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 htful companion and sympathetic friend ”She had always possessed,” Godwin says of her, ”in an unparalleled degree the art of co 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 tiht 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 eneral observation to all her acquaintance” Her beauty, depending so ularity of features, naturally developed rather than decreased with years Suffering and happiness had left their ie melancholy, and the tenderness which characterize her portrait, painted by Opie about this ti 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 sarcasht brown, and although the lid of one of the 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 e 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 see than any conventional forh in the latter he kept a strict account of his daily actions It meant as little to Mary as it did to hie, in one of her notes written a day or two afterwards:

March 31, 1797

_Tuesday_--I return you the voluiven it as careful a reading as some of the sentiments deserve

Pray send me by Mary, for ht, as I aoods, you know!