Mary Wollstonecraft. Elizabeth Robins Pennell
a lion; yet the door never opens but I expect to see him, panting for breath. Ask Ned how we are to behave if he should find us out, for Bess is determined not to return. Can he force her? but I’ll not suppose it, yet I can think of nothing else. She is sleepy, and going to bed; my agitated mind will not permit me. Don’t tell Charles or any creature! Oh! let me entreat you to be careful, for Bess does not dread him now as much as I do. Again, let me request you to write, as B.’s behavior may silence my fears. You will soon hear from me again. Fanny carried many things to Lear’s, brush-maker in the Strand, next door to the White Hart.
Yours,
Mary.
Miss Johnston—Mrs. Dodds, opposite the Mermaid, Church Street, Hackney.
She looks now very wild. Heaven protect us!
I almost wish for an husband, for I want somebody to support me.
The Rubicon was crossed. But the hardships thereby incurred were but just beginning. The two sisters were obliged to keep in hiding as if they had been criminals, for they dared not risk a chance meeting with Bishop. They had barely money enough to pay their immediate expenses, and their means of making more were limited by the precautions they had to take. It had only been possible in their flight to carry off a few things, and they were without sufficient clothing. Then there came from their friends an outcry against their conduct. The general belief then was, as indeed it unfortunately continues to be, that women should accept without a murmur whatever it suits their husbands to give them, whether it be kindness or blows. Better a thousand times that one human soul should be stifled and killed than that the Philistines of society should be scandalized by its struggles for air and life. Eliza’s happiness might have been totally sacrificed had she remained with Bishop; but at least the feelings of her acquaintances, in whom respectability had destroyed the more humane qualities, would have been saved. Her scheme, Mary wrote bitterly to Everina, was contrary to all the rules of conduct that are published for the benefit of new married ladies. Many felt forced to forfeit the friendship of these two social rebels, though it grieved them to the heart to do it. Mrs. Clare, be it said to her honor, remained stanch, but even she only approved cautiously, and Mary had her misgivings that she would advise a reconciliation if she once saw Bishop. To add to the hopelessness of their case, the deserted husband restrained his rage so well, and made so much of Eliza’s heartlessness in abandoning her child, that he drew to himself the sympathy which should have been given to her. Mary feared the effect his pleadings and representations would have upon Edward, the extent of whose egotism she had not yet measured, and she commissioned Everina to keep him firm. As for Eliza, she was so shaken and weak, and so unhappy about the poor motherless infant, that she could neither think nor act. The duty of providing for their wants, immediate and still to come, fell entirely upon Mary. She felt this to be just, since it was chiefly through her influence that they had been brought to their present plight; but the responsibility was great, and it is no wonder that, brave as she was, she longed for some one to share it with her.
Her one source of consolation and strength at this time was her religion. This will seem strange to many, who, knowing but few facts of her life, conclude from her connection with Godwin and her social radicalism that she was an atheist. But the sincerest spirit of piety breathes through her letters written during her early troubles. When the desertion of her so-called friends made her most bitter, she wrote to Everina:—
“Don’t suppose I am preaching when I say uniformity of conduct cannot in any degree be expected from those whose first motive of action is not the pleasing the Supreme Being, and those who humbly rely on Providence will not only be supported in affliction but have peace imparted to them that is past describing. This state is indeed a warfare, and we learn little that we don’t smart for in the attaining. The cant of weak enthusiasts has made the consolations of religion and the assistance of the Holy Spirit appear ridiculous to the inconsiderate; but it is the only solid foundation of comfort that the weak efforts of reason will be assisted and our hearts and minds corrected and improved till the time arrives when we shall not only see perfection, but see every creature around us happy.”
The consolation she found was sufficient to make her advise her friends to seek for it from the same quarter. She wrote to George Blood at a time when he was in serious difficulties:—
“It gives me the sincerest satisfaction to find that you look for comfort where only it is to be met with, and that Being in whom you trust will not desert you. Be not cast down; while we are struggling with care life slips away, and through the assistance of Divine Grace we are obtaining habits of virtue that will enable us to relish those joys that we cannot now form any idea of. I feel myself particularly attached to those who are heirs of the promises, and travel on in the thorny path with the same Christian hopes that render my severe trials a cause of thankfulness when I can think.”
These passages, evangelical in tone, occur in private letters, meant to be read only by those to whom they were addressed, so that they must be counted as honest expressions of her convictions and not mere cant. Just as she wrote freely to her sisters and her intimate friends about her temporal matters, so without hesitation she talked to them of her spiritual affairs. Her belief became broader as she grew older. She never was an atheist like Godwin, or an unbeliever of the Voltaire school. But as the years went on, and her knowledge of the world increased, her religion concerned itself more with conduct and less with creed, until she finally gave up going to church altogether. But at the time of which we are writing she was regular in her attendance, and, though not strictly orthodox, clung to certain forms. The mere fact that she possessed definite ideas upon the subject while she was young shows the naturally serious bent of her mind. She had received the most superficial religious education. Her belief, such as it was, was wholly the result of her own desire to solve the problems of existence and of the world beyond the senses. It is this fact, and the inferences to be drawn from it, which make her piety so well worth recording.
There seem to have been several schemes for work afoot just then. One was that the two sisters and Fanny Blood, who, some time before, had expressed herself willing and anxious to leave home, should join their fortunes. Fanny could paint and draw. Mary and Eliza could take in needlework until more pleasant and profitable employment could be procured. Poverty and toil would be more than compensated for by the joy which freedom and congenial companionship would give them. There was nothing very Utopian in such a plan; but Fanny, when the time came for its accomplishment, grew frightened. Her hard apprenticeship had given her none of the self-confidence and reliance which belonged to Mary by right of birth. Her family, despite their dependence upon her, seemed like a protection against the outer world. And so she held back, pleading the small chances of success by such a partnership, her own poor health, which would make her a burden to them, and, in fact, so many good reasons that the plan was abandoned. She, then, with greater aptitude for suggestion than for action, proposed that Mary and Eliza should keep a haberdashery shop, to be stocked at the expense of the much-called-upon but sadly unsusceptible Edward. There is something grimly humorous in the idea of Mary Wollstonecraft, destined as she was from all eternity to sound an alarum call to arouse women from their lethargy, spending her days behind a counter attending to their trifling temporal wants! A Roland might as well have been asked to become cook, a Sir Galahad to turn scullion. Honest work is never disgraceful in itself. Indeed, “Better do to no end, than nothing!” But one regrets the pain and the waste when circumstances force men and women capable of great work to spend their energies in ordinary channels. A greater misery than indifference to the amusement in which one seeks to take part, which Hamerton counts as the most wearisome of all things, is positive dislike for the work one is bound to do. Fortunately, Fanny’s project was never carried out. Probably Edward, as usual, failed to meet the proposals made to him, and Mary realized that the chains by which she would thus bind herself would be unendurable.
The plan finally adopted was that dearest to Mary’s heart. She began her career as teacher. She and Eliza went to Islington, where Fanny was then living, and lodged in the same house with her. Then they announced their intention of receiving day pupils. Mary was eminently fitted to teach. Her sad experience had increased her natural sympathy and benevolence. She now made her own troubles subservient to those of her fellow-sufferers, and resolved that the welfare of others should be the principal object