Mary Wollstonecraft Part 9

CHAPTER VII.

VISIT TO PARIS.

1792-1793.

The "Vindication of the Rights of Women" made Mary still more generally known. Its fame spread far and wide, not only at home but abroad, where it was translated into German and French. Like Paine's "Rights of Man,"

or Malthus' "Essay on the Theory of Population," it advanced new doctrines which threatened to overturn existing social relations, and it consequently struck men with fear and wonder, and evoked more censure than praise. To-day, after many years' agitation, the question of women's rights still creates contention. The excitement caused by the first word in its favor may, therefore, be easily imagined. If one of the bondsmen helping to drag stones for the pyramids, or one of the many thousand slaves in Athens, had claimed independence, Egyptians or Greeks could not have been more surprised than Englishmen were at a woman's a.s.sertion that, mentally, she was man's equal. Some were disgusted with such a bold breaking of conventional chains; a few were startled into admiration.

Much of the public amazement was due not only to the principles of the book, but to its warmth and earnestness. As Miss Thackeray says, the English auth.o.r.esses of those days "kept their readers carefully at pen's length, and seemed for the most part to be so conscious of their surprising achievement in the way of literature, as never to forget for a single minute that they were in print." But here was a woman who wrote eloquently from her heart, who told people boldly what she thought upon subjects of which her s.e.x, as a rule, pretended to know nothing, and who forgot herself in her interest in her work. It was natural that curiosity was felt as to what manner of being she was, and that curiosity changed into surprise when, instead of the virago expected, she was found to be, to use G.o.dwin's words, "lovely in her person, and, in the best and most engaging sense, feminine in her manners." The fable was in this case reversed. It was the sheep who had appeared in wolf's clothing.

In her own circle of friends and acquaintances she was lionized. Some of her readers were converted into enthusiasts. One of these--a Mr. John Henry Colls--a few years later addressed a poem to her. However, his admiration unfortunately did not teach him justly to appreciate its object, nor to write good poetry, and his verses have been deservedly forgotten. The reputation she had won by her answer to Burke was now firmly established. She was respected as an independent thinker and a bold dealer with social problems. The "a.n.a.lytical Review" praised her in a long and leading criticism.

"The lesser wits," her critic writes, "will probably affect to make themselves merry at the t.i.tle and apparent object of this publication; but we have no doubt, if even her contemporaries should fail to do her justice, posterity will compensate the defect; and have no hesitation in declaring that if the bulk of the great truths which this publication contains were reduced to practice, the nation would be better, wiser, and happier than it is upon the wretched, trifling, useless, and absurd system of education which is now prevalent."

But the conservative avoided her and her book as moral plagues. Many people would not even look at what she had written. Satisfied with the old-fashioned way of treating the subjects therein discussed, they would not run the risk of finding out that they were wrong. Their att.i.tude in this respect was much the same as that of Cowper when he refused to read Paine's "Rights of Man." "No man," he said, "shall convince me that I am improperly governed, while I feel the contrary."

Women then, even the cleverest and most liberal, bowed to the decrees of custom with a submission as servile as that of the Hindu to the laws of caste. Like the latter, they were contented with their lot and had no desire to change it. They dreaded the increase of knowledge which would bring with it greater sorrow. Mrs. Barbauld, eloquent in her defence of men's rights, could conceive no higher aim for women than the attainment of sufficient knowledge to make them _agreeable_ companions to their husbands and brothers. Should there be any deviation from the methods of education which insured this end, they would, she feared, become like the _Precieuses_ or _Femmes Savantes_ of Moliere. Mary's vigorous appeal for improvement could, therefore, have no meaning for her. Hannah More, enthusiastic in her denunciations of slavery, but unconscious that her liberty was in the least restricted, did not hesitate to form an opinion of the "Rights of Women" without examining it, thus necessarily missing its true significance. In this she doubtless represented a large majority of her s.e.x. She wrote to Horace Walpole in 1793:--

"I have been much pestered to read the 'Rights of Women,' but am invincibly resolved not to do it. Of all jargon, I hate metaphysical jargon; beside, there is something fantastic and absurd in the very t.i.tle. How many ways there are of being ridiculous! I am sure I have as much liberty as I can make a good use of, now I am an old maid; and when I was a young one I had, I dare say, more than was good for me. If I were still young, perhaps I should not make this confession; but so many women are fond of government, I suppose, because they are not fit for it. To be unstable and capricious, I really think, is but too characteristic of our s.e.x; and there is, perhaps, no animal so much indebted to subordination for its good behavior as woman. I have soberly and uniformly maintained this doctrine ever since I have been capable of observation, and I used horridly to provoke some of my female friends--_maitresses femmes_--by it, especially such heroic spirits as poor Mrs. Walsingham."

Men, on the other hand, thought Mary was uns.e.xing herself by her arguments, which seemed to interfere with _their_ rights,--an interference they could not brook. To the Tories the fact that she sympathized with the Reformers was enough to d.a.m.n her. Walpole, when he answered the letter from which the above extract is taken, wrote with warmth:--

"... It is better to thank Providence for the tranquillity and happiness we enjoy in this country, in spite of the philosophizing serpents we have in our bosom, the Paines, the Tookes, and the Wollstonecrafts. I am glad you have not read the tract of the last-mentioned writer. I would not look at it, though a.s.sured it contains neither metaphysics nor politics; but as she entered the lists of the latter, and borrowed her t.i.tle from the demon's book which aimed at spreading the _wrongs_ of men, she is excommunicated from the pale of my library. We have had enough of new systems, and the world a great deal too much already."

Walpole may be accepted as the typical Tory, and to all his party Mary probably appeared as the "philosophizing serpent." She seems always to have incurred his deepest scorn and wrath. He could not speak of her without calling her names. A year or two later, when she had published her book on the French Revolution, writing again to Hannah More, he thus concludes his letter:--

"Adieu, thou excellent woman! thou reverse of that hyena in petticoats, Mrs. Wollstonecraft, who to this day discharges her ink and gall on Marie Antoinette, whose unparalleled sufferings have not yet stanched that Alecto's blazing ferocity."

There was at least one man in London whose opinion was worth having who, it is known, treated the book with indifference, and he, by a strange caprice of fate, was William G.o.dwin. It was at this time, when she was in the fulness of her fame, that Mary first met him. She was dining at Johnson's with Paine and Shovet, and G.o.dwin had come purposely to meet the American philosopher and to hear him talk. But Paine was at best a silent man; and Mary, it seems, monopolized the conversation. G.o.dwin was disappointed, and consequently the impression she made upon him was not pleasing. He afterwards wrote an account of this first meeting, which is interesting because of the closer relationship to which an acquaintance so unpropitiously begun was to lead.

"The interview was not fortunate," he says. "Mary and myself parted mutually displeased with each other. I had not read her 'Rights of Women.' I had barely looked into her answer to Burke, and been displeased, as literary men are apt to be, with a few offences against grammar and other minute points of composition. I had therefore little curiosity to see Mrs. Wollstonecraft, and a very great curiosity to see Thomas Paine. Paine, in his general habits, is no great talker; and, though he threw in occasionally some shrewd and striking remarks, the conversation lay princ.i.p.ally between me and Mary. I, of consequence, heard her very frequently when I wished to hear Paine.

"We touched on a considerable variety of topics and particularly on the character and habits of certain eminent men. Mary, as has already been observed, had acquired, in a very blamable degree, the practice of seeing everything on the gloomy side, and bestowing censure with a plentiful hand, where circ.u.mstances were in any degree doubtful. I, on the contrary, had a strong propensity to favorable construction, and, particularly where I found unequivocal marks of genius, strongly to incline to the supposition of generous and manly virtue. We ventilated in this way the character of Voltaire and others, who have obtained from some individuals an ardent admiration, while the greater number have treated them with extreme moral severity. Mary was at last provoked to tell me that praise, lavished in the way that I lavished it, could do no credit either to the commended or the commender. We discussed some questions on the subject of religion, in which her opinions approached much nearer to the received ones than mine. As the conversation proceeded, I became dissatisfied with the tone of my own share in it. We touched upon all topics without treating forcibly and connectedly upon any. Meanwhile, I did her the justice, in giving an account of the conversation to a party in which I supped, though I was not sparing of my blame, to yield her the praise of a person of active and independent thinking. On her side, she did me no part of what perhaps I considered as justice.

"We met two or three times in the course of the following year, but made a very small degree of progress towards a cordial acquaintance."

Not until Mary had lived through the tragedy of her life were they destined to become more to each other than mere fellow mortals. There was much to be learned, and much to be forgotten, before the time came for her to give herself into his keeping.

Her family were naturally interested in her book from personal motives; but Eliza and Everina heartily disapproved of it, and their feelings for their eldest sister became, from this period, less and less friendly.

However, as Kegan Paul says, their small spite points to envy and jealousy rather than to honest indignation.

Both were now in good situations. Mary felt free, therefore, to consider her own comforts a little. Besides, she had attained a position which it became her to sustain with dignity. She was now known as _Mrs._ Wollstonecraft, and was a prominent figure in the literary world. Shortly after the publication of the "Rights of Women" she moved from the modest lodgings on George Street, to larger, finer rooms on Store Street, Bedford Square, and these she furnished comfortably. Necessity was no longer her only standard. She also gave more care to her dress. Her stern apprenticeship was over. She had so successfully trampled upon the thorns in her path that she could pause to enjoy the flowers. To modern readers her new furniture and gowns are welcome signs of the awakening of the springtime in her cold and wintry life. But her sisters resented them, particularly because, while they, needing less, received less from her bounty, Charles, waiting for a good opening in America, was living at her expense. He, with thoughtless ingrat.i.tude, sent them semi-satirical accounts of her new mode of living, and thus unconsciously kindled their jealousy into a fierce flame. When the extent of Mary's kindness and self-sacrifice in their regard is remembered, the petty ill-nature of brother and sisters, as expressed in the following letter from Mrs.

Bishop to Everina, is unpardonable:--

UPTON CASTLE, July 3, 1792.

... He [Charles] informs me too that _Mrs. Wollstonecraft_ is grown quite handsome; he adds likewise that, being conscious she is on the wrong side of thirty, she now endeavors to set off those charms she once despised, to the best advantage. This, _entre nous_, for he is delighted with her affection and kindness to him.

So the author of "The Rights of Women" is going to France! I dare say her chief motive is to promote poor Bess's comfort, or thine, my girl, or at least I think she will so reason. Well, in spite of reason, when Mrs. W. reaches the Continent she will be but a woman!

I cannot help painting her in the height of all her wishes, at the very summit of happiness, for will not ambition fill every c.h.i.n.k of her great soul (for such I really think hers) that is not occupied by love? After having drawn this sketch, you can hardly suppose me so sanguine as to expect my pretty face will be thought of when matters of State are in agitation, yet I know you think such a miracle not impossible. I wish I could think it at all probable, but, alas! it has so much the appearance of castle-building that I think it will soon disappear like the "baseless fabric of a vision, and leave not a wrack behind."

And you actually have the vanity to imagine that in the National a.s.sembly, personages like M. and F.[useli] will bestow a thought on two females whom nature meant to "suckle fools and chronicle small beer."

But a few days before Mary had written to Everina to discuss with her a matter relative to Mrs. Bishop's prospects. This letter explains the allusions of the latter to Mary's proposed trip to France, and shows how little reason she had for her ill-natured conclusions:--

LONDON, June 20, 1792.

... I have been considering what you say respecting Eliza's residence in France. For some time past Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli, Mr.

Johnson, and myself have talked of a summer excursion to Paris; it is now determined on, and we think of going in about six weeks. I shall be introduced to many people. My book has been translated, and praised in some popular prints, and Mr. Fuseli of course is well known; it is then very probable that I shall hear of some situation for Eliza, and I shall be on the watch. We intend to be absent only six weeks; if then I fix on an eligible situation for her she may avoid the Welsh winter. This journey will not lead me into any extraordinary expense, or I should put it off to a more convenient season, for I am not, as you may suppose, very flush of money, and Charles is wearing out the clothes which were provided for his voyage. Still, I am glad he has acquired a little practical knowledge of farming....

The French trip was, however, put off until the following December; and when the time came for her departure, neither Mr. Johnson nor the Fuselis accompanied her. Since the disaffection of the latter has been construed in a way which reflects upon her character, it is necessary to pause here to consider the nature of the friendship which existed between them. The slightest shadow unfairly cast upon her reputation must be dissipated.

Mary valued Fuseli as one of her dearest friends. He, like her, was an enthusiast. He was a warm partisan of justice and a rebel against established inst.i.tutions. He would take any steps to see that the rights of the individual were respected. His interference in a case where men in subordinate positions were defrauded by those in authority, but which did not affect him personally, was the cause of his being compelled to leave Zurich, his home, and thus eventually of his coming to England. Besides their unity of thought and feeling, their work often lay in the same direction. Fuseli, as well as Mary, translated for Johnson, and contributed to the "a.n.a.lytical Review." He was an intimate friend of Lavater, whose work on Physiognomy Mary had translated with the liveliest interest. There was thus a strong bond of sympathy between them, and many ways in which they could help and consult with each other in their literary tasks. Mary was devoid of the coquetry which is so strong with some women that they carry it even into their friendships. She never attempted to conceal her liking for Fuseli. His s.e.x was no drawback. Why should it be? It had not interfered with her warm feelings for George Blood and Mr. Johnson. She was the last person in the world to be deterred from what she thought was right for the sake of appearances.

However, another construction was given to her friendly demonstrations.

The story told both by Knowles, the biographer of Fuseli, and by G.o.dwin, is that Mary was in love with the artist; and that the necessity of suppressing, even if she could not destroy, her pa.s.sion--hopeless since its object was a married man--was the immediate reason of her going to France alone. But they interpret the circ.u.mstances very differently. The incidents, as given by G.o.dwin, are in nowise to Mary's discredit, though his account of them was later twisted and distorted by Dr. Beloe in his "s.e.xagenarian." The latter, however, is so prejudiced a writer that his words have but little value. G.o.dwin, in his Memoirs, after demonstrating the strength of the intimacy between Mary and Fuseli, says:--

"Notwithstanding the inequality of their years, Mary was not of a temper to live upon terms of so much intimacy with a man of merit and genius without loving him. The delight she enjoyed in his society, she transferred by a.s.sociation to his person. What she experienced in this respect was no doubt heightened by the state of celibacy and restraint in which she had hitherto lived, and to which the rules of polished society condemn an unmarried woman. She conceived a personal and ardent affection for him. Mr. Fuseli was a married man, and his wife the acquaintance of Mary. She readily perceived the restrictions which this circ.u.mstance seemed to impose upon her; but she made light of any difficulty that might arise out of them. Not that she was insensible to the value of domestic endearments between persons of an opposite s.e.x, but that she scorned to suppose that she could feel a struggle in conforming to the laws she should lay down to her conduct.

"... There is no reason to doubt that if Mr. Fuseli had been disengaged at the period of their acquaintance, he would have been the man of her choice.

"... One of her princ.i.p.al inducements to this step, [her visit to France] related, I believe, to Mr. Fuseli. She had at first considered it as reasonable and judicious to cultivate what I may be permitted to call a platonic affection for him; but she did not, in the sequel, find all the satisfaction in this plan which she had originally expected from it. It was in vain that she enjoyed much pleasure in his society, and that she enjoyed it frequently. Her ardent imagination was continually conjuring up pictures of the happiness she should have found if fortune had favored their more intimate union. She felt herself formed for domestic affection, and all those tender charities which men of sensibility have constantly treated as the dearest bond of human society. General conversation and society could not satisfy her. She felt herself alone, as it were, in the great ma.s.s of her species, and she repined when she reflected that the best years of her life were spent in this comfortless solitude. These ideas made the cordial intercourse of Mr. Fuseli, which had at first been one of her greatest pleasures, a source of perpetual torment to her. She conceived it necessary to snap the chain of this a.s.sociation in her mind; and, for that purpose, determined to seek a new climate, and mingle in different scenes."

Knowles, on the other hand, represents her as importunate with her love as a Phaedra, as consumed with pa.s.sion as a Faustina. He states as a fact that it was for Fuseli's sake that she changed her mode of life and adopted a new elegance in dress and manners. He declares that when the latter made no return to her advances, she pursued him so persistently that on receiving her letters, he thrust them unopened out of sight, so sure was he that they contained nothing but protestations of regard and complaints of neglect; that, finally, she became so ill and miserable and unfitted for work that, despite Fuseli's arguments against such a step, she went boldly to Mrs. Fuseli and asked to be admitted into her house as a member of the family, declaring that she could not live without daily seeing the man she loved; and that, thereupon, Mrs. Fuseli grew righteously wrathful and forbade her ever to cross her threshold again.

He furthermore affirms that she considered her love for Fuseli strictly within the bounds of modesty and reason, that she encouraged it without scruple, and that she made every effort to win his heart. These proving futile, he concludes: "No resource was now left for Mrs. Wollstonecraft but to fly from the object which she regarded; her determination was instantly fixed; she wrote a letter to Fuseli, in which she begged pardon 'for having disturbed the quiet tenor of his life,' and on the 8th of December left London for France."

An anonymous writer who in 1803 published a "Defence of the Character of the Late Mary Wollstonecraft G.o.dwin," repeats the story, but a little more kindly, declaring that Mary's discovery of an unconsciously nurtured pa.s.sion for a married man, and her determination to flee temptation, were the cause of her leaving England. That there was during her life-time some idle gossip about her relations to Fuseli is shown in the references to it in Eliza's ill-natured letter. This counts for little, however. It was simply impossible for the woman who had written in defiance of social laws and restrictions, to escape having scandals attached to her name.

Kegan Paul, Mary's able defender of modern times, denies the whole story. He writes in his Prefatory Memoir to her "Letters to Imlay:"--

"... G.o.dwin knew extremely little of his wife's earlier life, nor was this a subject on which he had sought enlightenment from herself. I can only here say that I fail to find any confirmation whatever of this preposterous story, as told in Knowles's 'Life of Fuseli,' or in any other form, while I find much which makes directly against it, the strongest fact being that Mary remained to the end the correspondent and close friend of Mrs. Fuseli."

Her character is the best refutation of Knowles's charges. She was too proud to demean herself to any man. She was too sensitive to slights to risk the repulses he says she accepted. And since always before and after this period she had nothing more at heart than the happiness of others, it is not likely that she would have deliberately tried to step in between Fuseli and his wife, and gain at the latter's expense her own ends. She could not have changed her character in a day. She never played fast and loose with her principles. These were in many ways contrary to the standard of the rest of mankind, but they were also equally opposed to the conduct imputed to her. The testimony of her actions is her acquittal. That she did not for a year produce any work of importance is no argument against her. It was only after three years of uninterrupted industry that she found time to write the "Rights of Women." On account of the urgency of her every-day needs, she had no leisure for work whose financial success was uncertain. Knowles's story is too absurdly out of keeping with her character to be believed for a moment.

The other version of this affair is not so inconceivable. That her affection may in the end have developed into a warmer feeling, and that she would have married Fuseli had he been free, is just possible.

Allusions in her first letters to Imlay to a late "hapless love," and to trouble, seem to confirm G.o.dwin's statement. But it is quite as likely that Fuseli, whose heart was, as his biographer admits, very susceptible, felt for her a pa.s.sion which as a married man he had no right to give, and that she fled to France for his sake rather than for her own. In either of these cases, she would deserve admiration and respect. But the insufficiency of evidence reduces everything except the fact of her friendship for him to mere surmise.

However this may have been, it is certain that Mr. Johnson and the Fuselis decided to remain at home when Mary in December started for Paris.

The excitement in the French capital was then at fever heat. But the outside world hardly comprehended how serious the troubles were. Princes and their adherents trembled at the blow given to royalty in the person of Louis XVI. Liberals rejoiced at the successful revolt against monarchical tyranny. But neither one party nor the other for a moment foresaw what a terrible weapon reform was to become in the hands of the excitable French people. If, in the city where the tragedy was being enacted, the customary baking and brewing, the promenading under the trees, and the dog-dancing and the shoe-blacking on the _Pont-Neuf_ could still continue, it is not strange that those who watched it from afar mistook its real weight.

The terrible night of the 10th of August had come and gone. The September ma.s.sacres, the details of which had not yet reached England, were over.

The Girondists were in the ascendency and had restored order. There were fierce contentions in the National Convention, but, on the whole, its att.i.tude was one to inspire confidence. The English, who saw in the arrest of the king, and in the popular feeling against him, just such a crisis as their nation had pa.s.sed through once or twice, were not deterred from visiting the country by its unsettled state. The French prejudice against England, it is true, was strong. Lafayette had some time before publicly expressed his belief that she was secretly conspiring against the peace of France. But his imputation had been vigorously denied, and nominally the two governments were friendly.

English citizens had no reason to suppose they would not be safe in Paris, and those among them whose opinions brought them _en rapport_ with the French Republicans felt doubly secure. Consequently Mary's departure for that capital, alone and unprotected, did not seem so hazardous then as it does now that the true condition of affairs is better understood.