The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay Part 3

_Monday Night [Paris, Dec. 30, 1793]._

My best love, your letter to-night was particularly grateful to my heart, depressed by the letters I received by ----, for he brought me several, and the parcel of books directed to Mr. ---- was for me. Mr. ----'s letter was long and very affectionate; but the account he gives me of his own affairs, though he obviously makes the best of them, has vexed me.

A melancholy letter from my sister ---- has also harra.s.sed my mind--that from my brother would have given me sincere pleasure; but for

There is a spirit of independence in his letter, that will please you; and you shall see it, when we are once more over the fire together.--I think that you would hail him as a brother, with one of your tender looks, when your heart not only gives a l.u.s.tre to your eye, but a dance of playfulness, that he would meet with a glow half made up of bashfulness, and a desire to please the----where shall I find a word to express the relations.h.i.+p which subsists between us?--Shall I ask the little twitcher?--But I have dropt half the sentence that was to tell you how much he would be inclined to love the man loved by his sister. I have been fancying myself sitting between you, ever since I began to write, and my heart has leaped at the thought! You see how I chat to you.

I did not receive your letter till I came home; and I did not expect it, for the post came in much later than usual. It was a cordial to me--and I wanted one.

Mr. ---- tells me that he has written again and again.--Love him a little!--It would be a kind of separation, if you did not love those I love.

There was so much considerate tenderness in your epistle to-night, that, if it has not made you dearer to me, it has made me forcibly feel how very dear you are to me, by charming away half my cares.

Yours affectionately.

MARY.

LETTER IX

_Tuesday Morning [Paris, Dec. 31, 1793]._

Though I have just sent a letter off, yet, as captain ---- offers to take one, I am not willing to let him go without a kind greeting, because trifles of this sort, without having any effect on my mind, damp my spirits:--and you, with all your struggles to be manly, have some of his same sensibility.--Do not bid it begone, for I love to see it striving to master your features; besides, these kind of sympathies are the life of affection: and why, in cultivating our understandings, should we try to dry up these springs of pleasure, which gush out to give a freshness to days browned by care!

The books sent to me are such as we may read together; so I shall not look into them till you return; when you shall read, whilst I mend my stockings.

Yours truly, MARY.

LETTER X

_Wednesday Night [Paris, Jan. 1, 1794]._

As I have been, you tell me, three days without writing, I ought not to complain of two: yet, as I expected to receive a letter this afternoon, I am hurt; and why should I, by concealing it, affect the heroism I do not feel?

I hate commerce. How differently must ----'s head and heart be organized from mine! You will tell me, that exertions are necessary: I am weary of them! The face of things, public and private, vexes me. The "peace" and clemency which seemed to be dawning a few days ago, disappear again. "I am fallen," as Milton said, "on evil days;" for I really believe that Europe will be in a state of convulsion, during half a century at least. Life is but a labour of patience: it is always rolling a great stone up a hill; for, before a person can find a resting-place, imagining it is lodged, down it comes again, and all the work is to be done over anew!

Should I attempt to write any more, I could not change the strain. My head aches, and my heart is heavy. The world appears an "unweeded garden,"

where "things rank and vile" flourish best.

If you do not return soon--or, which is no such mighty matter, talk of it--I will throw your slippers out at window, and be off--n.o.body knows where.

MARY.

Finding that I was observed, I told the good women, the two Mrs. ----s, simply that I was with child: and let them stare! and ----, and ----, nay, all the world, may know it for aught I care!--Yet I wish to avoid ----'s coa.r.s.e jokes.

Considering the care and anxiety a woman must have about a child before it comes into the world, it seems to me, by a _natural right_, to belong to her. When men get immersed in the world, they seem to lose all sensations, excepting those necessary to continue or produce life!--Are these the privileges of reason? Amongst the feathered race, whilst the hen keeps the young warm, her mate stays by to cheer her; but it is sufficient for man to condescend to get a child, in order to claim it.--A man is a tyrant!

You may now tell me, that, if it were not for me, you would be laughing away with some honest fellows in London. The casual exercise of social sympathy would not be sufficient for me--I should not think such an heartless life worth preserving.--It is necessary to be in good-humour with you, to be pleased with the world.

_Thursday Morning [Paris, Jan. 2, 1794]._

I was very low-spirited last night, ready to quarrel with your cheerful temper, which makes absence easy to you.--And, why should I mince the matter? I was offended at your not even mentioning it--I do not want to be loved like a G.o.ddess but I wish to be necessary to you. G.o.d bless you![4]

LETTER XI

_Monday Night [Paris, Jan. 1794]._

I have just received your kind and rational letter, and would fain hide my face, glowing with shame for my folly.--I would hide it in your bosom, if you would again open it to me, and nestle closely till you bade my fluttering heart be still, by saying that you forgave me. With eyes overflowing with tears, and in the humblest att.i.tude, I entreat you.--Do not turn from me, for indeed I love you fondly, and have been very wretched, since the night I was so cruelly hurt by thinking that you had no confidence in me----

It is time for me to grow more reasonable, a few more of these caprices of sensibility would destroy me. I have, in fact, been very much indisposed for a few days past, and the notion that I was tormenting, or perhaps killing, a poor little animal, about whom I am grown anxious and tender, now I feel it alive, made me worse. My bowels have been dreadfully disordered, and every thing I ate or drank disagreed with my stomach; still I feel intimations of its existence, though they have been fainter.

Do you think that the creature goes regularly to sleep? I am ready to ask as many questions as Voltaire's Man of Forty Crowns. Ah! do not continue to be angry with me! You perceive that I am already smiling through my tears--You have lightened my heart, and my frozen spirits are melting into playfulness.

Write the moment you receive this. I shall count the minutes. But drop not an angry word--I cannot now bear it. Yet, if you think I deserve a scolding (it does not admit of a question, I grant), wait till you come back--and then, if you are angry one day, I shall be sure of seeing you the next.

---- did not write to you, I suppose, because he talked of going to Havre.

Hearing that I was ill, he called very kindly on me, not dreaming that it was some words that he incautiously let fall, which rendered me so.

G.o.d bless you, my love; do not shut your heart against a return of tenderness; and, as I now in fancy cling to you, be more than ever my support.--Feel but as affectionate when you read this letter, as I did writing it, and you will make happy your

MARY.

LETTER XII

_Wednesday Morning [Paris, Jan. 1794]._

I will never, if I am not entirely cured of quarrelling, begin to encourage "quick-coming fancies," when we are separated. Yesterday, my love, I could not open your letter for some time; and, though it was not half as severe as I merited, it threw me into such a fit of trembling, as seriously alarmed me. I did not, as you may suppose, care for a little pain on my own account; but all the fears which I have had for a few days past, returned with fresh force. This morning I am better; will you not be glad to hear it? You perceive that sorrow has almost made a child of me, and that I want to be soothed to peace.

One thing you mistake in my character, and imagine that to be coldness which is just the contrary. For, when I am hurt by the person most dear to me, I must let out a whole torrent of emotions, in which tenderness would be uppermost, or stifle them altogether; and it appears to me almost a duty to stifle them, when I imagine _that I am treated with coldness_.

I am afraid that I have vexed you, my own [Imlay]. I know the quickness of your feelings--and let me, in the sincerity of my heart, a.s.sure you, there is nothing I would not suffer to make you happy. My own happiness wholly depends on you--and, knowing you, when my reason is not clouded, I look forward to a rational prospect of as much felicity as the earth affords--with a little dash of rapture into the bargain, if you will look at me, when we work again, as you have sometimes greeted, your humbled, yet most affectionate