Mary Wollstonecraft Part 14

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

I part with you in peace.

She saw him once or twice afterwards. When he came to London again, G.o.dwin says that "she could not restrain herself from making another effort, and desiring to see him once more. During 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 pa.s.sion, that he would not see her."

They did meet, however, but their meeting was accidental. Imlay was one day paying a visit to Mr. Christie, who had returned to London, and with whom he had business relations. He was sitting in the parlor, when Mary called. Mrs. Christie, hearing her voice, and probably fearing an embarra.s.sing scene, hurried out to warn her of his presence, and to advise her not to come in the room. But Mary, not heeding her, entered fearlessly, and, with f.a.n.n.y by the hand, went up and spoke to Imlay. They retired, it seems, to another room, and he then promised to see her again, 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 Berks.h.i.+re, where she spent the month of March with her friend, Mrs. Cotton. She never again made the slightest 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 was walking along the New Road when Imlay pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed completely out of her life.

And so ends the saddest of all sad love stories.

CHAPTER X.

LITERARY WORK.

1793-1796.

The first volume of "An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress 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 Roman Empire." It went very quickly through two editions, surest proof of its success. The "a.n.a.lytical Review" called it

"... a work of uncommon merit, abounding with strong traits of original genius, 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 Women" had taken England by storm. But in reality she must have made good use of them. This new book marks an enormous advance in her mental development. It is but little disfigured by the faults of style, and is never weakened by the lack of method, which detract from the strength and power of the work by which she is best known. In the "French Revolution" her arguments are well weighed 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 t.i.tle demonstrates, her object in writing this history was to explain the moral significance, as well as the historical value, of the incidents which she recorded. This moral element is uppermost in every page of her book. The determination to discover the truth at all hazards is its key-note. This end Mary hoped to accomplish, first by tracing the French troubles to their real causes, and then by giving an unprejudiced account of them. The result of a thorough study and investigation of her subject was the formation of doctrines which are in close sympathy with those of the evolutionists of to-day. Nothing strikes the reader so much as her firm belief in the theory of development, and her conclusion therefrom that progress in government consists in the gradual subst.i.tution 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 former, she writes:--

"By ... attending to circ.u.mstances, 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 enthusiasm; but the natural consequence of intellectual improvement, gradually proceeding to perfection in the advancement of communities from a state of barbarism to that of polished society."

In considering 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 development of understanding in the many, and that that of the moderns is superior to it because of the more general 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 small number of the citizens of a state, and the investigation of its privileges was left to a number still smaller, governments seem to have acted as if the people were formed only for them; and ingeniously confounding their rights with metaphysical jargon, the luxurious grandeur of individuals has been supported by the misery of the bulk of their fellow-creatures, and ambition gorged by the butchery of millions of innocent victims."

This despotism, she further a.s.serts, always continues so long as men are unqualified to judge 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 systems were founded on pa.s.sion,--"individuals wis.h.i.+ng to fence round their own wealth or power, and make slaves of their brothers to prevent encroachment,"--and that the laws of society could not have been originally "adjusted so as to take in the future conduct of its members, because the faculties of man are unfolded and perfected by the improvements made by society." This knowledge necessarily destroys belief in the sanct.i.ty of prescription, and when once it is made the basis of government, the ruling powers will have as much consideration for the rights 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 men to be selfish, because they were ignorant how intimately their own comfort was connected with that of others; and it was also very natural that humanity, rather the effect of feeling than of reason, should have a very limited range. But when men once see clear as the light of heaven--and I hail the glorious day from afar!--that on the general happiness depends their own, reason will give strength to the fluttering wings of pa.s.sion, 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 uncompromising honesty, she says:--

"We must get entirely clear of all the notions drawn from the wild traditions of original sin: the eating of the apple, the theft of Prometheus, the opening 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 men will insensibly render each other happier as they grow wiser."

After a brief a.n.a.lysis 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 men, on the one hand, as Rousseau and Voltaire, who warred against superst.i.tion, and on the other, as Quesnay and Turgot, who opposed unjust taxation. It was through them that the nation awoke to a consciousness of its wrongs, and saw for the first time, in the clear light of truth, the inveterate pride of the n.o.bles, the rapacity of the clergy, and the prodigality of the court. The farmer then realized to the full the injustice of a government which could calmly allow taxes and feudal claims to swallow all but the twentieth part of the profit of his labor.

Citizens discovered the iniquity of laws which gave so little security to their lives and property, that these could be sported with impunity by the aristocracy. In a word, the people found that without a pretext of justice, they were forced to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for a chosen few. Once enlightened they rebelled against the n.o.bles who treated them as beasts of burden and trod them under foot with the mud; and they boldly demanded their rights as human beings and as citizens.

Having thus given the _raison d'etre_ of the great French crisis, she describes with striking energy the events which ensued. She makes manifest the folly and blindness of the court, the shortcomings and vile intrigues of ministers, the duplicity and despotism of the parliaments, which prevented the pet.i.tions and demands of the people from receiving the attention and consideration which alone could have satisfied them.

That there were evils in the French government, not even its friends could deny. The recognition of them necessitated their being done away with. There were but two methods by which this could be accomplished: they must either be reformed or destroyed. The government refused to accept the first course; the people resolved to adopt the second. Mary's treatment of this question is interesting. The following pa.s.sage contains her chief arguments upon the subject, and the conclusion she drew from them, so very different from the result of Burke's reasoning on the same point in the "Reflections." This pa.s.sage is an excellent specimen of the style in which the book is written. The hasty measures of the French, she says, being worthy of philosophical investigation, fall into two distinct inquiries:--

"First, if from the progress of reason we be authorized to infer that all governments will be meliorated, and the happiness of man placed on the solid basis gradually prepared by the improvement of political science; if the degrading distinctions of rank, born in barbarism and nourished by chivalry, be really becoming in the estimation of all sensible people so contemptible, that a modest man, in the course of fifty years, would probably blush at being thus distinguished; if the complexion of manners in Europe be completely changed from what it was half a century ago, and the liberty of its citizens tolerably secured; if every day extending freedom be more firmly established in consequence of the general dissemination of truth and knowledge,--it then seems injudicious for statesmen to force the adoption of any opinion, by aiming at the speedy destruction of obstinate prejudices; because these premature reforms, instead of promoting, destroy the comfort of those unfortunate beings who are under their dominion, affording at the same time to despotism the strongest arguments to urge in opposition to the theory of reason. Besides, the objects intended to be forwarded are probably r.e.t.a.r.ded, whilst the tumult of internal commotion and civil discord leads to the most dreadful consequence,--the immolating of human victims.

"But, secondly, it is necessary to observe, that, if the degeneracy of the higher orders of society be such that no remedy less fraught with horror can effect a radical cure; and if, enjoying the fruits of usurpation, they domineer over the weak, and check, by all the means in their power, every humane effort to draw man out of the state of degradation into which the inequality of fortune has sunk him; the people are justified in having recourse to coercion to repel coercion. And, further, if it can be ascertained that the silent sufferings of the citizens of the world are greater, though less obvious, than the calamities produced by such violent convulsions as have happened in France, which, like hurricanes whirling over the face of nature, strip off all its blooming graces, it may be politically just to pursue such measures as were taken by that regenerating country, and at once root out those deleterious plants which poison the better half of human happiness."

Among the most remarkable pa.s.sages in the book are those relating to Marie Antoinette. As was the case when she wrote her answer to Burke, the misery of millions unjustly subjected moved Mary more than the woes of one woman justly deprived of an ill-used liberty. Her love and sympathy for the people made her perhaps a little too harsh in her judgment of the queen. "Some hard words, some very strong epithets, are indeed used of Marie Antoinette," Mr. Kegan Paul says in his short but appreciative criticism of this book, "showing that she, who could in those matters know nothing personally, could not but depend on Paris gossip; but this is interesting, as showing what the view taken of the queen was before pa.s.sion rose to its highest, before the fury of the people, with all the ferocity of word and deed attendant on great popular movements, had broken out." The following lines, therefore, reflecting the feelings and opinions of the day, must be read with as much, if not more interest than those of later and better-informed historians:--

"The unfortunate Queen of France, beside the advantages of birth and station, possessed a very fine person; and her lovely face, sparkling with vivacity, hid the want of intelligence. Her complexion was dazzlingly clear; and when she was pleased, her manners were bewitching; for she happily mingled the most insinuating voluptuous softness and affability with an air of grandeur bordering on pride, that rendered the contrast more striking. Independence also, of whatever kind, always gives a degree of dignity to the mien; so that monarchs and n.o.bles with most ign.o.ble souls, from believing themselves superior to others, have actually acquired a look of superiority.

"But her opening faculties were poisoned in the bud; for before she came to Paris she had already been prepared, by a corrupt, supple abbe, for the part she was to play; and, young as she was, became so firmly attached to the aggrandizement of her house, that, though plunged deep in pleasure, she never omitted sending immense sums to her brother on every occasion. The person of the king, in itself very disgusting, was rendered more so by gluttony, and a total disregard of delicacy, and even decency, in his apartments; and when jealous of the queen, for whom he had a kind of devouring pa.s.sion, he treated her with great brutality, till she acquired sufficient finesse to subjugate him. Is it then surprising that a very desirable woman, with a sanguine const.i.tution, should shrink, abhorrent, from his embraces; or that an empty mind should be employed only to vary the pleasures which emasculated her Circean court? And, added to this, the histories of the Julias and Messalinas of antiquity convincingly prove that there is no end to the vagaries of the imagination, when power is unlimited, and reputation set at defiance.

"Lost, then, in the most luxurious pleasures, or managing court intrigues, the queen became a profound dissembler; and her heart was hardened by sensual enjoyments to such a degree that, when her family and favorites stood on the brink of ruin, her little portion of mind was employed only to preserve herself from danger. As a proof of the justness of this a.s.sertion, it is only necessary to observe that, in the general wreck, not a sc.r.a.p of her writing has been found to criminate her; neither has she suffered a word to escape her to exasperate the people, even when burning with rage and contempt. The effect that adversity may have on her choked understanding, time will show [this was written some months before the death of the queen]; but, during her prosperity, the moments of languor that glide into the interstices of enjoyment were pa.s.sed in the most childish manner, without the appearance of any vigor of mind to palliate the wanderings of the imagination. Still, she was a woman of uncommon address; and though her conversation was insipid, her compliments were so artfully adapted to flatter the person she wished to please or dupe, and so eloquent is the beauty of a queen, in the eyes even of superior men, that she seldom failed to carry her point when she endeavored to gain an ascendency over the mind of an individual. Over that of the king she acquired unbounded sway, when, managing the disgust she had for his person, she made him pay a kingly price for her favors. A court is the best school in the world for actors; it was very natural then for her to become a complete actress, and an adept in all the arts of coquetry that debauch the mind, whilst they render the person alluring."

Mary's inflexible hatred of the cruelty of the court and the n.o.bility, which had led to the present horrors, though great, did not prevent her from seeing the tyranny and brutality in which the people indulged so soon as they obtained the mastery. Her treatment of the facts of the Revolution is characterized by honesty. She is above all else an impartial historian and philosopher. She distinguishes, it is true, between the well-meaning mult.i.tude--those who took the Bastille, for example--and the rabble composed of the dregs of society,--those who headed the march to Versailles. She declares, "There has been seen amongst the French a spurious race of men, a set of cannibals, who have gloried in their crimes; and, tearing out the hearts that did not feel for them, have proved that they themselves had iron bowels." But while she makes this distinction, she does not hesitate to admit that the retaliation of the French people, suddenly all become sovereigns, was as terrible as that of slaves unexpectedly loosed from their fetters. It is but fair, after quoting her denunciations of Marie Antoinette, to show how far the new rule was from receiving her unqualified approbation.

Describing the silence and ruin which have succeeded the old-time gayety and grandeur of Versailles, she exclaims:--

"Weeping, scarcely conscious that I weep, O France! over the vestiges of thy former oppression, which, separating man from man with a fence of iron, sophisticated all, and made many completely wretched, I tremble, lest I should meet some unfortunate being, fleeing from the despotism of licentious freedom, hearing the snap of the _guillotine_ at his heels, merely because he was once n.o.ble, or has afforded an asylum to those whose only crime is their name; and, if my pen almost bound with eagerness to record the day that levelled the Bastille with the dust, making the towers of despair tremble to their base, the recollection that still the abbey is appropriated to hold the victims of revenge and suspicion palsies the hand that would fain do justice to the a.s.sault, which tumbled into heaps of ruins, walls that seemed to mock the resistless force of time. Down fell the temple of despotism; but--despotism has not been buried in its ruins! Unhappy country! when will thy children cease to tear thy bosom? When will a change of opinion, producing a change of morals, render thee truly free? When will truth give life to real magnanimity, and justice place equality on a stable seat?

When will thy sons trust, because they deserve to be trusted; and private virtue become the guarantee of patriotism? Ah! when will thy government become the most perfect, because thy citizens are the most virtuous?"

The same impartiality is preserved in the relation of even the most exciting and easily misconceived incidents of the Revolution. The courageous and resolute resistance of the Third Estate to the clergy and n.o.bility is described with dignified praise which never descends into fulsome flattery. The ignorance, vanity, jealousy, disingenuousness, self-sufficiency, and interested motives of members of the National a.s.sembly are unhesitatingly exposed in recording such of their actions as, examined superficially, might seem the outcome of a love of freedom.

In giving the details of the taking of the Bastille, and the women's march on Versailles, Mary becomes really eloquent. Mr. Kegan Paul's opinion may be here advantageously cited. "Her accounts of the Bastille siege and of the Versailles episode," he says, "are worth reading beside those of the master to whose style they are so great a contrast. Carlyle has seized on the comic element in the march to Versailles, Mary Wollstonecraft on the tragic; and hers seems to me the worthier view."

Many of the remarks upon civilization and the influence of the cultivation of science on the understanding, with which the book is interspersed, are full of wisdom and indicative of deep thought and careful research. Hers was, to use with but slight change the words with which she concludes, the philosophical eye, which, looking into the nature and weighing the consequence of human actions, is able to discern the cause which has produced so many dreadful effects.

Notwithstanding its excellence and the reputation it once had, this work is now almost unknown. But few have ever heard of it, still fewer read it; a fact due, of course, to its incompleteness. The first and only volume ends with the departure of Louis from Versailles to Paris, when the Revolution was as yet in its earliest stages. This must ever be a matter of regret. That succeeding volumes, had she written them, would have been even better is very probable. There was marked development in her intellectual powers after she published the "Rights of Women." The increased merit of her later works somewhat confirms Southey's declaration, made three years after her death, that "Mary Wollstonecraft was but beginning to reason when she died."

The last book she finished and published during her life-time was her "Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark." Her journey, as has been explained in the last chapter, was undertaken to attend to certain business affairs for Imlay. Landing in Sweden, she went from there to Norway, then again to Sweden, and finally to Denmark and Hamburg, in which latter places she remained a comparatively short period. Not being free to go and come as she chose, she was sometimes detained in small places for two or three weeks, while she could stay but a day or two in large cities. But she had letters of introduction to many of the princ.i.p.al inhabitants of the towns and villages to which business called her, and was thus able to see something of the life of the better cla.s.ses. The then rough mode of travelling also brought her into close contact with the peasantry. As the ground over which she travelled was then but little visited by English people, she knew that her letters would have at least the charm of novelty.

They were published by her friend Johnson in 1796. Hitherto, her work had been purely of a philosophical, historical, or educational nature. The familiar epistolary style in which she had begun to record her observations of the French people had been quickly changed for the more formal tone of the "French Revolution." These travels, consequently, marked an entirely new departure in her literary career. Their success was at once a.s.sured. Even the fastidious G.o.dwin, who had condemned her other books, could find no fault with this one. Contemporary critics agreed in sharing his good opinion.

"Have you ever met with Mary Wollstonecraft's 'Letters from Sweden and Norway'?" Southey asked in a letter to Thomas Southey. "She has made me in love with a cold climate and frost and snow, with a northern moonlight." The impression they produced was lasting. When, several years later, he wrote an "Epistle" to A. S. Cottle to be published in the latter's volume of "Icelandic Poetry," he again alluded to them. In referring to the places described in northern poems he declared,--

"... Scenes like these Have almost lived before me, when I gazed Upon their fair resemblance traced by him Who sung the banished man of Ardebeil, Or to the eye of Fancy held by her, Who among Women left no equal mind When from the world she pa.s.sed; and I could weep To think that _She_ is to the grave gone down!"

The "Annual Register" for 1796 honored the "Letters" by publis.h.i.+ng in its columns a long extract from them containing a description of the Norwegian character. The "Monthly Magazine" for July of the same year concluded that the book, "though not written with studied elegance, interests the reader in an uncommon degree by a philosophical turn of thought, by bold sketches of nature and manners, and above all by strong expressions of delicate sensibility." The verdict of the "a.n.a.lytical Review" was as follows:--

"A vigorous and cultivated intellect easily accommodates itself to new occupations. The notion that individual genius can only excel in one thing is a vulgar error. A mind endued by nature with strong powers and quick sensibility, and by culture furnished in an uncommon degree with habits of attention and reflection, wherever it is placed will find itself employment, and whatever it undertakes will execute it well. After the repeated proofs which the ingenious and justly admired writer of these letters has given the public, that her talents are far above the ordinary level, it will not be thought surprising that she could excel in different kinds of writing; that the qualifications which have enabled her to instruct young people by moral lessons and tales, and to furnish the philosopher with original and important speculations, should also empower her to entertain and interest the public in a manner peculiarly her own by writing a book of travels.

"We have no hesitation in a.s.suring our readers that Mrs.

Wollstonecraft has done this in the present volume."

The qualities most desirable in a writer of travels are quickness of perception, active interest in the places and people described, appreciation of local color, a nice sense of discrimination, and a pleasant, simple style. It is true that occasionally affected and involved phrases occur in Mary's letters from the North, and that the tone of many pa.s.sages is a trifle too sombre. But the former defects are much less glaring and fewer in number than those of her earlier writings; while, when it is remembered that during her journey her heart was heavy-laden with disappointment and despair, her melancholy reflections must be forgiven her. With the exception of these really trifling shortcomings, she may be said to have ably fulfilled the required conditions. It may be a.s.serted of her, in almost the identical words which Heine uses in praise of Goethe's "Italian Journey," that she, during her travels, saw all things, the dark and the light, colored nothing with her individual feelings, and pictured the land and its people in the true outlines and true colors in which G.o.d clothed it.

Determined to avoid the mistake common to most travellers, of speaking from feeling rather than from reason, she shows her readers the virtues and faults of the people among whom she travelled, without overestimating the former or exaggerating the latter. She found Swedes and Norwegians unaffected and hospitable, but sensual and indolent. Both good and evil she attributes to the influence of climate and to the comparatively low stage of culture attained in these northern countries. The long winter nights, she explains in her letters, have made the people sluggish. Their want of interest in politics, literature, and scientific pursuits have concentrated their attention upon the pleasures of the senses. They are hospitable because of the excitement and social amus.e.m.e.nts hospitality insures. They care for the flesh-pots of Egypt because they have not yet heard of the joys of the Promised Land. The women of the upper cla.s.ses are so indolent that they exercise neither mind nor body; consequently the former has but a narrow range, the latter soon loses all beauty. The men seek no relaxation from their business occupations save in Brobdingnagian dinners and suppers. If they are G.o.dly, they are never cleanly, cleanliness requiring an effort of which they are incapable.

Indolence and indifference to culture throughout Sweden and Norway are the chief characteristics of the natives.

To Mary the coa.r.s.eness of the people seemed the more unbearable because of the wonderful beauty of their country as she saw it in midsummer. She could not understand their continued indifference to its loveliness. Her own keen enjoyment of it shows itself in all her letters. She constantly pauses in relating her experiences to dwell upon the grandeur of cliffs and sea, upon the impressive wildness of certain districts, full of great pine-covered mountains and endless fir woods, contrasting with others more gentle and fertile, which are covered with broad fields of corn and rye. She loves to describe the long still summer nights and the gray dawn when the birds begin to sing, the sweet scents of the forest, and the soft freshness of the western breeze. The smallest details of the living picture do not escape her notice. She records the musical tinkling of distant cow-bells and the mournful cry of the bittern. She even tells how she sometimes, when she is out in her boat, lays down her oars that she may examine the purple ma.s.ses of jelly-fish floating in the water.