but remains a dreary waste,
fenced about with broken gravestones, the one fresh green spot is the
corner occupied by the monument{1} erected to the memory of Mary
Wollstonecraft, and separated from the open space by an iron railing.
There is no sign of withering willows in this enclosure. Its trees are of
goodly growth and fair promise. And, like them, her character now
_flourishes_, for justice is at last being done to her.

{1} Her body has been removed to Bournemouth.

CHAPTER I.

CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH.

1759-1778.

Mary Wollstonecraft was born on the 27th of April, 1759, but whether in
London or in Epping Forest, where she spent the first five years of her
life, is not quite certain. There is no history of her ancestors to show
from whom she inherited the intellectual greatness which distinguished
her, but which characterized neither of her parents. Her paternal
grandfather was a manufacturer in Spitalfields, of whom little is known,
except that he was of Irish extraction and that he himself was
respectable and prosperous. To his son, Edward John, Mary's father, he
left a fortune of ten thousand pounds, no inconsiderable sum in those
days for a man of his social position. Her mother was Elizabeth, daughter
of Mr. Dixon, of Ballyshannon, Ireland, who belonged to an eminently good
family. Mary was the second of six children. The eldest, Edward, who was
more successful in his worldly affairs than the others, and James, who
went to sea to seek his fortunes, both passed to a great extent out of
her life. But her two sisters, Eliza and Everina, and her youngest
brother, Charles, were so dependent upon her for assistance in their many
troubles that their career is intimately associated with hers.

With her very first years Mary Wollstonecraft began a bitter training in
the school of experience, which was to no small degree instrumental in
developing her character and forming her philosophy. There are few
details of her childhood, and no anecdotes indicating a precocious
genius. But enough is known of her early life to make us understand what
were the principal influences to which she was exposed. Her strength
sprang from the very uncongeniality of her home and her successful
struggles against the poverty and vice which surrounded her. Her father
was a selfish, hot-tempered despot, whose natural bad qualities were
aggravated by his dissipated habits. His chief characteristic was his
instability. He cou