ld persevere in nothing. Apparently brought up to no
special profession, he was by turns a gentleman of leisure, a farmer, a
man of business. It seems to have been sufficient for him to settle in
any one place to almost immediately wish to depart from it. The history
of the first fifteen or twenty years of his married life is that of one
long series of migrations. The discomforts and petty miseries unavoidable
to travellers with large families in pre-railroad days necessarily
increased his irascibility. The inevitable consequence of these many
changes was loss of money and still greater loss of temper. That his
financial experiments proved to be failures, is certain from the abject
poverty of his later years. That they were bad for him morally, is shown
in the fact that his children, when grown up, found it impossible to live
under the same roof with him. His indifference in one particular to their
wishes and welfare led in the end to disregard of them in all matters.

It is more than probable that Mary, in her "Wrongs of Woman," drew
largely from her own experience for the characters therein represented,
and we shall not err in identifying the father she describes in this
novel with Mr. Wollstonecraft himself. "His orders," she writes, "were
not to be disputed; and the whole house was expected to fly at the word
of command.... He was to be instantaneously obeyed, especially by my
mother, whom he very benevolently married for love; but took care to
remind her of the obligation when she dared in the slightest instance to
question his absolute authority." He was, in a word, an egotist of the
worst description, who found no brutality too low once his anger was
aroused, and no amount of despotism too odious when the rights and
comforts of others interfered with his own desires. When contradicted or
thwarted his rage was ungovernable, and he used personal violence not
only to his dogs and children, but even to his wife. Drink and
unrestrained selfishness had utterly degraded him. Such was Mary's
father.

Mrs. Wollstonecraft was her husband's most abject slave, but was in turn
somewhat of a tyrant herself. She approved of stern discipline for the
young. She was too indolent to give much attention to the education of
her children, and devoted what little energy she possessed to enforcing
their unquestioning obedience even in trifles, and to making them as
afraid of her displeasure as they were of their father's anger. "It is