ESERTION. 1794-1795 218

X. LITERARY WORK. 1793-1796 248

XI. RETROSPECTIVE. 1794-1796 280

XII. WILLIAM GODWIN 290

XIII. LIFE WITH GODWIN: MARRIAGE. 1796-1797 314

XIV. LAST MONTHS: DEATH. 1797 340

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.

INTRODUCTION.

Few women have worked so faithfully for the cause of humanity as Mary
Wollstonecraft, and few have been the objects of such bitter censure. She
devoted herself to the relief of her suffering fellow-beings with the
ardor of a Saint Vincent de Paul, and in return she was considered by
them a moral scourge of God. Because she had the courage to express
opinions new to her generation, and the independence to live according to
her own standard of right and wrong, she was denounced as another
Messalina. The young were bidden not to read her books, and the more
mature warned not to follow her example, the miseries she endured being
declared the just retribution of her actions. Indeed, the infamy attached
to her name is almost incredible in the present age, when new theories
are more patiently criticised, and when purity of motive has been
accepted as the vindication of at least one well-known breach of social
laws. The malignant attacks made upon her character since her death have
been too great to be ignored. They had best be stated here, that the life
which follows may serve as their refutation.

As a rule, the notices which were published after she was dead were
harsher and more uncompromising than those written during her lifetime.
There were happily one or two exceptions. The writer of her obituary
notice in the "Monthly Magazine" for September, 1797, speaks of her in
terms of unlimited admiration.

"This extraordinary woman," he writes, "no less distinguished by
admirable talents and a masculine tone of understanding, than by active
humanity, exquisite sensibility, and endearing qualities of heart,
commanding the respect and winning the affections of all who were favored
with her friendship or confidence, or who were within the sphere of her
influence, may justly be considered as a public loss. Quick to feel, and
indignant to resist, the iron hand of despotism, whether civil or
intellectual, her exertions to awaken in the minds of her oppressed sex a
sense of their degradation, and to restore them to the dignity of reason
and virtue, were active and incessant; by her