el, and that her keen
insight into the injustice of some actions did not prevent her realizing
the justice of others. Her mind seems to have been from the beginning too
evenly balanced for any such misconceptions. When reprimanded, she
deservedly found in the reprimand, as she once told Godwin, the one means
by which she became reconciled to herself for the fault which had called
it forth. As she matured, her immediate relations could not but yield to
the influence which she exercised over all with whom she was brought into
close contact. If there be such a thing as animal magnetism, she
possessed it in perfection. Her personal attractions commanded love, and
her great powers of sympathy drew people, without their knowing why, to
lean upon her for moral support. In the end she became an authority in
her family. Mrs. Wollstonecraft was in time compelled to bestow upon her
the affection which she had first withheld. It was the ugly duckling
after all who proved to be the swan of the flock. Mr. Wollstonecraft
learned to hold his eldest daughter in awe, and his wrath sometimes
diminished in her presence.

Pity was always Mary's ruling passion. Feeling deeply the family
sorrows, she was quick to forget herself in her efforts to lighten them
when this privilege was allowed to her. There were opportunities enough
for self-sacrifice. With every year Mr. Wollstonecraft squandered more
money, and grew idler and more dissipated. Home became unbearable, the
wife's burden heavier. Mary, emancipated from the restraints of
childhood, no longer remained a silent spectator of her father's fits of
passion. When her mother was the victim of his violence, she interposed
boldly between them, determined that if his blows fell upon any one, it
should be upon herself. There were occasions when she so feared the
results of his drunken rage that she would not even go to bed at night,
but, throwing herself upon the floor outside her room, would wait there,
on the alert, to meet whatever horrors darkness might bring forth. Could
there be a picture more tragical than this of the young girl, a weary
woman before her time, protecting the mother who should have protected
her, fighting against the vices of a father who should have shielded her
from knowledge of them! Already before she had left her home there must
have come into her eyes that strangely sad expression, which Kegan Paul,
in speaking of her portrait by Opie, says reminds him of nothing unl