estored to life, Jemima addressed her with great
solemnity: '----- led me to suspect, that your husband and brother
had deceived you, and secreted the child. I would not torment you with
doubtful hopes, and I left you (at a fatal moment) to search for the
child!--I snatched her from misery--and (now she is alive again) would
you leave her alone in the world, to endure what I have endured?'

"Maria gazed wildly at her, her whole frame was convulsed with emotion;
when the child, whom Jemima had been tutoring all the journey, uttered
the word 'Mamma!' She caught her to her bosom, and burst into a passion
of tears--then, resting the child gently on the bed, as if afraid of
killing it,--she put her hand to her eyes, to conceal as it were the
agonizing struggle of her soul. She remained silent for five minutes,
crossing her arms over her bosom, and reclining her head,--then
exclaimed: 'The conflict is over!--I will live for my child!'"

A few readers perhaps, in looking over these hints, will wonder how it
could have been practicable, without tediousness, or remitting in any
degree the interest of the story, to have filled, from these slight
sketches, a number of pages, more considerable than those which have
been already presented. But, in reality, these hints, simple as they
are, are pregnant with passion and distress. It is the refuge of barren
authors only, to crowd their fictions with so great a number of events,
as to suffer no one of them to sink into the reader's mind. It is
the province of true genius to develop events, to discover their
capabilities, to ascertain the different passions and sentiments with
which they are fraught, and to diversify them with incidents, that give
reality to the picture, and take a hold upon the mind of a reader of
taste, from which they can never be loosened. It was particularly
the design of the author, in the present instance, to make her story
subordinate to a great moral purpose, that "of exhibiting the misery and
oppression, peculiar to women, that arise out of the partial laws and
customs of society.--This view restrained her fancy."* It was necessary
for her, to place in a striking point of view, evils that are too
frequently overlooked, and to drag into light those details of
oppression, of which the grosser and more insensible part of mankind
make little account.

* See author's preface. [Godwin's note]

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Maria,