individual.

The sentiments I have embodied.

In many works of this species, the hero is allowed to be mortal, and
to become wise and virtuous as well as happy, by a train of events and
circumstances. The heroines, on the contrary, are to be born immaculate,
and to act like goddesses of wisdom, just come forth highly finished
Minervas from the head of Jove.

[The following is an extract of a letter from the author to a friend, to
whom she communicated her manuscript.]

For my part, I cannot suppose any situation more distressing, than for a
woman of sensibility, with an improving mind, to be bound to such a man
as I have described for life; obliged to renounce all the humanizing
affections, and to avoid cultivating her taste, lest her perception of
grace and refinement of sentiment, should sharpen to agony the pangs of
disappointment. Love, in which the imagination mingles its bewitching
colouring, must be fostered by delicacy. I should despise, or rather
call her an ordinary woman, who could endure such a husband as I have
sketched.

These appear to me (matrimonial despotism of heart and conduct) to be
the peculiar Wrongs of Woman, because they degrade the mind. What are
termed great misfortunes, may more forcibly impress the mind of common
readers; they have more of what may justly be termed stage-effect;
but it is the delineation of finer sensations, which, in my opinion,
constitutes the merit of our best novels. This is what I have in
view; and to show the wrongs of different classes of women, equally
oppressive, though, from the difference of education, necessarily
various.

CHAPTER 1

ABODES OF HORROR have frequently been described, and castles, filled
with spectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic spell of genius
to harrow the soul, and absorb the wondering mind. But, formed of such
stuff as dreams are made of, what were they to the mansion of despair,
in one corner of which Maria sat, endeavouring to recall her scattered
thoughts!

Surprise, astonishment, that bordered on distraction, seemed to have
suspended her faculties, till, waking by degrees to a keen sense of
anguish, a whirlwind of rage and indignation roused her torpid pulse.
One recollection with frightful velocity following another, threatened
to fire her brain, and make her a fit companion for the terrific
inhabitants, whose groans and shrieks were no unsubstantial sounds of
whistling winds, or startled birds, modulated by