Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman
whole, ought to awaken emotions of a different sort. Mary retained the
most numerous portion of her acquaintance, and the majority of those
whom she principally valued. It was only the supporters and the subjects
of the unprincipled manners of a court, that she lost. This however is
immaterial. The tendency of the proceeding, strictly considered, and
uniformly acted upon, would have been to proscribe her from all valuable
society. And who was the person proscribed? The firmest champion, and,
as I strongly suspect, the greatest ornament her sex ever had to boast!
A woman, with sentiments as pure, as refined, and as delicate, as ever
inhabited a human heart! It is fit that such persons should stand by,
that we may have room enough for the dull and insolent dictators, the
gamblers and demireps of polished society!
Two of the persons, the loss of whose acquaintance Mary principally
regretted upon this occasion, were Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Siddons. Their
acquaintance, it is perhaps fair to observe, is to be ranked among her
recent acquisitions. Mrs. Siddons, I am sure, regretted the necessity,
which she conceived to be imposed on her by the peculiarity of her
situation, to conform to the rules I have described. She is endowed with
that rich and generous sensibility, which should best enable its
possessor completely to feel the merits of her deceased friend. She very
truly observes, in a letter now before me, that the Travels in Norway
were read by no one, who was in possession of "more reciprocity of
feeling, or more deeply impressed with admiration of the writer's
extraordinary powers."
Mary felt a transitory pang, when the conviction reached her of so
unexpected a circumstance, that was rather exquisite. But she disdained
to sink under the injustice (as this ultimately was) of the supercilious
and the foolish, and presently shook off the impression of the first
surprize. That once subsided, I well know that the event was thought of,
with no emotions, but those of superiority to the injustice she
sustained; and was not of force enough, to diminish a happiness, which
seemed hourly to become more vigorous and firm.
I think I may venture to say, that no two persons ever found in each
other's society, a satisfaction more pure and refined. What it was in
itself, can now only be known, in its full extent, to the survivor. But,
I believe, the serenity of her countenance, the increasing sweetness of
her manners, and that consciousness of enjoyment that seemed ambitious
that every one she saw should be happy as well as herself, were matters
of general observation to all her acquaintance. She had always
possessed, in an unparalleled degree, the art of communicating
happiness, and she was now in the constant and unlimited exercise of it.
She seemed to have attained that situation, which her disposition and
character imperiously demanded, but which she had never before attained;
and her understanding and her heart felt the benefit of it.
While we lived as near neighbours only, and before our last removal, her
mind had attained considerable tranquillity, and was visited but seldom
with those emotions of anguish, which had been but too familiar to her.
But the improvement in this respect, which accrued upon our removal and
establishment, was extremely obvious. She was a worshipper of domestic
life. She loved to observe the growth of affection between me and her
daughter, then three years of age, as well as my anxiety respecting the
child not yet born. Pregnancy itself, unequal as the decree of nature
seems to be in this respect, is the source of a thousand endearments. No
one knew better than Mary how to extract sentiments of exquisite
delight, from trifles, which a suspicious and formal wisdom would
scarcely deign to remark. A little ride into the country with myself and
the child, has sometimes produced a sort of opening of the heart, a
general expression of confidence and affectionate soul, a sort of
infantine, yet dignified endearment, which those who have felt may
understand, but which I should in vain attempt to pourtray.
In addition to our domestic pleasures, I was fortunate enough to
introduce her to some of my acquaintance of both sexes, to whom she
attached herself with all the ardour of approbation and friendship.
Ours was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish and transitory
pleasures. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to mention, that, influenced
by the ideas I had long entertained upon the subject of cohabitation, I
engaged an apartment, about twenty doors from our house in the Polygon,
Somers Town, which I designed for the purpose of my study and literary
occupations. Trifles however will be interesting to some readers, when
they relate to the last period of the life of such a person as Mary. I
will add therefore, that we were both of us of opinion, that it was
possible for two persons to be too uniformly in each other's society.
Influenced by that opinion, it was my practice to repair to the
apartment I have mentioned as soon as I rose, and frequently not to make
my appearance in the Polygon, till the hour of dinner. We agreed in
condemning the notion, prevalent in many situations in life, that a man
and his wife cannot visit in mixed society, but in company with each
other; and we rather sought occasions of deviating from, than of
complying with, this rule. By these means, though, for the most part, we
spent the latter half of each day in one another's society, yet we were
in no danger of satiety. We seemed to combine, in a considerable degree,
the novelty and lively sensation of visit, with the more delicious and
heart-felt pleasures of domestic life.
Whatever may be thought, in other respects, of the plan we laid down to
ourselves, we probably derived a real advantage from it, as to the
constancy and uninterruptedness of our literary pursuits. Mary had a
variety of projects of this sort, for the exercise of her talents, and
the benefit of society; and, if she had lived, I believe the world would
have had very little reason to complain of any remission of her
industry. One of her projects, which has been already mentioned, was of
a series of Letters on the Management of Infants. Though she had been
for some time digesting her ideas on this subject with a view to the
press, I have found comparatively nothing that she had committed to
paper respecting it. Another project, of longer standing, was of a
series of books for the instruction of children. A fragment she left in
execution of this project, is inserted in her Posthumous Works.
But the principal work, in which she was engaged for more than twelve
months before her decease, was a novel, entitled, The Wrongs of Woman. I
shall not stop here to explain the nature of the work, as so much of it
as was already written, is now given to the public. I shall only observe
that, impressed, as she could not fail to be, with the consciousness of
her talents, she was desirous, in this instance, that they should effect
what they were capable of effecting. She was sensible how arduous a task
it is to produce a truly excellent novel; and she roused her faculties
to grapple with it. All her other works were produced with a rapidity,
that did not give her powers time fully to expand. But this was written
slowly and with mature consideration. She began it in several forms,
which she successively rejected, after they were considerably advanced.
She wrote many parts of the work again and again, and, when she had
finished what she intended for the first part, she felt herself more
urgently stimulated to revise and improve what she had written, than to
proceed, with constancy of application, in the parts that were to
follow.
CHAP. X.
I am now led, by the course of my narrative, to the last fatal scene of
her life. She was taken in labour on Wednesday, the thirtieth of August.
She had been somewhat indisposed on the preceding Friday, the
consequence, I believe, of a sudden alarm. But from that time she was in
perfect health. She was so far from being under any apprehension as to
the difficulties of child-birth, as frequently to ridicule the fashion
of ladies in England, who keep their chamber for one full month after
delivery. For herself, she proposed coming down to dinner on the day
immediately following. She had already had some experience on the
subject in the case of Fanny; and I cheerfully submitted in every point
to her judgment and her wisdom. She hired no nurse. Influenced by ideas
of decorum, which certainly ought to have no place, at least in cases of
danger, she determined to have a woman to attend her in the capacity of
midwife. She was sensible that the proper business of a midwife, in the
instance of a natural labour, is to sit by and wait for the operations
of nature, which seldom, in these affairs, demand the interposition of
art.
At five o'clock in the morning of the day of delivery, she felt what
she conceived to be some notices of the approaching labour. Mrs.
Blenkinsop, matron and midwife to the Westminster Lying in Hospital, who
had seen Mary several times previous to her delivery, was soon after
sent for, and arrived about nine. During the whole day Mary was
perfectly cheerful. Her pains came on slowly; and, in the morning, she
wrote several notes, three addressed to me, who had gone, as usual, to
my apartments, for the purpose of study. About two o'clock in the
afternoon, she went up to her chamber,--never more to descend.
The child was born at twenty minutes after eleven at night. Mary had
requested that I would not come into the chamber till all was over, and
signified her intention of then performing the interesting office of
presenting the new-born child to its father. I was sitting in a parlour;
and it was not till after two o'clock on Thursday morning, that I
received the alarming intelligence, that the placenta was not yet
removed, and that the midwife dared not proceed any further, and gave
her opinion for calling in a male practitioner. I accordingly went for
Dr. Poignand, physician and man-midwife to the same hospital, who
arrived between three and four hours after the birth of the child. He
immediately proceeded to the extraction of the placenta, which he
brought away in pieces, till he was satisfied that the whole was
removed. In that point however it afterwards appeared that he was
mistaken.
The period from the birth of the child till about eight o'clock the next
morning, was a period full of peril and alarm. The loss of blood was
considerable, and produced an almost uninterrupted series of fainting
fits. I went to the chamber soon after four in the morning, and found
her in this state. She told me some time on Thursday, "that she should
have died the preceding night, but that she was determined not to leave
me." She added, with one of those smiles which so eminently illuminated
her countenance, "that I should not be like Porson," alluding to the
circumstance of that great man having lost his wife, after being only a
few months married. Speaking of what she had already passed through, she
declared, "that she had never known what bodily pain was before."
On Thursday morning Dr. Poignand repeated his visit. Mary had just
before expressed some inclination to see Dr. George Fordyce, a man
probably of more science than any other medical professor in England,
and between whom and herself there had long subsisted a mutual
friendship. I mentioned this to Dr. Poignand, but he rather
discountenanced the idea, observing that he saw no necessity for it, and
that he supposed Dr. Fordyce was not particularly conversant with
obstetrical cases; but that I would do as I pleased. After Dr. Poignand
was gone, I determined to send for Dr. Fordyce. He accordingly saw the