The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay
on herself was the charge of her father's affairs, which must indeed have
been a profitless undertaking.
The most important of Mary Wollstonecraft's labours while she was living
at Blackfriars was the writing of the book that is chiefly associated with
her name, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." This volume--now much
better known by its title than its contents--was dedicated to the astute
M. Talleyrand de Périgord, late Bishop of Autun, apparently on account of
his authorship of a pamphlet on National Education. It is unnecessary to
attempt an analysis of this strikingly original but most unequal
book--modern reprints of the work have appeared under the editorship both
of Mrs. Fawcett and Mrs. Pennell. It is sufficient to say that it is
really a plea for a more enlightened system of education, affecting not
only her own sex, but also humanity in its widest sense. Many of her
suggestions have long since been put to practical use, such as that of a
system of free national education, with equal advantages for boys and
girls. The book contains too much theory and is therefore to a great
extent obsolete. Mary Wollstonecraft protests against the custom that
recognises woman as the plaything of man; she pleads rather for a friendly
footing of equality between the sexes, besides claiming a new order of
things for women, in terms which are unusually frank. Such a book could
not fail to create a sensation, and it speedily made her notorious, not
only in this country, but on the Continent, where it was translated into
French. It was of course the outcome of the French Revolution; the whole
work is permeated with the ideas and ideals of that movement, but whereas
the French patriots demanded rights for men, she made the same demands
also for women.
It is evident that the great historical drama then being enacted in France
had made a deep impression on Mary's mind--its influence is stamped on
every page of her book, and it was her desire to visit France with Mr.
Johnson and Fuseli. Her friends were, however, unable to accompany her, so
she went alone in the December of 1792, chiefly with the object of
perfecting her French. Godwin states, though apparently in error, that
Fuseli was the cause of her going to France, the acquaintance with the
painter having grown into something warmer than mere friendship. Fuseli,
however, had a wife and was happily married, so Mary "prudently resolved
to retire into another country, far remote from the object who had
unintentionally excited the tender passion in her breast."
She certainly arrived in Paris at a dramatic moment; she wrote on December
24 to her sister Everina: "The day after to-morrow I expect to see the
King at the bar, and the consequences that will follow I am almost afraid
to anticipate." On the day in question, the 26th, Louis XVI. appeared in
the Hall of the Convention to plead his cause through his advocate,
Desize, and on the same day she wrote that letter to Mr. Johnson which has
so often been quoted: "About nine o'clock this morning," she says, "the
King passed by my window, moving silently along (excepting now and then a
few strokes on the drum, which rendered the stillness more awful) through
empty streets, surrounded by the national guards, who, clustering round
the carriage, seemed to deserve their name. The inhabitants flocked to
their windows, but the casements were all shut, not a voice was heard, nor
did I see anything like an insulting gesture. For the first time since I
entered France I bowed to the majesty of the people, and respected the
propriety of behaviour so perfectly in unison with my own feelings. I can
scarcely tell you why, but an association of ideas made the tears flow
insensibly from my eyes, when I saw Louis sitting, with more dignity than
I expected from his character, in a hackney coach, going to meet death,
where so many of his race had triumphed. My fancy instantly brought Louis
XIV. before me, entering the capital with all his pomp, after one of his
victories so flattering to his pride, only to see the sunshine of
prosperity overshadowed by the sublime gloom of misery...."
Mary first went to stay at the house of Madame Filiettaz, the daughter of
Madame Bregantz, in whose school at Putney both Mrs. Bishop and Everina
Wollstonecraft had been teachers. Mary was now something of a
celebrity--"Authorship," she writes, "is a heavy weight for female
shoulders, especially in the sunshine of prosperity"--and she carried with
her letters of introduction to several influential people in Paris. She
renewed her acquaintance with Tom Paine, became intimate with Helen Maria
Williams (who is said to have once lived with Imlay), and visited, among
others, the house of Mr. Thomas Christie. It was her intention to go to
Switzerland, but there was some trouble about her passport, so she
settled at Neuilly, then a village three miles from Paris. "Her
habitation here," says Godwin, "was a solitary house in the midst of a
garden, with no other habitant than herself and the gardener, an old man
who performed for her many offices of a domestic, and would sometimes
contend for the honour of making her bed. The gardener had a great
veneration for his guest, and would set before her, when alone, some
grapes of a particularly fine sort, which she could not without the
greatest difficulty obtain of him when she had any person with her as a
visitor. Here it was that she conceived, and for the most part executed,
her historical and moral view of the French Revolution, into which she
incorporated most of the observations she had collected for her letters,
and which was written with more sobriety and cheerfulness than the tone in
which they had been commenced. In the evening she was accustomed to
refresh herself by a walk in a neighbouring wood, from which her host in
vain endeavoured to dissuade her, by recounting divers horrible robberies
and murders that had been committed there."
It is probable that in March 1793 Mary Wollstonecraft first saw Gilbert
Imlay. The meeting occurred at Mr. Christie's house, and her immediate
impression was one of dislike, so that on subsequent occasions she avoided
him. However, her regard for him rapidly changed into friendship, and
later into love. Gilbert Imlay was born in New Jersey about 1755. He
served as a captain in the American army during the Revolutionary war, and
was the author of "A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of
North America," 1792, and a novel entitled "The Emigrants," 1793. In the
latter work, as an American, he proposes to "place a mirror to the view of
Englishmen, that they may behold the decay of these features that were
once so lovely," and further "to prevent the sacrilege which the present
practice of matrimonial engagements necessarily produce." It is not known
whether these views regarding marriage preceded, or were the result of,
his connexion with Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1793 he was engaged in
business, probably in the timber trade with Sweden and Norway.
In deciding to devote herself to Imlay, Mary sought no advice and took no
one into her confidence. She was evidently deeply in love with him, and
felt that their mutual confidence shared by no one else gave a sacredness
to their union. Godwin, who is our chief authority on the Imlay episode,
states that "the origin of the connexion was about the middle of April
1793, and it was carried on in a private manner for about three months."
Imlay had no property whatever, and Mary had objected to marry him,
because she would not burden him with her own debts, or "involve him in
certain family embarrassments," for which she believed herself
responsible. She looked upon her connexion with Imlay, however, "as of the
most inviolable nature." Then the French Government passed a decree that
all British subjects resident in France should go to prison until a
general declaration of peace. It therefore became expedient, not that a
marriage should take place, for that would necessitate Mary declaring her
nationality, but that she should take the name of Imlay, "which," says
Godwin, "from the nature of their connexion (formed on her part at least,
with no capricious or fickle design), she conceived herself entitled to
do, and obtain a certificate from the American Ambassador, as the wife of
a native of that country. Their engagement being thus avowed, they thought
proper to reside under the same roof, and for that purpose removed to
Paris."
In a letter from Mary Wollstonecraft to her sister Everina, dated from
Havre, March 10, 1794, she describes the climate of France as "uncommonly
fine," and praises the common people for their manners; but she is also
saddened by the scenes that she had witnessed and adds that "death and
misery, in every shape of terror, haunt this devoted country.... If any of
the many letters I have written have come to your hands or Eliza's, you
know that I am safe, through the protection of an American, a most worthy
man who joins to uncommon tenderness of heart and quickness of feeling, a
soundness of understanding, and reasonableness of temper rarely to be met
with. Having been brought up in the interior parts of America, he is a
most natural, unaffected creature."
Mary has expressed in the "Rights of Woman" her ideal of the relations
between man and wife; she now looked forward to such a life of domestic
happiness as she had cherished for some time. She had known much
unhappiness in the past. Godwin says: "She brought in the present
instance, a wounded and sick heart, to take refuge in the attachment of a
chosen friend. Let it not, however, be imagined, that she brought a heart,
querulous, and ruined in its taste for pleasure. No; her whole character
seemed to change with a change of fortune. Her sorrows, the depression of
her spirits, were forgotten, and she assumed all the simplicity and the
vivacity of a youthful mind. She was playful, full of confidence,
kindness, and sympathy. Her eyes assumed new lustre, and her cheeks new
colour and smoothness. Her voice became cheerful; her temper overflowing
with universal kindness; and that smile of bewitching tenderness from day
to day illuminated her countenance, which all who knew her will so well
recollect, and which won, both heart and soul, the affections of almost
every one that beheld it." She had now met the man to whom she earnestly
believed she could surrender herself with entire devotion. Naturally of an
affectionate nature, for the first time in her life, with her impulsive
Irish spirit, as Godwin says, "she gave way to all the sensibilities of
her nature."
The affair was nevertheless doomed to failure from the first. Mary had
taken her step without much forethought. She attributed to Imlay
"uncommon tenderness of heart," but she did not detect his instability of
character. He certainly fascinated her, as he fascinated other women, both
before and after his attachment to Mary. He was not the man to be
satisfied with one woman as his life-companion. A typical American, he was
deeply immersed in business, but his affairs may not have claimed as much
of his time as he represented. In the September after he set up house with
Mary, that is in '93, the year of the Terror, he left her in Paris while