8as this, when traced...will be found to be] as this ultimately was Ist ed. 107 MEMOIRS 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 conscious- ness of enjoyment that seemed ambitious that every one she saw should be happy as well as herself, were matters of general obser- vation 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 esta- blishment, 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 ® and unlimited del. 1 with] by. 108 * ies eg MEMOIRS 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 infantile, 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, 2a sort of] an. 109 MEMOIRS it was my practice to repair to the apartment I have mentioned as soon as I rose, and fre- quently 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 a 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 views * on this subject with a view to the press, I have found compara- tively nothing that she had committed to 3 very del. 4 views] ideas. LEO.
ee ee MEMOIRS 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 conscious- ness 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 considera- tion. 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.
5 finished] gone through. ee ~ CHAPTER 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 ex- perience 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 mid- wife. She was sensible that the proper busi- ness of a midwife, in the instance of a natural labour, is to sit by and wait for the operations 112 MEMOTRS 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. Blenkinsopp, 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 per- fectly 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 pro- H Mw. 113 Set es A yh Te. Ly -< oe + t. hs ove eS, rt ae AT te ‘ biyh'peteone Sey Ny MEMOIRS ceeded 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 re- peated 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 dis- countenanced the idea, observing that he saw no necessity for it, and that he supposed 114 MEMOIRS MEMOIRS 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 patient about three o’clock on Thursday afternoon. He however perceived no particular cause of alarm; and, on that or the next day, quoted, as I am told, Mary’s case, in a mixed company, as a corro- boration of a favourite idea of his, of the propriety of employing females in the capacity of midwives. Mary ‘‘ had had a woman, and was doing extremely well.” What had passed however in the night between Wednesday and Thursday, had so far alarmed me, that I did not quit the house, and scarcely the chamber, during the follow- ing day. But my alarms wore off, as time advanced. Appearances were more favour- able, than the exhausted state of the patient would almost have permitted me to expect. Friday morning therefore I devoted to a business of some urgency, which called me to different parts of the town, and which, before dinner, I happily completed. On my return, and during the evening, I received the most pleasurable sensations from the promising state of the patient. I was now perfectly satis- fied that every thing was safe, and that, if she did not take cold, or suffer from any external accident, her speedy recovery was certain. Saturday was a day less auspicious than Friday, but not absolutely alarming. : 115 a MEMOIRS 4 a MEMOIRS 4 Sunday, the third of September, I now ~ regard as the day, that finally decided on the fate of the object dearest to my heart that the universe contained. Encouraged by what I considered as the progress of her recovery, ~ I accompanied a friend in the morning in several calls, one of them as far as Ken- sington, and did not return till dinner-time. On my return I found a degree of anxiety in every face, and was told that she had had a sort of shivering fit, and had expressed some anxiety at the length of my absence. My sister and a friend of hers, had been engaged to dine below stairs, but a message was sent to put them off, and Mary ordered that the cloth should not be laid, as [had been] usual, in the room immediately under her on the first floor, but in the ground-floor parlour. I felt a pang at having been so long and so unseasonably absent, and determined that I would not repeat the fault.
In the evening she had a second shivering fit, the symptoms of which were in the highest degree alarming. Every muscle of the body trembled, the teeth chattered, and the bed shook under her. This continued probably for five minutes. She told me, after it was over, that it had been a struggle between life and death, and that she had been more than once, in the course of it, at the point of expiring. I now apprehend these to have been the symptoms of a decided mortification, occasioned by the part of the placenta that 116 MEMOIRS 116 MEMOIRS remained inthe womb. At the time however I was far from considering it in that light. When I went for Dr. Poignand, between two and three o’clock on the morning of Thursday, despair was in my heart. The fact of the adhesion of the placenta was stated to me; and, ignorant as I was of obstetrical science, I felt as if the death of Mary was in a manner decided. But hope had re-visited my bosom; and her chearings were so delightful, that I hugged her obstinately to my heart. I was only mortified at what appeared to me a new delay in the recovery I so earnestly longed for. I immediately sent for Dr. Fordyce, who had been with her in the morning, as well as on the three preceding days. Dr. Poignand had also called this morning, but declined paying any further visits, as we had thought proper to call in Dr. Fordyce.
The progress of the disease was now unin- terrupted. On Tuesday I found it necessary again to callin Dr. Fordyce in the afternoon, who brought with him Dr. Clarke of New Burlington-street, under the idea that some operation might be necessary. I have already said, that I pertinaciously persisted in viewing the fair side of things; and therefore the interval between Sunday and Tuesday even- ing, did not pass without some mixture of cheerfulness. On Monday, Dr. Fordyce for- bad the child’s having the breast, and we therefore procured puppies to draw off the milk. This occasioned some pleasantry of i MEMOIRS i MEMOIRS Mary with me and the other attendants. — Nothing could exceed the equanimity, the ~ patience and affectionateness of the poor sufferer, I intreated her to recover; I dwelt with trembling fondness on every favourable circumstance; and, as far as it was possible in so dreadful a situation, she, by her smiles and kind speeches, rewarded my affection. Wednesday was to me the day of greatest torture in the melancholy series. It was now decided that the only chance of supporting her through what she had to suffer, was by supplying her rather freely with wine. This task was devolved upon me. I began about four o’clock in the afternoon. But for me, totally ignorant of the nature of diseases and of the human frame, thus to play with a life that now seemed all that was dear to me in the universe, was too dreadful a task. I knew neither what was too much, nor what was too little. Having begun, I felt compelled, under every disadvantage, to go on. This lasted for three hours. Towards the end of that time, I happened foolishly to ask the servant who came out of the room, ‘‘ What she thought of her mistress?”’ she replied, ‘‘ that, in her judgment, she was going as fast as possible.”’ There are moments, when any creature that lives, has power to drive one into madness. I seemed to know the absurdity of this reply; but that was of no consequence. It added to the measure of my distraction. A little after seven I intreated a friend to go for Mr. 118 MEMOIRS _ Carlisle and bring him instantly wherever he was to be found. He had voluntarily called on the patient on the preceding Saturday, and two or three times since. He had seen her that morning, and had been earnest in recom- mending the wine-diet. That day he dined four miles out of town, on the side of the metropolis, which was furthest from us. Notwithstanding this, my friend returned with him after three-quarters of an hour’s absence. No one who knows my friend, will wonder either at his eagerness or success, when I name Mr. Basil Montagu. The sight of Mr. Carlisle thus unexpectedly, gave me a_ stronger alleviating sensation, that I thought it possible to experience.
Mr. Carlisle left us no more from Wednesday evening, to the hour of her death. It was impossible to exceed his kindness and affec- tionate attention. It excited in every spec- tator a sentiment like adoration. His conduct was uniformly tender and anxious, ever upon the watch, observing every symptom, and eager to improve every favourable appearance. If skill or attention could have saved her, Mary would still live.
In addition to Mr. Carlisle’s constant pre- sence, she had Dr. Fordyce and Dr. Clarke every day. She had for nurses, or rather for friends, watching every occasion to serve her, Mrs. Fenwick, author of an excellent novel, entitled Secrecy, another very kind and judicious lady, and a favourite female servant.
119 MEMOIRS I was scarcely ever out of the room. Four — friends, Mr. Fenwick, Mr. Basil Montagu, Mr. — Marshal, and Mr. Dyson, sat up nearly the whole of the last week of her existence in the house, to be dispatched, on any errand, to any part of the metropolis, at a moment’s warning.
Mr. Carlisle being in the chamber, I retired to bed for a few hours on Wednesday night. Towards morning he came into my room with an account that the patient was surprisingly better. I went instantly into the chamber. But I now sought to suppress every idea of hope. The greatest anguish I have any conception of, consists in that crushing of a new-born hope which I had already two or three times experienced. If Mary recovered, it was well, and I should see it time enough. But it was too mighty a thought to bear being trifled with, and turned out and admitted in this abrupt way.
I had reason to rejoice in the firmness of my gloomy thoughts, when, about ten o’clock on Thursday evening, Mr. Carlisle told us to prepare ourselves, for we had reason to expect the fatal event every moment. To my think- ing, she did not appear to be in that state of total exhaustion, which I supposed to precede death; but it is probable that death does not always take place by that gradual process I had pictured to myself; a sudden pang may accelerate his arrival. She did not die on Thursday night.
120 q ules ener MEMOTRS Till now it does not appear that she had any serious thoughts of dying; but on Friday and Saturday, the two last days of her life, she occasionally spoke as if she expected it. This was however only at intervals; the thought did not seem to dwell upon her mind. Mr. Carlisle rejoiced in this. He observed, and there is great force in the suggestion, that there is no more pitiable object, than a sick man, that knows he is dying. The thought must be expected to destroy his courage, to co-operate with the disease, and to counteract every favourable effort of nature.
On these two days her faculties were in too decayed a state, to be able to follow any train of ideas with force or any accuracy of connection. Her religion, as I have already shown, was not calculated to be the torment of a sick bed; and, in fact, during her whole illness, not one word of a religious cast fell from her lips.
She was affectionate and compliant to the last. I observed on Friday and Saturday nights, that, whenever her attendants recom- mended to her to sleep, she discovered her willingness to yield, by breathing, perhaps for the space of a minute, in the manner of a person that sleeps, though the effort, from the state of her disorder, usually proved ineffectual.
She was not tormented by useless contra- diction. One night the servant, from an error in judgment teazed her with idle expostula- 121 MEIMOIRS tions, but she complained of it grievously, and it was corrected. ‘‘ Pray, pray, do not let her reason with me,’’ was her expression. Death itself is scarcely so dreadful to the enfeebled frame, as the monotonous impor- tunity of nurses everlastingly repeated.
Seeing that every hope was extinct, I was very desirous of obtaining from her any directions, that she might wish to have followed after her decease. Accordingly, on Saturday morning, I talked to her for a good while of the two children. In conformity to Mr. Carlisle’s maxim of not impressing the idea of death, I was obliged to manage my expressions. I therefore affected to proceed wholly upon the ground of her having been very ill, and that it would be some time before she could expect to be well; wishing her to tell me any thing that she would choose to have done respecting the children, as they would now be principally under my care. After having repeated this idea to her in a great variety of forms, she at length said, with a significant tone of voice, ‘‘ I know what you are thinking of,’ but added, that she had nothing to communicate to me upon the subject.
The shivering fits had ceased entirely for the two last days. Mr. Carlisle observed that her continuance was almost miraculous, and he was on the watch for favourable appear- ances, believing it highly improper to give up all hope, and remarking, that perhaps one 122 ci. ae (gurjuied & wos) L621 ‘St waquadas ‘paring svar pfvsrauossyo yy GiVJQ a4ai 4 CYVAHI WOH SYMINGd LYGIVS MEMOIRS in a million, of persons in her state might possibly recover. I conceive that not one in a million, unites so good a constitution of body and of mind.
These were the amusements of persons in the very gulph of despair. At six o’clock on Sunday morning, September the tenth, Mr. Carlisle called me from my bed to which I had retired at one, in conformity to my re- quest, that I might not be left to receive all at once the intelligence that she was no more. She expired at twenty minutes before eight.
Her remains were deposited, on the fifteenth of September, at ten o’clock in the morning, in the church-yard of the parish church of St. Pancras, Middlesex. A few of the persons she most esteemed, attended the ceremony; and a plain monument is now erecting? on the spot, by some of her friends, with the following inscription: Mary WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN, Author of A VINDICATION Or THE RIGHTS oF WOMAN: Born -27, April, 17590: Died 10 September, 1797.
The loss of the world in this admirable woman, I leave to other men to collect; my 1 is now erecting] has been erected. 123 MEMOIRS own I well know, nor can it be improper to — describe it. I do not here allude to the personal? pleasures I enjoyed in her con- versation: these increased every day, in proportion as we knew each other better, and as our mutual confidence increased. They can be measured only by the treasures of her mind, and the virtues of her heart. But this is a subject for meditation, not for words. What I purposed alluding to, was the improve- ment that I have for ever lost.
We had cultivated our powers (if I may venture to use this sort of language) in different directions; I chiefly an attempt at logical and metaphysical distinction, she a taste for the picturesque. One of the leading passions of my mind has been an anxious desire not to be deceived. This has led me to view the topics of my reflection on all sides; and to examine and re-examine without end, the questions that interest me.
But it was not merely (to judge at least from all the reports of my memory in this respect) the difference of propensities, that made the difference in our intellectual habits. I have been stimulated, as long as I can remember, by an ambition for intellectual distinction; but, as long as I can remember, I have been discouraged, when I have en- deavoured to cast the sum of my intellectual value, by finding that I did not possess, in the degree of some other men, an intuitive 2 personal del. 124 MEMOIRS perception of intellectual beauty. I have perhaps a strong and lively sense of the pleasures of the imagination; but I have seldom been right in assigning to them their proportionate value, but by dint of persevering examination, and the change and correction of my first opinions.
What I wanted in this respect, Mary possessed, in a degree superior to any other personleverknew. The strength of her mind lay in intuition. She was often right, by this means only, in matters of mere speculation. Her religion, her philosophy, (in both of which the errors were comparatively few, and the strain dignified and generous) were, as I have already said, the pure result of feeling and taste. She adopted one opinion, and rejected another, spontaneously, by a sort of tact, and the force of a cultivated imagination; and yet, though perhaps, in the strict sense of the term, she reasoned little, it is surprising what a degree of soundness is to be found in her determinations. But, if this quality was of use to her in topics that seem the proper province of reasoning, it was much more so in matters directly appealing to the intel- lectual taste. In a robust and unwavering judgment of this sort, there is a kind of witchcraft; when it decides justly, it produces a responsive vibration in every ingenuous mind. In this sense, my oscillation and scepticism were fixed by her boldness. When a true opinion emanated in this way from 125 MEMOIRS another mind, the conviction produced in my own assumed a similar character, instan- taneous and firm. This species of intellect probably differs from the other, chiefly in the relation of earlier and later. What the one perceives instantaneously (circumstances having produced in it, either a premature attention to objects of this sort, or a greater boldness of decision) the other receives only by degrees. What it wants, seems to be nothing more than a minute attention to first impressions, and a just appreciation of them; habits that are never so effectually generated, as by the daily recurrence of a striking example.
This light was lent to me for a very short period, and is now extinguished for ever!
While I have described the improvement I was in the act of receiving, I believe I have put down the leading traits of her intellectual character.® 3 We had cultivated our powers...her intellectual character. see Passages Rewritten.
THE Enp.
126 4 » _ PASSAGES REWRITTEN IN THE : SECOND EDITION e 58-62. ] _ To understand this, we have only to recol- lect how dear to persons of sensibility is the exercise of the affections. A sound morality requires that ‘‘ nothing human should be regarded by us with indifference;’’ but it is impossible that we should not feel the strongest interest for those persons, whom we know most intimately, and whose welfare and sympathies are united to our own. True wisdom will recommend to us _ individual attachments; for with them our minds are more thoroughly maintained in activity and life than they can be under the privation of them, and it is better that man should be a living being, than a stock or a stone. True virtue will sanction this recommendation, since it is the object of virtue to produce happiness, and since the man who lives in the midst of domestic relations, will have many opportunities of conferring pleasure, minute in the detail, yet not trivial in the amount, without interfering with the purposes of general benevolence. Nay, by kindling his sensibility, and harmonizing his soul, they 127 MEMOIRS may be expected, if he is endowed with a liberal and manly spirit, to render him more prompt in the service of strangers and of the public.
But, in the catalogue of domestic charities, there are none so capable of affording strong and permanent delight, as that of two persons of opposite sexes who have conceived a pre- ference for each other. Human beings differ so much in their tempers and views, that, except in cases of a tender attachment, cohabitation brings with it small prospect of harmony and happiness. The connection be- tween parents and children, between grown persons and young, is of too unequal a nature; and is bounded and restrained by a sense of responsibility on the one side, and the inatten- tion and heedlessness particularly incident to the other. The charm of domestic life consists in a mutual desire to study each other’s gratification; and this can scarcely subsist in sufficient force, but in this particular con- nection.
Mary had now lived for upwards of thirty years in a state of celibacy and seclusion. As her sensibilities were exquisitely acute, she had felt this sort of banishment from social charities, so frequent in a state of high civilization and refinement, more painfully than persons in general are likely to feel it. Or rather, as I believe, she suffered occasional accesses of uneasiness, torpor, and vacuity, without having clearly traced the sources and 128 MEMOTRS remedy of the evil. She was like what we are told of those lofty and aspiring genuises, who, being formed for busy scenes and daring projects, find the activity of their temper, when debarred its proper field, corroding and ‘preying upon itself. The sentiments which Mr. Fuseli excited in her mind, taught her the secret, to which she was so long in a. manner a stranger.
Let it not however be imagined, that this was any other than the dictate of a most refined sentiment, and the simple deduction of morality and reason. Never was there a woman on the face of the earth more alien to that mire and grossness, in which the sensual part of our species are delighted to wallow. Superior at the same time to the idleness of romance, and the pretense of an ideal philosophy, no one knew more perfectly how to assign to the enjoyments of affection their respective rank, or to maintain in virgin and unsullied purity the chasteness of her mind.
It happened in the present case that Mr. Fuseli was already married; and, in visiting at his house, his wife became the acquaintance of Mary. Mary did not disguise from herself how desirable it would have been, that the man in whom she discovered qualities calling forth all the strength of her attachment, should have been equally free with herself. But she chearfully submitted to the empire of circumstances. She conceived it practicable M.W. 129 I MEMOIRS to cultivate a distinguishing affection, and to foster it by the endearments of personal intercourse and reciprocation of kindness, without departing from the consideration due to his previous engagements. She scorned to suppose, that she could feel a struggle, in conforming to the laws she should lay down to her conduct.
[pp. 123-126.]
A circumstance by which the two sexes are particularly distinguished from each other, is, that the one is accustomed more to the exercise of its reasoning powers, and the other of its feelings. Women have a frame of body more delicate and susceptible of impression than men, and, in proportion as they receive a less intellectual education, are more un- reservedly under the empire of feeling. Feeling is liable to become a source of erroneous decisions, because a mind not accustomed to logical analysis, cannot be expected accurately to discriminate between the simple dictates of an ingenuous mind, and the factitious sentiments of a partial education. Habits of deduction enable us to correct this defect. But habits of deduction may generate habits of sophistry; and scepticism and discussion, while they undermine our prejudices, have sometimes a tendency to weaken or distort our feelings. Hence we may infer one of the advantages accruing from the association of persons of an opposite sex: they may be 130 ee ae Ve rwesee MEMOIRS _ expected to counteract the principal mistake into which either is in danger to fall.
Mary and myself perhaps each carried farther than to its common extent the charac- teristic of the sexes to which we belonged. I have been stimulated, as long as I can remember, by the love of intellectual dis- tinction; but, as long as I can remember, I have been discouraged, when casting the sum of my intellectual value, by finding that I did not possess, in the degree of some other persons, an intuitive sense of the pleasures of the imagination. Perhaps I feel them as vividly as most men; but it is often rather by an attentive consideration, than an in- stantaneous survey. They have been liable to fail of their effect in the first experiment; and my scepticism has often led me anxiously to call in the approved decisions of taste, as a guide to my judgment, or a countenance tomyenthusiasm. One of the leading passions of my mind has been an anxious desire not to be deceived. This has led me to view the topics of my reflection on all sides, and?to examine and re-examine without end the questions that interest me. Endless dis- quisition however is not always the parent of certainty.
What I wanted in this respect, Mary pos- sessed in a degree superior to any other person I ever knew. Her feelings had a character of peculiar strength and decision; and the discovery of them, whether in matters of 131 MEMOIRS taste or of moral virtue, she found herself unable to control. She had viewed the objects of nature with a lively sense and an ardent admiration, and had developed their beauties. Her education had been fortunately free from the prejudices of system and bigotry, and her sensitive and generous spirit was left to the spontaneous exercise of its own deci- sions. The warmth of her heart defended her from artificial rules of judgment; and it is therefore surprising what a degree of soundness pervaded her sentiments. In the strict sense of the term, she had reasoned comparatively little; and she was therefore little subject to diffidence and scepticism. Yet a mind more candid in perceiving and retrating error, when it was pointed out to her, perhaps never existed. This arose natur- ally out of the directness of her sentiments, and her fearless and unstudied veracity.
A companion like this, excites and animates the mind. From such an one we imbibe, what perhaps I principally wanted, the habit of minutely attending to first impressions, and justly appreciating them. Her taste awakened mine; her sensibility determined me to a careful development of my feelings. She delighted to open her heart to the beauties of nature; and her propensity in this respect led me to a more intimate contemplation of them. My scepticism in judging, yielded to the coincidence of another’s judgment; and especially when the judgment of that other 132 uch, thé. more I made caine of ‘more was I convinced of its rectitude. ‘improvement I had reason to promise nyself, was however yet in its commencement,. when a fatal event, hostile to the moral interests of mankind, ravished from me the light of my steps, and left to me nothing but t the consciousness of what I had possessed, and must now possess no more!, _ While I have described the improvement I was in the act of receiving, I believe I have put down the leading traits of her intellectual -_ character from which it flowed.
a : THE END.
133 f a ¢ } é f A a a 135 aad hs ite “Tf ’ —_ oe al a ae = Sie i mS ow i ae “Pyss PUR IM mane Ubi EERE EM apy ee “ pretrial WA debut “ Every prospec? smiled”?
From the original drawing by William Blake (oft below, Pp. 207-9) i ‘ashe Then Sane scan Peew he Ma an, th _ Still gentlier sister Woman;