The Amenities of Book-Collecting and Kindred Affections

by A. Edward Newton

Meanwhile he, who had been living with his head in the clouds, became aware of the existence of “females.” It was an important, if belated, discovery. He was always an inveterate letter-writer, and his curious letters to a number of women have been preserved. He seems to have had more than a passing fancy for Amelia Alderson, afterward Mrs. Opie, the wife of the artist. He was intimate with Mrs. Robinson, the “Perdita” of the period, in which part she attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales. Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Reveley were also friends, with whom he had frequent misunderstandings. His views on the subject of marriage being well known, perhaps these ladies, merely to test the philosopher, sought to overcome his objection to “that worst of institutions.” If so, their efforts were unsuccessful.

Godwin, however, seems to have exerted a peculiar fascination over the fair sex, and he finally met one with whom, as he says, “friendship melted into love.” Godwin, saying he would ne’er consent, consented. Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of the “Rights of Woman,” now calling herself Mrs. Imlay, triumphed. Her period of romance, followed fast by tragedy, was for a brief time renewed with Godwin. She had had one experience, the result of which was a fatherless infant daughter, Fanny; and some time after she took up with Godwin, she urged upon him the desirability of “marriage lines.”

Godwin demurred for a time; but when Mary confided to him that she was about to become a mother, a private wedding in St. Pancras Church took place. Separate residence was attempted, in order to conform to Godwin’s theory that too close familiarity might result in mutual weariness; but Godwin was not destined to become bored by his wife. She had intelligence and beauty; indeed, it seems likely that he loved her as devotedly as it was possible for one of his frog-like nature to do. Shortly after the marriage a daughter was born, and christened Mary; and a few days later the remains of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin were interred in the old graveyard of St. Pancras, close by the church which she had recently left as a bride.

No sketch of Godwin’s life would be complete without the well-known story of the expiring wife’s exclamation: “I am in heaven”; to which Godwin replied, “No, my dear, you only mean that your physical sensations are somewhat easier.”

Thus, by that “divinity that shapes our ends rough,” Godwin, who did not approve of marriage and who had no place in his philosophy for the domestic virtues, became within a few months a husband, a widower, a stepfather, and a father. Probably no man was less well equipped than he for his immediate responsibilities. He had been living in one house and his wife in another, to save his face, as it were, and also to avoid interruptions; but this scheme of life was no longer possible. A household must be established; some sort of a family nurse became an immediate necessity. One was secured, who tried to marry Godwin out of hand. To escape her attentions he fled to Bath.

But his objections to marriage as an institution were waning, and when he met Harriet Lee, the daughter of an actor, and herself a writer of some small distinction, they were laid aside altogether. His courtship of Miss Lee took the form of interminable letters. He writes her: “It is not what you are but what you might be that charms me”; and he chides her for not being prepared faithfully to discharge the duties of a wife and mother. Few women have been in this humor won; Miss Lee was not among them.

Godwin finally returned to London. He was now a man approaching middle age, cold, methodical, dogmatic, and quick to take offense. He began to live on borrowed money. The story of his life at this time is largely a story of his squabbles. A more industrious man at picking a quarrel one must go far to find; and that the record might remain, he wrote letters—not short, angry letters, but long, serious, disputatious epistles, such as no one likes to receive, and which seem to demand and usually get an immediate answer.

Ritson writes him: “I wish you would make it convenient to return to me the thirty pounds I loaned you. My circumstances are by no means what they were at the time I advanced it, nor did I, in fact, imagine you would have retained it so long.” And again: “Though you have not the ability to repay the money I loaned you, you might have integrity enough to return the books you borrowed. I do not wish to bring against you a railing accusation, but am compelled, nevertheless, to feel that you have not acted the part of an honest man.”

Godwin seems to have known his weakness, for he writes of himself: “I am feeble of tact and liable to the grossest mistakes respecting theory, taste, and character.” And again: “No domestic connection is fit for me but that of a person who should habitually study my gratification and happiness.” This sounds ominous from one who was constantly looking for a “female companion”; and it was to prove so.

It is with a feeling of relief that we turn, for a moment, from the sordid life of Godwin the philosopher to Godwin the dramatist. He was sadly in need of funds, and, following the usual custom of an author in distress, had written a tragedy, for which Charles Lamb had provided the epilogue.