By this time, my dear George, I hope your father and mother have reached Dublin. I long to hear of their safe arrival. A few days after they set sail, I received a letter from Skeys. He laments his inability to assist them, and dwells on his own embarrassments. How glad I am they are gone! My affairs are hastening to a crisis.... Some of my creditors cannot afford to wait for their money; as to leaving England in debt, I am determined not to do it.... Everina and Eliza are both endeavoring to go out into the world, the one as a companion, and the other as a teacher, and I believe I shall continue some time on the Green. I intend taking a little cheap lodging, and living without a servant; and the few scholars I have will maintain me. I have done with all worldly pursuits and wishes; I only desire to submit without being dependent on the caprice of our fellow-creatures. I shall have many solitary hours, but I have not much to hope for in life, and so it would be absurd to give way to fear. Besides, I try to look on the best side, and not to despond. While I am trying to do my duty in that station in which Providence has placed me, I shall enjoy some tranquil moments, and the pleasures I have the greatest relish for are not entirely out of my reach.... I have been trying to muster up my fortitude, and laboring for patience to bear my many trials. Surely, when I could determine to survive Fanny, I can endure poverty and all the lesser ills of life. I dreaded, oh! how I dreaded this time, and now it is arrived I am calmer than I expected to be. I have been very unwell; my constitution is much impaired; the prison walls are decaying, and the prisoner will ere long get free.... Remember that I am your truly affectionate friend and sister,
Mary Wollstonecraft.
Perhaps the uncertainty of keeping her pupils, or the double work necessitated by this project, discouraged her. At all events, it was relinquished when other and seemingly better proposals were made to her. Some of her friends at Newington Green recommended her to the notice of Mr. Prior, then Assistant Master at Eton, and his wife. Through them she was offered the situation of governess to the children of Lord Kingsborough, an Irish nobleman. If she accepted it, she would be spared the anxiety which a school of her own had heretofore brought her. The salary would be forty pounds a year, out of which she calculated she could pay her debts and then assist Mrs. Bishop. But she would lose her independence, and would expose herself to the indifference or contempt then the portion of governesses. “I should be shut out from society,” she explained to George Blood, “and be debarred the pleasures of imperfect friendship, as I should on every side be surrounded by unequals. To live only on terms of civility and common benevolence, without any interchange of little acts of kindness and tenderness, would be to me extremely irksome.” The prospect, it must be admitted, was not pleasant. But still the advantages outweighed the drawbacks, and Mary agreed to Lady Kingsborough’s terms.
Mr. and Mrs. Prior intended taking a trip to Ireland, and they suggested that she should accompany them. Travelling was not easy in those days, and she decided to wait and go with them. But, for some reason, they did not start as soon as they had expected. She had already joined them in their home at Eton, in which place their delay detained her for some time. This gave her the opportunity to study the school and the principles upon which it was conducted. The entire system met with her disapprobation, and afterwards, in her “Rights of Women,” she freely and strongly expressed her unfavorable opinion. Judging from what she there saw, she concluded that schools regulated according to the same rules were hot-beds of vice. Nothing disgusted her so much in this institution as the false basis upon which religion was established. The slavery to forms, demanded of the boys, seemed to her to at once undermine their moral uprightness. What, indeed, could be expected of a boy who would take the sacrament for no other reason than to avoid the fine of half a guinea imposed upon those who would not conform to this ceremony? Her visit did much towards developing and formulating her ideas on the subject of education.
Mrs. Prior seems to have given her every chance to become acquainted not only with the school, but with the social life at Eton. But her interest in the gay world, as there represented, was lukewarm. Its shallowness provoked her. She, looking upon life as real and earnest, and not as a mere playground, could not sympathize with women who gave themselves up to dress, nor with men who expended their energies in efforts to raise a laugh. Wit of rather an affected kind was the fashion of the day. At its best it was odious, but when manufactured by the weaklings of society, it was beyond endurance. Heine says that there is no man so crazy that he may not find a crazier comrade who will understand him. And it may be said as truly, that there is no man so foolish that he will not meet still greater fools ready to admire his folly. To Mary Wollstonecraft it was doubtful which was most to be despised, the affectation itself or the applause which nourished it. The governess elect, whose heart was heavy laden, saw in the flippant gayeties of Eton naught but vanity and vexation of spirit.
She wrote to Everina on the 9th of October,—
The time I spend here appears lost. While I remained in England I would fain have been near those I love.... I could not live the life they lead at Eton; nothing but dress and ridicule going forward, and I really believe their fondness for ridicule tends to make them affected, the women in their manners and the men in their conversation; for witlings abound, and puns fly about like crackers, though you would scarcely guess they had any meaning in them, if you did not hear the noise they create. So much company without any sociability would be to me an insupportable fatigue. I am, ’tis true, quite alone in a crowd, yet cannot help reflecting on the scene around me, and my thoughts harass me. Vanity in one shape or other reigns triumphant.... My thoughts and wishes tend to that land where the God of love will wipe away all tears from our eyes, where sincerity and truth will flourish, and the imagination will not dwell on pleasing illusions which vanish like dreams when experience forces us to see things as they really are. With what delight do I anticipate the time when neither death nor accidents of any kind will interpose to separate me from those I love.... Adieu; believe me to be your affectionate friend and sister,
Mary Wollstonecraft.
Finally the time came for her departure. In October, 1787, she set out with Mr. and Mrs. Prior for Ireland, and towards the end of the month arrived at the castle of Lord Kingsborough in Mitchelstown. Her first impressions were gloomy. But, indeed, her depression and weakness were so great, that she looked at all things, as if through a glass, darkly. Her sorrows were still too fresh to be forgotten in idle curiosity about the inhabitants and customs of her new home. Even if she had been in the best of spirits, her arrival at the castle would have been a trying moment. It is never easy for one woman to face alone several of her sex, who, she knows, are waiting to criticise her. There were then staying with Lady Kingsborough her step-mother and her three unmarried step-sisters and several guests. Governesses in this household had fared much as companions in Mrs. Dawson’s. They had come and gone in rapid succession. Therefore Mary was examined by these ladies much as a new horse is [inspected] by a racer, or a new dog by a sportsman. She passed through the ordeal successfully, but it left her courage at low ebb. Her first report to her sister is not cheerful:—
The Castle, Mitchelstown, Oct. 30, 1787.