“We must each of us wear a fool’s cap; but mine, alas! has lost its bells and grown so heavy I find it intolerably troublesome. Good-night! I have been pursuing a number of strange thoughts since I began to write, and have actually both laughed and wept immoderately. Surely I am a fool.”
In these dark days it was always to Mr. Johnson she turned for sympathy and advice. She had never been on very confidential terms with either of her sisters, and her friendship with George Blood had grown cooler. Their paths in life had so widely diverged that this was unavoidable. The following extract from a letter Mary wrote to him in the winter of 1791 shows that the change in their intimacy had not been caused by ill-feeling on either side. He apparently had, through her, renewed his offer of marriage to Everina, as he was now able to support a wife:—
“... Now, my dear George, let me more particularly allude to your own affairs. I ought to have done so sooner, but there was an awkwardness in the business that made me shrink back. We have all, my good friend, a sisterly affection for you; and this very morning Everina declared to me that she had more affection for you than for either of her brothers; but, accustomed to view you in that light, she cannot view you in any other. Let us then be on the old footing; love us as we love you, but give your heart to some worthy girl, and do not cherish an affection which may interfere with your prospects when there is no reason to suppose that it will ever be returned. Everina does not seem to think of marriage. She has no particular attachment; yet she was anxious when I spoke explicitly to her, to speak to you in the same terms, that she might correspond with you as she has ever done, with sisterly freedom and affection.”
But good friends as they continued to be, he was far away in Dublin, with different interests; and Mary craved immediate and comprehensive sympathy. Mr. Johnson was ever ready to administer to her spiritual wants; he was a friend in very truth. He evidently understood her nature and knew how best to deal with her when she was in these moods. “During her stay in George Street,” he says in a note referring to her, “she spent many of her afternoons and most of her evenings with me. She was incapable of disguise. Whatever was the state of her mind, it appeared when she entered, and the tone of conversation might easily be guessed. When harassed, which was very often the case, she was relieved by unbosoming herself, and generally returned home calm, frequently in spirits.” Sometimes her mental condition threatened to interfere seriously with her work, and then again Mr. Johnson knew how to stimulate and encourage her. When she was writing her answer to Burke’s “Reflections on the French Revolution,” and when the first half of her paper had been sent to the printer, her interest in her subject and her power of writing suddenly deserted her. It was important to publish all that was written in the controversy while public attention was still directed to it. And yet, though Mary knew this full well, it was simply impossible for her to finish what she had eagerly begun. In this frame of mind she called upon Mr. Johnson and told him her troubles. Instead of finding fault with her, he was sympathetic and bade her not to worry, for if she could not continue her pamphlet he would throw aside the printed sheets. This roused her pride. It was a far better stimulus than abuse would have been, and it sent her home to write the second half immediately. That she at times reproached herself for taking undue advantage of Mr. Johnson’s kindness appears from the following apologetic little note:—
You made me very low-spirited last night by your manner of talking. You are my only friend, the only person I am intimate with. I never had a father or a brother; you have been both to me ever since I knew you, yet I have sometimes been very petulant. I have been thinking of those instances of ill-humor and quickness, and they appear like crimes.
Yours sincerely,
Mary.
The dry morsel and quietness which were now her portion were infinitely better than the house full of strife which she had just left. She was happier than she had ever been before, but she was only happy by comparison. Solitude was preferable to the society of Lady Kingsborough and her friends, but for any one of Mary’s temperament it could not be esteemed as a good in itself. Her unnatural isolation fortunately did not last very long. Her friendship with Mr. Johnson was sufficient in itself to break through her barrier of reserve. She was constantly at his house, and it was one of the gayest and most sociable in London. It was the rendezvous of the literati of the day. Persons of note, foreigners as well as Englishmen, frequented it. There one could meet Fuseli, impetuous, impatient, and overflowing with conversation; Paine, somewhat hard to draw out of his shell; Bonnycastle, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr. George Anderson, Dr. Geddes, and a host of other prominent artists, scientists, and literary men. Their meetings were informal. They gathered together to talk about what interested them, and not to simper and smirk, and give utterance to platitudes and affectations, as was the case with the society to which Mary had lately been introduced. The people with whom she now became acquainted were too earnest to lay undue stress on what Herbert Spencer calls the non-essentials of social intercourse. Sincerity was more valued by them than standard forms of politeness. When Dr. Geddes was indignant with Fuseli, he did not disguise his feelings, but in the face of the assembled company rushed out of the room to walk two or three times around Saint Paul’s Churchyard, and then, when his rage had diminished, to return and resume the argument. This indifference to conventionalities, which would have been held by the polite world to be a fault, must have seemed to Mary, after her late experience, an incomparable virtue. It is no wonder that Mrs. Barbauld found the evenings she spent with her publisher lively. “We protracted them sometimes till ——” she wrote to her brother in the course of one of her visits to London. “But I am not telling tales. Ask —— at what time we used to separate.” Mary was also a welcome guest at Mrs. Trimmer’s house, which, like that of Mr. Johnson, was a centre of attraction for clever people. This Mrs. Trimmer had acquired some little literary reputation, and had secured the patronage of the royal family and the clergy. She and Mary differed greatly, both in character and creed, but they became very good friends. “I spent a day at Mrs. Trimmer’s, and found her a truly respectable woman,” was the verdict the latter sent to Everina; nor had she ever reason to alter it. Her intimacy with Miss Hayes also brought her into contact with many of the same class.
As soon as she began to be known in London, she was admired. She was young,—being only twenty-nine when she came there to live—and she was handsome. Her face was very striking. She had a profusion of auburn hair; her eyes were brown and beautiful, despite a slight droop in one of them; and her complexion, as is usually the case in connection with her Titianesque coloring of hair and eyes, was rich and clear. The strength and unutterable sadness of her expression combined with her other charms to make her face one which a stranger would turn to look at a second time. She possessed to a rare degree the power of attracting people. Few could resist the influence of her personality. Added to this she talked cleverly, and even brilliantly. The tone of her conversation was at times acrid and gloomy. Long years of toil in a hard, unjust world had borne the fruit of pessimism. She was too apt to overlook the bright for the dark side of a picture. But this was a fault which was amply counterbalanced by her talents. For the first time she made friends who were competent to justly measure her merits. She was recognized to be a woman of more than ordinary talents, and she was treated accordingly. Mean clothes and shabby houses were no drawbacks to clever women in those days. Mrs. Inchbald, in gowns “always becoming, and very seldom worth so much as eight-pence,” as one of her admirers described them, was surrounded as soon as she entered a crowded room, even when powdered and elegantly attired ladies of fashion were deserted. And Mary, though she had not glasses out of which to drink her wine, and though her coiffure was unfashionable, became a person of consequence in literary circles.
Under the influence of congenial social surroundings, she gave up her habits of retirement. She began to find enjoyment in society, and her interest in life revived. She could even be gay, nor was there so much sorrow in her laughter as there had been of yore. Among the most intimate of her new acquaintances were Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli; and the account has been preserved of at least one pleasure party to which she accompanied them. This was a masked ball, and young Lavater, then in England, was with them. Masquerades were then at the height of popularity. All sorts and conditions of men went to them. Beautiful Amelia Opie, in her poorest days, spent five pounds to gain admittance to one given to the Russian ambassadors. Mrs. Inchbald, when well advanced in years, could enter so thoroughly into the spirit of another as to beg a friend to lend her a faded blue silk handkerchief or sash, that she might represent her real character of a passée blue-stocking. Mary’s gayety on the present occasion was less artificial than it had been at the Dublin mask. But Fuseli’s hot temper and fondness for a joke brought their amusement to a sudden end. They were watching the masks, when one among the latter, dressed as a devil, danced up to them, and, with howls and many mad pranks, made merry at their expense. Fuseli, when he found he could not rid himself of the tormentor, called out half angrily, half facetiously, “Go to Hell!” The devil proved to be of the dull species, and instead of answering with a lively jest, broke out into a torrent of hot abuse, and refused to be appeased. Fuseli, wishing to avoid a scene, literally turned and fled, leaving Mary and the others to save themselves as best they could.