“I shall make no comments on your conduct or any appeal to the world. Let my wrongs sleep with me! Soon, very soon, I shall be at peace. When you receive this, my burning head will be cold.
“I would encounter a thousand deaths, rather than a night like the last. Your treatment has thrown my mind into a state of chaos; yet I am serene. I go to find comfort; and my only fear is that my poor body will be insulted by an endeavor to recall my hated existence. But I shall plunge into the Thames where there is the least chance of my being snatched from the death I seek.
“God bless you! May you never know by experience what you have made me endure. Should your sensibility ever awake, remorse will find its way to your heart; and, in the midst of business and sensual pleasures, I shall appear before you, the victim of your deviation from rectitude.”
Then she left her house to seek refuge in the waters of the river. She went first to Battersea Bridge, but it was too public for her purpose. She could not risk a second frustration of her designs. There was no place in London where she could be unobserved. With the calmness of despair, she hired a boat and rowed to Putney. It was a cold, foggy November day, and by the time she arrived at her destination the night had come, and the rain fell in torrents. An idea occurred to her: if she wet her clothes thoroughly before jumping into the river, their weight would make her sink rapidly. She walked up and down, up and down, the bridge in the driving rain. The fog enveloped the night in a gloom as impenetrable as that of her heart. No one passed to interrupt her preparations. At the end of half an hour, satisfied that her end was accomplished, she leaped from the bridge into the water below. Despite her soaked clothing, she did not sink at once. In her desperation she pressed her skirts around her; then she became unconscious. She was found, however, before it was too late. Vigorous efforts were made to restore life, and she was brought back to consciousness. She had met with the insult she most dreaded, and her disappointment was keen. Her failure only increased her determination to destroy herself. This she told Imlay in a letter written shortly after, dated November, 1795:—
“I have only to lament that, when the bitterness of death was past, I was inhumanly brought back to life and misery. But a fixed determination is not to be baffled by disappointment: nor will I allow that to be a frantic attempt which was one of the calmest acts of reason. In this respect I am only accountable to myself. Did I care for what is termed reputation, it is by other circumstances that I should be dishonored.
“You say ‘that you know not how to extricate ourselves out of the wretchedness into which we have been plunged.’ You are extricated long since. But I forbear to comment. If I am condemned to live longer it is a living death.
“It appears to me that you lay much more stress on delicacy than on principle; for I am unable to discover what sentiment of delicacy would have been violated by your visiting a wretched friend, if indeed you have any friendship for me. But since your new attachment is the only sacred thing in your eyes, I am silent. Be happy! My complaints shall never more damp your enjoyment; perhaps I am mistaken in supposing that even my death could, for more than a moment. This is what you call magnanimity. It is happy for yourself that you possess this quality in the highest degree.
“Your continually asserting that you will do all in your power to contribute to my comfort, when you only allude to pecuniary assistance, appears to me a flagrant breach of delicacy. I want not such vulgar comfort, nor will I accept it. I never wanted but your heart. That gone, you have nothing more to give. Had I only poverty to fear, I should not shrink from life. Forgive me, then, if I say that I shall consider any direct or indirect attempt to supply my necessities as an insult which I have not merited, and as rather done out of tenderness for your own reputation than for me. Do not mistake me. I do not think that you value money; therefore I will not accept what you do not care for, though I do much less, because certain privations are not painful to me. When I am dead, respect for yourself will make you take care of the child.
“I write with difficulty; probably I shall never write to you again. Adieu!
“God bless you!”