The other contents of these four volumes are as follows: a series of lessons in spelling and reading, which, because prepared especially for her “unfortunate child,” Fanny Imlay, are an interesting relic; the “Letters on the French Nation,” mentioned in a previous chapter; a fragment and list of proposed “Letters on the Management of Infants;” several letters to Mr. Johnson, the most important of which have been already given; the “Cave of Fancy,” an Oriental tale, as Godwin calls it,—the story of an old philosopher who lives in a desolate sea-coast district and there seeks to educate a child, saved from a shipwreck, by means of the spirits under his command (the few chapters Godwin thought proper to print were written in 1787, and then put aside, never to be finished); an “Essay on Poetry, and Our Relish for the Beauties of Nature,” a short discussion of the difference between the poetry of the ancients, who recorded their own impressions from nature, and that of the moderns, who are too apt to express sentiments borrowed from books (this essay was published in the “Monthly Magazine” for April, 1797); and finally, to conclude the list of contents, the book contains some “Hints” which were to have been incorporated in the second part of the “Rights of Women” which Mary intended to write.
These fragments and works are intrinsically of small value. The “Cave of Fancy” contains an interesting definition of sensibility, in which Mary, perhaps unconsciously, gives an excellent analysis of her own sensitive nature. This quality, the old sage says, is the
“result of acute senses, finely fashioned nerves, which vibrate at the slightest touch, and convey such clear intelligence to the brain, that it does not require to be arranged by the judgment. Such persons instantly enter into the character of others, and instinctively discern what will give pain to every human being; their own feelings are so varied that they seem to contain in themselves not only all the passions of the species, but their various modifications. Exquisite pain and pleasure is their portion; nature wears for them a different aspect than is displayed to common mortals. One moment it is a paradise: all is beautiful; a cloud arises, an emotion receives a sudden damp, darkness invades the sky, and the world is an unweeded garden.”
Of the “Hints,” one on a subject which has of late years been very eloquently discussed is valuable as demonstrating her opinion of the relation of religion to morals. It is as follows:—
“Few can walk alone. The staff of Christianity is the necessary support of human weakness. An acquaintance with the nature of man and virtue, with just sentiments on the attributes, would be sufficient, without a voice from heaven, to lead some to virtue, but not the mob.”
CHAPTER XI.
RETROSPECTIVE.
1794-1796.
Mary’s torture of suspense was now over. The reaction from it would probably have been serious, if she had not had the distraction of work. Activity was, as it had often been before, the tonic which restored her to comparative health. She had no money, and Fanny, despite Imlay’s promises, was entirely dependent upon her. Her exertions to maintain herself and her child obliged her to stifle at least the expression of misery. One of her last outbursts of grief found utterance in a letter to Mr. Archibald Hamilton Rowan, who in France had been the witness of her happiness. Shortly after her final farewell to Imlay, she wrote to this friend:—
London, Jan. 26, 1796.