These notes speak for themselves.
There was now a decided improvement in the lives of both Mary and Godwin. The latter, under the new influence, was humanized. Domestic ties, which he had never known before, softened him. He hereafter appears not only as the passionless philosopher, but as the loving husband and the affectionate father, little Fanny Imlay being treated by him as if she had been his own child. His love transformed him from a mere student of men to a man like all others. He who had always been, so far as his emotional nature was concerned, apart from the rest of his kind, was, in the end, one with them. From being a sceptic on the subject, he was converted into a firm believer in human passion. With the zeal usually attributed to converts, he became as warm in his praise of the emotions as he had before been indifferent in his estimation of them. This change is greatly to Mary’s credit. As, in his Introduction to “St. Leon” he made his public recantation of faith, so in the course of the story he elaborated his new doctrines, and, by so doing, paid tribute to the woman who had wrought the wonder. His hero’s description of married pleasures being based on his own knowledge of them, he writes:—
“Now only it was that I tasted of perfect happiness. To judge from my own experience in this situation, I should say that nature has atoned for all the disasters and miseries she so copiously and incessantly pours upon her sons by this one gift, the transcendent enjoyment and nameless delights which, wherever the heart is pure and the soul is refined, wait on the attachment of two persons of opposite sexes.... It has been said to be a peculiar felicity for any one to be praised by a man who is himself eminently a subject of praise; how much happier to be prized and loved by a person worthy of love. A man may be prized and valued by his friend; but in how different a style of sentiment from the regard and attachment that may reign in the bosom of his mistress or his wife.... In every state we long for some fond bosom on which to rest our weary head; some speaking eye with which to exchange the glances of intelligence and affection. Then the soul warms and expands itself; then it shuns the observation of every other beholder; then it melts with feelings that are inexpressible, but which the heart understands without the aid of words; then the eyes swim with rapture, then the frame languishes with enjoyment; then the soul burns with fire; then the two persons thus blest are no longer two; distance vanishes, one thought animates, one mind informs them. Thus love acts; thus it is ripened to perfection; never does man feel himself so much alive, so truly ethereal, as when, bursting the bonds of diffidence, uncertainty, and reserve, he pours himself entire into the bosom of the woman he adores.”
Mary was as much metamorphosed by her new circumstances as Godwin. Her heart at rest, she grew gay and happy. She was at all times, even when harassed with cares, thoughtful of other people. When her own troubles had ceased, her increased kindliness was shown in many little ways, which unfortunately cannot be appreciated by posterity, but which made her, to her contemporaries, a more than ever delightful companion and sympathetic friend. “She had always possessed,” Godwin says of her, “in an unparalleled degree the art of communicating happiness, and she was now in the constant and unlimited exercise of it. She seemed to have attained that situation which her disposition and character imperiously demanded, but which she had never before attained; and her understanding and her heart felt the benefit of it.” She never at any time tried to hide her feelings, whatever these might be; therefore she did not disguise her new-found happiness, though she gave no reason for its existence. It revealed itself in her face, in her manners, and even in her conversation. “The serenity of her countenance,” again to quote Godwin, best of all authorities for this period of her life, “the increasing sweetness of her manners, and that consciousness of enjoyment that seemed ambitious that every one she saw should be happy as well as herself, were matters of general observation to all her acquaintance.” Her beauty, depending so much more upon expression than upon charm of coloring or regularity of features, naturally developed rather than decreased with years. Suffering and happiness had left their impress upon her face, giving it the strength, the strange melancholy, and the tenderness which characterize her portrait, painted by Opie about this time. Southey, who was just then visiting London, bears witness to her striking personal appearance. He wrote to his friend Cottle:—
“Of all the lions or literati I have seen here, Mary Imlay’s countenance is the best, infinitely the best; the only fault in it is an expression somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display,—an expression indicating superiority, not haughtiness, not sarcasm in Mary Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light brown, and although the lid of one of them is affected by a little paralysis, they are the most meaning I ever saw.”[1]
[1] Mr. Kegan Paul, in the spring of 1884, showed the author of this Life a lock of Mary Wollstonecraft’s hair. It is wonderfully soft in texture, and in color a rich auburn, turning to gold in the sunlight.
On March 29, 1797, after they had lived together happily and serenely for seven months, Mary and Godwin were married. The marriage ceremony was performed at old Saint Pancras Church, in London, and Mr. Marshal, their mutual friend, and the clerk were the only witnesses. So unimportant did it seem to Godwin, to whom reason was more binding than any conventional form, that he never mentioned it in his diary, though in the latter he kept a strict account of his daily actions. It meant as little to Mary as it did to him, and she playfully alluded to the change, in one of her notes written a day or two afterwards:
March 31, 1797.
Tuesday.—I return you the volumes; will you get me the rest? I have not perhaps given it as careful a reading as some of the sentiments deserve.
Pray send me by Mary, for my luncheon, a part of the supper you announced to me last night, as I am to be a partaker of your worldly goods, you know!