W. Godwin.
Strange to say, the announcement of their marriage did not produce quite so satisfactory an effect as they had anticipated. Mary, notwithstanding her frank protest, was still looked upon as Imlay’s wife. Her intimate connection with Godwin had been very generally understood, but not absolutely known, and hence it had not ostracized her socially. If conjectures and comments were made, they were whispered, and not uttered aloud. But the marriage had to be recognized, and the fact that Mary was free to marry Godwin, though Imlay was alive, was an incontrovertible proof that her relation to the latter had been illegal. People who had been deaf to her statements could not ignore this formal demonstration of their truth. Hitherto, their friendliness to her could not be construed into approval of her unconventionality. But now, by continuing to visit her and receive her at their houses, they would be countenancing an offence against morality which the world ranks with the unpardonable sins. They might temporize with their own consciences, but not with public opinion. They were therefore in a dilemma, from which there was no middle course of extrication. Thus forced to decisive measures, a number of her friends felt obliged to forego all acquaintance with her. Two whom she then lost, and whom she most deeply regretted, were Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Inchbald. In speaking of their secession, Godwin says: “Mrs. Siddons, I am sure, regretted the necessity which she conceived to be imposed on her by the peculiarity of her situation, to conform to the rules I have described.” Mrs. Inchbald wept when she heard the news. Godwin was one of her highly valued friends and admirers, and was a constant visitor at her house. She feared, now he had a wife, his visits would be less frequent. Her conduct on this occasion was so ungracious that one wonders if her vanity were not more deeply wounded than her moral sensibility. Her congratulations seem inspired by personal pique, rather than by strong principle. She wrote and wished Godwin joy, and then declared that she was so sure his new-found happiness would make him forgetful of all other engagements, that she had invited some one else to take his place at the theatre on a certain night when they had intended going together. “If I have done wrong,” she told him, “when you next marry, I will do differently.” Notwithstanding her note, Godwin thought her friendship would stand the test to which he had put it, and both he and Mary accompanied her on the appointed night. But Mrs. Inchbald was very much in earnest, and did not hesitate to show her feelings. She spoke to Mary in a way that Godwin later declared to be “base, cruel, and insulting;” adding, “There were persons in the box who heard it, and they thought as I do.” The breach thus made was never completely healed. Mr. and Mrs. Twiss, at whose house Mary had hitherto been cordially welcomed, also sacrificed her friendship to what, Godwin says, they were “silly enough to think a proper etiquette.”
But there still remained men and women of larger minds and hearts who fully appreciated that Mary’s case was exceptional, and not to be judged by ordinary standards. The majority of her acquaintances, knowing that her intentions were pure, though her actions were opposed to accepted ideals of purity, were brave enough to regulate their behavior to her by their convictions. Beautiful Mrs. Reveley was as much moved as Mrs. Inchbald when she heard the news of Godwin’s marriage, but her friendship was formed in a finer mould. Mrs. Shelley says that “she feared to lose a kind and constant friend; but becoming intimate with Mary Wollstonecraft, she soon learnt to appreciate her virtues and to love her. She soon found, as she told me in after days, that instead of losing one she had secured two friends, unequalled, perhaps, in the world for genius, single-heartedness, and nobleness of disposition, and a cordial intercourse subsisted between them.” It was from Mrs. Reveley that Mrs. Shelley obtained most of her information about her mother’s married life. Men like Johnson, Basil Montague, Thomas Wedgwood, Horne Tooke, Thomas Holcroft, did not of course allow the marriage to interfere with their friendship. It is rather strange that Fuseli should have now been willing enough to be civil. Marriage, in his opinion, had restored Mary to respectability. “You have not, perhaps, heard,” he wrote to a friend, “that the assertrix of female rights has given her hand to the balancier of political justice.” He not only called on Mrs. Godwin, but he dined with her, an experiment, however, which did not prove pleasurable, for Horne Tooke, Curran, and Grattan were of the party, and they discussed politics. Fuseli, who loved nothing better than to talk, had never a chance to say a word. “I wonder you invited me to meet such wretched company,” he exclaimed to Mary in disgust.
Thomas Holcroft, one of the four men whom Godwin acknowledged to have greatly influenced him, wrote them an enthusiastic letter of congratulation. Addressing them both, he says:—
“From my very heart and soul I give you joy. I think you the most extraordinary married pair in existence. May your happiness be as pure as I firmly persuade myself it must be. I hope and expect to see you both, and very soon. If you show coldness, or refuse me, you will do injustice to a heart which, since it has really known you, never for a moment felt cold to you.
“I cannot be mistaken concerning the woman you have married. It is Mrs. W. Your secrecy a little pains me. It tells me you do not yet know me.”
This latter paragraph is explained by the fact that Godwin, when he wrote to inform Holcroft of his marriage, was so sure the latter would understand whom he had chosen that he never mentioned Mary’s name. Another friend who rejoiced in her new-found happiness was Mr. Archibald Hamilton Rowan. But he was then living near Wilmington, Delaware, and the news was long in reaching him. His letter of congratulation was, strangely enough, written the very day on which Mary was buried.
The announcement of this marriage was received in Norfolk by the Godwin family with pleasure. Mrs. Godwin, poor old lady, thought that if her son could thus alter his moral code, there was a greater chance of his being converted from his spiritual backslidings. She wrote one of her long letters, so curious because of their medley of pious sentiment and prosaic realism, and wished Godwin and his wife happiness in her own name and that of all his friends in her part of the country. Her good will to Mary was practically expressed by an invitation to her house and a present of eggs, together with an offer of a feather-bed. Her motherly warning and advice to them was:—
“My dears, whatever you do, do not make invitations and entertainments. That was what hurt Jo. Live comfortable with one another. The Hart of her husband safely trusts in her. I cannot give you no better advice than out of Proverbs, the Prophets, and New Testament. My best affections attend you both.”
Mary’s family were not so cordial. Everina and Mrs. Bishop apparently never quite forgave her for the letter she wrote after her return to England with Imlay, and they disapproved of her marriage. They complained that her strange course of conduct made it doubly difficult for them, as her sisters, to find situations. When, shortly after the marriage, Godwin went to stay a day or two at Etruria, Everina, who was then governess in the Wedgwood household, would not at first come down to see him, and, as far as can be judged from his letters, treated him very coolly throughout his visit.