You tell me that your journey could not take less than three days, therefore, as you were to visit Dr. D.[arwin]. and Dr. P.[arr], Saturday was the probable day. You saw neither, yet you have been a week on the road. I did not wonder, but approved of your visit to Mr. Bage. But a show which you waited to see, and did not see, appears to have been equally attractive. I am at a loss to guess how you could have been from Saturday to Sunday night travelling from Coventry to Cambridge. In short, your being so late to-night, and the chance of your not coming, shows so little consideration, that unless you suppose me to be a stick or a stone, you must have forgot to think, as well as to feel, since you have been on the wing. I am afraid to add what I feel. Good-night.
This misunderstanding, however, was not of long duration. The “little rift” in their case never widened to make their life-music mute. Godwin returned to London, his love in nowise diminished, and all ill-feeling and doubts were completely effaced from Mary’s mind. His shortcomings were after all not due to any change in his affections, nor to the slightest suspicion of satiety. By writing long letters with careful description of everything he saw and did, he was treating Mary as he would have desired to be treated himself. His “icy philosophy,” which made him so undemonstrative, was not altogether to her liking, but it was incomparably better than the warmth of a man like Imlay, who was too indifferent as to the individuality of the object of his demonstrations. The uprightness of Godwin precluded all possibility of infidelity, and once Mary’s first disappointment at some new sign of his coldness was over, her confidence in him was unabated. After this short interruption to their semi-domestic life, they both resumed their old habits. Their separate establishments were still kept up, their social amusements continued, though Mary, because of the condition of her health, could not now enter into them quite so freely, and the little notes again began to pass between them. These were as amicable as they had ever been. In the two following, the familiar friendly style of this curious correspondence is not in the least impaired. The first is interesting in showing how far she was from accepting her husband’s opinion when her own reason was opposed to it, and also in giving an idea of the esteem in which she was held socially:—
June 25, 1797.
I know that you do not like me to go to Holcroft’s. I think you right in the principle, but a little wrong in the present application.
When I lived alone, I always dined on a Sunday with company, in the evening, if not at dinner, at St. P.[aul ’s with Johnson], generally also of a Tuesday, and some other day at Fuseli’s.
I like to see new faces as a study, and since my return from Norway, or rather since I have accepted of invitations, I have dined every third Sunday at Twiss’s, nay, oftener, for they sent for me when they had any extraordinary company. I was glad to go, because my lodging was noisy of a Sunday, and Mr. S.’s house and spirits were so altered, that my visits depressed him instead of exhilarating me.
I am, then, you perceive, thrown out of my track, and have not traced another. But so far from wishing to obtrude on yours, I had written to Mrs. Jackson, and mentioned Sunday, and am now sorry that I did not fix on to-day as one of the days for sitting for my picture.
To Mr. Johnson I would go without ceremony, but it is not convenient for me at present to make haphazard visits.
Should Carlisle chance to call on you this morning, send him to me, but by himself, for he often has a companion with him, which would defeat my purpose.
The second note is even more friendly:—