Never before had her hopes been so sanguine. It seemed to her that the time was at hand for the final overthrow of the tremendous empire of superstition and hypocrisy. What, in comparison with the great end in view, were the inevitable horrors of the Revolution, produced by desperate and enraged factions? There is not a single page in the history of man but is tarnished by some foul deed or bloody transaction. That the vices of man in a savage state make him appear an angel compared with the refined villain of artificial life finds its cause in those unjust plans of government which exist in every part of the globe. A simpler and more effective political system would be sure to check those evils, and a faithful adherence to the new principles will lead mankind towards happiness.
Her feelings for mankind, however strong, were not powerful enough to interfere with the coolness of her judgment, and the light of her reason which was so soon to be temporarily eclipsed by the conflict of passions a thousand times more powerful because proceeding from within, was never obscured by the contemplation of social evils, which could not disturb her optimistic faith.
The history of the French Revolution is traced down to the king's removal to Paris, where he was sent to stand for trial. It is, upon the whole, a successful attempt at impartial narrative not only of the course of events in Paris, but also of the causes which produced them, the author indulging in a minute survey of the state of French society and politics previous to and during the catastrophe. The severity of the judgment she passes on the king and more especially on Marie Antoinette has been commented upon. Here especially it should be remembered that she had everything from hearsay. What she heard of the character and actions of the queen struck her as characteristic of the type of womanhood she had so violently attacked in the Rights of Women. She saw in Marie Antoinette the product of education by a priest, who had instilled into her all those vices which Mary held in abhorrence. She was devoted to a life of pleasure, vain of her good looks, but dead to intelligence and benevolence, using the fascination of her cultivated smiles and artificial weakness to exercise the tyranny of sex over a sensual, besotted husband, whose depravity she completed; an artificial dissembler, regarding only decorum, without any reference to moral character, making free with the nation's money to support a worthless brother, and depraving the morals of those around her; in short, Mary Wollstonecraft regarded her as the Babylonian scarlet woman, a sort of "painted Jezebel." Her judgment is diametrically opposed to that of Burke, who went into such raptures over the beauty and dignity of the queen, and gave vent to such a burst of indignation at her sad and ignominious fate that Thomas Paine saw fit to remind him that "while pitying the plumage, he was forgetting the dying bird."
The outer revolution which was to assert the rights of the species was followed by an inner revolution in the individual which came to constitute the tragedy of Mary Wollstonecraft's life. The Father of Nature, whom she thanked for having made her so intensely alive to happiness, had also implanted in her breast an overwhelming capacity for sorrow, and after a short taste of the former, the latter became her portion to such an extent that life seemed to her unendurable.
The letter to Mr. Johnson referring to the king's trial was the last news her friends in England received from her for eighteen months. In February 1793 war broke out between England and France and Mary's nationality made it advisable for her to keep close. Among her new acquaintances was an American, Captain Gilbert Imlay, and the tenderness which about this time she began to cherish for him, was no doubt fostered by a sense of loneliness. Moreover, that affection for Mr. Fuseli which she had so resolutely suppressed,—Fuseli was happily married—left her more vulnerable than before to Cupid's arrows, in addition to which Imlay was to her the representative of that nation which embodied her ideals of liberty and virtue. She gave herself up body and soul to the all-devouring passion of love, and Reason, seeing another in full possession of the field, "with a sigh retired."
Mr. Imlay had served as a captain in the revolutionary army during the War of Independence, and derived some slight literary fame from the publication of a short monograph on the state of America, entitled "Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America." He was, therefore, a man of some accomplishments, which makes his subsequent behaviour to Mary all the more unpardonable.
At the time of Mary's first meeting him he appears to have been in business—probably his line was timber—and the dealings of his trade claimed a great deal of his time and nearly all his attention. Circumstances putting marriage out of the question,—a wedding-ceremony would have betrayed that nationality she was so anxious to conceal—she consented to live with him as his wife by virtue of their mutual affections. His correspondence shows that he regarded her as his lawful wife, and as Mary fully expected the alliance to be of a permanent nature, and believed him capable of that affection which Reason causes to subside into friendship after the first flame of passion is spent, she was acting in full accordance with the views she had repeatedly expressed.[50]
The letters which she wrote him in the first stage of their growing intimacy are full of exquisite tenderness. Her repeated "God bless you", which Sterne says is equal to a kiss, shows the depth of her feelings towards him. Seldom was a purer, more unselfish love wasted upon a more unworthy recipient. Imlay was a "mere man", of a cheerful disposition and to a certain extent good-natured, but easy-going, self-indulgent, inconstant and incapable of appreciating a noble love which he himself could not cherish. He evidently looked upon his relation to Mary as the amusement of a day,—she lavished upon him that which might have made a greater soul happy for life. She tried to draw him up to her level and failed; her efforts to cure him of his sordid love of money which so disgusted her only irritated him, and made him anxious to cast off the bonds of a union of which he soon began to tire. Their agreement had been entered upon in a different spirit, and it was Mary who paid the full penalty of disillusionment. A letter he wrote to Mrs. Bishop in November 1794, when the estrangement had already begun, at a time when Mary was deeply conscious of the fact that he neglected her for business and perhaps worse, in which he states that he is "in but indifferent spirits occasioned by his long absence from Mrs. Imlay and their little girl" shows that he cannot even be acquitted from the charge of absolute hypocrisy.
Such was the individual whom Mary had appointed the sole keeper of her possibilities of happiness. Love had come to her late in life, but when it did, it took the shape of that complete surrender in which consists woman's greatest bliss and which she had never thought possible. It came as a revelation and brought experience in its train. Who shall describe the anguish of her heart when after a short spell of ecstatic bliss, the inevitable truth began to dawn upon her! Mary was not an essentially sensual woman; almost from the first she looked for that sympathy of the mind which was not forthcoming. She found him wanting, and the recognition of this probably irritated him, and ultimately made him transfer his easy-going affections to those who were less exacting. He was far too matter-of-fact to sympathise with or even understand her moments of tenderness, and too much occupied with his business to be much of a companion to her. In the month of September, after a few months together, he went to Hâvre. Then it was that Mary's troubles began. In her letters she repeatedly protested against his prolonged absences. She grew to hate commerce, which kept him away from her. His promise "to make a power of money to indemnify her for his absence", failed to produce any impression. Perhaps there was already then the vague fear of a possible desertion haunting her. She was in expectations, and the tenderness with which her letters refer to the coming event would stamp a repetition of her hopes and fears as an indelicacy. For the first time in her life, the champion of the rights of women was happy in acknowledging the superiority of a man. "Let me indulge the thought that I have thrown out some tendrils to cling to the elm by which I wish to be supported." Well might she say that this was talking a new language for her! The feelings, so long pent up and cheated of their birthright by tyrannical Reason, were indeed asserting themselves with a vengeance!
The undefined dread of coming disaster makes her letters more and more insistent. Grief and indignation at Imlay's neglect struggle for the mastery. At last he wrote to ask her to join him at Hâvre. The irritation he had felt against her—which she humbly ascribed to the querulous tone of her correspondence—had worn away and there was a brief renewal of happiness when in the spring of 1794 a little girl was born, to whom the name of Fanny was given in commemoration of the friend of Mary's youth.