she had become an altruist in its truest sense. The task of teacher particularly attracted her because it enabled her to prepare the young for the struggle with the world for which she had been so ill qualified. Because so little attention had been given to her in her early youth, she keenly appreciated the advantage of a good practical education. But her merits were not recognized in Islington. Like the man in the parable, she set out a banquet of which the bidden guests refused to partake. No scholars were sent to her. Therefore, at the end of a few months, she was glad to move to Newington Green, where better prospects seemed to await her. There she had relatives and influential friends, and the encouragement she received from them induced her to begin work on a large scale. She rented a house, and opened a regular school. Her efforts met with success. Twenty children became her pupils, while a Mrs. Campbell, a relative, and her son, and another lady, with three children, came to board with her. Mary was now more comfortable than she had heretofore been. She was, comparatively speaking, prosperous. She had much work to do, but by it she was supporting herself, and at the same time advancing towards her “clear-purposed goal” of self-renunciation. Then she had cause for pleasure in the fact that Eliza was now really free, Bishop having finally agreed to the separation. Mary Wollstonecraft, at the head of a house, and mistress of a school, was a very different person from Mary Wollstonecraft, simple companion to Mrs. Dawson or dependent friend of Fanny Blood. Her position was one to attract attention, and it was sufficient for her to be known, to be loved and admired. Her social sphere was enlarged. No one could care more for society than she did, when that society was congenial. At Newington Green she already began to show the preference for men and women of intellectual tastes and abilities that she manifested so strongly in her life in London. Foremost among her intimate acquaintances at this time was Dr. Richard Price, a clergyman, a Dissenter, then well known because of his political and mathematical speculations. He was an honest, upright, simple-hearted man, who commanded the respect and love of all who knew him, and whose benevolence was great enough to realize even Mary’s ideals. She became deeply attached to him personally, and was a warm admirer of his religious and moral principles. His sermons gave her great delight, and she often went to listen to them. He in return seems to have felt great interest in her, and to have recognized her extraordinary mental force. Mr. John Hewlet, also a clergyman, was another of her friends, and she retained his friendship for many years afterwards. A third friend, mentioned by Godwin in his Memoirs, was Mrs. Burgh, widow of a man now almost forgotten, but once famous as the author of “Political Disquisitions.” In sorrows soon to come, Mrs. Burgh gave practical proof of her affection. If a man can be judged by the character of his associates, then the age, professions, and serious connections of Mary’s friends at Newington Green are not a little significant.
Much as she cared for these older friends, however, they could not be so dear to her as Fanny and George Blood. She had begun by pitying the latter for his hopeless passion for Everina, and had finished by loving him for himself with true sisterly devotion. To brother and sister both, she could open her heart as she could to no one else. They were young with her, and that in itself is a strong bond of union. They, too, were but just beginning life, and they could sympathize with all her aspirations and disappointments. It was, therefore, an irreparable loss to her when they, at almost the same time, but for different reasons, left England. Fanny’s health had finally become so wretched that even her uncertain lover was moved to pity. Mr. Skeys seems to have been one of the men who only appreciate that which they think they cannot have. Not until the ill-health of the woman he loved warned him of the possibility of his losing her altogether did he make definite proposals to her. Her love for him had not been shaken by his unkindness, and in February, 1785, she married him, and went with him to Lisbon, where he was established in business. A few years earlier he might, by making her his wife, have secured her a long life’s happiness. Now, as it turned out, he succeeded but in making her path smooth for a few short months. Mary’s love for Fanny made her much more sensitive to Mr. Skeys’ shortcomings as a lover than Fanny had been. Shortly after the marriage she wrote indignantly to George:—
“Skeys has received congratulatory letters from most of his friends and relations in Ireland, and he now regrets that he did not marry sooner. All his mighty fears had no foundation, so that if he had had courage to brave the world’s opinion, he might have spared Fanny many griefs, the scars of which will never be obliterated. Nay, more, if she had gone a year or two ago, her health might have been perfectly restored, which I do not now think will ever be the case. Before true passion, I am convinced, everything but a sense of duty moves; true love is warmest when the object is absent. How Hugh could let Fanny languish in England, while he was throwing money away at Lisbon, is to me inexplicable, if he had a passion that did not require the fuel of seeing the object. I much fear he loves her not for the qualities that render her dear to my heart. Her tenderness and delicacy are not even conceived of by a man who would be satisfied with the fondness of one of the general run of women.”
George Blood’s departure was due to less pleasant circumstances than Fanny’s. One youthful escapade which had come to light was sufficient to attach to his name the blame for another, of which he was innocent. Some of his associates had become seriously compromised; and he, to avoid being implicated with them, had literally taken flight, and had made Ireland his place of refuge.
Mary’s friends left her just when she most needed them. Unfortunately, the interval of peace inaugurated by the opening of the school was but short-lived. Encouraged by the first success of her enterprise, she rented a larger house, hoping that in it she would do even better. But this step proved the Open Sesame to an inexhaustible mine of difficulties. The expense involved by the change was greater than she had expected, and her means of meeting it smaller. The population at Newington Green was not numerous or wealthy enough to support a large first-class day-school, and more pupils were not forthcoming to avail themselves of the new accommodations provided for them. It was a second edition of the story of the wedding feast, and again highways and by-ways were searched in vain. Moreover, her boarders neglected to pay their bills regularly. Instead of being a source of profit, they were an additional burden. Her life now became unspeakably sad. Her whole day was spent in teaching. This in itself would not have been hard. She always interested herself in her pupils, and the consciousness of good done for others was her most highly prized pleasure. Had the physical fatigue entailed by her work been her only hardship, she would have borne it patiently and perhaps gayly. But from morning till night, waking and sleeping, she was haunted by thoughts of unpaid bills and of increasing debts. Poverty and creditors were the two unavoidable evils which stared her in the face. Then, when she did hear from Fanny, it was to know that the chances for her recovery were diminishing rather than increasing. Reports of George Blood’s ill-conduct, repeated for her benefit, hurt and irritated her. On one occasion, her house was visited by men sent thither in his pursuit by the girl who had vilely slandered him. Mrs. Campbell, with the meanness of a small nature, reproached Mary for the encouragement which she had given his vices. She loved him so truly that this must have been gall and wormwood to her sensitive heart. Mr. and Mrs. Blood continued poor and miserable, he drinking and idling, and she faring as it must ever fare with the wives of such men. Mary saw nothing before her but a dreary pilgrimage through the wide Valley of the Shadow of Death, from which there seemed no escape to the Mount Zion beyond. If she dragged herself out of the deep pit of mental despondency, it was to fall into a still deeper one of physical prostration. The bleedings and blisters ordered by her physician could help her but little. What she needed to make her well was new pupils and honest boarders, and these the most expert physician could not give her. Is it any wonder that she came in time to hate Newington Green—“the grave of all my comforts,” she called it—to lose relish for life, and to feel cheered only by the prospect of death? She had nothing to reproach herself with. In sorrow and sickness alike she had toiled to the best of her abilities. That which her hand had found to do, she had done with all her might. The result of her labors and long-sufferance had hitherto been but misfortune and failure. Truly could she have called out with the Lady of Sorrows in the Lamentations: “Attend, all ye who pass by, and see if there be any sorrow like unto mine.” Because we know how great her misery was, we can more fully appreciate the extent of her heroism. Though, as she confessed to her friends in her weariest moments, her heart was broken, she never once swerved from allegiance to the heaven-given mandate, as Carlyle calls it, “Work thou in well-doing!” She never faltered in the accomplishment