[i]

POSTHUMOUS WORKS

OF

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.

VOL. I.

[ii]

[iii]

POSTHUMOUS WORKS

OF THE

AUTHOR

OF A

VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, NO. 72, ST. PAUL'S
CHURCH-YARD; AND G. G. AND J. ROBINSON,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1798.

[iv]

[v]

THE

WRONGS OF WOMAN:

OR,

MARIA.

A FRAGMENT.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

[vi]

[vii]

PREFACE.

The public are here presented with the last literary attempt of an author, whose fame has been uncommonly extensive, and whose talents have probably been most admired, by the persons by whom talents are estimated with the greatest accuracy and discrimination. There are few, to whom her writings could in any case have[viii] given pleasure, that would have wished that this fragment should have been suppressed, because it is a fragment. There is a sentiment, very dear to minds of taste and imagination, that finds a melancholy delight in contemplating these unfinished productions of genius, these sketches of what, if they had been filled up in a manner adequate to the writer's conception, would perhaps have given a new impulse to the manners of a world.

The purpose and structure of the following work, had long formed a favourite subject of meditation with its author, and she judged them capable of producing an important effect.[ix] The composition had been in progress for a period of twelve months. She was anxious to do justice to her conception, and recommenced and revised the manuscript several different times. So much of it as is here given to the public, she was far from considering as finished, and, in a letter to a friend directly written on this subject, she says, "I am perfectly aware that some of the incidents ought to be transposed, and heightened by more harmonious shading; and I wished in some degree to avail myself of criticism, before I began to adjust my events into a story, the outline of which I had sketched in[x] my mind[x-A]." The only friends to whom the author communicated her manuscript, were Mr. Dyson, the translator of the Sorcerer, and the present editor; and it was impossible for the most inexperienced author to display a stronger desire of profiting by the censures and sentiments that might be suggested[x-B].

In revising these sheets for the press, it was necessary for the editor, in some places, to connect the more finished[xi] parts with the pages of an older copy, and a line or two in addition sometimes appeared requisite for that purpose. Wherever such a liberty has been taken, the additional phrases will be found inclosed in brackets; it being the editor's most earnest desire, to intrude nothing of himself into the work, but to give to the public the words, as well as ideas, of the real author.

What follows in the ensuing pages, is not a preface regularly drawn out by the author, but merely hints for a preface, which, though never filled up in the manner the writer intended, appeared to be worth preserving.

W. GODWIN.

[xii]

[xiii]

AUTHOR's PREFACE.

The Wrongs of Woman, like the wrongs of the oppressed part of mankind, may be deemed necessary by their oppressors: but surely there are a few, who will dare to advance before the improvement of the age, and grant that my sketches are not the abortion of a distempered fancy, or the strong delineations of a wounded heart.

[xiv]In writing this novel, I have rather endeavoured to pourtray passions than manners.

In many instances I could have made the incidents more dramatic, would I have sacrificed my main object, the desire of exhibiting the misery and oppression, peculiar to women, that arise out of the partial laws and customs of society.

In the invention of the story, this view restrained my fancy; and the history ought rather to be considered, as of woman, than of an individual.

The sentiments I have embodied.

In many works of this species, the hero is allowed to be mortal, and to[xv] become wise and virtuous as well as happy, by a train of events and circumstances. The heroines, on the contrary, are to be born immaculate; and to act like goddesses of wisdom, just come forth highly finished Minervas from the head of Jove.

[The following is an extract of a letter from the author to a friend, to whom she communicated her manuscript.]

For my part, I cannot suppose any situation more distressing, than for a[xvi] woman of sensibility, with an improving mind, to be bound to such a man as I have described for life; obliged to renounce all the humanizing affections, and to avoid cultivating her taste, lest her perception of grace and refinement of sentiment, should sharpen to agony the pangs of disappointment. Love, in which the imagination mingles its bewitching colouring, must be fostered by delicacy. I should despise, or rather call her an ordinary woman, who could endure such a husband as I have sketched.

These appear to me (matrimonial despotism of heart and conduct) to be the peculiar Wrongs of Woman, be[xvii]cause they degrade the mind. What are termed great misfortunes, may more forcibly impress the mind of common readers; they have more of what may justly be termed stage-effect; but it is the delineation of finer sensations, which, in my opinion, constitutes the merit of our best novels. This is what I have in view; and to show the wrongs of different classes of women, equally oppressive, though, from the difference of education, necessarily various.

[xviii]

ERRATA.

[xix]

CONTENTS.

VOL. I. and II.

The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria; a Fragment: to which is added, the First Book of a Series of Lessons for Children.

VOL. III. and IV.

Letters and Miscellaneous Pieces.

[xx]

[1]

WRONGS

OF

WOMAN.

CHAP. I.

Abodes of horror have frequently been described, and castles, filled with spectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic spell of genius to harrow the soul, and absorb the wondering mind. But, formed of such stuff as dreams are made of, what were they to the mansion of despair, in one corner of which Maria sat, endeavouring to recal her scattered thoughts!

Surprise, astonishment, that bordered on distraction, seemed to have suspend[2]ed her faculties, till, waking by degrees to a keen sense of anguish, a whirlwind of rage and indignation roused her torpid pulse. One recollection with frightful velocity following another, threatened to fire her brain, and make her a fit companion for the terrific inhabitants, whose groans and shrieks were no unsubstantial sounds of whistling winds, or startled birds, modulated by a romantic fancy, which amuse while they affright; but such tones of misery as carry a dreadful certainty directly to the heart. What effect must they then have produced on one, true to the touch of sympathy, and tortured by maternal apprehension!

Her infant's image was continually floating on Maria's sight, and the first smile of intelligence remembered, as none but a mother, an unhappy mo[3]ther, can conceive. She heard her half speaking cooing, and felt the little twinkling fingers on her burning bosom—a bosom bursting with the nutriment for which this cherished child might now be pining in vain. From a stranger she could indeed receive the maternal aliment, Maria was grieved at the thought—but who would watch her with a mother's tenderness, a mother's self-denial?

The retreating shadows of former sorrows rushed back in a gloomy train, and seemed to be pictured on the walls of her prison, magnified by the state of mind in which they were viewed—Still she mourned for her child, lamented she was a daughter, and anticipated the aggravated ills of life that her sex rendered almost inevitable, even while dreading she was no more. To think[4] that she was blotted out of existence was agony, when the imagination had been long employed to expand her faculties; yet to suppose her turned adrift on an unknown sea, was scarcely less afflicting.

After being two days the prey of impetuous, varying emotions, Maria began to reflect more calmly on her present situation, for she had actually been rendered incapable of sober reflection, by the discovery of the act of atrocity of which she was the victim. She could not have imagined, that, in all the fermentation of civilized depravity, a similar plot could have entered a human mind. She had been stunned by an unexpected blow; yet life, however joyless, was not to be indolently resigned, or misery endured without exertion, and proudly termed patience. She[5] had hitherto meditated only to point the dart of anguish, and suppressed the heart heavings of indignant nature merely by the force of contempt. Now she endeavoured to brace her mind to fortitude, and to ask herself what was to be her employment in her dreary cell? Was it not to effect her escape, to fly to the succour of her child, and to baffle the selfish schemes of her tyrant—her husband?

These thoughts roused her sleeping spirit, and the self-possession returned, that seemed to have abandoned her in the infernal solitude into which she had been precipitated. The first emotions of overwhelming impatience began to subside, and resentment gave place to tenderness, and more tranquil meditation; though anger once more stopt the calm current of reflection,[6] when she attempted to move her manacled arms. But this was an outrage that could only excite momentary feelings of scorn, which evaporated in a faint smile; for Maria was far from thinking a personal insult the most difficult to endure with magnanimous indifference.

She approached the small grated window of her chamber, and for a considerable time only regarded the blue expanse; though it commanded a view of a desolate garden, and of part of a huge pile of buildings, that, after having been suffered, for half a century, to fall to decay, had undergone some clumsy repairs, merely to render it habitable. The ivy had been torn off the turrets, and the stones not wanted to patch up the breaches of time, and exclude the warring ele[7]ments, left in heaps in the disordered court. Maria contemplated this scene she knew not how long; or rather gazed on the walls, and pondered on her situation. To the master of this most horrid of prisons, she had, soon after her entrance, raved of injustice, in accents that would have justified his treatment, had not a malignant smile, when she appealed to his judgment, with a dreadful conviction stifled her remonstrating complaints. By force, or openly, what could be done? But surely some expedient might occur to an active mind, without any other employment, and possessed of sufficient resolution to put the risk of life into the balance with the chance of freedom.

A woman entered in the midst of these reflections, with a firm, deliberate[8] step, strongly marked features, and large black eyes, which she fixed steadily on Maria's, as if she designed to intimidate her, saying at the same time—"You had better sit down and eat your dinner, than look at the clouds."

"I have no appetite," replied Maria, who had previously determined to speak mildly, "why then should I eat?"

"But, in spite of that, you must and shall eat something. I have had many ladies under my care, who have resolved to starve themselves; but, soon or late, they gave up their intent, as they recovered their senses."

"Do you really think me mad?" asked Maria, meeting the searching glance of her eye.

"Not just now. But what does[9] that prove?—only that you must be the more carefully watched, for appearing at times so reasonable. You have not touched a morsel since you entered the house."—Maria sighed intelligibly.—"Could any thing but madness produce such a disgust for food?"

"Yes, grief; you would not ask the question if you knew what it was." The attendant shook her head; and a ghastly smile of desperate fortitude served as a forcible reply, and made Maria pause, before she added—"Yet I will take some refreshment: I mean not to die.—No; I will preserve my senses; and convince even you, sooner than you are aware of, that my intellects have never been disturbed, though the exertion of them may have been suspended by some infernal drug."

[10] Doubt gathered still thicker on the brow of her guard, as she attempted to convict her of mistake.

"Have patience!" exclaimed Maria, with a solemnity that inspired awe. "My God! how have I been schooled into the practice!" A suffocation of voice betrayed the agonizing emotions she was labouring to keep down; and conquering a qualm of disgust, she calmly endeavoured to eat enough to prove her docility, perpetually turning to the suspicious female, whose observation she courted, while she was making the bed and adjusting the room.

"Come to me often," said Maria, with a tone of persuasion, in consequence of a vague plan that she had hastily adopted, when, after surveying this woman's form and features, she[11] felt convinced that she had an understanding above the common standard; "and believe me mad, till you are obliged to acknowledge the contrary." The woman was no fool, that is, she was superior to her class; nor had misery quite petrified the life's-blood of humanity, to which reflections on our own misfortunes only give a more orderly course. The manner, rather than the expostulations, of Maria made a slight suspicion dart into her mind with corresponding sympathy, which various other avocations, and the habit of banishing compunction, prevented her, for the present, from examining more minutely.

But when she was told that no person, excepting the physician appointed by her family, was to be permitted to see the lady at the end of the gallery, she[12] opened her keen eyes still wider, and uttered a—"hem!" before she enquired—"Why?" She was briefly told, in reply, that the malady was hereditary, and the fits not occurring but at very long and irregular intervals, she must be carefully watched; for the length of these lucid periods only rendered her more mischievous, when any vexation or caprice brought on the paroxysm of phrensy.

Had her master trusted her, it is probable that neither pity nor curiosity would have made her swerve from the straight line of her interest; for she had suffered too much in her intercourse with mankind, not to determine to look for support, rather to humouring their passions, than courting their approbation by the integrity of her conduct. A deadly blight had met[13] her at the very threshold of existence; and the wretchedness of her mother seemed a heavy weight fastened on her innocent neck, to drag her down to perdition. She could not heroically determine to succour an unfortunate; but, offended at the bare supposition that she could be deceived with the same ease as a common servant, she no longer curbed her curiosity; and, though she never seriously fathomed her own intentions, she would sit, every moment she could steal from observation, listening to the tale, which Maria was eager to relate with all the persuasive eloquence of grief.

It is so cheering to see a human face, even if little of the divinity of virtue beam in it, that Maria anxiously expected the return of the attendant, as of a gleam of light to break the[14] gloom of idleness. Indulged sorrow; she perceived, must blunt or sharpen the faculties to the two opposite extremes; producing stupidity, the moping melancholy of indolence; or the restless activity of a disturbed imagination. She sunk into one state, after being fatigued by the other: till the want of occupation became even more painful than the actual pressure or apprehension of sorrow; and the confinement that froze her into a nook of existence, with an unvaried prospect before her, the most insupportable of evils. The lamp of life seemed to be spending itself to chase the vapours of a dungeon which no art could dissipate.—And to what purpose did she rally all her energy?—Was not the world a vast prison, and women born slaves?

[15] Though she failed immediately to rouse a lively sense of injustice in the mind of her guard, because it had been sophisticated into misanthropy, she touched her heart. Jemima (she had only a claim to a Christian name, which had not procured her any Christian privileges) could patiently hear of Maria's confinement on false pretences; she had felt the crushing hand of power, hardened by the exercise of injustice, and ceased to wonder at the perversions of the understanding, which systematize oppression; but, when told that her child, only four months old, had been torn from her, even while she was discharging the tenderest maternal office, the woman awoke in a bosom long estranged from feminine emotions, and Jemima determined to alleviate all in her power, without ha[16]zarding the loss of her place, the sufferings of a wretched mother, apparently injured, and certainly unhappy. A sense of right seems to result from the simplest act of reason, and to preside over the faculties of the mind, like the master-sense of feeling, to rectify the rest; but (for the comparison may be carried still farther) how often is the exquisite sensibility of both weakened or destroyed by the vulgar occupations, and ignoble pleasures of life?

The preserving her situation was, indeed, an important object to Jemima, who had been hunted from hole to hole, as if she had been a beast of prey, or infected with a moral plague. The wages she received, the greater part of which she hoarded, as her only chance for independence, were much[17] more considerable than she could reckon on obtaining any where else, were it possible that she, an outcast from society, could be permitted to earn a subsistence in a reputable family. Hearing Maria perpetually complain of listlessness, and the not being able to beguile grief by resuming her customary pursuits, she was easily prevailed on, by compassion, and that involuntary respect for abilities, which those who possess them can never eradicate, to bring her some books and implements for writing. Maria's conversation had amused and interested her, and the natural consequence was a desire, scarcely observed by herself, of obtaining the esteem of a person she admired. The remembrance of better days was rendered more lively; and the sentiments then acquired appearing less romantic[18] than they had for a long period, a spark of hope roused her mind to new activity.

How grateful was her attention to Maria! Oppressed by a dead weight of existence, or preyed on by the gnawing worm of discontent, with what eagerness did she endeavour to shorten the long days, which left no traces behind! She seemed to be sailing on the vast ocean of life, without seeing any land-mark to indicate the progress of time; to find employment was then to find variety, the animating principle of nature.

[19]

CHAP. II.

Earnestly as Maria endeavoured to soothe, by reading, the anguish of her wounded mind, her thoughts would often wander from the subject she was led to discuss, and tears of maternal tenderness obscured the reasoning page. She descanted on "the ills which flesh is heir to," with bitterness, when the recollection of her babe was revived by a tale of fictitious woe, that bore any resemblance to her own; and her imagination was continually employed, to conjure up and embody the various phantoms of misery, which folly and vice had let loose on the world. The loss of her babe was the tender string; against other cruel remembrances she laboured to[20] steel her bosom; and even a ray of hope, in the midst of her gloomy reveries, would sometimes gleam on the dark horizon of futurity, while persuading herself that she ought to cease to hope, since happiness was no where to be found.—But of her child, debilitated by the grief with which its mother had been assailed before it saw the light, she could not think without an impatient struggle.

"I, alone, by my active tenderness, could have saved," she would exclaim, "from an early blight, this sweet blossom; and, cherishing it, I should have had something still to love."

In proportion as other expectations were torn from her, this tender one had been fondly clung to, and knit into her heart.

The books she had obtained, were[21] soon devoured, by one who had no other resource to escape from sorrow, and the feverish dreams of ideal wretchedness or felicity, which equally weaken the intoxicated sensibility. Writing was then the only alternative, and she wrote some rhapsodies descriptive of the state of her mind; but the events of her past life pressing on her, she resolved circumstantially to relate them, with the sentiments that experience, and more matured reason, would naturally suggest. They might perhaps instruct her daughter, and shield her from the misery, the tyranny, her mother knew not how to avoid.

This thought gave life to her diction, her soul flowed into it, and she soon found the task of recollecting almost obliterated impressions very interesting. She lived again in the revived emo[22]tions of youth, and forgot her present in the retrospect of sorrows that had assumed an unalterable character.

Though this employment lightened the weight of time, yet, never losing sight of her main object, Maria did not allow any opportunity to slip of winning on the affections of Jemima; for she discovered in her a strength of mind, that excited her esteem, clouded as it was by the misanthropy of despair.

An insulated being, from the misfortune of her birth, she despised and preyed on the society by which she had been oppressed, and loved not her fellow-creatures, because she had never been beloved. No mother had ever fondled her, no father or brother had protected her from outrage; and the man who had plunged her into in[23]famy, and deserted her when she stood in greatest need of support, deigned not to smooth with kindness the road to ruin. Thus degraded, was she let loose on the world; and virtue, never nurtured by affection, assumed the stern aspect of selfish independence.

This general view of her life, Maria gathered from her exclamations and dry remarks. Jemima indeed displayed a strange mixture of interest and suspicion; for she would listen to her with earnestness, and then suddenly interrupt the conversation, as if afraid of resigning, by giving way to her sympathy, her dear-bought knowledge of the world.

Maria alluded to the possibility of an escape, and mentioned a compensation, or reward; but the style in which she was repulsed made her cautious,[24] and determine not to renew the subject, till she knew more of the character she had to work on. Jemima's countenance, and dark hints, seemed to say, "You are an extraordinary woman; but let me consider, this may only be one of your lucid intervals." Nay, the very energy of Maria's character, made her suspect that the extraordinary animation she perceived might be the effect of madness. "Should her husband then substantiate his charge, and get possession of her estate, from whence would come the promised annuity, or more desired protection? Besides, might not a woman, anxious to escape, conceal some of the circumstances which made against her? Was truth to be expected from one who had been entrapped, kidnapped, in the most fraudulent manner?"

[25] In this train Jemima continued to argue, the moment after compassion and respect seemed to make her swerve; and she still resolved not to be wrought on to do more than soften the rigour of confinement, till she could advance on surer ground.

Maria was not permitted to walk in the garden; but sometimes, from her window, she turned her eyes from the gloomy walls, in which she pined life away, on the poor wretches who strayed along the walks, and contemplated the most terrific of ruins—that of a human soul. What is the view of the fallen column, the mouldering arch, of the most exquisite workmanship, when compared with this living memento of the fragility, the instability, of reason, and the wild luxuriancy of noxious passions? Enthusiasm turned adrift,[26] like some rich stream overflowing its banks, rushes forward with destructive velocity, inspiring a sublime concentration of thought. Thus thought Maria—These are the ravages over which humanity must ever mournfully ponder, with a degree of anguish not excited by crumbling marble, or cankering brass, unfaithful to the trust of monumental fame. It is not over the decaying productions of the mind, embodied with the happiest art, we grieve most bitterly. The view of what has been done by man, produces a melancholy, yet aggrandizing, sense of what remains to be achieved by human intellect; but a mental convulsion, which, like the devastation of an earthquake, throws all the elements of thought and imagination into confusion, makes con[27]templation giddy, and we fearfully ask on what ground we ourselves stand.

Melancholy and imbecility marked the features of the wretches allowed to breathe at large; for the frantic, those who in a strong imagination had lost a sense of woe, were closely confined. The playful tricks and mischievous devices of their disturbed fancy, that suddenly broke out, could not be guarded against, when they were permitted to enjoy any portion of freedom; for, so active was their imagination, that every new object which accidentally struck their senses, awoke to phrenzy their restless passions; as Maria learned from the burden of their incessant ravings.

Sometimes, with a strict injunction of silence, Jemima would allow Maria,[28] at the close of evening, to stray along the narrow avenues that separated the dungeon-like apartments, leaning on her arm. What a change of scene! Maria wished to pass the threshold of her prison, yet, when by chance she met the eye of rage glaring on her, yet unfaithful to its office, she shrunk back with more horror and affright, than if she had stumbled over a mangled corpse. Her busy fancy pictured the misery of a fond heart, watching over a friend thus estranged, absent, though present—over a poor wretch lost to reason and the social joys of existence; and losing all consciousness of misery in its excess. What a task, to watch the light of reason quivering in the eye, or with agonizing expectation to catch the beam of recollection; tantalized by hope, only to feel despair more keenly, at finding a[29] much loved face or voice, suddenly remembered, or pathetically implored, only to be immediately forgotten, or viewed with indifference or abhorrence!

The heart-rending sigh of melancholy sunk into her soul; and when she retired to rest, the petrified figures she had encountered, the only human forms she was doomed to observe, haunting her dreams with tales of mysterious wrongs, made her wish to sleep to dream no more.

Day after day rolled away, and tedious as the present moment appeared, they passed in such an unvaried tenor, Maria was surprised to find that she had already been six weeks buried alive, and yet had such faint hopes of effecting her enlargement. She was, earnestly as she had sought for employment,[30] now angry with herself for having been amused by writing her narrative; and grieved to think that she had for an instant thought of any thing, but contriving to escape.

Jemima had evidently pleasure in her society: still, though she often left her with a glow of kindness, she returned with the same chilling air; and, when her heart appeared for a moment to open, some suggestion of reason forcibly closed it, before she could give utterance to the confidence Maria's conversation inspired.

Discouraged by these changes, Maria relapsed into despondency, when she was cheered by the alacrity with which Jemima brought her a fresh parcel of books; assuring her, that she had taken some pains to obtain them from one of the keepers, who attended a gentle[31]man confined in the opposite corner of the gallery.

Maria took up the books with emotion. "They come," said she, "perhaps, from a wretch condemned, like me, to reason on the nature of madness, by having wrecked minds continually under his eye; and almost to wish himself—as I do—mad, to escape from the contemplation of it." Her heart throbbed with sympathetic alarm; and she turned over the leaves with awe, as if they had become sacred from passing through the hands of an unfortunate being, oppressed by a similar fate.

Dryden's Fables, Milton's Paradise Lost, with several modern productions, composed the collection. It was a mine of treasure. Some marginal notes, in Dryden's Fables, caught her attention: they were written with force[32] and taste; and, in one of the modern pamphlets, there was a fragment left, containing various observations on the present state of society and government, with a comparative view of the politics of Europe and America. These remarks were written with a degree of generous warmth, when alluding to the enslaved state of the labouring majority, perfectly in unison with Maria's mode of thinking.

She read them over and over again; and fancy, treacherous fancy, began to sketch a character, congenial with her own, from these shadowy outlines.—"Was he mad?" She re-perused the marginal notes, and they seemed the production of an animated, but not of a disturbed imagination. Confined to this speculation, every time she re-read them, some fresh refinement of[33] sentiment, or acuteness of thought impressed her, which she was astonished at herself for not having before observed.

What a creative power has an affectionate heart! There are beings who cannot live without loving, as poets love; and who feel the electric spark of genius, wherever it awakens sentiment or grace. Maria had often thought, when disciplining her wayward heart, "that to charm, was to be virtuous." "They who make me wish to appear the most amiable and good in their eyes, must possess in a degree," she would exclaim, "the graces and virtues they call into action."

She took up a book on the powers of the human mind; but, her attention strayed from cold arguments on the nature of what she felt, while she was[34] feeling, and she snapt the chain of the theory to read Dryden's Guiscard and Sigismunda.

Maria, in the course of the ensuing day, returned some of the books, with the hope of getting others—and more marginal notes. Thus shut out from human intercourse, and compelled to view nothing but the prison of vexed spirits, to meet a wretch in the same situation, was more surely to find a friend, than to imagine a countryman one, in a strange land, where the human voice conveys no information to the eager ear.

"Did you ever see the unfortunate being to whom these books belong?" asked Maria, when Jemima brought her supper. "Yes. He sometimes walks out, between five and six, before the family is stirring, in the morning,[35] with two keepers; but even then his hands are confined."

"What! is he so unruly?" enquired Maria, with an accent of disappointment.

"No, not that I perceive," replied Jemima; "but he has an untamed look, a vehemence of eye, that excites apprehension. Were his hands free, he looks as if he could soon manage both his guards: yet he appears tranquil."

"If he be so strong, he must be young," observed Maria.

"Three or four and thirty, I suppose; but there is no judging of a person in his situation."

"Are you sure that he is mad?" interrupted Maria with eagerness. Jemima quitted the room, without replying.

[36] "No, no, he certainly is not!" exclaimed Maria, answering herself; "the man who could write those observations was not disordered in his intellects."

She sat musing, gazing at the moon, and watching its motion as it seemed to glide under the clouds. Then, preparing for bed, she thought, "Of what use could I be to him, or he to me, if it be true that he is unjustly confined?—Could he aid me to escape, who is himself more closely watched?—Still I should like to see him." She went to bed, dreamed of her child, yet woke exactly at half after five o'clock, and starting up, only wrapped a gown around her, and ran to the window. The morning was chill, it was the latter end of September; yet she did not retire to warm herself and[37] think in bed, till the sound of the servants, moving about the house, convinced her that the unknown would not walk in the garden that morning. She was ashamed at feeling disappointed; and began to reflect, as an excuse to herself, on the little objects which attract attention when there is nothing to divert the mind; and how difficult it was for women to avoid growing romantic, who have no active duties or pursuits.

At breakfast, Jemima enquired whether she understood French? for, unless she did, the stranger's stock of books was exhausted. Maria replied in the affirmative; but forbore to ask any more questions respecting the person to whom they belonged. And Jemima gave her a new subject for contemplation, by describing the person[38] of a lovely maniac, just brought into an adjoining chamber. She was singing the pathetic ballad of old Rob                  with the most heart-melting falls and pauses. Jemima had half-opened the door, when she distinguished her voice, and Maria stood close to it, scarcely daring to respire, lest a modulation should escape her, so exquisitely sweet, so passionately wild. She began with sympathy to pourtray to herself another victim, when the lovely warbler flew, as it were, from the spray, and a torrent of unconnected exclamations and questions burst from her, interrupted by fits of laughter, so horrid, that Maria shut the door, and, turning her eyes up to heaven, exclaimed—"Gracious God!"

Several minutes elapsed before Maria could enquire respecting the ru[39]mour of the house (for this poor wretch was obviously not confined without a cause); and then Jemima could only tell her, that it was said, "she had been married, against her inclination, to a rich old man, extremely jealous (no wonder, for she was a charming creature); and that, in consequence of his treatment, or something which hung on her mind, she had, during her first lying-in, lost her senses."

What a subject of meditation—even to the very confines of madness.

"Woman, fragile flower! why were you suffered to adorn a world exposed to the inroad of such stormy elements?" thought Maria, while the poor maniac's strain was still breathing on her ear, and sinking into her very soul.

[40] Towards the evening, Jemima brought her Rousseau's Heloïse; and she sat reading with eyes and heart, till the return of her guard to extinguish the light. One instance of her kindness was, the permitting Maria to have one, till her own hour of retiring to rest. She had read this work long since; but now it seemed to open a new world to her—the only one worth inhabiting. Sleep was not to be wooed; yet, far from being fatigued by the restless rotation of thought, she rose and opened her window, just as the thin watery clouds of twilight made the long silent shadows visible. The air swept across her face with a voluptuous freshness that thrilled to her heart, awakening indefinable emotions; and the sound of a waving branch, or the twittering of a startled[41] bird, alone broke the stillness of reposing nature. Absorbed by the sublime sensibility which renders the consciousness of existence felicity, Maria was happy, till an autumnal scent, wafted by the breeze of morn from the fallen leaves of the adjacent wood, made her recollect that the season had changed since her confinement; yet life afforded no variety to solace an afflicted heart. She returned dispirited to her couch, and thought of her child till the broad glare of day again invited her to the window. She looked not for the unknown, still how great was her vexation at perceiving the back of a man, certainly he, with his two attendants, as he turned into a side-path which led to the house! A confused recollection of having seen somebody who resembled him, imme[42]diately occurred, to puzzle and torment her with endless conjectures. Five minutes sooner, and she should have seen his face, and been out of suspense—was ever any thing so unlucky! His steady, bold step, and the whole air of his person, bursting as it were from a cloud, pleased her, and gave an outline to the imagination to sketch the individual form she wished to recognize.

Feeling the disappointment more severely than she was willing to believe, she flew to Rousseau, as her only refuge from the idea of him, who might prove a friend, could she but find a way to interest him in her fate; still the personification of Saint Preux, or of an ideal lover far superior, was after this imperfect model, of which merely a glance had been caught,[43] even to the minutiæ of the coat and hat of the stranger. But if she lent St. Preux, or the demi-god of her fancy, his form, she richly repaid him by the donation of all St. Preux's sentiments and feelings, culled to gratify her own, to which he seemed to have an undoubted right, when she read on the margin of an impassioned letter, written in the well-known hand—"Rousseau alone, the true Prometheus of sentiment, possessed the fire of genius necessary to pourtray the passion, the truth of which goes so directly to the heart."

Maria was again true to the hour, yet had finished Rousseau, and begun to transcribe some selected passages; unable to quit either the author or the window, before she had a glimpse of the countenance she daily longed to see;[44] and, when seen, it conveyed no distinct idea to her mind where she had seen it before. He must have been a transient acquaintance; but to discover an acquaintance was fortunate, could she contrive to attract his attention, and excite his sympathy.

Every glance afforded colouring for the picture she was delineating on her heart; and once, when the window was half open, the sound of his voice reached her. Conviction flashed on her; she had certainly, in a moment of distress, heard the same accents. They were manly, and characteristic of a noble mind; nay, even sweet—or sweet they seemed to her attentive ear.

She started back, trembling, alarmed at the emotion a strange coincidence of circumstances inspired, and wonder[45]ing why she thought so much of a stranger, obliged as she had been by his timely interference; [for she recollected, by degrees, all the circumstances of their former meeting.] She found however that she could think of nothing else; or, if she thought of her daughter, it was to wish that she had a father whom her mother could respect and love.

[46]

CHAP. III.

When perusing the first parcel of books, Maria had, with her pencil, written in one of them a few exclamations, expressive of compassion and sympathy, which she scarcely remembered, till turning over the leaves of one of the volumes, lately brought to her, a slip of paper dropped out, which Jemima hastily snatched up.

"Let me see it," demanded Maria impatiently, "You surely are not afraid of trusting me with the effusions of a madman?" "I must consider," replied Jemima; and withdrew, with the paper in her hand.

In a life of such seclusion, the passions gain undue force; Maria therefore felt a great degree of resentment and[47] vexation, which she had not time to subdue, before Jemima, returning, delivered the paper.

By the most pressing intreaties, Maria prevailed on Jemima to permit her to write a reply to this note. Another[48] and another succeeded, in which explanations were not allowed relative to their present situation; but Maria, with sufficient explicitness, alluded to a former obligation; and they insensibly entered on an interchange of sentiments on the most important subjects. To write these letters was the business of the day, and to receive them the moment of sunshine. By some means, Darnford having discovered Maria's window, when she next appeared at it, he made her, behind his keepers, a profound bow of respect and recognition.

Two or three weeks glided away in this kind of intercourse, during which period Jemima, to whom Maria had given the necessary information respecting her family, had evidently gained some intelligence, which increased her[49] desire of pleasing her charge, though she could not yet determine to liberate her. Maria took advantage of this favourable charge, without too minutely enquiring into the cause; and such was her eagerness to hold human converse, and to see her former protector, still a stranger to her, that she incessantly requested her guard to gratify her more than curiosity.

Writing to Darnford, she was led from the sad objects before her, and frequently rendered insensible to the horrid noises around her, which previously had continually employed her feverish fancy. Thinking it selfish to dwell on her own sufferings, when in the midst of wretches, who had not only lost all that endears life, but their very selves, her imagination was oc[50]cupied with melancholy earnestness to trace the mazes of misery, through which so many wretches must have passed to this gloomy receptacle of disjointed souls, to the grand source of human corruption. Often at midnight was she waked by the dismal shrieks of demoniac rage, or of excruciating despair, uttered in such wild tones of indescribable anguish as proved the total absence of reason, and roused phantoms of horror in her mind, far more terrific than all that dreaming superstition ever drew. Besides, there was frequently something so inconceivably picturesque in the varying gestures of unrestrained passion, so irresistibly comic in their sallies, or so heart-piercingly pathetic in the little airs they would sing, frequently bursting out after an awful silence, as to fascinate the at[51]tention, and amuse the fancy, while torturing the soul. It was the uproar of the passions which she was compelled to observe; and to mark the lucid beam of reason, like a light trembling in a socket, or like the flash which divides the threatening clouds of angry heaven only to display the horrors which darkness shrouded.

Jemima would labour to beguile the tedious evenings, by describing the persons and manners of the unfortunate beings, whose figures or voices awoke sympathetic sorrow in Maria's bosom; and the stories she told were the more interesting, for perpetually leaving room to conjecture something extraordinary. Still Maria, accustomed to generalize her observations, was led to conclude from all she heard, that it was a vulgar error to suppose[52] that people of abilities were the most apt to lose the command of reason. On the contrary, from most of the instances she could investigate, she thought it resulted, that the passions only appeared strong and disproportioned, because the judgment was weak and unexercised; and that they gained strength by the decay of reason, as the shadows lengthen during the sun's decline.

Maria impatiently wished to see her fellow-sufferer; but Darnford was still more earnest to obtain an interview. Accustomed to submit to every impulse of passion, and never taught, like women, to restrain the most natural, and acquire, instead of the bewitching frankness of nature, a factitious propriety of behaviour, every desire became a torrent that bore down all opposition.

[53] His travelling trunk, which contained the books lent to Maria, had been sent to him, and with a part of its contents he bribed his principal keeper; who, after receiving the most solemn promise that he would return to his apartment without attempting to explore any part of the house, conducted him, in the dusk of the evening, to Maria's room.

Jemima had apprized her charge of the visit, and she expected with trembling impatience, inspired by a vague hope that he might again prove her deliverer, to see a man who had before rescued her from oppression. He entered with an animation of countenance, formed to captivate an enthusiast; and, hastily turned his eyes from her to the apartment, which he surveyed with apparent emotions of com[54]passionate indignation. Sympathy illuminated his eye, and, taking her hand, he respectfully bowed on it, exclaiming—"This is extraordinary!—again to meet you, and in such circumstances!" Still, impressive as was the coincidence of events which brought them once more together, their full hearts did not overflow.—[54-A]

[And though, after this first visit, they were permitted frequently to repeat their interviews, they were for some time employed in] a reserved conversation, to which all the world[55] might have listened; excepting, when discussing some literary subject, flashes of sentiment, inforced by each relaxing feature, seemed to remind them that their minds were already acquainted.

[By degrees, Darnford entered into the particulars of his story.] In a few words, he informed her that he had been a thoughtless, extravagant young man; yet, as he described his faults, they appeared to be the generous luxuriancy of a noble mind. Nothing like meanness tarnished the lustre of his youth, nor had the worm of selfishness lurked in the unfolding bud, even while he had been the dupe of others. Yet he tardily acquired the experience necessary to guard him against future imposition.

"I shall weary you," continued he, "by my egotism; and did not power[56]ful emotions draw me to you,"—his eyes glistened as he spoke, and a trembling seemed to run through his manly frame,—"I would not waste these precious moments in talking of myself.

"My father and mother were people of fashion; married by their parents. He was fond of the turf, she of the card-table. I, and two or three other children since dead, were kept at home till we became intolerable. My father and mother had a visible dislike to each other, continually displayed; the servants were of the depraved kind usually found in the houses of people of fortune. My brothers and parents all dying, I was left to the care of guardians, and sent to Eton. I never knew the sweets of domestic affection, but I felt the want of indulgence and frivolous respect at school. I will not[57] disgust you with a recital of the vices of my youth, which can scarcely be comprehended by female delicacy. I was taught to love by a creature I am ashamed to mention; and the other women with whom I afterwards became intimate, were of a class of which you can have no knowledge. I formed my acquaintance with them at the theatres; and, when vivacity danced in their eyes, I was not easily disgusted by the vulgarity which flowed from their lips. Having spent, a few years after I was of age, [the whole of] a considerable patrimony, excepting a few hundreds, I had no recourse but to purchase a commission in a new-raised regiment, destined to subjugate America. The regret I felt to renounce a life of pleasure, was counter-balanced by the curiosity I had to see[58] America, or rather to travel; [nor had any of those circumstances occurred to my youth, which might have been calculated] to bind my country to my heart. I shall not trouble you with the details of a military life. My blood was still kept in motion; till, towards the close of the contest, I was wounded and taken prisoner.

"Confined to my bed, or chair, by a lingering cure, my only refuge from the preying activity of my mind, was books, which I read with great avidity, profiting by the conversation of my host, a man of sound understanding. My political sentiments now underwent a total change; and, dazzled by the hospitality of the Americans, I determined to take up my abode with freedom. I, therefore, with my usual impetuosity, sold my commission, and[59] travelled into the interior parts of the country, to lay out my money to advantage. Added to this, I did not much like the puritanical manners of the large towns. Inequality of condition was there most disgustingly galling. The only pleasure wealth afforded, was to make an ostentatious display of it; for the cultivation of the fine arts, or literature, had not introduced into the first circles that polish of manners which renders the rich so essentially superior to the poor in Europe. Added to this, an influx of vices had been let in by the Revolution, and the most rigid principles of religion shaken to the centre, before the understanding could be gradually emancipated from the prejudices which led their ancestors undauntedly to seek an inhospitable clime and unbroken soil. The resolu[60]tion, that led them, in pursuit of independence, to embark on rivers like seas, to search for unknown shores, and to sleep under the hovering mists of endless forests, whose baleful damps agued their limbs, was now turned into commercial speculations, till the national character exhibited a phenomenon in the history of the human mind—a head enthusiastically enterprising, with cold selfishness of heart. And woman, lovely woman!—they charm every where—still there is a degree of prudery, and a want of taste and ease in the manners of the American women, that renders them, in spite of their roses and lilies, far inferior to our European charmers. In the country, they have often a bewitching simplicity of character; but, in the cities, they have all the airs and ignorance of the ladies who[61] give the tone to the circles of the large trading towns in England. They are fond of their ornaments, merely because they are good, and not because they embellish their persons; and are more gratified to inspire the women with jealousy of these exterior advantages, than the men with love. All the frivolity which often (excuse me, Madam) renders the society of modest women so stupid in England, here seemed to throw still more leaden fetters on their charms. Not being an adept in gallantry, I found that I could only keep myself awake in their company by making downright love to them.

"But, not to intrude on your patience, I retired to the track of land which I had purchased in the country, and my time passed pleasantly enough[62] while I cut down the trees, built my house, and planted my different crops. But winter and idleness came, and I longed for more elegant society, to hear what was passing in the world, and to do something better than vegetate with the animals that made a very considerable part of my household. Consequently, I determined to travel. Motion was a substitute for variety of objects; and, passing over immense tracks of country, I exhausted my exuberant spirits, without obtaining much experience. I every where saw industry the fore-runner and not the consequence, of luxury; but this country, every thing being on an ample scale, did not afford those picturesque views, which a certain degree of cultivation is necessary gradually to produce. The eye wandered without an object to fix upon over im[63]measureable plains, and lakes that seemed replenished by the ocean, whilst eternal forests of small clustering trees, obstructed the circulation of air, and embarrassed the path, without gratifying the eye of taste. No cottage smiling in the waste, no travellers hailed us, to give life to silent nature; or, if perchance we saw the print of a footstep in our path, it was a dreadful warning to turn aside; and the head ached as if assailed by the scalping knife. The Indians who hovered on the skirts of the European settlements had only learned of their neighbours to plunder, and they stole their guns from them to do it with more safety.

"From the woods and back settlements, I returned to the towns, and learned to eat and drink most valiantly; but without entering into commerce[64] (and I detested commerce) I found I could not live there; and, growing heartily weary of the land of liberty and vulgar aristocracy, seated on her bags of dollars, I resolved once more to visit Europe. I wrote to a distant relation in England, with whom I had been educated, mentioning the vessel in which I intended to sail. Arriving in London, my senses were intoxicated. I ran from street to street, from theatre to theatre, and the women of the town (again I must beg pardon for my habitual frankness) appeared to me like angels.

"A week was spent in this thoughtless manner, when, returning very late to the hotel in which I had lodged ever since my arrival, I was knocked down in a private street, and hurried, in a state of insensibility, into a coach, which[65] brought me hither, and I only recovered my senses to be treated like one who had lost them. My keepers are deaf to my remonstrances and enquiries, yet assure me that my confinement shall not last long. Still I cannot guess, though I weary myself with conjectures, why I am confined, or in what part of England this house is situated. I imagine sometimes that I hear the sea roar, and wished myself again on the Atlantic, till I had a glimpse of you[65-A]."

A few moments were only allowed to Maria to comment on this narrative,[66] when Darnford left her to her own thoughts, to the "never ending, still beginning," task of weighing his words, recollecting his tones of voice, and feeling them reverberate on her heart.

[67]

CHAP. IV.

Pity, and the forlorn seriousness of adversity, have both been considered as dispositions favourable to love, while satirical writers have attributed the propensity to the relaxing effect of idleness, what chance then had Maria of escaping, when pity, sorrow, and solitude all conspired to soften her mind, and nourish romantic wishes, and, from a natural progress, romantic expectations?

Maria was six-and-twenty. But, such was the native soundness of her constitution, that time had only given to her countenance the character of her mind. Revolving thought, and exercised affections had banished some of[68] the playful graces of innocence, producing insensibly that irregularity of features which the struggles of the understanding to trace or govern the strong emotions of the heart, are wont to imprint on the yielding mass. Grief and care had mellowed, without obscuring, the bright tints of youth, and the thoughtfulness which resided on her brow did not take from the feminine softness of her features; nay, such was the sensibility which often mantled over it, that she frequently appeared, like a large proportion of her sex, only born to feel; and the activity of her well-proportioned, and even almost voluptuous figure, inspired the idea of strength of mind, rather than of body. There was a simplicity sometimes indeed in her manner, which bordered on infantine ingenuousness, that led peo[69]ple of common discernment to underrate her talents, and smile at the flights of her imagination. But those who could not comprehend the delicacy of her sentiments, were attached by her unfailing sympathy, so that she was very generally beloved by characters of very different descriptions; still, she was too much under the influence of an ardent imagination to adhere to common rules.

There are mistakes of conduct which at five-and-twenty prove the strength of the mind, that, ten or fifteen years after, would demonstrate its weakness, its incapacity to acquire a sane judgment. The youths who are satisfied with the ordinary pleasures of life, and do not sigh after ideal phantoms of love and friendship, will never arrive at great maturity of understanding; but if these reveries are cherished, as is too frequently[70] the case with women, when experience ought to have taught them in what human happiness consists, they become as useless as they are wretched. Besides, their pains and pleasures are so dependent on outward circumstances, on the objects of their affections, that they seldom act from the impulse of a nerved mind, able to choose its own pursuit.

Having had to struggle incessantly with the vices of mankind, Maria's imagination found repose in pourtraying the possible virtues the world might contain. Pygmalion formed an ivory maid, and longed for an informing soul. She, on the contrary, combined all the qualities of a hero's mind, and fate presented a statue in which she might enshrine them.

We mean not to trace the progress of this passion, or recount how often[71] Darnford and Maria were obliged to part in the midst of an interesting conversation. Jemima ever watched on the tip-toe of fear, and frequently separated them on a false alarm, when they would have given worlds to remain a little longer together.

A magic lamp now seemed to be suspended in Maria's prison, and fairy landscapes flitted round the gloomy walls, late so blank. Rushing from the depth of despair, on the seraph wing of hope, she found herself happy.—She was beloved, and every emotion was rapturous.

To Darnford she had not shown a decided affection; the fear of outrunning his, a sure proof of love, made her often assume a coldness and indifference foreign from her character; and, even when giving way to the playful emotions of a[72] heart just loosened from the frozen bond of grief, there was a delicacy in her manner of expressing her sensibility, which made him doubt whether it was the effect of love.

One evening, when Jemima left them, to listen to the sound of a distant footstep, which seemed cautiously to approach, he seized Maria's hand—it was not withdrawn. They conversed with earnestness of their situation; and, during the conversation, he once or twice gently drew her towards him. He felt the fragrance of her breath, and longed, yet feared, to touch the lips from which it issued; spirits of purity seemed to guard them, while all the enchanting graces of love sported on her cheeks, and languished in her eyes.

Jemima entering, he reflected on his diffidence with poignant regret, and,[73] she once more taking alarm, he ventured, as Maria stood near his chair, to approach her lips with a declaration of love. She drew back with solemnity, he hung down his head abashed; but lifting his eyes timidly, they met her's; she had determined, during that instant, and suffered their rays to mingle. He took, with more ardour, reassured, a half-consenting, half-reluctant kiss, reluctant only from modesty; and there was a sacredness in her dignified manner of reclining her glowing face on his shoulder, that powerfully impressed him. Desire was lost in more ineffable emotions, and to protect her from insult and sorrow—to make her happy, seemed not only the first wish of his heart, but the most noble duty of his life. Such angelic confidence demanded the fidelity of honour; but could he, feel[74]ing her in every pulsation, could he ever change, could he be a villain? The emotion with which she, for a moment, allowed herself to be pressed to his bosom, the tear of rapturous sympathy, mingled with a soft melancholy sentiment of recollected disappointment, said—more of truth and faithfulness, than the tongue could have given utterance to in hours! They were silent—yet discoursed, how eloquently? till, after a moment's reflection, Maria drew her chair by the side of his, and, with a composed sweetness of voice, and supernatural benignity of countenance, said, "I must open my whole heart to you; you must be told who I am, why I am here, and why, telling you I am a wife, I blush not to"—the blush spoke the rest.

Jemima was again at her elbow, and[75] the restraint of her presence did not prevent an animated conversation, in which love, sly urchin, was ever at bo-peep.

So much of heaven did they enjoy, that paradise bloomed around them; or they, by a powerful spell, had been transported into Armida's garden. Love, the grand enchanter, "lapt them in Elysium," and every sense was harmonized to joy and social extacy. So animated, indeed, were their accents of tenderness, in discussing what, in other circumstances, would have been common-place subjects, that Jemima felt, with surprise, a tear of pleasure trickling down her rugged cheeks. She wiped it away, half ashamed; and when Maria kindly enquired the cause, with all the eager solicitude of a happy being wishing to impart to all nature its[76] overflowing felicity, Jemima owned that it was the first tear that social enjoyment had ever drawn from her. She seemed indeed to breathe more freely; the cloud of suspicion cleared away from her brow; she felt herself, for once in her life, treated like a fellow-creature.

Imagination! who can paint thy power; or reflect the evanescent tints of hope fostered by thee? A despondent gloom had long obscured Maria's horizon—now the sun broke forth, the rainbow appeared, and every prospect was fair. Horror still reigned in the darkened cells, suspicion lurked in the passages, and whispered along the walls. The yells of men possessed, sometimes made them pause, and wonder that they felt so happy, in a tomb of living death. They even chid them[77]selves for such apparent insensibility; still the world contained not three happier beings. And Jemima, after again patrolling the passage, was so softened by the air of confidence which breathed around her, that she voluntarily began an account of herself.

[78]

CHAP. V.

"My father," said Jemima, "seduced my mother, a pretty girl, with whom he lived fellow-servant; and she no sooner perceived the natural, the dreaded consequence, than the terrible conviction flashed on her—that she was ruined. Honesty, and a regard for her reputation, had been the only principles inculcated by her mother; and they had been so forcibly impressed, that she feared shame, more than the poverty to which it would lead. Her incessant importunities to prevail upon my father to screen her from reproach by marrying her, as he had promised in the fervour of seduction, estranged him from her so completely, that her very person[79] became distasteful to him; and he began to hate, as well as despise me, before I was born.

"My mother, grieved to the soul by his neglect, and unkind treatment, actually resolved to famish herself; and injured her health by the attempt; though she had not sufficient resolution to adhere to her project, or renounce it entirely. Death came not at her call; yet sorrow, and the methods she adopted to conceal her condition, still doing the work of a house-maid, had such an effect on her constitution, that she died in the wretched garret, where her virtuous mistress had forced her to take refuge in the very pangs of labour, though my father, after a slight reproof, was allowed to remain in his place—allowed by the mother of six children, who, scarcely permitting a footstep to[80] be heard, during her month's indulgence, felt no sympathy for the poor wretch, denied every comfort required by her situation.

"The day my mother died, the ninth after my birth, I was consigned to the care of the cheapest nurse my father could find; who suckled her own child at the same time, and lodged as many more as she could get, in two cellar-like apartments.

"Poverty, and the habit of seeing children die off her hands, had so hardened her heart, that the office of a mother did not awaken the tenderness of a woman; nor were the feminine caresses which seem a part of the rearing of a child, ever bestowed on me. The chicken has a wing to shelter under; but I had no bosom to nestle in, no kindred warmth to foster me. Left[81] in dirt, to cry with cold and hunger till I was weary, and sleep without ever being prepared by exercise, or lulled by kindness to rest; could I be expected to become any thing but a weak and rickety babe? Still, in spite of neglect, I continued to exist, to learn to curse existence," her countenance grew ferocious as she spoke, "and the treatment that rendered me miserable, seemed to sharpen my wits. Confined then in a damp hovel, to rock the cradle of the succeeding tribe, I looked like a little old woman, or a hag shrivelling into nothing. The furrows of reflection and care contracted the youthful cheek, and gave a sort of supernatural wildness to the ever watchful eye. During this period, my father had married another fellow-servant, who loved him less, and knew better how to manage[82] his passion, than my mother. She likewise proving with child, they agreed to keep a shop: my step-mother, if, being an illegitimate offspring, I may venture thus to characterize her, having obtained a sum of a rich relation, for that purpose.

"Soon after her lying-in, she prevailed on my father to take me home, to save the expence of maintaining me, and of hiring a girl to assist her in the care of the child. I was young, it was true, but appeared a knowing little thing, and might be made handy. Accordingly I was brought to her house; but not to a home—for a home I never knew. Of this child, a daughter, she was extravagantly fond; and it was a part of my employment, to assist to spoil her, by humouring all her whims, and bearing all her caprices. Feeling her[83] own consequence, before she could speak, she had learned the art of tormenting me, and if I ever dared to resist, I received blows, laid on with no compunctious hand, or was sent to bed dinnerless, as well as supperless. I said that it was a part of my daily labour to attend this child, with the servility of a slave; still it was but a part. I was sent out in all seasons, and from place to place, to carry burdens far above my strength, without being allowed to draw near the fire, or ever being cheered by encouragement or kindness. No wonder then, treated like a creature of another species, that I began to envy, and at length to hate, the darling of the house. Yet, I perfectly remember, that it was the caresses, and kind expressions of my step-mother, which first excited my jealous[84] discontent. Once, I cannot forget it, when she was calling in vain her wayward child to kiss her, I ran to her, saying, 'I will kiss you, ma'am!' and how did my heart, which was in my mouth, sink, what was my debasement of soul, when pushed away with—'I do not want you, pert thing!' Another day, when a new gown had excited the highest good humour, and she uttered the appropriate dear, addressed unexpectedly to me, I thought I could never do enough to please her; I was all alacrity, and rose proportionably in my own estimation.

"As her daughter grew up, she was pampered with cakes and fruit, while I was, literally speaking, fed with the refuse of the table, with her leavings. A liquorish tooth is, I believe, common to children, and I used to steal any[85] thing sweet, that I could catch up with a chance of concealment. When detected, she was not content to chastize me herself at the moment, but, on my father's return in the evening (he was a shopman), the principal discourse was to recount my faults, and attribute them to the wicked disposition which I had brought into the world with me, inherited from my mother. He did not fail to leave the marks of his resentment on my body, and then solaced himself by playing with my sister.—I could have murdered her at those moments. To save myself from these unmerciful corrections, I resorted to falshood, and the untruths which I sturdily maintained, were brought in judgment against me, to support my tyrant's inhuman charge of my natural propensity to vice. Seeing me treated with[86] contempt, and always being fed and dressed better, my sister conceived a contemptuous opinion of me, that proved an obstacle to all affection; and my father, hearing continually of my faults, began to consider me as a curse entailed on him for his sins: he was therefore easily prevailed on to bind me apprentice to one of my step-mother's friends, who kept a slop-shop in Wapping. I was represented (as it was said) in my true colours; but she, 'warranted,' snapping her fingers, 'that she should break my spirit or heart.'

"My mother replied, with a whine, 'that if any body could make me better, it was such a clever woman as herself; though, for her own part, she had tried in vain; but good-nature was her fault.'

[87] "I shudder with horror, when I recollect the treatment I had now to endure. Not only under the lash of my task-mistress, but the drudge of the maid, apprentices and children, I never had a taste of human kindness to soften the rigour of perpetual labour. I had been introduced as an object of abhorrence into the family; as a creature of whom my step-mother, though she had been kind enough to let me live in the house with her own child, could make nothing. I was described as a wretch, whose nose must be kept to the grinding stone—and it was held there with an iron grasp. It seemed indeed the privilege of their superior nature to kick me about, like the dog or cat. If I were attentive, I was called fawning, if refractory, an obstinate mule, and like a mule I received their censure on[88] my loaded back. Often has my mistress, for some instance of forgetfulness, thrown me from one side of the kitchen to the other, knocked my head against the wall, spit in my face, with various refinements on barbarity that I forbear to enumerate, though they were all acted over again by the servant, with additional insults, to which the appellation of bastard, was commonly added, with taunts or sneers. But I will not attempt to give you an adequate idea of my situation, lest you, who probably have never been drenched with the dregs of human misery, should think I exaggerate.

"I stole now, from absolute necessity,—bread; yet whatever else was taken, which I had it not in my power to take, was ascribed to me. I was the filching cat, the ravenous dog, the[89] dumb brute, who must bear all; for if I endeavoured to exculpate myself, I was silenced, without any enquiries being made, with 'Hold your tongue, you never tell truth.' Even the very air I breathed was tainted with scorn; for I was sent to the neighbouring shops with Glutton, Liar, or Thief, written on my forehead. This was, at first, the most bitter punishment; but sullen pride, or a kind of stupid desperation, made me, at length, almost regardless of the contempt, which had wrung from me so many solitary tears at the only moments when I was allowed to rest.

"Thus was I the mark of cruelty till my sixteenth year; and then I have only to point out a change of misery; for a period I never knew. Allow me first to make one observation. Now I[90] look back, I cannot help attributing the greater part of my misery, to the misfortune of having been thrown into the world without the grand support of life—a mother's affection. I had no one to love me; or to make me respected, to enable me to acquire respect. I was an egg dropped on the sand; a pauper by nature, shunted from family to family, who belonged to nobody—and nobody cared for me. I was despised from my birth, and denied the chance of obtaining a footing for myself in society. Yes; I had not even the chance of being considered as a fellow-creature—yet all the people with whom I lived, brutalized as they were by the low cunning of trade, and the despicable shifts of poverty, were not without bowels, though they never yearned for me. I was, in fact, born a slave, and chained[91] by infamy to slavery during the whole of existence, without having any companions to alleviate it by sympathy, or teach me how to rise above it by their example. But, to resume the thread of my tale—

"At sixteen, I suddenly grew tall, and something like comeliness appeared on a Sunday, when I had time to wash my face, and put on clean clothes. My master had once or twice caught hold of me in the passage; but I instinctively avoided his disgusting caresses. One day however, when the family were at a methodist meeting, he contrived to be alone in the house with me, and by blows—yes; blows and menaces, compelled me to submit to his ferocious desire; and, to avoid my mistress's fury, I was obliged in future to comply, and skulk to my loft at his com[92]mand, in spite of increasing loathing.

"The anguish which was now pent up in my bosom, seemed to open a new world to me: I began to extend my thoughts beyond myself, and grieve for human misery, till I discovered, with horror—ah! what horror!—that I was with child. I know not why I felt a mixed sensation of despair and tenderness, excepting that, ever called a bastard, a bastard appeared to me an object of the greatest compassion in creation.

"I communicated this dreadful circumstance to my master, who was almost equally alarmed at the intelligence; for he feared his wife, and public censure at the meeting. After some weeks of deliberation had elapsed, I in continual fear that my altered shape[93] would be noticed, my master gave me a medicine in a phial, which he desired me to take, telling me, without any circumlocution, for what purpose it was designed. I burst into tears, I thought it was killing myself—yet was such a self as I worth preserving? He cursed me for a fool, and left me to my own reflections. I could not resolve to take this infernal potion; but I wrapped it up in an old gown, and hid it in a corner of my box.

"Nobody yet suspected me, because they had been accustomed to view me as a creature of another species. But the threatening storm at last broke over my devoted head—never shall I forget it! One Sunday evening when I was left, as usual, to take care of the house, my master came home intoxicated, and I became the prey of his brutal appe[94]tite. His extreme intoxication made him forget his customary caution, and my mistress entered and found us in a situation that could not have been more hateful to her than me. Her husband was 'pot-valiant,' he feared her not at the moment, nor had he then much reason, for she instantly turned the whole force of her anger another way. She tore off my cap, scratched, kicked, and buffetted me, till she had exhausted her strength, declaring, as she rested her arm, 'that I had wheedled her husband from her.—But, could any thing better be expected from a wretch, whom she had taken into her house out of pure charity?' What a torrent of abuse rushed out? till, almost breathless, she concluded with saying, 'that I was born a strumpet; it ran in my[95] blood, and nothing good could come to those who harboured me.'

"My situation was, of course, discovered, and she declared that I should not stay another night under the same roof with an honest family. I was therefore pushed out of doors, and my trumpery thrown after me, when it had been contemptuously examined in the passage, lest I should have stolen any thing.

"Behold me then in the street, utterly destitute! Whither could I creep for shelter? To my father's roof I had no claim, when not pursued by shame—now I shrunk back as from death, from my mother's cruel reproaches, my father's execrations. I could not endure to hear him curse the day I was born, though life had been a curse to me. Of death I thought, but with a confused[96] emotion of terror, as I stood leaning my head on a post, and starting at every footstep, lest it should be my mistress coming to tear my heart out. One of the boys of the shop passing by, heard my tale, and immediately repaired to his master, to give him a description of my situation; and he touched the right key—the scandal it would give rise to, if I were left to repeat my tale to every enquirer. This plea came home to his reason, who had been sobered by his wife's rage, the fury of which fell on him when I was out of her reach, and he sent the boy to me with half-a-guinea, desiring him to conduct me to a house, where beggars, and other wretches, the refuse of society, nightly lodged.

"This night was spent in a state of stupefaction, or desperation. I detested mankind, and abhorred myself.

[97] "In the morning I ventured out, to throw myself in my master's way, at his usual hour of going abroad. I approached him, he 'damned me for a b——, declared I had disturbed the peace of the family, and that he had sworn to his wife, never to take any more notice of me.' He left me; but, instantly returning, he told me that he should speak to his friend, a parish-officer, to get a nurse for the brat I laid to him; and advised me, if I wished to keep out of the house of correction, not to make free with his name.

"I hurried back to my hole, and, rage giving place to despair, sought for the potion that was to procure abortion, and swallowed it, with a wish that it might destroy me, at the same time that it stopped the sensations of new-born life,[98] which I felt with indescribable emotion. My head turned round, my heart grew sick, and in the horrors of approaching dissolution, mental anguish was swallowed up. The effect of the medicine was violent, and I was confined to my bed several days; but, youth and a strong constitution prevailing, I once more crawled out, to ask myself the cruel question, 'Whither I should go?' I had but two shillings left in my pocket, the rest had been expended, by a poor woman who slept in the same room, to pay for my lodging, and purchase the necessaries of which she partook.

"With this wretch I went into the neighbouring streets to beg, and my disconsolate appearance drew a few pence from the idle, enabling me still to command a bed; till, recovering[99] from my illness, and taught to put on my rags to the best advantage, I was accosted from different motives, and yielded to the desire of the brutes I met, with the same detestation that I had felt for my still more brutal master. I have since read in novels of the blandishments of seduction, but I had not even the pleasure of being enticed into vice.

"I shall not," interrupted Jemima, "lead your imagination into all the scenes of wretchedness and depravity, which I was condemned to view; or mark the different stages of my debasing misery. Fate dragged me through the very kennels of society; I was still a slave, a bastard, a common property. Become familiar with vice, for I wish to conceal nothing from you, I picked the pockets of the drunkards[100] who abused me; and proved by my conduct, that I deserved the epithets, with which they loaded me at moments when distrust ought to cease.

"Detesting my nightly occupation, though valuing, if I may so use the word, my independence, which only consisted in choosing the street in which I should wander, or the roof, when I had money, in which I should hide my head, I was some time before I could prevail on myself to accept of a place in a house of ill fame, to which a girl, with whom I had accidentally conversed in the street, had recommended me. I had been hunted almost into a a fever, by the watchmen of the quarter of the town I frequented; one, whom I had unwittingly offended, giving the word to the whole pack. You can scarcely conceive the tyranny ex[101]ercised by these wretches: considering themselves as the instruments of the very laws they violate, the pretext which steels their conscience, hardens their heart. Not content with receiving from us, outlaws of society (let other women talk of favours) a brutal gratification gratuitously as a privilege of office, they extort a tithe of prostitution, and harrass with threats the poor creatures whose occupation affords not the means to silence the growl of avarice. To escape from this persecution, I once more entered into servitude.

"A life of comparative regularity restored my health; and—do not start—my manners were improved, in a situation where vice sought to render itself alluring, and taste was cultivated to fashion the person, if not to refine the mind. Besides, the common civility of[102] speech, contrasted with the gross vulgarity to which I had been accustomed, was something like the polish of civilization. I was not shut out from all intercourse of humanity. Still I was galled by the yoke of service, and my mistress often flying into violent fits of passion, made me dread a sudden dismission, which I understood was always the case. I was therefore prevailed on, though I felt a horror of men, to accept the offer of a gentleman, rather in the decline of years, to keep his house, pleasantly situated in a little village near Hampstead.

"He was a man of great talents, and of brilliant wit; but, a worn-out votary of voluptuousness, his desires became fastidious in proportion as they grew weak, and the native tenderness of his heart was undermined by a vi[103]tiated imagination. A thoughtless career of libertinism and social enjoyment, had injured his health to such a degree, that, whatever pleasure his conversation afforded me (and my esteem was ensured by proofs of the generous humanity of his disposition), the being his mistress was purchasing it at a very dear rate. With such a keen perception of the delicacies of sentiment, with an imagination invigorated by the exercise of genius, how could he sink into the grossness of sensuality!

"But, to pass over a subject which I recollect with pain, I must remark to you, as an answer to your often-repeated question, 'Why my sentiments and language were superior to my station?' that I now began to read, to beguile the tediousness of solitude, and to gratify an inquisitive, active mind. I[104] had often, in my childhood, followed a ballad-singer, to hear the sequel of a dismal story, though sure of being severely punished for delaying to return with whatever I was sent to purchase. I could just spell and put a sentence together, and I listened to the various arguments, though often mingled with obscenity, which occurred at the table where I was allowed to preside: for a literary friend or two frequently came home with my master, to dine and pass the night. Having lost the privileged respect of my sex, my presence, instead of restraining, perhaps gave the reins to their tongues; still I had the advantage of hearing discussions, from which, in the common course of life, women are excluded.

"You may easily imagine, that it was only by degrees that I could com[105]prehend some of the subjects they investigated, or acquire from their reasoning what might be termed a moral sense. But my fondness of reading increasing, and my master occasionally shutting himself up in this retreat, for weeks together, to write, I had many opportunities of improvement. At first, considering money I was right!" (exclaimed Jemima, altering her tone of voice) "as the only means, after my loss of reputation, of obtaining respect, or even the toleration of humanity, I had not the least scruple to secrete a part of the sums intrusted to me, and to screen myself from detection by a system of falshood. But, acquiring new principles, I began to have the ambition of returning to the respectable part of society, and was weak enough to suppose it possible. The attention of my unas[106]suming instructor, who, without being ignorant of his own powers, possessed great simplicity of manners, strengthened the illusion. Having sometimes caught up hints for thought, from my untutored remarks, he often led me to discuss the subjects he was treating, and would read to me his productions, previous to their publication, wishing to profit by the criticism of unsophisticated feeling. The aim of his writings was to touch the simple springs of the heart; for he despised the would-be oracles, the self-elected philosophers, who fright away fancy, while sifting each grain of thought to prove that slowness of comprehension is wisdom.

"I should have distinguished this as a moment of sunshine, a happy period in my life, had not the repugnance the disgusting libertinism of my protector[107] inspired, daily become more painful.—And, indeed, I soon did recollect it as such with agony, when his sudden death (for he had recourse to the most exhilarating cordials to keep up the convivial tone of his spirits) again threw me into the desert of human society. Had he had any time for reflection, I am certain he would have left the little property in his power to me: but, attacked by the fatal apoplexy in town, his heir, a man of rigid morals, brought his wife with him to take possession of the house and effects, before I was even informed of his death,—'to prevent,' as she took care indirectly to tell me, 'such a creature as she supposed me to be, from purloining any of them, had I been apprized of the event in time.'

"The grief I felt at the sudden[108] shock the information gave me, which at first had nothing selfish in it, was treated with contempt, and I was ordered to pack up my clothes; and a few trinkets and books, given me by the generous deceased, were contested, while they piously hoped, with a reprobating shake of the head, 'that God would have mercy on his sinful soul!' With some difficulty, I obtained my arrears of wages; but asking—such is the spirit-grinding consequence of poverty and infamy—for a character for honesty and economy, which God knows I merited, I was told by this—why must I call her woman?—'that it would go against her conscience to recommend a kept mistress.' Tears started in my eyes, burning tears; for there are situations in which a wretch[109] is humbled by the contempt they are conscious they do not deserve.

"I returned to the metropolis; but the solitude of a poor lodging was inconceivably dreary, after the society I had enjoyed. To be cut off from human converse, now I had been taught to relish it, was to wander a ghost among the living. Besides, I foresaw, to aggravate the severity of my fate, that my little pittance would soon melt away. I endeavoured to obtain needlework; but, not having been taught early, and my hands being rendered clumsy by hard work, I did not sufficiently excel to be employed by the ready-made linen shops, when so many women, better qualified, were suing for it. The want of a character prevented my getting a place; for, irksome as servitude would have been to me, I should[110] have made another trial, had it been feasible. Not that I disliked employment, but the inequality of condition to which I must have submitted. I had acquired a taste for literature, during the five years I had lived with a literary man, occasionally conversing with men of the first abilities of the age; and now to descend to the lowest vulgarity, was a degree of wretchedness not to be imagined unfelt. I had not, it is true, tasted the charms of affection, but I had been familiar with the graces of humanity.

"One of the gentlemen, whom I had frequently dined in company with, while I was treated like a companion, met me in the street, and enquired after my health. I seized the occasion, and began to describe my situation; but he was in haste to join, at dinner,[111] a select party of choice spirits; therefore, without waiting to hear me, he impatiently put a guinea into my hand, saying, 'It was a pity such a sensible woman should be in distress—he wished me well from his soul.'

"To another I wrote, stating my case, and requesting advice. He was an advocate for unequivocal sincerity; and had often, in my presence, descanted on the evils which arise in society from the despotism of rank and riches.

"In reply, I received a long essay on the energy of the human mind, with continual allusions to his own force of character. He added, 'That the woman who could write such a letter as I had sent him, could never be in want of resources, were she to look into herself, and exert her powers; misery was the consequence of indolence, and, as[112] to my being shut out from society, it was the lot of man to submit to certain privations.'

"How often have I heard," said Jemima, interrupting her narrative, "in conversation, and read in books, that every person willing to work may find employment? It is the vague assertion, I believe, of insensible indolence, when it relates to men; but, with respect to women, I am sure of its fallacy, unless they will submit to the most menial bodily labour; and even to be employed at hard labour is out of the reach of many, whose reputation misfortune or folly has tainted.

"How writers, professing to be friends to freedom, and the improvement of morals, can assert that poverty is no evil, I cannot imagine."

"No more can I," interrupted Ma[113]ria, "yet they even expatiate on the peculiar happiness of indigence, though in what it can consist, excepting in brutal rest, when a man can barely earn a subsistence, I cannot imagine. The mind is necessarily imprisoned in its own little tenement; and, fully occupied by keeping it in repair, has not time to rove abroad for improvement. The book of knowledge is closely clasped, against those who must fulfil their daily task of severe manual labour or die; and curiosity, rarely excited by thought or information, seldom moves on the stagnate lake of ignorance."

"As far as I have been able to observe," replied Jemima, "prejudices, caught up by chance, are obstinately maintained by the poor, to the exclusion of improvement; they have not time to reason or reflect to any extent,[114] or minds sufficiently exercised to adopt the principles of action, which form perhaps the only basis of contentment in every station[114-A]."

"And independence," said Darnford, "they are necessarily strangers to, even the independence of despising their persecutors. If the poor are happy, or can be happy, things are very well as they are. And I cannot conceive on what principle those writers contend for a change of system, who support this opinion. The authors on the other side of the question are much more consistent, who grant the fact; yet, insisting that it is the lot of the majority[115] to be oppressed in this life, kindly turn them over to another, to rectify the false weights and measures of this, as the only way to justify the dispensations of Providence. I have not," continued Darnford, "an opinion more firmly fixed by observation in my mind, than that, though riches may fail to produce proportionate happiness, poverty most commonly excludes it, by shutting up all the avenues to improvement."

"And as for the affections," added Maria, with a sigh, "how gross, and even tormenting do they become, unless regulated by an improving mind! The culture of the heart ever, I believe, keeps pace with that of the mind. But pray go on," addressing Jemima, "though your narrative gives rise to the most painful reflections on the present state of society."

[116] "Not to trouble you," continued she, "with a detailed description of all the painful feelings of unavailing exertion, I have only to tell you, that at last I got recommended to wash in a few families, who did me the favour to admit me into their houses, without the most strict enquiry, to wash from one in the morning till eight at night, for eighteen or twenty-pence a day. On the happiness to be enjoyed over a washing-tub I need not comment; yet you will allow me to observe, that this was a wretchedness of situation peculiar to my sex. A man with half my industry, and, I may say, abilities, could have procured a decent livelihood, and discharged some of the duties which knit mankind together; whilst I, who had acquired a taste for the rational, nay, in honest pride let me assert it, the[117] virtuous enjoyments of life, was cast aside as the filth of society. Condemned to labour, like a machine, only to earn bread, and scarcely that, I became melancholy and desperate.

"I have now to mention a circumstance which fills me with remorse, and fear it will entirely deprive me of your esteem. A tradesman became attached to me, and visited me frequently,—and I at last obtained such a power over him, that he offered to take me home to his house.—Consider, dear madam, I was famishing: wonder not that I became a wolf!—The only reason for not taking me home immediately, was the having a girl in the house, with child by him—and this girl—I advised him—yes, I did! would I could forget it!—to turn out of doors: and one night he determined to follow my advice, Poor[118] wretch! she fell upon her knees, reminded him that he had promised to marry her, that her parents were honest!—What did it avail?—She was turned out.

"She approached her father's door, in the skirts of London,—listened at the shutters,—but could not knock. A watchman had observed her go and return several times—Poor wretch!—" The remorse Jemima spoke of, seemed to be stinging her to the soul, as she proceeded."

"She left it, and, approaching a tub where horses were watered, she sat down in it, and, with desperate resolution, remained in that attitude—till resolution was no longer necessary!

"I happened that morning to be going out to wash, anticipating the moment when I should escape from[119] such hard labour. I passed by, just as some men, going to work, drew out the stiff, cold corpse—Let me not recal the horrid moment!—I recognized her pale visage; I listened to the tale told by the spectators, and my heart did not burst. I thought of my own state, and wondered how I could be such a monster!—I worked hard; and, returning home, I was attacked by a fever. I suffered both in body and mind. I determined not to live with the wretch. But he did not try me; he left the neighbourhood. I once more returned to the wash-tub.

"Still this state, miserable as it was, admitted of aggravation. Lifting one day a heavy load, a tub fell against my shin, and gave me great pain. I did not pay much attention to the hurt, till it became a serious wound; being[120] obliged to work as usual, or starve. But, finding myself at length unable to stand for any time, I thought of getting into an hospital. Hospitals, it should seem (for they are comfortless abodes for the sick) were expressly endowed for the reception of the friendless; yet I, who had on that plea a right to assistance, wanted the recommendation of the rich and respectable, and was several weeks languishing for admittance; fees were demanded on entering; and, what was still more unreasonable, security for burying me, that expence not coming into the letter of the charity. A guinea was the stipulated sum—I could as soon have raised a million; and I was afraid to apply to the parish for an order, lest they should have passed me, I knew not whither. The poor woman at whose house I lodged, compassionating my state, got me into[121] the hospital; and the family where I received the hurt, sent me five shillings, three and six-pence of which I gave at my admittance—I know not for what.

"My leg grew quickly better; but I was dismissed before my cure was completed, because I could not afford to have my linen washed to appear decently, as the virago of a nurse said, when the gentlemen (the surgeons) came. I cannot give you an adequate idea of the wretchedness of an hospital; every thing is left to the care of people intent on gain. The attendants seem to have lost all feeling of compassion in the bustling discharge of their offices; death is so familiar to them, that they are not anxious to ward it off. Every thing appeared to be conducted for the accommodation of the medical men and their pupils, who came to make[122] experiments on the poor, for the benefit of the rich. One of the physicians, I must not forget to mention, gave me half-a-crown, and ordered me some wine, when I was at the lowest ebb. I thought of making my case known to the lady-like matron; but her forbidding countenance prevented me. She condescended to look on the patients, and make general enquiries, two or three times a week; but the nurses knew the hour when the visit of ceremony would commence, and every thing was as it should be.

"After my dismission, I was more at a loss than ever for a subsistence, and, not to weary you with a repetition of the same unavailing attempts, unable to stand at the washing-tub, I began to consider the rich and poor as natural enemies, and became a thief from prin[123]ciple. I could not now cease to reason, but I hated mankind. I despised myself, yet I justified my conduct. I was taken, tried, and condemned to six months' imprisonment in a house of correction. My soul recoils with horror from the remembrance of the insults I had to endure, till, branded with shame, I was turned loose in the street, pennyless. I wandered from street to street, till, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, I sunk down senseless at a door, where I had vainly demanded a morsel of bread. I was sent by the inhabitant to the work-house, to which he had surlily bid me go, saying, he 'paid enough in conscience to the poor,' when, with parched tongue, I implored his charity. If those well-meaning people who exclaim against beggars, were acquainted with the treatment the poor receive in[124] many of these wretched asylums, they would not stifle so easily involuntary sympathy, by saying that they have all parishes to go to, or wonder that the poor dread to enter the gloomy walls. What are the common run of work-houses, but prisons, in which many respectable old people, worn out by immoderate labour, sink into the grave in sorrow, to which they are carried like dogs!"

Alarmed by some indistinct noise, Jemima rose hastily to listen, and Maria, turning to Darnford, said, "I have indeed been shocked beyond expression when I have met a pauper's funeral. A coffin carried on the shoulders of three or four ill-looking wretches, whom the imagination might easily convert into a band of assassins, hastening to conceal the corpse, and quarrelling about the[125] prey on their way. I know it is of little consequence how we are consigned to the earth; but I am led by this brutal insensibility, to what even the animal creation appears forcibly to feel, to advert to the wretched, deserted manner in which they died."

"True," rejoined Darnford, "and, till the rich will give more than a part of their wealth, till they will give time and attention to the wants of the distressed, never let them boast of charity. Let them open their hearts, and not their purses, and employ their minds in the service, if they are really actuated by humanity; or charitable institutions will always be the prey of the lowest order of knaves."

Jemima returning, seemed in haste to finish her tale. "The overseer farmed the poor of different parishes,[126] and out of the bowels of poverty was wrung the money with which he purchased this dwelling, as a private receptacle for madness. He had been a keeper at a house of the same description, and conceived that he could make money much more readily in his old occupation. He is a shrewd—shall I say it?—villain. He observed something resolute in my manner, and offered to take me with him, and instruct me how to treat the disturbed minds he meant to intrust to my care. The offer of forty pounds a year, and to quit a workhouse, was not to be despised, though the condition of shutting my eyes and hardening my heart was annexed to it.

"I agreed to accompany him; and four years have I been attendant on many wretches, and"—she lowered[127] her voice,—"the witness of many enormities. In solitude my mind seemed to recover its force, and many of the sentiments which I imbibed in the only tolerable period of my life, returned with their full force. Still what should induce me to be the champion for suffering humanity?—Who ever risked any thing for me?—Who ever acknowledged me to be a fellow-creature?"—

Maria took her hand, and Jemima, more overcome by kindness than she had ever been by cruelty, hastened out of the room to conceal her emotions.

Darnford soon after heard his summons, and, taking leave of him, Maria promised to gratify his curiosity, with respect to herself, the first opportunity.

[128]

CHAP. VI.

Active as love was in the heart of Maria, the story she had just heard made her thoughts take a wider range. The opening buds of hope closed, as if they had put forth too early, and the the happiest day of her life was overcast by the most melancholy reflections. Thinking of Jemima's peculiar fate and her own, she was led to consider the oppressed state of women, and to lament that she had given birth to a daughter. Sleep fled from her eyelids, while she dwelt on the wretchedness of unprotected infancy, till sympathy with Jemima changed to agony, when it seemed probable that her own[129] babe might even now be in the very state she so forcibly described.

Maria thought, and thought again. Jemima's humanity had rather been benumbed than killed, by the keen frost she had to brave at her entrance into life; an appeal then to her feelings, on this tender point, surely would not be fruitless; and Maria began to anticipate the delight it would afford her to gain intelligence of her child. This project was now the only subject of reflection; and she watched impatiently for the dawn of day, with that determinate purpose which generally insures success.

At the usual hour, Jemima brought her breakfast, and a tender note from Darnford. She ran her eye hastily over it, and her heart calmly hoarded up the rapture a fresh assurance of affec[130]tion, affection such as she wished to inspire, gave her, without diverting her mind a moment from its design. While Jemima waited to take away the breakfast, Maria alluded to the reflections, that had haunted her during the night to the exclusion of sleep. She spoke with energy of Jemima's unmerited sufferings, and of the fate of a number of deserted females, placed within the sweep of a whirlwind, from which it was next to impossible to escape. Perceiving the effect her conversation produced on the countenance of her guard, she grasped the arm of Jemima with that irresistible warmth which defies repulse, exclaiming—"With your heart, and such dreadful experience, can you lend your aid to deprive my babe of a mother's tenderness, a mother's care? In the name[131] of God, assist me to snatch her from destruction! Let me but give her an education—let me but prepare her body and mind to encounter the ills which await her sex, and I will teach her to consider you as her second mother, and herself as the prop of your age. Yes, Jemima, look at me—observe me closely, and read my very soul; you merit a better fate;" she held out her hand with a firm gesture of assurance; "and I will procure it for you, as a testimony of my esteem, as well as of my gratitude."

Jemima had not power to resist this persuasive torrent; and, owning that the house in which she was confined, was situated on the banks of the Thames, only a few miles from London, and not on the sea-coast, as Darnford had supposed, she promised to in[132]vent some excuse for her absence, and go herself to trace the situation, and enquire concerning the health, of this abandoned daughter. Her manner implied an intention to do something more, but she seemed unwilling to impart her design; and Maria, glad to have obtained the main point, thought it best to leave her to the workings of her own mind; convinced that she had the power of interesting her still more in favour of herself and child, by a simple recital of facts.

In the evening, Jemima informed the impatient mother, that on the morrow she should hasten to town before the family hour of rising, and received all the information necessary, as a clue to her search. The "Good night!" Maria uttered was peculiarly solemn and affectionate. Glad expectation spar[133]kled in her eye; and, for the first time since her detention, she pronounced the name of her child with pleasureable fondness; and, with all the garrulity of a nurse, described her first smile when she recognized her mother. Recollecting herself, a still kinder "Adieu!" with a "God bless you!"—that seemed to include a maternal benediction, dismissed Jemima.

The dreary solitude of the ensuing day, lengthened by impatiently dwelling on the same idea, was intolerably wearisome. She listened for the sound of a particular clock, which some directions of the wind allowed her to hear distinctly. She marked the shadow gaining on the wall; and, twilight thickening into darkness, her breath seemed oppressed while she anxiously[134] counted nine.—The last sound was a stroke of despair on her heart; for she expected every moment, without seeing Jemima, to have her light extinguished by the savage female who supplied her place. She was even obliged to prepare for bed, restless as she was, not to disoblige her new attendant. She had been cautioned not to speak too freely to her; but the caution was needless, her countenance would still more emphatically have made her shrink back. Such was the ferocity of manner, conspicuous in every word and gesture of this hag, that Maria was afraid to enquire, why Jemima, who had faithfully promised to see her before her door was shut for the night, came not?—and, when the key turned in the lock, to consign her to a night of suspence, she felt a degree of anguish[135] which the circumstances scarcely justified.

Continually on the watch, the shutting of a door, or the sound of a footstep, made her start and tremble with apprehension, something like what she felt, when, at her entrance, dragged along the gallery, she began to doubt whether she were not surrounded by demons?

Fatigued by an endless rotation of thought and wild alarms, she looked like a spectre, when Jemima entered in the morning; especially as her eyes darted out of her head, to read in Jemima's countenance, almost as pallid, the intelligence she dared not trust her tongue to demand. Jemima put down the tea-things, and appeared very busy in arranging the table. Maria took up a cup with trembling hand, then for[136]cibly recovering her fortitude, and restraining the convulsive movement which agitated the muscles of her mouth, she said, "Spare yourself the pain of preparing me for your information, I adjure you!—My child is dead!" Jemima solemnly answered, "Yes;" with a look expressive of compassion and angry emotions. "Leave me," added Maria, making a fresh effort to govern her feelings, and hiding her face in her handkerchief, to conceal her anguish—"It is enough—I know that my babe is no more—I will hear the particulars when I am"—calmer, she could not utter; and Jemima, without importuning her by idle attempts to console her, left the room.

Plunged in the deepest melancholy, she would not admit Darnford's visits; and such is the force of early associa[137]tions even on strong minds, that, for a while, she indulged the superstitious notion that she was justly punished by the death of her child, for having for an instant ceased to regret her loss. Two or three letters from Darnford, full of soothing, manly tenderness, only added poignancy to these accusing emotions; yet the passionate style in which he expressed, what he termed the first and fondest wish of his heart, "that his affection might make her some amends for the cruelty and injustice she had endured," inspired a sentiment of gratitude to heaven; and her eyes filled with delicious tears, when, at the conclusion of his letter, wishing to supply the place of her unworthy relations, whose want of principle he execrated, he assured her, calling her his dearest girl, "that it should henceforth be the business of his life to make her happy."

[138] He begged, in a note sent the following morning, to be permitted to see her, when his presence would be no intrusion on her grief; and so earnestly intreated to be allowed, according to promise, to beguile the tedious moments of absence, by dwelling on the events of her past life, that she sent him the memoirs which had been written for her daughter, promising Jemima the perusal as soon as he returned them.

[139]

CHAP. VII.

"Addressing these memoirs to you, my child, uncertain whether I shall ever have an opportunity of instructing you, many observations will probably flow from my heart, which only a mother—a mother schooled in misery, could make.

"The tenderness of a father who knew the world, might be great; but could it equal that of a mother—of a mother, labouring under a portion of the misery, which the constitution of society seems to have entailed on all her kind? It is, my child, my dearest daughter, only such a mother, who will dare to break through all restraint to provide for your happiness—who will voluntarily brave[140] censure herself, to ward off sorrow from your bosom. From my narrative, my dear girl, you may gather the instruction, the counsel, which is meant rather to exercise than influence your mind.—Death may snatch me from you, before you can weigh my advice, or enter into my reasoning: I would then, with fond anxiety, lead you very early in life to form your grand principle of action, to save you from the vain regret of having, through irresolution, let the spring-tide of existence pass away, unimproved, unenjoyed.—Gain experience—ah! gain it—while experience is worth having, and acquire sufficient fortitude to pursue your own happiness; it includes your utility, by a direct path. What is wisdom too often, but the owl of the goddess, who sits moping in a desolated heart; around me she[141] shrieks, but I would invite all the gay warblers of spring to nestle in your blooming bosom.—Had I not wasted years in deliberating, after I ceased to doubt, how I ought to have acted—I might now be useful and happy.—For my sake, warned by my example, always appear what you are, and you will not pass through existence without enjoying its genuine blessings, love and respect.

"Born in one of the most romantic parts of England, an enthusiastic fondness for the varying charms of nature is the first sentiment I recollect; or rather it was the first consciousness of pleasure that employed and formed my imagination.

"My father had been a captain of a man of war; but, disgusted with the service, on account of the pre[142]ferment of men whose chief merit was their family connections or borough interest, he retired into the country; and, not knowing what to do with himself—married. In his family, to regain his lost consequence, he determined to keep up the same passive obedience, as in the vessels in which he had commanded. His orders were not to be disputed; and the whole house was expected to fly, at the word of command, as if to man the shrouds, or mount aloft in an elemental strife, big with life or death. He was to be instantaneously obeyed, especially by my mother, whom he very benevolently married for love; but took care to remind her of the obligation, when she dared, in the slightest instance, to question his absolute authority. My eldest brother, it is true, as he grew up, was treated with more re[143]spect by my father; and became in due form the deputy-tyrant of the house. The representative of my father, a being privileged by nature—a boy, and the darling of my mother, he did not fail to act like an heir apparent. Such indeed was my mother's extravagant partiality, that, in comparison with her affection for him, she might be said not to love the rest of her children. Yet none of the children seemed to have so little affection for her. Extreme indulgence had rendered him so selfish, that he only thought of himself; and from tormenting insects and animals, he became the despot of his brothers, and still more of his sisters.

"It is perhaps difficult to give you an idea of the petty cares which obscured the morning of my life; continual restraint in the most trivial matters; un[144]conditional submission to orders, which, as a mere child, I soon discovered to be unreasonable, because inconsistent and contradictory. Thus are we destined to experience a mixture of bitterness, with the recollection of our most innocent enjoyments.

"The circumstances which, during my childhood, occurred to fashion my mind, were various; yet, as it would probably afford me more pleasure to revive the fading remembrance of new-born delight, than you, my child, could feel in the perusal, I will not entice you to stray with me into the verdant meadow, to search for the flowers that youthful hopes scatter in every path; though, as I write, I almost scent the fresh green of spring—of that spring which never returns!

"I had two sisters, and one brother,[145] younger than myself; my brother Robert was two years older, and might truly be termed the idol of his parents, and the torment of the rest of the family. Such indeed is the force of prejudice, that what was called spirit and wit in him, was cruelly repressed as forwardness in me.

"My mother had an indolence of character, which prevented her from paying much attention to our education. But the healthy breeze of a neighbouring heath, on which we bounded at pleasure, volatilized the humours that improper food might have generated. And to enjoy open air and freedom, was paradise, after the unnatural restraint of our fire-side, where we were often obliged to sit three or four hours together, without daring to utter a word, when my fa[146]ther was out of humour, from want of employment, or of a variety of boisterous amusement. I had however one advantage, an instructor, the brother of my father, who, intended for the church, had of course received a liberal education. But, becoming attached to a young lady of great beauty and large fortune, and acquiring in the world some opinions not consonant with the profession for which he was designed, he accepted, with the most sanguine expectations of success, the offer of a nobleman to accompany him to India, as his confidential secretary.

"A correspondence was regularly kept up with the object of his affection; and the intricacies of business, peculiarly wearisome to a man of a romantic turn of mind, contributed, with a forced absence, to increase his attachment.[147] Every other passion was lost in this master-one, and only served to swell the torrent. Her relations, such were his waking dreams, who had despised him, would court in their turn his alliance, and all the blandishments of taste would grace the triumph of love.—While he basked in the warm sunshine of love, friendship also promised to shed its dewy freshness; for a friend, whom he loved next to his mistress, was the confident, who forwarded the letters from one to the other, to elude the observation of prying relations. A friend false in similar circumstances, is, my dearest girl, an old tale; yet, let not this example, or the frigid caution of cold-blooded moralists, make you endeavour to stifle hopes, which are the buds that naturally unfold themselves during the spring of life! Whilst your own heart[148] is sincere, always expect to meet one glowing with the same sentiments; for to fly from pleasure, is not to avoid pain!

"My uncle realized, by good luck, rather than management, a handsome fortune; and returning on the wings of love, lost in the most enchanting reveries, to England, to share it with his mistress and his friend, he found them—united.

"There were some circumstances, not necessary for me to recite, which aggravated the guilt of the friend beyond measure, and the deception, that had been carried on to the last moment, was so base, it produced the most violent effect on my uncle's health and spirits. His native country, the world! lately a garden of blooming sweets, blasted by treachery, seemed changed into a parched desert,[149] the abode of hissing serpents. Disappointment rankled in his heart; and, brooding over his wrongs, he was attacked by a raging fever, followed by a derangement of mind, which only gave place to habitual melancholy, as he recovered more strength of body.

"Declaring an intention never to marry, his relations were ever clustering about him, paying the grossest adulation to a man, who, disgusted with mankind, received them with scorn, or bitter sarcasms. Something in my countenance pleased him, when I began to prattle. Since his return, he appeared dead to affection; but I soon, by showing him innocent fondness, became a favourite; and endeavouring to enlarge and strengthen my mind, I grew dear to him in proportion as I imbibed his sentiments. He had a forcible[150] manner of speaking, rendered more so by a certain impressive wildness of look and gesture, calculated to engage the attention of a young and ardent mind. It is not then surprising that I quickly adopted his opinions in preference, and reverenced him as one of a superior order of beings. He inculcated, with great warmth, self-respect, and a lofty consciousness of acting right, independent of the censure or applause of the world; nay, he almost taught me to brave, and even despise its censure, when convinced of the rectitude of my own intentions.

"Endeavouring to prove to me that nothing which deserved the name of love or friendship, existed in the world, he drew such animated pictures of his own feelings, rendered permanent by disappointment, as imprinted the sen[151]timents strongly on my heart, and animated my imagination. These remarks are necessary to elucidate some peculiarities in my character, which by the world are indefinitely termed romantic.

"My uncle's increasing affection led him to visit me often. Still, unable to rest in any place, he did not remain long in the country to soften domestic tyranny; but he brought me books, for which I had a passion, and they conspired with his conversation, to make me form an ideal picture of life. I shall pass over the tyranny of my father, much as I suffered from it; but it is necessary to notice, that it undermined my mother's health; and that her temper, continually irritated by domestic bickering, became intolerably peevish.

[152] "My eldest brother was articled to a neighbouring attorney, the shrewdest, and, I may add, the most unprincipled man in that part of the country. As my brother generally came home every Saturday, to astonish my mother by exhibiting his attainments, he gradually assumed a right of directing the whole family, not excepting my father. He seemed to take a peculiar pleasure in tormenting and humbling me; and if I ever ventured to complain of this treatment to either my father or mother, I was rudely rebuffed for presuming to judge of the conduct of my eldest brother.

"About this period a merchant's family came to settle in our neighbourhood. A mansion-house in the village, lately purchased, had been preparing the whole spring, and the sight of the[153] costly furniture, sent from London, had excited my mother's envy, and roused my father's pride. My sensations were very different, and all of a pleasurable kind. I longed to see new characters, to break the tedious monotony of my life; and to find a friend, such as fancy had pourtrayed. I cannot then describe the emotion I felt, the Sunday they made their appearance at church. My eyes were rivetted on the pillar round which I expected first to catch a glimpse of them, and darted forth to meet a servant who hastily preceded a group of ladies, whose white robes and waving plumes, seemed to stream along the gloomy aisle, diffusing the light, by which I contemplated their figures.

"We visited them in form; and I quickly selected the eldest daughter for my friend. The second son, George,[154] paid me particular attention, and finding his attainments and manners superior to those of the young men of the village, I began to imagine him superior to the rest of mankind. Had my home been more comfortable, or my previous acquaintance more numerous, I should not probably have been so eager to open my heart to new affections.

"Mr. Venables, the merchant, had acquired a large fortune by unremitting attention to business; but his health declining rapidly, he was obliged to retire, before his son, George, had acquired sufficient experience, to enable him to conduct their affairs on the same prudential plan, his father had invariably pursued. Indeed, he had laboured to throw off his authority, having despised his narrow plans and cautious speculation. The eldest son[155] could not be prevailed on to enter the firm; and, to oblige his wife, and have peace in the house, Mr. Venables had purchased a commission for him in the guards.

"I am now alluding to circumstances which came to my knowledge long after; but it is necessary, my dearest child, that you should know the character of your father, to prevent your despising your mother; the only parent inclined to discharge a parent's duty. In London, George had acquired habits of libertinism, which he carefully concealed from his father and his commercial connections. The mask he wore, was so complete a covering of his real visage, that the praise his father lavished on his conduct, and, poor mistaken man! on his principles, contrasted with his brother's, rendered the[156] notice he took of me peculiarly flattering. Without any fixed design, as I am now convinced, he continued to single me out at the dance, press my hand at parting, and utter expressions of unmeaning passion, to which I gave a meaning naturally suggested by the romantic turn of my thoughts. His stay in the country was short; his manners did not entirely please me; but, when he left us, the colouring of my picture became more vivid—Whither did not my imagination lead me? In short, I fancied myself in love—in love with the disinterestedness, fortitude, generosity, dignity, and humanity, with which I had invested the hero I dubbed. A circumstance which soon after occurred, rendered all these virtues palpable. [The incident is perhaps worth relating on other accounts, and[157] therefore I shall describe it distinctly.]

"I had a great affection for my nurse, old Mary, for whom I used often to work, to spare her eyes. Mary had a younger sister, married to a sailor, while she was suckling me; for my mother only suckled my eldest brother, which might be the cause of her extraordinary partiality. Peggy, Mary's sister, lived with her, till her husband, becoming a mate in a West-India trader, got a little before-hand in the world. He wrote to his wife from the first port in the Channel, after his most successful voyage, to request her to come to London to meet him; he even wished her to determine on living there for the future, to save him the trouble of coming to her the moment he came on shore; and to turn a penny by keeping[158] a green-stall. It was too much to set out on a journey the moment he had finished a voyage, and fifty miles by land, was worse than a thousand leagues by sea.

"She packed up her alls, and came to London—but did not meet honest Daniel. A common misfortune prevented her, and the poor are bound to suffer for the good of their country—he was pressed in the river—and never came on shore.

"Peggy was miserable in London, not knowing, as she said, 'the face of any living soul.' Besides, her imagination had been employed, anticipating a month or six weeks' happiness with her husband. Daniel was to have gone with her to Sadler's Wells, and Westminster Abbey, and to many sights, which he knew she never heard of in the country. Peggy too was thrifty,[159] and how could she manage to put his plan in execution alone? He had acquaintance; but she did not know the very name of their places of abode. His letters were made up of—How do you does, and God bless yous,—information was reserved for the hour of meeting.

"She too had her portion of information, near at heart. Molly and Jacky were grown such little darlings, she was almost angry that daddy did not see their tricks. She had not half the pleasure she should have had from their prattle, could she have recounted to him each night the pretty speeches of the day. Some stories, however, were stored up—and Jacky could say papa with such a sweet voice, it must delight his heart. Yet when she came, and found no Daniel to greet her, when[160] Jacky called papa, she wept, bidding 'God bless his innocent soul, that did not know what sorrow was.'—But more sorrow was in store for Peggy, innocent as she was.—Daniel was killed in the first engagement, and then the papa was agony, sounding to the heart.

"She had lived sparingly on his wages, while there was any hope of his return; but, that gone, she returned with a breaking heart to the country, to a little market town, nearly three miles from our village. She did not like to go to service, to be snubbed about, after being her own mistress. To put her children out to nurse was impossible: how far would her wages go? and to send them to her husband's parish, a distant one, was to lose her husband twice over.

[161] "I had heard all from Mary, and made my uncle furnish a little cottage for her, to enable her to sell—so sacred was poor Daniel's advice, now he was dead and gone—a little fruit, toys and cakes. The minding of the shop did not require her whole time, nor even the keeping her children clean, and she loved to see them clean; so she took in washing, and altogether made a shift to earn bread for her children, still weeping for Daniel, when Jacky's arch looks made her think of his father.—It was pleasant to work for her children.—'Yes; from morning till night, could she have had a kiss from their father, God rest his soul! Yes; had it pleased Providence to have let him come back without a leg or an arm, it would have been the same thing to her—for she did not love him because he[162] maintained them—no; she had hands of her own.'

"The country people were honest, and Peggy left her linen out to dry very late. A recruiting party, as she supposed, passing through, made free with a large wash; for it was all swept away, including her own and her children's little stock.

"This was a dreadful blow; two dozen of shirts, stocks and handkerchiefs. She gave the money which she had laid by for half a year's rent, and promised to pay two shillings a week till all was cleared; so she did not lose her employment. This two shillings a week, and the buying a few necessaries for the children, drove her so hard, that she had not a penny to pay her rent with, when a twelvemonth's became due.

[163] "She was now with Mary, and had just told her tale, which Mary instantly repeated—it was intended for my ear. Many houses in this town, producing a borough-interest, were included in the estate purchased by Mr. Venables, and the attorney with whom my brother lived, was appointed his agent, to collect and raise the rents.

"He demanded Peggy's, and, in spite of her intreaties, her poor goods had been seized and sold. So that she had not, and what was worse her children, 'for she had known sorrow enough,' a bed to lie on. She knew that I was good-natured—right charitable, yet not liking to ask for more than needs must, she scorned to petition while people could any how be made to wait. But now, should she be turned out of doors, she must ex[164]pect nothing less than to lose all her customers, and then she must beg or starve—and what would become of her children?—'had Daniel not been pressed—but God knows best—all this could not have happened.'

"I had two mattrasses on my bed; what did I want with two, when such a worthy creature must lie on the ground? My mother would be angry, but I could conceal it till my uncle came down; and then I would tell him all the whole truth, and if he absolved me, heaven would.

"I begged the house-maid to come up stairs with me (servants always feel for the distresses of poverty, and so would the rich if they knew what it was). She assisted me to tie up the mattrass; I discovering, at the same time, that one blanket would serve me[165] till winter, could I persuade my sister, who slept with me, to keep my secret. She entering in the midst of the package, I gave her some new feathers, to silence her. We got the mattrass down the back stairs, unperceived, and I helped to carry it, taking with me all the money I had, and what I could borrow from my sister.

"When I got to the cottage, Peggy declared that she would not take what I had brought secretly; but, when, with all the eager eloquence inspired by a decided purpose, I grasped her hand with weeping eyes, assuring her that my uncle would screen me from blame, when he was once more in the country, describing, at the same time, what she would suffer in parting with her children, after keeping them so long from being thrown on the parish, she reluctantly consented.

[166] "My project of usefulness ended not here; I determined to speak to the attorney; he frequently paid me compliments. His character did not intimidate me; but, imagining that Peggy must be mistaken, and that no man could turn a deaf ear to such a tale of complicated distress, I determined to walk to the town with Mary the next morning, and request him to wait for the rent, and keep my secret, till my uncle's return.

"My repose was sweet; and, waking with the first dawn of day, I bounded to Mary's cottage. What charms do not a light heart spread over nature! Every bird that twittered in a bush, every flower that enlivened the hedge, seemed placed there to awaken me to rapture—yes; to rapture. The present moment was full fraught with happi[167]ness; and on futurity I bestowed not a thought, excepting to anticipate my success with the attorney.

"This man of the world, with rosy face and simpering features, received me politely, nay kindly; listened with complacency to my remonstrances, though he scarcely heeded Mary's tears. I did not then suspect, that my eloquence was in my complexion, the blush of seventeen, or that, in a world where humanity to women is the characteristic of advancing civilization, the beauty of a young girl was so much more interesting than the distress of an old one. Pressing my hand, he promised to let Peggy remain in the house as long as I wished.—I more than returned the pressure—I was so grateful and so happy. Emboldened by my innocent warmth, he then kissed me[168]—and I did not draw back—I took it for a kiss of charity.

"Gay as a lark, I went to dine at Mr. Venables'. I had previously obtained five shillings from my father, towards re-clothing the poor children of my care, and prevailed on my mother to take one of the girls into the house, whom I determined to teach to work and read.

"After dinner, when the younger part of the circle retired to the music room, I recounted with energy my tale; that is, I mentioned Peggy's distress, without hinting at the steps I had taken to relieve her. Miss Venables gave me half-a-crown; the heir five shillings; but George sat unmoved. I was cruelly distressed by the disappointment—I scarcely could remain on my chair; and, could I have got out of the room unperceived, I should have flown home, as if to run away from myself. After[169] several vain attempts to rise, I leaned my head against the marble chimney-piece, and gazing on the evergreens that filled the fire-place, moralized on the vanity of human expectations; regardless of the company. I was roused by a gentle tap on my shoulder from behind Charlotte's chair. I turned my head, and George slid a guinea into my hand, putting his finger to his mouth, to enjoin me silence.

"What a revolution took place, not only in my train of thoughts, but feelings! I trembled with emotion—now, indeed, I was in love. Such delicacy too, to enhance his benevolence! I felt in my pocket every five minutes, only to feel the guinea; and its magic touch invested my hero with more than mortal beauty. My fancy had found a basis to erect its model of perfection on;[170] and quickly went to work, with all the happy credulity of youth, to consider that heart as devoted to virtue, which had only obeyed a virtuous impulse. The bitter experience was yet to come, that has taught me how very distinct are the principles of virtue, from the casual feelings from which they germinate.

[171]

CHAP. VIII.

"I have perhaps dwelt too long on a circumstance, which is only of importance as it marks the progress of a deception that has been so fatal to my peace; and introduces to your notice a poor girl, whom, intending to serve, I led to ruin. Still it is probable that I was not entirely the victim of mistake; and that your father, gradually fashioned by the world, did not quickly become what I hesitate to call him—out of respect to my daughter.

"But, to hasten to the more busy scenes of my life. Mr. Venables and my mother died the same summer; and, wholly engrossed by my attention to her, I thought of little else. The neglect of her darling, my brother Robert, had a violent effect on[172] her weakened mind; for, though boys may be reckoned the pillars of the house without doors, girls are often the only comfort within. They but too frequently waste their health and spirits attending a dying parent, who leaves them in comparative poverty. After closing, with filial piety, a father's eyes, they are chased from the paternal roof, to make room for the first-born, the son, who is to carry the empty family-name down to posterity; though, occupied with his own pleasures, he scarcely thought of discharging, in the decline of his parent's life, the debt contracted in his childhood. My mother's conduct led me to make these reflections. Great as was the fatigue I endured, and the affection my unceasing solicitude evinced, of which my mother seemed perfectly sensible, still, when my brother, whom I could[173] hardly persuade to remain a quarter of an hour in her chamber, was with her alone, a short time before her death, she gave him a little hoard, which she had been some years accumulating.

"During my mother's illness, I was obliged to manage my father's temper, who, from the lingering nature of her malady, began to imagine that it was merely fancy. At this period, an artful kind of upper servant attracted my father's attention, and the neighbours made many remarks on the finery, not honestly got, exhibited at evening service. But I was too much occupied with my mother to observe any change in her dress or behaviour, or to listen to the whisper of scandal.

"I shall not dwell on the death-bed scene, lively as is the remembrance, or on the emotion produced by the last[174] grasp of my mother's cold hand; when blessing me, she added, 'A little patience, and all will be over!' Ah! my child, how often have those words rung mournfully in my ears—and I have exclaimed—'A little more patience, and I too shall be at rest!'

"My father was violently affected by her death, recollected instances of his unkindness, and wept like a child.

"My mother had solemnly recommended my sisters to my care, and bid me be a mother to them. They, indeed, became more dear to me as they became more forlorn; for, during my mother's illness, I discovered the ruined state of my father's circumstances, and that he had only been able to keep up appearances, by the sums which he borrowed of my uncle.

"My father's grief, and consequent[175] tenderness to his children, quickly abated, the house grew still more gloomy or riotous; and my refuge from care was again at Mr. Venables'; the young 'squire having taken his father's place, and allowing, for the present, his sister to preside at his table. George, though dissatisfied with his portion of the fortune, which had till lately been all in trade, visited the family as usual. He was now full of speculations in trade, and his brow became clouded by care. He seemed to relax in his attention to me, when the presence of my uncle gave a new turn to his behaviour. I was too unsuspecting, too disinterested, to trace these changes to their source.

My home every day became more and more disagreeable to me; my liberty was unnecessarily abridged, and[176] my books, on the pretext that they made me idle, taken from me. My father's mistress was with child, and he, doating on her, allowed or overlooked her vulgar manner of tyrannizing over us. I was indignant, especially when I saw her endeavouring to attract, shall I say seduce? my younger brother. By allowing women but one way of rising in the world, the fostering the libertinism of men, society makes monsters of them, and then their ignoble vices are brought forward as a proof of inferiority of intellect.

The wearisomeness of my situation can scarcely be described. Though my life had not passed in the most even tenour with my mother, it was paradise to that I was destined to endure with my father's mistress, jealous of her illegitimate authority. My father's former[177] occasional tenderness, in spite of his violence of temper, had been soothing to me; but now he only met me with reproofs or portentous frowns. The house-keeper, as she was now termed, was the vulgar despot of the family; and assuming the new character of a fine lady, she could never forgive the contempt which was sometimes visible in my countenance, when she uttered with pomposity her bad English, or affected to be well bred.

To my uncle I ventured to open my heart; and he, with his wonted benevolence, began to consider in what manner he could extricate me out of my present irksome situation. In spite of his own disappointment, or, most probably, actuated by the feelings that had been petrified, not cooled, in all their sanguine fervour, like a boiling torrent of lava suddenly dashing into[178] the sea, he thought a marriage of mutual inclination (would envious stars permit it) the only chance for happiness in this disastrous world. George Venables had the reputation of being attentive to business, and my father's example gave great weight to this circumstance; for habits of order in business would, he conceived, extend to the regulation of the affections in domestic life. George seldom spoke in my uncle's company, except to utter a short, judicious question, or to make a pertinent remark, with all due deference to his superior judgment; so that my uncle seldom left his company without observing, that the young man had more in him than people supposed.

In this opinion he was not singular; yet, believe me, and I am not swayed by resentment, these speeches so justly[179] poized, this silent deference, when the animal spirits of other young people were throwing off youthful ebullitions, were not the effect of thought or humility, but sheer barrenness of mind, and want of imagination. A colt of mettle will curvet and shew his paces. Yes; my dear girl, these prudent young men want all the fire necessary to ferment their faculties, and are characterized as wise, only because they are not foolish. It is true, that George was by no means so great a favourite of mine as during the first year of our acquaintance; still, as he often coincided in opinion with me, and echoed my sentiments; and having myself no other attachment, I heard with pleasure my uncle's proposal; but thought more of obtaining my freedom, than of my lover. But, when George, seem[180]ingly anxious for my happiness, pressed me to quit my present painful situation, my heart swelled with gratitude—I knew not that my uncle had promised him five thousand pounds.

Had this truly generous man mentioned his intention to me, I should have insisted on a thousand pounds being settled on each of my sisters; George would have contested; I should have seen his selfish soul; and—gracious God! have been spared the misery of discovering, when too late, that I was united to a heartless, unprincipled wretch. All my schemes of usefulness would not then have been blasted. The tenderness of my heart would not have heated my imagination with visions of the ineffable delight of happy love; nor would the sweet duty of a mother have been so cruelly interrupted.

[181] But I must not suffer the fortitude I have so hardly acquired, to be undermined by unavailing regret. Let me hasten forward to describe the turbid stream in which I had to wade—but let me exultingly declare that it is passed—my soul holds fellowship with him no more. He cut the Gordian knot, which my principles, mistaken ones, respected; he dissolved the tie, the fetters rather, that ate into my very vitals—and I should rejoice, conscious that my mind is freed, though confined in hell itself; the only place that even fancy can imagine more dreadful than my present abode.

These varying emotions will not allow me to proceed. I heave sigh after sigh; yet my heart is still oppressed. For what am I reserved? Why was I not born a man, or why was I born at all?

END OF VOL. I.

[i]

POSTHUMOUS WORKS

OF

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.

VOL. I.

[ii]

[iii]

POSTHUMOUS WORKS

OF THE

AUTHOR

OF A

VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, NO. 72, ST. PAUL'S
CHURCH-YARD; AND G. G. AND J. ROBINSON,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1798.

[iv]

[v]

THE

WRONGS OF WOMAN:

OR,

MARIA.

A FRAGMENT.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

[vi]

[vii]

PREFACE.

The public are here preſented with the laſt literary attempt of an author, whoſe fame has been uncommonly extenſive, and whoſe talents have probably been moſt admired, by the perſons by whom talents are eſtimated with the greateſt accuracy and diſcrimination. There are few, to whom her writings could in any caſe have[viii] given pleaſure, that would have wiſhed that this fragment ſhould have been ſuppreſſed, becauſe it is a fragment. There is a ſentiment, very dear to minds of taſte and imagination, that finds a melancholy delight in contemplating theſe unfiniſhed productions of genius, theſe ſketches of what, if they had been filled up in a manner adequate to the writer's conception, would perhaps have given a new impulſe to the manners of a world.

The purpoſe and ſtructure of the following work, had long formed a favourite ſubject of meditation with its author, and ſhe judged them capable of producing an important effect.[ix] The compoſition had been in progreſs for a period of twelve months. She was anxious to do juſtice to her conception, and recommenced and reviſed the manuſcript ſeveral different times. So much of it as is here given to the public, ſhe was far from conſidering as finiſhed, and, in a letter to a friend directly written on this ſubject, ſhe ſays, "I am perfectly aware that ſome of the incidents ought to be tranſpoſed, and heightened by more harmonious ſhading; and I wiſhed in ſome degree to avail myſelf of criticiſm, before I began to adjuſt my events into a ſtory, the outline of which I had ſketched in[x] my mind[x-A]." The only friends to whom the author communicated her manuſcript, were Mr. Dyſon, the tranſlator of the Sorcerer, and the preſent editor; and it was impoſſible for the moſt inexperienced author to diſplay a ſtronger deſire of profiting by the cenſures and ſentiments that might be ſuggeſted[x-B].

In reviſing theſe ſheets for the preſs, it was neceſſary for the editor, in ſome places, to connect the more finiſhed[xi] parts with the pages of an older copy, and a line or two in addition ſometimes appeared requiſite for that purpoſe. Wherever ſuch a liberty has been taken, the additional phraſes will be found incloſed in brackets; it being the editor's moſt earneſt deſire, to intrude nothing of himſelf into the work, but to give to the public the words, as well as ideas, of the real author.

What follows in the enſuing pages, is not a preface regularly drawn out by the author, but merely hints for a preface, which, though never filled up in the manner the writer intended, appeared to be worth preſerving.

W. GODWIN.

[xii]

[xiii]

AUTHOR's PREFACE.

The Wrongs of Woman, like the wrongs of the oppreſſed part of mankind, may be deemed neceſſary by their oppreſſors: but ſurely there are a few, who will dare to advance before the improvement of the age, and grant that my ſketches are not the abortion of a diſtempered fancy, or the ſtrong delineations of a wounded heart.

[xiv]In writing this novel, I have rather endeavoured to pourtray paſſions than manners.

In many inſtances I could have made the incidents more dramatic, would I have ſacrificed my main object, the deſire of exhibiting the miſery and oppreſſion, peculiar to women, that ariſe out of the partial laws and cuſtoms of ſociety.

In the invention of the ſtory, this view reſtrained my fancy; and the hiſtory ought rather to be conſidered, as of woman, than of an individual.

The ſentiments I have embodied.

In many works of this ſpecies, the hero is allowed to be mortal, and to[xv] become wiſe and virtuous as well as happy, by a train of events and circumſtances. The heroines, on the contrary, are to be born immaculate; and to act like goddeſſes of wiſdom, juſt come forth highly finiſhed Minervas from the head of Jove.

[The following is an extract of a letter from the author to a friend, to whom ſhe communicated her manuſcript.]

For my part, I cannot ſuppoſe any ſituation more diſtreſſing, than for a[xvi] woman of ſenſibility, with an improving mind, to be bound to ſuch a man as I have deſcribed for life; obliged to renounce all the humanizing affections, and to avoid cultivating her taſte, leſt her perception of grace and refinement of ſentiment, ſhould ſharpen to agony the pangs of diſappointment. Love, in which the imagination mingles its bewitching colouring, muſt be foſtered by delicacy. I ſhould deſpiſe, or rather call her an ordinary woman, who could endure ſuch a huſband as I have ſketched.

Theſe appear to me (matrimonial deſpotiſm of heart and conduct) to be the peculiar Wrongs of Woman, be[xvii]cauſe they degrade the mind. What are termed great miſfortunes, may more forcibly impreſs the mind of common readers; they have more of what may juſtly be termed ſtage-effect; but it is the delineation of finer ſenſations, which, in my opinion, conſtitutes the merit of our beſt novels. This is what I have in view; and to ſhow the wrongs of different claſſes of women, equally oppreſſive, though, from the difference of education, neceſſarily various.

[xviii]

ERRATA.

[xix]

CONTENTS.

VOL. I. and II.

The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria; a Fragment: to which is added, the Firſt Book of a Series of Leſſons for Children.

VOL. III. and IV.

Letters and Miſcellaneous Pieces.

[xx]

[1]

WRONGS

OF

WOMAN.

CHAP. I.

Abodes of horror have frequently been deſcribed, and caſtles, filled with ſpectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic ſpell of genius to harrow the ſoul, and abſorb the wondering mind. But, formed of ſuch ſtuff as dreams are made of, what were they to the manſion of deſpair, in one corner of which Maria ſat, endeavouring to recal her ſcattered thoughts!

Surpriſe, aſtoniſhment, that bordered on diſtraction, ſeemed to have ſuſpend[2]ed her faculties, till, waking by degrees to a keen ſenſe of anguiſh, a whirlwind of rage and indignation rouſed her torpid pulſe. One recollection with frightful velocity following another, threatened to fire her brain, and make her a fit companion for the terrific inhabitants, whoſe groans and ſhrieks were no unſubſtantial ſounds of whiſtling winds, or ſtartled birds, modulated by a romantic fancy, which amuſe while they affright; but ſuch tones of miſery as carry a dreadful certainty directly to the heart. What effect muſt they then have produced on one, true to the touch of ſympathy, and tortured by maternal apprehenſion!

Her infant's image was continually floating on Maria's ſight, and the firſt ſmile of intelligence remembered, as none but a mother, an unhappy mo[3]ther, can conceive. She heard her half ſpeaking cooing, and felt the little twinkling fingers on her burning boſom—a boſom burſting with the nutriment for which this cheriſhed child might now be pining in vain. From a ſtranger ſhe could indeed receive the maternal aliment, Maria was grieved at the thought—but who would watch her with a mother's tenderneſs, a mother's ſelf-denial?

The retreating ſhadows of former ſorrows ruſhed back in a gloomy train, and ſeemed to be pictured on the walls of her priſon, magnified by the ſtate of mind in which they were viewed—Still ſhe mourned for her child, lamented ſhe was a daughter, and anticipated the aggravated ills of life that her ſex rendered almoſt inevitable, even while dreading ſhe was no more. To think[4] that ſhe was blotted out of exiſtence was agony, when the imagination had been long employed to expand her faculties; yet to ſuppoſe her turned adrift on an unknown ſea, was ſcarcely leſs afflicting.

After being two days the prey of impetuous, varying emotions, Maria began to reflect more calmly on her preſent ſituation, for ſhe had actually been rendered incapable of ſober reflection, by the diſcovery of the act of atrocity of which ſhe was the victim. She could not have imagined, that, in all the fermentation of civilized depravity, a ſimilar plot could have entered a human mind. She had been ſtunned by an unexpected blow; yet life, however joyleſs, was not to be indolently reſigned, or miſery endured without exertion, and proudly termed patience. She[5] had hitherto meditated only to point the dart of anguiſh, and ſuppreſſed the heart heavings of indignant nature merely by the force of contempt. Now ſhe endeavoured to brace her mind to fortitude, and to aſk herſelf what was to be her employment in her dreary cell? Was it not to effect her eſcape, to fly to the ſuccour of her child, and to baffle the ſelfiſh ſchemes of her tyrant—her huſband?

Theſe thoughts rouſed her ſleeping ſpirit, and the ſelf-poſſeſſion returned, that ſeemed to have abandoned her in the infernal ſolitude into which ſhe had been precipitated. The firſt emotions of overwhelming impatience began to ſubſide, and reſentment gave place to tenderneſs, and more tranquil meditation; though anger once more ſtopt the calm current of reflection,[6] when ſhe attempted to move her manacled arms. But this was an outrage that could only excite momentary feelings of ſcorn, which evaporated in a faint ſmile; for Maria was far from thinking a perſonal inſult the moſt difficult to endure with magnanimous indifference.

She approached the ſmall grated window of her chamber, and for a conſiderable time only regarded the blue expanſe; though it commanded a view of a deſolate garden, and of part of a huge pile of buildings, that, after having been ſuffered, for half a century, to fall to decay, had undergone ſome clumſy repairs, merely to render it habitable. The ivy had been torn off the turrets, and the ſtones not wanted to patch up the breaches of time, and exclude the warring ele[7]ments, left in heaps in the diſordered court. Maria contemplated this ſcene ſhe knew not how long; or rather gazed on the walls, and pondered on her ſituation. To the maſter of this moſt horrid of priſons, ſhe had, ſoon after her entrance, raved of injuſtice, in accents that would have juſtified his treatment, had not a malignant ſmile, when ſhe appealed to his judgment, with a dreadful conviction ſtifled her remonſtrating complaints. By force, or openly, what could be done? But ſurely ſome expedient might occur to an active mind, without any other employment, and poſſeſſed of ſufficient reſolution to put the riſk of life into the balance with the chance of freedom.

A woman entered in the midſt of theſe reflections, with a firm, deliberate[8] ſtep, ſtrongly marked features, and large black eyes, which ſhe fixed ſteadily on Maria's, as if ſhe deſigned to intimidate her, ſaying at the ſame time—"You had better ſit down and eat your dinner, than look at the clouds."

"I have no appetite," replied Maria, who had previouſly determined to ſpeak mildly, "why then ſhould I eat?"

"But, in ſpite of that, you muſt and ſhall eat ſomething. I have had many ladies under my care, who have reſolved to ſtarve themſelves; but, ſoon or late, they gave up their intent, as they recovered their ſenſes."

"Do you really think me mad?" aſked Maria, meeting the ſearching glance of her eye.

"Not juſt now. But what does[9] that prove?—only that you muſt be the more carefully watched, for appearing at times ſo reaſonable. You have not touched a morſel ſince you entered the houſe."—Maria ſighed intelligibly.—"Could any thing but madneſs produce ſuch a diſguſt for food?"

"Yes, grief; you would not aſk the queſtion if you knew what it was." The attendant ſhook her head; and a ghaſtly ſmile of deſperate fortitude ſerved as a forcible reply, and made Maria pauſe, before ſhe added—"Yet I will take ſome refreſhment: I mean not to die.—No; I will preſerve my ſenſes; and convince even you, ſooner than you are aware of, that my intellects have never been diſturbed, though the exertion of them may have been ſuſpended by ſome infernal drug."

[10] Doubt gathered ſtill thicker on the brow of her guard, as ſhe attempted to convict her of miſtake.

"Have patience!" exclaimed Maria, with a ſolemnity that inſpired awe. "My God! how have I been ſchooled into the practice!" A ſuffocation of voice betrayed the agonizing emotions ſhe was labouring to keep down; and conquering a qualm of diſguſt, ſhe calmly endeavoured to eat enough to prove her docility, perpetually turning to the ſuſpicious female, whoſe obſervation ſhe courted, while ſhe was making the bed and adjuſting the room.

"Come to me often," ſaid Maria, with a tone of perſuaſion, in conſequence of a vague plan that ſhe had haſtily adopted, when, after ſurveying this woman's form and features, ſhe[11] felt convinced that ſhe had an underſtanding above the common ſtandard; "and believe me mad, till you are obliged to acknowledge the contrary." The woman was no fool, that is, ſhe was ſuperior to her claſs; nor had miſery quite petrified the life's-blood of humanity, to which reflections on our own miſfortunes only give a more orderly courſe. The manner, rather than the expoſtulations, of Maria made a ſlight ſuſpicion dart into her mind with correſponding ſympathy, which various other avocations, and the habit of baniſhing compunction, prevented her, for the preſent, from examining more minutely.

But when ſhe was told that no perſon, excepting the phyſician appointed by her family, was to be permitted to ſee the lady at the end of the gallery, ſhe[12] opened her keen eyes ſtill wider, and uttered a—"hem!" before ſhe enquired—"Why?" She was briefly told, in reply, that the malady was hereditary, and the fits not occurring but at very long and irregular intervals, ſhe muſt be carefully watched; for the length of theſe lucid periods only rendered her more miſchievous, when any vexation or caprice brought on the paroxyſm of phrenſy.

Had her maſter truſted her, it is probable that neither pity nor curioſity would have made her ſwerve from the ſtraight line of her intereſt; for ſhe had ſuffered too much in her intercourſe with mankind, not to determine to look for ſupport, rather to humouring their paſſions, than courting their approbation by the integrity of her conduct. A deadly blight had met[13] her at the very threſhold of exiſtence; and the wretchedneſs of her mother ſeemed a heavy weight faſtened on her innocent neck, to drag her down to perdition. She could not heroically determine to ſuccour an unfortunate; but, offended at the bare ſuppoſition that ſhe could be deceived with the ſame eaſe as a common ſervant, ſhe no longer curbed her curioſity; and, though ſhe never ſeriouſly fathomed her own intentions, ſhe would ſit, every moment ſhe could ſteal from obſervation, liſtening to the tale, which Maria was eager to relate with all the perſuaſive eloquence of grief.

It is ſo cheering to ſee a human face, even if little of the divinity of virtue beam in it, that Maria anxiouſly expected the return of the attendant, as of a gleam of light to break the[14] gloom of idleneſs. Indulged ſorrow; ſhe perceived, muſt blunt or ſharpen the faculties to the two oppoſite extremes; producing ſtupidity, the moping melancholy of indolence; or the reſtleſs activity of a diſturbed imagination. She ſunk into one ſtate, after being fatigued by the other: till the want of occupation became even more painful than the actual preſſure or apprehenſion of ſorrow; and the confinement that froze her into a nook of exiſtence, with an unvaried proſpect before her, the moſt inſupportable of evils. The lamp of life ſeemed to be ſpending itſelf to chaſe the vapours of a dungeon which no art could diſſipate.—And to what purpoſe did ſhe rally all her energy?—Was not the world a vaſt priſon, and women born ſlaves?

[15] Though ſhe failed immediately to rouſe a lively ſenſe of injuſtice in the mind of her guard, becauſe it had been ſophiſticated into miſanthropy, ſhe touched her heart. Jemima (ſhe had only a claim to a Chriſtian name, which had not procured her any Chriſtian privileges) could patiently hear of Maria's confinement on falſe pretences; ſhe had felt the cruſhing hand of power, hardened by the exerciſe of injuſtice, and ceaſed to wonder at the perverſions of the underſtanding, which ſyſtematize oppreſſion; but, when told that her child, only four months old, had been torn from her, even while ſhe was diſcharging the tendereſt maternal office, the woman awoke in a boſom long eſtranged from feminine emotions, and Jemima determined to alleviate all in her power, without ha[16]zarding the loſs of her place, the ſufferings of a wretched mother, apparently injured, and certainly unhappy. A ſenſe of right ſeems to reſult from the ſimpleſt act of reaſon, and to preſide over the faculties of the mind, like the maſter-ſenſe of feeling, to rectify the reſt; but (for the compariſon may be carried ſtill farther) how often is the exquiſite ſenſibility of both weakened or deſtroyed by the vulgar occupations, and ignoble pleaſures of life?

The preſerving her ſituation was, indeed, an important object to Jemima, who had been hunted from hole to hole, as if ſhe had been a beaſt of prey, or infected with a moral plague. The wages ſhe received, the greater part of which ſhe hoarded, as her only chance for independence, were much[17] more conſiderable than ſhe could reckon on obtaining any where elſe, were it poſſible that ſhe, an outcaſt from ſociety, could be permitted to earn a ſubſiſtence in a reputable family. Hearing Maria perpetually complain of liſtleſſneſs, and the not being able to beguile grief by reſuming her cuſtomary purſuits, ſhe was eaſily prevailed on, by compaſſion, and that involuntary reſpect for abilities, which thoſe who poſſeſs them can never eradicate, to bring her ſome books and implements for writing. Maria's converſation had amuſed and intereſted her, and the natural conſequence was a deſire, ſcarcely obſerved by herſelf, of obtaining the eſteem of a perſon ſhe admired. The remembrance of better days was rendered more lively; and the ſentiments then acquired appearing leſs romantic[18] than they had for a long period, a ſpark of hope rouſed her mind to new activity.

How grateful was her attention to Maria! Oppreſſed by a dead weight of exiſtence, or preyed on by the gnawing worm of diſcontent, with what eagerneſs did ſhe endeavour to ſhorten the long days, which left no traces behind! She ſeemed to be ſailing on the vaſt ocean of life, without ſeeing any land-mark to indicate the progreſs of time; to find employment was then to find variety, the animating principle of nature.

[19]

CHAP. II.

Earneſtly as Maria endeavoured to ſoothe, by reading, the anguiſh of her wounded mind, her thoughts would often wander from the ſubject ſhe was led to diſcuſs, and tears of maternal tenderneſs obſcured the reaſoning page. She deſcanted on "the ills which fleſh is heir to," with bitterneſs, when the recollection of her babe was revived by a tale of fictitious woe, that bore any reſemblance to her own; and her imagination was continually employed, to conjure up and embody the various phantoms of miſery, which folly and vice had let looſe on the world. The loſs of her babe was the tender ſtring; againſt other cruel remembrances ſhe laboured to[20] ſteel her boſom; and even a ray of hope, in the midſt of her gloomy reveries, would ſometimes gleam on the dark horizon of futurity, while perſuading herſelf that ſhe ought to ceaſe to hope, ſince happineſs was no where to be found.—But of her child, debilitated by the grief with which its mother had been aſſailed before it ſaw the light, ſhe could not think without an impatient ſtruggle.

"I, alone, by my active tenderneſs, could have ſaved," ſhe would exclaim, "from an early blight, this ſweet bloſſom; and, cheriſhing it, I ſhould have had ſomething ſtill to love."

In proportion as other expectations were torn from her, this tender one had been fondly clung to, and knit into her heart.

The books ſhe had obtained, were[21] ſoon devoured, by one who had no other reſource to eſcape from ſorrow, and the feveriſh dreams of ideal wretchedneſs or felicity, which equally weaken the intoxicated ſenſibility. Writing was then the only alternative, and ſhe wrote ſome rhapſodies deſcriptive of the ſtate of her mind; but the events of her paſt life preſſing on her, ſhe reſolved circumſtantially to relate them, with the ſentiments that experience, and more matured reaſon, would naturally ſuggeſt. They might perhaps inſtruct her daughter, and ſhield her from the miſery, the tyranny, her mother knew not how to avoid.

This thought gave life to her diction, her ſoul flowed into it, and ſhe ſoon found the taſk of recollecting almoſt obliterated impreſſions very intereſting. She lived again in the revived emo[22]tions of youth, and forgot her preſent in the retroſpect of ſorrows that had aſſumed an unalterable character.

Though this employment lightened the weight of time, yet, never loſing ſight of her main object, Maria did not allow any opportunity to ſlip of winning on the affections of Jemima; for ſhe diſcovered in her a ſtrength of mind, that excited her eſteem, clouded as it was by the miſanthropy of deſpair.

An inſulated being, from the miſfortune of her birth, ſhe deſpiſed and preyed on the ſociety by which ſhe had been oppreſſed, and loved not her fellow-creatures, becauſe ſhe had never been beloved. No mother had ever fondled her, no father or brother had protected her from outrage; and the man who had plunged her into in[23]famy, and deſerted her when ſhe ſtood in greateſt need of ſupport, deigned not to ſmooth with kindneſs the road to ruin. Thus degraded, was ſhe let looſe on the world; and virtue, never nurtured by affection, aſſumed the ſtern aſpect of ſelfiſh independence.

This general view of her life, Maria gathered from her exclamations and dry remarks. Jemima indeed diſplayed a ſtrange mixture of intereſt and ſuſpicion; for ſhe would liſten to her with earneſtneſs, and then ſuddenly interrupt the converſation, as if afraid of reſigning, by giving way to her ſympathy, her dear-bought knowledge of the world.

Maria alluded to the poſſibility of an eſcape, and mentioned a compenſation, or reward; but the ſtyle in which ſhe was repulſed made her cautious,[24] and determine not to renew the ſubject, till ſhe knew more of the character ſhe had to work on. Jemima's countenance, and dark hints, ſeemed to ſay, "You are an extraordinary woman; but let me conſider, this may only be one of your lucid intervals." Nay, the very energy of Maria's character, made her ſuſpect that the extraordinary animation ſhe perceived might be the effect of madneſs. "Should her huſband then ſubſtantiate his charge, and get poſſeſſion of her eſtate, from whence would come the promiſed annuity, or more deſired protection? Beſides, might not a woman, anxious to eſcape, conceal ſome of the circumſtances which made againſt her? Was truth to be expected from one who had been entrapped, kidnapped, in the moſt fraudulent manner?"

[25] In this train Jemima continued to argue, the moment after compaſſion and reſpect ſeemed to make her ſwerve; and ſhe ſtill reſolved not to be wrought on to do more than ſoften the rigour of confinement, till ſhe could advance on ſurer ground.

Maria was not permitted to walk in the garden; but ſometimes, from her window, ſhe turned her eyes from the gloomy walls, in which ſhe pined life away, on the poor wretches who ſtrayed along the walks, and contemplated the moſt terrific of ruins—that of a human ſoul. What is the view of the fallen column, the mouldering arch, of the moſt exquiſite workmanſhip, when compared with this living memento of the fragility, the inſtability, of reaſon, and the wild luxuriancy of noxious paſſions? Enthuſiaſm turned adrift,[26] like ſome rich ſtream overflowing its banks, ruſhes forward with deſtructive velocity, inſpiring a ſublime concentration of thought. Thus thought Maria—Theſe are the ravages over which humanity muſt ever mournfully ponder, with a degree of anguiſh not excited by crumbling marble, or cankering braſs, unfaithful to the truſt of monumental fame. It is not over the decaying productions of the mind, embodied with the happieſt art, we grieve moſt bitterly. The view of what has been done by man, produces a melancholy, yet aggrandizing, ſenſe of what remains to be achieved by human intellect; but a mental convulſion, which, like the devaſtation of an earthquake, throws all the elements of thought and imagination into confuſion, makes con[27]templation giddy, and we fearfully aſk on what ground we ourſelves ſtand.

Melancholy and imbecility marked the features of the wretches allowed to breathe at large; for the frantic, thoſe who in a ſtrong imagination had loſt a ſenſe of woe, were cloſely confined. The playful tricks and miſchievous devices of their diſturbed fancy, that ſuddenly broke out, could not be guarded againſt, when they were permitted to enjoy any portion of freedom; for, ſo active was their imagination, that every new object which accidentally ſtruck their ſenſes, awoke to phrenzy their reſtleſs paſſions; as Maria learned from the burden of their inceſſant ravings.

Sometimes, with a ſtrict injunction of ſilence, Jemima would allow Maria,[28] at the cloſe of evening, to ſtray along the narrow avenues that ſeparated the dungeon-like apartments, leaning on her arm. What a change of ſcene! Maria wiſhed to paſs the threſhold of her priſon, yet, when by chance ſhe met the eye of rage glaring on her, yet unfaithful to its office, ſhe ſhrunk back with more horror and affright, than if ſhe had ſtumbled over a mangled corpſe. Her buſy fancy pictured the miſery of a fond heart, watching over a friend thus eſtranged, abſent, though preſent—over a poor wretch loſt to reaſon and the ſocial joys of exiſtence; and loſing all conſciouſneſs of miſery in its exceſs. What a taſk, to watch the light of reaſon quivering in the eye, or with agonizing expectation to catch the beam of recollection; tantalized by hope, only to feel deſpair more keenly, at finding a[29] much loved face or voice, ſuddenly remembered, or pathetically implored, only to be immediately forgotten, or viewed with indifference or abhorrence!

The heart-rending ſigh of melancholy ſunk into her ſoul; and when ſhe retired to reſt, the petrified figures ſhe had encountered, the only human forms ſhe was doomed to obſerve, haunting her dreams with tales of myſterious wrongs, made her wiſh to ſleep to dream no more.

Day after day rolled away, and tedious as the preſent moment appeared, they paſſed in ſuch an unvaried tenor, Maria was ſurpriſed to find that ſhe had already been ſix weeks buried alive, and yet had ſuch faint hopes of effecting her enlargement. She was, earneſtly as ſhe had ſought for employment,[30] now angry with herſelf for having been amuſed by writing her narrative; and grieved to think that ſhe had for an inſtant thought of any thing, but contriving to eſcape.

Jemima had evidently pleaſure in her ſociety: ſtill, though ſhe often left her with a glow of kindneſs, ſhe returned with the ſame chilling air; and, when her heart appeared for a moment to open, ſome ſuggeſtion of reaſon forcibly cloſed it, before ſhe could give utterance to the confidence Maria's converſation inſpired.

Diſcouraged by theſe changes, Maria relapſed into deſpondency, when ſhe was cheered by the alacrity with which Jemima brought her a freſh parcel of books; aſſuring her, that ſhe had taken ſome pains to obtain them from one of the keepers, who attended a gentle[31]man confined in the oppoſite corner of the gallery.

Maria took up the books with emotion. "They come," ſaid ſhe, "perhaps, from a wretch condemned, like me, to reaſon on the nature of madneſs, by having wrecked minds continually under his eye; and almoſt to wiſh himſelf—as I do—mad, to eſcape from the contemplation of it." Her heart throbbed with ſympathetic alarm; and ſhe turned over the leaves with awe, as if they had become ſacred from paſſing through the hands of an unfortunate being, oppreſſed by a ſimilar fate.

Dryden's Fables, Milton's Paradiſe Loſt, with ſeveral modern productions, compoſed the collection. It was a mine of treaſure. Some marginal notes, in Dryden's Fables, caught her attention: they were written with force[32] and taſte; and, in one of the modern pamphlets, there was a fragment left, containing various obſervations on the preſent ſtate of ſociety and government, with a comparative view of the politics of Europe and America. Theſe remarks were written with a degree of generous warmth, when alluding to the enſlaved ſtate of the labouring majority, perfectly in uniſon with Maria's mode of thinking.

She read them over and over again; and fancy, treacherous fancy, began to ſketch a character, congenial with her own, from theſe ſhadowy outlines.—"Was he mad?" She re-peruſed the marginal notes, and they ſeemed the production of an animated, but not of a diſturbed imagination. Confined to this ſpeculation, every time ſhe re-read them, ſome freſh refinement of[33] ſentiment, or acuteneſs of thought impreſſed her, which ſhe was aſtoniſhed at herſelf for not having before obſerved.

What a creative power has an affectionate heart! There are beings who cannot live without loving, as poets love; and who feel the electric ſpark of genius, wherever it awakens ſentiment or grace. Maria had often thought, when diſciplining her wayward heart, "that to charm, was to be virtuous." "They who make me wiſh to appear the moſt amiable and good in their eyes, muſt poſſeſs in a degree," ſhe would exclaim, "the graces and virtues they call into action."

She took up a book on the powers of the human mind; but, her attention ſtrayed from cold arguments on the nature of what ſhe felt, while ſhe was[34] feeling, and ſhe ſnapt the chain of the theory to read Dryden's Guiſcard and Sigiſmunda.

Maria, in the courſe of the enſuing day, returned ſome of the books, with the hope of getting others—and more marginal notes. Thus ſhut out from human intercourſe, and compelled to view nothing but the priſon of vexed ſpirits, to meet a wretch in the ſame ſituation, was more ſurely to find a friend, than to imagine a countryman one, in a ſtrange land, where the human voice conveys no information to the eager ear.

"Did you ever ſee the unfortunate being to whom theſe books belong?" aſked Maria, when Jemima brought her ſupper. "Yes. He ſometimes walks out, between five and ſix, before the family is ſtirring, in the morning,[35] with two keepers; but even then his hands are confined."

"What! is he ſo unruly?" enquired Maria, with an accent of diſappointment.

"No, not that I perceive," replied Jemima; "but he has an untamed look, a vehemence of eye, that excites apprehenſion. Were his hands free, he looks as if he could ſoon manage both his guards: yet he appears tranquil."

"If he be ſo ſtrong, he muſt be young," obſerved Maria.

"Three or four and thirty, I ſuppoſe; but there is no judging of a perſon in his ſituation."

"Are you ſure that he is mad?" interrupted Maria with eagerneſs. Jemima quitted the room, without replying.

[36] "No, no, he certainly is not!" exclaimed Maria, anſwering herſelf; "the man who could write thoſe obſervations was not diſordered in his intellects."

She ſat muſing, gazing at the moon, and watching its motion as it ſeemed to glide under the clouds. Then, preparing for bed, ſhe thought, "Of what uſe could I be to him, or he to me, if it be true that he is unjuſtly confined?—Could he aid me to eſcape, who is himſelf more cloſely watched?—Still I ſhould like to ſee him." She went to bed, dreamed of her child, yet woke exactly at half after five o'clock, and ſtarting up, only wrapped a gown around her, and ran to the window. The morning was chill, it was the latter end of September; yet ſhe did not retire to warm herſelf and[37] think in bed, till the ſound of the ſervants, moving about the houſe, convinced her that the unknown would not walk in the garden that morning. She was aſhamed at feeling diſappointed; and began to reflect, as an excuſe to herſelf, on the little objects which attract attention when there is nothing to divert the mind; and how difficult it was for women to avoid growing romantic, who have no active duties or purſuits.

At breakfaſt, Jemima enquired whether ſhe underſtood French? for, unleſs ſhe did, the ſtranger's ſtock of books was exhauſted. Maria replied in the affirmative; but forbore to aſk any more queſtions reſpecting the perſon to whom they belonged. And Jemima gave her a new ſubject for contemplation, by deſcribing the perſon[38] of a lovely maniac, juſt brought into an adjoining chamber. She was ſinging the pathetic ballad of old Rob                  with the moſt heart-melting falls and pauſes. Jemima had half-opened the door, when ſhe diſtinguiſhed her voice, and Maria ſtood cloſe to it, ſcarcely daring to reſpire, leſt a modulation ſhould eſcape her, ſo exquiſitely ſweet, ſo paſſionately wild. She began with ſympathy to pourtray to herſelf another victim, when the lovely warbler flew, as it were, from the ſpray, and a torrent of unconnected exclamations and queſtions burſt from her, interrupted by fits of laughter, ſo horrid, that Maria ſhut the door, and, turning her eyes up to heaven, exclaimed—"Gracious God!"

Several minutes elapſed before Maria could enquire reſpecting the ru[39]mour of the houſe (for this poor wretch was obviouſly not confined without a cauſe); and then Jemima could only tell her, that it was ſaid, "ſhe had been married, againſt her inclination, to a rich old man, extremely jealous (no wonder, for ſhe was a charming creature); and that, in conſequence of his treatment, or ſomething which hung on her mind, ſhe had, during her firſt lying-in, loſt her ſenſes."

What a ſubject of meditation—even to the very confines of madneſs.

"Woman, fragile flower! why were you ſuffered to adorn a world expoſed to the inroad of ſuch ſtormy elements?" thought Maria, while the poor maniac's ſtrain was ſtill breathing on her ear, and ſinking into her very ſoul.

[40] Towards the evening, Jemima brought her Rouſſeau's Heloïſe; and ſhe ſat reading with eyes and heart, till the return of her guard to extinguiſh the light. One inſtance of her kindneſs was, the permitting Maria to have one, till her own hour of retiring to reſt. She had read this work long ſince; but now it ſeemed to open a new world to her—the only one worth inhabiting. Sleep was not to be wooed; yet, far from being fatigued by the reſtleſs rotation of thought, ſhe roſe and opened her window, juſt as the thin watery clouds of twilight made the long ſilent ſhadows viſible. The air ſwept acroſs her face with a voluptuous freſhneſs that thrilled to her heart, awakening indefinable emotions; and the ſound of a waving branch, or the twittering of a ſtartled[41] bird, alone broke the ſtillneſs of repoſing nature. Abſorbed by the ſublime ſenſibility which renders the conſciouſneſs of exiſtence felicity, Maria was happy, till an autumnal ſcent, wafted by the breeze of morn from the fallen leaves of the adjacent wood, made her recollect that the ſeaſon had changed ſince her confinement; yet life afforded no variety to ſolace an afflicted heart. She returned diſpirited to her couch, and thought of her child till the broad glare of day again invited her to the window. She looked not for the unknown, ſtill how great was her vexation at perceiving the back of a man, certainly he, with his two attendants, as he turned into a ſide-path which led to the houſe! A confuſed recollection of having ſeen ſomebody who reſembled him, imme[42]diately occurred, to puzzle and torment her with endleſs conjectures. Five minutes ſooner, and ſhe ſhould have ſeen his face, and been out of ſuſpenſe—was ever any thing ſo unlucky! His ſteady, bold ſtep, and the whole air of his perſon, burſting as it were from a cloud, pleaſed her, and gave an outline to the imagination to ſketch the individual form ſhe wiſhed to recognize.

Feeling the diſappointment more ſeverely than ſhe was willing to believe, ſhe flew to Rouſſeau, as her only refuge from the idea of him, who might prove a friend, could ſhe but find a way to intereſt him in her fate; ſtill the perſonification of Saint Preux, or of an ideal lover far ſuperior, was after this imperfect model, of which merely a glance had been caught,[43] even to the minutiæ of the coat and hat of the ſtranger. But if ſhe lent St. Preux, or the demi-god of her fancy, his form, ſhe richly repaid him by the donation of all St. Preux's ſentiments and feelings, culled to gratify her own, to which he ſeemed to have an undoubted right, when ſhe read on the margin of an impaſſioned letter, written in the well-known hand—"Rouſſeau alone, the true Prometheus of ſentiment, poſſeſſed the fire of genius neceſſary to pourtray the paſſion, the truth of which goes ſo directly to the heart."

Maria was again true to the hour, yet had finiſhed Rouſſeau, and begun to tranſcribe ſome ſelected paſſages; unable to quit either the author or the window, before ſhe had a glimpſe of the countenance ſhe daily longed to ſee;[44] and, when ſeen, it conveyed no diſtinct idea to her mind where ſhe had ſeen it before. He muſt have been a tranſient acquaintance; but to diſcover an acquaintance was fortunate, could ſhe contrive to attract his attention, and excite his ſympathy.

Every glance afforded colouring for the picture ſhe was delineating on her heart; and once, when the window was half open, the ſound of his voice reached her. Conviction flaſhed on her; ſhe had certainly, in a moment of diſtreſs, heard the ſame accents. They were manly, and characteriſtic of a noble mind; nay, even ſweet—or ſweet they ſeemed to her attentive ear.

She ſtarted back, trembling, alarmed at the emotion a ſtrange coincidence of circumſtances inſpired, and wonder[45]ing why ſhe thought ſo much of a ſtranger, obliged as ſhe had been by his timely interference; [for ſhe recollected, by degrees, all the circumſtances of their former meeting.] She found however that ſhe could think of nothing elſe; or, if ſhe thought of her daughter, it was to wiſh that ſhe had a father whom her mother could reſpect and love.

[46]

CHAP. III.

When peruſing the firſt parcel of books, Maria had, with her pencil, written in one of them a few exclamations, expreſſive of compaſſion and ſympathy, which ſhe ſcarcely remembered, till turning over the leaves of one of the volumes, lately brought to her, a ſlip of paper dropped out, which Jemima haſtily ſnatched up.

"Let me ſee it," demanded Maria impatiently, "You ſurely are not afraid of truſting me with the effuſions of a madman?" "I muſt conſider," replied Jemima; and withdrew, with the paper in her hand.

In a life of ſuch ſecluſion, the paſſions gain undue force; Maria therefore felt a great degree of reſentment and[47] vexation, which ſhe had not time to ſubdue, before Jemima, returning, delivered the paper.

By the moſt preſſing intreaties, Maria prevailed on Jemima to permit her to write a reply to this note. Another[48] and another ſucceeded, in which explanations were not allowed relative to their preſent ſituation; but Maria, with ſufficient explicitneſs, alluded to a former obligation; and they inſenſibly entered on an interchange of ſentiments on the moſt important ſubjects. To write theſe letters was the buſineſs of the day, and to receive them the moment of ſunſhine. By ſome means, Darnford having diſcovered Maria's window, when ſhe next appeared at it, he made her, behind his keepers, a profound bow of reſpect and recognition.

Two or three weeks glided away in this kind of intercourſe, during which period Jemima, to whom Maria had given the neceſſary information reſpecting her family, had evidently gained ſome intelligence, which increaſed her[49] deſire of pleaſing her charge, though ſhe could not yet determine to liberate her. Maria took advantage of this favourable charge, without too minutely enquiring into the cauſe; and ſuch was her eagerneſs to hold human converſe, and to ſee her former protector, ſtill a ſtranger to her, that ſhe inceſſantly requeſted her guard to gratify her more than curioſity.

Writing to Darnford, ſhe was led from the ſad objects before her, and frequently rendered inſenſible to the horrid noiſes around her, which previouſly had continually employed her feveriſh fancy. Thinking it ſelfiſh to dwell on her own ſufferings, when in the midſt of wretches, who had not only loſt all that endears life, but their very ſelves, her imagination was oc[50]cupied with melancholy earneſtneſs to trace the mazes of miſery, through which ſo many wretches muſt have paſſed to this gloomy receptacle of diſjointed ſouls, to the grand ſource of human corruption. Often at midnight was ſhe waked by the diſmal ſhrieks of demoniac rage, or of excruciating deſpair, uttered in ſuch wild tones of indeſcribable anguiſh as proved the total abſence of reaſon, and rouſed phantoms of horror in her mind, far more terrific than all that dreaming ſuperſtition ever drew. Beſides, there was frequently ſomething ſo inconceivably pictureſque in the varying geſtures of unreſtrained paſſion, ſo irreſiſtibly comic in their ſallies, or ſo heart-piercingly pathetic in the little airs they would ſing, frequently burſting out after an awful ſilence, as to faſcinate the at[51]tention, and amuſe the fancy, while torturing the ſoul. It was the uproar of the paſſions which ſhe was compelled to obſerve; and to mark the lucid beam of reaſon, like a light trembling in a ſocket, or like the flaſh which divides the threatening clouds of angry heaven only to diſplay the horrors which darkneſs ſhrouded.

Jemima would labour to beguile the tedious evenings, by deſcribing the perſons and manners of the unfortunate beings, whoſe figures or voices awoke ſympathetic ſorrow in Maria's boſom; and the ſtories ſhe told were the more intereſting, for perpetually leaving room to conjecture ſomething extraordinary. Still Maria, accuſtomed to generalize her obſervations, was led to conclude from all ſhe heard, that it was a vulgar error to ſuppoſe[52] that people of abilities were the moſt apt to loſe the command of reaſon. On the contrary, from moſt of the inſtances ſhe could inveſtigate, ſhe thought it reſulted, that the paſſions only appeared ſtrong and diſproportioned, becauſe the judgment was weak and unexerciſed; and that they gained ſtrength by the decay of reaſon, as the ſhadows lengthen during the ſun's decline.

Maria impatiently wiſhed to ſee her fellow-ſufferer; but Darnford was ſtill more earneſt to obtain an interview. Accuſtomed to ſubmit to every impulſe of paſſion, and never taught, like women, to reſtrain the moſt natural, and acquire, inſtead of the bewitching frankneſs of nature, a factitious propriety of behaviour, every deſire became a torrent that bore down all oppoſition.

[53] His travelling trunk, which contained the books lent to Maria, had been ſent to him, and with a part of its contents he bribed his principal keeper; who, after receiving the moſt ſolemn promiſe that he would return to his apartment without attempting to explore any part of the houſe, conducted him, in the duſk of the evening, to Maria's room.

Jemima had apprized her charge of the viſit, and ſhe expected with trembling impatience, inſpired by a vague hope that he might again prove her deliverer, to ſee a man who had before reſcued her from oppreſſion. He entered with an animation of countenance, formed to captivate an enthuſiaſt; and, haſtily turned his eyes from her to the apartment, which he ſurveyed with apparent emotions of com[54]paſſionate indignation. Sympathy illuminated his eye, and, taking her hand, he reſpectfully bowed on it, exclaiming—"This is extraordinary!—again to meet you, and in ſuch circumſtances!" Still, impreſſive as was the coincidence of events which brought them once more together, their full hearts did not overflow.—[54-A]

[And though, after this firſt viſit, they were permitted frequently to repeat their interviews, they were for ſome time employed in] a reſerved converſation, to which all the world[55] might have liſtened; excepting, when diſcuſſing ſome literary ſubject, flaſhes of ſentiment, inforced by each relaxing feature, ſeemed to remind them that their minds were already acquainted.

[By degrees, Darnford entered into the particulars of his ſtory.] In a few words, he informed her that he had been a thoughtleſs, extravagant young man; yet, as he deſcribed his faults, they appeared to be the generous luxuriancy of a noble mind. Nothing like meanneſs tarniſhed the luſtre of his youth, nor had the worm of ſelfiſhneſs lurked in the unfolding bud, even while he had been the dupe of others. Yet he tardily acquired the experience neceſſary to guard him againſt future impoſition.

"I ſhall weary you," continued he, "by my egotiſm; and did not power[56]ful emotions draw me to you,"—his eyes gliſtened as he ſpoke, and a trembling ſeemed to run through his manly frame,—"I would not waſte theſe precious moments in talking of myſelf.

"My father and mother were people of faſhion; married by their parents. He was fond of the turf, ſhe of the card-table. I, and two or three other children ſince dead, were kept at home till we became intolerable. My father and mother had a viſible diſlike to each other, continually diſplayed; the ſervants were of the depraved kind uſually found in the houſes of people of fortune. My brothers and parents all dying, I was left to the care of guardians, and ſent to Eton. I never knew the ſweets of domeſtic affection, but I felt the want of indulgence and frivolous reſpect at ſchool. I will not[57] diſguſt you with a recital of the vices of my youth, which can ſcarcely be comprehended by female delicacy. I was taught to love by a creature I am aſhamed to mention; and the other women with whom I afterwards became intimate, were of a claſs of which you can have no knowledge. I formed my acquaintance with them at the theatres; and, when vivacity danced in their eyes, I was not eaſily diſguſted by the vulgarity which flowed from their lips. Having ſpent, a few years after I was of age, [the whole of] a conſiderable patrimony, excepting a few hundreds, I had no recourſe but to purchaſe a commiſſion in a new-raiſed regiment, deſtined to ſubjugate America. The regret I felt to renounce a life of pleaſure, was counter-balanced by the curioſity I had to ſee[58] America, or rather to travel; [nor had any of thoſe circumſtances occurred to my youth, which might have been calculated] to bind my country to my heart. I ſhall not trouble you with the details of a military life. My blood was ſtill kept in motion; till, towards the cloſe of the conteſt, I was wounded and taken priſoner.

"Confined to my bed, or chair, by a lingering cure, my only refuge from the preying activity of my mind, was books, which I read with great avidity, profiting by the converſation of my hoſt, a man of ſound underſtanding. My political ſentiments now underwent a total change; and, dazzled by the hoſpitality of the Americans, I determined to take up my abode with freedom. I, therefore, with my uſual impetuoſity, ſold my commiſſion, and[59] travelled into the interior parts of the country, to lay out my money to advantage. Added to this, I did not much like the puritanical manners of the large towns. Inequality of condition was there moſt diſguſtingly galling. The only pleaſure wealth afforded, was to make an oſtentatious diſplay of it; for the cultivation of the fine arts, or literature, had not introduced into the firſt circles that poliſh of manners which renders the rich ſo eſſentially ſuperior to the poor in Europe. Added to this, an influx of vices had been let in by the Revolution, and the moſt rigid principles of religion ſhaken to the centre, before the underſtanding could be gradually emancipated from the prejudices which led their anceſtors undauntedly to ſeek an inhoſpitable clime and unbroken ſoil. The reſolu[60]tion, that led them, in purſuit of independence, to embark on rivers like ſeas, to ſearch for unknown ſhores, and to ſleep under the hovering miſts of endleſs foreſts, whoſe baleful damps agued their limbs, was now turned into commercial ſpeculations, till the national character exhibited a phenomenon in the hiſtory of the human mind—a head enthuſiaſtically enterpriſing, with cold ſelfiſhneſs of heart. And woman, lovely woman!—they charm every where—ſtill there is a degree of prudery, and a want of taſte and eaſe in the manners of the American women, that renders them, in ſpite of their roſes and lilies, far inferior to our European charmers. In the country, they have often a bewitching ſimplicity of character; but, in the cities, they have all the airs and ignorance of the ladies who[61] give the tone to the circles of the large trading towns in England. They are fond of their ornaments, merely becauſe they are good, and not becauſe they embelliſh their perſons; and are more gratified to inſpire the women with jealouſy of theſe exterior advantages, than the men with love. All the frivolity which often (excuſe me, Madam) renders the ſociety of modeſt women ſo ſtupid in England, here ſeemed to throw ſtill more leaden fetters on their charms. Not being an adept in gallantry, I found that I could only keep myſelf awake in their company by making downright love to them.

"But, not to intrude on your patience, I retired to the track of land which I had purchaſed in the country, and my time paſſed pleaſantly enough[62] while I cut down the trees, built my houſe, and planted my different crops. But winter and idleneſs came, and I longed for more elegant ſociety, to hear what was paſſing in the world, and to do ſomething better than vegetate with the animals that made a very conſiderable part of my houſehold. Conſequently, I determined to travel. Motion was a ſubſtitute for variety of objects; and, paſſing over immenſe tracks of country, I exhauſted my exuberant ſpirits, without obtaining much experience. I every where ſaw induſtry the fore-runner and not the conſequence, of luxury; but this country, every thing being on an ample ſcale, did not afford thoſe pictureſque views, which a certain degree of cultivation is neceſſary gradually to produce. The eye wandered without an object to fix upon over im[63]meaſureable plains, and lakes that ſeemed repleniſhed by the ocean, whilſt eternal foreſts of ſmall cluſtering trees, obſtructed the circulation of air, and embarraſſed the path, without gratifying the eye of taſte. No cottage ſmiling in the waſte, no travellers hailed us, to give life to ſilent nature; or, if perchance we ſaw the print of a footſtep in our path, it was a dreadful warning to turn aſide; and the head ached as if aſſailed by the ſcalping knife. The Indians who hovered on the ſkirts of the European ſettlements had only learned of their neighbours to plunder, and they ſtole their guns from them to do it with more ſafety.

"From the woods and back ſettlements, I returned to the towns, and learned to eat and drink moſt valiantly; but without entering into commerce[64] (and I deteſted commerce) I found I could not live there; and, growing heartily weary of the land of liberty and vulgar ariſtocracy, ſeated on her bags of dollars, I reſolved once more to viſit Europe. I wrote to a diſtant relation in England, with whom I had been educated, mentioning the veſſel in which I intended to ſail. Arriving in London, my ſenſes were intoxicated. I ran from ſtreet to ſtreet, from theatre to theatre, and the women of the town (again I muſt beg pardon for my habitual frankneſs) appeared to me like angels.

"A week was ſpent in this thoughtleſs manner, when, returning very late to the hotel in which I had lodged ever ſince my arrival, I was knocked down in a private ſtreet, and hurried, in a ſtate of inſenſibility, into a coach, which[65] brought me hither, and I only recovered my ſenſes to be treated like one who had loſt them. My keepers are deaf to my remonſtrances and enquiries, yet aſſure me that my confinement ſhall not laſt long. Still I cannot gueſs, though I weary myſelf with conjectures, why I am confined, or in what part of England this houſe is ſituated. I imagine ſometimes that I hear the ſea roar, and wiſhed myſelf again on the Atlantic, till I had a glimpſe of you[65-A]."

A few moments were only allowed to Maria to comment on this narrative,[66] when Darnford left her to her own thoughts, to the "never ending, ſtill beginning," taſk of weighing his words, recollecting his tones of voice, and feeling them reverberate on her heart.

[67]

CHAP. IV.

Pity, and the forlorn ſeriouſneſs of adverſity, have both been conſidered as diſpoſitions favourable to love, while ſatirical writers have attributed the propenſity to the relaxing effect of idleneſs, what chance then had Maria of eſcaping, when pity, ſorrow, and ſolitude all conſpired to ſoften her mind, and nouriſh romantic wiſhes, and, from a natural progreſs, romantic expectations?

Maria was ſix-and-twenty. But, ſuch was the native ſoundneſs of her conſtitution, that time had only given to her countenance the character of her mind. Revolving thought, and exerciſed affections had baniſhed ſome of[68] the playful graces of innocence, producing inſenſibly that irregularity of features which the ſtruggles of the underſtanding to trace or govern the ſtrong emotions of the heart, are wont to imprint on the yielding maſs. Grief and care had mellowed, without obſcuring, the bright tints of youth, and the thoughtfulneſs which reſided on her brow did not take from the feminine ſoftneſs of her features; nay, ſuch was the ſenſibility which often mantled over it, that ſhe frequently appeared, like a large proportion of her ſex, only born to feel; and the activity of her well-proportioned, and even almoſt voluptuous figure, inſpired the idea of ſtrength of mind, rather than of body. There was a ſimplicity ſometimes indeed in her manner, which bordered on infantine ingenuouſneſs, that led peo[69]ple of common diſcernment to underrate her talents, and ſmile at the flights of her imagination. But thoſe who could not comprehend the delicacy of her ſentiments, were attached by her unfailing ſympathy, ſo that ſhe was very generally beloved by characters of very different deſcriptions; ſtill, ſhe was too much under the influence of an ardent imagination to adhere to common rules.

There are miſtakes of conduct which at five-and-twenty prove the ſtrength of the mind, that, ten or fifteen years after, would demonſtrate its weakneſs, its incapacity to acquire a ſane judgment. The youths who are ſatiſfied with the ordinary pleaſures of life, and do not ſigh after ideal phantoms of love and friendſhip, will never arrive at great maturity of underſtanding; but if theſe reveries are cheriſhed, as is too frequently[70] the caſe with women, when experience ought to have taught them in what human happineſs conſiſts, they become as uſeleſs as they are wretched. Beſides, their pains and pleaſures are ſo dependent on outward circumſtances, on the objects of their affections, that they ſeldom act from the impulſe of a nerved mind, able to chooſe its own purſuit.

Having had to ſtruggle inceſſantly with the vices of mankind, Maria's imagination found repoſe in pourtraying the poſſible virtues the world might contain. Pygmalion formed an ivory maid, and longed for an informing ſoul. She, on the contrary, combined all the qualities of a hero's mind, and fate preſented a ſtatue in which ſhe might enſhrine them.

We mean not to trace the progreſs of this paſſion, or recount how often[71] Darnford and Maria were obliged to part in the midſt of an intereſting converſation. Jemima ever watched on the tip-toe of fear, and frequently ſeparated them on a falſe alarm, when they would have given worlds to remain a little longer together.

A magic lamp now ſeemed to be ſuſpended in Maria's priſon, and fairy landſcapes flitted round the gloomy walls, late ſo blank. Ruſhing from the depth of deſpair, on the ſeraph wing of hope, ſhe found herſelf happy.—She was beloved, and every emotion was rapturous.

To Darnford ſhe had not ſhown a decided affection; the fear of outrunning his, a ſure proof of love, made her often aſſume a coldneſs and indifference foreign from her character; and, even when giving way to the playful emotions of a[72] heart juſt looſened from the frozen bond of grief, there was a delicacy in her manner of expreſſing her ſenſibility, which made him doubt whether it was the effect of love.

One evening, when Jemima left them, to liſten to the ſound of a diſtant footſtep, which ſeemed cautiouſly to approach, he ſeized Maria's hand—it was not withdrawn. They converſed with earneſtneſs of their ſituation; and, during the converſation, he once or twice gently drew her towards him. He felt the fragrance of her breath, and longed, yet feared, to touch the lips from which it iſſued; ſpirits of purity ſeemed to guard them, while all the enchanting graces of love ſported on her cheeks, and languiſhed in her eyes.

Jemima entering, he reflected on his diffidence with poignant regret, and,[73] ſhe once more taking alarm, he ventured, as Maria ſtood near his chair, to approach her lips with a declaration of love. She drew back with ſolemnity, he hung down his head abaſhed; but lifting his eyes timidly, they met her's; ſhe had determined, during that inſtant, and ſuffered their rays to mingle. He took, with more ardour, reaſſured, a half-conſenting, half-reluctant kiſs, reluctant only from modeſty; and there was a ſacredneſs in her dignified manner of reclining her glowing face on his ſhoulder, that powerfully impreſſed him. Deſire was loſt in more ineffable emotions, and to protect her from inſult and ſorrow—to make her happy, ſeemed not only the firſt wiſh of his heart, but the moſt noble duty of his life. Such angelic confidence demanded the fidelity of honour; but could he, feel[74]ing her in every pulſation, could he ever change, could he be a villain? The emotion with which ſhe, for a moment, allowed herſelf to be preſſed to his boſom, the tear of rapturous ſympathy, mingled with a ſoft melancholy ſentiment of recollected diſappointment, ſaid—more of truth and faithfulneſs, than the tongue could have given utterance to in hours! They were ſilent—yet diſcourſed, how eloquently? till, after a moment's reflection, Maria drew her chair by the ſide of his, and, with a compoſed ſweetneſs of voice, and ſupernatural benignity of countenance, ſaid, "I muſt open my whole heart to you; you muſt be told who I am, why I am here, and why, telling you I am a wife, I bluſh not to"—the bluſh ſpoke the reſt.

Jemima was again at her elbow, and[75] the reſtraint of her preſence did not prevent an animated converſation, in which love, ſly urchin, was ever at bo-peep.

So much of heaven did they enjoy, that paradiſe bloomed around them; or they, by a powerful ſpell, had been tranſported into Armida's garden. Love, the grand enchanter, "lapt them in Elyſium," and every ſenſe was harmonized to joy and ſocial extacy. So animated, indeed, were their accents of tenderneſs, in diſcuſſing what, in other circumſtances, would have been common-place ſubjects, that Jemima felt, with ſurpriſe, a tear of pleaſure trickling down her rugged cheeks. She wiped it away, half aſhamed; and when Maria kindly enquired the cauſe, with all the eager ſolicitude of a happy being wiſhing to impart to all nature its[76] overflowing felicity, Jemima owned that it was the firſt tear that ſocial enjoyment had ever drawn from her. She ſeemed indeed to breathe more freely; the cloud of ſuſpicion cleared away from her brow; ſhe felt herſelf, for once in her life, treated like a fellow-creature.

Imagination! who can paint thy power; or reflect the evaneſcent tints of hope foſtered by thee? A deſpondent gloom had long obſcured Maria's horizon—now the ſun broke forth, the rainbow appeared, and every proſpect was fair. Horror ſtill reigned in the darkened cells, ſuſpicion lurked in the paſſages, and whiſpered along the walls. The yells of men poſſeſſed, ſometimes made them pauſe, and wonder that they felt ſo happy, in a tomb of living death. They even chid them[77]ſelves for ſuch apparent inſenſibility; ſtill the world contained not three happier beings. And Jemima, after again patrolling the paſſage, was ſo ſoftened by the air of confidence which breathed around her, that ſhe voluntarily began an account of herſelf.

[78]

CHAP. V.

"My father," ſaid Jemima, "ſeduced my mother, a pretty girl, with whom he lived fellow-ſervant; and ſhe no ſooner perceived the natural, the dreaded conſequence, than the terrible conviction flaſhed on her—that ſhe was ruined. Honeſty, and a regard for her reputation, had been the only principles inculcated by her mother; and they had been ſo forcibly impreſſed, that ſhe feared ſhame, more than the poverty to which it would lead. Her inceſſant importunities to prevail upon my father to ſcreen her from reproach by marrying her, as he had promiſed in the fervour of ſeduction, eſtranged him from her ſo completely, that her very perſon[79] became diſtaſteful to him; and he began to hate, as well as deſpiſe me, before I was born.

"My mother, grieved to the ſoul by his neglect, and unkind treatment, actually reſolved to famiſh herſelf; and injured her health by the attempt; though ſhe had not ſufficient reſolution to adhere to her project, or renounce it entirely. Death came not at her call; yet ſorrow, and the methods ſhe adopted to conceal her condition, ſtill doing the work of a houſe-maid, had ſuch an effect on her conſtitution, that ſhe died in the wretched garret, where her virtuous miſtreſs had forced her to take refuge in the very pangs of labour, though my father, after a ſlight reproof, was allowed to remain in his place—allowed by the mother of ſix children, who, ſcarcely permitting a footſtep to[80] be heard, during her month's indulgence, felt no ſympathy for the poor wretch, denied every comfort required by her ſituation.

"The day my mother died, the ninth after my birth, I was conſigned to the care of the cheapeſt nurſe my father could find; who ſuckled her own child at the ſame time, and lodged as many more as ſhe could get, in two cellar-like apartments.

"Poverty, and the habit of ſeeing children die off her hands, had ſo hardened her heart, that the office of a mother did not awaken the tenderneſs of a woman; nor were the feminine careſſes which ſeem a part of the rearing of a child, ever beſtowed on me. The chicken has a wing to ſhelter under; but I had no boſom to neſtle in, no kindred warmth to foſter me. Left[81] in dirt, to cry with cold and hunger till I was weary, and ſleep without ever being prepared by exerciſe, or lulled by kindneſs to reſt; could I be expected to become any thing but a weak and rickety babe? Still, in ſpite of neglect, I continued to exiſt, to learn to curſe exiſtence," her countenance grew ferocious as ſhe ſpoke, "and the treatment that rendered me miſerable, ſeemed to ſharpen my wits. Confined then in a damp hovel, to rock the cradle of the ſucceeding tribe, I looked like a little old woman, or a hag ſhrivelling into nothing. The furrows of reflection and care contracted the youthful cheek, and gave a ſort of ſupernatural wildneſs to the ever watchful eye. During this period, my father had married another fellow-ſervant, who loved him leſs, and knew better how to manage[82] his paſſion, than my mother. She likewiſe proving with child, they agreed to keep a ſhop: my ſtep-mother, if, being an illegitimate offſpring, I may venture thus to characterize her, having obtained a ſum of a rich relation, for that purpoſe.

"Soon after her lying-in, ſhe prevailed on my father to take me home, to ſave the expence of maintaining me, and of hiring a girl to aſſiſt her in the care of the child. I was young, it was true, but appeared a knowing little thing, and might be made handy. Accordingly I was brought to her houſe; but not to a home—for a home I never knew. Of this child, a daughter, ſhe was extravagantly fond; and it was a part of my employment, to aſſiſt to ſpoil her, by humouring all her whims, and bearing all her caprices. Feeling her[83] own conſequence, before ſhe could ſpeak, ſhe had learned the art of tormenting me, and if I ever dared to reſiſt, I received blows, laid on with no compunctious hand, or was ſent to bed dinnerleſs, as well as ſupperleſs. I ſaid that it was a part of my daily labour to attend this child, with the ſervility of a ſlave; ſtill it was but a part. I was ſent out in all ſeaſons, and from place to place, to carry burdens far above my ſtrength, without being allowed to draw near the fire, or ever being cheered by encouragement or kindneſs. No wonder then, treated like a creature of another ſpecies, that I began to envy, and at length to hate, the darling of the houſe. Yet, I perfectly remember, that it was the careſſes, and kind expreſſions of my ſtep-mother, which firſt excited my jealous[84] diſcontent. Once, I cannot forget it, when ſhe was calling in vain her wayward child to kiſs her, I ran to her, ſaying, 'I will kiſs you, ma'am!' and how did my heart, which was in my mouth, ſink, what was my debaſement of ſoul, when puſhed away with—'I do not want you, pert thing!' Another day, when a new gown had excited the higheſt good humour, and ſhe uttered the appropriate dear, addreſſed unexpectedly to me, I thought I could never do enough to pleaſe her; I was all alacrity, and roſe proportionably in my own eſtimation.

"As her daughter grew up, ſhe was pampered with cakes and fruit, while I was, literally ſpeaking, fed with the refuſe of the table, with her leavings. A liquoriſh tooth is, I believe, common to children, and I uſed to ſteal any[85] thing ſweet, that I could catch up with a chance of concealment. When detected, ſhe was not content to chaſtize me herſelf at the moment, but, on my father's return in the evening (he was a ſhopman), the principal diſcourſe was to recount my faults, and attribute them to the wicked diſpoſition which I had brought into the world with me, inherited from my mother. He did not fail to leave the marks of his reſentment on my body, and then ſolaced himſelf by playing with my ſiſter.—I could have murdered her at thoſe moments. To ſave myſelf from theſe unmerciful corrections, I reſorted to falſhood, and the untruths which I ſturdily maintained, were brought in judgment againſt me, to ſupport my tyrant's inhuman charge of my natural propenſity to vice. Seeing me treated with[86] contempt, and always being fed and dreſſed better, my ſiſter conceived a contemptuous opinion of me, that proved an obſtacle to all affection; and my father, hearing continually of my faults, began to conſider me as a curſe entailed on him for his ſins: he was therefore eaſily prevailed on to bind me apprentice to one of my ſtep-mother's friends, who kept a ſlop-ſhop in Wapping. I was repreſented (as it was ſaid) in my true colours; but ſhe, 'warranted,' ſnapping her fingers, 'that ſhe ſhould break my ſpirit or heart.'

"My mother replied, with a whine, 'that if any body could make me better, it was ſuch a clever woman as herſelf; though, for her own part, ſhe had tried in vain; but good-nature was her fault.'

[87] "I ſhudder with horror, when I recollect the treatment I had now to endure. Not only under the laſh of my taſk-miſtreſs, but the drudge of the maid, apprentices and children, I never had a taſte of human kindneſs to ſoften the rigour of perpetual labour. I had been introduced as an object of abhorrence into the family; as a creature of whom my ſtep-mother, though ſhe had been kind enough to let me live in the houſe with her own child, could make nothing. I was deſcribed as a wretch, whoſe noſe muſt be kept to the grinding ſtone—and it was held there with an iron graſp. It ſeemed indeed the privilege of their ſuperior nature to kick me about, like the dog or cat. If I were attentive, I was called fawning, if refractory, an obſtinate mule, and like a mule I received their cenſure on[88] my loaded back. Often has my miſtreſs, for ſome inſtance of forgetfulneſs, thrown me from one ſide of the kitchen to the other, knocked my head againſt the wall, ſpit in my face, with various refinements on barbarity that I forbear to enumerate, though they were all acted over again by the ſervant, with additional inſults, to which the appellation of baſtard, was commonly added, with taunts or ſneers. But I will not attempt to give you an adequate idea of my ſituation, leſt you, who probably have never been drenched with the dregs of human miſery, ſhould think I exaggerate.

"I ſtole now, from abſolute neceſſity,—bread; yet whatever elſe was taken, which I had it not in my power to take, was aſcribed to me. I was the filching cat, the ravenous dog, the[89] dumb brute, who muſt bear all; for if I endeavoured to exculpate myſelf, I was ſilenced, without any enquiries being made, with 'Hold your tongue, you never tell truth.' Even the very air I breathed was tainted with ſcorn; for I was ſent to the neighbouring ſhops with Glutton, Liar, or Thief, written on my forehead. This was, at firſt, the moſt bitter puniſhment; but ſullen pride, or a kind of ſtupid deſperation, made me, at length, almoſt regardleſs of the contempt, which had wrung from me ſo many ſolitary tears at the only moments when I was allowed to reſt.

"Thus was I the mark of cruelty till my ſixteenth year; and then I have only to point out a change of miſery; for a period I never knew. Allow me firſt to make one obſervation. Now I[90] look back, I cannot help attributing the greater part of my miſery, to the miſfortune of having been thrown into the world without the grand ſupport of life—a mother's affection. I had no one to love me; or to make me reſpected, to enable me to acquire reſpect. I was an egg dropped on the ſand; a pauper by nature, ſhunted from family to family, who belonged to nobody—and nobody cared for me. I was deſpiſed from my birth, and denied the chance of obtaining a footing for myſelf in ſociety. Yes; I had not even the chance of being conſidered as a fellow-creature—yet all the people with whom I lived, brutalized as they were by the low cunning of trade, and the deſpicable ſhifts of poverty, were not without bowels, though they never yearned for me. I was, in fact, born a ſlave, and chained[91] by infamy to ſlavery during the whole of exiſtence, without having any companions to alleviate it by ſympathy, or teach me how to riſe above it by their example. But, to reſume the thread of my tale—

"At ſixteen, I ſuddenly grew tall, and ſomething like comelineſs appeared on a Sunday, when I had time to waſh my face, and put on clean clothes. My maſter had once or twice caught hold of me in the paſſage; but I inſtinctively avoided his diſguſting careſſes. One day however, when the family were at a methodiſt meeting, he contrived to be alone in the houſe with me, and by blows—yes; blows and menaces, compelled me to ſubmit to his ferocious deſire; and, to avoid my miſtreſs's fury, I was obliged in future to comply, and ſkulk to my loft at his com[92]mand, in ſpite of increaſing loathing.

"The anguiſh which was now pent up in my boſom, ſeemed to open a new world to me: I began to extend my thoughts beyond myſelf, and grieve for human miſery, till I diſcovered, with horror—ah! what horror!—that I was with child. I know not why I felt a mixed ſenſation of deſpair and tenderneſs, excepting that, ever called a baſtard, a baſtard appeared to me an object of the greateſt compaſſion in creation.

"I communicated this dreadful circumſtance to my maſter, who was almoſt equally alarmed at the intelligence; for he feared his wife, and public cenſure at the meeting. After ſome weeks of deliberation had elapſed, I in continual fear that my altered ſhape[93] would be noticed, my maſter gave me a medicine in a phial, which he deſired me to take, telling me, without any circumlocution, for what purpoſe it was deſigned. I burſt into tears, I thought it was killing myſelf—yet was ſuch a ſelf as I worth preſerving? He curſed me for a fool, and left me to my own reflections. I could not reſolve to take this infernal potion; but I wrapped it up in an old gown, and hid it in a corner of my box.

"Nobody yet ſuſpected me, becauſe they had been accuſtomed to view me as a creature of another ſpecies. But the threatening ſtorm at laſt broke over my devoted head—never ſhall I forget it! One Sunday evening when I was left, as uſual, to take care of the houſe, my maſter came home intoxicated, and I became the prey of his brutal appe[94]tite. His extreme intoxication made him forget his cuſtomary caution, and my miſtreſs entered and found us in a ſituation that could not have been more hateful to her than me. Her huſband was 'pot-valiant,' he feared her not at the moment, nor had he then much reaſon, for ſhe inſtantly turned the whole force of her anger another way. She tore off my cap, ſcratched, kicked, and buffetted me, till ſhe had exhauſted her ſtrength, declaring, as ſhe reſted her arm, 'that I had wheedled her huſband from her.—But, could any thing better be expected from a wretch, whom ſhe had taken into her houſe out of pure charity?' What a torrent of abuſe ruſhed out? till, almoſt breathleſs, ſhe concluded with ſaying, 'that I was born a ſtrumpet; it ran in my[95] blood, and nothing good could come to thoſe who harboured me.'

"My ſituation was, of courſe, diſcovered, and ſhe declared that I ſhould not ſtay another night under the ſame roof with an honeſt family. I was therefore puſhed out of doors, and my trumpery thrown after me, when it had been contemptuouſly examined in the paſſage, leſt I ſhould have ſtolen any thing.

"Behold me then in the ſtreet, utterly deſtitute! Whither could I creep for ſhelter? To my father's roof I had no claim, when not purſued by ſhame—now I ſhrunk back as from death, from my mother's cruel reproaches, my father's execrations. I could not endure to hear him curſe the day I was born, though life had been a curſe to me. Of death I thought, but with a confuſed[96] emotion of terror, as I ſtood leaning my head on a poſt, and ſtarting at every footſtep, leſt it ſhould be my miſtreſs coming to tear my heart out. One of the boys of the ſhop paſſing by, heard my tale, and immediately repaired to his maſter, to give him a deſcription of my ſituation; and he touched the right key—the ſcandal it would give riſe to, if I were left to repeat my tale to every enquirer. This plea came home to his reaſon, who had been ſobered by his wife's rage, the fury of which fell on him when I was out of her reach, and he ſent the boy to me with half-a-guinea, deſiring him to conduct me to a houſe, where beggars, and other wretches, the refuſe of ſociety, nightly lodged.

"This night was ſpent in a ſtate of ſtupefaction, or deſperation. I deteſted mankind, and abhorred myſelf.

[97] "In the morning I ventured out, to throw myſelf in my maſter's way, at his uſual hour of going abroad. I approached him, he 'damned me for a b——, declared I had diſturbed the peace of the family, and that he had ſworn to his wife, never to take any more notice of me.' He left me; but, inſtantly returning, he told me that he ſhould ſpeak to his friend, a pariſh-officer, to get a nurſe for the brat I laid to him; and adviſed me, if I wiſhed to keep out of the houſe of correction, not to make free with his name.

"I hurried back to my hole, and, rage giving place to deſpair, ſought for the potion that was to procure abortion, and ſwallowed it, with a wiſh that it might deſtroy me, at the ſame time that it ſtopped the ſenſations of new-born life,[98] which I felt with indeſcribable emotion. My head turned round, my heart grew ſick, and in the horrors of approaching diſſolution, mental anguiſh was ſwallowed up. The effect of the medicine was violent, and I was confined to my bed ſeveral days; but, youth and a ſtrong conſtitution prevailing, I once more crawled out, to aſk myſelf the cruel queſtion, 'Whither I ſhould go?' I had but two ſhillings left in my pocket, the reſt had been expended, by a poor woman who ſlept in the ſame room, to pay for my lodging, and purchaſe the neceſſaries of which ſhe partook.

"With this wretch I went into the neighbouring ſtreets to beg, and my diſconſolate appearance drew a few pence from the idle, enabling me ſtill to command a bed; till, recovering[99] from my illneſs, and taught to put on my rags to the beſt advantage, I was accoſted from different motives, and yielded to the deſire of the brutes I met, with the ſame deteſtation that I had felt for my ſtill more brutal maſter. I have ſince read in novels of the blandiſhments of ſeduction, but I had not even the pleaſure of being enticed into vice.

"I ſhall not," interrupted Jemima, "lead your imagination into all the ſcenes of wretchedneſs and depravity, which I was condemned to view; or mark the different ſtages of my debaſing miſery. Fate dragged me through the very kennels of ſociety; I was ſtill a ſlave, a baſtard, a common property. Become familiar with vice, for I wiſh to conceal nothing from you, I picked the pockets of the drunkards[100] who abuſed me; and proved by my conduct, that I deſerved the epithets, with which they loaded me at moments when diſtruſt ought to ceaſe.

"Deteſting my nightly occupation, though valuing, if I may ſo uſe the word, my independence, which only conſiſted in chooſing the ſtreet in which I ſhould wander, or the roof, when I had money, in which I ſhould hide my head, I was ſome time before I could prevail on myſelf to accept of a place in a houſe of ill fame, to which a girl, with whom I had accidentally converſed in the ſtreet, had recommended me. I had been hunted almoſt into a a fever, by the watchmen of the quarter of the town I frequented; one, whom I had unwittingly offended, giving the word to the whole pack. You can ſcarcely conceive the tyranny ex[101]erciſed by theſe wretches: conſidering themſelves as the inſtruments of the very laws they violate, the pretext which ſteels their conſcience, hardens their heart. Not content with receiving from us, outlaws of ſociety (let other women talk of favours) a brutal gratification gratuitouſly as a privilege of office, they extort a tithe of proſtitution, and harraſs with threats the poor creatures whoſe occupation affords not the means to ſilence the growl of avarice. To eſcape from this perſecution, I once more entered into ſervitude.

"A life of comparative regularity reſtored my health; and—do not ſtart—my manners were improved, in a ſituation where vice ſought to render itſelf alluring, and taſte was cultivated to faſhion the perſon, if not to refine the mind. Beſides, the common civility of[102] ſpeech, contraſted with the groſs vulgarity to which I had been accuſtomed, was ſomething like the poliſh of civilization. I was not ſhut out from all intercourſe of humanity. Still I was galled by the yoke of ſervice, and my miſtreſs often flying into violent fits of paſſion, made me dread a ſudden diſmiſſion, which I underſtood was always the caſe. I was therefore prevailed on, though I felt a horror of men, to accept the offer of a gentleman, rather in the decline of years, to keep his houſe, pleaſantly ſituated in a little village near Hampſtead.

"He was a man of great talents, and of brilliant wit; but, a worn-out votary of voluptuouſneſs, his deſires became faſtidious in proportion as they grew weak, and the native tenderneſs of his heart was undermined by a vi[103]tiated imagination. A thoughtleſs career of libertiniſm and ſocial enjoyment, had injured his health to ſuch a degree, that, whatever pleaſure his converſation afforded me (and my eſteem was enſured by proofs of the generous humanity of his diſpoſition), the being his miſtreſs was purchaſing it at a very dear rate. With ſuch a keen perception of the delicacies of ſentiment, with an imagination invigorated by the exerciſe of genius, how could he ſink into the groſſneſs of ſenſuality!

"But, to paſs over a ſubject which I recollect with pain, I muſt remark to you, as an anſwer to your often-repeated queſtion, 'Why my ſentiments and language were ſuperior to my ſtation?' that I now began to read, to beguile the tediouſneſs of ſolitude, and to gratify an inquiſitive, active mind. I[104] had often, in my childhood, followed a ballad-ſinger, to hear the ſequel of a diſmal ſtory, though ſure of being ſeverely puniſhed for delaying to return with whatever I was ſent to purchaſe. I could juſt ſpell and put a ſentence together, and I liſtened to the various arguments, though often mingled with obſcenity, which occurred at the table where I was allowed to preſide: for a literary friend or two frequently came home with my maſter, to dine and paſs the night. Having loſt the privileged reſpect of my ſex, my preſence, inſtead of reſtraining, perhaps gave the reins to their tongues; ſtill I had the advantage of hearing diſcuſſions, from which, in the common courſe of life, women are excluded.

"You may eaſily imagine, that it was only by degrees that I could com[105]prehend ſome of the ſubjects they inveſtigated, or acquire from their reaſoning what might be termed a moral ſenſe. But my fondneſs of reading increaſing, and my maſter occaſionally ſhutting himſelf up in this retreat, for weeks together, to write, I had many opportunities of improvement. At firſt, conſidering money I was right!" (exclaimed Jemima, altering her tone of voice) "as the only means, after my loſs of reputation, of obtaining reſpect, or even the toleration of humanity, I had not the leaſt ſcruple to ſecrete a part of the ſums intruſted to me, and to ſcreen myſelf from detection by a ſyſtem of falſhood. But, acquiring new principles, I began to have the ambition of returning to the reſpectable part of ſociety, and was weak enough to ſuppoſe it poſſible. The attention of my unaſ[106]ſuming inſtructor, who, without being ignorant of his own powers, poſſeſſed great ſimplicity of manners, ſtrengthened the illuſion. Having ſometimes caught up hints for thought, from my untutored remarks, he often led me to diſcuſs the ſubjects he was treating, and would read to me his productions, previous to their publication, wiſhing to profit by the criticiſm of unſophiſticated feeling. The aim of his writings was to touch the ſimple ſprings of the heart; for he deſpiſed the would-be oracles, the ſelf-elected philoſophers, who fright away fancy, while ſifting each grain of thought to prove that ſlowneſs of comprehenſion is wiſdom.

"I ſhould have diſtinguiſhed this as a moment of ſunſhine, a happy period in my life, had not the repugnance the diſguſting libertiniſm of my protector[107] inſpired, daily become more painful.—And, indeed, I ſoon did recollect it as ſuch with agony, when his ſudden death (for he had recourſe to the moſt exhilarating cordials to keep up the convivial tone of his ſpirits) again threw me into the deſert of human ſociety. Had he had any time for reflection, I am certain he would have left the little property in his power to me: but, attacked by the fatal apoplexy in town, his heir, a man of rigid morals, brought his wife with him to take poſſeſſion of the houſe and effects, before I was even informed of his death,—'to prevent,' as ſhe took care indirectly to tell me, 'ſuch a creature as ſhe ſuppoſed me to be, from purloining any of them, had I been apprized of the event in time.'

"The grief I felt at the ſudden[108] ſhock the information gave me, which at firſt had nothing ſelfiſh in it, was treated with contempt, and I was ordered to pack up my clothes; and a few trinkets and books, given me by the generous deceaſed, were conteſted, while they piouſly hoped, with a reprobating ſhake of the head, 'that God would have mercy on his ſinful ſoul!' With ſome difficulty, I obtained my arrears of wages; but aſking—ſuch is the ſpirit-grinding conſequence of poverty and infamy—for a character for honeſty and economy, which God knows I merited, I was told by this—why muſt I call her woman?—'that it would go againſt her conſcience to recommend a kept miſtreſs.' Tears ſtarted in my eyes, burning tears; for there are ſituations in which a wretch[109] is humbled by the contempt they are conſcious they do not deſerve.

"I returned to the metropolis; but the ſolitude of a poor lodging was inconceivably dreary, after the ſociety I had enjoyed. To be cut off from human converſe, now I had been taught to reliſh it, was to wander a ghoſt among the living. Beſides, I foreſaw, to aggravate the ſeverity of my fate, that my little pittance would ſoon melt away. I endeavoured to obtain needlework; but, not having been taught early, and my hands being rendered clumſy by hard work, I did not ſufficiently excel to be employed by the ready-made linen ſhops, when ſo many women, better qualified, were ſuing for it. The want of a character prevented my getting a place; for, irkſome as ſervitude would have been to me, I ſhould[110] have made another trial, had it been feaſible. Not that I diſliked employment, but the inequality of condition to which I muſt have ſubmitted. I had acquired a taſte for literature, during the five years I had lived with a literary man, occaſionally converſing with men of the firſt abilities of the age; and now to deſcend to the loweſt vulgarity, was a degree of wretchedneſs not to be imagined unfelt. I had not, it is true, taſted the charms of affection, but I had been familiar with the graces of humanity.

"One of the gentlemen, whom I had frequently dined in company with, while I was treated like a companion, met me in the ſtreet, and enquired after my health. I ſeized the occaſion, and began to deſcribe my ſituation; but he was in haſte to join, at dinner,[111] a ſelect party of choice ſpirits; therefore, without waiting to hear me, he impatiently put a guinea into my hand, ſaying, 'It was a pity ſuch a ſenſible woman ſhould be in diſtreſs—he wiſhed me well from his ſoul.'

"To another I wrote, ſtating my caſe, and requeſting advice. He was an advocate for unequivocal ſincerity; and had often, in my preſence, deſcanted on the evils which ariſe in ſociety from the deſpotiſm of rank and riches.

"In reply, I received a long eſſay on the energy of the human mind, with continual alluſions to his own force of character. He added, 'That the woman who could write ſuch a letter as I had ſent him, could never be in want of reſources, were ſhe to look into herſelf, and exert her powers; miſery was the conſequence of indolence, and, as[112] to my being ſhut out from ſociety, it was the lot of man to ſubmit to certain privations.'

"How often have I heard," ſaid Jemima, interrupting her narrative, "in converſation, and read in books, that every perſon willing to work may find employment? It is the vague aſſertion, I believe, of inſenſible indolence, when it relates to men; but, with reſpect to women, I am ſure of its fallacy, unleſs they will ſubmit to the moſt menial bodily labour; and even to be employed at hard labour is out of the reach of many, whoſe reputation miſfortune or folly has tainted.

"How writers, profeſſing to be friends to freedom, and the improvement of morals, can aſſert that poverty is no evil, I cannot imagine."

"No more can I," interrupted Ma[113]ria, "yet they even expatiate on the peculiar happineſs of indigence, though in what it can conſiſt, excepting in brutal reſt, when a man can barely earn a ſubſiſtence, I cannot imagine. The mind is neceſſarily impriſoned in its own little tenement; and, fully occupied by keeping it in repair, has not time to rove abroad for improvement. The book of knowledge is cloſely claſped, againſt thoſe who muſt fulfil their daily taſk of ſevere manual labour or die; and curioſity, rarely excited by thought or information, ſeldom moves on the ſtagnate lake of ignorance."

"As far as I have been able to obſerve," replied Jemima, "prejudices, caught up by chance, are obſtinately maintained by the poor, to the excluſion of improvement; they have not time to reaſon or reflect to any extent,[114] or minds ſufficiently exerciſed to adopt the principles of action, which form perhaps the only baſis of contentment in every ſtation[114-A]."

"And independence," ſaid Darnford, "they are neceſſarily ſtrangers to, even the independence of deſpiſing their perſecutors. If the poor are happy, or can be happy, things are very well as they are. And I cannot conceive on what principle thoſe writers contend for a change of ſyſtem, who ſupport this opinion. The authors on the other ſide of the queſtion are much more conſiſtent, who grant the fact; yet, inſiſting that it is the lot of the majority[115] to be oppreſſed in this life, kindly turn them over to another, to rectify the falſe weights and meaſures of this, as the only way to juſtify the diſpenſations of Providence. I have not," continued Darnford, "an opinion more firmly fixed by obſervation in my mind, than that, though riches may fail to produce proportionate happineſs, poverty moſt commonly excludes it, by ſhutting up all the avenues to improvement."

"And as for the affections," added Maria, with a ſigh, "how groſs, and even tormenting do they become, unleſs regulated by an improving mind! The culture of the heart ever, I believe, keeps pace with that of the mind. But pray go on," addreſſing Jemima, "though your narrative gives riſe to the moſt painful reflections on the preſent ſtate of ſociety."

[116] "Not to trouble you," continued ſhe, "with a detailed deſcription of all the painful feelings of unavailing exertion, I have only to tell you, that at laſt I got recommended to waſh in a few families, who did me the favour to admit me into their houſes, without the moſt ſtrict enquiry, to waſh from one in the morning till eight at night, for eighteen or twenty-pence a day. On the happineſs to be enjoyed over a waſhing-tub I need not comment; yet you will allow me to obſerve, that this was a wretchedneſs of ſituation peculiar to my ſex. A man with half my induſtry, and, I may ſay, abilities, could have procured a decent livelihood, and diſcharged ſome of the duties which knit mankind together; whilſt I, who had acquired a taſte for the rational, nay, in honeſt pride let me aſſert it, the[117] virtuous enjoyments of life, was caſt aſide as the filth of ſociety. Condemned to labour, like a machine, only to earn bread, and ſcarcely that, I became melancholy and deſperate.

"I have now to mention a circumſtance which fills me with remorſe, and fear it will entirely deprive me of your eſteem. A tradeſman became attached to me, and viſited me frequently,—and I at laſt obtained ſuch a power over him, that he offered to take me home to his houſe.—Conſider, dear madam, I was famiſhing: wonder not that I became a wolf!—The only reaſon for not taking me home immediately, was the having a girl in the houſe, with child by him—and this girl—I adviſed him—yes, I did! would I could forget it!—to turn out of doors: and one night he determined to follow my advice, Poor[118] wretch! ſhe fell upon her knees, reminded him that he had promiſed to marry her, that her parents were honeſt!—What did it avail?—She was turned out.

"She approached her father's door, in the ſkirts of London,—liſtened at the ſhutters,—but could not knock. A watchman had obſerved her go and return ſeveral times—Poor wretch!—" The remorſe Jemima ſpoke of, ſeemed to be ſtinging her to the ſoul, as ſhe proceeded."

"She left it, and, approaching a tub where horſes were watered, ſhe ſat down in it, and, with deſperate reſolution, remained in that attitude—till reſolution was no longer neceſſary!

"I happened that morning to be going out to waſh, anticipating the moment when I ſhould eſcape from[119] ſuch hard labour. I paſſed by, juſt as ſome men, going to work, drew out the ſtiff, cold corpſe—Let me not recal the horrid moment!—I recognized her pale viſage; I liſtened to the tale told by the ſpectators, and my heart did not burſt. I thought of my own ſtate, and wondered how I could be ſuch a monſter!—I worked hard; and, returning home, I was attacked by a fever. I ſuffered both in body and mind. I determined not to live with the wretch. But he did not try me; he left the neighbourhood. I once more returned to the waſh-tub.

"Still this ſtate, miſerable as it was, admitted of aggravation. Lifting one day a heavy load, a tub fell againſt my ſhin, and gave me great pain. I did not pay much attention to the hurt, till it became a ſerious wound; being[120] obliged to work as uſual, or ſtarve. But, finding myſelf at length unable to ſtand for any time, I thought of getting into an hoſpital. Hoſpitals, it ſhould ſeem (for they are comfortleſs abodes for the ſick) were expreſſly endowed for the reception of the friendleſs; yet I, who had on that plea a right to aſſiſtance, wanted the recommendation of the rich and reſpectable, and was ſeveral weeks languiſhing for admittance; fees were demanded on entering; and, what was ſtill more unreaſonable, ſecurity for burying me, that expence not coming into the letter of the charity. A guinea was the ſtipulated ſum—I could as ſoon have raiſed a million; and I was afraid to apply to the pariſh for an order, leſt they ſhould have paſſed me, I knew not whither. The poor woman at whoſe houſe I lodged, compaſſionating my ſtate, got me into[121] the hoſpital; and the family where I received the hurt, ſent me five ſhillings, three and ſix-pence of which I gave at my admittance—I know not for what.

"My leg grew quickly better; but I was diſmiſſed before my cure was completed, becauſe I could not afford to have my linen waſhed to appear decently, as the virago of a nurſe ſaid, when the gentlemen (the ſurgeons) came. I cannot give you an adequate idea of the wretchedneſs of an hoſpital; every thing is left to the care of people intent on gain. The attendants ſeem to have loſt all feeling of compaſſion in the buſtling diſcharge of their offices; death is ſo familiar to them, that they are not anxious to ward it off. Every thing appeared to be conducted for the accommodation of the medical men and their pupils, who came to make[122] experiments on the poor, for the benefit of the rich. One of the phyſicians, I muſt not forget to mention, gave me half-a-crown, and ordered me ſome wine, when I was at the loweſt ebb. I thought of making my caſe known to the lady-like matron; but her forbidding countenance prevented me. She condeſcended to look on the patients, and make general enquiries, two or three times a week; but the nurſes knew the hour when the viſit of ceremony would commence, and every thing was as it ſhould be.

"After my diſmiſſion, I was more at a loſs than ever for a ſubſiſtence, and, not to weary you with a repetition of the ſame unavailing attempts, unable to ſtand at the waſhing-tub, I began to conſider the rich and poor as natural enemies, and became a thief from prin[123]ciple. I could not now ceaſe to reaſon, but I hated mankind. I deſpiſed myſelf, yet I juſtified my conduct. I was taken, tried, and condemned to ſix months' impriſonment in a houſe of correction. My ſoul recoils with horror from the remembrance of the inſults I had to endure, till, branded with ſhame, I was turned looſe in the ſtreet, pennyleſs. I wandered from ſtreet to ſtreet, till, exhauſted by hunger and fatigue, I ſunk down ſenſeleſs at a door, where I had vainly demanded a morſel of bread. I was ſent by the inhabitant to the work-houſe, to which he had ſurlily bid me go, ſaying, he 'paid enough in conſcience to the poor,' when, with parched tongue, I implored his charity. If thoſe well-meaning people who exclaim againſt beggars, were acquainted with the treatment the poor receive in[124] many of theſe wretched aſylums, they would not ſtifle ſo eaſily involuntary ſympathy, by ſaying that they have all pariſhes to go to, or wonder that the poor dread to enter the gloomy walls. What are the common run of work-houſes, but priſons, in which many reſpectable old people, worn out by immoderate labour, ſink into the grave in ſorrow, to which they are carried like dogs!"

Alarmed by ſome indiſtinct noiſe, Jemima roſe haſtily to liſten, and Maria, turning to Darnford, ſaid, "I have indeed been ſhocked beyond expreſſion when I have met a pauper's funeral. A coffin carried on the ſhoulders of three or four ill-looking wretches, whom the imagination might eaſily convert into a band of aſſaſſins, haſtening to conceal the corpſe, and quarrelling about the[125] prey on their way. I know it is of little conſequence how we are conſigned to the earth; but I am led by this brutal inſenſibility, to what even the animal creation appears forcibly to feel, to advert to the wretched, deſerted manner in which they died."

"True," rejoined Darnford, "and, till the rich will give more than a part of their wealth, till they will give time and attention to the wants of the diſtreſſed, never let them boaſt of charity. Let them open their hearts, and not their purſes, and employ their minds in the ſervice, if they are really actuated by humanity; or charitable inſtitutions will always be the prey of the loweſt order of knaves."

Jemima returning, ſeemed in haſte to finiſh her tale. "The overſeer farmed the poor of different pariſhes,[126] and out of the bowels of poverty was wrung the money with which he purchaſed this dwelling, as a private receptacle for madneſs. He had been a keeper at a houſe of the ſame deſcription, and conceived that he could make money much more readily in his old occupation. He is a ſhrewd—ſhall I ſay it?—villain. He obſerved ſomething reſolute in my manner, and offered to take me with him, and inſtruct me how to treat the diſturbed minds he meant to intruſt to my care. The offer of forty pounds a year, and to quit a workhouſe, was not to be deſpiſed, though the condition of ſhutting my eyes and hardening my heart was annexed to it.

"I agreed to accompany him; and four years have I been attendant on many wretches, and"—ſhe lowered[127] her voice,—"the witneſs of many enormities. In ſolitude my mind ſeemed to recover its force, and many of the ſentiments which I imbibed in the only tolerable period of my life, returned with their full force. Still what ſhould induce me to be the champion for ſuffering humanity?—Who ever riſked any thing for me?—Who ever acknowledged me to be a fellow-creature?"—

Maria took her hand, and Jemima, more overcome by kindneſs than ſhe had ever been by cruelty, haſtened out of the room to conceal her emotions.

Darnford ſoon after heard his ſummons, and, taking leave of him, Maria promiſed to gratify his curioſity, with reſpect to herſelf, the firſt opportunity.

[128]

CHAP. VI.

Active as love was in the heart of Maria, the ſtory ſhe had juſt heard made her thoughts take a wider range. The opening buds of hope cloſed, as if they had put forth too early, and the the happieſt day of her life was overcaſt by the moſt melancholy reflections. Thinking of Jemima's peculiar fate and her own, ſhe was led to conſider the oppreſſed ſtate of women, and to lament that ſhe had given birth to a daughter. Sleep fled from her eyelids, while ſhe dwelt on the wretchedneſs of unprotected infancy, till ſympathy with Jemima changed to agony, when it ſeemed probable that her own[129] babe might even now be in the very ſtate ſhe ſo forcibly deſcribed.

Maria thought, and thought again. Jemima's humanity had rather been benumbed than killed, by the keen froſt ſhe had to brave at her entrance into life; an appeal then to her feelings, on this tender point, ſurely would not be fruitleſs; and Maria began to anticipate the delight it would afford her to gain intelligence of her child. This project was now the only ſubject of reflection; and ſhe watched impatiently for the dawn of day, with that determinate purpoſe which generally inſures ſucceſs.

At the uſual hour, Jemima brought her breakfaſt, and a tender note from Darnford. She ran her eye haſtily over it, and her heart calmly hoarded up the rapture a freſh aſſurance of affec[130]tion, affection ſuch as ſhe wiſhed to inſpire, gave her, without diverting her mind a moment from its deſign. While Jemima waited to take away the breakfaſt, Maria alluded to the reflections, that had haunted her during the night to the excluſion of ſleep. She ſpoke with energy of Jemima's unmerited ſufferings, and of the fate of a number of deſerted females, placed within the ſweep of a whirlwind, from which it was next to impoſſible to eſcape. Perceiving the effect her converſation produced on the countenance of her guard, ſhe graſped the arm of Jemima with that irreſiſtible warmth which defies repulſe, exclaiming—"With your heart, and ſuch dreadful experience, can you lend your aid to deprive my babe of a mother's tenderneſs, a mother's care? In the name[131] of God, aſſiſt me to ſnatch her from deſtruction! Let me but give her an education—let me but prepare her body and mind to encounter the ills which await her ſex, and I will teach her to conſider you as her ſecond mother, and herſelf as the prop of your age. Yes, Jemima, look at me—obſerve me cloſely, and read my very ſoul; you merit a better fate;" ſhe held out her hand with a firm geſture of aſſurance; "and I will procure it for you, as a teſtimony of my eſteem, as well as of my gratitude."

Jemima had not power to reſiſt this perſuaſive torrent; and, owning that the houſe in which ſhe was confined, was ſituated on the banks of the Thames, only a few miles from London, and not on the ſea-coaſt, as Darnford had ſuppoſed, ſhe promiſed to in[132]vent ſome excuſe for her abſence, and go herſelf to trace the ſituation, and enquire concerning the health, of this abandoned daughter. Her manner implied an intention to do ſomething more, but ſhe ſeemed unwilling to impart her deſign; and Maria, glad to have obtained the main point, thought it beſt to leave her to the workings of her own mind; convinced that ſhe had the power of intereſting her ſtill more in favour of herſelf and child, by a ſimple recital of facts.

In the evening, Jemima informed the impatient mother, that on the morrow ſhe ſhould haſten to town before the family hour of riſing, and received all the information neceſſary, as a clue to her ſearch. The "Good night!" Maria uttered was peculiarly ſolemn and affectionate. Glad expectation ſpar[133]kled in her eye; and, for the firſt time ſince her detention, ſhe pronounced the name of her child with pleaſureable fondneſs; and, with all the garrulity of a nurſe, deſcribed her firſt ſmile when ſhe recognized her mother. Recollecting herſelf, a ſtill kinder "Adieu!" with a "God bleſs you!"—that ſeemed to include a maternal benediction, diſmiſſed Jemima.

The dreary ſolitude of the enſuing day, lengthened by impatiently dwelling on the ſame idea, was intolerably weariſome. She liſtened for the ſound of a particular clock, which ſome directions of the wind allowed her to hear diſtinctly. She marked the ſhadow gaining on the wall; and, twilight thickening into darkneſs, her breath ſeemed oppreſſed while ſhe anxiouſly[134] counted nine.—The laſt ſound was a ſtroke of deſpair on her heart; for ſhe expected every moment, without ſeeing Jemima, to have her light extinguiſhed by the ſavage female who ſupplied her place. She was even obliged to prepare for bed, reſtleſs as ſhe was, not to diſoblige her new attendant. She had been cautioned not to ſpeak too freely to her; but the caution was needleſs, her countenance would ſtill more emphatically have made her ſhrink back. Such was the ferocity of manner, conſpicuous in every word and geſture of this hag, that Maria was afraid to enquire, why Jemima, who had faithfully promiſed to ſee her before her door was ſhut for the night, came not?—and, when the key turned in the lock, to conſign her to a night of ſuſpence, ſhe felt a degree of anguiſh[135] which the circumſtances ſcarcely juſtified.

Continually on the watch, the ſhutting of a door, or the ſound of a footſtep, made her ſtart and tremble with apprehenſion, ſomething like what ſhe felt, when, at her entrance, dragged along the gallery, ſhe began to doubt whether ſhe were not ſurrounded by demons?

Fatigued by an endleſs rotation of thought and wild alarms, ſhe looked like a ſpectre, when Jemima entered in the morning; eſpecially as her eyes darted out of her head, to read in Jemima's countenance, almoſt as pallid, the intelligence ſhe dared not truſt her tongue to demand. Jemima put down the tea-things, and appeared very buſy in arranging the table. Maria took up a cup with trembling hand, then for[136]cibly recovering her fortitude, and reſtraining the convulſive movement which agitated the muſcles of her mouth, ſhe ſaid, "Spare yourſelf the pain of preparing me for your information, I adjure you!—My child is dead!" Jemima ſolemnly anſwered, "Yes;" with a look expreſſive of compaſſion and angry emotions. "Leave me," added Maria, making a freſh effort to govern her feelings, and hiding her face in her handkerchief, to conceal her anguiſh—"It is enough—I know that my babe is no more—I will hear the particulars when I am"—calmer, ſhe could not utter; and Jemima, without importuning her by idle attempts to conſole her, left the room.

Plunged in the deepeſt melancholy, ſhe would not admit Darnford's viſits; and ſuch is the force of early aſſocia[137]tions even on ſtrong minds, that, for a while, ſhe indulged the ſuperſtitious notion that ſhe was juſtly puniſhed by the death of her child, for having for an inſtant ceaſed to regret her loſs. Two or three letters from Darnford, full of ſoothing, manly tenderneſs, only added poignancy to theſe accuſing emotions; yet the paſſionate ſtyle in which he expreſſed, what he termed the firſt and fondeſt wiſh of his heart, "that his affection might make her ſome amends for the cruelty and injuſtice ſhe had endured," inſpired a ſentiment of gratitude to heaven; and her eyes filled with delicious tears, when, at the concluſion of his letter, wiſhing to ſupply the place of her unworthy relations, whoſe want of principle he execrated, he aſſured her, calling her his deareſt girl, "that it ſhould henceforth be the buſineſs of his life to make her happy."

[138] He begged, in a note ſent the following morning, to be permitted to ſee her, when his preſence would be no intruſion on her grief; and ſo earneſtly intreated to be allowed, according to promiſe, to beguile the tedious moments of abſence, by dwelling on the events of her paſt life, that ſhe ſent him the memoirs which had been written for her daughter, promiſing Jemima the peruſal as ſoon as he returned them.

[139]

CHAP. VII.

"Addreſſing theſe memoirs to you, my child, uncertain whether I ſhall ever have an opportunity of inſtructing you, many obſervations will probably flow from my heart, which only a mother—a mother ſchooled in miſery, could make.

"The tenderneſs of a father who knew the world, might be great; but could it equal that of a mother—of a mother, labouring under a portion of the miſery, which the conſtitution of ſociety ſeems to have entailed on all her kind? It is, my child, my deareſt daughter, only ſuch a mother, who will dare to break through all reſtraint to provide for your happineſs—who will voluntarily brave[140] cenſure herſelf, to ward off ſorrow from your boſom. From my narrative, my dear girl, you may gather the inſtruction, the counſel, which is meant rather to exerciſe than influence your mind.—Death may ſnatch me from you, before you can weigh my advice, or enter into my reaſoning: I would then, with fond anxiety, lead you very early in life to form your grand principle of action, to ſave you from the vain regret of having, through irreſolution, let the ſpring-tide of exiſtence paſs away, unimproved, unenjoyed.—Gain experience—ah! gain it—while experience is worth having, and acquire ſufficient fortitude to purſue your own happineſs; it includes your utility, by a direct path. What is wiſdom too often, but the owl of the goddeſs, who ſits moping in a deſolated heart; around me ſhe[141] ſhrieks, but I would invite all the gay warblers of ſpring to neſtle in your blooming boſom.—Had I not waſted years in deliberating, after I ceaſed to doubt, how I ought to have acted—I might now be uſeful and happy.—For my ſake, warned by my example, always appear what you are, and you will not paſs through exiſtence without enjoying its genuine bleſſings, love and reſpect.

"Born in one of the moſt romantic parts of England, an enthuſiaſtic fondneſs for the varying charms of nature is the firſt ſentiment I recollect; or rather it was the firſt conſciouſneſs of pleaſure that employed and formed my imagination.

"My father had been a captain of a man of war; but, diſguſted with the ſervice, on account of the pre[142]ferment of men whoſe chief merit was their family connections or borough intereſt, he retired into the country; and, not knowing what to do with himſelf—married. In his family, to regain his loſt conſequence, he determined to keep up the ſame paſſive obedience, as in the veſſels in which he had commanded. His orders were not to be diſputed; and the whole houſe was expected to fly, at the word of command, as if to man the ſhrouds, or mount aloft in an elemental ſtrife, big with life or death. He was to be inſtantaneouſly obeyed, eſpecially by my mother, whom he very benevolently married for love; but took care to remind her of the obligation, when ſhe dared, in the ſlighteſt inſtance, to queſtion his abſolute authority. My eldeſt brother, it is true, as he grew up, was treated with more re[143]ſpect by my father; and became in due form the deputy-tyrant of the houſe. The repreſentative of my father, a being privileged by nature—a boy, and the darling of my mother, he did not fail to act like an heir apparent. Such indeed was my mother's extravagant partiality, that, in compariſon with her affection for him, ſhe might be ſaid not to love the reſt of her children. Yet none of the children ſeemed to have ſo little affection for her. Extreme indulgence had rendered him ſo ſelfiſh, that he only thought of himſelf; and from tormenting inſects and animals, he became the deſpot of his brothers, and ſtill more of his ſiſters.

"It is perhaps difficult to give you an idea of the petty cares which obſcured the morning of my life; continual reſtraint in the moſt trivial matters; un[144]conditional ſubmiſſion to orders, which, as a mere child, I ſoon diſcovered to be unreaſonable, becauſe inconſiſtent and contradictory. Thus are we deſtined to experience a mixture of bitterneſs, with the recollection of our moſt innocent enjoyments.

"The circumſtances which, during my childhood, occurred to faſhion my mind, were various; yet, as it would probably afford me more pleaſure to revive the fading remembrance of new-born delight, than you, my child, could feel in the peruſal, I will not entice you to ſtray with me into the verdant meadow, to ſearch for the flowers that youthful hopes ſcatter in every path; though, as I write, I almoſt ſcent the freſh green of ſpring—of that ſpring which never returns!

"I had two ſiſters, and one brother,[145] younger than myſelf; my brother Robert was two years older, and might truly be termed the idol of his parents, and the torment of the reſt of the family. Such indeed is the force of prejudice, that what was called ſpirit and wit in him, was cruelly repreſſed as forwardneſs in me.

"My mother had an indolence of character, which prevented her from paying much attention to our education. But the healthy breeze of a neighbouring heath, on which we bounded at pleaſure, volatilized the humours that improper food might have generated. And to enjoy open air and freedom, was paradiſe, after the unnatural reſtraint of our fire-ſide, where we were often obliged to ſit three or four hours together, without daring to utter a word, when my fa[146]ther was out of humour, from want of employment, or of a variety of boiſterous amuſement. I had however one advantage, an inſtructor, the brother of my father, who, intended for the church, had of courſe received a liberal education. But, becoming attached to a young lady of great beauty and large fortune, and acquiring in the world ſome opinions not conſonant with the profeſſion for which he was deſigned, he accepted, with the moſt ſanguine expectations of ſucceſs, the offer of a nobleman to accompany him to India, as his confidential ſecretary.

"A correſpondence was regularly kept up with the object of his affection; and the intricacies of buſineſs, peculiarly weariſome to a man of a romantic turn of mind, contributed, with a forced abſence, to increaſe his attachment.[147] Every other paſſion was loſt in this maſter-one, and only ſerved to ſwell the torrent. Her relations, ſuch were his waking dreams, who had deſpiſed him, would court in their turn his alliance, and all the blandiſhments of taſte would grace the triumph of love.—While he baſked in the warm ſunſhine of love, friendſhip alſo promiſed to ſhed its dewy freſhneſs; for a friend, whom he loved next to his miſtreſs, was the confident, who forwarded the letters from one to the other, to elude the obſervation of prying relations. A friend falſe in ſimilar circumſtances, is, my deareſt girl, an old tale; yet, let not this example, or the frigid caution of cold-blooded moraliſts, make you endeavour to ſtifle hopes, which are the buds that naturally unfold themſelves during the ſpring of life! Whilſt your own heart[148] is ſincere, always expect to meet one glowing with the ſame ſentiments; for to fly from pleaſure, is not to avoid pain!

"My uncle realized, by good luck, rather than management, a handſome fortune; and returning on the wings of love, loſt in the moſt enchanting reveries, to England, to ſhare it with his miſtreſs and his friend, he found them—united.

"There were ſome circumſtances, not neceſſary for me to recite, which aggravated the guilt of the friend beyond meaſure, and the deception, that had been carried on to the laſt moment, was ſo baſe, it produced the moſt violent effect on my uncle's health and ſpirits. His native country, the world! lately a garden of blooming ſweets, blaſted by treachery, ſeemed changed into a parched deſert,[149] the abode of hiſſing ſerpents. Diſappointment rankled in his heart; and, brooding over his wrongs, he was attacked by a raging fever, followed by a derangement of mind, which only gave place to habitual melancholy, as he recovered more ſtrength of body.

"Declaring an intention never to marry, his relations were ever cluſtering about him, paying the groſſeſt adulation to a man, who, diſguſted with mankind, received them with ſcorn, or bitter ſarcaſms. Something in my countenance pleaſed him, when I began to prattle. Since his return, he appeared dead to affection; but I ſoon, by ſhowing him innocent fondneſs, became a favourite; and endeavouring to enlarge and ſtrengthen my mind, I grew dear to him in proportion as I imbibed his ſentiments. He had a forcible[150] manner of ſpeaking, rendered more ſo by a certain impreſſive wildneſs of look and geſture, calculated to engage the attention of a young and ardent mind. It is not then ſurpriſing that I quickly adopted his opinions in preference, and reverenced him as one of a ſuperior order of beings. He inculcated, with great warmth, ſelf-reſpect, and a lofty conſciouſneſs of acting right, independent of the cenſure or applauſe of the world; nay, he almoſt taught me to brave, and even deſpiſe its cenſure, when convinced of the rectitude of my own intentions.

"Endeavouring to prove to me that nothing which deſerved the name of love or friendſhip, exiſted in the world, he drew ſuch animated pictures of his own feelings, rendered permanent by diſappointment, as imprinted the ſen[151]timents ſtrongly on my heart, and animated my imagination. Theſe remarks are neceſſary to elucidate ſome peculiarities in my character, which by the world are indefinitely termed romantic.

"My uncle's increaſing affection led him to viſit me often. Still, unable to reſt in any place, he did not remain long in the country to ſoften domeſtic tyranny; but he brought me books, for which I had a paſſion, and they conſpired with his converſation, to make me form an ideal picture of life. I ſhall paſs over the tyranny of my father, much as I ſuffered from it; but it is neceſſary to notice, that it undermined my mother's health; and that her temper, continually irritated by domeſtic bickering, became intolerably peeviſh.

[152] "My eldeſt brother was articled to a neighbouring attorney, the ſhrewdeſt, and, I may add, the moſt unprincipled man in that part of the country. As my brother generally came home every Saturday, to aſtoniſh my mother by exhibiting his attainments, he gradually aſſumed a right of directing the whole family, not excepting my father. He ſeemed to take a peculiar pleaſure in tormenting and humbling me; and if I ever ventured to complain of this treatment to either my father or mother, I was rudely rebuffed for preſuming to judge of the conduct of my eldeſt brother.

"About this period a merchant's family came to ſettle in our neighbourhood. A manſion-houſe in the village, lately purchaſed, had been preparing the whole ſpring, and the ſight of the[153] coſtly furniture, ſent from London, had excited my mother's envy, and rouſed my father's pride. My ſenſations were very different, and all of a pleaſurable kind. I longed to ſee new characters, to break the tedious monotony of my life; and to find a friend, ſuch as fancy had pourtrayed. I cannot then deſcribe the emotion I felt, the Sunday they made their appearance at church. My eyes were rivetted on the pillar round which I expected firſt to catch a glimpſe of them, and darted forth to meet a ſervant who haſtily preceded a group of ladies, whoſe white robes and waving plumes, ſeemed to ſtream along the gloomy aiſle, diffuſing the light, by which I contemplated their figures.

"We viſited them in form; and I quickly ſelected the eldeſt daughter for my friend. The ſecond ſon, George,[154] paid me particular attention, and finding his attainments and manners ſuperior to thoſe of the young men of the village, I began to imagine him ſuperior to the reſt of mankind. Had my home been more comfortable, or my previous acquaintance more numerous, I ſhould not probably have been ſo eager to open my heart to new affections.

"Mr. Venables, the merchant, had acquired a large fortune by unremitting attention to buſineſs; but his health declining rapidly, he was obliged to retire, before his ſon, George, had acquired ſufficient experience, to enable him to conduct their affairs on the ſame prudential plan, his father had invariably purſued. Indeed, he had laboured to throw off his authority, having deſpiſed his narrow plans and cautious ſpeculation. The eldeſt ſon[155] could not be prevailed on to enter the firm; and, to oblige his wife, and have peace in the houſe, Mr. Venables had purchaſed a commiſſion for him in the guards.

"I am now alluding to circumſtances which came to my knowledge long after; but it is neceſſary, my deareſt child, that you ſhould know the character of your father, to prevent your deſpiſing your mother; the only parent inclined to diſcharge a parent's duty. In London, George had acquired habits of libertiniſm, which he carefully concealed from his father and his commercial connections. The maſk he wore, was ſo complete a covering of his real viſage, that the praiſe his father laviſhed on his conduct, and, poor miſtaken man! on his principles, contraſted with his brother's, rendered the[156] notice he took of me peculiarly flattering. Without any fixed deſign, as I am now convinced, he continued to ſingle me out at the dance, preſs my hand at parting, and utter expreſſions of unmeaning paſſion, to which I gave a meaning naturally ſuggeſted by the romantic turn of my thoughts. His ſtay in the country was ſhort; his manners did not entirely pleaſe me; but, when he left us, the colouring of my picture became more vivid—Whither did not my imagination lead me? In ſhort, I fancied myſelf in love—in love with the diſintereſtedneſs, fortitude, generoſity, dignity, and humanity, with which I had inveſted the hero I dubbed. A circumſtance which ſoon after occurred, rendered all theſe virtues palpable. [The incident is perhaps worth relating on other accounts, and[157] therefore I ſhall deſcribe it diſtinctly.]

"I had a great affection for my nurſe, old Mary, for whom I uſed often to work, to ſpare her eyes. Mary had a younger ſiſter, married to a ſailor, while ſhe was ſuckling me; for my mother only ſuckled my eldeſt brother, which might be the cauſe of her extraordinary partiality. Peggy, Mary's ſiſter, lived with her, till her huſband, becoming a mate in a Weſt-India trader, got a little before-hand in the world. He wrote to his wife from the firſt port in the Channel, after his moſt ſucceſſful voyage, to requeſt her to come to London to meet him; he even wiſhed her to determine on living there for the future, to ſave him the trouble of coming to her the moment he came on ſhore; and to turn a penny by keeping[158] a green-ſtall. It was too much to ſet out on a journey the moment he had finiſhed a voyage, and fifty miles by land, was worſe than a thouſand leagues by ſea.

"She packed up her alls, and came to London—but did not meet honeſt Daniel. A common miſfortune prevented her, and the poor are bound to ſuffer for the good of their country—he was preſſed in the river—and never came on ſhore.

"Peggy was miſerable in London, not knowing, as ſhe ſaid, 'the face of any living ſoul.' Beſides, her imagination had been employed, anticipating a month or ſix weeks' happineſs with her huſband. Daniel was to have gone with her to Sadler's Wells, and Weſtminſter Abbey, and to many ſights, which he knew ſhe never heard of in the country. Peggy too was thrifty,[159] and how could ſhe manage to put his plan in execution alone? He had acquaintance; but ſhe did not know the very name of their places of abode. His letters were made up of—How do you does, and God bleſs yous,—information was reſerved for the hour of meeting.

"She too had her portion of information, near at heart. Molly and Jacky were grown ſuch little darlings, ſhe was almoſt angry that daddy did not ſee their tricks. She had not half the pleaſure ſhe ſhould have had from their prattle, could ſhe have recounted to him each night the pretty ſpeeches of the day. Some ſtories, however, were ſtored up—and Jacky could ſay papa with ſuch a ſweet voice, it muſt delight his heart. Yet when ſhe came, and found no Daniel to greet her, when[160] Jacky called papa, ſhe wept, bidding 'God bleſs his innocent ſoul, that did not know what ſorrow was.'—But more ſorrow was in ſtore for Peggy, innocent as ſhe was.—Daniel was killed in the firſt engagement, and then the papa was agony, ſounding to the heart.

"She had lived ſparingly on his wages, while there was any hope of his return; but, that gone, ſhe returned with a breaking heart to the country, to a little market town, nearly three miles from our village. She did not like to go to ſervice, to be ſnubbed about, after being her own miſtreſs. To put her children out to nurſe was impoſſible: how far would her wages go? and to ſend them to her huſband's pariſh, a diſtant one, was to loſe her huſband twice over.

[161] "I had heard all from Mary, and made my uncle furniſh a little cottage for her, to enable her to ſell—ſo ſacred was poor Daniel's advice, now he was dead and gone—a little fruit, toys and cakes. The minding of the ſhop did not require her whole time, nor even the keeping her children clean, and ſhe loved to ſee them clean; ſo ſhe took in waſhing, and altogether made a ſhift to earn bread for her children, ſtill weeping for Daniel, when Jacky's arch looks made her think of his father.—It was pleaſant to work for her children.—'Yes; from morning till night, could ſhe have had a kiſs from their father, God reſt his ſoul! Yes; had it pleaſed Providence to have let him come back without a leg or an arm, it would have been the ſame thing to her—for ſhe did not love him becauſe he[162] maintained them—no; ſhe had hands of her own.'

"The country people were honeſt, and Peggy left her linen out to dry very late. A recruiting party, as ſhe ſuppoſed, paſſing through, made free with a large waſh; for it was all ſwept away, including her own and her children's little ſtock.

"This was a dreadful blow; two dozen of ſhirts, ſtocks and handkerchiefs. She gave the money which ſhe had laid by for half a year's rent, and promiſed to pay two ſhillings a week till all was cleared; ſo ſhe did not loſe her employment. This two ſhillings a week, and the buying a few neceſſaries for the children, drove her ſo hard, that ſhe had not a penny to pay her rent with, when a twelvemonth's became due.

[163] "She was now with Mary, and had juſt told her tale, which Mary inſtantly repeated—it was intended for my ear. Many houſes in this town, producing a borough-intereſt, were included in the eſtate purchaſed by Mr. Venables, and the attorney with whom my brother lived, was appointed his agent, to collect and raiſe the rents.

"He demanded Peggy's, and, in ſpite of her intreaties, her poor goods had been ſeized and ſold. So that ſhe had not, and what was worſe her children, 'for ſhe had known ſorrow enough,' a bed to lie on. She knew that I was good-natured—right charitable, yet not liking to aſk for more than needs muſt, ſhe ſcorned to petition while people could any how be made to wait. But now, ſhould ſhe be turned out of doors, ſhe muſt ex[164]pect nothing leſs than to loſe all her cuſtomers, and then ſhe muſt beg or ſtarve—and what would become of her children?—'had Daniel not been preſſed—but God knows beſt—all this could not have happened.'

"I had two mattraſſes on my bed; what did I want with two, when ſuch a worthy creature muſt lie on the ground? My mother would be angry, but I could conceal it till my uncle came down; and then I would tell him all the whole truth, and if he abſolved me, heaven would.

"I begged the houſe-maid to come up ſtairs with me (ſervants always feel for the diſtreſſes of poverty, and ſo would the rich if they knew what it was). She aſſiſted me to tie up the mattraſs; I diſcovering, at the ſame time, that one blanket would ſerve me[165] till winter, could I perſuade my ſiſter, who ſlept with me, to keep my ſecret. She entering in the midſt of the package, I gave her ſome new feathers, to ſilence her. We got the mattraſs down the back ſtairs, unperceived, and I helped to carry it, taking with me all the money I had, and what I could borrow from my ſiſter.

"When I got to the cottage, Peggy declared that ſhe would not take what I had brought ſecretly; but, when, with all the eager eloquence inſpired by a decided purpoſe, I graſped her hand with weeping eyes, aſſuring her that my uncle would ſcreen me from blame, when he was once more in the country, deſcribing, at the ſame time, what ſhe would ſuffer in parting with her children, after keeping them ſo long from being thrown on the pariſh, ſhe reluctantly conſented.

[166] "My project of uſefulneſs ended not here; I determined to ſpeak to the attorney; he frequently paid me compliments. His character did not intimidate me; but, imagining that Peggy muſt be miſtaken, and that no man could turn a deaf ear to ſuch a tale of complicated diſtreſs, I determined to walk to the town with Mary the next morning, and requeſt him to wait for the rent, and keep my ſecret, till my uncle's return.

"My repoſe was ſweet; and, waking with the firſt dawn of day, I bounded to Mary's cottage. What charms do not a light heart ſpread over nature! Every bird that twittered in a buſh, every flower that enlivened the hedge, ſeemed placed there to awaken me to rapture—yes; to rapture. The preſent moment was full fraught with happi[167]neſs; and on futurity I beſtowed not a thought, excepting to anticipate my ſucceſs with the attorney.

"This man of the world, with roſy face and ſimpering features, received me politely, nay kindly; liſtened with complacency to my remonſtrances, though he ſcarcely heeded Mary's tears. I did not then ſuſpect, that my eloquence was in my complexion, the bluſh of ſeventeen, or that, in a world where humanity to women is the characteriſtic of advancing civilization, the beauty of a young girl was ſo much more intereſting than the diſtreſs of an old one. Preſſing my hand, he promiſed to let Peggy remain in the houſe as long as I wiſhed.—I more than returned the preſſure—I was ſo grateful and ſo happy. Emboldened by my innocent warmth, he then kiſſed me[168]—and I did not draw back—I took it for a kiſs of charity.

"Gay as a lark, I went to dine at Mr. Venables'. I had previouſly obtained five ſhillings from my father, towards re-clothing the poor children of my care, and prevailed on my mother to take one of the girls into the houſe, whom I determined to teach to work and read.

"After dinner, when the younger part of the circle retired to the muſic room, I recounted with energy my tale; that is, I mentioned Peggy's diſtreſs, without hinting at the ſteps I had taken to relieve her. Miſs Venables gave me half-a-crown; the heir five ſhillings; but George ſat unmoved. I was cruelly diſtreſſed by the diſappointment—I ſcarcely could remain on my chair; and, could I have got out of the room unperceived, I ſhould have flown home, as if to run away from myſelf. After[169] ſeveral vain attempts to riſe, I leaned my head againſt the marble chimney-piece, and gazing on the evergreens that filled the fire-place, moralized on the vanity of human expectations; regardleſs of the company. I was rouſed by a gentle tap on my ſhoulder from behind Charlotte's chair. I turned my head, and George ſlid a guinea into my hand, putting his finger to his mouth, to enjoin me ſilence.

"What a revolution took place, not only in my train of thoughts, but feelings! I trembled with emotion—now, indeed, I was in love. Such delicacy too, to enhance his benevolence! I felt in my pocket every five minutes, only to feel the guinea; and its magic touch inveſted my hero with more than mortal beauty. My fancy had found a baſis to erect its model of perfection on;[170] and quickly went to work, with all the happy credulity of youth, to conſider that heart as devoted to virtue, which had only obeyed a virtuous impulſe. The bitter experience was yet to come, that has taught me how very diſtinct are the principles of virtue, from the caſual feelings from which they germinate.

[171]

CHAP. VIII.

"I have perhaps dwelt too long on a circumſtance, which is only of importance as it marks the progreſs of a deception that has been ſo fatal to my peace; and introduces to your notice a poor girl, whom, intending to ſerve, I led to ruin. Still it is probable that I was not entirely the victim of miſtake; and that your father, gradually faſhioned by the world, did not quickly become what I heſitate to call him—out of reſpect to my daughter.

"But, to haſten to the more buſy ſcenes of my life. Mr. Venables and my mother died the ſame ſummer; and, wholly engroſſed by my attention to her, I thought of little elſe. The neglect of her darling, my brother Robert, had a violent effect on[172] her weakened mind; for, though boys may be reckoned the pillars of the houſe without doors, girls are often the only comfort within. They but too frequently waſte their health and ſpirits attending a dying parent, who leaves them in comparative poverty. After cloſing, with filial piety, a father's eyes, they are chaſed from the paternal roof, to make room for the firſt-born, the ſon, who is to carry the empty family-name down to poſterity; though, occupied with his own pleaſures, he ſcarcely thought of diſcharging, in the decline of his parent's life, the debt contracted in his childhood. My mother's conduct led me to make theſe reflections. Great as was the fatigue I endured, and the affection my unceaſing ſolicitude evinced, of which my mother ſeemed perfectly ſenſible, ſtill, when my brother, whom I could[173] hardly perſuade to remain a quarter of an hour in her chamber, was with her alone, a ſhort time before her death, ſhe gave him a little hoard, which ſhe had been ſome years accumulating.

"During my mother's illneſs, I was obliged to manage my father's temper, who, from the lingering nature of her malady, began to imagine that it was merely fancy. At this period, an artful kind of upper ſervant attracted my father's attention, and the neighbours made many remarks on the finery, not honeſtly got, exhibited at evening ſervice. But I was too much occupied with my mother to obſerve any change in her dreſs or behaviour, or to liſten to the whiſper of ſcandal.

"I ſhall not dwell on the death-bed ſcene, lively as is the remembrance, or on the emotion produced by the laſt[174] graſp of my mother's cold hand; when bleſſing me, ſhe added, 'A little patience, and all will be over!' Ah! my child, how often have thoſe words rung mournfully in my ears—and I have exclaimed—'A little more patience, and I too ſhall be at reſt!'

"My father was violently affected by her death, recollected inſtances of his unkindneſs, and wept like a child.

"My mother had ſolemnly recommended my ſiſters to my care, and bid me be a mother to them. They, indeed, became more dear to me as they became more forlorn; for, during my mother's illneſs, I diſcovered the ruined ſtate of my father's circumſtances, and that he had only been able to keep up appearances, by the ſums which he borrowed of my uncle.

"My father's grief, and conſequent[175] tenderneſs to his children, quickly abated, the houſe grew ſtill more gloomy or riotous; and my refuge from care was again at Mr. Venables'; the young 'ſquire having taken his father's place, and allowing, for the preſent, his ſiſter to preſide at his table. George, though diſſatiſfied with his portion of the fortune, which had till lately been all in trade, viſited the family as uſual. He was now full of ſpeculations in trade, and his brow became clouded by care. He ſeemed to relax in his attention to me, when the preſence of my uncle gave a new turn to his behaviour. I was too unſuſpecting, too diſintereſted, to trace theſe changes to their ſource.

My home every day became more and more diſagreeable to me; my liberty was unneceſſarily abridged, and[176] my books, on the pretext that they made me idle, taken from me. My father's miſtreſs was with child, and he, doating on her, allowed or overlooked her vulgar manner of tyrannizing over us. I was indignant, eſpecially when I ſaw her endeavouring to attract, ſhall I ſay ſeduce? my younger brother. By allowing women but one way of riſing in the world, the foſtering the libertiniſm of men, ſociety makes monſters of them, and then their ignoble vices are brought forward as a proof of inferiority of intellect.

The weariſomeneſs of my ſituation can ſcarcely be deſcribed. Though my life had not paſſed in the moſt even tenour with my mother, it was paradiſe to that I was deſtined to endure with my father's miſtreſs, jealous of her illegitimate authority. My father's former[177] occaſional tenderneſs, in ſpite of his violence of temper, had been ſoothing to me; but now he only met me with reproofs or portentous frowns. The houſe-keeper, as ſhe was now termed, was the vulgar deſpot of the family; and aſſuming the new character of a fine lady, ſhe could never forgive the contempt which was ſometimes viſible in my countenance, when ſhe uttered with pompoſity her bad Engliſh, or affected to be well bred.

To my uncle I ventured to open my heart; and he, with his wonted benevolence, began to conſider in what manner he could extricate me out of my preſent irkſome ſituation. In ſpite of his own diſappointment, or, moſt probably, actuated by the feelings that had been petrified, not cooled, in all their ſanguine fervour, like a boiling torrent of lava ſuddenly daſhing into[178] the ſea, he thought a marriage of mutual inclination (would envious ſtars permit it) the only chance for happineſs in this diſaſtrous world. George Venables had the reputation of being attentive to buſineſs, and my father's example gave great weight to this circumſtance; for habits of order in buſineſs would, he conceived, extend to the regulation of the affections in domeſtic life. George ſeldom ſpoke in my uncle's company, except to utter a ſhort, judicious queſtion, or to make a pertinent remark, with all due deference to his ſuperior judgment; ſo that my uncle ſeldom left his company without obſerving, that the young man had more in him than people ſuppoſed.

In this opinion he was not ſingular; yet, believe me, and I am not ſwayed by reſentment, theſe ſpeeches ſo juſtly[179] poized, this ſilent deference, when the animal ſpirits of other young people were throwing off youthful ebullitions, were not the effect of thought or humility, but ſheer barrenneſs of mind, and want of imagination. A colt of mettle will curvet and ſhew his paces. Yes; my dear girl, theſe prudent young men want all the fire neceſſary to ferment their faculties, and are characterized as wiſe, only becauſe they are not fooliſh. It is true, that George was by no means ſo great a favourite of mine as during the firſt year of our acquaintance; ſtill, as he often coincided in opinion with me, and echoed my ſentiments; and having myſelf no other attachment, I heard with pleaſure my uncle's propoſal; but thought more of obtaining my freedom, than of my lover. But, when George, ſeem[180]ingly anxious for my happineſs, preſſed me to quit my preſent painful ſituation, my heart ſwelled with gratitude—I knew not that my uncle had promiſed him five thouſand pounds.

Had this truly generous man mentioned his intention to me, I ſhould have inſiſted on a thouſand pounds being ſettled on each of my ſiſters; George would have conteſted; I ſhould have ſeen his ſelfiſh ſoul; and—gracious God! have been ſpared the miſery of diſcovering, when too late, that I was united to a heartleſs, unprincipled wretch. All my ſchemes of uſefulneſs would not then have been blaſted. The tenderneſs of my heart would not have heated my imagination with viſions of the ineffable delight of happy love; nor would the ſweet duty of a mother have been ſo cruelly interrupted.

[181] But I muſt not ſuffer the fortitude I have ſo hardly acquired, to be undermined by unavailing regret. Let me haſten forward to deſcribe the turbid ſtream in which I had to wade—but let me exultingly declare that it is paſſed—my ſoul holds fellowſhip with him no more. He cut the Gordian knot, which my principles, miſtaken ones, reſpected; he diſſolved the tie, the fetters rather, that ate into my very vitals—and I ſhould rejoice, conſcious that my mind is freed, though confined in hell itſelf; the only place that even fancy can imagine more dreadful than my preſent abode.

Theſe varying emotions will not allow me to proceed. I heave ſigh after ſigh; yet my heart is ſtill oppreſſed. For what am I reſerved? Why was I not born a man, or why was I born at all?

END OF VOL. I.