Confined to the society of a set of silly females, I have no social converse, and their boisterous spirits and unmeaning laughter exhaust me, not forgetting hourly domestic bickerings. The topics of matrimony and dress take their turn, not in a very sentimental style--alas, poor sentiment! it has no residence here.... Lady K.’s passion for animals fills up the hours which are not spent in dressing. All her children have been ill--very disagreeable fevers. Her ladyship visited them in a formal way, though their situation called forth my tenderness, and I endeavored to amuse them, while she lavished awkward fondness on her dogs. I think now I hear her infantine lisps. She rouges--and, in short, is a fine lady, without fancy or sensibility, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to her sister_, in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul. * * * * * [Sidenote: Adopts literature as a profession.] Mr. Johnson [the publisher], whose uncommon kindness, I believe, has saved me from despair and vexation I shrink back from, and fear to encounter, assures me that if I exert my talents in writing, I may support myself in a comfortable way. I am then going to be the first of a new genus. I tremble at the attempt; yet if I fail _I_ only suffer; and should I succeed, my dear girls [her sisters Eliza and Everina] will ever in sickness have a home and a refuge, where for a few months in the year they may forget the cares that disturb the rest. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to her sister_, 1788, in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul. * * * * * [Sidenote: Dress, etc., at this period.] Fuseli found in her a philosophical sloven: her usual dress being a habit of coarse cloth, black worsted stockings, and a beaver hat, with her hair hanging lank about her shoulders. When the Prince Talleyrand was in this country, in a low condition with regard to his pecuniary affairs, and visited her, they drank their tea, and the little wine they took, indiscriminately from tea-cups.[4] JOHN KNOWLES: ‘The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli.’ London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1831. * * * * * [Sidenote: Account of ‘A Vindication,’ etc.]