* * * * * [Sidenote: Their married life.] And now Mary Wollstonecraft had a season of real calm in her stormy life. Godwin for once only in his life was stirred by a real passion, and his admiration for his wife equalled his affection. The very slight clouds which arose now and then were of a transient character, and sprang from Mary Wollstonecraft’s excessive sensitiveness and eager quickness of temper. These were, perhaps, occasionally tried by Godwin’s confirmed bachelor habits, and also by the fact that he took _au pied de la lettre_ all that she had said about the independence of women, when in truth she leant a good deal on the aid of others. In some respects she was content to acquiesce in his bachelor ways; they adopted a singular device for their uninterrupted student life. Godwin’s strong view of the possibility that people may weary of being always together, led him to take rooms in a house about twenty doors from that in the Polygon, Somers Town, which was their joint home. To this study he repaired as soon as he rose in the morning, rarely even breakfasting at the Polygon, and here also he often slept. Each was engaged in his and her own literary occupations, and they seldom met, unless they walked out together, till dinner-time each day. C. KEGAN PAUL: _Prefatory Memoir_ to ‘Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters to Imlay.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: An ‘Alecto.’] Adieu, thou excellent woman! thou reverse of that hyena in petticoats, Mrs. Wollstonecraft; who to this day discharges her ink and gall on Maria Antoinette, whose unparalleled sufferings have not yet stanched that Alecto’s blazing ferocity. HORACE WALPOLE: _Letters to Hannah More_, 1795, in the former’s ‘Letters,’ edited by Peter Cunningham. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1861. * * * * * Thank Providence for the tranquillity and happiness we enjoy in this country, in spite of the philosophizing serpents we have in our bosom, the Paines, the Tookes, and the Wollstonecrafts. HORACE WALPOLE: _Letter to Hannah More_, 1792, in ‘Memoirs of Hannah More,’ by W. Roberts. New York: Harper & Bros., 1834. * * * * * [Sidenote: An opposite view.] I saw her three or four times when she was Mrs. Godwin, and never saw a woman who would have been better fitted to do honor to her sex, if she had not fallen on evil times, and into evil hands. But it is hardly possible for any one to conceive what those times were, who has not lived in them. ROBERT SOUTHEY: ‘Correspondence with Caroline Bowles.’ Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1881. * * * * * Southey is said to have had her portrait hanging in his study; and he wrote of her as one “Who among women left no equal mind When from the world she passed; and I could weep To think that _she_ is to the grave gone down!” FOOTNOTES: