Mary Wollstonecraft was something quite new in the feminine way. Suffering in youth all the torments of a repressed and restricted woman-child, and possessing a full, passionate nature, she rebelled. Everywhere she turned she saw woman set in an utterly false position, and, as a consequence, silly, affected, degraded. Even those who made a bid for some solid knowledge simpered, and too often, like Mrs Piozzi, repeated by rote, and in Johnsonian periods, what they did not understand. Mary never doubted for a moment that woman enfranchised economically would rise to great things. Unerringly, she detected the true cause of woman's failure. "It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men." "Women must have a civil existence in the State." Poor Mary was terribly alone, and had to work out her new faith in woman without any human assistance. Fearlessly she exposed the delicate immorality of Dr Gregory's _Legacy to his Daughters_, the "most sentimental rant" of Dr George Fordyce, the oriental despotism of Rousseau; and not content with such small game, she entered the lists against the arch-conservator Edmund Burke, for which Walpole named her "a hyena in petticoats," and Burke himself reckoned her with the viragoes and _poissardes_. Mary's wide sympathies were not only for women. Her knowledge of children had convinced her that they too had rights, and she had an irresistible faith that with tyranny put down and political liberty won, the oppressed peoples of the world would prove themselves capable of the highest things. And therefore she flung herself into the cause of the French Revolution, and made that her bone of contention with Burke. There is no finer contrast than Fanny Burney for bringing into relief the special characteristics of Mary Wollstonecraft as a type of new woman. Fanny welcomed with breathless interest the French emigrants as they arrived one by one at Juniper Hall, and listened with horror as Talleyrand, M. d'Arblay, M. de Narbonne recounted the atrocities of the people. Mary took a room in Paris and watched their progress through her window. Fanny was completely overcome at the news of Louis XVI's martyrdom. Mary watched him go to his death, and would not allow a momentary pity to make her forget the down-trodden poor. Fanny was a slave to conventions. Mary followed her own nature. Fanny refused to correspond with Madame de Genlis, and asked Queen Charlotte whether she had not done right, and at her father's bidding dropped Madame de Staël, to whom she was attracted. Mary consulted no one about her friendships, and in defiance of legal bonds was willing to be the mother of Charles Imlay's child because she loved him.