The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay Part 17

LETTER LXXVI

_[London, Dec. 1795.]_

As the parting from you for ever is the most serious event of my life, I will once expostulate with you, and call not the language of truth and feeling ingenuity!

I know the soundness of your understanding--and know that it is impossible for you always to confound the caprices of every wayward inclination with the manly dictates of principle.

You tell me "that I torment you."--Why do I?----Because you cannot estrange your heart entirely from me--and you feel that justice is on my side. You urge, "that your conduct was unequivocal."--It was not.--When your coolness has hurt me, with what tenderness have you endeavoured to remove the impression!--and even before I returned to England, you took great pains to convince me, that all my uneasiness was occasioned by the effect of a worn-out const.i.tution--and you concluded your letter with these words, "Business alone has kept me from you.--Come to any port, and I will fly down to my two dear girls with a heart all their own."

With these a.s.surances, is it extraordinary that I should believe what I wished? I might--and did think that you had a struggle with old propensities; but I still thought that I and virtue should at last prevail. I still thought that you had a magnanimity of character, which would enable you to conquer yourself.

Imlay, believe me, it is not romance, you have acknowledged to me feelings of this kind.--You could restore me to life and hope, and the satisfaction you would feel, would amply repay you.

In tearing myself from you, it is my own heart I pierce--and the time will come, when you will lament that you have thrown away a heart, that, even in the moment of pa.s.sion, you cannot despise.--I would owe every thing to your generosity--but, for G.o.d's sake, keep me no longer in suspense!--Let me see you once more!--

LETTER LXXVII

_[London, Dec. 1795.]_

You must do as you please with respect to the child.--I could wish that it might be done soon, that my name may be no more mentioned to you. It is now finished.--Convinced that you have neither regard nor friends.h.i.+p, I disdain to utter a reproach, though I have had reason to think, that the "forbearance" talked of, has not been very delicate.--It is however of no consequence.--I am glad you are satisfied with your own conduct.

I now solemnly a.s.sure you, that this is an eternal farewel.--Yet I flinch not from the duties which tie me to life.

That there is "sophistry" on one side or other, is certain; but now it matters not on which. On my part it has not been a question of words. Yet your understanding or mine must be strangely warped--for what you term "delicacy," appears to me to be exactly the contrary. I have no criterion for morality, and have thought in vain, if the sensations which lead you to follow an ancle or step, be the sacred foundation of principle and affection. Mine has been of a very different nature, or it would not have stood the brunt of your sarcasms.

The sentiment in me is still sacred. If there be any part of me that will survive the sense of my misfortunes, it is the purity of my affections.

The impetuosity of your senses, may have led you to term mere animal desire, the source of principle; and it may give zest to some years to come.--Whether you will always think so, I shall never know.

It is strange that, in spite of all you do, something like conviction forces me to believe, that you are not what you appear to be.

I part with you in peace.

_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

Footnotes:

[1] Dowden's "Life of Sh.e.l.ley."

[2] The child is in a subsequent letter called the "barrier girl,"

probably from a supposition that she owed her existence to this interview.--W. G.

[3] This and the thirteen following letters appear to have been written during a separation of several months; the date, Paris.--W. G.

[4] Some further letters, written during the remainder of the week, in a similar strain to the preceding, appear to have been destroyed by the person to whom they were addressed.--W. G.

[5] Imlay went to Paris on March 11, after spending a fortnight at Havre, but he returned to Mary soon after the date of Letter XIX. In August he went to Paris, where he was followed by Mary. In September Imlay visited London on business.

[6] The child spoken of in some preceding letters, had now been born a considerable time. She was born, May 14, 1794, and was named f.a.n.n.y.--W. G.

[7] She means, "the latter more than the former."--W. G.

[8] This is the first of a series of letters written during a separation of many months, to which no cordial meeting ever succeeded. They were sent from Paris, and bear the address of London.--W. G.

[9] The person to whom the letters are addressed [Imlay], was about this time at Ramsgate, on his return, as he professed, to Paris, when he was recalled, as it should seem, to London, by the further pressure of business now acc.u.mulated upon him.--W. G.

[10] This probably alludes to some expression of [Imlay] the person to whom the letters are addressed, in which he treated as common evils, things upon which the letter-writer was disposed to bestow a different appellation.--W. G.

[11] This pa.s.sage refers to letters written under a purpose of suicide, and not intended to be opened till after the catastrophe.--W. G.