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Updated: May 19, 2025
Having settled the principal point in conformity to her interests, I felt inclined to leave all inferior matters to her disposal. We do not entirely cohabit. Strange to say, the announcement of their marriage did not produce quite so satisfactory an effect as they had anticipated. Mary, notwithstanding her frank protest, was still looked upon as Imlay's wife.
A baby, Fanny, was born, but Imlay's business imposed long separations. He gradually tired of the woman who had honoured him too highly, and entered on more than one intrigue. Mary Wollstonecraft attempted in despair to drown herself in the Thames, was saved and nursed back to life and courage by devoted friends.
Imlay's unkindness and indecision had, by the time she reached Holland, so increased her melancholy that the good effect of the bracing northern air was partially destroyed. She lost her interest in the novelty of her surroundings, and as she says in one of her last letters, stayed much at home. But her perceptive faculties were not wholly deadened.
The date of Imlay's return became more and more uncertain, and Mary grew restless at his prolonged stay. This she let him know soon enough. She was not a silent heroine willing to let concealment prey on her spirits. It was as impossible for her to smile at grief as it was to remain unconscious of her lover's shortcomings. Her first complaints, however, are half playful, half serious.
Southey, who met them in this month, has left a lively portrait: "Of all the lions or literati I have seen here, Mary Imlay's countenance is the best, infinitely the best: the only fault in it is an expression somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke display an expression indicating superiority; not haughtiness, not sarcasm in Mary Imlay, but still it is unpleasant.
In the restlessness that followed her loss of Imlay's love, she had resolved to make the tour of Italy or Switzerland. Therefore when she had returned to London, expecting it to be but a temporary resting-place, she had taken furnished lodgings.
The peril of the English in the city increased with every new development of the struggle; but Americans were looked upon as stanch brother citizens, and a man who had fought for the American Republic was esteemed as the friend and honored guest of the French Republic. As Imlay's wife, Mary's safety would therefore be assured.
She had been amused and interested in her journey to Norway; but with this difference, that, at that time, her mind perpetually returned with trembling anxiety to conjectures respecting Mr. Imlay's future conduct, whereas now, with a lofty and undaunted spirit, she threw aside every thought that recurred to him, while she felt herself called upon to make one more effort for life and happiness.
Activity was, as it had often been before, the tonic which restored her to comparative health. She had no money, and Fanny, despite Imlay's promises, was entirely dependent upon her. Her exertions to maintain herself and her child obliged her to stifle at least the expression of misery. One of her last outbursts of grief found utterance in a letter to Mr.
Her lodgings were not very convenient, but she had put up with them, waiting day by day for Imlay's return. Weary of her life as Job was of his, she, like him, spoke out in the bitterness of her soul. Her letters from this time on are written from the very valley of the shadow of death. On February 9 she wrote:
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