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Never has there been a woman, not even a Saint Rose of Lima or a Saint Catherine of Siena, who could say as truly as Mary Wollstonecraft, "... I sate among men And I have loved these." There was little pleasure for Mary in her home-coming. The school, whose difficulties had begun before her departure, had prospered still less under Mrs. Bishop's care. Many of the pupils had been taken away.
Wollstonecraft had read "Common Sense" and "The Rights of Man" to a purpose. It was too much to expect that a native-born Englishman could go across the sea to British Colonies and rebel against British rule and then come back to England and escape censure. The very popularity of Paine in certain high circles centered attention on him.
Wollstonecraft is grown quite handsome; he adds likewise that, being conscious she is on the wrong side of thirty, she now endeavors to set off those charms she once despised, to the best advantage. This, entre nous, for he is delighted with her affection and kindness to him. So the author of "The Rights of Women" is going to France!
Margaret's reputation as Lady Mountcashel was not wholly unsullied, and when it was remembered that she had, at one time, been under the influence of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the "Rights of Women," the fault was attributed to the immoral and irreligious teaching of the latter. Never was any woman so unjustly condemned.
Simultaneous with this were two other movements the anti-slavery agitation, inspired by the new enthusiasm for human rights and carried on largely by the Quakers of both sexes. The woman's-rights movement was the natural outgrowth of the individual-sovereignty idea which the German philosophers had planted, and of which Mary Wollstonecraft was the first great woman-exponent.
His indifference in one particular to their wishes and welfare led in the end to disregard of them in all matters. It is more than probable that Mary, in her "Wrongs of Woman," drew largely from her own experience for the characters therein represented, and we shall not err in identifying the father she describes in this novel with Mr. Wollstonecraft himself.
Many of his views were peculiar and extreme, and even tended, if fully carried out in practice, to subvert morality; but they were propounded and supported by their author with a whole-hearted belief in their efficacy for the regeneration of society: and the singular circumstances of his connection with and ultimate marriage to Mary Wollstonecraft showed at least that he had the courage of his opinions.
Mary felt free, therefore, to consider her own comforts a little. Besides, she had attained a position which it became her to sustain with dignity. She was now known as Mrs. Wollstonecraft, and was a prominent figure in the literary world.
She, in fact, teaches the doctrine of evolution. But where its modern upholders refer all things to an unknowable source, she builds her belief "on the perfectibility of God." Even the warmest admirers of Mary Wollstonecraft must admit that the faults of the "Vindication of the Rights of Women" are many. Criticised from a literary stand-point, they exceed its merits.
Mary Wollstonecraft might rely upon her friends and acquaintances for recognition of her virtue, but she should have remembered that to the world at large her conduct would appear immoral; that by it she would become a pariah in society, and her work lose much of its efficacy; while she would be giving to her children, if she had any, an inheritance of shame that would cling to them forever.
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