Having sent her
to London, Imlay there visited her, to explain himself away. She
resolved on suicide, and in dissuading her from that he gave her
hope again. He needed somebody who had good judgment, and who cared
for his interests, to represent him in some business affairs in
Norway. She undertook to act for him, and set out on the voyage
only a week after she had determined to destroy herself.
The interest of this book which describes her travel is quickened by
a knowledge of the heart-sorrow that underlies it all. Gilbert
Imlay had promised to meet her upon her return, and go with her to
Switzerland. But the letters she had from him in Sweden and Norway
were cold, and she came back to find that she was wholly forsaken
for an actress from a strolling company of players. Then she went
up the river to drown herself. She paced the road at Putney on an
October night, in 1795, in heavy rain, until her clothes were
drenched, that she might sink more surely, and then threw herself
from the top of Putney Bridge.
She was rescued, and lived on with deadened spirit. In 1796 these
"Letters from Sweden and Norway" were published. Early in 1797 she
was married to William Godwin. On the 10th of September in the same
year, at the age of thirty-eight, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin died,
after the birth of the daughter who lived to become the wife of
Shelley. The mother also would have lived, if a womanly feeling, in
itself to be respected, had not led her also to unwise departure
from the customs of the world. Peace be to her memory. None but
kind thoughts can dwell upon the life of this too faithful disciple
of Rousseau.
H. M.
LETTERS WRITTEN DURING A SHORT RESIDENCE IN SWEDEN, NORWAY, AND
DENMARK.
LETTER I.
Eleven days of weariness on board a vessel not intended for the
accommodation of passengers have so exhausted my spirits, to say
nothing of the other causes, with which you are already sufficiently
acquainted, that it is with some difficulty I adhere to my
determination of giving you my observations, as I travel through new
scenes, whilst warmed with the impression they have made on me.
The captain, as I mentioned to you, promised to put me on shore at
Arendall or Gothenburg in his way to Elsineur, but contrary winds
obliged us to pass both places during the night. In the morning,
however, after we had lost sight of the entrance of the latter bay,
the vessel was becalmed; and the captain, to oblige me, hanging out
a signal for a pilot, bore down towards the shore.
My attention was particularly directed to the lighthouse, and you
can scarcely imagine with what anxiety I watched two long hours for
a boat to emancipate me; still no one appeared. Every cloud that
flitted on the horizon was hailed as a liberator, till approaching
nearer, like most of the prospects sketched by hope, it dissolved
under the eye into disappointment.
Weary of expectation, I then began to converse with the captain on
the subject, and from the tenor of the information my questions drew
forth I soon concluded that if I waited for a boat I had little
chance of getting on shore at this place. Despotism, as is usually
the case, I found had here cramped the industry of man. The pilots
being paid by the king, and scantily, they will not run into any
danger, or even quit their hovels, if they can possibly avoid it,
only to fulfil what is termed their duty. How different is it on
the English coast, where, in the most stormy weather, boats
immediately hail you, brought out by the expectation of
extraordinary profit.
Disliking to sail for Elsineur, and still more to lie at anchor or
cruise about the coast for several days, I exerted all my rhetoric
to prevail on the captain to let me have the ship's boat, and though
I added the most forcible of arguments, I for a long the addressed
him in vain.
It is a kind of rule at sea not to send out a boat. The captain was
a good-natured man; but men with common minds seldom break through
general rules. Prudence is ever the resort of weakness, and they
rarely go as far as they may in any undertaking who are determined
not to go beyond it on any account. If, however, I had some trouble
with the captain, I did not lose much time with the sailors, for
they, all alacrity, hoisted out the boat the moment I obtained
permission, and promised to row me to the lighthouse.
I did not once allow myself to doubt of obtaining a conveyance from
thence round the rocks - and then away for Gothenburg - confinement is
so unpleasant.
The day was fine, and I enjoyed the water till, approaching the
little island, poor Marguerite, whose timidity always acts as a
feeler before her adventuring spirit, began to wonder at our not
seeing any inhabitants. I did not listen to her. But when, on
landing, the same silence prevailed, I caught the alarm, which was
not lessened by the sight of two old men whom we forced out of their
wretched hut. Scarcely human in their appearance, we with
difficulty obtained an intelligible reply to our questions, the
result of which was that they had no boat, and were not allowed to
quit their post on any pretence. But they informed us that there
was at the other side, eight or ten miles over, a pilot's dwelling.
Two guineas tempted the sailors to risk the captain's displeasure,
and once more embark to row me over.
The weather was pleasant, and the appearance of the shore so grand
that I should have enjoyed the two hours it took to reach it, but
for the fatigue which was too visible in the countenances of the
sailors, who, instead of uttering a complaint, were, with the
thoughtless hilarity peculiar to them, joking about the possibility
of the captain's taking advantage of a slight westerly breeze, which
was springing up, to sail without them.
