Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/122

106 Women, she moved from the modest lodgings in George Street, to larger, better rooms in Store Street, Bedford Square, and these she furnished comfortably. Necessity was no longer her only standard. She also gave more care to her dress. Her stern apprenticeship was over. She had so successfully trampled upon the thorns in her path that she could pause to enjoy the flowers. To modern readers her new furniture and gowns are welcome signs of the awakening of the springtime in her cold and wintry life. But her sisters resented them, particularly because, while they, needing less, received less from her bounty, and Charles, waiting for a good opening in America, was living at her expense. He, with thoughtless ingratitude, sent them semi-satirical accounts of her new mode of living, and thus unconsciously kindled their jealousy into a fierce flame. When the extent of Mary's kindness and self-sacrifice in their regard is remembered, the petty ill-nature of brother and sisters, as expressed in the following letter from Mrs. Bishop to Everina, is unpardonable:—

Upton Castle, July 3, 1792.

He [Charles] informs me too that Mrs. Wollstonecraft is grown quite handsome; he adds likewise that, being conscious she is on the wrong side of thirty, she now endeavours 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! I daresay her chief motive is to promote poor Bess's comfort, or thine, my girl, or at least I think she will so reason. Well, in spite of reason, when Mrs. W. reaches the Continent she will be but a woman! I cannot help painting her in the height of all her wishes, at the very summit of happiness, for will not ambition fill every chink of her great soul (for such I really think hers) that is not occupied by love? After having drawn this sketch, you can hardly suppose me so sanguine as to expect my pretty face will be thought of when