Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/125

Rh her passion—hopeless since its object was a married man—was the immediate reason of her going to France alone. But they interpret the circumstances very differently. The incidents, as given by Godwin, are in no wise to Mary's discredit, though his account of them was later on twisted and distorted by Beloe in his Sexagenarian. The latter writer, however, is so prejudiced that his words have but little value. Godwin, in the Memoirs, after demonstrating the strength of the intimacy between Mary and Fuseli, says:—

Notwithstanding the inequality of their years, Mary was not of a temper to live upon terms of so much intimacy with a man of merit and genius without loving him. The delight she enjoyed in his society, she transferred by association to his person. What she experienced in this respect was no doubt heightened by the state of celibacy and restraint in which she had hitherto lived, and to which the rules of polished society condemn an unmarried woman. She conceived a personal and ardent affection for him. Mr. Fuseli was a married man, and his wife the acquaintance of Mary. She readily perceived the restrictions which this circumstance seemed to impose upon her; but she made light of any difficulty that might arise out of them. Not that she was insensible to the value of domestic endearments between persons of an opposite sex, but that she scorned to suppose that she could feel a struggle in conforming to the laws she should lay down to her conduct.

There is no reason to doubt that if Mr. Fuseli had been disengaged at the period of their acquaintance, he would have been the man of her choice.

One of her principal inducements to this step [her visit to France], related, I believe, to Mr. Fuseli. She had at first considered it as reasonable and judicious to cultivate what I may be permitted to call a platonic affection for him; but she did not, in the sequel, find all the satisfaction in this plan which she had originally expected from it. It was in vain that she enjoyed much pleasure in his society, and that she enjoyed it frequently. Her ardent imagination was continually conjuring up pictures of the happiness she should have found if fortune had favoured their more intimate union. She felt herself formed for domestic affection, and all those tender charities which