Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/197

Rh her struggles and sufferings, acquired what she calls in her Rights of Women a physionomie. Even Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Reveley, hard as life had gone with them, had never approached the depth of misery which she had fathomed. The eventful meeting took place in the month of January, 1796, shortly after Mary had returned from her travels in the North. Miss Hayes invited Godwin to come to her house one evening when Mary expected to be there. He accepted her invitation without hesitation, but evinced no great eagerness.

The meeting was more propitious than their first, some few years earlier, had been. Godwin had, with others, heard her sad story, and felt sorry for her, and perhaps admired her for her bold, practical application of his principles. This was better than the positive dislike with which she had once inspired him. But still his feeling for her was negative. He would probably never have made an effort to see her again. What Mary thought of him has not been recorded. But she must have been favourably impressed, for when she came back to London from her trip to Berkshire, she called upon him in his lodgings in Somer's Town. He, in the meantime, had read her Letters from Norway, and they had given him a higher respect for her talents. The inaccuracies and the roughness of style which had displeased him in her earlier works had disappeared. There was no fault to be found with the book, but much to be said in its praise. Once she had pleased him intellectually, he began to discover her other attractions, and to enjoy being with her. Her conversation, instead of wearying him, as it once had, interested him. He no longer thought her