Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/78

62 capacity to educate, and gives as a reason that a genius will educate itself. However, he rambles into that chimerical world in which I have too often wandered, and draws the usual conclusion that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. He was a strange, inconsistent, unhappy, clever creature, yet he possessed an uncommon portion of sensibility and penetration Adieu, yours sincerely,

.

It was also during this period that she wrote a novel called Mary. It is a narrative of her acquaintance and friendship with Fanny Blood—her In Memoriam of the friend she so dearly loved. In writing it she sought relief for the bitter sorrow with which her loss had filled her heart.

The Irish gaieties lasted through the winter. In the spring the family crossed over to England and went to Bristol Hotwells and Bath. In all these places Mary saw more of the gay world, but it was only to deepen the disgust with which it inspired her. Those were the days when men drank at dinner until they fell under the table; when young women thought of nothing but beaux, and were exhibited by their fond mothers as so much live-stock to be delivered to the highest bidder; and when dowagers, whose flirting season was over, spent all their time at the card-table. Nowhere were the absurdities and emptiness of polite society so fully exposed as at these fashionable resorts. Even the frivolity of Dublin paled in comparison. Mary's health improved in England. The Irish climate seems to have specially disagreed with her. But notwithstanding the much-needed improvement in her physical condition, and despite her occasional concessions to her circumstances, her life became more unbearable every day, while her sympathies and tastes grew farther apart from those of her employers.