Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/85

Rh ), and my sister was amused. Well, will you allow me to call this way of passing my days pleasant? Have you yet heard of an habitation for me? I often think of my new plan of life; and lest my sister should try to prevail on me to alter it, I have avoided mentioning it to her

Hopeful for herself and her sisters, she started out upon a new road, which, smoother than any she had yet trodden, was not without its many thorns and pitfalls. For a little while she stayed with Mr. Johnson, whose house was then, as ever, open to her. But as soon as possible she moved to lodgings he found for her in George Street, in the neighbourhood of Blackfriars' Bridge. Here she was near him; and this was a consideration, as the work he proposed to give her necessitated frequent intercourse between them, and it was also an advantage for her to be within reasonable distance of the only friend she possessed in London.

Mr. Johnson made her his "reader"; that is to say, he gave her the manuscripts sent to him to read and criticise; he also required that she should translate for him foreign works, for which there was then a great demand, and that she should contribute to the Analytical Review, which had just been established. Her position was a good one. It is true it left her little time for original work, and Godwin thought that it contracted rather than enlarged her genius for the time being. But it gave her a certain valuable experience and much practise which she would not otherwise have obtained, and it insured her steady employment. She was to the publisher what a staff contributor is to a newspaper. Whenever anything was to be done she was called upon to do it. Therefore, there was no danger of her dying of starvation in a garret, like Chatterton, or of her offering her manuscripts to one