Mary

Mary

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Title: Mary A Fiction
Author: Mary Wollstonecraft

Release Date: July 24, 2005 [eBook #16357]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Transcriber's note: The author is Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797).

MARY,
A Fiction

L'exercice des plus sublimes vertus éleve et nourrit le génie.
ROUSSEAU.
London, Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church-Yard.
MDCCLXXXVIII

ADVERTISEMENT.
In delineating the Heroine of this Fiction, the Author attempts to
develop a character different from those generally portrayed. This
woman is neither a Clarissa, a Lady G----, nor a[A] Sophie.--It would
be vain to mention the various modifications of these models, as it
would to remark, how widely artists wander from nature, when they
copy the originals of great masters. They catch the gross parts; but the
subtile spirit evaporates; and not having the just ties, affectation
disgusts, when grace was expected to charm.
Those compositions only have power to delight, and carry us willing
captives, where the soul of the author is exhibited, and animates the
hidden springs. Lost in a pleasing enthusiasm, they live in the scenes
they represent; and do not measure their steps in a beaten track,
solicitous to gather expected flowers, and bind them in a wreath,
according to the prescribed rules of art.
These chosen few, wish to speak for themselves, and not to be an
echo--even of the sweetest sounds--or the reflector of the most sublime
beams. The[B] paradise they ramble in, must be of their own
creating--or the prospect soon grows insipid, and not varied by a
vivifying principle, fades and dies.
In an artless tale, without episodes, the mind of a woman, who has
thinking powers is displayed. The female organs have been thought too
weak for this arduous employment; and experience seems to justify the
assertion. Without arguing physically about _possibilities_--in a fiction,
such a being may be allowed to exist; whose grandeur is derived from
the operations of its own faculties, not subjugated to opinion; but drawn

by the individual from the original source.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote A: Rousseau.]
[Footnote B: I here give the Reviewers an opportunity of being very
witty about the Paradise of Fools, &c.]

MARY

CHAP. I.
Mary, the heroine of this fiction, was the daughter of Edward, who
married Eliza, a gentle, fashionable girl, with a kind of indolence in her
temper, which might be termed negative good-nature: her virtues,
indeed, were all of that stamp. She carefully attended to the shews of
things, and her opinions, I should have said prejudices, were such as
the generality approved of. She was educated with the expectation of a
large fortune, of course became a mere machine: the homage of her
attendants made a great part of her puerile amusements, and she never
imagined there were any relative duties for her to fulfil: notions of her
own consequence, by these means, were interwoven in her mind, and
the years of youth spent in acquiring a few superficial accomplishments,
without having any taste for them. When she was first introduced into
the polite circle, she danced with an officer, whom she faintly wished
to be united to; but her father soon after recommending another in a
more distinguished rank of life, she readily submitted to his will, and
promised to love, honour, and obey, (a vicious fool,) as in duty bound.
While they resided in London, they lived in the usual fashionable style,
and seldom saw each other; nor were they much more sociable when
they wooed rural felicity for more than half the year, in a delightful
country, where Nature, with lavish hand, had scattered beauties around;
for the master, with brute, unconscious gaze, passed them by

unobserved, and sought amusement in country sports. He hunted in the
morning, and after eating an immoderate dinner, generally fell asleep:
this seasonable rest enabled him to digest the cumbrous load; he would
then visit some of his pretty tenants; and when he compared their ruddy
glow of health with his wife's countenance, which even rouge could not
enliven, it is not necessary to say which a gourmand would give the
preference to. Their vulgar dance of spirits were infinitely more
agreeable to his fancy than her sickly, die-away languor. Her voice was
but the shadow of a sound, and she had, to complete her delicacy, so
relaxed her nerves, that she became a mere nothing.