Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman | Page 5

she
would effect in this respect, what none of her predecessors had been
able to do. In the sequel she had reason to consider the account she had
received as sufficiently accurate, but she did not relax in her
endeavours. By method, constancy and firmness, she found the means
of making her situation tolerable; and Mrs. Dawson would occasionally
confess, that Mary was the only person that had lived with her in that
situation, in her treatment of whom she had felt herself under any
restraint.
With Mrs. Dawson she continued to reside for two years, and only left
her, summoned by the melancholy circumstance of her mother's rapidly
declining health. True to the calls of humanity, Mary felt in this
intelligence an irresistible motive, and eagerly returned to the paternal
roof, which she had before resolutely quitted. The residence of her
father at this time, was at Enfield near London. He had, I believe, given
up agriculture from the time of his quitting Wales, it appearing that he
now made it less a source of profit than loss, and being thought

advisable that he should rather live upon the interest of his property
already in possession.
The illness of Mrs. Wollstonecraft was lingering, but hopeless. Mary
was assiduous in her attendance upon her mother. At first, every
attention was received with acknowledgments and gratitude; but, as the
attentions grew habitual, and the health of the mother more and more
wretched, they were rather exacted, than received. Nothing would be
taken by the unfortunate patient, but from the hands of Mary; rest was
denied night or day, and by the time nature was exhausted in the parent,
the daughter was qualified to assume her place, and become in turn
herself a patient. The last words her mother ever uttered were, "A little
patience, and all will be over!" and these words are repeatedly referred
to by Mary in the course of her writings.
Upon the death of Mrs. Wollstonecraft, Mary bid a final adieu to the
roof of her father. According to my memorandums, I find her next the
inmate of Fanny at Walham Green, near the village of Fulham. Upon
what plan they now lived together I am unable to ascertain; certainly
not that of Mary's becoming in any degree an additional burthen upon
the industry of her friend. Thus situated, their intimacy ripened; they
approached more nearly to a footing of equality; and their attachment
became more rooted and active.
Mary was ever ready at the call of distress, and, in particular, during
her whole life was eager and active to promote the welfare of every
member of her family. In 1780 she attended the death-bed of her
mother; in 1782 she was summoned by a not less melancholy occasion,
to attend her sister Eliza, married to a Mr. Bishop, who, subsequently to
a dangerous lying-in, remained for some months in a very afflicting
situation. Mary continued with her sister without intermission, to her
perfect recovery.

CHAP. III.
1783-1785.
Mary was now arrived at the twenty-fourth year of her age. Her project,
five years before, had been personal independence; it was now
usefulness. In the solitude of attendance on her sister's illness, and
during the subsequent convalescence, she had had leisure to ruminate
upon purposes of this sort. Her expanded mind led her to seek

something more arduous than the mere removal of personal vexations;
and the sensibility of her heart would not suffer her to rest in solitary
gratifications. The derangement of her father's affairs daily became
more and more glaring; and a small independent provision made for
herself and her sisters, appears to have been sacrificed in the wreck. For
ten years, from 1782 to 1792, she may be said to have been, in a great
degree, the victim of a desire to promote the benefit of others. She did
not foresee the severe disappointment with which an exclusive purpose
of this sort is pregnant; she was inexperienced enough to lay a stress
upon the consequent gratitude of those she benefited; and she did not
sufficiently consider that, in proportion as we involve ourselves in the
interests and society of others, we acquire a more exquisite sense of
their defects, and are tormented with their untractableness and folly.
The project upon which she now determined, was no other than that of
a day-school, to be superintended by Fanny Blood, herself, and her two
sisters.
They accordingly opened one in the year 1783, at the village of
Islington; but in the course of a few months removed it to Newington
Green. Here Mary formed some acquaintances who influenced the
future events of her life. The first of these in her own estimation, was
Dr. Richard Price, well known for his political and mathematical
calculations, and universally esteemed by