Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman | Page 7

an earnest desire to have a home of her own. Mary, who felt
nothing more pressing than to relieve the inconveniences of her friend,
determined to accomplish this object for her. It cost her infinite
exertions; but at length she was able to announce to Fanny that a house
was prepared, and that she was on the spot to receive her. The answer
which Fanny returned to the letter of her friend, consisted almost
wholly of an enumeration of objections to the quitting her family,
which she had not thought of before, but which now appeared to her of
considerable weight.
The judgment which experience had taught Mary to form of the mind
of her friend, determined her in the advice she gave, at the period to
which I have brought down the story. Fanny was recommended to seek
a softer climate, but she had no funds to defray the expence of such an
undertaking. At this time Mr. Hugh Skeys of Dublin, but then resident
in the kingdom of Portugal, paid his addresses to her. The state of her
health Mary considered as such as scarcely to afford the shadow of a
hope; it was not therefore a time at which it was most obvious to think
of marriage. She conceived however that nothing should be omitted,
which might alleviate, if it could not cure; and accordingly urged her
speedy acceptance of the proposal. Fanny accordingly made the voyage
to Lisbon; and the marriage took place on the twenty-fourth of

February 1785.
The change of climate and situation was productive of little benefit;
and the life of Fanny was only prolonged by a period of pregnancy,
which soon declared itself. Mary, in the mean time, was impressed with
the idea that her friend would die in this distant country; and, shocked
with the recollection of her separation from the circle of her friends,
determined to pass over to Lisbon to attend her. This resolution was
treated by her acquaintance as in the utmost degree visionary; but she
was not to be diverted from her point. She had not money to defray her
expences: she must quit for a long time the school, the very existence
of which probably depended upon her exertions.
No person was ever better formed for the business of education; if it be
not a sort of absurdity to speak of a person as formed for an inferior
object, who is in possession of talents, in the fullest degree adequate to
something on a more important and comprehensive scale. Mary had a
quickness of temper, not apt to take offence with inadvertencies, but
which led her to imagine that she saw the mind of the person with
whom she had any transaction, and to refer the principle of her
approbation or displeasure to the cordiality or injustice of their
sentiments. She was occasionally severe and imperious in her
resentments; and, when she strongly disapproved, was apt to express
her censure in terms that gave a very humiliating sensation to the
person against whom it was directed. Her displeasure however never
assumed its severest form, but when it was barbed by disappointment.
Where she expected little, she was not very rigid in her censure of
error.
But, to whatever the defects of her temper might amount, they were
never exercised upon her inferiors in station or age. She scorned to
make use of an ungenerous advantage, or to wound the defenceless. To
her servants there never was a mistress more considerate or more kind.
With children she was the mirror of patience. Perhaps, in all her
extensive experience upon the subject of education, she never betrayed
one symptom of irascibility. Her heart was the seat of every benevolent
feeling; and accordingly, in all her intercourse with children, it was
kindness and sympathy alone that prompted her conduct. Sympathy,
when it mounts to a certain height, inevitably begets affection in the
person towards whom it is exercised; and I have heard her say, that she

never was concerned in the education of one child, who was not
personally attached to her, and earnestly concerned, not to incur her
displeasure. Another eminent advantage she possessed in the business
of education, was that she was little troubled with scepticism and
uncertainty. She saw, as it were by intuition, the path which her mind
determined to pursue, and had a firm confidence in her own power to
effect what she desired. Yet, with all this, she had scarcely a tincture of
obstinacy. She carefully watched symptoms as they rose, and the
success of her experiments; and governed herself accordingly. While I
thus enumerate her more than maternal qualities, it is impossible not to
feel a pang at the recollection of her orphan children!
Though her friends earnestly dissuaded her from the journey to