Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman | Page 8

Lisbon,
she found among them a willingness facilitate the execution of her
project, when it was once fixed. Mrs. Burgh in particular, supplied her
with money, which however she always conceived came from Dr. Price.
This loan, I have reason to believe, was faithfully repaid.
It was during her residence at Newington Green, that she was
introduced to the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson, who was at that time
considered as in some sort the father of English literature. The doctor
treated her with particular kindness and attention, had a long
conversation with her, and desired her to repeat her visit often. This she
firmly purposed to do; but the news of his last illness, and then of his
death, intervened to prevent her making a second visit.
Her residence in Lisbon was not long. She arrived but a short time
before her friend was prematurely delivered, and the event was fatal to
both mother and child. Frances Blood, hitherto the chosen object of
Mary's attachment, died on the twenty-ninth of November 1785.
It is thus that she speaks of her in her Letters from Norway, written ten
years after her decease. "When a warm heart has received strong
impressions, they are not to be effaced. Emotions become sentiments;
and the imagination renders even transient sensations permanent, by
fondly retracing them. I cannot, without a thrill of delight, recollect
views I have seen, which are not to be forgotten, nor looks I have felt in
every nerve, which I shall never more meet. The grave has closed over
a dear friend, the friend of my youth; still she is present with me, and I
hear her soft voice warbling as I stray over the heath."

CHAP. IV.
1785-1787.
No doubt the voyage to Lisbon tended considerably to enlarge the
understanding of Mary. She was admitted into the best company the
English factory afforded. She made many profound observations on the
character of the natives, and the baleful effects of superstition. The
obsequies of Fanny, which it was necessary to perform by stealth and
in darkness, tended to invigorate these observations in her mind.
She sailed upon her voyage home about the twentieth of December. On
this occasion a circumstance occurred, that deserves to be recorded.
While they were on their passage, they fell in with a French vessel, in
great distress, and in daily expectation of foundering at sea, at the same
time that it was almost destitute of provisions. The Frenchman hailed
them, and intreated the English captain, in consideration of his
melancholy situation, to take him and his crew on board. The
Englishman represented in reply, that his stock of provisions was by no
means adequate to such an additional number of mouths, and
absolutely refused compliance. Mary, shocked at his apparent
insensibility, took up the cause of the sufferers, and threatened the
captain to have him called to a severe account, when he arrived in
England. She finally prevailed, and had the satisfaction to reflect, that
the persons in question possibly owed their lives to her interposition.
When she arrived in England, she found that her school had suffered
considerably in her absence. It can be little reproach to any one, to say
that they were found incapable of supplying her place. She not only
excelled in the management of the children, but had also the talent of
being attentive and obliging to the parents, without degrading herself.
The period at which I am now arrived is important, as conducting to the
first step of her literary carreer. Mr. Hewlet had frequently mentioned
literature to Mary as a certain source of pecuniary produce, and had
urged her to make trial of the truth of his judgment. At this time she
was desirous of assisting the father and mother of Fanny in an object
they had in view, the transporting themselves to Ireland; and, as usual,
what she desired in a pecuniary view, she was ready to take on herself
to effect. For this purpose she wrote a duodecimo pamphlet of one
hundred and sixty pages, entitled, Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters. Mr. Hewlet obtained from the bookseller, Mr. Johnson in St.

Paul's Church Yard, ten guineas for the copy-right of this manuscript,
which she immediately applied to the object for the sake of which the
pamphlet was written.
Every thing urged Mary to put an end to the affair of the school. She
was dissatisfied with the different appearance it presented upon her
return, from the state in which she left it. Experience impressed upon
her a rooted aversion to that sort of cohabitation with her sisters, which
the project of the school imposed. Cohabitation is a point of delicate
experiment, and is, in a majority of instances, pregnant with ill-humour
and unhappiness. The activity and ardent spirit of