THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18918, 5 February 1927, Page 13

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

HALF HOURS IN A LIBRARY. (SPECIALLY WRIT-TEH TO» THI JBESS.) By A. EL Grisliso. CHI.—ON AUTHORS AND MARRIAGE: (3) MARY WOLLSTOXECRAFT. Women writers may be classed under three heads; those who have never married; those who have escaped from" marriage by way of literature; and those who have escaped from literature by way of marriage. The first class may be divided into those who did not mn"Tv because they did not believe in tlit marriage bond, although desiring the intimacy and comradeship v.hich marriage brings, and those who were steadfast —to use George Moore's famous phrase—in single strictness. It is difficult to class Mary Wollstonecraft in any of these categories; she did not believe in marriage, and yet sho entered into the marriage bond; she was no advocate of single strictness, since she had at least two lovers, and one of them a married man. She was famous as an author before her marriage, and sho continued on a literary career until her death. To comprehend her as woman and writer it is necessary to take into account the times in which she lived, and especially the influences which went to mould her childhood. Included in the admirable ''Roadmakers" series is a handy life of Mary Wollstonecraft by Miss Madeline Linford, a sympathetic study of a woman who lived a stormy life in exceedingly stormy times. She was born in 1759, the year in which Burns, (Schiller, Handel, and Wordsworth were born, exactly a hundred years before the publication of the "Origin of Species." Her father came into a heritage of ten thousand pounds, but owing to his inability to persevere in any work that he understood, he wandered about from place to place, and speedily came to poverty. So numerous were these changes of abode that it is impossible to say whether Mary, the second of six children, was horn at Epping Forest or in London; the date of her birth was April 27th. 1759. Miss Linford writes:—

Poverty would have boon endurable enough if kindnois had softened it, but neither of tho Wollstonecraft parent* bid anj store of this. Tho father was a brutal iuty, subject to ungovernable fits of tcm r per. Ho' ill-trcatod his dogs, his children, even his wife. Sometimes his passion would be so violent that Mary, afraid to Co to bed, would lie on the floor outsido her roo*m all night. Sho was always ready to defend bar mother, and would rush between the parents io that the blows aimed at the woman should fall on the child. It might have been expected thae in return Mrs Wollstonecraft would treat her with a tenderness that would mitigate some of the tyranny under which thoy both suffered. The household cursed with a cruel father has usually the mercy of a gentlo mother too. But "Mary was unfortunate in both her parents. Mrs Woelstonecroft was nqt perhaps a deliberately unkjnd woman, but sho was harsh and unimaginative and she ruled by fear. She was a great believer in discipline—and discipline in the eighteenth century was a very (Trim word. She suffered under her husband and sho made tha children suffer in their turn.

With such-a childhood there is something ironical in the remembrance that when she was thirty-two. Mary Wollstonecraft published a little book called "Original Stories from Heal Life; With Conversations Calculated to Regulate the Affections and form the Mind to Truth .and Goodness." The book t is chiefly treasured to-day because of it* illustrations by William Blake. A few years back the Oxford University Press issued a reprint of tho book, with reproductions of the Blnke illustrations. It had a capital introduction by Mr E. V. Lucas, from which I fully intended to quote; but bv one of those unhappy mischances which sometimes happen, my copy of the book has either been borrowed or misplaced, and I am unable to lay my hand upon it at the* moment. A lament over the books that are lost and never come bank would not be out of place here. Miss Linford says:—

It was tho custom of those days to disguise tho powder of instruction very thinly with jam. Books written for children were intended to improve rather than to entertain, to thrust moral teaching into every innocent joy or sorrow of the springtime of life. They e»w sermons in stones, fables in Sowers, and every singing bird on a bough of apple blossom was a reminder of the omnipotent wrath of God. Tho children of tho Fairchild family, so that they may learn the fate of those > who quarrel in the nursery, are taken to gee a corpse hanging from a gibbet; Trhen Harry aleak an apple he is reminded of fire and brimstone. The curious thing is that Mary Wollstonecraft, herself tender with children, should follow in the traditional course in her "Original Stories." Her heroines aro May and Caroline, aged twelve and fourteen, who are orphans and whose education has been sadly neglected. They are f laced under the care of a truly terriyiug female in the person of Mrs Mason, who sets about to train their characters and intellects. And into the pages of those stories there is not allowed to intrude a suspicion of the tragic events which marked Mary'B own childhood. Thanks to a retired clergyman who lived next door to them in London, Mary was able to gratify her desire. for study, and she laid tho foundation of an education which stood her in good stead when she embarked upon a literary life. Her antagonism to marriage, which had its seed in her experiences of father and mother, grew stronger after the nvserable match of her sister Eliaa. who mnrriod in haste a man named Bishop, and who repented almost as quickly. Bishop was both brute and sensualist, and Elisa, who was, expecting a child, was tormented well nigh to the point of insanity. Visiting her unhappy sister, Mary was witness to a terrible* state of things, and at length she came to tho decision that Eliza must be taken away from her husband. Miss Linford writes:

It was considered a shameful thins for Mar? 'Wollstonecraft to have enticed Elii.i Bishop nway l T ° m n e r lawful owner. A bad husband was a croa> that a food wife should bear with mseknesi; under no circumstances should she throw the cross down and run sway from it. Far better to live in misery and degradation all the rest of one's life than to scandalise society by flight. Mr Bishop, with a fine sense of dramatic effect swallowed down his wrath and shoved the world the sad picture of a dYscrted husband with only his motherless infant to gladden his darkened life. .... Many other people refused to have anything to do with the Wollstonecraft family. It was Mary's first glimpse of the inud and calumny that lie in wait for pioneers.

Mary had a series of unhappy experiences of the marriages of her friends nnd relations; these including tho tragedy of her dear friend, Fonny Blood, whom she went to Lisbon to visit, and who died in childbirth. Not only so. but Mary found herself increasingly called upon to support the children nf those ill-starred marriages. To raise money to meet the many calls upon her, she launched upon a litcrarv life, and she earned ten guineas for a "Thoughts on the Education of Daughters," published in 1787. For a while sho went to Ireland at governess in the household of Lady Yit»-iM»~.-i. k.,t dismissed from that