ABSTRACT
William Godwin was within the boundaries of middle-age when Mary Wollstonecraft, a name which has been hated and contemned on all hands as that of one of the typical representatives of feminine Atheism, the most odious of all characters to the general mind —came into his life. The sisters were flippant and impatient, and not dutiful to Mary’s sway, though they came upon her in all their troubles. It was she who found them situations, sent one of them to Paris to improve her French, and generally cared for and watched over them. To be brought up under such a shadow, or rather to struggle towards a better and higher life, in the depressing presence of a hopeless and degraded parent, is the breeding of all others which most revolts the mind of a high-spirited girl.
