ABSTRACT
The story of the life of Mary Wollstonecraft is pathetic throughout, full of wrong inflicted, of suffering endured. The vindicator of the rights of her sex is not known to have betrayed a woman during the whole course of her sad, eventful life. She disdained to tamper with the affections of any man. The charge which must ever stand unanswerably against her memory, is that she wronged herself in the excess of trustfulness bestowed upon Imlay, in her reluctance to enter upon her marriage relation with Godwin in the lawful form. The reproach of irreligiousness clung to the memory of Mary Wollstonecraft until of late years, and even now the statement is made by way of biographical fact, that she, “unlike her husband, was a decided theist, though a Christian.” The principles which served as foundation of her argument, have become the watchword of progress in the onward course of civilization.
