Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie. Amelia Opie

“Ah! not for ever quaff at pleasure’s distant fount!” To-morrow I am going to enjoy “the feast of reason and the flow of soul,” with Mrs. Barbauld and Dr. Geddes, at Mrs. Howard’s. I wish I could wish you there. Godwin drank tea and supt here last night; a leave-taking visit, as he goes to-morrow to spend a fortnight at Dr. Parr’s. It would have entertained you highly to have seen him bid me farewell. He wished to salute me, but his courage failed him. “While oft he looked back, and was loth to depart.” “Will you give me nothing to keep for your sake, and console me during my absence,” murmured out the philosopher, “not even your slipper? I had it in my possession once, and need not have returned it!” This was true; my shoe had come off, and he had put it in his pocket for some time. You have no idea how gallant he is become; but indeed he is much more amiable than ever he was. Mrs. Inchbald says, the report of the world is, that Mr. Holcroft is in love with her, she with Mr. Godwin, Mr. Godwin with me, and I am in love with Mr. Holcroft! A pretty story indeed! This report Godwin brings to me, and he says Mrs. I. always tells him that when she praises him, I praise Holcroft. This is not fair in Mrs. I. She appears to me jealous of G.’s attention to me, so she makes him believe I prefer H. to him. She often says to me, “Now you are come, Mr. Godwin does not come near me.” Is not this very womanish? We had a most delightful conversation last night. A dispute on the merits of different poets,—Mr. G. abusing Collins, I defending him,—G. setting Gray above him, and I putting him below him; but we agreed about Churchill, who was one of my flames. How idle I am! I cannot write, and I read but little, but I shall mend. Farewell! Mr. Batty and I both wear you “in our heart’s core,” and so would Mrs. B., if she knew you. I love and admire them more every day. Love to the Barnards; my love to the Smiths. Dear love and good wishes to the boys and girls.

      Yours, ——

      Thursday.

      My dear Mrs. Taylor,

      * * * * I flatter myself with the idea that you hear most of my letters to my father; consequently that you know my movements, and can judge of the probable quantity of enjoyment I experience. I am now about to enjoy pleasant society in a pleasant country, one of the first luxuries at this season of the year; but still I sigh for home, that is, I sigh for a day or two of confidential intercourse with you and others, and to wash off the dirt of London in the sea of Cromer; to write poetry on the shore, to live over again every scene there that memory loves (and never did she love them so dearly as now;) and, having rioted in all that my awakened fancy can give, return to Norwich, and endeavour to make one of my plays, at least, fit to be offered to one of the managers of the winter theatres. Such is my plan; and in it I live, move, and have my being.

      Bless me! what a busy place Norwich has been, and I not in it! but then I heard H. Tooke and Fox speak, and that’s something. To be sure I had rather have heard Buonaparte address his soldiers; but as pleasure delayed is not pleasure lost, I may still hope to hear him when the bonnet rouge has taken place of the tiara, and a switch from the tree of liberty dangles from that hand which formerly wielded the crozier. But alas! this is no laughing matter,—or rather let us laugh while we can, for I believe an hour to be approaching when salut et fraternité will be the watchwords for civil slaughter throughout Europe; and the meridian glory of the sun of Liberty, in France, will light us to courting the past dangers and horrors of the republic, in hopes of obtaining her present power and greatness. It will be an awful time; may I meet it with fortitude! But I shrink, and shrink only, from the idea of ties dear to my heart, which it will for ever break; of the friendships I must forego; of the dangers of those I love; and of friends equally dear to me, meeting in the field of strife opposed in mortal combat! I feel heart-sick at such possibilities; yet which amongst us dare assert that such possibilities may not, ere long, be probable?

      Mrs. Imlay tells me, no words can describe the feelings which the scenes she witnessed in France gave birth to continually—it was a sort of indefinite terror. She was sitting alone, when Imlay came in and said, “I suppose you have not heard the sad news of to-day?” “What is it? is Brissot guillotined?” “Not only Brissot, but the one-and-twenty are.” Amongst them she immediately could conjure up the faces of some lately endeared acquaintances, and before she was conscious of the effect of the picture, she sunk lifeless on the floor: and Mrs. Imlay is not a fine lady—if any mind could be unmoved at such things hers would; but a series of horrors must have a very weakening tendency. When we meet I shall have much to tell you. Yesterday I had a letter from Catherine; she is well and happy, she says; but we’ll read her letter together.

      Farewell! Mrs. Barbauld is more charming than ever; both he and she speak of you as you deserve. Love to Mrs. Beecroft, and Fanny Smith, and all the circle of home. * * *

      In the spring of 1797 we find her again in town, accompanying her friend Mrs. Inchbald on the 17th April, to Westminster, to hear a sermon from Bishop Horsley. Again she extended her visit to several months; and a most eventful time it proved to be in her history, as will be gathered from her communications to Mrs. Taylor. Some unexpected changes too had occurred amongst her acquaintances, since she left them, twelve or fourteen months before. The philosophic Godwin had justified her opinion of him, and proved that his heart was not so wise as his head; he had married Mrs. Wollstonecroft, a strange incomprehensible woman, whose unhappy existence terminated shortly after this marriage. A letter from her to Miss Alderson, seems to have been written at this time, and as it is of painful interest, and curious in more respects than one, we subjoin it:—

      My dear Girl,

      Endeavouring, through embarrassment, to turn the conversation from myself last night, I insensibly became too severe in my strictures on the vanity of a certain lady, and my heart smote me when I raised a laugh at her expense. Pray forget it. I have now to tell you that I am very sorry I prevented you from engaging a box for Mrs. Inchbald, whose conduct, I think, has been very rude. She wrote to Mr. Godwin to-day, saying, that, taking it for granted he had forgotten it, she had spoken to another person. “She would not do so the next time he was married.” Nonsense! I have now to request you to set the matter right. Mrs. Inchbald may still get a box; I beg her pardon for misunderstanding the business, but Mr. G. led me into the error, or I will go to the pit. To have done with disagreeable subjects at once, let me allude to another. I shall be sorry to resign the acquaintance of Mrs. and Mr. F. Twiss, because I respect their characters, and feel grateful for their attention; but my conduct in life must be directed by my own judgment and moral principles: it is my wish that Mr. Godwin should visit and dine out as formerly, and I shall do the same; in short, I still mean to be independent, even to the cultivating sentiments and principles in my children’s minds, (should I have more,) which he disavows. The wound my unsuspecting heart formerly received is not healed. I found my evenings solitary; and I wished, while fulfilling the duty of a mother, to have some person with similar pursuits, bound to me by affection; and beside, I earnestly desired to resign a name which seemed to disgrace me. Since I have been unfortunately the object of observation, I have had it in my power, more than once, to marry very advantageously; and of course, should have been courted by those, who at least cannot accuse me of acting an interested part, though I have not, by dazzling their eyes, rendered them blind to my faults. I am proud perhaps, conscious of my own purity and integrity; and many circumstances in my life have contributed to excite in my bosom an indignant contempt for the forms of a world I should have bade a long good night to, had I not been a mother. Condemned then, to toil my hour out, I wish to live as rationally as I can; had fortune or splendor been my aim in life, they have been within my reach, would I have paid the price. Well, enough of the subject; I do not wish to resume it. Good night! God bless you.

      Mary Wollstonecroft,

      femme Godwin.

      Tuesday Night.

      From this letter, it is cheering to turn to the bright joyous spirit, evinced in the following, which contains the first announcement of the important event to which we alluded just now.

      TO MRS. TAYLOR.

      Tuesday, 1797.

      Why have I not written to you? it is a question I cannot answer; you must answer it yourself, but attribute my silence, not to any diminution of affection for you * * * * Believe me, I still hear the kind fears you expressed for me when we parted, and still see the flattering tears