PREFACE
THE PUBLIC are here presented with the last literary attempt of an author,
whose fame has been uncommonly extensive, and whose talents have probably been
most admired, by the persons by whom talents are estimated with the greatest
accuracy and discrimination. There are few, to whom her writings could in any
case have given pleasure, that would have wished that
this fragment should have been suppressed, because it is a fragment. There is a
sentiment, very dear to minds of taste and imagination, that finds a melancholy
delight in contemplating these unfinished productions of genius, these sketches
of what, if they had been filled up in a manner adequate to the writer's
conception, would perhaps have given a new impulse to the manners of a world.
The purpose and structure of the following work, had long formed a favourite subject of meditation with its author, and she
judged them capable of producing an important effect. The composition had been
in progress for a period of twelve months. She was anxious to do justice to her
conception, and recommenced and revised the manuscript several different times.
So much of it as is here given to the public, she was far from considering as
finished, and, in a letter to a friend directly written on this subject, she
says, "I am perfectly aware that some of the incidents ought to be
transposed, and heightened by more harmonious shading; and I wished in some
degree to avail myself of criticism, before I began to adjust my events into a
story, the outline of which I had sketched in my mind."* The only friends
to whom the author communicated her manuscript, were
Mr. Dyson, the translator of the Sorcerer, and the present editor; and it was
impossible for the most inexperienced author to display a stronger desire of
profiting by the censures and sentiments that might be suggested.
In revising these sheets for the press, it was necessary for the editor, in
some places, to connect the more finished parts with the pages of an older
copy, and a line or two in addition sometimes appeared requisite for that
purpose. Wherever such a liberty has been taken, the additional phrases will be
found inclosed in brackets; it being the editor's
most earnest desire to intrude nothing of himself into the work, but to give to
the public the words, as well as ideas, of the real author.
What follows in the ensuing pages, is not a preface regularly drawn out by
the author, but merely hints for a preface, which, though never filled up in
the manner the writer intended, appeared to be worth preserving.
W. GODWIN.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
THE WRONGS OF WOMAN, like the wrongs of the oppressed part of mankind, may
be deemed necessary by their oppressors: but surely there are a few, who will
dare to advance before the improvement of the age, and grant that my sketches
are not the abortion of a distempered fancy, or the strong delineations of a
wounded heart.
In writing this novel, I have rather endeavoured
to pourtray passions than manners.
In many instances I could have made the incidents more dramatic, would I
have sacrificed my main object, the desire of exhibiting the misery and
oppression, peculiar to women, that arise out of the
partial laws and customs of society.
In the invention of the story, this view restrained my fancy; and the
history ought rather to be considered, as of woman, than of an individual.
The sentiments I have embodied.
In many works of this species, the hero is allowed to be mortal,
and to become wise and virtuous as well as happy, by a train of events and
circumstances. The heroines, on the contrary, are to be born immaculate, and to
act like goddesses of wisdom, just come forth highly finished Minervas from the head of Jove.
[The following is an extract of a letter from the author to a friend, to
whom she communicated her manuscript.]
For my part, I cannot suppose any situation more distressing, than for a
woman of sensibility, with an improving mind, to be bound to such a man as I
have described for life; obliged to renounce all the humanizing affections, and
to avoid cultivating her taste, lest her perception of grace and refinement of
sentiment, should sharpen to agony the pangs of disappointment. Love, in which
the imagination mingles its bewitching colouring,
must be fostered by delicacy. I should despise, or rather call her an ordinary
woman, who could endure such a husband as I have sketched.
These appear to me (matrimonial despotism of heart and conduct) to be the
peculiar Wrongs of Woman, because they degrade the mind. What are termed great misfortunes, may more forcibly impress the mind of common
readers; they have more of what may justly be termed stage-effect; but it is
the delineation of finer sensations, which, in my opinion, constitutes the
merit of our best novels. This is what I have in view; and to show the wrongs
of different classes of women, equally oppressive, though, from the difference
of education, necessarily various.