LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
Documents Biography Criticism
William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. VII. 1759-1791
Mary Wollstonecraft to George Blood, 6 July [1786]
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
GO TO PAGE NUMBER:
Preface
Contents Vol. I
Ch. I. 1756-1785
Ch. II. 1785-1788
Ch. III. 1788-1792
Ch. IV. 1793
Ch. V. 1783-1794
Ch. VI. 1794-1796
Ch. VII. 1759-1791
Ch. VII. 1791-1796
Ch. IX. 1797
Ch. X. 1797
Ch. XI. 1798
Ch. XII. 1799
Ch. XIII. 1800
Contents Vol. II
Ch. I. 1800
Ch. II. 1800
Ch. III. 1800
Ch. IV. 1801-1803
Ch. V. 1802-1803
Ch. VI. 1804-1806
Ch. VII. 1806-1811
Ch. VIII. 1811-1814
Ch. IX. 1812-1819
Ch. X. 1819-1824
Ch. XI. 1824-1832
Ch. XII. 1832-1836
Index
Creative Commons License

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Produced by CATH
 
“Newington Green, July 6th [1787].

“. . . Lady Kingsborough has written about me to Mrs Prior, and I wait for further particulars before I give my final answer. Forty pounds a year was the terms mentioned to me, and half of
184 WILLIAM GODWIN
that sum I could spare to discharge my debts, and afterwards to assist Eliza. . . . I by no means like the proposal of being a governess. I should be shut out from society and be debarred the pleasures of imperfect friendship, as I should on every side be surrounded by unequals. To live only on terms of civility and common benevolence without any interchange of little acts of kindness and tenderness would be to me extremely irksome, but I touch on too tender a string. I said just now friendship, even friendship, the medicine, the cordial of life, was imperfect, and so is everything in a world which is meant to educate us for a better. Here we have no resting-place, nor any stable comfort, but what arises from our resignation to the will of Heaven, and our firm reliance on those precious promises delivered to us by Him who brought light and immortality into the world. He has told us not only that we may inherit eternal life, but that we shall be changed, if we do not perversely reject the offered grace. Your letters, my dear boy, afford me great pleasure. . . .—Yours,

“Mary.”