Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman | Page 2

and a farm upon Epping Forest, which was the
principal scene of the five first years of her life.
Mary was distinguished in early youth, by some portion of that
exquisite sensibility, soundness of understanding, and decision of
character, which were the leading features of her mind through the
whole course of her life. She experienced in the first period of her
existence, but few of those indulgences and marks of affection, which
are principally calculated to sooth the subjection and sorrows of our
early years. She was not the favourite either of her father or mother.
Her father was a man of a quick, impetuous disposition, subject to

alternate fits of kindness and cruelty. In his family he was a despot, and
his wife appears to have been the first, and most submissive of his
subjects. The mother's partiality was fixed upon the eldest son, and her
system of government relative to Mary, was characterized by
considerable rigour. She, at length, became convinced of her mistake,
and adopted a different plan with her younger daughters. When, in the
Wrongs of Woman, Mary speaks of "the petty cares which obscured the
morning of her heroine's life; continual restraint in the most trivial
matters; unconditional submission to orders, which, as a mere child,
she soon discovered to be unreasonable, because inconsistent and
contradictory; and the being often obliged to sit, in the presence of her
parents, for three or four hours together, without daring to utter a
word;" she is, I believe, to be considered as copying the outline of the
first period of her own existence.
But it was in vain, that the blighting winds of unkindness or
indifference, seemed destined to counteract the superiority of Mary's
mind. It surmounted every obstacle; and, by degrees, from a person
little considered in the family, she became in some sort its director and
umpire. The despotism of her education cost her many a heart-ache.
She was not formed to be the contented and unresisting subject of a
despot; but I have heard her remark more than once, that, when she felt
she had done wrong, the reproof or chastisement of her mother, instead
of being a terror to her, she found to be the only thing capable of
reconciling her to herself. The blows of her father on the contrary,
which were the mere ebullitions of a passionate temper, instead of
humbling her, roused her indignation. Upon such occasions she felt her
superiority, and was apt to betray marks of contempt. The quickness of
her father's temper, led him sometimes to threaten similar violence
towards his wife. When that was the case, Mary would often throw
herself between the despot and his victim, with the purpose to receive
upon her own person the blows that might be directed against her
mother. She has even laid whole nights upon the landing-place near
their chamber-door, when, mistakenly, or with reason, she apprehended
that her father might break out into paroxysms of violence. The conduct
he held towards the members of his family, was of the same kind as
that he observed towards animals. He was for the most part
extravagantly fond of them; but, when he was displeased, and this

frequently happened, and for very trivial reasons, his anger was
alarming. Mary was what Dr. Johnson would have called, "a very good
hater." In some instance of passion exercised by her father to one of his
dogs, she was accustomed to speak of her emotions of abhorrence, as
having risen to agony. In a word, her conduct during her girlish years,
was such, as to extort some portion of affection from her mother, and to
hold her father in considerable awe.
In one respect, the system of education of the mother appears to have
had merit. All her children were vigorous and healthy. This seems very
much to depend upon the management of our infant years. It is affirmed
by some persons of the present day, most profoundly skilled in the
sciences of health and disease, that there is no period of human life so
little subject to mortality, as the period of infancy. Yet, from the
mismanagement to which children are exposed, many of the diseases of
childhood are rendered fatal, and more persons die in that, than in any
other period of human life. Mary had projected a work upon this
subject, which she had carefully considered, and well understood. She
has indeed left a specimen of her skill in this respect in her eldest
daughter, three years and a half old, who is a singular example of
vigorous constitution and florid health. Mr. Anthony Carlisle, surgeon,
of Soho-square, whom to name is sufficiently to honour, had promised
to revise her production. This is but one out of numerous projects of
activity and usefulness,