ody, but it shall never bend to
support that body. God of heaven, save thy child from this living
death! I scarcely know what I write. My hand trembles; I am very
sick,--sick at heart."

Then she wrote to the man who had undertaken in an evil moment to deliver
the would-be lover's message:

SIR,--When you left me this morning, and I reflected a moment, your
_officious_ message, which at first appeared to me a joke, looked
so very like an insult, I cannot forget it. To prevent, then, the
necessity of forcing a smile when I chance to meet you, I take the
earliest opportunity of informing you of my sentiments.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.

This brief note seems to have called forth an answer, for Mary wrote
again, and this time more fully and explicitly:--

Sir,--It is inexpressibly disagreeable to me to be obliged to enter
again on a subject that has already raised a tumult of _indignant_
emotions in my bosom, which I was laboring to suppress when I
received your letter. I shall now _condescend_ to answer your
epistle; but let me first tell you that, in my _unprotected_
situation, I make a point of never forgiving a _deliberate
insult_,--and in that light I consider your late officious conduct.
It is not according to my nature to mince matters. I will tell you
in plain terms what I think. I have ever considered you in the
light of a _civil_ acquaintance,--on the word friend I lay a
peculiar emphasis,--and, as a mere acquaintance, you were rude and
_cruel_ to step forward to insult a woman whose conduct and
misfortunes demand respect. If my friend Mr. Johnson had made the
proposal, I should have been severely hurt, have thought him unkind
and unfeeling, but not _impertinent_. The privilege of intimacy you
had no claim to, and should have referred the man to myself, if you
had not sufficient discernment to quash it at once. I am, sir, poor
and destitute; yet I have a spirit that will never bend, or take
indirect methods to obtain the consequences I despise; nay, if to
support life it was necessary to act contrary to my principles, the
struggle would soon be over. I can bear anything but my own
contempt.

In a few words, what I call an insult is the bare supposition that
I could for a moment think of _prostituting_ my person for a
maintenance; for in that