ber of the family, declaring that she could not live without daily
seeing the man she loved; and that, thereupon, Mrs. Fuseli grew
righteously wrathful and forbade her ever to cross her threshold again.
He furthermore affirms that she considered her love for Fuseli strictly
within the bounds of modesty and reason, that she encouraged it without
scruple, and that she made every effort to win his heart. These proving
futile, he concludes: "No resource was now left for Mrs. Wollstonecraft
but to fly from the object which she regarded; her determination was
instantly fixed; she wrote a letter to Fuseli, in which she begged pardon
'for having disturbed the quiet tenor of his life,' and on the 8th of
December left London for France."

An anonymous writer who in 1803 published a "Defence of the Character of
the Late Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin," repeats the story, but a little
more kindly, declaring that Mary's discovery of an unconsciously nurtured
passion for a married man, and her determination to flee temptation, were
the cause of her leaving England. That there was during her life-time
some idle gossip about her relations to Fuseli is shown in the references
to it in Eliza's ill-natured letter. This counts for little, however. It
was simply impossible for the woman who had written in defiance of social
laws and restrictions, to escape having scandals attached to her name.

Kegan Paul, Mary's able defender of modern times, denies the whole
story. He writes in his Prefatory Memoir to her "Letters to Imlay:"--

"... Godwin knew extremely little of his wife's earlier life, nor
was this a subject on which he had sought enlightenment from
herself. I can only here say that I fail to find any confirmation
whatever of this preposterous story, as told in Knowles's 'Life of
Fuseli,' or in any other form, while I find much which makes
directly against it, the strongest fact being that Mary remained to
the end the correspondent and close friend of Mrs. Fuseli."

Her character is the best refutation of Knowles's charges. She was too
proud to demean herself to any man. She was too sensitive to slights to
risk the repulses he says she accepted. And since always before and after
this period she had nothing more at heart than the happiness of others,
it is not likely that she would have deliberately tried to step in
between Fuseli and his wife, and gain at the latter's expense her own
ends. She could not