ase in shaping her thoughts into words. Her pride was
hurt and her ambition stirred. She determined to make herself at least
Fanny's intellectual equal. It was humiliating to know herself powerless
to improve her own condition, when her friend was already earning an
income large enough not only to meet her own wants but those of others
depending upon her. To prepare herself for a like struggle with the
world, a struggle which in all likelihood she would be obliged to make
single-handed, she studied earnestly. Books acquired new value in her
eyes. She read no longer for passing amusement, but to strengthen and
cultivate her mind for future work. It cannot be doubted that under any
circumstances she would, in the course of a few years, have become
conscious of her power and the necessity to exercise it. But to Fanny
Blood belongs the honor of having given the first incentive to her
intellectual energy. This brave, heavily burdened young English girl,
accepting toils and tribulations with stout heart, would, with many
another silent heroine or hero, have been forgotten, had it not been for
the stimulus her love and example were to an even stronger
sister-sufferer. The larger field of interests thus opened for Mary was
like the bright dawn after a long and dark night. For the first time she
was happy.

There was therefore much in her life at Hoxton to relieve the gloomy
influence of the family troubles. Work for a definite end is in itself a
great joy. Many pleasant hours were spent with the Clares, and occasional
gala-days with Fanny. These last two pleasures, however, were
short-lived. The inexorable family tyrant, her father, grew tired of
commerce, as indeed he did of everything, and in the spring of 1776 he
abandoned it for agriculture, this time settling in Pembroke, Wales,
where he owned some little property. With a heavy heart Mary bade
farewell to her new friends.

It is well worth recording that in 1775, while Mary Wollstonecraft was
living in Hoxton, William Godwin was a student at the Dissenting College
in that town. Godwin, in his short Memoir of his wife, pauses to
speculate as to what would have been the result had they then met and
loved. In his characteristic philosophical way he asks, "Which would have
been predominant,--the disadvantages of obscurity and the pressure of a
family, or the gratifications and improvement that might have flowed from
their intercourse?" But the vital question is: Would an acqu