r her talents. The inaccuracies and the roughness of style
which had displeased him in her earlier works had disappeared. There was
no fault to be found with the book, but much to be said in its praise.
Once she had pleased him intellectually, he began to discover her other
attractions, and to enjoy being with her. Her conversation, instead of
wearying him, as it once had, interested him. He no longer thought her
forward and conceited, but succumbed to her personal charms. How great
these were can be learned from the following description of her
character written by Mrs. Shelley, who obtained her knowledge from her
mother's intimate acquaintances. She says:--

"Mary Wollstonecraft was one of those beings who appear once
perhaps in a generation to gild humanity with a ray which no
difference of opinion nor chance of circumstance can cloud. Her
genius was undeniable. She had been bred in the hard school of
adversity, and having experienced the sorrows entailed on the poor
and the oppressed, an earnest desire was kindled in her to diminish
these sorrows. Her sound understanding, her intrepidity, her
sensibility and eager sympathy, stamped all her writings with force
and truth, and endowed them with a tender charm which enchants
while it enlightens. She was one whom all loved who had ever seen
her. Many years are passed since that beating heart has been laid
in the cold, still grave, but no one who has ever seen her speaks
of her without enthusiastic veneration. Did she witness an act of
injustice, she came boldly forward to point it out and induce its
reparation; was there discord between friends or relatives, she
stood by the weaker party, and by her earnest appeals and
kindliness awoke latent affection, and healed all wounds. 'Open as
day to melting charity,' with a heart brimful of generous
affection, yearning for sympathy, she had fallen on evil days, and
her life had been one course of hardship, poverty, lonely struggle,
and bitter disappointment.

"Godwin met her at the moment when she was deeply depressed by the
ingratitude of one utterly incapable of appreciating her
excellence; who had stolen her heart, and availed himself of her
excessive and thoughtless generosity and lofty independence of
character, to plunge her in difficulties and then desert her.
Difficulties, worldly diffic