early life told upon her and warped her better judgment; she who had
seen so much of the misery of married life when love was dead,
regarded that side, not considering the sacred relationship, the right
side of marriage, which she came to understand later--too late, alas!

So passed this _annee terrible_, and with it Mary's short-lived
happiness with Imlay, for before the end we find her writing,
evidently saddened by his repeated absences. She followed him to
Havre, where, in April, their child Fanny was born, and for a while
happiness was restored, and Mary lived in comfort with him, her time
fully occupied between work and love for Imlay and their child; but
this period was short, for in August he was called to Paris on
business. She followed him, but another journey of his to England only
finished the separation. Work of some sort having been ever her one
resource, she started for Norway with Fanny and a maid, furnished with
a letter of Imlay's, in which he requested "all men to know that he
appoints Mary Imlay, his wife, to transact all his business for him."
Her letters published shortly after her return from Denmark, Norway,
and Sweden, divested of the personal details, were considered to show
a marked advance in literary style, and from the slow modes of
travelling, and the many letters of introduction to people in all the
towns and villages she visited, she was enabled to send home
characteristic details of all classes of people. The personal portions
of the letters are to be found among her posthumous works, and these,
with letters written after her return, and when she was undoubtedly
convinced of Imlay's baseness and infidelity, are terrible and
pathetic records of her misery--misery which drove her to an attempt
at suicide. This was fortunately frustrated, so that she was spared to
meet with a short time of happiness later, and to prove to herself and
Godwin, both previous sceptics in the matter, that lawful marriage can