Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/88

whim, and not mention my place of abode or mode of life." She lived in very simple fashion; her rooms were furnished with the merest necessities. Another warning she had to give Everina and Mrs. Bishop was, "I have a room, but no furniture. J. offered you both a bed in his house, but that would not be pleasant. I believe I must try to purchase a bed, which I shall reserve for my poor girls while I have a house." It has been recorded that Talleyrand visited her in her lodgings in George Street, and that while the two discussed social and political problems, they drank their tea and then their wine from tea-cups, wine-glasses being an elegance beyond Mary's means. Her dress was as plain as her furniture. Her gowns were mean in material and often shabby, and her hair hung loosely on her shoulders, instead of being twisted and looped as was then fashionable. Knowles, in his Life of Fuseli, finds fault with her on this account. She was not, however, a philosophical sloven, with romantic ideas of benevolence, as he intimates. Either he or Fuseli strangely misjudged her. The reason she paid so little heed to the luxuries and frivolities which custom then exacted, was because other more pressing demands were made upon her limited income. Then, as usual, she was troubled by the wretched complications and misfortunes of her family. The entire care and responsibility fell upon her shoulders. None of the other members seemed to consider that she was as destitute as they were—that what she did was literally her one source of revenue. Assistance would have been as welcome to her as it was to them. But they accepted what she had to give, and were never deterred by reflecting upon the difficulty with which she re-