“No more can I,” interrupted Maria, “yet they even expatiate on the peculiar happiness of indigence, though in what it can consist, excepting in brutal rest, when a man can barely earn a subsistence, I cannot imagine.  The mind is necessarily imprisoned in its own little tenement; and, fully occupied by keeping it in repair, has not time to rove abroad for improvement.  The book of knowledge is closely clasped, against those who must fulfil their daily task of severe manual labour or die; and curiosity, rarely excited by thought or information, seldom moves on the stagnate lake of ignorance.”

“As far as I have been able to observe,” replied Jemima, “prejudices, caught up by chance, are obstinately maintained by the poor, to the exclusion of improvement; they have not time to reason or reflect to any extent, or minds sufficiently exercised to adopt the principles of action, which form perhaps the only basis of contentment in every station."*

     * The copy which appears to have received the author’s
     last corrections, ends at this place. [Godwin’s note]

“And independence,” said Darnford, “they are necessarily strangers to, even the independence of despising their persecutors.  If the poor are happy, or can be happy, things are very well as they are.  And I cannot conceive on what principle those writers contend for a change of system, who support this opinion.  The authors on the other side of the question are much more consistent, who grant the fact; yet, insisting that it is the lot of the majority to be oppressed in this life, kindly turn them over to another, to rectify the false weights and measures of this, as the only way to justify the dispensations of Providence.  I have not,” continued Darnford, “an opinion more firmly fixed by observation in my mind, than that, though riches may fail to produce proportionate happiness, poverty most commonly excludes it, by shutting up all the avenues to improvement.”

“And as for the affections,” added Maria, with a sigh, “how gross, and even tormenting do they become, unless regulated by an improving mind!  The culture of the heart ever, I believe, keeps pace with that of the mind.  But pray go on,” addressing Jemima, “though your narrative gives rise to the most painful reflections on the present state of society.”

“Not to trouble you,” continued she, “with a detailed description of all the painful feelings of unavailing exertion, I have only to tell you, that at last I got recommended to wash in a few families, who did me the favour to admit me into their houses, without the most strict enquiry, to wash from one in the morning till eight at night, for eighteen or twenty-pence a day.  On the happiness to be enjoyed over a washing-tub I need not comment; yet you will allow me to observe, that this was a wretchedness of situation peculiar to my sex.  A man with half my industry, and, I may say, abilities, could have procured a decent livelihood, and discharged some of the duties which knit mankind together; whilst I, who had acquired a taste for the rational, nay, in honest pride let me assert it, the virtuous enjoyments of life, was cast aside as the filth of society.  Condemned to labour, like a machine, only to earn bread, and scarcely that, I became melancholy and desperate.