The illness of Mrs. Wollstonecraft was lingering, but hopeless.  Mary was assiduous in her attendance upon her mother.  At first, every attention was received with acknowledgments and gratitude; but, as the attentions grew habitual, and the health of the mother more and more wretched, they were rather exacted, than received.  Nothing would be taken by the unfortunate patient, but from the hands of Mary; rest was denied night or day, and by the time nature was exhausted in the parent, the daughter was qualified to assume her place, and become in turn herself a patient.  The last words her mother ever uttered were, “A little patience, and all will be over!” and these words are repeatedly referred to by Mary in the course of her writings.

Upon the death of Mrs. Wollstonecraft, Mary bid a final adieu to the roof of her father.  According to my memorandums, I find her next the inmate of Fanny at Walham Green, near the village of Fulham.  Upon what plan they now lived together I am unable to ascertain; certainly not that of Mary’s becoming in any degree an additional burthen upon the industry of her friend.  Thus situated, their intimacy ripened; they approached more nearly to a footing of equality; and their attachment became more rooted and active.

Mary was ever ready at the call of distress, and, in particular, during her whole life was eager and active to promote the welfare of every member of her family.  In 1780 she attended the death-bed of her mother; in 1782 she was summoned by a not less melancholy occasion, to attend her sister Eliza, married to a Mr. Bishop, who, subsequently to a dangerous lying-in, remained for some months in a very afflicting situation.  Mary continued with her sister without intermission, to her perfect recovery.

CHAP.  III.

1783-1785.

Mary was now arrived at the twenty-fourth year of her age.  Her project, five years before, had been personal independence; it was now usefulness.  In the solitude of attendance on her sister’s illness, and during the subsequent convalescence, she had had leisure to ruminate upon purposes of this sort.  Her expanded mind led her to seek something more arduous than the mere removal of personal vexations; and the sensibility of her heart would not suffer her to rest in solitary gratifications.  The derangement of her father’s affairs daily became more and more glaring; and a small independent provision made for herself and her sisters, appears to have been sacrificed in the wreck.  For ten years, from 1782 to 1792, she may be said to have been, in a great degree, the victim of a desire to promote the benefit of others.  She did not foresee the severe disappointment with which an exclusive purpose of this sort is pregnant; she was inexperienced enough to lay a stress upon the consequent gratitude of those she benefited; and she did not sufficiently consider that, in proportion as we involve ourselves in the interests and society of others, we acquire a more exquisite sense of their defects, and are tormented with their untractableness and folly.