STORIES***


This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.

[Picture: Look what a fine morning it is... Insects, Birds, & Animals,
                       are all enjoying existence]





                                   MARY
                             WOLLSTONECRAFT’S
                                 ORIGINAL
                                 STORIES


                         WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
                                    BY
                              WILLIAM BLAKE

                                * * * * *

                           WITH AN INTRODUCTION
                                    BY
                               E. V. LUCAS

                                * * * * *

                                  LONDON
                               HENRY FROWDE
                                   1906

                                * * * * *

                           OXFORD: HORACE HART
                        PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY




EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION


The germ of the _Original Stories_ was, I imagine, a suggestion (in the
manner of publishers) from Mary Wollstonecraft’s employer, Johnson of St.
Paul’s Churchyard, that something more or less in the manner of Mrs.
Trimmer’s _History of the Robins_, the great nursery success of 1786,
might be a profitable speculation.  For I doubt if the production of a
book for children would ever have occurred spontaneously to an author so
much more interested in the status of women and other adult matters.
However, the idea being given her, she quickly wrote the book—in 1787 or
1788—carrying out in it to a far higher power, in Mrs. Mason, the
self-confidence and rectitude of Mrs. Trimmer’s leading lady, Mrs.
Benson, who in her turn had been preceded by that other flawless
instructor of youth, Mr. Barlow.  None of these exemplars could do wrong;
but the Mrs. Mason whom we meet in the following pages far transcends the
others in conscious merit.  Mrs. Benson in the _History of the Robins_
(with the author of which Mary Wollstonecraft was on friendly terms) was
sufficiently like the Protagonist of the Old Testament to be, when among
Mrs. Wilson’s bees, ‘excessively pleased with the ingenuity and industry
with which these insects collect their honey and wax, form their cells,
and deposit their store’; but Mrs. Mason, as we shall see, went still
farther.

It has to be remembered that the _Original Stories_ were written when the
author was twenty-nine, five years before she met Gilbert Imlay and six
years before her daughter Fanny Imlay was born.  I mention this fact
because it seems to me to be very significant.  I feel that had the book
been written after Fanny’s birth, or even after the Imlay infatuation, it
would have been somewhat different: not perhaps more entertaining,
because its author had none of that imaginative sympathy with the young
which would direct her pen in the direction of pure pleasure for them;
but more human, more kindly, better.  One can have indeed little doubt as
to this after reading those curious first lessons for an infant which
came from Mary Wollstonecraft’s pen in or about 1795, (printed in volume
two of the _Posthumous Works_, 1798), and which give evidence of so much
more tenderness and reasonableness (and at the same time want of Reason,
which may have been Godwin’s God but will never stand in that relation
either to English men or English children) than the monitress of the
_Original Stories_, the impeccable Mrs. Mason, ever suggests.  I know of
no early instance where a mother talks down to an infant more prettily:
continually descending herself to its level, yet never with any of Mrs.
Mason’s arrogance and superiority.  Not indeed that this poor mother,
with her impulsive warm heart wounded, and most of her illusions gone,
and few kindly eyes resting upon her, could ever have compassed much of
Mrs. Mason’s prosperous self-satisfaction and authority had she wished
to; for in the seven years between the composition of the _Original
Stories_ and the lessons for the minute Fanny Imlay, she had lived an
emotional lifetime, and suffering much, pitied much.

In Lesson X, which I quote, although it says nothing of charity or
kindness, a vastly more human spirit is found than in any of Mrs. Mason’s
homilies on our duty to the afflicted:—

    See how much taller you are than William.  In four years you have
    learned to eat, to walk, to talk.  Why do you smile?  You can do much
    more, you think: you can wash your hands and face.  Very well.  I
    should never kiss a dirty face.  And you can comb your head with the
    pretty comb you always put by in your own drawer.  To be sure, you do
    all this to be ready to take a walk with me.  You would be obliged to
    stay at home, if you could not comb your own hair.  Betty is busy
    getting the dinner ready, and only brushes William’s hair, because he
    cannot do it