Wollstonecraft Obituary (2) (1797)

Letter to the Editor, Monthly Magazine 4 (October 1797), 245. 

On the Wollstonecraft obituary:

Sir,

     To the paragraph in your Magazine for September, announcing the decease of Mrs. Godwin, it was my desire and intention to have affixed my name, as a public testimony of respect and affection for my late admirable friend. But by some misconception, this intention appears to have been defeated. Farther particulars respecting this extraordinary woman, I did not think myself at liberty toad, as they will probably, within a short period, be given to the public by a far abler hand.

     To have been ranked among the number of her distinguished friends, to have awakened kindness in a heart exquisitely capable of every affectionate sympathy, to have had an opportunity of pouring the balm of tenderness into that heart, when lacerated by a sense of undeserved injury and calumny, are among the circumstances of my life, which I shall ever remember with equal pride and pleasure.

Oct. 10, 1797.                                                     Mary Hays.