Elizabeth Robins Pennell

Mary Wollstonecraft Elizabeth Robins Pennell

"[...]anonymous admirer published a defence of her character and conduct, "founded on principles of nature and reason as applied to the peculiar circumstances of her case," in a series of nine letters to a lady. But his defence is less satisfactory to his readers than it is to be presumed it was to himself. In it he carefully repeats those details of Godwin's Memoir which were most severely criticised, and to some of them gives a new and scarcely more favorable construction. He candidly admits that he does not pretend to vindicate the whole of her conduct. He merely wishes to apologize for it by demonstrating the motives from which she acted. But to accomplish this he evolves his arguments chiefly from his inner consciousness. Had he appealed more directly to her writings, and[...]."