“. . . He” [Charles] “informs me too that Mrs Wollstonecraft is grown quite handsome; he adds likewise that being conscious she is on the wrong side of thirty she now endeavours to set off those charms she once despised to the best advantage. This entre nous, for he is delighted with her kindness and affection to him.
“So the author of ‘The Rights of Woman’ is going to France! I dare say her chief motive is to promote poor Bess’s comfort, or thine, my girl, at least I think she will thus reason. Well, in spite of reason, when Mrs W. reaches the Continent she will be but a woman! I cannot help painting her in the height of all her wishes, at the very summit of happiness, for will not ambition fill every chink of her Great Soul (for such I really think hers) that is not occupied by love? After having drawn this sketch, you can hardly suppose me so sanguine as to expect my pretty face will be thought of when matters of State are in agitation, yet I know you think such a miracle not impossible. I wish I could think it at all probable, but, alas! it has so much the appearance of castle-building that I think it will soon disappear like the ‘baseless fabric of a vision, and leave not a wrack behind.’
“And you actually have the vanity to imagine that in the National Assembly, personages like M. and F[useli] will bestow a thought on two females whom nature meant to ‘suckle fools and chronicle small beer.’”
