Previously to the partiality she conceived for him, she had determined
upon a journey to Switzerland, induced chiefly by motives of economy.
But she had some difficulty in procuring a passport; and it was probably
the intercourse that now originated between her and Mr. Imlay, that
changed her purpose, and led her to prefer a lodging at Neuilly, a
village three miles from Paris. Her habitation here was a solitary house
in the midst of a garden, with no other inhabitants than herself and the
gardener, an old man, who performed for her many of the offices of a
domestic, and would sometimes contend for the honour of making her bed.
The gardener had a great veneration for his guest, and would set before
her, when alone, some grapes of a particularly fine sort, which she
could not without the greatest difficulty obtain, when she had any
person with her as a visitor. Here it was that she conceived, and for
the most part executed, her Historical and Moral View of the French
Revolution[A], into which, as she observes, are incorporated most of the
observations she had collected for her Letters, and which was written
with more sobriety and cheerfulness than the tone in which they had been
commenced. In the evening she was accustomed to refresh herself by a
walk in a neighbouring wood, from which her old host in vain endeavoured
to dissuade her, by recounting divers horrible robberies and murders
that had been committed there.

[A] No part of the proposed continuation of this work, has been found
among the papers of the author.

The commencement of the attachment Mary now formed, had neither
confident nor adviser. She always conceived it to be a gross breach of
delicacy to have any confidant in a matter of this sacred nature, an
affair of the heart. The origin of the connection was about the middle
of April 1793, and it was carried on in a private manner for four