emotions of this sort were short-lived, and in no long time subsided
into a dignified sereneness and equanimity.

The question of her connection with Mr. Imlay, as we have seen, was not
completely dismissed, till March 1796. But it is worthy to be observed,
that she did not, like ordinary persons under extreme anguish of mind,
suffer her understanding, in the mean time, to sink into listlessness
and debility. The most inapprehensive reader may conceive what was the
mental torture she endured, when he considers, that she was twice, with
an interval of four months, from the end of May to the beginning of
October, prompted by it to purposes of suicide. Yet in this period she
wrote her Letters from Norway. Shortly after its expiration she prepared
them for the press, and they were published in the close of that year.
In January 1796, she finished the sketch of a comedy, which turns, in
the serious scenes, upon the incidents of her own story. It was offered
to both the winter-managers, and remained among her papers at the
period of her decease; but it appeared to me to be in so crude and
imperfect a state, that I judged it most respectful to her memory to
commit it to the flames. To understand this extraordinary degree of
activity, we must recollect however the entire solitude, in which most
of her hours were at that time consumed.




CHAP. IX.

1796, 1797.