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The Social and Political Philosophy
of Mary Wollstonecraft
 MIND ASSOCIATION OCCASIONAL SERIES

This series consists of carefully selected volumes of significant original papers on

predefined themes, normally growing out of a conference supported by a Mind
Association Major Conference Grant. The Association nominates an editor or
editors for each collection, and may cooperate with other bodies in promoting
conferences or other scholarly activities in connection with the preparation of
particular volumes.

Director, Mind Association: M. Fricker

Publications Officer: Julian Dodd

Recently Published in the Series:

The Epistemic Life of Groups
Edited by Michael S. Brady and Miranda Fricker
Reality Making
Edited by Mark Jago
The Metaphysics of Relations
Edited by Anna Marmodoro and David Yates
Thomas Reid on Mind, Knowledge, and Value
Rebecca Copenhaver and Todd Buras
Foundations of Logical Consequence
Edited by Colin R. Caret and Ole T. Hjortland
The Highest Good in Aristotle and Kant
Edited by Joachim Aufderheide and Ralf M. Bader
How We Fight
Ethics in War
Edited by Helen Frowe and Gerald Lang
The Morality of Defensive War
Edited by Cécile Fabre and Seth Lazar
Metaphysics and Science
Edited by Stephen Mumford and Matthew Tugby
Thick Concepts
Edited by Simon Kirchin
The Social and Political
Philosophy of Mary
Wollstonecraft

EDITED BY

Sandrine Bergès
and Alan Coffee

1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
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© the several contributors 2016
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First Edition published in 2016
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Contents

Acknowledgements vii
Note on the Contributors ix
Note on the Texts xiii

Introduction 1
Sandrine Bergès and Alan Coffee
1. Reflections on Inequality, Respect, and Love in the Political
Writings of Mary Wollstonecraft 14
Sylvana Tomaselli
2. Wollstonecraft on Marriage as Virtue Friendship 34
Nancy Kendrick
3. The Role of the Passions in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Notion of Virtue 50
Martina Reuter
4. Mary Wollstonecraft: An Early Relational Autonomy Theorist? 67
Catriona Mackenzie
5. Mary Wollstonecraft, Children’s Human Rights, and Animal Ethics 92
Eileen Hunt Botting
6. Wollstonecraft and the Properties of (Anti-) Slavery 117
Laura Brace
7. Republican Elements in the Thought of Mary Wollstonecraft 135
Philip Pettit
8. Mary Wollstonecraft’s Conception of Rights 148
Susan James
9. Representation in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Political Philosophy 166
Lena Halldenius
10. Mary Wollstonecraft, Public Reason, and the Virtuous Republic 183
Alan Coffee
11. Wet-Nursing and Political Participation: The Republican
Approaches to Motherhood of Mary Wollstonecraft and
Sophie de Grouchy 201
Sandrine Bergès
vi CONTENTS

12. Mary Wollstonecraft and Modern Philosophy 218

Barbara Taylor

Bibliography 227
Author Index 241
Subject Index 243
Acknowledgements

Several of the papers in this volume were first presented at a conference on The
Social and Political Thought of Mary Wollstonecraft at Birkbeck, University of
London in May 2013. This workshop itself was a follow-up to a conference
on Mary Wollstonecraft: Philosophy and Enlightenment in Lund University in
February 2012. We would like to thank those who attended, participated, and
took part in discussion at both events. In particular, we are grateful to Quentin
Skinner and Karen O’Brien for their support. We would also like to express our
admiration and appreciation for those students such as Christine Wolf who
travelled across Europe just for the opportunity to take part in an event dedicated
to the study of Wollstonecraft’s philosophy.
Note on the Contributors

S ANDRINE B ERGÈS is a philosopher working at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey.

Her research interests are in ancient moral and political philosophy, feminist
history of philosophy, and feminist ethics. She has published three books: Plato,
Virtue and the Law (2009); Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(2013); and A Feminist Perspective on Virtue Ethics (2015).

E ILEEN H UNT B OTTING is a political theorist at the University of Notre Dame,

Indiana. She is currently finishing her book, Wollstonecraft, Mill, and Women’s
Human Rights and has also edited a scholarly edition of Wollstonecraft’s
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (2014). Her other books are Family
Feuds: Wollstonecraft, Burke, and Rousseau on the Transformation of the Family
(2006); Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville (2009), co-edited with Jill
Locke; and the first scholarly edition of Hannah Mather Crocker’s Reminiscences
and Traditions of Boston, co-edited with Sarah L. Houser (2011).

L AURA B RACE is senior lecturer in political theory at the University of Leicester.

Her core research interests are in the politics of property, especially in the
meanings of self-ownership and self-sovereignty. She is the author of The Politics
of Property (2004) and of journal articles on Wollstonecraft, Rousseau, Hegel,
wet-nursing, and the fashioning of the eighteenth-century self. Her current
research focuses on the politics of slavery in the abolitionist debates of the late
eighteenth century and explores how, and in what contexts, slavery came to be
imagined as the opposite of freedom.

A LAN C OFFEE lectures on global ethics and human values at King’s College
London. His research focuses on social and political freedom, feminist theory,
and the history and philosophy of slavery. His recent articles include:
‘Mary Wollstonecraft, Freedom and the Enduring Power of Social Domination’,
European Journal of Political Theory (2012); ‘Freedom as Independence: Mary
Wollstonecraft and the Grand Blessing of Life’, Hypatia (2013); and ‘Two Spheres
of Domination: Republican Theory, Social Norms, and the Insufficiency of
Negative Freedom’, Contemporary Political Theory (2014). His current book
project is Freedom: A Slave’s Perspective.
L ENA H ALLDENIUS is a philosopher specializing in political philosophy and the
history of political thought. She is Professor of Human Rights at Lund University,
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x NOTE ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

Sweden, and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Her research focuses
on the concepts of freedom and rights, how moral concepts figure in political
theory, how we conceptualize them, how values are shaped by institutions, and
social, legal, and political change. She has a particular interest in the republican
tradition of political thought. Her recent book, Mary Wollstonecraft and Feminist
Republicanism, explores the relation between politics and morality in the
works of Enlightenment philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. In the history of
political philosophy she has published articles on Wollstonecraft, Hobbes,
Kant, and Locke.

S USAN J AMES is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College London. Her

research lies at the intersections between early modern philosophy, feminist
philosophy, and contemporary political philosophy. Among her publications
are: Passion and Action: The Emotions in Early Modern Philosophy (1999); Visible
Women. Essays in Legal Theory and Political Philosophy, co-edited with Steph-
anie Palmer (2002); The Political Writings of Margaret Cavendish (2003); Spinoza
on Philosophy Religion and Politics: The Theologico-Political Treatise (2012). She
is currently writing a collection of essays entitled Spinoza on Learning to Live
Together.

N ANCY K ENDRICK is William and Elsie Prentice Professor of Philosophy at

Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts in the US. She has published articles
on Berkeley and Astell, Malebranche and Arnauld, Descartes, Hume, and Anselm.
She is currently working on a book on theories of friendship by women writers in
the history of philosophy.

C ATRIONA M ACKENZIE is Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Research

Centre for Agency, Values, and Ethics, and Associate Dean (Research) in the
Faculty of Arts at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. She is co-editor of
several volumes including: Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Auton-
omy, Agency, and the Social Self (2000); Practical Identity and Narrative Agency
(2008); Emotions, Imagination and Moral Reasoning (2012); and Vulnerability:
New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy (2014). Mackenzie has published
widely in moral psychology, ethics, applied ethics, and feminist philosophy in a
variety of edited collections and in journals such as Australasian Journal of
Philosophy, Hypatia, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Journal of Social Philosophy,
and Philosophical Explorations.

P HILIP P ETTIT is Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and

Human Values at Princeton University, where he has taught political theory and
philosophy since 2002. Common Minds: Themes from the Philosophy of Philip
 NOTE ON THE CONTRIBUTORS xi

Pettit appeared in 2007, edited by Geoffrey Brennan, R. E. Goodin, Frank

Jackson, and Michael Smith. He works in moral and political theory and on
background issues in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. His recent
monographs include: Republicanism (1997); A Theory of Freedom (2001); Made
with Words: Hobbes on Mind, Society and Politics (2008); On the People’s Terms:
A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy (2012); and Just Freedom: A Moral
Compass for a Complex World (2014).

M ARTINA R EUTER is Docent of Philosophy and Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies

at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has published articles on feminist
interpretations of the history of philosophy, with a focus on the thought of René
Descartes and Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as on phenomenology and the theory
of metaphors. Together with Sara Heinämaa she is the editor of Psychology and
Philosophy: Inquiries into the Soul from Late Scholasticism to Contemporary
Thought (2009).

B ARBARA T AYLOR is Professor of Humanities at Queen Mary, University of

London. Her publications include: Eve and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and
Feminism in the Nineteenth Century (1983; 1993), which won the 1983 Isaac
Deutscher Memorial Prize; Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination
(2003); and Women, Gender and Enlightenment, 1650–1850 (2005), co-edited
with Sarah Knott. She is currently writing a history of solitude in the British
Enlightenment. She is an editor of History Workshop Journal and a Fellow of the
Royal Historical Society. She has been a visiting professor at the universities of
Amsterdam, Indiana, Notre Dame, and the École des hautes études en sciences
sociales in Paris, and has held research fellowships from the Nuffield Foundation,
the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, the Guggenheim Foundation, and
the Wellcome Trust.

S YLVANA T OMASELLI is the Sir Harry Hinsley Lecturer in History at St John’s

College, Cambridge. Her interests lie in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
political theory. She has written on a variety of topics, including the conjectural
history of woman, the character of nations, toleration, and issues within and
around feminism. She edited Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of
Men, Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and Hints (1995) and wrote the entry
on Mary Wollstonecraft in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2012).
Note on the Texts

There are a number of excellent editions of Wollstonecraft’s works. The most

complete is the seven-volume set, The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, edited by
Marilyn Butler and Janet Todd (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1989). While this
is the only comprehensive collection in print, by its very nature it is not always
accessible to the general interested reader. For this reason, and because our
contributors draw on a wide range of Wollstonecraft’s writings, we have allowed
each to use his or her preferred edition. Readers unable to access The Works but
who would like to compare references across the papers included here may find
the many online editions of Wollstonecraft very helpful, such as at Project
Gutenberg (<https://www.gutenberg.org/>) or the Online Library of Liberty
(<http://oll.libertyfund.org/>).
 Introduction
Sandrine Bergès and Alan Coffee

Anyone glancing through the course reading lists at most universities, or browsing
the bookshelves in an academic bookshop, might reasonably conclude that
philosophy was something that had been written historically only by men. Its
standard lists of great names, beginning with Plato and Aristotle, perhaps
continuing with Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke, moving on to Kant
and Hegel, and into the last century with Russell, Wittgenstein, and others, rarely
contain a single woman. Indeed, many students often struggle to name even one
woman philosopher before the mid-twentieth century and Simone de Beauvoir or
Hannah Arendt. Yet women have been writing philosophy throughout this
history. Not only has there been a surprising number of female philosophers
but they often achieved considerable influence in their lifetimes. As well as
Mary Wollstonecraft, others such as Hipparchia, Hypatia, Heloise d’Argenteuil,
Hildergard von Bingen, Christine de Pizan, Gabrielle Suchon, Anne Conway,
Margaret Cavendish, Emilie du Châtelet, Mary Astell, Catharine Macaulay, and
Sophie de Grouchy, to name only a few, all had substantial and well-deserved
reputations in their own time and engaged with contemporary debates at the
highest level.1
The reasons that underpin the omission of women from the history of
philosophy are many and complex. The processes by which the discipline
of philosophy as we now understand it and of establishing what is often taken
to be its canon took place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.2 These
processes were controlled by men and there is no doubt that both sexism and

1
For an account of women’s extensive contribution to philosophy from antiquity to the
twentieth century see Mary Ellen Waithe’s (1987–94), A History of Women Philosophers, 4 vols
(Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers).
2
See Jonathan Ree (2002), “Women Philosophers and the Canon”, British Journal for the History
of Philosophy 10 (4): 641–52.
 SANDRINE BERGÈS AND ALAN COFFEE

ignorance have played a large part in obscuring women’s contribution. Since

philosophy is a discipline that in some sense focuses on the application of reason,
then where the prevailing belief is that women were “created rather to feel than
reason”, as Wollstonecraft puts it, the idea of a woman philosopher just seemed
wholly out of place.3 Whatever the precise causes of their neglect may have been,
however, the situation is now changing. Intensive work is now being done to
recover and restore the historic contribution that women have made to the
pursuit of philosophy.4 As the influence of feminist thinking has reshaped so
much of academic philosophical enquiry, refocusing its concerns beyond the
confines of the post-Kantian project, so this has allowed us to reassess, as well as
to rediscover, the considerable but forgotten input that women have had.
At the forefront of this revival is Mary Wollstonecraft. As the author of
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she already has a prominent place in
many people’s minds as an inspirational early feminist. While this has been an
enormously influential book, it does not represent the whole of her thought.
Wollstonecraft was a prolific writer whose interests covered subjects as diverse as
education, politics, history, moral theory, philosophy, and religion. She was an
activist, a novelist, and a public intellectual who was fully engaged with the issues
of her time. Wollstonecraft’s analysis of the nature and causes of women’s
subjection is understandably seen as her outstanding contribution to the history
of ideas. Nevertheless, this analysis is embedded within her own wider conceptual
framework, which she brought to bear on the issues she addressed. The premise
of our volume is that this wider philosophy is deserving of serious study, no less
than her feminist legacy.
Wollstonecraft’s influence in her own time is undeniable. She often engaged
with her contemporaries—such as Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and Catharine
Macaulay—and she participated in some of the philosophical debates that went
on to shape the world—spending time, for example, in Paris during the Terror to
document the effects of the revolution. Nevertheless, if it is true that women
philosophers have been written out of history, it is strikingly so in her case.
Moreover, her fall from grace happened almost immediately after her death when
her husband, William Godwin, decided to publicize intimate details about her life

3
Mary Wollstonecraft (1992), A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (London: Penguin Books),
p. 155.
4
Lisa Shapiro, “The Place of Women in Early Modern Philosophy”, in Feminist Reflections on the
History of Philosophy, eds Lilli Alanen and Charlotte Witt (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004); Jacqueline
Broad and Karen Green (2009), A History of Women’s Political Thought in Europe, 1400–1700
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). See also Green and Hagengruber’s introduction to a
special issue of The Monist on women’s historical contribution to philosophy (“Introduction”, The
Monist 2015, 98: 1–6) as well as the papers they discuss.
 INTRODUCTION 

including the fact that she had her first child out of wedlock, that she had been in
love with a married man, and that she twice attempted suicide. Wollstonecraft
was immediately shunned as an immoral writer, and her Vindication of the Rights
of Woman was not reprinted after 1796, so that by the mid-nineteenth century,
George Elliot tells us that it was “rather scarce”.5
It would not be fair to say that Wollstonecraft made no impact after her death
but we do have to work harder to find evidence of it.6 For example, in spite of her
tarnished reputation, Wollstonecraft did have an influence on nineteenth-
century political philosophy. Harriet Taylor had almost certainly read her, as
had John Stuart Mill, and the arguments of their Subjection of Women were
profoundly influenced by the Vindication.7 It is striking, however, that neither
refers to her. In “The Enfranchisement of Women”, published in the Westminster
Review in July 1851, Taylor writes “Great thinkers indeed, at different times, from
Plato to Condorcet, besides some of the most eminent names of the present age,
have made emphatic protests in favour of the equality of women”.8 Her failure to
acknowledge Wollstonecraft, whose arguments she follows very closely, is per-
haps not surprising. Claiming an alliance with Plato and Condorcet (even with
the latter’s associations with the French Revolution) was a better tactic than
referring to Wollstonecraft, the fallen woman.
Wollstonecraft remained mostly forgotten by the time of the first wave of
feminism. By the latter part of the twentieth century as feminism entered its
second wave, although her work was becoming more widely read, its proponents
did not see her as a good role model, finding her too bourgeois, and a slave to
notions of femininity. She was accused of “feminist misogyny”, of measuring
women’s worth in masculine terms and finding them wanting.9 Part of this

5
George Eliot’s review essay “Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft” was first published in
The Leader in 1855.
6
And we should be aware also of extending this conclusion beyond Europe. Eileen Hunt Botting
and Christine Carey argue that Wollstonecraft’s Rights of Woman was a significant influence in the
thought of American women’s rights advocates in the nineteenth century. See their 2004 article
“Wollstonecraft’s Philosophical Impact on Nineteenth-Century American Women's Rights Advo-
cates”, American Journal of Political Science 48 (4): 707–22.
7
There is evidence that Mill knew Wollstonecraft’s works, as he and Auguste Comte discuss
these (in passing) in correspondence: see Oscar Haac (1995), The Correspondence of John Stuart Mill
and Auguste Compte (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction), p. 188. Helen Taylor reports having read
the Vindication as a teenager, and that the book was a gift from her mother, which suggests that
Harriet Taylor had some idea at least of its contents.
8
Andrew Pyle (1995), The Subjection of Women: Contemporary Responses to John Stuart Mill
(London: Continuum), p. 16.
9
Susan Gubar (1994), “Feminist Misogyny: Mary Wollstonecraft and the Paradox of ‘It Takes
One to Know One’ ”, Feminist Studies 20 (3): 453–73, p. 454. Thomas H. Ford (2009), “Mary
Wollstonecraft and the Motherhood of Feminism”, Women’s Studies Quarterly 37 (3 & 4): 189–205.
 SANDRINE BERGÈS AND ALAN COFFEE

assessment was born, paradoxically, of her admiration for Rousseau and her
insistence that girls should be educated in the way that he had determined boys
should be. For Wollstonecraft, treating women as differently abled from men and
failing to offer them the same means of self-improvement was the prime cause of
gender inequality and its consequent social ills. But this could too easily be read as
saying that women ought to be treated like men in order to be considered equally
worthy members of society, hence the accusations of misogyny. This charge was
perhaps tied up with a more general suspicion by feminists of this period of
eighteenth-century, or Enlightenment, thinking which has been seen to assert the
pre-eminence of abstract reason over emotion, where reason was understood as
the preserve of men and was associated with concepts such as universalism and
autonomy that privileged a male-centred view of the world and made the female
perspective more difficult to articulate.10 While Wollstonecraft is most definitely
a product of this time, it is now widely accepted both that attitudes to reason and
the emotions were far more diverse and nuanced than this simplified sketch
allows, and that Wollstonecraft herself engaged confidently with its debates
rather than merely being shaped by them.11
Until very recently Wollstonecraft’s work was rarely read outside of gender
studies and literature courses. This began to change in the 1990s. Virginia
Sapiro’s excellent study of Wollstonecraft’s political theory, A Vindication of
Political Virtue, was particularly influential in bringing her work to the attention
of a more general audience of political scientists. The last two and a half decades
have witnessed an intense scholarly attention on Wollstonecraft from many
disciplines. Janet Todd’s biography in 2000 and Barbara Taylor’s examination
of Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination in 2003 were only two amongst
several major books that increased awareness of Wollstonecraft’s significance
as a thinker and as someone who should be engaged with on her own terms.12
Philosophers, however, have come late to recognize the importance of Wollstonecraft

10
See, for example, Genevieve Lloyd (1984), The Man of Reason: ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ in the
Western World (London: Routledge); Joan Landes (1988), Women and the Public Sphere in the Age
of the French Revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press); Carole Pateman (1989), The
Disorder of Women (Cambridge: Polity Press); Moira Gatens (1991), Feminism and Philosophy:
Perspectives on Difference and Equality (Cambridge: Polity Press).
11
These re-evaluations were made possible in no small measure thanks to the pioneering work
done by the earlier feminists such as those mentioned.
12
Also of note is Wendy Gunther-Canada (2001), Rebel Writer: Mary Wollstonecraft and
Enlightenment Politics (DeKalk, IL: Northern Illinois University Press). More recent treatments
include Susan Laird (2014), Mary Wollstonecraft, Philosophical Mother of Co-Education (London:
Bloomsbury); and Lena Halldenius (2015), Mary Wollstonecraft and Feminist Republicanism
(London: Pickering and Chatto). There has also been a wealth of journal articles written in the
last ten years. Many are listed in the Bibliography, this volume.
 INTRODUCTION 

within their own field. It is salutary to note, for example, that while there are a
number of very good collections of essays on Wollstonecraft, as far as we are
aware, ours is the first to position itself specifically as a philosophical collection
directed at themes within that discipline.13
Just as Wollstonecraft had many interests and engaged in numerous pursuits,
from writing fiction to taking part in political debate, so she can be studied from
many perspectives. While philosophical examination of her work is not the only
way to capture her thought, it remains very much under-researched, and we
believe it will prove a very fruitful means of bringing out some of the subtleties,
tensions, and innovations we find in Wollstonecraft’s writing. In adopting this
approach, however, we are not simply “opening up the philosophical canon” as it
currently exists and inserting a woman. Rather, just as the work of feminists have
altered philosophy as a discipline, thereby enabling women such as Wollstone-
craft to be recognized for their philosophical contribution, so Wollstonecraft’s
recognition will, we hope, further broaden our understanding of the role women
have played in the history of philosophy.

The Chapters
Our aim is to bring together a collection of essays that reflects the breadth of
current leading philosophical research in Wollstonecraft’s work. In just one
volume, of course, we cannot hope to present a comprehensive account of her
overall philosophy from a single standpoint. Instead, our contributors write from
a variety of perspectives that demonstrate something of the diverse interest that
there is in her thought. Regrettably, there is a great deal that we have had to leave
out. With any historical philosopher, those who study her face the dilemma of
deciding to what extent they examine her work contextually, as it engages with
her own intellectual environment, compared with treating her ideas as free-
standing contributions to a larger conversation that spans the generations and

13
We do not mean to make too much of this claim. The superb Feminist Interpretations of Mary
Wollstonecraft in the Rereading the Canon series (1996), ed. Mary Falco (University Park, PA:
University of Penn State Press), for example, orientates itself in the preface as a political science
collection written by people in that field, while the Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft
(2002), ed. Claudia Johnson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) is in the Companions to
Literature series. The division between disciplines such as philosophy, political science, and litera-
ture is by no means rigid, of course. We are not making any specific claims about the content of these
volumes so much as their positioning with relation to others working within those areas. Most
of the contributors to this volume would identify as philosophers or are located in philosophy
departments.
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 SANDRINE BERGÈS AND ALAN COFFEE

that may be applied to current issues. Our authors strike the balance between
these two aspirations at different points.
The subjects addressed in this collection include the role played by Wollstone-
craft’s understanding of love and respect in her arguments on inequality (Sylvana
Tomaselli), the conceptual relationship between friendship and marriage (Nancy
Kendrick), the place of the emotions in the development of civic virtue (Martina
Reuter), the relational nature of her conception of independence (Catriona
Mackenzie), the application of her views on rights and duties to children and
animals (Eileen Hunt Botting), and the influence of the abolitionist movement on
her views on women as property (Laura Brace). Five of the contributors focus on
one particular aspect of Wollstonecraft’s political philosophy, namely her con-
tribution to republican theory and, in particular, her use of its central ideal of
freedom conceived of as the absence of domination or dependence. Philip Pettit
gives a short introduction to republicanism. This is followed by Susan James’s
examination of a specifically republican derivation of the concepts of rights in
Wollstonecraft’s discourse as powers to act. Next, Lena Halldenius shows how we
may derive a view of representation from her views on freedom and independ-
ence, and Alan Coffee looks at the role of public reason in bringing about
and maintaining individual and collective freedom. Sandrine Bergès then
tackles Wollstonecraft’s attempt to resolve the tensions between her concep-
tions of the duties of a republican woman as mother and as citizen. The volume
concludes with an afterword by Barbara Taylor that provides a perspective on
the previous five papers, reminding us that despite its clear contemporary
relevance, Wollstonecraft’s republicanism is very much a product of her times.
We briefly introduce the volume’s papers and themes below under three
headings corresponding to Wollstonecraft’s influences, her social and political
philosophy generally, and finally her republicanism specifically.

Influences
In-depth study of past philosophers often requires that we have some grasp of
what their influences were. With male writers this task is often straightforward:
we ask where they studied or who their mentors were, we look at records of their
home libraries. But with writers such as Wollstonecraft who had no access to
formal higher education and no family home in which she could house a large
number of books, it is much harder. We must hunt for clues, such as in letters in
which she comments on what she is currently reading, in the references she
makes in her published works, and in the reviews she wrote for Joseph Johnson’s
Analytical Review. We may also make certain deductions about her education.
 INTRODUCTION 

We can assume, for instance that she did not read Greek as this was not generally
taught to middle-class girls and since she makes no reference to learning it
herself. Nevertheless, it is clear that, in one way or another, the classics did
influence her.
Although Plato’s works were not translated into English until after her death,
Wollstonecraft’s friend and mentor Richard Price was a noted Platonist and
others with whom she engaged in debate were often trained classicists. Sylvana
Tomaselli makes a convincing case for reading Wollstonecraft, not as an isolated
crusader for equality, but as a writer who was very much part of her contempor-
ary philosophical debates. While focusing on her intellectual relationships with
Price and Burke, she makes it apparent that Wollstonecraft was, in fact, familiar
with classical debates and arguments, tracing Wollstonecraft’s famous attack on
servility in relationships to Plato’s Symposium. Tomaselli also suggests that the
strong religious streak in Wollstonecraft’s works, and the complex relationship
between human love and divine love, are also a product of the pervasive presence
of Platonism in her circle. The idea that the abstract form of love is somehow
more important than actual instances of love goes some way towards explaining
some of her attitudes to marriage, but as Tomaselli argues, it is also significant in
her rejection of social models based on servility.
If we can be confident that Wollstonecraft only knew Plato at second hand,
there is at least a possibility that she had read some Aristotle. His Politics had
been translated into French in the late Middle Ages and there was at least one
English translation (attributed to the poet John Donne). There is also some
evidence that she had read the Politics, as she criticizes Burke for misinterpreting
part of it.14 Nancy Kendrick’s chapter offers an Aristotelian interpretation of
Wollstonecraft’s conception of the virtues and argues further that Wollstone-
craft’s discussion of marriage is best understood in terms of Aristotle’s analysis of
friendship. Kendrick shows that the capacity to develop Aristotelian virtue
friendships has implications that go beyond marriage and into other kinds of
relationships, such as the female friendships depicted in Wollstonecraft’s novels,
which were no doubt modelled on her own close female friendships with Jane
Arden and Fanny Blood. Ultimately, Kendrick argues, virtue friendship is
the clue to women’s development as full moral agents, thereby showing that
Wollstonecraft’s emphasis on marriage is not simply a worthwhile philosophical

14
See Tomaselli’s edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Men, p. 19, and Nathalie F. Taylor
(2007), The Rights of Woman as Chimera: The Political Philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft
(New York and London: Routledge), p. 8.
 SANDRINE BERGÈS AND ALAN COFFEE

discussion in itself but an angle from which to approach more traditional

questions in political philosophy.
Unlike Plato, who could only be read in Greek and perhaps Latin, and
Aristotle, for whom only scarce and old translations could be found, the Stoics
enjoyed a fair amount of popularity amongst the non-classically trained readers
of the late eighteenth century. This was due in great part to Elizabeth Carter’s
bestselling translation into English of the works of first-century Stoic, Epictetus.
Though we have no direct evidence that Wollstonecraft had read this translation,
it is not unlikely as one of the authors she regarded as a model, Catharine
Macaulay, wrote approvingly of the Stoics, especially concerning their educa-
tional models. Martina Reuter examines Wollstonecraft’s position on the
relationship between reason and virtue. She works through eighteenth-century
discussions of Stoicism, in particular Jonathan Swift’s literary depiction
of Stoic philosophy in Gulliver’s Travels, arguing that Wollstonecraft’s own
analysis of the relationship between reason and the emotions (or passions), in
which both are necessary and sufficient for the development of virtue, shows a
subtler take on Stoicism.

Social and Political Philosophy

Until relatively recently, Wollstonecraft was most often read within a liberal
framework of either one of its representatives or as rebelling against some of
the strictures it imposes.15 So, where an earlier generation of feminists was
especially critical of liberalism for its perceived individualism, this concern was
often read into Wollstonecraft’s work.16 At the same time, Wollstonecraft’s
evident emphasis on both individual liberty and strong values of egalitarian
community built on mutual trust and commitment seemed difficult to reconcile.
This has led commentators such as Penny Weiss to conclude that Wollstonecraft
was struggling to “redefine liberalism itself ”.17 Catriona Mackenzie’s contribution

15
Penny Weiss (2009), Canon Fodder: Historical Women Political Thinkers (University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press), pp. 84–90.
16
For critical feminist accounts of liberalism that include Wollstonecraft amongst its targets, see
Alison Jaggar (1983), Feminist Policies and Human Nature (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield);
and Ruth Abbey (2009), “Back to the future: Marriage as Friendship in the Thought of Mary
Wollstonecraft”, Hypatia 14 (3): 78–95; see also Abbey (2011), The Return of Feminist Liberalism
(London: Routledge). The relationship between the different varieties of feminism and liberalism
is, of course, a complex one. In recent years there has been a fruitful dialogue between
these approaches: for a helpful collection, see Amy Baehr (2004), Varieties of Feminist Liberalism
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield).
17
Penny Weiss, Canon Fodder, p. 90.
 INTRODUCTION 

takes on this challenge. Drawing on the ideal of freedom as independence, she

shows how Wollstonecraft prefigures current debates in the field of relational
autonomy. Mackenzie maps Wollstonecraft’s analysis on to her own distinction
in which two aspects to freedom are required, these being what she calls self-
determination (the civic opportunity to determine the direction of one’s own life)
and self-government (the independence of mind to exercise competent and
authentic critical self-reflection). Entwined with these, Mackenzie identifies a
critical third element of self-authorization, through which individuals are able to
regard themselves as agents capable of self-determination and self-government.
As Wollstonecraft shows, self-authorization cannot be had without the author-
ization of others through having sufficient social standing. To bring this about
would require more than a mere set of political rights, for example. What would
be needed is a comprehensive reworking of the systems of norms and practices
that have entrenched their position of inequality.
Eileen Hunt Botting takes on less widely discussed aspects of Wollstonecraft’s
thought (children and animals) and presents them in a contemporary context,
arguing that we should look at Wollstonecraft’s discussion of children’s and
animals’ rights in relationship not only to her contemporaries Immanuel Kant
and Jeremy Bentham, but also to Onora O’Neill’s classification of duties. Her
resulting analysis of Wollstonecraft’s discussion of rights and duties, and in
particular the indivisibility of sets of rights, casts light on recent debates in
international human rights laws. This chapter is a prime example of how
discussing the themes presented in her works can have applications that reach
beyond what Wollstonecraft originally intended.
If Wollstonecraft is partly ahead of her time in raising the rights issue of
children and animals, references to slavery place her squarely within the repub-
lican debates of the eighteenth century. Political subjection, such as to an absolute
monarch, was routinely described in the very same terms as the formal state of
legal bondage, a position that had been adopted by advocates of women’s rights
since at least Mary Astell (1666–1731).18 This rhetoric is prominent in Wollsto-
necraft’s work and pervades her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and the
claim that women are always slaves in virtue of their inevitable social subordin-
ation to men’s arbitrary power provides one of its central organizing principles.
Laura Brace explores this image, placing it in the context of the abolitionist
debates of Wollstonecraft’s own time concerning the legitimacy of owning

18
Astell famously asked why “if all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?”
(quoted in Patricia Springborg (ed.) (1996), “Reflections upon Marriage”, in Astell: Political Writings
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 18).
 SANDRINE BERGÈS AND ALAN COFFEE

property in a person. While slavery was viewed as a usurping of a person’s natural

right to freedom, freedom in turn was understood to make moral demands which
neither women nor chattel slaves were capable of fulfilling. Brace shows how
Wollstonecraft dissolves the tension between these strands through a radical view
of property as having the potential to corrupt the moral and rational capacities
not just of the victims of domination but of the whole of bourgeois society.

Republicanism
A significant development in the study of Wollstonecraft in recent years has been
the growing appreciation of the impact her republican commitments had on her
thinking. Although still often described as undergoing a revival, interest in
republicanism as a field of political inquiry has become well established over
the last two decades or more. Nevertheless, in the context of Wollstonecraft
studies, it remains something of a newcomer. What the last five chapters in this
volume show is that the philosophical implications of reading Wollstonecraft
through a republican lens turn out to be far-reaching.
There is no shortage of women who can be described as republicans, especially
in the eighteenth century. Women as intellectually and politically diverse as Mary
Astell, Catharine Macaulay, Olympe de Gouges, and Sophie de Grouchy have, in
different ways, drawn on that tradition’s resources.19 Nevertheless, the pool of
sources from which today’s neo-republican theorists draw has been resolutely
male. From Livy to Machiavelli, and Harrington to Price, men exclusively have
provided the authoritative voices that help define the core republican concepts.
An obvious consequence of this has been to deprive republican theory of an
alternative internal perspective to challenge and broaden its principles and focus.
This not only leaves republican thinking impoverished but by excluding their
voices and perspectives, exposes marginalized and minority group members to
the very domination that it seeks to reduce. Especially vulnerable, of course, have

19
As a committed royalist and High Church Tory, Astell would, of course, be horrified to be
classed alongside republicans. She does, however, make extensive appeal to the principle of freedom
as independence from arbitrary power, or domination, and in that sense she can be said to draw on a
republican resource: see Patricia Springborg (2005), Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domin-
ation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). On the other writers listed, see Karen Green (2012)
“Liberty and Virtue in Catherine Macaulay's Enlightenment Philosophy”, Intellectual History Review
22 (3): 411–26; Sandrine Bergès (2015), “Sophie de Grouchy on the Cost of Domination in the
Letters on Sympathy and Two Anonymous Articles in Le Républicain”, The Monist 98: 102–12; Karen
Green discusses Olympe de Gouges in Green (2015), “Anticipating and experiencing the Revolution
in France”, in Political Ideas of Enlightenment Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press),
ch. 9, esp. pp. 374–84.
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very much have liked to see his second daughter in a similar
position. But Genji did not feel sufficiently friendly towards him to
second this design, particularly as there were many other young
ladies who were quite as well qualified to fill the post. Prince
Hyōbukyō saw nothing for it but to submit.
In the autumn Genji made his pilgrimage to the Shrine of
Sumiyoshi, where, as will be remembered, he had various vows to
fulfil. The occasion was made one of public importance and the
splendour of his cortège, in which all the greatest noblemen and
courtiers of the day vied with one another to take part, made a deep
impression throughout the kingdom. The Lady of Akashi had been
unable to pay her accustomed visit to the Shrine either last autumn
or during the spring of this year. She determined to renew the
practice, and it so happened that she arrived by boat at Sumiyoshi
just as Genji’s magnificent procession was passing along the shore.
She saw throngs of servitors, laden with costly offerings; she saw
the Eastern Dancers,8 in companies of ten, riding by on horseback,
men of picked stature, conspicuous in their strange blue-striped
dress. Not a word concerning Genji’s visit to Sumiyoshi had reached
her, and turning to some one who was standing near she asked what
procession this might be. ‘What procession?’ the man exclaimed in
astonishment. ‘Why, the Chief Minister’s!’ and a shout of laughter
went up at the notion that there could possibly exist anybody in the
world who had not heard of this all-important event, laughter in
which a number of rough scallawags who were standing by joined as
heartily as the rest.
She was confounded. That after all these long months of waiting
it should be thus she met him showed indeed to what a different
world he really belonged! Yet after all they were not quite strangers,
he and she. She was at least of more account in his eyes than these
wretches who had scoffed at her ignorance, than all this rabble who
cared nothing for him and had come here only that they might boast
of having shared in his triumph. How cruel an irony that she who
thought of him and him only, who painfully gathered together every
scrap of intelligence concerning his health and movements, should
all unwittingly have chosen this disastrous day for her journey, while
all the rest of the world resounded with the news of his coming; she
hid her face and wept. The procession moved on its way—
innumerable green cloaks, with here and there a scarlet one among
them, bright as an autumn maple-tree amid a grove of pines. In
cavalcade after cavalcade the varying colours flashed by, now dark,
now light.9 Among the officers of the Sixth Grade there was one
whose sheriff’s coat of gold and green made him conspicuous; this
was Ukon, the gentleman who upon the occasion of Genji’s visit to
the Imperial Tombs had recited the verse: ‘Little, alas, they heed
their worshippers....’10 He had become captain of the Quiver
Bearers, and as such was attended by more numerous officers than
any other of the sheriffs. Among these attendants was Yoshikiyo,
who in a resplendent crimson cloak, worn with an air of the utmost
nonchalance, was perhaps the handsomest figure in all the throng.
Here, prosperous and happy, were all the knights and gentlemen
whom she had seen at Akashi; then a pitiable band, now scattered
amongst a vast cohort of partisans and retainers. The young princes
and courtiers who rode with the procession had vied with one
another in the magnificence of their accoutrement. Such gorgeous
saddles and trappings had rarely been seen; and it may be imagined
how they dazzled the eye of a country girl, fresh from her hillside
retreat. At last came Genji’s coach. She could catch but a
momentary glimpse of it; and of the face for which she yearned with
so ardent a longing she could see nothing at all. Imitating the
example of the great Tōru11 he was attended by boy outriders. They
were charmingly dressed, their hair looped at the sides and tied with
purple ribbons. The ten of them were arranged according to their
height, and a very pretty sight they were as they filed past in their
dainty costumes. A boy rode by, clad in the dress of a Court page, a
person of some consequence evidently, for he was obsequiously
watched over and assisted, while a posse of boy grooms, each
differently dressed, yet forming between them a carefully designed
pattern, rode in his train. She was told that this was Prince Yūgiri,
Genji’s son by Lady Aoi. She thought of her own daughter for whom
so different a fate seemed to be reserved, and in sad submission
bowed her head towards the Shrine. The Governor of the Province
had now appeared, his arrival being attended by greater pomp than
had ever before marked his intercourse with a Minister on
pilgrimage. The Lady of Akashi saw clearly that even should she
succeed in forcing her way through the crowd, there was little
chance that in the midst of all these excitements the God would pay
any attention to her insignificant offering. She was on the point of
going home again, since there seemed to be no object in staying any
longer, when it occurred to her that she might at any rate row over
to Naniwa and perform the ceremony of Purification. This she did,
while Genji, still unaware that she had been so near him, spent the
rest of the evening preforming his vows within the Shrine. At last,
thinking that by now the God ought to be thoroughly content, Genji
determined to enjoy himself a little into the bargain; and the rest of
the night was spent by the whole company in the most lively fashion
imaginable. Koremitsu and the rest made a mental note that for
certain kinds of religious observance there was much to be said. It
happened that Genji went outside for a little while and Koremitsu,
who was with him, recited an acrostic verse in which he hinted that
beneath the pine-trees of Sumiyoshi a less solemn stillness now
prevailed than when the Gods first ruled on earth. This could not be
denied, and indeed to Genji too a joyful time had succeeded to an
age of sadness. He therefore answered with the verse: ‘That from
wild waves whose onslaught drove me from my course this God
delivered me, I shall not soon forget.’ Koremitsu then went on to tell
him how the boat from Akashi, dismayed by the crowds that flocked
the Shrine, had put out again to sea. He hated to think that she had
been there without his knowing it; besides, he felt now that it was
this very God of Sumiyoshi who had given her to him for a bride. He
could not let her go back without a word from him to cheer her. To
think that she had come and gone without his even hearing that she
was at hand would certainly grieve her worst of all. But for the
moment she had gone further up the coast and there was nothing to
be done.
After leaving Sumiyoshi he visited several places in the
neighbourhood. At Naniwa he too underwent the ceremony of
Purification, together with other ceremonies, particularly the Ablution
of the Seven Streams. As he passed the estuary of Horiye he
murmured ‘Like the Tide-gauge at Naniwa...,’12 hardly knowing why
the lines had come into his head. Koremitsu, who was near his
coach, overheard these words, and regarding them as a command to
him to produce writing materials (a duty for which he was often in
request) he whipped out a short-handled pen from the folds of his
dress and as soon as Genji’s coach came to a standstill handed it in
to him. Genji was amused by his promptness and on a folded paper
wrote the lines: ‘That once again our love to its flood-mark shall rise,
what better presage than this chance meeting by the tide-gauge of
the shore?’ This he sent across to Naniwa by the hand of an
underling who, from conversation with her servants, knew at what
address she was to be found. Much as she had suffered at seeing
him pass her by, it needed only this trifling message to allay all her
agitation. In a flutter of gratitude and pride she indited the answer:
‘How comes it13 that to the least of those who bide as pilgrims in
this town you bear a love that mounts so high upon the flood-gauge
of your heart?’ She had that day been bathing in the Holy Waters at
the Shrine of Rain-coat Island, and she sent him her poem tied to a
prayer-strip which she had brought from the Shrine. When the
message reached Genji it was already growing dark; the tide was
full, and the cranes along the river-mouth had with one accord set
up their strange and moving cry. Touched by the beauty of the place
and hour, he suddenly lost all patience with the crowds that surged
around him. Could he but banish them all from his sight and find
himself with only the writer of this diffident poem at his side!
The journey back to the City was enlivened by many excursions
and entertainments, but all the while his thoughts continually
returned to the strange coincidence of that unhappy meeting.
Quantities of dancing-girls had attached themselves to his retinue.
Despite their total lack of sense or breeding, their company
appeared to afford a vast deal of satisfaction to the hot-blood young
gentlemen who formed Genji’s escort. This seemed to him very
strange. One cannot enjoy beautiful scenery or works of art in the
company of any but the right person; and surely if, in such matters
as that, one is so easily put off by commonness or stupidity, it must
make some difference whom one chooses as partner in these far
more intimate associations? He could not indeed contrive to take the
slightest interest in these creatures. They on their side quickly
perceived that they were not being a success, and at once redoubled
their efforts; with the consequence that he found them only the
more repulsive.
Next day was marked a ‘good day’ in the calendar, and Genji’s
party being safely on its way back to the Capital, the Lady of Akashi
was able to return to Sumiyoshi and pursue her devotions in peace,
now at last finding occasion to fulfil the many vows that had
accumulated since her last visit to the Shrine. Her recent glimpse of
Genji in all his glory had but increased the misgivings which day and
night beset her: amid such surroundings as that it was impossible
that so insignificant a person as herself should not rapidly sink into
obscurity and contempt. She did not expect to hear from him again
till he was back at Court. She was counting the days, when to her
surprise a messenger appeared. In a letter, which had evidently
been written during the journey, he named the actual date at which
he should send for her to the City. Once more he sought to dispel all
her doubts and anxieties; she could rely upon him implicitly; her
position in his household would, he besought her to believe, be
neither equivocal nor insecure. Nevertheless, she felt that she was
embarking upon a perilous voyage under skies which, however
promising an aspect they might now be wearing, might at any
moment change to the threat of a hideous disaster. Her father too,
when it came to the prospect of actually releasing her from his care,
was exceedingly perturbed; indeed he dreaded her departure for the
Capital even more than he had feared the prospect of her remaining
forever buried in her rustic home. Her answer to Genji was full of
reservations and misgivings concerning her fitness for the position
which he promised her.
The retirement of the Emperor Suzaku had necessitated the
appointment of a new Vestal at Ise, and Lady Rokujō had brought
her daughter back again to the City. Genji had written the usual
congratulations and this had given her immense pleasure; but she
had no desire to give him the opportunity of once more distracting
her as he had done in those old days, and she had answered only in
the most formal terms. Consequently he had not, since her return,
made any attempt to visit her. He did indeed make some vague
suggestion of a meeting; but these hints were very half-hearted and
it was a relief to him that they were not taken. He had recently
decided not to complicate his life by outside relationships even of the
most harmless kind: he simply had not time. And particularly in a
case of this sort he saw no object in forcing his society upon some
one who did not desire it. He was however extremely curious to see
how the Vestal Virgin, now known as Lady Akikonomu, had grown
up. Rokujō’s old palace in the Sixth Ward had been admirably
repaired and redecorated, and life there was in these days by no
means intolerable. Rokujō herself had gifts of character and
intelligence which the passage of years had not obliterated. Her own
personality and the unusual beauty of many of her gentlewomen
combined to make her house a meeting place for men of fashion,
and though she was herself at times very lonely, she was leading a
life with which she was on the whole by no means ill-contented,
when her health gave way. She felt at once that there was no hope
for her, and oppressed by the thought that she had for so long been
living in a sinful place,14 she resolved to become a nun. This news
was a great blow to Genji. That he would ever again meet her as a
lover, he had long felt to be impossible. But he thought of her as a
friend whose company and conversation would always be among his
greatest pleasures. That she should have felt it necessary to take
this solemn and irrevocable step was a terrible shock, and on
hearing what had happened he at once hastened to her palace. It
proved to be a most harrowing visit. He found her in a state of
complete collapse. Screens surrounded her bed; his chair was placed
outside them, as near as possible to her pillow, and in this manner
they conversed. It was evident that her strength was rapidly failing.
How bitterly he now repented that he had not come to her sooner;
had not proved, while yet there was time, that his passion for her
had never expired! He wept bitterly, and Rokujō on her side, amazed
to realize from the very intensity of his grief that during all the years
when she had imagined herself to be forgotten, she had never been
wholly absent from his thoughts, in a moment discarded all her
bitterness, and seeing that his distress was unendurable began with
the utmost tenderness to lead his thoughts to other matters. She
spoke after a while about her daughter, Lady Akikonomu, the former
Virgin of Ise, begging him to help her on in the world in any way he
could. ‘I had hoped,’ she said, ‘having cast the cares of the world
aside, to live on quietly at any rate until this child of mine should
have reached an age when she could take her life into her own
hands....’ Her voice died away. ‘Even if you had not mentioned it, I
should always have done what I could to help her,’ answered Genji,
‘but now that you have made this formal request to me, you may be
sure that I shall make it my business to look after her and protect
her in every way that lies in my power. You need have no further
anxiety on that score....’ ‘It will not be so easy,’ she answered. ‘Even
a girl whose welfare has been the sole object of devoted parents
often finds herself in a very difficult position if her mother dies and
she has only her father to rely upon. But your task will, I fear, be far
harder than that of a widowed father. Any kindness that you show
the girl will at once be misinterpreted; she will be mixed up in all
sorts of unpleasant bickerings and all your own friends will be set
against her. And this brings me to a matter which is really very
difficult to speak about. I wish I were so sure in my own mind that
you would not make love to her. Had she my experience, I should
have no fear for her. But unfortunately she is utterly ignorant and
indeed is just the sort of person who might easily suffer unspeakable
torment through finding herself in such a position. I cannot help
wishing that I could provide for her future in some way that was not
fraught with this particular danger....’ What an extraordinary notion,
thought Genji. How could she have got such a thing into her head?
‘You are thinking of me as I was years ago,’ he answered quickly. ‘I
have changed a great deal since then, as you would soon discover if
you knew more about me....’
Out of doors it was now quite dark. The room where he was
sitting was lit only by the dim glow that, interrupted by many
partitions, filtered through from the great lamp in the hall. Some one
had entered the room. He peeped cautiously through a tear in one
of the screens which surrounded the bed. In the very uncertain light
he could just distinguish Rokujō’s form. Her hair was cropped, as is
customary with novices before the final tonsure; but elegantly and
with taste, so that her head, outlined against the pillows, made a
delicate and charming picture. On the far side of the bed he could
distinguish a second figure. This surely must be Lady Akikonomu.
There was a point at which the screens had been carelessly joined,
and looking through this gap he saw a young girl sitting in an
attitude of deep dejection with her chin resting on her hand. So far
as he could judge from this very imperfect view she was exceedingly
good-looking. Her hair that hung loose to the ground, the carriage of
her head, her movements and expression,—all had a singular dignity
and grace; yet despite this proud air there was something about her
affectionate, almost appealing. But was he not already beginning to
take just that interest in her person against which her mother had a
few moments ago been warning him? He hastily corrected his
thoughts. Lady Rokujō now spoke again: ‘I am in great pain,’ she
said, ‘and fear that at any moment my end may come. I would not
have you witness my last agonies. Pray leave me at once.’ This she
said with great difficulty, her women supporting her on either side.
‘How glad I should have been,’ said Genji, ‘if my visit had made you
better. I am afraid it has only made you worse. I cannot bear to
leave you in such pain. Tell me what it is that hurts so much?’ And
so saying he made as though to come to her side. ‘Do not come to
me!’ she cried out in terror, ‘I am grown hideous; you would not
know me. Does what I say seem to you very strange and disjointed?
It may be that my thoughts wander a little, for I am dying. Thank
you for bearing patiently with me at such a time. I am much easier
in my mind now that I have had this talk with you. I had meant to
for a long time....’ ‘I am touched,’ replied Genji, ‘that you should
have thought of me as a person to whom you could confide these
requests. As you know, my father the late Emperor had a very large
number of sons and daughters; for my part, I am not very intimate
with any of them. But, when his brother died, he also regarded Lady
Akikonomu here as though she were his own child and for that
reason I have every right to regard her as my sister and help her in
just those ways which a brother might. It is true that I am a great
deal older than she is; but my own family is sadly small,15 and I
could well afford to have some one else to look after....’
After his return he sent incessantly to enquire after her progress
and constantly wrote to her. She died some eight days later. He was
deeply distressed, for a long while took no interest in anything that
happened and had not the heart to go even so far as the Emperor’s
Palace. The arrangements concerning her funeral and many other
matters about which she had left behind instructions fell entirely
upon him, for there was no one else to whom her people could
apply. Fortunately the officers who had been attached to Lady
Akikonomu’s suite while she was at Ise still remained in her service
and they were able to give her a certain amount of assistance.
Before the funeral Genji called in person and sent in a note to the
bereaved lady of the house. A housekeeper (one of the people from
Ise) brought back word that her mistress was completely
overwhelmed by her loss and could not reply to him. He sent in a
second message reminding Lady Akikonomu that her mother had
solemnly committed her to his care and begging her not to regard
him as an alien intruder into her affairs. He then sent for the various
members of the household and gave them their instructions. He did
so with an air of confidence and authority which surprised those who
remembered for how long he had absented himself from that house.
The funeral was carried out with the utmost pomp, the bier being
attended not only by her servants, but by all Genji’s servants and
retainers.
For a long while afterwards he was immersed in prayers and
penances and but seldom emerged from the seclusion of a thickly
curtained recess. To Lady Akikonomu he sent many messages of
enquiry, to which she now answered in her own hand. She had at
first been too shy to do so; much to the dismay of her old nurse,
who explained to her that not to answer letters is considered very
uncivil. One day as he sat watching the wild storms of sleet and
snow that were sweeping in a confused blizzard across the land, he
could not help wondering how Lady Akikonomu was faring in this
rough weather and sent a messenger to her palace. ‘I wonder how
you like this storm,’ he wrote, and added the poem: ‘I see a house of
mourning; dark tempests threaten it, and high amid the clouds
hovers a ghost with anxious wing.’ It was written on light blue paper
tinged with grey; the penmanship and make-up of the note were
indeed purposely intended to be such as would impress a young girl.
So much did this elegant missive dazzle her inexperienced eye that
she again felt utterly unable to reply, and it was only when one
member of her household after another reproached her for such
rudeness and ingratitude that she at last took up a sheet of heavily
scented dark-grey paper and in brush-strokes so faint as to be
scarcely distinguishable wrote the poem: ‘Would that like the snow-
flakes when they are weary of falling I might sink down upon the
earth and end my days.’ There was nothing very remarkable about
the writing, but it was an agreeable hand and one which bore
unmistakable traces of the writer’s lineage. He had formed a high
opinion of her at the time when she first went to Ise and had very
much regretted her withdrawal from the world. Now she was an
ordinary person again, and, if he wished to cultivate her
acquaintance, entirely at his disposal; but this very fact (as was
usual with him) caused a revulsion of feeling. To go forward in the
direction where fewest obstacles existed seemed to him to be taking
a mean advantage. Although he was, in his attentions to Lady
Akikonomu, merely fulfilling her mother’s request, he knew quite
well how every one at Court was expecting the story to end. Well,
for once in a way their expectations would be disappointed. He was
fully determined to bring her up with the utmost propriety and, so
soon as the Emperor reached years of discretion, to present her at
Court; in fact, to adopt her as his daughter,—a thing which,
considering the smallness of his family, it was natural for him to do.
He constantly wrote her letters full of kindness and encouragement,
and occasionally called at her palace. ‘What I should really like,’ he
said one day, ‘would be for you to look upon me, if you will forgive
my putting it in that way, as a substitute for your dear mother. Can
you not sometimes treat me as though I were an old friend? Can
you not trust me with some of the secrets you used to confide to
her?’ Such appeals merely embarrassed her. She had lived so
secluded a life that to open her mouth at all in a stranger’s presence
seemed to her a terrible ordeal, and her gentlewomen were in the
end obliged to make such amends as they could. It was a comfort
that many of her officers and gentlewomen were closely connected
with the Imperial Family and would, if his project for installing her in
the Palace did not come to naught, be able to help her to assert
herself. He would have been glad to know more about her
appearance, but she always received him from behind her curtains,
and he neither felt justified in taking the liberties that are accorded
to a parent nor did he feel quite sure enough of himself to wish to
put his parental feelings to the test. He was indeed very uncertain
with regard to his own intentions, and for the present mentioned his
plans about her to nobody. He saw to it that the Memorial Service
was carried out with great splendour, devoting to the arrangement of
it a care that deeply gratified the bereaved household. Life there was
becoming more and more featureless and depressing as the weeks
went by. One by one Lady Akikonomu’s servants and retainers were
finding other employment. The Palace stood at the extreme outer
edge of the Sixth Ward, in a district which was very little frequented,
and the melancholy bells which went on tolling and tolling in
innumerable adjacent temples reduced her every evening to a state
of abject misery. She had always been used to spend a great deal of
time in her mother’s company, and even when she was sent to Ise,
though no parent had ever before accompanied the Vestal Virgin,
they still remained unseparated. It can be imagined then that her
mother’s loss left her peculiarly helpless and desolate; and the
thought that Rokujō, who had travelled so far for her sake, should
now set out upon this last journey all alone, caused her unspeakable
pain. Many suitors both high and low, under cover of paying
attentions to one or other of her gentlewomen, now began to
frequent the house. Genji however had in his best fatherly style
exacted a promise from the lady’s old nurse that she would allow no
matchmaking to go on in the house. Above all he feared that some
of her women might wish for their own ends to keep these
gentlemen hanging about the premises. It soon however became
apparent that there was no danger of this. The ladies concerned
knew that their doings would probably reach Genji’s ears, and they
were far too anxious to stand well with him to dream of abusing
their position. The suitors soon found that their advances were not
met with the slightest encouragement.
It will be remembered that at the time of Lady Akikonomu’s
departure for Ise the retired Emperor Suzaku had, when presiding at
the magnificent farewell ceremony in the Daigoku Hall, been greatly
struck with her beauty. This impression had remained with him, and
on her return to the Capital he begged Rokujō to let her daughter
come to him, promising that she should take her place as the equal
of his sister, the former Vestal of Kamo, and the other princesses, his
sisters and kinswomen whom he sheltered under his roof. This
proposal did not please her. She feared that where so many exalted
personages were gathered together her daughter would be likely to
receive but scant attention. Moreover Suzaku was at the time in very
bad health, and if he should fail to recover, his dependants might be
left in a precarious position. Now that her mother was dead it was all
the more desirable to establish her in a manner which offered some
prospect of security. When therefore Suzaku repeated his invitation,
this time in somewhat insistent terms, Lady Akikonomu’s friends
were placed in an awkward position. Genji’s private plan of
affiancing her to the boy-Emperor would, now that Suzaku had
displayed so marked an inclination towards her, be difficult to pursue
without too deeply offending his brother. Another consideration
weighed with him: he was becoming more and more fascinated by
the girl’s beauty and he was in no hurry to commit her to other
hands. Under the circumstances he thought the best thing he could
do was to talk the matter over with Lady Fujitsubo. ‘I am in great
difficulties over this business,’ he said. ‘As you know, the girl’s
mother was a woman of singularly proud and sensitive
temperament. I am ashamed to say that, following my own wanton
and selfish inclinations, I behaved in such a way as to do great
injury to her reputation, with the consequence that henceforward
she on her side harboured against me a passionate resentment,
while I on mine found myself branded not only by her but also by
the world at large as a profligate and scamp. Till the very last I was
never able to recover her confidence; but on her death-bed she
spoke to me of Akikonomu’s future in a way which she would never
have done had she not wholly regained her good opinion of me. This
was a great weight off my mind. Even had these peculiar relations
not existed between us, her request was one which even to a
stranger I could hardly have refused. And as it was, you may
imagine how gladly I welcomed this chance of repairing, even at this
late hour, the grievous wrong which my light-mindedness had
inflicted upon her during her lifetime. His Majesty is of course many
years younger than Akikonomu;16 but I do not think it would be a
bad thing if he had some older and more experienced person in his
entourage. However, it is for you to decide....’ ‘I am of the same
opinion,’ Fujitsubo replied. ‘It would of course be very imprudent to
offend the retired Emperor. But surely the mother’s wishes are a
sufficient excuse. If I were you I should pretend you know nothing
about the retired Emperor’s inclination towards her and present her
at the Palace without more ado. As a matter of fact, Suzaku now
cares very little about such matters. What energy he still possesses
is spent on prayers and meditation. I do not think you will find that
he minds very much one way or the other....’ ‘All the same, I think it
will be best under the circumstances if the request for Akikonomu’s
Presentation came from you,’ said Genji. ‘I could then seem merely
to be adding my solicitations to yours. You will think that in weighing
the pros and cons of the matter with such care I am over-
scrupulous; and indeed I fear that you have found me rather
tedious. It is simply that I am extremely anxious people should not
think me lacking in respect towards my brother....’ It soon became
apparent that, in accordance with Fujitsubo’s advice, he had decided
to disregard the retired Emperor’s wishes. But it was in Genji’s own
palace and not, for the moment at any rate, in the Emperor’s
household that Lady Akikonomu was to be installed. He explained
the circumstances to Murasaki. ‘She is just about your age,’ he said,
‘and you will find her a very agreeable companion. I think you will
get on famously together....’ Murasaki at once took to the idea and
was soon busy with preparations for the reception of the visitor.
Fujitsubo was all this while extremely exercised in mind
concerning the future of her niece, the youngest daughter of Prince
Hyōbukyō, for Genji’s estrangement from the father seemed to block
every avenue of advancement. Tō no Chūjō’s daughter, as the
grandchild of the Senior Minister, was treated on all sides with the
utmost deference and consideration, and she had now become the
Emperor’s favourite playmate. ‘My brother’s little girl is just the same
age as the Emperor,’ said Fujitsubo one day; ‘he would enjoy having
her to play at dolls with him sometimes, and it would be a help to
the older people who are looking after him.’ But quite apart from
affairs of state, Genji had (as Fujitsubo knew) such a multiplicity of
private matters to attend to and was plagued from morning till night
by such a variety of irritating applications and requests that she had
not the heart to keep on bothering him. It was something that a
person like Lady Akikonomu would soon be at the Emperor’s side;
for Fujitsubo herself was in very poor health and, though she
sometimes visited the Palace, she could not look after her son’s
education as she would have liked to do. It was necessary that there
should be some one grown up to keep an eye on him, and though
she would dearly like to have seen her niece installed as his
playmate, she was extremely glad of the arrangement whereby a
sensible creature like Lady Akikonomu was to have him in her
constant care.
1
Tenth month. The Shintō gods become inaccessible during this
month; but the Buddhas are, apparently, still available.
2
Lady Kōkiden.
3
China.
4
As opposed to a Sedan-chair. A carriage drawn by oxen is
meant; this was a great luxury.
5
Used at the birth-ceremonies of a Princess.
6
Ika—Fiftieth Day; but also ‘Why do you not come?’
7
The taxes paid by 2,000 households.
8
These men accompanied a Minister of State on pilgrimages to
the great Shintō shrines, danced in front of the shrine and
afterwards took part in horse-races round it.
9
The higher officers wore cloaks of deeper hue, i.e. dipped more
often in the dye and therefore more costly.
10
See above, p. 114.
11
For the extravagances of this statesman, see Nō Plays of
Japan, p. 293.
12
‘As to the tide-gauge at Naniwa that now lies bare, so to our
love the flood tide shall at last return.’
13
Pun on Naniwa, name of town and nani wa ‘How comes it?’
Here and in the preceding poem there is also a play on
miozukushi = tide-gauge, and mi wo tsukushi = with all one’s
heart and soul.’
14
A Shintō shrine, offensive to Buddha.
15
Aoi’s son Yūgiri was his only acknowledged child.
16
Akikonomu was now nineteen; the boy-Emperor Ryōzen,
seven.
 CHAPTER XV
THE PALACE IN THE TANGLED WOODS
WHILE Genji, like Yukihira of old, ‘dragged his leaky pails’ along the
shore of Suma, his absence had been mourned, in varying ways and
degrees, by a very large number of persons in the Capital. Even
those who stood in no need of patronage or protection and had
through his departure lost only the amenities of a charming
friendship were deeply distressed. For some of them, such as
Murasaki, this sad time was mitigated by constant messages from
his place of exile; some were privileged to busy their needles upon
such garments as his altered state prescribed, or were allowed the
consolation of rendering him other small services such as in his
present difficulties he was likely to require. But there were others
who, though they had received his favours, had done so unknown to
the world, and these ladies now learned of Genji’s last hours at the
Capital from the casual gossip of some friend who had no idea that
the matter was of any particular concern to them. Needless to say
they feigned a like indifference; but such concealment costs one
dear and not a few hearts were broken in the process.
Among those who fared worst during his absence was the lady
at the Hitachi Palace.1 During the period after her father’s death
there had been no one to take care of her and she had for a while
led a very wretched existence. But then came the unexpected
apparition of Genji. His letters and visits, which to him in the
crowded days of his glory were insignificant acts of courtesy,
implying no more than a very mild degree of interest and affection,
were to their recipient, with her narrow and unvarying life, like the
reflection of a star when it chances to fall into a bowl of water. It
was but natural, she thought, that when the outcry against him
began Genji should no longer find time for an attachment which had
in any case played only a very subordinate part in his life,
particularly as the attacks upon him were part of a widespread
movement which could not but be causing him the greatest anxiety.
Then came his exile and at last his triumphant return. But still she
heard no word from him.
In old days when she heard nothing from him for a week or two
she would become a little tearful it is true, but she still managed to
carry on her ordinary existence. Now months, years had passed;
long ago she had given up all hope, and sank into a condition of
settled apathy and gloom. ‘Poor princess!’ said the elderly
gentlewomen who waited upon her. ‘Really she has had the worst
possible luck! To see this glorious apparition suddenly descending
upon her like a God or Buddha out of the sky—not that he meant
very much by it; but she, poor lady, could never get over the
surprise of his noticing her at all—and then for him to disappear
without a word! She knows of course that it is not from her that he
has run away to Suma; it all comes of this new government! But
still, one cannot help being very sorry for the poor young creature.’
She had indeed during the time after her father’s death become
gradually inured to a life of extreme monotony and isolation; but
Genji’s visits had awakened in her quite new ambitions; for the first
time in her life she began to feel herself drawn towards the world of
taste and fashion. This made her renewed state of poverty and
isolation all the more difficult to bear. The fact that Genji frequented
the house had for the time being induced a certain number of other
visitors to present themselves. But since his departure one visitor
after another, having grown more and more remiss in his attentions,
finally ceased to come at all. Her father’s ladies-in-waiting were all
very advanced in years and every now and then one of them would
die; the other servants, both indoors and out, were continually
seeking better service, and hardly a month passed but some
member of her staff either died or drifted away. The palace grounds,
which had for long years past been allowed to sink into a sad state
of neglect, had now become a mere jungle. Foxes had made their
lairs in the garden walks, while from the ornamental plantations,
now grown into dank and forbidding woods, the voice of the
screech-owl sounded day and night alike; so little was there now any
sign of human habitation in that place, so dim was the daylight that
pierced those tangled thickets. The few servants who still lingered
on in the midst of all this desolation began to declare that tree-
spirits and other fearsome monsters had established themselves in
the palace grounds and were every day becoming more open and
venturesome in their habits. ‘There is no sense in continuing to live
like this,’ one of these ladies said. ‘Nowadays all the government
officials are building themselves handsome houses. Several of them
have for a long time past had their eye on all your timber and have
been making enquiries in the neighbourhood whether you might not
be prevailed upon to part with it. If only you would consent to do so,
you might with the proceeds easily buy some newer place that
would be less depressing to live in. You are really asking too much of
the few servants that remain with you....’ ‘Hush, how can you
suggest such a thing!’ answered the princess. ‘What would people
think if they heard you? So long as I am alive no such disrespect to
my poor Father’s memory shall ever be committed. I know quite well
that the grounds have become rather wild and dismal; but this was
his home, his dear spirit haunts the place, and I feel that so long as
I am here I am never far off from him. That has become my only
comfort....’ She broke off in tears, and it was impossible to allude to
the subject again. Her furniture too, though entirely out of fashion,
was much of it very beautiful in an old-world way, and enquiries
were constantly coming from those who made it their business to
understand such matters and had heard that she possessed a work
by such and such a master of some particular time and school. Such
proposals she regarded merely as an ill-bred comment upon her
poverty and indeed complained of them bitterly to the
aforementioned gentlewoman. ‘But, Madam,’ the lady protested, ‘it is
not at all an unusual thing....’ And to convince her mistress that
funds must somehow or other be procured she began to call her
attention to various dilapidations, the repair of which could not
safely be deferred for a single day. But it made no difference. The
idea of selling any of her possessions seemed to the princess utterly
untenable. ‘If he had not meant me to keep them, he would not
have put them here,’ she said; ‘I cannot bear to think of them
becoming ornaments in ordinary, worldly people’s houses. I do not
think he would wish me to...,’ and that was all that could be got out
of her.
Visitors and even letters were now absolutely unknown at the
Hitachi Palace. True, her elder brother the Zen priest on the rare
occasions when he came up to the Capital, usually visited the
palace. But he did little more than poke his head in and go away. He
was a particularly vague and unpractical sort of man, who even
among his fellow clerics ranked as unusually detached from all
worldly considerations. In fact he was a saint, and consequently very
unlikely to notice that the whole place was overgrown with weeds
and bushes, still less to suggest any means of clearing them away.
Meanwhile, the state of affairs was becoming very acute. The
once elegant courtyard was thickly overgrown with weeds; and lusty
hemlock clumps were fast destroying the gables and eaves of the
roof. The main eastern and western gates of the park were
barricaded by huge masses of mugwort and it was impossible to
open them. This might have given the inhabitants of the palace a
certain comforting sense of security, had it not been for the fact that
the walls which surrounded the estate were everywhere either
broken down or upon the point of falling. Horse and oxen from the
neighbouring pastures soon found their way through these gaps,
and when the summer came they began to make free with the
palace lawns in a way which scandalized the little herd-boys who
were in charge of them. At the time of the autumn equinox there
were very heavy gales, and one day the main roof of the servants’
wing was blown right away, leaving only a ceiling of thin match-
boarding, a mere shell, which would not have withstood the mildest
shower of rain. At this the under-servants left in a body.
Henceforward the few inhabitants of the palace led a pitiable
existence, not even getting enough to eat, for there was no one to
make up the fires or prepare their food. Thieves and vagabonds had
the place completely at their mercy; but fortunately it never
occurred to them to go near it. How could so desolate a ruin contain
anything worth meddling with? They shook their heads and trudged
on. But strangely enough, had he penetrated those savage thickets,
an enterprising burglar would have found, amid a tangled mass of
wreckage, a drawing-room2 perfectly appointed in every detail, each
ornament, each screen and article of furniture still standing exactly
where the late prince had left it. True, there was no longer anyone
to dust this last-surviving room, and it needed dusting badly. Never
mind, it was a real room; not just a living-place, but a noble
apartment with everything in it handsome and dignified just as it
ought to be. And here, year in and year out, her whole life was
spent.
Solitary people with a great deal of time on their hands seem
usually to turn to old ballads and romances for amusement and
distraction, but for such employments the princess showed little
inclination. Even in the lives of those who have no particular interest
in poetry there are usually periods of inactivity during which they
take to exchanging verses with some sympathetic correspondent—
verses which, if they are young, generally contain affecting
references to various kinds of plant and tree. But the princess’s
father had imbued her with the belief that all outward display of
emotion is undignified and ill-bred; she felt that what he would really
have liked best would have been for her to communicate with no
one at all, and she had long given up writing even to the few
relations with whom she might have been expected occasionally to
correspond.
At rare intervals she would open an old-fashioned chest and
fiddle for a while with a number of ancient picture-scrolls,
illustrations of such stories as The Chinese Prefect, The Mistress of
Hakoya, Princess Kaguya3 and the like. Then there were some
poems which, though all of very ancient date, were excellently
chosen, with the names of the poets and the titles of the poems
written in a nice clear hand at the side, so that one could really tell
what one was reading. They were written on the best Kanya and
Michinoku papers, now grown somewhat puffy with age,4 and
though it cannot be supposed that she could derive much pleasure
from reading the same familiar pages over and over again, yet it was
noticed that in her hours of deepest depression she would often sit
with the books spread open before her. As for reading the Sūtras or
performing those Buddhist ceremonies which have now become so
indispensable an element in fashionable life, she would have
shuddered at the thought, and would not have dreamed of so much
as touching a rosary, even though no one was there to see. Such
was the arduous standard of conduct which this lady imposed upon
herself.
Of her old servants only Jijū, the daughter of her foster-nurse,
had survived the general exodus of the last few years. Jijū’s friend,
the former Vestal of Kamo, whose company had been one of her
distractions, was dead, and the poor lady’s existence had become
such as no one could reasonably be expected to endure. A sister of
the princess’s mother had fallen on evil days and ended by marrying
a provincial official. She now lived at the Capital, and as she had
daughters, together with a bevy of unusually agreeable young
waiting-women, Jijū occasionally visited the house, where indeed
she was quite at home, for both her parents had been friends of the
family. But the princess herself, with her usual unsociability,
absolutely refused to hold any communication with her aunt’s
household. ‘I am afraid the princess looks upon me as a very vulgar
person,’ the aunt said to Jijū one day. ‘She still thinks, despite the
wretched manner in which she now lives, that to have such relations
as we is a disgrace to her. At any rate I suppose that is why she is so
careful never to come near us.’ It was in this somewhat malicious
tone that she always discussed her niece’s behaviour.
I have noticed that people of quite common origin who have
risen in the world can in a very short time achieve a perfect imitation
of aristocratic importance. And similarly, if through some accident an
aristocrat falls into low company, he generally exhibits a meanness
so thorough-going that it is hard to believe he has been at any pains
to acquire it. Of this second tendency the princess’s aunt was a good
example. She knew that after her unfortunate marriage the people
at the Hitachi Palace had regarded her as a disgrace to the family.
Now that the prince was dead and Suyetsumu herself was in
circumstances of such difficulty, there seemed to be quite a good
chance that the princess might eventually have to take shelter under
her aunt’s roof. This was what the aunt herself was looking forward
to. It was her revenge. She saw the princess installed as a
dependant, fetching and carrying for her daughters. And what an
ideal drudge she would make, being so priggish and strait-laced that
it would never be necessary to keep an eye upon her! ‘You ought to
bring her round to see us sometimes,’ the aunt would say to Jijū,
‘and if you could get her to bring her zithern, so much the better; we
have heard so much about her playing.’ Jijū did her best, and the
princess, docile as usual, admitted that there was everything to be
said in favour of paying an occasional visit. But when it came to the
point, panic overwhelmed her. She would do anything, anything that
Jijū asked; but she would not make friends. And so, greatly to the
aunt’s discomfiture, the matter was dropped.
About this time her uncle was appointed treasurer to a provincial
district. He intended to take his family with him, and was anxious to
equip his daughters with attendants whom it would be pleasant to
name in the ears of provincial visitors. The chance of being able to
exhibit a real princess as a member of their staff was not to be
thrown away and the aunt returned once more to the attack. ‘I am
very worried at having to go so far away from you,’ she sent word by
Jijū. ‘We have not had the pleasure of seeing you much lately; but it
was a great comfort to me to feel that I was near at hand and could
help you if anything went wrong. I am most anxious that, if possible,
we should not be separated....’ All this had no effect whatever. ‘The
conceited little fool! I have no patience with her,’ the aunt cried out
at last. ‘She may have these grand ideas about herself if she
chooses; but no one else is going to take much notice of a creature
that goes on year after year living in the hole-and-corner way that
she does; least of all this famous Prince Genji, with whom she
pretends to be so intimate.’
At last came Genji’s pardon and recall, celebrated in every part
of the kingdom by riotous holiday-making and rejoicing. His friends
of either sex were soon vying with one another in demonstrations of
good will and affection. These testimonies to his popularity, pouring
in from persons of every rank and condition in life, naturally touched
him deeply, and in these stirring days it would have been strange
indeed if many minor affairs had not escaped his memory. But for
her the time of his restoration was far harder to bear than that of his
exile. For whereas she had before confidently looked forward to his
return, counting upon it as we count upon the winter trees to bud
again in spring, this glorious home-coming and restoration, when at
last they came, brought joy to every hut and hovel in the land, but
to her only a hundredfold increase of her former misery. For of what
comfort to her were his triumphs, if she must hear of them from
other lips?
The aunt had the satisfaction of seeing her prophecies fulfilled.
It was of course out of the question that anyone would own to an
acquaintance with a person living in such miserable squalor as now
surrounded the princess. There are those, says the Hokkekyō,5
whom even Buddha and his saints would have hard work to redeem;
and certainly this lady had allowed her affairs to drift into a disorder
which the most generous patron would shrink from attempting to set
straight. This contempt for all the rest of the world, this almost
savage unsociability, was of course no invention of her own; it was
merely an attempt to perpetuate the haughty demeanour of the late
prince and princess, her parents. But this did not make the young
princess’s attitude any less irritating and ridiculous. ‘There is still
time to change your mind,’ said her aunt one day. ‘A change of scene
—a journey through the mountains, for example, is often very
beneficial to people who have some trouble on their minds. I am
sure you think that life in the provinces is very uncomfortable and
disagreeable, but I can assure you that while you are with us you
will never have to stay anywhere quite so higgledy-piggledy....’ The
wretched old women who still dragged on their existence in the
palace eagerly watched the princess’s face while their fate was being
decided. Surely she would not throw away this opportunity of
escape! To their consternation they soon saw that her aunt’s appeal
was not making the slightest impression upon her. Jijū, for her part,
had recently become engaged to a young cousin of the provincial
treasurer’s, who was to accompany him to his province, and she was
therefore pledged to go down to Tsukushi, whether the princess
joined the party or not. She was however deeply attached to her
mistress and very loath indeed to leave her in her present condition.
She therefore discussed the matter with her again, and did
everything in her power to persuade the princess to accompany
them; only to make the extraordinary discovery that Suyetsumu was
still from day to day living in the hope that the visitor from whom
she had for all those years had no word would suddenly reappear
and put everything to rights again. ‘He was very fond of me,’ she
said. ‘It is only because he has been unhappy himself that he has
not remembered to write to me. If he had the slightest idea of what
is happening to us here, he would come at once....’ So she had been
thinking for years, and though the general structure of the house fell
every day into a more fantastic state of dilapidation, she still
persisted as obstinately as ever in retaining every trifling article of
furniture and decoration in exactly the place where it had always
been. She spent so much of her time in tears that a certain part of
her face had now become as red as the flower which the hillman
carries over his ear; so that her appearance, particularly when she
showed her face in profile, would have struck a casual visitor as
somewhat forbidding. But of this I will say no more; it is perhaps
always a mistake to enter into matters of that kind.
As the cold weather came on, existence at the Hitachi Palace
rapidly became more and more difficult. The princess sat staring in
front of her, plunged in unbroken gloom. Meanwhile Genji celebrated
the ritual of the Eight Readings, in memory of his father, the old
Emperor. He took great trouble in choosing the priests for this
ceremony and succeeded finally in assembling a notable band of
dignitaries. Among them none was more renowned for the sanctity
of his life and the wide range of his studies than Princess
Suyetsumu’s brother, the Abbot of Daigoji. On his way back from the
ceremony, he looked in for a moment at the Hitachi Palace. ‘I have
just been celebrating the Eight Readings in Prince Genji’s palace,’ he
said; ‘a magnificent ceremony! It is a pleasure to take part in such a
service as that! I cannot imagine anything more beautiful and
impressive. A veritable paradise—I say it in all reverence—a veritable
paradise on earth; and the prince himself, so calm and dignified, you
might have thought him an incarnation of some holy Buddha or
Bodhisat. How came so bright a being to be born into this dim world
of ours?’ So saying, he hurried off to his temple. Unlike ordinary,
worldly men and women he never wasted time in discussing sordid
everyday affairs or gossiping about other people’s business.
Consequently he made no allusion to the embarrassed circumstances
in which his sister was living. She sometimes wondered whether
even the Saints whom he worshipped would, if they had found some
one in a like situation, really have succeeded in behaving with so
splendid an indifference.
She was indeed beginning to feel that she could hold out no
longer, when one day her aunt suddenly arrived at the palace. This
lady was quite prepared to meet with the usual rebuffs; but having
on this occasion come in a comfortable travelling coach stored with
everything that the princess could need during a journey she did not
for an instant doubt that she would gain her point. With an air of
complete self-confidence she bustled towards the front gate. No
sooner had the porter begun trying to open it than she realized into
what a pitch of decay her niece’s property had fallen. The doors
were off their hinges, and as soon as they were moved tottered over
sideways, and it was not till her own menservants come to the
rescue that, after a tremendous shouldering and hoisting, a passage
was cleared through which she could enter the grounds. What did
one do next? Even such a heap of gimcrack ruins as this presumably
had some apertures which were conventionally recognized as doors
and windows. A lattice door on the southern side of the house was
half open and here the visitors halted. It did not seem possible that
any human being was within hail; but to their astonishment, from
behind a smoke-stained, tattered screen-of-state the maid Jijū
suddenly appeared. She was looking very haggard, but though age
and suffering had greatly changed her, she was still a well-made,
pleasing woman; ‘at any rate far more presentable than her
mistress,’ thought the visitors. ‘We are just starting,’ cried out the
aunt to the lady of the house, who, as she guessed, was seated
behind this sooty screen: ‘I have come to take Jijū away. I am afraid
you will find it very difficult to get on without her, but even if you will
not deign to have any dealings with us yourself, I am sure you will
not be so inconsiderate as to stand in this poor creature’s way....’
She put in so moving a plea on behalf of Jijū that there ought by
rights to have been tears in her eyes. But she was in such high
spirits at the prospect of travelling as a provincial governor’s wife
that a smile of pleasant anticipation played upon her lips all the
while. ‘I know quite well,’ she continued, ‘that the late prince was
not at all proud of his connexion with us, and I am sure it was quite
natural that when you were a child you should pick up his way of
thinking and feeling. But that is a long time ago now. You may say
that it was my fault we did not meet. But really while celebrities such
as Prince Genji were frequenting the house I was not at all sure that
humble people like ourselves would be welcome. However, one of
the advantages of being of no importance is that we humdrum
creatures are not subject to the same violent ups and downs as you
exalted people. I for my part was very sorry to see your fortunes
declining so rapidly as they have done of late, but so long as I was
near at hand I was quite happy about you and did not consider it my
duty to interfere. But now that I am going away to another part of
the country, I confess I feel very uneasy....’ ‘It would be delightful to
go with you. Most people would be very glad indeed.... But I think
that as long as the place holds together at all I had better go on as I
am....’ That was all that could be got out of her. ‘Well, that is for you
to decide,’ said the aunt at last, ‘but I should not think that anyone
has ever before buried himself alive in such a god-forsaken place. I
am sure that if you had asked him in time Prince Genji would have
been delighted to put things straight for you; indeed, with a touch
here and there no doubt he would soon have made the place more
sumptuous than the Jade Emperor’s6 Palace. But unfortunately he is
now entirely preoccupied with this young daughter of Prince
Hyōbukyō, and will do nothing for anyone else. He used to lead a
roving life, distributing his favours in all sorts of directions. But now
that has all stopped, and under these circumstances it is very
unlikely to occur to him that a person living buried away in the
middle of such a jungle as this, is all the time expecting him to rush
round and take her affairs in hand.’ The princess knew that this was
only too true and she now began to weep bitterly. Yet she showed
no signs of changing her mind, and the Chancellor’s wife, after
wasting the whole afternoon in tormenting her, exclaimed at last:
‘Well then, I shall take Jijū. Make haste, please, please; it is getting
late!’ Weeping and flustered Jijū drew her mistress back into the
alcove: ‘I never meant to go,’ she whispered, ‘but this lady seems so
very anxious to take me. I think perhaps I will travel with them part
of the way and then come back again. There is a great deal of truth
in all that she has been saying. But then, on the other hand, I do
not like to upset you by leaving. It is terrible to have to decide so
quickly....’ So she whispered; but though the princess loved her
dearly and was stung to the quick that even this last friend should
be making ready to desert her, she said not a word to encourage Jijū
to stay, but only sobbed more bitterly than before. She was
wondering what she could give to her maid to keep in remembrance
of her long service in the family. Perhaps some cloak or dress?
Unfortunately all her clothes were far too worn and soiled to give
away. She remembered that somewhere in the house was a rather
pretty box containing some plaited strands of her own hair, her fine
glossy hair that grew seven feet long. This would be her present,
and along with it she would give one of those boxes of delicious
clothes-scent that still survived from the old days when her parents
were alive. These she handed to Jijū together with an acrostic poem
in which she compared her departure to the severing of this plaited
tress of hair. ‘Your Mama told me always to look after you,’ she said,
‘and whatever happened to me I should never dream of sending you
away. I think however that you are probably right to go, and only
wish that some one nicer were taking charge of you....’ ‘I know
Mama wished me to stay with you,’ said Jijū at last through her
tears. ‘But quite apart from that, we have been through such terrible
times together in these last years that I cannot bear to go off
heaven knows where and leave you here to shift for yourself. But,
Madam, “By the Gods of Travel to whom I shall make offering upon
my way, I swear that never can I be shorn from you like this tress of
severed hair.”’ Suddenly the voice of the aunt broke in upon them
shouting impatiently: ‘What has become of Jijū? Be quick, now, it is
getting quite dark!’ Hardly knowing what she did, Jijū climbed into
the coach and as it drove away stared helplessly at the dilapidated
house.
So at last Jijū had left her; Jijū who for years past, though in
sore need of a little pleasure and distraction, had never once asked
for a single day’s holiday! But this was not the end of the princess’s
troubles; for now even the few old charwomen who still remained in
the house—poor doddering creatures who could never have
persuaded anyone else to employ them—began threatening to leave.
‘Do you think I blame her?’ said one of them, speaking of Jijū’s
departure. ‘Not I! What had she to stay for, I ask you. And come to
that, I should like to know why we go on putting up with it all.’ And
they began with one accord remembering influential patrons who
had at one time or another promised to employ them. No, decidedly
they would not stay in the place any longer.
These conversations, which took place in the princess’s hearing,
had the most disquieting effect upon her. The Frosty Month7 had
now come. In the open country around, though snow and hail
frequently fell, they tended to melt between-whiles. But in the
wilderness that surrounded the Hitachi Palace vast drifts of snow,
protected by the tangled overgrowth from any ray of sunlight, piled
higher and higher, till one might have fancied oneself in some valley
among the Alps of Koshi. Through these arctic wastes not even the
peasants would consent to press their way and the palace was for
weeks on end entirely cut off from the outer world.
The princess sat staring at the snow. Life had been dull enough
before, but at any rate she had some one at hand whose chatter at
times broke in upon her gloom. But now Jijū’s laughter, Jijū’s tears
were gone, and as she lay day and night alike behind her crumbling
curtains-of-state the princess was consumed by a loneliness and
misery such as she had never known before.
Meanwhile, at the Nijō Palace, Genji remained wholly absorbed
in the girl from whom he had so long been separated, and it was
only a few very particular friends who heard any news of him at all.
He did sometimes think of the Hitachi Palace and wondered whether
the princess could still be living there all alone. But he was in no
great hurry to discover, and the New Year passed without his having
taken any steps about her. In the fourth month he decided to call
upon the ladies in the Village of Falling Flowers, and having obtained
Murasaki’s permission he set out one evening, clad in his usual
disguise. For days it had rained unceasingly. But now, just at the
moment when the heavy rain stopped and only a few scattered
drops were falling, the moon rose; and soon it was one of those
exquisite late spring nights through whose moonlight stillness he had
in earlier years so often ridden out on errands of adventure. Busy
with memories of such excursions he had not noticed where he was
driving, when suddenly looking up he saw a pile of ruined buildings
surrounded by plantations so tangled and overgrown that they wore
the aspect of a primeval jungle. Over a tall pine-tree a trail of
wisteria blossoms was hanging; it quivered in the moonlight, shaken
by a sudden puff of wind that carried with it when it reached him a
faint and almost imperceptible odour of flowers. It was for orange-
blossom that he had set out that night; but here too was a flower
that had a fragrance worth enjoying. He leaned out of the carriage
window. They were passing by a willow whose branches swept the
ground; with the crumbling away of the wall which had once
supported it the tree had fallen forward till its trunk was almost
prostrate. Surely he had seen these grounds before? Why, yes, this
must be—suddenly it all came back to him. Of course it was that
strange lady’s house. He was driving past the Hitachi Palace. Poor
creature, he must discover at once what had become of her; and
stopping his carriage and calling to Koremitsu, who as usual on
occasions of the kind was in attendance upon him, he asked him
whether this was not indeed Princess Suyetsumu’s place. ‘Why
certainly!’ said Koremitsu. ‘In that case,’ said Genji, ‘I should like to
find out whether the same people are still living there. I have not
time to pay a personal visit now, but I should like you to go in and
enquire. Make sure that you discover exactly how things stand. It
looks so silly if one calls on the wrong people.’
After a particularly dismal morning spent in staring blankly in
front of her the princess had fallen asleep and dreamed that her
father, the late prince, was still alive and well. After such a dream as
that she woke up more miserable than ever. The window side of the
room had been flooded in the recent rains; but taking a cloth she
began mopping up the water and trying to find a place where she
could put her chair. While she did so the stress of her sufferings
stirred her to a point of mental alertness which she did not often
reach. She had composed a poem, and suddenly she recited the
lines: ‘To the tears I shed in longing for him that is no more, are
added the ceaseless drippings that patter from my broken roof!’
Meanwhile Koremitsu had made his way into the house and was
wandering this way and that looking for some sign of life. He spent a
long while in poking into all sorts of corners and at last concluded
that the place had been abandoned as uninhabited. He was just
setting out to report this to Genji when the moon came out from
behind a cloud, lighting up the front of the house. He then noticed a
trellis roll-door which was half pulled up. A curtain behind it moved.
It almost seemed as though some one were there. Koremitsu,
feeling oddly enough quite nervous, turned back and approached
this door, clearing his throat loudly as he did so. In answer to this
signal a very aged, decrepit voice answered from within the room.
‘Well, what is it? Who are you?’ ‘It is Koremitsu,’ he answered, ‘could