I lost her in 1797,
and in 1801 I married a second time. One among the motives which led
me to choose this was the feeling I had in myself of an incompetence
for the education of daughters. The present Mrs. Godwin has great
strength and activity of mind, but is not exclusively a follower of
the notions of their mother; and, indeed, having formed a family
establishment without having a previous provision for the support of a
family, neither Mrs. Godwin nor I have leisure enough for reducing
novel theories of education to practice; while we both of us honestly
endeavour, as far as our opportunities will permit, to improve the
mind and characters of the younger branches of our family.
Of the two persons to whom your inquiries relate, my own daughter is
considerably superior in capacity to the one her mother had before.
Fanny, the eldest, is of a quiet, modest, unshowy disposition,
somewhat given to indolence, which is her greatest fault, but sober,
observing, peculiarly clear and distinct in the faculty of memory, and
disposed to exercise her own thoughts and follow her own judgment.
Mary, my daughter, is the reverse of her in many particulars.
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