truly was? But if anything, I insisted, I’d only just begun, was off, at last, and thirty- one. I might be praised, I might be censured, but my desire was such, I explained, it was such . . . but I could not find the words. Judiciously, steadily, William worked to get me out—from my bed, my room, the house—and for his sake, I rallied. I promised him I’d lead a more sensible life.
Of course, by this time my manuscript was already off to London.
So one night, returning from a circus—monsters, camels, baboons, a man with sticks for fingers, a woman with soft brown fur—we opened the door to The World’s Olio arrived in the publisher’s crates.
WHILE ONE BOOK IN THE WORLD MIGHT BE CONSIDERED AN anomaly, two books, it seemed, sounded an alarm. The lady is a fraud! Even if the books were ridiculous , how could a woman speak the language of philosophy at all ? I hadn’t attended university. They knew I didn’t read Latin. It fell to reason a man was behind my work—writing it, dictating it, or even perhaps unknowingly the victim of my theft.
But hadn’t Shakespeare written with natural ability?
Every tree a teacher, every bird?
Alone in my room, I fought with the air: “If any thinks my book so well wrote as that I had not the wit to do it, truly I am glad for my wit’s sake!”
DEFENDING A SECOND BOOK QUICKLY LED TO A THIRD . Philosophical and Physical Opinions , 1655. In it I argued all matter can think: a woman, a river, a bird. There is no creature or part of nature without innate sense and reason, I wrote, for observe the way a crystal spreads, or how a flower makes way for its seed. I shared each page with William, often before the ink had dried. It put me at odds, he explained, with the prevailing thought of the day. But how could the world be wound up like a clock? It was pulsing, contracting, attracting, and generating infinite forms of knowledge. Nor could man’s be supreme. For how could there be any supreme knowledge in such an animate system? One critic called the book a “vile performance.” But another said my writing proved the mind is without a sex!
At dinner parties now, I was sometimes asked to account for myself, to speak of my ideas. I very rarely could. Bold on the page, in life I was only Margaret.
Still, Antwerp, the parties, my husband’s talks—all of it fed my mind. I’d hardly set down my quill before I took it up again, writing stories unconnected—of a pimp, a virgin, a rogue—strung up like pearls on a thread. This one, my fourth, called Natures Pictures , was something of a hit. It opens with a scene of family life—men blowing noses, humble women in rustling skirts—and closes somewhat less humbly, I admit, with “A True Relation of My Birth, Breeding, and Life”—in which, for the sake of history, I describe in my own words my childhood in Essex, my experiences of war, my marriage and disposition—in short, my life—and ultimately declare: “I am very ambitious, yet ’tis neither for Beauty, Wit, Titles, Wealth or Power, but as they are steps to raise me to Fames Tower.” O minor victory! O small delight! My star began to rise.
ANTWERP
1657
I PAUSED IN THE HALL BEFORE GOING IN TO EAT. “I’VE HAD IT , ” William spat, “with this damned unending war.” I took a spoonful of chestnut soup. “Yes,” I said, and watched him as he chewed. He finished his dinner in silence, hulked off to his room. Alone with the duck and a vase of roses, was I to blame for his mood? The latest round of gossip had rattled him, I knew. “Here’s the crime,” he’d said in a fit, “a lady writes it, and to entrench so much upon the male prerogative is not to be forgiven!” He’d defended me at every turn. Yet lately he’d been riled. And for my part—riled, too—I decided simply to busy myself with the summer as best I could.
There was a housekeeper to hire.
A neighbor starting an archery school on the opposite side of our fence.
A portrait to sit for—or
Of course, by this time my manuscript was already off to London.
So one night, returning from a circus—monsters, camels, baboons, a man with sticks for fingers, a woman with soft brown fur—we opened the door to The World’s Olio arrived in the publisher’s crates.
WHILE ONE BOOK IN THE WORLD MIGHT BE CONSIDERED AN anomaly, two books, it seemed, sounded an alarm. The lady is a fraud! Even if the books were ridiculous , how could a woman speak the language of philosophy at all ? I hadn’t attended university. They knew I didn’t read Latin. It fell to reason a man was behind my work—writing it, dictating it, or even perhaps unknowingly the victim of my theft.
But hadn’t Shakespeare written with natural ability?
Every tree a teacher, every bird?
Alone in my room, I fought with the air: “If any thinks my book so well wrote as that I had not the wit to do it, truly I am glad for my wit’s sake!”
DEFENDING A SECOND BOOK QUICKLY LED TO A THIRD . Philosophical and Physical Opinions , 1655. In it I argued all matter can think: a woman, a river, a bird. There is no creature or part of nature without innate sense and reason, I wrote, for observe the way a crystal spreads, or how a flower makes way for its seed. I shared each page with William, often before the ink had dried. It put me at odds, he explained, with the prevailing thought of the day. But how could the world be wound up like a clock? It was pulsing, contracting, attracting, and generating infinite forms of knowledge. Nor could man’s be supreme. For how could there be any supreme knowledge in such an animate system? One critic called the book a “vile performance.” But another said my writing proved the mind is without a sex!
At dinner parties now, I was sometimes asked to account for myself, to speak of my ideas. I very rarely could. Bold on the page, in life I was only Margaret.
Still, Antwerp, the parties, my husband’s talks—all of it fed my mind. I’d hardly set down my quill before I took it up again, writing stories unconnected—of a pimp, a virgin, a rogue—strung up like pearls on a thread. This one, my fourth, called Natures Pictures , was something of a hit. It opens with a scene of family life—men blowing noses, humble women in rustling skirts—and closes somewhat less humbly, I admit, with “A True Relation of My Birth, Breeding, and Life”—in which, for the sake of history, I describe in my own words my childhood in Essex, my experiences of war, my marriage and disposition—in short, my life—and ultimately declare: “I am very ambitious, yet ’tis neither for Beauty, Wit, Titles, Wealth or Power, but as they are steps to raise me to Fames Tower.” O minor victory! O small delight! My star began to rise.
ANTWERP
1657
I PAUSED IN THE HALL BEFORE GOING IN TO EAT. “I’VE HAD IT , ” William spat, “with this damned unending war.” I took a spoonful of chestnut soup. “Yes,” I said, and watched him as he chewed. He finished his dinner in silence, hulked off to his room. Alone with the duck and a vase of roses, was I to blame for his mood? The latest round of gossip had rattled him, I knew. “Here’s the crime,” he’d said in a fit, “a lady writes it, and to entrench so much upon the male prerogative is not to be forgiven!” He’d defended me at every turn. Yet lately he’d been riled. And for my part—riled, too—I decided simply to busy myself with the summer as best I could.
There was a housekeeper to hire.
A neighbor starting an archery school on the opposite side of our fence.
A portrait to sit for—or
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