“My Dear William,—Whose
Countenance gave me the highest delight to see with your wife, whom I also
respect for her many amiable qualities. I wish you had paid so much respect to
good Mr Sykes as to have heard him
preach one Lord’s Day in your good father’s Pulpit. Think with
yourself, if you were in his place, and your mother’s that loves you, and
at the same time highly values Mr Sykes, who in many
respects is the very Image of your dear father, for friendliness and wish to do
everybody good. A man of unblemished carrector and serious godliness. He told
me he was ingaged before he received my invitation to spend the afternoon,
which I was sorry for, for he is so sensible a man, that you could not but been
pleased with his company. It now remains to tell you and Mrs Godwin I have done the best I ever
| 100 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Mrs Godwin’s kind letter I rec’d; was rejoiced you got safe home, and met your dear children in good helth, and the particulars of your journey. The time we spent together was to me very pleasing, to see you both in such helth and so happy in consulting to make each other so, which is beutiful in a married state, and, as far as I am able to judge, appears husifly which is a high recommendation in a wife: give her the fruit of her hands, and let her own hands praise her. I might go back to the 10th verse. But will conclude with, ‘favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the lord, she shall be praised.’
“I wish your brother John had ever so mean a place where he had his board found, if
it were Mr Finche’s footman’s, for he must
actualy starve on half a guinea a week. If his master will give him a
carrector. I have sent him 7 lb. of butter, but that can’t last long, and
I am in earnest. If he don’t seek a place while he has deasent clothes on
his back, nobody will take him in. I cannot, nor I will not, support him. I
shall not be ashamed to own him, let him be in ever so low a station, if he
have an honest carrector. He is two old to go to sea, but may do for such a
place if his pride will let him: its better than a jale, and I can’t
pretend to keep him out. Now I have another meloncholy story to tell you. Your
dear brother Natty, I fear, is declining
apace. He is still at Mr Murton’s, but I have
invited him home to do what I can for him. If my maid cannot nurss him, he must
have one. Tell Hannah Mrs
Hull’s brother Raven seems declining
too, may perhaps live the winter out, but has no appitite, nor keep out of bed
half the day. You see Deth is taking his
| MISUNDERSTANDINGS. | 101 |
“Now I will tell you Mr Sykes’s text last Lord’s Day,—Isaiah liv., ‘O thou afflicted and tossed with tempests, behold I will lay thy stones with fare coulars, and lay thy foundations with sapphires’—one of the finest sermons I ever heard. I wish you to read Henery’s exposition on that chapter.
“I am unwell with a cold. I’ve not been so well since you left us. I believe I did myself no good with such long walks, but have not missed the meeting since. Mr and Mrs G. send their respects to you, and so do their children, and my maid Molly.
“I would advise you to let your children learn to knit little worsted short stockens, just above their shoes, to keep their feet from chilblains this winter. We cannot but be anxious about this war. It was pride that begun it, and will most likely ruin it. Cursed pride, that creeps securely in, and swels a haughty worm. It was the sin that cast the divils out of heaven, and our first parents out of Paradise.—I am, with real affection, your loving mother,
“I have sent your two pocket handkerchifs, a pair course stockens for your brother, the rest for my Grandson John.”
