“I received your last letter on the 24th inst., and
the perusal of it gave me a high degree of pleasure. . . . I can now look upon
you as a friend. Before, I knew not what might happen. It was
| 208 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“You say, ‘I will look to events in which it will be impossible I can share, and make myself the cause of an effect which will take place ages after I shall have mouldered into dust.’ In saying this you run from one extreme to another. I have often had occasion to apply a principle on the subject of education, which is equally applicable here—‘Be not easily discouraged; sow the seed, and after a season, and when you least look for it, it will germinate and produce a crop.’ I have again and again been hopeless concerning the children with whom I have voluntarily, or by the laws of society, been concerned. Seeds of intellect and knowledge, seeds of moral judgment and conduct, I have sown; but the soil for a long while seemed ungrateful to the tiller’s care. It was not so; the happiest operations were going on quietly and unobserved, and at the moment when it was of the most importance, they unfolded themselves to the delight of every beholder.
“These instances of surprise are owing solely to the bluntness of our senses. You find little difference between the men of these islands of Europe now and twenty years ago. If you looked more into these things you would perceive that the alteration is immense. The human race has made larger strides to escape from a state of childhood in these twenty years than perhaps in any hundred years preceding. . . .
