“Dear Ritson,—I should be sorry to interrupt your business or occupations one moment unnecessarily by this correspondence. Give me leave, however, to say,
“‘I can easily and entirely forgive the acrimony (if that is what you allude to) of your note of the date of Saturday. We have all of us too many frailties not to make it the duty of every man to forgive the precipitation of his neighbour; and the unfortunate state of your health and spirits which often painfully recurs to my mind, gives this duty a double portion of obligation in the present case. I think a person of conscious integrity may be expected more easily to forget a reflection cast on his character than one of a different description.
“But I am still further incited to forgive your
misconstruction in this instance, because I am conscious of the blameableness
of my conduct. I have, perhaps, a peculiar sentiment in this case: I feel as if
it would be a sort of insult to ask the patience of a friend to whom I was in
debt, unless I came to him with the
| 64 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Restore me entirely to your good opinion. The letter I have just received from you manifests an inclination to do so. Let the consequences be only temporary and transient, which flowed from a transient misapprehension. I have some idea of engaging in a literary work, the nature of which will render your advice singularly interesting to me. Suffer me, when the time comes, to apply to you for that advice. Your silence in answer to what I have written shall be construed into a sufficient permission.”
