“Dear Godwin,—I am so unwilling to leave you in a moment’s suspense, for I give you full credit for the reluctant scruples you express—that I shall not defer a post to get a stamp for a draft but give you the trouble of calling personally on Mr Howslip in York Street on Wednesday next at 3, who will deliver you a note containing the £100. I have adopted this mode to prevent a personal application from you at the Bank, which I conceived might be disagreeable, and it also secures from danger of loss by post, and this same. Mr Howslip will not have the least idea of the nature of our transaction.
“And now let me beg of you to set your mind perfectly
at ease. I will tell you honestly what I have felt, and always feel, on the
occasion. I have no opinion of the good, upon the whole, resulting from great
facility in the opulent, in yielding to requests of the needy. I have no doubt
but that it is best that every one should anticipate with certainty the pinch
and pressure of distress from indulging in indolence, or even from misfortune.
It is this certainty which quickens the little wit that man is ordinarily
endowed with, and calls out all his energies: and were it removed by the idea
that the rich held funds for the distressed, I am convinced that not only half
the industry of the country would be destroyed, but also that misfortune would
be doubled in quantity. I confess to you then, that I have always a doubt of
the value of any donation or loan. At the same time, I have the strongest
desire to give relief to suffering, and an excessive repugnance to that
hardness of heart, that vicious inclination to hoard,—to that depraved state of
mind which enables me to view sufferings with calmness, if not with
indifference, whilst I should never miss the sum that would instantly relieve
them. In the case of the
| 126 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“And I do therefore invite you to still consider me as your friend in every honourable sense of the word. You have placed me in a most ambiguous capacity. I have an excellent friend in T. W., you say: he is the man I should rely upon in a moment of distress, only that I feel that I cannot ask him to make the smallest personal sacrifice for my advantage.
“I wish you may seize the spirit of my confessions, for I really cannot stay the process of writing one moment for a more explicit and luminous statement. I write in pain and great distraction of mind, knowing the injury I do myself. I feel most gratefully your kind wishes for my health. Without indulging an unmanly despondency, I may say after some years continued struggle, I see no prospect of permanent amendment. I left town a day or two after you saw me in Bedford Row. Let me have a line from you when you have received the £100.
“With the sincerest wishes for your happiness, I remain, dear Godwin, faithfully and cordially yours,
