William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. VI. 1804-1806
Thomas Holcroft to William Godwin, 25 September 1804
“I am sorry our feelings are not in unison. I am sorry
that a work which cost me
such deep thought, and was, in my own opinion, so happily executed, should
excite in your mind nothing but the chaos of which you inform me. I came up to
town with
| MRS GODWIN’S GRANDCHILDREN. | 127 |
a high
hope of having rendered my friend an essential service, with which, when he saw
it, he would be delighted, and would perfectly understand all the emotions
which passed in my mind, while stimulated by such an endearing reflection. I
must bear my disappointment as well as I can, and have only to request that,
since you think all conference must produce painful sensations, you will either
adopt the piece as I have sent it you (which I by no means wish, since you
think as you do), or put the whole of it into your own language. I don’t
in the least expect, after your long hesitation, that it corresponds with your
ideas of good writing, for which I am sorry, but I hope that you will not think
it unreasonable that I should object to that which your judgment shall direct,
unless I could be made acquainted with it. I hope I have not spent my time
wholly unprofitably, since you cannot be insensible that my zeal to serve you
effectually has been great.
“Respecting the £20, we were much distressed last
week, but shall not be this, or the next. The week after, I am afraid, it may
still prove inconvenient to you, though I know we shall be very short.
Louisa mends so slowly, that my mind
is quite uneasy. I came up to town with high hopes of various kinds, but hope
was always a sad deceiver, and the error of my life is that of being too
sanguine. Forgive me that Fanny copies
this. She copied the tragedy, and it was inevitable she should know the whole
transaction. . . .
Fanny Margaretta Holcroft (1785-1844)
The daughter of Thomas Holcroft and his third wife, Dinah Robinson; she was a translator
and novelist.
Louisa Kenney [née Mercier] (1780 c.-1853)
The daughter of the French writer Louis-Sébastien Mercier and former (fourth) wife of
Thomas Holcroft; in 1812 she married the Irish playwright James Kenney.