“. . . I am glad that my writings have in any degree
contributed to your pleasure in moments of dejection and gloom. I should be
much more glad if I could point out to you a remedy for your disease. Dr Darwin, you say, assures you it is a
disease of the mind. There is perhaps some deception in that way of
distributing the disorders of the human species. The mind and the
| 142 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“The first thing you have to guard against, as the most pernicious error into which you can fall, is the feeling yourself flattered by your own misery as something honourable and delicate. Do not from this, or other motives, cherish and indulge painful sensations. Resolutely expel them, if possible, from your mind. Determine vehemently and hardily to be as happy as you can. . . . Break abruptly the thread of painful ideas. Set your face as much as possible against a spirit of timidity and procrastination. Endeavour to be always active, always employed. Walk, read, write, and converse. Seek variety in this respect. Whatever you engage in, engage in firmly, and give no quarter to the inroads of irresolution and listlessness. . . . Do not indulge in visions, and phantoms of the imagination, or place your happiness in something you may perhaps never obtain, but endeavour to make it out of the materials within your reach. Adopt some course of improvement, and impress yourself with some ardour of usefulness, which will never wholly elude the grasp of him who seeks it with ingenuousness and simplicity. . . .
