“My dear Mary,—Your letter of August 19 is very grievous to me, inasmuch as you represent me as increasing the degree of your uneasiness and depression.
“You must, however, allow me the privilege of a father, and a philosopher, in expostulating with you on this depression. I cannot but consider it as lowering your character in a memorable degree, and putting you quite among the commonality and mob of your sex, when I had thought I saw in you symptoms entitling you to be ranked among those noble spirits that do honour to our nature. What a falling off is here! How bitterly is so inglorious a change to be deplored!
“What is it you want that you have not? You have the husband of your choice, to whom you seem to be unalterably attached, a man of high intellectual attainments, whatever I, and some other persons, may think of his morality, and the defects under this last head, if they be not (as you seem to think) imaginary, at least do not operate as towards you. You have all the goods of fortune, all the means of being useful to others, and shining in your proper sphere. But you have lost a child: and all the rest of the world, all that is beautiful, and all that has a claim upon your kindness, is nothing, because a child of two years old is dead.
“The human species may be divided into two great
classes: those who lean on others for support, and those who are qualified to
support. Of these last, some have one, some five, and some ten
| 270 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Above all things, I entreat you, do not put the miserable delusion on yourself, to think there is something fine, and beautiful, and delicate, in giving yourself up, and agreeing to be nothing.
“Remember, too, that though at first your nearest connections may pity you in this state, yet that when they see you fixed in selfishness and ill-humour, and regardless of the happiness of everyone else, they will finally cease to love you, and scarcely learn to endure you.
“The other parts of your letter afford me much satisfaction. Depend upon it, there is no maxim more true or more important than this, Frankness of communication takes off bitterness. . . . True philosophy invites all communication, and withholds none.”
