“I desire money because I think I know the use of it. It commands
labor, it give leisure; and to give leisure to those who will employ
it in the forwarding of truth is the noblest present an individual can
make to the whole.”
If there is extravagance here, it is extravagance of a beautiful and
rare sort, like Shelley’s “underhand ways” also, which differed
singularly, the cynic Hogg tells us, from the underhand ways of other
people; “the latter were concealed because they were mean, selfish,
sordid; Shelley’s secrets, on the contrary (kindnesses done by stealth),
were hidden through modesty, delicacy, generosity, refinement of soul.”
His forbearance to Godwin, to Godwin lecturing and renouncing him and at
the same time holding out, as I have said, his hat to him for alms, is
wonderful; but the dignity with which he at last, in a letter perfect
for propriety of tone, reads a lesson to his ignoble father-in-law, is
in the best possible style:—
“Perhaps it is well that you should be informed that I consider your
last letter to be written in a style of haughtiness and encroachment
which neither awes nor imposes on me; but I have no desire to
transgress the limits which you place to our intercourse, nor in any
future instance will I make any remarks but such as arise from the
strict question in discussion.”