Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/194

178. The conflicting results to which his honesty sometimes led are strikingly set forth in his relations to Thomas Cooper, a distant cousin, who at one time lived with him as pupil. He studied attentively the boy's character, and did his utmost to treat him gently and kindly; but, on the other hand, he expressed in his presence his opinion of him in language harsh enough to justify his pupil's indignation. It is more than probable that this same frankness was one of the causes of his many quarrels—démêlés, he calls them in his diary—with his most devoted friends. His sincerity, however, invariably triumphed, and these were always mere passing storms.

He was passionless even in relations which usually arouse warmth in the most phlegmatic natures. He was a good son and brother, yet so undemonstrative that his manner passed at times for indifference. Though in beliefs and sentiments he had drifted far apart from his mother, he never let this fact interfere with his filial respect and duty; and her long and many letters to him are proofs of his unfailing kindness for her. He was always willing to look out for the welfare of his brothers, two of whom were somewhat disreputable characters, and of his sister Hannah who lived in London. With the latter he was on particularly friendly terms, and saw much of her, yet Mrs. Sothren—the cousin who had been such a help to him in his early years—reproves him for writing of her as "Miss Godwin" instead of "sister," and fears lest this may be a sign that his brotherly affection, once great, had abated.

He seems at one time to have thought that he could provide himself with a wife in the same manner in