Henry Crabb Robinson to Godwin, 16 August ?, 1 p.m. 

Dear Sir

     Mrs Godwin said, I think, yesterday that you feel more delicacy towards me than any one else Perhaps I suffer from this! Mrs Giraud she herself made the request instead of you because she thought I could refuse her with less pain than you. Then you write to me & force me to send a written answer which I felt it to be humiliating to write And now at last you want an interview. I have no enquiries to make, nor can I enter into any other description than in this form by that you inform by letter what kind of security Mr W. will give Which I can consider of & eventually take to him for his conformation [sic]

     I have lost this whole day; for I can not read to any force purpose. There is in your present application as in a former one, a strangely mixture of incompatible materials On the one hand you press your point with the utmost earnestness, as if it was of the last moment, And at the same time ^tell me^ that what you ask is of no consequence, a something that can not in the end signify – And to the most elaborate & on my part painful explanation, you condescend to [f. 72v] give no answer but a reference to an interview, All which with a judicious mixture of civility & reproach have not failed to give me the greatest possible degree of pain.

     I will never again expose myself to this – [written with a pressed hand and darker ink]

     Give me a distinct answer  And tell me, I do beg, what kind of security D will give; tho’ I must reserve my acceptance of it – I trust you are prepared also to satisfy me as to the extent of the proposed security – I can not help it if you should again be reminded of Milton who says that at “the lowest deep or lower deep still threatens” I hope this letter will not appear harsh or unkind – You work on my feelings & must pardon their first burst – I shall either leave this letter myself at your house  Or let it remain here till you send again – In which case you will consider this letter as an answer by anticipation to any one you may send me in the meanwhile

             Your friend notwithstanding

                 H. C. Robinson

Mem  I have no Servant to send backwards & forwards}

Text: Abinger Papers, c. 15, f. 72, Bodleian Library, Oxford.