All necessary knowledge in the branch of ethics is comprised in the word justice: that the good of the whole is the good of each individual, that, of course, it is each individual's _duty_ to be just, _because_ it is his _interest_. To perceive this and to assent to it as an abstract proposition is easy, but it requires the most wakeful attentions of the most reflective mind in all moments to bring it into practice. It is not enough that we have once swallowed it. The _heart_ should have _fed_ upon the _truth_, as insects on a leaf, till it be tinged with the colour, and show its food in every the minutest fibre. In the book of pantisocracy I hope to have comprised all that is good in Godwin, of whom and of whose book I will write more fully in my next letter (I think not so highly of him as you do, and I have read him with the greatest attention). This will be an advantage to the _minds_ of our women.
What have been your feelings concerning the War with America, which is now inevitable? To go from Hamburg will not only be a heavy additional expense, but dangerous and uncertain, as nations at war are in the habit of examining neutral vessels to prevent the importation of arms and seize subjects of the hostile governments. It is said that one cause of the ministers having been so cool on the business is that it will prevent emigration, which it seems would be treasonable to a hostile country. Tell me all you think on these subjects. What think you of the difference in the prices of land as stated by Cowper from those given by the American agents? By all means read, ponder on Cowper, and when I hear your thoughts I will give you the result of my own.
Thou bleedest, my poor Heart! and thy distress Doth Reason ponder with an anguished smile, Probing thy sore wound sternly, tho' the while Her eye be swollen and dim with heaviness. Why didst thou _listen_ to Hope's whisper bland? Or, listening, why _forget_ its healing tale, When Jealousy with feverish fancies pale Jarr'd thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand? Faint was that Hope, and rayless. Yet 'twas fair And sooth'd with many a dream the hour of rest: Thou should'st have loved it most, when most opprest, And nursed it with an agony of care, E'en as a mother her sweet infant heir That pale and sickly droops upon her breast![62]