Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends
those people--I will think about it. If it should not reach you in four or
five days, tell Taylor to publish it without a Preface, and let the
Dedication simply stand--"inscribed to the Memory of Thomas Chatterton."
I had resolved last night to write to you this morning--I wish it had been
about something else--something to greet you towards the close of your
long illness. I have had one or two intimations of your going to Hampstead
for a space; and I regret to see your confounded Rheumatism keeps you in
Little Britain where, I am sure the air is too confined. Devonshire
continues rainy. As the drops beat against the window, they give me the
same sensation as a quart of cold water offered to revive a half-drowned
devil--no feel of the clouds dropping fatness; but as if the roots of the
earth were rotten, cold, and drenched. I have not been able to go to
Kent's cave at Babbicombe--however on one very beautiful day I had a fine
Clamber over the rocks all along as far as that place. I shall be in Town
in about Ten days--We go by way of Bath on purpose to call on Bailey. I
hope soon to be writing to you about the things of the north, purposing to
wayfare all over those parts. I have settled my accoutrements in my own
mind, and will go to gorge wonders. However, we'll have some days together
before I set out--
I have many reasons for going wonder-ways: to make my winter chair free
from spleen--to enlarge my vision--to escape disquisitions on Poetry and
Kingston Criticism; to promote digestion and economise shoe-leather. I'll
have leather buttons and belt; and, if Brown holds his mind, over the
Hills we go. If my Books will help me to it, then will I take all Europe
in turn, and see the Kingdoms of the Earth and the glory of them. Tom is
getting better, he hopes you may meet him at the top o' the hill. My Love
to your nurses. I am ever
Your affectionate Friend
JOHN KEATS.
XLIX.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[Teignmouth,] Friday [April 10, 1818].
My dear Reynolds--I am anxious you should find this Preface tolerable. If
there is an affectation in it 'tis natural to me. Do let the Printer's
Devil cook it, and let me be as "the casing air."
You are too good in this Matter--were I in your state, I am certain I
should have no thought but of discontent and illness--I might though be
taught patience: I had an idea of giving no Preface; however, don't you
think this had better go? O, let it--one should not be too timid--of
committing faults.
The climate here weighs us down completely; Tom is quite low-spirited. It
is impossible to live in a country which is continually under hatches. Who
would live in a region of Mists, Game Laws, indemnity Bills, etc., when
there is such a place as Italy? It is said this England from its Clime
produces a Spleen, able to engender the finest Sentiments, and cover the
whole face of the isle with Green--so it ought, I'm sure.--I should still
like the Dedication simply, as I said in my last.
I wanted to send you a few songs written in your favorite Devon--it cannot
be--Rain! Rain! Rain! I am going this morning to take a facsimile of a
Letter of Nelson's, very much to his honour--you will be greatly pleased
when you see it--in about a week. What a spite it is one cannot get
out--the little way I went yesterday, I found a lane banked on each side
with store of Primroses, while the earlier bushes are beginning to leaf.
I shall hear a good account of you soon.
Your affectionate Friend
JOHN KEATS.
My Love to all and remember me to Taylor.
L.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.
Teignmouth, Friday [April 24, 1818].
My dear Taylor--I think I did wrong to leave to you all the trouble of
Endymion--But I could not help it then--another time I shall be more bent
to all sorts of troubles and disagreeables. Young men for some time have
an idea that such a thing as happiness is to be had, and therefore are
extremely impatient under any unpleasant restraining. In time however, of
such stuff is the world about them, they know better, and instead of
striving from uneasiness, greet it as an habitual sensation, a pannier
which is to weigh upon them through life--And in proportion to my disgust
at the task is my sense of your kindness and anxiety. The book pleased me
much. It is very free from faults: and, although there are one or two
words I should wish replaced, I see in many places an improvement greatly
to the purpose.
I think those speeches which are related--those parts where the speaker
repeats a speech, such as Glaucus's repetition of Circe's words, should
have inverted commas to every line. In this there is a little
confusion.--If we divide the speeches into _identical_ and _related_; and
to the former put merely one inverted Comma at the beginning and another
at the end; and to the latter inverted Commas before every line, the book
will be better understood at the 1st glance. Look at pages 126, 127, you
will find in the 3d line the beginning of a related speech marked thus
"Ah! art awake--" while, at the same time, in the next page the
continuation of the _identical_ speech is marked in the same manner,
"Young man of Latmos--" You will find on the other side all the parts
which should have inverted commas to every line.
I was proposing to travel over the North this summer. There is but one
thing to prevent me.--I know nothing--I have read nothing--and I mean to
follow Solomon's directions, "Get learning--get understanding." I find
earlier days are gone by--I find that I can have no enjoyment in the world
but continual drinking of knowledge. I find there is no worthy pursuit but
the idea of doing some good for the world--Some do it with their
Society--some with their wit--some with their benevolence--some with a
sort of power of conferring pleasure and good-humour on all they meet--and
in a thousand ways, all dutiful to the command of great Nature--there is
but one way for me. The road lies through application, study, and
thought.--I will pursue it; and for that end, purpose retiring for some
years. I have been hovering for some time between an exquisite sense of
the luxurious, and a love for philosophy,--were I calculated for the
former, I should be glad. But as I am not, I shall turn all my soul to the
latter.--My brother Tom is getting better, and I hope I shall see both him
and Reynolds better before I retire from the world. I shall see you soon,
and have some talk about what Books I shall take with me.
Your very sincere friend
JOHN KEATS.
Pray remember me to Hessey Woodhouse and Percy Street.
LI.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Teignmouth, April 27, 1818.
My dear Reynolds--It is an awful while since you have heard from me--I
hope I may not be punished, when I see you well, and so anxious as you
always are for me, with the remembrance of my so seldom writing when you
were so horribly confined. The most unhappy hours in our lives are those
in which we recollect times past to our own blushing--If we are immortal
that must be the Hell. If I must be immortal, I hope it will be after
having taken a little of "that watery labyrinth" in order to forget some
of my school-boy days and others since those.
I have heard from George at different times how slowly you were
recovering--It is a tedious thing--but all Medical Men will tell you how
far a very gradual amendment is preferable; you will be strong after this,
never fear. We are here still enveloped in clouds--I lay awake last night
listening to the Rain with a sense of being drowned and rotted like a
grain of wheat. There is a continual courtesy between the Heavens and the
Earth. The heavens rain down their unwelcomeness, and the Earth sends it
up again to be returned to-morrow. Tom has taken a fancy to a physician
here, Dr. Turton, and I think is getting better--therefore I shall perhaps
remain here some Months. I have written to George for some Books--shall
learn Greek, and very likely Italian--and in other ways prepare myself to
ask Hazlitt in about a year's time the best metaphysical road I can take.
For although I take poetry to be Chief, yet there is something else
wanting to one who passes his life among Books and thoughts on Books--I
long to feast upon old Homer as we have upon Shakspeare, and as I have
lately upon Milton. If you understood Greek, and would read me passages,
now and then, explaining their meaning, 'twould be, from its mistiness,
perhaps, a greater luxury than reading the thing one's self. I shall be
happy when I can do the same for you. I have written for my folio
Shakspeare, in which there are the first few stanzas of my "Pot of Basil."
I have the rest here finished, and will copy the whole out fair shortly,
and George will bring it you--The compliment is paid by us to Boccace,
whether we publish or no: so there is content in this world--_mine_ is
short--you must be deliberate about yours: you must not think of it till
many months after you are quite well:--then put your passion to it, and I
shall be bound up with you in the shadows of Mind, as we are in our
matters of human life. Perhaps a Stanza or two will not be too foreign to
your Sickness.
Were they unhappy then?--It cannot be--
Too many tears for lovers have been shed,
Too many sighs give we to them in fee,
Too much of pity after they are dead,
Too many doleful stories do we see,
Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;
Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse
Over the pathless waves towards him bows.
But, for the general award of love
The little sweet doth kill much bitterness;
Though Dido silent is in under-grove,
And Isabella's was a great distress,
Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove
Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less--
Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.
* * * * *
She wept alone for pleasures not to be;
Sorely she wept until the night came on,
And then, instead of love, O misery!
She brooded o'er the luxury alone:
What might have been too plainly did she see,[61]
And to the silence made a gentle moan,
Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,
And on her couch low murmuring "Where? O where?"
I heard from Rice this morning--very witty--and have just written to
Bailey. Don't you think I am brushing up in the letter way? and being in
for it, you shall hear again from me very shortly:--if you will promise
not to put hand to paper for me until you can do it with a tolerable ease
of health--except it be a line or two. Give my Love to your Mother and
Sisters. Remember me to the Butlers--not forgetting Sarah.
Your affectionate Friend
JOHN KEATS.
LII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Teignmouth, May 3d [1818].
My dear Reynolds--What I complain of is that I have been in so uneasy a
state of Mind as not to be fit to write to an invalid. I cannot write to
any length under a disguised feeling. I should have loaded you with an
addition of gloom, which I am sure you do not want. I am now thank God in
a humour to give you a good groat's worth--for Tom, after a Night without
a Wink of sleep, and over-burthened with fever, has got up after a
refreshing day-sleep and is better than he has been for a long time; and
you I trust have been again round the common without any effect but
refreshment. As to the Matter I hope I can say with Sir Andrew[62] "I have
matter enough in my head" in your favour--And now, in the second place,
for I reckon that I have finished my Imprimis, I am glad you blow up the
weather--all through your letter there is a leaning towards a
climate-curse, and you know what a delicate satisfaction there is in
having a vexation anathematised: one would think there has been growing up