Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends
have been out here for mony a day--I have written to George for the first
stanzas of my Isabel--I shall have them soon, and will copy the whole out
for you.
Your affectionate Friend
JOHN KEATS.
LIII.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.
Hampstead, Thursday [May 28, 1818].
My dear Bailey--I should have answered your Letter on the Moment, if I
could have said yes to your invitation. What hinders me is insuperable: I
will tell it at a little length. You know my Brother George has been out
of employ for some time: it has weighed very much upon him, and driven him
to scheme and turn over things in his Mind. The result has been his
resolution to emigrate to the back Settlements of America, become Farmer
and work with his own hands, after purchasing 14 hundred acres of the
American Government. This for many reasons has met with my entire
Consent--and the chief one is this; he is of too independent and liberal a
Mind to get on in Trade in this Country, in which a generous Man with a
scanty resource must be ruined. I would sooner he should till the ground
than bow to a customer. There is no choice with him: he could not bring
himself to the latter. I would not consent to his going alone;--no--but
that objection is done away with: he will marry before he sets sail a
young lady he has known for several years, of a nature liberal and
high-spirited enough to follow him to the Banks of the Mississippi. He
will set off in a month or six weeks, and you will see how I should wish
to pass that time with him.--And then I must set out on a journey of my
own. Brown and I are going a pedestrian tour through the north of England
and Scotland as far as John o' Grot's. I have this morning such a lethargy
that I cannot write. The reason of my delaying is oftentimes from this
feeling,--I wait for a proper temper. Now you ask for an immediate answer,
I do not like to wait even till to-morrow. However, I am now so depressed
that I have not an idea to put to paper--my hand feels like lead--and yet
it is an unpleasant numbness; it does not take away the pain of Existence.
I don't know what to write.
Monday [June 1].
You see how I have delayed; and even now I have but a confused idea of
what I should be about. My intellect must be in a degenerating state--it
must be--for when I should be writing about--God knows what--I am
troubling you with moods of my own mind, or rather body, for mind there is
none. I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick
to come up to the top--I know very well 'tis all nonsense--In a short time
I hope I shall be in a temper to feel sensibly your mention of my book. In
vain have I waited till Monday to have any Interest in that or anything
else. I feel no spur at my Brother's going to America, and am almost
stony-hearted about his wedding. All this will blow over--All I am sorry
for is having to write to you in such a time--but I cannot force my
letters in a hotbed. I could not feel comfortable in making sentences for
you. I am your debtor--I must ever remain so--nor do I wish to be clear of
any Rational debt: there is a comfort in throwing oneself on the charity
of one's friends--'tis like the albatross sleeping on its wings. I will be
to you wine in the cellar, and the more modestly, or rather, indolently, I
retire into the backward bin, the more Falerne will I be at the drinking.
There is one thing I must mention--my Brother talks of sailing in a
fortnight--if so I will most probably be with you a week before I set out
for Scotland. The middle of your first page should be sufficient to rouse
me. What I said is true, and I have dreamt of your mention of it, and my
not answering it has weighed on me since. If I come, I will bring your
letter, and hear more fully your sentiments on one or two points. I will
call about the Lectures at Taylor's, and at Little Britain, to-morrow.
Yesterday I dined with Hazlitt, Barnes, and Wilkie, at Haydon's. The topic
was the Duke of Wellington--very amusingly pro-and-con'd. Reynolds has
been getting much better; and Rice may begin to crow, for he got a little
so-so at a party of his, and was none the worse for it the next morning. I
hope I shall soon see you, for we must have many new thoughts and feelings
to analyse, and to discover whether a little more knowledge has not made
us more ignorant.
Yours affectionately
JOHN KEATS.
LIV.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.
London [June 10, 1818].
My dear Bailey--I have been very much gratified and very much hurt by your
letters in the Oxford Paper:[66] because independent of that unlawful and
mortal feeling of pleasure at praise, there is a glory in enthusiasm; and
because the world is malignant enough to chuckle at the most honourable
Simplicity. Yes, on my soul, my dear Bailey, you are too simple for the
world--and that Idea makes me sick of it. How is it that by extreme
opposites we have, as it were, got discontented nerves? You have all your
life (I think so) believed everybody. I have suspected everybody. And,
although you have been so deceived, you make a simple appeal--the world
has something else to do, and I am glad of it--Were it in my choice, I
would reject a Petrarchal coronation--on account of my dying day, and
because women have cancers. I should not by rights speak in this tone to
you for it is an incendiary spirit that would do so. Yet I am not old
enough or magnanimous enough to annihilate self--and it would perhaps be
paying you an ill compliment. I was in hopes some little time back to be
able to relieve your dulness by my spirits--to point out things in the
world worth your enjoyment--and now I am never alone without rejoicing
that there is such a thing as death--without placing my ultimate in the
glory of dying for a great human purpose. Perhaps if my affairs were in a
different state, I should not have written the above--you shall judge: I
have two brothers; one is driven, by the "burden of Society," to America;
the other with an exquisite love of life, is in a lingering state--My love
for my Brothers, from the early loss of our Parents, and even from earlier
misfortunes,[67] has grown into an affection "passing the love of women."
I have been ill-tempered with them--I have vexed them--but the thought of
them has always stifled the impression that any woman might otherwise have
made upon me. I have a sister too, and may not follow them either to
America or to the grave. Life must be undergone, and I certainly derive
some consolation from the thought of writing one or two more poems before
it ceases.
I have heard some hints of your retiring to Scotland--I should like to
know your feeling on it--it seems rather remote. Perhaps Gleig will have a
duty near you. I am not certain whether I shall be able to go any journey,
on account of my Brother Tom, and a little indisposition of my own. If I
do not you shall see me soon, if _no_ on my return or I'll quarter myself
on you next winter. I had known my sister-in-law some time before she was
my sister, and was very fond of her. I like her better and better. She is
the most disinterested woman I ever knew--that is to say, she goes beyond
degree in it. To see an entirely disinterested girl quite happy is the
most pleasant and extraordinary thing in the world--It depends upon a
thousand circumstances--On my word it is extraordinary. Women must want
Imagination, and they may thank God for it; and so may we, that a delicate
being can feel happy without any sense of crime. It puzzles me, and I have
no sort of logic to comfort me--I shall think it over. I am not at home,
and your letter being there I cannot look it over to answer any
particular--only I must say I feel that passage of Dante. If I take any
book with me it shall be those minute volumes of Carey, for they will go
into the aptest corner.
Reynolds is getting, I may say, robust, his illness has been of service to
him--like every one just recovered, he is high-spirited--I hear also good
accounts of Rice. With respect to domestic literature, the Edinburgh
Magazine, in another blow-up against Hunt, calls me "the amiable Mister
Keats"--and I have more than a laurel from the Quarterly Reviewers for
they have smothered me in "Foliage." I want to read you my "Pot of
Basil"--if you go to Scotland, I should much like to read it there to you,
among the snows of next winter. My Brothers' remembrances to you.
Your affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.
LV.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.
[Hampstead,] Sunday Evening [June 21, 1818].
My dear Taylor--I am sorry I have not had time to call and wish you health
till my return--Really I have been hard run these last three
days--However, au revoir, God keep us all well! I start to-morrow Morning.
My brother Tom will I am afraid be lonely. I can scarce ask a loan of
books for him, since I still keep those you lent me a year ago. If I am
overweening, you will I know be indulgent. Therefore when you shall write,
do send him some you think will be most amusing--he will be careful in
returning them. Let him have one of my books bound. I am ashamed to
catalogue these messages. There is but one more, which ought to go for
nothing as there is a lady concerned. I promised Mrs. Reynolds one of my
books bound. As I cannot write in it let the opposite[68] be pasted in
'prythee. Remember me to Percy St.--Tell Hilton that one gratification on
my return will be to find him engaged on a history piece to his own
content--And tell Dewint I shall become a disputant on the landscape--Bow
for me very genteelly to Mrs. D. or she will not admit your diploma.
Remember me to Hessey, saying I hope he'll _Cary_ his point. I would not
forget Woodhouse. Adieu!
Your sincere friend
JOHN O' GROTS.
LVI.--TO THOMAS KEATS.
Keswick, June 29th [1818].
My dear Tom--I cannot make my Journal as distinct and actual as I could
wish, from having been engaged in writing to George, and therefore I must
tell you without circumstance that we proceeded from Ambleside to Rydal,
saw the Waterfalls there, and called on Wordsworth, who was not at home,
nor was any one of his family. I wrote a note and left it on the
mantel-piece. Thence on we came to the foot of Helvellyn, where we slept,
but could not ascend it for the mist. I must mention that from Rydal we
passed Thirlswater, and a fine pass in the Mountains--from Helvellyn we
came to Keswick on Derwent Water. The approach to Derwent Water surpassed
Windermere--it is richly wooded, and shut in with rich-toned Mountains.
From Helvellyn to Keswick was eight miles to Breakfast, after which we
took a complete circuit of the Lake, going about ten miles, and seeing on
our way the Fall of Lowdore. I had an easy climb among the streams, about
the fragments of Rocks and should have got I think to the summit, but
unfortunately I was damped by slipping one leg into a squashy hole. There
is no great body of water, but the accompaniment is delightful; for it
oozes out from a cleft in perpendicular Rocks, all fledged with Ash and
other beautiful trees.[69] It is a strange thing how they got there. At
the south end of the Lake, the Mountains of Borrowdale are perhaps as fine
as anything we have seen. On our return from this circuit, we ordered
dinner, and set forth about a mile and a half on the Penrith road, to see
the Druid temple. We had a fag up hill, rather too near dinner-time, which
was rendered void by the gratification of seeing those aged stones on a
gentle rise in the midst of the Mountains, which at that time darkened all
around, except at the fresh opening of the Vale of St. John. We went to
bed rather fatigued, but not so much so as to hinder us getting up this
morning to mount Skiddaw. It promised all along to be fair, and we had
fagged and tugged nearly to the top, when, at half-past six, there came a