Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends
she would have made me happy with her hand--however in this you may use
your own discretion. But I must leave joking, and seriously aver, that I
have been very romantic indeed among these Mountains and Lakes. I have got
wet through, day after day--eaten oat-cake, and drank Whisky--walked up to
my knees in Bog--got a sore throat--gone to see Icolmkill and Staffa; met
with wholesome food just here and there as it happened--went up Ben Nevis,
and--_N.B._, came down again. Sometimes when I am rather tired I lean
rather languishingly on a rock, and long for some famous Beauty to get
down from her Palfrey in passing, approach me, with--her saddle-bags, and
give me--a dozen or two capital roastbeef Sandwiches.
When I come into a large town, you know there is no putting one's Knapsack
into one's fob, so the people stare. We have been taken for
Spectacle-vendors, Razor-sellers, Jewellers, travelling linendrapers,
Spies, Excisemen, and many things I have no idea of. When I asked for
letters at Port Patrick, the man asked what regiment? I have had a peep
also at little Ireland. Tell Henry I have not camped quite on the bare
Earth yet, but nearly as bad, in walking through Mull, for the Shepherds'
huts you can scarcely breathe in, for the Smoke which they seem to
endeavour to preserve for smoking on a large scale. Besides riding about
400, we have walked above 600 Miles, and may therefore reckon ourselves as
set out.
I assure you, my dear Madam, that one of the greatest pleasures I shall
have on my return, will be seeing you, and that I shall ever be
Yours, with the greatest respect and sincerity,
JOHN KEATS.
LXVI.--TO FANNY KEATS.
Hampstead, August 18 [1818].
My dear Fanny--I am afraid you will think me very negligent in not having
answered your Letter--I see it is dated June 12. I did not arrive at
Inverness till the 8th of this Month so I am very much concerned at your
being disappointed so long a time. I did not intend to have returned to
London so soon but have a bad sore throat from a cold I caught in the
island of Mull: therefore I thought it best to get home as soon as
possible, and went on board the Smack from Cromarty. We had a nine days'
passage and were landed at London Bridge yesterday. I shall have a good
deal to tell you about Scotland--I would begin here but I have a
confounded toothache. Tom has not been getting better since I left London
and for the last fortnight has been worse than ever--he has been getting a
little better for these two or three days. I shall ask Mr. Abbey to let me
bring you to Hampstead. If Mr. A. should see this Letter tell him that he
still must if he pleases forward the Post Bill to Perth as I have
empowered my fellow traveller to receive it. I have a few Scotch pebbles
for you from the Island of Icolmkill--I am afraid they are rather
shabby--I did not go near the Mountain of Cairn Gorm. I do not know the
Name of George's ship--the Name of the Port he has gone to is Philadelphia
whence he will travel to the Settlement across the Country--I will tell
you all about this when I see you. The Title of my last Book is
Endymion--you shall have one soon.--I would not advise you to play on the
Flageolet--however I will get you one if you please. I will speak to Mr.
Abbey on what you say concerning school. I am sorry for your poor Canary.
You shall have another volume of my first Book. My toothache keeps on so
that I cannot write with any pleasure--all I can say now is that your
Letter is a very nice one without fault and that you will hear from or
see in a few days if his throat will let him,
Your affectionate Brother
JOHN.
LXVII.--TO FANNY KEATS.
Hampstead, Tuesday [August 25, 1818].
My dear Fanny--I have just written to Mr. Abbey to ask him to let you come
and see poor Tom who has lately been much worse. He is better at
present--sends his Love to you and wishes much to see you--I hope he will
shortly--I have not been able to come to Walthamstow on his account as
well as a little Indisposition of my own. I have asked Mr. A. to write
me--if he does not mention anything of it to you, I will tell you what
reasons he has though I do not think he will make any objection. Write me
what you want with a Flageolet and I will get one ready for you by the
time you come.
Your affectionate Brother
JOHN ----.
LXVIII.--TO JANE REYNOLDS.
Well Walk, September 1st [1818].
My dear Jane--Certainly your kind note would rather refresh than trouble
me, and so much the more would your coming if as you say, it could be done
without agitating my Brother too much. Receive on your Hearth our deepest
thanks for your Solicitude concerning us.
I am glad John is not hurt, but gone safe into Devonshire--I shall be in
great expectation of his Letter--but the promise of it in so anxious and
friendly a way I prize more than a hundred. I shall be in town to-day on
some business with my guardian "as was" with scarce a hope of being able
to call on you. For these two last days Tom has been more cheerful: you
shall hear again soon how he will be.
Remember us particularly to your Mother.
Your sincere friend
JOHN KEATS.
LXIX.--TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE.
[Hampstead, September 21 1818.]
My dear Dilke--According to the Wentworth place Bulletin you have left
Brighton much improved: therefore now a few lines will be more of a
pleasure than a bore. I have things to say to you, and would fain begin
upon them in this fourth line: but I have a Mind too well regulated to
proceed upon anything without due preliminary remarks.--You may perhaps
have observed that in the simple process of eating radishes I never begin
at the root but constantly dip the little green head in the salt--that in
the Game of Whist if I have an ace I constantly play it first. So how can
I with any face begin without a dissertation on letter-writing? Yet when I
consider that a sheet of paper contains room only for three pages and a
half, how can I do justice to such a pregnant subject? However, as you
have seen the history of the world stamped as it were by a diminishing
glass in the form of a chronological Map, so will I "with retractile
claws" draw this into the form of a table--whereby it will occupy merely
the remainder of this first page--
Folio--Parsons, Lawyers, Statesmen, Physicians out of
place--ut--Eustace--Thornton--out of practice or on their travels.
Foolscap--1. Superfine--Rich or noble poets--ut Byron. 2. common ut
egomet.
Quarto--Projectors, Patentees, Presidents, Potato growers.
Bath--Boarding schools, and suburbans in general.
Gilt edge--Dandies in general, male, female, and literary.
Octavo or tears--All who make use of a lascivious seal.
Duodec.--May be found for the most part on Milliners' and
Dressmakers' Parlour tables.
Strip--At the Playhouse-doors, or anywhere.
Slip--Being but a variation.
Snip--So called from its size being disguised by a twist.
I suppose you will have heard that Hazlitt has on foot a prosecution
against Blackwood. I dined with him a few days since at Hessey's--there
was not a word said about it, though I understand he is excessively vexed.
Reynolds, by what I hear, is almost over-happy, and Rice is in town. I
have not seen him, nor shall I for some time, as my throat has become
worse after getting well, and I am determined to stop at home till I am
quite well. I was going to Town to-morrow with Mrs. D. but I thought it
best to ask her excuse this morning. I wish I could say Tom was any
better. His identity presses upon me so all day that I am obliged to go
out--and although I intended to have given some time to study alone, I am
obliged to write and plunge into abstract images to ease myself of his
countenance, his voice, and feebleness--so that I live now in a continual
fever. It must be poisonous to life, although I feel well. Imagine "the
hateful siege of contraries"--if I think of fame, of poetry, it seems a
crime to me, and yet I must do so or suffer. I am sorry to give you
pain--I am almost resolved to burn this--but I really have not
self-possession and magnanimity enough to manage the thing
otherwise--after all it may be a nervousness proceeding from the Mercury.
Bailey I hear is gaining his spirits, and he will yet be what I once
thought impossible, a cheerful Man--I think he is not quite so much spoken
of in Little Britain. I forgot to ask Mrs. Dilke if she had anything she
wanted to say immediately to you. This morning look'd so unpromising that
I did not think she would have gone--but I find she has, on sending for
some volumes of Gibbon. I was in a little funk yesterday, for I sent in an
unseal'd note of sham abuse, until I recollected, from what I heard
Charles say, that the servant could neither read nor write--not even to
her Mother as Charles observed. I have just had a Letter from Reynolds--he
is going on gloriously. The following is a translation of a line of
Ronsard--
Love pour'd her beauty into my warm veins.
You have passed your Romance, and I never gave in to it, or else I think
this line a feast for one of your Lovers. How goes it with Brown?
Your sincere friend
JOHN KEATS.
LXX.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[Hampstead, about September 22, 1818.]
My dear Reynolds--Believe me I have rather rejoiced at your happiness than
fretted at your silence. Indeed I am grieved on your account that I am not
at the same time happy--But I conjure you to think at Present of nothing
but pleasure--"Gather the rose, etc."--gorge the honey of life. I pity you
as much that it cannot last for ever, as I do myself now drinking bitters.
Give yourself up to it--you cannot help it--and I have a Consolation in
thinking so. I never was in love--Yet the voice and shape of a Woman has
haunted me these two days[80]--at such a time, when the relief, the
feverous relief of Poetry seems a much less crime--This morning Poetry has
conquered--I have relapsed into those abstractions which are my only
life--I feel escaped from a new strange and threatening sorrow--And I am
thankful for it--There is an awful warmth about my heart like a load of
Immortality.
Poor Tom--that woman--and Poetry were ringing changes in my senses--Now I
am in comparison happy--I am sensible this will distress you--you must
forgive me. Had I known you would have set out so soon I could have sent
you the 'Pot of Basil' for I had copied it out ready.--Here is a free
translation of a Sonnet of Ronsard, which I think will please you--I have
the loan of his works--they have great Beauties.
Nature withheld Cassandra in the skies,
For more adornment, a full thousand years;
She took their cream of Beauty's fairest dyes,
And shap'd and tinted her above all Peers:
Meanwhile Love kept her dearly with his wings,
And underneath their shadow fill'd her eyes
With such a richness that the cloudy Kings
Of high Olympus utter'd slavish sighs.
When from the Heavens I saw her first descend,
My heart took fire, and only burning pains,
They were my pleasures--they my Life's sad end;
Love pour'd her beauty into my warm veins.
* * * * *
* * * * *
I had not the original by me when I wrote it, and did not recollect the
purport of the last lines.
I should have seen Rice ere this--but I am confined by Sawrey's mandate in
the house now, and have as yet only gone out in fear of the damp
night.--You know what an undangerous matter it is. I shall soon be quite
recovered--Your offer I shall remember as though it had even now taken
place in fact--I think it cannot be. Tom is not up yet--I cannot say he is
better. I have not heard from George.
Your affectionate friend