Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends
gained by it, what a thing to be in the mouth of Fame,--that at last the
idea has grown so monstrously beyond my seeming power of attainment, that
the other day I nearly consented with myself to drop into a Phaethon. Yet
'tis a disgrace to fail, even in a huge attempt; and at this moment I
drive the thought from me. I began my poem about a fortnight since, and
have done some every day, except travelling ones. Perhaps I may have done
a good deal for the time, but it appears such a pin's point to me, that I
will not copy any out. When I consider that so many of these pin-points go
to form a bodkin-point (God send I end not my life with a bare bodkin, in
its modern sense!), and that it requires a thousand bodkins to make a
spear bright enough to throw any light to posterity, I see nothing but
continual uphill journeying. Now is there anything more unpleasant (it may
come among the thousand and one) than to be so journeying and to miss the
goal at last? But I intend to whistle all these cogitations into the sea,
where I hope they will breed storms violent enough to block up all exit
from Russia. Does Shelley go on telling strange stories of the deaths of
kings?[18] Tell him, there are strange stories of the deaths of poets.
Some have died before they were conceived. "How do you make that out,
Master Vellum?" Does Mrs. S. cut bread and butter as neatly as ever? Tell
her to procure some fatal scissors, and cut the thread of life of all
to-be-disappointed poets. Does Mrs. Hunt tear linen as straight as ever?
Tell her to tear from the book of life all blank leaves. Remember me to
them all; to Miss Kent and the little ones all.
Your sincere Friend
JOHN KEATS _alias_ JUNKETS.
You shall hear where we move.
X.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
Margate, Saturday Eve [May 10, 1817].
My dear Haydon,
"Let Fame, that all pant after in their lives,
Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,
And so grace us in the disgrace of death:
When spite of cormorant devouring Time
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That Honour which shall bate his Scythe's keen edge
And make us heirs of all eternity."[19]
To think that I have no right to couple myself with you in this speech
would be death to me, so I have e'en written it, and I pray God that our
"brazen tombs" be nigh neighbours. It cannot be long first; the "endeavour
of this present breath" will soon be over, and yet it is as well to
breathe freely during our sojourn--it is as well as if you have not been
teased with that Money affair, that bill-pestilence. However, I must think
that difficulties nerve the Spirit of a Man--they make our Prime Objects a
Refuge as well as a Passion. The Trumpet of Fame is as a tower of
Strength, the ambitious bloweth it and is safe. I suppose, by your telling
me not to give way to forebodings, George has mentioned to you what I have
lately said in my Letters to him--truth is I have been in such a state of
Mind as to read over my Lines and hate them. I am one that "gathers
Samphire, dreadful trade"--the Cliff of Poesy towers above me--yet when
Tom who meets with some of Pope's Homer in Plutarch's Lives reads some of
those to me they seem like Mice to mine. I read and write about eight
hours a day. There is an old saying "well begun is half done"--'tis a bad
one. I would use instead, "Not begun at all till half done;" so according
to that I have not begun my Poem and consequently (a priori) can say
nothing about it. Thank God! I do begin arduously where I leave off,
notwithstanding occasional depressions; and I hope for the support of a
High Power while I climb this little eminence, and especially in my Years
of more momentous Labour. I remember your saying that you had notions of a
good Genius presiding over you. I have of late had the same thought, for
things which I do half at Random are afterwards confirmed by my judgment
in a dozen features of Propriety. Is it too daring to fancy Shakspeare
this Presider? When in the Isle of Wight I met with a Shakspeare in the
Passage of the House at which I lodged--it comes nearer to my idea of him
than any I have seen--I was but there a Week, yet the old woman made me
take it with me though I went off in a hurry. Do you not think this is
ominous of good? I am glad you say every man of great views is at times
tormented as I am.
Sunday after [May 11].
This Morning I received a letter from George by which it appears that
Money Troubles are to follow us up for some time to come--perhaps for
always--these vexations are a great hindrance to one--they are not like
Envy and detraction stimulants to further exertion as being immediately
relative and reflected on at the same time with the prime object--but
rather like a nettle leaf or two in your bed. So now I revoke my Promise
of finishing my Poem by the Autumn which I should have done had I gone on
as I have done--but I cannot write while my spirit is fevered in a
contrary direction and I am now sure of having plenty of it this Summer.
At this moment I am in no enviable Situation--I feel that I am not in a
Mood to write any to-day; and it appears that the loss of it is the
beginning of all sorts of irregularities. I am extremely glad that a time
must come when everything will leave not a wrack behind. You tell me never
to despair--I wish it was as easy for me to observe the saying--truth is I
have a horrid Morbidity of Temperament which has shown itself at
intervals--it is I have no doubt the greatest Enemy and stumbling-block I
have to fear--I may even say that it is likely to be the cause of my
disappointment. However every ill has its share of good--this very bane
would at any time enable me to look with an obstinate eye on the Devil
Himself--aye to be as proud of being the lowest of the human race as
Alfred could be in being of the highest. I feel confident I should have
been a rebel angel had the opportunity been mine. I am very sure that you
do love me as your very Brother--I have seen it in your continual anxiety
for me--and I assure you that your welfare and fame is and will be a chief
pleasure to me all my Life. I know no one but you who can be fully
sensible of the turmoil and anxiety, the sacrifice of all what is called
comfort, the readiness to measure time by what is done and to die in six
hours could plans be brought to conclusions--the looking upon the Sun, the
Moon, the Stars, the Earth and its contents, as materials to form greater
things--that is to say ethereal things--but here I am talking like a
Madman,--greater things than our Creator himself made!!
I wrote to Hunt yesterday--scarcely know what I said in it. I could not
talk about Poetry in the way I should have liked for I was not in humor
with either his or mine. His self-delusions are very lamentable--they have
enticed him into a Situation which I should be less eager after than that
of a galley Slave--what you observe thereon is very true must be in time.
Perhaps it is a self-delusion to say so--but I think I could not be
deceived in the manner that Hunt is--may I die to-morrow if I am to be.
There is no greater Sin after the seven deadly than to flatter oneself
into an idea of being a great Poet--or one of those beings who are
privileged to wear out their Lives in the pursuit of Honor--how
comfortable a feel it is to feel that such a Crime must bring its heavy
Penalty? That if one be a Self-deluder accounts must be balanced? I am
glad you are hard at Work--'t will now soon be done--I long to see
Wordsworth's as well as to have mine in:[20] but I would rather not show
my face in Town till the end of the Year--if that will be time enough--if
not I shall be disappointed if you do not write for me even when you think
best. I never quite despair and I read Shakspeare--indeed I shall I think
never read any other Book much. Now this might lead me into a long Confab
but I desist. I am very near agreeing with Hazlitt that Shakspeare is
enough for us. By the by what a tremendous Southean article his last
was--I wish he had left out "grey hairs." It was very gratifying to meet
your remarks on the manuscript--I was reading Anthony and Cleopatra when I
got the Paper and there are several Passages applicable to the events you
commentate. You say that he arrived by degrees and not by any single
struggle to the height of his ambition--and that his Life had been as
common in particulars as other Men's. Shakspeare makes Enobarb say--
Where's Antony?
_Eros._--He's walking in the garden, and _spurns
The rush that lies_ before him; cries, Fool, Lepidus!
In the same scene we find--
Let determined things
To destiny hold unbewailed their way.
Dolabella says of Anthony's Messenger,
An argument that he is pluck'd when hither
He sends so poor a pinion of his wing.
Then again--
_Eno._--I see Men's Judgments are
A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
To suffer all alike.
The following applies well to Bertrand[21]--
Yet he that can endure
To follow with allegiance a fallen Lord,
Does conquer him that did his Master conquer,
And earns a place i' the story.
But how differently does Buonaparte bear his fate from Anthony!
'Tis good, too, that the Duke of Wellington has a good Word or so in the
Examiner. A Man ought to have the Fame he deserves--and I begin to think
that detracting from him as well as from Wordsworth is the same thing. I
wish he had a little more taste--and did not in that respect "deal in
Lieutenantry." You should have heard from me before this--but in the first
place I did not like to do so before I had got a little way in the First
Book, and in the next as G. told me you were going to write I delayed till
I had heard from you. Give my Respects the next time you write to the
North and also to John Hunt. Remember me to Reynolds and tell him to
write. Ay, and when you send Westward tell your Sister that I mentioned
her in this. So now in the name of Shakspeare, Raphael and all our Saints,
I commend you to the care of heaven!
Your everlasting Friend
JOHN KEATS.
XI.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.
Margate, May 16, 1817.
My dear Sirs--I am extremely indebted to you for your liberality in the
shape of manufactured rag, value L20, and shall immediately proceed to
destroy some of the minor heads of that hydra the dun; to conquer which
the knight need have no Sword Shield Cuirass, Cuisses Herbadgeon Spear
Casque Greaves Paldrons spurs Chevron or any other scaly commodity, but
he need only take the Bank-note of Faith and Cash of Salvation, and set
out against the monster, invoking the aid of no Archimago or Urganda, but
finger me the paper, light as the Sibyl's leaves in Virgil, whereat the
fiend skulks off with his tail between his legs. Touch him with this
enchanted paper, and he whips you his head away as fast as a snail's
horn--but then the horrid propensity he has to put it up again has
discouraged many very valiant Knights. He is such a never-ending
still-beginning sort of a body--like my landlady of the Bell. I should
conjecture that the very spright that "the green sour ringlets makes
Whereof the ewe not bites" had manufactured it of the dew fallen on said
sour ringlets. I think I could make a nice little allegorical poem, called
"The Dun," where we would have the Castle of Carelessness, the drawbridge
of credit, Sir Novelty Fashion's expedition against the City of Tailors,
etc. etc. I went day by day at my poem for a Month--at the end of which
time the other day I found my Brain so over-wrought that I had neither
rhyme nor reason in it--so was obliged to give up for a few days. I hope
soon to be able to resume my work--I have endeavoured to do so once or