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Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends

John Keats

closing my last letter to you. My dear Brown, your affectionate friend JOHN KEATS. CLXII.--TO MRS. BRAWNE. October 24 [1820], Naples Harbour. My dear Mrs. Brawne--A few words will tell you what sort of a Passage we had, and what situation we are in, and few they must be on account of the Quarantine, our Letters being liable to be opened for the purpose of fumigation at the Health Office. We have to remain in the vessel ten days and are at present shut in a tier of ships. The sea air has been beneficial to me about to as great an extent as squally weather and bad accommodations and provisions has done harm. So I am about as I was. Give my Love to Fanny and tell her, if I were well there is enough in this Port of Naples to fill a quire of Paper--but it looks like a dream--every man who can row his boat and walk and talk seems a different being from myself. I do not feel in the world. It has been unfortunate for me that one of the Passengers is a young Lady in a Consumption--her imprudence has vexed me very much--the knowledge of her complaints--the flushings in her face, all her bad symptoms have preyed upon me--they would have done so had I been in good health. Severn now is a very good fellow but his nerves are too strong to be hurt by other people's illnesses--I remember poor Rice wore me in the same way in the Isle of Wight--I shall feel a load off me when the Lady vanishes out of my sight. It is impossible to describe exactly in what state of health I am--at this moment I am suffering from indigestion very much, which makes such stuff of this Letter. I would always wish you to think me a little worse than I really am; not being of a sanguine disposition I am likely to succeed. If I do not recover your regret will be softened--if I do your pleasure will be doubled. I dare not fix my Mind upon Fanny, I have not dared to think of her. The only comfort I have had that way has been in thinking for hours together of having the knife she gave me put in a silver-case--the hair in a Locket--and the Pocket Book in a gold net. Show her this. I dare say no more. Yet you must not believe I am so ill as this Letter may look, for if ever there was a person born without the faculty of hoping I am he. Severn is writing to Haslam, and I have just asked him to request Haslam to send you his account of my health. O what an account I could give you of the Bay of Naples if I could once more feel myself a Citizen of this world--I feel a spirit in my Brain would lay it forth pleasantly--O what a misery it is to have an intellect in splints! My Love again to Fanny--tell Tootts I wish I could pitch her a basket of grapes--and tell Sam the fellows catch here with a line a little fish much like an anchovy, pull them up fast. Remember me to Mr. and Mrs. Dilke--mention to Brown that I wrote him a letter at Portsmouth which I did not send and am in doubt if he ever will see it. My dear Mrs. Brawne, yours sincerely and affectionate JOHN KEATS. Good bye Fanny! God bless you. CLXIII.--TO CHARLES BROWN. Naples, November 1 [1820]. My dear Brown--Yesterday we were let out of quarantine, during which my health suffered more from bad air and the stifled cabin than it had done the whole voyage. The fresh air revived me a little, and I hope I am well enough this morning to write to you a short calm letter;--if that can be called one, in which I am afraid to speak of what I would fainest dwell upon. As I have gone thus far into it, I must go on a little;--perhaps it may relieve the load of WRETCHEDNESS which presses upon me. The persuasion that I shall see her no more will kill me. My dear Brown, I should have had her when I was in health, and I should have remained well. I can bear to die--I cannot bear to leave her. Oh, God! God! God! Every thing I have in my trunks that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear. The silk lining she put in my travelling cap scalds my head. My imagination is horribly vivid about her--I see her--I hear her. There is nothing in the world of sufficient interest to divert me from her a moment. This was the case when I was in England; I cannot recollect, without shuddering, the time that I was a prisoner at Hunt's, and used to keep my eyes fixed on Hampstead all day. Then there was a good hope of seeing her again--Now!--O that I could be buried near where she lives! I am afraid to write to her--to receive a letter from her--to see her handwriting would break my heart--even to hear of her anyhow, to see her name written, would be more than I can bear. My dear Brown, what am I to do? Where can I look for consolation or ease? If I had any chance of recovery, this passion would kill me. Indeed, through the whole of my illness, both at your house and at Kentish Town, this fever has never ceased wearing me out. When you write to me, which you will do immediately, write to Rome (poste restante)--if she is well and happy, put a mark thus +; if---- Remember me to all. I will endeavour to bear my miseries patiently. A person in my state of health should not have such miseries to bear. Write a short note to my sister, saying you have heard from me. Severn is very well. If I were in better health I would urge your coming to Rome. I fear there is no one can give me any comfort. Is there any news of George? O that something fortunate had ever happened to me or my brothers!--then I might hope,--but despair is forced upon me as a habit. My dear Brown, for my sake be her advocate for ever. I cannot say a word about Naples; I do not feel at all concerned in the thousand novelties around me. I am afraid to write to her--I should like her to know that I do not forget her. Oh, Brown I have coals of fire in my breast--It surprises me that the human heart is capable of containing and bearing so much misery. Was I born for this end? God bless her, and her mother, and my sister, and George, and his wife, and you, and all! Your ever affectionate friend JOHN KEATS. [Thursday, November 2.] I was a day too early for the Courier. He sets out now. I have been more calm to-day, though in a half dread of not continuing so. I said nothing of my health; I know nothing of it; you will hear Severn's account from Haslam. I must leave off. You bring my thoughts too near to Fanny. God bless you! CLXIV.--TO CHARLES BROWN. Rome, November 30, 1820. My dear Brown--'Tis the most difficult thing in the world to me to write a letter. My stomach continues so bad, that I feel it worse on opening any book,--yet I am much better than I was in quarantine. Then I am afraid to encounter the pro-ing and con-ing of anything interesting to me in England. I have an habitual feeling of my real life having passed, and that I am leading a posthumous existence. God knows how it would have been--but it appears to me--however, I will not speak of that subject. I must have been at Bedhampton nearly at the time you were writing to me from Chichester--how unfortunate--and to pass on the river too! There was my star predominant! I cannot answer anything in your letter, which followed me from Naples to Rome, because I am afraid to look it over again. I am so weak (in mind) that I cannot bear the sight of any handwriting of a friend I love so much as I do you. Yet I ride the little horse, and at my worst even in quarantine, summoned up more puns, in a sort of desperation, in one week than in any year of my life. There is one thought enough to kill me; I have been well, healthy, alert, etc., walking with her, and now--the knowledge of contrast, feeling for light and shade, all that information (primitive sense) necessary for a poem, are great enemies to the recovery of the stomach. There, you rogue, I put you to the torture; but you must bring your philosophy to bear, as I do mine, really, or how should I be able to live? Dr. Clark is very attentive to me; he says, there is very little the matter with my lungs, but my stomach, he says, is very bad. I am well disappointed in hearing good news from George, for it runs in my head we shall all die young. I have not written to Reynolds yet, which he must think very neglectful; being anxious to send him a good account of my health, I have delayed it from week to week. If I recover, I will do all in my power to correct the mistakes made during sickness; and if I should not, all my faults will be forgiven. Severn is very well, though he leads so dull a life with me. Remember me to all friends, and tell Haslam I should not have left London without taking leave of him, but from being so low in body and mind. Write to George as soon as you receive this, and tell him how I am, as far as you can guess; and also a note to my sister--who walks about my imagination like a ghost--she is so like Tom. I can scarcely bid you good-bye, even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow. God bless you! JOHN KEATS.[120] INDEX NOTE.--The first lines of all verses quoted in the letters are given here under the first word. An asterisk is prefixed to the names of those to whom letters are written, the letters themselves, as well as the addresses from which Keats wrote, being given under the heading "Letters." Abbey, Miss, 122 Abbey, Mr., 52 and note, 58, 119, 123, 161, 162, 182, 185, 216, 218, 232, 268, 271, 273, 274, 284, 290, 294, 297, 311, 313, 315, 318, 331, 336, 347, 350, 354, 356, 359. Referred to as "my guardian," 267 Abbey, Mrs., 51, 123, 197, 262, 271, 359 Abbeys, the, 363 Abbot, 231 Abelard, Sandt, like a young, 300 Academy, the Royal, 329 Achievement, a man of, needs negative capability, 48 Achilles, 21, 80, 180 Adam's dream (_Paradise Lost_, Bk. viii.), compared to imagination, 41, 42 _Adonais_, xix. Adonis, 263 _Adonis, Venus and_, quoted, 45 _Agnes, St., Eve of_, 217, 221, 280, 288, 333, 362 note; an alteration in it censured, 360 Agriculture, influence of, 287 _seq._ "A haunting Music sole perhaps and lone," etc., 289 "Ah, ken ye what I met the day," etc., 127 Aladdin, 223 Alcibiades, 95 Alexander, the emperor, 174 Alfred (Exeter Paper), the, 171 Alfred, King, 15, 80 Alice Fell, 249 "All gentle folks who owe a grudge," etc., 137 _All's Well that ends Well_, quoted, 33 and note Alston's "Uriel," 76 _Altam and his Wife_, by Ollier, 197 Amena (and Wells), 239, 245 America, George K. goes to, 109 Americans distrusted, 312 _Anatomy of Melancholy_, quoted, 296, 297 Andrew, Sir [Aguecheek], misquoted, 103 and note Andrews, Miss, 341 _Annals of Fine Arts_, contributed to, 272, note Ann or Anne, the maid, 209, 310 Anthony, St., 309 Anthony, Mark, compared to Buonaparte, 17 _Anthony and Cleopatra_, 95; quoted, 16, 17 Apollo, 74, 82 Apuleius, the Platonist, 259 Archer, 190, 208 Archimage, 249 Archimago, 18 Archimedes, 20 Aretino, 313 Ariadne, 223 Ariosto, 95 note, 289, 313, 333 Art, the excellence of, its intensity, 47 Arthur's Seat, 136 "As Hermes once took to his feathers light," 246 Athenaeum, Dilke connected with, xviii. A[ubrey], Mrs. M[ary], verses to, by Mrs. Philips, 29 Audubon, 291, 312, 341 Audubon, Mrs., 341, 344 Augustan age, 259 Aunt, J. K.'s, 274. _See_ Mrs. Jennings Autograph originals of J. K.'s letters, xii. xiii. _Autumn, Ode to_, 320 and note Ayr described, 133 B., Miss. _See_ Brown, Miss Babel, the tower of, 23, 29 Bacchus, 223 Bacon, Lord, 174 Bagpipe, effect of, 138 *Bailey, Benjamin, xii., 26, 32, 44, 52, 53, 84, 97, 102, 109, 132, 135, 146, 164, 190, 355; his character, 27, 54; his curacy, 36;