Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends Part 21

Tom's love to you.

LXXV.--TO f.a.n.n.y KEATS.

[Hampstead, October 26, 1818.]

My dear f.a.n.n.y--I called on Mr. Abbey in the beginning of last Week: when he seemed averse to letting you come again from having heard that you had been to other places besides Well Walk. I do not mean to say you did wrongly in speaking of it, for there should rightly be no objection to such things: but you know with what People we are obliged in the course of Childhood to a.s.sociate, whose conduct forces us into duplicity and falsehood to them. To the worst of People we should be openhearted: but it is as well as things are to be prudent in making any communication to any one, that may throw an impediment in the way of any of the little pleasures you may have. I do not recommend duplicity but prudence with such people. Perhaps I am talking too deeply for you: if you do not now, you will understand what I mean in the course of a few years. I think poor Tom is a little Better: he sends his love to you. I shall call on Mr.

Abbey to-morrow: when I hope to settle when to see you again. Mrs. Dilke has been for some time at Brighton--she is expected home in a day or two.

She will be pleased I am sure with your present. I will try for permission for you to remain here all Night should Mrs. D. return in time.

Your affectionate Brother

JOHN ----.

LXXVI.--TO RICHARD WOODHOUSE.

[Hampstead, October 27, 1818.]

My dear Woodhouse--Your letter gave me great satisfaction, more on account of its friendliness than any relish of that matter in it which is accounted so acceptable to the "genus irritabile." The best answer I can give you is in a clerklike manner to make some observations on two princ.i.p.al points which seem to point like indices into the midst of the whole pro and con about genius, and views, and achievements, and ambition, et caetera.--1st. As to the poetical Character itself (I mean that sort, of which, if I am anything, I am a member; that sort distinguished from the Wordsworthian, or egotistical Sublime; which is a thing per se, and stands alone,) it is not itself--it has no self--It is everything and nothing--It has no character--it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated--It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the chameleon poet. It does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things, any more than from its taste for the bright one, because they both end in speculation. A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence, because he has no Ident.i.ty--he is continually in for and filling some other body. The Sun,--the Moon,--the Sea, and men and women, who are creatures of impulse, are poetical, and have about them an unchangeable attribute; the poet has none, no ident.i.ty--he is certainly the most unpoetical of all G.o.d's creatures.--If then he has no self, and if I am a poet, where is the wonder that I should say I would write no more? Might I not at that very instant have been cogitating on the Characters of Saturn and Ops?[83] It is a wretched thing to confess; but it is a very fact, that not one word I ever utter can be taken for granted as an opinion growing out of my identical Nature--how can it, when I have no Nature? When I am in a room with people, if I ever am free from speculating on creations of my own brain, then, not myself goes home to myself, but the ident.i.ty of every one in the room begins to press upon me, so that I am in a very little time annihilated--not only among men; it would be the same in a nursery of Children. I know not whether I make myself wholly understood: I hope enough so to let you see that no dependence is to be placed on what I said that day.

In the 2d place, I will speak of my views, and of the life I purpose to myself. I am ambitious of doing the world some good: if I should be spared, that may be the work of maturer years--in the interval I will a.s.say to reach to as high a summit in poetry as the nerve bestowed upon me will suffer. The faint conceptions I have of poems to come bring the blood frequently into my forehead--All I hope is, that I may not lose all interest in human affairs--that the solitary Indifference I feel for applause, even from the finest spirits, will not blunt any acuteness of vision I may have. I do not think it will. I feel a.s.sured I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night's labours should be burnt every Morning, and no eye ever s.h.i.+ne upon them. But even now I am perhaps not speaking from myself, but from some Character in whose soul I now live.

I am sure however that this next sentence is from myself--I feel your anxiety, good opinion, and friends.h.i.+p, in the highest degree, and am

Yours most sincerely

JOHN KEATS.

LXXVII.--TO f.a.n.n.y KEATS.

[Hampstead, November 5, 1818.]

My dear f.a.n.n.y--I have seen Mr. Abbey three times about you, and have not been able to get his consent. He says that once more between this and the Holidays will be sufficient. What can I do? I should have been at Walthamstow several times, but I am not able to leave Tom for so long a time as that would take me. Poor Tom has been rather better these 4 last days in consequence of obtaining a little rest a nights. Write to me as often as you can, and believe that I would do anything to give you any pleasure--we must as yet wait patiently.

Your affectionate Brother

JOHN ----.

LXXVIII.--TO JAMES RICE.

Well Walk [Hampstead,] Nov{r.} 24, [1818].

My dear Rice--Your amende Honorable I must call "un surcroit d'Amitie,"

for I am not at all sensible of anything but that you were unfortunately engaged and I was unfortunately in a hurry. I completely understand your feeling in this mistake, and find in it that balance of comfort which remains after regretting your uneasiness. I have long made up my mind to take for granted the genuine-heartedness of my friends, notwithstanding any temporary ambiguousness in their behaviour or their tongues, nothing of which however I had the least scent of this morning. I say completely understand; for I am everlastingly getting my mind into such-like painful trammels--and am even at this moment suffering under them in the case of a friend of ours.--I will tell you two most unfortunate and parallel slips--it seems down-right pre-intention--A friend says to me, "Keats, I shall go and see Severn this week."--"Ah! (says I) you want him to take your Portrait."--And again, "Keats," says a friend, "when will you come to town again?"--"I will," says I, "let you have the MS. next week." In both these cases I appeared to attribute an interested motive to each of my friends' questions--the first made him flush, the second made him look angry:--and yet I am innocent in both cases; my mind leapt over every interval, to what I saw was per se a pleasant subject with him. You see I have no allowances to make--you see how far I am from supposing you could show me any neglect. I very much regret the long time I have been obliged to exile from you: for I have one or two rather pleasant occasions to confer upon with you. What I have heard from George is favourable--I expect a letter from the Settlement itself.

Your sincere friend

JOHN KEATS.

I cannot give any good news of Tom.

LXXIX.--TO f.a.n.n.y KEATS.

[Hampstead,] Tuesday Morn [December 1, 1818].

My dear f.a.n.n.y--Poor Tom has been so bad that I have delayed your visit hither--as it would be so painful to you both. I cannot say he is any better this morning--he is in a very dangerous state--I have scarce any hopes of him. Keep up your spirits for me my dear f.a.n.n.y--repose entirely in

Your affectionate Brother

JOHN.

Lx.x.x.--TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS.

[Hampstead,[84] about Dec{r.} 18, 1818.]

My dear Brother and Sister--You will have been prepared before this reaches you for the worst news you could have, nay, if Haslam's letter arrives in proper time, I have a consolation in thinking that the first shock will be past before you receive this. The last days of poor Tom were of the most distressing nature; but his last moments were not so painful, and his very last was without a pang. I will not enter into any parsonic comments on death--yet the common observations of the commonest people on death are as true as their proverbs. I have scarce a doubt of immortality of some nature or other--neither had Tom. My friends have been exceedingly kind to me every one of them--Brown detained me at his House. I suppose no one could have had their time made smoother than mine has been. During poor Tom's illness I was not able to write and since his death the task of beginning has been a hindrance to me. Within this last Week I have been everywhere--and I will tell you as nearly as possible how all go on. With Dilke and Brown I am quite thick--with Brown indeed I am going to domesticate--that is, we shall keep house together. I shall have the front parlour and he the back one, by which I shall avoid the noise of Bentley's Children--and be the better able to go on with my Studies--which have been greatly interrupted lately, so that I have not the shadow of an idea of a book in my head, and my pen seems to have grown too gouty for sense. How are you going on now? The goings on of the world makes me dizzy--There you are with Birkbeck--here I am with Brown--sometimes I fancy an immense separation, and sometimes as at present, a direct communication of Spirit with you. That will be one of the grandeurs of immortality--There will be no s.p.a.ce, and consequently the only commerce between spirits will be by their intelligence of each other--when they will completely understand each other, while we in this world merely comprehend each other in different degrees--the higher the degree of good so higher is our Love and friends.h.i.+p. I have been so little used to writing lately that I am afraid you will not smoke my meaning so I will give an example--Suppose Brown or Haslam or any one whom I understand in the next degree to what I do you, were in America, they would be so much the farther from me in proportion as their ident.i.ty was less impressed upon me. Now the reason why I do not feel at the present moment so far from you is that I remember your Ways and Manners and actions; I know your manner of thinking, your manner of feeling: I know what shape your joy or your sorrow would take; I know the manner of your walking, standing, sauntering, sitting down, laughing, punning, and every action so truly that you seem near to me. You will remember me in the same manner--and the more when I tell you that I shall read a pa.s.sage of Shakspeare every Sunday at ten o'Clock--you read one at the same time, and we shall be as near each other as blind bodies can be in the same room.

I saw your Mother the day before yesterday, and intend now frequently to pa.s.s half a day with her--she seem'd tolerably well. I called in Henrietta Street and so was speaking with your Mother about Miss Millar--we had a chat about Heiresses--she told me I think of 7 or eight dying Swains.

Charles was not at home. I think I have heard a little more talk about Miss Keasle--all I know of her is she had a new sort of shoe on of bright leather like our Knapsacks. Miss Millar gave me one of her confounded pinches. _N.B._ did not like it. Mrs. Dilke went with me to see f.a.n.n.y last week, and Haslam went with me last Sunday. She was well--she gets a little plumper and had a little Colour. On Sunday I brought from her a present of facescreens and a work-bag for Mrs. D.--they were really very pretty. From Walthamstow we walked to Bethnal green--where I felt so tired from my long walk that I was obliged to go to Bed at ten. Mr. and Mrs. Keasle were there. Haslam has been excessively kind, and his anxiety about you is great; I never meet him but we have some chat thereon. He is always doing me some good turn--he gave me this thin paper[85] for the purpose of writing to you. I have been pa.s.sing an hour this morning with Mr.

Lewis--he wants news of you very much. Haydon was here yesterday--he amused us much by speaking of young Hoppner who went with Captain Ross on a voyage of discovery to the Poles. The s.h.i.+p was sometimes entirely surrounded with vast mountains and crags of ice, and in a few Minutes not a particle was to be seen all round the Horizon. Once they met with so vast a Ma.s.s that they gave themselves over for lost; their last resource was in meeting it with the Bowsprit, which they did, and split it asunder and glided through it as it parted, for a great distance--one Mile and more. Their eyes were so fatigued with the eternal dazzle and whiteness that they lay down on their backs upon deck to relieve their sight on the blue sky. Hoppner describes his dreadful weariness at the continual day--the sun ever moving in a circle round above their heads--so pressing upon him that he could not rid himself of the sensation even in the dark Hold of the s.h.i.+p. The Esquimaux are described as the most wretched of Beings--they float from their summer to their winter residences and back again like white Bears on the ice floats. They seem never to have washed, and so when their features move the red skin shows beneath the cracking peel of dirt. They had no notion of any inhabitants in the World but themselves. The sailors who had not seen a Star for some time, when they came again southwards on the hailing of the first revision of one, all ran upon deck with feelings of the most joyful nature. Haydon's eyes will not suffer him to proceed with his Picture--his Physician tells him he must remain two months more, inactive. Hunt keeps on in his old way--I am completely tired of it all. He has lately publish'd a Pocket Book called the literary Pocket-Book--full of the most sickening stuff you can imagine. Reynolds is well; he has become an Edinburgh Reviewer. I have not heard from Bailey. Rice I have seen very little of lately--and I am very sorry for it. The Miss R's. are all as usual. Archer above all people called on me one day--he wanted some information by my means, from Hunt and Haydon, concerning some Man they knew. I got him what he wanted, but know none of the whys and wherefores. Poor Kirkman left Wentworth Place one evening about half-past eight and was stopped, beaten and robbed of his Watch in Pond Street. I saw him a few days since; he had not recovered from his bruises. I called on Hazlitt the day I went to Romney Street--I gave John Hunt extracts from your letters--he has taken no notice. I have seen Lamb lately--Brown and I were taken by Hunt to Novello's--there we were devastated and excruciated with bad and repeated puns--Brown don't want to go again. We went the other evening to see Brutus a new Tragedy by Howard Payne, an American--Kean was excellent--the play was very bad. It is the first time I have been since I went with you to the Lyceum.

Mrs. Brawne who took Brown's house for the Summer, still resides in Hampstead. She is a very nice woman, and her daughter senior is I think beautiful and elegant, graceful, silly, fas.h.i.+onable and strange. We have a little tiff now and then--and she behaves a little better, or I must have sheered off.[86] I find by a sidelong report from your Mother that I am to be invited to Miss Millar's birthday dance. Shall I dance with Miss Waldegrave? Eh! I shall be obliged to s.h.i.+rk a good many there. I shall be the only Dandy there--and indeed I merely comply with the invitation that the party may not be entirely dest.i.tute of a specimen of that race. I shall appear in a complete dress of purple, Hat and all--with a list of the beauties I have conquered embroidered round my Calves.

Thursday [December 24].