Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends Part 5

You see, Bailey, how independent my Writing has been. Hunt's dissuasion was of no avail--I refused to visit Sh.e.l.ley that I might have my own unfettered scope;--and after all, I shall have the Reputation of Hunt's eleve. His corrections and amputations will by the knowing ones be traced in the Poem. This is, to be sure, the vexation of a day, nor would I say so many words about it to any but those whom I know to have my welfare and reputation at heart. Haydon promised to give directions for those Casts, and you may expect to see them soon, with as many Letters--You will soon hear the dinning of Bells--never mind! you and Gleig[29] will defy the foul fiend--But do not sacrifice your health to Books: do take it kindly and not so voraciously. I am certain if you are your own Physician, your Stomach will resume its proper strength and then what great benefits will follow.--My sister wrote a Letter to me, which I think must be at the post-office--Ax Will to see. My Brother's kindest remembrances to you--we are going to dine at Brown's where I have some hopes of meeting Reynolds.

The little Mercury I have taken has corrected the poison and improved my health--though I feel from my employment that I shall never be again secure in Robustness. Would that you were as well as

Your Sincere friend and brother

JOHN KEATS.

XIX.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.

[Hampstead: about November 1, 1817.]

My dear Bailey--So you have got a Curacy--good, but I suppose you will be obliged to stop among your Oxford favourites during Term time. Never mind.

When do you preach your first sermon?--tell me, for I shall propose to the two R.'s[30] to hear it,--so don't look into any of the old corner oaken pews, for fear of being put out by us. Poor Johnny Moultrie can't be there. He is ill, I expect--but that's neither here nor there. All I can say, I wish him as well through it as I am like to be. For this fortnight I have been confined at Hampstead. Sat.u.r.day evening was my first day in town, when I went to Rice's--as we intend to do every Sat.u.r.day till we know not when. We hit upon an old gent we had known some few years ago, and had a _veiry pleasante daye_. In this world there is no quiet,--nothing but teasing and snubbing and vexation. My brother Tom looked very unwell yesterday, and I am for s.h.i.+pping him off to Lisbon.

Perhaps I s.h.i.+p there with him. I have not seen Mrs. Reynolds since I left you, wherefore my conscience smites me. I think of seeing her to-morrow; have you any message? I hope Gleig came soon after I left. I don't suppose I've written as many lines as you have read volumes, or at least chapters, since I saw you. However, I am in a fair way now to come to a conclusion in at least three weeks, when I a.s.sure you I shall be glad to dismount for a month or two; although I'll keep as tight a rein as possible till then, nor suffer myself to sleep. I will copy for you the opening of the Fourth Book, in which you will see from the manner I had not an opportunity of mentioning any poets, for fear of spoiling the effect of the pa.s.sage by particularising them.

Thus far had I written when I received your last, which made me at the sight of the direction caper for despair; but for one thing I am glad that I have been neglectful, and that is, therefrom I have received a proof of your utmost kindness, which at this present I feel very much, and I wish I had a heart always open to such sensations; but there is no altering a man's nature, and mine must be radically wrong, for it will lie dormant a whole month. This leads me to suppose that there are no men thoroughly wicked, so as never to be self-spiritualised into a kind of sublime misery; but, alas! 'tis but for an hour. He is the only Man "who has kept watch on man's mortality," who has philanthropy enough to overcome the disposition to an indolent enjoyment of intellect, who is brave enough to volunteer for uncomfortable hours. You remember in Hazlitt's essay on commonplace people he says, "they read the Edinburgh and Quarterly, and think as they do." Now, with respect to Wordsworth's "Gipsy," I think he is right, and yet I think Hazlitt is right, and yet I think Wordsworth is rightest. If Wordsworth had not been idle, he had not been without his task; nor had the "Gipsies"--they in the visible world had been as picturesque an object as he in the invisible. The smoke of their fire, their att.i.tudes, their voices, were all in harmony with the evenings. It is a bold thing to say--and I would not say it in print--but it seems to me that if Wordsworth had thought a little deeper at that moment, he would not have written the poem at all. I should judge it to have been written in one of the most comfortable moods of his life--it is a kind of sketchy intellectual landscape, not a search after truth, nor is it fair to attack him on such a subject; for it is with the critic as with the poet; had Hazlitt thought a little deeper, and been in a good temper, he would never have spied out imaginary faults there. The Sunday before last I asked Haydon to dine with me, when I thought of settling all matters with him in regard to Cripps, and let you know about it. Now, although I engaged him a fortnight before, he sent illness as an excuse.

He never will come. I have not been well enough to stand the chance of a wet night, and so have not seen him, nor been able to expurgatorise more masks for you; but I will not speak--your speakers are never doers. Then Reynolds,--every time I see him and mention you, he puts his hand to his head and looks like a son of Niobe's; but he'll write soon.

Rome, you know, was not built in a day. I shall be able, by a little perseverance, to read your letters off-hand. I am afraid your health will suffer from over study before your examination. I think you might regulate the thing according to your own pleasure,--and I would too. They were talking of your being up at Christmas. Will it be before you have pa.s.sed?

There is nothing, my dear Bailey, I should rejoice at more than to see you comfortable with a little Peona wife; an affectionate wife, I have a sort of confidence, would do you a great happiness. May that be one of the many blessings I wish you. Let me be but the one-tenth of one to you, and I shall think it great. My brother George's kindest wishes to you. My dear Bailey, I am,

Your affectionate friend

JOHN KEATS.

I should not like to be pages in your way; when in a tolerable hungry mood you have no mercy. Your teeth are the Rock Tarpeian down which you capsize epic poems like mad. I would not for forty s.h.i.+llings be Coleridge's Lays in your way. I hope you will soon get through this abominable writing in the schools, and be able to keep the terms with more comfort in the hope of retiring to a comfortable and quiet home out of the way of all Hopkinses and black beetles. When you are settled, I will come and take a peep at your church, your house; try whether I shall have grown too l.u.s.ty for my chair by the fireside, and take a peep at my earliest bower. A question is the best beacon towards a little speculation. Then ask me after my health and spirits. This question ratifies in my mind what I have said above. Health and spirits can only belong unalloyed to the selfish man--the man who thinks much of his fellows can never be in spirits. You must forgive, although I have only written three hundred lines; they would have been five, but I have been obliged to go to town. Yesterday I called at Lamb's. St. Jane looked very flush when I first looked in, but was much better before I left.

XX.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.

[_Fragment from an outside sheet: postmark_ London, November 5, 1817.]

... I will speak of something else, or my spleen will get higher and higher--and I am a bearer of the two-edged sword.--I hope you will receive an answer from Haydon soon--if not, Pride! Pride! Pride! I have received no more subscription--but shall soon have a full health, Liberty and leisure to give a good part of my time to him. I will certainly be in time for him. We have promised him one year: let that have elapsed, then do as we think proper. If I did not know how impossible it is, I should say--"do not at this time of disappointments, disturb yourself about others."

There has been a flaming attack upon Hunt in the E_n_dinburgh Magazine. I never read anything so virulent--accusing him of the greatest Crimes, depreciating his Wife, his Poetry, his Habits, his Company, his Conversation. These Philippics are to come out in numbers--called "the c.o.c.kney School of Poetry." There has been but one number published--that on Hunt--to which they have prefixed a motto from one Cornelius Webb Poetaster--who unfortunately was of our party occasionally at Hampstead and took it into his head to write the following,--something about "we'll talk on Wordsworth, Byron, a theme we never tire on;" and so forth till he comes to Hunt and Keats. In the Motto they have put Hunt and Keats in large letters--I have no doubt that the second number was intended for me: but have hopes of its non-appearance, from the following Advertis.e.m.e.nt in last Sunday's Examiner:--"To Z.--The Writer of the Article signed Z., in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for October 1817 is invited to send his address to the printer of the Examiner, in order that Justice may be Executed on the proper person." I don't mind the thing much--but if he should go to such lengths with me as he has done with Hunt, I must infallibly call him to an Account if he be a human being, and appears in Squares and Theatres, where we might possibly meet--I don't relish his abuse....

XXI.--TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE.

[Hampstead, November 1817.]

My dear Dilke--Mrs. Dilke or Mr. Wm. Dilke, whoever of you shall receive this present, have the kindness to send pr. bearer Sibylline Leaves, and your pet.i.tioner shall ever pray as in duty bound.

Given under my hand this Wednesday morning of Novr. 1817.

JOHN KEATS.

Vivant Rex et Regina--amen.

XXII.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY.

[Burford Bridge, November 22, 1817.]

My dear Bailey--I will get over the first part of this (_un_said[31]) Letter as soon as possible, for it relates to the affairs of poor Cripps.--To a Man of your nature such a Letter as Haydon's must have been extremely cutting--What occasions the greater part of the World's Quarrels?--simply this--two Minds meet, and do not understand each other time enough to prevent any shock or surprise at the conduct of either party--As soon as I had known Haydon three days, I had got enough of his Character not to have been surprised at such a Letter as he has hurt you with. Nor, when I knew it, was it a principle with me to drop his acquaintance; although with you it would have been an imperious feeling. I wish you knew all that I think about Genius and the Heart--and yet I think that you are thoroughly acquainted with my innermost breast in that respect, or you could not have known me even thus long, and still hold me worthy to be your dear Friend. In pa.s.sing, however, I must say one thing that has pressed upon me lately, and increased my Humility and capability of submission--and that is this truth--Men of Genius are great as certain ethereal Chemicals operating on the Ma.s.s of neutral intellect--but they have not any individuality, any determined Character--I would call the top and head of those who have a proper self Men of Power.

But I am running my head into a subject which I am certain I could not do justice to under five Years' study, and 3 vols. octavo--and, moreover, I long to be talking about the Imagination--so my dear Bailey, do not think of this unpleasant affair, if possible do not--I defy any harm to come of it--I defy. I shall write to Cripps this week, and request him to tell me all his goings-on from time to time by Letter wherever I may be. It will go on well--so don't because you have suddenly discovered a Coldness in Haydon suffer yourself to be teased--Do not my dear fellow--O! I wish I was as certain of the end of all your troubles as that of your momentary start about the authenticity of the Imagination. I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections, and the truth of Imagination. What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth--whether it existed before or not,--for I have the same idea of all our pa.s.sions as of Love: they are all, in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty. In a Word, you may know my favourite speculation by my first Book, and the little Song I sent in my last, which is a representation from the fancy of the probable mode of operating in these Matters. The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream,--he awoke and found it truth:[32]--I am more zealous in this affair, because I have never yet been able to perceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning--and yet it must be. Can it be that even the greatest Philosopher ever arrived at his Goal without putting aside numerous objections? However it may be, O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts! It is "a Vision in the form of Youth," a shadow of reality to come--And this consideration has further convinced me,--for it has come as auxiliary to another favourite speculation of mine,--that we shall enjoy ourselves hereafter by having what we called happiness on Earth repeated in a finer tone--And yet such a fate can only befall those who delight in Sensation, rather than hunger as you do after Truth. Adam's dream will do here, and seems to be a Conviction that Imagination and its empyreal reflection, is the same as human life and its spiritual repet.i.tion. But, as I was saying, the Simple imaginative Mind may have its rewards in the repet.i.tion of its own silent Working coming continually on the Spirit with a fine Suddenness--to compare great things with small, have you never by being surprised with an old Melody, in a delicious place by a delicious voice, _felt_ over again your very speculations and surmises at the time it first operated on your soul?--do you not remember forming to yourself the Singer's face--more beautiful than it was possible, and yet with the elevation of the Moment you did not think so? Even then you were mounted on the Wings of Imagination, so high that the prototype must be hereafter--that delicious face you will see. What a time! I am continually running away from the subject. Sure this cannot be exactly the Case with a complex mind--one that is imaginative, and at the same time careful of its fruits,--who would exist partly on Sensation, partly on thought--to whom it is necessary that years should bring the philosophic Mind? Such a one I consider yours, and therefore it is necessary to your eternal happiness that you not only drink this old Wine of Heaven, which I shall call the redigestion of our most ethereal Musings upon Earth, but also increase in knowledge and know all things. I am glad to hear that you are in a fair way for Easter. You will soon get through your unpleasant reading, and then!--but the world is full of troubles, and I have not much reason to think myself pestered with many.

I think Jane or Marianne has a better opinion of me than I deserve: for, really and truly, I do not think my Brother's illness connected with mine--you know more of the real Cause than they do; nor have I any chance of being rack'd as you have been. You perhaps at one time thought there was such a thing as worldly happiness to be arrived at, at certain periods of time marked out,--you have of necessity from your disposition been thus led away--I scarcely remember counting upon any Happiness--I look not for it if it be not in the present hour,--nothing startles me beyond the moment. The Setting Sun will always set me to rights, or if a Sparrow come before my Window, I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel.

The first thing that strikes me on hearing a Misfortune having befallen another is this--"Well, it cannot be helped: he will have the pleasure of trying the resources of his Spirit"--and I beg now, my dear Bailey, that hereafter should you observe anything cold in me not to put it to the account of heartlessness, but abstraction--for I a.s.sure you I sometimes feel not the influence of a pa.s.sion or affection during a whole Week--and so long this sometimes continues, I begin to suspect myself, and the genuineness of my feelings at other times--thinking them a few barren Tragedy Tears.

My brother Tom is much improved--he is going to Devons.h.i.+re--whither I shall follow him. At present, I am just arrived at Dorking--to change the Scene--change the Air, and give me a spur to wind up my Poem, of which there are wanting 500 lines. I should have been here a day sooner, but the Reynoldses persuaded me to stop in Town to meet your friend Christie.

There were Rice and Martin--we talked about Ghosts. I will have some Talk with Taylor and let you know,--when please G.o.d I come down at Christmas. I will find that Examiner if possible. My best regards to Gleig, my Brothers' to you and Mrs. Bentley.

Your affectionate Friend

JOHN KEATS.

I want to say much more to you--a few hints will set me going. Direct Burford Bridge near Dorking.

XXIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

[Burford Bridge,] November 22, 1817.

My dear Reynolds--There are two things which tease me here--one of them Cripps, and the other that I cannot go with Tom into Devons.h.i.+re. However, I hope to do my duty to myself in a week or so; and then I'll try what I can do for my neighbour--now, is not this virtuous? On returning to Town I'll damm all Idleness--indeed, in superabundance of employment, I must not be content to run here and there on little two-penny errands, but turn Rakeh.e.l.l, _i.e._ go a masking, or Bailey will think me just as great a Promise Keeper as _he_ thinks you; for myself I do not, and do not remember above one complaint against you for matter o' that. Bailey writes so abominable a hand, to give his Letter a fair reading requires a little time: so I had not seen, when I saw you last, his invitation to Oxford at Christmas. I'll go with you. You know how poorly Rice was. I do not think it was all corporeal,--bodily pain was not used to keep him silent. I'll tell you what; he was hurt at what your Sisters said about his joking with your Mother, he was, soothly to sain. It will all blow over. G.o.d knows, my dear Reynolds, I should not talk any sorrow to you--you must have enough vexations--so I won't any more. If I ever start a rueful subject in a letter to you--blow me! Why don't you?--now I am going to ask you a very silly Question neither you nor anybody else could answer, under a folio, or at least a Pamphlet--you shall judge--why don't you, as I do, look unconcerned at what may be called more particularly Heart-vexations? They never surprise me--lord! a man should have the fine point of his soul taken off to become fit for this world.

I like this place very much. There is Hill and Dale and a little River. I went up Box hill this Evening after the Moon--"you a' seen the Moon"--came down, and wrote some lines. Whenever I am separated from you, and not engaged in a continued Poem, every letter shall bring you a lyric--but I am too anxious for you to enjoy the whole to send you a particle. One of the three books I have with me is Shakspeare's Poems: I never found so many beauties in the sonnets--they seem to be full of fine things said unintentionally--in the intensity of working out conceits. Is this to be borne? Hark ye!

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, Which erst from heat did canopy the head, And Summer's green all girded up in sheaves, Borne on the bier with white and bristly head.

He has left nothing to say about nothing or anything: for look at snails--you know what he says about Snails--you know when he talks about "c.o.c.kled Snails"--well, in one of these sonnets, he says--the chap slips into--no! I lie! this is in the Venus and Adonis: the simile brought it to my Mind.

As the snail, whose tender horns being hit, Shrinks back into his sh.e.l.ly cave with pain, And there all smothered up in shade doth sit, Long after fearing to put forth again; So at his b.l.o.o.d.y view her eyes are fled, Into the deep dark Cabins of her head.