: 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 M 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. 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 tablewhereby 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 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. 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 1—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. 1 Poor Tom-that woman-and Poetry were ringing changes in my senses-Now I am in comparison happyI am sensible this will distress you-you must forgive Had I known you would have set out so soon I me. 1 Miss Charlotte Cox, an East-Indian cousin of the Reynoldsesthe "Charmian" described more fully in Letter LXXIII. |