Write me directly and let me know about them-Your Letter shall be answered like an echo.

You must be wondering where I am and what I am about! I am mostly at Hampstead, and about nothing; being in a sort of qui bono temper, not exactly on the road to an epic poem. Nor must you think I have forgotten you. No, I have about every three days been to Abbey's and to the Law[y]ers. Do let me know how you have been getting on, and in what spirits you

are.

You got out gloriously in yesterday's Examiner. What a set of little people we live amongst! I went the other day into an ironmonger's shop-without any change in my sensations-men and tin kettles are much the same in these days-they do not study like children at five and thirty-but they talk like men of twenty. Conversation is not a search after knowledge, but an endeavour at effect.

In this respect two most opposite men, Wordsworth and Hunt, are the same. A friend of mine observed the other day that if Lord Bacon were to make any remark in a party of the present day, the conversation would stop on the sudden. I am convinced of this, and from

this I have come to this resolution-never to write for

the sake of writing or making a poem, but from running over with any little knowledge or experience which many years of reflection may perhaps give me; otherwise I will be dumb. What imagination I have I shall enjoy, and greatly, for I have experienced the satisfaction of having great conceptions without the trouble of sonnetteering. I will not spoil my love of gloom by writing an Ode to Darkness!

With respect to my livelihood, I will not write for it,for I will not run with that most vulgar of all crowds, the literary. Such things I ratify by looking upon myself, and trying myself at lifting mental weights, as it were. am three and twenty, with little knowledge and middling intellect. It is true that in the height of enthusiasm. I have been cheated into some fine passages; but that is not the thing.

I have not been to see you because all my going out has been to town, and that has been a great deal. Write

I have been employed lately in writing to George -I do not send him very short letters, but keep on day after day. There were some young Men I think I told you of who were going to the Settlement: they have changed their minds, and I am disappointed in my ex

pectation of sending Letters by them.-I went lately to the only dance I have been to these twelve months or shall go to for twelve months again—it was to our Brother in laws' cousin's-She gave a dance for her Birthday and I went for the sake of Mrs. Wylie. I am waiting every day to hear from George-I trust there is no harm in the silence: other people are in the same expectation as we are. On looking at your seal I cannot . tell whether it is done or not with a Tassie-it seems to me to be paste. As I went through Leicester Square lately I was going to call and buy you some, but not knowing but you might have some I would not run the chance of buying duplicates. Tell me if you have any or if you would like any-and whether you would rather have motto ones like that with which I seal this letter; or heads of great Men such as Shakspeare, Milton &c.— or fancy pieces of Art; such as Fame, Adonis &c.—those gentry you read of at the end of the English Dictionary. Tell me also if you want any particular Book; or Pencils, or drawing paper-anything but live stock. Though I will not now be very severe on it, remembering how fond I used to be of Goldfinches, Tomtits, Minnows, Mice, Ticklebacks, Dace, Cock salmons and all the whole tribe of the Bushes and the Brooks: but verily they are better in the Trees and the water—though I must confess even now a partiality for a handsome Globe of gold-fish -then I would have it hold 10 pails of water and be fed continually fresh through a cool pipe with another pipe. to let through the floor-well ventilated they would preserve all their beautiful silver and Crimson. Then I would put it before a handsome painted window and shade it all round with myrtles and Japonicas. I should like the window to open onto the Lake of Geneva-and

1 Tassie's imitation gems were very popular in Keats's set.

T

there I'd si
body reading.
and read all day like the picture of some-
The weather now and then begins to feel
like spring; and th
heath again. Mrs. Diffore I have begun my walks on the
e is getting better than she has
been as she has at length taken a Physician's advice.
She ever and anon asks afer you and always bids me
remember her in my Letters
to you. She is going to
leave Hampstead for the sake of educating their son
Charles at the Westminster scho

I) shall leave in the beginning of We (Mr. Brown and
1May; I do not know

d

you

what I shall do or where be all the
next summer. Mrs.
Reynolds has had a sick house;
put they are all well
now. You see what news I can sen
I do we all
live one day like the other as well a
s you do-the only
difference is being sick and well-with the variations
of single and double knocks, and the S tory of a dreadful
fire in the Newspapers. I mentioned M Ir. Brown's name
-yet I do not think I ever said a wo
you. He is a friend of mine of two years standing, with
aird about him to
whom I walked through Scotland: who
has been very
kind to me in many things when I m

woll

st?

assistance and with whom I keep house Jost wanted his
May-you will know him some day. The
young Man who came with me is William
Ever,

till the first of
name of the
Haslam.

Your affectionate Brother

Jolan.

外

ay

My dear Fanny,

XCIX.

To FANNY KEATS.

[Postmark, Hampstead, 24 March 1819.]

It is impossible for me to call on you to-day-for I have particular Business at the other end of the Town this morning, and must be back to Hampstead with all speed to keep a long agreed on appointment. To-morrow I shall see you.

Your affectionate Brother

John

C.

To JOSEPH SEVERN.

My dear Severn,

Wentworth Place Monday-aft. [29 March 1819].

Your note gave me some pain, not on my own account, but on yours. Of course I should never suffer any petty vanity of mine to hinder you in any wise; and therefore I should say 'put the miniature in the exhibition' if only myself was to be hurt. But, will it not hurt you? What good can it do to any future picture. Even a large picture is lost in that canting place-what a drop of water in the ocean is a Miniature. Those who might chance to see it for the most part if they had ever heard of either of us and know what we were and of what years would laugh at the puff of the one and the vanity of the