Thursday [December 31]. (I will date when I finish.) — I received a Note from Haslam yesterday asking if my letter is readynow this is only the second sheet notwithstanding all my promises. But you must reflect what hindrances I have had. However on sealing this I shall have nothing to prevent my proceeding in a gradual journal, which will increase in a Month to a considerable size. I will insert any little pieces I may write though I will not give any extracts from my large poem which is scarce began. I want to hear very much whether Poetry and literature in general has gained or lost interest with you and what sort of writing is of the highest gust with you now. With what sensation do you read Fielding? and do not Hogarth's pictures seem an old thing to you? Yet you are very little more removed from general association than I am recollect that no Man can live but in one society at a time his enjoyment in the different states of human society must depend upon the Powers of his Mind -- that is you can imagine a Roman triumph or an Olympic game as well as I can. We with our bodily eyes see but the fashion and Manners of one country for one age- - and then we die. Now to me manners and customs long since passed whether among the Babylonians or the Bactrians are as real, or even more real than those among which I now live - My thoughts have turned lately this way The more we know the more inadequacy we find in the world to satisfy us - this is an old observation; but I have made up my Mind never to take anything for granted - but even to examine the truth of the commonest proverbs - This however is true. Mrs. Tighe and Beattie once delighted me -now I see through them and can find nothing in them but weakness, and yet how many they still delight! Perhaps a superior being may look upon Shakspeare in the same light is it possible? No — This same inadequacy is discovered (forgive me, little George, you know I don't mean to put you in the mess) in Women with few exceptions - the Dress Maker, the blue Stocking, and the most charming sentimentalist differ but in a slight degree and are equally smokeable. But I will go no further I may be speaking sacrilegiously and on my word I have thought so little that I have not one opinion upon anything except in matters of taste I never can feel certain of any truth but from a clear perception of its Beauty and I find myself very young minded even in that perceptive power which I hope will increase. A year ago I could not understand in the slightest degree Raphael's cartoons - - now I begin to read them a little And how did I learn to do so? By seeing something done in quite an opposite spirit - I mean a picture of Guido's in which all the Saints, instead of that heroic simplicity and unaffected grandeur which they inherit from Raphael, had each of them both in countenance and gesture all the canting, solemn, melodra matic mawkishness of Mackenzie's father Nicholas. When I was last at Haydon's I looked over a Book of Prints taken from the fresco of the Church at Milan, the name of which I forget — in it are comprised Specimens of the first and second age of art in Italy. I do not think I ever had a greater treat out of Shakspeare. Full of Romance and the most tender feeling-magnificence of draperies beyond any I ever saw, not excepting Raphael's. But Grotesque to a curious pitch - yet still making up a fine whole — even finer to me than more accomplish'd works -as there was left so much room for Imagination. I have not heard one of this last course of Hazlitt's lectures. They were upon 'Wit and Humour,' 'the English comic writers.' Saturday, Jan3 2nd [1819]. Yesterday Mr. and Mrs. D. and myself dined at Mrs. Brawne's nothing particu lar passed. I never intend hereafter to spend any time with Ladies unless they are handsome you lose time to no purpose. For that reason I shall beg leave to decline going again to Redall's or Butler's or any Squad where a fine feature cannot be mustered among them all - and where all the evening's amusement consists in saying 'your good health, your good health, and YOUR good health- - and (O I beg your pardon) yours, Miss -,' and such thing not even dull enough to keep one awake— With respect to amiable speaking I can read- let my eyes be fed or I'll never go out to dinner anywhere. Perhaps you may have heard of the dinner given to Thos. Moore in Dublin, because I have the account here by me in the Philadelphia democratic paper. The most pleasant thing that occurred was the speech Mr. Tom made on his Father's health being drank. I am afraid a great part of my Letters are filled up with promises and what I will do rather than any great deal written - but here I say once for all — that circumstances prevented me from keeping my promise in my last, but now I affirm that as there will be nothing to hinder me I will keep a journal for you. That I have not yet done so you would forgive if you knew how many hours I have been repenting of my neglect. For I have no thought pervading me so stantly and frequently as that of you Poem cannot frequently drive it awayyou will retard it much more than you could by taking up my time if you were in England. I never forget you except after seeing now and then some beautiful woman - con - my but that is a fever- the thought of you both is a passion with me, but for the most part a calm one. I asked Dilke for a few lines for you he has promised them - I shall send what I have written to Haslam on Monday Morning what I can get into another sheet to-morrow I will - There are one or two little poems you might like. I have given up snuff very nearly quite Dilke has promised to sit with me this evening, I wish he would come this minute [The poem entitled 'Fancy,' pp. 124, 125, is here inserted.] I did not think this had been so long a Poem. I have another not so long-but as it will more conveniently be copied on the other side I will just put down here some observations on Caleb Williams by Hazlitt I meant to say St. Leon, for although he has mentioned all the Novels of Godwin very freely I do not.quote them, but this only on account of its being a specimen of his usual abrupt manner, and fiery laconicism. He says of St. Leon 'He is a limb torn off society. In possession of eternal youth and beauty he can feel no love; surrounded, tantalised, and tormented with riches, he can do no good. The faces of Men pass before him as in a speculum; but he is attached to them by no common tie of sympathy or suffering. He is thrown back into himself and his own thoughts. He lives in the solitude of his own breast without wife or child or friend or Enemy in the world. This is the solitude of the soul, not of woods or trees or mountains - but the desert of society - the waste and oblivion of the heart. He is himself alone. His existence is purely intellectual, and is therefore intolerable to one who has felt the rapture of affection, or the anguish of woe.' As I am about it I might as well give you his character of Godwin as a Romancer: 'Whoever else is, it is pretty clear that the author of Caleb Williams is not the author of Waverley. Nothing can be more distinct or excellent in their several ways than these two writers. If the one owes almost everything to external observations and traditional character, the other owes everything to internal conception and contemplation of the possible workings of the human Mind. There is little knowledge of the world, little variety, neither an eye for the picturesque nor a talent for the humorous in Caleb Williams, for instance, but you cannot doubt for a moment of the originality of the work and the force of the conception. The impression made upon the reader is the exact measure of the strength of the author's genius. For the effect both in Caleb Williams and St. Leon is entirely made out, not by facts nor dates, by blackletter, or magazine learning, by transcript nor record, but by intense and patient study of the human heart, and by an imagination projecting itself into certain situations, and capable of working up its imaginary feelings to the height of reality.' These are specimens of a sort of rondeau which I think I shall become partial tobecause you have one idea amplified with greater ease and more delight and freedom than in the sonnet. It is my intention to wait a few years before I publish any minor poems-and then I hope to have a volume of some worth- and which those people will relish who cannot bear the burthen of a long poem. In my journal I intend to copy the poems I write the days they are written There is just room, I see, in this page to copy a little thing I wrote off to some Music as it was playing — ['I had a dove and the sweet dove died,' p. 125]. Sunday [January 3]. I have been dining with Dilke to-dayHe is up to his Ears in Walpole's letters. Mr. Manker is there, and I have come round to see if I can conjure up anything for you. Kirkman came down to see me this morning his family has been very badly off lately. He told me of a villainous trick of his Uncle William in Newgate Street, who became sole Creditor to his father under pretence of serving him, and put an execution on his own Sister's goods. He went in to the family at Portsmouth; conversed with them, went out and sent in the Sherriff's officer. He tells me too of abominable behaviour of Archer to Caroline Mathew-Archer has lived nearly at the Mathews these two years; he has been amusing Caroline - and now he has written a Letter to Mrs. M. declining, on pretence of inability to support a wife as he would wish, all thoughts of marriage. What is the worst is Caroline is 27 years old. It is an abominable matter. He has called upon me twice lately I was out both times. What can it be for? There is a letter to-day in the Examiner to the Electors of Westminster on Mr. Hobhouse's account. In it there is a good character of Cobbett - I have not the paper by me or I would copy it. I do not think I have mentioned the discovery of an African Kingdom — the account is much the same as the first accounts of Mexico-all magnificenceThere is a Book being written about it. I will read it and give you the cream in my next. The romance we have heard upon it runs thus: They have window frames of gold-100,000 infantry-human sacrifices. The Gentleman who is the Adventurer has his wife with him she, I am told, is a beautiful little sylphid woman — her husband was to have been sacrificed to their Gods and was led through a Chamber filled with different instruments of torture with privilege to choose what death he would die, without their having a thought of his aversion to such a death, they considering it a supreme distinction. However he was let off, and became a favourite with the King, who at last openly patronised him, though at first on account of the Jealousy of his Ministers he was wont to hold conversations with his Majesty in the dark middle of the night. All this sounds a little Bluebeardish-but I hope it is true. There is another thing I must mention of the momentous kind; - but I must mind my periods in it - Mrs. Dilke has two Cats -a Mother and a Daughter - now the Mother is a tabby and the daughter a black and white like the spotted child. Now it appears to me, for the doors of both houses or are opened frequently, so that there is a complete thoroughfare for both Cats (there being no board up to the contrary), they may one and several of them come into my room ad libitum. But no the Tabby only comes whether from sympathy for Ann the Maid or me I cannot tellwhether Brown has left behind him any atmospheric spirit of Maidenhood I cannot tell. The Cat is not an old Maid herself— her daughter is a proof of it — I have questioned her- I have look'd at the lines of her paw - I have felt her pulseto no purpose. Why should the old Cat come to me? I ask myself—and myself has not a word to answer. It may come to light some day; if it does you shall hear of it. would wish sent out Kirkman this morning promised to write a few lines to you and send them to Haslam. I do not think I have anything to say in the Business way. You will let me know what you would wish done with your property in England what things you But I am quite in the dark about what you are doing If I do not hear soon I shall put on my wings and be after you. I will in my next, and after I have seen your next letter, tell you my own particular idea of America. Your next letter will be the key by which I shall open your hearts and see what spaces want filling with any particular information Whether the affairs of Europe are more or less interesting to you whether you would like to hear of the Theatres of the bear Garden of the Boxers the Painters, the Lectures the Dress - The progress of Dandyism - The Progress of Courtship or the fate of Mary Millar being a full, true, and très particular account of Miss M.'s ten Suitors - How the first tried the effect of swearing; the second of stammering; the third of whispering; the fourth of sonnets the fifth of Spanish leather boots, the sixth of flattering her body the seventh of flattering her mind the eighth of flattering himself - the ninth stuck to the Mother the tenth kissed the Chambermaid and told her to tell her Mistress - But he was soon discharged, his reading led him into an error; he could not sport the Sir Lucius to any advantage. And now for this time I bid you good-bye I have been thinking of these sheets so long that I appear in closing them to take my leave of you — but that is not it - I shall immediately as I send this off begin my journal — when some days I shall write no more than 10 lines and others 10 times as much. Mrs. Dilke is knocking at the wall for Tea is ready — I will tell you what sort of a tea it is and then bid you Good-bye. Wentworth Place, Friday Morn [December 18, 1818]. MY DEAR WOODHOUSE- I am greatly obliged to you. I must needs feel flattered by making an impression on a set of ladies. I should be content to do so by meretricious romance verse, if they alone, and not men, were to judge. I should like very much to know those ladies — though look here, Woodhouse - I have a new leaf to turn over: I must work; I must read; I must write. I am unable to afford time for new acquaintances. I am scarcely able to do my duty to those I have. Leave the matter to chance. But do not forget to give my remembrances to your cousin. Yours most sincerely JOHN KEATS. 83. TO MRS. REYNOLDS Wentworth Place, Tuesd. [December 22, 1818]. MY DEAR MRS. REYNOLDS When I left you yesterday, 't was with the conviction that you thought I had received no previous invitation for Christmas day: the truth is I had, and had accepted it under the conviction that I should be in Hampshire at the time: else believe me I should not have done so, but kept in Mind my old friends. I will not speak of the proportion of pleasure I may receive at different Houses - that never enters my head you may take for a truth that I would have given up even what I did see to be a greater pleasure, for the sake of old acquaintanceship — time is nothing two years are as long as twenty. MY DEAR HAYDON - Upon my Soul I never felt your going out of the room at all and believe me I never rhodomontade anywhere but in your Company — my general Life in Society is silence. I feel in myself all the vices of a Poet, irritability, love of effect and admiration — and influenced by such devils I may at times say more ridiculous things than I am aware of- but I will put a stop to that in a manner I have long resolved upon I will buy a gold ring and put it on my finger — and from that time a Man of superior head shall never have occasion to pity me, or one of inferior Nunskull to chuckle at me. I am certainly more for greatness in a shade than in the open day I am speaking as a mortal - I should say I value more the privilege of seeing great things in loneliness than the fame of a Prophet. Yet here I am sinning so I will turn to a thing I have thought on more - I mean your means till your picture be finished: -- - - not only now but for this year and half have I thought of it. Believe me Haydon I have that sort of fire in my heart that would sacrifice everything I have to your service I speak without any reserve — I know you would do so for me - I open my heart to you in a few words. I will do this sooner than you shall be distressed: but let me be the last stay- Ask the rich lovers of Art first I'll tell you why I have a little money which may enable me to study, and to travel for three or four years. I never expect to get anything by my Books: and moreover I wish to avoid publishingI admire Human Nature but I do not like Men. I should like to compose things honourable to Man-but not fingerable over by Men. So I am anxious to exist without troubling the printer's devil or drawing upon Men's or Women's admiration - in which great solitude I hope God will give me strength to rejoice. Try the long but do not sell your drawings or I shall consider it a breach of friendship. I am sorry I was not at home when Salmon [Haydon's servant] called. Do write and let me know all your present whys and wherefores. purses |