CLXXVI. TO FANNY BRAWNE. [Wentworth Place, Sweetest Fanny, You fear, sometimes, I do not love you so much as you wish? My dear Girl I love you ever and ever and without reserve. The more I have known you the more have I lov'd. In every way—even my jealousies have been agonies of Love, in the hottest fit I ever had I would have died for you. I have vex'd you too much. But for Love! Can I help it? You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest ; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. When you pass'd my window home yesterday, I was fill'd with as much admiration as if I had then seen you for the first time. You uttered a half complaint once that I only lov'd your Beauty.1 Have I nothing else then to love in you but that? Do not I see a heart naturally furnish'd with wings imprison itself with me? No ill prospect has been able to turn your thoughts a moment from me. This perhaps should be as much a subject of sorrow as joy-but I will not talk of that. Even if you did not love me I could not help an entire devotion to you: how much more deeply then must I feel for you knowing you love me. My Mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it. I never felt my Mind repose upon anything with complete and undistracted enjoyment-upon no person but you. When you are in the room my thoughts never fly out of window: you always concentrate my whole senses. The anxiety shown about our Loves in your last note is an immense pleasure to me: however you must not suffer such speculations to molest you any more: nor will I any more believe you can have the least pique against me. Brown is gone out--but here is Mrs. Wylie-when she is gone I shall be awake for you.—Remembrances to your Mother. Your affectionate J. Keats. 1 See the letter of the 8th of July 1819 from the Isle of Wight (page 71, ante) in which Keats answers some remarks of Miss Brawne's on this subject. 2 The significant but indicates that the absence of Brown was still, as was natural, more or less a condition of the presence of Miss Brawne. That Keats had, however, or thought he had, some reason for this condition, beyond the mere delicacy of lovers, is dimly shadowed by the cold My dear Fanny with which in Letter CLXXIII the condition was first expressly prescribed, and more than shadowed by the agonized expression of a morbid sensibility in two letters which will be found further on. Probably a man in sound health would have found the cause trivial enough. CLXXVII. To CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE, My dear Dilke, [Postmark, Hampstead, 4 March 1820.] Since I saw you I have been gradually, too gradually perhaps, improving; and though under an interdict with respect to animal food, living upon pseudo victuals, Brown says I have pick'd up a little flesh lately. If I can keep off inflammation for the next six weeks I trust I shall do very well. You certainly should have been at Martin's dinner for making an index is surely as dull work as engraving. Have you heard that the Bookseller is going to tie himself to the manger eat or not as he pleases. He says Rice shall have his foot on the fender notwithstanding. Reynolds is going to sail on the salt seas. Brown has been mightily progressing with his Hogarth.1 A damn'd melancholy picture it is, and during the first week of my illness it gave me a psalm-singing nightmare, that made me almost faint away in my sleep. I know I am better, for I can bear the Picture. I have experienced a specimen of great politeness from Mr. Barry Cornwall. He has sent me his books. Some time ago he had given his first publish'd book to Hunt for me; Hunt forgot to give it and Barry Cornwall thinking I had received it must have though[t] me [a] very neglectful fellow.2 Notwithstanding he sent me his second book and on my explaining that I had not received his first he sent me that also. I am sorry to see by Mrs. D.'s note that she has been so unwell with the spasms. Does she continue the Medicines that benefited her so much? 1 See pages 154, ante. 2 The following appears to be the letter sent by Procter on this occasion: the date would be the 22nd or 24th of February 1820. It appeared in the Memoir of Mr. Dilke in 'The Papers of a Critic': My Dear Sir, There I send you "Marcian Colonna," which think as well of as you can. is, I think (at least in the second and third parts), a stronger infusion of poetry in it than in the Sicilian story, but I may be mistaken. I am looking forward with some impatience to the publication of your book. Will you write my name in an early copy, and send it to me?* Is not this a "prodigious bold request?" I hope that you are getting quite well. Believe me very sincerely yours, *This was written before I saw you the other day. Some time ago I scribbled half a dozen lines, under the idea of continuing and completing a poem, to be called "The Deluge," what do you think of the subject? The Greek deluge. I mean. I wish you would set me the example of leaving off the word "Sir." To John Keats, Esq. I am afraid not. Remember me to her and say I shall not expect her at Hampstead next week unless the Weather changes for the warmer. It is better to run no chance of a supernumer[ar]y cold in March. As for you you must come. You must improve in your penmanship; your writing is like the speaking of a child of three years old, very understandable to its father but to no one else. The worst is it looks well-no that is not the worst-the worst is, it is worse than Bailey's. Bailey's looks illegible and may perchance be read; yours looks very legible, and may perchance not be read. I would endeavour to give you a fac-simile of your word Thistlewood if I were not minded on the instant that Lord Chesterfield has done some such thing to his son. Now I would not bathe in the same River with Lord C. though I had the upper hand of the stream. I am grieved that in writing and speaking it is necessary to make use of the same particles as he did. Cobbet[t] is expected to come in. O that I had two double plumpers for him. The ministry are not so inimical to him but-they-it would like to put him out of Coventry. Casting my eye on the other side I see a long word written in a most vile manner,1 unbecoming a Critic. You must recollect I have served no apprenticeship to old plays. If the only copies of the Greek and Latin authors had been made by you, Bailey and Haydon they were as good as lost. It has been said that the Character of a Man may be known by his handwriting—if the Character of the age may be known by the average goodness of said, what a slovenly age we live in. Look at Queen Elizabeth's Latin exercises and blush. Look at Milton's hand. I can't say a word for Shakespeare's. My dear Fanny, I am much better this morning than I was a week ago: indeed I improve a little every day. I rely upon taking a walk with you upon the first of May in the mean time undergoing a babylonish captivity I shall not be jew enough to hang up my harp upon a willow, but rather endeavour to clear up my arrears in versifying, and with returning health begin upon something new pursuant to which resolution it will be necessary to have 1 Doubtless the word 'supernumerary,' from which Keats had dropped the penultimate ar. The next sentence has reference, I presume, to Dilke's continuation of Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays. 1 my or rather Taylor's manuscript, which you, if you please, will send by my Messenger either today or tomorrow. Is Mr. D.2 with you today? You appeared very much fatigued last night : you must look a little brighter this morning. I shall not suffer my little girl ever to be obscured like glass breath'd upon, but always bright as it is her nature to. Feeding upon sham victuals and sitting by the fire will completely annul me. I have no need of an enchanted wax figure to duplicate me, for I am melting in my proper person before the fire.3 If you meet with anything better (worse) than common in your Magazines let me see it. 3 My dearest Fanny, whe[ne]ver you know me to be alone, come, no matter what day. Why will you go out this weather? I shall not fatigue myself with writing too much I promise you. Brown says I am getting stouter. I rest well and from last night do not remember any thing horrid in my dream, which is a capital symptom, for any organic derangement always occasions a Phantasmagoria. It will be a nice idle amusement to hunt after a motto for my Book which I will have if lucky enough to hit upon a fit one-not intending to write a preface. I fear I am too late with my note-you are gone out-you will be as cold as a topsail in a north latitude--I advise you to furl yourself and come in a doors. Good bye Love. J. K. 1 Presumably the manuscript of 'Lamia, Isabella' &c., then about to be sent to press. 2I suppose the reference is to Mr. Dilke. 3 The superstition that a person's death might be compassed by melting a waxen image of the person before a fire was not so well known in Keats's day as now. It is just such a phase of imaginative psychology as would have appealed powerfully to the mind of the author of 'The Eve of St. Agnes' and 'The Eve of St. Mark'; and it is noteworthy that Dante Gabriel Rossetti embodied this superstition in one of his finest poems, 'Sister Helen,' memorable alike for its forcible expression of the terrible and for its artistic beauty. CLXXX. To FANNY BRAWNE, [Wentworth Place, My dearest Fanny, I slept well last night and am no worse this morning for it. Day by day if I am not deceived I get a more unrestrain'd use of my Chest. The nearer a racer gets to the Goal the more his anxiety becomes; so I lingering upon the borders of health feel my impatience increase. Perhaps on your account I have imagined my illness more serious than it is: how horrid was the chance of slipping into the ground instead of into your arms-the difference is amazing Love. Death must come at last; Man must die, as Shallow says; but before that is my fate I fain2 would try what more pleasures than you have given, so sweet a creature as you can give. Let me have another op[p]ortunity of years before me and I will not die without being remember'd. Take care of yourself dear that we may both be well in the Summer. I do not at all fatigue myself with writing, having merely to put a line or two here and there, a Task which would worry a stout state of the body and mind, but which just suits me as I can do no more. Your affectionate J. K. CLXXXI. To FANNY BRAWNE. [Wentworth Place, My dearest Fanny, Though I shall see you in so short a time I cannot forbear sending you a few lines. You say I did not give you yesterday a minute account of my health. To-day I have left off the Medicine which I took to keep the pulse down and I find I can do very well without it, which is a very favourable sign, as it shows that there is no inflammation remaining. You think I may be wearied at night you say: it is my best time; I am at my best about eight o'Clock. I received a Note from Mr. Procter3 to-day. He says he cannot pay me a visit this 1 "Certain, 't is certain; certain to all; all shall die. 2 In the original, 'feign.' very sure, very sure death, as the Psalmist saith, is 3 Misspelt 'Proctor' in the original. Probably Procter's note was a rejoinder to what Keats had written "to make him sensible of the esteem" he had "for his kindness" in sending 'Marcian Colonna' &c. (see page 159). |