CLXXXIX. TO FANNY KEATS. Rd Abbey Esqre Walthamstow. My dear Fanny, [Postmark, Hampstead, 21 April 1820.] I have been slowly improving since I wrote last. The Doctor assures me that there is nothing the matter with me except nervous irritability and a general weakness of the whole system which has proceeded from my anxiety of mind of late years and the too great excitement of poetry. Mr. Brown is going to Scotland by the Smack, and I am advised for change of exercise and air to accompany him and give myself the chance of benefit from a Voyage. Mr. H. Wylie call'd on me yesterday with a letter from George to his mother: George is safe at the other side of the water, perhaps by this time arrived at his home. I wish you were coming to town that I might see you; if you should be coming write to me, as it is quite a trouble to get by the coaches to Walthamstow. Should you not come to Town I must see you before I sail, at Walthamstow. They tell me I must study lines and tangents and squares and angles 1 to put a little Ballast into my mind. We shall be going in a fortnight and therefore you will see me within that space. I expected sooner, but I have not been able to venture to walk across the country. Now the fine Weather is come you will not find your time so irksome. You must be sensible how much I regret not being able to alleviate the unpleasantness of your situation, but trust my dear Fanny that better times are in wait for you. 2 1 I went for the first time into the City the day before yesterday, for before I was very disinclined to encounter the scuffle, more from nervousness than real illness; which notwithstanding I should not have suffered to conquer me if I had not made up my mind not to go to Scotland, but to remove to 1In the original letter 'ancles' is inadvertently written for 'angles.' 2 In the manuscript, 'fine.' Kentish Town till Mr. Brown returns. Kentish Town is a mile nearer to you than Hampstead-I have been getting gradually better but am not so well as to trust myself to the casualties of rain and sleeping out which I am liable to in visiting you. Mr. Brown goes on Saturday, and by that time I shall have settled in my new lodging, when I will certainly venture to you. You will forgive me I hope when I confess that I endeavour to think of you as little as possible and to let George dwell upon my mind but slightly. The reason being that I am afraid to ruminate on any thing which has the shade of difficulty or melancholy in it, as that sort of cogitation is so pernicious to health, and it is only by health that I can be enabled to alleviate your situation in future. For some time you must do what you can of yourself for relief; and bear your mind up with the consciousness that your situation cannot last for ever, and that for the present you may console yourself against the reproaches of Mrs. Abbey. Whatever obligations you may have had to her you have none now, as she has reproached you. I do not know what property you have, but I will enquire into it: be sure however that beyond the obligation that a lodger may have to a landlord you have none to Mrs. Abbey. Let the surety of this make you laugh at Mrs. A's foolish tattle. Mrs. Dilke's Brother has got your Dog. She is now very well-still liable to Illness. I will get her to come and see you if I can make up my mind on the propriety of introducing a stranger into Abbey's house. Be careful to let no fretting injure your health as I have suffered it -health is the greatest of blessings-with health and hope we should be content to live, and so you will find as you grow older-I am my dear Fanny your affectionate Brother As Brown is not to be a fixture at Hampstead,1 I have at last made up my mind to send home all lent books. I should CXCI. The manuscript of this letter, which bears no date, postmark, or further address than "C. W. Dilke Esq.", has on it a pencilled memorandum assigning it to the year 1820. It would therefore seem to belong to the time just before the departure of Brown for Scotland on the 7th of May 1820. Mr. Dilke notes that "Brown let his house, as he was accustomed to do in the summer-and therefore Keats was obliged to remove." As regards the scheme of becoming Surgeon on board an Indiaman, see pages 61, 62, and 63, ante. 1 Brown was starting for a second Scotch walk-alone this time, except so far as the voyage down the river to Gravesend was concerned. have seen you before this, but my mind has been at work all over the world to find out what to do. I have my choice of three things, or at least two,-South America, or Surgeon to an Indiaman; which last, I think, will be my fate. I shall resolve in a few days. Remember me to Mrs. D. and Charles, and your father and mother. CXCII. Ever truly yours John Keats TO FANNY BRAWNE [Kentish Town, May 1820.] My dearest Girl, 1 endeavour to make myself as patient as possible. Hunt amuses me very kindly-besides I have your ring on my finger and your flowers on the table. I shall not expect to see you yet because it would be so much pain to part with you again. When the Books you want come you shall have them. very well this afternoon. My dearest [Signature cut off.1] I am CXCIII. TO FANNY BRAWNE. My dearest Fanny, Tuesday Afternoon. [Kentish Town, May 1820 ?] For this Week past I have been employed in marking the most beautiful passages in Spenser, intending it for you, and comforting myself in being somehow occupied to give you however small a pleasure. It has lightened my time very much. I am much better. God bless you. Your affectionate J. Keats 1 The piece cut off the original letter is so small that nothing can well be wanting except the signature,-probably given to an autograph-collector. This letter was of course written after Keats's removal from Wentworth Place to Wesleyan Place, Kentish Town, which, according to the letter written by the poet to his sister on the 4th of May 1820, was to have been accomplished by the 6th. See page 173, ante. The rest of the letters to Fanny Brawne all appear to have been written at Kentish Town, either at Wesleyan Place where Keats lodged up to the 23rd of June, or at Hunt's house in Mortimer Terrace to which he seems to have moved on that day. CXCIII The book referred to in this letter was lost in Germany. CXCIV. TO CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN. My dear Brown, [Kentish Town, 16 May 1820.] You must not expect me to date my letter from such a place as this: you have heard the name; that is sufficient, except merely to tell you it is the 15th inst. You know I was very well in the Smack; I have continued much the same, and am well enough to extract much more pleasure than pain out of the summer, even though I should get no better. I shall not say a word about the stanza you promised yourself through my medium, and will swear, at some future time, I promised. Let us hope I may send you more than one in my next. * * CXCV. TO FANNY BRAWNE My dearest Girl, Tuesday Morn. [Kentish Town, May 1820.] I wrote a letter for you yesterday expecting to have seen your mother. I shall be selfish enough to send it though I know it may give you a little pain, because I wish you to see how unhappy I am for love of you, and endeavour as much as I can to entice you to give up your whole heart to me whose whole existence hangs upon you. You could not step or move an eyelid but it would shoot to my heart-I am greedy of you. Do not think of anything but me. Do not live as if I was not existing. Do not forget me—But have I any right to say you forget me? Perhaps you think of me all day. Have I any right to wish you to be unhappy for me? You would forgive me for wishing it if you knew the extreme passion I have that you CXCIV. "It was his choice," says Brown (Houghton Papers), "during my absence, to lodge at Kentish Town, that he might be near his friend, Leigh Hunt, in whose companionship he was ever happy. He went with me in the Scotch smack as far as Gravesend. This was on the 7th of May. I never saw him afterwards. As evidence of his well being I had requested him to send me some new stanzas to his comic faery poem; for, since his illness, he had not dared the exertion of composing. At the end of eight days he wrote in good spirits..." The fragment printed above is all that Brown gave of the letter "in good spirits." The pleasantry about not dating is characteristic enough as addressed to one punctilious in such matters. 1I do not find among the extant letters any one which I can regard as the particular letter referred to in the opening sentence. If the next letter were headed Tuesday and this Wednesday, that might well be the peccant document which appears to be missing. should love me-and for you to love me as I do you, you must think of no one but me, much less write that sentence. Yesterday and this morning I have been haunted with a sweet vision —I have seen you the whole time in your shepherdess dress. How my senses have ached at it! How my heart has been devoted to it! How my eyes have been full of tears at it! I[n]deed I think a real love is enough to occupy the widest heart. Your going to town alone when I heard of it was a shock to me-yet I expected it-promise me you will not for some time till I get better. Promise me this and fill the paper full of the most endearing names. If you cannot do so with good will, do my love tell me-say what you think-confess if your heart is too much fasten'd on the world. Perhaps then I may see you at a greater distance, I may not be able to appropriate you so closely to myself. Were you to lose a favorite bird from the cage, how would your eyes ache after it as long as it was in sight; when out of sight you would recover a little. Perhaps if you would, if so it is, confess to me how many things are necessary to you besides me, I might be happier; by being less tantaliz'd. Well may you exclaim, how selfish, how cruel not to let me enjoy my youth! to wish me to be unhappy. You must be so if you love me. Upon my soul I can be contented with nothing else. If you would really what is call'd enjoy yourself at a Party-if you can smile in people's faces, and wish them to admire you now-you never have nor ever will love me. I see life in nothing but the certainty of your Love-convince me of it my sweetest. If I am not somehow convinced I shall die of agony. If we love we must not live as other men and women do-I cannot brook the wolfsbane of fashion and foppery and tattle-you must be mine to die upon the rack if I want you. I do not pretend to say that I have more feeling than my fellows, but I wish you seriously to look over my letters kind and unkind and consider whether the Person who wrote them can be able to endure much longer the agonies and uncertainties which you are so peculiarly made to create. My recovery of bodily health will be of no benefit to me if you are not mine when I am well. For God's sake save me-or tell me my passion is of too awful a nature for you. Again God bless you. J. K. No-my sweet Fanny-I am wrong-I do not wish you to be unhappy and yet I do, I must while there is so sweet a Beauty-my loveliest, my darling! good bye! I kiss you-O the torments !1 1 This terrible letter calls forcibly to mind the little fragment descriptive of the Benou-Azra which the late James Thomson prefixed to his story of 'Weddah and Om-el-Bonain,' one of the best tragic stories written in English verse since Keats |