—I cannot conceive any beginning of such love as I have for you but Beauty. There may be a sort of love for which, without the least sneer at it, I have the highest respect and can admire it in others but it has not the richness, the bloom, the full form, the enchantment of love after my own heart. So let me speak of your Beauty, though to my own endangering; if you could be so cruel to me as to try elsewhere its Power. You say you are afraid I shall think you do not love me—in saying this you make me ache the more to be near you. I am at the diligent use of my faculties here, I do not pass a day without sprawling some blank verse or tagging some rhymes; and here I must confess, that (since I am on that subject) I love you the more in that I believe you have liked me for my own sake and for nothing else. I have met with women whom I really think would like to be married to a Poem and to be given away by a Novel. I have seen your Comet, and only wish it was a sign that poor Rice would get well whose illness makes him rather a melancholy companion: and the more so as to conquer his feelings and hide them from me, with a forc'd Pun. I kiss'd your writing over in the hope you had indulg'd me by leaving a trace of honey. What was your dream? Tell it me and I will tell you the interpretation thereof. Ever yours, my love! John Keats Do not accuse me of delay-we have not here an opportunity of sending letters every day. Write speedily. CXX. To JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS. Shanklin, 12 July 1819. * 1 * You will be glad to hear, under my own hand (though Rice says we are like Sauntering Jack and Idle Joe), how diligent I have been, and am being. I have finished the Act, and in the interval of beginning the 2d have proceeded pretty well with Lamia, finishing the 1st part, which consists of about four hundred lines. * * * I have great hopes of success, because I make use of my judgment more deliberately than I have yet done; but in case of failure with the world, I shall find my content. And here (as I know you have my good at heart as much as a Brother), I can only repeat to you what I have said to George-that however I should like to enjoy what the 1 Act I of 'Otho the Great.' competencies of life procure, I am in no wise dashed at a different prospect. I have spent too many thoughtful days and moralized through too many nights for that, and fruitless would they be indeed, if they did not by degrees make me look upon the affairs of the world with a healthy deliberation. I have of late been moulting: not for fresh feathers and wings: they are gone, and in their stead I hope to have a pair of patient sublunary legs. I have altered, not from a Chrysalis into a butterfly, but the contrary; having two little loopholes, whence I may look out into the stage of the world: and that world on our coming here I almost forgot. The first time I sat down to write, I could scarcely believe in the necessity for so doing. It struck me as a great oddity. Yet the very corn which is now so beautiful, as if it had only took to ripening yesterday, is for the market; so, why should I be delicate?1 I have been in so irritable a state of health these two or three last days, that I did not think I should be able to write this week. Not that I was so ill, but so much so as only to be capable of an unhealthy teasing letter. To night I am greatly recovered only to feel the languor I have felt after you touched with ardency. You say you perhaps might have made me better: you would then have made me worse now you could quite effect a cure: What fee my sweet Physician would I not 1 Lord Houghton says at this point-"Sir James Mackintosh, who had openly protested against the mode of criticism employed against 'Endymion,' and had said, in a letter still extant, that 'such attacks will interest every liberal mind in the author's success,' writing to Messrs. Taylor, on the 19th of July in this year, enquires, 'Have you any other literary novelties in verse? I very much admire your young poet, with all his singularities. Where is he? and what high design does he meditate?'" CXXI. This letter appears to belong between those of the 8th and 25th of July 1819; and of the two Thursdays between those dates it seems likelier that the 15th would be the one than that the letter should have been written so near the 25th as on the 22nd. The original having been mislaid, I have not been able to take the evidence of the postmark. It will be noticed that at the close he speaks of a weekly exchange of letters with Miss Brawne; and by placing this letter at the 15th this programme is pretty nearly realized so far as Keats's letters from the Isle of Wight are concerned. give you to do so. Do not call it folly, when I tell you I took 1 The story in question is one of the many derivatives from the Third Calender's Story in 'The Thousand and One Nights' and the somewhat similar tale of "The Man who laughed not," included in the notes to Lane's 'Arabian Nights' and in the text of Payne's magnificent version of the complete work. I am indebted to Dr. Reinhold Köhler, Librarian of the Grand-ducal Library of Weimar, for identifying the particular variant referred to by Keats, as the "Histoire de la Corbeille," in the 'Nouveaux Contes Orientaux' of the Comte de Caylus. William Morris's beautiful poem "The Man who never laughed again," in 'The Earthly Paradise,' has familiarized to English readers one variant of the legend. 2It will of course be remembered that no such collection appeared until the following summer, when 'Lamia, Isabella' &c. was published. the verses of an half-fledged brain tumble into the reading-rooms and drawing room windows. Rice has been better lately than usual: he is not suffering from any neglect of his parents who have for some years been able to appreciate him better than they did in his first youth, and are now devoted to his comfort. To-morrow I shall, if my health continues to improve during the night, take a look fa[r]ther about the country, and spy at the parties about here who come hunting after the picturesque like beagles. It is astonishing how they raven down scenery like children do sweetmeats. The wondrous Chine here is a very great Lion: I wish I had as many guineas as there have been spy-glasses in it. I have been, I cannot tell why, in capital spirits this last hour. What reason? When I have to take my candle and retire to a lonely room, without the thought as I fall asleep, of seeing you to-morrow morning? or the next day, or the next-it takes on the appearance of impossibility and eternity-I will say a month-I will say I will see you in a month at most, though no one but yourself should see me; if it be but for an hour. I should not like to be so near you as London without being continually with you: after having once more kissed you Sweet I would rather be here alone at my task than in the bustle and hateful literary chitchat. Meantime you must write to me-as I will every week-for your letters keep me alive. My sweet Girl I cannot speak my love for you. Good night! and Ever yours John Keats CXXII. To FANNY BRAWNE Wentworth Place, Hampstead, Middx. My sweet Girl, Sunday Night [25 July 1819]. I hope you did not blame me much for not obeying your request of a Letter on Saturday: we have had four in our small room playing at cards night and morning leaving me no undisturb'd opportunity to write. Now Rice and Martin2 are gone I am at liberty. Brown to my sorrow confirms the account you give of your ill health. You cannot conceive how I ache to be with you: how I would die for one hour- -for what is in the world? I say you cannot conceive; it is impossible you should look with such eyes upon me as I have upon you: it cannot be. Forgive 1 The word 'Newport' is not stamped on this letter, as on previous ones; but it is pretty evident that Keats and his friend were still at Shanklin. 2 John Martin sometime of Holles Street, Cavendish Square, publisher. He was now in partnership with Rodwell, in Bond Street. me if I wander a little this evening, for I have been all day employ'd in a very abstr[a]ct Poem1 and I am in deep love with you-two things which must excuse me. I have, believe me, not been an age in letting you take possession of me; the very first week I knew you I wrote myself your vassal; but burnt the Letter as the very next time I saw you I thought you manifested some dislike to me. If you should ever feel for Man at the first sight what I did for you, I am lost. Yet I should not quarrel with you, but hate myself if such a thing were to happen-only I should burst if the thing were not as fine as a Man as you are as a Woman. Perhaps I am too vehement, then fancy me on my knees, especially when I mention a part of your Letter which hurt me; you say speaking of Mr. Severn "but you must be satisfied in knowing that I admired you much more than your friend." My dear love, I cannot believe there ever was or ever could be any thing to admire in me especially as far as sight goes-I cannot be admired, I am not a thing to be admired. You are, I love you; all I can bring you is a swooning admiration of your Beauty. I hold that place among Men which snubnos'd brunettes with meeting eyebrows do among women-they are trash to me-unless I should find one among them with a fire in her heart like the one that burns in mine. You absorb me in spite of myself—you alone: for I look not forward with any pleasure to what is call'd being settled in the world; I tremble at domestic cares-yet for you I would meet them, though if it would leave you the happier I would rather die than do so. I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your Loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute. I hate the world: it batters too much the wings of my self-will, and would I could take a sweet poison from your lips to send me out of it. From no others would I take it. I am indeed astonish'd to find myself so careless of all cha[r]ms but yours-rememb[e]ring as I do the time when even a bit of ribband was a matter of interest with me. What softer words can I find for you after this-what it is I will not read. Nor will I say more here, but in a Postscript answer any thing else you may have mentioned in your Letter in so many words-for I am distracted with a thousand thoughts. I will imagine you Venus to-night and pray, pray, pray to your star like a He[a]then. Your's ever, fair Star, John Keats My seal is mark'd like a family table cloth with my Mother's initial F for Fanny: put between my Father's initials. You will soon hear from me again. My respectful Comp[liments to 1 This may have reference to some passage in either 'Lamia' or 'Hyperion.' |