weary. I shall write to Dilke. I feel as if I was closing my last letter to you. My dear Brown, your affectionate friend JOHN KEATS. 210. TO MRS. BRAWNE October 24 [1820], Naples Harbour. MY DEAR MRS. BRAWNE A few words will tell you what sort of a Passage we had, and what situation we are in, and few they must be on account of the Quarantine, our Letters being liable to be opened for the purpose of fumigation at the Health Office. We have to remain in the vessel ten days and are at present shut in a tier of ships. The sea air has been beneficial to me about to as great an extent as squally weather and bad accommodations and provisions has done harm. So I am about as I was. Give my Love to Fanny and tell her, if I were well there is enough in this Port of Naples to fill a quire of Paper- but it looks like a dream every man who can row his boat and walk and talk seems a different being from myself. I do not feel in the world. It has been unfortunate for me that one of the Passengers is a young Lady in a Consumption—her imprudence has vexed me very much the knowledge of her complaints the flushings in her face, all her bad symptoms have preyed upon methey would have done so had I been in good health. Severn now is a very good fellow but his nerves are too strong to be hurt by other people's illnesses — I remember poor Rice wore me in the same way in the Isle of Wight I shall feel a load off me when the Lady vanishes out of my sight. It is impossible to describe exactly in what state of health I am at this moment I am suffering from indigestion very much, which makes such stuff of this Letter. I would always wish you to think me a little worse than I really am; not being of a sanguine disposition I am likely to succeed. If I do not recover your regret will be softened if I do your pleasure will be doubled. I dare not fix my Mind upon Fanny, I have not dared to think of her. The only comfort I have had that way has been in thinking for hours together of having the knife she gave me put in a silver-case the hair in a Locket and the Pocket Book in a gold net. Show her this. I dare say no more. Yet you must not believe I am so ill as this Letter may look, for if ever there was a person born without the faculty of hoping I am he. Severn is writing to Haslam, and I have just asked him to request Haslam to send you his account of my health. O what an account I could give you of the Bay of Naples if I could once more feel myself a Citizen of this world - I feel a spirit in my Brain would lay it forth pleasantly - O what a misery it is to have an intellect in splints! My Love again to Fanny - tell Tootts I wish I could pitch her a basket of grapes and tell Sam the fellows catch here with a line a little fish much like an anchovy, pull them up fast. Remember me to Mr. and Mrs. Dilke mention to Brown that I wrote him a letter at Portsmouth which I did not send and am in doubt if he ever will see it. My dear Mrs. Brawne, yours sincerely and affectionate JOHN KEATS. Good bye Fanny! God bless you. 211. TO CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN Naples, November 1 [1820]. MY DEAR BROWN - Yesterday we were let out of quarantine, during which my health suffered more from bad air and the stifled cabin than it had done the whole voyage. The fresh air revived me a little, and I hope I am well enough this morning to write to you a short calm letter ; — if that can be called one, in which I am afraid to speak of what I would fainest dwell upon. As I have gone thus far into it, I must go on a little ; perhaps it may relieve the load of WRETCHEDNESS which presses upon The persuasion that I shall see her no more will kill me. My dear Brown, I me. - - should have had her when I was in health, and I should have remained well. I can bear to die-I cannot bear to leave her. Oh, God! God! God! Every thing I have in my trunks that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear. The silk lining she put in my travelling cap scalds my head. My imagination is horribly vivid about her I see her I hear her. There is nothing in the world of sufficient interest to divert me from her a moment. This was the case when I was in England; I cannot recollect, without shuddering, the time that I was a prisoner at Hunt's, and used to keep my eyes fixed on Hampstead all day. Then there was a good hope of seeing her again — Now ! — O that I could be buried near where she lives! I am afraid to write to her to receive a letter from her - to see her hand-writing would break my heart - even to hear of her anyhow, to see her name written, would be more than I can bear. My dear Brown, what am I to do? Where can I look for consolation or ease? If I had any chance of recovery, this passion would kill me. Indeed, through the whole of my illness, both at your house and at Kentish Town, this fever has never ceased wearing me out. When you write to me, which you will do immediately, write to Rome (poste restante) — if she is well and happy, put a mark thus+; if Remember me to all. I will endeavour to bear my miseries patiently. A person in my state of health should not have such miseries to bear. Write a short note to my sister, saying you have heard from me. Severn is very well. If I were in better health I would urge your coming to Rome. I fear there is no one can give me any comfort. Is there any news of George? O that something fortunate had ever happened to me or my brothers! then I might hope, but despair is forced upon me as a habit. My dear Brown, for my sake be her advocate for ever. I cannot say a word about Naples; I do not feel at all concerned in Rome, November 30, 1820. MY DEAR BROWN'T is the most difficult thing in the world to me to write a letter. My stomach continues so bad, that I feel it worse on opening any book, — yet I am much better than I was in quarantine. Then I am afraid to encounter the pro-ing and con-ing of anything interesting to me in England. I have an habitual feeling of my real life having passed, and that I am leading a posthumous existence. God knows how it would have been-but it appears to me however, I will not speak of that subject. I must have been at Bedhampton nearly at the time you were writing to me from Chichester how unfortunate and to pass on the river too! There was my star predominant! I cannot answer anything in your letter, which followed me from Naples to Rome, because I am afraid to look it over again. I am so weak (in mind) that I cannot bear the sight of any handwriting of a friend I love so much as I do you. Yet I ride the little horse, and at my worst even in quarantine, summoned up more puns, in a sort of desperation, in one week than in any year of my life. There is one thought enough to kill me; I have been well, healthy, alert, etc., walking with her, and now the knowledge of contrast, feeling for light and shade, all that information (primitive sense) necessary for a poem, are great enemies to the recovery of the stomach. There, you rogue, I put you to the torture; but you must bring your philosophy to bear, as I do mine, really, or how should I be able to live? Dr. Clark is very attentive to me; he says there is very little the matter with my lungs, but my stomach, he says, is very bad. I am well disappointed in hearing good news from George, for it runs in my head we shall all die young. I have not written to Reynolds yet, which he must think very neglectful; being anxious to send him a good account of my health, I have delayed it from week to week. If I recover, I will do all in my power to correct the mistakes made during sickness; and if I should not, all my faults will be forgiven. Severn is very well, though he leads so dull a life with me. Remember me to all friends, and tell Haslam I should not have left London without taking leave of him, but from being so low in body and mind. Write to George as soon as you receive this, and tell him how I am, as far as you can guess; and also a note to my sisterwho walks about my imagination like a ghost she is so like Tom. I can scarcely bid you good-bye, even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow. God bless you! JOHN KEATS. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS I. POEMS Page 1. IMITATION OF SPENSER. A transcript of this poem in a copy-book of Tom Keats contains two variations from the text of 1817. Line 12 reads, 'Whose silken fins, and golden scales light' and in line 29 glassy for glossy. The first reading is required by the rhythm; but the absence of the mark of the possessive case leads one to think that the accent mark may have been a hasty reading of the proper mark as printed. Page 9. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. That it was Balboa and not Cortez who first saw the Pacific Ocean, an American school-boy 'could have told Keats; but it is not such slips as these that unmake poetry. Page 9. EPISTLE TO GEORGE FELTON MA THEW. Line 75. The quotation is from The Faerie Queene, I. iii. 4. Page 11. To The original valentine of which these lines are an enlargement was as follows: Hadst thou lived in days of old, Than twin sister of Thalia ? Then follow lines 41-68, and the valentine closes, -- 'Ah me! whither shall I flee ? Page 13. SONNET: TO ONE WHO HAS BEEN LONG IN CITY PENT. Mr. Forman points out Keats's echo in the first line of Milton's line, Leigh Hunt's competing sonnet is as follows: 'Green little vaulter in the sunny grass Catching your heart up at the feel of June, One to the fields, the other to the hearth, Page 40. LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN. Sir Charles Dilke has a manuscript copy of which the four closing lines are: |