Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends Part 12

XLVII.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.

Wednesday, [Teignmouth, April 8, 1818].

My dear Haydon--I am glad you were pleased with my nonsense, and if it so happen that the humour takes me when I have set down to prose to you I will not gainsay it. I should be (G.o.d forgive me) ready to swear because I cannot make use of your a.s.sistance in going through Devon if I was not in my own Mind determined to visit it thoroughly at some more favourable time of the year. But now Tom (who is getting greatly better) is anxious to be in Town--therefore I put off my threading the County. I purpose within a month to put my knapsack at my back and make a pedestrian tour through the North of England, and part of Scotland--to make a sort of Prologue to the Life I intend to pursue--that is to write, to study and to see all Europe at the lowest expence. I will clamber through the Clouds and exist. I will get such an acc.u.mulation of stupendous recollections that as I walk through the suburbs of London I may not see them--I will stand upon Mount Blanc and remember this coming Summer when I intend to straddle Ben Lomond--with my soul!--galligaskins are out of the Question. I am nearer myself to hear your "Christ" is being tinted into immortality. Believe me Haydon your picture is part of myself--I have ever been too sensible of the labyrinthian path to eminence in Art (judging from Poetry) ever to think I understood the emphasis of painting. The innumerable compositions and decompositions which take place between the intellect and its thousand materials before it arrives at that trembling delicate and snail-horn perception of beauty. I know not your many havens of intenseness--nor ever can know them: but for this I hope not you achieve is lost upon me[57]: for when a Schoolboy the abstract Idea I had of an heroic painting--was what I cannot describe. I saw it somewhat sideways, large, prominent, round, and colour'd with magnificence--somewhat like the feel I have of Anthony and Cleopatra. Or of Alcibiades leaning on his Crimson Couch in his Galley, his broad shoulders imperceptibly heaving with the Sea. That pa.s.sage in Shakspeare is finer than this--

See how the surly Warwick mans the Wall.

I like your consignment of Corneille--that's the humour of it--they shall be called your Posthumous Works.[58] I don't understand your bit of Italian. I hope she will awake from her dream and flourish fair--my respects to her. The Hedges by this time are beginning to leaf--Cats are becoming more vociferous--young Ladies who wear Watches are always looking at them. Women about forty-five think the Season very backward--Ladies'

Mares have but half an allowance of food. It rains here again, has been doing so for three days--however as I told you I'll take a trial in June, July, or August next year.

I am afraid Wordsworth went rather huff'd out of Town--I am sorry for it--he cannot expect his fireside Divan to be infallible--he cannot expect but that every man of worth is as proud as himself. O that he had not fit with a Warrener[59]--that is dined at Kingston's. I shall be in town in about a fortnight and then we will have a day or so now and then before I set out on my northern expedition--we will have no more abominable Rows--for they leave one in a fearful silence--having settled the Methodists let us be rational--not upon compulsion--no--if it will out let it--but I will not play the Ba.s.soon any more deliberately. Remember me to Hazlitt, and Bewick--

Your affectionate friend,

JOHN KEATS.

XLVIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

Thy. morng., [Teignmouth, April 9, 1818].

My dear Reynolds--Since you all agree that the thing[60] is bad, it must be so--though I am not aware there is anything like Hunt in it (and if there is, it is my natural way, and I have something in common with Hunt).

Look it over again, and examine into the motives, the seeds, from which any one sentence sprung--I have not the slightest feel of humility towards the public--or to anything in existence,--but the eternal Being, the Principle of Beauty, and the Memory of great Men. When I am writing for myself for the mere sake of the moment's enjoyment, perhaps nature has its course with me--but a Preface is written to the Public; a thing I cannot help looking upon as an Enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of Hostility. If I write a Preface in a supple or subdued style, it will not be in character with me as a public speaker--I would be subdued before my friends, and thank them for subduing me--but among Mult.i.tudes of Men--I have no feel of stooping, I hate the idea of humility to them.

I never wrote one single Line of Poetry with the least Shadow of public thought.

Forgive me for vexing you and making a Trojan horse of such a Trifle, both with respect to the matter in Question, and myself--but it eases me to tell you--I could not live without the love of my friends--I would jump down aetna for any great Public good--but I hate a Mawkish Popularity. I cannot be subdued before them--My glory would be to daunt and dazzle the thousand jabberers about Pictures and Books--I see swarms of Porcupines with their Quills erect "like lime-twigs set to catch my Winged Book," and I would fright them away with a torch. You will say my Preface is not much of a Torch. It would have been too insulting "to begin from Jove," and I could not set a golden head upon a thing of clay. If there is any fault in the Preface it is not affectation, but an undersong of disrespect to the Public--if I write another Preface it must be done without a thought of those people--I will think about it. If it should not reach you in four or five days, tell Taylor to publish it without a Preface, and let the Dedication simply stand--"inscribed to the Memory of Thomas Chatterton."

I had resolved last night to write to you this morning--I wish it had been about something else--something to greet you towards the close of your long illness. I have had one or two intimations of your going to Hampstead for a s.p.a.ce; and I regret to see your confounded Rheumatism keeps you in Little Britain where, I am sure the air is too confined. Devonshire continues rainy. As the drops beat against the window, they give me the same sensation as a quart of cold water offered to revive a half-drowned devil--no feel of the clouds dropping fatness; but as if the roots of the earth were rotten, cold, and drenched. I have not been able to go to Kent's cave at Babbicombe--however on one very beautiful day I had a fine Clamber over the rocks all along as far as that place. I shall be in Town in about Ten days--We go by way of Bath on purpose to call on Bailey. I hope soon to be writing to you about the things of the north, purposing to wayfare all over those parts. I have settled my accoutrements in my own mind, and will go to gorge wonders. However, we'll have some days together before I set out--

I have many reasons for going wonder-ways: to make my winter chair free from spleen--to enlarge my vision--to escape disquisitions on Poetry and Kingston Criticism; to promote digestion and economise shoe-leather. I'll have leather b.u.t.tons and belt; and, if Brown holds his mind, over the Hills we go. If my Books will help me to it, then will I take all Europe in turn, and see the Kingdoms of the Earth and the glory of them. Tom is getting better, he hopes you may meet him at the top o' the hill. My Love to your nurses. I am ever

Your affectionate Friend

JOHN KEATS.

XLIX.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

[Teignmouth,] Friday [April 10, 1818].

My dear Reynolds--I am anxious you should find this Preface tolerable. If there is an affectation in it 'tis natural to me. Do let the Printer's Devil cook it, and let me be as "the casing air."

You are too good in this Matter--were I in your state, I am certain I should have no thought but of discontent and illness--I might though be taught patience: I had an idea of giving no Preface; however, don't you think this had better go? O, let it--one should not be too timid--of committing faults.

The climate here weighs us down completely; Tom is quite low-spirited. It is impossible to live in a country which is continually under hatches. Who would live in a region of Mists, Game Laws, indemnity Bills, etc., when there is such a place as Italy? It is said this England from its Clime produces a Spleen, able to engender the finest Sentiments, and cover the whole face of the isle with Green--so it ought, I'm sure.--I should still like the Dedication simply, as I said in my last.

I wanted to send you a few songs written in your favorite Devon--it cannot be--Rain! Rain! Rain! I am going this morning to take a facsimile of a Letter of Nelson's, very much to his honour--you will be greatly pleased when you see it--in about a week. What a spite it is one cannot get out--the little way I went yesterday, I found a lane banked on each side with store of Primroses, while the earlier bushes are beginning to leaf.

I shall hear a good account of you soon.

Your affectionate Friend

JOHN KEATS.

My Love to all and remember me to Taylor.

L.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.

Teignmouth, Friday [April 24, 1818].

My dear Taylor--I think I did wrong to leave to you all the trouble of Endymion--But I could not help it then--another time I shall be more bent to all sorts of troubles and disagreeables. Young men for some time have an idea that such a thing as happiness is to be had, and therefore are extremely impatient under any unpleasant restraining. In time however, of such stuff is the world about them, they know better, and instead of striving from uneasiness, greet it as an habitual sensation, a pannier which is to weigh upon them through life--And in proportion to my disgust at the task is my sense of your kindness and anxiety. The book pleased me much. It is very free from faults: and, although there are one or two words I should wish replaced, I see in many places an improvement greatly to the purpose.

I think those speeches which are related--those parts where the speaker repeats a speech, such as Glaucus's repet.i.tion of Circe's words, should have inverted commas to every line. In this there is a little confusion.--If we divide the speeches into _identical_ and _related_; and to the former put merely one inverted Comma at the beginning and another at the end; and to the latter inverted Commas before every line, the book will be better understood at the 1st glance. Look at pages 126, 127, you will find in the 3d line the beginning of a related speech marked thus "Ah! art awake--" while, at the same time, in the next page the continuation of the _identical_ speech is marked in the same manner, "Young man of Latmos--" You will find on the other side all the parts which should have inverted commas to every line.

I was proposing to travel over the North this summer. There is but one thing to prevent me.--I know nothing--I have read nothing--and I mean to follow Solomon's directions, "Get learning--get understanding." I find earlier days are gone by--I find that I can have no enjoyment in the world but continual drinking of knowledge. I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good for the world--Some do it with their Society--some with their wit--some with their benevolence--some with a sort of power of conferring pleasure and good-humour on all they meet--and in a thousand ways, all dutiful to the command of great Nature--there is but one way for me. The road lies through application, study, and thought.--I will pursue it; and for that end, purpose retiring for some years. I have been hovering for some time between an exquisite sense of the luxurious, and a love for philosophy,--were I calculated for the former, I should be glad. But as I am not, I shall turn all my soul to the latter.--My brother Tom is getting better, and I hope I shall see both him and Reynolds better before I retire from the world. I shall see you soon, and have some talk about what Books I shall take with me.

Your very sincere friend

JOHN KEATS.

Pray remember me to Hessey Woodhouse and Percy Street.

LI.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.

Teignmouth, April 27, 1818.

My dear Reynolds--It is an awful while since you have heard from me--I hope I may not be punished, when I see you well, and so anxious as you always are for me, with the remembrance of my so seldom writing when you were so horribly confined. The most unhappy hours in our lives are those in which we recollect times past to our own blushing--If we are immortal that must be the h.e.l.l. If I must be immortal, I hope it will be after having taken a little of "that watery labyrinth" in order to forget some of my school-boy days and others since those.

I have heard from George at different times how slowly you were recovering--It is a tedious thing--but all Medical Men will tell you how far a very gradual amendment is preferable; you will be strong after this, never fear. We are here still enveloped in clouds--I lay awake last night listening to the Rain with a sense of being drowned and rotted like a grain of wheat. There is a continual courtesy between the Heavens and the Earth. The heavens rain down their unwelcomeness, and the Earth sends it up again to be returned to-morrow. Tom has taken a fancy to a physician here, Dr. Turton, and I think is getting better--therefore I shall perhaps remain here some Months. I have written to George for some Books--shall learn Greek, and very likely Italian--and in other ways prepare myself to ask Hazlitt in about a year's time the best metaphysical road I can take.

For although I take poetry to be Chief, yet there is something else wanting to one who pa.s.ses his life among Books and thoughts on Books--I long to feast upon old Homer as we have upon Shakspeare, and as I have lately upon Milton. If you understood Greek, and would read me pa.s.sages, now and then, explaining their meaning, 'twould be, from its mistiness, perhaps, a greater luxury than reading the thing one's self. I shall be happy when I can do the same for you. I have written for my folio Shakspeare, in which there are the first few stanzas of my "Pot of Basil."

I have the rest here finished, and will copy the whole out fair shortly, and George will bring it you--The compliment is paid by us to Boccace, whether we publish or no: so there is content in this world--_mine_ is short--you must be deliberate about yours: you must not think of it till many months after you are quite well:--then put your pa.s.sion to it, and I shall be bound up with you in the shadows of Mind, as we are in our matters of human life. Perhaps a Stanza or two will not be too foreign to your Sickness.