Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends Part 2

JOHN KEATS.

Direct J. Keats, Mrs. Cook's, New Village, Carisbrooke.

IX.--TO LEIGH HUNT.

Margate, May 10, 1817.

My dear Hunt--The little gentleman that sometimes lurks in a gossip's bowl, ought to have come in the very likeness of a _roasted_ crab, and choaked me outright for not answering your letter ere this: however, you must not suppose that I was in town to receive it: no, it followed me to the Isle of Wight, and I got it just as I was going to pack up for Margate, for reasons which you anon shall hear. On arriving at this treeless affair, I wrote to my brother George to request C. C. C.[14] to do the thing you wot of respecting Rimini; and George tells me he has undertaken it with great pleasure; so I hope there has been an understanding between you for many proofs: C. C. C. is well acquainted with Bensley. Now why did you not send the key of your cupboard, which, I know, was full of papers? We would have locked them all in a trunk, together with those you told me to destroy, which indeed I did not do, for fear of demolishing receipts, there not being a more unpleasant thing in the world (saving a thousand and one others) than to pay a bill twice.

Mind you, old Wood's a "very varmint," shrouded in covetousness:--and now I am upon a horrid subject--what a horrid one you were upon last Sunday, and well you handled it. The last Examiner[15] was a battering-ram against Christianity, blasphemy, Tertullian, Erasmus, Sir Philip Sidney; and then the dreadful Petzelians and their expiation by blood; and do Christians shudder at the same thing in a newspaper which they attribute to their G.o.d in its most aggravated form? What is to be the end of this? I must mention Hazlitt's Southey.[16] O that he had left out the grey hairs; or that they had been in any other paper not concluding with such a thunderclap!

That sentence about making a page of the feeling of a whole life, appears to me like a whale's back in the sea of prose. I ought to have said a word on Shakspeare's Christianity. There are two which I have not looked over with you, touching the thing: the one for, the other against: that in favour is in Measure for Measure, Act II. Scene ii.--

_Isab._ Alas, alas!

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the 'vantage best have took, Found out the remedy.

That against is in Twelfth Night, Act III. Scene ii.--

_Maria._ For there is no Christian that means to be saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible pa.s.sages of grossness.

Before I come to the Nymphs,[17] I must get through all disagreeables. I went to the Isle of Wight, thought so much about poetry, so long together, that I could not get to sleep at night; and, moreover, I know not how it was, I could not get wholesome food. By this means, in a week or so, I became not over capable in my upper stories, and set off pell-mell for Margate, at least a hundred and fifty miles, because, forsooth, I fancied that I should like my old lodging here, and could contrive to do without trees. Another thing, I was too much in solitude, and consequently was obliged to be in continual burning of thought, as an only resource.

However, Tom is with me at present, and we are very comfortable. We intend, though, to get among some trees. How have you got on among them?

How are the Nymphs? I suppose they have led you a fine dance. Where are you now?--in Judea, Cappadocia, or the parts of Libya about Cyrene?

Stranger from "Heaven, Hues, and Prototypes," I wager you have given several new turns to the old saying, "Now the maid was fair and pleasant to look on," as well as made a little variation in "Once upon a time."

Perhaps, too, you have rather varied, "Here endeth the first lesson." Thus I hope you have made a horseshoe business of "unsuperfluous life," "faint bowers," and fibrous roots. I vow that I have been down in the mouth lately at this work. These last two days, however, I have felt more confident--I have asked myself so often why I should be a poet more than other men, seeing how great a thing it is,--how great things are to be gained by it, what a thing to be in the mouth of Fame,--that at last the idea has grown so monstrously beyond my seeming power of attainment, that the other day I nearly consented with myself to drop into a Phaethon. Yet 'tis a disgrace to fail, even in a huge attempt; and at this moment I drive the thought from me. I began my poem about a fortnight since, and have done some every day, except travelling ones. Perhaps I may have done a good deal for the time, but it appears such a pin's point to me, that I will not copy any out. When I consider that so many of these pin-points go to form a bodkin-point (G.o.d send I end not my life with a bare bodkin, in its modern sense!), and that it requires a thousand bodkins to make a spear bright enough to throw any light to posterity, I see nothing but continual uphill journeying. Now is there anything more unpleasant (it may come among the thousand and one) than to be so journeying and to miss the goal at last? But I intend to whistle all these cogitations into the sea, where I hope they will breed storms violent enough to block up all exit from Russia. Does Sh.e.l.ley go on telling strange stories of the deaths of kings?[18] Tell him, there are strange stories of the deaths of poets.

Some have died before they were conceived. "How do you make that out, Master Vellum?" Does Mrs. S. cut bread and b.u.t.ter as neatly as ever? Tell her to procure some fatal scissors, and cut the thread of life of all to-be-disappointed poets. Does Mrs. Hunt tear linen as straight as ever?

Tell her to tear from the book of life all blank leaves. Remember me to them all; to Miss Kent and the little ones all.

Your sincere Friend

JOHN KEATS _alias_ JUNKETS.

You shall hear where we move.

X.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.

Margate, Sat.u.r.day Eve [May 10, 1817].

My dear Haydon,

"Let Fame, that all pant after in their lives, Live register'd upon our brazen tombs, And so grace us in the disgrace of death: When spite of cormorant devouring Time The endeavour of this present breath may buy That Honour which shall bate his Scythe's keen edge And make us heirs of all eternity."[19]

To think that I have no right to couple myself with you in this speech would be death to me, so I have e'en written it, and I pray G.o.d that our "brazen tombs" be nigh neighbours. It cannot be long first; the "endeavour of this present breath" will soon be over, and yet it is as well to breathe freely during our sojourn--it is as well as if you have not been teased with that Money affair, that bill-pestilence. However, I must think that difficulties nerve the Spirit of a Man--they make our Prime Objects a Refuge as well as a Pa.s.sion. The Trumpet of Fame is as a tower of Strength, the ambitious bloweth it and is safe. I suppose, by your telling me not to give way to forebodings, George has mentioned to you what I have lately said in my Letters to him--truth is I have been in such a state of Mind as to read over my Lines and hate them. I am one that "gathers Samphire, dreadful trade"--the Cliff of Poesy towers above me--yet when Tom who meets with some of Pope's Homer in Plutarch's Lives reads some of those to me they seem like Mice to mine. I read and write about eight hours a day. There is an old saying "well begun is half done"--'tis a bad one. I would use instead, "Not begun at all till half done;" so according to that I have not begun my Poem and consequently (a priori) can say nothing about it. Thank G.o.d! I do begin arduously where I leave off, notwithstanding occasional depressions; and I hope for the support of a High Power while I climb this little eminence, and especially in my Years of more momentous Labour. I remember your saying that you had notions of a good Genius presiding over you. I have of late had the same thought, for things which I do half at Random are afterwards confirmed by my judgment in a dozen features of Propriety. Is it too daring to fancy Shakspeare this Presider? When in the Isle of Wight I met with a Shakspeare in the Pa.s.sage of the House at which I lodged--it comes nearer to my idea of him than any I have seen--I was but there a Week, yet the old woman made me take it with me though I went off in a hurry. Do you not think this is ominous of good? I am glad you say every man of great views is at times tormented as I am.

Sunday after [May 11].

This Morning I received a letter from George by which it appears that Money Troubles are to follow us up for some time to come--perhaps for always--these vexations are a great hindrance to one--they are not like Envy and detraction stimulants to further exertion as being immediately relative and reflected on at the same time with the prime object--but rather like a nettle leaf or two in your bed. So now I revoke my Promise of finishing my Poem by the Autumn which I should have done had I gone on as I have done--but I cannot write while my spirit is fevered in a contrary direction and I am now sure of having plenty of it this Summer.

At this moment I am in no enviable Situation--I feel that I am not in a Mood to write any to-day; and it appears that the loss of it is the beginning of all sorts of irregularities. I am extremely glad that a time must come when everything will leave not a wrack behind. You tell me never to despair--I wish it was as easy for me to observe the saying--truth is I have a horrid Morbidity of Temperament which has shown itself at intervals--it is I have no doubt the greatest Enemy and stumbling-block I have to fear--I may even say that it is likely to be the cause of my disappointment. However every ill has its share of good--this very bane would at any time enable me to look with an obstinate eye on the Devil Himself--aye to be as proud of being the lowest of the human race as Alfred could be in being of the highest. I feel confident I should have been a rebel angel had the opportunity been mine. I am very sure that you do love me as your very Brother--I have seen it in your continual anxiety for me--and I a.s.sure you that your welfare and fame is and will be a chief pleasure to me all my Life. I know no one but you who can be fully sensible of the turmoil and anxiety, the sacrifice of all what is called comfort, the readiness to measure time by what is done and to die in six hours could plans be brought to conclusions--the looking upon the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Earth and its contents, as materials to form greater things--that is to say ethereal things--but here I am talking like a Madman,--greater things than our Creator himself made!!

I wrote to Hunt yesterday--scarcely know what I said in it. I could not talk about Poetry in the way I should have liked for I was not in humor with either his or mine. His self-delusions are very lamentable--they have enticed him into a Situation which I should be less eager after than that of a galley Slave--what you observe thereon is very true must be in time.

Perhaps it is a self-delusion to say so--but I think I could not be deceived in the manner that Hunt is--may I die to-morrow if I am to be.

There is no greater Sin after the seven deadly than to flatter oneself into an idea of being a great Poet--or one of those beings who are privileged to wear out their Lives in the pursuit of Honor--how comfortable a feel it is to feel that such a Crime must bring its heavy Penalty? That if one be a Self-deluder accounts must be balanced? I am glad you are hard at Work--'t will now soon be done--I long to see Wordsworth's as well as to have mine in:[20] but I would rather not show my face in Town till the end of the Year--if that will be time enough--if not I shall be disappointed if you do not write for me even when you think best. I never quite despair and I read Shakspeare--indeed I shall I think never read any other Book much. Now this might lead me into a long Confab but I desist. I am very near agreeing with Hazlitt that Shakspeare is enough for us. By the by what a tremendous Southean article his last was--I wish he had left out "grey hairs." It was very gratifying to meet your remarks on the ma.n.u.script--I was reading Anthony and Cleopatra when I got the Paper and there are several Pa.s.sages applicable to the events you commentate. You say that he arrived by degrees and not by any single struggle to the height of his ambition--and that his Life had been as common in particulars as other Men's. Shakspeare makes En.o.barb say--

Where's Antony?

_Eros._--He's walking in the garden, and _spurns The rush that lies_ before him; cries, Fool, Lepidus!

In the same scene we find--

Let determined things To destiny hold unbewailed their way.

Dolabella says of Anthony's Messenger,

An argument that he is pluck'd when hither He sends so poor a pinion of his wing.

Then again--

_Eno._--I see Men's Judgments are A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward Do draw the inward quality after them, To suffer all alike.

The following applies well to Bertrand[21]--

Yet he that can endure To follow with allegiance a fallen Lord, Does conquer him that did his Master conquer, And earns a place i' the story.

But how differently does Buonaparte bear his fate from Anthony!

'Tis good, too, that the Duke of Wellington has a good Word or so in the Examiner. A Man ought to have the Fame he deserves--and I begin to think that detracting from him as well as from Wordsworth is the same thing. I wish he had a little more taste--and did not in that respect "deal in Lieutenantry." You should have heard from me before this--but in the first place I did not like to do so before I had got a little way in the First Book, and in the next as G. told me you were going to write I delayed till I had heard from you. Give my Respects the next time you write to the North and also to John Hunt. Remember me to Reynolds and tell him to write. Ay, and when you send Westward tell your Sister that I mentioned her in this. So now in the name of Shakspeare, Raphael and all our Saints, I commend you to the care of heaven!

Your everlasting Friend

JOHN KEATS.

XI.--TO MESSRS. TAYLOR AND HESSEY.

Margate, May 16, 1817.

My dear Sirs--I am extremely indebted to you for your liberality in the shape of manufactured rag, value 20, and shall immediately proceed to destroy some of the minor heads of that hydra the dun; to conquer which the knight need have no Sword Shield Cuira.s.s, Cuisses Herbadgeon Spear Casque Greaves Paldrons spurs Chevron or any other scaly commodity, but he need only take the Bank-note of Faith and Cash of Salvation, and set out against the monster, invoking the aid of no Archimago or Urganda, but finger me the paper, light as the Sibyl's leaves in Virgil, whereat the fiend skulks off with his tail between his legs. Touch him with this enchanted paper, and he whips you his head away as fast as a snail's horn--but then the horrid propensity he has to put it up again has discouraged many very valiant Knights. He is such a never-ending still-beginning sort of a body--like my landlady of the Bell. I should conjecture that the very spright that "the green sour ringlets makes Whereof the ewe not bites" had manufactured it of the dew fallen on said sour ringlets. I think I could make a nice little allegorical poem, called "The Dun," where we would have the Castle of Carelessness, the drawbridge of credit, Sir Novelty Fashion's expedition against the City of Tailors, etc. etc. I went day by day at my poem for a Month--at the end of which time the other day I found my Brain so over-wrought that I had neither rhyme nor reason in it--so was obliged to give up for a few days. I hope soon to be able to resume my work--I have endeavoured to do so once or twice; but to no purpose. Instead of Poetry, I have a swimming in my head and feel all the effects of a Mental debauch, lowness of Spirits, anxiety to go on without the power to do so, which does not at all tend to my ultimate progression. However to-morrow I will begin my next month. This evening I go to Canterbury, having got tired of Margate. I was not right in my head when I came--At Canterbury I hope the remembrance of Chaucer will set me forward like a Billiard Ball. I am glad to hear of Mr. T.'s health, and of the welfare of the "In-town-stayers." And think Reynolds will like his Trip--I have some idea of seeing the Continent some time this summer. In repeating how sensible I am of your kindness, I remain