justice to under five Years' study, and 3 vols. octavo--and, moreover, I
long to be talking about the Imagination--so my dear Bailey, do not think
of this unpleasant affair, if possible do not--I defy any harm to come of
it--I defy. I shall write to Cripps this week, and request him to tell me
all his goings-on from time to time by Letter wherever I may be. It will
go on well--so don't because you have suddenly discovered a Coldness in
Haydon suffer yourself to be teased--Do not my dear fellow--O! I wish I
was as certain of the end of all your troubles as that of your momentary
start about the authenticity of the Imagination. I am certain of nothing
but of the holiness of the Heart's affections, and the truth of
Imagination. What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth--whether
it existed before or not,--for I have the same idea of all our passions as
of Love: they are all, in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty. In
a Word, you may know my favourite speculation by my first Book, and the
little Song I sent in my last, which is a representation from the fancy of
the probable mode of operating in these Matters. The Imagination may be
compared to Adam's dream,--he awoke and found it truth:[32]--I am more
zealous in this affair, because I have never yet been able to perceive how
anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning--and yet it must
be. Can it be that even the greatest Philosopher ever arrived at his Goal
without putting aside numerous objections? However it may be, O for a life
of Sensations rather than of Thoughts! It is "a Vision in the form of
Youth," a shadow of reality to come--And this consideration has further
convinced me,--for it has come as auxiliary to another favourite
speculation of mine,--that we shall enjoy ourselves hereafter by having
what we called happiness on Earth repeated in a finer tone--And yet such a
fate can only befall those who delight in Sensation, rather than hunger as
you do after Truth. Adam's dream will do here, and seems to be a
Conviction that Imagination and its empyreal reflection, is the same as
human life and its spiritual repetition. But, as I was saying, the Simple
imaginative Mind may have its rewards in the repetition of its own silent
Working coming continually on the Spirit with a fine Suddenness--to
compare great things with small, have you never by being surprised with an
old Melody, in a delicious place by a delicious voice, _felt_ over again
your very speculations and surmises at the time it first operated on your
soul?--do you not remember forming to yourself the Singer's face--more
beautiful than it was possible, and yet with the elevation of the Moment
you did not think so? Even then you were mounted on the Wings of
Imagination, so high that the prototype must be hereafter--that delicious
face you will see. What a time! I am continually running away from the
subject. Sure this cannot be exactly the Case with a complex mind--one
that is imaginative, and at the same time careful of its fruits,--who
would exist partly on Sensation, partly on thought--to whom it is
necessary that years should bring the philosophic Mind? Such a one I
consider yours, and therefore it is necessary to your eternal happiness
that you not only drink this old Wine of Heaven, which I shall call the
redigestion of our most ethereal Musings upon Earth, but also increase in
knowledge and know all things. I am glad to hear that you are in a fair
way for Easter. You will soon get through your unpleasant reading, and
then!--but the world is full of troubles, and I have not much reason to
think myself pestered with many.
I think Jane or Marianne has a better opinion of me than I deserve: for,
really and truly, I do not think my Brother's illness connected with
mine--you know more of the real Cause than they do; nor have I any chance
of being rack'd as you have been. You perhaps at one time thought there
was such a thing as worldly happiness to be arrived at, at certain periods
of time marked out,--you have of necessity from your disposition been thus
led away--I scarcely remember counting upon any Happiness--I look not for
it if it be not in the present hour,--nothing startles me beyond the
moment. The Setting Sun will always set me to rights, or if a Sparrow come
before my Window, I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel.
The first thing that strikes me on hearing a Misfortune having befallen
another is this--"Well, it cannot be helped: he will have the pleasure of
trying the resources of his Spirit"--and I beg now, my dear Bailey, that
hereafter should you observe anything cold in me not to put it to the
account of heartlessness, but abstraction--for I assure you I sometimes
feel not the influence of a passion or affection during a whole Week--and
so long this sometimes continues, I begin to suspect myself, and the
genuineness of my feelings at other times--thinking them a few barren
Tragedy Tears.
My brother Tom is much improved--he is going to Devonshire--whither I
shall follow him. At present, I am just arrived at Dorking--to change the
Scene--change the Air, and give me a spur to wind up my Poem, of which
there are wanting 500 lines. I should have been here a day sooner, but the
Reynoldses persuaded me to stop in Town to meet your friend Christie.
There were Rice and Martin--we talked about Ghosts. I will have some Talk
with Taylor and let you know,--when please God I come down at Christmas. I
will find that Examiner if possible. My best regards to Gleig, my
Brothers' to you and Mrs. Bentley.
Your affectionate Friend
JOHN KEATS.
I want to say much more to you--a few hints will set me going. Direct
Burford Bridge near Dorking.
XXIII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
[Burford Bridge,] November 22, 1817.
My dear Reynolds--There are two things which tease me here--one of them
Cripps, and the other that I cannot go with Tom into Devonshire. However,
I hope to do my duty to myself in a week or so; and then I'll try what I
can do for my neighbour--now, is not this virtuous? On returning to Town
I'll damm all Idleness--indeed, in superabundance of employment, I must
not be content to run here and there on little two-penny errands, but turn
Rakehell, _i.e._ go a masking, or Bailey will think me just as great a
Promise Keeper as _he_ thinks you; for myself I do not, and do not
remember above one complaint against you for matter o' that. Bailey writes
so abominable a hand, to give his Letter a fair reading requires a little
time: so I had not seen, when I saw you last, his invitation to Oxford at
Christmas. I'll go with you. You know how poorly Rice was. I do not think
it was all corporeal,--bodily pain was not used to keep him silent. I'll
tell you what; he was hurt at what your Sisters said about his joking with
your Mother, he was, soothly to sain. It will all blow over. God knows,
my dear Reynolds, I should not talk any sorrow to you--you must have
enough vexations--so I won't any more. If I ever start a rueful subject in
a letter to you--blow me! Why don't you?--now I am going to ask you a very
silly Question neither you nor anybody else could answer, under a folio,
or at least a Pamphlet--you shall judge--why don't you, as I do, look
unconcerned at what may be called more particularly Heart-vexations? They
never surprise me--lord! a man should have the fine point of his soul
taken off to become fit for this world.
I like this place very much. There is Hill and Dale and a little River. I
went up Box hill this Evening after the Moon--"you a' seen the Moon"--came
down, and wrote some lines. Whenever I am separated from you, and not
engaged in a continued Poem, every letter shall bring you a lyric--but I
am too anxious for you to enjoy the whole to send you a particle. One of
the three books I have with me is Shakspeare's Poems: I never found so
many beauties in the sonnets--they seem to be full of fine things said
unintentionally--in the intensity of working out conceits. Is this to be
borne? Hark ye!
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the head,
And Summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly head.
He has left nothing to say about nothing or anything: for look at
snails--you know what he says about Snails--you know when he talks about
"cockled Snails"--well, in one of these sonnets, he says--the chap slips
into--no! I lie! this is in the Venus and Adonis: the simile brought it to
my Mind.
As the snail, whose tender horns being hit,
Shrinks back into his shelly cave with pain,
And there all smothered up in shade doth sit,
Long after fearing to put forth again;
So at his bloody view her eyes are fled,
Into the deep dark Cabins of her head.
He overwhelms a genuine Lover of poesy with all manner of abuse, talking
about--
"a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song."
Which, by the bye, will be a capital motto for my poem, won't it? He
speaks too of "Time's antique pen"--and "April's first-born flowers"--and
"Death's eternal cold."--By the Whim-King! I'll give you a stanza, because
it is not material in connection, and when I wrote it I wanted you--to
give your vote, pro or con.--
Crystalline Brother of the belt of Heaven,
Aquarius! to whom King Jove hath given
Two liquid pulse-streams, 'stead of feather'd wings--
Two fan-like fountains--thine illuminings
For Dian play:
Dissolve the frozen purity of air;
Let thy white shoulders, silvery and bare,
Show cold through wat'ry pinions: make more bright
The Star-Queen's Crescent on her marriage night:
Haste, haste away!
... I see there is an advertisement in the _Chronicle_ to Poets--he is so
over-loaded with poems on the "late Princess." I suppose you do not
lack--send me a few--lend me thy hand to laugh a little--send me a little
pullet-sperm, a few finch-eggs--and remember me to each of our
card-playing Club. When you die you will all be turned into Dice, and be
put in pawn with the devil: for cards, they crumple up like anything....
I rest Your affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.
Give my love to both houses--hinc atque illinc.
XXIV.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
Hampstead, December 22, 1817.
My dear Brothers--I must crave your pardon for not having written ere
this.... I saw Kean return to the public in Richard III., and finely he
did it, and, at the request of Reynolds, I went to criticise his _Duke_
in Rich{d.}--the critique is in to-day's Champion, which I send you with
the Examiner, in which you will find very proper lamentation on the
obsoletion of Christmas Gambols and pastimes: but it was mixed up with so
much egotism of that drivelling nature that pleasure is entirely lost.
Hone the publisher's trial, you must find very amusing, and as Englishmen
very encouraging: his _Not Guilty_ is a thing, which not to have been,
would have dulled still more Liberty's Emblazoning--Lord Ellenborough has
been paid in his own coin--Wooler and Hone have done us an essential
service. I have had two very pleasant evenings with Dilke yesterday and
to-day, and am at this moment just come from him, and feel in the humour
to go on with this, begun in the morning, and from which he came to fetch
me. I spent Friday evening with Wells[33] and went next morning to see
_Death on the Pale horse_. It is a wonderful picture, when West's age is
considered; but there is nothing to be intense upon, no women one feels
mad to kiss, no face swelling into reality. The excellence of every art is
its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate from their
being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth--Examine King Lear, and
you will find this exemplified throughout; but in this picture we have
unpleasantness without any momentous depth of speculation excited, in
which to bury its repulsiveness--The picture is larger than Christ
rejected.
I dined with Haydon the Sunday after you left, and had a very pleasant
day, I dined too (for I have been out too much lately) with Horace Smith
and met his two Brothers with Hill and Kingston and one Du Bois, they only
served to convince me how superior humour is to wit, in respect to
enjoyment--These men say things which make one start, without making one
feel, they are all alike; their manners are alike; they all know
fashionables; they have all a mannerism in their very eating and drinking,
in their mere handling a Decanter. They talked of Kean and his low
company--would I were with that company instead of yours said I to myself!
I know such like acquaintance will never do for me and yet I am going to
Reynolds, on Wednesday. Brown and Dilke walked with me and back from the
Christmas pantomime. I had not a dispute, but a disquisition, with Dilke
upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once
it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in
Literature, and which Shakspeare possessed so enormously--I mean _Negative
Capability_, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties,
mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude
caught from the Penetralium of mystery,[34] from being incapable of
remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would
perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of
Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all
consideration.
Shelley's poem[35] is out and there are words about its being objected to,
as much as Queen Mab was. Poor Shelley I think he has his Quota of good
qualities, in sooth la! Write soon to your most sincere friend and
affectionate Brother
JOHN.
XXV.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
Featherstone Buildings,[36] Monday [January 5, 1818].
My dear Brothers--I ought to have written before, and you should have had
a long letter last week, but I undertook the Champion for Reynolds, who
is at Exeter. I wrote two articles, one on the Drury Lane Pantomime, the
other on the Covent Garden new Tragedy, which they have not put in;[37]
the one they have inserted is so badly punctuated that you perceive I am
determined never to write more, without some care in that particular.
Wells tells me that you are licking your chops, Tom, in expectation of my
book coming out. I am sorry to say I have not begun my corrections yet:
to-morrow I set out. I called on Sawrey[38] this morning. He did not seem
to be at all put out at anything I said and the inquiries I made with
regard to your spitting of blood, and moreover desired me to ask you to
send him a correct account of all your sensations and symptoms concerning
the palpitation and the spitting and the cough--if you have any. Your last
letter gave me a great pleasure, for I think the invalid is in a better
spirit there along the Edge; and as for George, I must immediately, now I
think of it, correct a little misconception of a part of my last letter.
The Misses Reynolds have never said one word against me about you, or by
any means endeavoured to lessen you in my estimation. That is not what I
referred to; but the manner and thoughts which I knew they internally had
towards you, time will show. Wells and Severn dined with me yesterday. We
had a very pleasant day. I pitched upon another bottle of claret, we
enjoyed ourselves very much; were all very witty and full of Rhymes. We
played a concert from 4 o'clock till 10--drank your healths, the Hunts',
and (_N.B._) seven Peter Pindars. I said on that day the only good thing I
was ever guilty of. We were talking about Stephens and the 1st Gallery. I
said I wondered that careful folks would go there, for although it was but
a shilling, still you had to pay through the Nose. I saw the Peachey
family in a box at Drury one night. I have got such a curious[39] ... or
rather I had such, now I am in my own hand.
I have had a great deal of pleasant time with Rice lately, and am getting
initiated into a little band. They call drinking deep dyin' scarlet. They
call good wine a pretty tipple, and call getting a child knocking out an
apple; stopping at a tavern they call hanging out. Where do you sup? is
where do you hang out?
Thursday I promised to dine with Wordsworth, and the weather is so bad
that I am undecided, for he lives at Mortimer Street. I had an invitation
to meet him at Kingston's,[40] but not liking that place I sent my excuse.
What I think of doing to-day is to dine in Mortimer Street (Words{th}),
and sup here in the Feath{s} buildings, as Mr. Wells has invited me. On
Saturday, I called on Wordsworth before he went to Kingston's, and was
surprised to find him with a stiff collar. I saw his spouse, and I think
his daughter. I forget whether I had written my last before my Sunday
evening at Haydon's--no, I did not, or I should have told you, Tom, of a
young man you met at Paris, at Scott's, ... Ritchie. I think he is going
to Fezan, in Africa; then to proceed if possible like Mungo Park. He was
very polite to me, and inquired very particularly after you. Then there
was Wordsworth, Lamb, Monkhouse, Landseer, Kingston, and your humble
servant. Lamb got tipsy and blew up Kingston--proceeding so far as to take
the candle across the room, hold it to his face, and show us what a soft
fellow he was.[41] I astonished Kingston at supper with a pertinacity in
favour of drinking, keeping my two glasses at work in a knowing way.
I have seen Fanny twice lately--she inquired particularly after you and
wants a co-partnership letter from you. She has been unwell, but is
improving. I think she will be quick. Mrs. Abbey was saying that the
Keatses were ever indolent, that they would ever be so, and that it is
born in them. Well, whispered Fanny to me, if it is born with us, how can
we help it? She seems very anxious for a letter. As I asked her what I
should get for her, she said a "Medal of the Princess." I called on
Haslam--we dined very snugly together. He sent me a Hare last week, which
I sent to Mrs. Dilke. Brown is not come back. I and Dilke are getting
capital friends. He is going to take the Champion. He has sent his farce
to Covent Garden. I met Bob Harris[42] on the steps at Covent Garden; we
had a good deal of curious chat. He came out with his old humble opinion.
The Covent Garden pantomime is a very nice one, but they have a middling
Harlequin, a bad Pantaloon, a worse Clown, and a shocking Columbine, who
is one of the Miss Dennets. I suppose you will see my critique on the new
tragedy in the next week's Champion. It is a shocking bad one. I have not
seen Hunt; he was out when I called. Mrs. Hunt looks as well as ever I saw
her after her confinement. There is an article in the se'nnight Examiner
on Godwin's Mandeville, signed E. K.--I think it Miss Kent's--I will send
it. There are fine subscriptions going on for Hone.
You ask me what degrees there are between Scott's novels and those of
Smollett. They appear to me to be quite distinct in every particular, more
especially in their aims. Scott endeavours to throw so interesting and
romantic a colouring into common and low characters as to give them a
touch of the sublime. Smollett on the contrary pulls down and levels what
with other men would continue romance. The grand parts of Scott are
within the reach of more minds than the finest humours in Humphrey
Clinker. I forget whether that fine thing of the Serjeant is Fielding or
Smollett, but it gives me more pleasure than the whole novel of the
Antiquary. You must remember what I mean. Some one says to the Serjeant:
"That's a non-sequitur!"--"If you come to that," replies the Serjeant,
"you're another!"--
I see by Wells's letter Mr. Abbey[43] does not overstock you with money.
You must write. I have not seen ... yet, but expect it on Wednesday. I am
afraid it is gone. Severn tells me he has an order for some drawings for
the Emperor of Russia.
You must get well Tom, and then I shall feel whole and genial as the
winter air. Give me as many letters as you like, and write to Sawrey soon.
I received a short letter from Bailey about Cripps, and one from Haydon,
ditto. Haydon thinks he improved very much. Mrs. Wells desires
particularly ... to Tom and her respects to George, and I desire no better
than to be ever your most affectionate Brother
JOHN.
_P.S._--I had not opened the Champion before I found both my articles in
it.
I was at a dance at Redhall's, and passed a pleasant time enough--drank
deep, and won 10.6 at cutting for half guineas.... Bailey was there and
seemed to enjoy the evening. Rice said he cared less about the hour than
any one, and the proof is his dancing--he cares not for time, dancing as
if he was deaf. Old Redhall not being used to give parties, had no idea of
the quantity of wine that would be drank, and he actually put in readiness
on the kitchen stairs eight dozen.
Every one inquires after you, and desires their remembrances to you.
Your Brother
JOHN.
XXVI.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
[Hampstead,] Saturday Morn [January 10, 1818].
My dear Haydon--I should have seen you ere this, but on account of my
sister being in Town: so that when I have sometimes made ten paces towards
you, Fanny has called me into the City; and the Christmas Holydays are
your only time to see Sisters, that is if they are so situated as mine. I
will be with you early next week--to-night it should be, but we have a
sort of a Club every Saturday evening--to-morrow, but I have on that day
an insuperable engagement. Cripps has been down to me, and appears
sensible that a binding to you would be of the greatest advantage to
him--if such a thing be done it cannot be before L150 or L200 are secured
in subscriptions to him. I will write to Bailey about it, give a Copy of
the Subscribers' names to every one I know who is likely to get a L5 for
him. I will leave a Copy at Taylor and Hessey's, Rodwell and Martin, and
will ask Kingston and Co. to cash up.
Your friendship for me is now getting into its teens--and I feel the past.
Also every day older I get--the greater is my idea of your achievements in
Art: and I am convinced that there are three things to rejoice at in this
Age--The Excursion, Your Pictures, and Hazlitt's depth of Taste.
Yours affectionately
JOHN KEATS.
XXVII.--TO JOHN TAYLOR.
[Hampstead,] Saturday Morning [January 10, 1818].
My dear Taylor--Several things have kept me from you lately:--first you
had got into a little hell, which I was not anxious to reconnoitre--
secondly, I have made a vow not to call again without my first book: so you
may expect to see me in four days. Thirdly, I have been racketing too
much, and do not feel over well. I have seen Wordsworth frequently--Dined
with him last Monday--Reynolds, I suppose you have seen. Just scribble me
thus many lines, to let me know you are in the land of the living, and
well. Remember me to the Fleet Street Household--and should you see any
from Percy Street, give my kindest regards to them.
Your sincere friend
JOHN KEATS.
XXVIII.--TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS.
[Hampstead,] Tuesday [January 13, 1818].
My dear Brothers--I am certain I think of having a letter to-morrow
morning for I expected one so much this morning, having been in town two
days, at the end of which my expectations began to get up a little. I
found two on the table, one from Bailey and one from Haydon, I am quite
perplexed in a world of doubts and fancies--there is nothing stable in the
world; uproar's your only music--I don't mean to include Bailey in this
and so dismiss him from this with all the opprobrium he deserves--that is
in so many words, he is one of the noblest men alive at the present day.
In a note to Haydon about a week ago (which I wrote with a full sense of
what he had done, and how he had never manifested any little mean drawback
in his value of me) I said if there were three things superior in the
modern world, they were "the Excursion," "Haydon's pictures," and
"Hazlitt's depth of Taste"--so I do believe--Not thus speaking with any
poor vanity that works of genius were the first things in this world. No!
for that sort of probity and disinterestedness which such men as Bailey
possess, does hold and grasp the tiptop of any spiritual honours that can
be paid to anything in this world--And moreover having this feeling at
this present come over me in its full force, I sat down to write to you
with a grateful heart, in that I had not a Brother who did not feel and
credit me for a deeper feeling and devotion for his uprightness, than for
any marks of genius however splendid. I was speaking about doubts and
fancies--I mean there has been a quarrel of a severe nature between Haydon
and Reynolds and another ("the Devil rides upon a fiddlestick") between
Hunt and Haydon--the first grew from the Sunday on which Haydon invited
some friends to meet Wordsworth. Reynolds never went, and never sent any
Notice about it, this offended Haydon more than it ought to have done--he
wrote a very sharp and high note to Reynolds and then another in
palliation--but which Reynolds feels as an aggravation of the
first--Considering all things, Haydon's frequent neglect of his
Appointments, etc. his notes were bad enough to put Reynolds on the right
side of the question--but then Reynolds has no power of sufferance; no
idea of having the thing against him; so he answered Haydon in one of the
most cutting letters I ever read; exposing to himself all his own
weaknesses and going on to an excess, which whether it is just or no, is
what I would fain have unsaid, the fact is, they are both in the right and
both in the wrong.
The quarrel with Hunt I understand thus far. Mrs. H. was in the habit of
borrowing silver of Haydon--the last time she did so, Haydon asked her to
return it at a certain time--she did not--Haydon sent for it--Hunt went to
expostulate on the indelicacy, etc.--they got to words and parted for
ever. All I hope is at some time to bring them together again.--Lawk!
Molly there's been such doings--Yesterday evening I made an appointment
with Wells to go to a private theatre, and it being in the neighbourhood
of Drury Lane, and thinking we might be fatigued with sitting the whole
evening in one dirty hole, I got the Drury Lane ticket, and therewith we
divided the evening with a spice of Richard III----
[Later, January 19 or 20.]