shall not do for a few days, as I am inclined to write a good deal; for
there can be nothing so remembrancing and enchaining as a good long
letter, be it composed of what it may. From the time you left me our
friends say I have altered completely--am not the same person. Perhaps in
this letter I am, for in a letter one takes up one's existence from the
time we last met. I daresay you have altered also--every man does--our
bodies every seven years are completely material'd. Seven years ago it was
not this hand that clinched itself against Hammond. We are like the relict
garments of a saint--the same and not the same, for the careful monks
patch it and patch it till there's not a thread of the original garment
left, and still they show it for St. Anthony's shirt. This is the reason
why men who have been bosom friends, on being separated for any number of
years meet coldly, neither of them knowing why. The fact is they are both
altered.
Men who live together have a silent moulding and influencing power over
each other. They interassimilate. 'Tis an uneasy thought, that in seven
years the same hands cannot greet each other again. All this may be
obviated by a wilful and dramatic exercise of our minds towards each
other. Some think I have lost that poetic ardour and fire 'tis said I once
had--the fact is, perhaps I have; but, instead of that, I hope I shall
substitute a more thoughtful and quiet power. I am more frequently now
contented to read and think, but now and then haunted with ambitious
thoughts. Quieter in my pulse, improved in my digestion, exerting myself
against vexing speculations, scarcely content to write the best verses for
the fever they leave behind. I want to compose without this fever. I hope
I one day shall. You would scarcely imagine I could live alone so
comfortably. "Kepen in solitarinesse." I told Anne, the servant here, the
other day, to say I was not at home if any one should call. I am not
certain how I should endure loneliness and bad weather together. Now the
time is beautiful. I take a walk every day for an hour before dinner, and
this is generally my walk: I go out the back gate, across one street into
the cathedral yard, which is always interesting; there I pass under the
trees along a paved path, pass the beautiful front of the cathedral, turn
to the left under a stone doorway,--then I am on the other side of the
building,--which leaving behind me, I pass on through two college-like
squares, seemingly built for the dwelling-place of deans and prebendaries,
garnished with grass and shaded with trees; then I pass through one of the
old city gates, and then you are in one college street, through which I
pass, and at the end thereof crossing some meadows, and at last a country
alley of gardens, I arrive, that is my worship arrives, at the foundation
of St. Cross, which is a very interesting old place, both for its gothic
tower and alms square and for the appropriation of its rich rents to a
relation of the Bishop of Winchester. Then I pass across St. Cross meadows
till you come to the most beautifully clear river--now this is only one
mile of my walk. I will spare you the other two till after supper, when
they would do you more good. You must avoid going the first mile best
after dinner--
[Wednesday, September 22.]
I could almost advise you to put by this nonsense until you are lifted out
of your difficulties; but when you come to this part, feel with
confidence what I now feel, that though there can be no stop put to
troubles we are inheritors of, there can be, and must be, an end to
immediate difficulties. Rest in the confidence that I will not omit any
exertion to benefit you by some means or other--If I cannot remit you
hundreds, I will tens, and if not that, ones. Let the next year be managed
by you as well as possible--the next month, I mean, for I trust you will
soon receive Abbey's remittance. What he can send you will not be a
sufficient capital to ensure you any command in America. What he has of
mine I have nearly anticipated by debts, so I would advise you not to sink
it, but to live upon it, in hopes of my being able to increase it. To this
end I will devote whatever I may gain for a few years to come, at which
period I must begin to think of a security of my own comforts, when quiet
will become more pleasant to me than the world. Still, I would have you
doubt my success. 'Tis at present the cast of a die with me. You say,
"These things will be a great torment to me." I shall not suffer them to
be so. I shall only exert myself the more, while the seriousness of their
nature will prevent me from nursing up imaginary griefs. I have not had
the blue devils once since I received your last. I am advised not to
publish till it is seen whether the tragedy will or not succeed. Should
it, a few months may see me in the way of acquiring property. Should it
not, it will be a drawback, and I shall have to perform a longer literary
pilgrimage. You will perceive that it is quite out of my interest to come
to America. What could I do there? How could I employ myself out of reach
of libraries? You do not mention the name of the gentleman who assists
you. 'Tis an extraordinary thing. How could you do without that
assistance? I will not trust myself with brooding over this. The following
is an extract from a letter of Reynolds to me:--
"I am glad to hear you are getting on so well with your writings. I hope
you are not neglecting the revision of your poems for the press, from
which I expect more than you do."
The first thought that struck me on reading your last was to mortgage a
poem to Murray, but on more consideration, I made up my mind not to do so;
my reputation is very low; he would not have negotiated my bill of
intellect, or given me a very small sum. I should have bound myself down
for some time. 'Tis best to meet present misfortunes; not for a momentary
good to sacrifice great benefits which one's own untrammell'd and free
industry may bring one in the end. In all this do never think of me as in
any way unhappy: I shall not be so. I have a great pleasure in thinking of
my responsibility to you, and shall do myself the greatest luxury if I can
succeed in any way so as to be of assistance to you. We shall look back
upon these times, even before our eyes are at all dim--I am convinced of
it. But be careful of those Americans. I could almost advise you to come,
whenever you have the sum of L500, to England. Those Americans will, I am
afraid, still fleece you. If ever you think of such a thing, you must bear
in mind the very different state of society here,--the immense
difficulties of the times, the great sum required per annum to maintain
yourself in any decency. In fact the whole is with Providence. I know not
how to advise you but by advising you to advise with yourself. In your
next tell me at large your thoughts about America--what chance there is of
succeeding there, for it appears to me you have as yet been somehow
deceived. I cannot help thinking Mr. Audubon has deceived you. I shall not
like the sight of him. I shall endeavour to avoid seeing him. You see how
puzzled I am. I have no meridian to fix you to, being the slave of what is
to happen. I think I may bid you finally remain in good hopes, and not
tease yourself with my changes and variations of mind. If I say nothing
decisive in any one particular part of my letter, you may glean the truth
from the whole pretty correctly. You may wonder why I had not put your
affairs with Abbey in train on receiving your letter before last, to which
there will reach you a short answer dated from Shanklin. I did write and
speak to Abbey, but to no purpose. Your last, with the enclosed note, has
appealed home to him. He will not see the necessity of a thing till he is
hit in the mouth. 'Twill be effectual.
I am sorry to mix up foolish and serious things together, but in writing
so much I am obliged to do so, and I hope sincerely the tenor of your mind
will maintain itself better. In the course of a few months I shall be as
good an Italian scholar as I am a French one. I am reading Ariosto at
present, not managing more than six or eight stanzas at a time. When I
have done this language, so as to be able to read it tolerably well, I
shall set myself to get complete in Latin, and there my learning must
stop. I do not think of returning upon Greek. I would not go even so far
if I were not persuaded of the power the knowledge of any language gives
one. The fact is I like to be acquainted with foreign languages. It is,
besides, a nice way of filling up intervals, etc. Also the reading of
Dante is well worth the while; and in Latin there is a fund of curious
literature of the Middle Ages, the works of many great men--Aretino and
Sannazaro and Machiavelli. I shall never become attached to a foreign
idiom, so as to put it into my writings. The Paradise Lost, though so fine
in itself, is a corruption of our language. It should be kept as it
is--unique, a curiosity, a beautiful and grand curiosity, the most
remarkable production of the world; a northern dialect accommodating
itself to Greek and Latin inversions and intonations. The purest English,
I think--or what ought to be purest--is Chatterton's. The language had
existed long enough to be entirely uncorrupted of Chaucer's Gallicisms,
and still the old words are used. Chatterton's language is entirely
northern. I prefer the native music of it to Milton's, cut by feet. I have
but lately stood on my guard against Milton. Life to him would be death
to me. Miltonic verse cannot be written, but is the verse of art. I wish
to devote myself to another verse alone.
Friday [September 24].
I have been obliged to intermit your letter for two days (this being
Friday morning), from having had to attend to other correspondence. Brown,
who was at Bedhampton, went thence to Chichester, and I am still directing
my letters Bedhampton. There arose a misunderstanding about them. I began
to suspect my letters had been stopped from curiosity. However, yesterday
Brown had four letters from me all in a lump, and the matter is cleared
up. Brown complained very much in his letter to me of yesterday of the
great alteration the disposition of Dilke has undergone. He thinks of
nothing but political justice and his boy. Now, the first political duty a
man ought to have a mind to is the happiness of his friends. I wrote Brown
a comment on the subject, wherein I explained what I thought of Dilke's
character, which resolved itself into this conclusion, that Dilke was a
man who cannot feel he has a personal identity unless he has made up his
mind about everything. The only means of strengthening one's intellect is
to make up one's mind about nothing--to let the mind be a thoroughfare for
all thoughts, not a select party. The genus is not scarce in population;
all the stubborn arguers you meet with are of the same brood. They never
begin upon a subject they have not pre-resolved on. They want to hammer
their nail into you, and if you have the point, still they think you
wrong. Dilke will never come at a truth as long as he lives, because he is
always trying at it. He is a Godwin Methodist.
I must not forget to mention that your mother show'd me the lock of
hair--'tis of a very dark colour for so young a creature. Then it is two
feet in length. I shall not stand a barley corn higher. That's not fair;
one ought to go on growing as well as others. At the end of this sheet I
shall stop for the present and send it off. You may expect another letter
immediately after it. As I never know the day of the month but by chance,
I put here that this is the 24th September.
I would wish you here to stop your ears, for I have a word or two to say
to your wife.
* * * * *
My dear Sister--In the first place I must quarrel with you for sending me
such a shabby piece of paper, though that is in some degree made up for by
the beautiful impression of the seal. You should like to know what I was
doing the first of May. Let me see--I cannot recollect. I have all the
Examiners ready to send--they will be a great treat to you when they reach
you. I shall pack them up when my business with Abbey has come to a good
conclusion, and the remittance is on the road to you. I have dealt round
your best wishes like a pack of cards, but being always given to cheat
myself, I have turned up ace. You see I am making game of you. I see you
are not all happy in that America. England, however, would not be over
happy for you if you were here. Perhaps 'twould be better to be teased
here than there. I must preach patience to you both. No step hasty or
injurious to you must be taken. You say let one large sheet be all to me.
You will find more than that in different parts of this packet for you.
Certainly, I have been caught in rains. A catch in the rain occasioned my
last sore throat; but as for red-haired girls, upon my word, I do not
recollect ever having seen one. Are you quizzing me or Miss Waldegrave
when you talk of promenading? As for pun-making, I wish it was as good a
trade as pin-making. There is very little business of that sort going on
now. We struck for wages, like the Manchester weavers, but to no purpose.
So we are all out of employ. I am more lucky than some, you see, by having
an opportunity of exporting a few--getting into a little foreign trade,
which is a comfortable thing. I wish one could get change for a pun in
silver currency. I would give three and a half any night to get into Drury
pit, but they won't ring at all. No more will notes you will say; but
notes are different things, though they make together a pun-note as the
term goes. If I were your son, I shouldn't mind you, though you rapt me
with the scissors. But, Lord! I should be out of favour when the little un
be comm'd. You have made an uncle of me, you have, and I don't know what
to make of myself. I suppose next there will be a nevey. You say in my
last, write directly. I have not received your letter above ten days. The
thought of your little girl puts me in mind of a thing I heard a Mr. Lamb
say. A child in arms was passing by towards its mother, in the nurse's
arms. Lamb took hold of the long clothes, saying: "Where, God bless me,
where does it leave off?"
Saturday [September 25].
If you would prefer a joke or two to anything else, I have two for you,
fresh hatched, just ris, as the bakers' wives say by the rolls. The first
I played off on Brown; the second I played on myself. Brown, when he left
me, "Keats," says he, "my good fellow" (staggering upon his left heel and
fetching an irregular pirouette with his right); "Keats," says he
(depressing his left eyebrow and elevating his right one), though by the
way at the moment I did not know which was the right one; "Keats," says he
(still in the same posture, but furthermore both his hands in his
waistcoat pockets and putting out his stomach), "Keats--my--go-o-ood
fell-o-o-ooh," says he (interlarding his exclamation with certain
ventriloquial parentheses),--no, this is all a lie--He was as sober as a
judge, when a judge happens to be sober, and said: "Keats, if any letters
come for me, do not forward them, but open them and give me the marrow of
them in a few words." At the time I wrote my first to him no letter had
arrived. I thought I would invent one, and as I had not time to
manufacture a long one, I dabbed off a short one, and that was the reason
of the joke succeeding beyond my expectations. Brown let his house to a
Mr. Benjamin--a Jew. Now, the water which furnishes the house is in a
tank, sided with a composition of lime, and the lime impregnates the water
unpleasantly. Taking advantage of this circumstance, I pretended that Mr.
Benjamin had written the following short note--
Sir--By drinking your damn'd tank water I have got the gravel. What
reparation can you make to me and my family?
NATHAN BENJAMIN.
By a fortunate hit, I hit upon his right--heathen name--his right
pronomen. Brown in consequence, it appears, wrote to the surprised Mr.
Benjamin the following--
Sir--I cannot offer you any remuneration until your gravel shall have
formed itself into a stone--when I will cut you with pleasure.
C. BROWN.
This of Brown's Mr. Benjamin has answered, insisting on an explanation of
this singular circumstance. B. says: "When I read your letter and his
following, I roared; and in came Mr. Snook, who on reading them seem'd
likely to burst the hoops of his fat sides." So the joke has told well.
Now for the one I played on myself. I must first give you the scene and
the dramatis personae. There are an old major and his youngish wife here in
the next apartments to me. His bedroom door opens at an angle with my
sitting-room door. Yesterday I was reading as demurely as a parish clerk,
when I heard a rap at the door. I got up and opened it; no one was to be
seen. I listened, and heard some one in the major's room. Not content with
this, I went upstairs and down, looked in the cupboards and watch'd. At
last I set myself to read again, not quite so demurely, when there came a
louder rap. I was determined to find out who it was. I looked out; the
staircases were all silent. "This must be the major's wife," said I. "At
all events I will see the truth." So I rapt me at the major's door and
went in, to the utter surprise and confusion of the lady, who was in
reality there. After a little explanation, which I can no more describe
than fly, I made my retreat from her, convinced of my mistake. She is to
all appearance a silly body, and is really surprised about it. She must
have been, for I have discovered that a little girl in the house was the
rapper. I assure you she has nearly made me sneeze. If the lady tells
tits, I shall put a very grave and moral face on the matter with the old
gentleman, and make his little boy a present of a humming top.
[Monday, September 27.]
My dear George--This Monday morning, the 27th, I have received your last,
dated 12th July. You say you have not heard from England for three months.
Then my letter from Shanklin, written, I think, at the end of June, has
not reach'd you. You shall not have cause to think I neglect you. I have
kept this back a little time in expectation of hearing from Mr. Abbey. You
will say I might have remained in town to be Abbey's messenger in these
affairs. That I offered him, but he in his answer convinced me that he was
anxious to bring the business to an issue. He observed, that by being
himself the agent in the whole, people might be more expeditious. You say
you have not heard for three months, and yet your letters have the tone of
knowing how our affairs are situated, by which I conjecture I acquainted
you with them in a letter previous to the Shanklin one. That I may not
have done. To be certain, I will here state that it is in consequence of
Mrs. Jennings threatening a chancery suit that you have been kept from the
receipt of monies, and myself deprived of any help from Abbey. I am glad
you say you keep up your spirits. I hope you make a true statement on
that score. Still keep them up, for we are all young. I can only repeat
here that you shall hear from me again immediately. Notwithstanding this
bad intelligence, I have experienced some pleasure in receiving so
correctly two letters from you, as it gives me, if I may so say, a distant
idea of proximity. This last improves upon my little niece--kiss her for
me. Do not fret yourself about the delay of money on account of my
immediate opportunity being lost, for in a new country whoever has money
must have an opportunity of employing it in many ways. The report runs now
more in favour of Kean stopping in England. If he should, I have confident
hopes of our tragedy. If he invokes the hot-blooded character of
Ludolph,--and he is the only actor that can do it,--he will add to his own
fame and improve my fortune. I will give you a half-dozen lines of it
before I part as a specimen--
Not as a swordsman would I pardon crave,
But as a son: the bronz'd Centurion,
Long-toil'd in foreign wars, and whose high deeds
Are shaded in a forest of tall spears,
Known only to his troop, hath greater plea
Of favour with my sire than I can have.
Believe me, my dear brother and sister, your affectionate and anxious
Brother
JOHN KEATS.
CXVII.--TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS.
Winchester, September 22, 1819.
My dear Reynolds--I was very glad to hear from Woodhouse that you would
meet in the country. I hope you will pass some pleasant time together.
Which I wish to make pleasanter by a brace of letters, very highly to be
estimated, as really I have had very bad luck with this sort of game this
season. I "kepen in solitarinesse," for Brown has gone a-visiting. I am
surprised myself at the pleasure I live alone in. I can give you no news
of the place here, or any other idea of it but what I have to this effect
written to George. Yesterday I say to him was a grand day for Winchester.
They elected a Mayor. It was indeed high time the place should receive
some sort of excitement. There was nothing going on: all asleep: not an
old maid's sedan returning from a card party: and if any old woman got
tipsy at Christenings they did not expose it in the streets. The first
night though of our arrival here, there was a slight uproar took place at
about 10 o' the Clock. We heard distinctly a noise pattering down the High
Street as of a walking cane of the good old Dowager breed; and a little
minute after we heard a less voice observe "What a noise the ferril
made--it must be loose." Brown wanted to call the constables, but I
observed 'twas only a little breeze and would soon pass over.--The side
streets here are excessively maiden-lady-like: the door-steps always fresh
from the flannel. The knockers have a staid serious, nay almost awful
quietness about them. I never saw so quiet a collection of Lions' and
Rams' heads. The doors are most part black, with a little brass handle
just above the keyhole, so that in Winchester a man may very quietly shut
himself out of his own house. How beautiful the season is now--How fine
the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste
weather--Dian skies--I never liked stubble-fields so much as now--Aye
better than the chilly green of the Spring. Somehow, a stubble-field looks
warm--in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me so much
in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it.[107]
I hope you are better employed than in gaping after weather. I have been
at different times so happy as not to know what weather it was--No I will
not copy a parcel of verses. I always somehow associate Chatterton with
autumn. He is the purest writer in the English Language. He has no French
idiom or particles, like Chaucer--'tis genuine English Idiom in English
words. I have given up Hyperion--there were too many Miltonic inversions
in it--Miltonic verse cannot be written but in an artful, or, rather,
artist's humour. I wish to give myself up to other sensations. English
ought to be kept up. It may be interesting to you to pick out some lines
from Hyperion, and put a mark x to the false beauty proceeding from art,
and one || to the true voice of feeling. Upon my soul 'twas imagination--I
cannot make the distinction--Every now and then there is a Miltonic
intonation--But I cannot make the division properly. The fact is, I must
take a walk: for I am writing a long letter to George: and have been
employed at it all the morning. You will ask, have I heard from George. I
am sorry to say not the best news--I hope for better. This is the reason,
among others, that if I write to you it must be in such a scrap-like way.
I have no meridian to date interests from, or measure circumstances--
To-night I am all in a mist; I scarcely know what's what--But you knowing
my unsteady and vagarish disposition, will guess that all this turmoil
will be settled by to-morrow morning. It strikes me to-night that I have
led a very odd sort of life for the two or three last years--Here and
there--no anchor--I am glad of it.--If you can get a peep at Babbicombe
before you leave the country, do.--I think it the finest place I have
seen, or is to be seen, in the South. There is a Cottage there I took warm
water at, that made up for the tea. I have lately shirk'd some friends of
ours, and I advise you to do the same, I mean the blue-devils--I am never
at home to them. You need not fear them while you remain in
Devonshire--there will be some of the family waiting for you at the Coach
office--but go by another Coach.