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 repetition 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 Hell. 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 passes 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 passages, 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 worldmine 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 passion 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. Were they unhappy then?-It cannot be- Whose matter in bright gold were best be read; But, for the general award of love, The little sweet doth kill much bitterness; And Isabella's was a great distress, Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less- She wept alone for pleasures not to be; She brooded o'er the luxury alone: What might have been too plainly did she see,1 And on her couch low murmuring "Where? O where?" Don't you think I am I heard from Rice this morning-very witty-and have just written to Bailey. brushing up in the letter way? and being in for it, you shall hear again from me very shortly:-if you will promise not to put hand to paper for me until you can do it with a tolerable ease of health-except it be a line or two. Give my Love to your Mother and Sisters. Remember me to the Butlers-not forgetting Sarah. JOHN KEATS. Your affectionate Friend 1 Changed in the printed version to-"His image in the dusk she seemed to see." LII. TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS. Teignmouth, May 3d [1818]. My dear Reynolds-What I complain of is that I have been in so uneasy a state of Mind as not to be fit to write to an invalid. I cannot write to any length under a disguised feeling. I should have loaded you with an addition of gloom, which I am sure you do not want. I am now thank God in a humour to give you a good groat's worth-for Tom, after a Night without a Wink of sleep, and over-burthened with fever, has got up after a refreshing day-sleep and is better than he has been for a long time; and you I trust have been again round the common without any effect but refreshment. As to the Matter I hope I can say with Sir Andrew "I have matter enough in my head" in your favour— And now, in the second place, for I reckon that I have finished my Imprimis, I am glad you blow up the weather— all through your letter there is a leaning towards a climate-curse, and you know what a delicate satisfaction there is in having a vexation anathematised: one would think there has been growing up for these last four thousand years, a grand-child Scion of the old forbidden tree, and that some modern Eve had just violated it; and that there was come with double charge "Notus and Afer, black with thundrous clouds I shall breathe worsted stockings1 sooner than I thought for Tom wants to be in Town-we will have some such days upon the heath like that of last summer-and why not with the same book? or what say you to a black Letter Chaucer, printed in 1596: aye I've got one huzza! I shall have it bound en gothique—a nice sombre binding-it will go a little way to unmodernise. And also I see no reason, because I have been away this last month, why I should not have a peep at your 1 Meaning the atmosphere of the little Bentleys in Well Walk. |