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should continue an unreasonable time many of my friends would I trust for my sake do all in their power to console and amuse you, at the least word from me You may depend upon it that in case my strength returns I will do all in my power to extricate you from the Abbeys. Be above all things careful of your health which is the corner stone of all pleasure.

Your affectionate Brother JOHN

196. TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON

[Mortimer Terrace, July, 1820.]

MY DEAR HAYDON-I am sorry to be obliged to try your patience a few more days when you will have the Book [Chapman's Homer] sent from Town. I am glad to hear you are in progress with another Picture. Go on. I am afraid I shall pop off just when my mind is able to run alone. Your sincere friend

JOHN KEATS.

197. TO FANNY KEATS

Mortimer Terrace [July 22, 1820.] MY DEAR FANNY-I have been gaining strength for some days: it would be well if I could at the same time say I am gaining hopes of a speedy recovery. My constitution has suffered very much for two or three years past, so as to be scarcely able to make head against illness, which the natural activity and impatience of my Mind renders more dangerous. It will at all events be a very tedious affair, and you must expect to hear very little alteration of any sort in me for some time. You ought to have received a copy of my Book ten days ago. I shall send another message to the Booksellers. One of the Mr. Wylie's will be here to-day or to-morrow when I will ask him to send you George's Letter. Writing the smallest note is so annoying to me that I have waited till I shall see him. Mr. Hunt does everything in his

power to make the time pass as agreeably with me as possible. I read the greatest part of the day, and generally take two half-hour walks a-day up and down the terrace which is very much pester'd with cries, ballad singers, and street music. We have been so unfortunate for so long a time, every event has been of so depressing a nature that I must persuade myself to think some change will take place in the aspect of our affairs. I shall be upon the look out for a trump card.

Your affectionate Brother

JOHN

198. TO FANNY BRAWNE

MY DEAREST FANNY - My head is puzzled this morning, and I scarce know what I shall say though I am full of a hundred things. 'Tis certain I would rather be writing to you this morning, notwithstanding the alloy of grief in such an occupation, than enjoy any other pleasure, with health to boot, unconnected with you. Upon my soul I have loved you to the extreme. I wish you could know the Tenderness with which I continually brood over your different aspects of countenance, action and dress. I see you come down in the morning: I see you meet me at the Window I see every thing over again eternally that I ever have scen. If I get on the pleasant clue I live in a sort of happy misery, if on the unpleasant 't is miserable misery. You complain of my illtreating you in word, thought and deed I am sorry,- at times I feel bitterly sorry that I ever made you unhappy my excuse is that those words have been wrung from me by the sharpness of my feelings. At all events and in any case I have been wrong; could I believe that I did it without any cause, I should be the most sincere of Penitents. I could give way to my repentant feelings now, I could recant all my suspicions, I could mingle with you heart and Soul

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though absent, were it not for some parts of your Letters. Do you suppose it possible I could ever leave you? You know what I think of myself and what of you. You know that I should feel how much it was my loss and how little yours. My friends laugh at you! I know some of them when I know them all I shall never think of them again as friends or even acquaintance. My friends have behaved well to me in every instance but one, and there they have become tattlers, and inquisitors into my conduct: spying upon a secret I would rather die than share it with any body's confidence. For this I cannot wish them well, I care not to see any of them again. If I am the Theme, I will not be the Friend of idle Gossips. Good gods what a shame it is our Loves should be so put into the microscope of a Coterie. Their laughs should not affect you (I may perhaps give you reasons some day for these laughs, for I suspect a few people to hate me well enough, for reasons I know of, who have pretended a great friendship for me) when in competition with one, who if he never should see you again would make you the Saint of his memory. These Laughers, who do not like you, who envy you for your Beauty, who would have Godbless'd me from you for ever: who were plying me with disencouragements with respect to you eternally. People are revengeful - do not mind them do nothing but love me - if I knew that for certain life and health will in such event be a heaven, and death itself will be less painful. I long to believe in immortality. I shall never be able to bid you an entire farewell. If I am destined to be happy with you here -how short is the longest Life. I wish to believe in immortality—I wish to live with you for ever. Do not let my name ever pass between you and those laughers; if I have no other merit than the great Love for you, that were sufficient to keep me sacred and unmentioned in such society.

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If I have been cruel and unjust I swear my love has ever been greater than my cruelty which last [sic] but a minute whereas my Love come what will shall last for ever. If concession to me has hurt your Pride God knows I have had little pride in my heart when thinking of you. Your name never passes my Lips-do not let mine pass yours. Those People do not like me. After reading my Letter you even then wish to see me. I am strong enough to walk overbut I dare not. I shall feel so much pain in parting with you again. My dearest love, I am afraid to see you; I am strong, but not strong enough to see you. Will my arm be ever round you again, and if so shall I be obliged to leave you again? My sweet Love! I am happy whilst I believe your first Letter. Let me be but certain that you are mine heart and soul, and I could die more happily than I could otherwise live. If you think me cruel if you think I have sleighted you

do muse it over again and see into my heart. My love to you is 'true as truth's simplicity and simpler than the infancy of

truth' as I think I once said before. How

could I sleight you? How threaten to leave you ? not in the spirit of a Threat to you- no - - but in the spirit of Wretchedness in myself. My fairest, my delicious, my angel Fanny do not believe me such a vulgar fellow. I will be as patient in illness and as believing in Love as I am able.

Yours for ever my dearest

JOHN KEATS.

199. TO THE SAME

I do not write this till the last,
that no eye may catch it.

MY DEAREST GIRL-I wish you could invent some means to make me at all happy without you. Every hour I am more and more concentrated in you; every thing else tastes like chaff in my Mouth. I feel it

almost impossible to go to Italy - the fact is I cannot leave you, and shall never taste one minute's content until it pleases chance to let me live with you for good. But I will not go on at this rate. A person in health as you are can have no conception of the horrors that nerves and a temper like mine go through. What Island do your friends propose retiring to? I should be happy to go with you there alone, but in company I should object to it; the backbitings and jealousies of new colonists who have nothing else to amuse themselves, is unbearable. Mr. Dilke came to see me yesterday, and gave me a very great deal more pain than pleasure. I shall never be able any more to endure the society of any of those who used to meet at Elm Cottage and Wentworth Place. The last two years taste like brass upon my Palate. If I cannot live with you I will live alone. I do not think my health will improve much while I am separated from you. For all this I am averse to seeing you - I cannot bear flashes of light and return into my gloom again. I am not so unhappy now as I should be if I had seen you yesterday. To be happy with you seems such an impossibility it requires a luckier Star than mine it will never be. I enclose a passage from one of your letters which I want you to alter a little - I want (if you will have it so) the matter express'd less coldly to me. If my health would bear it, I could write a Poem which I have in my head, which would be a consolation for people in such a situation as mine. I would show some one in Love as I am, with a person living in such Liberty as you do. Shakespeare always sums up matters in the most sovereign manner. Hamlet's heart was full of such Misery as mine is when he said to Ophelia 'Go to a Nunnery, go, go!' Indeed I should like to give up the matter at once I should like to die. I am sickened at the brute world which you are smiling with. I hate men, and women more. I see

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Wentworth Place [August 14, 1820].

MY DEAR FANNY 'Tis a long time since I received your last. An accident of an unpleasant nature occurred at Mr. Hunt's and prevented me from answering you, that is to say made me nervous. That you may not suppose it worse I will mention that some one of Mr. Hunt's household opened a Letter of mine upon which I immediately left Mortimer Terrace, with the intention of taking to Mrs. Bentley's again; fortunately I am not in so lone a situation, but am staying a short time with Mrs. Brawne who lives in the house which was Mrs. Dilke's. I am excessively nervous a person I am not quite used to entering the room half chokes me. 'Tis not yet Consumption I believe, but it would be were I to remain in this climate all the Winter so I am thinking of either voyaging or travelling to Italy. Yesterday I received an invitation from Mr. Shelley, a Gentleman residing at Pisa, to spend the Winter with him: if I go I must be away in a month or even less. I am glad you

like the Poems, you must hope with me that time and health will produce you some more. This is the first morning I have been able to sit to the paper and have many Letters to write if I can manage them. God bless you my dear Sister.

Your affectionate Brother JOHN

201. TO PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

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[Wentworth Place, Hampstead, August, 1820.] MY DEAR SHELLEY — I am very much gratified that you, in a foreign country, and with a mind almost over-occupied,

should write to me in the strain of the letter beside me. If I do not take advantage of your invitation, it will be prevented by a circumstance I have very much at heart to prophesy. There is no doubt that an English winter would put an end to me, and do so in a lingering hatefui manner. Therefore, I must either voyage or journey to Italy, as a soldier marches up to a battery. My nerves at present are the worst part of me, yet they feel soothed that, come what extreme may, I shall not be destined to remain in one spot long enough to take a hatred of any four particular bedposts. I am glad you take any pleasure in my poor poem, which I would willingly take the trouble to unwrite, if possible, did I care so much as I have done about reputation. I received a copy of the Cenci, as from yourself, from Hunt. There is only one part of it I am judge of - the poetry and dramatic effect, which by many spirits nowadays is considered the Mammon. A modern work, it is said, must have a purpose, which may be the God. An artist must serve Mammon; he must have "selfconcentration "selfishness, perhaps. You, I am sure, will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore.

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The thought of such discipline must fall like cold chains upon you, who perhaps never sat with your wings furled for six months together. And is this not extraor dinary talk for the writer of Endymion, whose mind was like a pack of scattered cards? I am picked up and sorted to a pip. My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk. I am in expectation of Prometheus every day. Could I have my own wish effected, you would have it still in manuscript, or be but now putting an end to the second act. I remember you advising me not to publish my first blights, on Hampstead Heath. I am returning advice upon your hands. Most of the poems in the volume I send you have been written above two years, and would never have been published but for hope of gain; so you see I am inclined enough to take your advice now. I must express once more my deep sense of your kindness, adding my sincere thanks and respects for Mrs. Shelley.

In the hope of soon seeing you, I remair most sincerely yours JOHN KEATS.

202. TO JOHN TAYLOR

Wentworth Place [August 14, 1820].

MY DEAR TAYLOR-My chest is in such a nervous state, that anything extra, such as speaking to an unaccustomed person, or writing a note, half suffocates me. This journey to Italy wakes me at daylight every morning, and haunts me horribly. I shall endeavour to go, though it be with the sensation of marching up against a battery. The first step towards it is to know the expense of a journey and a year's residence, which if you will ascertain for me, and let me know early, you will greatly serve me. I have more to say, but must desist, for every line I write increases the tightness of my chest, and I have many more to do. I am convinced that this sort of thing does

not continue for nothing. If you can come, with any of our friends, do.

Your sincere friend

JOHN KEATS.

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this morning than I was when I wrote the note: that is my hopes and spirits are better which are generally at a very low ebb from such a protracted illness. I shall be here for a little time and at home all and every day. A journey to Italy is recommended me, which I have resolved upon and am beginning to prepare for. Hoping to see you shortly

I remain your affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.

204. TO JOHN TAYLOR

Wentworth Place [August 15, 1820].

MY DEAR TAYLOR I do not think I mentioned anything of a Passage to Leghorn by Sea. Will you join that to your enquiries, and, if you can, give a peep at the Berth if the Vessel is [in] our river. Your sincere friend JOHN KEATS.

P. S.- Somehow a copy of Chapman's Homer, lent to me by Haydon, has disappeared from my Lodgings- it has quite flown I am afraid, and Haydon urges the return of it so that I must get one at Longman's and send it to Lisson Grove -or you must or as I have given you a job on the River-ask Mistessey [Mr. Hessey]. I had written a Note to this effect to Hessey some time since but crumpled it up in hopes that the Book might come to light. This morning Haydon has sent another messenger. The copy was in good condition with the head. Damn all thieves! Tell Woodhouse I have not lost his Blackwood.

Testamentary paper enclosed in the foregoing. My chest of Books divide among my friends.

In case of my death this scrap of paper may be serviceable in your possession.

All my Estate real and personal consists in the hopes of the sale of books publish'd or unpublish'd. Now I wish Brown and you to be the first paid Creditors - the rest is in nubibus but in case it should shower pay my Taylor the few pounds I owe him.

205. TO CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN [Wentworth Place, August 1820.] MY DEAR BROWN—You may not have heard from or —, or in any way, that an attack of spitting of blood, and all its weakening consequences, has prevented me from writing for so long a time. I have matter now for a very long letter, but not news so I must cut everything short. I shall make some confession, which you will be the only person, for many reasons, I shall trust with. A winter in England would, I have not a doubt, kill me; so I have land. Not that I have any great hopes of resolved to go to Italy, either by sea or that, for, I think, there is a core of disease in me not easy to pull out. I shall be obliged to set off in less than a month. Do not, my dear Brown, tease yourself about You must fill up your time as well as you can, and as happily. You must think of my faults as lightly as you can. long arrear of letters I owe you. My book When I have health 1 will bring up the has had good success among the literary I have seen very few people we know. people, and I believe has a moderate sale. has visited me more than any one. I after you, if I could with any bearable would go to and make some inquiries sensation; but a person I am not quite used to causes an oppression on my chest. Last week I received a letter from Shelley, at Pisa, of a very kind nature, asking me

me.

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