Chapter V: Letter XI: , were in the habit of walking out together (2)

If illness makes such an agreeable variety in the manner of
your eyes I should wish you sometimes to be ill. I wish I had
read your note before you went last night that I might have
assured you how far I was from suspecting any coldness. You
had a just right to be a little silent to one who speaks so
plainly to you. You must believe—you shall, you will—that I
can do nothing, say nothing, think nothing of you but what
has its spring in the Love which has so long been my pleasure
and torment. On the night I was taken ill—when so violent a
rush of blood came to my Lungs that I felt nearly suffocated—I
assure you I felt it possible I might not survive, and at that
moment thought of nothing but you. When I said to Brown “this
is unfortunate”[38] I thought of you. ’Tis true that since
the first two or three days other subjects have entered my
head.[39] I shall be looking forward to Health and the Spring
and a regular routine of our old Walks.

Your affectionate

J. K.

XII.

My sweet love, I shall wait patiently till tomorrow before I
see you, and in the mean time, if there is any need of such
a thing, assure you by your Beauty, that whenever I have at
any time written on a certain unpleasant subject, it has been
with your welfare impress’d upon my mind. How hurt I should
have been had you ever acceded to what is, notwithstanding,
very reasonable! How much the more do I love you from the
general result! In my present state of Health I feel too much
separated from you and could almost speak to you in the words
of Lorenzo’s Ghost to Isabella

“Your Beauty grows upon me and I feel
A greater love through all my essence steal.”

My greatest torment since I have known you has been the
fear of you being a little inclined to the Cressid; but that
suspicion I dismiss utterly and remain happy in the surety of
your Love, which I assure you is as much a wonder to me as a
delight. Send me the words ‘Good night’ to put under my pillow.

Dearest Fanny,

Your affectionate

J. K.

XIII.

My dearest Girl,

According to all appearances I am to be separated from you as
much as possible. How I shall be able to bear it, or whether
it will not be worse than your presence now and then, I cannot
tell. I must be patient, and in the mean time you must think
of it as little as possible. Let me not longer detain you from
going to Town—there may be no end to this imprisoning of you.
Perhaps you had better not come before tomorrow evening: send
me however without fail a good night.

You know our situation——what hope is there if I should be
recovered ever so soon—my very health will not suffer me to
make any great exertion. I am recommended not even to read
poetry, much less write it. I wish I had even a little hope.
I cannot say forget me—but I would mention that there are
impossibilities in the world. No more of this. I am not strong
enough to be weaned—take no notice of it in your good night.

Happen what may I shall ever be my dearest Love

Your affectionate

J. K.

XIV.

My dearest Girl, how could it ever have been my wish to forget
you? how could I have said such a thing? The utmost stretch my
mind has been capable of was to endeavour to forget you for
your own sake seeing what a chance there was of my remaining
in a precarious state of health. I would have borne it as I
would bear death if fate was in that humour: but I should as
soon think of choosing to die as to part from you. Believe too
my Love that our friends think and speak for the best, and
if their best is not our best it is not their fault. When I
am better I will speak with you at large on these subjects,
if there is any occasion—I think there is none. I am rather
nervous today perhaps from being a little recovered and
suffering my mind to take little excursions beyond the doors
and windows. I take it for a good sign, but as it must not be
encouraged you had better delay seeing me till tomorrow. Do not
take the trouble of writing much: merely send me my good night.

Remember me to your Mother and Margaret.

Your affectionate

J. K.

XV.

My dearest Fanny,

Then all we have to do is to be patient. Whatever violence I
may sometimes do myself by hinting at what would appear to any
one but ourselves a matter of necessity, I do not think I could
bear any approach of a thought of losing you. I slept well last
night, but cannot say that I improve very fast. I shall expect
you tomorrow, for it is certainly better that I should see you
seldom. Let me have your good night.

Your affectionate

J. K.

XVI.

My dearest Fanny,

I read your note in bed last night, and that might be the
reason of my sleeping so much better. I think Mr Brown[40]
is right in supposing you may stop too long with me, so very
nervous as I am. Send me every evening a written Good night. If
you come for a few minutes about six it may be the best time.
Should you ever fancy me too low-spirited I must warn you to
ascribe it to the medicine I am at present taking which is of
a nerve-shaking nature. I shall impute any depression I may
experience to this cause. I have been writing with a vile old
pen the whole week, which is excessively ungallant. The fault
is in the Quill: I have mended it and still it is very much
inclin’d to make blind es. However these last lines are in a
much better style of penmanship, tho’ a little disfigured by
the smear of black currant jelly; which has made a little mark
on one of the pages of Brown’s Ben Jonson, the very best book
he has. I have lick’d it but it remains very purple. I did not
know whether to say purple or blue so in the mixture of the
thought wrote purplue which may be an excellent name for a
colour made up of those two, and would suit well to start next
spring. Be very careful of open doors and windows and going
without your duffle grey. God bless you Love!

J. KEATS.

P.S. I am sitting in the back room. Remember me to your Mother.

XVII.

My dear Fanny,

Do not let your mother suppose that you hurt me by writing at
night. For some reason or other your last night’s note was not
so treasureable as former ones. I would fain that you call me
_Love_ still. To see you happy and in high spirits is a great
consolation to me—still let me believe that you are not half
so happy as my restoration would make you. I am nervous, I
own, and may think myself worse than I really am; if so you
must indulge me, and pamper with that sort of tenderness you
have manifested towards me in different Letters. My sweet
creature when I look back upon the pains and torments I have
suffer’d for you from the day I left you to go to the Isle of
Wight; the ecstasies in which I have pass’d some days and the
miseries in their turn, I wonder the more at the Beauty which
has kept up the spell so fervently. When I send this round I
shall be in the front parlour watching to see you show yourself
for a minute in the garden. How illness stands as a barrier
betwixt me and you! Even if I was well——I must make myself as
good a Philosopher as possible. Now I have had opportunities of
passing nights anxious and awake I have found other thoughts
intrude upon me. “If I should die,” said I to myself, “I have
left no immortal work behind me—nothing to make my friends
proud of my memory—but I have lov’d the principle of beauty
in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself
remember’d.” Thoughts like these came very feebly whilst I
was in health and every pulse beat for you—now you divide with
this (may _I_ say it?) “last infirmity of noble minds” all my
reflection.

God bless you, Love.

J. KEATS.

XVIII.

My dearest Girl,

You spoke of having been unwell in your last note: have you
recover’d? That note has been a great delight to me. I am
stronger than I was: the Doctors say there is very little the
matter with me, but I cannot believe them till the weight and
tightness of my Chest is mitigated. I will not indulge or pain
myself by complaining of my long separation from you. God alone
knows whether I am destined to taste of happiness with you: at
all events I myself know thus much, that I consider it no mean
Happiness to have lov’d you thus far—if it is to be no further
I shall not be unthankful—if I am to recover, the day of my
recovery shall see me by your side from which nothing shall
separate me. If well you are the only medicine that can keep me
so. Perhaps, aye surely, I am writing in too depress’d a state
of mind—ask your Mother to come and see me—she will bring you a
better account than mine.

Ever your affectionate

JOHN KEATS.

XIX.

My dearest Girl,

Indeed I will not deceive you with respect to my Health. This
is the fact as far as I know. I have been confined three
weeks[41] and am not yet well—this proves that there is
something wrong about me which my constitution will either
conquer or give way to. Let us hope for the best. Do you hear
the Thrush singing over the field? I think it is a sign of mild
weather—so much the better for me. Like all Sinners now I am
ill I philosophize, aye out of my attachment to every thing,
Trees, Flowers, Thrushes, Spring, Summer, Claret, &c. &c.—aye
every thing but you.—My sister would be glad of my company a
little longer. That Thrush is a fine fellow. I hope he was
fortunate in his choice this year. Do not send any more of
my Books home. I have a great pleasure in the thought of you
looking on them.

Ever yours my sweet Fanny

J. K.

XX.

My dearest Girl,

I continue much the same as usual, I think a little better. My
spirits are better also, and consequently I am more resign’d to
my confinement. I dare not think of you much or write much to
you. Remember me to all.

Ever your affectionate

JOHN KEATS.

XXI.

My dear Fanny,

I think you had better not make any long stay with me when Mr.
Brown is at home. Whenever he goes out you may bring your work.
You will have a pleasant walk today. I shall see you pass. I
shall follow you with my eyes over the Heath. Will you come
towards evening instead of before dinner? When you are gone,
’tis past—if you do not come till the evening I have something
to look forward to all day. Come round to my window for a
moment when you have read this. Thank your Mother, for the
preserves, for me. The raspberry will be too sweet not having
any acid; therefore as you are so good a girl I shall make you
a present of it. Good bye

My sweet Love!

J. KEATS.

XXII.

My dearest Fanny,

The power of your benediction is of not so weak a nature as
to pass from the ring in four and twenty hours—it is like a
sacred Chalice once consecrated and ever consecrate. I shall
kiss your name and mine where your Lips have been—Lips! why
should a poor prisoner as I am talk about such things? Thank
God, though I hold them the dearest pleasures in the universe,
I have a consolation independent of them in the certainty
of your affection. I could write a song in the style of Tom
Moore’s Pathetic about Memory if that would be any relief to
me. No—’twould not. I will be as obstinate as a Robin, I will
not sing in a cage. Health is my expected heaven and you are
the Houri——this word I believe is both singular and plural—if
only plural, never mind—you are a thousand of them.

Ever yours affectionately my dearest,

J. K.

You had better not come to day.

XXIII.

My dearest Love,

You must not stop so long in the cold—I have been suspecting
that window to be open.—Your note half-cured me. When I want
some more oranges I will tell you—these are just à propos. I am
kept from food so feel rather weak—otherwise very well. Pray do
not stop so long upstairs—it makes me uneasy—come every now and
then and stop a half minute. Remember me to your Mother.

Your ever affectionate

J. KEATS.

XXIV.

Sweetest Fanny,

You fear, sometimes, I do not love you so much as you wish? My
dear Girl I love you ever and ever and without reserve. The
more I have known the more have I lov’d. In every way—even
my jealousies have been agonies of Love, in the hottest fit
I ever had I would have died for you. I have vex’d you too
much. But for Love! Can I help it? You are always new. The
last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the
brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. When you pass’d
my window home yesterday, I was fill’d with as much admiration
as if I had then seen you for the first time. You uttered
a half complaint once that I only lov’d your beauty. Have I
nothing else then to love in you but that? Do not I see a heart
naturally furnish’d with wings imprison itself with me? No ill
prospect has been able to turn your thoughts a moment from me.
This perhaps should be as much a subject of sorrow as joy—but I
will not talk of that. Even if you did not love me I could not
help an entire devotion to you: how much more deeply then must
I feel for you knowing you love me. My Mind has been the most
discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too
small for it. I never felt my Mind repose upon anything with
complete and undistracted enjoyment—upon no person but you.
When you are in the room my thoughts never fly out of window:
you always concentrate my whole senses. The anxiety shown about
our Loves in your last note is an immense pleasure to me:
however you must not suffer such speculations to molest you any
more: nor will I any more believe you can have the least pique
against me. Brown is gone out—but here is Mrs. Wylie[42]—when
she is gone I shall be awake for you.—Remembrances to your
Mother.

Your affectionate

J. KEATS.

XXV.

My dear Fanny,

I am much better this morning than I was a week ago: indeed I
improve a little every day. I rely upon taking a walk with you
upon the first of May: in the mean time undergoing a babylonish
captivity I shall not be jew enough to hang up my harp upon
a willow, but rather endeavour to clear up my arrears in
versifying, and with returning health begin upon something new:
pursuant to which resolution it will be necessary to have my or
rather Taylor’s manuscript,[43] which you, if you please, will
send by my Messenger either today or tomorrow. Is Mr. D.[44]
with you today? You appeared very much fatigued last night: you
must look a little brighter this morning. I shall not suffer
my little girl ever to be obscured like glass breath’d upon,
but always bright as it is her _nature to_. Feeding upon sham
victuals and sitting by the fire will completely annul me. I
have no need of an enchanted wax figure to duplicate me, for
I am melting in my proper person before the fire. If you meet
with anything better (worse) than common in your Magazines let
me see it.

Good bye my sweetest Girl.

J. K.

XXVI.

My dearest Fanny, whenever you know me to be alone, come, no
matter what day. Why will you go out this weather? I shall
not fatigue myself with writing too much I promise you. Brown
says I am getting stouter.[45] I rest well and from last
night do not remember any thing horrid in my dream, which is a
capital symptom, for any organic derangement always occasions a
Phantasmagoria. It will be a nice idle amusement to hunt after
a motto for my Book which I will have if lucky enough to hit
upon a fit one—not intending to write a preface. I fear I am
too late with my note—you are gone out—you will be as cold as a
topsail in a north latitude—I advise you to furl yourself and
come in a doors.

Good bye Love.

J. K.

XXVII.

My dearest Fanny, I slept well last night and am no worse this
morning for it. Day by day if I am not deceived I get a more
unrestrain’d use of my Chest. The nearer a racer gets to the
Goal the more his anxiety becomes; so I lingering upon the
borders of health feel my impatience increase. Perhaps on your
account I have imagined my illness more serious than it is:
how horrid was the chance of slipping into the ground instead
of into your arms—the difference is amazing Love. Death must
come at last; Man must die, as Shallow says; but before that
is my fate I fain would try what more pleasures than you have
given, so sweet a creature as you can give. Let me have another
opportunity of years before me and I will not die without
being remember’d. Take care of yourself dear that we may both
be well in the Summer. I do not at all fatigue myself with
writing, having merely to put a line or two here and there, a
Task which would worry a stout state of the body and mind, but
which just suits me as I can do no more.

Your affectionate

J. K.

XXVIII.

My dearest Fanny,

I had a better night last night than I have had since my
attack, and this morning I am the same as when you saw me. I
have been turning over two volumes of Letters written between
Rousseau and two Ladies in the perplexed strain of mingled
finesse and sentiment in which the Ladies and gentlemen of
those days were so clever, and which is still prevalent among
Ladies of this Country who live in a state of reasoning
romance. The likeness however only extends to the mannerism,
not to the dexterity. What would Rousseau have said at seeing
our little correspondence! What would his Ladies have said!
I don’t care much—I would sooner have Shakspeare’s opinion
about the matter. The common gossiping of washerwomen must be
less disgusting than the continual and eternal fence and attack
of Rousseau and these sublime Petticoats. One calls herself
Clara and her friend Julia, two of Rousseau’s heroines—they all
[_sic_, but qy. _at_] the same time christen poor Jean Jacques
St. Preux—who is the pure cavalier of his famous novel. Thank
God I am born in England with our own great Men before my eyes.
Thank God that you are fair and can love me without being
Letter-written and sentimentaliz’d into it.—Mr. Barry Cornwall
has sent me another Book, his first, with a polite note.[46] I
must do what I can to make him sensible of the esteem I have
for his kindness. If this north east would take a turn it would
be so much the better for me. Good bye, my love, my dear love,
my beauty—

love me for ever.

J. K.

XXIX.

My dearest Fanny,

Though I shall see you in so short a time I cannot forbear
sending you a few lines. You say I did not give you yesterday a
minute account of my health. Today I have left off the Medicine
which I took to keep the pulse down and I find I can do very
well without it, which is a very favourable sign, as it shows
there is no inflammation remaining. You think I may be wearied
at night you say: it is my best time; I am at my best about
eight o’Clock. I received a Note from Mr. Procter[47] today.
He says he cannot pay me a visit this weather as he is fearful
of an inflammation in the Chest. What a horrid climate this
is? or what careless inhabitants it has? You are one of them.
My dear girl do not make a joke of it: do not expose yourself
to the cold. There’s the Thrush again—I can’t afford it—he’ll
run me up a pretty Bill for Music—besides he ought to know I
deal at Clementi’s. How can you bear so long an imprisonment at
Hampstead? I shall always remember it with all the gusto that a
monopolizing carle should. I could build an Altar to you for it.

Your affectionate

J. K.

XXX.

My dearest Girl,

As, from the last part of my note you must see how gratified I
have been by your remaining at home, you might perhaps conceive
that I was equally bias’d the other way by your going to Town,
I cannot be easy tonight without telling you you would be
wrong to suppose so. Though I am pleased with the one, I am
not displeased with the other. How do I dare to write in this
manner about my pleasures and displeasures? I will tho’ whilst
I am an invalid, in spite of you. Good night, Love!

J. K.

XXXI.

My dearest Girl,

In consequence of our company I suppose I shall not see you
before tomorrow. I am much better today—indeed all I have to
complain of is want of strength and a little tightness in the
Chest. I envied Sam’s walk with you today; which I will not do
again as I may get very tired of envying. I imagine you now
sitting in your new black dress which I like so much and if
I were a little less selfish and more enthusiastic I should
run round and surprise you with a knock at the door. I fear
I am too prudent for a dying kind of Lover. Yet, there is a
great difference between going off in warm blood like Romeo,
and making one’s exit like a frog in a frost. I had nothing
particular to say today, but not intending that there shall be
any interruption to our correspondence (which at some future
time I propose offering to Murray) I write something. God bless
you my sweet Love! Illness is a long lane, but I see you at the
end of it, and shall mend my pace as well as possible.

J. K.

XXXII.

Dear Girl,

Yesterday you must have thought me worse than I really was. I
assure you there was nothing but regret at being obliged to
forego an embrace which has so many times been the highest
gust of my Life. I would not care for health without it. Sam
would not come in—I wanted merely to ask him how you were
this morning. When one is not quite well we turn for relief
to those we love: this is no weakness of spirit in me: you
know when in health I thought of nothing but you; when I shall
again be so it will be the same. Brown has been mentioning
to me that some hint from Sam, last night, occasions him
some uneasiness. He whispered something to you concerning
Brown and old Mr. Dilke[48] which had the complexion of being
something derogatory to the former. It was connected with
an anxiety about Mr. D. Sr’s death and an anxiety to set
out for Chichester. These sort of hints point out their own
solution: one cannot pretend to a delicate ignorance on the
subject: you understand the whole matter. If any one, my sweet
Love, has misrepresented, to you, to your Mother or Sam, any
circumstances which are at all likely, at a tenth remove, to
create suspicions among people who from their own interested
notions slander others, pray tell me: for I feel the least
attaint on the disinterested character of Brown very deeply.
Perhaps Reynolds or some other of my friends may come towards
evening, therefore you may choose whether you will come to see
me early today before or after dinner as you may think fit.
Remember me to your Mother and tell her to drag you to me if
you show the least reluctance—

...

XXXIII to XXXVII.

KENTISH TOWN—PREPARING FOR ITALY.

XXXIII-XXXVII.

KENTISH TOWN—PREPARING FOR ITALY.

XXXIII.

My dearest Girl,

I endeavour to make myself as patient as possible. Hunt amuses
me very kindly—besides I have your ring on my finger and your
flowers on the table. I shall not expect to see you yet because
it would be so much pain to part with you again. When the
Books you want come you shall have them. I am very well this
afternoon. My dearest ...

[Signature cut off.[49]]

XXXIV.

Tuesday Afternoon.

My dearest Fanny,

For this Week past I have been employed in marking the most
beautiful passages in Spenser, intending it for you, and
comforting myself in being somehow occupied to give you however
small a pleasure. It has lightened my time very much. I am much
better. God bless you.

Your affectionate

J. KEATS.

XXXV.

Wednesday Morning.

My dearest Fanny,

I have been a walk this morning with a book in my hand, but as
usual I have been occupied with nothing but you: I wish I could
say in an agreeable manner. I am tormented day and night. They
talk of my going to Italy. ’Tis certain I shall never recover
if I am to be so long separate from you: yet with all this
devotion to you I cannot persuade myself into any confidence
of you. Past experience connected with the fact of my long
separation from you gives me agonies which are scarcely to be
talked of. When your mother comes I shall be very sudden and
expert in asking her whether you have been to Mrs. Dilke’s, for
she might say no to make me easy. I am literally worn to death,
which seems my only recourse. I cannot forget what has pass’d.
What? nothing with a man of the world, but to me deathful. I
will get rid of this as much as possible. When you were in the
habit of flirting with Brown you would have left off, could
your own heart have felt one half of one pang mine did. Brown
is a good sort of Man—he did not know he was doing me to death
by inches. I feel the effect of every one of those hours in
my side now; and for that cause, though he has done me many
services, though I know his love and friendship for me, though
at this moment I should be without pence were it not for his
assistance, I will never see or speak to him[50] until we are
both old men, if we are to be. I _will_ resent my heart having
been made a football. You will call this madness. I have heard
you say that it was not unpleasant to wait a few years—you have
amusements—your mind is away—you have not brooded over one
idea as I have, and how should you? You are to me an object
intensely desirable—the air I breathe in a room empty of you is
unhealthy. I am not the same to you—no—you can wait—you have a
thousand activities—you can be happy without me. Any party, any
thing to fill up the day has been enough. How have you pass’d
this month?[51] Who have you smil’d with? All this may seem
savage in me. You do not feel as I do—you do not know what it
is to love—one day you may—your time is not come. Ask yourself
how many unhappy hours Keats has caused you in Loneliness. For
myself I have been a Martyr the whole time, and for this reason
I speak; the confession is forc’d from me by the torture. I
appeal to you by the blood of that Christ you believe in: Do
not write to me if you have done anything this month which it
would have pained me to have seen. You may have altered—if
you have not—if you still behave in dancing rooms and other
societies as I have seen you—I do not want to live—if you have
done so I wish this coming night may be my last. I cannot live
without you, and not only you but _chaste you_; _virtuous you_.
The Sun rises and sets, the day passes, and you follow the bent
of your inclination to a certain extent—you have no conception
of the quantity of miserable feeling that passes through me in
a day.—Be serious! Love is not a plaything—and again do not
write unless you can do it with a crystal conscience. I would
sooner die for want of you than——

Yours for ever

J. KEATS.

XXXVI.

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 seen. If I get
on the pleasant clue I live in a sort of happy misery, if
on the unpleasant ’tis 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 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 God-bless’d me from you for ever:
who were plying me with disencouragements with respect to you
eternally. People are revengful—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[52]—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. 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 over—but 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.

XXXVII.

I do not write this till the last,
that no eye may catch it.[53]

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 nothing but thorns for the
future—wherever I may be next winter, in Italy or nowhere,
Brown will be living near you with his indecencies. I see no
prospect of any rest. Suppose me in Rome—well, I should there
see you as in a magic glass going to and from town at all
hours,——I wish you could infuse a little confidence of human
nature into my heart. I cannot muster any—the world is too
brutal for me—I am glad there is such a thing as the grave—I am
sure I shall never have any rest till I get there. At any rate
I will indulge myself by never seeing any more Dilke or Brown
or any of their Friends. I wish I was either in your arms full
of faith or that a Thunder bolt would strike me.

God bless you.

J. K.

ADDITIONAL LETTERS.

ADDITIONAL LETTERS.

II _bis_.

Shanklin

Thursday Evening

[15 July 1819?[54]]

My love,

I have been in so irritable a state of health these two or
three last days, that I did not think I should be able to
write this week. Not that I was so ill, but so much so as only
to be capable of an unhealthy teasing letter. To night I am
greatly recovered only to feel the languor I have felt after
you touched with ardency. You say you perhaps might have made
me better: you would then have made me worse: now you could
quite effect a cure: What fee my sweet Physician would I not
give you to do so. Do not call it folly, when I tell you I took
your letter last night to bed with me. In the morning I found
your name on the sealing wax obliterated. I was startled at the
bad omen till I recollected that it must have happened in my
dreams, and they you know fall out by contraries. You must have
found out by this time I am a little given to bode ill like
the raven; it is my misfortune not my fault; it has proceeded
from the general tenor of the circumstances of my life, and
rendered every event suspicious. However I will no more trouble
either you or myself with sad prophecies; though so far I am
pleased at it as it has given me opportunity to love your
disinterestedness towards me. I can be a raven no more; you
and pleasure take possession of me at the same moment. I am
afraid you have been unwell. If through me illness have touched
you (but it must be with a very gentle hand) I must be selfish
enough to feel a little glad at it. Will you forgive me this? I
have been reading lately an oriental tale of a very beautiful
color[55]—It is of a city of melancholy men, all made so by
this circumstance. Through a series of adventures each one of
them by turns reach some gardens of Paradise where they meet
with a most enchanting Lady; and just as they are going to
embrace her, she bids them shut their eyes—they shut them—and
on opening their eyes again find themselves descending to the
earth in a magic basket. The remembrance of this Lady and their
delights lost beyond all recovery render them melancholy ever
after. How I applied this to you, my dear; how I palpitated
at it; how the certainty that you were in the same world with
myself, and though as beautiful, not so talismanic as that
Lady; how I could not bear you should be so you must believe
because I swear it by yourself. I cannot say when I shall get
a volume ready. I have three or four stories half done, but as
I cannot write for the mere sake of the press, I am obliged
to let them progress or lie still as my fancy chooses. By
Christmas perhaps they may appear,[56] but I am not yet sure
they ever will. ’Twill be no matter, for Poems are as common
as newspapers and I do not see why it is a greater crime in
me than in another to let the verses of an half-fledged brain
tumble into the reading-rooms and drawing-room windows. Rice
has been better lately than usual: he is not suffering from
any neglect of his parents who have for some years been able
to appreciate him better than they did in his first youth, and
are now devoted to his comfort. Tomorrow I shall, if my health
continues to improve during the night, take a look fa[r]ther
about the country, and spy at the parties about here who come
hunting after the picturesque like beagles. It is astonishing
how they raven down scenery like children do sweetmeats. The
wondrous Chine here is a very great Lion: I wish I had as many
guineas as there have been spy-glasses in it. I have been,
I cannot tell why, in capital spirits this last hour. What
reason? When I have to take my candle and retire to a lonely
room, without the thought as I fall asleep, of seeing you
tomorrow morning? or the next day, or the next—it takes on the
appearance of impossibility and eternity—I will say a month—I
will say I will see you in a month at most, though no one but
yourself should see me; if it be but for an hour. I should not
like to be so near you as London without being continually with
you: after having once more kissed you Sweet I would rather be
here alone at my task than in the bustle and hateful literary
chitchat. Meantime you must write to me—as I will every
week—for your letters keep me alive. My sweet Girl I cannot
speak my love for you. Good night! and

Ever yours

JOHN KEATS.

XXXIV _bis_.

Tuesday Morn.

My dearest Girl,

I wrote a letter[57] for you yesterday expecting to have seen
your mother. I shall be selfish enough to send it though I know
it may give you a little pain, because I wish you to see how
unhappy I am for love of you, and endeavour as much as I can
to entice you to give up your whole heart to me whose whole
existence hangs upon you. You could not step or move an eyelid
but it would shoot to my heart—I am greedy of you. Do not think
of anything but me. Do not live as if I was not existing. Do
not forget me—But have I any right to say you forget me?
Perhaps you think of me all day. Have I any right to wish you
to be unhappy for me? You would forgive me for wishing it if
you knew the extreme passion I have that you should love me—and
for you to love me as I do you, you must think of no one but
me, much less write that sentence. Yesterday and this morning I
have been haunted with a sweet vision—I have seen you the whole
time in your shepherdess dress. How my senses have ached at
it! How my heart has been devoted to it! How my eyes have been
full of tears at it! I[n]deed I think a real love is enough
to occupy the widest heart. Your going to town alone when I
heard of it was a shock to me—yet I expected it—_promise me
you will not for some time till I get better_. Promise me this
and fill the paper full of the most endearing names. If you
cannot do so with good will, do my love tell me—say what you
think—confess if your heart is too much fasten’d on the world.
Perhaps then I may see you at a greater distance, I may not be
able to appropriate you so closely to myself. Were you to loose
a favourite bird from the cage, how would your eyes ache after
it as long as it was in sight; when out of sight you would
recover a little. Perhaps if you would, if so it is, confess to
me how many things are necessary to you besides me, I might be
happier; by being less tantaliz’d. Well may you exclaim, how
selfish, how cruel not to let me enjoy my youth! to wish me to
be unhappy. You must be so if you love me. Upon my soul I can
be contented with nothing else. If you would really what is
call’d enjoy yourself at a Party—if you can smile in people’s
faces, and wish them to admire you _now_—you never have nor
ever will love me. I see _life_ in nothing but the certainty of
your Love—convince me of it my sweetest. If I am not somehow
convinced I shall die of agony. If we love we must not live
as other men and women do—I cannot brook the wolfsbane of
fashion and foppery and tattle—you must be mine to die upon the
rack if I want you. I do not pretend to say that I have more
feeling than my fellows, but I wish you seriously to look over
my letters kind and unkind and consider whether the person who
wrote them can be able to endure much longer the agonies and
uncertainties which you are so peculiarly made to create. My
recovery of bodily health will be of no benefit to me if you
are not mine when I am well. For God’s sake save me—or tell me
my passion is of too awful a nature for you. Again God bless
you.

J. K.

No—my sweet Fanny—I am wrong—I do not wish you to be
unhappy—and yet I do, I must while there is so sweet a
Beauty—my loveliest, my darling! good bye! I kiss you—O the
torments!