Part 29 (1/2)
My dear f.a.n.n.y--It is impossible for me to call on you to-day--for I have particular Business at the other end of the Town this morning, and must be back to Hampstead with all speed to keep a long agreed on appointment.
To-morrow I shall see you.
Your affectionate Brother
JOHN ----.
XCVI.--TO JOSEPH SEVERN.
Wentworth Place, Monday Aft. [March 29? 1819].
My dear Severn--Your note gave me some pain, not on my own account, but on yours. Of course I should never suffer any petty vanity of mine to hinder you in any wise; and therefore I should say ”put the miniature in the exhibition” if only myself was to be hurt. But, will it not hurt you? What good can it do to any future picture. Even a large picture is lost in that canting place--what a drop of water in the ocean is a Miniature. Those who might chance to see it for the most part if they had ever heard of either of us and know what we were and of what years would laugh at the puff of the one and the vanity of the other. I am however in these matters a very bad judge--and would advise you to act in a way that appears to yourself the best for your interest. As your ”Hermia and Helena” is finished send that without the prologue of a Miniature. I shall see you soon, if you do not pay me a visit sooner--there's a Bull for you.
Yours ever sincerely
JOHN KEATS.
XCVII.--TO f.a.n.n.y KEATS.
Wentworth Place [April 13, 1819].
My dear f.a.n.n.y--I have been expecting a Letter from you about what the Parson said to your answers. I have thought also of writing to you often, and I am sorry to confess that my neglect of it has been but a small instance of my idleness of late--which has been growing upon me, so that it will require a great shake to get rid of it. I have written nothing and almost read nothing--but I must turn over a new leaf. One most discouraging thing hinders me--we have no news yet from George--so that I cannot with any confidence continue the Letter I have been preparing for him. Many are in the same state with us and many have heard from the Settlement. They must be well however: and we must consider this silence as good news. I ordered some bulbous roots for you at the Gardener's, and they sent me some, but they were all in bud--and could not be sent--so I put them in our Garden. There are some beautiful heaths now in bloom in Pots--either heaths or some seasonable plants I will send you instead--perhaps some that are not yet in bloom that you may see them come out. To-morrow night I am going to a rout, a thing I am not at all in love with. Mr. Dilke and his Family have left Hampstead--I shall dine with them to-day in Westminster where I think I told you they were going to reside for the sake of sending their son Charles to the Westminster School. I think I mentioned the Death of Mr. Haslam's Father. Yesterday week the two Mr. Wylies dined with me. I hope you have good store of double violets--I think they are the Princesses of flowers, and in a shower of rain, almost as fine as barley sugar drops are to a schoolboy's tongue. I suppose this fine weather the lambs' tails give a frisk or two extraordinary--when a boy would cry huzza and a Girl O my! a little Lamb frisks its tail. I have not been lately through Leicester Square--the first time I do I will remember your Seals. I have thought it best to live in Town this Summer, chiefly for the sake of books, which cannot be had with any comfort in the Country--besides my Scotch journey gave me a dose of the Picturesque with which I ought to be contented for some time. Westminster is the place I have pitched upon--the City or any place very confined would soon turn me pale and thin--which is to be avoided. You must make up your mind to get stout this summer--indeed I have an idea we shall both be corpulent old folks with triple chins and stumpy thumbs.
Your affectionate Brother
JOHN.
XCVIII.--TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.
Tuesday [April 13, 1819].
My dear Haydon--When I offered you a.s.sistance I thought I had it in my hand; I thought I had nothing to do but to do. The difficulties I met with arose from the alertness and suspicion of Abbey: and especially from the affairs being still in a Lawyer's hand--who has been draining our Property for the last six years of every charge he could make. I cannot do two things at once, and thus this affair has stopped my pursuits in every way--from the first prospect I had of difficulty. I a.s.sure you I have hara.s.sed myself ten times more than if I alone had been concerned in so much gain or loss. I have also ever told you the exact particulars as well as and as literally as any hopes or fear could translate them: for it was only by parcels that I found all those petty obstacles which for my own sake should not exist a moment--and yet why not--for from my own imprudence and neglect all my accounts are entirely in my Guardian's Power. This has taught me a Lesson. Hereafter I will be more correct. I find myself possessed of much less than I thought for and now if I had all on the table all I could do would be to take from it a moderate two years'
subsistence and lend you the rest; but I cannot say how soon I could become possessed of it. This would be no sacrifice nor any matter worth thinking of--much less than parting as I have more than once done with little sums which might have gradually formed a library to my taste. These sums amount together to nearly 200, which I have but a chance of ever being repaid or paid at a very distant period. I am humble enough to put this in writing from the sense I have of your struggling situation and the great desire that you should do me the justice to credit me the unostentatious and willing state of my nerves on all such occasions. It has not been my fault. I am doubly hurt at the slightly reproachful tone of your note and at the occasion of it,--for it must be some other disappointment; you seem'd so sure of some important help when I last saw you--now you have maimed me again; I was whole, I had began reading again--when your note came I was engaged in a Book. I dread as much as a Plague the idle fever of two months more without any fruit. I will walk over the first fine day: then see what aspect your affairs have taken, and if they should continue gloomy walk into the City to Abbey and get his consent for I am persuaded that to me alone he will not concede a jot.
XCIX.--TO f.a.n.n.y KEATS.
Wentworth Place, Sat.u.r.day.