Part 34 (1/2)
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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 bra.s.s 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 a.s.sociate 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 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 sc.r.a.p-like way.
I have no meridian to date interests from, or measure circ.u.mstances-- 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 s.h.i.+rk'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 Devons.h.i.+re--there will be some of the family waiting for you at the Coach office--but go by another Coach.
I shall beg leave to have a third opinion in the first discussion you have with Woodhouse--just half-way, between both. You know I will not give up my argument--In my walk to-day I stoop'd under a railing that lay across my path, and asked myself ”Why I did not get over.” ”Because,”
answered I, ”no one wanted to force you under.” I would give a guinea to be a reasonable man--good sound sense--a says what he thinks and does what he says man--and did not take snuff. They say men near death, however mad they may have been, come to their senses--I hope I shall here in this letter--there is a decent s.p.a.ce to be very sensible in--many a good proverb has been in less--nay, I have heard of the statutes at large being changed into the Statutes at Small and printed for a watch paper.
Your sisters, by this time, must have got the Devons.h.i.+re ”ees”--short ees--you know 'em--they are the prettiest ees in the language. O how I admire the middle-sized delicate Devons.h.i.+re girls of about fifteen. There was one at an Inn door holding a quartern of brandy--the very thought of her kept me warm a whole stage--and a 16 miler too--”You'll pardon me for being jocular.”
Ever your affectionate friend
JOHN KEATS.
CXVIII.--TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE.
Winchester, Wednesday Eve.
[September 22, 1819.]
My dear Dilke--Whatever I take to for the time I cannot leave off in a hurry; letter writing is the go now; I have consumed a quire at least. You must give me credit, now, for a free Letter when it is in reality an interested one, on two points, the one requestive, the other verging to the pros and cons. As I expect they will lead me to seeing and conferring with you in a short time, I shall not enter at all upon a letter I have lately received from George, of not the most comfortable intelligence: but proceed to these two points, which if you can theme out into sections and subsections, for my edification, you will oblige me. The first I shall begin upon, the other will follow like a tail to a Comet. I have written to Brown on the subject, and can but go over the same ground with you in a very short time, it not being more in length than the ordinary paces between the Wickets. It concerns a resolution I have taken to endeavour to acquire something by temporary writing in periodical works. You must agree with me how unwise it is to keep feeding upon hopes, which depending so much on the state of temper and imagination, appear gloomy or bright, near or afar off, just as it happens. Now an act has three parts--to act, to do, and to perform--I mean I should _do_ something for my immediate welfare. Even if I am swept away like a spider from a drawing-room, I am determined to spin--homespun anything for sale. Yea, I will traffic.