 Letter sixty-one of letters of John Keats to his family and friends, edited by Sidney Colvin. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Nemo. To Thomas Keats, Cairn Something, for Cairndow, July seventeen, eighteen-eighteen. My dear Tom, here's Brown going on so that I cannot bring to mind how the last two days have vanished. For example, he says the Lady of the Lake went to rock herself to sleep on Arthur's seat and the Lord of the Isles coming to press a piece. I told you last how we were stared at in Glasgow. We are not out of the crowd yet. Green boats on Locke-Lomond and barouches on its sides take a little from the pleasure of such romantic chaps as Brown and I. The banks of the Clyde are extremely beautiful, the north end of Locke-Lomond grand in excess, the entrance at the lower end to the narrow part from a little distance is precious good. The evening was beautiful, nothing could surpass our fortune in the weather, yet was I worldly enough to wish for a fleet of chivalry barges with trumpets and banners just to die away before me into that blue place among the mountains. I must give you an outline as well as I can. Not be. The water was a fine blue, silvered, and the mountains a dark purple, the sun setting a slant behind them. In the meantime the head of Ben-Lomond was covered with a rich pink cloud. We did not ascend Ben-Lomond, the price being very high and a half day of rest being quite acceptable. We are up at four this morning and have walked to breakfast fifteen miles through two tremendous glens. At the end of the first there is a place called Rest and Be Thankful which we took for an inn. It was nothing but a stone, and so we were cheated into five more miles to breakfast. I have just been bathing and locked fine, a salt-water lake opposite the windows. Quite pat and fresh, but for the cursed gadflies. Damn them, they have been at me ever since I left the swan in two necks. All gentle folks who owe a grudge to any living thing. Open your ears and stay your trudge whilst I in dudgeon sing. The gadfly he hath stung me sore, oh, may he narrest in you. But we have many a horrid bore, he may sting black and blue. As any here an old gray mare, with three legs all her store, oh, put it to her buttocks bare, and straight shall run on four. As any here a lawyer suit of seventeen forty-three, take the lawyer's nose and put it to it, and you the end will see. As there a man in parliament, dumbfounded in his speech, will let his neighbor make a rent and put one in his breech. Oh, louther, how much better thou hast figured the other day, unto the folks thou mates about, and hats no more to say. If lucky gadfly had but taken his seat upon thine eye, and put thee to a little pain to save thee from a worse. Better than Southie it had been, better than Mr. D., better than Wordsworth too, I wean, better than Mr. V. Forgive me, pray good people all, for deviating so, and spirit sure I had a call, and now Ion will go. As any here a daughter fair, too fond of reading novels, too apt to fall in love with care, and charming Mr. Lavils, oh, put a gadfly to that thing, she keeps so white and pert, I mean the finger for the ring, and it will breed a wort. As any here a pious spouse, who seven times a day, scolds his king David-prade, to chouse and have her holy way. Oh, let a gadfly's little sting, persuade her sacred tongue, that noises are a common thing, but that her bell has rung. And as this is the summum bonum of all conquering, I leave, without in words mow, the gadfly's little sting. INVERY, July 18 Last evening we came round the end of luck fine to Invery. The Duke of Argyle's castle is very modern, magnificent, and more so from the place it is in. The woods seem old enough to remember two or three changes in the craigs about them. The lake was beautiful, and there was a band at a distance by the castle. I must say I enjoyed two or three common tunes, but nothing could stifle the horrors of a solo on the bagpipe. I thought the beast would never have done, yet was I doomed to hear another. On entering Invery we saw a playbill. Brown was knocked up from new shoes, so I went to the barn alone where I saw the stranger accompanied by a bagpipe. There they went on about interesting creators and human nader till the curtain fell, and then came the bagpipe. When Mrs. Haller fainted down went the curtain and out came the bagpipe. At the heart-rending, shoe-mending reconciliation the piper blew a mane. I never read or saw this play before. Not the bagpipe, nor the wretched players themselves, were little in comparison with it. Thank heaven it has been scoffed at lately, almost to a fashion. Of late two dainties were before me placed, sweet, holy, pure, sacred, and innocent. From the ninth sphere to me benignly sent, the gods might know my own particular taste. First the soft bagpipe mourned with zealous haste, the stranger next with a head on bosom bent. Side, rueful again the piteous bagpipe went. Again the stranger's sighings fresh did waste. O bagpipe, thou didst steal my heart away. O stranger, thou my nerves from pipe didst charm. O bagpipe, thou didst reassert thy sway. Again, thou stranger, gave me fresh alarm, alas, I could not choose. Ah, my poor heart, mum chants art thou with both obliged to part. I think we are the luckiest fellows in Christianism. Brown could not proceed this morning on account of his feet, and lo, there is thunder and rain. Kilmel, Fort, July 20th. For these two days past we have been so badly accommodated, more particularly in coarse food, than I have not been at all in queue to write. Poor Brown, with his feet blistered and scarcely able to walk, after a trudge of twenty miles down the side of Loch Haw, had no supper but eggs and oat-cake. We have lost the sight of white bread entirely. Now we had eaten nothing but eggs all day, about ten apiece, and they had become sickening. Today we have fared rather better, but no oat-cake wanting. We had a small chicken, and even a good bottle of port, but, all together, the fare is too coarse. I feel it a little. Another week will break us in. I forgot to tell you that when we came through Glenside it was early in the morning, and we were pleased with the noise of shepherds, sheep and dogs and the misty heights close above us. We saw none of them for some time. Till two came in sight creeping among the crags like emmits, yet their voices came quite plainly to us. The approach to Loch Haw was very solemn towards nightfall. The first glance was a streak of water deep in the bases of large black mountains. We had come along a complete mountain road, where if one listened there was not a sound but that of mountain streams. We walked twenty miles by the side of Loch Haw, every ten steps creating a new and beautiful picture. Sometimes, through little wood, there are two islands on the lake, each with a beautiful rune, one of them rich in ivy. We are detained this morning by the rain. I will tell you exactly where we are. We are between Loch Crenish and the sea just opposite Long Island. Yesterday our walk was of this description. The near hills were not very lofty, but many of them steep, beautifully wooded. The distant mountains and the hebrides vary grand, the saltwater lakes coming up between crags and islands full-tied and scarcely ruffled. Sometimes appearing is one large lake, sometimes there's three distinct ones in different directions. At one point we saw a fire off, a rocky opening into the main sea. We have also seen an eagle or two. They move about without the least motion of wings when in indolent fit. I am for the first time in a country where a foreign language is spoken. They gavel away Gaelic at a vast rate. Numbers of them speak English. There are not many kilts in Argyle Shire. At Fort William they say a man is not admitted into society without one. The ladies there have a horror at the indecency of breaches. I cannot give you a better idea of Highland life than by describing the place we are in. The inn, or public, is by far the best house in the immediate neighborhood. It has a white front with taller roll windows. The table I am writing on surprises me as being a nice flapped mahogany one. You may, if you peep, see through the floor chinks into the ground rooms. The old grandmother of the house seems intelligent, though not overclean, and be. No snuff being to be had in the village she made us some. The good man is a rough-looking hardy stout man who I think does not speak so much English as the good wife, who is very obliging and sensible, and moreover, though, stockingless as a pair of old shoes. Last night some whiskey men sat up cluttering Gaelic till I am sure one o'clock to our great annoyance. There is a Gaelic testament on the drawers in the next room. White Timblu chinaware has crept all around here. Yesterday they are past a donkey laden with tin pots. Opposite the window there are hills in a mist. A few ash trees and a mountain stream at a little distance. They possess a few head of cattle. If you had gone round to the back of the house just now, you would have seen more hills in a mist. Some dozen wretched black cottages scented of peat smoke which finds its way by the door or a hole in the roof. A girl here and there barefoot. There was one little thing driving cows down a slope like a mad thing. There was another standing at the cow-house door, rather pretty-faced, all up to the ankles in dirt. Obann, July twenty-one. We have walked fifteen miles in a soaking rain to Obann opposite the Isle of Maul, which is so near Stapha we have thought to pass to it. The expense is seven guineas and those rather extorted. Stapha, you see, is a fashionable place, and therefore every one connected with it, either in this town or the island, are what you call up, tis like paying six pence for an apple at the playhouse. This irritated me and Brown was not best pleased. We have therefore resolved to set northward for Fort William tomorrow morning. I fed upon a bit of white bread today like a sparrow. It was very fine. I cannot manage the cursed oak-cake. Remember me to all and let me hear a good account of you in Invernus. I am sorry Georgie had not those lines. Goodbye. Your affectionate brother, John. End of Letter sixty-one. Letter sixty-two of Letters of John Keats to his family and friends, edited by Sidney Colvin. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. To Benjamin Bailey. Inverary, July 18th, 1818. My dear Bailey, the only day I have had a chance of seeing you when you were last in London I took every advantage of. Some devil led you out of the way. Now I have written to Reynolds to tell me where you will be in Cumberland so that I cannot miss you. And when I see you, the first thing I shall do will be to read that about Milton in series and prosurpeny, for though I am not going after you to John O'Graths, it will be but poetical to say so. And here, Bailey, I will say a few words, written in the same and sober mind, a very scarce thing with me, for they may hereafter save you a great deal of trouble about me, which you do not deserve, and for which I ought to be best natowed. I carry all matters to an extreme so that when I have any little vexation, it grows in five minutes into a theme for Sophocles. Then and in that temper, if I write to any friend, I have so little self-possession that I give him matter for grieving at the very time, perhaps when I am laughing at the pun. Your last letter made me blush for the pain I had given you. I know my own disposition so well that I am certain of writing many times hereafter in the same strain to you. Now you know how far to believe in them. You must allow for imagination. I know I shall not be able to help it. I am sorry you were grieved at my not continuing my visits to Little Britain. But I think I have as far as a man can do who has books to read and subjects to think upon. For that reason I have been nowhere else, except a Wentworth place so nigh at hand. Moreover, I have been too often in a state of health that made it prudent not to hazard the night air. Yet further I will confess to you that I cannot enjoy society small or numerous. I am certain that our fair friends are glad if I should come for the mere sake of my coming. But I am certain I bring with me a vexation they are better without. If I can possibly at any time feel my temper coming upon me, I refrain from even a promised visit. I am certain I have not a right feeling towards women. At this moment I am striving to be just to them, but I cannot. Is it because they fall so far beneath my boyish imagination? When I was a schoolboy I thought a fair woman a pure goddess. My mind was a soft nest in which some one of them slept, though she knew it not. I have no right to expect more than their reality. I thought them ethereal above men. I find them perhaps equal. Great by comparison is very small. Insult may be inflicted in more ways than by word or action. One who is tender of being insulted does not like to think an insult against another. I do not like to think insults in a lady's company. I commit a crime with her which absence would not have known. Is it not extraordinary? When among men I have no evil thoughts, no malice, no spleen. I feel free to speak or to be silent. I can listen and from everyone I can learn. My hands are in my pockets. I am free from all suspicion and comfortable. When I am among women, I have evil thoughts, malice, spleen. I cannot speak or be silent. I am full of suspicions and therefore listened to nothing. I am in a hurry to be gone. You must be charitable and put all this perversity to my being disappointed since my boyhood. Yet with such feelings I am happier alone among crowds of men by myself or with a friend or two. With all this, trust me, I have not the least idea that men of different feelings and inclinations are more short-sighted than myself. I never rejoiced more than at my brother's marriage and shall do so at that of any of my friends. I must absolutely get over this. But how? The only way is to find the root of the evil and so cure it with backward mutters of dishevering power. That is a difficult thing. For an obstinate prejudice can seldom be produced but from a Gordian complication of feelings which must take time to unravel and care to keep unraveled. I could say a good deal about this, but I will leave it in hopes of better and more worthy dispositions and also content that I am wronging no one. For after all, I do think better of womankind than to suppose they care whether Mr. John Keats five feet high likes them or not. You appear to wish to know my moods on this subject. Don't think it a bore, my dear fellow. It shall be my amen. I should not have consented to myself these four months tramping in the highlands but that I thought it would give me more experience, rub off more prejudice, use to more hardship, identify finer scenes, load me with grander mountains and strengthen more my reach in poetry. Then would stopping at home among books even though I should reach Homer. By this time I am comparatively a mountaineer. I have been among wilds and mountains too much to break out much about their grandeur. I have fed upon oat-cake and not long enough to be very much attached to it. The first mountains I saw, though not so large as some I have since seen, weighed very solemnly upon me. The effect is wearing away, yet I like them mainly. Island of Mole, July 22nd. We have come this evening with a guide for without was impossible into the middle of the Isle of Mole pursuing our cheap journey to Iona and perhaps Staffa. We would not follow the common and fashionable mode from the great imposition of expense. We have come over heath and rock and river and bog to what in England would be called a horrid place. Yet it belongs to a shepherd pretty well off perhaps. The family speak not a word but Gaelic and we have not yet seen their faces for the smoke which after visiting every cranny, not accepting my eyes, very much incommodated for writing, finds its way out at the door. I am more comfortable than I could have imagined in such a place and so is Brown. The people are all very kind. We lost our way a little yesterday and inquiring at a cottage. A young woman without a word threw on her cloak and walked a mile in a mizzling rain and splashy way to put us right again. I could not have had a greater pleasure in these parts than your mention of my sister. She is very much prisoned from me. I am afraid it will be some time before I can take her to many places I wish. I trust we shall see you ere long in Cumberland. At least I hope I shall before my visit to America more than once. I intend to pass a whole year there if I live to the completion of the three next. My sister's welfare and the hopes of such a stay in America will make me observe your advice. I shall be prudent and more careful of my health than I have been. I hope you will be about paying your first visit to town after settling when we come into Cumberland. Cumberland, however, will be no distance to me after my present journey. I shall spin to you in a minute. I begin to get rather contempt of distances. I hope you will have a nice convenient room for a library. Now you are so well in health. Do keep it up by never missing your dinner, by not reading hard, and by taking proper exercise. You'll have a horse, I suppose, so you must make a point of sweating him. You say I must study Dante. Well, the only books I have with me are those three little volumes. I read that fine passage you mentioned a few days ago. Your letter followed me from Hampstead to Port Patrick and then to Glasgow. You must thank me by this time a very pretty fellow. One of the pleasantest bouts we have had was our walk to Burns Cottage over the Dune and past Kirk Allaway. I had determined to write a sonnet in the cottage. I did, but look, it was so wretched I destroyed it. However, in a few days afterwards I wrote some lines cousin German to the circumstance which I will transcribe, or rather crosscribe in the front of this. Reynolds' illness has made him a new man. He will be stronger than ever. Before I left London, he was really getting a fat face. Brown keeps on writing volumes of adventures to Dilke. When we get in of an evening and I have perhaps taken my rest on a couple of chairs, he affronts my indolence and luxury by pulling out of his knapsack. First, his paper. Secondly, his pens. And last, his ink. Now I would not care if he would change a little. I say, why not, Bailey? Take out his pens first sometimes. But I might as well tell a hen to hold up her head before she drinks instead of afterwards. Your affectionate friend, John Keats. Lines written in the Highlands after a visit to Burns Country. There is a charm in footing slow across a silent plain where patriot battle has been fought, where glory had the gain. There is a pleasure on the heath where druids old have been, where mantles gray have rustled by and swept the nettles green. There is a joy in every spot made known by times of old, new to the feet, although each tale a hundred times be told. There is a deeper joy than all more solemn in the heart, more parching to the tongue than all, of more divine as smart. When weary steps forget themselves upon a pleasant turf, upon hot sand or flinty road or seashore iron scurf, toward the castle or the cot where long ago was born, one who was great through mortal days and died of fame and shorn. Light tether bells may tremble then, but they are far away. Woodlark may sing from sandy fern, the sun may hear his lay. Runnels may kiss the grass on shelves and shallows clear, but their low voices are not heard, though come on travel's drear. Blood read the sun may set behind black mountain peaks, blue tide may sluice and drench their time in caves and weedy creeks. Eagles may seem to sleep wing-wide upon the air, ring-doves may fly convulsed across to some high-seated lair. But the forgotten eye is still fast-litted to the ground, as palmers that with weariness mid-desert shrine hath found. At such a time the soul's a child, and childhood is the brain. Forgotten is the worldly heart, alone it beats in vain. I, if a madman could have leave to pass a healthful day, to tell his forehead swoon and faint when first began decay, he might make tremble many a one whose spirit had gone forth to find a bard's low cradle place about the silent north. Scanty the hour and few the steps beyond the borne of care, beyond the sweet and bitter world, beyond it unaware, scanty the hour and few the steps because a longer stay would bar return and make a man forget his mortal way. Oh, horrible to lose the sight of well-remembered face, of brother's eyes of sister's brow, constant to every place, filling the air as on we move with portraiture intense, more warm than those heroic tints that pain a painter sense. When shapes of old come striding by and visages of old, lock shining black, hair scanty gray and passions manifold, no, no, that horror cannot be. For at the cable's length, man feels the gentle anchor pull and gladdens in its strength. One hour half idiot, he stands by mossy waterfall, but in the very next he reads his soul's memorial. He reads it on the mountain's height where chance he may sit down upon rough marble diadem that hills eternal crown. Yet be his anchor air so fast, room is there for a prayer that man may never lose his mind on mountains, black and bare, that he may stray league after league some great birthplace to find and keep his vision clear from spec, his inward sight unblind. End of letter 62. Letter 63 of letters of John Keats to his family and friends. Edited by Sidney Colvin. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Nima to Thomas Keats. Dunn Uncullen, Ireland of Mall, July 23, 1818. My dear Tom, just after my last had gone to the post, in came one of the men with whom we endeavored to agree about going to Staffa. He said, what a pity it was, we should turn aside and not see the curiosities. So we had a little talk and finally agreed that he should be our guide across the Isle of Mall. We set out, crossed two ferries, one to the Isle of Carrara, of little distance, the other from Carrara to Mall, nine miles across. We did it in forty minutes with a fine breeze. The road through the island, or rather the track, is the most dreary you can think of, between dreary mountains over bog and rock and river with our breeches tucked up and our stockings in hand. About eight o'clock we arrived at a shepherd's hut into which we could scarcely get for the smoke through a door lower than my shoulders. We found our way into a little compartment with the rafters and turf thatch blackened with smoke, the earth floor full of hills and dales. We had some white bread with us, made a good supper. And slept in our clothes and some blankets. Our guide snored on another little bed about an arm's length off. This morning we came about six miles to breakfast by rather a better path, and we are now in, by comparison, a mansion. Our guide is, I think, a very obliging fellow. In the way this morning he sang us two Gaelic songs, one made by Mrs. Brown on her husband's being drowned, the other a Jacobin one on Charles Stewart. For some days Brown has been inquiring out his genealogy here. He thinks his grandfather came from Long Island. He got a parcel of people about him at a cottage door last evening, chatted with Aen who had been a Miss Brown. And who, I think, from a likeness must have been a relation? He jawed with the old woman, flattered a young one, kissed a child who was afraid of his spectacles, and finally drank a pint of milk. They handled his spectacles as we do a sensitive leaf. Oban, July 26th. Well, we had a most wretched walk of thirty-seven miles across the island of Maul, and then we crossed to Iona, or Aikon-Kil. From Aikon-Kil we took a boat at a bargain to take us to Stafa and land us at the head of Lok Nakka, whence we should only have to walk half the distance to Oban again and on a better road. All this is well past and done, with a singular piece of luck that there was an interruption in the bad weather just as we saw Stafa, at which it is impossible to land but in a tolerable calm sea. But I will first mention Aikon-Kil. I know not whether you have heard much about this island. I never did before. I came nigh at it. It is rich in the most interesting antiquities. Who would expect to find the ruins of a fine cathedral church of Cloister's College's monasteries and nunneries and so remote an island? The beginning of these things was in the sixth century, under the superstition of would-be bishop saint who landed from Ireland and chose the spot from its beauty, for at that time the now treeless place was covered with magnificent woods. Columba in the Gaelic is calm, signifying dove. Kil signifies church. And I is as good as island. So Aikon-Kil means the island of Saint Columbba's church. Now the Saint Columbba became the Dominic of the barbarian Christians of the north and was famed also far south. But more especially was reverenced by the Scots the Picts, the Norwegians, the Irish. In a course of years, perhaps, the island was considered the most holy ground of the north. And the old kings of the aforementioned nations chose it for their burial place. We were shown a spot in the churchyard where they say 61 kings are buried, 48 Scotch from Fergus II to Macbeth, eight Irish, four Norwegians, and one French. They lie in rows compact. Then we were shown other matters of later date, but still very ancient. Many tombs of Highland chieftains, their effigies in complete armor, face upwards, black and moss covered, abets and bishops of the island, always of one of the chief clans. There were plenty Macleens and McDonald's. Among these latter, the famous McDonald's Lord of the Isles. There have been 300 crosses in the island, but the Presbyterians destroyed Albatou, one of which is a very fine one and completely covered with a shaggy coarse moss. The old schoolmaster, an ignorant little man, but reckoned very clever, showed us these things. He is a Maclean and as much above four foot as he is under four foot three inches. He stops at one glass of whiskey unless you press another and at the second unless you press a third. I am puzzled how to give you an idea of Stafa. It can only be represented by a first rate drawing. One may compare the surface of the island to a roof. This roof is supported by grand pillars of basalt, standing together as thick as honeycombs. The finest thing is Fingal's cave. It is entirely a hollowing out of basalt pillars. Suppose now the giants who rebelled against Jove had taken a whole mass of black columns and bound them together like bunches of matches, and then with immense axes had made a cavern in the body of these columns. Of course the roof and floor must be composed of the broken ends of the columns, such as Fingal's cave, except that the sea has done the work of excavations and is continually dashing there, so that we walk along the sides of the cave on the pillars which are left as if for convenient stares. The roof is arched somewhat gothic-wise and the length of some of the entire side pillars is 50 feet. About the island you might see an army of men on each pillar. The length of the cave is 120 feet and from its extremity the view into the sea through the large arch at the entrance. The color of the columns is a sort of black with a lurking gloom of purple therein. For solemnity and grandeur it far surpasses the finest cathedral. At the extremity of the cave there is a small perforation into another cave at which the waters meeting and buffeting each other there is sometimes produced to report as of a cannon heard as far as Iona, which must be 12 miles. As we approached in the boat there was such a fine swell of the sea that the pillars appeared rising immediately out of the crystal. But it is impossible to describe it. Not Aladdin, Magian, ever such a work began not the wizard of the D, ever such a dream could see not Saint John and Patmos Isle in the passion of his toil when he saw the church's seven golden Isle built up in heaven gazed at such a rugged wonder. As I stood its roofing under, low I saw one sleeping there on the marble cold and bare while the surges washed his feet and his garments white did beat drenched about the somber rocks on his neck his well-grown locks lifted dry above the main were upon the curl again. What is this and what art thou? whispered I and touched his brow What art thou and what is this? whispered I and strove to kiss the spirit's hand to wake his eyes up he started in a trice I am licitous said he famed in funeral minstrelsy this was architected thus by the great Oceanus as mighty waters play hollow organs all the day here by turns his dolphins all finny palmers great and small come to pay devotion due each a mouth of pearls must drew many immortal of these days dares to pass our sacred ways dares to touch audaciously this cathedral of the sea I have been the pontiff priest where the waters never rest where a fledgy seabird choir sores forever holy fire I have hid from mortal man Proteus is my sacra stan but the stupid eye of mortal hath passed beyond the rocky portal so forever will I leave such a taint and soon unweave all the magic of the place tis now free to stupid face cutters and to fashion boats to kervats and to petticoats the great sea shall war it down for its fame shall not be blown at every farthing quadrile dance so saying with a spirit's glance he dived I am sorry I am so indolent as to write such stuff as this it can't be helped the western coast of Scotland is a most strange place it is composed of rocks mountains, mountainous and rocky islands intersected by locks you can go but a short distance anywhere from saltwater and the highlands I have a slight sore throat and think it best to stay a day or two at Obann then we shall proceed to Fort Williamann Invernus where I am anxious to be on account of a letter from you Brown in his letters puts down every little circumstance I should like to do the same but I confess myself too indolent and besides next winter everything will come up in prime order as we verge on such and such things have you heard in any way of George I should think by this time he must have landed I in my carelessness never thought of knowing where a letter would find him on the other side I think Baltimore but I am afraid of directing it to the wrong place I shall begin some checker work for him directly and it will be ripe for the post by the time I hear from you next after this I assure you I often long for a seat and a cup O.T. at well walk especially now that mountains, castles and lakes are becoming common to me yet I would rather summer it out for on the whole I am happier than when I have time to be glum perhaps it may cure me immediately on my return I shall begin studying hard with a peep at the theater now and then and depend upon it I shall be very luxurious with respect to women I think I shall be able to conquer my passions hereafter better than I have yet done you will help me talk of George next winter and we will go now and then to see Fanny let me hear a good account of your health and comfort telling me truly how you do alone remember me to all including Mr. and Mrs. Bentley your most affectionate brother John End of Letter 63 Letter 64 of letters of John Keats to his family and friends edited by Sidney Colvin this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Nemo to Thomas Keats Letter Findlay August 3, 1818 Ah, Mio Ben My dear Tom we have made but poor progress lately chiefly from bad weather for my throat is in a fair way of getting quite well so I have had nothing of consequence to tell you till yesterday when we went up Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain on that account I will never ascend another in this empire Skadar is nothing to it either in height or in difficulty it is above 4,300 feet from the sea level and Fort William stands at the head of a salt water lake consequently we took it completely from that level I am heartily glad it is done it is almost like a fly crawling up a wainscote imagine the task of mounting ten St. Paul's without the convenience of staircases we set out about five in the morning with a guide in the tartening cap and soon arrived at the foot of the first ascent which we immediately began upon after much fag and tug and arrest and a glass of whiskey apiece we gained the top of the first rise and saw then a tremendous chap above us which the guide said was still far from the top after the first rise our way lay along a heath valley in which there was a lock after about a mile on this valley we began upon the next ascent more formidable by far than the last and kept mounting with short intervals of rest until we got above all vegetation among nothing but loose stones which lasted us to the very top the guide said we had three miles of Estonia's ascent we gained the first tolerable level after the valley to the height of what in the valley we had thought the top and saw still above us another huge crag which still the guide said was not the top to that we made with an obstinate fag and having gained it there came on a mist and yet from that part to the very top we walked in a mist the whole immense head of the mountain is composed of large loose stones thousands of acres before we had got half way up we passed large patches of snow and near the top there is a chasm some hundred feet deep completely glutted with it talking of chasms they are the finest wonder of the whole they appear great rents in the very heart of the mountain though they are not being at the side of it but other huge crags arising round it give the appearance to Nevis of a shattered heart or core in itself these chasms are 1500 feet in depth and are the most tremendous places I have ever seen they turn one giddy if you choose to give way to it we tumbled in large stones and set the echoes at work in fine style sometimes these chasms are tolerably clear sometimes there is a misty cloud which seems to steam up and sometimes they are entirely smothered with clouds after a little time the mist cleared away but still there were large clouds about to attract by old Ben to a certain distance so as to form as it appeared large dome curtains which kept sailing about opening and shutting at intervals here and there and everywhere so that although we did not see one vast wide extent of prospect all around we saw something perhaps finer these cloud veils opening with a dissolving motion and showing us the mountainous region beneath as through a loophole these cloudy loopholes ever varying in discovering fresh prospect east, west, north and south then it was misty again and again it was fair then puff came a cold breeze of wind and bared a craigie chap we had not yet seen though in close neighborhood every now and then we had overhead blue sky clear and the sun pretty warm I do not know whether I can give you an idea of the prospect from a large mountain top you are on a stony plane which of course makes you forget you are on any but low ground the horizon or rather edges of this plane being above 4,000 feet above the sea hide all the country immediately beneath you so that the next object you see all round next to the edges of the flat top are the summits of mountains of some distance off as you move about on all sides you see more or less of the near neighbor country according as the mountain you stand upon is in different parts steeper rounded but the most new thing of all is the sudden leap of the eye from the extremity of what appears a plane into so vast a distance on one part of the top there is a handsome pile of stones down pointedly by some soldiers of artillery I climbed onto them and so got a little higher than old Ben himself it was not so cold as I expected yet cold enough for a glass of whiskey now and then there is not a more fickle thing than the top of a mountain what would a lady give to change her headdress as often and with his little trouble there are good many red deer upon Ben Nevis at sea one the dog we had with us kept a very sharp look out and really languished for a bit of a worry I've said nothing yet of our getting on among the loose stones large and small sometimes on two sometimes on three sometimes four legs sometimes two and stick sometimes three and stick then four again then two then a jump so that we kept on ringing changes on foot hand, stick, jump, boggle, stumble foot, hand, foot very gingerly stick again and then again a game at all fours after all there was one Mrs Cameron a fifty years of age and the fattest woman in all Inverness Shire who got up this mountain some few years ago true she had her servants but then she had herself she ought to have hired Sisyphus up the high hill he heaves a huge round Mrs Cameron to said a little conversation took place between the mountain and the lady after taking a glass of whiskey as she was tolerably seated at ease she thus begun Mrs C upon my life, Sir Nevis, I am peaked that I have so far panted, tugged and reeked to do an honour to your old bald pate and now I am sitting on you just debate without your paying me one compliment alas to so with all when our intent is plain and in the eye of all mankind we fare one show a preference too blind you gentlemen immediately turn tail oh let me them our hapless fate bewail ungrateful bald pate have I not disdained the pleasant valleys have I not mad brain deserted all my pickles and preserves my china closet too I should nerves to boot say wretched ingrate have I not left my soft cushion chair and coddle pot it is true I have no corn snow think the fates my shoemaker was always Mr Bates and if not Mr Bates why I am not old still dumb ungrateful Nevis still so cold here the lady took some more whiskey and was putting even more to her lips when she dashed it to the ground for the mountain began to grumble which continued for a few minutes before he thus began Van Nevis what whining bit of tongue in mouth thus dares disturb my slumber of a thousand years even so long my sleep has been secure and to be so awaked I'll not endure oh pain for since the eagle's earliest scream I've had a damned confounded ugly dream a nightmare sure what madam was it you it cannot be my old eyes are not true red crag my spectacles now let me see good heavens lady how the Gemini did you get here oh I shall split my sides I shall earthquake sweet Nevis do not quake for though I love your honest countenance all things above truly I should not like to be conveyed so far unto your bosom gentle maid loves not too rough for treatment gentle sir pray thee be calm and do not quake nor stir no not astone or I shall go and fix I must I shall I meet not such tit bits I meet not such sweet creatures every day by my old nightcap nightcap night and day I have one sweet bus I must and shall red crag what madam can you then repent of all the toil and vigor you have spent to see Ben Nevis and to touch his nose red crag I say oh I must have them close red crag there lies beneath my furthest toe a vein of sulfur go dear red crag go and rub your flinty back against it budge dear madam I must kiss you faith I must I must embrace you with my dearest gust block head do you hear block head I'll make her feel there lies beneath my east legs northern heel a cave of young earth dragons well my boy go thither quick and so complete my joy take you a bundle of the largest pines and when the sun on fiercest phosphor shines fire them and ram them in the dragon's nest then will the dragons fry and fizz their best until ten thousand now no bigger than poor alligators poor things of one span will each one swell to twice ten times the size of northern whale then for the tender prize the moment then for then will red crag rub his flinty back and I shall kiss and snub and press my dainty morsel to my breast block head make haste oh muses weep the rest the lady fainted and he thought her dead so pulled the clouds again about his head and went to sleep again soon she was roused by her affrighted servants next day housed safe on the lowly ground she blessed her fate and her fainting fit was not delayed too late but what surprises me above all is how this lady got down again I felt it horribly it was the most vile descent shook me all to pieces over leaf you will find a sonnet I wrote on the top of Ben Nevis we have just entered Invernus I have three letters from you and one from Fanny and one from Dilke I am crossing this all over for you but I will first write to Fanny and Mrs. Wiley then I will begin another to you and not before because I think it better you should have this as soon as possible my sore throat is not quite well and I intend stopping here a few days read me a lesson muse and speak it loud upon the top of Nevis blind and missed I look into the chasms proud vapours doth hide them just so much I whisked mankind do know of hell I look or head and there is sullen mist even so much mankind can tell of heaven mist is spread before the earth beneath me even such even so vague as man's sight of himself here are the craggy stones beneath my feet thus much I know that poor witless elf I tread on them that all my eye doth meet is Mr. Craig not only on this height but in the world of thought and mental might goodbye till tomorrow your most affectionate brother John End of Letter 64 Letter 65 of letters of John Keats to his family and friends edited by Sidney Colvin this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Nima to Mrs. Wiley Invernus August 6, 1818 My dear madam it was a great regret to me that I should leave all my friends just at the moment when I might have helped to soften away the time for them I wanted not to leave my brother Tom but more especially believe me I should like to have remained near you were but for an atom of consolation after parting with so dear a daughter my brother George has ever been more than a brother to me he has been my greatest friend and I can never forget the sacrifice you have made for his happiness as I walk along the mountains here I am full of these things and lay in wait as it were for the pleasure of seeing you immediately on my return to town I wish above all things to say a word of comfort to you but I know not how it is impossible to prove that black is white it is impossible to make out that sorrow is joy or joy is sorrow Tom tells me that you called on Mr. Haslam with a newspaper giving an account of a gentleman in a fur cap falling over the precipice in Kirk Cudbright's char if it was me I did it in a dream or in some magic interval between the first and second cup of tea which is nothing extraordinary when we hear that Mohammed in getting out of bed upset a jug of water and whilst it was falling it was a fortnight's trip as it seemed to heaven it was back in time to save one drop of water being spilt as for fur caps I do not remember one beside my own except the Karlau this was a very good fur cap I met in High Street and I dare say was the unfortunate one I dare say that the fates were too extraordinary and so through the dyes which of them should be drowned the lot fell upon Jones I dare say his name was Jones all I hope is that the gaunt ladies had not a word about hanging if they did I shall repent that I was not half-drowned in Kirk Cudbright stop let me see is a very romantic affair why should I not take it to myself how glorious to be introduced in a drawing room to a lady who reads novels with Mr. So-and-so Miss So-and-so Miss So-and-so this is Mr. So-and-so who fell off a precipice and was half-drowned now I refer to you whether I should lose so fine an opportunity of making my fortune no romance lady could resist me none being run under a wagon sidelamed in a playhouse epileptic through brandy and a thousand other tolerably decent things for badness would be nothing but being tumbled over a precipice into the sea oh it would make my fortune especially if you could contrive to hint from this bulletins authority that I was not upset on my own account but that I dashed into the waves after Jesse of Dumbling and pulled her out by the hair but that alas she was dead or she would have made me happy with her hand however in this you may use your own discretion I must leave joking and seriously aver that I have been very romantic indeed among these mountains and lakes I have got wet through day after day eaten o' cake and drank whiskey walked up to my knees and bog got a sore throat gone to see I comb kill and stafa met with wholesome food just here and went up Ben Nevis and and B came down again sometimes when I am rather tired I lean rather languishly on a rock and long for some famous beauty to get down from her palfry and passing approach me with her saddle bags and give me a dozen or two capital roast beef sandwiches when I come into a large town you know there is no putting one snap-sec into one's fob so the people stare we have been taken for spectacle vendors razor sellers jewelers traveling linen drapers spies excisemen and many things I have no idea of when I asked for letters of Port Patrick I had a peep also at Little Ireland tell Henry I have not camped quite on the bare earth yet but nearly as bad and walking through mall for the shepherd's huts you can scarcely breathe in for the smoke which they seem to endeavor to preserve for smoking on a large scale besides riding about 400 we have walked above 600 miles and may therefore reckon ourselves as set out I assure you my dear madam that one of the greatest pleasures I shall have on my return will be seeing you and that I shall ever be yours with the greatest respect and sincerity John Keats End of Letter 65 Letter 66 of letters of John Keats to his family and friends edited by Sidney Colvin this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Neema to Fanny Keats Hampstead August 18, 1818 My dear Fanny I am afraid you will think me very negligent and not having answered your letter I see it is day to June 12 I did not arrive at Invernus till the 8th of this month so I am very much concerned that you are being disappointed so long a time I did not intend to have returned to London so soon but have a bad sore throat from a cold I caught in the island of Maul therefore I thought it best to get home as soon as possible and went on board the smack from Chromarty we had a 9 days passage and were landed at London Bridge yesterday I shall have a good deal to tell you about Scotland I would begin here but I have a confounded toothache Tom has not been getting better since I left London and for the last fortnight has been worse than ever he has been getting a little better for these 2 or 3 days I ask Mr. Abbey to let me bring you to Hampstead if Mr. A. should see this letter tell him that he still must if he pleases forward the post-build of Perth as I have empowered my fellow traveller to receive it I have a few Scottish pebbles for you from the island of Icomquill I am afraid they are rather shabby I did not go near the mountain of Cairngorm I do not know the name of George's ship the name of the port he has gone to is Philadelphia whence he will travel to the settlement across the country I will tell you all about this when I see you the title of my last book is Endymion you shall have one soon I would not advise you to play on the flat Gillette however I will get you one if you please I will speak to Mr. Abbey and what you say concerning school I am sorry for your poor canary you shall have another volume of my first book my toothache keeps on so that I cannot write with any pleasure all I can say now is that your letter is a very nice one without fault that you will hear from or see in a few days if his throat will let him your affectionate brother John End of Letter 66 Letter 67 of Letters of John Keats to his family and friends edited by Sidney Colvin this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Nemo to Fanny Keats Hempstead Tuesday August 25, 1818 My dear Fanny I have just written to Mr. Abbey to ask him to let you come and see poor Tom who has lately been much worse his better present sends his love to you and wishes much to see you I hope he will shortly I have not been able to come to Waltham Stow on his account as well as a little in disposition of my own I have asked Mr. A. to write me if he does not mention anything of it to you I will tell you what reasons he has though I do not think he will make any objection write me what you want with a flat Gillette and I will get one ready for you by the time you come your affectionate brother John End of Letter 67 Letter 68 of Letters of John Keats to his family and friends edited by Sidney Colvin This LibriVox recording is in the public domain To Jane Reynolds Well Walk, September 1st, 1818 My dear Jane Certainly your kind note would rather refresh than trouble me and so much the more would you're coming as if you say it could be done without agitating my brother too much Receive on your hearth our deepest thanks for your solicitude concerning us I am glad John is not hurt but gone safe into Devonshire I shall be in great expectation of his letter but the promise of it in so anxious and friendly a way I prize more than a hundred I shall be in town today on some business with my guardian as was with scarce a hope of being able to call on you For these last two days Tom has been more you shall hear again soon how you will be remember us particularly to your mother your sincere friend John Keats End of Letter 68 Letter 69 of Letters of John Keats to his family and friends edited by Sidney Colvin This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Neema To Charles Wentworth Dulk Hampstead September 21, 1818 My dear Dulk According to the Wentworth Place bulletin you have left Brighton much improved therefore now a few lines will be more of a pleasure than a bore I have things to say to you and would feign begin upon them in this fourth line I have a mind too well regulated to proceed upon anything without due preliminary remarks you may perhaps have observed that in the simple process of eating radishes I never begin at the root but constantly dip the little green head in the salt but in the game of wist if I have an ace I constantly play it first so how can I with any face begin without a dissertation on letter writing yet when I consider that a sheet of paper contains room only for three pages and a half how can I do justice to such a pregnant subject however as you have seen the history of the world stamped as it were by diminishing glass in the form of a chronological map so will I with retractile claws draw this into the form of a table whereby it will occupy merely the remainder of this first page folio Parsons, lawyers, statesmen physicians out of place ute Eustis, Thornton out of practice or on their travels Fools cap one Superfine, rich or noble poet ute Byron two Common, ute Igomet Quarto Projectors, patentees, presidents potato growers Bath boarding schools and suburban in general guilt edge dandies in general male, female and literary octavo or tears all who make use of a lascivious seal duodeck may be found for the most part on milliners and dressmakers parlor tables strip at the playhouse doors or anywhere slip being but a variation snip so called from its size disguised by a twist I suppose you will have heard that Haslett has on foot a prosecution against Blackwood I dined with him a few days since at Hesse's there was not a word said about it though I understand he is excessively vexed Reynolds, by what I hear is almost over happy and Rice is in town I have not seen him nor shall I for some time my throat has become worse after getting well and I am determined to stop at home till I am quite well I was going to town tomorrow with Mrs. D. but I thought it best to ask her excuse this morning I wish I could say Tom was any better his identity presses upon me so all day that I am obliged to go out and although I intended to have given some time I wished to write him plunge into abstract images to ease myself of his countenance his voice and feebleness so that I live now in a continual fever must be poisonous to life although I feel well imagine the hateful siege of contras if I think of fame of poetry it seems a crime to me and yet I must do so I am sorry to give you pain I am almost resolved to burn this but I really have not self-possession and magnanimity enough to manage the thing otherwise after all it may be a nervousness proceeding from the Mercury Bailey I hear is gaining his spirits and he will yet be what I once thought impossible a cheerful man I think he is not quite so much spoken of in a little Britain I forgot to ask Mrs. Dulk if she had anything she wanted to say immediately to you this morning looked so unpromising that I did not think she would have gone but I find she has uncending for some volumes of gibbon I was in a little funk yesterday for I sent in an unsealed note of sham abuse until I recollected from what I heard Charles say a servant could neither read nor write not even to her mother as Charles observed I have just had a letter from Reynolds he is going on gloriously the following is a translation of a line of Ronsard Love poured her beauty into my warm veins you have passed your romance and I never gave into it or else I think this line a feast for one of your lovers how goes it with Brown your sincere friend John Keats End of Letter 69 Letter 70 of Letters of John Keats to his family and friends edited by Sydney Colvin this LibriVox recording is in the public domain to John Hamilton Reynolds Hampstead about September 22nd, 1818 my dear Reynolds believe me I have rather rejoiced at your happiness than fretted at your silence indeed I am grieved on your account that I am not at the same time happy but I conjure you to think at present of nothing but pleasure gather the rose etc gorge the honey of life I pity you as much that it cannot last forever as I do myself now drinking bitters give yourself up to it you cannot help it and I have a consolation in thinking so I never was in love yet the voice and shape of a woman has haunted me these two days footnote Miss Charlotte Cox an East Indian cousin of the Reynolds's the Charmian described more fully in Letter 73 at such a time when the relief, the feverish relief of poetry seems a much less crime this morning poetry has conquered I have relapsed into these abstractions which are my only life I feel escaped from a new strange and threatening sorrow and I am thankful for it there is an awful warmth about my heart like a load of immortality poor Tom that woman and poetry were ringing changes in my senses now I am in comparison happy I am sensible this will distress you you must forgive me had I known you would have set out so soon I could have sent you the pot of basil for I had it copied out ready here's a free translation of a sonnet of Ronsar which I think will please you I have the loan of his works they have great beauties nature withheld Cassandra in the skies for more adornment a full thousand years she took their cream of beauties fairest eyes and shaped and tinted her above all peers meanwhile love kept her dearly with his wings and underneath their shadow filled her eyes with such a richness that the cloudy kings of high Olympus uttered slavish sighs when from the heavens I saw her first descend my heart took fire and only burning pains they were my pleasures they my life's sad end left poured her beauty into my warm veins I had not the original by me when I wrote it and did not recollect the purport of the last lines I should have seen Riser this but I am confined by Sarri's mandate in the house now and have as yet only gone out at night you know what an un-dangerous matter it is I shall soon be quite recovered your author I shall remember as though it had even now taken place in fact I think it cannot be Tom is not up yet I cannot say he is better I have not heard from George your affectionate friend John Keats End of Letter 70 Letter 71 To Fanny Keats Hampstead, October 9th, 1818 My dear Fanny Poor Tom is about the same as when you saw him last perhaps weaker were it not for that I should have been over to pay you a visit these fine days I got to the stage half an hour before it set out and counted the buns and tarts in a pastry cook's window and was just beginning with the jellies there was no one in the coach who had a mind to eat me like Mr. Sham Def I shall be punctual in inquiring about next Thursday your affectionate brother John End of Letter 71 Letter 72 of Letters of John Keats to his family and friends edited by Sidney Colvin The Slibervox recording is in the public domain To James Augustus Hesse Hampstead, October 9th, 1818 My dear Hesse you are very good in sending me the letters from the Chronicle and I am very bad in not acknowledging such a kindness sooner pray forgive me it has so chance that I have had that paper every day I have seen today's I cannot but feel indebted to those gentlemen who have taken my part as for the rest I begin to get a little acquainted with my own strengths and weakness praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty and the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works my own domestic criticism has given me pain without comparison beyond what Blackwood or the Quarterly could possibly inflict and also when I feel I am right no external praise can give me such a glow as my own solitary re-perception and ratification of what is fine J.S. is perfectly right in regard to this slipshod endymian footnote referring to those words in John Scott's letter in his defense morning Chronicle October 3rd, 1818 quote that there are also many very many passages indicating both haste and carelessness I will not deny nay I will go further and assert that a real friend of the author would have dissuaded him from immediate publication end footnote that it is so is no fault of mine no though it may sound a little paradoxical it is as good as I have the power to make it by myself had I been nervous about it being a perfect piece and with that view asked advice and trembled for every page it would not have been written for it is not in my nature to fumble I will write independently I have written independently without judgment I may write independently and with judgment hereafter the genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in a man it cannot be matured by law and precept but by sensation and watchfulness in itself that which is creative must create itself in Endymion I leaped headlong into the sea and thereby have become better acquainted with the soundings the quicksands and the rocks then if I had stayed upon the green shore and piped a silly pipe and took tea and comfortable advice I was never afraid of failure for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest but I am by getting into a rant so with remembrances to Taylor and Woodhouse and so on I am yours very sincerely John Keats End of Letter 72 Letter 73 Part 1 of Letters of John Keats to his family and friends edited by Sydney Colvin this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording to George and Georgiana Keats to George and Georgiana Keats Hamstead October 13 or 14 1818 my dear George there was a part in your letter which gave me a great deal of pain that were you lament not receiving letters from England I intended to have written immediately on my return from Scotland which was two months earlier than I had intended on account of my own as well as Tom's health but then I was told by Mrs. W that you had said you would not wish anyone to write to we had heard from you this I thought odd and now I see that it could not have been so yet at the time I suffered my unreflecting head to be satisfied and went on in that sort of abstract careless useless life with which you are well acquainted this sentence should it give you any uneasiness do not let it last for before I finish it will be explained away to your satisfaction I'm grieved to say I'm not sorry you would not letters at Philadelphia you could have had no good news of Tom and I have been withheld on his account I could not bring myself to say the truth that he is no better but much worse however it must be told and you must my dear brother and sister take example for me and bear up against any calamity for my sake as I do for yours ours are ties which independent of their own sentiment are sent us by Providence to prevent the deleterious effects of one great solitary grief I have Fanny and I have you three people whose happiness to me is sacred and it does annul that selfish sorrow which I should otherwise fall into living as I do with poor Tom who looks upon me as his only comfort the tears will come into your eyes let them and embrace each other thank heaven for what happiness you have and after thinking a moment or two that you suffer in common with all mankind hold it, not a sin to regain your cheerfulness I will relieve you of one uneasiness of overly I returned I said on account of my health I am now well from a bad sore throat which came of bog trotting in the island of Maul of which you shall hear by the copies I shall make your content in each other is a delight to me which I cannot express the moon is now shining full and brilliant she is the same to me in matter what you are to me in spirit if you were here my dear sister I could not pronounce the words which I can write to you from a distance I have a tenderness for you and admiration which I feel to be as great to more chaste than I can have any woman in the world you will mention Fanny her character is not formed her identity does not press upon me as yours does I hope from the bottom of my heart that I may one day feel as much for her as I do for you I know not how it is but I have never made any acquaintance of my own nearly all through your medium my dear brother through you I know not only a sister but a glorious human being and now I am talking of those to whom you have made me known I cannot forebear mentioning Haslam as a most kind and obliging and constant friend his behavior to Tom during my absence and since my return has endeared him to me forever besides his anxiety about you tomorrow I shall call on your mother and exchange information with her on Tom's account I have not been able to pass so much time with her as I would otherwise have done I have seen her but twice once I dined with her in Charles she was well and good spirits and I kept her laughing at my bad jokes we went to T. at Mrs. Milars and in going were particularly struck with the light and shade through the gateway at the horse guards I intend to write you such volumes that it will be impossible for me to keep any order or method in what I write that will come first which is uppermost in my mind not that which is uppermost in my heart besides I should wish to give you a picture of our lives here whenever by a touch I can do it even as you must see by the last sentence our walk past Whitehall all in good health and spirits this I am certain of because I felt so much pleasure from the simple idea of your playing a game at Cricket at Mrs. Milars I saw Henry quite well there was Miss Giesel in the good-natured Miss Waldegrave Mrs. Milar began a long story and you know it is her daughter's way to help her on as though her tongue were ill of the gout Mrs. M. certainly tells a story as though she had been taught her alphabet in crutched friars Dilke has been very unwell I found him very ailing on my return he was under medical care for some time and then went to the seaside once he has returned well poor little Mrs. D has had another gallstone attack she was well ere I returned she is now at Brighton Dilke was greatly pleased to hear from you and will write a letter for me to enclose he seems greatly desirous of hearing from you of the settlement itself October 14 or 15 I came by ship from Inverness and was nine days at sea without being sick a little qualm now and then put me in mind of you however as soon as you touch the shore all the horrors of sickness as was the case with a lady on board who could not hold her head up all the way we had not been in the Thames an hour before her tongue began to some tune paying off as it was fit she should all old scores I was the only Englishman on board there was a downright scotchman who hearing that there had been a bad crop of potatoes in England had brought some triumphant specimens these he exhibited with national pride to all the lighter men and watermen from the North to the bridge I fed upon beef all the way not being able to eat the thick porridge which the ladies managed to manage with large awkward hornspoons into the bargain Severn has had a narrow escape of his life from a typhus fever he is now gaining strength Reynolds has returned from enjoyment in Devonshire he is well and persuades me to publish my pot of basil as an answer to the attacks made on me in Blackwood's magazine and the quarterly review there have been two letters in my defense in the Chronicle and one in the examiner copied from the Alfred Exeter paper and written by Reynolds I do not know who wrote those in the Chronicle this is a mere matter of the moment I think I shall be among the English poets after my death even as a matter of present interest the attempt to crush me in the quarterly has only brought me more into notice and it is a common expression among bookmen I wonder the quarterly should cut its own throat it does me not the least harm in society to make me appear little and ridiculous I know when man is superior to me and give him all due respect he will be the last to laugh at me and as for the rest I feel that I make an impression upon them which ensures me personal respect while I am in sight whatever they may say when my back is turned poor Hayden's eyes will not suffer him to proceed with this picture he has been in the country I have seen him but once since my return I hurry matters together here because I do not know when the mail sails I shall inquire tomorrow and then shall know whether to be particular or general in my letter you shall have at least two sheets a day till it does sail whether it be three days or a fortnight and then I will begin a fresh one for the next month the Miss Reynolds's are very kind to me but they have lately displeased me much and in this way now I am coming the Richardson on my return the first day I called they were in a sort of taking or bustle about a cousin of theirs who having fallen out with her grand papa in a serious manner was invited by Mrs. R to take asylum in her house she is an East Indian and ought to be her grandfather's heir at the time I called Mrs. R was in conference with her upstairs and the young ladies were warm in her praises downstairs calling her gentile interesting and a thousand other pretty things to which I gave no heed not being partial to nine days wonders now all is completely changed they hate her and from what I hear she is not without faults of a real kind but she has others which are more apt to make women like her she is not a Cleopatra but she is at least a Charmian she has a rich eastern look she has fine eyes and fine manners when she comes into a room she makes an impression the same as the beauty of a Leopardus she is too fine and too conscious of herself to repulse any man who may address her from habit she thinks that nothing particular I always find myself in parties with such a woman the picture before me always gives me a life and animation which I cannot possibly feel with anything inferior I am at such times too much occupied and admiring to be awkward or in trouble I forget myself entirely because I live in her you will by this time think I am in love with her so before I go any further I will tell you I am not as a tune of Mozart's might do I speak of the thing as a pastime and an amusement then which I can feel none deeper than a conversation with an imperial woman the very yes and no of whose lips it is to me a banquet I don't cry to take the moon home with me in my pocket nor do I fret to leave her behind me I like her and her like because one has no sensations what we both are is taken for granted you will suppose I have by this had much talk with her no such thing there are the Miss Reynolds's on the lookout they think I don't admire her because I did not stare at her they call her a flirt to me what a want of knowledge she walks across a room in such a manner that a man is drawn towards her this they call flirting they do not know things they do not know what a woman is I believe though she has faults the same as Charmian and Cleopatra might have had yet she is a fine thing speaking in a worldly way for there are two distinct tempers of mine in which we judge of things the worldly theatrical and pantomimical and the unearthly spiritual and ethereal in the former Bonaparte Lord Byron in this Charmian hold the first place in our minds in the latter John Howard Bishop Hooker rocking his child's cradle and you my dear sister are the conquering feelings as a man in the world I love the rich talk of a Charmian as an eternal being I love the thought of you I should like her to ruin me and I should like you to save me do not think my dear brother from this that my passions are headlong or likely to be ever of any pain to you I am free from men of pleasures cares identical feelings far more deep than theirs this is Lord Byron and is one of the finest things he has said I have no town talk for you as I have not been much among people as for politics they are my opinion only sleepy because they will soon be too wide awake perhaps not for the long and continued piece of England itself has given us notions of personal safety which are likely to prevent the re-establishment of our national honesty there is of a truth nothing manly or sterling in any part of the government there are many madmen in the country I have no doubt who would like to be treated on Tower Hill merely for the sake of a clout there are many men like Hunt who from a principle of taste would like to see things go on better there are many like Sir F. Burdett who like to sit at the head of political dinners but there are none prepared to suffer an obscurity for their country the motives of our worst men are interest and of our best vanity we have no Milton no Algernon Sidney governors in these days lose the title of man in exchange for that of diplomat and minister we breathe in a sort of official atmosphere all the departments of government have strayed far from simplicity which is the greatest of strength there is as much difference in this respect between the present government and Oliver Cromwell's as there is between the twelve tables Cromwell and the volumes of civil law which were digested by Justinian a man now entitled Chancellor has the same honor paid to him whether he be a hog or a Lord Bacon no sensation is created by greatness but by the number of orders a man has at his buttonholes notwithstanding the part which the Liberals take on the cause of Napoleon I cannot but think that he would harm to the life of Liberty than anyone else could have done not that the divine right gentlemen have done or intend to do any good no they have taken a lesson of him will do all the further harm he would have done without any of the good the worst thing he has done is that he has taught them how to organize their monstrous armies the emperor Alexander it is said intends to divide his empire as did Diopletian creating two czars beside himself and continuing the supreme monarch of the whole should he do this and they for a series of years keep peaceable among themselves Russia may spread her conquest even to China I think it a very likely thing that China itself may fall Turkey certainly will meanwhile European North Russia will hold its horns against the rest of Europe intriguing constantly of France Dilk whom you know to be a Godwin perfect ability man pleases himself with the idea that America will be the country to take up the human intellect where England leaves off I differ there with him greatly a country like the United States whose greatest men are Franklins and Washington's will never do that they are great men doubtless how are they to be compared to those our countrymen Milton and the two Sydney's the one is a philosophical Quaker full of mean and thrifty maxims the other sold the very charger who had taken him through all's battles those Americans are great but they are not sublime man the humanity the United States can never reach the sublime Burbeck's mind is too much in the American style you must endeavor to infuse a little spirit of another sort into the settlement always with great caution for thereby you may do your descendants more good than you may imagine if I had a prayer to make for any great good next to Tom's recovery it should be that one of your children should be the first American poet I have a great mind to make a prophecy and they say prophecies work out their own fulfillment tis the witching time of night orbit is the moon and bright and the stars they glisten glisten seeming with bright eyes to listen for what listen they for a song and for a charm see they glisten and alarm and the moon is waxing warm to hear what I shall say moon keep wide thy golden ears and stars and harken spheres harken thy eternal sky I sing an offense lullaby oh pretty lullaby listen listen listen glisten glisten glisten glisten glisten glisten and hear my lullaby though the rushes that will make its cradle still are in the lake though the linen that will be its swath is on the contentry though the woollen that will keep it warm is on the silly sheep listen starlight listen listen glisten glisten glisten glisten and hear my lullaby child I see thee child I found thee midst of the quiet all around thee child I see thee child I spy thee and thy mother sweet as nighty child I know thee child no more but a poet evermore see see the lyre the lyre and a flame of fire upon the little cradle's top flaring flaring flaring past the eyesight's bearing awake it from its sleep and see if it can keep its eyes upon the blaze amaze amaze it stares it stares it stares it dares what no one dares it lifts its little hand into the flame unharmed and on the strings paddles a little tune and sings with dumb endeavour sweetly bard art thou completely little child oh the western wild bard art thou completely sweetly with dumb endeavour a poet now or never little child oh the western wild a poet now or never end the letter 73 part 1 letter 73 part 2 of letters of John Keats to his family and friends edited by Sydney Colvin this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Neema to George and Georgiana Keats October 16 this is Friday I know not what day of the month I will inquire tomorrow for it is fit you should know the time I am writing I went to town yesterday and calling it Mrs. Millars was told that your mother would not be found at home I met Henry as I turned the corner I had no leisure to return so I left the letters with him he was looking very well poor Tom's no better tonight I am afraid to ask him what message I shall send from him in here I could go on complaining of my misery but I will keep myself cheerful for your sex with a great deal of trouble I have succeeded in getting Fanny to Hampstead she has been several times has been very kind to Tom all the summer there has scarce a day past but he has visited him and not one day without bringing or sending some fruit of the nicest kind he has been very asidious in his inquiries after you it would give the old gentleman a great deal of pleasure if you would send him a sheet enclosed in the next parcel to me after you receive this how long it will be first why did I not write to Philadelphia really I am sorry for that neglect I wish to go on writing ad infinitum to you I wish for interesting matter in a pen as swift as the wind but the fact is I go so little into the crowd now that I have nothing fresh and fresh every day to speculate upon except my own whims and theories I have been but once to Haydn's once to Hunt's once to Rice's once to Hesse's I have not seen Taylor I have not been to the theater now if I had been many times to all these and was still in the habit of going I could on my return at night have each day something new to tell you of without any stop but now I have such a dearth that when I get to the end of this sentence and to the bottom of this page I must wait till I can find something interesting to you before I begin another after all it is not much matter what it may be about for the very words from such a distance penned by this hand will be grateful to you even though I would copy out the tale of Mother Hubbard or little Red Riding Hood later I have been over to Dilks this evening there with Brown we have been talking of different in different matters of Euclid of metaphysics of the Bible of Shakespeare of the horrid system and consequences of the fagging at great schools I know not yet how large a parcel I can send I mean by way of letters I hope there can be no objection to my doweling up a choir made into a small compass that is the manner in which I shall write I shall send you more than letters I mean a tale which I must begin on account of the activity of my mind of its inability to remain at rest it must be prose and not very exciting I must do this because in the way I am at present situated I have too many interruptions to a train of feeling to be able to write poetry so I shall write this tale and if I think it worthwhile get a duplicate made before I send it off to you October 21 this is a fresh beginning the 21st October Charles and Henry were with us on Sunday and they brought your letter to your mother we agreed to get a packet off to you as soon as possible I shall sign with your mother tomorrow when they have promised to have their letters ready I shall send as soon as possible without thinking of the little you may have for me in the first parcel as I intend, as I said before to begin another letter of more regular information here I want to communicate so largely in a little time that I am puzzled where to direct my attention Haslam has promised let me know from Capper and Hazelwood for want of something better I shall proceed to give you some extracts for my scotch letters yet now I think on it why not send you the letters themselves I have three of them at present I believe Hayden has two which I will get in time I dined with your mother and Henry at Mrs. Milars on Thursday when they gave me their letters Charles is I have not yet he has promised to send it the thought of sending my scotch letters has determined me to enclose a few more which I have received and which will give you the best cue to how I am going on better than you could otherwise know your mother was well and I was sorry I could not stop later I called on Hunt yesterday it has been always my fate to meet Allier there on Thursday I walked with Hazlet as far as Covent Garden he was going to play rackets I think Tom has been rather better these few last days he has been less nervous I expect Reynolds tomorrow later about October 25 since I wrote thus far I have met with that same lady again whom I saw at Hastings and whom I met when we were going to the English opera it was in a street which goes from Bedford Row to Lambs Conduit Street I passed her and turned back she seemed glad of it glad to see me and not offended at my passing her before we walked on towards Islington where we called on a friend of hers who keeps a boarding school she has always been an enigma to me she has been in a room with you and Reynolds and wishes we should be acquainted without any of our common acquaintance knowing it as we went along sometimes through shabby sometimes through decent streets I had my guessing at work not knowing what it would be and prepared to meet any surprise first it ended at this house at Islington on parting from which I pressed to attend her home and consented and then again my thoughts were at work what it might lead to though now they had received a sort of gentile hint from the boarding school our walk ended in 34 Gloucester Street Queen Square not exactly so for we went upstairs into her sitting room a very tasty sort of place with books, pictures a bronze statue of Bonaparte music, Eolian harp a parrot, a linnet a case of choice liquors et cetera et cetera she behaved in the kindest manner made me take home a grouse for Tom's dinner asked for my address for the purpose of sending more game I expect to pass some pleasant hours with her now and then in which I feel I shall be of service to her in matters of knowledge and taste if I can I will she and your George are the only women à peu près de mon âge whom I would be content to know for their mind and friendship alone I shall in short time write you as far as I know how I intend to pass my life cannot think of those things now Tom is so unwell and weak not withstanding your happiness and your recommendation I hope I shall never marry though the most beautiful creature were waiting for me at the end of a journey or a walk though the carpet were of silk the curtains of the morning clouds the chairs and sofas stuffed with signets down the food, mona the wine beyond claret the window opening on wind and a mirror I should not feel or rather my happiness would not be so fine then instead of what I have described there is sublimity to welcome me home the roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children the mighty abstract idea I have of beauty in all things stifles the more divided in minute domestic happiness an amiable wife and sweet children I contemplate as part of that beauty but I must have a thousand of those beautiful particles to fill up my heart I feel more and more every day as my imagination strengthens that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds no sooner am I alone than shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me and serve my spirit the office which is equivalent to a king's bodyguard then the tragedy with sceptred Paul comes sweeping by according to my state of mind I am with Achilles shouting in the trenches or of Theocritas in the veils of Sicily or I throw my whole being into Troilus and repeating those lines I wander like a lost soul upon the Stygian banks staying for Waffdage I melt into the air with a voluptuousness so delicate that I am content to be alone these things combined with the opinion I have of the generality of women who appear to me as children to whom I would rather give a sugar plum than my time form a barrier against matrimony which I rejoicing I have written this that you might see I have my share of the highest pleasures and that though I may choose to pass my days alone I shall be no solitary you see there is nothing splenical in all this the only thing that can ever affect me personally for more than one short passing day is any doubt about my powers for poetry I seldom have any and I look with hope to the nying time when I shall have none I am as happy as a man can be that is, in myself I should be happy if Tom was well and I knew you were passing pleasant days then I should be most enviable with a yearning passion I have for the beautiful, connected and made one with the ambition of my intellect think of my pleasure and solitude in comparison of my commerce with the world there I am a child there they do not know me not even my most intimate acquaintance I give in to their feelings as though I were refraining from irritating a little child some think me middling others silly others foolish everyone thinks he sees my weak side against my will when in truth it is with my will I am content to be thought to all this because I have in my own breast so great a resource this is one great reason why they like me so because they can all show to advantage in a room and eclipse from a certain tact one who is reckoned to be a good poet I hope I am not here playing tricks to make the angels weep I think not for I have not the least contempt for my species and though it may sound paradoxical my greatest elevations of soul leave me every time more humbled enough of this though in your love for me I do not think it enough later October 29 or 31 Haslam has been here this morning and has taken all the letters except this sheet which I shall send him by the two-penny as he will put the parcel in the Boston post bag by the advice of Capper and Hazelwood who assure him of the safety and expedition that way the parcel will be forwarded to Warder and you all the same there will not be a Philadelphia ship for these six weeks by that time I shall have another letter to you mind you I mark this letter A by the time you will receive this you will have I trust pass through the greatest of your fatigues as it was with your seasickness I shall not hear of them till they are passed do not set to your occupation with too great an anxiety calmly and let your health be the prime consideration I hope you will have a son and it is one of my first wishes to have him in my arms which I will do please God before he cuts one double tooth Tom is rather more easy than he has been but is still so nervous that I cannot speak to him of these matters indeed it is the care I have had to keep his mind aloof from feelings too acute that has made this letter so short of one I did not like to write before him a letter he knew was to reach your hands I cannot even now ask him for any message his heart speaks to you be as happy as you can think of me and for my sake be cheerful believe me my dear brother and sister your anxious and affectionate brother John this day is my birthday all our friends have been anxious in their inquiries and all send their remembrances End of letter 73 Part 2 October 16th, 1818 my dear Fanny you must not condemn me for not being punctual to Thursday for I really did not know whether it would not affect poor Tom too much to see you, you know how it hurt him to part with you the last time at all events you shall hear from me and if Tom keeps pretty well tomorrow I will see Mr. Abbey the next day and endeavour to settle that you shall be with us on Tuesday or Wednesday in the news from George he has landed safely with our sister they are both in good health their prospects are good and they are by this time nying to their journey's end you shall hear the particulars soon your affectionate brother John Tom's love to you End of letter 74