Yours most sincerely
John Keats.
LXXVII.—TO FANNY KEATS.
[Hampstead, November 5, 1818.]
My dear Fanny—I have seen Mr. Abbey three times about you, and have not been able to get his consent. He says that once more between this and the Holidays will be sufficient. What can I do? I should have been at Walthamstow several times, but I am not able to leave Tom for so long a time as that would take me. Poor Tom has been rather better these 4 last days in consequence of obtaining a little rest a nights. Write to me as often as you can, and believe that I would do anything to give you any pleasure—we must as yet wait patiently.
Your affectionate Brother
John ——.
LXXVIII.—TO JAMES RICE.
Well Walk [Hampstead,] Novr. 24, [1818].
My dear Rice—Your amende Honorable I must call “un surcroît d’Amitié,” for I am not at all sensible of anything but that you were unfortunately engaged and I was unfortunately in a hurry. I completely understand your feeling in this mistake, and find in it that balance of comfort which remains after regretting your uneasiness. I have long made up my mind to take for granted the genuine-heartedness of my friends, notwithstanding any temporary ambiguousness in their behaviour or their tongues, nothing of which however I had the least scent of this morning. I say completely understand; for I am everlastingly getting my mind into such-like painful trammels—and am even at this moment suffering under them in the case of a friend of ours.—I will tell you two most unfortunate and parallel slips—it seems down-right pre-intention—A friend says to me, “Keats, I shall go and see Severn this week.”—“Ah! (says I) you want him to take your Portrait.”—And again, “Keats,” says a friend, “when will you come to town again?”—“I will,” says I, “let you have the MS. next week.” In both these cases I appeared to attribute an interested motive to each of my friends’ questions—the first made him flush, the second made him look angry:—and yet I am innocent in both cases; my mind leapt over every interval, to what I saw was per se a pleasant subject with him. You see I have no allowances to make—you see how far I am from supposing you could show me any neglect. I very much regret the long time I have been obliged to exile from you: for I have one or two rather pleasant occasions to confer upon with you. What I have heard from George is favourable—I expect a letter from the Settlement itself.