“If my health would bear it, I could write a poem which I have in my head, which would be a consolation for people in such a situation as mine. I would show some one in love, as I am, with a person living in such liberty as you do.[9] Shakespeare always sums up matters in the most sovereign manner. Hamlet’s heart was full of such misery as mine is, when he said to Ophelia, ‘Go to a nunnery, go, go!’ Indeed, I should like to give up the matter at once—I should like to die. I am sickened at the brute world you are smiling with. I hate men, and women more. I see nothing but thorns for the future: wherever I may be next winter, in Italy or nowhere, Brown will be living near you, with his indecencies. I see no prospect of any rest. Suppose me in Rome. Well, I should there see you, as in a magic glass, going to and from town at all hours—I wish I could infuse a little confidence of human nature into my heart: I cannot muster any. The world is too brutal for me. I am glad there is such a thing as the grave—I am sure I shall never have any rest till I get there. At any rate, I will indulge myself by never seeing any more Dilke or Brown or any of their friends. I wish I was either in your arms full of faith, or that a thunderbolt would strike me.—God bless you. “J. K.”
It is seldom one reads a letter (not to speak of a love-letter) more steeped than this in wretchedness and acrimony; wretchedness for which the cause was but too real and manifest; acrimony for which no ground has been shown or is to be surmised. What Mr. Dilke had done, or could be supposed to have done, to merit the invalid’s ire, is unapparent. Mr. Brown may be inferred, from the verses of Keats already quoted, to have had the general character and bearing of a bon vivant or “jolly dog”; sufficiently versed in the good things of this world, whether fish, flesh, or womankind; jocose, or on occasion slangy. But Keats himself, in the nearly contemporary letter in which he arraigned Miss Brawne for “flirting with Brown,” had said: “I know his love and friendship for me—at this moment I should be without pence were it not for his assistance;” and we refuse to think that any contingency could be likely to arise in which his “indecencies” would put Miss Brawne to the blush. Be it enough for us to know that Keats, in the drear prospect of expatriation and death, wrote in this strain, and to wish it were otherwise.
The time had now arrived when Keats was to go to Italy. It was on the 18th of September 1820 that he embarked on the Maria Crowther from London. Haydon gives us a painful glimpse of the poet shortly before his departure: “The last time I saw him was at Hampstead, lying on his back in a white bed, helpless, irritable, and hectic. He had a book, and, enraged at his own feebleness, seemed as if he were going out of the world, with a contempt of this, and no hopes of a better. He muttered as I stood by him that, if he did not recover, he would ‘cut his throat.’ I tried to calm him, but to no purpose. I left him, in great depression of spirit to see him in such a state.” Another attached friend, of whom I have not yet made mention, accompanied him; and in the annals of watchful and self-oblivious friendship there are few records more touching than the one which links with the name of John Keats that of Joseph Severn. Severn, two years older than Keats, had known him as far back as 1813, being introduced by Mr. William Haslam. Keats was then studying at Guy’s Hospital, but none the less gave Severn “the complete idea of a poet.” The acquaintance does not seem to have proceeded far at that date; but, through the intervention of Mr. Edward Holmes (author of a “Life of Mozart,” and “A Ramble among the Musicians of Germany”) was renewed whilst the poet was composing “Endymion”; and Severn may probably have co-operated in some minor degree with Haydon in training Keats to a perception of the great things in plastic art. In 1820 Severn, a student-painter at the Royal Academy, had won the gold medal by his picture of The Cave of Despair, from Spenser, entitling him to the expenses of a three years’ stay in Italy, for advancement in his art. He had an elegant gift in music, as well as in painting; and it is a satisfaction to learn that at this period he had “great animal spirits,” for without these what he went through during the ensuing five months would have been but too likely to break him down. I must make room here for another letter from Keats, one addressed to his good friend Brown, deeply pathetic, and serving to assuage whatever may have been like “brass upon our palate” in the last-quoted letter to Fanny Brawne.
“Saturday, September 28.
“Maria Crowther, off Yarmouth, Isle of Wight.
“My dear Brown,—The time has not yet come for a pleasant letter from me. I have delayed writing to you from time to time, because I felt how impossible it was to enliven you with one heartening hope of my recovery. This morning in bed the matter struck me in a different manner. I thought I would write ‘while I was in some liking,’ or I might become too ill to write at all, and then, if the desire to have written should become strong, it would be a great affliction to me. I have many more letters to write, and I bless my stars that I have begun, for time seems to press—this may be my best opportunity.
“We are in a calm, and I am easy enough this morning. If my spirits seem too low you may in some degree impute it to our having been at sea a fortnight without making any way. I was very disappointed at not meeting you at Bedhampton, and am very provoked at the thought of you being at Chichester to-day.[10] I should have delighted in setting off for London for the sensation merely—for what should I do there? I could not leave my lungs or stomach or other worse things behind me.
“I wish to write on subjects that will not agitate me much. There is one I must mention, and have done with it. Even if my body would recover of itself, this would prevent it. The very thing which I want to live most for will be a great occasion of my death. I cannot help it—who can help it? Were I in health, it would make me ill, and how can I bear it in my state? I daresay you will be able to guess on what subject I am harping: you know what was my greatest pain during the first part of my illness at your house. I wish for death every day and night to deliver me from these pains; and then I wish death away, for death would destroy even those pains, which are better than nothing. Land and sea, weakness and decline, are great separators; but death is the great divorcer for ever. When the pang of this thought has passed through my mind, I may say the bitterness of death is past. I often wish for you, that you might flatter me with the best.
“I think, without my mentioning it, for my sake you would be a friend to Miss Brawne when I am dead. You think she has many faults: but for my sake think she has not one. If there is anything you can do for her by word or deed, I know you will do it. I am in a state at present in which woman, merely as woman, can have no more power over me than stocks and stones; and yet the difference of my sensations with respect to Miss Brawne and my sister is amazing. The one seems to absorb the other to a degree incredible. I seldom think of my brother and sister in America. The thought of leaving Miss Brawne is beyond everything horrible—the sense of darkness coming over me—I eternally see her figure eternally vanishing. Some of the phrases she was in the habit of using during my last nursing at Wentworth Place ring in my ears. Is there another life? Shall I awake and find all this a dream? There must be—we cannot be created for this sort of suffering. The receiving this letter is to be one of yours.
“I will say nothing about our friendship, or rather yours to me, more than that, as you deserve to escape, you will never be so unhappy as I am. I should think of—you[11] in my last moments. I shall endeavour to write to Miss Brawne if possible to-day.[12] A sudden stop to my life in the middle of one of these letters would be no bad thing, for it keeps one in a sort of fever awhile.
“Though fatigued with a letter longer than any I have written for a long while, it would be better to go on for ever than awake to a sense of contrary winds. We expect to put into Portland Roads to-night. The captain, the crew, and the passengers are all ill-tempered and weary. I shall write to Dilke. I feel as if I was closing my last letter to you.”