Life of John Keats

by William Michael Rossetti

As to strength or stability of character, it is rather amusing to find Keats picking a hole in Haydon, while Haydon could probe a joint in the armour of Keats. In November 1817 Haydon had been playing rather fast and loose (so at least it seemed to Keats and to his friend Bailey) with a pictorial aspirant named Cripps, and Keats wrote to Bailey in the following terms:

“To a man of your nature such a letter as Haydon’s must have been extremely cutting.... As soon as I had known Haydon three days, I had got enough of his character not to have been surprised at such a letter as he has hurt you with. Nor, when I knew it, was it a principle with me to drop his acquaintance, although with you it would have been an imperious feeling.... I must say one thing that has pressed upon me lately, and increased my humility and capability of submission, and that is this truth: Men of genius are great as certain ethereal chemicals operating on a mass of neutral intellect; but they have not any individuality, any determined character.”

The following also, from a letter of January 1818 to the same correspondent, relates partly to Haydon:

“The sure way, Bailey, is first to know a man’s faults, and then be passive. If after that he insensibly draws you towards him, then you have no power to break the link.”

Haydon’s verdict upon Keats is no doubt extremely important. I give here the whole entry in his diary, 29th of March 1821, omitting only two passages which have been already extracted in their more essential context:—

“Keats, too, is gone! He died at Rome, the 23rd February, aged twenty-five. A genius more purely poetical never existed. In fireside conversation he was weak and inconsistent, but he was in his glory in the fields. The humming of a bee, the sight of a flower, the glitter of the sun, seemed to make his nature tremble; then his eyes flashed, his cheeks glowed, his mouth quivered. He was the most unselfish of human creatures; unadapted to this world, he cared not for himself, and put himself to any inconvenience for the sake of his friends. He was haughty, and had a fierce hatred of rank [this corresponds with Hunt’s remark, that Keats looked upon a man of birth as his natural enemy], but he had a kind, gentle heart, and would have shared his fortune with any man who wanted it. His classical knowledge was inconsiderable, but he could feel the beauties of the classical writers. He had an exquisite sense of humour, and too refined a notion of female purity to bear the little sweet arts of love with patience. He had no decision of character, and, having no object upon which to direct his great powers, was at the mercy of every pretty theory Hunt’s ingenuity might start. One day he was full of an epic poem; the next day epic poems were splendid impositions on the world. Never for two days did he know his own intentions.... The death of his brother wounded him deeply, and it appeared to me that he began to droop from that hour. I was much attracted to Keats, and he had a fellow-feeling for me. I was angry because he would not bend his great powers to some definite object, and always told him so. Latterly he grew irritated because I would shake my head at his irregularities, and tell him that he would destroy himself.... Poor dear Keats! had nature given you firmness as well as fineness of nerve, you would have been glorious in your maturity as great in your promise. May your kind and gentle spirit be now mingling with those of Shakespeare and Milton, before whose minds you have so often bowed! May you be considered worthy of admission to share their musings in heaven, as you were fit to comprehend their imaginations on earth! Dear Keats, hail and adieu for some six or seven years, and I shall meet you. I have enjoyed Shakespeare more with Keats than with any other human creature.”

In writing to Miss Mitford, Haydon added:

“His ruin was owing to his want of decision of character, and power of will, without which genius is a curse.”

It will be seen that Haydon’s character of Keats is in some respects very highly laudatory: he speaks of the poet’s unselfishness and generosity in terms which may possibly run into excess, but cannot assuredly have fallen short. What he remarks as to “irregularities” seems to show that these had (at least in Haydon’s opinion) taken somewhat firm root with Keats, and had not merely come and gone with a spurt, as a relief from feelings of depression or mortification; nor can we altogether forget the statement that, on the night of February 3, 1820, which closed with the first attack of blood-spitting, Keats “returned home in a state of strange physical excitement—it might have appeared to those who did not know him one of fierce intoxication.” Physical excitement which looks like fierce intoxication, without being really anything of the sort, can be but a comparatively rare phænomenon; nor do I suppose that an impending attack of blood-spitting would account for such an appearance. Brown, however, was still more positive than Lord Houghton in excluding the idea of intoxication on that occasion; he even says, “Such a state in him, I knew, was impossible”—an assertion which we have to balance against the general averments of Haydon. Keats’s irritation at the remonstrances which Haydon addressed to him upon irregularities, real or assumed, is mentioned by the painter without any seeming knowledge of the fact that Keats had (as shown by his letter of September 20, 1819, already cited, to his brother George) cooled down very greatly in his cordiality to his monitor; and he may perhaps have received the remonstrances in a spirit of stubbornness, or of apparent irritation, more because he was out of humour with Haydon than because he could not confute the allegations, had he been so minded. As to the charge of want of decision of character, want of power of will, we must try to understand what is the exact sense in which Haydon applies these terms. He appears from the context to refer more to indefiniteness of literary aim, combined with sensitiveness to critical detraction and ridicule, than to anything really affecting the basis of a man’s character in his general walk of life and commerce with the world. A few words on both these aspects of the question will not be wasted. We need not, however, recur to the allegation of over-sensitiveness to criticism, or of being “snuffed out by an article,” which has already been sufficiently debated.

Indefiniteness of literary aim must be assessed in relation to a man’s faculties, and in especial to his age and experience. A beginner is naturally indefinite in aim, in the sense that he tries his hand at various things, and only after making several experiments does he learn which things he can manage well, and which less than well. Keats, in his first two volumes, was but a beginner, and a youthful beginner. If they show indefiniteness of aim—though indeed they hardly do show that in any marked degree—one cannot regard the fact as derogatory to the author. With his third volume, he was getting some assurance of the direction in which his power lay. It is certainly true that, after producing one epic (if such it can be called), “Endymion,” and after commencing another, “Hyperion,” he laid the second aside, for whatever reason; partly, it would seem, because the harsh reception of “Endymion” discouraged him, and partly because he considered the turn of diction too obviously Miltonic; and no doubt, as his mood varied, he must have expressed to Haydon very divergent opinions as to the expediency of writing epics. But, apart from this special matter, the third volume shows no uncertainty or infirmity of purpose. It contains three narrative poems—“Isabella,” “The Eve of St. Agnes,” and “Lamia”—some odes, and a few minor lyrics. The very fact that he continued writing poetry so persistently, maugre Blackwood’s Magazine and The Quarterly Review, speaks to some decision of character and power of will in literary matters; and the immense advance in executive force tells the same tale aboundingly. Therefore, while laying great stress upon Haydon’s view so far as it concerns certain shifting currents of thought and of talk, I cannot find that Keats is fairly open to the charge of want of decision or of will in the literary relation. Then as to the larger question of his character generally, Keats appears to me to have been eminently wilful, and somewhat wayward to boot. He had the temperament of a man of genius, liable to sudden and sharp impressions, and apt to go considerable lengths at the beck of an impulse, or even of a caprice. Wilfulness along with waywardness is certainly not quite the same thing as “power of will,” but it testifies to a will which can exert itself steadily if it likes. The very short duration of Keats’s life, and the painful conjuncture of circumstances which made his last year a despairing struggle between a passionate love and an inexorable disease, preclude our forming a very distinct opinion of what his power of will might naturally have become. If I may venture a surmise, I would say that he had within him the stuff of ample determination and high-heartedness in any matters upon which he was in earnest, mingled however with deficient self-control, and with a perilous facility for seeing the seamy side of life.