The Same to the Same. 1820. MY DEAR FANNY, Do not let your mother suppose that you hurt me by writing at night. For some reason or other your last night's note was not so treasurable as former ones. I would fain that you call me Love still. To see you happy and in high spirits is a great consolation to me; still let me believe that you are not half so happy as my restoration would make you. I am nervous, I own, and may think myself worse than I really am; if so, you must indulge me, and pamper with that sort of tenderness you have manifested towards me in different Letters. My sweet creature, when I look back upon the pains and torments I have suffered for you from the day I left you to go to the Isle of Wight, the ecstasies in which I have passed some days and the miseries in their turn, I wonder the more at the Beauty which has kept up the spell so fervently. When I send this round I shall be in the front parlour watching to see you show yourself for a minute in the garden. How illness stands as a barrier betwixt me and you! Even if I was well- I must make myself as good a Philosopher as possible. Now I have had opportunities of passing nights anxious and awake, I have found other thoughts intrude upon me. "If I should die," said I to myself, "I have left no immortal work behind me, nothing to make my friends proud of my memory, - but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered." Thoughts like these came very feebly whilst I was in health, and every pulse beat for you; now you divide with this (may I say it?) "last infirmity of noble minds" all my reflection. God bless you, love! J. KEATS. The Same to the Same. 1820. SWEETEST FANNY, - You fear sometimes I do not love you so much as you wish? My dear girl, I love you ever and ever and without reserve. The more I have known the more have I loved. In every way, even my jealousies have been agonies of Love; in the hottest fit I ever had I would have died for you. I have vexed you too much. But for Love! Can I help it? You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest, the last smile the brightest, the last movement the gracefulest. When you passed my window, home yesterday, I was filled with as much admiration as if I had seen you for the first time. You uttered a half complaint once that I only loved your beauty. Have I nothing else, then, to love in you but that? Do not I see a heart naturally furnished with wings imprison itself with me? No ill prospect has been able to turn your thoughts a moment from me. This perhaps should be as much a subject of sorrow as joy, but I will not talk of that. Even if you did not love me I could not help an entire devotion to you; how much more deeply, then, must I feel for you, knowing you love me. My Mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it. I never felt my Mind repose upon anything with complete and undistracted enjoyment · upon no person but you. When you are in the room my thoughts never fly out of window; you always concentrate my whole senses. The anxiety shown about our Loves in your last note is an immense pleasure to me; however you must not suffer such speculations to molest you any more; nor will I any more believe you can have the least pique against me. Brown is gone out, but here is Mrs. Wylie; when she is gone I shall be awake for you. your Mother. Remembrances to Your affectionate J. KEATS. The Same to the Same. MY DEAREST FANNY, -I slept well last night, and am no worse this morning for it. Day by day, if I am not deceived, I get a more unrestrained use of my Chest. The nearer a racer gets to the Goal the more his anxiety becomes; so I, lingering upon the borders of health, feel my impatience increase. Perhaps on your account I have imagined my illness more serious than it is: how horrid was the chance of slipping into the ground instead of into your arms the difference is amazing, Love. Death must come at last; Man must die as Shallow says; but before that is my fate I fain would try what more pleasures than you have given, so sweet a creature as you can give. Let me have another opportunity of years before me and I will not die without being remembered. Take care of yourself, dear, that we may both be well in the Summer. I do not at all fatigue myself with writing, having merely put a line or two here and there, a Task which would worry a stout state of the body and mind, but which just suits me, as I can do no more. Your affectionate J. K. MY DEAREST FANNY,- My head is puzzled this morning, and I scarce know what I shall say, though I am full of a hundred things. 'Tis certain I would rather be writing to you this morning, notwithstanding the alloy of grief in such an occupation, than enjoy any other pleasure, with health to boot, unconnected with you. Upon my soul I have loved you to the extreme. I wish you could know the tenderness with which I continually brood over your different aspects of countenance, action, and dress. I see you come down in the morning; I see you meet me at the window, I see everything over again eternally that I ever have seen. If I get on the pleasant clue, I live in a sort of happy misery; if on the unpleasant, 't is misery. You complain of my illtreating you in word, thought, and deed. I am sorry; at times I feel bitterly sorry that I ever made you unhappy. My excuse is that those words have been wrung from me by the sharpness of my feelings. At all events and in any case I have been wrong; could I believe that I did it without any cause, I should be the most sincere of Penitents. I could give way to my repentant feelings now, I could recant all my suspicions, I |