Keats, John, 1795-1821; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
the _Indicator_ at the beginning of August[68]: and in the same month
Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_ for the first time broke silence in
Keats's favour. The impression made on the more intelligent order of
readers may be inferred from the remarks of Crabb Robinson in his
_Diaries_ for the following December[69]. "My book has had good success
among the literary people," wrote Keats a few weeks after its appearance,
"and I believe has a moderate sale."
But had the success been even far greater than it was, Keats was in no
heart and no health for it to cheer him. Passion with lack of hope were
working havoc in his blood, and frustrating any efforts of nature towards
recovery. The relapse was not long delayed. Fresh hæmorrhages occurring on
the 22nd and 23rd of June, he moved from his lodgings in Wesleyan Place to
be nursed by the Hunts at their house in Mortimer Street. Here everything
was done that kindness could suggest to keep him amused and comforted: but
all in vain: he "would keep his eyes fixed all day," as he afterwards
avowed, on Hampstead; and once when at Hunt's suggestion they took a drive
in that direction, and rested on a seat in Well Walk, he burst into a
flood of unwonted tears, and declared his heart was breaking. In writing
to Fanny Brawne he at times cannot disguise nor control his misery, but
breaks into piteous outcries, the complaints of one who feels himself
chained and desperate while mistress and friends are free, and whose heart
is racked between desire and helplessness, and a thousand daily pangs of
half-frantic jealousy and suspicion. "Hamlet's heart was full of such
misery as mine is when he said to Ophelia, 'Go to a nunnery, go, go!'"
Keats when he wrote thus was not himself, but only in his own words, 'a
fever of himself:' and to seek cause for his complaints in anything but
his own distempered state would be unjust equally to his friends and his
betrothed. Wound as they might at the time, we know from her own words
that they left no impression of unkindness on her memory[70].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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