Your affectionate Brother JOHN. LXXII.--TO JAMES AUGUSTUS HESSEY. [Hampstead, October 9, 1818.] My dear Hessey--You are very good in sending me the letters from the Chronicle--and I am very bad in not acknowledging such a kindness sooner--pray forgive me. It has so chanced that I have had that paper every day--I have seen to-day's. I cannot but feel indebted to those Gentlemen who have taken my part--As for the rest, I begin to get a little acquainted with my own strength and weakness.--Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own Works. My own domestic criticism has given me pain without comparison beyond what Blackwood or the Quarterly could possibly inflict--and also when I feel I am right, no external praise can give me such a glow as my own solitary reperception and ratification of what is fine. J. S. is perfectly right in regard to the slip-shod Endymion.[81] That it is so is no fault of mine. No!--though it may sound a little paradoxical. It is as good as I had power to make it--by myself--Had I been nervous about its being a perfect piece, and with that view asked advice, and trembled over every page, it would not have been written; for it is not in my nature to fumble--I will write independently.--I have written independently _without Judgment_. I may write independently, and _with Judgment_, hereafter. The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself--That which is creative must create itself--In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest--But I am nigh getting into a rant. So, with remembrances to Taylor and Woodhouse etc. I am Yours very sincerely JOHN KEATS. LXXIII.--TO GEORGE AND GEORGIANA KEATS. [Hampstead, October 13 or 14, 1818.] My dear George--There was a part in your Letter which gave me a great deal of pain, that where you lament not receiving Letters from England. I intended to have written immediately on my return from Scotland (which was two Months earlier than I had intended on account of my own as well as Tom's health) but then I was told by Mrs. W. that you had said you would not wish any one to write till we had heard from you. This I thought odd and now I see that it could not have been so; yet at the time I suffered my unreflecting head to be satisfied, and went on in that sort of abstract careless and restless Life with which you are well acquainted. This sentence should it give you any uneasiness do not let it last for before I finish it will be explained away to your satisfaction--