"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.