1784-1859

To JOSEPH SEVERN

A belated letter[1]

Vale of Health, Hampstead, 8 March, 1821

DEAR SEVERN,

You have concluded, of course, that I have sent no letters to Rome, because I was aware of the effect they would have on Keats’s mind; and this is the principal cause; for, besides what I have been told about letters in Italy, I remember his telling me upon one occasion that, in his sick moments, he never wished to receive another letter, or ever to see another face, however friendly.  But still I should have written to you, had I not been almost at death’s door myself.  You will imagine how ill I have been, when you hear that I have but just begun writing again for the Examiner and Indicator, after an interval of several months, during which my flesh wasted from me with sickness and melancholy.  Judge how often I thought of Keats, and with what feelings.  Mr. Brown tells me he is comparatively calm now, or rather quite so.  If he can bear to hear of us, pray tell him; but he knows it already, and can put it in better language than any man.  I hear that he does not like to be told that he may get better; nor is it to be wondered at, considering his firm persuasion that he shall not survive.  He can only regard it as a puerile thing, and an insinuation that he shall die.  But if his persuasion should happen to be no longer so strong, or if he can now put up with attempts to console him, of what I have said a thousand times, and what I still (upon my honour) think always, that I have seen too many instances of recovery from apparently desperate cases of consumption not to be in hope to the very last.  If he still cannot bear this, tell him—­tell that great poet and noble-hearted man—­that we shall all bear his memory in the most precious part of our hearts, and that the world shall bow their heads to it, as our loves do.  Or if this, again, will trouble his spirit, tell him that we shall never cease to remember and love him; and that, Christian or infidel, the most sceptical of us has faith enough in the high things that nature puts into our heads, to think all who are of one accord in mind or heart are journeying to one and the same place, and shall unite somewhere or other again, face to face, mutually conscious, mutually delighted.  Tell him he is only before us on the road, as he is in everything else; or, whether you tell him the latter or no, tell him the former, and add that we shall never forget that he was so, and that we are coming after him.  The tears are again in my eyes, and I must not afford to shed them.  The next letter I write shall be more to yourself, and more refreshing to your spirits, which we are very sensible must have been greatly taxed.  But whether your friend dies or not, it will not be among the least lofty of your recollections by-and-by that you helped to smooth the sick-bed of so fine a being.  God bless you, dear Severn.