the place we are in. The Inn or public is by far the best house in the immediate neighbourhood. It has a white front with tolerable windows-the table I am writing on su[r]prises me as being a nice flapped Mahogany one; at the same time the place has no * * * nor any thing like it. You may if you peep see through the floor chinks into the ground rooms. The old Grandmother of the house seems intelligent though not over clean. N.B. No snuff being to be had in the village she made us some. The Guid Man is a rough looking hardy stout Man who I think does not speak so much English as the Guid wife who is very obliging and sensible and moreover though stockingless has a pair of old Shoes-Last night some Whisky Men sat up clattering Gælic till I am sure one o'clock to our great annoyance. There is a Gælic testament on the Drawers in the next room. White and blue China ware has crept all about hereYesterday there passed a Donkey laden with tin-potsopposite the Window there are hills in a Mist—a few Ash trees and a mountain stream at a little distance.— They possess a few head of Cattle.-If you had gone round to the back of the House just now-you would have seen more hills in a Mist-some dozen wretched black Cottages scented of peat smoke which finds its way by the door or a hole in the roof-a girl here and there barefoot. There was one little thing driving Cows down a slope like a mad thing. There was another standing at the cowhouse door rather pretty fac'd all up to the ankles in dirt. We have walk'd 15 Miles in a soaking rain to Oban opposite the Isle of Mull which is so near Staffa― we had thought to pass to it but the expense is 7 Guineas and those rather extorted.-Staffa you see is a fashionable place and therefore every one concerned with it either in this town or the Island are what you call up.

'Tis like paying sixpence for an apple at the playhouse— this irritated me and Brown was not best pleased-we have therefore resolved to set northward for Fort William to morrow morning. I fed upon a bit of white Bread today like a Sparrow-it was very fine-I cannot manage the cursed Oat Cake. Remember me to all and let me hear a good account of you at Inverness. I am sorry Georgy had not those lines. Good bye.

The only day I have had a chance of seeing you when you were last in London, I took every advantage of-some devil led you out of the way. Now I have

1 Lord Houghton remarks justly that a part of this letter "illustrates, with singular felicity, the peculiar action of a high imagination on the ordinary relations of the sexes. The youthful companions of Keats," continues his Lordship, "who saw how gentle and courteous was his manner to women, and who held the common belief that every Poet was essentially sentimental, could not comprehend his frequent avoidance of female society, and the apparent absence of any engrossing passion; the pardonable conceit of conscious genius suggested itself to them as the probable cause of this defective sympathy, and, when he manifested an occasional interest in any one person, it was attributed rather to satisfied vanity than to awakened love. But the careful study of the poetical character at once disproves these superficial interpretations, and the simple statement of his own feelings by such a man as Keats is a valuable addition to our knowledge of the most delicate and wonderful of the

written to Reynolds to tell me where you will be in Cumberland-so that I cannot miss you. And when I see you, the first thing I shall do will be to read that about Milton and Ceres,1 and Proserpine-yet though I am not going after you to John o' Grot's, it will be but poetical to say so. And here, Bailey, I will say a few words, written in a sane and sober mind (a very scarce thing with me), for they may, hereafter, save you a great deal of trouble about me, which you do not deserve, and for which I ought to be bastinadoed. I carry all matters to an extreme; so that when I have any little vexation, it grows, in five minutes, into a theme for Sophocles, Then, and in that temper, if I write to any friend, I have so little self-possession, that I give him matter for grieving, at the very time, perhaps, when I am laughing at a pun. Your last letter made me blush for the pain I had given you. I know my own disposition so well that I am certain of writing many times hereafter in the same strain to you now, you know how far to believe in them. You must allow for Imagination. I know I shall not be able to help it.

I am sorry you are grieved at my not continuing my visits to Little Britain. Yet I think I have, as far as a

works of Nature-a Poet's heart. For the time was at hand, when one intense affection was about to absorb his entire being, and to hasten, by its very violence, the calamitous extinction against which it struggled in vain.”

1 See page 27 of this volume.

2 It was in Little Britain that the Reynolds family lived, Mr. Reynolds, the father of Keats's friend, being Writing Master at the neighbouring school, Christ's Hospital. Mr. Dilke notes that Bailey was at this time in love with Marianne Reynolds, afterwards Mrs. Green. "She was", he says, "a very beautiful girl—somewhat cold and saturnine, and though always admired not generally liked. She was afterwards hardly tried by misfortune, and never yieldedVOL. III.

man can do who has books to read and subjects to think upon. For that reason I have been no where else except to Wentworth Place, so nigh at hand. Moreover, I have been too often in a state of health that made it prudent not to hazard the night air. Yet, further, I will confess to you that I cannot enjoy society, small or numerous. I am certain that our fair friends are glad I should come for the mere sake of my coming; but I am certain I bring with me a vexation they are better without. If I can possibly, at any time, feel my temper coming upon me, I refrain even from a promised visit. I am certain I have not a right feeling towards women—at this moment I am striving to be just to them, but I cannot. Is it because they fall so far beneath my boyish imagination? When I was a schoolboy I thought a fair woman. a pure goddess; my mind was a soft nest in which some one of them slept, though she knew it not. I have no right to expect more than their reality. I thought them ethereal, above men. I find them perhaps equal-great by comparison is very small. Insult may be inflicted in more ways than by word or action. One who is tender of being insulted does not like to think an insult against another. I do not like to think insults in a lady's company. I commit a crime with her which absence would not have known. Is it not extraordinary?-when among men, I have no evil thoughts, no malice, no spleen; I feel free to speak or to be silent; I can listen, and from every one I can learn; my hands are in my pockets, I am free from all suspicion, and comfortable. When I am among women, I have evil thoughts, malice, spleen; I

indeed I never thought so highly of her until she had undergone those trials, which I think were beyond the strength of any other in the family. She was never abased by them-never complained."

cannot speak, or be silent; I am full of suspicions, and therefore listen to nothing; I am in a hurry to be gone. You must be charitable, and put all this perversity to my being disappointed since my boyhood. Yet with such feelings I am happier alone, among crowds of men, by myself, or with a friend or two. With all this, trust me, I have not the least idea that men of different feelings and inclinations are more short-sighted than myself. I never rejoiced more than at my brother's marriage, and shall do so at that of any of my friends. I must absolutely get over this-but how? the only way is to find the root of the evil, and so cure it, "with backward mutters of dissevering power."1 That is a difficult thing; for an obstinate prejudice can seldom be produced but from a gordian complication of feelings, which must take time to unravel, and care to keep unravelled. I could say a good deal about this, but I will leave it, in hopes of better and more worthy dispositions—and, also, content that I am wronging no one, for, after all, I do think better of womankind than to suppose they care whether Mister John Keats, five feet high, likes them or not. You appeared to wish to know my moods on this subject: don't think it a bore, my dear fellow,—it shall be my Amen.

I should not have consented to myself, these four months, tramping in the Highlands, but that I thought it would give me more experience, rub off more prejudice, use [me] to more hardship, identify finer scenes, load me with grander mountains, and strengthen more my

'Aptly misquoted from Milton's Comus (816-19)—

Without his rod reversed,

And backward mutters of dissevering power,

We cannot free the Lady that sits here

In stony fetters fixed and motionless.