John Keats

Keats's Last Letter

Rome, November 30, 1820

My dear Brown,

'Tis the most difficult thing in the world to me to write a letter. My
stomach continues so bad, that I feel it worse on opening any
book,---yet I am much better than I was in Quarantine. Then I
am afraid to encounter the proing and coning of any thing
interesting to me in England. I have an habitual feeling of my
real life having passed, and that I am leading a posthumous
existence. God knows how it would have been--but it appears to
me---however, I will not speak of that subject. I must have been
at Bedhampton nearly at the time you were writing to me from
Chichester---how unfortunate---and to pass on the river too!
There was my star predominant! I cannot answer anything in
your letter, which followed me from Naples to Rome, because I
am afraid to look it over again. I am so weak (in mind) that I
cannot bear the sight of any handwriting of a friend I love so
much as I do you. Yet I ride the little horse,-- and, at my worst,
even in Quarantine, summoned up more puns, in a sort of
desperation, in one week than in any year of my life. There is
one thought enough to kill me-- I have been well, healthy, alert,
&c., walking with her-- and now---the knowledge of contrast,
feeling for light and shade, all that information (primitive sense)
necessary for a poem, are great enemies to the recovery of the
stomach. There, you rogue, I put you to the torture-- but you
must bring your philosophy to bear-- as I do mine-- really, or
how should I be able to live? Dr. Clark is very attentive to me; he
says, there is very little the matter with my lungs, but my
stomach, he says, is very bad. I am well disappointed in hearing
good news from George-- for it runs in my head we shall all die
young. I have not written to Reynolds yet, which he must think
very neglectful; being anxious to send him a good account of my
health, I have delayed it from week to week. If I recover, I will do
all in my power to correct the mistakes made during sickness;
and if I should not, all my faults will be forgiven. I shall write xxx
to-morrow, or the next day. I will write to to xxxxx in the middle of
next week. Severn is very well, though he leads so dull a life
with me. Remember me to all friends, and tell Haslam I should
not have left London without taking leave of him, but from being
so low in body and mind. Write to George as soon as you
receive this, and tell him how I am, as far as you can guess;
--and also a note to my sister---who walks about my imagination
like a ghost---she is so like Tom. I can scarcely bid you good
bye, even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow.
God bless you!
John Keats