Imagination.

Hilton, John Keats, 1822

22 November 1817

My Dear Bailey,

            … O I wish I was as certain of the end of all your troubles as that of your momentary start about the authenticity of the Imagination.  I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of the imagination – What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth – whether it existed before or not – for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of the essential Beauty – In a word, you may know my favorite Speculation by my first Book and the little song I sent in my last  -- which is a representation from the fancy of the probable mode of operating in these Matters – The Imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream – he awoke and found it truth.  I am the more zealous in this affair, because I have never yet been able to perceive how any thing can be known for truth by consequitive reasoning – and yet it must be – Can it be that even the greatest Philosopher ever arrived at his goal without putting aside numerous objections – However it may be , O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!  It is “a Vision in the form of Youth” a Shadow of reality to come – and this consideration has further convinced me for it has come as auxiliary to another favorite Speculation of mine, that we shall enjoy ourselves here after by having what we called happiness on Earth repeated in a finer tone and so repeated – And yet such a fate can only befall those who delight in sensation rather than hunger for as you do after Truth – Adam’s dream will do here and seems to be a conviction that Imagination and its empyreal reflection is the same a human Life and its spiritual repetition.  But as I was saying – the simple imaginative Mind may have its rewards in the repetition of its own silent Working coming continually on the spirit with a fine suddenness -- to compare great things with the small – have you never by being surprised with an old Melody – in a delicious place – by a delicious voice, felt over again your very speculations and surmises at the time it first operated on your soul – do you not remember forming to yourself the singer’s face more beautiful for than it was possible and yet with the elevation of the Moment you did not think so – even then you were mounted on the Wings of Imagination so high – that Prototype must be here after – the delicious face you will see – What a time!  I am continually running away from the subject – sure this cannot be exactly the case with a complex Mind – one that is imaginative and at the same time careful of its fruits – who would exist partly on sensation partly on thought – to whom it is necessary that years should bring the philosophic Mind – such as one I consider yours and therefore it is necessary to your eternal Happiness that you not only drink this old Wine of Heaven which I shall call the redigestion of our most ethereal Musings on Earth, but also increase in knowledge and know all things.  I am glad to hear you are in a fair Way for Easter – you will soon get through your unpleasant reading and then! – but the world is full of troubles and I have not much reason to think myself pestered with many – I think Jane or Marianne has a better opinion of me than I deserve – for really and truly I do not think my Brothers illness connected with mine – you know more of the real Cause than they do – nor have I any chance of being rack’d as you have been – you perhaps at one time thought there was such a thing as Worldly Happiness to be arrived at, at certain periods of time marked out – you have of necessity from your disposition been thus led away – I scarcely remember counting upon any Happiness – I look not for it if it be not in the present hour – nothing startles me beyond the Moment.  The setting sun will always set me to rights – or if a Sparrow come before my Window I take part in its existence and pick about the Gravel.  The first thing that strikes me on hearing a Misfortune having befalled another is this.  “Well it cannot be helped – he will have the pleasure of trying the resources of his spirit, and I beg now my dear Bailey that hereafter should you observe any thing cold in me not to but in to the account of heartlessness but abstraction – for I assure you I sometimes feel not the influence of Passion or Affection during a whole week – and so long this sometimes continues I begin to suspect myself and the genuiness of my feelings at other times – thinking them a few barren Tragedy-tears.

Your affectionate friend

John Keats