Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1884 — A Letter of the Poet Keats. [ARTICLE]

A Letter of the Poet Keats.

In one of his letters to his sister he jays, expressing a momentary high feeling: ' Oh, there is nothing Kke fine weather, and health, and books, and a contented mind, and diligent habits of reading and thinking, and an amnlet against the enemies, nnd please heaven, a little claret wine out of a cellar a mile deep—with a few, or a good many, ratafia cakes—a rocky basin to bathe in and he enunciates much else, tapering off into a series of rollicking whims, and ending with about thirty-six lines of doggerel rhyme. But fceats always had a breezy way of rattling off his ■wishes and fe* lings in his correspondence, of which we will give but one more sample. It is from one of the letters to his sister written from Winchester. He says: “I should like now

to promenade round your gardens (?) — apple-tasting, pear-testing, plum-judg-ing, apricot-nibbling, peach-scrunch-ing, nectarine-sucking, and melon-carv-ing. I have also a great feeling for antiquated cherries, full of sugar-cracks —and a white currant tree, kept for company. I admire lolling on a lawn by a water-lilied pond, to eat white currants and see gold-fish, and go to the fair in the evening, if I'm good. There is not hope for that—one is sure to get in some mess before the evening.”—Joel Benton, in the Manhattan.