Squandrous

“If I can not live with you I will live alone.”

I’ve been reading Letters of Note for some time now, and occasionally I find a letter that jumps out at me and really strikes a chord. (One brilliant example: Groucho Marx’ letter to T.S. Eliot.)

I write a lot of letters, a lot of cards, send a lot of correspondence. I’m not going to pretend that anything I’ve ever written is worthy of edification on a site like Letters of Note, but I like to think that some of them have some sort of impact, some sort of significance to the person that reads them.

The letter above — written by John Keats to his lover Fanny Brawne — piqued my interest not only because the words are so tortured, so evocative, so intense, but also because I recently watched Bright Star, a film where this letter (and other such correspondence) is central to the film’s intrigue. The film was mediocre (I am wary of recommending it, it wasn’t altogether memorable) and the acting was good, but the true standout was Keats’ writing that peppered the screenplay.

I wish you could invent some means to make me at all happy without you. Every hour I am more concentrated in you; every thing else tastes like chaff in my Mouth. I feel it almost impossible to go to Italy - the fact is I cannot leave you, and shall never taste one minute’s content until it pleases chance to let me live with you for good.

There is a beautiful anguish and torture hidden in those words. I hope that one day, if I were to write a tragic love letter, I would be able to convey my misery and desolation even half as eloquently. More importantly, I hope that I never do have to write such a tragic letter at all.