[THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE IMAGINATION]
[November 22, 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 Imagi
nation?What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth2?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 essential Beauty?In a Word, you may
know my favorite Speculation by my first Book and the little song3 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
dream4?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 reasoning5?and yet it must be?Can it be that even
1. One of Keats's closest friends. Keats had stayed Endymion. with him the month before at Oxford, where Bailey 4. In Milton's Paradise Lost 8.452-90 Adam was an undergraduate. dreams that Eve has been created and awakes to 2. At the close of 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,' Keats find her real. Adam also describes an earlier pre- also grapples with these categories. Where Keats figurative dream in the same work, 8.283?311. uses 'truth' we might substitute the words real or 5. Consecutive reasoning?reasoning that moves reality. by logical steps. 3. The song was 'O Sorrow,' from book 4 of
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LETTERS / 95 1
the greatest Philosopher ever when arrived at his goal without putting aside
numerous objections?However it may be, O for a Life of Sensations6 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 repeated7?And yet such a fate can only befall those who delight
in sensation rather than hunger as you do after Truth?Adam's dream will do
here and seems to be a conviction that Imagination and its empyreal8 reflection
is the same as human Life and its spiritual repetition. But as I was saying?
the simple imaginative Mind may have its rewards in the repeti[ti]on of its
own silent Working coming continually on the spirit with a fine suddenness?
to compare great things with small?have you never by being surprised with
an old Melody?in a delicious place?by a delicious voice, fe[l]t 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
[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 the Prototype must be here after?that 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
Mind9?such an one I consider your's 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 pesterd 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
