濟(jì)慈詩(shī)歌和書信選(英文版)To Benjamin Baily. Inverary, 18th July

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To Benjamin Baily. Inverary, 18th July

My dear Bailey;

I am certain I have not a right feeling towards Women—at this moment I am striving to be just to them but I cannot—Is it because they fall so far beneath my boyish imagination? When I was a schoolboy I thought a fair woman a pure Goddess, my mind was a soft nest in which some one of them slept though she knew it not—I have no right to expect more than their reality. I thought them ethereal above Men—I find then perhaps equal—great by comparison is very small—Insult may be inflicted in more ways than by Word or action—one who is tender of being insulted in more ways than by word or action—one who is tender of being insulted does not like to think a n insults in a Lady’s Company—I commit a Crime with her which absence would have not known—Is it not extraordinary? When among Men I have no evil thoughts, no malice, no spleen—I feel free to speak or to be silent—I can listen and from every one I can learn—my hands are in my pockets I am free from all suspicion and comfortable. When I am among Women I have evil thoughts, malice spleen—I cannot speak or be silent—I am full of Suspicions and therefore listen to nothing—I am in a hurry to be gone—You must be charitable and put all this perversity to my being disappointed since Boyhood—Yet with such feelings I am happier alone among Crowds of men, by myself or with a friend or two—With all this trust me Bailey I have not the least idea that Men of different feelings and inclinations are more short sighted than myself—I never rejoiced more than at my brother’s marriage and shall do so at that of any of my friends. I must absolutely get over this—but how?

That is a difficult thing; for an obstinate Prejudice can seldom be produced but from a Gordian complication of feelings, which must take time to unravel and care to keep unraveled—I could say a good deal about this but I will leave it in hopes of better and more worthy dispositions—and also content that I am wronging no one, for after all I do think better of Womankind than to suppose they are they care whether Mister John Keats five feet high likes them or not.