7.3.06

This mortal body of a thousand days

Andrew Motion's Keats is 578 pages long. It seems we know just about everything he did, thought or wrote in his 24 years. It's a slow read of a quick life and sometimes I don't think I'll make it through. And then, on p. 290, there is this:

It seemed a small decision, compared to many others Keats had taken in recent weeks, but it turned out to be crucial. Sailing by ferry from Oban on the island of Kerrara, and then on to Mull 'in forty minutes with a fine Breeze', Keats embarked on the most demanding part of his tour. During the next two days he trudged thirty-seven miles, was saturated by rain, exhausted from stumbling through bogs, chilled by sleeping in bleak huts, drained by the effort of merely continuing. Within hours of returning to the mainland he began worryinig about his health more anxiously than ever before; within days he started contemplating an early departure for London. When he finally reached Hampstead he immediately began nursing his brother, exposing himself to a highly infectious illness. Previously, when he had cared for Tom, he had been robust enough to keep his own good health. This autumn he could not remain immune so easily. It was on Mull that his short life started to end, and his slow death began.

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