BOO KS
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Lesson of him, and will do all the further harm he would have done
without any of the good- The worst thing he has done is, that he has
taught them how to organise their monstrous armies.
This maturity seems all the more remarkable when one considers his
lack of educational or social advantages. Like Blake, he attended
neither a public school nor a university, and his circle of friends could
hardly be described as distinguished, either artistically Or socially-his
family, a curate, a clerk in an insurance office, a navy Pay Officer.
The only 'names' he knew intimately were the painter Benjamin
Haydon, who was dotty and unsuccessful, and Leigh Hunt whom every–
body, Keats included, seems to have found a ridiculous bore.
He understands many a beautiful thing; but then, instead of giving
other minds credit for the same degree of perception as he himself
possesses- he begins an explanation in such a serious manner that our
taste and self-love is offended continually. Hunt does one harm by
making fine things pretty and beautiful things hateful-Through him
I am indifferent to Mozart, I care not for white Busts-and many a
glorious thing when associated with him becomes a nothing.
Given Keats's age and gifts this confinement to the outskirts of
literary and social life was probably advantageous. It is always danger–
ous for a young writer to be taken up by the fashionable world before
he has discovered his own values, and a mind which is original and self–
critical often finds the company of those among whom, because they
are not its intellectual equal, it is not afraid
to
think aloud, more help–
ful than one more brilliant. Many of the famous passages in the letters
on art and life seem just such thinking aloud,
i.e.,
they are not addressed
to anyone in particular; had he been writing to someone else at the
moment, another correspondent would have received them. As time
went on, however, one gets the impression that Keats was beginning to
feel a certain constriction and loneliness. Writing to his brother (How
much, one wonders, did George understand of the extraordinary let–
ters he received?) he complains
They do not know me, not even my most intimate acquaintance-I give
in to their feelings as though I was refraining from irritating a little
child . . . everyone thinks he sees my weak side against my will, when
in truth it is with my will ... I am content to be thought all this because
I have in my own breast so great a resource ...
It
is one reason they
like me so; because they can all show to advantage in a room, and
eclipse from a certain tact one who is reckoned to be a good poet.
In the case of a poet's letters our first interest, naturally, is in what
they reveal about
his
attitude toward poetry, his admirations and
