n and of mirth," and his poems are each
accepted, as

Not a senseless, tranced thing,
But divine melodies of truth,
Philosophic numbers smooth,
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries....

"No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression
quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perfection of loveliness."
(Matthew Arnold). But only these few friends of his are able to
recognise that perfection. Outside their charmed circle, lies an
obstinately unappreciative world.

The afternoon wears on, and the friends disperse. Keats, returning to
Wentworth Place flushed with hectic exhilaration, finds a veritable
douche of cold water awaiting him, in the shape of a letter from his
publishers. They refer to his unlucky first volume of poems, brought out
in 1817. "By far the greater number of persons who have purchased it from
us," they say, "have found fault with it in such plain terms, that we
have in many cases offered to take the book back, rather than be annoyed
with the ridicule which has time after time been showered upon it. In
fact, it was only on Sunday last that we were under the mortification of
having our own opinion of its merits flatly contradicted by a gentleman
who told us that he considered it 'no better than a take-in.'"

For a few minutes the pendulum swings back to despair. A man whose whole
business in life is the creation of the best work, who "never wrote a
line of poetry with the least shadow of public thought," who believes
that after his death he will be among the English poets, and that if he
only has time now, he will make himself remembered--that such a one
should be merely the butt and laughing-stock of his readers! It is
an unendurable position. Not that Keats attaches undue importance to
popular applause. "Praise or blame," he says, "has but a momentary
effect upon the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a
severe critic on his own works.... In _Endymion_ I leaped headlong into
the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the soundings,
the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore
and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure: for
I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest."

But what will Fanny think of such a letter? He falls to miserable
meditation over the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune, and the
constant erection of new obstacles in the course of his luck