How far was Keats vulnerable ?

Three things, especially, established a fiction that Keats died crushed by the reviews: Shelley's "Adonais"; the unwarranted inscription on the tomb; Byron's flippant doggerel:—

It required a long time to destroy that fiction, and its ghost is not yet wholly laid. A few years ago a critic of discretion considered the case as still open to argument.

Why should Keats break under such abuse when Hunt, a much weaker man, stood up against far worse? The answer is that he did not break, but that undeniably he did suffer more. The reason is found in the two different natures. The "sweet Master Shallow" who took prison life so airily with his piano and kid-glove promenades lacked the capacity to feel deeply. Keats was a soul of intensity. His finer profounder nature had a far greater capacity for pain. He was therefore more vulnerable.

In estimating this vulnerability, however, a distinction must be made between the effect on the sensibilities and the effect on the will.

Therein lies the vital point of the whole matter, the test of the man. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth were both subject to terrifying hallucinations. Under the strain the mind of the woman was shattered, while the man became resolute, executive. Keats had a combination of feminine sensibilities and masculine will. In his mobile imagination he was fearfully shaken and driven often into moods of self-distrust and despair. It could not be otherwise with such a fine-grained sensitive nature. He suffered agonies. Nevertheless the evidence is quite conclusive that his will was stimulated into greater self-sufficiency and strength. He actually drank the delight of battle. For him the attack of the reviews was what Carlyle calls "The Baphometic Fire-Baptism." Hitherto Keats, although growing into wisdom, has been floundering about trying to find his stable equilibrium. His artistic temperament has been in an amorphous state. Hostile criticism was the crucible in which this temperament was fused and transformed into a crystallized character.

XVI

THE REVELATION OF

CHARACTER

I

MUST think that difficulties nerve the spirit of a man - they make his Prime Objects a Refuge as well as a Passion."

Keats wrote these words - they should be printed in gold in the days of his first high hopes. After the return from Scotland he had the opportunity of putting them into practice. He was in financial straits. The tour left him physically exhausted and ill. In this frail condition he nursed his dying brother, night and day; watched the life slowly fade until the end came in December. All the while his imagination was haunted by the phantom of "Johnny Keats" and his ambition bore the load of a blasted reputation and a blasted hope of recognition. Five forces were thus operating during that autumn to break him down: finances, ill-health, the loss of a brother, an obsession of ridicule, foiled