Life of John Keats: His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics and After-FameColvin, Sidney
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Life of John Keats: His Life and Poetry, His Friends, Critics and After-Fame
Colvin, Sidney
Keats, John, 1795-1821; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
A change, it should be added, was coming over Keats's thoughts and
feelings whereby natural scenery in general was beginning to interest
him less and his fellow creatures more. In the acuteness of childish and
boyish sensation, among the suburban fields or on seaside holidays, he
had instinctively, as if by actual partnership with and self-absorption
into nature, gained enough delighted knowledge of her ways and doings
for his faculties to work on through a lifetime of poetry; and now, in
his second chamber of Maiden-thought, the appeal of nature, even at its
most thrilling, yields in his mind to that of humanity. 'Scenery is
fine,' he had already written from Devonshire in the spring, 'but human
nature is finer.' So far as concerns shrewd and interested observation
of human types encountered by the way, he had a sympathetic companion in
Brown, whose diary sets effectively before us alike the sodden,
wheedling old toper, staggering with hanging arms like a bear on its
hind feet, in the inn at End Moor, and the vulgar, uneasy gentlemanhood
of the flash Oxford man at Ambleside. Here is Brown's account of what
they saw at Ireby:--
It is a dull, beggarly looking place. Our inn was remarkably clean and
neat, and the old host and hostess were very civil and
prepossessing--but, heyday! what were those obstreperous doings
overhead? It was a dancing school under the tuition of a travelling
master! Folks here were as partial to dancing as their neighbours, the
Scotch; and every little farmer sent his young ones to take lessons.
We went upstairs to witness the skill of these rustic boys and
girls--fine, healthy, clean-dressed, and withal perfectly orderly, as
well as serious in their endeavours. We noticed some among them quite
handsome, but the attention of none was drawn aside to notice us. The
instant the fiddle struck up, the slouch in the gait was lost, the
feet moved, and gracefully, with complete conformity to the notes; and
they wove the figure, sometimes extremely complicated to my
inexperienced eyes, without an error, or the slightest pause. There
was no sauntering, half-asleep country dance among them; all were
inspired.
And here is the same scene as touched by Keats:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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