ne audacity with which he pronounces his own work
good,--better even than that of a certain other great name in English
literature; one cannot help loving him for the sweet humility with
which he accepts the view that, after all, success or failure lies
entirely without the range of self-choosing. There is a point of view
from which it is folly to hold a poet responsible even for his own
poetry, and when _Endymion_ was spoken of as 'slipshod' Keats could
reply, 'That it is so is no fault of mine.... The Genius of Poetry
must work out its own salvation in a man.... That which is creative
must create itself. 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 piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. I was
never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the
greatest.'

Well might a man who could write that last sentence look upon poetry
not only as a responsible, but as a dangerous pursuit. Men who aspire
to be poets are gamblers. In all the lotteries of the literary life
none is so uncertain as this. A million chances that you don't win the
prize to one chance that you do. It is a curious thing that ever so
thoughtful and conscientious an author may not know whether he is
making literature or merely writing verse. He conforms to all the
canons of taste in his own day; he is devout and reverent; he shuns
excesses of diction, and he courts originality; his verse seems to
himself and to his unflattering friends instinct with the spirit of
his time, but twenty years later it is old-fashioned. Keats, with all
his feeling of certainty, stood with head uncovered before that power
which gives poetical gifts to one, and withholds them from another.
Above all would he avoid self-delusion in these things. 'There is no
greater Sin after the seven deadly than to flatter one's self into an
idea of being a great Poet.'

Keats, if one may judge from a letter written to John Taylor in
February, 1818, had little expectation that his _Endymion_ was going
to be met with universal plaudits. He doubtless looked for fair
treatment. He probably had no thought of being sneeringly addressed as
'Johnny,' or of getting recommendations to return to his 'plasters,
pills, and ointment boxes.' In fact, he looked upon the issue as
entirely problematical. He seemed willing to take it for