her behind
me.' But he was not a little touched, and found it easy to fill two
pages on the subject of this dark beauty. She was a friend of the
Reynolds family. She crosses the stage of the Keats drama in a very
impressive manner, and then disappears.

The most extraordinary passage to be met with in relation to the
poet's attitude towards women is in a letter written to Benjamin
Bailey in July, 1818. As a partial hint towards its full meaning I
would take two phrases in _Daniel Deronda_. George Eliot says of
Gwendolen Harleth that there was 'a certain fierceness of maidenhood
in her,' which expression is quoted here only to emphasize the girl's
feeling towards men as described a little later, when Rex Gascoigne
attempted to tell her his love. Gwendolen repulsed him with a sort of
fury that was surprising to herself. The author's interpretative
comment is, '_The life of passion had begun negatively in her._'

So one might say of Keats that the life of passion began negatively in
him. He was conscious of a hostility of temper towards women. 'I am
certain I have not a right feeling toward women--at this moment I am
striving to be just to them, but I cannot.' He certainly started with
a preposterously high ideal, for he says that when a schoolboy he
thought a fair woman a pure goddess. And now he is disappointed at
finding women only the equals of men. This disappointment helps to
give rise to that antagonism which is almost inexplicable save as
George Eliot's phrase throws light upon it. He thinks that he insults
women by these perverse feelings of unprovoked hostility. 'Is it not
extraordinary,' he exclaims, 'when among men I have no evil thoughts,
no malice, no spleen; I feel free to speak or to be silent; ... I am
free from all suspicion, and comfortable. When I am among women, I
have evil thoughts, malice, spleen; I cannot speak or be silent; I am
full of suspicions, and therefore listen to nothing; I am in a hurry
to be gone.' He wonders how this trouble is to be cured. He speaks of
it as a prejudice produced from 'a gordian complication of feelings,
which must take time to unravel.' And then, with a good-humored,
characteristic touch, he drops the subject, saying, 'After all, I do
think better of women than to suppose they care whether Mister John
Keats, five feet high, likes them or not.'

Three or four months after writing these words he must have begun his
friendly relations with the Brawne family. This woul