Byron himself, who by
the side of Shelley cuts so deplorable a figure, had at least the
consciousness of being an intensely romantic and mysterious figure,
quickening the emotional temperature of the world and making its pulse
beat faster. But Keats and Shelley worked on in discouragement and
obscurity. It is true that they judged their own work justly, and knew
within themselves that there was a fiery quality in what they wrote.
But how many poets have fed themselves in vain on the same hopes, have
thought themselves unduly contemned and slighted! There is hardly a
scribbler of verse who has not the same delusion, and who has not in
chilly and comfortless moments to face the fact that he does not
probably count for very much, after all, in the scheme of things. How
hard it is in the case of Keats and Shelley to feel that they had not
some inkling of all the desirous worship, the generous praise, that has
surrounded their memory after their death! How hard it is to enter into
the bitterness of spirit which fell upon Shelley, not once nor twice,
at the acrid contempt of reviewers! How hard it is to put oneself
inside the crushing sense of failure that haunted Keats' last days,
with death staring him in the face! Of course, one may say that a
writer ought not to depend upon any consciousness of fame; that he
ought to make his work as good as he can, and not care about the
verdict.
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