He suffered in proportion as his ideal was high, and he was
conscious of falling below it. In England, especially, it is not pleasant
to be ridiculous, even if you are a lord; but to be ridiculous and an
apothecary at the same time is almost as bad as it was formerly to be
excommunicated. _A priori_, there was something absurd in poetry written
by the son of an assistant in the livery-stables of Mr. Jennings, even
though they were an establishment, and a large establishment, and nearly
opposite Finsbury Circus. Mr. Gifford, the ex-cobbler, thought so in the
Quarterly, and Mr. Terry, the actor,[388] thought so even more distinctly
in Blackwood, bidding the young apothecary "back to his gallipots!" It is
not pleasant to be talked down upon by your inferiors who happen to have
the advantage of position, nor to be drenched with ditchwater, though you
know it to be thrown by a scullion in a garret.
Keats, as his was a temperament in which sensibility was excessive, could
not but be galled by this treatment. He was galled the more that he was
also a man of strong sense, and capable of understanding clearly how hard
it is to make men acknowledge solid value in a person whom they have once
heartily laughed at. Reputation is in itself only a farthing-candle, of
wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light
by which the world looks for and finds merit.
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