"
Keats, to all appearance, accepted his ill fortune courageously. He
certainly did not overestimate "Endymion," and perhaps a sense of humor
which was not wanting in him may have served as a buffer against the too
importunate shock of disappointment. "He made Ritchie promise," says
Haydon, "he would carry his 'Endymion' to the great desert of Sahara and
fling it in the midst." On the 9th October, 1818, he writes to his
publisher, Mr. Hessey, "I cannot but feel indebted to those gentlemen who
have taken my part. As for the rest, I begin to get acquainted with my
own strength and weakness. Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on
the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic of
his own works. My own domestic criticism has given me pain without
comparison beyond what Blackwood or the Quarterly could inflict; and
also, when I feel I am right, no external praise can give me such a glow
as my own solitary reperception and ratification of what is fine. J.S. is
perfectly right in regard to 'the slipshod Endymion.' That it is so is no
fault of mine. No! though it may sound a little paradoxical, it is as
good as I had power to make it by myself. Had I been nervous about its
being a perfect piece, and with that view asked advice and trembled over
every page, it would not have been written; for it is not in my nature to
fumble.
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