Thoughts from Keats Selected from his Letters. By P. E.
Gertrude Girdlestone. (George Allen.)—It cannot be said of this attractive-looking little volume that it contains "infinite riches in a little room." A great poet like Keats could hardly fail to throw out fine thoughts occasionally in his corre- spondence, but the perfect art of his later poems does not indicate the youthfulness of the writer, while immaturity is evident on many pages of his "Thoughts." Keats was a charm- ing poet before he had begun to live the full life of a man. The sense of beauty satisfied and overpowered him, and with an imagination so rich and an experience so limited, it was natural that this should be the case at twenty-three. He lived to be twenty-five, and his growth in those two years of suffering and song was amazing. The growth had its fruit in undying verse, but although there is much to interest in his prose, we can only partially agree with Miss Girdlestone that Keats's letters "con- tain veritable gems of thought; clear-glancing criticisms, racy witty appreciations, keen, instinctive judgments on men and the world." Doubtless these gifts are sometimes visible, but they are rare ; and of these carefully selected " Thoughts " many are comparatively commonplace. It is curious, by the way, that Keats, who was sneered at for belonging to the Cockney School, should have made one of the severest criticisms ever passed upon Leigh Hunt. "Hunt is certainly a pleasant fellow in the main when you are with him, but in reality he is vain, egotistical, and disgusting in matters of taste and in morals. He understands many a beautiful thing, but then instead of giving other minds credit for the same degree of perception as he him- self professes, he begins an explanation in such a curious manner that our taste and self-love is offended continually. Hunt does one harm by making fine things petty and beautiful things hateful."
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