Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ...sweated it, tattooing the floor like mad. The difference between our country dance and these Scottish figures is about the same as leisurely stirring a cup of tea and beating up a batter pudding." Naturally, with a poet's unstable imagination, he often had fits of the blues. He got rid of them, sometimes, in a unique fashion. He took a bath, put on a clean shirt, brushed his clothes and hair, tied his shoestrings neatly; then, clean and refreshed, he sat down to write. He once took a walk with Coleridge. The account of the monologue has not yet found its due place among the anecdotes of great men. "I walked with him at his alderman-after-dinner pace for nearly two miles, I suppose. In these two miles, he broached a thousand things--let me see if I can give you the list--Nightingales--Poetry--on Poetical Sensation--Metaphysics--Different genera and species of dreams--Nightmare--First and second consciousness--the difference explained between Will and Volition--Monsters--The Kraken--Mermaids--Southey believes in them--Southey's belief too much diluted--a Ghost story--Good-morning--I heard his voice as he came toward me--I heard it as he moved away--I had heard it all the interval. He was civil enough to ask me to call on him at Highgate." What a contrast this report is to Carlyle's in the "Life of Sterling," with its "unintelligible flood of utterance" like water pumped into a bucket. Carlyle was a genius impatient to talk himself. Keats was a genius content to listen. No wonder, then, he was always welcome in a company. He received and he gave. A genius with no affectations, no vanity. He had that magnanimity of spirit which is undisturbed by petty rivalries and jealousies. He held his friends by assuming...