[28] It may, however, be suggested that the extraordinary bluntness (to use no stronger word) of both is almost sufficiently evidenced in the fact that in his last edition of Keats Mr. Forman committed the additional outrage of distributing these letters according to their dates among the rest. The isolation of the agony gives almost the only possible excuse for revealing it.
[29] It is of course true that Shelley himself did not at first quite appreciate Keats. But Adonais cancels the deficit and leaves an almost infinite balance in favour. One can only hope that, had the circumstances been reversed, Keats would have set the account right as triumphantly.
[30] This tendency makes it perhaps desirable to observe that in the particular context of the Belle Dame there is nothing whatever to cavil at.
[31] The recent centenary saw, as usual, with much welcome appreciation some uncritical excesses.
[32] In not a few cases they may be said to have been deliberately unprepared—intended though not labelled as "private and confidential."
[33] In which, be it remembered, the "Life-and-Letters" system only came in quite late.
[34] At the very moment when this is being written a considerable new body of them is announced for sale.
[35] The word "restraint" may be misunderstood: but it is intended to indicate something of the general difference between "classical" ages on the one side and "romantic" or "realist" on the other.
[36] Chesterfield's deafness might, without frivolity, be brought in. It is a hindrance to conversation, but none to letter-writing.
[37] Or at least expression of themselves.