takes to tailoring (or some other decent trade) the better for his own reputation and the public morals. —The Scots Observer, July 5th, 1890 It is rumoured that The Waste Land was written as a hoax. Several of its supporters explain that this is immaterial, literature being concerned not with intentions but results. —J. F., “Shantih, Shantih, Shantih: Has the Reader Any Rights Before the Bar of Literature?,” Time (March 1923) We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us—and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject.—How beautiful are the retired flowers! how would they lose their beauty were they to throng into the highway crying out, “admire me I am a violet! dote upon me I am a primrose!” Modern poets differ from the Elizabethans in this. Each of the moderns like an Elector ofHanover governs his petty state, & knows how many straws are swept daily from the Causeways in all his dominions & has a continual itching that all the Housewives should have their coppers well scoured: the antients were Emperors of vast Provinces, they had only heard of the remote ones and scarcely cared to visit them.—I will cut all this—I will have no more ofWordsworth or Hunt in particular—Why should we be of the tribe ofManasseh when we can wander with Esau? why should we kick against the Pricks, when we can walk on Roses? Why should we be owls, when we can be Eagles? —John Keats, Letter to J. H. Reynolds (February 3, 1818) Hampstead Page 16 - Nine Mile Magazine
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