I'm glad you enjoyed the Keats.

Bob, if you hadn't seen this letter before, let me urge you to read the complete "Selected Letters" of Keats from cover to cover. As wonderful as it is to read quotations from his letters, the letters as a whole make you feel as if you have met Keats and spent time with him, and that he is one of the nicest,most brilliant and interesting people you've ever met. His letters are an achievement as valuable as his poetry.

(Though they call it "Selected Letters," I believe it includes just about all the letters he wrote. Apparently there are very few missing letters, since everyone who got a letter from Keats was careful to preserve it.)

Incredibly refreshing to drop in and read Keats talking shop the same as any novelist. Have grown very tired lately of talk about "higher poetry" and "marrow bone" and various bits of metaphysical effluvia and am refreshed to hear Keats talking about the sheer delight of inhabiting a character and basically saying the "This is so cool!" of modern parlance.

I'm also gratified to see my recent mockingbird metaphor mirrored by his chameleon. Writing out of delight is far more to my taste than all the other schools of writing, even if it gets me dismissed as a "costume party romantic" as I've recently been called.

Glad to see Keats at the party.