in the river. Keats wanted a current, it seems to me, to give him
vitality and carry off his own mental impurities. His was a stagnant
being."

"What a queer comparison," and he shook his head laughingly, "ingenious,
but at fault; you are begging the question now. Well, what do you say to
Shelley?"

"I have nothing to say to him; he has every thing to say to me. He is my
master."

"An eccentric taste for so young a girl; and Byron? and Moore? and Mrs.
Hemans? and Leigh Hunt? and Barry Cornwall?"

"Oh, every one likes _them_, but one gets tired of hearing lions roar,
and harps play, and angels sing; and then one goes to Shelley for
refreshment. He is never monotonous; he was a perennial fountain,
singing at its source, and nearly all was fragmentary that he wrote, of
course, wanting an outlet. The mind finishes out so much for itself,
and the thought comes to one always, that he was completed in heaven. No
other verse stirs me like his. You know he wrote it because he had to
write or die. He was a poet, or nothing."

"You ought to write criticisms for _Blackwood_, really, Miss Monfort,
and give a woman's reason for every opinion," with ill-concealed
derision.

"You are laughing at me now, of course, but I don't regard good-natured
raillery. I am sure I should not enjoy poetry as I do were I a better
critic. I love flowers far more than many who understand botany as a