The Life of a Harvard Scholar

Keats was a slim dark boy of medium hay with a shy, sensitive mouth. The two preceding years had been spent in Europe with a private tutor who persuaded him that Harvard was the thing. He laid the foundations for a library by purchasing from a wandering bibliophile first editions of Swinborn, Meredith, and Hardy. In this secret finery, he would parade before a mirror in his room or lie stretched and satin along his windowsea.