There were young men who read, lying in shallow arm-chairs, holding their books as if they had hold in their hands of something that would see them through; they being all in a torment, coming from midland towns, clergymen's sons.

Others read Keats.

And those long histories in many volumes--surely some one was now beginning at the beginning in order to understand the Holy Roman Empire, as one must.

That was part of the concentration, though it would be dangerous on a hot spring night--dangerous, perhaps, to concentrate too much upon single books, actual chapters, when at any moment the door opened and Jacob appeared; or Richard Bonamy, reading Keats no longer, began making long pink spills from an old newspaper, bending forward, and looking eager and contented no more, but almost fierce.

Why?
Only perhaps that Keats died young--one wants to write poetry too and to love--oh, the brutes! It's damnably difficult.