irritable reaching

[iampolsk]

At once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakspeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

 

TO GEORGE AND THOMAS KEATS, on December 22, 1817.