TO CHARLOTTE BRONTË.

Strange that the most farouche of all the ladies Rightly renowned as drivers of the quill, Who hated all publicity like Hades, And showed in self-advancement little skill, Who did not write for Smiths and Browns and Bradys, But at the prompting of her own sweet will— Her most obsequious partisans should find In penmen of the parasitic kind. In vain did Mrs. Gaskell, wise and gracious, Paint us your portrait, delicate yet true; Sensation-mongers, strident and voracious, Must needs explore your inner life anew, Clutching with fingers ruthlessly tenacious At the remotest semblance of a clue; Raking the dustbins for unprinted matter, And prodigal of cheap and tasteless chatter. And now in days of endless storms and stresses Comes your Centenary, with odes and lays, And lantern slides and lectures and addresses, And all the modern ritual of praise; With columns in The Sphere of C. K. S.'s Comments upon your life and work and ways, Judicial summings-up of old disputes And photographs of Patrick Brontë's boots. And men and maids will doubtless march with banners To prove their worship of your "massive brain"; And intellectual Chicago "canners" Will send their relics from across the main; And critics will discuss your various manners, And Harold Begbie will pronounce you "sane"; In short, you'll be the bookman's prey and quarry At many a high-class literary "swarry." Well, well, brave Charlotte, though our admiration Prompts some of us your memory to revere In ways less vocal in their adulation, You will not hold our homage less sincere If we refrain from pouring a libation In orthodox Centenary small-beer, But choose to greet in silent awe and wonder The stormy spirit of the child of Thunder.