well-shaped tear, by a rose. It is thus that a poet--frequently, I am
bound to confess--finds his highest reward.

At the same time, there is a subtle ironic pleasure in taking the world's
money for poetry--even though one pays it over to a charity
immediately--for one feels that the world, for some reason or another, has
been persuaded to buy something which it didn't really want, and which it
will throw away so soon as we are round the corner. If the reader has ever
published a volume of verse, he must often have chuckled with an unnatural
glee over the number of absolutely unpoetic good souls who, from various
motives--the unhappy accident of relationship, perhaps--have
'subscribed.' Most of us have sound unpoetic uncles. Of course, you make
them buy you--in large-paper too. Have you ever gloatingly pictured their
absolute bewilderment as, with a stern sense of family pride, they sit
down to cut your pages? Think of the poor souls thus 'moving about in
worlds not realised.'

A perfect instance of this cruelty to the Philistine occurs to me. The
poet in question is one whose _forte_ is children's poetry. Very tender
some of his poems are. You will find them now and again in _St. Nicholas_,
and he is not unknown in this country. With a heart like a lamb for
children, he is like a hawk upon the Philistine. I remember an occasion,
before he published a volume, when we were together in a tavern in a
country-town, a tavern thronged with farmers on market-days. The poet had
some prospectuses in his pocket. Suddenly a great John Bull would come
bumping in like a cockchafer, and call for his pint. 'Just you watch,' the
poet would say, and away he crossed over to his victim. 'Good morning,
Mr. Oats!' 'Why, good morning, sir. How-d'ye-do; I hardly know'd thee.'
Then presently the voice of the charmer unto the farmer--'Mr. Oats, you
care for children, don't you?' 'Ay, ay,' would answer the farmer, a little
doubtfully, 'when they're little'uns.' 'Well, you know I'm what they call
a poet.' To this Mr. Oats would respond with a good round laugh, as of a
man enjoying a good thing. This was very subtle of the poet, for it put
the farmer on good terms with himself. He wondered, as he had his laugh
over again, how a man could choose to be a poet, when he might have been a
farmer. 'Well, I'm bringing out a book of poems all about children--here
is one of them!' and the poet would read some humorous thing, such as
'Breeching Tommy.' Th