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.
Commercial Candour.
"Messrs. —— & Co., Ltd., Court Dress-fakers, &c."
Provincial Paper.
"Our Youngest General.
"He was educated at Glasgow University and Gottingen University, and entered the army in 1716."—Bangalore Daily Post.
Our Indian contemporary is misinformed. Several of our Generals are younger than that.