We live in an age of every man his own priest and his own lawyer.  At a pinch we can very well be every man his own poet.  If the whole supercilious crew of modern men of letters, artists, and critics were wiped off the earth to-morrow, the world would be hardly conscious of the loss.  Nay, if even the entire artistic accumulation of the past were to be suddenly swallowed up, it would be little worse off.  For the world is more beautiful and wonderful than anything that has ever been written about it, and the most glorious picture is not so beautiful as the face of a spring morning.

APOLLO’S MARKET

The question is sometimes asked ‘how poets sell.’  One feels inclined idealistically to ask, ‘Ought poets to sell?’ What can poets want with money?—­dear children of the rainbow, who from time immemorial

          ... on honeydew have fed,
    And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Have you never felt a sort of absurdity in paying for a rose—­especially if you paid in copper?  To pay for a thing of beauty in coin of extreme ugliness!  There is obviously no equality of exchange in the transaction.  In fact, it is little short of an insult to the flower-girl to pretend that you thus satisfy the obligation.  Far better let her give it you—­for the love of beauty—­as very likely, if you explained the incongruity, she would be glad to do:  for flower-girls, no doubt, like every one else, can only have chosen their particular profession because of its being a joy for ever.  There might be fitness in offering a kiss on account, though that, of course, would depend on the flower-girl.  To buy other things with flowers were not so incongruous.  I have often thought of trying my tobacconist with a tulip; and certainly an orchid—­no very rare one either—­should cover one’s household expenses for a week, if not a fortnight.

Omar Khayyam used to wonder what the vintners buy ’one-half so precious as the stuff they sell.’  It is surely natural to wonder in like manner of the poet.  What have we to offer in exchange for his priceless manna?  One feels that he should be paid on the mercantile principles of ‘Goblin Market.’  Said Laura:—­

    ’Good folk, I have no coin;
    To take were to purloin;
    I have no copper in my purse,
    I have no silver either....’

Copper! silver even!  The goblin-men were more artistic than that; they realised the absurdity of paying for immortal things in coin of mere mortality.  So—­

    ‘You have much gold upon your head,’
       They answered all together: 
    ‘Buy from us with a golden curl.’

Yes, those are the ideal rates at which poetry should be paid.  We should, of course, pay for fairy goods in fairy-gold.