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.

One of the few such appropriate transactions I remember was Queen
Elizabeth's buying a poem from Sir Philip Sidney, literally, with a lock
of her 'gowden hair.' Poem and lock now lie together at Wilton, both
untouched of time. Or was it that Sir Philip Sidney paid for the lock with
his poem? However it was, the exchange was appropriate. The ratio between
the thing sold and the price given was fairly equal. And, at all times, it
is far less absurd for a poet to pay for the earthly thing with his poem
(thus leaving us to keep the change), than that we should think to pay him
for his incorruptible with our corruptible. There would, no doubt, be a
subtle element of absurdity in a poet consenting to pay his tailor for a
suit with a sonnet, while it would obviously be beyond all proportion
monstrous for a tailor to think to buy a sonnet with a suit. Yet a poet
might, perhaps, be brought to consider the transaction, if he chanced to
be of a gentle disposition.

Yes, the true, the tasteful way to pay a poet is by the exchange of some
other beautiful thing: by beautiful praise, by a beautiful smile, by a