indignation arises from a sense of sharing the frailties of the dead
poet who is the direct object of attack. Not thus may one account for
the generous heat of Whittier, of Richard Watson Gilder, of Robert
Browning, of Tennyson, in rebuking the public which itches to make a
posthumous investigation of a singer's character. [Footnote: See
Whittier, _My Namesake_; Richard W. Gilder, _A Poet's Protest_, and
_Desecration_; Robert Browning, _House_; Tennyson, _In Memoriam_.]
Tennyson affords a most interesting example of sensitiveness with
nothing, apparently, to conceal. There are many anecdotes of his morbid
shrinking from public curiosity, wholly in key with his cry of
abhorrence,

Now the poet cannot die
Nor leave his music as of old,
But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry:
Proclaim the faults he would not show,
Break lock and seal; betray the trust;
Keep nothing sacred; 'tis but just
The many-headed beast should know.

In protesting against the right of the public to judge their conduct,
true poets refuse to bring themselves to a level with their accusers by
making the easiest retort, that they are made of exactly the same clay
as is the _hoi polloi_ that assails them. This sort of recrimination is
characteristic of a certain blustering type of claimant for the title of
poet, such as Joaquin Miller, a rather disorderly American of the last
generation, who dismissed attacks upon the singer with the words,

Yea, he hath sinned. Who hath revealed