Always, O bard, humility is power.
[Footnote: Henry Timrod, _Poet If on a Lasting Fame._]

One is reminded of Mrs. Heep's repeated adjuration, "Be 'umble, Ury,"
and the likeness is not lessened when we find them ingratiatingly
sidling themselves into public favor. We hear them timidly inquiring of
their inspiration,

Shall not the violet bloom?
[Footnote: Mrs. Evans, _Apologetic._]

and pleading with their critics,

Lightly, kindly deal,
My buds were culled amid bright dews
In morn of earliest youth.
[Footnote: Lydia M. Reno, _Preface to Early Buds._]

At times they resort to the mixed metaphor to express their innocuous
unimportance, declaring,

A feeble hand essays
To swell the tide of song,
[Footnote: C. H. Faimer, _Invocation._]

and send out their ideas with fond insistence upon their diminutiveness:

Go, little book, and with thy little thoughts,
Win in each heart and memory a home.
[Footnote: C. Augustus Price, _Dedication._]