Snubbed as I felt myself to be, I still had my reward. People who had read the book wrote to me in enthusiastic terms, and they were not all Americans who did so. I speedily became aware that I had, almost by accident, tapped a vein of pure and rich sentiment. Best of all was the fact that my kind friend, Lord Houghton, forwarded to me a letter he had received from Mr. Swinburne which contained the following passage: "Has anyone told you I am just about to publish a 'Study' on Charlotte Brontë, which has grown out of all proportion to the thing it was meant to be--a review of (or article on) Mr. Wemyss Reid's little jewel and treasure-casket of a book?" Need I say that I was more than consoled for the coldness of the reception which the Press had given to my first literary essay by such words as these; nor had I long to wait before I saw the Brontë cult a great and growing factor in our literary life. The critics could not ignore Mr. Swinburne, and when his "Note" on Charlotte Brontë appeared, they were compelled to discuss seriously the question which they had previously regarded as superfluous or trivial. At Mr. Swinburne's request I subsequently went to see the distinguished poet at the rooms he occupied in Great James Street. My reception was not what I had expected, though Mr. Swinburne cannot be blamed for the fact. I was kept waiting on the doorstep, after ringing the bell, for an unusually long time, and during the interval of waiting a tradesman's boy arrived, basket on arm. He was more impatient than I was, and rang the bell violently to quicken the movements of those within, evidently careless as to whether he might be disturbing a poet's daydream. A terrible old woman, with landlady written large all over her face and person, opened the door, and, without paying the slightest attention to me, began to rate the shopboy in no measured terms. He retaliated in the same fashion, and I found myself quite unheeded in the midst of this war of words. At last, tired of waiting, I interposed between the boy and the landlady, and asked the latter if Mr. Swinburne was at home. She looked at me with withering contempt for a few seconds, and then ejaculated, "No, he ain't, and it would be a good thing for him if he never was when the likes of you come to call on him." Having delivered herself of this hospitable sentence, she slammed the door in my face, and left me a sadder man. I never dared to face that lady again, and in consequence I missed the pleasure of making Mr. Swinburne's acquaintance at that time.