Here is a glimpse of the young poet when racked with jealousy:
"He retired pensive from the interview, and flinging himself at his desk, attempted wreaking his thoughts upon expression, to borrow the language of one of his brother bards, in a passionate lyric which he began thus:
Another's!
Another's! O the pang, the smart!
Fate owes to Love a deathless grudge—
The barbed fang has rent a heart
Which—which—
judge—judge—no, not judge. Budge, drudge, fudge—what a disgusting language English is! Nothing fit to couple with such a word as grudge! And an impassioned moment arrested in full flow, stopped short, corked up, for want of a paltry rhyme! Judge—budge—drudge nudge—oh!—smudge—misery!—fudge. In vain—futile—no use—all up for to-night!'"
The next day the dejected poet "wandered about with a dreadfully disconsolate look upon his countenance. He showed a falling-off in his appetite at tea-time, which surprised and disturbed his mother.... The most touching evidence of his unhappiness—whether intentional on the result of accident was not evident—was a broken heart, which he left upon his plate, the meaning of which was as plain as anything in the language of flowers. His thoughts were gloomy, running a good deal on the more picturesque and impressive methods of bidding a voluntary farewell to a world which had allured him with visions of beauty only to snatch them from his impassioned gaze. His mother saw something of this, and got from him a few disjointed words, which led her to lock up the clothes-line and hide her late husband's razors—an affectionate, yet perhaps unnecessary precaution, for self-elimination contemplated from this point of view by those who have the natural outlet of verse to relieve them is rarely followed by a casualty. It may be considered as implying a more than average chance for longevity; as those who meditate an imposing finish naturally save themselves for it, and are therefore careful of their health until the time comes, and this is apt to be indefinitely postponed so long as there is a poem to write or a proof to be corrected."
Gifted Hopkins survives the ordeal, and completes his volume of poems, Blossoms of the Soul. Good old master Gridley, who foresees what the end will be, offers to accompany the young poet in his visit to the city publisher. What a world of pathos there is in the fond mother's preparations for the momentous journey: She brings down from the garret "a capacious trunk, of solid wood, but covered with leather, and adorned with brass-headed nails, by the cunning disposition of which, also, the paternal initials stood out on the rounded lid, in the most conspicuous manner. It was his father's trunk, and the first thing that went into it, as the widow lifted the cover, and the smothering shut-up smell struck an old chord of associations, was a single tear-drop. How well she remembered the time when she first unpacked it for her young husband, and the white shirt bosoms showed their snowy plaits! O dear, dear!
"But women decant their affections, sweet and sound, out of the old bottles into the new ones—off from the lees of the past generation, clear and bright, into the clean vessels just made ready to receive it. Gifted Hopkins was his mother's idol, and no wonder. She had not only the common attachment of a parent for him, as her offspring, but she felt that her race was to be rendered illustrious by his genius, and thought proudly of the time when some future biographer would mention her own humble name, to be held in lasting remembrance as that of the mother of Hopkins."
The description of the various articles that went into the trunk is humorous enough.
"Best clothes and common clothes, thick clothes and thin clothes, flannels and linens, socks and collars, with handkerchiefs enough to keep the pickpockets busy for a week, with a paper of gingerbread and some lozenges for gastralgia, and 'hot drops,' and ruled paper to write letters on, and a little Bible and a phial with hiera piera, and another with paregoric, and another with 'camphire' for sprains and bruises. Gifted went forth equipped for every climate from the tropic to the pole, and armed against every malady from ague to zoster."
The poet's interview with the publisher is one of the best things in the book, but to be thoroughly enjoyed, it must be read entire.