Hopkins

“ Hopkins, the poet, and he began to feel a kind of excitement, such as was often the prelude of a lyric burst from his pen. Others might have wealth and beauty, he thought to himself, but what were these to the gift of genius? In fifty years the wealth of these people would have passed into other hands. In fifty years all these beauties would be dead, or wrinkled and double-wrinkled great-grandmothers. And when they were all gone and forgotten, the name of Hopkins would be still fresh in the world's memory. Inspiring thought! ”

“ Without hat or coat, with his shirt-sleeves torn by those unfortunates into whose arms he had wildly rushed, with his hair streaming backwards, his eyes blood-shot, his face pale as marble, and perspiration running down his cheeks, not even his own most intimate friends would have recognised Hopkins—the staid, softspoken, polite, and gentle Hopkins—had they seen him that night pulling like a maniac at the fire-bell. ”

“ Will Hopkins can take an axe and a few tools into the green woods in the fall, and sail down the bay in a new schooner in the spring when the ice goes. To see him steaming the planking in the open in his own improvised boxes on the top of six feet of snow made me stand and take off my hat to him. He is no good at speech-making; he does not own a dress-suit, and he cannot dance a tango; but he is quite as useful a citizen as some who can, and his type of education is one which endears him to all. ”

“ To Hopkins there was something so macaronic and side-splitting about this role of the Professor’s, that he could scarcely look at his half rueful, absorbed expression, his odd mouth, the prodigious ears, and the coronal splendor of his hair, without being overcome with a badly concealed merriment that might have turned our plans awry with anyone less essentially good-natured than the Professor. ”

“ Hopkins, feeling very hot, found himself saying, with a nervous derangement of aspirates, “If I might have the honour—” and began to push both the bicycles while she limped at his side. He was walking home with her—a terrific adventure.
On the way he discovered many things. To begin with one of the last, her name was Lucy Fuller. She was a nursery governess and did not much like it. She loved children in general, but the particular children whom she had to love were harassing. Or not so much the children as their mother, who spoilt them till they were both sick and sickening. ”

“ Hopkins, then, uncompromisingly groups together evolutionism, with its mechanistic nature, its continuity, uniformity, necessity, law, monism, immanence, and tendency to pantheism, over against a scale of being that rises into personality, with its freedom, its choice of ends, its discontinuity, its movement per saltum, its realism as to species, its supernatural man, and its transcendent Deity. The sum of God’s attributes, indeed, is that he is a person; and for Hopkins religion is faith in a person. ”

“ Hopkins seized Goritz’s arm, the Professor Hopkins’ coat tail—what there was of it—and ingloriously, with crash and whisking flight from branch to branch, we four hopeless Argonauts slumped from the top of the lofty pine, with arresting scramblings and maniacal clutchings, to the bottom, and were spilled to the roadway; four voiceless, bedraggled, ragged, bushy-haired, wild eyed, grimy men, more savage in our destitution than the savages we had fallen amongst. ”

“ Hopkins would think her rather servile, she explained apologetically that you had to think of things like that. Of course being nursery governess wasn't like being in service, but still you had to be careful. Once she never thought that she would have to go and earn her living in other people's houses. Her mother had had such a nice little stationery and fancy shop, but when mother died there was nothing left of the business after debts were paid.
Mr. Hopkins sighed sympathy. From his counting-house experience he knew something of the finances of little shops. “Father not living?” ”

“ Every scheme known to politicians must be worked, and none knew the intricate game better than Hopkins. This was why he held several long conferences with his friend Marshall, the manager at the mill. And this was why Kenneth and Beth discovered him conversing with the young woman in the buggy. Mr. Hopkins had picked her up from the path leading from the rear gate of the Elmhurst grounds, and she had given him accurate information concerning the movements of the girl campaigners. ”

“ Hopkins of course enjoyed it. Goritz was patient and obscurely piqued by it, the Professor regarded it as ethnologically delightful, and I took advantage of the display to note the people and their speech.
“I have served a good many purposes in my life,” said Hopkins, “but I never supposed I’d make a drawing card in a traveling circus. Our united effect is really gorgeous. I should think they might improve the show by some fresh clothes. But say—the Professor is immense. And he TAKES. The way they shout and rubberneck to get nearer to him will start something doing. ”

“ Hopkins in his usual rough, hearty fashion, while Allerton, an unwonted tinge of color upon his sallow cheek, hastened to avow himself as ready for fighting as any man since fighting was decided to be the best policy. ”

“ Hopkins as a philanthropist rather than as a theologian. Let those who prefer to contemplate the narrow sectarian rather than the universal man dwell upon his controversial works, and extol the ingenuity and logical acumen with which he defended his own dogmas and assailed those of others. We honor him, not as the founder of a new sect, but as the friend of all mankind,—the generous defender of the poor and oppressed. ”

“ Hopkins.
"Mr. Whipples," continued John, "wore his new spring suit down to-day. I liked it fine It's a gray with—" He stopped, suddenly stricken by a need that made itself known to him. "I believe I'll walk down to the corner and get a five-cent cigar," he concluded.
John Hopkins took his hat and picked his way down the musty halls and stairs of the flat-house.
The evening air was mild, and the streets shrill with the careless cries of children playing games controlled by mysterious rhythms and phrases. Their elders held the doorways and steps with leisurely pipe and gossip. ”

“ I thought Hopkins had been drinking—or looking at "Her Eyes." He pulled up a chair and lit a cigar.
"John," said he, "it isn't every man that can understand what my wife says. Only [Pg 114] kindred spirits can read the language of the eyes. She hasn't spoken an audible word in ten years, but she talks with her eyes, even her picture talks. We, rather she, is a mystery here; people believe all kinds of things about her and us; but we don't care. I want you to come up to the house some evening and know her better. We'll be three chums, I know it, but don't ask questions ”

“ I recall Spruce Hopkins, radiant and handsome, amid a throng of new acquaintances—he gathered friends about him as frankly and quickly as roses attract bees—among whom not a few young women offered him their mute but eloquent admiration ”

“ Keep your eyes open, Doc. If we've got to fight we won't shirk it; but I don't look for much trouble from a parcel of girls."
Mr. Hopkins was quite cheerful by this time, for he had thought out the situation and his "fighting blood was up," as he expressed it.
He walked away whistling softly to himself and decided that he would go over to the livery stable, get a horse and buggy, drive out into the country, and spend the day talking with the farmers. ”

“ Then he began to talk about himself, how he was senior of the juniors in his counting-house and bore vast responsibilities, but was not as much honoured by the firm as he could wish. Solid ability, he considered, was less respected in modern business than push and bounce and brag. In those qualities he was, he owned, deficient. It sometimes made one feel fed up with the city to see how the hustlers got on. Mr. Hopkins did not like hustling, preferred the country—fields and all that: kind of open, kind of restful.
Miss Fuller took him up eagerly. She adored the country. ”

“ Giles Hopkins we only know was the son of his father’s first wife, and “about 15.” An error (of the types presumably) makes Griffis (“The Pilgrims in their Three Homes,” p. 176) give the name of Oceanus Hopkins’s father as Giles, instead of Stephen. Constance (or Constantia) Hopkins was apparently about eleven years old in 1620, as she married in 1627, and probably was then not far from eighteen years old. Damaris Hopkins, the younger daughter of Master Hopkins, was probably a very young child when she came in the MAY-FLOWER, but her exact age has not been as certained. ”

“ Hopkins chose the original body with the same sagacity that he showed in all his career as a business man; and as, one by one, vacancies have occurred, men of the same type have been selected, by coöptation, for these important positions. ”

“ Richard Hopkins, and assure him that his brawn is most excellent, and that I am moreover obliged to him for his innuendo about salt water and bran, which I shall not fail to improve. I leave it to you whether you shall choose to pay him the civility of asking him to dinner while you stay in Cambridge, or in whatever other way you may best like to show your gratitude to my friend. Richard Hopkins, considered in many points of view, is a very extraordinary character. ”

“ There was a little decorous shifting to and fro, and ceremonious bowing and scraping, which had the most incalculably ludicrous appearance, as if, after all, they were nothing but vaudeville puppets. Hopkins of course appreciated all that uproariously. Finally they started up the stairs, led by the benignant little gentleman who had told the Professor to “speak,” and afterwards most effectively had gone through the dumb show of telling him to “shut up,” and who, by the way, was Ziliah’s father. They rose towards us with a mincing dignity that was really pleasing. ”

“ She ran races with a professional trainer, and she studied the principles of Delsarte, and solemnly whirled on one foot and swayed her body and rolled her head and hopped and kicked and genuflected in company with eleven other stout and earnest matrons and one slim and giggling girl who almost choked at every lesson. In all these exercises Miss Hopkins faithfully kept her company, which was the easier as Miss Hopkins lived in the next house, a conscientious Colonial mansion with all the modern conveniences hidden beneath the old-fashioned pomp. ”

“ HOPKINS, JOHN (fl. 1700) , verse-writer, second son of Ezekiel Hopkins [q. v.] , bishop of Londonderry, and younger brother of Charles Hopkins [q. v.] , was born on 1 Jan. 1675. A John Hopkins graduated B.A. in 1693, and proceeded M.A. in 1698 from Jesus College, Cambridge. Hopkins published in 1698 two Pindaric poems: ‘The Triumphs of Peace, or the Glories of Nassau ... written at the time of his Grace the Duke of Ormond's entrance into Dublin,’ 8vo, and ‘The Victory of Death; or the Fall of Beauty,’ &c., 8vo, on the death of the Lady Cutts. ”

“ We will take him to Dynehurst!"
"Perhaps that would be a good idea," said Hopkins, looking greatly relieved. "I could attend him here until his system had somewhat recovered tone, and then with—er—a proper nurse, or nurses, in attendance, he could be removed to your country seat. I believe you have an excellent physician there, have you not?"
"Yes. A very able man, indeed."
Hopkins turned nervously to Sophy.
"How does the idea of such an arrangement strike you, Mrs. Chesney?"
"I think that everything will depend on what my husband himself wishes, when he is stronger, Doctor Hopkins." ”

“ Hopkins saw I was wholly irresponsible and reckless, and he decided to use me to spy upon the people here at Elmhurst and report to him what they said and did. I agreed to this readily, prompted by a spirit of mischief, for I cared nothing for Hopkins and had nothing against Mr. Forbes. Also Hopkins paid me money, which I had sufficient knowledge to realize was necessary to me.
"Oh, how happy and gay I was in those first few days! There was not a thought of the past, not an ambition or desire of any sort to bother me. Just to live seemed pleasure enough. I enjoyed eating and sleeping ”

“ Ten times in that brief talk did Hopkins find himself consulting Belle when, in the ordinary process, he should have consulted Hartigan. Why? No man raises himself to the power and pitch that Hopkins had attained, without a keen, discriminating knowledge of human nature. ”

“ As soon as I could, I escaped to my room, and I was sitting there over a book, when the maid—her name was Hopkins, I had discovered—came in on the pretext of inquiring if I had everything I needed. One of the innumerable servants had already turned down my bed, so when Hopkins appeared at the door, I suspected at once that there was a hidden motive underlying her ostensible purpose.
"Mrs. Vanderbridge told me to look after you," she began. "She is afraid you will be lonely until you learn the way of things." ”

“ To Hopkins’s thinking, the evolutionary philosophy threatened the destruction of personality, the personality of God and of man, both of whom seemed about to be swallowed up in a mechanistic nature. Hopkins has no illusions on the subject. Charm she never so wisely, Nature cannot persuade him of her virtue. ”