… there is mention of an article on Gerard (Manley) Hopkins… DW apparently admires him as a genius and is disappointed in the article for making him seem ordinary… i have no idea who this is so I look him up… an English poet and Jesuit Priest who became widely recognized, posthumously, for his poetry… he was an innovator who influenced the work of T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis… i read about sprung rhythm… it does not make complete sense to me…

… Hopkins was becoming a recognized poet at the time DW was writing his journals… one wonders if he knew of him before his popularization or as a result of that… it makes a difference to his assessment of Hopkins… did he recognize him as a genius on his own?… or was he being told he was a genius?…

… a link to the poetry of Hopkins…

… oh my, DW has such a huge opinion of himself…

This is a terribly muddled state to be in. It shows that I can never be true friends with anyone except distant women — far away. For I wish for communion with the inarticulate and can only fray and fritter with the quick. I would tinsel, tinsel all the day if I were so placed. Yet I love myself and my company so much that I would not even ask the soldier to come in for fear of his becoming a regular visitor. I even feel people pollute my house who come into it.¹

… not much progress this AM… a little distracted…