"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. The genial, kindly nature of Doctor Holmes is strikingly shown throughout the whole volume. Good, quaint Byles Gridley endears himself more and more to the reader, Gifted Hopkins finds in his heart's choice an appreciative, admiring audience of at least one, Cyprian Eveleth and young Doctor Hurlbut are most happily disposed of, Clement Lindsay receives his reward, Myrtle Hazard emerges from the conflict of mingled lives in her blood with the dross of her nature burned away, aunt Silence throws off her melancholy, Miss Cynthia Badlam repents of her evil manoeuvrings and dies "with the comfortable assurance that she is going to a better world," the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker learns to appreciate his patient wife--even Murray Bradshaw, the acknowledged villain of the book, is not without a few redeeming traits, and we close the volume with a sense of hearty goodwill and fervent charity toward all mankind. CHAPTER XI. FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE. Between the writing of _Elsie Venner_ and _The Guardian Angel_, Doctor Holmes wrote a number of essays for the _Atlantic Monthly_, some of which were afterwards collected in the volume entitled _Soundings from the Atlantic_.