He could not mature such a project, one which he had been for some time contemplating, without consulting Mr. Byles Gridley, who, though he had not unfrequently repressed the young poet’s too ardent ambition, had yet always been kind and helpful.

Mr. Gridley was seated in his large arm-chair, indulging himself in the perusal of a page or two of his own work before repeatedly referred to.  His eye was glistening, for it had dust rested on the following passage: 

“There is infinite pathos in unsuccessful authorship.  The book that perishes unread is the deaf mute of literature.  The great asylum of Oblivion is full of such, making inaudible signs to each other in leaky garrets and unattainable dusty upper shelves.”

He shut the book, for the page grew a little dim as he finished this elegiac sentence, and sighed to think how much more keenly he felt its truth than when it was written,—­than on that memorable morning when he saw the advertisement in all the papers, “This day published, ’Thoughts on the Universe.’  By Byles Gridley, A. M.”

At that moment he heard a knock at his door.  He closed his eyelids forcibly for ten seconds, opened them, and said cheerfully, “Come in!”

Gifted Hopkins entered.  He had a collection of manuscripts in his hands which it seemed to him would fill a vast number of pages.  He did not know that manuscript is to type what fresh dandelions are to the dish of greens that comes to table, of which last Nurse Byloe, who considered them very wholesome spring grazing for her patients, used to say that they “biled down dreadful.”

“I have brought the autographs of my poems, Master Gridley, to consult you about making arrangements for publication.  They have been so well received by the public and the leading critics of this part of the State, that I think of having them printed in a volume.  I am going to the city for that purpose.  My mother has given her consent.  I wish to ask you several business questions.  Shall I part with the copyright for a downright sum of money, which I understand some prefer doing, or publish on shares, or take a percentage on the sales?  These, I believe, are the different ways taken by authors.”

Mr. Gridley was altogether too considerate to reply with the words which would most naturally have come to his lips.  He waited as if he were gravely pondering the important questions just put to him, all the while looking at Gifted with a tenderness which no one who had not buried one of his soul’s children could have felt for a young author trying to get clothing for his new-born intellectual offspring.

“I think,” he said presently, “you had better talk with an intelligent and liberal publisher, and be guided by his advice.  I can put you in correspondence with such a person, and you had better trust him than me a great deal.  Why don’t you send your manuscript by mail?”

“What, Mr. Gridley?  Trust my poems, some of which are unpublished, to the post-office?  No, sir, I could never make up my mind to such a risk.  I mean to go to the city myself, and read them to some of the leading publishers.  I don’t want to pledge myself to any one of them.  I should like to set them bidding against each other for the copyright, if I sell it at all.”