‘Inscape’, and some of Hopkins’ other neologisms, are set in contrast with one another in a paragraph in his journal dated 14 September 1871 where a remark made by Ruskin about a picture by Turner of the Pass of Faido leads him to ask ‘What is the running instress, so independent of at least the immediate scape of the thing, which unmistakeably distinguishes and individuates things?’ I take the referent of the relative clause in this question to be the instress understood as the factor that makes individuation possible. He describes the instress as running because instress is not static. It is not static because it accompanies the history of a continuant through time. And it is not static because its own tension increases or decreases like the tension of the string of a musical instrument undergoing the process of being tuned. From Hopkins’ early diaries it is obvious that he took delight in tracing or imagining etymologies, that is to say the histories of those entities we call words. He would have taken delight in pointing out that the word ‘string’ is connected etymologically with the Italian word stringendo which when written on a musical score means that a passage is to be played with accelerating tempo. This word may also be indirectly connected etymologically with the Latin root of ‘contraction’, a word that plays a crucial role, we shall see, in explaining why Hopkins fell under the spell of Duns Scotus.

The adjective ‘running’ may also be called for in order to describe the instress involved in the incident concerning Turner reported by Ruskin. A key feature of that incident is the retrospective foreshortening made possible by the fact that what is being described is a progression. Turner's and Hopkins’ experience have in common the sudden realisation that they have earlier passed through a certain point on a journey. So the present stress becomes semi-detached from its immediate afternoon predecessor and semi-attached to the memory of the one already experienced – we could also say exerted – that morning. The painter and the poet are surprised to find themselves retraversing familiar surroundings.