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Taking into account Thompson's capacity for self-dramatization and the possibility of a wish to identify his own life with the misfortunes of other poets who had known unhappy loves, there can be no doubt about his genuine emotion for Katie King.

That she was affected by his protestations seems obvious, but since she was evidently a sensible young woman -- as well as an outgoing and sympathetic type -- it would seem that for her the word friendship had a far less intense emotional significance than that which Thompson gave it.

From the outset, she must have realized that marriage with him was out of the question, and although she was displeased by the `` unwarrantable '' interference, it seems probable that she did agree with her mother's suggestion that the poet was `` perhaps '' a man `` most fitted to live & die solitary, & in the love only of the Highest Lover ''.