A month before the end of the year he came to the resolve to choose a new subject for the succeeding course of lectures.

Forgetting all the sound arguments by which he had been led to prefer the simple teaching of a straightforward subject to any more ambitious prophecy, he was now impelled to think out a series of discourses on--well, on things in general.

He got hold of the title, 'Thoughts for the Present,' and the temptation to make use of it proved too great.

English literature did not hold the average proletarian mind.

It had served him to make an acquaintance with a little group of men; now he must address them in a bolder way, reveal to them his personality.