Happily it didn't come again.' 'What a gross being that father must be!' Annabel exclaimed.
'Gross enough,' Egremont replied, 'yet I shouldn't wonder if he had brains above the average in his class.

A mere brute wouldn't do a thing of that kind; ten to one he honestly believed that he was benefiting the girl; educating her out of superstition.' 'But why should the poor people be left to such ugly-minded teachers ?' Annabel exclaimed.

'Surely those influences may be opposed ?' 'I doubt whether they can be,' said her father.

'The one insuperable difficulty lies in the fact that we have no power greater than commercial enterprise.

Nowadays nothing will succeed save on the commercial basis; from church to public-house the principle applies.
There is no way of spreading popular literature save on terms of supply and demand.