People were occasionally found to say that his books had a tang of acerbity; possibly this was the safety-valve at work, a hint of what might have come had the old hunger-demons kept up their goading.

In the man himself you discovered an extreme simplicity of feeling, a frank tenderness, a noble indignation.

For one who knew him it was not difficult to understand that he should have taken up extreme social views, still less that he should act upon his convictions.

All his writing foretold such a possibility, though on the other hand it exhibited devotion to forms of culture which do not as a rule predispose to democratic agitation.

The explanation was perhaps too simple to be readily hit upon; the man was himself so supremely happy that with his disposition the thought of tyrannous injustice grew intolerable to him.
Some incidents happened to set his wrath blazing, and henceforth, in spite of not a little popular ridicule and much shaking of the head among his friends, Mr.Westlake had his mission.
'I have come to ask your advice and help,' began Mutimer with directness.