Lucy learnt with some astonishment that beneath his outward egotism he was really amazingly dependent on the opinions of two or three people, of whom Mr.Neal seemed to be one.

This dependence turned out indeed to be even excessive.

He would make a hard fight for his own way; but in the end he was determined that what he wrote should please his friends, and please a certain public.

At bottom he was a rhetorician writing for this public--the slave of praise, and eager for fame, which made his complete indifference as to what people thought of his actions all the more remarkable.

He lived to please himself; he wrote to be read; and he had found reason to trust the instinct of certain friends in this respect, Vanbrugh Neal among them.
To do him justice, indeed, along with his dependence on Vanbrugh Neal's opinion, there seemed to go a rather winning dependence on his affection.
Mr.Neal was apparently a devout Anglican, of a delicate and scrupulous type.