understood him to be the greatest master of English Prose.
He read forward steadily, occasionally making a few notes.

"Let us consider a little each of these characters in
succession, and first (for of the shafts enough has been
said already), what is very peculiar to this church--its luminousness."

Was there anything to be learnt from this fine
sentence? Could he adapt it to the needs of daily life?
Could he introduce it, with modifications, when he next
wrote a letter to his brother, the lay-reader? For example--

"Let us consider a little each of these characters in
succession, and first (for of the absence of ventilation
enough has been said already), what is very peculiar to this
flat--its obscurity. "

Something told him that the modifications would not do;
and that something, had he known it, was the spirit of
English Prose. "My flat is dark as well as stuffy." Those
were the words for him.

And the voice in the gondola rolled on, piping
melodiously of Effort and Self-Sacrifice, full of high
purpose, full of beauty, full even of sympathy and the love
of men, yet somehow eluding all that was actual and
insistent in Leonard's life. For it was the voice of one
who had never been dirty or hungry, and had not guessed
successfully what dirt and hunger are.