Sublime

‘That means mischief, eh?’ said Mr Hawley. ‘He’s got the freak of being a popular man now, after dangling about like a stray tortoise.

‘It began with L; it was almost all I’s, I fancy,’ he went on, with a sense that he was getting hold of the slippery name. But the hold was too slight, and he soon got tired of this mental chase; for few men were more impatient of private occupation or more in need of making themselves continually heard than Mr Raffles. He preferred using his time

‘What reason could the miserable creature have for hating a man whom he had nothing to do with?’ said Mrs Garth. ‘Pooh! where’s the use of asking for such fellows’ reasons? The soul of man,’ said Caleb, with the deep tone and grave shake of the head which always came when he used this phrase – ‘the soul of man, when it gets fairly rotten, will bear

The master of the academy, William Weatherald, had a major impact on the boy, implanting in him a love of literature and the essentials of mathematics and other practical sciences and fostering more than a little of the gentle religiosity of Quakerism.