[…] this book investigates a Spiritualist ethos dedicated, not to indeterminacy, but to bioessentialism, racial and hereditary determinism, and the prenatal fixity of character.

A critic, if morbidly prone to carping, might object even to this reading on the ground that an unsophisticated Englishman, however tender hearted, if at all deficient in imagination might mistake the figurative allusion to the fires of affection, for a literal reference to those more roboreous fires of his corporeal existence, which are, proverbially, the combined product of vigorous digestion […]

He sent his agent to represent himself at the meeting.

What would you think if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?