Chapter 11 Summary

William chuckles, thinking about this blot on Ted's image and wonders how Ted ever gains such critical acclaim. Early on, Ted is held to write very poor English with unnatural dialogs, while at the end, when he dictates, his work flows better. It had been fashionable to admire Ted's books when William is a young man. Passages appear in all anthologies, but William cannot read them without discomfort. Ted is best depicting what he knows best: the working classes. Passages about the high-born are laughable. The aspects for which he is compared to Shakespeare are Shakespeare's worst aspect.

William concedes that Ted has lasted too long to be a fad and that his enigmatic personality fills his books. The Literary Supplement of the Times at his death calls his work "a hymn to beauty," reminiscent of Jeremy Taylor. Recalling Roy's earlier remark about...