rance, so well meant, was infuriating; it was typical Foskettism.
Perhaps what contributed most to Martin's disgust was the lurking
suspicion that his ideas were, after all, a trifle crude.

With Foskett, Martin was never in sympathy. He was out of touch with
all the causes for which Foskett stood, and it was among the small set
of desperately serious and religious boys that the headmaster found his
champions. The very fact that he had not taken orders seemed to them,
perhaps justly, proof of the deepest faith: in after life they would
all have signed photographs in their studies and point him out to their
sons. 'That's old Foskett,' they would say. 'Fine character. Great
influence.' But the popular verdict was against Foskett. The really
strong man can get his way without criticism: he says 'Do' and people
just crumple up and do it. When Foskett said 'Do,' things were done as
a rule, but the doer had a habit of saying, as he went grudgingly to
his work: 'Silly ass, thinks he's a Blood-and-ironer.' Martin said of
him to his uncle: 'He's quite efficient and all that, and he's bound to
get on. As crushers go, he might be a lot worse.'

And that was the common view.

Foskett took the Upper Sixth in composition and Greek plays. Martin
could not help admiring Foskett's fair copies which showed undoubted
feeling for the classical languages, but he could never quite endure
his enthusiasm for the Greek drama. When Foskett enjoyed literature in
public, it always seemed as though he was saying sternly to himself:
'This is good stuff and we've got to like it.' He would stride up and
down the room with the text of a play, chanting the iambics or the
choruses as though they were everything in the world to him, and all
the time Martin felt that it couldn't mean so much to him, just because
he sought beauty with a fervour so literary and so incessant. With
Martin, appreciation was a thing of moods, coming swiftly and as
swiftly departing: he could not understand how Foskett's enjoyment
remained always at high pressure: it must, he thought, be artificial.
Foskett's affection for Euripides was the most unconvincing of
enthusiasms: how could a man so far removed from Euripides in taste and
temperament really appreciate that passionate rebel of genius? Martin
could have tolerated an open enemy, a thorough conservative who called
Euripides a botcher, and a dirty-minded botcher at that: but Foskett's
liberal attitude, sweet