His ideals were lofty; he dreamed of a relationship between university instruction and a liberal public culture which was not to be realised in his time.

He was anything but complacent; had he been less intolerant in his hatred of unintelligent and indolent thought on the subjects that were near his heart, his way would have been made far easier.
The results of his labours at the university, he finally came to feel, did not warrant the expenditure of the vitality and time that he was devoting to them.

He was, in a sense, an anachronism in the position in which he found himself.

Both in his ideals and in his plans for bringing about their fulfilment he had reached beyond his day.

The field was not yet ripe for his best efforts.