He was anxious to make sure that his readers would understand his exact meaning, and to guard them against all possible misconceptions. His lengthy explanations are the more grievous because he insists on the same points in several of his books. His prolixity was increased by his unwillingness, when writing without prescribed limits, to leave out any detail, however unimportant. His passion for details not only swelled his volumes to a portentous size, but was fatal to artistic construction. The length of his books has hindered their usefulness. They were written for the public at large, but few save professed students, who can admire and value his exhaustiveness, will read the many hundreds of pages which he devotes to a short period of history. In some of his smaller books, however, he shows great powers of condensation and arrangement, and writes tersely enough. His style is correct, lucid and virile, but generally nothing more, and his endeavour to use as far as possible only words of Teutonic origin limited his vocabulary and makes his sentences somewhat monotonous. While Froude often strayed away from his authorities, Freeman kept his authorities always before his eyes, and his narrative is here and there little more than a translation of their words. Accordingly, while it has nothing of Froude's carelessness and inaccuracy, it has nothing of his charm of style. Yet now and again he rises to the level of some heroic event, and parts of his chapter on the "Campaign of Hastings" and of his record of the wars of Syracuse and Athens, his reflections on the visit of Basil the Second to the church of the Virgin on the Acropolis, and some other passages in his books, are fine pieces of eloquent writing.