... to the delicacies and squeamish sensibility, and fluttering nerves of a lolling generation--an age of sofas and carpets--the rousing of which even in the justest of causes, the vindication of the rights of unoffending humanity outraged by savages in comparison with whom niggers and Red Indians are angels, is not to be attempted without careful thought--and though a great cry has gone through the land I fear there will be little wool. There is, however, one consolation--neither Turkey, nor Egypt, nor any ruffian with a bundle of dirty clothes upon his head instead of a hat, will ever get another farthing of _our_ money. None the less he hated a bigoted Toryism, and thought that "a proper democratic spirit which aims at a reconstruction of society on the principle of 'each for all and all for each,' the correlation of privileges and duties, worth and honour, wealth and charity (in its best sense), the substitution of altruism for egoism, ought to find its echo in every loyal heart--and would in fact be the very 'end of Sin, and bringing in of the Everlasting Righteousness' foretold." In literature, too, his mind--in spite of an occasional failure to recognize individual genius--was remarkably alive to the progressive movements of the day. Indeed, for a man so steeped in classicism, his freedom from prejudice was remarkable. Browning's poetry, however, in spite of his affection for the author, he could never appreciate. He wrote to Mrs. Brotherton: