Not always did Sanderson carry things off with an equal dignity. His temperament¹ was choleric², and ever and again his smouldering indignation at the obstinate³ folly⁴ and jealousy⁵ that hampered⁶ his work blazed out violently. Dignified⁷ silence is impossible as a permanent pose for a teacher whose duty is to express and direct. Sanderson's business was to get ideas into resisting heads; he was not a born orator⁸ but a confused, abundant speaker, and he had to scold, to thrust strange sayings at them, to force their inattention, to beat down an answering ridicule⁹. He was often simply and sincerely wrathful with them, and in his early years he thrashed a great deal. He thrashed hard and clumsily in a white-heat of passion—'a hail of swishing strokes that seemed almost to envelop¹⁰ one.' A newspaper or copybook at the normal centre of infliction¹¹ availed but little. Cuts fell everywhere on back or legs or fingers. He had been sorely tried, he had been overtried. It was a sort of heartbreak of blows.